#but goddamn ephemeral has some moments

[rainbow-arrow]

why the fuck are you reacting like this is some big reveal

like the bitch you gave him the miraculous

[princess-of-the-corner]

Unpopular Opinion: Only reason why Marinette "struggled" with Guardianship in S4 is because nearly all Guardianship-centered episodes (Except Ephemeral and Season Finale) episodes were Alya-centric

I mean.

She's struggling because she's trying to do Goddamn Everything™ without a support system.

Compare this to how I write Mari in HC:

In HC, while she is technically the one in charge, she has Adrien as a full-time Equal partner in making decisions, as the most powerful pair and the ones who have been doing this long enough. She trusts him to make decisions without her. She can trust the rest of the team to make decisions mid-battle without her input, and trusts that they can step up if something happens to her. Even when she gets in a mood where she has to be in control of everything, the others are entirely able to take the reins away from her for a moment.

Back to Canon: Marinette really only has herself. She told Alya some, but is still calling all the shots on that. Chat is kept in the dark. None of the Team even have their Miraculous on them to make decisions, or even know jack shit about the situation as a whole.

So yeah just. She has no one.

[punkpresentmic]

Traitor Aizawa AU Pt. 3 — 1, 2:

Shouta ran away in the middle of the night. When Hizashi woke up, it was to an empty bed, to fists pounding at their shared suite, to UA in lockdown. Hizashi was immediately forced outside & taken in for questioning.

Shouta had left Nezu a resignation letter, in his own unmistakable handwriting. It's blunt, concise, & it contains detailed descriptions & evidence of his betrayal. It makes no excuses for his actions & it does not discuss his motivations.

When Shouta visits that night weeks upon weeks later, he says nothing of the letter & nothing of his motivations. Shouta is silent as Hizashi sobs, dutifully keeping his Quirk erased as asked. It's been a pressure building on Hizashi for far too long, so when the dam breaks, there's no stopping it. It's an unwelcome but necessary catharsis—one he needs because of Shouta, one he can have because of him. Hizashi cries himself to sleep in his husband's arms.

& in the morning, again, he wakes up alone. It could have been a dream, but this time there's a note on his nightstand. It's painfully simple, the script rushed: I'm sorry I couldn't be here when you wake up. I'm sorry it has to be like this. I want to talk with you soon. I love you, Hizashi.

He should report this. Shouta betrayed UA, he's a wanted villain, & he expressed interest in taking Eri. Hizashi should turn in the letter.

Hizashi makes himself a coffee, & he sets the letter in front of him, & he stares at it blankly while the Sun rises slowly outside. The moment the light hits it, it's like the decision has made itself. Hizashi puts the letter through their paper shredder, tucks the pieces into his pocket, buys a muffin at a coffee shop, & throws half of them away in his napkin in one trash can, half of them in another down the road. He doesn’t tell a soul. Not Nemuri. Not Eri. Not Nezu.

He has to see Shouta again.

It’s two weeks before there’s another Shouta sighting. One day Hizashi comes home & senses the difference immediately. &, oddly, it's not a bad different. He knows exactly what it means. So, he takes off his gear in the entryway. Locks the door. Takes a few calming breaths before he calls into the apartment: “Honey, I’m home.”

He steps into the bedroom. Sure enough, Shouta is sitting on the bed.

Hizashi stops. He looks like shit. Exhausted, face sallow like he hasn’t been eating, eyes red & irritated like he hasn’t been using his eye drops. It occurs to Hizashi that his prescription probably ran out. He can remember the last time he picked up a bottle from the pharmacy; he’d teased Shouta about his 'special eyes' that regular eye drops don’t work on. “How did you know I was here.” His voice is rough too. Hizashi wants to offer him water, a meal, something. He hovers in the doorway.

“I’ve felt your absence since you left. Of course I know when it’s changed.”

Shouta says nothing. Hizashi relents slightly, asks him if he’s eaten. As expected, he gets a shake of the head. Hizashi turns on a heel, brings the both of them tea & leftover takeout. Shouta scrunches his eyebrows in confusion when Hizashi hands him what’s always Shouta’s order. Hizashi shrugs, nonchalant as if he didn’t take up ordering it after Shouta left. Shouta opens his mouth to speak, but Hizashi holds up a hand. “Eat.”

& they do, in silence. Shouta is positively ravenous. Hizashi has so many questions. So many questions. But he shares this strange meal with his husband, wordlessly offering Shouta what he doesn’t finish as well. Finally, Shouta clears his throat. “You didn’t tell anybody about me.”

Hizashi doesn’t have it in him to glare—to make any expression, really. It’s all very… heavy. Fragile. Ephemeral. Breakable. Dangerous. Wrong. Hizashi purses his lips. “You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

He winces. "Hizashi, I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't."

Hizashi swallows the emotions that rise like bile in his throat, a potent mixture of fury & nausea. He has little control of what falls from his mouth. “You know, somebody referred to you as my ex the other day.”

Shouta’s expression is pained. He shakes his head & pulls his wedding ring out from its necklace tucked away as always in his ratty costume. Hizashi almost laughs. When Shouta commits to something, he commits fully, with his whole chest. It’s why so much of this doesn’t make any goddamn sense. It all threatens to choke him, but he laughs around the lump in his throat & shakes his head too, taking Shouta’s hand & squeezing hard to imprint the indent of the ring he put there into his palm. “It’s just not right, man.”

This time, Hizashi takes a page from Shouta’s book & bumps their foreheads together like a cat. Hizashi offers a watery smile. Shouta lets his eyes fall closed, inhales deeply. “I know it was too much to ask in my letter for you to believe that I'm still the person you believe me to be, but…” Hizashi freezes and pulls back, causing him to trail off.

“Shouta… what are you talking about?”

A flash of confusion, then fear crosses Shouta’s face. “The first letter I wrote to you. When I… When I left.” Shouta’s eyes search his for any sign of recognition, clearly troubled when he finds none. “I wrote everyone in my class letters. & Nezu. & Kayama. Hell, even Yagi—do you really think I wouldn’t face you of all—”

“—Shouta. None of those people received letters. Besides Nezu. I read your… resignation letter. Saw the evidence you laid out so logically for him. But I…” Hizashi’s blood suddenly grows cold. “Shou, the police took me down to the station that morning & searched the apartment. I didn’t think they took anything.” His breathing picks up. “They never told me anything about a letter—”

Shouta is barely breathing. Finally, after a long pause he swallows. “Nezu. Nezu must have found his first & arranged for a search & seizure. He would have extrapolated there were more.” He wipes a weary hand down his face, shaking his head. “You never… None of the students…” He covers his eyes, which must be aching. Hizashi has never been hesitant to offer physical reassurance to Shouta Aizawa, but he hesitates here & hates that he does. He pulls Shouta close with an arm over the shoulders.

“It’s alright,” he lies. Shouta knows. “We can talk now.”

So Shouta reiterates what was in the letter: what he’s done, how he loves him, how he wouldn't leave or do this without him if he had a choice, how he intends to return when this is settled, how in the meantime he would trust nobody else to watch over his students & Eri, how he needs Hizashi to trust that he is who Hizashi knows him to be.

“How am I supposed to be certain of that?” Hizashi whispers when he’s done.

It hurts him, Hizashi can see that. But all of this hurts. “I don’t know how to answer that.” They’re still holding hands. “But I want to,” he adds. “I want to prove it to you.”

“I want that too.”

There’s a tension in the air as they hover, faces close, uncertain if it would be okay to kiss each other. They think better of it, pull back with small sighs.

Instead, they discuss Eri. Shouta has been watching from afar when he can safely. He knew how she was struggling with her Quirk. He saw the doctor visits that hadn’t improved anything. He wanted to help. He also knew that he couldn’t sneak into UA forever, that the instant UA caught wind of it security would render it impossible & arrange for his capture. But if she’s with him, he can still help.

Hizashi shakes his head. “Shou, wherever you’ve been, it’s nowhere fit for a child. Your Quirk helps her, but her support network is here at UA. You were part of that network. & now you’re not. She is not leaving UA.”

Shouta shrinks, & after a moment he nods. He was always one to listen to reason. Hizashi, again, has to relent. As far as he can tell, Shouta only wants what’s best for her & it’s killing him not to be able to participate in that. So Hizashi elbows him lightly & pulls up pictures on his phone of all Eri has been up to lately, some of the students also making appearances. He leans Shouta onto his shoulder. It’s a tender moment. Almost normal. But all too soon it has to end. It’s not safe for Shouta to stay the night & there’s a certain window of time he has to catch to slip past security.

Shouta says he’ll return. He squeezes Hizashi’s hand as he goes to the window—the hand with his ring on it. Promises.

(pt. 4)

[juminly]

As The Rush Comes (Ikémen Vampire Theodorus Van Gogh x Reader)

Summary: You are at a nightclub with your friend Theodorus Van Gogh. The problem is, you want to be more than friends. Does he feel the same? Hell yes. Change is bound to happen. And it does. This one-shot was inspired by the song As the Rush Comes.   Read all 3 parts on AO3. Rating: Mature (explicit/coarse language, detailed mention of sexual acts) 

Tags: Modern AU, mutual pining, sexual tension/frustration, jealousy, dirty dancing. 

Warning: mention of the reader not remembering the events of a past night of heavy drinking and partying.  Word Count: 3500 approx. 

Club Music Playlist *Kiss you by Nadia Ali **Down to Love (Kyau & Albert Remix) by Armin Van Buuren feat. Ana Criado

***Still I Wait (Richard Durand’s In Search of Sunrise Remix) by Jonas Steur feat. Jennifer Rene. 

Song lyrics are in bold; look at this asterisks to know which song is playing in the background and play the song as you read -------------------------- *I'd wake up, and make love to you if I had you, I would touch you so much, but I'm not allowed to… Nadia Ali, bless her heart, was only adding salt to your wounds. You were already feeling salty enough for feeling the way you did and she didn’t make it any better. Why were you salty? While the song went on and on about how the vocalist just needed to wait for the perfect moment to kiss the one she wanted to show love to, you were here lamenting pathetically over Theodorus Van Gogh, the man that occupied your every waking thought and dream… and most recent fantasies.

The music was thrumming loudly in your ears, the discographies selected by this particular local DJ was always to your liking. The rhythmic beat of trance sending the club-goers into an ephemeral state of rapture as the dancefloor flocked with writhing bodies, the scent of alcohol, sweat and sex heady in the air. Were people living in some sort of state of drought? The thirst was real… and so palpable. You were not one to judge, you felt it too.

Thud… Thud… Thud… Was that the music or your pulse? You couldn’t tell anymore.

Would you pretend, we're only friends, if I kissed you, At least I can dream of you in a scene, when I'd kiss you.

You’ve dreamed of so many scenes, in so many different locations and in all of them, you were in the most compromising situations and positions. Holy fuck, just thinking about how those icy blue eyes staring into you while he lazily ran his tongue over his swollen lips, the ones you wanted to kiss and bite so damn much, that chiseled body of his positioned between your… No.. No… You told yourself you wouldn’t go there but your mind couldn’t help but wander.  The song had just been coaxing you to act on your impulses and you covered your ears, just to keep Nadia from tempting you more than you already were.

How many months has it been since the incident?

The office hottie, Arthur Conan Doyle, had thrown an extravagant birthday bash in his so-called crib, and to your own surprise, the man had exquisite taste and the entire thing was planned immaculately. Who had been his wingman during the entire process? The hot mister that was your companion at the club for the night. That was how, when and where you met him, much to your dismay.

You heard that things had gotten hot and heavy between you during that birthday party and you were literally flung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried into Arthur’s bedroom. Things had gotten that heated… However, big emphasis on the word “heard” cause you unfortunately don’t remember jackshit from that fateful night and cursed yourself all the time for this.

His hands roughly groping you and his lips fiercely crashing down on yours… The things that could’ve happened… The things you could’ve done… You could ONLY imagine. Imagine, yes. Remember, no. The heavens indisputably had some mocking plot to make you miserable. Miserable? You definitely were. After that night, you were thrown into the friendzone. With a capital F.

Pining after a man that wouldn’t lay a finger on you unless it was to ruffle your hair like some puppy. You almost got your chance at some type of romance in your uneventful life… Still, things only got interesting when that asshole suddenly showed up, but it wasn’t like you were actually willing to admit that to him. You’d rather swallow his… Brain and heart, focus. Libido and hormones, get the fuck away. He wants me… He wants me not… I want everything he’s got.

Shut it, Nadia. You were already drowning in heaps of doubt and you’ve clearly… clearly had enough of her feeding you more fantasies and unlawful and excessively unadulterated thoughts and you were doubting yourself already. And what you decided to do? Drink yourself into oblivion, accompanied by the vexing perpetrator who had just gotten back from the men’s room. It was admiration and pining time for you. As he slowly approached you with long and sure strides, Theodorus was, is and will always be probably the most gorgeous, handsome piece of eye-candy that you’ve ever laid your eyes on and you were 99.99% sure that this statement was your true and unbiased opinion.

Beige dress pants hugged the length of those legs that carried him, giving you the chance to drool over the definition of his stature that you could see thanks to the tightness of the fabric, emphasizing a bit too much for your liking on his… No, don’t go there. Heat flooded your reddened cheeks as your thoughts scrambled wildly in your mind as he found his seat next to you. That’s always where you found yourselves. Together. Always. You get along so well. It’s bound to be this way, right? The string of fate and the butterflies of time managed to find a way to bring you together. While your internal ruminations besieged your mind, a rich baritone touched your ears, unmistakably his. “We probably should leave soon. I don’t want to suffocate in this clothed orgy.” You shot him an inquisitive look, silently asking him to elaborate on his point. “You look like you’re about to melt in that pretty little dress of yours, Hondje. I’d rather hop to any pub or have a drink at that klootzak’s place and deal with his moaning than this. At least his place isn’t as filthy as this hellish kennel.”

“You talk like an old man, Theo. Why don’t we just try to live a little?” He simply gave you a glare, a response that you knew very well. He wasn’t going to waste his breath on such mundane frivolities. It seemed that you would have to take the drinking party elsewhere. Clubs were clearly not Theo’s favourite destination.

You couldn’t help but giggle at this man’s dog analogies. As much as they pissed the shit out of you… Wait. Rewind. Did he just compliment what you were wearing...? He noticed?

For the first time in a while, you decided to try “letting loose” and go for something different. You would usually go for something, more like, anything black but today was different. In celebration of whatever weird feeling and eccentricity that came over you, you decided to go for a skimpy off-the-shoulder purple dress that kissed every curve of your luscious form, barely reaching the top of your mid-thigh and pushed your bosom in a way that accentuated your cleavage. You felt hot and you wanted to feel hot too.

**It's down to love tonight, This is where we are, As we turn into the light, Let’s make it last...

On any other day, Down to Love would’ve been one of your favourite songs to listen to but definitely not today. You were clearly not down to any kind of love. This is not where you wanted to be and you didn’t want this to last. You growled under your breath, enough to have Theodorus, the man of the hour… no, he was the man of your every-fucking-day and your every-goddamn-dream and fantasy, tilt his head to the side to cast a judging gaze at you, raising an arched eyebrow with a silent what-the-fuck is wrong with you.

There was so much that was wrong with you and he was the cause of it all. The prime suspect. The only one, this maddeningly handsome asshole.

Lips slick with moisture, your eyes lingered a little too long on the inviting gleam before you attempted to relax in your seat, while Theo remained hunched apathetically over the bar counter, nursing his drink thoughtlessly. Both of you were so accustomed to whatever it was that you were doing, you fell into a pattern that soon began to feel more like a ritual. You couldn’t even remember how you became his drinking buddy but there was something that Arthur said once… Both of you were not the type to party hard so it made it hard for him to have fun with the both of you, even though Theo and him spent an obscene amount of time together. You were kindred spirits. That was a fact.

Being around him made it hard to breathe. You noticed that not only the first button of his shirt was open, but now, the second one was too, giving you a good look of impeccably sculpted pectorals, his skin shining under the epilepsy-inducing lights of the nightclub while drops of sweats meandered down to places unknown, unexplored… and desired. With one arm propped on the counter and leaning his full weight to one side, his form was completely angled towards you and his eyes roamed appraisingly over your provocative dress and your overall physique. You knew that look, you’ve seen it before. It was the same way he scrutinized and examined art.

