#and french books that no one else wanted so he kept them

[sleepwalkingbonez]

Is Paps favorite story still Fluffy Bunny, or is it something else?

*HI ANON!! THANKS FOR THE ASK!!

Papyrus LOVES Fluffy Bunny!! He has tons of other kid books, too, but Fluffy Bunny is his favourite! :]

[storiesofsvu]

Decadent Desire Ch 8

Emily Prentiss x reader warnings: language, alcohol, smut, rougher sex (ish), minor breeding kink. ngl it almost feels like a bit of a filler chapter, but it reunites what bits i had combined previously to make full chapters. Also sometimes filler is needed, I needed something else in there to break things up and that's why i kept staring at the word doc having NO clue what i wanted to do. SO, hopefully it doesn't take two weeks til the next update. lol. thank you for reading, extra bonus love to everyone who comments, sends asks and reblogs! you're the best!

After a lavish breakfast of stuffed French toast, all the delicious sides you could ask for and the best tasting coffee you’d had in ages you figured you should take advantage of the fancy shower once more. You took your time, scrubbing your skin with exfoliant before washing with a rose scented body wash and combing through your hair with a leave in conditioner. Wrapping yourself in one of the fuzzy robes you added in some hair treatment, doing your best job of braiding your still damp locks to air dry while sipping on a second cup of coffee. Finally it was check out time so you collected your things and headed downstairs, the Sunday morning air was the perfect balance of crisp while warm, the breeze floating through the streets spreading the sense of summer on the way.

You weren’t totally surprised when you found a bouquet of flowers on your front step, a note from Emily in the florists font scrawled across the front. Scooping it up you took it inside, kicking off your shoes and dropping your purse to the kitchen island before unwrapping the flowers. Picking a vase from the cabinet you filled it with some water and placed the bouquet inside, placing them on the coffee table to display. You dug through your bag for your phone, finally finding it and opening the text chain with Emily.

‘The flowers are gorgeous, thank you.’

‘You’re such a good girl I figured you deserved a little treat.’

‘It’s much appreciated.’

‘Speaking of… your upcoming events, do you need anything for them?’

‘I’m picking up a couple of dresses from alterations this week, haven’t looked through my accessories though.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘Thank you. Enjoy New York, eat a bagel or a slice of pizza for me.’

‘Oh now that’s just a guarantee’

You chuckled as you locked your phone, sliding it back onto the island before you turned back to the fridge, eyes flicking through what was left and still usable for you to meal prep a bit for the upcoming week.

Said upcoming week flew by faster than you’d expected, likely due to all of the added on extra tasks you had to complete by six p.m. on Friday. Even with the slew of assistants strewn through Heather’s team, everything had to be perfect, double or triple checked, approved by Heather or yourself before appointments were confirmed, meetings were booked, or things were publicized or printed. You often wondered if it was actually financially worth having your own personal assistant considering the amount of things you either did yourself or had to be redone. (Not that it really mattered to you, they weren’t on your payroll).

Friday’s banquet wasn’t much for you to worry about, just made sure you were dressed the part and were ready when the car rolled up to your condo. Dinner was over and cocktails were in full swing, time for schmoozing, networking and making sure that everyone went home remembering the Dunbar name and philosophy. You’d stepped outside briefly after dinner, chatting with a congressman while he had a cigar and gave you the opportunity to stretch your legs. Walking back inside you found a high top table to settle against, pulling out your work phone to read a handful of emails.

��You know, you are allowed to put that thing away, right?” Heather teased, sliding a glass of Cristal across the table to you and you rolled your eyes, locking the device.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew I was confirming some very affluent last minute sponsors for tomorrow.” You took a sip of the champagne, thinking back to your conversation on the terrace “and you’re welcome, Blythe will be voting in favour next week.”

“Good girl.” She grinned, clinking her glass with yours before her eyes drifted to the bracelet around your wrist. Her gaze lingered for a moment then moved upward and she reached out, lifting your earring with a curled finger before her eyes dropped to the gem resting on the swell of your chest. “Matching set?”

“Mmhm.” You nodded over a sip of your drink.

“Haven’t seen it before.”

“It’s new.” You replied, a small smirk on the corner of your mouth.

“Looks expensive.”

“If you’re trying to suggest it’s out of my budget, you’d be correct.”

“It’s nice to see Emily has good taste.”

“Among other things.” There was a gleam in your eye that Heather was eager to find out more about, a smirk on her lips as she took another sip of her drink.

“Glad to hear.” Was all she had time to reply with when another body sauntered up to your table.

“Not surprised to see you two here.” Tony greeted with a wide smile, leaning in to press a kiss to your cheek before he reached out a hand, “Ms. Dunbar.”

“You know, I am surprised to see you here.”

“Drew the short straw.” He shrugged, “director had something come up, Gibbs would rather be caught dead than at one of these things and McGee doesn’t know his Dolce from American Eagle.”

“What about that other Agent you have right now, the little feisty one?” Heather asked, sly smile on her lips as Tony chuckled, scratching at the back of his neck in an attempt to distract from the blush creeping up his cheeks.

“Ziva? These aren’t really her style; she wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“I mean you could’ve at least brought her as a date, shown her the ropes so she knows for next time.” You offered, nudging at his shoulder and he let out another little huff.

“Oh, no, I mean, she’d hate that. She’d spend half the night flirting her way through the crowd and the other half having to convince everyone we weren’t actually together.”

“So she’s available?” Heather asked with a teasing smirk, pulling an awkward laugh from Tony.

“I— uh, well…” He stuttered, “maybe a little too… controlling… to be your style.” He suddenly leant against the table with his elbow, “but you know McGee does have a sister…”

“Do tell.” Heather grinned over the rim of her glass, pulling an eye roll from you.

“No!” You punched Tony’s arm before swatting in Heather’s direction. “Your dance card is already full,” you turned to Tony, “and she is way too young.”

“From what I heard, that’s how she likes it.” He muttered and you rolled your eyes as Heather chuckled.

“Age is just a number.”

“She graduated high school last year. That puts her younger than your kids.” You retorted, watching the way Heather’s nose crinkled before she laughed, happy to have found some amount of amusement from a night like tonight.

She let out a soft sigh as her eyes fixated on something across the room, “there’s Conway, looks like my time is now.” She turned back to you, “Durant may need some more convincing and I haven’t seen Sharp yet.”

“Please, all I need to do is bat my eyelashes in Jackie’s general direction and she’ll do whatever I want.”

“That’s why I keep you around.” With a smile and a nod to DiNozzo, she scooped up her champagne flute and made her way across the ballroom.

“Was… she serious?” He asked hesitantly and you laughed.

“No!” You took another gulp of your drink, “besides, like I said, her schedule’s full, she can’t take on more right now.”

“Speaking of schedules.” He grinned, waggling his eyebrows at you, “I’m surprised to see you here on a weekend, thought those were for secret romps and exchanges of sugar.”

“You know, sometimes I wonder just how suave of a man you could be if you just let your brain think things through before they came out of your mouth.”

“Stop.” He groaned, leaning against the table as he turned to you, “or are you just saving your hot date for tomorrow night?”

“This week didn’t line up, I’ve got that fundraiser all weekend, which, you should bring your team to make it a little family outing.”

“I’ll think about it.” He took a swig of his beer, “really puts a wrench in your plans then, I can already tell you’re getting grumpy.”

“Anthony…” you warned, “we met up last weekend. It was kind of last minute but we made use of the time we had.”

“So no hot dates during the week?”

“Not usually, but we’re both busy, plus she was in New York all week at conferences.”

“A rich woman, who travels for work,” he began to tick them off on his fingers, “outranks NCIS, has significant style tastes, works full time during the week and sometimes weekends… are you sure you aren’t dating a politician.”

“I—” you paused, head tilting for a second before you nodded, “yes. Government employed but not by the White House.”

“Isn’t everyone technically government employed?”

“And we’re not dating, I thought you of all people would understand the stipulations of a financial beneficiary pairing.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” He asked, eyes gleaming.

“She buys me nice things, pays for my hair or nail appointments, adds to my jewellery collection, makes sure my fridge is always full, sends fresh flowers weekly.” You spotted one of the people Heather wanted you to talk to on the other side of the room and drained your drink, “and in return I meet up with her at high end hotels on the weekends and let her fuck my brains out.”

Even though Tony had been expecting it, your brashness still left him choking on his beer as you smirked at him, picking up your empty glass to grab a refill from the bar and one for Durant.

**

Seven days later and fucking your brains out was exactly what Emily was doing.

It had been less than an hour and if she’d asked you about dinner, you wouldn’t have been able to remember a single thing. All you could think about was the feeling of her buried inside you, hitting deeper with each powerful thrust of her hips. Your hands clawed at the bedspread, eyes scrunched shut as your cunt pulsed around the toy, moans louder with each time she sunk into you. Her hands tightly gripped your hips, hard enough you were sure there would be fingerprint shaped bruises come morning. You let out a little whimper, your nipples rubbing against the duvet every time she fucked into you, the multiple sensations driving you absolutely wild.

“More…” you groaned out, a gasp leaving your lips when she spanked you.

“God you really do like it rough, don’t you?”

“Mmhmm.” You managed to nod, fire shooting through your body, your clit throbbing as you ground it down onto the bed.

“Gonna need you to come soon princess.” She dropped over your body, husking into your ear while one hand tangled into your hair, yanking at the roots and you let out a blissful cry. Her mouth latched onto your neck, teeth scraping the sensitive skin as her free had wound around your middle, fingers pinching at your clit.

“Fuck!” You cried out, “oh fuu-cck. Don’t stop!”

Your teeth sunk into your lower lip, holding back any louder moans, whimpers and whines bouncing off the walls along with the wet sounds coming from your pussy. Your juices coated Emily’s cock, smearing across both of your thighs, more than enough for her to gather up as she rubbed your clit. She could feel you trembling in her arms, your hips bucking back against hers as you started to lose control.

“That’s it baby, you’re so close. Come for me.” She nipped at your earlobe, her breath hot on your skin right as she pressed harder on your clit and you were coming undone in her arms, a shaky cry coming from deep in your throat.

“Oh fuck…” you muttered, collapsing down onto the bed while she continued to fuck you through your orgasm, her hips slowing just a hint.

“So good for me.” She panted, “where do you want my cum? In that pretty mouth? Hmm? Or maybe on this gorgeous ass?” A breathy gasp left your lips when she spanked you again and you moaned, pussy fluttering around her cock as you were coming up on a second orgasm.

“Inside me!” You whined, “please!”

“She likes it rough and she’s dirty?” Emily chuckled, “we’ve got a lot more to explore.”

She watched as your body shivered, thighs clenching together and your hands bunched tightly into fists as your second peak washed over you and then she let out a groan, stilling with her hips right against yours. Her hand quickly found the base of the toy, squeezing hard and you let out a satisfied moan at the feeling of her spilling deep inside you. Emily’s hand soothed up and down your back, watching as you caught your breath before she pulled the toy almost all of the way out of your pussy. She let out a low swear at the sight of it coated in a mixture of your cum and the lube before slowly nudging it back into you, fucking her cum deeper into your drenched cunt. You trembled again, a sheen of goosebumps breaking out on your skin and she finally pulled out of you, skilfully ridding herself of the strap to be dealt with later.

“Christ…” you muttered, your head burying itself into the pillows and Emily let out a small chuckle as she dropped down onto the bed beside you.

“Seems like you’re a little fucked senseless?” She offered and you let out a small laugh, your eyes barely blinking open to look over at her.

“Not to deflate your ego,” you let out a large yawn, “because you certainly did, but I am also just completely fucking wiped. I barely slept all week. Between Heather’s bill proposals and the upcoming endorsements I’ve been working twenty hour days.” Emily snuck under the blankets, an arm draping over the top of the pillows and you practically nuzzled into her side, yawning again as your eyes fluttered shut.

“Hey!” She swatted at your side, “none of that, you need to use the bathroom.”

“C’mon…” you whined, burrowing yourself deeper into the blankets and Emily tsk’d at you, pinching your chin until you opened your eyes.

“If you want me to come inside you again you’re going to use the bathroom missy.”

“Fine.” You grumbled, shivering as you pushed back the blankets and padded to the en-suite, much to Emily’s satisfaction. You returned a few minutes later, make up wiped from your face and teeth brushed, climbing back into the bed as you let out another yawn, curling around Emily’s side. “Are you staying?”

She shrugged, “got nowhere else to be. You mind if I keep the tv on?”

“Not at all. I’ll probably be dead to the world anyways.”

She chuckled softly, feeling you relax against her body as she started to flick through the channels. It wasn’t that late and while her week had been long it clearly hadn’t been as taxing as yours was. You were asleep within minutes, softly snoring against her and she made a mental note to start sending you good night texts in an attempt to make sure you were getting enough rest.

__________________

@daddy-heather-dunbar @maybe-a-humanbean @rustyzebra @leftoverenvy @kades95 @dextur @supercriminalbean @emilyprentisssluvr @lex13cm @zizzlekwum @emobabeyy @riveramorylunar @onmykneesformarvel @inlovewithemilyprentiss @regalmilfs4me @ara-a-bird @five-bi-five-mind @inlovewithmiddleagewomen @hotchs-bitch @ollysmulti @kmc1989 @irishavengersassemble @hopedoesntknow @venromanova @waitaminuteashh @noahrex @imlike-so-gaydude @wittygutsy @cx-emerald-cx cx @momily @nilaues @borinxnovak @soverign @v3nusxsky @blackbird-brewster @mccdreamys-writes @l4yne @obsessedwjill @supercorpstan97 @asolitaryrose3 @lisqueen @mrs-prentiss @whitewinewithice @d33pd3sire-blog @daffodil-heart @maximoffcarter @i-lovefandom @chimnlex @moonlightjxuregui @chestnutninny

[thebestofoneshots]

Gilded Constellations | (wolfstar x reader)

Series Masterlist | Previous episode

Pairing: Wolfstar x Reader Word Count: 8.3 K Warnings: Angst (like pretty much every chapter now lol). Prompt: Another night with the pack. This IS a Wolfstar x reader fic, but it's incredibly slow burn. They won't start all dating each other until we're very deep into the story, but I promise the long wait will be worth it

Friday, January 7th, 1977 - Full Moon

The next few hours had gone by faster than you expected. James got a letter from Lily stating that she’d make it to his party on Sunday and he was absolutely thrilled about it. The rest of the Gryffindor gang has also been invited, of course. But James, as per usual, just wouldn’t shut up about it from the moment the owl knocked at the window.

You were all lounging on a small kiosk near the woods that the Potters had charmed to always be warm and that you and Sirius had lathered with pillows and blankets to make Remus’ transformation more comfortable. The sun was setting and the moon was about an hour away. Sirius was drawing on his old notepad, but he was playing around with the watercolours you had given him. You noticed he kept looking at Remus who was reading a book, and you assumed he was drawing him again. 

James snapped his fingers, bringing you back onto the game of exploding snap you had been playing with him. He took the cards and you looked at him with a frown. 

“Not my fault you’re ogling your boyfriend,” he said with a shrug. You quickly eyed Remus, who seemed to have no reaction to James’ words, he was engrossed in his book. It was one of the books you’d given him for Christmas: Frankenstein. 

He placed a card on the floor, and you placed another one, you snapped your fingers and took both of them. “Not my fault you can’t stop thinking about Lils,” you sassed back. He shook his head, diverted and fixed his eyes on the deck at the centre, taking one from the top and placing it on the table. Then the two of you started placing your cards so fast on the table that both of you missed the mark and all the cards exploded before any of you managed to snap their fingers. 

“Look what you’ve done,” He complained. 

“You started!” you retorted with a scoff. 

“Hey Pads, what does this mean?” Remus asked aloud, leaning closer to Sirius who lazily looked up from his sketchbook and to the book. 

“Jeune fils, apprends-moi toujours à être just?” Sirius asked in french as he read. 

“Jeune fils is young son, right?” Remus had his hand over the line and was biting his lip with a small frown etched on his features as he turned to Sirius. 

“Oui, bien sûr!” Sirius responded with a thumbs up and looked at the book again. “Apprends-moi toujours à être just is like ‘always teach me to be’, uhh– Étoile, what’s just in English?“

You turned to him, only now noticing how close they were to each other, “It’s, um… like fair?” 

“Yeah! That’s it. Merci, Étoile.” 

You were still looking at how close they were to each other when James snapped his fingers and took all the cards on the table. You threw him a dirty look for doing it while you were distracted, he just shrugged in return. 

You sighed and turned back to the boys, Sirius was translating something else to Remus from the book, alternating between English and French as seamlessly as he often did. And you saw his gaze linger on Remus as he explained, Remus focused almost solely on the book. You gulped, as you stared, and then James snapped his fingers right in front of your face. “He’s not going to steal your boyfriend, you know that?” 

“What?” you faltered as you turned to James.

“You’ve been looking at the two of them with such attention. I mean I get Sirius is pretty to you, but you have barely focused on the game.” 

“Right,” you staggered. “Right, sorry. Maybe it’s the potion you gave in the morning.” 

The potion he gave you in the morning had no such effects, he had taken it plenty of times, but just like earlier, James didn’t want to bring about what’d happened on Christmas so he just nodded and played along with you. He turned to his watch. 

“We’ve got like 20 minutes left,” he said. “How are you feeling, Moons?” 

“Still good,” he replied. Sirius was no longer translating anything, but he hadn’t leaned back and Remus didn’t seem to mind the closeness at all. They were both resting their backs on the little kiosk’s railing, surrounded by pillows. Their shoulders were comfortably crashing against each other.

You threw yourself backwards, allowing your head to fall onto one of the pillows as you looked up at the vaulted ceiling. It was really pretty, with some shining orbs of light that danced around like a baby’s mobile. You took a deep breath, trying to focus on the bright lights and leaving your disturbing thoughts as far as physically possible. It didn’t matter much though, they kept coming back, they always did. 

You wanted to walk over to Sirius and peer over his shoulder and see what he was drawing, you knew he wouldn’t mind, but you also didn’t want to overdo the PDA, not after the balcony scene you’d made, and Moony had witnessed. The small, almost imperceptible falter of his features, the heartache before the fake smile was so hard to forget, it kept playing over and over in your head. And then his words. Take all myself, he’d…

“What do you think, Étoile, do you like it?” Sirius asked as he passed his notebook over to you. He could easily tell you were troubled, but just like James, he assumed it had to do with Christmas. Nobody knew what you’d seen last night, and nobody would know. You couldn’t tell James without outing Remus and of-bIoody-course, you could not tell Sirius you’d seen Moony moaning his name. 

You took the notebook from his hands, his fingers lingered over yours as if he too was craving the contact. But he let it go and you checked. On one side there was a sketch of you and James playing exploding snap. You had a small frown and James was grinning like a fool, one of his hands was over the bunch of cards he had just won. It was slightly cartoonish, but the way he had added more sketches with different expressions on your face, made it adorable. 

On the other page though, there was a more detailed drawing. It was Remus reading, similar to the first drawing he’d shown you, but this time, he’d added colour. He’d carefully traced Remus’s scars and the golden brown of his eyes. As golden as they looked then, with the moon being so close. Sirius had also drawn his jumper and the details of the cover of the book. The background had been left colourless, but the pillows surrounding Remus made him look like a careless prince, looking at his book with nothing but the plot troubling his mind. 

Beautiful, Remus looked beyond beautiful. But that’s when you started to pay closer attention, Sirius’ sketches of James and Peter (you had seen them before) were more on the rougher side like he wanted to practise the lines on their faces and get them just right. Yours and Remus’, however? They were always more detailed, more intricate. There were softer strokes behind the ones he’d added in the end, like he wanted to have both of your features not only simulated but also photocopied from reality. 

There wasn’t a single drawing of Remus you’d seen that wasn’t like that. Where he didn’t look stunning, where it wasn’t a perfect mirror of the Remus only a few people seemed to be able to witness. Perhaps that only the few who knew why he had all those scars had seen. The same scars that you thought added to his beauty rather than took away from it. 

All of that, always present in the way Sirius drew him. “It’s stunning, Pups,” you said honestly. “Rem would love it.” 

“Me, why?” The boy asked as he looked up from his book.

“It’s you,” you said as you passed the notebook over to him, James tried to lean over to see the drawing but got only a glimpse before Remus took it from your hands. Once he’d taken it away you turned over and used your elbows to prompt yourself up and be able to see his reaction. 

He stared at the drawing, the light blush tinting his neck and ears was so obvious now that you knew about his crush, that you wondered how you hadn’t seen it before. How you hadn’t seen the nervous glance Sirius was throwing at him, as if he craved his approval. The way he looked at Remus’ lips, and how they pursed, even if it was just slightly. 

“You’ve gotten used to the watercolours,” Remus said. “It’s incredible, Pads.” 

The smile on Sirius’ lips when he said that, so big and unabashed. Like he couldn’t help but be thrilled by it. You loved seeing it, you loved seeing how happy they were both, how happy they would make each other, but that didn’t stop the slight pang in your heart. 

Were you in the middle? Was it possible that Sirius was as in love with Remus as Remus was with him? 

“You really captured the way his eyes look today. Just the right shade, more gold than brown with how close the moon is.” 

Remus, who was aware of the fact that his eyes changed often, but didn’t pay much attention to it since he was barely a witness of it, looked at you with interest. 

“Oh right, that happens to Moony,” James said almost as an afterthought as he took the notebook from his hands and placed it next to Remus’ face. “Vix is right, the colouring is on point, mate.” 

It’s not that James hadn’t seen Moony’s eyes change, he’d pissed him off enough to know how they would turn almost golden when he was furious, but unlike you and Sirius, he wasn’t always paying attention to his eyes.

But Sirius does, you thought. Sirius knows what the subtle changes in Moony’s eyes mean, he’s paid enough attention. Or perhaps too much of it.

“I was reading about colouring eyes in the book you got me for Christmas earlier. I thought I could practise with Moony’s since they’re always interesting.” 

You wondered if Sirius also considered your eyes interesting, and then felt silly for being jealous over it, you also thought Remus’ eyes were extremely interesting, not to mention soothing and warm. Eyes that said 'You're safe’, even when it was Moony’s eyes, the ones you were looking at. Perhaps it was all part of the wolf, giving him soothing eyes so he could catch the foolish, impressionable prey. You had almost been bitten because of them, you would know. 

“Won’t you try with my eyes,” James said with a pout. “My eyes are interesting too!” 

“Nah,” Sirius said with a small smirk, knowing it would get a rise out of James.

 He scoffed and leaned close to Remus, “Moony don’t you think my eyes are interesting too? At least as pretty as Vixen’s!” 

They were not as pretty as Vixen’s. Only Sirius’ eyes were. At least to Remus. “Well, I suppose…”

“They’re not,” Sirius said, just to piss James further.

“You’re such an ass!” James complained as he pushed Sirius lightly, causing him to dramatically fall on Remus’ lap. 

“I’ve been hurt for being honest, Pauvre de moi!”

“Is that poor me?” Remus asked, a lace of scepticism in his tone as he leaned his head over Sirius who looked at him smirked and then winked as an answer. 

You took pity on James’ little pout, “I believe Lily thinks you have the prettiest eyes,” you said casually. James turned to you with unparalleled excitement, completely contrasting with his previous stance.

“Really? She does?” 

“She said she likes the specks of brown mixed with the honey tones,” you added with a shrug. Both Sirius and Remus eyed you after that, as if you were not allowed to think of James’ eyes as pretty.

“Vixen, you’re becoming my favourite marauder,” James declared as he placed his hand over your shoulder. 

“I know,” you said with a sly smile. You were about to say something else when Remus grunted.

The three of you turned to him, his eyes were even more golden than before, and he was clenching his jaw so hard you could see the muscles flexing. You were quick to rise from your laying stance and into a sitting position, dragging yourself closer to Remus with a concerned gaze.

“He’s coming,” Remus said, voice strained. 

From the large arches of the kiosk, you could see the moon appearing through the clouds. It was already quite dark, and the air became chiller, even with the warming spells of the kiosk, it was as if the cold air slipped through the cracks of whatever disturbance the powerful lycanthropy course was causing.

Sirius had risen from Moony’s lap but was as close to him as you, James, or rather, Prongs, was already outside and looking at the three of you while he made sure –by smelling– that there was nobody around. Sirius and you had somehow travelled to either side of Remus, your scents overwhelming his senses and making his stomach churn, he wasn’t sure if that was him or the wolf. 

Remus shut his eyes and dug his head in between his legs, he handed you the book he was reading, “On the chest,” he said. “I don’t want Moony to break it!” 

Moony had, on previous occasions already broken things Remus liked, as if he found joy in making Remus suffer, and Remus was sure he had done it on purpose so he didn’t take risks anymore. If there was anything Moony would want to destroy, then he made sure to keep it as far away from his claws and jaws as possible. 

