#i could go on about him being a tragic character for hours but tags can only be so long..

[suckdickforcoin]

[ghostofvalorie]

That Essay

@forsaire tagged me and now I MUST provide! You opened Pandora's box on this one.

To adhere to the rules I will first provide FOUR and ONLY FOUR of my fictional crushes! And to make it easier on us all I've narrowed it down to games only, so here we go!

I'm starting off from the very beginning of my journey into crushing on non-existent people, and people who have read my tags before might know this one already!

Malik Al Sayf from Assassins Creed 1 - 2007

A man whom you've wrong by being arrogant and then spends the next few hours of the game being yelled at by him, and rightfully so. Not only do you cost him his arm and place as an assassin in the brotherhood, but his younger brother as well.

Eventually Altaïr stops begin a prick and apologizes and Malik, bless his heart forgives him.

Still... not me rolling into Jerusalem hoping, wishing, to get yelled at because Malik's Voice Actor goes HARD <3 I love him and his 7 whole polygons! NEXT!!

Keeping it somewhat chronological:

The Arishok from Dragon Age 2 - 2011

He beeg. He got horns. He is technically an antagonist in the game but he has a moral code that makes sense to him that he is willing to kill and die for. Qunari famously live their lives incredibly black and white so to him he is in the right, even if we disagree.

But he just got a wholeass vibe, and he'll say nice things such as

"I have a growing lack of disgust for you" and I mean, with that voice... say no more sir. *takes shirt off*

NR 3: Adam Jensen from Deus Ex - 2011-2016

My cyborg husband <3

Ex-swat turned security guy, then interpool agent (depends on which game you are playing)

He's just an incredibly good guy, the sweetest person on the block. Ofc it depends on how you play and what choices you make, but MY Adam is a sweeheart that will go out of his way to help people.

And my boi got sass, he'll be snarky to literally anyone, his boss, the cops, criminals you name it.

He's also secretly a little funny. <3

Nr 4: Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2 - 2018

I mean first off, he do a little *mlem* when he drinks coffee... Do i even need to say more?

Arthur is just such a perfect sad boy. Raised to believe his only worth lies in killing people when in reality he is incredibly competent, sharp and caring. Again depends on how you play the game, but my Arthur is the goodest boi in the west.

Now that was four, oh but look, somehow completely unrelated to all this, some other honorable mentions seems to have ended up after the cut, how silly of me!

And @xintothewoodswegox, show us what you got!

Beast from Beauty and the Beast - 2017

No further comment, your honor, if you've seen the movie you should know.

Kaidan Alenko from Mass Effect - 2012

How can we not love the powerful nerdass space magician! He's caring, he is cute, he is Canadian and schrodinger's person of color!

He also glow blue, what else can you possible want? I for sure do NOT kick my feet and twirl my hair anytime he wants to talk to me.

Eris Goddess of Chaos from Sinbad - 2003

I MEAN LOOK AT HER?!?!?!? Again an antagonist, but she is sexy about it.

Helga Sinclair from Atlantis - 2001

I'm-I i mean, I don't even have words. Every time I SEE Helga my brain flat-lines I can't help it.

THAT GIF THO???

Majima Goro from the Like a Dragon series of games

No comment, because if i start i will NEVER stop, he's story is too good.

Simon 'Ghost' Riley from Call of Duty MWII - 2022

I could literally put ALL the characters from that game in this list. ALL OF THEM, but to keep this somewhat short I've chosen ONE and i've chosen Ghost, the most tragic man alive.

Kar'niss from Baldur's Gate 3 - 2023

Another TRAGIC boi, missunderstood and abused </3 I could take care of him. LET ME TAKE CARE OF HIM LARIAN

Jonathan Reid from Vampyr - 2018

You didn't think I'd squeeze in a vampire this late, did you?

I wasn't overly impressed by Jonathan from the start, BUT, he is FASCINATING if you play him as a bloodthirsty villain willing to murder everyone for power! I'm here for bad-boy Reid!

Lastly, for now:

Corvo Attano from Dishonored - 2012

Also an incredibly tragic man, who's fate you hold in your hands with your actions!

He's just hot, he's a dilf, he can succumb to grief and violence or rise above it to save not only his daughter but an entire empire from destruction.

I'm not sure i've y'all have noticed the pattern yet but let me spell it out for you:

PEOPLE THAT CAN ABSOLUTELY DESTROY ME! Look at them all! So STRONG! So POWERFUL! Fuck, mess me up fam!

And the beauty lies in that they never would. Or I mean Eris might... but I'm in a firm belief that the others would never harm someone they care about and ain't that just the purest thing you've ever heard.

Now this was only the highlights of my fictional crushes, I've kept most of the absolute freaks out for now. Maybe I'll do an updated list later where werewolves and Cthulhu makes the cut, we'll see. Now I know HP Lovecraft wasn't a very cool dude to say the least, but you expect me to be normal about the big tentacle monster? REALLY?

Lower your expectations.

