#anyway. none of these people are politically literate enough to make a good point

[boyfridged]

the praise rosenberg is getting makes me even more disappointed tbh. the bar is on the floor! he misses as often as he makes a good point which is to say his writing is so inconsistent it's hard to take it seriously. i don't think anything he has written for this event is much better than zdarsky's writing, that's for sure. and it's boring.

[chlix]

hello christ? i'm 'bout to sin again

vampire! chan x fem! reader: you're a blood donor for wealthy vampires in need of willing victims. it's possible you like your job a little too much

genre: fluff, smut (MDNI)

word count: 6.4k

warnings/tags: oral sex (fem receiving), blood drinking, unsafe sex, seriously like don't do this it's so unsanitary

a/n: i've literally never written smut so i was hesitant to post this, but i liked the idea and i had fun writing it so here it is anyway. i used the name "hyunji" bc this fic only made sense in my brain in third person, but feel free to substitute that name for your own!

Hyunji steels herself as the car she’s in pulls up to the restaurant. It’s an upscale place, with tall glass windows and expertly pruned landscaping on the circle drive. Small light fixtures are placed along edges and curves that make the already tall building exterior look even taller in the evening light. Hyunji has been to some upscale places, but nothing like this. Then again, she’s never had a client exactly like this either. She needs to be on her best behavior.

"He's a bit particular," the woman at the agency told her earlier on the phone. "He's been through a handful of our donors this month alone. I’ve received no complaints from any of them, any everyone was paid well above our rates, but none were asked for a second appointment. I can't give you any pointers for what they did wrong."

If the only consequence of the night going wrong is that Hyunji goes home with a fat paycheck and continues her job search, she’ll consider the evening a success. Sometimes donors are stiffed of their pay entirely or treated like walking bags of meat rather than people offering a service. Sometimes girls don’t come back at all.

That’s the way it goes when you’re dealing with vampires.

But Hyunji loves a challenge, and she'd already signed a liability waiver when she was put on the registry, so she'd accepted the details of the meeting and started getting ready. She’s wearing a black long-sleeved dress with a slit high enough to reveal a good amount of thigh even when she stands. The neckline is low, and the collar frames her collarbone enticingly. No necklaces, no earrings, but a single silver bracelet. She wants to look inviting; not so much done up as...put together. Polished. She doesn’t want to look like an easy meal. Hyunji knows from experience that vampires also like challenge more often than not.

She exits the car and tips the driver in cash and walks up to the restuarant with her coat wrapped around herself and her purse in hand. She approaches the maître d’ with a practiced smile on her face, and he greets her with a polite bow.

"Hello," she greets. "Reservation for Bang?"

The maître d’ calls over another attendant, who leads her to a small room off from the main dining room. A private area. Inside are a few tables spaced far enough apart that they fade away in the low lighting. In the far corner, a man sits staring at the wall, tapping idly at his plate. He has dark hair that’s gelled away from his face, and pink, plush lips. He’s wearing a suit, but Hyunji can tell that there’s muscles under it just from the way he holds his body. His eyes are a bright, unnatural blue. Even at first glance, in this dim room, Hyunji can see that he’s breathtakingly handsome. Of course, that's nothing new. Most vampires are. It’s kind of the whole point.

"Mr. Bang," the attendant says quietly. "Your guest has arrived."

The man turns to look at them, sitting up properly as he does. He gave the attendant a staged smile of his own. "Thank you very much, Sohyeon. We'll call when we're ready."

The attendant- Seohyeon- bows and leaves.

"Please, take a seat” he says, and Hyunji removes her coat and sets it on the chair, then sits down herself.

"I hope you aren't too nervous," he says. "But I thought it might be better for us to discuss these things in relative privacy."

"I'm not nervous. I appreciate the consideration."

He nods. "I'm Bang Chan. Though I suppose you already know that."

Hyunji had suspected, but it's not as if vampires are keen on photography. He could be Chan's assistant, or his errand boy. It isn’t uncommon for initial meetings like this, especially with vampires of such high stature.

"I'm Son Hyunji," she says. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise."

"Can I say, I'm a bit surprised you came in person?"

Chan's smile turns a bit wry. "Well, I prefer to make my own decisions about these sorts of things. It's not that I don't trust the other members of my coven. It's just that matters like this are a bit...personal. You understand."

"I do."

"I'm sure they gave you the rundown of my history with your agency. I hope being a frequent user isn’t a mark against me."

Chan doesn’t seem to be overly invested in the theatrics of all this, so Hyunji decides to be frank.

"They didn't give me many details. I was only told that all the girls were sent home unharmed. In this business, that's a victory."

"That's a generous outlook."

"Of course I'm generous. I'm offering my blood."

Chan cracks a smile, and some of the severity in the places of his face eked away. "That you are. I assume you came prepared today ready to be bitten?"

"If the negotiations go well, then yes, I'm prepared."

"Well, then I'll be on my best behavior," Chan said. "And I should probably get you something to eat."

He must press some button under his table, because Seohyeon reappears, ready to assist.

"Do you mind if I order for you?" he asks.

"Not at all." It isn’t uncommon. Diet has an impact on the taste of the blood, and every client has a preference. For her last position, Hyunji had found herself eating much more meat than she normally did and had to pick up running as a hobby to help with indigestion. At another job, she'd been overfed sugar, as if being fattened by a witch. Both of those had been a pain; it had been difficult to maintain her figure when she was practically being force-fed.

Chan, however, orders her a simple vegetable dish and a glass of water, along with a platter of cut exotic fruits.

"You'll need carbohydrates," he says simply. Hyunji simply nods. She can handle being grass-fed. It might even help her cholesterol levels.

Seohyeon leaves to submit their orders and returns later with a single crystalline glass. She doesn’t even attempt to set a glass or plate in front of Chan.

"You have meetings like this here often, then?" she asks.

"I do. I have high regard for their discretion."

"And here I thought I was special," Hyunji jokes, hoping to see that small smile again and being gratified when she receives it.

"Somehow I can tell that you are, regardless of my behavior."

Hyunji sips her drink for a moment, and they sit in amicable silence. Her weakness when it comes to meetings like this is her urge to fill space. She tends to talk when she's nervous, trying too hard to sell herself. She knows better than most that vampires are not a monolith, but generally speaking, they have a much higher tolerance for discomfort that most humans. They value solitude and caution. Hyunji tries to mirror this as best she can, to appear thoughtful, controlled. This too is also a test of her resolve. She can't seem like she would be easy to take advantage of. It’s a matter of life and death.

"Do you have any questions for me?" she finally asks. "You must have some harsh requirements, if no other girls have lasted more than a day."

Chan shrugs. "Sometimes people are incompatible."

"So cryptic. Is decoding your words part of the test?"

"I don't try to be cryptic. It might be hard to believe, but I'm not naturally inclined towards this sort of thing. I find these meetings awkward and artificial."

That's interesting. Hyunji sets her glass of water down. "Artificial, huh? I don't seem genuine to you?"

"It's not you, it's... all of this. The agency, the meeting, the negotiations. It just...gives me a bit of a headache."

"Would you rather chase me as I run screaming down the street?" she asks. "It wouldn't be the strangest thing asked of me."

Chan's eyes widen, caught off guard. "Someone's asked you for that?"

"Yes. I said no, of course."

Chan shakes himself out of his disbelief. "Good. I mean, not good that someone asked you that, but good that you refused. That's horrible."

Hyunji hums. "Part of the job."

"I've heard a bit about it..." he murmurs, then looks directly at Hyunji, voice resolved, focused. "I should have said this when you came in, but you're under no obligation to stay here. At any point in the night you can leave. You won't be harmed, and you'll be compensated for your time. I never want you to feel like you're trapped here with me, whether that be literally, socially, or financially." He seems to want to stop speaking, but continues, "This is what I mean by artificial. If you're in my employ, I feel as if I rob you of safety. It's not a position I enjoy being in."

This is such an unexpected turn of events. Hyunji had always assumed having power over their donors, even if it was just for show, was part of the fun. Yes, her official job is "blood donor," but in practice, she supposes most of her jobs boil down to "consensual victim." She shows up at a designated location after eating and drinking what she’s told, wearing what she’s told to wear, and is bitten. She tells nobody what she’s doing, and her clients often leave as soon as they are finished with her. But Chan says that all those things make him uncomfortable. He only wants her blood.

It’s fascinating. And too good of an opportunity to pass up.

"Is that why you switch donors so frequently?" she asks. "You feel as if you're taking advantage of them?"

Chan's lips twitch. "A futile attempt at damage control, I'll admit."

"It's noble," she says, and she truly means it. "It means a lot to me to hear you say that." She’s silent for another moment, debating. "I doubt this will ease your worries, but I don't do this job as a primary source of income. I'm actually quite well-off. And I didn't get roped into this young and have some traumatic past tied to it. I'd never even met one of your kind until I took my first client, after I graduated college. If you think I'm bluffing, I can show you my bank statements. So being your regular donor wouldn't be you taking advantage of me. I could quit any time I wanted without a second thought."

"I did think you'd done this a few times. Back in your home country?”

"And a few here and there before you. Nothing permanent. I didn't like how they talked to me, so I quit. I would give their names, but y'know. Donor-client privilege."

"Then why do you do this job, if not for the money?"

She smiles. "Because I love it. Didn't I say I was generous?"

"Venom junkie," Chan says in a resigned tone.

"I'm semi-immune, actually," Hyunji corrects. "And I'm not sugarcoating it. I love helping people. I make new blood all the time, so it's not really a loss for me. And even when my clients aren't as wealthy as you seem to be, I still get to have new experiences and try new things. I'm a foreigner, y'know. It's hard to make friends in South Korea." She grins as she leans forward on the table, looking Chan very pointedly up and down. "Also, not to be crass, but getting my blood sucked is so fucking hot. It gets me going every single time."

Chan looks at her, face drawn in surprise but in a different way than before. He’s so hard to read, too practiced and trained at impassivity, but he isn’t leaning away from her, so it's possible she hasn’t made any errors so large she couldn't correct them later in the night. He'd wanted her to be genuine? Well, this is as genuine as she can get.

Seohyeon returns then, carrying Hyunji's meal and a pitcher of water to refill her glass.

"Leave the pitcher, Seohyeon," Chan says, eyes still fixed on Hyunji. "I don't want to bother you too much. We'll be a while."

Hyunji allows a cheshire grin to overtake her features. She picks up her fork and pops a kumquat into her mouth with obvious glee, relishing the way Chan watches the slide of it all the way down her dark, exposed throat.

They continue their conversation as Hyunji finishes eating. He's not as closed off as he was initially, and Hyunji finds that he's a fairly good conversationalist. His voice is calm and rich, and when he's not trying to fit into the role of "mysterious vampire" he's fairly straightforward about his account of events and memories. As a plus, he seems genuinely interested in her life, or at least the limited parts she tells him. He keeps eye contact with her and asks clarifying questions. When she politely declines to elaborate, he doesn't pry. It's a pleasant change of pace from her usual first meetings, and she has a feeling it is for him too, if his body language is anything to judge by.

The topics stray away from the topic of their meeting, talking more about the facts of their lives and relations, but the charged environment from Hyunji's declaration doesn't dissipate. If anything, it only gets stronger as the night wears on, and Hyunji notices Chan become a bit twitchier, glancing more often at the door behind Hyunji, or at the watch on his wrist. As soon as she’s finished the last bite of her food, Seohyeon reappears, summoned by that elusive button once again. She's already holding the check in hand, and Chan signs it without even looking at it and hands it back to her.

"Shall we go?" he asks. Hyunji nods.

"Thank you very much, Seohyeon. You were great tonight as always."

Seohyun bows politely, but when her eyes meet Hyunji's, she winks. It catches Hyunji off-guard, but quickly enough she's able to return with a genuine smile and a bow of her own. Seohyeon must be the attendant who always serves Chan at meetings like this. It's nice to know that she doesn't think less of Hyunji for being here, or perhaps that she's even rooting for Hyunji to catch him for good. From her high spirits, Chan must also be a good tipper, which is a point in his favor. She finds that she really is starting to like the guy. She already suspected he was decent enough for paying his donors well, but she's pleasantly surprised to find he seems to be an all-around stand-up guy, which is good. Hyunji doesn't like to overstate her importance to her clients, but she does sometimes have qualms about aiding in the continued existence of assholes.

Hyunji gets up, puts her coat back on, and grabs her purse. Chan extends his elbow to her, and she wraps her hand around his arm, jolting a bit when she feels the breadth of muscle hidden under his suit jacket. He leads her out of the room and out to the front, where he calls the valet to bring his car around.

"No driver?" she asks, half-joking, but all Chan says is, "He has the night off."

Money money. It's even more impressive than the private seating.

The drive is short but quiet. Hyunji lets the water settle in her stomach and lets Chan focus on driving. She isn't trying too hard to memorize the route. She doubts he's going to take her to some wizened alley and drink her dry. And if he does, well, at least she’s had a good night before she goes.

They arrive at an upscale hotel after only a few minutes. The car is valeted again, and she once again holds on to his elbow as they walk to the front desk and Chan asks for a room. The fact that he didn't set this room up beforehand is even more gratifying to her. It feels like winning. She's going to get dinner and a show. It's her ideal evening.

Chan hands her one the key cards and they go to the elevator. His hand resting on hers is heavy, and not particularly cold. Up close, she can see the pink of his lips and cheeks is not makeup, which means he's nowhere close to starving. He just wanted to have her that bad.

This is what she loves about it, truly. The power over the vamps who dine on her. The juxaposition almost has her feeling heady.

When they get to the room, Hyunji excuses herself immediately to the bathroom, as the water she drank has finally caught up with her. When she's finished, she looks at herself in the mirror as she washes and dries her hands, making sure everything about her is still in place. It's not that she thinks Chan would care, persay. But she's sure he'll get more satisfaction from ruining her himself.

She exits the bathroom and closes the door behind herself, so she's standing before Chan, shoes and coat gone. He's sitting on the bed, and his suit jacket is discarded, giving her a clear view of his broad shoulders and large chest. He eyes her hungrily, looking her up and down with no apology, and Hyunji doesn't even care if he's thirsty for her blood or for her flesh. She'd be happy with either.

Vampires being hot is a part of the gag, true, but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy it while she's here.

"So," she asks, still standing a respectful distance away from him. "Feeling thirsty?"

Chan lets out a little laugh. "Honestly? You have no idea."

A little thrill goes through her at the rasp in his voice.

Still, honorable as he is, he offers her one last out. "If you don't want to do this, I can leave right now. I'll give you your pay and you can stay in the room. I don't expect anything out of you."

"I know," Hyunji says. "And again, I appreciate the out. But I want this. I consent to donating to you tonight."

Chan lets out a long breath and beckons her closer. She follows, walking slowly, and when she meets the bed, she crawls onto it so that she's on her knees in front of him.

"Where would you like me to take from?" he asks.

"Wherever you want," she says. "If you're uncomfortable, you can take from my wrist. But I wore this dress for easy access. Both to my neck and my thigh."

"You really weren't kidding about thinking this is sexy," he says, breathless, like he can't believe it.

"Do you live on planet earth? Everyone thinks vampires are sexy. A lot of people are just also cowards. But I'm not. And I don't think you're going to bleed my dry and leave my husk in this hotel room, are you?"

Chan shakes his head no.

"Then what's to be scared of? Is it a crime to enjoy my job?"

Chan lets out a low breath, almost like a laugh. "You're something else, aren't you?"

"I guess I am." She leans back a little, pulling herself back into her composure. "But as I said, this is meant to be enjoyable for us both. If you'd like to just drink from my wrist and leave, that's completely fine. It's not like I go around fucking all my clients. I'm capable of being professional."

"I feel like we crossed the line from professional a while ago," Chan says. "Which is my fault as much as it's yours."

Good. She was worried she'd been coming on far too strong.

"So what's the plan?" she asks again. "How do you want me?"

Chan's fingers twitched again as he scanned her up and down. "Can I touch you?" he asks.

"Yes."

In an instant, Hyunji is flat on her back, and Chan is above her, boring down on her. Her heart rate goes crazy, seeing those eyes in the shadows, the eyes of a predator. They look electric blue, hypnotic.

"I'm going to hold you right here, and you're not going to look at anyone except me," he says, his voice lower than before. "I'm going to suck your blood. And then I'm going to eat you out." His hands tighten around her wrists, and she sees the veins in his neck pop and oh god, oh god-

He's waiting for an answer, ever the gentleman. She swallows harshly and says. "Be my guest, Mr. Bang."

Chan leans down and connects their lips.

Just like she'd gathered from his hands, he's warm. Over the years, she'd gotten used to the colder body temperature of vampires, about the uncanniness of how they feel against her. She associates it now with being part of the experience, and can look past it, especially when her client is this good-looking. But here it's barely an issue. Their lips press together, and it's almost like kissing a human. As long as she doesn't think about the fact that she can't feel a heartbeat even though he's less than an inch away from her.

He licks into her mouth, and she lets him, opening her mouth wide and swallowing her gasps. Heat is spreading through her, arousal swelling all her blood vessels, and she knows the moment he smells it from how his grip tightens even further, from the growl deep in his throat. His lips trail down from her mouth to her neck, and she leans her head back to expose it more fully. She's sure he can see her heartbeat in her carotid from the way her blood rushes in her ears.

"You smell...so fucking good," he says in between heavy breaths. "Even in the restuarant...you were driving me crazy."