His gaze was now posed on your thighs, your dress hiked up even more on your silky skin as you crossed and uncrossed your legs restlessly. “Looking at something, big guy? My eyes are up here. You’ve been checking me out since we got here.” you quipped with a smirk. “Hm?” he hummed, as if you had ripped him away from the depth of his thoughts. You could see a faint blush on the top of his cheekbones… It was clearly only a sign of inebriation. Right? “Oh, I was just wondering who you’re trying to seduce.” he replied blankly before continuing. “You wouldn’t need to dress up like this to impress me.” His tongue swiped over his lower lip, wettening it before throwing his head back, draining his glass of whiskey and turning his body away, leaving you perplexed by his words.  What… What exactly did he mean by that? Shaking your thoughts away, you had enough wine in your system to finally get the words spilling from your lips. “Theo… Wanna dance?” Those three words prickled his ear drums and he turned to look at you with a judging smirk. “Is it playtime, Hondje?” You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms at his expected remark, climbing off your bar stool and tapping your heeled foot on the black tile beneath you. Looking at him expectantly, your heart clenched, momentarily regretting your decision to build up the courage to take the first step. He was bound to embarass you somehow.

“I’m sure you can find lots of other pups and mutts to play with in that disgusting pile of bodies.” An affronted expression washed over his handsome face and you resisted the need to slap his smugness away. You began to tremble slightly and snapped at him “You suck, Theo!”. His reaction made you freeze for a second. His eyes were taking you in, gliding over your body from head to toe before locking with yours. “Would you like to take me for a test drive? Are you in heat, Hondje?” he practically purred.

“Fuck you, Theo.” Was he capable of doing anything but frustrate (and arouse) you? You could feel an intense heat building inside of you, your heart beating angrily in your chest as you seethed from his response. You blinked, completely outraged and offended as he dared to freaking chuckle at your contained outburst.

“You wish. Now, can you go bark at someone else and let me enjoy my bloody drink?” Not wanting to give him more of your precious time, you actually flipped him the bird this time, scowling at him in disbelief, all that wine in your blood giving way for your tongue to sharpen as the night went on. “Do you always have to be such an ass?”

The ear-splitting grin on Theo’s face suddenly transformed into a smirk… and a scowl? when a young man behind you asked you to dance. You couldn’t really register what the guy was saying. Something along the lines of “ I don’t know if he’s just stupid or blind” and honestly, you kind of agreed with him. As much as Theodorus Van Gogh was a genius at what he did, he was stupid for not giving in to you. You were ready to give him… your everything. You were in deep shit, being so in love with a man who would possibly not return your affections? He looked like the incarnation of heartbreak and didn’t that just make you giddy? Being around him almost made you… sarchotic.

Sarchotic or not. Now you had his full attention.

Those ocean blue eyes were trained on you, an unfamiliar predatorial aura reverberating from him, still seeping through Theodorus’ attempt to enshroud it with the negligible quirk of those lips, that half-smile that you knew too well. If he wanted a show, he’s gonna be getting one. Not that you really cared whether he enjoyed it or not, but the least you could do is actually enjoy the company of the… You looked at your newly appointed dance partner, who had just lead you to the dancefloor, to evaluate him.

Okay, he wasn’t too bad: a bit shorter and less muscular than Theo but his hair were waves of chocolate brown that were simply asking to be threaded through and pulled. You beamed at your partner, feeling a rush of adrenaline course through your blood, knowing that the handsome Dutch man had his eyes on you and you were going to put a damn show. Wait, it wasn’t a show. You were doing this for you. You didn’t give a fuck and just wanted to have some fun. Looking at the cutie in front of you, you raised your arms in the air and jumped to the beat of the music, body-rolling as you let the sinful rhythm of your racing thoughts lead your every movement. ***I wanted it, I needed it, I love the way your skin felt upon my skin, And I thought you felt the same but you threw me away, Threw me away and still

The man in front of you was definitely getting into the groove, slowly inching close to you and you were more than ready to welcome him. Your hands that were in the air were now resting on his shoulders, your fingers finding the inviting chocolate strands of his hair. His hands were on both sides of your hips, claiming control over the frantic sway of your hips, matching the booming tempo that filled the room. You licked your lips and bit them, feeling your heart race as you snuck a quick look at the bar counter, the expression on Theodorus’ face was absolutely feral… and bloodthirsty.

Good thing you had bitten your lips because you were about to let out an obscene moan as he looked like he was ready to slam you into a wall and fuck you senseless, growling in your ear: You’re already so wet for me, Hondje, so ready for me to slide inside you…. You’ve been teasing me all damn night and when I stuff you with my cock, make you mine… You’ll be screaming my name. A looming presence was suddenly behind you, a hand gripping your hip and forcefully pulling you away from the “cutie”. You had absolutely no idea what happened, when it happened and how it happened. You could’ve sworn that you heard something along the lines of “She’s mine” but it was most probably your brain playing tricks on you. Or not.

“Are you trying to play games with me, Knabbeltje?” His heavy hand on your hip clenched tightly, his fingertips digging in your soft flesh while you drank in the rumble of his voice in your ear, velvety smooth yet deep enough to shake you to the bone, capable of making your knees buckle in weakness. You fought the temptation to rub your legs together and continued the lascivious sway of your hips from side to side in a rhythm that was your own and one that Theodorus would come to learn. Cutie, who? Theodorus was the only person you knew. All your senses acutely aware of him and he made sure of that. Only a breath of air seperated your bodies yet, he was so close but still felt so far before he yanked your back brusquely, your back hitting the vast plain of his chest and the softness of your derriere grazing his crotch. You closed your eyes and hummed with a nonchalant tone, your back arching as you reached your arms behind you, gripping Theo by his nape and threading your digits leisurely through his chestnut locks.

“You really want to know, hm?” You crooned and he tensed briefly but soon relaxed behind you, one hand caressing the curve of your hips, his hold on you was firm and steady, making you feel the heat radiating from his body and enveloping you with the scent of his cologne mixed with whiskey, intoxicating you even more than the wine you drank.

One of his large hands snakes up the curve of your waist, lightly grazing the side of your soft mound and trailing up your neck and resting there. He rolled his hips against yours, your body following his every moment as he dictated your every single motion. The warmth of his breath tickled your ear as he crooned sultrily in your ear. “I could eat you all up, Knabbeltje… right fucking now.” I don't wanna feel rejection, don't wanna have no regrets… Is this a good decision or will you look for someone else? Leave me all by myself...

“Is that so?” you could hear your own smile in your voice and could hear an inherent raspiness in it too. Your thoughts swiveled with yearning and your judgement was clouded by your love for this man… and your inebriation. Your mutual ministrations continued as he grinded his hips at an excruciating pace, drawing out the torture that you were both suffering from. His long fingers were now teasing the column of your neck, careening over your sensitive skin and sending shivers up and down your spine. Slowly, he wrapped his hand on your neck, pressing only lightly and bit the tip of your earlobe before sucking on it, letting his tongue glide over its seams. “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. You want me to repeat myself?”

“I didn’t say any such thing, Theodorus.” You dared to use his full name, intentionally triggering him. His grip tightened on your neck and warm breath caressing your ear. “I’m not all bark like you.” He truly thought that you were all bark but you were prepared and intended to do lots of biting, now that he was so near. You tightened your grip on his strands, making him groan in response. “I hate that you make me feel this way.” you breathed out slowly, trying to ignore the tightening of anticipation rousing in your chest. “Enlighten me… What kind of way do I make you feel, hm?” It was now his turn to tease you. “You know how I feel about you…” you pouted, grudgingly taking a sharp inhale before you carried on with this morphed, semblance of a confession. “You keep… you keep messing with my head, Theo.”

“You’re doing much worse to me, mijn liefste.” Oh God, you didn’t know what he said but you were positive that it was not some dog related insult and your heart drummed even harder in your chest. Why did this man have so much control over you? His voice was like whiskey and chocolate, dark, decadent and  heavy with yearning, a blazing fire in your core, an excited tremor coursed through your veins like lightning, but not once did you rush the wicked to and fro of your hips, brushing your softness against the harsh ropes of sinew that made him the Adonis that he was.

Your cheeks were rosy as the pink dusk that painted clear skies and he saw that as you twisted your chest to look back and up at him. His fierce stare reflected in your glimmering eyes, your pupils dilating clearly, making them appear almost darkened in their shade. It would be blasphemous to say that Theodorus was anything but completely mesmerizing. “Don’t give me those eyes, Knabbeltje... or I promise I’ll take you here and now.”

I love to see you smile, I love, my love… As much as the thought had you reeling, you wanted the awaited spectacle to be a private one. Gazing straight in his almost glowing orbs of sapphire, he had the look of a man who was born ready to ravage you and rearrange your insides. Leaning down, he drawled against your lips with a huskiness that sent you into a frazzled state of need.

“When I fuck you, I’m going to make sure you always remember it. The only thing that’s gonna spill from those pretty lips is my name.”

------------ Read Part II  HERE.  Tagging le Theo simp squad + those who have been so kind to send me their ideas on what the “dirty dancing scenario” should be like: @delicateikemenmemes @sweetlittlemouse @nad-zeta @nafeary @raymiazaki @munarisblog @karmaaf​ (sorry if I forgot anyone else)  Hope you enjoyed this 💜 Please feel free to leave comments/feedback! Masterlist

[akvtsuki-ari]

Semantics

Warnings: dom!spencer, sub!reader, choking, throatfucking, dirty talk, fucking through clothes, humiliation/degradation

Length: 5.4k

Authors Note: idk how to explain the plot of this fic all that well but i hope yall like this! by the way, the two positions Spencer puts you in is the prison guard position and the pole positon, in that order i spent some time on it and i hope yall like it lmfaosjdkh

Plot Summary: You and Spencer could date other people but you both knew that it wouldn’t matter in the end. 

There are few things to consider as a universal truth but some things just are. An example of that is here ;the only difference between fucking and making love were semantics. Most things in life are - semantics being the study of meaning in linguistics . As far as our universe knows, sex is an act born only out of necessity and frustration. The need to have sex to make life or the need to have sex because your body was responding to its urges and desires, aka frustration

Maybe in a lot of ways, your need to frustrate Spencer was innate to your humanity. An urge that speaks from generations past. It’s hard to say for sure why it’s happened but you both know how - it’s what has both of you in the place you are now.

Several months ago you and Spencer started hooking up. Casual sex and late night conversation at best, before life picked up any remaining free time and the both of you returned to back to reality. It was a stress reliever, a good time with no strings attached and no stakes involved. You wanted it that way and so did he - but shit always changes. Even when things aren’t supposed to be so complicated they are - because it’s almost inevitable that someone is going to catch feelings. Someone is going to feel something out for the other person or hell - someone else and things are just bound to get sticky and tangled. That’s the nature of casual endeavors - they’re designed to be ephemeral so when the date passes it all becomes complicated. Scintilla, a spark that passes through cold air and then disappears. That’s what hook-ups are intended for but you and Spencer just never figured out how to follow the rules. Neither of you were good at that.

It’s unclear who broke them first - whether your feelings of jealousy were the catalyst for what becomes of both of you. Was it Spencer for indulging her? Was it Spencer’s fault for whispering sweet nothings in her neck when he knew when you were watching? Or was it yours for retaliating? Too stubborn in your own regard to let him win. Spencer wasn’t really one for mind games of this kind but he couldn’t control himself it seemed like. It’s hard to say who started it - two parties indulging in lust-driven pettiness.

Her name started with an S, but you always managed to forget it. She was pretty, eyes low and so interested in Spencer. Her hands would wrap around his shoulders, resting her head on them when he was looking away. She’d drape herself over him at any chance and Spencer would whisper sweet-nothings to her. Laugh with her and look to you, eyes not full of challenge but faux neutrality. Spencer’s neck would always crane to look at her with surprise but you knew better.

It bothered you for a while, but who were you to be caught in a love triangle? He’s the one who had to live with it, after all - every time he was in-between your legs, he’d know she was never you. Still - you weren’t one to give up so quickly and Spencer was waiting on it. Check in 3 moves, your turn.

Imitation is the biggest form of flattery so when you walked into the function with a man on your hip - he wasn’t surprised. He watched the man who followed you in, the way his eyes were all over you. The way you sat on his lap, giving him all your time and attention - stroking his ego just because. You’d giggle at the shared promises, the feeling of his hands on your back. He was gentlemanly with you, carefully paying attention to you and no one else. He was handsome enough to get approached but he’d show disinterest before returning to you. He was moth to flame, but who was surprised? A woman as beautiful as you could do less to achieve that and you just happened to be so much more.

Every work function of any scale, your plus ones would follow you in as you and Spencer would speak to each-other in careful language. It was subtlety that was key because the two of you were the only people who knew that this was happening. It was behind the scenes a love story born of shadows, if you could call it that at all.

Penelope’s Christmas party was the beginning of the end, really.

“How’s Tyler?,” Spencer’s voice is minimal. You were impressed that he managed a name. He looks at you as you pour a glass of wine and you look back, flashing him a smile.

”He’s good. In the other room talking to Rossi and Tara about cars, I think,” you explain softly, wistfully. Spencer looks at the way you talk about him and a part of him seethes. Always does.

“How’s Sarah?,” you ask warmly. You bite your tongue as you talk but it’s killing you. He looks at you, brows quirked smiling back.

“She’s good. Her and Penelope are talking about cats,” Spencer laughs warmly. You hate the way he sounds about it. You want nothing more than to argue with him.

Speak of the devil, you figure. Sarah walks towards Spencer, immediately wrapping herself around Spencer’s side. She whispers something in Spencer’s ear and he smiles, whispering something back before looking to you, eyes full of challenge. You don’t say anything, smiling back at him before you sit up on the kitchen counter. Spencer watches as your skirt hiked up - the garter around your thigh making him... distracted. You just look at him for a second, looking into his expression before getting irritated.

Tyler walks in soon after and you give him a small smile. Sarah is quick to say hello to him and he returns it with ease. He’s polite, always is.

“You ready to go Y/N,” He asks kindly. You give him a grin, wrapping arms around his neck and drawing him in, burying your face in his neck before nodding. He laughs for a second and looks at you as you lift yourself up.

“Weirdo,” he jokes. You scrunch your expression up at him before looking at Spencer. His jaw is tight - you win.

“We’re gonna hit the hay, y’all, I’ll see you tomorrow though,” you say back. Spencer just nods, awarding you a tight lipped smile.

“See you,” his voice is a distant sound as you walk with Tyler.

_____

But, hook-ups were ephemeral, predestined to be anything but long-lasting and in order for things not to get sticky it was only a week after that you and Tyler broke things off. Tyler was too kind for you to let things get too messy. So you didn’t, and for you that was the end of road. Spencer was well... Spencer, still.

The game was still on, but you had no moves for now. You figured for now you just go and have fun, see what happened.

That would work better than you wanted. The next function was Tara’s birthday. She was disappointed that you and Tyler had ended things but was happy to hear you two were friends. You wish you could explain everything else to her but you figure that it’s obsolete.

Spencer was there with Sarah, eyeing you as the both of them sat in the corner. He watched you carefully, not frustrated just... interested.

He catches the way you look to the people around you - listening intently. Your eyes would flash with challenge while you and Luke played drinking games, truth or dare. He watched the way you talked to Luke, confident and excited. He watched the way you danced and ignored him, and it was getting to him more than he wanted to admit.

There was something in the universe that said this was it. He wasn’t sure what it was, or how to explain it. He knew the moment Sarah said she needed to go home, the moment he walks into the kitchen and sees you swaying to music while you poured yourself a drink. The way you talked to him - mostly sober but tipsy enough to just speak candidly. Spencer was in for it, that much was so goddamn obvious now.

“Where’s Sarah?,” your voice is curious.

“Went home, she has a long day tomorrow. For work,” he clarified. You hum in response.

“That sucks, you must be bored,” you say honestly. Spencer shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says back. You look at him curiously, eyes reading his expression that seems so far out.

“She’s sweet,” you say earnestly. You stand next to him, sipping your drink as you stare out. Spencer looks over at you and nods.

“You’d know something about that,” his voice is low. You’re a little startled, but you just pick yourself up to walk out of the kitchen.

“Too soon,”

——

Soon the picture was bound to fall together. Sarah and Spencer ended things - on good terms but it didn’t matter. It was just you and Spencer again, stagnant in an impossible place with impossible ends. Months of jealousy and mind games, combined with stubbornness wasn’t going to end in a way that was pretty but maybe that’s what you wanted. Maybe that’s what needed to happen.

Spencer broke first. Months of frustration would do that to a man who fucked you like you were the only woman on earth. It was just a text message, it should’ve been just a text message anyways but how could it be? No such thing as simplicity in this universe the two of you shared, one of jealous reminders and sly comments. All that subtext meant that the build up was that much more impactful.

Spencer: How long has it been?

You: Long enough.

You: Checkmate.

Spencer: Good game, Y/N.

It probably wouldn’t make a lick of sense to anyone else but you and Spencer just knew. You knew what it was - an invitation to come over like you’d done so many times before. It was a recognition that the game was over and it was up to you to reap the benefits of your long-term, maddening and frustrating endeavors.

