#and thats sort of what i was trying to indicate i suppose

[jenoslutie]

Electric Hearts l k.mg (TEASER)

Synopsis: In a drunken haze, Mingyu orders a sex robot but has no recollection of it even happening. Now he has a sex robot thats way too realistic constantly trying to seduce him. Will Mingyu give in?

Pairing: Mingyu x Sex Robot!Reader

Genre: Smut, Sex robot reader, porn with plot

Teaser warnings: Fem!reader, Suggestive (not really but mentions of sex) afab reader, Wonwoo is in this like alot but he is just there as Mingyu's roommate, Reader is literally a robot LOL but she's very realistic.

Teaser word count: 665

“Mingyu!” Wonwoo called out “Your parcel is here!” dragging the abnormally big parcel into their living room and Mingyu trotted over into the living room where Wonwoo was with the box. 

“I didn’t order that” Mingyu yawned, still roaming somewhere in dreamland. Wonwoo shoots him a confused look, scanning the box for any sort of indication of who it was for until he saw a label reading the recipient as ‘Mingyu Kim’ 

“It’s yours dude, it says your name and everything” Mingyu took a look at the box and sure enough, the shipping label read his name. He remembers he was drinking a few days back but he’s almost positive he wouldn’t have ordered something this huge, under the influence or not. Accepting his fate, Mingyu dragged the box into his room and tried to look for any other indication of what it might be, the shipping label only had the sender address written in some language he definitely did not know how to read. Grabbing a pair of scissors from his and Wonwoo’s shared bathroom, he carefully cut the box open and that's when he saw it. His eyes widened in confusion. Placed carefully within the confines of the box sat a…naked human?

“Wonwoo!” Mingyu shrieked, hearing his roommate dart towards his room. 

“Look inside the box.” Wonwoo wordlessly trudged towards the box and that's when he saw it too. A human? That's naked? Inside a box that his roommate ordered? The two of them stood in silence, staring at the box until something clicks. 

“Hold on” Wonwoo broke the silence, extending his hand with hesitant fingers towards you inside the box. As his fingertips brushed against the smooth surface of your cheek, a shiver coursed down his spine. Instead of the expected warmth of human skin, his touch was met with a cold sensation. Wonwoo’s gaze flickered up to Mingyu who was looking at him with the same confusion in his eyes, his mind struggling to understand what’s happening.  

At Wonwoo’s touch, your eyes lit up, looking up at the two men staring down at you. “Hello”, you greeted, trying to adjust to the faces of the men in front of you. They looked down at you baffled and you realize they might not be aware of what you are. You stepped out of the box, making the men even more confused than they already were. 

“I suppose you haven't realized, I’m a robot.” You explain, moving your hair to the side to reveal the small charging port at the nape of your neck. Failing to get either of the men to talk, you take matters into your own hands.

“My name is Y/N, I’m a robot that was recently developed for sexual use” The taller one of the two gasps while the shorter one with glasses freezes. 

“A sex robot?” The taller man shrieks, much like the first time when he first opened the box. You take his hands in yours and place them on your chest, letting him feel you up. “I’m designed to please you” A part of Mingyu was freaked out by the advancement of technology that stood before him but another part of him couldn’t help but be turned on. 

“Without further ado, I’ll begin the usage tutorial!” 

Mingyu felt like he could almost pass out. What the hell did he get himself into? He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice you inch closer to him, taking his face in your soft hands and pressing your lips onto his. 

He jolted as your soft lips touched his, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't enticed by you but the shock of the situation made it hard for him to even react to the kiss.

“Master, why aren’t you paying attention to me?”  Your voice was whiny, something neither Mingyu or Wonwoo knew was possible. The two men were at a loss of words as they watched your next steps. You sat down on Mingyu’s bed, spreading your legs to reveal your perfectly sculpted pussy. Needless to say, both men were baffled at how perfect and detailed it was. 

“Can you actually put stuff in there?” Wonwoo questioned, mostly to himself but you ended up responding,

“That’s what I was built for! Would you like to give it a try?"

a/n: hiii <3 this is a snippet of my mingyu x sex robot fic, Electric Hearts! please let me know if you enjoyed and if its worth continuing HAHA i dont wanan write it all just for no one to be on the same wavelength as me </3 feedback is appreciated!! :D

[cumulo-stratus]

Sneaky Snuggles

Pairing: Spencer Reid x male!reader

Description: y/n is woken up to a surprise of his boyfriend being home- despite the fact that his case was supposed to run at least another day or two.

warnings: fluff, possible swearing

Flufftober day 15: Early morning/morning after

A/N: this is gonna be more similar to a blurb lol but it's a cute idea none the less, also its kinda more based around spencers feelings abt y/n, not actual interaction between spencer and y/n

The twinkling lights of the city in the distance were visible through the windows of Y/n and Spencer's apartment. They had been living together for 6 months now, and were starting to get into a routine- a rhythm of sorts. Y/n did most of the household work, and Spencer did the errands and helped out when he could- except for cooking. Y/n would rather die then let Spencer cook them anything. And because of all the housework y/n took care of for him, he took any chance he got to thank y/n and spend time with him. Just like right now, or I guess last night.

Spencer's leather messenger bag had been dropped unceremoniously on the floor next to the entrance of the apartment, long since forgotten for the warmth and comfort of a shower and a cuddle with his boyfriend. But- again being ever grateful to his boyfriend, Spencer decided to let him get as much sleep as possible- which included trying not to wake him up by the sound of the shower faucet running at 2:30 am in the morning. To remedy this problem Spencer took the time to close both the door of the bathroom, but also the door to their shared bedroom. And as the boiling hot water cascaded over Spencer's naked form, he almost fell asleep right there, standing under the hot water. But he kept himself awake just long enough to get dressed and climb into bed with his lover. He decided that his dental hygiene could wait until morning, when he wouldn't fall asleep standing up. 

The warm covers and his lovers warm embrace after a tough case welcomed him with open arms. Spencer slid under the covers and gently took y/n in his arms, careful not to wake him up from his peaceful slumber. In the moments before sleep welcomed him for the first time in a while, Spencer took the time to admire y/ns peaceful expression. His lips formed a small, chapped smile. Y/ns eyes were always chapped during the winter. And if the snow outside their window was any indication, y/ns lips really needed some chapstick. Spencer admired y/ns eyes- which were moving back and forth rapidly, almost twitching- and Spencer wondered what he was dreaming about. And that was his last thought before his eyes closed and his body sunk into the mattress, content with his life. 

The light streaming into the small bedroom woke y/n from his slumber, and he unconsciously snuggled deeper into his boyfriends chest, hoping for even a tiny bit more warmth on the chilly December morning- though, the poorly insulated walls didn’t help either. When y/n woke up enough to speak, he said “mm, good morning spence.. wait spence-“ y/n didn’t remember falling asleep in his arms the night before, but he wasn’t complaining about waking up in them either. Spencer chuckled at y/n’s delayed response to his appearance, before answering y/n’s question without having him having to ask it, one of the perks of being together so long. 

“i got home around 2:30 last night, and i didn’t want to wake you up so i just slid into bed”

spencers tone was gentle and hushed, his voice still gravelly from waking up only minutes ago. 

“mm, you sneaky snuggler, you weren’t supposed to be home for at least another 2 days…”

Y/n jokingly shouldered him in the chest, and spencer leaned down to reach y/ns lips, and placed a loving kiss on them.

And thats how y/n and spencer started their morning, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Y/n loved his boyfriend to death and didn’t mind going to sleep in an empty bed every night if he got to wake up in one with him.

The End 

[paingoes]

Destroyer - A Sentence of Sorts

(Masterlist)

(Content: mass death, alcohol, physical abuse, verbal abuse, guilt, self loathing, minor suicidal ideation, implied self harm)

=======================

Delta read the death toll again. 2,367 was the beginner estimate. There was not as much outcry as there was about Lemuria, nor was there the same circus of gore. The fact that it was an attack on Nezu did little to comfort him. He didn’t care for the nuances. In him there was an almost childlike sensibility. He diligently added the new deaths to his personal count. In his half-asleep state, what felt like the great tragedy was not the number itself, but the fact that it could never be reduced. It was the math he was fixated on. It wasn’t fair.

He realized quickly after re-entering the Empire portal that it had been bifurcated between the two sides of the war. He also realized, to his shock, that he’d been grouped into Nezu’s side. He’d actually forgotten that he’d stolen the laptop from one of Nezu’s people. They must have been either dead or on vacation; no one else was ever active on any of the accounts. He had to re-configure a lot of the settings and passwords to regain access to the portal, no doubt indicating a massive security crisis on their side. He scanned the bulletin they’d posted. Saber rattling. In memoriam.

Empire could not afford this war. They’d already stretched themselves thin across the different fronts, practically at the height of their expansionism when the Emperor had died. They faced opposition from a host of recognized nations, as well as a new crop of organized resistance groups that existed solely to topple the whole thing. Empire still wasn’t weak, not by any stretch of the imagination. Its power structure was decentralized enough to survive the past months without anyone at the helm. But Paris and Nezu forcing Empire in half threatened to break the entire web into a whole spectrum of disjointed pieces.

Delta paused. Did he want that? He thought of it as a kind of apocalypse scenario, but he supposed it was technically in alignment with his own goals. With the civil war raging, Empire was planting the seeds of its own demise. But they were just seeds.

He looked back at the death toll. There’d be hell to pay before it finally broke apart. 

He posted the next leak to a new thread, quickly shutting out of the tab before he had time to see anyone’s reaction. He updated semi-regularly now, attaching both current plans and declassifying older files from the early days of Empire. The latter was more for his own curiosity than anything else. To him, it felt like a small act. He was used to the light shows, bold acts of destruction and slaughter. Working with intel was so much subtler; it was hard to trace any development back to something he had released. All he had were suspicions, really. Suspicions and a few messages.

katkittykat: ok rlly can i ask where ur getting this shit

katkittykat: whos ur connection hehehe :3

ndhakdvsnnd: nobody and i dont know what youre talking about

katkittykat: its a lil late to play coy yknow

katkittykat: u dont have 2 b scared of me!!! i want to help u

ndhakdvsnnd: shut up

katkittykat: wtf!!! rude >:3

katkittykat: pretend that face is frowning but its still a cat

katkittykat: wait i got it

katkittykat: /ᐠoᆽoᐟ \╭∩╮

sunspot: Hey thanks again for the leak !! Im sorry about kitty actually im sorry about both of us

sunspot: We arent trying to push you into anything really we are just curious about you

sunspot: Sorry if its stressing you out i would probably be stressed out too in your situation 

ndhakdvsnnd: you dont know fuck about my situation

sunspot: Yeah thats true! But I know youve been helping us a lot and we are kind of worried about you 

ndhakdvsnnd: who is we why do you keep saying we

ndhakdvsnnd: yes you are stressing me the fuck out thanks for acknowledging that

ndhakdvsnnd: didnt you say you were going to stop prying id really appreciate it if you did

sunspot: Fair enough! I havent been that upfront with you either so I guess i am not in a position to be asking so much. If you want to know what is happening on our end i will tell you and maybe that will help?

ndhakdvsnnd: okay

ndhakdvsnnd: not now

sunspot: Talk later?

ndhakdvsnnd: i have to go 

sunspot: Okay be careful then! 

ndhakdvsnnd: thanks

Delta exited out. He got other messages - many, many others - but none as annoyingly persistent as those two. He didn’t know why he kept talking to them. When they answered, it was bad. When they didn’t, it was even worse. He stepped away from the computer, badly needing a break. He wouldn’t get it, of course, not for more than five minutes. He needed to go see Paris.

==========================

The bottle almost nailed him in the fucking head. Delta hissed, softly, his bright eyes flashing violently. 

“You’re late,” Paris let his head loll a little, a lazy smile quirking at his lips. Delta didn’t bother trying to defend himself. His vocal cords were still burnt out, rendering him mute for a time. He moved to the prince’s side, dropping into a kneel. Paris backhanded him before he’d even gotten all the way down. Eager today. Delta winced, immediately moving to touch the tender skin. He knew it had broken; Paris had blood on his ring. He grabbed Delta’s wrist before it could make contact and did not let go.

“Take your hair out,” He ordered. Oh. Delta had forgotten. Paris still didn’t let go of his wrist, so he had to remove the tie with one hand. He slipped it onto his wrist, letting his hair fall loosely down his back. 

“Let me see,” Paris said. Delta tilted his head a little, not understanding. After a minute, he offered Paris his other hand. Paris slid the hair tie off, doubling it over a few times to bind Delta’s wrists together. Delta let them fall in his lap. Not a particularly difficult restraint to get out of, but that didn’t matter. Delta knew better than to try it.

He didn’t understand why Paris had started calling him here again. Besides the little indiscretions with the laptop, he’d been on his best behavior. He had honestly been trying to make it easier on him, but it had no effect. Paris had been difficult before the accident. These days, he was impossible.

He was also tipsy, which was historically worse. Drunk enough to lose any inhibitions, but not drunk enough to let Delta get away with anything. It was a losing game. He was almost glad he couldn’t speak; at least he couldn’t say the wrong thing and send the prince off in a spiral. It was all too easy to do that now, but nobody paid for it the way Delta did.

“Why did you change?” 

That caught him off guard. Delta could’ve asked him the exact same thing, of course. But that wasn’t what bothered him. It was so unfair. Paris, who had all the social grace of a methed up honeybadger, could still read people without any apparent effort. Delta wilted a little bit under his gaze, a small pang of guilt striking him. He thought again about destroying the computer. He thought about it everyday. He bowed his head in apology. Not good enough, apparently. Paris kicked him onto his back. Unable to catch himself, he knocked his head into the carpet, wind knocked out from the blow. Paris had stood up.

“You think I can’t tell?” His voice was unsteady, pitchy, the way it had been ever since he got back. He was getting worked up, Delta could tell. He stifled a groan. This was going to be a long night.

“I was only out for a fucking month, what changed? Why is everyone acting like the show is over?”

Delta felt a sudden kick in his side. Paris gripped his collar. He was light; it was not hard to drag Delta off the ground, even unwillingly. Paris only did it half-way, throwing him back into the desk. Delta’s back slammed into it, again unable to catch himself. He bounced off it, back onto the ground. Slowly, he repositioned himself into a kneel, more muscle memory than conscious effort.

“You know all this could have been prevented if he just wrote a will. The old man thought he would never die. They pierced me right though the exact same place they got him, you know that? Just an inch from the heart. I didn’t ask for a civil war. It’s my birthright, I shouldn’t have to-“

Paris slapped him in the face, “Are you even listening? This is about you.”

Delta nodded, even though it clearly wasn’t. He knew Paris was just taking his anger out on him because he was there — because he couldn’t do anything about it. Delta accepted this with the kind of quiet resignation that only ever seemed to irritate the situation.

“Fucking stop!” The prince yelled. God, he was never happy. He circled behind Delta, landing a kick squarely on his shoulderblades. It sent him forward, onto his hands and knees. Before he could recover, Paris kicked him again in the side, with enough force that he fell flat onto the carpet. For some reason, the rug caught his eye. It was weaved of soft blue fiber. 

Delta thought of Lemuria — and of the ocean. Paris kicked him in the stomach, but he didn’t hear what he said. 2,367 dead, in addition to the 22,534 previous. They were all-star numbers. Paris knocked his leg out, forcing Delta flat on his back. He straddled his waist, which Delta admittedly found much harder to ignore. He winced as Paris’s hands wrapped around his throat, the one still too burnt for him to speak with. His collar gave off a little dryer spark; Paris cursed. Delta thought of all the lives he’d destroyed in the past months alone, the ones he’d never know, the count that would never go down. What kind of terror did they feel in their final moments? How badly did it burn? He didn’t fight as Paris beat him. Fair is fair. Even as the grip tightened, threatening to choke off his air, he didn’t resist it. It was right that he should die. It would be right if he died 25,000 times over.

Paris didn’t give him the satisfaction. His eyes had been burning above him, but they gradually turned to cinders, the pressure letting up. He didn’t look much calmer, but he did look exhausted. He was still injured. The beating might’ve taken more out of him than it did Delta. 

Delta couldn’t ask to be dismissed. He wouldn’t have. When Paris did throw him out, he felt a vague and numinous dissatisfaction. He was being punished for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t enough. In the hallway, he unbinded his own hands. He pulled the band back against his wrist, letting it snap hard against the skin. 

[petrichoraline]

they should have left august have genuine feelings for day imo like we already saw him kinda disappointed it was not a date with mork... the whole kiss thing felt so wrong they did day (and august too tbh) dirty

to start off, thank you for indulging me with a ltts message 🥰 also I hope this isn't too long, i havent had the time to seriously think about this episode so this is my chance 💓

throughout the episode I began wondering if august was a legitimate contender and the thought bothered me for a few reasons: i had been under the impression the plot isn't really about that; that there would be no space to fit in a love triangle of this size if other conflicts were to be explored and resolved. basically that mork and day would have enough on their plate without august in the picture and focusing on those two would only slow down the development of the main couple. I did find the thought of august's intentions being serious intriguing though, a bit frustrating, yes, but also interesting.

now, I had a bit of trouble understanding your point but im guessing you mean we already saw that day was disappointed the party wasn't a date so we're aware of his feelings and they are not aimed at august anymore? so it wouldn't have been an issue if august just continued liking day because day doesn't like him that way anymore, right? because I get that, it wouldn't have been the first time that's happened on screen haha but also that's exactly why I'm not that fond of the idea. day and august having a mutual crush and that going for a few episodes? THAT I find intriguing, an actual relationship trying to figure itself out while it's doomed by the narrative because it isn't the main romance.

but august having actual romantic feelings for day and stepping aside (because the show wants this couple dealt with by the end of the first half, apparently, and it would have cut him off somehow) would be something both sad and also, in my humble opinion, redundant. I've seen it before, it's just a bummer for everyone involved and I don't need it here.

what the plot actually did was very nice, as weird as it sounds. it gave us a character who loves his mate a lot. I do not doubt that august has strong feelings for day. everyone is pissed at him at the moment, day is hurt because there was pity, mork is angry because there was lack of consideration but that boy cares for day, a lot. i suppose there are feelings of guilt, they were on the court together when day lost his vision and then he didn't contact august for over a year. august probably felt some sort if personal responsibility for day's condition or for his behaviour towards him while they were partners, for the fact day felt he couldn't tell him the truth. so there is guilt and there is pity but also there is affection for a friend, for a partner, for the person alongside which you aimed for your dreams. they have a bond (and im sure people have expressed a lot about their sync and dynamic that I haven't picked up on but a bond is undeniable).

august tried to be a better person, a warm one, someone day doesn't recognise. he tried to be everything he wasn't before because thats what he decided day wants and needs. the night at the bar he was already feeling bad about leaving day to hang. on a side note, while the episode was airing i ran to check whether the cast was there that night and if it was on the same arm. it was. august didnt lie and im paranoid lmao anyways

the scene was crushing for mork and us, sure, but it was also very hard for august. he had had an accident, he couldn't contact day and still went as soon as he could after midnight. when he heard the confession he ran which honestly felt like an appropriate reaction - indicating he was there would make day embarrassed and pretending to come in later also wouldn't work because his partner who recently came back into his life with shocking news after ghosting him for a year suddenly confessed he's in love with him. while he's exhausted and hurt. of course the kid needed time to process what the fuck is going on! and he came back the very next morning, ready to make things right.

the issue stems from the fact he had no clue what right is, his underdeveloped brain told him to be a better friend than before but it went too far off in the direction of that thought and landed at "be what he wants you to be to a T" which includes, well, a romantic interest. and that's just not something you can force but alas, earnest, stupid august tried to check off everything on the "make day happy" list.

that boy ran off crying (I would too if mork glared at me like a maddog but still) because he kissed and got kissed by someone he didn't want such contact with ( the reciprocated kiss was A Lot for him) and then realised he'd hurt the person he wanted to satisfy in every way. his words indicate he didn't intend the kiss to be just one, that he wanted to actively change the way he feels about day, that he considered being his boyfriend. I figure he truly realised that was not an option while the kiss was happening hence why the second one had him running away again.

we know august is impulsive and earnest, his intentions were coming from a good place but he couldn't plan to save his life. he acts with his heart and so he was relying on falling for day till the end with no backup plan. it's either that or he knew before the kiss and intended it to be a single gift and I can't tell which is worse. in any case he was aware of the big possibility him and days weren't going to work out so his actions were majorly irresponsible.

the kiss had me screaming NOO literally and then the second one nearly had me gripping my hair, idek what sounds I made from the beginning till the end of that scene but "felt wrong" is something I can understand though it didd feel wrong but maybe not in the way you mean?

i didn't know nor suspect august's intentions and thought process so the kiss felt real to me and though I was against it as an avid morkday shipper, I didn't think that narratively it was bad. day was done dirty a 100% (though he gets mork acting on his feelings finally so..glass half full..?). let's not forget that mork actively supported day's perception of the situation as flirting - not his fault, that's what august was doing after all - but it's something that made the fall that much worse. day was getting hyped up by mork the way he was by gee ABOUT mork before that. he gets affected by his friends' opinions because he relies on them to read the other's body language and intentions. so there is this feeling of helplessness not only because of the pity that guided august's actions but the fact he couldn't assess the situation himself. so yes, for this and many other reasons, day was done dirty by every definition of the phrase.

but as for august and the plot I'm not so sure. august as a character is, to me, much more interesting as this confused and, frankly, unintelligent young man whose heart seems to be in the right place..? but whose actions are totally misguided than if he were, let's say, a good guy finally acting on his crush after years. I suppose he could've stopped before the kiss and told day the truth and maybe day would be a bit disappointed but definitely more forgiving and less heartbroken..

but then how would we see that day can help mork tame his anger with just a touch of the hand? and we needed an act so grotesque that would lead them to have a conversation that makes mork want to scream "I do not pity you, I haven't pitied you for a second, you are so strong and smart and loveable, i love you, how could you ever focus on a nobody like him when you are everything, you deserve so much more, how could you not know that, why did i ever let him near you, i should have never allowed for this to happen, i love you so much god I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU" (yes thats what those eyes at the rooftop said, idk what yall heard.)

i believe the charm of this scene and this whole conflict is that no one there is acting out of malice. it's just people doing what they think is right. mork stepping aside was not the right move technically but it fits his character and the plot as well. imo august wasn't done dirty, he was made interesting and also he isn't a bad guy. he did some really harmful shit but by the end of the scene i didn't feel an ounce of malice from him. there could still be love between the two but one that's not based around day walking on eggshells and one that doesn't rely on august to be something he is not. when they arent forced by the outside to be in close proximity and make things work, when they can just tease each other comfortably without taking all of the other's happiness and well-being as their own responsibility, thats when they could have a nice casual friendship with a lot of appreciation for the other. i believe him and day would reconcile at some point in the future when day is ready to forgive and august is ready to stop running.