He sucks at Hyunji's neck, and she moans, hands straining as she tries to arch up. One of his hands releases hers and comes to grip her jaw, pushing her head to the side as he zeroes in on her neck. She can hear a deep rumbling in his chest, like a cat gearing up to pounce. She can't see his eyes, but she knows they must be dilated to black pools.

"Last chance to back out," he murmurs, lips millimeters from Hyunji's skin.

"Bite me," she says.

She sucks in a breath as his lips graze her skin. Then he bites down.

Hyunji knows that she's semi-immune to venom. She has the doctor's notes to prove it, and the experience with vampires to believe them. But there might be some truth to Chan saying she's a venom junkie anyway, because the initial bite alone is orgasmic. Her mouth drops open, her body stiffening and arching under him as she sucks in a quick breath. The smell of her own blood fills her senses, the familiar ochre and iron wafting around them hypnotically, and her thoughts zero in on the feeling of Chan pressed to her neck, of his large mouthfuls, the iron grip he has on her, as if she would even dare struggle.

She knows she tastes better when she's aroused, but it also feels better when she's willing. And oh, god is she willing. For a moment it feels like she's never wanted anything more.

Chan drinks greedily, completely at odds with the composure he's been maintaining the whole evening. It's so satisfying she thinks she might just cum again from the way he's pulling at her, the way he obviously wants her so badly it's taking all his self-control not to rip her apart. And what a way to go, really. The epitome of dying happy.

The lightheadedness is only barely setting in when he pulls off her, releasing both her hands and her head. His lips are stained red, and his cheeks are flushed. She can see, even with his blown pupils, how hazy his eyes eyes are. His grip on her wrists hasn't faltered for a second.

"Fuck," he says, but even that is far away. "Are you okay?"

"Never better," she says. "Come here."

She grips his jaw and pulls him down, and he goes easily, connecting their lips in a messy swirl of blood and drool and venom. She can feel the tang of it still as his fangs are still prominent in his mouth. They're large, and she feels the tip of one cut her own lip, blood pooling between her teeth. Chan pulls away with a moan.

"You taste so good," he murmurs, licking his lips, absolutely blood-drunk. "Fuck. Want you so bad."

"And you're fucking gorgeous," she says. "So in-control. You gonna take care of me, Chan? You gonna make me feel good?"

That rumbling starts in his chest again, and Chan is on her again, his full weight pressing down on her, stealing the breath from her lungs. Vampires always weigh more than you think they would, and Chan is heavy with her blood. His skin is burning, almost feverish. It's so monstrous. It's so fucking sexy.

"Gonna eat you out so good," he murmurs against her lips. "Gonna make you scream."

"God, please," she whines. "Please. Want your mouth. Wanna cum so bad."

Chan abandons her lips and shuffles down the bed to the curve of her hips. He doesn't have to push her dress up that far to have access, and he doesn't even bother to actually remove her panties, instead pushing them aside and diving in. His fangs are still extended, and the slick feeling of bone against her labia sends a thrill of fear down her spine. What if he cuts her down there? Will he start drinking from that too? Her juices and blood mixing together for him? The fear only makes it more attractive, and she pushes down into his mouth, wanting more, wanting him deeper. His tongue is so wet, so rough, his fingers on her thighs are gouging holes into her skin, they must be, but she doesn't make him stop, she just heaves in haggard breaths, begs him to keep going.

His tongue swirls around the head of her clit and then takes it into his mouth and sucks. The twine in Hyunji's stomach snaps, eyes rolling back, and her breath pushed harshly out of her lungs in what is, admittedly, closer to a scream than she thought she'd get. Her vision is hazy for a moment, head full of roaring and fog as she recovers from both the blood loss and the intensity of the orgasm. Chan pulls away from her as her body goes lax, and she can hear him breathing in deep lungfuls of air. It doesn't occur to her for another few seconds that he doesn't even need to breathe. It's cute. She loves it when they still have vestigial impulses.

Time is murky for a while. Hyunji doesn't feel Chan get off the bed and step away and is only dimly aware of hands on her neck, something cooling brushed under her skin. Her head is a mess, she doesn't know which way is up. She's no stranger to this feeling, though, even though it's rarely so strong. She just breathes through it, and lets her body do what it must, and slowly, everything begins to settle back into focus.

When she opens her eyes, she's still lying on the bed. There's no one with her, but she can feel eyes on her. After another minute, she feels alright to sit up, and is proud that the dizziness doesn't seem too bad. Apparently, he hadn't taken as much blood as she'd thought.

Chan is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. He'd been looking out the window before, but his eyes snap over to her when she moves, and in a second he's by her side, arm around her back so he can help her into a sitting position against the headboard.

"How are you feeling?" he asks. His hair has gone astray from it's perfect placement, and his cheeks are still flushed, but his eyes are back to normal now, present and assessing and nearly human in its clear concern.

"I'm fine," she says. It feels like a gross understatement considering what’s just transpired.

"I didn't mean to take so much," he says apologetically. "I didn't think I'd lose control so quickly."

If this is what Chan calls losing control, then Hyunji pales at the thought of what he'd say if she explained some of the encounters she's endured.

"You stopped yourself even before I would've," she assures him. "I'm barely dizzy at all. And my shakiness is just as much from the orgasm as the donation."

"You're sure?" he asks. The 180-degree shift from his earlier persona is as surprising as it is pleasant. His concern is adorable, and it seems so genuine. She finds herself smiling genuinely herself.

"I'm sure. I'm completely alright. I should, ah, probably eat something though."

"Yes. Of course."

Chan jumps up to grab the hotel phone and call for someone, and Hyunji takes stock of her body. There's a bandage over her neck and some form of antiseptic has been put on her lip. She can taste the medicinal tang. The area between her legs also feels wiped down where it's now covered with the drapings of her skirt.

Probably to clean up the blood, she thinks, remembering the frenzied state Chan had been in when he went down on her. God, she really was crazy. She hated being treated like fresh meat, but she loved it when they pretended like she was.

As her strength returns, she sits up properly, with her legs curled beside her. Chan goes to the door to get the food when it's delivered, and Hyunji accepts the small platter gratefully.

"I'm surprised the kitchen is still open," she comments.

"This is Josun Palace. The kitchen is always open."

Hyunji shrugs and eats her offered food. Chan still seems anxious about her state, but as she converses with him nonchalantly, he seems to believe in her good health, and the nervous energy fades.

Finally, after Hyunji has again finished her food and water, Chan says, "I should be off."

The disappointment hits Hyunji like a freight train. Maybe she'd been imagining it, but she thought that this had been going well. She had good blood and a good body, and he'd seemed to think her pleasant enough. She's old enough now that she shouldn't still be surprised when she reads vampires incorrectly, but this one stings, not just for the loss of a job, but for the loss of Chan, who she'd started to genuinely like at some point during the evening.

"If you must," she said, trying not to sound too put out. "I know you must be busy."

Chan looks a little torn. "Would you prefer I stayed?"

"I don't expect you to do things you're not comfortable with," Hyunji parroted. "If you've finished with me, you have every right to go."

"Hyunji, I didn't mean..." Chan sighs, takes a breath. "I just don't want you to feel as though you're trapped here with me. You've done your job as well. You can ask me to leave at any time."

"I'm not trapped with you. Like I said, I do this because I like it. And I know you're not going to hurt me, unless you're playing a really long game." Hyunji looks him right in the eyes when she says. "You're really nice, Chan. Don't tell my regulars back home, but this has been my best night, maybe ever. I won't hold you here, because you don't owe me anything, but I'm not uncomfortable with you at all."

Chan examines her closely, perhaps to divine if she's lying or not, but Hyunji means what she said. It might be one of the easiest jobs of her entire life, and one of her best hook-ups. No part of her feels like a cornered animal.

"I'll stay until you sleep," Chan offers. "So I can make sure you're okay."

"And then I'll never see you again?"

On this topic, Chan doesn't budge. "We'll see."

Well, if it's the best she's going to get, she'll take it. She sets the tray aside and gets up to use the bathroom, pleased to find her feet aren't the least bit wobbly. She doesn't wash her makeup off, but she does take her contacts out and change out of her dress into one of the hanging gowns by the shower. She'd actually wash herself clean if it wasn't so much effort.

Chan is sitting on the bed when she comes back out, and she's pleased to see he doesn't move as she approaches, just scoots away so she can climb back in under the covers and curl up. Gentle hands come to pull at her chin, exposing the bite in her flesh.

"It doesn't hurt," she murmurs. "And I don't scar easy."

"Junkie," he says, but this time it's affectionate instead of accusatory.

"I’m a professional," she rebuffs, eyes drifting closed. She falls asleep with his thumb still caressing her cheek.

Hyunji wakes up the next morning to find sunlight coming from the bottom of the blinds and Chan nowhere to be found. She groans as she wakes up and identifies the throb in her neck as the minimal venom effect finally wears off, leaving only the pain of the puncture.

She stumbles to the bathroom to remove her makeup and shower and drags back on the same dress and shoes she had the day before. There's a good chance the workers downstairs won't recognize her, and anyway, she's long past feeling shame for reappearing in the same clothes she'd left in. Everyone's done it, and she's not embarrassed of her slutty tendencies when they're so much of a part of her by now.

On the table next to her purse is a wad of cash. She can't begin to estimate how much. It was one of the things they hadn't discussed beforehand, was exactly how much she'd be paid. She assumed something approaching the going rate for her agency, but this appears to be much more. Tucked under the rubber band at the top of the stack is a note from Chan that says, Drink water when you wake up. You were shivering in your sleep.

Cute. Cullen-level creepy, but still cute. Hyunji puts the cash in her purse, checks the room over again, and leaves.

It isn't until the uber drops her off at her home and she's changed into comfortable clothes that she gets a call from Kimiya at the agency again. She runs through a similar debrief as the other girls before had given, that Chan was cordial and polite, that he took her blood and paid her well, and she has nothing more to say on the matter. Kimiya seems frustrated again, but promises to e-mail over the paperwork for their records and tells her to look after her heath. When Hyunji hangs up the phone, she sets it down and folds herself into her living room couch.

Chan hadn't given her his phone number, or any other means of contacting him. She supposes she could easily look him up, but that's against the rules of her contract, and at any rate, it's best not to go looking for vampires when they don't want to be found. Hyunji knows that at least well enough.

"Another notch on his belt," she says to herself. "It's what I expected going in."

She tells herself the lingering disappointment she's feeling is just the venom still in her system and goes to the kitchen to make herself breakfast.

Hyunji gets caught up in her life in the following days. She has "kind of" a job that she "kind of" has to go to, and "kind of" meetings that she "kind of" has to attend. It's nothing serious, and mostly for appearances, but she has nothing better to do with her time, so she goes anyway. By the middle of the week, her night with Chan is at the back of her mind, filed away with all her other patrons.

It doesn't exactly leave her, though. She wishes it would, because it's getting kind of embarrassing, but for some reason the feelings are hard to shake. Maybe it was because she liked Chan, not just as a respectful client, but as a person. Under different circumstances, she thought they would have gotten along well. That's where the loss might be coming from, in truth, not of him as a client, but him as a potential friend.

But vampires don't keep humans around like that. At least, not outside cheesy romance novels and dramas. They stick to their own, and humans stick to their own. Hyunji knows that. Which means she's got to get a grip.

'Getting a grip' lasts two weeks, when Kimiya gives her another call late Thursday morning. This is in line with the usual timeframe. Hyunji doesn't take any medications she needs to detox from, so she's a prime candidate for people who need last-minute donations. The minimum time between two donations is two weeks, so this is the earliest that Hyunji could potentially take any requests.

"Hello, Kimiya," she says, answering the phone cheerfully. "What do you need?"

"I have news," Kimiya says, deviating from the script. Hyunji stops short.

"Oh?"

"Bang Chan wants to request you again."

Hyunji's heart leaps into her throat. "He does?"

"Yes. He wouldn't give much more information than that, but he did specify that this would be in a more casual setting, and that he did not anticipate feeding from you at this time. Of course, this means you also wouldn't be paid for attending the meeting."

Hyunji has a feeling that whether she gave blood had nothing to do with her potential financial gain.

"I'll do it," Hyunji says. "When's the meeting?"

"Tomorrow, Friday, at eight pm. I'll send you the address."

"Perfect." She’s sure she can’t keep the excitement out of her voice. "Thank you, Kimiya."

"Of course," Kimiya says. Then, "What did you do with him? He and his coven have been running through our girls like water."

Hyunji presses a finger against her neck, relishing the feel of the blood rushing under her skin. "Oh, you know. The best strategy is just to have fun and be yourself.”

[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

Is könig the type of guy to put a picture of sneaky in his wallet?

Because I feel like he is🧍🏻‍♀️

After the whole removing his shirt fiansco it might as well be a spicy-but-not-too-spicy-because-he-is-protective-like-that picture yk?

Ok so I know you've literally said that it could be something spicy *right* there, but for the sake of this super cute idea we're getting something fluffy ✨ with a hint of Sneak being naughty

You could hardly believe your luck. It was incredible, but you'd managed to find a day that both you and König were free after work and the rest of your team were too busy to question your absence from base. Price was dealing with something that required he and Gaz out of the country and Ghost and Soap were sent off on a mission elsewhere. None of them could track your movements and no one else was nosy enough to bother.

That left you and König time to wander into the city together, riding the bus like a couple of teenage runaways giggling to yourself in the stuffy shuttle, uncaring of the few nicotine addled people that rode with you. König leaned against the window and held you close to his chest, stroking your arm as he filled you in on the team’s antics. Apparently, despite heavily warning the 141 off of messing with their least favourite KorTac operator, the shits had decided to go ahead and do it anyway.

“MacTavish tried to jump out at me the other day, but I heard him blabbing to Ghost about it from way down the hall, so unfortunately for him it didn’t work! After that Price had tried to give me a telling off, but I ignored him of course, at which point I get assaulted by Ghost and Garrick when I walk out and-“

“Assaulted?” you groaned, cutting him off as he was in the midst of telling you.

Ghost had informed you that he’d had a polite word, but neglected to mention any kind of ‘assault’. At the time, you’d taken his lack of bloody knuckles to be a good sign, though according to sharp bitter tones in your lover’s voice - that wasn’t the case. You could only imagine what Ghost had done to König in the heat of his anger.

“He pinned me against the wall and practically strangled me, talking all this nonsense about ‘if you don’t leave Sneaky alone, you’ll find more embedded in that back of yours than nails’ as if he’s capable of that,” König snorted.

“König that’s awful!” you moaned, wrapping your hand around his arm.

“What was awful was the punch to the gut I gave him,” he said with a grin. “He let me go pretty quick after that.”

“He just let you go? Just like that?”

“Well, I might’ve run from him and his little companion, but that’s neither here nor there,” he said with a chuckle.

A whoosh of laughter burst free before you could stop it, but nevertheless you’d slapped König’s chest playfully and told him not to do stuff like that. It wasn’t worth riling Ghost up any more than he already was, he could be quite formidable when he felt slighted and the last thing you wanted was permanent damage on behalf of your so called ‘protection’.

Then, after the long winding journey had rolled to a close, you stepped out into town and grabbed something quick to eat. At which point you’d demanded to trawl the streets in search of a decent bar, looking for somewhere quiet to grab a cocktail. It was important you not go anywhere too crowded, but at the same time you knew that most of the old fashioned quiet places that König had pointed to were unlikely to make you anything nice if at all under the basis that cocktails ‘weren’t real drinks’.

Eventually, after a lot of discussion, sore feet from all the walking around, and whining on your part, you agreed to venture into a quirky little place with ocean themed decorations, ironically called ‘the dive bar’, that had a few customers and a relaxing vibe. The inside was lit by blue neon and dim yellow halogen bulbs and all the tables were made from old wood, like something off of a ship’s hull. It was cheesy, but it did a great Daiquiri and most importantly König wasn’t crawling out of his skin with crowd anxiety.

“I like this place,” you’d declared, looking around at the kitschy décor while you sipped your fruity drink. “It’s cosy.”

“It’s not so bad I suppose,” König replied, picking at the dewy label on his beer bottle.

“Oh c’mon, admit it, it’s fun!”

“If you think pirate decorations and hardly being able to see is fun,” he shrugged. “Then yes. Very fun.”

“Don’t be a spoil sport! Plus look, they have pool over there and foosball and… oh my god a photobooth!”

He groaned at that and narrowed his eyes, giving you a look as if to say not in a million years.

However, never one to deny you, he’d dutifully marched over for a game of pool (which you’d let him win of course, just to butter him up a little) and watched as he smiled victoriously when he’d potted the black ball. Though, he wasn’t so easily convinced into your next suggestion. Apparently getting König into a photobooth was harder than any other feat you’d accomplished yet.

“Those eyes won’t work on me,” he shrugged, taking a gratuitous sip of his beer. “I’m not falling for it.”

“But…pleeeeaaasseeeee,” you whined, dragging out each letter like it was molasses pouring from a tin.

“In case you’ve forgotten I can’t have pictures of my face floating around, Sneaky, you know this.”

“But you can put on your neck warmer!”

“I don’t have it,” he sniffed.

“Liar! You always keep it in your back pocket if you’re not wearing it,” you challenged, poking at his chest.

“Been staring at my arse much, hm?”

You felt your cheeks heat up, but nevertheless stood your ground. You were determined, you weren’t going to let him change the subject. You were high on the light buzz of overly sweet alcohol and you desperately wanted something to hold onto when you couldn’t have him near.

