#and i’m very proud of him for that. like beyond measure

[jewish-space-laser]

also not to be like, needy on the internet, but i’m having a hard night and i need to laugh so send me funny things. tik toks, jokes, i don’t care please please share and laugh with me

[dhampling]

one more fem!reader, 2.9k

“You are truly selfless, Astarion. Ilmater in the flesh.”  He rocks her slightly. Kisses her small head. “Don’t listen to your mother, darling. If you’re alone in your perfection you’ll be fighting off every eligible hand in Faerûn when you’re bigger. Wouldn’t want that burden solely on you now, would we?” - Your home is quaint. Astarion continues to insist it isn’t busy enough. astarion x fem!reader word count: 2.9k a/n: this is VERY FLUFFY and VERY SMUTTY. VERY, VERY SMUTTY. ALSO VERY FLUFFY. breedy stuff, graphic descriptions, milkers, basically filth. read parts one, two, and three respectively but can probably be read alone. afab reader.

Your home is quaint. Astarion continues to insist it isn’t busy enough. 

Not enough chaos, he argues; sipping from a glass as a king may a chalice, ruminating, swilling; tipping his head from side to side in measured consideration, often with youngling in one arm as you talk late into the early hours. Incense clouds you in a rich haze of ashy whirls. 

How perfect would it be if we could both hold one? Or even two in tandem?

“Just think. If we continue now, they’ll all have left sooner. More time for us.” He reasons with an airy gesture, a satisfied smile. 

You hum

“If we’re arguing along those lines then there’s certainly a case to be made for no more now, don’t you think?” You whisper, running a finger down the infant’s cheek as he holds her.

Astarion sighs. Looks down at the small gurgling thing in the crook of his arm with a quiet grin, too lovestruck to have any real belief in your rebuttal.

You sit in a huddle on the lounger, blankets swallowing the three of you. He keeps her close while you work inroads into a book you’ve been meaning to read since before she was born. The open shutters across the room give a perfect view of the speckled night sky. 

He’s genuinely proud. Smiles like an idiot. Often forgets the frightfully draining toll that your pregnancy and her subsequent birth took on you when he waxes lyrical to his patriars about his plans to expand the brood as soon as possible. The women tend to look straight your way with a relatable pity. 

On occasion he even has the tendency to talk like he had a real part in any aspect of her nine month gestation beyond conception, which you’ll remind him fast with a sharp elbow that he certainly did not.

He’s an idiot. A beautiful one, but an idiot nonetheless.

“But look at her! She’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. We can’t simply deny the world more of this. It’d be criminal. ’

He turns and presses a soft kiss to your cheek.

‘I’m past that now, obviously; so I do feel my bare minimum, most humble contribution to society can be in the spreading of our perfect genetics throughout the whole of Toril.”

His hand lifts as if in visualisation. You paw it back down, eyes returned to the pages.

“You are truly selfless, Astarion. Ilmater in the flesh.” 

He rocks her slightly. Kisses her small head.

“Don’t listen to your mother, darling. If you’re alone in your perfection you’ll be fighting off every eligible hand in Faerûn when you’re bigger. Wouldn’t want that burden solely on you now, would we?”

You scoff with a smile.

“That’s if any of them are able to get remotely close with you lurking about, love.”

He grimaces in good humour and tilts his head once more. Clicks his tongue.

“We’ll cross that barrier when we come to it, I’m sure.’

Gently he shuffles even closer to you, leaning to smatter your candle-warm face in a surprise flutter of giddy kisses. Eyes soft, unhindered. 

This may just be the most gooey you’ve ever seen him.

‘You are right, though. I am missing the gory beauty in a good pile of viscera. I don’t necessarily see that fading in the coming decades.”

“I am always right.”

Astarion brushes a wayward hair down by your ear and gives one last kiss.

“That you are, my dear. Always.”

-

His sentiment rattles in your head for a while. Sitting in the shop with babe in arm, balancing the books while he trances back home, you find yourself driven to wreck by the unholiest visions of him.

Burning heat. Underclothes missing. 

Fingers ghost the burgeoning swell under your immaculate dress skirt. 

Molten hot, sticky linen; keening desperately into the palm of his hand as you lean over the counter. 

Fraught.

A veritable army of his children born from you. 

There’s a charm in the way he pleads his case to you. You’re not one to deny him when he finds his joys - gods know he’s endured enough of that during his life - and you know all too well you bartered on the idea of three that first night. 

You think long back to the night you met out in the wilderness. 

How scared he must’ve been in retrospect; how haughty he came across. The rake. The rogue. How you’d slept with a knife strapped to your garter because you simply couldn’t get a grasp on his energy, what he wanted from the tadpole.

Astarion. Now every part the housecat.

You weigh the pros and cons in your mind. 

Admittedly, the cons list is large.

You dislike delving into your own complications regarding the birth of the dhampling now sleeping soundly in your arms because for the most part, they feel trivial. Moot. So many beings across the realms rear young every single day. 

However, you remember refusing to let yourself forget the sheer scalding pain many do. 

The days of fraught groaning in that dark sweaty chamber. The awful, awful hunger. Blood.

The paranoia over any possible gaps in the heavy shutters. Asking Astarion to step in front of the window time and time over to check for the smallest of notches or splits, the hysterical fear of the sun coming into contact with the infant. Both breaking into tears from sheer exhaustion and heightened tension more times than you can recall.

The blood from your womb. Rancid. He later assured that if anything it was a genuinely indulgent smell; but to you it smelled of rot. Decay. White sheets covered in brown spidery spatters.

Then the relief. Unbridled. Wailing and wailing and wailing.

A part of you enjoys it. He knows you do. The quiet dominance carrying his child implies; the lifelong commitment it ensures. 

And her.

The love of your life. Small and warm and breathing yet coloured with the pallid tones of her father. Reddened eyes, pointed ears. When she latches you now feel the sharp pins of burgeoning fangs. 

He gave her to you. He gave you a life of normalcy; where the prospect of a future is real, as opposed to a far-flung hope shared over a bottle of cheap ale. Devastatingly beautiful, life-ruiningly stupid; and all yours. You had to teach him how to use a kettle, for Lathander’s sake. You still want him to fuck you, even after that.

But you love him. Ridiculous as it is, that love is more than enough. More than you ever hoped your lot in life to be.

If he wants you to give him babies, he can have babies. You want babies, but only if they are, indeed, his.

You sigh with a content resolve. Though life is long, these moments feel shorter and shorter. 

Your home together will never see hazy stasis again.

-

The moment dusk begins to blossom you head home in new rain. 

You whip through the door after balancing the close of your parasol with the carrier, satchel forgotten in the entryway and shoes quickly slipped under the bench. The wind outside whips furiously against the shutters and the unending downpour of rain threatens to encroach on your worn terracotta tile. 

You carry the youngling carefully up the stairs as Astarion calls after you and place her in the cot, planting a firm kiss on her head and watching for a few moments until she settles. 

He’s still sat whining in the den when you descend and turn the corner. 

Glasses balanced on his nose, cross legged and covered in patchwork throws. Book balanced on one leg. 

“What have you done to her? Why can’t I see her-’

You flit to him and close the book while he continues to protest loudly, placing it onto the carpet and sitting snugly in his lap. Legs astride his thighs, calves wrapping around his waist. Glasses placed on the sill.

‘What have you done?! Answer me woman!” He shrieks as you laugh, bringing his hands to your own waist and holding you tight. Shaking you up and down on his thighs like a bottle of Soldier’s Champagne. Eyes wide as yours in fresh glee. 

“I love you. I love you.” You murmur through giggles, pressing your forehead to his. He laughs loudly.

“I love you too! But where is my daughter?!” He is taken aback in the most pleasant of ways - mouth wide in a clueless grin, brows furrowed. Puzzled.

You still in a wide smile.

“You saw me take her upstairs! She’s fine! Idiot!”

“Okay! Brilliant! Why-’

He gestures up and down at your bubbling form.

‘Why this!?”

You lean into him once more - not missing the way his eyes blow out when looking at your joyous lips - and bring him straight by the lapels before pulling him in for the deepest kiss you can give. Hungry, jubilant; life-worn and yet happy. So incredibly happy.

“What in the hells is going on?!” He laughs into your mouth between the little kisses you press to his lips in quick succession, cupping his face in your hands then wrapping your arms over his shoulders.

“Another one. Let’s do it.”

It takes him a few moments of blankly staring with the same wide smile plastering his face. 

“What?”

“Another little child thing. With you. With me. Ours. Yes?”

It almost looks as if Astarion is going to crumble under the weight of your words. 

The same stupid smile, unchanged. Eyes on the precipice of an incredibly serious emotion entirely dependent on your next words.

“Really?”

“No.”

“What?”

You shake your head and laugh. 

“Of course really. Really really.”

Every single part of him switches alight. He bounces you in his lap once more and you see it in him. The joy. The plan coming to fruition. His stupidly reverent love for you and the dhampling asleep upstairs, the many ways in which he wants to see just how full the heart can grow with each one.

“Really really really?” 

His voice drops to a low whisper. The honey tone. Dulcet and laced with ribbons of clandestine hope.

You roll your eyes fondly. 

“Really really, really, really.” 

-

Shirts delicately washed ruffle by intricate ruffle hanging beside the wood stove in the glass-room. Hands fresh of suds. Towel dried, oat balm. The faintest whiff of Noblestalk.

You smile knowingly.

“She’s asleep?” 

You whisper a whine; crawling forward on the counter with your elbows, panting, intuitively angling at where you anticipate him once he sees you. 

“Not for long, I-’

Astarion’s voice spasms on seeing the subtle shake of your hips. The reverberation of your ass. 

‘I think.”

A growl. 

“Quick. Now.” 

He bunches your skirt at your waist by the hem and loosens the soft ties of his night trousers. Presses his newly freed cock flush against the pillow of your ass and reaches around your front to run icy fingers down the centre of your already keen wetness. A fire tool, a glacier, the hiss-relief of his incendiary touch as his hips curl up into your core.

“Bend over. Keep that skirt up.”

Your underclothes are tugged unceremoniously to the floor as he kneels, lifted leg-by-leg from you and shimmied aside. Lifts his perfect head under the front of your houseskirt and his nose unexpectedly pressures your clit, his forehead resting into the flesh of your pubic bone as he licks a wanton stripe along your sex. Affixes his lips around your sodden hole and indulges himself in tongue fucking you for a brief minute, savouring ever drop of your lust-hazed salt. Your back arches and you wish for not a single thing than to suffocate him between your burning thighs as he gives you the most immense pleasure with that infamous mouth.

Not now. He would probably cry. 

Wasted opportunity.

Wasted opportunity to fuck you full of his cum. 

Every chance you’re fertile is one he wants his cock filling you to the very hilt, rocking shallowly against the very barrier of your cervix just so he can be sure every last drop carries, to impregnate you once more.

His hand - pooling with your free-given spittle - strokes his aching prick with learned urgency as he takes his fill from your soak into his waiting mouth.

“Fuck me. Please, fuck me.” You stutter as you buck your hips, fucking yourself on his tongue.

He has the nerve to laugh, soundwaves resonating deep within the attraction of your heated core. 

Shifts to take your clit between his lips and suckles, rolling over the bunch of engorged nerves with a thoroughly debauched tongue.

“Go on. Beg for it.” He speaks barely above a whisper, gravelly in intonation. 

You can’t see his face but you just know his eyes are heavy-lidded in the anticipatory pleasure of hearing it.

Hearing that you want him to fuck you like a bitch in heat.

That you need him to pump his swollen head to white-hot relief between your spongy soaked walls; to smatter your cunt with his cum, to make you round by his doing once more. 

“All the prespill you’re wasting in your hand could have had it, you know.’

You whisper quietly, knowing you don’t want the youngling asleep in her room to wake. You’re seething with pure lust.

‘Could’ve had the fertile seed. The one to give us life again.”

He growls, leaving his latch on your clit with one last long lick before standing and moving flush to your ass once more. He smacks the plump flesh as quietly as he can muster.

“Say that again and I’ll have to fuck you with my fingers first next time. Make sure we don’t miss anything.” He hisses. 

You stifle a wanton laugh.

“Don’t threaten me with a- ah!”

He bobs at the entrance to your cunt, soaking his own weeping slit.

Astarion doesn’t waste time with ceremony as he takes your eager cunt in one fell swoop; cock bruising your insides in an agonisingly beautiful burn. His moans are shaky with sheer pleasure. Every one of your nerves are set alight as he stills for a moment at the hilt. 

You’re almost sure if you moved even an inch now while he adjusts he’d ejaculate there and then. 

“Say it.” He whispers, leaning over you as you arch over the counter. His hand moves to your belly and presses the skin over his cock hard. 

The searing feeling of every single inch of him. The ghost of a whimper. Your eyes roll into your skull.

At any other time you’d joke.

But you - at the very hottest moment of your heat cycle - picture nothing aside from the leaking red slit of his cock currently rubbing in the slightest of ruts at the tip of your cervix, leaking prespill into your hungry womb like glacial water at the height of midsun.

Your walls tighten around him as he presses even harder into the spot just below your tummy.

“Take me.”

He snaps.

Pulling back to secure either side of your waist in both hands, he starts rutting furiously into you over and over, shallow wet glubs, hellbent lust evident in the cream ring crowning your waiting hole. The crease by his brow as his face crumples in desperation time and time again. 

His fixation on your point of connection is unbreakable, watching the bounce of his cock as he fucks it into you; each twinge potentially giving the leakage that gives you it. The thing he desires most.

Another baby. 

You’re cresting on the edge as it is. Between your duties to your young daughter, your own intellectual pursuits, and Astarion’s tailor shop; it’s been far too long since you’ve copulated as frantically, as desperately as you are now. Every pump inside you is another closer to glory and your fingers work your clit with the joyous fervour of a newly anointed priest. 

He continues to fuck you against the counter.

The press of your heavy tits against the solid wood, the pebbling of milk-sodden nipples through your thin nursing blouse giving the dark oak a parallel run of glossy streaks with each of his thrusts. 

Fucking hells.

Another one. Another dhampir. Mother of two, his again and again. Three become four. You will it to be as you watch the milky swirls on the counter. 

You’ll be bursting with him once more. The sheer ruin.

The white hot glare of your orgasm comes thick and fast, and it takes everything in you not to shriek in sheer pleasure. 

He sags. 

Stutters. 

Groans silently, aching cock kicking violently against your walls as he releases through the clench of your own spasms. Ropes upon ropes of cum plugged deep at the entrance to your cervix with the engorged head of his prick. 