[veryace-ficrecs]

Asexual Fic Recs

These fics feature characters who either canonically or non-canonically identify as asexual. If I include a fic on this list that features a character that you personally don't think is ace - thats ok! everyone has their own headcannons for characters, Just be polite!

Merlin (TV)

keep me as i keep you by fabledfrog - Rated G

Merlin smiles, a smile that makes Arthur feel like he’s the one who brings out the sun every morning. It’s a smile that says ‘I am proud of you’ and ‘I know you will’ and spells out devotion and care.

Heart Lines by PeaceHeather - Rated G

Everyone is born with a heart line, a pigmented mark running from the heart down the left arm to the palm, which turns color when the person comes of age, telling them when it is time to seek their soulmate. Red indicates a romantic love, while blue is for platonic "heart-friends", as the minstrels called it. Uther had always told Arthur to ignore his heart line, that it wouldn't matter who his soulmate was; princes did not marry for love, after all. If was lucky, he'd be able to keep her as a mistress, so long as he did not get any children with her. Uther hated magic and would have urged Arthur to ignore the heart line anyway, if he could. Arthur wasn't sure his soulmate was really a woman despite Uther's assumptions. But Arthur's heart line hadn't even come into its full color yet, which meant he hadn't come of age in the eyes of the gods, despite being named crown prince by Uther. So it really didn't matter: whoever his soulmate was, he wasn't yet ready to meet them. Then one day his heart line comes in, and it's neither red nor blue.

Leverage (TV)

Not Quite the Birds and the Bees by YumeArashi - Rated T

One morning over breakfast, Parker asked Hardison, "So am I supposed to offer to have sex with you?" [Relationships get interesting where Parker's involved. Luckily, Hardison is a very understanding guy.]

Better than Normal by YumeArashi - Rated M

Parker's take on life, love, and sex (or lack thereof) with Hardison and Eliot.

Star Wars

The Slow Progression of Wanting by celeste9 - Rated T

Everyone in the Resistance seems to assume that Finn wants either Rey or Poe, with the only question being which one. Though Finn slowly comes to realize that he does want them, he doesn't want them in the way that people seem to think he should. He thinks there must be something wrong with him. (asexual!Finn)

The Princess and the Nerfherder by Fialleril - Rated G

“Are we dating?” Breha said to him one afternoon in the Academy’s library. Or, the life and times of Breha and Bail Organa.

Abstinence Only by mandocule - Rated G

Boba Fett was fine with the world thinking he didn't approve of sex before marriage. It was true, anyway, if only in the sense that he didn't want sex at all, before or after marriage. He just hoped Djarin would get the picture and stop trying to get with him before he had to lay it out - or, worse, before he caught feelings.

it's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out by redsquadronblues (aceofcorvids) - Rated T

Wedge and Luke keep coming back to each other for ten long years, and it's the opposite of a problem. Or, five times Wedge wakes up next to Luke Skywalker, and one time he doesn't.

Lord of The Rings

Three is Company by starryeyedknight - Rated T

“And what about you, Samwise? You’re going to tell me you’ve never looked as Mr Frodo with an eye for a quick fondle if he offered it – a handsome fellow such as him?”

Frodo straightened up, dusting off his jacket and shirt. “Yes, go on Samwise; I want to hear the answer to this.”

“No, I ain’t,” Sam said with laboured patience. “Mr Frodo isn’t interested in that sort of thing, and so I don’t consider it. It just seems…well, too much like taking liberties, if you take my meaning.”

“Do you know, I find that rather insulting? Just because I’m not looking for a good tupping doesn’t mean you couldn’t pine after me a little, Sam Gamgee, even as a matter of courtesy. What’s a hobbit got to do to be objectified around here?”

Sometimes relationships need a little communication to define. In which Rosie is bolder than the boys expect, Frodo is overcome with emotion (and a severe case of the giggles), Sam still doesn't understand what a catch he is - and all three hobbits love each other very dearly indeed.

9-1-1 (TV)

To Become a Family by RaspberryDreams1 - Rated M

Eddie's on leave before being deployed after the death of his 17 year old brother Leonardo, when his old school friend Shannon comes to him asking for help. Shannon is pregnant and Eddie's the only member of the family who knows that Leon had been casually involved with Shannon. Shannon doesn't want an abortion but cannot face the idea of bringing up a baby on her own. Believing that this may be his only chance at fatherhood, Eddie agrees to claim paternity and marry Shannon to provide the child with financial security and a father.

Baldur's Gate (Video Game)

joke me something awful, just like kisses on the necks of best friends by LyriumTainted - Rated G

“…If you wanted to cuddle, you could’ve just said so.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m doing this for your benefit.”

Supernatural

Warmth by TheIttyBitty - Rated G

Asexual!Cas & Protective!Dean

What Matters by bumblewyn - Rated T

Cas thinks he owes it to Dean to have sex with him, Dean shows Cas what truly matters.

Get it Wrong, Get it Right by feraldanvers - Rated T

Dean’s been mixed up over his feelings for a long time, but it never occurs to him that Cas might be mixed up, too.

[domoz]

An attempt at a Hikaku/Itama thing that I just can't seem to get past a block on. so i'm turning it over to you.

The Uchiha clan has every right not to trust outsiders with their health. Unfortunately, the Senju have healing techniques worth risking it for. Even more unfortunately, the injury Hikaku had taken to his left arm had been noticed, and even worse than that, the Hokage had suggested it would be a show of good faith for him to go to the hospital that his clan has taken charge of running. And Madara had agreed.

So now here he is, tense and nervous in a waiting room chair because just the act of being here is a signal of weakness that no shinobi should ever willingly send. The long stares and flustered glances of the people manning the intake desk haven't helped improve his mood

"Ah, Uchiha-san?" A vaguely familiar voice calls.

Hikaku looks up and locks eyes with one Senju Itama, who is one of the most immediately recognizable people in the entire village despite the fact that his reputation is entirely shadowed by his brothers'. Dual colored hair is swept up in a high bun, though some fly-aways have started to pull loose, and a few larger strands dangle loose around his ears. He's in a doctor's coat, but there's nothing on him to indicate that he pretty much runs the building.

The head of the hospital probably doesn't need to see him for a broken arm and dislocated shoulder, but perhaps this is just the good faith he's supposed to be offering being returned.

The Senju gives him a small smile, "If you're ready, I can see you now."

Hikaku nods, hiding a grimace of pain in the collar of his battle coat as he pushes himself to his feet and follows. Instinct has him examining the back so easily offered to him. There are no obvious weapons, but there's no way Itama doesn't have something on him. Medic types tend to go for senbon, which are easy to hide -- besides that, the Senju may be the shortest in his family, but he still has a good few centimeters on Hikaku and a not insignificant amount of muscle. With his broken arm, Hikaku would be at a significant disadvantage if they got into a brawl.

…Which is not going to happen, Hikaku tiredly reminds himself. Because it would cause a political incident, which would negate the whole point of him coming here. And because Senju Itama, from everything he has seen and heard, is as mild mannered as they come, and is also holding the door to an exam open for him. The look on his face is somewhere between the compassion Hashirama might wear and Tobirama's analytical gaze. Hikaku ignores it and walks into the room, arm twinging in pain as his muscles reflexively tighten as he hears the door close behind him.

"You can sit on the table there, Uchiha-san." Itama says softly. He's gotten a clipboard from somewhere and is already marking down notes on it. "Is there anything else besides the break and dislocation?"

Hikaku seriously considers lying for a moment, because he wants to be out of here as soon as possible, but good medics always seem to be able to tell that sort of thing and make your life hell for trying.

"Just some minor bruises and scrapes." Hikaku grits out, hoping that wont extend the time he's kept here even longer.

Itama hums and makes another note before looking up to make eye contact again -- which Hikaku only now registers as unusual. Most Senju still don't.

"Well, we'll deal with the worst first. Are you alright with me using a medical technique to examine your arm?"

Hikaku blinks, and Itama waits expectantly. He had been assuming thats was where this was going -- after all, what was the point of coming here if not to experience those techniques. He's not sure if he's actually being given a choice, but the illusion of one still feels kind enough to unwind some of the tension that had been building and making his shoulder ache even worse. He exhales.

"What exactly would that entail?"

The corner of Itama's eyes crinkle. Rather than upset at being questioned, he looks pleased.

"I would use my chakra in a series of specific highly compact sensory bursts to determine the severity and nature of the damage, which is painless and non-invasive. After that, if you're willing, I would use another technique to directly stimulate the regrowth and repair of injured cells. I can also temporarily reduce the pain your nerves are transmitting as well."

Hikaku mostly knows the words he's just heard, but that all seems very…

Well it seems like it's something that no one should casually admit to being able to do, which is to say that it seems very Senju.

"…How does the recovery time compare to letting it heal the natural way?"

Itama smiles at him, one cheek dimpling.

"I'd have to see the damage more specifically, but for bone breaks full recovery tends to take about half the time, and for minor fractures most people leave clear to go back to light duty."

Which means that it's way too useful to pass up on, no matter how dubious Hikaku feels about the matter.

"Alright." Hikaku agrees, "That sounds… Good."

Itama only nods. "I have to touch you for this as well. Are you alright with that?"

Hikaku can't decide if he's thankful or annoyed that he keeps asking. He thins his lips and nods.

"You can tell me to stop at any time." Itama says. He steps closer, telegraphing his movements like he knows the proximity has set Hikaku's heart thundering. If he'd had time to rest before coming here, perhaps he wouldn't be so paranoid, but he hadn't, so Hikaku watches warily and braces as Itama's hands light up a soft mind green and reach towards him.

…It doesn't hurt.

Izuna has been through this before, and he had described the feeling as being overwhelming. Like drowning in someone else's chakra, and hideously painful and uncomfortable. Granted, his wound had been far more severe, but it had set Hikaku up with a certain expectation that's not being met.

The foreign chakra brushes across his senses feather-light and almost cooling. The pain of the break fades to a dull ache, and then, slowly, to nothing at all.

"This may be a bit unpleasant." Itama warns him, and Hikaku braces for what is mostly nothing. The cool sensation grows until it's mildly uncomfortable, but not more than that. It's like a chilly winter wind that saps away all the warmth, but it never starts hurting, not even when Itama slowly lifts his arm to pop the joint back into place. The longer it goes on the more Hikaku feels the tension leech out of his shoulders. Pain relief so instant and without any apparent side effects is… Nice.

Itama steps back, looking Hikaku over with a critical eye.

"Take care to watch for inflammation and take it easy for the next few days, but you should be fine. The break was clean. Do you want me to heal the smaller things as well? Or I can bandage them up to heal the slow way."

"I…" Hikaku almost rejects the offer on reflex, but now that what is presumably the worst is over he feels a little silly over how worried he was. If he's already taking the easy way, why should he stop now? "Yes, if you don't mind."

Itama nods and reaches out again, seemingly already aware of where the worst of the cuts and bruises are.

"Thank you." Hikaku finds himself blurting, "For -- this. I've been impolite, but you've been very accommodating."

Itama smiles again, but he doesn't look up from where he's focused on Hikaku's other hand -- numbing the sting of a scrape so minor Hikaku hadn't even realized it was there until the pain was gone.

"You're welcome, Uchiha-san. And don't worry, you've been a model patient. You wouldn't believe how hard it can be to get people to just sit still sometimes."

Maybe that's not surprising; shinobi are a jumpy bunch at the best of times and being injured only makes it worse. He can use himself, today, as the perfect example of that. He resists the urge to duck his head.

"Well… I'm sure that once people know how useful this is it'll get easier." Hikaku honestly means it, too. Because he's fine -- coming off one of the worse missions he's ever had --certainly the worst in recent memory-- and he's going to go home tired and fine.

"…You'd think that, but sometimes I have trouble convincing people who have grown up with the option to use it." Itama sighs, resigned or amused, Hikaku doesn't know him well enough to tell, and continues his work, chakra easing the strain in his muscles and fading bruises to pale yellow.

"…Actually." Itama says after a moment, pulling his hands away, "Do you think if we taught more people how these techniques work, it would make them more willing to use them? I don't really know how else to encourage it short of forcing it."

…Like Hikaku basically had been, though he's not certain if Itama knows that or not. That aside --

"Oh, I...I think so, yes. I men, it's a trust thing right now, isn't it? And the more people who know how to heal like that, the more likely it is that someone who needs help will know someone who can do it."

More practically, Hikaku is pretty sure that the number of Uchiha who have managed to get that technique to work for them in all of the history he knows is in the single digits. There's clearly some secret to it that the sharingan can't copy. If Itama is willing to share even a fraction of it, the clan needs to know. Or-- the village does. Both, since that's the same thing, now.

"That is…" Itama steps back, "A good point. And I think I'm all done here, so you're free to go, Uchiha-san."

"Oh. Thank you." Hikaku slides off the table, rolls his shoulders and test his muscles. There's the burn of exhaustion, but compared to how he'd come in, it's like a miracle.

"Of course." Itama smiles at him again, "Come back any time."

[demadogs]

Reflecting on your post about not leaving mike ambiguous because explicitly discussing his sexuality is the only way to redeem him, do you think there’s any way for him to be bi in a nick nelson sort of way and have it still work? I know you believe in a gay mike as do I but still, is him not liking girls at all the only way things will work? Someone said it must be clear that melvin is like stobin and 100% incompatible but I’m not sure that’s true

i didnt watch all of heartstopper so i dont really know exactly how his bisexual storyline went down but given mikes queer coding, there are some things that just wouldnt make sense if hes bi instead of gay, the biggest one being “its not my fault you dont like girls”. he has to be projecting there and they would have written a different line if he does like girls but is still questioning his sexuality.

the other huge one is the closet framed kiss. the fact that its dividing him and el so perfectly indicates that the closet is whats dividing their relationship. that just wouldnt be the case if he was in the closet but still liked girls.

i do agree that its extremely important to explicitly acknowledge him not liking girls for el’s sake. all of s4 she is thinking shes the monster and that shes unlovable and shes lying to mike to try and fix their relationship and get him to love her and nothings working and she knows it. el really deserves an explanation for all this and i think that explanation being the fact that mike doesnt love girls at all, not just that he doesnt love her, would make her feel so much better and allow them to be much better and closer friends post break up. i think the only way to give mlvn closure and end it for good is for them to talk about the fact that they could never work out even if will wasnt in the picture.

and i have a feeling el will relate to this in a way. they were both just doing what they were expected to do in this relationship. el didnt know any better because she didnt grow up in normal circumstances and thought ditching your friends to make out with your boyfriend is just what couples are supposed to do. and mike was doing what he thought was right by staying with his girlfriend even though he cant even tell her he loves her.

i think they both will have an emotional conversation about how theyve always loved each other but not in a romantic way and they both were trying to force something that wasnt there just because they thought thats what they were supposed to do.

[rainbowsandsilverlinings]

((So I was tagged in the Signature Character thingy (started in this post by @paradoxes-and-plotholes) by @slytherinstation. She’s given me free reign to pick a character, and after much hemming and hawing I pick...

Lavender Brown!

In particular, I’ll be talking about my take on the werewolf!Lavender AU, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start)

Sorry this took so long, I was half way through finals and totally forgot to finish it, ooooops.))

Lavender Brown was born in late 1979, in the middle of her parent’s generation’s war. The Brown family were not particularly important, but they lived through the first wizarding war, and began raising their child whilst living in fear of a great evil, just as so many others did. Andrew Brown worked an important but rather boring job at the ministry, and Elise Brown gave up her job as a secretary at St. Mungo's when Lavender was born.

A bright light in a terrifying time, the Brown’s huddled next to their emergency vanishing cabinet while Lavender took her first steps and spoke her first words. As the war ended and the wizarding world exhaled, Lavender continued to grow as a delicate flower, the perfect daughter to her parents who expected no less.

At 8 years old, Lavender learned how to do a cartwheel. All of the girls in her class were learning how to do one, and it seemed important at the time. Lavender ran home to her mother to show her how cool her new trick was, but when she ran barefoot into the kitchen, tracking mud in, with bloody knees and loose hair, Elise Brown clucked disapprovingly and sat her down to clean her up. “You have to act like a lady, my flower. Let the men get dirty for us, it is our job to be beautiful and happy.” Lavender liked being pretty and she liked being happy. But she also liked doing cartwheels, so she was confused.

At 11 years old, Lavender went to Hogwarts. She was excited to meet her new roommates, her mother said that her roommates at Hogwarts would be her best friends for her whole life, and she was excited to meet them. She became fast friends with Parvati, and the two soon became nearly inseparable. She didn’t realize until years later that it wasn’t her best friend that she met in that dorm room on September 1st 1991, but the love of her life.

At 15 years old, Lavender started to wear makeup every day. In part it was in rebellion against a professor who made femininity put a bad taste in her mouth. Lavender made a point to both excel in the DA and put mascara on every day. She would never admit it, but she did it to spite both the hyper-feminine, toxic DADA professor and to be contrary to a certain bushy haired witch with whom she shared a dorm room. Maybe she could not be perfect at either, but she could do well enough at both. Nobody really noticed.

At 16 years old, Lavender fell in love for the first time. This new feeling was overwhelming and thrilling. For the first time, it was like she mattered to someone. And she wanted to make sure that he knew that she loved him and cared for him just as much. But ever present was Hermione and her stupid intelligence. Maybe if Lavender put enough time and energy into Ron, then he would love her. She was beautiful and happy, just like her mom instructed. But flowers wilt if they aren't tended to, and even Sunflowers that search out a Sun wilt if the sun is fraternizing with the puffy haired moon.