“You know I have been,” you winked, recovering quickly and embracing him. “And look – I’m right.”

He growled out and snatched the cloth from your hands, his eyes narrowing down at your ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ face. If you were anyone else, you’d be dead or held up by one of the decorative nets on the ceiling, but by virtue of being you, you were allowed to remain standing. Hell couldn’t beat the heat firing from his eyes, but even despite that, he broke and started to put the neck warmer on.

“You’re paying.”

You could hardly believe it, but you weren’t going to waste time standing there contemplating where the depths of K��nig’s devotion lay. You followed him into the booth and planted yourself on his lap, excitedly slotting the coins into the machine, listening to them rattle, watching as the screen flashed and presented you with your options. Apparently you could choose a range of different filters and frames, though, ever a fan of the classics, you opted to go for a black and white filter and no frame.

“Look happy, grumpy man,” you chastised, looking over at him while preparing for your first photo and fixing your hair.

“This is me happy.”

“Don’t seem to recall you looking like that in the hotel room,” you whispered, brushing your lips against the side of his neck. "And I seem to remember you were very happy then."

The first photo flashed and you sniggered as you saw it dissolve into view, you looking sultry and pleased with yourself while König looked flustered under the mask. That one was a keeper for sure, no matter the protests that he made. He didn’t have much of a chance to put it down though. In a matter of seconds the timer was counting down again and you tried to do a silly pose, sticking up peace signs until König broke you by tickling your side.

“Hey! That’s not fair,” you said, half giggling half groaning.

“You got me, so I got you. Fairs fair, Sneaky,” he chuckled.

“You’re such a meanie!”

“Yeah, and you love it,” he said, his eyes glinting with a smile. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have stuck around this long.”

The third and final photo was taken when you were looking into each other’s eyes, locked in a gaze that betrayed the sickly lovebirds you were underneath all the playfighting and cool exteriors you both tried to preserve. Neither of you said a word as it came and went on the display, both admiring how the other looked, stuck in your adoring silence.

Though soon the screen went dark and König sighed, petting your thigh so you’d stand from his lap. You obliged and wandered out, going to fetch your paper strip of photos when you were beat to your prize. König snatched them first and held them up at a height, inspecting them again while you jumped and screeched like a Tasmanian devil.

“Hey! I paid for those,” you growled, trying to grip onto his shoulders for leverage.

“Maybe so, but I’m afraid I have to confiscate them,” he said in a fake somber tone, easily batting your hands off of him like a kitten. “They’re classified, you don’t have the clearance for them.”

“But they’re mine!” you whined.

“Mine now,” he grinned, slipping his temporary mask down so that he could stick his tongue out.

You huffed, but eventually you vowed to steal them later, not missing König sticking them in his wallet and making sure to secret it away in his front pockets away from your sneaking reach.  You would get those photos somehow, someway, you’d told him. His bullshit arm span couldn’t protect him forever!

[aerequets]

sugar, spice, and everything nice

ao3

rating: G

genre: fluff, humor

synopsis: After the fifth time Loid turned around to see Yuri feigning immense interest in their coffee table, he sighed, long-suffering and in disbelief of what he was about to say. “...do you want to come see what I’m making?”

a/n: this is the first fic i'm posting that was not written in one sitting past midnight :D milestones yall! also i think the first fic which isn't twiyor centric? anyways i know some people love yuri and many, many people loathe him. i'm more on the neutral end, where i acknowledge he's a funky guy and if i ignore the weirder aspects of his love for yor and pretend its just intense attachment issues due to trauma etc then i think he's swell. i didn't really know how to write him since in the series itself he's used more as a plot device than anything else, and loid's view on him reflects that, so hopefully this doesn't feel too weird. also ending fics is hard im sorry 🙏🙏

anyways i've talked enough, one last thank you for everyone who leaves reviews and kudos, i don't get to respond to them but i do read them all and appreciate the love <3 enjoy

...

“Yooor!” Yuri sang as he shoved the door to the Forger residence open, bouquet of flowers in hand. “I got off work early so I decided to come… and…”

His voice petered out as he took a better look inside the apartment he’d just forcibly entered. The chihuahua girl and her polar bear of a dog were in the living room with some noxious cartoon blaring on the TV set. That damned Forger was in the kitchen, messing around with something that definitely didn’t smell good whatsoever. Most importantly, there was a glaring, offensive lack of Yor!

“Where is Yor?” He asked, accusingly pointing a finger at Loid who finally looked up from his work. “What did you do to her?!”

Loid’s eye twitched. What made Yuri assume he could just barge in whenever he wanted and find Yor waiting for him? “She got called out for a late night shift.”

“Don’t lie to me, you—” Yuri’s other senses finally caught up and he begrudgingly confirmed that whatever Forger was messing around with did smell good. Really good. And vaguely familiar? He sniffed the air deeply, trying to figure it out.

Anya looked up from her cartoons. “Are you acting like a dog, Unkie?”

“I’m not the dog here!”

Loid debated with himself as Yuri stood in the doorway, neither coming in nor leaving. The polite, Loid-Forgerly thing to do would be to invite him inside to wait for Yor to come back. That was what upstanding gentlemen, good members of society—far from the blacklists of the SSS— acted like; gracious, affable.

The thing was, he didn’t really want to.

He watched Yuri argue with Anya about dogs (“there’s an actual dog, and then you, chihuahua girl. I am a normal person!”) and groaned. Come on. What would Yor think if she heard Yuri came by and I turned him away? It would be no good if he displeased her. He had to do this for the sake of Strix.

“Would you like to come in?” He called from his spot in the kitchen, none too welcomingly.

(Doing it for the mission didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.)

Yuri was torn from his impassioned argument with a literal first grader. “Tch… I guess since I’ve brought flowers, I might as well put them in water,” he muttered. “No other reason!”

He came in. He split the gargantuan bouquet up into six different vases. He made some comments about how Anya’s cartoon was impossible according to the laws of physics. Then he just stood in the living room, trying—and failing—to act like he wasn’t peering at Loid’s activity in the kitchen, still loudly sniffing the air. Really, even if Loid didn’t have senses sharpened to a knife’s point, it would be difficult not to notice Yuri. To make matters worse, every time he turned back, Yuri would suddenly whip around and act like he definitely wasn’t loitering, the way they did in bad sitcoms. Is this the way the SSS carry out their own covert operations? he wondered.

Aside from Anya’s cartoon playing in the background, it was painfully quiet, the only sounds coming from Loid's activity in the kitchen. It seemed like Yuri wasn’t going to strike up a conversation, and Loid wasn’t inclined to, either. But then why is he just standing there?

 After the fifth time Loid turned around to see Yuri feigning immense interest in their coffee table, he sighed, long-suffering and in disbelief of what he was about to say. “...do you want to come see what I’m making?” 

 Yuri squinted at him like he was affronted at the mere notion. “Hmph. I guess I could.” The speed with which he made his way to the kitchen offset his haughty tone. He glanced down into the various bowls Loid had set out on the counter, one filled with sliced apples, another with some uncracked eggs, and a third with flour, sugar, and spices laid out, but not yet combined. 

 “Apples,” Yuri said, almost dumbstruck. He forgot to keep the scowl on his face as he picked up an aniseed from the third bowl and brought it to his nose. It seemed like he finally found what he’d been sniffing around for. “You’re making apple cake?”  

 “Close,” Loid said, surprised by Yuri’s flip in demeanor. “Apple streusel pie. Do you make apple cake?”

 “Not me. But… this smell is…” Yuri mumbled, smelling the anise. “I don’t really remember, but this thingy smells familiar to me.”

 “It’s star anise. And people often say that smells are stronger links to memories than visuals,” Loid offered. “Maybe it’s something you used to have.” 

 Yuri’s eyes widened. “Oh. Now that I think about it…” He held the aniseed up to the light. “I think Mom put this in apple cake once, on Sis’ birthday.” He cut a glance to Loid. “Apples are her favorite.”

 Loid knew—that was why he was making apple streusel. But he was more astonished at the fact that Yuri brought up an old memory to him at all. Right now, with Yuri looking at the aniseed with an almost wondrous expression, it struck Loid how much of a kid Yuri was. 

 Yuri was only twenty years old. When Twilight was twenty years old, he was still new to WISE, training hard and getting his ego beaten down even harder. He’d thought he knew everything there was to know back then.  

 Could he blame Yuri for thinking the same way? 

 For the first time, Loid found himself regarding Yuri with something that wasn’t annoyance. Sure, the guy was more attached to Yor than superglue, but again, could he be blamed? He was a kid clinging onto the only thing left from his childhood. 

 Yuri turned to him with a grim expression. “I think I should take over this baking project of yours.”

 Any feelings of tenderness were dashed in an instant. “What?”

 “Apples are Yor’s favorite, and I know her best, so I should make the apple cake.”

“Apple streusel. ”

 “Whatever!”

 Loid resisted the urge to physically kick Yuri out of the kitchen. Don’t tussle with an SSS officer. Don’t tussle with your wife’s brother. Don’t tussle with a kid! “Are you forgetting the last time you came and destroyed the kitchen?”

 “You may have won then, but I won’t back down from this fight,” Yuri hissed. Loid gaped, a headache building in his temples. Since when was this a fight?

“Is this round two?!” Anya’s voice suddenly piped. The two of them turned to see her standing by the counter, looking strangely excited. She’d abandoned her cartoons to stretch up onto her tiptoes to see the counter. “Papa versus Unkie?”

“We aren’t doing that,” Loid said at the same time Yuri declared “I’m going to wipe the floor with him.” They turned and glared at each other.

Bond trotted up to Anya and nudged her with his nose. She paused, turned to the dog, and then brightened up.

“I just thought of a way better idea,” she announced. “Let’s all bake for Mama together!”

“What?!” The evening was spiraling way out of control. All Loid had wanted was to make some apple streusel for Yor since she was working late so often and deserved a treat (because if she got too tired or fed up, it would reflect badly on their fake marriage). Now he was meant to bake with her hyperactive brother and his equally hyperactive daughter—two people with an entire lack of abandon in the kitchen?

“No way,” Yuri sniffed, and for once Loid wholeheartedly agreed—until he continued, “I'm gonna make such a good apple streusel Yor will forget why she ever married you."

“This is not your kitchen,” Loid said, patience evaporated. “You aren't making anything, not here at least.”

“What, are you scared?”

“I'm not going to argue with you about this—”

Anya sighed loudly and tutted as if she were an exasperated adult. “Mama will be happiest,” she said slowly, “if we all make it.”

That got both men to pause. Well, thought Loid, I am making this to cheer her up in the first place. Anya's not wrong…

Agh. If it makes Sis happier, then shouldn't I…?

Anya smiled in satisfaction. In the snippet of the future she read from Bond's mind, it seemed like everyone was getting along and Mama was smiling really wide, so Papa and Unkie had to stop fighting in order for that to happen. As fun as round two sounded, that future seemed better.

(Also, in that version of the future, everyone was too distracted and happy to notice Anya sneaking extra dessert. Double win!)

“Yay! What do I do?” Anya asked, eagerly hopping up on a stool. “Can I put the crumblies on top?”

“It's not time for that yet,” Loid replied. “Though you can help me make the topping if you want. Er, Yuri, if you want to get started on the custard, you can crack the eggs…”

“Right, eggs,” Yuri repeated before picking one up and smashing it into the bowl, shell splintering. Loid and Anya jumped.

“Not like that!” Loid cried.

“Even I learned how to crack eggs,” Anya unhelpfully supplied, leading Yuri's face to glow red. Loid felt a tinge of pity (he knew how Anya's words could burn firsthand) and cautiously asked, “Did you ever learn to crack an egg, Yuri?”

“It was fine to do it this way before Yor ate your food,” he mumbled in response. Loid was silent for a few seconds before turning to the fridge and pulling a fresh egg out. “This is how you do it.” He demonstrated over the bowl, noting how Yuri carefully tracked the movement. “Tap gently enough to make a crack in the shell. Then pull it apart like you're opening it. Yor learned this way too.” He threw the empty shells away before adding, “Not everything has to stay the way it was before, you know.”

A muscle in Yuri's jaw jumped, but he said nothing and instead set to cracking the other eggs, a little clumsy but decidedly better. Loid then got Anya to whisk the powders together ( “Gently,” he insisted, since it seemed Anya had some sort of floury vendetta) and he cut the butter in for the streusel topping. Yuri began haltingly asking for instructions on what to do next, which Loid was glad to provide.

Time passed like this, with Loid and Yuri slowly warming up to each other via baking. During the process of whisking, mixing, pouring and arranging apples, it seemed like Yuri forgot to be thorny with Loid, and Loid forgot to be cross at Yuri's presence. Anya, too, quickly forgot why she was helping at all and went back to watching cartoons, in wait for when the streusel would be ready for her to eat.

It was when a warm, cinnamon-sugary smell was filling the apartment and Loid and Yuri were cleaning up that the front door opened. Yor trudged in, tired and sore from the night's assignment and ready to collapse into bed. She froze upon seeing six fresh vases and a very familiar pair of shoes in the doorway.

The TV was playing one of Anya's cartoons, but the living room was void. Yor, weary and blood still pumping, immediately assumed the worst. Oh, no. What if Yuri came and got in a fight with Loid? What if he found out we're fake married?! Where's Anya? And—

She, too, had to pause and finally breathe in the mouthwatering scent hanging in the air. There was just something about it…

Abandoning all caution, Yor slipped inside, keeping her steps light just in case something really was wrong. But it smelled too good for there to be any real damage—was that sound logic, or was she just hungry? In any case, she made sure not to draw attention to herself as she poked her head into the kitchen. 

“And for pots that have a lot of gunk in them, you can just boil a bit of water with soap and vinegar  and wait till it foams. Makes it easier to clean,” Loid was telling Yuri. “Yor taught me that, actually—oi, Anya, don't open the oven yet.”

“Makes sense.” Yuri was scribbling something down in a notepad, punching down on the dots and lines. “I'll triple-star that one since it's a tip from Sis.”

“Is it ready yet?” Anya was alternating between excitedly jumping in front of the oven and plastering her face up against the glass. Bond, too, was sat next to Anya with his tail furiously thumping on the ground. “It smells sooo good!”

“It'll be just a minute. Come on, back up from there, both of you.”

Yor was so shocked at what she was seeing that she dropped her purse, alerting everyone of her presence. They all gawked at each other; Anya and Bond were the first to react, scrambling up from their spots. 

“Mama! You're back!” Anya exclaimed, hugging her mother's knees. Bond barked and Yor pet his head absentmindedly, still trying to process what she was seeing. 

“I am,” she said faintly. “Yuri…? When did you get here?” 

“Sis!” Yuri said, also snapping out of his stupor. He sheepishly tucked his notepad away. “Um, a bit ago, I guess. I came to visit you, but you were out, and…"

“Did you guys bake together?” Yor asked, daring to hope. Yuri and Loid exchanged a glance before Loid smiled.

“He's a quick learner.”

"Loi-Loi is an okay teacher, I guess,” Yuri reluctantly added. “We made apple streusel. Do you remember Mom's apple cake?”

Yor inhaled, closing her eyes. The memory was fuzzy, but distinctly sweet, as if the taste of the cake remained. “Yeah. This smells really similar.”

“Yuri had the idea of adding cloves and cardamom,” Loid said. “It worked out quite nicely.”

“Yeah, it was my idea,” Yuri said proudly. Loid rolled his eyes but said nothing more on the subject. No wonder it smelled so familiar, Yor thought. She could hardly believe Yuri even remember the apple cake. Or that he'd shared enough about it with Loid that they were able to replicate some of it in the streusel.

Something warm and sweet  was filling up in Yor's chest. Was it the sugar in the air? She breathed it in, cheeks apple red and sore from how widely she was beaming, previous tiredness all but forgotten. She hadn't realized how much she'd subconsciously wanted Yuri to warm up to her family before. Her family. His family now, too. It didn't have to be just the two of them. 

“Ah—are you crying?!” Yor's eyes had gotten a little shiny, which naturally led to Yuri bursting out bawling. “I missed you toooo!”

The oven dinged and Loid pulled out the streusel as Yor joined them in the kitchen. As the adults got to chatting, Anya snuck around and victoriously stabbed a forkful of the piping dessert, blowing on it vigorously before chomping down. She grinned around her fork. 

 

Victory was sweet. 

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

i think chrom’s biggest issue (coming from a polite chrom disliker who’s not a fan of him but does like certain aspects of him and could like him more if he was presented differently) is that his flaws aren’t treated as flaws. his hypocrisy, as highlighted by that Chrom Enjoyer take for example, is one of these things. hypocrisy is a very fun character trait! i love hypocrites! however, his hypocrisy isn’t highlighted at all by the game AS hypocrisy; he’s never challenged by the narrative for the decisions he makes, from assisting in leaving plegia to get swallowed by a power vacuum as the person who took down its ruler without looking back at the people past gangrel, to abandoning his kingdom to fight in another continent’s war shortly after taking the throne, to criticizing someone for holding one life above many only to attempt to do the same for robin — not learning his lesson after emmeryn and ESPECIALLY not as a ruler. (and it’s not ‘the people of now vs the people of a hypothetical far off future,’ it’s very much The Future Vs. Robin specifically to the point that GDQ’s awakening run even framed it like that when polling for what ending to do). none of this is pointed out! and even if fans explore it (although if it’s only done by chrobin fans that’s also limiting if you don’t like the pairing), it can be very frustrating when it’s not done at all in game and especially with awakening’s particular storytelling and themes. so saying he’s a hypocrite, while enough for people who dig into that fan content, might not be enough for some people who don’t like that the protagonist doesn’t have any of his flaws really acknowledged as flaws as the game goes by and fans have to do it to flesh him out more past a certain point because he doesn’t really grow as a person or leader past ch10! that’s why i don’t like him, at least. i’d like him a lot more if they delved into that a lot more

anyways i didn’t come in here to write a chrom essay i do enough of that in my friends’ dms when i wax poetic about awakening still weekly a decade after first playing it i came in here to advertise THE DRAMA CDS because they are REALLY GOOD and if YOU want complexity to YOUR CHROM then DRAMA CD 2 is TRANSLATED and AVAILABLE for YOU. seriously please read it it’s the most i’ve ever liked chrom because he gets exactly what i wanted from the main game — challenged by the people around him in a way that he has to learn and grow from. it takes place around ch10 and it’s about some of the Shepherds getting separated from the main force as they’re fleeing Plegia. it’s literally so good please no matter what side you’re on re: Chrom please read it it’s good for him and everyone else involved

.