“Take my wand too,” he said. You were quick to dig through his coat pockets to try and find it and then decided to pull the whole thing entirely. Sirius was next to help him with his shirt and threw it your way. You caught it with ease and placed it on the chest, still searching for the wand while Remus pulled the rest of his clothes off. Sirius threw them your way once he managed to pry them off Remus’ legs. 

Remus really tried not to think of the fact that both you and Sirius had just undressed him completely, but he had been thinking of such lewd things in the past few hours that he couldn’t help but flush. “Cold?” Sirius asked when he noticed.

“Mhm,” Remus said as he tried to hide his head on his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Sirius said and leaned closer, embracing him and rubbing his hands all over Remus’ arms and back. Then he pulled to look at his best friend again. “Better?” 

That’s when you found the wand and shut the chest along with Remus’ clothes, book, the cards you’d been playing with James and Sirius’s sketchbook. You made sure to use a powerful locking spell, courtesy of Remus’ wand and then turned. You saw skin breaking, and his eyes locked on Sirius while your boyfriend held him in the most reassuring manner possible. 

Just like he had held you after that November Moon, his eyes looked on Remus’. The blush, which Remus had attributed to cold, was still there, and you knew it wasn’t because of the chilly atmosphere. But there was something else, the way Sirius looked at Remus? He had never looked at James like that. 

You were so lost in your thoughts, that you didn’t react to everything that was going on until Remus shrieked your name. You flinched, your eyes focusing back on the situation. Remus was pretty much leaning onto Sirius, hiding most of his body in the other boy as he looked at you with a horrified expression. He didn’t have to say it, you instantly knew what he meant with that. In a matter of seconds, you turned into Vixen.

“Si–Siri.” 

“Shut it Moony, I know when to turn,” the other boy responded casually. Remus groaned in response. You could see the skin of his back ripping and giving way to fur. You walked closer to him and Sirius, and leaned your head to his bare leg, rubbing it much like a cat would. 

Not you too, Remus thought as he saw how close you were to him now. He didn’t speak though, he was trying to hold back his sobs. He hated being weak in front of the two of you. He hated you having to see him so raw and vulnerable, but he also loved having you there. He loved the way Vixen wouldn’t leave his side and how Sirius held him as close as physically possible. 

How he was completely enraptured by the two of you, and how both refused to move no matter how much he screamed for you to do it. He hated being vulnerable, but he loved what that vulnerability brought along with it. If he hadn’t been a werewolf, perhaps he would have never gotten an excuse to be as close to you as he was now. And even if he considered it a curse, even if he wished he was normal most of the time, it was on days like that one that he didn’t wish for any of it. Instead, he embraced it. 

Seconds later, Remus was gone, his eyes had grown bigger, his scarred skin had turned into fur and his nails had grown and sharpened into claws. Sirius had turned almost at the same time, one second he hugged Remus and on the next he was Padfoot. Moony jumped on top of him playfully when he realised he was free. 

Padfoot complained with a bark, although he was just being his dramatic self. Moony knew him well enough to bark in return. You watched the two of them being playful with each other for a while. If Moony knew you were there, he didn’t care to let you know. Prongs clashed his hooves against the ground as if telling the two boys to let him join the fun, but neither of them seemed to listen as they barked and jumped all over each other. 

You watched the exchange with curiosity for a while. It was as if Remus and Sirius could be as close to each other as they wanted while they were animals. The more you thought about it, the more you realised how blind you’d been. Prongs clashed his hooves again, digging them deep enough to let the wet soil smell waft through the air as they dug past the snow and into it. You turned to look at him, skipped through one of the balusters and landed on the snow, your paws sinking deep enough for you to get stuck. 

You had to move around for a bit until you managed to roll out of the snowy trap you had ended up on, and by the time you managed Prongs was gently pushing you to the side. You barked an «I can do it by myself» that James obviously didn’t understand, but was enough to get the two other dogs to turn and look at you. 

You peeked through the balusters of the railing when you noticed they had stopped barking at each other. They were both looking at you, wolf and dog, eyes locked on your much smaller frame, you instantly knew what game they were playing, you waved your tail behind you, looking at the way their eyes chased your every movement.

A deerhound and a wolf, both hunters by nature, both known to hunt foxes, and both ready to chase you to the ends of the earth, quite literally. You tilted your head to the side just a little, clearly teasing them both, Padfoot barked something about not being too cocky. You rolled over your back and took off running. 

You sped through the thinnest and softest snow as fast as you could. Since you were less heavy, you could walk over it without sinking too much, but Prongs’ hooves, and Moony and Padfoot’s paws fell deep, which made them lag, even if it was just seconds as they tried to follow behind you. Prongs, being the tallest, and somehow most able to skip through the snow, was trailing behind you while Moony and Pads kept trying to get past the deep snow. 

You kept running, pleased that you had managed to outrun them long enough when you heard a wail, and then the cries of a wolf. You turned around concerned, Moony was wailing behind. Sirius barked at you, but you didn’t pay attention to what he said and walked straight to Moony. He wailed again, howling lowly like a scared dog and you ran faster. 

When you reached the area, you figured one of his paws had dug into the snow and started digging to try and find the root of the problem, too busy with that to pay attention to the way his wails had stopped or to see the way he looked at his small friend fox before he jumped out of the snow and trapped you between his paws.

 «Treacherous Wolf,» you barked.

 «Gullible little fox,» he retorted, then he leaned closer. «I won!»

 «You cheated!»

«I still won,» he barked, this time slower, as if he wanted you to understand him. 

If that’s how we’re going to play, you thought and leaned your head to the side, enough to sharply bite onto one of his paws. He wailed at that, and you took off running, the coppery taste of bIood remained on your tongue as you darted to the side, perhaps you had bitten too sharply. 

«You bit me?» Moony barked, he sounded impressed as he inspected his wound, giving it a lick and confirming you’d drawn bIood. It hurt, but not enough to have him stagger. 

«Well, since cheating is allowed,» you replied as you kept running. Prongs eyed Moony carefully, they had seen him when he was on edge, there was nothing of the gentle wolf from the last full moon, and absolutely everything from the angry one from November. But Moony didn’t look mad, if anything he looked entertained, amused. Prongs jumped towards him, leaning his head down in some sort of salute Moony had already learned to understand, but he skipped past him and went straight behind you. 

You had already been caught by Padfoot, though. He was rolling all around you, blocking your path to continue running, and leaning closer to push you around with his snout when Moony reached the two of you. 

«Stop!» he barked loudly. 

Neither you nor Sirius listened, you were too caught up in trying to escape his grasp, and he was too entertained with teasing his little fox girlfriend to bother with whatever Moony was trying to say.

«I said stop!» Moony barked again, and for a second time, was completely ignored. He didn’t like being ignored. And while Remus had enough forbearance to tolerate the two of you being all over each other, Moony did not. Moony was possessive, his Vixen and his Padfoot had no business being all over each other from his perspective. 

He tried one more time, but all he got in return was some soft, cooing-like barks from Sirius and something akin to a laugh from you. He’d had enough, he waited, and when he had the chance, he bit the fluffy end of Vixen’s tail and pulled you back a couple of steps. 

«Moony?» you barked confused, and then saw him step past you and between you and Padfoot.  

«Moony?» Pads asked as well. 

«Don’t play with her?» Moony said sternly.  

You instantly figured out what’d happened and cursed yourself for being such an idiot. Moony cocked his head to the side and you stepped further back and then took off running. Sirius barked, but you ignored it entirely and when Padfoot tried to step behind you, Moony got in the way. 

«Are you upset because she bit you?» Padfoot asked, trying to see past Moony’s larger frame, you were already near the edge of the forest. 

«No.»

«You’ve upset her.»

«She bit me.»

«So you don’t care?»

Moony growled at that. Of course, he fucking cared, there was something very deep inside of him clawing out and telling him to go after you, telling him he had to comfort you, telling him it was his duty to take care of the fox, but the other side the wild side of him, the jealous beast, it said that you shouldn’t have been playing with one another. That for some reason it had upset him, and Moony was only around for a little while, he did not like feeling down. 

«She was upset before you came, you know?»

Before I came? Moony wondered. They were together before I came? That was maddening. He hated the idea of you existing together outside of the little to no time he had with you. Remus’ feelings were buried deep down, and only Moony, a terribly jealous Moony remained.

«I don’t care!» he barked. 

Padfoot seemed upset by that, which only made him angrier. 

«She bit me, yet you defend her!»

«She was playing.»

«You defend her!»

You approached the two of them fast enough to step in between Moony’s legs and barked «Catch me if you can!»

«Vixen…» Padfoot warned he knew Moony was in a mood. 

«Don’t meddle,» you barked back and looked at Moony defiantly, you’d bitten him, he was mad at you, not at Padfoot, not at Sirius. You were the one who had taken his crush away, if anyone deserved the wolf’s wrath, then it was you. 

You taunted the wolf one more time and then took off running. Moony was behind you in a split second and when Padfoot tried to run too, he was stopped by a warning growl from Moony. He peeled his lips at the black dog, showing his sharp-as-knife claws and continued running behind you. 

Pads was ready to ignore the warning and follow the two of you but Prongs stepped right in front of him, and with all his regalness shook his head. Whatever it was, it was a Moony and Vixen issue, not a Padfoot and Moony issue, so he should let you solve them. Moony was often volatile, and he’d had similar quarrels with Pads in the past, he’d just never seen one because he was always immersed in them. 

Prongs didn’t quite understand what it was all about, but he assumed it was a canine thing and decided not to dwell on it too much. In the end, Moony never did anything to actually hurt Pads, and he was certain he wouldn’t dare to hurt Vix either. Especially not after seeing the two of you play on the previous moon. It had taken minutes for Moony to warm up to you, for Pads, Prongs and Wormy, it hadn’t been nearly as fast.

You ran straight into the forest, outrunning Moony on the snow was not going to be a successful endeavour for too long, especially not when you passed the soft snow area and reached one that wouldn’t cause him to lag, but inside the forest, where you could use your reflexes to skip through branches and through run roots, it would be much easier. 

You could hear his loud puffing behind you, the thump of his paws against the snow, making a rather hollow sound. Your running was somehow still controlled, even if slightly frantic. You were playing, and you knew there was no way Moony would hurt you, but the adrenaline was still there, and it helped you run through James’ forest as if it was a maze you knew by memory, even if you ran nowhere in particular. 

You were about to jump through a small creak when a pair of strong jaws sized you by the neck. Moony huffed as he stopped and dropped you not so gently into the floor. He huffed again as he stared at you rolling around and standing your ground. 

«Don’t play with him like that!» he barked.

You wanted to tell him you could play with him however you wanted, but you understood that you were hurting Moony as much as you were hurting Remus whenever you were so close to him, so against your very nature, kept your mouth shut. 

«You can only play with me like that,» he barked next. 

What?!? You wondered as you stared at him, surprised at his words. 

«Understood?»

You narrowed your eyes at Moony, he seemed very determined over what he said, over you only being able to play with him like that. Sometimes when you thought you understood the wolf, he did something like that and scrambled your mind altogether. You would have sworn he was jealous of you playing with Pads, not of Pads playing with you. You would have never imagined what actually went through the wolf’s head –he was jealous of both. 

The wolf huffed again, clearly expecting an answer. «Fine,» you barked.

You would have sworn you saw the wolf smile. He leaned down and pushed you with his snout lightly. You barked at him as a reply, and he pushed you again, this time to the other side. He wants to play, you realised. The next time he leaned to push you, you dodged and walked through his paws until you were on the other side. 

He barked and turned around, in an instant, looking for you again as you dodged and jumped around the much larger dog. You had to be a lot faster to try and beat his reflexes that were for some reason much sharper than Padfoot’s.

Eventually, you took off running again. You suspected Moony gave you some advantage, since you lost him in the woods at some point, even if you could still hear his howlings all around. You skipped and jumped around branches until you tried to find your way back into the snowy fields from the beginning. That’s when he appeared, stepping right in your path and howling in triumph. 

«Found you» 

«You always do,» you retorted. It was true, both Moony and Remus were exceptionally good at finding you. 

«I do?» he asked as he walked by your side, slowing down his steps to match yours. 

«Must be your sixth sense or something»

He huffed in return, still trying to make sense of the situation. By the time the two of you made it out of the forest, the sky was starting to brighten. He looked up with a mix of tiredness and melancholy. 

«You’ll come again, right?» he asked. 

You howled, Padfoot ran towards the two of you the minute he spotted you on the edge of the woods, although he stayed on Moony’s side instead of yours. 

«Always!» 

«Always!» Pads barked right after you. «We’re a team, Moony» 

«Team?» Moony asked as if he didn’t understand the meaning.

«A pack,» you corrected. «We’re a pack»

«A pack,» Moony agreed, and then he yawned, shaking his head to try and fight the sleep away. 

«Let’s sleep» Pads barked.

«We must play»

«You’re falling asleep,» Pads said as he pushed Moony lightly, but he was leaning on the leg you’d bitten and he ended up toppling over to the other side and pushing you into the snow. You wailed in surprise and Moony stumbled up quickly. 

You shook some snow off your head as you peeked from the hole you’d ended up in, you narrowed your eyes at the two dogs. Moony leaned closer and licked some of the snow off your head, and then, just to tease you, gave a small bite to your ear. You complained with a bark. 

«It’s payback for my leg,» he said simply. You shook your head again and he pulled back as you scrambled your way outside of the small hole. It had comically gotten the shape of a fox, and it made you think of some of those muggle cartoons you sometimes saw playing on the TVs they had in cafés and supermarkets. 

Eventually, you all went back to the kiosk, you found your way on one side of Moony and Pads on the other. Prongs tried to get in too, but he was too tall, and his antlers kept crashing onto the top of the kiosk, so he had to accommodate himself just outside. 

Moony fell asleep before the moon disappeared, and this time you were awake as you saw him shrink into Remus. The process didn’t look as painful for him, but when Remus was back, his body was still covered by the opened wounds where the fox had ripped through his skin to come out. He was hugging Padfoot by the time you scurried towards the side and peeked your head through the balusters to bark at Prongs, so he too noticed Moony was gone. He turned back and walked inside with a yawn. 

“You haven’t slept?” he said after he saw you turn. 

“Are my eyebags that big?” you joked in a quiet tone as you pulled Remus’ wand from your pocket and opened the chest to take his coat, you didn’t want to wake them. You tried not to think of what’d happened with the coat when you placed it over him and threw a cover on top for good measure since it was rather cold.

“A little,” James said as he let himself down and accommodated some of the pillows to lay on them, “you should sleep,” he added just after yawning. 

“Just want to leave his clothes ready,” you said as you dug through the chest, trying to find the rest of the bunched-up clothes you’d thrown in there.

“We slept” –he yawned again– “we slept while he was playing with you,” he explained. 

“Sounds nice,” you said as you pulled out the clothes and leaned closer to Remus, pulling the covers from him just enough to expose about half of his back, and performing a simple numbing spell all over his gashes. You knew magic didn’t play well with Werewolf-caused injuries, and while you wouldn’t be able to heal them, at least you could help him feel at ease. 

You saw the way his small frown dissolved about at the same time his jaw muscles untensed. It worked, you thought with a simple smile. James, half asleep, was looking at you taking care of Remus and he also smiled. He loved the fact that he could entrust his two best friends to you and drift asleep without having to worry too much about either of them. 

“Sleep,” he said again. “Play nurse later.” 

“Not playing nurse,” you said as you made sure Remus’ coat was covering him from the cold. Rem had been there for you at your worst, you wanted to be able to do the same for him. You wanted to be the reassuring presence in his life; especially since it was because of you that he was partially miserable. 

You threw yourself close to the railing and fell asleep shortly after. Effie and Monty came home and helped transport a still-sleepy Remus back to James’ room. Monty gave him some potions, and Effie lathered him with a royal blue paste that would help the wound close faster, prevent infections, and a bunch of other stuff that you barely heard from how sleepy you were.  

You were still sleeping in the kiosk when you felt something tickle your ear. “Étoile,” Sirius said. “Aren’t you planning to wake up today?” 

You groaned in response and placed one of the pillows on top of your head to block the light, but Sirius took it off and leaned closer to you, his hair was tickling your face as you tentatively opened one eye. “How’s Rem?” 

“Still asleep. The Potters are waiting for you to have breakfast.” 

“For me?”

“Effie and Monty both brought their favourite bread and they want us to choose who made the best. James and I picked the opposite so you’ll be the tiebreaker.” 

“Couldn’t I be the tiebreaker in a few hours?” 

“’M afraid not Starshine, the bread will get cold and it won’t taste the same. Come,” he said as he pulled you into a sitting position, your head landed on his shoulder and you groaned because of the sudden movement.  “Want me to carry you?” 

“Want you to sleep with me,” you retorted, your lips brushing against Sirius’ bare neck and making him blush from the memory of the fae pond. 

“We can definitely arrange that later,” he teased. You weren’t so sleepy that you didn’t notice the double meaning of his words.

“I meant to sleep, as in close your eyes and dream, you perv,” you laughed, finally getting some of that sleepiness to shrug off. You pulled back to look at him, he was so pretty as he looked at you. The softness of his gaze, the small smile that was almost a smirk but still wasn’t the one he’d pull for teachers or people he’d prank. But rather, an honest sort of smirk, one that he paired with those loving eyes of his. Loving eyes that you had only ever seen him use on you.

And then, almost as a whisper from the back of your mind came a voice, And Remus.  

Breakfast with the Potters was like it had been the previous days, except with higher stakes in the competition. Effie’s bread was the clear winner for you, and Sirius completely agreed while both James and Monty gave you a dumbfounded, betrayed sort of look that was so genuine you almost felt bad for picking Effie. But then you saw her big smile and the way she did a small successful dance that the feeling disappeared. 

Effie and Monty both cut up their bread into slices and the elves helped by bringing over some toppings, from jam, butter, cream cheese and hazelnut spread, to more exotic things like manticore cheese, mermaid jam (actually just sweet seaweed jam) –that was apparently James’ favourite–, and even pixie dust cream that made people float if they had too much.

You had already tried the jam and cheese, but the pixie dust cream was completely new to you, your father had always steered away from anything fae-related, just in case. Hadn’t been worth much in the end, had it? 

Effie stood up after everyone had eaten, “Isn’t it time for Remus’ potion?” She asked as she looked at the clock, and then at Monty. 

“Seems like it is,” he replied after adjusting his glasses and checking on the clock himself.

“Did he eat?”  

“Said he didn’t want to,” James said as he gave another bite of his bread with mermaid jam.

“I’ll bring him some,” you said. “Can take the potion too.” 

“Such a darling,” Monty said, and stood up, grabbing a potion from the cupboard and serving a bit in a small shot glass as you prepared buttered some bread and added some of the spreads, a different one to each slice.

“Want me to come?” Sirius asked as you took the plate in one hand and the potion in the other. 

You shrugged in response, “I’m gonna find some clothes to change afterwards, so it might take a while.” 

Sirius wanted to say that maybe he really should come along then, but decided to shut his mouth when he remembered both Effie and Monty were still in the room. “See you in a bit then,” he said as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. Then he took a few pieces of cheese and placed them on the plate with Remus’ food. “It’s his favourite,” he said, and then pulled a chocolate from his pockets and placed it there too. 

You gave him a small smile and walked upstairs, it didn’t escape your mind how thoughtful Sirius was with Rem after the moon. Of course, you had always encouraged it, since you knew Remus needed it, but the uneasy feeling that was still gnawing at the back of your mind became more present. Was it so obvious, and had you just been too blind to see it before? 

“Hey, Rem,” you said as you opened the door. He was on the bed, still shirtless and with bandages all over his torso. Monty had wrapped him earlier when they brought him up. He was looking at the window and turned to look at you as he heard the door. Your hair was loose, you had his jumper on, and he thought there wouldn’t be a more comforting thing than that. 

“Hey, Little Witch.”

You walked towards him and sat on the bed, placing the plate on the table before leaning in a bit closer with the potion glass Monty had given you in your hand. 

“Open up,” you said with a smile.

“I can move my hands,” he replied.

“I didn’t ask if you could,” you retorted and leaned closer, sneaking your hand to the nape of his neck and pushing his head forward. He raised one of his eyebrows at you but opened his mouth as you leaned your hand with the potion towards his mouth. He drank the potion and tried not to laugh at your satisfied smile. “How are you feeling?” 

“I should be asking you that, wasn’t Moony too rough last night?” 

You shrugged, “We’re still getting used to each other. It’s a bit hard letting him win.” 

“Oh,” he said with a teasing smile, “So you let him win?” 

“He likes to think he’s got the power,” you responded and handed over the plate.

“Godric forbid little Vixen surrenders any of her power to him,” he retorted. And you pulled your tongue out in reproach, which caused him to laugh. “All this for me?” 

“Mhm,” you responded. “Sirius said you really like this one,” you added as you pointed towards the cheese. “I didn’t know.” 

“They don’t serve it at Hogwarts,” he said and took a piece. It was when he dragged his hand to his mouth that you realised the sharp bite mark he had on his wrist. Two holes on one side and two on the other, a slight purplish tone surrounding them both. You swallowed, that’s exactly what your arm looked like after you bit it at the Christmas party. 

“Vixen did that?” you said taking his hand and dragging it towards you. “Shit, Rem, I’m sorry,” you said as you stared at his wrist, carefully sliding your fingers over the marks your fangs had created and wincing at how his soft skin was now marked. 

“I heal fast,” he said with a shrug. “I really don’t mind it, Sweetheart. I mean if anything, it’s nothing compared to what Moony–” 

“I didn’t bite you because of that!” you said. “I mean she didn’t– you know what I mean.” 

“I know,” he said with a smile. “Moony was being a prick.” 

You smiled, “Have you tried a healing spell?” 

“Monty gave me some ointment for it,” he said as he pointed to the table. “Said Vix has a mean bite.” 

You pouted at that and pulled the ointment from the table and picked some up before carefully placing it on top of his wounds. “Now it looks like a vampire bit you.” 

“It’ll go away in a couple of days,” he said with a shrug, looking at the way your fingers carefully danced over his wrist. Remus would have allowed Vixen to bite him all the time as long as he got this treatment from you afterwards. Heck, he was even considering cornering her into it just for the aftercare. Of course, he couldn’t exactly get Moony to do any of those things, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it. 

“Thank you,” he muttered when you finished. 

“‘Least I can do,” you said as you turned to him. He missed the apprehensive look you gave him, thinking of how much pain you were causing him, and not just the physical one. 

 “Eat,” you said as you pointed at the food, taking a piece of cheese and plopping it in your mouth before standing from the bed and walking towards your suitcase. 

He took a piece of bread and gave it a bite to it. He’d picked the one with hazelnut spread, “Did you combine this with cream cheese?” he asked, mouth slightly full.

“I’ve seen you do it a couple of times,” you said with a shrug. “You think we’ll be out much today?” 

“I certainly won’t,” he said as he nodded towards his bandaged self. “Monty said if I rest all day, tomorrow I’ll be able to at least, have fun at the party. He prepared a really potent painkiller potion for it.” 

“Maybe I can convince the boys to just come back here and we can play Monopoly or something.” 

“Without me? Is that so you win?” 

“I could win even if you were playing,” you retorted, still digging through your suitcase. You took a pair of denim overalls out –you’d bought them with Tom and Beth– and then a band shirt (that was actually yours and not stolen from Sirius). It was an extremely muggle outfit, but you didn’t really care. 

Remus saw you sitting in the corner, rummaging through your clothes and he couldn’t help but be reminded of that one scene on Peter Pan. He wondered if you would play along with him like you had with Sirius on the balcony.

“Girl, why are you crying?”  

You frowned, jumping to him with your clothes still in your hands. Remus might have been perceptive as hell, and he would have probably figured out if you were actually crying, but you weren’t. Not at that time. “I’m not–” 

“Remus John Lupin, What’s yours?” he pressed on. 

You frowned and tilted your head to the side. “Vixen?” 

“Is that all?” 

Finally, you smiled, knowing exactly what Remus was doing, “Yes.” 

“Where do you live?” 

“Second star to the right and straight on till the morning.” 

“What a funny address,” he said with a bit of a mocking smile. 

You walked towards him and sat with him on the bed. “It is not.” 

“Why were you crying?” 

“I wasn’t crying,” you deflected again. “Come with me! To Neverland!” 

“To Neverland?” Remus asked, “sounds far away.”

“We could really use a werewolf,” you teased. 

Remus laughed, “I shall give you a kiss.” You extended your hand to him in the same way Peter Pan would have done. “Don’t you know what a kiss is?” 

“I shall know it when you give it to me.” 

