#but when you get to know them you realise they not only do not believe the problematic talking points they're surrounded by

[cherrysweets-world]

Eyes of the Gods VIII

series masterlist - part seven

Pairing - Caracalla x fem!Reader x Geta

Summary - The pot finally boils over.

Warnings - 18+, minors dni, historical inaccuracies, mentions of injured animals, reader is briefly intoxicated, dub-con, forced proximity, obsessive/possessive/unhealthy relationships & behavior, biting, dirty talk, reader is traumatized, alcohol consumption, violence depicted, blood, gore, vomit, slight breeding kink

Word Count - 5.4k

The cuffs on your wrists felt unnatural and heavy. They were not unlike the cuffs that slaves wore to signal who they belonged to, although yours were dotted with jewels and made with solid gold.

They had a matching necklace; a big, chunky thing that made you feel as though you were about to topple over. The jewelry paired with the fine clothing made you feel unrecognizable. Anyone who looked at you would not assume you had once been a simple worker.

The crowd roared with excitement and the sound created a buzz in your ears. Never had you thought you would have to endure the games again; once had been more than enough for you. Now, not only were you being forced to watch the games, you would be doing so from a prime viewing position.

It could have been your imagination but you felt as though you could already smell the scent of blood in the air. Cloying, suffocating. You reached up a hand to adjust the necklace and quickly dropped it when Geta side-eyed you.

You had thought the games would distract them from you. Their attention had become even harder to shake since your room had been destroyed. Crushed under the weight of it, you were desperate for a break that would not come.

Once again you had been placed on a wooden chair, but this time it was between the seats of the emperors. A position of honor. You wanted to tear the jewellery from your body and flee, disappear into the crowd and become invisible once more.

Occasionally you would catch the eye of someone in the crowd. You were getting used to receiving that same pondering look from everyone you saw. They wanted to know who you were, why you were sitting with the emperors, why their hands were all over you.

It was as if they were stripping you of you past, moulding you into someone who was more suitable. Dressing you up as they would a prized doll. Jewelry, clothes - there was even a smearing of kohl on your outer lids.

Would your friends recognize you if they saw you now?

The emperors were dripping in luxury. Draped with expensive clothing with the most intricate of patterns and colors you could not even name; you couldn't help but admire them up close. They looked every bit the gods you had believed them to be.

Caracalla's enthusiasm was palpable. He kept yanking you close to his side, pointing out things in the crowd or regaling you with tales of past games. You nodded numbly through his explanations, too wrapped up in your own nerves.

Geta was unusually twitchy and it took you a moment to realise that he, too, was eager for the games to begin. Your hands clenched around the fan you had been given and you glanced over your shoulder, at Lucilla and her husband.

General Acacius was striking man. Tall, muscular and certainly handsome. Together, he and Lucilla made an impressive couple.

Geta leaned close and hissed, "Is there something particularly interesting back there?"

"I have never seen a General before," you said stiffly, returning your attention back to the arena.

Geta's lips twisted and he placed a warm hand on your thigh, squeezing.

The crowd adored Acacius. Geta instructed him to speak and he did so, offering a few coarse words before returning to his seat beside his wife. Geta and Caracalla earned similar applause, likely because of the food that had been provided. People were all too easy to please.

With that, the games began.

Your face tightened as several men rode out on exotic animals, swiping and slashing at the gladiators to thunderous applause. It seemed such a waste - both of human and animal life. You snapped open your fan and attempted to breath steadily.

Caracalla pushed a cup of wine into your hands and you drank it down in its entirety. It was more potent that what you were used to and you leaned heavily on the side of Geta's throne, exploring the bitter taste in your mouth.

Both emperors were enraptured by the games. When the first man died you gasped, craning your neck to watch him flail in the sand. Red blossomed around him and it felt as though it took hours for him to finally go still.

The smells were getting to you. Blood, filthy men and animals. You stuck your nose into another cup of wine and attempted to drink slowly.

"That gladiator is talented, is he not?" Geta asked.

"Certainly," Caracalla agreed.

You felt their eyes on you, gauging your level of interest. You busied yourself with another cup of wine, drinking it down in big gulps. You felt nervous and yearned for a distraction. You had found one in the bottom of your cup.

Once your cup was empty Geta signalled for it to be filled again. Your hand trembled as the attendant topped up your cup. You stared at the woman and she finally met your gaze and dipped her head.

"My lady," she said.

You breathed slowly out of your nose. You were so far from a lady it was comical. Could no one else see that? Could they not feel it the way you felt it?

Caracalla pinched your waist. "My lady," he cackled. "You certainly look the part."

"It is all thanks to the generosity of my emperors," you smiled tightly.

Caracalla's attention was pulled from you once more when the crowd cried out. He got to his feet, pressed himself to the edge of the box for a better look.

Geta eyed you, an unfamiliar look on his face. "You are going to be drunk by the end of this if you continue."

"I am thirsty," you lied.

It had been an age since you had last been drunk. And never off of something so exquisite. The wine drowned out the roars of the crowd and the squealing of injured animals.

Miserable, you scanned the crowd. How could they dislike the emperors when they, too, were so bloodthirsty? As long as it was not theirs, they did not care. How was that any different to Geta or Caracalla?

Nauseous, you finally set down your cup. It would not do to make yourself physically sick.

Geta ran and finger down your inner arm before entwining his hand with yours. The physical affection startled you and you would have moved if you didn't feel so suddenly ill.

He called for a refill - of water this time. He used his free hand to push the cup into yours, telling you to drink.

"Fool," he shook his head, "you should not have drank so quickly. Now sit up and look amused."

You did your best to sit up straight and do as he had ordered. Whenever you began to shiver or look away his hand would tighten on yours ever so slightly. You were almost grateful; the last thing you wanted to do was humiliate yourself in front of any curious onlookers.

Even shaded from the sun you felt hot. So many heaving bodies pressed together generated almost unbearable heat, even from your position in the emperor's box.

An hour slipped lazily by. You felt every moment of it even in your drunken state. Men died below you like flies. The crowd devoured every death until they became meaningless.

It took a moment for you to realise why Geta was getting to his feet. The games were almost over. There was one man standing and another on his knees. Both were bloodied and dirty, sweating in the hot sun.

The winner looked up to Geta for his answer. Geta paced for a moment, palms upturned as though asking for guidance from the gods. It looked real enough from where you sat; you could not imagine how he appeared to those in the crowd.

Geta held out his hand, shaking as though coursing with power. You stilled, leaning forward. What would he decide? What would the gods decide?

When Geta flipped up his thumb you nearly vomited with relief. The crowd went wild, rising to their feet and screaming for the hero in the arena. Relief - albeit temporary. The man would likely meet his death before he earned his freedom.

Your feet felt unsteady as you attempted to get up. Geta saw you sway and locked your elbows together, jerking his head at Caracalla who appeared on your other side.

If you spoke to Lucilla or Acacius you did not remember it. The emperors were doing a good job of making it look like you weren't about to spill all over the floor. You leaned heavily on them, teetering down the steps like a newborn babe.

The journey back to the palace felt torturous. Geta's hands wandered, encouraged by your inebriated state. His rings were cool against your skin and you welcomed his touch, sagging into his side. Pleased with your reaction, he peppered tiny kisses behind your ear whilst scolding you for drinking so much alcohol.

Geta's forwardness would have been startling if not for your current state. The heat of the afternoon sun combined with the wine was making you delirious.

Once you were back in the confines of Geta's rooms, Caracalla placed a smacking kiss on your lips.

"You taste of wine," he commented, squeezing your chin. He leaned in for another kiss, relishing the taste.

You took a step back, evading Caracalla's grabbing hands. He pouted and followed, hands tight at your waist. You swayed in his arms, letting your head drop onto his shoulder. The jewelry he wore dug into your forehead but you felt paralysed.

"I am not well," you moaned.

"Poor girl," Caracalla cooed, hands cupping your ass. "She cannot hold her wine, brother."

He released you and you sank to the floor, curling into a ball and breathing heavily through your nose to ward of the nausea. Foolish indeed.

You could hear Caracalla and Geta arguing but it barely registered. Your thoughts turned slow and syrupy and you succumbed to the alluring lull of wine-fueled dreams.

Sleep was filled with feverish dreams. Crowns of golden laurels, soft hands, red hair. You awoke sweating, dizzy and alone.

Staggering to the table, you poured yourself a cup of water. It went down smoothly, soothing your throat. Geta's rooms were empty and you were, for once, blissfully alone.

The cuffs had left indents in your skin and you hissed as you pulled them off, followed by the chunky necklace. You rubbed at your neck, absentmindedly tracing the patterns it had left on your skin.

You poured yourself another glass, lowering yourself to the floor in a sitting position. The sky had darkened considerably since you had slept and it left you feeling disorientated.

Lifting your hand to your eyes, you patted gingerly at the corners, pulling away to see kohl still on your fingers.

You no longer felt entirely fearful around the emperors. There was always a level of uncertainty, naturally, but it was exhausting to constantly be afraid. They would always be unpredictable and you would never be able to fully understand them but you had come to feel somewhat. . .secure.

You did not know what you had done to deserve this. Both the positive and the negative.

Your days all blurred together in a smear of gold and red. They had inserted themselves in your life - or, rather, forced you into theirs.

They could still have you killed at any moment. The way Geta had looked at you when he caught you staring at Acacius had turned your stomach. How far would you have to push to have the full brunt of that aggression turned on you?

Their violence was something you had to keep reminding yourself of. You had seen it with your own eyes and heard so much worse. Yet it was hard to remember when none of it had been directed at you and it made you feel like a traitor to those who had been beaten bloody and killed on the orders of Geta and Caracalla.

Sighing, you got back to your feet. You put the jewelry back on. It was probably best the emperors did not see you took it off without their permission.

With no one around to tell you otherwise, you left the room under the pretence of searching for the emperors. You needed to get out of Geta's rooms for at least a little while.

There was a Praetorian waiting outside the room. For you, you realised. He told you that the emperors were in a meeting of sorts with Macrinus and that he was to bring you to them once you awoke.

You nodded. "I'd like to go this way, please."

The Praetorian allowed you to lead him the longer way round. He did not comment if he noticed you dragging your feet.

Being trailed by a guard felt strange. It had been enough just to have their eyes on you, now they were ordering others to watch you as well. You did not have it in you to protest. Whatever boundaries you had had been crushed by Geta and Caracalla days ago.

The shadows deepened the longer you walked. Cool air floated through the windows, dusting across your cheeks. The scent of food and smoke was in the air. You inhaled eagerly, a smile forming on your lips. In a moment like this it was simple to pretend everything was normal.

It disappeared as you went further into the palace. Once you entered the entertainment hall you stalled, glancing about at unlit walls. It was an odd place to be when it was empty of revellers.

A thump sounded from behind you and you glanced over your shoulder at the unexpected noise. Everything stopped as the guard fell forward, clutching at his throat and trying to stop the red river that was pouring from it.

He fell to the floor, amour clanking, body spasming. Your mouth parted and you tore your eyes from his body, meeting eyes with the man who had slid up behind him and slit his throat to the bone.

Iron, you thought, it stinks of iron.

There was nothing unusual about him; he looked like any man you would pass in a market or brush shoulders with in the hallway. The only thing that stood out was the knife he held and the serious expression on his face.

"Who - who are you?" you spat out, staggering back.

There were no guards in sight other than the dead one on the floor. Never had you so yearned for the sight of a Praetorian. Your hands twitched at your side, desperate for a weapon of your own.

"It does not matter," he said. "This is nothing to do with me. Or you. Not really."

There was no time to consider his words. He dove at you and you screamed and raised your hands. By some luck the knife glanced off of the cuff and clattered to the floor. The man considered this for only a moment before tackling you to the floor and securing his hands around your throat.

Being choked was more painful that you expected. You could feel the grinding of your bones beneath his hands, the full weight of his upper body being forced down onto such a fragile body part.

You could feel your legs flailing on the floor behind him. Your hands scrabbled at his fingers but you could not get him to release. Finally you turned your attention elsewhere, clawing at his eyes until he gave a shout and released you.

Turning on your stomach, you heaved painful breaths and tried to blink the bleariness out of your eyes, crawling frantically across the floor to reach the dropped knife.

The man swore and, still clutching his right eye, ran past you. You grabbed at his ankles and he fell with an almighty thud.

Each breath felt like agony but you had the knife in your hands. Shaking, you held it with both hands and pointed it at your attacker.

It was him, you thought, he broke my wolf.

This time, when he charged, you were somewhat ready. You swung your arm back and slashed with the knife. Blood splattered over the marble as he wrestled with you for the weapon.

"Please," you sobbed through clenched teeth, "please, please."  

You could not say how it happened. Only that, in one moment the man was on top of you and the next he was looking up, distracted. Sensing a moment of opportunity you slid the blade through his fingers and into the side of his neck.

Free once more, you screamed. The sound was painful and croaky and muffled by blood falling into your open mouth. You turned your head to the side and vomited. You could not tell what was wine and what was blood.

The man fell off to the side, suffocating on his own blood, writhing amongst it.

