#but i have NEVER in my life shipped something the way i ship this.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 7: Sapphire] [Series Finale]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.2k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Thank you for reading (and tolerating all my nautical puns)! 💎

How can love be a curse? How can it be something to fear, to condemn, to break?

She has dreamed of him all her life. First he was a protector, almost fatherlike, and then a remote, bewitching phantom as she crept into adolescence, and then when Harwin Strong died Daemon sailed over Saint George’s Channel to offer her solace in England, and at last the fantasies she never would have confessed to anyone were fulfilled, two marriages and four children later. Rhaenyra remembers what he told her in the mist-draped lakeside cottage where they met in secret, crossing paths like an asteroid striking a planet: My wife means nothing to me. She’s not like us. She is young, and weak, and afraid, and I could never respect that kind of person. Her father owns the last Connemara marble quarry in the world, and I needed a son. But the only woman I want is you.

Aegon fires the pistol as he chases her through the corridors of A-Deck, and when she shrieks nobody hears, or if they do they don’t appear to rescue her; the ship is full of people screaming, sobbing, clawing for their lives against wet walls and locked doors. He shoots and misses again. There’s something wrong with his hands. He keeps fumbling with the gun and almost dropping it, hissing in pain as he squeezes the trigger, and there’s blood staining his fingers.

Good, Rhaenyra thinks. I’m glad he’s hurt. I hope he’s dying.

She sees an open room and ducks inside, slamming the door behind her and barring it with the weight of her body as Aegon rams it with his shoulder. Rhaenyra is surrounded by the trappings of another family who purchased first-class tickets: chairs with velvet upholstery, a faux fireplace, paintings by Rousseau and Boccioni and Homer. The lights flicker and the steel beams of Titanic groan, low and disastrous. There isn’t much time left.

“Daemon!” she yells as loudly as she can. If he hears her, he’ll come running. I have to get to a lifeboat. I have to live for my father, for Jace and Luke and Joffrey, for the children I will one day give Daemon.

Rhaenyra struggles with the lock as Aegon batters the door and it quakes on its hinges. Just as she latches it, he fires the pistol through the door. Wood cracks and splinters; a bullet pierces Rhaenyra’s ribcage like a blade. There is unbearable pressure, and then a sharpness, a pain she believes she cannot stand until it keeps getting bigger, deeper, ripping her open and filling her with dark wet weight like the ocean surging into Titanic. She crumples to the floor. When she coughs, blood spurts out onto her lips. Rhaenyra wipes it away and then stares at the red on her palm.

I can’t die now. My life just became what it was supposed to be.

Aegon punches a hole through the mangled door large enough for him to reach in and unlock it. Then he stands in the threshold looking down at her, his hands shaking but his eyes hard, fierce, unflinching. Rhaenyra has never seen him like this before. She didn’t know he could be good at anything.

“How the fuck did you get on the ship?” Rhaenyra snarls as she scrambles away, hacking up more blood. The black opal ring Daemon gave her gleams like onyx or obsidian, something born of heat and earth and insurmountable, ancient gravity.

Daemon and I were made for each other. The same blood, the same bones, the same will to carve treasures from the bleakest places.

Aegon follows her across the floor, slow stalking steps. He doesn’t answer; instead, he shakes his right hand a few times—steadying himself, casting out tremors like demons—and then grips the pistol with it. He raises the gun, the barrel aimed at Rhaenyra’s face.

“Daemon?!” she screams, but he isn’t here. Then she asks, sudden desperate confusion, her blue eyes wide: “Why are you doing this?”

Aegon’s voice is calm. “Because she can’t be free unless you and Daemon are gone.”

That girl? Daemon’s sad, stupid wife? I’m dying because of HER?

“Father never loved you,” Rhaenyra seethes, red on her teeth, blooddrops spilling from her lips like rubies. Her eyes are cold, glinting sapphires, pools of freezing water that only needs minutes to stop the heart. “Just like Daemon never loved her.”

“I know. And I used to care. It almost killed me, it almost ate me alive. But now I’m better. And I finally know exactly who I’m supposed to be.”

Aegon pulls the trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~

As Daemon descends the Grand Staircase, you crawl down towards the next landing, your head spinning, your hands empty, writhing on your belly like a snake.

The dagger???

But you can’t find it, and you don’t have time to stop and search. Daemon is only a few steps behind you. When your palms hit B-Deck, you try to drag yourself upright, grappling for the banister; but before you can get your feet under you, Daemon kicks you and sends you hurtling down the next flight of stairs. You tumble towards C-Deck, clawing in vain for something to break your fall. Your head strikes the English oak wood and you hear your father’s bewildered voice as he sat at the dining room table in Lough Cutra Castle: Where are you going? When will you be back?

Never, never, never; and now from somewhere below you recognize the roar of rushing water.

“You were going to kill me?!” Daemon taunts as he bears down on you like a storm. Blood soaks his throat and the white shirt beneath his black suit jacket. His eyes are bright, feral, monstrous. “After all those times I spared you when I could have drowned you in a river or a hot bath or the sea? You’re so fucking useless. You really can’t do anything right. All you had to do was shut up and endure, and you could have lived to be an old, old woman with all the comforts my empire afforded you. Now, my dear, you will never see another sunrise. And when Titanic sinks, you’ll be buried with her.”

Down, down, always down towards the ocean floor, you crawl faster away from him as his footsteps grow louder.

“Help,” you moan weakly. Aegon? Anyone? But the only reply is the echoing of your own voice and the sounds of the dying ship: breaking metal, distant screams, gushing torrents of seawater.

You crash into C-Deck and again try to stagger to your feet, but Daemon is here, shoving you as if from a cliffside or off a balcony. And as you plummet down the Grand Staircase towards D-Deck—where the First-Class Dining Saloon is, where Thomas Andrews once assured you that Titanic was unsinkable—it is not hard wooden steps you collide with but swirling ice-cold seawater. You plunge beneath the currents and then come sputtering up to the surface, your white wool coat drenched and threatening to pull you below again like an anchor. You struggle to shed it with arms that are rapidly going numb.

I’m so cold, I’m so cold, if I don’t get out of the water I’ll be dead in minutes—

Daemon’s fingers close around your throat and he forces you under the waist-deep water. You thrash and try to push him away, to pry him off of you, but your muscles seem to have disappeared, they have been scraped off your bones and now you can only wait to die, your breathless lungs burning as your body freezes. You have a sudden vision of Daemon in his firelit study at Lough Cutra Castle, marveling at a shard of Larimar dredged up from the Caribbean Sea and quoting the first known treatise on gemstones, written by Theophrastus in the time of Alexander the Great: Of things formed in the earth, some have their origin from water.

“No!” you scream through the depths, bubbles rising up to air you cannot taste. You claw at Daemon’s hands, but you cannot wound him, cannot get a grip on him, and hasn’t that been true since you married him five years ago?

The dark, freezing water makes you want to give up. It makes death feel easy, painless, inevitable. You imagine faces you’ll never see again: Draco, Aegon, your parents, Fern. You hope Carpathia will be here soon to rescue the survivors. You wonder what will happen to Aegon’s paintings.

Through the water come the muffled booms of explosions, four of them, surely something catastrophic, the ship splitting in half or a distress flare misfired or boilers bursting and shearing through what’s left of the hull. Then Daemon’s hands vanish from your throat and someone is hauling you up out of the icy currents, they are freeing you, they are disinterring you from an oceanic grave.

“I’m here!” Aegon is shouting as you burst into open air, gasping and flailing. He drags you towards the Grand Staircase where you can climb out of the flood, but you’re looking for Daemon. He is a few yards away and floating face-up, one hand clasping his chest and a gurgling sound leaking from his throat. The water around him is turning red. He’s fading, but he’s not dead yet.

“Aegon, he’s still—”

“I know. I’ll take care of him once you’re out of the water. I don’t have any more bullets left.”

“I want to do it.”

“We need to get you dry and warmed up—”

“I want to do it,” you say again, and Aegon lets you go.

You twist off your black opal engagement ring and throw it into the water beside Daemon. Then you place both of you hands on his chest and push him beneath the surface, Aegon standing just behind you with the barrel of the pistol in his grasp in case he has to use it as a club. The glacial seawater froths and whirls as it rises over Daemon’s hemorrhaging chest. He startles—a death rattle, a late rite—and resists feebly, gazing up at you with glassy, disbelieving eyes. They ask: How did this happen? I was supposed to kill you, remember? I own you. I own jewels trapped in subterranean darkness all over the world, and you are the very least of them.

“Draco isn’t yours,” you tell Daemon as you force him under. “Rhaenyra isn’t yours. And I’m not yours either. Now sink and die and make me free.”

He twitches, he bares his crimson teeth at you, but after all this time finally Daemon is the weak one. The rising water flushes maroon around him, his skin goes a frail and translucent bluish-white, his heart is drained until the chambers are cold and grey and empty. You hold him beneath the water until the bubbles roiling up from his nose and mouth disappear. He will never touch you again, he will never hurt anyone, he will never bruise or break or ensnare or captivate. And who will inherit his mines scattered across the planet?

Draco. His only son. And my family and I will act as trustees until he’s eighteen.

“We have to go,” Aegon is saying. He must have taken off his coat before he went into the water after you. He stands shivering in only his white shirt and green corduroy pants, the ocean now lapping at his chest.

“Rhaenyra?” you ask.

“She’s gone. I’m sure.”

“It’s over,” you say softly, feeling weight like stones roll off of you, feeling warmth like sunlight on your face.

As if in reply, the listing ship groans and the lights flicker again. “Not yet,” Aegon says, grabbing your hand. “Let’s hope there’s a lifeboat left.”

You wade to the steps and climb out of the water. Aegon helps you wring out your soaked hair and the skirt of your gown, then snatches his black wool coat off the steps where he left it and puts it on you. You race up the Grand Staircase to C-Deck, and then B-Deck, and then the A-Deck landing where you find your green handbag with Aegon’s tiny aluminum lighter still inside.

“I think you dropped this,” Aegon says when he spots the dagger on a nearby step, still covered with Daemon’s blood. He wipes it clean on his corduroy pants and then passes it to you. When you hesitate to take it, he grins. “Who knows. You might need to stab someone else tonight.”

“I never want to draw blood again.” But you accept the dagger and place it in your handbag, the captive gemstones glimmering there: amethyst, tiger’s eye, black opal, emerald, ruby, bloodstone, sapphire like the North Atlantic Ocean that is swallowing Titanic down into her cold, crushing belly. Then you ascend one last flight of steps to the Boat Deck, passing the bronze cherub statue and the ticking clock, stealing a glimpse up at the dome of glass and wrought iron that will soon shatter when the sea punctures through it like a bullet or a blade.

Outside the night air is so frigid that ice crystals begin forming in your hair, and the hem of your blue gown begins to stiffen as it freezes. You are barefoot, you only now realize, and if splinters from the pine planks of the deck needle their way into your flesh you won’t be able to feel them. There are only two lifeboats left on this side of the ship, one of which is already being lowered down to the sea. Officers are still directing women and children into the other. Benjamin Guggenheim and his companions are very drunk, clumsily herding frantic first-class passengers towards the boats. The string quartet is now playing The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár.

