#because that's how you get the white ghost armour

[mockerycrow]

HELLO the biggest congrats on 4k, you absolutely deserve that and so many more!!!

Could I see a female!reader x Ghost with the prompt:“I had a nightmare . . . can I stay with you tonight?”

TY and yet again, congratulations 🤍🤍🤍

REASSURANCE (Ghost x Fem!Reader) — 4K CELEBRATION

authors note; thank you so much anon <3 i hope you enjoy!

[WARNINGS; not proofread (like most of my fics), silent panic attack + light dissociation, implied you’ve never seen his face, hurt/comfort.]

You know Ghost has nightmares—everyone knows Ghost has nightmares. No one really wants to talk about it because he doesn’t, but everyone has seen the man up at ungodly hours of the night, or perhaps beating the absolute shit out of a punching bag at the on-base gym.

No one except for Price knows what Ghost’s been through, but no one really questions him. It’s unrealistic to think Ghost is the only one waking up due to their dreams—even Price does on the occasion. What Ghost doesn’t do is ask for help.

You had a weird gut feeling about tonight; you weren’t really restless, but you weren’t tired. Every time you laid down to try to get some sleep, your eyelids would slowly open back up. You tried multiple methods; white noise, thinking about nothing, thinking about a story, taking a sleep remedy—nothing.

You had a weird tightness in your stomach that you couldn’t shake. It’s no big deal, you’ve had several nights like this. Nights where you stay up, half expecting something to happen. You aren’t sure if its the military-esque anxiety flaring up, expecting an attack of some sort or if it’s just one of those nights.

You’re laying in bed, trying to think of what you have to do tomorrow. Might as well try to think of something useful, right? Let’s see, you have to do morning training and then you have to eat, brief with price, it’s your turn to help the armourer—the weapons master, you like to say to piss them off—and you also have to do paperwork.

A very tame evening, you think, avoiding the Q word everyone oh so desperately hates; including yourself. Because the second you say it, you’re going to be called by Laswell, or General Shepherd, or some other CIA federal agent bureaucrat about some fucking thing that’s happening in the god forsaken world that only, and only task force 141 can handle—

—Someone knocks on your door, breaking your disorganized thoughts. Your eyebrows furrow; no one should be up, maybe Price is, or Ghost. Did you forget some paperwork? You sit up, slip your slides on your feet, and you walk to the door. You unlock the door and open it, wincing from the bright light of the hallway pouring in, and you’re met with the large figure of Ghost.

You blink, unsurprised. “Hey.” You utter. “Did I wake you?” God, Ghost sounds rough. It sounds like he garbled glass—er, maybe that isn’t the nicest way to describe one of your superiors voices right now. It’s clear he just woke up. You shake your head in response, stepping aside. “Here, come in. It’s bright.”

Ghost silently obeys, stepping inside of your room. You close the door and head over to your desk. You feel around in the darkness until you feel your lamp and you click a button, turning it on, illuminating the room just enough for you to see Ghost. He’s wearing a pair of dark grey sweatpants with one of his black, long-sleeve compression tops to go with it.

He’s wearing a basic black balaclava without the iconic skull, but.. His eyes are different. Distant and weary, cautious—panicked almost. Your eyebrows furrow together as his broad shoulders are tense, fists clenched.

“Ghost..” You call softly. He seems far away—he needs your help. “Ghost.” You say more insistently and louder, noticing the way his chest is barely moving. “Ghost, hey, can y’hear me? You need to take a breath..” You murmur, slowly approaching him.

He’s frozen but you see how his eyes flicker towards you, taking a moment realize where he is. You offer a soft smile you always show him and you nod. “There you are, big guy. Can I touch you?” You make sure to ask because you never know; a soldier during a flashback, touching them? That can be fatal—you trust Ghost as you don’t think he would ever hurt you, but you never know a person.

It takes him a moment to nod, which makes you promptly and gently grab his wrists. You gently guide him to your bed, and you sit him down. You’re nervous—you’re about to calm him down in one of the only ways you know how to, but you’re worried about the consequences you’ll receive afterwards. Oh well, you don’t care, not when Ghost’s eyes are as unfocused as they are.

The bed dips under his weight and you gently spread his legs, standing between them. You grab his arms; they’re deadweight, but his eyes flicker some recognition, allowing you to guide his arms around your waist. You guide his head to lay against your stomach, your hands cradling his masked jaw and the back of his neck.

Ghost takes in a harsh, shuddery breath which makes you hum in approval. “There you go, Ghost. Breathe, you’re alright.” You say in a mellow manner, your thumb brushing over his masked cheek. Ghost takes in another harsh breath as his arms tighten around you. You continue to try to ground him, talking and praising him for his efforts to stay calm. You know he isn’t in the right mind, but you’re still shocked he’s allowed you to touch him for as long as you have.

Something in your gut unravels as Ghost pulls his head away ever so slightly, ripping his mask off and throws it away like it was constricting his breathing. He buries the side of his face back into your stomach, taking you by surprise. Your met with his blonde hair in the low light, your heart stuttering.

You hesitate only for a moment before you bury a hand in his hair on the back of his head, your other hand returning to his jaw, your heart hammering as you note he has stubble as well as something on his skin, like deep scar tissue.

Ghost lets out a noise which you quickly hum in response. “It’s okay, let it out.. Won’t tell anyone about this, okay?” You assure him, causing another noise to escape him, almost like a laugh. “Kinda hard t’do that when a pretty girl is comfortin’ you.” He croaks, his voice broken—both his voice and sentence making your brain short circuit. You laugh in return, trying to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. “Shush,” You murmur. “Just relax.”

Ghost nods against your stomach, shakily exhaling. You stay like that for a while; neither of you are sure for how long, and neither of you care. You’re enjoying the rare vulnerability Ghost is displaying, and he’s enjoying the grounding touch you’re currently providing him. The silence is comforting as you comb your fingers through his hair, and you enjoy the weight of his head and his arms.

“I had a nightmare…” Ghost utters. You hold your breath as he looks up at you, and oh god, he’s hot. “..Can I stay with you tonight?” You’re mesmerized by the way his nose is curved—clearly has been broken a couple of times and wasn’t reset right—by the way his eyebrows are furrowed, his big, beautiful brown eyes.. You nearly forget to respond. “Yes,” You push out, resisting the urge to reach up and rub the tension between his brows. “Always.”

[raisindave]

[Chapter 62] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

If your drill sergeant back and basic training had seen the state in which you'd left your quarters, he'd probably have you running the mile until noon. That dress you'd spent so much time searching for lay in a shrivelled mess across the bedroom tile, a single stiletto in your bathroom, another just under your bed. To your shock, your pearl necklace was still clinging to your throat, leaving lingering pink dents from a haphazard night's rest. Last night was a blur, but precious few memories that do flicker in your waking mind make your stomach flutter. You have to get up, even if sleep-deprived muscles make their protests known with every movement. 

It's nice to know that the barracks are quiet once again, seeing as most of the exalted generals and commanders have fucked off to whatever decorated offices they'd spawned from. Although, as comforting as the architecture might be in this stunning vista, it'll never ring as comfortable. A solid sleep being a consequence of sheer exhaustion, not a peaceful state of mind. Familiar halls steered you toward the common room where you'd previously found your colleagues lounging on other mornings, so you'll likely find them there. An odd sense of self-consciousness washed over you, not quite guilt per se, but a sense of abashedness that made your eyes flicker to make sure you're stepping through this wooden threshold with all your clothes on. No lingering glances, or even a glance at all; Soap was weaving blades of long grass into twine for whatever reason, and Gaz and Price were enthralled with their soccer on the grainy screen. 

"Cricket," Price grumbled; it made you flinch. "Good morning."

"Morning," you called, rounding the corner to find Ghost seated beside Soap's weaving station at a table by the window. 

"Seeing as you're excused from training today, I thought we'd get you out in the field to compensate," his piercing blue eyes saw through your soul when he turned to look at you.

Getting out in the field. That only means one thing. It's hard to say if Ghost's words with Price mentioned your aforementioned lack of participation in the practice. It might be Ghost's way of including you in an activity that distracts your mind from your cancelled training, or maybe he's trying to punish you for abandoning your post at the gala. Or, maybe it's just as simple as Price including you in rucking because you haven't accompanied them in a while, and that's the whole of it.

"Yes, sir."

"Get kitted. We'll be out and back before the afternoon sun cooks us," he grumbled, taking another long drag of coffee from one of those white mugs. 

Unluckily for you, this time around they had no intention of stopping in a pub on this excursion. No, it's for real this time, evidenced by a single twenty-pound pack of equipment slung beside four other kits laid up against the stucco wall by Soap. Still 'babying' you, as Ghost so uncharitably put it, as their packs looked to be easily fifty pounds, not counting the layered jackets and denim pants you're expected to equip. The military-grade jeans could probably stop a bullet at the right angle, starchy and heavy, finely woven to catch serrated blades in their place. It's easy to forget how weighty this armour and steel-toed boots feel once you've got them all equipped, but that's the purpose after all. And that purpose is to make this tactical equipment feel like a second skin, teaching harsh lessons of endurance and self-discipline with every agonizing pound. Buckles and velcro pull at unusual locations, grounding themselves in the sensitive flesh of your inner elbow and thigh, even with a thick barrier separating them from your skin. Eventually, you're all kitted up, only making your teammates wait about five extra minutes, despite only needing to apply half as much equipment. 

White sunshine made your pupils burn at the change in brightness, but pushing through the strain, you could barely make out Gaz's raised hand ushering you to the mode of transport. Of course it's in one of those trucks. And not just any truck, either. It's the same fucking one from the night before. At least you were wise enough to collect all of your garments before you left, or rather, most of them, but the thought still made your blood run cold. Soap gestured for you to slip in before him, oh-so-gentlemanly using saying 'ladies first' as an excuse to give you the dreaded middle seat in the back of the vehicle. The universe seems to have an odd sense of justice though, as only seconds later, after he'd assumed his position on your flank, Gaz's seat kicking backwards stripped him of the extra legroom. Ghost sat in on your other side, effectively sealing you into a horrifyingly claustrophobia-inducing situation. A front passenger seat had been dragged forward so far that only someone like you could've been seated there, but nobody bothered to question. That's weird. 

Chilled morning steam contrasted with warm breath created the most mortifying sight. A sight that even Ghost didn't initially spot until he followed your mortified gaze. Perfect imprints of sweaty palms and dragging fingertips imprinted on glass perfectly choreographed a sinful scene. Soap was contentedly distracted enough by arguing about soccer with Price and Gaz in the front seats, seemingly insulted by his opinions being intentionally disregarded. The Englishmen have banded together in an unsteady alliance, rejecting the inputs on the sport from the resident Scot. The distraction was enough for Ghost to think on his feet, rolling down the windows to drown away the scene on the glass. Fresh air didn't hurt either, and it felt like a crisis averted. Still, the stress is enough to make you forfeit your breakfast right then and there. 

Eventually, the vehicle came to a halt, and Soap's door swung open before Price even had the opportunity to take the keys out of the damn ignition. It came with fantastic timing because the sense of surging claustrophobia was just reaching a new high. The Captain had steered your hike through a lightly wooded scape that dramatically dropped into a sheer cliff that sloped into the rocky sea below. Kicked pebbles scuttered into freefall, the ensuing splash only barely audible over churning waves, white peaks of crashing saltwater lashing at the cliff face down below. 

So long as Price is satisfied with how exhausted you are, all while bearing it with a stiff lip, he'll relent his grip and let you shed this cruel equipment. You have to look tired, but not too tired. Dirty, but not too filthy. You have to keep up, but not enough to look like your equipment isn't a significant burden. At least the view is nice, where the morning sun had a way of making the late-night mist sparkle on the lush branches of proud cypress trees. Salty air sucked away simmering heat from under your jacket, where cool air breathed across the sweet spit that pooled over your tongue as you heaved. Rucking is exhausting and mentally draining in a backward sort of way, where you're in a constant state of willing creeping thoughts of weariness to silence. 

A fluttering bird over the horizon caught your attention, soaring and drooping with sleek wings, slicing through the air and stopping on a dime with a flash of flared tailfeathers. An osprey, probably. The speed at which it tears through your vision makes it difficult to identify it beyond a blur of brown and white until it deems whatever fish it'd spotted as an unworthy cause, instead flattening angular wings to catch the calming gale. Not delicate and demure like a sweet songbird, those seem to be plentiful in this patch of birch. It seems like every other branch is dotted with a spatter of yellow feathers, contentedly harmonizing with the next branch, little beacons of sunshine in their tiny bodies. 

But a trill, slicing through the air above crashing waves and thundering footsteps, enraptured a swivelling glance from all five of you. That osprey, commanding respect. They could be described as meek when held up to the mighty eagle, but they are independent and fierce, especially in their native environment. They don't have to fight for attention or prove themselves. Their worth is effortless, natural. But you couldn't get too lost in thought because every once in a while, you'll catch the tail end of cheeky banter between Soap and Ghost that sounds more like a married couple's squawking. Soap'll push Ghost's buttons about something menial, Ghost will have some stony and grim response, and Soap will cut the tension with some intentionally obtuse quip. It's like fire and ice with those two; it's easy to forget they're both career killers. 

In your eavesdropping, you'd uncovered the trivia that Ghost sometimes plays the drums, surprising as you'd always pinged him as a bassist. Soap used to play the bagpipes, but he'd apparently never graduated beyond playing the reed and not the full bagpipe, a detail he was fiercely defensive over when Gaz pushed for more information. Price glanced back at you as if to posit the same question of preferred instruments, but your heaving gasps seemed to communicate that you don't have the breath to contribute. And the assumption was entirely founded, because your lungs were burning in your chest just by keeping up this enduring pace. 

Your wandering mind made it possible to submit to your hiking, finding the same winding trail through tall birch and cypress trees reversing before you. You'd survived another session of rucking. Though this only counts as the second, and a half, rucking outing with these guys. Even still, it's enough to make you comfortably surrender to the fact that you're not cut out to be in the Special Forces. Conversation was easy whenever you found the breath to participate. Of course, it was easy for these guys; it was more like a leisurely stroll, swatting damp branches and kicking pebbles into the turbulent sea below. It felt like everyone was just contentedly avoiding the elephant in the room. It made your skin crawl, and your skeptical eyes dart to Ghost up ahead, on the vanguard of the trail.

Just as the afternoon sun was becoming unbearable, honing in on dark equipment, the cool wind from the opened windows in the truck gave you the comfort your slippery skin was begging for. You were getting dangerously close to heat exhaustion, but you'd never admit that. And Price would never knowingly put you in a situation he didn't think you could handle. Or so you hope. The sweet smell of manufactured coolant from the air-conditioning sang through your system, breathing life into dragging joints. Just as the rest of the gang was eager to unwind tense muscles and shower, you caught Ghost on his way down the hall, glancing for company before skipping to catch up. 

"What did you tell them?" You pressed, forcing him to halt his rigid pace. 

You knew he'd know exactly what you meant. Not a peep of concern and where you'd disappeared off to in a huff after just over an hour at the gala, never to be seen again. Nobody's asked where you and Ghost slinked off to, inconveniencing the lot of them by hijacking their ride. How did they even get back? Maybe they caught a ride with Laswell, or maybe they hiked back in the damp night, suits and all. Not exactly a hero's welcome, in spite of their medals and ribbons. 

"I told them the truth," he pledged with a cold and unabashed tone. 

Your heart plunged, frigid blood crashing through your system. The truth? He told them about your time at the park? 

"And what's the truth?" You croaked, feeling your forehead crinkle in abrupt concern. 

"That you're struggling to understand why you're not getting any recognition," he replied simply, edging on a challenging tone. "I said that I explained it to you, that I gave you a pep talk, and that it won't be an issue anymore."

"And you were the wise and valiant hero that wrangled me from that ledge," you scoffed, redirected horror manifesting into creeping agitation. 

"Yes," he replied arrogantly. "And I have the trophy to prove it." 

"A trophy you plundered from another. That's very British of you," you chirped, sealing your pack shut with a satisfying zip.

"Funny," he snarled flatly. 

It took the willful command of every muscle in your body not to swing your palm to smack him, striking that snide look off his face as he looked down at you. Yet, a sneaking sliver of yourself found discomfort in his initiative. He'd taken agency of your mental health, capitalizing on it to get you out of a sticky social situation. But at the same time, it's not like you had the willpower, nor the rank, to bring up those concerns to the Captain on your own anyway. And it's not like you weren't eager to take any opportunity to conceal a sneaky link on company hours. A part of you knew that he was aware of your dilemma. You'd given your trust to him, wholeheartedly laying your soul bare. But you came out of a willful disobedience of orders scot-free. Hell, if anything, he's the one who's under the magnifying glass now, seeing as his objective was to retrieve you from fleeing the gala, a mission he'd failed. Appearances that would've been damaged were saved by charisma and probably a handful of white lies. Effectively wriggling you free of a scolding from Price or Laswell, bringing up your concerns that you'd have to silently bear otherwise to your superiors, and permitting you to selfishly imbibe in another encounter with this coworkers-with-benefits relationship. Well played, Simon. 

"Lieutenant, sergeant, pack your things. We're in the air in thirty," Laswell called in your direction, already disappearing in a flurry of steps down another connecting hallway. 

"Do you know where we're going?" you posited, glancing back over to your colleague with a sudden surge of energy. 

"Berlin," he began. "You should really start paying attention to the news."

<< Prev Chapter           Next Chapter>>

Master List

[ae-neon]

Still interested in writing something for Eris/Cresseida? What about a scene when they decide to get married? Or just anything with them

💚

"You're serious?" Cresseida cocked a white haired brow, bangled arms crossed as she angled slightly towards Eris.

He leaned against a marble pillar, tall, pale skinned, bright haired, tightly wrapped in burgundy clothing. A contrast to her own dark skin, white hair and vibrant cerulean slip of a silk dress.

She half expected him to shrug, he always played close enough to the edge to back out of the game. But he turned to her, golden eyed and...earnest.

Cresseida shifted on her feet, "You really are serious." The repercussions were immense, both in their appeal and in their risk.

A marriage between them would cross a line drawn as much in blood as it was on a map. Amarantha had forbade inter-court marriages for just this reason. And before her, the families had found themselves too much at odds, locked in unending power struggles.

But now Rhysand, with three Made Fae at his back, moved to impose his will over all of Prythian. And Lucien wrestled with Day and Autumn in his blood.

Everything had changed, an alliance between the seasonal courts might save them but Winter-

"Don't."

Cresseida pulled herself from the board in her mind and met the Autumn Prince's golden gaze, finding again that strange sincerity. "This isn't something to be taken lightly, Eris."

"No, it's not." He agreed, taking his hand from his pocket and closed the gap between them; reaching for her, the calloused pad of this thumb ghosted over the wrinkled space between her brows. "Marriage is more than an alliance. I already know what the Princess of Adriata thinks, I want to know what you think."

Her walls were a second skin, existing without thought. They protected her heart as much as they did her people. Cresseida had been untrusting of even Tarquin at first. And then when her brother had left, abandoned his duty...and her, for them...

So how now had she come to trust Eris Vanserra, to let her muscles ease and her eyes reflect the uncertainty and hope she felt inside?

"Where would we even live?" Her own words surprised her and she saw his face quirk, an almost laugh.

"I'd build you a palace on the border if you like. A west wing in Summer and east in Autumn."

"Realistically, we'd need to establish an integrated household for that, including an army and while I trust your experience-"

The brush of his lips against hers stole the breath from her lungs, killed the words on her lips and ignited a fire in her gut.

They'd tiptoed around this. Flirted and fought with their words, danced so close they shared breath but never...

She tilted her face, angled for another kiss and almost moaned when he pulled her close and gave her everything she'd wanted and so much more.

She pulled back with a grin tugging at her lips as he chased her mouth, "I thought you wanted to know what I think."

"I do," his eyes still lingered on her mouth for a second before they met hers. She fought a smirk and signalled for him to continue.

"You think a palace on the border is perfect for centralising power and that consolidating our armies will help to secure Spring's border too." A frown tugged at her lips and his gaze dipped to them once more before he continued, "You think that because you can't help it. You're the Princess. You can't escape that part of yourself anymore than I can. Which is why you trust me to think the same. To work with you for the benefits. And you're right... But you also know that's not the only reason I asked."

She did know. She felt it as well as he did. Saw her chance at something more with him. Cresseida once again put away the armour of the Princess, let her heart be vulnerable and trusted Eris Vanserra, "Then you already know my answer."

Eris smiled and kissed her again.

*

CRESSERIS!!!!!

Thank you for this ask ☺️

[violettesiren]

This is a simple poem. for the mothers sisters daughters girls I have never been for the women who clean the Staten Island Ferry for the sleek witches who burn me at midnight in effigy because I eat at their tables and sleep with their ghosts.

These stones in my heart are you of my own flesh whittling me with your sharp false eyes searching for prisms falling out of your head laughing me out of your skin because you do not value your own self nor me.

This is a simple poem I will have no mother no sister no daughter when I am through and only the bones are left see how the bones are showing the shape of us at war clawing our own flesh out to feed the backside of our masklike faces that we have given the names of men.

Donald DeFreeze I never knew you so well as in the eyes of my own mirror did you hope for blessing or pardon lying in bed after bed or was your eye sharp and merciless enough to endure beyond the deaths of wanting?

With your voice in my ears with my voice in your ears try to deny me I will hunt you down through the night veins of my own addiction through all my unsatisfied childhoods as this poem unfolds like the leaves of a poppy I have no sister no mother no children left only a tideless ocean of moonlit women in all shades of loving learning a dance of open and closing learning a dance of electrical tenderness no father no mother would teach them.

Come Sambo dance with me pay the piper dangling dancing his knee high darling over your wanting under your bloody white faces come Bimbo come Ding Dong watch the city falling down down down lie down bitch slow down nigger so you want a cozy womb to hide you to pucker up and suck you back safely well I tell you what I’m gonna do next time you head for the hatchet really need some nook to hole up in look me up I’m the ticket taker on a queen of rollercoasters I can get you off cheap.

This is a simple poem sharing my head with dreams of a big black woman with jewels in her eyes she dances her head in a golden helmet arrogant plumed her name is Colossa her thighs are like stanchions or flayed hickory trees embraced in armour she dances in slow earth shaking motions that suddenly alter and lighten as she whirls laughing the tooled metal over her hips comes to an end and at the shiny edge an astonishment of soft black curly hair.

Scar by Audre Lorde

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Destinytober24: Day 7 - Prismatic

A Gambit match, an insensitive comment, forgiveness, and a hole.

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

The satisfying crunch of a Hive ghost being squished came through the speakers in the Derelict as Eris and the Drifter sat together in front of multiple screens displaying different angles of the current Gambit match in progress. About half of the screens were black & white with very specific settings for brightness and contrast to enable Eris to see them better.