Everything ached as you struggled to sit up. Your ribs, your wrists, your throat. Your lungs were on fire as you took huge, greedy gulps of air. You would never take it for granted again.

A heavy hand fell on your shoulder and you screamed again, scratching at it and trying to get away.

"Shhh," Geta hauled you up from the floor, "shhh, it's okay."

His eyes were wide and he could not stop looking at you and the men on the floor. There was so much blood. He could not tell how much of it was yours.

"No," you sobbed, "it is not okay. He tried to kill me. I killed him. I killed a man."

Before, you had been so angry at the person who had destroyed your carving. You had thought you wanted to see him dead. And maybe you had - but not by your own hand!

You were covered in his life's essence. It would stain more than your clothes.

"Praetorians!" Geta roared. His entire body was shaking in unbridled rage, you could feel it.

"He killed that Praetorian," you said numbly, pointing.

Caracalla appeared next to you, furious. "Good!" he cried, "What use was he if he could not protect you?"

You flinched as Caracalla kicked the corpse of the fallen Praetorian. It made a disturbingly meaty sound and you would've thrown up if you hadn't already emptied your stomach.

Caracalla knelt beside your attacker. "This one is still alive, brother. Barely."

"No, no," you shook your head. "I killed him."

Guilt was clawing it's way up your throat. You had ended a man's life and you did not even know why it had happened.

Caracalla pulled the knife from the man's neck and he jolted. You gasped and stepped back further into Geta's arms. The man let out a garbled moan and Caracalla spat at him, plunging the knife once, twice, into his neck again.

"You did not kill him," Caracalla said, "I did. See? It will be okay."

The tears would not stop coming. You looked down at yourself and saw nothing but blood.

Geta cupped your cheek and forced you to turn to him. "What did he do to you?"

"He strangled me," your own hands came up to encircle your throat. "Hurts. Bad."

Geta's nostrils flared. Praetorians had began to fill up the room behind him but you could not focus on them. Caracalla was in front of them, furious. He kept pointing over at you, gesturing wildly, his voice getting louder and louder.

"He - he said it was not about him," your words hardly made sense to your own ears but you continued, "or me. He was on top of me, strangling me -"

"Shhhh," Geta soothed once more, cupping your face. "It will be okay."

"I'm covered in his blood," you said, "how can it be okay?"

Geta called over a woman. She was elderly and appeared kind. She took your hand in hers and squeezed.

"Take her to our baths," Geta ordered, "we need to see how bad the injuries are."

"No," you shuddered, "what if someone else comes?"

Geta considered this, his own eyes wide and frantic. You sensed that he wanted to go with you but he needed to deal with the Praetorians.

In the end, he chose six of them to accompany you and the woman to the baths. He watched you leave the room as though he couldn't bear to tear his eyes from you.

Numb, you followed the woman. You would have been too afraid to go if not for the sheer amount of Praetorians accompanying you.

The woman led you down an unfamiliar route until you came to an ornate set of doors. Upon opening, steam spilled out and soothed your aching throat.

A bath suddenly seemed appealing, the urge to be clean overtaking any of your reservations. The woman gestured to go with you but you shook your head and told her she could wait outside with the Praetorians. Being alone was scary but your trust of strangers was slipping away.

The bath was huge and the waterwould come up to your neck once you were sat. There were several tiny windows littered across the top of the room to reduce the steam. Small enough that no-one could climb in. There were petals scattered across the surface of the water and bottles of oils and perfumes littered the side. There was a small set of steps leading up to it, allowing you to clamber over the sides. This was the bath of the emperors.

Breathing heavily, you peeled your blood-soaked clothes from your body. The blood had begun to dry and tugged at your skin. You stripped as quickly as you could and dumped your clothes in the corner.

You stepped back, biting your lip, before bending down and arrange them so that you could not see the blood. You ran your fingers over the cuffs, reluctant to take them off. You could see a slight indent in one where the knife had threatened to pierce you.

It took a moment but you eventually took it all off, laying the pieces reverently on top of your clothing.

Naked, you shivered. You let your hands explore your body, searching for any injuries. Apart from your throat and several cuts on your hands you could not find any. The gods had been merciful.

You tip-toed up the steps before bending and seating yourself on the edge. The stone was comfortingly warm beneath your bare ass. You slipped your toes in and moaned at the delicious heat licking up your calves.

You allowed yourself a moment to adjust before sliding in. The sensation was incredible, the water clean and scented. The heat seemed to help your throat and you ventured further in.

The water on the outskirts of the bath came up to your shoulders in place but varied in shallowness. As you neared the centre it began to deepen until you were kneeling. You half walked half swam to the furthest side, pressing your back to the edge and curling in on yourself.

Blood flaked from your skin in the water. Although you wanted it off of you, you could not bring yourself to touch it.

Your eyes fluttered shut. The only sound was that of the water. Exhaustion settled in every line of your body, battling with fear. Someone had tried to kill you.

He was dead now. By your hand and Caracalla's. A combination of relief and guilt stirred in your gut and you buried it deep, recalling your previous words.

Kill or be killed.

The hinges of the door squeaked as it opened and you sat up, almost spilling water over the edge. Your heart calmed as Caracalla entered, his eyes rounding at the sight of you in the bath.

You said nothing and watched as he shut the door, eyes never leaving you. He began to tug off his own clothes, expensive accessories clattering to the floor as though they were nothing.

Something else stirred in your gut at the sight of his chest, dusted with hair. Your eyes drifted lower, naturally, until they settled on his cock, bare and twitching against his thigh.

The tip was flushed red. It was thick and longer than you had imagined, nestled in a bed of reddish-brown hair. It seemed to perk up beneath your gaze and you swallowed, eyes jerking up back to his face.

His expression was one of pure want. The blatant desire did something to you, made the ache in your throat fade. You watched as he climbed into the bath and made his way to you, water lapping at your shoulders.

Caracalla stopped in front of you and settled his chin on your knees.

"Show me where it hurts," he urged. It reminded you of that first night in his room.

You found his hand under the water. He was watching your face carefully, looking for something. You brought up his hand and settled it on the base of your throat.

"Here," you croaked.

Caracalla's hand was gentle. He reached over your shoulder to pick up a woven cloth, dipping it into the water and dabbing at the blood crusted on your face.

It was a bad idea to let him touch you the way he was but no part of you wanted him to stop. You yearned for a distraction, for tenderness in the wake of such violence.

So you let him pull your knees from your chest. His breathing got heavy at the sight of your breasts and he wiped at your chest with a cloth, wiped your arms and legs until there was no more blood and the water took on a pinkish tint.

You reached out to grab his hand and he stilled, eyes bleary but questioning. You gently tugged the cloth from his grip and brought his hands up to cup your breasts.

"Oh," he breathed, palms firm against your puckered nipples.

"Please," you begged.

Caracalla's hands left your breasts to cup your face and slot your lips together. His tongue flickered into your mouth, drawing a languid moan from you as you melted in his hands.

You shuddered in his hands as his tongue began to massage yours. When he parted from your lips you felt dazed, blood buzzing in your ears. Caracalla urged you up, higher out of the water until your breasts broke the surface.

The feeling of his mouth on your breasts was intoxicating. You let your head fall back, burying your hands in his hair in encouragement. He lapped at your nipples, teasing them, before taking them in his mouth and sucking.

"Gods," you purred, "Caracalla."

He pulled from your nipple with a wet pop, looking at you with red cheeks and damp hair. His breathing was ragged and you could see the wetness on his lips from where he had kissed you.

"You want it too," he rasped, hands coming to part your knees under the water.

Then he seemed to change his mind. With some careful rearranging, he got you out of the water and perched on the side of the bath. There was enough room for you to sit back, half supported by the wall.

You felt a little dizzy at how exposed the position left you as Caracalla knelt and spread your knees. Your hands fluttered at your sides, not entirely sure what to do.

"Elysium," Caracalla moaned, eyes glued to your cunt and the wetness that was glistening on your puffy folds.

He tucked his arms under your thighs and moved you until you were right in front of his face. He took one, long lick from the bottom to the top of your cunt, eyes on yours the entire time. He lapped at the wetness gathering at your entrance, parting your lips to expose even more of you because he wanted to see and taste everything.

Babbling incoherently, you let yourself be feasted on. You could feel yourself dissolving into pleasure, your only connection to earth being Caracalla's hot tongue flicking across your clit. He watched your every reaction greedily, determined not to miss a thing.

He ate like a man starved, devouring your wetness with broad strokes of his tongue that left you reeling.

You jolted when one of his hands left your thighs, delving under the water. It pumped rhythmically, sending ripples across the bath.

Fire seared across your skin. "Are you. . .?"

"Yes," he murmured. "Your cunt is so pretty. Tastes like ambrosia."

Your orgasm pulsed through you, made you draw your legs up to your body and cry out. Hips undulating, you rode out the shockwaves of your orgasm on Caracalla's tongue as he stroked his cock beneath the water.

Before you could think, Caracalla rose from the water. Water sluiced down his body, his cock was heavy and flushed against his stomach. His eyes were scorching and he grabbed himself and positioned you at the edge of the bath.

"Wanted this," he said, "wanted you so bad."

He positioned the fat head of his cock against your cunt, rutting against you several times until you could hear the slick mess you had made. You keened when he sank inside in one slow move, all the way in until your hips were flush together.

Panting, he pressed one bruising kiss onto your lips, keeping you pinned with his cock until you were practically writhing, yearning for movement.

"Fuck me," you cried wantonly, "Caracalla, need you to fuck me."

From the moment he pulled back his hips and slammed into you, you knew there was no denying it. You were his. Would soon be Geta's too. A part of you whispered that you would do terrible, terrible things so long as he kept making you feel like this.

Caracalla must have read it on your face. "Tell me you're mine."

"'M yours," you breathed, rolling your hips to meet his.

Hands on your hips, he rolled into you as though you had been made for this - made for them. When your eyes threatened to flutter shut he cupped your cheek, directing your gaze to downward and to his cock pumping inside of you.

"Need you to see this," he swore, "want you to remember how good I made you feel."

You were not sure you could ever forget. The room became an orchestra of sloshing water and slick, wet sounds from your union, punctuated by Caracalla's possessive words.

"You belong to us," he thrust into you as though that would make you believe it. "Ours. With us, always."

"Yes, yes, yes," you babbled, believing it entirely.

Everything had been working up to this moment; you could see it now. There was no need for confusion or fear when there was this. Blissful, mindless pleasure.

When Caracalla slotted his hand between you and began to rub tight circles on your clit, you nearly lost your mind. Your nails dug into his back and then his hips, drawing him impossibly closer and urging him on. No experience you had had before compared to this and pleasure was quickly mounting again.

"I can feel you," Caracalla fucked into you harder, faster, "can feel you tightening on my cock. You want me inside you, want to be ours forever."

You squeezed your eyes shut, white light splintering across your vision as you came once more. Caracalla followed close behind you, rutting desperately and palming at your breasts until he reached his own orgasm. He rode it out, hips stuttering into yours as his chest heaved and he partially collapsed onto you.

He did not pull out of you immediately. He pressed soft kisses to the base of your neck and your cheeks, whispering filthy things into your ears. You did not push him away. Instead you ran your fingers through his damp hair and let him nuzzle at your jaw.

Finally, he pulled out. You bit your lip at the feeling of his seed spilling out of you. Caracalla ran a finger through your swollen folds, collecting some on his fingers before pushing it back in. You whined a little but held still, letting him push his seed deep inside of you.

"I hope it takes," he whispered, nipping at your lips.

You slid back into the water, boneless. You had heard other women talk about their sexual experiences before, about how sometimes when you gave in the man lost all interest. You had had two partners before but had never cared enough about them to be bothered when you lost contact so you were not sure what to expect with Caracalla.

If possible, he was more affectionate than before. He pressed his body tight to your side, hands busying themselves with your breasts and exploring your inner thighs. Insatiable.

Caracalla picked a glass bottle from the side, pouring the oil in contained into his hands. You held still as he oiled your shoulders and body, covering you thoroughly.

"Smells like you," you said.

He giggled before pushing the bottle into your hands and turning around. He had several scars on his back and chest that seemed to have healed. You bit your lip at the scratches that now adorned his back along with several puncture marks from your nails. He shuddered when you ran your fingers across them.

You let the oil pour across his back and began to massage it into his skin. He sank into your touch until there was no space between you and his back was pressed against your chest. Intimacy was something you had not experienced in a long time and you almost teared up at how relaxed you felt.

Caracalla took the bottle. "Don't cry," he cooed, "no more tears because of those animals."

"No more tears," you agreed.

It had been a very fucking long day.

Author’s Note - okay guys how did I do??? Let me know with notes/comments/reblogs and asks!!! Interactions with you guys is my favourite thing♥️

Taglist - @only4thefics @doodle-with-rhy @lover-rep-fanfic @claraisme23 @sashaphantomhive @multifandombtch @t6gse370

@merrymunsons @europixie @prestinalove @malfoycassimalfoy

@jovial-cowboy @akamitrani @bocreep @justasmallbean @moompie @duckyhowls @justlibra @mama-frog @fionaapplelover2010

@verypoetrytraveler @darleniweenie

@feral-postings @honey-eyed-munson @an34l @happysparklingshadows @hiroshiro @slaytheusurper @1950schick @quaintquinn @queenofviolenceandnerds

[dolphin-diaries]

Detrans/Uncis (Part 2)

Originally published on Dolphin Diaries.

