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angelasscribbles · 3 years ago

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Bad Romance Epilogue 5: Riley

Series: Bad Romance

Fandom: The Royal Romance

Pairings for series: Riley x Liam, Liam x Max, Riley x Max, Riley x Drake, Riley x Rashad

Paring this chapter: Riley x all of them, these are her recollections of all four relationships.

Rating: MA

Warnings for this chapter: Language, adult themes

Word Count: 3,795

Special thanks to @21-wishes for pre reading and discussing with me!

A/N: This clocks in at roughly four times longer than the previous four epilogues, which is fair, because they each had their recollections about their relationship with her, but she has her recollections about her relationships with all four of them.

Part of me is really sad because with this final epilogue, the series truly comes to an end. It's bittersweet for me. I'm going to miss this series and these characters.

On the other hand, total word count, with all 36 chapters, five epilogues and two one-shots (so far) comes to 108,643. That's a lot of words. That's a book. I wrote, and finished, a book. While I can't publish or make money on it because it's fan fiction, still....I wrote a book. In four months. That gives me a deep sense of satisfaction, and the confidence to go back to working on my original book.

I know not everyone is a fan of this version of Riley, but I kind of love her. So I hope everyone is kind. What started off as a toxic mess somehow, inexplicably, evolved and transformed into something functional and meaningful. At least to me. I hope at least a few of you have enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

My other stuff: Master List.

It started off selfishly on my part. All of it. But can you really blame me? I mean come on, hot rich guy offers to fly me to Europe on a private jet where his family will foot the bill for everything for the foreseeable future and my only job is to buy fancy clothes, on their dime, attend balls and hang out and flirt with the other hot rich guy that I’d already fucked anyway? Are you really going to tell me you wouldn't have done it? It sure beat the holy hell out of waiting tables.

Did I start sleeping with Maxwell Beaumont because I felt like I owed him something? No. I did it because I wanted to. Because that's what I do, whatever the hell I want. Always have. Because you see, the world is a shitty place, my little corner of it was no exception. Everybody else I’d ever known did whatever the fuck they wanted without regard to how it affected others, how it affected me. Why should I be any different? Life is too short.

Like I said, Max was hot, and a good way to kill the time during the social season. I knew I was technically there to win the heart, and the hand, of a prince. But let's be honest, what were the odds he was ever going to want me? No one ever had, not my parents, not the first boy I fell in love with, nobody. I didn't see the likelihood that an actual real life bona fide fucking prince was going to, regardless of what had happened between us in New York. So why the hell not sleep with Max?

But Liam pursued me relentlessly, even though he shouldn't have, even though he wasn't supposed to, even though he was told not to. He was supposed to be giving all the women equal time and an equal chance, but he didn't, not even close. Oh, I mean he did publicly in front of the court but behind the scenes? Not so much. So, I started sleeping with him too. Why not? Two hot rich guys all over me? I didn't see the problem. There was no problem, at least not until I went and fell in love. I blame Liam.

He was charming and appropriately funny in every setting. But when we were alone? He was charming in an entirely different way, sweet, vulnerable, solicitous and hysterically funny in a completely inappropriate way. But the thing that really drew me in was that he listened to me. No, I don't think you understand. I mean he really, actually, actively listened to me.

Look, I've never lacked for male attention, not since puberty anyway. I'm used to men throwing themselves at me, crashing their ships on my rocks as it were. They competed with each other; they did ridiculous things to try and impress me. But what they didn't do was take the time to get to know me. The real me. Because that's not what they cared about. I knew what they cared about. It only took me one heartbreak to decide that I wasn't about that life.

One of the few pieces of wisdom my mother did manage to impart to me at an early age was that in any given relationship there's always one person that loves more than the other, and they are the one that inevitably gets hurt. So, my mission in life had been simple. Always be the one who cares less, always leave first, don't get hurt again. Simple. Until it wasn't.

Liam listened to me, as if my ideas and thoughts actually mattered. Like I was fucking important or something. Like I had an actual brain in my head, like I was more than just my looks. Pretty intoxicating stuff if you ask me.

I know it sounds like a humble brag, but I don’t see the point of false modesty, I know I'm an attractive woman, more attractive than most. And it may sound like a stupid thing to complain about, but being smoking hot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Can I fuck pretty much whoever I want? Yeah. Can I get stupid men to give me just about whatever I want in the pursuit of that? Again, yeah. And that’s all well and good unless you want more than fun and games. When you’re built like I am, you never really know if someone wants you for you or for the physical aspect that they see, that is pleasing to the eye and to the touch. Liam had a fairly similar problem between the money and the crown, something we actually connected on and commiserated about.

When I was in high school, I was a smart kid. Smart and pretty aren't supposed to go together. After high school a lot of the athletic guys told me they had crushes on me, but they never asked me out because they thought I was too smart for them, and I would have rejected them. The boys I met in my advanced AP classes and debate club had similar stories. They developed crushes, but thought I was too pretty and would have rejected them. Meanwhile I didn't date much in high school. Until I met a boy from a different high school, but he broke my heart.

Then I hit college and discovered the very real power I wielded over men. And it didn't take me long at all to figure out how to use that to my advantage. Men were pigs, they would use a woman for what they wanted and discard her. Why shouldn't I do the same? It got me the things I wanted in life, and a little bit of vengeance on behalf of my whole gender, so why the hell not?

Then Liam Rys came along and changed every damn thing. He treated me like a real person, he listened to my hopes and dreams, he shared his own childhood heartaches and fears with me, and he looked at me like I was the only woman in the world. I decided he was different, that opening up his heart to me meant something, that I had finally found something real. And I fell right the fuck in love with him. He held my beating heart in the palm of his hand.

So, you can imagine how gutted I was when it appeared that it had all been an elaborate lie and he was just like all the others, only worse because I had believed him, trusted him, let myself fall in love with him. I broke my own rules, I did the thing I wasn't supposed to do.

I had only myself to blame. I should never have let my guard down. So, in way of self-care, I fell back into Max's arms, and his bed. And Drake's.

If there's one thing I learned in college it’s that the best way to get over one man is to get under another. So that's what I did. And listen, I had always had a philosophy: piss me off a little and I was definitely going to sleep with one of your friends. Piss me off a lot and it was going to be your cousin, brother or best friend. I like to twist the knife where it hurts the most. But even so, that's not really why I started with Drake, though it was a definite fringe benefit.

Watching Liam squirm, watching the low-key fury that he could do nothing about with every brush of my lips across Drake’s, with ever loving caress I gave him, was just the cherry on top of my sundae. It was much less than what he deserved for tricking me into thinking he was different, for making me love him then breaking my heart.

But if Liam owns my heart, then Drake owns my body. That’s not as shallow as it sounds. The way my body responds to his is out of my control and always has been. Being close to him without touching is an actual, physical struggle. A hard one. There has always been some kind of magnetism pulling us together. I know exactly where he’s at in a room without even looking. I can literally feel him. It’s crazy. It’s insane. It’s fucking amazing. That energy, that pull his body has on mine is what keeps me anchored in this realm of existence, I’m sure of it.

Drake Walker is attached to me by some kind of cosmic decree that I have never been able to figure out. He killed Tariq over me and damn near killed the king of Auvernal and started a war. He only thinks about me, ever, he doesn’t even consider consequences to himself when he undertakes these things. That’s why I have to do it for him. I can’t let him destroy himself protecting me. After Tariq’s death, I realized that the system wasn’t going to do its job, that no one had his back, that no one was going to protect him! No one but me. That was when I started amassing political power. It was all for him.

If he was going to do stupid shit to protect me, then I was going to do smart shit to protect him. I was going to do whatever I had to do. Even marrying the man that shattered my heart.

Did I mention that I’m just two classes shy of a master’s degree in political science? People often dismiss me because, again, smart and pretty aren’t supposed to go together, but in truth, I was probably wildly more qualified for the job of queen than most of the snobby bitches that looked down on me. While they were learning how to sip tea and play piano, I was learning how governments work, and how wars happen, or get avoided. I knew how the game was played. Add in my ability to manipulate people, especially men, and it was time to get serious about that queen thing.

Though Liam and I found our way back to each other eventually, at the time, I was still furious with him, and my only focus was Drake, but I decided to stop fighting the engagement. If Liam wanted me to be queen, I’d be queen, and I’d use that power to help Drake. But I wasn’t by God doing it on Liam’s fucking terms. So, I set some events in motion that gave me leverage to amend the contract, and I made damn sure the new version protected Drake and Max.

Then I set out to get Drake out of the mess he was in because of me. I secured the best lawyer Cordonia had to offer and I made sure Liam pulled the correct strings behind the scenes. I campaigned on his behalf, I lined up character witnesses, I had a conversation with Tariq’s brother, I made sure Drake was exonerated, that was all me.

Ironic that, later on, Drake would question if my love for him was real or if I only wanted him as a cog in my political power structure. Really fucking ironic considering the whole damn thing had been constructed for his benefit. He really is stupid sometimes.

And through all of that, after Liam had broken my heart in two, and when Drake was fighting against me, making it harder for me to help him, Max was there. Max was just always fucking there!

There was literally nothing I could say, nothing I could do that pushed him away. And trust me, I tried. I know that sounds horrible. Max is the sweetest, most genuine, most giving, loving person I know. But that’s what I had thought about Liam, and he’d broken my heart. So, I pushed Max away. I used him for sex, I used him for comfort, I used him as my fallback position. And he let me. But more than that, he offered nothing but support, he just kept being there, and it felt good when I was with him. I don’t just mean in a sexual way.

Slowly I started to realize that the chaos boiling inside me was somehow muted when he was there. And he was always there. He never failed me. He never disappointed me. He never left. He never hurt me, and he refused to let me push him away.

I once referred to him as my emotional support boyfriend and that isn’t far from the truth. Max balances me. He calms my rages and soothes my rough edges. The turbulent waters in my mind churn less when he’s around, the raging infernos in my heart cool in his presence. He tames me. He fucking tames me, and I don’t even know how or why. He does it just by existing. If I need Drake to anchor my body in this plane of existence, I need Max to keep my soul tethered to it. I’m certain, that without him, I would have spontaneously combusted a long time ago.

And only after I let myself fall in love not once more, but twice more, with both Drake and Max, only then did I realize that staying engaged to Liam, staying in his orbit, interacting with him on a regular basis had let him bury himself under my skin again. Burrow his way back into my heart.

Oh, who am I kidding? He never left. I tried so hard to push him out of my heart. I couldn’t.

Liam was the first man to love me properly. To show me what that meant, what that felt like and I think somewhere deep down inside, I knew it wasn’t over. That it would never, could never, be over. My heart recognized his, like they beat in the same rhythm or something. Somehow, I don’t think I would have been capable of loving anyone else, ever, if Liam hadn’t breached my protective walls in the first place. It’s like he possessed some kind of secret code. He was the one that broke my heart open and once I started to let myself actually feel, well, the rest is history. Literally.

How was I supposed to choose between them? I wanted, no I needed them all. I still do. I always will.

You might think it’s not possible to truly love more than one person at a time. You would be wrong. It’s not that I love less. My love is not somehow divided between them, it’s not a finite supply, dwindling with each person that holds a piece of it. I used to believe there was something wrong with me because conventional wisdom says there is. But if anything, what I’ve discovered is that I love more!

I have always felt things more deeply than others. I learned as a child that I couldn’t watch the news. Long after my mother had clicked the TV off and moved on with her life, I’d be crying in a corner over the story about the murdered child or car collision that took out a family of five. It’s why I had to shut those parts of myself off after my first heartbreak. I swear I feel everything so much more! Everything.

I’ve always known that my sex drive in largely in overdrive, but once I had children, I discovered that so is my mothering instinct. I kept my babies attached to my body for the first three years of their lives, at least. It’s like all my feelings are intensified compared to normal people, and if I’ve ever loved someone in my life, that doesn’t go away for me.

I know I’m a lot. But the over-the-top reactions, the rages, the jealousy, the going to any lengths for those I love, it’s all part of the same basic malfunction. But despite outside appearances, despite judgements from people who think that only sexual fidelity equals real love, the upside to being with me is that I love deeply, fiercely, truly. I’m loyal in every way that matters. I would kill for someone I love. I sort of have.

So, like I said, I blame Liam. He was the codebreaker that opened up my heart in the first place, then left it vulnerable. Of course, my newly opened, bleeding, battered heart was going to fall for Max, who nurtured and shielded it. Of course, I was going to be drawn back to Drake who commanded my whole body to his side just by existing, who literally killed a man defending me. Of course, my fractured, trying to mend, longing for good feelings again heart was going to fall for him, from the moment I climbed on the back of his bike in Fydelia.

Where Max was the gentle healing and slow, steady pace that I needed in the immediate aftermath of heartbreak, Drake was electric jolt that I needed to get back to the business of living.

If it’s true that I would have never fallen for Max, or Drake, if Liam hadn’t cracked my heart open in the first place, it’s also true that I would have never been able to forgive and love Liam again if Max and Drake hadn’t patched up the shattered remains of said heart. They all played a part, and they all earned a place in my life. I fell in love with each of them, separately, differently, uniquely.

So no, I was not giving up any of them.

You would think the public would have noticed something, especially when three of our five children looked nothing like Liam but if anyone noticed, no one mentioned it.

I’m sure that’s partly because my enemies had a habit of bad luck befalling them. Tariq Lambros is dead, Fredrick Monsommer is dead, to name just two. Barthelemy Beaumont had once threatened to take my child from me. Taking the throne was secondary in my mind. No one threatens my children. No one. Barthelemy was the father of a man Liam and I both love dearly and deeply, and he still had an unfortunate accident, courtesy of Drake, before he could put his plan into action. At some point, people did learn that it wasn’t wise to cross me.

But the main reason, I think, is that once the Cordonian people got it into their heads that I had somehow helped Drake get away with murdering the slimy degenerate that had killed his sister, they decided that I could do no wrong. I may or may not have helped spur those rumors on. Add to that the incentives that I’ve spearheaded over the years that help the actual people and not just the nobility and I am above approach in their eyes. In short, I’m bulletproof. The public and the press fucking love me.

It’s not like any rumors could stick to me anyway. Not with the stellar legal representation I employ. Which brings me to Rashad.

He’s a shark, legally speaking. What Drake is to my physical safety, Rashad is to my legal safety. He’s what they mean when they say release the hounds. He’s that damn good at his job. The best. I would retain his legal services no matter what. But he’s more than that to me.

He’s an attractive man. Just ask the Cordonian Star, they’ve named him most eligible bachelor eight times. But the thing that makes him stand out, arguably the sexiest thing about him, is his superior intellect. We can sit up all night discussing politics, religion, law, technology, history, the topics are endless really. He keeps up with me mentally and that’s no easy feat. When I read about a new scientific advancement, he’s the first person I think of, the one I want to share it with. I save those discoveries for him, and our time together is an outpouring of thoughts and feelings we’ve both been keeping in reserve for each other. Our time together is always too short.

He is a stunningly beautiful man, but that alone wouldn’t have kept me coming back all this time. The deep friendship we’ve built over the years is something I truly cherish. I trust him. I respect him. I like him.

Do I love him? Yes, I suppose I do, a bit. There is a piece of my heart that’s his and his alone.

Maybe the exact whirlwind that occurred after the coronation was what was needed for things to happen the way they did. It was the perfect storm of heartbreak, tragedy, and self-discovery and only those that got sucked into the vortex were able to enter, to find a place in my heart. Because once everything calmed down, once Liam and I mended things, it was like a lock clicked in place. Everyone inside was in, and anyone outside, was out. The die was cast.

I’ve been with other people over the years, men and women alike, but never as anything more than casual sex and almost always in the context of one of my already established relationships. Be that Max and I playing around with a man we picked up at a nightclub or me bringing another woman along occasionally to play with Drake. But loving anyone else? Can’t imagine it. Not like that.

Hana, Leo, Liv, I love my friends, but you know, it’s not the same.

So, I don’t regret anything that happened, because it brought me all of them. And it brought Liam and Max together as well, which has been an unexpected and thrilling dynamic that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Max has jokingly dubbed me the Teflon Queen, because nothing seems to stick to me. I have practically flaunted my relationships under the courts’ nose, one of my children looks exactly like Drake, one of them looks exactly like a Beaumont and no one says a word. My enemies have all come to bitter ends, but Drake has never been investigated for any allegations again. Having elevated him to head of the Queen’s Guard, everything he does is a matter of national security. I have made him untouchable. And the rumors that do swirl about his role in my life and his dedication to me, and Liam’s acceptance of it, encouragement of it even, only serve to strengthen and solidify my position.

Liam, Drake and I together are a dangerous force to be reckoned with. Undefeatable. With Max as the steadying, encouraging, comforting support behind us, the three of us are an unstoppable team, steam rolling over any and all obstacles. A powerful and formidable triumvirate, protecting each other and those we love, leading Cordonia into a better and brighter future.

It’s good to be queen.

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emile-hides · 4 years ago

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Crybaby imagines

I can’t find any BNHA X Reader blogs with their requests open, so heck it. Make the content you want to see in the world.

MHA Blonde boys react to reader crying (for various reasons)

Characters: All Might, Present Mic, Fatgum, Aoyama, Ojiro, Kaminari, Bakugo, Honenuki, Monoma, Mirio

All Might

1-A is an amazing bunch

It sort of just all hit you like a truck, really

How much 1-A had grown, how much they’d overcame

You’re not even entirely sure what sparked the thought process

But once it stared, you couldn’t stop

You were just so?? Proud??? Amazed???

Suddenly you were crying at your desk in the teacher’s lounge

Quiet, heavy tears

Your co-workers took notice, but it was Toshinori who approched your first asking what was wrong

You hadn’t even noticed you were crying

When you get into the why he’s all ears

He sits next to you and is soon joining in on the kid’s progress

He talks mostly about Bakugo and Midoriya, you go on about Asui and Koda

It turns to laughing and quietly bullying the kids for a moment as you two enjoy some of the sillier memories

Soon Toshinori, too, has tears in his eyes

He sobs more than you did

He’s just so proud of these kids!!

You feel like an old married couple talking about their 30-something kids living far from home

Kind of silly considering they’re all 15 and currently in class right down the hall

You two have to go see them during lunch break

Present Mic

Crying in Solidarity

You stood with Hizashi in front of a grave of a kid you never knew on an overcast day

He’d normally make a comment about the weather matching the mood but...

Not now

His fists were clenched, and though his smile stood strong and his glasses hid his eyes

They couldn’t catch his tears

You held his hand in silence and pretended not to notice the falling of his facade

It happens very seldom

He was shaking, you could hear his breath hitch hard despite his attempts to remain calm

You didn’t know this Shirokumo kid, you’d never met him, you couldn’t pick him out in a crowd if you had to

You didn’t even know who he was to Hizashi

But you knew it tore him up inside that he was buried here

You knew he kept his emotions well contained for everything else but him

You pulled Hizashi a bit closer, letting him lean onto you as tears began to run down your cheeks

The two of you stood in silence and cried on this, an overcast day

The weather really did match your mood.

Fatgum

Crying in relief

The hospital door opened with a loud slam

You didn’t really mean to slam it so hard but now wasn’t the time to go apologizing to inanimate objects for being a little rough

Your voice shrilled even louder than the door the name of the patient laying on the bed in the center of the room

Taishiro looked up with a face of ‘Oh shit’ which was the correct face to have

You were mad for all of the time it took to yell about how worried you were

FIRST OF ALL he didn’t even call to tell you he was in the hospital, you got that information from Tamaki

Second, you barely even know what HAPPENED to land him here

And THIRD,

Nope. Anger’s gone. Evaporated like a puddle in mid July.

