#and i think it's kinda ridiculous when people act like the crew is gonna have a major grudge against *izzy* for mostly edward's actions

[ladyluscinia]

In an ideal world, DJenks could build on Lucius’s poly ideas in “we don’t own each other.” and Stede and Izzy’s (super limited) abilities to compromise with each other (via hostages) and they could both be with Ed and everyone in the love triangle is happy, but that seems super delusional at this point, even if it’d be so cool. So, what do you think a realistic happy ending for Izzy would look like?

I think I pulled up a link I wanted to include to answer this like a day or two after it was sent, and then I promptly got distracted and didn't actually type anything. Oops.

Anyway... happy endings.

So here's a post where I kinda speculated on this before that's worth reading. It brings up some tropes that I think are in the mix of possibilities and how I personally feel about them.

For an answer to your question... The way I kind of see the "compromise" situation coming out of S1 is that all the characters are falling on a sliding scale between two not-ideal extremes of piracy philosophy. One end has Izzy firmly planted as the extreme of Edward's default approach - iron fist, emotionally closed off, total focus on skill and discipline, ruling things through a balance of fear and awe that makes them really good at piracy but emotionally and interpersonally a disaster. The other end is probably Lucius as the extreme of Stede's approach - all focus on interpersonal relationships and emotional fulfillment, wanting to have fun and do no work, flaunting hierarchy, and generally failing piracy in favor of self expression.

(Note it's important that Edward and Stede can't truly hit their extremes - Edward is too seeking of attachment and frivolity even as he bristles at vulnerability, and Stede is too emotionally locked up like a clam to practice what he preaches and now has no money to fund a permanent enforced vacation. They don't really want what they perceive as their culture goal, which is good because both their goals kind of suck in different ways. The Kraken is doomed to collapse because it's further out than Izzy.)

The whole crew, Izzy included, needs to make their way toward the midpoint (which, given this is a romcom, is probably not a true middle but skewed a bit toward Stede and silly hijinks) in order to be successful AND emotionally fulfilled. And I think they can do it!

Like Stede's whole vacation boat and enforcing his own unskilled, atypical piracy in the early eps has already caused friction with his crew. They want to be badasses, face challenges, complete raids, etc. The fact they've grown to like him doesn't mean they've decided Stede's hobbies are better than theirs now, it just means they are more open to doing something silly with him and enjoying it than they were in 1x01. I don't think the show is going to end with "retirement" because I don't think any of the characters really want to retire (including bored-as-hell Edward). And if they are still being pirates - in fact, trying to be good pirates - then it's not unrealistic to think Izzy can chill out a bit via character development and get in on the fun.

This is a guy who met Stede and sliced his shirt up as a hello, and then did literally everything he did in 1x06. He's not an inherent buzzkill of a person lol. He's just stressed.

Izzy and Edward working out their shit is probably going to be a extended part of Edward's general character arc, but once they get through that I feel like Izzy's happy ending will be just moving from lurking on the stairs to being in the circle. Give the man a friend, a knife game, probably a boyfriend for the middle aged love parallels... and throw in a real, much scarier antagonist for S3 just to cement him on the Revenge side (*crossing fingers* please be Hornigold).

He'll do just fine.

[meraki-yao]

thank you so much for your reply <3 i think grief is a good word to describe what i'm feeling. it might sound silly to some but the book has been one of my favourites since 2019 and the 'what could have been?' aspect of the movie's promotion devastates me bc the crew and the fans deserved more. i think im also a bit terrified of ppl moving on from rwrb to nick's other projects meanwhile i can't (and don't want to) do it, ugh it's just a mess of weird feelings and sadness and longing for something we've never had. not to mention how some people already talk about his new projects being upgrades from rwrb. that hurts me on so many levels bc henry is a complex and beautiful character, rwrb is a wonderful story and i genuinely think that even with all the changes they created something amazing.

Glad I could help <3

It's not silly at all. I'm in a similar position: if you've followed my blog you might have seen this but long story short my irl life is a bit fucked up and I was really, really depressed. (still kinda am) July and August, waiting and watching RWRB release became the happiest I've been since January 2022, and in the following months RWRB and the fandom (well, and my sister) nearly became my sole reason for hanging on. So trust me when I say I get the feeling.

I understand your fear, and I'd be lying if I say I wasn't afraid that the rwrb tag will be full of George instead of Alex and Henry, but please remember that liking something new doesn't necessarily always lead to leaving the previous fandom: I know for a fact that me and a couple of my mutuals are going do both. We're gonna be happy to watch M&G (personally not interested in the idea of you but the same applies) but we're still going to make RWRB content. M&G will be a great show but it won't have nearly the same emotional weight to me as RWRB. It's been five months, so those of us who hang around and are active are active for a good reason.

As for the comments about "upgrade", that's ridiculous and a very surface-level assessment. One of my best friends is studying to become an actress and we talk about acting often. Here's the thing: there isn't a thing called "easy" acting. Every genre of acting has its own challenges: for comedy many times you need to sacrifice your personal dignity; Sci-fi blockbusters you need to interact with nothing and make it look believable; even for things like kid shows you need to be hyperactive so the kids can focus and find it entertaining, which can be so draining. M&G is a historical thriller, TIOY is a romance, and RWRB is a rom-com. These are three different film genres, and each set out to achieve different things. For example in terms of relationships: TIOY needs to make the romance believable, RWRB needs to make the romance believe, funny, and be a fair representation of a queer relationship, and for M&G if history serves there's no "true love" relationship at all. You're right: Henry's a complex and beautiful character, and Nick clearly put all his heart into him. But you cannot take Henry's layers of grief, love, fear, and self-esteem, and say it is lesser than Geroge's cold ambition. Funnily enough, while Henry is so careful with his power as the prince, George rose to the same if not a higher level of power and abused it so badly, that it caused his assassination and downfall. A well-written character is ultimately, a human being, and there isn't truly a human being who's "easy to be". So don't listen to those haters.

I'm all ears if you still want to talk <3

[chuya-chuya-blog]

I got all caught up on Black Butler and sustained emotional damage. What a roller coaster! Snake was one of my favorite characters. I'm so sad! I hope Yana Toboso will add a scene where him and the circus crew are happily together in the afterlife. But I don't know if it'll happen, since they WERE kidnapping children. Sure, they didn't WANT to, but even though they were following orders, they were still doing something that they knew was wrong. Not to mention the guy they were working for was connected to the people who tortured Ciel and his brother.

But Snake wasn't involved!😫 He deserved to live!!!😫😫😭😭😭

I'm 1000% sure they're gonna bring him back as a living corpse. But he might choose to help Ciel out in the end. I'm certain Madame Red and Agni are gonna reappear, too.

Speaking of Ciel and his brother, we still haven't found out his real name. I've been calling him "Not Ciel," but I, for one, wanna know what his name is. They're probably gonna show us when he dies and the Shinigami do their stamp thing. I hope it's not Sirius. I'm not sure how I feel about this whole "bait and switch, he has a twin," storyline to begin with, but I feel like Sirius would be too much in a way.

I bet the Undertaker is not an actual villain. Like the whole Itachi situation. He was giving Ciel some kind of serum in his sleep too, wanna bet it's some kind of medicine or protection of some sort? Or maybe he's preparing to turn him into a living corpse, too? What if Sebastian eats his soul but the boy is still walking around? How would that work? And since the Undertaker was a shinigami, can he actually PREVENT Sebastian from eating his soul?

I feel like the Undertaker may be trying to protect the Phantomhives. Something tells me he was in love with Ciel's father, I just kinda get that vibe, but I could be wrong, though.

I wish Snake didn't die. What's gonna happen to all his snakes now?☹️ And what about Soma? I feel like with the way he's acting, he may end up summoning a demon of his own. But I don't know what would happen if the series went in that direction.

Psych House got axed.😔 But it wrapped up nicely, and wasn't dragged out too long, either. No unnecessary twists and turns, and everything was explained enough. There were no unanswered questions.

Fool ended too, but that had to end, the gags were getting ridiculous. I liked the last chapter a lot, though. Addressed the situation in a gag manga kinda way, tied us back to the beginning, and even managed to make us feel hopeful for the characters. I feel the ending was done well.

Shiba Inu Rooms is getting interesting! I didn't expect Mu to manage to leave the room. With this development, I think it will hold on to the readers' interest, and we'll see it develop longevity because of this. There's so many things that we can explore now with Mu's new situation.

I really like Rugby Rumble. I can't believe I'm reading a sports manga.😂 From the beginning, no less. But I like it. It manages to hold my interest every week and even has me on the edge of my seat at times. I LOVE the artwork, too. Stylish and practical. I also love how the sports games aren't dragged on for super long, sure we have to wait for the next week to see what happens, but the pacing is really good, and it doesn't feel like you waited that long at all. Each chapter manages to be satisfying, too. Of course, there isn't a conclusion in each chapter, but we still get some questions answered, which keeps us satisfied regardless, and it keeps the plot at a really good pace. I'm really happy with Rugby Rumble, I think it's super well done.

I've read a few chapters of Gokuragai. I like it, but you can feel that stale shonen jump formula in it. The artwork is top-notch, a treat to look at, really, and I find myself reading it for just that alone. The characters are all super likable so far. In fact, nothing I've read in it has pushed me away yet. It's just...kinda forgettable since it's so shonen standard. I can see it getting an anime and probably becoming one of the next big three in the future.

I like Ichi the Witch. The art is a little cluttered for me, but I can deal with it. It's from the same writer as Iruma-kun, which I LOVE. No doubt Shueisha saw that success and went to try and get some of it for themselves. I personally want it to do well because I like it, and I want the creator of Iruma-kun to have more success. I want this to become a big three, especially since I read it from the start.😊

Shinobi Undercover is cool. It just came out today. It's likable and fun, and I don't have any complaints yet. I like the dynamic between the boy and the person he's communicating with, really funny, really baka/straight man scenario. The other two who were trying to get close to the girl were laying it on too thick, though. Just really unnatural how they were trying to make it normal, and it was kinda cringe. Also, having an organization PLAN out who your boyfriend and best friend are sounds awful! When she (inevitably) finds out, she's gonna feel like her whole life is a lie(and she already has a hunch)! It's gonna hurt when she finds out the boy is in the organization, too. I feel like this is also a big three contender. I hope the story remains interesting.

[spaceskam]

8 for Malex? Thanks!

*hiding because this took an embarrassing amount of time I'm sorry*

tags: high school au, slight mental health stuff goin’ on, bed sharing

8. bedtime stories [ao3]

Alex never claimed to be subtle.

He watched Michael openly, his thumb between his teeth as he eyed the way he pulled his shirt over his head. He knew this was probably inappropriate. However, Michael was hot and had yet to tell him to stop staring. Sometimes it seemed like he deliberately did things to make Alex stare. So Alex kept on and hoped that, if he was only doing this to make fun of Alex, at least he got something nice to look at.

“Hey, Alex,” Michael called, tossing his sweaty shirt into his bag and grabbing a dry one, “Do you think your brother would mind if I stayed over tonight? I don’t feel like going home.”

Alex swallowed and sat up straight. He looked around at the other guys in the locker room. He was sure one of them would say something. Magically, they didn’t. 

“Clay won’t care,” Alex said, trying to seem nonchalant. Michael closed his locker and looked at him with a massive grin as he pulled his shirt down. His hair was still damp with sweat and it stuck to his forehead. Both of those things together were too much for Alex’s sanity.

“Cool. Meet you after school at my truck?”

“Okay. Yeah.”

Michael leaned close into Alex’s face and gave a mocking, “Okay, yeah,” before he laughed and walked around Alex. He twisted on the bench and followed him with his eyes as he went to the other side of the locker room where his other friends were. They instantly started talking about the game next Friday and how they were playing Carlsbad and how their team’s cheerleaders were hot. Michael didn’t deny it and Alex tried not to feel weird about it.

Instead, he grabbed his back and quickly headed out of the locker room. He hated gym and had put it off until his senior year, but now he was stuck doing it with basically no one to talk to except sophomore loners who seemed content to fail the class. He felt that.

The only highlight of it was Michael Guerin who he got to watch work up a sweat for 45 minutes every single day of the week. He got to watch him play dodgeball with too much enthusiasm and run the mile at the fastest in the class and play put-out with his friends. Alex had, somehow, befriended him when they were freshmen and both the youngest in their math class, so they stuck together. Then sophomore year they had Spanish together, junior year they had chemistry, this year they had gym. It wasn’t much but it was enough to spark an unlikely class-only friendship that turned into a school-only friendship that turned into an actual one.

He was Alex’s favorite person in the world.

The next two classes passed by relatively quickly, solely relying on the fact that Alex wasn’t paying attention and instead doodling aimlessly in his notes. Science was boring, math was easy.

Alex let himself into Michael’s truck because he was a dumbass who never locked it and sat in the passenger seat. His notebook stayed in his lap and he kept shading in the boat he was working on as the parking lot filled with other people going to their cars and people going to their buses. Michael always talked to his fellow football players before he left considering they couldn’t leave until the buses did anyway, so Alex wasn’t in a rush.

When Michael did climb in, he raised his head to get a good look at him. Because he always wanted to get a good look at him. Today, just like most days, he looked gorgeous and lit up from the inside and he was already staring at Alex.

“What’cha drawing?” he asked, scooting to the middle to look at Alex’s book. He pressed up against his side and eyed it, nodding his head. “Nice. I’m gonna get one of those tattooed on me one day.”

“What? A boat?”

“No, one of your pieces,” Michael laughed, shaking his head as he moved back to the driver’s seat. He turned the ignition and Alex stared at the side of his face. “Whichever one you think I should. Think about it.”

And Alex would think about it. It wasn’t even the first time he thought about it. Michael had spoken of getting one of his drawings on him before and the thought was quite possibly the most erotic thing Alex could think of which was ridiculous. There was nothing sexy about that in reality. But… Michael shirtless and having something Alex created permanently on his skin was just so good.

He went back to the drawing before he could entertain putting his tongue on it.

Michael turned up the radio before backing out of his spot and then they were on their way to Alex’s house. He put his drawing down in favor of watching out the window as Michael badly sang along to Nirvana and Beck.

Junior year was the first time Michael had come over to his house and it had felt weird to acknowledge that the person he’d spoken to nearly every day for over two years knew approximately nothing about his home life. Alex had half-assed an explanation about how his mother left and his dad was in jail, so Alex only lived with his brothers. Michael hadn’t judged him, only loudly made it clear he thought Clay was badass for stepping up when he was freshly 18 to make sure the rest of them didn’t get too screwed.

It was a few more after school hangouts after that that Michael confided that he’d been in the foster care system since he was a baby and had been in a group home for the last few years. Teenage boys were a hard sell to foster parents, apparently.

Clay had no problem giving his number to the group home to call for check-ins whenever Michael started staying over. 

“Please tell me he got spicy Doritos because I‒hell yeah,” Michael said, letting himself roam freely around the kitchen. He pulled the bag of spicy nacho Doritos labeled Michael out of the pantry and ripped them open, a grin on his face. Alex could watch it all day.

“Can I steal the bar mix that you haven’t touched in, like, a month?” Flint asked, his gaze stuck on his computer where he was doing homework. His eyebrows were pulled into an angry glare at it.

“Yeah, sure, if it’s still good,” Michael answered, falling onto the couch right beside Alex and holding out the bag to him. Alex shook his head. Michael often got food obsessions and would go a month where that was all he wanted, but during bad days it was the only thing he could eat that didn’t make him lose his appetite. 

Despite the fact that he was all smiles, Alex had memorized the warning signs and knew he wouldn’t be eating dinner.

“Sweet,” Flint said, sliding to the pantry to grab the remnants of Michael’s last food obsession.

One of the warning signs that Michael wasn’t doing great, despite the fact that he’d asked to come over at all and hadn’t just invited himself, was the fact that he had taken any excuse all day to be tactile Alex. He’d spent all lunch and gym with him instead of with his football buddies, he’d wanted to sit closer in the truck, he immediately sat practically on top of him on the couch.

Later that night, he sat beside him at dinner and picked at it, only eating the crunchy asparagus and the edges of the tortilla part of his quesadilla. Alex ate what he didn’t.

Michael took a shower and wore Alex’s clothes and made himself at home in Alex’s bed, all cozy and on his phone with his thumb in his mouth when Alex got out of the shower. When they’d first started spending the night together, Michael slept on the couch or on the floor. One night they’d fallen asleep in Alex’s bed during a movie and now that’s where he went each night.

Alex didn’t mind.

He shut off the lights and jumped into bed, putting on Netflix on the TV and starting up where they’d left off in their third watch-through of The Good Place. Michael scooted closer until they were touching in some way, his eyes still partially on his phone and partially on the TV.

It should’ve bothered Alex. It should’ve felt like taunting. Occasionally he did feel the need to shake him and ask him if he really wasn’t seeing how much Alex was into him. Was the staring not enough? Was the way he got a bit dizzy whenever he realized Michael was beginning to smell like Alex’s shampoo not enough? Was Alex’s eyes tracing every bead of sweat that rolled across his face like he hadn’t had water in weeks not enough? Was every single one of Michael’s other friends mentioning that they acted “kinda gay” not enough?

But mostly Alex was fine with it. Michael was safe here and comfortable and Alex wasn’t going to ruin that by wanting something more. So he would keep his hands to himself. He wouldn’t be subtle, but he wouldn’t be overbearing. He would just be Alex and hope that was alright.

“Alex,” Michael whispered, moving until his head was on Alex’s shoulder. Alex hummed in response. “Can you tell me a bedtime story about your boat?”

Alex smiled and shifted, his fingers slipping into Michael’s hair. Michael tilted his head up until they locked eyes. They were so close, just like every time Michael requested a bedtime story, as if that was the only acceptable time to be less than an inch away from each other’s face. Alex very quietly thought that their entire friendship felt like one.

“Once upon a time, there was a very loud pirate captain,” Alex started, watching as Michael’s thumb slowly started gravitating towards his mouth again, “He was old and held very strict beliefs. If you disagreed, he’d throw you overboard.”

“What a dick.”

“Mm, yeah, very. Anyway, he was always angry and his crew were like ‘shit, what if he’s lonely’ and decided they needed to get him a friend.”

“Oh no, poor lonely pirate man,” Michael said around his thumb.

“Poor lonely pirate man indeed,” Alex agreed, nodding solemnly, “So they searched high and low for anyone to be his companion. Not someone on the crew, but someone who would be his equal and separate from his employees. It was a very complicated task. They would find people who seemed good, but then the pirate captain wouldn’t like them and kick them out. It happened so many times they almost gave up. But eventually, they found an astronaut who seemed like a good fit because he was very smart and very happy.”

Michael pulled his thumb from his mouth with a loud pop, “So they really searched high, huh?”

Alex huffed a laugh and nodded, combing back his hair. His heart thudded in his chest as he stared at him, at his interested and tired eyes. God, he was so into him. Every single bit of him. Even when he needed moments like these.

“Yeah, really high. And they brought him back to the boat to meet the captain and they really, really thought he would hate him. But you know what? He didn’t. They actually got on quite well. And the captain started becoming a lot less angry,” Alex said. Michael shifted, pressing closer.

“And did the astronaut change?”

“Mhm. He got to relax too. He didn’t feel like he had to be super smart and happy to make everyone else happy anymore, he could just be himself. He could even be sad sometimes and that was okay because he had someone who liked him no matter what,” Alex explained, “He even would stop at islands to get his favorite foods.”

“Were they just best friends or were they in love?” Michael asked. Alex swallowed carefully and scanned his eyes over his face, trying to gauge what would be a better answer.

“They started as just best friends,” Alex decided, “But they fell in love. They were both. Somewhere in between.”

“Somewhere in between?”

“Yeah, like, not quite just best friends and not quite together romantically. Something different. Something special,” Alex tried. Michael watched him closely. In the background, Eleanor watched herself fall in love with Chidi for one of the hundreds of times they fell in love and Alex tried not to be too poetic about it.

“Alex,” Michael said, his hand dropping between them, “Are we somewhere in between? It feels like we are”

The question was honestly innocent but Alex stopped breathing, not knowing how to answer. He had a football player cuddling up to him in his bed. He should say no. He should save his own ass. He should keep it to himself.

But Michael was comfortable enough to cuddle him, to be babied when he needed it, to be raw and open.

So why couldn’t Alex?

“Do you wanna be?” Alex asked. Michael blinked. “Or… like… do you wanna be somewhere… not in between?”

“Like, on the other side? The romantic side?” Michael clarified. Alex nodded slowly, unsure. “Does it mean I get goodnight kisses?”

Alex let out a slow breath and laughed cautiously, “If you want them.”

“I want them,” Michael said assuredly. Alex couldn’t fucking think straight and he was just smiling stupidly at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Goodnight kisses, right here,” Michael said, tapping his lips delicately.

“Right. Okay.”

Alex moved his head just a little to give him a soft kiss, barely lasting a few seconds. He didn’t want to be too presumptuous. And, still, it was probably the best kiss he’d ever had in his life. His heart was trying to escape his chest.

