#bc I'm convinced I should be dead several times over

[lincolndjarin]

The Thing That Gives

main masterlist ✧ kinktober masterlist ✦

kinktober : day thirteen - afab!reader x ezra

prompt : tentacles [ 18+ mdni ]

word count : 2.4k

summary : you find yourself in the slimy grip of the unknown.

warnings, etc. : dubcon/noncon (these tags apply to ezra, i wrote a reader who is like really into tentacles), dead dove do not eat, smut, tentacles, reference to pornography (reader reads hentai lmao), sort of tentacle horror i guess lol, reader is into the tenacles of it all like i'm gonna be so honest she's like hell yes about tentacles she's a real weirdo in this (she just like me fr), t in v?? (tencacles in vag??), tentacles in every hole, anal, oral in the tentacle receiving sense, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, ambiguous ending

a/n : i'm so so glad someone requested him with this prompt bc it's so ezra like let's be real. originally i wanted to write something where he's a tentaclly monster and lowkey if people like this i might do that in the future lol. anyhow this is def the craziest thing i've ever written but it was so so much fun, happy friday the 13th!!

“Pretty little thing like you? Shouldn’ta been on the Green in the first place.” 

That’s what that son of a bitch had said when he’d locked you in that abandoned ship ages ago, those words have been replaying in your mind ever since. You’d been skeptical to trust him in the first place, he spoke in strange, strung out sentences and he had a smile that immediately made you suspicious but he’d just been too damn charming. 

It didn’t help that you’d just lost your partner. 

She had been your protector and navigator, as a third generation prospector you were equipped to do one thing, harvest. She had done everything else for you but after an unfortunate incident where her suit had gotten caught on some rubble you were left alone with the entire harvest and no one to watch over you. 

Maybe that’s why you’d been so naive to his allure, and his promises to keep you safe on your journey back to your ship. 

Stupid. 

You practically handed your ship to him on a silver platter. 

“This looks familiar, I think we’re nearby.” 

You had signed your own death certificate with that. 

He’d wrestled you into an abandoned ship minutes later, firmly sealing it shut and taking you entire harvest. He doesn’t even give you enough time to feel angry with those parting words, you just feel dumb. 

It took you days to get out of there. 

You’re lucky you stay stocked up on rations in case of emergencies but you don’t get to feel good about that fact. You’re too busy mourning the loss of your harvest. 

When you finally manage to pry the metal doors open you immediately go off in search of your ship. You’re certain it’s a lost cause. Ezra probably took off ages ago but what else are you supposed to do? So you keep on marching through the Green.

It only takes a few moments more before you’re shocked to see the outline of your ship in the distance. 

Had he somehow missed it? 

Sure he was a scumbag but he was a smart scumbag, he should have found this with ease. It’s an easy hike, down a steep hill and back up another, that’s the quickest, most straightforward way there. 

But of course you fuck even this up, because that’s just your luck these days. 

You stumble over a tree route, tumbling down the hill before your helmet collides with a stone at the bottom, your nose slams against the glass with a sickening crunch and just like that, you’re out cold. 

When you finally come to your senses you’re shocked to find yourself face to face with the man who betrayed you in the first place. You’re used to hearing his sickly sweet, over complicated sentences, you’re convinced he enjoys the sound of his own voice more than anything else on this godforsaken planet. But for the first time since you met him, he’s speechless. 

It doesn’t take much to figure out why, as you blink a few times, clearing up your vision. You rake your eyes across his form, he’s held in place by several slick and constantly moving tentacles, his space suit is in tatters, his helmet thrown to the ground along with your own and you briefly wonder how he’s even breathing, but based on the way his chest rises and falls he’s perfectly fine.

“B-birdie?” He rasps out. Your first instinct is to slap him but you realize quickly that you’re in a similar predicament, your suit discarded on the ground with your limbs being restricted by the throbbing appendages. 

Well this probably isn’t good. 

There’s a lot going on in your head right now. 

You sort of wonder if you died during your fall and this is some sort of afterlife. You’d heard reference to the eternity after this life, people often talked about it but you never really believed it until now. But now you think of the magazines back on your ship and wonder if this is your afterlife, is there some higher power out there who knows you spend your free time looking at dirty magazines featuring people in the exact predicament you found yourself in now? 

That doesn’t exactly make sense though. 

If this was your perfect afterlife it would just be you and the tentacles, why is Ezra here? 

You don’t get much time to question anything going on because the tentacles start pulsing, almost violently, squeezing your limbs tightly before starting to frantically surround you and your ex-partner. 

“No- please, Kevva above.” You watch curiously as a tendril wraps around his throat, he’s a few feet from you, directly across from where you’re propped up. 

You can practically feel the fear coming off of him. You swear he’s about to cry as the tentacles remove his remaining undergarments. 

“Not again, please, please-” His prayers are cut off when one of the pulsing limbs pushes past his swollen lips. You almost feel jealous, is this your afterlife? To watch Ezra living your dream and not appreciating it? You want to feel its sweet caress, sliding into your mouth, slipping under your clothes and holding you with its entire being. You frown, practically green with envy. 

He isn’t even appreciating it. He thrashes and whines through the slimy flesh between his teeth. You don’t have to be bitter for long, the tendrils surrounding you are gentler than his, almost sweet with how they move across your goosebump riddled skin. There’s so many colors, swirling purples and greens and grays until one finally presents itself in front of your face, as if it was looking at you. 

You don’t know what compels you to do it but you open your mouth, letting whatever it is slide across your tongue. Tiny suction cups prodding at your taste buds as it slips further into you. 

You should be choking, or at the very least gagging as it bumps against the back of your throat, but you don’t. Ezra certainly doesn’t seem to have the same luxury, his chest heaves and his eyes water as the tendril in his mouth pushes itself in further. You experimentally let your tongue swirl around the appendage, sucking slightly and you’re rewarded with a sweet taste that hadn’t been there until now, closing your eyes you suck it in deeper, letting it slide further down your throat. 

It’s giving you air. 

That’s how the two of you are still alive, whatever this thing is provides you with it. And you desperately want more. You want to be one of the girls in those comics, you want to be ripped straight out of the magazines you love so much. 

So you moan.

Almost as if to show it how good it makes you feel. How thankful you are. 

And deep within the depths of your subconscious you know how happy that makes it. How long it’s waited to have its affections reciprocated, and in return it is gentle. It doesn’t tear your clothes the way it did Ezra’s, it doesn’t even fully remove them, the tentacles slow from their frenzy as they lift your shirt above the swell of your chest and tug the waistband of your shorts down to your knees. You don’t even get a chance to feel self conscious because at the same time Ezra spits out the tentacle in his mouth, groaning as the remaining scraps of his clothing is fully destroyed, and boy is he a sight. 

How long has he been here? The entire time you were stuck? It looks to be that way, his cock red and aching as the tendrils slide across the already leaking tip. He’s a mess. More so than he usually is. It looks almost painful. How many times has he come? 

You're snapped out of your thoughts when your own tentacles mirror the movements of his. The one in your mouth slowly retreats but you whine, running your tongue against it and it stills, no longer filling your throat but still letting you leisurely suck it. 

Ezra once again opens his mouth to speak but instead of it filling him once more it just slides across the bottom of his face, still rather effectively silencing him. You can feel one of the thicker tentacles spreading your legs, it isn’t much of a strain, the others help keep you balanced. You can’t look down but you’re certain if you did you’d see yourself dripping for this unknown being. You don’t have to wait. It simply slips past your folds and finds its home against your cervix. You almost sound like Ezra now as you scream, except yours is more of a squeal, overjoyed and blissed out as it pulses within you, never actually moving in and out, just expanding and shrinking inside of your weeping cunt. You’re having a bit of trouble focusing in your haze of pleasure but you realize that it moves as one. With every pulse inside of you it matches the pattern when it slides up and down his shaft. 

It’s like he’s fucking you without touching you, sort of.

Although this is better than sex. 

At least for you, Ezra continues to look at you frantically, tears spill from his eyes now and you can tell by how his muscles tense and his balls tighten that he’s coming yet there’s no physical release, it’s like he’s already spent. He doesn’t even have a chance to go soft, the tentacles continue without missing a beat and he’s still hard in their grip. You don’t feel all that bad for him, not after what he did to you, and it’s hard to feel bad about anything when the tendrils wrap themselves around your breasts, circling them until they jut out, a pair of suction cups attaching themselves to the peaks of your nipples, the same happening to Ezra as you both begin writhing. 

Are you even going to be able to go back to normal sex after this? Your first orgasm tears through you violently. Your entire body trembles and you fight the urge to bite down as you scream.    

You can’t possibly ever feel this good again, it’s just too perfect. You assume it can’t get better yet somehow it does, a thing tendril wrapping around your leg before a smaller suction cup latches onto your clit, at that point you’re a goner. Your body evaporates into muffle moans and squeals. It barely even registers when another thick tendril slips between the swell of your ass, pushing into your other hole, taking you completely in its slippery hold. 

Now it’s perfect. 

You watch with wide eyes as a matching tentacle slides up Ezra's leg. 

You’re one in the same, if there was another here with you would they receive identical treatment? You have so many questions that you’ll know you’ll never get answers to, the idea makes you a little sad but almost as if it knows you’re mood has shifted it pushes up deeper into you and you unravel all over again, shrieking as you come, your slick mixing with whatever already coated the tentacles. 

You must be the spitting image of your favorite illustration in the magazines, the page that you can flip to purely based on muscle memory. A woman, vaguely resembling you, stretched out with a tentacle in every hole, you probably look as happy as she does as well, drool leaking from the raised corners of your mouth. 

You want another orgasm, one more would be nice. You aren’t sure how many times Ezra’s come at this point, you do suppose that if it kept at this all day long you might eventually snap, after a certain number of orgasms it would probably get painful. 