[ladybeug]

Alright so

It has been about 24 hours since i finished @peachcitts fanfiction metamorphosis and i spent at least 3 of those hours making a fanmix.

Listen, Im sorry, this is just who I am, Im someone who wants to make a playlist about a specific iteration of ml characters. Especially if there are some grey morals up in there.

read the fic, listen to the fanmix, follow me under the cut thats where the party is

...and by party I mean analytical summary of each song.

I'm about to talk about some of these choices I made in depth, as a treat for myself. An indulgence. I'll keep the fic references high level but there may be some theme/tone spoilers so real talk go read the fic and meet me back here.

@peachcitt I know I tagged you but this will get long you do not have to read it or acknowledge this homage just know I appreciated your story and thought a lot about it.

so.

the whole playlist is meant to be listened to start to finish, its half the tragedy and half the hard work to get your life right side up and the rewards.

I actively tried not to put Cry for Judas on here and i did ANYWAYS

its on so many of my playlists already, I'm loose with this song. But frankly if i could only keep it on one I would keep it on here. I mean I just don't think any other adrien iterations do things just to see how bad they'll make him feel QUITE like this one and i just HAD to have that as the first line of lyrics in the playlist.

I'm just also obsessed with sad and angry, can't learn how to behave?? The tragic acceptance of being unable to be good??

find me a better match. this song had to be on here and it had to be first.

Your Ghost - this might be the only song thats only about Marinette which is a crime because I really connected with her pov but the truth is that this is an adrien fanmix and i need to accept that.

But for real the acceptance but inability to move on in this song is just perfect.

Can't Lose - maybe the angriest song on here? A little angrier than I was going for but I had to keep this one though because, I mean, "I'm thinking I can't move if there isn't somewhere else to go?" like, the, 'sure what im doing is bad but what else IS there' of it, I mean, what can I even say. It had to be on here.

If you only listen to one song on here listen to Animal Mask.

It's a song about partners in a wrestling match written as a metaphor for when John Darnielle's wife was in labor, and its so tender and sweet, and frankly it sounds like it could have been written for metamorphosis for like every single flashback of ladybug and chat noir.

I could quote every line and be like 'this is them' but like, 'hold on,' I cried, 'I'll be right there', pulled your mask down through your hair. they won't see you, not until you want them to. What am I supposed to say?? It moves me deeply I'm having emotional problems please come join me. Every other song on this playlist doesn't matter.

Anyways intermission, while we're here, let me share this experience that I had today with you:

I did then proceed to count, was appropriately ashamed that about 25% of the playlist was mountain goats, and extremely painfully chose to remove 'oceanographer's choice'.

[tangent about Oceanographers Choice vs Haunted House]

As obsessed as I am with going straight from the unbearably tender memory in animal mask to oceanographer's choice, first line: "well, guy in a skeleton costume, walks up to a guy in a superman suit, runs through him with a broadsword", the anxious switch in music, and then straight into a song about a fucked up guy fighting the woman he is still complicatedly in love with.... and he doesn't know how else to be....

oh no, listen, as I typed that I half convinced myself to add it back in again

but I won't because I even more love the transit of animal mask to the shrill and tense line in Haunted House, "I was buried in the summer, all those parties ago", and then a confused and hysterical song about dissociation and loss of control in a world where nobody seems connected to what you're going through. The tone is more ungrounded, and scared, and less resigned. Which matches what I was going for - I tried to avoid songs that were just like... "yeah i'm evil >:) thats my identity"

[end tangent]

Little Pistol I feel like I barely have to justify, but I will say what really sold me is the reference to 'I want what's best for me, and I think I know just what that means'. But then also the slight change in tune at the end? Delicious?

The Run and Go, just read the fic ok

I Wanna Get Better is one that honestly feels like it doesn't fit perfectly but I'm really drawn to a sharp turning point in the playlist from 'bad and spiraling' to 'desperately clawing my way up' which is how reading the fic felt at a certain point, and this song feels like the perfect tonal shift and has the end-of-a-movie screaming conviction that I want. Its also just so good

Do it Anyways might be the second most important song... third most important? on this fanmix. The frantic, panicky music matched with the unwavering conviction to improvement is so unmatched honestly and if we're talking about how hard it is to be your best when you feel your worst, oh my god. Read the fic, listen at 2:44 and meet me back here and there's nothing else I even need to say

Absolute Lithops Effect.... I tricked you, this is also a mountain goats song :) its a cover though so I'm not counting it.

This is one of the most beautiful songs about hope for the future and growth that I know its very important to me. The title of the playlist comes from this song. Here's what you need to know about it:

Lithops are these:

They grow so slowly they don't look like they're growing at all. But they are.

