#but it doesn't feel as. deliberate to leave a lot unsaid

[scorndotexe]

i often write about weird romances or at least romantic adjacent relationships but i truly never know how to end them. a murder suicide doesn't always work. but they can't leave each other and they can't stay together.

[kyoghurts]

⋆˚✿˖° call it love

pairing. mash burnedead/reader

several realisations are revealed on his birthday, but only one remains a little vague than the rest: he wants to have you all to himself, if only for this moment, why so? who knows, maybe you know the answer. for now, he's content to leave it unsaid, so long as you stay.

contents. fluff. short drabble for his birthday! @seneon i thought it was 11/11 yesterday when its actually today LOL. i love my silly creampuff luvr baby sm.

"what's this?" mash asks as he eyes the paper bag on your hands reaching for him.

you're someone whom he has shared the highest degree of intimacy, if that makes sense. but friends, yes. what he means is to say is that when he met you during chem potion class, he immediately took a liking when you said you love sweets with every fibre of your being. and what sealed this is that you had agreed to be his taste tester for his creampuff self-studies and practice baking sessions.

you're someone he really thinks is cool, but also a little weird for always being so nice to him. weird in a way an inexplicable hand presses against his insides warm and intruding, but he chose to stick close to you still, because the way you treat his creampuffs really takes him out. the way you take your time to bathe in the sweetness melting your tongue. you're weird for making this figurative hand within him engulf him, swelling of really gooey kind of warmth.

it doesn't make any sense, you're friends, but then he wishes you aren't.

and then you're here, giving him a paper bag large enough to stand out if he places it beside his dorm bed, you say, as though it should be obvious, "it's my gift, silly."

"what for?"

"mash. it's your birthday."

"oh."

he says without much thought. because he's too distracted at the faint scent of something sweet wafting his nose the moment he takes the bag. too distracted at the invisible hand starting to roam around inside his chest, prickles his skin, cheeks glowing in pinkish hue.

"i made lots. you can share them with your friend group too."

"no."

"…what?"

your heart dropped nearly in an instant, giving you a fright. he steps closer to you and clarifies, "you made it for me, i can only share it with you."

you're friends, right?

but why does he feel like he wants this part of you only for him?

he takes you by the hand and lead you to the school kitchen, where everything started. you can leave by retreating from his hold, since he isn't putting pressures in his fingers, but what makes him feel like he's on cloud nine is when you slide into each crook between fingers, firm and solidifying whatever this thing thats happening now.

like he's allowed to feel this way, like he's allowed to have you all to himself.

he places the bag at the dry counter, and you momentarily leave his side to grab two plates like clockwork. the sound of clatter fills the silence, yet you feel charged, fuzzy, like there's something hanging in the air you can't quite place. the familiarity of being next to mash in this private, sacred corner melds with the uncertainty of his unreadable stare.

the creampuffs emerge from the bag, lined up in rows, golden and perfect with a light dusting of sugar. mash's heart picks up it's pace, and if you weren't paying attention enough, you can see his eyes go wide in buzzing excitement.

you chuckle, "go ahead. before they get cold."

he doesn’t need further encouragement. picking up a creampuff, he takes a deliberate bite, eyes fluttering shut as the sweetness coats his tongue. he peels his eyes open to find you watching him, a small, expectant smile tugging at your lips. it’s your turn next—you reach for one and take a bite, savoring it just as you always do.

and mash can’t look away.

the hand inside him tightens its grip, a feeling that’s no longer warm but sweltering, and he knows nothing of it. it’s the kind of feeling that makes him want to pause this moment, keep it just for himself. the kitchen, the creampuffs, the way you glance up at him with crumbs on your lips—he wants to lock it away in a corner of his mind where no one else can touch it.

“is it good?” you ask, gaze searching his face for approval.