[wordsandrobots]

If there's one thing I crave more of from IBO, it's Bauduin sibling interactions. I've watched that scene with them McGillis in S1E11 more times than I can count.

I do like that we've gotten a few more pieces of the Bauduin family situation from the side-stories. Almiria's assessment of marriage as a man and woman living together in the same house, eating together, going out together, and arguing once a month suggests certain very specific things about Lord and Lady Bauduin's relationship, perhaps making sense of why Gaelio and Almiria's mother is nowhere to be seen come the start of the series. Although, saying that, *none* of the Seven Star kids' mothers appear to be a presence in their lives. When Carta and Iok lose their fathers (effectively and actually), they're placed with guardians rather than being raised by their other parent. Which is probably yet another aspect of the predominance of bloodlines in Gjallarhorn's social mores. When only one parent truly 'counts', intimacy is going to be the first casualty.

I think a lot about how that applies to the Bauduin kids. Because they clearly know each other well enough to be properly annoying, and their father shows genuine concern for them, so I don't imagine their home-life was particularly cold or remote. At the same time, I wonder how much contact Gaelio and Almiria have actually had. The implication is that he's at a boarding school in his teens and then on to military academy. It's possible he only ever saw Almiria during holidays and while on leave. If we're being generous, we might use that to explain why he stresses her babyishness so much -- he's literally missed seeing her grow up. Although, even if that is true, Gaelio is 1) a jerk and 2) kind of weird about the status Almiria throws herself into living up to.

Don't get me wrong, he really needed that 'learning to be a better person by exposure to normal people' arc. Yet we see he has contempt for the corrupt, the underhanded and, significantly, for the specific people in his social circle. "The guests are even more vulgar than usual," indeed! I'd imagine childhood spent in proximity to those in Iok's mould would not give you a good impression of your peers. Coupling that to the whole 'running for the hills when people propose to him', it's feasible Gaelio finds Almiria ridiculous for affecting manners he himself resents. He's standing there, isolated by his status as Gallus' heir, with McGillis and Carta as his only actual friends, and Carta going like that as she gets older, and here's his baby sister acting all prim, too naive to understand she's being used as a pawn. It's small wonder he turns to mocking sarcasm.

For her part, Almiria is caught between the reality of being a child and the expectations placed upon her by the adults in her life. As much as Gaelio mocks her, she *can't* be a baby, or else the whole political structure of their lives falls apart. Being ridiculed for being a little girl is exceptionally cruel in the context of having her husband picked out for her when she was five. Like, what do you want from her, you bastards? Because what you got was a kid who idolised the idea of being grown up as a kind of freedom, while being unable to conceptualise it beyond the social structures that caused her to be in this situation to begin with. Gah, sorry, I know it's off the point, but I am constantly struck by how Almiria in some ways has it worse than the kids who are actually homeless. At least they have some measure of personal autonomy.

Anyway, jerk or no, I still think Gaelio cares for his sister and was sincerely afraid for her following what McGillis said at Edmonton, albeit in a 'I am her big brother so I should be protecting her' sort of way rather than necessarily protecting Almiria the person. I played into that hard when I approached writing their relationship post-canon: with how they were raised and the gaps between them it caused, I feel it's reasonable to assume they each have an idea of the other that causes them certain emotions, without necessarily knowing one another. They are both good at loving shadows, after all, and even if it is genuinely love, I think it would take some very hard conversations to make them close.

(For plot reasons, I weighted that towards Gaelio seeing what he expects/wants while Almiria gains a better understanding of what's going on between his ears, but it's still rather superficial on both sides. Gaelio tries. He really does. Almiria . . . well. Ahem. I did Things with Almiria as a character.)

In terms of scenes we could have gotten but didn't, I'd personally want to see a Bauduin family meal. Gallus, Mrs Gallus, Gaelio and Almiria, all round a table together. Probably a very big one that made it impossible to have comfortable conversations, with fancy food and servants fading into the walls. It'd be the dinner from hell, one way or another, but I'd love to get a glimpse at the full dynamic.

[ellies-rambles]

I do see how I misunderstood your original post, apologies. However, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re assigning motives and connections where there are none. Angus says very clearly what he’s packing and why, his motives are explicitly laid out and doesn’t offer any sort of clue that he might not be telling the truth. He doesn’t make any mention of the draft before, during, or after this scene— in the case of the restaurant scene, he says that he’ll be sent to Vietnam as a result of attending Fork Union, not because he was drafted.

If you want to talk about draft dodgers, that’s cool and a very good and worthy thing to discuss as far as American politics go, but this movie is not about a boy who is actively trying to dodge the draft. He’s 17, he’s not at risk of being drafted until at least his 18th birthday, so he wouldn’t be preemptively preparing for something like this— what good could wearing a swimsuit like that on vacation do in terms of being drafted? He’d have to wear it to his assessment; just owning that piece of clothing isn’t enough proof that he intended to use it for that purpose. Also, as far as draft dodging techniques go, there are ways that were much easier for someone like Angus to do; a big, popular choice was going to college, or faking a medical condition— hell, with the trauma history to his shoulder, he might not even be eligible for the draft in the first place, depending on how it healed and what functionality he’s capable of (which, to be fair, in the film, it seems like he makes a speedy recovery).

Anyway, my point is, claiming to be gay to avoid the draft, whether true or not, was a very extreme choice, and there were things he could have done that would be easier and less damaging. In 1970, when the bulk of this movie takes place, homosexuality was still classified as a psychiatric disorder. People were hospitalized and criminalized for being gay. In America, it was still classified as a mental illness up until 1973, began being decriminalized in 1961, and wasn’t until 2003 where all the laws left that were anti-gay began to be invalidated (of course, recently, we’ve seen discriminatory laws being put back into place, but I digress). There was a very big stigma around being gay back then, and, if Angus showed up to his drafting station and claimed to be gay, he wouldn’t be sent to Vietnam, but he also likely would not be going home to Boston either.

Again, it’s great to discuss the ethics of the draft and dodging it, but this movie doesn’t talk about it because that’s not what this movie is about. Angus dodging the draft is not brought up, because this movie is not the story of a troubled boy who is dodging the draft, along with other hardships in his life.

If you want to watch a movie about the draft/dodging the draft, I suggest The Boys Who Said NO! (2020, dir. judith ehrlich) which, while not fiction, does paint a very good picture of what the environment and conversation around draft dodging was at the time, and gives a tidy little retrospective of the implications of these actions.

First off, you sound like that person who sent that weird essay to maia crimew. Second off, please take a film studies or film analysis course. Just because the film isn't ACTIVELY about something doesn't mean it's not a theme. Third, Angus is a junior who repeated a grade. Fourth, (this list is out of order with your ask) gay men fully could not join the military. It wasn't just if they were drafted. It's also very silly to me that you're acting like you know a lot about Vietnam drafting but using dodging instead of resisting. I'm a queer woman who has studied prep schools during the Vietnam era very intensely. Just because something wasn't popular doesn't mean it didn't happen. I am a film student, the curtains are never just blue. The filmmaker's intention ultimately doesn't matter. There is an underlying theme of Vietnam War fears throughout that movie and I literally just identified one. Grow up <3

[askshivanulegacy]

That thing about carbon emissions for T Swift is also inaccurate—someone broke the math down here:

https://zulie.medium.com/lets-fact-check-that-taylor-swift-private-jet-usage-story-32d226bd3682

Plus she paid for twice as many carbon offsets as necessary to negate the Eras Tour:

https://www.insider.com/taylor-swift-spent-160-hours-using-private-jet-eras-tour-2023-8?amp

“Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel.”

People say a lot of misleading or flat out incorrect things about her. It’s popular to hate on her. People bring up a photograph with a ‘fan’ who hid his shirt until the photo went off so she would be smiling next to a swaztika. They bring up a phone call with Kanye where it turned out the (illegal) recording was edited in a misleading way and actually Taylor was telling the truth the whole time.

There’s other stuff people accuse her of, but it’s all similar bullshit. None of it adds up.

I went digging because I was wondering the same thing. The worst I found was ‘not using her platform for politics’ but when I looked into that… Ugh, gonna be anon so no Swifties come for me, but she’s just…she’s liberal (at least on social issues) but she went to a private Christian homeschooling program for her junior/senior year because they could accommodate her touring schedule. In one of her tour movies (Reputation), a stage designer says something is the size of a Boeing 737, and she has no idea what that is.

She likes books and stuff, and she writes beautiful lyrics, which make Swifties assume she’s a nerdy genius, but being good at English isn’t connected to being good at history or sociology or political science.

Basically, I don’t think she’s an idiot or anything, but I think she maybe isn’t very well versed in politics. She’s said she’s trying to educate herself, but still. If she hasn’t got the background or relevant knowledge…isn’t it better that she keep listening and researching rather than spouting off a half-cocked opinion when she has so many rabid fans? So, to me, ‘not using her platform enough’ (because she only uses it to drive youth voting registration and a handful of clear cut political topics) is ultimately a good thing.

Anyway. Apart from that, I legit couldn’t find anything except a couple months of chaste dating another teen when she was a teen herself. She was 19, he was 17, they went to a couple hockey games together. Both were out of high school and he was like…two months from being 18. They’re still friends.

For some people, that’s unforgivable, I guess? But… I dunno, man, seems like normal behavior to me. (Of course, I’m used to countries where you become an adult at 20, so that might be a factor on my part.)

Anyway. No idea if any of this was helpful. I just thought I’d write in because I tried doing the same digging about why she’s so problematic. Instead I found people complaining about the porn preferred by a guy she was seen next to at a mutual friend’s birthday party. People keep saying they dated, but I can’t find any actual proof of even that. (It also led me down a rabbit hole on that guy where I found out the complaint ‘he literally did a nazi salute at a concert’ was about him mockingly doing one during a song about idiots. Apparently he was trying to say Nazis are stupid or something? Not a great way to do it, but completely different from the accusation.)

Anyway. That’s all I could find. 🤷‍♀️ I couldn’t even verify the billionaire thing—everyone cites Bloomberg, but Bloomberg just credits an unnamed ‘analyst’ who doesn’t show their work. Which is wild to me.

But yeah. That’s all the digging turned up for me. Hopefully this ask can spare you a few hours of fruitless googling.

Thanks so much for the detailed info! I'm currently halfway through a YouTube vid that I'm speeding through just for funsies, and yeah, between that and post comments, it's all pointing to similar things: she basically had a golden girl start in life, funded by reasonably rich parents, and rose to stardom.

Good for her. People are whining that "she should do more" and I'm here to ask ... WHY. Why should she? Because she has money? Because she's famous? Isn't it enough for an artist to simply make the art she wants to make? Why should she be expected to do more, and why is NOT choosing to do that suddenly a moral failing? Like, it's an utter non-issue. It's the opposite of hurting anyone. She gets to decide what to do with her time and her money and maybe it's not what her fans want, but who cares.

I could understand being upset if she actively used her money to do something bad, but not using it is just not using it.

And everything else? Non-issues too. People can have boyfriends. And people get to associate with whoever they want and they are not responsible for that person's questionable dealings.

And the carbon emissions thing is such a joke anyway. I admit I don't know much about it, but the premise of "paying money to offset carbon" is obnoxious and has no meaning. No normal person needs to be concerned about that. That is firmly rooted in corporations, who can and should bear all the costs to change what they're doing.

[cbsghostsmetasandtrevor]

CBS Ghosts - Viking Funeral - Ghosts Are Annoying Part 1

Warning Spoilers May Appear.

So, Sam just got done arguing with her husband - in which the Ghosts sided with Jay (not that he knows it), and she's clearly working - they immediately come to bother her so more.

Side note - in the last episode, Trevor looked something up for Isaac, but he chases Pete into the room as they both decide to ask Sam to look something up rather than have Trevor do it.

I head canon that Pete asked Trevor (because he clearly likes using his power) but Trevor's tired from helping Isaac the other day (and it would take forever) so he goes to Sam.

Alternatively, Trevor attempted to help Pete with the research, but Jay stole the computer from him (intentionally or unintentionally).

Anyway, it feels very clear that there was some sort of conversation with Pete & Trevor that leads to Trevor chasing Pete into the living room to talk to Sam.

Side note - we learn that Pete died roughly 37 years ago (or we could assume since he's asking about the last 37 years). Interestingly, we know (from PW) that he died in 1985, so a guess from this one is pretty good.

Now for Trevor, I like that he walks AROUND the wall into the shot. This is one of those moments where you can see that he has forgotten that he's a ghost.

Also, we can assume they've introduced themselves, but it's funnier if they still haven't and yet, are making requests.

Awww Trevor's interested in his stocks. Really building on that "wolf of wall street".

Interestingly, people give him BS for his top three - Circuit City, Enron and Blockbuster, but we have to remember that he died in 2000 and I imagine that (at least with Blockbuster) that they were pretty popular at that time.

I love his counting hand gesture.

Okay. I love that Alberta just waltz in - right to the center of the room - and completely ignores that Pete, Trevor and Sam were talking to

A) ask about Spotify

B) insult Jay's music choices

and C) ask to listen TO HERSELF.

Alberta - really? You don't do enough singing on your own, you want to listen to yourself? DAMN.

I mean, it's one thing to want to listen to Jazz rather than "the racket" - and I think this is funny since he insults Country music later - but it's entirely another thing to want to listen to yourself when you already sing often enough to bore the ghosts.

This is just a whole different level of self-centered. Pete, Trevor and Sass all display a level of self-centeredness here (hey do this for me despite being busy), but this... is interesting... plus, she completely ignores what's already going on her.

Sam's too polite here. She asks for a minute and none of them acknowledge it - not helped at all about Sass entering the room.

At least they're all minute things?

LMAO - Sass is like "I wanna smell pizza" - Given the interaction here between Mr. I want Pizza Sass and Sam - he CLEARLY knows that she just ate a salad so he wants her to waste food just so he could smell it?

Why not ask when she was making the salad? Why not say maybe later? Or point out the waste it would be?

Anyway, I Love Sass' "What am I supposed to do with that?" Because yeah, Salads don't have a smell.

Side note - Pete and Trevor just like glancing at Sass like "seriously"? Cute.

Since Pete was LITERALLY First, I can't believe Alberta (who straight up ignores that they were OBVIOUSLY there before her) is like "You have to take a number" - SERIOUSLY ALBERTA??

LMAO she's just like "I was here first" despite knowing she wasn't.

I wonder if she thought that being "ghost older" than Pete and Trevor that would make her request first? That would be very interesting and largely unfair.

Too bad the Alexa thing hasn't happened yet because then she wouldn't have to bother Sam. That should come up more.

I love that Trevor stands up to Alberta - even though she's throws a stomp around at the refusal. He's RIGHT, but Alberta thinks she should be first. Alberta stamping her foot is very childlike. (8 idiot children - so fitting).

I wonder if Pete would've said anything - because he doesn't look like he was planning on it and given his crush and his peacemaker side, he likely would've just waited had Trevor not said "you know what - no".

This scene is so much funnier if Sam is learning their names as arguments happen.

Pete's just like "yeah - so back to my request", Trevor's like "cool this will take a second", Alberta starts SINGING and Sass is like "Just put in some toast" - LMAO.

This is too fucking funny.

Well - to me - not to Sam.

Poor Sam.

I LOVE that she finally HAS ENOUGH. She basically told them what terms she needed to make this work - give me a request and leave me alone and I'll do it.

I have to wonder how long it's been since they agreed to leave her alone if she did them favor. Interestingly enough - it's Trevor and Alberta - whose initial requests were denied (even if Alberta's comes back in Season 2) and Pete, who did not have a request bothering her.

Is this because technically they didn't get anything? So, they're like "well, now I want something"? That would be very interesting.

Anyway, I love their face when she stands up for herself - LITERALLY GO SAM - but it is nice for them to realize that there's a problem here and figure that they do need to be considerate of her and what she's doing.

Excited for more.

Thanks for reading :)

If you like it, please feel free to chat.

[onewomancitadel]

I am serious, I won't touch S/uccession again, it's just such a great example of the kind of thing I am interested in (which is pretty much psychonanalytic... lol). The interface of archetypes is so interesting and I think it does express itself as a mechanism for cultivated cultural/social attitudes (be it as it may) which transcend popular social justice talking points and speak even deeper to particular moral, emotional, spiritual attitudes... I absolutely think the social justice angle is well-intentioned, it's just not comprehensive enough for me (and pretty much cannot be reconciled with the 'fiction doesn't real' position, but that is neither here nor there. My quibble is to what capacity does fiction real or does fiction reflect social attitudes, which is not an extreme position on my part at all, and it's frankly absurd the leaps that so-called 'antis' take. They need a better name).

