#be prepared for lots of angst

[hyperfixiation-station]

Hi Sun, just found your writing which I loved, so excited for part 3 of Choices, feel like it's gonna hurt as a Graves's fan but I'm gonna loved as a Ghost's fan, such a sour patch kid moment 💚💚

Aww thank youuuu!! I am not sure when the next bit will be out, as I am working a butt ton of hours and also in the process of moving-ish, but I'm hoping sometime in the next 2 weeks! here is a (very)little sneak-peak for ya though:

“Graves…” You trailed off, not even sure what you wanted to say. Your mind was screaming at you, a million different thoughts flying through your brain. Distantly you could hear Graves call your name again, but it didn't register till his hands were on your shoulders. You looked up to see him crouched in front of you, pursing his lips. 

"You with me darlin?" You nodded your head, still reeling from the night's events. How could you not have seen this coming? This was a man you had spent years with, a man you had shared a bed with. How did you not see this coming? How could you not see that the man you likedloved was willing to not just betray his comrades, but kill them? How did-

“Surely you can understand where I am coming from, love.” You snapped back into focus as Graves stood up, “You understand how important it is to be on top. With this missile crisis…well, we’ll be needing all the support we can get.” 

“What do you mean?” You asked, your voice miraculously steady, "Why do we...why would we need support?" 

“I mean that if Ghost-” He practically spat the man’s name out, and the absolute disgust in his voice surprised you, “And that Scotsman dig deep enough, we could be in some deep shit, darlin’.”

“Ph-er…I don’t understand.” You can’t say his name anymore.  

“I can’t say much now darlin’, but Hassan having those missiles isn’t exactly a surprise, if you catch my drift. And we’re both royally fucked if that gets found out.”

“We’re…you….I…what??” You were so confused. The terrorist you all had been hunting, the missiles threatening your very way of existence, were all somehow connected with Graves. And with…you?

“I am sorry darlin’. I didn’t want for you to be…implicated in my…actions.” He sighed, shaking his head like he was speaking with a child, "But that's just the way the cards fell."

“What do you mean ‘that's just the way the cards fell’??” You demanded, “I don’t understand what is happening Ph-Graves! What are you talking about?”

[keferon]

“I've done something wrong again. It's not moving.”

There was a lot of stuff spread out in front of him. Old spare parts, pieces of armor, tools. Lots of warped plates.

And his creation. A real golem. An entity woven of metal and magic.

Shockwave walked around the table and stopped right above the head of the figure lying on it

“Golems exist to serve, my friend. It won't move unless you ask it to.”

Orion clutched his servos. The figure remained stone still. There was no ventilation noise, no engine sound, not even the barely audible spinning of a spark. It could just as easily have been a long-cooled dead body lying in front of him.

“Wake up.”

___________________ Part 2->

Magical Golem Prowl anyone? ‘,:) This story exists in the same universe as Spellbound au. and Monster hunter au and ties them together so I highly recommend you read all of them.

The fic under the cut⤵️

He seemed to be nothing.

The emptiness that infinitely defined his nonexistent self bounced off the metal plates and glinted in the droplets of still-warm energon. He was nothing, but there was so much around him that the space was like an infinite buzz of cluttered noise. The voices above him sounded excited. The metal slab beneath him was cold and hard.

“Good. Now you need to put a piece of your armor on this. Somewhere it will be in plain sight and easily reachable.”

“Oh...wouldn't it make more sense to hide it under the armor? I mean, it's an obvious weak point.”

He idly thought, his hands felt numb.

“No no, that's the whole point. You're using an artifact you haven't fully studied and you don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. If it goes crazy and becomes dangerous, you should have an easy way to destroy it. Where's the artifact by the way?”

The tinkling of metal.

The sound of a crystal clattering against armor.

Warm hands on his head.

“Here.”

“Excellent. Now. This will be the base on which the entire spell will be held, so you want to hide this artifact very well and secure it carefully so it doesn't break by mistake.”

Did he have hands too? He was nothing, why did he have hands? It didn't make sense.

Orion took a couple steps away from the table and stood pensively.

“I've done something wrong again. It's not moving.”

There was a lot of stuff spread out in front of him. Old spare parts, pieces of armor, tools. Lots of warped plates.

And his creation. A real golem. An entity woven of metal and magic.

Shockwave, hitherto distracted by an almost invisible spot on his shoulderplate, glanced leisurely over Orion's shoulder

“Golems don't need much to function. You made a good shell. The magical structure is strong as well, I see.”

Orion hesitantly pointed to the golem's forehead, decorated with a neat sharp chevron.

“I added some things that weren't in your instructions and I think I made a mistake somewhere.”

“Golem making is a complex skill, don't give up if it doesn't work right awa...you know what, actually no, you did everything right.”

Orion shrugged in frustration.

“Then why won't it move?”

Shockwave walked around the table and stopped right above the head of the figure lying on it

“ Golems exist to serve, my friend. It won't move unless you ask it to.”

Orion walked back over to the table with a quiet “oh” and nervously clutched his servos. The figure remained stone still. There was no ventilation noise, no engine sound, not even the barely audible spinning of a spark. It could just as easily have been a long-cooled dead body lying in front of him.

“Wake up.”

The emptiness that forever defined his nonexistent self stammered. He wasn't nothing. He had a purpose and that purpose shaped him, put strength into his numb limbs and molded his lack of thought into naked intent.

He wasn't nothing. He was a void, but suddenly that void had a direction, no matter how meaningless it sounded.

He stopped being just nothing. He became his purpose. And it felt so right that it was unclear how he could ever have been anything else before.

He opened his optics.

Orion, who apparently hadn't expected that the thing he'd made specifically for it to move would move, jerked back with a funny sound.

On the opposite side, Shockwave nodded proudly, returning to the spot on his armor that even in the bright lights of the workshop only he could see.

“I believed in you.”

_________

“Oh my god! How do you sneak up on me so quietly every time?”

He wasn't nothing anymore. He was a whole long list of instructions and rules. His creator sat him down at a table and meticulously listed everything he could and could not do. Handed him many books and ordered him to attend a huge number of lectures. He now knew who to bow to if he passed them in the hallway and who to avoid. He had learned hundreds of names and thousands of titles. Learned how to pretend to be a real Mech, even though he wasn't.

The world around him was complex and confusing, but he found that this complexity had its own patterns, linked together in a bizarre web of systems and sequences. It was worth pulling on the right end, and the meaningless facts organized themselves into something much more manageable.

Everything made sense. The planet revolved around a star. Mechs rejoiced when they got something that improved their quality of life. Energon burned, producing energy. Big things tended to be heavier than small things.

The world was divided into Mechs and monsters...and him.

He was inclined to be...quiet.

His creator - he'd asked to be called Orion - twitched when he found his creation standing right behind him.

He was very talented at finding Orion wherever he was. And very light compared to most things his size. Like everything else it made sense. He wasn't a Mech, he was just an empty shell. An armor summoned to life by magic. His footsteps were as quiet as a mini bot's. Whatever Orion called it, he wasn't 'sneaking' on purpose.

A few cycles later, Orion accidentally bent one of its finals when he turned around too quickly, startled by the quiet footsteps behind him.

He named him Prowl. It was...not exactly logical, but there was a certain sense to it. Prowl nodded and agreed. He always agreed with everything Orion said, even if it didn't make sense at all. Orion's opinion took a higher priority than anything else.

Until it didn't.

Until Orion gave him a focused look and told him that he should argue if he thought it was necessary.

Until Orion put the servo on his shoulder and said something along the lines of....

“You can disagree with me if you think my opinion is wrong. I'm not asking you to go against me. I'm not perfect and I can't be the one absolute point of reference for everything. You can and I'm sure will be smarter than me about many things. I want you to tell me if I'm wrong and what I should do about it.”

Like…well….like an absolute fool.

This concept was new. Prowl wasn't built to argue. He was made to obey orders and to serve a function.

Orion smiled slyly. At least it was probably a smile behind his mask that made the corners of his optics lift.

“It wouldn't be considered a disobedience of my order if I ordered you to disobey it. Don't you think?”

Prowl opened his mouth to agree out of habit, but then changed his mind mid-motion and closed it back. It...it didn't make sense. It made sense that was breaking under its own weight. It was mercilessly mixing up all of his pre-learned patterns for talking to Orion. If he agreed with that logic now, it would mean accepting its use. If he protested, it would also mean accepting it, but in a bit more embarrassing way. Just when he was thinking of simply retreating silently to the nearest shadow and banging his head against the wall, he heard a quiet chuckle and realized that Orion had been amusing himself for some time now, watching him struggle.

Prowl decided that verbal responses might be overrated and frowned his face in the most believable expression of displeasure he could portray.

Orion broke out into laughter.

________

“What exactly is my goal?”

Orion looks. Curious. He stops talking to Shockwave and leans back on the bench.

“Right now, to study these journals. I already told you.”

Prowl nods to indicate he heard him and continues

“Studying serves a future purpose. Studying for the sake of studying would be meaningless to me. What is my final goal?”

“To assist me” Orion says slightly confused. ”Within the best of your ability of course.“”

“Аh. Assist in the fulfillment of your goal.”

“Well. I'd say so, yes.”