He was really doing this. This was really happening.

“Did they live happily ever after, Alex?” Michael asked against his lips. Alex breathed and nodded.

“Yeah. They did.”

[asherlockstudy]

Uncomfortable close-up to their Valentine Newlywed answers

Since Rhett was a tad reluctant to compliment Link sincerely I decided to use my psychoanalytical skills (anyway whatever) and seek the underlying honest answers they wanted to give. This could be a bit much at times and perhaps you shouldn't read if you are not a Rhink shipper, that's why I used a cut.

"What he loves about me" Link's expression is a little confusing - maybe an attempt at doubt or self-deprecation but it looks to me more like the embarrassment of the blushing bride.

"I love your..."

Who wants to bet that the first thing that came to Rhett's mind was ass but then he changed it to the first word that came to his mind after ass? A-ccent. Like, there's just no case accent was the first thing he thought because Link's accent isn't even that strong at this point. When Link got surprised at that, Rhett simply replied that he was trying to find something funny. But even so, like I said earlier, Rhett does love Link's accent. I am sure he is fond of it, he finds it adorable. And let's not forget he said "there was so much he could choose from"!

Link looks disappointed that it's not his guess, his eyes. An interesting thing here is that although he used a personality trait for Rhett, he expected / hoped for this physical trait for himself. But don't feel sorry - Rhett has talked about his baby blues and has even gone to the ridiculous extents of planning to make a blog exclusively for Link's eyes. So don't worry; it is known that Rhett at least acknowledges the beauty of Link's eyes. At least. And Link was expecting this from a place of knowledge and not as an attempt to be silly-sappy.

Things Rhett thinks Link loves about him:

voice (Link will later say he loves his laugh and this is close, he's also enchanted every time Rhett sings so...)

height (Link once said he is attracted to "people of extreme heights")

hair (we know that)

beard (lie detector test)

giving spirit (lol totally)

creativity (they've talked about this many times)

eyebrows (if Link has said he likes Rhett's eyelashes then liking his eyebrows is certain)

Rhett was guessing from a place of knowledge too.

Rhett then said he loves stories of Link's grandma doing weird things with him and I don't like being the weirdo to spell out the weird thing but Rhett's interest in that is vaguely associated to his weird mind being always in the gutter. I don't mean it turns him on of course but he loves hearing weird stuff that border on creepy. You know it's true. Sometimes he's like that. Link took revenge for the accent joke with the psoriasis.

Wow we saw some Rhett teeth. Link answered sincerely with a super cute "I love your laugh" but Rhett just said "I love the sound your mouth makes when you don't chew". Oh well. Link regretted being sincere and Rhett, after some good laughter, defended himself by saying "he (Link) walked himself into it". This makes exactly zero sense and I am wondering whether he meant Link walked himself into it by choosing the vulnerable / sincere way. Or if he just didn't know what he was talking about.

Rhett then asks for the next answer to be complimentary. He then repeats he has strong feelings about Link's accent. Again, I believe this! In a positive light. IDK, I do believe this. Link said he has strong positive feelings for Rhett's car which I found weird like Rhett because I thought it was established Link has the better car of the two. Who knows, maybe he lied about the positive thing. Unless he connects it in his mind with memories / experiences.

Link's guess a little later:

Link: If I wanted to, I could easily... start over.

Rhett: Start over?! Like, whole life?

L: ...Yeah, just like, get a re-do.

R: Huh.

L: And I would be like "Really? How?"

R: Mmkay. I said "If you wanted to, you could easily kill me".

Okay, this gets a little deeper. I think what initially Link meant was a joke about starting over regarding his relationship with Rhett. Rhett didn't get that and asked him if he meant his whole life. Link considered that "mmyeah..." and realised it wasn't that far off from what he meant, all jokes aside. Link does wish he could start over and redo many things in his life. This surely has A LOT to do with their religious upbringing. And maybe how it affected Link's choices. Stevie's laughter is so out of place sometimes. Rhett does not laugh and tries to rush this moment. Rhett's answer about Link killing him is not exactly weird or offensive or mean as I saw some people consider it. It shows, maybe subconsiously, several things; Link's intensity, Rhett's pliable nature especially to Link and it might be more indicative of how Rhett feels about Link than anything else, at least in this video.

And then, out of nowhere, or maybe so it seems to us, Rhett goes ballistic against everyone. He starts complaining about those complaining when they didn't give each other heartfelt compliments. Link joked he agrees with them. Rhett attempted to let this slip although it angered him. The crew laughed with Link's joke, meaning they kinda sided with him, and Rhett turned basically mad at Link.

He accused Link that he did the same that day and Link entirely deflected the conversation. All I'm gonna say is that don't think they don't communicate with each other about how they approach certain situations. I wonder if at times they misunderstand each other or one changes opinion suddenly and leaves the other hanging. Link tries to stop Rhett from going on but Rhett is unstoppable at this point.

You might say Rhett was straight out mean right there and I sure was like "whoa where did this all come from, man" but mean is not a reasonable explanation. He was angry and his words show he is in a pressured state. Unless you tend to have mood swings, which Rhett doesn't really have as far as I know, you don't go from all cutesy and mischievous to furious in milliseconds. Except if there is an underlying suppressed cause. And you may ask, okay does he feel pressured to say a compliment to Link? Is this such a big deal? Well, yes and no. I don't think Rhett meant "we're not gonna hold hands" or "compliment each other" when we ask it. I think we know what he means. I think he's talking about the - well, in his words - elephant in the room. The actually serious consideration that there is something more there. The expectation that it might get revealed at any point - whether intentionally or unintentionally. Rhett loses control at that moment, which is why Link, who knows him well, warns him to not go there but Rhett still does. And again, you might say: well, no fan asked them to kiss or to confirm anything! We asked them simple stuff that can be normal between platonic friends too. Yes, but there is something we don't take often into account. The mythical crew. The mythical crew are actually the ones who monitor closely what the fans believe, want and prefer to watch. This means that the crew has to inform and discuss with Rhett and Link how much they are gonna please the audience and in what ways. Which means that a crew of 50+ people have an elaborate opinion on what fans think of Rhett and Link's relationship (next to their own opinion of course) and this has to be communicated with them face to face. In short, Rhett and Link have their privacy invaded not only by the fans but by their employees and, moreover, they are forced to always have fun with it and take it lightly. Again, you could think: well, they could forbid any rhink reference to the crew from now on. And you would think this WOULDN'T make the crew MORE suspicious at this point? All I am saying, they are fine when they make rhink insinuations / jokes voluntarily but most of the time is forced upon them by both the fans and employees and this can be uncomfortable at best if they are just friends or tyrannical if there is something more there that they still keep for themselves. So, Rhett's frustration comes from a deeper place than being expected to give a compliment. If I were in their place as I imagine it (I could always be entirely wrong) I would feel like a muppet trying to balance all my reactions towards thousands of people, with several dozens of them being paid by me to scrutinize me and order me how exactly to act!

There is a cut following Rhett's vent and you can see that Rhett is trying to calm himself down.

He speaks to himself, mumbling "yeah alright yeah ok ok" and by the expressions I can tell he acknowledges he lost control. That doesn't mean he regretted what he said - just that he said more than it benefits him to say and apparently he said a lot more in the unedited video. Kudos then to Link, who actively tries to calm his friend down and make him feel more comfortable.

This might be unpleasant to some but from his stance I conclude that Link agrees with Rhett or at least understands him. He was just wise enough to not say it out loud. Link first warned Rhett to not speak and then stayed quiet as Rhett was venting. After the cut, we see him trying to help Rhett calm down and relax and he characteristically invites Rhett to focus his attention on him and find something he really loves about him. This is not a complaint - Link is smiling and is warm to Rhett. What he essentially does is trying to help Rhett forget he is being watched by thousands and his every word is weighted, which of course is Rhett's main problem. He just says "forget about them and focus on me and just say something you love, it's all good". I just love Link here. He's supportive and caring.

The next question is what Link loves when Rhett blanks his blank and Rhett is trying to picture it-

I have no doubt Link loves that. The ear thumbing, I mean.

So, then I am adding the stills that redeemed Rhett in the fandom:

But not to be that person, it's obvious that Rhett plays it up a ridiculous lot. And not even to appease the angry fans but probably to make fun of their anger. That's why Link laughs with his face and his answer "I love remembering the time we met".

This doesn't interest me at all. Instead, I am much more interested in Link's nonsensical answer "I love remembering the time we died" because what?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Link tends to say occasionally stuff that doesn't make sense but I don't think he would pass on the chance to say something even remotely meaningful in an opportunity like this and especially regarding his relationship with Rhett. Link clarifies: "...when we died. This is heaven". There are two possibilities and only two: a) this makes ZERO sense and it's the worst and most pointless joke ever and b) this is symbolic or something only Rhett could understand. Rhett does not dismiss this as stupid or silly with his usual done look. He asks questions about it and they discuss at length about how it happened that they died and why they went to heaven since it seems they killed each other. Well, it's because they killed each other in the exact same time with a prod-like tool and they escaped Good Ol' God's (in Link's words) notice. Okay. I'm just leaving this here and you can all draw your own conclusions. Personally, I am torn between a symbolical death and rebirth when they left their religious selves behind and death being used as a well known old metaphor of a certain physical state. It would work even more if it was both. Or Link was just talking nonsense. Let's not exclude that. So yeah. That's all I had to say................

[your-dar-ling]

G:L Season 2 Episode 2 Re(Cap/View)

Better than the premiere. Not gonna waste time:

Dri and Roberta

I loved their plot but the slap was a bit much. Dri is great in this episode, and she's pointing out the obvious flaws in her mother's philosophy. Lines like "He's fighting them" just hold so much weight to me. I'm not exactly sure why.

Roberta has a very believable quality to her faith, they all do. She embodies a very common (and annoying) parenting sentiment: The "I'm the parent so my beliefs are ultimately most important" Clause, and its corollary "Fine. You don't have to believe me but here's a ridiculous ultimatum that will either force you under my heel or irreparably alienate us to one another." I think alot of religions play into such a binary system, and I think the Union is most fun when it is finding the commonalities between how religions present higher powers.

Brother Tate

OMG thank God he actually believes in what he's saying. I don't think I could take it if "The Flow" had no merit to it at all. I'm sick of stories that present the "religious option" as just crazy people. Now is it a death cult? Yea, kinda. But there's no self-serving motives. Unlike the Polity, who is legit just making things up, the Union actually thinks they are humanity's salvation. The truth in that is....well it's unclear. And I appreciate that the show doesn't jump directly to the villainization of the Omnifaith.

Chase

Thematically Chase being the cornerstone of the Union is SO good. Julius Caesar, Jesus, I mean Brother Tate's speech at the end perfectly summed it up. Chase's idea of heroism is filtered through his suffering, and the horrifying revelation is that without death, there is always more of himself to lose. The truest of horrors of war stories.

However Chase lacked the emotional depth he needed in this episode. MBJ does a phenomenal job voice acting him for the most part, he shows a remarkable amount of emotion. But the way the show implements it feels uncanny somehow. I can't exactly describe it but the editing is off.

Yaz

I find it very gripping how the Union converts her through breaking her. It's honestly kinda sucky that the nature of the Union -- and many (especially Abrahamic) religions, too -- presents itself as the one and only option. It's such a morbid and cynical servitude. No one is actually concerned about convincing her, they just keep guilting her until submission. And when she finally gives up? The flow keeps her alive? I don't quite know. But yea this recontextualizes alot of her behavior in Season 1 in a positive way (narratively speaking of course. I don't feel good about it).

I don't think the show is in a place to explore this, but I appreciate the irony in the "you have no proof of the afterlife" line from a person of (presumably) Muslim faith. It may have been an oversight, but it's one I feel is thematically appropriate.

(I think it would have been more interesting if she did believe in the Omnifaith itself, but not as literally as the suicide pact demanded by it's organized religion. But I digress.)

Polity

Nice save on Marin, there guys lol. It's too late, I already think she's a bad guy.

I think one thing that makes this show so viscerally unsettling sometimes is its sheer willingness to connect itself to modern day Earth. When I heard that the Polity was a rebranded (and equally useless) UN I legitimately buffered for a moment. How horrifying. How likely. It's almost as if G:L the show itself is prophetic of what is to come. Speculative fiction at this point is just a reality that hasn't happened yet. And from that standpoint, I'm with Chase. I'm scared.

TLDR: The Union is some AMAZING world building. This G:L crew is truly making the best of this mess of a production that they can, and I appreciate that.

Final Score: 7/10

P.S.: IM PUTTING WARNER IN THE DEATH NOTE for messing with reaction videos. RT (the company) is also pretty damn close to filling the blank space. Like are you serious???

[yukipri]

On Thatch & Marco - A One Piece Mermaid AU Text Headcanon/Story

So I’ve gotten quite a few asks regarding Marco and the Whitebeards, and while this isn’t a response to a specific ask, here’s a little story on them!

~~

It's only been a few weeks since they've left Dawn Island, and they're still in East Blue but they've somehow already more than doubled the number of brats on board. And while the Moby Dick is far from boring, Thatch has had more adventures in this short timespan than he's had in years, and he's thriving.

Sure, he still feels little twinges of guilt for basically ditching his duties, but he's growing, in ways that the stability of an established Yonko crew hadn't allowed, and he knows that he'll be a better, more useful man to Pops and the others by the time they've caught up in the New World. Honestly, he's wondering if he should suggest these kinds of experiences for all the commanders, and wonders how Pops would feel about that.

But it's on one of these days and brief moments of calm when Thatch is daydreaming about his family in the New World when he spots a blue seagull circling far above them. It's weirdly shiny, and Thatch immediately recognizes it as a species native to an island in Pops' territory, and one that is unusual all the way here in East Blue.

Which means only one thing: Marco's checking in.

A quiet whistle from Thatch is all it takes for the seagull to come spiraling down, and Thatch remembers to take a quick glance around deck to make sure Luffy hasn't spotted it; he's learned the hard way what it means for a bird to land on deck when the ever-hungry mermaid is feeling a bit peckish.

But the bird lands safely on the rail close to Thatch's arm. It's by no means nearly as brilliant a blue as Marco, but certainly more beautiful than most birds you can find out at sea. Thatch still remembers the first time he found Marco making friends with the things, remembers laughing hysterically and making all sorts of bird jokes as Marco, then still a teen, looked more and more like the constipated old man he eventually grows up to be.

Well, jokes aside, the birds are now incredibly useful, serving as Marco's personal messengers to their allies across the world. Which, huh, Thatch supposes that includes him now, which is kind of an odd feeling.

And while Thatch wants to feel flattered that Marco's checking up on his favorite Thatch, he also knows that Marco's checking up on their littlest little brother, and the little brother of that little brother (baby brother^2, Thatch and Marco had fondly dubbed her, when Ace first told them about her). Because while Thatch's definitely accompanying Ace and co for his own selfish reasons (and he also swears it's not just so he could encounter the love of his life, darling Luffy), he also knows that Marco and Pops had ulterior motives for letting Thatch go, beyond just allowing Thatch to stretch his legs.

When Ace had asked, uncharacteristically shy, if he could still be one of Whitebeard's sons without formally joining his crew, and when Whitebeard responded with an affirmative--Thatch wonders if Ace really understands what that meant. A good parent, a good father is definitely a foreign concept to him (and unfortunately for Luffy too, Thatch has found, and knows that Pops will adopt her the moment he meets her if he hasn't already). And the Whitebeard pirates don't take the bonds of family lightly.

So while yes, Thatch is here for his own adventures, he's also very aware of what he represents, both to his family and to the world. For his family, his presence on board maintains the connection between the Whitebeards and Ace. Ace is still so very new to their family, and while no one doubts his competence, he still has much to go in terms of learning to rely on them, on learning that the Whitebeard pirates will ALWAYS have his back. And well, East Blue is kinda far away, too far for a shout to be heard on the Moby. So Thatch is here acting as their representative, and he couldn't be more honored to have the role. He is, if nothing else, excellent at being a nagging older brother, and it's the role he's easily found himself fitting into here.

But the other reason is that Thatch is the Fourth Division Commander of the Whitebeards, and no one who knows anything about pirates would fail to recognize him, and the weight of his presence. He knows people won't immediately make the connection that this crew has already been adopted, or even what that means because it's not quite the same as ally, but Thatch's presence establishes an undeniable connection between them and one of the Four Emperors. Thatch knows that when he makes eye contact with the marines and they balk, it's not just him they see: it's the huge, looming shadow of Whitebeard himself. And until the world learns to see that shadow behind Ace, behind all of the ASL pirates, well, Thatch will stay right here.

The blue gull on the rail looks at Thatch expectantly, and Thatch lets it perch on his shoulder as he makes his way to the kitchen. Sanji glances up in surprise and squints at the bird, but doesn't say anything as he returns to preparing dessert for the ladies (it's a reminder that Thatch should be doing that too, or else the snot-nosed cook will one up him in earning the favor of Luffy, or at least her stomach). Thatch decides to make this quick, and grabs two cookies from the hidden cookie jar, as well as some parchment and a writing utensil.

Thatch knows Marco wants to know how they're doing, but well, the timing of the gull is awfully convenient, so he's taking advantage.

Dear Blue Chicken Sauteed in Pineapple Sauce, Thatch writes, taking advantage of the opportunity to write in "code," despite the lack of confidential information and low risk of one of Marco's blue gulls being stopped. He'll take every opportunity to tease, thank you.

The stove on this ship works great, and the fish is beautiful. Thatch's pen moves before he really thinks about what's coming out. She's stolen my heart, I think I want to marry her. Thatch pauses...huh, well, honestly he's not exaggerating, is he? He'll let Marco guess how serious he is. (he's suddenly uncomfortable because he's not sure how serious he is himself, but that's a thought for another time)

And now, the most important part of the letter: PS - I dropped my hair wax in the ocean. Can you send me an extra from my room?

Because, tragically, Thatch had--and now his beautiful pompadour is a sad mess that's tumbling down his shoulders. Thatch knows he could pick up another tub of hair wax on any of the islands they’ve stopped at, but he has standards, and he needs his special wax that he’s used for decades, which is unfortunately only found in the New World.

Which makes his current situation stuck in East Blue quite tragic, except it isn't quite as heart-breaking as Thatch had thought it'd be, once he realized how much Luffy likes playing with his loose locks, and the sheer number of times Thatch has been finding himself overboard recently would have made putting his hair up again after every time a pain--but well. It'd still be nice to have the familiar weight of his hair wax in his pocket again.

Thatch decides to omit the major change with himself since he last saw Marco that resulted in the hair wax being lost in the first place: the fact that he's eaten a devil fruit. Because that's a surprise. Thatch wants to see Marco's face when he realizes how badass Thatch has become, controlling Darkness of all things. (well, Thatch has to actually get good at it first, and stop almost drowning. It's coming along)

Thatch wraps one cookie in the letter, tying it into a neat parcel, and feeds the other to the bird as thanks for his services. The bird takes off as soon as Thatch opens the door.

Well, now Thatch has a lovely mermaid to feed, and a baby cook to outclass.

~~

Thatch sees the next blue gull a week later, damn those things are fast. It's carrying a parcel this time, and Thatch reaches out gleefully, because he doesn't remember the last time he's had his hair down for this long and he can't wait to have his signature hair style once more.

The bird doesn't stick around this time, and instead just drops the parcel into Thatch's hands before wheeling back the way it came.

And...huh. The parcel's not the right size, or weight to be Thatch's hair wax.

Thatch squints suspiciously, as Ace comes to stand by him, staring after the gull. "Marco?" he asks, and Thatch grunts, already feeling grumpy and just knowing he's not gonna be thrilled by whatever Marco sent.

He opens the parcel, and inside is a little blue bauble, wrapped in Marco's infuriatingly precise, fancy shmancy handwriting.

Dear Soggy Bread, congratulations on graduating from a baguette. May you evolve into a better bread next time. PS - The stone's for baby brother^2.

Ace ignores Thatch's enraged yowl and plucks up the stone--before cursing and dropping it. Thatch's reflexes manage to catch it before it hits the deck--and he immediately knows why Ace dropped it in the first place.

The stone immediately feels weird, not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way that distinctively reminds Thatch of the sea. He's familiar with what the stone is, but not how it feels, and is reminded once again of his relatively new status as a devil fruit user. At Ace's questioning (and wary) look, Thatch explains, as a good older brother should.

It's a special stone made on Fishman island. There's a piece of seastone at its core, and then it's wrapped in a mix of glass and crystal. It's a luxury trinket popular with a lot of young mermaids, because it's pretty, but also feels like the essence of the ocean is in it, which can be immensely comforting to most merfolk and fishmen.

While not the purpose, the glass and crystal casing also ensures that devil fruit users can touch it without feeling weakened, though they can still sense the sea from it, hence why it feels weird.

