#but he hasn't known anything else ( that is

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Lotta good points!

1) My issue with 'Bucky does everything' is... why the fuck would he want to be friends with Steve, in that case? And why would Steve go to such lengths for someone he couldn't be bothered to support properly before?

It makes being Steve's friend a quite-literally-thankless job, and Steve's 'friendship' amounts to the chance to serve him in return for nothing - no gratitude, no apology, no happiness to see him, no emotional, financial, physical support in return. It makes Steve selfish and self-absorbed, which are antithetical to his defining traits of selflessness and thinking of the little guy.

He can't vaunt those traits in everyone except Bucky, but then turn around and act as if he valued them all along by, eg. saving Bucky, avenging him, etc!

Plus it makes Steve's claims of independence a joke too, which in turn makes it annoying when he turns up in Basic Training and suddenly is able to do things, so that Token Love Interest can look like the first person to recognise his capabilities, when... no, those traits just weren't there, before, on purpose.

CATFA deliberately avoided showing us anything by the way of Steve's abilities, for Bucky to believe in, just to make it look like Bucky is unfairly undervaluing him (nonsense, since he's known Steve his whole life) and that someone else is a better judge. How the fuck is Bucky supposed to know Steve is capable of throwing himself on a grenade?! It's not like they have those lying around in Brooklyn!

5) Bucky using women to disguise his closet is true to the spirit of Arnie Roth, on whom he was partly based. But I still think it's a step too far to suggest he'd chose strangers over friends and family for his last night; even a lesbian couple.

(Or that Steve wouldn't likewise insist on having Bucky's last night in America for just them, even if they weren't a couple).

Unless Bucky's relationship with his family was bad... But we've never seen/heard any suggestion of that? 🤔

Again my thought process is 'why would A be friends with B if B was like this??' (ie. if A was selfish enough to spend their last night with strangers rather than with B).

8) Re: Steve the incel.

You could also play it as Steve having benevolent misogyny values without realising it, putting women up on a pedestal (explaining why he doesn't clock when he has been molested, or assaulted; is shocked when a woman lies to him; maybe thinks the reason he isn't being sexually attracted to women is because they are Too Perfect to sully with sex, etc.)

The only problem with idealising women is that it surely could not survive contact with a troop of foul-mouthed show girls, unless Steve absolutely went out of his way to avoid them??

But if he did have benevolent misogyny, this could maybe manifest in pre-serum Steve delivering long mopey monologues about how whoever he's been set up with is probably too good for him, probably isn't even interested, he's so poor, and sick all the time *cough cough*, unlike her, she would be embarrassed to be seen with him, probably, he's sorry Bucky set her up with him of all people, etc etc ...delivered during the date.

So that by the time Bucky circles back around to their table, no matter how attracted to Steve the girl was initially, she'd be like '🙂 please get me away from here.'

I could also see a queer Steve self-sabotaging by doing this, as a kind of inverse of ladykiller!Bucky.

Either so deeply in the closet that he doesn't even realise he's doing it, is unaware he's not helping his 'passing for straight' problem, thinks he's just looking out for the poor perfect woman, etc. (perhaps even kinda likes that guilt makes Bucky be extra-nice to him for a while after?)

Or, not closeted Steve having a bloody-minded determination not to date because he thinks it's dishonest to the lady; determined to publically crash and burn, so no one ever questions why he hasn't got married yet. And maybe seething and annoyed about having to do this, because he feels bad for wasting the girl's time.

And, yeah, open-book baby gay Steve absolutely glaring at whoever Bucky's dancing with and his own date either clocking him or being like 'woah he really seems obsessed with his friend's girlfriend?'

(I could also see a closeted himbo Steve being like 'yeah Bucky took me to this secret gay bar he knows about for some reason, but it's just because he knows I always fail with women and wanted to give me a night off from that, that's all!' Poor Bucky dropping absolute anvil hints and Steve's not getting it. 😂)

I ended up doing a long old rant on this other post, about the problems with the Steve/Bucky characterisation in CATFA, how it fails to make them mutual in their support / fails to properly show Steve's struggles and independence, before serum.

And I was thinking...

what would you have to do, if you wanted to write a CATFA or pre-war Stucky fic and wanted to fix all those problems?

So I figured I'd make a list!

Pardon me while I rip CATFA a new one...

.

Problem 1) Pre-serum Steve acts as if he's independent and self-reliant without Bucky... when the opposite is shown.

A) He doesn't have a job.

(He isn't shown working, doesn't mention working, or taking time off to do the things we see him doing etc. Bucky is framed as paying for things.)

If the fic is set during CATFA you could fix that by mentioning Steve does have a job but has been given time off to go enlist. Or has just been fired from his job. Basically anything to show that Steve has had a job, has been working. Perhaps even had multiple simultaneous jobs!

Probably cut out the part where Steve scoffs at working in a factory or collecting scrap metal (more likely he'd admire and/or understand why both of those are viable options; maybe they're jobs he has done in the past and is biased against now, for some experiential-related reason.)

Or, if he still does not want to work in a factory... well, at the time, with most men being overseas, factory work would've been women's work. So perhaps Steve was reluctant because it feels emasculating. Or maybe even dysphoric, to be relegated to otherwise female-only spaces, instead of welcomed into (then) male-only spaces like the Army? 🤔

(This would especially ring true if you were doing a trans!Steve story, or emphasising the disability aspect of his life. And it would cycle back when he gets stuck in the USO, doing women's work again.)

B) It would also be better characterisation if pre-serum Steve was already good at fighting, but just happened to be outclassed by heavier weight opponents, and/or hindered sudden disability flare ups mid-fight. (In the tie-in comic, Bucky taught him how to box. Why not keep this?)

And also if his health was in a lifetime high point, then it would be less nonsensical to be trying to lie his way into the Army. There has to be some actual common sense and logic behind his choice, so that he's not essentially snapping 'Bucky why won't you support me committing suicide, gdi?'

Steve shouldn't be getting his first real win by knocking down a flagpole; he should've been showing this capability in his pre-war / pre-Army time, too.

You could emphasise the idea of Steve entering a fight he knows he's going to lose, in order to accomplish a secondary goal that the enemy doesn't recognise. IE. Steve fighting the bully in the alleyway -- he loses the fight, but succeeds in stopping the bully from making a scene in the cinema, which was his original goal. So mention it!

(Steve could be like 'winning this fight wasn't the point.' And Bucky could be like 'ah, so what were you distracting him from?')

.

Problem 2) The support is imbalanced; Bucky's doing all the emotional, financial, and physical labour in the relationship.

You could fix that by showing how pre-serum Steve was not only mutually financially supportive (in the sense of having a job), but was also supporting Bucky emotionally and physically, just as much as Bucky supported him. He could be doing at least 2 of the 3!

Possible Examples:

Bucky going through an emotionally hard time that pre-serum Steve pulls him through (just as Bucky did with Steve's Ma).

Steve treating Bucky's wounds after a fight, just as Bucky treats his. (If Bucky's a boxer, like the tie-in comic, then Steve could be his cut man when he's in the ring!)

Steve paying for some of their expenses, or finding places to take Bucky that are free when it's his turn to plan a day out, etc.

.

Problem 3: Sarah & problem 2.

If this is CATFA / post-death setting, show flashbacks or make references to Steve visiting her in hospital, or doing the work of nursing her himself / sitting by her bedside if she died at home, paying for her medicine, etc.

So that it's not just another example of Bucky wholly carrying Steve; show the balance. Maybe Bucky was temporarily footing the bill so that Steve could afford to quit his job and do the nursing at home. Both putting the work in, in different ways.

(This would be a perfect example of one way Bucky's experience of looking after sick Steve would pay off, and make him able to teach Steve how to do it when the roles are reversed.)

Better yet, a show-don't-tell of Sarah instilling Steve's moral compass and tenacity; maybe even some Bucky POV to show her impact isn't just relegated to Steve.

Her absence could also be shown in present day with Steve, eg. packing up his things to go to basic and having to leave behind some keepsake of hers.

.

Problem 4: The relationship is framed as transactional.

Less 'I'll do X for Bucky now because he did Y for me back then' and more 'helping Bucky is the right thing to do because he's innocent so I'm going to do it regardless of outside whining, and he would still do the same thing for me, or anyone else, because he's a good person.'

There has to be more to it than just convenience, needing each other around to help; there has to be an actual desire to be together for pure enjoyment, too.

IMO you'd need at least one scene where Steve and Bucky aren't benefiting in some way from spending energy on eachother. They're just... happy being together.

And perhaps Bucky isn't the only friend pre-serum Steve could have had, just the one Steve most wanted to stick with. (His options should amount to more than 'Bucky or no one.') Perhaps Steve's health absences and strong principles drove other friendship prospects away?

.

Problem 5: A's problems are framed as B's.

No more 'Steve getting attacked' being framed as a problem for Bucky.

No more 'Bucky being drafted to die' framed as a problem for Steve.

Better characterisation would show these bad things affect the victim first and foremost, and only/also the other one, secondarily.

Steve shouldn't be seeing Bucky's shipping-out uniform (skipping right over thank yous and congratulations) and talking about how that's sad for... himself.

Steve shouldn't be sabotaging Bucky's last night of freedom in NYC to spend it on... his own goals.

Sidenote: Bucky wanting to spend his last night of freedom with strangers is such idiotic writing anyway, when he has both Steve and a living family with whom he could be spending those last precious moments! And dragging Steve on a double blind date he clearly doesn't want to go on is counter-productive. It undermines the mutually-supportive / mutually communicative relationship Steve and Bucky should logically have, as lifelong inseparable best friends, and shifts the blame for Steve's singlehood off of him and onto Bucky and women generally.

Steve shouldn't be detailing why he's so keen to fight, and focusing on random men he doesn't know, not directly/unequivocally mentioning Bucky at all (indirectly, he wants to be like the men laying down their lives -- so... like Bucky? But this is still nonsense. He should want to be there to support Bucky, not to copy!)

It's likewise nonsense for Bucky, who has known Steve since he was a child, to ask Steve why he's keen to fight. Bucky doesn't need to ask. Bucky already knows. Lazy clumsy exposition.

And the narrative should be showing us why, rather than having Steve infodump it without anything to back it up.

Speaking of which...

.

Problem 6: Lack of explicit politics.

Like in the comics, Steve's reasons for fighting Nazis should be explicitly left wing and political, as well as personal.

(Wanting to be like able-bodied men who get girlfriends is complete cringe incel bullshit as a motivation and not true to the comics, or CEvans's performance!)

Proper Steve characterisation should have him behaving in a way that shows he's a man ahead of his time in terms of Antifa politics, and that's why he wants to fight.

IE. happily sharing housing and schooling with people of other races, ethnicities, and religions. (Especially so when he has been in the same SEC as them / been in multiple different schools and lived in various neighbourhoods as a poor kid.)

Not judging and mistreating disabled people the way he is.

Not judging unmarried mothers, belittling working women, expecting his mother to do all the housework, etc.

Not freaking out about the existence of queer people in public (even in an AU where he isn't one) defending gay men from attack as he does in the comics,

protesting and/or sabotaging public Nazi meetings in NYC, fighting with homegrown Nazi bullies especially, ditto corrupt business owners / mafia union-runners as he does in the comics, etc.

The Hydra saboteur should not be the first Nazi Steve ever got his hands on!