Remus couldn’t stand up, and he really didn’t have anything even remotely close to a thimble around, so he took a piece of cheese and deposited it in your hand, you couldn’t help but break into a laugh, letting yourself fall over his legs as he looked at you bemused. 

“Why do you make fun of me so?” 

“I’m not, I’m not,” you added, “sorry”. And then sat back on the bed, trying to stifle your laughter. When you finally did, you bit your lip and tilted your head to the side, “Remus, you’re worth more than twenty boys.” 

Remus was almost taken aback by your words, not because he didn’t know they were on the play –which was by now a completely scrambled version of Peter Pan, but because of the sincerity you said it with. Remus was good at figuring it out when you were lying, playing or bluffing, and this time, he couldn’t see any of that, you were being sincere, and it was startling. Remus could almost see the love you held for him behind your eyes, he could tell how much you cared and it pained him, it pained him to know just how close you were and yet how–

“What are you up to, mischievous creatures?” Sirius asked as he burst the door open and took a diverted look at the two of you on the bed.

And yet how far… 

“Just playing,” you replied with a smile, the spell that had been cast over the two dissolving like the soap bubbles of oblivion that the two of you had created when you were alone at their parent’s cottage. “Take care of him, will you, I’ll change.” 

“Why not here?” Sirius teased with a smile, and Remus threw him a look. He would have so not been able to see that with a casual stance. And knowing you, if Sirius decided to make it some sort of dare, you might have done it. 

Thankfully, instead of indulging Sirius, you took off Moony’s jumper and launched it at his face, “Wouldn’t you like that? You perv,” you teased, and walked towards the bathroom with the clothes you’d change to in between your hands. 

“How are you feeling?” Sirius asked, turning to Remus with a kind and soft smile.

“Much better,” Remus admitted. “Vix seems to know how to lift my spirits.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. And then took a deep breath. “She’s still avoiding the subject.” 

“I doubt she’ll stop anytime soon,” Remus said, quite aware of it himself.

“It worries me,” Sirius said. “What if she keeps it all in and then she blows up?” 

Remus sighed, he knew what Sirius meant, he too was worried about it. All the pressure in your shoulders was something that neither of them could control nor alleviate, and it was eating both of them up from the inside. “You just have to be there for her then.” 

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A/N: Well now we know, but what shall we do with said knowledge? Suffer, of course.

Read more Marauders Fiction

[gender-trash]

(i am seriously late in posting about this due to The Problems BUT whatever! its here now!!)

somewhere around late november 2022, i asked my dad "hey are there any out of print technical books you'd like a reprint of for christmas?"

he linked me to a dubious black-and-white pdf of Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy. now, i wound up checking out a copy through link+, and the original edition is a really nicely put together book! the chapters are themed around various types of measurements (length, angle, etc), and they all have these cute little diagrams which the endpapers reuse in a lil repeating pattern... the image captions are done in this really lovely dark red that did not scan for SHIT... tons and tons of diagrams and illustrations and images (both color and b&w)... just, all around, a fucking nice book!! (see also @morrak's post about it here.)

and that made me feel kind of bad about the crappiness of the pdf, which is where the Problems began. i used my phone to take pictures of all the photos and color diagrams in the original and went about replacing them in the pdf, using what turned out to be the world's worst pdf editing software (i also got through replacing all the image captions in chapter 1 of 5 before my dad convinced me to give up). i did NOT finish the pdf editing before christmas 2022 (i was going somewhat off the deep end, because both my housemates were away visiting family and i had zero external structure in my life so it was just me and my cat and this stupid FUCKING pdf wrecking my sleep schedule together); i poked away at it for most of the rest of my time off and then got so goddamn sick of it i put the project away for months. "it'll be a birthday gift instead", i said optimistically (my dad's birthday is in april! it should have been enough time!)

gentle readers, i did not finish the pdf editing by april. mostly because it was such a miserable slog that i put it off until the last possible moment and then tried to make up for it with another death march.

hating both myself and the project again, i decided i was Not going to let myself typeset Anything Else before it was done, and then took a break to bind my immortal (using the renegade publishing typeset! i didn't do any typesetting!!). SURELY, i said, i can finish this in time for christmas 2023.

i'm sure you know where this is going.

in my defense i DID finish the pdf editing by christmas, despite first doing every other possible procrastination project (including a second edition of the little second century warlord book), because by this point my dad had managed to convince me to lower my standards. on the evening of the 22nd i kicked off the print job and said to myself "this will finish printing overnight and then tomorrow i can work on sewing the textblock!"

late on the 23rd, after lots of babysitting and using at least one cartridge of every color ink in my printer, the print job was finally done. (my sweet and lovely cat wants SO BADLY to hunt and stalk the printer while it is printing -- more specifically, the printed pages, i think because they tend to make noise and move and then STOP moving. for this reason, the printer is kept in the craft room, because the cat can be shut out of the craft room and thus prevented from chewing on the pages when i have an all-day book printing job going. unfortunately the craft room was also being pressed into service as a guest room at the time so 80% of the floor space was consumed by an air mattress which i had to repeatedly trip over in order to reach the printer and replace the ink cartridges.)

then i went to my parents' house on the 24th and 25th and apologized to my dad (again) for not having the book finished. but this worked out well because we finished putting together my awesome new book clamp:

(the feet still aren't done being painted so they're just dry-fit on for now but you can still clamp books in it and that's what matters!!)

i came home, sewed the textblock (french link stitch over four linen tapes, with sewn endbands made of variegated embroidery floss over linen cord, and kozo paper glued over the spine)

... and promptly realized i SHOULD HAVE PUT IN MORE OF A GUTTER because some of the text was getting reeeeeeal close to the spine. "it's fine!" i said. "i just have to make sure it lays flat!! what better time than to try out K118 binding, a technique i have literally never done before and which people on the bookbinding discord notoriously have a hard time pulling off first try! i even have tyvek tape for it!"

so it turns out that tyvek tape isn't actually tyvek with glue on it, it's tape FOR attaching pieces of tyvek TO EACH OTHER, which maybe i could have guessed if i'd done even the slightest amount of research or planning. at this point i think it was the 27th and i was still angling to get this thing done by new year's, so no time to order Actual Tyvek.

fortunately, i had ALSO received An Package in the mail with yarn for a totally unrelated knitting project... shipped in a tyvek envelope.

i peeled all the shipping labels and stickers off my tyvek envelope, cut that shit up, and glued it on there.

and THEN it was time for gluing on covers, which i thought was going to be easy because i had actually thought ahead and ordered materials (specifically acid-free museum board), except when i cracked open the box of museum board i decided i Didn't Like It because the surface was too soft and easily dented, so i glued onto it the too-thin board material i'd previously been using (so that the cardboard goes on the outside of the book). this worked super well (the cardboard stuff has a tendency to curl up from the glue moisture, but the museum board doesn't!) and i'll probably use it on other stuff in the future.

i thought the blue bookcloth i used was kind of boring but i showed my dad the available cloth options and he really liked it, so... what do you know? i cut the piece i used on the back cover very slightly too short but it wound up being covered by the leather, so you can barely tell.

and the leather... a scrap just baaaaarely big enough from my bag of leather scraps from discount fabrics... and this the first time i'd ever attempted to put leather on a book... AND YET the only complaint i have is that i didn't manage to put an even amount on the front and back. it's reasonably square and straight!! amazing!!

i am super super happy with how this project came out (especially given the number of problems i encountered) and oh my god check out how much the spine bends

AND, AS A NEW YEAR'S PRESENT, I FINALLY MANAGED TO GIVE IT TO MY DAD

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Recently, through Twitter, I have become aware of the fact that modern American parents have been very ignorant of their parental duties when it comes to their children. Parents are banding together to complain about the schools their children attend because their kids are getting bad grades in class, or they're getting detentions for doing bad consistently, or they're being held back because they're just not at the same level as their peers.

There was an entire thread of some woman whining about how the school was failing her kid, because his English class grade was so bad. There were thousands of comments agreeing and various reposts with anecdotes from other parents with similar experiences.

"My 26 y/o son can't even write a check for God's sake!"

And one single person finally replied with, "Do you guys not teach your kids anything at home before they start going to school?" Which then spawned people with actual common sense questioning the level of involvement these people had in the lives of their kids.

This is what led to a large surge of people complaining about how it's the school's job to teach them everything and they did their job just keeping them alive.

Now, I don't want to be mean, but it's gonna come across that way.

Parents are lazy these days.

When I was a child, my Nana and mom had me learning with Hooked on Phonics before I entered pre-K. I was 3 years old and already sounding out words that rhymed. I was practicing how quickly I could say them in under 30 seconds so I could progress to the next lesson.

mat hat sat that cat vat pat bat fat lat rat brat

etc...

When I was in pre-K(4 years old), they had a single, really old computer that had a bunch of Winnie the Pooh CD-ROM games. Because I always got my work done faster than everybody else, they let me use the computer because I could actually read and follow Pooh's instructions, and it kept me busy.

And when I entered kindergarten for the first time, I was really surprised to see that Hooked on Phonics was actually part of my curriculum and I was already very well ahead of everyone else. My mom and Nana took traching me very seriously. They not only read to me, but they would also get me Madeline books and cassette tapes from the children's library downtown. And then I would listen to the cassettes telling the story while reading the book at the same time to get used to the words.

At three years old, I was helping out in the kitchen, learning all of the different kitchen utensils and types of measurement. My mom often went between English, French and American Sign Language at random times so I picked up a lot of stuff that way. We never had a computer in the house for the first 12 years of my life, but I did have an old keyboard to learn how to type. Nana gave me basic piano lessons for a couple years. Mom taught me how to hem my clothes because she would buy me bigger clothes, hem them to size, and then let them out as I grew. Hell, Sperm Donor taught me how to write a check when I was 8. He was also a Financial Adviser, so I got a lot of lessons on money management, investments, and 401Ks and shit.

All these incredibly simple things ended up benefiting me later on, because I was so far ahead of all of the other students that it consistently put me at odds with them. I was better at reading, cooking, sewing, music, languages, etc... I was allowed time to do whatever I wanted while the rest of them had to catch up.

There is a lot more to being a parent than just making sure your kid eats three meals a day and doesn't die in a stupid way. And it seems like a lot of parents these days have completely forgotten that they have a duty to their kids beyond the feeding and clothing thing.

Certain things SHOULD be taught in schools, like how to balance a checkbook. But if it's clear that the school won't cover it, why aren't YOU doing something about that? And why do so many parents have no clue what the hell their kids are even getting up to in school? Why don't y'all get involved in your kid's lives?

[ohmyeyesmyeyes]

quiet night in listening to you speak another language (it's so casual)

summary: it's the eve of christmas eve and nate's somehow found himself listening to you speak french (he's not complaining)

warnings: swearing, tension?, mentions of christmas celebrations

the series!

< this was originally going to be longer but i need to rehash the lore first >

In all actuality, Nate hadn’t actually realised that he’d even owned a book in French. He’d scoured past every title and spine of each single one at least three times before, and not once did he clock the French one. In his defence, the title was pretty misleading – that was in English – and still, according to you, the inside pages were all in French. 

French. He’d shaken his head, and if it had been anyone else, he might have scoffed and not believed them, but he was beginning to get the hang of reading your body language and facial expressions pretty well in the five or six months you’d been friends – and he’d yet to decide if that little skill of his was a good thing or not. On one hand, it let him know exactly when to shut the fuck up (now, for instance), and on the other…well, the more he thought about it, the more he was coming to the realisation that there wasn’t much to not like about getting to know you more.

But now? You standing in his living room because you’d both miraculously managed to get back to Cole Harbour for a few days at Christmas? If he was being completely honest with himself, it was kind of driving him crazy.

And for the life of him, he couldn’t work out why.

It might have something to do with the fact that he was a little bit tipsy; it might have had something to do with the fact that maybe he found he wasn’t entirely too bummed out that he’d just made a fool of himself in front of you; or it might have had something to do with the fact that he’d just realised your voice changed when you spoke French.

Was that something that happened to everyone who spoke more than one language? He couldn’t remember. He’d heard Jo speak French on a number of different occasions, even you when he’d met up with you in Montreal, but with the close proximity forced by lowered inhibitions from the alcohol in both your systems, he was just now figuring it out.

Your voice was deeper, but somehow softer. And Nate found himself wondering if it changed yet again if you spoke a different language. He found himself wanting to find that out. Actually, that seemed to be a recurring theme lately: you’d say something or do something, and he’d stop for a moment, his mind soaking in that new piece of information – the calm before the storm – until his brain would ultimately spiral into a smattering of different thoughts and questions, all of them pertaining to you.

He’d considered writing them down and making a note of them, but the risk of someone accidentally stumbling across such a list was slightly mortifying, and the only thing he could do was promise his future self that when things stopped being a little bit awkward (i.e. silences where both of you would remember that the person in front of you was still a stranger and not in fact an old, good friend), he’d just start asking them. Out loud. And without shame.

Take this moment, for example:

It was the day before Christmas Eve. He’d spent the morning dropping off presents to non-family in the local area (mainly Sid and some other childhood friends that he still kept in touch with), and along the way he’d received a phone call from you and walked home to the sight of you huddled on his doorstep, clutching a bottle of wine with the excuse that you thought it’d be more bearable to drink with someone else than alone.

And if he was being completely honest, when his phone first lit up with that incoming call, he felt himself perk up, a grin already on his face when he answered – of which he was entirely sure you could hear in his voice down the line. Though, that was nothing compared to the actual proof of you on his doorstep, nothing at all.

He’d had to keep his hands from shaking when he stuck the key in the lock, and stop himself from staring for too long, because you’d clearly come from some sort of dressy-gathering and were wearing pretty, formal clothes and you’d clearly had a good day already because you were practically already glowing.

Needless to say, it hadn’t taken much for the two of you to eventually settle in his front room, a Christmas movie on low volume in the background as you trawled his bookshelf with curiosity. That was when the little debate had started, and it was also when you’d rather unapologetically rolled your eyes and shoved the pages under his nose to prove you were right, because what else would you have done?

What would he have done? Probably the same thing. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen your competitive side, either, and if every little discussion ended up with you sitting right next to him, your legs folded underneath you as you held the book in front of your face, eagerly rattling out sentence after sentence in French – he figured maybe losing this kind of this wasn’t such a bad idea. He also figured he could cope with going a little bit crazy every now and then.

(Nate hated losing, that should be known.)

Though, one thing he found sufficiently annoying was his own inability to understand just what it was you were saying. He’d always wanted to learn French – he’d have probably ended up on a different team in his youth if he had known French – but he’d never really committed himself to picking up the language, not even when he met Jo. Sure, he knew basic phrases, as did most people, but this was something else.

Every sentence or so you’d have to reread what you’d just read in French in English for him to understand, and even though he wanted to know the translation, he also wanted to batter his child self for ever turning those lessons down, because hearing English after speaking French was incredibly…well, as much as he liked the English language, it lacked the unique beauty of the French language.

“Do you want me to keep reading, or–”

“Yes please.” He instantly regretted interrupting you – not only because he was honestly so eager to keep hearing you talk, but because of your own reaction to said eagerness. He didn’t even need to be looking at you to feel the heat of your amused stare into the side of his face.

Though, he also knew, at least some unconscious part of him did, that it was also because he liked being close to you in this way: a kneecap pressing into the side of his thigh, one sock-clad foot under said thigh, and your shoulder leaning against his bicep from where it had previously (already) been outstretched across the back of the couch. After all, you’d put yourself there. Initially to prove a point, but you hadn’t moved, neither of you had.

The glasses on the coffee table were empty, as was the bottle, and it was getting pretty dark outside already. The fire was on, While You Were Sleeping was playing, and he felt comfortable. Infinitely more comfortable than he would have done if he’d have just come home to an empty house, though he half suspected that if you hadn't been here he’d have just asked to have dinner at his parent’s house, but you’d sorted that too with a few clicks on your phone.

He rather liked having you around, it was something he’d recognised from the very beginning but he seemed to be reminded of it each and every time you saw each other – which wasn’t very often at all, not often enough: you were in Montreal and he was in Colorado, and very rarely were the two of you ever in the same place at the same time. Not unless he had a game in Montreal or you had to visit the chain in Colorado, or you were both at home. Other than that, your friendship was strictly limited to the confines of technology, and even then there was often a small conflict with the time difference.

Two hours wasn’t much, but with his constant travelling and your workload, you’d come to learn it was no easy feat trying to organise a video call – hence, texts just seemed to be the easiest thing to do.

Yeah, he found himself thinking, fuck knows when you’d get to see each other next.

It was why he took the chance of sounding like a bit of an idiot: if he wasn’t honest then it’d take forever to actually get to know each other properly, and he wasn’t going to have that, at least, not if he could help it too much.

“Does your voice sound different when you speak Spanish than when you speak French?” He wasn’t looking at you when he asked it, but the burning of his cheeks did intensify when you slowed to a stop, the book lowering to your bent knee.

When he did look at you, your head was tilted, a careful look of consideration melted into your features. You rested your head momentarily on his arm and he had to fight to not react to that.

“Probably.” You settled on, voice rough from the alcohol, “You have to use your facial muscles differently to produce the sounds depending on accent, rhythms and intonation patterns.”

Your head lifted off his arm, and for a second his mind went blank.

“What does your Spanish sound like?”

You raised your brows, eyelids heavy, “You want me to speak Spanish?”

He just nodded, fighting off a cheeky grin.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything.”

“Cualquier cosa.” You muttered, watching his face carefully for any indication your voice had changed.

It was a little odd to admit, but there was something entirely endearing about watching Nate react to things – whether it be something you said, or something that happened. It was fascinating: the way his mouth would twitch or his brows would dip down or raise, or the different creases that would appear. It felt like a game trying to predict what would change on his face to formulate a complete reaction, but it was weirdly adorable.

Though, your favourite thing just had to be his nose – mostly because it was the one constant: you could always rely on the sharp slope and slight curve to stay the same. The relevance that had to your previous observation was little to none, but…you liked it.

This time his mouth twisted, and he glanced away from you momentarily, like he needed the extra few seconds to replay the moment in his mind to make the decision. In truth, you already had an idea of what your own voice sounded like speaking different languages: part of the learning process was to record and talk and relisten to improve pronunciation, and it was then that you’d realised for yourself that you sounded slightly different.

Spanish was a higher pitch, probably because you found it less comfortable than speaking English and French. English was a nice medium to refer back to, and French was lower even then, probably because of the accent itself, and the fact that you’d been speaking it just as long as you had English.

Still, it didn’t take ten minutes for you to notice the differences like it had Nate – it took a good couple of days.

“Spanish is higher than French and English.” Nate turned back to you, confident in his answer, and for the sake of not showing just how shocked you were at that, you nodded.

“A propósito, tu cabello se ve bien de ese modo.” 

He blinked, eyes lazily focused on your mouth as you moved, and his lack of reaction to the unfamiliar phrase prompted an unintentional blush to warm your cheeks – the sheer intensity of his eyes and the mix of his slightly parted mouth (either out of curiosity or lack of self-awareness) bringing something a little heavier to the moment. You attempted to distract him from the colour of your cheeks by nudging his thigh with your kneecap.

He swallowed, mouth closing, “What does that mean?” 

And because he usually had pretty pale cheeks, the flush of the alcohol blended seamlessly into any further reddening making it almost impossible to distinguish if he was the least bit embarrassed about you having caught him staring so unashamedly – if it weren’t for the tips of his ears burning.

“It means ‘by the way, your hair looks good that way’.” You muttered a little sheepishly, lifting the book up to hide the bottom half of your face, eyes peeking over the top to spy on his reaction whilst also trying to appear nonchalant. 

You watched his eyes widen a little bit, jumbled mind digesting your compliment, before running a self-conscious hand through his waves. They were probably the most messed up you'd ever seen them: unruly and a little floppy. It wasn’t exactly a sight that screamed ‘Nathan’ to you, but you weren’t lying when you said it looked good. He looked good.

Only, he didn’t seem to agree, because he frowned, fingers twirling the ends of his hair, eyes cross-eyed as he dragged strands down to his own view, “My hair’s a mess.” You heard him mutter rather confusedly, and you lowered the book once more, leaning your head against your fist, mindful not to knock his arm off the back of the couch.

And maybe it was because you were also tipsy, or maybe it was because you didn’t want him to start fixing it, or maybe – just maybe – there was a small part of you that needed him to know you weren’t teasing, convince him that you you weren’t just saying it for the sake of saying it, “Stop fussing with it.”

“I can’t, it’s pissing me off.” He groaned, using both hands to scrape his hair backwards, which did nothing but draw your attention to his features: the shadows under his eyes from the light and his lashes; the prominent hook of his nose; the precise groove of his philtrum; the shape of his mouth; the soft stubble decorating his chin.

You were staring.

And he opened his eyes, the clear blue startling you to look sharply at the TV, now acutely aware of the fact that you were tucked against his shoulder, pressed against his thigh and under his thigh, all in pretty close proximity to say you’d only known each other for a few months.

Usually it took you a while to get comfortable with someone as a friend, even in the physical sense: hugs weren’t usually a comfortable thing – you didn’t know why, you just weren’t like that – though alcohol was the only thing that made you more comfortable with that kind of thing.

The common denominator.

“When do you go back to Colorado?” You spoke as you turned your attention back to him, speaking the first thing that came to your mind to get his sudden frustration away from his hair.

“Christmas morning.” He sighed, thumb scraping his eyebrow, “What about you?”

“Christmas evening.”

There was a lull in conversation after that, the both of you quiet as you took in what it meant. Usually you hated uncertainty and having such a lack of control over future plans, but it was something you’d had to quickly accept and adjust to if it meant you wanted Nate in your life. You didn’t know when you’d next see each other after this holiday. It could be weeks, it could be months.

You swiped your phone from the coffee table, pulling up your calendar app and scrolling through the dates. You knew he didn’t have any games left in Montreal, which left (at least, up until the play-offs) it up to your own work schedule. Sometimes your boss would have you travel to other branches across Canada and the US to implement training or just to evaluate how different departments work in your division – maybe you could learn more efficient techniques etc. But that was rare – you’d been down to Colorado once in the last seven months, and it was only luck that Nate was at home then.

Which put you up to Summer if the Avs clinched the playoffs, and even then it was fifty-fifty as to whether or not you’d be able to take holiday, obviously not to just see Nate, but to spend time with family that you didn’t get to see as often as you’d like. Though, your holiday leave tended to be used for birthdays.

You switched off your phone, running a hand through your hair and placing the book on the coffee table, untucking yourself from Nate to sit next to him instead, a suitable amount of distance separating you on the cushions. It wasn’t an obvious gap that you’d placed, but it was appropriate enough.

“Two days to spend time with the family.” He murmured, arms crossed over his chest.

“I think that’s the thing I miss most about not living here anymore. But I’m always ready to go back to my little apartment – I hate feeling like a kid again.”

Nate hummed in agreement, though a part of it felt fake. He knew what you were saying, he understood where you were coming from, but it felt fraudulent to sit on his couch in his house and agree with you – you who had to go back to your parents and probably get pestered (lovingly) as to where you’d been all day, before getting told not to go to bed too late. He hadn’t had that in years. He’d spend days at his parent’s house, but he’d always come back here.

“You can stay here tonight, if you want.” 

He’d said it quietly, a part of him wanting to be drowned out over the sound of the movie, and despite wanting to come across as it being a casual suggestion, he couldn’t help the note of sincerity seeping into his tone. He supposed it was that that had you hesitating, eyes carefully roving his face.

“I have a spare room already made up, it’d be no trouble.” He shot you a wry smile, shrugging helplessly, before turning back to the TV to give you space to think.

Only, you just sighed and picked your phone up again, before throwing him a glance out of the corner of your eye, “Are you sure?”

He nodded, offering a small, reassuring smile, “I’m sure. I can drop y’off in the morning.”

[starlightsuffered]

My Goddess

A/N - does the "stop the fucking charade" scene get anyone else hot and bothered or just me?

Warnings - smut, pregnancy, cheating, sensitive nipples, climaxing from nipple stimulation, oral (female receiving), knife play kinda, angry Hal, breeding kink, cock warming, unprotected sex, desired voyeurism

"Bring her to me!" He screamed at his servants. Usually he was kind, he was respectful, but not now. He was so riled up, and only one thing could fix it. It was a well kept secret of the palace. King Hal had a wife, a Queen, but he was weak for you and only you. Nowhere else was he weak, but you made him this way.

You were just a wet nurse. Your nipples were used all over town to feed babies that mothers couldn't. Hal loved that, the sensitivity of your nipples. You were embarrassed, you felt weak for having such sensitive nipples, but your love adored it. He suckled on them day in and day out. He was obsessed with you and you were confused how you had drawn such a lucky card in life.