Prowl nods

“And what is your goal?”

Shockwave, who has been sitting next to them the whole time looks like they're a couple of previously unknown to science species he's just personally discovered.

Prowl ignores him.

“I...you remember the separation between Mechs and monsters, right?” asks Orion cautiously.

“Yes.”

“Mechs...are unfair to monsters. Monsters are cruel to Mechs. It's a needlessly violent situation that I want to...try to. Fix.”

Prowl frowns to indicate that the information isn't completely clear.

“You're a member of the order of hunters. And...” he shakes his head toward the nearest window ”...you have a considerable number of hunters under your command. Your job involves destroying monsters.”

Shockwave makes some sort of quiet amused sound and props his chin up with his hand.

Prowl ignores him harder.

“My job is to bring peace.” says Orion “You don't have to kill monsters to do that. You can negotiate with them. Find a compromise. Coexist. I...I guess basically, I'm trying to make the world a little better?”

Prowl doesn't look impressed. He's actually making a special effort to not let Orion think in any way that he might be intrigued by the whole endeavor.

“You do realize that's a disproportionately large goal for just one Mech, right?”

Orion shrugs awkwardly

“That's why I made you.”

__________

Ratchet puts aside his tools and critically examines his work.

“Don't touch that and it will heal normally.”

Orion smiles gratefully

“Thank you.”

Ratchet is important to Orion. They are close and very valuable friends to each other. The two of them look peaceful now, despite the fact that Ratchet threatened Orion when he first showed up in Sick Bay, so Prowl decides it would be a socially acceptable moment to start talking

“Orion, you're wanted at the Council.”

The second half of his line is drowned helplessly in two startled exclamations at once. Orion, to his honor, calms down almost immediately, but Ratchet continues cursing for a while.

Prowl doesn't wait for him to finish. The Council meeting is earlier than usual today and Orion has already had a few occasions of misbehavior. It's in his best interest to at least show up on time this time.

“Shockwave asked me to tell you to hurry. I will add that showing up at the last minute will not be good for your reputation if you are still hoping to convince the council to let you take more units.”

Ratchet .....stares.

“Primus' rusty hinges, Orion, who's that? Did they assign a nanny to you?”

Orion twitches his finals playfully and immediately crinkles in pain, remembering that one of them should have been left to heal.

“Remember when I wanted to find an assistant? Well...”

Ratchet casts an increasingly more suspicious look at Prowl. Prowl decides that friendliness is overrated and limits his expression to a barely perceptible tilt of his head in response.

“...Shockwave recently helped me figure out how to create golems and I figured if I couldn't find anyone I could trust, I might as well...make one. So. Ratchet meet Prowl.” finishes Orion awkwardly.

Ratchet glares at Prowl for a while longer. Then he turns away and starts tidying up Sick Bay.

“I'm not buying it. I don't know where you found this guy, but you're not playing me. Nice poker face by the way.”

One of Prowl's wings twitches

“He wasn't lying.”

Ratchet snorts grumpily.

“Those...” he waves toward the next room ”...are golems.

There, behind the wall, several golems scurry around. They have medical staff symbols painted on their shoulders, and there is not a trace of thought in their eyes. Two are scrubbing the floors, another wiping the shelves and window sills clean of dust. They occasionally mumble softly under their noses or utter an inane “excuse me” every time they accidentally bump into each other. Prowl knows that if you ask any of them a question with more than one variable, they start babbling guiltily and shrugging their shoulders. They're stupid, but they themselves don't seem to care about that at all. They are their purpose. And their purpose is to keep things clean. They are pride because they are good at their job.

Prowl frowns. He's a headache. Because his "purpose" has been distracted by his conversation with Ratchet and will probably add another tardy to his list in the near future.

Orion begins (thank goodness) to move toward the door

“I've made improvements. There might have been...some not exactly allowed artifacts.”

Ratchet rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly. Prowl can see that his face is already starting to wrinkle in that spot. Patient antics probably age Ratchet far more effectively than the passage of time itself.

“I...you know what...go before the Council sends a search party to look for you.”

Orion sighs and without further distraction finally walks out the door.

Prowl decides that Ratchet might be a good ally when it comes to managing Orion.

He nods politely goodbye before leaving.

______________

“I am different from them. Why?”

Orion puts down the document he's been working on and looks first at Prowl and then, over his head, at the other golems scurrying down the hallway with brooms and rags. He doesn't need to interject exactly who he thinks Prowl is different from.

“Do you want a philosophical answer or a technical one?”

Prowl reaches out and pokes somewhere in Orion's document

“ You missed a comma. Both.”

Orion obediently puts the comma in and folds up the document. His finals are twitching faintly. It could be a sign of concentration as well as distraction. Prowl has already figured out that Orion's body language is a double-bottom trap. For a Mech with this level of expressiveness, Orion is surprisingly difficult to read.

“Sometime quite a while ago during one of my expeditions, I found a unique artifact. A fascinating item, granting wisdom to anyone brave enough to use it.”

“I have a feeling a ‘but’ is coming.”

“You're right. The artifact's unique gift was also its curse. It fed so much information through the Mech's heads that it literally caused the processors of its owners to melt.”

“Oh. Good thing I don't have a processor then.”

Orion laughs quietly

“Indeed. You won't have that problem. And about the other part....Think of all the Mechs you know who are savvy enough about politics and available to work together at the moment.”

Orion gives him a moment before continuing.

“ What is the likelihood that the most trustworthy of them would betray me, for their own gain or out of fear?”

“ Twenty-eight percent,” Prowl informs.

And then hesitates a moment.

Orion is obviously a smart Mech. Not smart enough to single-handedly dominate the political arena, definitely not with his ideals and ideas of what's right. But smart enough to realize it. He knows what he wants and he also knows he can't achieve it alone.

Prowl looks at Orion, who just stands there, eyeing him, without in any way trying to continue the conversation.

Orion is idealistic, and therefore often mistaken for stupid. He isn't. Orion doesn't just know that he can't succeed alone, he knows that everyone else knows it too. He thinks this knowledge will be used against him when the opportunity arises. He's right. By Prowl's count, at least three suspiciously clever Mechs were going to sweet-talk their way into becoming Orion's assistant one way or another before... he appeared.

One of the janitor golems runs past them down the corridor. He doesn't turn around, doesn't even slow down or cast a curious glance. His only goal, his only interest is cleaning. The rest of the world might as well not exist at all.

Prowl thinks he's not that different.

Orion apparently reads the understanding from his face, because he nods contentedly and starts walking further down the hall.

“You didn't take yourself into account when you made the statistics, did you?”

Prowl follows him silently on his heels. Not close enough to be familiar, but not so far away that the conversation stops being private.

“The sampling condition was all mechs. I am not one.”

“That's true” Orion shrugs “You have no loved ones that the Council could use to influence you. You have no desires to be bought by their fulfillment. And while I cannot say with absolute certainty that you will never be capable of going against me...” Prowl starts to open his mouth to object but Orion gestures him to stop, “...no no no no, let me finish. And while I can't be sure you'll never betray me, I at least know for sure that before you met me you had no reason to do so. Do you understand?”

Prowl understands. It makes sense. He still feels the need to argue back, because it is part of his function to do that.

“I would never betray you. I'm not capable of it.”

Orion twitches his finals. Without seeing his face Prowl assumes it is a sign of doubt.

“You are a creature of intellect, Prowl. I am a Mech of ideals. Those two things don't always combine well.”

______

“Foolish and presumptuous.”

Prowl ponders that his function could be much easier if he didn't have to constantly try to balance what is right and what is right in Orion's eyes.

“If you were spotted, the Council would have good reason to assume this isn't the first time you've done something like this.”

“No one noticed,” Orion tries, but Prowl doesn't let him finish that thought

“No one has seen you, because you're lucky. You can't count on it being a permanent occurrence! You undermine your own position by giving the Council grounds for suspicion, you...”

Prowl stops, still pointing his finger accusingly somewhere on Orion's chin. Shockwave, who has witnessed the scene, makes an impressed face and steps closer.

“I swear, you're probably the most capable golem maker I've ever had the pleasure of teaching, Orion. If I hadn't seen that guy on your assembly table, I would never know.”

Prowl takes the statement as a compliment, but doesn't feel the need to show it outwardly. Shockwave, as one of the few who knows about him not being a real Mech, doesn't take offense to it in any way.

“Did I interrupt something dramatic?”

Prowl snorts, because the gesture maintains just the right amount of judgment for his situation.

“Orion is once again harboring a monster instead of killing it or letting it escape.”

This news immediately enlivens Shockwave's posture. Prowl knows he's an even bigger fan of collecting suspicious side projects than Orion. Their friendship, frankly, will one day bury either one or both of them. Prowl just hopes his presence will be enough to sway the percentages when that happens.

Orion doesn't try to deny anything.

“One of my squads encountered a ghost near the northern border. I couldn't... listen Shockwave, he's a good guy. He just needs to be given a chance to show it.”

“Can he talk?” there's almost visible stars in Shockwave's eyes..

