#and there's no one he trusts more to do what has to be done if Batman becomes too dangerous

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[banquetwriter]

Viktor x Reader with some kissing head cannons? Wanted to request something but wasn’t sure what haha 😁

AN: i’m happy to oblige !! hope i meet expectations <33

viktor hasn’t had a whole lot of dating experience in his life, to him of course this is rather embarrassing and something he doesn’t not flaunt around

you of course could care less, he doesn’t judge you for your past dating history now does he? so that fateful night when both of you have made the lab a drinking area he finally has the courage to kiss you

and yeah it’s a bit sloppy, and it’s clear he maybe hasn’t done this a lot but there is this underlying need in his kiss. the way his hand reaches out for you desperately.

reality strikes the poor boy realizing he JUST KISSED YOU. AHHHH!! he immediately retracts his face and his hand trying to see what your reaction is and since your so down bad for this man your just 🖤^🖤

he is insecure and probably over thinks the fuck out of this ordeal, so he stands up grabbing his crutch and accepting you did not want this. “i am so sorry… this was unprofessional-“ he says looking to see the several empty bottles of booze between you two.

god how could be so stupid? and ofc you shut this idea down like that. “viktor your drunk- i don’t want you falling getting home please just let me help you-“ and he sorta drunkenly breaks down.

since that moment the two of you share something super special, as far as kisses however he gets more confident.

he isn’t big on pda i don’t think so in public it’s just the sneaky cheek or forehead kiss. alone however he gets more confidence to kiss you.

his slender fingers wrapping around your throat or making there way to your hair. his mouth consuming yours. he just devours you.

viktor’s disability can sometimes pose a challenge when it comes to being intimate, you never let him feel bad for it ofc but he is limited in what he can do to you.

kisses is not one of those things. he absolutely peppers your face and body in them. he uses them to completely break down your resolve. teasing you until endlessly.

his kisses can be deep and romantic or sloppy and needy- he is only a man after all. he can communicate just with a kiss. leaning up from his work station as you visit to bring him dinner, it says he is grateful and he is sorry for being with you.

when he makes a break through in his hextech research and he pulls you in wrapping you up with a big ol’ smooch on the lips.

this is not as cohesive as i wanted it to be but trust me this man is whipped for you and kissing is something he can do with no injury of himself so trust he will be doing it

[momentomori24]

[This has been sitting in my draft for a while lol]

When it comes to Curly's failings, I always see people bring up his obvious failure to protect Anya and him prioritising Jimmy, who was the rapist in that situation. Which is completely valid btw and we should rake him through the coals for that alone even more. But I also see too many people saying that Curly "didn't enable Jimmy" or playing softball for his actions. And I could maybe see where that comes from if that incident was the only thing we had to point to-- but that wasn't all he did, is it? Curly being indifferent or not taking Jimmy's mistreatment and belittlement of Anya seriously was hinted at so much earlier than that.

Namely, the very first time we play from Curly's point of view. Let's just skip the fact that Curly was putting everyone in danger by not taking his psych evals seriously and simply giving the same answers to pass them even tho he was shown literal minutes after this scene being clearly not-sane, and go straight to the point I actually wanna get into. Which is this:

These scenes in isolation wouldn't be that bad. From his pov, it's played off as comical and it is. Jimmy being a brony (not really lmao) and getting playfully dragged over it is funny. But unfortunately this is the first example out of many for Curly's complacency. Anya is complaining about Jimmy not taking his psych evals or her seriously, which is easy to believe considering how much he rags on her for "not being a good nurse" (she kept Curly alive on hopes and dreams how dare you). So he keeps making her do silly and inappropriate reports she clearly doesn't wanna do, which is kinda shitty (also borders on harassment). But rather than actually saying something about Jimmy's behaviour or even acknowledging how it sucks he says this:

Mate, that's not a good thing 💀 He's clearly aware that the problem is Jimmy's lack of respect for Anya specifically. He knows that if he, his friend and a man in power, were the one doing the evals Jimmy wouldn't try that disrespect. But it's Anya, a meek woman who ranks lower than him so he thinks he can get away with it (which he DOES), and Curly's shown as comfortable in knowing that. He doesn't chew Jimmy out for making Anya uncomfortable nor does he reassure her that he will do something about it. All he does is take it off her hands this once and helps Jimmy power through it to get a good diagnosis (even tho we know he's DEFINITELY not sane either). He doesn't even mention Anya's discomfort or confront him on his inappropriate behaviour, just teases Jimmy in good fun instead because he doesn't think of it as anything serious. It's subtle and pretty minor in comparison to everything else, but I think it's worth pointing out. Especially because this convo takes place after Jimmy had assaulted her, which makes this so much worse.

If you need any more evidence of Curly being an enabler you need not look further than Anya herself. And I'm not just talking about the way he failed her here-- I'm talking about Anya's own view of Curly and the way said view influences her actions.

Just look at her choice of wording. "What would you have done". This is in response to him saying that she could've come to him if she were feeling stressed, which she-- in his eyes-- didn't. The question itself implies that she had no faith in Curly to actually help despite his insistence that he would've, which I think is significant because it shows that she's very much aware of Curly's shortcomings when it comes to her situation AND it's one of the first (or the first time) she actually verbalised her lack of trust towards him or anyone directly. Prior to this scene she had told him about her rape and the rapist, presumably because she trusted him to handle it. And he dismissed her because the rapist was his best friend, and that evidently deeply scarred her. Enough so that she secretly took the gun and hid it someplace else and didn't even tell Curly were that was, because she knows that if Curly has access to it there's a so much greater chance Jimmy will have too, insinuated by the line "the least I can do is make sure he never gets it either". Speaking about the gun:

It sucks so bad that this perception of him isn't even inaccurate nor unjustified. That despite everything Jimmy had done to her and everything he could still do to her, he'd very likely still not allow her access to the gun for protection. Because that's exactly what he didn't do anyway. He didn't attempt to keep her safe from Jimmy, instead he just pretended that nothing was wrong and still let Jimmy's belittlement of her pass. He didn't give her the gun after the incident, because she wouldn't have hid the case if he had. Despite his desperate reassurance that he'd do anything, he did nothing but make it worse for her and she KNOWS that. It's so frustrating knowing he entrusted the axe to Swansea when he needed it but not the gun to Anya when she needed it too. Also this:

The fact that his knee-jerk reaction to her admitting that she's pregnant was "Who would you--" is so fucked, especially considering she's already told him what happened. "Who would you" what? Who would you fuck? Who would you have sex with? That choice of wording drives me up a wall-- SHE wouldn't and didn't do anything or anyone. That was JIMMY. The potential sentence implies that she had any choice or agency in her pregnancy. She didn't. And the fact that Curly had to ask "who" insinuates that he's been putting Jimmy's action out of sight and out of mind the whole time, choosing to not think about them or what happened to Anya at all. And considering he still made her do Jimmy's evaluations despite being able to do them himself and literally didn't even think of making sure she gets psych evals done too--especially AFTER getting sexually assaulted--that might actually be the case (I haven't seen anyone make a stink about that piece of info so I'm going to because what kinda colossal fuck up IS that??).

I vaguely had a post like this in mind but seeing so many people be like "well Anya did some wrong stuff too like leaving Curly alone with Jimmy but you don't get mad at HER for that so why is Curly not doing anything about Jimmy being alone with Anya so different??" actually makes me want to blow some people up. Jimmy's an abuser, sure, but Anya has no real reason to believe that he'd actually harm Curly. From her perspective, they were close, close enough that Curly would not only let Jimmy continuously disrespect her but also get away with assaulting her too. That, and she knows that Jimmy was closer to Curly than anyone and more likely to be civil around him than he ever was to her. She has barely any reasons to suspect Jimmy would harm Curly when they're alone. Curly, on the other hand, has every fucking reason on the planet to think Jimmy would harm her when they're alone. He knows he raped her (likely in her room at night too). He knows that he sexually harasses her. He knows that he doesn't respect her at all. And that was BEFORE the crash. Anya tried insisting on giving Curly his medicine, only for Jimmy to keep aggressively insisting that he'll take care of it despite her protests. Curly didn't try to keep them separate at all even though he was the Captain and had the power to do so. And this should go without saying, but leaving your rapist alone with his best friend that he was close to and enabled/protected him and leaving your friend alone with the woman he raped (and might have repeatedly assaulted given his free access to her) is NOT THE SAME and I'm going to start chucking some people down a waterfall because what the fuck is that argument 💀 Actually leave it to the fandom of the game where the rape of a woman is the catalyst for the events that unfold to use her trauma to defend the guy that enabled it in the first place. Bloody hell.

The reason why this whole Curly discourse pisses me off is because it-- from what I can see-- ONLY brings up his failures 1-0 days before the crash and the Dead Pixel scene (or all the discussion around other points are drowned out by those two). Those scenes, while important to talk about, are not the only things he's done, and focussing on those as the only things is a mistake that comes short of understanding the issue. When it comes to Curly the main defences I see for him are "he was trying not to escalate the situation" and "he was trying to keep things under control the best he can" and "he was waiting for the right time to help Anya", but those don't work when you look at the bigger picture of everything he's done.

He half-assed through his psych eval despite clearly not being sane (and KNOWING he's barely sane, he literally admits it to Jimmy's face). He still continued to task her with Jimmy's psych evals. He brushed over Jimmy's sexual harassment of her as a joke. He didn't think about making sure she got psych evals done herself after being raped. He gave Swansea the axe but didn't give Anya the gun despite it being for "unrest amongst the crew" (whatever the hell THAT means). He let her assault slip his mind that she had to remind him. He's literally a blond man. He took no action to hold Jimmy responsible for anything, and prioritised how his violation of Anya would affect him rather than her. He ignored her demands for him to get rid of Jimmy. He still allowed Jimmy free reign of the ship as co-pilot even after he was openly fantasising about killing everyone and had a major motive and the means to do just that. He was potentially thinking of making her miscarry to cover up what happened. He was so accustomed to her sucking up being disrespected and disturbed that he didn't even notice a difference in her behaviour until she hid the fucking gun. There's so much other shit he's done and hasn't done, and not talking about them or glossing over them makes it so easy for people to argue that he isn't actually an enabler or just minimise the severity of his neglect.