“Come, come quickly, Lady Targaryen!” the officers shout when they see you, knowing by your gown that you belong here, perhaps recognizing you from strolls on the Promenade Deck or when you and Daemon boarded Titanic in Cork with much fanfare. Aegon helps you into the lifeboat, his wounded hands cradling yours. Another distress flare is shot into the sky, metallic rain, doomsday portents.

We’re going to be alright, you think. We’re going to survive this.

“Darling, you’re sopping wet!” one of the women in the lifeboat exclaims, and they all begin to fret over you. There are dogs here, a Pomeranian in one lap, a Yorkshire terrier in another.

“Get her under a blanket,” Aegon is saying. “Keep her warm or she’ll get pneumonia. Give her a lifebelt.”

“We will, we will,” another lady shimmering in jewels—a mother of two boys in heavy coats and blue-striped pajamas—promises him. “We’ll take good care of her.”

You turn back to Aegon. “What?”

He tells you, his voice quiet: “Petra, they’re not going to let me in.”

“No, no, you can’t stay here—”

“Women and children only!” an officer booms, then begins waving several shrieking maids towards the vessel, just moments from launching.

“Aegon,” you say, horrified. He’ll die if he stays. He’ll drown or he’ll freeze and he’ll be entombed at the bottom of the Atlantic. “No.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“No you won’t,” you sob, then look desperately at the officers. How can I change their minds? “He’s a Targaryen, he’s a first-class passenger, he must be allowed aboard!”

“A Targaryen?!” one of the officers says distractedly as he battles with the rigging. “I know all the Targaryens on Titanic, and he’s not one of them!”

“Just look at him,” the other officer mutters, meaning: He isn’t dressed like someone with castles or mansions or titles or mines. He can’t be someone who matters.

“He is,” you plead, tears stinging on your cheeks as they freeze. “He’s Aegon, he’s a Targaryen, please, he can’t be left behind—”

“Women and children only!” the first officer barks at you as the other pushes away a group of panicked young men in black suits trying to bribe their way into the vessel. “And if you want to stay here with him, that’s your business, but get to it so the rest of us can try to make it off this ship alive!”

“There’s more than enough room for him, for Christ’s sake, there are dogs in here!”

“There will be other lifeboats, love,” one of the women tells you as she drapes a scratchy wool blanket across your shoulders, but you don’t believe that’s true. The maids are climbing into the lifeboat; the officers are beginning to lower it with sharp lurches that make the occupants gasp.

You reach for Aegon, your hands catching on his drenched shirt, the thin layer of ice cracking beneath your fingers. “No, no, Aegon, I can’t go like this.”

“You have to,” he says calmly, and he holds you face still and touches his lips to your forehead, a kiss goodbye, gentle and lingering.

“No—”

“You have a kid. You have to go. Draco will be looking for you on Carpathia.”

“You deserve to be free too.”

“I’ll stay out of the water for as long as I can,” Aegon says like a vow. “I’ll try to find something to float on. And once Titanic goes down…maybe the lifeboats will come back to pick up any survivors.”

The water is too cold. I’ve felt it, I’ve been paralyzed by it, once you go under you only have minutes. “You can’t…you won’t…”

“Petra,” Aegon says, and his eyes turn desperate. He knows it’s his only chance. “Make them come back for me.”

“I will,” you swear to him.

And he pries your fingers off his shirt and rips away from you before your resolve can weaken. High above and through tears that blur your vision, constellations of stars gleam like diamonds.

~~~~~~~~~~

He runs to the other side of the Boat Deck, searching for lifeboats that haven’t launched yet. He can’t find any. There are swarms of passengers weeping, shouting, jostling, and officers trying to restore order. Pistols and flares are fired, chairs are tossed overboard for passengers to cling to as they float. But Aegon knows that won’t be enough; if they stay submerged, they will die.

I need something bigger. I need something I can lie on. A door or a dresser or…

He shoves through the crowd to get to the ship’s railing. Below, the ocean has gotten so much closer. He sees a lifeboat bobbing in the waves, just far enough away that someone brave enough to leap could not get to it. Inside, along with perhaps twenty first-class women and maids, Aegon recognizes Laenor Velaryon and his ever-present Parisian friends. They are puffing on cigars and toasting glasses of brandy, celebrating their good fortune. They must have successfully bribed their way aboard.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs, his breath fog in the frigid air.

How am I going to stay out of the water long enough to survive until I’m rescued?

Then he replays the evening in his mind—his first night with Petra, perhaps his last night on earth, red silk and candles and oil paint and the warmth of her beneath his hands—and Aegon gets an idea. He sprints back to the Grand Staircase and soars down to B-Deck, seawater ankle-deep on the floor. He splashes through the corridors to the staterooms once occupied by Daemon Targaryen’s wife and child, now rid of him, now waiting for what will come next. Aegon hurries through the sitting room, passing the taxidermied tiger head above the fireplace and the large, heavy chest where Daemon made Petra lock up the art she bought in Paris.

She didn’t remember to put the real Picasso’s paintings in a lifeboat, but she saved mine, Aegon thinks. If I make it out of this alive somehow, I’m marrying her the second we dock in New York.

He goes to the bedroom, finds what he needs, carries it with him as he returns to the maze of hallways. Now the icy water is nipping at his knees.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ocean is calm, the lifeboat rocking placidly on inky surf. The women comfort their children and their dogs. You take Aegon’s aluminum lighter out of your handbag and light yourself a cigarette, then pass it around so the other passengers can thaw their lungs with hot plumes of nicotine, here in the early hours of the morning when it feels like you’ll never be warm again. The officer who took command of the vessel—the same one who shouted at you and refused to admit Aegon—is rowing vigorously as you and several other women help him, staring horror-struck at Titanic as she goes down by the bow.

“We have to get away from the ship,” the officer keeps saying, and he sounds genuinely petrified. A woman in a glittering gold gown steers with the tiller. “Or she’ll suck us into the water with her.”

There are shadows of other lifeboats nearby, also fleeing from the condemned Titanic, that miraculously colossal and opulent triumph that everyone had told you was unsinkable. You wonder which one Draco and Fern are in, undoubtedly cold and frightened but safe.

Aegon deserves to live too. I have to find him, I have to save him.

Now there is seawater flooding over Titanic’s deck at the bow, where you and Aegon saw third-class passengers—now dead, or very soon to be—kicking around pieces of the iceberg that they didn’t know had doomed them. The ocean surges higher, covering B-Deck, and A-Deck, and finally the Boat Deck, where the towering funnels collapse and you can hear shrieks and guns firing. You know you won’t be able to see Aegon from here—you won’t be able to tell if he made it into a lifeboat somehow, or if he is one of the figures that falls from a lethal height into the waves, or if he is crushed or shot or trapped below deck and drowned—but still, you cannot stop looking for him, peering through the night to where Titanic glows in her spotlight of white-gold electric luminescence.

As the bow sinks, the stern begins to rise, higher and higher until the tension cracks the ship in two, and the passengers you share the lifeboat with wail and sob as the ship’s lights blink out for the last time and the gravesite goes dark. Women call out the names of their husbands, fathers, brothers, adult sons, knowing they must be dying. You can only watch with tears streaming down your face, thinking: How could he survive that? How could I have left him?

The stern bobs for a while in the nightscape sea, a shade, a phantom, and then it plunges into the ocean. The water—indifferent, dispassionate, not a mortal but a titan, here long before humans and destined to outlast them, not unlike the treasures of the earth—gulps down metal beams and pine planks and split bones and shredded flesh. There are screams, so many, so pitiful, so loud they fill the sky, and the howling women in the lifeboat cover their ears and those of their children so they will not have to try to exorcise the sound from their memories later.

As soon as the stern has been consumed by the depths, you say to the officer: “We have to go back to look for survivors.”

“Are you mad, Lady Targaryen?” he snaps at you; but there are tears in his bloodshot eyes. “We’ll be mobbed if we sail into that. They’ll pour into the boat until we go under too. Do you want to freeze to death with them?”

“People will die quickly. They are dying already, the water is cold enough to kill in minutes. If we start rowing towards them now, most of the passengers will be dead by the time we get there. And then we can rescue anyone who’s left.” Please still be alive, Aegon.

“Not a chance in hell,” the officer says.

You turn to the other women. They blink back at you in dazed, timid terror. “It’s murder to leave your men behind,” you implore, you beg them to agree. “Help me row to them.”

But the women only weep softly to themselves and look to the officer to tell them what to do. He smirks at you victoriously, an expression of no humor but rather grim, fearful misery that could drive someone insane. In the lap of one woman, the Pomeranian whimpers.

I can’t leave Aegon, you think. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

You open your green handbag and pull out the dagger, the blade pointed at the officer. He shouts and bolts away from you, incredulous, furious.

“You’re threatening to kill me?!”

You shake your head. “I’m offering you a gift.” You turn the dagger around so the officer can grasp the handle. His gaze catches, transfixed and wondrous, on the gemstone spheres like perfectly aligned planets. “This dagger is worth more than you would make in a decade of work. Go back for survivors, and it’s yours. Refuse, and when we are rescued and my son inherits my husband’s fortune, I will make it my life’s work to destroy you. I will follow you anywhere on earth. I will ruin you. So take the dagger as payment and break my curse, and let us save the people who are left.”

The lifeboat sways in the small, serene waves, and the stars revolve high above in a moonless sky, and you and the other women wait for the officer to reply. After a minute or more—we have to go back now, right now, we don’t have much time—he finally lifts the dagger from your open palm and tucks it into his belt.

“Fine,” he says, picking up his oar again. “Let’s go. I cannot abide your damnation. I’ll be haunted by enough ghosts already.”

He and several of the other women row into the throng while you find the flashlights stored in the bottom of the lifeboat, then perch at the bow searching for Aegon. Instead you see hundreds of bluish corpses floating in their lifebelts, dead men and women and children, some of them first-class or crewmembers of the ship but most of them third-class passengers: Italian, Polish, Greek, Syrian, Russian, Chinese, Irish, discarded people, good for dying in the operations of mines or factories or railroads and little else.

“Aegon!” you shout over the water, but he does not answer. There is only the mist of your own words and the sound of cold currents rippling as the lifeboat cuts through them.

Your group saves two people from the sea, both nearly frozen to death and unable to speak: one man floating on a table washed out of a dining room, one little girl clutching her dead mother. Then a long time passes with no living souls to salvage.

“Have we done enough now, Lady Targaryen?” the officer asks you gravely. “Have you seen a sufficient number of the dead to assuage your wrath?”

“Not yet,” you say, steely, your eyes fixed on the water as the flashlight illuminates lifeless faces, scraps of wreckage, nothing, nothing, nothing. And then the light settles on him.

When the stern of Titanic went under, so did Aegon: there are ice crystals in his hair, and his clothes are freezing to his skin, and his lips are blue, and he’s shivering violently. But unlike over 1,000 other passengers, he didn’t stay in the depths long enough to perish as the cold stopped their hearts and lungs. He had something with him, a life raft, a second chance, a treasure mined not from some far-flung crevice of the earth but from the bedroom where he uncovered you, where you found each other and never wanted to go back to the way life felt before.

Aegon is sprawled across the oval-shaped mirror that once stood beside your bed, the fractured glass reflecting the stars that glimmer in the night sky. His ravaged hands cling to the wooden frame. And when the beam of the flashlight skates across his face like moonshine, Aegon knows you’ve come back for him, and he reaches for you until your hands link with his and help pull him aboard.

