#he found who he was in that hawk morph

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

I really felt Tobias’ story was a trans allegory from the start but this panel in the graphic novel hit hard, especially after knowing what happens later with the Elemist.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Could you explain about tobais possibly being immune to the 2 hour limit?

In #33, Tobias is held by yeerks for over two hours while in hawk shape, and then "demorphs" — actually morphing from his base form to Ax. This leads Sub-Visser Fifty-One at minimum and the Yeerk Empire at maximum to conclude that the resistance fighter with the hawk morph has somehow found a way around the two-hour limit. Things obviously get even weirder, from the Empire's perspective, when they match that particular fighter's DNA to that of a human (Loren). They've all seen him "demorph" to andalite, so... how?

That in turn has led to fandom speculation that maybe Tobias really isn't subject to the two-hour limit anymore after regaining the ability to morph. He already breaks two major rules of morphing — morphing from a morph and morphing his human self — so who's to say that he doesn't break them all? Tobias assumes (#33) that he'll be stuck as a human if he uses that morph for too long, but he never tests that theory for obvious reasons. And the Ellimist never says that that's the case. So it's possible that Tobias really can stay human for days at a time and still demorph to hawk, but never learns that.

[sadnymi]

Mattheo making a girl cum by praising her and its in class just little whispers and she dry humps him so desperately in a slytherin party he calls her bunny

「 ✦ Duel of Desires. ✦ 」

Mattheo riddle x reader

Summary (Request) : Furious at what Mattheo did in class, I set out for revenge. But my carefully crafted plan takes an unforeseen twist

Warning : Dry Humping , public sex ,fingering , dom/sub dynamics , praise kink

Words : 2.8k

A prickling sensation on my thigh interrupted my meticulous Charms notes. Glancing down, I found Matteo's hand, his fingers tracing idle patterns against the soft skin of my thigh .

A playful annoyance bubbled up inside me. Here we were, Professor Flitwick droning on about the Levitation Charm, and Matteo was turning my thigh into his own personal canvas.

"Mattheo," I hissed, swatting his hand away without breaking eye contact with the restricted professor.

He winked at me, a devilish glint in his eyes. "Just admiring your concentration, love. Makes you look positively fierce."

My cheeks flushed, not entirely from his suggestive comment. Professor Flitwick, with his booming voice and magnified eyes, felt like a hawk perpetually circling the classroom.

"Focus, Mattheo," I murmured, trying to reign in my scattered attention. Transfiguration had been a disaster this morning thanks to his constant teasing, and I wasn't about to let Charms suffer the same fate.

"But you're so much more fascinating than Levitation," he countered, his voice barely a whisper. He brushed his hand against my thigh again, this time lingering a beat longer.

Frustration bubbled over. "Mattheo! We have an exam coming up, and I need to actually learn something."

He chuckled, the sound low and warm against my ear. "Relax, love. You're a natural. Besides, who needs a wand when you have me?"

My irritation morphed into something a little more heated. This wasn't the first time Mattheo's playful teasing had crossed the line in class. The thrill of stolen moments was undeniable, but the risk of detention or worse, Professor McGonagall's withering stare, loomed large.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to play his game. Leaning in close, I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Alright, Romeo," I said, using a nickname reserved for those rare, stolen moments,"but if you distract me any further, your punishment will be far more… delightful than detention."

A surprised laugh escaped his lips. He met my gaze, his eyes darkened with desire. "Game on, then, witch."

As I attempted to focus on the lecture, a sudden touch on my knee jolted me. Glancing towards Matteo, I found him diligently transcribing the board's contents into his notebook, a mischievous grin playing at the corners of his lips. His left hand remained hidden under the table, adding to the clandestine nature of his actions.

I tried to discreetly shake my leg to deter his advances, but his hand deftly maneuvered to my thigh, securing a hold on my skirt. His touch sent a tingling sensation through me, disrupting my concentration.

Professor Flitwick's voice cut through the room, requesting me to read aloud from the textbook. Despite my racing heart, I began to read, acutely aware of Matteo's lingering touch inching closer to a more intimate area.

Despite the electrifying distraction, I forced myself to continue reading, attempting to ignore Matteo's provocative gestures. However, his subtle movements became more daring, culminating in a direct contact that made my breath hitch.

His whispered words added to the tension, leaving me flustered and unable to fully focus on the task at hand. The classroom seemed to fade into the background as Matteo's actions dominated my senses.

As Professor Flitwick instructed Matteo to continue reading, a mischievous smirk played on his lips while his hand, hidden under the table, ventured into forbidden territory. His index finger delicately teased my clit, sending a shiver down my spine as I tried to maintain composure and focus on his reading. The weight of Professor Flitwick's gaze lingered, making every movement feel amplified and dangerous.

"Thank you, Mattheo," Professor Flitwick's words acted as a temporary interruption, drawing attention away from our covert exchange.

His touch became more daring as his whole hand began to rub circles against my clit, causing me to clench my legs tightly together. “ don’t close your legs bunny “ A hushed command slipped from his lips when he ensured that Professor Flitwick wasn't observing our clandestine interaction.

"You're so beautiful when you struggle for me," he murmured, his words a tantalizing mixture of praise and provocation.

As his fingers sadly ceased their movement, I closed my eyes in an attempt to steady my racing heartbeat. Our pretense of innocence continued as we both feigned concentration, with him jotting notes in his notebook and me doing the same, all the while feeling the lingering heat from his touch between my thighs.

My quill trembled in my hand as his middle fingertip teased my entrance, a subtle reminder of the delicious tension that pulsed between us.

"You're doing such a good job," he whispered, the words dripping with desire and satisfaction.

As his finger continued its tantalizing dance on my clit, my senses heightened, and the room seemed to blur around us. I could feel the weight of his gaze on me , his right hand came to my notebook and reading what I wrote

His whisper in my ear sent shivers down my spine, his words laced with admiration. "So smart," he praised, his voice barely audible over the classroom's ambient sounds.

A soft moan escaped my lips as his finger teased my sensitive clit, drawing attention from those around us.

“Is there a problem Miss (Y/L/N)?”, Professor Flitwick's inquiring voice momentarily broke the spell

Mattheo sped up his pace and i gulped, shaking my head “Nothing just…I hit my leg.”

His thumb pressed against my clit, a silent command for me to focus, even as waves of pleasure washed over me.

"Silence, darling," he whispered, his touch igniting a fire within me, making me stand at the edge of my seat “it makes me smile when you drip like that before i even touched you “

The intense sensations brought tears to my eyes, but I fought to maintain composure, desperately searching for any distraction. ,and then I noticed his bulge deliberate flex of his thigh muscle all added to the dizzying mix of pleasure and tension I moved my hands but he catch them with his free hand .

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned firmly, his smirk evident in his voice.

Mattheo's skilled fingers pushed me to the brink repeatedly, each pause amplifying my desire. I felt like I was on the verge of losing control, his smirk and chuckle signaling his triumph.

"I admire your strength, bunny," he praised, pushing me closer to the edge. "Cum for me, pretty one," he commanded, igniting a blazing inferno within me with his mere touch. It was a paradox of ecstasy and frustration, and I cum so hard it was insane, leaving me questioning how such intense desire could be evoked with such minimal contact.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

I sat in my dimly lit room, wrapped in a cozy blanket, my favorite book lying forgotten on my lap. The decision weighed heavily on my mind—to go or not to go to the Slytherin party. Earlier that morning, Mattheo's teasing in class had left me flustered and frustrated, but now, as I replayed those moments in my head, a mischievous smile tugged at the corners of my lips.

The memory of his touch, his whispered words, and the forbidden thrill of our secret interactions still lingered, leaving me feeling a delicious ache between my thighs. I pretended to be mad at him for crossing boundaries during Professor Flitwick's lecture, but deep down, I knew I was equally to blame for letting the tension build to such intoxicating levels.

As I contemplated my next move, the allure of the party beckoned to me—a chance to indulge in the forbidden, to dance on the edge of danger. I could almost feel the pulsating music, the dim lights, and the whispered promises of excitement and pleasure.

"Two can play this game," I thought, my heartbeat quickening with anticipation. The thrill of the unknown, coupled with the lingering desire from our unfinished business, fueled my decision. With a determined grin, I tossed the blanket aside and rose from my bed.

I selected a tiny, short green top , hugging my curves in a way that exuded confidence. Paired with a sleek pair of black shorts, a bold statement . Adding a touch of glamour, I applied a vibrant red lipstick that accentuated my lips, and I let my hair cascade down in loose waves, framing my face.

To balance the daring look, I threw on a large black hoodie( that won’t stay on for too long) , leaving the zipper slightly open.The contrast between the snug, the revealing outfit

Tonight, I would embrace the tantalizing dance of temptation and desire, fully aware that every step taken towards the Slytherin party would lead me deeper into the seductive web we had woven together.

"Hey, y/n! Glad you made it," Enzo greeted me with a mix of surprise and warmth as I entered the party. He glanced at me, momentarily taken aback, before announcing my presence to everyone in the room.

"Y/n's here!" Enzo exclaimed, drawing attention to me. "Matt said you were sick and wouldn't be able to come."

I flashed a smile, inwardly amused by Matteo's excuse. "I feel so much better now," I replied, playing along and maintaining an innocent facade. Despite trying to act casual, I couldn't help but notice the gazes lingering on my chest, emphasizing the alluring effect of the green top I had chosen. I met Matteo's eyes, silently acknowledging the unspoken game between us.

He was clearly irritated by the attention I was drawing, but I couldn't help but feel victorious in my little game. With a determined smile, I made my way over to where he was seated, bypassing the available seats and settling directly onto his lap.

I leaned in, planting a kiss on his cheek and greeted him, "Hi, handsome." His eyes reflected a mix of frustration and anger as he tightly wrapped his arms around my waist, though I played innocently by running my fingers through his hair.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked with a harsh tone, clearly not pleased.

"Just here to see you," I replied, my gaze batting innocently at him. "Felt terrible staying angry after our little disagreement this morning." A sly smile played on my lips. "Didn't you miss me?"

Before he could reply, a voice cut through the charged atmosphere."Matteo, mate, another drink?" Jack, or perhaps that was his name, stood beside us, his gaze politely averted. A flicker of something unreadable crossed Matteo's face.

After Jack melted back into the crowd, Matteo's voice dropped to a low growl. "I see what you're doing."

I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off again. "And zip up that damn hoodie." His hand reached for the zipper, but I caught his wrist , realizing how close it was to my sensitive areas.

"No," I countered, my voice firm but playful. "It's stiflingly hot in here. Perhaps I'll just take it off ."I strategically brushed my hips against him, scanning the surrounding area for any watchful eyes. Thankfully, the party was in full swing, a blur of dancing bodies and overflowing drinks.

"Stay still," he said through gritted teeth, a hint of desperation lacing his voice.

Despite his demand for me to stop moving, I couldn't resist the temptation to tease him further. My actions were deliberate, a playful challenge to his control.

"Why? Does it bother you?" I asked, feigning innocence but knowing exactly the effect I was having on him. His grip on my waist tightened, a silent warning.

"You're playing with fire, sweetheart," he warned, his voice low and tinged with desire.

I leaned in closer, our faces mere inches apart. "Maybe I like the heat," I whispered, my lips brushing against his ear.

A startled gasp escaped my lips as his hand squeezing the plush of my ass , a possessive gesture that sent a tremor through me. The heat of his gaze seemed to sear through the carefully constructed facade of innocence, the tell-tale flush creeping up my neck a stark contrast to the coolness of the room. My breath hitched, a silent whimper escaping my lips as I unconsciously pressed closer, the frantic rhythm of our breaths mirroring the rising tension.

He could see the flustered look i had on because of the thought of being caught trying to dry-hump him. But he could see the reddened tips of my ears and hear my small whimpers along with your breaths heavying the more i pressed myself against him.

He leaned in, his lips trailing a path of fire down my neck before finding a more sensitive spot. A jolt of electricity shot through me, a strangled moan almost escaping my lips.

"Did you truly believe you held the reins, darling?" he murmured, a sardonic edge to his voice.

"Still dwelling on this morning, aren't you, my love?" His words came out in a murmured tone, a sly smirk forming at the corner of his lips. "I find this new side of you quite appealing—so eager and yearning for me that you couldn't resist acting on your desires."

He could discern the flustered expression I wore, a result of the daring move of trying to dry-hump him. Yet, he also noticed the reddened tips of my ears and heard the soft whimpers escaping me, blending with the deepening breaths as I pressed myself against him.

After a teasing kiss to my neck, his tone turned huskier as he remarked, "Did you honestly believe you were in control, bunny?"

"Still dwelling on this morning, aren't you, my love?" His words came out in a murmured tone, a sly smirk forming at the corner of his lips. "I find this new side of you quite appealing—so eager and yearning for me that you couldn't resist acting on your desires."

In response, I nodded, a small whimper escaping my lips, as I ground my throbbing need against his hardened bulge. "P-please, I need you," I pleaded, my desperation evident.

"You look exquisite when you're craving my cock to fill you up, love," he whispered, his voice filled with lust and desire.

"How badly do you want me to satisfy you, baby?" He inquired, his hand moving forward to gently stimulate my neglected bundle of nerves with the pad of his thumb.

"Badly, very badly," I replied quickly, my voice trembling with desperation, as I lifted my head to meet his gaze, my eyes silently imploring him to fulfill my intense yearning.

I took a deep breath, my voice quivering with need as I angled my hips to align my still-covered entrance with his cock.

"Please," I breathed, my plea hanging in the air as he teased me, moving my hips against his bulge with his hands firmly gripping my ass.

His teasing sent shivers down my spine, making my heart race. "Please, Matt, I need you. Please stop teasing me," I begged, leaning forward to press soft kisses along his jawline and down to his neck.

A guttural groan escaped him as I sucked on his skin, leaning his head back , giving me more space marking him as mine, marks he would wear with pride the next day. "Fuck, bunny, you don't know what you're doing to me," he grunted.

His hardened cock rubbed against my clothed pussy, sending a delightful tingling sensation through my entire body. "Feels so good," I moaned breathlessly, my hand entangled in his dark hair, while I moved on him with increasing fervor.

His hips bucked against mine, his cock rubbing me just right through our clothes. "I could cum like this. Do you feel good too?" I asked, pulling his hair slightly to lift his face as I demanded his lips to meet mine. Our kiss was messy, his tongue taking the lead effortlessly.

Despite us being almost fully dressed, he made me feel incredible, my pleasure building rapidly as I rode him and rubbed my clit on his cock eagerly.

Suddenly, he took control, moving me faster. My head fell back, and I trembled heavily in his hands. "Don't stop, please, Matt. I'm close," I whimpered, my hands balling into fists on his chest, crumpling the fabric of his shirt.

He encouraged me with soft kisses, his hips bucking harder against mine, causing me to feel him twitching. That was my breaking point.

I came hard, my moans and profanities filling the air. I barely noticed how tightly I had clenched my hands into his chest, quickly withdrawing when I realized I might have left a few marks. What would our friends say? Panic started to set in.

But he cut through my thoughts, burying his face in my neck, his lips grazing against my shoulder. "Don’t panic, bunny. No one was watching, and if that makes you feel any better, I would kill anyone who did."

I smiled, reassured by his words, and felt his hands roam around my back.

"Now, lets take this to your room. Enough with the games " he said, zipping up my hoodie before standing up.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

[vixen7243]

Lurking in the Shadows Pt. 1

Husband!John Price X AFAB!Reader|Obsessed!Ghost X AFAB!Reader

Part 1 | Part 2

MDNI‼️

Simon continued to tap his finger on his thigh as John drove them to his house, having invited him over for whatever reason Simon couldn’t recall. He more or less only agreed because he was looking forward to seeing you, since John had first invited the time over for a celebratory drink after a shit mission that they almost lost their lives during, the team met John’s little trophy wife. As Soap and Gaz liked to have put it, you had been attentive to them that whole night never letting them finish a glass of bourbon or whiskey or bottle of beer without a follow up what if near by. Right to say they had all gotten thoroughly drunk that none of them even attempted to climb the stairs to the rooms that had comfortable beds waiting for them. Instead they found spots in the living to lay and sleep, you, Simon noticed, still stayed downstairs with John, laying on him like a blanket. While you two had a blanket covering you guys Simon could still see through the darkness your hips grinding over John’s and the way John’s head pushed back into the cushions on the couch. You had leaned up to cover his mouth with your lips. Tongues twisting and John’s hands cupping your ass over the blanket, when he had grunted and pushed up into both of you still, panting quietly into each other’s mouths before you relaxed over him snuggling up. Once Simon could hear the light snoring coming from you and John’s abrupt snoring Simon opened his cargo pants enough to fist his dick under the blanket he was given.

Following that Simon, each time him and the guys were invited over would go, and he would watch you with a hawk like gaze, every once in a while getting up with some lame excuse of needing to go to the bathroom so wander the house until he found your guys room, walking in he saw a pair of your underwear laying on the ground by your clothes hamper. Looking behind himself at the open door he quickly snagged them before walking to the bathroom and locking the door to be able to use it to jerk off. Each time the guys were over you were always so sweet, taking care of them as if they were fragile, catering to every need without a problem, a smile on your face. This would only drive the sick delusion that Simon and slowly started morphing in his mind with you, thinking that at some point you had started to develop the same deep feelings as him. Whenever you would bring him something with a gentle smile he would make up that you were trying to be as close to him as possible, considering the situation, wouldn’t want your husband to catch on to your attraction, or more like his.

Any time you had the smallest interaction with him, his delusions kept growing to the point that he would sometimes stand right behind you, almost being your shadow. He reveled when you would praise him when he would help you and got hard when you had started hugging him when he would come over, which started being all the time and every time John even mentioned hanging out of his house. Eventually Kyle started not coming not as much unless there was a game on, then he would come but started bringing his girlfriend who would keep you company in the kitchen giggling and gasping about your work places and friends, very quickly becoming really good friends.

This slightly annoyed Simon due to the fact he couldn't get up as often and walk into the kitchen to talk with you, or mostly you talking with him listening smiling watching as you would inch closer whether you realized you were doing it or not, it made Simon ich to just close the distance and kiss you. The Johnny would slowly start not coming over as much either, but his reason was because he wanted to find him a girl like John's, settle down, have a cute little trophy wife, and enough kids to run a town. So eventually John got to the point that he no longer vocalized inviting Simon but would just give his shoulder a shove and start walking to his SUV, Simon following.

Which leads to now, they had just landed getting back from deployment, John nudged Simon's shoulder as he bid farewell to Soap and Gaz. Simon turned on his heal and started following John and they were heading your way. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he was getting excited to see you. Finally pulling up to the house Simon got out and both him and John grabbed their duffel bags from the back seat before making their way up the stairs to the front porch. Looking up when he heard the front door open his breath caught in his throat as he froze on the step just behind John.

There you stood, the biggest smile on your face, eyes beaming as you looked at your husband, but Simon's eyes were focused on what you were wearing. A very tight sun dress, your tits almost spilling out of the top, making Simon's mouth water, swallowing hard as you started slightly bouncing with excitement, Simon follow the motion as you leapt into John's arms, slotting your lips with his, and Simon could see your tongue push into John's mouth a happy moan coming from you. When you pulled back john slid you down his body, your skirt sliding up your thighs, making Simon's eyes quickly dart to your thighs, cursing under his breath when it stopped.

"Hi Simon, I'm so happy to see you." John let you go as you stepped down and wrapped your arms around his neck tucking your head down, your hair covering his face slightly. He grunted, inhaling your scent, his cock hardening, all the blood in his body pumping straight down, raising his free hand up, it landed on your waist before slowly dragging up, the middle of your back and up exposed, giving him a chance to feel her bare skin, "Come on inside boys, dinner's just finishing up." Slowly pulling back you smiled at him as he moved his duffel to the front of him to cover his ragger. Following you and John in, Simon couldn't take his eyes off you, not caring even when John would side eye him. "Follow me Simon, I'll take you to the room you can stay in." Once you had grabbed John's duffel you started walking up the stairs, Simon close behind.

Opening a door off to the direct right of the stairs you stepped to the side letting Simon walk in and set his bag on the bed, "I'll let you get settle in, come down stairs whenever your ready." He watched as you closed the door leaving him alone to rub his aching cock through his cargo pants before groaning and laying back on the bed undoing his belt and pants pulling himself out and giving a few swift strokes before moaning, and moving his hand faster, turning himself onto his side baring his head in the bed whimpering as he thrust his hips into his hand wishing you had stayed and help relieve him.

Reaching his near climax, Simon stopped just short of cuming over the side of the bed, cussing he laid back onto his back and tucked himself back into his pants flinching when the tip grazed his boxers. Pushing himself up from the bed and walked downstairs and saw John and you kissing, you were sitting in John's lap, arms wrapped around his neck, when you two pulled apart for air John leaned into your ear and started whispering.

Clearing his throat Simon walked into the dinning area making you turn your head around and smiled as John finished saying whatever it was that had you giggling. "Come on over." John motioned to the table as you got up and pulled a chair out for Simon before sitting by John, noticing Simon hadn't moved yet, you patted the chair next to you.

"I won't bite." Jesus, that comment sent Simon spiraling as he walked to the table and sat by you, his mind forming images of him ploughing into you on the table, while you bite his shoulder, arms and neck marking him in every way possible. "Here." You started dishing up their plates while John started talking about something, Simon had zoned out when he noticed that the skirt on your dress was raised up on you thigh that was closest to him. His hand was itching to reach down and squeeze your thigh, maybe inch up till he could feel your cunt on his fingers. "Simon?" Looking up into your eyes he was gone, going on auto pilot the rest of the night till he was laying in his bed staring at the ceiling, feeling dazed.

After tossing and turning in the bed Simon got up and made his way out to the hall and stopped when he saw your thong on the ground at the top of the stairs, snatching them up he noticed how damp the crotch was and groaned, about to turn back to his room before his blood shot straight to his dick when he heard your loud moan carry down the hall. Turning slowly to look down the hall at your and John's door which was open a bit, warm light slightly shining, hearing your moan come through again Simon used his tactical skills to quietly make his way to your guys room.