You roll your hips to aid him through his release, rocking a little back and forth to ensure the pointed tip spears every bit of his seed where necessary.

It takes a few moments for the white-blind to subside, for the beleaguered groans to give way to sloppy, soft kisses down your shoulder blades.

He stays until you hear the sound of stirring upstairs, lifting a hand to ensure you’re hearing correctly.

“I’ll go. Lie down, hips up?” 

You laugh.

“Got it. Glad to see the doting in full effect so soon.”

One last kiss on the stretch of your neck. Thoughtful. Quiet. He holds you like he never wants to let go.

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

[live-laugh-legolas]

hiya hope you’re having a good day! Imma send you a writing request (no pressure ofc!)

Reader being best friends/close friends with the members of the fellowship

I’m a little more inclined towards platonic x readers so that’s why I’m requesting this!

have a nice day!

Absolutely! I don’t know if this is how you wanted this written or the context of the friendship (like on the journey or in general what they are like as friends so I kinda did both and it’s really pretty disorganized) so I apologize if it isn’t what you were hoping for

The Fellowship as reader’s BFF

Aragorn:

-Loyal friend that you don’t see much but always pick up where you left off

-Being a ranger kinda calls for that

-Unless you are friends from ranger work then I imagine you would go with him whether he liked it or not

-Probably gets frustrated at you for being reckless but it’s only because he can’t handle the idea of you getting hurt

-Doesn’t want you to join the fellowship, but if you do he would be secretly a glad to have a familiar face with him

Legolas:

-Cheeky bastard, can totally be flirty but it is totally platonic and just for fun

-Lives to sneak up on you and scare you

-Friendly banter, people can’t tell if you hate each other or love each other, but you guys are bffs and love that people are confused

-Would be glad to have you join the fellowship as he doesn’t really know anyone else yet

-Might be a little jealous if you make friends with the others, but you reassure him he is still your best friend and won’t lose that title

-Power trio with Gimli

Gimli:

-Sheep in a wolfs clothes

-A rabid and deadly sheep, but a sheep, but only you know this

-Competition for everything

-Very proud of his friendship and takes it very seriously

-He isn’t concerned if you join the fellowship because you can totally hand yourself

-Talks smack about elves to you, but he is fully aware Legolas can hear him

Boromir:

-Such a loyal friend

-I know he is outgoing and everything, but for some reason I don’t imagine him having many friends

-Or lots of friends, but not many that are actually people he will open up to

-So he holds your friendship so close to his heart

-Definitely asks your advice on how to talk to girls (doesn’t matter your gender)

-Big brother energy even if you are older than him

Frodo:

-The friend that you never ever get sick of

-He always matches your energy or at least understands where you are at mentally

-Like if you are having an off day and are a moody he totally understands and won’t be offended

-Will do his best to cheer you up but also understands sometimes you just need a day to brood

-Nervous if you join the fellowship but also relieved to have you there along with the other hobbits

Sam, Merry, & Pippin:

-I am grouping these guys together as I think their relationship with you would be very much like it is with Frodo

-Loyal beyond measure and always have your back

-Definitely will make jokes at your expense but it’s out of love

-Will call your bullshit and are brutally honest, Sam maybe less because he is scared to be mean

I’m sorry this really kinda sucks but I wasn’t really sure of what to write, but I wanted to get it out as I was so excited to have a request so thank you! I may update it if I get inspired for something to add :)

[salty-croissants]

m a y b e a bullfrog (or ray I don’t mind) with a FtM partner ? :3

Thank you for the request !

I gotta say I was a bit nervous about this one , this is the first ever FtM reader I’ve ever written … I really hope I got it right :,I

Details : use of FtM reader ( he/him pronouns are used ) ;

established relationships ;

no warnings needed 

Bullfrog 💚

Okay , so three words : supportive frog boyfriend .

Bullfrog is the biggest sweetheart and he is going to support any decision you make regarding your identity . 

He is going to love you no matter what , nothing is ever going to change that ❤️

If your hair ever gets too long for your comfort , Bullfrog will be more than happy to help you with it since I think he’d be pretty good at those aesthetic related things …

Plus it’s just very relaxing to feel his gentle touch on your head as he takes care of you …

< Thanks sweetie, I really appreciate it ~

 I would’ve cut it myself , but you remember how it went last time , haha … > 

 < No need to thank me mon amour : you can always count on me . >

He definitely takes your preferences with pronouns and names very seriously , and if someone were to make you uncomfortable by not respecting them or saying something bad to you in general Bullfrog will definitely react accordingly : he may not be in favor of vengeance , but he won’t allow anyone to make his beloved upset , and he can be very … 

Persuasive . 

< Alright sir … I need you to listen to me , because I will not repeat myself .

Unless you start treating my y/n with the respect he deserves I’m afraid I can’t let you be near him . > 

< Hah , and why would I be scared of … of …

Is that a … knife … ? > 

< Oui , and I assure you it would be quite a shame to … go down this path . 

I hope I’ve made myself clear . > 

< Haha , yep ! Yeah , we’re clear , crystal clear !! > 

Rayman 🧡

Rayman is just so proud of you for finding an identity that fits with who you want to be , and much like Bullfrog he is incredibly supportive of any choice you make .

I also believe that since he spent his whole life being cast out for who he was and what he looked like , he would definitely shower you with love and compliments to let you know that he accepts and loves the person that you’ve become . 

< y/n … ? Have I told you how beautiful you are today ? > 

< Hehe , you did , three times I think … but I won’t mind if you tell me again ~ > 

< I just can’t help it , darling … when I look at you , I just can’t believe I got so lucky , y’know ? You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me … I really mean that . > 

< Aw Ray … I love you so much ~ > 

If you need to use binders ? Rayman is going to make sure that you have the most comfortable ones he can find , discussing all the details with you to get something that works the best for you : 

he just can’t stand the idea of his y/n hurting in any way , shape or form , and he wants to do his best to actively help you somehow . 

< You okay honey ? Does it feel alright ? > 

< Mhm , yeah ! Thanks again for helping me pick it Ray , this one fits so well ! > 

Despite his very friendly and cheerful demeanor around other people , if somebody ever were to say something mean spirited about you … 

Boy , he’s going to be pissed .

< Uh , excuse me … ? What was that about my partner ? 

How about you leave him the hell alone ? > 

Rayman is definitely very protective of you , and he’ll do anything to keep you safe , even if it means risking to damage his reputation as Eden’s voice …

You’re far more important to him than any of those things after all .

Ramon 🖤

Remember what I said about Rayman being protective of you ? 

Well , now this man will go absolutely feral if anyone dares to even remotely touch you or say something bad to you .

You’re precious to him beyond any measure or logic , and this means that Ramon will often be quite careless about himself if it means keeping you safe …

< Ram , what was that ?? Those guys could’ve killed you ! > 

< It’s fine … I’m … okay . > 

< No you aren’t , you’re bleeding . 

I can handle those kinds of comments , I’ve dealt with them before , you know that … 

I don’t want you to throw yourself at dangerous situations for me , isn’t that what you always tell me not to do ? > 

< That’s different … hiss - > 

< Careful , don’t move around too much … that’s a deep cut , we need to patch it up right away . > 

< … thanks y/n … sorry about that . I just - when I heard them call you those terrible names , I couldn’t just … >

< It’s okay sweetie , just take it easy … I’ll take care of you , now and always . > 

Sometimes you like to surprise Ramon by wearing his clothes ( even though they’re often a bit small ) , especially his coat , and the way he smiles while staring at you never fails to make your heart skip a beat …

You really are the only reason for happiness he has left . 

< Heh … what are you doing ? > 

< Well it was getting a bit cold , and your coat was right there , soo … I thought I’d try it on for a little while ~

I can take it off if you want though - > 

< No no , you can keep it … looks good on you , love ~ > 

Overall , Ramon will do all he can to make you see how much he cares about you and that he really can’t live without you in his life :

expect lots of physical affection , which also includes gentle caresses and kisses on your scars ( only if you’re okay with it of course ) … anything he can do to make you feel appreciated ? He’ll do it .

< God , you’re so pretty , y/n … I wish we could stay like this forever … > 

[lisbeth-kk]

Sherlock fandom. John wants to buy Mrs. Hudson a present, and Sherlock is quite willing to help.

Expedition at nighttime

“Have you ever been to a mall before, Sherlock?” John asks one evening.

Sherlock who’s been sprawled on the sofa, sits up at this unconventional question.

“A mall, John? Whatever for? And besides, I don’t care for your assault on the English language by using American substitutes,” Sherlock scoffs.

“Oh, excuse me, Your Highness, but mall is quite a bit easier to say than shopping centre. Now, will you answer my question or not?” John proceeds unperturbed. 

Sherlock sighs dramatically and adds an impressive eyeroll for good measure before he answers.

“Mummy used to take us to Harrod’s to see the Christmas decorations, but it’s been decades. Why on earth do you ask? You’re not exactly a fan of shopping. Last time you went to Tesco I believe you had a row with a chip and…”

“Yes, enough of reminding me of that, thank you very much,” John states briskly and flushes adoringly.  

Sherlock just cocks an eyebrow at him encouraging John to answer properly.

“Fine. It’s just…I thought we could buy Mrs. Hudson something nice for her birthday next week,” John sighs and rubs his neck.

“Ah, yes! Tesco won’t suffice, I take it,” Sherlock muses.

“Sherlock!” 

“I was teasing you, John. Calm down. Well, perhaps I can be of assistance. The owner of Selfridges owes me…”

“Let me guess – a favour?” John chuckles.

Sherlock just waves a dismissive hand at him, retrieves his phone from his trouser pocket and sends a text.

***

John gets Sherlock’s text at his lunch break, and almost chokes on his BLT-sandwich.

We’re going to Selfridges tonight at 11.30. SH

They’re closed at that hour, Sherlock.

As expected, John gets no answer to his text.

Sherlock’s out when John gets home from the surgery, but there’s a note underneath the skull.

Be ready at 11 pm. SH

“So, I take it you won’t need dinner then,” John mutters under his breath.

Despite his exasperation with his best friend, he can’t help the tingling sensation in his body when he thinks about their nightly excursion.

True to his word, Sherlock arrives in a cab at 11pm, and John’s standing at the pavement in front of 221 Baker Street and waits eagerly.

When they reach the large building on Oxford Street, an impeccably dressed man greets Sherlock vigorously. John is actually quite proud of Sherlock for not insulting the man with an embarrassing deduction, but instead puts on a smile, everyone close to Sherlock would know is a fake.

“Mr. Holmes, it’s a pleasure to finally get to help you out,” the man says, still shaking Sherlock’s hand.

“Well, yes, Mr. Dougherty. I’m glad you are amenable to my peculiar request,” Sherlock replies, and succeeds to withdraw his hand from the other man’s grip.

“This is, Jo…”

“Come in, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Dougherty says with admiration seeping out of every pore, totally ignoring John.

Sherlock stiffens immediately and a cold look in his eyes, tells John that Sherlock’s beyond annoyed. Mr. Dougherty’s clearly oblivious to the change in Sherlock’s demeanour and chats about trivialities neither John nor Sherlock comment on.

“I’ll call at your office when we’re finished,” Sherlock says and swirls around, heading to the escalators. “Come on, John.”

Mr. Dougherty gapes like a fish on land, and John can’t help but smirk. Flirting with Sherlock Holmes is one thing, disregarding John when Sherlock’s tried to introduce him, is a thing Mr. Dougherty might live to regret.

***

Being alone in this grand building with the lights dimmed, adds something mysterious to the whole experience. John feels like he’s in a movie, and he finds the shadows a bit eerie, but a glance over at Sherlock makes him grin, and he’s determined to enjoy this ridiculous ride.

Avoiding Christmas and birthdays himself, should’ve made Sherlock uninterested in buying gifts, but what John’s about to experience, is that he’s a rather skilled shopper.

Sherlock’s obviously memorised the map showing the different shops, and heads confident to the food department, scans the items for a few seconds, before he grabs a glass of vanilla honey and a gift set of different teas. He shows them to John for approval.

“What do you think, John? Will she like these?” he asks, his eyes glow in the dim light.

“You know she will,” John says and takes the offered gifts while Sherlock turns to the escalators. 

“Glove department, next,” Sherlock tells John.

John shakes his head in amusement. Sherlock acts like a child being set free at Hamley’s.

***

Sherlock’s delicate fingers stroke over smooth leather, and John must swallow hard at the sight. He’s placed the other items at a nearby counter and leans closer to look at the different gloves Sherlock’s picked out. The proximity and Sherlock’s unique scent, makes John’s head dizzy. Without thinking he moves closer and steadies himself with a hand on the small of Sherlock’s back. Sherlock inhales sharply and closes his eyes briefly.

“John,” he breathes, his deep voice stirring something in John. Something that’s lingered in the bottom of his heart for what feels like decades.

“Come here,” John murmurs and lifts his other hand to Sherlock’s jaw, cupping it gently.

A moan escapes Sherlock and his eyes opens slowly to gaze into John’s. He forgets all about gloves and pulls John to him with a tenderness John didn’t think Sherlock was capable of. He licks his lips and brushes his thumb over the perfect mouth above him. Sherlock’s tongue darts out and licks quickly before retreating.

“Tease,” John whispers, before Sherlock closes the gap between them and kisses him.

I just walked by the building last week, and it seemed only natural to let the boys have an unusual excursion to the posh establishment.

@flashfictionfridayofficial @keirgreeneyes @totallysilvergirl @calaisreno @a-victorian-girl @phoenix27884 @topsyturvy-turtely @blogstandbygo

[gallabitch73]

Nothing Beats That Crimson Love

People just simply don’t understand how much Ian loves Mickey. They see how much Mickey has gone through to be with Ian, but they don’t realize Ian’s journey to be with Mickey. Ian has loved Mickey from the very beginning. He loved him so much, that Mickey was actually the catalyst for Ian’s first bipolar episode. No, I’m not saying that Ian never would have been bipolar had he and Mickey’s relationship not have gone south in Season Three. What I am saying both as a therapist and someone with bipolar disorder is that there may be subtle symptoms before the first episode, but the first major bipolar episode is generally triggered by a stressful situation. That situation for Ian was Mickey marrying Svetlana.

Ian knew there were risks attached to being with Mickey. He knew Terry would not give them any peace. He wanted to be with Mickey anyway. He wanted them to be out. He was always proud of what they had. He simply wanted to love the person he loved on their own terms. Fast forward to Season 7. Ian had a stable relationship with Trevor, a good job, loving family. What does he do? He leaves it all behind to run away with Mickey. No, he ultimately didn’t go all the way to Mexico, but I think he really wanted to. Some might say his better judgment won out in the end, I think it was fear. The fact that he went with Mickey for as long as he did proved that he loved him beyond measure in my book. He and Trevor were never the same after that. The Caleb thing was D.O.A. Ian never fit with anyone the way he fit with Mickey, and he knew it.