In all honesty you aren’t sure you care though, it’s kind to you, whatever it is, a part of you thinks it wouldn’t let you hurt. The moment the thought crosses your mind you come one last time, this one catches you a bit of guard, following the last in quick succession. Maybe you could live like this, here with whatever this creature is, watching Ezra would eventually get sad but you would adapt, this thing, whatever it is, is gentle, and it loves. 

You make a conscious choice to give yourself up to it completely.

You could live here and be happy with this creature. 

And in an instant you’re released, the tendrils slide out of you, setting you down. 

All you had to do was give in to it and it let you go. 

You gasp for air as it drops you to the ground, fumbling for your helmet, taking in several gulps of filtered air as you retch. You’re eternally grateful to the fact that your helmet didn’t crack during your fall. It takes several minutes to find your bearings but eventually you manage to resituate your suit and fix your clothes before you stand face to face with him. Despite watching what you did to escape it doesn’t seem to register with him as he continues to thrash and fight, he must be exhausted at this point. 

Stubborn bastard isn’t ever gonna relax.

Poor thing, you almost feel bad for him. 

Almost. 

You tilt your head as you stare at him, the tendrils still stroking his red straining cock while he gives you a pleading look. But you only have eyes for the case at his feet once you remember its presence. You reach down, taking it in your hands and clicking the locks to see if it’s all still there and much to your delight everything is accounted for, you swiftly shut it and look up at him once more. The tendril slides away from his mouth, it’s giving the two of you a chance to speak.

“Plea-“ His words are cut short as you watch a tentacle tweak his nipple, you reach out a gloved hand to run a thumb over his puffy chest.

“Pretty little thing like you shouldn’t have been on the Green in the first place.” You grin at him before crawling out of the ravine, the sounds of his strangled moans follow you until you close the doors of your ship behind you.

Maybe you’ll come back for him. At the very least you’ll come back for the experience of being held by such a creature as the tentacles beneath the earth.

It doesn’t matter all that much. 

Either way you won’t be back until you’re sure he’s learned his lesson.

a/n : ooooo hope everyones having a frightening friday the thirteenth and i also hope everyone enjoyed this lol

[hiddenbeks]

#7 from general and #2 from story (from the tav meme) for khaless please!

yayyyyy thank you jasper!!

bg3 companion!tav asks

putting this under a cut bc it got super lengthy!! sorry abt that hgfhfg

general #7: do they have their own personal quest that spans the course of the game? can it take different branching paths depending on the choices the player character makes?

yesss tho i'm still trying to figure it out! her story is strongly tied to menzoberranzan and drow political intrigue and since you don't go anywhere near menzoberranzan and only encounter a handful of drow in-game it's been hard to figure out how to tie her into the game's plot but anyway-

some backstory first!! basically her house fell from grace several generations ago when one member (khaless' silver dragon ancestor disguised as a drow) was revealed to be an undercover servant of eilistraee. the rest of the members quickly disposed of her to avoid the whole house being destroyed. but their reputation took a hit and ever since they've been a minor noble house struggling to survive. enter khaless, an ambitious young visionary who wants to restore house dhalmar to its former glory! she was viewed with suspicion growing up because her draconic powers and scales were a nasty reminder of the house's past. but she proves herself a cunning and ruthless and kinda fanatical worshipper of lolth and advances quickly despite it all.

khaless becomes a priestess in house dhalmar and wipes several houses out of the way and grows house dhalmar's influence. she starts to believe she is unstoppable and thinks it's a great idea to accept house baenre's offer of alliance, not realizing the baenres' plan is to betray her and destroy house dhalmar before they become an actual problem. khaless survives and flees into the underdark! she is discovered injured by a group of silverhair knights and she spends some time with them after recovering and initially thinks they are stupid and weak but it's the first time she encounters drow with a different way of life and maybe it.. leaves an impression...

anyway the knights are killed by some assassins looking for khaless. rip. she flees to the surface and gets abducted by the mind flayers and this is where we finally get to her quest phew!!

when you encounter khaless she is at a crossroads; on one hand she believes she deserves vengeance and power after everything she's been through. on the other she is becoming disillusioned with lolthite society and very deep down just wants to live without having to constantly look over her shoulder, plotting to betray others before they get to betray her.

you can either convince her to return to menzoberranzan for revenge and to continue her elimination of houses until she reaches the top as she believes she should. or you can guide her down a gentler path and help her find new purpose outside of the cycles of violence she grew up in. tbh i think returning to menzoberranzan would be the sexier and more satisfying ending but maybe that's solely because i haven't come up with an equally satisfying "good" ending yet. idk. the ones i have cooked up don't have a catharsis factor similar to the menzo ending but maybe that's like the point... sometimes there is no catharsis and sometimes a happy ending is not an epic one... you just have to move on or whatev. although coming to terms with her past and choosing to leave it behind and live for herself can be cathartic i guess?

ALSO one important thing in khaless' questline is her ancestry being at odds with her upbringing and her being conflicted about having the blood of a silver dragon who served the goddess she was raised to hate and said blood also giving her the powers that have helped her survive throughout her life. so that's one more thing to deal with lol. in her non-menzo ending khaless would fully embrace her draconic ancestry! and maybe she finds out that her ancestor is only Allegedly dead and goes on a journey to try and find her to learn more about her powers and heritage from her.

story specific #2: how do they advise the player character on raphael?

she would say something like "i hope you're not foolish enough to take this cambion at his word. that being said i think we should take full advantage of his powers and knowledge. perhaps we could even trick him into serving us..." basically find out what exactly raphael wants and what exactly he is offering and use that to the party's benefit. kinda similar to gale's advice iirc? khaless is always looking for opportunities to take advantage of more powerful people in order to get ahead. unfortunately she also tends to get in way over her head and have it all backfire on her. it's almost as if she and her 10 wis learned nothing from her disastrous alliance with the baenres,

btw speaking of gale. khaless is kinda similar to him with how ambitious she is and this drives her mad. she is Not like this nerdy ass wizard he is so lame she would've shoved him into a locker in her youth she is nothing like him she is nooooooootttt (she is)

[guardiandae]

OKAY it’s time for that write up about my trip to Boston

aka Why I’m Glad I’m Still Alive and also Dae Makes Bad Life Choices And Needs To Be Grounded :c 

(long, long post)

okay so, my friend H takes a trip down to Boston every year to visit her friend D who goes to college there. She invited me to go a few days beforehand, and as luck would have it I managed to arrange to have Friday & Saturday off work, and Sunday closing shift, so I could make it down there and back.

Of course, I had a runny nose and stuff beforehand... and then the night before (Thursday night, I think) I had a really hard time at work bc I felt feverish... I got home and my temp went up from 99.6 (which is already 100% a fever for me, my temp runs low) to 101.3 during the night. I kept waking up every three hours, and I had to get a bag of ice to press against my head. I went to bed early but slept in longer than I expected so I got like 13 hours of sleep and felt a lot better in the morning, aside from a sore throat. Actually, my throat does this fun thing where from time to time, it will close up on me and I can’t breathe. It can happen even from drinking water. So I took cough syrup and my throat closed up. Yikes. No more cough syrup for me, just cold & flu tablets! I can’t remember the other incident, maybe I drank something harsh, but I remember it did that twice, two times in two days. So, yeah. Gotta be careful what I drink with this sore throat.

Friend wants me to spend Friday night at her house so we can leave at 3am Saturday. So I go to H’s house, with her boyfriend T. My throat is like, raw as fuck. We hang out, they pack, and we all take a nap before we leave. I get like another 3 hours of sleep, then we all get up and hit the road.

We pick up T’s friend, S.  My friend H keeps trying to hook me up with S despite the fact that I am 1. gay 2. asexual 3. not interested in douchebags. And she’s been teasing me about the fact that, S and I will have to share a bed at the hotel. My god. Mind you, the plan she has in Boston is to take me to a strip club and I’m like, sdgkdfkgjd. No? Maybe. No.

We stop at a gas station and I get myself a big powerade for my RAW AS FUCK throat. Swallowing is seriously painful at this point. My friend swaps seats to sit beside me in the back, so now T and S are in the front. THEY FUCKING START CHAINSMOKING ALL THE WAY DOWN. So they have their windows cracked, freezing cold air pouring in, secondhand smoke making my eyes water and lungs burn, all the way down. Maybe at most they would stop for two minutes and then, boom, another FUCKING cigarette. On top of that, they listened to really gross rap music on the way down, like violent, sexually-explicit, drug-endorsing songs that were just honestly annoying lyrics aside, total crap, lol.

My friend and I show each other memes (she pronounces it me-me and I think it’s too funny to correct her) all the way down. We arrive at her friend D’s campus at about 6am. He has keys to all the buildings and has to make rounds, so we’re going to walk with him all across his campus.

D is a really interesting dude. My friend H told me, “he’s a bible-thumper” beforehand and I was like, eh. great. But he’s this 40-ish year old guy going to a religious college studying to be a minister. He’s super friendly and considerate as soon as we meet him. It’s 6am in January, fairly warm considering the time of year, but I’m still in just my hoodie and SICK, so while I was kind of excited for the experience, my body is so not. We’re going from building to building, up flights of stairs and back down again, and I am wheezing. My voice is pretty rough at this point too.

But let’s talk about the school, and the setting, because... I love it.

In Maine (my state) the trees here are mostly pines, maples, oaks, etc.

But in Boston, I’m not sure what kind of trees they might be, but my gosh. It’s a grey, chilly day (my favorite weather 100% honestly, too bad I was sick) and the trees are bare. Their branches are all twisted in different directions, like the fingers on an old man. Ever seen those kind of forests from creepy horror movies? They are just like that and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Most of the buildings on campus are very old, so some of them still have old fashioned latches, like the thumb-latches in my grandfather’s house.