Taishiro had sat up in his bed with a nervous smile, peppering in the nicknames and speaking in the gentle voice as he reached out to console you

Just seeing him sit up, his arms bandaged lightly around the wrist

It all just came crashing in

He was fine.

Tears over flowed as you cried a bit louder than you had yelled previously

Hiccuping and gasping out how worried you were and how mad you still wanted to be

Taishiro just laughed an apology as he hugged you, thankful for your concern

He promised to call next time

You found yourself yelling at him to never do this again

Aoyama

Crying on command

Acting was something you had mastered

More or less anyway

You dove head first into a role and you were damn good at it

But everyone has weaknesses

You’d locked yourself in Aoyama’s room, going over lines and choreography for some little play in the park you two had signed up for

Now you sat on his floor as he painted your nails, glaring daggers into the script

You had to cry.

It seemed so easy. Think of something sad and cry over it on stage. Simply.

and yet your eyes remained dry, your stage make-up perfect

Aoyama had been couching you, weeping all sorts of tears for your amusment

It wasn’t helping

You turned your glare to Aoyama, who was completely enthralled in drawing tiny art pieces into your nails

God he was bright

....bright.....

You looked directly up at the light on the ceiling and stared

Your eyes wide you forced yourself not to blink

It hurts

And it worked

You looked back to Aoyama with tears streaming down your face and searing pain in your retina

He applauded your dedication

Ojiro

It’s all just a lot

You weren’t really sure when it all became so much

But everything you’d been working at and training for suddenly weighed more than you could bare

You found yourself in the middle of the UA empty halls, flat on the ground on your stomach

Tripping was the breaking point

The straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say

You just started sobbing

When you heard footsteps coming you just kind of... wiggled out of the way

Pressing yourself to the wall you just continued to cry to yourself, curled in a ball, expecting the other person to just pass you by

Instead a soft white handkerchief gently pressed to your cheek, followed by a quiet “Are you okay?”

You were not okay.

Ojiro sat himself beside you as you wiped your face, continuing to sob

You didn’t offer an explanation, he didn’t ask for one

He sat in the hall quietly with you, his tail giving the occasional swish to brush your cheek of tears

The silence gave to time to catch your breath, and realize class probably started a long time ago

When you got up to be on your way, he joined you

He didn’t offer to walk you where you needed to go, he simply did

His quiet wave, his silent smile, his patient glances at you

It all made everything feel just a bit lighter

The next time you’d see Ojiro in the halls, he’d smile at you

And he’d be delighted if you could smile back

Kaminari

Crying from shock

It was just a little zap to the hip, a little bee sting

He’d been doing it to everyone in class, learned it from some stupid tiktok

When it was your turn to get stung, you let out the loudest yelp in the class

He laughed at first, proudly proclaiming how he’d gotten you

Until you whipped to him with fury in your eyes, along with tears

His panicked “Shit, wait, I’m sorry” fell on deaf ears as you quickly gave him a return jab in the hip

Without the actual shock part it probably wasn’t as painful

So you did it a few more times for good measure

Then he jabbed you again

And it was on

Jabs to the hip turned to jabs to the gut, armpit, neck, even right dead center in his chest

You were both in pain and sure to be covered in bruises when Iida finally separated you two

It was hard to see with the tears swelling in both your eyes

But when Denki made direct eye contact with you before giving a glance to Iida, you knew

You nodded, an evil smirk crossing your face

The two of you took your index and middle fingers, driving them quickly and roughly into the class rep’s hips simultaneously

His yelp had the entire class laughing

It then also had the entire class in study hall for the rest of break

Bakugo

He’s just kind of a dick

Standing outside of class 1-A you felt as though your heart was beating in your throat

When the door opened you jumped out of your skin as a green haired boy came out at full speed

He managed to stop on a dime before slamming into you though

You choked out the courage to ask him if Katsuki Bakugo was in class

The kid before you stared in shock before turning around and calling for a “Kacchan”, telling him someone was here to see him

You glanced in the door and watched as several people pried the man you wanted to see from his seat, shoving him forcefully to the door

They all then slammed the door behind him, keeping the green haired kid who seemed in a rush to leave trapped inside

He barked a what at you that made you reconsider all your choices

Still. You swallowed all your courage, and said what you came here to say.

You confessed your feelings to Bakugo, bravely.

He stared at you with a face of utter confusion, and it managed to catch you a bit off guard

He looked like he didn’t know how to respond

Which he, of course, didn’t.

So he responded the only way he really knows how

Anger.

“WHO THE HELL EVEN ARE YOU?!”

He called you some background extra. What gave you even the slightest though he’d want to be with some nobody he didn’t even know the name of

Within seconds of his screaming the 1-A doors slammed open yet again

The group who’d peeled Bakugo from his seat before jumped from the room and began wrestling him into submission, berating him for his treatment of you

But you were inclined to agree with him

You told them it was fine. He was right, you were just some nobody

You couldn’t stop your voice from shaking, tears streaming from your eyes as you gripped tightly at your shirt

Not knowing really what else to do, you turned and ran away

It was well over a few hours later, and you were still crying alone in the court yard

You flinched at the sound of footsteps approaching you. You closed your eyes and planned to make a run for it somewhere else to avoid bothering anyone

“Hey, dumbass,” a hand placed on your forehead, pulling you back to lean on the person behind you, “You could do a lot better than an ass like me.”

You glanced at Bakugo, who was looking far into the distance, his ears red

You cried and apologized. He didn’t say much else, but his hand remained on you, keeping you in place

You found yourself invited out more, running around with Bakugo and his friends, being rowdy and dumb as teens should be

Your crush on Katsuki Bakugo soon became a distant memory as he grew to be one of your closest friends

Honenuki

Yawning

You flopped dramatically onto the common room couch and let out the loudest, most drawn out sigh you could muster

This act of pure drama drew the attention of Juzo Honenuki, who simply chuckled at your antics

You stretched like a cat across the couch, reaching for him lazily with one hand, you swatted at the book he’d been comfortably reading

He gave another chuckle and inquired what you were after

You answered with an equally dramatic and drawn out yawn, bringing tears to your eyes as you again stretched to him

You then closed your eyes and snuggled into a couch pillow

Honenuki’s hand stretched across the couches and found itself on your head, giving gentle pets back and forth

Once he found himself a good stopping point, Honenuki put his bookmark in place and snapped the book closed

He gave a stretch and a yawn before encouraging you to your feet

You lazily tangled your arms around one of his and draped yourself over him

The two of you walked to your separate dorm rooms arm in arm, occasionally letting out more and more exasperated yawns and sleepy giggles

Monoma

Crying from pain

This was... probably your fault?

You remembered running into Awase from class 1-B while going a bit too fast though the halls

Next thing you knew you were in front of him, on your ass, staring up at him upside down

It took a minute for the pain to register, but as soon as it did tears stung your eyes

You couldn’t even really say anything as Awase’s eyes filled with panic when he’d realized what he’d done, quickly dropping your arm and stepping back, probably planning to make a run for it

The is until his blond classmate came up behind him, pressuring him to apologize in a loud, negging tone

When Awase again avoided your eyes, opting to shove his hands in his pockets as he glared at the wall, Monoma dropped to his knees and offered you assistance

The question of “Do you need to go to the nurse?” was accompanied with a handkerchief dabbed at your eyes

Monoma helped you to your feet, apologizing for his classmate, assuring you you were fine and didn’t need to report this to a teacher because you were clearly fine look at you you’re fine

I mean you weren’t bleeding so... Yeah? You were fine.

He sounded like he’d be the one in trouble if you told someone about Awase self defense flipping you over his shoulder

When he offered again to walk you to the nurse, you declined

He was right, you were fine, just a bit sore

You wiped the tears from your eyes and thanked him for his concern as you walked passed him

You also apologized to Awase for bumping into him, though he just huffed a response

You didn’t get very far when you heard quick steps following close behind

Monoma was just checking in to make sure you for sure weren’t going to tell anyone class 1-B’s Awase threw you like a rag doll

He also just figured while he was here he’d ask if there was anything he could do to make up for this incident

Like... buy you lunch sometime.... Or take you out to a nice cafe he knows after school... maybe...?

He just. Didn’t want you to think class B does hit and runs like this on all the pretty students

Mirio

Crying from laughing

Your sides hurt

You gripped onto yourself as you leaned onto Mirio, cackling harder than you had in a while

He was retelling some jokes he’d gone over with Sir Nighteye at his internship today, regaling you, Tamaki, and Nejire with perfect one-liners and horrid puns

You all were laughing far too hard for this late at night

Tears pricked your eyes as you slapped at Mirio’s leg, gasping for breath you begged for a time out

You have the most contagious laugh, Mirio was positive his jokes only ever landed because you laughed at them so easily

When you finally caught your breath you sat up, rubbing giggly tears from your eyes

You gave a glance around the room and found Tamaki doing the same, though his tears were from the yawn he’d just given

All three of you watched Tamaki adorably shifts as he rubbed the tired from his eyes, something he flushed over when he’d finally noticed the attention

Nejire declared that meant bedtime and hopped from her seated position, pulling Tamaki along with her

In a matter of moments she was dragging the tired boy out of the room to their own dorms

You and Mirio chuckled at her antics before you too got up to get going

Mirio offered to walk you to your dorm, which wasn’t far down the hall, but he made such a show of it how could you say no?

Of course he spent the whole walk telling even more terrible jokes that continued to crack you up

By the time you’d gotten to your dorm you were so giggly you couldn’t see straight

Mirio waved as he turned and walked the 5 feet back to his own room

He then turned around and waved again, claiming he already misses you

You giggled at him and returned to your own room

He loved your laugh.

#Emile's Arts #BNHA X Reader #MHA X Reader #All Might #Toshinori Yagi #Present Mic #Hizashi Yamada #Yuga Aoyama #Mashirao Ojiro #Denki Kaminari #Katsuki Bakugo #Juzo Honenuki #Neito Monoma #Taishiro Toyomitsu #Fatgum #Fat Gum #I was going to do Toga as well #But all it was going to be was crying over Magne cause that's my mood so #I'll write toga another time #BE THE CONTENT YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE TAG #I say that #and if I actually followed that I would write nothing but Monoma content all the time #and Inasa I should write more for Inasa #80% of these can also be seen as platonic because I didn't feel like doing much else #I apologize openly for Bakugo I was thinking of something highly specific #Also please know a good half of these with the students are General Studies Reader #or support course student reader #Because I didn't feel like thinking too hard about hero course reader #I am in a sit on the ground and cry for no reason mood tonight and so that is the content I create #Please enjoy. Send requests if you want to. I dunno man this is 99% for me

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whimsicallyreading · 3 years ago

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For Day 29 of Rowaelin Month

“A song fic-“

The song- “Always Been You” by Quinn XCII

CW- Mentions of miscarriage and divorce

"I can't believe you right now."

Rowan looks at his wife in frustration. She's sitting at the end of their bed, staring listlessly at the wall. The skirt of the red dress she's wearing is wrinkled, and his heart aches when he notices the mascara marks on her cheeks.

"Aelin," Rowan tries again to reach for her, but she leans away from his grasp.

"No, Rowan. I'm done."

Rowan takes a long swing from the beer in front of him. The time on his phone alerts him that he's spent most of the evening sulking at his bar.

The guys had invited him to dinner, but Rowan hadn't felt like going in light of his current situation. Instead, choosing to meander to the shady little pub they'd passed by coming from the airport.

His lawyer had sent him numerous emails. Documents to sign, agreements to approve, and papers he needed to read through before sending them to the judge.

Divorce was a pain, and Aelin wasn't making it easy.

"Hey, bud. I thought I might find you here." Fenrys slides onto the barstool next to his.

Rowan sighs and rubs the lines forming on his forehead. "Well, I thought it was obvious I didn't want company."

"Too bad. Drinking alone isn't a good look on you." Fenrys raises a hand and motions for another round of beers. "How are things going with ya know?"

"Shitty. She's never paid a dime of rent on that apartment, but she wants the lease signed into her name and for me to front the first four months of rent." Rowan cracks a peanut between his finger. He has no intent to eat the growing pile in front of him. He just craved the satisfaction of breaking something.

"Well, have you talked to her about that?" Fenrys frowns in sympathy, knowing how equally attached both parties were to the little rental.

Rowan laughs mirthlessly. "No, she said that it was better if our conversations were mediated. I always knew Aelin was catty, but she's acting like such a-"

"Don't." Fenrys gives Rowan a severe look. "I know you are upset, but don't start saying shit you'll regret."

Rowan pauses and reluctantly nods his agreement. It's the alcohol talking. He knew the problems that had festered his marriage were predominantly his responsibility.

He takes a deep breath, but a heaviness seems to keep the air from reaching his lungs fully. The weight was slowly becoming too familiar, starting the day Aelin had presented him with the papers.

Rowan wishes he'd done more. Wishes he'd paid more attention and seen the signs of Aelin's unhappiness.

The day Aelin had broken down in their bedroom had been a cold wake-up call but by then? It was already too late.

"You missed our anniversary Rowan." Aelin shouts and pulls her heels off angrily.

Rowan picks up a shoe and tries to hand it back to her. "I know. I'm sorry. It's not too late, though. We can still go out? There's still time to salvage-"

Aelin turns away from him and seems to fold in on herself. Rowan wants to reach out. He wants to hold her, but something dark is building in the air.

"I don't want your leftovers, Rowan," Aelin whispers. "That's all I get anymore—your leftover time. Your leftover attention. Whatever leftover resentment you bring home from work."

"Aelin-" he tries to cut off her depressive spiral, but she's not finished.

"You used to call me during the day." Aelin's voice cracks, and he realizes she's crying. "Every day, you would call me on your break. Now you don't even call when you leave town."

"Baby, just listen to me." He puts his hands on her shoulders, but Aelin breaks his grasp to turn around and look at him.

"Is there someone else?" Her eyes are wide and vulnerable. So unlike his regular Aelin."

"What?" His brain is struggling even to formulate a reply. Rowan's lack of response only causes Aelin to worry more.

Something in her cracks. There's a quiver to her lips, and her face drains of color. "Oh. Oh no."

"Aelin. I swear there is no one else." Rowan finally says, but it's too late.

"Is," Aelin presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. "Is it because I lost the baby?" She sucks in a hiccupping breath. "You've always wanted kids. So did I, but my fucking body doesn't work."

Aelin closes her eyes, and Rowan knows she's speaking more to herself than him, but her words gut him just the same. "My body doesn't work right. I keep giving us false hopes and wasting money on pregnancy tests. Of course, you would look for a woman who can give you what you want."

He's surprised by the sudden flare of anger in him. "Don't put words in my mouth. That will never be your fault."

They'd known right from the start their journey to parenthood would be a long one. Aelin had a family history of complicated fertility. It had seemed so trivial when they got married. Yet even knowing there could be issues, nothing quite prepared them for the pain of a miscarriage.

Aelin sniffles, unable to force back her grief, "But you resent me. Don't you?"

Rowan doesn't reply.

"It's rough," Rowan admits out loud. "I let a lot get left unsaid. I was hurt and pushed her away. Now she won't even speak to me without a lawyer present."

Fenrys nods, "It's all probably for the best. Once this is over, you guys can put this drama behind you."

"I wish it were that easy," Rowan knocks back the rest of his beer. He grimaces at the drink. It's not taking hold quickly enough.

Fenrys raises an eyebrow. "You both will be able to shut the book on this chapter of your lives and move on? Considering how bloody you two have been fighting, it sounds ideal."

They sit in silence. Fenrys takes the peanut basket away from Rowan and picks at the shells. The bartender comes by, and disgruntledly eyes Rowan's pile of crumbs as he orders a whiskey neat.

Fen was like his little brother, but Rowan found it hard to admit his real problem to him aloud. "I still love her."

The basket goes flying over the side of the counter, and Fenrys chokes on his beer. "What?"

Rowan can't look him in the eye, "We lost a baby. It was early. Aelin didn't want to tell everyone. Three years we tried to get pregnant, and finally, a test comes back positive. She was so happy."

"Shit," Fenrys says quietly. "I'm so sorry."

"It was there, and then it was gone. I thought Aelin was fine. She cried for a week, but then it was like a switch flipped, and she was back to normal." Rowan clenches a napkin in his fist. "I was devastated. It hurt like hell, but I didn't want to send her back into a depression." Rowan shakes his head at how stupid he'd been. "So I put some distance between us. I didn't want her to think I was upset with her."

"I didn't feel better," Rowan sips the whiskey, relishing the warmth. "It made me mad that she got over it so quickly, and I couldn't. I didn't realize that I was growing that space between us. I didn't understand how much guilt she harbored and that she tried to be strong for me. Not until she broke."

"We fought. I said all the wrong things. Aelin couldn't take it anymore, she left, and I didn't stop her." Rowan leans his head on his hands and elbows against the counter. "She's the love of my life, and I watched her walk out the door."

Fenrys sucks in a breath and sighs. "You are my best friend, and I mean this in the most loving way possible. Why the hell are you here?"

"What?" Rowan looks at Fenrys annoyed face.

"Get out of here. Go. I'll tell the boss you have ebola or some shit." Fenrys fishes his wallet out and throws cash on the bar. "I'll even cover the tab. Just leave. Now."

"What? I don't understand?"

Fenrys looks at Rowan like he's stupid. "No offense, but you are about as interesting as a brick wall. The fact you caught a girl like Aelin is astonishing. If you love her, are you honestly going to let her go on being miserable?"

"She's not miserable," Rowan scoffs.

Fenrys laughs bitterly. "You forget I'm pals with Aedion too? Aelin winds up at his house almost every evening crying her eyes out. You two are still hopelessly in love. You're just dumb and badly in need of a good conversation."

"Aelin is upset?" A sense of disbelief washes over him.

"Yes! She misses you, but she's under the impression you are off sleeping around." His face saddens. "I told Aedion you weren't. He knows I go on all of these trips with you. Aelin's just upset you're gone and needs to believe in something that can help her let go."

Rowan stands up, swaying. "I have to go."

"Hell yeah, you do. Give Aelin my love," Fenrys waves as Rowan vates the bar like a hawk out of hell.

Aelin sets the stack of papers in front of him.

Rowan had been camping out in his office ever since there disaster of an anniversary. He'd texted a few times, but every time they talked, it was like relighting a fuze. Things weren't getting better.

"What are these?" Rowan asks without looking up from his screen.

"Your ticket to freedom," Aelin sits in the chair across from him.

She looks thin, thinner than she did when Arobynn was her foster father. It physically hurts Rowan that he's causing her that kind of stress. Glancing at the papers, she slapped in front of him. His blood becomes like an ice river through his body. "Aelin-"

"I'm not the one for you. That's apparent now. I won't hold you hostage in a marriage that you aren't happy in." Aelin blinks, and a tear slides down her face. He wants to wipe it away, but he's beyond angry. She was giving up on them.

"If this is what you want," Rowan slides the papers towards him and pulls out a pen.

Rowan is racing the familiar paths to their apartment. He doesn't care that it's almost four in the morning. The plane ride between Perranth and Ornyth is mercifully short, but he can't force himself to wait another minute.

"Aelin," he yells through their door. "Baby, answer me. Open the door."

Rowan's fists tap a consistent rhythm on the door, and his heart skips a beat when a bedraggled Aelin finally appears. "Rowan, do you know what time it is?"