And Bucky should be an addendum when it comes to his reasoning. The heart of Steve's motive, where politics are the guts.

.

Problem 7: No disability rep.

A) Steve should not be saying that he, a disabled man, shouldn't have the 'right' to do less than able-bodied men, even though it is literally physically impossible...

...UNLESS, this internalized ableism is addressed in-story, rather than treated as if it's normal and even noble.

Other characters can be ableist; Steve should not (not only is he disabled himself, but he's supposed to know better!) unless it's part of an arc that shows that this trait is weird in him, and he learns the error of his ways.

Instead it could be shown that his health has recently become good enough for him to survive and succeed in the Army. Without Steve arguing that he should throw his disabled life away, just because able-bodied men are taking a significantly lesser risk of dying than him.

B) There should be actual details of Steve's disabilities, what they are and how they affect him. (Him - not Bucky.) In a way that has concrete negative consequences, beyond just not getting into the Army.

Possible Examples:

Steve being held back a year at school because of missing days due to sickness. Kids can be cruel and parents can be ignorant; he might've been bullied and ostracised for being sick and believed contagious.

Kid Steve having to move around a lot (which would also affect which school he'd have to attend) because losing money to medicine affects what his mother can afford, affects her work schedule when she has to look after him. Living in a worse place would then exacerbate his pre-existing symptoms, and so on.

Adult!Steve losing a job because of sick days, losing savings to pay for medicine, getting sick again because he either chose heating and groceries over medicine or vice versa, etc.

(This / the moving-around might be mitigated if he and Bucky are living together, meaning Bucky could make up the shortfall.)

Steve could lose friendships or romantic partners due to sickness taking him out of social circulation.

You could also play into the Nazi eugenics then endemic to the USA and have medical professionals telling Steve he shouldn't be alive; 'well-meaning' people offering to pray for him, saying they'd have 'given up' if they were born like him, etc.

And Steve should, maybe, mention once or twice that he feels better after serum and truly couldn't be doing what he's doing in Europe, if superserum hadn't also cured all his ailments?

If he's much more peppy afterwards, it should be because for the first time in his life he can actually breathe and spring out of bed!

.

Problem 8) The Incelery.

Pre-serum Steve should not be framed as undateable because he's short and disabled.

If Steve hasn't had a girlfriend, it should be because he didn't want one, not because evil women are repulsed by invisible health issues or Bucky is too dreamy for a disabled man to possibly compete with, be so fr. 🙄

You could fix this by making Steve: gay,

ace,

demi,

coincidentally surrounded by lesbians,

by women who have horrible unattractive politics,

too sick or busy with work to date,

getting attention but it's the wrong kind (ie. women who want to fetishize or nanny him),

and/or being very attractive to women even before serum but oblivious and/or simply not interested. 😂

/more than one of the above.

.

[wildflowerteas]

extremely embarrassed I am once again coming to you with 3 asks😔😔😔 elli read chapter 4

OH GOD. here we go. i panicked thinking this was about chapter 5 because of the mid-chapter 4 line but from the skim i just did i think I'm going to have to steel my heart or risk cardiac arrest from your reactions to the smut ( which, by the way, was the first smut I've ever written so please go easyonme ). Chapter 4, however, was incredibly fun to write so I'm excited to read through this. ( Sweet Dreams is playing too--i've had the tsp sskk playlist on loop to get in the mindset for part III )

Yes!!!! the PM is also in the tags! i couldn't make a murder mystery AU set in Los Angeles of all places and not have corporations with dirty hands and deep-pocketed old-money types floating around their establishments. Los Angeles doesn't and didn't have a main crime family with a lot of Aura, so inserting the PM without feeling like I was replacing a very real crime syndicate ( like I would if this was NY or Chicago ) was quite nice.

Yeah . . . TSP Atsushi is a whole different thing, on the surface at least. He's older, more experienced ( Yeah. ), and honestly, has bigger problems to deal with than the budding realization that he might like men so he just waltzes into flirtation with Akutagawa like it's nothing. If I were Ryuu I'd have pushed him down the stairwell by now, but he's too smitten for that.

I need to draw Mori in that shirt ( he did step up, after all. The Tsushimas weren't great, even if Dazai thinks of them with that wistfulness seen in Chapter 2 ).

OMG I CANNOT TELL WHATS BEEN BLACKED OUT IN THESE SCREENSHOTS SO I JUST FREAK OUT WHENEVER THERE'S A MASSIVE SPOILER QUOTE TT_TT. My blood goes cold. Poor Elli I bet there are entire conversations that are just a wall of grey rectangles to them.

I'd LOVE to write a bsd au set in a neo-futuristic AU!!!!!! honestly, that would go crazy, I can imagine it already.

I think Dazai is most attractive when he's shutting the fuck up unfortunately

Oh wow I feel like I'm watching a downward spiral into hornyposting in real-time surely this isn't going to go anywhere.

[perfectblve]

brother told me he's going away tomorrow and probably going to finish college in england and just. not come back so i told my parents and now everything is happening again

[deathbind]

Canonically, the Yikarian Empire is the longest lived on the continent of Zakhara. My loophole for making Meket predate them is that they do not now, nor have they ever, termed themselves an empire. Whether they fit the technical definition of one may itself be disputed and perhaps depends on time period. How to explain . . .

Their primary method of expansion is not conquest. They have had periods of warfare, and they have emerged from their victories with new territories, but they rarely start wars. They have often provoked wars, often through the most subtle of means, but they'd prefer the other party strike the first blow / take the role of "aggressor" so that their response may be "justified". They are only "defending" themselves.

It adds to their reputation that they supposedly never start fights but always finish them. Their prosperity has caught the eye of many a conqueror — and some have succeeded. By provoking wars they're certain they can win, downplaying their readiness, they make the prospect of war undesirable. Their record of victories is impressive. They also make themselves seem nearly harmless, attacking only when "provoked". Think of it this way: perhaps you could slay a dragon and claim its hoard, but why would you take that risk when it's nesting peacefully in its own domain?

Far more often, though, their expansion is even subtler. They "ally" with neighbors. Usually weaker powers, nations on the knife's edge of conquest, peoples with common religious beliefs or common enemies — whatever gets their foot in the door. They come as a friend or maybe the other party comes to them. They aren't domineering or demanding. They don't attack differing beliefs / traditions, instead strongly emphasizing commonalities. It's a slower form of conquest. The longer the alliance goes on, the stronger it becomes, the more reliant the nation grows on Meket, and the more firmly they are brought under the banner. Everything melds together into one whole. It is arguably more dangerous to be their friend than their enemy.

[zillychu]

I’ve gotten a WAVE of asks about this AU, so I decided to flesh it out some more and answer some of those questions!

I’ll probably polish this extended summary up at some point and submit it to AO3. But for now, here’s a rundown of my thoughts–please feel free to send more questions! I’ll update this post if I get any more. But if you’re someone who wanted to write fic for it, don’t worry, you don’t need to take my headcanons as gospel. It’s a pretty basic AU honestly lol

Summary:

The portal accident results in a violent explosion that wipes out the whole block, and condemns all of Amity Park. Danny haunts the city for 100 years, before Sam and Tucker find him. 

Setup:

In the 1920’s, 19-year-old Danny went into the incomplete portal on his own, hoping to help out his parents. Ripping the portal open through unnatural means created a huge burst of energy that resulted in a massive explosion. A good portion of the Amity Park population died, many were injured, and the ones on the fringes relocated–Amity was quickly deemed too dangerous due to the excess ectoplasm in the area that attracted ghosts. 

While the disaster was in Amity, the fallout was seen around the globe. Before, natural portals were rare, short-lived, and rarely allowed ghosts to fully slip into our realm (the most severe cases being on par with poltergeists that most people didn’t believe in). Now, natural portals pop open frequently around the world, large enough to allow the entirety of a ghost into the physical plane. They’re more common the closer you get to Amity, but they happen enough elsewhere that this change was something of a small apocalypse before people settled back down and found out how to combat at least some of their new, permanent neighbors. 

Danny is unaware that he’s only half-dead, believing he’s a full ghost. He ends up sticking around Amity, unintentionally making it his haunt. His grief and guilt over causing the death of his loved ones (and many others) makes him isolate and avoid human contact. Though he has, at times, scared nosy people away from the city in a mix of territorial instinct–and to get them to leave before a less friendly ghost finds them. 

Ghosts are much more of an uncontested danger in this AU. Lesser ghosts are practically mindless, and while stronger ghosts are capable of reason, their interests are limited. They’re highly territorial, possessive, and often destructive. Most worrisome is that they also like to snack on the life force of anything alive. No one is sure what dictates a ghost’s propensity to attack or hunt the living for their life force since ghosts don’t exactly experience hunger. At least, not the way we do. If a human is rescued before their life force is fully drained, they can make a full recovery–though humanity has still not yet found what this “life force" is. 

And since the Fentons’ research died along with them, there aren’t many tools available to the public to protect them from ghosts. Most homes have standard ghost shields and some weapons are available on the market, but certified ghost hunters are required to take care of anything more powerful than your average spook. 

Sam and Tucker met in high school, and are now rooming together for college very close to the Amity border. Rent is surprisingly cheap when you’re a stone’s throw away from a condemned area crawling with ghosts. Sam is the one who drags Tucker along with her fascination over finding out more about the city, and its largely mysterious demise. Sam is aware of the danger, but feels ghosts have a place in this world just like everything else, and does exercise caution–like one would while foraging in the woods with a known tiger population. 

What she and Tucker weren’t expecting was to run into a ghost that felt almost human. One that hasn't hurt them, not for lack of trying–while being powerful enough to walk past ghost shields without so much as a flinch. The long white hair is familiar in the whispers of the ectobiologist community, but there’s no way it could be the rumored ghost king Phantom, right?

About Danny:

He has very long hair, claws, and black sclera. His hazmat suit is more torn and ragged, with exposed hands and feet that fade into a burnt black.

His hair tends to float a lot on its own. It can start morphing into fire under duress. 

He does still technically have gloves and boots, they've just charred and melted into his skin towards the ends. He can't take them off in his ghost form. His hands and feet have a leathery texture that's tougher than the rest of his skin.

The white of his hazmat suit is both supposed to look like flames, and also a battered look representing his more violent, explosive death.

Overall, he appears rather listless and sad, with an unnerving air of danger around him–even for a ghost. 

Danny’s “ghost sense” comes out as white smoke.

He does breathe black smoke at times, usually when agitated. 

He's already fought and defeated Pariah Dark by the time Sam and Tucker find him, technically making him the Ghost King. This is heavily speculated by ghost experts, despite there being no real proof beyond a massive battle that scarred Illinois. He has not donned the Ring or the Crown, and captured sentient ghosts are hesitant to answer questions surrounding him. Danny basically has the throne but doesn’t do anything with it, and finds it meaningless enough to routinely forget he has the title. He only fought Pariah because he knew otherwise, humanity would have perished. A lot of ghosts are scared of him because he's so hard to figure out, and he's strong. 

Danny is usually very quiet and speaks softly, because his lungs were damaged in the blaze that half-killed him. He's technically healed since becoming a ghost, so it's more of a compulsion due to the traumatic memory. That, and he’s just… very forlorn and distant, shy around humans who don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to keep hanging around him.

