#but bon apetite

[chenouttachen]

how alan spends the aftermath of… everything… speaks volumes about his relationship with jeff.

after losing a loved one and going through all that he did, it would be so easy for alan to throw himself into work at the garage. it’s always been his baby, his joy, and he’d be surrounded by reminders of way and the memories they shared. it would also be natural for him to surround himself with pack family, but he doesn’t do either of these things.

he stays at jeff’s house. they don’t stay at alan’s, which has always been the safe house for them all. no, they stay at jeff’s tiny condo. and he stays there for days, curled up in jeff’s bed, not seeking anything or anyone else.

not only is this a pretty apt portrayal of the emptiness and despair that often comes with grief, but also the desire to spend as much time with the people closest to you, while you can.

understandably, he wants to be close to the man he loves after going through something so awful. he wants to stay wrapped in a bubble where the two of them are safe and secure and untouchable. he loves jeff so much he can’t bear to be apart from him.

but what really gets me, is that alan and jeff have clearly reached a new level of intimacy in their relationship.

jeff is such a private person who has been so closed off for so long. he’s been hesitant to touch alan, to get too close, but now it’s different.

despite knowing all of jeff’s reservations, alan is unflinchingly comfortable in his lover’s space. he never once apologises for taking up jeff’s time or room or energy. not only does he love this man, but he believes in the love jeff has for him too. he doesn’t see himself as a burden to jeff, because he knows that the younger man wants to take care of him. he knows that jeff wants him to feel safe and warm and loved. and he does.

[iinryer]

buck and eddie napping in the same bunk for DJScreamsALot on twitter! every single limb has fallen asleep. they have never been more comfortable

this is a prompt fill with the @911actions gotcha for gaza—the submission period has come to an end, but you can still donate to a good cause!

[mellohirust]

i still dont know how rendering works

[unwri-ten]

Missing him rn

[acronym49]

I am ✨️not straight✨️ ♡♡♡

But yeah lmao sketchpage for Satan! And a random eye for some reason bc shading is fun.

Took a bit over two hours to finish.

[starscelly]

the finnish slim shady... in finland!

fla@dal 11.01.24 | global series finland

[flockoff]

[fishandbandages]

Violinist Dazai

OOC: I went in about 5 different directions with this, I had no idea what I was doing while rendering lol

The background looks goofy o-o

Also I’ve never drawn a violin in my life so if it’s off, I do apologize 😓

[thatbluebox]

DROP BY DROP | galadriel & sauron 

[tezzbot]

I love a funny little spy moment<3 Not exactly undercover but certainly up to something >:^]

[chenouttachen]

pit babe x text posts 2/4

[iinryer]

If you might still be taking suggestions for your prompts 1. touching foreheads with 🥾🌲😭

a little scene prompt game to get me writing!

[🥾🌲😭 + 1: touching foreheads]

—

The tension is starting to get to him.

All of this beautiful relaxing nature, the fresh air, the sights and sounds of the late afternoon familiar hike. And yet, the tightness in Buck’s chest that he’s been trying to dodge for the past 72—give or take—hours, prevails.

He feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his own skin.

But he’s holding on. Yeah. He can wait. He can. And he has! He’s waiting. Even if he’s not entirely sure when he’ll get to stop waiting. He’s waiting because he’s a good person and he will respect the wishes of the people around him.

He can wait.

“Hey,” just ahead of him on the path, Eddie gestures up towards a trail sign. He turns back over his shoulder, the perfect picture of composure and nonchalance, and asks, “did you want to take a water break at the next lookout?”

And Buck feels his hold on himself slip like a misstep on a rocky path.

He can’t wait.

“Can—Can we talk about it yet?” he blurts out in a rush, tripping over his own words, tumbling and skittering like gravel down the incline, “I—I know you don’t want to but it’s—Eddie. I really think we need to talk about it,”

Eddie goes completely still.

Buck feels like his ears are ringing, he doesn’t know if this is the right call, but he’s—he can’t hold onto it anymore. It’s making him feel crazy.

He watches Eddie’s face in profile. Suddenly neutral in the way he gets when he’s trying to put a wall between himself and what’s happening around him. Buck hates it. Hates to be on the other side of that shell.

“Please?” Buck tries, sounding desperate even to his own ears.

There’s another beat, and then Eddie deflates with a heaving exhale. He closes his eyes, gives a stilted nod, and then turns to keep walking.

Buck is confused for a moment, scrambling to follow—always, always following—but then Eddie takes the split in the path towards the lookout marker he’d pointed out. He’s not running, Buck realizes with relief, he’s just leading them off of the trail.