She's in a pair of grey flannel pajamas, not one of her usual silky numbers. Aelin's eyes are red around the edges, and her face is still dewy from the excessive amount of lotion he knows she loves to put on. Rowan knows all of her routines. All of her favorite outfits, comfort movies, and best memories. He knows the scar she has on her left hand from an abusive foster father. Rowan remembers how the bridge of her nose wrinkles when she's upset in the same spot her cousin's does.

He knows everything about her, because not only were they husband and wife, they were best friends.

How could he have let that go?

Before Aelin can ask any more questions, Rowan has swept her into his arms. "I missed you so damn much."

"Rowan, have you been drinking?" Aelin asks in a voice cracked with emotion.

His hands are running up her back, and his knows burrows into her hair. He's always loved the smell of her jasmine shampoo. "Fireheart, I never resented you for losing the baby."

"Rowan, I don't want to talk about this," Aelin tries to push him away, but he squeezes her into his chest, and she melts.

That had been his mistake. He should have held Aelik like this and never let her go on pretending to be happy. How could he know everything about this woman and not have seen past her facade? She'd suffered. His own pain had blinded him.

"Aelin, I've made so many mistakes lately." Rowan rubs the back of Aelin's neck the way she likes, and he can feel the sobs starting to build up inside of her. "But the greatest shame of my life is not being there for you when you needed me. I was stupid, Fireheart. I'm not going to be stupid any longer. This separation can't go on, we aren't any happier for it, and I can't live knowing I'm away from the other half of my soul."

Aelin cracks, and he can feel the tears wetting the front of his shoulder. "You were never home. I thought there was someone else, someone who could give you the things you wanted because I can't."

Her whole form is shuddering his arms, and Rowan squeezes tighter as if he can hold her broken pieces together. "It's always been you. I don't care if we adopt or never have any kids at all. All I need is you, baby. You are all I've ever needed."

Suddenly, hands are in Rowan's hair as Aelin crushes their lips together. The kiss is frantic, a relief of the stress they'd carried upon their shoulders.

"I missed you too," Aelin whispers in between kisses. “Gods I mussed you so much.”

The rest of their night is filled with soothing words, frantic kissing, and murmured apologies. Rowan kisses the tears from her cheeks and Aelin looks into his eyes like she’s home. Nail dig into skin as they promise never to be apart again.

For the first time in months they sleep in the same bed. Rowan sinks into a deep restful sleep with his wife in his arms once more. He loves the way her cold toes search out his heat. How Aelin fits so perfectly against his chest. When he wakes up and she’s still there, his heart nearly features from relief.

After months of pain, it's the beginning of their walk towards healing.

The days after aren't perfect. They had legal issues to sort back out, more problems to lay bare to the sunlight. There was arguing, but it lacked actual heat, and they didn't walk away feeling unloved at the end. No longer did they fight to land barbs. Their bickering now served to work towards solutions and to express needs.

Between struggles, the love began to grow back. Rowan kept his job at work, and when he was home, it was about them. He started calling her on his breaks again, and it always astonished him how much he missed the sound of her voice. They both strived to communicate their feelings better and actually listen instead of reacting.

Aelin surprised him with romantic dates, and Rowan read pages of her favorite books to her at night. They danced in the kitchen and laughed at their favorite shows.

Fixing their marriage was hard work, but Rowan and Aelin didn't mind. The separation proved that neither of them wanted a life without the other. It was to whatever end, and they wouldn't accept anything less for them.

On one Sunday morning, Rowan opens his eyes and realizes that Aelin isn't on her side of the bed. Panic surges in him, and he looks around to make sure her things are still there.

They are, and the tension eases from his shoulders until he hears soft crying from the bathroom. Darting out of bed, he grabs Aelin's bathrobe and knocks on their bathroom door. "Aelin, what's wrong?"

Had he screwed something up? Was she sick?

The lock clicks, granting him silent permission for him to come inside. Rowan pushes the door open and finds Aelin crying on the side of the tup. With gentle hands, he wraps her robe around her and throws an arm over her shoulders. "What's wrong?"

Aelin looks up at him, a radiant smile on her face. "Look."

Rowan glances down to her clenched fists and-

He blinks, once, twice. Aelin laughs at his dumbfounded face, and it breaks his paralysis. Rowan grabs her around the waist and spins her around the cramped bathroom, the positive pregnancy test clattering to the floor.

Aelin's arms wrap around his neck. The emotion in the room is raw and bittersweet, but there's a hopefulness that can't be denied. Rowan holds her tight as they process the news. When they break apart, the love between them is palpable. They had another shot at this, a fresh start.

Hards times would come and go, but good days were never far behind for them. Because for Aelin and Rowan, it's always been them.

And that's all they needed.

#throne of glass #rowaelin #fanfic #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #rowaelinmonth #angst #tog #sjmaas #throne of glass fanfiction #song fic #rowan x aelin #fenrys #day 29

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impalementation · 4 years ago

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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 2

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

“Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

For all that I’ve just discussed all of the ways that the first three seasons subvert the romance of Angel, it’s also true that the writing still fundamentally takes him—and Buffy’s relationship with him—seriously. To some degree it has to. Because Buffy is the show’s emotional anchor, if the writing didn’t take her emotions seriously, the audience wouldn’t either. It needs to be sympathetic to her (regardless of whether it endorses her, per se), or else it would run the risk of losing all pathos. Making fun of Buffy and Angel makes for a great gag in “The Zeppo”, and fits with the general way that season three undermines the romanticism of them, but if that was the show’s attitude the whole way through, it would come off as simply meanspirited. It would seem like it was making fun of Buffy for being a stupid teenage girl in love, instead of sympathetically depicting the human experience of being caught up in big, tempestuous emotions.

But at the same time, if the writing were to only take romance seriously, that wouldn’t feel very true either. Or fit with the general Buffy ethos, which loves to flip between serious and silly moods in order to capture all sides of whatever it’s exploring. And therein is the magic of Spike’s addition to the chemistry of the show. Practically from his introduction, Spike parallels Buffy’s romantic storylines, except unlike Buffy, Spike is allowed to do the comic or morally incorrect thing. His status as a soulless vampire means that the show is free to use him to point out both the sillier and darker sides of romance, without tainting Buffy’s heroism or the seriousness of her emotions.

In “Becoming, Part 2” for example, Spike is free to explicitly say that he’s saving the world because he wants Dru back, and leaves Buffy to die once he’s gotten her. Whereas Buffy, despite also wanting the person she loves back, ultimately chooses to save the world rather than keep him. Spike allows the episode to show what Buffy’s, or anyone’s, romantic id might want, without Buffy herself going through with it. He also allows the episode to show the ridiculousness of the romantic id, by giving him comic moments like “Didn’t say I wouldn’t”, or “God, he’s going to kill her”, or beating Angel with a tire iron, or any of the times that Buffy makes fun of him (“The whole earth may be sucked into hell and you want my help ‘cause your girlfriend’s a big ho?”). All of which is in contrast to the tragic seriousness of Buffy’s heartbreak. Spike in season two is not a character without pathos; in fact, he has quite a lot of pathos that parallels Buffy’s--think of the tortured close-up on his face as Angel and Drusilla taunt him in “I Only Have Eyes For You.” But neither is he limited or defined by that pathos.

He plays a similar role in both “Lovers Walk” and “The Harsh Light of Day”. In “Lovers Walk” he’s devastated by the loss of Drusilla, as Buffy was devastated over Angel in “Anne”, yet the way they get out of their respective depressions is very different. Tonally, “Anne” plays Buffy’s misery extremely straight, and when Buffy decides to stop moping and become an agent in her own life again, her version of “agency” means getting in touch with her leadership and heroism. Whereas for Spike, agency means a love spell, or torturing Drusilla into liking him again. The romantic id tries to re-possess the object of its desire, whereas the ego or superego is able to set that desire aside, whether or not it wants to. More obviously, Spike in “Lovers Walk” parallels all of the other characters and their romantic situations. All of them are behaving somewhat selfishly or self-destructively in their love lives (Xander and Willow cheating, Buffy and Angel torturing themselves with friendship) but are in denial about the fact that they’re doing so. And then Spike blazes in with his version of love that is selfish, scary, grandiose, charming, pathetic, genuine, and absurd by turns—and suddenly, everyone’s romantic weaknesses are out in the open. It makes perfect sense that Spike finishes the episode gleeful and optimistic, because “Lovers Walk” as a whole represents a triumph of the romantic id over the romantic ego, if only temporarily. And it’s all handled with a brilliantly whiplash-y mix of comedy and tragedy because at the end of the day, the power of the romantic id really is ridiculous. The way that Spike turns on a dime between being scary and pathetic parallels the way it’s at once absurd, and kind of frightening, that your id would make you, say: cheat on your wonderful high school boyfriend, just to have a chance with your childhood crush.

Because Spike is often treated as the show’s romantic id, the writing’s relationship to his romanticism gets complicated. Like Angel, there is something romantic in his aesthetic and behavior, even if he doesn’t look like Angel’s conventional Byronic hero. He wears a long, dramatic coat, poses rebelliously with his cigarettes, and dotes on his paramour with the elaborate attentiveness of Gomez Addams. But unlike Angel, he is not just a romantic symbol or object, he is also a romantic subject. That is to say, Spike’s romantic storylines tend to emphasize his romantic desires, and use those desires as motivation. By contrast, Angel’s storylines don’t really have much to do with whether he’s “gotten” Buffy or not—instead they have to do with whether Buffy has gotten him. The fact that Buffy and Spike are both treated as romantic agents in this way is a key indication that the two characters are meant to parallel each other. Angel’s side of the Buffy/Angel romantic storyline has to do with whether he can control himself around Buffy, whereas Buffy’s has to do with whether he likes her or wants to be with her. Similarly, Spike’s romantic storylines hinge on the status of whether Drusilla or Buffy want him.

Not only is Spike a subject when it comes to romantic relationships, he’s also a subject when it comes to Romantic thinking. He is a character practically defined by his romanticism. He aspires to romantic things, and therefore can be used to poke at romantic outlooks. Despite his grand love for Drusilla for instance, she still cheats on him, and he still has to knock her out, do a love spell, or torture her to get her back. Or he’ll make grand pronouncements that are immediately followed by things like getting tasered by the Initiative or falling into an open grave. Because of this, Spike is able to parallel Buffy’s Romantic thinking as well, not just her romantic desires. Notice how in “The Freshman”, when Buffy is feeling out of touch with her Romantic Slayer self, that she has a scene where she’s treated like Spike--she delivers a dramatic threat and then falls through a ceiling. Or in “Some Assembly Required” when she obeys her id and hotly demands that Angel listen to her, she falls into an open grave. This kind of comedy has a lot in common with the deadpan Angel humor discussed in the last section, but notice that the target of that humor is Angel’s romantic objecthood rather than an outlook Angel has. Angel’s role, when it comes to romanticism, has to do with how Buffy and the audience sees him, whereas Spike’s role (at least in the early seasons) has to do with how Spike sees, period.

The show doesn’t just poke at Spike’s outlook though, it also uses him to poke at other people’s romanticism. In season two, for example, Spike is the one who gets impatient with Angel’s grandstanding, sarcastically explaining that “we do still kill people, you know” and “it’s a big rock.” In “Lovers Walk” he’s the one who cuts through Buffy and Angel’s drama, reducing it to “googly eyes” with a dismissive handwave (while also building it up in his projection-y “you’ll never be friends” speech). In “Something Blue” he points out that Willow is barely holding it together. In “Pangs” he’s the one who brings the debate over the Chumash nihilistically back down to earth, and in “The Yoko Factor” he schools Adam on Yoko not really splitting the Beatles apart. In other words, Spike attempts to see both the romance and the reality of things. He is the avatar of both, which I would argue makes complete sense, because in many ways romance and reality are really two sides of the same coin. Poetry and stories are fake and bigger than life, but you use them to tell truths. But being the id, his point of view can be hypocritical and biased as much as insightful, just like anyone’s gut reactions and poetic notions can be. After all, you can use poetry to tell lies, too.

Lastly, on a meta level, there is a tackiness to Spike that undermines his romantic qualities better than making him dangerous ever could. Spike likes Passions and Dawson’s Creek (in contrast to Angel reading La Nausée by firelight). He lives in a crypt, but the vibe is more “homeless” than “Dracula” (in contrast to Angel’s tastefully decorated apartment). Spike may act like a romantic, but what does it say about how romantic romanticism really is, that the romantic things he likes can be so unrefined? And with the chip, he’s rendered impotent and pathetic. To me, there’s no more perfect image of how the writing uses Spike than the image of him in his black coat, red shirt, and big, leather boots, blasted under the fluorescent light of his Initiative cell. Light that makes his aesthetic seem suddenly fake and silly and surreal. For all that the writing subverts Angel, he is still the kind of character who gets to disappear mysteriously into the shadows, because he is the romance that Buffy has been forced to abandon. Whereas Spike is left with no place to hide.

If Angel represented the idea of binaries, then Spike represents the lack of them. There is a reason that Spike invites so many queer readings. He is a vampire, but he loves. He is an object, but he’s a subject. He tells the truth, but he lies. He is a villain, but he is a hero. He is masculine, but he is feminine. He is insightful, but he’s a fool. He is pathetic, but he is sympathetic. He is on the outside of the Scoobies, but he is on the inside. These aspects of him are not split between different personas, but exist within him simultaneously. It is telling that the show introduces human, mythos-bending vampires like Spike and Dru in a season about disillusionment, and it is telling that Spike’s role in the show becomes ascendant in the seasons after Buffy leaves Angel and his split personality behind. As Buffy begins to reckon more deeply with her id, and her dualities, she will begin to reckon with Spike.

part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

#romanticism series #buffy #spike #angel #s2 #s3 #s4 #gen #btvs

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carriagelamp · 3 years ago

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I’m legally obligated to try to read at least a few queer lit choices in June, so here’s what I’ve got! Not a lot of Full On Novels because this has been a crazy month, but I got lucky with some really cute ones

Bad Boys Happy Home v1

This was a yaoi that, so far at least, was significantly more domestic than anticipated. Akamatsu has been getting into fights with a man he met on his way home at a local park as a way of blowing off steam, even if he hasn’t managed to beat him once yet. However, eventually Akamatsu learns that the other man, Seven, is homeless and has been living at the park — rather than risk his sparring partner getting displaced, he invites Seven to come stay at his apartment until he gets his feet under him…

Bad Guys v1

Well, they finally put a movie out so I finally bit the bullet and read the first book of this series. I read it in French but there’s hardly enough text to make any difference. I can see why kids enjoy it, it’s fun and silly and the art is very accessible. It really holds zero interest to me though, it’s really more of a picture book like Elephant and Piggie than a graphic novel.

Demon Slayer v1-2

Another book I got talked into reading by children. I thought it looked like agonizingly generic shonen, another Naruto knock off or something similar, so I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it so far. The art is really appealing, it reminds me of old-school 90s Inuyasha art? Kinda? It’s about a boy whose family is slaughtered by demons while he’s away, and who returns to find his younger sister, the only survivor, turned into a demon herself. Together they band together to find a way for her to be cured, as he fights to become a demon slayer who can protect the both of them, and she fights her new, violent nature. I love sibling stories, honestly.

Dragon Girls v1-2

Jeez. I am 90% sure this was Scholastic’s attempt to capitalize on Wings of Fire with a younger audience and a budget of two dimes to get it done. It’s about a group of three girls who find out that they can travel to a magical forest where they’re dragons that are tasked with protecting the forest and the tree queen from an evil shadow. I don’t think anyone can enjoy this unless they’re actively a seven year old girl, and even then I have my doubts. It’s generic to the point of ennui and the art is so bad that even I could have drawn the dragons better.

Earwig and the Witch

The final novella that Diana Wynne Jones ever wrote. After what a botch Ghibli did of the movie version, I’ve been avoiding it, but finally decided to give it a chance. It was actually pretty enjoyable, it very much had a quirky Dahl vibe to it. Earwig, a young orphan who is good at getting her way, is adopted by a witch who intends to use her as labour. Earwig, however, isn’t about to take that lying down and teams up with the witch’s familiar to find a way to once again control this odd situation.

Girl Friends complete collection v1

A cute enough little yuri romance. Not as good as something like Failed Princesses, in my opinion, this one felt much more… tranquil, I suppose? It was sweet but didn’t have a lot of plot happening. Still, if you feel like a very gentle sapphic romance, it’s not a bad one to breeze through.

In Deeper Waters

Gay Little Mermaid! Hell yeah! Pirates! High sea adventures! Magic! This was lots of fun! It took me a little bit to turn my brain off enough to enjoy it at the beginning, but once I realized out this really is meant to just be a queer fairytale I was able to stop overanalysing and just enjoy the ride. Very fun, summer read, scratched an itch I was having after Our Flag Means Death.

Jackass!

This was something. Not as bad as I expected, a childhood friends to unexpected lovers sort of story, and definitely a story that knew its kink and ran with it. Side romance was, simply put, vile though and was rather hard to ignore to get through the rest of the book. Almost enjoyable. There’s better queer manga to read, this made me think more of the trash I read as a desperate teen in the aughts.

Kase-san and Morning Glories v1-3

Now this sapphic romance was absolutely 100% the best thing I’ve read this weekend. It was incredibly cute, and the art is so charming. It’s about “slow pace” Yamada, a quiet girl on the greenery committee, developing a crush on Kase, the school track star, and the very blushy cute romance the two of them fall into.

Lily To The Rescue // Two Little Piggies

Last year I had read A Dog’s Way Home by Cameron and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see that he had some children’s novels written in a similar style. This is a chapter book series about rescue dog Lily who now lives with her girl and helps at the family’s animal rescue centre. In these books she helps find, protect, play with, and support various animals that are found and brought to the centre. It’s just charming, with some of the loveliest art.

This Wonderful Season With You

Another really cute one, despite the comically generic title that I keep forgetting. This manga is about ex-baseball star Shirataki who ends up being talked into joining the programming club by short, shy, nerdy Enoki. While the other club “nerds” are intimidated by Shirataki, Enoki admires him and the two form an unlikely friendship which grows from there…

Witch Week

Another Diana Wynne Jones book because I was in the mood. This is one of my favourites of hers and I reread it every few years. Witch Week takes place in a world where magic is illegal, at a boarding school for “witch orphans” (the children of witches who have been burnt at the stake) and other “undesirables”. It’s a rather dull, unpleasant life in the school, until one day a note is found in one of the books that a teacher is grade, accusing someone in the class of being a witch. This is a serious accusation, and everyone seems to be trying to get to the bottom of it, as more and more magic seems to be cropping up.

#book review #book reviews #manga #diana wynne jones #witch week #earwig and the witch #kase-san #kase-san and morning glories #in deeper waters #this wonderful season with you #lily to the rescue #w bruce cameron #girl friends #demon slayer #bad guys #queer lit #pride month #chatter

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weareallstoriesintheend · 4 years ago

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His Girl (Reader x Clyde Logan)

You're excited to go on another date with Clyde but you are anxious about not knowing where you stand with him. When you arrive at the bar you see something that confirms your worst fears.

Note: This is a part 3 for the Safe & Sound series I wrote for @ladyinwriting18 ….. Enjoy! 🥰

Warnings: Angst/Comfort

Words: 2,630

You snuffled and whined softly as you woke up, gentle sunlight cut the room and you snuggled into your warm covers. You felt him, flesh hand tight against your stomach pulling you into him and you smiled. Another morning waking up with Clyde.

You rolled over in his arms, opened your eyes to peek up at his sweet sleeping face. He always looked so peaceful right before he woke up; you placed a gentle kiss to his chest before trying to gently shuffle back out of bed without waking him. He stirred slightly, strong arm crushing around your waist forcing a giggle out of you.