The other thing I really loved about the campus, is that the students attending are actually very liberal and diverse, despite the religious focus. As D put it later, the other three people in our group, H, T, and S, doubled the population of straight (and cis) students by being on campus. Haha.

Anyway, I survive running around campus, and then we head down to catch the Green Line subway into town. At this point, I really wish I had realized we were going to be gone from the car for several hours, because I would've at least grabbed my hat. :c

This is the first time I've ever been on anything like a subway and I'm so glad that we had D with us to be our guide, because it was so confusing. The car was packed with people because of the Women's March going on. I don't know how this compares to other subways, but this went pretty fast and had a lot of hills and turns, and with every change in momentum I'm hanging onto the rail for dear fucking life trying not to fall over. My friend H has a lot of anxiety, especially around crowds of people, and riding this subway itself, so she is SHAKING and trying really hard to just hold on and get through the ride, and so am I. We get off a big station and decide to go up and walk the rest of the way instead of waiting for the next car, because my friend and I are curious to see the march going on.

We ended up walking around a lottt down all of these different side streets. H, T and S wanted to find a big tall building to go all the way to the top floor and take pictures, so we kept trying to enter different buildings at random, and most of them were locked and one we were politely told to leave, lol.

The whole walking around event was kind of more random than planned... we ended up at Bruins arena which I think was my friend's only actual goal, so she could buy her brother a gift. We saw tons of protesters everywhere and I got one of the pink hats from a nice lady who brought extras. But after that, our wandering was pretty aimless. We headed towards Boston market (still trying to find tall buildings) and accidentally stumbled onto the Holocaust memorial.

H and I were like 'oh... damn' and of course, I had to go in. The memorial consists of four towers made of panes of glass, with steam inside rising up. When I walked into the first one, the panes of glass had quotes from survivors of the Holocaust written on both sides in side, and on every single pane of glass, going up to the sky, there were the serial numbers the nazis tattooed onto people. I took a few pictures, but once I entered that first tower I put my phone away because it just didn't feel right. We walked through and read each quote... I was trying not to cry because the two guys with us (D excluded) were pretty douchey and I wasn't sure they even would, y'know, care. But when I read one of the quotes about the homosexuals being put into the death camps, I definitely cried and I was like, yeah. This is why we fight. This is why we can't stop fighting.

When we left, H was pretty shaken too (the quotes about children were the ones that got to her the most, I think) and D suggested that we head to the farmer's market to try to lighten up the mood. While we were walking there, S decides to ask a question, in a suspiciously condescending tone of voice, "I wonder what the founding fathers would think about all of this."

The rest of us were like, ???  "Think about what?"

S: "You know, the protests that are going on right now."

Guys, my voice was half gone but you know I clapped back.

"They'd probably think that they're exercising their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS??? What do you think the founding fathers did against the British???"

Then he said something about how, people keep pushing and pushing for more rights, and he thinks that's a bad thing because it just ends up dividing people into more and more different groups and takes away rights from others. At this point I was like, HOLY SHIT, this fucking white boy is one of those people who thinks that EQUAL RIGHTS means his rights are somehow being TAKEN AWAY from HIM. Like, you DO realize that my great-great grandmother and your great-great grandmother didn't have the fucking right to vote??? and in MY lifetime, I had to go fucking vote on my  right to get MARRIED??? It didn't take away SHIT from poor helpless straight white men, it just GAVE more people the SAME FUCKING RIGHTS. HOLY FUCK.

So anyway we headed on to the market area, checked out the Newbury Comics store and I was exciiited bc I found a cute pair of knee-high socks to buy (my new aesthetic). But while in pursuit of my knee-highs, I wandered too close to the Dick's bar, and at this point everyone was ready to drink/eat and had been searching for a bar for a while. There were sooo many to choose from, including really nice looking Irish bars, and historic old bars, which I actually wanted to check out. But which bar did we go to? The fucking cock-themed bar.

They ordered drinks. I just sat by them kind of uncomfortably bc everything is not only "I love dicks" but the mascot is a sleezy overweight balding man and the waitress makes fart jokes. Like. For real. But I'm watching the tv, making small talk with D (who is awesome) and H, while S and T get drinks and fries. Some guy brings his CHILD into this establishment, and is apparently very familiar with their theme bc he plays right along with the waitress's fart jokes like he sees her every Saturday or something. What the hell. Then the party at the opposite end starts putting on these huge condom hats made out of white paper. I can hear a child crying on the other side, maybe the same kid. Why the fuck. And then the waitress starts kind of badgering ME now, like, "Why are you just sitting there without a drink?" I tell her, in my really hoarse voice, "If I have any alcohol I'm pretty sure I will stop breathing" and she's just like "Well it's not like you can't have a water or a juice"  (me: where the fuck is there water or juice advertised ANYWHERE on this shitty menu??? also the food was ridiculously overpriced otherwise I would've been happy to order >_< )  and then I look over and realize that, S has already had two beers, but he JUST ordered a fucking THIRD. Now I'm angry and I tell my friend I don't wanna sit in this (shitty) bar all day, so I'm going to head to the comic store again.

Comic store is right across the street.... but... I'm legitimately pissed off right now, so as soon as I step outside I'm like, actually, lol, fuck off, bye, I'm gone.

And I just keep walking, back the way we came in. I sit down at a bench for a while, half thinking that D or H had followed me, but nobody had. So I'm like, cool, and contemplating actually buying a train ticket home if I had to. But I'm sick as fuck and my legs are killing me and my lungs are wheezing and it's cold and I know that no train goes all the fucking way home, so I'm like, :)))

I decided to go and see something that *I* wanted to see so I looked at my phone and saw the Samuel Adams statue was nearby. They texted me "where are you" and I told them Sam Adams (of course, knowing them they probably looked for a damn bar). But I got lost getting to the statue, lmao, bc it was RIGHT BESIDE ME and I was expecting something larger and headed towards a crowd of people instead. By the time I circled back, I hung up on like three phone calls and ignored several texts, just texted back again "sam adams" when they asked where I was. Took a picture of the statue, then sat down again and waited. Still more texts and calls to not respond to. Finally I was really annoyed but got up to go back to the bar and was thinking, if they aren't here, I'm fucking off again, lol. But they were there and ... my friend H was in tears.

Uh oh. Nice going, Dae.

I put my frustration aside and just fell back into step... she didn't talk to me for a little while. I felt like such an asshole. It was only later I saw some texts that hadn't come through then... half of them already had their phones dead, the others were almost dead, and they'd texted me that they were going to head to the car without me and pick me up in a couple hours. Of courese, my phone was low battery too. I almost fucking stranded myself in Boston, extremely sick, with no cellphone, please ground me.

We went back to the subway (there was another station right near to us, thankfully, so no long walk), and rode all the way back to our original station. Then we had to trek back UP the hill we came down from the campus... I was wheezing hard.

Everyone crashed in D's room for a while. I collapsed on the couch and they all went into the bathroom to smoke pot. I considered leaving to the car to get my phone charger but was like, if I do they'll probably think I bailed again. and then I could literally hear them talking about me, and S saying, "I bet when we come out, she'll be gone again" and I just... felt so angry at him but also like such an asshole bc I'm sick and having a miserable time when I WANT to have fun but instead I'm being a bitch and I can't help it. And they want to drink and get high and I don't like either of those things even when I'm NOT sick as a dog and barely able to breathe, so fuck no I'm not doing that, thanks.

I think after that we finally went to our hotel bc it was check in time (3pm). My friend had reserved the room but they wouldn't let her pay because her card didn't have her name on it, and the others only had cash, so I stepped up to put the room on my card. It made me feel better about being there at all, because they literally wouldn't have had a place to stay (this was a fairly long drive away from Boston).

We went out to eat and this is where S shows once again how much of an asshole he is...

I'm not sure WHERE this came from, but out of the blue while we're sitting in this restaurant, S says something like, "If a drunk girl tells me to fuck her and then she passes out, I can tap that without getting in trouble."

Yeah... I'm positive I didn't remember that right but the statement he made didn't make ANY sense.

All four of us (D, H, T, and myself) were like, ???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. That is RAPE.

D and I start trying to explain, for one, UNCONSCIOUS = no, and two, in this hypothetical she gave her "consent" while drunk, and you cannot legally consent while drunk!

"But what if we're both drunk"

We're trying to explain that technically neither could consent, it's a risky situation, and then he goes,

"So what if my ex texts me and says 'come tie me up and have your way with me'."

D is like, "I can't even begin with how many variables there are in that situation."

Me: "It depends. Is she sober? Is it actually HER texting? Is she going to say no when you get there?"

S: "She'd have to prove that it wasn't her texting..."

We kept talking about this and trying to explain like, the limits of consent and finally T is like, "Why are we talking about this?"

D and I: "Because it came up and it's worth talking about! There are a lot of people who don't understand."

But anyway, we pretty quickly dropped the topic, but I cannot get over the fact that S randomly said that he'd fuck an unconscious woman. And I am expected to share a bed with him at the hotel.

I was super super pissed with S at this point like, this actual FUCKBOY, first he thinks that equal rights means his rights get taken away, now he's stated that he'd rape somebody?? like?? get the fuck away from me, permanently.

We had to drive D back to his room and it's dark outside now.

I haven't yet mentioned, but as beautiful as Boston is to walk around, the roads are crazy and driving is a fucking nightmare. There are some normal streets but almost everything connects directly onto a highway (at least where we were... and I'm not sure if highway is the right word bc fuck if I know anything about driving but they are SCARY multi-lane roads). The highways are like 4, 3, or 5 fucking lanes of people driving like there's no speed limit, cars constantly switching lanes and assholes flying past us.

All of that is scary enough, but worse is that:

- T is the one driving, because H is too scared to drive in Boston traffic. - T does not have a license. - The car's left blinker doesn't fucking work, so switching lanes to the left is a deathwish. - Did I mention the drinking and getting high? Yeah. - Also, the chainsmoking resumes and I am in fucking misery.