Upon reaching the door he damn near collapsed at the sight, you were on John, hands resting on his pectorals head thrown back eyes closed as you bounce and ground against him moaning. John was holding your waist helping you bounce on his cock, his groans being slightly washed out from the sound of your ass slapping with his thighs. Simon bit his chapped lips and moved to the side slightly letting the darkness of the hallway wrap around him while he leaned into the wall by the door frame sliding his hand into the waist band of his sweatpants, his dick still hard from when he first arrived. Wrapping his fist around the base before slowly tugging up, swallowing the whimper building up in his throat as you looked down at John sitting up arching your back before cupping your breast something shiny catching his attention. Simon's eyes rolled back as his tongue darted out, running over his lips before sliding his other hand with your underwear into his sweatpants and wrapped the wet bit around the tip of his cock and started watching again while pumping into your underwear.

"God, yes John, please, I'm so close." Flicking your fingers over your pierced nipples John bent his knees lifting up slightly making you gasp as he tightened his grip on your waist before thrusting his cock up into you. Groaning out John smirked up at you as your moans continued to get louder the closer you got to your orgasm. Crying out you pushed your hands back down onto his chest and slammed yourself down onto him pushing his hips back into the bed and ground back and forth whimpering.

"Good girl." John ran his hands up your sides rubbing circles with his thumbs as he went. After letting you catch your breath, he grabbed one of your knees before rolling the two of you over, resting your head in the pillows, grabbing behind your knees and pushing them up near your head. "Hold them right there darling." Listening to him you held your knees to your chest and watched as he dragged his callused hands down the back of your thighs sending a shiver through your body. Eyes trained on his fingers you moaned when he spread you cunt and then dragged his thumb around and down your clit.

Simon leaned slightly closer as he watched your little hole twitch, finally seeing your pretty cunt, his eyes also trained on John's fingers as one thumb teased your clit and his fingers dipped into your twitching hole. You flinched and let your legs loose till John slapped your pussy making you gasp and whine, "Hold them up." Voice darker and eyes trained on you, you tightened your grip and looked back down watching as he then shoved his fingers back into you, his thumb now moving over your clit faster you cried out.

"I'm going to cum again!" Simon moved both his hips and his hands in tandem with John's hands making his breath hitch in his throat. As you were cuming around John's fingers, he pulled them out then quickly pushing his cock into your spasming cunt making you cry out arching into him. "SIMON!"

Frozen still, hands and hips, eyes wide as he looked at you, the two of you locked gazes while you cried out moaning, rocking your hips with each thrust of John's hips making you dizzy. Simon bit his lip again hard enough to draw blood, iron sliding down his tongue as he started moving his hands, tightening his grip matching Johns pace, "Don't stop, god, fuck Simon." you cried out head then falling back eyes rolling back as your body spasmed as John fucked you through another orgasm making you squirt against him.

After a moment you looked back up at John when he had started to slow his thrusts, till he gently brought your legs down and then leaned over you. The kiss he gave you was so gentle and sweet, he slowly pulled out of you, both of you moaning into each others mouths. John settled by her kissing her cheek, neck and shoulder while rubbing his hand on your side.

Simon leaned his head on the wall to the side closing his eyes for a moment catching his breath looking down at his crotch, a clear wet spot from him cuming. Sliding his hands out he stuffed your underwear into his pocket then looking up freezing.

Both you and John were looking right at him, a knowing smirk resting on Johns face and a sweet smile on yours.

"Are you just going to stand out there the whole time Simon? She was calling out to you." John said pulling your leg closer to him while you moved the other leg, giving Simon a view of John's cum drizzling down onto the bed pooling there with your fluids.

"Simon?"

-----

Part 2

Simon will get his chance with y'all don't worry, but in the meantime enjoy this, there will be a second part so don't worry bout that. 😊💕

[joshsindigostreak]

Moonburn

Chapter One

Nine of Swords, Upright: sleepless nights, worry and anxiety.

Vampire Hunter!Jake x Witch!OC

Authors Note: Hey y’all!! I hope everyone enjoys the next chapter in Jake’s story! Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list! If you need to catch up on the Prologue, do so here.

*Set prior to the events of I See Hell in Your Eyes. This is the beginning of Jake’s story. This can be read independently from ISHIYE but there will be cross references as it’s in the same universe.

Word Count: 3.5K

Warnings: Not very many just some swearing.

Description: When a young affluent hunter finds himself taking an unexpected detour in Tucson, Arizona, he finds himself drawn to a local dive bar with a rather ecclectic clientele, situated on an equally intriguing location adjacent to a cemetery. Cemeteries are neutral ground, so even if he found a Vampire to snuff out, he couldn’t. Especially with the owner of the bar being a Witch and watching him like a hawk.

Jake’s dreams were always distinctly under two categories: either he’d find his dream self walking down an empty city street, head on a swivel for any Vampiric activity, trailing one he had found earlier that kept evading him. Or, he’d wake up in his childhood bedroom, realize that he was seven years old again, hearing footsteps in the hallway growing closer.

His mind would not let go of the night that Vampire broke in and found the twins’ room first on the upper floor. The Vampire’s appearance had morphed over the years, steadily gaining more grotesque. But the feeling of its mangled and dirty fingers tangling in his hair and violently pulling upwards, sending white hot pain into the boys’ scalp as his feet lifted off the ground, was always the same.

This night was no exception, and unfortunately for the young hunter it was the latter scenario.

A distant creak of the hardwood floors down the hallway always startles him awake. His large and curious brown eyes would always pop open at the sound, and he’d strain his ears to try to figure out who was walking towards his shared room with Josh. It couldn’t have been his little brother Sam; he was too light to make the floorboards move like that. Josh was snoring above him, oblivious to everything, so that ruled out him. Maybe his parents? But he could hear the heavy thuds of shoes as the sound got closer, and why would his parents have their shoes on in the middle of the night? The realization that it was someone else in the house besides his family made his blood run cold and had him pulling his covers up to his chin as he tried to make himself as small as possible on the bottom bunk.

A few agonizing minutes later, the footsteps were right outside his door, and his younger self was stiff as a board, bracing himself for whomever would enter. Sure enough, the doorknob would slowly twist and a stream of light from the hallway would stream in as the door opened. All he saw before he screwed his eyes shut was a large, intimidating silhouette peering into his room. Jake tried to keep his breathing even, not wanting to give it away that he was awake. The intruder made his way into their room, kicking a few toys out of the way in the process. He could feel their presence near his bed, and it took everything in him to not flinch at the putrid breath that was being exhaled into his face.

But Jake was a frightened child, and his instinct was to get to his brother as quickly as possible. When the creature whispered, “jackpot…” his eyes shot open and he opened his mouth to yell for his twin, all while trying to scramble down his bed and make it to the ladder leading up to Josh’s bunk. His tiny hand had just reached one of the bottom bars when the all too familiar sensation of fingers in his hair and being yanked backwards and upwards rattled his system. Distantly he would hear his brother startle awake and barely touching the ladder as he flew down to come to his rescue.

The creature paid Josh no mind while he lifted up the younger boy to his eye level, his mouth twisting into a sadistic smile and revealing the long jagged fangs that extended from his gums.

A Vampire had somehow broken into their extensively guarded house.

Jake kicked and squirmed midair, trying to get the Vampire to drop him, but it was no use. The creature stared into his eyes, hunger clearly on his mind. The young boy couldn’t take it anymore and as he clawed at the Vampire’s wrist he took a deep breath and released a shrill, high pitched shriek that rattled the-

The now adult Jake shot up in bed, silver knife white knuckled in his fist. Through his own personal training, he had taught himself how to sleep with his hand curled around a knife under his pillow, and not letting go of it until he was awake.

His skin was damp and clammy, feeling especially chilled from the ceiling fan spinning above. In spite of this sweat gathered on his hairline, threatening to spill down his face. His eyes darted around the room for any threats, as if he was ready to face off with the Vampire from his memory. But the hunter was alone in the tiny motel room, and when he deduced this he rolled out of bed, still holding the knife. He padded over to the sink in the miniscule kitchenette and poured a glass of water from the sink. He gulped it down but it took two more glasses to finally get some relief in his dry throat.

After setting the glass down and abandoning it next to the sink he went around the room to check his security measures. His crossbow lay still on the other side of the bed, with a wooden arrow locked and loaded, ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice. With Josh off doing whatever it was he was doing, the weapon was the closest thing he had to a partner in crime.

The solitary window was covered by curtains, and Jake carefully pulled back one of the panels to look out onto the parking lot. The sun was freshly risen, giving him solace in the fact that his ultimate threats were locked inside and away from the light. Sunrises had always been Jake’s favorite for this reason. His shoulders relaxed as he opened the curtains as far as he could, letting in as much natural light as possible. Now that he was awake and definitely not going back to sleep any time soon, he turned his attention to getting a shower and washing off nightmares as best he could.

~!~

It had been over four days now, and Jake still could not get his night at The Tipsy Tumbleweed out of his head. He went to other bars around town to kill time, but all of them were so basic to him. They were too loud, or the drinks sucked, or the TV’s weren’t on anything interesting, or the bartenders would try way too hard to flirt with him for better tips. He wanted to go back, he wanted to see her, he wanted to at least get her name.

But Jake was full of an unfamiliar feeling of intimidation he wasn’t used to. He couldn’t remember the last time he had walked into a situation where he wasn’t the top dog, even when surrounded by Damned corpses who were decades older than him. His exposure to other supernatural creatures was limited. Growing up the focus was so heavily on Vampire’s that he rarely took the time to learn much about others. He usually just relied on Sam to info dump about whatever creature he was obsessed with that month and he’d tuck any useful information into the back of his mind and kept on moving.

Sam’s best friend happened to be a Werewolf, which was a secret that all three Kiszka boys kept to themselves out of respect for Danny, who always seemed like a good kid regardless of his DNA. The twins were just glad that their little brother had finally made a true friend, which was something they always worried about given Sam’s nerdy and introverted nature. The change in Sam after that first summer with Danny was like night and day, and his confidence and ego hadn’t stopped growing since. It was a gift and a curse, Josh would say in exasperation.

Witches however? Jake hadn’t truly met one in person before. He knew of them, and had gotten a few lectures on how to watch out for them. His mother in particular emphasized that they were simply untrustworthy and never expounded beyond that. Once again his brother would fill in the blanks sometimes. He mentioned a few who had gone to his university but he wasn’t particularly close to them. That hadn’t stopped Josh from making cracks about Sam going to Hogwarts whenever he got the chance, or asking if he had any classes with Hermione. This usually resulted in the nearest object thrown in the oldest sibling's direction.

The most Jake knew about them was that they were definitely not human, and most had innate abilities that were passed down via genetics. Covens were a thing but not a requirement, and most were very secretive as to what they got up to. One thing Jake would never openly admit is when he was out of his depth on something, but he couldn’t just accept defeat like this and twiddle his thumbs until he could get out of town.

Which was why he was sitting in the parking lot of The Tipsy Tumbleweed, staring at the entrance from the drivers side of his shitty rental. He mulled over the vague threat she had given him days prior. She didn’t say he couldn’t come back…just that he couldn’t come back and pull any shit. He could do that. He could just walk in, sit down and be good. He could potentially apologize.

The hunter repeated these affirmations to himself as he walked inside, immediately greeted by the familiar music, the glow of the various neon signs, and the scowl of the owner of the bar he was standing in.

She was behind the bar, writing something in a notebook of hers on the bar top when those big hazel eyes looked up and locked onto him. It took a conscious effort on Jake’s part to not trip over his own feet under her gaze.

He settled on the bar stool directly in front of her without a word, and the two stared at each other wondering who would flinch first. Her hazel irises were all he could focus on, and he took the opportunity to map out the different ways the green blended into light brown.

“Are you going to behave tonight?”

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

Her right eyebrow slowly raised, “not in my bar there isn’t.”

The hunter nodded at the Witch, falling back into silence.

She reached to her left and brought a low ball glass in front of her on the bar and her other hand grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured about two fingers worth into the glass. It was the same order from that first night, this time untampered with.

“We’re going to try this again, but if you even look at Lou for too long I’ll physically toss you out myself.”

The hunter's eyes swiveled slightly to the right, his peripheral catching sight of the Vampire who was focused on the TV. Jake quickly snapped his eyes back to the bar owner’s,

“Got it,” he replied in an obedient tone that he rarely spoke in.

She nodded and replied, “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some regulars to greet.”

The Witch turned on her heel and walked out from around the bar, passing behind Jake and making her way to one of the two-top tables towards the front of the bar. As she passed, a sweet yet earthy scent wafted around him. Was that her perfume? He pondered. Or was that just her?

He racked his brain as he tore his eyes away from the swing of her hips and turned back to his glass. Whiskey was always his go-to at bars, because no one could truly fuck it up, but in truth, he was a Pinot Noir guy. It started when he was a teenager and the only alcohol he could get his hands on was the wine in the basement. His parents collected bottles from their travels and had so many at this point that they never actually drank that Jake sneaking a bottle or two every so often went unnoticed. He quickly figured out what he liked so by the time he was actually of age it became his private staple.

Jake continued to fire off questions in his head as he outwardly minded his own business.

He was brought back to reality when a familiar young voice answered, “her name is Cecilia, by the way.”

Jake looked up and saw the young bartender named Stacey standing in front of him.

“How did you-”

Her eyes went wide once again, just like that first night, “oh shit I’m so sorry! Sometimes it's hard to differentiate people’s inner voices from their outer voices and it sounds like someone asked me something out loud and-”

Jake raised his hands slightly off the bar, palms facing outwards to show he wasn’t mad, “hey, you didn’t do anything wrong it’s ok.”

Her face relaxed slightly, but she was still clearly embarrassed, “Cecilia’s been helping me get better at it but I still fuck up some times.”

Jake looked at her with warm eyes, “I’m assuming that you heard me thinking about him,” he cocked his head in Lou’s direction, “and went off and told her the other night?”

She looked down at the bar top and fiddled with her fingers, “yeah…we’ve just never had any trouble in here before and Lou is just really special to us and I didn’t want anything to happen to him.”

Stacey kept her voice low, as to not let Lou hear her saying that he was special to her. However, it didn’t work and the Vampire kept facing the TV and he suppressed a small smile while his face turned pink.

“Well you don’t have to worry about me, I'm not going to mess with him.”

“I guess that truth serum worked,” she looked up, trying not to smile.

Now it was Jake’s turn to look embarrassed, “yeah…yeah it did.”

“Well she’s still letting you sit here so she can’t be too mad still.”

“I’m on thin ice but I promise I’m just here cause I like the place, that's all.”

Stacey looked down and saw that Jake’s glass was empty, “do you want another drink?”

Jake looked down at the glass, but decided to do something different tonight, “do you have a good Pinot here?”

She looked at him blankly, “wine?”

“Yes…”

“Umm…I think we have a few bottles in the back.” She turned and disappeared behind the Employee door.

Jake sat there softly tapping his thumbs on the edge of the bar, inwardly hating that he was making a fuss over something as arbitrary as a drink. It was another reason why he always fell back on his “usual.” He hated being “that guy” in situations.

After a few minutes the young bartender busted through the Employee door and nearly jogged over to Jake’s spot at the bar. It was clear she wasn’t used to using a corkscrew, but after cussing a little under her breath the cork popped from the bottle. She threw Jake a triumphant smile as she poured him a glass.

“Thank you, Stacey,” he said warmly.

“Any time,” she replied before leaving the bar area to ask if anyone else needed refills or new drinks around the bar.

He studied the glass closely, grasping it by the stem and tilting it to the side and then back again to see what kind of legs it had before bringing it to his nose to see what flavors he could pick up. The alcohol itself was pretty strong, but he had had worse. It was medium bodied, with tannins that weren’t too overpowering due to the bright acidity from the-

“Are you detecting the grapes?”

A silky voice startled him and his eyes left the glass to look in front of him. It was Cecilia. His face reddened slightly, again, but her face broke into a smile as she wrote some figures down in the notebook she had placed on the bar.

“Oh umm-”

“Relax, I’m just fucking with you,” her smile stayed fixed on her face and Jake felt his shoulders relax. He hadn’t even realized how tense they had been. “You’re the first customer to order any of the wine we have, by the way.”

“I imagine people aren’t really thirsty for wine right off the highway,” the hunter said as he took his first sip. Oh, that’s not too bad, he thought, surprised at the texture and flavor of the wine.

The Witch nodded, “yeah people are more interested in their usual beers or liquor. You know the whole, ‘candy is dandy but liquor is quicker’ mentality.”

The corners of Jake’s mouth almost turned into a smile, “my brother likes to say that a lot.”

Cecilia’s eyebrows raised in curiosity, “you have a brother?”

Jake nodded, “three, actually. Two are biologically siblings and the other one we all kind of adopted over the years. He’s a good kid.”

She smiled, “oh that’s nice. Are they all hunters too?”

“Only one of them is; Josh.”

“Is he older or-?”

Jake grimaced slightly, “well…older…by five minutes. The other two are younger than me.”

Her lips formed an O, “so you’re a middle child? I can see that with you.”

Had it been anyone else, Jake would’ve gotten offended by that, but he let it slide for Cecilia.

“Only technically.”

“I can’t relate, I just have a little sister, Astrid. Or Ass-strid as I called her growing up.”

At this point they were both smiling softly at each other.

“What’s she like?” Jake asked before taking another sip of wine.

The Witch started to roll her eyes but stopped, “oh she’s the picture perfect Witch my mother always wanted, except that neither one of us inherited Moms psychic abilities. Astrid can enter people’s dreams, which was so fun growing up.” This time Cecilia let herself complete the eyeroll.

Jake’s eyes softened as he looked at her, the question clear in his expression.

“As for me, I do this…,” her eyes swiveled down towards Lou, who was once again minding his own business. His usual glass sat idly as he paid attention to the commercial on the TV, and immediately slid down the bar towards the Witch like a hockey puck, directly into her curled hand.

Lou was unimpressed and let out a short, “hey,” towards her and she sent the glass back, not spilling a drop.

Jake had never seen a telekinetic in person before, and sat there dumbfounded.

“Wow…” was all he could say.

She shrugged, “I can also read Tarot pretty well.”

Something inside the hunter was very interested in it all. Witches were something that weren’t brought up a lot, and when they were it was never in a positive light. He was mainly taught to focus on the Undead more than any other creature.

“...and your mom?”

Cecilia leaned in towards the hunter, closer than she had been before and whispered, “my mom talks to dead people.”

Jake blinked at her.

“She heads a Necromancy coven in Northern California where I grew up,” the Witch leaned back towards her side of the bar, “it's not as exciting as you think.”

He wanted to ask more questions, but the way Cecilia’s expression soured at the mention of her mother gave him enough of a hint to drop that part of the subject.

“How did you end up in Arizona?”

This time, her eyes softened wistfully, “my dad was from here.”

The word ‘was’ stuck out to him.

“Oh yeah?”

She nodded, “yeah.”

The two stared at each other, allowing the silence to wash over them. Jake swallowed the last of his wine, and before he could open his mouth another question was thrown his way.

“I just realized I am a terrible bar owner and have been talking to you this whole time without getting your actual name?”

Jake smirked, his eyes staring into hers, and slowly extended his hand over the bar, “Jake Kiszka, hunter of the Undead and at your service.”

The Witch held out her hand and wrapped it around his to shake. The warmth of his skin rippled up her own arm, over her shoulder and down her back, settling at the base of her spine

“I hope you don’t tell your baristas that,” she retorted with a crinkle in her nose, “Cecilia Addington, bar owner with First Born Daughter problems.”

Jake never wanted to let go of her hand. The firm grip of her fingers and the softness of her skin had his head spinning.

He wanted to know if all of her skin was just as soft.

Reluctantly, they both dropped their hands at the same time each taking a second to flex their hands under the bar out of each other's sight.

Jake was the one to speak first, “so how does-“

“No more questions until you buy another drink, Jake.”

The butterflies from sixth grade swarmed in his gut at the sound of her saying his name.

She turned her head and gave Stacey a Look and a nod towards the hunter, before giving Jake one last smile before slinking around the bar to greet a few patrons that had just walked through the door. Jake watched her the whole time, listening to the volume of her voice and appreciating the fact that she was a hugger just like he was. Fuck.

It was going to be a long night.

To be continued….

Tag List:  @dannyandthekiszkas , @readyforthegarden , @sinners-go-to-drink-the-wine , @wideminded-dreamer , @runwayblues , @wildbluesorbit , @llightmyllovee , @rhythm-of-space , @sacredthefran , @writingcold , @alwaysonthemend , @wetkleenex-gvf , @josh-iamyour-mama , @lightsofthe-living-gvf , @gvfcinema, @sacredthethreadgvf , @losfacedevil , @jakekiszkasbuttsweat , @shutupdevvie , @hearts-hunger , @gretavanfleetposts , @ascendingtostardust , @mackalah , @andromeda-raine-gvf , @jake-kiszkas-smirk , @gracev0609 , @sacredjake , @earthlysorrows , @gvfpal , @myownparadise96 , @itsafullmoon , @gvfmelbourne, @twistedmelodies , @that-witchy-pan , @gold-mines-melting , @texas-bbq-pringles , @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface , @childinthegardenn , @char289 , @stardustvanfleet , @sunfl0wer-power , @holdingup-fallingsky , @bladenotblaze , @gretavanlace , @lipstickitty , @jjwasneverhere , @josiee-gvf , @peaceloveunitygvf , @musicislove3389 , @gretavanhockey , @gretavanazula

[tobythewise]

For Handers today! “The way I feel when I’m with you...”

