#dax thread.

[inkshadow]

try and gets ruined. what a terribly simple and fitting way to describe just about everything that encompasses dax and all he does. every step taken, every attempt at bettering himself, it all comes with an asterisk that serves as a warning that he'll never actually get anything good out of it. the only good thing that's ever really happened to him is standing before him and he made the stupid decision to break things off with her. "i don't want your money," he mumbles, shaking his head as he reaches over to roughly slide the money back towards her. it's not meant to spook her but the comment is adamant; he'll find his own way to recover from a tossed sandwich. dax finally pulls back, letting his hands drop to his side to watch her intently. shut the fuck up sits at the tip of his tongue, that urge to reject kindness again rearing its ugly head. but she's crying and sounds so genuine and he knows it's never easy to confront feelings for someone you shared so much of your life with. so what the hell is he to do? give in? give up? "you think i stopped caring about you, willow?" dax whispers as he moves closer, resisting the urge to wipe her tears away for her. he won't though, she's a big girl. she can do this. she's strong. and maybe one day, he won't be around to pick up the pieces so she'll have to continue doing it herself. "i broke up with you because i kept hurtin' you. it was fucked up. i didn't wanna keep doin' that to you but then every weekend, we're back together and i keep... keep doin' it, over and over again. — when are you gonna start seein' me as the bad guy? when are you gonna finally realize that maybe you shouldn't be the one to forgive me?"

" i try to. i try to forgive you and then it all just . . . " swallows thickly, face burning with embarrassment. " gets ruined. " they talk for too long. willow starts down that slippery slope where she can't stop telling him the precise things he doesn't want to hear. and then he says something that hurts enough to crack those rose colored lenses she looks through. probably shouldn't have done something she knew would upset him. tossing food away simply because she's lost her appetite. pauses, plate in her hand and eyes staring down at her shoes. she's pathetic enough to pick the sandwich out of the trash and eat it if it meant he'd care for her again. that's a problem, isn't it? that's not healthy. " i'm. . . " brows furrow as she places the plate back on the counter, other hand sliding into her back pocket. pulls out a wrinkled 20, one she likely would've tossed away on something useless. " sorry. here. " steps up, sliding the bill in his direction. still can't bring herself to look up at him. feels it'd be too long a gaze to break her once and for all. she'd cry in front of him and she really could do without that kind of embarrassment. even despite her wishes, peers up at him. i don't know what we are to each other. " i only know how i feel about you, " confesses in a soft whisper. " you broke up with me, but i never stopped — " brings both hands to her face, blinking tears away. lowers her hands, soft swipe under her eyes. " i'm trying to be friends, i'm trying to move on. " has to want it, though. and willow's been holding on to the hope that he'd see something in her again. " tell me to go, dax. just say you never want to see me again and i'll go. i won't bother you ever again. "

[bestiadentro]

Send my muse all your terrible puns.

@silver-blooded-synthetics said: "I think you're purrfect just as you are right meow." - from Errol to Stranger Things verse Alaire for the puns meme.

Alaire blinks, confused by the way Errol is speaking and not seeming to understand the puns. Though they're saying he's perfect as he is.. he can't help but to wonder if he's being made fun of somehow? But he also doesn't think Errol would make fun of him either.. So he's not quite sure what to think of it.

Oh. He's figured it out on his own. It's likely visible in his expression when it clicks. Though he still doesn't understand why they're doing it. "Why are you talking like that?" Alaire just comes out and asks. Why not?

[thefvrious]

@theknifeinyou said -> ❝ wait, did YOU say you wanted the last piece of pie in the fridge? 'cause i kinda just ate it ... ❞

Dax stared at his brother. He could see the crumbs from the pie around the corners of Dodger's mouth and shook his head, irritation creeping up his spine. But wasn't that what it was like to have siblings. "You little shite." He said, leaning forward to punch his brother playfully in the shoulder. "You owe me a piece of pie, then."