~~~~~~~~~~

Carpathia arrives an hour later, just before four in the morning on April 15th, and as the sun rises over the North Atlantic Ocean you and Aegon find Draco and Fern on the bow deck, where stewards are distributing blankets and tea to the survivors. Women wander the ship pleading for help finding their lost loved ones, weeping endlessly for their brothers, their fathers, their husbands. Your tears have stopped entirely.

Carpathia’s passengers are generous. They offer in charity their food, their clothing, even their rooms. Children share their books and toys with Draco. Fern teaches him how to play marbles; you read him The Story of Saint Patrick. A doctor onboard disinfects and bandages Aegon’s hands, and assures him that he will be able to play viola again, not now, perhaps not even soon, but one day.

That first afternoon, as you and Aegon are taking a stroll on the Boat Deck, you spot a man painting a scene of the sunset: gold, tiger’s eye, ruby, red beryl. Aegon shows him some of the portraits from his scuffed leather portfolio…though, of course, one in particular is not suitable for mixed company. The man is so impressed that he insists Aegon must not be deprived of the ability to create such beauty for lack of supplies, and gifts him an easel and some paper, brushes, and oil paints.

It’s difficult with his sore, bandaged hands, but Aegon still wants to try, and when his brush begins to shake he asks you to help him. Aegon explains things to you as you steady his hands: chiaroscuro, scumbling, alla prima, glazing, impasto, a foreign language that will soon become familiar. Already, you are learning. And as Carpathia sails into New York Harbor on the evening of April 18th, Aegon takes a paintbrush and draws a circle around your ring finger in vivid, sapphire blue, a worthless gift of no gleaming gems or metal, a vow that means everything.

It’s been years, but Aegon remembers the way to his mother’s house. He leads you, Draco, and Fern to the doorstep of the Hightower mansion on Fifth Avenue. He knocks and a butler answers, a middle-aged man who gapes at Aegon in shellshocked disbelief.

“One…one moment, sir, if you’d be so kind to…to…to just wait here, please,” the butler stammers, then disappears inside. A few minutes later, a different man appears in the threshold. He must be Aemond, tall and white-blonde and precise in every movement, his left eye concealed by a black leather eyepatch. His remaining eye, a clear alert blue, darts to where Fern is holding Draco on her hip and then to you and Aegon, his bandaged hands resting so lightly on you they could never leave a mark.

Then Aemond’s face softens, and there is a kind sort of relief that seeps in, and you imagine your parents will look the same way when you return to Lough Cutra Castle. “You’re home,” he says quietly.

And Aegon smiles and replies: “We all are.”

[azulapunchedozai]

Can we like.. normalize skipping contents that we hate or contents that don't align with our opinion? I've seen the most beautiful ship arts in almost every social media platform and there would always be like

"Love the art! Hate the ship!"

Look, I know social media peeps do their best to stay positive but is it really that important to accompany your compliment with a COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY statement? Can people normalize keeping their opinions to themselves when it's not needed? Girl that is obviously a ship post. Why do you feel the need to say you hate it after complimenting?

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the compliment but I'd rather have you not comment on my post at all if you're just gonna leave backhanded compliments. Is it really that hard to JUST say "I love the art!" and be respectful? And if you hate the ship so much then do yourself a favour by scrolling up or down to avoid the content. Trust me, avoiding negativity would be better for your mental health.

It's not just happening in ship arts. Fanarts in general. There'd be like, a fanart of a character or a redesign and there will be comments like "I prefer them with this-that though." or "This-that suits them better!" or "I don't like them with this-that!".

Or there would be contents that talks about how this character is the best character of this show/game/movie or how this character has the best game effects and there would be like, "I prefer this-that character though." or "I don't see anything about *charactername though." or "Nope, *charactername is the best."

An example of this is when I was scrolling through contents about Furina's c6 plunge attack and infusions and how they are the best and there are a bunch of comments saying "I don't see Raiden though" or "Raiden's plunge is the best"

And I was like NO ONE ASKED??? Look, no hate to Raiden Shogun because she's literally one of my favorite characters. I love her plunge attack and I have an undeniable bias when it comes to purple and pink but the video was OBVIOUSLY NOT ABOUT HER. The video was not a misinformation and simply someone's opinion/preference.

It's like going to a room full of people talking about how they like the color red and saying something like "I prefer blue though!" Gosh why would you do that? It's just so EMBARRASSING and SO ATTENTION SEEKING at it's finest. And then when people call them out, they'd pull the "opinion" card and act like s victim. If you want people to respect your opinion, why don't you do it first?

People need to learn that not everything that appears on their feed is about them and to not take everything PERSONALLY because OMG not everything is about you and not everything revolves around you. People can have different opinions and enjoy any content that they want even if those are opposed to your preferences. Being different from you doesn't make them less valid in any way.

If it's not illegal or harmful just keep your mouth shut OMG is it really that hard?

Instead of wasting your time commenting on a content that you don't like (and by doing so, the said content would just appear on your feed more frequently), why not search for contents you enjoy to satisfy yourself, yah?

Why? Because that's the normal thing to do. People have become so brave on whatever they say on the internet because they know they'd never suffer real life consequences.

[aamy2100982]

I really don't know what's going on with Spiderman lately xd (spoilers for the latest comics!!)

Last year, the year before last, we saw comics in which Spiderman would gag just by looking at the symbiote, and act like it was the most disgusting thing that exists in the entire universe and now...

Incredible? an absolute feeling of electricity? SEXY??

Spidey you're talking about a married symbiote! With kids!

I do ship them tho... But even I have a filter where I can recognize what's canon and what's just nonsense my head creates because making ships is fun. So I can recognize that whatever's going on here is completely and totally out of character. Spider-Man would NEVER, EVER. From the second he discovered his "suit" was actually a living being, he tried to remove it from moment one. Even risking his own life to do so.

I don't know which writer or writers are in the latest Spiderman comics. But they are totally SpiderSymby lovers. There is no other logical explanation for what is happening here xd

What I find funniest is that they aren't even reciprocating. Symby chose to go back to their husband and son rather than stay with Spidey.

Spidey is like "damn, it was so cool to be reunited with the symbiote, I wonder if he feels the way I feel." and Symby is just happy because their back with their "perfect family".

Because this is also the first time we've seen Spiderman act this way. The last time he teamed up with the symbiote that I can remember was this one. And their interaction was not friendly.

still called them "suit"

and generally found it unpleasant to have to use the symbiote.

I wonder what happened there. Maybe the power of the King in Black makes you gay or something... Yeah, that must be

[urinarythreatinfection]

Alright since you want requests, how about good ol Sanji figuring out that he likes a guy? Lmao.

Poor Sangni. You know for all the shit people (me too) give him, he kinda turned out really good compared to all the things he went through. Also I ❤️ comments on my fics.

Confusion in My Love

Sanji x male reader. fluff. tw for for internalized homophobia. Contains a medium fishman island spoiler. 1375 words.

It’s known that Sanji has an innate preference towards women, and an innate hate towards men. It’s a fact of life the same way the sky is blue, or it was until you. He acts differently around you, a man. Not how he treats Luffy or Zoro, no, there’s something else. Something that makes him weak towards you, something that makes it so when you make a mistake he doesn’t feel like getting angry or mocking you. Something that’s making him feel different.

���Sanji!” His heart skips a beat when he hears your voice while giving Nami and Robin their beverages. “Can I get one too?” You ask with a smile. Everyone expects him to say no, right about now he’d be too “busy” fawning over the women, after all. Schedule full. However…

“Alright.” …he agrees. Like it was instinct, before he could even realize what he was agreeing to. It causes everyone to go silent except for Luffy, who hadn’t realized what was weird until Usopp whispered it in his ear. Sanji knows it’s weird too, but he’d already said yes to you, and he just can’t bring himself to change his mind. So he retreats instead. To the kitchen, his oasis, to make your drink. Once he’s inside he crouches down and puts his head in his hands. “Why did I say that!?” He yells at himself. This stupid something has only been getting worse. Not being as angry at you to not wanting to get angry at you to complimenting you. Now he’s even making a midday beverage for you like he would with a lady! “Why am I doing this!?” He stands up and starts to make the drink, keeping himself busy will surely help him stop thinking about it, but it fails. It’s only when he’s poured the finished product inside the glass that he spots his reflection, his face with flushed cheeks. He touches them as his heart beats faster, is he sick? That has to be it there’s now way, right? Nonono he loves women he’s a woman lover, men are disgusting creatures that he would never develop romantic love for! However the more he thinks about it the more everything he feared and denied is coming together, making his repressed emotions crash down on him.

“Hey, Sanji?” You walk into the kitchen and find him with his elbows on the counter, head in his hands. “Damn if you really didn’t want to make me the drink you don’t have to force yoursel-” You notice tears dripping on the marble “-are you crying!?” When he spots you they flow from his eyes harder.

“hic..unng…” He puts his face back into his hands, sobbing as his emotions overwhelm him, stronger from all the years of internalized homophobia from misinformation. If he’s gay does that mean he has to crossdress all the time now? He likes his suit though… now he just made himself cry more. He feels like a stupid little kid again. You go up to him, confused but rubbing his back as he lets everything out and tries to imagine all the things he’s going to end up doing now that he’s gay. Cooking with long nails, fighting with dresses, having to do makeup every morning, saying kya…

“Sanji what’s up with you, man? Did having to make a free drink for a guy make you this heartbroken?” Crazy conclusion but he’s almost died from a nosebleed so it isn’t that out of the question.

“I’m gay…” He sniffles. “What do I do?”

“Huh??” You look at him with a confused expression. “You’re crying because you’re gay? Sanji it’s not something to be ashamed of, Luffy isn’t going to kick you off the ship. I’m not even sure he knows or even cares what that means.”

“Maybe, but how am I going to cook with long nails?” He looks at his hands in despair. “And is he going to accept me if I wear dresses and makeup?”

“Do you… want to wear dresses and makeup?” The blonde wipes his eyes when you question him.

“..maybe.” Sanji mumbles then quickly yells after. “I don’t know!”

“I feel like you have a misconception on what being gay is. I don’t know what you’re thinking but you don’t have to do anything to be gay besides being attracted to the same sex.”

“But the ladies…” He still wants to like women, he doesn’t know what that means.

“Sanji there are other options besides gay or straight, you can like both men and women, and you don’t have to do whatever you’re thinking if you don’t want to. You’d be a beautiful crossdresser or non-crossdresser. In fact, you don’t even need to be a crossdresser to wear makeup. I don’t- I- How did you even come to this conclusion.”

“In Kambakka.” He states, that makes sense.

“Oh.” You scratch the back of your neck. “Well I don't think them being gay is the reason they’re that way. Did they not tell you this?” He shakes his head. “Yeah well I guess they wouldn’t have expected for you to be this-” ‘ignorant’ “-uh.. mal-informed. Anyway I mean what I say. You’re still you and you get to be you. How did you end up figuring out you liked men anyway?