Thank you so much for the prompt! This Hawke is red mage Hawke who's more action than words.... attempting to use his words XD Written for @dadrunkwriting

He found the ingredients hidden in the floorboard last week and Hawke still hasn’t found the right words. He’s a mage whose father did extensive research, leaving all his notebooks behind when he died. Though he was able to shield Hawke and his siblings from the darker topics like being forced to use blood magic for the wardens, that doesn’t mean Hawke doesn’t know what these could be used for. 

Normally, Hawke isn’t afraid of confrontation. He’s the type of man who goes head first into things he wants and isn’t afraid to use his fists when necessary. Even though he’s a mage, he’s built like a warrior and he’s a force to be reckoned with when he uses these muscles. 

But with Anders, he’s completely out of his depths. Hawke would never describe himself as soft or emotional. He’s blunt and angry. Life has dealt him a shit hand, of course he’s always pissed.

Except when he’s with Anders.

So why the fuck did he lie about these ingredients? Why did he feel the need to hide this from him? Out of everyone in the world, Hawke would be the one to understand!

“Fuck,” he breathes out, running fingers through his hair in frustration. With a wave of his hand, he lights the fire, getting it roaring and warming the room. 

Hawke keeps his emotions bottled up, locked away inside his chest. Sure, he lets everyone know he’s mad as fuck, but all the other emotions? They stay inside. He holds himself back because they make him uncomfortable. As he looks around at the room, looks at the soft mage lights floating around, looks at the flowers sitting on the table beside their bed, Hawke thinks about how Anders is worth feeling a bit uncomfortable for.

It’s not long after the sun sets that Hawke hears Anders crawling through the back entrance and walking slowly towards their room. The same adrenaline rush he’s used to feeling during battle hits him as he sits and waits for Anders. This could end in disaster but fuck, he really hopes it doesn’t. 

Hawke stands as Anders steps into the room. His shoulders look so heavy in his black robe, a new style he’s been sporting lately, adding to the overall cloud that’s been following him. Hawke’s chest aches as he looks at the man he’s come to care for so much. He holds so much just out of reach, so much on his shoulders. How did someone so good and bright fall for someone like Hawke? 

“Anders.”

Anders’ eyes snap up, his face morphing with surprise. He looks around at everything before looking back at Hawke. There’s a timid smile on his face, like he’s not sure what’s going on. 

“Hawke? What’s umm, what’s going on? What’s all this?” 

Hawke knows he should be using his words but he’s always been a man of action. Instead of speaking, he steps into Anders’ space, pulling their bodies flush. He cups Anders’ face, the face he loves so much, and gently kisses his lips. 

Anders melts against him, the weight on his shoulders slowly falling away. Hawke helps him out of his coat before pulling him over to the bed, guiding them both to sit down. He tucks a stray hair out of Anders’ face, tucking it behind his ear. 

He’s beautiful, but being in this place, being in this city is doing something to him. Hawke understands. There’s so much hate it practically leaves the streets bleeding with it. He fights until he’s wrung out, knuckles bloody, but it never feels enough. 

Anders is staring at him and Hawke realizes that now is the time to put it all on the line. He fucking loathes talking about his feelings, but Anders is worth the discomfort. Hawke needs him to understand that he’s in this. Fully. 

“I love you,” he says, wincing when his voice comes out like a grunt. By Andraste’s flaming tits, he’s bad at this. Hawke clears his throat, trying again. “Anders, I love you.”

Anders tilts his head to the side, a little smile playing at his lips. “I love you too. I’m still confused, Garret. This is so unlike you.” He reaches out, touching Hawke’s forehead with the back of his hand. 

Hawke snorts, shaking his head and shoving Anders’ hand away. “I’m not sick,” he grumbles. “I’m trying to talk about something but words are hard.”

“Words are very hard,” Anders says in agreement, his face breaking out into a grin. It might be the most beautiful sight Hawke has seen in a very long time. 

“I need you to know something.” Hawke moves even closer, holding Anders’ face between his palms. He stares into Anders’ golden eyes, trying to convey his feelings as best as he can. “The way I feel when I’m with you…”

“Yes, love?”

“I’ve never felt like this before. You once said you would drown the world in blood to keep me safe, how could I do anything less for you? I would watch it all burn. I would blow up the Gallows themselves if it meant keeping you here with me,” he says, choosing his words very carefully, waiting to see Anders’ reaction. 

There’s a sharp intake of breath before Anders tries to pull away. The joke’s on him, because Hawke is far stronger. He holds Anders’ tight, forcing him to stay right where he is. 

“Don’t you dare look away,” Hawke says, his voice suddenly harder than he meant for it to be. “Anders. I’m all in. Don’t keep me out when I’ll gladly be the hands with blood on them to keep yours clean.”

“That’s the problem! I can’t tell you. I need to keep you safe.”

“That’s the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard.”

Anders startles, his eyes wide. “I know, Anders. And I want in. If you do this without me, I’ll never forgive you.”

“You’ll never forgive me anyway. What I plan to do, Hawke, there’ll be no going back.”

Hawke stares into Anders’ eyes, bringing their faces even closer until their foreheads touch. He wishes he could meld themselves together so he could be even closer to Anders. He wants to crawl into his ribcage and hold his heart in his hands. How does he not understand the depths of Hawke’s feelings?

“Good.” Hawke’s voice is hard. “You’re not the only mage in this relationship. You might have a spirit of Justice inside of you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t ache for the same freedoms you do. If you won’t let me in, I’ll do it myself and you’ll kick yourself for years that you weren’t there to help me.”

“Garret.”

“I’m serious. Let. Me. In.”

What little fight Anders is holding onto leaves him all at once, a breath leaving his lips. There’s a moment when they both continue to stare at each other before Anders breaks. He lunges forward, shoving Hawke onto his back and crawls into his lap. 

“I love you so much,” Anders says, diving down and kissing Hawke’s lips. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. We’re in this together.”

“We’ll watch it all burn down. We’ll make them see,” Hawke says in agreement, kissing Anders back with the same intensity as he’s giving. 

Hawke might not be a man of many words, but when it counts, apparently he knows exactly what to say. Words might have worked on Anders, but he knows they won’t work with the war that’s been raging in this city. It’s finally time to take action. 

[warriorlid14]

from the ashes

Marco knew he had hit rock bottom when Jake, of all people, was lecturing him about mental health. 

Jake, who had once spent an entire month without so much as stepping foot outside his apartment, not even to get groceries. Jake, who they’d literally had to throw off a cliff to snap him out of his depression. The same guy who wouldn’t recognize mental stability if it rammed him like- well, like a ship ramming through a blade ship.

“I’m just saying,” Jake continued. “The physical labor has really done wonders. I haven’t felt this well since- well, you know. Maybe something similar could help you, too?”

Three months ago when they arrived back on earth, they found out that apparently the U.S. Government had been none too pleased that they’d stolen a spaceship and hijacked two of their morph-capable soldiers. Jake, ever their noble, self-sacrificing fearless leader took the fall. Technically, he was a felon. He was also the world’s biggest hero, so he’d gotten a slap on the wrist.

He was on probation and had to complete hundreds of hours of community service. Currently, he was helping the rebuilding process of a neighborhood that had been destroyed by a forest fire a couple of hours out from the city. Naturally, his absolute lunatic of a best friend had taken it as a wellness retreat.

“Mhm, yeah. Totally,” Marco said. He slurped the rest of his double espresso (quadruple espresso? Did it count as four if he’d had two of the drinks?) without even looking up from his notes. “So is this before or after we build libraries in underprivileged countries?”

“Marco-”

“No, it’s very noble and all,” Marco said, standing up. “But alas, I am but a very busy man so I’ll see when I can fit it into my schedule. Call my assistant to check in. Linda, you’ve met her right? Just hired her.”

Jake sighed. “C’mon man, you know I’m only trying to help. Quite honestly, you look like shit.”

Marco finally deigned to meet his eyes, a mock indignant look on his face. “Excuse you, I’ve been ranked in the Top 10 sexiest men two years in a row now. One which I wasn’t even on earth, thank you very much.” 

He knew he was being an ass.  An obnoxious one at that. Jake looked genuinely concerned. But this wasn’t how their roles worked. Jake was the tortured war hero. Marco was… well, he was one of the sexiest men in the country. If only according to Teen Magazine USA. Whatever.

“Not to kick you out or anything, but I do need my beauty sleep. Gotta be well-rested for the new gig tomorrow.” An obvious lie, indicated by the two empty mugs of coffee and the dark circles under his eyes. Nothing a little make-up in the morning couldn’t fix.

Jake stood up as well, gathering himself to leave. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You can just take a break.”

“And I would! If I needed one. Goodnight, Jake.”

But Marco quickly found that he was wrong. The next night, flipping through channel after channel showing his very public, very humiliating mental breakdown during the live premier of the game show he was hosting that morning, he knew that this was his rock bottom.

……

Tobias was hungry. Which unfortunately wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Not for the last three months at least.

He’d left his territory unguarded for almost a year and a half, and a younger, opportunistic hawk had taken it over in his absence. He’d considered fighting her off, but he had spent over a year in a cramped spaceship, feeding on frozen mice and rats with no ability to hunt or fly. He’d gotten rusty, grown soft. 

And, if he was being completely honest, he was getting old. His once vivid red feathers were fading, and he was slower than he once was. He grew tired faster than usual, and had to endure the occasional body ache. He couldn’t prove it, but could swear his eyesight was weaker.

So, Tobias had been forced to find a territory on the outskirts of the hork-bajir valley. It was smaller and closer to a major highway. The wildlife, and therefore his food supply, was more limited. Not that a plentiful food supply would make much of a difference if he couldn’t catch anything.

The only benefit to being this close to a highway, though he’d never admit it to anyone, was that there was an ample supply of roadkill. 

With a mental sigh he flew towards the highway, past his territory, past a couple of scurrying mice he knew he was too slow to catch. Past the property Marco had bought years ago, a place to stay in when he or the others had business in the valley. 

It was usually empty, but today, a moving truck was parked in the driveway. At the sight, Tobias veered back, curious. The back of the truck was open, and a second later, a gorilla jumped off, carrying five badly-taped moving boxes in its burly arms. 

Tobias flew closer, within thought-speak range, and called out, ((You know you could make a killing as a mover.))

It was a testament to how often they heard other people’s voices in their heads that Marco barely flinched at his words. He looked up at him as Tobias swooped down and landed on the truck. 

((I’ll keep that in mind,)) Marco said, and continued up the driveway. He set the boxes inside the open doorway.

((So, what are you doing here unloading a moving truck? You’re not moving in, are you?)) Tobias asked, cocking his head at Marco.

((Needed a sabbatical,)) Marco said with a shrug. Tobias paused for a second.

((In the middle of nowhere, Wyoming?))

((Oh, you know, nature does wonders for the soul and all.)) Marco waved his hand in the air dismissively before jumping back into the truck and unloading two more boxes.

Tobias looked at him quizzically, waiting for Marco to elaborate, but he didn’t. Something was definitely up with him, but Tobias knew better than to pry.

Marco dropped off the boxes at the doorway and turned to him. ((So, are you going to just stand there, or are you going to come and help?))

Tobias considered leaving and resuming his attempt at finding lunch for that day. He glanced at the boxes strewn around the patio and mentally sighed. He fluttered down to the floor and began to morph.

……

Marco sat in his bathtub, a bottle of wine in hand. He wasn’t sure how long he had sat there, staring blankly ahead, but it had been long enough that his fingers were starting to prune. 

He hadn’t done much more than lounging around for the past couple of weeks. Hadn’t even set a foot outside of his house. 

Whatever. He needed a break. And he didn’t really want to see or talk to anyone anyway.

His friends and family didn’t seem to get the memo, however, as both his house phone and his cell phone rang a couple of times a day. The caller ID always showed Jake or Cassie or his mom. He texted them all an “I’m fine. Stop calling” a couple of times, but he knew that wouldn’t hold up for much longer. He was almost offended that the most he had gotten from his so-called celebrity friends had been two separate “thinking of you” text messages until he remembered he didn’t particularly care. 

His dad never called.

With every day that passed, Marco became more bitterly resigned that he would likely not hear from his father for a very long time. Maybe not ever. Not without Marco being the first to reach out at least, and like hell that would happen. He didn’t feel like being kicked out of his former house once again, thank you very much.

It was a sick sort of funny, that this was how he lost one of his parents. Not to death. Not to the yeerks. Not to resentment of Marco letting his mom remain a controller for so long. Not to the lies and secrets he’d held onto for years. 

No, it was for one stupid comment. One selfish declaration Marco had made so many years ago, hoping that it would bring his parents closer together.

Load of good that did. It was barely a year after the war that the cracks in their newly reunited family started showing. And a year after that that his parents had gotten divorced. And then it was all, “Oh Marco, we both love you so much” and “Oh, Marco, nothing has to change.” 

Bullshit. It was all a load of bullshit. Funny, wasn’t it? He had tried so hard. Had gone to hell and back hundreds of times. Had been dismembered and shot at and psychologically tortured for so fucking long, all to get them together again. To be the family they once were. 

And they couldn’t keep it together for even two fucking years. Marco took a long swig of the bottle of wine.

He didn’t care that he was being immature or ridiculous, being an adult and still caring this much about his parents’ divorce. Being this affected about his dad going back to Nora, fucking Nora. Especially when compared to the turmoil of his mom’s death and enslavement. But dammit, with the way he’d had to grow up since the war, no, since his mom’s supposed death, he’d earned a lifetime of immaturity, hadn’t he? 

The media didn’t think so.

Okay, so maybe he’d snapped a little bit. Whatever. It had been one day. Just one bad day and now his entire reputation, and his reputation-dependent career, had gone down the drain. He should have known better.

The day of The Incident he had been sleep deprived and running on caffeine, adrenaline, and not an insignificant amount of anxiety. He had been irritable. Snappish. Just minutes before going on air, one of the crew had approached him from behind. Marco had flinched, turned around with a snarl, already morphing gorilla before he realized what he was doing.

It had been the look of fear that the guy had given him, the sideways glances from the others. Marco had created the perfect suave and funny and hopelessly charming persona. But right then, in that studio, he was not Marco the hero to the studio crew. He was Marco the killer. Marco the tactician. It was enough to send him spiraling. 

He should have seen the signs. Should have walked away.

Instead, the whole world had seen him lose it. He was no longer Batman. No longer Iron Man. He was pitiful, wounded, deranged, Marco the broken Animorph. He was angry and humiliated at losing his reputation. Shallow? Definitely. 

Losing his career, though? He was… well he was upset.  He might have just lost what he always wanted. He was rich and famous and successful. He had been on top of the world. He should be devastated to lose that, right? But he was mostly relieved he wouldn’t have to host that stupid game show.

After the war, there had been something missing, a hole in his life. Something… Something. And the hole grew bigger and bigger until he was so bored, so dissatisfied, a part of him was relieved when Jake dragged him along for a final mission. Which was just insane, right? 

The relief had been short lived though. Soon they found themselves in space for months and months until they were sick of each others’ presence. Until they saw a mockery of their friend Ax on their screen.

And then Ax had died. 

And Marco had been the one who killed him.

Marco took a long swig from his bottle of wine.

It had to be done. Ax was dying already, would die a longer, more painful death if Marco hadn’t intervened. And they had to make sure The One was truly defeated. They had to make sure there were no remnants of that creature left behind.  And Ax had practically begged them to do it. 

It had to be Marco who did it, too. It couldn’t be Tobias. The kid was already barely hanging on. Having Ax’s blood literally on his hands would likely end in him trying to smash himself into a window again. It couldn’t be Jake. He had been on the other side of the ship, too far to help, and anyway, killing Ax would surely send him spiraling back to the dark place he had been in after Rachel’s death, all his emotional progress down the drain.

Jeanne might have been able to handle it, but she wasn’t an Animorph. She wasn’t one of them. And only one of them could do it. Had to do it.

So that left Marco. He could handle it. He was handling it. Maybe not with the grace he wanted to, but... 

He snorted. God, he was a mess. Had been for a while. 

He sank lower into the bathtub. He really, really should have seen the signs.

Once upon a time, years ago, he’d tried therapy at his mom’s insistence. The therapist had told him that he had a habit of not actually feeling his emotions. At shoving them aside or rationalizing his way around them. Marco had thought it was bullshit. He woke up most nights screaming in terror, of course he was feeling his emotions.

But maybe she’d had a point, since he’d willingly gone on live TV amidst a mental breakdown without a second thought, not realizing what was happening, not seeing the signs.

Whatever. He had plenty of time to feel his emotions now, here in his bathtub and with his mind mush from the alcohol. Marco made to take another swig from the bottle, realized he had finished it, and reached instead for the can of beer he’d also brought into the bathroom.

…..

Ok, so admittedly he wasn't a great friend. He’d known something was wrong with Marco. The day Tobias had helped him move in, he’d been dismissive and quieter than usual. The bags under his eyes had been pronounced. And though Marco had tried to hide it with worse than usual snippy quips, he seemed rather sad.

Despite this, it had taken Tobias almost three weeks to fly by the house again. He told himself that he was busy. Hunting was a more time-consuming task than usual, after all. But if he was honest with himself, he knew that it was because he could not deal with anyone else’s emotional baggage. Not when his own threatened to pull him under on a daily basis. 

It had been easier, before their trip to outer space, to let his hawk brain take over and not think. But now that he was in a new, unfamiliar territory, now that hunting and surviving were more taxing, his human brain had to step in to fill the gaps. And with it came the weariness and grief that he had to expend multitudes of mental energy to keep at bay. 

As well as the constant nagging thought that he shouldn’t shut out the world again. But that was just his conscience, which had coincidentally taken the voice of Ax.

On the day Tobias mustered the mental energy to check in on him, Marco was fast asleep on the couch. Through the blinds, he could see various crushed up, empty beer cans strewn around the living room. What seemed like a half empty liquor bottle sat on the coffee table next to the couch. Tobias couldn’t see into the kitchen, but he was sure a similar site would have greeted him there. He peeled away, not willing to wake him up.

When he flew by the next day,  he saw an unfamiliar car in the driveway. Jake was standing in the living room with Marco. Though he wasn’t close enough to hear them, by the way Marco was gesticulating and the expressions on their faces, he knew they were arguing. 

Tobias circled around. He managed to catch a particularly slow rabbit while he waited. Finally, Jake walked out, and he managed to catch the tail-end of whatever fight they were having.

 “Don’t make me call your mom, Marco!” 

Marco responded with a middle finger shoved out the door and slammed the door shut. Jake sighed, muttered something under his breath and patted down his pants, looking for his keys. It was strange to think of him, of any of them, driving to get to places instead of flying.

Tobias swooped down and perched on the hood of Jake’s car. ((What’s up with him?))

Jake looked up, startled, and smiled when he saw him. He looked surprisingly well, all things considered. Well-rested, and he’d gained some weight. The haunted, tired, “the weight of the world is on my shoulders” look Tobias had grown accustomed to was still there, but not as prominent as it’d once been.

“Tobias! What are you doing here? How are you doing?”

((Oh you know. Peachy,)) Tobias said, failing to keep his voice from sounding sardonic.

“Mhm,” Jake hummed.

Tobias didn’t own a mirror, but he knew he didn’t look nearly as well as Jake did. Last time he’d seen Jake, Tobias had been flying away from the ship, weak and malnourished. Tobias knew he hadn’t gained much weight back. He hoped Jake didn’t mention it.

He didn’t and gracefully returned to the topic of Marco. “Don’t suppose you’ve turned on a TV or picked up any magazine in the past month?”

((No. I’ve tried set up a cable connection up on my tree, but they never have anyone available to set up the satellite dish.))

Jake grinned, then said, “He uh… had a media shitstorm.” He scratched at his nose, and glanced back at the door, clearly debating how much he should reveal. He settled on, “He had a bit of a breakdown on live TV. He… hasn’t been doing well since we got back.”

((I figured that much,)) Tobias said, and Jake nodded.

They fell into a familiar awkward silence. The contempt and vitriol Tobias had felt towards Jake in the aftermath of Rachel’s death had waned over the course of the three years before their mission to rescue Ax. And aboard the Rachel, they’d settled into a cordial relationship. But the easy camaraderie they’d once shared was gone, and Tobias wasn’t sure if they’d ever get it back. Or if he even wanted it back.

Jake cleared his throat, and said, “So I guess you’ve settled nearby, then?”

((A few miles out, yeah.))

He nodded, hesitated, then asked, “Do you think you can keep an eye on him? Check in every once in a while?”

Tobias almost said no. He knew Jake well enough to know that this wasn’t just about Marco. This was his way of trying to get Tobias to stay connected with the group. But due to recent, tragic events he owed Marco big time. Mercy killing one of your comrades in arms must leave an emotional toll, after all. Had it been Tobias (it had almost been Tobias) the strand of sanity he was holding onto would have snapped long ago.

So he said, ((I’ll see what I can do.))

And if he was honest with himself, he could admit that he had gotten used to human company aboard the Rachel, Marco’s especially. Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash were strangers to him, and Jake was a nonstarter. Though forced by circumstance, Marco’s had been the most consistent company he’d had since Rachel’s death, even counting the few times he’d interacted with Cassie and the hork-bajir over the years. On occasion, he even missed him, though he’d never admit it to him.

Jake seemed relieved, gave him a small, thankful smile, and said “Later, Tobias. Tell him to call his mom.” With that, he got into his car and drove off, leaving Tobias to wonder what he’d signed up for.

…..

It was not hard at all to find out what had happened. Tobias hadn’t even had to try. A hunting trip had taken him close to a more touristy, recreational area of the park. It wasn't a good hunting ground, since the people scared away most of the prey. But that meant that there was no competition in the area. Not during the day at least.

As he was flying over, he saw a flash of a familiar face. A quick morph later and he had taken the crumpled, stained magazine out of a trashcan. “Animorph Loses It On Live TV!” was printed in bold letters on the cover page. 

Tobias flipped through the magazine, read a direct quote from the incident. “What, you don’t think I’m funny enough? I’ll show you funny.” There was a picture of Marco, sneer on his face and an almost crazed look in his eyes.