Hell, in Season 10, Ian wants to throw his freaking parole so he can stay in prison with Mickey, but Mickey won’t let him. Ian threatened to kill his own brother if he hit Mickey again, and he totally meant that sh!t. Ian loves Mickey with his whole entire heart. And he has ever since he looked just like this.

That is why we get this face at the wedding. He can't believe that he finally gets to call Mickey his. Forever. Without all the interference. Without all the drama. Out. Proud. Forever. Ian LOVES him some Mickey. You bet your *ss he does.

[sugarstarlights]

> “So I have to do everything I’m told and asked, and like, love every second of it, it’s really fucked up, and I know that, but I still really want to do it, fucking /desperately/. Worse than our angel help programming. It’s going to make me happy. I know it will. I haven’t experienced it really yet beyond a dumb mistake and a conflicting mindset too distracting to be proud of, but it’s going to, it’s the right thing to do, maybe we. Can test it. If anyone..”

Rook stares at Mads Altair incredulously, nose a little scrunched up at the angel’s weird intense energy and abnormal conviction, but raises an eyebrow at the sudden change of tune.

“I thought you wanted me to make you stop enjoying it. Is it /that/ fucked up, that you can’t even truly hate it?”

“..Yeah,” he mumbles, grinding his teeth in a strained grin, “It’s that fucked up, but maybe it really will make me as happy as a dog gets about it, which is pretty fucking happy.”

“Okay, well..” They pause, tapping their wand on their opposite tattooed palm. “Fly a loop around the outside of the house.”

Altair is out the door almost before Rook can designate the location, wings unfolding behind him and flapping a little excitedly in the open room. They watch him leap off the edge of the island like there's something to land on, but instead of hitting a ledge, his purple feathers catch him in the air, taking him with a twist of his body in a loop around the building he'd just exited. Mads lands in a rushed stumble back on floating ground, a shaky grin on his face and a light in his eyes. He rushes back inside, stopping before Rook to step from foot to foot excitedly, truly like a dog after running around the yard on command, face bright with innocent anticipation.

Rook knows what he wants out of this, most likely, or at least what his instincts want, and reaches out to pat Mads' fidgeting hand. "Good job, I think that was a new record. You really got a lot of improvement out of that aerodynamics stuff, huh, that's impressive." Their compliment is genuine, and hits home, filling the empty space that this magic had created in the angel's inner soul.

He very much feels it, a pure joy and pride that wells up into the hole in his chest and overflows, a feeling like Mads had done something incredible, that mattered, like he had earned some measure of worth. The latter thought, when caught, lingers, a deeply tempting reason to let this continue..just to feel like he's worth something, more than being useful on his own could ever let him. But lower in his soul, suppressed under the magic and its rush, the nauseating twist of knowing these actions and feelings were chosen for him taints the man's aching desire for inherent value. This isn't a favor to him. It's just another careful lesson to make him more fun to play with. He doesn't want to be fun, Altair would rather be a broken puppet left to rot than 1 in use, strung up and along and forced to smile and laugh while he appeases someone cruel. Even wanting this, Mads' fear, deep down, what it always came to in the end, intensifies beyond his ecstasy. The terror as he looks up at his own strings from their helpless grip, seeing new threads wrapped around his mind, is too much, and the angel's smile falters into shaking, his hands clenching into tense fists.

"No, this. This isn't. Right. It's- it's how it should be- I can't take it. I don't want it. I'm so fucking trapped, /please/, if you can at least. Make me stop..thinking. Like this. About it."

Madison Rook may not be Madison Altair anymore, but their deepest fears are still shared, and they understand what draws the man's doubts to the surface of his manipulated mindset. They understand, they sympathize, but that doesn't mean they won't use it to their advantage. Rook tilts their horned head, considering their twin and his active crisis.

"Apologize for what you did to me, first. And mean it. Then I'll help you."

Mads' shoulders tense, but he laughs, even more strained but giddy at the manageable command, his words dragging his thoughts along behind them as they leave his lips against his will.

"Fantastic, sure, yeah, I fucking stabbed you, multiple times, I'm so sorry, really, definitely, I-"

Rook interrupts the chipper claim and its accompanying twisted smile and says "And don't enjoy it. Just make it normal and sincere."

Pausing, Altair blinks and takes a deep breath, momentarily freed from his inescapable glee. He tries again, and somehow it hurts more.

"..yeah. I hurt you. You hurt someone I cared about, more than was necessary, you left invisible scars and made her afraid of me because of what you did. I knew that you..regretted it. When I confronted you. You apologized. You'd already punished yourself. But I needed to do it myself, to make sure it was done right." It isn't hostility, but discomfort in his thin voice through gritted teeth, explaining himself in terms that sound cruel even to him, even as justified as they felt for so long. "I thought I needed to go as far as you did. For the lesson to sink in. ..But I could've stopped 1 sword in. Or I- I could've just not done that at all, and just yelled at you," he corrects himself as Rook glares, dissatisfied with the reluctance to fully retract his intentions.

"You could've not yelled at me, either. You called me horrible things. Maybe I needed to be confronted about my actions, but considering you were trying so hard to redeem Patches, you sure didn't seem willing to give me any second chances." The tiefling speaks with bitterness in their tone, remembering all the pain they'd been dealt. "You still haven't apologized."

"You're. Right. I'm. ..Sorry. You..didn't deserve. The excess punishment. That I took upon myself to give." He stares at the floor, unable to keep hiding his shame under sharp defenses. "I've made mistakes just as bad, and. If you had done that to me, for what I did..I guess I'd be just as upset and scared as you were..and. Still are. It feels like something I would have deserved, yeah. But I still wouldn't have. Deserved it from you. You didn't, either. And you shouldn't have had to be so afraid of being around me for so long. ..I realize that was. As long-term a wound. As you gave. If not more so. I remember when you tried to. Change your face, so you wouldn't have to look at me in the mirror. And so you wouldn't make me upset by existing around me. I..I'm sorry I made you feel that way about your identity. And for hating you just for being me, for so long after that."

Rook is quiet for several seconds, considering what the man they used to be had admitted and regretted, before they respond, "Look me in the eye, and say you regret hurting me."

They make eye contact, narrowed and pained meeting narrowed and judging, and there's a longer silence than there should be for a magic as urgent as this.

"..I regret. Hurting you. You came a long way and made up for a lot, far more than what I judged you for..and I sure didn't contribute to that. In any positive way. You helped me more than I deserved for how I treated you. I'm sorry. That I took that anger out on you."

Analyzing his stare, his resigned but sincerely mournful voice, Rook decides that's real enough for them. Reaching out again, the sorcerer puts a violet hand on the sleeve of Mads Altair's suit, a blue glow surrounding their hand as the gentle sound of rushing ocean tides washes away his thick layer of enforced enthusiasm for this state, like lifting heavy mud from his thoughts, freeing dozens of panicked complaints suppressed to the point of silence, complaints that immediately give the angel plenty of new things to stress about. But those are just noise under such a relief to have his mind fully his own again, despite what the strings may make his body do in the future. A freedom he often takes for granted, so easily returned from what felt like an immovably forceful grip. It's as if he scoops up all his now-freed feelings and opinions and gives them a warm hug, but for lack of that proper expression towards his state of mind, Madison Altair hugs his duplicate instead, grateful for the results of their spell.

They go rather stiff at first, but relax, hug Mads in return, and pet his hair a bit. Rook understands his fear of control. And they understand his relief to be free of it. It's the least they could do for finally forcing a makeup conversation, to release the charm given to twist him into a better toy. He would do the same for them. He understands their fear too. It's better if they're on each others' side. Few others would be able to support each other like this. ..They've wanted his support for a long time.

"Alright. Thank you. I believe you. ..I forgive you."

Mads doesn't respond, just makes a weak crying sound from the shoulder of Rook's cloak, and hugs his recurring savior tighter.

[larrydoinglaundry]

2022 writing self-evaluation✍️

Thank you @greenblueish for tagging me 💜

1. Number of stories posted to AO3 this year: 4

2. Word count posted for the year: 189 907 (woah)

3. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction

4. Pairings: Larry

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: love is a word, you gave it a name

Bookmarks: love is a word, you gave it a name

Comments: love is a word, you gave it a name

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

I mean it has to be love is a word you gave it a name because that was a journey and somehow I finished it😭 and obviously because I took a biiig bite with that. The whole gender aspect, internalized homophobia, mental health issues, falling in love... there was a lot going on and three chapters in I wanted to give up so bad. But I didn't !

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

this does in no mean I am not proud of this work, I just wish I would have been able to write more for it. so it has to be I'm insatiable it's all your fault

8. Share or describe a favourite review you received:

I love every single comment on ao3, I am beyond grateful for every single person who reached out in dms on twitter, and everyone who keeps hyping my fic up.

I can't share a favorite, I have so many.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Chapter 3 in love is a word. It was constant writing, deleting, crying, writing, deleting, crying... 💀 there wasn't even anything particularly difficult to write in that chapter ! It just didn't seem to flow at all. I had never wanted to give up so bad.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Didn't really surprise me per se, but I finally dared to put cunningulus and vaginal sex in my abo 😂 I had been hesitant to be very descriptive about it before, being too worried it turns my readers off. But I loved every second of it ! Pussy, folds, lips... 🤭 and judging by the comments and kudos, people didn't hate it.

11. A favourite excerpt of your writing:

"I won’t forget you. And that you were, will always be, my first love, and my baby. My sweetest dove," Louis murmurs, fingers softly digging onto Harry's jaw. With a soft smile, he whispers, "Will always be my bumblebee."

Harry should be able to say something equally sweet, something just as beautiful, but he can’t, because his brain is short circuiting, and his throat is burning again with the sobs that will probably never end.

Much to his relief, Louis sees it all, and chooses to kiss him to spare him from having to come up with something to say.

12. How did you grow as a writer this year:

hmmm. I think my general skills as a storyteller developed a lot. I feel like on some parts IIIAYF is written way better than LIAW. And while I haven't published my wip yet, I think for the most part it's a lot better than anything I put out this year.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

I hope, again, that I could stop being so hard on myself but that will probably never happen.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

@stylesthebrave my beloved, and everyone I met on twitter this year.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

hehehehe. Always. Yes. Something. One shall never know what.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Don't worry about cliches, stories that have already been written, authors that are getting more attention... The story that's planned in your head is unique, and no one else can write it the way you do. Your mind is beautiful.

And most importantly, your worth is not measured by statistics.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Finish the sequel to LIAW ! Hallelujah ! And starting my cliche fic heheh.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I feel like everyone has already done this so I don't know :(

[rinnysega]

Visit - An Emilia and Gustavo Drabble

A gift for @senshirei who’s overcome a very challenging time the past few months. I am blessed beyond measure to know her, happy to call her my friend, and I’m so proud of all her strength and her accomplishments on her journey. You are so loved Elle, and I’m so glad you’re in my life. 

~ * ~

The autumn that year was nonexistent for Emilia, or at least one she wanted to block from memory as she laid in bed, staring out at the crisp winter scene outside her window. Pepa made it snow, and while physically she could go out and enjoy it, she still couldn’t bear to go back out and risk seeing her boys. Her friends, her neighbors. It all felt overwhelming as she stayed in bed.

As she stared out her window, a familiar ponytail crossed the windowpane, and she practically turned white as she hid under her blanket. Why would he be here? Why would he be here now?

“Emilia - you have a visitor!” 

No shit, she thought. 

Emilia turned her head away from the door and curled into a ball when her visitor came inside. If it wasn’t that bushy ponytail that gave it away, she could tell who he was by the smell of the paella he brought to the family. The last thing she wanted was for Gustavo to see her cry... 

“Hey.” He rapped a knuckle on the doorframe and sauntered inside toward the chair by her bed. He sat down delicately, looking at the mound of blankets rolled up on the mattress. He smiled. “Hey, c’mon...I know you’re not sleeping.”

His hand gently touched a lump, and rubbed it softly. Before long, Emilia’s head poked out with messy hair from where he rubbed it against the blanket. His smile never wavered. 

“I made your family your favorite,” he said. “I thought this time I could stay and enjoy it with you if you’d like to join me.” 

Behind him, just out of view, were little wooden capybaras he’d sent her over the last few months with little sketches attached of houses, people, trees, and animals. All of them arranged by when they were received, or by how waterlogged with tears the art pieces seemed to be. 

“I’m still not feeling well,” she told him. It wasn’t a lie, but not the whole truth either. 

Gustavo leaned in again to brush the hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. “That’s okay,” he told her. “Between us,” he leaned in to whisper, “it’s not my best batch anyway. I can make a better one for you when you are feeling better.” 

She allowed herself to smile a little as she moved the blanket to give way for him to lie beside her. Gustavo took the invitation and laid down, holding her close to him as she rubbed her cheek to his chest. 

“I miss you...” Her voice cracked against him. 

“I miss you too, kid...” He pet her hair. “I’m starting to run out of drawing ideas to send you. You better get well soon fast before I start sending drawings of Bruno Madrigal or something.”

She hiccuped a bit with a laugh and brought her wrist up to wipe her eye. “...You don’t have to go yet soon do you?”

“Nope.”

“Your dad isn’t expecting you to work?”

“Emilia,” Gustavo told her, reassuringly, “Nothing - absolutely nothing - on this Earth is going to drag me out of this bed until we have some time to talk and catch up. Okay?” He pet her hair again. “I love you.”

Her face pressed harder against him, and he felt hot tears against his shirt along with her small heaving sobs. The sight brought tears to his own eyes as he held her close, his hand protective on the back of her head like the dear little sister she was to him. 

[oh-my-hubris]

Loyalty Of Angels 3: A Job Offer

Jhonny gets a job adjacent to Law Enforcment. We are all very proud of him.

1322 

“Jhonny?” Petra rapped on his door with her knuckles. “Do you have a minute?”

“I’m even wearing pants,” Jhonny called as he rolled to sitting, setting the book he was reading to the side. “It’s open.”

Petra was holding herself straighter than usual when she stepped into the room. Usually she grinned at him, but right now her expression couldn’t be called anything kinder than a smirk. Jhonny discreetly slid his hand under his pillow to the hidden knife while he raised an eyebrow at her. 

“You’re not Petra.” 

‘Petra’ chuckled and began to shimmer, eventually growing taller and more beautiful, her blonde pigtails melting into Countess Anise’s long red hair. “Very good,” The Countess said, amused. “I’m more convinced than ever that you should join the Shining Blade.” 