At 17 years old, Lavender’s life became hellish. History books would say of her that her contribution to the resistance was the addition of a bathroom to the Room of Requirement. But people who were there will tell you that she was one of the few things holding the mangey group of teenagers together. Lavender and Parvati together tended bruises and scrapes, held the first years while they cried, and made sure everybody in the room ate every day. Lavender may not have known it then, but her best friend was slowly becoming her soulmate during this time.

At 18 years old, Lavender became a monster. Or she thought she had. Everyone told her she hadn’t. But if the man who had turned her into this was a monster, then wasn’t she? Her mother cried a lot, but her father never visited her in the hospital. “Just give him time” said Elise, “it’s quite an adjustment isn’t it?” She didn’t return home. Parvati offered her a spare bed at her flat when she was released. For a time, Parvati and occasionally Padma were Lavender’s only tie to the world outside.

It was early in her 19th year that Lavender looked in the mirror without hating herself. Later that same year, she returned to Hogwarts to finish her education. Now graduating in the class a year below her in age. She wasn’t the only young werewolf in the school, the war had left those marks on so many. The group was more than inseparable by the end of the semester, and it was hard to leave her new family.

Lavender didn’t realize that she was in love until her 21st year. When she realized, it felt like remembering how to breathe properly. Parvati had gone from stranger to roommate to best friend in the span of a few hours. But it took 10 years for her to become a soulmate. Parvati had been infinitely patient with Lavender, and had never left her side. It just took them both a while to figure out that the reason for that went deeper than friendship.

Lavender spent her early adult years climbing quietly through the ranks of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Her calling and passion became the fair treatment of all beings in the magical world. Her interest in centaurs from her teenage years, paired with her rather intimate knowledge of werewolves made her work long and hard hours at the ministry, working to establish rights that previous generations never had.

((I want to tag @notanotherweasley to do whatever character she wants (if she wants to, of course). All of her characters are fab, and I just love getting to see her writing. Sorry if you were already tagged dear Marcus, I couldn’t be bothered to go check.))

[no-droids]

Kar’taylir

gif credit @sersi​

Part Thirteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 11.8K

Warnings: language, angst and fluff, descriptions of a dead body, no real smut in this one but there is some nudity and touching, uhhh i think thats it tbh

A/N: Omg hi hi hello this was written in a week and a half so please be gentle, also I’m back on my linguistics bullshit and I can absolutely guarantee a vast majority of it is inaccurate

***

Everybody is asleep and you’re just a complete mess.

Truly.  And it fucking sucks, because this should be enjoyable.  This is home.  You’re in hyperspace, the hull is pitch black, the baby is asleep, and Din’s breathing is slow and quiet through the darkness.  Your cheek presses to his chest as it rises and falls hypnotically, you’re comfortable and safe and this would normally be a dream.  But your eyes are wide open right now and you are just going through it.  Spiraling in the midst of the most stable surroundings you could possibly conceive.

You suppose that this is partially your fault.  You don’t know why literally any part of you expected Din would explain himself without prompting from you, but you still couldn’t work up nearly the nerve necessary to ask.  Every potential question you came up with contradicted your intent, every way you tried to mentally phrase it gave off the wrong impression.  How do you ask somebody if they were being serious about something without revealing anything about your own intentions?  You can’t—that’s a downside of staying silent.

Din hasn’t said a single word since he urged you to leave the shooting range earlier, and he didn’t really seem like the quiet didn’t suit him, if that makes sense.  Yours was awkward, it fit you wrong.  You struggled for words while he easily ignored their existence altogether, able to navigate the Crest into hyperspace and exist comfortably around you without ever addressing the giant bantha in the room.  Maybe that’s part of the reason you floundered so hard—he didn’t avoid you, he held the kid while you took a shower in the small fresher, and even though he was quieter around you than he’d been in awhile, he gave no indication that anything was wrong at all.

You spent that time getting clean but also formulating some sort of plan.  As you bathed in actual water for the first time in a week and scrubbed your body clean, you tried to figure out at least why you were having so much trouble coming up with something to say, but even then, words evaded you.  You spent the entire time staring blankly at the metal wall, at a complete fucking loss.

When you came out of the fresher with wet hair and comfortable clothing to sleep in, Din was armorless and resting in your makeshift bed on the floor, the baby tucked soundly in his crib next to him.  You turned off the lights and carefully found your way under the blankets next to him in the pitch blackness, feeling him lazily reach around you and pull you to rest against his chest.  His fingers gently drew circles along your arm for maybe the first few minutes while you worked up the nerve to speak.  You needed to say something, this was your chance—

But then his hand soon fell to rest in one place on your shoulder and he passed out.  Helmet on, not even a few minutes of your quiet breathing next to him.

So now, you’re here, just… a little ball of stress in the middle of paradise.  Hours have passed, you need sleep after such a physically exhausting week but it’s like you haven’t even processed the fucking proposition he presented to you yet.  You’re having trouble even thinking the words, that’s how much he’s got you fucked up.

He said… hit the target and I’ll ma…. hit the target and I’ll marrrrr…

Fuck.  You stay on that loop for ages until your eyes begin to grow heavy, until you just settle on thinking about it with them closed.  Slow breaths from Din under one ear, the silence of hyperspace all around you—how are you supposed to contemplate when his body is so warm?  No, you can ask tomorrow, you’ll ask him tomorrow.

Eventually, you’re able to drift off into a troubled slumber, dreaming of bells made of beskar that deafen anyone who rings them.

***

You wake up what feels like two minutes later.

It’s not, but you don’t know that.  You’re so warm and the second your eyes open, they start stinging and burning and tearing up like your body just wants to cry for even being awake right now.  You finally got to sleep—you moan pitifully and start to turn your head further into the warm blankets, but then a gloved hand smooths your hair back and a voice whispers quiet through the darkness.

“I have to go.”

And oh, his touch is just the gentlest thing, but what he says makes your already fragile mental state want to shatter.  The first words he gives you in hours and they’re the ones you loathe to hear the most.

“W-Wha?  No,” you whimper and automatically reach for him, your throat starting to close up.  Maker, you’re so tired, you’re so tired, you feel so fucking emotional and vulnerable right now and you’re not even awake enough to realize it.  “Why?”

Din just catches your hands and brings both of them together in front of him, slowly pressing your knuckles to the cold beskar on the face of his helmet.

“I meet with Karga in three days,” he murmurs back, voice pillow-soft and barely loud enough to come through the steel under your fingers.  It’s gentle and lulling and it makes you want to sleep again, but you can’t and you feel like you could burst into tears for that reason alone.  “He gave me four pucks, I need four bodies.”

You can’t argue with it, the logic is perfectly sound.  But you still want to, and everything inside you revolts at the thought of allowing him leave like this without fighting for more.  Which means you have absolutely nothing reasonable or compelling to say to appeal to him; all you’re left with the glaring truth.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you whisper, tightening your fingers.

And, perhaps if you were even half-conscious, you’d wince.  You’d cringe at the shake in your voice, you’d remind yourself that he has to make a living, he’s said it over and over again.  If you were completely awake, you’d scold yourself for being such a needy mess, but right now, all you can think about is how much you want him to stay, just this once.

After a moment, you feel the gloves carefully collect both of your hands into just one of his, and then he slowly reaches out with his free hand to cradle your jaw.

“I won’t be gone long,” Din murmurs.  “I can’t be.”

Your head turns slowly in his palm, and you’re just so, so sleepy.  Your voice is small and your words slur.  “Stay with me.”

Quiet, and though you can’t see him, the leather continues to press so warm to your cheek.  Your eyes slowly drift shut, needing him to stay exactly like this, stay right here just like this.  Karga can wait, the quarry can wait, the galaxy can wait—everything else can wait when things are like this, when he’s looking down at you breathing slow into his palm.

You’re almost asleep again when you hear him say something.

But… you have no idea what he says.  You hear it.  You hear his voice come through the pitch black, quiet enough to sit just on top of the silence and let the mysterious words simply become a part of it, but it’s strange.  Like his cadence lilts in a different way, the vowels are longer than what you’re used to, and your comprehension abruptly falters like it would if he was speaking another language altogether.

Maybe it’s just because it’s the first thing to pull you back from the edges of sleep, that has to be right.  It doesn’t sound like Basic because your mind is stupid and slow right now.  You need to ask him to repeat himself, but all that you can muster is the soft sound of confusion, not even able to open your eyes anymore.

His hands pull away from you and once again, you suddenly can’t decide between sleep and crying, quickly lifting and trying to reach out for him in the darkness.  You can’t feel anything, it’s like he’s completely disappeared from where you assumed he’d be, except then something tiny is placed into your hands instead and it makes an unhappy little sound at being disturbed.  You automatically hold the baby close to your chest and strong hands touch your shoulders, urging you to lay back down again.

“Leave the engine running, you’ll freeze if you don’t,” he mutters, quickly tucking the blankets up under your body while you close your eyes and feel the tears wet your lashes.  Fuck, you’re so exhausted, you just need to sleep.  “If I’m not back in sixteen hours, I’ll use my e-comm and you’ll have to fly out to me.”

He steps away from you, walks quickly and with purpose to the side of the hull, and a blast of frigid air fills the room before the door is slammed shut behind him.

***

Your head hurts.

Sparks and wires give your fingers mean, zapping reminders to pay attention every time your focus slips, but you still feel like you’re in a daze.

“Come on,” you drone, trying to use your voice to snap yourself back into the present, but the sound of it isn’t even interesting enough to pull you away.  “Come on.”

Maker, you’re going fucking crazy.  Is this just all an elaborate scheme to make you experience the same kind of insanity he told you he struggles with in your absence?  Because you don’t like this—you hate feeling like this, you can’t concentrate on anything and even if he hadn’t instructed you to do so, you’d likely still be counting the hours of his absence.

Fourteen have passed so far, not the sixteen you’re waiting for but getting close.  It’s one thing you’ve been able to accomplish.  Counting.  You can still count right now, so at least there’s that.

Oh, and another hoop you’ve jumped through.  Understanding words.  You can listen and repeat, even if you still can’t fully comprehend, but you’re getting there.

Din said… hit the target and I’ll marry you.

He said that.  Yep.  You’ve accepted it, you’ve accepted the words that were said.  Indeed.

Okay, but now… like…

What did he mean by that?  Why did he say that?

No matter how much you tell yourself he was just messing around—no matter how many times you offer up that perfectly logical answer to the burning question you’ve been sitting on, you still aren’t satisfied with it.  Something keeps tugging your mind back to it, a tether constantly pulling you away from the work that’s designed to be your distraction.

You frown down at the box of machinery.  Whelp, if he was serious, he’d probably immediately take the offer back after witnessing your behavior this morning.  You embarrassed yourself terribly, you acted like a clingy baby in the looming shadow of unconsciousness and what’s worse, you can’t even remember what he said after you begged him to stay.  It could’ve been a quiet, “Stars, pull yourself together,” for all you know.

And honestly, just… fuck these electronics.  You’re at the point where you’d probably cheer on whatever brutal impact damaged them so atrociously if you weren’t also well aware that this box was very likely attached to Din’s chest when it was crushed.  The magnetics are a complete mess, and you’re mostly just attempting to see how the individual components of each piece are supposed to communicate.  Turning the switch on doesn’t do much at all besides make the capacitors put out heat.  Not enough to shut it down or be a hazard to the housing when you close it, but enough to know that it’s going to present a problem for you at some point.

What’s more, you’re so lost in your own thoughts and busywork that you don’t see two green ears poking out over the top of the pile of armor on your temporary workstation (literally just the floor) until one of the thigh braces comes clattering down and the whole thing collapses with a ruckus.

You suddenly shove the metal box away from you in frustration and you reach for the little troublemaker with a sigh, scooping him up and getting to your feet.

“This isn’t going to work,” you grunt to him, hearing your words better for some reason when you direct them at the baby instead of talking to yourself, and his eh? allows the thoughts to come clearer and easier.  No, you can’t be distracted when your distraction is just another part of your status quo, you can’t use fixing mechanics to occupy yourself because it’s what you’ve done to occupy yourself your entire life, it’s worn off at this point.  You need something newer.  Something that takes your entire focus to do.

Eventually, your eyes drift over to the one metal panel on the wall that you’ve rarely ever opened.  One that takes up a comparatively enormous amount of space in the hull considering what you know it holds.  You eye the kid in your arm, who suddenly has sneaky painted all over his expression.  “You thinking what I’m thinking, demon?”

He squeaks his affirmative and you move over to the armory, pressing a few buttons before the doors slide open by themselves.  Because of course Mando invested in hydraulics for the gun closet but not for the hidden cot he used to sleep on, of course.

“Maker above,” you groan as the metal slides open, needing to lift your chin to eye the enormous collection.  How many fucking…?  All this for just one person?  What does that big one in the middle do that the others stacked strategically around it don’t?  They all kill whatever you point and shoot at, you’re assuming?  Are you missing something?

The baby makes a tiny sound of awe as you carefully look over your choices, not expecting nearly this many to be offered, before settling on one that looks the simplest.  A sleek silver one that’s still too big for your hand but smaller than anything else on the rack.

Grabby fingers reach out for the shiny metal as soon as you remove it from the shelf and you very purposefully set it down out of his pitiful wingspan.  “Nope.  Now come on, gotta bundle up.”

You make your way back over to the bed and pull one of the thickest blankets up, settling it over the open shield and then situating your partner in crime in his usual spot inside.  You strategically stuff and stack the fabric around him to make sure he’ll be warm enough in what you know has to be far below freezing temperatures, lifting it up over his ears and wrapping it around his neck in a loose hood.  He blinks up at you with gigantic eyes and an open mouth, clearly thrilled about your willingness to go on an adventure with him this time instead of being the tall nuisance that consistently holds him back from one, and you scoff down at him as you partially close the lid on his levitating nest of blankets for extra protection.  He should be warm enough, you’re not going to be outside long.

And then you pull out nearly half the amount of clothes you own and suit up in what feels like ten layers before grabbing the blaster.  The swirling wind nearly shoves the heavy hull door into you as soon as you open it and—Maker.

You look back at the kid behind you for a second, wondering if it’s too late to change your mind.  His expression narrows and he makes a triumphant ha! while pointing three fingers at the grey blizzard through the small open space in his crib.  Try as you might, you can’t ignore a call to arms when delivered with such ferocity.

Both of you step outside and take in the view after you wrestle with the door to haul it shut.  You don’t know the name of this planet but from what you can see, it’s one giant ice ball, mountainous and cold as fuck.  Though, to be honest, your only indication that it’s truly cold as fuck is the continuously accumulating snow blanketing the landscape and the flurries dancing in the whipping wind.  You’re too warm-blooded for climates like these—anything below room temperature and you’re freezing, you have absolutely no tolerance for cold whatsoever.

Keeping that in mind, you don’t travel far at all.  Just a few steps beyond the entrance to your shelter before eyeing what appears to be a large white boulder in the distance.  There’s a solid target, you figure—you’ll be able to see chunks splintering off when you hit it and the ice isn’t strong enough to bounce plasma back, you won’t have any ricochets.

Okay.  Okay—safety, where’s the safety on this one?  Ah, yes, okay—safety, off.  Stance, find your stance.  There it is.  Alright, now lift.  Lift, get that stupid frozen ball right in your sights, line it up.  Hold.  Hold.  Hold.

Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale—

Fire.

You watch with bated breath as the bright red bolt launches from the end of the barrel and travels across the distance before melting a hole in the snow just to the right of your target.

“Mother fucker!”  You yell into the frigid landscape without warning, suddenly infuriated.  What’s the point of even having a sight if every gun is just gonna say fuck you no matter what?  Could there be some sort of mathematical reason why you seem to be fucking atrocious at this, you wonder?  Are you fucking up the angle somehow while trying to read the scope?  Should you just ignore it and try to aim without thinking too hard?

Admittedly, you spend the next five minutes shooting at that stupid fucking thing, not making a single shot.  It’s not been long at all, but your entire body is already trembling uncontrollably and it is just too fucking cold out here.  Freezing your fucking ass off isn’t going to help your aim of course, but it’s almost just tragic at this point.  Either you’ve got to accept that you’re just absolutely hopeless at this, or you’ve got to… blame the little womprat behind you for messing up your shots, yeah.  It wouldn't surprise you.

As a last ditch effort, you consider trying something a bit ridiculous to see if he really is fucking with you.

“I’m firing one last shot,” you call out loudly over the sound of the bristling wind and flurries, making sure he can hear your narration from his little blanket cave behind you.  “If I hit the target… I will present our demon overlord with a chunk of raw meat later for dinner.”

You give the offer a moment to sink in before raising the blaster, and then you jerk it up at the very last second while pulling the trigger.  The arc of plasma quickly disappears into the gloomy skies over the top of the ice boulder, completely straight.

You switch the safety on and turn around to say something smart to him, but… well.  Uh.  That’s an empty crib.

Sudden panic rips through you at the sight of the wide open shield, the blanket left abandoned inside.  Your head whips around in horror, wondering where the fuck he could’ve gone—but then you’re able to spot tiny footprints in the snow.  Your eyes quickly follow them up and see the baby wading his way up a large hill, slow against the terrain and trying in vain to get to something at the very top.

You drop the blaster and bolt through the blizzard to get to him while calling out through the freezing air and wishing, not for the first time, that you had a name to roar and strike fear into his tiny little heart.  In this case, you prefer a middle name as well.

Finally reaching him and yanking him up from the snow, you tuck him under the warmest part of your arm and open your mouth to start venting the terror from your body, but he makes a distressed noise and starts climbing.  You fumble with him on your way back down, not expecting that response, but he’s so distraught and preoccupied that he’s unable to stay still, trying to find different ways of escaping your grasp and making more and more sounds to indicate something is wrong.

“What the fuck are you—” you stuff him into the shield and at least get the blankets wrapped around him before looking back and trying to spot whatever he’s still wiggling and attempting to get to.  Frustrated cries start filling the icy air and… okay.  “Okay,” you tell him, your breath puffing like smoke in front of you, “okay okay, we can go look, but you need to stay warm.”

You clutch the edge of his metal shield and urge it to follow you back up the snowy hill, feeling the crunch of your feet disappear further and further into it as you climb.  Your outer two layers are probably soaked by now—stars, it’s so fucking cold.  You know you’re not exactly the best judge, but you’ve been outside less than five minutes and you’re already worried about getting sick or frostbite, already jumpy and wanting to go back to the warmth of the hull.

But as you reach the top and look out in the distance, you can just barely make out a familiar metallic glint on the horizon.  

Your heart picks up, but the baby makes another distressed sound.  Not… happy, not thrilled that his dad is coming back.  Some strange sort of dread begins to fill you, carefully holding the kid in his shield with one hand and looking at the bright reflection of light a little ways away just to make sure it’s…

No, it’s not moving.  Not disappearing and reappearing, not catching the sunlight differently.  Completely stationary in this absolutely horrendous weather.

You immediately make your way in that direction, your body deciding to outright abandon its trembling in the wake of this newfound worry.  You’re suddenly sweating, way too warm.  That’s Din, you recognize the glint of his armor anywhere, but why isn’t he moving?

The closer you get, the faster you move and the more you’re able to see.  He’s laying facedown in the snow.  There’s quite a bit of it covering the back of his cape, maybe a few inches, and… there’s also someone laying equally as lifeless behind him.  Your heart is slamming now, you’re doing your best to run in the unforgiving terrain, and you finally see that it’s… a corpse, a frozen corpse is behind him with a rope tied around its ankles, clutched tight in Din’s unmoving fist as it lays against the pure white backdrop.

“Mando?”  You call out, dropping to your knees as soon as you reach him.  “Hey—hey, can you hear me?”

The beskar strapped to him is frozen over and feels colder than ice when you try to shake him.  He doesn’t respond.  He’s dead weight; you do your best to turn him over on his back, but you still get nothing from him.  You shove your trembling fingers up under the helmet, and the only reassurance you have that he’s even alive comes from the petrifyingly slow pulse beating underneath.  His skin is ice cold.