We manage to drop D off, and they had mentioned the fact that they HAVE the lightbulb for the back blinker, but didn't take the time to install is before leaving. D had mentioned that he could probably do it. So I'm like, hey, how about we do that?  D takes a look and realizes that it'd take some time to take apart, but he'd be able to do it with some assistance. T is like, nah it'd take some work, and I'm disheartened (bc I want this car to be as legal as fucking possible bc if we get pulled over I'm 100% sure that I'm fucked on getting home, best case scenario. Worst case scenario, I might charged with something just for being with these guys. Idk if that's even rational but honestly.) but they agree to just deal with it later.

We get back to the hotel and H and I decide to go swimming in the pool. It's honestly one of the highlights of the trip for me bc I rarely get to go swimming, so we enjoyed ourselves for a while, talking about how T and S were kind of annoying both of us. The guys were getting alcohol and stuff while we swam, and they drank some and then joined us. It was kind of funny bc H had worn her bikini bottom but also swim trunks over them, and S didn't have anything to wear to swim in, so she gave him her trunks. They fit him so tightly lmaoo. The guys were splashing around, goofing off, and at this point I'm less angry and more just like, letting it all go, I know I don't like S whatsoever, he's fucking dumb, but I don't want to be hostile and I'm trying as much as possible to not be a huge bitch and a wet blanket, so it's whatever. We joked around a lot, and had fun, and finally got out of the pool when it was closing. But it was really awkward bc they had to go to change and T had gone into the women's room with H so I had to stand outside and wait to change my clothes... and I could hear H yelling at him about... peeing wildly everywhere? Oh my god. I don't even wanna know. It was one of those moments where I was like, there is nudity beyond both of these doors and I am probably forever going to be not comfortable with that. It's kind of a bizarre and shitty realization that everyone else is on a different plane of existence. Like, I'm the weird one because I don't wanna see dicks flopping around. Huh.

Rinsed off, changed clothes, went back upstairs, blow dried my hair and flopped onto the bed. At this point, I'm physically worn down but.... not.... tired. So I'm not sure if I'm going to fall asleep. But they want to run around, and ask about the strip club plans, and my friend is like, "Dae said she didn't want to go" (which is true, I told her no because I'm very sick and felt uncomfortable about the whole idea anyway) but the guys are like, "You're killing us, we're not going?" and she's like, "Are we?" and I'm so sick and tired at this point that I'm like, "Actually yeah let's go" and get up and get dressed again, ready to impress, ready to jump in and see some ladies and titties and see how uncomfortable I feel about it all.

We get into the car, and all of us have been trying to see what the nearest strip club is... there really isn't one. What the nearest bar is... eh. We're trying to find something really close by, because the guys have been drinking and T has no LICENSE and the car blinker is broken so instead I'm like, "Where's the nearest Walmart?"  over 100 miles away jfc. "Where's the nearest target?" Less than a mile away. Awesome! My mood is UP bc we're going to Target, now this is my idea of a good time.

Yeah, no. My phone is a piece of SHIT and they refuse to even look at it, but their phone won't update fast enough while we're driving and we CAN'T FUCKING MERGE LEFT because we'll be killed in this traffic, so we have to go to the right. We see other stores and want to go to them, but the problem is, when we turned right we already missed that opportunity. And this road merges directly into a fucking interstate. And we cannot turn off of it. And now we are going 80 mph in the wrong direction and have to take the next off ramp.

For the next fucking 30 minutes at least, we are desperately trying to get our fucking phones to tell us where we are and where we need to go. Everything loops in circles, because of the highways and off ramps. We keep missing fucking turns and ending up in even more of a tangled mess. Our phones did not charge up much at the hotel and are on the verge of dying once again and we cannot fucking turn LEFT. T and S are getting frustrated, I'm convinced I'm going to fucking die, and H is having an anxiety attack, texting me like, "This is my car and if we crash everyone is going to get hurt and it's my fault" and I'm like... can we please fucking stop somewhere and just fix the fucking light.

By the time we finally make it back to where we belong, we just go straight to the hotel. So fucking much for strip clubs, or bars, or even Target. Fuck that noise. We aren't driving anywhere after all, we all agree on that and we're all really frustrated and stressed.

I ask again like, even if it takes a while we should really fix the light bc driving down to Mass we had the same problem, and we're going to keep having that problem until we fix it, but the guys are like, we'd have to take apart the whole back end, if it were a quick fix we'd have done it already. In the daylight it'll be okay, it's really just at night that's the worst because all they see is our tail lights, and a lack of left blinker means someone might get killed. So I'm like, alright and let it go.

We get snacks from the vending machines, and crash in the hotel room again. Despite all the hyped talk from the guys about drinking and drugs (seriously, S was like, "Let's go  get some ecstacy or heroin" before we left on that horrific ride, and H was like "UHHHH NO, NOT HAPPENING."  He also talked about forcing girls to choke on his dick, so if anyone was wondering if he learned anything from the Consent Discussion, the answer is, probably no. And people wonder why I have sex anxiety jfc.)

Thankfully, I crashed on one bed, and H, T, and S all crashed on the other bed... probably bc they didn't want to catch my germs tbh. I heard S saying "bacterial pneumonia" to his phone.

Sleep was... hellish. I woke up at 4am, SHAKING uncontrollably and had to turn up the heat for a while. I think I was running a fever so it didn't help me at all.. after that I had to press a cold drink against my forehead and didn't fall asleep again until 6am, and we all get up around 8:50am.

Btw, the hotel was pretty shitty... a bunch of ants were under my shoes at the indoor pool when I picked my shoes up... they were coming up from the vents because I guess I stepped in something sugary. H freaked out a bit. Then in our 3rd floor room, there was another of those ants on my pillow. Nice. The breakfast service was shitty. The only edible thing for me was the apple juice, the rest of it was awful cheap stuff. We went to burger king instead, which H had wanted for breakfast anyway. My voice was nearly gone at this point and I had to type my order onto my phone and let the cashier read it. The burger king was also super shitty lmao it was under construction but the bathrooms were just, awful and unkept. We realized we had to head straight home now in order to get back in time for everything H and I had to do, so we got straight onto the highway.

Once again... terrifying traffic, and the difficulty of merging to the left. Every time T had to merge, I had to close my eyes and post facebook statuses like "pray for me because I am going to die." At this point, T and S are like, "We should've just fixed the light before we left" and I am like, internally fucking screaming BECAUSE I SAID THAT ALREADY OH MY GOD. Also, CUE THE CHAINSMOKING AGAIN.

I got dropped off directly at my work a couple hours before my shift, and then worked my closing shift.

Remember, at this point I've had very little sleep and fevers every night since Friday... my voice is just a whisper, I spent hours walking around Boston, hours awake at night, I should be exhausted but I am wide the fuck awake. By the time I finally got home, I still didn't even fall asleep until almost 2am.

So yeah.... I'm not even sure how to summarize my trip to Boston and how it made me feel. Everything was really random and accidental. It took a long time for it to occur to me, holy shit I am in BOSTON, historic Boston, and should be taking pictures and seeing the Freedom Trail and actually interesting stuff like that, but it didn't seem to occur to any of us until the day we had to go back and H wwas like, "I wish I'd taken more pictures."  I wish I had too, especially of the march, but since I ws sick before I even left, I actually wasn't even aware that the marches were going on, I was completely out of the loop. It's something I was super excited about and would've never been able to go to normally, but somehow I accidentally happened to end up there at the right time.

In all it was, frustrating, miserable, beautiful, surprisingly nice and diverse, historic, terrifying, stupid, and extremely lucky. Lucky that we managed to arrange the trip on short notice, lucky that we didn't die on the way down, lucky that I happened to be there for a huge protest event that I was able to partake in at least a tiny bit, lucky that I didn't have to go to the strip club after all, lucky that we didn't get arrested, lucky that we made it back safely, lucky that I didn't chop S's dick off and shove it down his throat. I think I might've used up all of the luck for the next ten years, and I'm a bit frightened.

For those keeping score at home, 

Reasons Why Dae Needs to be Grounded:

- going on a trip with sketchy drug dealing wannabe-gangsters who are racist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic dumbasses - going on this trip while extremely sick - ditching my friend and the group while extremely sick, in a strange city, with all of our cell phones dying, and ignoring their calls - swimming in the pool while extremely sick (I broke the pool rules whoops) - getting BACK into the defective car with a driver who had been drinking and has no license, at night - going to work directly after this trip, while extremely sick - still trying to talk while my voice is 99% gone - not cleaning my room (it’s so messy help) - staying up late at night to type this instead of sleeping

and now my throat feels much better but I’ve 100% lost my voice and can only communicate through strained whispers and interpretive dance.

but I have tomorrow off and I plan to finally.... rest. 

assuming that I can even fall asleep.