——-

The drive to Spencer’s house was taking more time than it normally did. You knocked at his door and when you opened it, there Spencer was. He was pretty.

“Come in,” Spencer’s voice was low. The whole environment was thick with an immediate feeling of lust - derived of painfully long and drawn out arguing. It was foreplay in its own right, you suppose.

It was instantaneous. Like the second the door shut behind you, Spencer backed you into a wall - shedding your coat while his hands found themselves underneath your blouse. He hikes your leg up to his side as he looks at you, down into your eyes as his lips and breath ghost over yours. Your breathing is so fast you’re afraid you might pass out. You can’t help yourself whimper. Spencer voice borders visceral.

“You’re gonna drive me fucking insane,” Spencer comments. You hold your eye contact.

“I always was,” you challenge Spencer still. You were determined to piss him off as much as humanly possible because you needed him to own you.

Spencer can’t hold out for another second as his lips press against yours. Open mouthed kisses that are carried over and drawn out, as Spencer’s hands grip your thighs - pushing his hips to yours. He’s so eager to touch you - fuck you over and over again until you’re too tired to speak. Spencer was ready to do things to you that he’d never let himself do before. When his teeth tug at you bottom lip, tongue let reckless along your lips as he kisses you deeper - you know he’s been thinking of you. He’s indulging his own selfish desires by kissing you this way and he knows it. You kiss him back with just as much frustration and anger.

It needs to be everything. It needs to fulfill your needs and desires that have been growing for the last few months and you’ll fuck him till sunrise, sit on his face and disrespect him till he gets it. That he’s yours just as much as your his.

You and Spencer kiss like there’s no oxygen left, but you pull back from Spencer to breathe. Your chest rising and falling as Spencer looks at you - really looks at you. His eyes are full of fire.

“Don’t you wanna talk, Spencer?,” your voice is biting. Spencer rolls his eyes.

“You start,” Spencer comments, picking you up as he buries his face in your neck. You smile for a second as he carries you to his bedroom.

“Was she good?,” it’s your first question of the night, Spencer shrugs as he lays you down. His fingers work to unbutton your blouse, eyes glued to your chest. Lace, it was new but not new enough to be for him. A purposeful move on your part as Spencer’s fingers work their way around your back, unclasping it and letting it fall from your frame. You lift your hands up as Spencer slides it off of you - eyes drinking in the sight of you. He hasn’t seen you on display like this and fuck did he miss it. He doesn’t know where to start so he starts at your neck. Kisses being pressed onto your jaw, you relish the way Spencer’s hands find you. They find themselves at your hips, encouraging them to wrap around his waist which you do without question.

Spencer’s lips are soft, his teeth scrape along patches of skin as you crane your neck up so he can get more room. He draws your skin between his lips, sucking softly before kissing the marks, admiring the broken capillaries underneath your skin for a few seconds before continuing. You almost wanna laugh at how much he adores them and they way they decorate your neck.

“She was good,” Spencer replies to you between actions. You’re a little distracted but you had so much you wanted to know still.

“Better than me?,” your voice is bitter. Spencer laughs, pressing his dick against you, before speaking.

“What if she was?,” Spencer replies back.

“Answer the question,” you demand. Spencer looks up at you as your expression shifts into one much more displaced.

He decided to be honest with you.

“Not better than you,” Spencer responds softly, mouth travel down to your chest. His mouth finds your nipples, his tongue flicking against t back and forth. The wet trail it leaves behind a cold sensation that made you a little dizzy to how easy they came to attention. Spencer’s fingers touch them carefully, brushing against them with rhythm. You moan, shivering at them.

You felt good - but you could feel something missing in the endeavor. Spencer was holding back and you could feel it, slowly reverting back to his old ways by keeping you out of his thoughts and you weren’t going to let that happen again.

“Spencer,” you warn. Spencer’s eyes are glassy, but you sit up to look at Spencer. He sits back on his knees and looks at you as you fix yourself up.

“Don’t do this shit,” you explain carefully. Spencer rubs his face with his hands, not saying anything.

You look at him, your chest bubbling with anger and borderline resentment as he stared at you. His expression is unreadable, as his eyes gaze to your body then flick back up to you.

“For fucksake, Spencer - I’m not doing this. Gimme my shit so I can leave,” you say beyond annoyed. This was one of the problems - that Spencer didn’t have the backbone to just be real with you. Not about how he felt, not about how you made him feel. He always counted on you to force the upper hand but not this time. Semantics required that both of you participate accurately to how you feel and it was always your job. When Spencer sees you move, he holds you back and looks into you. His eyes are dark.

“You’re so fucking aggravating, you know that,” Spencer leans into your neck, his hands on your back as you go to move away from him.

“Clearly not,” you complain. Spencer’s hands come around your neck, both of the around your throat as he forces you to look up at him.

“Color?,”

“Green,”

“You wanna know I’m holding back, Y/N,” he says into your ear. You’re too stubborn to choke out a yes.

“Because you’re such a fucking brat and you haven’t earned it,” He speaks into your ears. You can feel his hands grip tightly around the column of your throat.

“Everytime you open your mouth you manage to piss me off. You think it’s cute to be like that, don’t you? ,” His hands release from your neck as you look at him with suprise, trying to hold back your delight. He unzips his pants and pull his cock out.

”Get on your knees,”

“I don’t want to,” you lied between your teeth. You wanted to suck the soul out of Spencer’s body but you needed him to keep this up.

His hands grip your hair and pull tightly. A gasp escapes your mouth as your eyes flutter up to look at him.

“Funny, I don’t remember asking,” Spencer laughs sarcastically, he leans into your ear “Get on your fucking knees,”

You stand up stubbornly and do as your told, keeping your mouth shut as you watch Spencer stand up over you. He’s intimidating like this, his dick clear over your face. He’s huge, which is good and bad.

“Open,” Spencer asks. Your instinct is to open your mouth and stick your tongue out like Spencer had instructed you to do so many times before but you don’t. You look at him dumbly, watch as he hands cup your jaw, tilting your head to look at him.

“It’s only been a few months and you’ve forgotten where you belong so quickly,” Spencer hums. His hands rests on the side of your face as he looks down at you.

“Tyler wasn’t putting you in your place like you deserve to be, no wonder you’ve acted out so much,” he comments, annoyance clear in his voice.

His thumb presses against your lips, forcing your mouth open. You’re quick to oblige after that, your tongue stuck out as you await Spencer.

“Good girl,” The praise is music to your fucking ears. You knew he didn’t want to say, but he meant it and that’s what mattered. You rub your thighs together, as Spencer hits the tip of his cock against tor tongue.

“Before, I would’ve never done this, but you’ve just somehow managed to upset me so much that the prospect of you interrupting my thoughts is so annoying that I just have to make sure I shut you up,” Spencer explains lengthily.

Spencer eases his way to the back of your throat, his hand on the back of your head as he feels his dick hit the back of your throat. Spencer’s bigger than you remember him being, and the idea that he was going to fuck your throat made you sore, voice already disappearing. You just look up at him, through long lashes and Spencer groans.

“Touch yourself and I won’t fuck you for months,” Spencer warns. You damn yourself for wanting to obey him and doing as he says.

Spencer’s hips pullback before he snaps them back to the back of your throat. You choke on and Spencer relishes in the noise. Tears forming at the corners of your eyes as you managed to look up at him. Mascara runs under your eyes as Spencer falls into rhythm, filling your throat with his length at a constant speed. The sounds of you gagging around it filled the room as Spencer’s voice fell to your ears, spit spilling from the corners of your lips. You move your hands to wipe it away and Spencer’s stops you.

“Leave it, you’re prettier like that,”

Jesus Christ.

“You always manage to make me so angry, and I’m honestly kinda impressed by it,” Spencer says softly, groans mixed with his commentary. You hum for him to continue and the sensation makes his leg twitch.

“You’re just so fucking stubborn. If you would’ve told me you were so jealous, I would’ve ended things immediately,” he admits to you.

“Then Tyler came around and I lost my patience,” he explains, fingers brushing your hair out of your face.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re mine,” Spencer repeats. You feel your heart melt.

“Seeing you with Tyler was lesson enough, so I’m gonna fuck you until every memory you had with him is shit compared to how I fuck you,”

“Every mark on your body, my dick down your throat - stretching you out when I fuck you. I should’ve know this was what you wanted really,” Spencer quips. You groan around him - absolutely turned on by his possession.

“You’re a slut for me, and me only, right love?,” Spencer asks you, pulling his dick out from the brutal session as you look to him with a bordering disgusting amount of adoration.

“Yes, sir,” your voice is hoarse as you look up at him. His eyes look at you with so much love as he smiles down at you.

“You’re so good for me,” Spencer says softly. He kisses you softly and slow and you could cry from how pliabld you felt.

“Sir, I love you,” your voice was fucked beyond belief. Spencer’s heart melts at the combination of title and sub space. He kisses you softly, petting your hair and wiping your chin of spit.

“I love you too, princess,” He says, making sure that you two talk about it later. “You still want it rough, sweetheart?,” he asks checking up on you. You appreciate the sentiment but you shake your head with vigor.

“If you don’t fuck me like a total brat I’m going to be unbelievably upset,” you say, the sad thought sobering you up immediately. He laughs aloud, kissing you again.

“Okay, what’s your safeword?,” Spencer asks.

“Gren for go, yellow for slow down, red for stop,” you repeat obediently. Spencer smiles.

“Get on the bed for me,” Spencer says softly. You oblige fast, holding your legs in the air as Spencer kneels between your legs. Your legs wrap around his shoulders pulling him closer and he chuckles.

Spencer’s rock hard, thinking about the outfit you chose for him. White cotton panties that left a mess all over your thighs and clit. The stain between your legs makes it hard for Spencer to slow down.

Spencer places a kiss on your clit, swollen and untouched, your cry immediately in his ear, your hands gripping his hair as he places kisses all over your clothed pussy, your skirt pushed over your stomach. His fingers hook into your underwear, sliding them down, and letting you maneuver your legs to slide them off. You go to take the skirt off but Spencer stops you.

“Leave it,” He breathes out. You nod, biting your lip as you feels Spencer lips work around your clit. He doesn’t make you wait long, and you’re not sure whether or not you should be grateful or scared for whats to come. 

Spencers mouth is terribly skillfully, his tongue licking a long swipe - collecting arrousal in his mouth before spitting it back onto your clit. You were a goner before this but watching Spencer do something so filthy really pushed you to the edge. You grinded against his mouth but he pushes your hips down. He uses his fingers to spread you, eyeing how wet you are before closing his eyes - tongue placing long flat swipes along it. Your clit pulsates as he buries his face between your legs - tongue placing minmal pressure it as his head bob up and down. Spencer was so good at giving head it was kind of annoying. He’d draw you close to the edge a few times like that, watching as your legs shake before he slows down again -mpaying attention to your thighs and waist everytime he watched you come down from your high. 

“Spencer, please let me cum - please,” 

“Please what?,”

“Please sir,” your voice escapes you as you hear Spencer chuckles looking at you pathetically. He shakes his head. 

“Brats don’t get to cum so soon, you wanna cum - you have to earn it remember?,” Spencer reminds. You whine at the reminder, immediately protesting. 

“I did earn it, I did,” your argument is meaningless but you wanted to cum - needed to cum and if he doesn’t give it to you soon you were going to cry. 

“Aw, is that so? You behaving while I facefucked you means you earned an orgasm huh? That’s news to me, love,” Spencer says sarcastically. You aren’t sure how you could be more turned on but here you were. Spencer could be so biting when he wanted to be and it drove you up the wall. 

“God,” you were infuriatingly turned on. Spencer strips of his shirt and pants, leaving the both of you in similar positions. You lay in wait for further instructions, but catch Spencer admiring you for a second. You hide your face in your hand and Spencer refrains from saying anything. He wants to tell you you’re so cute and that he loves you but he’s still supposed to be being mean to you - so his hands are tied. 

“Stand up,” Spencer instructs. You oblige, stretching a bit as you do. Spencer comes behind you, pressing his dick against your backside as his voice is drawn next to your ear. 

“You wanna cum don’t you?,” Spencer asks. You nod, chewing the inside of your lip. 

“But, I already told you you have to earn didn’t I?,” Spencer repeats, you nod again. 

“Use your words,” Spencer orders. Your voice croaks out. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Then bend over with your hands behind your back and take it for me, will you?,”  Spencer instructs. You do as your told, bending down, placing your hands behind your back. You feel Spencer's hands grip around your wrist - holding you up as he lines himself up at your entrance. It’s a slow, aching burn. Your more wet than you can really fathom being, but Spencer manages to make you feel tight. Every inch of him slowly gnawing you from the inside but it feels so good. It aches so good - you don’t recall the last time you felt this fucking full. Spencer was sunken into you so deeply, it felt like he belonged there. Like every claim about your body is his when he fucks you wasn’t just showy shit-talk but facts, plain and simple. You didn’t really know it could feel that good to get fucked before this and it could’ve been anything that made it so maddening. 

Spencer's hips pound you out. You can’t feel everytime he speeds up, slows down, moves up or draws the gesture out. Your body aches, but the position is so goddamn perfect - hitting your g spot, pressing up against it so forcefully - you feel your legs threaten to give out everytime he hits it. It’s fucking ridiculous - fucking ridiculous how good fucking one person could be but Spencer proved himself every damn time. 

“Wanna fuck you on the bed, love,” Spencer leans down to whisper. You let Spencer rebalance you as you stand up, and Spencer pulls out. You whimper, missing the feeling of him in you, but you soon feel Spencer's arms around you. 

“You’re too pretty to make such filthy noises, my love,” Spencer whispers “But that’s what sluts do, don’t they? Be pretty and filthy all at once,” 

You’re really incoherent. You want to say something that makes sense, argue back and fight with him but your desire to cum so hard you black out is much stronger than any urge you may have had to fight. You don’t know how to do anything but whine, so high-pitched and needy you feel like your voice could crack and disappear. Spencer just laughs. 

He lays down, and awaits you. You managed to get on the bed, facing away from Spencer as you throw your legs on either side of him. He bends his knee, as you turn to straddle his thigh - pressed against your clit. He clenches the muscle and you feel your legs shake. 

“Sir, please tell me I’ve earned it,” are the first words that leave your lips as you begin griding against Spencers thighs, riding his dick to the point your thighs felt like they’d give out at any second. Spencer groans at the feeling of you convulsing, so close to the edge. Spencer just nods. 

“You’re such a good girl for me, of course you can cum for me,” Spencer says lovingly, voice missing any trace of disrespectful strict dom Spencer. Replaced with adoring Spencer in an instant. 

“Fuck, fuck - Spencer, thank you. Oh my god, thank you,” you hold onto Spencer's legs as your orgasm breaks the tension rope that was holding it back. You’re unknotted, the feeling of pleasure clawing at all the aches that appeared all over your body, your skin burning. Your stomach was full of butterflies, all releasing at the same time as your entire body convulsed around Spencer. It was earth-shattering - your body struggling to keep up as you cum the hardest you have in months. It was so fucking good, the type of orgasm that keeps you awake for days at a time.

You breathe out, steady yourself as you slide off of Spencer and get on all fours infront of him. You take his dick into your mouth, sucking on the tip before taking all of it in your mouth. Spencer groans aloud as he finished into your throat, and you swallow without hesitation. Spencer looks at you so adoringly right after, as you crawl onto his chest and lay on him. He wraps his arms around you and smiles at you so brightly, it could blind you. 

“You did so good for me, I’m so proud of you,” Spencer praises. You blush hiding in his chest, looking at him with disgraceful amounts of affection. 

“You ready for aftercare?,”

You nod lazily, before Spencer sits up and whisks you away to the shower. 

___

You knew that you were in love with Spencer a while ago - but until now you hadn’t realize just how much you missed him. His fingers were massaging shampoo into your hair, the shower lightly pouring on the both of you as you made idle and loving conversation. There was a suprising about of things to catch up on. Spencer kissed your shoulders as he continued on. 

“I liked Sarah, you know,” you say softly. Spencer is confused by your sudden statement. 

“I really did - but at the time I just figured we were just having sex so it made me jealous when I saw you with her. I didn’t know how to tell you so I just let it be but it was killing me,” you confess honestly, wiping your nose as you sniffled. Spencer wrapped his arms around your back and kissed your neck - softly pressing kisses to all the bruises from the moments before. You leaned into him and sighed and he held you for a long while. 

“We were never anything more than casual,” Spencer assures you.  You nod, turning around to face him. Your arms envelope Spencer, holding him close to you with your face carefully in the crook of his neck. 