“Ugh…” He feels stupid now, getting emotional over nothing as he wipes his eyes. “It’s because I like y-” Sanji stops, immediately sobering up once he realizes his mistake. “yyyyoung men my age.”

“Oh? Did you see someone you liked at the last island?” You’re starting to get curious and his face goes red again as he sputters, blue eyes swimming around for an escape when he remembers the drink he made you. He grabs it and quickly gives it to you.

“Here! I finished it not too long ago, drink it while it’s still fresh.” You grab onto it, accepting he doesn’t want to talk. This must be a vulnerable moment for him.

“Well, okay. Just know whatever you end up being, I still care about you, kay?” You smile at him and he heats up more, his feelings stronger now that he realizes what they are.

“Me too, I.. care about you—too.” He’s struggling, jolting when you rub his back.

“We care about each other then, and thanks for the drink.” You walk out of the kitchen with a wink. Once you’re gone Sanji slowly sinks to his knees, sighing. His hand goes to his chest, feeling his beating heart.

“This…feels so weird..!” He rests his back on a shelf door, pupils into hearts as he gets dizzy. “Love love love..” That repeats in his head. He loves you, adores you, filled with nice feelings the moment you look his way. “

There’s a lot to think about now that he’s realized this but if this light, pleasant feeling he’s getting is because he loves you.. maybe a crush on a guy isn’t so bad.

_____________________

Bonus past memory from Kamabakka:

“GAHH GET AWAY FROM ME! I’M NOT GAY!!” Sanji screams while running from the Okamas. He’d been running the whole day now and eventually manages to lose them, that's what he thinks anyway. They’re actually just hiding to let him rest.

“He keeps calling us gay, we’re Okamas.” One of them says, an idea popping up. “You… don’t think he thinks all queer people are like us, right?”

…

…

“No way~” They all brush it off as another speaks up. “I mean it’s pretty obvious what the difference is, he’s gone traveling he’s must’ve met another queer person.”

“Right right.”

“I’m never going to be like them, I like women. I’m not an Okama.” They hear him say as he catches his breath, making them pause.

“Ah…” They nervously look at eachother

“Well.. he’s going to be here for two years. He should figure it out eventually, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll try and help him too! He’s precious after all.”

Unknown to them, he hadn’t figured it out. In fact, he was so terrified of them that even when they did try giving him pointers he kept blocking it out. But it’s alright, there’s no way he’d do something like think it’s mandatory for gay people to crossdress… probably.

[verysmallcyborg]

Roevember Day 4: Ship

Never in my life would I have thought I'd be so lucky to have a partner who is equally loving, strong, and stubbornly determined as I am. I used to hold up walls around my heart and emotions, with layers of vines and thorns surrounding them, scared to ever open up to anyone or dare to become close. At the time, I felt volatile. Uncertain of myself and my future. Tunnel visioned on doing just about anything to scrape by. And then... we bumped heads in rivaling jobs when I had taken up a job to be an escort for some snobby merchant from Ul'dah, and she was one hell of a tough thief. It's a long, amusing story, but there was an unspoken connection felt that day. A spark that would violently bloom into something beautiful. We've influenced one another in different ways, ranging from Ryss allowing herself to show more vulnerable sides, to having some guidance and unconditional support from her when I had a realization with just how deeply unhappy I was with my body - specifically my chest. Ryss fills me with boundless happiness and comfort, and I strive to make her feel the same. I love her. I could be here all day and night talking about it.

roevember prompt list ryssrael is @oneiroy's

[stupditysholy]

I have to get this off my chest because the amount of Curly love on tik tok actually stresses me out and I’ll tell you why:

So to my understanding having experienced the game multiple times, Curly absolutely fails to advocate for/help Anya. She hides the gun to keep it away from Jim because Curly will not allow her to protect herself. He straight up calls her crazy to her face, too: “You never had to get psych evals like the rest of us. I should’ve known” or something along those lines. When Curly confronts Jim before Jim crashes the ship, he doesn’t say ANYTHING in defense of Anya, instead consoling Jim that they would figure it out, and he’d been in rough spots before.

For all intents and purposes, Curly does not see that Jim has done something inexcusable, and rather he has made a series of mistakes. He does not for one single moment consider how Anya’s life has been permanently altered, how her autonomy has been entirely stolen from her.

Until he experiences it himself.

Curly being reduced to a mostly immobile spring sausage is his way of experiencing the pain he allowed to be inflicted upon Anya, full stop. Even more ironic? Anya can’t bare to give him his pain killers, so he is left completely at Jim’s mercy, a fun-house mirror of how Curly could not bare to hold his friend accountable, and therefore left Anya at Jim’s mercy pre-crash.

Curly only becomes Jim’s victim because he allows Anya’s victimization to go on unchecked. He thought he was exempt from Jim’s abuse, and that is his biggest mistake.

Also, I have to say the idea that Curly get’s rescued and lives happily ever after does the narrative no justice. In fact, it completely undermines Jim’s entire character arc. Curly living happily ever after would, in some sense, redeem a little of Jim’s character—redemption he did not remotely earn because he did NOT take responsibility. At all.

Jim putting Curly in the pod at the end is no act of mercy. It’s actually the worst and most selfish thing he could have done. It’s the exact freaking opposite of taking responsibility. When he has his big talk with Polle before the very end, he is spouting complete and utter bullshit. Why?

The crash and Curly are NOT the things he is supposed to be taking responsibility for. The thing he is supposed to be taking responsibility for is ANYA’S TORMENT. That is the thing which started all of this, which lead to the crash, which fried Curly. That is the inciting incident.

That’s the freaking irony!

Anya get’s completely and utterly forgotten in this moment. In my opinion, this is why Polle says:

If all of that is true… why are you still so concerned with him?

Because right before that, Jim is about to say “Our worst moments don’t make us monsters.”

And Polle knows, then, in that moment, that when Jim thinks of his worst moments, he thinks of the accident, what happened to Curly, rather than the immeasurable pain he inflicted on Anya PURPOSEFULLY. Jim completely fucking ignores his worst moment, and that DOES make him a monster.

So when Jim puts Curly in that pod, not only is he righting the WRONG wrong, but he is actively choosing to believe this is what it means to take responsibility. He is making his amends to a man he accidentally hurt rather than the person who suffered the most at his hand.

It’s also pretty evil of Jim to put him in there because he knows: a good captain goes down with his ship. He makes Curly out to be a selfish and pitiful. He may even be setting him up for failure depending on how the authorities reason out what happened.

I just think at the end of the day Jim is the villian of the story, and Curly is a freaking bystander. Obviously post-crash this is inevitable, but that’s almost funny—not gonna do anything to stop him, Curly? Guess what, now you don’t even have a freaking choice.

Anyway please stop glazing the spaghetti man you can love his complexity but he is not a good guy or uwu cutie pie. He sucks. Straight up.

Feel free to start discourse in the comments I’m okay with being wrong about him I guess I just don’t think I am.

[imavikingo]

I usually add my commentary on the tags... BUT. In this case is necessary (for me) to post it directly on the post. So I'm sorry if this is annoying!

Billy (for what we see and is logical to us) never wanted to have anything to do with Karen Wheeler, the directors shoved the "ship" into us because they thought it was "hot" (gags). When... First of all (even if it set in the 80s that's not... Good). Billy was a minor and a vulnerable kid, Karen was a 40 something year old woman thirsting over a kid with other 40 year old women because they were bored with their lives. Mostly because they made bad decisions in "choosing their husbands" or staying with them. Billy was Nancy's age. So it's not justified (even if Karen didn't have a kid his age. It's NOT justified) "She didn't go!" Yes, but she wanted to. She wanted to have sex with a minor and entertained the idea of being with him because she found said kid "hot".

He didn't have/receive any form of affection nor care (his dad abused him, his step-mom didn't do anything to help him or console him, his step-sister made his life more difficult, his mom abandoned him when he was a kid and he didn't have real friends and couldn't show vulnerability either. It was really dangerous for him to be himself in a house where no one cared about him) and the only way he could get a modicum of affection was flirting with women.

The first time he flirted with Karen was to get information, not because he wanted to do it or cared about the woman. He was on a time limit and needed to find his step-sister or suffer the consequences.

After that, in the third season he saw the effect he had on the women and maybe thought "this way I can feel loved/cared about for a bit" he did it because he was a vulnerable kid with zero paternal or maternal affection, with zero knowledge of how wrong it was to be pursued by older women.

And Karen should have known better since the beginning. What would have she done if Nancy was pursued by a 40 year old man? Get mad? How hypocritical. If she was so bored with her life and her husband, she should have done something besides flirt and try to get with a kid.

[l1v1ngd3dgrrl]

Talkin' In your sleep [Daisuke x Reader]

AN: this is my first smut, so if it seems like I don't know what I'm doing I probably don't lmao (please forgive me if it's bad!) I'm kinda testing the waters a bit. Dorky guys that are sweethearts in bed just raaaghh. Love 'em.Y/n (you) and Daisuke are in their early 20's. Personally I imagine them being like 22 but anywhere from 20-23 is fine too. Implied Fem reader, but no real gender specific pronouns or language is used..I may have gone a lil crazy

MDNI divider is from cafekitsune

Word Count: 2617

CW(S): Somewhat of a slow burn, Wet dreaming, oral sex (male receiving), semi-public (oral) sex?, cum swallowing.

Being the two last minute additions to the Tulpar, you and Daisuke never got proper rooms. Both of you simply had makeshift beds in the Lounge area. The beds in question being just a couple of spare blankets laid out for cushioning. They weren't comfortable by any means.

Anya, being the kind soul she was, had offered to take two of the cots from the infirmary and lay them down on the floor for the both of you, which y'all declined politely opting to tough out this journey.

This was one of those nights where you mentally kicked yourself for declining Anya's offer. Surely the cheap, almost tarp like feeling of the mattress was better than laying down on metal with nothing more than a blanket and pillow. If anything you'd kick the person back at Headquarters who insisted that you two should go on this trip. Who in the hell sends six people on a ship only designed with four crew members in mind?

One of the few good things to come out of it was your friendship with Daisuke, being the two youngest crewmates you spent quite a bit of time together when you were able too. Nights like these you would often chat quietly about random things. Life back home, menial tasks you had to do that day, stuff like that.

Currently you lay awake staring at the ceiling. Trying to will yourself to fall asleep. Daisuke had passed out hours before, even though he was right there beside you, you missed his company. Swansea had him do some particularly heavy work today, so as soon as his head hit the pillow he was out. His soft snoring being the only thing breaking the eerie silence of space.

Not wanting to lay on the floor for much longer you got up quietly and made your way to one of the couches. If you were going to be awake you were at least going to be comfortable.

You sat down and rubbed your hands over your face, sighing quietly. You never really had trouble sleeping as bad back home than you did here. The soft blue glow of the night screen covered nearly the whole room, Possibly another contributing factor to your restlessness.

Damn you and your lack of planning Pony Express!

Part of you wanted to go check the medicine cabinet in Anya's office to see if there were any sleeping pills. That would require waking her up for something you didn't even know was on the ship.