You'd met back in his wilder days, when the kingdom hadn't rested on his shoulders. You'd known he fucked around, but it was always you he came back to. He'd asked to marry you when he'd gone off to war, but you couldn't do it. You'd have so much to do, so much responsibility. Not to mention, the nation would despise you. If they reviled the once wayward King, what would they think of him picking a wet nurse to be his bride? Wet nurses were seen as little better than prostitutes in this kingdom, the only ones who appreciated them was the needy mothers they aided.

"Here she is your Grace," the Guard had roughly torn the baby you'd been feeding from your breast, giving it to the mother. You had been marched to the castle. They didn't normally retrieve you with such force. He must've been in a very bad mood.

King Hal had once been gentler, but the many betrayals he'd experienced had made him hard. He was never rough with you, but with others, he didn't pull back when he could have.

You were brought before the king. He was rushing towards you, hands eager and protective. He carried you off to his bedroom. You were wincing.

"Why do you make such a face my love," he demanded. "If they have hurt you, I will have there heads."

This was what you meant. Hal would have never beheaded guards before. He would have talked to them sternly, but not killed them. This is why you had been avoiding him lately, the secret you so badly wanted to tell him, was hard to keep in his actual presence.

"No, no, it is nothing," you said, not meeting his eyes.

Hal placed you on the bed in his decadent room. You always wondered how the Queen felt that you had spent more time in this room than she had. Although, there were many rumors of her escapades with French dignitaries. Hal did not mind, Hal only wanted you.

"You are hiding something from me, and you will tell me this instant," he snapped, pacing the floor. He knew you too well. Just one avoidance of his gaze, and he was reading you like a book.

"I do not wish to tell you," you mumbled.

"Why my love?" His voice was soft now. He was trying to look into your eyes. You bit your lip, tears welling.

"I've missed my cycle by three weeks," You admitted.

"You, what?" Hal seemed genuinely shocked.

"I'm pregnant Hal," you said, turning to him. A wild smile lit up his face. He was beaming.

"But my love! This is wonderful news, and it is surely mine?"

"You are the only man I've been with in years," you replied. He looked a bit pink at that. You knew you were not the only one he'd been with, but now, that problem was fixed. He wouldn't be obligated to try for an heir if one grew in your belly.

"This is amazing," he cheered.

"I'm not so sure it is," you said softly.

"Why ever not?" He asked.

"You have changed Hal," you whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"You are harder. I know it is not your fault, but it worries me. I worry you may be assassinated, or that you will start a new war. I know a King must be tough, but a father must be gentle."

He was silent for a long time after your speech.

"You are right y/n, if you choose to have this baby, I will endeavor every day to be the man you deserve, and the father my child deserves," he said, taking your hands.

"Oh, Hal, that is exactly what I wanted to hear," you sighed.

"You are also being moved into the castle. I am declaring you an official mistress of the King. You will be accompanyed by a servant, or me at all times. I want you treated no less than a Goddess."

"Hal," you hedged. "What about the Queen?"

"The Queen has seen this coming for a long time. I have long been drawing up papers for you to become my mistress."

"Hal, I want you to be kind about it," you instructed.

"I will be, but my first priority will always be you," he said gently.

"I love you," you told him, his heart melting words making it all the more clear he was your forever.

"Let me love you, my Goddess," he requested, and you nodded eagerly.

He kissed you deeply, his tongue tracing your lips. You melted into the kiss. He pulled you on top of him. You straddled his waist, combing your hands lovingly through his hair. You let your teeth graze his bottom lip, earning a moan from him.

His hands were at the ties of your dress in an instant. He was undoing them, trying to get you undressed as quickly as possible. You remembered when you'd arrived here he'd been in a rage. Now he was using only gentle touches, loving touches. You were the song that soothed the savage beast. You loved how malleable he became for you and you alone.

"Hal," you moaned as he kissed your neck, tearing your bodice. He grabbed a defensive dagger from his bed side.

"I am going to cut that dress from your form, from now on you are either naked for me, or in the most expensive finery the castle can afford."

He came forward with the knife. You did not shy away. Hal was incapable of hurting you. He pulled your garment away from you skin, not wanting to cut you. You closed your eyes, waiting to be bare before him.

Soon he'd cut through all you wore, and you were completely naked before him. His eyes drank in your body. Every time he saw you unclothed, it was as if it were that first time all over again.

"My y/n," he purred. "Look at you."

"Hal, love me," you requested. He crawled over to you, a feral glint in his eyes.

"Though I will miss these being as tender as they are," he said, beginning to massage your breasts. You gasped at the feeling. "They are for only two people now, me, and the child you bear."

He flattened his tongue against your sensitive nipple. It was enough to make you scream. He suckled your nipple into his mouth. You loved watching him like this, attending to you. The image was enough to make you come. Once he had been content to do it for hours, loving how you continued to react the same way as time passed.

"Hal, oh Hal," you moaned as he continued to lick your nipples, tracing them with his tongue. The sensation drove you wild. Now he added hands as he lapped and kneaded you felt a cord inside you break, and your orgasm baptized you in bliss.

"That's my girl," Hal praised, as you moaned. "I barely have to touch you."

"You are perfect, my King," you told him.

"And you my darling, are enough to make your own King bow before you," Hal said as he got off the bed and onto his knees. Your legs hung off the bed, and you presented him with your glistening pussy.

"No wine, no matter how fine, has the taste of you my dear," he said as he prepared to devour you. He kitten licked at first, making you squirm, but then he changed. He was lapping at you, tongue blessing your heat as it moved. He sucked your clit into his mouth, then traced it. He had you bucking into his lips, hands tangled in his curls.

There had been times when he'd sat you on his throne, naked, and worshiped your body. Him still in full regalia. You could knock the crown from his head with your needy hands, and he would not reproach you. That was how much he adored you.

"I'm going to come," you told him. He growled his approval into your heat. The vibration pushed you over the edge. You called his name as he continued to lap you through your orgasm.

When his face showed, it was covered in your essence. You were breathing heavily as he licked his lips. He did not wipe his face, but got back on the bed to kiss you thoroughly. You tasted yourself on him, and you moaned into the kiss.

"I can't wait," he said. "I want to see you grow, to see the proof that you are full of me."

He was removing his every article of clothing. You watched, eagerly. His beautiful form was often hidden under so many layers of finery, that you couldn't even make out the shape. You liked him bare the best. His slender body and milk white skin. He was beautiful.

"Yes, Hal," you agreed, as he lined himself up with you. He pushed into you, letting out a deep groan.

"My Goddess," he crooned. "So full, been cummed in so many times. I'll be the envy of every man who knows that you are mine alone, forever."

He was snapping his hips quickly, needy for the feeling of you. He hated any position that hid your face from him. Your breasts bounced as he quickened.

"Everyone will know it was I who bred the finest cunt in the land. It was I that filled her to bursting," he whimpered, only you would every hear the King whimper

"Yes Hal, yes, and you will fill me again and again, all of my days," you agreed, whines leaving your mouth as he fucked deep into you.

"You'll be so swollen with me, and your breasts will be ever heavier with milk. The thought alone is enough to make me explode," he panted.

"Oh Hal, I could live the rest of my life with your cock never leaving my cunt. Imagine you, ruling the kingdom, riding to battle, ordering your men, all with your cock buried in me."

"You're going to make me cum my love," Hal moaned.

"Then do it," you begged. "Fill me again!"

He rutted into you several more times before he was shooting ropes of hot cum inside you. He reached down to toy with your clit as he filled you. The sensation threw you into your third orgasm of the night. You were screaming, arching as it seemed like an impossible amount of cum filled you.

"There you are my Goddess, rest now," Hal said, cock still inside you, but urging you to relax. The two of you fell asleep that way. Lying in your lovers arms didn't have to end anymore, you were his mistress, and the mother of his child.

[4-ustin]

Random ass headcanons for the Outsiders

(Angst Warning lmao)

Ponyboy Curtis

-Eventually had to quit smoking because he got bronchitis from it, that lead to him having to quit track n' feild

-He kept that note from Johnny for the rest of his life, at one point he cut out Johnny's signature and put the paper in a locket necklace

-For a long time Dallas' last word being "Pony" made him cry whenever he remembered it (Ik this is only movie canon but I just love it"

-He hung out at the empty lot a ton more after everything because it somehow made him feel closer to Johnny and Dally

-Has accidentally called Darry "Dad" more

-He can speak french almost fluently

Johnny Cade

-He hated when people compared him to a puppy because he was a cat person and dogs legit scared him

-He actually really wanted to tell Ponyboy that he loved him in his last words (That doesn't have to be romantically, I think it's more platonic but at the same time to each their own)

-The note Johnny had written to Ponyboy and left in the book was written in purple crayon, he wanted it to be red since that's Ponyboy's favourite colour but the nurse didn't have any red crayons

-The doctor who was keeping Mrs. Cade back and the nurse who told Johnny his mom was there were both "Considering calling CPS on that crazy lady if that kid survives,"

Dallas Winston

-When Dallas said "Pony..." right before he died, he was trying to tell him to stay alive. In a "Dont be like me" sense

-He was actually a really good boyfriend to Sylvia, almost to simping degrees, he doesn't get a lot of affection so he was starved for whatever Sylvia was giving him. It was totally toxic for him, and Johnny was always worried about it

-His skull ring was stolen from a thrift store, he stole it when he was 12

-Drunk cryer

Two-Bit Matthews

-If you asked him who his best friend in the gang was, he'd probably say Darry.

-If you asked who's the most fun to fuck around with though, he'd say Dallas

-Him and Dallas slash car tires together

-He basically has to raise his younger sister because their mother is a dysfunctional hoarder (I saw the hoarder hc somewhere else but I don't remember who)

-His younger sister's name is Katie, and he calls her Katie-cat like Teddy from The Christmas Chronicles

-He likes to fuck with Socs, but he also mildly fucks with other greaser gangs

-#1 brother, buys Katie dolls and helps her out on her period (he paid extra attention to the period segment of Health class because he knew he'd have to be the one to take care of that)

Sodapop Curtis

-Definitely had Steve help him write the note to Ponyboy because his handwriting is barely legible.

-He's dyslexic.

-When Ponyboy had run off with Johnny he actually tried to confide in Sandy, but she couldn't stand to talk to him except over the phone so the only person Soda trusted to talk to was Steve

-Soda is a terrible cook

-When Soda is sitting down with Darry and Ponyboy before he ran out he was trying to discreetly cover his ears, and if Pony and Darry were paying attention to anything other than their own fighting they'd see Soda's about-to-cry eyes

-Can't fix a car to save his life, at least not like Steve can. He can door minor stuff but that's it.

-His first kiss was Steve by complete accident, the two were quite literally butting heads in the 6th grade. Nobody knows except them and they had this whole oath to never tell anybody

Steve Randle

-His parents split up, he has a step-dad and a step-mom and his bio parents are still on good terms. They aren't even legally divorced because neither of them could afford it

-He's actually pretty good friends with Buck like Dallas is because Buck brings his T-Bird to the DX whenever he needs something done with it, Buck is Steve's best-paying customer

-Steve's favourite pass-time is throwing glass bottles at Soc cars and ditching

-Steve favours his step-dad to his step-mom because he thinks his step-mom is taking advantage of his dad

-He actually has a step-sister but she's like 22 and in college

Darry Curtis

-Darry does indeed cry when Ponyboy calls him dad

-He genuinely had panic attacks before going to bed the whole week Ponyboy was gone

-Man has anxiety problems but wasn't actually diagnosed until the late 80's when he finally stopped being an "I don't need any help" man and decided to go to therapy... in his forties.

-Darry fucking loves dogs

-He would carry Johnny around like a doll if he needed to (if Johnny was in his way or needed to be pulled away from something)

[simplymarr]

Chapter two.

warnings: none.

The next morning was gloomy. The classroom filled with people like always and the weak, pale light coming through the windows made it look even more suffocating.

The class started at the usual hour. As he talked i could tell that his accent made his voice sound quite raspier. The humidity in the air made his skin look like porcelain, glistening in the dark of the room.

He made a couple of questions and by the time the class was ending i was quite embarrased i was the only one answering; yes, i was passionate about study but i didn't want him to think i was trying too hard.

He didn't seem to care.

I stepped out of the building about 10 am and as i walked towards the street i saw him getting into his car. It was a dark-green chevy malibu, perhaps from the mid 70's. My fist thought was that, somehow, the car matched perfectly with his looks. Once he was inside he lit a cigarrette just like the day before. Suddenly he raised his head and looked at me, smoke coming out of his mouth. I was embarrased that he caught me staring at him so i began walking faster than before.

a couple of minutes and some blocks before it started raining. Large drops of water fell on every surface of my face and clothes. I hadn't even brought an umbrella and i was carrying all of my books. The sky completely fell apart as if it was laughing at me.

"Fuck. Is there something else that could happen to me, God?" I thought to myself.

Question aswered. Again.

That vintage chevy again, this time coming behind me then driving slowly, almost stopping, by my side. The window opened revealing the silver hair and the blue eyes that were driving it.

"Do you need a ride? It's getting dangerous to walk with this rain". He said, raising his voice a little, for all the water that was hitting the ceilling of the car made a big and loud noise.

"Oh, no thanks. It's just a couple of blocks until the bus stop".

"Well, it seems like you're gonna get there swimming then". He said, with an ironic but concerned tone.

" It's not a problem, really. I don't want to bother you" . I stuttered with a not convincing smile as i kept walking. He kept driving slowly by my side with the opened window, the grey strands of hair starting to get wet.

"Look, i have to drive all across downtown, it's really not a problem".

I stopped walking, looking at him quite ashamed. The water starting to get on my eyes and shoes. I hessitated.

"I don't bite." He said, with a soft smile. The lines on each side of his mouth appeared again.

I laughed at his bad joke and opted for getting into the car.

As i closed the door the watery sounds stopped, the air filled now with silence. It was kind of awkward for me. A student getting into her professor's car?

He looked at me quickly and i met his eyes. Then he lowered his gaze and streched out his free hand to open the glove compartment, positioned in front of my knees. He brushed them unintentionally with his nuckles and i prayed to God not to blush in front of him. Then he took out a pack of cigarrettes and aproached them to me, offering me one.

"How much does this man even smokes?" i thought to myself.

Though i've smoked casually, i said no with my head and then he put one between his lips.

He broke the silence first.

"I have been reading the drafts you submitted in class. They`re consistent, though i have made some remarks for you to work on. I'm sure it's not going to be a problem". He said with the unlit cig still in his lips. Then he reached out for the lighter.

"Well, thank you. I've been working really hard. I guess being the girl in law school kind of obligates you to".

He laughed, kindly. "y/n, isn't it?" He asked, pronouncing my first name with his french accent.

I nodded with a soft smile. My nervious hands gripping my still wet books.

"Ah, l'Etranger, d'Albert Camus" He said, looking over to the novel i had in between my hands. His voice dripping perfectly in each syllable. "Great, great work."

"Isn't it? Existentialism could not kill me even if it tried." I joked badly, looking at his hands gripping the steering wheel. He looked at me and laughed.

We spent the next 15 minutes talking about books, philosophy, his carreer and what was i going to do with mine once i gratuated.

He seemed the kind of man that likes to listen. He kept asking me questions and i was surprised with how much attention he payed to my words, dissecting every phrase and analyzing every tone of mine. He was very funny too. Kind of an ironic humor that matched with mine.

I didn't even notice that it had stopped raining and that we were parked at the bus stop. I looked at him with surprise, which he seemed to reciprocate.

"Thank you so much for the ride".

"Sure you don't need me to drive you home? I still have a trip to make". His tone felt genuine.

"Oh no, you've already done too much. Thanks anyway". I said while i stepped out of the car.

I bent slightly and looked over the window, no clear words passed my mind but i wanted to see him once again.

"See you next class. Oh, and i will email you the corrections soon, okay?".

"Okay". i said, nodding softly. "Thanks, Mr. Renzi".

"Just Vincent". He smiled at me once again and i reciprocated.

He started the car as soon as i stopped the bus with my hand, and i was kind of wishing we were still talking.

next chapter soon.

[pruneunfair]

My rewrites for TRE characters in my fanfic

so about 6 months ago I fell into the Au pipeline and it ended up resulting in a bunch of stories that's basically if maximalism was a 7 season long book series. One of those seasons combines tons of characters from different manhwas I read but it's mostly a new interpretation of remarried empress with some Oc's.

Navier

One major change I made is that Navier isn't the protagonist anymore but I didn't want her to be a cold blooded villain either. If you ever went on history tik tok specifically the tudors and the French revolution, there's a lot of people who romanticize Anne Boleyn to the extremes of villainzing Jane Seymour or babying Marie Antoinette as a sweet coquette girly who was unfairly killed by "savage revolutionaries" or claiming Elizabeth I as a feminist girlboss who only wanted to end her fathers bloodline. These historic women weren't the most awful people and they definitely were victims but that doesn't mean they didn't have noticeable flaws that affected the lives of others. That's the direction I went for my version of Navier, she still cares for her loved ones and makes good decisions but she was raised with a classist mindset, not pouring wine on maids and poor people but viewing them as emotionless husks with only one purpose which explains her apathy to slaves. I also gave Navier a backstory beyond wanting to be a perfect empress which was a relationship with her mother that is inspired by Catherine the greats relationship with her mother, so yeah not very great. Unlike the original she is fully aware of what Heinrey is doing but she barely cares (not much of a change from the original tbh) the goal is that I still want Navier to be a little likeable while also making her complex and realistic as an empress.

Sovieshu

I didn't give Sovieshu as many changes and for the most part, he's the same as he was in the original: a toxic partner who pushes his faults on other people around him. In this version though instead of becoming cold and cruel to Navier to moment Rashta shows up, the two have already been drifting apart for a while and it only got worse when Navier had a miscarriage a year prior to the story. Sovieshu is more of a cautionary tale of how misogyny is encouraged in boys at a young age, in his youth, Sovieshu had all the love of his mother since his parents struggled to conceive and only had one son. He wanted his father's love more than anything but Osis was about as interested as you'd expect, only wanting his son to be a great Emperor and nothing else, to please him, Sovieshu started to emulate the misogynistic views of the men around him which grew to be his actual beliefs. The only person that kept Sovieshu from turning into his dad was the former empress until she takes her own life, leaving Sovieshu with Osis as his influence. I still want Sovieshu to remain a scumbag but it will be more of a tragedy in how the future generations can never improve if we continue the cycle of abuse.

Rashta

I think Rashta is the most altered out of all the original characters since she's not even a villainess but rather a sort of anti hero. Her past as a slave is more fleshed out, her childish manner is age regressing to try to gain back her stolen childhood and she doesn't try to befriend Navier after getting the message that Navier wants nothing to do with her. In this version she's the best friend and later love interest of the new protagonist who bottles up her past and feelings to please others so she can keep her cozy life in the palace and that becomes a problem as the lack of care causes Rashta to grow more depressed and even has a few panic attacks. She won't do a good portion of the horrible acts she does in the original since she now had actual friends and because some of her sins are just so contrived to make her hateable, but she still is petty and holds grudges so she doesn't feel too bad when she ruins Nians marriage or snubs Lebetti, she'll even be conflicted since she feels guilty that the slaves on the Rimwell estate are still suffering but she doesnt want to risk being removed as concubine if she tries to call for slaves rights but she does find her voice and will start to push for slaves to be freed mid-way through her term as the empress of the eastern empire. In the end, Rashta does become Empress of a different empire after spending a good 7 years healing from her trauma and getting a good education, she lives her days with her kids and dies at the age of 81

Heinrey

Hes one the main antagonists here, I kept his love for his wife and family though but it's not an "uwu my queen!" Or really anything puppy like. For Heinrey I wanted to make him a true white lotus and he's has more vibes of a comforting friend with soft mannerisms and tones in voice, he loves Navier dearly because I still think even monsters like him can fall in love but the reason he tortures and kills people who don't side with Navier isn't even because he's that adamant about Naviers honor but rather because if someone were to find out his sadistic nature to those who disagree with him, he can use the "puppy husabnd" excuse to appear as a sadistic sweetheart. It not only scares the shit of his people into respecting him but it also wins him a little sympathy points since "he's just a hopeless romantic" I wanted Heinrey to appear uncanny too, like you know somethings off about him but if you said anything people would just be like "what are you talking about? He just really loves his family." His death is also pretty brutal, naturally Heinrey makes a lot of enemies and during a war arc he is shot down while in bird form leaving him at the mercy of a former maid he pushed over the deep end, she offs him, plucks him, cooks him, and serves him to the remaining family members of Lazlo.

and that's only the main 4, I did almost all of them with the exception of McKenna since he's honestly the only good character thats written well in remarried empress.

[666writingcafe]

I'd like an order of “Look at your reflection. Look at how gorgeous you are. So fucking gorgeous when we're fucking you like this." "So pretty for us, and only for us.” Beel and Satan pretty please!

Order #3

"Look at your reflection. Look at how gorgeous you are. So fucking gorgeous when we're fucking you like this." "So pretty for us, and ONLY for us." Beel x MC x Satan

Author's Note: I'm going to be referencing this. The more I wrote, the more this turned into a mini fic, so it'll take a while to get to the juicy stuff. Also, I altered the requested line slightly to make it a little less wordy, but it's the same general message.

One

Before Project Friendship, Satan and Beelzebub weren't that close. It was the classic case of brain versus brawn, and Satan didn't think he had much in common with his brother. He certainly didn't understand why Beel would constantly stare at him. The first couple of times, he thought Beel was simply zoning out, but then it kept happening, and Satan began getting annoyed. Why was his brother looking at him like that, anyway? Did he think Satan was a freak, just like everyone else did?

Satan initially found it odd that the two of them were paired together for this little sleepover at the castle, but he decided it would be the perfect opportunity to confront Beel about his staring, because it was sure to happen at some point during their stay.

And it did, on the very first night as the two of them were getting ready for bed. Satan was reading one of the books he brought along with him when he felt eyes intently on him.

"Why do you do that?!" he snarls, snapping his book shut and nearly slamming it on the bedside table. "It's bad enough when Belphie does it, and he's a lot smaller than you are. You doing it is downright creepy." Beel mumbles something, and Satan feels more enraged.

"Oh, so you're brave enough to gawk, but not to speak? Typical air-headed jock. Is there even an actual thought in your head, or is it stuffed full of cheeseburgers and french fries?"

"And you wonder why I don't talk." Beel's bluntness paired with a sudden glare shuts Satan up. "I've wanted to develop a better relationship with you for a while, but I was afraid you'd push me away like this. After all, what do I have to offer? I'm not nearly as intelligent as some of your other friends, right? I couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of the subtexts in the books you read; I'm just an air-headed jock."

The only thing Satan can manage to reply is,

"You've been reading my books?"

"Well, not your copies. I didn't want to damage them, because I know a lot of them are really valuable. But what I could find in RAD's library, I have read, including the one you brought with you." Satan glances at the book on the nightstand.

"The Blighted Marigold? I didn't think you were into mysteries."

"The author is behind a series of books that inspired some of Levi's video games. Mercury's Demise, I believe it's called. Belphie and I played them a couple of times with him, and I found myself sucked into the game's story. I ended up binging the entire series in a month. The way he writes made me feel like I was one of the characters, and I wanted to see if he'd published anything else."

"When did you find the time? Those books are massive!" Beel shrugs.

"I made time, Satan. Isn't that something you're familiar with doing?" Beel has him there. In some ways, their schedules are similarly packed with extracurricular activities.

"Did you finish this?" Satan asks, picking up the book again.

"Yes."

"I'm about halfway through this, and I can't figure out who the killer is. Usually I can by this point in a mystery, but for some reason I'm completely stumped."

"That's because the suspects are all red herrings." Beel can tell that his brother's completely dumbfounded. "They all have motives for killing Mr. Marigold, which makes it more difficult to discern the killer. But it's not any of them. It's someone that almost fades into the background but shows up time and time again. They don't say much, but that's intentional. By remaining quiet, they can get away with the murder and have one of the loudmouths put behind bars."

"You mean..." Satan trails off, his eyes suddenly widening. "Isabella?!" Beel nods his head. "But how? Why?"

"Standard poisoning. As for the why, I don't want to spoil too much for you, so I'll just tell you this: in the first couple of chapters, there are a couple of seemingly throwaway lines, but they turn out to be the very thing the detective needed to solve the case."

"And when did you figure this out?"

"After the reading of the will and Isabella's reaction to it in the next chapter."

"But that takes place in chapters two and three!" Beel shrugs.

"Pays to observe people."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Have you ever wondered why I don't say much?"

"I just assumed you didn't have anything to offer to the conversation." Beel sighs.

"So does everyone else. Even Belphie, and he knows me better than most." He pauses. "The truth is, I spend a lot of time people-watching. I make mental notes of their behavior so that I can interact with them better."

"For example?"