Thatch hates, hates to admit it, but it's a ridiculously thoughtful (and expensive) gift for a mermaid devil fruit user who can't enjoy the sea directly, damn Marco for thinking of it first! The bastard's definitely teasing Thatch by trying to woo his crush from half a world away. Marco hasn't even met her, this is just a game to him, but Thatch's serious, damnit!!!

Thatch wishes he could be petty enough to lie and say the bauble is a gift from Thatch, but he can't, because as much of an asshole as Marco can be, Thatch still loves him. Sigh.

Luffy chooses that moment to slide across the deck to them like a playful sea lion, slamming into Ace's legs and snaking up him in a split second to peer over his shoulder at whatever her brother's looking at in Thatch's hand. Ace isn't fazed and doesn't even twitch.

Thatch sighs dramatically. Adorable little brothers and their adorable little brother^2s, damnit.

Thatch dutifully presents the little stone to Luffy, as Ace warns her not to drop it, it's gonna feel a bit weird ok. Thatch lets Ace take over rattling off the information he'd just conveyed, doing his own duty as Older Brother, and is instead transfixed by the way Luffy's eyes widen in wonder as she rolls the shiny thing from one hand to the other.

While Luffy's not really the type for jewelry or trinkets, it's clear she's enthralled by the stone, the way she is with few inanimate objects other than food. Thatch belatedly notices that the stone's a brilliant crystal teal, with shards of gold obscuring the dark seastone center, the same color as someone's Zoan form. Bastard.

"Who's it from?" Luffy asks, and Thatch knows he's told her about his crew before, but she's unlikely to have remembered any names.

He may not lie about who the gift's from, but it doesn't mean he can't take revenge.

"A pineapple man who can turn into a burning chicken," he says with a straight face, ignoring Ace's frantic gestures to abort.

Thatch finds out why moments later, as Luffy's eyes widen impossibly more, and he belatedly realizes that to Luffy (and probably only Luffy), he'd just made Marco sound like the coolest person on earth.

Thatch meets Ace's furious eyes apologetically even as Luffy's COOOOOL!!!!!! rips across deck, and they both sigh.

They're not looking forward to Luffy meeting Marco

~~

~~

Hope you enjoyed! As always, comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated and encourage me to create more for this AU! ^ ^

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

Read the next part: Marco’s Bauble, Part 2

~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~

[plus-size-reader]

Breaking Out

Peter Quill x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1797 words

Warnings: none 

Summary: Reader is the only other Terrain that Peter has ever met as an adult. They bond in prison and when the others escape, he takes her with him.

——————————————————————————————————

The universe was vast and wide, with planets and worlds unknown to even the most well-versed within it.

It was for that reason alone that Peter had never come across another terrain in all of his travels. After all, abductions didn’t really take place often on earth. 

However, there was no denying that you were, in fact, human. 

As soon as Peter saw you across the common room of the Kyln, he knew it. There would be no way to confuse it, but that didn’t make it any easier to understand. 

He had no idea how you’d gotten here or what business you had here. There was only one thing that he knew for sure, and that was that he had to meet you. 

There was no way he could pass up the chance to meet the only other terrain he’d ever seen here. 

You were, by no means, welcoming when he approached where you were sitting. You were surrounded by inmates, on any side but that wasn’t the thing that really got to him. 

More than anything, it was the look in your eyes when you finally saw him. 

It was unlike anything he’d ever seen and he actually had to stop himself from audibly gulping. You were both amazingly scary, and amazingly beautiful…

A dangerous combination for a man like Quill. 

As soon as he made it to the table, all conversation stopped, with each and every organism there waiting for some sort of development. 

“Um, hi” he started, giving you a small wave that could have only been taken as some sort of odd attempt at bonding with you. It didn’t do too good of a job though, because you said nothing. 

“They call me Starlord, what’s your name?” he tried this time, shrugging off the hesitation and awkwardness. That was one of the best things about him, that nothing could deter him from getting what he wanted. 

Even the way you were looking at him right now. 

“Y/N” you allowed, waiting for him to get to the point. At this moment, you had no idea what he was even doing here, especially considering the fact that most of the inmates here could snap him in half. 

Still, you had to admire his determination. 

“Nice, what are you in for? Murder? Theft?” Peter hummed, taking a guess, assuming that you’d pick from the list if he kept going. 

...But you didn’t even motion to stop him. 

It was much more fun to just watch him try to guess. 

“I’m gonna stop you right there. Can I help you with something? You wondered, hoping to circumvent whatever long, drawn out conversation he was about to involve you in. 

Whatever it was that he wanted, you just wanted to get it out of the way before you had to stab him. You didn’t want to spend another night in solitary. 

“Oh no, I just thought I’d introduce myself. I’ve never met another terrain before-at least, not off of earth” he explained, inevitably starting another tangent that you’d get caught up in. 

It was fair, especially because when you stopped to think about it, you realized that you hadn’t either. Though, this wasn’t some book club where you were all just going to be friends. 

...This was an interstellar prison. 

“Well, I’ll see you around, Starlord” you allowed, standing from where you had been seated to head back to your cell. You’d had enough small talk for now. 

Anyone else would have taken that interaction as a hint that you weren’t in the mood to be bothered, but not Peter. In fact, as you walked away, all he could think about was talking to you again. 

“Making friends there, Quill?” Rocket teased, watching you walk alongside him. 

They all knew that you were going to kill him, it was only a matter of time. 

...Not that Peter seemed to mind. 

~

The opportunity to talk to you didn’t come until much later, in the midst of their escape plan. 

The alarms were blaring all over the prison, and you, like most of the other inmates, had left your cell to see what the commotion was. 

However, before you could gather much information at all about what was going on, Starlord came racing around the corner with a prosthetic leg in hand. 

It made no sense at all, but you knew better than to ask. Knowing what you did about the stranger, it would just buy you way too much information. 

“Oh hey Y/N, what’s up?” he greeted, doing his best to be casual, like he wasn’t in the middle of something absolutely ridiculous. 

Though to be fair, you were pretty sure that only he could. 

“What did you do?” You asked, cocking your hip out to the side, that look on your face that he was already painfully familiar with. You were always so critical, even when you didn’t have to be. 

...Not that he minded. 

“We’re breaking out of here, you wanna come?” he offered, a grin finding its way onto his face as he held his hand out to you. It was a hell of an offer, and you weren’t going to pass it up. 

He may have been an absolute fool and you would certainly regret what you were about to do but you weren’t going to stay here if you didn’t have to. 

Besides, you knew that if you didn’t leave now, you would probably be stuck here for the rest of your life. So, even though you knew it was the worst decision you would probably ever make, you took his hand. 

Racing down the halls alongside him was the biggest rush you’d ever had, and by the time you were safely locked within the pod, you had no regrets about your decision. 

Just in time to realize that it wasn’t just the two of you escaping. 

In fact, there were quite a few bodies in the cramped space. Bodies that you realized you recognized after taking in each of their faces. 

“You all got brought in from Xandar, right?” You clarified, pretty sure this was the entire crew he’d been transferred in with. Were they friends? You had never seen a group of criminals react that way. 

Gangs were common within members of the same species and those from the same planet but not like this. These people were almost acting as if they cared about each other’s well being and it was strange. 

Though, not altogether unwelcome. 

You had never been a part of anything like this and it provided an interesting opportunity. If nothing else, you knew that they could easily be cut loose if you got into a jam and that was always nice to know in companions.

“Yeah, that’s Drax, Gamora, Rocket, and the tree in the corner is Groot” he shrugged, as if that was all the explanation you would need...and really, it was. 

You had come across a number of interesting creatures in your travels and Groot was the more tame of the bunch. The far corners of the galaxy offered some really heinous looking creatures. 

Though, you had to imagine that none among them had ever seen them. 

“Alright, well I guess we’re gonna be spending a little bit of time together-I’m Y/N” you nodded, sitting down at the pilots helm without a shred of hesitation next to Rocket. 

You had sort of just assumed that you would be in control of this situation, but everyone else in the crowded ship simply stared at you, making it clear that wasn’t implied. One thing was for sure…

This was going to be a long ride.

Bonus:

You had been sitting on the ship for a few hours, at this point, in silence, when Peter decided that this was as good a time as any to break the ice. 

“That was kinda crazy, right?” he laughed, sitting down beside you on the floor without a second thought. You wished he would have asked for permission to join you so that you could remain alone a little longer, but he didn’t. 

Peter clearly wasn’t the kind of guy to ever know when he was uninvited. 

“You’ve never broken out of prison before?” you commented, shocked if that was the case. Peter seemed like the kind of man that had been running from the law all his life, but he was also sort of clumsy and goofy. 

It seemed like he would have gotten caught before now, though he shook his head, telling you that he hadn’t. 

Interesting.

“They’re not gonna bother tracking us down, as long as we keep a low profile” you allowed, knowing exactly how it would go. The guards didn’t have to care about where a few lowlifes went as long as you didn’t make it easy to find you again. 

Which meant no petty crime for a little while. 

“How are you though? Doing alright?” he wondered, doing his best to move on to a different topic. Peter was trying to get to know you better and he wasn’t going to do that with some casual prison talk.

He wanted to know about who you were as a person.

...But you weren’t sure how to respond. 

You hadn’t been expecting Peter to ask you something so personal but the most shocking thing about it was that you actually wanted to answer. There was just something about him that you couldn’t ignore, something that made you want to open up to him. 

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that very few people asked you how you were feeling as a general rule, but Peter just wouldn’t stop. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he reminded you of home. 

He reminded you of a life before you had been whisked away to space. 

“I’m alright, it’s been a while since I’ve been out” you shrugged, figuring there was no harm to letting him in a little bit. After all, he had proved to you that he cared enough to ask you about your feelings, so giving him a little bit wouldn’t kill anybody. 

...It was true that it wasn’t much. 

However, it was a little bit of leeway that Peter could use to get to know you better than he would have been able to before this. After all, he couldn’t just let the only other terrain he’d ever met slip on by without trying to understand you. 

If he did, he would never forgive himself. 

“Don’t worry, you won’t ever have to go back again. Just stick with me” he hummed, grinning at you with that cheesy smile he always wore. The craziest part though, was that when he said it, you believed him. 

[shrike-nest]

D&D Character Ask Post

In Honor of D&D, Here are 100 Questions answered about my character Alistair. Done from a prompt reposted by @mechmech and @scatterpatter , and also gonna tag my DM @aerial-ace97

What Does He Smell like: Ozone, Sandalwood, Pine

Voice: A light baritone, sometimes slipping into a bit of a lit from his native island (similar to a Scottish brogue/Irish lit)

Motivator: Before he met his group? Power and Adrenaline. Now? Redemption.

Most embarrassing memory: (TW: Animal Death) He doesn’t really remember this as he was terribly drunk at the time, but he and his crew stopped in a city that held goats as a sacred animal. With a terribly “bright” idea, he wondered how far a goat could fly? Because goats fly. Throws the goat off of the third floor of a building. Then proceeds to have a not very respectful Coffin Dance-style funeral for said goat.

How does he react to pain: Lots of swearing and anger.

What does he wear: He wears dragon scale armor that has three deep gouges in it from where he was previously killed. A faded and slightly ragged admiral style coat on top, leather breeches, and give this man some high calf pirate boots. He also always wears a green headband to keep his hair back, and occasionally an eyepatch to hide his demonic eye.

Most positive relationship: In terms of character development, it might be Torvid, as Torvid inspires Alistair to be a better moral person. In terms of wholesomeness? His partner/hopefully soon fiancé, Atwater. Atwater was able to show Alistair that he can have positive love in his life, without having to fight so hard for it.

The weirdest thing he has ever eaten: Corren’s cooking

Sleep: He suffers from nightmares and now more recently night terrors. Because he technically doesn’t need to sleep from effects of his class, he often chooses not to. However, when he does sleep, he sleeps hard, snores lightly, and octopus cuddles anything in his bed.

Favorite food/ kinda food: He actually really loves a dish similar to pao de queijo (Brazillian Cheese Bread).

Most insecure about: His ability of being a leader.

Like to wear: He enjoys fairly tight fitting clothing to prevent too much flapping when he flies or moves around quickly.

How do they react to feelings of guilt: Denial and self doubt

React to betrayal: A very quick and violent anger that chills to a long lasting and cold hatred. He doesn’t forgive easily.

Greatest achievement: After being mutinied against by his former crew, being wanted and supported as a leader for his current adventuring party

Too little sleep: Pretty robotic, but he doesn’t get exhausted anymore or feel any physical effects of not getting sleep due to his class.

What are they like drunk: He’s a very cheerful and boisterous drunk. Makes and laughs at many jokes. Can fall into a melancholy pretty easily though if he thinks on certain thoughts too long. Deflects with humor!

Music likes: 80s hair band music, and 70s-80s rock.

Right or left-handed: Right handed

Fears: He’s claustrophobic, but also has a fear of being vulnerable and getting his heart broken again.

Favorite weather: Sunny Day with a slight chill.

Favorite color: He really likes blue.

Collect anything: Well technically he used to collect gold and other high priced artifacts. He doesn’t really collect anything anymore.

Hot or cold weather: This man controls the weather. He enjoys his thermostat of life to be at a nice 70 degrees F.

Eye color: His natural eye color is an emerald green. His left eye is a demon cat eye, with a gold iris and black sclera.

Race/ ethnicity: He’s a human in the world of Sekrezia, but in IRL, he’s probably northern UK.

Hair color: Ginger/Auburn, with some sun-bleached streaks in it.

Happy where they are currently: … Well his adopted sister and brother just died in the last game so nah. BUT- as kind of a whole, he’s happy to be where he is now as a person compared to how he used to be.

Morning person: Yup. He tends to wake with the sun if he sleeps, and once he’s awake- he’s awake.

Sunrise or sunset: He loves the sunset. It calms and amazes him that he survived another day.

Messy or organized: He’s messy. Kind of an ADHD procrastination kind of messy.

Pet peeves: Disloyalty, undeserved ego trips, other weather veins that mess with his control of the weather,

Objects of significant importance: O’Malley, his halberd. He earned his weapon when he became a captain, and it has saved his life numerous times after.

Least favorite food: After being stuck in a cave for over a year? Anything with mushrooms.

Least favorite color: He’s not a fan of dark reds or browns. Reminds him too much of dried blood. (oooh edgelord)

Least favorite smell: Cauterized Flesh, Rotting Fish

The last time they cried: Last game. But before that? When he found out that Torvid killed his father. Before before that? When Atwater died. Before before before that? When he woke up alone in the desert after the mutiny.

Were they with anyone when they cried: His party. His party and both sides of the war that was going on. And no one.

One time they got injured: He actually died in a fight with a dragon, not with the dragon, but with a bat crony of the dragon.

Scars: He’s got a scar in the shape of a jagged p on his right cheek, a claw scar from when his eye was gouged out, and he also has the marks from the bat crony when he died. Alistair also has lightning scars on his arms that led to minor nerve damage that occurred when he first was learning how to use his magic.

Mental health issues: ADHD, Depression, Anxiety

Bad habits: Lashing out when he doesn’t know how to process his emotions

Why might someone dislike him: … Lemme get the list. So if we ignore the fact that he used to be a feared sky pirate, earning the nickname “Orphaner of the Skies”… he can be a flippant asshole sometimes. He can often forget to stay in touch and update people on important topics. Also, some may dislike him because he insists on being their dad (*cough* CORREN *cough*)

Why might someone love him: Alistair is very loyal to those he trusts and he can often fall into caretaker type tendencies.

Believe in ghosts: Yeah. He’s seen them and fought them. Also dated one.

Anyone they would trust with their life: Mecha, Corren, Tristan, Atwater, Jerry, Mephistopheles, and Torvid.

Romantically interested in anyone: Atwater!

Dating/ Married: He is currently dating Atwater

Like surprises: Not really

Birthday: His weave day is in Summer, Sibelya 13th.

Celebrate their birthday: He used to. Doesn’t really anymore, mostly because he hasn’t had much reason to celebrate or the time.

Family: His parents are dead, but he still has his adopted aunt Imelda. He also views Tristan as his brother, Corren as his little brother, Mecha as his sister. Atwater is his romantic partner, and he is now the step father of Atwater’s child, Crestwell. He also is the adopted father of Liam (deceased) and Liam’s twin sister, Serana.

Close to their family: Yes

MBTI type: ENTP

Zodiac signs: His Sekrezian Sign is Xamatang, The Coming Storm

Hogwarts house: Gryffindor

Alignment; Chaotic Neutral but he’s steadily making his way towards Chaotic Good

Nightmares: Yes. Often about his ex, Ghost. He also has nightmares about losing those he considers family.

View on death: If it happens, it happens. Once someone is at peace, leave them be.

Something they always laugh at: Seeing his group smile and joke around.

When bored, what do they do: Fly, tinker with magic, practice magic, research magic.

Enjoy the outside: Very much so.

Accent: I can’t replicate it, but I imagine it’s somewhere between a Scottish and Irish accent. However it has faded as he hasn’t been home in a very long time.

Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, the first reaction: *Poke it*, *Look at it*, *Look around*… *Shrug*, My cake now.

If they knew they were going to die what would they do/ say: He would find his party, if he can- gives them hugs, and hopefully be able to die watching the sunset. “Find what makes you happy and hold on to it. You all deserve to have happiness in your lives.”

Feelings about sex: He likes it. He also has a pretty damn high libido.

Sexuality: Bisexual

Squeamish around blood: Somewhat. It makes him uncomfortable now because he’s scared that he likes the sight of it still.

Anything they find gross: Rotting bodies and decaying bodies.

TV trope: Father Figure, Tragic Backstory, Anti-Hero

Enjoy helping people: Yes, he finds it comforting, like a form of redemption.

Allergies: Minor shellfish allergy

Pet: Does Meph count as a pet? I mean, he usually hangs around Alistair as a cat.

Quick to anger: Depends on the situation, but yes.

How patient is he: Not very. He gets very jittery and anxious easily. He’s getting slightly better at that.

Good at cooking: Somewhat, he tends to overdo it on the spice.

Favorite insult:” It’s cute when you try.”

How do they act when happy: The biggest doofiest smile, and he can’t help but laugh occasionally.

What do they do when they learn about others’ fears: He keeps it secret, but tends to go out of his way to help them through it, or help them avoid their fears.

Trustworthy: If you earn his trust, yes. A million times in return.

Do they try to hide their emotions: If it benefits him? Yes. And he’s damn good at it. But if he feels it’s not necessary to do so, his heart is on his sleeve.

Exercise regularly: Yes. His constitution is ridiculous and so he often finds ways to keep up and improve his stamina and strength even further.

Comfortable with the way they look: Yeah. He can get a lil cocky about it. But this is a man who uses bar soap on his hair.

Features they find attractive on others: Eyes and hands.

Personalities they find attractive: He likes those that can keep up with him intellectually, but also on a wittier level as well. He really views self-confidence as attractive.

Do they like sweet foods: Yes.

Age: He just turned 42.

Tall or short: He’s 6’0”

Glasses or contacts: Nah

Consider herself attractive: Yup

Sense of humor: Sexual humor, dad jokes ftw, but can also throw in some dark and self-deprecating humor nowadays.

What mood are they in most often: Most recently, a sort of determined melancholia. But he used to be very self-assured, confident, and flippant.

What angers them: Child abuse, betrayal, hurting those he cares about.

Outlook on life: “Just keep going. Roll with the punches. Because that sun is going to rise again, and you’re going to get to try again, try something new, find something new.”

What makes them sad or depressed: Thinking of those he has lost, thinking of Ghost, falling into his own insecurities.

Greatest weakness: He often jumps into situations without thinking them through. He tends to be very “leap before he looks”

Greatest strength: His determination and resiliency

Something they regret: Losing contact with his crew and Imelda, not being a better leader in his eyes, his past of piracy, and in some ways- all his deals with Mephistopheles, even the one that granted him his magic.

Biggest accomplishment: Isn’t this the same as greatest achievement?

Favorite memory: Sitting by the campfire with his group and all of them laughing, joking, and smiling with each other. With the good ol occasional ribbing at Corren’s expense.

[gerberbabey]

maybe I'm honestly falling too soon | John B. Routledge

a/n: this is technically a stand alone, but i kinda wish i did a little mini series for the Peterkin!Reader concept...oh well I’ll do that now. love the support for SUMMER, i wish it was better written but I still appreciate ya’ll.

This is technically a reader insert, but I made the reader mixed with Black and Korean. always hashing out WOC representation.

masterlist

summary: You try not to question people’s intelligence. John B saves the day. 

warnings: like rlly bad writing, underaged drinking, hints of racism and stereotyping, that part is based off of a conversation i overheard but if it’s offensive in any way and if you’d like me to take it out or change it pls let me know

♫ Down to Earth by UMI ♫

You weren’t really known to go out much. Partying with either Kooks or Pogues wasn’t the norm for you considering who your parents were. But even if your mom wasn’t the Sheriff and your dad wasn’t a teacher at Kildare County High, your personality alone wasn’t really the “partying” type. Your friends tended to label you as the “sweet” one, or even the “innocent” one. It didn’t necessarily make you mad per se, it was just a bit annoying that the entirety of your being was labelled based off of the fact that you tended to not do things. 