“I know, but still, sex is just sex and the rest is semantics isn’t it,” 

“Well, yeah. It means something to me when I do this to you. You’re my world, so it means I love you. Maybe it looks the same but it feels so different, it feels right when it’s you,” Spencer says sadly. You look up at him tear eyed and he smiles at you. 

“I love you, Spencer,” you say softly. He hugs you and makes you feel so safe. Even after all the words and glances and difficulties Spencer shows you in bed - he gives you twice that in love without question. He makes you feel whole, even when he was the one who unraveled you. He adores you, so clearly and you adore him too. 

___ 

taglist: @cynbx​ @zephyr-studiesjp​ @skrrrrrrrrrrt​ @reid-187​ @louistwinslover​ @nomajdetective​

[cupiscent]

Comparative Debicki studies

I threatened to do this, and recent discussions in the Tenet discord chat have inspired me to get serious about it because I love Elizabeth Debicki and I love Kat but I am particularly fascinated with how Kat stands in subtle, nuanced contrast to the last thing I saw ED in: the Night Manager. So let’s go.

This is Katharine Barton, art valuation expert and wife of arms dealing billionaire and all-around baddie Andrei Sator (Ken Branagh):

This is Jed Marshall, trophy girlfriend of arms dealing billionaire and all-around baddie Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie):

The similarities are obvious already, right? The differences are where it’s fascinating. (This is going to contain spoilers for both pieces of media, be warned!)

When we meet Kat in Tenet, she is a bitter and despairing woman. She doesn’t love her husband any more (though it’s implied that she did once) but is being held hostage through both their child and her past indiscretions. The Protagonist uses her as a lever and access point to her naughty husband; she is exploited as an asset; she gets screwed over in the process, but ultimately saves herself (with slight risk to the whole operation). Despite her being at various points aloof/bitchy, furious, in peril, and saved from danger by the Protagonist, the movie never tips over into James-Bond nonsense--she gives him a friendly peck on the cheek at one point, and that’s that. Mostly, he represents the return of hope, in the form of someone that her husband can’t control. That gives her the impetus to wake up from her despair--we see her literally sit up straight and pay attention when he walks out of the restaurant where he was supposed to be brought low--and eventually triumph.

When we meet Jed in The Night Manager, she’s probably diving naked into some body of water. This is a common theme for her. Jed knows that she has been purchased as one more accessory of Roper’s billionaire lifestyle--like a yacht, or an artwork. She is here to be expensive and desirable and unattainable to the average person. At one point she states to Tom Hiddleston (whose character has so many names I’ll just call him by actor), “I don’t care who sees me naked, I do care who sees me crying.” She also has past indiscretions, including a child, now being raised by her family far away from her. This pains her; there’s a strong indication of substance abuse. Jed is not happy, but she’s an immaculate and perfect pretense. It’s unclear if she’s ever loved Roper, but she’s certainly here of her own volition, carving out a life with her own sort of power. Then things start getting shaky, Hiddleston starts rattling the bars of her perfect cage, and she starts to get afraid. She is used as a lever and access point to the secrets of her naughty husband; she is seduced by Hiddleston, and exploited as an asset; she gets terrified, and traumatised, and ultimately saved by Hiddleston (at risk to the whole operation).

The big point of difference is obvious: Kat saves herself. And gosh that is powerful, especially contrasted with Jed, who trades one violent man’s protection for another, and who is saved partly because Hiddleston couldn’t save the last beautiful woman who came to him for help escaping Roper’s net of crime. (Then again, The Night Manager is le Carre, in all his complexity. Hiddleston needs Jed to be his salvation. He’s a goddamn mess who no longer knows himself and he needs to be her hero. In comparison, the Protagonist needs to get the job done, but he still wants to help Kat as much as he can.)

But in a way, Kat is still under the protection of menfolk--she’s first mentioned as “niece of Sir Someone-or-other Barton”, and there’s an implication that that’s partly why she hasn’t been more summarily dealt with by Sator. She’s got status and privilege and power behind her; people who can make life extremely difficult for Sator. But none of that has saved her from making terrible choices and ending up in a terrible situation. It isn’t enough to save her.

Jed’s power is self-made. She wields her body like a weapon, carefully honed and beautifully caparisoned. Every man in the room is supposed to be stupid with lust for her the moment she walks in; that’s the whole point of her, that’s why Roper picked her. But all that power also can’t save her from her terrible choices and this terrible situation. (I’m particularly fascinated by the nuance here of the “powerful” femme fatale, and a narrative of the power of a confident woman that usually shows up in lines like, “fuck those stuck-up bitches, you think you’re too good for me?” Jed’s is a fragile, ephemeral power, that evaporates in the face of male violence. Kat is physically threatened and beaten by Sator, but she’s never made quite as helpless, alone or terrified as Jed is. In a way, Kat is saved by the Protagonist, it’s just not at the end of everything.)

Both of them are women who seem to have a lot of poise and power, but are the victims of abuse and physical violence from their partners. (Sidebar here that I get very weary about intimate-partner violence being used as a marker of villainy in films. Of course he’s evil, he’s not just an arms dealer, he beats his wife. Never mind all the “such a nice guy”s who also beat their wives.) Both of them show different sorts of courage in attempting to leave the situation. Both of them show, in varying ways, how goddamn hard it is.

But in the end, the thing that strikes me most starkly and hauntingly is that Kat would probably think Jed’s a strumpet, and Jed would probably think Kat’s a bitch, and neither woman would be able to escape their solitary confinement. And I feel like I’ve seen some echoes of that in reactions to Kat, where some movie-goers don’t seem to know what to make of her if she isn’t supposed to fit into that James-Bond’s-girl sort of role.

Anyway, the bottom line is: I initially made a joke with my husband about Elizabeth Debicki getting typecast as the evil arms-dealer’s trophy spouse, but these are two fascinating characters done different in ways both big and delicately small, and I remain in absolute awe of her magnificent performances.

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

The Rose

Summary: “She’s fifty today, and in Dean’s opinion, there’s never been anyone more beautiful.” An alternate Dean reflects on the life he’s led. 

Warnings: SEASON 15 SPOILERS, bit of angst. 

Author’s Note: A follow-up to “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” which introduces this Alternate Dean. Beautiful header by @there-must-be-a-lock , editing and general flailing by @there-must-be-a-lock​, @thoughtslikeaminefield , @fangirlxwritesx67, and @cracksinthewalls .

Word Count: 1573

ItMightHaveBeenIntentional’s Masterlist

The Rose

She’s fifty today, and in Dean’s opinion, there’s never been anyone more beautiful. The day is pleasantly warm for this far into autumn, and she basks on the flannel blanket he spread out in the (more or less) exact spot of their first date some thirty years earlier. Thirty of the best years, he believes to his bones, that he doesn’t and could never deserve, and yet here they still are. 

And he just can’t keep his eyes off her.

“Any regrets?” she asks. She tilts her head back, eyes closed, soaking in the afternoon sun with a carefree abandon that never fails to steal his breath. She’s not talking about their afternoon off (he only closes the shop this one day a year, outside of Sundays and holidays). 

She means everything.

He knows his answer already, but still, he stops to think it over before saying anything. He’s getting more thoughtful in his older age, but even so, she always deserves his full consideration.

The wind shifts, a breeze ruffling the dark tendrils of hair that have escaped her braid. She cracks an eye open, glancing over as she waits for him to speak. She’s always been so patient with him, giving him time to gather his thoughts, knowing when he needs a push and when he just needs room to think.

Dean doesn’t tend to regret, in general. Sure, there are some things he planned on turning out a little different. When he was a teenager, he always dreamed of traveling around, maybe taking Sam on a coast-to-coast road trip when the younger Winchester graduated high school. 

But then Dean got it into his head he needed to learn bikes, John Winchester talked to his friend Danny Elkins, and Dean got started at Danny’s motorcycle shop. Four months later, she showed up with her dad’s forgotten lunch. 

He wouldn’t call it a life-changing moment so much as finding the north for his internal compass.

Kids were always on Dean’s radar, a big raucous family to drive the two of them wild and leave them exhausted but content (at least, he always figured his mom and dad were content), but for whatever reason, offspring just wasn’t in the cards for them. 

They’d spoken occasionally of adopting, but the shop needed more attention when Danny had his heart attack, and then Mary needed extra help around the house when John had his own. And though both men pulled through, Dean always felt obligated to stick around a little more, give a little more of his time and himself. 

After all, Sam had his wife and kids and college classes to teach. And once a month, when they were still young enough, Dean got full custody of his twin nephews and their younger sister while Sam and his wife went off to whatever getaway they could find within driving distance.

Dean’s always suspected they simply holed up at the house, turned off their phones, and slept, but he could never find any hard evidence.

And now even Sam’s kids are more or less grown and working on their own lives. The twins diverged from their childhood inseparability, with one working for an environmental non-profit while the other makes more than a decent living as an electrician. And though Dean’s niece is still in high school, she works in the shop on weekends (as long as she keeps her grades up) and is showing a clear affinity for the family business. 

So, yeah, once upon a time, he’d figured he’d wanted kids, but when it didn’t happen, they made the best of what was given, and neither of them was irrevocably torn up. She’s it for him, always has been, even when he didn’t know it. He’s never needed anything else. 

“None big enough to mean anything,” he murmurs, turning and squinting towards the setting sun. 

The breeze picks up again, sending a cold thrill down his spine. He can’t keep the crease from between his eyebrows, so maybe he can hide it for just a little while longer. He hears the rustle of grass, feels the blanket shift, and then she’s lifting his arm to drape it over her shoulder.

Yeah, there’s no hiding anything from her.

“Then what’s eatin’ at you, baby?”

He pulls her closer reflexively, tucking her against him in that spot that he swears was made to fit her. She smells of apples and nutmeg, and he knows that, even though it’s her birthday, there will be a hand-made pie waiting for him when they get home. 

He can see her perfectly in his mind, slicing up apples or rolling out pastry while she sings whatever song is stuck in her head that day. Bette Middler has been big for her lately, and while he’s definitely had his fill of Beaches, he’s pretty damn fond of hearing “The Rose” in that particular, melancholy way she sings when she’s distracted.

“God, I love you.” The words just spill out sometimes, and Dean stopped feeling embarrassed long ago. 

She takes his free hand, twining their fingers together, and waits.

“It’s the dreams again,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. 

He’s not scared (Dean Winchester doesn’t get scared by something as immaterial as a nightmare), but something akin to worry gnaws his gut too often recently. 

Dark dreams, dreams of hunting and being hunted, but by nothing of this world; dreams of blood and loss and a cold, cruel creator with no thought for anyone’s wants except his own. 

For as long as he can remember, Dean has dreamed of other lives, other hims, adventures and dangers, and life and death. Sam is always there, always by his side, sometimes for the good of them both, but sometimes for the detriment of... well, everything.

Time runs differently in those other lives: sometimes he’s a kid again, sometimes he’s middle-aged. He never dreams of older selves anymore, though, not since he hit his forties.

But in all those other lives, all those other worlds, all those other Sams and Deans, there’s never another her.

And that’s enough to have him thankful to wake with her in his arms every goddamn day of his mundane, adventureless, utterly perfect life.

In the last few years, the last few months especially, the dreams have changed. Some have gotten worse: the monsters are bigger, faster, more vicious. Sometimes the other Deans have lost too much, lost their Sam, lost their family, lost everything. Sometimes they’ve given in to the drink, to the despair, to the siren call of the darkness and become monsters themselves. 

But the worst ones are the empty dreams. He’ll spend what feels like hours staring into starless voids, places he knows used to be teeming with life. Sometimes he’ll get an echo of which Dean, which dream used to exist there. A flash of a memory, a laugh, a scream, but mostly it’s just vast, empty stretches where everything is…

Gone. 

Dean shivers again as the wind picks up, creeping through his denim jacket with the thrill of the inevitable. She rubs the knuckles of his right hand just as the usual ache begins, and his lips curl up slowly as he meets her eyes.

Dreams are exactly that, whether they’re the day or night kind: ephemeral ideas that mean nothing unless you let them.

And she’s the only dream he’s ever found that can stand up to the light of day.

“Same dreams. Just need to shake ‘em off, get my head back on my shoulders where it belongs.”

“Well, Mr. Winchester,” she says, turning in his embrace and trailing very real, very warm fingers over his cheeks, “I can think of another place you can put that pretty head of yours, if you like.”

He lingers in their kiss, takes the time to trace the fine lines next to her eyes, to soak in the sight of her, golden and radiant and absolutely his. His calloused fingers brush over her cheekbones, tuck a stray hair behind her ear, tilt her chin up just so. 

He drinks her in slowly, savoring rather than submerging, no matter how the seed of desperation in his gut sprouts and grows. 

He can feel the change in the wind, not just here in the meadow, but in his bones. Something is changing, has changed already, but hasn’t quite caught up to them, and it’s not going to be good. Dean knows it with the same certainty that he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it. 

But here, in this field, with the love of his existence in his arms, that dread seems too massive to comprehend, too immaterial to give consideration.

“I’m here, baby,” she murmurs. 

She can’t hear what he’s thinking (god, he hopes not), but she knows him, knows when his mind isn’t all in, and she deserves better. 

He shuts the door on his nightmares, one and all, stuffs the dread down deep in a place where it will stay until he falls asleep. 

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he whispers gruffly against the crown of her head, his heart and throat tight. 

He takes in a breath that only shakes once before forcing the last bit of shadow from his thoughts. This is her day, and she deserves so much more than half his attention. She deserves everything he’s got to give and more.

For however much time they have left.

[un-cadavre-exquis]

past and forever (arthur/eames)

originally posted to ao3.

Like all good things, it starts in Paris.

It’s late July and they’ve just finished a job; the extractor and architect have both flown off to god-knows-where, and Arthur and Eames (arthurandeames and eamesandarthur) are passing a bottle of vodka between themselves in celebration. Eames thinks vaguely that it might be around three in the morning, but he can’t be bothered to check.

They are sitting on the bedroom floor of Arthur’s ridiculously large flat, and of-fucking-course Arthur owns Parisian real estate in le premier arrondissement, and Arthur is at the moment drunkenly ranting about the superiority of cashmere to merino wool. Eames is struck, as he has been countless times before, with the realization that Arthur is exquisite. He says so, and Arthur frowns petulantly at him but blushes a little all the same.

“I could kill you with my left pinky,” Arthur mutters.

“Of that I have no doubt, Mr. Last-Name-Redacted,” Eames smirks. “Pass the bottle?” Arthur does, fingers lingering the barest fraction of a second too long against Eames’. And Eames thinks, too drunk to stop himself and not drunk enough to forget it in the morning, This is home.

Which perhaps does not bode well for Eames’ psychological well-being, seeing as he has witnessed Arthur kill a man twice his size with a plastic spork. Arthur is, well, Arthur. Half of dreamshare is terrified of him, the other half wants in his extremely well-tailored pants. Arthur, who once lived through his best friend throwing herself off a building and still managed to pull Dominic Cobb out of the deepest pits of despair, Arthur, who is dangerous and deadly and oh-so sharp around the edges. Arthur, who Eames is madly in love with.

(He blazes incandescent and hotter than all hell. So bright that it hurts to look at him sometimes. Red-hot, don’t get too close.)

The thing is, Eames has loved Arthur before dreamshare was anything more than a fleeting idea in the collective minds of the US army. Before he began to hide his youth under bespoke Tom Ford and permanent hair gel, before the Cobol clusterfuck, before the Fischer job. Eames has loved Arthur since the first time he laid eyes on him in a dimly lit bar in Paris, fresh out of some ultra-classified government program, jaded and caustic and looking like he wanted to light a fire and watch the entire world burn to ashes.

Which is to say, Eames has loved Arthur since he first knew how to love. And Arthur has just stopped talking and turns his head and the first strains of daylight filtering through the windows catch his face just so, and he is so beautiful; a modern day Adonis. Drunk and loose and happy, perhaps as happy as he has ever been and ever will be. Eames suddenly can’t breathe; his throat seizes at the ephemerality of this moment— come morning Arthur will yet again be buttoned-up and frowning and hiding his misery behind the barrel of a silenced Beretta 92FS.

And really, it’s okay that Arthur doesn’t love him back and never will. Eames came to terms with that long ago.

-

It’s October now, and Eames is so alone. Sure, he has Yusuf, who texts him a cat picture everyday, and Ariadne, who calls sometimes to check in on him, but he is so alone. He has not heard from Arthur since that time in Paris, when Eames woke up cold and hungover and in an empty bed. He learned two things during that job: one, that the Russians don’t fuck around when it comes to alcohol, and two, that it’s time for him to let go of Arthur. He’s growing a little too old for unrequited crushes.

(It’s anything but a crush, his love burns a hole straight through his chest and sends fire through his veins.)