"Levi rambles around people he finds cute. He used to clam up, but he realized people found that weird, so he's overcompensating by talking a mile a minute. He's lucky MC finds it endearing, because his info-dumping would annoy anyone else he was trying to pursue." Satan tilts his head.

"Now you've made me curious. What else have you picked up from us?"

"The shade of Asmo's nails matches his mood. Lighter colors mean he's generally happy, while darker colors indicate his moodiness. Lucifer will grant permission to anything you ask him after four glasses of Demonus, but five will have him crying about the war, and six will make him angry and irritable. Mammon sometimes sneaks out at night to various orphanages and entertains the kids there for a few hours. They like giving him cheaply-made fabric pins, usually shaped like stars, and he attaches them to items he rarely uses as to not damage them."

"What about me?" Beel looks directly into Satan's eyes.

"You grip the spines of your books whenever you're angry but trying not to blow up in someone's face. That's how I know to keep my distance."

~~~

Two

"Diavolo's going to drop out soon." Satan glances up from his script with a confused look on his face.

"Did he say something to you?" he asks, prompting Beel to shake his head.

"His performance isn't quite as convincing as it once was. His character is supposed to be betrothed to Lucifer's, and yet it seems as though his heart's not in it anymore."

"Maybe he's having a hard time focusing." Beel snorts in bitter amusement.

"That's an understatement." Satan sets his script down on the nightstand.

"Clearly you're seeing something that I'm not. Would you care to explain what that is?"

"The nature of the love triangle is changing. Diavolo and MC are no longer at odds with each other."

"I have noticed that," Satan replies. "MC's stay here at the castle has allowed them to form a pretty solid friendship."

"I'd say it's more than friendship at this point." Satan's eyes widen. "It's possible that MC's oblivious to this, but Diavolo's developing a pretty strong crush on them. His touch and gaze lingers on them a bit too long for it to be him simply protecting them as they're healing from their mental breakdown."

"It upsets you, doesn't it?" Beel sighs.

"I know it shouldn't."

"I didn't mean to sound judgemental, Beel. I was simply making an observation. I can tell that talking about this is making you tense up." Silence. Beel looks down at his script, but he's not reading any of the words on the page. Instead, he's hoping to zone out long enough to block out his simmering rage.

"You're doing that in front of the wrong person," Satan warns Beel. "My presence tends to shorten others' fuses. It'd be better if you simply let it out while you still have control." Another sigh as Beel sets his script down on the bed.

"I want them. For myself. I know it's silly and never going to happen given how we all feel about them, but it's something that I continue craving. There are times where it overtakes my hunger for food. I can eat and eat and eat, but there isn't a single dish that's an adequate replacement for MC. Not when I get in that kind of mood, anyway."

"There's something rather addicting about them, isn't there?"

"Yes. It's like a constant sugar rush."

"Dopamine."

"Same concept, though. The more you have it, the more you want it, which makes you have it even more. It's a vicious cycle."

"And Diavolo has a tendency to hoard things he really enjoys." Satan briefly pauses. "Like a dragon."

"Exactly. Theoretically, he could order us to stay away from MC so that he doesn't have to share them with us, and we'd be powerless to stop him." Beel looks away from Satan, suddenly feeling ashamed. "And we wonder why MC's growing more annoyed with us. We're treating them like an object and forgetting that they're capable of making their own decisions. If they want to spend more time with Diavolo, then who am I to stop them? It's not like they're exclusively tied to any of us." The two brothers sit quietly as Satan mulls over Beel's words. In a lot of ways, they mirror his own internal dialogue regarding MC.

"I have an idea," he states after a few minutes. Beel narrows his eyes.

"It better not get us in trouble. We're still in hot water for what happened last night in the kitchen."

"Don't worry, it's nothing that destructive. In fact, it won't even happen until MC's settled back in at the House. But it does require some planning. Our schedules--" Satan gestures between the two of them. "--have to line up during a time when everyone else--" His fingers quickly circle the air. "--is busy and, more importantly, out of our hair."

"Why?"

"Because we need to tell MC how we feel without worrying about someone interrupting us. It might take a while, and it may get a bit noisy."

~~~

Three

A Few Weeks After MC's Return to the House of Lamentation

MC's not entirely sure how their evening turned out this way. They were studying when they heard a knock on their bedroom door, and opening it revealed Satan and Beel on the other side. When the two brothers got settled, they began telling MC how they were feeling, and the three of them had a rather long but insightful conversation. Given its length, MC thought that Beel and Satan merely wanted to get some things off their chest before it drove them crazy.

As it turns out, they had other plans.

The second Beel had finished talking, his lips were on MC's. A moment later, Satan was nibbling on their neck. Beel had lifted MC onto his lap, and their hands were buried in his hair as he continued kissing them. The sensation of Satan's teeth was driving MC wild. They had no idea Satan was this good with his mouth, and they were already anticipating where else he could use it.

Once Satan felt like he'd left a satisfactory mark on their skin, he gently pulls on MC's earlobe with his teeth.

"Would you like us to fuck you, darling?" he purrs. "We'll take such good care of you. Just say the word."

"Please."

"Hmm?"

"Please, fuck me." Satan smiles against their neck.

"Your wish is our command."

Beel lifts MC into his arms and carries them over to their bed, carefully places them in the center. MC watches as Satan and Beel remove their shirts. Their eyes drink in the sight of the brothers' exposed skin. No matter how many times they've seen the brothers shirtless, MC can't help but marvel at their physique. While Beel is certainly more muscular and toned, Satan isn't nearly as scrawny as he might appear with clothes on.

The two of them crawl onto the bed, each settling on either side of MC. Satan gently cups their face, running his thumb along their cheek.

"You are so precious," he murmurs.

"Like a piece of candy." Beel's lips graze the side of MC's neck. "Sweeter than anything I've ever tasted."

"A sweet delicacy that's all for us." Beel's mouth captures MC's again as Satan begins undressing them.

"You're going to make such beautiful noises for us, aren't you?"

"I'll scream your names loud enough to wake the dead." The two men chuckle.

"Now that would be an interesting conversation to have with the others." Beel's kisses slowly move downwards, eventually landing on MC's chest. His tongue flicks over their nipple before his teeth graze the skin, drawing out a sharp hiss from MC.

"Be gentle," they whine.

"Don't mind me. I'm merely playing with my food." His fingers pinch their other nipple, causing MC to whimper.

"That's an understatement," Satan scoffs.

"They're so sensitive." Beel's fingers tug and twist, the motion drawing louder and louder moans from MC. "I could do this all day." Satan quietly moves closer to the pair and slides a hand down MC's pants.

"Well, well, well. Did being teased turn you on that much?" His fingers push past the waistband of MC's underwear, and he begins gently stroking their slit.

"So soft," he hums.

"Can I have a taste?" Beel pleads.

"I suppose." Satan's hands move away from MC's center, allowing Beel to finish undressing them. Once MC is nude, Beel spreads their legs wide. He leans in and takes a deep inhale, his eyes briefly closing.

"Heaven," he breathes. His tongue darts out and swipes along their folds, causing MC to shudder.

"You taste amazing," Beel purrs.

"I think I'll have a taste too." Satan's mouth lands on the side of MC's neck, kissing and biting the flesh. MC's back arches, pressing their center against Beel's face as they begin riding his tongue.

"Oh, they like that," Satan chuckles. His hand slips underneath MC's ass, and his finger lightly strokes their hole. "What do you say we give them some more pleasure?"

"Yes, please," MC whines. Satan grins.

"Well, since you asked so nicely." His mouth moves away from their skin, and MC immediately misses the feeling of his teeth on their neck. The sensation is short-lived, however, as Beel's fingers slip inside them, quickly finding their g-spot.

"I think it's only fair if you also give me a treat," Satan tells them. He sits up and removes his pants, letting them drop to the floor. That's all the instruction MC needs. Soon, they're sucking on his dick like their life depended on it.

Satan moans and his fingers thread through MC's hair, gripping it tightly.

"That's it. Let me fill your throat with my cock. You're taking me so well." As they suck him off, MC can feel Beel's fingers curling, the tips grazing their g-spot. A third finger joins the first two, and soon MC is seeing stars. The pleasure's so intense, and they can't help but buck their hips against Beel's hand.

Satan briefly glances at MC's mirror before doing a double take. Its current image, in his opinion, is nothing short of a work of art.

"Look at your reflection," he murmurs. "Look how gorgeous you are when we're fucking you like this."

"You're so pretty for us," Beel quietly adds. "And ONLY for us."

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy

[pommunist]

I know you're not a Phil main, but I've got more agonizing things about him to say.

Phil's third favorite egg was richas. He never got to tell him that. Or say goodbye to his favorite nephew.

He blamed himself for being unable to assist in cellbit and bagheras rescue. That he should have gone sooner... he was their team leader and he failed them. In fact... he lost Jaiden and Max as well from the same explosion. Blamed himself for not being able to carry others from the blast. That his wings, yet again, failed him.

He blamed himself for being unable to assist more in Tubbos revival. He felt useless in fact. That they didn't even need him for it. He had promised chay he would help get his godfather back by any means... but he didn't assist at all. He agonized over being unable to assist more kids. When sunny needed cookies, he lamented that he wished he could have given her those cookies she needed when tubbo was down. It's hard being just one guy with two kids. He knew others could do it where he failed.

A choice between trusting his fellow islanders or his kids lives.

He wanted to help everyone get their kids back, he took every book he coukd find to try and find out how to fix things... the local detectives hadn't been around so he did all he could to try and help. He knew it must have been agony for Pierre to assist in the rescue effort, but there are few Phil trusts more than the French when it comes to skill, power, smarts, and resilience. Phil alone isn't strong, isn't smart, isn't resourceful, and isn't patient for puzzles. He knew he wasn't enough.

Even through his possession, he kept to himself. Certain others were far more busy. That they shouldn't need to worry about him. He's fine. It was his enemy, his problem.

His fault.

Noone else should deal with his shortcomings or incapabilities in his opinion.

Just as he quietly tucked his kids in for the last time. Not bothering anyone with the pain he felt the last time he'd see them. Unwilling to burden anyone with anything. He isolated till the very end.

Aaaah qPhil who always ends up being put in a leader/protector position, without having ever asked for it and only getting the guilt of not being able to fill this role as everyone who was under his care either lost themselves or got lost.

qPhil just wanted to have a quiet life but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to obtain.

[enkelimagnus]

Don't Feed It (It Will Come Back)

Read on AO3

True Detective Season 1, Rust/Marty, Rated E

Summary: Follow-up to Something Stuck In Your Teeth

They've fucked. They've gone back to normal, or whatever poses as normal for these two. Except Rust's not one man you own and Marty's not gotten that memo. So when Rust sleeps with a friend of Maggie's, Marty gets possessive. And Rust doesn't like this at all.

Warnings: The usual warnings that come with Canon True Detective, Period-Typical Homophobia, Anal Sex, Slurs, Bad Crash Stuff, French-bashing (self-inflicted)

Full text below the cut

His thumb caresses the grip of his gun where it rests against his belt, runs his fingerprint all over the hard, cold polymer casing and he wonders when they’ll catch him out. 

Quesada knows he’s not listening to a word he’s saying but he’s not snapping at him to get his head out of his ass and pay attention. His tolerance for Rust’s never-ending anti-authority attitude lowers every day they get closer to the weekend and today’s friday.

He’s letting Marty be the spokesman for the both of them, lets him deal with the politics of men like Quesada who only care as long as their superiors do, as long as it will shorten their afternoons lazing around a golf green pretending to play that limpdick excuse for a sport.

Quesada must have been a good cop once upon a time, or at least that’s what Marty’s desperate to believe. Rust only knows he must not have been that good, else he’d know the sort of creature sitting across from him now, and he would know he belongs somewhere the sun don’t ever shine. The least he would do was get that state-issued gun away from him and force him to fend for himself in the firearm department. 

When they walk out of there, Rust is still a free man and Marty’s hand rests onto his shoulder, onto that very spot on his trapezius where, under the shirt, half covered by his undershirt is the crescent moon scar of Marty’s own teeth. He’s gotten the habit of it, of letting his hand fall onto that mark from time to time, a claim or a warning or a threat, or perhaps all three at once. He knows it’s there still, he saw it in the locker room, saw how it was scarring, a bit red still underneath the brown of the scab.

Others have seen it too, men he can’t help but see at work when they grab showers or take a leak by the lockers or grab something from the jacket of their civilian garb. A woman’s seen it too, a blonde little thing with a genuinely fantastic ass Maggie had introduced him to over sweet tea and some help with the plumbing of the house. One thing with being raised by a mad man in a cabin in the middle of Alaska, you learn how to take care of a home, and if Marty felt emasculated by it, Rust couldn’t care less. If he had decided to help out his woman, she wouldn’t be calling him up to help with her fucking pipes.

She calls him sometimes, in the evenings or on days he and Marty both have off and Rust can’t help but wonder if Marty knows that his wife is calling for no real reason but to talk, like he’s one of the girls from her book club. It’s nice though, he likes her like a little sister. She can see through enough of his shit to give a fuck but not enough to run away screaming, and Marty might be annoyed by it at the end of the day, but he’s the one who opened the door first, the one who let his wife feed Rust like a wild animal at their doorway, plying him with coffee and letting him think he could trust them. You don’t feed a stray unless you want it to come back. 

That day though, it had only been a trap to get him in his wifebeater and a flannel over at the house while Suzie was there as well for entirely unrelated reason. He’d taken her on a date the next day, mostly because Maggie had been staring at him with eyes promising divine retribution if he didn’t make a move. She had a nice smile but Rust wasn’t a fan of blondes, and the entire evening, he’d kept seeing Dora Lange superimposed over her like a 1910s film’s archaic special effects. They’d still fucked though, at his place on his mattress in the living room and she hadn’t said anything about that. She’d asked about the bite mark. He’d kissed her to shut her up and it had worked. He had been thinking of Marty anyway. 

The days after that perfect storm are empty of threats and insults; they’ve pierced the abscess and let the pus out and it’s going to need some time to build back up. They know it’ll build back up. The sort of festering wound they have doesn’t ever heal fully. 

Rust’s got a lot of those. Most days he feels like a torn open carcass laying in a patch of sunlight, just awaiting to be shredded further in the claws of some great carrion bird. Vultures are essential to the health of an ecosystem, he knows as much, but he can feel the talons digging into his flesh, three points of pain on his left side, right where the bullets found their way. 

The first one he’d seen, a great big thing, half majestic and half ungainly, was on a field trip his pop had not been able to pull him out of. The wildlife center had a wing – more like a spare room, but they’d been trying to get money out of the state to keep their operation flowing and “wing” had sounded like they deserved the aid more – for the sort of animals that were not supposed to be as far up north as the likes of Ennis. 

They’d only managed to get at the vulture because it had, in its despair to feed and keep itself warm from the otherworldly cold of north Alaska, attempted to steal away some of their critters out of their goddamn dens. 

The vulture had stared into his eyes then, and Crash had once told this story to Ginger, just filed off the specifics and replaced it with another man’s details, and added that the bird must have known what he’d become. Crash had felt like a big carrion bird, but that was before he’d met Louisiana CID Homicide detective Rustin Cohle. Nah, that fucker, the one whose skin he now wears, whose suits he puts on every morning, whose apartment he lives in, that fucker’s the vulture.

So they go back to work, he goes back to making his living off of dead bodies, and they don’t talk about what happened off Highway 10. They settle down into the routine of biting words and eye rolls, into the monotony of the cases that come across their desks. They fail to capture Rust’s attention for too long.

He knows that what happened with Dora Lange shouldn’t be replicated. He knows the obsession, the nights spent drinking coffee like water, staying awake through the sheer force of his will, staying on his feet going through files in the archives, he knows those are not healthy. He also knows that was the most alive he’d felt in a really, really long time.

Even before he opened that big red box, even before he got into that absolutely grandiose cocaine in the evidence locker, the thrill of the chase had lit him up from the inside and it had been what he’d been aching for since he’d joined Homicide. And he’s aching for it now, needs it like you need to scratch an itch, and that stolen stop in the heat of summer, damp and tense and electric in every way had scratched it and for a short, blessed moment, he’d been breathing free. 

He’s always been obsessive, always stared at every tree for a bit too long, always spent nights laying in the middle of the woods staring at the stars and trying to remember what he’d learned from the physics and astronomy intro books he’d absolutely not accidentally forgotten to give back to the school library before spring break. He looked at the space between the stars and wondered if a black hole would ever come to swallow him whole. He’d stared at the constellations and felt ancient and so very new at the same time, a sight held by so many eyes and understood fully by none at all. 

He remembers losing the night every year for two months, and how it felt like losing shelter, losing safety. How losing the day felt like he’d dug himself too deep into the earth to run from the world and he’d gotten stuck in a maze of caverns, every stalagmite the shadow of a person he knew, uncanny and unhinged. He remembers men like Riley Marshall whose words became more and more slurred with every minute of sunlight lost to the night, until he spent those two months barely understandable, only to spring back up with the sun, as if alcoholism was seasonal. 

Louisiana is incredibly steady in comparison, comfortably warm even in the dead of winter, with that golden sun bearing down onto the bayou and the insects buzzing around your ears, steadfast companions. 

So Rust finds other ways to feed the prowling beast in his mind. He reads and throws himself into work and spends his weekends sitting in his convent cell of a house with his head a smear of robitussin or a haze of quaaludes that still smell like the cheap perfume of the women he bought them from. There’s nothing like being high off your fucking rocker and hallucinating dead people staring at you with empty eye sockets and blood bubbling out of their mouths, staining the carpet from where they stand awkwardly in the corner, nothing like feeling the weight of a dead child in your arms and the stench of cocaine sweats on your skin, while you’re neck deep in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 

Death is a given of life, but it’s been feeling like death is a moth to whatever bayou bonfire Rust seems to be made of. He’s always known the smell of it, the color of it, the weight of it pulling at his feet like gravity, keeping him on the ground, keeping him in the world. He cannot remember knowing anyone who didn’t have a personal, intimate relationship with death. Claire had been an anomaly for four years, until she hadn’t.

There are a few places where Crash and Rust intersected, places that made it easier to blend himself and disappear into another man’s skin. They recommend it when you go undercover, to find a cover that has a few things in common, so that lying will be easier. Death had been the main one. Rust had shot a deer down by the time he’d gone into middle school and Crash had grown up listening to the rattling of rifles in the dark in a damp corner of a Texas ghetto. 

Both of them had taken naturally to holding guns, both taken to killing like a duck to water, and the murkier the pond, the better. Dead moms and absentee dads and authority issues and the substantial skill of being able to recognize stronger than you, of being able to follow the rules of the strongest. More than all of that, all the seams shared between those two costumes, what had allowed him to disappear inside of the chitinous armor of that particular monster had been death. Without death, he wouldn’t have been quite as willing to shoot himself full of unspoken substances and spend four years in a haze of chemicals. It’s what made it so easy to throw away a sanity that hadn’t been precious to him in months.

He’s given up on recovering that. He’s given up on getting clean too. That ship sailed a really long time ago. He can do sober, though, most of the time, because the downers help and the work busies his mind enough that he’s not completely trying to drown himself in an ocean of liquor.

He locked the Jameson back into the red box with Crash’s jacket and his boots, and the personal dose of coke he’d grabbed out of that bag for himself, with the rifles and the fake IDs and the markers of Crash. He doubts he can ever go back now, cause Ginger was with him and now he’s locked up, but… it’s in there. It’s in a closet in his house, a skeleton of electricity and leather and whiskey. It stinks up that corner so he never goes there. He locked the door with a padlock so it would be hard to get into. His neighborhood is quiet, no record of home invasion, but there are closer demons than the nameless thieves in the night.

When he’s laying on his mattress with Suzie by his side, quiet now that they’ve fucked a second time, and he’s staring at the ceiling and the light fixture is bloodshot and blinking at him – The eye was in the tomb and was watching Cain. – he can feel Crash in the closet, banging at the door to get out, he can smell the stench of him, of gunpowder and bad trips and murder. 

Marty wore that jacket with the full patch on the back and he must have known what it meant, he’d been in the force for too long not to know, even if bike clubs like the Iron Crusaders didn’t often make it up to him. Their murders were clear and motivated, rarely investigated the way they should, used as fodder to thicken the files that would take down men like Miles. 

He accepted it, though. He didn’t speak on it, didn’t judge it. Marty Hart, the great cowboy of Louisiana Homicide, let that wretched creature run free and didn’t come down on it afterwards. He let Rust put the box back in the closet and he still touched him like he wasn’t afraid of him, still fucked him like he wasn’t in danger. He liked being handled like he wasn’t a bomb waiting to go off. Or perhaps he liked that Marty didn’t care in that moment, that he might go off and kill the both of them at once, splattering red over the beige tiles in grotesque perversions of the shapes of their bodies. His mind supplied the image readily enough.

Marty lets go of him, lets that hand fall from the back of his neck as they reach their desks. Rust’s is clean and tidy, not a single sheet of paper out of place, not a hint of an open case, because there isn’t any. They’ve just finished one, the trail has ended with cuffs dug into a man’s skin and the wide, terrified eyes of cattle before execution. A commonplace crime, a commonplace horror, once again nothing sophisticated. Rust didn’t believe that homicide would be particularly rife with the sort of crimes you read in sensationally-titled books, but he’d thought there would be… more. He can get more intellectually stimulating shit from those dish rags they call gossip magazines, brightly colored like birds trying to attract mates, when he goes to buy his cigarettes at the shop next door to the station.

Marty threw him a comment about getting him one of those 3000-piece puzzles, threw it like a ball at football practice, and Rust let it fall down to the side and watched Marty’s eyes roll and his face show that look of ‘what else should I expect’ that he’s come to favor around Rust.

There’s a piece of wood and a knot of twine left over from those devil traps resting in the upper right corner of his desk, next to a neat stack of some procedure manuals he’s supposed to pass onto the next newbie to come in. There’s been one already, three weeks ago, but when Rust had made it in that morning, the kid’d been halfway down his first coffee, surrounded on all sides by Geraci’s little band of bootlickers and Rust hadn't even bothered with introductions.  

He can see him now, on his way out of the door with the brazen pep in his fucking step that comes with being fresh out the academy. He used to be that way too, before Paul and Ruddy had kicked some sense into him. 

Rust sits down and reaches for the pack of camels, and Marty reaches for his forgotten cup of coffee. It’s most likely cold by now but Marty has the uncanny ability to swallow down coffee no matter how long it has been sitting or how burnt it has become and Rust might just respect that quality in him more than any other. That’s a feat of herculanean strength if he’s ever seen one. 

They’ve got a rare empty workload, after months of back to back, open-simultaneously murders of jealous rage and covetous greed and insatiable lust, their own backwater Dante’s Inferno. 

The afternoon’s almost over. If they were any other men, they would walk out now, enjoy the early night with a beer and a conversation, but Rust doesn’t do beer and company, or early calls, and he’s managed to silently shame Marty into giving some of those habits up as well. They’re now staring at each other wondering who will make the first move and ask for additional work.

There’s politics to this sort of act. You can’t just shame your fellow officers by asking if they got anything they should be working on, no, you gotta beg for it, gotta add mumbles about not wanting to get home to the wife. That line only Marty can carry. He’s been back in Maggie’s good graces for two months now. 

Rust can beg. He can do it pretty too, can go with his hand outstretched like they’re giving him charity, like he’d owe them for it. Those are favors they’ll cash in when they need confessions and they see him idling in the station. They realized some time ago he’s good at those. He just enjoys the puzzles, and he enjoys watching human beings stripped down to their bare essential needs. He imagines he’d be entirely the same, pinned there and dissected, a rare butterfly in an entomologist's lab. 

Suffice to say, he’d rather Marty do it. At least he doesn’t have to flay himself open for it.

So they stare at each other and have this silent conversation, until they’ve reached an impasse and Rust just decides to wait it out. His eyes fall on the wood and the twine. They feel grotesque in this setting so devoid of anything natural, like broken off fingers of some greater entity, stolen in the night. 

They were called devil traps and Rust has been tangled up in them since he first saw them in that field on January 3rd. Did the one who made them know what it would mean to him? A child’s belief that evil could be warded off, left sarcastically to guard the corpse of a woman, of someone’s own child grown up to become disillusioned by the reality of life? 

Sophia wasn’t blonde, she had dark hair like her mother, a crow’s nest on the days they rushed out of the door late to drop her off at daycare. Still she’d haunted him that day, haunted the scenes of those crimes, all until Ledoux’s… bunker. He’d been too strung out for too long to remember her, until they’d had to move those bodies. It had been her hands pushing Marty out of the way to get the little girl. It had been her weight in Rust’s arms on the way out. 