[inkshadow]

❝ me? i could never annoy you. besides, doesn't matter who it is, you'll still be 'displeased' with them anyways. ❞ elowyn's fuse has always been short and this was no different. he could've stumbled in during broad daylight and she'd have some excuse to bash on him. ❝ i came home from a fight late, you really think i'm gonna try and tip toe around? nah, i want a shower and food and then go to bed. maybe you should learn to sleep harder. ❞

@neveraftcr

[inkshadow]

"right, you're right. i'm just pullin' this shit out of thin air." not like he's got eyes and can put two and two together. not like she definitely confessed the night before right to his face and is maybe just too hungover to remember. or hell, maybe she just wants to forget. it doesn't dawn on dax that the time they spent together could actually pass for something deeper than service level for once but at the minute, it's hard to really make sense of anything. she's mad at him, as per usual, and that's all that dax will ever get from her. nothing else is real, apparently. "who the fuck said it was all of a — you know what?" hurt slaps him right across the face and for once, it's visible. he makes it known to her that her words sting like poison in his system. there's enough scorn in her demeanor that'll last him a lifetime and he's had enough of that in his life. dax throws his hands up in the air, already backing down knowing that he can't very well talk sense into the human equivalent of a brick wall. "forget it. i just thought that maybe, maybe it was a good idea to branch out from your shitty cocaine bubble, filled with a buncha rich hoity-toity snoots and just be fuckin' for real. just this once. but hey — your life is so god damn perfect that you don't need friends, right? too scary, too unnecessary for someone with a perfect life." eyes roll and he turns around to yank the front door open, and only then does he turn around to give her a great big middle finger. "fuck you. and fuck me for thinkin' maybe we coulda had somethin'." he turns around and walks right out as she instructed, feeling no remorse that he doesn't look over his shoulder to check on her.

she doesn't even think to just go against his wishes and send the money anyway, because yeah. it's not actually about the money. his laughter only pisses her off more, repeating her shoving as though it'll work better the second time. (it doesn't.) "don't tell me what i don't know!" her frustration level is so high, anger and adrenaline licking up her spine and clouding her head, that she's willing to fight just about anything he says. "just because you've been inside me, doesn't mean you know a single goddamn thing about me." except, well, she isn't sure that's completely true. and isn't that part of the problem? "because... because you pity losers, and idiots, and people with shitty lives, and that isn't me! i have a great fucking life, dax. it's not my problem if you don't know what that's like." each critique he throws at her is more cutting than the last, and she doesn't know how to keep up with this anymore. she's just so tired. "so what, we spend one night together where we're not tearing each other's throats out, and suddenly you care about me?" scoffs harshly. "you meet my dad for five minutes and you're a fucking expert on our relationship?" for whatever reason, it's his last comment that gets her to back down. because he's right, and that hurts enough on it's own, but also who gave him the right to be the one to make her confront it? arms fall to her sides and she's unable to keep the hurt off her face, like he's just struck her. "you know what? i think you should go." just can't deal with the bullshit anymore. "i mean it. i want you to leave."

[astralfms]

sms 📩 dax

@wandererfms

ronnie: if i asked you to tattoo my fingers right now would you do it ronnie: serious question ronnie: thinking about getting DOPE AS FUCK across all my knuckles even the thumbs

[jacqui-velazquez]

who: @daxsulu​ when: first few days of winter break where: one of the chalets

“Let’s get high,” Jacqui said, bundled up in a fuzzy zip up, long hair piled on top of their head, curled into the side of a massive armchair - not actually a loveseat, but big enough that Jacqui had felt that there was plenty of space to squeeze themselves in besides Dax. “We’ll get stoned and then go play in the snow,” she suggested, tickling their fingers along his side. “Doesn’t that sound more fun than skiing?”

[gypsybelladonna]

tag drop for dax holtz

[inkshadow]

"hiding? that doesn't sound like her. but fine... gotta see how this goes."

"ugh, you can't do that. she'll be hiding herself in her room for days on end, it's not like anyone will ever have to know!"

[fatalism-and-villainy]

Something I love about DS9’s framing of Jake Sisko is how he’s consistently positioned as someone worthy of protection, whose survival and flourishing and emotional well-being are of tantamount importance, and whose innocence and vulnerability are precious.

It’s present from all directions in The Visitor. Everybody protectively closes ranks around Jake upon Ben’s disappearance, with those little moments of Dax and Kira and Bashir giving him physical affection and reassurance and Quark going out of his way to be nice to him. Jake’s older self’s protective impulses towards his younger self, as well as his desire to save his father, are the basis for the timeline reset. And then after the spacetime continuum gets wrenched back in line purely to save Jake from the emotional trauma of losing his father, the episode ends with Ben, who’s borne witness to everything and is the only one who remembers it all, continuing that work of shielding Jake from that knowledge.