The Drifter tapped on a keyboard in his lap with one hand and leaned over to flick a switch. Eris sipped tea.

He pressed a button on his headset. "Invader's on the field. Get 'em!"

He pressed another button. "This is what the Taken feel."

Eris waited until the headset button had been pressed again before asking, "How do you know that is what the Taken feel?"

The Drifter smirked. "I don't. That's just marketing."

"Hmmm…. I wonder if Sloane would be able to corroborate or disprove your statement."

"Corroborate, huh?"

"Confirm." Eris sipped tea from her mug.

"Why didn't you just say confirm?"

"Corroboration involves evidence or experience. Confirmation is simply a statement of assent."

He looked over at her quizzically. "What does it matter what somethin' smells like for that?"

"Smells?"

"Yeah."

"I do not follow."

"You said a scent."

"No. Assent. One word. A S S E N T. It means… agreement or… approval. To concur."

"Concur, huh?" He grinned as he flipped some more switches. "Incoming hostiles on the island."

Eris sighed.

"Sloane's never played Gambit," he continued. "And to be honest, I don't know what goin' through an invasion portal would do to her."

"How does it work, your invasion portal?"

"Truth be told I only understand about half of what's goin' on in there. A lot of it was just kit bashed experiments, throwin' things together and seein' if they stick."

"But it does function, and has remained stable for over a decade."

"Yeah, I been tweakin' it for a while now."

"You must have learned quite a lot."

"I have." He tilted his head, looking back at her with a small smile. It was a genuine smile, not his practised friendly grin, his leering smirk, or the toothy menacing smile he used when he was intimidating someone.

The Drifter was almost always smiling. When they had first started working together, Eris had treasured the moments they'd shared when he was willing to let the facade drop and stop smiling. She understood how rare it was that he was willing to let any of his many, many masks slip off to show the genuine expressions which lay below them.

But the small smile he showed Eris now was something especially precious to her. It was so rare because it was genuine, and Eris was quite certain the number of people, alive or dead, who had ever seen it over the extremely long period of the Drifter's many lives could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

"One thing I learned recently," he said, his voice low and conspiratorial, his eyes sparkling with the secret he was about to share.

"Yes?" Eris asked, leaning forward.

"Prismatic makes it react funny."

Her three eyes narrowed. "Really."

"Yeah. First time someone went through all pink it damn near crashed the system. I had to put in special dampeners to deal with it. Shielding basically."

"Interesting."

"Yeah. Light or Dark separately is just fine, but send through a guardian wielding 'em together and the interface goes haywire. Good thing it's a short trip or the circuits would be melting."

"Hmmm…. I wonder why."

"Me too. Haven't figured that part out yet."

"But you were able to shield against it."

"I basically just slapped on a bunch of chest armour mods. The resistance ones. Got 'em for all five subclasses kitbashed into the tunnelling. Had to melt down quite a few exotics to do it, but I got fucktons of those."

"Of course you do. All legitimately acquired, I'm sure."

"Depenin' on your definition of legitimate, yeah."

"Because you are a law abiding citizen."

The Drifter chuckled.

"And you pay your taxes."

He winked at her before turning back to the screen and clicking a button. "Incoming hostiles at the garden!"

"In theory, could you not learn to wield Prismatic yourself?

"What… go sit in one of them intense cracks of Light inside the Pale Heart and have special brain snuggle time directly with big ol' happy fun ball?" The Drifter shivered in disgust. "Ugh. I'll pass."

At Eris' elbow, the Drifter's ghost emitted its single tone once.

He looked away from the Gambit match on the screens and glared down at it. "No one asked for your opinion."

Eris held out one hand. The ghost floated down and pressed itself gently into her fingers. Eris tilted her head.

"No fucking way I'm doin' that," the Drifter growled. "And I sure as hell ain't doin' it for him, that's for damn sure."

Eris ran the tip of one finger along the misshapen ghost's shell. "I would not mind such an experience."

"Well you can have it."

Eris tensed and was silent.

"I- I didn't mean it like that." The Drifter looked away from his screens, Gambit forgotten. "I- You know I didn't mean it like that. I'm… I'm sorry."

"It is true that without my Light I cannot wield Prismatic but… I might still like to… 'go sit in a crack' and experience 'brain snuggle time with big ol' happy fun ball' at some point," she said softly.

"Of course." He reached out and brushed his fingers against her arm. "I'll take you and watch over you… make sure you don't get sniped while you're doing it if… if you'll let me."

The Drifter's ghost in Eris's hand emitted its tone again. He looked down at it sharply, paused a moment, and then sighed. "Yeah, you can come too. Sit with her if you like. Maybe you can like… I dunno… talk to your friends or something."

Eris straightened her head. "Do you think… Brya might be… inside of it?"

"I don't know. But we can go there and find out. Maybe he can like… ask for you or something."

Eris sat back and sipped her tea. "I would like that."

The Drifter bit his lips. His hand against her trembled.

"And yes, you are forgiven. I know you did not intend offence. It is… discomforting at times… your disdain for something that was… so precious to me that I still keenly feel its loss… but your feelings are shaped by your experiences… as are mine… While I do not share your sentiment toward the Traveler and the Light… I do understand… and I accept you as you are…"

The Drifter squeezed her arm gently and he opened his mouth to speak.

Before he could say anything, his ghost emitted its single tone again and rushed over to float near one of the screens, spinning its shell, blinking its light blue then red then blue again.

Eris frowned, looking at it. "Has that team banked all its motes?"

"Shit! Shitshitshit." The Drifter started pushing buttons frantically.

"Primevil's here. Kill it to win!"

He pushed another button.

"Other team's got a Primeval. You gotta finish yours first."

He hit the mute button and licked his lips. "Thanks."

"He noticed first."

"Yeah," the Drifter sighed again and turned to his ghost. "Thanks."

On the screens a Warlock player crossed their wrists with elegant and precise finger positioning, glowing brightly as they ascended to Prismatic. Eris' lip quirked into a smile at the crystalline chiming sound.

A pink and purple grenade landed at the feet of the Primeval Ogre on the screen, forming a swirling black hole of Void and Stasis energy.

"Wish you could see the colours," the Drifter muttered. "Warlock pink stuff grenade is so damn pretty. The others look good and all, but the Warlock one is… weirdly beautiful."

"It is aesthetically pleasing even without the colours. I still enjoy it."

She placed her empty mug on the console and took his hand, then gave a small laugh as that same Warlock missed their jump and clumsily fell into the chasm between the edge of the central platform and the island beside it.

The Drifter chuckled. "I should set up a counter for that pit. Give it a score. Put it on the leaderboard. It gets more kills than the invaders. Especially Warlocks. Oh so wise and pretty. Can't jump worth shit."

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

[january-summers]

Whoopsie, More Wash centric AUs, now with OCs for extra flavour.

What if he wasn’t court-martialed until the very end of the war so he never joined PFl, and instead of David, Agent Washington was some douche named George who either legit died on the cliff with Meta, or never recovered from Epsilon.

And, David kills some people in self defence, like has to shoot his direct superior in the head very publicly to stop them from ordering his entire platoon to their very avoidable deaths, or during his slap-on-the-wrist free-with-court-martial two months prison time he kills some guys in the showers because they were trying to kill/harm him, so he ends up with *serious* prison time.

Like ends up on the Tartarus, serious. And naturally he makes friends with the other inmates near his cell, including someone who probably shouldn’t be there because she’s technically still a teenager and her crimes were more white collar than murder even if they were very very serious. (Hacked ONI for the lulz, they’re trying to scare her into compliance/working for them.)

Think Emily Grey but with a more limited area of hyper-focused intelligence and higher anxiety/obvious autism.

Meanwhile with the Reds and Blues, Alpha Church managed to basically eat Sigma, O’Malley and Gary, because he didn’t have anyone to Emp them out in a last stand and Meta got their hands on him so it was eat or be eaten.

And he reconnects with Epsilon who basically treats it like a backstory update and goes on being Epsilon Church (Caboose is stoked, double best friend!)

(All Churches get their therapy moment and Tex gets to decide on her own personhood, going off to self examine for a bit and meeting up with Carolina, they get to talk out their issues and decide to kill Director. Tex gets to have her “I exist now, no matter how I was made I have experiences of my own and I am my own person, not your dead wife.” moment, and Carolina gets her, “you died when mum did, and I can’t, I won’t keep chasing your ghost.” moment.)

And the Reds and Blues get to keep the rest of the AIs by virtue of not mentioning they have them to others. They all still end up on Chorus.

In the Tartarus, David figures out what Felix is planning, and even though he has no interest in working for or with him, he still grabs the bars and warns his nearby inmates what’s probably about to happen. (It’s way too easy for David to think “if I was a sack of shit what would I do?”)

By cosmic coincidence, David ends up with the old Freelancer armour belonging to KIA Agent (George) Washington. (Price recognises David and mentions later that he’d actually been on the list for the project.)

David gets to be in charge of his own little strike team, not that anyone on it is particularly interested in working for team Felix.

“Do you think the locals will let us swap sides?” Asks one of David’s men.

But David shakes his head, “not after Felix and Locus pulled their multiyear double agent crap.”

“… is it Locus or Locust?”

“What?”

“The big scary one, is it Locus or Locust?”

“Locus?” Now David is questioning what he’s been hearing, because it could easily be eith- “Wait, where’s the kid?!”

The team is one short, the hacker teen who shouldn’t have been there is missing. She should be back up on the ship, but David didn’t like the idea of leaving her unsupervised. For her safety sure, but also the safety of others.

“Spread out, find her. Don’t engage with anyone unless you have to, finding the kid is priority.”

David finds her with a soldier in… Teal? Aqua? Cyan? Blue, it’s a shade of blue.

The kid is trying to poke at a small hologram next to the soldier and David makes it just in time to stop the kid from taking a knife to the anything.

“Hey now, let’s all just calm down and everyone respect everyone else’s personal space, okay? No putting fingers or knives in others, okay?”

“Well that’s definitely not Washington in there,” the soldier says, “that guy was a grade A asshole who would love to see knives in people.”

“You can call me D.C. Sorry about the kid, she gets excited about techy stuff. So, from what Counsellor Price said, you must be Agent Carolina?”

“That’s right,” Carolina confirms like she’d like nothing more than to stick her knife in David.

“… has he always been that much of a creepy asshole?” David asks, then notices the kid’s reflection in Carolina’s visor, fidgeting with her helmet. The kid stims by chewing on things, normally her braids, David knows. “Kid, I need you to keep your helmet on for me, okay? It keeps your head nice and safe.”

*someone gets headshot in the background*

“…er, safer.” David corrects.

-

And through the power of being him, David and his team get to join team good guy. the folks on Chorus.

And all is well with the world. Until the kid and dr Grey meet and everyone has to deal with the “oh god there’s two of them” perfectly reasonable fear response.

-

Sorry for any typos in this mess of a plot bunny, I wrote it on my phone in bits and pieces during a bbq, which lead to another, competing bunny asking the tough and distracting questions: who is the best griller out if all the Reds and Blues and Freelancers, who shouldn’t be allowed near a grill, and who is a great bbq master but is someone everyone thinks shouldn’t be allowed near a grill? (And vice-versa)

This whole bunny thread was just a way to lead to the “keeps your head safe *bang* -er. safer” joke. Was not expecting the Tex and Carolina detour, but stuff it, ladies road-trip of murder and justice!

[lolitastories]

BLACK AND BLOOD

Y/N L/N is the daughter of the Great Khal Drogo although she was raised by the king of the unknown lands. After finding out he died she travels and finds the one who caused his death. Along this adventure she meets the mother of dragons. Jon Snow. Night walkers. We will see if she really has the Dothraki blood flowing through her veins.

Chapter 17:

Ghost lays down probably over the whole situation. While my hands were shaking and my head spinning I tried to open my mouth. “My Queen, you need us to arrest this man?” I look back and there were 2 guardsmen there.

“No. Leave us, go back to the castle”

“Yes your grace” My gaze fell to the ground. I took a deep breath breaking down in my minute what I needed to get out before anything else happened.

“Queen?” I turn to him and give him a small shrug.

“Not officially. Just filling in until Stella is old enough.” I walk closer to him. He was close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him even in the summer weather. He had gotten rid of his fur but the leather armour is still on. “Or maybe if someone kills me” I let out a chuckle which only covered the tears that were threatening to come out. “Some people will fight it” How can anxiety fill me up so quickly? “ I know for a fact one of the council members will” That's when I feel his hand on my chin and he lifts it up so we are looking eye to eye. “I don’t want any of this and I don’t know what I am trying to prove anymore” Looking into his brown eyes only made me feel vulnerable in his presence. I look away but am pulled back to him.

“You don’t need to have all the answers, just a goal.”

“But what goal is that? Place Stella in the throne? Give Omnis the ruler they deserve? Give into every request to make them happy? You know they want to sentence my father to death?! I can’t do that. I can’t stand infront of everyone especially Gris and Stella and pretend I know what I am doing because I don’t!” My heart was speeding up.

“You are a natural leader. I know it can be sufficating but you have to remember who you are doing this for.” Then it hit me. His words and what Bran told me the day I left. I hadn’t gotten the chance to stop and think about it but the signs were there. It has been a month and nothing. “If anyone can deal under pressure is you” I took a second to just look at him. He was here. How was he here? Well I have an idea on how but, how? And why? What happened at Kings Landing? “Can you get out of that little head of yours?” I playfully hit his chest.

“Shut up. I didn’t know what I want to know first” One hand drops down and wraps around me to pull us closer.

“You know what I want to know?” The other hand moves my hair away and pulls my face closer. “Did you miss me?” I stare blankly at his grin. Of course I missed him. I thought about him all night and day. Whether he had survived Cersei. I know for a fact he would have told Daenerys about his true heritage and she probably didn’t take it lightly. I wished and prayed for him to be saafe and in no harm's way. Hoped for the day I will see him again. Hold him again “Am just going to kiss you already” And what a kiss it was. My arms finally wrapped around him. A part of me was scared that if I touched him he might not have been real. Maybe a part of my imagination. But he was truly here. His lips moved in sync with mine. I tangled my hands in his hair. “So you did miss me?” I roll my eyes pulling backwards towards the trees.

“Can you just kiss me again?” I didn’t wait for an answer and pulled him in. My back hits the tree and a moan leaves my mouth. His lips move over my jaw and down my neck. “It's hot. I think you should get rid of all this leather”

“I agree, it's hot even for this silk” I looked down and my knees buckled seeing the sight of his hand wrapping my clothing in his fist pulling on it.

“I agree.” He pulls me up straight as I gain the strength back on my legs. I pull the clips out and his armour falls. The cotten white undershirt caused another issue for me. I caress his chest slowly untying it. I felt his quicken heart and my movement stopped. “Jon” he picks up his head to look at me. His smile dropped at my whisper tone. “Its no you and I anymore”

“What?” A smile appeared on my face. It was probably a bad time to bring it up but I needed him to know. What if he has other feelings about it? I want to be able to walk away with nothing but his loving memory in Westoros. I wouldn’t bear losing him after I lose myself with him again.

“I’m pregnant” I looked into his eyes for any sign of life but no emotion was there. I realize he wasn’t looking at me but a haze was probably blocking his eyes. I ignored every question and doubt to fill my thoughts. I needed to give him some time to think. I ball my hand and move it away.

“No” He catches my wrist. Pulling my hand gently so it finds his shoulder just like the other and as soon as he lets go he pulls me closer into a hug. “Bran told me to come find you” I hear him whisper. “I wanted to give you time and let time bring us together. Daenerys attacked King's Landing. She did the thing she said she wouldn’t become.” He pulls away, grabbing my cheeks with both hands. “I knew if she was still here she wouldn’t stop fighting for the throne” I gasped. Daenerys is dead?. “I accepted whatever came after my actions. Bran became the protector of the six kingdoms. Sansa, Queen of Winterfell. For my action they exile me to the wall, per the request of the unsullied. Arya brought me over to begin her travels”

“Hey” It was my turn to get his attention. “I know your actions had their reasons. I know it wasn’t something you wanted on your hands”

“I gave my word” His eyes moved down to my stomach. “I must travel to the wall. I know I can wait for you but now,” He looks up to me again “I love you and now Its not longer you and I”

“Everything is going to be okay. We don’t need to have all the answers right now” I smile taking a hold of his hands. “Let's go and get some food for you and figure everything out. It's still you and I, this little person is just going to have to step aside for a bit” He chuckles.

“Hey” He pulls me back holding on to my hand. “Don’t get lost in that mind of yours. This is nothing to think about with this. It's still us” He places both hands on my stomach. “This is us. You and I”

[necros-writing-stuff]

Hey so I procrastinated too close to the sun and this time made a Ghost x GN Reader where he noncons them while he’s been put on leave. Warnings for: Ghost having a horrible little time with his own thoughts and PTSD, noncon, penetrative sex but the hole it goes in isn’t specified, photography/exhibitionism, outdoor sex (in a forest), seriously none of this is happy or healthy, especially what’s going on in Ghost’s head. Elements of pet play, staged scenarios with sex toys, mentions of werewolves but no actual werewolves. Mentions of kidnapping at the end. Y’all like angst?

Its hard being off duty. His head feels murky. His limbs feel heavy. Its similar to being stuck underwater. But he's the only one who is in a room full of people who seem to be just fine.

A winter market, half inside, half outside. Stalls lining the walls of the town hall and the cobbled square outside. Countless comforting smells in the air, laughter ringing around seemingly as loud as a church bell and making his ears hurt.

He stands out, he always does. Even though he's exchanged his regular mask for a more subtle plain black one, even if he's wearing a hoodie and a leather jacket instead of a vest made to hold armour plates. He's just too tall, too well built in a sea of farmers, vendors and happy families in their earth-toned wools and cottons.

He'd chosen this town because a city would have been too much. Chosen a little cottage on the outskirts, to try and avoid needing to talk to people as much as humanly possible. If they were going to force him to go on leave, to rest, then he'd do it in his own way.

Sadly, he'd gotten the small village vibe wrong. Everyone was so nosy, always asking questions and trying to poke a tale from the new guy. He couldn't relax at the local pub without some old men circling rumours about him right behind his back. Couldn't go to the market without that ever present crotchety grandma stumbling around behind him as if to ensure he'd not steal anything. Couldn't cross by the local school or playground on his morning runs without kids stopping and staring.

The tattoos didn't help, naturally. Not many had them here. Not with the ageing population and white-bread middle class families. And the total 3 members of the village alt community said they were too tacky (without his initiating a conversation, mind you).

He should have just gone and settled in another big city. Should have taken advantage of how they had odd people everywhere instead of being the poster boy for antisocial behaviour in a place where everyone knew everyone.

They were the worst of it, of course. A local photographer, constantly crawling and jumping around for the next best shot. They found him to be very interesting, constantly pestering him for a moment of his time, just one little picture. He always said no. They always came back.

Their stall is near the back off the hall, a make-shift studio set up so that everyone can pile in and get lovely little sets of themselves and loved ones for the holidays. Tourists from out of town coo over all of the little goodies the photographer had made from their shots of local animals and sites.

Seems they'd gotten some of the crocheting people on board, too, a line of stuffed foxes meant to represent a local hero. To Ghost, it was just a fox, but to everyone else it seemed to be a point of pride. This little thing that had once sat on some chicks instead of eating them, like that clip he'd seen of a cheetah not eating a baby gazelle.

It worked, though. People were lining up to get the stupid things.

The photographer takes notice of him as soon as he crosses by, no matter how small he tries to make himself. He just wants to go get some of the nice Arabic coffee someone had imported. Something to remind him of his time on the field, of a visit he’d made to Farah’s base of operations last time he was in that neck of the woods. Why did it have to be right next to the pestering shutterbug?

He ignores their waving, pays no mind to the pout they make when he keeps walking. But he can still feel their eyes on him. They know his mind insists. They know who you are.

He shakes his head as he reaches out for the cup being presented to him, nodding to the vendor and giving them a little extra cash for not talking more than necessary. His senses are already overwhelmed as it is, small talk is not in the cards.

Ghost doesn't look behind himself as he beelines it out of the town hall. He's sure he unfairly bumped into some people, but it got so hard to breathe in there that he didn't care. He just couldn't stand being looked at like that.

The paranoia doesn't subside. Not even after a few days of being alone, in his house, not being bothered by a single soul.

They know you repeats again and again in his head. It's ridiculous, aggravating, that one person has been effecting him this much. But they really have been.

Ghost keeps his morning runs to the fields and forests around the town. He survives on the food in his fridge and cupboards, eating every last scrap to avoid having to go shopping and chance another encounter.

He keeps his curtains closed, afraid that he'd open them and the photographer would be there, insisting that they could take some photos in the forest.

What was it they'd said? "You look threatening, I think if I gave you some rope and made you crouch, made you look right at the camera pointing up, it would be an awesome shot. A knife too, that would fit."

As if the viewer were his hostage. His little victim about to be bound and God knows what else. The last thing Ghost wants is to have any physical evidence of his existence, never mind photos that would be circled around fetish sites - and they would be circled around fetish sites, despite their insistence that they wouldn't.

"I won't even post them anywhere, they're more for me than anyone else," they'd said that afternoon, following him through some hiking trails. They'd been gathering a collection of winter flower photos, apparently.

Their eyes had widened after realizing the implications of the phrase 'personal use' after he'd said 'fetish website'. "Not like that! I mean, just that I think you look cool, and I appreciate horror aesthetics. I don't want to bang Michael Myers, for example, just thinks he looks neat!"

He'd rolled his eyes, walking away from the conversation even though they'd called after him.

Honey. Trap. that voice insists once more. They're a spy, someone recruited to seduce or befriend him. Someone to get evidence of his face or name. Maybe Roba hadn't actually died. Maybe Roba had a son wanting revenge. Maybe it was one of the hundreds of others related to Ghost's job.

Maybe he was just so hard programmed to be a soldier that he couldn't get his mind away from work no matter how many months he'd been stuck out here.

Eventually, the food ran out. He had to go into the village, had to do his routine of pretending not to notice granny-stares-a-lot taking note of every produce he passed by.

The stalls were gone, the tourists cleaned out. Only the locals left now. It was much better this way, much quieter. Way less faces to look at and wonder if they were sent to end him for good.

It was meant to be only for a month, you know? His staying here. Just a regular break imposed upon him because he was never not on the job. But then the psych eval had come back, and he'd been grounded for longer. And then it happened again.

"I know more than anyone why you don't like talking to them, son, but you have to start working with them if you want to get back out here with us," Price had insisted. He'd refused. No shrink was going to fix his non-existent issues.