Shit, he’s still breathing but he’s hypothermic, you have to get him back to the Crest right fucking now.

You fumble to get in position above his head while hooking both your arms under his, before leaning everything you have into it—but fuck, he’s so heavy.  You can barely lift him even just a few inches off the ground—the snow is deep, his armor makes him weigh a ton and the fabric wrapped around him is sopping wet.  You try again, making a tight sound in your throat while you haul, but it’s no use.

“Fuck,” you curse, starting to panic even fucking harder.  You’re gasping and breathless and getting dizzy and scared, continuing to try and find different angles to heave—

—until suddenly the burden is lifted.

You nearly fall backwards on your ass at the abrupt removal of tension, playing tug-of-war with a team that decided to give up with no warning.  But it’s like it almost doesn’t even phase you; you don’t even look behind you to see the baby’s eyes closed tight in concentration, you just recover and pull with both arms, feeling Din’s body gliding easily along the snow now and leading him all the way back down the hill.

Once you get inside the Crest and shut the door to the raging blizzard behind the three of you, there’s an extended moment where you just… you don’t know what to do.  You know all about how to deal with heatstroke, but this is the opposite—he either spent too long in the cold, or he exhausted himself trying to get back too quickly and then spent too long in the cold.  He said he’d use his e-comm if he wasn’t back in sixteen hours—was that the cutoff?  The point where the temperature outside would shut his body down and he’d need you to come get him?

Regardless, you need to warm him up.  Yes, that’s your priority, and you figure the quickest and safest way to accomplish it has to be the shower in slow increments.  The kid helps you move Din into the tiny fresher in the hull and then you sit on the floor with him, holding his limp body to your chest while reaching up to turn the faucet on.

Cold water sprays down and then suddenly—oof, he’s heavier than fuck again.  Air leaves your lungs and your neck cranes back under the unexpected increase in pressure on top of you to see the kid climbing down from his shield, no longer focused on mentally bearing most of his father’s weight or directing his own hovering form of transportation along behind you.  The baby disappears out of sight and you huff, completely trapped under Din as freezing water rains down on you.

Fuck, it’s so cold.  It’s way too fucking cold for you, but your core body temperature is also mostly normal right now.  Din’s isn’t, you’ll probably shock his system if you try to warm him up too quickly.  So you reach up and twist the knob, keeping it at a temperature he’d probably find just the slightest bit warm while inspiring violent shudders from you.

“H-Hey, I’m gonna t-t-take this off, o-okay—” you stutter down at him, knowing damn well he isn’t conscious to hear you but giving him that reassurance on the small chance he is, and then reach with trembling fingers to work at his armor.  You worry that the beskar is keeping the cold trapped the same way his clothes are, like having solid pieces of ice strapped to his body and nothing to protect him besides a few layers of soaking wet fabric.

The chestpiece comes off and you throw it blindly over your shoulder into the hull with a clang—admittedly, without thinking about where the baby is at all anymore.  The pauldrons come off next, but not before you reach up and turn the heat up just the slightest bit.  Your jerky limbs just want to blast it and remove the rest of his clothes in steamy hot water, but you can’t.  Even though your mind is hurtling at a thousand lightyears an hour, whatever reason you have left reminds you that you have to be patient or risk losing him entirely.

Eventually you’re able to get all the armor off but you hate the way he’s breathing right now.  Slow and shallow, like he just doesn’t really need the air at all but his body is still fighting for it on instinct.  His chest barely moves with it even when it’s got nothing weighing it down.

“You’ll b-be okay,” you say aloud, talking to the both of you even though only one is capable of responding.  “Y-Y-You’ll be o-okay—”

You reach up to inch the temperature a little higher, shivering terribly now.  His body feels slightly warmer under the shower than it did with the beskar, but you know you need to keep going and take the fabric off now.  Maker, it’s nearly impossible—the black clothing clings to his skin and its such a small space to maneuver, but it gives your mind and hands a clear goal to focus on while the water incrementally heats up.

Strangely, your adrenaline has been rocketing for so long that you almost lose track of time.  You just keep deadly focused on your task of undressing him and slowly heating the shower, trying not to think, trying not to get in your head and bring about disaster in such a crucial set of moments.

At some point, the water is warm.  Comfortably warm, and Din’s body isn’t ice cold anymore.  It’s warm, too, laying back into your chest and naked besides the helmet, but he’s still not moving.  No response, no matter how much mindless drabble you supply, no matter how steamy and hot the shower has become, no matter how much your own body has heated up.  Your fingers have found their home under his jaw, pressed right to his pulse point and feeling it continue to beat slow and faint, but you’re starting to feel the terror set in.  Real terror, the kind that makes you stupid and emotional, the kind that turns you back into a child again.

“I don’t know if it’s working,” you suddenly choke out, close to tears.  He’s warm, what else can you do for him?  Why is he not waking up?  “I-I don’t know what to do, Din, I…”

No—no, you cannot lose your shit, not yet.  You will exhaust every fucking option before you let that fear set in.  He’s not waking up because he needs to recover, his body needs time to work things out in a warm, comfortable environment.  He’s breathing, his heart is beating, he’s warm, and he’s still with you, so… you need to still be with him.

You turn the water off and clumsily get up, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him back into the hull.  He’s still heavy but it’s so much easier than before to move him; there’s no armor weighing him down anymore besides the helmet, no cape or snow or friction to catch him, no cold to lock your muscles up.  It’s slow going but you’re finally able to settle him in the warmth of your shared bed and then cover his body in the collection of blankets you’ve amassed.  You stand up and peel off all your wet layers of clothing, letting them plop to the metal floor while glancing around for the kid—

—who is currently swinging from the ladder to the cockpit with one hand.

It startles you for just a moment, just long enough for you to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing up there, but then you figure that if he found some way to get up there then he can surely find his way back down again.

As you quickly drop to the bed and scoot up next to Din’s limp body under the blankets, the Crest’s engine suddenly gives a low rumble below the floor and heat starts blowing through the hull vents.  Again, you’re too preoccupied to even notice the gift much.  You’re tugging and tucking blankets around him and up under the metallic edge of his helmet when...

Maker, you need to take this off.  If the inside is wet, it’s probably keeping his head cold while the rest of him is warm from the shower.  You know it’s not a light thing—you know… you know at least a fraction of what this means.  You won’t look, you won’t look unless something absolutely drastic happens and it’s completely unavoidable, but you need to take his helmet off.

You catch the shoulder furthest from you and tug at his heavy body until he’s on his side, facing you on the bed.

“Din, I have to take your helmet off,” you warn him, saying it slowly and clearly.  Again, just in case.  “I’m not gonna look.  Nobody is gonna look—” your gaze flicks behind him to eye the baby, who is now somehow on the metal ground and waddling up to you both.  He blinks enormous black eyes at you, looking between you and his father huddled together under the blankets.

“Close your eyes,” you tell him very seriously, no room for negotiating.  “I know you understand me.”

It takes just a few seconds before he lifts his hands up and does exactly what you say, placing his fingers over his closed eyelids and then even so much as toddling around to face the wall.  You gasp in relief, clenching your eyes firmly shut and then pulling the helmet up, making sure you catch his head before it falls with one hand while tossing the beskar somewhere in the hull with the other.

Cold.  His hair is soaking wet and so cold, and his head rolls slightly as you guide it to rest in the warmest part of your neck.  Your hand stays attached to the back of it, wanting to transfer every single bit of warmth from your palm to him, and your eyes open to the kid’s back as your other arm wraps around Din’s bare spine.

And then all at once, you just feel… helpless.  He’s in your arms but Maker, you don’t know what else you can do.  The heat is blasting, you’re warm and pressed against him under multiple blankets, the engine is slowly heating the metal floor, but his breathing.  Slow.  Shallow.  Barely able to be felt against your neck.  He’s here but he’s not.  And you have no way of knowing if he’s getting closer or further away from you.

Tears start coming before you even realize.  But you have nothing to say.  After spending the entire time talking out loud, providing reassurances, narrating, distracting yourself—you don’t have anything anymore.  The silence twists you tighter, the nothing becomes inescapable, and the sudden sob that leaves you echoes hauntingly throughout the hull.  You pull his limp body as close to you as possible for comfort.  Wake up.  Wake up.

Your vision is watery—you don’t see it.  You don’t see the kid slowly turn around and take a few steps forward.  You only notice he’s there when green catches in the abstract blur, but you sniff and blink quickly to clear it.  It only takes a second to see the baby’s hand, extending and pressing against the blanket covering Din’s back, and you watch with wide eyes as he closes his.

And then there’s a second.  A second where you dare to hope.  Where you wonder if it’s even something that can be done.

The kid lowers his hand just a moment later and stumbles back a few steps, before plopping down on the ground and slowly falling backwards.  You have just enough time to see his little body inhale and exhale a few times as he sleeps, and then—

—and then Din suddenly jolts in your arms, bursting with too much life after spending too many heart wrenching moments without it.

“Shhh,” you breathe, instantly tightening your grip on the back of his head so he doesn’t pull away from you in a panic and keeping it tucked into the warmest part of your neck, right where your pulse thrums fast and present.  Your eyes clench tightly shut just in case and your heart bursts with pure, blinding, heavenly relief.  “Shhh sh sh, stay right here, just stay right here…”

As soon as he seems to recognize your voice and figure out that he’s not dead, his body immediately starts wreaking with shivers.  You squeeze him tight to you, feeling his large, quaking frame curl inwards into you for warmth, burying his own face into your neck even further and breathing shallow but quickly now, like his body actually wants the air again.  You do your best to will your blood to pump faster and provide him that relief, stretching and opening your body as much as possible to give him warmth.

And then you spend the next few hours like that.  Holding him, murmuring gently to him, providing him with your body heat and stars, he fucking clings to you.  He presses tight to you and trembles, and you don’t even know if he’s listening, but you keep talking.  Finding words for hours, and while some of them are just different ways of saying the same thing, you say them anyway.

He’s okay.  The kid is okay.  Everyone is okay.

Eventually, the shivering dies down until it stops altogether.  Din stays in one place and goes completely limp again, but this time he continues to breathe you in, slow and deep into the crook of your neck.  Fast asleep in your arms, and you thank the good fucking Maker above for the little angel passed out on the floor behind him.

***

He has to meet with Karga in two days.

After a few more hours of holding him and making absolutely sure he’s going to be alright, that’s all you can stupidly think about.

A deadline.  A very quickly approaching one.

You don’t know why.  But it might have something to do with the fact that you want nothing more than to climb up into the cockpit and navigate the ship off this horrid planet, and you can’t.  You’re confident that the hull and blankets are warm enough by themselves to keep Din comfortable as he recovers, and you’ve also had quite a while to regroup and get your mind thinking logically again, so you’re not worried about getting up and leaving him right now, no.  That’s not the problem.

The problem is that there’s a corpse outside.  You know this.  You know it’s there, and you know he needs it.  Nobody’s gonna take his word for just saying they’re dead, much less pay him for his services; no body, no bounty.  You also know it’s probably being covered with fresh snow right now, or maybe some sort of wild animal has already gotten their teeth into it, if anything can even survive out there.  And you’re the only one awake.  The only one capable of going to get it.

You’ve been arguing with yourself.  For about an hour, you’ve been struggling with the thought.  Din is soft and warm and every breath makes you focus less on the terrifying moments that occurred and more on the need to step up once again.

In the end, it’s the kid who gives you the final push.  You’re not going to leave him laying on the floor like that for any longer.  Not after what he did.

You take a second, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up all the way over Din’s head as it rests warm and comfortable in your neck.  You’re incredibly careful to cover his face, and even while climbing out of the warm cocoon of the bed, you keep your eyes firmly shut and continue to pull the fabric even higher, making absolutely sure you’re not going to see his face on accident.  You shouldn’t, you don’t think, as long as he doesn’t jerk awake and pull it down himself, but you want to take extra precaution regardless.

After quickly yanking on some clothes, you immediately make your way over to the kid and pick him up, seeing his little mouth open as he snores—and oh, you just have to.  You pull him to your chest and give him the most heartfelt, thankful embrace you can while not squishing him, before setting him down in his much more comfortable hovering blanket palace and closing the lid on it.

You know you have a very clear task now, but for just a few moments longer, you do your best to stall despite the ticking clock.  You start to pick up the mess in the hull—you close the fresher door, pick up Din’s discarded armor and set it in a neat pile close to the bed, place the helmet under the vent to encourage the padding inside to dry faster, and then you collect his old armor and stuff it back into one of the storage cubbies with your toolbox.

Only, an idea suddenly occurs to you as you’re putting away the chestpiece.  When you open the door to the hull, you know that a blast of cold air is going to flood the ship.  The engine is still heating everything inside and making sure you don’t get trapped in the snow by continuously melting it on the outside, but you don’t want Din to start shivering again.

So you grab the dented piece of electronics you were working on and flip the power switch, feeling the capacitors slowly start to heat up inside the housing.  You go back over and lift the blanket near his feet just enough to tuck the metal under it, close enough to Din that he’ll feel the same amount of warmth your body was providing him but not enough to overheat.

And then you make your way over to your bag and pull on the rest of your clothes, now exhausting almost every single clean thing you own just to make another trek through the snow.  You’re in the middle of pulling on your fifth pair of pants when the thought truly sinks in.

A corpse.  A dead body.  That you’re actually considering going out into the worst fucking weather in the galaxy to search for, haul back to the ship, and put into carbonite.  Because of a fucking deadline for an occupation very much not your own, very much not chosen by you.

You quickly walk over and leave through the door on the side of the hull before you can change your mind, slamming it shut behind you.

***

Well, it’s…  It’s not too terrible, you guess.

It’s been frozen out here for hours, that’s why.  It’s not bloody, not gory, not demented or malformed in any way.  Tranquil almost, like the creature died in its sleep in this nightmarish landscape, perfectly at peace.

You still don’t want to get anywhere close to it, but you have to.  You pull a face and slowly reach out, absolutely not thinking about the literal impossibility of it playing dead and just waiting for the moment to strike, but even still…  Even if there was nothing more sinister hiding underneath the surface of this scene, it’s still… existentially fucked up.  The last time you were confronted with a dead body, Din had to be the one to dispose of it—you couldn’t even think about it without threatening another wave of shock to your system.

And now you’re voluntarily grabbing the rope around one’s ankles and dragging it back down the pure white slope to the Razor Crest.

It doesn’t weigh that much and its icy exterior seems to work in your favor; it slides easily along the snow as soon as you get it moving.  As the ship comes back into view, you hurry to the door and you’re just about to open it when you suddenly get the feeling that you’re forgetting something…

Oh—

It takes a few moments of searching around in the freshly fallen snow, but eventually your fingers brush metal underneath and you stand, reaching behind you to tuck the blaster into your waistband.  When you’re positive you’re not going to accidentally shoot a chunk of your ass off on accident, you shove open the door and pull the body inside, before locking it tight behind you and keeping the frigid winter from touching this warm, quiet safe-haven.

There.  Halfway done.  You almost don’t want to look in case he wakes up unexpectedly, but then you find yourself peeking over your shoulder at the silhouette of Din’s body still passed out under the blankets and you’re thankful the squeaks and slams didn’t disturb him.

And then you take just a second to wonder if this is what it must be like for him.  Minus your obvious discomfort and ickiness at beginning to haul the corpse over to the carbonite chamber, it seems like it’d be reminiscent of any other time he’s brought back a dead quarry while you and the baby slept soundly.  Trying to be quiet, wanting it done and over with just to get back in bed that much faster, doing everything you can to prevent anything out there from so much as breathing on anything in here.

You do your best to hold on to the loveliness of the thought, because this part is the part you’re most anxious about.

The body needs to go into this slanted upright space so you can freeze it in carbonite.  And in order to do that, you have to grab it and put it there.  With your hands, you have to grab it.  With your hands.

You look down at its face, calm and at peace, frozen and forever etched into that expression, and something twists in your heart.  If it weren’t for the kid, that could’ve been Din.  If it weren’t for the kid walking barefoot through snow, fighting an uphill battle to make sure you get to him, helping you drag him back here and then overexerting himself to make sure he’d be okay, that could’ve been Din.  He drives you crazy on a consistent basis, but he came through today.

Know what?  If that little squirt can save a grown man’s life twice in a few hours, then the least you can do is finish this job for all three of you and fly your asses out of here.

Weirdly enough, being frozen solid allows for way better handling than the alternative.  It means you don’t actually have to touch it too much; you don’t have to deal with the limpness of death, it doesn’t seem as much like a person as it does a rigid board you’re simply moving from one place to another.  You can just grab the shoulders and yank and the entire fucking thing goes with it, solid and upright, naturally wanting to lean back into the chamber so you don’t even have to hold it in place.  The perfect quarry for you basically, day one stuff, as easy as it could get.

Almost done, almost done—you study the key panel on the upper-right frame before eventually pressing a few buttons, and then you step back as gas freezes and solidifies the corpse in its carbonite prison.

Yes.  You’re done.  You already want to take another shower just from touching it for a few seconds, but that can wait.  Quickly making your way up the ladder and into the cockpit, you fire up the thrusters and then navigate the ship through and beyond the swirling white atmosphere of this dreadful fucking planet, before punching in familiar coordinates to Nevarro.

***

“Din,” you murmur, making sure you have your eyes completely covered with one hand before gently easing the blanket down from his face with the other.  “Din, I want you to drink some wat—”

He jerks awake so suddenly that you hear the metal canteen fall over on the floor next to you, thank the Maker its lid is on tight.  You automatically reach out to steady him, pressing your free hand to his bare chest and continuing to speak calmly and gently to reassure him, but he still scrambles to take in his surroundings after sleeping longer than he probably has in weeks.  

You know what he’s seeing, even though you’re blind right now.  You took time to make sure everything was settled before waking him.  The hull is clean with only a single light to illuminate it, the baby is still snoozing in his closed crib, his armor is stacked in a neat pile, the blaster is put away, and you retired your makeshift blanket heater box so the only thing left is you.  Freshly showered, hair dripping, offering him water, and dressed in just a thin shirt with nothing else (you ran out of things to wear).

“Wh-Where’s my h-h-helmet—” is the first thing he asks, voice broken and raspy.  Stars, he needs water.

“The padding inside is wet,” you quickly supply, keeping your hand tight over the bridge of your eyes to make sure his freshly conscious mind immediately understands that you have no bad intentions.  “I swear I didn’t look, and I made sure the kid didn’t either.  He’s sleeping now, it’s just me—I swear nobody looked, I swear.”

You might just be saying the exact same thing over and over again and admittedly, that might be putting some weird kind of suspicion on you, but you just want to make sure he knows.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It’s important that he knows he’s safe and that everything is okay now, even if he collapsed and spent an unknown amount of time in a purgatory where nothing was.

His body trembles under your palm, waves of shudders attacking him even after hours of keeping him as warm as possible.  “Are—Are we st-still on H-Ho—H-Hoth—”

“No,” you answer.  “We’re in hyperspace.  Everything’s okay now, I took care of it.  We’ll get to Nevarro on time.”

It’s like he takes just a few extra moments, as if he’s trying extra hard to remember before responding.  “But—I d-didn’t—”

“You have four bodies for Karga,” you tell him, not letting him get too lost trying to recall something that no longer poses an issue.  “I took care of it.  You need rest, I only woke you up to make sure you drink some water, so please—” you blindly reach your hand out for the canteen you know has to be around here somewhere, but all you feel is…

His.  Catching yours.

“Y-You took c-c-care of…”  His hands are trembling harder than his voice.  “Sh-shit, I’m freezing, I—”

“Drink some water,” you tell him, squeezing his fingers.  “I’ll go turn off the light so you can sleep more, but you need water.”

His hand feels like it doesn’t quite want to let go of yours yet, but eventually it does and you hear the sloshing of water as the metal flask is picked up with an unsteady grip.  Purposefully turning your back to him and making sure he’s not in your line of sight whatsoever, you finally let your hand drop and blink your eyes open at the wall across the hull.  You hear Din shakily unscrew the lid while you stand up and find the light switch, before turning around in the pitch blackness and using his loud gulps as your guide back.