With not much else to do you you grabbed your book that was sitting on the coffee table, the same one you had read at least 3 times since departure. The cover was starting to bend from how much it's been read. In your sleep deprived state you weren't able to focus on a single thing the characters in the book were saying despite having read it enough to have the plot memorized.

After about 20 minutes the silence was broken by Daisuke stirring in his sleep and groaning something incoherent. The sudden noise in the otherwise quiet ship made you jump slightly. You turned your head to look over at him to see if he had gotten up.

His form was still in bed, seemingly sleeping soundly.

"Daisuke?" You called out to him, voice barely above a whisper. "You up?"

no response.

Shrugging you returned back to your book. As you continued to read the plot made less sense to you, eyes growing heavy. You quietly rejoiced and closed the book, sluggishly making your way back to your bed and pulling the covers over your body.

You shimmied around to make yourself as comfortable as possible and exhaled quietly. Sleep soon drifting over you.

The slumber was short lived as Daisuke starting shifting around again. He was mumbling incoherently a bit louder this time. Thinking he was just having a bad dream you tried to ignore him, making a half minded mental note to ask if he was fine in the morning. Once again your eyes closed and you tried to fall back asleep.

"mmmf-fuck." came a soft gasp from your crewmate.

what the fuck?

Eyes now wide open you roll over and turn to look at him.

In the soft blue glow you could see his hair was splayed across his pillow, auburn and blonde strands going every which way. His eyebrows furrowed slightly as if he was concentrating on something, Mouth slightly agape and his breathing coming out in huffs.

Another quiet moan from him made your face heat up and it clicked instantly. You weren't hearing things-it was indeed a moan.

What little sleep you did have now left your body almost instantly, a conflicted feeling taking its place.

Letting him be and acting like you didn't hear him react to whatever dream he was having was an option, you could even wake him and lie that he was snoring too loud and it was disturbing you. Both options left you feeling awkward.

A slightly louder more clear moan left his lips, "y/n please."

Your skin felt hot after hearing that, the way he said your name was doing things to you and it felt like your brain was short circuiting.

Now you didn't exactly hate the idea that Daisuke was dreaming about you, quite the opposite actually. You weren't afraid to admit that you thought Daisuke was attractive. You just never acted on it because of the whole co-workers thing. Pony Express never really made an official rule against it so who knows, maybe something to look foreword to in the future.

Unfortunately for him, you were gonna have to cut his dream short. You quietly made your way over to his bed and knelt down beside him. Placing a hand on his shoulder you shook him slightly.

"Daisuke-Daisuke hey."

He woke up with a groan and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah?"

You pulled your hand back. "Hey sorry- listen you were being a little loud and I wanna sleep."

Daisuke sat up and stretched his arms out in front of him joints cracking slightly, hair still messy from sleep. "m'sorry-Loud?" he asked groggily. You nodded "Yeah, you were making noises."

"Noises?"

You tried to quickly come up with some excuse, but Daisuke caught on to what you really meant almost instantly. His eyes widened once he realized and buried his face in his hands. "Dude y/n I'm so sorry." With a groan he pulled his hands away and sighed. "I'm really sorry-I'll go sleep in the utility room or something."

"You don't have to be sorry." You said quietly. "I'm not like, upset or anything."

Daisuke finally glanced over at you, eyes meeting yours expectantly "You're not?"

"I'm just curious I guess." In a sudden burst of confidence you slid your hand over his. "I kinda wanna know what you were dreaming about."

Daisuke paused for a moment and sucked his cheeks in and nodded. "Well uh, I was dreaming about you-God this is embarrassing."

You began to rub circles over his hand with your thumb, a way to silently offer him reassurance.

"I was dreaming that we were back home and I had invited you over- one thing lead to another and you were giving me head." He stated a full blown blush now covering his face.

You could feel your face heating up as well, no doubt sporting a blush of your own. For the second time that night you made another daring move.

"I can make that happen."

"What?"

"I said I can make that happen, If you're up for it." you repeated gazing into his eyes.

Daisuke stared at you wordlessly for a moment, caught off guard by your suggestion. "I mean yeah-yeah I'm down..Wouldn't we get caught though?"

He had somewhat of a fair point, but then again everyone was asleep. The walls were pretty thick so unless he started screeching like a banshee the likely hood of being caught was slim.

"Are you able to keep it down?"

"I think so?"

"Then what is there to worry about?" You gave him a soft smile. He gave you a sleepy grin of his own. "Alright, I guess we're doing this?" He turned his torso towards you and searched your face intently. You leaned in slowly and pressed your lips against his.

The kisses started off slow, just chaste pecks here and there. It felt like you had a flurry of butterflies in your stomach after each one. Daisuke moved his hands to your back, slowly trailing his fingers down towards your hips as the kisses began to deepen.

Both of you pulled away briefly panting slightly. Daisuke was the first one to move back in for the kiss. He moved one of his hands and placed it behind your head, keeping the other one at the small of your back. You let out a contented sigh into the kiss, trailing one of your hands up is leg slowly.

He jumped slightly, letting out a surprised noise. You chuckled and pulled away from the kiss. Lips slightly puffy. "Sorry did I scare you?"

"You caught me off guard." He said. He threw the blanket off of himself and grabbed your hand and placed it on his erection. You gave it a brief squeeze which caused him to hiss his breath. Unsure if that had hurt him or not you opted to just run your hand over the bulge and locking eyes with him.

He stared back at you, dark brown eyes filled with lust. Closing his eyes he bridged the gap between the two of you with sloppy kisses. You continued palming him through his sleep pants alternating between rougher and softer movements to gauge and see what he likes best.

After a particularly rough rub he let out a similar moan like he had done while he was dreaming. You felt those butterflies from earlier return.

"I don't think I can wait any longer." He groaned as he pulled away. Agreeing with that sentiment you hooked your fingers in the waistband of his boxers and sleep pants and pulled them down. After some shimmying and tugging of the fabric his erection sprang up, tip covered in pre.

You ghosted your fingers along his shaft experimentally, drawing a soft gasp from him. "This is okay right?" You asked softly as you gathered some of the pre from his tip and slid it down the rest of his shaft.

"Yeah-f-fuck yeah it's okay."

You began to move your hand more purposefully now, tightening your grip as you reached the base. Daisuke let out a moan of approval, letting his head fall back. You repeated the movement listening to his huffs.

"Faster please." he managed to get out.

Wordlessly you began to move your hand faster, the sound of the slick seeming to echo off of the walls. Daisuke bit his lip and groaned.

You made a mental note of this moment, storing it for later use. Who knew watching him try and remain quiet could be so attractive? You'd like to have him return the favor at some point, but for now this was about him.

You felt him twitch in your palm and his hand shot up and grasped your wrist firmly. "Too much?"

He shook his head. "I didn't want to cum just yet."

You giggled and glanced towards his face and his dick. You scooted a bit further down and bent over so your face was right in line with it. You gave his tip a quick kiss, The flavor of his pre mildly salty but not unpleasant. You gave it a few more chaste kisses then enveloped the tip into your mouth fully.

Daisuke gasped and quickly moved a hand into your hair. Fingers gently weaving themselves between your locs.

You pulled off and bobbed your head again taking him a bit further into your mouth. Each time you moved his fingers tightened slightly. You let out a contended hum and continued bobbing your head.

Daisuke was panting, soft calls of your name between breaths encouraged you to keep going. His eyes were squeezed tight skin flushed and hot. Sweat beginning to bead on his skin causing some of his hair to stick to his forehead. It was a little hard to see him from the angle you're at, but what you did see of him looked like a work of art. This really wasn't helping your little blooming crush on him.

You went down further, nose touching the base of his cock and swirling your tongue as you moved back up. The whine that came out of Daisuke's mouth went straight to your core. He sounded quite angelic.

He shifted his hips slightly and tugged your hair. "I'm so close please." he whispered. You continued to bob your head, the occasional thrust of Daisuke's hips making your pace falter slightly.

After a few more times of you bobbing up and down he let out a strangled moan and came in your mouth. You slowed your movements, helping him ride out his orgasm. Once you were sure he was finished you swallowed. You noticed the slight artificial sweet taste that it had, a side affect of his bad habit of sneaking sweetener packets.

You wiped the corners of your mouth and sat up. Daisuke was catching his breath, looking at you like you had hung to the moon. He motioned for you to come closer, pulling you in to a kiss. "Thank you that was like, really awesome."

You snorted and pecked him on the cheek. "yeah that was fun" You brushed a strand of his hair away from his forehead. "Did you wanna do it again sometime?" Daisuke smiled at you and nodded. "hell yeah. I'd really like that."

You cleared your throat and yawned. "We should get cleaned up and go to bed." Daisuke had already began to pull his boxers and sleep pants back up. You were getting ready to go back to your bed before Daisuke held you by the wrist. "Wait don't leave yet stay here."

Confused you sat in place watching as he got up to the vending machine in the corner of the lounge. He punched in a few numbers and you heard the thump of something falling. Both of you winced at how loud it was. He returned with a water bottle in hand. He opened the cap and handed it to you with a boyish grin on his face. "I wish I could do a lot more but this is all I can do for you right now."

You took the bottle with a smile. It was a sweet gesture. You thanked him and drank. The two of you sat talking for a bit until you both couldn't stay awake. Eventually you both made your way to your respective beds and fell asleep.

Maybe this was the start of a new nighttime habit between you two.

[celtrist]

I'm not sorry for loving you~

Really doesn't need to involve the obsession au, but the au is what I had in mind. And maybe that song would work better with someone than Mimzy, but Mimzy is probably one of the more sane-ish? Characters in this AU.

So I have to admit, Mimzy was just one of those characters that slipped my mind when thinking of the obsession AU. Granted the docket of characters was very filled in the original piece, and despite the history of these two characters (both in-universe as well as their development history), their relationship whether romantic or platonic is incredibly overlooked. I feel like it's pretty common knowledge concerning Hazbin, but when I talk about the character's developments, I mean that they were originally a romantic couple. Despite this fact, Almimzy is an incredibly non-existent ship, and that makes sense. Alastor and Mimzy barely interacted in the official show, and while she was planned to be a guest, she wasn't really present in the pilot or anything. With so little content even when the official show came out, it's kinda no wonder but it's still a little surprising considering their old status as a couple.

Ah, but I'm rambling! Back on topic, I didn't think of Mimzy until I was asked about it (which as silly as it is, it was really neat to see people ask about this au!). So I've since thought a bit more and all that I've said in the ask is pretty much close to on point with how she acts. I do think, however, that considering she ALSO knew Alastor in life just as he had her, she would be slightly aware of... something being amiss with her feelings. Not insanely, she's just as bad and unaware as everyone else with the obsession she has over him. She just is able to remember her feelings on Earth and compare them to her current feelings and recognize that they're not exactly the same. The problem is that, she's Mimzy. She seems like the type who'd be in denial about something being wrong with her, but I feel like she'd recognize while not thinking too hard about it that the love she felt on Earth is seemingly altered in Hell. The line "I'm not sorry for loving you" feels really good for her here when considering most of everyone else around Alastor WOULD be sorry if they had a more clear mind about it. But Mimzy wouldn't be sorry about it because she always loved Alastor, even back on Earth (in this AU anyway)

Mimzy's obsession is unique in that, rather than doing anything to Alastor she does things to HERSELF to get to Alastor, she doesn't have as much to be guilty of compared to others in her actions due to the curse. She gets herself into trouble, makes herself sick, self-harms, and has probably threatened to kill herself to get his attention, which not great and all very manipulative, but she never forces Alastor to do anything and could be (I don't know if I'm settled on this idea yet) rooted in her own self-esteem concerning the self-harm stuff. And it works. Alastor is canonically close to Rosie, but he never knew her until Hell so in this AU, he doesn't know who the real Rosie is. He knows who the real Mimzy is though, and he doesn't want anything bad to happen to her. So ironically, the person who pushes themselves onto Alastor the least does probably get most of his attention.