[lanshappycorner]

Deuce Spade facts and fun facts🥳🥳

This is a list of facts and fun facts about Deuce! This list is based on true facts only and any observations I've made, however observations can be subjective, so those will be labeled properly! Let's start off with some facts already in the wiki :)

First Yr, class 1-A, student no.24

Birthday: June 3

Age: at the beginning of the game, Deuce is 16, but currently, he is 17 [his profile in game has not been updated, but as time is proven to flow in game, it is unclear but can be interpreted that the characters do canonly age]

Gemini

173 cm / 5'8" ft

Homeland: Rose kingdom

Family: Mother, Grandmother, it is implied that his father is out of the picture as Deuce states that he is the only man in the family so his father has either left or is dead

Club: Track and Field [alongside Jack]

Best subject: PE

Dominant hand: Right

Fav food: Egg dishes / omurice

Least fav food: Bell peppers

Dislikes: Limited time sales

Hobby: Magical wheel (twst motorcycle I guess but it looks kinda funky)

Talents: Machinery Maintainance [good with fixing gadgets and etc]

Used to be a delinquent before he heard his mother crying on the phone to his grandmother about his behavior. Afterwards he decided to change

Owns a pink leopard printed suit

Cannot do middle school math, he will take a lot of time to solve simple Algebra problems

Gets nervous and stops functioning entirely when talking to women

Onto some fun facts outside of the wiki! These facts have been gathered from various sources (ppl who can read japanese, ppl who have told me abt info in the twst guidebook, twitter, and ofc the main translated story), but I cannot prove 100% authenticity of this, so take it with a gain of salt

Canonly a pretty boy. Deuce is described as the "cool pretty type" in the twst guidebook

Smells like flowers [applies to all students from Rose kingdom]

A romantic, he admired the king and queen of heart's relationship and trey teased him about it

Thought that baby chicks hatch from store bought eggs until the MC and Grim told him the truth

Can cook eggs (he likes them over easy)

Wanted to make a magical wheel club but was rejected so he joined track and field

Bought magical wheel magazines when he was younger and studied it

Wanted to ride his magical wheel in the heartslabyul maze (mentioned he forgets bad things when he rides it so like...it makes him feel better)

Hates limited times sales/shopping but is extremely good at it. He can remember the price of an item, when exactly it sells out, the percentage/probability of when it can sell out, discount prices and pretty much any math that has to do with it [he's extremely good at shopping because his mother brought him out a lot with her to limited time sales]

In addition to the point above, it is implied he can memorize and calculate that for pretty much every item he intends on buying (everything I listed above is in relation to the time he bought 20 limited time puddings which greatly impressed Sebek who wasn't able to grab even 1, but it was later revealed that he also bought 8 bag full of items requested by Trey for baking, as well as the others probably from heartslabyul) so basically Deuce big brain and very good memorization abilities

Hilariously in the instance above, Sebek, who is like...a real fae, has said that what Deuce did was not something a human can do

Flirted with a plant because vil was fucking around with him and told him to

Was ready to fist fight Riddle

Was about to go find Leona to beat him up but Vil was like do u have no fear and Deuce pretty much said that he can get thru to Leona with his muscles

Was about to fight Malleus (jesus christ) but ended up fixing his tamagotchi and came out completely loaded and rich (good for deuce, get that cha ching babey)

Won a Track and Field competition (noted to be rare for a first year)

He is literally a pretty boy, it's been pointed out that he looks good in the ceremonial clothes (but we already know that)

Admires Riddle and sees him as a role model, has called him boss (like...yakuza boss terminology) once

[Observation] Has a pretty good relationship with Jamil as he has asked Jamil to help him practice his Stargazer dance, and mentioned him once again when talking about how Jamil fixed his hat and said that he was a reliable upperclassman

Has said fuck and would not hesitate to say it again 🥺

Has been called honest and cute, was fawned over by kalim and trey. Kalim said Deuce was similar to his younger brothers

During his delinquent phase, he was blamed for many things he didn't do as well, Deuce said that he realized no one believed in him despite what he says, but because a policeman stood up for him, he wanted to become a cop when he grew up

Used intimidation tactics [the equivalent of "u wanna fucking go let's go I'll beat ur ass" to scare off ppl and silver was like hm I will have to try that sometime, to which deuce was pretty much like ahahah no dont

Deuce refers to Yuu as his "mabu", basically calling Yuu his best friend

He can change a lightbulb, and he talks abt hand washing materials and just domestic house stuff in general as if it's common knowledge. In other words it's implied Deuce is really good at housework due to doing a lot for his mother

When he was a kid, he used to cry because he thought there were monsters outside, but it was just hanging laundry

Is more scared of Riddle than ghosts

It's implied that one time (or several times...) he stayed after school with Crewel, and the poor guy had to attempt to explain the same concept over and over again to Deuce for hours until he understood

Ace always cheats in card games with Deuce, so Deuce claims that it's not very fun playing with him

Bad at astrology bc apparently all stars look the same to him

Likes cafe latte

Does tease ppl, he once messed with Yuu and in the process called Ace "Ace-kun" (Ace called him "Deuce-kun" as well). There has been an instance where he's teased Jack about his Niceness TM

Used to have over 30 gang members following him at age 14-15. (You'd think that him being so young would make him like a lackey but no he was the boss)

Has a thing for summoning cauldrons since he was young, but apparently you need to have a large amount of magic capabilities to summon objects, so [observation] deuce may actually be extremely powerful bc he was able to summon things at a young age, but he hasn't refined his powers yet so he still seems weak compared to a lot of the cast

During his delinquent phase, apparently he had a really wild hairstyle and he used his magic on people weaker than him

[Observation] Deuce is actually pretty good at lying. In his Halloween card he was able to put up a good act and deceive some of his ex gang members into following him into the forest before mildly roughing them up (keep in mind that he has not had contact with these ppl for at least a year, yet somehow he was able to assert enough authority to tell them to follow him. Also, he thought of this plan on the spot, and acted malicious enough so that the gang members would believe in him—which proves that he's not only quick witted but a convincing actor, as Jamil actually believed his act for a while)

It's implied that he and Ace are often in leadership positions, as they helped to lead heartslabyul in designing their Halloween booth, but they also mentioned that it was much easier compared to organizing unbirthday parties

[Observation] despite wanting to be an honor student, Deuce is still able to take unjustly means to achieve his goals (EX. Making a deal with Azul to pass his test), in general, deuce doesn't care too much about the method, be it through cheating or violence to get to his goal, but he does value a fair battle

[Observation] a lot of Deuce's strengths are subtle as we are frequently told abt how much of a bad student he is, but if u rly think abt it, deuce is put in leadership positions a lot, he's good a memorization and small technical details, he can be at times quick witted and deceiving, and he has the potential to be extremely powerful in magic. In conclusion Deuce is a menace and once we find out what his unique magic is I'm 100.01% sure he will become a greater menace and I think he should fight a lot of people and win

That will be all for this post! There may be more fun facts/observations that I may have missed, but feel free to add on to this! Anyways thank u for reading and please stan Deuce Spade♠️💙

[theyhaveacavetroll]

I posted 1,380 times in 2021

62 posts created (4%)

1318 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 21.3 posts.

I added 375 tags in 2021

#james bond - 171 posts

#black sails - 38 posts

#tolkien - 38 posts

#october daye - 30 posts

#fic - 23 posts

#dishonored - 23 posts

#this - 18 posts

#yep - 15 posts

#love it - 11 posts

#alec trevelyan - 8 posts

Longest Tag: 119 characters

#and i would also like the world to get less shitty so that the students can stop experiencing the horrors of this world

Note: searching this tag will get you nowhere bc ... blue hellsite

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Skyfall summary: It's a lovely day at MI6 and you are a horrible Tiago.

22 notes • Posted 2021-10-14 02:31:47 GMT

#4

007 Fest 2021 Masterpost

I was going to try and squeak one more fic in under the wire, but realistically there is absolutely no way I'm going to finish something in under three days (I say desperately as I try to make progress on my next novel pleasedeargodsBondplotbunniesstopnibblingmycrops) so here is my 007 Fest masterpost for this year!

Fics (links in titles):

Property of a Lady - 1908 words. Licence to Kill Fix-it. It takes Bond perhaps ten minutes to realize that Felix and Della were inviting him to join them for their wedding night. It takes an attempted murder, a knife fight, and a kiss to prove to him that they were proposing a good deal more than a simple threesome.

Retrieving Agent Rodriguez or Mallory Makes His Move - 2079 words. Skyfall Fix-it. Gareth Mallory is a smart man - smart enough to realize that a hearing is bad, bad news for MI6 should it go through. Smart enough to recognize a golden opportunity to cut that hearing short when he sees it. The question is - can he convince Raoul Silva to cooperate?

To Sleep No More - 4665 words. Soulmate AU. James Bond has not slept properly since losing Alec at Archangel. If he were a little less sleep-deprived, he might realize that a severed soulmate link wouldn't keep him awake if Alec were dead.

From Russia with Brainwashing - 3264 words, 2388 of them written during Fest. Post-canon Fix-it for Goldeneye and Marvel crossover. In the process of looking for Bucky, Steve and Sam come across some old photos of an MI6 officer. As it turns out, 007 isn't just a character from a movie.

All in all, I posted four fanworks for a total of 11040 words and I participated in the Agent Day challenge. Maybe next year I'll be able to do a bit more but for this year I'm counting it as a victory.

Edit: @freddiechase reminded me that I have this post to add to my count as well! Thanks!

Gareth Mallory Headcanons

24 notes • Posted 2021-07-28 17:54:37 GMT

#3

Flintsredhair>>>>>>>>theyhaveacavetroll

29 notes • Posted 2021-05-18 00:56:08 GMT

#2

things I am never going to be over in regards to Simon Torquill:

He literally throws himself in Eira's path because he loves Patrick and he knows she's going to hurt him but he'd rather it be him than Patrick. He deals with 100+ years of complete loss of agency in every part of his life and never once gives up because August needs him to find her and to him that’s the end of the conversation. His daughter needs him and he’s not going to let her down and he doesn’t. And then his other daughter is in danger, so he yeets himself back into the path of the oncoming danger to warn her and gets elfshot in the process. On top of that he proceeds to get himself well and truly lost so that August can come home. And then he has the absolute stupid gall to say that he’s not a hero. Bullshit, Simon. Bullshit.

34 notes • Posted 2021-01-21 11:48:55 GMT

#1

Belated Mallory Headcanons

Mallory Headcanons for M Monday:

He's an only child who grew up as the oldest of a bunch of cousins

He's gay and got lucky enough to have parents who were both upper class and not worried about who he loved, although they do try to set him up with eligible men to this day.

Mallory didn't escape Ireland unscathed. He's got a bad back that plagues him, knees that ache on bad days, and a lingering hatred of raised voices as well as an impressive list of scars.

He's a massive art lover and would happily spend hours in every gallery he goes to.