And while I'm already dragging Curly through the mud, I might as well just drag Swansea too. I've seen too many people being like "Anya should've told Swansea instead" and "Swansea was the one that actually took responsibility". Like, y'all realise he's not that much better than Curly, right? He already knew about what happened to Anya-- he admits it to Jimmy's face-- but he didn't do shit. He knew, but he still got completely shitfaced for months despite her earlier protestation to that (for very understandable reasons). He knew, but he still let Jimmy have the axe AND be alone with Anya while having it. He knew, but when Anya locked herself in the Medical and Daisuke and Jimmy asked for his help he didn't budge nor really showed any care. He knew, but the reason he finally decided to do something about Jimmy wasn't Anya, it was Daisuke. Her suffering and her eventual death weren't enough for him to take action either.

This game, on top of everything else, is a great depiction of rape culture. It doesn't just include the rapists, but the people (mostly men) that stay silent, do nothing, make excuses for and protect the perpetrator for whatever reason, and Swansea and Curly (Curly way more so than Swansea) are both active contributors to the environment that allowed for evil to flourish and continue unhindered until it destroyed them all. And while that arguably doesn't make them evil themselves or as bad as Jimmy, they are so much more a part of the bigger problem than the fandom likes to admit.

[Ok since this is kinda gaining a bit of traction please consider helping these guys out here, here and here. Thanks!]

[puckinghischier]

Moments where you’re dancing on the line between friendship and something more w/ Nico? I need some fluff this morning.

I hope you have a great Sunday 💓

you catch yourself realizing the line is blurred the most when it comes to your daily routine. just the simple, mundane things you find yourself doing with him.

because really, do friends meet up for coffee every morning? whether its at one another’s apartment or out at a local coffee shop, you never miss your morning coffee dates when nico is in town. if he hosts, he buys breakfast pastries or cooks a whole homemade spread, always praising his mom’s recipes. if you’re hosting, its donuts and cereal, because you should never be trusted in a kitchen.

do friends meet up for lunch every day, even after having already met for breakfast and coffee? if he isn’t meeting you out for a quick bite somewhere close to the rink, you’re showing up at the arena with take out, or to wait on him until he’s done. the only other people you ever see there are the other player’s girlfriends or wives and their kids. you never see just a ‘buddy’ or a ‘friend’ there.

do friends take naps in the same bed, bodies pressed so tightly together you can feel every breath the other person takes? it doesn’t matter if its your place or nico’s, you’re always waiting for him somewhere after practice. he immediately walks through the door, either flinging himself on top of you on the couch, or dragging you to stand, pulling you towards the bedroom. he’d groggily kick his shoes off and throw his hat somewhere in the room before crawling into the soft, warm bed, patting the space beside of him for you to crawl into. “need m’teddy bear please,” he’d barely mumble, sounding like a kid whining for his favorite toy. the second you’d lay down, he’s pulling your body flush against his, squeezing you just tight enough you can still breathe, but ensuring you’re not going anywhere during the course of the nap.

do friends constantly accompany their friends to couples outings with his teammates, nobody ever questioning your presence? you always sit with jesper and nicole, having bonded with her the most over the course of yours and nico’s ‘friendship’. the first time he ever introduced you to her, she told you how lovely it was to meet ‘the infamous captain’s girl’ jesper always told her so much about. when you corrected her and told her you two were just friends, you noticed the look her and jesper shared, but she apologized and the conversation moved on. you still catch them looking at the two of you suspiciously sometimes. like when nico’s had a few too many glasses of wine with dinner and his hand finds its way to the back of your chair, or the exposed skin of your thigh. every few minutes he looks over at you with a wide grin, eyes glossy and happy from his buzz. “y’having fun, schatz?” he’d slightly slur, leaning his face so close to yours you can smell the sweet wine on his breath. “mhmmm” you’d hum back, giggling at his relaxed state. “you ever gonna tell me what that means, swiss miss?” you’d ask him, poking his dimple, your own silly nickname returned, as it is every time you as him that question. “nope,” he’d giggle, popping his ‘p’ before tuning back into his conversation with erik and kristen. you’d look over to see nicole and jesper looking at you, their own knowing grins on their faces.

do friends travel back home with one another every year? for as long as you can remember, nico has insisted you join him on his trip back home to switzerland each summer before he joins you on your own visits back home around the holidays. he takes you on all of his adventures when he’s back in his mountains. you’ve met every single one of his childhood friends, and his family treats you as one of their own at this point. you’ve even asked nina to teach you some swiss german, so you can keep up a little bit better when you’re out and about. of course, the first word you ask her about is ‘schatz’, but she won’t tell you either, asking if nico ever calls you that. “well yeah, but mostly when he’s been drinking a little bit and his languages start mixing together,” you laugh, thinking about how often he gets tongue tied between german and english after a few beers. her eyes sparkle with something you can’t decipher, stating you’ll figure it out eventually. but when you hear rino utter the name to katja one evening at dinner, you assume it doesn’t mean ‘friend’.

do friends gift each other personalized jewelry with the other’s jersey number? when nico joins you on your ventures back home it’s usually around the holidays, not wanting him to be alone, but knowing he doesn’t have time to get back to switzerland with his schedule. and he always works together with your parents to have all of your gifts he buys you shipped to your parents house, claiming he doesn’t want to risk you snooping and finding them hidden somewhere in his apartment. he even buys for your parents and siblings, just as they buy for him at this point. but every year, he gifts you something branded with the number 13 on it. one year it was a personalized jersey you could wear to his home games, the next it was your own practice hoodie since you constantly tell nico how comfy his is. he even had a customized charm made for your crowded charm bracelet, a small, red 13 with devil horns curved around the top of the number. this year, though, it’s the most beautiful silver necklace you had ever seen, a dainty number 13 hanging from the chain, small red diamonds outlining the silver numbers. on the smooth back of the modest charm, you read the small engraving of ‘merry christmas, schatz’. you thank him as he fastens the jewelry around your neck, telling him how beautiful it as and how much you love it. but the entire time your brain is clogged with thoughts of that damn name again, wondering how much longer you can convince yourself that this is how friends behave.

at the next game of his after the holiday break, you’re in your seat with nicole, one of nico’s jerseys on your back, your new necklace resting delicately around your neck. of course, when nicole spotted the shiny new addition, she didn’t say a word. the two of you opted for glass seats this game, considering it was an important rivalry game for the team. the fast paced game never slowed down once all night, each team responding with their own goal each time their opponents scored. but when the devils found their self in overtime, racing back and forth to try and score before their opponents, nico caught your eye when he was on the bench, getting ready to go out for a shift. his eyes trailed down to the necklace resting in-between your collar bones, a new glint in his eye while you waved at him and mouthed an encouraging ‘you’ve got this!’ with two thumbs up. he winks in response right before he stands and glides out onto the ice. no sooner than his skates hit the slippery ground, jesper passes him the puck as nico glides expertly around the opposing three players, planting himself right in front of their goaltender as he takes his shot. the puck slides right in-between the large, closing leg pads, the goaltender not quite fast enough in his movements. the horn sounds, signaling the devils win. you and nicole jump up, cheering for your boys while they celebrate on the ice. and when you’re waiting for the two of them to exit the locker room afterwards, jesper coming out first and giving you a small smile before making his way to nicole, you turn back to see nico coming through the large door, smiling widely as he walks right to you. before you can even get a word out, nico’s dropping his bag and taking your face between his hands, pulling your face towards his and capturing your lips in a bruising kiss.

once he pulls back you look at him in shock, trying to process what just happened. “i-…nico what was that?” you stutter, not registering the whoops and hollers coming from jesper and nicole. “something i’ve been wanting to do for a very long time, schatz,” he grins, pulling you back in for a other searing kiss. this time you kiss him back, face heating when you finally register the cheers coming from behind you, not caring in the slightest that this is definitely something friends don’t do.

[4ngelfawn33]

Inexperienced 𓇼 Bsf!JJ x Inexperienced!Reader

summary: Your lack of experience is something you've always been embarrassed about, lucky for you, you have a best friend who's willing to teach you everything <3

You, for lack of a better word, are inexperienced. Not in the "I don't know what the word sex is," way, but in the "I haven't even kissed a boy," kind of way. It was something you always felt a bit ashamed of, when your friends have conversations about their intimate lives, you can never add anything interesting to the conversation. You get teased about it of course, and though it's all in good fun you can't help the way your cheeks burn whenever the topic of sex comes up. The person who gives you the hardest, no pun intended, time about your inexperience, is of course your best friend, JJ Maybank.

It's a discussion point you actively try to avoid with JJ just because of how… vulgar he is. He is, for lack of a better word, a giant whore. Even if you don't like JJ Maybank, you want JJ Maybank, and you unfortunately, are no exception to that rule. That's what makes conversations like these doubly embarrassing. Talking about sex with your crush who has way too much experience under his belt is, at best, awkward.

That's why today, when you invited him over, you really tried your best to avoid talking about the very mediocre date you when on the night before. Unfortunately for you, that's all JJ wanted to talk about. You lay in your bed, JJ sitting right next to you, shamefully trying to avoid every sex related question he asks you.

"Look! I'm just sayin' it wouldn't be hard to convince him to ya know… " JJ eyes you up and down for a moment before smirking. "hit that."

Your cheeks heat up at his comment, and you playfully smack at his chest.

"JJ, not everything is about sex!" You groan, turning you face away from his in embarrassment. "Besides, I don't want him to hit anything. It was just one date."

"Well mama, what do you want? Cause' I know how embarrassed you get when someone mentions that un-popped cherry of yours." You gasp at his crude wording and he chuckles beside you.