Why is it that we make these judgements, how do they overall affect our interactions with storytelling, do they or do they not reflect real life attitudes, etc., like if you knew Shiv in real life as a human being would you treat her differently from her fictional self (I think fictional characters are distinct from real people; this is why people don't need to self-flagellate over 'feeling bad' for the wrong guy, because the point of the narrative is empathetic engagement. It's just interesting that it can actually happen in the reverse: there are people whom I otherwise agree with re: social justice politics that I have blocked because they talked mad shit about Cinder being unsympathetic).

I also don't think that there is just The Bad Attitudes some Bad People have, and when you get rid of the Bad Attituder Interface Component, they are the Good People with Good Narrative Interpretations. Interpretation narratively is never that flat; there is never going to be total concordance about what is or isn't the most ideal story, even with accompanying political responsibility and ostensibly clear goals of empowerment. (What does 'empowerment' mean in storytelling anyway? Is it physical might? Is it the strong female protagonist who kills people? What about humanisation? Do characters of one type come with a responsibility that others don't? So on). The reality is that the way you interact with stories is the way everybody does and there is no clear-cut way to having All of the Correct Opinions. That will literally drive you insane. This is why I return to asking deeper questions about narrative and thematic goals and why I argue for representation on the grounds of artistic excellence. It's not a popular idea, I'll give you that, but it's pretty much the only position I can personally reconcile between recognising art doesn't have political responsibility or morally didactic responsibility and yes, censorship of comprehensive artistic products is bad, but there is incentive to tell stories from every fabric of human experience... and that the humanisation of characters (and their homes, cultures, experiences etc.) matters.

So the Bad Attituder Interface Component won't go away - and sure, some people do just have bad opinions - but I think that's kind of the point? Because I do think art does reveal things about us, and is transformative in small ways too, and that's important. I think it is superficial to view it as an active political battleground (for good or ill; particularly from a governmental perspective - we don't want to encourage any attitude bordering on propaganda-mandated art... lol... these are the logical conclusions!) but equally you can learn things through it. Besides, none of the beliefs we harbour are distinct from one another - or organised in separate compartments in our hearts - even when they sometimes might seem conflicting with one another - and so I can never view narrative response through the flat lense of 'are you or aren't you a misogynist?' Which you have every reason to disengage from, be it racism or homophobia or transphobia or anti-Semitism, but equally I think it's a little superficial to view things that way. Which, honestly, isn't just a Leftist thing at all; the gender anxieties are just a little different.

I'm always worried I'm secretly a bad person and everybody hates me, especially because I had some really horrific online friendships on Tumblr when I was a teenager where my every move was scrutinised (I don't mean this in a 'I got told I was racist and it was terrible' type of thing; I mean I had my eating disorder explained back to me about why it was really addiction type of thing where my every move/word was scrutinised and I had to be constantly vigilant; I was sixteen and she was twenty-six) and I still pretty much exist with that watchman in my head, lol. So maybe what I'm talking about isn't the same sort of anxiety other people have anymore because it has been a few years lol; in fact the majority of asks taking me to task have been about misandry, so I would say with my - regular audience? - things don't exactly pan out the way I necessarily expect. But equally for that crowd what I've laid out here is true, and I would say that a real political urgency assigned to narrative interpretation isn't, and has never been, the blue-haired SJW thing. Think back to the way DND was characterised as Satanic. Or that reading was bad for women.

Point being I don't tend to view misogyny or social evil as its own superstructure; I think it is beholden to (deeper) psychological tools, and you can see those expressed in narrative response, and the conversation - for me personally - doesn't begin and end there, usually.

[something-like-a-heart]

I just reblogged something that made me think a little bit about my personal experience of neurodivergence, that thing about how autistic characters on TV insult people, argue with the characters they’ve insulted (usually unintentionally) instead of apologising, and seem to be incredibly confident like they’ve never had to learn that people will get sick of you and abandon you at some point, once you’ve crossed a particular line in the sand through one of your behaviours, and you won’t see it coming until after they’ve done it. So you try your best not to be accidentally annoying or insulting or “too much” in any way, but it still happens and it’s your fault; when you get lonely, and people tell you that you’ll have to “be yourself” to make friends. Meanwhile, “being yourself” is what lost you these people in the first place. “Being yourself” is dangerous. Shall we say, it touched a nerve.

Anyway, it largely tracks with my experience of neurodivergence far more accurately than most of what I’ve seen in neurodivergent representation onscreen. Even when characters who read as autistic or otherwise ND on television or in the movies do cross that line, their friends will usually take them back. Meanwhile, I’ve had friends, good friends (or at least people who I thought were good friends) suddenly just cut me out of their lives for no apparent reason—at least, none that were apparent to me. Sometimes it gets back to me that they thought I was annoying, that I was too weird, that I laughed too hard or didn’t smile enough or that I had insulted them somehow (though I never really find out how, because apparently I already know what I did, which is ridiculous; I would not be asking if I actually knew what the issue is). I do my best to be polite and not show it when I’m in a state of sensory overload or I’m emotionally overwhelmed (and that last one has been harder to deal with than usual since my mother died five months ago). I try to act appropriately at all times but damn, is it HARD. And no matter how “normal” I try to act, some of my less “normal” traits always come through.

I’m extremely fidgety and always have been. It’s difficult for me to figure out when it’s actually my turn to speak in many situations, leading to me either being ignored or accidentally interrupting. I feel emotions very powerfully—the problem is that I’m not great at expressing them until they reach a point where they’re damn near unbearable. I over-explain because I’ve been misunderstood too damn many times throughout my lifetime, but people don’t listen because an explanation is considered to be little more than a poor excuse at best and passive-aggressive at worst. I’ve also been accused of passive-aggressive behaviour when attempting to take responsibility and make amends for something that I know I’ve messed up. When I’m emotionally overwhelmed or in a state of sensory overload I temporarily lose the ability to speak. I am always as precise in my words as I am able to be (again because I’ve so frequently been misunderstood) and although it’s been the source of some of my funniest jokes, I’ve also often been accused of taking things too literally; people sometimes assume that I’m actually too stupid to understand figurative language. I can be extremely blunt if I’m not careful, and I have to focus on smiling because my natural tendency is to have a very neutral expression on my face, especially when I’m in a state of hyperfocus. I misread situations badly if they don’t resemble things I’ve encountered before. And no matter how much energy I put into making myself acceptable, I never quite seem to manage it. I mean, I do my best not to be an asshole, but I just don’t, and probably can’t, perceive things from the same perspective as most people, so sometimes I get it horribly and catastrophically wrong.

This is why I don’t like playing new-to-me board or card games with people who already know the rules very well. It’s a bit too much like the most frustrating parts of my everyday life—everyone else already knows the rules, but if I make a mistake because of a rule that I didn’t know, or that I forgot because I had to absorb a lot of complex information all at once, people get mad at me and accuse me of trying to cheat.

And yet, I feel like I’m not actually allowed to claim neurodivergence. I’ve never been formally assessed or diagnosed with anything. That’s why I often tag my posts and reblogs about neurodiversity as “probably autistic”—I’ve been told by a few people who have a good reason to recognise the signs of certain types of neurodivergence that I probably am on the autistic spectrum, but without a proper diagnosis I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’m just making excuses for inexcusably immature attitudes and behaviour. Either way, I’ve gone through a significant amount of my life feeling like I have a defective brain, and I can’t help but be angry at myself sometimes for just not working the right way.

[winter-spark]

Alright so rudely one day I posted that My Grand Plan is a Tangerine and Navel song with 0 explanation, curse my headache. So now let me try to put the feelings I have about them and that song into words.

First let's discuss Tangerine, who is probably a more obvious fit for the song. Tangerine is the youngest of 4 and wasn't at all a part of the competition really because of it. But let's break it down by lyrics I feel like can line up with Tangerine.

You know the only gift my mom ever gave me? A hat that makes you invisible You put it on and no one can see you Seemed appropriate

So as I said Tangerine, is the youngest of 4. His brothers fighting for the throne, but he didn't really seem to be considered for it. He was thus invisible in the sense that automatically what he did meant less in the grand scheme of things. As for the first line, reading HQ made me feel like all Tangerine really had for the longest time was Citron. He didn't have a person like Guy, Mika or Orange's subordinate, seeing as Mika originally worked for Guy and now works for Tangerine and we don't see him interact with any subordinates besides Mika in that arc right? Plus Citron said he spent more time with Guy than either of his parents, I'm assuming that none of them spent the most time with their parents, but to me, Tangerine definitely spent the least time with his. I think his mom was completely mia. So yea.

This part in summary is to point out his estranged or well nonexistent relationship with his mother(and probably distant relationship with his dad), and how he was really the least paid attention to of his siblings.

I've always been a smart girl Always made the grade, always got the gold star I've always been a smart girl But smart girl only gets a girl so far

Once again the least paid attention to but he obviously had some instincts and stuff for a while as I believe in HQ Citron mentions how he'd always seen Tangerine's potential but now their father has too. Tangerine is smart and capable kid who has good ideas and when calm enough can make quick decisions as shown in Year 2. He didn't just spawn those traits they've been there. But it only got "rewarded"/noticed when he literally had to use those skills of his to direct the people out of a burning theater and the rest of his brothers had reason to be removed from the throne.

I think a lot of other lyrics are kinda vague or cross-over or whatever so let's discuss Navel next.

I've always been a tough girl Always been the one not to run from a fight Always been a tough girl 'Cause most girls never win if they're polite

Okay, so this is one of the not one-to-one situations I mentioned in the tags of the og post I'm talking about. (except I didn't have it completely analyzed at that point lol) Navel was in the running, so he's been actively fighting for the crown. He didn't back out even though his chances of taking the throne were extremely low, he stayed in the running enough that people preferred, either Orange or him over Citron. He was doing as well as he could for someone who wasn't going to win. And he knew he'd never win, not himself anyway.

So me, I tend to stand my ground I found I never can give in It may not be my quest But maybe it's mine to win

He was actively participating in the conversations and planning to get Orange to the throne. He couldn't beat out Citron and win the throne himself. But he can help his closer brother, Orange, do so. And he was there for it, he was an accomplice. Even if at times he seemed a bit hesitant he didn't back out or leave he stuck by Orange's side. He was gonna see it through.

Okay so a couple more thoughts then I'll wrap this up.

My grand plan Is that I will be remembered My grand plan Just you wait and see You better wise up, 'cause I'll rise up

They both feel like characters who would desire more but in different ways.

For Tangerine, I think he more never knew really he could have more. More in this case being trusted with the big responsibility of being heir. Sure a lot of responsibility could be a lot of pressure, but also he's being trusted to be the Kingdom's leader and on a much shorter timeline than Citron had. And he's doing well in preparation. So tying back in the lines, I think he's ready for the future to do more to show everyone what he's capable of.

For Navel, I think it's more of the longing for the throne. I've already stated he was never gonna win. Not in most scenarios. And I think that's something that would've always been apparent to him. He wants to be respected to be held in high regard so he's trying with all his might to be a good alternative heir, but all he gets really is the people who don't want it to be Citron basically being if not Orange than Navel. He's a spare for the spare and as cool as it is that his name is mentioned in the running he's still always only considered after Orange. He's still not an entity of his own. He's "or Navel". And it's the result of his fighting, but as I said, while he was able to get himself well known, he'd never beat Citron so as much as he wants to, the best he can really do is help Orange but that's all getting beside the point. The point being he wanted to be recognized and fighting for the throne was his best bet for that.

And your dad won't give you the time of day

This is definitely a cross-over line. I'm sure they saw the king but like also he's probably busy with Kingly duties or something. Especially because they were both at the end of the line, I'm sure that they had even less time with the King than Citron had. I honestly hesitate to reference Citron saying he spent more time with Guy than with his parents because like the amount of time he spent with Guy based on backstage stories and events, it wasn't hard for him to spend more time with Guy over his parents. However seeing as in the backstage "Innocence of the Royal Palace" it's revealed that there was a caretaker at the castle, there were definitely probably times that could've been spent with their dad but weren't because they were left with the caretaker instead.

But I promise you I'll never be invisible again Someone will notice Me

Whether they know/knew it or not yet, they do have someone who notices them each. Citron and Orange. (I strongly feel that Orange is to Navel, as Citron is to Tangerine) Citron and Orange are clearly each of their closest companions and maybe they don't fully count but I know having them there with them was definitely a big help for them growing up. Tangerine and Navel would've been a lot sadder if not close to them, I think. Like if their lives were the same just minus the close bond they have with the brother they have one with.

HOWEVER I do want to point out that even those two probably didn't have a full acknowledgement of them, or at least it felt like it at times. Citron and Orange were the closest to the throne so that's where a lot of their focus went so even though they were close with Tangerine and Navel, respectively. There's no way Tangerine and Navel didn't ever feel sidelined or somewhat less important by those two.

Like Tangerine was like "lets look at who's performing at the Ceremony :3" and Citron was like "actually I'm tired", while Tangerine surely understood I'm sure he also felt down. Like his brother, the person probably closest to him has been mia for like 2 or so years now, and he's been busy with the coronation stuff, you ask for maybe five minutes of his time but "of course you shouldn't have he's needs rest, his rest is important you should've thought of that before asking" and like I'm just using that as an example of what their childhoods might've at times been like. Like obviously there were lots of good times but also, Citron was in his own world sometimes so Tangerine would, of course, sometimes feel like dang. And how many times was it Tangerine asking to hang out with Citron rather than vice versa?

And on the end of Navel and Orange, I highly doubt they actively discussed discussed the way that Navel is working just as hard for the throne but he ends up Team Orange/not Citron rather than Team Navel and it doesn't come up in their conversations. When they're finalizing the mia Citron plan. Orange isn't like "this is the last chance we have to keep Citron from becoming King" he's more like "this is the last chance for me to become King" to his brother who is also in the running and I know I know Navel was gonna never win but he has to feel some sort of way about it. Like I'm sure that wording it like that was just an oversight but also how many times do you think Orange may have said something like that and not noticed the possible underlying pain it may have cause Navel because, well they are on the same team, why would that cross his mind? And why would Navel say anything, Orange is next, "why he's just stating facts. Why argue and possibly put yourself at odds with your best friend over something true. Yea, you're also fighting for the throne but like what are the chances you're actually gonna get it, a lot less than Orange's that's for sure." Does Navel have a subordinate?

But whatever to all that, now times have changed and adjusted. They're gonna get to have all their brothers see them and learn who they are more. Tangerine has Mika, people want his input and his ideas and he gets to work to implement them/things, Navel can discover himself outside of the throne and people want to know what he's finding interesting now(even if for now it's just his brothers asking how his studies are going). And honestly, I think all in all that's what they really wanted, to be cared about and seen and taken an interest in.

(I really wanted to end off positively so I hope that last part makes sense lol.)

Also here's a link to the song in case you want to listen to it and think about them now ^^ :

[phoenixyfriend]

OKAY so on the topic of Star Wars takes wrt “character ends up in an A/B/O universe where they’re an omega, but they were previously a cis male in their canon”

@atagotiak and I had some Thoughts on discord

So, obviously, Anakin would make a good omega and he’s also incredibly murdery. Foregone conclusion that we're using him for this.

There is no preexisting Anakin in the Omegaverse. He shows up JUST as the war is starting. Canon timeline is in the third year of the war (he’s 22), but whatever dumped him into omegaverse also tossed him back a few years. No de-aging, just a bit of mismatched timeline stuff.

He's... really good at war, and clearly a Jedi, so the Temple just kind of goes "WELL OKAY THEN, SURE, YOU'RE IN, EVERYONE PRETEND HE'S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME." The Jedi, by and large, don't care about omegaverse dynamics beyond 'what do you need, medically, to be happy and healthy' and 'what do you need to be aware of so you can be prepared for biases you encounter in the field?’

None of the civilian natborns (mainly politicians) want to put him on the field because of those biases. Anakin, being Anakin, is VERY blatantly an omega in scent, has never been on suppressants (because it wasn't a thing he fucking NEEDED), is incredibly emotional as a person, loves kids, etc.

Like, nobody wants an omega fighting a war anyway, but THIS one is like PINNACLE omega, and those awful Jedi are making him FIGHT just because he's good at stab!

The Jedi: Actually, it's because he's got several years of war experience that we don't, and he's a good tactician that works well with the clones-- Coruscant: You MONSTERS The Jedi: Look, we gave him the option to not stab and he looked absolutely devastated. Anakin, several days earlier: You don’t want me? I’m not good enough??? Jedi: Also he can beat up at least half the temple.

He doesn't know a damn thing about dynamics, but he DOES know that sometimes he's so horny he wants to stab HARDER. The clones are largely disinterested in their generals' dynamics because between mostly-Mando* trainers and no-dynamic Kaminoans, they only really care if a person can shoot.

* Mandalore approves of Fighty Omegas. As far as (traditional) Mandalore is concerned, you want an omega that will kill the threats to your children as well as you do.

Anakin: You know more about being an omega than I do. Rex: ...I'm an alpha. Anakin: Yeah. Let that one sink in a bit.

We have two options for Obi-Wan!