So Eames trawls bars and clubs at night, burning through slim, dark-haired boys who absolutely do not look like a certain pointman-criminal-killer-thief. He fucks them and forgets them. None of them are beautifully deadly and none of them carry thirteen different concealed weapons at any given time and none of them are Arthur.

-

It’s December when Arthur, burning like a goddamn supernova, shows up at the door of the London flat Eames has been staying in for the past month with a brand new bullet hole (Medium caliber, Eames thinks) in his thigh and a deep cut (serrated knife) across his shoulder. He smells like cordite, sickly sweet, and something darker, blood and steel and rage. What can Eames do besides open the door wider to let him in and watch as Arthur wordlessly lowers himself onto Eames’ sofa?

Arthur stays. He stays after his wounds heal, after his scars begin to fade, after he starts to lose the tension in his shoulders and the fury in his eyes. They start to take jobs now, always together, arthurandeames and eamesandarthur once again. Barrel against temple, one, two, pull the trigger. They’re something of a package deal, Rio to London to Tokyo to Paris. The best of the best. You want someone to disappear? Hire Arthur and Eames. You want to steal something? Hire Arthur and Eames.

You want a secret? Well, they are the best at that.

But they spend their days with their veins weighed down by Somnacin and desperate dreams, always looking over their shoulders for angry marks or turncoat clients/extractors/architects.

“How do you feel about a vacation, darling?” Eames asks Arthur, a few months in.

So they stop taking jobs and start to move around, safehouse to safehouse, dropping aliases left and right, but always together.

(They avoid Germany like the plague, though, the polizei are still unreasonably upset over a very small incident that maybe involved a couple bombs. And a helicopter.

And possibly the Prime Minister’s Aston Martin.)

Beaches and forests and skyscrapers at night. And Arthur must know how Eames feels. He never says anything, just smiles that brilliant, beautiful smile and says frighteningly domestic things like could you pick up some milk today? Or we’re out of eggs, want me to buy some more?

It’s agonizing and wondrous and Eames has never been more content, but he can’t help the way he dreams of Arthur and watches him (the line of his throat and the cut of his suits) and still wishes for something more.

(It’s not enough, never enough. In the same room yet worlds apart at the same time.)

-

It’s July again, and they’re in Mombasa. Yusuf is out on a job, so they’re staying in his flat with his morbidly obese cat. Arthur found a shady off license somewhere in the city, no doubt through his truly impressive criminal connections, and brought back a bottle of vodka. At least Eames thinks it’s vodka; it’s a murky hue and tastes a little like Satan’s asshole.

“Just like old times,” is what Arthur says as he shoves the cat off his lap and cracks the bottle open.

They are on the road to well and truly sloshed when Arthur says, out of nowhere, feigning offhandedness, “You know I’m a little bit in love with you, right?”. Eames chokes on his sip of maybe-vodka, and says, “What?”.

Arthur just smiles (brokenly, he looks fucking shattered, and Eames would do anything to put his pieces back together) and says something along the lines of “I know you don’t feel the same, but I had to tell you. I just- I couldn’t-”. And Eames stops listening about then because, what? Something inside him aches when he processes what Arthur just said, and really, how can Arthur be so oblivious? Eames can only laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of that.

Arthur’s face closes off, goes cold and empty; the fire is shielded behind icy eyes. “I see,” he says, and stands up to leave.

“Wait, no,” Eames catches his wrist, still laughing. “You don’t understand, darling. ‘I don’t feel the same way’? Are you- and I mean this in the best possible way- stupid?”

“What the hell do you mean,” Arthur says, feelingly, slumping onto the bed.

“Arthur. Darling. I’m in love with you. Arse over tits in love with you. Have been since, god, well, forever.” Eames says this soberly and very quietly, but it rings deafeningly in the silent room. Arthur’s mouth opens. Closes. The best pointman in the business, assassin and messiah and thief all at once; sharp, collected Arthur, speechless.

“We’re a couple of dumb bastards,” he manages eventually. “You- really…?” Eames doesn’t answer. He stands and steps towards where Arthur is sprawled across the bed. Sits on the edge of the bed. Presses his lips carefully to the corner of Arthur’s mouth, feather-light.

Arthur is the kind of motionless that only comes with years of training, but when Eames’ breath ghosts across his cheek, he reacts, lightning quick. He flips them over, straddles Eames’ waist, and slams their lips together. As far as first kisses go, it’s probably the best Eames has ever had (and ever will have). Hot and dirty and wet, tongues and teeth and teeth and tongues. But it’s undeniably sweet all the same.

And it feels like coming home; they melt into each other, as easy as breathing, like the last puzzle piece fitting into place. Arthurandeames and eamesandarthur.

(Forever, Eames thinks, this will last forever and in the end we’ll go up in flames and die holding hands.

Immortal until death takes us both.)

[inkstaineddove]

Asystole

Ships: AusHun

Characters: Hungary, Austria; mentioned Prussia

Summary: His empire failing, Austria is desperate enough to make anything work. His empire failing, Hungary is desperate enough to finally break free. One of them must give.

Vienna, 1867.

Erzsébet padded across the hallway, spine stiff and shoulders rolled back. A minute before, some poor servant had been tasked to play the messenger, urging her to head to the office straightaway. Ordinarily, this sort of urgency would’ve shocked her; today, it was expected. All people talked, from the lowliest maid to the richest of emperors, and word of their machinations never seemed to escape her. Plus – if she allowed herself a moment of honesty, instead of falsely praising her cunning – her politicians had told her everything. There truly were no surprises.

Her first sight upon entering was that of Austria, scowling down at whatever papers were before him. She wondered when she had last seen him smile – and not the fake one he flashed at diplomats and hangers’ on, but the real one. It couldn’t have been years, could it? It seemed true enough, but for his sake she hoped she was wrong.

“Are you intending to get your face frozen like that or do you just enjoy tempting fate?” Hungary slid into her seat as she spoke. Her voice lilted up in a way that would sound like gentle teasing to the untrained ear.

Fortunately, his was trained perfectly to her pitch. He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, looking as if he was in no mood to be messed with. He’d been looking like that a lot recently. It disappointed her, only because it put a damper on her fun. There was little joy in kicking a dog while it was down, even one prone to biting.

“Would you prefer I pretend to sit here, giddy about all my misfortunes? If you wanted that, you should’ve convinced your boyfriend his time and resources would’ve been better off warring with a different enemy of the hour.” Austria attempted to keep his tone dispassionate, though it didn’t work. Try as he might, it never did.

She sniffed, scrunching up her nose. “Do you have to call him my ‘boyfriend?’ That sounds so…juvenile.” It was a minor thing to pick a fight over, but she certainly wasn’t going to over whether Prussia’s war had been legitimate. There was no need when they both agreed.

“I feel I have to because, if I didn’t and forgot my restraint, I’d be tempted to call him something awful like your little bitch, but I would never. I’m above that.” Austria smiled, all teeth and hostility, and Hungary wondered how nice they would look knocked out on the floor.

She flicked her wrist dismissively. No reason to get herself worked up over something so petty. There was business to discuss and deals to be made. She leaned her weight onto the arm of her chair. “Can you just tell me what you want? You know how it is, so many rebellions to plan and so little time.”

A quirk of an eyebrow was enough to show his displeasure. “Not like you to play the fool. There’s no reason for you to pretend to be so unaware.”

“If I didn’t pretend, you might get curious on my methods. If I reveal my hand, there goes whatever illusory personal freedoms I have. You want me even more miserable than I am?” His silence was the answer she wanted. She smiled, resting her cheek on her hand. “So, tell me. What does Hofburg have in store for me?”

“You’ll be thrilled to know that for a change, it’s an offer instead of an edict. I don’t see any point in attempting to sweeten reality to you – you live here and you’re not an idiot, after all. The empire, my empire, is in an increasingly bleak situation. You would think this would endear me into the hearts of all my subjects, but I suppose I underestimated how deep nationalism’s poison infected their bloodstreams,” Austria rolled his eyes at his own foolishness. “Yours being the most infected – and, as you love to remind me – being the most likely to one day succeed, a deal needs to be made to quell their bloodlust.”

That certainly was one way to put it. Hungary couldn’t stop herself from laughing, unable to look at Austria’s overly serious expression or risk breaking into hysterics. Taking a deep breath, she composed herself, though still with a noticeable smirk. “Bloodlust? Really, Roderich? They want independence, not the death of every Austrian. Who has the time for that kind of petty revenge?”

He scoffed, clearly insulted. “As if they’d be capable of that. If I had to sacrifice a few peasants here and there to keep them peaceful, I wouldn’t bat an eye. My kingdom for a commoner is a trifle. No, the blood they want is mine. They want to see what I’ve built up over the centuries diminished in months, in days. I’ve jumped into wars for less, you know as much. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’d fare well if an army were sent in and the backlash for such a heavy-handed move doesn’t make it worth the trouble.” He shook his head, clearing his mind of useless plans.

Hungary pitied him. Look how desperate he was to hold onto something so ephemeral, so meaningless. Empires came and went like the seasons. Here was a man who thought himself wise, yet he couldn’t grasp such a basic tenet of their existence. She had learnt it; so had Poland and Lithuania and every other plaything these so-called ‘powers’ sought. It was a lunacy, one that infected all of them the same. Now his was crumbling all around him and instead of attempting to move on, he would drag out the process. It was predictable and entirely disappointing. Despite having no reason to, she expected better of him.

She sighed and turned her gaze away from him. If she stared at him any longer, she’d feel nauseous. “What do you want from me?”

Relieved to be back on track, Austria’s body became less rigid. “Nothing, really. My offer is quite favorable to you. Our marriage, partnership, whatever descriptor you prefer becomes one of equals. Complete control of your lands returns to you. You’ll have the privilege or the torture to pore over the minutiae of whatever half-formed, barely coherent policy is cooked up by your own hacks in Budapest. Christ, am I normally this cynical?” He shook off the self-awareness. That could be dealt with later or, preferably, never. “Really, everything you’ve ever harassed me and all my various rulers about is now yours. You lose nothing in this arrangement.”

“Everything, bar the most important thing. Just because it’s been roughly twenty years hasn’t changed what the people want. You’re not giving me anything you view as important. Ruling my people has become an inconvenience, so you’ll hand it off to me. Ten years ago, you would’ve been insulted at the prospect. And now the insulted party will be us.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Why is conceding so difficult for your lot to do? Clinging onto everything will only make the inevitable that much harder.”

His eyes narrowed as he stared her down. “Nothing is inevitable. We’re in a difficult spot, but we’ve been through those before. As long as I bide my time and there’s no more incidents, everything will be back on track and no one will make anymore of their bitchy little comments.” The way he sneered as he said that last part, she was willing to bet that bothered him more than anything else. He tried smiling at her, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve conceded a lot to you with this. Fine, you’re not quite independent, but it’s just as good. In some ways, I’m doing you a favor. Foreign policy is such a nuisance. All of them are sharks, all of them would be circling you, sniffing out fresh blood. Europe isn’t how you remember it.”

Hungary grinded her teeth together. Patronizing, always patronizing. Even desperate for her assistance, he couldn’t view her as a peer. And then he wondered why she behaved the way she did? Why, sometimes, she can’t even stand to be near him? He was dumber than he had any right to be.

“Do you think I’ve been completely isolated from the world? I know how they all act, how they all think. The only ones I’d have to worry about fighting off would be you and Russia, and without me, what army do you have?” She smiled, enjoying how that blow landed. How could he argue against it? He’d said as much to her – sometimes with pride, sometimes with fear – many times throughout the years. “And believe me, I would love to strike out on my own and form my own alliances. I can think of a few who’d be more than happy to spurn you with a treaty or two.”

He folded his arms over his chest, staring at her with derision. “Insulting me won’t get you what you want, Liebchen.” He practically snarled out the nickname. Pet names had always been their favorite weapons. “This is the only deal you have. I don’t get all your bitching either. We negotiated with two of your most darling heroes. There’s no need for you to be putting up this much of a fight. Will you ever be satisfied with anything I do for you, or should I learn to accept your eternal disdain?”

She took shaky breaths through her nose. That was hardly enough to constrain her. “Perhaps I’d be more accepting of the terms if you’d bother to invite me to negotiations! I appreciate,” she roared the word out, her fury overtaking her, “that you were oh-so-fucking considerate enough to know who I would’ve chosen to be my representative. And here I thought you only paid attention to my lands to slaughter innocents! But you have never, will never, respect me enough to listen to me on what my own goddamn people want! Deák and Andrássy are good men, but they know nothing compared to me! How many times must I scream this at you until you get it? If I’m not allowed to have any free will in this life, then so be it! That’s my curse, but at least let me speak on their behalf! Give me the chance, the fucking chance, to win them the freedoms it appears I’ll never have!”

She only realized she was leaning over his desk when she was done. Her rage, built up over the centuries, was causing her to tremble. Staring into Roderich’s eyes, she swore she could kill him. She swore she could and it would be the last time, the most permanent of his deaths. It was so vivid in her mind that, for a moment, she believed it to be reality.

What brought her back to the present was how utterly bored he appeared at her antics. Here was the same song and dance they performed for each other. Here it was, meant to play out for eternity. Why would he fear her? What could she do to him that was permanent? Nothing. The one thing she could, he locked it away in some deal she wasn’t allowed to be apart of.

“Don’t you ever get tired of carrying on like that? So sanctimonious. As if your cause is the most just. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be bound to you?” He shook his head. “I’m convinced that if you ever tried to shut up, it would kill you. Though, honestly, I’d be grateful for the silence.” As she sat down, he smiled with an unrivaled arrogance. “There. Now, please, Erzsébet, try to be reasonable for a change. There’s no use in becoming so hysterical over this. Everything doesn’t have to be such a battle. Fighting like this, you haven’t taken a break in centuries. Aren’t you tired?”

She would not be baited. She refused to tell him what he wanted to hear, refused even if it were partially true. “The only thing I’m tired of is being brushed aside, but I know not to expect change from you.” She looked outside the window and sighed. “The ink is already dried, isn’t it? I can’t stop what’s been put in motion.”

“For the most part. All it needs is ratification. Though, we’ve been assured that that won’t be an issue.” Once more, he relaxed against the back of his chair. His relief was clear across his face. “I’m glad you’ve calmed yourself of those delusions. While I can commend your…dedication, you’ll have much more important things to busy yourself with.”

Hungary smiled, pleased with his false sense of security. “You’re right, there will be. I understand that, at this point, I can’t prevent anything. But, when news travels around, most will not be happy. This flies in the face of everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve over these last few years. They’ve been sold out, and I’m inclined to believe them.” She licked her lips, savoring the moment. “So, when the people take to the streets, when they demand what they know is owed to them, I won’t try to smooth things over. Never again. I will be right beside them, doing whatever I can to rile them up. Whatever they choose to do, however they decide to handle this, I will support them with every fiber of my being. And if that creates problems for you?” She stood up, smirking and curtseying. “Solve them yourself. I’m no propaganda piece.”

Head held high, she began striving out of the room. It was the only card she had left, the only thing she could think of. With every step she took, she prayed he’d be as weak as she knew he was. He had said it himself, there was nothing he could do to fight anything. Today did not come about out of a position of strength for him.

“Wait, Erzsébet! Please, don’t do this.” She heard him rise, heard the soft steps of his feet. “If you do that, neither of us will walk away from this looking good.” A soft intake of breath from him. “For once, I’m not too proud to admit that I need you. But, please, don’t throw it all away over nothing.” His voice was gentle, as if he were pleading with a lioness and not a woman.  

When he reached out, she allowed him to touch her and spin her around. When had his hands last been that soft? Cornered, he was like a new man. “All you have to offer me is insults. What should I stay around for? I have more to gain away from you than besides you. I always have.”

“I know, dammit I know!” She watched his Adam’s apple shift as he swallowed. Roderich’s eyes were wide, all too aware that he was on the precipice. “Not now, though. You’re right, you’re my equal. I’ll give you whatever I can, within reason, to prevent that. Anything to prevent you from ruining me.”

The urge to scowl at his self-preservation was there. What else should she have expected? He was still Roderich; nothing could change the core of a man. Still, this was further than she’d ever gotten before. “You know me well enough to know what I want.”

“I assumed I did when making the last deal and look where it got me. Forgive me for wanting you to spell it out.” The beginning of a smile appeared on his face.