"it’s perfect,” he replies, the words coming out softer than he intended. he watches as a flicker of something crosses your face—relief, maybe, or something else entirely. it’s gone as quickly as it came, replaced by that smile he’s come to know by heart.

time stretches without presence, without knowledge. the silence passes with your laugh, fleeting and breathy. you say, "you look like you're going to burst." mash realises he probably does—reddened ears and an almost-smile he can't suppress. somehow, he isn't good at hiding what he feels around you, not when it's this strong.

admittedly, and less sheepish, he nods, "maybe i am."

you blink, caught off guard but not pulling away.

he doesn't know when, but as he reaches for another creampuff, this time handing it to you, he knows it's been decided that in this inexplicable feeling in his chest, strange and warm and aching, he doesn't mind. he doesn't mind if this stays undefined, all he knows is that you're here with him. that you want to be in his space, sharing his highest form of intimacy.

he doesn't think about what it means in that brainless head of his. he just lets it happen. he just feels and feels and feels. because maybe, just maybe, he's allowed to.

as long as you're here, he's allowed to feel this way with you.

© kyoghurts ★ reblogs & likes are well appreciated!

[jessepinwheel]

🌟 (for that ask prompt you reblogged!)

I think the intention was for you to at least give me a story to pick an excerpt from, but sure, I can talk about dielectric breakdown again

there's a lot of kind of small details in dielectric breakdown that I'm not sure anyone's really noticed, because nobody's ever commented on it

one of them is the fact that I gave echo vitiligo:

This is when he realizes there's someone waiting in the corridor just outside the courtyard. It's a brother, leaning against the wall and dressed in a civilian's dark jacket and trousers set--not the typical wear for a Temple-bound clone. His face has pale splotches trailing from around his eyes up to his short-cropped hair, creating a short streak of snow white against black. There's a constellation of silver neural ports embedded in his temples and pale scars visible along his scalp and he's got a scomp link for a hand. His cheeks are pinched and he's on the scrawny side--not scrawny like he hasn't gotten enough to eat, but scrawny like he's been sick for a while.

it's also mentioned later:

Echo is silent and reaches for the cup of tea. There's pale splotches on his hand, too, covering a few of his fingers and going down to his wrist. He holds the cup carefully between his hand and his scomp link, blows on the tea, and takes a careful sip. The smell of the tea is just as Cody remembers from all those late nights with Obi-Wan. It feels…appropriate to have it now.

which was kind of my response to echo losing all his melanin for whatever reason while he was a POW, he gets some of his pigment back but not all of it.

the other thing that nobody's ever commented on is this section where cody is talking to rex:

Rex sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. "Some...incendiary words were said. I'll leave it at that. It's one of the reasons Ahsoka doesn't come around as often anymore."

"If one of my brothers had insulted and degraded my family the same way Skywalker had done to Tano's, I would probably not talk to them very much, either," Cody says.

"Yeah," Rex replies. "I know."

There's an extremely awkward silence.

I try to generally trust that my readers can read between the lines, so I'm not typically pointing out meaning in these things here, but the unsaid part here is that rex said some shit about cody's family (and obi-wan) which is why they don't really talk anymore.

the relationship between rex and cody is probably the most important one in dielectric breakdown, and one of the things I thought about a lot when writing it is that they are mean to each other. like this is five years of their relationship being on the rocks, three years of not really spending time with each other anymore, and they know each other better than anyone else and they use that to get under each other's skin so bad. they are existing in a sort of perpetual sliding scale of passhole aggresshole to straight shouting at each other because they just can't get over the things that pulled them apart to begin with because they're just so stubborn even though they both want to be good brothers again

dielectric breakdown is notable because it's one of the stories where rex is the big brother instead of the little brother, and that's not because of like oh I think rex is a big brother so much as the story is a lot about cody being a big brother to so many of his men that he has kind of a hard time working with the reverse relationship, of him and his big brother rex