I can imagine a scene like this where he's patching her up and they're talking and Mimzy brings up how she's perhaps confused with her own feelings considering how different they are from life. And I can just imagine Alastor feeling more ill at the idea of Mimzy having always loved him romantically but never saying anything if she confessed that, despite how crazy her feelings for him feel in Hell are, the feeling of love and wanting him in a way he doesn't reciprocate was always true since their time alive.

I'm just rambling, but like I said in the ask Mimzy is probably one of the more tragic cases of what the curse does to Alastor's relationships. She's also probably the closest Alastor can feel to having a true friend again, even if Mimzy is still pretty far from her actual self around him. But she's familiar and would probably be the biggest driving force for him to try and get rid of the curse (other than the obvious harassment). He enjoyed Rosie before she made him sick, and he enjoyed Vox before he revealed to be the absolute worst in his thoughts about what he wanted from and to do to Alastor, but Alastor only knew them in Hell. And as far as he's aware, the curse starts immediately, so he NEVER knew the real Rosie or Vox. But Mimzy was someone he knew and wanted to be real with again... and could pretend to be real with again given a few drinks.

[davenswitcher]

Mortal Delights

Word Count: 990

Ship: Astarion x Tav

Tags: Cured Astarion, experiencing food after 200 years

Rating: No warnings, General Audiences

Originally posted on AO3

A/N:

Ram Berries: Small, succulent purple berries.

Davalsa: Grape like berrys

Sortani: A rinded fruit; served sliced with melted cheese and nutmeg.

Aaaand you know me! Gotta squeeze that lovely elvish in there ❤️❤️ Sal aestar - I love you

His first meal as a mortal was something simple. Nothing too fancy to not overwhelm his taste buds. On the other hand, after two hundred years even asparagus would taste as if the gods themselves made love to you. Luckily it's just the entrée, so plenty of food left to savour and commit to memory. 

The entrée consists of a red beet carpaccio with goat crème cheese and balsamic crème-sauce. Sprinkled over the carpaccio are pomegranate kernels. 

Astarion is blindfolded to intensify his experience, but also so that he wouldn’t judge the food before tasting it. Because the gods know he would judge the food if it looked like something from a dingy tavern. They hired a private cook, but you never know.

The first bite is a mix of everything. Red beet, goat crème cheese, pomegranate kernels and balsamic. It’s a symphony. The rich and heady balsamic paired with the sweet pomegranate, topped off with the sweet and earthy red beet and heavy taste of goat crème cheese. It’s extraordinary. A combination rarely thought of but works well in a divine way. It feels like an explosion of flavours. Like firecrackers on New Year's Eve.

Astarion hums in satisfaction. “Good gods, I forgot how divine food can be.”

“Not getting religious on me, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my darling. The only religion I subscribe to is you and your delicious self.”

“I thought we were over this, Astarion,” Cecillé giggles.

“Never,” Astarion grins.

“Shall we get to the main course? Or do you want to have more of the carpaccio?”

“I want to try everything the cook has in store, it’s a long evening after all! Let’s get to the main course, my sweet.”

The main course is a variety of grilled vegetables sprinkled with honey, a small cut of elk steak and salmon filet, a green pepper sauce for the steak and a honey mustard sauce for the fish. The fish and elk steak lay separate on the plate, so the sauces don’t mix. As a side dish, the cook chose a fruit salad. A mix of apples, ram berries, davalsa, kiwi and red grapes. Another side dish they prepared is Sortani. The fruit is sliced, served with melted cheese and nutmeg. As drinks, they have sparkling water from the mountains and Saerloonian Glowfire.

The blend of bitter, slightly sour and sweet is exquisite. The combination of the steak with the pepper sauce and a slice of grilled vegetable are in perfect harmony. The Sortani side dish is perfectly sweet and savoury at the same time. The cheese and the sweet nectar of the fruit complete each other. The nutmeg gives it the needed spice. The flavours dancing on his tongue.

Saerloonian Glowfire is a fairly sweet white wine. The taste reminding of pears. A tasteful medley to the dish.

The salmon is rich in buttery flavour, the sauce complementing it and enhancing the taste. The grilled vegetables are a contrast to it. Bitter and sweet, yet with a hint of a light earthiness. Overall delightful.

“My compliments to the chef, darling. Who would’ve thought I’d turn into a connoisseur. Although, I’m sure my taste before was just as exquisite. I remember the calamari at Elfsong. Odd, isn’t it? Remembering something so…mundane?”

“Not odd, no. Taste is a very important factor in memory, Star. And who knows, maybe the chef that worked there back then made it his life's work to serve the best dish he can make for each customer.”

“Novel, really. So, after all this delicious food there must be a dessert or is it you, my sweet?” Astarion takes the blindfold off, getting tired not to see his love.

“You won’t give up, will you?” Cecillé laughs.

“Nope, never. Being mortal means not just feeding my body with this exquisite sustenance, but also filling my soul with your love.”

“Gods, Astarion. You should’ve become a bard, not a politician.”

“Hmm, maybe. But those words are reserved just for you. Making you quiver, and therefore make me eat you right up,” he delights in her face and ears getting redder by the second.

“Chef! It’s time for dessert!” Cecillé squeaks and Astarion laughs unapologetic.

The final course, the dessert, is a rich chocolate mousse with two slices of orange on top. There are different bowls to choose from: dark chocolate, milk chocolate and the very exotic white chocolate. The white chocolate mousse is topped with strawberries instead of orange, to complement the sweet, slightly buttery with a touch of vanilla composition.

The taste of the dark chocolate is rich in flavour, heavy even. The orange brings a fruity, lightly sour and sweet balance into it. The taste is one word: divine. The mousse itself is light despite the heavy aroma.

Astarion moans at the taste and hastily corrects himself with a cough.

“Pardon me,” he says, a little embarrassed.

“Better than sex?” Cecillé teases.

“Gods no, woman, but close I admit,” he chuckles. “The chef did a wonderful job.”

“Glad I was correct with the assumption you’ll love it.”

The next bowl is the milk chocolate version of the mousse. Not as heavy as the dark chocolate. It’s sweet, notes of vanilla and caramelized sugar. The milk being more at the foreground in the taste. The orange slices counterbalance the sweetness with their fruity flavour.

Lastly, the white chocolate mousse. Very sweet, hints of vanilla and a buttery aftertaste. The strawberries bring a lightness to it and enrich the slightly buttery aftertaste. It has a “summer-esque” feel to it. 

“And? How’re you feeling?”

“Full and happy and I cannot believe still that it’s real.”

Cecillé gets up and sits down in his lap. Kissing the crown of his head. 

“You deserve it, Star. And I am so happy for you. Truly.”

She kisses his lips, the taste of chocolate still prominent.

“You’re strong and brave, Star. Sal aestar.”

He nuzzles her neck, “Sal aestar.”

[ramblingautisticman]

Why Is This Song In My Poolverine Playlist, A Series.

(I am extremely insane and make playlists for every ship/character/show I like, and yes, there is a reason each one is in there. I think of lil scenarios, situations, or straight up story ideas because of a song- so enjoy this series where I write them all down!)

(Part 1, Part 2)

Monster from Adventure Time

So, I honestly hadn't thought about this song in relation to Wade and Logan until @ohitsthemindstuffagain said about it, and now it's all I can picture when I hear it.

This is such a Wade and Logan coded song and it's insane.

"I know we'll never grow old together, cause you'll never grow old to me."

Wade knows Logan is slowly ageing, something he doesn't do, and one day, he will be alone again. One day, he will watch Logan get grey hair, his face gaining wrinkles, his muscles getting softer. He's okay with that. He's made his peace, but it still hurts. Still makes his heart ache to know that one day Logan will die of old age and he will still be here. Wade will still have the same young body he does now. His body will always be 40 years old- and Logan's will always be ageing.

"You're the pink in my cheeks, and I'm scared cause that means I'm a little bit soft."

Logan has softened since knowing Wade. He's become less gruff and angry over time. Wade jokes that he managed to domesticated The Wolverine, and what's funny about that is the fact it's true. Where Logan used to be rough and jaded, he was soft and caring. It scared him. Alot. He was so used to the anger and violence coursing through his body that now- with this love and affection slowly replacing it- he wasn't sure what to do. Wasn't sure how to function.

"We were messed up kids who taught ourselves how to live, and I'm still scared that I'm not good enough."

Wade had always survived- never just lived. Ever since he was a kid. His dad had been an abusive asshole- his mother a cold-hearted bitch- and so he had grown up teaching himself how to survive. How to hide bruises from school, how to make food without getting noticed, how to avoid getting screamed at if he didn't do well on a test. It was ingrained into him as a kid- that he wasn't good. He would never be good. He was a broken fuck up that would never amount to anything. It was something he had taken with him through the rest of his life- and it was something he couldn't help but reflect back on when him and Logan had begun dating. Logan was a hero- he had saved the world more times that Wade could count- and here he was, dating Wade. Dating the one guy he shouldn't. Logan deserved better. Alot better. Deserved literally anyone that wasn't Wade. Logan was so genuine with him though- sounded like he meant every word he said- that slowly, he was helping to break that childhood trauma. He was showing Wade that he was worth something, no matter what some asshole father had said. It was ironic, because Logan had gone through a similar experience as a child, but here he was- helping Wade like it was nothing. He supposed that after 200 years, you resolve some of your issues.

"I've always felt like a monster, long before I was big, but only seen as a monster, let's just say I'm used to it."

Logan had always been told he was a freak, an animal, a killer. Ever since he was young. It hurt- until he had heard it enough times that it was second nature. He started to believe what they said about him. Think about the fact he really was a killer and an animal, the way he slashed through people like it was nothing or the way he growled when he was angry, it was true- wasn't it? And then he met Wade, and Wade showed him praise for all of those things. He never once seemed scared of Logan- infact he seemed to like all of the things he hated about himself. Wade would gush over the claws, joke about him being a cat, shout him on as he took out the bad guys on a mission. It felt strange, being show affection for the things people showed him hatred for for so long, but here it was. The praise he had always wanted.

"Yeah, I'm used to that, but I could get used to this."