Erzsébet didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh. Feeling off-kilter, she settled for sitting on the sofa. “Not even you could mess this one up. I’m tired of sneaking around your back to leave the home. I’m not a young girl and you’re certainly not my father and you will stop treating me as such. If it’s that important to you, there’s only three places I’d be anyway, and you know them all. More importantly, start treating me like a person! You want your life to be less miserable? Then do yourself a favor and at least treat me with indifference, I’d rather that than constant disgust.” Her eyes met his and held them, challenging him to deny her. “And, whenever some big decision comes up, you better discuss it with me and actually give some consideration to my thoughts. You’re not any smarter than me and I’m as aware on everything as you are. If this is going to be both our futures, for whatever time you just bought yourself, then I’m not going to do anything to sabotage it.”

“That’s the very least of what I can do.” If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought she a flash of shame in his eyes. It couldn’t have been. She doubted that he could feel such things, so high were the walls he’d built.

She studied him skeptically. That had been far too easy. There must’ve been something he’d want in return. He couldn’t just have thought what he’d taken was enough. “Don’t you have anything you want from me? There’s no terms?”

Roderich paused, deciding his best course of action. He shrugged, apparently not finding any trap in her words. “Two. The first: cut off the affair. It can be anyone else, but not him. On a personal level, this will make me look like an even bigger cuckold than we all know I am.”

Erzsébet’s eyes hardened and she leaned away from him. “No, that’s out of the question.”

He frowned when she offered no further explanation. “Really? You could do so much better. Don’t tell me you actually love him.”

“You have no right to my personal life.”

“Right. I thought that was the case.” She couldn’t quite distinguish the exact emotions in his voice beyond disappointment and resignation. There was a layer to it that wasn’t simple to place.

He snapped her out of her thoughts when he spoke again. “Now, the emperor wants this sealed with some sort of formal wedding between us. I begged him to do anything but this. Unfortunately for the both of us, he thought it would make such a lovely story for the masses.” He gave an embarrassed smile. “I’m also not exactly asking for you to do this, since there became a gentleman’s agreement on it, but something that means much more to me.” He grew serious again at whiplashing speed. “Let me break the news to Gilbert. Give me the satisfaction.”

Erzsébet could imagine how it’d go. How the scene played out in her mind, it was horrid. Her stomach wrenched. “You’d wreck him.”

“That’s the point,” Roderich wore a cruel smile. He’d been imagining it as well.

“Why do you think I’d ever let you do that?”

He shrugged in an effort to appear nonchalant and failed. “Simple, really. If you tell him yourself, do you think he’ll believe you can’t just stop it? God, he’ll have every moronic scheme to prevent it and act all wounded when you tell him it can’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought he were just your little plaything all along. Even though I have ‘no right to your personal life,’ as you so kindly put it, I’m no fool. What’s the point in risking it and being stuck with me?” He smiled at her, warm in a way she was unfamiliar with. His tone attempted to strike a friendliness that didn’t fit him. “If I do it, he hates me, comes sobbing to you about it, and you can both continue to curse my very existence. The status quo is maintained. It’s an obvious choice to me.”

She wandered if he’d prepared that speech just for now. It was tempting to ask him, but the knowing would be worse. Ignorance could, indeed, be a bliss. Erzsébet knew there was an ulterior motive for his words, there always was with him. He wasn’t Feliks, who she wouldn’t feel such guilt over listening to. Still, there was a human part of her that needed outside validation regardless of the source. “Do you think I’m a coward?” Her voice was so soft, she wondered if he’d even heard her.

“No, because I can understand it. Sometimes it’s braver to manipulate.” There was an understanding in his voice. She wouldn’t be surprised if this were coming from experience.

“Fine, but don’t be crueler than you have to. Try to have some compassion if you can.” There was a feeling of hollowness Erzsébet forced herself to ignore. Her life would be livable, that was what was most important. No one would have done it differently.

“He’ll get what he deserves,” Roderich bit back his irritation. They both knew who it was really for. Instead, he nodded his head and offered her his arm. “I’m sure you don’t want to spend the rest of the day watching me work. Allow me to walk you to the door.”

She politely took his arm. They walked in silence to the door, too busy was her mind for idle chatter. Anyways, hadn’t they said enough? Only on her way out did she smile at him and offer him her thanks.

He smiled at her. “Thank you. I promise I’ll make this worthwhile.”

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

in preparation for the release of halo infinite i’ve been playing the master chief collection and goddamn, it brings me back. it’s been a super emotional experience for me tbh. all those memories. those countless hours. i just took a little walk around some of the maps all by myself and it was like a movie the way memories were flashing in my mind. man just hearing the theme music nearly brought me to tears. so often i would fall asleep to it as if it was a lullaby, after playing all night with my friends to the point of exhaustion. all the shit talking me and my friends did in the lobby.

i can’t believe that was all real. that i’m really alive. that time has passed. that i’ll never be a kid again. fucking tragic. lmao.

i miss my friends. i miss my brother when he was younger. i miss those ephemeral moments of innocent joy. i wish i could capture those feelings in a jar.

[sazzafraz]

my pants no longer have coffee on them

nodus tollens!

Over time Sasuke learnt to tell by the smell. Ore meant a blood mutation. Licorice meant bone. Sweet ammonia meant parasites growing fat inside their hosts.    

sasuke’s memories of orochimaru are very sensory. i wrote him as a sensory person. i think the whole uchiha ‘hearts too strong to break easy, and that’s a warning’ thing would make them worse at managing their basic five experiences. 

Fuyuki shakes her head like a parent would, like Sasuke’s disgust is childish. “It’s an opportunity,” she says neutrally, “we have to make the most of them.” We don’t have the same means and opportunities as others, the silence says, we have to build from ruins and carnage. This is the right reason, boy. Even when it disgusts you. As if that makes doing something they’d kill someone else for doing right. Sasuke looks, and thinks, and looks again, and although he can understand it he can’t justify it.

oh man. at this point fuyuki pretty much knows she’s lost him. she is in fact saying shit to make him leave so she doesn’t have to make him while trying to jam common sense into his brain one last time. who knows if it takes. 

“What?” He feels it. Warm, wary, growing distant. Before Yumi was ’kunoichi, dangerous, fun loving’ she now has a little box in his internal checklist that says ‘caution: complicit and unrepentant’.

yeah. this is the thought. oof. dude just wants to trust his friends. 

She pats him lightly on the cheek, stepping back to give him some space. “You have my full and free permission to leave at any time. No member of Giri is forced to hold to an allegiance they feel no longer reflects their ideals.” With a wry smile she shakes her head reaching down to pull something from her pouch. “You always had an out.”  

He watches her hand. “What’s that?”

“For services rendered.” With a deliberate showiness she flips the object in her hand -a scroll- and holds it out to him. He blinks at her, taking the scroll from her outstretched hand. It’s thin and blue tipped, the personal seal of the Godaime Hokage glows in the night. The future in his hand.

AGAIN. SHE ALWAYS WANTED YOU TO LEAVE. THE POINT IS THAT YOU CAN LEAVE THE CYCLE nvrmind he’s not gonna get it for another 60,000 words. 

Sasuke says nothing. The pardon is cold in his hands, shame rolling through his gut. Truth be told he never actually thought he’d get it. Truth be told he’d forgotten about it. There’s never an out, there’s never something given without something taken away. She was honest. She did say what she was going to do. She never offered a single promise. Betrayal is a reflexive emotion for him, though, and he still feels it like a punch. Leaving is a choice. One he has made more often than any other. Being let go of is something he isn’t used to.  

woof. a long 60,000 words. still love that last line. fucks most verily. 

Giri have flying ships.

never used this. very mad about it. 

If extremely pressed Sasuke will admit that he picked Team Hebi based on a wild mix of comfort, usefulness and poorly placed boundaries. Orochimaru collected a bunch of weird traits and weirder expressions of trauma in the kids he lured to Oto; Suigetsu, Karin and Juugo are some of the best examples. Perfectly capable of respecting his needs and following his orders, completely incapable of acting like competent human beings the rest of the time.    

oh thank god they’re weird. sasuke actually needs at least three to nine people around him at all times and has never not once thought about how developing his chakra sense in a compound full of other people might effect this. not even once.  

Sasuke rolls his eyes, crosses his arms and clearly announces, “We won’t work together again after this.”

Karin and Suigetsu stop squabbling to turn to look at him.

Sasuke shrugs, “I’m going back to Konoha, Suigetsu is going to Kiri, Juugo will stay with Giri and Karin will go to Uzu.”

Karin sniffs delicately. “Back to Konoha?”

karin begins to plan konoha’s downfall. i envision karin as someone with a rather unique personal perspective. she is sasuke focused but its because she literally just thinks differently. i had a little bit for her that was about how uzumaki seals are literally a kind of meta-magic and thats why mito changed the game so much. to be able to use them effectively you have to be able to look at the world strangely. anyway. konoha will never recover from this.  

In Oto there were war orphans, normal orphans, freed slaves, second or third generation missing-nin, the odds and ends of clans that had died off, those who had seen their entire families exterminated and those who did the exterminating. In Oto there was no safe dinner conversation.

Except, of course, for the food.

fucks. it fucks. 

Juugo chuckles and waves him off. Sasuke is dead certain they’ll meet again. Maybe he’ll find them himself in a few years. He takes one last look behind him, sharingan on, and then leaves quickly and quietly. It’s not a bad snapshot to have. Karin has resorted to using her chains to manage Suigetsu, who is either helping the fire or taking the longest possible route to putting it out, Juugo is calling the small woodland animals and pets out of their homes. There’s an enterprising rabbit on his head. Suigetsu has one sword and Karin has the other. They’re all smiling.

favourite bit of favourite chapter. does not fuck. does gently cuddle and give glowing aftercare. 

Walking is in itself a refreshing experience. For the first time in his life there’s nothing to rush to. It’s a free sky: so high, so blue. So filled with things that he’s never seen before. He flicks his sharingan on and off. At sunset the sky fills with the lush pink and orange of change. At night the stars are so bright it feels like he’s counting the freckles on some great dragon’s back. At dawn he lies in the grass and lets the light wake him. He takes a long path winding his way down and around to his birthplace. He has one goal left, one last thing to do before it’s all done and he never thought he’d get this far. There is so little between him and the freedom to finally, finally put this all to rest.

So for the first time he lets himself linger.

The stars lead him into the mouth of a valley, green and bright with flowers. He doesn’t put people to places very often. People are memories. He sees them clearly enough. But he’ll cast a look onto the calm water and think Juugo, onto the high point of a knife and think Yumi, onto the twisting branches of an out of place blooming flower and think Sakura. In darker moments he names the other things. A tree changing out of season, riddled with the beautiful but deadly rings of a strangling vine earns Orochimaru. Just as a black expanse that appears in the middle of night is called father. Just as the ephemeral falling of flowers, the scent, is mother.

The clear sky is called Naruto. The fading mist of dawn is called Brother.

sometimes you’ve just gotta let the prose happen. and then make it sad at the end. i wrote paragraphs about naruto and itachi here and deleted it because haha sasuke WILL NOT THINK ABOUT IT like hes not really thinking about his suicidal ideation. i did recieve more than one comment that was like ‘......wait he wants to kill himself?’ haha! yeah! body made for one thing! he has yet to decide a man is allowed to have multiple life purposes. 

“Please,” the woman begs, “please, my child. Take her. Please.”

this is not JUST about how much sasuke would like to save children its just MOSTLY about sasuke being the only one around to do it, and hinata. eventually. 

“Sasuke.” Kakashi says.

“Sensei.” Sasuke says automatically. “Hatake. Hatake Kak-”

kakashi, heart in his throat, thinking today is the day he has to kill his sort of son and lose the rest in the grieving: sasuke

sasuke, holding a baby: AHHHHHHHHHHH

Sasuke scowls and shakes his head, looking down at the bundle in his arms. “This is a goddamn baby Hatake.” Then, softer, “It’s a baby. I have to take it somewhere safe.”

kakashi, soothed by the pardon, worried about all of that: sasuke

sasuke, holding a baby he is EMOTIONAL about: AHHHHHHHHHHH

Fuyuki is still radiating smugness as she lets them out. She plucks the baby from his arms, tucking it into hers. Sasuke almost groans, Kakashi is approaching a sulk at break neck speed. As he crosses the threshold of her home Fuyuki grabs him by the end of his hair and yanks, “Oh, Uchiha?”

Sasuke scowls as he pulls out of her hold. “Fucking what Hashira?”

She smiles, baby stuffing the length of her hair in it’s mouth. Sasuke looks at them both and feels an odd sense of accomplishment. Fuyuki mimes a scissoring action. “Cut your hair.”

i’m not going to do the first chapter but this. absolutely. slams. sasuke’s hair is so important but the hair thing was a specific thing about honor and service. about the redemption that a lot of missing nin feel in giri, the longer their hair the more they’ve done to repent. even if sasuke never quite gets it he actually doesn’t cut his hair until after this.and its not by much. 

[princess-of-the-corner]

oh thats a little better then what i thought

i thought everyone in the cast blamed her, not just her and the narrative

also that plot summery in the beginning feels like it was used again in season 4

Oh yeah no like the only ones who know about Blanc are Marinette, who only knows little context, and Bunnyx, who knows the whole story but can't reassure Marinette because of the context.

I do feel like.

Okay so what Marinette did in the episode to reveal her identity is that when she couldn't deliver a gift to Adrien as Marinette because Nathalie wouldn't let her in the house. So she turns into Ladybug and just kinda. Breaks into Adrien's room and leaves it there. She lingers a little too long and he sees her leaving. Adrien seeing 'Ladybug' leave a present from 'Marinette' has him connect the dots since it's.... highly unlikely Mari asked Ladybug to play post office.

So the setup for this whole debacle is already a lesson on 'don't use your superpowers for petty things. It's superpowers have some responsibility'. This has happened once or twice before, but only with minor inconveniences.

But instead of minor inconveniences, it leads to Chat Blanc. It makes it feel like this is her karma for one moment of selfishness.

As of the 'used again in Season 4'..... Yeah pretty much. Ephemeral was Chat Blanc again but it kinda sucked because the way the identities were revealed was a dick move and the way Gabriel found out was such a goddamn leap.

[carmenlire]

Meddle About

read on ao3

On the one hand--

But on the other.

Alec groans, rakes his hands over his face and leans back until he’s staring at the stars. The grass is cool on his back and it pokes through his shirt, dry and a little itchy. It’s a visceral feeling and it tethers him to earth, makes him feel like he’s sinking into the ground.

It’s a welcome feeling because Alec doesn’t feel like he belongs most days. The balmy air whispers through the trees and he shivers a little even though he’s warm. The ground is cool but comfortable and as he looks up, he feels small and insignificant. It’s not unpleasant.

If anything, it helps him feel like maybe it’s not a big deal if he’s broken, cold, a fucking robot--

No.

So maybe Alec’s head is a mess most days. He goes back and forth. It’s a running joke with Iz and Jace-- that he’s a robot, so cold as to verge on icy, and he humors them. He stares at them, unamused and stoic when they prank him, has no problem staring his bitch of a mother in the face as she berates him in full view of the servants, keeps mum as Jace ribs him goodnaturedly about his lack of a love life.

But then he goes to his bedroom after a long day where nothing seemed to go right and he feels like he’s suffocating as he chokes back a scream that would scrape his throat raw if he let it. He lays in bed for hours at night, mind going in circles, as he wonders what the fuck everyone else means when they say love.

Because sure, he loves Izzy and Jace and Max. He’d die for them without hesitation, and would only hesitate a little when they bug the shit out of him for the last salted caramel cookie that he’s been hoarding like a goddamn dragon.

He thinks he understands what it means to say he loves reading because when he loses himself in a good book, it almost feels like he’s somewhere else, somewhere free where he can be himself. There’s love in the pages of a novel where there are no pretenses, just earnest appreciation and a desperate kind of joy.

But that’s lowercase love, casual and informal and to everyone else-- lesser. There seems to be a difference between that and love with all caps, with fireworks, with a marching band playing the world’s sappiest, most cliche ballad.

And that’s what seems so foreign to him because when people say love in that voice they mean something Alec can’t put his finger on and it’s maddening, that the entire world just knows how it feels to be head over heels, to feel butterflies, to be in love.

It’s romantic love that makes him want to tear his goddamn hair out because that-- that he doesn’t understand.

He watches Jace make a fool of himself with over the top gestures and while he’s supportive and encouraging, privately he can’t understand why his brother would make such an ass out of himself because of an ephemeral feeling. He listens as Izzy goes on and on about someone in her class, talking about the way they fucking laugh and smile with their eyes or whatever the fuck and can’t help but feel like his sister-- his ever practical sister-- has lost her goddamn mind.

He can comprehend grand gestures and overwhelming fondness and while it’s a secret he likes to keep close to his vest, Alec is a bit of a hopeless romantic when it comes to media. He loves a good romcom and he has an entire shelf dedicated to romance novels in his bedroom.