Jhonny took his hand off his knife but didn’t get off the bed. It was very strange to be casually conversing with the Queen's personal bodyguard in his bedroom. He didn't feel awed or overwhelmed, he was just a little bit confused. “You might have to fight Thackeray for that, he saw me first.” 

Anise chuckled. “Precisely. I want to offer you a job.”

Jhonny pursed his lips. “I tell you you're going to have to take it up with Thackeray and you immediately offer me a job,” he said in disbelief. “What sort of job?”

“Officially? Logan needs a secretary. A second set of hands. Someone to keep him on schedule and assist him in more mundane areas of command with the Seraph.” Countess Anise smiled at him. “For the most part, the higher ups within the Seraph already adore you—you saved their lives and their reputations several times now—and so you would quickly be accepted. Your record, while not clean, demonstrates your loyalty to Kryta and to Queen Jennah beyond almost any doubt.” 

“Uh-huh,” Jhonny said skeptically. “And my actual job?” He wouldn't have believed she wanted him to be a paper-pusher anyway, but Anise had started the description with ‘officially’.

Her smile turned fond and almost teasing. “Bodyguard.”

“For Logan.” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re telling me that Logan Thackeray, Captain of the Seraph, the fucking Lion of Kryta, needs a bodyguard?” Jhonny snorted a laugh. “Why?”

“You saw yourself that he’s, in some ways, as much of a target as Queen Jennah herself. Her enemies wouldn’t hesitate to use him against her and Kryta is stronger with him around.” 

Jhonny nodded. “Makes sense. Will he know what I’m doing?”

“No one’s going to tell him.” Countess Anise sighed and flipped her hair back. “He’s stubborn and ludicrously prideful. He’d never accept a bodyguard.”

This was probably true. Logan had an air of impenetrability around him, didn't fail well, and didn't like people noticing. 

Jhonny could relate

“You’re… unassuming,” Anise said, something Jhonny normally wouldn’t have taken as an insult but the insult was somewhat implied. “He’d never guess, and neither would anyone else.”

. “That’s such a ridiculous idea that I have to say yes.” He shook his head. “If I’m doing this though, you should know what my priorities will be.” 

She lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

“My first duty will have to be to Logan. Not to his life, but to his ideals. That means that Her Majesty will have to come first in almost everything, but also that I’ll put his safety above his happiness and above er… sensible actions. Following that, my loyalties are to Kryta. I work for the throne, not for you and not for the Shining Blade.” 

“Your parents were Shining Blade,” she pointed out. 

“I'm not them. And if I'm putting myself in the position of getting stabbed for somebody else, I don't want someone else telling me how to do it.” 

“But you'll take orders from Queen Jennah?”

“Paycheck's gotta come from somewhere.”

Queen Anise nodded thoughtfully, taking him in. “And if it comes down to a choice between Logan and Queen Jennah?” 

He felt weighed. Measured. He lifted his chin and met her gaze. If he was going to play in this arena, he couldn't let them cow him. 

Not being cowed, luckily, was almost second nature. 

“If you’re doing your job, it shouldn’t. If it does, I’ll pick her because I'm like 90% Logan doesn't want the country plunged into chaos.” 

The Countess extended her hand and gave Jhonny a business-like shake. “Agreed. In two days you’ll be invited to the Court so Her Majesty can reward your efforts for Kryta. Ask her for a job when she offers you a boon.” 

“Her Majesty’s in on this?” 

“It was her idea.” Countess Anise’s disguise shimmered back into place. “See you then, hero.”

Jhonny stared at the door long after it closed. Legitimacy was knocking on his door. It had never been something he wanted, but here it was. 

And he liked Logan, much as he’d tried not to. Logan was funny, Logan was charming. Logan was… an idiot in some ways but only in ways that made him more endearing. 

So Jhonny’d do it, because there was little enough in this world that he felt needed to be protected more than one good man. 

His only friend. 

The small picture.

****

The actual ceremony was held in private after Jhonny had spoken to Countess Anise—and therefore Queen Jennah—about assurance. He was only human and not a well put together human at that. He froze a lot, he had anxiety. 

He needed to be certain that when Logan was in danger he would act. 

He hadn’t had any real thoughts on how to do this, but after bringing the problem  forward—by showing up near the palace and hassling people until he got a word with Anise—Queen Jennah had suggested a geas. A magical compulsion.

It was a hard pill to swallow. He'd always been fiercely independent, he'd had no choice. This would be a chain.

But it was one he was choosing and that helped. He liked Logan and they were friends despite everything. 

This was how he could serve Kryta without it chafing too hard. 

And, perhaps most of all, he didn't want to fail Logan the way he had failed Quinn.

In a darkened room, Queen Jennah blazing before him like the sun, Jhonny knelt and submitted to being placed under a geas, guaranteeing that he would put Logan’s life ahead of all else. That he wouldn’t freeze or fail. 

I offer my life and ask the burden of choice be removed. I am willing, Majesty, but I am human, given to fear and doubt and indecision. I lay my intentions bare: As a shield might splinter and spare its bearer, let my body break and spare his. As a torch expires but guides through dark places, let me expire if it sees him through.

The magic looped around him, heavy as it locked into place. He watched the semitransparent chains pass into him to bind his heart, leaving only a tattoo-like mark about his left breast. A closed chain link, evidence that he was bound. 

He felt different with the geas. It felt heavy, grounding. He'd expected want to rail against it but, there was actually a comfort in knowing where his priorities were and that he wasn't going to fuck them up. 

He wouldn't fail Logan the way he failed Quinn. He would be better.

He could do this. 

****

He didn’t own “nice” clothes. The best Jhonny could manage was “something clean and without holes in it”. Andrew and Petra were both surprised and admittedly worried when a herald showed up to summon him to court.

Jhonny assured them it was fine and probably related to the way he'd been assisting the Seraph recently. 

Which was still weird, but he and Logan had continued to get along well. 

Reaching the noble quarter he was immediately out of place, and he more or less scurried towards the palace where he waited around as Queen Jennah went through what he assumed were the usual motions of running a royal court. 

It occurred to him while he was standing there that he was going to have to figure this whole system out. He was good at spotting threats (at least to himself), but this was a whole different arena. 

Honestly probably a less ethical arena, but he had to keep that to himself. A couple of nobles and at least two ministers shot him dirty looks as his name was announced and he proceeded up the aisle. 

Queen Jennah was seated on the throne, Logan on her right and Countess Anise on her left. He'd never seen her in light before, at least not from this close. She was young, which made sense, her expression was clear, and she was barefoot. 

Honestly? He'd kind of assumed the barefoot thing was hyperbole or metaphor, even if he couldn't figure out what that would have been a metaphor for. 

But, nope, there were her little brown toes poking out from under her white dress. She smiled brightly and he redirected his attention to her face. “Jhonnen Jackson, I’ve come to understand that your assistance to the Seraph has continued unabated.” She looked to Logan and then stood. With one hand she gestured for Jhonny to approach the throne. “You’ve done more for Kryta than most. Is there anything I can offer you in return?” 

He was acutely aware of all the eyes on him, Countess Anise’s keenest of all. He didn’t just have to fool Logan, he had to fool the entire court. This was a test. 

Could he sell this?

Jhonny had spent his whole life being underestimated. He was good at it. And here he had all the advantages. He was a nobody, a shabbily dressed teenager surrounded by opulence. He stood out, but only as something less.

He took a breath and turned his gaze up to the Queen’s. It wasn’t hard to look taken with her, she was beautiful and she was, by all accounts, kind. Logan certainly adored her. He’d come to respect Logan, even like him. He respected Logan’s opinion about a number of things, and Queen Jennah was at least one of those.

“There is one thing, your majesty,” he swallowed again and dropped his eyes to the floor. “A job.”

“A… job?” Queen Jennah repeated, there was a twist of confused bemusement. 

She was an excellent liar, he noted. Probably a useful skill in her position.

Jhonny nodded. “I’ve learned that my parents were members of the Shining Blade before they were killed and I got dropped at Queen’s Heart. I would like to carry on their legacy.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t have the… uh…  temperament for military service, but I would happily swear my life to Kryta and to you.” He cocked his head up and gave her a lopsided smile. “I can play hero for the rest of my life, but it doesn’t really pay the bills.” 

Queen Jennah laughed, looking entirely charmed. She shook her head and, beaming, turned to look at Logan. “You were complaining that you needed someone to help you stay organized and on schedule, were you not, Captain?” 

“I—” Logan looked down at Jhonny. 

Jhonny looked up at Logan and smiled. The smile was easy, because he liked the man, but he could swear that he could feel a pull in his chest.

It might have been the geas. And it might have been thinking too much about the geas. 

“And you said just today that you thought our hero would make a valuable Lieutenant.” 

“Yes but—”

Jennah turned back to Jhonny, cutting Logan off almost comically, and indicated that he should stand. “Consider yourself hired, I’ll let you and Captain Thackeray work out the details.” 

“Thank you, your majesty,” Jhonny dropped into a low bow and backed out of the hall to wait for court to finish and his “interview” to begin. He leaned against the wall and drew in a deep breath. 

Legitimacy, more or less. 

Court ended, signified by Logan entering the Seraph headquarters and bee-lining for where Jhonny was standing by the door of his office.

Logan’s hand clapped onto Jhonny’s shoulder and drove him into the office. “What deal did you and Anise work out?” He launched immediately into the question, no prelude of niceties, nothing. Jhonny met his gaze levelly. 

“Lieutenant’s pay without having to go on patrol or become a proper Seraph,” Jhonny answered evenly. “Everything I told her Majesty was true. I want to work for her, for Kryta and I’d rather work for you than The Countess. She offered me a place in the Shining Blades and we agreed that I’d be more useful here.” He gave a small huff. “Probably because I don't particularly like her and would chafe taking her orders. That was mostly subtext.”

“Doing paperwork.” Logan said skeptically.

“And scheduling. And a knife when you need one. Think of me as your extra ears, eyes and hands, even a proxy when you’re too pissed off to deal with the Ministry.” Jhonny smiled. “A slightly more useful, if considerably smaller, shadow.”

“And in return?”

“Like I said, Lieutenant’s pay and I get to tag along with one of my boyhood heroes. Everybody wins.” 

“I am not one of your boyhood heroes,” Logan said flatly. 

“True. All my boyhood heroes were dead. I was an avid student of history.” 

Seemingly despite himself, Logan smiled. He nodded and laughed, dipping his head and shaking it lightly. Lifting his chin again he looked down at Jhonny and gave a small sigh. “Well, I suppose I owe you that much.”

“Glad to hear it. I won’t let you down, Sir.” He winked when he said sir. “Seems to me like you need all the help and all the allies you can get. It’s my privilege to be part of it.”

“I've known you for months, Jhonny,” Logan said. “Dressing up your language makes you sound very dishonest.” 

“I am dishonest,” Jhonny reminded him. “I'm just dishonest and working for you now.” He gave a flourished bow. “My dishonesty is at your service.” 

****

Jhonny spent the rest of the day at Seraph HQ, getting to know more of the people and moving. Logan's office, he learned, wasn't actually used that often unless he was actively fighting with paperwork or meeting with people who had sensitive information. Mostly, Logan shared the large L shaped desk at the back of the main office with Lieutenant Francis. Plans were made to get Jhonny a small desk nearby for managing scheduling and paperwork. 

He hung out, getting a feel for the place and trying hard to not show that he was marveling that life had led him here. 

Returning home in the evening he felt good. He leaned against the bar and smiled at Andrew. “I’m afraid I have to quit my job as bar back and bouncer but, if you’ll let me, I’d like to actually rent out the room I’m in.” 

Andrew gave him a surprised look. “What’s happened?”

“I’ve fallen in with a bad crowd,” Jhonny said with a shrug. “And joined up with the biggest gang in town.” 

Andrew raised an eyebrow.

Jhonny laughed. “I’m talking about the Seraph. I just got hired. I'm handling paperwork for Captain Thackeray on account of my more recent trend of thrilling heroics.”

Andrew cuffed him upside the back of the head for the brief scare and Jhonny laughed. “I have a hard time picturing you in uniform, Jhonny.” 

“It’s not like I'm going to be in armor, but yeah, same. Still, I’m just going to be doing paperwork. Might be boring, but the pay’s good.”

It wasn't going to be boring, he'd be spending a lot of time looking for assassins. Which would be interesting at the very least.

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

5/26/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

Psalm 131, 138-139, 143-145

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological. Today is the 26th day of May. I'm Jill and it is so good to be here with you all today as we're winding this week down together in the Word, life is busy and it's full y'all. And so I am so glad that you have set aside this time to really just make space for God to be present, be a part of your day, an intentional part of your day, and to allow his word to speak to you, wash over you, and hide it in our hearts so that we may not sin against Him. Today we're reading in the Psalm and we're going to jump around a little bit. We'll begin with Psalm 131 and then we'll jump over and read Psalm 138, 139, and then we'll jump further back to Psalm 143, 144 and 145. This week we've been reading in The Voice translation, Psalm 131.

Commentary:

Today, if you would let me expound on why. O Eternal One, my heart is not occupied with proud thoughts. My eyes do not look down on others. I don't even begin to get involved in matters too big, matters of faith, state business, or the many things that defy my ability to understand them. Here it is. Of one thing I am certain my soul has become calm, quiet and contented in you, like a weaned child resting upon his mother. I am quiet. My soul is like this weaned child. Is your soul really calm, quiet and contented in God? It's not a question filled with shame. It's just a question. For much of my life, my soul was not calm, it was not quiet, and it was not contented in God. It was chaos. My soul was chaos. My learned response to almost everything was react, chaos, spin out of control. And I'm laughing because I think back to the ridiculousness of just pure intensity. Everything was a reaction. Rather than taking a moment to consider, to pause, to gain my thoughts, to invite the Holy Spirit, and to just learn to be content. Now, not everything and everybody is quiet. The world we live in is loud and noisy. And I think sometimes we think we have to raise our voice above the noise. We've got to be louder. The church has to have a voice and make a stand that's louder. And I learned this really beautiful technique in parenting, but I learned it really late in life. The trick is if you want your child to listen to you in the chatter and the chaos and the intensity, if you lower your voice, if you lower your voice, you will actually command them to meet you where you are. If you gain control of your emotions, of your thoughts, they'll mimic that. They will model that well, that has to spill over beyond our kids. If we can learn to be calm and we have to learn it, it can't just happen. We can pray and god can supernaturally just calm us. But we also have to learn it. And we learn it by practicing. I heard this fascinating new piece of research the other day just in mental health awareness and I just want to go on the record. I am not a mental health professional, but as someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression over the years, I'm fascinated in very holistic ways to take preventative measures before we're over the edge or before I'm over the edge. And a new study showed that if we take 20 minutes a day to just sit with our thoughts, they didn't even go on the record to call it prayer and they didn't even go on the record to call it meditation. Simply sit with your thoughts for 20 minutes and they recommend you do it twice a day. But most people won't do it once because they don't know how to manage all of the thoughts that they sit with because people do not sit for 20 minutes. So the intentionality of it without ever doing it before leaves people overwhelmed and so they just stay busy and not sit with those thoughts. What if we could start practicing? Practicing intentional calm and quiet and our focus being content in God, learning to quiet our soul, learning calmness and stillness. Practicing it so that we are modeling it not to just our children, but to a world that is frantic, that is chaotic, that is spinning out of control because we are grabbing towards anything that will soothe us, anything that will calm us, anything that will comfort us instead of gravitating that gravitational pull. As a believer to the comforter, to the Holy Spirit whose characteristic is that of calming and soothing and nurturing and man isn't that just a really good place of rest to be grounded in? The one who is stable, the one who is able, the one who calmed the seas, the one who said, Peace, be still. The one who is the prince of all peace and the one whose peace passes all understanding. 