And then Nor the Battle to the Strong carries on the thread of protectiveness towards Jake, in that case as part of the episode’s deconstruction of military heroism. As he’s marinating in shame over bailing on the mission to retrieve the generator, Bashir apologizes to him and says he was wrong to put Jake in harm’s way in the first place. And then at the end, he wakes up after sealing the cave entranceway and both Bashir and his father are tenderly looking after him, with similar imagery to The Visitor in terms of him being symbolically cradled by the other cast members’ concern for him. He never needs to toughen up or grow out of that need to be rescued - in fact, his fear and panic and feelings of being out of his depth prove to be immensely valuable, as his last conversation with his father emphasizes, because he’s able to bear witness to the experience of the soldiers through his writing.

That comes through in a really interesting way in Valiant as well, with Jake’s emphatic concern for his own survival in the midst of all the culty militaristic weirdness of the Valiant crew:

Nog: You don’t understand, because you’ve never put on one of these uniforms. You don’t know anything about sacrifice, or honor, or duty, or any other things that make up a soldier’s life. I’m part of something larger than myself. All you care about is you.

Jake: That’s right. All I care about is Jake Sisko and whether or not he’s going to be killed by a bunch of delusional fanatics looking for martyrdom.

And I love that exchange not only because it’s a rare articulation of how I would actually feel in a situation like that in a franchise full of characters who are all prepared to sacrifice themselves in the line of duty, but also because in the context of the episode, Jake’s position is actually the heroic one! It’s his sense of self-preservation, and the fact that he hasn’t romanticized the notion of heroic sacrifice, that enables him to see through the dogmatic ideology of the Valiant cadets and recognize how dangerously out of their depth they are. And it’s just a nice articulation of his own worth.

(And of course the Defiant rescues them at the end, because Jake’s grown up now, but he hasn’t outgrown needing his father to save him. And that’s never a shameful thing, but a really beautiful thing, and necessary to the fabric of the show.)

[thefvrious]

@leschanceux said -> ❝It was self-defense.❞

As Dax surveys the bloody scene in front of him and the lifeless corpse on the floor, he lets his gaze lift to meet the other's. He's the portrait of calmness, as if this isn't terrifying him straight to his core. "Doesn't look like self-defense." He says, scratching at his jaw before setting both hands on his hips. "So, what do we do now?"

[inkshadow]

❝ i'm gonna make sure you never win an argument again. and sex. we're gonna fuck. that's the noise complaint. ❞

" winning the argument is actually great benefit for me. let's my head grow so it'll take longer to explode. well, depending on what we're doing to get the noise complaint i think we both win. "

[inkshadow]

closed starter for @remaineds

left hook. right block. left jab at the ribcage. the ebb and flow of dax's movements feel like second nature against this opponent, his confidence brimming with just a few more minutes left on the clock. the crowds, illegal as they are, continue to cheer for him with several recognizable voices in the crowd. one from his 'cheerleader' for the night, known to be his arm candy at times and the other.... well, the other wasn't for him. in fact, the name that spills from her lips happens to be the name of his opponent, only fueling him to beat the shit out of the guy even harder.

[astralfms]

sms 📩 daxton montgomery ( @wandererfms )

ronnie: yoooo ronnie: is the shop busy today? ronnie: my 6 pm just cancelled on me 🙏

[inkshadow]

❝ that's wishful thinking and you know it. ❞ his words are dry as sandpaper, looking at her with an expression that screams 'give me a break'. babies can't choose the life they were born into; he has a good feeling she understands that well enough. ❝ hey, long as you don't have any doubts that's good with me. ❞ dax scoffs and rolls his eyes, dismissing her rules with a wave of his hand. ❝ i don't let the girls i smash meet anyone. no point. in and out, that's how it should be. and we might not make it back to the place anyways. i won't let them meet. i'm not that dumb. ❞

"WELL, THAT'S NOT NORMAL. EVERYONE deserves a good home." Not that it was possible in the real world. She knew that not everyone could afford a good one. "Or at least, a decent one." Her brows furrowed at the words that followed. Dax sleeping with anyone was none of her business but she couldn't help the displeased quirk of her lips. "I'm sure she'd appreciate the feminine touch I'd add to the place. And I have no doubts about performance," she riposted flatly. "Listen, your flings are none of my business but you can't introduce any of them to Louis unless you decided to get serious. I don't want him to get attached to anyone temporary in your life. It's a rule I've established for him."

[inkshadow]

@sunliights

"you think you can put two of these in you?" dax asks innocently with two dildos in hand and smacking them against one another. "like, would they fit?"