His memories pre-accident are extremely fuzzy. He knows the very basics of who he was, but specifics have been muffled due to trauma and isolation. He routinely forgets human habits, etiquette, etc. and tends to act more like a full ghost with some odd quirks. 

He does try to scare Sam and Tucker off numerous times. Unfortunately for him, they realized they shouldn't have been able to escape a ghost that strong–but they did, because he let them. 

Sam and Tucker think he's mute at first! He doesn't speak a word to them until several encounters later, when he fumbles his whole scary act and saves them from another ghost. 

He’s still half-ghost, though he doesn’t figure this out until Sam and Tucker come along trying to unravel the mysteries behind the Amity catastrophe. Physically and emotionally, he’s been stuck for 100 years–so his human form is still 19. It’s unclear at this point if he can age normally like a human as long as he stays in human form, or if he’s immortal. 

Danny's family did not turn into ghosts, though he sometimes worries he'll find them in the afterlife as shells of their former selves. He doesn't know if it's better or worse that he's not sure he'd recognize them. 

(Danny also still has some living family. Take a guess.)

Yes, he knows how to Wail. Understandably, he very rarely uses it. You do not want to witness this.

Danny :) is not immune :) from the allure of eating a human's life force :)))

[alchemistc]

You never let me in, Buck sends, two of three sheets fully winded, and when he kicks his leg over the coffee table he nearly knocks over three empties.

They do this thing, right? Buck gets upset and before the tears can fall, because he's cried too many fucking times already, he makes himself angry. Picks at something that has come up every time he's done a post-mortem on the last six months.

And then he sends that shit to Tommy. Because - because who the fuck else is he supposed to talk to about it? The guy who'd sucked him off in the hallway of a nightclub two weeks ago? The woman who'd spent an hour quietly helping Buck understand that yeah, he was very much bi, and yeah, some people did not like that shit? Maddie, or Chim, or Hen or Eddie, who still might interact with him on the job? Bobby? Fuck, not Bobby.

Bobby who'd blinked at Buck and offered platitudes and apologized to Buck like it was somehow his fault Tommy was good people but he was the kind of good people who just walked out on something that could have been something.

I should have pushed more. I know I should have. I just thought since I was trying to share everything, you were too.

My mistake.

Three months and Buck isn't over it. He's far enough into the mourning process that he thinks this one is always gonna sting, and not for the reasons Tommy thinks.

That's not fair. I'm sorry.

The texts get delivered. Tommy reads them. Buck's had read receipts on since the first time Tommy went quiet on a call and Buck freaked out a little - but back then they were still working towards something. Back then, sometimes Tommy would pull out his phone and open the thread just to give Buck sign of life.

He was always doing that. Heading shit off at the pass.

Buck had just never realized he'd be able to do it to hurt him, just as well as take care of him.

Every four weeks like clockwork Buck gets a response. He has no fucking idea why it's four weeks, what the third Thursday of the month has to do with Tommy feeling gracious enough to give Buck some clarity. He'd never known enough about Tommy, is the thing he's coming around to. He'd done everything he could to bring Tommy in, make him a part, and Tommy had let him. Tommy had distracted him with quippy words and a clever tongue and with being so fucking willing to be integrated into Buck's life that Buck just - hadn't noticed.

No one will say it, but he Bucked It Up in the worst kind of way.

He's waited until Third Thursday to send these texts. He actually hasn't sent anything at all, until this moment, and he wonders if Tommy noticed. If he cared. Tommy picks and chooses from Buck's random thoughts, parses out details like he's reading from a manual and Buck is off topic two thirds of the time. Buck doesn't actually know why he's been answering, all this time. He wonders if, in the last four weeks of silence, he thought he was finally done with Buck.

He wonders if it had hurt.

Buck sets his phone down to stand, skating across to the kitchen in his socks for the pizza rolls in the oven.

His diet is shit. His body feels like crap. He's one more drunken nights sleep on the couch away from emptying the rack in his fridge down the drain and giving sobriety a try. The last person he'd slept with had hinted that they'd prefer not to use condoms and Buck had almost let them.

Buck has worth. He knows he does. It's just sometimes when he remembers that every person he's ever loved has either walked out on him or let him walk away when he needed them, he struggles to find that worth.

His life has meaning, and all that jazz.

Buck sort of wonders if Tommy hasn't finally blocked his number, as he tosses a too-hot pizza roll in his mouth and huffs on the lava cheese burning his tongue. After the last message Buck had sent, three weeks ago, he wouldn't exactly be surprised.

(This is basically just an unhinged grief journal with an unreliable second narrator. Do you know what it's like to realize you're still in love with someone who never let you know them?)

There's been no response to that. Fair. Buck hadn't even actually said the words. No, he'd jumped right into the sharing a life part, cart before the horse as always when emotions were high.

The pizza rolls get tipped onto a plate and are immediately swimming in the heavy pour of ranch he'd prepared after he set the oven to preheat.

It cools them off a lot quicker than popping a hole in each seam and waiting.

It's been eight years since Buck has really even thought about that little trick.

When he opens his phone there's no response. No receipt. Just stark words waiting to be acknowledged.

I gave you my family, Tommy. You didn't even introduce me to your team at Harbor.

It's startling to realize after the fact. He doubts Tommy had meant it that way, but he'd basically spent six months being love bombed only to have the rug ripped right out from under his feet.

And yet. Months later and he still wants to know. Know why. Know how he could have done it, with tears in his eyes, with full awareness that it was already gonna hurt. Know Tommy - anything he'd part with, really, that wasn't something every random acquaintance also knew.

Cool, he'd been jealous of what Buck and the 118 had. (Buck had tried to give him that. Or at least he thought he had.)

Great, he didn't talk to his dad and Gerrard was a shitty captain. (Buck had spent an hour once explaining the first time he and his dad had spoken about Daniel without screaming at each other. Tommy had listened to the rants about Gerrard and offered physical comfort and a 'sounds like him' and Buck had just been so relieved to have an ally amongst the 'life is just like this sometimes' crowd that he'd never examined that.)

He was a Kinsey six who'd been engaged to the first woman Buck had ever really loved and they'd never dug deeper than that.

And Buck had apparently interpreted some of the shit he'd said that night wrong, but he still doesn't think it's fucking fair that Tommy can't trust him to know his own fucking mind well enough to know he hates sleeping around and he'd found the sort of connection he was looking for. He'd found it. Even with the lack of reciprocation. Even with the quiet behind Tommy's eyes that he'd never let Buck in on. Even with the -

His phone buzzes on the coffee table.

Can we talk?

Buck kinda hates those words in that order now. They'd been the start of something twice, but they'd always been leading to an end, if Tommy had his way.

Once every four weeks, apparently, Buck sends back and takes a vicious bite.

His phone chimes with an incoming call.

Buck stares at the name he hasn't had the stomach to remove the little heart from. Lets it ring through to voicemail and then shoves three more pizza rolls into his mouth and doesn't care if they burn off his taste buds.

His phone rings again.

"What?"

"I'm outside your building. Didn't want to make any assumptions that I'd be welcome without asking first."

Buck can feel his ribs cracking under the lurch of angry laughter. "What the hell?"

"Well the parking around here is miserable again, so I figure that's a sign."

"Are you driving right now?"

"Hands off. I'm on Bluetooth. So. Should I circle the building a fifth time or call it now and go home?"

Buck gets stuck on fifth time.

There's no way he hadn't been driving since at least before Buck sent that first text.

Buck sighs. There's absolutely no reason to be hopeful about that. For all he knows, Tommy has just decided dousing any residual flames is just another thing he has to do in person.

"My Jeep's in the shop. I'll buzz you into the garage."

Tommy's silent for a long, long moment. The quip comes anyway. "I keep telling you that thing is a money pit."

"I'm not really feeling the flirty banter, right now, Tommy, so maybe just let me know when you're at the gate."

He does. He hangs up the phone twenty seconds later with a plain "See you soon."

Buck doesn't have time to change. Fix his hair. Hide the sheet pan with half a dozen pizza rolls still laying on it, because he'd cooked way too many again.

(He could absolutely do one of these things but if Tommy's gonna throw this at him, he's getting every little slovenly habit Bucks's picked up since he walked out that door.)

The knock comes while Buck's shoving the last two rolls on his plate into his mouth.

He's still chewing with his mouth open to blow out the steam when he swings the door open, and Buck feels the first inklings of pleasure ripple through him at the sight of Tommy.

He looks like shit.

"You look like shit."

Tommy's brow ticks up. He stares pointedly at the glob of not-cheese that's going to absolutely ruin this sweatshirt.

"That tends to happen when you spend an hour in an armchair two sizes too small picking at trauma you've been hiding from your therapist for six years."

Buck opens the door wider. Holy crap. Tommy might legitimately be more fucked up than Buck.

Tommy's smile is strained. "Can I come in?"

Buck holds his gaze. His eyes are a little red. He's got a red spot along the side of his neck, like he's been rubbing at it. Buck only recognizes it as a comforting motion because he's replayed him doing it half a million times right before he ended things.

"Depends. Is this the last time you respond to my mean, rude, asshole texts for an hour after therapy rubs you raw?" Third Thursday Therapy, is apparently what does it. Buck is - god. He just wants -

"God, I hope not," Tommy says, and Buck takes a step to the side to let Tommy in.

[feirceangel]

Imagine | Mine (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen)

Imagine Feyd discovering that someone has dared to harm what’s his.

Word Count: 1,574

Warnings: possessive!Feyd, objectification, blood, murder, (Feyd is his own psychotic warning in himself to be honest.)

Na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is not known for his mercy.

Ask anyone in the universe who has heard even a whisper of House Harkonnen, and they will warn to tread carefully when dealing with them. If you value your life, you wouldn't even get near them.

And everyone knows Feyd-Rautha is one of the best examples of Harkonnen rage and violence, second only to his uncle, the Baron.

Renowned for his physical prowess as a fighter, his insatiable lust for blood and death, and his determination to rise in power and favour, he is a force to be reckoned with.

So why would anyone dare go against him?

He finds himself asking this as he looks upon your form, head bowed and turned slightly away from him. Hiding something.

Gracefully and predatory as a panther, he approaches you slowly.

"My darling.." his voice rasps.

Normally you greet him immediately, recognizing his footfalls from down the hall. You would smile at your na-Baron and ask him how his day went if you did not spend it with him.

You are oddly subdued tonight.

His eyes, always searching, follow a drop which falls from your cheek, landing on the cold concrete floor. Instantly, he is before you, grasping your chin in his strong hand. He tilts your head up, none too gently, and examines your tear-stained face.

"What happened?" His already raspy voice is deeper, darker.

Feyd is no stranger to your tears. In fact, he often revels in their presence, trying all sorts of things to make you cry. But he hasn't done anything to illicit that response today.

When you don't offer an answer right away, his grip tightens, squishing your cheeks together.

"Speak."

His voice holds no room for disobedience. You nod your head and he releases you, stepping back slightly.

You shake slightly as you begin, "I am sorry, na-Baron."

Feyd's anger is growing. You only call him that in public or when you are disturbed.

"Do not apologize. Explain," he can't stop himself from hissing.

"I took a walk today," you begin slowly. "Just to the training grounds to see if you were there. But I didn't see you so I walked back. He stopped me and-"

"'He'?" Feyd echoes.

"Richter," you supply the name of one of the Baron's top generals. "He grabbed me and said I was a no-good whore who should've been disposed of long ago."