You sit up, turning to him with your mouth agape.

"JJ you are so gross! Can you not just call me a virgin like everyone else?" He shrugs at you before averting your gaze and picking at your comforter.

"Nah, like' seein' how embarrassed you get." You roll your eyes even though he can't see it, gently shoving him.

"You're an ass JJ."

"Sometimes." He shrugs again, his voice uncharacteristically soft. You turn to him, his brows furrowed together as he is very obviously lost in thought.

You take a moment to admire his features, strands of blonde hair falling into his face, his eyelashes kissing his skin when he blinks, lips slightly parted. His head suddenly turns to you, the air suddenly thick with tension. You think of saying something, anything to cut the tension, but before you can speak JJ does.

"What if— like I dunno, what if someone you trusted showed ya how to like, do things?" Now it's your to furrow your brows, head tilted in confusion.

"What are you talking about? What things?" He sits up, running his hands through his slightly matted hair, attempting to grapple his thoughts.

"Like, sex stuff ya know? Maybe someone you trust could like— show you." Your face heats up once more and you quickly avert your gaze from his, attempting to casually shut down the conversation.

"I— I mean maybe? I don't know! Why are we even still talking about this…" You move to get off your bed, when you feel JJ's hand gripping your wrist, pulling you back towards him.

"JJ…" The tension in the air is disgustingly thick, your heart pounding against your chest.

He pulls you back on the bed and towards him and by the time he's done basically manhandling you, you're nearly on his lap. For a moment the only thing the both of you can do is look at each other, heavy breathing with your mouths agape. You try to speak but the words feel heavy on your tongue.

"I'm gonna be honest— I really want to kiss you right now, like really fucking bad." The heat you feel in your cheeks intensifies at his words.

"JJ you can't just like, I don't know, I can't just do that kind of stuff casually! Everything would just be awkward after and I-"

"Who said it had to be casual?" Your eyes widen at him.

Oh. Oh.

Before you have a chance to overthink things, you press you lips into his, clumsily attempting to kiss him. You feel his fingers gently grip the back of your neck as he takes over the kiss, his tongue licking into your mouth. His kiss consumes you, taking the air out of your lungs. After a few seconds, you pull away, your forehead pressed against his while you attempt to breathe again.

"So…" He says after a few moments. "I could like— teach you some other things… If you wanna."

You giggle, nose brushing against his.

"You're unbelievable."

[divine-addict]

𓇼.* Poly!ShiuToji/Gn!Reader 𓇼.* ^^

▸ Is it really me that just wants a fluffy and domestic poly relationship with Shiu and Toji?

▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where you're an assassin with Shiu being your handler as well. Sure, you're not as strong as Toji, nor do you possess the physical prowess he has thanks to his Heavenly Restriction, but you still do your job well, being Shiu's go-to person after Toji 'settled down' with Megumi's mother. You and Shiu have grown considerably closer during that time, almost as close as he and Toji were.

▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where it really was a matter of simplicity and convenience. Shiu was your handler. Neither of you really saw other people outside of work, spending time outside of work together. Shiu admired your reliability and consistency when it came to getting jobs done and at some point asked you out. The two of you became something of a casual thing, not bothering with labels or what was socially seen as a 'romantic relationship', the relationship being more about having a consistent presence of comfort in each other's lives and looking after each other. ▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where at first Toji saw you as something of a threat, able to take his only stable way of getting money away, being even less tolerable towards you after learning that you were born into a sorcerer family, not knowing that you had also dealt with the harsh mistreatment of jujutsu society towards those who weren't seen as 'strong enough', with Shiu comparing trying to get you two to get along being like shoving two hissing cats at each other.

▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where Toji started warming up to you as both of you wanted to spend time with Shiu putting the two of you into each other's proximity. Maybe you weren't as bad as he first thought, particularly after you wanted Shiu to rather take a look at Toji than yourself after a particularly rough assassination. ▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where Shiu often found himself sandwiched in-between you and Toji, the two of you snoring away on the couch, not letting him get up (the Korean silently cursing himself for having 'not one, but two freeloaders'). He didn't even have the heart to shove off himself so he could get up from the couch, Shiu caring for the both of you. ▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where it started becoming natural to include Toji when Shiu took you out or when doing mundane things like going grocery shopping, cleaning (more like you and Toji were standing around while Shiu was trying to understand what you two didn't get about sanitizing the flat, having instead drawn a pentagram on the bedroom floor) and lounging together on the bed.

▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where both you and Toji find yourself feeling safe enough to be vulnerable about Shiu, silently seeking out comfort from him whenever you needed reassurance that you were away and gone from your respective former households. Shiu never pries, letting either of you just ground yourself using his presence. ▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where Shiu gets double the complaining about him smelling like cigarettes constantly, Toji grabbing his pack and keeping out of his reach, while you just watch in amusement, leaning against the doorframe, supposed to watch over dinner cooking in the kitchen.

▸ Poly!ShiuToji, where the inventory curse is just something of a pet?? No one knows if it digests the food you feed it, but Toji doesn't find himself pulling out whatever Shiu has cooked and fed the curse with, during a fight when he's pulling out one of his weapons.

Hidden Inventory never ended the way it did, trust, Toji is still alive and everyone's happy- My actual first written work I post on here oh lord- Man, such a shame that Shiu is so underrated in the fandom, Shell out.

▸ Dividers by @/cafekitsune

[meanbossart]

Ask Compilation: Blondes, feet, bowl-cut guardian lady.

He did not, they never had sex. But he was in love with her.

For sure. I think she struck him more like a teenager with the black hair and bangs, after the change (both visual and in attitude) she became a far more mature AND attractive person in his eyes.

PFFT, well, if you're saying they meet ALL of the criteria, I assume you mean both in looks and personality and hence be damn near his soulmate. DU drow could overlook weird feet (and a lot of other things, actually) if he were in love with the person in question. He would probably gently request they take better care of them, though.

Nothing special there, I'm afraid! He just has human-like skin - perhaps a little on the oily side but completely within the bounds of normality.

He runs a little hot, if that's anything. Oh! His hair is shockingly soft.

Correct! DU drow only (arguably) looks like a drow. He doesn't have their usual bone structure, height, or associated magical proclivities. He has some dark vision but its nowhere near as good as a drow's either.

I don't necessarily think all Bhaalspawn are the same way, but the Dark Urge IS quite different from the previous game's iterations. DU isn't simply Bhaal's child conceived with a partner, he's a piece of the god that supposedly slobbed off and grew legs and a face, pretty much. So yes, I do think that the Dark Urge at least is it's own unique thing.

The reason why he looks like a drow, is because he was placed in the Underdark upon creation. The metaphor I always use here is that if you place something infantile in a biome that is alien to it, it may try to adapt to it's environment to survive as it develops, to different degrees of success. This is why DU drow looks the way he does.

[MORE UNDER THE CUT]

You're welcome!

I've received a few snippets here that you can find through the #gift art tag! There is also the fic I'm in the process of writing called A Novel Experience on AO3.

It was just something I was compelled to do when I first drew him! The facial scars felt like they should lead into something else so I just made up a pattern on the spot, minus a tiny tweak here or there, it has stuck basically unchanged. All and any lore relating to the scars came later.

I get a lot of sweet messages but "thanks for your man's penis size" has to be one of my favorites. Thank you!

HELLO!

Thank you so much for the kind message! And that sounds like a fun dream, I love that your Tav got jealous of the attention ASTARION was receiving instead of mad that he had to share in the first place LOL

DU drow is desperately monogamous. He doesn't care what other people do with their lives but he's very much a "one and done" kind of person.

He would be willingly to participate in a threeway/have group sex with a partner, assuming the rules and regulations of said encounter were laid out clearly before or at least mutually understood between them. He would never want to see these people again after the fact though.

She does not, naturally I had no idea that this character was going to turn into anything when i made him, so I just... Made a lady. And since she was supposed to be a "guardian" I gave her a Joan of Arc type of look.

I've occasionally thought about changing this, but... Y'know, sometimes you don't need lore to be that in-depth, LOL.

The emperor gave everyone else a nondescript hottie he assumed they would trust, DU drow just got the same treatment. She's not even DU drow's type but definitely someone he would be compelled to take seriously yet not feel threatened by - so ultimately, her design does make sense.

---

That's all I have the energy for tonight folks, as always thank you for the many encouraging and sweet messages you send me, I'm sorry I can't reply to all of them! 😭

Have yourselves a great week!

[glitter-stained]

Prompt: Sleeping Murder

Look, it's not that Jason regrets killing these people. There were the child traffickers, and the pedocriminal, and the guy who sold poison in his smack ring and the woman who would have murdered her children and the terrorists-to-be... The point is, they deserved to die, and he will not feel bad for killing them. It's nasty work, and it maybe takes knowing death intimately to do it, but he does, and he will show Bruce what he was too cowardly to do, dirty himself with blood to show him what's necessary. But it is dirty. He is. He doesn't regret it, and doesn't begrudge the power of being able to bring change to this fucked up world, but he won't delude himself into pretending that it didn't come at a price. He was good once, and now he isn't, and somewhere in between the bright yellow cape and waking in his grave and the moment he made his first kill he lost something, too.

Or at least he thinks he did.

Because that's the thing that's been bothering him more and more, haunting his dreams and looping in his thoughts at the most inconvenient times: he doesn't remember. There are holes in his memory from dying and getting brain damage and the pit and all the trauma. Most of it is inconsequential, like a blurr on the details of how he took down Scarecrow, something about Dick nagging at his mind he can't quite place, the taste of Alfred's apple pie. Details, sleeping dogs best left to lie, like a word on the tip of the tongue. (And that one shadow he doesn't like to think about, a woman with blonde hair catching onto light like a spiderweb, the smell of cigarette smoke and unshakeable terror.) But there's one memory - a woman, a noose, Robin, a man on a balcony- that's taking up all the space like an impolite date. "Robin. Did Felipe fall? Or was he pushed?"