Ghost knew how to compartmentalize, thank you very much. He understood what was and wasn't appropriate behaviour. He just didn't think he had to engage in all of this community bullshit. Didn't think he had to dismiss odd behaviour from certain photographers who didn't listen to boundaries.

Boundaries they'd broken once again. When Ghost returned to his cottage, a gift basket was on the doorstep. He approached it cautiously, looking for anything dangerous hidden in the nesting of shredded red paper.

There was nothing dangerous. Not physically dangerous, anyways. Just some of the coffee that had been at the fair, some sweet treats, a pair of warm socks and the worst offender of all - a stuffed crochet version of him. Holding a note.

He worked his jaw as he brought it inside, intending to dispose of it as soon as possible. But curiosity got the better of him, and he read the stupid handwritten note on fancy craft paper.

"Consider all of this an apology for how annoying I've been," it begins.

"I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable. I just remembered when I first moved here, and people seemed to hate me because I didn't know how to herd chickens. It was pretty isolating. So when you first arrived, I thought I'd be the warm welcome I never got. Obviously, it backfired.

I'll stop asking to take photos, and I won't bother you as much. Still gonna say hi every so often, though. I'm still determined to befriend you until told otherwise.

Enjoy your mini-me by the way! Took me ages to make him, I wanted to get your skull mask thing right. Saw you wearing it that one time, thought it was cool. I didn't make any more, just this one, so take care of him.

Here's my phone number by the way. You don't have to do anything with it. Just thought I'd offer the choice. You can even text me to tell me to fuck off if you really want to."

It signs off with their name, number, and a silly doodle of them sticking their tongue out and doing a peace sign.

It's a bluff. It's not. It's a nice gesture. The socks are the perfect size, how would they know that? His feet are huge, they probably just grabbed the biggest ones on the rack. They're only giving you their number so they can get yours and use it to track you. They're a fucking photographer in a small village in rural England. Somethings in the-

"There's nothing in the fucking stuffed me!" he growls. The kitchen is deathly silent after, no one there to respond.

Ghost sighs heavily, ripping his mask off and rubbing his face to try and shut that voice up. A small feeling of panic rises in his chest, subsiding only after he'd rushed to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face.

He'd covered the bathroom mirror with a towel when he'd first arrived. Didn't want to really look at himself. He wasn't used to it, not anymore. He was used to seeing the mask.

Ghost gulps as he pulls the towel to the side, flinching slightly when he makes eye contact with himself.

"Hello, Simon," he whispers.

He's a man covered in scars. Not a surprise in his line of work. One bothers him more than the others, and its the newest.

It crosses his temple. A slash, evidence of the latest helicopter crashing fiasco. It'd knocked him out for a second or two, but he'd gotten right back up and finished the mission.

Still got his ass grounded though. The fucking psychs still thought they had a Phineas Gage part 2 on their hands, didn't they?

He covers the mirror again before he gets the urge to smash the damn thing. Re-masking, Ghost leaves the house and heads to the forest for yet another hike around the trails. It was one of the only things that kept his mind clear these days.

It's later in the day, the sun having set early due to the time of year. Nice and dark, no one would be around to interrupt him. Just Ghost, whatever creatures live out there, and some vegetation. He can handle some foxes and badgers, no problem. They don't try to show him baby photos.

This time as his heart hammers in his chest, he doesn't feel the need to puke. Doesn't feel a violent urge swelling beneath his skin, doesn't see red. It's that good breathlessness brought on by running yourself to the brink of collapsing.

He gets confident enough in his loneliness to lift the mask a little, just so he can breathe better and run for longer. To work himself down so that sleeping is easier tonight. He always had less nightmares if he'd been working out more.

It's a few hours later when he finally stops. His legs feel like jelly as he finds the fallen log he usually uses to sit and take a breather on. His watch tells him it's around 7pm. Ghost practically breathes down the last remnants in his water bottle. Everything hurts, yet he'd never felt so right since moving here.

He feels loose, relaxed, almost happy as he stumbles back down the trail. Confident that he's doing a-okay and that it was just irritability from missing his job that has made him so surly.

The sound of a camera clicking knocks him out of that happy little place.

Jumping into action, Ghost gets to cover behind a tree, pulling his mask down as he does so. His eyes scan every silhouette in the darkness, looking for the a sparkle in the trees, moonlight reflecting off of a camera lens.

Another shot is taken, and this time he listens well. Its coming from his left, a bit further away than he thought he'd heard the first time.

Some branches crunch under the foot of whoever is out there (he has a very good idea of who), before a soft "Ah fuck," can be heard through the trees. More rustling. Another click, this time he sees the light going off.

Ghost's training comes back to him eerily quick as he sneaks forwards. A sadistic part of him wants to jump out, to scare the photographer, but he doesn't. Especially when he sees what they're doing.

Hidden among the foliage, Ghost's dark eyes widen when he sees the photographer completely naked. In the forest. In the middle of winter. With some interesting props laying around.

Fetish sites, he thinks once more as they lay down, having angled the camera to point down at them as they check the fake blood dripping down their face and chest, nipples hard from the cold.

They're on all fours, staring up at the camera with their tongue out as they arch their body seductively. A collar sits around their neck, a chain attached to the tripod to make it seem like someone is holding it. From where he sits, Ghost gets a lovely little show of what's between their legs.

With the trees being more spaced out here, the moon shines down nicely on the photographer. No doubt that’s a special little camera for night-time photos anyways.

But it just means that he can see something slick on their thighs, and further investigation of the site leads to him sighting a bottle of lube and a frankly ridiculous dildo laid out on a blanket, just behind the tripod. It's knotted, he notes. They must have already fucked them self on it, or rather, staged that they had for the photos.

The moral thing to do would be to leave. To never mention it again, to let the photographer keep their secret and not embarrass them. Yet Ghost can't seem to move. Can't seem to get the proposition they'd made to him all those weeks ago out of his head.

They'd asked him if he'd come out into the forest and pose as some dangerous man. To pose as the counterpart of whatever they're doing right now, really.

He wants to laugh, he really does. Turns out that little voice in his head was half right about the photographer wanting to seduce him, just that the reasoning as to why was off. Not a spy. Just a degenerate, literally crawling around in the mud with a dripping hole, fake wounds and probably the intention of showing off the results to a lot of people.

Of course. Of course he'd only attract the freak who'd get off on him for the mask. Who'd get off on the fear of it incites.

Disgust bubbles in his chest, a sneer carving it's way onto his face as he clenches his hands. How presumptuous of them to assume he'd even say yes to this shit.

He can't stop his mind when it goes back. Little memories jumbled up, of being trapped and chained, of being hurt and being forced to hurt. Things he tries to keep buried deep.

He'd never hurt someone like that. He'd made that promise to himself. That he'd only ever do it when strictly necessary, when doing so would ensure the safety of millions and make it so no one would have his PTSD that makes Christmas the most unbearable time of the year.

Not even faking it, like those into BDSM do. He just couldn't do that to a person he trusted to get that close. Because he knew. Of all people, he knew what it felt like when it was real. He could compartmentalize a lot. But not this.

You should teach them a lesson, mate. Some manners while you're at it.

It's a stupid and cruel thought. They know who he is, he's the only one around here who wears masks.

They know Ghost. They don't know Simon.

He winces, still frozen in that Bush as the photographer poses over and over. He's seriously not actually considering that, is he? He's not listening to those horrible thoughts?

If they did it to you, they'll do it do someone else. Bet they only stopped with you cause you're threatening. And they're really just making them self an easy target for an actual murderer, aren't they? You don't have to hurt them. Just scare them a little.

He'd only do it when it meant ensuring safety. Yeah. This is ensuring safety, isn't it?

They can consider it your thank you for the basket.

He waits until the photographer gets up to check the newest round of shots before he moves, taking the mask of and stuffing it in his pocket. He's wearing a long-sleeve shirt, so his tattoos are hidden. He won't say a word to them, so they won't recognize his voice.

Simon wails until they're posed again. Waits until they're face down, ass up, the camera having been moved to get perfect shots of the lube dripping out of their hole. It's that special semen looking lube he finds as the camera flashes.

They don't realize he's there at first, too busy writhing around to make sure the photos are slightly different each time. He stays out of shot, stood with a hand cupping his slowly hardening cock through his sweats.

Don't need to put it in. Just make it seem like you're going to. Then leave them there, scared and shaking. Lesson learned.

A shiver travels up his spine, patience breaking. He moves without thought, a twig snapping beneath his boot.

Their head twists in his direction, eyes wide and panicked, body pushing up onto all fours, ready to push off and run. The camera goes off once more.

He doesn't say a word. Just keeps staring, eyes roaming up and down as he starts pumping his cock through the thick material of his trousers.

They don't scream. They don't run, just slowly get up and start backing away. For every step they take, he takes one closer, his hand dropping from his crotch to his side as he smiles at them.

Sticking to his no talking rule, he decides instead to make a "Come hither" motions with his finger, smiling wider when they frantically shake their head and whimper.

That's it, lad. Keep going like this and they'll never endanger them self ever again.

He breaks first, bursting forwards and grasping the photographer by the neck. Pulling them close, turning them around and pressing their now-struggling body against his own.

"Let me go, please, please, I won't say anything just-"

Simon doesn't want to hear it. He really can't be bothered either excuses right now, so he covers their mouth with his large palm. They're too small, his cock rubbing against their lower back instead of their ass like he wanted. So it's back to the floor they go, on their knees with Simon falling in line behind them.

He could draw it out. Could touch them, make them squirm and heighten the fear as much as possible. But that would cross a line, he thinks. Best to just be direct.

Letting go of their mouth, he shoves his sweats down, boxers with them. His hard-on bobs in the cold air, an unpleasant feeling. Not that it'll be cold for long; while he won't fuck their hole he can use their thighs for a bit.

And so he does just that, slides his cock between the soft plush flesh down there as he nips at their ear with his teeth. They'd used so much of that lube that it's incredibly wet, so easy to just slide back and forth, back and forth.

The photographer's weak clawing at his arms doesn't phase him in the slightest. Their tears falling onto his hand just affirms that he's scaring them as much as he wanted to.

With this thrust, he pulls back further than he had for the others. Just too feel more pressure on the head, just to selfishly have a bit more pleasure in this than he really ought to be. He didn't mean to catch the tip on their hole.

He really means it, he tries to tell himself. Really really means that this is only for the photographer's benefit. Really believes that he's nothing like those who hurt him before. Really convinces himself it's not too far to slip just the tip inside and lazily grind his hips, the soft wetness of their insides feeling like heaven around his cock.

Their whines aren't turning him on. The way they shiver and cling to his arms doesn't make him feel powerful. The pathetic groan they let  out when he pushes himself in as far as he can go doesn't make Simon "Ghost" Riley want to empty his balls in this pretty little photographer's hole.

It does though, doesn't it? All of it is driving him up a wall. All of it gripping it's way into his brain, making him realize things he knew, but kept hidden for years and years.

Watching the photographer stage things wasn't angering because he was reminded of his victim hood. It was angering because it reminded him that he was one of the ones not strong enough to stop himself becoming just like the fucked up cunts that made him this way in the first place.

Simon screws his eyes shut, biting down into the photographer's neck, tasting the horrible fake blood on his tongue as he does so.

Stop thinking, Simon. You've got a nice little thing all limp in your arms, just enjoy them and make yourself feel better.

It's not a separate voice in his head. It's his voice. One he really likes listening to in this moment.

Growling, Simon bends the photographer over, forcing them to put their hands down to stop their face being squished into the forest floor. He wants to hear them now, wants to hear the things they'll say as he takes them like a bitch in heat.

That's what that dildo means, isn't it? Some werewolf fantasy? The irony of a dog leashing a human and breeding them?

It's admirable how sad their attempts to stay quiet are. How half-hearted the escape attempts have gotten, how their body shows off the pleasure they're getting from being his little fuck toy for the night.

They seem as much of a liar as he is. They seem to like this just like he does, that attempt to get away just an act to retain what little virtue they falsely held.

They're not doing that now. Not with their head pressed to the floor, full, unbroken moans spilling from their lips as his shaft pummels them over and over again.

It's been a long while since he's last gotten his dick wet, so to speak. He's not used to the warm suction of a hole, not used to how good it feels compared to his hand. He won't last much longer. Much less so when the photographer cums, the sensation of their orgasm only massaging him more than was already happening.

He pets their hair gently, feeling the softness of it before he twists it into a ball and pulls their head back.

Simon's aware of how vicious he's being right now. How unfair of him it is to go at his hardest when they've just came, body over-sensitive. But he needs it. He needs it more than he's needed those exhausting runs he's been doing. Needs it more right now than he needs anything else.

Just needs to hear them scream, to hear them scream for him as he fucks them till he finishes, and keeps going after that until it hurts his cock too much.

Satisfaction fills him when he pulls out, letting go of their hair and letting them crumple down. It's a struggle to get up, to fix his clothes and be made aware of the fridged night cold seeping into his bones once more.

He's going to leave. To just let them fix everything else them self. To let Simon Riley become a nightmare for this sweet photographer that had only tried to befriend Ghost.

He can't stop himself from doing one last thing, though.

Striding over to the camera, he takes it from the stand and ventures back over to his little victim. They haven't moved, practically glued to the spot as they sob uncontrollably. Poor thing.

Kneeling, Simon pulls their ass cheeks apart with one hand, the other pointing the camera between their legs, just as they'd done to them self earlier. He gets close, ensuring his hand doesn't get in frame.

He takes a couple of photos for them. A few of his seed dripping out of them, rather than some fake stuff. A reminder of the reality, rather than the fantasy. Would their viewers be able to tell the difference, he wonders?

He puts the camera back on the tripod before he sets off. He doesn't feel guilty over this. He knows he should. Knows he should feel terrible. But he just feels... relaxed.

They're still there. Still haven't moved. Still crying. And he's going home for a hot bath.

"Was it the socks you didn't like, or my crochet?"

... and looks like someone's coming with him so they can't snitch.

[abyssembraced]

I've briefly mentioned this before in the past, but I've given it some more thought recently and can now safely say with confidence:

Ghost's (and by extension, all other Vessels') "cloak" is actually a set of wings.

By default, these wings don't actually work, however, which could have been caused by multiple different things. Maybe it's some sort of genetic thing that came about because of how different the Pale King and the White Lady are species-wise (though since they and the vessels are all gods, maybe they wouldn't have any issues like that?). Or perhaps the Void prematurely halted the development of the wings when it was introduced into the Vessels' egg(s). Or maybe the Vessels did initially hatch with working wings, but being in the Abyss damaged them and rendered them unusable. Regardless, the point is that the Vessels have wings, but they don't (usually) work.

(More under the cut, this post is long dgsgshf)

If nothing else, the "cloak" is definitely part of the Vessels' bodies in some way, considering that they're present on the Vessel corpses in the Abyss, so it has to be something they hatched with:

And yeah, sure, the "cloak" doesn't really look much like a set of wings, but the Radiance has similar noodle-y things that are almost certainly meant to be wings:

Same goes for Markoth, who, being a moth, should logically have wings:

And Grimm, who also has a tendril-y segmented cloak that later turns out to be very wing-like:

And Grimmchild, who flaps its wings and flies:

And the Maskflies and Belflies:

Among others.

So yeah, I'd say that the Vessel "cloaks" look similar enough to other wing designs in Hollow Knight! And also I don't know enough about bug biology to have any other ideas of what the "cloak" can be dgdgsgsf

And also, to go off on a quick, non-Ghost-specifically-related tangent, I imagine that most of the "cloaks" and "clothing" that the bugs in Hallownest seem to "wear" are actually just part of their body in some way. Pretty much only the Weavers and the bugs rich enough to afford their creations had actual clothing garments that were separate from their bodies. So like, Hornet's cloak and the things the husks in the rich half of the City of Tears are wearing are Weaver-made clothing, but, say, the "cloak" that Elderbug has is just part of his body. Clothes are a symbol of status, not something everyone is expected to wear.

Hollow's design, more specifically their appearance as Pure Vessel, also points to the "cloaks" being some sort of body part. Looking at two of their sprites from their pre-battle cutscene, you can see that Hollow's armoured cape that they destroy and the shorter cloak that they actually fight in are two clearly different colours. They're two different garments, with the grey cloak being underneath the white cape. The grey cloak being part of their body would explain why Hollow wasn't just wearing the white cape alone.

It is true though that Hollow's "cloak" as an adult really doesn't look like wings, even for Hollow Knight's artstyle, unlike the ones the baby Vessels have. So, continuing with the idea that it is, indeed, still a set of wings, maybe Hollow's have been clipped?

Considering Broken Vessel/Lost Kin, it seems like the wings normally grow to be pretty long. I imagine they'd get in the way quite often when trying to fight with a nail and stuff.

So, with that in mind, as well as the fact that the wings don't even work, and that even if they did work, Hollow is so large that there wouldn't be many places where they really could fly much, I could see parts of their wings being trimmed to make fighting easier. Probably by the Pale King, or perhaps even by Hollow themself. Or maybe it wasn't a deliberate action at all (at least at first), and the wings just got sliced off in a training accident because of how large they were. …And then PK/Hollow continued to clip them if they ever grew back in subsequent molts, since it was just more convenient that way.

…But anyway. Back to Ghost.

The Mothwing Cloak and the Monarch Wings that Ghost obtains on their adventure aren't their own separate items—they're more like upgrades to Ghost's existing wings. The dead Greenpath Vessel's wings happened to be more intact than most others', and Ghost was able to basically absorb those wings' energy (and/or the "mothwing strands threaded within them") to strengthen their own ones. In doing so, Ghost gained a slight control over their wings that they previously did not have. That, combined with them observing Hornet's movements before and during their battle (in order to get a sense of the technique they'd need for the rest of their body), granted Ghost a short dash using their wings to propel them forward!

The Monarch Wings, meanwhile, were able to restore enough functionality in Ghost's wings to allow them a short burst of flight, though it's still far from proper flying. The Monarch Wings strengthen and lengthen Ghost's "cloak" wings by temporarily transforming them, which is something we do see in their sprites when they use it:

Also, in my old post about my Ghost's postgame design references for their masked and Shade/Void forms (which I actually wanna make an updated version of eventually with a timeline and added information and stuff), I mention that Ghost's "cloak" in their masked/stable/normal form transforms into Void tendrils in their Shade/Void form. This is, of course, because the "cloak" is their wings, and is part of their body! So when Ghost breaks or otherwise exits their mask, their wings also transform into pure Void alongside the rest of them.

And of course, in their Void form Ghost has access to full, unrestricted flight/floating. It's just a Void Creature Thing. There are stranger things about them dgdgsf (*cough* Shade Soul passing through solid surfaces)

[cardistrymagic]

MI7 spoilers (my long rant)

extremely religious takes on the enemy lmao. i think because i'm a sucker for tech being used in spy movies that the airport scene was my favourite. 1. ethan not being found through the cctv- what a fun intro! 2. benji with the bomb- nice to see him do something...( i mean you made me think him running in the airport trailer scene was important 🙄)

IMF team: luther talked more than he has in other movies and i demand more. thanks. i kinda wish they'd use the team more ig. because they are literal field agents so they can fight? i hope? and the whole train scene benji was just gone like waiting thinking "wow he should be here by now" like LET HIM DO SOMETHING!!!

the fact that the entity has control over lots of techy stuff so benji n luther cant really do much??? makes me sad. like let them talk to each other :( i like the gadgets. i liked the little banter luther n benji had.

lastly- the scene where ethan jumps off the cliff- only women are in his flashbacks?? like i thought we'd established the IMF team as his. family lowkey y'know. it was just like okay...

in venice: white widow wasnt bad i guess. the benji dupe voice- love how it played on ethan's loyalty! i think it showed well how dangerous the enemy was- but for some reason i'm still more afraid of the past villain- lane, due to the many examples and horrors he's actually committed. ig im not into the blue ai enemy.

grace: my one thing is that i get that she might have had to be brought into the team to be safe BUT compared to ilsa, she is a pickpocket. a crime commiter at best. she is not at the level of a field agent (unless plot armour??) . not much fighting skills. to me she's kinda a liability. not to mention her constantly running away like. i was endeared to her at the airport because of her confidence. i get that maybe she becomes aware of the world-threatening shitshow she's been dragged into unwillingly but still. idk if she's cut out for the job. compared to ilsa a literal ex-agent with ties to MI6. even on the goddamn train she didnt really trust ethan YOU almost DIED?! if not for the plot armour of ethan parachuting into the carriage. girl literally almost killed him by handcuffing him to the car like very funny he just saved your life. literally not trusting ethan on the piano scene What? i dont care thats shes a orphan you've literallly been through so much. with ethan.

one second she's like not able to do much besides throwing a key around. on the other hand she can fight knife to knife with a super skilled killer (gabriel) like what? a citizen thrown into stuff out of her league-driving a car (she cant) playing a good white widow (id forgive her for never doing this ever) and the train (ok thats fine) like i just dont see the value of her being in the team besides being able to play. a woman? which im sure the og team could do to be honest. . can grace shoot a gun?

btw i feel like her relationship w/ ethan moves so fast?

grace: i dont trust you. i will let the police capture you. you saved my life but im still running!! i messed your plans up (sorry)

ethan:( holds her face) my life is worth less than yours.

What is this intimacy??affection idk closeness? i know ethan is a loyal guy but???

villain: dark messiah. death as a gift. ghost. ai. gabriel (angel wow) i love more religious imagery. the flashback was like a decent window into ethan lore BEFORE imf (oooo) but i just dont really get what gabriel wants? the entity is messing shit up already. and gabriel seems to already work with it (comms faked in venice) i assume that ethan is a variable the entity needs to eliminate but just kill him? hahaha? gabriel probably likes seeing ethan suffer but compared to lane's stuff i'm not really. amused. (ethan literally has nightmares about lane)

also paris i didnt even know if they ever said her name? she was angry and dressed up and had some rabid dog scenes (like go girl) but i hope she does more in the next part! like the part where she holds up ethan and grace with a stab wound (woah. strong)

other stuff: the dutch angles being used in like 50% of the shots like CALM DOWN i love the mi:1 references but were they always so disorieting maybe im just getting old

the scenes? ilsa dies and ethan looks a bit distressed. the scene where they're hugging was so like woah okay but felt really like. shoved in there like. Okay yeah something bad is gonna happen to her 😭😭

in the end, rogue nation + ghost protocol are still my #1s. characters like brandt and ilsa had really interesting backgrounds and fit into the IMF team easily- the films centering around their teamwork is why i got so into MI in the first place. grace doesn't offer any like addition i dont think she can even bicker with the team for funsies (like brandt/ilsa) . she's not cool shes a poor girl that didnt know what she was getting into 😭

things i did like:

action scenes. awesome((besides the lack of luther and benji there)) ilsa being awesome in the desert

the cinematography (beautiful. as always.)

everyone in suits ( lawyer ethan. benji. )

thanks for reading and feel free to yell at me about your thoughts!!!!!