You didn’t label your friends for the things they did, so you found it odd that they labelled you because of the things you didn’t do. 

“Pleeeaaase (Y/N), John B and his crew throw the best keggers and you’ve only gone to like one!” 

“Nicky, I just...really don’t want to, ok?” you’d been trying to decline Nicky all day. This was the 5th time she’d brought it up today, not to mention the amount of times she’d brought it up this past week. Maybe if it had happened yesterday or even tomorrow you would’ve felt more up to it. Today didn’t feel like a good day to party. At least not to you. 

“(Y/NNNNNN)!” Nicky whined and you only sat patiently as she shook you, “Please just this once? Ok I heard that Kelce’s gonna be there and he usually avoids the Cut! This is the perfect oppurtuntiy for me to get closer to him!” 

You hated that she was using her crush on Kelce against you. You truly wouldn’t say that Nicky was either a Kook or a Pogue (you didn’t even think you were either a Kook or Pogue) but she’d developed a crush on him due to her sudden frequent attendance at the country club with her cousins. She barely spoke to him and barely had the chance to but she insisted that he was a “great guy who just get’s pressured by his asshole friends”. You supported anything Nicky did (lest it get her hurt) and Kelce had only ever been kind to you. 

“Ok...fine,” you sighed and Nicky squeed in excitement. 

“Oh my god yes! Finally!” Nicky cheered and you only rolled your eyes playfully as she tackled you into a hug. 

_____

John B casually strolled through the aisles of the grocery store. He’d been taxed with getting a few snacks to stash in the Twinkie so that they had some food of their own at the party. 

“Relax ok, I just really wants some chips.”

John B perked up at a familiar sounding voice and straightened up as you and your best friend walked around the corner of the aisle. He licked his lips as he gave you a quick look over. You were dressed in your usual aesthetic, a long high waisted skirt, a tank top that was tied to cinch at your waist, large wire framed glasses on the bridge of your nose, and your bouncy curls pushed back with a bandana in your hair.

“Oh, hey John B.” 

John B shook himself out of his stupor and flashed you a wide grin, nodding to Nicky, who only gave him a look of suspicion. 

“Hey (Y/N), what are you doing here?” That question wasn’t too out of place, you lived closer to the bigger grocery store chains than the family owned one’s in the Cut. 

“I just wanted to get some chips, Heyward’s is the only store that has the one’s I like,” you gave him a sweet smile and John B tried not to melt. 

“That’s-That’s really cool,” he stuttered and he licked his lips awkwardly as his eyebrows raised. You blinked at him, the smile on your face twisting a bit in confusion as you glanced at Nicky for a moment before looking to John B again, “I mean sorry-um...Kegger!” John B put up a hand in realization, “We’re gonna have a Kegger tonight at the Boneyard. Will I see you there?” 

“Yeah for sure,” you smiled at him and he gave you that grin that’d always made you think of the sun. You’d always thought John B was cute. Probably more than cute really. He was tall (6 foot maybe?), and his body was built ridiculously...nice for a 16 year old. Plus he was like one of the sweetest guys you’d ever met. 

“Are you gonna be manning the Keg the whole time?” you teased as you grabbed two bags of your favorite chips. Nicky took them from you, looking between you and John b from off to the side. John B scoffed at your comment.

“Nah, I’ll drag JJ to do shifts if he even tries to run away from it,” the last time they threw a Kegger, John B and Pope had been ditched to man the keg. JJ had run off with some touron and Kie was hard to say no to when she insisted it wasn’t her turn. 

“So that means you’ll save me a dance?” you bit at your bottom lip as John B looked at you in surprise. He’d always thought of the two of you as friends, you and your mom were oddly involved in his life but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to complain about having people give a shit about him. 

“Yeah...yeah definitely,” John B confirmed and you giggled before waving to him goodbye and leading Nicky away to go pay for your chips. John B stared at where you were standing just a second ago before he turned to watch you over his shoulder. He barely caught Nicky shaking you by the arm before the two of you disappeared around the corner of the aisle. 

________

“Is that...(Y/N)?” Pope asked, passing some random Touron a filled red solo cup. John B looked up from where he was filling up a Kook’s cup and turned to where Pope was pointing. It was indeed you. You were standing in group with a few Kooks. Nicky was standing close to Kelce, the two of them seemingly in their own world and you were stuck interacting with Topper, Rafe, and some other Kook guys he didn’t recognize. 

“Yeah,” John B confirmed and Pope glanced at him for a moment before turning his attention back to you. 

“She looks like she’s having a great time,” Pope pointed out sarcastically and John B straightened up. Pope was right, and even from this far away he could tell. You had a perplexed look you on your face as you listened to one of the ook boys talk and your body language was closed off. You had your arms wrapped around yourself and you were switching the weight of your feet back and forth. 

“Maybe you should go save her?” Pope suggested and John B turned to him. 

“Nah, nah she’s probably fine,” John B shook his head, reaching for the eg hose once again. Pope snatched it out of his hands. 

“C’mon John B, you really wanna risk that?”  Pope stated matter of factly and he cringed as he looked back to you. You looked more and more uncomfortable by the second. 

“Alright...” John B dusted his hands off on his swim trunks and began to weave through the crowd to get to you, leaving behind a grinning Pope. 

Across the way, you were trying your best not to let much show on your face but you couldn’t help but cringe at everything this guy was saying. You were pretty sure he had done a line of something (probably supplied by Rafe) but you were beginning to think you should definitely put yourself in a safer environment. You hadn’t been the most bothered by Topper or Rafe, they were usually polite to you, but when three more Kooks stepped up to you, you were left to deal with five Kooks who were all under some type of influence while Nicky talked with Kelce. 

“Y’know, you have like really nice eyes,” one of the kooks pointed to you and you smiled. 

“Oh thank you-”

“They’re like real narrow. Do you put like make up on?” That threw you off guard and your mouth drpped open in shock at the question. Topper hit the boy in the chest and the Kook shot him a look of confusion, “What man?”

“Dude you can’t say that shit,” Rafe laughed and you were uncomfortable with the idea that he found it funny for a different reason other then idiocy. 

“What she’s got like real narrow eyes. So what how do you do that?” 

“Well um-” you stammered, “I’m just...Asian?” 

“Wait you’re Asian?” one of the other boys cried out, “I thought you were black?” 

Rafe snorted at that and you could feel the discomfort in your chest increase. 

“I-I am black. My mom’s black and my dad’s Korean...” you explained. Your cheeks burned and your palms were clammy due to your nerves. 

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry...” the first boy laughed, “Wait, I swear I’m not racist or anything. You’re gorgeous.” 

You wondered how your beauty had anything to do with his questions about your race. 

“Like, my sister’s just always talking about like fox eyes or whatever and she’d probably love to have eyes like yours.”

You sucked in a breath at that. Could this guy be anymore cluelessly offensive? At this point you were beginning to question his intelligence altogether. But you weren’t a confrontational person and the thought of calling him out on his bullshit terrified you. You also definitely weren’t in a position to act brave. 

“Uh hey! (Y/N)?” you turned in shock and almost cried out in relief at the sight of John B calling you. 

“What do you want Pogue?” Rafe hissed out and you looked up at him before rushing over to John B. 

“Oh hey John B, I was actually looking for you, sorry guys,” you barely turned to look back at the circle of Kooks before you were leading John B away by the hand, completely ignoring Rafe’s calls. 

When you were a good ways away, and a little closer to where the keg was, you stopped and put a hand on your chest. you let out a laugh of disbelief as you looked up at John B. He looked down at you in confusion, your fingers still intertwined with his.

“Jeez you seriously saved me,” you breathed and John B’s eyebrows raised. 

“Were they doing something-” he looked back over to the boys but you only waved it off. 

“No no, one of them was just...making me lose brain cells,” you laughed, though John B could tell see the discomfort on your face. 

“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” John B pointed out and you only scoffed. 

“I’m used to it at this point,” John B wondered what “it” was. 

“Hey (Y/N)! What’s up?” the two of you turned to Kie as the girl walked up to you, a wide grin brightening her expression. 

“Nothing much just, being a damsel in distress,” you looked up at John B with a teasing smile and he rolled his eyes. 

“I literally only called your name,” he recalled and you laughed. 

“And that saved me, the damsel, from my distress!” you reassured. 

Kie chuckled despite her confusion. She gave a pointed smile at your guys’s hands but the two of you were too distracted by one another. Kie wondered when John B was finally gonna tell you he liked you. 

“You guys are real cute,” Kie laughed and the two of you looked at her with wide eyes. Kie regretted opening her mouth as John B realized the two of you were still holding hands. He quickly pulled his hands out of yours, wiping his sweaty palms onto his shorts. You looked a little disheartened as your hands came forward to fidget on the knot of your shirt. 

“Nevermind,” Kie mumbled. She shook her ehad before walking away from the two of you to go help Pope with the Keg. You watched her walk away, the tips of your ears feeling hot. 

Your fingers fidgeted with one another as you looked up at John B from the corner of your eye.

“So um...” John B turned to you, “I think you owe me a dance?” you smiled and a smile began to stretch across his face. You couldn’t help but notice how his eyes were smiling too and the stretch of his cheeks caused his freckles to shift. 

“Would you like to dance?” John B questioned you and you pretended to think. 

“Hmm I don’t know, the guy who’s asking me to dance is being kinda...dry about it,” you pretended to cringe and John B rolled his eyes. 

He stepped back away from you and turned you so that two of you were facing one another rather than standing side by side. He held out a hand and you glanced between it and his expression. You tilted your head giving him raised brows and he laughed before getting down onto one knee. He put one arm behind his back and offered a hand out to you as you laughed at his antics. 

“Lady (Y/N) may I please have this dance?” he asked loudly and a few people chuckled as they watched him. You looked away, your cheeks burning as you tried to stop yourself from geeking out. You looked back at him again, biting at your cheek as you placed a hand into his. 

“Why of course,” you confirmed and John B hopped up to his feet before leading you into the middle of the dancing bodies. You weren’t to sure what song was playing but the bass was loud and the energy was high in that medium sized pocket of dancing people. 

You made a graceful turn, John B’s hand still in yours, and pressed your back up against John B’s front. The two of you swayed to the beat of the song as John B let go of your hand to put his hands on your skirt clad hips. He pressed himself close to you and you threw your curls over to your right side so he could lean his face down close to yours. 

The two of you grinned at each other as the song moved your body for you. 

“Those two are...definitely in love,” Pope pointed out, taking a sip from his drink. 

“Absolutely,” Kie nodded as she copied Pope’s actions. 

The two of them ignored JJ’s whines about the keg as they watched you and John B dance. 

will this be a series? who knows.....

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Disaster Lads: The Inevitable

The third part of my AU collab with @whumpiary where Cass (Ace) and Kauri meet. Read Part One and Part Two for context! 

In Part Three, things heat up, get angsty, and then there’s a surprise at the end you’ve all been waiting for... or maybe you weren’t, but trust me... it’s fun.

CW: CONSENSUAL SPICE. This is not implied, fade-to-black, or suggested. These boys have a lovely time and they’re happy to share it with you. Discussion of abusive relationship/abusive past, conditioning, 

Tagging Kauri’s crew:  @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @moose-teeth, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl, @spiffythespook, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly

“I have stuff,” Kauri says, all at once. “In my. I always… I have stuff for it.”

And God, Cass nearly falls apart at the table at that. He wants to climb over the table, or under it maybe, and have Kauri begging right there. Instead he takes in a deep, even breath, tries to stay calm and in control as he pulls his hand back a little, creating distance. One of them had to, huh?

It’s so much better like this than it had been behind the bar. Kauri’s embarrassed and stumbling and wanting it so bad he can barely get his words out properly and the earnest nervousness of it all is so fucking hot. There was literally nothing more attractive than someone wanting something so badly they were ceasing to function.

“You’re doing just fine,” Cass says with a smile, goes in with the understatement of the century. “It’s kinda cute, actually.”

Cass’ eyes slide briefly over Kauri’s shoulder to where Nick is serving a few tables down. He wonders how much shit Kauri’s gonna get in for leaving a free meal behind. He grabs a napkin from the holder, wrapping up his own untouched burger and shoving it in his pocket to give to Kauri later.

“C’mon tiger,” he says, voice heavy with want he’s not even trying to disguise anymore “Let’s get you out back, shall we?”

Kauri wants to say fuck yes and you go first and it all gets too jumbled in his head and instead he mumbles something like, “Fuck first,” then turns an even brighter red and grins. He pulls the ten out of his pocket and drops it on the table. 

“Leave a good tip,” He says, sort of embarrassed. “Since we-... with the food. Brings good luck.” 

He gives Nick a sunny goodbye, stopping to go up on his toes to kiss his cheek before he pulls Cass out the door, leaving Nick staring wide-eyed with a weird half-grin on his face as they go. 

Kauri doesn’t really make it further than the first steps to the back of the building before he moves his back against a wall and pulls Cass to him, pulling him closer for a hard kiss. The skills were learned all the wrong ways but he wants to use them, he’s good at this. His brain is a blurring, fuzzy white noise of lust and it’s the best Kauri ever feels, just like this. 

Kauri kisses like he was made for it. Which, Cass thinks as his thoughts slip back to Kauri’s mention of training, maybe he had been. But the fuck does that matter when he moves his hips like this, when his tongue does that, when Cass is almost struggling to keep up, and shit, when did that happen. He kisses up Kauri’s neck and slips his hands under his shirt, breath quickening at the first thrill of skin on skin. 

“Tell me you want it,” he says against Kauri’s throat. Because yes he can feel it, he can feel it so strong it’s basically got him seeing double but he wants to hear it. He wants to hear that same irresistible desperation from earlier. Those practiced, expert hands paired with the overwhelmed little stutter of a guy who’s only just figuring out how to actually say yes. 

Kauri arches his back into the press of warm palms against his stomach, pushing back under the hands slipping under his shirt, almost whining with it. His skin lights up at the touch, and he's breathing hard around the next kiss, and the next. 

"I do, I want you-" He catches himself before he can slip into anything too practiced, refusing to let that in this time. 

Instead, he takes a breath, gives Cass a cockeyed smile, and says, low and soft and his blush is red enough to read even in the dark, "I, um. Gonna need you in some part of me tonight, pretty soon. I, I want-"

His mind supplies an amazing, confused flurry of thoughts of legs around Cass's waist or with his chest and stomach against the wall or bent over or on his hands and knees and he can barely think coherently enough to form words behind yes now again. 

"I, I'm not good at saying things right when I'm not acting, uh, I just-..." He slips a hand forwards, deftly undoing the button on Cass's pants and yanking down his zipper so he can slip a hand down, feel the warmth of skin there, different than anywhere else. "I want this," He says, half-breathes. "In me."

Cass jerks up into Kauri’s hand at the touch involuntarily, laughing against Kauri’s mouth, “That’s all you had to say, baby.”

He kisses Kauri hard as he fumbles with the button on the other man’s jeans, one hand snaking beneath the waistband of his underwear to palm at Kauri’s hardening cock as the other pulls his hips in tight to his own.

Working with Kauri’s body is like following the line of a road on a map. It’s so simple and so satisfying Cass could do it with his eyes closed. It would be so easy to fall to his knees, pull Kauri into his mouth with a cruel little ‘my turn first’ and drag it out until the guy was desperate and begging but God all he wants right now is to be inside of the guy, fuck him until he can’t breathe, until he can’t think of anything else. 

“You said you had stuff?” he says, voice low and grazing, free hand travelling over Kauri’s hips, down his back, over the shape of his arse while the other works at the guy’s cock. He breathes hot against Kauri’s neck. He doesn’t want to wait. He wants him now.

For once, Kauri isn’t really worried about how he looks. Normally there’s some hint of putting on a show, of looking the right way, training and need working together to make him the kind of lay people remember just looking at for some of the time. 

But he’s trying not to do that with Cass. Instead he’s more fumbling, even though his touch is expert, and he breathes in high little moans, hips jerking himself against Cass’s hand. He’s so hard he could scream so fast - Cass is good at this, too, so good, like he can tell every single place Kauri wants him to touch without him ever even saying it.

“Uh, y-yeah, in my… hnnnh, yes, right there-... in my pocket, h-hold on-” His pants are falling down around his hips and he probably looks ridiculous trying to hold himself together, digging into an inside pocket on his zip-up, flashing lust-bright eyes up at Cass, breathing hard. He holds up a condom in one hand and a little single-use packet of lubricant in the other. 

“Ta-da,” He says, with a hint of the shy, slightly nervous smile. “Always, um, always have stuff. You’re so fucking gorgeous. D’you want me, um, me to… I can put it on you with my mouth.”

It had taken three full training sessions to learn how to do that, and his jaw had ached for days. 

Cass’ smile falters for a moment before returning, eyes flicking between Kauri and the condom. He's so earnest it's almost devastating.

“Uh, no. No, thanks. You don’t have to do that,” Cass flashes a grin before snatching both packets, distracting Kauri with a kiss as he tears the condom open with nimble fingers, rolling it on blind. He tears the second packet open with his teeth, slicking himself up with one hand while the other pushes at the back of Kauri’s hips with enough pressure to turn him. “Now, flip.”

He pulls himself close along then other man’s back, reaching around to stroke him as he slips his slicked-up hand beneath Kauri’s waistband.

“I don’t need tricks,” Cass murmurs against Kauri’s neck as he presses a finger into him “Just be your gorgeous self.”

Kauri lets out a shuddering breath, turning quickly around - so fast he nearly trips on himself and has to throw a hand up on the wall to catch his balance. “I’m sorry, I’m-... sorry, I’m usually better at this part…” 

He’s trying not to use his training - somehow Cass seems to know when he does it - but taking away all the training means he’s mostly awkward and fumbling and feels like he’s barely had sex before. Still, he can’t quite help the grin on his face, pressing his forehead against the wall and shifting hands to his pants to undo them and push them lower down to barely stay up around his thighs as Cass presses his finger in.

“Hnnnh, you’re… fuck, that’s good,” He whispers. Something in him, some restlessness he can only rarely settle, is soothed as soon as someone does something like this. Wanted, he’s wanted, he’s someone, he matters to someone, if only for a while. “Can… can you, um, kiss my neck, a little, while you-... that…”

Cass laughs gently, teeth grazing Kauri’s earlobe as he starts to kiss down his neck in response. It’s relieving having someone arch up against him like this. He doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to analyse or second-guess. He doesn’t have to navigate the nuances of what they want or don’t want because it’s so fucking obvious and it feels so good to give it to Kauri. Like he’s falling back into the role he’s meant to be in. Like every other moment had just been lead-up, had just been treading water until he could be right back here, where he belonged, his body pressed up against another person, giving them what they needed.

“You feel so good,” he says, adding a second finger, curling them just a little just to hear the way Kauri’s breath hitches. He presses an open mouthed kiss to the join between Kauri’s shoulder and his throat, stroking him slow, easing in a third, “God I can’t wait to be inside of you.”

Kauri lets out a breathy little whine, not quite a moan, bucking his hips forward and then rocking them back, his head dropping forward a little and his eyes closing. Forward, into Cass’s grip around him, the way his hand is moving just a little slow, exactly how Kauri wants it - no one ever knows to start this slow, like this, no one ever just knows that but somehow Cass knows that’s how he wants it.

Forward into his hand, backwards onto his hand, Cass’s mouth on his skin. He’s drowning in the other man in all the best ways. “Fuck, you even smell good,” Kauri manages, his voice higher, breathy, rocking back and this time his back arches and his head falls back on Cass’ shoulder. “Ah! Haaah, ah, y-you, ah, shit, no one finds it this fast, want-... I want you so b-bad, Cass.”

It doesn’t come out practiced or trained, it’s all shaken up in him. He wants Cass’s cock in him so bad he can’t think. 

Cass tangles his fingers in those curls and tugs gently back until Kauri’s neck is pulled back in a delicious arc. He sucks kisses along it as he pulls his fingers out of Kauri, wraps them around his own length. 

He eases in slowly, so fucking slowly, too fucking slowly, and has to nuzzle along the length of Kauri’s neck, inhaling deep, breath hitching just to keep himself calm. He lets out a barely-there moan, more of an exhale of breath.

He’s so desperate for this, for Kauri. So desperate to make him feel good, to give him what he needs. It would be so easy to rut into him, fast and hard like an animal, have him stretched open and panting in seconds, but it’s good like this, better like this, because he can feel Kauri melting under his hands, keening at every gentle touch. 

“Can’t believe I-... I get to have you like this,” he says voice stuttering with his breath as he rocks his hips forward, slow and smooth. He runs his thumb over the tip of Kauri’s cock with just the slightest amount of pressure, matching his own rhythm in gentle strokes “So fucking- God you’re so beautiful. Can’t believe I get t- to do this for you”

Kauri relaxes around him, one of the first and hardest skills he'd learned was how to relax his body no matter how he felt and the skill comes in so handy now. He lets out a soft whine as Cass presses on, the sensation of being filled driving him as crazy as the hand stroking him off. 