Anger swirls with Feyd's chest at this news. Of course, many people have said harsh and often cruel things to you. But you always kept your head high and ignored the jabs. You’re always so strong.

This is different, he can tell.

"What else? You are not one to cry over a mere insult," he brings his hand up to swipe a tear from your soft cheek. You lean into his touch, relishing in its familiarity.

You inhale deeply, "He struck me without warning, na-Baron."

In his oft colourless word, all Feyd now sees is red.

"Where?" His voice is so low it's almost impossible to hear.

You shake as you lower the collar of your dress to reveal a swollen area on your shoulder, "Here."

His dark eyes flicker to yours, bidding you to continue.

You move your hand to your face and gently touch your tearstained cheek, "And here."

Feyd's hand clenches into a fist. He bends closer to examine your face, noting the slight swelling and the way you bow your head. He places his hand on the back of your head, angling your face upwards. A featherlight kiss is applied to your skin so softly you can barely feel it.

Your master and lover rises to his full height, "Rest my darling, I shall return shortly."

He turns to leave but you reach out and grab his arm. Feyd stops and turns to stare at you.

"Please, na-Baron. Don't hurt him."

He scowls at your request, "He has hurt you. Death is his reward."

"He has done nothing that you have not," you say. "I have known worse pain from your own hands.”

Feyd shakes his head and grips your arms, dragging you forward to stand with your bodies touching.

"Only I can touch what's mine. Only I can hurt you how I see fit. You take the pain only I give you." He dips his head close to your ear, breath sending shivers down your spine. “Do you understand?”

"Of course, my lord na-Baron," your voice is breathy.

You are intoxicated by his closeness, the dangerous poise with which he caries himself, the possessiveness of his words and the truth of them.

"Say it."

"I'm yours alone, Feyd."

He crashes his lips onto yours, teeth clashing and lips bruising from the force of it. His hand squeezes your neck as he kisses you. When he finally parts, leaving you breathless, he takes a moment to admire you. His thumb brushes against your lips before he turns once more.

"That swine sealed his fate when he laid hands on what's mine," Feyd growls as he stalks out of the room.

He returns mere minutes later, dragging an incredibly nervous Richter behind him. With a violent shove, he pushes the frightened man to stand before you.

"I heard you disrespected my darling," Feyd points to the floor. "Kneel."

Richter obeys without hesitation. He knows how quick Feyd is to anger… and how few survive it.

"Kiss her shoe."

The man's eyes flicker to yours.

"Now," Feyd places his foot on Richter's back, forcing him down.

Shakily, he presses his lips to your shoe with a mumbled apology. It does nothing to sate Feyd-Rautha's wrath.

With practised ease, Feyd lands a harsh kick to the man's ribs. He repeats the action until the man is a sobbing mess splayed before your feet like an offering.

You regard him coldly, remembering the bite of his hand across your face.

“Please! Please forgive me, my lord!” Richter manages to sob coherent words. Spit and blood dribbles from his mouth pathetically.

“You have insulted me,” Feyd states. “Hurt what’s mine, belittled what’s mine.”

The man’s hand reaches towards your foot, as if you could spare him from the savage that is Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.

Feyd crushes his hand beneath his shoe, grinding down eliciting a whimper of pain, as he steps before you and above his prey.

He is regal in his violence, eyes shining with possessive obsession.

“Dear one,” he places his hand on your arm before handing you one of his blades. “Help me.”

He smirks as you grip the knife tightly. Your eyes meet his.

Feyd knows you’d do anything he asked of you, just as he knows he’d burn the universe to ashes if you asked him too.

“Of course, my lord,” you say, kneeling by the hurt man. “If it pleases you.”

Feyd’s grin reveals blackened teeth, “You please me, dearest. Now, make him suffer for insulting me and mine.”

The first cut is shallow, uncertain as it travels down the man’s bare arm. Feyd tsks his disapproval.

You adjust your grip and slash again, quickly this time, hitting deep and pointedly. The man screams out and thrashes, but Feyd is upon him in a second. He holds Richter still as you unleash your rage upon him.

Feyd watches you draw blood with a pleasure he’s never experienced before. Relishing in your bared teeth and angry snarls, he commits this to his memory.

He halts your hand as the man ceases his thrashing. With a predatory smile, Feyd guides your hand with his, penetrating the blade deep into the man’s throat.

You watch the man loose his life, as you pant with exertion.

“You have done well, my pet,” Feyd praises, removing the knife from your hand and tossing it aside. He places his hand atop your head.

“Thank you, Feyd.”

He moves his hand down your back and presses his face into your blood stained neck, inhaling deeply. Your hands come around to grasp his shoulders, bringing him close to you. He wraps his strong arms around you, holding you like a lover would.

When he sits up, you lunge forward, capturing his lips with yours. Ignoring the blood and the dead body on the floor, you guide Feyd towards the bed, hands leaving bloody marks on his pale skin.

“Please let me repay you,” you beg, tugging at his shirt. “Allow me to repent.”

“You don’t need to repent, love. But you can keep begging.”

He allows you to disrobe him and press him down onto the soft bedding.

In all honesty, Feyd craves this battle of dominance between you. He could overpower you in an instant, yet the hold you have over him has him bending to your will.

You need only beg and he would take a knee and worship at your feet.

And you know it.

You know he craves this, needs it like an addict. He adores the pain you can lavish upon him, adores the meek demeanour you show to everyone else, adores the side of you that matches his own carnal desires tenfold, adores the way you gladly bleed for him.

He adores you.

And you worship each other in a wicked ritual of blood, sweat, and tears each night.

And he’d never let anyone take this away from him- take you away from him.