Your hands and knees are barely on the blanket when you hear him toss the empty canteen to the side and grab you, pulling you down to him.  

Fuck, you’re not expecting it.  You fumble in the dark but he doesn’t really give your clumsiness much of a choice—Din pulls you under the blankets like he needs you, his body craving that warmth even though his skin doesn’t feel cold at all.  He hooks a strong forearm around your tummy, keeping your back pressed tight to his chest while the rest of him curls to fit every part of you, and you have to adjust the blankets yourself.

It’s not even a few seconds after you settle into position when his trembling hands jerk down to grab your shirt and yank it up.  You quickly scramble to help him get you as naked as he is, feeling his palms drag greedily across the heat of your tummy and breasts before you’ve even finished wiggling the fabric over your head.  The shirt lands somewhere in the darkness and you’re squeezed back against him, your hands landing on his forearms as they wrap around your waist and he clings shamelessly to you.

“You…”  Din’s body still shivers every once in a while but the heat and closeness allows his voice to even out just a bit.  He clears his throat and swallows, tucking his head and burying his face in your hair before trying again.  “You brought back the qu-quarry?”

“Yes,” you confirm, confident in your reassurance but gentle at the same time.  “It’s in carbonite.”

All you can feel or hear in response is his breathing.  His heart beating steady and strong against your back.

And then Din’s arms suddenly squeeze you tight—tight.  He lets out a low shaky exhale against the back of your shoulder and presses his lips to your skin.  “Sweet girl.”

And he says just… so much with those two words.  Slow and purposeful, the steadiest thing you’ve heard from him in hours.  But the two biggest competing emotions you hear tugging at his vocal cords are gratitude and apprehension.  Like he already knows that it couldn’t have been easy for you.  Like he’s not taking it lightly.

You don’t want to talk about it.  You don’t want to talk about anything that happened in the past few hours, not right now.  “It’s okay.  Please.”

This time his silence seems to be on the brink, as if he wants to say more but the extra plea you put on the end makes him hold onto his words, at least for now.  

“How d-did you find me?”  He asks instead, scooting his legs up enough that yours actually go with him.  Cradled in his naked body, radiating heat so he can recover, pressed so close to him that you feel like gravity itself would be pushing you into his lap if the world weren’t sideways.

“The kid,” you tell him.  “We were goofing around outside and he dragged me ov—”

It’s like he’s still so cold that even just the surprise of hearing you say that makes his whole body lock down and convulse a few times against your back.  “You were wh-what?”

“I was practicing,” you openly admit to him, feeling like the earlier events already occurred a lifetime ago and you have no reason for being shy about it anymore.  In fact, you’re glad you were there, being terrible at shooting.  The alternative is unthinkable.  Though, something tells you also improbable, having a little supernatural sidekick who cares so deeply for him.  “I raided your armory.  We weren’t outside for more than five minutes before I wanted to go back in, but then he found you.”

And you think he’s going to get after you, for some reason.  Seems about on par, you figure—going outside for even just a few minutes on a planet whose name you now remember is colloquial slang for hell, even if it’s the only reason he’s not an icicle right now.

But he’s just quiet.  Breathing.  So you just relax into him, thinking that’s the end of it.  You take a few deep breaths in through your nose and just… rest.  In the near perfect silence of hyperspace you used to find haunting, but now only find comfort in.  It reminds you of him.

“Did you hit the target?”  He asks you quietly, and at first you scoff, about to ask if he’s kidding.  No, of course you didn’t hit the…

Only, after a remarkable delay, hearing him phrase it that way suddenly makes your stomach decide to drop and do a fucking somersault on the ground out of absolutely nowhere.

Everything comes flooding back.  The conflict you used to think was the most pressing thing, the one that kept you awake and your thoughts scrambled for hours.  It feels like it was ages ago.  An entire lifetime has passed since that happened, you might’ve forgotten it altogether if he didn’t decide to ask that very simple question in a very specific way.

“I…” you mumble in response, your heart suddenly pounding.  “Not… not yet.”

Okay, that’s a good answer.  It’s the truth and you’re giving nothing away by saying that.  So now what is he going to say?  What is he going to say?  You spoke your piece, it’s his turn now, that’s how conversations work.  Well typically, that’s how conversations work—but with Din… you probably should’ve known.

He falls back into silence almost immediately, appearing to accept your answer just the way it is without anything else to add.  You feel his heart continue to beat strong against your back, but there’s something too tense about his stillness that doesn’t imply he’s relaxing anymore.  His body goes slightly taut, but not from the lingering chill in his bones.

He’s going to make you ask him, you realize.  He’s waiting until you confront him about his choice in words at the shooting range.  Which means he wasn’t just joking around.  He wasn’t just messing with you.

“Din…” you whisper uncertainly, and his face suddenly finds its way into the crook of your neck as soon as the word leaves your mouth, arms tightening up around you.  You spent forever trying to find the words to even bring this up, and here he is, already knowing exactly what you’re asking just by the tone of your voice.  Still, you ask anyway, sounding small and so unsure of yourself in the darkness.  “Why did you say that?  On Tatooine, why did you…”

Din’s chest expands against your back with a long, slow breath, and then he lets it out against your neck, hot enough to raise goosebumps all over your body.

“I… don’t know,” he admits, voice muffled and quiet, but it’s not… casual.  Not like he’s brushing you off or indicating he doesn’t want to talk about it, but like it’s actually a complete fucking mystery to him, just as much as it is to you.  “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…” you repeat slowly.

“You had said something,” he mutters, shifting just a bit behind you.  His palm slides up your bare tummy, stopping in the warm spot just under the swell of your breast.  “Earlier that day.  I thought about it, and then I just… s-said it.”

You?  Said something that made him ask that?

“What?”  You blurt out, genuinely startled and having no fucking clue.  “What did I say?”

“Something about…”  He gives the smallest shudder from behind you, and you don’t actually know if this one is from the cold.  “Not wanting anyone else to know me the way you do.”

Your heart rapidly kicks up and you flush, hating how unbelievably possessive your own words sound coming out of his mouth.  “Oh shit, I… I didn’t mean for that to be… that sounds so bad, Din, I swear I didn’t mean for it to—”

He cuts you off by clutching you tighter, burying his face deeper into your neck and breathing out shakily.  “Tell me you meant every word.”

You blink a couple of times in the pitch black before sighing, letting go of any charade or front you think about putting up for him to save some dignity.  “I meant it.”

Because it’s the truth.  You said it when you were caught off guard, throwing it out to him along with other mindless drabble that came from a place that was very real.  You don’t like the way you phrased it, but you meant it.  You do mean it.  Every word.

If there weren't so many things still left unsaid right now, you might actually worry he fell asleep on you.  Din loosens up considerably after you admit it, letting go of more tightness you didn’t even know was inside him.  His head slowly drops from the crook of your neck to the back of it and he breathes hot air on your nape, quiet for a long time.

And, you suppose you’d actually be okay with it if that was the end of the conversation.  There are, of course, millions of things left to ask.  But he doesn’t know the answers, just as much as you’re left clueless about the questions.  You’re not expecting him to elaborate anymore, and if he’s waiting for you to ask, he’ll be waiting a long time.  Soon your eyes close and you almost feel yourself beginning to drift.  It’s been such a rough day today and to just be here in his arms, it’s more than enough for you.  

But then his low baritone comes through the darkness.

“In Mando’a,” Din’s voice suddenly whispers against your skin, “the verb, kar’taylir… it means to know.  Su kar’tayli, you know, kaysh kar’tayli, they know.  Ni ke kar’tayl nu… I don’t know.”

Your eyes pop open and you immediately forget all about sleep, wide awake and suddenly hanging onto every word as it rolls so gently off his tongue.  You’ve never heard the language spoken aloud, you’ve never heard anything about the Mandalorians directly from one before.  All of the stories seem sensationalized, passed down by word of mouth and chipping away at the kernel of truth until it disappears completely.

“The language is dying,” Din continues, murmuring soft and gentle along your nape.  “By the time I learned it, too many words had been lost.  The ones left were the ones that were needed.”

“What do you mean?”  You whisper, almost afraid of breaking the quiet.  Not wanting him to feel distracted or pressed, but needing to express your curiosity lest you somehow overflow with it.

“There are only three pronouns,” he answers slowly, and you’re already fucking fascinated.  “Ni, for I or we.  Su is you or you all, and kaysh is third person.  Subjective, objective, possessive, singular, plural—doesn’t matter.  Three words, for every individual or collective in the entire galaxy.”

You blink in the darkness, your logic telling you that it sounds so simple it’d become confusing and then your logic also telling you that doesn’t actually make any fucking sense at all.  If that’s true, it’s unbelievable.  How do they differentiate?  Just context?

“How do you distinguish?”  You ask him.  Admittedly, you don’t know much about linguistics—not anywhere near the extent he does, but it seems so counterintuitive.  I can’t be the same word for we, the amount of misunderstandings would be a nightmare.

“We… don’t need to,” he explains to you, slowly, like nobody has ever asked him these things before and so he’s unsure how to phrase it.  “Individuality isn’t valued, it’s not a concept.”

And… you almost can’t wrap your head around it.  “What do you mean?”  You ask again, knowing you’re sounding like a broken record without specifying more, but trying with your whole heart to understand.

“I mean… we swear oaths to never reveal our faces,” Din tells you, something you shouldn’t need to be reminded of.  “We abandon our names.  We become… whispers, of the same voice.  There’s not many words in Mando’a with a unique meaning, almost all of them are homonyms.  Interchangeable.  Transient.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, suddenly blown away by the implication.  Almost all of them are homonyms?  How in Maker’s name are you even supposed to communicate at that point?  That’s… unthinkable.

“Most words have two meanings?”  You clarify, wanting to be absolutely sure you’re getting it right.

“Most have five or six,” he returns, and you’re downright shocked now.  “Everything just depends.”

“Stars…”  You breathe, moving a palm up the length of his forearm and holding the back of his hand with it.  Fuck, you hope this is the direction he’s intending instead of veering him off course, but you’re incredibly invested.  “What else does, uh… kay—er, kar… kar’taylir mean?”

Din lets out a slow breath from behind you, and you can… you can feel his own heart beating faster when it presses up against your spine at the apex of his inhale.  “It’s… a rare word, it only has two meanings.”

You bite your lip and start to feel butterflies in your stomach for some reason.  Slowly, his hand begins to travel up your breast and then to your sternum before heading just the slightest bit left, and your own hand moves with him.

“To know,” Din says quietly, “but also… to care very deeply for.”  He doesn’t stop until his palm presses right above the rapidly pounding organ in your chest.  “To hold in the heart.”

“To know,” you swallow thickly, curling your fingers around his hand and praying he’s saying what you think he is, “or… to love?”

“When Mandalorian’s take vows, there’s no ceremony,” he whispers into the back of your neck.  “No witnesses, no celebrations.  We just take our helmets off in front of the other and look.  It doesn’t sound like much, but… our secrecy is our survival.  Letting someone see our face and swearing lifelong devotion to them, it’s the same thing.  To know is to love.”

Your eyes close tight and your lungs empty themselves, too full of emotion to even fit oxygen inside you anymore.  Din’s lips press feather soft behind your neck, and now you’re the one shivering uncontrollably.  The move up and trail along your neck in the darkness.

“Ni kar'tayl su,” he murmurs, shifting back just slightly and pulling at your shoulder.  “I know you.”

You go with him, facing the ceiling as he fits his head under your throat and places slow, open mouth kisses down the curve of it.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,” he goes on quietly, his voice starting to sound raspy again, dragging his hand down your torso while his lips brush your collarbone.  “For an eternity, I’ll know you.”

Water wets the corners of your lashes and you inhale three or four times before exhaling, shallow hiccups and desperate for air.

“Ni ke vaabi nu kaysh ke kar’taylir su te ni kar’tayl su.”  Din says, slowly moving his mouth back up when your fingers tangle in his hair and beg him to come that way.  The words dance along your skin as he whispers them, forever searing themselves into your memory.  You can’t see them, you’ll never have a visual to reminisce upon, but you’ll know how they felt.  Right under your ear, brimming with quiet devotion.  “I don’t want anyone else to know you… the way I know you.”

Your face goes blazing hot at the sound of him translating your own rushed and half-assed sentence into something gorgeous and flowing, something that sounds so much more beautiful than when you blurted it out earlier.  You told him you loved him in that hangar, right to his face.  Unashamed and stupid about it, but meaning it with every part of your body.

“I knew you’d say no,” he finally admits, staying in this one spot.  Unmoving.  Telling you the truth, allowing you to know it.  “I just wanted to… say it.”

That… that makes sense to you.  The last part does, at least, it makes so much sense to you.  The first time you said you loved him, you said it just to say it.  You wanted to feel the words, sound them out even if neither one of you could hear them.  It felt freeing, like coming to accept a universal truth.

The first part, though.  You’re still behind.  “You knew I’d say no?”  You ask him, feeling him ease back just slightly.  Staring down at you through the pitch black, even if he can’t see either.  Keeping his palm over your heart as the ship hurdles through nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You wouldn’t take my first name without convincing,” he reasons quietly, and then moves back to lay in the blankets once more, leaving the rest unspoken.

But he’s… oh stars, he’s so right.  If he’s going to take his helmet off and let you see his face—if he’s going to commit to you that way, it is not going to be because you shoot a blaster correctly.  Not after today, not after what he’s told you.

So you move up to your elbow and turn to face him, trying to let him know why even if he’s already guessed the what correctly.

“I want it to mean something,” you say after a moment.  “I want it to… have the meaning it’s supposed to have.”

Your palm finds its way to his chest in the silence following.  Right over the beating of his heart, feeling it thrum hard and rhythmic while he considers his response.

“This is The Way,” Din finally murmurs, settling his hand over yours, and you repeat the words back to him.  Respecting them.  Feeling like, for the very first time, they now apply to you in some way instead of belonging to some mysterious creed you’ll never know anything about.

But when a shudder subtly rockets up and down his body, you realize the blankets have been pulled down with the changing positions and his whole torso is bare and exposed to the hull.  So you pull them up until you’re both covered again, before you lean down and press a soft kiss to his shoulder.

Din shudders again when your mouth opens and the hot glide of your tongue catches his skin, but you know it’s not from the cold this time.  His breathing deepens while you slowly move over him.  You ease him further on his back and let him keep feeling the warmth of your mouth on his body, alleviate the lingering chill by sucking gentle hickeys into his skin and feeling the goosebumps raise under your tongue.  He moves with you; he stretches his neck when you want to nibble his collarbone, arches when you mouth down his chest, shifts his elbow to let you drag your tongue along his ribcage.

And… and it’s as if all the stars and systems hold even more still for you than the relative physics of faster-than-light travel can explain away by themselves.  You’ve always felt timeless in here, living from one fleeting eternity to the next, suspended in perpetuity while the rest of the galaxy ages without you.  But when you’re with him and it’s pitch black and there’s no light to streak across your vision, no evidence that time and space have all but disconnected from each other just to let your insignificant little bodies through… it’s like you’re meant to be here.  In some strange, unexplainable way, you feel like you could’ve died out there with him in the frozen wasteland today and this is exactly where you’d still end up, no matter what.

To know is to love.

“Do you have brown eyes?”  You hear yourself whisper under his jaw, and you feel Din’s fingers thread in your hair and ease you up enough to brush his lips against your chin.

“Yes,” he whispers back, and then his mouth is on yours.

[the-local-scp]

kk 7 people liked my last post and honestly thats all I need so here we go! its gonna be long lmal

hc x dsmp but its kinda stupid

• cleo hc's

- cleo has to go to dream xd directly to get dreams head cause shes not allowed to just behead him in the prison

- cleo and ranboo have a weird sort of bond where she accidentally adopted this tall enderman kid and his weird trigger happy goat husband

- shes the shortest cause when you're a zombie holding yourself up is hard cause your muscles are dead and she has neck problems from armor stand work

- people have asked cleo if she wants to be revived and she always laughs and declines

- shes been commissioned to make little scenes from the wars and stuff

• bdubs hc's

- mans goes nuts after realizing he can't sleep the night away

- hes a little more relieved after learning that phantoms don't spawn on their server

- he spent days cleaning up a lot of the random holes, fixing the prime path, and trying to make some of the random build look a little nicer

- everyone was thrown off by how much character he has and how quickly he can go from all bubbly to "i will kill everything you love"

- he's threatened techno before

- everyone thought they were gonna see the death message in chat but it never came

• etho hcs

- he has like... a small group that just kinda follows him around his first day there

- he can teleport and its terrifying cause unlike endermen theres no indication that hes teleported

- everyone thought he was part enderman but when the dsmp members asked the hc members they just brushed it off as an etho thing

- they eventually went to xisuma cause surely the admin had to have answers right?

- they never got their answers

- etho accidentally scared ranboo by teleporting once

- ranboo was scarwd because hes the enderman teleporting is supposed to be his thing and he can't even actually teleport!

- etho basically becomes a Cryptid of the dsmp and when he hears this from his fellow hermits he laughs

•mumbo hcs

- what throws off the dsmp members the most is just how tall mumbo is

- hes as tall as ranboo and hes just a normal human! (at ranboos shortest that is but still impressive)

- not only does he make a vault grian can't get in but he makes one tommy can't get in either

- the bags under his eyes have bags home boy doesn't sleep

- tbh almost none of them sleep

- they never had to on hermitcraft so the shift fucked them up a little

(i didn't have much for mumbo i apologize)

•grian hcs

- he can fly (suck it phil he still has his wings lmao)

- has a lot of invis pots just for funsies

- he found the syndicate room on accident whilst trying to find the end portal so he could go end busting

- all the hermits basically did that

- so they know where the room is now they don't know what it is but they know WHERE it is

- he got his hands on some tnt... the dsmp members should be careful especially if etho has tnt as well

•impulse hcs

- has so many totems

- like foolish is a totem god and ranboo has a lot but my mans impulse has chests upon chests of totems

- he looked at the 3 lives rule and LAUGHED

- the dsmp members thought "k maybe hes more normal"

- BOY WERE THEY WRONG

- he has his base yea? the dsmp memebers are already impressed but impulse isn't finished... it goes deeper (thats what she said)

- he has an advance security system so no one steals his stuff

gonna break this up into multiple parts cause i don't want a monster of a post so yea! anyone can use these, feel free to credit no need to tho

[elriell]

Some jumbled up thoughts about Elain, Lucien and Azriel + Mating Bonds

There have been a lot of conversations regarding this topic and I thought I’d flesh it out a bit myself, but these are facts/observations that as a fandom many have noticed, discussed, analysed. I just wanted to dive in myself fully.

I want to talk about each of them individually as well as, as a whole. Their emotions and mindsets, as someone who loves all three characters and wishes for all of them to get a happy ending. I will preface this with saying I will be discussing why it is very likely Elain will reject the bond and such things, so along the lines of Anti-Elucien. If you are a fan of them, thats cool, just skip this one if you happen upon it. 

We are going to dive in to the following;

Lucien & Elain  (their choices)

Lucien & Azriel  (contrast)

Rejecting the Bond

New Bonds

Fate & THE POV 

and why the writing is basically telling us everything we need to know...

Lucien 

Lucien is noble male, he has a good heart and has suffered his plenty, and this is why people want what is best for him, to be the happiest he can... Unfortunately I think that in this case Elain is not it. 

He is right to feel that way, just as Elain has a right to feel as she does. I think it is incredibly interesting that when we finally see from his POV we see that in a way he feels as though this has been thrust on them. 

That with his last love he had a choice and so did she.

It reminds me very much of this line about Rhysand’s parents, who were an example of an unhappy mating bond.

We will deep dive in to wrong matches further down, but the fact is that mated couples are not always indicators of true paired souls, that they very well could be the couple that do not end up happy together.

I speak on Elain and her agency a lot because I feel like a large portion of the fandom like to discard it as if it means nothing, and even judge her for it but if we actually take a look at Lucien’s behaviour he is not all that more happy.