"Next time I, I want to look at your-... ah, face-... Yes, yesyesyes-" Cass has a steady rhythm, slow but deep, and Kauri rocks his hips back against him, burying him deeper with each thrust. 

He feels like he'll collapse if Cass pulls out, just clatter to the ground. Like being full of his cock is all that's holding him together. 

Cass hits that spot inside him, then again, and Kauri moans, grinding back. More now harder. The best he ever feels, in moments like this. 

“I like the s- God- like the sound of next time.”

He pictures Kauri’s legs around his waist, or his mouth around Kauri’s cock, or making him fall apart with words alone, just begging for Cass to touch him. He imagines fucking him slow, flat on his back, keeping him on edge for an hour as he kisses him soft. He’d give him whatever he wants- everything he wants.

Cass braces one hand against the wall as he quickens his pace, the other wrapping around Kauri’s front, pulling him tight to Cass’ chest as he fucks into him. He buries his face in Kauri’s hair. He wants him close, even closer than this. God, he just wants more. He feels needy and desperate, even now, buried inside of him. 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” Cass manages out, thrusting in hard and deep. “So fucking good.”

He drops his mouth to Kauri’s neck again, nipping gently at the delicate skin. He’s close. He’s so damn close.

Kauri’s conscious thought shatters, finally, and he feels the need in him building, heat in him pushing him towards climax but he’s trained for this, too, on a level deeper than thought. Kauri knows how to pace himself, to make it perfect, to time everything just right so that the person inside him finishes before he does. 

He wants Cass to finish first, wants to feel him before he lets go. 

“C’n… hold on, can do… you want to feel good, let me just-”

Kauri lets out a breathless, half-moaned laugh and tightens himself around Cass, turning his head to kiss into Cass’s neck, nipping at his skin. “Need you to, to come so I can come for you,” he breathes into his ear.

It’s all he needs. Cass curls around the shape of Kauri with a moan, breath caught in his throat as he comes. He lets his mind go blank, his thoughts go quiet, wrapped in pleasure and pressed deep into another man’s body.

He stays there, continuing to rock into Kauri gently as his hand wraps back around Kauri’s cock, the other tracing pretty lines down his jaw, down his throat, down his chest with long, soft fingers.

“So perfect,” he whispers against his shoulder “Come for me.”

The command tips him over, and Kauri moans, rocking forward into Cass’s hand and then going suddenly still and tense, spilling with Cass still moving in him and against him, jerking his hips in small movements as he comes onto the wall and then the ground, soft little cries muffled against Cass’s neck.

He was made for this. It’s what he is, what he was remade to do. In the moment of orgasm and then in the afterglow, Kauri feels like a whole person. He’s wanted. Cass wanted him, and he did it all exactly right. He’s good, a good boy, good at what they made him.

He feels so warm, floating in post-orgasm bliss, wanting nothing more than this moment to last.

“Th-that was… was…” Kauri laughs, breathless, pressing kisses against Cass’s neck, sliding his arms up and around behind him so he won’t pull out too soon, enjoying the feeling even now. “Best sex I’ve h-had up against a wall in an alley… You’re so fucking good.”

"All you, gorgeous," Cass laughs, still rocking his hips slowly, drunk on the feeling. God, he could stay here all night. "You're so good, Kauri. So, so good for me."

He stays there for another few moments, peppering Kauri with soft kisses and letting the other man do the same. It feels like the world stops hurtling on so violently when he can just lean into this, stay here, forget about himself and forget about everything. Just give someone exactly what they need. Exactly what they want. It was so simple. 

Everything else was complicated, tangly and difficult but this… He knows he’s good like this. 

"Next time... we do that in private, so I can stay just like this for you," he says, another quick kiss against Kauris temple "But for now..."

He grabs Kauri's hand, moving it away so he can start to ease out. His own hand is still tucked around Kauri’s front, under his shirt, feeling every stutter and movement of his body as he pulls out. He tucks Kauri back in before he tidies himself up, pulling the condom off and zipping his jeans back up.

Kauri, used to mostly cleaning himself up and usually cleaning up the other guy, too - it’s part of training, he falls into it mindlessly and the guys never seem to notice and if they do, they just say thank you and don’t give it a second thought - blinks, staring down at Cass’s hands so carefully shifting his pants back up over his hips, tucking him back into them, even zipping and buttoning and he lets out a huff of disbelieving laughter.

What had he done to meet someone so nice? 

He turns to say thank you and instead Cass’s mouth is on his, insistent but still soft and sweet, and Kauri melts against him, sliding arms eagerly around his waist to hold him close, draw it out, make it last even longer. Finally, when they break apart, Kauri is still nearly panting, still feeling the languid afterglow looseness in his limbs. 

Cass keeps his voice low and soft in that way that seems to make Kauri short circuit, “Still wanna come back to mine?”

“Yeah, I… yeah, I do, I want-... I want to, um, to get a little longer with you. Plus, I can’t exactly write you a letter-” Kauri’s voice cuts off, and then he laughs, a little nervously. “Since I don’t have anywhere you could get me one back. I want-... yeah. If you’re still offering, I do.”

Kauri's easy to fluster, Cass is realising. Intensely so. There's been a permanent blush on his cheeks since before they left the diner, and everything he says is coloured by the adorable tripping over of words. He gives Kauri's hand a squeeze and a little smile, pulling him out towards the street before dropping it again, walking backwards as he talks. 

"Well you'll know where I live in about three minutes, so you can just leave me a love note like diner-boy did."

He flashes a grin and walks in the opposite direction than they'd come. Away from the bar, away from the burger joint. He can see the Facility buildings from here, nondescript and unsigned. It’s hard to tell, if you don’t know what they are, if they’re meant to be residential or corporate. Probably because they functioned as a mix of both.

He feels like a teenager sneaking someone in through his bedroom window. Like he’s breaking some private rule with himself that keeps his two worlds separate. He glances back to Kauri, smiles in that easy way, "Hey so it’s no big deal, but, uh...  guests aren’t exactly celebrated at the Facility so like, if we see anyone, just be chill, yeah?"

Kauri walks after him like a lovesick puppy and he knows it, a stupid smile on his face but Cass doesn't seem to mind and Kauri can't seem to stop. 

All his stuff will be waiting for him at the park even if it takes him a day. He's had to leave his backpack and everything before for nearly a week. Nobody knows about the loose tile in the bathroom ceiling where Kauri keeps things. 

It sounds so fucking nice to have a Facility you could just leave if you wanted. Kauri's vaguely jealous as he talks, thinking it sounds like the dorms in Owen's movies. 

"I can be chill," Kauri says seriously, with sparkling eyes and a flush still in his face. "I'm good at quiet, I was, I… learned how to be really quiet. I won't fuck it up." 

He was nervous, but he wanted more of Cass, for at least a little bit. He could be normal long enough to fool whoever they might run into. 

There's a part of Cass that wants to tell Kauri to stop talking. Every time he opens his mouth, some horrible line of tragic comes peeling out from nowhere. Cass tries not to linger on it, the little slips. About learning and training and being good.

"Well we don't have to be that quiet," he says, trying to keep it light. "Just careful."

The door unlocks with a quick little beep as Cass flashes some other guy’s keycard and he pushes it open. He gestures for Kauri to go inside, feeling suddenly embarrassed at how upscale the place must look in comparison to damp alleys and park benches.

"Not really my deal," he says, trying to shrug it off. "But I'm not paying or anything, so..."

The foyer is orchids-on-the-marble-desk kind of nice. There's a completely impractical couch to the left you could probably trade in for a decent car. Cass hates everything about this place but it was still better than Christopher's. And he'd bet serious money it's leaps and bounds from wherever Kauri last slept.

It looks like the lobby in Owen's condo, to Kauri, only even nicer. He presses himself to Cass's side, nervous in his grungy thrift-store clothes, worried they'll kick him out or know what he is by sight, that someone like him only belongs in a place like this if he's got a collar around his neck. 

Or it'll be like they said in training - runaway Romantics come to bad ends when someone knows they can't really fight back. 

By the time they get to the elevators he's holding onto Cass's waist tightly enough to probably hurt. 

"I'm a few floors up," Cass says, a flirty smile trying to smother the sudden tension running through him. "Reckon I could have you begging again before we get there?"

He doesn't realize his breathing has picked up until Cass talks again, and Kauri's answer comes out more breathless than he means it to. He nuzzles briefly into Cass's neck just for the reassuring hit of safe he feels when he's touching someone. 

"I'd beg for you right here," He says, and then turns red again. "I'm sorry. I get, um, I do that when I'm, um. Yes."

Cass feels on edge all of a sudden. Out of his element. He doesn't like bringing people back here, he doesn't even like being here. The whole point of going out and hooking up with people is that he can be somewhere else for a night. And he'd ended up hauling Homeless Hottie through the door instead.

"You don't have to come up, you know." The words come from nowhere. Not rude, just a little prickly. "Like I don't need you to be here, it's just a place to crash."

He rakes his eyes over the other man, who looks just as nervous as Cass feels. Jittery. Like someone’s about to arrest him. 

"I fuckin' hate this place so if it’s making you feel weird or you wanna leave, I get it," he tries to feel casual about it, watching for the elevator doors to open. Please stay though. I hate it here but I don’t hate you so please, please stay. "It's not like we didn't already fuck, so no hard feelings."

Kauri leaves places. It's what he does, stay long enough for someone to want him and then go when they don't any longer, or when the closed door might be locked and he can't handle it any longer. 

Weirdly, though, he doesn't want to leave Cass. 

"I'm sorry," Kauri says softly. He's made him mad, somehow, and he's not quite sure what he did this time. He started the whole night by getting Cass mad – Kauri's carefully-remade mind drops the simple fact that Cass had actually gotten mad at Matt, and substitutes himself as being at fault for not just taking the drink and being good with perfect seamlessness – and he's done it all over again without even trying. 

"I want to stay with you," He says, sincerely, truthfully. "Overnight. I think I want to know you better for a while. I just, um. No, you're right, if you don't want me in your place that's, that's okay. I was just being-... I haven't-... I get nervous about locked doors but it doesn't mean I don't want something."

Cass nods slow, trying not to prickle over the idea that this place is anything close to his. He flicks his eyes over Kauri, almost surprised at the amount of resolve in his voice. He shrugs. Makes a choice. 

"Okay. So no locked doors," he tosses Kauri the keycard that isn't his. Nobody was paying him to give a shit about facility security and he'd snag another one tomorrow anyway. "All I want is a good time, alright? For both of us."

Kauri takes the keycard and stares down at it, blinking, then the tension melts out of him all over again and he slips it into his back pocket. The elevator doors slide open and Kauri is noticeably more relaxed as he’s pulled into the elevator, looking up at Cass with all the humor and lightness back in his eyes.

Cass steps backwards until his back is pressed up against the mirrored wall with Kauri in front of him, hand reaching out to press the button for his level as the doors slide closed again. He tries to let the tension in his shoulders drop, fastening on a grin in its wake "Now tell me what you want."

“I want…” Kauri thinks it through - there’s a pile of responses on his tongue, ready to go, all of them trained and conditioned, memorized and repeated at the other end of a shock stick or tied up in ropes or hit on the knuckles whenever he got it wrong. He rejects every single one, because none of them are the true thing, the thing he really wants to say. 

It’s pure sincerity when he leans in closer to Cass, goes up on his toes to kiss him, and says softly, “I want you to kiss, um-... to kiss me stupid ‘til we get into your room and I want to ride you when we’re in there.”

Kauri’s so easy to kiss. He’s so easy to move with, so easy to tug and pull. He’s so easy to want. Cass pulls him in close, and with barely enough space between them to breathe it’s hard not to think God, he’s made for this.

“You’re so good,” Cass says, pressing up against him. The elevator doors slide open behind them and Cass kisses Kauri backwards until they’re up against the hallway wall, Kauri giggling quietly and running his hands up Cass’s sides and back down to his hips to pull them flush again.

The res level is featureless and clinical compared to the foyer. Why waste money decorating something the public didn’t see? Something only meant for those lowest on the company totem pole?

He leads Kauri down the hallway a few steps, pushing him gently into his quarters as the door slides open, kissing him all the while.

“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” he says with a grin, stripping his jacket and adding it to a chair piled with clothes. “My, uh, boss likes things to stay tidy, so naturally I keep it as messy as possible.”

Aside from the debris of his life scattered around – clothes on the floor, papers and books on the inbuilt desk, a couple pill bottles sitting pretty by the lamp – the place is stark and white. Featureless. The king single shoved in the corner lays unmade, white quilt gathered at the bottom a testament to the restless sleeper he is when he dains to occupy it. He feels strange with someone in his space like this. Exposed, almost.

“I’d offer you something to drink but, uh,” he looks around the room, shrugs “I’m not exactly well-equipped for guests.”

“That’s okay,” Kauri answers, sincerely, looking around the room with the opposite of Cass’s expression on his face. There’s a hint of nervous worry when he sees the stark white walls, the slightest hesitation before he lets himself be pulled into the room, but the simple mess is immensely comforting. 

Not a cell, not ‘resident rooms’ like his own had been, empty and with just the floor to sleep on unless you earned blankets and a pillow and there were rumors the really good trainees could earn a bed. No, this was like…

“Like a dorm room at college,” Kauri whispers, then winces at a spike of pain ricochets around inside his skull. 

don’t think about that don’t remember that that never happened you made that up it’s common to have false memories after training

He shakes it off almost instantly - it’s there and gone, barely a flicker of expression before he makes himself forget he’d ever said anything. 

“Are you allowed to have things for the walls?” He asks instead, his voice perfectly light and cheerful, moving forward into the room, grazing fingertips over the pile of clothes in the chair, as if considering something. “I could bring you a picture. There’s a lady down at the farmer’s market who paints, she likes me, she always says she’ll give me a painting if I ever have a place to put one.”

Cass closes his eyes, a smile creeping over his face. He can’t tell anymore if the way Kauri tilts the conversation onto easier topics is intentional or just a very well practiced habit. Either way, it's entirely sweet and a little disarming. 

“You know, I’ve never asked,” he says, sweeping in close again, wrapping an arm around Kauri’s waist. “But I’d risk breaking the rules for you.”

He tilts Kauri's chin up to meet him in a kiss, and as he does he feels an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. He can't help but feel like Kauri's unfairly lucky. He knows it's not a rational thought. He knows it's not. But still.

How the fuck do you stay homeless when people seem to be tripping over to try and help you? There seem to be so many people wanting to offer Kauri small kindnesses but instead he opted to turn them all down just to stay on the streets and desolate. And Cass had fought tooth and nail for a single bed in a room without a key.

Like a college dorm room, Kauri had said, before all but flinching away from his own comment. Like a college dorm room. Cass wouldn't know would he? Had never had the chance. 

“Where’d you go to college?” he asks, innocent enough. The other questions, the crueler, bitter-with-jealousy questions– were you any good? did you get kicked out? is that why you sold yourself? fucking piece of shit drop out, buried in fancy college debt? – stay at bay. 

Kauri's quiet, pressing the kiss closer, deeper, burying himself in it, more aggressive now. The headache threatens if he tries to ask too many questions, the memory of drugs woozily running through his veins, hooked to a wall and forget forget forget in his head obliterating whatever poor son of a bitch had lived in his head before.

Then, finally, he pulls away and shrugs, smiling sunny and bright, deflecting, distracting. "I don't know," Kauri says, voice perfectly, carefully constructed to seem careless, isn't it so funny that I don't know, but really, who cares? "It's not important to what we're for-... what we do. Not like I could write a fucking essay to save my life anymore. Or a poem."

Another flinch, as if Kauri had tripped over something, and he shoves Cass's back against the wall with a sudden aggressive need, slipping a hand into the waistband of his pants while shifting a leg between Cass's legs, an expert move to brush against him from two directions. 

"Doesn't matter."

A familiar rush of hot and cold runs through Cass' body at the answer, at the touch, at the rough push against the wall that makes him shudder with a kind of practiced thrill. Kauri knows exactly what he's doing with his hand and the bid for distraction spurs Cass on even more. 

Kauri's uncomfortable. He wants distraction. Deflection. To change the subject. But Cass wants to know. Cass wants to push. "So, what? They ju - hah - just keep the slutty parts and fry the rest?"

It's getting mean. He can feel it. A backwards kind of resentment clawing under his skin, twisting his mood. He catches Kauri's lips with his own, fingers brushing under the hem of Kauri's shirt. The kiss is desperate and rough, on the borderline of bruising, and when Cass pulls away he feels a childish sort of challenge pulling at him

Kauri ignores the first question entirely, sliding his hand straight down to brush over Cass between his legs, feeling him soft but he wouldn't be for long, Kauri knew just what to do to get past this moment and his thoughts, and he likes the rough stuff as much as he ever likes tenderness.

He's trained to. 

Jesus, I know I asked for a brainless slut, Kor-Bore, but this is something else. Do you even have brain cells now? 

He's just started to curve around him, to stroke him back to hardness, when Cass asks, "What if I wanted a poem?"

Kauri's face flickers with hurt, an oddly naive why would you ask that considering the practiced physicality on display. Then he tilts his head, looking up at Cass, and gives him the honest fucking answer while giving his cock just enough of a roll of his palm to feel good. 

"I'd tell you to go fuck yourself."

Cass knows an evasive answer when he hears one. It's not some sort of pathetic no homo-ism which would've been funny in its own right with Kauri's hand sitting where it is. It's something deeper than that. Something that hits close enough to home to hurt.

The energy in the room has shifted. Tense and pulsating. The undercurrent of something bitter. Territory Cass was more familiar with than tender kisses in alleyways.

"Seems like you're already doing that for me," he says, rolling his hips forward into the touch. He doesn't bring his hands up to touch back, to hold. It's a challenge in its own right.

How much will you still want me when I'm not acting how you want? When I'm not doing what you need?

Cass has been choked against this wall, threatened against this wall, had his head bashed into it more times than he could count. His eyes track across Kauri's face, land on his lips. He doubts the other man has anything even close to violence living in his veins, but Cass still juts out his chin, looks down at Kauri through lidded eyes. Even the thought of it sends something electric through him.

"You gonna make me sorry for asking?"

"No," Kauri answers easily enough, a short, almost curt single syllable. He can feel Cass getting hard again under his hand, and he tilts his head just a little, looking down, before he gives just enough of a squeeze to keep it interesting.

"I don't do that. I just make you stop wanting to ask." 

It's an honest answer - and Kauri grabs him by the belt loops in his pants, pulling him back until they stumble to the bed and Kauri half-falls to seated with Cass standing between his legs, yanking open Cass's pants with no gentleness this time. 

"Show you what parts aren't fried," Kauri mutters, half-under his breath, moving to shift his pants down and press a kiss to his stomach in the same moment. 

The sound Kauri pulls out of him is more of a grunt than a moan. Cass can feel himself starting to swim. That particular territory on a night out where old restless anger hollows him out and switches on the autopilot. He tilts his head back where he stands, tangling his fingers through Kauri's curls as he closes his eyes. He breathes in.

But this is his place. 

This is his fucking bed, his fucking room. 

He doesn't want to drift. He doesn't want to leave.

There were two ways Cass knew that kept him attached to the ground. The easiest was a punch in the teeth. The other was harder. Sharing something to make the other person feel closer to you, and then hold onto that like a tether.

It made them like you more, made them easier to stay hooked to. It made it easier to feel what they wanted, even. To ride that wave. But it meant sharing some broken part of himself. Sometimes he lies. Usually he lies. But tonight...

"I couldn't read until I was like 17," he says, voice is low, only opening his eyes after he's said it. "The guy who taught me how also taught me how to fuck."

He traces his fingers down the curve behind Kauri's ear, along the line of his jaw, tilting his face up with a gentle hand under his chin. Cass searches blue eyes and doesn't know what for.

"I'm fried, too."

"I'm… I'm sorry." Kauri hesitates, leaning forward with his shoulders so his chin rests lightly on Cass's stomach, looking up at him. "I can't… I can't read the note from Nick because I can't read. And I can't write you a poem because I can't write, either." 

He jerked Cass's pants down over his hips, to his thighs, and kissed into the flat spot just inside each hip, one on each side.

He looked back up. 

"I don't know what I look like. I can't look in mirrors. You guessed it right. They fried most of me. Now please push me back on the bed and…" Hold onto me, please, just want this, too, even if it's just to fuck me, just don't make me leave with this the last thing I said "-fuck me or something if you're going to keep me talking about this."

Hearing it all come rattling has something under Cass' skin curdling a little. He doesn't usually go for tragedy. He almost regrets pushing. He almost wants to apologise. Instead he straddles Kauri's hips, knees on the mattress as he pulls the guy's shirt over his head and throws it to the side before doing the same with his own. He kisses him until he's flat on his back on the mattress.

This part is so easy. Puzzle pieces fitting together, gears slotting into place, every kind of made for this metaphor rolled into one.