Prowl slumps his shoulders helplessly, already knowing what's coming next. These two have done this dance a hundred times before. One of Shockwave's favorite side projects was a school for, as they called them, magically gifted and extraordinary Mechs. In fact, it was the largest den of various monsters that Prowl had ever seen. Every time Orion's hunting squads found a monster that could even remotely resemble a normal Mech, Orion would rush with happy optics to hand it over to Shockwave for care. There, the monsters were taught everything they needed to fit into the society of normal Mechs, but more importantly, they were given documents. Precious pieces of paper that granted their holders rights, freedoms, and protections as Shockwave's apprentices.

Prowl could appreciate the noble endeavor. He could also see clearly that with each addition, this school would become more and more of an inconvenient thorn in the Council's side. Just like Orion, Shockwave was happy to paint a brighter and brighter target on his own back for many cycles.

Orion, insensitive to danger that is not immediate, cheerfully begins to recite

“Can read, write, speak, even makes music.”

Shockwave nods happily

“Introduce us?”

Prowl wonders how far Shockwave can stretch the definition of “magically gifted Mech”. One day Orion will pick up a Kraken on the street and then they'll both probably have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to make it's documents. Ugh.

When Orion had asked him to calculate the probability of betrayal, the most reliable mech he was evaluating at the time was Shockwave.

Twenty-eight percent...

Prowl wonders how many students must be on the opposite side of the scale from Orion for Shockwave to choose in their favor. Speculation is actually useless. If the Council decides to nail Shockwave, they will of course use his entire school at once.

In fact, they probably won't even have to force Shockwave to choose between the school and Orion, because Orion himself will choose a bunch of monsters over himself.

This ridiculously dangerous social construct they call friendship rests entirely on their reputation as honest and honorable mechs. Prowl stares at Shockwave's back and wonders how one mech could have so much charisma, that he gets away with keeping a huge number of Council enemies right under the noses of that same Council.

_________________

Orion gently lifts the now graying shell of what was once a monster from the ground

He doesn't even turn toward Prowl.

"Did you kill him?"

Killing...it's a stretch. Does the act of helping a murderer qualify as murder? Or the lack of action that could have saved the now murdered person? In most cultures and languages, “murder” refers to the act of ending someone else's life, but the context implies a physical act. Did you put a knife in his back? Did you push him off a cliff? Did you cut him with a sword?

By those criteria. Well. Prowl never killed anyone. Nor is he likely to, for he has neither the skill nor the strength to do so.

Did he cause death? Absolutely.

Orion's always had this heroic streak that wouldn't let him just pass by the distressed and disadvantaged. Orion has always had a great spark of kindness and principles as strong as titanium alloy as to what is right and what is wrong.

In Orion's world view, murder is wrong. And murder in conditions where it was possible to solve everything by peace is immoral and unacceptable.

Prowl's worldview tells him that Orion could do much better if he stopped wasting his potential on helping those who will only drag him down in the long run. Orion's life depends entirely on the Council's opinion of him. A Council that has been watching him closely lately. Even if Orion doesn't like it, it's Prowl's job to make sure they like what they see.

Orion turns to him, shaking him out of his thoughts.

"Prowl. That mech tried to escape. Past you. And now he's dead. Were you the one who killed him?"

"No," says Prowl, "he ran into one of the patrols."

That statement is missing a good half of the details. Like mentioning that the patrol wouldn't have been there in the first place if Prowl hadn't sent them an anonymous lead.

Orion doesn't need to know that. Orion lives under the idea that every life is precious and, even more inconveniently, equal.

Prowl sometimes feels like yelling at him for it. Because that shiny perfect picture is simply unsustainable outside of Orion's head. The monster, whose graying body now lies on the ground, would be of little use to society. Likely left free, he would have simply continued to attack and kill travelers.

Whereas Orion spends his life making the world a better place. This is an objective fact confirmed by numerous observations.

They are not equals. And they probably never will be. Orion's life is much. Much heavier on the imaginary scales of statistics.

Orion squints at him suspiciously. He's clearly hesitant.

"You could have just let him go instead of killing him."

The trap is honestly too obvious.

"I didn't kill him" Prowl repeats "he ran into a patrol. You can't blame the hunters for doing their job."

Orion places a hand on the dead creature's forehead in a respectful gesture of regret while simultaneously averting his gaze. It's a habit by now.

Look the other way, don't let the council know what you're doing. Sympathize but not in plain sight, help but in secret.

"They had no right to attack him.This is neutral territory. He has the right to run wherever he wants."

Prowl's mouth is twisting with the urge to argue. To say that according to existing information, this monster would have just continued the attacks if he'd stayed free.

He says nothing. Orion is clearly in no mood to argue right now, and he's already questioning Prowl's claim. It's not worth pushing any further.

Prowl only nods, showing that he's heard Orion's point of view.

__________________

He is surprisingly good at lying.

Of course the skill doesn't just come naturally, but he's been known for his straightforwardness. Mechs automatically expect him to either remain silent or tell the unpleasant truth.

All he has to do is give only certain bits and pieces instead of coherent information without changing his usual behavior in any way and the mechs won't be inclined to verify it, filling in the gaps themselves. As a golem, he can't lie, but he can get others to lie to themselves.

He exploits this a lot. Probably more often than Orion would approve, but Prowl doesn't ask him to confirm. Conversations with Orion tend to narrow down his list of options. Because Orion is a real living mech. With a spark. With feelings. And his complex moral code revolves entirely around what he feels to be right.

Prowl has no spark. Prowl has an empty armor that he considers his body and a wisdom artifact that he considers his worth. Both his and Orion's understandings of what is right...overlap...sometimes.

Not always.

______________

"I saw a demon in person for the first time today."

Prowl politely shifts his posture to show he's listening

"A …demon?"

"Demon" Orion repeats "When...when a mech commits especially terrible crimes against the will of Primus, the very magic of their spark rises up against them and turns them into a demon. And I just learned today what a...demon looks like."

Prowl remains silent, waiting for a continuation that never comes. Orion seems gone in his thoughts....

"And what does it look like?" prompts Prowl.

"Creepy. It looks creepy and unnatural and terrifying. Primus' wrath has a very ugly shape..."

"Ah...I see...what did that mech do to be met with such punishment?"

Orion frowns

"I'm not sure. But what we're doing can't go against Primus' will, right? I mean, all beings are his creations! He can't condemn us for trying to make peace between mechs and monsters..."

Prowl is familiar with the concept of punishment for wrongdoing. But something about the very idea...the idea that punishment will find you no matter how well you hide because you can’t run away from your own spark...he has to admit it's disturbing.

"I hope he doesn't."

——————————

Thoughts?👁

Ahsjfjfj

This is the first half of the fic btw because I don’t have enough time to translate the whole thing in one day. I’ll try to post the second half tomorrow🤞

[dustcrumbs]

To be loved is to be changed right?

But to be yearned is to be wanted.

What am I with no purpose? With no law in order or story to fill.

I am the need to create. Yet I find no want to build either.

I should not be able to think or feel. I don't want to. Not when it comes to you.

Yet I do.

I do not want you, but I need you.

What else do I do when everything I strive for will fail me as I failed you?

[elvyn]

I found this art in some old drawing folder and I decided to fix it a bit, but I gave up halfway through. Still, I think it looks kind nice 🤔 I guess I just like to throw Solas into some edgy drawing compositions haha

[tys-kitty]

Okay but what if the first KitTy love confession doesn‘t actually work out?!😭 Let me show you how I picture the first mention of love:

*Kit and Ty arguing*

Kit: You know what? I doesn‘t matter *turns to leave*

Ty *going after him*: It does matter! Because throughout this whole mission you barely showed me what you really feel! You won‘t even so much as look at me!

Kit *turning around*: What did you expect, Ty? That after three years apart everything will be alright? That we act as if nothing has happened?

Ty: You won‘t even give me chance to explain myself! To atone for what I did!

Kit *sighs*: I can‘t do this, Ty

Ty: But I have to! I want the Kit back who would calm me down when I felt like my world was falling apart! I want the Kit back that always knew some funny or witty remark to lighten the mood! I want the Kit back who I fell in love with!

*Ty realizing what he just said and looking at Kit with wide eyes*

Kit *shaking his head and whispering*: No

Ty: Kit, please-

Kit: No, you don‘t get to come back into my life after three years and say these things to me. *exhales in frustration* Not after I spent all those years loving you.