Marty stands up with a long-suffering, exaggerated sigh, a smoke signal to all that he’s lost whatever silent battle he was fighting against his peculiar partner. That’s another way Marty can ask for work without shaming the others, by pretending Rust is pushing him to do unreasonable things. All Rust wants is for them to do their job, so he doesn’t have to go home early.

Rust stares at the back of Marty, the strong lines of shoulders and back, the way he stands with his feet apart, planted there like great oak trees to give himself balance. His hair is a little messy in the back, where he’s run his hand through it a number of times while they were talking to Quesada. He has one of his hands buried in one of his pockets, the other reaching forward, probably in the middle of asking for a file and it’s one hell of a picture, this all-American aged quarterback, begging for something under his breath. 

He’s never liked seeing that kicked-puppy look on Marty, the one he had when looking at Lisa at the Longhorn, when he wasn’t seething with rage. It feels obscene on a man like Marty, trying to make himself look innocent and victimized, trying to look small so someone will pity him. Rust finds it deeply unattractive, more so than the jealousy and the anger and the possessiveness, and all those biting, growling, snarling emotions that make a man into a beast, that make a man something to be scared of. 

Rust reaches up to grasp over the bitemark. He hides it with a roll of his right shoulder, like he’s working out a kink. 

They end up getting saddled with half the station’s paperwork, or something that feels like it at least, and Rust would care more that Marty is glaring daggers at him if he wasn’t cursing himself the whole time. He should have just accepted defeat and let Marty go home, while he went and hid in the archives somewhere in a cobwebbed corner until it felt safe to come out. It never felt safe to come out, but someone did eventually kick him out if he couldn’t justify his presence. 

“Maggie’s gonna kill me.”

“Just tell her you had to work late,” Rust mutters through his cigarette. Marty’s got one too, stolen from his pack as usual. It’s half burnt and he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it sometimes, it just hangs from his fingers uselessly. He could use a pen just as well and not waste the smokes. 

“That ain’t gonna work. Used it too many times for her to believe me now.”

“Man who cried work,” Rust shrugs. He doesn’t pity him. 

He tunes back into the file in his hands, reading through the confession scrawled with a pencil that needs sharpening like a drunk needs whiskey, handwriting like chicken scratches on a yellow block of paper. 

“That does make me think…” Marty starts and trails off.

The confession, where he can read it, is from a man killing his wife, nothing new under the fucking sun and typing it up into a proper format is going to be hell. He guesses that’s what he deserves for asking for extra work. 

Marty still hasn’t spoken again so Rust sighs and looks up from the slice of human stupidity and cupidity smeared in goose poop colors in front of him.

The man looks at him in a way that makes Rust believe he’s had whatever he’s going to say on his mind for much longer than that ‘that makes me think’ lets on. He’s staring him down in a way, with those blue eyes like at the first sky of spring. 

Rust raises an eyebrow. They’re almost alone in the department now, everyone’s gone and left the kind of on time that feels early now that they’ve unloaded their paperwork on them. Whatever Marty wants to talk to him about now, pretending to be casual about it, as casual as a bullet to the gut can be, it’s something he doesn’t mind talking about here. But he does mind talking about it in the presence of the other detectives. 

“Maggie’s been asking me if you had a good time with Suzie.”

Rust frowns. He’s been expecting Marty to talk about something all day. It’s been hanging around, curdling the air, moving around them and tangled in their legs. But he was not expecting Suzie. 

“I…. Sure. She was a nice girl.” 

He doesn’t do this sort of conversation. Especially with Marty, who doesn’t usually mind boasting about his conquests around the others. Rust would think it’s because of what happened off Highway 10, if he had been more talkative before.  

“Hmm mmm.” Marty hums under his breath. “I told her we don’t talk like that, you and I. We don’t have that sort of a rapport.”

“Right.” Maggie would rather not know what kind of rapport Marty and him entertain. 

Rust turns away, towards the typewriter, and he starts to type out that shitstain of a confession. It would make him angry if he wasn’t so used to it now. Men hurt women everyday, those are not news stories. 

“So… Suzie?”

Rust looks back and Marty’s not moved, with that cigarette in his finger burning off almost unattended. That makes him roll his eyes more than the question, more than anything else. He should buy his own fucking smokes if he’s gonna waste them. 

“Friend of Maggie’s. She called me up to fix a pipe problem ten days ago.” He watches Marty tense across their desks. “Her pipes were fine, of course. 'Twas some great elaborate scheme to get me in my civvies at your place while her friend was there.”

Marty’s still eyeing him suspiciously, like he can’t quite believe he wasn’t trying to make a move on his wife. It’s fucking ridiculous, this peacocking of his, this fucking… pissing on the fence to mark it as his. Rust has no intentions whatsoever towards Maggie Hart. 

“So I show up. And Maggie’s busy but she says I should come in, and that the toolbox or whatever is in the kitchen. So I walk into the kitchen and sitting there with a glass of sweet tea half full, is this… Suzie.”

There’s nothing he dislikes more than this stupid sort of show and tell men do. But Marty’s got a look to him and he can’t tell exactly where it is going. He has no desire to get into a fight tonight. 

“Blonde,” he provides. “Nice girl.” He stops for a moment. “Good ass.”

He can see a look of recognition in Marty’s eyes at that. Fucker. Of course that’s what makes it click.

“Susan Cornell,” Marty explains. “From church.”

Rust chuckles and shakes his head. He thinks of the crucifix nailed into the wall above his bed, above where Suzie and him fucked, twice. When he was looking at blinking eyes in ceiling fixtures, she must have been looking at her lord and savior. 

“Well. We didn’t do that much talking, all things considered.”

“So. I guess you like yourself a blonde.”

It’s thrown at him for him to catch, and he can tell Marty’s mad underneath it all. He can’t really figure out why. Suzie was nice and they spent an enjoyable night and he drove her home in the morning because Claire force-fed him manners before their daughter was born. He can’t see where it could have gone wrong.

So he just shrugs and finishes his cigarette. “I actually don’t. Most of the time.”

Marty finally releases that cigarette from the throes of agony. He brings it to his lips and sucks in whatever pitiful amount remains, one deep drag that hollows his cheeks and makes him look angrier than before. Rust leans back against his chair and crosses his arms. Something’s coming, gathering over Marty like a cloud, wreathing his head in lightning and curses. It sparkles minty hot in between them and burns into Rust’s gums. 

“Well,” Marty finally starts after a moment. “Color me surprised. Thought you didn’t like women all that much.”

This one Rust expected. After Highway 10, after that half-earnest conversation where they’d danced around the topic like angels on the head of a pin, he’d gathered Marty thought the insults and slurs were at least backed by lived experience. That was a truly black and white view of human sexuality that Rust had always encountered particularly in those smoke-filled, misery-reeking liminal spaces they called police departments and community churches. 

He licks his lips. There’s a meal to be made of the discomfort Marty Hart will soon be squirming with. 

“You do realize I was married,” Rust starts, slow and lazy like he’s not even trying to explain himself. “For three years. With a daughter.” The simplicity of that equation is plain to see. Even Bobby’s math skills could withstand that examination. 

“Right. You wouldn’t be the first person to get married despite being unsuited to it.” 

This one blooms unexpectedly in Rust’s skull bringing back with it the taste of overfilled forgotten garbage bins and Claire’s voice, too calm and too emotionless telling him she was leaving. The aftertaste is corrosive, burns like acid into the soft, empty crevice underneath his tongue and Ginger’s voice is in his ear, his hand is in his hair, muttering that he’s not normal, he’s not made for normal life, for kids and wives and 9 to 5s, and Crash in him agrees wholeheartedly and shifts ever so closer, hunting for clammy skin under leather.

“I may not be very suited for it these days,” he admits. There’s no use in arguing with the truth of that. “But it isn’t for lack of liking women, Marty. Not that that’s any of your business.”

A phone rings, shrill and demanding attention and one of the secretaries rushes to get to it from the break room, a new one Rust hasn’t managed to catch the name of, something like Annamarie or Annie or Jackie, with ‘a’s and ‘ie’s like twinkling lights over a ferris wheel.

Marty waits until she’s gone to reply. He feels orange again, tense and rough like barbed wire, waiting for him to explode is like walking through the pretend minefields his father set up around the cabin in late spring.

“Well, I’d reckon it is.”

Rust laughs at that, one sharp bark of laughter like a creaking door. From the look on Marty’s face, disbelief and anger at once, he wasn’t expecting that.

“Why? Wanna be my boyfriend?”

The face Marty makes at that word tells him all he needs to know. There’s disgust there, shame and fear so bright, ice cold as the sea up there, sharp as the wind in the dead of winter. Marty makes him think too often of Alaska.

“Thought so.”

He doesn’t love the concept either: boyfriend feels like too sweet chocolate cakes and baby pink shirts and old ladies looking at them with a mix of fascination and pity, like leopard patterns and strawberry lube and calling each other pet names that made people want to commit hate crimes. 

That, the reminder of what people could think of him if they knew, how Geraci would have his balls cut and framed for all to see, that seems to quiet Marty down enough they can finish work.

By the time Rust makes it home that night, his saliva tastes like the yellow confession paper and he walks past Crash’s closet begging himself to give in and open the box and find the pocket sized Jameson intact in there. He doesn’t. 

There’s no bravery, no glory to the act of refusing himself alcohol. He just does, because he knows a single sip becomes a bottle in the blink of an eye, a taste becomes a torrent he cannot fight against. If he gives in, he might as well be on the Titanic in 1912, might as well sink and drown in ice cold memories of death blurred away by cheap whiskey. 

His house is damp with fall heat, with Louisiana mosquitoes and sweat and he finds himself falling into the beat up sofa chair he found himself a few days prior, tipped over on the side of the road by an empty house like a forgotten toy. It’s not too dirty, not clean either, but he couldn’t find bed bugs, just the beat-down of life. So he loaded it in the back of his pick up and brought it home.

Time passes like coffee in a slow drip. He kicks off his shoes and socks and takes off his shirt and tie, throws what’s in need of a wash in the lonesome basket in the laundry room and walks back, barefoot on the carpet into the main room. He was halfway through Camus’s The Stranger when he fell asleep last night and it sits face down, splayed open like a dead bird by the right side of the bed. He doesn’t mind the French when he can read them instead of having to hear them talk. 

He picks the book up carefully and throws a glance at the page he’d been on. Four bullets shot into a dead body. Barely enough emotion to fill one of the espresso cups of those French cafés where you drank at the bar in the morning, throwing back a shot of coffee and a cigarette in the same smooth motion. The portrait of a man so detached from the world that nothing, neither the death of his mother nor a murder committed by his own hand, seemed to shake him too hard. Rust hadn’t fallen asleep because of the book. It had been the pills. 

There is nothing to do here, no case to work, no mystery to uncover, nothing to sink his teeth into. He can’t go out fishing for it either, not if he doesn’t want to end up a fish hooked at the end of a line, mouth opening on nothing, drinking down alcohol instead of water but still trying to fucking breathe. There’s one thing left that’s not drinking. He’s gonna have to go on a run. 

If the inside of his house is a damp armpit in the fall heat, the back of it, the little garden patch with the shed that leads back onto a thin strip of water running down the back of the lot like a piss streak on the end of a sidewalk in the morning, is a Southerner’s deranged rendition of those Alaskan saunas. 

Rust starts jogging down there and feels immediately ridiculous, a puppet whose strings have been cut, left to flail around purposelessly. He knows that this is useful, that this keeps him fast and strong and allows him to handle himself better in the field, that it’s only because he kept up the fucking training that he made it out of that powderkeg with Ginger alive. The price of it is this, the sweat and the repeated motions that feel more awkward than anything else, that make him ache for a cigarette, that make him curse the day his father and mother fucked. 

The worst part is of course that he’s doing it to himself. 

It takes about fifteen minutes for his brain to start shutting up for the most part, no longer rattling on about punishments and self-flagellation but rather showing him perfect images of the terrible things that haunt his dreams, whenever he has them. Broken bodies on concrete and the crown of antlers he’s never, ever going to forget. Those devil traps that didn’t catch anything but Rust in their triangular cages. 

Those he thinks about most. He has half a mind to make one himself and tie it up somewhere, not too far from the crucifix, so that he has something else to meditate about. God and the Devil, allowing your crucifixion and allowing children to believe you can be stopped, two sides of the same fucked up coin the Christian church has tossed over and over, landing in every corner of the known world like a never-ending sickness. 

He can’t say that to Marty. He can’t say that to anyone. He does not actually want to die, though it would be one hell of a way to kill himself. If he can’t do it himself, might as well delegate. 

It takes him an additional forty-five minutes to realize the sun has set and he should go back. He’s coughing and sweaty and hungry like a wolf in winter when he comes back to the nunnery cell he calls home, but there’s a heaviness to his limbs that promises a semblance of rest for the night. It’s not going to come for free, no, there will be a price, some vision of some kind – nightmare-ish, dead kids or dead women or dead somethings, or worse, a good one, of happiness and smiles and the sand of the beach they used to go to by Corpus Christi those first two summers. It’ll come though. Perhaps even unmedicated. 

He opens the back door and walks in, guard all the way down, so of course he gets caught with his pants down like a fucking rookie. He didn’t lock the door when he left. He never does when he goes running, there is nothing worse in the world than the noise of jingling keys in his pocket, it’s loud and metallic and too round on the edges, and it’s not in the right rhythm, always a bit after his feet hit the ground. 

So when Rust comes home and sees Marty there, sitting in his chair with his tie askew and his eyes gleaming with something viscous, something ugly, he’s aware it is entirely his fault. If he was less of a priss about fucking keys, a wild animal wouldn’t have found its way in. 

“So what? You take her back to this dump? Fuck her on that stupid mattress you got like a fucking college student?”

Whiskey slurs his words and Rust rolls his eyes so hard he thinks he might actually strain something. It’s about Suzie, it’s about Rust fucking a woman and it’s about Marty being a big tough guy and getting jealous like a teenage girl with a crush on an upperclassman that maybe said hi to her twice. He’s met enough teenage girls to know they get as murderous as gangbangers on a good day.

“I thought we had thoroughly established I don’t kiss and tell, Marty.”

It’s half of a threat underneath his heavy breathing and the sweat rolling down his back like the first drops of a rainstorm, heavy and slow and predicting something else. 

“It ain’t the same and you know it.” 

It’s not. He’s right. Suzie’s a woman and Marty’s a man and in this world, in this job, in Louisiana, it’s very different. No matter the truth of it, that deep down it’s all skin and bones and blood and Suzie’s teeth wouldn’t have hurt him differently than Marty’s did, and his blood wouldn’t have tasted different in either of their mouths. One day, he’ll be done pretending otherwise. Life is easier to live for now if it’s not made into hell by the men that think they know better than him what right is. 

The truth is, he hates them as much as they hate him.

“What do you want, Marty?” 

He’s hoping that this can be done before the heaviness in his limbs disappears, before the exhaustion falls under the neverending assault of his fucked up brain’s neon lights of thoughts. 

Marty growls under his breath as he stands up, an ugly sort of sound, wet with the alcohol and whatever anger he came in carrying and that sustained him sitting there in this chair for god knows how long. It’s not going to be done soon. It’s never going to fucking end. 

“You planning on seeing her again?” 

He’s stuck on Suzie, a skipping record on a turntable, one spiraling thought, that ugly green-eyed monster with teeth shaped like the scar on Rust’s shoulder. He should have known better than to think Marty would be done after that little interrogation at the station. He never is. He’s a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth with jealousy. 

“What I’m planning to do or not, is none of your business.” He’ll repeat it over and over again, but he’s not going to be happy about it.

Rust reaches for the camels on the kitchen counter, slides one out of the packet one-handed and brings it to his lips. Marty is glaring with that rage-filled intensity that makes his jaw lock into a hard, rectangular shape. A shiver runs down Rust’s spine, sharp and sudden like a lick of a lover’s tongue. 

“You gonna make her fuck you at one point? Tell her you like it like a queer?” 

Rust lights his cigarette and he swears he sees the flash of the flame reflected in the glassiness of Marty’s eyes. Jesus fuck, he’s drunk. 

“Are you gonna fucking stop with the childish insults and tell me what you mean or will I have to beat it out of you? I can treat you like a suspect, Marty, but you ain’t gonna like it.” 

He didn’t mean to get angry but he can feel it rising, the annoyance coursing through his veins like wildfire. He’s good at keeping his cool, at keeping his control, years of living with the strangest present father in the coldest part of the world, years of being someone else’s bitch to survive to the next day, of swallowing down his own vomit when seeing a man’s face without skin, choking to death and thinking this should be him, this will be him. He’s so fucking good at keeping his emotions buried deep inside that half the time he forgets they’re there. Marty’s somehow, within days of meeting him, managed to find the trigger to release them and he won’t fucking stop playing with it. 

Marty snarls now, raising his arms like he’s gearing for a fight because for all that fucking bravado and that attitude and the growling and snarling and acting like a big predator, he won’t talk about his fucking feelings. 

“That’s what I fucking thought,” Rust huffs and pulls on his cigarette, hard and long. He feels the smoke fill the empty cavity inside of his body, fill the space there and the space not there, the void where his heart beats hard and strong. It’s gray and red like blood, harsh as chemicals and natural as a forest fire. Marty’s staring at his mouth like he can’t believe it and Rust just sucks longer, until he runs out of oxygen and has to fucking let go. 

The smoke released rises like it’s signaling his position to someone, like it’s trying to warn others he’s in here. There’s no one to call. All there is is Marty there, that Rust can see through the screen of smoke he’s just created, big and strong and angry and almost ridiculous with it. He doesn’t know what to fucking do with himself. 

“I ain’t planning to see her again. I’m not tryna find a girlfriend, Marty. I just humor your wife ‘cause she doesn’t treat me like a lunatic half the time.” 

“Don’t fucking bring her up,” Marty points at him with his big hands, shaking almost from the anger and the tension and Rust shifts. There’s something different here than the game they’ve been playing. 

“We fucked, twice, on this mattress, and then she slept over and I drove her home. I’m a good little choir boy, Marty, I got manners.” Tame. 

He’s giving into Marty’s questioning because he doesn’t know what it is about anymore. Earlier he thought this was the game. But Marty’s actually mad, actually red with it, with the anger and the jealousy and the shaking need to grab at him and take him and get revenge for him… straying? Oh absolutely the fuck not. 

“If anything, if we’re going purely by numbers, she’s got more of a claim on me than you do, and you don’t see her parading around here acting like a kid whose favorite toy got stolen, now, do you?” 

There’s a flash of something on Marty’s face, something that Rust can’t recognize. Marty looks, briefly, like he’s been punched in the guts, but without the rage that comes with it, just the soft-tissue hurt of bones and organs getting unnaturally close. It’s gone within a blink. 

Sweat is drying on him now, a sticky and humid shell around his skin that makes the slowly gathering night outside feel almost cool. It’s a trick, he knows it. You can never trust sweat, it means too many things at once, it’s a pretty lie the body tells so you don’t believe you’re dying. He licks his lips and his tongue tastes salt. Tears or sweat, it all tastes the same. Another lie.

“You son of a bitch,” Marty spits out. “You fucking emotionless robot fuck,” he hisses at him, pointing a finger like an Old Testament God. “Fuck a woman, doesn’t give a fuck. Fuck a man, doesn’t give a fuck. Fuck me, no wonder your wife left you if you’re that big of a fucking…. Black hole of decency.” 

Rust puts down his cigarette, shoves it down into the ashtray in one smooth, hard motion. It’s getting out of hand. Marty’s ranting, and the things he’s saying… Claire’s staring at him in the corner with blood on her hands calling him a psychopath. How can you not care? Did you even love her? 

“They should lock you up, you know? Holes in the brain, shouldn’t get to go around with a gun. Shouldn’t get to go around with shit. Can’t act like a normal person for a fucking second, man.” 

He means it too, at this moment, Rust can tell. He means it, and he’s fucking right on every fucking count. 

“Marty, you should go,” he says with every bit of restraint he can pull out of his own scarred bone bag he calls a body. He might puke. He might bash his head in. There’s red and metal behind his tongue, blooming with every beat of his heart. “Before you say something you might regret.” 

“Right, cause none of this fucking touches you. Psychopathic fa–”

Rust’s on him before he can finish the sentence, grabbing his tie and pulling hard. Psycho. 

Marty chokes out some aborted noise of surprise and pain and tries to fight back but he’s stupidly drunk and Rust’s sober and hot and filled with so much fucking blood right now. It’s inside of him, bubbling and boiling, getting darker by the second. Next time Marty bites him, it’ll come out black and thick as tar. Marty can’t bite shit right now. 

He’s got his face slammed against the counter and his arm twisted behind his back and Rust’s full weight, with the years of training and knowing and skill, bearing down on him, hurting him. 

“Let GO of me, Rust!” Marty sputters, but it sounds scared, squeaking in Rust’s mind like a rat caught in a trap and it’s one of the most jubilatory feelings he's felt in a while. He’s not a violent man by nature. He just has an appreciation for violence.

Claire’s voice rings in his head. Psycho. Basket case. Why can’t you cry? Why can’t you be as sad as me? She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get the empty hole where his heart used to be, and how that’s taking in all the water. He has a waterfall inside, nothing can escape. 

“Listen to me very carefully now, Marty,” Rust hisses down into his ear, slow and threatening and with every part of him bubbling up with unshakeable anger. How fucking dare he call him that? Walking into his fucking house drunk and out of his mind because Rust dared to fuck someone else? “You’re gonna need to stop this shit.”

Marty bucks against him like a bronco, tries to shove him off but this time Rust isn’t moving. His whole weight is bearing down on him, his arm twisting Marty’s behind him so he can hear the menacing creak of the shoulder like music to his ears, like nails on a chalkboard equally. He can see Marty’s red face pressed into the white of the counter, can feel his body under his, a mass of muscle and fat and nerves and animalistic fear. He has one leg between Marty’s. A plume of smoke still rises from the ashtray.

“Don’t fucking believe for a single second that this?” He grinds his hips into Marty’s ass, slow and dirty and hard and the noise that escapes his partner is a shameful mix of emotions that bloom maroon into his mind and taste like sour candies. “Means you get a say in what the fuck I do with my life. I will let you bitch about my behavior at work but anything regarding the personal sphere is none of your fucking business.”

He wishes he could bite him now, sink his teeth into his neck and tear at the flesh with his own mouth but it would leave a mark. They can’t afford marks that cannot be covered by fabric. 

“I know this is your usual little…. Pathetic trumped up drama you do with the girls you fuck,” he continues and he does let his teeth graze the lobe of Marty’s right ear where he’s speaking, a threat and a promise. “I’m not one of your girls, Marty. You don’t own me. What happened off of Highway 10? I let happen cause I wanted a good time, and don’t you ever fucking forget that I let you fuck me.”

It’s the ‘let’ that makes Marty freeze in his tracks. Rust can almost hear his mind going, the gears shifting as he tries to make sense of what has just been said. Was he still deluded in thinking he made Rust do something he wasn’t entirely interested in? Had he still been living in the fantasy that the little exercise in domination was one Rust wasn’t entirely consenting to, that his folding had been coerced? 

Rust immediately lets go of him, the ugliness of that feeling burning under his hands. The ugliness and the ridiculousness. He takes a step back and watches Marty squirm his way back to being upright, raise his arms to cover his face, something wild and unbalanced in his eyes. 

He can’t help but drag his hands down against his undershirt, feel the sweat getting caught there and the feeling of Marty’s skin, hot and damp and desperate, hopefully letting it smear on the fabric. 

Marty stares at him, in utter disbelief. Even in the depths of Crash, Rust didn’t touch him like that. Oh, he wanted to, he wanted to to the point of getting hard at the very thought, but he didn’t. He had better things to do, Ginger to deal with, the memories and the cocaine to eat through.

Laughter bubbles out of Rust’s chest, tar-like, weighed down by cigarettes and the absolute ridicule of this, of them, watching each other like they’re about to pounce, two large predators stuck in one small room, except Rust’s not playing submission anymore and neither of them really knows what to do with that. 

So he laughs, laughs without smiling, with the jerks of it shaking his body, shaking his shoulders and the reminder of what Marty did that time, the healed scar that will never fucking go away. His laughter echoes in this white, empty room, bounces against the wall and comes back like a punch into their ears and he can’t stop himself, even as he sees Marty brace himself to be enraged again. 

“What’s funny?” Marty spits out but a lot of the bite is gone. He can’t recognize where they stand either. He just stands there, rumpled and a bit less drunk now that adrenaline has burnt through his veins with every rabbit-scared beat of his big beefy Southern heart. He’s getting hard in his pants too and there’s acid red victory in the back of Rust’s molars and in the depths of his guts. 