There are some key differences between them though, Lucien as a male feels their bond to a different degree than she does, and he also has been raised to believe and respect the bond. And thus he feels a certain obligation to honour it in the best way he can. 

This doesn’t mean he thinks she is right for him, any further than his attraction to her (which like same dude same), he hasn’t displayed any signs that they actually aline as a couple. And I feel like SJM clearly highlights this when she sets examples of his gifts not being... well right for her. 

The gloves we know she never wears show us how little they know each other as she loves to get dirty [which Feyre had told him] and the pearl necklace is then contrasted by Azriels which was very personalised to Elain. 

(The rose, the secret beauty of it hitting the light etc...)

These are all deliberate moves by Sarah to showcase their misaligned bond.

And during Elain’s section I will also be pointing out some Lucien moments that really don’t read well for him. I genuinely believe he is much happier amongst the Band of Exhiles than he is when he is seen with The Inner Circus.

Elain

Here is the thing, this situation isn’t any easier on him that’s true but people need to respect Elains feelings, and the fact is she does not like him. Not only does she not like him but she shrinks in on herself, she looses all the progress and confidence she has made since the Cauldron. That is not a good sign of anything healthy.

If this is suppose to be a romance we root for why is she doing everything in her power to make it seem the opposite? If she genuinely was playing the long game she would have at least started to make them comfortable around each other, goodness they don’t even have to talk, but she does the opposite.

She emphasises that he brings out the bad in her. Again, no bueno. She quite simply does not want to be around him and with SJM’s writing I think this is highly deliberate on her part. 

[And let’s be clear there are countless quotes from the other books that do NOT reflect well on their relationship but I am trying to stick to ACOSF, as it is her most recent work, otherwise I would be here all day.] 

Rejecting the Bond

We have almost a two page discussion on why mating bonds are not an exact science, and that they can be more harmful than good. We are given two examples of it, with both Rhys’ and Tamlin’s parents. And then we get a very subtle hit at Azriel. This is all in the book Sarah said she began planting the seeds for the sisters journeys.

We also know from this there is a choice. But that many force it, because they feel it it right, (much like Lucien is probably doing right now, because he feels a duty and hope that it will work out.)  

Then we have the fact thrown at us that a lot of males believe that their mate belongs to them and will challenge the other male, which we now have a call back to with Rhys’ mentioning “The Blood Duel”. 

There is literally not one reason Sarah would put this in TWICE only for it never to happen or come close too happening. How anyone can question at this point that Elriel will happen is confusing to me, she has laid all the groundwork for it.

Now I don’t believe for a second that Lucien wouldn’t respect her choice, I think it will most certainly come down to Beron forcing his hand to wage the war we know he wants.

I think despite what Rhys said in Azriel’s POV under immense stress, TNC will protect Elain and ultimately stand by her decision. 

Not only does ACOSF spend a great deal of time creating a further divide between Elain & Lucien it also add a shockingly large quantity of easter eggs about “Elain choosing bonds” “Other Mate” “What if it chose wrong?” and again in this book like in ACOMAF we bring back up a failed mated pair to remind you of it’s existence.

All possible signs lean towards them breaking the bond.

And frankly from a storytelling perspective having three perfect bonds that are basically the same overarching love story (enemies to lovers) is boring, she would want to shake it up and throw a little curveball.

Lucien + Azriel  &  Why I think Azriel will have a bond with Elain.

“If anyone can sense if something is amiss, it’s a mate” And low and behold it is Azriel who figures out what was going on with her. Not to mention in the reveal SJM further displays that Lucien has no clue what was going on with her.

I don’t know what bridge holds their bond but I wouldn’t trust crossing it personally... :/

Further still, Lucien cannot hear her heart. Their bond is definitely not strong but you could also argue that is not an element of the bond at all but rather of her abilities perhaps. Since we know she could hear the sea too though it was nowhere close by.

But Azriel did hear her, he did pay attention and he figured out what was amiss. 

It is interesting to me that people took such issue with this when I believe very few have issues with Rhys or Cassian fighting for their respective partners. Now I have gone in to it in depth about how I think that this was pure emotion and illogical on Azriel’s part, and I don’t believe he would kill Lucien so carelessly.

I think it speaks to the same blind emotion a lot of them have displayed for their mates, Lucien may have wanted to see if she was worth it but Azriel knows she is worth the fight.

And for all intensive purposes in that moment he was willing to fight for someone he believes shares his feelings.

Now let’s tackle the whole “Possessive” crap.

First of all, all of the male pairings in this series have shown moments like this, so if it is bothering you here why isn’t it bothering you at other points?

Lucien has been just as instinctively possessive from their bond, and let me clarify, I am not shaming him for that anymore than anyone else. What I am pointing out is the double standard, if anything Azriel has more reason to feel like he can fight for her because she has actually shown him care, interest and attraction. 

They have actually bonded a lot more than she has with Lucien thus far.

And if they truly do have an upcoming bond then judging him on three paragraphs when we don’t know what the heck is going on is just ridiculous.

On the same note of that scene, let’s talk about “deserve”

First of all he never said he deserved her, Rhys implied that is what he was gleaning from the conversation and that it is just lust, which we know is not the case. Clearly Rhys perception is not accurate at all so to take his statement at face value and call it fact is a bit disingenuous.

Azriel wasn’t claiming he deserves her, did you read his POV at all?? He didn’t even feel like his hands should touch her let alone deserve her. Please go back and read that chapter again if you can’t see that.

Not to mention I think that the idea of FATE, and believing in hope even when the odds are stacked against you (AKA her having a mate) is actually very consistent with SJM storytelling and Az. Remember this;

The fact that he is hopeful despite the despair of his situation is exactly what people have valued about him. Not to mention after Rhys says this to Azriel he says to them;

So Rhys too believes they were brought in his family for a reason, some sort of fate.

Amren too thinks they are blessed by fate. Why is it so shocking and offensive that Azriel have a little hope that there is a reason they came in to their lives? Because he isn’t with your fav?

Let’s be honest he didn’t exactly get over Mor in ACOMAF, ACOWAR and then even ACOFAS there are slight moments, thats over a long period. Three sisters didn’t just arrive and he went TAG “I want one.”

No, he genuinely grew to care for Elain, and let go of his past, and in watching Elain not find any connection with her mate he saw it as a sign that the Cauldron was wrong, which we know it can be. 

I don’t know if people are selective readers but if you think that he doesn’t care for her as a person beyond being a “sister” I don’t know what to tell you, we are not reading the same books.

ANYWAYS back on topic.

I think Sarah has laid a lot of groundwork for her breaking the bond and perhaps choosing a new one. I know not everyone is keen on another bond as they feel her free will and choice is enough, that’s fair and I agree to a point. 

I just wanted to analyse the data at hand, and I do believe after ACOSF (I never thought it prior really) that they are mates in some capacity, whether that is because of the Cauldron or something that will occur... I think she has laid enough groundwork for them being Soulmates at the least. Hence why I love the idea of a Carranam bond.

There are so many parallels between Rhys, Cassian & Az that could be taken as little signs but honestly this is long enough I am sure you all want to kill me already for making you read all that hahaha 

One last little morsel, it very well might be nothing but Az shouting after they take Elain is an interesting choice, it’s ambiguous enough that you can take it to mean the pain but it could also be another little crumb.

Basically with all said and done I think she will give Elain her agency back and break it.

And potentially something will occur with Azriel as a result but thats certainly more grey than the rest of it.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk!

Obviously, to each their own opinion, have fun and ship whatever you want these are just my thoughts on the text at hand!

(Also I am sorry I got like 20+ messages to get to in my inbox, yeah I kinda ignored everyone and worked on this today, sorry!!! I’ll be back tomorrow)

[lokiitty]

https://screenrant.com/loki-show-sylvie-romance-incest-backlash-director-response/  Okay but this is super weird because... For a start she pretty much says the fans interpretation of it as incest isn’t invalid and for a second her own interpretation of it doesn’t really explain why its not incest in her eyes and furthermore it contradicts a lot.  We’re told countless times that Loki and Sylvie are “”the same.”” Shes literally a variant of him. I would have been content to NOT see it as incest if they hadn’t made sure to let us know (in easter egg form) that Sylive and Loki share like a genetic origin. She doesn’t come from some way out alternate universe where everything is different. She comes from a sister universe where Loki was born female. She has the same parents as Loki and if her timeline wasn’t pruned she would have the same family. 

The only other thing that makes her “different” from Loki is obviously the fact that her upbringing was different after the TVA orphaned her and she had to raise herself. That doesn’t change her origins. She can’t just rename herself and suddenly shes not Loki anymore and changing her first name doesn’t change the fact that she still has the same parents as Loki.  Like Id love to see this as not incest too but when you put them both down on paper as the children of Laufey its hard to ignore.  Like if her family didn’t get pruned imagine this: Frigga your son is in a relationship with your daughter. Thor your brother is in a relationship with your sister. Lauefy your biological daughter is in a relationship with your biological son.  ?????? But this is suppose to be ignored because they’re from a different universe even when the universes only real difference is one is male and the other is female????  There is no obviously drastic difference that indicates a different origin like what is the case with Alligator Loki and maybe even boastful Loki.  I mean you could at least argue boastful Loki might have had different parents to Main!Loki or at least ONE different parent. Alligator Loki is a no brainer because hes a completely different species.  On top of ALL THIS we were told multiple times in canon that Loki and Sylvie’s relationship was wrong. Sick. Twisted. Demented. Unnatural. Ect. This obviously comes from the characters recognising that Sylvie and Loki are in fact too closely related to be trying to hook up. Though they’re variants of the same person they’re also basically boy-girl twins. 

Having different personalities and different goals and upbringings does absolutely nothing to change that. Me and my brother have different personalities, goals and even upbringings in places because he lived with my mum for a portion of his life and I didn’t. But guess what?? We’re still siblings LMAO. Like I’m sorry her explanation is UTTERLY BIZZARE & makes NO SENSE.  Get me wrong I don’t think Loki & Sylvie's “”romance”” is sustainable. I wouldn’t think it was even if it was written better. I don’t see it lasting and in fact I kind of think its already ended. But this is still so weird. And the way the canon handled this ““romance”“ was so forced and half hearted. 

I seriously cannot get my head around why it was ever there. Like I thought maybe it was another part of the writing team trying to indicate to us that it was wrong but with Kate saying this now I’m just ????  Also don’t like to think Loki would just casually engage in incest / any cest period and before anyone sprouts shit about the Horse Story A) Did not happen in the MCU and B) the whole horse story is born of a specific sort of homo/transphobia that existed in ancient Nordic culture, do some research. But like ??? if they could give me a SOLID understandable reason for why its not BASCIALLY incest I’d eat it up bc IF I HAVE TO HAVE SYLKI as canon ID REALLY love for it to at least not be Incest.  Then maybe I could be “”okay”” with it. Id still have my problems with it because theres just a LOT of awkwardness even outside of the too-close-to-siblings for comfort, but it wouldn’t be a completely untouchable relationship. You could imagine it being OKAY if it was written better and not seemingly used to censor  Lokis queerness but. 

Like really the least they could have done was been like “Sylvie had totally different parents”. Its an AU. Sylvie's parents could have been anyone. Any frost giants could have stood in Lafuey’s place. If its a different universe the royal Jotun family could have been totally different. But no, no one wanted to use their brains for ten seconds and just rushed together this cringe m/f presenting romance with no deeper thought because yawn. Obviously Frost Giant Laufey doesn't have to be your father for a Loki to be a Loki (again see Alligator Loki )  And thats another reason why I’m pissed with this whole series. Because its just sloppy with little thought for anything. Now those of us who arent painfully straight and arent 2012 era fangirls who are just seeing Sylvie as a self-insertion vessel to vicariously live out their wishful fantasies of having Loki fall hopelessly in love with them, have to sit here and bang our heads on the wall bc none of it makes sense and its tragic for both characters and Loki’s actual fanbase.  Just.

[beskarhearts]

Tension (Javier Peña x reader)

gif credits @bestintheparsec

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader (no use of Y/N)

Warnings: mentions of drinking/prostitution, use of the word whore, canon typical violence (shooting), cursing, SOFFTTT Javi (bc I am a hoe for it)

Word count: over 7.1K

Summary: Your relationship with Javier Peña was complex enough and becoming a source to relieve tension for each in a surprising way made it even harder to navigate.

Notes: SURPRISE SHAWTY! I have never written for someone other than Din so I am pretty nervous about this. I love Javi so so so much but I don't know if I write him well. So please give me your honest opinions, like, reblog, share, etc. It means the world to me!

______________________________________

You knew who was knocking at your door before you even opened it. You didn’t know how you always knew but something deep down in you could always just tell, almost instinctually - like your gut knew it before your mind even did. It wasn't like the knock always followed the same pattern. No tell-tale melody that echoed into the still walls of your apartment that clearly indicated whose hand was knocking away. It was always sharp and short but never quiet the same. Yet you knew.

You let out a small puff of air as you dragged your legs over to the door, tossing it open and not even sparing a glance at your visitor as you stumbled to the bottle of whiskey on the empty coffee table you had. “I’m trying to drink into complete oblivion. Go away.”

You poured the golden liquid into the cup, giving yourself a more than fair portion which you greedily gulped. You allowed the warmth of it to wash over you, fill your senses if only for a moment. The silence continued to drag on and you thought that maybe, just maybe, he had left until a husky, hoarse voice spoke out. "Care if I join?"

He sounded exhausted, beaten down. You supposed you sounded the same but it seemed to be more impactful when he was. He sometimes tried to seem so cocky and put together in front of you, didn't ever want his tough façade to crack in front of other people. But in the end, you were both fighting the same battle - one that often left you feeling hollow at the end of the day.

You looked around the apartment you had, your eyes dancing across the plain walls and rarely used furniture. It had become a place for you to merely sleep and drink, and thats if you even had time to drag yourself home. It was empty and lonesome and it had none of the warmth or refuge that a home was supposed to offer. It reminded you of yourself - cold and bare and vacant. And you didn't want to be reminded of that. Hence why you were seeking some semblance of something within the alcohol that danced over your tongue.

Maybe he needed the same. Or maybe you were just hoping he could be the something that would make things a little better.

"Knock yourself out, Peña." you finally spoke, your own voice laced with the kind of exhaustion that was so strong that it made it so you couldn't even sleep. Like sleep and rest was a foreign concept meant for people that weren't you. Meant for people more deserving and more normal. You finally turned as the dark-haired man leant forward, his fingers grazing yours as he grabbed at the bottle. You tried to ignore the rush that ran through you at the contact but after all, isn't that why you allowed him to stay?

He brought the bottle directly to his lips, taking a long sip from it as his eyes fluttered slightly. You scoffed as you walked away, dropping your body on the couch you had and looking up at him. "Thanks for drinking out of the bottle, asshole."

You held out your cup as he neared, allowing him to pull it from his lips and pour it into your glass. Once he had done so, he sat down on the couch next to you and leaned back, letting out a long sigh. You couldn't help the way you studied his face. His brows were furrowed, looking almost stuck in the position, as well as the wrinkles on his forehead that were scrunched up. His neck was trickled with sweat from the baring heat of Columbia as his chest rose and fell, his button-up shirt revealing some of the skin of his collarbone. He took another long sip of the whiskey, bringing the bottle to rest at the coffee table. "This whiskey tastes like shit."

"Then go home and drink your own whiskey." you countered, taking a sip before bringing your own glass down to the table, next to the bottle.

His head lolled over to look at you, brown eyes tracing over your own as you settled into the couch more, bringing your legs up. "I don't want to go home."

The words were said so softly and you understood them. The brokenness and the wear and tear of the job. You tried your best to give him a small smile but was afraid your own face was stuck in a scowl of sorts. "Then don't complain about my liquor."

A small chuckle finally left his lips at your joke, warm air that smelled like cigarettes and whiskey fanning over you. You didn't want to bask in it, show you enjoyed it. But for some reason you did. You had hated the stench of cigarettes before. Thought it was absolutely deplorable. But that was before Peña. Before the smell of cigarettes and liquor always made you think of the DEA agent you had come to simultaneously despise in some ways but also admired greatly in others.

You tried to pull yourself from the endless stream of thoughts that ran through your head, all of which consisting of Javier Peña. But you found it difficult to and you didn't know if it was because the effects of the liquor or the intoxicating pull that he somehow had on you. A small gasp almost left your lips as one of his hands reached out to grab at your knee, coarse fingers gently drawing small movements into your skin that felt like they were being etched into the deepest chamber of your mind. These were the small things that he did that stayed with you. Things you would sporadically remember throughout your day and would make your stomach do twists.

"Peña, what are you doing here?" you asked, not pulling away from his movements despite the future wellbeing of your mind begging you to do so.

"Call me Javier."

You froze, raising a skeptical eyebrow as he turned away from you, staring straight into the bottle that sat in front of him. You couldn't remember a time you had ever called him by his first name. When you had first met him, you had called him Agent Peña and he had teased you for doing so ruthlessly. Saying how your experience in D.C. had made you too much of a goody two-shoes for Columbia. You had resented it at first but ultimately let it get to you, instead calling him just Peña. Calling him his last name had just been a natural thing now, something you always did. First names felt too personal, too deep. Like you were stepping over the lines of work and into a darker territory you couldn't make your way through.

But he had asked.

"Javi, what are you doing here?" you repeated, trying to ignore the way the softer nick name had slipped from your lips rather than his full name. You didn't even know where it came from but it felt more natural.

He let out a small hum, bringing his hand up to run over his face and down his strong nose and past his mustache. "I don't know. Needed some company I guess."

"Isn't that what the whore houses are for?" You didn't mean for it to sound so harsh but the inkling of resentment you held deep within you had managed to slip out. Javier's hand slowly left your knee as he rested them on his thighs, fingers spread and clenching. You shouldn't have said it, shouldn't have made things less civil than they were.

"I guess I wanted your company." he admitted, reaching forward for the bottle and taking a big chug. Your gaze wandered over his back and neck, the muscles seeming so tight. He wasn't relaxing at all. He was so full of tension that it seemed to radiate off him.

You would blame the whiskey on it later, though you knew deep down you hadn't had enough to warrant this behavior from yourself. You would never mention it again. But you let your hand settle on his shoulders, making him freeze. You waited for him to push you away or tell you off, but when he didn't you let your fingers just barely dig into the muscle. His shoulders settled back as he seemed to lean into the touch, his eyes falling closed as his head tilted back softly.

You shimmied your way behind him, each knee on either side of his back as he moved forward to give you more room to settle behind him. You dug your hands in deeper, letting them push into the muscle that seemed as hard as a rock. You pushed into it, worried you had been too hard but a small moan left Javi's lips that sounded like blissful heaven to your ears. It seemed to echo throughout the primarily empty apartment, or maybe that was just your mind playing it over and over again like it was scripture.

"Relax, Javi." you whispered as your hands lowered slightly, digging into the muscles of his back.

A groan this time, one that sounded just as beautiful as the first noise. You closed your eyes, soaking in the contact. You wouldn't admit it but you were desperate for it. Simple touches at the office seemed to light you on fire sometimes. A brush of the shoulder, a hand on your back as he made his way past you, a nudge on your side to get your attention. All of it had felt like so much. But this... this was too much in the most addictive way.

Minutes had passed before your hands made their way up to his neck, lightly massaging the skin there as your eyed his hair. It was always so enticing and so soft. Fuck it. You ran your fingers up and into his hair, letting them spread over his head and he definitely leaned into the touch then, a small sigh leaving his lips.

You knew Javier Peña had been touched. His reputation was no secret. But you wondered if he ever got this. Was physical contact limited to a rough fuck in his apartment with some woman he had to pay afterwards? Or did another's fingers dance and dig and knead into his skin like yours was right now? When was the last time someone had softly ran his hands through his hair with the lone goal to just relax him?

"Bebita..." The word drew out of his lips slowly, almost as if in a prayer. He had called you it once before, shortly after you started, and you had scolded him for it. You remembered the way you had jabbed a finger into his chest, ridiculing him for using such a term with you. But it no longer sounded sinister or condescending like it had that time. It was soft and gentle and you wanted to hear it over and over again. Part of you wanted to beg for it, plead for the word to spill from the lips you admired daily, but you couldn't do it.