Ty *taking a step toward*: Kit, I-

Kit: I can‘t, Ty *leaves the scene*

[joshym]

le morte d'arthur readers:

go say a massive thank you to @jakeyt for helping me with this next chapter. without her, i'm not sure i could've done it. 🤍

& with that said, be on the lookout for chapter 5 this weekend. 👏🏻

i'm so excited for it. 🥹

⚔︎♡⚔︎ ⚔︎♡⚔︎

[nametakensff]

Relinquish Control (D/isco E/lysium, M/M)

Sooo I wrote 5.8k of sickly sweet K/im x H/arry whump following on from this fic (though you don't need to read it)

K/im inevitably catches J/ean's cold from H/arry, but ends up feeling a lot worse than anyone had bargained for. Caretaking ensues 💕

~~~~~

Content:

M/M, ongoing bg M/M/M, H/arry has a sneezing fetish, cold sneezes, spray, handkerchiefs, sneezing on someone's face, nose blows, mentions of mess (nothing graphic), contagion, fever, coughing, v whump heavy fic, lots of sappy feelings and caretaking, mentions of sex, mentions of erections because H/arry is insatiable

CW: Unintentional contagion with unintentional complications, K/im develops a chest infection, H/arry has a lot of self hatred, K/im has control issues, language mentioning animal death because J/ean is hyperbolic as fuck, all these men are emotionally damaged and immature in their own ways but trying their best anyway

NSFW - Minors DNI!

“I’m so, so sorry I got you sick.”

Harry gently pushed Kim’s sweaty hair back from his forehead, biting his lip in concern as the Lieutenant shivered at the contact. The fever had left his skin overly sensitised – even the slightest touch seemed to cause him discomfort.

“Harry, it’s okay. Honestly.”

Kim peered up at him, bleary eyes seeming especially bloodshot and vulnerable without the regular framing of his thick spectacles, mustering up a tiny smile that made Harry’s heart ache. This was all his fault. He’d fucked around with Jean when he was sick, he’d gotten himself sick, and then he’d gotten Kim sick. It had been as stupid as it had been wonderful, for the first couple of days. He’d taken a sick day and Kim had done the same, even though neither of them really needed it – they’d fucked within an inch of their lives and cuddled up with tea and tissues afterwards.

Of course getting the opportunity to indulge in such kinky, nasty, fantasy tier sex had been too good to be true. Harry was already on the mend, and Jean was almost entirely healthy – but Kim was another story altogether. Whether it was the recent stress of his transfer, the lingering physical and mental impact of the case in Martinaise, or plain old bad luck - what had been a simple, albeit nasty head cold for Jean and Harry was now shaping up to be a miserable chest infection for him.

Harry could feel his expression shifting into a countenance so pained he was grateful Kim’s eyesight was bad. He didn’t want to cry, but he felt so guilty and so useless in the moment it was feeling like an inevitability.

Apparently Kim’s eyesight wasn’t poor enough to misconstrue the pure misery etched onto Harry’s face – or he was already an expert at reading his supreme moodiness, like he had a built in barometer specifically attuned to Harry’s idiosyncrasies. He reached a weak hand out from under the veritable cocoon of bed sheets and squeezed his wrist.

“Harry. Really. It’s not your fault. I’ve been overdue something like this.”

His hand dropped limply back onto the bed. It was horrible, seeing Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi in such a state. To Harry, he was a knight in shining armour. He had seemed indestructible. He was beginning to see what Kim had meant about his putting people on pedestals, but all the same - Kim was strong, organised and composed. Harry just hadn’t been able to mentally picture him ever looking quite so unwell. ‘Weak’ and ‘Kim’ felt like antonyms.

Even if technically, yes, it wasn’t his fault Kim’s cold had worsened so dramatically, he’d still given it to him. He’d still reaped the benefits of all the sneezing, all the ground-shaking fetish sex Kim had indulged him in. He was itching to pour his heart out and lament about how truly awful he was, how irresponsible and insatiable he had been, but there was something else he was begrudgingly learning. People do not like to listen to overly self-indulgent, narcissistic proclamations of self-depreciation. Even for the ever-patient Kim, there were limits. He would not make this about him. He was trying to change.

And so, Harry merely swallowed back the guilt and the tears against the lump in his throat. He cupped Kim’s cheek in his palm, chest blossoming with warmth as Kim sighed and let his head loll sideways and into the contact.

“Do you need anything else? Seriously, is there anything more I can do for you? Just say the word and I’m on it.”

Kim was still burning hot to the touch, even after the assistance of a cool compress. It occurred to Harry that he was now seeking the relative coolness of his palm – which was worrying, considering Harry ran hot on a normal day, and his temperature was still a little elevated from his own lingering cold. At least his sneezing had stopped – he didn’t want to trigger Kim into more sneezes of his own, not with his throat as swollen and sore as it was. He never thought he wouldn’t want Kim to sneeze – at least not this early into their fumbling speed-run of a relationship. He wasn’t so delusional as to deny they didn’t still thrill him – he was a greedy, selfish man – but he could wait.

“Mm. No. I’m…fine.”

He wasn’t. They both knew he wasn’t, but Harry thought perhaps it occurred to Kim that admitting how poorly he actually was would be the final straw, the tipping point into relinquishing all control. And what could be more terrifying than that?

~~~~~

In the early stages of his cold, Lieutenant Kitsuragi had been sneezing and marginally lethargic – but, for all intents and purposes, not all that different from his regular self. When he’d started to feel worse - genuinely unwell - he had withdrawn. He’d been short with Harry in the office – he’d been short with everyone, his normal taciturn composure beginning to crack, and with it, his professionalism. Everyone had quickly given him a wide berth, which Harry could see he hated despite practically manufacturing the situation for himself in the first place. He’d called out sick on Friday, ignored Harry’s calls all weekend, and when Jean confirmed he’d called in sick a second time on Monday, Harry had been practically climbing the walls with anxiety.

Kim wasn’t answering his latest calls, every nervous one of them made hourly from his desk. The palpability of his anxiousness was concerning to both himself and everyone around him - he looked pathetic and desperate. He was pathetic and desperate. Jean kept casting him contemplative glances all morning before he eventually took pity on him.

“Go see if he’s okay. I’ll cover for you this afternoon.” He’d offered as he and Harry sat eating lunch in the communal kitchen.

Harry had looked up from where he’d been picking dejectedly at his sandwich, eyes round and glossy enough to put to shame any orphaned puppy.

“Really? Is that okay?”

“Listen, Shitkid. Life is a joke and as such, you're my superior officer. You don’t need my permission to check in on your boyfriend – a valuable member of our unit, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Harry smiled at him, delighting in the sheepish way Jean couldn’t quite maintain eye contact with him. He deduced that Jean was also feeling somewhat responsible for Kim’s misery - being patient zero, as it were.

“You’ll be alright? I’ll come back as fast as I can.”

“Yeah yeah, don’t bother. Just go.” Jean nodded. “I can’t watch you play with your food like that any longer. You look like a fucking box of kittens just got set on fire right in front of you.”

Harry jumped to his feet in an instant.

“You’re the fucking best, Vic.”

Jean halted him with a strong arm around his middle before he shot out of the room, forcing a soft ‘oof’ out of him.

“Take your sandwich with you. People who don’t obtain most of their calories from booze actually eat food instead.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him.

“Rich coming from the depressed masochist subsisting off of coffee, cigarettes and the occasional chicken breast, but okay.”

Jean scoffed and rolled his eyes but otherwise didn't take the bait. Harry snatched his sandwich up from the table, feeling warm and grateful. His partner’s words were biting, but his concern for his well-being and the obvious pleasure he had in knowing that Harry was maintaining his sobriety were loud and clear - if you knew how to look past the guarded, gruff exterior. He waved at Jean as he hightailed it out of the joint, practically running the rest of the way to Kim’s apartment block.

Winded by his frantic ascension of the building’s winding staircase, he probably overdid it with the pounding on Kim’s door – no, he definitely did, on reflection. It was just that with the lack of immediate response following all those missed phone calls, his mind was conjuring up every worst-case scenario in the book. To say he was overwhelmed with relief when Kim finally started to open the door was an understatement.

He’d been grinning in gleeful anticipation at finally coming face to face with the Lieutenant, but his expression promptly fell as he took in the sight of Kim - shaking, sweating, miserably unwell. He looked as though he barely had the strength to stay upright, let alone pull open the door.

“Harry, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”

If Kim looked bad, he sounded even worse. In fact, he sounded as though he’d been gargling with razor blades. Harry winced.

“Oh my god, Kim…”

Kim huffed out a little laugh, both amused and insulted by the naked dismay directed at his person. He opened his mouth to speak but was promptly overtaken by an intensely violent and hacking coughing fit, gripping the door frame like a lifeline as he angled his face away from Harry with a fist pressed up to his mouth. It was a horrible cough, chesty and audibly painful. Within seconds, Harry was manoeuvring the door shut behind them as he stepped into Kim’s apartment and ushered him, still coughing violently, back into his bedroom.

The room stank of illness – that distinct, cloying scent of unhealthy sweat and misery. Kim was still going, gasping for breath with desperate little snatches of air between the coughs that racked his slender frame. Harry sat down on the bed beside him, stroking his back and biting his bottom lip so hard it almost bled.

Finally, some agonising moments later, Kim managed to stop. He sat there, slumped forward and breathing in a careful, measured fashion. Harry reached for the half empty glass of water on Kim’s bedside table and handed it to him wordlessly, cringing as Kim choked a couple of times at the sensation of the liquid trickling down his raw throat. When he managed to avoid triggering another attack, both men practically deflated with relief.

“Thank you – sorry.” Kim delicately wiped his lips with the back of his hand, letting Harry take the glass back off him.

“Kim…how long have you been feeling this bad?”

Kim looked at him, and Harry realised that he was sans glasses. His hair, normally slicked back, hung loose in a messy shock over his forehead, and his face was unshaven, several days of stubble growing in alongside his standard pencil moustache. His nostrils were chapped, pink and raw. Harry would have found his dishevelled appearance painfully attractive were it not for the overwhelming concern that was currently squeezing his heart in a vice-like grip. Kim sighed.