My first steps on a detransition journey were underscored by a peculiar mantra: “but I’m not detransitioning though.” I don’t feel like a man, so I’m not a trans man, but I’m still taking hormones, so I’m not detransitioning. I’m getting laser, but I’m not doing anything to my voice—hold on, actually I am. I’m lowering my dose of testosterone, actually, but I’m still taking it, and it’s not like I’m a woman. Only I want to be gendered by strangers as a woman, but that’s different. Actually I’d hate to have any further changes from T, so I’m not taking it at all—but I’m still not detransitioning though. Actually, could you speak of me as she? And her, too? No detrans though.

At a certain point it started to approach total absurdity. My friends and loved ones, well-versed in the queer gender soup, said nothing of it, but I am myself strongly averse to repression, denial, and self-deceit. So I was the first to say I was wrong. The first to say, “I am, though.” And at no point, from the beginning to the end of my epistemic conga, have I encountered any meaningful pushback from my close circles. No implications of betrayal, no cold shoulders, no silence when I walk in the room.

So why the mantra, then? Why was I so averse to the idea?

A large part of that was the politicisation of detransition; how indelibly it is associated with the Right—I said as much in my first essay. On a personal level, though, it was trivial to realise I wasn’t doing a grift. I was confident I hadn’t been brainwashed into anything. I’ve never had any meaningful contact or affiliation with any sort of gender-conservative person or movement.

And I did encounter pro-trans detransitioners. Some of them sniped back at the right-wing ones, some merely told their stories independently. Regardless, they—just like me—did not receive great or meaningful pushback from their trans friends, nor even strangers. They weren’t always understood or necessarily celebrated, but they were taken at their word, believed, and more or less respected as much as any gender deviant. Before I had any thoughts to detransition myself, I had seen detrans people beyond the pale of the rhetoric multiple times, and…

And I hated them. They made my skin crawl. I was never rude or condescending, and as those encounters were online-only, it was trivial to maintain respect and civility. I also realised I had no real cause to hate them. They’d done nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all. It was easy enough to say that in principle, when they talked in the abstract, but when they spoke of their bodies, their lives, the flesh and blood of it all, I felt such visceral revulsion as I might’ve never felt before.

Or have I? Have I known this already, this knee-jerk lip curl, this morbid disgust with another’s aberrant sex? This idea in my mind, spreading like cancer, that these people were wrong? That they’ve violated something inviolable? And how civility and compassion chiselled this violent core into arrogant pity towards an untouchable other?

No, I have known this. And not such a long time ago.

The Body Horror

When I first came out as trans to my university class—cis-majority if not totality, naturally—the perverse fascination with my body was hard to escape. They were mostly polite, of course. My university was very ‘decadent Westian’ (pardon the quasi-inside joke). We were hip with it. Nevertheless—

“It’s okay for you, of course, but if my future children���”

“You mean to say you date women? How do you—”

“You mean to say you date men??”

 “I wasn’t looking at you like that in the bathroom—I mean—uh—”

You don’t need to say it outright. Sometimes you don’t need to say a thing at all. I see it. I know.

That’s to say nothing of the doctors’ dehumanising dissection and the conservatives flashing the least flattering post-operative pictures like they’re gore. As a transsexual, you don’t even need dysphoria; you will be informed of your physical monstrosity in great detail and in every possible manner, from the subtlest glance to the bloody megaphone.

You learn to see transsexual bodies this way very young and not voluntarily, but I was not just any random person. I transitioned aeons ago, and I did not find the flesh of my fellow transsexuals a subject of psychosexual fascination anymore. We were just people. I’d learned that.

I thought I did, anyway.

That’s the thing about the biases that systemic oppression seeds and wields. They are, in my experience, nothing less than psychosocial cancers. Leave one cell alive, and they will surely regrow. Maybe into a new shape, maybe into something old, but they will never die left alone.

Although I’d mentally graduated to gender abolition and genderfuckery-as-political-stance, to activism, to gender constructivism and to queering everything, especially feminism, I’d first come to see transsexuality through the lens of the DSM. Not my fault or anything—that’s what was available to me. Transsexual transition, then, was first presented to me as a linear transformation, a path from A to B, at the end of which laid gender nirvana. Or, like, happiness and fulfilment, I suppose. White-people Buddhism was fashionable at that time, so please excuse my French.

So genderfuckery was all well and good, but you know, done respectably. For me, that was performing picture-perfect transsexuality, just a little spiced-up. So long as I still appeared cis. Anything that marked me as ‘clocky’ was unseemly; although I no longer needed to see any doctors about it, I’d been trained to sniff out such features and weed them out for the sake of gaining medical access. But that’s not the only way ‘respectable gender’ is ensured in queer circles. I’ve also observed it to be an absence of transsexuality. That is, gender is to be fucked with in words and pronouns and haircuts and porn—but to transition about it would be kind of gauche, don’t you think? A little gender-conformist?

Different outcome, but for the purposes of this discussion, same principle: it is disgust with transition. Visible transition, obvious transition; transition at all. My case was not altogether different from ideological non-transitioners; it was just modified to accommodate for some alteration of sex.

After nearly a decade of virilising HRT, my detransition wasn’t simply a matter of changing my name and putting on lipstick. That would just make strangers say ‘yas gurl.’ No, if I wanted to live as a woman beyond my immediate social circle, I needed to make more invasive changes. More than that, I wanted those changes. I didn’t merely wish to say I’m a woman—I wanted to look in the mirror and believe it.

The first truth a detransitioner learns is this: to detransition, you must transition again.

Again?!

Oh, it’s not the same as your first time ‘round, sure. Not just because of the difference in desired sex; if you’ve never had your gonads removed and have no prior issues with hormone production, you can simply cease to take HRT and stop depending on the vagaries of medical supplies. Doctors will, generally, be a little more understanding of your desire to change sex. Often, from their perspective, you’re not changing it; you’re fixing it. So if you were allowed to take the so-called ‘cross-sex’ hormones, you’ll probably be allowed the ‘same-sex’ ones. Conversely, because no such thing as a ‘detransition procedure’ usually exists, it’s a dice roll if any surgery will be covered by the state, your insurance, or anything. Yes, you’re ‘fixing’ your sex—but the fact you’ve ‘damaged’ it at all renders you a bit of an unreliable witness to your own mind. A little bit crazy, you could say. Isn’t it all quite literally your own fault?

However, the day-to-day mundanities of detransition would be highly recognisable to any trans person. Indeed, I got all the ideas on how to relieve my gender dysphoria from my transfem friends. I learned of laser hair removal from them, and they advised me on voice training. Some of the professionals that serviced me had no idea I was detrans—how would they? Kind of an odd thing to randomly bring up while getting your beard fried.

‘Detrans woman’ is not a legible social category (nor any other kind of detrans person). People know what these words mean—at least, if they’re up on the latest gender lingo—but they don’t truly know what that looks like. Maybe they imagine a particular grifter when you say ‘detrans,’ maybe it’s just a void—but it’s never you. No one will ever assume that’s what you are.

So how does a detrans woman move through the world? She passes, of course. She is either assumed to be a cis woman, having worked to file off any signs of testosterone’s magic touch, or she stands out with those features. If she transitioned after adolescence, she might have a leg up on passing, but should a stranger’s transvestigation radar starts beeping, they will surely scan her for other hints. Sometimes they’ll find what was never there, and sometimes they’ll decree a feature that occurs in all women, cis and trans, a sure sign of inborn manhood. I’ve always had a visible Adam’s apple, for instance, but it didn’t use to be proof I was born a man. Now, though, take that and a bad voice day, and I don’t have a leg to stand on.

And if someone decides I don’t belong in a women’s bathroom, do you think it’ll help if I cry I was born to piss here?

Here’s the second truth a detransitioners learns: it doesn’t matter how many times you transition, to what end or for what reason. If you do it at all, you will never be cis again. It’s the real red pill—the one the Wachowski sisters intended, not what the chuds on the internet made of it. Your body, your social and legal history, your continuity of self—it is different now. Not the way it’s supposed to be. Changing sex at all was never meant to be.

Regime and Treachery

Um-actuallying people who think I’m a trans woman will not help me under most circumstances. It won’t help with a strange man in an alley, and it won’t help with an employer that discovers my last manager knew me under a male name. In one case nothing but a good run will help, and in the other—come on now, they won’t think any better of me.

It will not make me cis, and it doesn’t help—under most circumstances.

Detrans women aren’t the only ones which may be assumed for trans women. Cis women that never touched a drop of testosterone get transvestigated too—not nearly as frequently, but it happens all the same, and regularly. The case of Imane Khelif is one that probably jumps to mind first these days, but she is perhaps in the minority of women that never responded to such accusations by loudly proclaiming she is completely and utterly unlike those filthy transsexuals—she is a real woman!

Detrans women have the whole transsexuality thing in common with trans women, of course. But they aren’t quite the only ones—intersex women that were assigned female at birth are also often assumed to be transsexual. They are also subject to severe medical violence and neglect. Some require exogenous hormones to stay healthy. Some wish to take ownership of their body via voluntary sex alteration, for a change. It is rather transsexual-like, all in all.

But yet you will not search long to find similar underbus-throwing. The AFAB intersex woman is not like that trans woman—she deserves gender-affirmative treatment. She’s a real woman. The birth certificate said so.

And so too the detrans woman, despite all her history, despite the indelible mark of transsexuality, looks at the dangling carrot of Real Womanhood—and like a dog, jumps.

She will never be allowed the full extent of it. It is irreversible damage, after all. That’s important. The detrans woman that betrays her sisters—her class, even—must forever cry about the wounds transition left on her, must never heal from them. And trust me, the cis aren’t nice about it behind her back. The detrans woman is promised a shred of cis-ness, of real-ness—but only so long as she divorces herself from all things transsexual. Loudly, repeatedly. The moment she stops, she will be reminded: she too is transsexual. She has seen sex/gender for what it is; her body is evidence. She has eaten of the tree of knowledge. It’s only at the regime’s great mercy that she can peek into Eden—but god forbid, never enter.

Because what would happen if the ‘damage’ wasn’t irreversible? If society allowed the detrans woman to be a woman wholly and totally—its woman, real woman? Why, it would mean sex can be changed without repercussion. It would mean you could leave gender.

It wouldn’t quite mean that trans women are women and trans men are men—it would only allow that your birth sex can be ‘returned to.’ But if even that much was permitted, it would make transition no longer a threat. You could do it and come back just fine, see? What’s there to fear? Why not just try it? And if you can just try it, just leave and come back as you please—how can you force people to obey gender?

It would mean I could opt out of womanhood any time. Of the mandate of reproduction, of subordination, of sexual and domestic servitude—of the constant fight to break free of those things. I could opt out even if I didn’t like being a man. I’d always have one foot back in the door, if I pleased. And that’s the thing about the patriarchy: women must never be allowed to leave. Or to desist, or to fail. For that they must be punished. Want fewer lashes? Kick the weaker bitch out the door.

Cis-ness is a regime. A status quo. To define it merely by the relationship to birth-assigned sex is erroneous—intersexness reveals this, but if you’re the kind of person who thinks the intersex are some sort of rare and bizarre exception (they’re not), perisex detransitioners must surely hammer the nail home. To be cis is not merely to self-identify as the sex on your birth certificate; who’s even looking at those? It is to live in accordance with your biological destiny, and every social law that entails. This destiny is assigned at birth, yes, but it does not end there: it follows you all the way.

Cis-ness is not an identity—it is a reward for doing as you’re told.

The Freedom of Sex

It is obvious, then, why detrans medical care is a pain to get even though you’re complying with your birth sex assignment. That is the true engineer of detrans misery, of dysphoria and resentment. To come to dislike the features you’ve acquired during transition is one thing—but to be prevented from changing them? To be looked at like a lunatic? To not know what to do, because information about de/transition and how it works is so understudied and obscured?

If transition was easy, known, free—more people would detransition, certainly. But that wouldn’t mean much. Because they’d be people like anyone else. Their bodies—transsexual bodies—would be just the same, just as worthy. They would be real.

The implications are even greater than that. Freedom of sex, as Andrea Long Chu puts it, means a freedom to change anything about your sex, in any way, for any reason, without restriction. Not the A->B path I was first taught under the illusion of two wholly distinct, non-intersecting sexes—rather, the tweaking of individual aspects. It is to really examine how sex works and take it apart on your person. It is what some trans people already do, with microdosing and what you might call small acts of detransition. If you don’t like the beard after T, why not zap it off? If you want to be on oestrogen but don’t like the breasts—double mastectomy works just the same regardless of initial sex. The idea of customisable, ‘nonbinary’ transition is one that’s gained prominence in recent years, even as attacks on all transition have exponentially increased.