“You think…” Rust chuckles and shakes his head like it’s the best job he’s heard all year. It might be. “I was gonna fold for you?” The idea is sending zaps of hysterical joy through his confused brain and he can swear the smoke of the ashtray is shaped like a great big bird in flight. A vulture maybe, or Jesus Christ, or Superman, or Dora Lange. A Rorschach test, homemade and addict-approved.

“You… you came here. And you thought… What?” He continues, and he can feel his mouth pulling into a smile, or what would have been a smile on anyone but him. On him, it’s a clown’s forced rictus, it’s the pull of lip over fang, it’s ugly and vicious and cold as the tools a dentist shoves into your mouth and to replace everything where it’s supposed to be. It tastes like metal and bleach. “I was gonna be a good bitch and not say shit when you treat me like you got ownership papers?”

Marty’s eyes are saucer-wide. He’s never seen him smile, he realizes. He’s never seen him do more than a vague smirk and an eyebrow raise and that’s for the better because smiling feels wrong. His cheeks hurt with the ache of unused muscle. There is no happiness there. 

“Bitch,” he calls out, and Marty gets angry again, because that’s not a word you use on a man like him, no. “I didn’t fold for the fucking bike guys I was sucking off with a gun to the head for years, you think Imma fold for your over-inflated rat ego?”

He hasn’t said it to anyone before: not the shrinks, not the doctors, not his handlers. It’s not in any file, redacted or not, it’s not in the notes the shrinks took in Northshore, or in rehab, it’s nowhere but in his mind. And in Marty’s now. 

Regret hits him like a tsunami and he buckles underneath the weight of it, he can see it in Marty’s eyes, the widening, the realization of what it all means, the painful context he’s just imposed onto their relationship and onto what happened off of Highway 10. He wants to recall it immediately, to take it back, but he can’t.

A fly has been trapped since he came in, flying around the room in a frenzy to get out. He wonders, briefly and senselessly, if it knows the swamp of tension it just flew into and is now regretting ever heading in behind him. 

There’s too much Crash in him. The vocabulary and the admission, that’s Crash’s addled brain and his need to prove his toughness, it’s the anger at being thought of as weak. Rust’s not much better than him in that department but Crash is a mess of vulnerability sometimes: he was designed that way. That soft underbelly gets a bike guy like Ginger all hot and bothered, they can smell the bitch they can make out of him and that means an in. And once you have an in, you toughen up, learn to hide the soft behind armor, and show you can play as tough as everyone else, but the guy that got you in, like Ginger for Crash, knows the soft is there. It’s power and hierarchies and jungle law. 

Marty has no way of knowing all this shit. All he sees is Rust laughing like a maniac and throwing him a truth shaped like one of the bones that he must have imagined this whole time and buried deep with the rest of the queer shit he feels and sees in his dreams. A predator realizing his prey is rabid. 

“Jesus Christ, Rust.” 

Rust flinches. It’s a whole body thing, a pulse of electricity shot through him. The crucifix on the wall stares at them with unseeing undead eyes. It’s the same sort of ‘jesus christ’ that Marty says in front of a gored up body, in front of a godless crime, where he feels compelled to bring in his higher power of choice as back up. That’s how he’s reacting to Rust telling him he gave head at gunpoint. 

It’s an entirely appropriate reaction. Rust wants to wash his mouth of the taste of his pity; burned building and overripe cranberries. 

He’s on Marty like wildfire, sudden and unforeseen and he can taste whiskey now, a cheap one too, and beer as well, and cigarettes, terrible ones, not Camels. Marty smokes Camels because he steals them from Rust. The new smell on his clothes and taste in his mouth is disgusting. It’s still better than cranberries. 

Marty takes forever to kiss back, as if he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s not the one on the offensive, as if he wasn’t expecting this at all. He probably wasn’t. Two minutes ago, his cheek was hard against the counter and he was trying to get away from the wave of violence coming his way. Three minutes ago, he was shouting slurs at him. 

He grabs onto Marty’s head with both hands, a tight grip to keep him there but Marty’s not fighting him right now. He’s still reeling from the shock of it. Which shock? He’s not gonna ask, it’s not worth the taste. So he bites him. Hard, hard enough to bleed and there’s a beauty there, in the taste of iron and death that fills his mouth, a mirror to the beige-tiled memories. 

“The fuck!” Marty tries to exclaim, to project the word like a weapon but he’s got Rust’s lips against his and the offense dies there, muffled. 

There’s scratchy hair grown in uneven spots around Marty’s mouth, thin lips stained with the whiskey, the blood pearling over the torn skin, Rust half loses his mind over the textures of it all, the zings of electricity the whiskers send up into his brain with every brush. He’s not a great kisser, he’s been told, he uses too much teeth and is either too intense or too soft with it. He kisses like speaking a foreign tongue, mouth clumsy with positions it is not used to taking. 

Marty doesn’t get to complain. Like Rust didn’t get to complain about sitting in strange positions for a day or two. You can’t complain about things that don't happen. 

When he pulls back, Marty is staring at him with the blood on his lips and the liquor in his eyes and he seems utterly gobsmacked by it all. This is the sort of moment in time where Rust could step back and choose something else. His mind is clear after all, the pills have been out of his system for hours, he’s sober and as clean as he’ll let himself be, he’s just fresh from a run, he’s as close to the picture of fucking health that he can get. He can choose not to thread the needle deeper in. 

They’re partners. They’re coworkers. They’re men who cannot afford to be found out. Marty’s drunk and hard and angry, Rust knows exactly what to do with it. All that misplaced, desperate masculinity has a home, and he can fix it, for just a moment, he can take it into himself and eat it up, and use it to fuel his own dumpster fire body. Whatever that ends up doing to Marty, sending him into the sort of tailspin a man like him doesn’t recover from, that’s fine. That will keep him from staring too hard at Rust’s mouth and imagining things.

Rust is an addict. He’s always been, in some way, with an addictive personality and chasms where reserves of feelings should have been built by his parents. He drank early, smoked earlier, got hooked on adrenaline bow hunting caribou, then stealing bikes, then stealing books. He’s an addict. And Marty’s bright like cocaine, green like absinthe, hard and needy and alive and kicking like a bull in his hands right now. He’s gotta feed the habit. 

His hands drop from face to belt, start undoing it in frantic motions, but they’re steady. These are Rust’s hands, not Crash’s. This is Marty, this isn’t Ginger. It’s barely night, he’s home. He knows who he is, what today is, he knows who the president is. Clinton, September 15th ‘95, Rustin Spencer Cohle. 

Marty’s fingers are on his arm, tracing the edges of the old black bird with some kind of junkie’s fascination. From where Rust is, he can taste the questions on the other man’s tongue. When did you get this? Why? What does it mean? The truth is ugly and Rust will have to do much more than fuck Marty to get him to forget those answers, so he doesn’t leave him time to ask. 

He shoves his hand down the front of Marty’s pants and grabs his cock. Marty’s breath stutters and he makes a noise that only makes Rust tighten his grip. He watches pleasure and pain and everclear need bloom over Marty’s features, his head tilting back until he’s stuck against a wall and breathing out with the feelings of it. He can see it like a cloud exhaled from that open mouth. It’s incredibly vulnerable. Is this what the women get to see? Anyone but Maggie? 

There’s nothing like watching a man get high from his touch, even as small as this. Soon, with more touching, with more skin touching and sweat dripping, he’ll see the heart of him, chest splayed open, ripe for the taking. He cannot wait. 

“What are we doing?” Marty asks, breathless, needy, confused to his very core. Rust pulls out his hand for a second, just to spit on it, and pushes it back into the open fault of his slacks.

“I’m jerking you off,” Rust replies without missing a beat, and he sees Marty’s mouth open, sees the questions pressing there, the feelings he has about it, and decides to shut it down. “Stop talking.”

And though it bothers him, though Rust can see the anger rising into him like a dark cloud of storm over the prairie, he does shut the fuck up. There’s a second where all there is is the uncomfortable noise of almost dry skin rubbing together and a slightly labored breath. They’re so close now, there’s nowhere to look but Marty’s face, or the wall. And he’d stare at Marty for hours if he could, probably, if only it meant Marty wasn’t looking back at him more and more disturbed. 

So the wall works. It’s white and from here he can see the texture of the paint. He can feel his eyes darting towards Marty, pulled by some sort of magnetic field to the wet saliva on his open lips, to the half glazed eyes. He watches, from the corner of his eye, the expanding and contracting of the barrel of his chest, ragged and almost forced in between the little groans of pleasure. This is a position Rust’s familiar with, a hand down someone’s pants and the wall as horizon, as anchor. His head isn’t swimming in substances, but he feels a little unsteady all the same, deep down. Like his core ain’t working right anymore, something’s got shaken loose and he’s teetering at the edge of passing out. 

He leans closer, lets his weight rest against Marty’s shoulder, let his face tuck into the crook of his neck and mouths there, teeth grazing sweaty red skin, hand moving in lazy, dry motions. He can’t help but take it slow now. 

If they were other men, Rust might be on his knees right now, with his mouth full of the hot, heavy cock that Marty’s thrusting into his hand. But that’s not a position he’s willing to take today. Not with Marty. Not when sober. There are limits to how much he’ll debase himself with a man who can’t look him in the eyes when he’s giving him a handjob but doesn’t mind breaking into his house to berate him for fucking a random woman. 

For a moment there, it’s almost nice. It’s a little slow, a little sweet, Rust’s mouth is sucking marks in Marty’s skin that might threaten the fragile state of his marriage, but Marty says nothing, just moans, just bucks into his hand with primal, needy focus. 

It’s not what he wants. He cannot, under any circumstance, do sweet. And neither can Marty. He might not know it but sweet would shatter the thin veneer of straight masculinity he still coats over every interaction they have, the one so many men before him have used before, Rust shamelessly standing in that particular line up. He’ll admit to himself it would be harder to deal with Marty if he was the one that made him queer. It’s mostly for his own personal convenience that he goes through the roster of insults and taunts his mind readily provides. 

He doesn’t have to settle on one of those venomous, taunting spikes, Marty’s hand is on his, uncomfortable, firm, moist, holding his hand that’s holding his dick, nails digging in, hard. He’s maybe just realized this too; that he needs the harshness as the shield for his comfort, and there’s a relief there, Rust finds, in not having the responsibility of Marty’s sense of self rest entirely on his shoulders. 

The angle is worse suddenly, pulling at Rust’s shoulder unnaturally, but it’s easier psychologically. The motions of his hand are harsh, stunted, mechanical now, no longer sweet and languorous, no longer about pleasure. It’s power, again. It’s impersonal, like they’re not the men they are anymore, but still holding too hard onto their roles to let themselves do the exact things they’d like to do. Archetypal. 

Is it part of that pantomime when Marty shoves him back and Rust lets him, back towards the mattress on the ground and its white sheets, clean and fresh because he didn’t want to sleep in fucked-in sheets? Is it part of the play, the sharp sliver of a whine, an injury all the same, when Rust’s hand slips from Marty’s pants as he lets himself settle horizontally? 

He can read the spine of a book on his left, at the corner of his vision, ‘Sex Crimes’ written in obscene bright letters on black background, chemical, loud. It’s a title that screams at you, that demands fascination and horror, that tastes like bile from vomiting on an empty stomach, that feels like that too, eyes bulging, chest heaving, desperate to expel something unnatural and threatening.

Rust looks up at Marty towering over him, at the open pans and the ruffled shirt and the alcohol glaze over it all. He runs his tongue over his teeth, seeks out the sweet sweet taste of the pleasure, of the blood, of the whiskey. Marty stands there long enough for Rust to think of ancient Greeks and circular, traditional violence again, of heroin in his veins and Jameson in his mouth, of relief, of caramel. 

Marty hesitates but he can’t stop watching him, eyes like highway beams over him, staring at the sprawl of his form, the bulge in his sweatpants, the parting of his lips. He can’t look away and that terrifies him, that disgusts him, and Rust is about to pounce and pull him down himself when he finally moves. 

Whatever choice he made there, behind blue eyes where alcohol decreases and fear rises to take its place, that’s gonna come back to bite Rust in the ass one of these days, but he can’t bring himself to fucking care. Adrenaline, need, hunger thin out his blood and his heart is pumping hard, fast, down into his dick. He hasn’t felt this good in a while. He hasn’t felt this hot in a while either.

In this moment, in this choice posited behind normalcy and sin, he’s a succubi for Marty Hart, and there is a delicious irony to it. Marty Hart and his girlfriends and pieces of ass, standing at the door to Hell staring at a fully clothed but hard as rock carcass of a man. 

Marty takes off his clothes like he’s being processed at Avoyelles. Rust kicks off his trainers and the sweat-soaked, uncomfortable warmth of his sweats and there is relief at being naked. 

The bed is too narrow for the both of them, two grown men and the width of Marty, a problem Rust didn’t have with Suzie. Marty runs a hand up Rust’s leg, there’s almost a naive confusion to the way he feels him up, catching nails in hair, lean muscle where fat usually is. Rust doesn’t think he’ll ever be soft, age will dry him up, hollow him out, before it ever happens for him.

Rust lets him do it, touch and prod and grab what he wants. He reaches for lube and condoms by the pile of books to his right (next to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood), pops open the cap and slicks his fingers and there’s a look and a sigh of relief from Marty. Rust huffs, rolls his eyes, gets to work.

He’s fast and he’s thorough and doesn’t care for comfort as much as he should. There's a wince of pain, a sharp tang of acidity behind his teeth and he’s not even trying to make it part of the event for him. It has never really been about that. Foreplay is a luxury for women like Susan Cornell from church. 

The speed is to accommodate his own racing need, the heartbeat in his veins, the heat in his belly, the aching hardness of his cock, but it’s also to keep Marty from running away before they can both get something out of this, to keep him from achieving clarity of thought and running away like he probably should.

Three fingers in, tight, barely wet enough, electricity zinging up his spine with every shift of his hips, a spasm there but he’s almost done. Marty’s staring at his fingers with barely contained fascination, like he’s never fucked someone up the ass before, like he’s never fucked Rust up the ass before. 

Done, finally. Marty reaches for him when he finally finds himself ready, reaching for his hip and starting to pull at him, to get him into whatever position he seems to want him in. There’s another hand reaching for a pillow so Rust guesses he’d rather he be on his front, eyes looking away. Easier, more anonymous, less of a torturous memory, less shameful to put in his spank bank for later. 

Rust’s hand wraps around Marty’s wrist and tightens, hard, over the tendons on the sides, forcing him to let go of his grip. Marty’s cursing and calling out Jesus, telling him to let go but he doesn’t, not until he’s shoved him on his back, sprawled there in all his fucking glory. 

“What are you-”

Words die in his mouth. Rust sinks down on his cock with a hiss. Too hasty with the prep, but it’s fine, there will be no damage from this, just the blankness washing over his mind in the path of the hurt. 

Marty’s eyes are wide. Blue, like a summer sky. Red with lust, intense with pleasure and hunger. Church windows. Bells ringing. Rust can feel him inside, hard and thick and perfect, just fucking perfect. He’s wrenched control away and the truth is Marty’s in heaven right now from it, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, hands fluttering uselessly to the side. He wants to touch him, Rust can tell that much. He doesn’t know how to. 

Power. 

Rust starts moving. It’s a slow, heavy drag at first, in those first seconds where he gains his footing. His thighs start aching within seconds. He’s not ridden anyone in years, and definitely not on this mattress, in this apartment. His body’s not used to this anymore but muscle memory is a long lived creature, and there is nothing it known how to do better than fucking. 

“Ain’t gonna do all the work, Marty,” he warns when his thighs start complaining and somehow; that does it.

Marty’s hands snap to his hips to hold, fingers wrapped around the hard ridge of bone under the skin, hard, tight. It’s like he’s remembered he knows how to fuck someone like this, that he’s done this before. It’s so much better then onwards. 

Rust grinds his teeth and doesn’t say a fucking word, just moves, and takes and fucks himself on Marty’s dick and lets the crashing waves of feeling: pleasure, pain, sweat rolling down his back, nails digging in his hips, ache in his thighs, take him away. It’s so fucking easy, it comes naturally, like breathing air, like dancing to music, like running away.

He keeps his moans to himself, keeps his words behind lock and key, stares at the fucking ceiling now. He can’t see it, not really, he’s just chasing it, the pleasure running down the notches his spine, the heat that burns through him, and it’s not as good as heroin, it can never be, but for half a second, he pretends he’s not falling back into a habit. 

Marty’s hand sneaks from hip to stomach, to the three points of scar tissue on his chest. There’s a fascination under the groans, under the words he says that Rust is absolutely not listening to. He’s chasing something he’s not finding, desperate for the high of it, wishing they were against a wall, wishing for blood, for hurt, for electricity and leather. He misses Crash for half a second, Crash and the recklessness with which he fucked. Mindless, animal, painful. 

And then, and then. Marty’s hand wraps around his dick, tight, sudden, and Rust wasn’t looking where that second hand went, he wasn’t paying attention and he groans, high and surprised and ripped out of his throat with tooth and nail. Marty’s bitten the bullet, must have decided that if he was fucking him, he might as well fucking touch him too, right? He’s staring at his dick in his hand like he’s never seen a penis before and it’s hilarious, and sad at the same time.

Retaliation for taking him off guard. Rust shifts his weight back, leans a bit differently and suddenly the angle is just right and he feels pleasure, white hot and blinding, rushing through his bones, through his veins. He stops there for a second, grinds, slow and hard and dirty, muscles tightening around Marty. 

“Rust, goddamn it,” Marty hisses, choking with pleasure, grip around his dick not letting up, which is starting to hurt, which is perfect. 

Fuel, fire. Marty says his name like a curse, like something dirty and wrong and wretched. Rust bites his own lip until he tastes blood, hot, red, violent and metallic. A crowbar in the legs, a bullet ripped through his chest, broken bones, cocaine, a kiss from an ugly, dirty mouth, yellowed teeth and animalistic greed. 

Marty comes first. He barely has time to warn, barely has time to say a thing, he’s wrecked when Rust looks down at him finally from the haze of blood and pleasure. There’s sweat shining on him, redness everywhere, strain in the muscles of his chest, of his groin. He’s desperate. He needs an orgasm like a junkie needs a fix. Rust recognizes it. And he’s always been generous when it came to bringing people down with him.

Fingers tighten around him, stopping to jerk him off, grabbing at his hip to keep him down, keep him from moving away from long enough to fill the condom. He can feel the force there, feel how Marty wouldn’t stand him to wrench himself away so he doesn’t move, gives him at least that. 

The noise Marty makes when Rust starts moving again, squeezing around him to finish getting himself off: wrecked, small, wounded. That’s what makes him come. He wants to laugh with it, but all he does, once the white, blinding light is gone, once the rubber band has snapped, once pleasure has washed through him, cleansing fire, salt in wounds, all he does is smile. 

They’re panting. Both of them. Loud, bovine breathing in the silence. Rust lets himself get off that ride, lets himself fall, boneless, exhausted, high for a moment. He stretches himself out on the part of the mattress Marty isn’t occupying, watching from the corner of his eyes the rising and falling of Marty’s chest. His eyes are wide open, staring at the wall, at the crucifix. At Jesus Christ, lord and savior, and witness, sole witness of the blood pearling on Rust’s lips, of the splash of white semen on Marty’s stomach.

The laugh is wrenched from Rust’s chest without him having time to stop it. It’s maniacal, rusted, with those edges of contempt and pity. Pity for whom? Marty, who keeps straying further and further away from propriety, from normalcy, from sanity? Himself, who just fucked his partner, the one and only person who can stand to be in the same room as him for longer than five minutes, to satisfy the burning itch of addiction? 

Rust finds cigarettes and a lighter to his right, takes out two. His lip hurts, sharp and bright and tangy when it stretches as he puts one in his mouth. He lights it first, takes one long inhale of it. He holds it out to Marty, with his blood on it, and that’s unhygienic at best, dangerous at worst, and disgusting no matter what, but Marty – father of two, cowboy of Louisiana State – Hart takes it and starts smoking.

He lights the second and keeps it. His body is loose, relaxed for the first time in forever, sated. Pain and pleasure as self actualisation. 

He glances over at Marty, at the frown on his brow: deep in thought, hardness in his eyes, cogs turning in the background, so hard Rust can basically hear them. It’s even hotter than the blind pleasure and death of shame he just witnessed. 

“He ain’t gonna come to life cause you keep staring at him, you know? Jesus is dead.” 

Marty’s eyes dart to him, sharp and furious for a second and familiar. Rust’s teeth ache with it, with the knowledge he has of this look. He’s missed knowing people, he has to admit. He’s missed reading the shifts in body posture, the licking of lips, the popping of veins on foreheads, the darkening or lightening of eyes. Knowing Marty like this, even outside of the biblical nature of what they’ve just done, it’s good. 

“Don’t. Don’t bring this up right now.” 

It’s a warning, there’s a bite under it, and that’s surprising. Rust knows Marty’s as loose and tired as he is, probably even more with the alcohol he had before, and the anger burning energy. He still wants to fight him though. Doesn’t go soft and gentle on him. Good. Easier this way. Much more comfortable.

Silence falls again, just the sounds of cigarette smoke, the weight of it like swamp water in the room. Sweat cools, his lip stops bleeding. He doesn’t know how long time passes. 

“You should go. Maggie’s gonna wonder where you are.”

Marty moves. He shifts over, on his knees, cigarette in his mouth, hand landing on Rust’s throat and gripping. It’s violent and it’s sudden and there’s ash falling down barely an inch from his fucking face and the anger…. Oh the anger. Marty is glaring down at him but he’s not pressing down, he’s not hurting him. It’s a threat. It’s incredible.

“I just fucked you and you’re gonna say her fucking name? You’re a disturbed motherfucker.” 

Rust blinks at him, lazy, slow, unimpressed. They’ve just fucked, and he’s just come but this… It’s a treat. Ice cream after dessert. Indulgent. Minty. 

“World doesn’t stop turning just cause you came, Marty. Your stolen pleasures never actually belonged to anyone but you, it’s your time you’re using. No one else’s. You still got a wife.”

And oh, he hates it right now, he hates that Rust isn’t afraid and flinching away. That he’s got his hand on his throat and the weight of a former quarterback and current cop thrown over him, ready to crush, and he’s not fighting back. He keeps hoping Rust will forget he’s been threatened by scarier men before. He keeps hoping he’ll be the tougher one this time. 

“Get off of me, Marty,” Rust continues, calm. That Crash tire fire from earlier is gone, quieted down by an orgasm and a release. He’s taken control back and so the leather and the baseball bat and the barbed wire has been put away for a second. Get off of me, Marty, or I will break your arm getting you off myself. 

Marty doesn’t lean back. He leans forward. He kisses him.

Rust has to admit, this one was unexpected. This one doesn’t make sense in the framework he’s been working with, where Marty hates himself and is too much of a coward to touch a man in any way that isn’t violent. This one takes half of his breath away, coupled with the hand on his throat that finally does press in just a bit, it steals one terrible sound of yearning and pleasure from Rust. 

And the second that sound resounds around them, he’s pushing back. Puts his cigarette into the ashtray he could reach with his eyes gouged out, and grabs Marty’s hair. Blonde, and soft and sweaty from sex. He pulls hard, ugly, and Marty hisses in pain and bites his lip before he’s wrenched away.

Blood, and pain again. Rust pulls him away from him, tearing him off, and only lets go when he’s back on his knees too, no longer slow and lazy and warm. 

“Bitch,” Marty spits out, but it’s foreign to his mouth and he doesn’t mean it, not really. 

Rust reaches for the still burning cigarette and shoves it back into his mouth and winces, properly winces. He didn’t fucking miss him with those teeth. It’s gonna be worse this time than the last, he’s gonna have to explain the split. 

“I’m not your bitch, Marty,” he replies. “Never gonna be. I ain’t scared of you.” 

He watches it ripple over Marty’s face, the knowledge, the realization, curtains of delusion and denial parting. They’re afraid of him, the women he calls bitch, the women he gets jealous over. He uses his badge and his dick like weapons. Unfortunately for him, Rust also has both of those. 

Marty stumbles to his feet and Rust watches him put on his clothes again, using Rust’s discarded shirt to clean himself off of the fluids splashed over his stomach. Hiding away all the evidence. It’s not the triumphant relaxation of last time. It’s ugly and mean between them now. Unpleasant, and a little worrying.

Camaraderie might be gone forever now. Marty broke the treaty first, he attacked first, came into Rust’s house guns blazing but he’s never going to see it that way. He never does. He’s always betrayed, forever Abel, never throwing the first stone. 

He runs from Rust’s house, from the evidence of it. Rust lays back on his bed, lazy and tired. Deep down, somewhere, he’s hoping the fragile partnership they have hasn’t broken irreparably. It would be a shame. 

The eye was in the tomb and watching him. 

---------

*"The eye was in the tomb and was watching Cain" is the last line from La Conscience/The Counsciousness by Victor Hugo, one of my favorite poems of all time.