“Since Saturday evening. I was hoping it would go away on its own, but-!”

Harry swore and reached out to support him as Kim was cut off by another round of coughing, mercifully shorter than the previous attack but still leaving him shaking against the larger man when it finally released him.

“Fuck…” Kim muttered. He burned under Harry’s touch.

“Shhh – I’m gonna get you some water, and some tea, okay?”

“Harry – you don’t need to, I can- “

“Kim.”

Harry almost shocked himself with the authoritative tone with which he silenced the Lieutenant. Thank God for the gift of his irrepressible (and irresistible) masculinity - it ever so occasionally came in clutch for him. Kim shut his mouth and didn’t seem pissed off in the slightest that Harry had cut him off. He looked at him expectantly, like a dog awaiting a command. That alone was as clear an admission of illness as any to Harry.

“I know I don’t need to do anything.” Harry started. “But I want to. You could have called me. I was calling you. You’re – you’re really sick right now.”

Kim huffed.

“I’m not that sick.”

“Sure, and I’m Dolores Dei herself.”

“Hm.”

If Kim had been even the tiniest bit more prone to immaturity, Harry was sure he would have rolled his eyes at him.

“Will you please get back into bed and let me help you?” He patted the bed behind them, inviting Kim to crawl back into it. “You help me all the time.”

“I’ll let you help me when I actually need help.” Kim rasped, but dragged himself back under his duvet all the same. Harry watched him, the undignified crawl of defeat paired with the stubborn backchat causing him to reassess his recent impression of Kim as an obedient dog. No, he was instead a recalcitrant cat – if he’d had a tail, it would have flicked back and forth with displeasure as he nestled into the sheets. The thought was endearing, and almost comical enough to make him laugh.

Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi was, in fact, a huge, stubborn baby when sick. This was a delightful new discovery which made Harry both despair and rejoice in equal measures. He’d had years of experience (only some of which he could actively recall) of Jean vehemently denying affection and assistance when he needed it the most. Hell, he himself was an expert in pushing people away whilst simultaneously (and paradoxically) demanding their perpetual assistance. Kim, it turned out, was only marginally less emotionally constipated than either of them. The only thing for it was to match that stubbornness head on.

“There.” Harry crooned as he tenderly organised Kim’s duvet around him. “Doesn’t it feel nice being tucked in?”

Kim looked up at him with tired eyes. Harry could see that he was a conflicted mix of embarrassed and grateful. Good. This would be easier than anticipated. Unable to help himself, he leaned forward and peppered Kim’s warm face with tiny kisses. He nearly died when the tickle of his unruly facial hair made Kim actually fucking giggle in response.

“You’re adorable.” He murmured against Kim’s mouth, stroking his cheek.

“Detective, I’m a 43-year-old police officer.”

“An adorable 43-year-old police officer.” Harry corrected, pressing a quick kiss to Kim’s chapped lips. His voice was nasal, nose miserably clogged – Harry didn’t want to deny him oxygen any longer than need be.

“You shouldn’t be kissing me.”

“Why the hell not?” Harry kissed him on the tip of his poor, red nose, melting as he watched it wrinkle and squirm in response. “I gave you this cold in the first place.”

Kim sighed. Harry did not like the way his chest seemed to wheeze.

“I fear it’s become something worse, at this point.”

“Yeah.” Harry frowned at him, rubbing his thumb in gentle circles on Kim’s cheekbone.

Abruptly, he stood up, tossing his blazer into the corner of Kim’s room and rolling up his shirt sleeves.

“I’ll be back in a minute. You just rest, okay?”

“Okay.”

~~~~~

Harry fumbled about in Kim’s kitchen, trying not to make a racket as he hastily put together a cup of tea. He also filled a pint glass with water, cursing under his breath as Kim began to cough from the other room - a nasty, punishing sound that seemed to go on and on. He needed to see a doctor, Harry thought. He’d breach the topic with Kim in a bit.

He'd helped him sit up in bed, first to drink some water, which Kim sipped gingerly. Harry could tell he was dreading every cough that threatened to burst out of him. He’d taken the glass from Kim and exchanged it with the tea, asking him to drink as much as he was able.

“Have you taken anything for this?” He asked, watching Kim with a worried frown.

“…Not since Saturday. I didn’t have a lot of medicine on me.”

‘I rarely need it’ went unsaid, but Harry heard it all the same.

“When did you last eat?”

“…Yesterday. I’ve been meaning to go grocery shopping, but…” Kim sighed, wincing as the tea rolled down his throat.

“Well, shit. I’m running out to get you meds and soup as soon as you finish your tea, okay?”

“Detective, you have a job.”

“Jean-Jean gave me explicit permission to come and check up on you. He told me not to bother going back today.” Harry grinned at him, pleased both by Jean’s leniency and the way Kim could no longer leverage work to get him to leave. Kim sighed.

“Honestly, you’re acting like I’m terminally unwell. I’ll b-be…I’ll be f’fi-hh!”

Harry’s eyes zoned in on Kim’s flaring nostrils in an instant. Despite it all, despite the concern, he couldn’t help the way that ominous catch of breath went straight to his cock, twitching briefly in his trousers in anticipation. Kim was unmistakably going to sneeze.

“Ohh, can you - !”

Harry took the mug of tea from Kim and placed it safely back on the bedside table. He watched through unblinking eyes as Kim’s eyebrows rose, mouth dropping open and revealing his pink tongue as it cupped itself in ticklish preparation of the sneeze to come. It really didn’t get old, watching Kim like this. His poor, reddened nostrils twitched devilishly against the cold-induced tickle, urged along by the warm vapours of steam.

He took in one final, sharp little gasp, briefly waving his right hand in front of his face before pitching to the side, away from Harry and into the protective cradle of that same hand. Harry reached out to place a strong arm around his trembling shoulders, half in support and half out of the raging desire to be touching him every time he sneezed.

“HgGK’TSSChh!! Hpt’TSCHGHHh!! Hagk’TSCHOOouuu!!”

They shuddered through him, the vibrations running through Harry in turn and leaving him to break out in an excited rush of goosebumps from head to toe. Kim was miserably congested, and the sneezes were much thicker, much more nasal than usual. The definitive sneeze of that violent little triple was deliciously desperate and vocally rich. Harry was almost entirely hard when Kim snuggled into him, snuffling into his hand and trembling against the crook of Harry's neck.

“Ough. Désolé.” He muttered, sounding entirely wiped out.

“Bless you, honey.”

The pet name rolled out of him so naturally that it took Harry a whole few seconds to realise that he had even used it at all. He tensed in sudden anxiety, kicking himself for the slip-up. Were they ready for ‘honey’ yet??

 When Kim didn’t pull away and instead snuggled even closer, he let himself relax, circling both arms around Kim and holding him for several moments. It was only when Kim sniffled again, keeping his hand securely over his nose and mouth, that Harry realised he’d probably made a spectacular mess of himself.

He pulled back, rubbing Kim’s back and looking around the room. It didn’t take him long to locate a handkerchief, half buried in the bed sheets, which he held out to Kim. The Lieutenant reached for it gingerly, uttering a small “merci” before skilfully obscuring his face from Harry and indulging in a quick nose blow. It was crackling and thick, but judging by the sound of it, not awfully productive following the initial few seconds. He sighed, swiping at his twitching nostrils for a couple of seconds longer before folding the handkerchief shut and snuggling back into the crook of Harry’s neck.

They sat together for a few moments before Harry cleared his throat.

“Ready for more tea?”

“Yes. God…I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Harry cooed, reaching out for the mug, helping Kim into position and nobly ignoring his throbbing erection.

~~~~~

After he’d finished his tea, Kim had been exhausted enough to fall asleep within minutes. Harry stood over his bed and watched him sleep for a while, feeling a little like an invasive creep but also finding no fucks left to give. Now that Kim was unconscious again, the all-consuming panic was returning.

He hurried through the store in a daze, buying an assortment of different foods and canned soup for Kim. He bought cough medicine, decongestants and tissues before saying ‘fuck it’ and buying a huge carton of orange juice for good measure.

Kim was still sleeping when he got back. As he set about making him soup he listened to him snore, the sound so congested even through the wood of his bedroom door that it made his chest ache.

Harry left the pot to simmer for a while, collapsing onto Kim’s sofa with a heavy sigh and dragging the palm of his hand up and down his face a couple of times in exhausted resignation. He wouldn’t let himself lie there for long, knowing any more than five minutes in a supine position was a dangerous game to be playing if he didn’t want to fall asleep for hours on end. The soup would be done soon enough, but the waiting was agony. He was happy that Kim was able to sleep but he just wanted him awake; he wanted Kim to reassure him that everything was okay. Stupid. Childish. He needed to snap out of it. He slapped his own face in reprimand and immediately regretted the power in his swing, cursing the sheer size of his palms.

His body jerked violently, suddenly, a terrible falling sensation. The shock of it had him scrambling to his feet. He’d been dozing off, exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid. He glanced frantically at the clock on the wall and was relieved to see that at most he’d been borderline moribund for no longer than 10 minutes – just enough time for the soup to be done.