"We don't have to talk."

He apologises with his tongue, with open mouthed kisses that travel down Kauri's throat to the twisted scar along his collarbone and back up. He rolls his hips into the man beneath him, unbuttons those jeans with one hand and delights in the heat of Kauri's cock as he palms him, feels him start to harden.

His own jeans practically fall off as he stands, loose from Kauri's ministrations, and he kicks them to the side before leaning forward, kissing lines down Kauri's stomach and down his hips and down his thighs as he undresses him too. He presses his cheek to Kauri's leg, planting a kiss on his inner thigh.

"Just one more question." He brushes against Kauri's hardening cock with his lips, "This?" He slips his hand under Kauri's lower back, down the curve of his arse, just barely pressing into him again, "Or this?"

Kauri hums under the attention, he loves being pressed back into the mattress, a hint of weight holding him down. It’s what he wants, what he’s for. Any anger in him drains out with every kiss - Kauri is used to apologies that aren’t spoken or that don’t happen at all.

He wouldn’t even want an apology - he has no idea how to handle them unless they’re laced with reasons that Kauri’s really the one to blame.

Kauri pushes himself up on his elbows, nerves singing, and looks down towards Cass, the shy, sincere smile on his face as he pushes himself closer to sitting up. “Um, your-... your mouth,” Kauri says, hushed, almost shocked-sounding. “Mouth, please.”

Cass holds eye contact as he smiles, running his tongue along the underside of Kauri’s cock before taking him into his mouth. He hums deep in his throat, lets his hair fall in front of his face like a curtain and lets everything else fall away completely.

He will never understand people that don’t love this; that don’t love taking another person in with your mouth, with your hands, and making them utterly melt. It was so simple. So good. Skin against skin, another person to breathe in. He didn’t have to think about anything else, he didn’t have to worry about anything else. He could lose himself in wanting them, in being wanted.

He runs his hands up Kauri’s thighs as he works at pulling delicious sounds from him, finding a rhythm with his mouth, interrupting it again with the swirling of his tongue. Kauri tastes good. He feels good. It’s good, it’s all so fucking good. 

Kauri stays up on his elbows at first to watch him, taking the sight of Cass in with unadulterated, if oddly pure, joy. He’d had no idea what this felt like, beyond a sense-memory that told him he’d had one before, the first time someone he’d hooked up with had gone down on him after he ran away.

He never got tired of it - of how wonderful it was to have someone want him so much they would touch him even without taking anything for themselves. It felt so perfectly right, and he couldn’t keep the dopey smile off his face even as he had to shift and finally lay back, focusing his eyes on Cass’s ceiling, his hands sliding into his hair, running through the strands, hips moving gently up to push himself deeper, just a little. 

It’s not long before his soft exhalations are full-on moans, and he tries to keep mostly quiet since there are probably other people here but he’s never really been good at that - Owen didn’t want him trained to be quiet at times like this - and he can’t help himself, moaning, “You’re so good, this is so-... fuck, so good, Cass, under the-... yeah, like th-that, just like that-... ah, you’re so so good, so nice, so nice to do this, to, to, ah, ah, ah-” He trails off into a louder sound as Cass hits just the right spot just under the head and his hips jerk, hands buried deeply in his hair, eyes wide and hardly seeing.

It feels so good. For maybe the second or third time, Kauri’s genuinely a little sad he probably won’t see this guy again.

The sounds Kauri makes are so fucking endearing. He moans like he's never had a blowjob, like he's not sure he's ever gonna have one again. Was there literally anything better than hearing someone make sounds like that? It makes it easy to enjoy, to indulge in getting him off.

Cass can’t help but laughing under his breath as he pulls off, licking long and slow along Kauri’s cock.

 “Enjoying yourself, big guy?” he mutters, smiling up at Kauri’s blushing cheeks, the mass of dark curls against the sheet before swallowing him to the hilt. Maybe the only thing better than hearing someone make sounds like that was knowing you were the one that caused it.

He speeds up, moaning deep around Kauri’s cock. Hands down the best fuck Cass has had for months.

Kauri’s moans turn into something like loud, high-pitched whimpers as Cass’s throat vibrates around him with his own sounds, his fingers tightening to nearly painful in Cass’s hair and his hips jerking up harder than he intends them to, thrusting into Cass’s mouth unconsciously. 

“Y-yes, you’re so-... so good, this is so good, I’m, I’m going to-... wait wait wait if you keep g-going, I’ll, I’ll, um-... I’ll-” Kauri’s body tenses all at once, and he lets out a loud cry as he tilts over the edge, coming right down Cass’s throat.

He’s barely finished before he’s trying to pull Cass back up to him, to kiss him, to tangle every single limb around him and keep them pressed together at every possible level.

Cass finds himself, not for the first time tonight, laughing into Kauri's mouth. The guy holds him like he's gonna disappear the second they're not touching, and Cass wraps his arms around his waist as he kisses him.

I'm not going anywhere. God, please keep touching me like that. I want you, I want you, I want you.

He feels love drunk and loose, even though he's still achingly hard. He rolls his hips along Kauri's thigh, chasing the gentle friction as he rocks forward and back but not reaching for more just yet. Cass doesn't want more right now. Just wants to enjoy Kauri's body warm beneath him, the tiny electric sparks he can feel under every brush off his fingers. The desperate kisses, panting breaths, those pretty sounds still sighing out of Kauri's mouth.

He plants a kiss on Kauri's cheek, reaches down to brush his hand against Kauri's cock one more time. "That was hot."

Kauri jumps a little, letting out a half-squeaked whine at the hint of touch to his already overstimulated cock, then laughs and presses against him even more, tilting his head up and back for another kiss, taking the affection as it’s given with pure gratitude for it. 

“Yeah, you’re really good at it,” Kauri says, grinning. He can taste himself on Cass, and that’s a rare thing for him, this happens so rarely and it’s even more rare they want to kiss right after. “You’re so, so good. That was so good.” He can’t stop saying it, and he knows it’s stupid to repeat it over and over again, and he finally just ducks his head, tucking it under Cass’s chin, to hide his bright red flush, as much from the aftermath of orgasm as from his embarrassment.

“I like your bed,” Kauri murmurs, stretching his legs out, tangling them with Cass’s. He’d expected to be curled up on a park bench or lying under someone’s heavy weight by now. Lying like this instead - curled up with someone built more like he is, who seems to feel the same way about wanting touch - is so much better. “It’s really soft.”

Cass snorts, nearly makes a quip about razor wire bed springs and b-grade foam, but he stops himself, remembering where Kauri would've been if not here.

"You're really soft," he says instead, running his fingers in long circles along Kauri's arm, his back, down his side. He can feel his own body relaxing with the rhythm of it, with the feeling of skin on skin. 

He wishes it didn't feel so good to have someone tucked into him like this and pressed against him. He wishes he wasn't like this, he wishes he wasn't so needy. There's a tension in him he never knows he's holding and it releases when someone touches him. It's like he's never really breathing when he's not being held.

"I should thank that asshole for tryna spike your drink, huh?"

Kauri actually laughs, breaths against Cass’s shoulder, hands sliding across the muscles of his back. “Or I should, I guess,” He says, ignoring the flutter of nervousness. He's too loose, right now, languid and his eyes are finding it harder and harder to open.

“Used to get drugged all th’ time, anyway,” Kauri says, his voice slightly slurred with sleepiness. “It’d jus’ feel like home.”

Cass huffs out a laugh. He reaches behind himself to tap his fingers on the bedside table, one of the bottles from the random assortment of benzos and sleeping pills rolling away as he does. "I'm outta the good stuff but help your fuckin' self."

He wonders vaguely at what point the venn diagram between Kauri's experiences and his own would start looking close to a circle. He wonders too if maybe he should worry about that. He stares up at the ceiling, hand tracing lazy shapes along Kauri's upper arm.

"Mine put it in chocolates, usually," he whispers, not even sure if Kauri's conscious enough to hear him "Or in drinks. He liked it when I'd forget."

There’s a pause, like maybe Kauri had fallen asleep, before he murmurs back, “It was in our food, th’ water, all of it. Did y’... mmmmn…” Kauri nuzzles in closer, pulling Cass as tight against him as he can get, shifting around so he can bury his feet under the blankets at the end of the bed. “... tell you it’s what you’re for?”

Cass buries his face in Kauri's hair and closes his eyes. He feels sleep tugging at him now. Making his body heavy. Pulling him down. 

"Yeah," he mutters, pressing a kiss to Kauri's head "Told me I was made for it."

Kauri tries to think of a reply, but the moments lying together, the languid loose feelings of his muscles, and Cass’s warm body in the bed all work together to ensure he’s sound asleep before anything in particular comes to mind. He holds Cass tightly, and in his sleep he never rolls away, only shifts closer, twining his legs around Cass’s so their hips are flush even sleeping, as though he wants only to be touching Cass with as much of himself as he can, even fast asleep.

They’ve only been asleep for a handful of hours when the sliding door slams open. Cass sits up immediately at the sound, awake and heart pounding before Tucker even has the chance to thump the timered light back on.

“Rise and shine, Ace, we have a lot to-“ Tucker’s voice cuts off as he takes in the scene before him. He tilts his head to the side, blinks, a dangerous smile curling his mouth “What the fuck is this?”

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

Hey!! Could you write something shippy about Boimler and Mariner? What if Boimler regularly spent time in the holodeck acting out certain scenarios and situations with Mariner? 👀

A/N: This was way angstier than I meant it to be. And way less sexier. I apologize in advance.

ao3

She glares at him, mouth pressed into a thin line. “What happened to having each other’s backs? I put my ass on the line for you. Repeatedly.”

He winces. This conversation is not going how he’d planned. “Mariner, I-”

Mariner clenches her fists and straightens. “No, you don’t get to say anything after what you pulled. Fuck you.”

The image freezes and Boimler resets the simulation.

What seems like years ago, he remembers lecturing Tendi overusing the Holodecks for fun. The details are fuzzy. It was before the “GUYS I MADE US INTO A MOVIE'' incident with Mariner, but after that weirdass thing with Rutherford and his rogue program. He thinks she and Mariner had been using it to watch Ransom in an array of—what he now admits-hysterical situations—but can’t be sure.

She and Mariner have gotten up to so much shit, he can’t keep track.

He doesn’t know why he’s remembering it now. It was a random conversation that happened a long time ago—a few months after Tendi was assigned to the Cerritos? –so there’s no reason why he should be thinking about it right now.

Liar, a smug voice intones in his head. It sounds vaguely like Mariner. Boimler aggressively shoves it down.

This isn’t for fun, he anxiously tells the voice in his head. The voice is quiet. It does nothing to soothe the turning of his stomach.

It’s been three months since Boimler requested a transfer back to the Cerritos. Three months since he’d run into Rutherford and Tendi on shore leave and the three of them got swept up into a ridiculous, interplanetary civil war that took three different starship crews to settle out. Three months since he’d almost died more times than he can count on all his fingers and toes, three months since he thought Tendi had died, miles away from her home, on a world which would never remember her name, three months since Mariner swept in and fixed everything.

It’s been three months.

Not that he’s counting.

Somewhere between being in a remote alien prison with Tendi and hiking for a month in a perpetually dark wilderness with Rutherford, Boimler had come to the belated conclusion that his career didn’t take precedence over his friends.

(Also, if he’s being completely honest, he missed the chaos of being a lower deck ensign. Not that he still doesn’t want to be in the upper ranks. Just not without his dumb, dumb friends.)

After it was all over—and he’d realized that Tendi was alive—he put in his transfer request, surprising all his peers.

“This just isn’t a good fit for me,” was his official statement.

Captain Riker gave him a bland look. “You worked with Beckett, didn’t you.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were amused.

“Is it that obvious?”

“She rubs off on people. Don’t let her give you a hard time,” he added, signing off on the request. “It was nice working with you, Boimler. If you ever need anything, let me know.”

And so here he is, a newly minted ensign again, on the lower decks of the Cerritos.

(Captain Freeman is thrilled. “All operations have been down by 18% since you left. Good to have you back, Boimler.”)

Tendi and Rutherford seem hyped to have him back-Tendi especially, who’s been a little clingy with everyone since her near-death experience-but are acting uncharacteristically nervous around him. This isn’t a surprise. The tension between him and Mariner when she’d shown up on Roxadt II was insane and was only getting worse with every day. It’s been six weeks since he’d transferred, and she’s found a reason to be in a different room for all six of them.

Hence the simulations.

That makes absolutely no fucking sense, the Mariner-esque voice in his head sneers. Just talk to her you fucking wimp.

Boimler ignores it.

“Scenario A-187,” the clinical voice of the simulation intones. The simulation restarts.

It goes exactly the same way 186 other scenarios had gone. He corners Mariner. She stays quiet. He apologizes. She explodes.

Mariner’s anger had always burnt red hot. He’d first experienced it when an ensign got a little frisky with Tendi after she’d repeatedly told him no. Mariner’s fury at the situation felt justified. Vindicated. The ensign had been demoted so hard, Boimler was certain they’d seen the last of him for like. Well, forever.  At the time he’d been astonished that she’d managed to pull it off, but after finding out about her familial connection to the Captain, it made sense.

He’d seen a glimpse of that anger a few more times—when Captain Freeman had forced her to go to therapy, after Rutherford had been captured by rogue Klingons, that one-time Ransom tried to promote her.  But never toward Boimler.

Oh, she’d get irritated with him.  “Loosen up, Boimler, it’s not that bad.”

“Look, the worst that’ll happen is that we get a note to file-stop yelling!”

“Dude if you don’t chill the fuck out I might actually throw you out of an airlock.”

Standard Mariner reactions, right? Yeah, she’d been pretty pissed when he took the promotion (his voicemail had been blowing up for the first 48 hours after he transferred), but it had died down fairly quickly so he had logically assumed that she had gotten over it.

He assumed wrong. If her icing him out was to be taken into account. So here he was, six weeks in, desperate and stressed from his friend’s apparent dismissal. The obvious solution, his sleep deprived brain decided, was to simulate a conversation with her using his high-tech program on the holodeck.

This may have not been the best idea. But he’s calculated the probability of anything going wrong and it’s under 3%, so he’s almost guaranteed success.

(So, of course, it blows up in his face, in true Boimler fashion.)

“Okay, I have a pretty high threshold for weird, but this might take the cake,” a voice slowly says.

Boimler startles. Whirls around. Shuts down the simulation. “Ohhh shit-”

“Yeah shit,” Mariner says, stalking into the room. “What the hell, dude?”

“This isn’t what it looks like!” Boimler sputters out, panicked. The simulation is shut down, leaving them in the empty holodeck room, but the echoes of Holo-Mariner’s rage still resonate between them. Actual Mariner is staring at him, face somewhere between completely shocked and furious.

“Did you use your dumbass hyper realistic program to simulate a situation with me so that you could cheat later?”

“I mean, kinda?”

“Then it’s exactly what it looks like!” Mariner slaps a palm over her eyes.

“Well what was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know—maybe talk to me like a person? Not use your creepy, hyper realistic simulations to roleplay it?” She drops her hand and glares up at him.  

Boimler rolls his eyes. “You literally created a simulation to kill the entire crew because your mom made you go to therapy.”

“Yeah and it fucking worked.”

“Then why are you yelling at me?!”

“I’m not!”  she shrieks. “I’m very calmly telling you to fucking talk to me next time!”

“There’s not going to be a next time!”

Mariner stops, mouth open. “What?”

“Look, I get it. I fucked up and you apparently don’t do second chances! I was trying to make things right but clearly it isn’t working. I’ll stay out of your way now.”

Instead of pacifying her, this seems to make Mariner even more furious. “You fucking asshole. what am I supposed to say to that?” she shouts, stomping up to him.

He groans in exasperation. “Apparently nothing, considering you don’t want to talk to me!”

Her hands grab his collar, pulling him down to eye level with her. “I literally just said to talk to me next time!”

“And how was I supposed to do that if you’re avoiding me?”

“You’re the one who fucked off in the Titan to god-knows-where,” Mariner grits out.

So they’re actually doing this. Boimler swallows hard. Takes a breath. Tries to quell the anxiety welling in his gut. “I’m sorry.”

“Right after you said you didn’t care about rank or shit,” she adds, twisting the knife.

“Yeah. It was really shitty of me.”

“And then you ghosted me for like six months.”

Boimler winced. “Yeah—I. Yeah.”

Mariner’s iron grip on his shirt loosens, but she doesn’t let go completely. “That was really shitty of you.”

Not sure what to say, beyond apologizing again, Boimler gives a jerky nod.

“You came back.” She stares at him, eyes unfathomable. “The Titan wasn’t everything you dreamed it would be.”

It’s not a question.

Boimler still has an answer, though. “It was.”

She stiffens. He pushes forward, intent on getting this out while he still has her attention. “It was everything I wanted in a career. I was doing what I wanted, everyone took me seriously. Our missions came straight from the Admiralty and they treated us like we weren’t a joke. I loved it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I care more about my friends then I do about people taking me seriously.”

Mariner freezes and then lets out a strangled laugh. “Now I think you’re the simulation. Who are you and what have you done with Boimler?” She pokes at his cheek.

He grins. And then falters. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s not worth much—but. I am sorry. I wasn’t a very good friend.”

“Yeah you weren’t.” She lets go of her grip on his shirt completely and draws back. “You said you were my best friend and then you left. For Riker.”

“That makes me sound like the love interest in a cheesy drama. And like I’m hooking up with Riker.”

“I said what I said.”

Boimler laughs. It feels real for the first time in a long while. “Are we good?”

“No.” Mariner smiles. “I’m going to give you so much shit and you’re gonna grovel for like months and then I’m going to tell my mom that you used to holodeck to simulate certain situations with me.”

“If you do that I’m transferring back,” Boimler tells her. “Your mom finally likes me; I don’t need her ejecting me out of an airlock.”

“She wouldn’t do that.” Mariner waves him off.

“She totally would.”

“Yeah, she totally would,” she agrees. Grabs his arm and begins dragging him out of the holodeck. “So maybe I won’t tell her. I am telling Tendi though and she’s gonna give you so much shit considering you reemed her out over misusing the holodeck.”

Boimler makes a face. “I’ll probably let her too. I’m such a hypocrite.”

“You are, but it’s super weird to hear you be honest about it. Stop being all apologetic, it’s weird.”

They’ve reached the corridor. Mariner steers them in the direction of the bar. “Only if you promise to deck me if I ever make a dumb decision like that again,” he says, giving in and allowing himself to be manhandled. It’s the least he owes her.

“Deal. And the next time you use your weird, hyper realistic simulator—which doesn’t even fucking work by the way, I’m not that much of a bitch—you gotta promise you’ll use it for sexy reason only.”

“Sexy reasons only,” Boimler deadpans. “You know they log everything we do down there.”

Mariner wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “I know.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re uptight, but you’re the one who was playing with simulations of me.”

“That sounds way worse than it actually is,” he cringes.

“No, it doesn’t. I would take some sexy action over your sad, sad trauma simulations any day. Next time I catch you, you’d better be having fun with it.”

“Mariner, what the fuck—”

They dissolve into good natured bickering. She says something lewd and he rolls his eyes and elbows her and she squawks in protest and threatens to get him thrown in the brig. It’s normal, but it’s also not. There’s something new in the air between them that wasn’t there before. Tension, but not negative. It’s charged with. Something else.

Boimler doesn’t examine it too closely. Better to let it work itself out naturally. After all, he has all the time in the world now.

[mittensmorgul]

Hi Mittens, I’m the anon who asked about Christo. I’m sorry to cause any confusion. One example is how they treated Abbadon. Dean specifically outlines how they are going to make sure she’s dead by dismemberment and burying the pieces in concrete. They even repeat that scene in the episode previouslies where Abbadon comes back. So why didn’t they dispose of her like they proclaimed? Then they both leave the room to take the phone call and she escapes. 1 of 2.

2/2 It reminded me of them leaving the Styne brother alone in the dungeon and he escaped. Shouldn’t they know to lock the bad guys down more securely? Your anon who mentioned President Rooney reminded me of that strange situation with the golden egg. Why were they hanging around in the hotel room just to get caught by the feds? Shouldn’t they have freed him and ran? I feel they should be shown to be smarter. So is the writing face value for their characters or is the writing inconsistent?

Hi there! and thank you for writing back! It’s not a problem at all! I love answering questions if I can, and you’re lucky I have some answers to this one that you will hopefully find satisfying. :)

(note that I would put this under a cut, but tumblr has been breaking them lately, so I’m not gonna risk that... apologies for the very long post)

Let’s start with Abaddon, since that one is incredibly easy. They 100% did do exactly what they said they were gonna do to her. They very much did hack her up and bury her under concrete in/after 8.12. They thought they could use her as the demon for the cure in 8.22, though. They’d been trying to capture a demon, but Crowley had ordered all his demons to stay away from them.  Here, from the transcript of 8.22

DEAN: Could we take this hoodoo on a test drive?