Omegaverse local Obi-Wan (beta) has never met this man before, and is very unnerved that the immediate default reaction Anakin has to his presence is releasing Family pheromones as if Obi-Wan is his DAD and like. This strange, too-tall man from another dimension has got absolutely NO control over what he projects in the Force OR in his dynamic.

Obi-Wan was ALSO transplanted from canon to omegaverse, and is also an omega, for contrast reasons. He is nice and friendly and and likes poetry and that sort of thing... but also he has the highest dismemberment count in the movies. Also he doesn’t prioritize romance.

We went with the second one because it's hilarious.

Someone watching them spar: Wow, omegas from that universe are terrifying.

As previously mentioned, now with some tweaking to account for both: Obi-Wan and Anakin just straight up don't exist until they drop headfirst into the council room, already covered in blood. (It's mostly not theirs.)

Nobody realizes either one is an omega until they "naturalize" to this dimension and Anakin goes into heat... and doesn't realize it, actually, because his primary symptom is heightened protectiveness and aggression. Everyone else with the right nose realizes, because the man has no control over his pheromone production, but Anakin? No. He just stabs. He’s angry and horny and he will cut someone.

Ahsoka has no reaction to human pheromones but basically everyone smells Anakin's "my child!" reaction to her, so... Cool. Have a padawan, we guess.

Anakin ends up sparring a lot with Aayla and Ahsoka, because only humans and near humans have dynamics, so these two don't REACT to the pheromones situation.

(Palpatine is a Kindly Old Beta who tries to treat Anakin the way he EXPECTS Anakin wants to be treated, which is. Not. Accurate.)

(Anakin hates it.)

I'm just so in love with "An omega can't fight." "You wanna fuckin' bet?"

There are plenty of omega Jedi, by the way, it's just... most of them can keep it relatively low-key instead of Anakin's jet-engine broadcast. Some, if they're known to be omega, probably take advantage of being underestimated, like Obi-Wan probably (and especially a version of Obi-Wan that was always an omega, unlike this version). They have a very different way of presenting themselves than Anakin, who's not subtle about being an omega and also not subtle about being all aggressive and stabby.

At one point, Anakin has to protect some Very Traditional Individuals who get all "Stay back, Omega, it's not safe!" and he's just... so tired of this shit. “You are squishy civilians and I'm a trained Jedi Knight and accomplished GAR General who's killed more people in one sitting than there are in this entire palace. Sit the fuck down and let me do my job.”

It starts making the rounds that Anakin insisted on fighting in person, and the rumors shift from "how dare the Jedi force an omega to fight" and over into things that are deeply hurtful in-universe in the vein of "broken omega" and some people try to say it to his face but like...

He didn't grow up here.

He doesn't care.

Say that to one of his friends and he's going to rip out your spleen, probably, but say it to him and he's just staring at you flatly and asking if that's a negative on getting away from the encroaching battle droids, sir?

"You're rather unpleasant for an omega, aren't you?" [deeply offensive] "I literally could not give less of a fuck about your opinion. Move."

It's not that there aren't omegas that act like Anakin, either, it's just that most of them aren't, you know, Jedi who regularly interact with the upper crust, or capable of his level of destruction. Unbeknownst to Anakin, everyone clocks him as Outer Rim based on his behavior, well before his accent gives him away, and certainly before he mentions he's from Tatooine, because Core Omegas Don't Act Like That.

Someone they meet in a more diplomatic setting says something decently passive-aggressive about how at least Obi-Wan acts more like how an Omega should. Then a battle breaks out for some reason, and... well. Anakin and Obi-Wan cause such a scandal by keeping score of kills in a battle, don’t you know?

Turns out sending Anakin to fight Ventress is great because she keeps expecting him to react a certain way but NO he's here to STAB.

I like the idea that Obi-Wan's favorite opponent these days is Grievous because the cyborg doesn't have a nose, and thus gives zero fucks about dynamics or heats. Dooku is a rich old man who has opinions heavily influenced by Sith Juice Making Him More of a Dick, and the Dathomiri can smell dynamics even if they don't have them, and so they have biases about those things. Meanwhile, Grievous is just there to Kill, and Obi-Wan genuinely appreciates the lack of commentary on his dynamic.

Dooku’s probably an alpha, or a beta who's used the whole "we are more level-headed" thing as one of several angles to keep himself the public face and supreme commander of the CIS.

On to more fluffy things that have less to do with political biases.

There's a lot of "I'm upset that my loved ones don't know me," but also please understand the appeal of Obi-Wan marching up to Quinlan like "Yes, hello, I understand you've been read in on the full situation behind myself and my former padawan. I was close friends with your alternate universe self, which I feel is necessary disclosure before I propose the following: Would you like to join me for my upcoming heat, as I have minimal experience with the dynamics situation and even fewer people I actually trust, and I believe I can put my faith in you to treat it as casually as necessary while still having control and respect for my person."

(The Team is in a fairly safe place to process stuff, but having sudden unexpected changes to your biology has gotta be a little traumatizing, on top of ending up in a universe where none of your friends know you and people have a whole host of unfamiliar forms of sexism to point at you.)

Obi-Wan, who wasn't quite touch-averse but was much more easily overwhelmed by physical contact than Anakin (who craved it), suddenly finds his body switching gears and insisting on cuddles with Trusted Loved Ones, which is.... mostly Anakin, on account of nobody else really knowing him yet. Also Ahsoka, who is aware that she's something of a replacement for her alt-universe self, but Anakin explained it as "I love you so much no matter which dimension I'm in or what you're like, and I'd like to get to know you the way I got know her."

(It's rather eloquent for Anakin. He got Obi-Wan to help him draft up the script for when he pitched taking on omegaverse Ahsoka as a padawan.)

Anakin gets a more intensely sexual heat than 'usual' at one point for Reasons (IDK it could be as innocuous as 'we got better food than the usual rations and my body is reacting to the higher fat content with the belief that it's safer to have a baby now'), which nobody takes a whole lot of notice of because they're in a WAR, and also this is only his fourth one so it's not like he's got a lot to compare it to... except then the predominantly alpha clones can't stop themselves from reacting to the pheromones, mostly by wandering past his door and asking if he needs anything, offering up alpha-scented blankets and stuff for the nest to soothe the hormones, bringing snacks and electrolyte drinks, and like, Anakin is flattered, really, but fuck off please.

(He got a warning from medical a few hours before it hit that it would be different, so he actually does have alpha-scented fabrics to help him out. Apparently that's a thing you can just ask friends for, so he asked Rex if he had anything on hand that he could spare. He now has one of Rex’s recently-used sheets and a bodyglove in the nest.)

(Anakin has no idea how to feel about the nesting instinct, but at least it’s warm.)

Tia asked "Oh hey, who has the scared and horny reaction to his carnage?" and like.

Listen. I'm not saying I've been low-key imagining this as Rex being a very subby alpha who's really into Anakin's whole Thing but...

At one point Anakin gets injured in a way that requires painkillers and he ends up whining to the point of almost crying about the fact that nobody is cuddling him right now in medbay and Kix just gives up and comms Ahsoka to come hug her weird older brother.

And Then There Is Purring.

That’s a Thing Now.

Rex ends up in the pile somehow. He came over to check on Things and ended up yanked in by half-asleep, half-high Anakin, who has a grip like an octopus and no impulse control and is purring like a pod motor while NUZZLING HIM.

There’s a lot of blackmail photos featuring Rex’s very intense blush as he’s cuddled by his commander (giggling at him) and general (clinging like a tooka and rubbing himself all over).

Anakin is deeply offended that ANYONE thinks he'd want to get pregnant by just any old person, NO he needs to fall in LOVE there needs to be EMOTIONAL DRAMA and if Padme won't have him (apparently she's in a relationship and no he's not BITTER) then he'll find someone else to have a whirlwind romance with!

People think Anakin's a slut because he can't control his pheromone production (he has NO practice and for health reasons he can't go on suppressants) so he always smells open and ready for flirtations, which Obi-Wan also has to a somewhat lesser degree (he's older so his body just naturally produces less), and then someone tries to cross a boundary and grabs his ass and ANYWAY Anakin has to now fill out an incident report for breaking a civilian's arm.

Again.

[contemplativepancakes]

Geralt is possibly the least interesting vampire in the world. Jaskier is strangely okay with that. 4k, G. read on AO3 here!

for @theamazingbard (:

Geralt holds up two ties in front of the mirror, comparing the fabrics against his suit. By now, he’s used to the headless suit that reflects back at him in the mirror. Geralt’s never been one to overly question things, so he couldn’t tell you why vampires don’t show up in mirrors, but really, that’s fine. A relief, even.

He’s not sure he wants to know what he looks like. He knew once, before he was turned. He wasn’t exactly a looker then, and he highly doubts he is now.

Geralt chooses the black tie with the tiny dots instead of the black tie with the stripes, and clips it on to his suit. What? He can’t be expected to tie a tie every single day. He smooths it down over his chest. Satisfied, he sits down on the bed to tie his dress shoes. Reliable double knots.

He walks down the hall to crouch in front of the refrigerator, pulling out one of the bags of blood he keeps there. He pauses to look at the label. It’s his favorite, AB. He tucks it into his lunchbox, then pauses to rip one open and dump it into his travel mug. He pours some protein powder in it to make the blood coagulate. He can definitely see the appeal of this boba tea the humans have been drinking recently.

As he heads out the door, he darkens a little as he looks at his neighbors’ decorations. He hates Halloween. A time for people to get everything wrong about monsters. They live with them, the least they could do is be a little considerate and do their research.

No, they can’t repel Geralt with garlic. He scowls at the thought.

Geralt’s distracted from his thoughts as a young man runs by him out of seemingly nowhere and falls on the sidewalk just in front of him, his knee splitting open.

Geralt rubs a hand on his neck as the man looks up at him beseechingly.

“Uh. Do you need any help?”

“My, you’re ever so kind,” the man says, extending a hand that Geralt uses to pull him to his feet.

“Probably want to get that cleaned off,” Geralt says. “Make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“Oh, dear! You’re right. Would it be possible for me to use your sink?” he asks, batting his eyelashes.

Geralt squints. “I...guess?”

“Oh, thank you!”

Geralt unlocks his door and leads the man into his bathroom, graciously pretending not to notice the man looking around the apartment in wide eyed fascination. He must not know that Geralt is a vampire, then, or he wouldn’t be so quick to ask Geralt for help. People around here avoid Geralt for the most part.

“I’m Jaskier,” the man says, as he bends his leg so his knee is right under the faucet. Geralt politely looks away when he notices how the motion makes the material of his pants stretch right across the seat of his ass.

“Geralt,” he replies, watching Jaskier closely for a reaction.

There’s none, so Geralt kneels down and looks under the sink for his hydrogen peroxide. When he finds it, he hands it to Jaskier wordlessly.

Jaskier flashes him a winning smile. “I guess it was my lucky day to run into you, hmm?”

Geralt doesn’t think anyone has ever said that about him before. “Anyone would do what they could to help you avoid infection,” he says dutifully.

Jaskier deflates a bit. “Well, there must be some way I can repay you. How about coffee?”

“Oh. I don’t really...drink coffee.” Geralt waits for Jaskier to get it. It’s not like monsters like him are uncommon, per se.

“How about dinner, then? A steakhouse.”

“Sure,” Geralt says, surprising himself. He blinks. His brothers are always telling him he needs to make more friends. And a steak does sound particularly good. He rarely lets himself indulge in things like that.

Jaskier brightens. “Hey, would you mind putting a band aid on this for me? I can never get it to stay.”

“I’m not sure that applying band aids is exactly rocket science,” Geralt says, but he does it anyway, his nose twitching at the scent of the fresh blood.

Geralt is centuries old, though, so it’s not like a little blood is the end of the world. Maybe when he was a fledgling, but those days are long past him.

He gives Jaskier’s knee a tiny pat. “Looks like those pants are done in for,” he says inanely.

Jaskier shrugs. “A worthy sacrifice.”

Geralt doesn’t respond to that, and Jaskier lets the silence linger. Geralt clears his throat. “I’m going to be late for work.”

Before he leaves, Jaskier insists Geralt give him his number so that he can arrange their dinner. “I’m very much looking forward to it,” Jaskier says with a grin.

Geralt gives him a hesitant smile, looking at the clock. He really does need to get a move on.

Jaskier seems to get the hint and lets Geralt usher him out the door.

In the end, Geralt’s not late, but he is grumpy that he only arrived five minutes early instead of his customary fifteen. It throws his entire day off, and the numbers seem to swim before him on his computer screen like never before.

Geralt scowls. He should have picked the tie with the stripes.

-

Jaskier contains his pout as he walks along the sidewalk, away from Geralt’s house. He practically offered himself up on a platter to be ravished, and Geralt was completely unaffected. There was blood right in front of his nose!

Jaskier doubts his information for a second, but Priscilla was the one who told him in hushed whispers that the word was that Geralt was a vampire. If Valdo had been the one to tell him, then he would have had a few more qualms, but Priscilla wouldn’t lie to him like that.

She knows how the idea of being partners with a monster makes him feel hot under the collar.

Jaskier resolves to be better. If a cut knee wasn’t enough, he’ll just have to step up his game for this dinner. And surely, if Geralt didn’t want to be seduced, he would have sent Jaskier on his merry way after bandaging his knee instead of bandaging it for him, for gods’ sake.

Maybe Geralt wants to be the one being chased after for once. Well, Jaskier is happy to oblige.

-

When Geralt gets home from work, there’s a text waiting for him. How about Friday night for our little get together?

It’s not like Geralt ever has any plans that might get in the way besides his weekly meeting, so it’s not like he has to check his calendar before he replies. Sure.

Great! I’ll pick you up at 8! :D

Geralt frowns. This doesn’t seem right. He hasn’t made a new friend in possibly fifty years, and now one literally falls into his path?

He hums to himself as he does his nightly routine, pushing on the gum above each fang to make it pop out so he can properly brush it. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and all that. Actual dentists that weren’t just going to try to pull out his teeth have only been around for less than the majority of his life, so it’s habit to take good care of them.

Geralt strips off his clothes until he’s left in just his t-shirt and boxers and climbs into bed. No, he doesn’t have a coffin or hang upside down like some sort of bat. Geralt’s not sure where all that nonsense got its roots in the first place.

There’s so many things that humans seem to have no qualms believing about monsters, though, and Geralt frowns as he punches his pillow into a better shape. He’s almost 250. His lumbar health is no joke.

-

His anxiety bleeds into his work, making Excel blink more error messages back at him than he’s ever seen before. Geralt’s boss pulls him aside to ask if he’s okay. Geralt sulks.

He is the consummate professional, and he’s not going to let this dinner get the better of him. Geralt contends anyone would be nervous if they hadn’t made a new friend in decades, too.

Now, he stands in front of his closet. He’s certainly not going to wear a suit, but he rarely wears anything else. It’s not like he goes much of any place besides work and his weekly meetings. Geralt sighs as he pulls a pair of jeans out of his wardrobe.

They’re a lot tighter than he remembers, but this is all he has, so it’ll have to do. He finds a long sleeved shirt that is luckily on the baggier side. He hopes that will make up for his too-close fitting jeans.

Geralt brushes his hair, but he can’t see it in the mirror, so there’s no point in doing anything else with it. He’s more likely to make himself look ridiculous than presentable with whatever he might attempt.

Geralt plants himself on the couch, reaching for his book to read until the clock rolls around to the time Jaskier promised to pick him up. His fingers play with the corners of the pages, bending them in a way that he’s sure would make a librarian displeased.

Geralt huffs when he realizes he’s not going to get any reading done and sets the book down on his side table. He takes a deep breath through his nose. He is ancient; he shouldn’t be getting social anxiety right now.

His phone pings with a text. Outside!

Geralt looks out the window, and indeed, there’s a car there. It’s a lime green slug bug, with rust eating its way up from the undercarriage. Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose. That looks like Jaskier’s car, all right.

-

Jaskier tries not to drool as Geralt walks down his steps. He’s wearing pants that are skin tight, which should frankly be illegal, and his shirt hangs off of him so that it shows his collar bones. Jaskier thought that vampires should be the ones who wanted to bite, but he would really love to get his mouth on one of those.

Geralt gets into the passenger seat with a half smile playing around his lips. “Like my ride?” Jaskier asks.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Jaskier claps his hand to his heart in mock offense. “I’m wounded.”

Geralt hums, shifting in his seat as he fastens his seatbelt. Jaskier drums his fingers on the steering wheel, flexing his right arm to draw attention to the bandage he has there. He went and donated blood this afternoon, and if Geralt doesn’t get his hint this time, he is going to pound his head against the nearest wall.

-

Geralt shifts his head to look out the window as Jaskier keeps his arms on shameless display. He knows times have changed, but it’s also always a little dizzying to see so much of everyone’s skin on display all the time, their pulse thrumming invitingly underneath it.

Geralt shakes his head to clear it of its reverie as Jaskier pulls his car into drive. It gives a concerning lurch. Before Geralt can open his mouth to comment, Jaskier is holding up a hand. “I can assure you, we are perfectly safe.”

“Hmm.”

“Hey!” Jaskier protests. “It is. I take care of it.”

“All I said was hmm,” Geralt says with a tiny grin. “That’s why it has so much rust, right?”

Jaskier sighs. “I was going to get around to repaint it, and then I just...other things came up.”

Geralt makes a face at him, laughing at Jaskier’s increased defenses. Some of his anxiety fades away as he realizes this isn’t so bad, after all. Maybe Jaskier needs a new friend just as badly as him.