But that’s fiction and in real life, he’s left wondering if everyone is playing some sort of elaborate joke on him because for a reasonably intelligent nineteen year old, he just can’t understand what people say when they say those words.

He made it through his entire high school career without a crush while his classmates seemed to fall for someone every other period. He’s never hooked up with anyone, never felt the need to lose himself in someone else.

And it’s those realizations-- noticing that he seems to be falling behind everyone else, that even if he doesn’t particular care that he hasn’t slept with anyone, that he’s never been on a date, everyone else has and because of that, something is missing in his life-- that make Alec feel like he’s going crazy sometimes.

He likes being single. He likes his life, but when the whole world is shouting that he needs to find his other half, it’s hard not to want to fall in line even as he balks at the very notion.

Phone vibrating in his back pocket, Alec’s thoughts break off as he reaches for it. He smiles a little as he sees the incoming text.

On my way and I have milkshakes.

Shaking his head a little to clear it even more, Alec shoots back a reply before letting his phone drop onto his stomach. He hears the rustle of leaves under him and closes his eyes.

Quietly, he thinks he could fall asleep like this. This is their park, halfway between their houses and it’s always deserted this time of night. It feels like he’s the only person in the world and that makes the hint of hollowness in his chest ease a little.

It’s hard to feel broken when there’s no one else to compare to. It’s easier to think that being a robot isn’t so bad as long as he’s not hurting anyone.

Because sometimes his siblings’ ribbing pierces clean through him. He’ll never admit it but there are times when he replays their words over and over and wonders if they’re right, if they’re true, if there’s something fundamentally wrong with him.

Because sometimes-- just sometimes because it’s all he can bear-- he wonders what’s the point. He’s come to terms with being gay even if there are only a few people he’s told. But when a voice whispers that if he doesn’t want to have sex and he doesn’t particularly want to be in love-- what’s the point. There’s nothing for him and he’s nothing for anyone else.

Sometimes he thinks he shouldn’t be here. Sometimes he wishes he wasn’t.

He’s not maudlin, not even really sad. It’s just that when he lets himself, he measures what everyone else values against what he can provide and it seems embarrassingly obvious that he’s lacking.

Everyone places such importance on romance and attraction and Love and it feels like he doesn’t fit in with his complete apathy and mild distaste for it all.

Alec’s thoughts fracture as something lands on his stomach. Huffing a little, he opens his eyes and he swears the moonlight makes his best friend glow.

“What the fuck,” he mutters and Magnus laughs a little before dropping down next to him on the same faded blanket they’ve been bringing to this park since they were in middle school.

“Now is that any way to greet someone who brought your favorite milkshake?”

Narrowing his eyes, all Alec shoots back is, “Cookies n Cream?”

Glaring at him, Magnus all but shoves the drink in his face before he fairly sneers, “Extra Oreo.”

The two of them stare at each other for a long moment before they break out into laughter and God, Alec thinks, as he snags the straw Magnus holds out, there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here, alone with his best friend.

Sitting up and grabbing the bag that Magnus had tossed at him, Alec knows there’s no place better and it’s in these moments that he casts a giant fuck you to anyone who would tell him that this is less than a boyfriend.

This is all he needs, he thinks and is only a little embarrassed at how mushy he’s being, if only in his own head.

Even by moonlight, Alec sees the grease soaking through the bag and he grins as he opens it to reveal an extra large order of fries from the same diner Magnus bought the shakes.

“You know me too well,” he mutters as he snags a fry and pops it into his mouth before wincing as it burns his tongue.

Magnus tsks even as he shoves a few into his own mouth. “I was hungry,” he shrugs, “And figured you probably were too.”

Alec just echoes, “You know me too well,” and lets the silence settle between them.

It’s not a bad silence. It’s not oppressive and there’s no pressure to fill it. Alec’s long since learned that he can be himself with Magnus, whatever that means. Magnus deals with taciturn, abrasive Alec just as well as he does sleepy Alec with cracked walls and silly jokes, which is the same as when Alec’s knuckles are bruised and bloodied and there are tears that seem to leech from his damned soul.

Magnus has seen every side of Alec and he’s stayed through them all.

Alec tells himself that this is different, though. He’s not told anyone, not even his best friend, not even Magnus, about these thoughts that make him sick, that make him feel angry and weird and other and less.

He doesn’t think Magnus would understand. Scoffing to himself as he brings his milkshake up for a long sip, Alec knows Magnus can’t understand what Alec himself is confused about.

Confused, terrified, and yet strangely uncaring under everything else. It’s all a tangled mess in his chest. It gives him a headache.

When Magnus speaks, it spooks him a little but Alec doesn’t look up from where he’s staring at a dandelion. This isn’t the first night one of them haven’t been in the mood to talk but Alec still feels like he should be better at compartmentalizing.

The thing is, there’s a niggling voice in his head and while he tells it to shut the fuck up, it whispers and insinuates and Alec doesn’t know what’s up from down.

Because sometimes he looks at Magnus and it’s his best friend. And then sometimes he looks at his best friend and wonders if this is what everyone else feels when they say they’re in love.

Because Magnus is beautiful, there’s no denying that. Magnus is perfect to Alec. Even with his ridiculous bedhead in the morning, and his tendency to bottle emotions up until they explode all over the place, even when he’s being a stubborn ass, he’s perfect, perfect for him.

Still. Alec thinks about what other people talk about when they say it’s love and he doesn’t want to sleep with Magnus. He doesn’t want to necessarily go on romantic dates and hold hands and wax poetic about Magnus’s goddamn hands.

He likes their weekly sleepovers and looks forward to rooming with him at NYU next month. He likes that Magnus makes him feel safe and accepted and that he can be himself with Magnus and that Magnus is one of the only people on earth he’d drop everything for, no hesitation. Some of his favorite afternoons have been hanging out at a nearby coffee shop working on homework or blatantly blowing it off. It’s a running joke between their friends and families that they’re joined at the hip, that where Magnus is, Alec is sure to be following. It’s been like that since they were kids.

They’re best friends and that’s enough but Alec doesn’t like that everyone else wouldn’t agree.

Izzy and Jace tease him about Magnus sometimes. In between telling them to go fuck themselves and rolling his eyes, he knows what it maybe, possibly looks like from the outside. It looks romantic, it looks closer than two friends should be, it looks different.

Alec doesn’t mind different, though. Not when it’s Magnus. Not when it’s them.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, darling?”

Alec still doesn’t look up, even though he feels Magnus lean into his shoulder, even when he wants nothing more than to pour his heart out and have Magnus tell him it’s okay, he’s okay, everything is going to be okay.

He shrugs into himself, scowls at the innocent flower and wishes he wasn’t himself. Maybe a stupid wish but a wish nonetheless. And because it’s midnight and dark and the person next to him is Magnus-- his best friend, his person-- Alec tells the truth.

“I wish I wasn’t me.”

Magnus’s voice is soft as he asks, “And why is that?”

And that’s why-- one of the hundred thousand million reasons why-- Alec loves Magnus. Magnus doesn’t tell him not to think like that, doesn’t give him weak if well-meaning platitudes. Magnus plays the game out and sometimes Alec wonders if Magnus doesn’t know him better than he knows himself.

Teeth digging into his bottom lip for a beat or two Alec tries to think of the best way to phrase his jumble of thoughts. It all boils down to one thing, though, that thing being, “I think I’m broken.”

His voice comes out a hoarse whisper, raw around the edges. That’s what it all comes down to-- Alec’s not like everyone else and if he’s not like everyone else then there’s something wrong with him, something not right.

Something wrong. Something broken.

The words might seem like a plea for help to others and Alec supposes he can’t fault them for that. Magnus gets it though because he gets Alec-- this is the root of his issue and at the end of it, he’s just confused. He just wants answers.

Leaning into the arm Magnus wraps around his shoulder, Alec keeps his gaze down as his best friend lets out a considering hum. “Why do you think you’re broken, Alexander?”

Taking a shuddering breath, Alec feels relief at not having his problem brushed away. His mind races and there are a dozen things that come to mind. He kind of wants to throw everything at Magnus and let someone else put the pieces together. There’s a sort of checklist in his head, All The Ways Alec Lightwood Doesn’t Fit In and included on that list is that while Alec likes the idea of marriage, he doesn’t see himself ever actually getting married.

He looks at relationships around him and they don’t make sense. They leave a sour taste in his mouth.

At the end of the day, he doesn’t know if he wants what everyone else has because they tell him he should want it of if his want is true, is real.

On the one hand, he likes the picture perfect idea. On the other, the thought of actually having it makes him queasy.

Swallowing hard, Alec looks up and meets Magnus’s eyes. His best friend is looking at him with the world’s patience and, even if Alec is hopeless at reading faces, a good amount of fondness seems to break through, too.

It’s just the two of them in the park as Alec finally lets his failing slip. Strangely, it’s not as scary as he’d thought it’d be, even moments ago.

“I don’t think I know what love is. I don’t think I know how to love.”

The words fall between them and it should sound absurd and a little pathetic. And it does because how does someone make it through high school, how do they become an adult and not know how to love or what love even is.

But that’s how it feels to Alec. He has familial love because he’s always had it. He can intuit his love of hobbies and other random inanimate objects because it’s what everyone else says and at the end of the day, it isn’t really that serious to exclaim that he loves the movie Pride and Prejudice.

He used to hesitate when it came to telling Magnus he loved him and the truth is, he still hesitates. Because to him, love seems unknowable and too meaningful and he didn’t want to lie to Magnus.

Still, Magnus told Alec that he loved him and didn’t seem to hold the same uncertainty or fear. Alec never wants Magnus to feel bad for loving him, so he said it back. He’s gotten better at saying it first because he likes the way Magnus smiles when he does and he likes making his best friend happy.

There’s a part of Alec that wonders if this isn’t love after all because he feels more towards Magnus than he does anyone else and if that’s all he’s capable of, then maybe it’s good enough to call it love. Maybe he’s not lying after all when he says it and wants to mean it.

If he wants to mean it, then maybe he does mean it. Maybe it’s enough that if he wants it to be true, it can be, it is.

Alec watches as Magnus smiles, just a little, just enough to see the twitch of his lips as he leans into Alec’s space like he's sharing a secret. “You are one of the most loving people I know, Alec.”

Startled, Alec blinks a little dumbly as he leans away to see Magnus better. Before he can open his mouth for a retort, Magnus is continuing.

“I’m serious,” Magnus says and Alec sees, from his eyes, that he is maybe the most serious Alec’s ever seen him. “You love without thinking, without hesitating. Isabelle, Jace, Max, that eccentric elderly woman that you help every Thursday evening with her correspondence, the underclassmen you tutor and treat to dinner even if you roll your eyes the entire time-- it might be quiet but it’s always there.”

Alec frowns as he notices, “You didn’t name yourself.”

Magnus shrugs and his expression is a little coy as he replies, “This isn’t about me, Alexander. It’s about you and letting you know that you love and are loved dearly.”

“I don’t understand love, Magnus.” Alec’s voice is soft as he adds, “I’ve never been in love. I’m not sure I want to be, not really, not like everyone says I should.”

“And that’s okay,” Magnus immediately says. “As long as you’re happy, you can be anything you want.”

“What about us?”

Magnus raises a single brow and while ordinarily Alec would tell him how stupid he looks, he just stays silent as Magnus asks, “What do you mean, what about us?”

“I’m not in love with you.” Alec’s voice is barely a whisper and he wonders if he’s just said something wrong. He clears his throat. “You’re my favorite person and I-- I think I have to love you more than just about anyone else on the planet but that’s it.”

He twists his hands in his lap as he waits for Magnus’s reaction.

His best friend just smiles patiently. “And I’m telling you that’s okay.”

Frowning a little, Alec looks up. “Is it?”

Sighing, Magnus pulls Alec close until his chin is resting on top of Alec’s head. It’s a little cramped but Alec huddles just that little bit closer and thinks that there’s no place else he’d rather be.

“You’re my favorite person, too, darling. My best friend. I love you and I know you love me and that’s more than enough for us.” Magnus’s voice drops to a whisper as Alec swears he feels lips against his hair. “You’re perfect just as you are. I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”

The only sound around them is the distant thrum of New York as Alec focuses on his breathing, on taking in what Magnus just said. “Kind of seems like everyone else expects us to start dating or some shit.”

He feels more than hears Magnus start laughing. “Kind of seems like everyone else should mind their fucking business.”

There’s a pause before Magnus quietly asks, “Are you happy? With the way things are?”

Alec doesn’t hesitate as he replies, “Yeah, yes, of course. I love us.” He straightens up, though, making sure he’s looking Magnus in the eyes as he replies, “Are you?”

Magnus nods, grins a little. “I am,” he answers confidently. “I’m happy as long as it’s you, as long as it’s us. Whatever that means, however it happens. And to hell with what anyone else thinks.”

Alec stares hard at Magnus, can’t help but wonder if his best friend is lying to spare his feelings-- wonders if maybe Magnus is in love with him and trying to hide it, if maybe he doesn’t think Alec isn’t overreacting and is making a mountain out of a molehill.

But his best friend’s eyes are clear and bright and Alec might not be great at reading people but he knows Magnus better than most anyone else and this-- this is Magnus at his best, at his most happy and relaxed.

“Whatever that means,” he echoes.

He pulls Magnus into a hug and breathes in familiar shampoo. He decides that this is his favorite spot, right here with his best friend, and that maybe it’s okay not to have all the answers as long as he’s happy, as long as he’s not hurting anyone.

Maybe it’s okay to be different, as long as someone understands, as long as Magnus get it, gets him.

This is enough, Alec thinks. This is more than enough.

[thevividgreenmoss]

What does it mean that groups visibly and proudly identifying as Palestinian felt it necessary to scrub Zionism in order to boost a politician jockeying to supervise US Empire?  By what moral calculus did those groups take vital demands off the table?  Did they have the consent of refugees for whom right of return is sacrosanct?  Of rank-and-file Palestinians in the United States?  Or was it an exercise in unilateral leadership by the diasporic professional class? 

I know what the response is:  we didn’t mythologize anyone; we regularly pointed out his weaknesses.  Well, not really.  (I didn’t see you pointing out that Sanders is a Zionist, for example.)  Exerting tremendous energy to conceptualize Sanders as a benevolent uncle figure and then occasionally saying “he needs more work on this issue” or “we need to keep pushing him” was a cardinal feature of mythologization, as was running interference with points of view more palatable to the mainstream when fellow anti-Zionists dissented from the consensus.  Saying “he’s the best on Palestine even though he’s not perfect” was the rankest kind of mythmaking.  It confused “being better than a terrible field” with “being good.” 

I saw in these statements a yearning to matter, a desire to at long last be taken seriously after decades of abuse and disregard.  It’s a normal response to subordination, to the pain of continuous betrayal, but no amount of high-minded talk about an electoral revolution will compel sites of power to care about Palestinian Americans.  They shouldn’t be our audience, anyway.  Palestinians are admired by people around the world who value justice and resilience and dignity.  Let’s not forgot our place, which isn’t among consultants and technocrats, but with the ignominious, the surplus, the unbeloved.

...Electioneering requires compromise, but compromise isn’t a neutral practice.  The people are made to sacrifice for the affluent.  That’s how compromise works under capitalism.  Every time, every single time, it’s some aspect of Palestinian freedom that must be compromised.  Never the candidate’s position.  Never the system’s inherent conservatism.  Never the ongoing march of settler colonization.  We’re volunteering to be captured by the settler’s notion of common sense. 

And what would have happened if your guy won?  You already gave up right of return.  A one-state solution.  Anti-imperialism. Nobody was talking about general strikes until the pandemic. And nobody ever talks about armed struggle.  How did you plan to get these things back on the table after having surrendered them to a person whose first, second, and third priority is appeasing power?  You gave up something Palestinians have struggled and died for over the course of decades, and for what?  Just to make the apocryphal and frankly useless point that this politician is a more tolerable Zionist than the other ones? 

And when your guy loses?  This is the question of the moment, isn’t it?  You gave up all that leverage for nothing (except for individual benefits).  What happens next?  God knows I can’t answer that question.  I’m not saying don’t participate, don’t vote, don’t be interested in a candidate.  That’s not the point.  I dislike coercive forms of persuasion.   I’m simply trying to convince you not to give up the idea of freedom as it’s articulated by the downtrodden.  Not for any reason.  Certainly not for a goddamn politician. 

There’s a question you ought to ask as necessary (which is to say constantly):  what happens to Palestine?  When we humor a system calibrated to exclude us, when we pretend that liberation is possible on the margins of a hostile polity, when we imagine liberal Zionism as a prelude to freedom, then what happens to Palestine? 