SAM: Um, I mean, I have the exorcism right here. All we need is the blood, consecrated ground, and a demon. So, what? We summon a demon, trap it –

DEAN: Or – or we use one that we've already tagged. Do we still have dad's old army field surgeon's kit?

SAM: It's in the trunk. Why?

DEAN: Yeah, I think it's time we put humpty dumpty back together again.

*

They dug her up and stitched her back together (sans hands), and were intending to use her to perform the Third Trial. Hence the stitches holding her head on:

Agreed they were kinda dense leaving her alone, even without her hands attached, when their phone rang... Crowley was calling to blackmail them and it gave Abaddon time to escape. Which is why they ended up capturing and using Crowley for the Third Trial. 

Then in 8.23, when she shows up to tell Crowley that she’ll be taking over Hell now, Sam douses her with holy oil and lights her up. We don’t know definitively what happened to her or her remains after that point because A LOT happened at the end of 8.23, and “making sure abaddon was really dead-dead” was not at the top of Dean’s priority list, you know? Which is the state from which she was resurrected in 9.02...

But in between, she absolutely did spend half a season chopped up under concrete. This is not “bad writing” or incoherent continuity.

They didn’t really have a way to definitively “kill” her, you know? the best they could do was to trap her and bury her, but their own desperation to get the doors of hell slammed shut (which, if you know me you know I think is the biggest act of hubris the Winchesters have ever attempted to carry out) they didn’t really stop to think “hey maybe this is the worst idea.”

I also don’t think they knew that Abaddon had the power to command her hands to do her bidding when they were literally in a box on a table across the room from her... I mean, I would’ve been OVERLY cautious about that sort of thing just because, but I’ll forgive them because they were distracted, stressed, and overwhelmed. Sam was experiencing massive Trial Sickness, Dean was worried about him AND Cas, and then if that wasn’t enough, Crowley called to tell them he was methodically gonna kill everyone they ever saved until they gave in to his demands.

They were kinda distracted... ?

Okay, moving on to the next one: Eldon Styne and the Half-Assed Handcuff. Let’s start by remembering a few details about this Dumbass Scene.

1. It was Bucklemming... something in me always wonders if the crew deliberately fucks around with stuff in their episodes, like the ridiculously ill-fitting handcuff. because

2. this was 10.21, aka the most infamous and egregious example of that one square on the bucklemming bingo card: characters being dumb for plot. Or something like that. I don’t remember the exact wording, but basically having characters at entirely stupid because they need them to do A Plot Thing and can’t think of a better way to accomplish that.

3. this was 10.21, in which the cast, crew, and a good number of the other writers were essentially working under protest, because pretty much EVERYONE other than Carver, Singer, and Bucklemming objected to Charlie’s death.

4. Knowing point 3, please refer back to point 1.

But also, The Styne Family was possibly the STUPIDEST thing the show has ever done, as a whole. The derailing of s10′s overarching plot because whoopsie they were renewed, and Carver wouldn’t be ending the series at the end of s10 like he’d been planning, and oh no they’d come WAY too close to the end of some of their major character arcs and that couldn’t be allowed if the show was continuing, but... double whoopsie Carver was already in development on a new series that he’d obligated himself to, so mad scramble to pull SOMETHING out of his squid-shaped hat and for whatever reason they settled on freaking cartoonish supervillains the Frankenstein Family who had to be both terrifying up front (to pose a serious enough risk to take seriously at all) and then fold like cheap suits when confronted by one (1) MoC-Fueled Dean.

They were scary in 10.18, thanks to Robbie Thompson. It was that final reveal in that episode that let me know we were headed, though. The Styne Family Crest? Yeah, stolen from Young Frankenstein:

(image from the superwiki)

If you’ve never seen Young Frankenstein, please do. It’s freaking HILARIOUS. But it let me know that these were not the terrifying Big Bads we were expecting, they were a parody. They were set up to be Terrible People the rest of the writers could mock. They we were saddled with the atrocity that was 10.21. And Dabb finished them off in Badass Dean Style in 10.22. And that was it, never to be heard from again.

Disclaimer: I have written a whole heck of a lot about this (and about how this was possibly my least favorite thing the show has ever done). the back half of s10 is a hot mess, the Stynes were the worst villains ever (boring, stupid, easily defeated, etc.), and 10.21 in particular hits all the lows even for bucklemming... so I honestly won’t even attempt to defend this one. This was Bad Writing.

And finally, President Rooney... in 12.08, why did Sam and Dean stick around after Cas and Kelly fled? I’ll start this out by reminding everyone that this... surprise... was bucklemming again. Remember that bingo card I mentioned?

(lol I went and found it, credit for this one goes to @messier51 back in the olden days... https://messier51.tumblr.com/post/68535147632/buckleming-bingo  is the original post, from 2013)

and there it is, lower left corner, “Sam/Dean makes a decision that makes no sense.” This is a pattern for them, where they knew the end of the episode must have Sam and Dean being carted off to Black Ops Prison, and this was the best they could think of to get them there.

I’ve said before that I am willing to handwave a lot about this episode because of everything it will give to us down the line (12.09, Jack, it’s basically building the stage on which the rest of s12 is set). And I’ve previously offered the theory that they were Concerned For The President and making sure that he would live/suffer no repercussions of his possession by Lucifer. But I mean, the secret service dudes were literally on the other side of the door and would’ve been able to tend to him just as well, if not better. I think Sam and Dean may have-- in Bucklemming’s minds-- believed that they would be fine. They were only really worried about Kelly being caught there. They thought they would be viewed as “heroes who helped save the president” and not “dangerous threats attempting to kill the president.”

Agreed, it was a stupid thing to thing, especially since Rooney apparently didn’t remember his possession, and is never heard from again in-show. He couldn’t corroborate Sam and Dean’s story. I mean, they could’ve said they were staying in the room next door (it was an adjoining room, because Cas and Kelly sneaked out that door after the secret service guys stormed into the president’s room), and they could’ve just said they heard a ruckus, someone calling for help, and simply found him like that. But they didn’t know that one secret service agent had already been warned about them specifically by “President Lucifer.” That’s absolutely something they should’ve considered would happen, but uh... they didn’t, because bucklemming.

But yeah, that’s... a thing with these writers in particular... we try to acrobat our way around these sorts of things as best we can, and move on :’D

If you have any other questions, please let me know! Otherwise, please check out my tags for these specific episodes. I think I got them all on this post... 

[trying-write-fanfics]

Shouji Mezo X Reader part 12 Remember

“So who do you want to go with you?” Sero asked. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” She smirked. “Satou, could you accompany me to the store?” She bowed. 

“Me? Obvious?” Satou was confused all around

“Yeah you look cool.” She told him. “Gotta surround myself with hunks just in case if I see anyone I know. Makes me look cool, like a celebrity with body guards.” 

“Well who's your other choice?” Mina asked. 

 There was an obvious choice. But she had to play it off cool.

“Shouji you can come if you want.” She tried being nonchalant. 

Shouji was on his phone, but he was listening. He knew he would be picked. The choice of Satou was surprising, but it was becoming clear. Y/n figured he would want to go, since he was always playing the hero.

“I guess.” touche.

“Now that I have my gang, I got to make myself look cool.” Y/n said doing a twirl.

“That’ll take a million years!” Bakugo yelled.

“I’ll kill you.” Y/n growled at him.

“I gotta change actually.” Satou said. 

Y/n waited outside for the two guys. Satou just wore a t-shirt and jeans. But Shouji’s look got a bigger reaction. 

“Cameo pants! What are you trying to do?Go hunting?” Y/n yelled.

“They’re my casual pants.”

“There’s nothing casual about hunting, Shouji.” Y/n said. “I thought maybe you guys could wear some chunky rings or something, something that says you’d beat any punk coming at me.”

Y/n didn’t let them in her room as she changed. She came out in a shocking look. It wasn't just going out to the store. It was a pale blue slip dress with a big fuzzy pink jacket. Not only did she wear high white boots, but also huge sunglasses, at sun set. It was obnoxious. 

“Here, I have some manly sunglasses.” Y/n offered two more pairs.

“I don’t need that.” Shouji said.

“What’s with the outfit?” Satou asked

 Was something up?

“I haven’t been in public in weeks, I’m no longer wasting my time with boring outfits. I’m a star with a cool closet that must be seen.” She told them. “C’mon can’t we look like a cool band or something cool.”

They didn’t accept the glasses, but Y/n didn’t press them. They walked to the store. Shouji knew the girl's mind was still clouded with whatever the phone call was about.

“Satou, you’re quiet. Learn anything cool today?” Y/n asked.

“I- I guess, what about you-” Satou asked.

“I learned that Shouji Mezo is an eavesdropper and does NOT mind his own business.” Y/n said. “Why are you so nervous? Am I really this big scary demon of the UA campus?”

A small smile crept under Shouji’s mask. So she would tease him, an interesting thought.

“I’m not the best at talking to girls.” Satou confessed.

“Why? Are you bad at flirting? You got big lips.” Y/n asked

That smile got pulled a little bit.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Satou asked.

“No one wants to make out either small lips, Satou. Too thin and it’s like making out with plastic wrap.” She explained. “I’m sure someone would make out with you, there’s enough to grab on to.”

“How do you know that?” Satou was shocked. 

“I’m good at listening-“

“Eavesdropping.”  Shouji corrected. 

“I know what’s good, okay. Besides why are you bad at talking to girls? You think I’m an alien?” She asked Satou.

“No-no nothing like that. I just get nervous. Not just with the idea of flirting” Satou said.

“What are you gonna do when you have to rescue a woman? You’ll have to ask questions, like oh my god how hurt are you?” Y/n said. “And what if she’s just so gosh darn beautiful with blood shooting out of her eyes?”

Satou didn’t like how detailed she was going and the. Thought of a perfect topic changed.

“What do you want us to call you? Since your name isn’t Velia but (last name). I feel like if we call you (last name) I’m calling you by your mom or dad’s name.” Satou asked.

“(First name) is fine. There’s no huge reason to be formal with me.” She was quick to say.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I like my name and others should say it. I am a gosh darn star, Satou” Y/n said.

 Y/n got quiet as they entered the store. She was on a mission. The group got stares, but people didn’t know who to look at. The overdressed brat, the land octopus and the real sugar beefcake was quit the crew. Whispers of “is she a celebrity, do I just not recognize her?” Were heard. Then some kid had the gall to ask for a picture. Y/n did agree and the parent took it. “Did you know her” “no, but I don’t want to miss my chance just in case she is.” Satou watched what she picked out. Baking soda, lemon juice, sugar, and honey. She was still looking, but he thought he figured her out.

“Are you trying to bake something for the class?” Satou asked.

“No, but you’ll see.” Y/n said.

“Oh my god is that Y/n!” A woman’s voice called.

 Shouji and Satou both became on alert. Was this an escape route? She picked a perfect duo if she wanted to escape since they were both close combat types, bulky and strong, but not the fastest. The teen was blond and also was wearing a ridiculous outfit to the grocery store. It was white romper. Her hair was done in a complicated fancy fashion. She was a bit taller than Y/n. Y/‘n’s eyes said she knew they girl, but neither boy could read the emotion. 

“Oh my god, Brittany.” Y/n shimmied her shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh you know to get food for my healthy complex diet that keeps me looking like a goddess model. What about you? You haven’t been posting on social media and I heard some of our friends could no longer reach you? What is up with that?” Brittany asked. 

“I’m doing a cleanse for my mind. You’re working on your body and I gotta dig a little deeper for my own self-improvement.” Y/n said one upping her assumed friend or enemy.

Were they competing for something? The comment y/n made clearly pissed off Brittany, but she remained composed.

“We just haven’t seen you in so long, I was gonna try and get the gang back together, you know a  nice meet little get together.” The girl said. “I don’t know how much you’ll have to say though since you’re just doing online classes, I bet there are no juicy stories.”

Was she not going to acknowledge the two tall muscular guys?

“Well if you need to contact me, you can call the U.A. offices. They’ll let me know.”

Brittany’s eyes shot open. 

“I was gonna say these two guys do look familiar? What are you doing at U.A.?”

Y/n was about to say she’s a teaching aid but then it was gonna look weird to hang out with students after class. 

“Oh you know.”

“I don’t.” Brittany was quick to say.

“Well I can’t just tell you, you either get it or you don’t, Brittany.”

 Brittany looked at the two boys, they felt the daggers shooting out of her eyes, but it seemed she didn’t know how to counter Y/n��s comment. 

“Are you still-“ Brittany’s hands went to the fabric of Y/n’s dress, sliding it up her leg. “-bruising easily-“

“Hey!” Y/n growled as she smacked her hand away. 

 It was an uncomfortable moment, but Y/n started laughing it off. 

“I was only checking, I remember back in middle school you would bruise so much. You wouldn’t want these two fellas to be in charge of body inspection control. It’s indecent.” Brittany said. 

Shouji couldn’t watch this shit show anymore. 

“We should get going.” Shouji said, hoping to change the scenery.

“Oh is there something special you have to do? Either of you didn’t make it to the final round of the sports festival, I thought they would just like expel you.”

She avoided talking to them this long and now that they said something she was ready to fight. What was she gaining from this?

“No. They don’t”. Shouji said. 

“My body guards are right though, we do need to get going, Brittany. I will be waiting for your call and maybe we’ll do a sweet little brunch.” Y/n said.

Brittany smiled and the two girls hugged. Then they kissed each other on both cheeks like this was France. They thought the two girls hated each other. After checking out, one of them decided to speak .

“So was like your friend?” Satou asked.

“My best from  middle school.” Y/n explained. “I hate and love her. We’re the only two to keep up with each other.”

“You’re kinda like Bakugo and Deku.” Satou said. 

“You’re always telling Bakugo to let off too.” Shouji added. 

“That’s because Midoriya isn’t asking for it or deserves it. Brittany and I’s rivalry all started when our parents said we should be like the other and then we both started acting out, and on a mutual agreement we are mean to each other because we can handle it.” Y/n explained. “I have not see any documentation where both Bakugo and Beefcake have fully agreed to mutual rivalry.”

“Do you two have that, for real?” Satou asked.

“Yeah, on Instagram. We both use to vote each other for hottest mess for our school page.”

“Why was she checking out your leg?” Shouji asked. 

“Cause she can’t keep a fucking secret.” Y/n said harshly

They started walking back to the dorms. Y/n did get some food for herself that she ate on the way back. Shouji and Satou carried some of her bags, they had the arms for it. At the cross walk, Y/n looked one way and began to go. She didn’t hear the electric car coming from the direction she didn’t check. She heard the groceries being dropped and then felt the arm pull her back. Her back was pressed against Shouji’s strong chest. She felt his heart beating fast. The car kept going as it would have hit her. Though she was safe Shouji still had her. She looked up at him a little shocked. Was it the saving? Was it the fact she didn’t notice the car that was gonna hit her? It was a new feeling. He was looking straight back into her eyes registering what he did. 

 Satou hated this feeling. Third wheeling. He bent down and picked up the groceries Shouji dropped, luckily the items remained in the bags. 

“You should really look both ways.” Satou broke the moment as he picked up the fallen goods.

The duo came back to reality and Shouji set Y/n down. There was a war of emotions Y/n was feeling. Embarrassed, she needed to be saved! All this hard work to show she wasn’t this weak dying child and now no one has to worry about her quirk killing her, bad luck and irresponsibility will! But it was nice, it was really nice. He’s a wannabe hero so of course he’d save her and prove himself that he would do the right thing in a snap second decision. But it was still nice. It was nice not being splattered on the road. 

“That was on me.” She said finally. 

The mood was changed. Shouji and Y/n were quiet thinking about what had just happened, and Satou didn’t want to talk about it knowing it would only make it more awkward. It felt like Y/n’s lungs were gonna get jet packs and burst in opposite directions. Her stomach was a tangled mess, the more she couldn’t understand her feelings the more she felt overwhelmed. The two guys walked Y/n to her dorm. 

“You good from here?” Satou asked. 

“Actually I’m gonna stop at your dorm again, Satou can you stay behind actually and help me put away groceries?” 

“You don’t need my help?” Shouji asked. 

“Don’t worry, we won’t talk bad about you.”

“Okay.”

 Shouji left and Y/n waited for him to be completely before she talked out loud. Satou helped put food away.

[autisticfangpyreclub]

Gold stained hands, red stained teeth - chapter 3

sorry this took so long I was feeling kinda lethargic over the past few days but hopefully I’ll get back into the Writing Mood

-

“One hot cup of cocoa, coming right up!”

Lloyd laughed as Kai dramatically poured the chocolate powder into the mug. He was sitting at the table reading a book on engineering Jay had given him to keep him entertained. Kai was in the kitchen making himself a nutritious breakfast of instant ramen, while also making Lloyd a cup of hot chocolate. Zane would be upset if he saw how much of a mess he was making, but that was future Kai’s problem.

“You gonna be okay here while I’m gone?” Kai asked as he wiped up the milk he had split on the counter. He handed the warm mug to Lloyd, who accepted it graciously.

“Of course, I’ll be very quiet,” Lloyd said, taking a sip of his hot chocolate, “if anyone tries to come in I’ll just turn into a bat and hide.”

Kai took his ramen out of the microwave and poured it into a thermos. “I’m more worried about you getting bored cooped up in here…”

Lloyd raised an eyebrow. “I’m sixteen, I can keep myself entertained.”

Kai sighed, and grabbed his backpack off the coat hanger. “Maybe I should just skip…” he hummed, looking up at the clock that was swiftly ticking towards 11:30.

Lloyd put his mug down and shook his head furiously. “No, I’ll be fine here, don’t miss class because of me.”

Everyone else had already left for morning classes, leaving Kai and Lloyd alone in the dorm room. He only had one class today, but it was two hours long. While he didn’t want to leave Lloyd all by himself, Wu would kill him if he skipped for the third time in a month.

“You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yes!” Lloyd grabbed a pillow off the couch and tossed it at him, “now get a move on!”

Kai squawked as the pillow hit him in the stomach. “ACK! Okay I’m going!” Kai shielded himself with his backpack, and darted out the door to avoid a barrage of pillow torpedoes.

Lloyd turned back to his book. He didn’t want to admit it, but reading about automobile engineering basics wasn’t exactly the most interesting, especially considering he didn’t even know what an automobile was. He closed the book, and laid his head down on the table.

It’d only been two minutes since Kai left, and he was already bored. It was rather pathetic, he was a centuries old vampire and yet a few hours alone sounded awful to him.

A shrill noise startled him out of his thoughts. It sounded like a distressed animal, and it was coming from outside. He leapt out of his chair, and ran to the kitchen window. He tried to peek through the blinds, but his eyes were burned by the flash of sunlight.

He hissed and drew back. The one thing he was asked to do was not go outside, and Lloyd didn’t want to lose the trust of the few people he knew in this time period. But… the pained cries were only getting louder, and he hated the thought of some poor creature being in trouble. It wouldn’t take more than a minute, surely…?

He grabbed his cape off the coat hanger, and draped it over his head. It wouldn’t completely block the sun, but it would be enough if he was quick. His eyes clenched shut as he opened the door, and stepped out into the daylight.

As he stepped out of the dorm, his attention was immediately drawn to the tree planted at the edge of the parking lot. That was where the noise was coming from. Being careful not to let his cape fly away in the wind, he ran over to the tree.

“Oh no!”

There was a small gray cat sitting high up on a tree branch. It was shivering and meowing sadly, clinging to the branch like its life depended on it.

“Are you stuck?” Lloyd called up to it, “I’ll get you down, don’t worry.”

It blinked it’s emerald green eyes at him, and meowed in response. Climbing the tree with a cape draped over his face would be a difficult task, but luckily for him, he had an easier solution.

Lloyd dropped his cape, and transformed into a bat in a puff of golden sparkles. The cat yowled in alarm, and sped further up the tree. It hissed and swatted at him as he flew up and clung to the branch. He tried to say something to soothe the cat, but all that came out was squeaks.

He gulped at the hungry look in the cat’s eyes. Bats did look an awful lot like flying mice…

The cat lunged toward him with its claws out. Lloyd transformed back in a panic, not thinking about how he was still hanging upside down from the thin branch. He heard a SNAP, and he and the cat were sent hurtling towards the ground.

In the split second before they both hit the hard ground, Lloyd caught the cat in his arms. It mewed softly, and nuzzled against his chest. His head was shaken a bit from the impact, but his powers healed any other injuries faster than he could notice them. He stood up, and held the cat up in the air.

“It’s very rude to eat someone trying to rescue you,” he scolded, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

The cat sneezed, and stuck it’s tongue out. Lloyd giggled and rubbed his face against it’s velvety fur. “Alright, I forgive you.”

“Meowthra!”

Lloyd jumped, and turned to see a woman running towards him. She had silvery gray hair, but she looked like a young adult. She huffed and leaned against the tree.

“Thank goodness, you found her,�� she gasped, out of breath, “where was she?!”