Linear transition was written in an attempt to enforce a kind of gender austerity. Only those that really need it can get it, and so there must be competition, a hierarchy of haves and have-nots. There must be doctors that will prescribe you wrong dosages based on irrelevant research and leave you to wonder why you feel so off. You must not pick and choose the changes you want, because your sex is not for you to decide—it is to be granted to you, justified via a constant defense of self-identification. For the crime of violating sex/gender, your autonomy is branded as harebrained desire until proven otherwise. You’re not allowed to simply want something; you have to need it, hence the attempts to naturalise and essentialise transsexuality—you have to be real, you have to be born with it.

Above all you must be kept in the dark and hurting, so that any time someone suggests anything as ‘frivolous’ as the freedom to have their body as they wish, you snipe back: Shut up, vapid idiot! You’re going to hurt yourself in your stupidity! I’m not like you—I’m the one who’s really hurting!

To look at de/transition from the perspective of liberation is to ask: why? What’s the austerity for? We have the hormones, the surgeries, almost all the treatments we want, and the science isn’t calling it quits tomorrow last I checked. What horrible thing are we preventing by stopping people from doing to their sex whatsoever they wish? Are we running out of gender juice?

But of course, I already told you why. A smarter woman than me has also written extensively why. It is because sex and gender come with a fine print, a set of prescripts, which must be enforced. Irreversible damage to fertile wombs must not be allowed. The pedestal of Man must not be tarnished.

Freedom of sex, then, is the patriarchy’s anathema.

Detransition is part of freedom of sex. To accept acts of detransition as neutral is to allow that changes wrought by transition—just like naturally developed sexual characteristics—can be changed at will. Even disliked. To be free is to embrace the possibility of discontent, too; to allow oneself to do something you may regret later, and to be free to go back. To accept that nothing is final. Finality is one of the ways transition is made more difficult than it needs to be: you must be sure, must be happy with what you get—or else, it is argued, you never had a real need for it anyway.

That is plainly not true. I know that from my own example.

Transition served me well way back when. I do not know of an extant, realistic alternative that could’ve helped me as effectively. I was happy with my transition for years, and suicidally discontent before then. So who cares if transitioning proved in the end an imperfect permanent solution for me? Why must transition be held to perfection and permanence before it is allowed? It worked and it saved my life—who are you to tell me I shouldn’t have done it? And who are you to hold me hostage to it?

What if, even now, I enjoy that I’ve been constructed rather than simply born?

Not So Fast

Now that’s a nice thought, isn’t it? I can feel the gender nirvana coming on already.

Unfortunately, it can’t be that simple. To dream of a world you want, you must first contend with the world you already live in.

There’s a particular aspect that’s been largely absent from my essays so far: forced detransition and conversion therapy. In part, that’s because I argue from the perspective of a willing detransitioner with no shadow of a right-wing past or influence; a viewpoint which is lacking in the public conscience. Plenty of trans writers and thinkers already staunchly argue against forced detransition. They omit the detrans by virtue of either irrelevance or ignorance or both. When voluntary detransition is mentioned, people tend to merely point out there’s not that many of us. In actuality there’s very little statistical research to give definitive numbers, but it’s certainly true we are the minority of transitioners, and the absence of statistical evidence only further confirms: the Right are pulling numbers out of thin air.

Except, saying that is missing the point. The Right never cared about numbers. Or facts. Or logic. Their argument is that willing detransition ought to be the nail in the coffin for transition. If you retort that, um actually, there’s only half as many willing detransitioners, you still concede we exist and are a contradiction to you. That is enough to prove the Right’s point. I, therefore, wish to argue we are not a contradiction to trans rights or existence, but in fact on a continuum with both. That by virtue of our needs and lived realities, we are trans. Differently trans, but trans nonetheless. Some (trans and detrans) may not enjoy that assertion for a number of reasons, but the empirical fact is that we are irrevocably cast out of cis-ness, and we are in need of support structures that are near-identical to those of trans people. If by every function we are trans, then it’s under that name that we should be understood, because it is the only thing that makes sense and yields results.

But.

Detransition is not a neutral act in practice, even if it has the potential to be. Just like transition isn’t. Both are politicised, and the nature of detransition’s politicisation diverges from that of transition quite sharply.

In the current political climate, as trans people are being denied medical care and the anti-trans rhetoric pollutes every information space, this cannot be avoided or denied. Transition is reviled, and detransition is said to be the cure and is wielded as a punishment. Detransition-as-sex-freedom cannot be understood without also grappling with the other two kinds of detransition I distinguish based on motive and emergent needs: forced and coerced.

Forced detransition is the simplest to define. It is detransition that occurs when circumstances necessitate it as the only possible course of action, or it is altogether done unto the transitioner without any pretense of choice. The starkest example is, say, the new law in Florida which forcibly detransitions the incarcerated. But it needn’t be so wholly dystopian to qualify as ‘forced.’ Detransitions due to family or peer pressure, poverty, lack of access, or social isolation are all forced in nature, even if in the most technical sense you made the ‘choice’ to undergo it. If you wish you were still transitioning, it is forced.

Coerced detransition is a grayer area. It is motivated by an individual’s choice—not a lack of one or a pseudo-choice, as above—under circumstances in which transition is possible, but highly discouraged. You will naturally recognise conversion therapy as an extreme example, but it needn’t be so blatant. Often it isn’t.

Say, for instance, your closest circle of friends regards transition as a frivolous neoliberal excess. Or, let’s say, your cis boyfriend is perfectly happy you’re a man now, he swears, but—well, he’s not gay, you know? Just for you. It’s different with you. Except he still treats you the same way he did before your transition—but that’s a good thing, right? Good thing he still wants you at all? He would probably prefer a girlfriend, and he’s never dated men—actually, is this whole thing really that important to you? Aren’t you rushing into things? Do you really know what you want? You don’t mind if he slips up on pronouns when you’re not in the room, do you? 

Or maybe your general practitioner keeps insisting any time anything is wrong with you, that it’s the hormones’ fault. The classic ‘trans broken arm’ syndrome. And when something actually might be wrong with the hormones, the solution is always to just stop HRT altogether. And the surgeries—they’re just so dangerous; look at how horrifying post-op pictures are! It’s just biology, just facts, which don’t care about your feelings (but remember: it’s only a fact if it makes you feel worse.)

In other words, the decision to go through coerced detransition is made in a state of reduced agency, often caused by social pressure and/or misinformation about transition. Nothing is explicitly preventing you from doing as you will to your sex—and so it is precisely your will which must be subverted and undermined.

Notice that I make no claim whether detransition is right or wrong for the person in question. Perhaps they would’ve arrived at this decision another way, perhaps not. The point is, they are led to believe detransition is simply more sensible, healthier, better. It is the superior choice—so of course, they make it. In the end, coerced detransition is not truly dissimilar from the forced kind. What merits it separate consideration is that it’s designed to make you relinquish your own judgement, and your very own sense of self. Under such conditions, even if you would’ve ultimately detransitioned regardless, your relationship to your sex/gender is made maladaptive, and your independence as an individual is maliciously compromised.

The needs of coercively and forcibly detransitioned people are closely aligned. The forcibly detransitioned, naturally, require that the circumstance which necessitated their detransition is removed, and that their retransition is facilitated and supported. The coercively detransitioned may or may not require the same thing—some detrans people do, in fact, discover they genuinely desire detransition in less-than-ideal circumstances—but what they certainly need is a pathway to recovery from conversion. They are to be given their agency back, as well as access to accurate information about transition and transitioners, so that they are free to make the choice to retransition or to keep detransitioning as they see fit.

Both cases run counter to detransition-as-sex-freedom, to voluntary detransition—which is to say, a choice made due to a shift in self-perception, under circumstances in which continued transition is unhindered. The needs of a voluntary detransitioner are also starkly different, and most resemble that of a transitioner. A voluntary detransitioner requires a facilitated pathway to sex modification and gender recognition, from hormones to surgeries to legal procedure. It is the same thing for which trans people fight; it need only be recognised that voluntary detransitioners are part of that fight.

Grouping voluntary and involuntary detransitioners under the same umbrella makes little sense. We may superficially share some experiences, but such an equation falls apart from the perspective of rights and needs; it obfuscates motive, absolves abusers and systemic injustice, and it smooths over radical differences in our stories and perspectives. It draws a false equivalence that either condemns voluntary detransition or celebrates forced and coerced detransition, thus making it impossible to either embrace or reject detransition in good conscience. Thus no progress can be made.

In other words, conflation of voluntary and involuntary detransition only works from the cis perspective—from the perspective of the regime, which observes its deviants and wishes them gone, and rejects understanding them on principle. From either the trans or the detrans perspective, it is nonsense.

Except…

How do you know, though? How do you know? How do you know, when everything from your very cradle is telling you trans people are aberrant for existing, and when trans life is so hard? The coercively detransitioned wholeheartedly claim total autonomy; they are not really lying; from a strictly liberal-minded perspective, they are not wrong. How exactly can continued transition be ‘unhindered’ when society is engineered to always make it difficult?

How do you really know it’s your choice and your choice alone?

We all realise the answer: you don’t. You can’t. Not with complete certainty. There’s no such thing as a pure, unadulterated, individual choice, and there’s very rarely such a thing as an unhindered transition.

We live in a world that reviles transsexuality, that denies and despises the mutability of sex and stamps out any proof that gender is smoke and mirrors. The regime of cisheterosexism seeps through every layer of society and through every aspect of life. Purely voluntary detransition is, in the strictest sense, impossible. Sex/gender is a regime, and no act under it is free; all are forced to exist and be legible within its framework, or else be totally exiled. To exist socially is to exist under sex/gender.

This is not whatsoever unique to detransition. Or detrans people, or trans people. Cis women, for instance, must grapple with what it means to be a woman when Woman is defined as subordinate to Man—even as most do not transition about it. So, too, do men grapple with what their gender means when Manhood is defined and enforced via violence towards women, other men, and the gender-deviant. Even the cissexual must contend with the demands placed on their bodies—almost all transsexual treatments originate in cissexual healthcare. There is no exit from this struggle, because patriarchal sex/gender is constructed to be all-encompassing and mutually exclusive. Woman is everything Man isn’t, and vice versa; never the twain shall meet, and no stone will they leave unturned. No matter what you do, it will be sexed, it will be gendered, and though the conclusion will shift from occasion to occasion, in any particular instance it will allow for no ambiguity. Even when someone yells at you on the street, “Are you a chick or a dude?!”—that is not ‘ambiguity.’ It’s just a longer version of a slur.

Similarly, this is not the first (nor the last) time when sex/gender alteration has been contorted and weaponised against transsexuality—that is, sex-mutability’s most blatant, most acute manifestation. The Cass Review has notably cited the existence of non-transitioning nonbinary individuals as ‘proof’ transition must be curtailed:

“Secondly, medication is binary, but the fastest growing group identifying under the trans umbrella is non-binary, and we know even less about the outcomes for this group. Some of you will also become more fluid in your gender identity as you grow older. We do not know the ‘sweet spot’ when someone becomes settled in their sense of self, nor which people are most likely to benefit from medical transition. When making life-changing decisions, what is the correct balance between keeping options as flexible and open as possible as you move into adulthood, and responding to how you feel right now?”

Doubtless, the Gender Criticals wish the nonbinary non-transitioner to be as non-existent as their more deviant sibling. But while a greater deviant still exists, those that happen to be more acceptable, more assimilate-able, are called upon to do the one thing they’re good for:

Kick the weaker bitch out.

Such too is the final fate of detransitioners under the patriarchal regime. They are to be the knife in the back of their siblings, and when those are gone, they will find their own backs perforated.

So far I have provided eloquent arguments towards clear and singular conclusions—at least, I hope you’ve found me eloquent and clear. Today, on this matter, I offer no such thing. I have nothing to offer but this: so long as transition is reviled, so long as the transsexual are persecuted in any manner at all, there is no freedom of sex and there is no neutrality. Insofar as this pertains to detransition: so long as the transsexual are persecuted, hated, and forced into obscurity, we are likewise bound to their persecution, hatred, and abandonment. So long as that holds, voluntary detransition can never be free.

What Now?

I know. I’m a killjoy. It’s a fate all serious anarchists and college dropouts must contend with: if we’re really sincere about what we think, the mood will be thoroughly murdered.

The fight is clear. The fight is needed. And, the fight is hard. But there is life to be lived in the meanwhile, and it’s worth living even if we don’t see a victory during our time. Total certainty may be impossible and foolish to seek—but you have to make choices anyway. Doing nothing is merely choosing passivity and inertia; you face the consequences either way.

So I ask again: how do you know?

If you’re someone contemplating detransition, here’s the second best thing I can offer: have the courage, the self-insight, and the compassion to face yourself and be honest. Have the intelligence and the disobedience to measure what you’ve been told about transition and transsexuality against the things you have seen and experienced. Have the audacity to be wrong, to make mistakes as many times as you need. Have the pride to ask for better things than you are offered. Have the humility to not think yourself exceptional. Above all, never relinquish the responsibility over your life and your choices to anyone or anything else. No, no one else knows any better. No, there is no easier way.