“I know what that kiss means” he mumbled groggily, eyes still tightly shut.

You laughed and kissed his cheek this time “I have to go to work” you whispered, placing kisses down his cheek to his neck. You inhaled deeply, the comfy smell of sleep hung around him and remnants of his intoxicating cologne made you second guess getting out of bed. You closed your eyes for just a second before sucking lightly on his earlobe. “See now that’s all the more reason for you to stay in bed” he grumbled, hugging you closer so you were basically on top of him.

You wriggled, giggling like a child, and freed yourself from his grasp whilst he grumbled away to himself, still half asleep. You got up and walked around the bed, leaning over him with the t-shirt you’d borrowed hanging forward, before placing a kiss to his forehead and smoothing his wild hair back out of his face. You couldn’t help but take a second to admire the slightly ridiculous image of this big bear of a man wrapped up tightly in your flowery bedsheets, ruffled dark hair contrasted against the bright white pillows. You smiled to yourself, heart beating just a little bit harder.

“I’ll see you tonight” you whispered.

You arrived at the bar a little earlier than you had said you would, the excitement for dinner with Clyde taking over you a little. This would technically your… 8th actual date…. you think. You rolled your eyes to yourself as you pulled in the parking lot of the Duck Tape, you had never been this sappy over a guy. Not sappy enough to remember whether it was the 8thdate or not at least. Clyde had you hook, line and sinker but you just weren’t sure if he felt the same.

Sure you hung out and spent more time at the bar than you ever used to. You went on dates and he stayed over. Sometimes you fucked but sometimes he just stayed for staying sake. But he never said anything about what this was, about how he felt about you. It was like you’d gone from courting to basically married overnight, skipping a whole bunch of steps, and it made you very nervous. You hadn’t talked about it, you were just going about your lives and although things felt simple enough the little voice in the back of your mind told you “He hasn’t called you his girlfriend yet. He hasn’t said you’re even dating yet. Stupid girl!”

Stupid you may be but were you his stupid girl? Every time you thought about it anxiety crept up inside your chest so you pushed it away in a strong effort not to push him away too. You didn’t really like the thought of a life without Clyde any more.

As you entered the bar you already had a smile on your face, it was packed full tonight. People milling about, loud music and it was hot. Sweltering hot! But you didn’t mind waiting; you just hoped you didn’t sweat your make-up off before Clyde had a proper chance to look at you. You’d prettied yourself up for him as usual. You rejoiced in his reactions every time; his shy smiles, the little pats to the butt he’d give you when he liked your jeans, the way he’d stutter at just a glimpse of the new lingerie you’d bought. He wasn’t behind the bar as you walked in, which was odd. You scanned the room, waving to a few people who caught your eye before you saw him sat down in one of the corners. You lit up like a Christmas tree, he wasn’t looking at you but the smile that broke out across your face told everyone exactly why you were here. That was until you’d dodged around a few people to get a closer. He wasn’t just sat down; he was sat down talking to someone. A female someone to be specific. You weren’t the jealous type, never have been and professed to never wanting to become that. Yet when you saw him smiling at her it made your skin prickle with something unexplained – he never smiles at anyone. You decided to stay back, since he hadn’t seen you, to see what happened next. The pit in your stomach grew larger and your chest tightened every time he so much as tilted closer in her direction. This just confirmed for you what you had been worried about, that stupid little feeling at the back of your mind had been right. He wasn’t in this as much as you. He was all sweet words and kind gestures but you weren’t worth being in a relationship with. You were fun but not fun enough. Pretty but not pretty enough. Dread swirled around you like wind and you felt rooted to the spot, cursed to watch the man you were convinced you were falling in love with fawn over another woman. Someone loudly called your name and you jolted, looking up you saw Jimmy walking towards you wiping his hands on his jeans on his way out of the mens bathroom. You had heard him and unfortunately so had Clyde. He followed Jimmys eyeline and saw you, his face went from bright and smiling to dropping into a frown when he saw your face. Although you were trying to hide it you were clearly wearing how much you were hurt all over it. He went to stand but you turned on your heel and took off towards the door behind you.

You could feel your eyes stinging as you frantically pushed the door open, stumbling slightly as your heels hit the gravel of the parking lot. You could hear Clyde calling your name but you kept walking.

“Where you goin’? You don’t wanna go to dinner no more?” he shouted after you, his voice suddenly a lot louder in the quiet of the night. “No Clyde, its fine” you snuffled, treating to blink away the tears that threatened to streak your make up. You jostled in your bag for your keys; you dropped it slightly but caught it awkwardly in your arms swearing loudly to yourself. You were rushing to get away and could feel emotion clogging up your throat.

Suddenly Clyde’s voice was a lot closer and you spun round in shock, he was staring at you with his face drawn down in confusion. Then he saw your eyes bubbling with tears and his face grew more concerned, he reached for you with his flesh hand and you instinctively shrugged your shoulder back.

“Did I do something darlin’?” he asked.

“Oh I don’t know Clyde did you?” you retorted, voice harsh but not angry. You couldn’t exactly blame him; the girl in there was beautiful. Far more beautiful than anything you saw in the mirror. And Clyde was… well Clyde! He was handsome and his big, broad body made you feel safe whenever he wrapped his arms around you. He was funny, even when he didn’t mean to be, and charming as all hell. You liked taking care of him, cooking his breakfasts and rinsing beer stains out of his shirts. Not because you thought it was your ‘duty’ but because you liked how he would reward you with a soft kiss and a pouty thank you. He also had this delicious ability to turn on a dime making your legs turn to jelly and give way from underneath you as he kissed your neck or smoothed his huge hands up your curves. You thought he needed you. You could spend hours boring someone with everything you loved about Clyde but you didn’t deserve all that but you would bet money she does - all pretty hair and long thin legs.

“I- I don’t know” he said, confused. He reached out to touch you again and you stopped him “Please don’t” you whispered, voice thick with emotion.

He whispered your name “But why? Tell me what I did darlin’, please”

“Listen I know I have no claim over you Clyde. You’re not mine I know that! But flirting with some girl in front of everyone when they ALL know we’ve been seeing each other or whatever. See other people Clyde! That’s fine by me, but did you have to make me look like an idiot in the process?”

“Sweetheart I don’t know-“

“- Because I got all dressed up and they know it’s for you cause who else am I seeing? No-one! So I come here all bright and shiny for you and you’re all happy with some other girl. God I feel so stupid!”

Clyde stammered slightly, taking his hands in and out of his pockets nervously, but he didn’t finish a sentence. You automatically assumed this was because he had something to own up for, mind reeling with the possibility that you’d been taken for a fool.

“Like I said I don’t own you. So if you want to go date this girl I’m not going to hold it against you but I thought… ” You took a deep breath in to still yourself, realising you’d been rambling at the top of your voice. “… I’ll see you later Clyde”

“But you’re my girl” he said in a voice so soft you barely heard him. You had started to walk away, back turned, the wind carrying his voice away from you.

“Excuse me?” you asked pausing in your step but not turning around. You knew if you looked at him right now you would burst into tears and you were determined to have more dignity than that.

“You’re my girl, why would I be flirting with someone?” his voice was confused and mumbled, like he was talking more to himself than you.

“I’m not blind Clyde I saw you – “

“-OH! You mean Chelsea?” he interrupted you loudly.

“Chelsea? Sure. I don’t care what her name is Clyde” you huffed getting exasperated at how clueless he was being. You turned around at this point to see him staring at you but not with the expression you were expecting.

“Chelsea is Ricks little sister” he said with a wide satisfied smile, like it was supposed to mean something. You just shrugged, an agitated look painting your face. All you wanted to do was leave; going home and crying into some ice cream right now sounded much better than freezing to death whilst trying not to cry in the Duck Tape parking lot.

Then he started laughing, like full on laughing. Now your shame was turning to anger.

“You know what Clyde Logan? Fuck you!” you turned away from him again and started walking towards your car jingling your keys anxiously in your hands. His footsteps were heavy on the gravel as he followed you.

“It’s just Chelsea! I wasn’t flirtin’ with Chelsea! Why would I do something like that? You’re being silly darlin’, please!” He shouted after you, he said your name and you heard his footsteps stop.

“Just leave me alone Clyde!” you yelled over your shoulder, voice breaking at his name.

“Are we not dating no more?” he asked, voice small and hurt like a child who had just been told they couldn’t go to Disneyland. When you looked at him again he almost looked panicked, with his hands twitching anxiously by his sides and eyes wide.

“No more?” you asked incredulously, “Honestly at this point I think I was crazy for thinking we were in the first place”

“But you’re my girl!” he replied a little louder, his lips were drawn down in a strong pout and his eyes were deeply sad. You stammered before taking a deep breath, studying his face and realising his genuine hurt.

“I am?” you asked. Then it hit you, you were his girl. The tears sprung back up in your eyes and you sniffed pathetically. This time you didn’t back away as he walked towards you.

“Yes. I just sort of… assumed you knew” he chuckled slightly, sniffing back his own tears.

“Well I did too. But I guess seeing you with her… I just doubted that I was…”

“What?” he pushed.

“Good enough for you” you muttered beneath your breath. He tsk’d through his teeth and reached out for you, dragging you face first into his hard chest.

“You are more than good enough for me. No dim-witted Logan deserves a girl like you” he said, words muffled as he placed kisses to the top of your head.

“Shut your mouth! That’s not true” you slapped his back in protest and he laughed at your volume of your anger being dampened by his shirt.

He leant back and took your face in both his hands, the cold metal of his prosthetic making you twitch slightly “You are my girl. Chelsea is Ricks younger sister, I used to go to high school with him and I ain’t seen her in years. She stopped by on her way through town is all. YOU are my girl.”

You looked up at him with apologetic pleading eyes, now you had a new anxiety sitting in your chest. You’d presumed he was a bad guy, your sweet soft Clyde could never be that but you’d jumped to conclusions.

“I’m embarrassed” you whispered. He kissed your nose and shook his head before saying “Ain’t nothing to be embarrassed about sweetheart. We should have talked, I should have told you a lot sooner that you’re mine, made it clear for you, ya know? You are mine.”

He leaned down and his full lips began leaving gentle pecks to your slightly quivering ones as you sighed contentedly. The thought of never having this again had made you sick to your stomach. You grasped his blue shirt in your fists pulling him closer. You needed to feel him, make sure that you were hearing him correctly. He deepened the kiss with a smile playing on his lips before pulling back ever so slightly and whispering “You got that?”

You nodded and smiled weakly “Can we go to dinner now? All that misplaced rage really worked up an appetite”

Clyde laughed “Let me go tell the guys I’m leaving early, Jimmy can close up for me. Get in the car and warm your cute little butt up, far too cold out here for someone as scantily dressed as you” You blushed as he roamed his eyes down your figure, “You like it?” you asked shyly playing with the hem of your dress.

Clyde smirked, looking around for anyone else lurking in the parking lot before saying in a low voice “Listen darlin’ if you don’t get your butt up in that car we may not make it to dinner at all”

You giggled and pushed him back towards the bar entrance. You fumbled with your keys and slipped yourself into the driver’s seat slamming the door behind you. Resting your head against the cold leather of the wheel you let out a tired sigh.

Clyde was yours, all yours, and you promised yourself you would never doubt that again.

#clyde logan #logan lucky #clyde logan x reader #clyde logan x you #adcu #Safe & Sound #Safe & Sound Series

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cristalconnors · 4 years ago

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TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020

20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER

“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”

It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet.

19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT

“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”

“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow?

18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA

“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”

Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.

17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS

“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”

“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career.

16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA

“Hannah do no harm...”

While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”

15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE

“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”

When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward.

14. “3AM”- HAIM

“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”

On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.

13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM

“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”

I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.

12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA

“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”

Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”

11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA

“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”

Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it.

10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC

“I think about you all the time...”

Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:

When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?

9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS

“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”

“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.

8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS

“Can you just find him for me?”

Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine?

7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS

“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”

Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either.

6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA

“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”

Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too.

5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY

“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”

As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”

4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX

“I only threw this party for you...”

As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?

3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION

“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”

Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world?

2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR

“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”

If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay.

1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE

“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”

We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want.

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the-firebird69 · 1 year ago

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KTM X-BOW GT-XR – A CAR LIKE NO OTHER | KTM

youtube

I knew about this and I had an opportunity to understand it is what bja said and he's been making these and also he was horrified and you said I sort of know where they're going and our friend says where giant territory, and yeah how'd you guess good where else is it going to go and he's a little bit upset and they went looking for him this morning and yeah this is my arrow T-Rex design turned into a car and the two helped they never see a dime and they never see the design and they never see the car for those part she did but it's the Max doing a number and it's there car they say and they're doing operations all over the world using ktm's cover now I've seen a lot of assholes in my life but this is some a****** stuff and it's a problem and they called phasthma.

So the max are like little babies that have an angry ass yelling at us and we find out about phasma and they are practically not wearing clothes I have to kind of sod I guess and really what kind of selling it but really what's true is we're going to have to go after these cars and he has trouble telling who they are too I'm tall and baby they make a mistake all the time that's true and a lot of us they can't tell she looks like a Mac and we understand it they said they were dead and stuff and here they come so we have to go to North Carolina I'm sure Billie eilish is not a Mac she's got a huge mouth it's gigantic and what we're wearing is so close to me a****** that's definitely. Well I'm going to go up there and check it out apparently they're going to Australia and other places where KTM is Christ safe this is terrible I guess these guys have been fighting them for a while you're saying some real stupid s*** to him it sounds familiar so I have to get to this you think they're saying it through us and getting us going you should hear it it's amazing they're like little kids

Taylor Swift says

No one out of this crap with his jackasses and so arrogant and their faces right at you using other people ridiculous it's actually will and bill to do that. So you're saying that you people do that is stick your kiss around and we're going to punch it and that's the max and boy they sound like juveniles unbelievable you should see what they're saying and they are having it said and my gosh "so you're going to lose"

Hera

We heard this too who the hell is he and then another one of them I don't know it could be huge and we would know it and said what are you people doing and he said we're being massively arrogant if it's okay with you and I said this you don't know if they're up on Saturday either do you and they're like I'm in say they are and we have some job to do and I heard these are the Chipmunks and I said yeah that's them and Paris Hilton is a Mac that Michelle used to pretend she was took a roll over and her clan and the max couldn't handle it anymore and went after them and they were a little bit too snooty but they didn't know what the status was he says no they knew just didn't know the power level of the max and the max probably got beat the hell for a little there and then the recovered and when I say is there a slaughtering these masks they were hitting them and army them with AI all such a s*** and they're harassing the crap out of his brother and it's a huge problem because his brother was not involved much at all and you had to make a program he just let your people go hog wild on him they're a bunch of juvenile delinquents like we are now it's clean I can say something you're a bunch of s*** you went around saying stuff all day long you b******. He says be careful it's going to be knives out it's like talking to insane housewives. Somehow and the Giants know it and the guys that's who they are and they're wondering why you're so stupid all the time we have a critical problem and they said it's about to go around and I said so what we might have to the computer doesn't care about gravity and they're starting to wonder what they're doing and this computer might be out of control it might not even be Dave and Carol it might be just the computer is out of control cuz they're telling people not to let it happen and you're stupid after it happens you don't even notice it and he's saying it all the time and so the two Big fellas okay so they know about it and what it can do we don't seem to know

Taylor Swift

And our son my son that is is making a joke and they're laughing it's the two big guys cuz he's seeing I'll be there and used to love the song it's like the four seasons or something and then he says I don't think so because I can't because nobody listens to him with them I'm going to go down thinking where the balls just like this imbecile Billy Hicks AKA Trump the big ass that's going to be us I already is I think these Max are doing it he says give him a break they've got nitrogen narcosis in an old ladies and this is terrible they're probably knarcked out

Camilla

You notice Ken was saying it too he's not massively confident in this neither of these two and they're saying they were stupid as a piece of pie it's half eaten and we got to get the hell out of the way I'm sitting there in the mental hospital not doing s*** and Shaquille O'Neal picks it up and starts to whoop the max cuz they're so stupid I got to tell you something these guys are in pain and my grandson says I might have to do something and he's got some stuff that might come out because this brother of his it is driven to it it's going to be awful I went out of this and we have to organize teams to think about it it's just running around like we're retarded

Biden

Olympus

#Youtube

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twink-frank · 4 years ago

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hi i’ve noticed the pencey prep gay conversation going on over on @awsugar and i have spent lots of time dissecting pencey prep lyrics and subjecting nathan @faggot-frank to my deranged ramblings so Here is my pencey prep super ultra mega gay lyrical analysis masterpost. it’s very long so its all under the cut but i will include a TL;DR for those who dont wanna read paragraphs of my deranged ramblings: Pencey prep uses lots of themes of: heartbreak, forbidden love, keeping love a secret, and toxic relationships. which none of that is gay on its own but combined with them almost never using gender indicators in their songs and the “nail in the coffin song” of 8th grade it ends up being a very Fruity Album.

I will be going through heart break in stereo in order and pointing out which lyrics and elements of certain songs jump out to me as Super Mega Gay and then summarizing my conclusions at the end <3

1 ) PS Don't Write

PS don't write is about leaving a toxic relationship, it has notes of moving on and leaving someone behind. "packed up all my shit / stole back all my tapes / left your spare key under the mat / this is not a joke / you'd better learn to take a hint / 'cause i'm not coming back / maybe you'll understand / when you're waking up alone / in a cold and empty bed." it has no gender indicators or pronouns which is the case in a lot of pencey prep songs, and something i'll bring up quite a bit. it also has general "coming of age" themes, something common in lots of pencey prep songs. which Yeah apply to straight people to but read in this context combined with future evidence can be pretty Fuckin Gay. "somewhere along the line / i found a hidden strength / i didn't know i had / standing on my own / cutting all the strings / that you used to control / surprise surprise / i am long gone / if you thought you could hold me down / by holding me up / you were wrong / you don't call the shots anymore." not to say only gay people can find inner strength and the room to love themselves but combined with other context it is a really poignant message about accepting yourself for who you are.

2) Yesterday

Yesterday is very repetitive and has a lot less to analyze, but the constant themes of wanting to "run away" strike me as very Fruity. once again, not saying gay people are the only people who can want to run away or escape from something But Combined With Other Context. and once again a song with no gender indicators, doesnt specify who the speaker is running away with or what they are running away from. just that they want to Leave. "i wanna run with you / i don't care what we do / gotta get out of this place / because it feels like yesterday." also saying "it feels like yesterday" could mean that the town feels backwards or old timey in its beliefs, implying homophobia. how the speaker wants to run away from an old fashioned town.