Prayer:

Father, thank you for this word today that grounds me thinking that when I have begun to involve myself in matters too big the many things that defy my ability to understand them that I can come to you and you calm and quiet my soul. You are a place of contentment for every single one of us. Father, I pray that those whose life feels like it is a jumble mess of chaos would you come and be their peace? Would you come and show them what peace and stillness and calm and rest that may feel completely out of the ordinary to them? Would you come like a flood with peace and like a stillness after the storm? God, would you calm the raging storm of strife inside of them and show them your peace so that it can be felt, so that it can be attained, so that it can be practiced, it can be achieved and then we can model this to a world in need. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that comforts us, that calms us, that soothes us, that nurtures us, that mothers us and may we rise above the noise, above the chaos, above reacting and be people of great peace. Pray this now in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Announcements:

Daily Audio Bible. That's home base. Check it out, if you have not. Take a look around. That's the website and it's free. If you'd like to partner with us, thank you so much for your partnership. We could not do this without you. We're so grateful that we do not have to. If you're giving by mail DAB PO Box 1996, Spring Hill I was about to wrap but I stopped myself. PO Box 1996, Spring Hill, Tennessee 37174 or you can hit the Give icon up at the top right hand corner of your mobile device. And lastly look for the Give icon on the website. If you would like to pray for someone that's previously called in or if you yourself need prayer several different ways for you to do so 800-583-2164 or once again utilizing that mobile app, hit the red circle button up at the top right hand corner of your mobile device. You have two minutes on the prayer line. Please speak clearly and concisely into your mobile device and then at the end of your prayer hit send. Turn that little wheel over to chronological. We've got our own little place in the world and that's it. And speaking of that's it. That's it for me today. We'll turn the page together tomorrow. Oh how I love you. Until tomorrow. Love one another.

Community Prayer Line:

Hello, DABC family. This is Mary from Prairie Grove, Arkansas. I am calling to ask for prayer for my son Caleb. Caleb is 18 and he is on the autism spectrum and earlier this week he had a mental health crisis. We've been struggling he's been struggling with some mental health issues but we could not get him to go anywhere to get assessment and assistance and he wasn't on any medication but only by circumstances the Lord can bring about. We were able to get Caleb into an inpatient patient facility earlier this week and he will be there for a couple of weeks. But I have a couple of prayer requests for Caleb. First of all, Caleb prayed to receive Christ at a young age and he has walked away from that. And I pray that this time of being away from distractions, electronics and social media will be an opportunity for his mind to clear and God will speak to him through the power of the Holy Spirit. I also pray for the breaking of social media addiction in his life. Social media addiction is a real thing and he needs to be delivered from that bondage and we as his parents and we are his legal guardians, need to do better at helping him monitor that. The third thing is that he said he's bored there and there's not a lot to do. And I pray for a Christian friend, I pray for a Christian therapist, a Christian doctor, someone that would befriend Caleb even there, and share Christ with him and love on him and encourage him. And we just pray for mental healing for Caleb. Thank you so much.

Hello, DABC family. This is Diana from Florida. Oh, wow. I am so enamored by this praise report from Blessed Assurance and also by the commentary that the Burning Bush that will not be devoured shared because it's true. We take for granted these little little things. We take for granted the fact that maybe in some parts of the country of the world there's rain and other parts there's droughts. We take for granted the fact that there is even birds flying and chirping and migrating through our locations and how that's a sign of peace. And what the burning bush was saying was that during war, there are no birds, the animals flee. And that is something that really touched me, that really touched me and moved me to realize how much I take all of that for granted myself. I don't even recognize how much of a blessing that is sometimes. And so I just want to thank God for both of you. Thank God for you giving praise reports and highlighting how special and amazing of a miracle it is that I can see the birds flying around me and chirping and I can feel the rain here in Florida. It's not raining currently, but it has been yesterday it rained a whole lot, and today it's a very sunny May rain later today. But even all that, all of it is a blessing. And so praise God. Praise God. I praise the Lord with you both. And I thank God for this community that constantly is challenging me to really press deeper in my faith.

Hi, China. My name is Eva. I really like listening to the Daily Audio Bible Kids. And what I want to say is that I like it when you do the Daily Audio Bible Kids. It makes me happy and it also makes me feel like it's in my heart making that I learn about new things and how God created the world. You talk about all kinds of things. Bye.

[specialagentartemis]

And tbh this os why I don’t usually get super worked up about modern Greek myth retellings getting mythic figures’ personalities “wrong.” In Homer, Menelaus was generally noble, if sometimes ineffective; to the Athenian playwrights, he was portrayed as everything wrong with Sparta. This even extends to the gods: In Homer, Apollo is honorable and just; in The Kindly Ones by Aeschylus, Apollo is inflexible in his idea of justice; in Andromache by Euripides, Apollo is vengeful and kind of petty.

This is especially true when it comes to Odysseus. To Homer, Odysseus was a wily liar but also a hero, clever but over-proud, good at coming up with clever solutions to problems but also putting himself in those problems because he thinks he can solve them, sometimes a mediator and sometimes egging people on, ruthless in his goals except when he decides to lie and make things more difficult than they have to be; a polytropos man for sure. In Ajax he is calm, measured, sympathetic, trying to mediate rather than escalate conflict, and unwilling to mock his friend-turned-enemy laid low; in Philoctetes he is much more selfish and scheming; in Iphigenia is Aulis he is the architect of the sacrifice-Iphigenia plan, and riles up the troops to make it happen so they can all sail off to war; in other sources he doesn’t want to go to war at all. In Cyclops, as it’s a satyr play, Odysseus is the well-meaning noble “straight man” of the play who fully intended to deal honestly with Polyphemus, not steal from him; in Roman literature, Odysseus was portrayed negatively as an underhanded and untrustworthy schemer because tricks and lies didn’t befit Roman military honor. Different writers chose different elements of Odysseus that fit their cultural context and the story they wanted to tell.

So, retelling Greek mythological stories to highlight stories and aspects and character traits relevant to your current cultural mores and narrative desires is a very, very long-standing tradition. “Changing” characters’ personalities to fit the story you want to tell is a narrative choice that goes back 2400 years. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong or disrespectful or dishonest to do so. It’s about the aspects of these stories that resonate with you, what stories you want to tell with them.

That said, I absolutely think that Greek myth retellings can be lazy, uninspired, sexist, reductive, weirdly demeaning to the characters’ mothers in order to prop up the hot boy love interest, uninterested in the cultural context of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, annoyingly smug, or just cliché. I’m certainly not saying that Greek myth retellings are beyond reproach. Certainly there are some that I think are pointless! But criticisms about mischaracterization or disrespect for the gods just feels like missing the point to me when authors have been doing exactly that for longer than the English language has existed.

I do think it’s funny how consistently Menelaus is portrayed in Greek tragedy as just, a total asshole. Rude and cruel and just the fucking worst.

This is because Menelaus was the mythic king of Sparta, and Sophocles and Euripides who were writing these plays were Athenian, and more to the point, Athenian living during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. It’s literally just the ancient version of making all the antagonists in every American movie in the 80s and 90s Russian. Writers going, You know the guys we’re at war with? They SUCK

[ink-beneath-her-fingernails]

reach your hand through the everglass (the boat to nowhere gets there fast)

read it on ao3   |   masterlist

Fandom: Hades (video game)

TWs: major character death (canon-typical), graphic depictions of violence, mentions of unhealthy parent-child relationships. please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be added.

Wordcount: 1,748

Originally Published: January 27, 2023

Summary: here is what they do not tell you: running through every level of hell, being reborn in a river of your own blood, experiencing every thousands of ways to die, failing and failing and failing and yet persisting—you will change.

here is what you are scared to ask yourself: how much?

Notes: whoops i thought too much about this game!! idek what the title on this one is. originally it was "persist in the fathomless depths" bc i couldn't find any of the dialogue that inspired this story in the first place, and none of the other stuff was jumping out, but then this just. kinda happened. and now i'm attached to it so.

Transfer Notes: n/a

here is what they do not tell you: running through every level of hell, being reborn in a river of your own blood, experiencing every thousands of ways to die, failing and failing and failing and yet persisting—you will change.

here is what you are scared to ask yourself: how much?

*

here is what you learn:

how to die (stabbed through the heart, body seizing, skin frizzing with magical energy, choking on blood and bile and poison, bleeding out in a quiet corner, crushed by falling debris, at the hands of one of your oldest friends),

never to meet your heroes (of any sort; every olympian you've ever talked to is fickle and proud and angry beyond measure; it takes you three meetings to even realize who patroclus is and he is nothing like any story, tired and drowning in sorrow and apathy and having given up in every way; you tell theseus that fighting him would be an honor and he calls you a fiend, a blackguard, and a coward, tells you he will show you no mercy, relishes more in the crowd and glory than anything else above or below the earth),

how to talk to people (you've always been alright at it but you need it now more than ever before—new people, not the ones you've grown up knowing, ones who will talk back and stick around for longer than their sentencing; you talk and you talk and you give and you give and sometimes you take and this you are forced to realize before anything else: everyone here is your ally, and everyone here is your enemy. they are bound to this house just like you are, want you to escape because they never could, want you to fail because it's their job, want you to die because they'd rather swallow you whole and let your ever-lit feet scorch their insides until they learn not to burn than let you leave them.

you learn to toe a fine line, never show too much of your hand at once, look for double meanings, take nothing at face value; line thin smiles with sharp teeth and honeyed words, and you hate it and you hate it and you hate it and—),

people change (sisyphus tends your wounds, gives you spare obols he's picked up on his perpetual path, slips you gemstones of darkness incarnate that make your blood sing, always offers you an ear to listen and a kind set of words. you ask nyx where his pact might be so you can void it, and she asks if you think that is a wise decision. you tell her you don't know, so she sends you to her son. you cannot look sisyphus in the eye when next you meet, taking his gifts sets something roiling in your gut. he has been here for so very long. you cannot even imagine what he was like living, cannot possibly reconcile the crafty king you've been told of with the bashful, friendly man who offers you encouragement on your runs. you still do not know if you should free him. you wish you'd never thought of it.

your father is a shadow over your entire life, you have learned nothing from him except every painful part of the words blood and darkness. he has tried to teach you how to hate and despite all his wishes, you have not let him. (you still love him, you still love him, why do you still love him, how can you still love him?) you have given him the benefit of the doubt at every turn and still he surprises you, still it shocks you to the core of something you didn't know you had to hear him uncertain, to hear him loving, or trying, to hear him attempting to make the right choice in a way that matters differently from the rulings of the universe and politics and mortality.

achilles tells you he tore the world asunder once but will not say how. try as you might, you cannot picture it.

the shades milling outside the stadium in elysium murmur about how, in life, theseus killed the minotaur with his bare hands, and you spend long minutes wondering if you'd misheard, trying to understand when presented with the information for the first time since you'd actually met the pair how that makes any sense, when they're a team, when theseus bargained asterius out of erebus just to fight by his side. they tell you, again and again, that you could never understand the bond they have, and you believe it every time),

how to use each of the infernal arms (that have found their way crawling from the darkness where they were always meant to be forgotten, that fit your palms like they were always meant for you to wield them, that make your hair stand on end and your blood pump and your muscles pulse and the need for something great and terrible and violent to spring forth from you frying the very air you breathe.

you collect bounties, and they're something awful, something old, something you shouldn't be seeing, holding, using—titan blood. each weapon, without fail, reacts when you do. they shiver, and quake, and whisper, and you think you finally know what achilles must've meant when he told you that they'd hunger for it before long.

you carefully pocket a vial of the ancient ichor, and the trembling of aegis brings you pause. its open mouth is gaping, and you wonder, if it had a tongue, would it be licking its chops, and is it just you, or are its fangs longer now than they were before? you feed them eventually, because of course you do, you're running out of options, and you wonder if, in several hundred slices of agony throughout the depths, your forefathers' forefathers can feel it).

here is what you don't: who actually hired skelly? who was he before?

why do the gods of olympus, who all quietly hate each other so, bother to put up with one another for all this time? (is there perhaps more than one reason lord ares has been kept so very busy on earth recently? is it nothing but a desperate hope that he will not have time to turn eyes to their mountaintop, considering?)

why did your mother come here, and why did she leave?

why does the river phlegethon keep flooding?

why, when you are so very frustrated after a ruined escape attempt that ended slowly and painfully, when meg refuses to even talk to you, when everyone at the house has stonewalled every question you've asked in the hours since, and you throw something—was it a pot? a book? a statuette?—across your room in a fit of rage, does the mirror nyx once gifted you shatter like it never, never should? why does nyx not instantly storm in, having felt it?

why don't you feel any different when it does?

(nyx tells you the mirror will make you stronger, and by her grace, it does.)

(so why is it, when you kneel amongst the shards, trying to figure out how you're going to fix your own impulsive stupidity, that it doesn't feel dangerous? it did, before, even when it was whole, when you first used it. now, you handle the pieces, and don't even make an effort to handle them carefully because some part of you knows they would never dream of cutting you open.

when you press them together, the darkness sings, and where it once made you feel small, like prey, maybe, now it is a comfortable hum in your chest, in your heart, in your soul if you were to have one, and you act without thinking, letting the music of the cosmos you should not hear or feel or taste guide your hands without thought, and suddenly you have one larger piece instead of two smaller ones, and one pair less of jagged edges. you keep on, like it's your purpose, because maybe now it is, and shard by shard, edge by edge, you build something, and the darkness sings ever louder with each joining, until you could swear the whole house is shaking in its foundations. eventually, you press an entire, jagged panel into the frame and what's stayed there, and it's like nothing ever happened. slowly, the music fades.

when you ask nyx if she heard the singing later, she just blinks at you, says she's not sure what you mean, and orpheus still hasn't been much for playing lately.

you don't bring it up again.)