When they arrive at the restaurant, Jaskier pulls Geralt’s chair out for him. Geralt gives him a polite nod. He can’t say he has a firm grasp on all the recent customs. Lambert’s always telling him he’s stuck in the past.

Geralt crosses his fingers and rests his chin on his hands as he watches Jaskier eat his salad, taking endearingly large bites. Jaskier hasn’t even mentioned anything about vampires yet. Geralt is starting to feel a tiny bit guilty. Would he still want to spend all this time with him if he knew Geralt wasn’t human?

As he’s thinking that, Jaskier takes a big gulp of his water and starts to sputter. Geralt’s across the table in an instant, his hand around Jaskier’s bicep and another hand on his back. “Are you okay?” Geralt murmurs, tense and ready to help if the need arises.

Jaskier coughs and waves him off. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”

Geralt relaxes a bit, but as his hand lingers on Jaskier’s arm, he can’t help but feel how warm it is, such a contrast to his own constantly cool skin. When Jaskier turns his face to look up at him, Geralt quickly drops his arm and beats a hasty retreat back to his seat.

He could swear Jaskier looks disappointed. He must be delusional.

When the main course comes, Geralt cuts neatly into his pink steak, mouth watering as the juices come leaking out of it. He sucks the tip of his finger into his mouth, eyes fluttering shut at the salty taste of it.

He makes himself cut the steak into tiny pieces. He’ll have to tell Jaskier he’s a vampire eventually; he might as well make sure he doesn’t think he’s a barbaric onel. Geralt tries his best to keep his eyes on Jaskier’s face instead of his arms. He can’t help but notice that he has some very nice veins. They’re a striking blue, and a perfect compliment to his eyes.

Geralt bites his lip, flinching when one of his fangs pops out on its own, pressing into his lip.

“One of my uncles is a werewolf,” Jaskier says, apropos of nothing, looking at Geralt meaningfully.

A trickle of sweat runs down Geralt’s back. Does Jaskier think he’s a werewolf? Werewolves are generally regarded better than vampires; at least they’re only monsters one night a month.

“Hmm,” Geralt says, not hearing the rest of Jaskier’s sentence.

Jaskier laughs at his own joke, and Geralt blinks rapidly until he can focus again on what Jaskier’s saying.

When the waiter comes with the check, Jaskier insists on paying for it. Is this what friendship has evolved to since Geralt last had one? He doesn’t know enough about it to argue with Jaskier, so he lets him do what he wants.

-

Outside of Geralt’s house, Jaskier puts a hand on the console between them, making eye contact with Geralt before dropping his gaze down to his lips. Geralt gives him a gentle smile, his eyes crinkling. His white hair looks ethereal in the moonlight, and Jaskier is only a little infatuated.

Geralt’s exterior is stony, but he also had no problems giving Jaskier all sorts of secret smiles throughout the night. Jaskier’s not sure he’s met a better listener than Geralt, and he tends to drone on and on, so that’s somewhat important to him.

Jaskier closes his eyes and starts to lean in when Geralt opens the car door. Jaskier opens his eyes.

“I had a great time, thank you,” Geralt says, one hand on the top of the car.

Jaskier bites his lip, stopping himself from saying what he wants. “Me, too. Let’s do it again some time?”

Geralt nods eagerly, and Jaskier watches him walk away, his gaze fixed on Geralt’s devastating pants and not at all on the way his ass looks in them.

Jaskier rests his head on the steering wheel in despair. He doesn’t know how to be any more heavy handed than this. He went and donated blood! And Geralt let him pay for their meal! He’s not sure how he can get across the point any better that he’s a talking blood bag, and he’s open for business.

Jaskier heaves a gigantic sigh and resolves to go home and plot his next move.

Maybe Geralt’s just shy.

Well. Jaskier can work with that

-

Geralt’s weekend passes in its normal fashion. He goes for a run, drinks some blood out of his supply in the fridge, then crashes on the couch for a whole day while he thinks of anything other than work. Sometimes Eskel lets himself in using his key, but he doesn’t that weekend, and Geralt crosses his arms over his chest as he tortures himself thinking of what Eskel might be doing.

Eskel’s never had problems making friends, unlike Geralt, so he’s sure he’s out having a good time with them.

Geralt used to be good at making friends, gods damn it, before all of them died of old age and he just didn’t see the point anymore. He’s come to suppose that there’s not all that much of a point in immortality if all he does is work, though.

The weekend’s over just as quickly as it began, and on Monday night, he can’t help the smile that creeps across his face when Jaskier texts him about some inane thing he noticed. Was he thinking of Geralt? That’s...nice.

Cautiously, Geralt lets himself hope that something is going to come out of this.

But first, he needs to tell Jaskier he’s a vampire. He wouldn’t be the first person to run away screaming, even though they are much more accepted now than they used to be.

Geralt shudders as he thinks of the industrial revolution. No regard for any monsters then. Humans invent light bulbs, and all of a sudden they think they’re too good for a healthy dash of respect.

Geralt looks back down at his phone, at a music video Jaskier sent him of someone playing a singing saw.

He lets himself focus on that a while.

-

Wednesday creeps around, and with it, Geralt’s weekly meeting.

He takes his spot in his customary chair, and looks around for Lambert, ignoring the look Eskel is trying to burn through the side of his face with.

“Why do I have to be here, again?” Geralt asks, when he gives up on Lambert to come save him.

Eskel rolls his eyes. It’s an argument they’ve had more than once. “If you won’t become a sponsor, you have to at least show them that things get better.”

Geralt huffs a breath out through his nose as he watches the regulars file in. There’s one new person, and Geralt eyes her curiously. She looks a little terrified, and Geralt softens in sympathy.

The meeting starts, and they go around in the circle, the seat beside Geralt still empty in Lambert’s tardiness.

“Hi, I’m Geralt, and I’m a blood addict,” he drones when it’s his turn.

When they’ve moved on to their personal struggles for the week, Lambert finally appears, dropping into his chair.

He elbows Geralt, seemingly unaware of everyone staring at them.

“Hey, what’s got you in such a good mood?”

Geralt firmly fixes a scowl in place and ignores him. He’s not sure why he even wanted Lambert to show up in the first place.

Geralt leans back in his chair, crossing his arms as he listens to everyone else, Eskel being disgustingly reassuring to them all, as per usual. Geralt stamps the jealousy down. It’s not Eskel’s fault he’s so good with people.

The meeting drags by, and when it’s finally over, Lambert doesn’t let Geralt just sneak away. He digs his elbow into his side again, holding Geralt by the shoulder. “You didn’t answer me earlier. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“I’m not,” Geralt says.

Lambert hums. “You don’t have your usual storm cloud above your head, so I’m going to count it.”

Geralt scowls at him and looks at Eskel for back up, but Eskel just raises his eyebrows at him.

“I hate you both,” Geralt grumbles.

“You love us,” Lambert says.

“Fine. I made a new friend,” he grates out.

Lambert and Eskel exchange an insufferable look.

“What?” Geralt demands.

“You, make a friend? Well, we’re just going to have to hear all about this to believe it.”

Geralt huffs, but he tells them about Jaskier.

“He took you to dinner? And paid? And you think he wants to be just friends?” Lambert asks.

Geralt flaps his hands around and hisses, “Look, I’ve barely been anywhere that isn’t here or work in the last three decades, how am I supposed to keep up with all this human nonsense? And besides, I haven’t even told him I’m a vampire yet. I’ll be lucky if he even wants to be my friend after that.”

Eskel bites his lip. “You know that’s a turn on for some humans, right?”

“What?”

“And you said he scraped his knee the first time he saw you? Geralt, I think he already knows, and he’s just trying to get in your pants.”

Geralt deflates. That makes a twisted sort of sense. “Oh.”

Lambert punches him in the arm. “Hey, lighten up. If anyone can charm him with their stunning personality, it’s you.”

“Fuck off.”

-

It’s difficult to fall asleep that night.

-

A week goes by without him answering any of Jaskier’s texts. He still painstakingly reads and savors each one, but he can’t bring himself to reply. If he was looking for some sort of...fling, he would have gone on one of those apps Eskel keeps telling him about.

As pathetic as it sounds, he could really use a friend. And if sex came later, well, Geralt wouldn’t complain, but he just desperately needs someone who’s going to stick around. He needs someone just for himself, someone outside of Lambert and Eskel who isn’t going to tease him about every little thing.

Geralt sighs. This was at least good practice. Maybe he can try again with someone else.

His heart sinks at the thought. He doesn’t really want someone else. Jaskier wormed his way into his chest in just a week, and Geralt knows he could yank him out with only a little pain if he tried, he doesn’t want to.

Geralt wants to have something nice, for once.

-

Jaskier bites his lip as he peers out the car window at Geralt’s house. He’s half scared there’s not going to be an answer when he knocks, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do then. He thought their date went swimmingly, so he’s not sure why Geralt suddenly stopped answering him unless something happened.

Jaskier has a vision of getting into the house only to find Geralt on the floor, the only way to revive him being letting Geralt drink straight from his neck, obviously leading to Geralt ravishing him against the nearest wall.

Jaskier shakes himself like a dog. Geralt’s given him no interest in anything like that at all. Maybe he needs to lower his expectations. The dude seems lonely, anyway, so maybe he just wants someone to talk to that’s not one of his coworkers.

Geralt told him he’s an actuary, and from the questions he asked of Geralt and Geralt didn’t answer, he’s not convinced that Geralt talks to his coworkers at all.

Jaskier blows out a puff of breath as he unbuckles his seatbelt and opens the door. He’s not sure what he hopes is going to happen when he opens the door.

He walks up the door and knocks.

He waits an agonizing moment before the door swings open, revealing Geralt. He looks even paler than Jaskier remembered him, wearing a pair of sweatpants with a hole in the crotch that he can see Geralt’s plaid boxers through and a t-shirt with a collar that’s outrageously stretched. Jaskier swallows hard.

“Have you considered not oiling the hinges? I think it would do you a world of good to develop a creaky door aesthetic.”

Geralt’s forehead wrinkles adorably. “What?”

“Just, you know. Being a vampire and all.”

Geralt slumps against the door frame. “How long have you known?”

Now it’s Jaskier’s turn to be confused. “Known what?”

“That I’m a vampire!”

“Oh.” Jaskier pauses. “I didn’t think it was a secret.”

Geralt’s hand pauses in its path of trailing the wood grain of the door. “Do you have a...kink?” he spits.

Jaskier raises his hands. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

Geralt fixes him with an unconvinced look.

“Look, that might have been part of the initial intrigue, but—”

Geralt raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“But, you’re really fucking hot and also possibly the most boring person I know, but...I’m into it. You know all these weird facts and—gods know I could use a little stability in my life.”

Geralt gives him a bashful smile, and Jaskier wonders if anyone has said anything nice to him at some point this century. “Yeah?”

Jaskier leans across the threshold and cups Geralt’s face with his hands, their mouths a breath apart. “Yeah.”

[casasupernovas]

Part 2 of Doctor Who: 42 commentary!

So why is it sad that Martha says she's sorry while her pod with Riley slowly floats towards the sun?

Here's why:

We know they have made strides in the Doctor/Martha relationship. But it's here we see just how the previous treatment has impacted Martha. When the Doctor asks Martha to join him for a trip in the Tardis, when Martha observes that the ship is rather big for him to be all on his lonesome inside the Doctor freezes over, and changes the stipulations of the companion role the audience has come to know. Unlike Rose or Donna, Martha is regulated to one trip only, as he would rather be on his own. In The Shakespeare Code he says or makes mention three times before the midway point of the episode how he is going to take her home. He also tells Martha she is a novice after lamenting about how something strange is going on in 1599 London but he can't figure out what it is. Rose would know. Cut to Gridlock and he takes her to a new place, not to give Martha a genuine chance, he already lied to her at the beginning of this episode, but to impress her with the old haunts he and Rose had gone to. And Martha's comment about not wanting to be just a passenger? I'd he treats her like that the most in Manhattan. Because they barely interact, and she is just there, and he literally doesn't get to see her being brilliant. Only for him to take her home and pop right back in. This whole time Martha has been made to feel inferior. That she isn't worth keeping around. So, when we get to 42, the Doctor may have accepted her as a companion and her brilliance for it, but that doesn't mean those feelings of inferiority have gone away. It's not Martha's fault she has been jetesonned, but she apologises anyway. Because she wasn't good enough. It's a burden on the Doctor that he has lost someone else. Not Martha's own self preservation. And I just think it's really sad.

But if you think the Doctor is just going to give up on her you are wrong. Because he uses the intercom to Kathy and Scannel. And he is pissed. Because he finally allowed Martha in, and lost her almost immediately through no fault of his own.

See, when the Doctor and Rose were seperated, it was because of the actions of Torchwood. However, Torchwood was created because Queen Victoria was appalled by Rose and the Doctor's behaviour. They albeit unkowingly orchestrated their own seperation. Here though, the Doctor already has realised that whatever is happening on this ship clearly involves the crew. He realises there has been foul play. And it's cost him Martha, not to mention Riley. He was already irritated with the crew before but it's cranked up all the way now.

He says:

"Scannel! I expect you in Area 17 NOW."

"What for?"

"JUST GET DOWN HERE."

It's an order, not a request. He is angry now because it's just got personal. Also in the background, the music is playing a theme very similiar to Joan Redfern from the next couple of episodes.

In the pod, Riley, ever positive tells Martha very bluntly that they will fall into the sun way before the Doctor gets to them after Martha reasserts that the Doctor will save them. "You don't know the Doctor. I believe in him." So strong is Martha's assurance, her trust. What has Martha seen to prove her otherwise? But Martha becomes very emotional as she realises just how lucky she is to have her family in contrast to Riley's lonelienss, and how none of them will really know the truth of what how she died.

Kath freezes Ashton and we see why the Doctor called for Scannel - he's suiting up to go outside the craft. Chibnall said Russel had wanted a space walk but budget prevented this. The Doctor has also lost all sense of politness to these people, stating after Scannel protests that Scannel cannot stop him and he is wasting his breath. He defies Scannel's insistance that it is a suicide mission and brings his own theory forward of why it will work. Scannel then protests again saying its futile. But the Doctor's words are final - "I'm not gonna lose her." And I'm sure the audience all unanimously said in their heads - "not again." So, the Doctor suits up. He looks a little scared. Determined. But continues on.

Martha on Riley's advice calls her mother. Again, Francine must be freaking out. The last thing she heard was a scream, then Martha calling her up to tell her and her family she loves them. But we see another mysterious person behind Francine listening in on the conversation. Poor Martha can't just talk as Francine has an ulterior motive to keep her on the line. Riley comforts her with a kiss on the forehead (um okay, I understand they're supposed to be a romance ting and their emotions are going to be greatly heightened due to circumstance, they literally think they are about to die together but it was still a little odd to me).

But the Doctor is on the way! This man really climbed out of falling ship in the blistering heat to save Martha. I know we go on about how much Martha goes through for the Doctor but we have to give him some credit here too, you can hear the desperation, panic and despair in his voice when he tells Scannel that he cannot reach the lever. Not to mention he doesn't know how much more of the outside he can stand. Scannel gives an immense about face and tells him not to give up, and the Doctor screams in effort and gets the lever. A jubilant Martha says "I told you!" Because she was right if course. Also right before this, Martha and Riley are holding hands.

Unfortunately for the Doctor though, no one told him not to look directly into the sun when he was a child apparently. His reward for saving Martha is to become victim to whatever has been causing all of this chaos. What's worse, is he empathsies and feels the pain at the truth. He looks at the sun and declares "it's alive. it's alive." The Doctor manages to crawl his way back inside and Martha runs over but their reunion is ruined, because he or the sun orders her to stay away from him. The danger isn't over. Now, the Doctor's speech here is interesting, a lot of it is mingled in with the big bad's voice, but what he is saying is clear - Kathy is the reason this is all happened. She mined the surface of this sun for cheap fuel. She cut corners for a quick fix. But she did not scan for life.

"That Sun's alive, scooped out it's heart for fuel and now it's screaming!

Kath's reponse is; "how can a sun be alive why is he saying that?" Martha already believes the Doctor and looks appalled and it's evident from Kath that this never occured to her, "how can a sun be alive why is he saying that?" They may be galaxies away from Martha's timeline, but people still can't see other beings as sentient unless it's recognisably human. Moreover, it's a worse offence as it could have been avoiddd as the Doctor repeats again that she should have scanned for life. The Doctor didn't realise the sun was alive until now, but he makes it clear that there is protocol for this, to check, and in this case, Kath completely bypassed this.

"Humans! You grab whatever's nearest and bleed it dry! You should have scanned." Oof. Tennants's acting here is brilliant. He's completely appalled. Terrified. Overwhelmed. Repelled. Disgusted. Offended. It was a completely selfish act that could have been avoided. And he knows this because the creature is inside of him now. And Martha is horrified that what almost happened to her was the result of the complete dismissal of this star, and horrified at how it is affecting her Doctor, the pain and the terror of it all. What's Kath's response to this? "It takes too long we'd be caught. Fusion scoops are illegal." So she knows what she is doing is wrong. It's honestly gross.

The Doctor then yells for Martha to to get him to the stasis chamber and freeze it out of him. Why? "It'll use me to kill you if you don't." It's scarier here, because the Doctor specifically requests Martha to get him to the chamber, and tells her his primary concern; that the creature will use him to kill her. The Doctor has gone from trying his hardest and suceeding in saving Martha from a threat only for him to become that very threat. And the mere thought is terrifying to him.