Later, he didn’t find Marco at his house. Instead, he found him walking by the side of the highway. Tobias did a double take.

Marco was someone who cared about how he presented himself to others, more so than most people. He had never been the best dressed when they were kids, but he was always put together. Moreso after the war. Anytime Tobias had gotten a glance at him, either on billboards or in magazines or on TV displays, his outfits were always coordinated, his hair was always well-maintained. He always had a smile on his face and well-prepared quips at his disposal. Even aboard the Rachel, it had taken a few weeks for Marco to break his Marco-the-celebrity act and go back to being his usual self with actually tolerable levels of obnoxiousness.

Now, though… he could see food stains on his old, torn T-shirt and jeans. His clothes were crumpled in a way that suggested he had slept in them, maybe for a few days. His hair was a tangled mess, sticking out every which way. There were patches of stubble on his face. And his eyes were dull and bloodshot.

“Your stakeout skills have gotten rusty, Birdboy,” Marco called out without looking up at him, pulling Tobias out of his thoughts. He dropped some altitude, flying closer.

((Well, I wasn’t trying to hide,)) he said defensively. ((Where are you going anyway? Out for a nice stroll?))

Marco shrugged. “7-eleven up the street. Out of beer.”

They travelled in silence for most of the walk. Which probably should have been more unnerving. Usually, Marco never shut up. But he’d grown accustomed to Marco’s eerie silence after… Well, he tried not to think about the aftermath of Ax’s death too much.

Still, the silence told him just as much about Marco’s mental state as his unruly appearance did.

As they approached the 7-eleven, Tobias said, ((Do you want me to go in instead? Nobody recognizes my human morph.)) 

Tobias could see that there were only a few people milling around the 7-eleven, but anyone who wasn’t living under a rock would recognize Marco. And he really didn’t need any more unwanted attention.

Marco rolled his eyes at him, knowing what he was getting at, and began to morph as he walked. Soon, he was in the body of a middle aged man. Before walking into the store, he said, “You don’t look so hot yourself, you know.”

Tobias waited for a few minutes for Marco to emerge, struggling to carry a few frozen pizzas, half a dozen cups of ramen, and, Tobias quickly noted, three cases of 24-can beers.

Marco must have sensed his trepidation because he said, “You can join me or you can leave.”

After half a second of hesitation, Tobias landed in some nearby bushes to morph to human, then helped Marco carry the bags. He pointedly ignored the way Marco’s breath already smelled like booze. No wonder he’d walked.

Maybe it wasn’t what Jake meant him to do, aiding and abetting Marco’s current bout of substance abuse (or joining him), but he was not here for Jake. Besides, Tobias was hardly in a position to judge anyone else’s bad coping mechanisms. 

…..

It used to be fun, Marco thought, drinking with his friends. They hadn’t done it often, what with them being minors and all, and Jake insisting they needed to stay alert if something happened, and Tobias and Ax having to stay at least sober enough to demorph. But it’d been fun. Even aboard the Rachel, where they waited until they were bored out of their minds to break into the bottle of scotch Santorelli had snuck onboard, it hadn’t been this depressing.

He passed the bottle of whiskey. 

Marco had been sitting outside in his backyard an hour after sunset when Tobias, flying overhead, presumably heading back to his territory, had seen him and turned around to join him. Even at night and from a distance, he could tell that Tobias looked miserable.

“Out for a late snack?” Marco said as Tobias began to morph, tone too flat for it to really be conversational. Tobias just nodded and grabbed for the bottle.

Marco didn’t point out that it was too dark for Tobias to really hunt anything, or that he was almost as thin as he’d been back on the escape pod when they’d all almost starved to death. Tobias didn’t point out the fact that the bottle had been halfway finished by the time he’d joined him. 

It worked.

Maybe Jake or Cassie would have been better company. But then they’d be lecturing him about his drinking habits and getting professional help and blah blah blah. Misery loves company, and Tobias was just as miserable as he was and that was good enough. Besides, it was less sad if he was getting absolutely plastered with someone else instead of by himself, right? 

Okay, so maybe he was just depressing. The worst part was that Marco couldn’t think of a single joke to balance it out. He took a swig of the bottle and passed it back.

Neither of them said a single word until Tobias, now glassy-eyed and struggling to his feet, demorphed.  

((Thanks for the drink,)) Tobias said as he took off. Marco tipped the now empty bottle at him in farewell, but didn’t say anything else.

When Marco went back inside and looked at his empty house, he was struck with a feeling of loneliness so intense he almost picked up the phone to call Jake or Cassie or his mom. Almost flew out after Tobias.

Instead, he shook his head, stumbled to the couch, and turned on the TV. As he dozed off, head spinning, knowing that he’d wake up with a hangover, he was struck with how painfully familiar this scene was. Beer cans strewn around. Miserable man sleeping on the couch. No food in the fridge.

Marco almost smiled bitterly. There was the irony and humor he was looking for. He was asleep before he thought of a punchline that was actually worth saying.

……

Marco awoke to the sound of banging on his door. Even in his almost zombified state, he still bolted up at the sudden sound. Then, realizing what it was, he groaned and laid back down. Every knock on the door felt like it was shooting straight to his head. He’d once again forgotten to morph before bed to get rid of the morning hangover.

He would have gone downstairs and yelled at whoever it was. Sales people or Jehovah’s Witnesses or whoever. But he might have thrown up if he tried to stand. He pulled the sheets over his head instead. Eventually, the persistent knocking subsided and Marco relaxed, about to doze off again before more intense knocking, this time coming from his back door, made him jump out of bed.

Who the hell had the gall to break into his backyard? He stomped over to his window and yanked it open, leaned his disheveled head out to window and opened his mouth to yell and-

“Mom!?”

Eva looked up at him, hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun, glaring. “Did you forget how to use a phone, or what?”

Shit. It’d been about a month since Marco had called her. He’d meant to. Even if just to get her off his back. He knew his biweekly text messages wouldn’t hold her off for long.

“Come open the door!”

“Right. Going!”

He quickly gargled some mouthwash and threw on a t-shirt. Not a clean one. He hadn’t done his laundry since he’d moved in. He had no time to brush his hair. Not before she’d start attempting to pick the lock. His mother was persistent.

Marco winced as he reached downstairs, considered at least kicking some of the cans under the couch. But he had glass sliding doors at the back of the house. His mom had already seen everything.

“Hi, Mom!” he said brightly and leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek in usual greeting. He tried not to wince at the brightness of the sun.

“Apestas a alcohol,” she said in greeting before walking past him. Marco sniffed at his shirt. “It’s coming out of your pores, sonso.” Damn.

“Sorry, I had a party last night.” 

It was an obvious lie. It wasn’t like he had many friends at the moment. Still, she didn’t say anything. Just took a look around and wrinkled her nose.

Marco tried to think of something clever to say, but his brain was still too mushy to come up with anything.

After Eva looked around the house for a few seconds, she turned back to him and said, “Go take a shower. I’ll get started cleaning here.” 

Marco opened his mouth to protest, but a quick glance and a stern “go” had him sighing and stomping up the stairs. Had it been anyone else, literally anyone else, he would have told them to fuck off. 

He took a long shower. It took a while for him to sober up. And he was dreading talking to his mother. He knew it would leave him feeling guilty and a little ashamed and he was tired of feeling bad.

Marco walked down the stairs, feeling better and more alert, but still grumbling like a kid being put on timeout. He found her piling dishes into the dishwasher. She stomped over to him when she saw him, a scowl on her face. Well, that’s not good, he thought. She slammed something down on his coffee table.

“What is this?” Eva demanded, revealing a small ziploc bag containing a white, powdered substance. Marco swallowed nervously.

“It’s not mine. I’m just holding it for a friend?” he tried weakly.

Eva sighed, deflating, suddenly looking more tired than mad. That was worse.

“Marco, what are you doing?”

“Look,” Marco said, suddenly defensive. “I’m an actor, okay? This is normal. It’d be weirder if I wasn’t doing drugs. Besides, I can morph. I literally can’t get addicted to anything.” Not physically, at least.

“Oh, I don’t care about the drugs,” Eva exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “Mijo, you’re wasting your life away.”

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He ignored the way his mom’s eyes narrowed at him.  “It’s barely been two months. It’s not like I’m some sort of bum. I’m a war hero. I’m a millionaire.” He sounded like an ass, but it was true. “I just need a break okay? I need to relax.”

“This your idea of relaxing?” his mom asked, gesturing at the bags of trash she’d gathered. Marco rolled his eyes again. He muttered an affirmative under his breath but couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve given you time. I’ve given you space. But this isn’t healthy, mijo. You need help.”

“I’m fine,” Marco snapped. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m handling things.”

“Another one of your friends is dead,” Eva said flatly and Marco winced. “You are fighting with your dad and you’ve blown up your career. You’re on your way to becoming an alcoholic. You need professional help.”

Marco didn’t answer. He turned away from her angrily. And guilty and ashamed. He considered telling her to leave, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. He was about to stomp up the stairs like a petulant teen, but his mom said, “Finish cleaning up here, will you? I’m going to get some groceries.”

“I’m an adult. I don’t need my mom buying me groceries.” She gave her own eyeroll, but didn’t otherwise respond to his outburst before walking out the front door, keys in hand.

Marco did stomp his way up the stairs, got about halfway up, then sighed and turned back down to finish what his mom had started.

….

His mom left the next morning, threatening to come back and drag him outside by the ear if he didn’t at least call her once a week. After she left, he found that he’d cleared out all of the liquor in the house in the middle of the night, as well as his well-hidden illicit drugs. He sent her a message asking for monetary reimbursement which was of course ignored.

Marco’s mood did not improve over the next few days. Especially not when he’d been forced into sobriety. He could go out and get more alcohol, of course. And he would, later. But for now, he lay on his couch, letting himself wallow in bitterness and anger and self-pity. He’d earned the right, damnit.

Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he needed professional help. Instead, he flipped aimlessly through the channels on TV, not really looking at what was on. It was like that Tobias found him a few days later, swooping in through the open back window. Eva had left it open before leaving, talking about fresh air and sunlight. Marco hadn’t bothered to close it.

((Tidied up the place?))

It had been a while since Tobias had dropped by. Tobias was like a ghost. Appeared and disappeared at whim. Flashed into existence when he remembered he was a person and was gone when he forgot he was alive.

Marco shrugged and continued to stare at his TV dully. “My mom stopped by.”

((Ah. Guess you finally called her then.))

Marco stopped scrolling through the channels. Glanced back at Tobias. “What?”

((Jake,)) Tobias explained. ((I talked to him a few weeks ago when he stopped by your place. Told me to tell you to call your mom.))

An image appeared in Marco’s mind, then. Jake and Tobias and Cassie. All sitting around discussing him. Talking about how he’d lost it. How he’d finally snapped. They shook their heads pityingly in his mind. Poor Marco, he heard them say. Poor, poor Marco.

“What, you’re best friends with Jake now?” Marco snapped, suddenly angry.

Tobias stopped mid-preen and cocked his head at him. ((What?))

“You two sitting around, talking about my problems? As if you’re not both more fucked in the head than I am?” He could his heart beginning to pound wildly as his tone grew more accusatory.

Tobias sighed. ((Look, Marco-))

“No, no, tell me. Did you invite Cassie to your gossiping sessions, too? My mom?”

Marco could practically hear Tobias roll his eyes at him, which just made his blood boil. He was not being ridiculous. He was not overreacting. ((Oh, grow up, will you? They’re just worried about you.))

Marco snorted. “That’s rich coming from you.  Tell me, when’s the last time you talked to your mom?”

Tobias fixed his sharp glare at him. ((Fuck you, dude. Are you contractually obligated to be an asshole to anyone trying to help you?))

Marco sneered. “Oh, you’re helping me? You? The guy who disappeared from the face of the earth for years? No, you’re here because you feel guilty I had to kill Ax when you didn’t have the guts to do what needed to be done.” Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, Marco knew he would regret them. But right now, he couldn’t find it in him to care.

There was a loaded silence, then a seething ((This might be news to you Marco, but people with common empathy don’t rush to kill their family members at a moment’s drop.))

It was a low blow, meant to hurt. Marco turned from Tobias and began walking away. Without looking back, he said, “Why don’t you do what you do best? Piss off and go sulk on your tree.” 

The only response he got was the sound of wings flapping and then nothing, as Tobias took to the sky.

This time, Marco had noticed the signs, but perhaps too late. A few minutes later, he sat at the foot of his bed, curled into himself as he tried to take deep breaths through waves of panic.

……

Tobias moped for a few days, angry and more than a little hurt.

He knew that Marco had been angry at him, after the war, for disappearing for years. But he’d thought they’d worked it out aboard the Rachel. One night, Marco had snapped at him, after a particularly frustrating day, accusing his disappearance as the reason Jake had been depressed for years. Tobias had informed him that he didn’t particularly care about Jake’s feelings. When Marco threw Loren and Ax and Cassie and himself at his face, though, he’d shut right up. 

Marco had missed him. He’d been worried about him, as had the others. He didn’t say it outright, of course. Not the part about missing him, at least. But Tobias had gotten the point after Marco had accused him of abandoning his friends a couple of times.

Tobias had missed them, too, though he didn’t tell him that. He did try to explain, not in so many words, that it hadn’t been them that he was trying to run from, but the never-ending, soul crushing, nearly life-ending grief and pain that had taken over his mind and his heart, after Rachel’s death. How impossible it had been, for a while, to be in his own presence, let alone the presence of others. Marco had gotten the gist of his non-apology. They’d watched a couple of hours of crappy TV together, and just like that, they were friends again. 

Sadder friends, now that Rachel was dead and with the looming worry for Ax, their missing friend, the third link of what had once, towards the end of the war, been a team within their team. Marco had joined him and Ax as a fellow outcast after his so-called death, and though Tobias had been a little annoyed at the disruption of his and Ax’s little home, he’d appreciated Marco’s company.  So it had been nice, back in space, to have a friend back in the absence of everyone else.

And then Marco had killed Ax. 

Tobias had been the one to find Ax, alone and too far gone to save, in a secluded corner aboard the blade ship. It would have been him who would have had to do it, slid his sharp, hork-bajir blades across his throat or through his brain. But Marco had found them, seen the grief and despair and horror that were so obviously visible even through Tobias’s hork-bajir face. He’d understood, immediately, what Ax was asking. And so he’d laid a hairy hand on his shoulder and told him to look away. And just like that, Ax was really, truly, dead.

He had wondered if Marco resented him for it. He’d never accused him of anything, after they escaped, their sad band of four surviving members. They had been crammed inside an escape pod, shooting to earth for four months on four hundred square feet of space, one bathroom and barely enough food to keep them from flat out starving.

Santorelli was dead. Menderash was dead. Ax was dead. 

Ax was dead. As was the weird normalcy they'd all fallen into before running into the blade ship. 

Tobias didn’t remember much of those four months on their way to earth, after the loss of his uncle and very best friend in the whole world. They had slept a lot. Both to conserve energy as they were low on food supplies and because the four of them had been reduced basically to zombies. He would hear Jeanne cry, occasionally, though he couldn’t remember if anyone had tried to comfort her. Jake would pace around sometimes, muttering to himself, though it was far more unnerving when he paced silently. 

Marco would watch the same movie over and over again on the small movie player he’d manage to save. Tobias didn’t think he’d ever be able to watch The Princess Bride again without clawing his face off. Occasionally, Tobias would see tear tracks on his blank face, almost like if Marco himself didn’t realize they were there at all. Once or twice he had caught him taking a benadryl to knock himself unconscious faster. Maybe Tobias should have checked in, asked him how he was doing. Apologize. Thank him.

But Tobias himself had retreated once again. He didn’t morph. He barely talked. He sometimes ate. When, finally, they’d arrived on earth, without looking at him, Marco had asked, “Are we ever going to see you again?”

((Yes,)) he had said, after some hesitation. ((I can’t tell you when, but you’ll see me again.)) Marco had nodded and Tobias had left. He didn’t see him again until the day he pulled into his now home.

So maybe Tobias wasn’t an amazing friend. But he thought they still were. Even sadder friends now. Marco, once again an outcast like him. Both of them more broken and damaged than ever. But still friends. 

Maybe not.

It was okay. Tobias was still terribly angry at him anyway. So he’d give himself a few more days to mope and then he’d get over it and reach out to Toby and Cassie. He’d hang out with them more. He had to. Before he died, he’d promised Ax that he wouldn’t completely isolate himself again.

He really wished he’d done no such thing.

……

Finding Tobias was harder than he’d anticipated. Which Marco should have known. No one could disappear as well as he could. It didn’t help that he didn’t actually know where his new territory was, besides knowing that it had to be close by.  So, he’d had to find Toby first to get the precise location.

And of course, Tobias wasn’t there. He also wasn’t there the next couple of times Marco flew by. He was getting increasingly concerned that he’d pushed his friend into another years-long bout of isolation, that it’d be his fault, when he finally spotted him a mile out from his house. Tobias was flying lower than him, circling around, presumably hunting for something.

Marco angled towards him, and called out, ((Birdboy!)) 

Tobias didn’t answer, and Marco flew closer towards him. ((Hey, Tobias!))

Still, no answer. He did a double-take, but- no. It was him. Marco would have rolled his eyes if he could. Petty ass. 

((That’s cool. You don’t have to talk. I think I’ll stick around for a while, though. I’m catching some killer thermals. I do sure hope I don’t accidentally scare away any prey, tho-))

((What do you want Marco?)) Tobias snapped, irritated. 

((I just want to talk.))

Tobias sighed dramatically in his head, and proceeded to land on a tree. Marco landed on the foot of the tree and demorphed. When he was done, he said, “I, uh wanted to apologize,” he said, looking at the branch Tobias was perched on rather than directly at him. 

((Go on,)) Tobias said, after a moment.

Marco sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I was way out of line, okay? I’m sorry for bringing up Loren. And Ax. And… well, the rest of it.”

There was a pause, and Marco expected him to fly off or at least to feel the sogginess of bird shit land on him. But instead, Tobias said, ((Okay. Whatever.))

Marco finally looked up at him. “What, that’s it?” Despite the lack of facial expressions, Marco knew Tobias was still irritated.

((What do you want me to say?))

Marco shrugged. “I thought you’d be angrier.”

((Of course I’m still angry! You had no right throw Ax and Loren in my face like that.)) 

Marco wanted to say that Tobias had no right to throw the cliff incident at his face either, but that would just piss him off even more. And he was so tired of everyone being angry at him, deserved or not.

“I know. I was just being an asshole.”

((Yeah, well, what’s new?)) 

Marco snorted. Wasn’t that the story of his fucking life lately? 

“You got me there,” he said, mock cheerfully. “Anything else?”

((For the record, I had no intention of leaving Ax like that. I was going to ki-)) A pause, then, with more bitter resignation than anger, ((I was going to do it. I know you resent me for that, but-))

“I don’t resent you for Ax,” Marco interrupted, surprised. “I do resent you for coming here trying to give me advice when we both know you are even more fucked in the head than I am.” 

((Oh trust me I am under no illusions about my sanity. I am well aware,)) Tobias said sardonically.

“Good. So don’t try to lecture me again.”

      ((Fine. And you stop being an asshole to people who are just trying to help you.))

Marco glared at him. “You’re one to talk,” he said, and immediately regretted it. So much for not pissing him off.

But instead of flying away, like Marco thought he would, Tobias said, ((Oh, I’m not an asshole to people trying to help me. I just don’t let them find me.))

Marco laughed. He sat down and leaned against the tree. “You know, I think I finally understand you now. I want nothing more than to sit around and play video games and watch trash TV and partake in some light substance abuse and be left the fuck alone. Is that too much to ask?”

((I mean, I didn’t do any of those things, but sure.))

“That’s because I am way more fun than you, my feathery friend.”

They sat in silence for a while. And then Tobias said, ((Hey, Marco? About Ax? I… thanks… For… You know. Taking over.))

Marco shifted, uncomfortable now. “Yeah, well, gotta pay it forward. Jake and Cassie did the same thing for me. With my mom.”

((Yeah. But Ax was your friend, too. I know that had to have messed you up. So thanks.))

Marco shrugged, but didn’t deny it. “Yeah, well, I didn’t come here to be sad. I think I’m gonna go back to bad TV and video games. Want to come?”

((No,)) Tobias said, and Marco nodded, trying not to look disappointed. Then he grinned when Tobias added, ((I still have to go find my lunch. I’ll stop by tomorrow.))

……

And so, just like that, Marco and Tobias were once again a constant in each other’s lives. They saw each other once or twice a week, Tobias stopping by between meals. They would joke and bicker and watch an installment or two of whatever Marco was currently binging. Sometimes they went out for a fly. Sometimes, Marco would convince Tobias to morph human and play video games or have dinner with him. 

Occasionally, when it had been too many days between his visits, Marco would fly around and find Tobias, usually flying aimlessly, lost in his own head. He would join him and talk to him, rambling about one subject or the next, not minding when Tobias gave one word responses or said nothing at all. Usually, on those days, he could pull at least one complete sentence out of Tobias before he had to demorph. Occasionally, he’d be able to convince him to join him back at the house.

Sometimes, when they watched a show or a movie, Tobias would notice that it’d been too long since Marco made a quip about whatever they were watching. So he would take over and chip in with his own wry commentary. Usually, he could get a lame joke out of Marco. Sometimes, he could pull out a genuine laugh out of him.

They were bruised and broken, both of them, reeling from their still open wounds. But the company helped.

[pondering-gales-left-orb]

Sigh rambling about DA2 again nothing has captivated me as this middle child game

Any way

Sebastian Vael

I know alot of people hate him for being the annoying church boy but!!!!