He’d kill anyone who dared try.

~~~

[A/n- thanks for reading! Please let me know if you liked it :)]

[katabay]

PERCEVAL THE UNHAPPY, THE MISERABLE, THE UNFORTUNATE, THE FISHER KING!

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

ALRIGHT alright. so previously I did an illustration that explained the premise of all this, that it's inspired by the narrative choices that Bresson made in his film Lancelot du Lac etc

to dive in more into it (because this is something like derivative fiction. I'm putting concepts into a blender and seeing what comes out of it): the setting is haunted by the previously existing narratives that started cannibalizing each other until it regurgitates itself into the more well known narrative beats, and something else about the invasive rot of christianity and empire mythmaking into settings. it's an intertextual haunting, if you will! and this scene takes place during the grail quest narrative, but the temptation of Perceval plays out differently.

in both Chretien (and Wolfram's) Perceval narratives, what 'wakes' Perceval up (in more ways than one. desire and self actualization in one go!) is seeing knights, something his mother tried hard to keep him from. so instead of the temptation of lust & etc in the Morte narrative taking the form of a lady, it takes the form of a knight. the temptation to renounce one's faith to serve something else remains.

so Perceval still stabs himself, but instead of continuing on the grail quest in the shadow of Galahad, he becomes the narrative's Fisher King because his earlier state of being as a the grail quest hero is creeping back into his marrow. it was waiting for an opening, and stabbing yourself in the thigh is one hell of a parallel!!!

that wound isn't going to heal buddy, and the state of the setting will now be reflected on your body. sure hope that Arthur hasn't like. corrupted the justice of the land or anything. that sure would suck for your overall health.

all the red in this sequence is because in de Troyes' Perceval, Perceval takes the armor of the Red Knight and becomes known as the Knight in Red.

and now for the citations, which I will try to order in a way that makes sense!

Seeing Knights For The First Time

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

The Temptation of Perceval

Le Morte Darthur, Mallory (modernized by Baines)

The Fisher King, and Perceval The Unfortunate

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Perceval and Gender, etc.

Clothes Make The Man: Parzival Dressed and Undressed, Michael D. Amey

On Wounds

Wounded Masculinity: Injury and Gender in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Kenneth Hodges

The Red Knight

Perceval, de Troyes (trans. Burton Raffel)

On Arthur and the Corruption of Justice

The Failure of Justice, the Failure of Arthur, L.K. Bedwell

[radiance1]

So, Ghost Prince Danny. Except that he also, ALSO, is Damian's younger twin brother who was sent to keep an eye on the Fentons because of their discovery of a substance that looked like Lazarus Water yet isn't Lazarus water.

In truth, it was really just Talia's way of getting Danny out of the way because he lost against Damian in the battle of heirs (No Danny did not hold back, Damian was just better than him) and she didn't want him dead so that was the next best thing.

Danny does pop up in the League at odd times, mostly to report about the research done by the Fentons. When he became half dead he's around a lot more, mostly to be monitored for his unique condition (somehow someway they don't know about Vlad) and because Danny can just come and go as he pleases cause ghost powers.

So, Danny gives Damian a flute that he handcrafted himself as a birthday present because really, what can he buy that Damian himself couldn't? Also, because he didn't actually want to spend money on his older brother.

They're brothers, but they don't have the most cordial relationship. They don't hate each other, but they don't like each other either.

So, Damian takes this flute and is like: "Fuck you gimmie this for I don't need this shit."

And then Danny is like: "Just take the gift you stupid ahh fruitloop."

So, Damian takes it while berating that Danny would give him something as stupid as this, but then does a full one 180 by keeping the thing on his person at all times.

Not that Danny knows that, really.

So, cut forth to Damian being known by Batman and taken in. Trying to kill Tim and being an overall little shit, I can see one of the Batfam coming across this flute just, randomly really, and then Damian is fucking pissed that they dared to touch it and then takes it back.

Leaving basically everyone stumped over the significance this random ahh wooden flute has but decides not to touch that landmine.

So then the Batfam don't know that Damian has a half sibling (Danny came from Jack and Talia, so he isn't blood related to Bruce but is to Damian) running around out there and Damian isn't gonna say anything and you already know Talia isn't since Danny AIN'T his kid.

Plus, he got a job to do that being with Bruce Wayne would make harder.

So then Damian becomes robin an allat, then the entire Batfam pull up to the Justice League for some big threat and then both Constantine and Zatanna are like: Yo why do you kid carry round an item drenched heavily in death energy to the extreme

Batman is obviously like: Excuse me?

Damian, meanwhile, just does not give a fuck about the flute given to him by his half-brother on his birthday is apparently drenched in death energy to the extreme because that is his and he isn't going to just give it up.

So then one way or another Damian ends up playing it, maybe he was told to play it by both Batman and Constantine just to make sure it isn't actually anything dangerous or whatever and also because Damian wouldn't let anyone else hold it, let alone play it.

Which Damian smirks at because he's played it before and literally nothing happened aside from very good music, but Damian hasn't played it since he came to the Wayne household and has missed it. So he reminisces over how he got it, thinking of his half-brother and their relationship.

He plays it, but this time, since he genuinely thought about Danny death energy just condenses in waves. Damian couldn't see it since he was too focused on playing and reminiscing, everyone isn't really that calm and tries to get him to stop but the death energy blocks them.

Then a summoning circle appears in front of Damian and Constantine recognizes it as being from the Infinite Realms category and it seemed to be a high-level summon circle too so he's like: Well fuck.

Then, contrary to their expectations of some eldritch abomination, it's just Danny. Who, fun fact, was in the middle of his coronation as prince and such, dripped out in royal wear.

Safe to say, Constatine goes: Well double fuck.

The tension is just broken, as all Danny does is cry. Like, genuinely, he just cries because Damian still kept his flute that he made, he genuinely thought the guy just threw it away since he hated it so much.

Danny: Ancients, my big brother actually liked what I made this is making me emotional.

Damian: Why the hell are you crying this thing is still trash btw.

Danny: Yea whatever you say big bro, you love it.

Batman: What do you mean big brother?

Danny: Who in the hell is that-

Damian: Right, I never told him about you.

[r0-boat]

🪶 anon here! Can I request NSFW headcanons for ZZZ Wise, and Lycaon overstimulating gn/afab s/o please?

Injecting the new fandom with more Wise content....

Also I've accidentally added fingering My bad

ZZZ Wise & Von Lycaon fingering & overstimulation headcannons

Cw: NSFW, overstimulation, sexual punishment, AFAB!gn! S\O

Wise

Watching a movie... Well that's what you were doing while his sister was spending time with some of her friends You didn't know who their names were but you knew one of them was a robot and a pink haired lady. With his sister gone Wise wanted to watch a documentary with you. Little did you know He didn't actually want to watch a documentary.

Just 20 minutes in You we're pulled into a his lap and you thought nothing of it until his hand started to slide underneath your pants, His breath tickled your ear "is this okay?" It's been so long since he last seen you in person or even touched you at all now that you're there He couldn't help it anymore.

Your pants were long gone as you lay on top of your boyfriend one arm hiking up your leg the other in between them coding his fingers in your juices before sliding them inside.

"So wet..." "I love feeling you"

Wise is gentle at first slowly pumping in and out of you leisurely feeling you at his pace. Making sure he memorizes the way you clench around him. The soft wet walls of your pussy making his cock rock hard. But for now he wants to touch. Despite his slow and sensual pace occasionally pressing and touching your clit You become close, Wise was so good with his fingers and he knew that.

However after You came on his fingers It wasn't enough He needed more, wise flips you over now he was towering over you putting your legs over his shoulders you can see a hungry looking his eyes and he begins to finger fuck you faster. Utterly hypnotized by the wet sounds of your sloppy cunt, wise says in a husky tone "I love the sound your soaked pussy makes You can do it again for me can you?? Come on just give me one more..."

Your toes curl your back arching You whimper and scream, You couldn't hear Wise loan himself as he jams his fingers as deep as he can feeling you cum around him. But he needs more, He hasn't quite broken you yet. Wise loves to watch you fall apart, to fuck you dumb until you can no longer think about anything else but his cock or his fingers. If you really want him to he will milk every orgasm out of you until you physically cannot cum anymore.

Lycaon

Misbehaving again? Tisk tisk tisk... Before he can properly punish you He files down his claws You know when you're screwed when you see His claws are a lot shorter than they used to be. This time he wraps a blindfold around you erasing your sense of sights to heighten your other ones.

If you are known for squirming then he shall restrain you in some way whether it be his tie or his hands you will behave.

Very skilled hands knowing all the right places to touch you. He knows how to make you cum but right now he will withhold your pleasure. You will get your orgasm and many more after. He feels a little selfish indulging in you like this instead of just ramming his fingers inside you until you cum over and over, instead his fingertips brush against the opening every now and then dipping inside brushing against your clit. Your whimpers are music to his ears, such a cute little pup.

When he finally has his fill That's when he plunges his fingers immerselessly inside you You cry and thrash But you don't know where you try to close your legs but to no avail All you can do is sit and take it.

He is grateful to put the blindfold on you He does not want you to see the unsavory site of his hand palming his bulge He is ashamed yet excited that he is getting off too You're punishment.

You cum but he doesn't let up milking you through your orgasm you try to whimper his name but he only shushes you.

"Your doing great my dear." "You're taking your punishment so well, come on give me another one."

[stillfrownyclownlol]

Gonna throw up If I can't talk about them-

Bunch of Aiden analysis under the cut because he's just SO OBSESSED CODED AND NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT 😭 (I will be very weird about it)

The way it's so doomed from the start. He's already so fascinated by her. It's in the little jump he does when she sits in front of him, like a secret they're both in on, like her sitting in front of him is some obscure way of her inviting him into a conversation.

Why is he like this (not positive but not negative either)

He has such a cocktail of personality traits and, most certainly, mental disorders, and his own history that makes it so, when he's in love, that it WILL blow up in his face.

The fact that he's been homeschooled for his entire life- he has no idea. HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW. He doesnt realize that its not normal. of course he doesn't :( His parents obviously leave him alone for long stretches of time and he doesn't seem to mind this. He hasn't had the chance to develop his social skills at all-

It's why he's so, let's be real, creepy. Ash makes it very clear she's not interested and he just keeps worming his way into her life. He plots so that she'll go on the field trip, he follows her around, he goes to her fucking house on the first day. LIKE, HELLO? RED FLAG?

He's having evil thoughts here I swear 💀

And already so quickly after meeting her he makes Ash his priority. He asks to sit next to her, he engages and makes an effort to talk to her. Tries to joke around with her. Gives her a nickname. Touches her. He's so touchy.

And defends her!!! When Tyler gets pissed at Ash, he honestly goes off on him even tho he KNOWS Ash can defend herself- and he's so...dark about it. There's a threat hidden behind his words. He's MAD here, right? Tell me I'm not crazy, please-

He also very clearly has violence on the forefront of his mind 💀 He's the first one to actively attack the phantoms; not to defend himself, not to defend somebody else (well, he pulls Ash out of the way), but for fun. And he's disappointed when they don't scream. He's sadistic, he likes causing pain, it's something he relishes in.

I mean look at how he smiles!!! None of the other kids have such an...active ENJOYMENT in fighting the phantoms, but for Aiden, it's almost like he finds relief in it, some way to vent out his frustrations. He's eager for a fight, for a thrill.

That's how Aiden sustains himself, he pretty much operates under "I'm here for a good time, not a long time." Everything he does gives him a boost of adrenaline, no matter the consequences. He got into a fight? Eh, who cares about all the bruises, at least it got his blood rushing. Broke a bone while doing parkour or smth? Whatever, the way his stomach dropped when he was falling as totally worth it.

It's a very dangerous mentality to live with, obviously. He's an adrenaline junkie. He's an addict. More than anything else, Aiden wants something that makes him feel alive.

And what makes you feel more alive than love?

Like not to minimise or anything but he's known her for like. 2-3 months- and he's already SO scared of losing her. Like I just don't think he would have had this type of reaction with anybody else besides Ben. He would have absolutely lost his shit if Ash 'died'.

He's a straight up love junkie. He's obsessive. Nothing beats the high love can give you. It overrules everything else. If Ash (or whoever he's interested in) feels bad because of smth, he's done with it.