He's a tennis player although he mostly only gets time for a quick, friendly match now and again, nothing competitive.

He's very much capable of taking down his own double-0s if needed, including Bond. Luckily, he's never needed to.

63 notes • Posted 2021-07-17 22:19:08 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[lunchador]

I am trying to be normal levels of excited right now bc I had no idea you were so far in DA:O (i forget tumblr exists oops) so now I'm just!!! 8)))))) so thrilled you liked it I wanna know everything & I'm definitely gonna finish scrolling through what you already posted but!!! i wanna ask about your ending i Do Not See It anywhere and I'm curious wrt loghain & hazel (please tell me she survived 😭😭)

Bro, some shit happened.

While I’m pretty sure no one is like “Wow Raspa really had  spiraled down into DA, I’m now interested in playing”, spoilers I guess??

SO MANY CHOICES AT THE END OF THE GAME

SO

Let me tell you, I had a plan.

The second I learned of Alistair being bastard son of a King and had the potential to be the next one, I knew in my heart, we had to break up for PLOT reasons. I knew he’d be a genuine one, and while my characters backstory was she was eager to be in a position of leadership back when she was daughter of an Arl, she realized she liked being a soldier on the road helping people so she definitely would not want to be Queen, she’s never been elegant and did not want the attention.

So we get to the awkward moment I knew was coming. I convinced Anora to enter a political marriage with my boyfriend. Awkward. I talk Alistair into it, he breaks up with me. Ouch.

LOGHAIN. Man, I said FUCK THAT GUY. He ain’t my homie. I’ve grown very proud to be a grey warden and fuck him for trying to taint them. So, I beheaded him. In retrospect, pretty shitty for your future husband/kings current girlfriend to kill your dad after she just asked you to go into this political tie to keep your royal status idk. Maybe it would have been more just to make Loghain be someone who serves for the greater good after everything he pulled.

Riordan drops the bomb that a grey warden has to kill the Archdemon and that grey warden has to die. GREAT. I decide, He offers himself to do it after I state i will sacrifice myself and I go ok I guess he has a point he’s much older and doesn’t have much longer.

Morrigan puts her offer on the table. She needs Alistair to dump a creampie in her. Awkward cuz I didn’t work on her relationship enough (idk she hated me) so I’m like, ah, you want me to ask my boyfriend who you hate and who hates you to fuck you? I tell myself I can’t do it, not because I’m jealous and the only girl for him, but because I just bullied him into a marriage and now I’m gonna push him to have sex with a woman he despises on my behalf? Literally what the fuck from his perspective. My friends chewed me out for this, said I should have let Alistair “give her that soup can dick”. Alistair’s soupcan dick is now a reoccuring joke.

Riordan dies. Just fuckin dropped by the Archdemon. Did I fuck up or does that happen regardless?

So there goes plan A. And I’m thinking, fuck it, I had a good run. We are going to pull some Fallout 3 ending bullshit. I will die to save everyone

E X C E P T

Alistair, who JUST dumped me  mind you, tells me he’s not going to let me sacrifice myself, not while he has the opportunity to stop it, cuz the stupid bitch loves me.

SO

I watch in fucking horror as my video game boyfriend, the only person Hazel has ever had feelings for, leaps up and sacrifices himself, mostly on my behalf, because this fucker who wanted nothing more in his life was to have a family who loves him, and he said he wasn’t ready to be king, so instead he’s throwing it all away to protect the one person he’s loved.

So, true to me as a person and my usual experience in video games, I royally fucked up.

So yeah, Hazel survives. But, it sucks.

The canon ending I got: Alistair died on my behalf, Hazel continues on with the grey wardens with Zevran and Oghren on her side. The canon ending I wanted: Alistair Marries Anora and every meeting between future King Alistair and little ol’ Hazel are painful as hell full of yearning and full of what ifs til the end of their days. The ending I heavily considered: Alistair becoming king and Hazel being his consensual side piece. But Anora mentioned yet another husband who had other women behind her back and i felt guilty.

The ways I fucked up: Didn’t ‘harden’ Alistair, whatever the fuck that means. I should have recruited Loghain and used him as the sacrifice. Got Riordan killed? Again, not sure if that’s automatic or me. I guess I could have let Alistair do cummies inside Morrigan but GOD would he be fine knowing he has a bastard son whos a fucking hellspawn, literally?????? oh my god.

I am very pleased with the overall lore and writing of this game and how decisions genuinely feel like they’ve got weight. I do wish I took more time with the game (i didn’t get to do several companion quests and i wanna know more lore).

Also I didn’t save I guess?? At the end of the game? Idk, it only showed me my save from before the archdemon battle and wouldn’t let me load my Origins file onto 2. So HAHA BITCH, ALISTAIR LIVES. My friends are ripping on me to go with Alistair being dead because the fun of all 3 games is having your decisions cross over but FUCK THAT.

[aethelar]

hey might you be able to do a prompt where newt has protected graves and he looks dead and graves is a ball of angst bc dammit his love is just there no breath no movement he's gone and he gingerly picks newt up and he's angst and queenie is angst along with jacob and then boom, newts chest shifts and all is happy, its cool if u can't lmao but I'm not a talented writer or id do this myself but you, your words are art

Hello I might be able to do this prompt but on the other hand what please have I done to deserve this and why please am I being punished for it in this way

Because let’s go with this:

They were meant to be safe.

That’s the bit that will stick, the bit that come back to haunt him later; they were meant to be safe. If it was on a raid, if they’d gone prepared, if Graves had been watchful and waiting and ready then would it have been better? Perhaps. Probably not. There’s very little about any of it that could be better. But still, the worst thing, it seems to Graves, is that they were meant to be safe.

Safe.

Graves despises the word.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Tina had said, with her hair cropped short and her wand holster angled for easy access in battle. “The manpower it’s costing us is unsustainable. Knowing Grindelwald’s targets isn’t enough if we can’t keep them safe.”

He’d nodded, distracted, bent over his desk with too many papers spread out and too many glowing spell-lines connecting the important points. “Reasonable,” he’d said, like the naive fool he’d been at the time. “What’s your solution?”

If he’d been paying attention, perhaps the steadying breath she’d taken would have warned him, but. Add it to the list of things Graves’ regrets. “Evacuation,” she’d said, and all Graves had said was to ensure the targets were sent far enough away.

“No use evacuating them somewhere they’ll be tempted to come back and get themselves killed,” he’d joked wryly. “You know what our lot are like.”

“Yes, sir,” she’d answered, carefully blank. “I know.”

And Graves, idiot, blind, stupid Graves, had signed the order she gave him. It would free up at least two full time squads, another three on rotation. Defence never won the war. They had to think of the bigger picture. Pithy, hateful statements that seemed perfectly justifiable at the time - and then Tina had pushed the list of Grindelwald’s highest priority targets across the desk and Graves had grunted in annoyance at the plans she’d pushed aside in doing so.

“Sir,” she’d said. Or was it apologised? He’d mumbled his assent and pulled it closer to read.

Jacob Kowalski, the no-maj that knew about magic - the no-maj that was in danger of convincing the wizarding world the magic didn’t have to hide. A threat to Grindelwald’s fear mongering; a good choice for evacuation.

Queenie Goldstein, the legilimens - yes, wise; who knew what Grindelwald would do if he had her.

Newt Scamander, the magizoologist - Graves hissed at the thought of sending Newt away, but even he had to admit that Grindelwald’s attempts to get to Newt were verging on obsessive. Whether it was Newt’s supposed control over his creatures or his connection to Albus Dumbledore, neither of them knew, but either way it was dangerous. Newt wouldn’t like it, but it was better for him to be safe.

And then, half way down the list and past several unimportant names that Graves had flicked through with the barest pause to catalogue and evaluate -

“No.”

“Sir - ”

“No, Goldstein.”

“Sir, the number of attempts - ”

“I will not stand by - ”

“The madam president requested it specifically.” She hadn’t even shaken. Just held his gaze, immovable and unyielding and there was a part of him, now, that missed the auror she’d been before Grindelwald had made her hard. At the time he’d been too angry to care, desperately trying to think of a way to strike his name off the damnable list. She’d stood with her arms loose, her stance firm, her wand in its holster angled for easy access, and she’d told him, “You don’t have a choice.”

He’d wanted to rage. He’d wanted to fight, to deny it, to ask what use he was if wasn’t fighting and to point out that surely it was better for the war to have him until he died than to not have him at all, to claim he was integral to the aurors and they couldn’t afford to send him away -

He hadn’t. No one was so important the others would fall apart without him there. Arrogance was unbecoming, and it was selfish to think he was the only one that deserved to stay.

So here they were, the four of them, sent away somewhere safe to wait out the war and not get in the way, and the only thing Graves could console himself with was that if these were the only people he had left to protect then he was going to protect the hell out of them. He stalked their perimeters, warded their borders, hustled them out of town and on to the next place when his paranoia grew too loud to ignore - he vibrated, highly strung and always alert, and he kept his tiny family safe.

“Hey,” Newt said, once, on one of those late summer evenings when the light had turned soft and gold and the blazing heat had finally died down to something gentle and sleepy. Newt bumped their shoulders together and smiled when Graves looked his way. “Hey, it’s not so bad, is it?”

Graves shook his head, his thoughts running through the protections, the supplies, the fake names and the fake covers and the fake news articles from the cities hiding sporadic coded messages from Tina. “That’s not the point,” he said.

Newt lay back, sprawled in the dry grass with his hair fanning around his head and his eyes closed. Summer brought out his freckles; they chased each other across his nose, down the line of his neck and the undone buttons of his shirt, out from under his rolled up sleeves and over the backs of his hands. His smile was soft and gold, gentle and sleepy; the knee he used to nudge Graves into lying back with him was insistent.

“You’re going to worry yourself to death,” Newt said. “Nothing good comes of worrying.”