I myself have been put off by his very loud attempts of conversion while just walking around kirkwall, hes all like "fenris,you will feel safe in the makers hand!! take mine and follow me to the light for you shall be delivered!! consider visiting the chantry once and try praying you will feel a peaceful stillness descent upon you" or something and im just like my guy this is a Wendy's... Hawk is literally buying toxins and fire bombs from a shady guy in a room in a shady tavern but ok go off prince

BUT

His story is actually extremely intresting because if you actually listen to him you find out he was sent away literally exiled from his home, his family gave him away because he was a drunken playboy and they didnt want to put int the time love or care he needs of them... They specifically asked for him to be locked in the kirkwall chantry( put like fifteen lines under kirkwall that is important for later) of all places and get the infamous andrastian reform (typical)...

And then you think on how strong his devotion is to the chantry during DA2 and realize that for this 180 drastic change to happen he has been hardcore brainwashed.

then you notice his mother son relationship with Althiena, and realize she probably was the one to reform him taking advantage of his anger and the hole his family left in him when they sent him away by shaping herself to that hole, fitting perfectly as his "found family" to easily manipulate him.

i mentioned "kirkwall chantry of all places" earlier because you have to realize, that with the horrid enslavement going on there, it was all by the approval of the chantry and not just during the events of DA2, but from the start of what was old kirkwall, remember the entire thing was built on slavery and glorified it for so long that they had gold statues made proudly to represent that.

And that were never removed by any of the authorities claiming to be anti slavery and despite things changing in kirkwall overtime.

Note how the kirkwall chantry is old its not a new addition its old and it didn't tear down the slaves Statues in the name of andraste which you would expect from a religion that preaches "Our Andraste died to free slaves!!!"

no it was built next to it, around it even...Elthiena and her elders were raised here, were educated here, were appointed here, and lived in agreement with all of this, rising up to the ranks to continue the cycle while gaslighting people into thinking they are neutral and convincing people that they will pray for this to get solved........

Sending him to kirkwall was not by chance they deliberately choose kirkwall to fully erase him, break him, and replace him with a "good son" without any chance of escape because kirkwall's systematic oppression is so strong in place there is no chance of escaping it unless you do somthing drastic.

Now think back to Sebastian being locked in all of this and getting reformed by these same people and you understand why he is the way he is.

so strong in his devotion with unwavering morals that are like concrete pillars to who he is, who he has become. he never once has any of his beliefs shaken never once thinks about abandoning his vows for love his belief in them is so strong that he welcomes love and embraces it into his beliefs when others think they have to abandoned them to love. he loves hawk understands his desire to enjoy her lovingly but never wavers because of it. He will marry her first and then enjoy her thus satisfying and fullfiling his vows to andraste and himself nothing less nothing more.

BUT, and this is what makes him extremely intresting, as much as he loves Althiena and the kirkwall chantry he is NOT like them, Sebastian is a true believer of the core of andrastism rather than what it has morphed into in modern thedas. (Some people say he believes in Andrastism the same way Devine liliana does and i kinda agree)

Ironically if Sebastian was responsible of kirkwall and its chantry non of this would happen the mages would never have been enslaved the templars would never had to be turned into prison gaurds, they also wouldnt have become monsters as a result of Meridith becoming the first red templar. He would enforce real andrastism and abolish what it has become and ironically people would hate him for it.

putting aside my love for Anders, at that end cutscene he is literally the only correct one he faces down EVERYONE including Hawk and defends both mages and templars by bringing back the focus to the current cause.

He is so baffled by Meridith blaming all mages and by orsino getting lost in the bigger picture of hating templars that he yells at them to try and remind them "your own differences dont matter you both personally dont matter the people who died - who will die, are the ones who matter!!!"

When no one listens he is forced into the same conditions that Anders was forced into (again how ironic but also shows you thatcthere was no other way for this to end but i digress) of using the last resort of threatening violence and invasion (and later in DAI acting on it)

he saw what Anders saw, finally he saw that they both (Meridith and Orsino) are too far gone that they dont see anyone but thier own hate, and you bet your ass if Althiena had survived and was present and started her Spiel about "we must return to the maker and pray" that Anders experienced when he was pleading with her and the devine for 7! Years, Sebastian would also have realized that she is full of shit too. that no one in this chantry actually cares. his faith in HER as his own devine mother would break and he would include her in his threat the same way his faith in HAWK broke (if hawk spares anders) and includes Hawk in his promise of pay back.

Somthing something he spent so long trying to heal from pain and abuse only for him to realize how much he has been lied to and betrayed by the people he trusted, and the religion he gave himself into, that nothing he thought was real was actually real, causing him to fall further into the cycle of Abuse instead of escaping, knowing non of the healing he did as a chantry brother non of his suffring non of his (suddenly realized) abuse under it non of his relationships non of his lived experiences mattered.

Oh Sebastian the tragedy that you are

[sweetcocopowder]

Three Christmas Nights | Paladin Danse / Nate (Male Sole Survivor)

Synopsis: Nate enjoys three Christmas's in the wasteland, all different, all held in different places. Yet his mind is always on one person despite his best efforts. And he wonders if said man can love someone has damaged as him.

Word Count: 7.5K

Genre: Sad, sappy yet heartfelt

Warnings: Depressive thoughts. Self loathing. Guilt. Pining. Alcoholism.

Note: I wish you all a Merry Christmas. There might not be any more posts other than my other Danse/Nate series for this yet. Only cause I've got the chapters ready from ao3. But other than that, happy holidays and a blessed new year.

The first Christmas Nate had spent in the Wasteland, a man out of time and place, it was high in the sky aboard the Prydwyn. Only newly under Paladin Danse’s wing and fresh into the Brotherhood, it felt more like home than anything else in this bazaar place. It was military, and Nate knew military. Knows guns. Knows the smells. Knows the way of command. So, despite finding Elder Maxson a little straight forward and with a few outlandish ideas of his own, Danse is what had him keeping around.

Being honest, Nate had hung up his dog tags along ago. Kept them hidden in the bedroom closet so he wouldn’t have to look at them. Nora adored them though. Found no shame in it, only pride that he had gone and fought for his country. Even though it had gotten them nowhere in the end.

Yet, the U.S military had survived and was transformed into the Brotherhood of Steel, changing and morphing into a being of its own over the past two centuries. With its own morals and beliefs, even though some have Nate cringing on the inside. He had learnt long ago to keep his dislikes on the inside and to shut up within military standards. It has cost him getting beaten and bruised through multiple training session with no sleep or water.

He had just hoped that Elder Maxson wouldn’t punish him too harshly if he stepped out of line. He stuck by the Paladin the most, hoping that hiding by his massive form he could keep in the good books. The Paladin had already written him off as an efficient man, willing to help and keep in order. He just hoped he could keep to that with all the chaos pinballing around in his head. So much had to be done in such a little time.

Which is why he was surprised that in such a strict and tight chain of command aboard the Prydwyn, Christmas was celebrated on the main deck. Nate had watched from the upper decks at first, wondering just how long this would go on for. Ingrim was nowhere to be found, and Knights and Initiates had taken over the power armour deck. Drinks were passed around, stuff that had been freshly brewed from a settlement close by that indulges itself in a small still. Supplies both the Brotherhood and Diamond City. The alcohol is meant to be used for wounds and supplied to Keagen. But they had gotten something a little extra, something infused with berries and other spices that the Wasteland still had to offer.

When the party had gone on for longer than an hour, Nate had become more so impressed. No sign of Elder Maxson or Lancer. With curiosity peaked, he had ventured down with a skip in his step to seek out either of the men. He wasn’t a tattle tale, god no. He just wanted to find out why. It wasn’t like Maxson, from what Nate had figured out with this man, he had thought that there wouldn’t be time for a party with the “Threat of the Institute still about.”

Who Nate had found instead in the canteen had been Paladin Danse, standing off to the side in his power armour watching everyone like a hawk. When he had spotted Nate, he had stood up straighter and his eyebrows had perked up. Something akin to a dog seeing their owner, but the survivor would never say such a thing out loud. He probably be told to run laps around the Boston Airport. Twice.

“I thought you’d be against all of this,” Nate had spoken up first, looping his fingers into the front of his belt.

He had swapped out his vault blue suit to an orange Brotherhood uniform by the Paladin’s command. He had said it would be the proper means of things to be wearing the orange instead of keeping to the old blue. Nate would have to admit, the Brotherhood uniform is much comfier than that tight vault suit. It liked to ride up in places that weren’t meant to be ridden up in.

Paladin Danse had shaken his head ever so slightly. “I convinced Elder Maxson it would be good for morale, in exchange I watch over this little get together,” he had said. “In case anyone decides to get too rough, I’ll step in. I’ve taken responsibility.”

Which had taken Nate completely off guard. Maybe he had taken the Paladin for a complete stick in the mud. A man that takes everything by the books and to the T. It had left him speechless for a good few seconds, having to collect himself with a small, shocked scoff.

“Well then,” Nate had started with a smirk. “I guess I can’t offer you a drink?”

And the offer had gone right over the Paladin’s head. “If I am to be on watch, I need to be sober and ready for anything.”

Nate had nodded with his bottom lip pouted out. Somehow, a man that likes to keep up morale against his Elder’s wishes but a man that won’t step out of line for said morale. What a gentleman.

“Enjoy your post, Paladin,” Nate had bid his fair well to enjoy the party at its fullest then, or the liquor for the most part.

Thus, Nate had drank himself drunk that night on the Prydwyn. He doesn’t remember much, just that the alcohol tasted like sour grapes and rotten apples. But he had drank it anyways, the need to get drunk the driving focus of the night. He didn’t want to think how far out of time he was. He didn’t want to think of how everything around him had changed so drastically. He didn’t want to think that his wife was dead. He didn’t want to think that everyone and everything he knew was gone. That his son was still missing. And that he had somehow ended back up with a gun in his hand and inside a rank with a purpose to kill.

The talking had gotten very loud at one point and the amount of alcohol slushing around in his gut wasn’t ideal. With a womble in his step, he had ventured down to the bottom decks of the Prydwyn with no recollection of how he had gotten there. All he remembered is curling up against one of the storage containers and calling it a night with the taste of rotten apples on his tongue.

He doesn’t remember how he had gotten back into his cot, yet he had woken up there. Tucked in like what his mum use to do for him when he was six. Not even his friends in college had taken him back to his dorm when they found him passed out drunk out in the middle of the football field. All they had done was take pictures and said pictures would be passed around for the next few weeks to have a good laugh at.

But, waking up hung over, filled to the brim with emotions and tucked into bed, it was the glass of water on the table next to the cot that had sent him over the edge. He hadn’t cried when he saw his wife dead in the vault. He hadn’t cried when he had seen his home in ruins. He hadn’t cried when he had to venture across the Commonwealth by foot to seek out his son. Hadn’t cried when he was almost eaten alive by a Deathclaw. But it was the thought that, maybe it isn’t all that bad here, that had the tears rolling down his face. That some bastard here actually cared.

He had cried under his blankets that morning like he did when he was six years old.

The second Christmas Nate had spent in this wasteland, a General of the Minuteman and now known as the sole survivor, was spent on the ground within the safety of the Castle walls. The Minutemen had grown vastly and graciously over the year with Nate’s help. Many settlements had joined the course to help other communities and keep themselves afloat in this dangerous wasteland. Sticking together and making sure your neighbour isn’t going to slit your throat was Nate’s biggest leading factor to take his role seriously for Preston.

He will have to admit, the mayor of Good Neighbour had inspired Nate a lot. Hancock had helped him find his way and set his foot back on the good little path with his own morales, even if the ghoul didn’t realize it. Nate can still remember his speech he had given his community, his people. It had made the survivor want to know the ghoul better. Find out what made the ghoul tick.

He had found out a lot more than jet and mentats.

But this snowy Christmas, he had spent it surrounded by people he had grown fond of, proud of even. Preston had stuck close by him that night, talked about his General in such a light that it had made Nate blush. He would have asked the handsome man to his bed, but guilt had sprung just as quickly to his chest along with many other mixed emotions he couldn’t of named for the life of him. He didn’t want to hurt the poor man’s heart by asking him for a one night stand with a man that would leave him in the morning. Preston is too good for Nate’s own selfishness for a little pleasure and leisure. Nate’s mind had wondered to the Prydwyn on the horizon and one resident upon her decks.

Would there be another get together this year? On the main deck with that rotten apple alcohol. Or maybe it tastes better this year and they’ve gotten their recipe right in the year that they’ve been using their stills. Would Danse be overlooking that party? Making sure no kid falls down the stairs drunk. Make sure that no one lets the mole rats out.

Maybe he never even convinced Maxson this year to let the kids have a get together for morale. Or maybe he did. Flashing those big brown eyes of his, he can almost get away with anything. He lacks charisma, but it’s his caring that makes up for it. Maybe those eyes of his hold some spell that he unknowingly casts over everyone that looks upon them. That one gets so lost in them that all you have to do is agree and nod and go along with Danse so that he doesn’t realize you haven’t been listening the entire time.

Or maybe that’s just Nate getting caught up in the trance that Danse has over him. Maybe he should hop and skip over to the Prydwyn, see what he’s up to this fine night.

He had gone to stand, gone to grab his gun to make the trip over to the airport. Had the determination of a mule to get through the snow and the raiders to get to the Prydwyn. But the only place he had gotten, was the cold Castle floor.

This time, he had woken up where he had fallen. The morning light had blinded him, his head already pounding with the fall and the left-over alcohol in his system. No glass of water. No soft cot to wake up to. No one had moved him, they all but lay a thin blanket over him and called it a night. Did no one ask why he had a gun in hand? Why he smelt stronger of whiskey than when he had left the party? Why he was dressed up in his General’s uniform to go somewhere than to sleep in his own bed?

His head had pounded too much to be caring about that so early in the day. With the little strength he had left, he had crawled back to his warm bed and fallen asleep to the sounds of the busy Castle around him. The lapping of the icy waves outside had lulled him to a deep sleep. One that took him to the late evening where a haze of a storm had begun to brew.

Preston had commented he had slept like the dead, woken by no one. Reminded Nate of his grandpa that died in his sleep for some reason in that moment. Such a morbid thing to think, yet it had come by so quickly that he didn’t have time to stop it.

He had died at the age of sixty-eight, just before Nate had been drafted for the war.  

The third Christmas Nate had spent in the Wasteland, now the known saviour of the Commonwealth, was celebrated up north in Sanctuary Hills with Danse by his side. No longer Paladin, the man had turned to the Minutemen for help a few months after finding out his true nature. A synth.

What a true kick in the teeth. To be raised and taught everything within the Brotherhood. To have your own morales be in line with the Brotherhood. To have such trust and admiration for your brothers and sisters, to only have it all taken away underneath his feet within a few seconds.

The data that Nate had pulled from the Institute had names and genetical signatures of every synth that they had let out into the wasteland. And Danse had been an identical match to M7-97.

Nate could recall the feeling of dread when Maxson had told him the news and all in the same breath, ordered him to execute Danse himself. That’s when he had seen the Brotherhood had a lost cause. That’s when he had taken Maxson’s orders with a sneer curling at his lips and left the Prydwyn with Haylen calling after him.

She didn’t have to convince him. He had already made up his mind that he was going to find Danse and protect him with all his might. Danse had done so much for Nate and to think that Maxson wanted him to be the one to put a bullet between those brown eyes. It made him sick. Sicker than that rotten apple liquor.

Nate had found him, pacing back and forth down inside Listening Post Bravo. Before the survivor could get a word out, Danse had called himself everything he had said ill about synths. All that hatred and loathing towards a race was now aimed at himself and his very being. Everything he was made to be, everything he thought he was, was now just made to be destroyed and thrown out like the inhumane trash he was. He saw himself as nothing, so quickly. It has scared Nate solid.

He hadn’t brought a gun with him. Had travelled all that way to Danse, all that way to across the wasteland to show he wasn’t there to kill. But Danse had a gun, off to the side already loaded. Nate had stared at it for far too long as Danse had rambled on. How he had to be the example not the exception.

“SHUT UP!”

It was out before he could stop it.

Danse had stared at him with those brown eyes of his. And that time, Nate didn’t see that solid determination he once held onto for support. That stern, stone cold look that still looked out into the world with care and admiration. All he saw was tears, brimming to those brown eyes that Danse was holding back with great effort. All he saw was a kid. Somewhere when Nate had been staring at the gun, Danse had gotten down on his knees only making the man look small. Small and defenceless.

Nate stills sees that image in his head from day to day. But that had been six months ago now.

Tonight, it’s all about how lively Sanctuary Hills is. It’s about the celebration of the destruction of the Institute. It’s about a new age for the Commonwealth that no one thought was even possible. Enough food has been prepared in advance that three Castles could survive on for weeks.

Snow had not yet arrived in the Commonwealth yet. A late one for Christmas this year but a chill in there air could be felt nevertheless. Everyone wears a scarf or an old beanie. Nate is just hoping to rely on the alcohol to stay warm tonight.

Dinner is served underneath the large, dead tree at the end of Nate’s old street. The branches are strung and lit up with old Christmas lights and ornaments that the children have made. It was Codsworth that had helped to put it all up. More than thrilled to help out around the place and to see the old block look festive once again. It had made Nate warm inside to see the old bot have at least some sort of nostalgia from the past.

So, Nate now stands in the middle of a vast group of people. All strangers to him but they all know him as well as if he sent them Christmas cards every year. A lot of handshakes. A lot of fake laughing. A lot of trying to remember names. And a lot of pats on the back that make him feel oddly numb. All this praise and all this, hope that Nate has given these people is… it doesn’t feel real. He’s spent over two years in the wastelands now and his hair has grown out to his shoulders, his beard freshly trimmed for the occasion. He looks like a different man than when he came out of the vault. A man that’s been shaped by the horrors of the wasteland.

He wears his General’s uniform, lacking the coat in favour of a scarf. He wanted to be as casual as possible but still people treat him like he’s some saint. Someone to be formal around and praise and… everything that Nate doesn’t feel like he is.

He had spotted Valentine and Piper around five minutes ago, but they had kept to the side lines. And Nate doesn’t blame them. The amount of people surrounding Nate is insane. He thought he saw Deacon before, but he doesn’t know if it was him or not in some disguise.

Yet, despite knowing that there’s people here that he’s travelled with, people he’s gone through thick and thin with his mind is only on one person. His dark blue eyes scan the crowd for one man in particular. Danse. He hasn’t seen him since earlier this evening. And he doesn’t know if Nate is avoiding Danse or if Danse is avoiding Nate. His mind is a jumble at the moment and there’s so many people shaking his hand!

The sound of glass being struck with a spoon quiets everyone. Nate looks up from smiling at a woman with his best fake smile and spots Hancock standing a top the dinner table. He minds the food being served out on it, being placed ready for people to sit down and dine. He holds a glass in his hand with a silver spoon in the other. He waits for the crowd to simmer down, a large grin on his face as his black eyes scan over everyone.

“Now,” Hancock’s raspy voice begins as he throws the silver spoon over his shoulder. “Tonight is a grand night! One filled with laughter, more than I have heard in a long time. I haven’t seen this many smiling faces since… ever! And it’s all because of one personal and his little Minutemen! Always there within a minute’s notice! Took down the Institute in less than a minute I think as well!”

A chorus of chuckles and snorts light up the night. Hancock chortles lightly to himself with a hand covering his mouth.

“Nate is who we owe it to! A man out of time! A man from the past! A man with an ambition to destroy the Institute for his son! To make the Commonwealth a safer place for the people! He is now of the people! One of us!”

Despite the praise and Hancock raising his glass to him, the thought alone of his son creates a deeper hole than what is there originally. All glasses are raised and cheers are exclaimed into the starry night sky. It’s a beautiful night. One that Nate barely notices as everyone sits down to dine. All around the tables that stretch around the tree.

He needs a drink. Desperately.

Nick Valentine sits across from him with Piper beside the detective. There’s food in front of them of all different varieties but Nate doesn’t touch a lick of it. Piper chatters of her work, on how she’s been reporting less synth activity that’s Institute related, on how the residents of Diamond City aren’t in constant fear and on how she might be out of the job now with no Institute. It’s all good news. Something that Nate would love to hear but, his mind wonders somewhere else. His eyes land upon the person he’s been looking for all night.

“There will always be danger in the Commonwealth, Piper,” the detective speaks up, “No doubt about that. We may have chopped the head off the snake but there’s still the body to deal with.”

Piper thinks on that for a moment before her face screws up. She gestures a hand towards Valentine, “That, doesn’t make any sense, Nick.”

“Ah well, you understand what I’m trying to say. There will always be some bad in this world no matter where you look,” Valentine states.

Piper hums on that. “Yeah, let’s not think too hard on that. It’s Christmas after all and a celebration at that!”

Nate only hears half of the conversation. His attention is on Danse, who sits far down the other side of the table. He can just see him peaking out from behind the tree trunk. He rarely sees him out of the power armour these days and let alone in civilian clothes. He wears a blue button up shirt that hugs his shoulders tightly. It looks good on him.

He’s currently stuck in a conversation with Curie. What an odd sight to see. It’s like so many worlds are crashing together tonight. So many people Nate has met coming together in one place and it’s, jarring. Nate can’t keep up.

Danse smiles softly at Curie as the other synth flails her arms about, most likely explaining something or going on one of her rambles. But it has Danse captivated all the same. Nate almost finds himself a little jealous. Jealous that he can’t see Danse’s smile up close. He barely smiles as is.

Nate wonders what the two synths are conversing about. Would Curie be going on a ramble about Christmas itself, explaining how it was celebrated before the war? Or would she be talking to Danse about his own worry about his identity. Would that be something Danse would be willing to talk about with a stranger? He’s never met Curie upon tonight. They seem to be getting along well though despite it all.

Curie lets out a loud chuckle that can be heard over the crowd. Nate’s heart swells at how mundane all of this is. No one is worrying about the horrors that lie outside of the safety of Sanctuary hills. What did Danse say that earned that reaction? He can be blunt at times but some of the things that come out of his mouth does earn a-

“Earth to Nate?”