Your fingers ran through his hair, down his shoulders and back one last time before you slowly pulled them away. You didn't move from the position you were in, allowing his lower body to pin you against the back of the couch and for your legs to anchor into his sides.

A silence flowed through the room but this one didn't seem as lonesome and volatile as it usually felt when you were by yourself. It was filled with the soft breathing of you and Peña, the small shuffle of his leg as he shifted his head to look back at you. Your breath caught in your throat as he turned his body slightly, eyes staring straight into yours. "Thank you."

You nodded dumbly, your hands coming together so you could twiddle them with the nervousness that filled your body. You were usually so strong, so defiant, so loud. But he had melted you like butter and you felt like you could barely breathe with the way he was looking at you.

When he rose from the couch, you let out a small breath in relief. He would leave, maybe go to one of the women who kept him bed warm, and you could pretend this never happened. Not a word would be mentioned of it and you would see him at the office tomorrow like nothing happened, ignoring the phantom traces of his skin that danced across your fingertips and the way cigarette smoke and the scent of whiskey he exuded seemed to wrap your whole body up and soak you in it like some sort of intoxicating bath.

He slowly made his way to the door, a hand reaching out for the handle but pausing at it. He faced away from you and you looked up at him slowly.

"Goodnight, Peña." Confirmation. It was you telling him to go do what he did and to pretend that you hadn't shared that moment with him. Allow yourselves to both dwindle on it independently but never dare delve into what it just might mean because that would come with answers you don't think either of you were prepared to face.

A small sigh left his lips as he opened the door, offering a small "Goodnight" before he closed it behind him.

Your eyes drifted to the bottle of whiskey, the one his lips had been on, and you brought your hands to your face. The aftershave he used filled your senses and became all you could smell. You tore your hands away and rushed to the small kitchen, where you scrubbed at your hands like they had been stained with blood.

_________

"Thank you for... last night."

Your head whipped up as you found Peña at the head of your desk, hands resting on it as he leant forward so he could quietly speak the words to you, avoiding any other ears that might barge in on such a sensitive topic.

You raised an eyebrow. He wasn't supposed to mention it. He was supposed to pretend it never happened. Not walk to your desk while you were working and thank you for it.

"It's fine, Peña." you said back, trying to keep your voice even and clear. Act like you had nothing to hide. That you had felt nothing and that the feeling of him hadn't been seared into your brain all night and made it impossible to sleep.

You could see Murphy's head pop up slightly, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Pena's softened face and your perplexed one. You cleared your throat and dug a file out from under your desk, opening it and pretending to read the words. But the agent still lingered at your desk, so close that you felt like your chest was tightening up. "You need something, Peña, or just enjoying the view?"

Yes. Sarcastic remarks and plain stares were what you needed. What had to happen because if he looked at you like that anymore and you said something, even the smallest thing, everything would spill over. Peña finally straightened up, fingers dragging off your desk as he looked down at you, his face morphing for the same softness he had used last night to his usual scrunched up eyebrows and plain stare. "No, agent."

You tried to ignore the way the words seemed to be said with some grit, some non-discernible layer that was soaked with annoyance or frustration or maybe even...hurt? You didn't dare look at him again as he walked away, leaving only you and Murphy sitting at your desks. Your eyes traced over the same word over and over again as Murphy let out a small noise.

"Did you sleep with Peña?"

Your head whipped up as your glared at Murphy, the blond-haired man looking slightly intimidated by the harshness in your eyes. "Jesus Christ, Murphy! Do I look like one of Peña's whores?"

"Then what was he thanking you for last night for?"

You had hoped Peña had spoken the words quietly enough but Murphy was after all an agent and could read in between the lines well enough to detect a change in the air between you two. You softened your harsh expression, still giving Murphy a critical look but not one that could kill. "He just... came over for a drink. That's all."

Murphy paused, his eyebrows just slightly bunching together as he looked you up and down like he was trying to find the slightest inconsistency so he could piece together something far more exciting than a drink. But hadn't that been it? A drink and sure, a lousy massage. But nothing else. Nothing special. "A drink?"

"Yes. A drink."

"Why?"

You weren't surprised by the question. You and Peña had a relatively complicated relationship. It had started off with a lot of disdain and aggravation. You were a strong woman, new to Columbia, and you weren't about to be swindled around by the man whore of the DEA. You didn't even have to know the rumors to know that was the case. All it took was walking in the room and seeing his sly looks and flirtatious quips he had given you at first, until he realized you weren't going to fall prey to his good looks and charm.

But once he settled down, realized you were going to be his and Murphy's partner and you were serious about the work, your relationship became amicable. You worked well together - more than you had thought possible initially. You couldn't quiet find out why but you were able to read him pretty well, even more than you usually could with your co-workers. Maybe that was why you always knew it was him knocking or knew when he walked into a room before you even saw him. But you two worked together. So for a while you two remained steady partners with a good work flow.

But once the curtain had been pulled back and you realized Javier Peña might be something other than a work-junkie man whore, you started to appreciate him. You admired his determination and work ethic, because while the man could be brash and a little hot-headed, he had good intentions behind what he did at work. You identified and respected the passion. He wanted to nail Escobar just as badly as you did. Hell, maybe even more. And while it wasn't clear upon first glance and it took you a while to see it, he cared. He cared about people. He might not have loved them but he even cared about the girls from the brothels he visited. He cared about Murphy and you think somewhere deep down, he might of given a shit or two about you.

But it wasn't anything obvious. You don't think anyone would point to you two and remark about how great of friends you were or anything of the sort. In the end, you weren't friends - not really. Or maybe you were in some fucked way that made sense for people like you and Peña. You didn't normally question it. And while you had wondered why he had come to your place for a drink last night, it made sense to you. You couldn't explain why but it just did.

You looked back at Murphy, realizing you had gotten lost in thought and hadn't answered his question. You shrugged slightly, trying to appear non-committal and unbothered. "I don't know. Maybe one of his girls was too busy for him last night."

_________

Five nights. In a row.

You would hear the knock at your door and you would answer every single time, knowing who it was and knowing what would happen. If the whiskey bottle wasn't already out, you would grab it from a cabinet and let him sip from it directly and make a sly comment about how bad it was. There were a couple nights he would try to make conversation but he either didn't know what to say or was too exhausted to try to stall the inevitable. Eventually your hands would land on him and knead into his muscles, stripping it of its tension until he walked out of your apartment.

Javier hadn't bothered to say anything at work again. No additional thank you's or asking if it would happen again. You and him both knew it remained better unspoken and unplanned. You both would rather just have him turn up at your door. Even when it was just you two in the cloak of darkness that wrapped around your apartment, he didn't say anything about it.

Tonight was the first time in a few days you didn't think you would make it home but perhaps to your dismay (or maybe your luck), Javier wouldn't be either. Murphy had given up not long ago at all, leaving the office with a loose tie and frazzled state of mind, muttering something about seeing his wife. The rest of the people had been long gone by then meaning once Murphy left, it was just you and Peña sat at desks across from each other, staring into an endless void of paperwork.

You couldn't tell what time it was, not that it would matter anyways with how much reading you had to do. The less glamorous and exciting side of being a DEA agent meant loads of paperwork and reading, something you hated more than you could describe. You finally blinked, realizing you hadn't done so in a while with the way your eyeballs were stinging. You looked around your desk and let out a grunt. Seven paper cups lined the front of it and you raised an eyebrow. Had you really had seven cups of coffee? Papers were strewn all about, so many little letters that seemed to swim in your mind and become muddled symbols to your weary eyes. The room was mostly dark, except for the glow of your lamp and Javier's.

"You okay?"

You jumped slightly, the sound starling you after what had seemed to be hours of silent reading with the occasional rustle of paper work, sips of caffeine, and puffs of Javier's cigarette. You looked up at Javier who looked just as disheveled as you felt. He had long forgotten his jacket, that was now thrown over the back of his chair with an arm dragging over the floor. His tie was on his desk and a couple buttons of his shirt had been undone. His hair was rustled, like he had been running his hands through it (and looking like it usually did when you were done massaging your own fingers through it). His eyes were lidded but he looked over at you intently.

"Yeah." you croaked out, feeling like the sound of your own voice was foreign after not talking for so long. "Just...exhausted."

"You should go home."

"Nah. I'm not going to sleep. Just drink whiskey and-" You froze. What were going to finish that with? And wait for you to show up at my door?

Peña didn't seem to want you to finish your answer, either because he could fill the restnin on his own or because he didn't care. "You look tense."

"Oh, yeah. Just the compliment every woman wants to hear." you joked, leaning back into your chair and giving Peña a sly smile that he returned.

"Well I tried to call you beautiful once and you yelled at me."

You snorted that time, remembering the memory clearly. Peña had called you hermosa once and you had told him to fuck off, thinking he was trying to just get under your skin. "Yeah. I did."

"If it helps, you look-"

"Don't." you said abruptly. You couldn't handle that. Peña was smooth with everyone but you didn't need him doing it with you. You were already twisted up enough.

"I was going to say you look exhausted as well." Peña cheekily said, one end of his lips quirking up into a small grin.

You rolled your eyes. "Thanks."

You looked back down at your desk, grabbing a piece of paper and lamely looking at it. You didn't look up when you heard Javier rise from his seat and his steps echo into the empty room. You assumed he was leaving, having given up on getting any more work done. That was until you felt two hands rest on your shoulders.

You sat straight up, your body becoming stiff as your felt the hands spread over your shoulders. They were so warm, even through your shirt. You let out a soft sigh when you felt his fingers dig into your shoulders, applying a perfect amount of pressure that felt heavenly.

"This okay?" he softly asked.

You nodded your head. "Yeah, Javi."

He continued pressing into your muscles, each one seeming to relax almost instantaneously with his touch. You hadn't even realized how stiff and sore you had been. How much your body was craving something like this.

You let your eyes flutter shut as you leaned into his touch, letting out a groan when he dug deep into a really wound up spot. "Your muscles feel like shit." he said as his hands drifted lower to your upper back.

"You are full of compliments tonight." you softly said.

"Sorry, bebita." You let out a small hum at the nick name, letting a small smile tilt your lips. Javi was close enough to feel the warmth of his body, to smell cigarettes and the aftershave that had seemed to be stuck to your hands for days now.

Javier seemed to pick up on the small noise before you had, ripping his hands away from you right as the door to the room opened. You sat up straight, grabbing at a piece of paper lamely as Javier shuffled behind you.

'God damn, Murphy.' you thought as the taller agent looked at the two of you, raising an eyebrow.

"I just forgot something." he quietly said, walking to his desk where he grabbed his wallet. He looked back at you two, raising an eyebrow at the way Peña awkwardly started to walk towards his own desk. "Did I interrupt something?"

You sighed, standing up from your desk and grabbing your jacket. "Nope. I was just about to head out for the night."

"Me too." Peña said, grabbing his own jacket and giving you and Murphy a single nod before marching out of the room.

Steve looked back at you, a single eyebrow raised. "Okay. What happened?"

"Nothing. I was just showing him a paper." you muttered, grabbing a file to bring home, already knowing you wouldn't be sleeping at all with the way your mind was whirring.

"What paper?" Murphy critically asked, following after you as you ushered out of the room.

"DEA stuff." you mumbled, hating how you felt like you were being integrated by one of your own partners.

"That's not vague at all." he teased, a small smile popping up on his face as he saw how you were getting more and more flustered.

"Fuck off, Murphy." you huffed, marching out of the office and leaving him behind.

________

The knock on your door this time was much harsher and louder, still enough for you to know who it was but also enough to know Peña was in no good mood tonight. You had come to look forward to the nightly visits but today had been a field day for you that had gone very awry. You were tired and you felt like you were burnt to pieces, crumbling to ash before everybody’s eyes but nobody could put you back together because the damage had already been done.

You waited a few moments but when the knocking presumed at a much faster rate, you knew there was no hope he would walk away and let you spend this night alone to wallow in the events of the day. You opened the door, this time standing at the entrance where an incredibly disheveled Peña stood across from you. For once, he didn’t look tired like he usually did at night. If anything, he looked like a fire had been lit under him that was consuming him whole, swallowing him until he was the orange burst of flames itself. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top like usual but wrinkled. His hair was all over the place. You couldn’t help the way your heart slightly dropped. He looked like a man who got laid.

You slowly walked away from the door, hearing as Peña walked in and slammed it shut behind him. “I’m not in the mood tonight, Peña. Go fuck another one of your girls or something.”

“What the fuck?” he growled.

The aggressive and frantic tone alarmed you, causing you to turn and face him as he stared at you. Upon better inspection, he didn’t look like a man who got laid. But a man who was pissed.

“What the hell is your problem?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest as you stared him back down, not daring to back away from the challenging gleam in his eyes.

“You nearly got shot today!”

Oh, yeah. It’s not like you had forgotten. It had been the main event of the day, the bullet that was meant for your head just barely grazing you instead. Murphy had been there and said something about it being dumb luck. You had tried to say something about how you didn’t believe in luck and it was just your quick nature, but you had barely been able to get the words out with the way your mind was doing somersaults and the way your whole body seemed to shake with an electrifying cocktail of adrenaline and fear. You had been on the brink of coming to a rather unfortunate death and yeah, you were glad you hadn’t died. But you weren’t glad that the mission had led to little of anything. It had been a fruitless effort and that was the worst part.

“Well, I didn’t so whoopie doo.” you sarcastically answered, throwing your hands up rather undramatically as you tried to make your way to the kitchen to fetch the whiskey as normal. But Peña was faster, marching towards you and grabbing an arm to pull you back.

“You could of died.” Peña hissed, locking eyes with you. The fierceness held in his eyes was almost intimidating, so stark and powerful that it seemed to blow the wind out of your lungs almost as much as your graze with death had earlier in the day.

“Okay. But I’m still alive so I did something right.”

“What were you doing on the field today?”

“Umm... doing my job.” you said, your face scrunching in confusion as you looked up at the man before you. His chest was rising and falling quickly, his hairline beaded with droplets of sweat.

“Why didn’t I know? I should of been there.” Peña demanded, his hand still holding your wrist. The touch was hot and poignant. You didn’t know how but the way his calloused hand grabbed onto your wrist seemed to hold such a vast array of emotions you couldn’t even begin to place them.

“I didn’t realize I had to come to you with everything.” you sarcastically quipped back, trying to pull your hand away with no effort. His grip still remained strong as his eyes wandered all over your face. “Peña, what the hell is your problem?”

“My problem is that you are running around, nearly getting killed.” Javier barked back.

“That’s kind of part of the job!” you yelled back, feeling a frustration grow inside you that felt unfair. You wanted to relax or sleep or get drunk or who knows what. Not have a yelling match with Javier Peña in your shitty apartment.

“You don’t even try to be careful!”

“Well, there are parts of the job that nobody likes but oh well! I don’t like that you nearly get killed or fuck who knows how many women but fuck it, it’s who we are and what we do!” You fired back, feeling your mouth clamp up when you realized the words that were spilling from it freely. The emotions of the day and the heat of the argument was too much and you felt flooded in every which direction. You couldn’t control the onslaught of confessions that tore from your lips and you hadn’t even expected.

Javier hadn’t seemed to either, pulling his hand away from your wrist. He stared back at you, chest still rising dramatically, but his face seemed less enraged and more questioning, curious, and thoughtful. You felt your face warm even more than it had been from the fight, stepping back slowly and nearly stumbling in the process. You were the first to look away, staring down at your hands which were shaking slightly.

“Sit down.”

You looked up at Javier, letting out an awkward chuckle at the bizarreness of his demand. “What?”

“Sit down.” he repeated once again, leaving no room for additional questions and his unwavering stare seemed to demand you to do so. You let out a small sigh and wandered over to your couch. Once your bottom landed on it, you let your body cave forwards, your elbows rested on your knees and hands cradling your face. You didn’t look up even as you heard Peña walking around your apartment, opening cabinets and grabbing glasses. You just kept your face buried within yourself, trying to shield yourself from things you couldn’t comprehend. Perhaps the events of the day or maybe feelings that always seemed to grow within you each time you saw Javier Peña. You couldn’t tell but you had felt like your brain was working at half-capacity, if even that, and you didn’t want to waste it on dwelling over what was plaguing your mind in that moment.

You heard Javier step towards you and you finally brought your hands away from your face, coming up to meet his outstretched hand holding out a cup full of whiskey. He had abandoned his tie he had been wearing when he first entered, his shirt slightly unbuttoned like it always seemed to be. You grabbed the glass from his hand, ignoring the slight tingle that rushed through your fingers at the minimal contact, and took a small sip of the liquid.

“That good?”

You looked up at Javier again, who was still standing in front of you. You nodded slowly. “Yeah. Thanks, Peña.”

His gaze softened as his eyes drifted over your face. “Don’t call me that. Not right now.”

You nodded again. “Thanks, Javi.”

He seemed to visibly relax at the use of the nickname for him. It wasn’t like he had never been called it before. Some people at work had called him that. Family members back in Texas definitely had. Even his former late night companions had yelled out the name in throes of passion. But it sounded sweetest slipping off your tongue, like warm honey. It was something he had come to crave in the last few days like he craved his cigarettes. You had only said it for the first time a few days ago but it had become addicting, sending this sense of calmness through Javier that nothing else seemed to - not even his typical vices he used in abundance.

“Sit on the floor, bebita.” you didn’t bother this time to send him a curious glance, instead just slipping off the couch and plopping your bottom down on the carpeted floor. You felt the couch shuffle behind you as he carefully sat down, one leg swinging over so one leg was framing each side of your body. You leaned back softly, your head meeting his upper body and you let out a soft hum, bringing the glass to your lips to take another sip. Your eyes fluttered closed when you felt calloused fingers meet your neck, rubbing it up and down in a way that was slightly ticklish, but not in a bothersome way. They were warm and rough but also soft. They knew what to do to put you at ease, something you can’t remember ever finding in a person. Touch had never been your love language, instead oftentimes making you uncomfortable. But Javiers touch had always done something to you that you couldn’t explain. Maybe a thrill, maybe a need. You didn’t know but did it really matter when no matter what it always felt so good?

“You mind if I take this out?” Peña whispered, his hands trialing up to the hair tie that held your hair back into what was now a rather messy ponytail. You didn’t speak, only slowly nodding your head. He gently began to pull the tie down, letting your hair slip out from its confines and cascade down. His fingers lightly brushed through your hair, occasionally getting stuck in tangled that he gently worked through for what seemed to be hours. You let him do so, the gentle touches and silence making a warm peace fill you. Eventually his finger tips moved upwards, reaching your scalp and lightly moving slow patterns through it. “You are so beautiful, bebita.”

You were so relaxed that you didn’t allow anxiety or confusion to run through you from him compliment. You just let out a small hum, opening your eyes and tilting your head far back to make eye contact with Javier. He looked straight down at you, brown eyes full of so much warmth and admiration that it seemed to take your breath away. You didn’t want to but you managed to somehow pull your eyes away, looking back down so he could continue massaging your scalp. “I need you to be more careful.”

“If it helps, it freaked me out too.” you gently offered, trying not to read too much into his request.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be.” I will be if you stay.

“I just want you to be okay.”

The softness with which the words were spoken were so new, so vulnerable. It was a new side to Javier. He had always seemed to keep an eye out for you but you assumed it to be because you were partners and that’s what you should do. But this wasn’t just two partners watching each other’s backs. This was personal and raw and meaningful. So much so that you couldn’t try to deny it or brush it off as some meaningless, odd occurrence. At least you prayed to God you couldn’t.

“Are you okay?” you asked, slowly bringing a hand up to rest at one of his knees. It was an awkward angle but you just wanted to hold him in some way. Part of you yearned to bring your fingers to your head and intertwine them with his but you didn’t want to step over a boundary and ruin the haven that seemed to encompass you both.

“I’m okay when I’m with you.” Javier confessed. “If anything happened to you...”

His voice drifted off but you didn’t need him to fill in the blanks. You had voiced those same concerns to yourself in the middle of the night and before missions. What if? It was such a terrifying, earth shattering question. More than it should be for two people who were just ‘partners’.