[helltechnicality]

@pareidolah asked: charles is just… gonna kiss edwin, just because he can.

quiet nights are uncommon now that the agency has grown from two boys to the small army they have found. but that did not mean that it was an unwelcome relief from the back to back cases. edwin enjoys his work, sure. but sometimes he wonders if they have lost the reason the agency was founded in the bureaucracy.

he is sat on the couch in one of his dressed down outfits. tie absent, white shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows and altogether at peace with the silence of the room. he does not like to be without his suit of armour often but charles is a special case especially since they finally stopped dancing around the candles they held for each other.

at first, the ghost believes charles merely wants to hear him read. after all, edwin presently has a first edition copy of his dark materials which he has finally gotten around to reading. so when charles sidles up to him on the couch he slides back to let the other boy get comfortable tangling their forms together. it is still a new sensation and he takes a second once the other boy has stopped moving to acquaint himself with it. charles is pressed against him from ankle to cheek and is looking at him like an astrologer looks at the stars.

the book almost slips from his hand when lips meet his own. his eyes slipped closed and he forgets all about daemons and the machinations of metatron. instead focusing no how sparks flash between the two. the kiss breathes life into a boy long dead and he craves it. if they both were not professionals on the job he is sure many cases would have been derailed by various degrees of make out sessions.

when the kiss ends and charles pulls back edwin's lips chase before he settles for resting his forehead against the other boys' to stare into his eyes. " hello to you too. " his voice is breathless despite the lack of a need for breath when dead.

[which-hospital]

✧ Casualty Review Masterlist ✧

The most recent episode is listed first, with the one that aired the longest ago at the end. My reviews, or at least non-spite reviews, have been a bit thin on the ground since the start of this year, if I didn't review an episode I've linked to posts tagged with it's name and if I didn't post about an episode at all I've put it in bold.

✧ ????

I hope I actually start doing reviews again after this hiatus...

??x?? | Christmas Special!! | 28/12/24

✧ Storm Damage

I didn't get any better at consistently doing reviews or at least discussing episodes this miniseries so I've made a tag for it too.

SDx12 | Freedom | 07/09/24

SDx11 | The Truth Will Set You Free | 07/09/24

SDx10 | The Right Amount | 31/08/24

SDx09 | Absolution | 24/08/24

SDx08 | Downfall | 17/08/24

SDx07 | All For Love | 10/08/24

SDx06 | Man’s Best Friend | 03/08/24

SDx05 | Duped | 27/07/24

SDx04 | Ghosts | 20/07/24

SDx03 | After the Flood | 13/07/24

SDx02 | Sinking Ships - Day 2 | 22/06/24

SDx01 | Sinking Ships - Day 1 | 15/06/24

✧ Breaking Point

I did not, as far as I remember, write any actual reviews during this miniseries because I was largely VERY ANNOYED at the writers throughout it! Here's: a post I made about all the things I did like about this miniseries, and a tag for every post I made ranting about how this miniseries handled Teddy's storyline. I would separate them into individual episodes, but it's mostly just a blur of the same complaints increasing in intensity over three months.

✧ A History of Violence

Charlie (AHOVx12) Tag

AHOVx11 | Trauma | 09/03/24

Easy Way Out (AHOVx10) Tag

AHOVx09 | Haunted | 24/02/24

Last Words (AHOVx08) Tag

AHOVx07 | Willing and Able | 10/02/24

AHOVx06 | Take the Strain | 03/02/24

AHOVx05 | Liability | 27/01/24

AHOVx04 | Red Flags | 20/01/24

AHOVx03 | Barriers | 13/01/24

AHOVx02 | Aftershock | 06/01/24

AHOVx01 | Tinderbox | 30/12/23

✧ Driving Force

DFx11 | Switzerland | 16/09/23

DFx10 | Too Much, Too Young | 16/09/23

DFx09 | Hard Pill | 09/09/23

DFx08 | One Hundred Years | 02/09/23

DFx07 | The Ostrich Effect | 02/09/23

DFx06 | Aftermath | 26/08/23

DFx05 | Too Young, Too Soon | 19/08/23

DFx04 | Pull Together, Push Apart | 12/08/23

DFx03 | Dog Days | 05/08/23

DFx02 | Little White Lies | 29/07/23

DFx01 | Hooke’s Law | 22/07/23

✧ Welcome to the Warzone

WTTWx13 | How to Save a Life | 15/07/23

WTTWx12| Burning Bridges | 01/07/23

WTTWx11 | Lose Yourself | 24/06/23

WTTWx10 | Deliverance | 17/06/23

WTTWx09 | Separation | 10/06/23 

WTTWx08 | Armour-Plated | 03/06/23

WTTWx07 | Once Bitten | 27/05/23

WTTWx06 | Believe Me | 20/05/23

WTTWx05 | Keep Breathing | 06/05/23

WTTWx04 | Screwdriver | 29/04/23

WTTWx03 | With a Bullet | 22/04/23

WTTWx02 | Pride and Prejudice | 15/04/23

WTTWx01 | Welcome to the Warzone | 08/04/23

✧ Spite Reviews

02x04 | Cry for Help | 03/10/87

02x01 | A Little Lobbying | 13/09/87

NOVELx01 | Casualty: How it all Began | Published 1986

✧ 80s and 90s Casualty Thoughts

Part 8 - First episode of Series 7

Part 7 - Tag for Posts about the Casualty Novels

Part 6 - Late Series 3 and Early Series 4

Part 5 - Mid Series 3

Part 4 - Late Series 2 and Early Series 3

Part 3 - Mid/Late Series 2

Part 2 - Late Series 1 and Early Series 2

Part 1 - Mid Series 2

[crispyjenkins]

2/2

part 2 of this round of responses, 'cause they were getting so very long!

@catamaranthenonnewtonianfluid

#I'm glad my silly phrasing is hitting xD #The too big armour - the growing into himself and the bigger growing to fit the shoes#(armour c'mon armour but I have to say shoes) of the mand'alor#The pieces of the clones culture? My heart my heart my HEART#Ghost stories about disappearing but also ghost stories about seeing someone who Disappeared#but they turn the corner before you reach them and are gone#or even the you have lunch with someone in the mess hall and you're worried about your scores being low#and someone comforts you and you note their number or name and you never see them again#but if you mention the conversation a shaken batchmate tells you that you couldn't have talked to them they're gone

#On the front being covered for by someone with paint you don't recognise (too shiny) but others in your squad#when you're looking for them to thank later do and are you sure that's what was on their pauldron cause that's - it couldn't be-#Do you think after too many scary stories in their bunks a clone ever has a full nightmare where they're looking at a brother and the#brother smiles and says it's okay and then their neck elongates and they turn cold and kaminii because I just horrified myself#Oh white is a complicated colour right because it's the clinical the unemotional the fear and struggle to measure up to survive on Kamino#and it's the shinies with their comparative innocence and vulnerability and also between the two an association with death#(cause being in the dark in your bunk with your brothers is safety and maybe you try and spook each other with the dark of the ocean outsid#but the first association is the place least monitored the place closest to your vode to your safety)#(white is death and innocence and black is safety and breathing in sync in the quiet#and it's the wearing only of your kute when it's downtime and you're relaxing and safe safe safe (mostly))

am enamoured by your additions, especially on why white is such a complicated color for the clones, that is SO GOOD

#Crying about the last change of the sheets#gods #The clones living on through patterns and turns of phrase and rituals that spread from Obi-Wan is making me feel So Many Things#remembrance through adoption of pieces of them into your normal and selfhood is a mismash of all those youve known and loved AH its so good

i'm glad these two bits stood out to you, i'm very proud of/happy with them! the sheets changing specifically is entirely my own, and was sort of spur of the moment, but i just. love it so much. care as a love language, chores as one of the very few ways the clones can give to each other, and how do you ritualise mourning with literally nothing physical of that person, not even their armour? i imagine this practice started in Kamino, and then just translated so well into the actual war, in ships and camps. most do remembrances, of course, i imagine that's a bit of Mando culture that spread really easily through the clones, because it's so practical a ritual, requiring nothing physical and not necessitating like location or anything. but then the clones need/want/need rituals of their own, and hey, they're already changing the sheets on the now-empty bunk to get ready for the next occupant, whenever that may be, so why not make it mean something. those closest to the deceased start doing it instead of just anyone, and they all realise it now means something.

i think this is something Obi-Wan didn't learn from his troops until after Umbara, when both Boil and Cody change Waxer's sheets for the last time. Cody lets Boil decide whether or not to explain the significance to Obi-Wan, and it actually helps Obi-Wan process his own grief and guilt for the whole clusterfuck. i imagine Obi-Wan and Boil get really close afterwards, so of course no one is surprised on any front that he and Cody promote Boil to replace Waxer as lieutenant.

i think something about it all would remind Obi-Wan of the Young and their own burial and mourning practices, how little time and space and objects they'd have (i imagine it's Obi-Wan that taught them how to bury a body at all, where and how to do it, when, and to always collect their dead from skirmishes so the Elders don't realise their numbers or how many they're losing). i think the Young have a shrine in the sewers, with a single personal possession of every child that dies, but no one labels them or anything, in almost direct contempt of the Halls of Evidence, so no one can use the dead to further the violence the way the Halls do

sorry for the tangent whoops ANYWAY

#Luminara and Quinlan being so attuned on different ways to the Now and the Then that future Obi no longer registers to their force senses#is nuts and I love it so so much like how concerning can you GET and also it makes sense that something would be strange about you#(a lot a lot of things would be strange about you)#having dropped though time or dimensions - this you is just a little out of phase with the world <3 <3 <3

i agree!! i don't think it's explored enough, especially in a sci-fi settings like star wars, just how WEIRD you'd be after going through time! especially to others that can straight up SENSE that shit! Obi's just lucky two of his closest people can sense (or can't sense, as it were) it all on another level 🧡

#Vhonte being like “DW is dead and how do you know this”#and this spooky verd in the too big armour just looking at her#and going “well if I'm wrong then [way too specific thing] won't be there/happen”

this is EXACTLY the vibe i've going for, especially because Obi-Wan won't be like. excusing his knowledge ever, and specifically won't be lying about it being because of visions or future-sight, so he isn't like. troubled by people not believing him, it's understandable after all, expected even, but he's also on a mission, Obi-Wan has a purpose, a heading he's more sure of than anything else in his entire life, so people can either learn to trust him if not believe him, or they can fall behind.

part of this will be because his sense of Manda will affect his physical awareness (not sure how to describe this, so it'll be extra fun actually working it into the prose), he's not spacey exactly, but his eyes don't focus on the world around him quite right, it's like he's gained this extra sense of the people and the planet, maybe something similar to auras but then also not at all. part of Obi-Wan just doesn't notice how weirded out everyone is by him, because he has a purpose that he feels like he doesn't have time to slow down for. he is marching forward, always, whether the people around him believe him, regardless of if they're following him. he doesn't steamroll people exactly, but he certainly isn't slowing down for them

-

#im very annoyed tumblr ate the back chunk of my tags what a mess but heres the other half which DO lead on from the first which#ANYWAY

rip, my guy, that seems to be happening to us all ✊🏻

#and then of course he's right and the whole thing is unsettling smooth -#if someone jokes that he's obviously in touch with tarre viszla and vhonte is like “he's for sure in touch with fucking SOMETHING”#and you know what#she thinks#maybe he does actually have the past mand'alors feeding him Intel#this day (week#month#year) is already so goddamn weird.

LOVE Vhonte going "he's for sure in touch with fucking SOMETHING" god she'd be so tired after their Keldabe run, just from trying to keep up with Obi-Wan physically and emotionally and goddamn spiritually. she's not desensitised to him yet, not by a longshot, but she's good at rolling with the punches, and at some point during this lil mission, she realises Obi-Wan needs someone who can roll with the punches. she stops doubting whether Oyia Vha was wrong about her specifically needing to have been at the summit. she can be that person for Obi-Wan. she wants to be. Obi-Wan needs her to be, and like i said in the last "update", people are so very ready to be what Obi-Wan believes that they can be

#Oh is this offhand also how vhonte finds out about the kid stealing in general cause#“How do you *know this*” like okay MAYBE you were right about DW not being gone but#Hordes of brainwashed children is a blaster of a different calibre you feel me#Manda says the spooky sad kid knows what's up#Did he escape from death watch and unbrainwash himself?#Is that how he got to melida/Daan in time for the worse verdgoten ever? What the kriff everything that comes up is worse#I'm having a wonderful time <3

hmm hmm maybe this can tie into Vhonte wondering if Jango or someone from the time of the schism mentored Obi-Wan, because there isn't really any other way for him to be so aware/knowledgeable of Jaster's deprogramming... programs (for lack of a better word). Obi-Wan, of course, did so much research post-Mandalore the first time around, and again after Jango's death, but to Vhonte her two options are sort of: a) Obi-Wan was taught by someone involved with Jaster's program itself, or b) Obi-Wan has first-hand experience with brainwashing and a vested interest in past attempts to fix it. maybe Vhonte thinks Melida/Daan was his sort of "graduation" from the Death Watch program but used it to escape?

Vhonte is STRUGGLING trying to make sense of Obi-Wan, because even though he's cin vhetin, she feels like she needs to know more about his past, to know how to help Obi-Wan, to understand why he is the way he is, because like. he's sixteen. he shouldn't even be cin vhetin, he's only been a verd for three years, and everything she does learn makes her wonder how this teenager's squishy growing brain isn't oozing out his ears with trauma.

she hopes the Manda and the Ka'ra know what they're doing, asking so very much of him, and then asking for even more.

#also this is not super related but#I keep thinking about the jedi as academics at a conference#and you know that one tumblr post about the Edgar Allan Poe panel and discovering that “we do not talk about the orangutan”#on account of the like fisticuffs and snideness and whatnot I bet there's a Jedi version#like some poor young knight decides to name drop the reading they did laSt night in their first “being before the council” experience#and they want to make a good and learnéd impression and just . Chaos erupts.#turns out thats a heresy MAYBE#or foundational to the code#depends on how you translate these two phrases but the author was writing in their third language#its a whole thing#Arguments in seven languages and three varieties of hand signs#the most passive aggressive politeness you can imagine cause we don't shout here#its only 9am and mace is so tired

must have read about the orangutan thing at some point, because i got the Vibe of what you meant, but did go look it up again and i'm so glad i did because YEAH i can only imagine what Jedi debates look like, especially because they have written academic history spanning literal thousands of years.

-

okay entirely unrelated to all of that, i don't know why but it's only just occurred to me how reluctant the Old Guard, at least those that don't blame or hate Jango too much, would be when faced with another actual contender for Mand'alor. they've been holding out hope for what, four years? that Jango would come back to them (for them). even with Worro Wren confirming Obi-Wan is backed by both the Manda and the Ka'ra, oh man, some of them would fucking hate it. lots of complicated feelings all around, maybe even some like Silas (who i have still leading Grunt squad, in honour of Jango) getting pissed at the Ka'ra, feeling like their ancestors have abandoned Jango

so Obi-Wan will probably need to reveal his conversation with Jango at some point, but oh boy are people not going to be happy about it, and likely won't believe him. oh the CONTENTION this would all cause, because Obi-Wan won't lie to them, though he does try to be delicate about it all, but he would need to tell them Jango is dar'manda, by his own choice, and the Old Guard would need to learn to accept that. maybe Silas takes his Grunts and tries to hunt Jango down, and Jango basically tells him to fuck off. i like to think Silas doesn't actually manage to find him, but Jango hits him with a cease and desist message, probably puts his foot WAY up his mouth and only proves Obi-Wan's story and oh now i'm having so many Silas feelings oh no

also unrelated, i also really need a name for Obi-Wan's faction, especially as it expands to include more than the Old Guard. was playing with Troch Mando'ade or Troch'ade, with troch being an archaic of "certainly" like saying "verily", but couldn't figure out how to make it "certain" or "certainty", if we're going with that translation. but i really like the idea of them like. honoring the "True" part of the Haat'ade, while accepting they're a different faction than those that followed Jaster and Jango, because it is in Obi-Wan's plans to take over leadership of the whole sector, which very much wasn't the True Mandalorians' intention (or at least from what we see in legends/canon). i also love the idea of it being an archaic word, because it will absolutely stir the pot on "is Obi-Wan a reincarnation of a previous Mand'alor" theories, and you can pry "word nerd" Obi-Wan from my cold dead hands. poetic motherfucker and all that (which i have a pervasive headcanon across multiple works that he gets the poetry thing from Quinlan, and only after Obi-Wan is a senior padawan).

-

and then also @skyshinigamialchemist here’s some more food 🧡

and then also also @ranahan love your force meta!! i don’t have the spoons for a full response but i greatly enjoyed reading your thoughts!!

mandalore the young cont.

original post/discussion here! it was just getting really long and i for one hate scrolling so far, so. here's this. have also added this au to my masterlist in my pinned post!

@malcontent-crow

#i had a whole wall of tags and it didnt save! lets try this again#i am loving this. the potential for world building and the consequences of knowing more than you should (literally)

#i had forgotten that DW wasnt in peoples thoughts as a threat during the Clan Wars#and the idea that Pre was so far underground with the movement is a very good thing to remember as well! #on one hand you have this driven and spirited young verd that is inspiring Clans to start reassessing who they are fighting and why#on the other you have this clanless outsider that knows waaaaay too much about all the potential major players and is saying#that this major threat isnt really as gone as everybody thought and hoped. sith parallels out the wahoo for ppor obi#and hes standing there watching them all argue over his head about this threat that he KNOWS needs to be dealt with#he is seeing himself as pretty on par or above with the Old Guard in terms of mental age or prowess or large scale battles#so he sees them doubt him maybe even to his face and knows he'll need to get things started on his own

#and becauae everything in the galaxay has at least one person watching it from the outside... how quickly does the news of a jedi padawan#going off the rails on this mission get out? whos keeping track and who points fingers at the jedi for attempting to control the outcome#of the war of their historical enemies in their favor? the senate (read sith) want mandalore defanged before their war but what does it look#like the jedi want? how does the council answer for his actions? do they condemn or condone him? do they try to stay out of it?

#the world building potential of the Manda and the Ka'ra is delicious.#what does it mean to be a mando or darmanda? can you walk around and have people look at you and know you have failed in your oaths?

#and ouch! Obi-Wan considering the fact that he has never been allowed to be his own person.#from padawan to knight/master and then a general and councilor and sheesh. hes really never had the chance to see who he is as a person#outside of his responsibilities to everybody around him and right now hes a war worn adult in a war worn teens body#hes always had somebody else there. as a battle companion a teacher a student as somebody to protect and guard and guide#and now he has this entire culture looking at him and waiting for his next move. and im guess it still feels like less than a burden than#the care and raising of an entire child on his own. sure he had the temple resources and other jedi to lean on but anakin always looked to#him first to solve any problem or teach him something new or cuddle him after nightmares as hes trying to hide his own dreams#and grief and flounding to find his footing as an independent adult

#so right now hes looking around at the entire mando population and realizing thats he might need to reshape himself again for somebody else#to make himself what others need and knowing he can and will do it if it means saving somebody else

#and when exactly did he come back from the war? did he have satine die in his arms and see the ruin that is madalore after a pacifist reign?#does he see the potential for that ruin to happen right now if he doesnt succeed? where does he see himself in regards to the jedi?#has he considered the consequences of stepping up to be the Mand'alor to this culture he has never seen as his own?#has he let himself think about the choices he needs to make and how some things you cant always come out the other side the same as before?

(following the trend of each of these getting longer, this has hit just under 5,000 words, so just a heads up lol? so much world building is happening in this one)

sorry you had to rewrite so much! that last exchange was cursed, it seems lmao

it's so easy to write Obi-Wan as prescient, or the route I'm going with in Dha Kar'ta, so i think it's a fun change-up to have him knowledgeable for completely different reasons! I'm actually going to avoid visions almost at all for this Obi, but everyone else certainly won't know the difference, and he doesn't tell them otherwise (though he won't encourage it either. I do actually have a Naruto time travel where Nart pretends to be psychic à la Shawn Spencer, so that isn't the route I wanna go for this Obi). the consequences of knowing too much, indeed

hmmm many of these questions depend on how deep into Jedi and galactic politics I wanna go, and I'm not sure it's very deep at all. or at least, not very dragged out. i'll explain in a mo

SO first: yes, this Obi is from after Satine dies, in 19 BBY, maybe a month or so after, but before the bombing of the Temple so before Ahsoka left the Order. He was back on the front, no time to properly mourn, though he was doing his best, and was meditating on the whole war, but especially the Sith and their hand in everything that happened on Mandalore. It went deeper than Maul, he knew, had been going on longer than Maul and even Dooku, and it occurred to Obi-Wan that the Sith either wanted a Mandalore that will side with them but not be too much a threat, or they wanted them not a threat at all. He realised his hand in that, in helping put the New Mandalorians on the throne that led to the demilitarisation of the entire sector. Obi-Wan had practically teed Mandalore up for Dooku and then Maul's interference, and if the Republic won the war, he could all too easily see them doing another excision. won't get too much into it to save it for the fic, but he is mediating with something beskar, and he gets a lil too deep into the Force, and of course this is post-Mortis so...... 👀

so this Obi-Wan, back in time, is helping Mandalore to prevent any more Sith machinations in the future, to change the future for the whole galaxy, but even before he's Chosen, he realises he's also doing all of this for Mandalore. for his own hand in its destruction, for the Jedi's hand in the Excision, for his personal connection to Satine drawing Maul to it. it's for atonement, for reparation, and also because Mandalore deserves to be saved, and Obi-Wan is in a place he can help do that. it isn't just about the health of the galaxy, anymore.