*

this is what it seems everyone has forgotten except you: how gods become.

young gods are a rare commodity these days. they always have been.

more often than not, gods come into existence fully formed for their purpose, or nearly there. gods that are created more than born often have it given to them, even.

their powers are not uncovered through a slow process of trial and error, or by accident. rarely are they a surprise.

people tend to forget that it wasn't always this way. people forget that once, the world wasn't split in three, that the infernal arms exist for a reason, that gods can be made as much as they can be born, and sometimes, they can be both. they forget that gods can die, just not forever; forget that there are things older than them that still watch.

but you don't. you can't. you're living in it.

we're gods, boy. killing one another is our lot.

you wonder, then.

you think that maybe that is how divinity is forged—if it is through resentment, and spite, and battles to the death again and again, and running and fighting and learning and falling into places you aren't supposed to and seeing things from beyond your realm.

the darkness sings, and your blood roars in time with it, and you let it, feeling a sort of whole you didn't know was possible.

make things more interesting, indeed, the being that is beyond time and world and reason murmurs when next you meet. a smile curls upon your face, and you wonder when you stopped finding things like that ominous and threatening.

well.

perhaps it was when you started making your life a little more interesting, after all. or, perhaps, it was when life started making you a little more interesting.

it's hard to say, really.

[aarcanechaoss]

Hey❤

Can you do a fic for BSD characters with a pregnant s/o.The characters can be be Chuuya,Ranpo,Atsushi.

I can indeederoo you didn’t give me much detail but I’ll just go for it ~~~ I aged Atsushi up imagine he’s 25 or smth

Chuuya Nakahara

You announced the pregnancy in a pretty cute way, you bought a little suit and naw it was just adorable because your Husband had just come home from work and was feeling a little brain dead

Chuuya stared at you for a solid ten minutes after he figured out that meant your were pregnant but as soon as he processed it he pulled you in for the biggest hug ever ~ this stays a secret for as long as you both can keep it such

The first person he does tell is Koyo

Throughout the pregnancy he’s there as often as he can for the highs and lows and scares and joys even when he has to work- the baby kicked? Suddenly he’s got the day off absolutely fuck the PM

You get a food craving? He’ll get it but if it’s too weird he may make himself busy so he doesn’t have to be asked to try it lmao

He feels super proud, excited and scared to become a father. He doesn’t want his kid to have his abilities- if you have some he hopes they have yours otherwise an ability free baby sounds alright to him. He doesn’t want to feel afraid but he’s scared that somehow his time before the sheep will come and take you away - it won’t he won’t let that happen

And when the time comes for you to give birth regardless of where he is he’s there. No missions during the due month nothing at all so he can be there and hold his child with you.

He’d make a pretty good dad especially since when he held them the first time he just knew he’d do absolutely anything for them

Ranpo Edogawa

You the audience may think he already know but no… no this man is so blind to it that you have to just tell him, don’t bother with cute clues he won’t get it

He’s very cute about it though, he’s not really ready to be a dad but he’s super excited about it because he genuinely thinks he’ll be the best dad ever

The first person he tells is obviously Fukuzawa before about a month later (at your pleading) telling the others in the office who are all very excited for you and your snack loving partner

This man will eat your food cravings with you, no matter how strange it could end up being or even if it’s just some toast with butter on it he’s willing to eat them with you - and if you are a cook? Bro your dinners are gonna be the best

When it begins to really hit him that hey his partner is having an actual child he gets worried for a little while, he knows he himself can act like one at times but he’s fully prepared to be there for you

And you know that little moment parents get when they see their child for the first time? Yeah he gets that and while he might go overboard sometimes he’s a really good dad with a really sweet baby

Atsushi Nakajima

Please give him a tiger plush that just says it straight up. He may be in his 20’s now but he’s still just a big softie

Though he does panic immediately after being told. It’s not that he doesn’t want kids with you he does, he wants to be the best fiancé ever but it’s a little stunning is all. He’s over the moon, joyous beyond measure but scared because he doesn’t want to end up like the Headmaster

The first person he tells is obviously Kyoka his little sister but he also tells Yosano because hey she’s a doctor and maybe she can help with the whole morning sickness thing because he gets queasy every time you get it

He’s such an incredible partner (it’s why you agreed to marry him) he’s giving you back rubs, foot rubs, food runs everything possible because his anxiety is through the roof and he wants to be the best fiancé I’m existence to you.

He is so scared he’ll miss milestones too but slowly he gets into his own groove of it and realises he isn’t missing anything and is just over the moon every time he sees your round belly and he’s just like I have a little kitten in there (or something else sickeningly cute)

Like Ranpo though he gets that immediately click with his baby and he doesn’t want to take his eyes off them (you hope the baby has his eyes at that)

[luimagines]

Hi! I have a request, but first i wanna say your writing is absolutely amazing! The length + amount of time you put into these prompts is insanely good. Now! Onto the request, how would the boys react to a reader from a more modern era? Maybe a more modernized hyrule or our current point in time?

Masterlist

Thank you so much for the compliment! I'm happy to see the response even if this blog is still relatively new.

I hope I do your prompt justice.

I probably could have done a headcanon list but I was hit with inspiration.

I also might have given Reader some backstory.

Scenario below the cut! It’s long, take caution.

It was a cool night, but you didn't mind. Your bed was warm, the WiFi was fast and even if it was three AM on a school night, you managed to keep yourself giggling with cat videos and blursed memes until the words and colors merged.

A night well spent.

But it led to questionable decisions.

Even if the shredded cheese in the fridge was beginning to seem a more and more enticing snack, your body was tempted to succumb to slumber.

Until a large purple light encompassed the entirety of your window.

Something was in your backyard.

Aliens. Your tired brain supplies and you sprint to the glass and push away the curtains. Is this it? Is this where I'm kidnapped and never seen or heard from again?

You pull out your phone and open up the camera.

"Pics or it didn't happen." You remind yourself and snap a few before showing your face.

What you see isn't what you're expecting. Instead of a flying saucer in the sky beaming down a laser or a weird pear shaped space craft on top of the grass, there's a single panel of glowing light, swirling with black accents that creeps in a circular motion.

"Cheese and crackers...." You gasp and begin to blatantly stare at it with no regard to whether something may be coming out of it.

You wait and nothing happens.

You wait some more and nothing happens.

You spend an hour watching this portal that has appeared out of nowhere, waiting for something to happen, willing for something to happen. But you get nothing.

The unknown stares right back at you, unblinking and unchanged.

Go through it. A voice tells you. What if there's something on the other side?

"I'm going to die." You gulp and take a deep breath.

Who else gets a chance like this? The voice talks again. This could be a grand step towards a more modern society. A whole new world could be on the other side, waiting, reaching out, calling to humanity!

You think you a see a shadow move behind the portal and out of sight but it’s gone before you can even process it.

"Should I call the police?" You step away from the window, ignoring the thoughts, the voice- you're too tired to know if it's your own any more. What's the plan? How does one go about something like this?

Where’s your sense of adventure? Pack a bag and go! What if it goes away?

That last thought seems to get through to your tired brain and for a reason beyond your understanding, it latches onto it.

Now you’re excited.

You run to the closet and take out your old backpack. It used to be for school but it was fancier since it was the only one you could get. The bag had a replaceable water bag with a plastic straw connected through the back of it and the straps have just worn down enough to where they’re actually comfortable. It doubled as a hiking backpack and came with its own insulated lunch box that clasped on the back of it.

It’ll finally serve its purpose.

You quickly roll up your favorite blanket and strap it in tightly beneath the lunch box. You’re quick to take out two extra outfits and pack them as well as change out of your pajamas.

Ok. What would you need? You don’t know where you’d be going so this has to a catch all kind of deal.

You pack away your swiss army knife first for good measure. A solar powered charger for your phone and an extra pair of socks follow suit even after you’ve picked out the extra clothes.

You take out the water bag and run to fill it all the way to max capacity as you think of any other necessities.

You’d need food. You have a small jar of peanut butter and granola bars that can fit in the lunch box. You can bring your extra water bottle and put in the side pockets of the backpack, and maybe bring some of those powered flavor packets your brother loves so much. You think he has lemonade and some green tea ones.

Those would be great. He won’t mind, hopefully.

You let the bag overfill momentarily before running back to shove it in your bag. with the lid screwed tight.

Next you run to the kitchen, grabbing the first things that you thought of already and begin to look around for more.

You grab an unopened pack of beef jerky, a bag of veggie sticks and a half eaten bag of dried mangos.

During your search you grab the water bottle and fill that too.

You return to your room with your bounty and begin to carefully put everything in the box. With some more deliberation, you run back to the kitchen and make yourself a quick sandwich, eat it, make another one and pack that as well.

You look out side the window and the portal is still there.

The sun is beginning to rise now so you’re trying to go as fast as you can, unless you want to neighbors to think something is going on.

Even if it is.

You’re about to leave but in a stroke of brilliance, you run to pack sunscreen and bug spray as well. You see a small first aid pack that was bought recently for when you would take your family vacation but you reason that it might one of the most important things you’d have if you got hurt.

Into the bag it goes.

You grab your hoodie before you leave the door, wrap it around your waist and pocket your phone, your headphones and your wallet.

You feel immediately under packed when you step outside and see the portal up close.

It’s weirdly triangle shaped, you think and step closer.

You reach your hand out and try to touch it. It feels as if you put your hand through a humidifier but it’s not wet. It’s misty and cold but not necessarily unpleasant.

An idea hits you right before you take your first step through.

You pull up one of the earlier photo’s you took and send it to your friend’s group chat. It showed up in my backyard. I decided to make a bad late night decision and I’m going through. If you never hear from me again, I want you all to fight over my electronics. Winner takes all. Godspeed.

And you step through.

You had first assumed that it would merely take you tot he other side but very quickly realize that you have to walk through it.

The first part still had a little light but with time, it got darker. So dark that you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face.

You kept walking.

As fast as the light disappeared, it came back and you stepped into the light of an open field, right in front of one, two, three, four, nine males that had appeared to be traveling towards you or rather, towards the portal.

The portal disappears in the process.

“Oh so we didn’t have to go through it! We had to gain another member!” One of them yells. “Would have been nice to know before we packed everything up!”

“Ho boy, where am I?” You ask and tighten your grip on your backpack. Why didn’t I bring a weapon?

They all had long tunics and swords on their backs. Old fashioned leather boots and hand bracers were the norm in this group and you realized very quickly that your jeans and t-shirt had wildly missed the memo.

“Dang, I didn’t think I’d walk into a LARP group. Sorry about that.” You sheepishly smile. “I had no idea where the portal was going to take me. But if you would be so kind-”

“Wait, what’s LARP?” One of them speaks up. He was a dirty blond and somewhere in the middle of the group height wise. He wore a white cape like thing with blue designs on the back but you didn’t recognize the symbol.

“Live Action Role Play?” You tilt your head. “It’s why you’re all dressed like that? Right?”

“This is just our clothes.” What appears to be the youngest bounces up to you. “What are you wearing?”

“First I could grab in my closet.” You admit and look down on it. It’s one of your comfiest shirts and best looking pants. You’re a little proud of yourself for finding those in the dark.

“Weird.”

“We’re heroes. We’re all named Link.” Cape guy speaks up again. “Is it safe to assume that you’re in the same boat?”

“Heroes?” Your eyebrows furrow together. “I’m not a hero and my name’s not Link.”

You’re quick to tell them your name and you watch as the confusion covers their faces. “My brother’s name is Link though if that helps anything.”

“Oh we needed him!” The youngest groans and it instantly irks you.

“What would you need with a five year old?” You deadpan and cross your arms. 

The information stuns the group.

“The portal showed up in the middle of the night and I’m the one that went through it. I’m pretty sure I was the only awake to even see it. Are you telling me that it was for my little brother?” You’d be lying if you said that you weren’t a little pissed. “My baby brother was supposed to go through it? He was asleep! He’s five. What kind of logic is that?!”

“Well...” The biggest and oldest of them runs a hand over his face. You think he has some cool tattoos and sick scar going across his eye but he looks about as angry as you feel, so you don’t say anything. “It appears the gods truly do not care for the hero’s maturity, only his existence.”

“Ok...What’s with all this hero talk?” You bite back. “What did... Where am I?”

“Hyrule.” The second with cool face tattoos speaks up. He’s got a large fur pelt around his shoulders and you have to tighten your grip against your backpack again to keep from reaching out to touch it.

Even so you feel yourself deadpan even more. “Hyrule? Like the ancient empire? The one that collapsed more than two thousand years ago? That Hyrule?”

You’re inclined to not believe them and write all of them off as crazy... but you also walked through a portal. And your grandma did say that magic existed in the strangest forms.

They all share looks of concern and some begin to murmur quietly amongst themselves but you’re too far gone to even notice.

“Did I time travel?” The idea hits you like a bus and you feel your eyes widen as you stare beyond the group. You quickly take our your phone and unlock it.

No signal.

“Is that a type of Sheikah slate?” Someone asks you.

“I don’t know what that is.” You reply automatically. “Wait, hold on, what year is it?”

“Why don’t you tell us what year you’re from and we can start from there?” The darkest brunette of the group speaks up.

“202x PC” You say robotically, not really processing the world around you anymore.

“That’s...” The blond with a long blue scarf speaks up with a slight hiss. “...Beyond any of our timelines. You see, we all come from different worlds and eras of Hyrule’s history.”

“I don’t think you’re the farthest down anymore, Wild.”

“This would then make them my successor, right?”

“It would make their brother your successor.” Someone amends. “I think they just jumped in his place.”

“Leave my brother alone.” You snap back into the present, pocketing your [hone again. “Ok, you know what, screw it. I don’t know what you’d want my brother for but I’m here now. I’d gladly take his place if it means he gets to stay home!”

“Hey.” A boy with pink hair stalks up to you looking a little more serious than you’d like.

“Nice hair dude, way to defy the gender norms.” You smirk a little before genuinely grinning, hoping to quell the tension. “What product do you use? It looks like Artic Fox but not every place sells their brand.”

“...I have no idea what you’re talking about but what happened to Ganon in your world? How have you been handling it?” He snaps and places his hands on his hips.