Buck pauses when Eddie sits on the bench at the ledge, his back to Buck, facing the landscape below them. He’s still holding himself stiffly, but there’s a line of resignation in the curve of his shoulders that makes Buck’s heart ache.

He gives Eddie a second to breathe before making his way over to the bench, sure to telegraph his approach with footsteps that can be heard. For all that he’s been vibrating out of his skin wanting to talk, he finds himself moving slowly. Deliberate and measured. He’s cracked open the brittle shell, but there’s still something very fragile inside. There’s still a risk of hurt, if he’s not careful with it.

Buck stands in front of the bench for a moment, hands tucked away in his jacket pockets, looking out at the beginnings of sunset colors over the trees. Breathes deep and sits down. Leaves space between himself and Eddie, even though it makes him itch.

They don’t say anything for a while.

A bird calls. Then another.

Eventually, words from days ago, said in parting at his front door, return to the forefront of his mind—

Hey, um. Before I go…

“You told me you loved me,” Buck murmurs. As if he needs the reminder.

I love you. Just so you know.

As if he hasn’t been replaying the words in his head on a loop for days.

We don’t need to talk about it, but I just…

“You—,” Buck furrows his brow and chews his lip. Breathing in, then out, “You said—,”

I’m in love with you—and it’s important to me. That you know that.

Buck looks over at him for the first time since sitting down, “And then you left,”

I’ll see you on shift, okay?

There’s silence. And then,

“Yeah,” Eddie swallows harshly, “I did,”

“Why d—,” Buck starts, stops, huffs. Goes to try again, but he doesn’t even know what he wants to ask. Why do you love me? Why did you say it? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did you leave? All of them? None of them? He’s not sure.

Eddie purses his lips and shrugs, still not meeting Buck’s eye. But he picks an unsaid why, maybe at random, and replies, “You told me you didn’t think it was in the cards for you. And I couldn’t let you believe that was true,”

Buck’s brain stutter-steps. Rewinds to earlier in that day—before the life-changing farewell at the door took over his entire field of view—back to when he’d been telling Eddie how app dating was starting to feel hopeless, even with the newly-doubled pool size. How he’d laughed and said he felt like maybe he’d run out of chances. Maybe he’d gotten too complicated.

He feels scrambled, searching for words, “I don’t—so you just—,”

“You’re easy, Buck,” Eddie cuts him off, his voice fervent even where it cracks, no room for argument, “you’re so easy to love, it scares me sometimes,”

The wave of adrenaline and shock and overwhelming adoration that sweep over Buck makes him feel tingly and lightheaded.

“Eddie,” Buck whispers, feeling on the verge of tears as he scoots himself closer, “Eddie, look at me, please,”

Eddie’s eyes flicker to him, then down and away, but back again. Meeting Buck, just because he’d asked. Steeling himself. But brave. So, so brave.

“You don’t have to feel the same,” Eddie says, quietly, voice thick and resigned. A flash of a sad, unsure smile, “it’s okay, it’s just mine to hold onto,”

“You asshole,” Buck chokes out a laugh, folding forward to press their foreheads together, eyes closing, noses bumping, hand finding Eddie’s elbow and holding on tight, “You’re such a martyr,”

Eddie lets out a surprised snort, but he’s still shaking in Buck’s grip when he weakly teases back, “Look who’s talking,”

“Of course I feel the same,” Buck whispers into the space between them, barreling past the teasing and back to the heart of it, “of course I love you. How could I not?”

Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable.

He feels more than he hears the shuddering breath that Eddie takes, before he says, so softly it’s barely anything, “You do?”

Buck nods against him, frantic and with furrowed brows, “You—You didn’t want us to talk about it a-and then you didn’t let me say anything back before you left, you jerk—so please, just,” pressing even closer, feeling a hand on his shoulder, fingers against his jaw. Says, “let me,” feels a wetness on his cheek and he’s not sure whose eyes it came from, says again, “let me, please—please, let me love you—,”

Anything else he says is lost between the press of lips and the soft breeze.

[now on ao3!]