He LIKED dying. He LIKED the adrenaline rush. But he won't do it again. Not because he had some realization that he didn't want to die, that he still wanted to live and do things, but because Ash was upset. Because this, this rush of care from her part, the way she was so scared of him dying that she was shaking, nothing could fill the hole in his heart better than that. And now that he has a taste for it, he won't let go easy. He will keep on living- if it means Ash will be by his side.

Which is a very dangerous position to put her in. Ash already feels responsible for her friends, and she doesn't even know that Aiden has "put" his life in her hands, not that it's her responsibility, because it isn't, but she will certainly feel responsible if Aiden does something FOR her.

Like He's so fucking obsessed and he doesn't even realize it- like look at how he sees her 😭 THE HEAVENLY GLOOOOOOW, LIKE SHES AN ANGEL AND HE THINKS SHE CAN SAVE HIM. BABY SHE CANT, YOU HAVE TO SAVE YOURSELF.

He could spiral so fucking bad. He could do some absolutely heinous things. Because he just doesn't know. He doesn't know how to love truly, yet. For him love really is that rush of adrenaline, the knife carving out his heart, he could be putty in her hands, or her executioner. This love that can be so obsessive, that he NEEDS it to function, like its water, like its the air he breathes. Its a compulsion, a fixation, a longing that burrows into your very soul. Ash doesn't even know what she's getting herself into-

Godddddd, it makes me so sick/ pos, it's SO FUCKING INTERESTINGGGGGG. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

I literally cannot function around this drawing 🫠

The. The hand. That way he's grabbing her. He's pulling her back. Towards HIM. like "this is mine. And I'm not sharing." And that little fucking look in his eyes, he just looks SO fucking pleased with himself. And Ash looks so...resigned. they're so doomed-coded, i love them so bad.

I don't know how I was supposed to NOT make a killer au, when he's just...like that around her.

Love is a wonderful thing. But love is also cruel, it is vicious, it is possessive and obsessive, and it will leave carnage in its wake.

Romantic love is an obsession. It possesses you. You lose your sense of self. You cannot stop thinking about another human being. -Helen Fisher

[skyrigel]

Can you write an image in which Benedict is obsessed with Y/N and is always looking for reasons to touch her. However, Y/N knows that when it comes to women, Benedict quickly gets what he wants... sex. She keeps him waiting and doesn’t sleep with him until the wedding day.

Obsessed with you | I

Part 1 | Part 2

Pairing: Benedict bridgerton x afab!reader

Synopsis: Ton's most eligible bachelor is obsessed with the mystery lady in silver, and would do anything to have her

Warning: Reader's mother has issues, scandalous family, last name Rose for convience, Benedict being a smug bastard, some regency class differences, cute Polin, cute kathony, minor non-con touching, smoking cigar, lots of teasing and ofcourse obsessive and possession behaviour. Might be toxic! Benedict but please he's a cutie.

Dearest gentle readers,

While for sure we have seen former Rake now Kate's beloved whipped husband, and Colin bridgerton who is so smitten with his dearest wife that it will not come forward a surprise if he hasn't set foot out in all these days, but Benedict bridgerton is neither whipped nor smitten, he is, as the poets would whisper, obsessed. It will be amusing to know who this mystery lady is, with her dazzling silver gown and piercing eyes, sharp enough as she carved the gentleman's heart out.

Benedict was a man for art and muse so forgive him if he got so obsessed with you, the real question was, how could he not ? You were the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, clad in your most dazzling blue dress that he wanted nothing but to take off.

" She exaggerates." Anthony pouted, he shouldn't know that he had but he's been pouting a lot lately, it's called 'kateffect'

" No, you've been domesticated brother, just admit it, Kate has tamed you." Colin peppered, sprawling down next to Anthony who greeted him with the most glaring glare.

" Like you're any better." Anthony smirked, setting his gaze on Benedict who read the index again.

" Penelope doesn't know her name ? " Benedict worried his jaw, looking between his brothers.

" I take that back, Penelope didn't exaggerate, you're really very much obsessed." Anthony remarked, Colin nodded.

" Oi, she would've known your mystery lady's full name and history but—"

" Don't complete that, I'll duel you."

" In the middle of a ball ? " Benedict laughed, eyes amused, Colin turned a crimson red.

" Rather tempting—"

" Oi! " Anthony raised his brow, his mouth curving in disdain, as Colin staggered away, leaving Anthony praying to lord behind like he was any better.

" Oh dear." Benedict smiled when once alone, thumb caressing the index, as if it was the mystery lady in silver blue gown, accused of taking away the gentleman's heart.

" Who are you ? " He whispered.

_

" Ma'am, would you like something else ? " Mrs. Turner asked once you were seated on your dressing, playing with several glassy bottles with colourful scenty substances.

" In yesterday's masquerade ball, I was dancing with a Bridgerton—" Mrs. Turner tutted softly," He's Benedict bridgerton, i assume."

" Yes, indeed, the only bachelor bridgerton boy of age." Mrs. Turner pulled the corset strings and you gasped, feeling your internals squeeze in the process.

You smiled, thinking about the way Benedict looked at you, all stars in his eyes.

" I..it is not my place miss but as your well wisher, i would say.." she worried her jaw.

" It's okay Mrs. Turner, you should speak your mind." You assured her, feeling her fingers stop at your back as she looked at your reflection in the mirror.

" Benedict bridgerton's a rake, unlike any other gentleman... he's known to engage women with class and wits...artists, musicians, and other dimplomacy that are odd amongst our sex."

" Oh." You nodded, feeling stupid enough to think those were meant for you, like they were of real affection.

" I wouldn't want you any harm, after your father's death and your inheritance affairs, you couldn't afford another scandal, for a good match—"

" My virtue should stay intact ? " You raised your chin, examining the stain of rose on your lips.

" Your sister was a good girl madam, so are you." Mrs. Turner smiled, her eyes crinkling with deepest concerns.

-

Benedict's eyes were searching for you everywhere, he has been waiting for you since so long. Despite anxious mamas forcing introductions and dances, he was looking only for you.

" Miss Rose." Benedict turned to see his sister in law, smiling a smirk, followed by her husband in tow.

" You wound me Pen, it's Benedict bridgerton! " He laughed, much to Colin's dismay.

" Oh well your mystery lady is Miss Rose, daughter of late Duke of Blair field and lady bloom." Colin was one step away from clapping.

" Wow." Benedict's mouth curved in a delightful 'o'.

" Oh well they are rather scandalous, her sister was rumoured to be not a virgin which deceased all of her prospects of marriages, her mother is rather protective of her."

" Pen, did I tell you how you're my favourite sister ? " Benedict perked his gaze towards the entrance, hoping for you to bless him.

" Don't let Eloise hear that." Colin said, outstretching his arm that Penelope held as they swirled between the crowd, laughing.

_

" You shall not be unchaperoned." Your mother had a faraway look in her eyes, her hand was trembling and you surged the desire to just hold it.

" I understand, mama." You bowed your head once, trying to forget the trembling of her hands.

" Don't engage in gossips dearest, better keep to yourself and..." She forgot what she was saying, her lips trembling along, you looked at Mrs. Turner with a pleading gaze.

" Ma'am, we must make haste." She simply said, your mother spared a glance to you, her mouth tightening around the corners.

" You look beautiful child." She looked away, you pretended not to see the tear that glistented down her cheek.

After securing yourself in the carriage, with your dress squeezing the life out you, you finally breathed.

" I envy Gissele." You said softly, caressing the uneven glittering fake diamonds.

" She would say the same." Mary mumbled, she was Mrs. Turner's daughter who rather got scolded every often for being too blunt. You liked her alot.

" Oh wouldn't it be so wonderful to just lay in bed, reading a book and wearing simple soft dresses." You perked up at the idea of a life like that, a simple homely cottage, filled with warmth and sweetness and books.

" But the society has it's own fun, look at you, pretty dresses, pretty shoes, and all those prince charming lords." Mary took your fan and mimicked the motion, you smiled.

" Well you could always borrow a dress, have some fun." Your eyes glinted, Mary shaked her head.

" C'mon." You grabbed her wrist, shaking them, up and down profusely.

" No, mama will kill me ! "

" But the fun ?! No one would know, they haven't seen me, they don't know me."

" Well i can't pretend to be you, what would happen if somebody caught us."

" Don't then, be yourself ! Mary Turner."

" Sounds like a bad idea." Mary said, her smile deceived her.

" Lord Turner of Riverdales, be their relative, no one hardly pays attention."

" Whistledown does." Mary narrowed her eyes, you looked out to make sure you haven't yet reached.

" Well she called me a mystery woman who apparantly took a gentleman's heart."

" Oh Mr. Bridgerton's a known gentleman." You scoffed at that, Mary's brow knitted together as she studied you.

" What ? He's a rake." You brushed the tingling away, feeling the way Benedict's gaze lingered on you, the way he twirled you around like you were the only real thing, the way he flushed and stumbled through his words, attempting to know absolutely anything about you.

" I highly doubt that, never heard anything about him."

" Presumably he has a longing for accomplised women." You finger quoted it with a scowl that was too unladylike, Mary bursted into fits of giggles.

" What ? " You poked her, she shaked with her guffaw, chortling in her way.

" You fancy him." She said, chuckling the ' him' away, you frowned deeply, heart leaping at the ton that was gathered outside lady Danbury's exquisite ball.

" Utter rubbish. Do you still want to have fun ? " You asked, Mary smiled.

_

Benedict gaze perked up when you and Mary stumbled through the ball, Mary was almost shaking and you were sure her clothes didn't fit much to you, you felt your back prickling with burning gaze and you turned.

" Told you he's a rake. Don't be friendly to him." You whispered to Mary who was about to run when Benedict dropped his conversation with lord White, swaggering towards you.

" What if he recognises you ? " She mumbled and your lower lip trembled, but that's not possible, your mask obscured your whole face except your lips and eyes and certainly he hadn't painted you in his mind, afterall he shouldn't be that obsessed.

" My lady." He bowed, his gaze locking in yours as he kissed the hand Mary very reluctantly gave him, he was amused when Mary mumbled a hasty greeting, her manners mimicked.

" You look exquisite, more than the ball itself." He was clearly flattered when Mary blinked hard, looking at you for help.

You rolled your eyes when Benedict too, looked at you with a similar pleading as Mary.

" Forgive me my lord, my lady is tired—"

" We haven't been introduced i remember, Benedict bridgerton." He grinned, he actually freaking grinned as Mary glanced at you with the corner of her eye.

" Lady Mariam Turner." She blurted it quickly, looking at you for approval, " A pleasure." Mary smiled, you nodded.

" Forgive me Mr. Bridgerton." You cleared your throat, Benedict's gaze penetrated through you, he was setting you on fire and you couldn't do anything but to burn.

" My lady is tired, you must excuse us." You felt your throat dry, your whole body withering when Benedict narrowed his eyes, lingering specifically on your lips and treading down slowly.

" Indeed, I must not keep you." He cocked his head to Mary, humming along as you strode past him. You were sure he only whispered the ' not ' out of curtsy.

_

" That was bloody brilliant ! " You giggled while Mary shaked her head, clutching her bossom. Your footsteps echoing in the abandoned corridor, stiffling back your giggles.

" That was bloody scary and I can't breathe." Mary heaved, her breath easing when you patted her back.

" Lady Mariam Turner." You teased, bumping your hip as Mary looked at you, gasping scandalously.

" Shut up. I almost died." Mary pulled her dress that sticked to her skin, trying to fan in some air.

" Do you think he recognised me ? " Your cheeks blazed at the heat of the memory of him, his teasing glances and amused smiles.

" I...I think it was rather amusing that we were messing up, did you see how I trembled? " Mary shaked her hand, as you laughed at the display.

" No, my lady." You said, once your giggles subsided, " You were exquisite."

Mary wacked your arm, her smile unable to hide through the twitch of her lips.

" So, shall we go home ? "

" Would you mind waiting in the carriage ? "

" Don't tell me—" Mary glared, you pouted with puppy eyes.

" Please, you know it's my only way."

" Smoking is bad." Mary declared, " and for men." She added grimly, you nodded along, grabbing her wrist.

" Please, please, please."

" Only if you give back my clothes, i miss them." She touched the soft cotton of her clothes that you were wearing, you perked up eagerly.

_

You took joy at the puffs of smoke that ridiculed the air, the night chill freezing it into clouds of silvery mist.

Mary was dozing off in the carriage until it was time to go home, so early arrival doesn't raise any questions and your mother fast asleep, her trembling lipped questions saved for the next day.

" I thought your lady was tired." You almost dropped your cigar, jumping up the swing as it creaked at sudden outburst.

" Don't drop it, i don't have any with me." His smile was too big and smug for his face, his nonchalance dripped as he took the swing opposite of you. You stared, for some reason cigar still burning in intricate yellow blazing circles, dropping to ashes.

" Forgive me my lord—" you just remembered you were no longer in Mary's clothes.

" That's the only line you grasped so far ? " Benedict leaned on his swing, catching your wrist as he dragged you to sit.

You sat down with a thud, swing jiggling with your weight as you processed his smile.

" I..." You stammered, flushing in heat as he inhaled you in, you were back in your clothes, the one you were supposed to wear. And Mary was right, you couldn't breathe.

" I would say you look beautiful, in everything, in anything..or—" in nothing.