He doesn't know. Oh god, he doesn't know. He has all those plans, all that scheming that demands his entire attention if he wants to go against the Batman and win, and he can't focus on anything past the rasp in Bruce's voice as he asked the question. He needs answers before he makes his debut, but the only other witness is dead and did he do this? Was he always destined to die, always doomed to a violence so deep the only way to tame it was to wield it like a knife? This cannot hold. He needs to investigate, but he has no informant, no access to the casefiles, to the GCPD. He needs an ally.

Look, it's not that Tim is a bad Robin. Tim is a good Robin. He follows orders, and he trains hard and works hard and thinks things through and never does anything stupid or impulsive because he's not like -he's a good Robin. (Darla is still dead. His parents are still dead. Steph -oh god, Bruce just told him- Steph is- Tim is a good Robin. He is. This is all he has left.) Batman doesn't seem to believe so, though, if the way he keeps sidelining him and withholding information is anything to go by... After all he's done, all he's sacrificed, Bruce still doesn't trust him, he still doesn't measure up. How could he, when he's competing with a ghost?

So when a mysterious man barges into his life, dragging along shadows of a past he can’t allow to get to Bruce, not when he’s done so much to bring him back from the brink, Tim knows what he has to do: find out who is the man who knows too much in the red mask, his relation to the murder of a long-dead diplomat’s son, and put the ghost of the second Robin to rest once and for all.

[1-800-cheolie]

Ay, I like your post, I was wondering if you could do a post of (bakugou x reader) where they are making out like ALOT and it's about to get out of control in her house, when her father comes in her room and sees them. Annnd her father is..VERY annoyed at bakugou and is like " I liked you bakugou..BUT wtf!

a/n: RAHHHH THANK YOU BABES. haven’t had much motivation to write but your request has me feeling and thinking. not exactly proof read. hope you like it!

word count: 502

you’ve been dating katsuki for a long while now, from the beginning of your second year at u.a to your third year of u.a. when your father first met him, he had thoughts every protective father usually had.

i don’t trust him, sweetheart.

what if he hurts you, honey?

he seems sketchy and untrustworthy

despite his concerns, he eventually warmed up to katsuki after learning that the young man was not nearly as terrible he viewed from television.

“kats,” you mumble, setting down your study book.

inviting katsuki over for a study date meant less affection because your father insisted you keep the door open.

katsuki perks his head up at the sound of your sweet voice, “yeah, baby? somethin’ wrong? are ya feeling tired? need a nap?”

he’s attentive as always.

“no,” you shake your head, “want a kiss”

immediately, he’s tending to you and giving out an excuse, guiding you up the steps of your family’s home. calloused hands find purchase on your hips, caressing them softly. you don’t recall the last you’ve been able to kiss in peace, but it’s and all you want is for your boyfriend is to consume you whole. his hands become touchier, sliding down your back as a gasp fled your lips.

“the-the door, close the door.” you whine softly, fingers digging into the fabric of his t-shirt. he grunts in a complaint, shutting it with a light thud and eagerly plants a kiss on your lips, all the while your father is forgotten.

“pretty baby,” katsuki hums, trailing kisses down your collarbone, “be a good girl and stay quiet. can you do that f’me?”

you nod, tugging on his shirt to continue. katsuki’s hands slither to your waistband, rubbing circles into your hips. your body relaxes under his touch, bucking your hips into his own. A slight, barely audible whimper leaves your mouth too quickly, causing you to flush bright red when you feel him smirk against your lips. you’re still sensitive as ever, he thinks.

the sound of lewd kisses echo in your bedroom, his fingers traveling lower and lower and before you know it, katsuki’s hands are inside your shorts. happy that your father isn’t home right now—your bedroom door slams open, “kids, do you want to go to—bakugou katsuki!” your father is staring wide eyed, hands drawn to his face.

you’d think he knew better than to knock without entering.

his eyes flicker to your father and back to yours, pressing his mouth hastily on your lips one more time. “i love you, baby. i’ll be right back.” your father already has his bat in hand, chasing katsuki outside the house.

“young man, i’m going to tell your mother about all the horrible deeds you’ve done to my daughter!”

you watch in amusement, disappointment sinking in at the interruption. erupting from the kitchen, your mother lets out a small chuckle and crosses her arms, “you know, sweetie, your father is not all that innocent. he did the same back in high school.”

[tangosyourtek]

Since you have the best takes ever: why do you like Jimmy and Tango as characters?

Oh gosh uh, I never really thought about that within their characters rather than why they’re my favorite creators.

They’re two of my favorite creators because of their silly energy and how well they bounce off of other people. I enjoy solo content a lot, but they make group content just as amazing and not overstimulating (Jimmy has done this a few times on stream where if the people he’s playing with get really loud in voice chat he’ll back off). I just really love the silly dorkiness they both bring to the table, even as much as I joke that I hate when Jimmy talks brainrot, it’s endearing. They also have some of the best and welcoming experiences with the community. Jimmy is really active with the fandom in twitter, and he always has a segment at the start of stream where he says hello to chat and reads names out. Jimmy also dedicated a portion of stream to scrolling through the reddit and reading what people have to say, compliment their art, and look at memes. Likewise, Tango is always saying hello and goodbye to people in chat when they come and go and It really feels like they actually recognize names in the community. A lot of streamers don’t read chat like that if really at all / the real big streamers tend to only read donations or recognize donators.

I obviously really like their characters because I am so infatuated with the creators themselves, but I think the main reason their characters are also my two favorites is because of their character development throughout the series.

Jimmy is bullied by almost the entire server, some of his own teammates don’t take him seriously, and they’ll go behind his back. He has a streak of dying first, but despite it he has really improved and grown. It’s not just about his placement or how many kills he has but his interactions with others. He’s really started putting his foot down and trying not to let himself be used as a verbal and physical punching bag. He’s always been a survivor and someone who does better on the defensive rather than offensive, and I’m glad we got to see him go crazy with some kills this season.

Tango is someone who sticks with what he knows. He’s never known stability, but the one thing that is constant is who he teams up with- even if it’s not in his best interest. He was playing both all sides in 3rd life, betrayed by his team in last life, and then in double life he had found someone who’s kind of like him that he could trust and actually hold on to. Then in limited life he was ready to sacrifice himself to make sure his time went to his team. He decided that, and I really think “For TIES!” was just the beginning of him putting his foot down. I think he learned to let go, not forgive or forget. He actually felt disappointed this season when he saw Bdubs was chasing him down trying to kill him. He knew from the very start that their team wasn’t a “real team”, and that it would only lead to a betrayal or “kill me if Bdubs needs it later.” He didn’t really accept what their team was, but he came to terms with what it entailed and it wasn’t even Bdubs who was going after him but Grian’s mimicking ability. I’m never getting over that moment…

There’s probably more moments and other things I could mention about their character developments, but I haven’t rewatched any of the series recently except for Double Life, so it’s been a while, and I have goldfish brain…

[justbookscatsandtea]

Honestly, I think a problem might be that WWX uses the "he can't live as an ordinary person. He is too competitive" as a reasoning to get WQ to do the core transfer. And that's the thing. We get the story from Wei Wuxians perspective. We get his biased view. And he was NOT doing well at that point in time either. He was absolutely desperate for a solution and he would have said and done pretty much anything at that point to save JC. And he was a biased narrator and it was always him calling JC too proud which as it turns out was rich coming from him because he cringed at himself for his arrogant attitude when he saw the flashbacks from Nie Mingjues perspective. Point is WWX and JC both have issues because they are human beings and this was a low point for both of them. Their character should not be judged solely for what they did at their most desperate. And in Mdzs you can't trust what you are told anyway because the truth is at least 3 layers and 5 conspiracies deeper than that. Even at the end no-one in the story has ALL the information. Everyone is still missing (fairly important) snippets. No-one knows about JC sacrifice for WWX. No-one knows what happened to WWX his first time in the Burial Mounds. All we can say is that all the characters lived through brutal times where they had to make hard choices which they were too young to make. Surrounded by powerful manipulators and way out of their depth. And all of them deserve at least a bit of sympathy. JGY for his desperate search for approval and power and always being scrutinised for being a prostitutes son. XY and the innocent child that he had been only to be brutally mutilated by a person in power because they could (and yes just a finger is not an argument because with what health care is a street kid supposed to heal). This is a story about broken people who were used by the generation before them and who are powering through devastating loss and power plays so we all should look at them with a bit more kindness.

And another rambling brought to you by me 😅

Why are JC antis so unbelievably stupid? They look at Jiang Cheng having a complete mental breakdown and being suicidal after suffering a devastating, life-altering injury (on top of having his parents murdered+ entire clans massacred) and somehow conclude, "Oh, he only reacts like that because he's egotistical and arrogant, he's too proud to live without his power and privilege" Like, do you even have brain up there? Or Is it just dust and cobwebs?

Imagine a star athlete who’s trained their entire life, poured blood, sweat, and tears into their work, only to have it all ripped away by a career-ending injury. Would you point at them in their lowest moment and go, "Wow, so dramatic. Guess they’re just too arrogant to live without their hard-earned skill"? No, because that would make you a garbage person. Yet here you are, doing exactly that and proudly broadcasting your lack of empathy and basic common sense. It's honestly impressive how hard y'all work to be this fucking stupid.

[adrift-in-thyme]

May I request Fairy Time and Hyrule doing some wing care or teaching the others how to help them take care of their wings?

Yes you absolutely may! Tysm anon!! I hope you don’t mind a bit of angst with all the softness

CW for one mention of blood

———————————————————————-

“How long has it been since you did this?”

Hyrule runs gentle fingers over Time’s wings. They spread grandly on either side, hues of soft greens and delicate blue-violets reflecting the sun’s smiling rays. Usually, they are colored in bold crimson and royal blue, which clash like swords on a battlefield. But today they take on a more tired appearance. Faded, they have begun to droop discouragingly.