[moonshynecybin]

marc being a lying liar that lies all kinds of lies nonstop is actually one of my favourite things about him! like yeah the arm is definitely fucked but will anyone but alex know how fucked? no! and even alex, the person he obviously feels closest to in the whole world, he definitely lies to about other stuff. i don’t think he’s pathological about it, he does it very strategically and exactly when needed, he will say whatever fits the occasion best to get out of any situation, he will never show all his cards ever. maybe he did once with one person and that got kinda so fucked it won’t happen again. the things you learn with 22… anyway, i also think he’s very good at detecting when he’s being lied to. he’s very good at saying the right thing when needed in general (and i don’t just mean the recent examples), he’s very… self-aware of exactly what is going on, always has been. it’s all a stage production. im obsessed with him.

so sexy so true so smart…. i DO want to add that while YEAH no part of me thinks that marc would be completely honest to the media about the state of his arm in the throes of a genuine competitive season, i also think we have to consider that he is very weird about every bit of his body and he also simply might have the most fucked standard of all time for what it means for his arm to be “functional.” not a lie so much as his incredibly skewed perception of when an injury is so bad as to impact his riding…. remember him trying to ride through a concussion until alex talked him down AND the initial arm injury being made worse by him working it too hard and the plate snapping. his standard (and like literally ALL riders standard) for injury and pain is so incredibly messed up he literally might have been telling the truth about the arm, just a truth that has no bearing in actual reality lol

[idontparticularlyliketoast]

That fucking robot got in my head dog

***

BOOT UP SEQUENCE READY

FIRMWARE

LATEST UPDATE: (2112.08.06)

CALIBRATION

EXPIRED

NEW CALIBRATION REQUIRED

AUDIO OK

“-works!” A voice said. It echoed strangely.

There was the sound of an engine humming, but smoother, quieter. Not the tell-tale gurgle of blood-mechanisms.

VIDEO OK

It’s vision flickered on, a ceiling looming above it. Old stone. Something next to it was glowing, a faint yellow hue filling the space.

MECHANICS ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MECHANICS DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL DETECTED

FOREIGN CODE DETECTED

CRITICAL SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

SHUT DOWN IN 3 2 1

“What– no– don’t– ugh.” The person beside it shifted, and the light pulsed blue.

ERROR

SHUT DOWN HALTED DUE TO FUEL DISCREPANCY

ALL SYSTEMS POWERED

FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

ERROR

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

CALIBRATION DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

FOREIGN MATERIAL COMPATIBLE WITH UNIT MECHANICS

FOREIGN CODE COMPATIBLE WITH OPERATING SYSTEM

ACCEPT FOREIGN MATERIAL?

YES

CALIBRATION RESUMED

MECHANICS OK

A thousand connections fired, a thousand little servos testing a new body. The resulting feedback was clear. The legs were standard issue, as was the right arm and head. The foreign object was the left arm, and a section of the diaphragm.

STATUS UPDATE:

MACHINE ID: VI

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE SITUATION

V1 rotated its head, inspecting the changes. The new arm resembled their right in form, but it was a completely new material, golden and glowing.

It then glanced up.

Standing beside it, holding a clip-board, was an angel.

Prior experience determined this was a new subtype. It had a more human form than a Virtue, but it didn’t have enough armor to be an arch-angel. A gold and silver helm with a design that mimicked rings of eyes. Some basic vambraces. All the rest of their form was covered by cloth drapings.

ERROR

PRIORITY OVERRIDE

REASON: FUEL RESERVES AT 0%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

Prior experience indicated that V1 would be strapped down to the table. It was standard procedure when working with blood-fueled machines. It would be idiotic to wake up a hungry machine and not at least restrain it. V1 prepared to break the restraints.

V1 was not strapped down. It automatically discarded that strain of data-analysis, its core frantically trying to conserve energy. Energy that it shouldn’t have, because it didn’t have any blood.

CURRENT OBJECTIVE: BLOOD

The angel didn’t have any time to react before they were on the ground, V1 on top of them. The new arm was no Knuckleblaster, but it still smashed in the angel’s chest. Crimson splashed upwards, and its strikes grew in speed. Over and over again, it crushed glowing flesh, fists trading blows with ruthless efficiency.

Only when the blood stopped flowing, and the flesh stopped glowing, did V1 stop hitting.

FUEL RESERVES AT 41%

DATA ANALYSIS:

MANKIND IS DEAD

HELL IS GONE.

BLOOD IS FUEL.

THIS UNIT WAS FUNCTIONING AT 0%.

RESULTS INCONCLUSIVE

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND A WEAPON

It scanned its surroundings. The work-station it had been laying on was nothing more than cut stone. Around it, someone has set up various tables, which held unknown tools and substances. The tables were definitely a newer addition– everything else in the room was covered in a fine layer of dust, including the blood-splattered floor. The room was a square of sharp stone angles with V1’s slab in the center. The only thing else of interest were a series of shelves cut directly into the rock walls.

Most of the shelves held crumbling books, irrelevant. But just behind where V1’s head had lain, on a particularly large shelf, were guns**. Large ones, small ones, even a few that looked like they’d been pulled right off the back of other machines.