3) Don Quixote

i'm going to bring up the cultural significance of this title and literary reference first. Don Quixote is a classical novel by Cervantes which is about a crazy dude who thinks he's a knight, and goes on weird adventures with his best friend. It's typically used as a symbol of following your dreams and breaking free from what people expect of you. In the context of the song its used as a symbol of following your dreams with Someone. once again this someone is given no gender indicators. "you say it's not worth it / been burned too many times / if your spine's receding / you can borrow some of mine / don't go and quit right now / cause i'd follow you through hell." "you say so many things / and not a word of it was true / if you're still in that state of mind / i'd still vacation inside of you / cause i think you're worth every minute / and every dime that i spend / i'd spend all my time fighting dragons / just to keep you alive and talking." it's about wanting to spend time with someone, wanting to be with them no matter what. and its also about how this person feels unreachable, like being with them would be a fairytail but the speaker Still Reaches for it. "your imaginations running wild / round your deceptive heart / this is my crusade / and you're the unreachable star / but i'm reaching." talking about this person being unreachable and unattainble. which isnt gay By Itself but again combined with the other context. FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

4) 10 Rings

another breakup song once again with no gender indicators, are you guys sensing a theme here? anyways this song is about someone cutting you off and then coming back suddenly wanting to talk again after breaking your heart. it has a sense of forbidden love, like this person Told the speaker they cant be together for Whatever Reason ;] and is now trying to come back and repair their mistake when the speaker is already hurt and reeling. "learn to live with decisions you make / i learned things from the break i can't forget / catch you doing drive-bys at 1 AM / it must kill you to know we can't be friends." "end of the summer you cut me off / i cut you out all the pictures i have." which this Isnt Gay By Itself. but bringing that phrase back with other context this is such a uniquely gay experience. being in love with someone and they cut you off Because theyre weirded out by that and then they try to come back, convince you it meant nothing.

5) The Secret Goldfish

my FAVORITE pencey song. this one has a lot. it's another breakup song about heartbreak and loss and im not even gonna dwell on the no gender indicators because yall see the theme now. it has themes of heartbreak and losing someone who is very close to you and having to let go of them and having to accept that this person cant be yours and you cant be with them. "land of the lost / i found myself in nothing / this time, promises broken find me / clutching to you for something / something that you're not / believing in what you say / it makes me lie awake at night / the truth, the truth is not what scares me / it's why you have to lie / all the time." here we see these themes of having to let someone go because they just Aren't The Same as you. "clutching to you for something / something that you're not." maybe like chasing after a straight boy and getting rejected? also the repetition of "heartbreak is forever" when you're young and gay losing that first person you felt some kind of love and attraction to can feel like the end of the world and can be a huge deal because of the lack of representation and guidance young gays get. and the themes of nothing lasting forever, the fact that gay people never get promised eternal love the same way straight people do.

6) 8th Grade

this song is the nail in penceys fucking coffin honestly. the rest of these songs have a lot of plausible deniability, just vague enough to maybe Not Be Gay. but framed in the context of 8th grade they all start to get a lil fruity. Im just gonna go through lyric by lyric for this one. "caught staring again / like a deer in the headlights / when you can't move fast enough / i take a hit for the team / pretty girl is blushing / i can't tell if she's disgusted / laughter starts to swell / someone gets the joke." this kid was staring at some cute boy ass and got caught and everyone is laughing at him for being gay. the "pretty girl" here is what most people think he's staring at but with the rest of the song it's obvious she's not the one he's looking at. "bells ring, i make my escape / helps a little, but doesn't save / beat downs a common thing / with us every day / maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools / so maybe i like the abuse / or maybe i just like you." literally This is the nail in penceys fucking coffin. "maybe i like the abuse or maybe i just like you." this kid purposefully takes beatings from his bully who is Obviously male if you take into context the next verse. because he Likes Him. "maybe im just strange / cause i dont change schools" literally willingly taking beatings from his bully bc he has a crush. "another confrontation / you've got something to prove / your girl can't tell how tough you are / when you beat me up in the boys room." this just confirms that the subject of the song is a boy, and a tough macho boy with something to prove. maybe also hiding his own internalized homophobia through bullying? "well i made a big mistake / but i can't help who i like / this may not cost my life / but i am branded forever lame." LITERALLY ITS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE. "can't help who i like" "branded forever lame" do i even need to fucking explain this oh my god. he got outed as gay, he Can't Help Who He Likes and is now branded forever as "the gay kid." the rest of the song is general "im gonna get back at my bully" stuff but literally THIS. THIS is the song that brands all penceys other very vague songs as 100% verified super mega ultra gay.

7) 19

this song has a lot less, and is more about internal struggle than anything. but it is the only song with a "she" pronoun in it. but there is one thing i wanna mention. "I scream out loud / but no one hears a sound / i take my life with lack of sleep / i believe the things i feel / the things i see are fooling only me." this song is about not believing what the world shows you, believing what you think is true in your heart and what You feel. not what anyone else tells you. which is a gay experience. believing in yourself and your heart and your feelings, believing theyre right and theyre true and valid. Also this song has a significance in coming right after 8th grade on the album, going from being 13 to 19, from being unsure in your feelings and angry about the people who dont like you to lost and hopeless but somewhat grounded in yourself.

8) Trying To Escape The Inevitable

this song is about an abusive and toxic relationship, knowing you Need to escape it but being so infatuated with the person you literally cant. “i have this reoccurring dream / you make it hard for me to breathe / i gave you everything i could / i gave up everything i owned / and when you smile it’s not for me / you offer little sympathy / your grasp so far exceeds your reach / i wake up, this is not a dream.” “i have this reoccuring dream / where you admit that you’re not happy / i know that you will never leave / you’re here just to torment me.” which like again this isnt an exclusively gay experience but it is very interesting when framed that way. in that gay people are way more likely to throw themselves into abusive and toxic relationships because they dont feel like they can get anybody else. the repetition of “i know i should run” makes it seem like the speaker Knows he should get out but he just Cant because what if he never finds love again? and the little reprise in the middle “i have a new dream / and everything is perfect / the sky is pink, yellow, green, blue, and orange / and all the past has been forgotten / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and we fell in love / and i fell into your trap.” implying that even if he escapes, even in his dreams he still falls for this person because he feels like he cant have anything else.

9) Lloyd Dobbler

another love song about wanting to have someone but not being able to because of Unspecified Forbidden Reasons. “why are you so far away / even when you’re standing next to me? / your eyes give you away / telling secrets your mouht don’t feel like talking.” falling in love with someone, maybe sensing that they like you too. that they Are Like You and that they have a Secret they dont want to vocalize. do i even need to explain it at this point? and in the chorus “That I’ll be your lloyd dobbler / with a boom box out in the street / and i’ll be there if you need someone / even if he isn’t me.” saying you’ll be there for someone even if that person isn’t you, also the use of Pronouns which is big for pencey prep. which yes the use of “even if he isnt me” could imply a straight girl ooorrr....Fruit Behavior. also this line “There’s a norman rockewll painting / of two kids sitting on a bench / it reminds me of all the stupid things / i’d like for us to share, but i dont care.” normal rockwell is a painter that paints traditionally “american” scenes. like the american ideal, that maybe he wants with this person. but he knows he cant have, but its stupid and domestic and he wants it but he Cant Have It because of FRUIT BEHAVIOR.

10) Florida Plates

another of my favorite pencey songs, and this one brings back those tragic “love but we cant have it” themes, except with a more somber tone. instead of being angry or resentful or spiteful in the face of adversity. its an Acceptance, of what they had and how good it was and how it just Cant Last. “kiss a mouth to open eyes / stall one last moment before goodbye / drive in different cars in different directions / never write all the letters full of good words, better intentions / it’s for the best although we don’t know it / paper words will cheapen the moments we shared / it’s better if i say nothing at all.” it’s about knowing you have to leave someone, even if having them in the moment is great they Can’t Stay and you can’t even talk or write about the moments you had. which do i even need to explain it at this point? forbidden love, not being able to have each other, not even being able to Talk about it. its a secret, and painful one but its beautiful while you have it. Conclusion alright!!! thank you so so much if you read all the way through that i Know it was long i Know it was a lot of repetition but i wanted to make my point. pencey prep has very big gay themes in their music. with forbidden love, letting go, heartbreak, keeping secrets, toxic realtionships. which none of it is gay on its own but in the context of: almost none of the songs having clear gender indicators and always speaking really vaguely about the subject and Eight Grade the “nail in the coffin song” you can see my point thank you and goodnight.

#adrian speaks #mcr #pencey prep #frank iero

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doorsclosingslowly · 3 years ago

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They've Made of Our Bodies a Bleeding Stair

Jesper and Kaz try to retrieve Inej from Ketterdam without being recognized and murdered—and without Kaz getting ransomed back to Ravka as the the wayward Sun Summoner.

11k | Sun Summoner Kaz AU pt. 2 | Jesper/Kaz, Inej, past Kaz/Darkling content note: non-linear narrative, explicit sex, roleplay of past rape

“I want you to be him.”

“Of course,” Jesper replies. Then, articulately, once his brain’s caught up, “Uh. What?”

“The Darkling.” Kaz has turned his face away. He’s looking at the ramshackle marriage bed that takes up the bulk of this room he’s lured Jesper into. He unerringly picked the right closed door, too; he skipped the squeaky floorboards, as if he knew the exact layout of this—but it’s Kaz. He knows everything, even some dilapidated house in the Kerch countryside. The bed was probably a masterpiece of craftsmanship, when it was carved from some dark wood, a thousand years ago or whatever. The way it looks, it must’ve been old already when the previous owners of this farmhouse got it, and from the state of the house, they abandoned this place decades ago. Quite a lot of the furniture’s missing, either sold off when the place was left or stolen afterwards, but that bed was too worthless already.

The mattress is still there too. Probably fucking teeming with moth larvae and maggots and their combined accumulated shit, so it doesn’t bode too well for Jesper, how forcefully Kaz is staring at it.

“Please say it doesn’t involve the bed.”

“You said yes,” Kaz rasps, which is all the information Jesper needs to start gagging. Fake-gagging, for now, but if he sees even one wriggly little worm he’ll…

Bed. Darkling. That still doesn’t really… Want you to be him—oh—

“Yes, Jesper.” And how the hell with his ramrod tense back still turned towards Jesper—Jesper, who’s done nothing at all, hasn’t said anything except to register his displeasure at the idea of bathing in insect faeces and their squirming little manufacturers!—how the hell Kaz has realized that Jesper’s figured out what he probably means—it must be a confidence trick. Kaz likes those. But how—yeah, it’s not the point, but trying to understand whatever magic Kaz is using on him right now is much, much better for Jesper’s sanity than dwelling on the fact that Kaz might just have insinuated that he wants Jesper to pretend to be the Darkling, specifically the Darkling from that time he told Jesper about back in the Little Palace, the time he threw up after. The time he thought he could suppress his discomfort with touch long enough to seduce the Darkling into a partnership—seduce seduce, which means he wants—to flirt with Jesper? To sleep with Jesper? Is he actually saying he—

Oh. There’s a cracked mirror on the wall above the bed. That’s how Kaz saw his face.

Jesper would chalk the hallucination up to a hangover, but he’s not even drunk. Neither is Kaz, unless this old ruin of a farmhouse they broke into this morning is hiding barrels of wine the local youth haven’t made off with yet. Also, if he was hallucinating Kaz propositioning him he would—well, Jesper at least hopes he’d have enough self-respect not to make himself a stand-in for the man who bought and imprisoned Kaz for two years, controlled him by using his fears and modifying his body and cutting him off from every other person in the whole court, taking every single object he could have used to protect himself, and whatever those weird spines in Kaz’ chest are he’s probably responsible for them too. Jesper would not, actually, like the first and probably only time he’s allowed to kiss Kaz to be some kind of revenge-by-proxy thing where he recites the Darkling’s lines while Kaz swallows back bile, and then Kaz beats him up. Or murders him. It’s pathetic, but Jesper always imagined that kiss a little sweeter. Kissing over Haskell’s corpse. Kissing over the Darkling’s corpse. Kissing over the corpse of some other piece of shit who’s stupid enough to try using Kaz as their possession.

“Just warning you, I don’t have the costume or the script, so don’t expect something worthy of the Komedie Brute,” is what Jesper says instead.

Kaz’ eyebrow quirks. “You’re acted before, haven’t you? Improvised. You can flirt your way into anything. That was the main reason I kept you around.”

“You kept me around because I’m gorgeous, funny, and an incredible shot. I just play myself, if it’s seduction! Why would I improve upon perfection?”

“This isn’t seduction. He’s already locked me in the Little Palace for months at this point. Two escape attempts have failed. This is… speeding up the process,” Kaz says, nonchalantly enough it makes Jesper want to puke.

Which won’t help anything. He’s already agreed. And Kaz doesn’t care about moral objections, only practical ones. “I need more info. I haven’t actually met the Darkling.”

“You’ve met powerful men. You’ve met men who believe their righteous cause entitles them. You’ve met men mired in greed and vengeance—you’ve met me.”

“I like you.”

“Pretend you don’t, then. You used to complain about me in the Slat—of course I know, I knew everything that went on in the Dregs. You hated the way I seemed to know everything, and held it over you—so does he. You disliked my single-minded focus, the way you all seemed like pawns to me, my mockery. The way I held myself as something far superior to you. That’s a start.” Kaz limps a slow quarter circle around Jesper, and his dark eyes are burning with loathing. Jesper would hold him if he could. “You’re not asking why?”

“Uh, now that you mention—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jesper sighs. Of course. He’s never expected anything else. Then he stands up straight, assuming his best the stick in my ass is so long it’s knocked the word fun from my brain pose that hopefully may pass for authoritative and slimes out, “What business, Mr Brekker?”

“Sun Summoner. Or Sunshine. He figured out Brekker’s a fake name on the first day.”

“Kaz Brekker’s a fake name?!” Jesper should have seen that coming, really… what does he even know about Kaz Brekker, truly? Except—

“It’s a name. It’s real enough. It’s feared. It’s mine.” Kaz’s eyes travel over the cobwebbed wall of the farmhouse bedroom, as if he was searching for the next lie to spin. Except that isn’t one of Kaz’ tells—Jesper’s seen him bamboozle and convince marks of the most stupid tales, and when Kaz wants them to believe him, he looks earnest. Young, depending on the role he plays, old, eager, stupid or wise. He doesn’t bother lying to Dregs, or rather: he doesn’t bother convincing them, usually. All his words are backed by the brutality of his cane. Who could be stupid enough to question even his weirdest utterances. “It just happens not to be one I was born with.”

“So what you’re saying is, the Darkling’s just not Kerch enough to get you?” Jesper grins. “Ketterdam, really—you know, I always really liked that about the Barrel, that healthy dose of ‘You are who you want and we don’t give a fuck to correct you.’ Anyway. Got it. You’re Kaz Brekker, but he’s a dick. Mr Sunbeam, what brings you into my office this evening?”

“The fete, Aleks.” Kaz shrugs off his coat, and then the purple kefta, too. He holds out the kefta in front of him, like he’s expecting Jesper to put it on. Well. That’s as good a start as any, and so Jesper turns and lets Kaz dress him into the robe he never wanted to wear.

“Then he says, ‘You must be nervous. After all, there are few gatherings in the Ketterdam slums that involve such spectacle.’” Kaz has sanded down his rasp somewhat, sounding almost smooth and seductive. He goes into a spiel of the Ravkan court and the inferiority of the Barrel that thankfully, he carries all by himself. Jesper wouldn’t even know what to say, except ‘Stop talking shit about the Barrel, you prick’ and that’s not exactly in character.

Kaz’ eyes periodically dart down to Jesper’s hands, and he realizes he’s fidgeting with the hem of the kefta’s sleeves. He stops.

“I am ready,” Kas says in his normal voice. His normal talking to a mark voice. “I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.” He stands up straight. Equally on both his legs. He winces. He’s not holding his cane, Jesper realizes. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.”

“Uh… great. We’ll be great together. Do great things. Better partners than enemies. Some of those rumours even freaked me out, you know—that kid with the wind-up toy in his throat—”

“Think before you speak, Jesper,” Kaz hisses. “Never let me lead. Never give me control. Every word is a cue to corral your prey where you want it—whether a compliment or a barely-there hidden threat.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” Kaz meets Jesper’s eyes. The tense mask of his face breaks into a smirk. “To be honest, I find the subtle craft of manipulation is wasted on you. You’ll obey anyway. Let’s go back to the start, and focus.”

Jesper shrugs off the kefta again and then lets Kaz dress him, again. He does his best imitation of Kaz, of that early Kaz before Jesper learned how he takes his coffee and before he saw the brutal twist of his face, that one time when the Dime Lions had Jesper on his knees and shoved a gun in his mouth. He plays the imperious tactician in his office who told his goons to drag Jesper up four flights of stairs with a bag over his head, ready to be shot for his debts, and then sold him on the one thing that gave his life meaning.

He insults Dirtyhands’ father and mother to his face, and gets really into it, too: Ketterdam’s full of idiots who’d miss the love of their life because they were busy trying to pry cobblestones off the streets to sell for half a sausage, and the harbour’s so filthy even the fish won’t fuck in it—keeping the brothels in good fish-ness, haha. Because the fish rent rooms so they don’t get fishy sex diseases from the water. Do fish get diseases from sex?

“Kill me now,” Kaz moans, and that one’s probably deserved.

“Anyway, my Sun Summoner, I’m sure you’ll perform well,” Jesper says with just the tiniest hint of slime.

“I am ready. I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.”

Jesper moves slowly, idly: not caging him in against the bed yet but definitely implying he can and will.

“I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.” Kaz swallows. “‘That means a lot to me. You mean a lot,’ is what you say now.”

How come the Darkling’s not constantly slipping on his own slimy slime trail?

“That means a lot to me.” Jesper gives Kaz a deep, smouldering look. The pockmarks on his cheeks. The jumping muscle in his jaw. The hint of a pained grimace from standing unaided. The boyish grin when he’s totally fucked over another gang boss and gets to gloat. The vicious hatred when someone touches his Crows. Licking powdered sugar off his gloves. “You mean a lot.”

And that’s it. The way Kaz looks at him—this is when the Darkling makes his move.

“I have been waiting for you for so long,” Jesper purrs smarmily, closing his eyes, moving in for the kiss, and—Kaz isn’t there anymore.

It was a single step backwards, because Kaz has hit the edge of the bed already, face blotched with humiliation, and the way he looks at Jesper is—angry is the least terrible interpretation. If he backs out now, Kaz is going to kill him for pitying him or catering to a weakness that honestly—how is not wanting this weak? But Kaz is Kaz, and Jesper’s just Jesper, and—

“Focus,” Kaz hisses. “You own Ravka. You will own the Sun, too. You have waited for this triumph—take it.”

“Why don’t we take this to the—” fuck you, Brekker, for making me say this— “bed, then? Take off your clothes. Don’t be scared.”

That’s a good dig. The kind of insult that looks super caring, unless you know Kaz enough to understand he sees any crack in his image as a dangerous failure. Jesper’s getting the hang of this malicious flirting thing, finally. When this is over, he’ll need to scrub the slime off himself twice.

Kaz looks at Jesper while he disrobes. At him, Jesper hopes against hope, at the real person he’s roped into his worst scheme yet with a goal that’s still totally obscure; at Jesper and not the asshole he’s imagining in his place. Kaz’ eyes trace his cheeks, dance over his shaved head, catch on the lips.

Jesper takes off his boots and gun belt, and the kefta. He undoes the fly of his trousers, pulls his dick out, and stops. He glares at Kaz, daring him to object to the attempt at making this slightly less miserable—Jesper’s the Darkling, he’s in charge, so Kaz can fuck off with his masochism. He’s done undressing. He’s not taking off his shirt or trousers. That layer of cloth stays on.

But Kaz doesn’t object. He stands up straight, naked, brittle, wincing, and then glancing away he mutters, “Ignore the antlers. He hadn’t done that yet.”

Fucking Darkling.

The antlers stick out of Kaz’ collarbones, uneven tines of—possession, mutilation, and Jesper’s eyes catch on a tiny set of grooves on the left one. The scabbed-over cuts underneath. The bruise from the gunshot. And even despite that horror, Kaz has a nice chest. Serious muscle, a street map of scars and a smattering of dark hairs—it feels weirdly improper to stare at him, so Jesper’s eyes dance down to his knobbly left knee and the softly twisted right thigh with its knots of scars, up to the face where he’s biting his harsh pretty mouth, and down again. His dick is nice, fat but not too long, rooted in a tangle of dark curls.