“Being unprepared can kill you,” Graves muttered in return. “We’re at war.”

Newt lifted himself onto an elbow and tugged Graves towards him. “Sure we are,” he said lowly, his lips almost brushing against Graves’ with every movement. “But what’s the point in being so afraid of dying that you never get to live?”

When he kissed Graves, he tasted of summer and safety and reasons to be alive and Graves was a helpless man when he raised his arms to cradle Newt and kiss him back.

He raised his arms to cradle Newt.

He raises his arms to cradle Newt.

He pulls Newt close and bows his head over him.

He presses a shaking, grieving kiss to the freckles that chase their way across Newt’s closed eyelids.

“I was supposed to keep you safe,” he says, whispers, falls apart.

“I know,” Newt replies. He flicks his eyes half-open, hazy and unfocused and lacking the strength to do anything more than that. “I know, but didn’t you think that I -” he breaks off into a wheeze that turns into a cough that turns into a hacking spasm and Graves holds him together as best he can.

“Don’t talk,” he begs. “It’s ok, it’ll be ok, just don’t talk.” Just don’t die.

“Didn’t you think,” Newt continues stubbornly, “That I would do the same for you?”

I didn’t ask you to wars with I didn’t want you to wars with I should never have let you and all three die in his throat; part of Graves wants to snarl and blame Newt for persuading him to let his guard down and enjoy life because doesn’t Newt see, doesn’t Newt know what happens when Graves lets himself stop worrying - part of him wants to blame Newt for getting in the way, for getting himself hurt and for saving his life because what’s the point of Graves being saved if his reason for living isn’t breathing -

“Newt,” he begs. “Newt please, I’m sorry, please, Newt.” His voice breaks, chokes, and he angrily forces it back to obedience. “Please. Don’t do this. You can’t. You - please.”

Newt doesn’t answer.

There are footsteps behind him. Queenie, light and fast; Jacob on her heels. He doesn’t look up, because their steps tell him they’re both alive and that’s as much as he’s able to care about.

“They’re gone,” Queenie says, triumph and pride in her voice. “All their fancy spells and Jacob blew straight through them with a bullet, they -” She breaks off, stumbling into a gasp that verges on a sob. Behind her Jacob’s footsteps slow and then stop with a heavy, wary hesitancy.

“Hey,” Jacob asks quietly. “Hey, Newt - is he...?”

Graves doesn’t answer. What can he say? Newt isn’t breathing. Newt’s eyes are closed. Newt’s head lolls against Graves’ shoulder, his hands hang limply at Graves’ side. There’s nothing to say.

“Check the wards,” he orders instead. “Tracker sweep, scrying blocks - find out how they got in.” He levers himself to his feet, Newt cradled against his chest. “If they tracked us once they can do it again; make sure they don’t.”

“But is he -” Jacob insists. Graves ignores him.

“I want the pair of you gone by morning. No where on the list; go no-maj, pick a place at random. If you’re followed, shoot to kill.”

Queenie steps forward to block his way. “You’re coming with us,” she says. It’s not a question. She already knows the answer.

He ignores her too.

“Take the supplies; leave the explosives. Kowalski, now’s the time to show me how to use a grenade.”

He resettles Newt and walks around them. His mind is ringing strangely blank, like the silence in a roaring crowd; every thought is shouting precautions, things he should tell them, feeding schedules for Newt’s creatures and corrections on Queenie’s wand technique that he never got round to showing her, the single, deafening thought that they should have had more time - but in the middle of it, Graves hears nothing. He’s told them what’s important. He’s done.

He pauses, Newt’s summer smile tugging at his conscience. “Don’t forget to live,” he says, gruffly, blankly, staring over Newt’s head as though by refusing to acknowledge reality he can go back to that evening and that smile. “We’re at war. Being unprepared is how you get killed. But don’t worry so much you forget to live.”

“Graves, you can’t -”

He can. He’s done. Newt is - Graves is done, but Queenie and Jacob aren’t and if they are all Graves has left to keep safe then he’ll set a trap for anyone that dares hurt them and with fire and fury and all the hurt he won’t allow himself to feel, he will keep them safe.

“I knew you were listening,” Newt breathes, his lips twitching up into the faintest smile.

For a long second, Graves doesn’t hear him - then it’s like a punch to the gut, all the air driven out of his lungs. “Newt?”

Newt’s hand twitches, like he wants to lift it up and rest his palm on Graves’ cheek in comfort but he doesn’t have the strength. “Hey,” he says, weak and thready but he says it, with breath and with life and his smile twists in pain when he tries to lift his head but he has a smile to twist and it shouts deafening in Graves’ head. “Don’t let him die, yeah?”

Who, Graves wants to ask, who does Newt want to keep alive and Graves will set their entire explosive stockpile on fire to protect them -

“I won’t,” Queenie says from behind him. She presses her shoulder against him in solidarity and warning. “We’ve got him, Newt.”

Jacob comes up to his other side. “Not going anywhere,” he promises, jaw set in stubborn determination.

Graves frowns at them in confusion as Newt manages a nod. Who, he wants to ask again, who is important, who are they keeping safe and why doesn’t Graves know, how can he protect them if he doesn’t know -

Queenie elbows him. “You,” she says. You idiot, she implies, but is polite enough to keep unspoken.

Graves looks between them again and he’s still too caught up on the fact that Newt isn’t dead, Graves failed but he gets a second chance to protect the man he -

Oh. 

No one was so important, he’d justified to himself when Tina sent him away, that the others would fall apart without him there. But Newt was important enough to Graves and Graves, apparently, was important enough to Newt, and it was a strange and foreign feeling to have to keep himself safe to keep other people safe, but.

Newt is alive. If all Newt asks in return is for Graves to keep on living too, then fuck it. For Newt, Graves will live the hell out of life.

He resettles Newt in his arms. “New plan,” he says to Queenie and Jacob. “We rig the explosives on a decoy, meanwhile all four of us are at least two states over by the time Grindelwald comes back...”

[awed-frog]

Hi! I'm the university anon, I'm sorry it took me all this time to answer, I didn't saw your response and then I forgot. The thing is, I'm a passionate person when it comes to study bc everything has (at least for me) the capacity to make me very passionate (I don't care if it's math, literature, biology, art) but I fear that whatever I choose to study, I'll end up hating it or getting bored bc of outside factors. It's weird

Hi there, no problem! I was just worried about you, is all.

So, I think I have a friend who’s just like you, and ended up choosing a very unlikely combination of lectures because he was just interested in everything, but the thing is, it’s very hard to truly know what a subject’s like when you’ve only had a look at it from a high school perspective, so I think that’s a problem that will sort itself out. In his case, he ended up understanding (at the end of his first year) that yeah, he still liked both subjects very much, but he liked one in a ‘I want to know ALL THE THINGS about this and get ten different PhDs and God, am I fangirling over long-dead physics professors now??’ kind of way, and he liked the other one more in a ‘I’ll probably get a book about this at Christmas and also catch that exbition if I have time’ way, and in my experience this happens to most people. If you live in a normal country, and you can be a bit flexible with your first-year program, please do that - explore and have fun and be open to changing your mind. Most people I know switched majors after their first semester, and I think that’s healthy and normal.

As for getting bored - again, I think you underestimate just how vast human knowledge is. In my first year alone, in my minor, I was dealing with four or five completely different things. ‘Mathematics’, ‘History’, ‘English Lit’ - those are not monolithic subjects, and won’t lead to the same professional outcome. Like, I know several people who studied geography - one’s a high school teacher, one’s a park ranger, and another works for the government and tries to figure out the link between parks and happiness and how to place more trees in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Everything is just so diverse - how could you ever get bored?

And yeah, the outside factors will always be there - there’s the boring professor who’ll scare you away from a specific subject, and the dad who’ll convince you to drop the ‘useless’ lecture, and the friend who’ll talk you into taking tango classes with her and if you have to skip that thing on Etruscan pottery, whatever, you can get your two credits with something else, right? But the thing is, this is what life is like. This is what we all learn growing up, and what we keep getting wrong - when to listen to those outside factors and when not to. Maybe that one professor was boring on purpose, and you should have stuck with it. Maybe not. Maybe your dad was right, and if you follow his advice you’ll land your dream job. Or maybe he wasn’t, but your life will turn out fine anyway, because that’s how lives work. And maybe Etruscan pottery was your true calling all along, and you missed out on becoming a Cambridge professor, but hey, you and your wife fell in love during those tango classes, and you wouldn’t give that up for the world.

So I know this is annoying to hear, but you’re still so young - don’t take this stuff too seriously or plan ahead too much. Be enthusiastic, work hard, and be open to all the sane possibilities crossing your path and a few insane ones - and you’ll be just fine. Oh, and congrats on starting your studies! I wish you all the best!

[presumenothing]

Oh my god, dude.... Soul mate ask... Can I ask for 23 KaiShi (I'm so in love with this pairing, you've ruined me.)

(soulmate AU prompts)

regret nothing until it is too late, then regret e v e r y t h i n g

this turned out more ai-centric than anything else lmao, mea culpa. scenes not in chronological order, will probably rework/expand later bc i feel

.

23. the one where once you meet your soulmate, it’s physically uncomfortable to be apart from them for too long.

.

v.

In most regards, Ai supposes, she could have done worse than having the Kaitou Kid as her soulmate.

It might’ve been Edogawa instead, for starters, and while that isn’t in itself a problem it’d still mean seeing more dead bodies than she really cares for.

(Though if Kuroba tries to talk her into moving to Ekoda again, Ai isn’t going to be responsible for what she does in response.

It’s mostly his fault that they ever met anyway, so as far as she’s concerned he can either move to Beika or deal with the consequences.)

iv.

Shiho has never put much stock in the concept of soulmates.