His time with Vanessa had been amazing. Wade really had loved her with all of his heart- and he really did think they would be together until the end of time- but life got in the way as it often did. He had accepted she moved on, and while it hurt, he was happy she was happy. That she was finally with someone who could treat her right and keep her safe. It had felt strange to feel that similar fluttery feeling towards someone else- but Logan had managed to slip into that gap in his life with such ease that Wade never even noticed until he found himself not thinking of Vanessa anymore- instead he thought of Logan. It took him awhile to get used to that- to realise he could feel these things for someone else- and he liked it. Love it infact. The way Logan made him feel was so much more different than Vanessa, and he liked that. Logan complelty understood him. Never judged him for his looks or about the way he acted- loved every part of him like it was the easiest thing ever- and Wade couldn't help but find that so much better than what he had with Vanessa.

And the rest of the song? I could make up SEVERAL scenarios or ideas about each lyric for both of them. It fits so well it hurts.

[unnaturalequilibrium]

Capítulo 2 & 3

- Mafin rewatch (Sueños de Libertad)

Watching the de la Reina siblings is a hoot. It's all so deliciously dysfunctional. Damian's three porcelain dolls, all dressed up and filled with generational trauma. How could that not be fun to watch?! I enjoy that Marta is the action oriented one of them. The boys bicker, but she refuses to play their game, instead tries for a solution and an action forward. It’s notable that both brothers turn to her as if her agreement, her word actually holds sway. They’re already making a point of this being a man’s world, but these men, even if it’s a means to play out each other, hang on her word and give it weight.

I’m kind of sad Jesús is such a right villain, because I enjoy him and Marta together. They play off each other well and you instantly get the nuances between them, making it super easy to envision how things were before Andrés return. The way they’ve kept that business afloat, probably stood side by side against their father on a number of occasions. I feel like they’ve kept each other alert, maybe a bit too guarded, but also with a sense of mutual respect despite all of the other muddled feelings of jealousy and resentment and old-fashioned sibling rivalry. In a world where Jesús wasn't such an evil man I think this could have been one of my favourite relationships on the show, if they'd taken the time to develop it more. Especially in the way she yields to him in the beginning and how her character growth comes into play later on.

Carmen is the boss you want to have before she’s even anyone’s boss. The way she is straightforward and stands up to Marta for her own and her fellow workers sake and safety. I wish she was my workplace Union rep. She’s such a competent lady and I'd gladly line up behind. But why throw fucking caveman Tasio around her neck like a noose I’ll never understand. Though I’m getting ahead of myself, or ahead of the show at least.

I mean seriously, what’s up with that opening credit?! Of all the characters, they get a two shot. In bed. The two of them who at this point in time have nothing to tie them together. A flimsy string of connection through fathers, through work. I wasn’t here from the start, but I assume they were shipped from day one? Granted by my arguing maybe Gaspar and Tasio should be shipped too, but at least those two aren't in bed together. And no, don't enlighten me if there are people who do ship them. Some things I'd rather go through life without knowing. This would be one of those.

Lol, Luz is so no-nonsense as she saves Damian's life. “Stop praying and let me stab him with a giant needle, you rich fools!”. Her and Begona sharing the medical field and a bit of empathy with each other is nice too. An ensemble cast that is balanced between men and women seldom leave room for a lot of female friendship, but this one does. I appreciate that.

Fina establishing from the very beginning what she thinks of men, and especially the fool ones like Carmen's deadbeat boyfriend. I feel you. And I am in love with the way she throughout all the episodes to date will be used as a way of voicing what the tired lesbian feminist in all of us wishes she could say, out loud.

If trolls exist, you know like proper giant ones, the kind that can be mistaken for a mountain, covered in moss and trees and then suddenly just opens its eyes and stands up to stretch. You know the kind of trolls you think of when listening to Grieg's In the Mountain King's Hall - yeah those. I imagine if they existed then they'd sound exactly like a sickly Don Damian, like a melodic stone avalanche. That said I’ve never envision mountain trolls to sound Spanish before now. But maybe that’s on me.

Joaquín is a bit of an ass, calling Fina (and the rest of them) lazy - my eyes are narrowed. It wasn’t actually something he developed when he got on my shitlist by flirting with the secretary while having a cute as a button wife or pointing a gun at Marta. Apparently the assery was a pre-existing condition. It’s interesting though that Luis is the one talking about taking over the company, yet he still comes off as the decent one of them.

“You don’t notice the boys?”- Petra, you blonde little snake, don’t call my Fina out like that. Maybe we're allowed to know she's a lesbian, but don't flaunt it in front of the entire canteen like that. It’s kind of funny though how Fina is so clear about Luis not being her type, yet there are so many common denominators between him and Marta both in personality and in physicality (except of course the most important one in this case, their sex).

I know he’s supposed to be one of the good guys, but honestly, Andrés is a bit of a douchebag, isn’t he?! Or maybe that's a bit harsh, but he comes across as pretty smarmy. He's like what the wall behind your stove would be if anthropomorphised, kind of greasy, kind of sticky and in constant need of being hosed down. But yay for not letting the roof drop on your employees, I guess.

[respectthepetty]

As much as I've enjoyed the second season of Chaser Game W more than its first, I wish episode seven could have been the entire season where the color-coded girls in love had to navigate living together and raising a kid.

But I'm not going to frown because the girls are exchanging colors and looking cute doing it!

The show obviously understands the colors assignment, so it's always nice to get confirmation that the colors are intentional.

And the love is real (in the form of color exchanges).

Even the little figurines on the table are color coded!

And when they register their daughter for school,

She ends up in the panda room!

Which a panda is a recurring symbol in the show.

Since it was the panda book that convinced Fuyu and her ex-husband to live their authentic lives, and because the girls are color coded black and white.

But there is no longer a clear distinction between who is black and who is white.

Because the girls are IN LOVE!

And everyone can see it.

So even though Itsuki tries to hide the nature of their relationship,

Their panda child, who originally brought home the penguin book (the other black and white animal), never thought her moms' relationship was something to hide.

Which causes issues between the panda parents.

Fuyu has been hiding all her life, so she no longer wants to lie about their relationship, while Itsuki thinks it's best not to tell people they are together.

It's a tough decision either way, especially because their panda child is being ostracized by her classmates because their parents are bigots.

So, of course, Fuyu's mom would show up one last time to try to take the panda child away claiming she'll be better off in a heteronormative household (with an emotional abusive grandma).

And this Red Rascal is also back to cause a ruckus, so the show now has ONE episode to sort all this out.

But I think it knows what it's doing with the colors and the plot. Especially because my babygirl made a quick appearance to tell the world that being publicly out has made her far happier, and Itsuki and Fuyu watched her in between their family photo and the little celestial glowing moon.

So I have faith that this show is going to go out on a strong note.

Because if not, a teenager who ships them will be pissed!

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Magic AU? HoH Buck? That is very much up my very specific alley give me those trees

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲

And as always by beloved triangles

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼

YAY! Okay let's gooooooo.

135 or 1k for 🌲 (whatever I hit first):

---

It’s the right thing to do, as much as it’ll suck to be single again, for the logistics of it all. As much as it’ll suck to hurt another lovely, good woman who likes him more than he can bring himself to like them back. He plans to do it over dinner one week in September.

And then he overhears Bobby and Buck chatting one day in the fire station kitchen. 

“I think I could really love her,” Buck is saying. “Like, I’m not there yet. But I could be? Like, soon.”

“Isn’t the difference between loving someone and imagining you could love someone idealization?” Bobby asks. 

“Wait… Are you saying I do already love her?” Buck replies. 

“I…” Bobby sighs. “Whatever you feel is what you feel, Buck.”

“You’re right. Maybe I do already love her.”

In completely unrelated news, Eddie decides not to break up with Marisol. It seems unfair to throw in the towel on someone really great because of unrelated family stress. 

2024

v. 

Eddie’s hollow back nightmares start back up again the first time he sees Kim. Literally, the night after he passes by her shop on the Promenade. 

He should have taken that as a clear sign. 

For almost a year, all his nightmares have been focused on his sister. Maybe a few helicopter related and Catholic school related oddities after the cruise ship and discovering Marisol’s former life, but… None of his usual torment. Until he glances upon Kim. A veritable clone of Shannon. Alive and breathing and so much like her in so many ways.  

Eddie should have steered clear. Not given into the temptation of revisiting something he has lost. Not let his grief rule him. 

But he doesn’t.

He’s stupid and selfish and shortsighted. He ruins his life over a few stolen hours with the not-real version of a woman he loved and lost. 

Now his son is gone and he’s entirely alone and all he has is the promise that when he goes to bed, each and every night, he will dream of something horrible. Because once it starts, right after seeing Kim, it never, ever stops. Every time Eddie manages to sleep, he has the same nightmares. 

vi. 

The call on Christopher’s fourteenth birthday goes much like all their other calls. By which, Eddie means, he is still locked in some sort of war of attrition with his son and his mother, who won’t really give them any space. It’s been like that since the day she showed up on his doorstep with his father and took Chris to El Paso. 

She’s always around when Eddie calls. Whether on screen or lurking somewhere off camera, Eddie and Chris never really get a moment alone to talk. And, okay. Eddie gets that it’s not her fault Chris is mad at him. He did that all on his own. But for someone who says she just wants to help Chris through a difficult time, she seems to also kind of be intent on keeping him in it. If Eddie tries to talk to Chris about any of the issues between them, she stops him. If Chris starts to open up, Helena suddenly has dinner or something else planned and the calls needs to end. And sometimes… Well, sometimes - and it’s probably crazy - Eddie feels like there’s a haze in Christopher’s eyes that comes over him when she speaks to him. 

Sometimes Eddie is certain he must be reading too much into things. Looking for an adversary where there is none, so he doesn’t have to carry the full weight of his blame. But he does. None of this would be happening if Eddie hadn’t fucked up to begin with. Only… Only shouldn’t his own mother be trying to help him mend the damage? It doesn’t feel like she is. 

Part of Eddie can empathize with her, he supposes. He left years ago. Sophia doesn’t talk to her. Adriana is still… Gone. Though, Helena has hardly done anything to change that. Nevertheless, she’s a mother of three with no children around. Eddie knows there’s a deep sadness to her. Maybe one that having Christopher around has lessened. But Eddie still doesn’t get why she would want to have the same pain unloaded onto him. He wants his child home, too. How much sadness is he supposed to live with as the price for his mistakes?

Buck finds Eddie in the kitchen after the miserable little party Zoom call ends. Tommy is still in the living room. Eddie had turned the TV on pretty quickly after the call ended, so neither Buck nor Tommy could ask any questions. Well, Tommy would ask. Buck would just offer words of encouragement. Maybe some genuinely good advice, too. Eddie can’t deal with that right now. And honestly? He doesn’t want to deal with it in front of Tommy anyway. The guy has been getting on his nerves lately. Eddie doesn’t know why. He hasn’t changed or anything. Maybe Eddie has. 

So Eddie starts taking the cupcakes he’d bought and moving them to containers to put in the fridge. A task to focus on so he doesn’t have to focus on the fact that he hardly spoke to his son on his fourteenth birthday. 

“Hey,” Buck says quietly when he approaches him. 

“Don’t want to talk about.”

Eddie shuts it down before it can even start. 

“Okay,” Buck says. “Uh, can I help clean up?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to help, Eddie.”

“You can’t help,” Eddie snaps. A little unnecessarily, considering they were pretending to talk about pathetic party decorations. “This isn’t something you can fix. Not this time.”

Buck nods. “I know that.”