It’s utterly limp.

It’s pathetic, how much that hurts. Of course he isn’t into this. Of course he doesn’t find Jesper remotely attractive. Of course this is just some weird masochistic proxy powerplay for him, some attempt to prove he’s stronger now and can bear it or whatever the fuck, and Jesper’s just the sad stupid body he’s using to enact it.

And of course not even that is enough to make Jesper bow out. Kaz asked.

“Do you want me to suck you off first? Get you in the mood, even a little?” It’s not just for Kaz, that offer, though the whole thing will probably be less painful and awkward if he manages to coax out some arousal. It’s not for younger Jesper, who fantasized about being ordered to blow his boss as penance more often than he likes to admit. No, this is so Jesper can bury his face in Kaz’ pubic hair for a minute. And cry.

Kaz raises an eyebrow. He sounds arch and ice cold when he asks, “Jesper, do you think the Darkling would suck my dick?”

“He should have. Saints, what an asshole,” Jesper shoots back before he can think. “You need a better class of lovers.”

“By which you’re of course implying that you are much better than Aleksander Morozova, the General Kirigan, the Black Heretic, eternal Conqueror and crowned Emperor of Greater Ravka, Salvation to Grishadom, Master of the Fold and He who chained the Sun, et cetera and so fucking on and so fucking forth the Darkling himself?”

“Given I just offered you a blowjob without bringing useless power shit into it, yes.”

“Wrong data, incoherent formula. Correct answer.” Kaz’ grin is crooked. Inordinately fond, and Jesper would have settled for no longer desperately hiding terror but this is—

Yeah.

“I’m going to try to make this roleplay as realistic as I can, but I don’t know if I can forget enough about how to have sex to sink to the Darkling’s level. Also, you don’t happen to have the address of that Grisha Tailor who mutilated you back there? I need them to make my dick look weird. Corkscrew, maybe. Some warts. It’s probably green. I’d peg him for advanced neurological syphilis but I am about to sleep with you, so— ”

“Did you know, Jesper, that the Darkling always wears a gag when he has sex?”

“Shutting up now, boss.”

“Don’t shut up,” Kaz replies instantly. Very, very instantly. “Just keep your disparagements somewhat plausible. And… rare.”

Only to jolt me back, he’s asking. “Got it. So I guess I’m supposed to loom over you a little? How close do you want me?”

“I’ll need to—” Kaz turns around and bends over to root around in the pockets of his coat, and it’s even weirder, worse, looking at his ass when Jesper knows Kaz doesn’t like him back. Kaz tosses over a tiny bottle. Oil. “Give that to me. Tell me to prepare myself.”

“Just saying it once more, boss. You don’t have to go through with—”

“Stop thinking about the Kaz Brekker you know,” Kaz hisses. “Stop anticipating my reactions. Stop caring. You are the Darkling. You have been waiting for the Sun Summoner for decades. You’ve formed your picture of them. This delinquent flinching little rat you bought doesn’t quite fit, not his limp, not his fear of touch, not his pathetic need to assert himself, but, well… you have time. He’ll learn how to make himself fit into the space you provide him. He’ll become your Sun Summoner.”

“Have I told you yet that I’m going to kill that piece of shit?”

“You’ve mentioned it, once or twice. In the last hour.”

Jesper bares his teeth: a grin, but not. A promise. “Good. I’ll hold his mouth open while you stuff him full of black powder and set him on fire.”

“Stop stalling, Jesper. That won’t make it any easier.”

That won’t make it not have happened.

“If you’re sure this will help.”

Kaz nods.

“Lie down on the bed, then. Is there a—no, no pillows here, roll up the coat and slide it under your hips.” Jesper turns his face away, listening to the timid, stuttering squelches of Kaz stretching his asshole. Jesper doesn’t know what would be worse: if, after everything, he can’t get it up… or if he can.

Well. He’ll have to. His dick will just have to obey the dictates of the situation, just as Kaz’ body was made into the Sun Summoner. He’s young. He’s still looking at Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, naked, who asked Jesper to sleep with him, and that’ll have to be enough. They’ve gotten this far. They’ll force their way through. That’s how you do it. That’s how you gamble. How you lose big. Kaz might have once tried to explain to him something about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, but Jesper ignored him that night and lost a hundred and twenty kruge to Specht, and he’s never looked back.

“Okay, Mr Sunshine. Let’s consummate our fucking partnership,” he grinds out when Kaz has gone quiet, takes the bottle to slick up his own uncooperative dick, and carefully, he climbs on top of Kaz. The clothes were a good decision: Kaz barely flinches when he kneels in-between his legs and pulls the sleeve over his hand to carefully guide his right knee to rest on Jesper’s thigh.

Kaz is staring up at his face, breathing, just breathing. The antlers in his collarbone frame his bright face—brighter than the candles should allow, like maybe—and his focus is rigid and he’s breathing, breathing quickly—

“Is this teaching you anything yet?”

“Not really,” Kaz rasps, after too long. “Or—I think—maybe it was—” he glances at Jesper’s pathetic, unhappy limp dick. His face twists. “I thought you were into me.”

This is— “I love you. Kaz Brekker, whoever you are. I don’t give a fuck about this Sun Summoner bullshit. I love you. I love you,” because this is—Jesper can’t do this. He can’t. His elbows are locked: he can’t drop his body any lower. He can't go lower than this. “I love you,” until it’s finally over. “I love you. I love you.”

☼

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t know what he does Tuesday evenings,” Jesper hisses.

“You were still with the Dregs, three months ago!” Kaz is wiping his cane clean. It didn’t even really get dirty—they mostly used kitchen knives to do the deed, and in the case of a maidservant who unwisely came to work in the middle of the night, a bullet that Jesper’s already collected and reshaped into something functional, because he might not get to buy new ones. Desperation. Frugality. The Kerch are rubbing off on him. It’s good, though. The fact he’s cleaning the wood is all the confirmation Jesper will likely ever get that Kaz does like the new cane Jesper made him from a cute straight rowan sapling, reinforced with the metal scavenged from all but the most essential buttons on their hodgepodge of clothes. At least there’s one thing of Jesper’s he values. “How can you not know the behavioural patterns of your boss? Are you that brainless?”

“No-one knew what he was up to! He barely came by the Slat. He wasn’t that interested in us.”

“You worked for Per Haskell, Jesper; you worked for that man for years—for nearly as many as I did, when you ran off to Ravka—and now you attempt to convince me you barely know his name?” Kaz still doesn’t look quite as harsh as he used to, or maybe that’s just Jesper hankering for their past. Well, he didn’t used to explain his plans to Jesper as if he was an imbecile—but then, he didn’t used to need Jesper. He had more stooges back then. Now, he only has one. Ally. Friend.

If it’s as weird for him, though, as it is for Jesper being back in Ketterdam after he didn’t die on his revenge suicide plot and the city didn’t, either—well, he might still get murdered for stealing the Sun Summoner or skipping out on debts or something completely unrelated, and Ketterdam’s… well, she’s weathering having her ruling class torn apart twice in short order, once by the Darkling’s conquest and now, by the slow collapse of the Darkling’s overstretched realm after he’s lost his saint/weapon/doll.

The Barrel’s fine—as glary and miserable as it ever was, anyway, but though Kaz would probably insist most of the Mercher’s Council had their hands in gang business one way or the other, their reach was indirect, mediated and secretive enough for the chaos tearing up the Geldstraat not to trickle down as quickly into the slums. And anyway, the involvement of the merchers only ever made life worse for most people. The plight of the rich can only be a blessing.

Right now, they’re inside a nice place in the Zelver district. Close enough to power to feel the death throes, and even disregarding the political manoeuvring and debris and panic everywhere, just looking at the house from the outside made Kaz twitchy, somehow.

His energy almost matched Jesper’s trigger finger.

It’s Haskell’s house, so that unease makes sense.

Haskell’s expensive secret new house far outside the Barrel that they’re despoiling now. They looked as out of place in the beautiful Zelver district as any Barrel rats, with their heads shorn close to the bone so they’ll look different enough to not get recognized and faces wiped with dirt, dressed in a melange of Ravkan clothes they haven’t found a chance to replace yet and tawdry Barrel flash for everything else.

Kaz was wearing two coats when he entered the house, an old rose and amber paisley trench that even Jesper admitted is hideous, though now it’s splattered with blood that actually really ties the colour scheme together. Still gross though, and luckily slung over the chair. Along with the purple kefta Kaz hid underneath, the one he still hasn’t given back. Or burned, which is what they did to the other Ravkan overcoats. On the streets his two coats bulked up his frame so much he looked like a kid that Jesper’s never met, dressed up to play a gangster’s role. He looked nothing like the Sun Summoner anymore, and only somewhat like Jesper’s imagined baby Dirtyhands crawling out straight from the harbour, fifty kilos sopping wet and ready to kill a man and feast on his entrails.

Now, he’s stripped down to a ruffled red shirt over a green undershirt—he conspicuously shunned the yellow one next to it on the washing line—and light blue pinstripe trousers. The shirt is a little large in the shoulders, and he’s cuffed the trousers. They stole everything from a cottage on the edge of Ketterdam. Not quite Barrel flash, but almost—alike in style but with better fabric, something a town edge kid probably bought to look like a cool gangster. Or something Jesper would have bought to look special for a very special date. If he squints, he can almost imagine—it’s the morning after, and—

Ever since the Little Palace the idea of Kaz naked has totally lost its lustre. The idea of his muscular but scrawny, scarred chest, his wiry tattooed arms, his ambiguously demonic hands—it’s all overlaid now with a flimsy ugly sleeveless yellow paper taffeta gown. With normal hands, kept bare as humiliation.

But maybe—maybe they sat together, not on a log in a forest but on a sofa this time, and then in the morning Kaz was cold and he stole all of Jesper’s clothes to wear over his own. That’s much better. (Maybe he just wanted Jesper naked all day…)

Jesper won’t let the Darkling steal his fantasies, too. They’re—

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Jesper really shouldn’t have added tiny spiky worms to the side of the cane, but Kaz’ indignation was just too funny.

“Let me make this clear—” Kaz rasps, once he’s regained Jesper’s full attention. Half-full. ‘Like he’s plundered Jesper’s wardrobe’ is still such a good look on him. “We are both hunted. Neither of us can afford to be caught outside on the streets of Ketterdam and let whoever saw us live. If we’re going to make Haskell’s house our temporary base of operations, we need to make his death as inconspicuous as possible. We cannot safely anticipate which of his visitors to eliminate and which to fool unless we know whether they, in turn, may be missed.”

“Well,” Jesper mutters. “Mitki might come by. If the neighbours don’t chase him off.”

Kaz raises a single, dirt-encrusted eyebrow.

“Mitki’s the newest lieutenant. Might have made it this—”

“Not Anika? I can understand why a flake like you didn’t rise in the Dregs ranks, but she—”

“Ambush. Dime Lions, five weeks after you disappeared.”

“Rotty?”

“Slit throat. Still no clue who did it.”

“Specht? Pim? Neeta? Big Bol?”

“Razorgulls, knife, last year. Bullet to the head, same day. Hellgate. Hellgate.”

“Muzzen? Ruk? Keeg?”

“Another ‘Gull stabbing, just before I left. Hellgate, again. Keeg just disappeared, though. Might still be alive somewhere over the True Sea, if he’s clever. Not that he was, he’s probably floating, poor sod.” Jesper shrugs. After a while, it just gets too much: the beginning of the Dregs’ end is seared into his brain, but there aren’t enough synapses for the tenth—or fiftieth—dead friend to hurt as much. “There’s a reason why I didn’t think twice about running when I lost those fifty thousand. Like I said, boss, it’s been a shitshow since you left. Haskell never wanted for new ones, since he got his kids fresh off the street, but he just stopped giving any shit whatsoever, and since you weren’t there to pick up the slack… well, I can see why he didn’t care, now.”

Jesper spares a bitter look for the mountain of kruge next to Haskell’s foot, the mountain he offered Kaz as soon as he saw him, long before Kaz even tried to hack off both his hands and feet with a dull meat cleaver. Long before Kaz had to settle for cutting down to the bone and then wrenching Haskell’s extremities from their sockets by sheer force of hatred, while Jesper puked into the kitchen sink. The mountain he’d never have amassed as the boss of a gang as shambolic as the last years of the Dregs.

The mountain that’s going to pay off Inej’s indenture tomorrow.

Haskell allowed her to rot there. It’s only fair he pays for her freedom with his life.

“Everyone we could use is gone. And you…” Kaz tips Jesper’s chin up with his cane. The world shimmies a little. “You, of all the old Dregs, survived.”

Jesper shrugs again. This is too much to confess to Kaz, of all cruel bastards, probably far too much, but—they’re sitting in the living room of Jesper’s former boss, the man who sold Kaz out to the Darkling and used the prize money to live in luxury, while letting his gang die on increasingly pointless ill-planned errands. The other end of the table is still flecked and puddled with slow-drying blood—not to mention the corpse, or corpse-pieces, laying there—but over here, they have a bottle of expensive whisky they found in a cabinet and they’re trading swigs from the bottle, all bitter and clean.

“I didn’t take it too well, when you and Inej just disappeared, and then my friends kept dying. Might have gone on a couple of benders. Might have lost some games. Might have lost some fights. Might have had some sexual encounters with people who turned out to be massive creeps. Consequently, I may not have been technically around to be asked to go on some of these errands, or perhaps I just didn’t notice because I was drunk.”

“Jesper.” Kaz doesn’t even sound surprised. Wow. Thanks for having faith in me, boss.

It’s not really that humiliating, though, now he’s said it out loud. He spent two years making bad decisions and occasionally braiding Inej’s hair. Kaz spent that time getting turned into a doll. Who can say what’s worse? He takes another deep gulp and grins. “You know me, boss. I need some external structure in life. I really need a commandeering asshole dragging me into his schemes to be my best self.”

“And yet, you outwitted the Darkling.”

“That wasn’t difficult, to be fair. Tell them I’m Grisha, search the Little Palace, shoot Kaz Brekker in the head, get executed…” Jesper trails off. When the silence grows teeth, he takes a pull of whisky that’s so desperate it makes him cough, but Kaz is still letting him stew.

They don’t really need to talk about it, though. No value in going over what happened in the Little Palace. No value in discussing anything. Everything is fine now. Yes, Jesper did want to kill Kaz. Yes, he’ll die for Kaz.

And they both know why.

Kaz steals the bottle. It’s incredible, actually, Jesper was just holding it—well, maybe he’s a little more drunk than he thought, but Kaz would probably like being complimented on his pickpocketing. “I didn’t even see you steal that bottle,” Jesper says.

“I’d be angry you’re drunk,” Kaz rasps. “But you’ve been completely useless at all stages of the current plan so far. And the previous one, by your planning—I always forget, in my amazement at what you accomplished, that you failed.”

He says that, but his cheeks are flushed pink with alcohol. His pupils are wide when he looks at Jesper. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, swallowing what should have easily been ten more swigs of whisky. Thieving bastard.

☼

When Jesper awakes on Haskell’s second softest chaise longue in the receiving room—neither of them was particularly eager to climb into Haskell’s bed, and, in Jesper’s case, not particularly still able to walk up the stairs either—his mouth is dry, his bladder full and the light is poking his brain even through closed curtains and eyelids. And Kaz—he searches the whole house after finishing his business, but yes, it’s true—Kaz is gone.

So are his cane and his current Barrel flash coat and the kefta, which means Kaz is probably safe. Well. As safe as the escaped Sun Summoner can be. Not kidnapped, at least. More alive than anyone stupid enough to cross Kaz’ path.

He’s taken Haskell’s kruge, and left a note.

In Kaz’ sharp hand, the note reads, “STAY.”

It’s underlined three times, and on the back side Kaz has written, “or you will die,” which to be fair is pretty ambiguous.

‘Die’ as in, ‘I mistrust your competence and assume you’ll get yourself killed if you move a finger?’ Or as in, ‘I’m warning you I won’t go out of my way to save you?’ Perhaps it’s a straightforward ‘Disobey and I am going to personally murder you and piss on your corpse?’ All are very real possibilities, knowing Kaz.

To really understand the message, Jesper needs to get into Kaz’ mood when he woke up—hungover, but how much? Enough he hates the entire world, or so much he hates Jesper more? Also, his current way of thinking. Jesper’s usefulness. A point in favour is the fact that Jesper saved him from a fate worse than death, but on the other hand, Jesper forgot to extract a deal from him and Kaz is so Kerch it hurts, which means he’s pared down solidarity and reciprocity and love into exchange, into deals, and all Jesper’s offering are the first three. They shared a bottle of whisky next to the corpse of their old boss, though, and in general Kaz looked like he was having fun more than once on their dirty, miserable long trek out of Ravka. Way more fun than he had in the majestic Little Palace. Also, Jesper’s incredibly likeable. He’s beautiful and funny and stupidly in love with Kaz without asking anything in return, so really it only makes sense that Kaz has finally succumbed to his charm.

(He dug his hand into Jesper’s hair, that night on the fallen tree and twice afterwards, but—maybe that was only to make Jesper squirm.)

Well, he enjoyed Jesper’s company while they fled from Ravka to Ketterdam, at least. That’s the crux of it.

So why would Kaz anticipate that Jesper might want to run anywhere? There’s a well-stocked kitchen here. A far more sensible assumption would be that Jesper might want to make some waffles or go on a morning jog. No, not that one. Enjoy a lavish breakfast. Have a bath, perhaps, after spending two weeks crawling through the Ravkan forest and the Shu countryside and stowed in the belly of a wine cargo ship and then countryside again, this time Kerch. Jesper’s feet hurt just thinking about it, and that Kaz managed to get here, even at the half-speed they settled on, speaks to—well, the same bull-headed masochism as always, but the fact he still refused to even consider stealing a cart or horse or approach any larger settlement before Ketterdam means he must be even more terrified of the Darkling than Jesper can imagine. He refused to leave any trace whatsoever. (And yet he’s back in Ketterdam, the one city in the world he was connected to before the Little Palace, because…?)

Ketterdam is the only city, village, collection of buildings and people they’ve been to for weeks, which means it’s the first chance Jesper has to gamble, but—even he knows not to stake anything on the possibility there’s someone left in the Barrel who doesn’t know about Jesper Fahey, he who owes Pekka Rollins fifty thousand kruge and just skipped town, kill immediately with extreme prejudice.

Well, Rollins is dead now—the only gang boss courageous or aggrieved or hungry enough to try and covertly resist the Darkling, go figure—but whoever’s head Lion now probably won’t even let Jesper try to spin an argument about how he really owes that money to ‘Pekka Rollins’ Dime Lions’, not any successor organizations. No such luck, and anyway, people stupid enough to bounce on their debts are fair game to any gang in the Barrel. They don’t cooperate on much, not even for mutual benefit, but murdering dishonest gamblers? That’s a team sport.

Jesper’s last recklessly suicidal plan worked out fantastic, so maybe he should find a card table. His luck’s turned. He could win millions.

Which Kaz definitely would anticipate, and warn him away from. Kaz is a buzzkill. Just because Jesper’s going to get murdered on sight in the Barrel…

Because Jesper’s gonna get murdered on sight in the Barrel.

If Kaz wants to rebuild his status in the Barrel, there’s no bigger liability than Jesper. And Kaz wants to, surely. He worked his way up inside the Dregs carefully and diligently, spent more time than anyone sane would inside a tiny attic office adding up numbers, and sucked up to an utter piece of shit like Haskell, just so he could one day become a Barrel boss. And now, to rise again, he has to cut off the dead weight.