Time has never admitted it, but Hyrule has eyes. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that his wings change when something is wrong. More often than not, they herald the disturbance before it can truly become known. A flash of forest green and the next thing he knows Time is fading into the mist in search of solitude.

…or collapsing in the middle of the trail.

Now, Time hums, sounding distracted. His hands lie in his lap. Absently, he twists his wedding band back and forth so quickly it is liable to rub a rash into his skin.

(Another nervous habit of his Hyrule has picked up on.)

“I’m not certain,” he admits, after a moment of quiet contemplation. The words are spoken with an air of something so desperate to be flippant. “I’ve been occupied with other matters.”

Hyrule blows out a weary sigh.

Other matters like worrying about all of us.

True, things have been strained amongst the heroes since Twilight’s injury. And as unofficial leader — and the rancher’s ancestor — Time has borne the brunt of it all. But still….

Malon had warned him about this.

“Oh, he just doesn’t take care of himself.” She had whispered during a visit to the ranch months ago after Time had fallen asleep at the dinner table. Head resting on her shoulder, he slept far deeper than he had in days.

“I’m not askin’ y’all to hover or anything. Heaven knows you’ve got enough on your plates as it is. But…just check in once in a while, will ya, loves? I don’t want him to lose himself while trying to take care of everyone else.”

Hyrule can’t help but feel that he has failed. The events of the past weeks have left their mark upon him too. Exhaustion has hounded him at every turn, dragging him down so heavily that he has nearly collapsed beneath it. And yet, he had noticed the signs. The quietness, the reservation, the increase in snappishness…the fear. But he had done nothing about them.

It wasn’t until Time had asked if he had taken the time to care for his own wings that he realized he hadn’t seen the older hero settle down to tend to his own lately.

He winces as he weaves the spell into some of the worse areas, mainly gathered around a large scar. These large wings, normally so bright with magic and life, have begun to lose their glimmer. Frightened, they shrivel, curling in one themselves to shield from the light.

With wings like this, flying will soon become agonizing.

Would he have tried to anyway? Hyrule doesn’t want to know the answer to that question.

Solitude can be harmful. He knows that far too well. But sometimes he wonders just how much of his life Time has spent alone to end up believing it is the only way to get by. Even after this family they have formed along the paths of hardship, even after Malon, it seems to be the road most familiar to the hero.

“You can always ask me, you know.”

He has been gentle this entire time, even more so than he is with his own wings. But with this part, he is extra cautious. He threads the healing magic into Time’s veins with the delicacy of one handling glass.

“I know it’s hard to take care of your wings yourself. And I know it’s even harder to trust others to do it for you. But…” He swallows as his fingertips graze the scar.

What had occurred to create such a chasm? To his knowledge, Time has never spoken of the event. Sometimes, he wonders if he ever will.

“You trust me…right, old man?”

Time looks up, fingers stilling at last.

“Of course, I do, traveler,” he says, softly. “I don’t mean to make it seem like I don’t.”

“Then, let me help you. Please?”

“I’m allowing you to now, aren’t I?”

The traveler huffs. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. It doesn’t mean I can’t tease.”

There is a smile in his voice, and Hyrule is glad of it. Even still, if the hero believes he’s going to escape without a proper reply, he is sorely mistaken. If Hyrule is known for anything, it’s his infinite stubbornness.

“Come on, old man,” he urges, softly. “Promise me you’ll ask someone to help tend to your wings when you need it. It doesn’t even have to be me. Just ask someone, please.”

Time’s wings are beginning to improve now. Threads of vibrant red glow from beneath the green. Like blood on new cloth, they spread, engulfing the other colors. He watches, slightly awed.

“I love you, Time,” he murmurs. “I don’t want you enduring pain just cause you don’t want to be a burden.”

For a long moment, Time says nothing. The only sounds are the subdued jingles of the spell twined about Hyrule’s fingers and the harmony of their breaths. It is peaceful in a pensive sort of way.

Then, “alright,” he says in a voice taut with emotion. “But only if you allow me to help you when you need it. Don’t think I don’t see how you struggle to remember your own welfare. You are too selfless for your own good.”

Hyrule chuckles. “Well, I could say the same about you.”

A small smile lifts Time’s lips. “Such is the path of the hero, I suppose.”

“Yeah.” The traveler’s gaze goes to the scar once more. “I guess.”

Silence pads in on soft, silken paws and settles down cozily. Time goes back to rotating his ring, though the motions are slower, calmer this time. Hyrule turns his full attention to finishing his task. Above them, the sun smiles, and Time’s wings transfer it in panes of pale red upon the blades of grass.

“Traveler?” Time’s voice is so quiet it is hardly above a whisper. It nudges aside the quiet, murmurs with the wind.

When the hero is in his fairy form, it is as though he is of the nature that surrounds them; as at home amongst the towering trees and great sky, stones and moss and gurgling streams, as the fleet-footed deer or furtive foxes.

Hyrule looks up, head cocked in question. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. And…” Time smiles, so soft it erases years of anguished hardship from his visage. “I love you too.”

The traveler smiles.

[psychoticallykind]

Mental Gymnastics

"Forever" - Jegulus Microfic - @into-the-jeggyverse - 1,177 words

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

Regulus knew better. He really did. Alcohol was fine, until it wasn't. Because alcohol took down all of those pesky barriers.

Alcohol made him feel things.

"So, I called James."

"What? No!" Regulus looked up at Remus with panicked eyes. "You can't!"

Remus sat down in front of him. "Okay. They'll be here soon."

"No, no - call them back, tell them that I'm having fun and they can't come!" Regulus insisted, hugging his knees tighter to his chest.

"Reg, you're crying on the ground outside of the club."

Regulus nodded. "And it's fun."

Remus gave him a look that meant 'you're lying to me'. Regulus ignored it.

"Chocolate?"

"No." Regulus snatched the chocolate bar. "I don't want chocolate, you traitor. You can't just go around calling people!"

Remus leaned forward, taking the chocolate away and ignoring Regulus's whine of protest as he opened it before handing it back. "That's what a phone is for, isn't it?"

"That's what a phone is for, isn't it?" Regulus mimicked. "You don't deserve a phone."

"Are we being mean to Remus, love?"

Oh, no. Regulus tucked his head down into his knees. "Go away."

"You can't be mean to Moony, Reggie -"

"It's okay, Sirius. Hey, no. Look at me. Let's go inside, James has him now."

Someone warm settled next to him. Someone named James who was not supposed to be here.

"Are you feeling sick?"

Regulus shook his head. "No. I'm having fun here, go home."

"Will you come with me?"

Regulus sniffled. "I don't deserve to come with you."

"I promise that you do." James nudged his shoulder. "You deserve the world, love. Anything you want."

"I want James," Regulus admitted.

James hummed their amused hum. "I'm right here. You have me." Another gentle nudge. "You have me forever."

Regulus bit his lip to keep the sounds in.

"Will you tell me what happened?" James asked. "Did I do something? I'll fix it if you tell me."

"You can't fix it," Regulus informed them. "Because I broke it."

"Can I touch you? I want to move you a bit."

Regulus shrugged. "Fine." They may as well touch him now, before they broke up with him.

Warm arms moved around him - under his knees, behind his back - and then he was in James's lap, leaning against their chest, surrounded by sunshine.

It was the perfect place.

Regulus burst into tears again.

"Oh, love." James held him tight, rubbing slowly up and down his back. "It's okay. You'll be okay."

And Regulus did not agree with that, because he'd done a very bad thing and James just didn't know it yet. But he sobbed into James's shirt anyway, and he let James hold him together, and he didn't say it.

He fell asleep, and he didn't say it.

****** ****** ******

Regulus knew it would come up. He'd known, all morning. When he woke up feeling dreadful, he'd known. When James had made him breakfast, he'd known. When he'd taken a shower, he'd known.

That didn't mean he didn't absolutely hate the fact that it was going to come up.

"We should talk about it."

Regulus gave James a sweet smile. "Talk about what?"

James sighed, wrapping their arms around him. "Talk about why I found you crying outside last night."

Ugh. Regulus leaned into James, stalling. "I'm better now, though."

James pressed gentle kisses to his neck. "Regulus."

"I broke three mugs yesterday."

That could have been it. He could stop there.

But there was more, and they were supposed to be working on communicating, and he knew that he'd only feel awful about it until he actually told James what had happened.

So Regulus took a deep breath. And he grabbed one of James's hands, anxiously fiddling with it as he spoke. "I broke a vase once when I was little. Like, this really expensive, crystal vase. And my mother freaked out on me, and told me that she'd trusted me around her things, and when I broke that vase, I also broke her trust."

"And yesterday, I was trying to reach a glass, and I knocked three of the mugs to the floor and they all shattered. And I know it's fine," Regulus continued, blinking hard to clear his vision. "I know it's fine. I cleaned it up, and I planned on replacing them today, and there's really no reason you would have actually noticed."

James doesn't say anything yet, and he's grateful. They both know that if James interrupts him, he won't be able to do this.

"But then I remembered that stupid vase," Regulus admits. "And then replacing them felt like this huge secret, like I was lying to you. And then I was just convinced that I was lying to you, and that if I was lying that must mean that subconsciously, I knew that mother had been right. You trusted me around your things, and I broke them, and I broke your trust in me, and that kind of snowballed into thinking about how you told me that love without trust isn't enough, and so you were going to break up with me and I'd ruined everything."

"So...yeah." Regulus shrugged, gripping James's hand so tightly it had to hurt. "Super fun mental gymnastics last night."

James shifts, moving so that they're facing each other. "Breaking the cups was a mistake. I'm never going to be upset with you for making a mistake."

Regulus can't meet their eyes. "I know."

"Reg, love." James brings a hand to his chin, gently urging Regulus to look up. "It's okay to make mistakes."

"I -" His voice catches as he meets warm hazel eyes, and he sighs. "You really like those mugs."

"I like you more." James kissed the back of his hand. "So much more. I adore you."

Regulus bit down on his smile. "James."