A snap of fingers in front of his face as the survivor sitting up straight, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. He looks to the two in front of him, wondering just how long he’s been staring for. How long have they been trying to get his attention?

“You staring at big boy or the pretty lady over there?” Valentine asks as he gestures over his shoulder, a cigarette in hand.

Piper tsks. “It’ll be the big boy.”

“What!?” Nate exclaims as if he’s been caught with his hand inside the cookie jar.

The reporter raises her brows at that. “When are you going to make a move on him, Nate? I’m not all for the soldier type but I can’t help but feel sorry for him. Pining over you that can’t charm a brick wall.”

The survivor stares at Piper with wide eyes, his mouth slightly agape. He doesn’t know how to answer. Hasn’t even realize that anyone around him has taken any notice to his own pining.

“I’ve seen how you follow him around like a lost pup sometimes. And he does the same, following you around, wondering where you are,” Piper goes on.

“I-“ Nate stutters. “A brick wall? Come on, Piper I’m better than that.”

Piper laughs at that, throwing her head back and laughing. “The last time I saw you try and charm some poor woman it landed us in a feral ghoul pit.”

Nate sits up straight at that. “She was impossible! You saw how she was!”

Piper only laughs harder at that. Nate sulks to himself with his chin in his palm. He glances to Valentine who’s fully turned in his seat to get a good look at Danse. He’s only met the ex-Paladin once or twice. Both times weren’t all that pleasant with Danse’s dislike towards synths. But now there’s a sort of sympathy towards Danse that Nate has noticed. The gruff, closed off wall that Valentine had put up has been lowered in case Danse ever wants to… talk.

Nate huffs as hair falls in front of his face. He spies a bottle of vodka near him and his fingers instinctively inch towards it. He shouldn’t really but he knows he’s too sober right now. It’s a bad habit but it’s a habit that lessons the pain. His fingers grip around the neck of the bottle and he sits up straighter, looking around for a glass.

Valentine places a glass in front of him. Nate looks to him silently, slowly grabbing it to pour himself a shot of vodka. It’ll warm him up. And make his racing thoughts become a haze.  

“Look,” Piper chirps up again. “I’m not saying it’s bad. You don’t need to get so caught up in liking men if that’s the issue.”

Nate is midway through taking his shot when Piper speaks and said vodka is shot back up into the glass. He chokes loudly, covering his mouth as he can feel vodka burning the insides of his air ways. Not the place that alcohol should be. Some people around him glance at him, asking if he’s okay. Valentine assures them with a raises hand and kind words.

“Piper,” Valentine clears his throat. “I don’t think that’s the issue here.”

Nate clears his throat, his inside still stinging in the worst ways possible. He pours himself a shot to help with the pain. And it burns on the way down.

The survivor gestures the glass towards Piper before pouring himself another drink. “You ever fall in love with someone that’s just as broken as yourself?”

The questions take both Valentine and Piper off guard. The reporter glances towards Valentine but his concerned attention is kept on Nate. He’s silent for a moment, flicking cigarette ash to the floor before leaning closer to the table.

“I can’t say that I have,” Nick answers slowly.

Nate takes back another shot with a flick of his head. “What if you both get hurt?” He asks even though he’s not expecting an answer.

He doesn’t know it himself and he should know the answer to everything. Because he’s the General to the Minutemen. He’s a fucking Paladin in the Brotherhood of Steel. He’s an agent of the Railroad. Could have been the leader of the Institute.

He’s never told anyone that. And the thought of telling anyone makes his body lock up. His mouth clamp up tight. Who would he even tell!?

Another shot burns down his throat.

“What if you both heal?”

Valentine’s question hits a nerve within Nate. One that makes him look to Danse behind the detective with a sombre, tipsy expression. Could Nate help Danse? Could Danse help Nate?

A hand covers and squeezes his own, bringing his attention back to Piper. She looks to him with a new found sadness, like some kicked pup. The conversation quickly took a dreary tone all because of Nate’s lonesome pining and dreadful aura. He meets Piper’s gaze and he wonders what she sees. Does she see a hero? A legend that is as grand as all the stories told around the campfire? Or does she see a man. A simple man trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. A man from the past that’s trying to figure out where he belongs. A tired man that just needs some rest.

He breathes slowly, his body suddenly feeling very weighed down.

“It’s a celebration,” Piper says softly. “You should celebrate. Ask Danse for a-“ she chuckles at herself. “Ask him for a dance or something romantic instead of drinking yourself into a puddle. The future is brighter because of you and Danse is alive and sitting over there.”

As if on que, the harsh, bark of a laugh catches Nate’s ears. Danse’s rare laugh that he doesn’t hear often. He swears he feels his heart skip a beat. A genuine laugh. He looks over once again, past the two to see Preston has now joined in on the conversation with Curie and Danse. He hovers over Danse’s shoulder with a wide smile across his lips. It looks good on the young man. He’s needed this more than anyone. A break. A laugh.

Maybe Nate should stop being a sulk and actually enjoy the party. Maybe he should-

“Tiger,” Valentine ushers. “It’s only one night. What’s the harm in asking. It’s almost making me sad seeing you like this. Hey, I’ll go over there and ask him if you don’t any time soon. It’s killing me.”,

Nate licks his lips and suddenly stands, his hand still gripped around the neck of the vodka bottle. He feels so many eyes turn to him and he instinctively shrinks away, visibly wincing.

“Just uh-“ He can’t think licking his lips again. “I just need a moment is all. I’m sorry.”

With that, he wonders away from the party with the bottle still in hand. He doesn’t know where he’s headed. He just needs to get away from the noise. The chatter. The poking and the prodding. He knows he should just man up and ask Danse to do something instead of avoiding him. Who is he to ask him to live when he just ignores him like this!?

He runs a hand over his face before taking a swig straight of the bottle. He hisses as it burns but it feels good all the same. It’s what he needs. He needs the haze it brings over his mind. He just, doesn’t want to think. Not right now. Not when there’s everyone reminding him of all the good deeds he’s done.

Did he do them out of the kindness of his heart? Or because they’d put him one step closer to his son? Was it all for personal gain?

No. No it wasn’t.

Maybe. Maybe it was. Maybe he saved Danse from himself so that Nate wouldn’t have to live without a man that knows the struggle of war. He will admit that the man hasn’t seen true war, not like Anchorage but he’s seen it. Knows the loss and bloodshed of it. Maybe that’s why Nate clings to him like a life support. Cause he’s seen it all. Or maybe it’s the way that Danse cares and always puts others before himself. Is willing to lay his life down for a greater good. And he had.

He had laid down and waited for the bullet thinking it was for the greater good. Yet, despite his own self loathing here he is tonight laughing and conversating with people that Nate would have never imagined if he had remained with the Brotherhood. Maybe it was for the greater good that Danse’s true nature was shown to him.

Now is that selfish of Nate to think? That’s it’s better that Danse knows and struggles with his own identity instead of being blinded by an outlandish code so he would feel some comfortability in life. Danse has to start anew. Start from the ground up because everything he knew was ripped away to never be seen or grasped again. All because Nate walked into his life. Would they have found a way into the Institute if it wasn’t for Nate’s bull like drive? Maybe they’d still be twiddling their thumbs.

Nate lands on his knees heavily as he sinks low in front of his old closet. He doesn’t remember entering his old house. He doesn’t even remember turning down the street.

He rummages around, searching for one thing. One thing he had buried in here to never look at again and-

Slowly, Nate pulls out his old, rusted dog tags. The once shiny metal is now dull, the edges being eaten by rust, but his name and number can still be read clear as day. He hasn’t seen these in such a long time. He doesn’t even know why he’s pulled these out now. Come searching for them. Maybe for some solid proof that he was here. That his past life wasn’t all some sick and twisted dream that the Institute made up for him.

He sits back against the nearest wall as he holds his dog tags in one hand and the bottle in the other. Breathing in heavily, he listens to the murmur of people outside. He spies out the window, seeing the Christmas lights lighting up the settlement. It would bring a smile to his face, but it only makes him think of how the neighbour use to look like during Christmas.

Nate takes another, long swill of his bottle.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, but he knows that he passes out shortly after the bottle is drained empty of it’s sickly liquid. Nate clutches his tags close to his chest as he lays on his side, his dreams filled with a time long before.

He’s half between worlds when he hears the heavy fall of boots come down the hallway. He pries his eyes open, looking through his eyelashes as he peers into the dark, paint peeled room of his own. The room spins and he feels like he’s sinking into the floor where he lays, his cheek smooshed into the old crusty carpet. He doesn’t see who’s come into the room until a glass of water is place right in front of his nose.

A glass of water.

Nate swallows thickly, his eyes opening fully now as he looks up to meet the sight of Danse kneeling in front of him. It’s as if he suddenly sobers up, finding the will to sit up straight which is a big mistake in itself. His head swims and he quickly grabs at his head with a groan.

“Easy there,” Danse’s voice is soft, almost too soft.

A large hand cups Nate’s head to hold him still as the cup of water is brought to his lips. Nate almost refuses at first but the look on Danse’s face has him sipping down the water.

So, it was Danse who carried him to his cot in the Prydwyn. Would he have done this if Nate had been awake? Would he have cradled his face like this to make sure he sobered up on water? The thought makes his gut swim and he doesn’t know if it’s the man in front of him or his stomach mixing and churning with vodka and water.

The glass leaves Nate’s lips along with the hand on his face. He almost finds himself whining for it to stay but he stops short.

“I would ask you why you left but I don’t think a sad drunk agrees with loud and cheerful crowds,” Danse comments bluntly but there’s a tinge of light heartedness to it that Nate hears.

He wouldn’t of been able to point it out when they had first met. Everything that came from Danse’s mouth was blunt and short. But Nate had listened. Picked up the quirks of each sentence that passed from the ex-Paladin’s lips to figure out what he actually means. Find the hidden emotion that he tries oh so desperately to hide.

“A sad drunk?” Nate asks with a tilt of his head.

“Affirmative,” Danse quirks.

“Huh,” Nate scoffs. “I didn’t want to bring down the party, so I decided to start one on my own. Can’t you see I’m having a blast?”

Danse does the dramatic honour of looking around the room as if someone else is going to pop out. But when he sees no one else, he looks back to the survivor with a tilt of his head.

“A very lively party,” he says with as much sarcasm as he can muster. Which isn’t a lot. It sounds more like an insult than anything else.

Nate snorts through his nose.

“I came by to make sure you’re alright,” Danse says as he stands up straight. Nate’s chest squeezes at the sudden realization that he could be left again. “I should be getting back to the party. I’ll tell everyone you’re oka-”

“Stay.”

It’s out of Nate’s mouth before he can even think. He quickly clears his throat.

“Only if you wanna stick by a two-hundred-year-old man. I’ve been told I look good for my age,” he softly chuckles at his own joke.

Danse looks down at him silently with a small rising smirk on his lips. The few passing seconds feel like an eternity to Nate as he stares up at the other man with pleading eyes. It must work, that puppy dog eyed look Nate has perfected so well, or may he does just look like a sad drunk because Danse sits down right next to him with his back to the wall.

“You could go back out there,” Danse comments. “You’re the reason why everyone is here today.”

Nate looks to the other sadly. He looks a little too long at how the red and green lights from outside flicker and dance across the other’s face, making his dark brown eyes all that softer.

He licks his lips, looking away. “Why? Everyone has at least thanked me five times for my good deeds. You’d think I’m some kind of angel that has come from the heavens!”

“You shouldn’t put yourself in such a hole,” Danse says firmly. “I’ve seen men do less than you have be raised to Paladin. All they did past that is gloat on how grand and great they are to the lower ranks and roll in the praises they get. I don’t understand why you see yourself as something as low as the bottom of a bottle when you’ve made a future for the next generation of children.”

Nate swallows thickly, his chest squeezing tightly. He says his mind out loud before he even knows it. Before he can put a lid on it to stop the chaos from escaping.

“I put myself in this hole ‘cause I couldn’t even save my own kid,” He spits it, snaps it even to make Danse shut up. To stop making him sound like such a hero. And Danse does. He falls silent, watching Nate intently.

“I found him. I found my son in the Institute. But-” Nate’s voice hics. God he’s going to cry. “I was sixty years too fucking late. He was older than me. Had more grey hairs than me! God the way he spoke to me it was- I-“

Nate swallows his own words. He can’t say it. He shouldn’t say it. Not out loud. How would someone react hearing Nate say that he fucking hated his own son after searching high and low for him. After everything he had been through had been for nothing. He had found a way into the one place that didn’t have a front door and had only found his son running the place that had caused so much pain in the Commonwealth.

“I left him there, Danse.”

He doesn’t want to look at the other man. Doesn’t want to see what horror struck expression that has come across his face. But he looks. He looks and only sees… pity. A sadness and concern that Nate has seen so many times from the nurses when he was in the army.

“That wasn’t your son,” Danse suddenly says. “You didn’t raise him. Didn’t know him. That man was a stranger that had your son’s face.”

Nate swallows thickly, holding back the choke of a sob rising within his throat. Shaun died with Nora in that god forsaken vault. And out stepped Nate. A man from the past that had no idea what was going on nor what year he was in. Maybe he should have died with the rest. Maybe Nora would have had a better out look on a world such as this.

Nate finds himself staring at Danse. He doesn’t know how to respond. He’s never thought to put it into that perspective. Those dark brown eyes put him into one of those trances he can’t look away from.

“Ridding the Commonwealth of the disease festering underneath it’s skin, you saved everyone. You may have lost your family, but you’ve found one. You have one here with the people out there celebrating an old tradition that has probably not been celebrated like this in a long time. You’ve made people smile again, Nate,” Danse speaks softly yet his voice stills holds that same soldier like sternness to it that won’t ever go away.

“You’ve made me smile again.”

Yet, the way Danse speaks that last line it takes the survivor’s breath away. And just like that, the smile that Nate loves so much spreads across the other man’s face. It crinkles at his eyes and shows his little fangs he has.

The next thing that Nate does, he’d call himself stupid for it. He leans forward towards Danse, hesitating only a moment when his lips are a hair’s breath away from the ex-Paladin’s to see if he’ll pull away, to see if it’ll push Nate away for his stupidity. But when he doesn’t move, looking to Nate through his lashes and his mouth now lightly parted as if waiting, Nate moves forward that extra bit to kiss Danse’s soft lips. Only light like, a small peck that lasts a little too long before Nate can have a taste. He pulls away and looks into those brown eyes that stare directly back.

“I’m sorry there wasn’t any mistletoe, I jumped the gun,” Nate says as he leans away.

But Danse grabs him by the front of the shirt, almost rough like to drag him back into a much rougher kiss. One that Danse leads like he’s done this before, kissing and tasting Nate’s lips as if he can’t get enough of him. The survivor melts into Danse’s touch as the ex-Paladin places a hand on his waist to steady him.

Maybe everything will be alright. Maybe this Christmas will be a merry one after all. The warmth of Danse is enough to lull him into a mindless wake. He lets Danse kiss him the way he wants, lets him taste him as much as he wants. If only Danse could feel just how much Nate has wanted this for so long. His chest aches painfully even though he now has it within his grasp.

It’s better than alcohol. His mind melts and he forgets everything for the moment. All his worries. Everything he’s been through. Because he knows, in his heart he knows that there are arms he can lean on. That there will be someone there to catch him if he falls. Someone that will watch over him when he’s in a hole of his own making. To offer him water when he’s in need. And there has been arms to lean on for a good while now. Ever since he heard the distress call over his pip-boy.

Nate hums as Danse ventures down his jaw to his neck, holding onto the ex-Paladin and not letting go. He breathes heavily, his eyes a daze as he stares out the window. Snow falls softly and he doesn’t register it at first but, he chuckles softly at seeing the flakes. He doesn’t have to think too much about it though as Danse engulfs his mouth in another feverish kiss. He wonders instead how long the ex-Paladin has been wanting this. Yearning for it. How much he’s ached for Nate.

He’d love to find out. And they have the rest of the night to do so. He holds onto Danse and doesn’t let go. Doesn’t think he even wants to. He’s got Danse and that’s the best Christmas gift he could ever ask for.

-

Like, comment and reblog or whatever

[birdyverdie]

what bird do you imagine Reynauld as and why? :}

Ahaha!!!! thanks for making it easier for me to answer Coffee ;;

Reynauld is a tough case! He's not as easily summarizeable as Dismas imo so I had to pick and choose what characteristics to focus on, I had to do a lot of research on this one! ;;

My go-to instinct is to assign him as a Harpy Eagle, since they're a big bird and their plumage kinda fit the whole grey-armor thing. But they're decently calm tempered and even friendly sometimes, and their hunting style is too static--since they perch-hunt--and that doesn't particularly match what I had in mind for Reynauld. In fact, I think it fits more of Baldwin's or even Barristan's style (I'll think on that a bit more later).

I think with Reynauld's army background he'd be comfortable around people, therefore flocks. He's also a pretty confident guy who speaks his mind as an unshakable leader. (Haha) Which means he would have the audacity of the larger and more daring birds of prey. (Sorry Kites and Falcons! Some of y'all are audacious tho!)

In game, he has the second highest HP, so I was thinking a fairly tough bird like the Golden Eagle. However, the Crusader is a generalist class. You can place him nearly anywhere and he can provide some sort of benefit, and he doesn't particularly have a specific niche. So I took that flexibility into account.

In conclusion, I think I'll assign him a Swainson's Hawk. Swainson's hawks are migrants and form flocks. Their flying and hunting style are incredibly varied, ranging from perch-hunting, hovering, and even ground hunting! They're also not that fast for a hawk, and some describe their terrestrial hunting style to be fairly clunky: reminiscent to his in-game slow speed.

I also took aesthetic into account. Unfortunately, finding grey or blue hawks that matched the above characteristics is fairly difficult. So the closest thing I found that kinda matched did end up being Swainson's Hawk. I'm thinking specifically the light morph rather than the dark morph because I like to think of the dark head as a helmet, red-ish breast as his holy symbol, and the rest in an armored variety ;;

Another incredibly fun thing about these hawks is that they're opportunistic feeders, which means that they sometimes participate in kleptoparasitism. Isn't that a little perfect?

[halogenwarrior]

Well I finally finished reading all of the Animorphs books (getting into them now as an adult) and I found them really interesting in terms of themes that they used the sci-fi premises to explore. Everyone talks about how they explore the trauma of war, but I thought something else very fascinating that they do (and which is connected to said exploration of war and the morality thereof) is how they use both the existence of aliens of different types and the ability of morph to interrogate the assumptions humans typically make to justify the lives of non-human animals being morally less significant than those of humans. In total, this series can be seen as an exploration of how to find moral understanding and purpose in life in a world where humans are not the only part of one’s vision of the world, but a wide variety of species with different experiences, all shaped by natural selection. 

Note: the Animorphs series has an annoying habit of not using the term “sentient” as what it correctly means, it’s supposed to mean any being with a conscious, lived experience, with sapience being the term used for being capable of things like language, complex rational thought, etc. and generally being seen as “people”. So I will be using the terms in that way throughout this post.

In general, there are three arguments or assumptions that usually play into the belief in humans’ greater importance:

Superiority of lived experience

This is the often unspoken assumption that there is more inherent value, however one defines it, in the very experience of living for a human than any non-human animal, perhaps in the richness of emotion, ability to conceptualize values, the complex social life of humans, however you might put it, and therefore a human living is a greater gain and dying is a greater loss than for any other being.  Throughout the books, the Animorphs transform into various animals and, due to how morphing works, get a sense of the instincts and natural conscious perspective of said animals. And some seem far preferable to others – while the dolphin and dog morphs give the main characters access to a kind of joy different from and stronger than what is experienced as a human, others like shrews (with constant fear) or especially ants (due to the loss of human conception of self, as well as the constant danger and brutal fighting) are so horrifying the Animorphs are reluctant to ever morph that creature again, even if it would give them an advantage, and even traumatized by the experience. This raises the question of how life could just generically be seen to have value and be sacred (as Cassie tends to think) when some lives’ innate experience, as just the condition of being that species rather than their particular circumstances, seem so much more worthwhile than others. But it’s worth noting that some animals’ lives do seem preferable to humans – it’s not humans who are the largest “utility monster” whose lives seem the most valuable of all, as is the typical human assumption.

The relative value of different species’ lived experience is a theme most directly confronted by Tobias, who, after the first book, is trapped in the form of a red-tailed hawk and now has to live life in the wild as a hawk rather than a human. Tobias’ attitude leaving up to this shows how many humans’ assumption that their life is the most preferable to live comes from disgust of alien experiences and the “wisdom of repugnance” rather than an objective valuation. Due to his open-mindedness and dissatisfaction with his human life, Tobias is able to avoid the default belief that being a human is “best” because being anything else is “weird”, finding much of the hawk’s experience like flying far preferable to his human life and not having an automatic aversion, at least in book #1, to other aspects like eating roadkill (an attitude that astonishes and disgusts the other children). When he is trapped, it's shown that even if he did not fully intentionally do so, he was attracted enough to the life of a hawk that he at least did not make as much of an effort as he could have to avoid it and semi-consciously seemed to want it to happen. 

By book #3, Tobias finds himself having mixed feelings about his new life -in a “the grass is greener on the other side” sense, he misses various parts of the human experience when deprived of them, and feels horror at the idea of killing animals to survive in a way that seems less of a moral point (given he has no problem at this point with eating human-produced meat) and more of disgust, to the point of suicidal behavior upon realizing he cannot control his hawk instincts and is losing his humanity. But nonetheless, the feelings are still mixed, he finds much value in his life and much preferable to the life of a human, and is uncomfortable with his friends’ assumptions of him as solely an object of pity who tragically sacrificed any joy his life could ever have to live some kind of horrifying fate worse than death, as shown in the scene where they nearly get stuck as wolves and Tobias is deeply uncomfortable with how horrified they are at the idea of ending up like him. The others’ reactions lead to his self-consciousness, as shown by how he is embarrassed in #23 specifically about having the other Animorphs see him eat roadkill, when in #1 he notably did not have an inhibition about the idea of eating it. These early parts of Tobias’ arc explore whether our assumptions of human life being preferable, and thus of more value, are based only on the favoring of familiarity, while still portraying the ambiguity of his experience.