I know I've explained in previous posts that obi-wan and cody are explicitly not in a romantic relationship because that would undermine the point of the plot, but more than that, obi-wan gets deliberately cast as a big brother figure to cody, by drawing direct parallels to the scenes with cody and echo. there's also the callback to the scene where cody tried to call rex so he could tell him he was about to get brain surgery and terrified about it and found out he was blocked, where cody is telling obi-wan how he was terrified to have his surgery and obi-wan tells him it's okay to be scared

anyways. dielectric breakdown is a good story.

send me an ask about "director's commentary" on one of my fics

[angrylizardjacket]

it's in the blood // this is tradition

Summary: Children inherit all sorts of traits from their parents. Not all these traits are good.

"My reputation preceded me before I was born."

[ charlotte & lola au ]

A/N: 2292 words. Halsey's new album killed me on the spot. i talk a lot about the next gen being mirrors of their parents, but i'd like to go into detail about that not necessarily being a positive. @misscharlottelee this made me feel things. i love these kids.

Warnings: overdose mention, addiction discussion, mentions of drug abuse.

Penelope Dingley-Lee

Tommy can count the amount of times he'd seen Razzle truly angry on one hand, and here and now he can see it again, written all over his neice's face. He'd thought she would look like Charlie when she's angry, and occasionally she does, the way her lip curls derisively, dismissively, that's very reminiscent of his cousin, but here and now, her blue eyes are hazy, cloudy, and her lips twist with an irate arrogance that is worryingly familiar.

Angry and high and wearing clothes that don't quite match, in this moment she's exactly her father's daughter.

She's been in the papers again. Her tits have been in magazines again. Tommy bites down on his instinctual desire to repremand her; she'd call him a hypocrite, call him an old man, tell him to keep his opinions to himself while she could still buy his sex tape out of a shady car boot down the street.

Charlie was like that too, on occasion, wit too quick for him to keep up with. When she got into a mood like this, Tommy didn't have to worry so much; usually Razzle would egg her on, but knew when to pull her back.

"It's my god given, motherfucking right to go feral -" he'd heard Charlie back in the eighties holler at three in the morning, high on amphetamines and waving a gossip rag above her head. Razzle would be on the sofa, equally fucked up, but gazing at her like she hung the stars in the sky.

"Lola gets photographed at least once a month stark naked along the strip like it's a sport, why is my Playboy shoot a national crisis?! My tits are fantastic!"

"They are, my love," Razzle nods seriously, and Tommy pulls his pillow from beneath his head, trying to either block out their voices through the thin walls, or maybe smother himself. The girl beside him, the groupie whose name he doesn't know, asks blearily why there's so much yelling. Tommy doesn't answer.

A week later, Tommy is the one to bail out Charlie and Razzle for public indecency, and they're both beaming from ear to ear.

Here in the present, Penny is draped out on the sofa, laughing low and pleased as she watches TV.

"TMZ blurred out my tits," she snorts, "cowards."

"Penny..." he can't help the faintly disappointed notes in his voice when he says her name.

"Thomas, I've read The Dirt," Penny fires back venemously. Hypocrite he hears in her tone, you have no power over me.

There's something hollow in her eyes in the photos he sees of her in the papers. She wears her father's inflluence and her heart on her crushed velvet sleeve, on the arm of a shallow, pretty, band boy who plays badly and loudly. But she laughs louder, though tthe sound is low and unconvincing if anyone bothered to listen hard enough, and Tommy wonders if he has enough dark hair dye left for when that boy breaks her heart.

Jupiter Lee

Tommy is proud to watch Jupiter on stage, but he is afraid.

Their anger is something he remembers from Lola, the way they cling to the past with vitriol echoes their mother, but on stage, they drink up the attention, get high off the love the audience gives, and he sees himself in those moments.

A child of addicts, Jupiter had drawn lines in the sand for themselves that they refused to cross; no alcohol, no drugs, and they'd stayed loyal to that. But highs come in all forms; they simply picked a different kind of poison without realising.