" I should leave." You throat itched.

" Stay." He was soft, almost a whine, a plead.

" Please don't tell anyone." You tried your best persuading smile, it worked on Gissele all the time, your lips pouting and eyes shining with stars.

Benedict's mouth curved in a smile, he clicked his tongue as he attempted to speak but he found he couldn't. A pause, then—

" You love tormenting me, don't you ? " Benedict took the burning cigar from you, locking your eyes with his own as he brought it to his mouth, a sound escaped him as his lips curved around the warmness that belonged to you, he inhaled deeply.

" I don't know what you're talking about." You tore away you eyes from the erotic display of smoking, he hummed in a dry scoff.

" Ofcourse, you wouldn't." He offered the Cigar back, every word coated with sarcasm.

The breeze was so cold that you shivered, moon hanging low in the night sky and every star stared back, Sirius, Rigel, and all of them.

" I never meant to offend you." You took the cigar back, his fingers brushed, a electrifying wave rippling inside you, like the way he held your hand and danced with you in the masquerade ball.

You noticed his flexing but said nothing, heart beating too fast to be sane and alive.

" Miss Rose—" you gasped, how could he know your name, "—have you ever been kissed ? "

" I...Benedict..lord." you clamped your mouth shut, lips suddenly struck by a bolt as they buzzed.

He leaned as you felt your back touching the rope of swing, his face too close... would he kiss you ? Would it be as electrifying as the rest of his touches ? Would you survive it or simply burn like a pheonix ?

" It's okay, we would alot when we get married. " He took away the cigar and dropped it as it was so close to burn your skin, smiling all the while. Was that a proposal ?

" Go home, it's getting cold, Mrs-yet-to-be bridgerton." And he pressed his lips against your forehead, his smile caressing your heart.

Rigel's note 🪩: while I loved this idea especially the hilarious ' Benedict gets what he wants....sex ' but I needed to base it, so it doesn't come as pervy and non con as it might, to make it comfortable enough to write on my part, I have tried to break it into parts, this part is generally meet up and getting obsession with y/n ( no use in fic ) and other will be courting and marriage bliss. Gif not mine.

[princedetectives]

ok but really even without all the dramatic au stuff i like doing to them, i really think atlus accidently made one of the most interesting dynamics from what was definitely just supposed to be a cameo. the second coming of the detective prince and he's so different from the first. from how he is you'd maybe expect akechi to not really care about the title or even be kind of bitter about being placed in the shadow of someone else he hasn't even met, but no,

he actively mirrors naoto. this sweater is the only canonically confirmed callback but i've sniffed out others, even down to the way they hold themselves.

like, clothing is one thing that could just be for the public image, but come on. it's part of his SELF image. his status as the second detective prince is vital to his view of himself.

and q2 all but proves he respects naoto deeply. and it all makes sense because he really is proud of being a detective, of course he'd be a fanboy of one of the most well-known young detectives out there. i can imagine he relates to the image he has of naoto a lot.

and it's not like it places him to live up to the achievements of naoto or anything, to a degree maybe yes, but not enough to the point that it's a burden. because he's piggybacking off of his legacy and blowing it out of the water. akechi is FAMOUS, much more than naoto was, i imagine. people would hear about the first detective prince and go, "who? i only know akechi." the title only benefits him, publicly and personally.

and it'd be so interesting if they met, because it's not like one is living in the others' shadow. akechi has to live up to naoto's reputation because he's the successor to naoto's legacy, placed on his shoulders by the force of the public. naoto has to live up to akechi's reputation because he's the new big thing, he's what everyone is interested now, he's who was chosen to succeed him. they live in each others' shadows. it's an ouroboros of reputation.

i just think they're neat. they'd get along too, i bet. they definitely got along in q2! they're the only ones in the whole world who can relate to each others' experiences of growing up as a detective prince. they're both big nerds. they're both competitive. PLEASE imagine placing these two in the same room together. it would be so INTERESTING.

and don't even get me STARTED on how Crow looks a hell of a lot like naoto's persona

[steventhusiast]

STWG prompt 2/6/24

prompt: coming out

pairing/character(s): steddie, Dustin, Lucas, Mike

. . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

Eddie fucked up. Big time.

See, he's truly embraced his freak status at Hawkins High. Meaning he doesn't exactly shy away from his queerness. He doesn't confirm it, not for people he's not friends with. It's just useful. Being gay is the kind of 'freak' that makes the popular kids steer clear from him, just in case they, you know, catch the queer from him.

But with his fellow freaks? They know he's gay.

In fact, they know he has a boyfriend.

He never shares who said boyfriend is, or the fact that he used to be nicknamed The Hair, because Steve doesn't want anyone to know. He's.. private about his sexuality, to say the least. And Eddie gets it. Hawkins is in the middle of nowhere, it's not exactly gay-friendly like some parts of bigger cities. So his friends don't know who his boyfriend is.

They won't until well after Steve's come out to his own friends, which he hasn't said he's ready for yet. Eddie's letting him go at his own pace, he doesn't even bring it up to him. He doesn't want Steve to feel pressured. Steve doesn't have a Wayne there to support him through everything, after all.

Anyway, despite him being anonymous, Eddie always gives everyone an update on his boyfriend before they start the session of DnD each week. It's kind of a bit for everyone involved at this point.

And in the first session that Eddie's newest fresh sheep attend, he refuses to shy away from it. Either they'll be bigots (unlikely) or they'll be fine with it! It's a risk he's willing to take for his pride.

So he gives the update.

"How's your boyfriend, Ed?" Gareth asks with a teasing grin, and Eddie's closest friends lean toward him with giggles.

"Well, my sweetheart has had a great week. Remember that job I told you he'd applied for?"

"Assistant basketball coach for a kids team?" Jeff checks, and Eddie points at him like he's just scored a point.

"That's the one! He got the job! It's a bit of a drive but it sure as shit beats the minimum wage bullshit he was doing before. I swear, his manager actually hates his guts for no reason."

The existing Hellfire members all cheer at the news, whilst one of the new recruits, Henderson, makes an inquisitive noise and chuckles.

"That's crazy, because my friend Steve called me yesterday with super similar news! Small world, huh?" He says it so casually, looking down straight after to fiddle with his dice.

But Eddie feels like the world stops, his hands freezing in the middle of unfolding his dungeon master screen. Fuck. Henderson is one of Steve's kids.

Maybe no one has actually caught on yet. A sneaky glance to his friends reveals nothing but confused frowns on their faces.

"You guys might have known Steve, actually. Steve Harrington? Used to be a mega asshole through most of high school." Wheeler says in a way that somehow sounds simultaneously fond and like he despises Steve.

"He's great now, though! Like, totally reformed. Such a mom." Sinclair adds on.

Eddie nods passively at their words, and feels Gareth, Jeff and Paul's eyes on him. Right, he's still frozen in shock. He forces himself to relax, and finally finishes setting up the DM screen.

"Haha, what a coincidence." He manages, clearing his throat in the middle to clear up an unfortunate voice crack.

That voice crack gets all three of the kids to tilt their heads at him, and then their eyes light up like they've just won the lottery.

Shit shit shit. Hopefully they haven't put two and two together.

Somehow, he manages to make it through the session without revealing anything else, but as he draws it to a close his heart starts beating faster. He doesn't know how he didn't put it together before that these kids are Steve's kids. Steve is literally going to be late to their date night because he has to pick them up from an afterschool activitiy.

What other club meets up on a Friday but Hellfire?

He shakes his head and starts speeding through packing up his stuff. He's going through in his head ways to apologise to Steve in case the kids have figured it out, heart beating out of his chest as he zips his backpack up and leaves the room. The group of newbies run out after him, though.

"Eddie, wait up!" Henderson shouts after him, and he winces but stops.

"What's up?" He says with what he hopes is a smile but is probably a grimace.

"It's so funny how you're Steve's secret boyfriend." Henderson says with a giggle after he's checked no one else has left the drama room yet.

Wait, what? Eddie frowns at him, mouth open. Before he can question anything Sinclair nods along in agreement.

"We've been guessing for weeks now. You can't tell him we found out through you, I want to win our bet."

"If we figure out who his boyfriend is by the end of the month he's taking us to that tabletop RPG store in Indy." Wheeler adds on.

Eddie gapes at them for another second.

"Wait, Steve- he came out to you? When?" He manages, and the three boys tilt their heads at him.

"Like, since a month ago?" Sinclair guesses after a moment of thought, and Eddie lets out a quiet 'huh'.

"What, do you guys not talk about that shit?" Henderson asks, and Eddie shakes his head slowly, thinking back on if he had been told and had just forgotten.

Then it clicks. Just under a month ago, Steve had started to bring up the topic of coming out, and Eddie had gently insisted he didn't mind if Steve never came out and that he loves him anyway and he doesn't want him to feel pressured. And Steve had smiled fondly and let it go.

Had Steve been trying to tell him he came out to his kids?

He lets his head drop and takes a few deep breaths, trying to slow his heart rate. Thank fuck. He hasn't just accidentally outed his boyfriend.

"He's actually waiting for us in his car. I would say come with, but..."

"We're serious about this bet."

Eddie nods, and waves his hand in their general direction.

"Yeah, of course. Sure. You- you go win that bet. Jesus christ."

He hears them walk away and lets out an incredulous laugh to himself before he hears the drama room door swing open again, the chatter of Jeff, Gareth and Paul cutting off when they see the state he's in.

"You good, man?" Paul asks, and Eddie just lets out a sigh.

"Totally fine. Just thinking about wooing my sweetheart." He says, like they've walked into a joke he's set up.

They all groan, but continue walking toward the school's exit, and Eddie stays there, recovering from that shitshow.

[theroundbartable]

Arthur is bad at gift giving. Like, no, he isn't, not normally. He's just bad at giving gifts to MERLIN.

Because everyone else appreciates the thought or the worth of the gift. But usually, Merlin is the one send out to buy them or even come up with the idea or reminding Arthur of the birthdays.

So, it's just Merlin that Arthur can't find gifts for.

Every time he gives him something expensive, Merlin just sells it and gives the money away. Buys herbs with it or anything else.

The clothes Arthur gives him, Merlin never wears unless he forces him to wear them in formal settings.

A day off is accepted with suspicion and a full day of Merlin trying to figure out what's wrong with Arthur.

One Christmas, Arthur decides to try something new. He draws Merlin a picture. It's not a good drawing, it's just put on old parchment he can't use for speeches anyway, it's not a painted one from the royal painter as Merlin wouldn't know where to put a huge framed picture.

It's just a sketch really about Merlin and Gwen talking animately in Arthur's chambers because Arthur loved the sight and hasn't actually been able to work that day, when the people he wanted to be with were right there.

Arthur doesn't sign the picture, too scared of Merlin's response. He gifts him a new scarf alongside it because he's insecure.

Merlin cries when he finds it.

Like, he walks around and shows everyone and praises how much effort and skill had gone into it. He keeps it in a drawer and looks at it every day and never shuts up about it.

Arthur feels so encouraged, he starts drawing something for Merlin every day. And the next christmas, he looks Merlin straight in the eyes and gives him the whole folder.

Merlin, who hadn't known it was a gift from Arthur, nearly melts. And then he looks through the paintings and finds one of himself using magic. He doesn't say anything. He's too speechless to talk. He grabs Arthur and hugs him.

Arthur becomes really good at art after that.

[moondirti]

JIGSAWS [ surgeon! simon riley x f! reader ] — masterlist / each part can be read separately : dealing with cruelty is hard when stress has a crippling effect. simon gives you a place to find comfort, however unconventional

dom/sub. dubcon (power dynamics). adjustment disorder. sexual harassment and battery. dacryphilia. hurt/comfort. biting. marking. brief fluff. medical settings. 2.8k

"Fuck aff, ya useless pillock."

At 0600 hours, a belligerent intake is the last thing you need.

Fatigue works her wily fingers into you, kneading staunchly into your shoulders to add resistance for every step forward. The sun hasn't yet peeked over the horizon, pellucid blue sky outside somehow consolidating every misery from the past week. If your exhaustion felt impregnable during the bright stretch of summer, autumn encroaches vindictive, dreary winds intent on teaching you to count your blessings, next time.

"Good morning, Mr. Cook. I'm one of the daytime neurosurgical residents, here to see how you’re doing since your admission last night at... 2100, is that right?" The script, if not plainly artificial, is a cornerstone for when you cannot muster your own words. Too often, you opt to lean into its guidance – a habit you picked up the hard way during intern year. Control all variables. That way, if things go sour, you can be almost sure that the error did not lie with you.

But perfunctoriness doesn't always bode over well. Mr. Cook's face twists into something foul, sunken eyes assessing you spitefully from his cot. You should have known to affect a different approach. He called you useless after all, for what you assume is frustrated reason. No one likes spending their time here without answers.