She’s well-acquainted with the scientific evidence, obviously. Extensive research in the field continues to be ethically controversial, but studies have sufficiently demonstrated the correlation between separating certain pairs of people for extended periods of time and the associated physiological effects: increased heart rate, shallow respiration, heightened levels of cortisol. The evidence is convincing, though the particulars differ, and no rigorous theory of the bond has been developed thus far.

What she questions are the psychological effects people often discuss. Nothing ludicrously precise as telepathy – those claims had been thoroughly debunked in the ‘80s, even if urban legends still circulated to this day – but instead a whole host of subtler effects, with the most commonly cited one being empathy connected to strong feelings.

It seems fallacious, though, to assume that such a bond would entail any emotional connection, beyond the effects of cognitive dissonance working to smooth over a relationship enforced by proximity.

At any rate, as far as Shiho’s concerned, her soulmate – if she has one, since the conditions make it difficult to conclusively prove whether or not every individual has a soulmate – is better off staying away from her, for both their sakes. The last thing she needs is to be bound down geographically, let alone to any single individual, and unless her hypothetical soulmate is in the Organisation as well she doesn’t see how the situation can be tenable anyway.

(She rarely spends time around people anyway, so it’s not like it matters all that much, really.)

iii.

If nothing else, being an elementary schooler means that people assume by default that she hasn’t really thought much about the concept of soulmates yet, let alone had a chance to meet her own.

Ai is more than fine with that. She still believes that the entire phenomenon of soulmates is more trouble than it’s worth, and becoming Haibara Ai has only served to further cement that opinion, if anything.

(The professor had asked her about it once, near the beginning, followed a few days later by Edogawa when he’d stopped tiptoeing around her like a bomb set to explode at any moment. The detective hadn’t bothered couching it as an indirect question, of course, but she understood the intent all the same, as well as their relief when she’d answered in the negative.

You couldn’t very well sever a bond with just a change of name, after all, and Edogawa is very fortunate that Mouri Ran isn’t his soulmate, because there wouldn’t have been any hiding from that.)

ii.

Akemi doesn’t share her opinions, of course.

Shiho watches her sister talk animatedly over dinner, eyes alight with excitement, about an old school friend of hers who’d just found her soulmate, and wonders if she should hope for Akemi to find her own as well.

(Sometimes, she wishes that she’d thought to ask.)

i.

Ayumi and the others are chatting about soulmates during lunch break one day, Edogawa chiming in every now and then with the occasional correction when their chatter veers too far from the facts, when Genta asks, “How d’you even know so much about soulmates anyway, Conan-kun?”

Edogawa laughs in the way he does whenever he’s trying to redirect someone’s attention. “Ah, Ran-neechan and Sonoko-neechan talk a lot about it, that’s all!”

The kids nod, satisfied by this answer, but it’s like a switch flicks on in Ai’s mind – because Genta has a point, and Ai can’t believe she hasn’t noticed it before.

She knows almost everything Edogawa has mentioned so far, that much is true, but that’s largely because she’d just about gone through the existing literature with a fine-toothed comb to check for anything that could potentially interfere with the apoptoxin’s effects.

Even so, Edogawa’s mentioned details that even Ai herself isn’t aware of, and while she can testify to the fact that teenagers talk incessantly about the possibility of meeting their soulmates, as far as she knows neither Mouri nor Suzuki have found theirs yet.

She does at least wait until they’re out of the Detective Boys’ earshot before asking the increasingly apparent question. “You do have a soulmate, don’t you, Edogawa-kun?”

He’s clearly prepared for it, though, because he doesn’t even hesitate before answering. “I told you, Ran’s not my soulmate.”

…Edogawa is a terrible liar. Nevertheless, Ai looks away, pretending to drop the subject as she thinks – it has to be someone in the know, and the answer is startlingly obvious once she thinks about it.

Ai can feel herself smirking. She can’t help it. “So, how is it, having Hattori-kun as a soulmate?”

That makes Edogawa choke on the orange juice he’s drinking, which is all the confirmation she needs. Serves him right for forgetting that he’s not the only one capable of detective work here, Ai thinks with vindictive satisfaction.

(Then, of course, Ayumi manages to convince her to attend a Kid heist less a week later, and – well.

Ai believes in karma even less than she does soulmates, but the irony is almost enough to convince her otherwise.)

0.

The rooftop is freezing.

It’s not snowing, at least, but the gusts of biting wind aren’t much of an improvement.

Today’s heist is the third she’s attended so far, though Ayumi had still been surprised when Ai said that she was planning on coming along – she’d promptly proceeded to power excitedly through the afternoon’s classroom cleaning, dragging the boys along in her wake.

(Ai had ignored Edogawa’s obviously amused glances all the way to the heist site. His deductions aren’t completely off-track, after all, since she is developing an interest in Kid, if not for the reasons he apparently assumes.

It’s not at all surprising for an elementary schooler to be a Kid fangirl, after all, and Ai’s been careful to cultivate her attention gradually enough to avoid suspicion.

At any rate, it’s almost a blessing in disguise that Ai’s bonded to one of the few people even less likely than herself to want a soulmate known. Kid, at least, might not have enemies that would cheerfully take a soulmate ransom if given the chance, but Ai isn’t planning on taking risks either way.)

She tightens the scarf around her neck, grateful that she’d thought to dress in warmer clothing today, and tries to occupy her thoughts with figuring out whether she can gauge Kid’s proximity from how she’s feeling.

As a distraction from the weather, it’s resoundingly unsuccessful, but her mental map narrows abruptly just as Kid slips through the roof access door, jams the lock firmly closed, and turns towards her.

(His cape flares dramatically with the motion. Ai gives him an unimpressed look.)

“Good evening, ojousan.” The magician doesn’t sound surprised, but that means little for someone who isn’t fazed by Edogawa’s soccer missiles. “Should I assume that your presence means what I believe it does?”

“I certainly hope so,” Ai says, her tone perhaps more curt than the situation calls for, but she’s been waiting for a long time and it is cold. “You might not agree, but I’d hate to be stuck with someone of subpar intelligence.”

Amusement flickers across Kid’s expression. “That’s a tall order, but I’ll do my best. Does tantei-kun know?”

It’s a question Ai expects, so her answer comes readily enough. “I haven’t told anyone, but I’d give it three weeks at most before he figures it out, though the sheer unlikelihood of this situation might throw him off for a while longer. Either way, I don’t have any plans to assist Edogawa-kun in catching you with this, to answer your actual question.”

“The inadmissibility of soulmate bonds as evidence in court notwithstanding, I suppose?” Kid asks lightly, and Ai shrugs. It’s not like either of them actually believe that the detective would do anything based on such a tenuous thing without amassing further evidence, anyway.

“If you get caught on your own, that’s frankly none of my business,” she replies blithely, crossing her arms. “Though at least you’d have a regular visitor in prison, if that’s any consolation.”

Kid hums noncommittally as he holds tonight’s heist target up to the moonlight. “Not that I wouldn’t appreciate the company, hypothetically speaking, but if you could consider bringing chocolate?”

Ai raises an eyebrow – she hadn’t pegged the magician to be a chocoholic, though perhaps she should have, assuming that he kept up an active civilian life alongside his night persona – when there’s the recognisable crackle of Edogawa’s shoes powering up in the near distance.

Kid somehow manages to cross the span of the rooftop in the few seconds it takes for a soccer ball to force the door open, revealing Edogawa behind it, dart watch already aimed and ready to fire.

Before the detective can say anything, though, Kid smirks visibly under the shadow of his hat and speaks, loud enough to be heard over the wind even from several metres away. “Looks like you got beaten to the punch this time, tantei-kun!”

Edogawa glances over at her in disbelief, though his watch doesn’t waver from its target. “Haibara? How’d you manage to get up here so quickly?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, meitantei-san?” Ai quips right back, already turning to leave. “I’d be more worried about your quarry getting away if I were you, though.”

The detective blanches at the reminder and turns back immediately, but Ai doesn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that Kid’s used the distraction to slip away – on his glider, probably, from the vague sense of steadily increasing distance between them.

She tucks her hands back into the welcome warmth of her coat pockets as she glances up anyway, her gaze tracking the white triangle across the night sky.

“Better luck next time, Edogawa-kun,” Ai says with a complete lack of sincerity, and leaves him alone on the rooftop, staring after her in confusion.

(She doesn’t miss the smooth edges of a card in her right pocket, of course, but waits until Agasa fetches them home before taking it out.

Black ink stands out starkly against the plain rectangle even in the dim moonlight – one sentence followed by a Kid caricature:

Don’t be a stranger! O_^

Ai rolls her eyes – if Kid is actually expecting her to follow him across town he’s got another think coming – before putting the card away in her top drawer and locking it.

The feeling from earlier is faint now, not registering as discomfort so much as an indefinable pressure, but as far as she can tell, Kid has mostly stopped moving some considerable distance away, though she can’t pick out the direction he’s in.

The scientist in Ai is increasingly tempted to study the boundaries of this, now that she has herself as an immediately accessible test subject, but she contents herself with the one experiment she can run immediately.

Ai silences her other thoughts as completely as she can, and focuses her mind on one sentence.

Don’t leave your heist targets with me, Ai thinks, emphatically, with all the annoyed exasperation the sentiment deserves.

She’s fully planning to drop the jewel in Edogawa’s school satchel once she gets the chance, obviously – no one needs to know that it was in her left pocket at some point, and it wouldn’t be the first time a heist target has been returned to Nakamori-keibu via detective.

But still. It’s the principle of the matter, and if Ai has no choice but to attend Kid heists regularly now she’s going to do it on her own terms.)

.

(“Are you alright, Kaito-bocchama?” Jii asks in concern when Kaito shivers, and he can only shrug cluelessly in response – the Blue Parrot is warm, the chocolate in his mug more so.

None of it explains why he’d felt a sudden chill down his spine, unless Akako is up to something again.

Kaito really hopes she isn’t.)