On stage, halfway between the gutter and a god complex, Tommy knows the smile they wear all too well.

Rebellion from Jupiter didn't shock the world like it did when it was Penny's name in the papers. Jupiter's trajectory was spot on in the eyes of the public, but rebellion wouldn't be the thing that broke them.

Once, so long ago that it's a miracle the memory survived, Tommy remembers asking Lola what she would be doing if she wasn't with the band. Lola gave him an easy, bleary smile, laughing sweetly when she told him that one way or another, she'd be here. In the moment it overwhelms him with love. In hindsight it breaks his heart.

"Come on, I think this is inevitable," Jupiter smiles on television as an interviewer asks them the same question; if they weren't making music what they'd be doing, "as if I'd do anything other than this."

'Don't you know where I come from?' is left unspoken, but Tommy still hears it.

He tries to picture himself in a life without the world at his feet the way he has now. No image comes to mind. Nothing else makes sense. Even if he wanted to do something else, wanted to grow up to be something else, he couldn't even begin to picture it for himself, tragedy and all.

They play their parts. They let history repeat itself. Jupiter makes mistakes Tommy and Lola had already learned from. Penny plays Jupiter's conciousness until the role grates on her nerves, diving head first into chaos, taking Jupiter with her with little convincing.

Tommy remembers this too.

When the world looks at Penny and Jupiter, they like to remember how Lola was seen as a bad influence on Charlotte, but forget that Tommy would have followed Charlotte in to Hell without hesitation.

Leo "Seo" Sixx

Lola has google alerts set up for her son, Seo, because he disappears for months without warning. Tommy asks how he is, and Lola looks to her phone with a tight smile, telling him that he's competeing in a skateboarding competition in Prague. She learned that from Twitter.

Seo comes and goes without warning, and talks to his siblings more than his parents. He loves them, but he hasn't allowed himself to stop for years. He doesn't know how. Then again, neither did Lola or Nikki.

"Jupiter thinks a lot about legacy, don't they?" He's in Tommy's kitchen, eating a poptart, when Tommy returns home one friday evening. He's waiting for Penny and Jupiter to finish getting ready, the three of them going out.

"Do your parents know you're in town?" Tommy asks with faint amusement, though there's a twinge of guilt in his gut when Leo considers that he should probably let them know. Says he forgot. Tommy's not sure if he believes him; like his parents before him, he tends to leave a lot unsaid. It's part of his charm, the world seems to think, but Tommy knows all to well how deliberate of an act it can be.

"Jup's got all this stuff in their head about legacy and who they should be," he continues his earlier thought, "which I guess makes sense, they tie a lot of themselves up in their identity," he shrugs, then, "I don't know Leo."

Tommy's not sure if he's talking about the grandfather he's named after, or himself.

"You've given this a lot of thought," Tommy says quietly, humouring him.

"I think a lot," Seo responds, "I've been thinking about going back on my meds, its weird being off of them." Of course this concerns Tommy, who knows objectively that Seo isn't his kid, but he's close enough that Tommy feels like he's allowed to be concerned. "I'm worried a doctor's note isn't going to be enough to let me compete at the Olympics on speed," falls too casually from Seo's lips, alarming Tommy in an instant. Though it must clearly show on his face, as Seo breaks out into an apologetic grin, "dextroamphetamine, for my ADHD. I've been trying to wean off it for the Olympics, it's been hard -" but his next words, said so blithe, so casual, have Tommy's heart stopping in his chest as he's thrown back thirty years, "I've been on them since I was like eleven years old; it was great, I could think, like the right amount, but now I... I think everything. I feel everything. Its a lot." He shrugs, like he didn't just become an echo of his father.

Seo's parents both died twice from overdoses, and now their son feels like he can't function without amphetamines.

Objectively Tommy knows that they work for Seo, that he's not abusing them he simply uses them to help him function, but the irony is not lost on him. It's a lot to unpack. He doesn't think to ask about the Olympics; it slips his mind until he sees Seo and a silver medal on his Twitter feed.