The first best thing I can offer—to anyone, detrans or not—is to tell you how I knew. In the end I speak from my own experiences, and so it’s only fitting that the message I broadcast is incomplete without a degree of testimony.

Oh, it is to my chagrin, believe me—well, kind of. For all that I love attention and getting told I write oh so powerfully well, a part of me also detests personality pieces. I’m just one woman; I don’t mean much; I shouldn’t mean much. But you must’ve wondered, right? Especially if you don’t recognise yourself in me. I’ve spoken briefly about aspects of my de/transition, and let’s say you took all that for granted, but you must’ve wondered: how did I get here in the first place? How did it feel? How does it feel? Really, truly, how? And why?

I don’t like personality pieces because I think they mine for compassion. That can be a catalyst for a great many things, but just as often I’ve had people treat me with total nicety and then vote for a politician that would kill me, or exile a child that used to be me. Compassion is common, human, and incredibly cheap.

It is also required for kinship. For comparison, for legibility. And one of the issues that plagues detransitioners is illegibility. Silence. A lack of reference by which to see yourself. Community is best known by example.

So an example I shall provide. Next time.

Recommended Reading

On the freedom of sex: Andrea Long Chu, The Right To Change Sex.

On the nature of sex/gender hierarchy within the patriarchy: Talia Bhatt, Understanding Transmisogyny, Part 1.

On the mechanisms of gender-conservatism among women: Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women.

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

i’m obsessed with your declan fics! can we get one where the reader has to calm him down? it would be even more fun if they were mad/annoyed at each other but he can’t help but seek her out when he needs comfort 👀

Paradoxical.

you currently can’t stand the sight of each other. and yet, in this moment… yours is the only face he wants to see.

declan o’hara x female reader (nickname - lucky.)

warnings - smut. cursing. angst. unspecified age gap. yeeeeeearning.

word count - 4.6k

authors note - she’s back 💋. loooved this request, so thank you so much to whoever sent it!! i’m still on my rivals shit, so please join me in this never ending journey. never getting over this man <3

masterlist. inbox.

“How are you doing?”

You snuggle further into the pillows on the bed, popping another strawberry in your mouth to avoid the question.

“Lucky.”

“Hmm?”

“I asked how you are.”

“M’fine,” you answer as you chew, praying the subject gets changed. She clearly doesn’t believe you, so you sigh and look at her pointedly. “I’m being serious. I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

“Taggie.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What? No! I’d never think that.”

“Then why are you treating me like I’m oblivious? I can see that you’re not fine, but you keep lying to my face.”

Taking a deep breath, you exhale in resignation.

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re caught in the middle of all of this, Tag.”

“I’m not-”

“You are. He’s your dad, I’m your friend. You are quite literally the middle man here.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she counters, perching on the edge of her bed. “If I have to be the peacekeeper, I will be.”

“You shouldn’t have to be.”

“I know, but these things happen. I just… if I knew what had happened, I could try and fix it.”

“You can’t fix this, Tag. I promise you, you can’t.”

She’s quiet for a moment, tracing the patterns on your socks as she thinks.

“What happened, Lucky? I swear that whatever it is, I won’t judge you. I just want to know how it all went so… wrong. One minute the two of you were the best of friends, and the next minute you’re packing up your office and leaving without so much as an explanation.”

“It’s complicated,” you murmur.

“So complicated that you had to quit your job?”

“Yes.”

“He’s never going to find a better assistant than you, you know. Never. He doesn’t even want to look for one, says he’d rather do all the work himself.”

“Well that’s stupid of him. He can’t do all that stuff himself.”

“Exactly. He’s willing to put himself through all of that stress so as not to replace you.”

“That’s his foolish choice, Tag.”

She sighs in frustration, leaning back against the footboard of the bed.

“Did he upset you? Did he say something stupid? You know what he’s like, he often doesn’t think before he speaks. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation here.”

“It wasn’t him, it was me. I quit by my own volition. He didn’t upset me, he didn’t offend me… I just had to do the right thing, which was to leave. I know you’re trying to help, Tag, but you can’t. Not with this.”

Taggie finally realises that she’s fighting a losing battle, choosing instead to shuffle over so she’s all cosy in the pillows next to you.

“I won’t tell him you were here,” she whispers, bumping your shoulder with hers.

“Thank you. I’m sorry you’re caught up in the middle of all of this.”

“I don’t mind, honestly. I just wish there was something I could do.”

“Give it some time. It’s meant to heal all wounds, after all.”

She chuckles, resting her head against yours affectionately.

“Will you help me make some raspberry tarts? I need at least forty of them, and I could do with an extra pair of hands.”

“Of course I will. But if your dad comes home, I’m sprinting out the back door.”

“Alright,” she laughs, shaking her head. “I’ll help with your escape, if need be.”

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

You’re tempted to smash your head into the bar top.

You’ve been debating the pros and cons of it for the last forty five minutes, actually.

The gala is bustling, bodies packed into the beautiful ballroom with barely an inch between them. Everyone has a drink in hand, the light from the chandelier glinting off of the champagne and whiskey poured into crystal glasses.

You’d said yes to the event when you were still Declan’s assistant - assuming that you’d go together, just like always. And now, here you are, standing on opposite ends of the room and avoiding each other like your lives depend on it.

A cool hand finds your waist, spiced aftershave hitting your senses and letting you know who it is before they even have to speak.

“Hello, darling.”

“Hi, Rupert.”

He spins you around gracefully, smiling at you with a twinkle in his eye.

“You look ravishing, as always.”

“You don’t look half bad yourself, you know. You scrub up quite nicely.”

“Oh stop, I’ll start blushing.”

You can’t help but laugh, accepting his arm as he offers it out to you.

“Come on darling, let’s socialise a bit. You can’t stand in the corner forever.”

“I can.”

“Not on my watch.”

He’s dragging you across the floor before you can process what’s happening, people passing by you in blurs of colour and sparkles.

“Dance with me.”

“Is this fun for you? Torturing me?”

“Oh, immensely,” he grins, hands finding your hips.

You reluctantly wrap your arms around his neck, looking at him with a quirked brow.

“Don’t you have a thousand other women you could be dancing with, Rupert?”

He spins you playfully, laughing as you shriek.

“I do, but none of them are nearly as beautiful as you.”

“Oh god,” you groan, rolling your eyes. “Does that line usually work?”

“Never on women as smart as you,” he chuckles, swaying you gently.

You stare at him carefully for a moment, realising you know him too well when you instantly see through his carefree facade.

“Ask it, then.”

“Hmm?”

“I know that’s what this is. You’re going to get me all soft and relaxed and tipsy, and then you’ll ask me about Declan. You might as well just cut to the chase, Rupert.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re much too intelligent to think that I believe that.”

His eyes don’t leave yours as he tilts his head, getting a good look at you and your unwavering expression.

“Fine, you stubborn woman. Fine. I wanted to ask you about Declan at some point tonight. But only from a place of care and concern, not because I’m going to try to wrangle the two you of back together or anything.”

“Subtlety has never been your strong suit.”

“Forgive me for being confused, alright? You were joined at the hip, and all of a sudden you can’t stand the sight of each other. It’s just so unlike the two of you.”

You sigh deeply, dropping your head forward so it rests on his chest. Rupert’s arms tighten around you, silently letting you know he’s got your back.

“It’s complicated,” you explain, muffled by the material of the man’s shirt. “Stupidly complicated.”

“So complicated that it can never, ever be repaired? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Blimey,” he half gasps, the sound vibrating through the both of you. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you bastard.”

Rupert laughs so loudly that people turn their heads to see why, the cadence of it completely infectious. Declan watches from across the room, unable to help himself from at least glancing at the two of you together so cosily.

“He’s currently watching you like some sort of bird of prey,” he informs, tilting your chin up so you’re looking into his eyes. “Whatever it was that happened, it hasn’t erased the fact that he cares about you. A lot. And I know for a fact you care about him.”

“Of course I do.”

“There we go then. Surely it’s nothing that can’t be solved with a bit of good old fashioned communication.”

“You’re a terrible communicator,” you argue.

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

Now it’s your turn to laugh, shaking your head as you both sway to the music once again.

“If I had a pound for every time that applied to you, Rupert, I’d be a fucking millionaire.”

He twirls you outwards quickly, watching as the skirt of your dress billows with the breeze of the action.

“And if I had a pound for every time Declan has pretended to stare interestedly around the room this evening just so he has an excuse to look at you, I’d be a millionaire too.”

You ignore the way your heartbeat picks up at his words, choosing instead to focus on the steady rhythm of the music from the piano that fills the space.

“Maybe he’s looking at you.”

“No, Lucky. He’s always looking at you.”

You sigh in resignation, fingers fiddling with Rupert’s collar as you straighten out his tie.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to respond to that.”

“You’re practically his right arm. This separation, whatever its cause, is doing both of you more harm than good. I don’t want to push you darling, because that isn’t fair - but just think about everything I’ve said, alright?”

He stares at you expectantly, brows raised in questioning.

“Alright.”

The grin on his face is almost blinding, beaming out in all directions.

“Now, you look too beautiful to stand on the fringes. I will dance with you all night if I have to, if it means showing off this stunning dress of yours.”

“So charming,” you smile, shaking your head. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse, isn’t it?”

“You’d be stupid to,” he winks, still grinning like the devil.

You let him lead you further into the middle of the dance floor, chuckling as he spins you as you go. Your hand has just slipped into Rupert’s once more when you’re both startled by a crash coming from the other side of the room.

The two of you whip your heads around towards the source of the commotion, to see two men in undoubtedly expensive suits brawling with each other. One of them is throwing punches while the other can do nothing but take them, merciless at his opponents hands. Some people are shouting and screaming, trying to physically separate them, while others turn a complete blind eye to the ruckus.

“Fuck,” Rupert mutters, grabbing your hand and dragging you towards the scene.

You’re about to ask what the hell he’s doing when you’re pushed forwards and given a clearer view of what’s in front of you, understanding Rupert’s panic immediately.

Ginger is on the floor. Declan is standing above him with bloody knuckles.

“Fuck,” you repeat.

You want to run in the other direction, desperate to not be involved with the drama. And then you look at Declan - the way he’s falling apart at the seams, nerves ruined and adrenaline rushing through his veins, clearly on the edge of something awful… and all of a sudden you’re walking towards the brawl, logic be damned.

There’s so much noise surrounding you that you can’t hear yourself think. All you can hear is the blood rushing in your ears and your heart pounding against your ribcage in your sudden determination to get to the Irishman.

You’re yelling his name without even realising you’re doing it, shouting at the top of your lungs to fight over the commotion.

“Declan! Oh for fuck sake… Declan!”

Your voice somehow breaks through the noise like a sirens call, the familiar melody of it finding his ears like his favourite song. His eyes finally meet yours, and the rest of the room melts away.

You have a conversation without saying anything, so many words exchanged in such a short amount of time. The two of you have always been good at this - communicating in your own language, silently and easily.

You grab his injured hand and intertwine your fingers with his, pulling him away from the scene of the crime with determination. You cast a look back to Ginger, who remains on the floor with blood dripping from his nose, before dragging Declan through the crowd and towards the front door of the huge Manor House. You can hear Rupert trying to mitigate the situation as you leave, using his charm as he does best.

You make your way outside, yanking the man behind you in your path without so much of a glance backwards. You trudge through the gardens in your heels, ignoring the way the dewy grass brushes across the tops of your feet occasionally. Finally, after walking for what feels like hours but was actually mere minutes, you come across a bench, sheltered by an old stone wall and neatly trimmed hedges.

You shove him to sit down, still refusing to look him in the eye. Neither of you say anything, the evening breeze and two sets of lungs heaving all that can be heard.

“What happened?” you whisper eventually, reluctant to disturb the peace. “Who started it?”

Declan looks surprised that you’re speaking to him, failing to hide the shock on his face.

“Will ya sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

“You’re not the boss of me anymore, remember?” you half joke, sitting down anyway.

“Funny,” he says, completely deadpan. He looks at you carefully for a long moment, before continuing. “It was Ginger, obviously. I wouldn’t waste my time with him otherwise.”

“What did he say?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Matters to me.”

“Well it shouldn’t.”

“Right.”

You stare at your shoes, wondering why you even bothered to rescue him back in the ballroom.

“Fuck this, then,” you mutter as you stand up to leave.

A hand wraps around your wrist as quick as a flash, pulling you back to sit down where you were.

“No. You don’t get to just walk away from me, not again.”

“Tell me what Ginger said.”

“Tell me why you quit workin’ for me.”

“I already did.”

“Liar. You gave me a poor excuse that’s absolute bollocks. I don’t believe it for a second.”

“That’s your problem, then.”

“Yes, it is.”

You stare at him, completely exasperated by the events of the last hour.

“You can’t just punch people at galas, Declan. It’s a bad look for you, for Venturer, and for every member of staff that relies on you.”

“I know.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

He scrubs his hand over his face, clearly frustrated with both you and the situation at hand.

“He made some horrible comment about you. I fell right into his trap too, like a bull and a fuckin’ red scarf.”

“What did he say?”

He hesitates for a moment.