He ladled a decent portion into one of Kim’s pristine bowls and helped himself to a spoonful. Not bad, he decided; the flavour could be a little stronger but Kim likely couldn’t taste much anyway. He placed it on a small tray with a clean spoon and another glass of water.

The domesticity of it all made him nervous as he carried the tray out of the kitchen; it was like he was a little boy again, nursing his first serious infatuation. He must have done things like this for Dora – unavoidable, in a relationship that long, and yet. Thoughts of her still ached. He pushed the blurry, blonde image away, replacing the vague outlines of her with a clearer impression of thick glasses and slick black hair. He would overwrite her, record over their memories together the same way he would have eventually recorded over their wedding tape – had he been good enough for her to marry in the first place.

Kim was still asleep when Harry entered the room and placed the tray gently on the bedside table, careful to avoid disturbing the Lieutenant’s glasses. He was facing Harry, but only partially visible, tangled up in the cocoon of his blankets. It was fucking adorable. He looked like the world’s weariest caterpillar. His mouth hung slightly open to accommodate his poor stuffy nose, painfully pink and nuzzling into the fabric of his bedding. Harry buried the devious thought of waking Kim up by teasing his sensitive nostrils into a sneeze, instead reaching out and gently shaking his shoulder.

The Lieutenant was an incredibly light sleeper normally, so when he hadn’t woken upon Harry’s entrance and only cracked open one bleary eye after twenty seconds or so of increasingly vigorous jiggling, it was another nail in the coffin of Harry’s soaring anxiety.

“Heyyy, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?” He smiled as encouragingly as he could muster at his sick boyfriend, who groaned and promptly launched into a lengthy coughing fit. Harry swore, helping Kim to sit up and stroking his back.

“Here, Kim, fucking hell…” He handed him the glass of water and the Lieutenant gulped it down greedily, panting when he was done. He was struggling valiantly to maintain an even breathing pattern between the warring hindrances of his blocked sinuses and tickly throat.

“Better?” He asked when he’d helped Kim relax back into the pillows he arranged between his back and the headboard.

“A little. Thank you, Harry.” Kim smiled at him. “I’m okay.”

That meek little smile was clearly manufactured for Harry’s benefit, and that only made it feel worse, somehow. Kim yawned into his duvet, one hand clutching the fabric to his face.

“How long have I been asleep?”

“About an hour and a half.” Harry answered, turning to retrieve the soup. “I made you something to eat – wanna give it a go?”

He proffered the tray towards Kim, taking in his surprised expression with pleasure.

“Did you cook this?”

“Well, it’s canned soup, technically, but I tossed in a couple of things to spice it up.”

“You didn’t have to, you know. I could have done this much.”

Harry sighed, waiting for Kim to take the tray.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would have sufficed, you stubborn ass.”

Kim flashed him an apologetic smile and took the tray.

“Sorry, sorry. And thank you. I really do appreciate it.”

“That’s better.” Harry huffed, adopting the authoritative tone he used to whip out whenever his high school students were testing him. “Now eat your damn soup.”

Kim grinned.

“Yes, sir.”

It took Kim an exceedingly long time to get through even half of the soup – he kept needing to cough, and Harry decided to permanently hold the tray in place for him whilst he ate. It was much easier than repeatedly leaning forwards and backwards in anticipation.

It was as he held the tray in place, angled over Kim’s lap and several inches away from his face, that Kim’s breath started to hitch. Harry barely had a second of recognition before Kim was swallowing frantically, dropping his spoon onto the tray a moment too late to be able to catch the desperate sneeze in the palm of his hand.

“Hah’AEGK’TSChhuu!!”

Harry shivered, eyes closing reflexively against the delicate smack of spray that misted his face. On the technicality that he was needed to hold the tray in place and prevent Kim from spilling the soup, he didn’t bother moving.  The second sneeze baptised him in much the same manner, barrelling out of Kim almost immediately after the first.

“hAGK’TISHHH’Uuu!!”

The brief hesitation as Kim sucked in air to fuel a definitive third sneeze allowed Harry to open his eyes, taking in the Lieutenant’s tortured expression, his damp, flaring nostrils stretching to their limits. Instinctively, he leaned even closer, watching as Kim’s face froze for a moment in a rictus of irritation before he was sneezing hard enough that some soup sloshed over the rim of the bowl. He had managed to bring up a hand last minute, but the covering was lazy at best, spray escaping through the gaps between his fingers and misting Harry again.

“hHH’GKKT’TTSschoouu!! Ugh, excuse me…”

He snuffled miserably, blinking away a few stray tears. Harry handed him a clean tissue, feeling giddy and electric but trying his absolute best to disguise it. He was doing a horrible job; he was entirely hard, painfully so, and he could feel the smug grin that parted his lips despite his best efforts to remain placid. He tried to subtly wipe his face clean with his shirt sleeve as Kim busied himself with blowing his nose.

“I take it you enjoyed that?” Kim asked suddenly.

Shit. He’d been even less subtle than he’d hoped. Harry winced and cast a guilty ‘well shucks, you got me’ grin his way, relieved to see that Kim didn’t look bothered in the least. If anything, the cheeky lilt of his voice and the smile that reached his eyes seemed to imply a sense of endearment and satisfaction.

“I did. Sorry. Bless you three times.” He wiped the spilled soup away with another tissue, offering out his hand to Kim to take his own used tissue and tossing them both.

“Mm, Thank you. No need to apologise, detective. It’s quite nice, you know. To feel desired at one’s most disgusting.”

“You’re so not disgusting right now. But trust me, Kim – I get it.”

They smiled at each other until Kim broke eye contact, reaching for his spoon and clearing his throat. Naked adoration, both giving and receiving, was still relatively uncomfortable for him - Harry understood this implicitly - but the tension of his mouth belied how much effort he was putting into repressing a most persistent smile. Noticing this just made Harry beam at him even harder.

~~~~~

To Harry’s dismay, Kim’s condition only seemed minutely improved after eating. He’d cuddled with the smaller man until he’d fallen asleep again, then pulled up KIm's desk chair and sat beside his bed, leafing through one of the Lieutenant’s books on Aerostatic Pilotage. It was good to distract himself like this as his boyfriend wheezed and snored several feet away from him. The endless stream of information that he filed away in the recesses of his brain was always a decent method of channeling his focus within the relative chaos of his noisy mind. Besides, it was much less destructive to overload his system with facts than substances. He tried not to think about the cooking wine he'd seen in a kitchen cabinet earlier.

A sudden whimper from the pile of bedding and limbs that was Lieutenant Kitsuragi had him mobile in an instant, hovering by Kim’s bedside as he groaned again, opening his eyes ever so slightly and panting for air. Before Harry even reached out to touch him he could feel that he was boiling, burning up as the heat radiated off of him. He was damp with perspiration, loose hair plastered to the skin of his forehead.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

Kim turned towards him, eyes unfocused and glassy with fever. When he didn’t say anything, just peered miserably in Harry’s general direction, almost through him without the aid of his glasses and with the sickness fogging his brain, Harry had to dig his nails into his palm to prevent a full-blown panic attack.

“I’m gonna get you a cold compress, okay? Just hold on a minute.”

He scrambled round the small bathroom for a face towel before rushing back to the kitchen, filling a bowl with ice cubes and water. The bowl was too small and the towel a little too big, but it would have to do.

~~~~~

Kim’s attempts to convince Harry that he was fine eventually came to an end. As Harry cupped his cheek and lay beside him on the bed, adjusting the compress and supporting him through the occasional bout of coughing, the Lieutenant’s resolve finally broke.

“Harry…” He started, and before Harry’s eyes he seemed to physically shrink down into the bedsheets. It was as though the determination and stubbornness left him all at once, his energy positively depleted. “I feel terrible.”

Kim’s eyes squeezed shut. Harry didn’t know if he was cringing, humiliated by his own admission of defeat, or whether he was trying his best not to cry. It might even be that he had a migraine coming on. It didn’t matter. None of that mattered – all that mattered was making him feel better. His chest physically ached.

“Okay. It’s okay.”

He kissed Kim’s burning cheek, took one of his clammy, limp hands in his own and laced their fingers together.

“Will you stay here tonight?”

“I can’t believe you even felt the need to ask.”

“Mm…apologies. I’m not used to this.” Kim spoke gently, squeezing Harry’s hand softly, far too softly.

“What - being looked after?”

Kim smirked at him just a little.

“’I can’t believe you even felt the need to ask.’”

“Ha ha. Funny man.” Harry deadpanned, pressing their foreheads together, forcing Kim’s eyes to cross as he stared at him down the length of his nose. The Lieutenant huffed a small laugh against his lips, just as Harry had intended.

“Listen, being a lonely, touch-starved, middle-aged man is my shtick, okay? If you come for my gig like that I’ve got nothing.”

Kim closed his eyes and smiled against Harry’s mouth.

“Not even communism?”

“Political alignments alone do not a personality or archetype make.”

“So find a new archetype. Maybe the loving, doting boyfriend.” Kim muttered. “You’re doing a very good job of it right now. It suits you.”