Lola calls Tommy in tears. She's proud, but she wishes she'd known, wishes she'd been able to watch it live, or go over and support him in person.

No-one in Seo's life seems to fully know or understand his intentions or actions, no-one can predict his next move. He puts up a bright facade, but like his parents before him, he does not trust the world to know him.

They don't know where he goes in the few months after the Olympics, all they know is that he doesn't come home.

Cerie "CerieThree" Sixx

Since she'd turned sixteen, Tommy has never seen Cerie Sixx without a smile. That is a very deliberate choice that she's made.

She's made a choice to rise above the percieved grime of her origins. She's halfway across the country, smiling for a camera she can control, editing her image before she lets it out into the world. Cerie Three - even the name the world knows reflects this; she's picked apart the context she was born into, disecting it, deciding which was useful to show the world, disposing of the rest.

She speaks warmly to her family, from what Tommy can gather, but the people on the peripheries of their life seem more like associates in the coldest sense of the world. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes half the time when she sees Tommy, and she shakes his hand when her brothers will hug him. The internet is closer to her than he is.

Cerie looks the most like her mother of all her siblings; she's 21, the exact same age Lola was when she met Tommy, but half the time he can barely see the resemblence. Lola had let the world see a villain at that age; Cerie had learned from that, had rejected that, rejected the cold, hard humanity of her mother's fronting. Cerie wanted to be perfect. Cerie had to be perfect, hyper aware of her own image, like her siblings seem to be, but the way she'd so effectively shaped her public identity was kind of terrifying.

Perhaps this was what it was like for people who didn't know Lola, only allowed to know the image she put out into the world, or people who only knew Nikki for his stage presence.

But the more Tommy thinks about it, the more he remembers just how effectively Lola had wrapped the band around her little finger when she set her mind to it, how she talked her way around exectives despite being dressed like she'd woken up in the gutter and fucked up on any number of drugs. Lola understood people, and it seemed Cerie did too.

Cerie Sixx, twenty one, doesn't stop creating content, doesn't stop studying, and doesn't stop smiling. Two of those three things are inhereted traits, inhereted determination, and the third is a choice.

Cyrus Sixx

Though Cyrus had inhereted much of his parent's musical talent, the same way Jupiter had, Cyrus had also inhereted a love of the high life. Even so, he's so full of love, kissing his mother on both cheeks before he goes out to get shitfaced in the bars she was decades before he was even born.

He works hard, at his job, on his music, but his partying matches it just as well. He knows exactly how far he has to fall before he meets the depths his parents' had sunk to, and though he doesn't voice this, his arrogance comes across in his actions.

There'd always be someone to pull him away from swan diving to rock bottom. He takes that for granted, and keeps getting closer and closer.

The only one of Nikki and Lola's children who still lives at home, he's the only one like them in the way they'd feared.

"He's going to have more success than he will ever be able to comprehend," Nikki had told Tommy, the day after Cyrus had been admitted to hospital after staying up for four days while high and obsessing over a song he had been working on. Nikki had found him having a fit after having fallen from his desk chair. Now, sitting on Tommy's patio in the sunset, he looks tired, he looks afraid, "if he doesn't end up killing himself first."

A month ago, the fire department and the police had to pull him, kicking and screaming and bareass naked from a tree in the middle of town. His parents had bailed him out, had felt a familiar sting of guilt as they find themselves reminded of their own youthful exploits. They repremand him, of course, but they both know the only reason they stopped climbing trees was because there had been no-one to pick them up after.

Nikki sees himself in his sons mistakes, but he'd had to learn concequences the hard way.

Tommy loves his family and all it's strange branches, as well as their raucous youth, but his closest friends were some of the most volatile people he'd known, and somehow he'd forgotten that as time as taken people and memories from him.

But these children were made in their image.