"I'm in love with you, I'm obsessed with you," James continued, watching Regulu's smile grow with every word. They lifted their free hand to trace over his cheek, touching him reverently. "You're everything to me."

He couldn't stop himself from leaning into the touch. And maybe he felt a little anxious when he met James's eyes, but he also felt grateful. Because he could ask this - because he could ask these things, and he was safe here. "Are you sure you're not upset with me? Or disappointed or something?"

"I'm not upset with you." James leaned forward, their hand moving to the back of Regulus's neck, gently moving him forward. "I'm not upset about the mugs. You didn't break anything important, and I trust you more than anyone else in the world." Their lips brushed his, not a proper kiss yet, and Regulus's eyes fluttered closed. "I love you, and I trust you, and I am so proud of you right now."

Regulus made a sound at those words - something small and vulnerable he only ever was with James - but it was okay, because then James was kissing him, and he was back on familiar territory here.

Back with James, where he was supposed to be.

[nerdishpursuits]

Today’s episode was hard to watch. No doubt about it. But, sadly, this continues to be a reality for many women and raising awareness is crucial to combatting ignorance. Does it ever get any easier watching a woman being abused? Never. Is it necessary to show how terrifying and traumatic such events are? Yes. Even as Fina was rescued before things escalated further, this will profoundly impact her sense of self: her mental health, her emotional landscape, her relationship with her own body. The Fina we know is a vibrant, confident, deeply sensual woman. I’m sure she’ll be all that again but, for now, she’ll most likely have some form of ptsd. It’ll be another uphill battle but Marta will be by her side, every step of the way (given they’ve chosen to walk this thorny path, I’m hoping they’ll treat it with more care than Begoña’s own story of abuse; if done right, this can be a rewarding journey portraying the healing power of love and friendship, triumphant in the face of bigotry, victorious in the face of adversity)

Circling back to Marta. I can’t begin to imagine her despair at discovering Fina was abused. That all she’d been so desperate to prevent from reoccurring, has been attempted again, more violently than before. The guilt she’ll feel will be immeasurable, no doubt. And it will consume her from the inside out if she allows it to take root. Nothing is more hateful than failing to protect the one you love. And Fina is Marta’s everything, her whole world, her raison d’être.

Therefore, yet again, I’m going to remember that their story is meant to be one of hope and light. Which is what they are to each other. They’ll heal together, they’ll heal each other and grow all the stronger for it. The show’s not let us down so far. I trust this will end up a catalyst for many rewarding scenes together.

Which brings me to the foul reason they need healing to begin with. Thinking on it, it’s probably a mistake to call Santiago a psychopath, even as he displays plenty of traits that merit said label. He’s very much aware of his actions and deserves no leniency. Ultimately, he’s the product of a regime that glorifies in the systemic oppression of women. One whose very ideas, and ideals, derive from a deep-rooted misogyny. In Santiago’s purposeful narrowmindedness, a man is the epicentre of a woman’s life. Not being treated as such is considered a grave error and needs correcting. He’s the prideful despot who cannot fathom, or accept, rejection. One who cannot conceive of a world where he’s not given his due, as per the teachings of a society that views and treats women as second-class citizens, deserving of less and inferior to their masculine betters.

It’s all too clear Santiago’s worldview is also profoundly narcissistic, which makes his continued harassment of Fina even more disturbing. He genuinely believes he’s being magnanimous and merciful, extending his goodwill to her, the proverbial biblical sinner, so she can atone for her mistakes and be saved. In his own eyes, Santiago is a good man. In his misguided vanity, patronising and emboldened by a system that favours him at every turn, he even declares himself as such: a self-proclaimed saviour and Fina’s only path to salvation from a life of sin. Her sole path to redemption.

Truly, this character is utterly despicable and I cannot wait for him to eat dirt. But I also suspect he’ll cause more trouble until Fina and Marta are free of him for good. And while I’ll celebrate his demise with bells and whistles, I think the actor portraying this vile, sorry excuse for a man, is doing a spectacular job. They all are. Alba and Marta especially. Which is why this drama hit so hard when it made landfall. You feel Marta’s anguish and hopelessness, you experience Fina’s abject terror, you rage against Santiago’s condescending abuse.

That being rambled? Do I hate what Fina went through this episode? Wholeheartedly. It made me sick to my stomach, even as I’m grateful it ended with an attempt only (which doesn't make it any less of a violation). And damn, do I hate it’s necessary to show this nowadays because 2024 might as well be 1958 for many women still.

Also. I’m glad Marta didn’t have to ask Jesús for help, because she’d have never lived it down. Ultimately, I’m sure she would have done anything to liberate Fina from prison, even asking her older brother for help. But I’m glad the chosen path didn’t involve him. In fact, I’m pleasantly surprised Damián rose to the occasion. He keeps learning how to support and love Marta and he’s one gray character whose evolution I’m quite enjoying.

And finally? Marta so at ease with Carmen and Claudia. They’ve come such a long way and it’s a joy to see. From Marta feeling like she didn’t belong, back in the day, to them all falling into a much needed group-hug, knowing they can always rely on each other. Fina’s friends are becoming Marta’s friends and I love, love, love their scenes together. Not to mention they’re all kinda related now too, which adds some much needed levity.

Remains to be seen how they deal with the stigma of this entire situation. Poor Fina might as well have been branded with a scarlet letter and there's plenty more fires to put out once she’s out of prison. On the bright side, they’ll know whom they can trust and whom they need to keep hiding from.

Hopefully though, on to greener pastures at some point. Preferably healing at the Mafinca. Slowly but surely. And always, always together.

[powerfultenderness]

Price gets jealous of your dad

Price marries someone close in age to him. Someone who doesn't have daddy issues. He has enough of young soldiers projecting their abandoned by daddy issues onto him. He doesn't want his partner thinking of him as "daddy" too.

Except, maybe you do have a little bit of daddy issues. You're a daddy's girl through and through. Your father loved you from the moment you were conceived and even after you moved out on your own, even after you married, there was hardly a week that goes by when the two of you didn't at least speak on the phone.

Price thought he didn't care. It's good that you have a healthy and loving relationship with your father.

Until, while on deployment, something breaks around the house. You tell him when he calls and he says he'll make repairs when he gets home, it shouldn't be that much longer. But he gets home and everything is fine, everything is working perfectly.

"Oh, I asked my dad for help. Figured the last thing you want to do when you get home is work on the house!"

He likes being able to take care of you, you work so much and so hard, that he wants to make things easier for you. And you thought the same of him, it was sweet. Besides, it left more time for the two of you to spend together.

Then the check engine light comes on in the car, and you're already on the phone with your dad. "My dad said..."

The weather got a little too cold, there you are, "my dad said..."

The weather got a little too hot, "my dad said..."

The sink starts acting up? "My dad said-"

"Enough! I know how to fix a damn bloody pipe! You're not living with your dad anymore! You're living in my house!"

You stare at him for a moment, mouth agape, before you slowly narrow your eyes at him. "Excuse you?"

"Our house! I meant, our house!"

"Mmhm. Well, you know how to fix it, fix it." Then you turned around and left. Probably calling your dad to tell him that he yelled at you...

After he cleans up, he finds you in the living room watching something on tv and scrolling on your phone at the same time.

"Sweetheart-"

"Oh "sweetheart" is it?"

He sighed as he sat next to you, thankful that you at least put your phone down as you looked at him. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at ya. I shouldn't have done that."

"Mmhm."

"It's just, sometimes it feels like you think I'm some incompetent bumpkin."

"What? That's not-"

"Then let me take care of things, let me take of you, without you calling your dad at every little inconvenience."

So that's what it was. "Oh, John. I'm sorry. It's just, my dad has always been there for me and I just-"

"I know." He grabbed your hand gently, "I know. And I don't want you think that I never want you to call him. Especially if I'm not here. But please, just, trust me a little more."

"I trust you! I do!" You turned to him fully, both hands on his arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"I know, sweetheart. I know." The argument ended with a kiss, one that had him grinning as he pulled back slightly. "Besides, I can take care of you in other ways too."

And he did. He took care of you in the living room, in the hallway, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, all over the house.

[totallyjustabunchofhocuspocus]

Fic: Something to Sink Your Teeth Into 28/35

Pairing: Buck/Tommy

Vampire/Witch!AU

Read on AO3 (current chapter)

Read on AO3 (from beginning)

“Can’t leave you alone for a fuckin’ minute, can we Kinard?” Sal drawled. A moment later, a slender hand landed on his shoulder and Lucy poked her head out the window next to him.

“You okay, Tommy…oh shit,” she said, freezing when she caught sight of the state of him.

Sal’s voice was flippant, but his eyes were sharp as he took in the picture in front of him. His eyes flicked between him and Del Marco warily. One eyebrow lifted a fraction of an inch in silent question, his muscles bunching as he prepared to spring from the idling vehicle at Tommy’s slightest signal.

Fuck Tommy was so glad to see them.

“It’s fine, guys,” he said, shifting Evan’s weight in his arms to hold him more securely. “Del Marco’s…she doesn’t want a coven war any more than we do.” He wasn’t foolish enough to say that an enforcer for the SoCal high coven was on their side, but he did trust that she was at least no longer actively working against them. “We need to get out of here. Anyone know you were coming to me?”

Sal looked Del Marco up and down one more time before relaxing a fraction. “No one anyone’s likely to question,” he said. Tommy knew him well enough to see there were a thousand questions dancing in his eyes, but to Tommy’s eternal relief, his friend didn’t waste time asking any of them. He looked at Evan again, a worried frown twisting his face as he glanced back at Lucy.

Christ, it would be difficult for Lucy to control her instincts around this much fresh blood. Witch blood, no less. There was no other choice, though. He had faith in her…and worse come to worst, he could hold her off easily enough.

He hurried toward the car, skirting around Del Marco and her familiar, hardly sparing a glance for the sparrow and the dog still on the ground, now held by the same kind of binding that she’d used against him and Evan at first. He paused at the car door. “Could a hospital help him?” he asked quietly, dreading the answer.