But the picture is further complicated by showing ways in which a hawk’s, and by extension most animals’ (at least wild animals’) experience might truly be horrible, not just assumed to be so. It’s also noted that one large way the experience of a hawk differs from that of a human is that hawks have to spend all of their focus on survival – they are at constant risk of starvation and attack by other raptors, and have no hobbies or diversions in life. And this isn’t just a coincidence or rotten luck; the nature of predator/prey relationships in ecosystems is such that, from the predator’s perspective, starvation conditions are inevitable in regular cycles as the prey populations fluctuate. To some extent Tobias copes with this by romanticizing survival, finding peace in the push and pull of creatures every day living and struggling, giving a monologue to this effect in Megamorphs #2. And it helps that he already wants to “toughen up” and not be the child who was bullied for being sensitive anymore, and being a predator and survivor is helpful to his self-image. But his actions bely his words. At the end of the same book, Megamorphs #2, with the group transported back in time to the end of the Cretaceous Period, Tobias is the one to make the decision to not divert the comet that will cause the extinction at the end of this period, killing perhaps three fourths of species of animals on the planet in a horrific, drawn-out apocalypse because he knows that is the only way humans will come to exist in the future. The very character who claims he is at least partially happy and proud in the life of a hawk also believes that the existence of humanity is so important, and the value of the lives of animals like him so depreciating by them having pain and the struggle to survive to look forward to and little else complexity in their experience to alleviate this, that the animals’ actual deaths are preferable to humans just never having existed in the first place. Note there is also a small group of sapient aliens he is killing in this case, but while condemning them to death can be explained in a “trolley problem” sense by their number being much, much smaller than all the humans that did, now do, and will exist, I think his decision leading to the massacre of most of the animals on the planet is much more thematically relevant. 

Book #23 further explores how thin Tobias’ justifications that his life is worthwhile are becoming. In this book, he is increasingly struggling to find food to the point of starvation, when a relative of his suddenly offers to adopt him – but becoming human to be adopted would mean losing his ability to morph forever. Others like Rachel have already wondered why he is so resistant to going back to being a human, and now with the prospect of family, Tobias isn’t sure himself, he feels little joy or purpose in his life anymore. But I think the reason why he hesitates is revealed by his reaction to finding out said relative is actually his enemy Visser Three in morph. It’s clear in this scene and others (like his flashbacks to earlier childhood in #33 or his alternate self joining the Sharing in Megamorphs #4) that Tobias is a dreamer, always hoping for and willing to imagine an escape from his life, and yet due to these qualities being attacked and belittled by other people he hates himself for daring to hope and being proven wrong. Remember that wanting to be a hawk, just like thinking he might have a family, was also a form of dream of escape, something he to some extent let happen. And to some extent, his friends belittled him for it, believing that his idea of an escape would actually be a miserable and disgraceful life and sometimes reacting to him as such. His reluctance to live as a human is largely a fear, or growing realization, that what everyone told him might be right – that the life he half-chose for himself might be a horrible one, the discomfort they had that he once saw as misguided and a sign of being close-minded could be right all along. And that would mean facing his worst fear of being a dupe, a naïve idiot who has dumb, self-destructive ideas for how his life could be better and he could escape when really the world doesn’t work that way. He has to remain a hawk because, even if he doesn’t want it, it’s a fair punishment in his mind for putting himself foolishly into a trap, for being his open-minded self, and even if he doesn’t enjoy it at least living as a predator fighting for survival is the perfect symbol of the tough cynic who can’t be bullied that he wants to become. At this point he seems to not think the life and experience of a hawk is worth anything for himself or, as shown in Megamorphs #2, for other animals. 

It's not just Tobias’ arc that explores the question of whether a life can be worse than another or even not worth living due to the inherent experiences that come with being that kind of life form. There’s also the Taxxons, with their constant hunger that makes them desperate to do anything to escape it. When Arbron is trapped as one he tries to kill himself, but ultimately settles on living out of a belief that there can be hope in any life, and fighting for the Taxxon resistance. Even so, his life is still miserable in many ways, perhaps lived more for the opportunity to do good in the world than any personal happiness, and it’s surmised he might have been relieved when he finally died.  And the Yeerks, who are motivated to enslave others as brain parasites because it’s their condition as Yeerks to have a depreciated experience of life without infesting someone. They have no sight and hearing, but perhaps most importantly for the comparison to humans viewing their lives as more rich and thus more worthy, have no ability to experience the diverse range of life that comes with a sapient species’ society. A Yeerk alone just floats in a pool and nothing else, when infesting another being they can have the wide range of activities and complexity of intellectual experience that a human would have. Again the question is asked – are any beings’ condition of living bad enough that death would be preferable? Are there any bad enough that hurting another to have an experience of life more comparable with the readers’ human reference point would be an understandable action? 

The Animorphs books are also clear, though, that even with the main characters’ ability to live as other species and experience their instincts, and thus some slice of their lived experience, they don’t have nearly enough information to answer this question. As Rachel notes in #23 when trying to figure out why he doesn’t want to become human now that he has a family, Tobias is not fundamentally a hawk, but both a hawk and a human. He isn’t really making the decision whether the life of a human is preferable to that of a hawk, even the sad human life he lived before. He is making the decision of whether a human, coming from a human perspective, would be happier in his original form or as a hawk. For instance, his loneliness and need of a family isn’t a true “downside” of being a hawk from an actual hawk’s perspective, just from the mind of a social animal transplanted into one. Starvation and pain are things real hawks face, but they might conceptualize it completely differently than a human does. Note how studies have shown the pain people feel from injuries can vary depending on the story they mentally tell themselves, like soldiers believing their pain is for a cause feeling less than civilians who are injured by accident, and of course nonhuman animals don’t have language and thus likely don’t have a concept of a “story” behind their pain at all. This is explored in #33, when Tobias is being tortured and finds completely giving in to the instinctual experience a hawk would have helps him endure it – an acceptance of pain as a given, that “life is pain”, though this comes at the cost of not being able to appreciate pleasure from things like eating food like a human would as well. I’m not that convinced that this is how a hawk would experience things (I’d imagine due to natural selection promoting those feelings, a hawk would be likely to feel both pain and the pleasure of eating food intensely, if not in the same way as a person, and one could definitely argue not having a story and explanation for pain could make it feel worse), but obviously a human author can’t know and there’s a tough line to walk between anthropomorphism and complete denial of animals’ experiences paralleling humans in any way. And, although Yeerks like Aftran find being without a host a horrible fate, we see in Esplin’s perspective in the Hork-Bajir chronicles that Yeerks who have never had a host feel content enough in their pools, it’s only the comparison to a different experience that makes at least some feel lacking. Any attempt to use the experience in morph to judge how rich and happy the real animal’s experience is has this problem. The Animorphs’ much-despised ant morph is in part hated because of the constant violence, but also because of the loss of a human’s conception of self, something that would likely be only horrific if you started out as a human and not to a real ant. 

One can make a comparison here to disability activism and the criticism of people’s assumption that, because someone with a disability has a certain experience or is missing a certain experience, their lives are miserable or even not worth living. This is often predicated on an assumption that the abled human being is a happy default – so while being deaf is stereotyped as being miserable because of the lack of hearing, not being able to see ultraviolet light or sense magnetic fields like some animals can do is never seen as a tragic loss, showing it’s less about some objective valuation of experiences and more about devaluing disabled people in particular. What is interesting about this series is how it explores this theme in a context where the abled human is not the default, instead there is a huge range of different species’ experiences that can be shared and exchanged through morphing or Yeerk parasitism. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sometimes play the ableist tropes straight, unfortunately, such as Loren in #49 preferring to die than demorph a hawk and become blind again, only relenting when she finds her blindness will be cured. But there is definitely a parallel to the experiences of people with disabilities in how book #3 Tobias finds he can’t express the complexities, both good and bad, of his experience without it being whittled down by the other Animorphs into pity and assumption there is just misery. 

Intelligence

Another perspective people often have is that humans’ intelligence grants them more moral relevance than that of non-human animals. This idea is explored in the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, which uses an interesting premise to explore this; a species that is less intelligent than the other sapient species in the series, but contains rare individuals who have intelligence comparable to those other species and thus capable of reflecting on how moral value is assigned, from whose perspective we can analyze and criticize this assumption. Through Dak Hamee’s perspective, we see how the Andalites around him, despite how they are supposed to be the Hork-Bajir’s allies and protectors against a common threat, are condescending to them and think them of little moral importance due to their lack of intelligence, to the point of being willing to sacrifice them all for a strategic gain. Dak Hamee reflects on how foolish it is to think intelligence as the be-all end-all of a being’s value, especially when it’s the Hork-Bajir who have lived in peace throughout their history and other species who are enthusiastic about war. 

The thematic exploration really gets interesting when Dak Hamee and Aldrea encounter the Arn, the species that turns out to have created the Hork-Bajir through genetic engineering. Their motive for doing so is a very understandable one – in order to salvage their destroyed environment and allow their species, and life on their planet, to survive, they needed to create an ecosystem that allowed circulation of oxygen. One role required for such an ecosystem was a caretaker of the trees, so they created the Hork-Bajir to do so. So let’s talk about what exactly the Arn are doing here, and why Dak Hamee is so horrified by it. They are not exactly enslaving or forcing the Hork-Bajir to do anything; they haven’t even met any of the Hork-Bajir. What they are doing is forcing the Hork-Bajir into exactly the condition of a non-sapient animal within an ecosystem, and by showing the horror an individual who became aware of such a role, this book is posing the question of theodicy of sorts – how could a loving creator use the mechanisms of an ecosystem as a tool for their creations, even if such a scheme was successful in preventing apocalyptic destruction? As the Arn note, they did not make the Hork-Bajir very intelligent because, like animals in Earth’s ecosystems, they do not need intelligence to do their role. And the Arn did not bother to explain to them the nature of the world and their role in it and have them consent towards avoiding doing the things that would destroy that world. Instead they used brute force, the threat of predators in the deep, to keep them in their assigned roles. And the occasional death by predator is comparatively gentle compared to most wild animals’ lives on Earth, who, unable to understand like humans the threat of overuse of resources and peacefully manage their behavior, are kept in check, and the world kept functioning, by constant cycles of predation or starvation that decimate populations rather than just picking off a few occasionally (look at a predator and prey population chart with the cyclic dips for both). By having an individual from such a species which is kept in its world-preserving “duty” not by intelligence and awareness but by suffering and death who is uncommonly intelligent and able to reflect on their condition, the morality of a creator using such a system is questioned.

All of this theodicy discussion ultimately connects back to the series’ resident “good” godlike being, the Ellimist. The Ellimist takes as his goal spreading altruism and allowing life to flourish, though his discussion with the Animorphs in #26 makes it clear his end goal and exactly why he wants these things. As he says “We watched the rise of other species throughout the galaxy. Helped at times, when we could. We wanted companions. We wanted to learn, We imagined a galaxy filled with millions of sentient species, each with its own science and art, its own beauty”. Using the word sentient while meaning sapient aside, what we can see here is that the Ellimist is motivated less by a utilitarian idea of allowing all life to flourish and be happy but specifically by a desire to increase the amount of sapient species, species that would be able to provide intellectual enhancement and new perspectives for him. Though the Ellimist chronicles, from his own perspective does show he cares about the happiness and survival of other species for their own sake rather than their intelligence in a way this quote somewhat downplays, he still limits this moral focus to sapient species, with his general principle of propagating life being more directed towards how it will give rise to sapience one day than that life existing for itself. And here we see a parallel to the Arn, by which the Ellimist’s morality can be questioned; can a godlike being justify a system where most of the beings in it are fodder, their suffering and deaths used only to eventually give rise to sapient beings which are considered the only morally important ones? Now admittedly, one can question whether the Ellimist has meaningful power to do otherwise; he is shown in his book to initially have notable limits to his power and knowledge of how interventions will affect things, and gaining much more power after his fight with Crayak happens at the same time as he is newly constrained by the rules of their “game”. But nonetheless, a being with such amazing power taking no consideration of non-sapient beings for their own sake in his moral system, apparently due to a lack of intelligence to provide interesting creations of their own, would still likely lead to him neglecting moral paths he could otherwise take within his considerable power. Which leads into the third reason people have for especially valuing sapient life, a view which one of the Animorphs holds herself…

Moral and Technological Understanding

Cassie outlines this view in Megamorphs #2 when she is arguing against killing a dinosaur. Sapient life is important from her perspective, not because their life experience or intelligence makes their lives inherently more valuable, but because they alone are capable of moral reflection and making choices that are influenced by something deeper than one’s own survival and that of one’s genetic relatives. “Yeah, we’re just animals ourselves. But we’re the animals who can think. We’re the animals who can imagine something better than kill or be killed. I don’t think predators are immoral. I’m not an idiot, whatever you may think. But I’m a human, okay? And I have to think and care, and I have to feel things”. 

Interestingly, this is a perspective she doesn’t quite start out the series with. #9 shows how Cassie starts out with a naïve belief (it it can count as a belief, it’s more of an unspoken assumption she doesn’t think about or define enough to call a belief) of a sort of moral continuity among living things, that there’s something inherent and baked into the universe about how valuable and sacred life is. Her experience in this book with the termites makes her realize just how amoral the natural world is, of the utter loneliness of her convictions and ability to make sense of the world when the rule everywhere else is survival. This realization forms the core of her character and motivations throughout the rest of the series. Her worst fear is to make the decisions and follow the logic that an animal would according to the impetus of natural selection. Even if the decision seems the best from a utilitarian perspective, if it is a decision one could come to from just survival of oneself and one’s own without deeper reflection, than making it would prove the world is senseless and there would be no point to the survival it earns. This perspective is one that makes her feel isolated not only within the natural world that she loves but among the other Animorphs, who think in terms of the war they are fighting with its rules of us vs. them. 

Whether you call it thinking more deeply and more wisely, or a stubbornness that values one’s own feelings of sanctity and security in the world over the suffering of others, Cassie’s perspective after #9 is fundamentally not naivete. Although she is still young and making the decisions she makes in an environment of war where flawed compromises and hypocrisy are inevitable - she’s not some kind of perfectly wise moral machine - she is presented as not out of touch but someone who is literally and metaphorically used to the earthy grittiness of life, and makes the decisions she makes with full knowledge of their implications. And for her, this means standing firm on the principle that every life is valuable, while making little distinction based on the particular abilities or subjective qualities of that life. Not no distinction (she calls the others out for stereotyping her when they think she wouldn’t be willing to kill a seal for their immediate survival, for example), but still a conviction that life has more or less the same value regardless of the contents of it. Even if the life is that of someone enslaved and trapped in their own brain, or doomed to endless, life-ruining hunger, as long as they are alive there can be hope of something different. 

This is the dilemma she faces; to value lives differently based on their experiences can lead to bias and, though one might pretend at detached reasons in doing so, is very likely to lead to valuing human life most of all due to the disguised reasoning of preserving one’s genes, exactly what she wants to avoid. It’s also only a step back from the humans who have killed those of her own that they felt were inferior, like the Nazis, who Cassie often reflects on. But to insist all life is of equal value regardless of context can lead to a fanaticism that ignores reality, an ability to do anything to someone as long as they are still alive, since as long as they are alive their life is still equally valuable so you didn’t do anything bad to them at all. This is shown when she comes up with the plan to trap David as a rat, justifying herself with how she is not killing him, only for David in #48 to make it clear he would have just preferred to die. Still, Cassie is willing to listen to other beings, like Aftran, when they express their greatest fear being not to die but to live a life depreciated in experience and value, and willing to “put her money where her mouth is” by willingly sentencing herself to such a life to prove she does not demand of others what she would not demand of herself. And ultimately, for most of those she spares the life of like Yeerks and Taxxons, her determination to see other possibilities beyond those given by evolution and animal instincts leads to them getting the possibility to morph, which does in fact give them hope in lives that would have otherwise not been ideal, at least without harming another for one’s own sake in the Yeerks’ case. In doing so, despite her flaws she proves the strongest and most principled prophet of this third argument in the series.

After all, it is not just the ability to think morally that sapience grants, but the ability to create technology that can transcend the compromises and suffering that would otherwise seem like an inevitable biological condition of a given species. In doing so, the series presents somewhat of a transhumanist message (if not applied to actual humans). The morphing technology gives the Yeerks and Taxxons a chance to not be bound by their biological condition, as does the Iskoorts’ symbiosis. The latter is implied to be supported by the Ellimist, with him perhaps subtly hinting to the Animorphs that this could be a solution to allowing both the Yeerks and the species they parasitize to coexist. However, how the Ellimist’s ethics centering around promoting the diversity of sapient life would coexist with these ideas in other scenarios remains unclear. 

To try to investigate this, it’s worth looking into the Ellimist’s own backstory. Growing up on his home planet, a big issue for the Ketrans was whether to use technology to transcend their condition of having to spend half their lives “docking” to keep the crystals they lived on afloat. To do so would undoubtably make their lives freer and better, but inertia and tradition made some reluctant to do so. One can draw the comparison (not a perfect comparison since some humans were hunter-gatherers before and during the rise of subsistence farming, rather than it appearing to be an inevitable condition of the species) to modern technology freeing the majority of the human population from spending much of their lives subsistence farming. When most of their species were killed, the Ellimist and Menno, a strong advocate for using such technology, were left on a spaceship together trying to find a home to restart their species, only to find that no other planet seemed to have crystals like the ones on their home planet. Menno suggested genetically altering the Ketrans to be able to survive on the surface, since there would be no hope of reproducing their old living conditions (which, as mentioned, had led to astronomical constraints on their lives) while the Ellimist argued otherwise on the grounds that doing so would make the species not what it once was. It would mean a piece of the diversity of experience (and particularly, from his perspective, sapient experience) would be lost, and he would argue there is great value for sapient species with their unique characteristics existing and being able to share their unique perspective with the rest of the universe. 

His stand ultimately turned out to be for nothing when all of them but he himself were killed, but given his views expressed in #26 I think the idea of keeping diversity alive is very important in his moral calculus, deriving from the grieving memory of his own lost species. The Iskoort issue is one thing, as it preserves the other species who would otherwise be threatened by them while preserving the Iskoort themselves, but the morphing of Taxxons or Yeerks that Cassie thinks up would be ensuring that none of the offspring of such morphs will be Taxxons or Yeerks at all. It would mean the freeing of the Taxxons from their suffering and the Yeerks from the horrible choice they had to make, but the essential extinction of the species itself. And I think Cassie and the Ellimist, despite being allies of convenience for having more or less the same goals, would fundamentally differ on whether they think that would be justified – in addition to, as mentioned, whether they think non-sapient life has inherent moral value. And I just think it’s fascinating how this series explores questions like this and the different perspectives involved.

[shady-scripter]

Spirit of a Guitarist

MIKAU YIPPEE

If there was a synonym for “Hero of Hyrule”, it would be undoubtedly “nosy.”

That was what Wind was the god of. If something got lost or “disappeared,” you knew that Wind took it. Sometimes, it was just because it was shiny, like the Captain’s fire rod. The other times, he was just curious, like the Veteran’s fire rod. This was no different.

Two days ago, the group of heroes shared about an item in his inventory. When Time’s turn came around, he pulled out a beautiful blue mask. It sparked a memory in the small hero.

She played her instrument like it was routine as she talked to him, her voice as smooth as the gentle seas.

“This is the mask of Mikau,” Time had said, sliding his hand across the front as if there were grime on it. “Wearing it lets me become him. It’s like Zora armor but you actually become a Zora.”

That was the moment that Wind knew that he needed that mask. The blue matched his shirt too! It was like a match made from the sparkling diamond on the Master Sword!

So he went to scheming. It was him who was to take the third watch anyway! He had plenty of time to steal it! He even had time to put it on and be a Zora!

By the time that Four nudged him for his watch, he was wide awake. He waited a good thirty minutes. Just to make sure the Smithy was fast asleep.

Wind eyed Time’s pack like a hawk would a mouse. He crawled slowly, watching where his palms and knees hit the ground.

Twilight turned, embracing the Champion in his sleep. Wind froze as he saw Wild’s eyes open. Then made eye contact for a single second. Then the Champion’s eyes closed and he snuggled further into the Rancher.

Wind let out a breath far louder than he liked. No one moved, not even an inch. He creeped closer to his treasure, the X at the tip of his fingers. With a grin like no other, he reached into Time’s pack, being careful and slowly sliding his hand around.

His hand found a smooth surface. He sat on his knees as to put his second hand inside the pack. With one hand, he pulled the, supposedly mask, out. The other slowly moved items out of the way. Bottles, whatever mushy thing that was, was that a dagger-, and more mushy stuff Wind was definitely going to wash off of his hand later.

Finally out of Time’s pack, the light blue mask was stone faced against the flame’s light. But…there was no string or anyway to keep it on your face.

Wind’s heart sank to his feet. He didn’t drag it against the dagger, did he? What if Time noticed!

Well, Time has never taken out his masks before that night. Maybe it’ll be a while before he notices.

Wind stood by the fire, his heartbeat loud in his ears. He closed his eyes, thinking about how awesome being a Zora probably is. It’s like flying but in water!

Of course Wind knew how to swim but imagine gliding through the water like those things from the tales his grandma used to tell him!

“Ok!” He whispered, his eyes meeting the white ones of the mask. “Mikau, was it? Turn me into a Zora!” He flipped the mask in his hands and placed it on his face.

The first crack was in his nose.

It was like his skin was welding itself to the mask. The bones in his face bending and breaking to fit the shape. He screamed, his hands shooting to his face to rip off the mask. But even his screams soon morphed into a gurgle.