“Just… something crude about you sleepin’ with me to get to where you are. Called me a cradle snatcher, too.”

“You can’t be a cradle snatcher if I’m a grown woman.”

“Exactly. And it’s not true, anyway. We all know that.”

“So why did you hit him, then? If we all know it’s not true?”

Declan sighs, fatigue painting the sound.

“Because no one gets to speak about you like that with no consequence. And because I was angry.”

“At me.”

“At you. Yes.”

You fiddle with your fingers, entirely unprepared for the fact that you’re about to have the one conversation you’ve been completely avoiding.

“I never meant for any of this to happen,” you begin. “I’m sorry that it’s come to this.”

“Then what did you mean to happen, Lucky? Did you think that you could just up and quit with absolutely no warning, without a problem? That I’d just let you walk out? Did ya think I’d help you pack your things?”

“Obviously not,” you whisper. “I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re not. Which is why I know that you thought about that decision long and hard. And that’s what I can’t seem to wrap my head around.”

“It wasn’t easy.”

He looks at you with pleading eyes, clearly desperate to resolve the issues between you.

“Please, Lucky.”

His voice is cracking just like his heart, breaking down the middle to allow all of his emotions to spill out onto the grass. You’ve never heard him sound like this. You hate it.

“I had to, Declan. For both of our sakes.”

“For fuck sake, can you cut it out?” he snaps, volume raising.

“Cut what out?”

“Speaking in these fucking riddles! I can’t even pretend that I have any idea what you’re talkin’ about. Please, whatever it is, however terrible you think it is… I just need you to say it. We’ll deal with the consequences. But I can’t keep goin’ around in circles, dancing around the subject constantly.”

You take a deep breath, bottom lip wobbling as you will yourself not to cry. You’re well and truly at the end of your tether, unsure of how much more you can take - or how much you want to. Deciding to throw caution into the wind, you exhale carefully before turning to face the man next to you.

“You’ll hate me. When I tell you.”

“I could never hate you. Never, Lucky.”

You get lost in your own head for a moment, staring off into space as you debate the best way to go about this. A large hand finds its way into your knee, comforting and grounding. His thumb rubs patterns into your skin where the slit of your dress is, warming you up from the outside in.

“I thought about it for a long time,” you begin. “A long time. Because being your assistant is the best job I have ever had, or will ever have. It was a dream, Declan. Even when we had a tough day, or week, or month, I always knew we’d be okay.”

He nods, his full attention on you.

“We were comfortable, me and you. Maybe a little too comfortable for a boss and his assistant, but in a good way, I think. I was settled, with you.”

He squeezes your thigh, urging you to continue.

“But then, I think we got too settled. People started to notice - which doesn’t matter, but they did nonetheless. I was sleeping over at your house, staying awake with you until the early hours, attending galas and events as your date. And I wasn’t sure what it was - the thing that was bothering me - until one day, it clicked.”

“Lucky…” he whispers, desperate for you to spit it out.

“I’m in love with you.”

The two of you sit the silence for a moment, listening to the breeze softly whip around you.

“That’s what clicked. And that’s why I quit. Because it felt like a conflict of interest, like a… betrayal.”

“A betrayal?”

“Yes. Like I was taking advantage, or something. And I didn’t think it was fair, for you, having me pining over you at work. I didn’t want you to feel pity for me, if you noticed eventually - I hated the idea of being treated differently by you, all through fault of my own. So I quit to get ahead of it.”

“Are ya done?”

“I, uh… yes?”

“Great.”

Declan surges forward, smashing his lips to yours with the most passion than you’ve ever experienced in your life. One of his hands tangles in your hair as the other cradles your face, pulling you as close as he physically can. His tongue slips into your mouth cheekily, allowing you to taste whiskey, cigarettes and the cool night air. Eventually, when you both need to breathe, he pulls away reluctantly, resting his forehead on yours.

“Did you do that to make me shut up?” you murmur, fighting to keep the smile off your face.

“Yes and no.”

He’s grinning like the devil, chuckling as the palms of his hands find your cheeks.

“Yes and no?”

“Yes and no. I took the action needed to stop you rambling. But I’ve been thinking about doing that for a long time.”

“… What?”

“Why do you think we got so comfortable, Lucky? It works two ways. You were just the only one brave enough to make a change - even if it was the completely wrong thing to do.”

“So you don’t hate me?”

“The opposite,” he laughs. “I can’t remember when it happened. I woke up one day and I just knew. And I knew that you’d never feel the same way, but I love being around you so much that I was willing to make that sacrifice. So I was a coward, and I stayed silent.”

“We’ve made this complicated. Too complicated.”

“Much too complicated.”

“But… it is. You were my boss, and you’re older than me, and I’m good friends with Taggie now, and-”

Declan kisses you again, sweeter this time.

“We can figure it out, Lucky. You know we can.”

“Maybe,” you whisper.

“And I want you to come back to work.”

“Declan-”

“I’m serious. I cannot cope without you. I will never find an assistant as good as you, and quite frankly, I don’t want to. I want you. No one else.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a conflict of interest, like I said earlier.”

“But it isn’t. Not anymore. Before all of this, we were two people in love working together. And when you come back, we’ll be two people in love working together.”

You can’t find it in you to argue, realising that he’s actually making a good point. If anything, it should be easier now that you’ve both communicated your feelings - no more skeletons in the closet.

“Tell me you don’t miss it,” he provokes. “Tell me you’re not even remotely tempted to come back.”

“I can’t.”

“Exactly.”

You take a deep breath, moving the hair away from his eyes tenderly.

“I’ll think about it, alright? I’ll have a think when I go home.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He smiles like the cat that’s got the cream, entirely too satisfied with the outcome of this conversation.

“I know we’re in uncharted territory here, Lucky. But we can figure it out. You know we can.”

“I know. It’ll be hard, but… I know.”

You lean up to kiss him softly, sighing as your eyes drift closed. He winds a hand around the back of your neck, deepening the kiss as he pulls you closer, trying to plaster every inch of his body to yours.

You lose yourself in everything Declan - the way he tastes, the way he smells, the way he feels underneath your fingertips. You want to strip him bare right here and memorise every curve of his muscles, every line in his skin, every mark on his face.

His hand slips further and further up the slit of your dress, gripping at your thigh as if he’s worried you’ll slip away. You’re half in his lap, draped over him on the bench as he still pulls you impossibly closer.

“I’ve dreamt of this,” he whispers against your throat. “Every. Single. Night.”

He kisses his way along your neck, revelling in the way you squirm at the feeling of his moustache on your skin. You grab fistfuls of his white shirt, crumpling it in your hands to try and give yourself some sort of anchor.

When Declan’s fingertips slip into your underwear, all you can do is sigh, resigned to the fact that you’d let him do absolutely anything he wanted in this current moment.

“We’re in public,” you protest weakly, both of you knowing you don’t want him to stop.

“We’re at the bottom of the garden, surrounded by three hedges and a wall. If anyone sees, that’s their fault.”

You drop your head forward onto his shoulder, parting your legs to give him a better angle. He sucks in a sharp breath when he feels just how aroused you are, practically vibrating with want.

“Are ya this wet f’me?”

You nod against his shirt, not trusting your voice.

“Oh, sweetheart. Well I can’t leave you like this, can I? That’d be cruel.”

He pulls your underwear to the side fully so he can slip a finger into you with ease, both of you groaning at the sensation. Sliding a second one in, you hold onto him for dear life, panting like you’ve run a marathon.

“Please,” you whisper. “Declan, please.”

“I’ll do anything to hear you say my name like that again, Lucky. Anything in the world.”

“Declan.”

He sets a steady pace, crooking his fingers as he goes to make sure you see stars. Your eyes are rolling back, lip caught between your teeth to stifle any sounds that threaten to escape.

“God, I wish I could hear how pretty you sound,” he groans, looking at you intently. “You can make as much noise as you want when I take you home. Promise.”

You whimper softly, bucking your hips up to meet his rhythm. The bench is cold underneath you, the air turning chilly, but neither of you pay any mind to it. You’re too far gone to care.

You grab Declan’s other hand and stick two of his fingers in your mouth, laving your tongue around them to keep you quiet. He moans at the sight, all deep and rumbled, the sound reverberating through both of you.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.”

All you can do is look at him with big, bright eyes, pleading with him silently to finish the job at hand.

“You want me to make you come, sweetheart? That it?”

When you nod, he picks up the pace of his fingers, thumb pressing circles into your clit.

“Have ya thought about this? In bed, alone, getting yourself off in the dark?”

You whine at his words, nodding your head in answer.

“That’s a good girl. Come for me, sweetheart. Come for me and I’ll take you home and fuck you properly, yeah?”

You see stars as you climax, gripping onto his shirt and his hand for dear life. He works you through it, murmuring filthy promises into your ear as he does it.

Lifting his fingers from between your thighs, he pops them straight into his mouth, both of you groaning in unison.

“Fuck, you taste good,” he murmurs against your lips, leaning in to kiss you softly. “Perfect girl.”

You shuffle sideways so you’re pressed into Declan’s side, two strong arms encircling you immediately.

“Thank you.”

“For the orgasm?”

“Yes and no,” you laugh. “For listening to me. I’ve been going insane trying to think about what I’d say to you if I got the chance to explain myself, but no words seemed to suffice.”

“I just wish you’d talked to me sooner, sweetheart. I’ve been going insane trying to get through life without you. Not to mention that office is chaos.”

You laugh gently, cuddling into him and his warmth.

“I’ll fix it on Monday.”

“Yeah? For definite?” he asks, hope colouring his voice.

“Yeah. Like I said - best job I’ve ever had.”

“You’ve just made me the happiest man alive, sweetheart.”

You grin as you lean in to press a kiss to his lips, all soft and sugary sweet.

“Besides. Someone’s going to have to sort out the inevitable mess that’ll follow you hitting Ginger at a charity gala.”

“Ah, I forgot about that,” he laughs, planting a kiss into your hair. “What would I do without ya, hmm?”

“You’ll never have to find out,” you smile, resting your head onto his shoulder. “Never again.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

You sit on the bench for a little while longer, both of you looking up at the stars that paint the sky in a canopy above your heads. You’re quite convinced you could stay like this forever, just the two of you in your own little universe.

There’s paperwork to be done, meetings to be had, deals to be made. But all of that can wait.

Right now, it’s just you and Declan.

The way it should be.

reblogs are gold dust, lovers!! reblog and circulate your favourite fics, and your writers will create more. simple. <3

[rafesbuzzcutseason]

chasing city lights

chapter 4 - you're here?

synopsis: you move to new york to start fresh, hoping to find comfort in the city’s atmosphere. that’s when you meet sarah cameron, where she takes you to a concert and you catch sight of the lead band member, rafe cameron. it only takes a moment for you to realize you’re captivated by him. as sarah helps you navigate your new life in the city, you start to get pulled deeper into rafe's world—the music, the fame, the chaos. the more you get to know him, the more you realise that rafe is not just the rock star he seems to be. he’s wrestling with his own demons, and the last thing he needs is someone like you getting close.

masterlist

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ ☾. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

your first few weeks in new york had been a whirlwind of events, meeting a ton of new people who you now consider your best friends. sarah letting you into her life, taking you everywhere with her and showing you nothing but love.

you were yet to see rafe again, as city lights were still touring around america, and any thoughts you were having of him started to slip away realising it was unrealistic and the way he acted with you might just be him.

however they had a show in philadelphia tonight, so you kie and your new friend cleo (who you couldn't believe was part of your life now) were going to take a road trip to go see them perform tonight.

you were all at sarah's, getting ready to leave for the weekend trip, doing your hair and makeup as as soon as you'd get there the concert was going to begin.

"i can't believe this is one of their last stops on this tour" kie states.

"yea me neither, and the fact this is my first time seeing them? i wish pope was here as well. he misses jj so much" cleo replies.

"not our fault you're all booked and busy! little miss it couple" sarah giggles.

"whatever whatever" cleo laughs back. "just happy to have a weekend off to spend with my girls"

the bond you guys had all created in such a short time was something special, something you had never experienced at home. you had your close friends, you had cara, but nothing like this.

once you were all ready, you got into sarah's car and began the 2 hour drive to your hotel, excited for the weekend ahead.

after a fun drive filled with karaoke and laughter, you made it to the hotel with little time to spare to make it to the venue.

you piled out with your bags and made your way to your rooms, you sharing with sarah and kie with cleo.

in a rush of last minute touch ups and outfit changes, you made your short walk to the venue and came in through the back entrance, thanks to sarah.

the show was starting in 20 minutes, so you had just enough time to say hi to the boys and wish them luck.

sarah leading you to their dressing rooms, you knocked on the door and got welcomed by a smiling jj, bringing you all in for a big hug.

"cleo you made it!! i feel like i haven't seen you in forever. where's pope then?" he asked

"this was a girls only weekend jj come on" cleo smacked him playfully.

top popped his head round and said hello to you all, his glance lingering on to you for a little longer than usual, until rafe appeared and topper moved away, hiding his gaze.

"i didn't know you were coming tonight" rafe quizzed, aiming the question to just you.