Del Marco’s face was not without sympathy when she slowly shook her head. “It’s not that kind of injury. A coven-bound witch would be able to draw energy and strength from their bonds to replenish their magic. He’s banished. The only well he has to draw on is the magic he exhausted casting. Human medicine might be able to buy him time, but Maddox was correct—either he is strong enough to survive or he’s not.”

Tommy swallowed hard, drawing Evan closer to himself as if he could physically shield his witch from the effects of what he’d done to defend them. What Evan had done to defend him.

“Kinard,” Del Marco continued, her voice cautious. “You and the young man…if he lives, I wouldn’t let that become general knowledge if I were you.” Tommy stiffened at the warning, but gave her a short, stilted nod. She glanced down at Evan, and her expression softened slightly. “I—thank you both. For what you did for me and Maddox. I’ll make sure it wasn’t for nothing.”

“It better not be,” Tommy said, his witch’s labored breath in his ears, the scent of his blood sharp on the air.

“Is there anything you need from your vehicle?” Del Marco asked, tactfully ignoring the implicit threat in Tommy’s words. He shook his head, and Del Marco turned toward the ruin of his car, narrowing her eyes and chanting a by-now familiar spell. “Paperwork on this is going to be a nightmare anyway,” she muttered when she was done, and a ball of fire erupted in the front seat.

Sal let out a low whistle. “I’m getting the feeling we need to be gone, like, yesterday,” he said as Tommy opened the back door and clambered awkwardly into the backseat. He sat back against the opposite window, drawing Evan to lay against his chest and holding him close enough that he’d be able to get his body between Lucy and his witch if she lost control. He heard her groan softly as he shut the door, and when he looked into the front seat, she had braced her hands against the dashboard and was taking shallow breaths.

“When’s the last time you fed, Luce?” he asked gently as Sal threw the car into gear.

“Hmmm, doesn’t really matter,” Lucy said through gritted teeth. “It’s witch blood, Kinard.”

“Hey, you got this,” Sal said encouragingly, laying one hand on her back that was as much about being able to get a grip on her as it was a supportive gesture. He exchanged a worried look with Tommy in the rearview mirror.

“Fuck,” Lucy hissed, digging her hands into the dashboard hard enough that it started to dent inward. “Sorry.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Sal breezed. “I fuckin’ hate this car anyway. The four-wheel drive’s shit.”

Lucy dug her fingers deeper into the dashboard, the metal, plastic, and padding crumpling under her strength. “All right—shit. All right, I’m good. Just—someone crack a window or something?”

Tommy obliged, and Lucy relaxed slightly as the brisk wind swept the worst of the smell of Evan’s blood out of the vehicle. She craned her neck around to shoot him a grateful smile, her fangs fully descended and her eyes solid red. “What happened to him?” she asked, actually sounding concerned.

Tommy blew out a sharp breath through his nose, pressing his palm more firmly against his witch’s chest so he could better feel the beat of Evan’s heart. He was not reassured by the rapid pulse that stuttered against his hand, nor the increasing rattle every time Evan took another shuddering breath. His witch was pale as a corpse in the intermittent flash of the streetlights that lined the highway, the strange grayish tinge to his face setting off alarm bells in Tommy’s head.

“His magic,” he said. “Witches…I never realized it, but witches need a coven bond to cast their big spells. It hurts them otherwise.”

“During the Annihilation, burnout killed just as many witches as our people did,” Sal said. “But what the fuck kind of casting was he doing that he’s that bad off?”

Tommy let out a frustrated growl, pulling at the tattered remains of his shirt and trying to wipe the worst of the blood from his witch’s face. Evan did not so much as twitch at the sensation. “He saved me. Multiple times. Fuck, things are so messed up. This is worse than I ever thought.”

“Must’ve been, to ditch your coven,” Sal said, his voice teasing, but an undercurrent of hurt to it that had Tommy wincing.

“I didn’t—I was trying to protect you,” he said, giving up on wiping Evan’s face and just gently carding his hand through his witch’s hair. “I couldn’t leave him alone…but I couldn’t drag you into this further than I already did, either.”

“Mmhmm,” Sal said. “I get it. I mean, hey, not like I’ve had your back since the fuckin’ Renaissance or anything, right? Or cut my fangs fighting witches with a vested interest in frying my ass. Couldn’t possibly have helped you, right?”

Tommy winced at the other vampire’s tone, a curl of shame unspooling low in his belly. “Sal,” he started quietly, but Sal just waved him off. Tommy knew better than to press. He pulled Evan more firmly against him. “How the hell did you even find me?” he asked, desperate to break the tension that had settled over the vehicle’s interior.

Lucy shook her head, slowly unclenching her fingers from the dents she’d left in the dashboard. “Air tag in the SUV,” she mumbled. “All the coven cars have them.”

“What?” Tommy asked incredulously. “You tracked me with a fucking air tag? You had no idea what you could’ve been walking into! Damn it, Luce, you could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

Lucy shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Yeah, well, you’ve known me for fifty years, so I feel like it’s really on you if you weren’t expecting this. It was Ravi’s idea, anyway. Putting air tags in the cars, not following you. He probably would’ve, but we didn’t tell anyone we were doing it.”

“Guys…”

“Shut up, you can thank us later. Once we all figure out what our next move is. Your place isn’t on any coven paperwork, right?” she asked, and when she looked back at him this time, her eyes were mostly brown again.

“No. No, I’ve kept it completely off-grid. Alonzo knows where it is, though. And the high coven can use my shit at the coven house to pull a locator spell off. Evan did something to let him know if they were tracking me, but…” He trailed off with a helpless shrug. Evan wouldn’t be able to do anything about locator spells. He could only hope that Del Marco was able to get the high coven off of them quickly.

“Alonzo won’t give you up. And good luck pulling locator spells—we stripped your rooms,” Sal said tersely, taking the exit to head back to the bungalow. “That’s why it took us so long to catch up to you. Ravi and Lena took everything we couldn’t carry to Lena’s storage unit.”

Tommy closed his eyes briefly, overwhelming gratitude for his friends sweeping through him. He did not regret leaving the coven—it was the only decision he could have made at the time to protect both Evan and the people he cared about. He could not pretend that he was anything other than breathtakingly relieved that Sal and Lucy were unwilling to let him walk away from them. “Thank you,” he said, the words completely inadequate for what he was feeling. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all this, anyway.”

“You didn’t drag shit,” Sal snapped. “We jumped in all on our own.”

They fell silent, the only sound in the vehicle Evan’s wheezing breaths. Tommy gathered Evan as close as he could, fear spiking through him when he realized how cold his witch’s skin felt. Damn it…what should he do? Evan’s condition was a result of magic, not an injury or illness—would a hospital even be able to help him? Surely Del Marco would have told him to take Evan to an emergency room if it would have helped.

Either he is strong enough to recover, or he is not.

The familiar’s words would not stop echoing through Tommy’s head. Goddamn it…Tommy had seen nearly a thousand years on this fucking planet. He knew languages that no longer existed, had walked on shorelines that had eroded into the sea centuries ago, could vaguely recall what a fucking dodo bird sounded like, and he had no idea how to help his witch. There was an ominous rattle at the end of Evan’s next breath, a weak, gurgling sound that Tommy absolutely refused to admit was familiar.

“Tommy,” Sal said after several long minutes. “He, uh, he doesn’t sound so good.”

Tommy clenched his jaw so hard he was slightly surprised his teeth didn’t crack. “Just get us home,” he said tersely. “I’ll…I’ll figure something out.”

Either he is strong enough to recover, or he is not.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sal glance back over his shoulder at them, and then exchange a wary look with Lucy. He just held Evan tighter, pressing his hand over the weak, thready beat of his pulse, listening to his breathing as it grew shallower.

Shallower.

Slower.

Please, he thought desperately, unsure of who or what he was even pleading to, but doing it all the same. Evan had to be strong enough to make it. He had to be. Tommy could not have found him like this, could not have found him now, only to lose him less than three days later. He refused to believe that the only time he had with his witch would be spent fighting for their lives. Evan’s magic had bound them years ago, had been guiding his witch towards him for most of Evan’s life at this point. It could not end like this.

“Hold on,” he whispered against Evan’s hair, not caring that Lucy and Sal could hear him. “Come on, sweetheart, just hold on.”

*

By the time they made it to the bungalow, it was painfully obvious that Evan was getting worse, not better.

His colorless skin was like ice against even Tommy’s hand, and his eyes seemed sunken into his skull. He didn’t react to Tommy’s voice or touch at all, not even when he rubbed his knuckles harshly against Evan’s breastbone, and his chest barely rose and fell with each labored, rattling breath. Tommy could not recall the last time he had felt so helpless.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to a hospital?” Lucy said quietly when Sal pulled up to the security gate on Tommy’s property.

Sal sighed, sounding genuinely regretful when he said, “You heard the witch. It wouldn’t help—and we’d be risking some doctor questioning what the fuck’s wrong with him and why their treatments aren’t working.”

“She could’ve been lying,” Lucy countered, but Sal just shook his head as he came to a stop in the driveway right in front of the bungalow.

“She wasn’t, Luce,” Tommy said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion even to his own ears. He carried Evan up the porch steps while Sal punched in his security code, shouldering his way through the door and ignoring the other two as he made his way back to the master bedroom.

He laid his witch down gently and stepped back, a wave of helplessness washing through him that nearly brought him to his knees. The power of Evan’s blood was still coursing freshly through him; he could have taken almost anything on right now and come out the winner…and he couldn’t do a damn thing to help his witch. He wanted to rage, to tear the people who had forced them into this position apart with his bare hands. He wanted them to suffer the way Evan was suffering. And all he could do was watch his witch struggle to breathe and pray to a god he hadn’t seriously believed in since the days when he could still recall his mother’s face.