Which means Jesper.

That’s why he left.

It’s not even a betrayal. They don’t have an agreement for life after reaching Ketterdam, let alone one that says Jesper can follow him forever and ever just like in the good old days. Inej—but Inej’s actually useful to a new Barrel boss, as soon as her indenture’s paid. Jesper’s the weak link here. Jesper’s screwed.

Which doesn’t mean he won’t go down fighting. He knows the way to the Menagerie—the quickest way, the scenic route, the paths least commonly trafficked by Pigeons and the ones usually avoided by staadwatch or gangsters. He knows Kaz well enough to guess which one he’s taken. If he hasn’t woken too late—and by the sun’s position, it’s still early in the morning—then he has a chance to pass Kaz off and… insult him? Beg? Cry? Sell his father’s soul for a position in the new Dregs? Maybe he’ll just have to wear a Komedie Brute mask for the rest of his life and it’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out later.

Jesper draws his shoulders up to his ears while he scurries through empty alleyways, the collar of his fancy pseudo-Barrel flash coat turned up. He’s almost glad that Kaz made him go hatless and shaved bald—thoroughly unstylish and un-Jesper enough he might survive the morning—but there are drawbacks to the disguise in the damp chill.

Also, the disguise isn’t good enough. After some minutes, Jesper notices that some clusters of metal stay at roughly the same distance to him. Eight clusters of—round, small, definitely mostly kruge with a few Ravkan coins thrown in. Thirteen guns. A rifle. Two of the coin clusters are fairly close together and move in unison. Jesper’s dealing with seven shadows, then.

That’s—a lot.

Jesper’s had a little more training being a Durast now, but what he could really use now is combat training. He hasn’t even been in a battle in over a month, unless you count handing Kaz knives while he carves up Per Haskell, and since Jesper had to puke right after, you probably shouldn’t. He’s fought rabbits. Jesper’s sure fought some rabbits in Ravka. Two deer, too.

He could probably escape his pursuers. It would take time, though, time Jesper doesn’t have when Kaz is leaving him behind without a word. He’ll just have to kill them quickly.

At least there’s one of his favourite surveillance detection routes nearby. One of the rare aboveground tunnels in Ketterdam, not used by Pigeons for obvious reasons of creepiness and also because it just leads to a big courtyard behind a factory: a courtyard that’s easy to escape, when you know the gate’s lock is broken. Kaz showed it to him, just weeks after Jesper got recruited, after the second time the ‘Gulls got the drop on him and beat him to a pulp. In the courtyard, he made Jesper shoot some sparrows and some pigeons to prove his worth. Not crows, though, and for a year Jesper believed that detail was just thrown in to test whether Jesper would obey nonsensical orders. It’s still a plausible explanation.

He’ll just have to ask Kaz, after he begs him for a role in the new Dregs. After he kills these seven pursuers.

If.

He catches the first man off-guard and blows his head off when he exits the tunnel, but after that, it’s a stand-off. Jesper, hiding behind a massive wood barrel for cover, against six men ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Jesper manages to pick off another man by firing into the tunnel and blindly redirecting the bullet into the first nook, but the second attempt at using that trick doesn’t hit anything, and neither does the third. He has eight bullets left now, and five enemies. Even Jesper can tell that’s bad odds.

Retreating across the courtyard, though—the first few meters are fine, there are enough wine barrels and he can just dash from one to another, slightly nudging bullets off their course so none hit him.

Those guys have far too many bullets left, though, by the time Jesper’s forty meters away from the gate. Forty meters without cover. His pursuers aren’t bad shots either—likely Dime Lions, because there’s no way a Liddy would ever get so close that Jesper has to redirect their bullet—and they’re cautious enough that only two of them are crouched behind that barrel next to the tunnel, now, while the rest are still hidden inside.

This might get a little tough—but if Jesper starts manipulating bullets more obviously, will that information travel to the Little Palace? They know the Sun Summoner escaped with a Fabrikator. Is he painting a target on Kaz’ back?

Is he—

Bloodcurdling screams and groans, and Jesper’s too far away to hear any thwacks but his senses have expanded and he knows that metal coating intimately. Knows that cane.

Kaz emerges from the tunnel opening, Inej behind him, and—

Boom.

The Dime Lion’s shot him.

Right in the chest, and Kaz stumbles, falls to his knees.

Keels over.

Jesper shoots wildly while he runs over, whirling the bullets around the barrel that the Dime Lions are hiding behind—two left, Kaz wouldn’t have let any of the ones in the tunnel escape—desperate to hit something or at least keep them distracted and scared long enough to get there, or for—Inej’s pulling Kaz back by his coat, and she’s still wearing a sheer Menagerie dress, she probably doesn’t have any knives to protect—nothing’s hit yet, nothing’s hit, and all Jesper’s bullets are in the air whizzing around but he’s not hitting anything and Kaz is down and Kaz—

Kaz pushes himself to his knees, and then he stands up.

He’s breathing hard, and in the ugly rose/amber/bloodstain trench there’s a hole above his heart, sooty and burnt, but he’s still alive, Kaz is alive, he’s—

“What are you?” a Dime Lion gasps. Jesper’s finally got a bead on her. He sinks three bullets into her head.

“I just killed…” The other one is less lucky, and Jesper only manages to hit his stomach before he runs out of airborne bullets. He’ll die, but it won’t be quick.

“I crawled out of the harbour before. I’ll do it again,” Kaz rasps, and before the Dime Lion manages more than “Dirty—” a wet squelch informs Jesper of his demise.

That’s all of them.

“Kaz, you—” Inej’s much quicker at Kaz’ side, but he moves away before she can touch him to check his injury. Moves quickly enough he’s probably not on death’s door. He is a good actor, though. She looks at Jesper, and he’s about to join her in begging Kaz to get some medical aid, at least, but then Kaz shrugs off the ruined trench coat.

“Those kefta aren’t entirely useless,” Kaz rasps, grinning like an amused fucking asshole who almost gave Jesper a heart attack.

And then, Inej wraps herself around Jesper.

“You’re alive! I was terrified,” she shouts against his chest, slapping his back and grabbing as if she can’t decide whether to kill Jesper or never let go. “I thought you got yourself killed! You just disappeared, no word, I thought—”

“I may have lost a game where the stake was fifty thousand kruge?”

“You—Jes—” Inej squeezes him harder. “I told you to stop. I’d rather have you, with me, than have you die trying to pay me off.”

“I almost won! But there was no chance I’d get out of it, without indenturing myself, and—it all worked out, didn’t it? You’re free! Which reminds me…” Jesper takes off his own coat—blue and green and purple wave patterns, very fancy, a bit on the small side for him—and lays it onto Inej’s shoulders. It suits her, too—it drowns her a little, sure, but the way the coat reaches down to her ankles looks regal, and anyway, Kaz is a good sewer. He’ll fix this. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Before she can reply—tell him again she wasn’t worth risking his life and freedom in every card game he could for two years, when she definitely is, she’s Inej, he’ll do anything for her—he runs away and searches the dead Dime Lions for a new coat for himself, all their money, the rifle, and picks up the used bullets too. Knowing Kaz, he’ll want them to leave this place soon, and Jesper can’t very well try to convince his boss he needs to keep his sharpshooter around when he has no bullets left.

Speaking of—Jesper saunters over to Kaz when he’s done. With his most careless grin, he says, “I want my goodbye kiss before you ditch me.”

“I left you a note,” Kaz rasps. “I should have remembered you can’t read.”

Which as good as counts as a promise that Kaz didn’t intend to leave him behind: that, and the adrenaline of an easy gunfight has Jesper grinning widely. This is the life he wanted. The life he yearned for during the last two miserable years. The Crows are back, baby. He asks, “What now, boss?”

“We leave. Before anyone comes to investigate those gunshots.”

“Novyi Zem?”

“No,” Kaz rasps, just as Inej says, “They’ll let us drown.”

“They what?”

“Move.” Kaz starts limping past the factory, and then doubles back one street over—in the general direction away from the sea. Jesper and Inej quickly flank him. “I went to the Fifth Harbour before I paid off Inej’s indenture. It’s near empty. Old man there said no boats go to Novyi Zem or Eames Chin right now, and no boats come back. Because nothing gets unloaded. Kerch ships can’t dock there. They all get stranded at sea.”

“People started running when Ravka cut us off from the continent,” Inej mutters. “Before the invasion. And now the Darkling’s gone, the Kerch Grisha are either running or dead.”

“Too many refugees, apparently. Something about culture and scroungers and economic migrants. Novya Zem’s closed its ports to Kerch.”

“But I’m Zemeni—”

“You’re just a person. Those borders don’t exist to help you. The harbour watch don’t exist for you, the government doesn’t exist for you—if there’s a choice between cementing their power and your life, every bureaucrat worth their salt will choose the former.”

Jesper wants to argue, but actually, he’d trust Kaz over Novyi Zem a million times. Kaz saved his life when Ketterdam and Kerch would have swallowed him whole. Novyi Zem isn’t any different. “So we’re stuck in Ketterdam, then, where I’ll get shot on sight and you’ll easily get tracked by the Darkling. I only remember one safehouse that’s still uncompromised, as of last month anyway, unless you think we should go back to Haskell’s, boss?”

“Inej,” Kaz rasps. “That shop over there. Buy us a cart. We’re going to Lij.”

“What’s in Lij, boss? Why Lij? Where is Lij, anyway?”

But Kaz doesn’t answer him. Even aboard the cart, directing their new donkey with a seemingly perfect grasp of the roads leading to a small southern Kerch town none of them have ever been to, he refuses to elaborate. He looks tense, though. Jesper reshapes his many new bullets while he walks alongside. If there’s a fight waiting for them in Lij, they’re going to win.

☼

Kaz paces the length of the room. Window, door, window, door—there’s not much space beside the marriage bed, and the air draft of his passing caresses Jesper’s shorn head.

He’s put back together now, dressed in his socks and his boots and his underpants and his trousers and his gloves, though his torso’s only covered by the open purple kefta. Despite the cane, he limps more heavily than before he trekked for weeks through the Ravkan forest. He’s not fully recovered yet, if he’ll ever be.

Jesper’s on the floor. He climbed off the bed—off Kaz, after he ruined Kaz’ stupid get proxy-raped by the proxy-Darkling again plan. He said what he said, and the silence that followed was all the answer he’ll get, and then he sat down on the floor. It’s as good a place to wait as any. Probably more hygienic than the bed, anyway. He watched Kaz dress, until he almost looked like the Barrel lieutenant they both wish he was still allowed to be, and now he’s watching Kaz Brekker Dirtyhands the Sun Summoner pace holes in the old dusty floor of an abandoned farmhouse an hour’s walk outside of the small Kerch town of Lij.

He’s not getting murdered, though. Not for what he almost did. Not for what he said. That’s as good as this was ever going to go.

“It was worse this time.” Kaz directs his rasp towards the floor. He doesn’t stop moving. “I froze. Why was it—it was you. I knew you were—you’d never—with you it should have been more tolerable. Not worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.” Jesper still can’t decide whether he should be ashamed that he was too squeamish to go through with it. Kaz doesn’t seem as angry as he could be, that Jesper totally fucked up this whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Not the mocking disappointment he doles out at Jesper’s predictable failures—gambling, distractibility, lateness, no impulse control and so on—and not the seething hatred when Jesper does something he hasn’t anticipated.

“I turned it over and over in my mind. For a year. What I did wrong. How I could have turned this to my advantage. How to excise this weakness. I thought I’d found—but there’s nothing.”

Jesper would offer to brutally desecrate the Darkling’s corpse again, but it clearly doesn’t help. Kaz won’t let this go. Never mind that he was a teenage thief imprisoned in a palace. Never mind it was him against the whole entourage of the most powerful Grisha. The man who crowned himself Emperor.

Sometimes you’re just fucked. And there’s nothing you can do. Life isn’t fair.

“There is a way to beat him,” Kaz hisses. “And I will find it.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“What—”

Jesper grins a shark-grin. “You’re not in Ravka now, are you?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it? No, boss, listen—he didn’t beat you alone, either, right? He had his Tailor making you into a doll. His Fabrikators locking your cage. His soldiers. Hell, Haskell selling you out—so really, it’s your victory that I found you.” Now that Jesper’s trying to explain his gut reaction, it just seems more and more logical. “Why can’t you have your own gang? You practically rescued yourself. You took a look at a boy who’d have gotten shot in a few weeks because he couldn’t pay is debts and he couldn’t stop fucking gambling—you had me dragged up to your office. You took that chance. You saved my life so I could save yours. That’s… planning ahead. Planning years ahead. Well done.”

Kaz finally, finally stops pacing. He sinks into the mattress just slightly to the right of Jesper, so he can sprawl out his legs without making contact. He looks at Jesper, but he’s silent, and his face isn’t giving anything away.

At first, that makes it feel like he’s actually listening. Actually considering what Jesper told him, and agreeing. Kaz is a quick thinker, though. He doesn’t need this long to realize that Jesper’s correct, which means he’s coming up with counterarguments—arguments why actually, he’s still weak or whatever and needs to force himself—and Jesper really, really can’t watch him do this to himself again. Why this, anyway? Why is this the weakness he fixated on?

“Why is that creep so obsessed with making you touch people, anyway?”

“Because it’s easy. Necessary. Even a child does it. Touch is what makes us human, and the Sun Summoner is human, whatever lies he tells himself,” Kaz recites. His eyes are bright. Wet.

“Bullshit. You terrorized the Barrel for years and it didn’t matter at all that you never touched anyone. It was just you. It didn’t even really sink in for me, that you don’t touch people, until I saw the way he dressed you up, how miserable you were.” That’s probably a good place to leave it, but Jesper’s livid. Jesper could mince and mangle fifty Darklings with the pure force of his loathing, and there’s not even a single one around here. That energy has to go somewhere. “You’re trying to tell me the Ravkan fucking palace couldn’t change protocol a little and adapt? If it never mattered in the Barrel, it never mattered at all. He just picked something. If you’d been allergic to shellfish, that’s the only food he would have served you, and he would have said you’re weak for your windpipe swelling up. He wasn’t able control you because touch made you weak. When you’re in control, it doesn’t matter. Because you fucking kill whoever touches you. You don’t bow to them. They bow to you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look away from Jesper, though. He just stares down at him, with his eyes still wide and still wet. He mutters, “You’ve turned quite opinionated in my absence, Jesper.”

“In your presence. I’m quoting your words back to you—sort of, it was about the cane, and I’ve forgotten half of it. But you were right. You were always right.” Jesper laughs. “See? Now you’re teaching yourself through time and space! Your masterplan is incredibly fucking elaborate!”

“My—I’m not falling for it.” Kaz is grinning, though. “If I agree now—by this time tomorrow you’ll have done something incredibly stupid and you’ll throw the whole Everything I do is your triumph because you saved me thing in my face. I’m not responsible for your awful jokes!”

Pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, Jesper wails, “My plan! My ingenious plan! Foiled by the dastardly Dirtyhands, oh no!”

Kaz laughs at him. Kaz laughs, and laughs, and Jesper joins him.

It takes a while before Kaz stops, gasping for breath. No-one in Ravka’s ever told a good joke, Jesper decides, because he’s made way funnier jokes before that Kaz didn’t even chuckle at, but gift horses and mouths and so on. Colour’s returned to Kaz’ face: his cheeks are blotchy and red, even after his breathing’s evened out. Kaz mumbles, “You know, that’s exactly how I imagined it.”

What? Oh. Jesper’s sprawled on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, his shirt pulled out of his trousers—his trousers, which are open, and he still hasn’t tucked away his dick. He forgot. There were more far important things to do, and now… well, he probably looks more debauched than Kaz in his purple kefta, with just his prick exposed to the chilly night-time Kerch air while he lounges on the ground. He ghosts a finger over it.

“Do you want me to—do you want to watch, boss?”

“I’d—” Kaz swallows. “Saints.”

Jesper turns a little, so Kaz can get a better view. He doesn’t undress, in case that’s an integral part of the fantasy, just gently trails his fingers down his still-limp dick—though it’s definitely waking up now—and looks up at Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t meet his eyes anymore, but that’s fine: more than fine, when he’s alternately looking at Jesper’s cock and at Jesper’s lips. Jesper darts out his tongue, and Kaz’ pupils blow even wider. Jesper licks down his palm and starts jerking off in earnest. “Hey, boss,” Jesper mutters, and when the head jerks up Jesper blows him a tiny kiss.

“What do you think about?” Kaz rasps.

“I just look at you. That’s enough. I like your face.” The tiny quirk of his lips, the way his eyes dart back down. “What are you thinking about, boss?”

“I didn’t expect you to enjoy this as much.”

“Seriously, boss, I know you’re not that stupid. How many times—”

“Not me,” Kaz mumbles. He gestures obscurely at the room. Jesper. The wall. The floor. The floor again. “This. It’s—not proper. Demeaning.”

“I wasn’t feeling demeaned until you started talking—”

“I was going to make you my right hand, once I took over the Dregs. Not my whore—”

“You were?” slips out, small and breathless, before Jesper remembers that this is for Kaz. This for him to enjoy. The warmth expanding in Jesper’s ribcage can wait. “There’s nothing bad about this. You like it. I like it. I don’t see anyone else in this room, and even if—a very clever guy once told me that you don’t bow to the world. You make the world bow to you.”

☼

It’s scratching that wakes Jesper. Scratching like the sharpening of a knife, quick, impatient, desperate—but it’s Kaz who’s on watch right now, Kaz who found this shallow cave they’re spending the night in, and Kaz wouldn’t let any danger come this close unnoticed. Unfought. Kaz wouldn’t just leave Jesper to his fate—would he?

He wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Kaz is sitting at the mouth of the cave. The moon drenches his matted dirty hair in its white glory, his handmade trousers, his naked wiry chest. His chest which he hasn’t bared for a second since Jesper gave him the kefta, even pulling off the Sun Summoner chemise that they tore into threads while still wrapped up in both of his coats: but now he’s half-naked, head bending down to look at those tines sticking out of his clavicle. Those antlers, those keratinized tumours, those bone cancers. Whatever those mutations are, he wants them gone.

In the right hand, he’s holding the knife that Jesper made from buttons so they could cut the blanket into trouser-shapes. In the left hand, he’s holding one of the protrusions growing from his body.

And then, he starts hacking again.

Viciously, helplessly, like a sick rabbit mutated into its own trap. He misses, once, and the knife sinks into his collarbone: but silently he tears it out again and cuts at the cancerous bone, and the knife’s sharp but the only dents that Jesper can see are tiny, glowing, lighting up the knife that’s flecked with his own blood.

☼

Jesper stirs the potato chunks. Thankfully, the old hearth still works, at least after he and Inej fed it with firewood they brought from the market, and so he’s cooking potatoes in butter and water. He mashes them up with some heavy wooden implement he found in a cabinet, once they’re soft enough—he washed it of course; he doesn’t want to eat moth shit—and then Inej passes him a wooden board of carrots in neat small identical pieces. Show-off. Jesper loves her so fucking much.

“Careful, don’t let it burn,” she says, twirling her knife, and Jesper—well, he meant to stir the pot of what’s apparently becoming stamppot. He did. He didn’t mean to think of how he’ll get Inej and Kaz out of Ravka—

And that’s when Kaz limps into the kitchen. He wasn’t still asleep when Inej and Jesper went into town to get some food—as if the Bastard of the Barrel ever sleeps in, even when he’s far from his titular Barrel—but he begged off the trip. He told them to say they’re working for Johannus Rietveld, if they’re asked, who’s apparently inherited this farm, but—they weren’t asked a thing, anyway, and who knows what Kaz did in the meantime. Who knows what weird cover identity he’s cooked up that they haven’t yet had to invoke. And whether it’s weirder than the one Jesper just created.