I usually shy away from having Obi-Wan leave the Order, no matter what AU I'm throwing him in because I believe in the fundamental goodness of the Order and the people in it, and Obi-Wan is fundamentally a Jedi, one of the best, one of the best. however, in this case, I don't think he can have his cake and eat it too. if Dooku had to leave the Order to accept his countship, then Obi-Wan would have to leave to become Mand'alor. Jedi are (supposed to be) politically neutral, and Obi-Wan is all too aware he'd nullified his own neutrality the moment he decided to go for Keldabe to find Jango.

one of my favorite... tropes? in time travel fic is Obi using his future fellow councilmembers' access codes to get into things he shouldn't, and he certainly knows how to work the Order's internal systems in his favor, so he

wait so i was gonna have him go in and tender his resignation from the Order directly into the systems, and backdate it for before the Mandalore mission, so that anything he's done on Mandalore so far cannot be blamed on the Jedi BUT WHAT IF he just. deletes himself. like completely. from admin to the Archives to the crèche's own internal systems to the Shadow's private servers, Obi-Wan Kenobi was never a Jedi, was never a Temple bastard, was never Qui-Gon Jinn's padawan. his mission records are all in Qui-Gon's name now, his medical file simply doesn't exist, his crècheling clan is listed as simply having been a person short compared to other clans that year. he goes so far as to delete comm histories with him or mentioning him, it's like Obi-Wan Kenobi just doesn't exist anymore.

he does this first thing after leaving Jango, he spends the entire week back to Mandalore ensuring he's been completely erased from absolutely anything relating to the Jedi, and then uses his future councilmember knowledge (and lessons from Quinlan) to erase himself from Republic systems, too. any planet he'd helped as a padawan will suddenly have no records of him as having been there with his master, so the senate or Order can't subpoena them for the info, though Obi-Wan knows he can't have gotten everything (such as any planet not in the Republic, or who don't have holonet access to their files, or both, like Melida/Daan), but he figures he's done enough to absolve the Order if anyone comes knocking about what he's doing.

he buries his lightsaber in the deserts of Mandalore, not knowing that in his old future, he'd have done the same on Tatooine.

so as far as the Jedi are aware: Obi-Wan went on a mission with Qui-Gon that (predictably) went to hell, got separated from his master for weeks to months, then suddenly changed, at the same time their Jedi with the highest prescience collapsed due to his visions, which have also changed. Obi-Wan left Qui-Gon behind to hightail it through the Mandalore sector, and Qui-Gon couldn't catch up or find him, and then Obi-Wan disappeared from anyone's radars for two weeks. then Qui-Gon senses him reenter the Mandalore system, right before breaking his training bond with him, and the Order wakes up to Obi-Wan completely erased from their systems like he never existed in the first place. everything is going so so wrong, and yet. and yet.

and yet the Force is telling them all that this is right, that this is the least Dark course of action, that whatever Obi-Wan is doing is indeed the Will of the Force

so the Order mourns one of their own, and tells Qui-Gon to let him go. and then the Order ups their cyber security because what.

i think he leaves an unsigned letter/comm message for a few people. Bant, Quinlan, Mace, Feemor, his old crèchemaster, Yoda, maybe Jocasta Nu. it's short, basically thanking them for their hand in his upbringing (Feemor hasn't even met him before so is very confused by this), apologising for leaving abruptly, but to follow the Will of the Force, he had to leave; the first part of the message is all the same, but ends with little individual notes. he apologises to Madam Nu for fucking with her archives and hopes she can one day forgive him; he asks her to keep her friends close and to mend the tension between her and Dooku, that Obi-Wan should not know about. He tells Yoda that the future is always in motion but they must move with it; he asks Yoda to meditate on his dwindling lineages and learn to accept all that he cannot control. He reminds Quinlan to wear his gloves and asks him to thank Tholme for looking out for him when Qui-Gon wouldn't or didn't; he thanks him for their years together, and asks him to check in on Feemor every now and then. He apologises to Mace for all the shatter-points he likely caused and will continue to cause, and suggests he put a permanent reminder in his comm to remember to refill his migraine prescription that sixteen year-old Obi should not know about. He asks Bant to look out for a young Togruta initiate that will join in seven years, and suggests Bant might like the healer track rather than the knight corps; he thanks her for being his longest and most dearly-held friend. He thanks his crèchemaster for realising his visions were more than dreams (which will inadvertently lend credence to that theory for why Obi-Wan changed so suddenly), for supporting him when Bruck was at his nastiest, and for always being someone he could turn to even after he became a padawan. For Feemor, Obi-Wan apologises that they hadn't had the chance to meet before then, and for the relationship they won't have anymore; Feemor has no idea who this message is from, until he starts hearing the gossip that Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Order again. He too mourns never getting to know his padawan brother.

and Obi-Wan sends Qui-Gon a message, of course, thanking him for his teachings, apologising for "leading him on" as an apprentice, leaving and coming back so many times only to permanently leave this time. he reminds Qui to reach out to his friends and his support system, asks him to at least consider talking to a mind or soul healer about Xanatos (knowing that once it gets out that Obi-Wan is a planetary leader, it will likely badly trigger Qui-Gon), and asks him to at least try and mend his relationship with Dooku, though understands if that's not something Qui-Gon is willing to do. asks him to keep Satine safe, but to deeply think about why the Republic is so intent on helping her faction, and why Qui-Gon had questioned so little of the New Mandalorian ethos.

so by the time Obi-Wan finds the Old Guard, he's broken from the Order completely, has buried his saber, has broken his training bond, has cut his braid. I think he shaves his head entirely to let it grow out at the same rate, because the padawan cut is *Eliot Spencer voice* Very Distinctive. he paints his armour white for, yes, his men, his vod'e, but also for cin vhetin. he can't be the man he was before, nor the teen he was before, neither are who Mandalore needs, and as long as he can stay true to his morals and upbringing, he will be what Mandalore needs him to be.

okay now onto the Manda vs. the Ka'ra vs. the Force. the Force is a scientific concept of an energy connecting absolutely everything in the universe, and the Jedi have a religious view on the scientific concept. for both purposes, the Force just is. I really like the idea of other non-Jedi ideas just being different aspects of the Force, different religions and cultures based on the same scientific concepts. for Mandalorians, their "aspect" of the Force is the Manda, the collective souls of every Mando'ade that's ever marched on. just what it means to be Mando'ade has varied greatly through history, and is varied between different groups even now, but none of that changes what the Manda is, which is an aspect of the Force only Mando'ade can touch. sort of like their beliefs of it being separate from the Force have made it so?

now I haven't really talked about this before, but from the beginning of me writing Mandalorian related things, i've separated Ka'ra from ka'ra, which was a little bit me misremembering there was another term for "stars", and then it became it's own thing. kar, meaning "star", with it's plural kar'e or kare, to me, means physical stars, the way we'd call our sun a star. ka'ra, uncapitalised, is the more poetic and/or spiritual "stars", the way we might say something is "written in the stars", which actually aligns with how jate'kara is spelled; for my writing, i've used this form for Mandalorian Force-sensitives being Star-touched ka'ra-touched. Ka'ra, capitalised, is that "ruling council of fallen kings", the Mandalorian myth and it, the way I've always interpreted it, is a separate part of the Manda made up of specifically the souls of every Mand'alor already marched on. So, Tor Vizsla could have joined the Manda after death, but not the Ka'ra; make sense? all that ka'ra vs Ka'ra worldbuilding was done very early in my writing for star wars, and has since expanded to include the idea of the Manda as something separate, and I would now actually consider Manda-touched over Star-touched to describe Force sensitive Mando'ade, because that's really what I think Mandalorians would consider causes their supernatural powers: ancestors rather than the stars.

so what does that mean for this fic? the Manda is directly influenced by all those that consider themselves Mandalorian, Force-sensitive or not. it is, however, not affected by New Mandalorians, unless they worship the Manda in some facsimile, and I think many, many, many do not, not the way they were raised to. this worship looks different for every clan and every individual, and I've always interpreted it as more of a broad spiritual practice across the whole culture rather than a religion, per se, the way a real-world broader culture might pray at shrines at New Years even if individuals themselves or their family aren't religious. this is what I'm referencing when I say the Will of the People: the alive Mando'ade and their choices and emotions affecting and influencing the Manda, the collective amalgamation of every passed-on Mando'ade, and it's when these two are in tandem that they "pick" a Mand'alor. HOWEVER, such a pick is also up to the Ka'ra, the Mand'alor'e that have all marched on; to one day enter the Ka'ra themselves, a Mand'alor must be "picked" by both the People/the Manda, and the Ka'ra. Tor would be "picked" by a significant part of the People and the Manda, and so would Jaster have been, but (according to me, myself, and i, obviously), only Jaster had been chosen by the Ka'ra. Pre is "Mand'alor" only in name, only in a tenuous loyalty existing in House Vizsla and Death Watch, not even by the Manda; just simple human (et al) loyalty. Jango had a weaker "pick" from the Manda than Jaster did, but was picked by the Ka'ra, meaning if he did not declare himself dar'manda (even just internally; I don't think he's ever said it out loud), he would have joined the Ka'ra after death; if he ever reconnects with himself as a Mandalorian, I like to think he'd have that chance again. Canon Jango, though, who went on to make the clones? Absolutely not.

what does this all mean for Obi-Wan? he'd spent weeks inadvertently drumming up support in the people and therefore the Manda, and maybe most haven't really looked at him and thought "sure I'd follow him as Mand'alor", but they have looked at him and thought "that one has mandokar, that one wants what's best for Mandalore, that one is touched by destiny". I dunno, man, like. Obi-Wan is their hope before he is their leader. That will make all the difference when he does end up uniting them. His searching out Jango had made Jango finally confront that he feels dar'manda, until then he hadn't really lost the Ka'ra's support, but that severs that connection. and now the Ka'ra are without a Mand'alor, but look at that, there's a mandokar'la little idiot right there, already strong in the Manda, already rallying hope and purpose, already so invested in the nurturing and the future of Mandalore, how could the Ka'ra not choose him?

I posed the question previously whether or not Mando'ade can tell who has been chosen to be Mand'alor, and I think I've ironed out what that'll mean for this fic. non-Force sensitive Mando'ade will have this sense when near their Mand'alor, a subconscious and inherent trust in them, and indeed, some will be disturbed by this and fight it. that's alright, that's their right. Some never clock this extra sense, some are aware of it always, some just chalk it up to "gut feelings" and the like. The more spiritual or religious Mandos maybe put a little more stock in this feelings, I think especially goran'e and other spiritual leaders, but the fact that the Manda can technically pick more than one person at a time (like Tor and Jaster, and then Jango), this extra sense isn't a perfect indicator of a properly chosen Manda'lor.

now. what about Force sensitive Mando'ade? Well, the Manda is an aspect of the Force, and is in fact how said Force sensitive Mando'ade connect to the Force, by going through the Manda, first. their relationship with sensitivity is inherently different from others in the galaxy, at least those that connect to it directly. they are the ones that can sense or see if someone is chosen by the Ka'ra, depending on their sensitivity. Some see the ghostly line of previous Mand'alor'e stretched out behind them (like the Avatar cycle lmao), some see a wavering crown of stars around their head, some just sense there is a duplicity (/neutral) to their Force presence that doesn't exist in anyone else. how common is Force sensitivity in Mandalorian space? not fuckin very. Jaster had three in his entire faction of aprox. 2 million (fanon number), at least that were aware they were sensitive. Jango only had a few more, and only because he had gained a couple hundred thousand more followers before Galidraan. so i'll make the nearly-arbitrary number that Force sensitive Mandos are 1 in 1,000,000, across the entire sector. by some calculations, in the whole galaxy at around the time of the Clone Wars the number of Force sensitives is 1 in 5,000,000 but these calculations do not generally include societies and species with a near or 100% chance of Force sensitivity, because we simply don't have the data for it. does this all make Mandos slightly more likely to be Force sensitive than others, by my own numbers? sorta. which i'm making an issue of underreporting, based on Mandalore not being a part of the Republic, and also contention with the Jedi and Sith; they don't consider those Manda-touched to be Force sensitive, and with the way I've built this, they aren't exactly wrong.

for the purposes of this story, there are maybe eight Manda-touched Mando'ade in the Mandalore system at this time, and all but one are goran'e. that single non-armorer is part of the Old Guard. I have the roster for the Old Guard decided, so I'm debating whether the Manda-touched one is Cort Davin (a journeyman protector), or one of the women. Instinct wants Vhonte Tervho, but I have plans for her to be related to the goran Obi-Wan got his armour done by, who I wanted to be one of the seven Force sensitive armorers, soooo. lmao how fucked would it be if Isabet Reau is the Force sensitive one? I like the angst of that, since I definitely do not plan on redeeming her, but I kind of want the only Old Guard that can sense Obi-Wan is Chosen by the Ka'ra to be really quiet and accepting of it, while everyone else is arguing. hmmm I have an unnamed Wren as part of the Guard, that I haven't fleshed anything out for yet; perhaps them?

okay I think I've solidified what it makes a Mandalorian, at least for the function of this fic. it is tied to the Resol'nare, and following it, which does allow those who had Chosen Tor Vizsla as their Mand'alor to technically still be following the Resol'nare, and are therefore not dar'manda. at least not for that. but part of the reason the Resol'nare is even able to determine who has a Mandalorian soul, is because they believe it does. Those alive and those dead influence the functionality and reality of the Manda, which also allows for those pre-Resol'nare to still exist in the Manda. What causes someone to become dar'manda, if they are technically following the Resol'nare?

maybe it's reductive, or over-simplified, or maybe even too broad, but it makes sense to me and allows for many many different types of people to still fail, and this is obviously not the only way to become dar'manda, but one thing that will always strip someone of their Mando soul? treatment of children. caring for children. not harming children. this allows many of Death Watch to still maintain their Mando souls, but still be fucked up awful people in other ways. It allows even True Mandalorians to have lost their souls and not realised it because they otherwise adhered to the Resol'nare, because they'd chosen to interpret "defending oneself and family" and "raising your children as Mandalorians" to not include other peoeple's children. Or maybe they were abusive in the belief they were caring for their children. This would also make every single one of the Cuy'val Dar dar'manda, which I think is a fascinating concept.

to answer your question directly, no, one cannot look at someone and know they're dar'manda, even the Force/Manda sensitive ones. one will only know in death, whether or not they have a place in the Manda.

NOW what does this mean for New Mandalorians?? well, by technicality and the way I've set the Manda up, one can interpret the Resol'nare in ways that could align with New Mandos. Perhaps they interpret "armour" as more than specifically "beskar'gam", maybe they wear armourweave or other protective fabrics. Maybe they interpret "defending one's family" as putting down arms instead of raising them, in order to create a peaceful future for their children. I think there are plenty of New Mandos that technically tick off all the boxes, and believe in themselves and their fellows so much that the Manda is like "yeah sure why not, we'll make that count". I think some tenants are more easily... bent, like swearing to the duchy in place of the Mand'alor, but I think an easy one New Mandos miss, is "speak Mando'a." I think many New Mandos were all too quick to switch to Basic for everything except religious and spiritual ceremonies, and I think those already in the Manda would find that very hard to forgive. I actually get into this a little in Dha Kar'ta very soon, but for this fic, i'll have Satine not outright outlawing Mando'a, but it is socially heavily discouraged. you're not allowed to speak it in the palace unless in aforementioned ceremonies, you cannot fill out paperwork in anything but Basic, you're not allowed to use Mando'a titles (including Mand'alor), you're not allowed to teach it to your children. no outright like. punishments for speaking it in public, but if your kids are caught, there are repercussions, including investigation into how else you're raising your kids, and if you're found to be doing anything else, they can take your kids from you. not every New Mando agrees with this, of course, and go about adhering to the Resol'nare as best they can in secret, but so many do give up the language by convincing themselves it's not as important as the other tenants and, well, the duchy hasn't steered them all wrong yet, has it?

okay so on the subject of what the outside galaxy is seeing. I like the headcanon/trope/idea of like. the one thing all factions of Mandalorians agreeing on is fuck everyone else. oh, the New Mandos will emulate the Core and the Republic, but they aren't the Republic nor want to be, and this animosity extends to keeping as many internal Mandlorian issues just that: internal. no faction can keep news from leaving the system or the sector, obviously, but there also isn't a lot of interest in Mandalorian news? "oh look all the Mandos are fighting again", except that's been the standard for like. actual thousands of years. I like when fic have people outside the sector not evening knowing there are different factions, so I'll be doing that here, too, and I like the idea of non-Republic sectors having their own holonets, separate from the Republic one. so like, if Obi-Wan happens to go a little viral during his mad dash to Keldabe, that would be on the Mandalorian holonet, not the Republic one, so even if Obi-Wan was visibly still a Jedi (and he wasn't), actual news of him wouldn't reach the Mid and Inner Rims until like. possible years after it happens.

could this maybe be expedited by Sith machinations? absolutely, though I'm not sure I want to go that route, since I don't think the Sith are overmuch interested in Mandalore at this point, at least not in any hands-on capacity. I'm unclear on whether them funding Death Watch is fanon or not, but it is a headcanon I subscribe to, and I think they'd have stopped funding DW after Galidraan, to cause worse infighting and prevent DW from gaining enough power to actually restart their imperial conquering days. Palpatine has been senator for about ten years by this point, but has very little political power overall, and Demask would be looking basically anywhere but Mandalore at this point in time, both of them having written it off until they actively need something from the sector. if anyone had clocked Obi-Wan as a Jedi, this all would have gone very differently, news would have spread much further and quicker and I think undoubtedly would have reached Palpatine, but since I have Obi-Wan just... cutting ties to anything Jedi, news of him remains in-sector. is this perhaps unrealistic? maybe, but I kind of want to focus on Mandalore and not worry about galactic-wide politics for once, lmao, actually very much like Obi-Wan is doing. however, he will clock a lack of Sith interference and thinks That's Very Weird.

haven't decided how he finds Palpatine out yet, but I think it'll have to do with his Manda senses being different than his Force ones, maybe the Ka'ra even gives him a few tips or gifts to sense Sith since they've allied and fought with them so much in the past. regardless, that'll be after he's become Mand'alor and united the clans.

now to actual plot progression! Obi-Wan meets up with the Old Guard, they don't know what to make of him other than "he's kriffing weird. and young. and creepy. and probably Manda-touched." whatever other verd is Manda-touched will see him blessed by the Ka'ra, which causes them to look inwards more closely and realise they trust Obi-Wan inexplicably, which means they're blessed by the Manda and the Will of the People, too. they wonder if Obi-Wan has noticed, if any of the other Old Guard have noticed. they are one of a few that notice Obi-Wan sneaking back out while everyone is arguing.

Vhonte Tervho is another. She's at this lil summit to represent clan Tervho, tho isn't the clan head, because her ba'vodu, a Manda-touched goran, had sensed she needed to be at the summit. said ba'vodu is of course the armorer who reforged Obi-Wan's armour (need to find a name for them hmm), who had told their clan they were to cease fighting until their new Mand'alor called on them. Vhonte sees Obi-Wan, realises at the same time as everyone that he's the Kih'Manda, the Mand'ika that the entire system had been gossiping about for weeks, and she thinks of what her ba'vodu said. she looks inwards, like they had taught her to, and finds, yes, she trusts Obi-Wan, just like she used to trust Jango. And, well, her Mand'alor is obviously leaving to go do something, and she isn't going to let him go it alone.

the Manda-touched verd doesn't go with them, wanting to see what comes of this, but they already know Obi-wan is Ka'ra Chosen. they will come when he calls.

[orihara-infobroker]

Bushido, Honour and Ghost of Tsushima

Now that I’m done crying over a horse (I WILL NEVER BE OVER THIS), let’s talk about Shimura and Sakai and the definition of honour to a samurai.

Because the story tells us that Jin has no honour and is a bad samurai but that is from the perspective of Shimura and the samurai like him. There is no good ending for Jin, not because he doesn’t have honour, but because he defied the authority structure. Basically, it’s politics.

I believe Jin is actually the one with more honour and that Shimura forsakes his own honour on the beach when he pursues a course of action that leaves Tsushima (and the mainland) open to invasion. Because without Jin’s willingness to adapt, Tsushima would have been lost, no question. 

The principles of the samurai “code” - bushido - weren’t truly codified until Miyamoto Musashi wrote about the samurai class in his later years. This was in the 1600s. Ghost of Tsushima takes place in the 1200s, well before Musashi’s writings. Which is not to say that the samurai didn’t follow a code of honour but that code could vary from clan to clan, region to region. What was functionally the singular unifying factor was that the samurai were warriors and they were nobility. 

Now, as we all know, the role of nobility has historically been a very divided one. There are the ruling class who believe that their job is to take care of the people and there are the selfish pricks who are rich and entitled and abuse their privilege. Now, I’m not saying that Shimura is abusing the peasants but it is made very clear that they are not his priority. His personal honour (or perception of what honour is) is more important to him than the lives of the peasants. Even the lives of his own soldiers are less important than their perceived “honour”. And Shimura makes it clear that the will of the Shogun (yaaay politics) is more important than the lives of the people. Even his own “son”.

Jin exemplifies the noble who understands that his role is to protect all of his people. He is the people’s hero because he cares about them. He earns their respect and loyalty in a way Shimura cannot because Shimura sees them only as subjects to rule over, not people to care about. 

Further, in the game, Jin does some very “ninja” things. Using poison, assassinating, attacking from behind etcetera. Well. The shinobi as a class didn’t really come into being until the Sengoku era (around the late 1400s, early 1500s). So the criticism levied on Jin for his dishonourable behaviour is somewhat amusing because while samurai did have a general belief that assassination was dishonourable and that you should meet your foes on the field of battle face-to-face, they weren’t opposed to using non-conventional tactics to win battles. They just didn’t get their own hands dirty with it.

Now, if we were to talk about the principles of bushido as they have been interpreted through Musashi, there are nine principles by which a samurai should live his life:

1. Do not think dishonestly. 2. The Way is in training. 3. Become acquainted with every art. 4. Know the Ways of all professions 5. Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters. 6. Develop an intuitive judgement and understanding for everything. 7. Perceive those things which cannot be seen. 8. Pay attention even to trifles. 9. Do nothing which is of no use.

These are the principles that were later further reimagined as the eight virtues of bushido by Nitobe Inazo in the 1800s and are what most people see in reference to bushido today:

Righteousness (義, gi) Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true warrior, all points of view are deeply considered regarding honesty, justice and integrity. Warriors make a full commitment to their decisions.

Heroic Courage (勇, yū) Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A true warrior must have heroic courage. It is absolutely risky. It is living life completely, fully and wonderfully. Heroic courage is not blind. It is intelligent and strong.

Benevolence, Compassion (仁, jin) Through intense training and hard work the true warrior becomes quick and strong. They are not as most people. They develop a power that must be used for good. They have compassion. They help their fellow men at every opportunity. If an opportunity does not arise, they go out of their way to find one.

Respect (礼, rei) True warriors have no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. Warriors are not only respected for their strength in battle, but also by their dealings with others. The true strength of a warrior becomes apparent during difficult times.

Honesty (誠, makoto) When warriors say that they will perform an action, it is as good as done. Nothing will stop them from completing what they say they will do. They do not have to 'give their word'. They do not have to 'promise'. Speaking and doing are the same action.

Honour (名誉, meiyo) Warriors have only one judge of honor and character, and this is themselves. Decisions they make and how these decisions are carried out are a reflection of who they truly are. You cannot hide from yourself.

Duty and Loyalty (忠義, chūgi) Warriors are responsible for everything that they have done and everything that they have said and all of the consequences that follow. They are immensely loyal to all of those in their care. To everyone that they are responsible for, they remain fiercely true.