“Get it off!!” The Captain shouted, dashing to his younger brother’s side.

“Don’t you think that’s what I’m trying to do!” Twilight shouted back, his teeth bared. Wind’s skin began to turn an unnatural shade of blue as Wild pulled Wind's body the opposite way Twilight pulled on the mask.

“Stop!” Time’s injured eye seemed to shine in the moonlight. He tore Twilight off of the mask. “If you interrupt the transformation there will be consequences!”

By now, all signs of Wind were gone. His face was blue and his nose was longer than it was supposed to be…and sharper. He didn’t have hair either, it was just a long tail. He fell limp in the Champion’s arms.

“Guys! Why is he getting bigger?!” Wild shouted.

“Everyone calm down! He will be fine.” The way Time looked away shouted “hopefully” very loudly in the Champion’s head. If anybody else saw it, no one mentioned it.

“Lulu…?” The boy-turned-Zora mumbled.

“Wind, are you with us?” Time kneeled in front of Mikau, the Zora’s eyes barely open. Yet, he managed to nod. “The first transformation makes you never want to do it again.”

Everyone groaned, knowing exactly what the Old Man was going to say next.

“What did we learn?”

“Fuck…off.” Wind weaky swatted his arm.

“How do we take it off?” Sky cut in, his eyebags paired with a deep frown speaking volumes. His voice took on a bluntly irritated tone.

“We should give him some time. It hurts the same.” Time stood and went back to his bed roll.

Wind groaned loudly as Wild helped him sit down.

“Does this mean I can go back to sleep now?” Legend rubbed his eyes. Hyrule nodded beside him.

“He’s probably gonna end up howling like a coyote again.” Twilight rubbed his temples. Groans rang around the temporary camp.

“I say we take it off now.”

“He’s had plenty of time.”

“I thought he was dying! I wouldn’t have woke up if I knew.”

“Ya better have someth’n nice planned tomorrow Sailor.” Twilight groaned as his accent slipped.

The heroes surrounded him. “Get away from me! Hold on a second!”

“Sorry man, we’re tired,” Wild said, his arms back around Wind’s Zora body. He stood the both of them up, Wind kicking and screaming.

“How do we take this off Old Man?”

Time hadn’t stood from his bed roll. He actually looked comfortable at the moment. “Gripping the chin is-“

Sky gripped Winds chin and a small pop sounded. Then the screaming started again.

It all happened in reverse. The cracking and popping started as his body got shorter again. Then his skin went from blue to tan. Then his limbs morphed back into a hylian. Then the mask fell into Sky’s hand.

“Please just kill me.”

“I should make you finish watch,” the Captain said, shaking his head. “But I’m not as cruel. Champion, put hit to bed please.”

Wild nodded and dragged Wind to his roll, the Sailor not saying another word.

As Wild tucked the boy in, a smile cracked onto his face. “Thanks for taking it before I did! I’m sure that would have been a disaster.”

Wind’s groan almost sounded like a sob. “Fuck. You.”

“Love you too, goodnight.”

Wind turned to his side away from the Champion to hide his face and weakly swatted at Wild. Wild left with a giggle.

[fanaticsnail]

I really hope this sends bc I had to rewrite it

I present to you;

Sexc-Snail's guide to the phenotypical trimorphism of the -mbo genus

Any species within the genus can be recognized by the common characteristics of kindness, stupidity, and hotness.

Warning: approach with caution, will make you fall ass over kettle in love.

Himbo - The buff pokemon. A species defined by the existence of heart and muscle, and the lack of brain

- physical traits include a large shape (not necessarily restricted to being primarily muscle mass), big arms (for hugging), and a constant strong posture

- shape language: square/rectangular (strong, able to guard friends)

- behaviour: gentle. Often found accompanying friends as a 'guard dog' despite their poodle disposition.

- objective: respect women

An example of a himbo in the environment:

Mihawk: Please - for my sanity - do not try to fight the humandrills. They will try to kill you.

Himbo, already wrestling a humandrill: don't be mean Hawky! We're play fighting! How else are they gonna have fun?

Humandrill, pinned under an arm: (actually is having fun) hrr!

Bimbo - The pink pokemon. A species defined by the existence of heart and joy, and the lack of brain

- physical traits include colours (though some rare morphs have been known to wear all black), a unique fashion sense (as opposed to aposematism, this is for the purpose of identifying themselves as a friendly presence), and a constant welcoming smile

- shape language: round (welcoming, rolls with the flow)

- behaviour: friendly. Often giving thoughtful compliments with genuine admiration.

- objective: befriend women

An example of a bimbo in the environment:

Bimbo: and then Hawks said we couldn't keep another cat!

Audience of Humandrills: *gasps* *scoffs* *shaking head in disapproval* *one of them tut-tut-tut's*

Bimbo: and then he has the audacity to whip his cloak as he walks away! Can you believe that?

Humandrills: *sassy "nuh uh girlfriend" sound* mm-mmm!

Thembo - The whimsy pokemon. A species defined by the existence of heart and curiosity, and the lack of brain

- physical traits include existing in the extremes of bouncing or sleeping (no recorded in between, though individuals are capable of alternating regularly), soft hands (for the purpose of extending to others who believe themselves undeserving of it), and a constant cheeky laugh

- shape language: triangle/star (good for cartwheels)

- behaviour: open. Often oblivious to the confusion regarding sexuality they spark in others when not offering unadulterated kindness.

- objective: admire women

And example of a thembo in the environment:

Humandrill: *lying on log like a therapist couch* hrr-rrgh rarr

Thembo: *nodding thoughtfully* and how did that make you feel?

Humandrill: rr-RAGHR RUR HRGH

Thembo: *taking notes* I see, I can really see how you've improved in your introspection, you did a very good job!

Humandrill: *blushes* rr-nnn grr

I love this so much! The way I can picture an exasperated Mihawk just wanting to be left alone, but these three just make his life all the more entertaining.

I love himbo. I'm already infatuated with him. No wonder I've been drawn to the Kid Pirates lately 😭. Bimbo has me down bad just as much. Her little chat with the humandrills and then siding with her makes me so happy. Then there's Thembo, the one person Mihawk so desperately needs. Even though they're silly, Mihawk likely appreciates their presence the most.

Also, why am I picturing Zoro, Perona, and Buggy? Because they fit pretty good in those roles I think. Zoro as a Himbo never stops making me laugh.

Also, HI SNAIL! I MISSED YOU!! You're back, and I love you for it!

[haikyuuwaifu]

Prologue

Genre: Drama, Humor

Warnings: Swearing, Attempted body take over, villain attack, mentions of someone passing away

MASTERLIST

Welcome Party Committee

“Kachan!” Izuku whined, gripping his best friend's arm. The blonde only scoffed, stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’m not helping you get with half-n-half idiot. We’re just a bunch of kids, and we’re going to UA.” Katsuki grumbled, giving his friend his sternest glare. “Who the hell has time for shit like dating when we’re trying to be fucking heroes.” “This isn’t even about Shoto!” Izuku hissed, glaring over at the blonde. “This is about that super secret training I know you’re doing with Endeavor!” The greenette whined. As the two teens made their way back home, they argued and poked at one another, unaware of the villain slithering behind them.

Ten minutes later , found Izuku Midoriya standing helpless as he watched the slime villain take over his best friend. The heroes around him weren’t moving, and he’d tried calling their parents. The signals were down. Izuku could hear Kachan’s agony as the villain stretched his face and his limbs. He felt helpless, his skin sparking as he tried to control his quirk. His father told him he wasn’t allowed to use it unless he or Endeavor was around. Watching Katsuki’s body morph and change, hearing his best friends cries, Izuku’s heart broke. As lightening licked at his skin, Izuku got into position to move. 

“Watch out!” Someone shouted from the sky. Izuku looked up to see Hawks, propelling what looked like a person, toward Katsuki. He watched as the human projectile dove straight into the slime villain, and screamed when he saw the villain spit Katsuki out. Scrambling, Izuku pulled his friend into his chest, backing away from the fight. The boys watched as moments later, the slime villain began shrinking. Izuku could see the villain being sucked into a container. Following the arm being held out, Izuku was surprised to see a hero he’d never seen on Japanese television standing in front of him. “How ya been Cat-suki?” The hero teased, giving Katsuki a wink. The blonde teen blinked rapidly, eyes trying to refocus. He’d caught his breath, and had finally gotten his bearings. “Y/n?” Katsuki whispered, eyes taking in the way her ears flickered at the call of her name. “It’s good to see you Cat-suki!” She cooed, tossing the container up to Hawks. “You shitty woman! I told you to never call me that again!” Katsuki barked scrambling to his feet to pull her into a hug. Y/n only laughed, holding the boy close. “It’s been a long time hasn’t it.” She teased brushing his hair back. “Are you okay?” She asked, as the blonde scoffed. “I could have had him.” He sniffed. Y/n and Izuku shared a look, when the crowd parted. “Katsuki!” Enji shouted, pushing through the crowd. “I’m fine pops!” Katsuki barked, his cheeks pink as Enji gave his stepson a once over. “You’ve finally announced your arrival neko!” All might boomed, giving Y/n a flashy grin. “Fuck off old man, next time, try not to take your sweet ass time getting here.” Y/n sniffed, flipping him off. Izuku’s jaw dropped as Enji tried to hide a laugh. “And the rest of you!” She shouted, sneering at the heroes in the surrounding area. “The next time you even think about hesitating to save a civilian, I’ll shove my foot so far up your fucking ass you’ll taste leather for fucking weeks. You have a duty. If you’re just in it for the money, quit right fucking now.” She shouted, shooting the camera’s the middle finger salute. “Pro Hero Neko is here Japan, and you better be fucking ready!”

Hours later found Y/n whistling as she took in the Todoroki home. “Damn Mitsuki, you really landed yourself a sugar daddy.” The hero shouted, as the sounds of pans clattering rung through the home. “Y/n!” Mitsuki shouted, meeting the woman half-way to the living room. Y/n laughed as the older woman pulled her into the tightest hug she could muster. “How the hell do you know the #2 American Hero?!” Izuku shouted, gripping his best friend's backpack. The rest of the Todoroki’s were sitting at the dining table, sharing dubious looks of curiosity. “After Masaru passed I left Japan.” Mitsuki stated, her arm still wrapped around Y/n’s. “Yumi, could you finish setting the table for me.” Mitsuki asked, pulling Y/n into the kitchen. The girl, “Yumi” nodded, sliding her phone into her jacket. “Sure thing mom.” She smiled, making her way over and bowing. “Fuyumi Todoroki.” “Please don’t be formal. My manners are atrocious at best.” Y/n mumbled sheepishly as the two women shared a smile. “I was really just some crap teen looking for some extra cash. Mitsuki needed some help with Cat-suki, so I stuck around for a few years until it was time for me to graduate.” Y/n supplied, as she helped Fuyumi carry dishes. “You call him Cat-suki?” Natuso cackled, as he and Shoto shared a look. “If you call him Cat-suki I’ll neuter you both.” Y/n declared, a friendly smile on her face. Enji had entered the room and simply shrugged. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Y/n since she debuted in the US. She could probably kick my ass if she wanted to.” He supplied, taking his seat at the head of the table. “Are you alright Katsuki?” Mitsuki asked, pulling her son into a hug. “I’m fine ma. Promise, I’ll be okay.” “You’re gonna go see a therapist anyway Cat-suki or else.” Y/n hummed, as everyone started plating their food. Izuku had so many questions, but he promised Kachan he’d wait. The slamming of the front door alerted the rest of the Todoroki’s that their final family member had arrived. “Fuck, I’ve had a long ass fucking day. To top it of, Keigo’s been fucking busy being a fucking d-” Touya stopped his sentence, when he recognized Y/n sitting in his seat. “What the hell is she doing here?” He hissed, giving the woman a glare. Y/n only smiled, taking a bite of her food. “Good as ever Mitsuki.” She praised, taking another bite. “Sit down and eat fuck face.” Y/n grunted. Natsuo and Shoto waited, knowing Touya’s temper would rear its ugly head. The man only blew flames out of his nostrils, stomping over to the table. “Fuck off.” He mumbled, as Y/n flicked him with her tail. “Good to see you too metal face.” she cooed. Touya’s blush caused his brother’s to break out into an uproar. Enji could only sigh, knowing Y/n was going to throw everything into chaos now that she was here.

In the Aizawa home, Shouta was sitting in the living room grading papers. Eri had just finished her bath and Shinsou had just finished braiding his sisters hair. The trio was watching the news. “I can’t believe that villain snuck up on Suki like that.” Eri mumbled, as she and her brother watched the footage. “It’s not everyday a villain like that can get the jump on someone usually so vigilant.” Shouta replied, eyes on the paper in front of him. “Midoriya said he’s doing okay.” Shinsou mumbled, eyes watching the footage on the screen. “She’s a kitty!” Eri shouted, clutching her stuffie excitedly. Shouta looked up, coming face to face with a woman he’d never seen before. “Pro Hero Neko is here Japan, and you better be fucking ready!” Shinsou let out a laugh, as Eri giggled. “She said a bad word on television!” Shouta snorted, clicking the tv off. “Must be one of those new younger heroes.” he grunted, running a hand through his hair. “Zuku said that she’s Neko. The number 2 hero from the U.S!” Shinsou muttered, his eyes widening as he tapped away on his phone. “Said she relocated to Japan and she’s a friend of Mrs. Bakugo.” Shouta gave his son a grunt, his eyes trained on the test in front of him. “Well I think she’s great!” Eri hummed, tucking her stuffie under her chin. “And she’s real pretty too.”

Prev/Next

[airanke]

Totally forgot to yeet this at you earlier hhhhhh

For the ask game:

"A kiss while playing a game (spin the bottle, truth or dare, etc) w both Hawks and Asra~

^w^ love you bestie~

[Prompt from here.]

(Spin the Bottle with Hawks.)

It was not in your wildest dreams that you would even find yourself playing Spin the Bottle with fully grown adults - much less with adults like Hawks. Did the Number 2 hero really have no where better to be than at a house party? In fact - who invited him to the house party?

Certainly not you.

Rumi, though, she kept giving you A Look. Mischief danced in her pretty eyes, cheeky grin spreading over her lips every time you glanced in her direction.

A grin that morphed into a gleeful cackle when it was finally your turn to spin the bottle - Nemuri had gotten you, and given you a friendly peck on the cheek - and it naturally decided to land on Hawks.

"You don't look so pleased~" Hawks teased, leaning back against his hands while his wings stretched out behind him.

"Oh whatever Wings," you muttered, getting to your feet to approach him. His golden eyes watched you, head cocked to the side - you could have sworn you saw him give you the once over, eyes widening in appreciation, softening when they returned to your face.

As Nemuri had done with you, you intended to give Hawks a friendly kiss on the cheek - naturally, of course, because you were not school children doing everything in their power to get a kiss from their crush - but he had other plans. You lips barely brushed his smooth cheek before you felt his mouth on yours, head tilted ever so much. The little lap of his tongue made you squeak, your whole body falling to one side.

Hawks caught you with one arm, chuckling that soon turned into laughter when you berated him, cheeks burning with a deep blush.

"Easy, kid, easy~" he chuckled again amidst whooping and jeering from onlookers, and - well, you supposed you could let it pass this time.

But only because he looked genuinely happy, for once in the short amount time that you knew him.

(Twister with Asra.)

"Left hand on red, Asra."

You couldn't stop yourself from giggling, because there was no way Asra was going to be able to put his left hand on red. That would require him to twist his body around and duck under you, because you had both right foot and hand on yellow, and left foot and hand on blue.

Nadia was blocking the path closest to your legs, and Asra already had one foot on green, and one foot on yellow - and in his vast wisdom, he had somehow decided that the best course of action when he started was to stand with his back to you.

"See, if my dear apprentice would simply lower herself--"

"I will do no such thing, dear mentor," you interrupted cheekily, looking up at him as best you could, grinning at the shared mischief dancing in his eyes, "you may figure it out."

"Chop chop Asra! Time's a wasting~" Julian sang, clapping his hands together for emphasis, "before I consider you out!"

"Alright," Asra stretched his arms high above his head, rolled his shoulders, and from that impossible angle, dropped into an off-balance bridge. He walked his hands along the white, avoiding any color, and you promptly found yourself face to face with him as he held his weight up with his left hand on red.

"Hello love," he murmured while Julian spun the dial for the next color. Nadia shuffled behind you, assumedly putting her right hand on blue.

"Hello," you stammered back, wishing that he had not chosen this course of action - and then, appreciating that he had chosen this course of action as he very easily pushed himself up just enough that his soft lips brushed over yours.

"For putting up with me, always," he whispered into your mouth.

"Darling apprentice, please you may move right foot to red!"

"I would have it no other way - but I am going to fall," you informed Asra. Shock morphed his soft expression as you slipped to the side, almost hitting him on your way down.

[remyfire]

just had to pop in and say hello to a fellow animorphs kid. the animorphs to mash pipeline is real

spRINTING in and sliding into home base all cool and stuff yes hello :D :D

Animorphs my beloved. I started reading it way too young, probably, and we could only get maaaaybe 12 books out of the whole series in my library. I think I first found it before it was completed, actually, so maybe that's partly why, idk. But when we were dating, my wife nabbed me all of them in a big lovely digital package, so that's how like 20-year-old me got to finally finish reading the series and then cry my eyes out and stare at the ceiling for an hour processing it. Goddamn. Beautiful shit ;v;

Amusingly I had an Animorphs MASH AU pop into my head once, and it's going under the cut because I'm gonna go off at the mouth about it and I don't think many people will care about it, but you activated me and I'm excited now :D

It was specifically circling around Hawkeye being the only person to have this ability (no I have not yet decided how the escafil device got there before Elfangor did, don't worry about it, that's for later me to decide if I ever wrote it) and ending up morphing into Sophie for recon purposes because he could get away with a lot more scouting out of a suspected Yeerk installation as a wild horse than as a human in a jeep. Unfortunately the Sophie instincts make him too happy just to runrunrunrunrun. I think I had Radar as the only person who knew that Hawk had this ability, so when someone brought horse!Hawk back like "Oh hey I think the colonel's horse got out," Radar was just sweating and trying to pretend he wasn't hiding Sophie in her stall like "OH HOW WEIRD IS THAT," while Hawk who was rapidly approaching the two-hour mark was trying to very subtly trot into the barn and not panic Sophie as he morphed back out, bless them.

THEN my brain took it a couple of different routes! One was the variant of Frank's breakdown between S5 and S6. I posited the idea that a casualty that came in was the first to be infested, probably by a Yeerk scouting ship that went down somewhere deep in the forest, and when its alien host was dying on the ground and being investigated by a panicked American soldier, he didn't notice the lil slug creeping up his boot, over his pants, closer closer ever closer until it touched his face, and while he was in a panic and tripping over himself trying to get this thing off of him, he stumbles and bangs his head on something, and while he's reeling from it, that's when the Yeerk infests him. His host is now bleeding profusely from a head wound, though, and about to pass out, so when he ends up on Frank's operating table, this fucking Yeerk has already had a hell of a day.

So Frank manages to get infested by this Yeerk—again, I futz the details, they're not important rn hfkfd I think I posited Frank leaning down to hear what this gasping soldier is trying to say and the transition happening that way somehow—and the Yeerk is struggling to operate Frank's very poorly medically trained brain, so he is maiming and murdering casualties left and right. Everyone thinks he's cracking up because of Margaret's recent marriage, so they send him off on R&R. And the thing is that this Yeerk is starving and has been already for a full day, so the second Frank is there in Tokyo, his Yeerk has started to go insane from the lack of kadrona rays, and god bless Frank, but he was fragile enough already, and his conservative little mind was already paranoid and keen for conspiracies as it was, so he goes straight off the deep end. He does not get sent home with a promotion. He just happily believes that he did.

And then my brain took it a beejhawk route as I am wont to do where Hawkeye needs to know who is trustworthy around him, and he desperately needs to know if he can talk with BJ about what he's seen, what he's experiencing, so he gets them three-day passes and takes him to Seoul, and for the very first time...Hawk seduces him, and barely within minutes of arriving. And there's this brief pause before BJ surges into him with this low hum and unabashed, languid desire, and Hawk ends up pinning him down on the bed and making a quiet choked sound before he looks up at him with a feline grin and murmurs how he wants to play a game with BJ.

And this is how Hawk ends up tying BJ to a chair tight as he can in the middle of a Seoul hotel room, all while whispering the filthy things he's gonna do to Beej once he's got him secure. And then once he's checked all the knots and knows BJ can't get out of them, Hawk catches BJ by the chin and grins and looks him right in the eye and whispers, "I've got just under three days here alone with you. And you're gonna die the slowest, most excruciating death possible. And when you're squirming free, doing everything you can to find just one shred of food, I'm gonna laugh myself silly over how pathetic you are. And then I'm gonna grind you into a puddle for daring to get your disgusting little slime all over this fella's perfect fucking brain." Because he knows Beej wouldn't have drifted that easily into an affair with him, not without at least some degree of grief and self-directed frustration.

And unbeknownst to him, BJ—who has been so goddamn careful the entire time he and Hawk been working together to not let a lick of his desperate desire show through and tempt him, really tempt him—had intentionally pushed all those wet dreams and fantasies and hunger to the forefront of his mind just so his little Yeerk would bypass the sharp reluctance that BJ has to cheat again, so that it would instead think it was being incredibly clever, about to really wrap Hawkeye around its finger and find a way to make him another lovely host as well while his current one is all tied up with nowhere to go.

Something something watching the man you love writhe in agony for three days straight as his little parasite is using his voice to call you the worst fucking things possible with all the knowledge he has of what hurts you more than anything. Something something hearing him cry and plead and beg and promise you everything you've ever wanted with him if you'll just untie him, having to sit there against the wall with your head in your hands and whisper it's not him it's not him it's not him.

Man. What a fucking series, am I right? I'm really normal about it. Thank you for unlocking my babbling :D