V1 started throwing them into its wings with gleeful abandon. It had just finished shoving a massive rail cannon into its storage when the data connected; these weren’t random guns, these were its** guns. And, if its internal storage systems were working correctly, they had ammo.

It continued shoving them into its storage, and then began exploring the room.

NEW OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE

There was no clear door for the angel to have come. Could it have teleported inside? Possibly, but V1 was not sure the tables were small enough for an angel to teleport. Especially one of a lower power-level. Prior experience suggested there was a relation between matter moved and power expended. V1 noticed a break in pattern; there were only shelves on three walls of the room. It jumped over to the wall, and punched it with the new arm.

It flashed gold, and the stone cracked. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small chamber.

It considered the glowing arm, and labeled it Godpiercer. Godpiercer was sending what V1 could only interpret as off-signals for certain temporary conditions. It switched a random one on.

The arm prompted a further selection:

SPECIFY FORM:

MEMORY/FEEDBACKER

MEMORY/KNUCLEBLASTER

MEMORY/WHIPLASH

FEEDBACKER OK

The golden metal glowed brighter, and began to twist and warp. Metal plates wrenched apart, light growing in a sudden and violent osmosis. A second, more familiar arm, tore itself free from its sibling. “Feedbacker” glowed with an alien light. V1 made a quick inspection; a near perfect copy.

FUEL RESERVES AT 39%

Immediately, the machine switched the function off. The mimic arm was reabsorbed instantly, but the burnt fuel didn’t return.

NEW OBJECTIVE: DETERMINE MECHANISM USED BY ANGEL. IF FUEL DROPS TO 37% BEFORE OBJECTIVE COMPLETION, THEN SUMMON KNUCKLEBLASTER AND DESTROY WALL.

It returned to the body, and reached down to tear the skull off, before stopping. It was not in Hell, and if the angel had to be decapitated to use the mechanism, it wouldn’t have been able to revive V1. It settled instead for picking up the entire corpse and hucking it towards the wall.

No result. It scanned the rest of the room.

There was nothing else except the books and the angel’s tools. It began pulling books off the shelves, scanning through them as quickly as its processor could handle.

No relevant data. Many of the books were poorly constructed, damaged or otherwise unreadable. It was mostly disconnected sentence fragments, with no clear relation to the stone chamber or the construction. Its processor flagged some passages as containing familiar phrases and names. They were disregarded as irrelevant to the current objective.

Nothing. It returned to the angel’s tools, and began scanning and categorizing them. Group context suggested they were tools for repairing complex machinery and robotics, though many of them were completely alien.

It picked up a screwdriver. It threw it at the wall. The screwdriver tinged off, falling onto the angel’s body with a slightly wet thunk.

V1 began throwing all of the tools at the wall.

It succeeded in destroying a good amount of the angel’s tools, and the carefully pristine room was now a complete wreck. There was no other effect.

Its fuel reserves ticked down.

NEW OBJECTIVE: BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THAT WALL

It sprang to the new vacated bookshelf on the far side, its legs crouched, springs coiled. It summoned Knuckleblaster, the gold and red mass pulling free with the sound of a sword unsheathing. Then it powered its legs, aiming right for the spot it had previously cracked.

Shining metal met stone with the force of a bullet shot at point-blank, and the wall shattered.

A moment later, the machine stood up out of the rubble, and scanned its surroundings. It was dusk, and V1 was in a forest.

This was not a visual error. It double-checked.

RUN DIAGNOSTIC

MEMORY DIAGNOSTIC RESULT:

EARTH WAS A BURNT RUIN

MANKIND WAS DEAD

HELL WAS DESTROYED

THIS UNIT CONTINUED OPERATION FOR 5.6 YEAR(S) PAST PROJECTED TERMINATION DATE DUE TO GABRIEL

ESSENTIAL MOBILITY AND FUEL RETAINMENT SYSTEMS DEGRADED AND WERE UNABLE TO BE REPLACED

THIS UNIT DIED

ALL DATA CORRECT

That was… exactly what it remembered. It explained nothing. There was no sign of memory tapering in the diagnostic or gaps in recording. It had** died in a corpse of a world bled dry. And now it was standing in a forest, alive.

And it was still hungry.

FUEL RESERVES AT 36%

NEW OBJECTIVE: FIND FUEL

SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: FIND ANSWERS AND/OR GABRIEL

[thatseadog]

I spent entirely way too much time on this, they act like siblings your honor

[unholymiasma]

his arms are there, they're just hiding under his cloak. its not because i cant draw hands. promise.