Self-Control (自制, jisei)

Now if we look at either of these lists, we can see that Jin does not lack in honour. He does not stray from the path of the samurai. Quite the opposite, Jin exhibits exemplary personal responsibility. Shimura, on the other hand, while not without honour and generally consistent with Musashi’s guidelines, does stray far afield of the virtues. In fact, I would argue that his strict adherence to the “rules” as he perceived them is actually what makes him less honourable than Jin. He cannot perceive things in any way other than the one he was raised with and that is his downfall - and nearly the downfall of Tsushima. 

Which, historically is not inaccurate. (Not that you should be looking to Ghost of Tsushima for historical accuracy. In fact, please don’t... XD) During the actual mongol invasion of Japan, the mongols sailed from Korea and took Tsushima as well as Iki Island then proceeded to land at Hakata Bay. These islands simply did not have the number of troops sufficient to defend them against an entire fleet.

What actually defeated the mongols was not samurai honour (or Jin’s sneaky shinobi tactics). It was weather. During the battle at Hakata Bay, the mongols decided to retreat to their ships at night to avoid being ambushed by the Japanese. And because the troops were on their ships and out to sea when the tsunami hit, the mongols lost nearly half their fighting force. They retreated and, much later, planned a second invasion, following a similar path as the first. They attacked Tsushima and Iki again, routing the samurai and murdering many of the islanders. They moved against Nagato and Hakata Bay but this time the Japanese were better prepared for them and they were forced to return to Iki and other small islands. The Japanese counter attacked by launching raids on the mongol ships. As the Japanese continued to push them back, keeping them off the mainland, the mongol fleet was once again defeated, not by samurai, but by weather. A great typhoon struck the fleet and devastated it. The mongol commander fled, leaving many of his troops stranded on Taka Island where they were rounded up and killed by the Japanese. (Note this is a condensed summary of the invasions. There is obviously more detail to the actual events.)

Amusingly, what did come out of this war was a growing respect and fear for the Japanese from the Korean, Chinese and Mongol nations. The mongols, in particular were quite concerned by the Japanese swords. The Japanese, however, found that these earlier katana that they were using were inconvenient to use when fighting in close quarters against large numbers and responded by refining them.

Anyway, the history lesson aside, Jin’s story is a tragedy but it’s also an absolutely wonderful samurai story because it shows the lengths a truly honourable samurai will go to, to fulfill his duty to his principles and to his people. 

[dxckgrxsonx]

I am in LOVE with your jason todd writing. You just write him so well 🥲

i have scoured the internet for thigh riding jason (because ya know hes KING of thunder thighs) and couldnt find a single one 😔

just thinking thots ab this mans meaty thighs and riding one

Pairing - Jason Todd X (F) Reader Words - 1.4k Warnings - SMUT 18+ - Thigh Riding - Praise!Kink - Swearing - Dirty Talk. Notes - No thoughts, just Jason Todd and his thick ass thighs. I’ve been wanting to write thigh riding for a while now so thanks my darling anon!! I hope you enjoy 😉

**

You’ve got that look in your eye again.

That one you get just before you say something that takes him to pieces–a teasing glint that flashes white hot at your pupil and spreads out like goddamn wildfire. You get a faint quirk at the edges of your mouth, a slight tug of a smirk on your lips and the sight of you, glittering and halfway to electric never fails to make his stomach drop straight through to his feet.

You’re leaning against the kitchen counter, watching attentively as he gears up for patrol. That no good look still flashes in your eye, but you manage to do a decent job of keeping it off your face–if Jason didn’t know you as well as he did, he wouldn’t know you’re about to suggest something obscene, something outlandish.

“Jason,” You almost purr, making him pause, fingers hovering over the clips to his weapons holsters. Looking up, he catches your gaze across the kitchen and swallows thickly when you hold his stare–refusing to let it go until you’ve said what you want to. “My pretty boy–”

He can’t help it, his brain short-circuits at the praise, stutters and freezes in place.

You push off the counter with an amused huff, wicked mouth twitching into a threatening grin. There's a firm confidence to the way you walk, a predator stalking prey. He knows he looks like an idiot, a deer caught in blinding headlights, but he can’t deny that you look powerful–goddamn fucking beautiful.

He thinks he might catch fire when you touch him, press your palm to his heaving, armour covered chest and shove.

You don’t stop there, you keep going, force him to backpedal until the backs of his legs nudge the sofa. You smile, smoothing your palm from his broad chest upwards, sweep your nimble fingers over the thick, fluttering vein in his neck to settle heavy along his jawline.

“Jay,” You say again, leaning in close enough to ghost your lips over his chin. “Lemme ride your thigh.”

His breath hitches in his throat.

His cock jumps.

“Sweetheart,” He tries, struggling to speak past the lump in his throat. “Baby, please. I’ve got patrol, I don’t have time.”

Your hands press insistently into his shoulders, holding him down. Jason knows he could overpower you, already has three ways planned out on how to have you flat on your back in a few blinding seconds. It wouldn’t take much. He thinks of flexing his hips and throwing you off, having you spread out underneath him, legs parted so he can slot between them and ruin you.

Jason can be patient. Can bide his time. Wait for you to have your fun and enjoy the intoxicating thrill of being in control before it takes it away again.

But he can’t quite ignore the way he fattens up in his boxers, blood rushing to his cock and making it twitch, ache, fucking throb at the sight of you.

“But Jay, your thighs are so thick. I’ve been wanting to do this for so long.” You drag the length of your pussy over his leg. He feels the heat coming off you through his tactical pants and he wants to moan. “You’re not going to deny me this, are you? I can see how hard you are.”

“Fucking shit!” Jason croaks, throwing his head back. “Are you tryin’ to kill me?”

He wants to jerk off, wants to wrap his fist around his cock and pump it hard and fast until he empties his heavy, aching balls. He wants to wrestle you off his leg and bury himself in your slink cunt, maybe teach you a damn good lesson in the process.

Pressing your hips down you rock yourself over the hard muscle and reward him with a sweet little gasp as your clit catches on the fabric. It makes him feel dizzy, almost like he’s waking up with a concussion minus the blinding pain. Grabbing you by the hips he guides you over his thigh, flexing it just right as you pass over it, dragging another quiet sound from your mouth.

“D’that again.” You whimper, fingers tightening over his broad shoulders.

Jason watches as your composure shakes–dissolves right before his eyes. Something dark fights itself awake in his gut, blinks its eyes open and starts cataloguing all the ways to recover control, slip it from your clever fingers and choke you with it.

“Do what again?” Jason grins, looking up at you and cocking his head slightly. “This?”

Flexing his thigh as you drag your wet little clit over it your breath stutters, pupils blowing out with a violent wave of lust. Jason adores that look on your face, halfway to unhinged, neck deep in desperation. He loves it even more because he put it there.

“Y-yes.” You stutter, eyes rolling back into your skull.

Settling into an easy rhythm of back and forth you make sure to catch your swollen, sticky pussy on every dip and groove of his thigh. Jason tightens his grip on your waist, forcing you to rock against him harder, faster.

“Can’t believe you’re making me late for this.” Jason mutters, pressing his mouth along your jaw. “Makin’ me late because you want to rub your greedy pussy on my thigh.”

He listens to your heart skip, memorises the frantic beat so he can replay it later when you’re worn out and sleeping. Pressing wet kisses along the hinge of your jaw he smooths his hands around your back, sweeps the pads of his fingers over your spine.

“But Jay, please.” You whine, breathless, “I’ve been wanting to do this for ages, been thinking of riding your thigh for months. They’re so fuckin’ thick.”

Jason huffs into the crook of your neck, thrusting his thigh against your cunt, “Is that so?”

“Mmhm. S’not fair having to watch you strap on those holsters, it makes ‘em look so good. The amount of times I’ve wanted to bite them–” Your words taper off into a moan, mouth parted as Jason drags his teeth over your pulse point.

“Y’should have said something sooner, sweetheart. Could’a had you cumming over ‘em like a whore before now.”

He feels your steady motions falter, posture changing ever so slightly to allow you to focus on grinding your twitching little clit against his thigh. Jason knows you’re getting close, can sense your incoming orgasm almost as well as he can sense his own. Moaning desperately your legs shake, eyelids fluttering shut as you drag yourself up to the very edge.

“Fuckin’ christ, are you gonna come?” Jason asks, already knowing the answer. “Really? From this? From rubbing yourself on my thigh?”

“Uh–shit. Yes, m’gonna come.” You whine, twisting your fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “Jay–fuck–I’m so close.”

He feels you trembling, throat working hard as you swallow and pant out whimpering whines of his name. He knows you’re a hair-trigger away from exploding, from gushing over his thigh and drenching his tactical pants. Jason knows he’ll need to change before leaving. He can’t go out with your come smeared across his thigh.

“Oh baby,” He coos against your throat, “Come for me. Be a good girl, soak my thigh.”

A silent shudder works through your body, starts at your legs and bleeds through to your fingers. Your voice shakes and cracks as you come, pussy contracting wildly against Jason's leg. Sucking a dark mark over your fluttering pulse Jason guides you through your climax, keeping the pressure on your pretty pussy until it stops twitching.

You move to pull away and swing yourself off his thigh. He knows you’re doing it to let him leave, but he’s not quite ready to let you go, still wants to prove that he’s the one in control of the situation. So Jason grabs your hips, keeps you pinned.

“I think you’ve got another in you.” He smiles, all dangerous and threatening at the edges. “M’not letting you move your wet cunt until you come again sweetheart, I’ve decided I quite like having you grinding yourself on my thigh, it’s a very pretty view.”

Your eyes widen and he sees it then, that quick flash of ‘oh fuck’ over your face. You’ve been wanting to ride his thigh for months, and Jason can’t be blamed for wanting to make up for lost time.

**

[punk-in-docs]

🕷Was it Love or Nicotine?🕷

Eddie Munson x Reader, one shot.

12k words

Summary: Eddie brings you comfort when you’re sick-

You’re two seconds from bolting out to grab the baseball bat your mom kept in the upstairs closet.

But a familiar voice slithers on in. You catch onto snippets.

“Shit. Motherfucking,sonofa- betch.” Comes unsmothered curses from the underside of your window. There’s another hiss, shaking of a shrub, and a knock. A growl. A stab of a foot hooking onto wood.

That would be Eddie.

Or;

The one where you’re sick, and who should show up at your window, with a can of Campbell’s stuffed in his pocket? That’s right. Eddie Munson.

In case you wanted an Eddie MASTERLIST to peruse-

It starts out along the lines of this; Eddie does keep an eye out for you at school. Of course he does.

His cool chick with the choppy-flicky hair. Self proclaimed music snob with one hell of a sense of humour. His pencils. The one with the magic lips. With that taste of sugar-strawberry lip smacker skated on them.

He couldn’t get over it.

Mind flicked back to thoughts of you over and over. Faded film reel in his head bleached to sepia ghost tones the amount it played out. The way your hands tugged in his lapels for more. That flash white of your smile in the half dark that turned his knees to quivering water.

That gorgeous way you’d pressed an Alice Cooper tape in his hands and told him sternly what tracks to listen too. How hungrily you’d kissed him back like he was your new kind of air-

Remembering the soft press of your fruit sweet lips has all the blood in him racing south. Fuck.

And he can’t help it and he’s more than aware that it might be overstepping the mark. Him looking out.

Fuckin’ Christ. He feels like the Norman Bates character from that movie. Like some perverted creep combing crowds, just hoping to see you dotted among them.

He thinks about you, laying, chainsmoking in his bed with a cigarette wonky to his lips. He stubs it out and lights another. There’s no removing you. You’re like another rush of nicotine in him right now.

You are running bond deep and he can’t reach in and pull out your influence. He lets it stay cause it’s fucking magic. Better than weed and he doesn’t say that lightly-

He thinks about you on the drive to school. He stops to pick up Gareth and Jeff. They chat on the way about the new issue of Daredevil.

Eddie, hard as he tries, has one ear tuned to them, and the other to the stereo in his van. Teeth grit, bumping it with a clenched fist to get it to behave. Metal rings clacking on the dash.

Alice sneers his venomous vocals to a shredding guitar, it just tugs a smile out of him that threads back to you, entirely. Jeff comments on the new tape that wasn’t the same thrashing Metallica or thundering Motörhead.

Nice music man. This new?

His resulting grin is silky smooth.

Yeah. Just picked it up.

They arrive at school and collectively brace themselves, for classes and the picky snide words of their peers. Another day of not fitting in, shouldering the hassle of being an underdog, in Hellfire clad armour.

Instead of a chip on his shoulder, Eddie may aswell have a grating two tonne boulder on there, at this point.

They pile out of the van and split ways for their classes. They say goodbye and he only just finds his tongue to answer.

Simply because he’s half invested. He’s scanning the school parking lot a little more studiously than usual.

He knew you drove a capri. He knows it’s kinda a muddy-mustard colour with a few rust marks eating away at the passenger door.

He recalls that he saw you arrive yesterday with thunder faced Malibu Barbie in the next seat.

She checked her nails whilst you unloaded an armful of sketchbooks and heavy textbooks from the back seat. He wanted to hot foot it over to help you, but the crowds of people milling around made his courage shrink down.

He actually started to step to you- that’s how much he wanted to eat up that distance. But then his brain just hammered into his skull like a fist on a car roof, that he should stop.

 Not yet. Not here. Too early. Too keen, you lunatic.

He vaguely recalls hearing Linda bitching at you about the fact you played Billy Idol all the way there on the drive. Makes his smile crawl across until teeth show. Sounds about right. Atta girl.

He couldn’t hang around. He couldn’t. But he wanted too. It’s a saw tooth edge all mean and scraping into his belly how much he wants too. But he can’t bring himself to act.

He wants to possess the bravery to scamper over there, push Linda out the way on her teetering heels, grab your goddamn face with ring clad hands and kiss you, hard.

Push you up against the side of your car to do it. Like he is the is the picture perfect, shiny haired golden boy in some sappy John Hughes movie.

Feel you squeak against the cup of his mouth in surprise. Kiss you with his tongue flicking at your teeth. Cupping the back of your head. Get the smell of your hair in his nose again. The juicy fruit taste of your lips.

Make out with you, devour you, right here with the whole damn school able to see, and every filthy as sin intention of letting his hands wander over all of you.

Wrap leather arms around you like vines and never, ever let go. Pull you into his chest like he wants you under his skin. He wants to pull a Judd Nelson and punch the fucking sky.

But he’d caught your eye. Just a flash. The sunny gold skate of your resulting smile when you saw it was him makes his insides warmer. Feels better than any pill.

You lock eyes, and it’s like someone has struck cupids red fucking arrow through the meat of his heart. Thud-thud-thudding like it’s climbed up the back of his mouth and clung to his tonsils.

He waves. You wave back. It’s that easy.

For now, just that smile and wave of acknowledgement was enough.

A gorgeous burst of you for just a second across the lot. That was yesterday.

He looks around today, as he jiggles his van keys in his hands. Keychains scraping together all jagged in his palm. Scanning for anything that resembled you or the Capri. Or, heaven forfend, the poofy cloud of blonde curls that belonged to your greek harpy of a friend.

He can’t see either.

He chews the inside of his lower lip. Eyes flick to the lot entrance. Nothing there still spilling in resembled you, either.

A grainy brown station wagon lumbers into park not far from him. Lurching clumsily onto a space. He watches a beefy letterman jock climb out and scrape his ridiculous golden Rob Lowe mullet back on his head.

The other side, the passenger door opens and a poodle bouffant of spilling blonde starts bouncing out.

He watches your friend get out. Join hands with her ape of a boyfriend, and flounce on into school. All legs and those maraschino-red heels, in another one of her short denim skirts. Hot pink jewellery hanging off her ears and wrists.

And you’re nowhere to be seen. That doesn’t square well on him. It sticks like something lumpy in his throat.

He hot foots it to class cause the last thing he needs is another tardy mark against his already pretty dashed reputation. But you cycle on loop through his head way more than any of his schoolwork probably should.

He’s never really been any good at staying still, or paying attention to much in his life. He is too erratic. Too lost to fantasy at times. Busy elsewhere.

He bounced his knees. He fiddled with his rings, doodled DND character concepts, or horned skulls on the margins of his schoolbooks, rather than actually turning his eyes to the board at any point. Some things really have to hook his flighty interest to warrant earning it full time.

He’s always had half his head stuck somewhere else. Even worse now you’d snatched up the rest of his already limited attention span.

It might be that you’ve hitched a ride to school. Car troubles? Maybe you overslept? Some shit like that. Some circumstance that had delayed you.

He drifts through his day. Decided to shake up his usual route after the bell rings for lunch. He doesn’t drift straight to the canteen, probably in time to hear a braindead slur aimed his way from Jason and his goons. Or he’d have to listen for the tenth time as Jeff argued with Sinclair about armour classes.

He swings by the clay scented halls of the school art department. A place - it had to be said - he never really had a lot of cause to go. It’s definitely new territory to embark on.

The walls are pinned with cork boards full of charcoal drawings and art history posters. Seurat, Poussin and Van Gogh’s twisting almond branches on midnight blue. Sad pot plants droop on a low table by a sun drenched window. The scent here is all stale paint and dried claggy clay.

He idles past a couple classrooms. Armies of easels in one where students are happily settled. Drawing a bowl of plump fruit on a goddamn podium. The room at the end is dusty and he’s guessing that’s where the potters wheels and reeking scent of clay is coming from.

He dodged a wall of students armed with wide flat sketchbooks and charcoal stained fingers. They frown at him in bewilderment like he doesn’t belong. A cat amongst the pigeons.

They’re not wrong-

He shoulders past them and ignores the way they turn to gawp at him. Wondering why he was in the Art Department, rather than his habitual canteen table soap box, or his weed stoop in the woods where people rarely dare to tread.

More rooms crammed with easels and painters and you’re not one of them. He weaves past even more classrooms. Collects more stares. He feels them land on his back as he walks past. Burning into his DIO patch like bleach.

He’s used to stares. Always been cool with not caring what other people’s problems are with him. And it always falls into the category of instant dislike. He’s sure they have a list at this point.

His hair is too crazy curls and straggly. He’s a super senior who lives in a trailer park. Out of fashion the way he dresses, in his Judas Priest pins and his beloved band tees and his ripped denim knees. He doesn’t listen to Abba, or give a shit about Madonna. So what?

He quickly came to realise during his misspent youth and at the height of his not so brilliant rollercoaster through puberty, that it was their issue. Not his.

He cut himself plenty of slack long ago. He won’t be crammed into stifling neat little moulds, expected to fit, like so many others just fall into. His denim and leather shield against the small small world of Hawkins remained spiky.

Because he doesn’t come from that well classed upbringing of stuffy family dinners, posed holiday photos, minivans, and mom and pop curfew.

He isn’t destined to go on and smile, and be a good shiny haired little athlete boy, off to make good grades, at an Ivy-smothered, brownstone college.

It’s dangerous for the kids to conform, you know? Toxic man.

Besides he’s on a more urgent mission here, than the craggy in’s-and-out’s of squalid pissy disapproval.

Every classroom in this building comes up empty. He sighs and proverbially kicks himself in the shin for being nosy and creepy.

Let’s that feeling eat away a while at his belly as he heads to join his usual crowd. Where he belonged. On a sticky plastic table as they squabbled about shit and kept to their geek corner.

He tucked tail. Chided himself all the way back to the canteen. Smacked his hand on the doorframe coming out the department. A harsh rap to his knuckles that flared with pain.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, Munson.

Sat down with a sour face at the head of his table, picked idly at his food. A bag of half eaten chips and a probably out of date Twinkie. Not even the tater tots on Dustin’s plate break him out his funk like they usually do. He’d normally snatch a few. Not today.

Dustin seems to be eyeing him like he would try and snaffle them up. He’s watching for the sudden dart and silver-flash of his ring clad hand. It doesn’t come.

Jeff chucks him a juice box. Like he’s a fucking stray pigeon in the park they’ve all grown used to feeding.

Eddie stares at it too much, as he punches the straw in and repeats the motion. Twiddling with the chilli red plastic as he kept to himself. Fiddling. Fidgeting.

Also something he rarely did. Keep to his own crazy scarecrow head.

Stab and lift. Stab and lift.

Lost his appetite anyhow. Somewhere along the line.

He was being a moron. Presumptuous. Wouldn’t be the first time and on all his metal gods, it certainly won’t be the last.

He feels fully pathetic. One morsel scrap of attention and off he goes like some lonely pervert. Trailing after you like a rabid dog. Frothing at the mouth for the crumb of affection he thought could turn into something more.

Something hopeful that started to unfurl, blooming open in his chest. A delicate rare flower he’d never have the brains to know the full name of.

He’s just dumped a load of choking weed killer over that frail bloom. Because when should a freak’s dreams ever come true

Maybe you didn’t want to be found. Not by him. Maybe you’d come to your senses-

Maybe you realised what he truly was; not some stud athlete on path to play football for a fraternity in the big leagues and make his parents proud.

He is a scrawny loser. A jagged little freak. And as this school reminds him on a daily basis; he’s a nonconforming creep who won’t amount to so much as a piss stain in his life. And now you know that.

That snake bite of a realisation stings way, way, more than he thought it would.

 ~

 Day two. Hour 48. Eddie still finds himself looking.

Maybe he’s a sadomasochist after all. The harder the hit, the sweeter the pain. And it burns so good he can’t tear away from it.

He waits by his trusty van. Others drift off for class. Frowning at the time when they realise how ridiculously fucking early he’d picked them up this morning.

Also something else Eddie doesn’t gel with; punctuality.

Gareth shook his watch hand and lifted it to his ear to check it was still ticking. Henderson seemed to be looking at him the whole ride here, waiting for some rational sort of explanation to announce itself out the metalhead’s mouth, with his usual dramatic fanfare.

It definitely wasn’t anything to do with schoolwork. No final, or test paper could intimidate or worry him. Maybe it was a deal he was anxious to speed too.

Eddie, was your bed on fire this morning or what?

Huh?

You owe someone money or something-

Are you tripping out on me, Henderson? Seriously man. Making zero sense here, y’know.

Eddie didn’t miss the way Dustin slumped back into his seat, tugged at his science baseball cap and muttered something like “Well, that makes two of us.”

Shut the hell up, and let me so graciously drive you to school, you little shrimp.

He says it with thinning patience. But the thing is, Eddie doesn’t really get ever mad or mean with his insults. Never nasty. He doesn’t have a nasty bone in him.

The only thing that works him into being revved up, is the thought of postponing Hellfire. Heaven forfend.

When he parks up, he’s still keeping his mysterious reasons clutched close to his denim chest. He tells them to scram. Beat it.

Get lost, you losers, as he ruffles Dustin’s hair.

His bemused flock wanders away from the parking lot, and wonder how they’re gonna kill some extra time.