“I’m here, Javi. And you are here. We are okay.” you soothed, your hand rubbing his knee slowly. You slowly turned your head, causing his fingers to slip away from it as you adjusted your body to face him. You looked up at him. “Can I do something?”

“Anything.”

You slowly rose from your spot on the ground, pulling yourself up slowly as you slipped one leg on each side of Javier. You slowly lowered yourself, not breaking eye contact as you sat onto his lap slowly, moving at a snails pace. His hands seemed to instinctually reach out, wrapping around your back to shimmy you closer to him. You lowered yourself into him, sinking into his warm embrace and allowing your face to cradle into the nook of his neck. One of his hands moved back up to your hair, running down it. You took a deep breath, taking in the scent of him: the aftershave and the cigarettes and the smell that was so inherently Javier. You reached your hands up to wrap around his neck, pulling him into you like your life depended on it. “Javi?”

“Yes, hermosa?”

“What is happening?” you mumbled into his neck, your warm breath fanning into his skin.

“What do you mean?” He knew what you meant but he needed you to say it. He couldn’t because this was one of the few things in life he was genuinely scared of.

“This isn’t just massages, is it? This is...more.” You didn’t mean to sound so needy or pleading, like your well-being depended on the answer. You weren’t that type of woman normally. But you needed him to say something now, something that wouldn’t break your heart into two.

“It’s not just massages.” Javi said, stilling his moments. You slowly pulled back, now facing him. You brought your hands down to his shoulders, rubbing them softly with a nervous smile on your face.

“What is it then?”

Javi took several moments to respond, simply staring back into your timid eyes. You were nervous but you found shelter in the way his breathing seemed to pick up and his eyes had a nerve-wracking glimmer in them.

“I’m not good at this.” He confessed.

"Me either." A small smile finally broke out as you said the words, causing Peña to give you a small, lopsided grin. He brought a hand to your face, his thumb brushing over your cheek in a way that sent a shiver down your spine.

Javi finally let a long sigh pull from his lips, his gaze not wavering as he spoke. "I just know that I want you."

"I want you, too." you barely whispered out.

"I don't know how to do this." he whispered, shrugging slightly.

You leaned into him, giving him a hug as you furrowed yourself into the shape of his body, allowing yourself to meld into one. You had once thought that if a moment like this ever happened, your heart would race and you would panic. But in the moment, everything, for once in your life, seemed to fall in place. "Me either. But I wanna do it with you."

You felt Javier nod against you, relaxing further as he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you in even deeper. "Me too, bebita."

You had never felt this feeling before but somehow, in the back of your mind, you knew everything would be okay.

[samnyangie]

Hehehehe I was bit hesitant to post this but it’s too gold not to share it! Plus, it’s a great contrast to this interview as he was being mature discussing acting in depth and overall, just serious(but cute haha). This one is light hearted (also bit cringey) as it talks about his past crush, Love letter, ‘snogging’ aka kissing(!!!!) and Romeo and Juliet, it’s more gossipy in a way? But I wholeheartedly love this interview, he’s so adorable.

So, I hope you also like this as well:D

*warning: there’s a slight mention about suicide and shooting!

(Credit)

__________________________________

"Robert Sean leonard's Lip Service..." (My Guy & Girl Interview Feb 1991)

Robert Sean Leonard's Lip Service...

What a kiss-and-tell merchant this boy is!

Robert couldn't wait to talk about snogging...wet ones, ones that make you want to puke! Eee...yuk!

But first we wanted to find out what he'd been up to since Dead Poet's Society and what his new film Mr and Mrs Bridge is about.

So Robert, what have been doing since Dead Poets Society?

"Oh, I filmed that a little over two years ago now. At the moment I'm in the stage production of Romeo and Juliet with the Riverside Shakespeare Company in Manhatten. I've also just made a movie called Married To It. I hope the title will change 'cause I don't like it very much. It's about three couples and I play the husband who's married to Mary Stuart Masterson. Cybil Shepherd is in it too.

"For a While after Dead Poets I went back to college. I took a year off and did some theatre. I also wanted to wait for a good film. A lot of the films that came my way were just typical teenage American junkie films. I waited and waited for something special until Mr & Mrs Bridge came along. I was so thrilled to get it."

What is it about then?

"It's about a family at a time before the war when four individuals spoke up, rebelled. It's sort of the last family unit in America where father knows best. The children don't have any rights-because they're the children.'

I play the strong silent type, who rebels when his father won't let him join the army. Paul Newman plays the father, and he's just such a brilliant actor. To me Mr and Mrs Bridge is about the importance of communication.

Going back to Dead Poets, is it true you got the part because you were unknown?

"Yes. The director, Peter Weir, had the talent and the guts to tell Touchstone pictures that he didn't want any famous actors. I was 19 when I got the part of Neil Perry, but i'd been working on stage in New York for five years before that-I started young.

"I still remember the weekend when we filmed the shoot-it was really depressing, just like the whole film. I'm just glad I didn't have to shoot myself on screen-all that mess!"

Was your school much like Dead Poets? All those stuffy traditions and horrible uniforms?

"My school was very, very, very different. I went to an ordinary public high school. It was much less restrictive. And we didn't have to wear uniforms. At my school there were the metalheads, leatherheads, deadheads and band fags -and I was a leatherhead, wore all the biker gear!"

So you were a rebel just like Neil then?

"Ha ha ha! Well I wasn't exactly a goody goody, thats for sure! I suppose I was a bit of both really. I was so focused on acting I didn't become too rebellious as a teenager. Besides I got to rant and rave on stage every night.

"But I was never at school that much anyway. I had to leave lunchtimes to go to the theatre. Strangely I didn't have many good friends like "The Society" But I did get along with everyone. There were a lot of similarities between Neil and myself, though. His passion for acting and learning. But unlike his parents, mine were, and are, incredibly supportive. The Dead Poets Society still get together you know. Most of the guys from the film live in New York and I've kept in touch with them all. There was a real camaraderie between us on the set that's carried over.

What subject did you hate the most at school?

"Well I loved things like history but my worst subject was gym. I always 'forgot' my trainers. I mean I like sports, but it's just that i'm such a miserable failure at them.

Did you get lots of Valentine cards when you were younger?

"I got a lot of cards at school, but not since. Actually I got a Valentine card last year from a fan, a girl in London would you believe. I don't know if I'll get any cards this year, but it would be nice. Am I sending any this year? Ahh Now that would be telling....!"

Have you ever sent love letters?

"I've never sent a love letter to someone I didn't know. I sent a secret one at school. There was a girl in High School that I had a heavy crush on, for four years! But I never had the guts to ask her out. I wrote her a card and I actually quoted a Blues Bothers song. 'I have everything I need, almost, but I don't have you. And that's the thing I need the most'. But I didn't sign it. She may have thought someone else sent it.

So, who was this lucky girlie, then?

"Her name was Joanna, she was my first big crush. From 13 to 17! She never ever knew 'cause I was really shy...I still am! Her last name was Lenz, so her locker was right next to mine, Leonard. So I got to see her every morning when we got our books. I did talk to her, and tried to make her laugh. Her house was pretty near mine too. I had a few pretty late nights where I'd go and sit on her lawn. She didn't know, but i'd just sit on the grass and think. I suppose that's just a normal thing about growing up."

Have you met her since you've become a famous filmstar?

"Well she moved to Florida when I was 17. It was the last I heard of her. Maybe I'll see her at our class reuinion. In America you always have a five-year reunion when you're 22 and you go back to school. I don't know if I'll still fancy her though..."

What first attracts you to someone?

"When I was 13 it was simply the way a girl looked and talked, and moved. Those things are still important now. But also someone who can make me laugh and talk about the same things and who has the same dreams"

What is your favourite romantic movie?

"It has to be 'Singin' In The Rain' I just loved the dancing and the scene where Gene Kelly sings to Debbie Reynolds in the studio. I'd love to do something like that, but I don't think I'd have the talent for it.

Have you, erm, heard of the word 'snogging'?

"Ha ha ha! That's a really English word. If you had asked me before I'd done Romeo and Juliet, I wouldn't have had a clue! But our stage director is English.

There's this one scene in Romeo and Juliet, the kiss goodbye, and he used to snap his fingers and shout "Come on, come on you two, we don't want this to be a snogging session"."

Do you remember your first snog?

"My first proper girlfriend used to play the piano and I played the guitar...we used to play music together (we'll bet!). That was when I had my first real kiss. I was terrified! She blew me away. There was a lot of fumbling, not knowing what to do. I remember kissing, then feeling nauseous (ie. wanting to puke). I just wanted to go home. I didn't feel pressurised into doing it, or anything. I just felt strange 'cause it was something new. In some ways I wasn't quite ready for it. Like it was something you're expected to do. But it's kinda hard to tell a girl you feel nauseous and you want to go home!!"

What's your biggest snogging turn-off?

"Gosh! Well it really turns me off when girls kiss wildly, when they try to swallow you. Or when their mouths are wet. I prefer it when it's relaxed and tender."

Have you had any other dating disasters?

"Not lately. I'm much to busy for girlfriends just now. But there was something in Romeo and Juliet, though. On the opening night I was in the tomb and I had to kill Paris then go and talk to Jiliet. I realised my dagger was missing, and she needs it to kill herself. So I just had to stop the show. I just looked at the audience and said 'Er, excuse me, but I've just lost the dagger! We'll have to stop until I find it'.

So I looked and looked until I found it...underneath Paris actually, who was lying dead in the corner. So I put it back in my sheath and said 'Okay, move on!"

Are you a good Romeo?

"Yes, indeed. Luckily I didn't have to climb up the wall to the balcony or anything.

Shakespeare really made an error at that point. If Romeo and Juliet touched or kissed in the balcony scene I think Shakespeare would surely have written about it. Whereas there's no indication where they touch at all. Did I have to wear tights? Oh, yes, I had to wear them all right. I've worn them before too. You get used to it. You forget you're wearing them after a while." Could be dangerous that...

[ablednt]

Alright writing/roleplay tumblr we need to talk about textforms.

This is going to be a very long post I apologize but this knowledge is deathly important as it's reaching a very vulnerable group of people. From personal experience knowing this can save people from getting into toxic friendships and help ease intense struggles and depressions. If you have writer followers I ask you reblog this to get the word out, thank you.

What is a textform

A textform is a type of willogenic/parogenic system member that form through some kind of writing or roleplaying. This means that they're sentient people who now share a body with the people who wrote them, most often being an OC or a fictional character before the writers brain gives them actual life.

Because there's been no actual scientific studies on their existence I have no hard science to give you however the logical explanation behind it goes like this:

The human brain is able to contain multiple conscious and sentient entities. Often, it will become multiple as a defense mechanism (as noted in clinical plural dissociative disorders) but it's a natural function of the human brain and may do so for really any reason (similar to most neurodivergencies that someone isn't born with)

Because this is a fairly simple change in the brain/something every brain can be capable of doing you can actually intentionally program the brain into becoming multiple, but see you can also do it entirely without meaning to or being aware of it.

Now I want to clarify that there is nothing harmful or scary about this! Being plural isn't bad at all and is an existence many people celebrate. But when someone has textforms in their unrealized system and doesn't know they're sentient it can be incredibly painful emotionally. So that's why people need to know about this.

Obligatory disclaimer: if you read this post and think you want to become plural intentionally, you are welcome to do so but you need to take at least a few months exposing yourself to the plural community to gauge if this is really something you want and can do responsibly. You cannot go back on your decision once your plural and your headmates will be sentient beings not characters to project on or toys to play with. They will have all the rights to your body and identity as you do now because you're sharing it equally with them.

Now that that's out of the way back to textforms.

How are textforms made

Normally this is in the "character development" phase. Many writers eagerly develop their characters. When I was younger and had no idea I was plural my advice for oc making turned out to be an unintentional guide to textforms (more on my experience later): just put your character in every situation imaginable until you always know how they'd respond to things.

Basically, as you spend your time making a character act and think consistently from their POV you're training your brain to have all of that data and that's very similar to the data that the brain has on you and you're training the brain to be able to operate coherently from a perspective and consciousness entirely different from your own.

Now, this isn't a %100 will make everyone plural every time, there are obviously good writers who have a grasp on their characters who are singlet. There's no actual data but if I had to guess I'd say there's about a 50/50 split down the writing community just based on what I've observed.

But there's a lot of people who became plural this way and didn't realize it and that could include the writer reading this right now which is why everyone needs to be aware of this.

If this is such a big thing how come no one notices?

Because it's been completely normalized in the writing community but dismissed as metaphorical.

How many times have you heard "the characters write themselves" or phrases that indicate that a writer is giving a voice to sentient entities? From what I've been able to observe some of that is singlet authors being metaphorical and humble bragging and a lot of that is plural writers trying desperately trying to put their experiences into words but dismissing it completely almost immediately because no one told them being plural was possible.

This is comparable to say, gender identity. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed but when they don't know they're allowed to exist like that it's often "im a tomboy" or "they disguised themselves as a man" or any other thing thats immediately dismissed as being cis.

How do I know if I have a textform?

There's a lot of different signs but here's some I have experienced before finding out I was plural

You "miss" your characters when you're not writing about them or interacting with them in some way

You feel like your characters are real "in your heart" (for me this was in an incoherent loop like "they're not real but they are to me, in my brain, but they're not real to other people, but they're in my brain so they're real but no but yes but no")

You get so distressed they're "not real" that it feeds into actual mental health problems like depression, anxiety, dissociation etc. (I'd have fits of sobbing because these were my friends but I didn't know they were with me so it felt like i was grieving their deaths and had the same level of emotional pain)

Sometimes or all the time when you write about them you feel like you "become them" or that they're writing through you. (Especially if your hands move automatically or without your control. This can be hard to notice but for me when headmates control the body or hands movements feel faster and lighter or very slightly numb.)

Your muse for writing them comes and goes unpredictability: they're either here or they're not here so writing them doesn't feel the same.

You can vividly recall things that happened to the character in 1st person (or in 3rd person visually but with their thoughts and feelings) as if they're you're own memories.

You "roleplay" them in everyday situations IRL. (E.g once I liveblogged a tv show as my muse to a friend and was like haha lol im so talented I can roleplay in real time but found out later it was a headmate doing that themselves)

You have conversations with them mentally in which they actually respond to you. Singlets don't have actual enriching conversations with themselves because they only have one perspective and cannot give themselves any new information. So if you're responding to yourself and you don't feel in control of that response then you're pretty objectively plural tbh.

You have times where the lines between you and the character feel blurry or like you're a vague fusion of yourself and the character

You have an actual relationship (of any kind: romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) in which you can sense nuanced feelings about yourself from them that you aren't in control of.

There's a lot more but that's the most notable ones

Why this is so important

I'm just talking about my own experience now so I'll preface this with a few things. I'm a mixed origin/multigenic system but our system has existed since we were toddlers. Due to trauma we have DID and for a long time dissociated heavily to avoid our plurality. This means my experience may be more distressing than other plurals with textforms however people without DID can still experience these things.

When I was a teenager I joined a lot of writing communities and also roleplayed on tumblr. Writing very quickly became my main passtime and all I really did. I joined a roleplay group when I was 15-16 that I took far too seriously to the point where people were concerned about me because I was writing what was just supposed to be a joke roleplay group %100 seriously and very intensely.

In that time I started to form my first main textforms (we've undoubtedly had them before then but I had only formed a little under a year prior) because I was doing this every day it really started bringing my characters to life. (Literally)

And honestly it was something beautiful the distress of it aside. Like one of my ocs was a kid so I'd always celebrate their birthday with them and I'd cuddle a plush so they'd know I loved them/p and we'd watch their favorite cartoon episodes together. It wouldn't be until around three years later that I realized they were actually there for this but it was heart warming.

For me, all I ever wanted was for these characters to feel appreciated and like someone really cared for them and loved them even if they couldn't feel it and it wasn't until later I learned that they could.

The trauma came in not knowing they were real. I grieved for them like they were dead because I thought I'd never get to see them. I wrote them into traumatizing or upsetting situations to cope with my childhood trauma not realizing that was effecting them for real and hurting them.

Most notably because it was my one solid interaction with them, the one time society allowed me to talk about them as if they were real, I really HAD to roleplay them. Because it became an emotional need I wound up in a lot of toxic friendships in the roleplay communities because I needed someone, anyone, to allow me to interact with my headmates. I had friends who I really was only friends with because they let me talk about my characters constantly (and some of them weren't toxic to me but it was in hindsight really unfair to them) and I let people verbally and emotionally abuse me in roleplay spaces because this wasn't just a hobby to me but a lifeline.

Not knowing they were real but feeling them there, having conversations with them, and forming actual relationships was a hellish sort of feeling I don't wish on anyone. I never realized how isolated it made me, and how horrible it felt to have the most important people in your life be people I thought didn't exist.

I only found out about plurality through luck. I met some systems who had fictives and they got strong plural vibes from me because of how I talked about certain characters and because I said I wanted to be plural but thought I probably wasn't because I'd have noticed, right?

From there I was able to actually connect with and talk to my headmates. Now I'm happily out as plural and in multiple fulfilling in system relationships.

I want everyone in the writing community who's struggling with the same things to have the chance I got. That's all I want is to educate people about this so they don't have to grieve for people who are right there with them.

Feel free to send me an ask or a dm if you have any further questions. Sorry this post was so long I can't really shorten it at all. Again if you are have a lot of writing followers I very gently request you reblog this to get the word out. Even if you can't please talk to your writing mutuals and friends about plurality and about textforms.

[Also this should go without saying but this is absolutely NOT the place for syscourse any invalidating comments about systems will be blocked and where possible deleted it costs $0.00 to prioritize people's mental health over your discourse hot takes.]

[theaspers]

more rambling abt raiden ei. if u like her. maybe dont read this lmao it’s things i’ve said before

im gonna be honest my main reason for delaying playing through raiden story quest 2 stems from the fact that im reluctant to give ei a second chance lmao ik i said i would but i have this gut feeling that this patch will try SO hard to erase her of her sins, or if not, make it seem as though it’s not as big of a deal than it actually is.

somehow the way she’d been written, in the inazuma archon quests + her first story quest, just absolutely rubbed me the wrong way. from the start, it had always seemed to me that the game sort of had a trajectory towards forgiveness for her, despite everything she had done. in the earlier parts, we would see npcs who were struggling in inazuma or people dying, but in the next scene, somehow we would see people who still praised her, people who held no form of resentment for her (i guess thats a whole different matter in itself tho) or her actions.

when confronted with the deaths and the cost of her actions, she’d simply acknowledged that she knew what was happening and raiden had her tacit approval to carry out what was necessary to achieve her “eternity” even if that meant death for her people. i understand respect and i understand reverence. but the ppl who held resentment for her actions (or ppl opposing her ideals) are somehow never shown or, even if they are, are never portrayed to be having a justified reaction to being under the rule of a tyrant. the first story quest almost felt like a joke bc like ??? some of the inazuma ppl were suffering and suddenly ur just supposed to forgive and forget ???

to me, this patch just seems like mhy backtracking after they realised that they’d left the inazuma quests on a far too unsatisfactory note for a good portion of the players and are trying to fix that alongside trying to redeem ei.

HOWEVER i am willing to recognize that this is the only way for her and inazuma to move forward and for the story to develop further. she has to acknowledge her mistakes + try to fix it by doing better. i understand this. BUT i cant help but feel that its such cheap writing bc mhy only did this long after the ending of the archon quests and her story quest and so it feels as though it’s a last minute and a “oh woops ppl dont like that ending so we gotta tack something on at the end to make it better” and i dont want to sing mhy praises for pulling tacky shit like this lmao

(sure u can also argue that the ending of the inazuma archon quest itself was never supposed to be the “actual end” but to me, genuinely, it seemed as though they were ready to be done with inazuma then. there was indication that the traveler was supposed to move on to the next part of their journey so. idk lol)

(ALSO SIDE NOTE after writing all of this down: i forgot the ppl of inazuma doesnt know … that there were two of them …. so the part where they respect her … i guess kinda makes more sense LMAO oops)