The look Martha gives Kath says it all; a look of complete disgust. Kath just stares, too shocked at what she has done to even say anything so Martha has to scream at her to help get the Doctor to the chamber. The apparently dead Korwin wakes. The two women bring the screaming Doctor into the stasis chamber, Martha despite her fear speaks quickly but in a kind and reassuring tone to the Doctor, making sure she has the right information for the levels for the chamber etc. She even lets go of him for a seocond to figure out how to use the machine and the Doctor immediately yells for her again and reaches out wildly to find her, he is that scared and he needs her there that badly. It's really miraculous that she is there because I can only imagine just how scared the Doctor would have been if he was alone. Martha is not having it though when Kath does offer help "you've done enough damage." She will absolutely not forgive this woman for what she has done to her Doctor. And Martha is a training to be Doctor, so she will do it herself.

When the Doctor is about to be put into the chamber it gets considerably worse, as he says that he could kill them all, and there's a definitive drop in his voice, it gets sinister, and honestly the scary thing is that how the living organism of the sun peeks its way through here. Even scarier, is the Doctor's complete helplessness as he tells Martha honestly that he is scared. So scared. Martha tells him to to calm down, tries to reassure him, "you saved me now I return the favour. Just believe in me...I've got you." Martha takes on the role of Doctor here. Not for the first time either, and it's so unnerving to hear the Doctor fall to pieces. She has seen him be the confident hero so many times so it's scary for her too, but she is brave and assures him that she will save him. But it somehow gets even worse and the Doctor straight up tells Martha that he thinks he's going to die and tries to tell her about regeneration. He is that scared.

Martha assures him that he will not die, and asks him if he is ready, to which he replies honestly "no!" You can see on her face that Martha is very reluctant to put him into the chamber. He told her himself that he would only be able to handle 10 seconds. Kath said any human would die. It's killing her inside to hurt him further but Martha has to do it, so she switches the machine on and Jesus Christ this is hard to rewatch. He sounds like he's actually in pain. But that's a masterclass in acting for you.

I staunchly believe that no other companion of this era could have done this, only Martha. I think Rose would have cried and been scared, and Donna would have gone into hysterics, completely panicked. This is not a slight on either companion by the way. I just think that Martha would have been the most level headed. She is training to be a doctor after all. You have to be able to keep calm and being assuring to your patient.

Part 3 coming imminently!

[mercy-burning]

Love Birds

Part of Mercy’s 1k Celebration: A collection of Spencer Reid x Reader requests to celebrate 1,000 followers.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Some meddling from the BAU helps Reader and Spencer come to their senses. Category: FLUFF Warnings: None really, just brief mentions of sex, some kissing, implied smut, mutual pining, and the word ‘damn’ at the end I guess? Word Count: 3.2k

Full Request: “...a blurb? Where the sexual tension between reader and spencer is very high and everybody is like ‘get a room’ so when they finally do it spencer tells penelope and reader tell emily so the next day penelope gives him those strawberries in chocolate that say ‘best dick ever’ and emily gives reader a cake that say ‘i finally get sex’ and reader and spencer are so embarrassed” —Anonymous

MASTERLIST | 1K MASTERLIST

NOTE: Gotta love some good, ol’ fashioned BAU meddling, am I right? 😂 I took the prompt and made it just a little different, but I hope it’s still okay! Hopefully the overall vibe is still what you imagined 🥰

***

Everyone was watching them. Truthfully, it was a wonder they hadn't noticed by now, but that was most likely to be expected from two people who were obviously in love with each other and still hadn't done anything about it yet.

Three years now. That's how long it had been since Y/N joined the team, and from the first day, she and Spencer were glued at the hip. She was the only one who actively listened to and laughed at his long, obscure jokes, and as their friendship blossomed, he stared following her around like a lovesick puppy. It was sickly-sweet, truth be told.

And the longer it went on, the longer they danced around the inevitable, the more fed-up the BAU got.

Currently, Spencer and Y/N were reading a book together. Like, they were actually reading together, sitting side by side while they took turns reading aloud. They did it every day when they came into work, and when they finished one book, the other person would pick the next one.

"I want to say it's annoying, but it's actually kind of sweet," JJ pointed out, peering through the blinds in Hotch's office, where they all gathered to spy on their friends.

"Yeah, but they've been doing it for almost two years," Emily stated. "You'd think that by now they'd have at least kissed..."

"Maybe they have and they just... haven't said anything?"

Penelope piped in this time, shaking her head. "No, Y/N would have told me, she tells me everything. And I mean everything."

"Well, what about Reid? Has he said anything to you?" JJ asked, turning to Derek.

He sighed. "No. But you know how he is, if he could avoid telling me anything at all about his love life, he would. And he has."

"Well, maybe you should say something to him," Emily suggested.

"You know he'll just shut me down and deny it."

"Then Garcia should do it."

She thought about it for a second before turning to Derek. "I am excellent at getting information out of people."

Suddenly the door opened, and everyone turned around to see Hotch entering his office, stopping for a second to take them all in before closing the door behind him.

"Sir, we can explain—" Penelope started.

Hotch held up a hand and made his way to his desk. "You're spying on them, aren't you?"

A quiet chorus of mumbled 'yes' and 'yes, sir's sounded through the room before he actually sat down with the most miniscule of smiles.

"I'd say to make sure you all leave one at a time so they don't catch on, but something tells me they wouldn't notice anyway."

***

A few hours later, the team made their way to the jet in little groups.

Firstly, Penelope pulled Spencer away into her office for a 'special meeting' that he was only slightly concerned about. But when she finally closed the door, he found it was nothing like what he expected to hear.

The first words out of her mouth were, "When are you going to tell her?"

"I'm... I'm sorry?"

Her face scrunched as she pointed a finger at him. "Don't play dumb with me, 187, I may not be a profiler, but I know love when I see it. You and Y/N are perfect for each other, and you guys are literally driving us mad with the sexual tension."

"I—Garcia, we're just friends, I... I don't..."

"Look, you've got a plane to catch, so I'm not gonna keep you any longer, but everyone can see it, Reid. You two? You're practically soulmates."

He really didn't know what to say after that. So he wordlessly turned and made his way to the jet alone, thinking the entire way there about what Penelope had said.

Soulmates? Love? Sexual tension?

Of course he'd always thought Y/N was pretty. And there wasn't a doubt in his mind that she was the one person on the team he knew he could come to when he had something he was excited to share, because she was always down to hear him talk. And... he never really realized it until now, but it always warmed the deepest parts of his soul when he saw how her eyes lit up at the chance to hear him talk—to just listen to what he had to say.

He thought back to every time they read together, how her leg always brushed against his and how it always seemed to comfort him. How her voice when she read aloud always seemed to put him in a trance, like a lullaby. She was his warm place, his safety net...

But... that was totally normal for friendships, right? More often than not, platonic friendships carried that warm familiarity that also came with romantic ones. It wasn't uncommon.

Still, it set off an explosion of fireworks in Spencer's stomach to just think about sitting next to her on the jet.

Meanwhile, everyone else was there, going through some files on the case when Emily sat down in front of Y/N and cleared her throat.

"What's up?" Y/N asked politely with a small smile.

"Nothing, it just... I saw you and, uh... Dr. Reid looked pretty comfy this morning."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, uh... Were we reading too loud? We've been trying to keep it quieter because we figured it was a bit unconventional—"

"No, no," Emily laughed, thinking to herself how absolutely perfect they were for each other. "I mean... You were really close... Like maybe you're... into him."

"O—oh... Well, I—I don't... Um..."

With another laugh, Emily reached her hand out to reassure her. "I'm not trying to put you on the spot, Y/N, it's just that we've all... noticed how close you guys have gotten over the years and it looked like maybe you two..."

"Oh! Oh, no, uh... We—we're not together or anything, I... He's my best friend. That's all."

By the redness that colored Y/N's cheeks, Emily wasn't buying it one bit. Yet, she indulged her, nodding and patting the little table in front of her before getting up to move to a different section. "If you say so."

She walked away, leaving Y/N with a newfound... tension within her that she couldn't really shake. And it only amplified when Spencer walked onto the jet and took his usual seat next to her.

They greeted each other with small waves, but something felt off. And when his hand brushed up against her leg on accident, she felt a light buzz course through her veins, like some type of switch had been flipped.

It's only because of what Emily said, Y/N thought. She just got in my head, that's all this is.

But the longer the day went on, after landing in Idaho and setting up at the precinct, the buzz only amplified. Every time he said her name, she felt it kick up, and likewise, whenever she said his, he felt the thrum of his chest get heavier.

Everyone could tell, too, though they seemed rather amused by it all. While Y/N and Spencer were out at the ME's office, Emily, JJ, and Derek sat at the table in their temporary office and talked it over.

"I actually feel kinda bad," JJ said. "I mean... It seems like they're just being awkward around each other now..."

"That's not a bad thing... It just means they're finally starting to come to their senses," Emily countered with a wave of her hand. "They'll be fine."

Derek scoffed with a smile. "Yeah, I give it 'til the end of the case. Without work to distract themselves from each other, there's no way they won't say something."

Sure enough, the topics of conversation walked through the door just then, immediately putting distance between themselves on opposite sides of the table. And before anyone could say anything else, Spencer jumped the gun, going into detail on what they discovered about the case.

***

"We won't be heading home until tomorrow morning, so I booked us all rooms at the hotel on main street. I'll give you your keys when we get there. Good work, everyone, get some rest."

Hotch disappeared into the night, leaving the rest of the team to pack up a few things in their office before following him.

Y/N chatted happily with JJ, but deep inside she was nervous. Because everyone had been acting strange all day, pairing her and Spencer up every chance they got, and it was impossible to miss all the fake 'I wasn't looking at you guys' stares into space that they all constantly adorned.

Not to mention the fact that ever since Emily even brought it up to her, Spencer also seemed nervous around her. Their whole dynamic had been thrown off, and now she could barely look at him without immediately looking away and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Now that the thought has been planted in her head, it's all she can think about, and it's very distracting. And knowing how... interested her friends seem to be in her predicament, the biggest fear she has at the moment is that she and Spencer will be rooming together.

As they got into separate cars and headed to the hotel, she fiddled with her thumbs, picking at the chipped nail polish and hoping that she'll get to rest easy.

And as Hotch handed out room keys in the lobby, she felt her heartbeat pick up, Emily and JJ sharing a key and Derek walking off with his own.

And then he said the one thing she was afraid of, and it almost froze her completely.

"I was only able to get two rooms with double beds, so you guys will have to share, if that's alright."

At that point Y/N would have rather shared a bed with Rossi, because that would have been less awkward. But she and Spencer both nodded, he took the key, and they both silently made their way to the room, keeping their heads low.

Even as they finally stepped into the room the air felt fragile, like one wrong move could break it and send them into space, where there wasn't enough breathable oxygen to keep them alive. And much like in the office today, they kept their distance on opposite sides of the room, separated by the bed.

It was Spencer who broke the silence first.

"I can take the floor if you want..."

The small, sweet way he said it almost made her heart shatter. "O—oh no, you don't have to. That would be silly."

"Are you sure? Because I can—"

"No, it's okay, really. I don't mind."

They stared at each other for what seemed like forever, before Y/N's phone buzzed in her pocket, and she turned around to answer the call.

As she walked into the bathroom, answering, "Hi, Mom," before shutting the door, Spencer let out a long breath and rubbed his eyes, wondering how he was going to get through the night. He also wondered if Penelope had talked to Y/N as well, because this awkwardness they were experiencing was most certainly double-sided. And if that was the case, did that mean... she was in love with him, too? Firstly, was he even sure he was in love with her in the first place?

Maybe a little, he decided, thinking back to practically every single moment they've ever spent together. And as he quickly changed into pajamas and situated himself in bed, he thought about what it would be like to kiss her. Is that something he would want to do? Could he see himself kissing her over and over again for the rest of his life?

He had his answer when she walked out of the bathroom, wearing shorts and a tank top, her hair out of its ponytail and cascading down her shoulders as she plopped her phone down on the chair in the corner of the room and walked to the bed.

He tried to look away, but he couldn't. And he was thankful in a way for this newfound uneasy air between them, because she refused to look at him, and it gave him all the clearance he needed to follow her trail around the room.

But when she finally settled into bed, and as he felt her weight dip beside him, Spencer looked down at his lap. He was afraid the close proximity would give him away.

She cracked open a book and read in silence for a few seconds before she turned to him. "Did... Is this distracting? I can stop and we can just go to sleep if you're tired..."

"Oh, n—no, it's not distracting. You're fine. I was, um... I was going to grab a book of my own anyway."

He swung his leg over to get out of bed, but Y/N stopped him. "Well, um... I, uh... I know we're already in the middle of a different book, but if you wanted to, we could, um... read this one together? I—I think you'd like it, it's about the—"

"Sure. I—I'd um... I'd like that. Whatever it's about, I'm sure I'll like it. Y—you know, since you said it was good. You have good taste, so I t—trust your judgement."

He was just rambling now, and hearing Y/N laugh a little, he internally berated himself for letting it get awkward again.

Nevertheless, she opened up the covers to get underneath, and slowly scooted closer to him. Once their knees touched, they both jumped a little, but Spencer cleared his throat and Y/N busied herself by trying to find the first page, neither of them commenting on the obvious shock of butterflies that shot through both of their insides at the tiniest contact.

"Do you mind if I start?" she asked softly, turning her head slightly to the side so she could see him. He nodded, giving her the go ahead, and she turned to the page, focusing on the words in front of her.

Unsurprisingly, it was easy for them to get into a familiar groove. They took turns reading each few pages, and stopped in between to discuss things they'd read. It also wasn't surprising to find that they gradually got closer, their arms and legs now completely touching side by side and their faces dangerously close as they leaned down to read.

Spencer had just finished reading a chapter, reaching out to turn the page, and Y/N seemed to have the same thought, because her hand collided with his in a way that left no room for subtlety, or drawback to avoid that it even happened. Their pinkies interlocked, and Y/N found herself entranced by the curves and peaks of his hand. How each of his fingers slightly twitched at the contact, and how prominent the veins in his forearm were.

Her heartbeat picked up, and his did, too, as he focused on how tightly her pinkie was curling around his own, desperate not to let go.

"Y/N," he whispered. It wasn't a question, nor a warning, but it rolled off his tongue softly as if it was the sweetest word he'd ever had the pleasure to say. It was just one little word, her first name, conveyed with such adoration and obvious pining that he was afraid he'd scared her away.

But she held his pinkie tight, the book resting open beneath them on their adjoined knees, and then looked over at him.

And her eyes held the same weight as her name on his lips.

It was unclear of who moved first, but it happened so fast that surely it didn't matter. In a flash, their lips were joining in soft desperation, and rather than locking pinkies, Y/N shifted her hand to weave all their fingers together. The squeeze he gave her hand made her sigh against his mouth, and it was all the most relieving thing in the world.

After she pulled away, he chased her face for a second, not wanting it to end. But his eyes flew open and when he saw her staring back at him, her lips slightly puffed and her eyes almost hungry, he knew he didn't have to worry about the moment ending any time soon.

The book was long forgotten right then, tossed across the room somewhere as their clothes soon followed.

***

"So, how do you think the love birds got along last night?" Emily asked to no one in particular as the group gathered in the lobby.

Derek snickered. "If they came to their senses, I'm sure they got along just fine."

Everyone laughed at that, just as said love birds made their way to the lobby.

"Sleep well?" JJ asked, obviously trying not to smirk.

"Mhm," they both mumbled in response.

They were going to leave it alone, but that's when Rossi showed up, peering over in Spencer's direction. Then he pointed briefly to his neck. "You got a little something there, genius."

Everyone clapped excitedly, Emily letting out a low whistle and Derek rounding it off with a loud and proud, "Atta boy!"

The redness on both Y/N and Spencer's faces didn't clear up the entire way home.

And after the text that Emily sent out to Penelope, it was looking like it might get even worse.

***

"Welcome home, my beautiful family! Come on, I have something special for everyone in the round-table room."

Penelope led the way, Y/N and Spencer bringing up the rear.

"I'm sorry about this morning," she whispered. "I really didn't even notice I'd made a mark, I—"

"It's okay," he reassured her. "I... I guess they kinda knew we'd get to that point eventually anyway."

"Yeah... I just wish it wouldn't have happened so soon, you know? We're never gonna live this down."

She wasn't expecting him to lace his fingers with hers, and the action made her smile.

They'd fallen a bit behind, so when they finally caught up to everyone in the room, it was terrifying to see them all with knowing, mischievous smiles. And before Y/N could explain, Spencer started speaking.

"Okay, okay, yes. Y/N and I... finally... got together last night. But you can't make it weird, and I'm not going to let you make it weird, because—"

"Ohh, it's a little late for that, boy wonder," Garcia said, giggly and holding out a cake box.

Spencer and Y/N looked at each other briefly before taking a look, immediately gasping and going red.

It was a small cake, shaped like a heart with a red trim of frosting around it. And right in the middle, in pretty red cursive, were the words, "We finally had sex!"

"Penelope!" Y/N whined and shoved her face into Spencer's chest, the heat radiating off her face like a space heater on high blast.

The howling laughter that erupted from everyone else in the room was something neither of them would forget.

But even through the curtain of embarrassment, Y/N and Spencer both knew that beyond it awaited a very promising relationship, especially with friends who supported them. Even if that support manifested in rather... enthusiastic ways.

And, despite the initial embarrassment of it all, the cake tasted pretty damn good.

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