He leans against the side of his van, and lights up a cigarette. And there he stays. His skin itches with paranoia. Pushing needles under his veins. Bouncing back from if this is a good idea, or still just him being a creep. Back and forth.

Really he talks himself in and out of it. He jumps out of negative thoughts. Banishes them. And then dives right back in not five minutes later.

He sees Barbie arrive at school in her clunky dream car. (Not pink, shocker) On her own this time. No meathead to speak off. But she is wearing his letterman jacket. It hangs off her.

Today’s heels are sapphire blue. Lilac eyeshadow packed heavy on her lids. She stops and chit-chats to a couple of cheerleaders, all three with standard issue bouncy scrunchie ponytails, that he’s sure is a requirement to get in the squad. Linda lugs a very thin looking binder into class with her.

He hates that he’s taking notice of her footwear. Of all fucking things in this place to notice. But she’s garbed in so much neon brightness, in the full sunshine, she’s a hard one to miss.

He skims his eyes across crowds and pulls on his cigarette. One hand in his pocket. His sneaker toes tap on the loose gravel.

She sashays off to class with the cheerleaders. He’s taking note of an awfully you shaped absence at her side. The negative space unfilled where you should be. Garbed in your paint flecked jeans, with that look of cynical boredom on your face when Linda says something bitchy.

It’s preying on him all the more. The bell goes and he must tear himself away, yet again. Drudging through more classes til lunch comes rolling around, way too slowly.

It’s a nice day - buttery sunshine spliced with a cold stab of spring. Hellfire club convenes outside. They run through character sheets in readiness for Friday night’s campaign. Eddie in his usual spot as king of the heap. Sat table top. As per.

Hands folded from his elbows resting on his knees. Eyes speared across the crowds. Little frown kinking his dark brows in the middle. He looks more intense than usual.

Going this long without glimpsing even one sight of you? Something’s gotta to be up.

He really doesn’t want to look, and he’s not really. It’s quite a repulsive sight happening across the way.

Blondie and her golden haired ape are stood making out, leaning against the brick wall opposite. All wandering hands and tonguing each other’s tonsils. Swapping spit and lusty grins. Not giving a shit.

He’s waiting for his moment. For the opportunity to strike out, like a ready coiled viper.

His knee jiggles and it bounces the bench seat. He barely notices. Too preoccupied. His bracelet jingles on his wrist. Blondie breaks away and the ape goes off in another direction. She walks into the shade of the hallway.

His moment sails right on into his hands. He snatches it.

He bolts up and bounded off the table like it had gone up in flames. Eyes dead ahead. Feet stomping the table top and then down to the bench with precise heavy steps.

The guys around him were fairly used to his outbursting displays of movement. It seemed all Eddie ever did was burst out of control and be unpredictable. Scamper around with that odd sort of scurrying way he moves. Other people walked: Eddie frolicked.

“Hey, where you goin?” Wheeler asks.

“To do battle with a fire breathing dragon.” He calls over his shoulder with a wry little grin.

That typical Munson wild-boy look he gives that’s all big bourbon eyes the size of dinner plates; grin dipped in craziness. Usually the expression that proceeded a whole shit tonne of poor decisions.

As he scurried off the lot after tweedle-dumb, he did feel like he should have armed himself. A sword maybe. A heavy duty shield. Something to bat the curling tongues of flames away when they rise- and oh, they will rise.

He scampers away. Leaves his friends stunned as to what the hell he means. They all share crumpled and vacant looks behind his back as he leaves them crashing about in his rushed wake.

W-was that weird guys?

When is he ever not weird?

Fair.

Eddie rounds the corner and catches her alone. In a partially empty hallway. Lockers sit gleaming either side. Fierce metal red in the lowlight as sun slanted its angry gold across the dull lino. The grey breeze block walls that he really really hates, lining the dour hallways of this freedom crushing institute, of conformity and misery.

He catches up with Linda as she’s slamming stuff in her locker without care, and pouting, to touch up her waxy pink lipstick in a little mirror on her door. Wiping ape drool off her chin and checking her permed hair still bounced and shone. Scrunching the back of it with those pink talons she calls nails.

Claws. Eddie noted. They were definitely claws.

She pushes her locker door closed. Actually recoils back when she sees him walking towards her.

She grimaces like some flea ridden stray has bounded up to her. Covered in mange, and with matted fur. Eddie grits his teeth. Steels his resolve.

“You gotta sec, Blondie?” He asks all casual. Actually tried to keep his voice in neutral territory.

“I have a boyfriend.” She sneers out.

“Yeah. Well. He’s really not my type. You’re safe.”

“Too much product in his hair for my liking.” He adds with a sickly grin that he hopes turns her stomach.

Off the bat with his fists raised for this. Poised. Ready to block side swipes and hurl back a few of his own.

He stands there with his hands on his pockets a safe distance away. He doesn’t risk getting too close.

She’s likely to spray pepper in his face. Or screech and shout that the school freak was harassing her. Eddie keeps distance because he knows full well what people like her, think and say about him.

And if it goes sideways he’s the first one knee deep in the shit.

No matter who throws the first punch, it always sticks to Eddie. That’s where the trouble lands. Cause why fucking not- easy target. He may aswell pin a bullseye on his back. He can’t decry innocence. No one would believe him.

Her frown shifts into something fully venomous. Those baby blues of hers turn Nordic-chilly with icy rage. Gaze packed with frost. Hatred and annoyance blasted his way. What’s new.

“Why are you even talking to me, freak?” She asks. Voice unimpressed, and very much revealing her lack of patience. Scrunched her nose up she was stood near a foul smell. Like he hasn’t showered this morning, or put on deodorant.

That little word he detests stabs into him. Pin pricks on a wiry bed of exposed nerves. He clenched his teeth so as not to open his jaw and retaliate.

Oh, but its right there on the tip of his tongue. It was tempting. He swallows it down.

“Pure desperate dumbassery on my part. But I did wanna ask you something...” Eddie explains.

“Nice.” She spits out at his dig. Making a face that encouraged him to get the hell on with it.

She stands and kinks out a hip. Raps her nails in a slow rap-tap-tap on her locker door. Bag slung off her other shoulder. She looked bored of him already. Had her laser eyes set to bitch-

“I uh, noticed that your friend isn’t around. Something up with her, or what?” He asks in as casual a way as he can allow.

She frowns. “What the hell is it to you?”

 Here’s where thinking on his ever shuffling fearful feet comes in handy.

“Was supposed to drop her some stuff yesterday in the woods. She never showed.” He shrugged like it was easy. Kept his voice a tad quieter for obvious reasons, as he explained.

Somehow his cowardly little heart can’t tell her it’s because he has this huge boiling, raging crush on you.

He has a feeling she’d make a huge show of that. For both your sakes, he pads out the truth for now with a little harmless lie. Packs it around the truth like bubble wrap.

Linda looks like she buys it. Her brow quirks. He was the best route to good stuff around here. Whether she liked to admit it or not.

There were several far creepier guys out of school in town who could hook kids up with weed - for a price if girls were pretty or rip them off for way too much money and inferior stuff. Eddie was almost preferable in the vein of supply compared to those letchers.

Yeah, Munson is a total psycho. But his shits good. Strong. And he doesn’t ask you to flash your tits, or give him a handjob, like the others.

“She didn’t tell me she was buying shit from you.” She narrowed her eyes like it was his fault. Flicking her long lashes and blue doll eyes up and down him in blatant distaste.

“Honey, I sell reefer. I don’t to ask too many questions about how or why it’s used.” He charms.

“All I know is, she wanted some of my product.” He comes completely clean and hope he’s selling this lie. Big brown puppy eyes giving off what he hopes comes across as honesty.

It works.

“She usually scores Mexican stuff off the guy she works with.” She added. “Sal.”

“Who?” Eddie asks. Confused like he hadn’t just met the guy just two days ago.

“Why would she start buying off you?” She frowns. She says it like his name is worse than mud.

He feels like he’s having to sneak past Cerberus into the gates of hell. And those three heads with slobering teeth, and talons just keep coming back round to bite him in the ass.

“My stuff is primo. And plus I don’t know if you heard, but I’m easy on the eyes, and give discounts to pretty chicks.” He shoots her a playful wink. Clicks his tongue at her.

She scoffs. “Whatever, Munson.” She picks at her nails. Done with him.

“Look. I don’t have enough time to stand here through all the centuries of the Spanish Inquisition, Blondie. I just wanted to know why I lost out on making fifteen bucks yesterday. S’all. Kay? Thought you might know. You look tight. I see you guys hanging around with each other.” He offers.

Hands in his jacket pockets jerking up as he spoke. Playing the disinterested weed dealer. Like he’s nothing more to you. When really he wants to be so much more it’s an aching cavernous pit in his stomach, suspended in hope.

He twirls like he’s gonna step away. Mission failed.

“Forget it.” Shaking his head. Making his curly hair fly. Turning his DIO patch back to this and wondering what the hell he’s going to do now.

He smiles like it’s nothing, but something deep down inside is all twisted and mangled sad. Hitting rock bottom. Scraping razors down the blunt edge of his hope.

“She called in sick.”

Eddie turned back and looked over his shoulder.

Sick? What?

That little warm golden beam of hope starts to fizz in his stomach again. You weren’t avoiding him? Holy shit.

The sunny sense of giddiness comes slamming into his gut so hard he has to remember to try and breathe normally. His lungs feel too small.

It was spliced with curiosity now. He was happy as fuck, but now he knew the truth, he couldn’t put aside that you might’ve been on your own. Being sick.

With this skinny slutty drill sergeant as your lone pillar of emotional support with your mom away, now he worried about you suffering on your own, without any sort of kindness, or help.

“Said she had stomach flu, or cramps. I don’t know. I had to borrow my dad’s car to come to school.” She said like it was the biggest travesty of the 21st century for her with, you being out of action. Rolled those eyes over.

“Sick. Right.” Eddie nods. “Well, that explains it.” He grins.

And back out comes the school jester slash freak-

“Bless you for your time, your majesty. I am most obliged. I will let you go back to your embroidery, and having the peasants flogged.” He mock bows and rolls his hand as he does. Hair flipping over his neck. Chain hitting his leg as he moved.

“Creep.”

“Only the finest, sweet cheeks.” Shooting a blasting finger gun at her. Cocking his thumb as the trigger.

She gave him a look that was half venom, and all hatred.

“I have mace in my purse, Munson.” She warns. Popping a stick of juicy fruit in her mouth. Not that it would make her sour words any more bubble-gum sweeter.

“Man if I had a nickel-“ He quipped.

“Tell your friend to get well soon, alright? I gotta look after my prettiest newest customer.” He smirks like anything.

“Babe?” Comes a way too gruff voice. Mr. Blonde Ape lumbers up behind Linda and scrunches his big neanderthal forehead up at Eddie. Placing his huge mitt on her hip. Knuckles dragging along the ground.

He had a sad little George Michael earring dangling off one ear. Behind that, the ridiculous lion gold mullet, shiny with whatever celebrity endorsed product spray he caked on his perm.

The jokes floating into Eddie’s head right now are just too rich. He’s gonna burst-

“Uh oh. The cavalry?” Eddie asks. Smirking as he walks backwards, backing off. He knows its a jab. It’s a goading comment that’s meant to invite retaliation.

He’s never been very good at keeping his mouth out of wandering him recklessly into trouble.

“He bothering you?” Her boyfriend grunts. Looking like he wants to crack his beefy knuckles and slam Eddie’s curly head into the nearest wall of lockers, till his brains spilled out his ears.

“What do you want freak? Quit harassing her.”

“Wow. Sharp as a brick.” Eddie smiles in mocking as his eyes flick back to Linda. Ribbing her for being so stuck up to him, when she was going out with a guy who looked dumber than an actual box of rocks. Dry sponge for a brain.

Ironically, Eddie would trust a box of rocks more than any brain dead amoeba wearing a letterman. Bring on the box.

He points at the ape with his hand still in his pockets. “Really? IQ of 2, and it takes three for him to grunt right?” He goads.

“Fuck off.” Linda barks at him. There’s that mouth again.

Eddie remembered how you’d both cracked jokes about it. Her big mouth. Lifted his spirits a little. Facing down the dragon when entwined with memories of you? Suddenly not so scary.

“Gladly, Mi’lady.” He spins on his heel and bolts away.

He makes it back outside and it isn’t lost on the guys how freaking wide his smile is. Renewed whirling sort of energy to him again. Less antsy. More Eddie.

He stomps his feet heavily back up onto the bench and then the table top. Back to his rightful place.

On the way up he pinches the moon pie right out of Dustin’s grasp. Doesn’t even break his stride.

At least he says ‘thank you’ when he tears the food out of his young friends hand.

Henderson protests all squeaky, but then he had another one stashed in his backpack. Well learned by now. Eddie was like a scrounging feral coyote with stealing his food.

A feral coyote always chewing on a cigarette. That may well have been Eddie’s spirit animal.

They had all learnt that Eddie existed on seemingly nothing. Gas station burritos, cigarettes, and a few cold ones.

He doesn’t know where he draws the energy from to be so hyper for Hellfire. For thrashing and head-banging his crazy hair to deafening rock in his van. Rings clacking hard on his worn steering wheel as he drove and drummed along a beat. Spouted hardcore rock lyrics and made a face with that curling tongue hanging out his mouth.

Eddie chews noisily and splits his maniacal grin at Henderson as he eats. Waving off Dustin’s protests. That grumpy little frown coming forth from under his curls and hat brim.

Now Eddie needed to break even more bad news-

“By the way, you little shits are gonna have to make your own way home tonight.” Eddie says through chewing as he peers down at his Casio.

The table descends into pissy uproar. Eddie rolls those brown eyes over. Gareth throws a balled up piece of paper at his back. Eddie tosses it back, harder, with a leer. It bounces off his head.

“What are we being ditched for this time?” Wheeler asks.

A damsel in distress caught in her tower. Is what Eddie wants to say.

Eddie the brave has dared face the fire breathing dragon, and the meathead ogre. All that remains is seeing to the fair maiden in her hour of need.

“House call.” He tells them.

“Find your own wheels, folks.” Patting his pockets and calculating how much he had left over from his last couple of deals. It was a fair chunk. He liked to kid himself he was saving it for a rainy day.

He puts a cigarette between his lips. Maybe it’s to hide his grin.

He has a definite feeling he’ll be literally skipping out his last class.

~

You felt like hell.

Mind, hell was supposed to be considerably warm. Licking brimstone and red hot flames and all that. You were flipping between corpse cold clammy, and blazing hot. All the blankets pulled tight over your shoulder, and then the next minute, kicking them free.

You’d woken up two days ago with awful pains all squirming nausea in your belly, and a pounding head.

The glories of stomach flu. You spent the entire rest of the day hugging the toilet and hurling your guts out til there was nothing left to give. Retching til you were empty and your stomach cramping.

You then laid in bed shivering with fever for a whole day. Having to drag yourself down the kitchen wrapped in a blanket and fetch yourself a glass of water and something with a little sugar in.

Out of date orange sour juice was your lot. There wasn’t much else in. A few scraps of leftovers, 4 old eggs and a wilting bag of salad.

You weren’t in any kind of mood to stand and cook. You’d nibbled on a few graham crackers. Something dry. You’d kill for a ginger ale to kill the lingering nausea right now.

You rang your sister at the Diner and told her you weren’t so great. She promised to check in after her night shift with supplies. She’d be back around 6am. Mom was supposed to be back in three days’ time too. You’d be back to normalcy by then. With any luck-

You struggled with all your energy to get your miserable carcass in the shower and freshen up. Raking product through your ratty lank hair. You’d been sweating so much with it. The cool water sluicing over your skin felt so reviving.

You got out and pulled on snoopy sleep shorts and a faded Billy Idol tour tee. You’d plucked it out from the dollar store rack for three bucks. It was huge but your favourite shirt to sleep in. You vividly recall Linda going gaga over buying a pink faux leather skirt at the same time. You couldn’t be more opposites if you tried.

You twisted your hair in a towel and managed to scrape together the energy to drag your sheets and pillowcases into the basement to wash them.

By the time you schlepped your way back up the stairs with gargantuan effort, your bones rang with ache for the energy you’d expended.

You flopped back into your remade bed and shoved the small TV in your room on for some soothing noise. The tape you rented from Family Video was still in there from the other day. John Carpenters The Fog. One of your all time favourites. You could happily tune in and out you’d seen it so many times.

You watch the Poe quote about dreams, and the old sailor dangling the pocket watch to some kids around a campfire, before he claps it in his hands and says with that gravelly voice of storytelling doom, “11:55.”

You let it play in the background as you lazed there and in your freshly remade bed. Dragging a thin blanket over your legs. Settling in and feeling drowsy as a milky blue began to wash over the room.

Your small bedside lamp was on, staining your room gold. Window open and your white and pink striped curtains pulled back. They sway gentle on the meagre breeze. Spilling in scents of your garden at a dewy periwinkle sunset. The little white flowers climbing up the trellis smelled so sweet. All rolled in the flavour of cooling night air.

You finally let yourself sag down and drift in and out of sleep. Blanket tangled between your legs. When you blearily stumble out of sleeps cosy swallow again, the film is halfway through. Nick and Elizabeth trying to haul ass and get Andy to safety.

You woke hearing a slamming car door down the street. One of your neighbours coming and going. The sound drifting through your open windows and batting at your curtains. The Anderson’s’ chunky pit bull started barking it’s head off at the noise too.

You yawned and shoved the pillow under your tilted head to watch the film through hooded lids. You were damn hungry, but not hungry enough to move to rectify it. You’d survive til morning on water. Despite the way your belly gripes and growls for something more substantial than crackers.

You turn the film up and get lost in it. Laying back, until you hear a scuffle outside. Knocking up against the wall of your house.

You sit right up to listen better. Ears tuned for more. There’s definitely the telltale rustle and shake of the shrubs below your window. The scrape of something hitting the trellis.

You pause the video with a hurried click.

Some idiot was climbing up the side of your house.

You’re two seconds from bolting out to grab the baseball bat your mom kept in the upstairs closet.

But a familiar voice slithers on in. You catch onto snippets.

“Shit. Motherfucking,sonofa- betch.” Comes unsmothered curses from the underside of your window. There’s another hiss, shaking of a shrub, and a knock. A growl. A stab of a foot hooking onto wood.

That would be Eddie.

Who just fell ass first into a long neglected rose bush. Hissing and cursing at the scrape on his back.

Risking thorns, undeterred, he’s back up. Trying again on the trellis, with more success. Graze burning mean at his back where his t-shirt had ridden up.

You twist around in bed to see leathered elbows knock ungracefully into your room. Bracelet rattling around a skinny wrist. Faded sharpie phone number scrawled on his hand.

Waterfall of hair cupping that face and framing those bourbon-black eyes, and the wicked bright grin. A brown paper bag dangling from between his teeth.

When he sees you on your bed his brows raise in greeting. Muffled smile and sounds coming out his mouth. Spit soaking dark into the brown paper.

He thinks nothing of unfolding his lanky limbs into your bedroom. Shoving the window open wider and clumsily throwing himself inside. Tumbling in so his long legs kicked out. Stomach crawling onto the cushioned window seat. Zips and chains clinking from his jacket and jeans.

He dumped the bag onto the floor to free his mouth. Shiny teeth smiling blinding white right at you. This boy shines brighter than a blazing Indiana summer.

“Heard you were sick, Pencils.”

You blink and laugh cause it’s just so absurd.

You could just kiss that grin off him- sickness bug aside. You had to hold back your itching palms from reaching out for him. He was here. Come to see you.

You stand at the edge of your bed and struggle to know what to say to this sudden and bewildering sight.

Eddie Munson crashing into your room in an explosion of curse words and his on brand maniacal grin. Scaling the side of your house with his bare hands like a spider monkey. Grocery store bag clamped between his teeth.

“What the hell?” You ask him laughing. Shaking your head. Your chest bounces with it.

He stops dead in his tracks. Face falling. “Shit. This a bad time?”

The boy was really hanging there, dangling his legs out your window, asking permission to climb aboard.

You help him by pushing your curtains out his way. “God. No. No bad time. I just- wasn’t expecting a house caller at this hour.”

He finishes hauling himself fully inside.

He slipped into a deep southern Belle voice. Grinning. “Ah do declare ma-self a gentleman caller.”

“How did you know I was sick?”

“Little mean birdie with a blonde perm.” He rasps as he army crawls rest of the way inside.

“You talked to Linda?” You asked him, impressed. Your belly all buttery and mushy. Flipping over like it was trying to qualify for gymnastics Olympic gold.

“Jesus. How in the world did that go?” You asked.

“Goddamnit. That girl scary as hell.” He tells you as he hauls himself upright and snatches the paper bag off your floor. Groaning as he stood tall.

“John Houston in slutty red heels.” He describes her. Makes you chuckle. Appt description.

As he talks, he jerks an arm across his forehead to disturb the dewy sweat and the leaves caught in his shaggy mane he can feel itching at his forehead. Panting to get his breath back.

“Thank god you don’t have a three story house. Don’t think I would’a made it.” He says, winded. Smokers lungs you imagine.

You smile more just seeing the bits of leaf and broken twig he brought in. Like a stray cat. Coming in with parts of garden trailing after him.

You stand close and reach across to pluck them out. Teasing the little white petals out his fluffy strands of hair.

“Hang on now. I just have to check something…” He reaches for your hand and his warm, over-accessorised fingers seek your pulse. He darts his eyes off to the side and listens a moment.

“Yep. I definitely diagnose you, as not dead.” He laughs. You do too.

Then you wince.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get in touch. You had my number but I didn’t know how to reach you. Couldn’t see a Munson in the phone book.” You said.

He scuffs his toes against your carpet. Holding the grocery bag against his thigh looking sheepish.

“I uh, I did call your number. Couple times. Rung out. Thought maybe you were avoiding me.” He goes all twirly, and fidgets.

Eyes not meeting yours all vulnerable for a second. He instead takes in the state of his scuffed thorn scraped shoes. The moment overwhelming him.

Your heart sputters pathetically at the thought he’d been hurt and left doubting you. That’s perhaps the last thing on this earth you wanted.

You’d heard the house phone go yesterday. But you couldn’t risk taking your head out the toilet bowl to run and answer.

You put your hand on his elbow where he stands. Step closer. His eyes raise to meet yours. Peeking unsure out under that choppy fringe.

“I’d never ignore you.” You say so honestly it makes a grin burst onto his face. He couldn’t help it.

He believed you.

“Fucking stomach flu. If I knew who it was calling I would have run to it if I could. Sans vomiting down the phone to you.” You joke.

“Sexy.” He quips. Then he looks you over. Cute PJ’s. Your hair is all smushed. “How you doing now?”

You melt as he reaches across and runs his thumb slowly across your chin and your jaw. So tentative. So sweet.