“Ganon? Like my old principle? That’s a name I haven’t heard in forever.” You’re confused again. “Last I heard he joined the police force only to be reassigned out of state. I don’t know what’s happening with him. Kinda hope he gets fired though. He’s not a bad guy but he’s not someone you’d want in that kind of position of power, you know.”

“Police force?”

You blinked and look them all over. They look very medieval. “Oh... You don’t have that...”

You begin to think about your history lessons and what they might be familiar with if they’re telling the truth about being from Hyrule.

“Ya’ll got knights?”

Many, almost all of them nod, a few with face of despair already on them before you finish speaking.

“It’s kind of like that. Mixed with a towns guard position... kinda. They enforce laws... at least they’re supposed to but the whole system is flawed and racist and really needs to be dismantled for the abuse of power that they have-”

“Abuse? Of power?” You have their attention again.

“It’s stupid and it won’t really make any sense if I try to explain because I doubt you have anything similar but it’s basically a group of people given the right to treat the public in anyway they like for their own benefit because they have no one telling them that they can’t.” You groan and slowly begin to feel your lack of sleep catch up to you. 

You slowly reach to behind you and sit down on the dirt, looking at all of them. “Mr. Dragmire wasn’t like...Demise or anything but he was a huge jerk. No one liked him. He liked me though. I remember that. I was the envy of the whole school because I somehow got on his good side while everyone else wants to strangle him. I think he was transferred for some misdemeanor or something like that... like he might have been throwing hands with someone he wasn’t supposed to. I never heard all the details. I didn’t really care for it when it happened either. I’m pretty sure he lost that fight though. The dude looked like a blast of wind could have knocked him over let alone someone’s knuckle sandwich.”

“I would love to hear more about this.” The youngest sits next to you with a large grin on his face. His eyes are bright and his body language reminds you of your cousin Zelda. You instantly think they’d get along like a house on fire. “What are your monsters like?”

“Monsters?” You tilt your head. “Be a little more specific bud, it depends on where you’re from.”

“You have that many?!”

“It depends on if you believe they’re real or not.”

“Speaking of monsters, can you fight?” The shortest walks up to you. You like that his tunic is stitched up with multiple colors and designs. It gives it personality, you think. “Do you have a weapon you’re more comfortable with?”

The question throws you off your rhythm and you don’t fight your wince. “What would happen if I say that I do not, in fact, have any sort of weapon on me?”

“I wouldn’t believe you.” Pink guy speaks up again. “That pack is huge, there has to be something in there.”

“It’s food, water and extra clothes my guy.” You lean back against said backpack since it won’t let you lay down with it still on. “Not a lot of space for anything else. I’m pretty good at hand to hand combat though. Karate’s a good way to fight out stress.” 

“Your bag’s not magic?”

“Why the hell would it be magic? ...Are you trying to tell me magic actually exists?” You raise an eyebrow as your eyes begin to close against your will. “I know my grandma said it does but I thought she meant like fairies and shadow demons.. and bigfoot. Can’t forget him, he’s the real MVP... You know...Children’s bedtime stories and stuff like that, it’s not real. But like magic magic? Magic items and the like? Find me Tinkerbell and I’ll show you Neverland, that’s what I say.”

“Are you serious?”

“Second star to the right, straight on till morning.” You respond.

There’s a moment of silence as the group in front of you processes your words. It’s hard to tell their reaction since you’re not looking at them but you no longer have the energy to do anything else.

“Are you falling asleep right now?” It’s the one they called Wild.

“I...” You try to open your eyes. They don’t budge. “I haven’t slept in nearly 20 hours... I think. I might have past 24 hours a while ago actually. Portal showed up at like four in the morning... I had to get up at six and I didn’t sleep at all before then.”

More silence.

“Great another one.” Someone scoffs.

You snort.

“Why did we pack up camp again?”

“No one kill me.” You say right before you lose consciousness. “Please and thank you.”

“They’re doomed.”

“Have some faith Vet. They stepped in for their little brother. That has to mean something?”

“They’re in for a rude awakening, and that’s all I have to say about it.”

[onecanonlife]

Tommy and Wilbur fell apart a long time ago, and there was never any time to mourn the pieces of what they were.

But here's the most important thing: Tommy doesn't give up on the people he cares about.

(Or: on grieving, graves, a past that refuses to let go, and learning to look forward at long last.)

(word count: 5,619)

--------------------

“You know,” Tommy says, “I never really got to—to mourn you. Not properly, anyway.”

He’s not sure what response he’s expecting from Wilbur. He’s not sure why he’s saying anything at all. He’s not sure why he’s here.

That last one is a lie. He scuffs the ground with his shoe, and then pretends that he didn’t.

“I wasn’t expecting you to mourn me,” Wilbur says, in that stupid, even, condescending tone of his, the one that he uses whenever he thinks Tommy has said something incredibly obvious, when he’s got an idea in his head of how things are and what people mean, regardless of the way it all actually is. “In fact, I rather thought you wouldn’t. Shouldn’t, even.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” He has no patience left. No patience left for the look in Wilbur’s eyes, no patience left for the way he focuses straight ahead, barely sparing him a glance, no patience left for the way he speaks, measured and calculating, every word he says carefully weighed against the end result, curated for intent and impact. No patience, and he had precious little to begin with. “I’m not even—this isn’t about you.”

Wilbur raises an eyebrow. It makes him look like a prick. “Oh?” he says.

“Because I would’ve,” he continues, doggedly. Now that he’s started saying it, he’s damn fucking well going to finish it. “But, y’know, you blew it all up, so we had to rebuild, and then I got exiled” —His voice doesn’t waver at all— “and then shit just kept on happening, so I never got to decide. How I felt. I never got to think about it.”

Wilbur laughs, then, and it’s the laugh that he hates, because it’s the laugh that’s not genuine. He knows what Wilbur sounds like when he’s happy, and this isn’t it. Hasn’t been it for a long time.

“Not sure there’s much to think about, there,” Wilbur says, and he scowls.

“Shut up, you prick,” he says. “And yes there was. That’s not something you get to choose. What I feel.”

“I’m not trying to—” Wilbur starts, but he shakes his head, going back to talk over him, because no, he’s not doing this. Not today, and not here.

“You are though, aren’t you?” he says. “You always do this. You go, you go mimimimi, I’m Wilbur, and I understand everything about how people think and I’m always right and you are all wrong, and you, I dunno, man. You just. You just don’t. You don’t know. You think you know things, but you don’t. You’re not always right. And I’m—I don’t fucking know why I’m bothering with this right now, but it’s not so you can tell me that I shouldn’t be. Because that’s not something that’s up to you.”

“Then why are you bothering with this?” Wilbur says, and his voice isn’t unkind, but it’s not kind, either.

“I just said I didn’t know—”

“Because if you’re asking me if you should mourn me, you already know what I’m going to say to that,” Wilbur says. “I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the fucking problem,” he says, and tacks on a quick, “Not like that,” but Wilbur’s face has already hardened, and yeah, there’s a million better ways he could have put that, but that’s the thing about talking to Wilbur. His brain is never firing on all cylinders, as it were, because it’s too busy trying to figure out if he should associate him with warm summer days and the haze of potions and a strummed guitar or explosions and drifting smoke and blank eyes and the awful realization that what he thought would make everything right didn’t do anything at all, and that nothing would ever be right again.

And before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater stretches out, vines trawling over the edge, leaves sprouting from between the rocks, sunlight catching on the pool at the bottom, the flag fluttering lightly in the wind. Before the both of them, L’Manberg’s crater has grown over, time pressing itself into the cracks. Before the both of them, L’Manberg is a crater. It wasn’t always.

“You make everything so fucking difficult,” he says.

“It’s what I live for,” Wilbur says.

“It’s what you died for, too,” he says.

Wilbur pauses.

“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.” But for once, he doesn’t elaborate, and Tommy glares at him. Only for a moment, because there’s no point in glaring when someone won’t see. Won’t look. Wilbur has his eyes turned to the crater, and Tommy has his eyes turned to Wilbur, and something about that is how it’s always been. The vines have grown over the earth’s old wounds, but Tommy can’t help but feel like they’ve curled around his ankles, holding him to the spot, the moment, and every moment that came before.

I never got to mourn you, he doesn’t say again. I never got to mourn you, and I feel like I should. But you’re here, and what the hell am I supposed to do with that?

Wilbur won’t hear him. And if he does, he won’t understand.

-----

He collects bits of the past like buttons, or stamps, or memories.

He has his discs. He’s hesitant to play them, even now. Hesitant to take them out of his enderchest. He has his home, still in the same spot, all this time later. His hill, his hole, his garden, their bench. He sat on that bench and heard Wilbur, once, reaching out from beyond the grave, and Wilbur told him he was proud, and something in him ached in the same way that his scars now do when it rains.

He has some of Friend’s wool. Just that, just wool, because he doesn’t know how to knit, and he doesn’t know who would teach him. He can sew a little, but it was something born of necessity, of the need to patch up uniforms and close the tears over freshly dealt wounds, and he can still feel the needle pricking into his fingers, again and again and again. He never could figure out how to hold it so that it wouldn’t. He bled for L’Manberg in more ways than one.

Deep inside a chest, he has two uniforms. Blue and red and white. One is a size too small. The other is several sizes too large, and always will be.

He still goes to pray, sometimes, though not as often as he did. He got the chance to meet god and found no one there, so it’s a little tricky, these days, being faithful. But he’ll go to Church Prime, because no one else really does, so he’ll have the whole building for himself as he strides up to ring the bell, to ask for guidance and favors, to pay his homage at the feet of a higher power that he cannot believe cares. On the best days, he’s tempted to try to conduct a service. But there’s no point when there’s no one to hear it but himself. Even he can’t bring himself to put on a show for empty pews.

He prays, and nobody answers, and sometimes he can’t help but remember the void, the tearing, ripping nothingness, raking him to shreds again and again, where he was not alone and yet nobody came.

He considers visiting Tubbo. But Tubbo has his own life, and a mansion he hasn’t moved into, and a town that Tommy does not belong to, and an allegiance that Tommy does not share. He considers visiting Ranboo, but that’s either the same as visiting Tubbo, or it’s the same as visiting Techno and Phil, or it’s the same as visiting Wilbur.

So he looks at his discs and doesn’t play them, bunches his hands in wool that he has no use for, and calls out to a god he can only now offer false homage. He holds to the past, and wishes he could believe he has a future. Wishes that he didn’t see obsidian and curtaining lava whenever he closes his eyes.

-----

The first time he hears Wilbur play again, he hides in the forest like a fucking coward.

The guitar is strummed hesitantly, haltingly, interspersed with silence every few seconds, as if Wilbur is struggling to find the old positions, struggling to move his fingers just right. He wonders, then, if limbo took away his calluses. He didn’t think to look. Thirteen odd years without playing a guitar is bound to make anyone rusty. Tommy wonders if Wilbur’s fingers will bleed if he presses down on the strings hard enough, and then he banishes the thought from his mind, because something in him revolts at the idea of Wilbur bleeding. Of Wilbur trying and trying to play until he—

There is something to be said, here, about using yourself up in the pursuit of something greater. There is something to be said, here, about holding matches ‘til they burn down to the skin, about stairs without handrails, about things that are never meant to be and yet claw their way into existence anyhow. There is something to be said about pushing too far, too quick, and flying too high.

Wilbur’s not singing. Is just going from chord to chord. And Tommy hides behind a tree, pressing his back against the bark, because it has been so very long. Wilbur didn’t play in Pogtopia. Wilbur barely played in L’Manberg. The last time he heard the twang of this instrument was sitting by a campfire, plans for a van in the works, the night sky starry and welcoming above them, his chest warm in a way that had nothing to do with the flames. And Wilbur smiled at them, smiled at all of them, and his voice was light and sure, his notes soaring.

Wilbur’s not singing. After a moment, he starts humming, softly and meandering, and each turn in the melody hits like a wrench, like he’s dragging the notes out behind them, yanking at the tune whenever it goes somewhere he doesn’t like. It’s a lot of leaps and skips and jumps, a lot of highs to lows and then highs again, and something about it sounds like wailing. There are no words, and there is no happiness.

But he’s playing. He’s playing, and does that count for something? There was no music for such a long time, no music in the darkness and no music even in the light, and now there is music in the grey twilight, and it is not happy music but it is music. Wilbur is playing again, and Tommy’s not going to cry, because what kind of pussy cries about hearing a guitar? So he doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t venture out from this spot, either. He stays there, and listens as Wilbur sends his voice shooting up into falsetto and then back down again.

It’s good that there are no words, maybe. They’d be sad. He can tell.

“That sounds nice,” Ranboo says, all of a sudden, and Tommy jolts at the same time that Wilbur’s hand must jerk, a discordant clash of notes, something that can’t even be called a chord. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You didn’t,” Wilbur says, after a pause. Tommy almost creeps out to see his expression, because he can’t picture it. Can’t tell from his voice what his face is doing. “I was just about done anyway.” There is another pause, and a rustle of clothing. Standing. The crunching of leaves underfoot. It’s nearly autumn again, and already the leaves are changing, falling.

It would be wrong of him to resent Ranboo. He’ll never admit it aloud, but he likes him. Rather a lot. Hiding it is probably pointless now, though that doesn’t stop him from trying. But Ranboo is occupying the space that should be his, that once was his. There is a van in a forest, and a guitar song winding its way through the branches and the roots, and everything is different and everything is the same, and the new story is written without him in it. He doesn’t know what he wants, but he thinks it is not this. He thinks it is not to be left behind.

And Ranboo does not know Wilbur well enough to hear the lie in his voice.

They go off together through the trees. Tommy stays. Runs his hand across the tree bark, and tries not to put his emotions into words. Better to let them drift along as is. Better not to give them voice, because whispers turn into shouts all too easily, and there is not enough space here for shouting.

-----

There’s a thing about graves. There’s a thing about graves and who gets one, and who doesn’t.

He didn’t think about it at the time, the fact that Schlatt—Schlatt the tyrant, Schlatt the enemy, Schlatt the man who had Tubbo executed—got a funeral, and a tomb, has one even to this day, and Wilbur got rubble and a room sealed off and untouched. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no burial. Didn’t think about the fact that there was no gravestone to deface or to ornament with flowers or to kick or to scream at or to kneel beside and speak to or to cry or to do any or all of those things. He didn’t think about it at the time, because there was rebuilding, and then there was a house on fire, and then he doesn’t like to think about it.

And there was Ghostbur.