Harry moved down to nuzzle his face into the crook of Kim’s neck. His skin was sweat-slick, hot, and smelled distinctly unwell, but it didn’t bother him. He wanted to bite down into the flesh and taste him. He wished he could physically crawl into Kim and live inside of him. The feelings that overwhelmed him brought stinging tears to his eyes.

“You think so?” He asked round the lump in his throat.

“I do.”

They lay there for a little while longer, jostled only by another round of coughing from Kim that urged Harry to prop him up in bed again. The change in position seemed to shift the congestion in his poor nose, and with it, triggered an irritating tickle. Harry watched in adoration as Kim’s expression twisted, then gasped softly as Kim turned and sneezed twice against the column of his throat.

“Hupt’TSHHUuuu!! HGKk’Tschoouu!! Ohh…”

He rubbed his runny nose against Harry’s skin, causing him to stiffen and moan in pleasure. Kim now had intimate knowledge of exactly how to drive him crazy, but he sensed that this particular, miserable little motion as his boyfriend attempted to quell the tickle in his nose was simply enacted out of sheer exhaustion, rather than any active desire to work him up. Somehow, it just made him even hotter – that Harry was simply a means to an end in that moment, a substitute for a tissue or a hastily raised fist to rub against his nostrils was – well. His pants were torturously tight.

“Bless you, baby. You poor thing.”

With all the willpower he could gather, he lay Kim down again and wiped his dripping nose clean with a tissue. He couldn’t help taking his time, luxuriating in the sensation of playing with his nose through the thin material. He swallowed back a groan when Kim’s nostrils flared wide, flexing under his fingers and pushing them apart. He didn’t sneeze again, for which Harry was grateful – that might have been the final straw before he was forced to sneak off and rub one out in the bathroom. Not that Kim would have minded, he was sure. Enabler.

“You should try and sleep now, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I’m gonna stay here until you’re out and then I’ll crash on your couch.”

“Do you need – there are no clean sheets –“

“It’s okay, Kim. There’s a throw blanket, and it’s getting warmer. I’ll be fine, honestly.”

Harry stroked his cheek, something that Kim seemed to like a lot. The Lieutenant nuzzled into his palm and hummed an affirmative. Harry clucked his tongue softly - he was still much too hot, burning into him.

“Gonna take you to a doctor in the morning, honey. You’re not well at all.”

“Okay.”

“You sure? Gonna let me drive you there? No complaints, and no apologies?” He teased, relaxing just a little bit when Kim’s lips twitched into a tiny smile.

“I’ll behave.”

“Good boy.”

[askquantumjeremyrebooted]

Jeremy: I think I've... almost... got it...

Jeremy: HOLY SHIT MICHAEL I DID IT!!!!!

Jeremy: ..........kind of.

Michael: No way!!! Hell yeah dude, I knew you could do it!

Michael: Wait what do you mean "kind of"?

Jeremy: Still can't get the stupid picture to work...

Michael: Ehh, fuck picture. We can just talk for now!

Jeremy: ...True! Speaking of--

Jeremy: *ahem* Hey everyone! Uhh, I'm Jeremy Heere. To make a long story short: I took an experimental supercomputer pill to improve my life--

Michael: But it sucked ASS!

Jeremy: Y-Yeah, but shit kinda hit the fan when we tried deactivating it and... *sigh* there's no way to explain this in a way that's simple...

Michael: He got turned half-robot.

Jeremy: No, that's not an accurate way to describe it--

Michael: Oh yeah! And he became an even bigger nerd than before.

Jeremy: Michael--!

Michael: Woops, sorry. An even bigger GEEK than before. My bad.

Jeremy: ...Fine.

Jeremy: Anyway this happened, like, two to three years ago. We were both in high school at the time.

Michael: Senior year!

Jeremy: And yet, finding a way to reverse this and get back into my REAL body is still not feasible... At least, so far.

Michael: He's gotten very good at doing a lot of other stuff, though!

Jeremy: Heh... Thanks...

Jeremy: O-Oh, uh, anyway! Um... Feel free to ask us anything! A-About all of this, or our lives, or anything else you feel like...

Michael: Just don't say anything gross, weirdos, I'm watching you.

Jeremy: Uh, yeah, I second that. Anyway! Ask away! :)

...

Michael: Hell yeah dude, you fucking RULE!

Jeremy: Aww, whatever man! It wasn't too tricky...

Michael: So uh... what about all of that rambling we did in the beginning?

Jeremy: Oh yeah, don't worry, I'll delete that before I post this.

[kiruamon]

Grey World AU

I stumbled into an old au idea again by accident and thought I'd see what would come out of it if I threw Sun, Moon, and Y/N into said setting.

You can find the background informations of this au after the sketches.

Let's start with the background information first:

The au is set in a city where everything is gray and dreary. Starting from the color of people's faces to their eyes and hair. Even the plants in the city park or the sky above their heads is gray. Simply everything seems to consist of a palette of different shades of gray. Humans and robots alike indifferently carry out their assigned work in this city. Regardless of whether this serves a meaningful purpose or not. Emotions are unnecessary. Unwanted. They only disturb the schedule, which each of them has to keep to the letter. Not falling out of step is the most important thing. Just following the instructions without ever wondering what for. Without ever truly taking in their surroundings, or building relationships with those around them. Concepts such as love, affection or passion are completely alien to the inhabitants and at best abstract concepts that they have read about somewhere. Negative feelings in a weak and suppressed form are more likely to be found in the hearts of the city's inhabitants, but are usually hardly acted out, since interactions with each other are limited to a minimum.

And then there is the strange fact that no one can remember things from their own life that happened more than five years ago. This is because every five years in the life of a person or an A.I., they are picked up to ensure that they keep up their productivity. The process is known to people as replacement where someone in their current job will be replaced by someone new. But what exactly happens to the people who are taken away is hardly known and usually nobody thinks about it.

So what happens during said replacement?

You could say that those affected are undergoing a reset. Memories of the last years are deleted. For example, where and what the person last worked as. Memories of work colleagues or what daily routine they followed and where they lived. Only the basic knowledge of the person remains. Usually, after the reset is completed, the person is equipped with new knowledge and tasks and is reassigned to a new position in a new place.

From time to time, however, individuals break the routine for some reason. It can be a tiny trigger that creates bigger and bigger waves in that person's life. Some will break from it, falling into a state of complete apathy in which they are no longer able to do anything until they are found in some dark alley or their homes and taken away to be given an early reset. Or, although much rarer, some people become overly aggressive and, in the worst case, cause chaos within society and shake up the lives of others around them. Regardless of which of the two cases it is, such individuals are commonly referred to as Broken. Oddly enough, these phenomena, although less common, have been observed in some bots and animatronics as well.

However, there also exists a third possible outcome. Individuals who get out of sync without falling into permanent madness or apathy, and who gradually learn to become aware of themselves. The longer this state lasts, the greater the likelihood that they will begin to notice emotions that they did not know before and which become more intense over time. For unknown reasons, this causes their previously gray appearance to slowly change to a more and more colorful one. There are no reports or news about these third cases. Officially they do not exist and as soon as they are discovered they are brought away as quickly as possible, just like the others, in order to make a functioning member of society out of them again.

All people are equipped with a watch-like device that is usually worn around the wrist. The device is not only used to read the current time, but also checks the vital functions of its wearer while being worn. Additionally, it shows how much time is left to complete a certain activity or to get from A to B in order to keep the personal schedule. If for some reason there are minor delays in the routine, the device - as far as possible - readjusts the schedule and tries to guide the owner back into their normal routine. Bots and animatronics on the other hand have a separate program in their code instead of this device, which takes care of these functions.

Although every home is equipped with a kitchen and there are also supermarkets with real food, restaurants, snack bars and the like, people eat the food units assigned to them. These are tasteless, gray little cubes that contain all the nutrients the person needs for their daily meals, and are precisely pre-calculated by the wristwatch before being spit out by the machines that can be found in every kitchen.

People only get assigned a partner for a day once or twice in their lives. The partners are selected based on algorithms. However, it is usually none of the biological parents who end up raising their child. Often, this task will be handled by someone completely different who has been prepared for this. And even this person will be only two years in charge of the child until it is passed on to the next caregiver. This is to prevent a deeper bond from forming between the child and the caregiver. The children remain in human care until they are about ten years old, at which time they are strongly encouraged and taught to be as independent as possible. After that, they are sent to institutions where they are taught and educated individually. The child care there is mainly performed by bots or animatronics and a few humans as supervisors. The first time the reset is performed in their lives is when they reach the age of sixteen, in order to avoid serious side effects in children from the reset. Those who raise the children already receive a reset when the child is handed over to the next caregiver.

Because of their excellent A.I. and programming, both animatronics and simpler bots have an extreme ability to learn and are flexible in their application possibilities. Which caused them to develop a consciousness of their own as a side effect. Usually, however, this is not seen as a problem, because despite their consciousness, like the humans around them, they show little personality and often perform their prescribed tasks extremely reliably. If, however, they show uncharacteristic signs during the regular maintenance like abnormal behavior, a strongly developed personality, or evidence of emotions developing, they undergo an early reset, like humans would. If a soft reset is not enough, a hard reset is also performed when in doubt and a reprogramming will be done.

With that, we have put the general background info behind us and can now talk about the role of the characters within the au!