“Tommy, I—listen, why don’t you get cleaned up. Get him cleaned up, too. Lucy’s still struggling,” Sal said from behind him, and he turned to see his friend watching him with a carefully neutral expression.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll…” he cleared his throat, plucking at the torn shirt that was tacky with the evidence of Evan’s nosebleed. Fuck, he’d bled so much. He shook his head. “I need to…”

Sal took a few steps further into the room, shutting the door behind him. “You know he’s not going to make it,” he said, in the long-dead dialect of Italian that had been his mother tongue when he and Tommy first met, the language he slipped into when he was being deadly serious. “I—Thomas I need to know you understand that. You and I have both seen enough death to know when it’s getting close.” He laid a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, his voice gentle. So, so gentle.

Every. Single. Part of Tommy wanted to throw his friend’s hand off. Wanted to grab Sal by the throat and demand he take it back, wanted to throw him out of the room for daring to suggest that his witch wouldn’t be all right. Instead, he stood frozen, the inescapable truth of what Sal was saying holding him immobile. Tommy had seen death, all right. Had seen it in more forms and functions than he’d ever be able to describe or remember. He’d delivered death more times than he’d ever be able to count.

He did know what it looked like when death was creeping closer.

He couldn’t…he couldn’t lose Evan. Not now. Why would the universe let him live so long, so fucking long, send him someone who was everything he’d ever fucking wanted, only to immediately snatch him away? Why Evan? Hadn’t he suffered enough? Everything his parents had done to him, everything he’d given up for his sister, everything he’d gone through since he’d been banished, and he hadn’t let it turn him bitter, hadn’t let it douse the kindness, the gentleness, the light in him. He’d put himself in danger for people that would never ever do the same for him, had put himself in danger for Tommy, and this was his only reward? How? How was that fair?

It wasn’t, of course. Tommy was an expert in just how fucking unfair the universe could be.

“You and Lucy need to leave,” he said dully, clenching his fists so hard his nails bit bloody half-circles into his palms.

He felt Sal tense, the other vampire’s hand tightening on his shoulder. “I’m just trying—”

“I know,” Tommy interrupted, eyes fixed on Evan’s pale, pale face, on the weak, stuttering rise and fall of his chest. “But this isn’t over, yet. You two are still in danger if anyone thinks you’re falling in with me.”

Concentrate on what he could change. What he could do. The steps he could take to ensure the outcome was the best possible. He tried to call up the discipline and mentality that had gotten him through conflict after conflict, war after war, the ability to compartmentalize that had let him survive things that would have crushed a lesser man. He could do this.

He had to. His witch’s sacrifice had to be worth something, damn it!

“We’re not leaving,” Sal said firmly.

“Don’t argue with me,” Tommy said, doing his damn best to not sound like he was pleading and failing spectacularly. “Sal, there’s no reason for you and Lucy to go down with me. We’re not…you’re not my coven, anymore.”

Sal sucked in a breath, his hand falling silently from Tommy’s shoulder. Then it landed heavy on him again and jerked, forcibly spinning Tommy around to face him. “You listen to me you stupid son of a bitch,” Sal hissed, red starting to glimmer in his eyes. “You’ve never been my coven. You’re my fucking brother! And I’m not fucking leaving you.” He stabbed a finger in Tommy’s face. “Neither is Lucy. Just…do what you gotta do for him. Either stay with him ‘til it’s over or, uh, or make it easier for him.”

Anyone else…if anyone else besides Sal or Lucy had said such a thing to him, Tommy didn’t think he would be able to control himself.

His friend—his brother—drew him close in a quick, rough hug, pulling back quickly. He glanced down at Evan, a frown twisting his face. “I am sorry,” he said quietly, before turning on his heel and exiting the room, closing the door behind him.

For a long moment, all Tommy could do was stare down at his witch. Evan was so still. So terribly, terribly still. He swallowed roughly, reaching down to gently stroke Evan’s cheekbone, the way he’d felt so helplessly drawn to do the night before. Only the night before.

They were bound together. Connected. Meant to meet, meant to be perfect for each other. Meant to be together.

How could it already be over?

Evan’s pale face was still smeared with dried blood, and with a surge of anger, Tommy suddenly yanked the tattered remains of his shirt off and stalked toward the bathroom. His hands, neck, and chest were crusted with blood—Evan’s blood and Malone’s—and he scrubbed it all away in the sink, his fangs aching in his mouth, his eyes gleaming red in the mirror. There was nowhere for the anger to go, though, no enemy to tear into and destroy. He wet a few washcloths in the sink, soaking them in water that was a touch on the hot side before wringing them out and then hurrying back to Evan’s side.

Despite the fury pulsing through him, his hands were as gentle as though he was handling spun glass as he slipped the ruined sweatshirt over Evan’s head and tossed it across the room. He cleaned the blood from his witch’s face carefully, every movement slow and gentle, though he knew Evan was beyond feeling any discomfort from the rough terrycloth. Some part of him prayed desperately that he and Sal were wrong, that the water and the movement might rouse his witch, cause some reaction, something…

Evan was so still.

He threw the bloodstained washcloths into the same corner as the sweatshirt before gingerly pulling the blankets out from under Evan and sliding into the bed next to his witch. He tucked the comforter warmly around Evan’s body, resting his hand over the scar Evan’s magic had marked him with to signal that he belonged with Tommy, and closing his eyes. Perhaps…perhaps it would be kinder to do as Sal suggested. Kinder to just end it instead of lying here for hours, listening to the terrible space between Evan’s rattling breaths grow longer and longer before he finally let one breath out and failed to ever take another.

He knew he couldn’t do it. He could not be the one to end his witch’s life, even if it would be the most merciful option. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips against Evan’s temple, shuddering at how cold, cold, cold his skin was.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, the words dragging out of him almost against his will. “Please, please don’t go.”

The life and strength and power of Evan’s blood still sang through his veins, and God he would do anything to be able to share that strength with Evan now. Give him the power of a vampire’s healing the way—

Tommy’s eyes flew open.

A witch couldn’t be turned. Not even on the cusp of death, not even when their magic was drained to nothing. Everyone knew that.

But humans weren’t always given vampire blood with the intention of turning them. Sometimes…sometimes the coven pets other vampires kept were allowed to drink from the vampires they’d given themselves to. To extend their lives. To heal them from some injury or illness. It was rare. Most vampires simply turned their pets if they were in danger of dying, if they cared at all. Witches couldn’t turn.

But did that mean that vampire blood had no effect?

He sat up sharply, staring down at Evan, a thunderous, unrelenting hope trying to bloom in his chest. He didn’t know…witches kept the workings of their magic so damn secret, and Tommy had never had reason to learn anything beyond how to kill a witch that was trying to kill him anyway. Whatever common knowledge vampires might have gained over the centuries had largely been lost in the Annihilation. What if…what if…

He cupped Evan’s face, his mind racing. He had no idea how Evan might feel about drinking his blood…but surely Evan didn’t want to die. And he was. Evan was dying, right before Tommy’s eyes. Surely…surely Evan would understand that he had to try to save him. That he was willing to do anything to save him.

They were bound. They were meant for each other. Meant to find each other. Evan had cast a spell with a simple desire to find someone who would love him…and the spell had brought him to Tommy. Had chosen him. Him as the person who would love and protect and care for his witch above all others.

His wrist was at his mouth before he could argue with himself, his fangs slicing through the flesh as easily as a hot knife through butter. He tilted Evan’s face up slightly with his free hand, gently easing his mouth open with his thumb. “Come on, Evan,” he whispered. “Come back to me.”

He dribbled a little of his blood into his witch’s mouth, desperately massaging his throat to get him to swallow. Anxiously, he scanned Evan for any hint of movement, of awareness. Fuck, he’d be satisfied if his witch’s skin would lose just a bit of the sickly gray pallor. Another few drops and then he had to dig his nails into the meat of his wrist to tear the rapidly-healing wound back open.

“Come on,” he begged. Another few dribbles of blood slid down his witch’s throat and he leaned down at pressed his forehead to Evan’s. “Please,” he whispered, unsure who he was even speaking to. “Please don’t do this. Don’t.”

There was a hitch in Evan’s breathing. A soft, weakened hint of a groan, low in his throat.

Tommy was stretched out beside his witch, pressed close to his side as he held his bleeding wrist to his mouth and prayed like he hadn’t prayed in centuries.

He was lying on his back, staring up at a cloudless blue sky, grass soft under his back and the rushing sigh of running water from somewhere off to his left. Lazily, he rolled over, reaching up to pluck a bloom off one of the many lily-of-the-valleys that grew in this field. The sun streamed down on him, warm and soft and golden.

Strange…there were no lilies in the fields around their coven compound. None that he’d ever seen, anyway. He’d roamed all over with Sally—surely he would have seen them somewhere.

From farther off, down by the banks of the stream he knew was just beyond that small copse of trees, came the sound of singing. The voice was warm and clear, not anything amazing, but pleasant enough. The sound of it sent a wave of longing rushing through him. It had been so long since he’d heard that voice.

He’d never heard that voice. And there was no stream on the coven lands. Where…

He got to his feet, brushing the bits of grass and dirt off the rough cloth pants and jerkin, before leaning down to grab the flax rope he’d spent all day weaving for snares. Hopefully he’d catch a rabbit or two. The singing grew louder as the voice’s owner returned from the stream, and he started jogging toward the sound. No doubt she’d need help hauling the water back to their home

“Thomas? Thomas, where have you got off to?”

Tommy’s eyes flew open, and he pulled his wrist away from his witch’s mouth, staring down at Evan in disbelief as his witch slowly, slowly blinked up at him with hazy blue eyes, blood smearing his lips and color returning to his face.

“Evan,” Tommy whispered, framing his witch’s face with his hands. “Evan.”

Outside the room, there was a sudden clatter, as though someone had dropped something heavy, and Lucy’s voice rose in a startled shout.

“What the—is that a fucking cat?” Sal demanded loudly.