Try cutting to the chase, then.

"I see from your chart that you came in complaining about headaches, fever, and nausea. I understand how tired you must be. If it's alright with you, I’d like to perform a quick exam to get to the bottom of things."

"Ye'd be wasting my damn time, girl. Jus' lookin' at ya, I can tell the only thing ye're good for s'wetting my cock."

You sip a startled breath, consoling the erratic stutter of your heart with oxygen and four fingernails curled into your palm. It's not a serious threat – that much is evident by the slurred cadence, the unfocused hands he waves accusatorially in your direction. The overnight resident hadn't noted any aggression on his chart, either; which suggests this is new. Exacerbated by his condition, else the pain has loosened his tongue.

(And Kyle knows better than to schedule you with the tough ones. It's noted especially in your file, documented as a corrective action plan in prim, red ink.)

Though the smile has long since slipped off your lips, you amass what sympathy you can, nodding like it'll do anything to dissuade his suffering. Useless. "A little civility would help things run a lot smoother, Mr. Cook. It's just a few questions that will give me insight to your malaise. I'll even forward those to a senior physician, if you would prefer more qualified care."

Just one face refines itself in your mind's eye. Deep-set brown eyes, prying behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Sentiment that teeters the tightrope between indifference and affection. The days have buried their thumbs into your obsession, urging it deeper, beyond professionalism. Nudging your lungs, finding place amidst life-sustaining organs to become one of its own. Now, veins wire through, supplying blood to what should not be encouraged, should not be sustained–

You think of him, anyway.

"A'll tell y'what." A blurry shape swipes for your face. You flinch, neck snapping back, before finding that the rest of your body can't follow suit, arm held in a vice grip by a set of gnarled fingers. Mr. Cook's hold curls into bone, urging a whole world of pain to match the terror storming through your head. Your blood pressure skyrockets. Stress whistles sirens behind your ears. "How 'bout you call a proper doctor in now, and put on a li'l show for me in th'meanwhile, eh?"

A multitude of scenes, each more harrowing than the last, unfurl at his implication. If you cannot wrench yourself from him, what's to say you can fight back should he decide to pull you closer? Oh god. Your wrist struggles, thrashing wildly, disregarding its wellbeing for the opportunity to screw out of his grasp. The clipboard clatters to the floor. Your heart palpitates arrhythmically, unsteady palpitations battering war drums on your ribs. Though you've been trained for this, you cannot regulate your response to adrenaline. The exercises given to you by your therapist scatter at the first sign of real turmoil. Your body shuts down. Things spiral out of your control.

But your assailant's condition is not usual. Where a healthy man would only grow more determined in your struggle, he lets his aggression get the best of him. Roaring, his legs kick from beneath tight-fitted sheets, arm shuddering with the force it takes to keep you tethered in place. Eventually, your panic grows too much for him to subdue. With a final push of your heel off the floor, you free yourself, stumble three steps back, and fall flat on your ass. Hurt, but safe.

Mr. Cook grumbles, moving on too quickly for someone who had been so passionate just moments ago.

Safe, safe, safe.

You force yourself to repeat only that as you straighten yourself out. Hone in the truth of the matter, and not what your body tries desperately to have you believe. Safe. It's just another patient with neurological deficits. Safe. You have reason to hand his check-ups to someone else.

Safe. There's a place you can go to sap this off your chest.

"I'll order a CT scan for later this afternoon. We will do our best to help you once the results come in. Have a good day, Mr. Cook."

Still, as you scuttle out into the white-lit hall, you feel anything but.

"Come in."

Dr. Riley's office is comparatively dark to the fluorescent rest of the hospital, brightened only by the warm light of his desk lamp. Though his curtains are drawn shut, beams of pink from the vibrant dusk outside sneak their way through, casting everything in a rich glow. The day has been long, leagues more taxing than usual. Stepping into the space offers brief respite, then, like sinking into bed to reach for better dreams.

He looks up at you, impassive. There's never any indication to how he truly feels – whether creeping adoration curls around his heart at the very sight of you, or if he reserves it for after hours – but you've found that the puzzle attracts you more than it pushes you away. You like feeling pinned under his scrutiny, a little lab mouse tested for its wit. Even now, with a whole host of real matters to discuss, you can't help but pick apart the minutia in his expression.

"Dr. Riley," You whisper, careful not to disturb the tranquillity.

"Yes?"

"Um, I'm so sorry to bother you–"

"No need for that." He clips, the liquid of his eyes shifting as they coast back to assess his screen. The monitor projects stark shadows onto his face, harsher than usual. Despite your... relationship, it's hard not to feel discouraged. He wouldn't look away if he were interested in what you had to say. "We're alone."

"Right." Clearing your throat, you shuffle through the glossy prints in your arms. Cross-sectional imaging from Mr. Cook's CT scans, annotated in your illegible hand. The aftershocks of your stress are evident in the writing; loopy letters boasting sharp corners, a liberal use of shorthand where it wouldn't be allowed. When you place them on his desk, you pray he doesn't take heed of it. "A patient who was admitted last night. Though the tomographs are nonspecific, I have reason to believe it might be a brain abscess. If that is the case, I'd like to schedule him for surgery as soon as possible, and I know you're in the OR tomorrow, so..."

He doesn't look up at you while you speak, opting instead to skim the analysis you've left for him in the margins. Only after a long moment's silence do his lashes quiver, a voiceless acknowledgement to your request. The details come later. Tomorrow morning, likely, assigned by Kyle upon clocking in.

"You'll serve as my resident."

Your lips part. Seeing Mr. Cook again, even while under the effects of anaesthesia, brings a queasy ache to your stomach. It's about the most unprofessional thing you could voice, however – more so than any nasty promise Dr. Riley whispers to you in private – so you settle on keeping it to yourself.

"Okay."

But he doesn't miss a thing. The warble in your tone catches his attention like steaming gore to a predator, jaw ticking as salivate floods his mouth. You should have schooled your emotions better, should have given it a good, long mourn before coming to see him – because if you know anything, you know that there's nothing he loves more than seeing you cry.

And now–

Now, it's too late to renege. You're on a fixed path, the only variable being a matter of time until when. The rush of it already devastates your throat, stone lodged in a white river rapid of sentiment. Warmth fogs your eyes. Prelude to collapse, tremors buried deep beneath the earth's crust come to light.

"Out with it." He says.

And your body serves him, better than it could ever serve you.

A sob breaks the dam, first – snarling, ugly thing, face screwing up in a vain effort to tamp the subsequent flow of tears. Your head feels heavy, weighed down by briny devastation and the culmination of your pressures. Yet catharsis never fails; immediately, you feel it unravelling, hiccups picking the presumably impossible knots in your chest until they are nothing more than strings, meant to eventually tie back up again.

So it goes.

But it doesn't matter here. Can't. Not when Dr. Riley scoots his seat back, clearing a space by his legs. Parting heaven's gates, a little sanctuary for the desperate. You run to it, crumpling to the floor to bury your wet face in his trousers, hugging the wide breadth of his calves. It is as though your troubles melt off your skin, wax held close to a flame. No cologne or scented-soap veils the true essence of him; him, who's able to pacify you with little word. Musk, traces of sweat, a sage and cedar-wood body wash that still clings to him, despite the day and several layers. You suck in a chest-straining whiff of it all, stitching your eyes shut to etch the smell into your memory.

"H-He was awful. Said I was... was good for n-nothing but bei-ing a whore." You sniff, curling tighter around him. A lab mouse indeed, basking in the hand that feeds it. His own – large, dry, warm – pets your nape, tugging a little at the baby hairs below your ear. Idly playing, as though your grief does not necessitate his full notice.

"Comes with the job, little thing." You know that. You know that – have heard it many a time from your parents, your therapists, your peers and higher-ups. Anyone who has ever been privy to your condition has warned you that the medical field is never stressless, that you'll spend years miserable until it grows to be too much. And he must feel your bristling, the discomfort his advice affords, for he moves on sooner than you can state your case. "Did he touch you?"

You doubt it's meant as more than a simple inquiry. Still, you fumble for the right answer. Though the one you tend to is yes, yes he did – a childish grasp for some cosseting – you wonder if he'll take your minor wounds seriously at all. Does it count if what you have to show for it are surface-level contusions? Or will it only warrant mention if you can match the fissures of his flesh?

Tucking your arm between your legs, you shake your head no. Dr. Riley's forehead creases, brows knitting together reflexively. The move must not have been subtle enough, because he extends an expectant hand, impatience igniting his tail. Bones work under the scarred skin of his knuckles, muscles rippling in the quarter-length of an exposed forearm. He doesn't need to say anything. Just sits there and waits, the ire emanating off him enough to urge you into lift your bruised wrist.

(Splitting to his will like brain matter to the knife.)

Anyone would look delicate when set against him, yet you marvel at the contrast nonetheless. It resembles porcelain, fine china in his grip. His thick fingers twist to inspect the splotchy discolouration, set there by Mr. Cook's hold.

"Does it hurt?"

"Only when– ah," You huff. His thumb presses into the tender flesh, recalling the pain you've worked all day to ignore. "you do that."

"Hm."

The words tumble from your tongue before you can catch them.

"Are you mad?" You ask, softly, then cringe as the question finds its place in the lull. It's an awkward echo, like the ocean gnawing desperately on shore, trying to make its mark in the sand. No matter how hard the spume and saltwater crashes, no matter the devastation it wreaks, it will always be pulled back, away from what it hardly affected.

(You used to liken him to choppy waters, feeling drowned in all his callousness. Yet as you wipe your tears with the back of your hand, your passions warring with each other within a vessel that cannot contain it, it has never been more clear that he is the earth. The ground. Unfixed, unmoved. It is an impossible endeavour for you, whose impact is as thin as the tides.)

More than anything, you covet an admission of his concern. Warmth to feel him in your corner, eternally there, even as your sight’s set on other horizons. With it, you'd be able to stand it all, you think.

"No." He says. "Brain abscesses can exacerbate aggressive behaviour. I don't fault him for that."

It needles right over where it hurts, mangling the softened muscle of your heart.

"Oh."

"But," Dr. Riley adds, guiding you to a wobbly stand. If he didn't plan on transferring you to his lap, you would have fallen right back down. As it is, though, he uses your fawn-like strength to nestle you across his thighs, brushing the flyaways from your temple. "Don't like seein' the marks on you."

Your cheeks heat. Pressing them into his collarbone, you speak against his pulse. It flutters, tandem to your breath. "I'll put a warm compress on it tonight."

"Better. Should only be mine you carry, pet." His voice vibrates through you, sound waves absorbing to become one with your body. Never did you think it could feel so good, yet as he continues to speak, you find yourself wishing that he’ll do so forever, eternal, so that you may weld together eventually.

"Sir…"

"Lift your head f'me." He whispers, nipping your jaw when you follow his instruction. Thin lips scratch your neck, chapped from the tight constraints of his mask and the dry hospital air. You dizzy to think of wetting them with your tongue, running the muscle along his cupids bow, sharp canines, dunking to map the inside of his cheeks. But that isn’t what this is; he’s made sure to clarify that, of all things.

So, you dip your head, neck arching to widen the canvas to his onslaught.

His groan is hot, ticklish as it fans over the area. You wriggle in his firm lap, coming to expect something much more permanent once he latches to your sweet spot. Practiced, trained to the hollow of your throat. Blood rushes to the capillaries sitting just under the skin there, bursting when it grows to be too much. Building pressure that takes away from your brain, your numbing extremities. Your cunt throbs, balmy and slick. He keeps a large hand anchored between your thighs as if he’s aware of what you’ll try to do without direction.

As a high whine pitches from your chest, and you darken to the shape of his maw, Dr. Riley doesn’t budge. He pushes further, rather. Digging his teeth into you, laving over the iron that surfaces. It hurts something terrible. If it weren’t so late into the night, you would doubtlessly be interrupted as a louder wail splits the sheltered office space, carrying through the labyrinth halls. Pain eclipses any internal worry, though. And perhaps that was the intention, mind buzzing with white noise once he pulls away.

Blinking, you clear the gossamer webs of delirium off your eyes. His mouth comes into view, first; swollen, tinted with a diluted wash of ichor, purpling with a bruise that no doubt mirror yours. You can only imagine what a mess he’s made of you, if the evidence of his own undoing is so stark.

The dual marks brings a dumb smile to your face.

“There.” He resolves, at last. It sounds like pride and feels a lot like damnation. “Good.”

You can’t help but agree.

(Even the earth will eventually erode away. Even the earth.)