The system you deign to reform ranks nothing above ruling class accumulation—the system, in other words, is designed to betray, and performs its mandate with brutal efficiency.  And so the answer to that timeless question never changes:  Palestine goes away.  Any group that doesn’t facilitate a flow of capital into the imperial core is fit for disappearance.  Our mandate, in turn, isn’t to seek the approval of our oppressor, but to earn his contempt.  

Instrumentalizing the persecuted is a critical feature of electoralism.  Promoting a Zionist presidential candidate and remaining faithful to the core tenets of anti-Zionism?  Forget it.  It’s not happening.  It can’t happen.  Electoralism is salted against insurgency.  It’s not a space for ideas, for creativity, for the simple decency of not asking the least powerful among us to defer their freedom; it’s hostile to anything that impedes the reproduction of orthodoxy.  Liberation has always required tremendous imagination.  That’s not on offer when David Sirota is authoring the narrative. 

You have no cause to be angry with Sanders.  Not now.  He hasn’t broken a single pledge.  He never hid his intentions.  There was plenty of reason for concern when he kept repeating liberal Zionist platitudes.  It was you, not Sanders, who folded Palestine into a campaign that always promised to maintain the status quo.  The outcome was easy to predict because it has many decades of precedent.  Palestinians, victim of a million betrayals, should know this better than anyone.  We also know that struggle has no easy trajectory.  Mass movements predicated on voting make for attractive sources of relief.  Then they go up in smoke and you’re left to find the next shiny figure to exploit, the next fount of excitement and pageantry and social capital.  This isn’t a serious politics.  It’s terminal naivete, or industrial self-promotion. 

And now what?  You disposed of the most radical members of our community, systematically excluding so many brethren from the life-sustaining pleasure of shared resistance, in order to assuage a bunch of faceless assholes waiting for the first opportunity to dispose of you, all that love sacrificed for no reward beyond some retweets and an evanescent sense of importance, your moment of being accepted by the polity now replaced by angry regret for having again succumbed to the gravitational pull of authority, of the state and its functionaries, of the very institutions that maintain our dispossession.  But our nation, Palestine, is neither temporary nor ephemeral.  Our politics should match the condition. 

[catalinaroleplay]

Gender & Pronouns: Demi man, he/him or they/them

Date of Birth: February 14th, 1989 (31)

Place of Birth: Catalina Island, California

Neighborhood: Avalon

Length of Residency: Native — Returned January 2020

Occupation: Former Child Actor

Face Claim: Oliver Jackson-Cohen

BIOGRAPHY

TRIGGERS: Drug Use, Alcoholism, Violence, Rehab, Divorce.

From the moment Nath could think, he’d known himself to be something in between a shadow and a cloud. A constant ebb and flow between two states, he is neither a fully-formed being nor a person of his own, for his birth had been to plug the hole of whatever had been left behind of Audrey Edelstein’s heart. A life shrouded by the black cloak of death, the woman had nowhere else to give her love but inwards, and out of her projections, Nathaniel is born. 

A birth, marked by the death of others, he shoulders his mother’s pain. 

And life is a show for young Nathaniel , who’d always felt more comfortable wearing another’s skin than his own. A cry for help from a young wisp of a soul, ephemeral as a cloud of smoke, and Audrey, ever-encouraging towards her young child, mistakes his precocious ability to chameleon himself into an array of emotions as a want for something bigger. 

Nath likes it enough, of course. But what he likes even more is seeing his mother happy — it isn’t lost on them that she is alone, without a partner by her side. Hints of sadness, the lightest shades of doom coloring her face, all he wants is to see his mother smile. 

Bigger roles come, and so does the media, rabid for the next sweet thing to grace their screens. A rocket ship to fame and riches galore — what more could a young child want? But still far too young, Nath does not understand that all good things must always come at a price. 

Stardom is a deep hole, always starving, always wanting, and it eats Nath alive. Thrown into the pit with no lifeline, how is he expected to crawl his way out? Just fourteen and yet already reeking with desperation, Nath does not know who he is anymore — neither a man, nor a child; not a person, nor a boy. Applauded for a career he does not think he deserves, revered as a genius for feeling less and less like himself every day. If he cannot climb back up, there is nowhere to go but down. It isn’t long before everyone else catches on to the ever-building shit in his life threatening to overflow at any second. 

They call him every name in the book: a wild child, misguided teen, a privileged little fuck. All of it is right in some way, but any intention to stop is always met with another wall of insults by people who never bothered to understand. 

And yet, he supposes he deserves what happens next. The movie had been his last hope ( his mother’s last hope ) to solidify his place in this world. And it all ends with an ill-fated punch to his co-star’s face over an argument that he fails to even recall the next few days — a fight stemming from a drunken stupor, it is the last straw. Already sixteen and they send him away to an isolated treatment facility for three months. The last face he sees is of hers, tear-stricken and all-too regretful of his ( her ) choices.  A week of the goddamn shakes and sweats, but a lifetime of hunger for something that he can no longer touch. 

Nothing breaks as much as it crumbles over the course of two years. The calls stop coming, and he pulls away from his mother, arguments frequent more than ever and everything dries up like his resolve to climb back up to normalcy. How fickle of the world to think nothing of him, moving on like Nath had never existed in the first place. He doesn’t understand when his mother quietly suggests he find another path, doesn’t understand when he sees that his money is gone. Uncontrollable, spinning out into something, he feels his hand itch towards the bottle. 

The book becomes his anchor. A way to hang onto whatever little narrative he still has control over — he goes for the one thing that young Nath had been determined to protect: his mother. 

Ghostwritten by another, titled Rich Privileged F*ck, as an homage to his most notorious of nicknames, Nath finds the spotlight once more. Of course it’s the mother; it’s always the mother, leading their poor child down the wrong path. 

What comes after, is a blur. 

He is alone. Painfully, undeniably, wholly alone. A single pillar in a desert, he falls back to the devilish comforts of alcohol and everything else that could numb him from the pains of living. Always so sensitive, always so soft, but the world could not see it. After all, what faces the world is the picture of someone erratic and cold, without any regard for the charmed life he has been given — so what else is there to do? Walking into the dark is the easiest when everyone is guiding you from behind, so that is what he does. 

Washed-up, with royalties running thin, he is given one last chance. Ten years and nine different agents; ten years and countless of interviews done under the influence — a single person. A new agent. It is all that he needs. A person to believe that he can pull himself from the pit he dug for himself so long ago. They say to never put your sobriety on anyone else, but he gets better for them anyways. After all, they had their own demons to conquer, and there is no better way to overpower them side-by-side, with another. 

And yet — how can he save another when he can't even save himself?  

He lapses. And he lapses. And again and again until six hundred and some days pass and he is back in the pit. A hand is extended once more, before it is gone — and ironically enough, it is enough to push him into sobriety. 

At the end, Nath moves back to the island. Quiet and unassuming, he is assigned another agent — this time, they say, it’s his last. Nothing else to do but scrape up the remnants of his career, to sort through the rubble, to find out what they can salvage. 

If there is anything he has control over, it is his ability to capture media attention. His baggage is heavier and more visible than most, and his agent draws up a contract. A year-and-a-half of his life for a chance at forgiveness for what he has done. 

Eleanor Hirsch is in some ways, the exact opposite of him — though she’s had her fair share of media attention, her life is, for the most part, private. The vultures could speculate all they wanted, but they would never eat her alive like they’d done with him. 

So what better way to drum up publicity than to have them date? Ellie would receive a hefty amount of attention, all the while without sacrificing her personal life — only carefully crafted media posts and strategically placed paparazzi. And for himself, a renewed image painted in sobriety, approved by an award-winning actress to boot. 

Nath, as always, is indifferent. He will do it, because someone has told him to do it, and he will continue his career, because what other choice does he have? A chameleon, a trail of smoke, a puff of air — Nath knows everything in life is impermanent. 

Sometimes, when he sits by the beach, he wonders if he will blow away and become one with the wind.

PERSONALITY

Positive: Independent | Observant | Protective

Negative: Aloof | Possessive | Gullible 

Nathaniel Edelstein is portrayed by Say.

[toziers]

#12

it’s laid down in the grass / with our old and worn-out shoes / looking at the stars / on a blanket made for two - #12: in the stars - my brothers and i


technically, you could see the stars from anywhere in derry. a small town not yet overtaken by the towering sky-rises or cloudy pollutions of the neighboring industrial plants, just about any spot was good enough to crane your neck back and see constellations from horizon to horizon in any direction. not that richie was gonna stand in front of the aladdin looking like a flipping idiot trying to see cassiopeia or hercules; he might as well slap a sign on his chest that said “henry bowers please kick the shit out of me.”

you could see the stars from anywhere in derry, but the quarry, still and calm and free of sociopaths horny for violence, was richie’s favorite.

“just be home by midnight, boys,” maggie says, smacking richie’s hand away when he scoops a finger-full of brownie batter from the side of the mixing bowl. “richie! wash your hands first!”


“yeah, yeah, back by midnight, whatever, thanks mom!” he’s so tall he has to bend down to kiss her cheek now – like he has since he was 15, shooting up past her already impressive five-foot-eight and then surpassing even his father less than a year and a half later. the tallest of the losers by an inch (with stan tailing just behind) and the gangliest by a mile (though bill’s clumsy doe movements could give richie’s elbows a run for their money), richie was always bending, slouching, cramming himself into rooms and chairs and twin-sized beds. maybe that’s why he liked the quarry so much: at least out there he didn’t have to worry about smacking and whacking and thwacking into low door-frames or shin-height coffee tables. 


(eddie had laughed so hard the day richie ran forehead-first into a support beam of the bunker that he’d fallen out of the hammock. they’d spent the rest of the evening on richie’s couch watching cartoons: richie, holding an ice pack to his head, and eddie, holding one to his wrist. karma had never felt so fucking satisfying.)

“and take the quilt from the hall closet this time instead of one of my nice ones from the living room,” she adds sternly, and richie looks away, sheepish, as he wipes the saliva from his finger across his jeans. clearly he hadn’t done as good of a job getting the dirt stains out of the expensive fleece as he’d thought.

“i got it, mrs. t,” eddie says, holding up a roll of patchwork fabric half the size of his body. richie was the tallest, and eddie was the smallest, and it’d always been that way. (except for the summer that eddie hit his growth spurt before bill and spent two months holding that half-inch of height like a goddamn trophy until bill eventually overtook him again.) richie kinda liked it though; even now, eighteen years old and set on the path to university in the fall, they both still fit in the old worn-down hammock. they didn’t fit well, but they fit, and even if they didn’t, they would’ve found a way to squeeze in. eddie and richie were always finding ways to be close, making silent excuses for the way their thighs pressed together as they played video games or pretending their hands didn’t linger with every playful smack or tickle fight. they didn’t talk about it: the other losers didn’t either.

“rich, c’mon, we’re wasting daylight.”

“that’s the point, eds, it’s star-gazing.” but rich crosses the kitchen in two easy steps, and they take the bickering that follows out the front door as maggie calls out have fun! with a knowing smile on her face.

mothers always know.

* * *

“and that one’s gumbus minoris, named after the bravest man that ever lived; slayer of blockheads and — eddie, stop laughing, this is important — slayer of blockheads and slayer of pussy—”

“oh, beep beep richie,” eddie says, but his cheeks are red from giggling and his brown eyes sparkle with mirth under the light of the moon. “gumby doesn’t have his own fucking constellation.”

“he does too! trust me,” richie sniffs, rolling over to prop himself up on his elbow and using his free hand to push his glasses up his nose. “i’m an expert.”

“on what, bullshitting?”

richie scoffs. “why, i never!” he throws his palm over his chest, twisting his voice into something whiny and high pitched and about as close to a southern belle as eddie was to out-growing richie’s horrible Voices.

(which was to say not close, not even in the slightest.)

“ah swear it eddie, on all the fiyaflies in the field and all the twists in your britches.” richie gets another burst of sweet giggles for that and a light smack to his stomach. eddie’s hand lingers for a moment, fingers skimming over the faded print of richie’s prized liger t-shirt before dropping away. eddie’s gaze is still pointed at the sky, so richie lets himself indulge in the soft curves of the boy’s profile, in the way his long eyelashes brush against the hairs of delicate eyebrows.

when they were younger, richie used to pull eddie close and give him a gentle noogie or pinch his cheeks and call him cutecutecute. shit, richie still did that, did it a lot more regularly than ‘best friends’ probably should, but lately, richie was having to bite his tongue to keep from calling eddie something else —  pretty, maybe. or beautiful. a downright knock-out, from head to toe. richie’s eyes flick to the stars. heavenly would work, too.

“i’m telling you, it’s up there! see, right…” richie leans over onto eddie’s side of the blankets — to get the sight lines right, of course — and points, tracing the outline of the green character over a configuration of stars. “right there.”

eddie tilts his head away from the sky, beaming, and when richie turns his head too their faces are close enough that richie almost goes cross-eyed. “uh-huh. is pokey up there, too, mr. expert?”

the weight of eddie’s stare sits on richie’s heart like a hot hand on his bare chest, like always, but richie’s greens are aimed down. soft brown freckles are spattered across eddie’s nose and spread ear to ear: fuzzy stars against warm skin. richie’s spent hours finding his own constellations there, and across eddie’s arms, and his back, too, when they were all laid out on the rocks drying off after a swim.

“nah,” richie says, and brings his hand down to ghost his index finger over the slant of eddie’s cheekbone. he traces… something, some shape, drawing invisible lines from one freckle to the next; suddenly he can’t remember who pokey was, let alone what he looked like. “he’s right here.”

the puffs of eddie’s breath come out uneven — richie can feel it against where his palm hovers over eddie’s mouth — and when richie finally scrounges up the courage to meet the other’s gaze, eddie’s eyes have become little more than chocolate rings around blown-out pupils.

the desire to close the gap and kiss his best friend is stupidly, ferociously, unbearably overwhelming. there is a possibility (or maybe just the heart’s whisper of hope in richie’s chest) that, with the way eddie’s eyes flit to catch the movement of richie’s tongue wetting his lower lip, eddie might want to kiss him right back.

but beneath every loud, obnoxious, look-at-me-or-i-swear-i-might-die funny kid’s facade, there is a coward. taking chances on a dirty joke, on crossing lines with Voices and bits, that was easy. taking chances on this? eddie and richie stood on a tightrope, a precipice of love and love. 

don’t ruin this, the coward screams. you can’t lose him now.

so richie grins, pokes eddie’s nose, and flops back onto the blanket with his hands behind his head. “don’t bother asking about the blockheads, though, fuck if i know where they—”

if the force of eddie’s body dropping onto his wasn’t enough to knock the wind out of richie, the feeling of lips — his best friend’s lips, eddie’s lips, eddie’s pink, pouty, perfect lips — against his own did the trick. frozen, richie stares, wide-eyed behind the frames of his glasses that’d gone lop-sided when eddie flew across the blanket at him.

kiss him back, fuckass!

he does. richie’s head thumps softly to the ground as his hands fly to curl around eddie’s jaw, tender and desperate all at once. there’s no finesse, no grace to any of it; it’s all the fierce, wild energy that always ricocheted between them focused into a single, bruising kiss. richie’s heart is hammering against his ribs so hard he’s sure it’s shaking his entire being.

eventually, eddie pulls back, though his body stays half-flung over richie’s like a tiny blanket of energy. he’s breathing hard, and even in the faint glow of moonbeams, richie knows eddie’s face is flushed. actually, his probably is too; his cheeks feel hot (and his hands, and his stomach, and everywhere else eddie’s pressed up against).

“you’re a blockhead, richie,” eddie says, but his face lights up with the biggest smile richie’s ever seen.

i love you, richie’s heart sings.

“no, you’re a blockhead,” richie’s mouth says. his brain’s a little scrambled still, swimming with thoughts of eddie eddie eddie, and his smack talk suffers as a consequence. eddie still laughs; eddie always laughed. eddie would never tell, but he thought richie was the funniest person in the world, easy. it didn’t matter the joke, and it never would. if richie was speaking, eddie was right there with him, hanging on every word that came out of his trash mouth like richie was spinning gold with his tongue.

“guess that makes us a pair.” richie smiles then too, a rush of joy, unbridled and pure, washing over him so strongly he thought he might drown in it. the moment felt infinite and ephemeral, impossible and  palpable, all at once.

“guess so.”

they don’t get home before midnight. in three weeks, richie (and the rest of the losers, too) would leave for school, while eddie would stay in derry to take classes locally. the coward inside richie screamed worries of drifting apart, permanently or not, but for tonight, it was silenced by the bravest man that ever lived.

eddie, not fucking gumby.

you could see the stars from anywhere in derry, but laying at the top of the quarry side-by-side with eddie, hands clasped between them and ankles hooked so that their dirty converse knocked together — yeah, that took the fucking crown.