"well here we are" you replied "wanted to surprise you" the eye contact between you too was intense, charged with unspoken emotion.

"well then i'll have to make tonight extra special" he grinned.

"ok.. anyway we better get to our seats. good luck tonight guys" sarah cut in.

"yea good luck! you're gonna smash it" kie chirped in.

"see you after?" jj questioned.

"of course bro we gotta catch up" cleo replied.

you all head out the door, turning around to say goodbye, rafe remained silent, his eyes never leaving you.

your heart was beating in anticipation for tonight, telling yourself it was because you were excited for the show, but knowing it was truly because of the way rafe was looking at you.

✧˖ °. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁‧₊˚ ☾. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁˖°✧

a/n: sorry it took me so long to get this out😖 work got so busy and i had no time to write but here is chapter 4 finally!! it's a bit of a filler chapter but big things coming SOON

taglist: @hoefordrewstarkey @marleymarleymarleymarley @bee-43 @cherryhoneybabe @skye-44 @drewrry @drewrry  @yesterdaysproblemm @pogueprincesa @dylsdaily @rafeysworldim19

reposts, comments and likes are so appreciated<3

[utopiastri]

Put That Guy in a SituationTM - look something about Landoscar in a 20/32 type situation has me hooked….trying to not let others on to their predicament, maybe it’s a bit embarrassing how it happened 🤔

hi anon!!! thank you for the prompt! i went a smidge away from my usual cutesy fluff for this one - your suggestion of embarrassment really sparked something in my brain, even if i took it in a slightly different direction. i hope you enjoy!!!

(prompt list here)

“Look, we just gotta act natural,” Lando says.

Or, well, Lando-as-Oscar says, because it sounds like Oscar’s voice and it’s Oscar’s mouth that’s moving, but it’s Lando that’s actually saying the words and–

Lando-in-Oscar’s-body huffs. “You’re having a crisis again aren’t you?”

“You know it’s weirder of you to be 100% ok with this.”

“It’s a body swap curse, mate, it’s not rocket science.”

Oscar runs a hand through his hair and cringes at the uncanny feeling of there being someone else’s hair on top of his head. “I understand the concept, Lando, what I’m struggling with is everything else related to it like, I don't know, how the fuck this happened."

“I don’t know. Do you reckon we need to have sex to break the curse?”

“What?” Oscar squawks, “Why would we need to have sex to break the curse?”

Lando flushes. “I dunno. Just felt like the right solution.”

“Based on what?”

Lando mumbles something about seeing it online once and Oscar chooses to ask no more follow-up questions lest Lando tells him he learnt about it from some random porn he watched once. He heaves a sigh.

“Listen, like you said, we should just act normal. This whole thing is,” Oscar pauses to search for the right word, “Strange. And I’d really rather not bring anyone else into it to begin with.”

“Agreed,” Lando says before adding, “Hey, if we’re still like this for the race tomorrow and I win but in your body, does that mean you get the points?” Oscar glares at him and Lando pouts. “It’s a genuine question!” he whines.

Oscar’s about to point out they have bigger things to focus on than the effects of this on a race when Jon sticks his head into the room.

“Debrief in five, guys.”

“Sounds good, mate,” Lando says, in an accent no human being has ever used before.

Jon blinks at him. He turns to look at Oscar. Or, rather, he turns to look at Oscar who he thinks is Lando. Oscar smiles weakly.

“He’s, uh, trying to do an impression of me doing an Australian impression," Oscar lies, hoping it sounds vaguely believable.

“Oi!” Lando says, “My Australian accent’s mint.”

“Yes, Oscar,” Oscar says pointedly, “Your Australian accent would be mint because you are from Australia.”

Lando's eyes light up in realisation and he starts nodding furiously. “Right, yep, what he said, exactly.”

Jon blinks at both of them this time. He sighs.

“If you two are doing roleplay, I don’t want to hear about it.” Lando and Oscar both start spluttering, but Jon keeps on talking over both of them. “Just be on time for debrief.”

With Jon gone, Oscar breathes a sigh of relief. Or he starts to, until Lando pipes up.

“I still reckon us having sex will fix it.”

Oscar reminds himself that if he kills Lando right now, he’s possibly going to do irreparable damage to his own body.

The thought’s still tempting.

“Is there a particular reason you’re so desperate to have sex with yourself?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

Lando clearly wasn't expecting that question because he freezes. Oscar’s always hated how easily he flushes but right now, watching it brutally incriminate Lando, he can’t help but be grateful for it.

“I’m not fucking desperate to have sex with myself.” He doesn't sound like he's lying, but the blush on his face suggests he's not telling the whole truth.

Maybe…

His eyebrows raise. “So you’re only desperate to have sex with me then?”

Lando looks up at Oscar, eyes wide. He swallows.

Got you, Oscar thinks to himself.

[sergeantbarnessdoll]

Hi!! I was hoping I could request a fic where the reader is clumsy as fuck.

And when Bucky and reader go on their first date, he notices bruises scattered over the reader and gets worried that someone in their life is hurting them. Which reader insist, "no I'm safe I'm just clumsy as shit" which he's heard too many times before so he remains unsure.

BUT as the dates go on, he begins to realise just how honest they were being. Hes constantly having to stop the reader from walking into poles and tables, he's catching things before they can hit the ground (including the reader), and when they come home he kisses all their bruises or marks.

And when they finally are becoming more intimate, he's scared of bruising/ hurting the reader and they have to convince him that they aren't made of glass and to just go for it.

Not Made Of Glass » Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Summary: Bucky gets worried when sees bruises on you and you assure him that you’re just clumsy.

Warnings: Fluff, tiny bit of implied Smut (18+), language, clumsy!reader, bruises (not abuse), kissing, pet names

A/N: Thank you for the request, nonnie🩵

Written on my phone. My apologies for any mistakes.

Header made by @buck-star

GIF IS NOT MINE! Gif credit goes to the creator.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!🔞

You and Bucky are on yours and his first date. As you were telling him about yourself, Bucky couldn’t help but notice that you have a couple bruises on your arm and one on your shoulder. It worried him. He’s starting to think that someone gave you those bruises.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you.” Bucky apologizes politely. “How did you get those bruises?” He asks curiously.

“Oh, those? My friend’s son was trying to teach me how to skateboard, but I ended up falling and that’s how I got these.” You explained.

The thought of someone abusing you lingered in his mind.

“Are you sure?” He asks.

“Of course I am.” You replied.

“Is someone hurting you, doll?” He asks, keeping his voice low so no one heard him.

“No, I’m safe. I’m just clumsy as shit.” You say with an assuring smile.

Bucky smiles back. He still couldn’t help but let that suspicion linger around in his mind. He’s heard that one too many times.

“The only reason why I asked is because I want to make sure you’re safe.” He says softly.

“You’re sweet to care and worry, Bucky.” You smiled. “Those are my two favorite qualities I like in a man.” You say, sipping your drink.

“If someone is hurting you, I’d make sure that won’t happen ever again.” He says.

You knew what he meant when he said that. You also know he said it to protect you. That’s another quality you like in a man. You and Bucky are going to get along just fine.

You invited Bucky out for coffee the following morning. You walked in the coffee shop, smiling when you saw Bucky. You were so happy to see Bucky again that you didn’t notice the chair next to you and you ran into it. Bucky looked up from the newspaper he was reading to see you moving a chair out of your way.

“Are you ok?” Bucky asks.

“Yes. I just didn’t see the chair.” You say with a small giggle.

You gave Bucky a kiss on his cheek before ordering coffee and sat down at the table across from him. You crossed your leg over the other. Bucky found another bruise, but this time, on your shin. It’s a little bit bigger compared to the ones on your arm and shoulder.

“What happened to your leg?” Bucky asks, pointing at the bruise on your shin.

“I walked into a tow hitch on a pickup truck a couple days ago.” You tell him honestly.

The suspicion of something abusing you is still on his mind, but he also believes your honesty. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious and suspicious of something, right?

A few days later, Bucky asked you out on another date. He went over to your house to pick you up. You invited him inside while you finished up getting ready. Bucky looked around your house, admiring the pictures and decorations.

“I’m ready!” You announced with a smile.

Bucky smiles, admiring your beauty and outfit. He winces to himself as you walked into the doorframe, hitting your arm on it as you were walking out of your bedroom.

That looked like it hurt.” Bucky says.

“Only a little bit, but I’m ok.” You say.

“May I?” He asks softly.

You nodded. Bucky gently lifted your arm up to his lips, kissing the red mark that will soon be a bruise on the side of your arm. You couldn’t help but blush when he did that.

“You’re really sweet, you know that?” You say with a smile.

“I care about you is all, doll.” He says softly.

“I care about you too, Bucky.” You say in almost a whisper.

Bucky gently caressed your cheek and kissed you softly and sweetly. You put your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. You’ve never been this mind blown by a kiss in your life.

“Woah…” You say, completely speechless when he pulled away.

Bucky smiles at the speechless expression on your face.

“You ready to go?” He asks softly.

“More than ready.” You answered with a smile.

When you and Bucky got to the restaurant, he’s starting to realize that you’re right about being a clumsy person. You almost walked into a table and he gently moved you away from it so you didn’t give yourself another bruise.

“Careful, doll.” Bucky whispers.

“I am being careful.” You say softly, kissing his cheek.

Over the next few weeks, you and Bucky went on dates every weekend. In those weeks, Bucky has been moving you away from things like tables or poles before you walked into them so you didn’t hurt yourself. Today, Bucky tagged along with you while you ran errands. Bucky swore he ages 10 years every time you run into something or almost run into something.

“Wanna get coffee?” You asked, pointing at the coffee shop across the street.

“Sure.” Bucky answers.

You and Bucky looked both ways before crossing the street. When you guys got to the other side of the street, you tripped over the curb and Bucky caught you before you fell.

“Are you ok, doll?” He asks softly.

“I am now.” You smiled up at him.

You guys went inside of the coffee shop. You somehow tripped over your own feet. Bucky grabbed your arm before you fell.

“I think it’s time to go home.” He says.

“But I want coffee.” You pouted.

You pouting is one of Bucky’s many weaknesses. He can’t say no to you when you pout.

“Ok, fine.” He gives in.

You squeaked softly and kissed his cheek. To keep you from running into anything, Bucky put his hands on your waist and guided you to the counter to order coffee. You two got coffee and then went home.

“You know what to do, doll.” Bucky says.

Bucky now kisses every bruise you get. You took your -Bucky’s- sweatshirt off and rolled your pant legs up, revealing the few bruises you got over the past couple days. You smiled as you watched him kiss each bruise on your arms softly. You then sat down on the couch and he crouched down in front of you and kissed the couple bruises you have on your legs and one on your knee.

“I love how much you care about me.” You say softly, running your fingers through his hair.

“It’s part of my job as your boyfriend to care about you, doll.” Bucky says, sitting down next to you on the couch.

“You want to be my boyfriend?” You asked.

“Only if you want to be my girlfriend.” He says.

“I want nothing more than to be your girlfriend, Bucky.” You say with a smile.

Bucky smiles and kisses you. The kiss got heated quickly. You two fell back against the couch. He put his weight on his forearms so he didn’t crush you. You wrapped your legs around his waist to pull him closer to you.

“You know, I don’t mind if you lay on top of me.” You say.

“I know. I just don’t want to hurt you in any way.” He says.

“You can never hurt me, baby.” You almost whispered, running your fingers through his hair.

“I just want to be cautious.” He says.

“I’m not made of glass, you know.” You say.

“I know.” He mumbles softly. “I love you so much and don’t like seeing you get hurt.” He says.

“I love you too.” You pecked his lips softly. “I won’t mind if you’re a little bit rough with me in the bedroom.” You say seductively.

Bucky leans his forehead against your shoulder and groans softly, dirty thought flowing into his mind.

“There’s safe words for a reason, baby.” You whispered in his ear.

A shiver went down his spine when you kissed just below his ear, a soft moan leaving his lips.

“Fuck…” Bucky moans softly.

Bucky stood up and picked you up, carrying you to the bedroom. An excited squeal left your lips. He gently laid you down on the bed and got on top of you.

“You’ll use a safe word if I’m too rough on you?” He asks just to be sure, rubbing the tops of your thighs.

“Yes.” You answered with a smile.

“You’re in for a long night, babydoll.” He almost whispers.

“Bring it on, baby.” You say softly, bitting your bottom lip.

🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

-Bucky’s Doll

[fun-k-board]

Happy New Year!! 🎉

If it's alright, could I request Loki Headcanons about a Shy Lover or Secret Admirer? I imagine something like that wouldn't stay secret for long, knowing Loki, but I love the idea of the Lover in question being flustered beyond belief at being found out 💕

MARVEL RIVALS - LOKI LAUFEYSON With a Shy Secret Admirer Headcanons!

Note(s): I'm sorry this came out a bit late, college stressed me out so bad my body and mind did a factory reset. I'll be trying to finish the rest of my requests weekly.

"Oh?" Loki's eyes are light, something unusual for the trickster. Almost eager, they flick between you and the paper that's held loosely in his hand, the usual hint of amusement in his upturned lips. "You wrote these? Well, I can't say I'm not flattered, but you are aware I've been courting you for quite some time, yes?"