Throughtout the whole poem, Cain attempts to run away from the eye of God that won't stop staring at him after he's killed Abel. He runs to other countries, his children build cities where people cannot enter without forsaking God, but nothing works. So he asks them to build him an underground chamber, a sepulchre where he will be alone. They do. He goes sit down in that dark chamber, they close the door and he stays alone in the dark. And in the darkness of the walls. The eye was in the tomb and was watching Cain.

[gotham-ruaidh]

Who I Am - a 7x07 and 7x08 story

Set in the “Tell Me About Your Family” universe – where William visits the new Big House at Fraser’s Ridge together with Jamie, Claire, Brianna and Roger and their kids, Ian and Rachel and wee Oggy, Fanny, and Jenny Fraser Murray, in an imagined Book 9-ish timeline. He’s known that Jamie is his father for some time, but this is his first “family” visit.

Catch up on the story here:

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10

--

“I thought ye said ye were raised on a farm.”

Jenny Fraser Murray reached across to undo the knot that William had somehow tangled in the wool. “Here. Ye pull the strands apart like this, and then ye wind them together.”

William flushed but kept his head bent to his work. “I lived on my stepfather’s plantation for a time, but I was always busy riding or studying with my tutors or helping him entertain guests. I’m afraid I’m not much of a farmer, Auntie Jenny.”

She tsked. “So I assume ye never learned to clickit, either?”

“Pardon?”

“To make socks or scarves wi’ yarn using needles.”

Carefully he wound the strands of raw wool. “To knit? No, I never learned that either. Though I do remember my grandmother Dunsany had a basket full of yarn and thread and thimbles in her sitting room. I got into it once when I was a boy and she was not too happy with me.”

Jenny expertly tied off a handful of raw wool, and carefully took the wool from William’s hands. “Jamie and I learned to clickit from our Mam when we were bairns. My husband Ian – we grew up together, and one year for Hogmanay before we were courting, we knit each other hats wi’out knowing.” She smiled at the memory. “No’ like I needed one, mind. But it was a nice gift all the same.”

William gathered the tied-off piles of wool from the table and began stacking them on the tray Jenny had brought out onto the porch. “Was that before or after he lost his leg?”

“Oh, before. And he didnae lose the whole leg, just the part below the knee. He took grapeshot to the leg when he and Jamie were mercenaries in Flanders.”

That got William’s attention. “Da was a mercenary?”

Jenny nodded, stretching the cramp out of her neck and shoulders. “Aye, for the year after Father died. He had a price on his heid, so he needed to be somewhere else. He spoke French, so the choice was simple.” She turned to look at her nephew. “Did ye not ken that? Weel, I suppose there’s still a lot you don’t ken about my brother.”

William pursed his lips. “I didn’t know, no. It must have been his first time serving with an army, I suppose. And a foreign one, too.”

They watched a hawk glide soundlessly over the mountain. Smiled at Jem and Germaine sitting high up in the oak tree at the edge of the dooryard, swinging their legs from a high branch.

“He’s no’ spoken to me about it. Ever. Ian came home wounded, but Jamie didnae come back to Lallybroch wi’ him, on account of him being a wanted man. It took months until Ian was back on his feet, and while I mended him he told me a few things here and there about what it was like with the army. But then we turned back to running Lallybroch, and we were marrit not too long afterward, so…”

William stood, and extended a hand to help Jenny to her feet. Carefully he gathered the tray, now heaped high with wool. “Where may I take this for you, Auntie?”

--

It was a fine, crisp late summer evening. Roger supervised Jem, Germaine, Mandy, and Fanny washing the supper dishes at the trough in the dooryard, taking advantage of the last light. Jenny and Brianna’s voices drifted from somewhere inside the house, planning for the next day’s spinning of the raw wool into yarn. Ian and Rachel had retreated to their cabin with Oggy, who had fussed quite a bit during supper and clearly needed somewhere quiet to rest.

“Here.” William looked up to see his father holding out a pewter cup, took it, and shifted a bit on the bench to allow room for Jamie to sit beside him.

“I still can’t believe how peaceful it is here,” William remarked, watching the last rays of sun touch the treetops on the mountain.

“Aye. I’ve a short list of things I’m most happy about in my life. Getting the grant for this land is on it.” Jamie held out his own pewter cup, and William tapped it. “Slainte.”

“Slan-juh,” William echoed, taking a sip, feeling proud he did not immediately grimace.

Jamie smiled. “Good lad. We’ll have ye speaking the Gaidhlig fluently before too long.”

“You speak French?”

Jamie frowned, a bit surprised at the sudden question. “I do. And the Latin and Greek, a bit of Cherokee, and a wee bit of Chinese as weel.” He sipped his whisky. “And you, wee William? You must have the Latin and Greek, if your education was as good as Lord John has told me.”

“Yes. And French, and now some of the Prussian language as well.”

“Of course, on account of the Hessians.”

William nodded. Sipped his whisky. “I’m asking because Auntie Jenny told me today that you had served as a mercenary.”

“In Flanders. Aye. That was a long time ago.”

“Was that your first time serving in an army?”

Jamie stretched out his long legs, exposing his kneecaps as the drapes of the kilt fell away, pocked with scars.

“It was. I didnae have much choice, mind you. I had escaped from the English at Fort William, in the Highlands. I was being held for murdering an officer. I hadnae murdered him, mind you, but there was no reasoning with the garrison commander. That man had had me flogged twice in the space of a week, after all.”

William’s eyes bugged at this information.

Claire emerged onto the porch, medical apron tied over her skirts. “There you are. Is now a good time?”

Jamie shifted his pewter cup to his left hand, and extended his right hand over the rail of the bench. Claire pulled up a chair so that Jamie’s four-fingered hand lay in her lap, and pulled a jar out of a pocket.

William blinked, remembering his manners, and craned his neck to see. “What’s that?”

Claire opened the jar and set it between her knees. “It’s a salve I make for Jamie, on account of the pain he still feels in his hand. Helps to loosen the tension. Especially on days like today when I know he’s been using it too much.”

“Near every bone in this hand was broken when I was no’ much older than you,” Jamie explained casually, grimacing a bit as Claire’s sure fingers kneaded the salve into the tissue. “Pained me for years. And then at Saratoga I injured it again. Both times, Claire mended me. She promised me I’d have a working hand, and I do.”

“My first real surgery, this hand was,” she murmured, massaging the palm with both thumbs.

Jamie leaned over to kiss her forehead.

William cleared his throat. “I knew that Saratoga was not your first battle.”

“But it was yours,” Jamie interjected.

William took a sip of whisky. “Yes. I – I thought I would be better prepared.”

“There’s nothing that can prepare you, lad. I was but twenty years old when I fought my first true battle. I’d done the occasional cattle raid here and there, so I thought I’d be ready.”

“I wager you weren’t.”

“No. Drilling is easy. Knowing what to do in the heat of battle, right after you see your comrades die in front of you…that’s something else entirely.”

William watched Fanny and Mandy carefully carry a stack of clean plates and pewter cups across the dooryard and back into the house. Smelled the sharp, clean tang of the ointment.

“I am ashamed to tell you this, but I do not think I acted too honorably in the first battle.”

“At Saratoga, you mean?”

William nodded, looking down at his hands. “I froze. My comrade…my friend…took a bullet right next to me. All I remember is General Fraser screaming at me, but I couldn’t hear any of the words.”

He watched Jamie’s hand slide on to his, gripping it. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, son. It’s the hell of a shock. I’ve experienced it myself, a time or two.”

“Prestonpans. Culloden. The war with the Regulators,” Claire murmured.

William swallowed. “I recovered, of course, and led the next charge. Though now I realize it was you and your men I was fighting, and that fact makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.”

Jamie squeezed his son’s hand. “Take that feeling, lad, and multiply it by the largest number ye can think of. And then you’ll know just how I felt, when in the second battle I shot your hat right off your heid.”

William raised his mug to his lips, watching the liquid slosh as his hand shook. Feeling his body seize up with tension. “Dear God.”

His vision swam. His pulse dropped.

Steps – Mother Claire. Gently taking away his mug, and resting her hands on his shoulders. “William. It’s all right. You’re here with us now. Breathe deep.”

Jamie’s hand gripping his. “In and out, lad. Follow me.”

Claire undoing his stock, settling a hand on the clammy back of his neck. “Slowly now.”

He did not know if it was minutes or hours that Jamie and Claire surrounded him, comforted him, soothed him.

But when he did return to himself, he was crying.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped.

Jamie squeezed his shoulder, and kissed his temple. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, lad.”

“It’s called a panic attack.” Claire felt his cheeks and forehead with the back of a cool hand. “Have you had them before?”

He licked his parched lips. “Yes, but never that strong. Only when I’m truly upset.”

“I can give you some guidance on what to do, should it happen again and we’re not here to help,” she said gently. “But there’s no cure. I’m sorry to tell you that even in my time, these things happen. Perhaps even more frequently.”

William swallowed. “Have men not discovered a way to end all wars, then?”

She knelt on the porch, still holding his pulse between her fingers. “I’m afraid not. You know that Jamie’s endured several wars. I endured a war of my own, in the years right before I met him. England and France and the Americans were all on the same side of this war, if you can believe it. Fighting the Prussians, in the fields of France.”

“They called it a world war,” Jamie added. “Men fighting each other wi’out swords, but with guns, and with bombs dropped from the sky.”

“I worked in an aid station, right at the edge of the combat zone.” Claire looked at him, but her eyes were so far away. “Patched up many men not too much older than you. So, I understand.”

William swallowed. “I – I am a soldier. Being a soldier is what I’ve aspired to for my whole life. To be like my stepfather, and the men in his family.”

Jamie and Claire listened, patient.

“But I like this – being with all of you, here in the quiet. Perhaps I’m more cut out to be a farmer. I love my men, but this life here…”

“We understand, William.” Jamie reached to cup his son’s cheek, for the first time in his life, as if he were a wee lad. “And we will love you and support you no matter what you choose.”

“The Americans will win this war, will they not?”

“They will,” Claire said softly. “Of that I’m certain.”

William set his jaw. “Perhaps I should start spending a lot more time here.”

“There’s nothing we’d love more. But you have a life outside of this place, William – we cannae keep you from it.”

“Being here, with all of you, this past week – it makes me wonder whether this life here is more important. I need more time with you, Da – and with you, Mother Claire – and with Brianna and her family. I need to know who I am.”

Jamie smiled. “You already do, lad.”

[always-outlander]

Easter Eggs and Spoilers for 7x03 below the cut! 

The Big House

The big house burns - and we learn that Arch Bug had been hiding a secret right beneath Jamie and Claire’s nose. But what I found especially interesting about this storyline (and even more so when I first read the books), was the discovery that their obituary was written in error, and why.

Claire and Jamie remark that it is not January at the time that the house burns down, and it’s clearly not even Fall in the show (in the books the house burns on December 21st). Claire also makes a comment about how newspapers never get anything correct, which is comical considering Jamie’s previous profession as a printer.

In the epilogue of A Breath of Snow and Ashes, we discover that the news of their deaths was reported by a reader of the local paper in Wilmington, and was used to fill a page beneath General Washington’s address to the troops. Spoiler territory, but it was actually Tom Christie who heard of the big house fire and wanted to put a formal obituary in the paper to honor Claire and Jamie. We see that Tom is very much still alive in the preview for this week’s episode, so that will cover the rest of that storyline.

But back to the book epilogue. The printer admits that he was told the news of their deaths in December, but printed the date as January because he had set the page in a specific font which had been missing the November and December slugs, and would have had to type it out in separate letters (which he did not feel was worth it, since after all, they are dead).

1980’s

Back in the future, we are in Inverness with Fiona and her husband and daughters. We briefly see Jemmy and Fiona’s kids playing in the yard, with Mandy in the bassinet and implied to be recovering from her heart surgery. The year is 1980 but it’s implied they have been there for a little while now - I know a lot of people were confused as to why there was such a time jump. Claire and Jamie are in 1776, and while Claire always says she went back 200 years, we will soon learn once Roger begins writing his book on time travel that it’s not exact every time.

There, Fiona gives Bree and Roger a mystery box which had been delivered to Reverend Wakefield’s former address and kept by the bank for over 200 years. In the books, Claire and Jamie deliver this chest to a bank in Edinburgh once they arrive back in Scotland so that one day in the future it would be delivered to Jemmy. So to ensure that no one else would ever open the box at that time, they gave strict instructions that it not be opened by anyone other than the name on the top, and used Jemmy’s full name (presumably so that no other Scot with a similar name could claim it as theirs). We see them writing those letters in this episode to Brianna and Roger, updating them as to what has happened and their journey to Scotland.

In the books, the end of A Breath of Snow and Ashes is Bree reading the letter and line “we are alive”, then the book ends. I like that we don’t have that cliffhanger here and can see this storyline unfold right away as it is one of my favorites from the books. In this moment we were able to get excerpts from a few more letters which are taken directly from An Echo in the Bone, and can see how Jamie and Claire had both taken turns writing to the McKenzie’s.

In the books, the box includes letters, two books, and Sawnee, Jamie’s toy snake from his brother. In the show, they included a musket ball which we saw them making out of the stolen French gold in the episode. Another difference is that in the books, the letter is written on December 31st, ten days after the fire. In the show, it’s written in April.

Bree and William

In Echo in the Bone, the opening scene takes place with Bree and Roger still in Wilmington, and standing with William watching Stephen Bonnet tied up in the harbor (obviously this has been rearranged in the show, since the Bonnet storyline wrapped up in Season 5). It is on the shore that she meets William, and William meets Mandy and Jemmy as well. Then we cut to Lallybroch in September of 1980, where Bree and Roger are continuing to read the first letter from Claire. Having been so immersed in the show, it’s easy to forget how many storylines they have moved around from the books.

Like the books, Roger points out that Bree’s matches are in fact the thing that caused the fire of the Big House while reading Claire’s letter. He points out that in trying to prevent their deaths they had succeeded, and changed the future. This is reminiscent of Claire and Jamie’s journey to France and how their attempts to prevent an event were likely the very thing that caused it.

Ian and William

Back at the Big House, Claire, Jamie and Ian are going through the rubble in search of anything they can recover. Amongst the items are a few of Claire’s books, Jamie’s old tartan, and a piece of the french gold. Young Ian is also able to recover the portrait of William that Lord John had given Jamie.

In the books, Ian had been suspicious of William’s parentage the first time he met him as a child back on the Ridge when he and Lord John had visited. He had recognized his stubborn nature as one that mirrored Jamie’s and his mother’s, but never made mention of it to Jamie. In the show they took this opportunity to have Jamie and Ian share that really lovely moment. You can tell what a relief it has been to Jamie each and every time someone else learns of this secret he has been harboring. And Ian has such a huge role in Jamie’s life as his only true remaining family to be with him now. I really think John Bell is the perfect Young Ian.

French Gold

Arch Bug and Jamie have their inevitable confrontation where he admits that he had been taking it back from Hector Cameron bit by bit each time he was sent to River Run. For backstory and a refresher, Jocasta Cameron (Jamie’s aunt) was married to a man named Hector Cameron, who we briefly saw in a flashback during season 4. Hector, his brother in law Dougal (Jamie’s Uncle), and a third man (who we now know was Arch Bug’s Laird, Malcolm Grant) had the gold and intended to use it to support the Jacobite cause and aid Charles Stuart’s rebellion.

When Hector Cameron and Jocasta fled Scotland after the rising, they took their share of the Jacobite gold with them and used it to fund River Run. It was during that journey that Hector accidentally killed he and Jocasta’s daughter, Morna. Arch felt that the gold was misused and Hector was a traitor to Scotland and the cause. He felt it was his duty to take it back, and in doing so he stole from Jamie’s family. Jamie terminates Arch’s employment at the Ridge and releases him of his oath to him.

In the books this moment is substantial because the Bugs are less of background characters and we have seen how much they mean to the Frasers. The show isn’t able to capture that properly, and even more so with Mrs Bug. It isn’t until An Echo in the Bone where Mrs. Bug returns to the Big House in search of the remaining gold where she is mistaken for Arch and is killed by Ian. She was a grandmother figure to Ian whom he deeply loved and appreciated so this was heartbreaking in the books. I suspect in episode 4 we will see Ian and Rachel meet and perhaps by the end of this first half of season 7 we will have Arch return. In the books he goes after Rachel a few times, as Ian is in love with her. William is the one who saves her a few times, and I’m looking forward to him and Ian interacting with one another for the rest of this season.

Return to Scotland

Back on the Ridge, time has passed (as made evident by Claire’s hair). Jamie and Claire discuss where they might set out to build another house, and they share a conversation about where they would like their body’s buried should either of them be killed which is direct from the books. Jamie tells Claire that he wishes to first return to Scotland, as he had promised Ian and Jenny that he would return young Ian to them. With the war looming, it is now or never. They agree that they should go and begin making plans to travel back across the ocean to Lallybroch.

In the books he does not admit that to Claire right away but instead says his reason for returning is to fetch his printing press. The Ridge is no longer a safe place for them while there is so much unrest regarding Malva and now Mrs Bug. Claire thinks they can go live with Fergus and Marsali in New Bern, and it is then Jamie tells her he wishes to bring Ian home and have him avoid the war.

That night, while in bed, Claire can hear Jamie praying. In the books, he leaves their room and goes to a small pool or water near their cabin to pray, and Claire finds him there only to pick up on him praying to God to let him be enough. I enjoyed how this scene was shot in the show better, to be honest. And rolls perfectly into the following morning when Jamie tells Claire of his most recent dream.

The frequency of Jamie’s dreams of the future seem to be increasing, and this time he tells Claire that he saw the McKenzie’s. They were walking up to a house, and looked happy. He is able to tell Claire the name of the woman speaking to them both, Fiona, which Claire knows she had not shared with Jamie before. He also tells Claire that Jemmy was trying to talk to him through a box he’d never seen before, and she tells him it is a telephone.

To hide what was left of the French Gold, Jamie uses some of it for musket balls and the remainder he puts into a chest. He and Claire then return to a cave that we find out he used to come to with Jemmy. Inside the cave, Jamie shows Claire the remains of a Spanish man who died there. This is later important in Jamie’s cryptic letter to Roger and Bree which reveals Jemmy holds the key to finding it. The storyline with Jemmy in the future gets very interesting, and I feel like the cliffhanger for the end of this first half of the season might be his kidnapping.

A New Knife

Back on the Ridge, Jamie and Claire share a scene straight from the books where he gives her a new knife for their journey. There are lots of direct quotes from the books, minus a few dirty comments from Jamie. The two blood the blade and call back to the iconic line from their wedding, “Blood of my Blood” with a reworked version of their theme song.

I loved this parallel to their wedding, where Claire was not given a choice to share her blood and partake in this act. Now, we see her blood her own blade willingly and choose Jamie once again. The theme of Echo and the Bone is definitely heavy on Jamie’s self worth and Claire choosing him over and over again. Their strength as a couple will be needed more than ever this season, so I like that they are reinforcing that with these scenes.

Lallybroch

At the end of the episode, Bree and Roger drive up to Lallybroch. Ironically they were filming at when I was in Scotland last year and my tour was cancelled because they ended up extending filming due to rain. While there, Bree explains to Roger how much he would have loved the house in its hay day. They cut to a shot of Bree sitting on the steps looking through the gate like Claire had back in season 3 imagining Jamie there. Worried they are trespassing when another car arrives, they learn that the property is actually up for sale. When we see them in the future again in the books they had already purchased it, so I liked getting to see this scene in the show. The house is so central to their storyline and feels like a strong return to seasons 1 and 2. When Jamie and Claire go back to Scotland this season the two couples will be at Lallybroch simultaneously across time and I think that will be incredible to watch.

Wilmington again

Claire and Jamie travel to Wilmington (doesn’t it feel like they just left and were only home on the ridge for a long weekend) and along the way Claire spots Adso. She knows she cannot take him with her and sadly leaves him in the woods to live out his life at the ridge. She has a moment where the reality of their home being gone again hits her all at once and they have a really touching scene where she sees the stake that Jamie first put down in season 4 when they arrived at Fraser's Ridge.

She asks Jamie if they will make it back there one day, and he admits he never thought he’d see Scotland again but the Ridge is where they are bound, so they will. This ties back to his conversation with Bree where she tells him that the freedom gained in this war is worth fighting for, so Jamie knows he must take part. To wrap a nice bow around the episode, Claire says to him that he will always be enough for her, and it was the sweetest moment as the two ride off towards their next adventure in Wilmington as they prepare to travel to Scotland.

A good episode, pacing is still quite quick, but I’m enjoying this season a lot.

[kavalyera]

Do you have any Marquis head canons?

HAIIIII YES I DO :3

this is rlly long btw i got carried tf away😭

He doesn’t care about labels (he’s too busy being violent💗)

Since it’s pride month— Vincent is bi/pan with a preference to men

^ he likes men who can kill for him ^_^

^ and cool women (WUXIA DJ)

Vincent hates ducks because she grew up in a French province and kept getting chased by them as a kid

Doesn’t actually like watching ballet he was just told it was a cool thing to watch so he goes to watch but ends up spacing out in every performance

She went to high school in a multitude of places because he was growing rebellious and his father didn’t want to deal with his phase

Vincent hates forests since it reminds him of losing control, and being lost

^ something he never wants

Vincent smokes (it comes free with living in Paris)

He used to be religious as a kid but ended up not really caring enough to follow every rule💀

^ He only uses his Catholicism to inconvenience anyone he wants

Vincent also despises reptiles, she thinks they look fucking ugly

He says he doesn’t like tattoos but actually likes looking at them (would never have one)

^ (he’s too much of a pussy)

His first language is French of course, followed by Spanish and then English, and then -> Italian!

He literally didn’t do anything when he was a child because he was kept so isolated so she just ended up like learning languages to cope with the loneliness

Vincent doesn’t care if her YSL shoes are fucking killing him he’s gonna be taller than everyone if he wants to >:/

Never wants to step foot in the US the best he can do is New York for like three days before he starts tweaking

^ as if Paris is any better

Vincent almost never swears in English and even if she does it’s pretty mild

^ In French however….

Doesn’t like it when people call him by his first name rather than his title, and he’ll start getting passive aggressive if he isn’t called by “Marquis” or “Sir”

Vincent talks really fast in French😭 (Chidi has to catch up)

He doesn’t like hunting wether that be people or animals, he would rather be having afternoon snacks or sleep instead

^ Or read which she does so much

His favorite book is Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire because I read it and I said so + this quote is literally him so

He had a pet cat in high school named Rhea which was actually just his paternal grandparents’ and he got attached to her

^ speaking of paternal grandparents, he lived in their townhouse in Paris while studying in high school and they taught him Italian

Vincent has had a multitude of journals where he wrote in; poetry, diary entries, and notes on people

He used to go clubbing in Paris and other cities that he visited; but most importantly he liked clubbing in Berlin because clubs were exclusive and fucking wild

Vincent visits his mother’s grave any time he can

He used to have photographer friends and ended up being a model for them

^ he still has the polaroids and prints folded into his old journals and books

^^ it’s always a surprise for the housekeepers to find them

Her crimes outweigh the suffering of his past because I love irredeemable villains

When Vincent gets upset he just goes really silent and gives everyone the silent treatment

Vincent pulls Chidi to anywhere he wants to go wether that be a bakery or the Louvre…: again

He’s a control freak that wants everything the way he wants or else he’ll start freaking the fuck out

^ and most of the time her ideas are actually beneficial

Her bed has so much pillows which is kinda why he always sleeps

Hypersomniac might I add

Vincent’s sleep schedule is really fucked because one day he’ll sleep for 17 hours straight and then the next he’s still energetic for 24 hours

He’s an extrovert that adopts introverts (Chidi et Adjudicator)

Can’t pronounce “Mississippi” and “squirrel”

His relationship to his dad is like Veruca Salt and her dad except imagine both of them being violent towards each other

Vincent is incredibly good at playing piano cause his ass was not allowed any other sort of hobby as a kid

Loves collecting blades💗

Vincent’s style gets influenced by whoever he’s dating

^ DJ’s style rubbed off on him and they matched, it was a sort of chill Paris fashion

^ when he dated Santino it leaned towards more Italian fashion, particularly there to match Santino’s classic Italian style

^ and when he’s finally with Chidi, Vincent is most comfortable in this style because he feels like he’s definitely someone to be feared

He hates beaches unfortunately

I’ve said this multiple times before but he LOVES Françoise Hardy, Charles Aznavour, and Patricia Kaas

^ he gives off vibes that he loves vintage French songs which should be canon cause I can’t imagine him listening to anything else

ANYWAYS THAT WAS REALLY LONG THANK YOU FOR ASKING ME :3