Jesper gives him a tender little smile. “Had a good morning?”

“No.”

“Because of last—”

But Kaz can read Jesper at least as well as he can read himself. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he rasps. “You’re the least terrifying person I’ve ever met.” Which probably means Yes, I’m rattled, but I won’t take it out on you. Too much.

“Thanks, darling.” And obeying Inej’s sharp elbow, he goes back to stirring the potato mash, and the slices of rookworst smoked sausage she’s dumped into another pan as well. “We decided Inej needs a proper homecooked meal, now she’s free, and we both haven’t eaten anything worth eating for ages, either.”

“You cook?”

“I grew up with my Da. It was either him or me. We traded off, if you want to know, and I’m pretty good apart from when it mysteriously turns into charcoal. And we didn’t find any Zemeni spices in the Lij market—this isn’t Ketterdam, and this old trader I talked to, she said it’s because maritime traffic to Novyi Zem is down to trickles at this point there’s a real dearth of spices, she couldn’t get them at any reasonable price—”

“Don’t burn the stamppot,” Inej orders.

“Anyway, we found a recipe tacked to the wall behind the oven, so that’s what I’m making now. Something super Kerch. Stamppot—you’ve ever eaten it?”

Kaz makes a sound that’s deeply indecipherable. Jesper can’t even tell whether it’s mournful or happy.

“Anyway, we’re almost done. Spinach now, please—Inej made me stick to the recipe, you know—and then the fried sausage and some salt and… you’ll stay with us for lunch, right, even if it isn’t royal Little Palace fare?”

“We ate unseasoned burnt rabbits in the forest,” Kaz replies curtly. He’s gotten over whatever strange emotion took hold of him, then.

“Yeowtch, they were awful. Why didn’t you remind me to take them off the fire. I know how to smuggle us into Novyi Zem,” Jesper says, carrying the deep pot over to their chosen clean bit of floor. Next to the windowsill, so Kaz can sit down with a little less discomfort—the house has been cleaned out apart from the marriage bed, really, and making Kaz go in there now… Making Inej go in there now, when it’s where last night he and Kaz had sex… And it’s not like they were loud, but who knows what Inej read into them pacing around each other for an hour. This is much less awkward. Besides, Jesper’s recently had some great experiences with floors.

Inej doesn’t stop playing with her knife, even after she balances her stamppot served on woodboard on her knees and digs in with her slightly bent spoon. She hasn’t set it down all morning, even carried it into town when they went looking for something to eat, and while she’s been supervising Jesper’s cooking—making sure he’s reading the recipe, keeping him on-track, bickering with him over unclear or illegible instructions—she’s been twirling it around her fingers. A truly remarkable feat, given that it’s the piece of shit knife that Jesper cobbled together from coat buttons, and he didn’t know what he was doing at all except that it should probably be sharp. Inej really needs to talk him through the finer points of balance if she wants him to overhaul the thing.

“They’re not letting in any more refugees from Kerch, you said,” Jesper starts setting up the explanation for his ingenious plan, while he passes over Kaz’ portion and another spoon he dug out from the bottom of a cabinet and small-scienced back into shape.

“The rich Kerch started running first, when the Darkling advanced. Anyone who’d ever had a Grisha indenture… They probably got in. They had the money. As for the rest… well, we’ve all heard of what happened in Fjerda, unless we’re Jesper and too busy drinking and playing Makker’s Wheel—”

“Hey! I was trying to pay off your indenture,” Jesper complains, while nibbling on his surprisingly decent if underspiced potato mash. “I’m Zemeni. They’ll let me in.”

Kaz still hasn’t touched his food. He hasn’t put it away either though, hand cradling the board instead of throwing it at Jesper. Maybe it’s because he’s too curious about the plan. Jesper should have waited, but he was too excited, and now Kaz is frowning as he replies, “So you keep saying. How does that help us? I assume you wouldn’t leave the two of us behind, after all that trouble you took.”

It feels good, to hear him say that. Almost good enough to forgive that Kaz doesn’t like his lunch. “That’s where my plan comes in. I’ve finally figured it out. If we’re married—”

“We can’t marry each other,” Kaz rasps. Before Jesper gets too sad about that, he continues, “In case you haven’t yet learned to count, we’re three people now.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been thinking it over for so long. But divorce exists, you know so I was thinking that our story should be—and I’ll write to Da, but I thought you should probably agree first—I married one of you and then fell in love with the other but I still loved both, so I was trying to—”

Inej coughs. Laughs. Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and then she says, “You’re going to tell your father about your marriage in a letter—your multiple marriages, because not only did you get married without inviting him, you already traded in your wife for a younger, prettier model. You lothario!”

“If you think that Kaz—actually, are you younger than Inej?”

Kaz, spoon in mouth, glares down at him.

“I’m trying to save our lives here. I’d appreciate some cooperation! And Da will forgive me, when he sees how happy I am with my new bonebreaking gangster wife and my old knife-twirling gangster wife who I had to divorce for petty bureaucratic reasons. Do you like it?”

Another spoonful of stamppot disappears into Kaz’ mouth. His eyes are closed while he chews, and then he looks away. His voice is hoarser than normal when he mumbles, “It tastes exactly the way I—it’s good.”

“Better than unseasoned rabbit charcoal. Anyway, it might throw the Darkling off our scent some more, if we disguise Kaz as a woman—and don’t be sexist. Women come in all shapes and sizes, no-one’s going to suspect a thing. Also we’re from Ketterdam. If any woman like Kaz can marry anywhere, it’s here. It’ll be a scandal, if they refuse to honour our marriage. Letting a few poors drown outside Zemeni borders, sure, but breaking the mutual recognition of administrative documents?”

Jesper is actually pretty proud of his reasoning here. That makes it even more annoying when Kaz rasps, “No-one will ever believe I’m your wife. I can’t even touch you.”

“No-one’s going to believe I love you? Are you sure?” Jesper flutters his eyes up at Kaz.

“He has a point, Jesper. You won’t be the first desperate refugee forging a marriage to leave.” Inej twirls her knife again. “You’ll need to act the part.”

“We’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to be touched, and if they have a follow-up question, they’d better direct it to the barrel of my gun. I’m not letting anybody non-consensually grope my beloved Kerch wife. Never again. Not over my dead body.”

“Won’t they think it’s weird if Kaz—sorry, your beautiful Kerch wife doesn’t let you touch him?”

“I don’t care. I told you. Let the world bow to us. I love my ingenious, vicious Kerch wife, completely independent of any physical contact we may or may not ever have. I respect my stubborn loyal deadpan Kerch wife far too much to cross those boundaries just for social custom. Also, my sweet murderous Kerch wife has a mean right hook.”

“Thankyou for the demonstration of your acting skills,” Kaz rasps drily, scratching his spoon on his serving board for the last flecks of stamppot. “We’re not going to Novyi Zem, though. There are more amplifiers than just the Stag he forced into me, and we’re going to find the rest. I’m going to tear apart every miserable molecule in the Darkling’s body, cell by fucking cell.”

“And you just let me keep talking?”

“It was entertaining.” Kaz licks his spoon, and then the board. Any second now, Jesper will tell him there’s more left in the pot. “Write your Da. We’ll keep your plan as a backup, in case everything goes horribly wrong. You’ll need a ring, though, to make it official,” and Kaz starts rooting through the kefta pockets.

Jesper can’t breathe. Is Kaz really…? He can’t breathe until he looks at Kaz’ stretched-out, gloved hand, and—

“How the fuck did you steal that one?! I was just wearing it!”

#jesper fahey #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #kaz x jesper #dimtraces makes things #shadow & bone #shadow and bone

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thran-duils · 4 years ago

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Dubious Representation (P.3)

Title: Dubious Representation (Part Three) Summary: Fem!Reader x Dark!Hank Palmer. Reader’s husband is facing jail time and although Hank Palmer entered the counsel for pro bono, he is still going to get a form of payment. Recently single, he’s been lonely and he’s looking for some comfort. Even if it means obtaining it from less than savory means. Words: 2,562 Warnings (for entire fic): Eventual smut, sexual coercion, infidelity, mention of past domestic violence, verbal abuse Author’s Note: Decided on four parts... LOL

Part Two || Part Four || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

Rich turned on Hank the moment the guilty verdict came through. He had been torn apart in court, Warner using the domestic violence charges to completely wipe Hank’s defense that Rich had been protecting Y/N off the board completely. What jury would think a man who had no issue hitting his wife around would have virtuous means to protect her? No, he was painted as a man protecting what he saw as property. Hank had objected to that comment which the judge sustained but it had already been said and swayed the jury all the way.

“You were supposed to get me out of this!” Rich snapped at him.

“No one was going to get you out of this, don’t kid yourself. And hey, I lost a case for free, so you don’t even have to worry about paying me for wasting my goddamn time,” Hank spat back in hushed tones, picking up his stuff.

Rich looked like he wanted to punch Hank, but the sheriff was already there putting his cuffs on. He instead whipped around to Y/N who was standing there. Her knuckles were white with how hard she was gripping the wooden wall between them, tears in the corners of her eyes.

“You---you can’t leave,” she got out. “Ten years, Rich!”

“Maybe if you hadn’t of gotten yourself into trouble by acting like a slut at that party, this wouldn’t be happening!” Rich snapped at her, his anger boiling over at everyone.

Hank was watching this exchange with a sour look, his jaw clenched. Y/N looked like she had been struck and he could only imagine what kind of verbal abuse she faced on top of the physical with him.

She gaped like a fish at him as he turned away from her with a glare, letting the sheriff lead him away. Hank finished putting away his things in his briefcase and stood up, coming in between her and where her eyes had been following him.

“Let me take you home,” Hank said gently.

Y/N focused on him, and it took a couple moments for her to register what he said. “I-I drove.”

Hank picked up his briefcase and walked out of the defense area, coming past the wall to where she was standing. He gestured for her to follow him. She shot a look at the judge who was already moved on. Swallowing sharply, she picked up her purse, she wiped at her eyes, and let his hand come to the small of her back as he guided her up the aisle towards the exit. Hank wanted to strangle Rich for making her so upset; his stomach was tight from the anger swirling at the whole situation.

He walked her to her car. The anger got the better of him and he poured out, “You know if he would’ve told me from the start that he had smacked you around, I wouldn’t have taken the damn case! Do you realize that’s what made us lose this case? Had nothing to do with me! Not even I can make a wife beating dickhead look good! Especially one with a wife who has a squeaky-clean record like you do! He didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. You’re gonna be alone now because of his stupid, asshole decisions! And then he has the fucking audacity to say that shit to you as he’s leaving? If I knew I wouldn’t have gotten charged with assault myself—"

Hank stopped on a dime seeing her lip was warbling.

“I can’t... I can’t... I need another job,” she sputtered, her shoulders slumping defeated. “What am I going to do without him?”

Taking a deep breath to level himself out a little, Hank put his briefcase down on the cement. His hands came to her shoulders, and he caught her attention, peering into her eyes.

“I know this is all very sudden and frightening but just take a deep breath with me, okay? Okay?” She nodded and took a deep breath, him mimicking her movement. It took a few but she stopped looking like she was going to completely lose it. “Let’s get you home. Unless that’s going to be too much for you? Pictures and whatnot at home? Lots of memories to dwell in. Do you want to go to a hotel?”

“I can’t afford a hotel,” she said.

“I can,” Hank told her, sounding peppy. “Here, let me drive you – in your car – over to The Peninsula – great place, trust me. We’ll get you a room for the night or two, order you some room service. There’s a spa. A pool. They’ve got a killer hot tub.” She looked at loss for words and his thumbs caressed, pressing in with the slightest of pressure. “Come on. It’s the least I can do. It would make me feel a lot better about the whole thing. So, even if it’s just for me?”

Hank knew she was going to listen to him when he put it like that. He would not expect anything less from a woman who had been abused for so long. And he was not one to be above manipulating people for his own gain. He did not want her just waiting around when Rich was released from jail and go right back to using her as a punching bag. Oh, he wanted to shield her and protect her from that. From ever happening again. He was going to make sure he was there.

“What about your car?” she asked, and he knew he had her.

“I’ll take a taxi back over here.”

“You’re going to leave me at the hotel?”

“Only if you want me to.” He could see in her eyes that that was not what she wanted. “I can drive my car back over and park there as well. Do you want to do that?”

She nodded and he held in his elation at succeeding at bringing her in; he was good at masking his emotions. He gave her a quick smile before squeezing her arms and letting go. “Come then, passenger side. I’m driving.”

<><><>

The hotel was nice. Too nice. When you heard the desk clerk say that the room was going to be $540 a night, you grabbed Hank’s arm but he ignored you, handing his credit card over. You almost vomited on the spot. That was almost half a month’s rent.

When you got to the room, he told you to take the card the man had given the pair of you at the front desk for the spa downstairs to it. You asked if it was going to cost more, and he told you to not worry about it. When you looked reluctant, he shoved it into your hand and said he better hear about how great the spa was when he got back.

As much as you wanted to be at home, being away was good. You had a feeling he had been right about wallowing at home being in that familiar space after what had happened. Heeding what he said, you headed downstairs to the spa, making sure to choose the cheapest.

He was waiting on the bed when you got back, watching the news. You had been at the spa for over an hour. You noticed he had changed out of his suit and was in black jeans and a button up.

“I didn’t even think about a change of clothes…” you told him, gesturing that you had gotten back into your same clothes.

Hank shrugged and said, “It’ll be fine.” He swung his legs off the bed and stood up. “There’s dinner upstairs. In about an hour and a half. We can go up for drinks at the lounge beforehand.”

You played with the fabric of your sun dress and said, “I thought you said room service.”

“For breakfast,” he told you, snatching up his wallet and keys, his back to you. He slipped them into his jeans. “Dinner is Cantonese. You like that?” You nodded, shrugging. He smirked at your nervousness, and he assured you, “You’ll find something.”

The bar had a plush wall length couch and Hank led you to a table after the two of you ordered at the bar. You practically sunk into the couch. His arm came around the back of the couch, around you and he leaned in.

“So, you know, you’ve never told me what you do for work.”

You stammered at first, explaining your job. He was keeping eye contact, an intensity behind his gaze, listening with rapt attention. He asked questions about it, advancement and mobility specifically. The two of you fell naturally into conversation and it continued at dinner after you finished your drinks. Dinner was on the rooftop and night had fallen over the city. You had said you wanted the cheapest thing on the menu and Hank saw right through that, point blank asking you if the only reason you had chosen it was because it was cheapest. The embarrassed look on your face said it all and he told you to choose what you really wanted. Most of the entrees would cost what both of your meals would cost at a place when you and Rich went out, but you timidly pointed at something that looked good. He nodded and encouraged you to order it along with another cocktail. He was throwing down money tonight and you felt uncomfortable about it but it was really, really nice.

You paid him back the way you knew how. Fingers gripping the blanket, you moaned loudly as he plummeted into you. His pelvis slapped against your ass, drawing groans from him as his cock dragged in and out. He flipped you over and buried himself in you again, ravaging you with rough kisses.

He fell asleep before you. You were tucked up in his arm against his side, thinking about Rich in jail and what he would do if he saw you right now.

<><><>

Hank kept texting you and setting up dates after that. You had been on three since then. He had told you that he was interested when this whole relationship started, and he had not been lying. He had also told you that if you wanted to continue it, that was up to you. You wondered if that was still on the table – not that you were considering it at this point. But he was a man to be reckoned with, that much was clear. He carried himself with such an air of importance and had no problem telling someone their place – that you had witnessed more than once. And it included with you. He was pushy, he liked getting his way. If he did not like something, he would comment on it, and you would fold up. It was how you knew how to deal with conflict in a relationship. And he seemed perfectly content with it, always smiling when you corrected yourself and agreed with his suggestion.

Despite trying to keep him at arm’s length with a casual relationship, you caved on the third date and had let him into the apartment. Having sex in your marital bed had left you feeling guilty.

You feigned sickness the next time Hank texted asking you to go on a date. And then made up a lie when he suggested another day.

Sitting at work, you looked up and choked on your coffee. Hank was walking through the door, tearing his sunglasses off, a bouquet of flowers in hand. His eyes landed on you, and he smiled briefly, striding up to you. Your coworkers were watching with curiosity, and you wanted to melt into the floor. They knew about your marriage and how Rich was in jail. What they did not know about was Hank. Gods, what was he doing here?

“Hank…” you said underneath your breath, giving him an incredulous look.

“Yes, dear?” he said nonchalantly. Heat came to your cheeks, just knowing your coworkers had heard that. He held the bouquet out to you and said, “These are to cheer you up. You look like you’re doing better. That’s good. I was just stopping by to check in on you.” He shot a look over at your coworkers and smiled warmly. “Ladies.” He pointed at you. “May I borrow Y/N for a second?”

“Sure,” one of them, Maria, said, a devilish smile on her face. She was going to want to know everything when you came back in.

You took the flowers from him and placed them down. You stood up and followed him out of the door.

“What are you doing here?” you asked the moment the two of you were out on the sidewalk.

“Can’t I stop by and say hello?”

“Hank, my coworkers don’t know about us. What if—”

“What if what? They tell Rich? That’s very unlikely,” Hank interrupted. You closed your mouth and he stepped closer. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with you?” You shrugged, averting your gaze. His hand came up and he turned your face back to him. His tone was firm, “Y/N.”

You shrugged again, “I feel guilty.”

Hank cocked an eyebrow, “Guilty?”

“We… we had sex in our bed.”

Sighing, Hank’s hand fell from your face. “That’s what this is all about? Look, Y/N, as someone who has been cheated on, yes, it is terrible. But I’m telling you, these circumstances are incredibly unique and different. You did nothing wrong and the person who did is the one who is gone. And he deserves to be gone. You deserve happiness.”

“It doesn’t make me feel less guilty.”

“Then maybe you should just come over to my place next time. We just won’t go to your place. How’s that sound? No room to feel guilty. Whole new environment. Here, you mentioned you like to cook. How about you come over and we make a nice dinner together?” You looked down at the ground and he closed the space between the two of you. He tipped your chin up and said, “In fact, I insist. Tonight. I’ll pick you up. What do you want to cook for me?” You did not answer quick enough and he pressed, “Hmm?”

“Lasagna?”

“Lasagna it is.” He pulled his wallet out and handed over a hundred-dollar bill, shoving it into your hand. “Here, pick up the stuff and text me when you’re home. I’ve got a nice bottle of red wine to go with it. Sound good?” He was looking at you expectantly and you gave him the answer he wanted to hear, causing him to smirk. “Perfect. I’m glad, doll.”

He leaned in and gave you a kiss. He tapped your nose and smiled, “Have a good rest of your day. Remember to put the flowers in water. I’ve gotta get back to the office.”

Hank walked you back to the door and the two of you did not miss two of your coworkers bolting away from the window where they had been pressing their noses again, watching. Hank chuckled and gave you a tap on the ass as you opened the door before he pulled took his sunglasses back off his shirt and put them on, walking off.

You walked back in and they were all staring at you.

“So, he’s wearing a Rolex…” Maria started off.

~~~

Marvel tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld @holl2712 @agustdowney @biiskuitx

#hank palmer x reader #rdj character #dark!hank palmer #dark hank palmer #my shit

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