Lloyd glanced away awkwardly. This was exactly what he had been afraid of. God, what an idiot he was. Now she was probably going to tell everyone he was here and Kai and the rest of them would get in trouble and it would be all his fault and-

“U-Um…” Lloyd stuttered, “she was stuck in the tree…”

Meowthra squirmed around in his arms. He let her go, and she bounded over to the woman and rubbed against her leg.

“Silly kitty…” the woman sighed, “I’m Pixal, thanks for your help.”

“Oh, um, don’t mention it…” he said quietly, trying to figure out a way to escape the conversation. He couldn’t go back into the dorm, not with Pixal watching. He couldn’t exactly walk off either, at the moment the shade from the tree was the only thing protecting him from the sun. “I’m Lloyd.”

“Are you a student here?” she asked.

“Uh, yes!” Lloyd replied without thinking, then mentally slapped himself.

Pixal scooped up Meowthra, and held her under her arm like a suitcase. “You must be in the drama program, that’s why you're dressed like that right?”

Lloyd looked down at his clothing in confusion, before remembering he was dressed for a totally different time period. “O-Oh, yeah, I was just on my way to class actually-“

He bit his tongue. Great, now he had an even deeper hole to get out of.

“Oh, that’s perfect actually!” she said cheerfully, “do you think you could help me move some boxes into the theatre?”

Lloyd blinked. “Theatre…?”

“The tech crew needs some extra cables, but the guy who was supposed to help me move the boxes bailed on me…” she explained, “and I haven’t even started yet thanks to this little demon,” she glared at Meowthra, who just yawned and twitched her ears.

“U-Uh…” Lloyd realized there was no way he could politely say no without having to say he lied about being on his way to class. Great. Just great. “Of course, it’d be a pleasure!” he said, hoping she wouldn’t notice how much he was sweating.

“Thanks so much!” she turned and walked towards the parking lot, “the boxes are in my car, follow me.”

Lloyd discreetly grabbed his cape off the ground and threw it over his head. He winced as he stepped back into the sunlight, already regretting this decision immensely.

-

It’d been many years since Morro had stood before the gates of Garmadon castle. Nothing had changed a bit. It looked just as decrepit as it had centuries ago.

“Why is the gate locked?!” Morro snapped, rattling the bars as if he could somehow yank the gate open with his bare hands, “this is ridiculous! What kind of arcane barrier is this?!”

Bansha sharpened her knife against a rock she had picked up off the ground, indifferent to Morro’s tantrum. “Probably because this is a tourist attraction now, I’d guess… and I assume the gate is opened with a button inside that box over there,” she said, pointing her knife towards the ticket booth.

The lady inside the booth was fast asleep in her chair. She had music on loud enough you could hear it blaring from outside the booth, and she had a sleeping mask on.

Bansha clicked her tongue. “Not very good at her job, is sh- HEY!”

Morro snatched the rock out of her hand, and stomped over to the ticket booth. He aimed the rock at the woman’s head, but before he could throw it the woman stirred. She pulled her sleeping mask off, and looked around groggily. “Huh? Is someone there?”

Morro hastily hid the rock behind his back, and cleared his throat. “Open the gate… please.”

The woman turned her music off. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of decay emanating from him, and she tried not to stare at his medieval looking clothing. “You mean you want… a ticket?”

“Yes, a ticket for the gate, because I would like inside,” Morro said stiffly, “please open the gate.”

Behind him, Bansha groaned and rubbed her temples. “Dear god help me…”

She nodded, and leaned down to open the safe tucked between her feet. “I’m surprised we’ve been getting so many visitors lately,” she mused, shuffling through the papers stuffed in the safe, “we rarely get two groups visiting in one month, much less in the same week-“

Morro frowned, his hand brushing against the dagger strapped to his belt. “There were people here before us?”

“Yeah, a couple of college students from NCU,” she explained, stamping two tickets, “they were acting kinda strange when they came out though… fortunately for them I don’t get paid enough to care if they stole anything.”

Morro exchanged a look with Bansha, who pocketed her blade and approached the ticket booth. “And just where is this ‘NCU?’” Morro asked.

“Downtown, just north of that big shopping mall, you can’t miss it really,” she said absentmindedly, sliding the tickets to them. “That’ll be ten fifty please.”

“Uh…” Morro gripped the rock he was still holding tighter, “we don’t have any money, but-“

“Enjoy your day miss,” Bansha cut him off, and pulled Morro away by the arm. The woman watched in confusion as she tugged Morro far enough away that they were out of earshot.

“What was that for?!” Morro sputtered, “must I remind you that I am the one in charge?!”

Bansha eyed the rock he had in his grip. “I feel I must remind you, our queen would prefer if we performed our mission… quietly.”

Morro scowled and tossed the rock aside. “I wasn’t going to kill her… I was just going to give us enough time to open that gate.”

“The castle is obviously no longer a reliable fortress for Lloyd,” Bansha said, crossing her arms, “I believe his new lair is that college she mentioned, NCU.”

“Then what’re we waiting for?” Morro stomped his foot impatiently, “let’s go-“

“Patience, Morro, patience…” she hushed, “do you not remember what I taught you when you were a child?”

“...A good hunter must always wait for the ideal opportunity before striking, I know…” he turned away from her, and stared up at the crumbling towers of the castle. It was poetic almost… a dying castle for a dead family. Soon to be completely dead, that is.

His attention snapped back to Bansha. “I’m not a child anymore, you don’t need to teach me anything,” he grunted.

She let out a raspy chuckle. “Don’t be arrogant, everyone can be taught something.”

Morro watched as she summoned a wisp of blue fire in her hand. She whispered something incomprehensible to it, and it floated out of her hand and disappeared into the forest. “A message for the others,” she told him, wiping the excess blue powder off on her coat.

Magic had always seemed to allude Morro. He had begged the preeminent many times for magic lessons, but she had always said he just didn’t have any potential. His queen always knew best. Still, he was bitter about constantly feeling inferior to his subordinates.

“I’ve been patient enough, let’s go.”

Bansha rolled her eyes as he sauntered back towards the parking lot. She followed behind him, putting an arm out to stop him just in time before he stepped in a large puddle of water.

“Water is our only weakness, remember?” she said in response to his confused expression, “if it touches you, your flesh will melt right off your bones.”

Morro shuddered, and lurched away from the puddle. “A horribly inconvenient weakness…” he murmured.

“Perhaps if you hadn’t failed to kill Lloyd, then we wouldn’t have such a weakness,” Bansha hummed, lifting her skirt so it wouldn’t drag along the wet ground.

“What?”

She stiffened. A brief hint of sadness flickered in her eyes. “It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head, “let’s get there before it rains again.”

-

Class went by uneventfully. Kai didn’t pay much attention during Wu’s lecture, his mind was too preoccupied worrying about Lloyd. He didn’t fully realize how much he had spaced out until he looked down at the blank notebook page sitting in front of him. Whoops. He’d just have to ask Skylor for her notes after class.  

“Please remember your assignment is due by the end of the month,” Wu announced, “see me if you need any assistance.”

Kai closed his notebook with a sigh. He was way behind on his history paper, he could thank his shitty adhd brain for that. None of the tips he was given on focusing ever helped, so he usually just did all his assignments last minute and prayed his professors wouldn’t notice. To his credit, they usually didn’t.

As he was wading through the mass of students exiting the classroom, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Wu standing behind him. “May I speak to you for a minute Kai?” he asked.

He beckoned Kai over to his desk. “I’ve noticed you’ve been having some trouble on your assignment.”

Kai stuck his hands in his pockets, and gave a half shrug. “Uh… yeah, a little bit, but I’m fine.”

Wu stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Nya told me you all visited Garmadon castle yesterday, yes? How was it?”

“It was… interesting,” he replied, suppressing a laugh. Interesting was a severe understatement, what went down yesterday was straight up fantastical.

“If you have yet to pick a topic for your paper, may I suggest you do some more research on the castle?” Wu said, “I’m quite… knowledgeable on it myself, so I could offer you plenty of help.”

Kai’s eyes lit up. Of course! Lloyd probably knew everything about the castle's history, he wouldn’t even need to do any research. Who needs google when you have a friendly vampire living in your dorm room?

“Yeah, that’s an awesome idea!” Kai cheered, “thanks Wu!” He waved goodbye, and ran out of the classroom.

Wu watched him go with a smile. His eyes drifted to the framed handwritten letter he kept on his desk, the letter he’d received from Misako just before Lloyd’s sixteenth birthday. He held the picture frame in his hands and read the letter aloud.

My dear brother-in-law,

I hope this letter finds you well. We’ve all missed you terribly while you’ve been away, Lloyd especially. He grows more beautiful and darling each year, like a blooming flower in springtime. He’s become such a charming young man. I wish you could be here for this momentous celebration, but I understand your business abroad must come first. Garmadon has planted a tea tree for you in the garden, if that entices you to return sooner. We could all sit and have dinner under the moonlight, just like we did in our youth. I know Lloyd would love that.

Adoringly, Misako.

It was the last letter he’d ever received from them. He’d spent centuries rereading it over and over, torturing himself with it as punishment for being the catalyst in their deaths. A teardrop landed on the glass as his shaking hands clung to the frame.

All these years, and he still wept every time he thought of them. Thought of how his mistake of taking in one child, caused the death of another.

-

Jay groaned and dropped the box of lightbulbs on the ground. “Y’know, we’d be able to get the lights fixed a lot faster if you actually got off your ass and helped.”

Cryptor didn’t look up from his phone. “Not my problem,” he said curtly.

“But you're the one who made half the lightbulbs in the damn theatre burst!” Jay snapped back at him.

The doors to the theatre slammed open. “Sorry I’m late!” Pixal cried out as she wobbled past Jay, carrying two boxes of various cords and cables in her arms. She set them down, and she leaned against them to catch her breath.

“Meowthra got out again and Cryptor bailed on me, so I almost had to move these all by myself- HEY!” she angrily squinted at Cryptor, “where were you?!”

Cryptor avoided her gaze. “I was… busy.”

“If by busy you mean making half the lightbulbs in the theatre explode, then yeah, you were pretty busy,” Jay scoffed. He grabbed a long cable out of the box, and swung it around like a whip. “I oughta hit you with this!”

“Please don’t,” Pixal chided, “how did that even happen?”

Cryptor shrugged. “Long story.”

The theatre door gently opened. Lloyd stepped tentatively inside, a huge stack of boxes in his arms. “Um, where should I put these-“

He locked eyes with Jay, and froze. Jay stared at him with his mouth agape, the cable he was holding clattered onto the floor.

Pixal gave them both an odd look. “Uh… what’s wrong?”

Jay sputtered, his eyes darting between Pixal and Lloyd. “Lloyd?! Your not supposed to be-“

Lloyd bit his lip and set the boxes down. He could feel his face heating up in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I promise I won’t go outside again, please don’t be mad-“

Jay’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. “No no, I’m not mad!” he said quickly, “I was just-“

“Okay, I don’t care about whatever drama is going on here,” Cryptor interrupted, “what I want to know is how the fuck did you carry all those?”

“Cryptor!” Pixal snapped, “don’t be rude! He’s obviously just very strong.”

Jay glared at Cryptor, then grabbed Lloyd’s hand and led him out of the theatre. He scanned the hallway for anyone else, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw they were alone.

“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously, “you didn’t get burned in the sun did you?”

Lloyd shook his head. “No, well, a little bit… but not very much,” he replied, “I’m alright, I promise.”

Concern washed over Jay’s features. “Shit, don’t scare me like that kid… if anyone finds out about you we’re gonna be in big trouble.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Lloyd stammered, “I shouldn��t even be here, I should just go back to the castle-“

“Lloyd!” Jay grabbed him by the shoulders, “look at me.”

He tilted Lloyd’s chin up and brushed a stray lock of hair out of his face. A tear fell down Lloyd’s cheek. “I’m sorry-“

“Stop apologizing, it’s not your fault,” Jay told him, “we’ll figure out a better solution for you soon, don’t worry.”

Lloyd choked back a sob, and nodded. “Okay.”

“Speaking of which,” Jay added, “I think I might’ve found something you might like.”

He pulled out his phone, and showed him the tab he had open. Lloyd squinted as he looked at the screen. “Blood meal…?”

“Yeah! It’s dried blood powder, usually used on plants,” Jay said, pointing to the picture on the website, “I don’t exactly know how you’d eat it, but maybe you could like… add it to a smoothie? Or, I’ve heard that coconut water can be used as a blood substitute, so maybe-“

“I’m sorry, are you two talking about drinking blood?”

Jay whipped his head around to see Pixal standing behind them. She had her hands on her hips and one eyebrow arched. “What is going on here?” she demanded.

He shared a nervous glance with Lloyd, and then chuckled wearily. “Uh… hey Pix… you think you could keep a secret?”

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

So 5x18...

...Well hot d*mn.

Man when Supergirl fires on all cylinders...HOO BOY.

Case in point: *gestures to all of 5x18*

To be clear: I liked this one.

A WHOLE LOT.

Not that I disliked 5x17, necessarily. It’s just that 5x18 was more... Entertaining? ...I dunno. I dunno how to explain it.

...Okay yes I do and that explanation is: Someone remarked on Kara’s use of language and Kara overcompensated on the ‘NOooOOooOO I’m totally 100% normal!’ AND there was a musical quote AND it was WHILE TEAMING UP WITH ALEX TO FOLLOW A LEAD.

But I’m getting ahead of myself let’s backtrack...

TO THE TOWER! WITH ALEX! NIA! KARA! AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!

June Foray voice: WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?!?!?!

I know I’m not the first person to make that reference but it’s always fitting and, for real, recurring character status WHEN. (I mean. Obviously I would prefer series regular but that feels like a big ask considering that all future TV production is...uh. Ah. Erm....

...Up in the air. At the moment.)

And then we check in with the Luthors and Non Nocere isn’t working???

I am shocked! Shocked, I say!

And then we’ve got Obsidian doing something ill-advised which is basically the company’s MO at this point but KELLY AND WILLIAM ARE ON THE CASE REGARDLESS.

(So that’s kinda the one thing I’m sad about re: the Crisis reset; Andrea’s character development. But she’s sticking around for next season so I’m not too upset that she remains...kinda...one note for now.)

And THEN the library scene. 

It was so gooooood.

Then Leviathan and okay. Alright. Okay. Huge points in this episode’s favor: Rama Khan feels like a far more significant threat. And I feel like 80% of that is the fact that they just let him wear normal clothes. Thank you, show. Thank. You.

Also the rock effects were way better in this episode because they weren’t footing the bill for a giant crossover episode this time around

I am a little confused, though, by what has and has not happened with regards to Rama Khan on Earth Prime. Did the pre-Crisis stuff...happen? The dialogue...kinda made it hard to decide one way or the other. ‘He hasn’t been seen on this Earth for 100s of years’ but then also, ‘a chilly place you know quite well.’ So...he...did go to the Fortress. And fight Kara? But...all that stuff before Crisis...???

...Not gonna bother with that right now.

POINT IS...Leviathan is finally like...invested in killing Supergirl* and menacing in a very real way which both raises the stakes and makes it personal and that’s way more interesting than ‘nebulous evil organization that must be stopped.’

*I know they kinda sorta already did the whole, ‘let’s kill the Kryptonian!’ and invaded the Fortress but I don’t know what to tell ya, it was just lackluster.

J’ONN AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN

I am firmly in camp: I don’t care if they’re never green again I love seeing them in the super suits with their human faces IT’S GREAT.

Love that Nia’s snoring interrupts the moment.

Also love the deck of Rama Khan playing cards, that must’ve been a fun project for the graphic designers.

Then we’ve got William and Kara at CatCo and it’s baked goods! A hilarious line delivery by Staz! A ridiculous fabrication involving a shy, violent cat!

...Now I want Alex to actually own a shy, violent cat!

“Cats love me, for some reason.” “Of course they do.”

Side note: Love Kara’s blazer.

And then it’s ALIEEEEEENS TO THE RESCUE!

WHAT A TEAM UP, FOLKS.

We love to see it.

The interrogation scene is good n’ tense and ramps up to a very impressive showdown in the DEO (but BEFORE the sparks really start flying we get that rad shot of Kara leaping through the window and doing the superhero landing and it’s just

Perfection.)

Also perfect? Lex playing a game of transmatter pickle with the prisoners.

Then we jump back to the DEO where things are not going well!

Like, really really bad! 

But J’onn and M’gann save the day! If not the building!

RIP DEO. 2016-2020

Obituary: The DEO headquarters is survived by its elder sibling, the DEO desert base.

Look none of the favs work there anymore save for Kara and Brainy and they’re both gonna be better off working freelance for J’onn but I do expect Brainy to at least pick up some additional cash by working as a Lyft driver next season.

Me, watching the characters struggle to make it in the gig economy: I feel so seen.

The final portion of the episode is just ALL ACTING and I must say...good stuff.

Like. This cast, man. They take the plot points I’ve been ‘meh’ about all season and they turn in some stellar performances and suddenly I’m like STANDING OVATION, CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES.

Also, reason #342 I love Jon Cryer’s Lex: that scene with Lena.

Terrifying.

Full disclosure: I went in to this episode fully prepared to be really annoyed with whatever was going to happen with Lena and I still don’t...love the trajectory of this season, being so tied up in her personal drama but. 

But.

Katie McGrath’s performance...went an awful long way here. In making this...not as bad as it could have been.

Like tearfully admitting she was hurt? And that hurt was the basis of all the nonsense she pulled? Finally owning up to the fact that this was never truly about the greater good but that it was all rooted in some personal issues and OUTRIGHT STATING SHE WAS BEHAVING LIKE A VILLAIN????

I am. Extremely impressed.

EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE THOUGH: Kara remaining distant both physically and emotionally throughout that scene! Not in like, a cold uncaring way, but in a, ‘I have emotions and I have a right to feel them and set boundaries in regards to my trusting you right now given all that has transpired’ kind of way.

GOOD. YES. GOOD.

(Lex’s outburst has that kind of same Nice Guy undertone--albeit more pronounced and rage-y--as Lena’s in the Fortress. Like, ‘I supported you and you still rejected my plot to take over the world’ and ‘I was kind to you and you still messed up my mind control’ which...I dunno I might just be digging in too deep here in order to further justify the character turn but I think Cryer’s performance regardless is a really sobering wake up call for Lena, different than Lex stuff we’ve seen before. It’s close and intense and uncomfortable in a way that really sells the motivation.)

“You’re a monster...but that doesn’t mean I have to be one too.”

Wow. Might be...the first time I’ve liked Lena all season.

...whispers: might be the first time I’ve liked her ever at all

For real: credit where it’s due, that was an excellent line read.

*insert applause here*

CUT TO ADORABLE J’ONN AND M’GANN MOMENT 

D’aaaawwwwwwwwww

But, look, it’s a little undermined by the fact that they both gotta try and embrace in those bulky super suits, I’m sorry, it’s true

...Maybe it’s more endearing that way?

HEY remember how I foolishly assumed that the now-unemployed Alex would simply continue to work with J’onn in an investigative capacity and, ya know, NOT jump straight back into costumed badassery? 

HA. HAHA HAHAAAA.

Those leaked set photos make sense now.

OH NO, WILLIAM!

Real glad Staz confirmed he’s returning. Otherwise I would not be able to DEAL WITH THE STRESS.

I already talked a little bit about the loft scene but some additional points! Beautiful lighting. Wonderful score. Excellent performances all around.

A truly great end to a truly great episode.

Like, it makes me retroactively sad, that we’re only getting 5x19, as opposed to 5x19 and 5x20 because I wish that the crew/writers/actors had a little more space to let all of this good work they’ve done settle and breathe. 

(But also, it was good that they stopped production, from a safety standpoint, so. Can’t be too upset.)

And, regardless of how the next episode goes down (b/c I’m gonna be real, SG always does really great set-ups for their season finales and then kinda...rushes to the finish line and that can only be further exacerbated in this particular case) I’m just really impressed with this effort here.  

...but also LET’S TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME WILD GUESSES. Specifically, what is Alex’s vigilante name gonna be??? 

...

Alright I generally try to avoid addressing specific fandom complaints in these things b/c I generally try to avoid the fandom itself but of course some stuff has already leaked through all of my blocks/muting so:

‘Lena didn’t apologize!’ The words ‘I’m sorry’ were not said, sure, but 1.) season’s not over and 2.) for Lena, admitting she was wrong is huge. HUUUUUUUGE. It’s solid character growth and I really wish various subsets of fandom would recognize that it’s not fun, when fans hold on to negative stuff from characters’ past and refuse to acknowledge that the characters have changed.

‘Brainy should have seen this coming!’ This one is kind of more down to personal preference I guess but I feel like they’ve established that Brainy’s got a bit of a blindspot due to his feelings about his friends, so I don’t take this as a knock against his intelligence so much as him being stretched fairly thin because he’s playing all sides, and worried about the people he loves. YMMV, though. 

All the ‘fix-it’ stuff re: the last scene, by making Kara immediately forgive Lena. Lose me with that nonsense, bleh.