You and Loki would most likely know each other prior to you becoming his secret admirer, after all, he is a bit of a flirt and you're most likely one of many that he's charmed over the years. But, for him to accept your proposal, which is how I intend to write this as to avoid angst, he would need to reciprocate your feelings. In short, he'd probably be actively courting you while you do this.

It'd mostly be insignificant things, not killing you, maybe paying you a compliment every now and then, and maybe, just maybe, if he's feeling generous he'll find it in his heart to give you a gift. Typically it's jewellery, something that reflects him, gold with green jewels are his favourite. Necklaces are a no brainer, they're so easy to spot, and it's so easy to tell who it's from, too (You'll be lucky if he doesn't engrave his name on the damn thing).

Of course, he loves to tease you. It's so fun to see you squirm and try to hide away, even if he can't see the effect of the blood rushing there, he likes to hold a hand to your face every now and then to see if it's hot. One of his favourites is to whisper plans of mischief, and maybe try and get you to tag along in his next prank or attempt to steal the throne, it depends on his mood, really.

Infuriatingly, however, you don't seem to pick up on his obvious flirtations. He immediately decides that's an issue on your part, but he'll indulge you and give an extra flirty, witty remark every now and then. Wait- you're still not- oh you frustrate him endlessly! He's got half a mind to smite you, you know!

The thing is, Loki enjoys a good mystery and a thrilling hunt, but what he wants most of all is to be adored, worshiped, have thousands at his feet begging and pleading just for him to spare them a glance. So, when he starts getting little trinkets wrapped in bows, with papers written full of heartfelt devotion... Well, how can a God refuse such wonderful praise?

It's around that time of annoyance and pining, his stubbornness refusing to allow him to confess first, you must make the first move as it's obviously you who is obsessed with him, that he actually begins to receive your gifts. In such random places too, sometimes even tucked in the pocket of his clothes! Not that he doesn't admire the bravery to do such a thing.

At first he doesn't really look deep into it, he's content to find the very obviously placed gifts and doesn't care much for where they're found. As long as he's getting the attention he rightfully deserves, he doesn't care who it's from. Why should he need to know who loves him when he's being loved either way?

But, when he does want to find out this secret admirer's identity, perhaps in a ploy to make you jealous and confess, it's when he realises that it's you. The handwriting, the way of speaking, grammar, punctuation, and the nail in the coffin is when he catches you placing a note in his quarters while invisible.

This works out brilliantly.

Not only does it confirm in Loki's mind that you're utterly infatuated and obsessed with him, but it makes him believe that you were secretly aware of his courting all along. That you, given your shy nature, had done this to play into his trickster personality. He can't say he isn't impressed by your wits! (Someone please get him a reality check...)

Naturally, Loki plans something sweet yet embarrassing for his your confession, and despite his want for love and attention, he supposes that he'll make it a private affair. After all, he does want you to admit your love for him and giving you a panic attack would probably only drive you away.

The gardens are certainly beautiful this time of day, not bright enough to burn your eyes but not dark enough so you can't see, it's perfect. Not to mention quiet. Many people prefer to admire the gardens after their meals, either in the morning or in the night, but strangely never the evening, which leaves you by yourself. It's peaceful.

Yet the peace, as usual, is interrupted by a certain prince.

You turn around when you hear your name being called, your brows shooting upwards when you realise it's Loki. What could he need? Is he planning another prank? No matter, either way you're clearly involved. So, you wave a friendly hand and hope that you can ignore the sickly butterflies in your stomach that flutter harder when the sound of his shoes click closer and closer towards you.

"I want to speak with you." Loki hums, coming to a halt only a meter away from you.

You ask what he wants to speak with you about and he searches in his pocket for a moment until he finds a small piece of paper, holding it out in his palm almost like an offering. It looks familiar. Hesitant, you feel your fingers pinch a corner and take it for yourself, dread setting in your stomach as you realise. He figured it out.

When you look up sharply to explain, his face is inches from yours. The action causes your cheeks to get unbelievably hot, and even if the blood rushing to your face isn't visible, Loki knows you, he knows your tells. "I admire your worship, darling." He whispers, eyes narrowing as a sly grin grows on his lips. "But I would prefer it to be in person."

[backfromtwitterforw]

The question of "is tr!bad manipulating tr!ros" is very interesting because it can be summed up in what do you call "manipulation".

E.g are your friends manipulating you when they try to prevent you from going back with your ex? Or when they encourage you to pursue a goal they think would benefit you? And is that manipulation if they try to show you why something you did is bad in their eyes? Or if they push you in what they think is the right way for you? Where do you draw the line between advice and manipulation?

On one side, tr!Bad did encourage tr!Ros to kill and/or let the violent part of herself out more. And yes, he emphasised her insecurities, trying to make her think about how The Kingdom has been treating her. That can legitimately be seen as tr!Bad trying to manipulate tr!Ros.

On the other side, even without tr!Bad's intervention, she would've still have a violent side in her (as everyone does I believe). She did feel underappreciated and believe herself less worthy than other Kingdom's member. Her insecurities and her will to change things were really her own from the start.

!Bad lived for so long and had his heart broken so many times that he reached the conclusion that he should now do his own thing, rely on himslef only and keep everyone at arm's reach. When facing an unhappy tr!Ros who only see value through other's eyes, he jumps to the conclusion that what she needs is what worked for him: find self value and self happiness regardless of what others want. So that is what he tells her when she came to him for advice, to get motivation from herself. And all tr!Bad said was "what do YOU want".

Ofc, tr!Bad has his own agenda that we don't know much of yet, but after tr!Ros vague answer that she wants to protect the Kingdom and make everyone happy, tr!Bad just encourage her in that way.

And then, you have tr!Aimsey and Kingdom's members. They see tr!Ros who appeared calm getting more and more into combat training, trap building and revenge scheme. They don't understand why she still crave validation when they do their best to make her feel appreciated and that she belongs. So they try to make her realise that the path she's taking isn't what they consider the right one, that the feeling she has may be just that, a feeling with no evidence to support it.

So, who is manipulating tr!Ros here? Is tr!Bad the villain for validating her feelings and pushing her to be more self centered? Is tr!Aimsey and the Kindgom's members bad for trying to talk her out of a way they think dangerous?

My answer would be that none of them are actively manipulative. Each have their own view on life, friendship, loyalty and happiness. Each genuinely give the best advice they can with the biaised view they have. And it's up to tr!Ros to decide who she wants to listen to.

[deus-ex-mona]

up next on chapter 36 of idol sengen… _(:3 」∠)_

[dkettchen]

I just think we need more women who are actively trying to be edgy and problematic despite not actually being problematic, I think that'd be great for feminism actually

[dirt-str1der]

Quivering and hooking my fingers into my mouth and biting down hard on them sobbing because the anime

[reidhalstead]

He stares at her for too long A man lost at sea, searching for the speck on the horizon that might have him sailing towards land. He can't let Nisha be his lighthouse, but god, he's seen only her and her moments of light in the past months that he's beginning not to care. Stubborn hasn't gotten him fed, pride hasn't freed him from the binds. He's fighting, knowing it'll earn him more quiet; more time with the voices in his head, taunting him for always losing against this beast. Telling him to eradicate the sensation of feeling, or emotion; to become cold; it's freeing too

To beat a creature like her, he has to become one. It's the only sane thought he thinks he's had in weeks. Because he's still not any more a man down here, even as the water laps at his skin, washing him of his time surviving the ocean; drowning a hundred times over, resurfacing as a pirate of lesser morals. The feeling of losing his mind fleets by his thoughts. She wouldn't allow him to die but she'd inform his sisters of his demise.

He hasn't got the strength to spit in her face, but he considers it.

She still speaks of them like it's okay; she's been using them as leverage since he's known her. It's her victory card, no matter what move or countercard Reid plays, she's got one better. He only wishes he could find a barrier between them and her so he can play a game of wits and not be inevitably put in checkmate every time.

"It must get boring." He mutters, "Watching them, so you can keep me compliant."

And after his face contorts in surprise, he twists to better look at her. There's hesitation when she agrees to leave a shackle off. He wonders what her angle for it is. And if anyone else, he'd have thanked her, with the briefest moment of relief. He moves his head, exposing his throat; wincing when she scrubs the debris from every part she could find. Reid finds that his muscles don't feel so taut, when clean of the clotted dirt that had built up. That, or he notices the blood she's fed him actually does something substantial in the way of relief.

"If I turned around and asked you now what the positives are, that I wanted all you offer, you'd not believe me." It's not even worth a lie. He can't picture Eleazar in his position, chained and begging for freedom or quiet and resilient and saying nothing to anger her captor. Reid doesn't know her history, or even what era she's parasitically survived the centuries from. But she's always been stronger; she beat him when he was at his best. There's no besting her when he's at his worst.

Maybe there's a different definition of that.

"What can I do to convince you to release me?" He hates that it's begging, but it's on the ground whilst she washes him, chained and still starving. "Tell me. I'll do it. You said it isn't a constant but you're making it difficult to believe. You're a liar." It's broken — his voice cracks behind old anger and pain. He feels less like a man, here. "I don't know what you want. But you can use your words and tell me." a beat, "I don't know where you came from — but I wouldn't do this to someone, I wouldn't even do this to a bloodsucker. You, whoever your sire is, you're the same breed of monster."

Reid's realising, he's desperate not to become the same.

"I'd inform them." Nisha muttered as she continued to wipe of the dirt and grime from his skin. She knew that she should have done this sooner -- kept him cleaner. But she'd thought leaving him here without the basics of what he'd need would break him sooner. That Reid would have realized quicker what this was. "Not that it would ever happen. I wouldn't allow it." Dying was not on the agenda for either of them. Now or ever. Of course, mistakes and accidents could happen. But Nisha would protect Reid from anyone, especially himself. "I am not talking as if I know them personally. I don't. I know what they do. I know which one is an active hunter and which one isn't." Not that she had to explain herself. She didn't. "I've watched them. You've avoided them up until recently. It's as simple as that."

He knew her well enough to know that she was observant. That Nisha would use anyone and everyone to her advantage, if needed.

At his question, she nodded and then: "Yes. For now." Nisha then started humming softly as she continued to wipe off his skin. Up around his neck, his shoulders, and then down to his lower back. She knew that he wasn't strong enough to do damage to her but the chains had a purpose. To show him that he wasn't the one in control here. "That isn't the goal." She informed him. "I want you to be comfortable with the life I've given you. I don't necessarily care if you're happy -- although, that would be preferred. But I want you to adjust to it. I want you to see the positives to it. And, eventually, peacefulness could come, I suppose." Nisha shrugged her shoulders. "As much as I'm using some old tactics from my own sire, this is not going to be your constant like it was mine."

[hsslilly-blog]

source

[itsmistyeyedbi]

This might be a silly question but...do anyone of your detective's believe in fate? Why or why not? Did their view of it change after meeting Unit Bravo and experiencing the events of the twc books?

[freefallintothevoid]

Dick Grayson's unmatched success as a child vigilante makes a lot more sense when you remember the Court of Owls was a thing and that Dick was meant to be the next Grey Son.

There is no way that someone at Haly's Circus wasn't there keeping an eye on him while he grew up. A future weapon needs to be trained and monitored after all, and a circus, a place where weird skills are completely normal, is actually a great place to secretly train a child.

You know, just some knife tricks that translated really well into actual fighting. How to get out of restraints and pick locks while under a time limit. Death defying acrobatic stunts that coincidentally do wonders for parkouring. That sort of thing. Nothing that seems out of place for a boy growing up around circus performers to learn, but would literally any where else.

I mean, while I fully believe that most kids would want to kill the man responsible for their parents deaths, Dick was weirdly prepared to go through it. He tracked down Zucco with way more ease than any normal child should have too. He became the first child vigilante, for goodness sake. The first Robin! He only started getting formal training after he basically forced Bruce into it!

Bruce himself has no idea that this kind of competency in a child is unusual, considering he was much too blinded by the similarities between his and Dick's tragic orphanhoods.

Alfred is in a similar boat because he’s desensitized to weird children after he somehow managed to successfully raise Bruce 'The Batman' Wayne, so he doesn't clock the hyper-competency as abnormal either.

By the time the other batkids start popping up (Jason 'The Audacity' Todd, borderline-street rat with no fear) (Tim 'the greatest stalker in Gotham history' Drake, child genius, also bullied his way into becoming Robin) (Barbara 'raised by the only uncorrupt cop in gotham' Gordon) (Stephanie 'daddy issues and spite' Brown) (Duke 'Pretends he's the normal one and people believe him' Thomas) it's too late.

It would also explain how Dick got along so well with Damian out of all of them. Similar childhood with different approaches and all that. On some subconscious level, Dick recognises and resonates with the murderous ten year old assassin with strong familial ties to a secret elite assassin organization.

It isn't until after the whole Court of Owls and Grey Son reveal that suddenly Dick realises a whole lot of things about his childhood that suddenly make a lot more sense.

[archerstreet]

.