His voice is quiet. Sad.

---

180 or 1k for 🔼:

---

“And he’s pretty damn special,” Shannon says.

“He is,” Eddie nods. 

“So go fix it with him,” Shannon practically orders.  “Forgive him for the choices he’s made out of pain.”

Eddie looks at her for a long moment. She wants to push him out the truck door in urgency until she remembers it’s his truck and he will need it. Go now, she wants to say. It doesn’t have to be too late, this time. 

“Okay,” he says, as if hearing her thoughts. “Okay, I will.” 

▶️

Eddie isn’t going to tell Buck how he feels about him.

That’s not the point. That honestly doesn’t even seem productive, right now. What he’s going to do is put a stop to this. Whatever misguided, pained attempt Buck is making. He’ll hear him out, and he’ll end it. Reassure him. Instead of getting angry and sticking to his guns, he’ll take Shannon’s approach. He trusts her on this one, he thinks.

He thinks a lot about what she said back in the parking lot was right. It makes him want to be better. If that’s an option. 

He drives straight from Shannon’s to Buck’s. He doesn’t have a whole lot of time before he needs to pick up Chris, but maybe all he needs is a start. To get his foot in the door and get Buck thinking. He doesn’t call or text ahead of time. He’s fairly confident Buck is home. He’s not actively working in the midst of his suit, and after how this morning went? Eddie imagines he’s home alone, feeling awkward. He may have been fuming when he saw him at arbitration, but he could tell well enough from the look on Buck’s face that Buck wasn’t happy either. 

Eddie pounds on Buck’s door. His frustration and day of heightened emotions is evident in the cadence of his fist against the painted steel. 

“Buck!” He calls out.

He sounds a little deranged. Like he’s coming around to settle a seedy debt or something.

Buck opens the door maybe a minute later, looking sort of pale with apprehension. 

“Uh, hey-hey, Eddie,” he stammers. “Um… We’re not supposed to-”

“I don’t care,” Eddie cuts him off. “I don’t care about the rules of the lawsuit, Buck. I need to talk to you.”

Buck’s face warps with concern. “Uh, o-okay. Are you okay? Are Shannon and Chris okay?”

“Can I come in?” Eddie asks. A non-answer. 

Buck nods, looking even more worried. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

He widens the doorway for Eddie to walk through. They walk a few paces into the loft, and the door swings shut behind Eddie. 

“Seriously,” Buck asks. ���Is everyone okay?”

“Shannon and Chris are fine,” Eddie says. “The baby is fine.”

“Okay,” Buck replies. “Okay, good.”

“I’m not fine,” Eddie says. Something that takes more than he was expecting out of him, just to say. He’s not used to saying it. Admitting it. Even if it’s true. 

“Wh-what’s going on?” Buck asks.

Eddie takes a deep breath. 

“This whole lawsuit…” He starts. “It… It’s pissing me off, Buck. I get that you’re going through something right now. But I’m… It hurts me that… That you’d just do something to sever contact between us without even… I mean, you didn’t even give me a heads up or ask for my opinion.”

Buck chews on his lip for a second, processing. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says. “I should have given you a heads up. I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have done it at all,” Eddie bites back.

And, okay. Not good. Not the point. Not what Shannon was trying to tell him. But… It’s out there now.

Buck flinches a little. “I’m doing what I have to do, Eddie.”

“No,” Eddie shakes his head. “You aren’t. Because you would have come back eventually, and now this is all going to go sideways, and you won’t be allowed back.”

Buck shakes his head. “No. No, that’s not true.”

“It is, Buck,” Eddie insists. “In what world do you think you get to come back to the 118 all hunky dory after this?”

“You don’t understand,” Buck replies, guttural and frustrated. 

“No? Then tell me!” Eddie raises his voice. 

“I…” Buck’s voice wavers. “I…”

“What?” Eddie demands. 

“I can’t go back to being alone!” Buck shouts. 

Eddie blinks. What the hell is he talking about? He’s not alone! 

“Why would you be alone?” Eddie asks, maybe not as gently as he ought to. “You have all these people who care so much about you. Who were fucking terrified the past three times you almost died in the last six months. Why would you be alone, Buck? Just because you’re not on active duty?”

“Because…” Buck makes a struggled, frustrated noise. “Because that’s why. That’s why people care, Eddie.”

Eddie furrows his eyebrows. “You think we all only care about you because you’re a firefighter?”

That’s honestly… Well, Eddie can’t tell if it’s heartbreaking or insulting.

Buck crosses his arms. Like he’s physically holding himself together.

“Maybe not consciously,” he says, voice lower. 

“But you do think that?” Eddie says. “You really think that’s the truth?”

“Maybe not being a firefighter, but-but the person I am when I am a firefighter. I never… I never mattered before,” Buck says. “No one gave a shit about me before hand, Eddie. You don’t know what that’s like.”

Eddie frowns. He feels a little cold.

“What are you talking about?”

How could that be true? Even if all the people he’s close to now are from this chapter of his life, what about Maddie? They’re so close. Eddie saw how much she loves him first hand all the times he’s been in danger. She adores him. How could he think that she didn’t until two years ago?

“Before…” Buck takes a deep breath. “Before I came to Los Angeles, I was completely alone. For five years. I didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have a-a home. It was just me and the Jeep and no one… No one stayed in touch. I wrote to Maddie, but she didn’t… She sent me away, and I… No one wanted me around long. I was nothing. I didn’t matter.”

[unfortunately-obsessed]

I see were you are coming from, but again I can't agree with all you said.

(Also, I hope this conversation is not upsetting you in any form, and I'm sorry if I misunderstanding you in any way)

First: I agree with you on "nobody can guarantee that they won't hold their power over your head". But when you start to consider any amount of power = dubious consent, you're falling into an abusive dynamic again

Nobody can guarantee you either that your partner won't physically beat you one day. Anybody can be a victim of domestic abuse.

Every relationship is a risk. Every relationship needs communication and commitment, including platonic ones. If we lived in a world were you could never risk having those type of connections, then you never would be able to befriend your boss either.

Another example: what if you marry a person that has an apartment and you go live there? They're the legal owner. Does It mean you will tip-toe around them, do your best to never disagree with them? Wills this apartment never be your home? No. You're bound to disagree on something, it doesn't mean is the end of the relationship and that you're immediately homeless

My point is, you would need to keep everybody at arm's length. You couldn't marry a person if they had an apartment, because it means that they can kick you out. You couldn't befriend your boss because it meant they could fire you. Or have a friend that comes from a higher financial background, because what if they use their influence to blacklist you from society? Does it mean you couldn't befriend a doctor ever, because what if you need their treatment one day and they refuse because you made them upset?

Even emotionally, even if it doesn't include physical abuse or "tangible" power (e.g academic). You get into a relationship knowing that the person will have the power to wound you. What if they cheat? If you like them, it'll hurt you. That's a consequence that you can't circumvent

But as a society we don't consider relationships dangerous. On the contrary, we need human connection to survive. None of those obstacles prevents us from loving

I genuinely don't understand what you meant with "those [relationships] are dangerous to normalize" at all

Because it would mean Jean x Scott is dangerous too! So many times Scott was the X-Men leader. It means he could purposefully cut her out of the missions. He held power over her

How about Storm and T'challa? He's the king of one of the richest nations in the world

How about Storm and Wolverine? I would say Daken is pretty close in age to Ororo (who's about the same age as Rogue)

Or Rogue and Wolverine? Wide age difference

Rogue and Gambit? She could kill him before he could touch a card

Emma and Scott? She's filthy rich!

Are all of those ships problematic too?

I mean. I don't know if I'm getting my point across? I don't know how to address your "he was an authority figure in her life = the ship is problematic" besides comparing it to other ships

Rogue is not a damsel in distress. She could have walked away at any moment – she did so twice (only in 97', but on comics? She ends things with Magneto more than I like to think about as a shipper)

Yes, she was living on his citadel/home. But really? She's Mystique's daughter. On Uncanny X-Men, she survived the Savage Land alone for an undisclosed period of time. And on 97' she had mutates around that she could easily absorb. What if she absorbed Vertigo?? Magneto is not immune to that!

So... Yeah. She was relying on him, but if Erik kicked her out? I doubt that would be a problem for her.

On Legacy, she punched him because he insulted her (they talked it out later). So if he did the same on 97'? I doubt she would stay if it became toxic

And again, she didn't! She left! She noticed from her own volition that they couldn't nurse a healthy relationship, and left! And Erik couldn't (and didn't want) to stop her! Later on Genosha? Same thing

It doesn't make them problematic. It doesn't mean he was grooming her (again, I hate using this word to describe a fictional situation, especially one that doesn't even fit the term). It doesn't mean they were abusive or toxic or that there was dubious consent.

All it means is they were well written! Because they both have their own problems and obstacles and it affects their relationship

And about Wanda and Pietro's age being close to Rogue: I have nothing to say besides what I already went through. This happens in real life and it doesn't make the relationship between Erik and Rogue immediately toxic/abusive.

Especially because this is fiction. I mean, TAS is really wonky with ages, Wanda and Pietro should be forty each if we were realistic about the timeline but they clearly aren't

Uhh yeah 👍 that's what I had to say. We have different worldviews and sorry for any typo

Consider: saying Rogueneto is a power imbalance and thus is toxic is a disservice to Rogue because she is powerful, both in actual superpower and in personality

Here's me, more of a rant than anything:

Rogue's not a damsel in distress. Even if she can't absorb Erik directly – as it the case 97' but not most of other universe, including comics and animations (ie. Watxm or Evo) – Rogue can still keep up by absorbing literally everyone around. She's never helpless

Age gaps aren't intrinsically unbalanced. The term "power imbalance" can't inherently refer to an age gap because it means one of them can dominate decisions in a relationship because they have financial power, influence and resourcefulness.

Wouldn't Jean (as Phoenix) x Scott also be a power imbalanced and thus toxic if we applied the same rules to them because Phoenix is a million years older and also much more powerful? Or Storm x Wolverine, since Ororo is Rogue's age?

Not to say that X-Men 97' is the only place where they had a relationship close to teacher/student. He wasn't even her mentor. Yes, she was living on the citadel by an undisclosed amount of time, but let's remember that if she wanted to leave he wouldn't be able to stop her. And, if you consider a (legal adults) teacher/student to be inherently predatory... I can't do anything about that. Just never get close to colleges.

Saying that Erik took advantage of her, that this was grooming or abuse is horrible– please don't use real world problems to express your discontent with a fictional couple that doesn't even fit the term you're trying to use

And saying that Magneto was manipulative by offering a crown to her... He was asking. Rogue could step back– she did. Would you prefer he didn't and left her for Genosha? (Like she was going to do to Remy). Because, to me, Erik considering her fit to rule is romantic

[harrowharkwife]

you ever think how with the tsunami&the well&the shooting&because evan&the will&eddies breakdown&the lightning storm... buck and eddie have such a sweeping, cinematic, epic, dramatic kind of love?

they are in love the way people love in the movies. they're in a moulin rouge kind of love. princess bride kind of love. tenth doctor and rose tyler kind of love. brokeback mountain kind of love. orpheus and eurydice kind of love. gothic romance kind of love. shakespeare kind of love.