Sun and Moon

Sun and Moon share a body in the au and are currently assigned as police officers. Before their last reset, however, the two worked in one of the institutions in which the children from the age of ten are held. In fact, they were specially created to take care of children and raise them to be obedient members of society. For this purpose, they were equipped with all possible theoretical knowledge. However, in their early days, it quickly became apparent that the knowledge they had been given was extremely incomplete when it came to how exactly to care for emotionally troubled children, which was often the case when the children were new to the facility and had adjustment issues. With some of the children, their built-in knowledge kept leading them to certain limits.

So they tried to expand their knowledge using the available databanks. Among those were also numerous files and information from the old times, when children were educated in a completely different way compared to today's system. This, in combination with the practical work with the children, resulted in them learning extremely quickly within a short period of time to adapt to different situations and to constantly adjust and improve their approaches to solving problems as they arose. More and more often, they found themselves resorting to the much older proposed solutions rather than those suggested by the current system, thus making the children's stay significantly more comfortable. Through their work, Sun and Moon were much more exposed to the emotionality of their surroundings. Even more so since they were mainly taking care of the children who had just been brought into the facility and were often more confused or shaken up than the older children due to the new environment. It was only a matter of time before they learned not only to recognize or understand the children's feelings, but also to empathize with them. They began to think more emotionally and to act according to that.

For the two of them it was like a tiny miracle when they made one of the children laugh for the first time. Or when one of the children came to them on its own to be comforted by them. You could say they became too good at their job. In a way that had not been intended when they were deployed. They did exactly what was supposed to be prevented by their creation. The development of an emotional bond between the children and them. At first, they simply tried to erase Sun and Moon's memories. It went well for a while, until things began to repeat themselves. Accordingly, it was decided to replace them completely, erase all their memories once again, and reprogram them to be used elsewhere.

Neither Sun nor Moon can remember this time before their work as policemen. At least until a familiar sound accidentally awakens something that lay hidden deep within them. Perhaps a few memory files survived the deletions after all? They have a pretty elaborate A.I. and it's unclear how many times they've gone through a reset in the past. So far, they have never given it a second thought. Generally, they just follow their daily route and patrol the area of the city they are stationed in. Sun does the daytime patrols and Moon the evening or night patrols. Their rotation is based on the actual sunrise and sunset, at which time one of their internal programs sends them a signal and triggers the transition. Their daily schedule is a bit looser than most humans or bots. While they have set routines in their daily routine, they are not scheduled by the minute between the beginning and end of their work to be able to investigate or respond to any anomalies and report them accordingly if necessary.

Y/N

Y/N works as the only employee in a flower shop where no customer ever sets foot in. They had never really thought about their life. Or about whether or not they were qualified to work in a shop like this. If they got assigned here, then everything had to be correct. And after all, the schedule told them exactly what they had to do and how they had to do it. Everything had its exact place, the new deliveries always arrived on time, and there were precise instructions for the always identical, gray bouquets that they had to produce and which no one ever bought. It was neither dull nor exciting. It was simply their daily routine. Nothing more, nothing less. Y/N was jolted out of their daily, thoughtless routine for the first time when, in the third week, a fresh delivery of plants and flowers arrived, amongst which were so-called defective specimens. They found it difficult to take their eyes off the few splashes of color that stood out in the sea of gray like nothing they had ever encountered before in their lives. It was the first day in their life to show irregularities in their behavior.

Not only did they find themself unable to dispose these so-called defective specimens in the garbage cans outside, but they also found themself out of sync with their schedule on several occasions, causing a slight sense of confusion and panic in them. To make matters worse, the device on their wrist constantly reminded them of their tardiness, once they stared longer than they would have liked at the colorful petals or intense green leaves of one of the flawed plants they had placed with the others in the shop. At first, the process was still quite slow. Y/N would often feel distracted, catching themself just staring for a few seconds, or falling slightly behind their set schedule, or not being able to fall asleep properly because they were suddenly thinking about things they shouldn't or didn't want to think about. There were also some attempts on their part to get back into the old routine, but they were all to no avail. In retrospect, however, the phase that followed this time was the worst from their point of view.

During that phase Y/N felt constantly confused or angry and irritated by every little thing and had gone through some pretty bad mood swings, ranging from absolute lethargy to hitting the walls of their apartment out of frustration or experiencing deep self-doubt about whether they were broken or not. Oddly enough, it was the work in the flower shop that had thrown them into this crisis in the first place, but helped them get through it as well. Knowing that if they suddenly stopped taking care of the plants and flowers, they would simply wither away, gave them the push they needed to keep going. It also helped a little when Y/N turned the watch-like device to silent and no longer tried to stick to everything it told them no matter what, but instead relaxed and worked through the daily tasks in the store at their own pace. After all, what was the point of making twenty or more identical bouquets if no one ever stopped by to buy them? What was the point of sticking to exactly which of the flowers to use for said bouquets and not just doing some trial and error? What was the point of always putting the flowers in exactly the same place when they could be arranged differently inside the shop? Starting things in new ways made Y/N much more balanced, and by now they are already looking forward to go to work.

Of course, there were still some doubts and fears left that they were no longer normal. Different from the rest, which is why they suspected for a long time that someone would probably come to pick them up soon, just like the Broken, to replace them. But contrary to expectations, no one has come to pick Y/N up to replace them, even though there was clearly something wrong with them. Meanwhile, Y/N suspects that they may not be broken, but possibly flawed, much like the colorful flowers in their store. But since no one seems to care, they just try to make the best of their current situation. This also includes accepting the new feelings and thoughts and living them out to a certain extent instead of suppressing them completely - apart from the fact that they have learned that it is no longer possible for them to suppress their feelings. Y/N clearly enjoys working in the flower shop, even though unfortunately no one ever comes to buy a bouquet or any of the plants. They started to display mainly the colorful flowers and plants in their shop instead of the gray ones. Meanwhile, they are trying to learn how to cultivate the colorful plants by reading some books about the matter. Over the last half year, there have been some small successes here and there. Also, a few months ago, Y/N noticed with amazement that the gray in their eyes as well as their hair is taking on a different color and is becoming more noticeable as time goes on. By the way, they found the colorful apron while shopping in a shelf with discounted clothes and bought it, because they thought it looked really nice. Y/N honestly didn't even know that colored clothing existed even if it seems to be rare, but can't say if they just never noticed any when buying something new to wear.

_

For the first time the three of them meet during one of Sun's patrols when he passes the flower shop, noticing the flower tubs right in front of the store, which weren't there usually, so he takes a look through the window for the first time only to realize irritated that something is wrong here and enters the store shortly after. I would talk more now, but… I think I will rather post further details together with upcoming sketches/drawings.;)

[seventh-district]

7am, eating cold leftover teriyaki stir-fry for breakfast and crying over blorbos

[taegularities]

no but i truly mean it when i say this is gonna be the angstiest year on taegularities so far bc looking at my long roomie jk wip im like.. 👁️👄👁️

why am i doing this to us

[pinknnight]

to whoever cares about asa mitaka, i made a playlist of songs that remind me of her. enjoy.

[anartisticalniche]

Hii I love your au sm and question what's the timeline in the au??

thanks alot glad ya like it!

dont wanna spoil too much of it so im going to describe it as plainly as possible:

-Pre-main story: how the Mario Bros and SMG4 were before and what they were doing before Mario vanishes

-Mario disappears from the kingdom, and SMG4 is first asked by Luigi and then ordered by Peach to search for him in the seas, accompained by Tari and Saiko

-They meet SMG3, and get captured, forced to join his crew instead

-They meet the Outcasts (Meggy, Axol and Boopkins) and bond with them (under the pretense that Three wants to capture them for money, but then changes his mind)

-They get both find out by the Great Barrier inhabitants almost traspassing the forbidden borders and also ratted out to the Mushroom Kingdom guards by someone in the crew (wont say who tho😝) and a war between the two Kingdoms/Realms wages, with the crew right in the middle of it

-SMG4 and SMG3 are the only ones (alongside another character) that get separated from the battle, and are both stranded on a strange island (lots of bonding between the two of them in this part eheh)

-A mythical legend becomes a reality and they have to destroy the big bad villain (i wont say who it is yet) and the climax of the plot happens

-after joining forces and havin destroyed a bigger enemy than themselves, the sea and land people are at peace with each other, and SMG4 and others decide to join the crew for real, and the adventures continue afterwards

This is what i got for the main story, then after that ill play around with some more stuff that happens in universe and make some more side comics (both general and shippy ones dw😌), mixing ideas etc

[pretentiousblog1]

heyyyyyy I made this like a month ago but I forgot to post it. If you want an edgy story about the suckening s2 (mainly Shilo) then this is for u!!!!! Took me forever to make but JRWI has me in a chokehold (in a good way) I love all of the characters and this campaign especially -- I hope it's enjoyable!! Feel free to give (kind and constructive) criticism! I just read it again and I found a lot of mistakes lol but I might have time to fix it one of these days. Very busy at the moment

Have a nice day/night and stay sucking!

[danaris112]

I'm taking a break from Crimson Rivers

[theicarusconstellation]

I FINISHED OUTLINING MY DUNE FIC RAHHHHHHHH