Wilbur hates Ghostbur. It makes him angry, the way that Wilbur hates Ghostbur. Ghostbur was good, and Ghostbur was kind, and Ghostbur tried his best, and Ghostbur did not deserve to die in the way that he did, terrified, with no one there by his side, with only shouted numbers to soothe his terror, and Ghostbur does not deserve to be stuck in a train station for all of eternity. So he makes Ghostbur a memorial, because it’s all he can do, and the first time he’s next to it at the same time as Wilbur, he meets his eyes squarely. A challenge. A dare. And Wilbur looks right back at him, and then to the gravestone, and his lips curl into a sneer.

And he says nothing at all.

He says nothing at all for a long time. Until he does, and it’s all made so much worse.

“Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” Wilbur asks, and it’s all very even and nonchalant, so much so that it might have him fooled if he didn’t know better, hadn’t heard time and time again exactly what Wilbur thinks of the ghost he left behind him.

“The fuck kind of question is that?” he demands.

“An honest one,” Wilbur answers.

“Right,” he says. “Because you don’t lie anymore, or whatever the fuck.”

“I don’t,” Wilbur agrees, and that is a lie. Tommy would be insulted if he weren’t so tired of it. “Really, I’d like an answer.”

“What does it matter?” he snaps. “He’s not here anymore. He’s not here anymore, and you are. No changing that. I’m fucking stuck with you. You’re like, you’re like a leech, you know that? A leech in my brain.”

Wilbur smiles tightly.

“I’d rather be a leech in your brain than dust in the ground,” he says. “Like he is.”

“Shut up,” he grits out. “Don’t—just don’t fucking talk about him.”

“Alright, then,” Wilbur says. “I won’t. If it upsets you that much.”

And he doesn’t. And the grave stays.

And it is not until later that he thinks about the thing about graves again, about who gets one and who does not. There is no grave with Wilbur’s name on it. There was no soil to lay him to rest, only cold, hard stone, a room undisturbed, a monument to destruction. And had there been time, he would have thought about it more. Would have taken it upon himself, perhaps, because the thing is, in the end, that maybe Wilbur deserved better than to be remembered as the man who destroyed his nation. Deserved better than to be remembered solely by the ravine’s dark corridors and the smoke that clung to him like foreshadowing and the way his eyes looked dead, dead, dead for a long time before Tommy watched Phil plunge the sword into his chest.

Because he was not only that. It hurts to think about, how he was not only that. But sometimes, things that hurt to think about ought to be thought about. Because Wilbur was shattered edges that Tommy knows only now that he could not fix, because Wilbur did not want fixing, but Wilbur was also laughter and a gentle hand on his shoulder and the words “I’m proud of you” that lit him up like sunlight, and he was kind and he was kind of a dick and he was brilliant and Prime, maybe Tommy should have known. Should have known that there was going to be a fall. But he looked up to Wilbur like a child to a shooting star, and it’s a long time before children understand that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that the wonder of them comes from self-destruction.

But before Wilbur fell, he shone. A beacon in the dark. Hope, freedom. And before he was those things, too, he was Tommy’s brother. Just that, and nothing more, because more was not needed.

And he received no grave.

It’s a question of time again, and a question of mourning, and a question of how he was ever supposed to grieve when there was no time for it at all, and when a ghost shadowed his every footstep and dripped blue from cold fingers and insisted that nothing was ever wrong. But for the first time, he wonders how Wilbur thinks about it. Graves, and ghosts. And who gets a grave, and who does not.

Who is mourned, and who is not.

Who is given up on, and who is not.

The question echoes once again: “Would you rather he was here, instead of me?” And this time, Tommy hears no taunt in it, no mocking, no cruel joke about the ghost who deserved so much better. Only bitterness, and exhaustion, and resignation. Like Wilbur already knew what answer he would be granted.

That’s a realization of some sort, that Wilbur believes he prefers him dead. It’s a realization of some sort, but he doesn’t know what kind.

There’s ghosts and there’s graves, and there’s the living and there’s the dead, and both are left waiting for relief that never comes. It’s thirteen years in a train station and it’s months without knowing what to think, without having space to breathe, without being able to process that his brother was unwell and then that his brother was gone. It’s too much time and too little, too much distance and too little, and Ghostbur did not deserve what he got, but neither, he thinks, did Wilbur.

That thought feels right. And wrong all at once. Bitter, heart-wrenching. That Wilbur deserved better. They all did, that he knows—but Wilbur did too. And that thought is muddled up in all the rest, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, but it’s there. If there’s anything to be done with it at all.

-----

Here is a fact: he kept Dream alive for Wilbur’s sake.

Here is another fact: he doesn’t know if he regrets it.

Because here is the thing: he remembers that day, remembers the pain and the fear and the devastation, and he remembers the moment it all turned around, cowering behind Sapnap and behind Eret until the time came to step forward, to take the axe in hand and deliver the blow, to deliver himself to safety, finally, finally. And he remembers the words bitten out from Dream’s mouth, panicked, desperate, and he remembers what he said. He will never forget.

And the decision, in that moment, was far easier than it had any right to be.

It became harder, later. Because he made the decision thinking, in large part, of the person that Wilbur used to be. Of a quick, charming tongue and flashes of smiles and music and song and leadership and knowing what to do, always, and Prime above but Tommy missed that person. And so maybe he deluded himself. Maybe he thought, in that dark room, with the portal swirling behind him and the entire server at his back, that he could get that person again. That Wilbur would return, and that it could all go back to the way it used to be. Discs spinning in the sunrise, the server at peace, his brother with him.

But death put those thoughts to rest.

Because death proved to him that Wilbur had only gotten worse. Because in death, Wilbur was happy he was there, did nothing but talk to him and make him play competitive solitaire as he was torn apart atom by atom. Because Wilbur—he became so very certain that Wilbur, if released, would bring nothing but harm to the server again, would tear everything down, because there was something in his voice, in his eyes—

But that was then. And now, Dream still lives in prison, rots but lives, and Wilbur has a burger van in a forest with a friend and spends most of his days lounging about or making eyes at Quackity or talking up a storm but doing jack shit, and Tommy doesn’t know what to make of it, and doesn’t know how to admit that maybe his idea of what Wilbur would be like and what Wilbur would do wasn’t entirely accurate.

And he still doesn’t know if it was worth it. Worth the constant fear, worth knowing that one day, Dream will be out, will come to him, will try to finish what he started. He tried to prevent it and only made it worse, only led Ghostbur to his doom by his innocent, trusting hand, and Dream resurrected—

A monster, he would have said, once. He no longer knows if that is fair.

Because here is another fact, one that he is only now beginning to understand: Wilbur is very, painfully human. He’s always known, and yet he hasn’t, because once, he thought Wilbur hung the stars and the moon and all things bright and glowing and good, and he thought that Wilbur could never be so human as to be fallible, and then it turned out that he was wrong. And it was easy, in the aftermath of that, to figure that Wilbur was perhaps some kind of monster instead, and everyone around him said as much.

But that, he thinks, goes too far in the other direction.

His hopes will never be realized. He will never have the old Wilbur back. He clings to a past that clings to him right back, that has him in a chokehold and will not let go, but Wilbur is something else entirely. The rest of the past does not live and breathe, is contained in his overflowing chests, in uniforms that don’t fit him, in the church’s empty hall. The rest of the past is made of things he can hold, but he has never been able to hold Wilbur. Not then, and not now. And there is no hope of making of them what they once were.

There is no going back.

So was it worth it, then? To keep Dream alive, and to receive this, this man who varies between manic energy and calculated calm, who speaks with a whip in his tone at some times and unbearable softness at others, who proclaims Dream his hero and then claims he would have killed him, if he could, for what he did? Was it worth it, and is it worth it, and how is something like that measured at all?

Wilbur is a tightness in his chest when he speaks and a ghost that won’t leave and a ghost that died and a thousand words like a thousand stinging hornets and no picture that could encompass all of them, all of what they are and were. Wilbur is Wilbur, and Wilbur is not safe, not anymore, and perhaps Wilbur is not even good—but there, that, that is wrong, and he won’t make this mistake twice. Wilbur is good, it’s just that he’s forgotten that, and Tommy is so, so very tired of having to be the one to try and remind him. And Wilbur is empty space and Wilbur is a space too full and overflowing around the fractured edges, and Wilbur is too bright and too loud and too quiet and too little and too much, and even now, even still, Tommy does not know where they stand.

Was it worth it, to have this?

He doesn’t know. But sometimes, he imagines what it would be like if Wilbur were still dead, if Wilbur were never, ever coming back in any shape, in any form, and his throat closes up and his eyes sting, no matter how much he has laid out his hatred for the man, his regret at going into the prison that day. He tries to imagine a world without Wilbur in it, in which he has given up on Wilbur, and even now he doesn’t like it, even though maybe he should, and that is, perhaps, answer enough.

-----

“Why do you keep coming here?” Wilbur asks him.

“I dunno,” he says, instead of a hundred other things. “Why don’t you ever fucking leave?”

Wilbur just looks tired. There are bags under his eyes. Tommy thinks he can guess why; he so rarely slept during their exile, but Tommy is thinking about limbo, and train stations, and how whenever he closes his eyes, part of him is convinced that his heart has stopped beating. He wonders if Wilbur, for all his sunrise-obsession and constant movement and moments of utter wonderment at the world around him and the way he doesn’t move whenever a creeper approaches him, feels the same way.

“There was a reason I asked Ranboo to do this with me instead of you,” Wilbur says, suddenly, apropos of nothing. Tommy feels himself still. “I mean—actually, I asked Phil, and Phil was all, oh, Wil, go and make friends, and I was like fuck you I’m not twelve years old anymore but Ranboo’s pretty great so it worked out. But I—I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t get it. Why you choose to keep coming ‘round here anyway.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “What’s not to get?”

Wilbur shoots him a look, eyebrows going up and mouth slanting all sympathetic-like.

“Tommy,” he says, slowly, as if talking to the child that Tommy has not been in a long, long time, “I’m not what you want.”

Several answers form in his head, and then dissipate just as quickly before he’s able to reply. “‘S that right?” he says, and something boils within him, hot and snapping and popping.

“I can see it when you look at me, man,” Wilbur says, and he doesn’t even sound upset. “You’re—and I mean, I don’t blame you for it. I was awful to you, Tommy. I don’t deserve anything less than your scorn. But you and everyone else, you’re all waiting for what I’m going to do next. You’re all waiting with bated breath. Scared of the next disaster I’m going to cause. So you don’t—you don’t have to be here, Tommy. Not if you don’t want to be.”

There are so many things he could say. Your disasters always cause the most damage to yourself, is one of them, and then there’s a simple, you think I don’t know that? Because how many times has he told himself that same thing? That he doesn’t need to be here? That it would be better for him if he wasn’t? And some part of him must listen, because he’s not actually here all that much. He has other things to do. A life outside of this, outside of this forest on the edge of a fake desert and a van that makes pretty shitty burgers and one Wilbur Soot, like a portrait from the past and yet nothing like that at all, because portraits are shadows, still images, permanent and unchanging, with mo mutable future, and Wilbur Soot is none of those things.

He has a life. He has Tubbo, still, even if it’s all changed. He has others. He’s not alone.

Wilbur’s right that he doesn’t have to be here.

“Stop fucking doing that,” he says. “Stop trying to make my decisions for me.”

Wilbur’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says. “You always are. It’s my fucking choice whether I want to be here or not. And I’m making that choice. Not you. Me. And sure, maybe one day you’ll manage to get rid of me for good, but you’re gonna have to fucking work at it, and I don’t see you trying.”

“I thought you didn’t want me here, Tommy,” Wilbur returns, and the words seem to fall so effortlessly, like easy acceptance, and why, why is it this of all things that Wilbur seems to take in stride? Why is it this and not a thousand other things? Why is it this and not the fact that despite it all, despite every warning sign and every indication that maybe it might be better for him to give up after all, Tommy is still here?

“I didn’t want you gone, either,” he snaps, and Wilbur falls completely silent. So he continues, because who knows when he’ll have a chance to say this again? That’s the thing about chances; they’re difficult to count, impossible to anticipate, and he bollocksed up the first one he got, to try to break through. “I never wanted you gone in the first place. So maybe I don’t—maybe I don’t fucking know what I want. Because I never got to just live with that. There was never a chance to—there wasn’t even a fucking grave for me to visit. I never got to figure anything out, and now you’re back and nothing’s the fucking same, so maybe I don’t know what I fucking want. Maybe I don’t fucking know if I want you here, but I didn’t want you gone. I didn’t want you to be dead. And then you were. You just were, and I couldn’t—did you expect me to be alright with that?”

It’s a question of mourning, and a question of graves, and a question of chances and who deserves them. And Wilbur just looks confused.

Fuck him.

There’s so much more to say, and he can’t say any of it at all, and the past chokes him like a knot of vines or a clump of flowers in his throat, but he’s still breathing. He’s still breathing, breathes again, whatever, and Wilbur is the same. They’re the same in a lot of ways, maybe. On the other side of the final death, trying to hold onto and release the years gone by all at once. Moving forward, but stuck in quicksand, and they’re never going to get out if they don’t let each other.

“You’re my brother,” he says, and that’s all. As if that explains everything.

And maybe it does.

Wilbur blinks.

“Ah,” he says.

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Fucking ah.”

“I’m sorry,” Wilbur says.

“You’d better be,” he says.

And impossibly, the vines uncurl, and the flowers come floating up, and when he takes a step forward, it comes easily.

There is a van in this forest, and it is not the same van. Some distance away, there is a crater in the ground, and nature has draped itself over the ruins of the lives they once had, and the flag still flaps at the bottom, and they are never, ever going to be able to rebuild what they lost. The crater will always be a crater, a scar in the earth. Healing, healed, grown over and stitched shut, but still a scar.

And there is a man standing in front of him who is not the same man that he knew. Not the same man that he claimed for his family, and who claimed him in return.

But he is not the same, either. Perhaps nobody and nothing is. The past clings, and he clings tighter, but perhaps he needs to loosen his grip, because despite everything, there is a future out there, somewhere past the next sunrise. They are going to get older. They are going to live. So he has his discs and his uniforms and his wool and his prayer, and he has this, too, because it is his choice. To take a step forward, and wait to be met in the middle. To dare to turn ahead, to believe that there is something awaiting him. The both of them.

And he thinks he might finally be able to let himself grieve. Grieve, and let go. Grieve the dead, and what they had, and what they might have, and grieve for the fact that there was no grieving, no grave.

And then, let himself hope that they will have better after all.

-----

The next time he hears Wilbur play, he steps out from behind the tree.

And maybe the song is a little less sad.

And maybe nothing will ever be the same as it used to be.

And maybe it will be alright.