“Better. Just tired I guess.” You fiddle with the hem of your Billy shirt. His eyes don’t dare drift from yours. You really don’t want him to stop touching you.

“That’s good. Good to know I won’t have to suddenly side step to avoid you puking on my feet. I’m not ready for a 360 exorcist move here.”

You laugh bitterly cause that’s not the most flattering image you wanted him to have of you.

“No projectiles. I promise.” You cross the space over your heart with a fingertip.

His hand is still stroking your jaw softly. Hair still a little damp and soaked in the fresh fake coconut scent of your shampoo. You stand there near each other and Eddie’s heart is just growing wings of its own.

 He’s smitten.

You look as cute as ever. A little drained maybe. Eyes a touch glassy, bags under them dark, splotchy neck like you’d been asleep.

“I wouldn’t get too close. I might still be contagious or something.” You warn him.

“And I look like shit right now.” You add. Putting your hand flat on the front of his jacket.

He doesn’t think you do. He unsticks a curl of hair off your cheek. You don’t even breathe too loud in fear it might spook him away.

“I’m willing to risk it. But we may wanna shelve the intensely hot making out tonight. Much as it pains me to say it. Wouldn’t want you to keel over on me, now.” He flirts.

God, that tone of his sets something in your knees quivering.

“Keel over?” You raise a brow.

“Uh-huh. I’m just that good babe.” He winks. But he gets his desired goal. Which is to see you smile and laugh at him.

He switches up the subject before you notice how much your proximity could make him blush.

“Now. Snoopy shorts. Get back into bed pronto. You’re not well.”

He snaps his fingers and points at your bed with a stern smirk. The bag rustles in his other hand.

“Bossy.” You remark as you turn and climb back into your sheets. A little wary and feeling girlish that suddenly, you’re noticing that he’s in your room.

Your room. He’s going to see your Bauhaus, Billy idol, and Bowie posters. He’s gonna see the pile of dirty washing shoved in your hamper and your messy artists desk, stuffed with pencils and paint smeared onto your sketchbooks.

Your walls that are still skated in pretty lilac paint from your childhood. Your pinned up life drawings and your lumpy arm chair with your blue bra and dirty jeans strewn on the arm of it. And you’d not shaved your legs or anything. Oh Jesus Christ. You should’ve tided up a bit.

He’s stood near your bed. He’s gonna be able to see the ratty old dog toy guarding the shelf over your desk. He’s already remarked on your snoopy shorts for heaven’s sake. You try not to let your mind go there with that last one-

He lets you settle in. Flips the blanket over your legs and smooths it over your knees. “There you go.” As he tucks you in like you are actually a patient.

Then he drops down onto his knees, on your carpet, crouching at the side of your bed.

“Now. Call me Florence fucking Nightingale, but I bought you a few things…“ He explains. Hands shuffling for his pockets. Which you suddenly notice are hugely bulkier than normal.

He fishes through his jacket pockets and all the compartments in his leathers. And those ring clad hands are bringing out goods for you.

A can of Sprite on one denim pocket. “Good for healing anything so I hear. Particularly hangovers.” He tells you with a grin.

“I won’t ask how you know that.” You simper.

“I’m such a paragon of virtue.” He insists all salacious and sugary.

A Canada Dry ginger ale is withdrawn from his other pocket. He puts them both on your nightstand. Pats the tops of both of them after he sets them down. Then he’s back to fishing in his pockets.

He brings out two twinkies, a three musketeers, and a single Reece’s cup.

“We can fight over that one later pencils.” He says with a grin.

“Patients’ bill of rights. Shouldn’t I get dibs you know- I am sick.” You stick out your bottom lip and bat your lashes at him.

“That’s playing dirty and you know it.” He shakes his head at you as he dives into more zipped pockets. His tongue tipped out between his teeth as he looks.

He produced a cereal box toy, one of those sticky gummy Alien things. Two DND dice “Huh, been looking for those.”

Along with a handful of some peanut butter crackers, and a mini bag of chips ahoy, and a DND figurine of a Hydra. Followed by a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup.

“Should have a tin of Campbell’s when you’re sick, you know, It’s the law. Cure for the soul.” He insists.

You smile wider.

This crazy metal head who half your school hated and swore was dangerous, here he was climbing through your window with a can of soup stuffed in his pocket, just for you.

He’s not some satanic devil freak. You’ve decided he’s actually a ray of pure fucking sunshine. A human ball of kinetic energy.

“I think that’s about it…” He says as a red sharpie, an eraser, a couple pennies, and a seven eleven receipt end up crumpled on the bed next to you. He did manage to find a fruit roll up too. He adds it to the ever growing pile.

“What’s in the bag?” You ask. Nodding to where he dumped it by your bedside table.

“Aha!” He turns and snatched it up with a huge grin and a flourish. “Flaming hot Cheetos and Funyuns.”

He brings them out and lays them on the bed, along with a marlboro packet.

“And a pack of reds, buuut, truth be told those are for me.” He smiles and stuffs them in his jacket pocket.

You wouldn’t fight him for those anyway.

You’d stolen a Newport gold out moms purse once, and smoked it in the girls bathroom at school with Linda, and that was enough. Never again.

Horrible taste of tobacco burning richly as you gagged for breath. Acrid taste on your tongue all day. You’d rubbed it away drinking way too much Pepsi.

“This is a lovely display of domesticity. Munson. Thank you.” You beam at him. Picking through the packets of candy and the crackers. And you meant it too. He noticed you do this curled little half smile when you’re being sincere.

“Gotta look after one of my top ten favourite people.” He winks.

Now he’s done unloading, he shrugs off his jacket by shimmying his shoulders, and toes off his sneakers. Your garden was dry as a bone. But he didn’t wanna be tracking too much dusty mud into your house.

He leaves his jacket and vest behind him on the bench seat. White socked feet squishing into your thick green carpet. Hellfire shirt on his skinny torso. What else?

He comes back to kneeling by your bed. Looking ridiculously cute as he hooks his hands over the edge of your mattress.

It’s pathetic how much it woos you.

“Top ten? I am touched.” You wisecrack, as he pats your knee over the covers. Before he reaches off for the can of soup. Clutched it in his hand. Twirled it up into the air.

“After Lemmy from Motörhead, but you’re definitely before Slash.” He says. After catching the tin in his other hand like he was juggling with it. His dimples come up where he smiles.

“Good. I like to know where I stand.” You nod along.

“Now. You stay there. I’ll go and heat this.” He scrambled up not at all elegantly and whirled away, loping to your bedroom door.

Oh christ. You sit up straighter. “Please try not to set fire to my kitchen.” You call after him.

“No guarantees.” Gets called cheekily up your stairs as he clatters down them. Leaping down the last few.

You can picture him bouncing around down there. Human pinball. Opening drawers, faffing with the cupboard doors trying to find your pots and pans.

No smell of smoke you can detect so that was a positive. He returns promptly and without fanfare, carrying a steaming mug in one hand, a spoon in the other.

“Couldn’t find your bowls. I improvised.” He speaks before he’s even in the room.

Treading carefully on white socked feet into your room. He crouches and hands you the piping hot mug and the spoon. You sit up and balance it on your knees. Thanking him again.

Your cheeks warm. You don’t think it’s from the soup though.

“What we watchin pencils?” He asks as he snaffles the packet of Cheetos onto his hands as he slumps down onto your carpet, and crosses his legs to sit there quite happily.

“You seen the Fog?” You ask as you start to slurp a mouthful of hot soup. Blowing on it first cause it was lava-hot.

He crunches Cheetos so loudly. speaks with his mouth full.

“Lock your doors. Bolt your windows.” He leers in a gravelly voice. Throws another Cheeto into his mouth. “Absolutely. A damn classic.”

“Wanna watch from the beginning?”

“Go for it. I got all night man.” He beams up at you. Wiggles his toes like he’s an excited little kid. You rewind it. Watch the screen slice to monochrome ribbons over the jerky picture as it does.

He seems content to stay there. On the floor. Knees up and hands clasping his kneecaps, as he plucks at the Cheetos and opens one of the peanut butter cracker packets.

You swirl your spoon into the soup. “You can come up here y’know. I mean. If, if you wanted. It’s much comfier than the floor.” You tell him.

“You missing me already?” He smiles all wide. Flashing his straight teeth. Tipping on his ass to lean right up against the bed. Beaming at you. Dimples on that mouth and wrinkles around those eyes.

“You hand delivered me soup. Doesn’t seem right you should sit on the floor.” You scoot over without jostling your dinner, and pat the space next to you.

Your bed was a spacious double. Plenty of room to be had on your blue and pink faded rosebud sheets. Couple of flowery throw pillows against the headboard. You could gladly make space for a little black leather and a splash of Hellfire on those prim sheets of yours.

“Alright, Pencils. But you gotta keep your hands to yourself. Alright?” He leers. “I know you’re at deaths door, and I’m irresistible and all…” He spreads those long guitar strumming fingers across his chest.

His rings gleam in the low gold light from your cheap yellow lamp. Limning him in gilded gold. Creeps across his cheekbones, his jaw, his neck. The curls that wave down his shoulders.

Does something particularly stunning to those deep dark eyes. Like a gold shooting star is bursting across them glittering, as he looks at you.

He’s utterly gorgeous. And it turns you inside out all over again how much you like him.

He pauses as he’s got his knees on the bed. Leaning over to ever-so-slightly invade your personal space. Because when around Eddie, not even your own personal space remained fully yours. Truth be told, you kinda liked that about him. He somehow made it the least obnoxious thing. Invading your space.

His hair hangs over his shoulders. As he stays on his knees at your feet. Grinning like a joker.

“Never fear. My hands shall remain on this mug at all times.” You promise. Cupping the warm sides of it.

He crawls past with a nod to prop himself up against the pillows next to you. Shuffling around to get comfy.

Your stomach goes all wooed and sentimental, cause that amalgamation of drugstore apple shampoo, powdery laundry detergent, cigarettes, and old leather is drifting over your bed as he clambered past on his hands and knees. His guitar pick on that ball chain necklace sways into his chest.

The scent of him and the closeness is chucking you back to memories. Living back through the yesterdays 

That sensation of being wrapped around him the record store closet. Your cheeks heat again and you take another sip of your soup to have something to blame it on.

It’s not two seconds of silence and he piped up again. Unable to leave gaps so it seems. “I like your room, by the way.”

You look at him and he’s got this smile on as he’s scanning around at your posters, and your books. Your messy clothes, your shelf unit stuffed with cassette tapes. The assorted minutia of your life crammed all around.

It’s real. It’s cool, it’s somehow intimate. Seeing this inner space all splashed in influence of you. It’s like pulling out wires and cogs from something cause you just want to see how it functions. How all the stacked things that build you, take shape.

Your little habits. Quirks, pinned and hand painted on the walls. History and childhood, all thumbtacked and hanging off picture pins. Your adolescence tucked into drawers, shelves stacked with it.

Wooden paintbrushes stuffed into an old enamel jug that the cream paint is flaking off. Your crinkly cornered art posters above the desk, ticket stubs faded on the far wall, pinned to a busy cork board. Pencil shavings scattered across your open sketchbook that he definitely peeked at when crossed the room. A deep sea blue stroke of an Indie State pennant flag.

“Thanks, it’s uh, not much but-“ You shrug. Modest.

“It looks like you.” He says softly.

“Disorganised?” You laugh.

“Cosy. Artful.” He decides. And he makes a mental note to check out your collection of cassette tapes before he leaves. You had quality taste and he wanted to unwrap more about it. Spool it out and study it.

“I see you’ve ultimately customised the bed space.” He swivels around and catches the scowling slashing red and black of a Billy Idol poster above your headboard. Shirtless and moody, Rebel Yell.

You smile as you dig your spoon into the broth. Swirling it around. You definitely felt your cheeks glow with that one.

“What can I say. I’m a fan.” You tell him openly. Twisting to meet his eyes.

Nods at your poster. “I can see that. He sure is one lucky dude.”

You frown. Confused. Lucky?

He gestures to your band tee.

“Listen I’m getting jealous. He gets to be close to your tits, and above your bed.” He winks.

You laugh. A loud laugh and you try not to snort.

“Maybe so. But you’re the one currently in my bed, Munson.“ Your tone dipping into lovely silky flirt.

You side eye a look at him and he tilts his head all quirky. Dimples in his cheeks rise again. “I guess so.”

He turns and makes a big show of twisting over and flipping the bird at the poster. I win you loser.

“I actually think he’s kinda cute-“

“He is a pretty hot dude. I’ll give you that.”

“You’re cuter though.” You tell him.

His brain stutters through the fact you paid him a compliment.

“You’re only trying to butter me up so you can steal the Reece’s cup. I see right through that facade, sweetheart.” He nudged your knee with his socked foot. Sprawled out on the bed with his hair fanned out crazy over one of your pillows.

You lock eyes. It feels like an electricity pulse. Stinging and sweet. He’d lean in and seal a kiss on your lips if he could.

“Yeah. You got me.” You play. And you’re not even playing at all.

You smile and eat more soup as the movie clicks back to the beginning. You point the remote and hit play.

When you finish your very satisfying mug dinner, you set the mug aside and curl down in your bed. Sliding under the blanket.

This move brings you closer to where Eddie is laid out. Brown eyes fixed on your small glowing tv screen. But his attention is screaming and shrieking and so tugged to you and the way you’re moving next to him.

You fold both hands up under your face and rest down on a pillow near his shoulder.

He swallows when your head sinks close to him. Flicks his eyes down and across to you. He sits with one arm folded behind his head. Legs kicked out every which way. His knee brushed into yours. You don’t shrink away. You stay put.

In fact, where you relax down, your cheek brushed against his shoulder and still you stay. Eddies smile curls a little at that.

There’s a rustle and when you look he’s shaking the Cheeto packet at you. You smile and reach in for some.

The silence is comfy somehow. The film blares on. He opens things and offers them to you. Crackers. The chips. He slurps the sprite. You hog the ginger ale. It’s nice.

You feel in on his chest when he speaks when he laughs it rolls through him in the shake of his steady bowed ribs. The way you smile makes the walls of his heart go all warm, gooey and slippy.

Eddie Munson is the type of guy to celebrate with his fists punched in the air like a roaring frat champion, when you throw a cookie that he catches in his mouth. Crunches crumbs all down his shirt front as he grins.

Your sides hurt with laughing, you nearly snort and send fiery ginger ale out your nose. How is he more amusing than the film you’re both pretending to watch? He just is.

He gossips to you about school. Of all mad things. He tells you about what happened in the canteen when Tammy. H on the cheer squad found out that Debbie C kissed her boyfriend after the basketball game. Tammy apparently dumped a carton of milk over her head. A slapping fight ensued. It was a mess.

You chuckle at the fact he doesn’t give a shit about any of the popular assholes. Except when something funny happens in the lunchroom in front of everyone. Then, it’s worth a chuckle over. They were both catty girls anyway, fighting over some boring ass jock. There was no love lost there from you guys.

He tells you he got a D on his Spanish paper which no one could understand how.

Dustin told him to stop eating his body weight in plastic wrapped jerky from the gas station. Chucked a syrupy yellow fruit cup at him and told him about a balanced diet so he wouldn’t end up getting scurvy.

“Honey, honestly I swear that kid is like the voice of my conscience. If that voice was like, an annoying little gnat yammering on, buzzing in my ear.”

“It’s sweet. He cares about you so much.” You defend.

“So sweet.” He mocks. “Little shrimp.”

But he can’t hide the clasp of affection that settles in his voice. Even in his mocking. The kid worships him. Looks up to him. You just know that puffs up some part of Eddie’s chest. This genuinely sweet and weirdo kid had found his hero in the freak. Always grinning up at the metal head with great gleaming stars in his eyes.

Eddie who was always unapologetically himself and hurled away anyone else’s distaste in him, with the contempt it deserved. Eddie who always told Dustin to be himself and like what he likes without shame.

You hit Eddie upside the head with some hardcore truth. See if it doesn’t sink in that crazy scarecrow head of his. That hard skull and his impenetrable skin, that both grew over double thick to keep out unwanted opinions. Wrapped his vulnerabilities up in razor wire and didn’t let anybody trespass on it.

He’d let you trespass though. Just a little.

“I think Henderson seriously looks up to you Eddie. You’re who he wants to be when he grows up. You’re a literal rockstar to him.”

He blows a raspberry.

“Nah man. He’s got Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington for that. He’s who kids look up too. And more importantly, he’s who their parents want them to be. Straight laced. Shiny hair. Chicks dig him. Prom King. Going to college like a good little boy and will have your daughter home by 9.” He rolls his eyes.

He doesn’t say it to get mean at you. But he’s twisted all the jagged edges around and pointed them in at himself.

You know this is coming from the well of his insecurities. And it plunged down so deep it didn’t see the light of day anymore. You peel off a few of those self deprecating cynical layers, and you hurl some honesty at him.

People aren’t usually… honest, with Eddie. Not really. They don’t get close enough. They don’t care enough. When it seems all be gets is bad press and horrible hard spitting truths. You wipe that away and decide to dare put something else there instead.

“I’ll bet you that Reece’s cup your scrawny ass is so wrong on that. Munson.”

His hair flicks out when he turns to look at you. Sat there and those inscrutable brown eyes looking all melty and puppyish.

“You think it’s scrawny?”

You bite a cracker and grin. Shoulder to shoulder with him.

You’re slumped on each other as the film progresses. Drifting on. Eddie lifts his arm up to stretch out his shoulder, purely by chance, this leaves you curled up. Practically pasted onto his ribs. Hearing the full whump-whump of his heart push through his warm Hellfire clad side.

Underneath all that stiff denim and cold leather, he’s all softness. Mush. You’d never have suspected that. You end up resting your palm flat to his stomach.

He has to blink and revel in the way that touch of yours makes his stomach fizz with squirmy awareness. He begs begs begs his dick not to react cause that would just really shallow and cheapen this moment. He doesn’t want that.

He’s eating the gummy fruit roll up. He bites down on it, maybe too hard. Because he just tested, resting his palm down across your shoulder and stroking the dry ends of your hair. The raised bone of your shoulder blade through the washed black of your shirt. You smell like coconut and so do your pillows and he wants to bury his head in that sweet tropical smell. Wants to take a chunky bite out of it.

You nuzzle into him and make this soft noise at the back of your throat that has his body transcending on through this bed.

Flipping around in giddy idiot joy. It makes him bite his lip. He has to pull himself back to the ground from bumping the ceiling with every touch that you lean for- you fucking lean in for touch of him.

You fill his belly with warm fluffy pride. Euphoria. You stud his angry rocker heart full and silly with red cupids arrows.

And you sat there tonight with rose pink cheeks and didn’t pussyfoot about. No games. Straight laced honesty. Pure and unfiltered. Something hard and punchy like a vodka shot or a stick of dynamite.

Look at him with those eyes that just beckon him to taste your lips again, so he can chase the flavour of his name coming out your mouth.

And best of all, the pièce de résistance, you certainly don’t mince your words about what you think of him-

You admire him. Laughed and joked with him. Chucked Cheetos, cookies and crackers for him to catch with his mouth and laughed so crazy, like it’s insanity and it’s catching.

You tell him his friends love him, and somehow you heal over that ragged wound in his heart, that tells him he isn’t lovable. That little rift in his body that had been there since the day mommy abandoned him, and daddy got thrown in jail again.

It stitched up that little gaping hole. He felt it soothe and heal over. Closed a bit and it felt good.

When his head tips forwards, his eyes burn when he blinks them. Cause apparently you’d both fallen asleep. Lulled by the movie and the snuggly warmth from each other’s bodies all rolled up in the blankets.

The films credits are rolling on and on. His mouth is dry with peanut cracker dust and the sourness of sleep.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out. He rubs a dry knuckle onto his eyes until his world slants and bursts into popping static. He blinks and registers where his limbs are splayed.

Would you believe they’re curled around the shape of you. He doesn’t find that hard to discover.

His arm slung over your belly. Your hips are nestled back into the cradle of his pelvis cause you’d twisted and he didn’t even feel it.

His shoulder tingles, pins scrape to the bone, your hands are curled around his arm that’s over your pillow and down by your side.

His chest was crushed to your back and he’d wondered why his dreams smelt so good- He’d been nuzzling in to chase that sweet coconut smell entwined into your hair. Some added warmth of your skin and the feel of your body making him all dozy.

“Pencils?” He whispers. His voice is shrouded and raspy. He flicks out his free arm and reads his watch. The blinking square numbers tell him it’s 2:04 in the morning.

It feels wrong and mean, peeling the blanket off the corner of his thigh that he doesn’t remember pulling over himself. The new air that rushes over him is cold.

He slips his arms out carefully so as not to disturb your sleep. You looked serene, the way you breathed deep and even, had him leaning in and tucking a hair away from your warm cheek.

He carefully scoops the used packets of food as noiselessly as he can, into the waste paper basket under your desk that’s filled with scattered pencil shavings and crumpled up paper. He leaves the pile of food he gathered stacked neatly on your bedside. Nestled around the pool of gold still being cast around by your lamp.

He shoves his shoes on. Pulls on his jacket. Tiptoes across your squishy carpet and scribbled a note on an empty page of your sketchbook with his red sharpie. The soft skate of pen on paper as he wrote.

He did sneak a glimpse at your sketches. Some of the pen and ink ones you’d do that were better than some comic books he’s read (talented, brilliantly amazing and so nuanced)

Took one very quick spurring survey of your cassettes too. Colour him curious. (Really pencils? Kool and the gang?) Reminds himself to tease the shit out of you for that later.

He pulled your blanket up to your chin. switched your light off. Threw the room into darkness save for the steady sleepy burn of orange that flowed in via the street. Slanted across your carpet. He closes the curtains for the window across from your bed. Let you get your sleep.

He can’t resist brushing a thumb across your cheek before he leaves. Nestled a tentative kiss on top of your head. Takes a lungful of you. You are better than nicotine.

“Goodnight Pencils.”

Before he climbs out your window, and probably falls face first in that fucking prickly bush again, he leaves a note slotted on your bedside table. Your nickname unmissable in scrawled red slashing letters. A squiggly funky little doodle of him in a nurses costume. And another one of him, Eddie the Brave, battling with a sword against a permed and very cross dragon in high heels and lipstick.

He signs it with his phone number. And love, and a whole row of wobbly kisses. from, Florence fucking Nightingale.

He grows all warm with the thought of you waking up tomorrow and smiling at his dumbass note. That was the best feeling. He wishes he could bottle that and get drunk on it. Sip it like a pocket flask of whiskey or gin and he’s got DT’s like an alcoholic. High on the nearness of you.

It was worth the scrape and dig of rose thorns. That damn bush below your window that he falls into - again. It’s so worth it.

~

🕷Don’t wanna brag or nothin, but the next part is just sat here🕷