Love Love Love: Ugh don't talk to me about love love love. I'm not going to explain how this connects to the fic. It does, I'm right. There's nothing I can say about this that can't be said better by Mr. Mountain Goats himself:

"The point of the song is, you know, that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the Romantic poets--that we think of love as this, you know, thing that is accompanied by strings and it's a force for good, and if something bad happens then that's not love. And the therapeutic tradition that I come from--I used to work in therapy--you know, also says that it's not love if it feels bad. I don't know so much about that. I don't know that the Greeks weren't right. I think they were--that love can eat a path through everything--that it will destroy a lot of things on the way to its own objective, which is just its expression of itself, you know. I mean, my stepfather loved his family, right? Now he mistreated us terribly quite often, but he loved us. And, you know, well, that to me is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing a lot of what I perceive as terrible damage in the way people talk about this--love is this benign, comfortable force. It's not that. It's wild, you know?" — NPR interview with Linda Wertheimer, 14 May 2005

Metamorphosis: okay this one I added to make myself laugh but I also stand by it thematically

SUPERBLOOM: Don't we all deserve a little celebration for the hard work we do?

Anyways this is my fanmix, if you read to here I love you and you're welcome for all the mountain goats songs I peeled off of here that I didn't even tell you about. I didn't even put heel turn 2 on here. Whoops ok now i've told you about that one.

[accessories-game]

OC Questionnaire Tag

Tagged by the lovely @talesofsorrowandofruin over on this post!

Rules: Pick an OC or group of OCs and answer the three questions posed in character. The put forward three questions of your own and tag some people.

My questions:

What's something you wish you'd figured out sooner?

How long do you think you could survive if you were lost in a wilderness?

What's the most interesting conversation you eavesdropped on?

I'll be using Stella, Layla, Ilya, Eliot & Pippa from Accessories to Murder to play along~

1. What's something you wish you'd figured out sooner?

"I suppose it might be smart for me to say asking for help. I have a frightfully difficult time reaching out for fear of being burdensome, but the results are so often not as bad as I feared. I simply can't imagine running the shop without the tireless efforts of Mr Lewis or dear Camelia."

"Simple: knowing which jobs aren't worth takin'. The amount of headaches that kinda thing could've saved me..."

"Perfect literacy for the languages I intended to speak. Such things help to keep a lower profile. Slang is also something I had difficulty with but no longer struggle with."

"There was a rather famous play that I thought I had figured out but it turns out I had it all backwards. Looking back it's all terribly obvious now but I suppose that's not the sort of answer you're looking for."

"Never agree to buy a house close to the river, no matter how good a deal it sounds. My rugs are positively ruined and I don't think any of my plants have forgiven me."

2. How long do you think you could survive if you were lost in a wilderness?

"I'm not certain about surviving in the wilderness. I've barely seen much of the outside world being more of a city girl. Let's be charitable and say a matter of hours, shall we?"

"Hmm, maybe a week? I'm no stranger to going without but a life like that sounds pretty rotten to me. I'd get done in by being bored than going hungry or anything."

"Much longer than my last attempt, which was years ago now but I remained undetected and in good health for months."

"On a good day, between 3 days and a week. I should know, I have tried before... a fascinating experience but not one I'd recommend."

"What, alone? With no one else around at all? That's not really nice, is it? I'm not sure I'd last a day lost and out there. Just the thought's put me on edge now..."

3. What's the most interesting conversation you eavesdropped on?

"I can't say too much as I was rather young at the time but I believe I overheard an assassination being planned. I didn't quite understand the full gravity of it all then and I think part of me thought that this planned hit for intended for me! I couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards."

"Ooh, the scandals I could tell you about. I tell you, some of these people just think they're stepping into a second home getting in a cab and just start spillin' all sorts to whoever's listening. Probably all just idle gossip anyway."

"Not one I am fond of remembering. It was from my time as a translator back home. It saved my life as well as the man held captive but it is also why I can never go back."

"It was never the complete conversations that I found interesting. My father, brilliant man and better detective, was as much a source of mystery to me as he is an inspiration. I remember overhearing fragments of hushed conversations with people I didn't know. I know everyone from the press to the police say he's a big part of the corrupt element in town... but I never did believe that."

"This one time, I had someone come to me looking to find his old sweetheart from before The Flood. Very tragic, very heartbreaking and... somehow I knew she wasn't dead. I took a moment, you know, to gather my wits and that and out the window, I could just heard the words of the song he had just told me this girl sang. Anyway, it turned out that she was looking for him and had been singing the song all around the streets hoping to find him. I'm sorry, I just love telling that story. I love a happy ending."

And now... I tag @vellatra @noisette-tornade @kyuponstories @raichana @teresashiho @maskedemerald and @cool-mint

Your questions:

What do you do when you are lost?

What's something mundane that gives you the creeps?

How easy is it for people to trust you?

[mistresskayla-blog1]

For Ursa's Benefit

Characters: Adam Price x OC Callisto

Lyn's Writing Event 2024 - Day 10 Week 2

May 10th: Week 2: Ursa Major (great bear)  “Callisto” constellation

Characters: Adam Price x OC Callisto  (Fem werebear)

Fandom: Richard Armitage – Adam Price - The Stranger

The character of Adam Price was created by Harlan Coben, and adapted for television by Danny Brocklehurst

OC Created by Kayla B Crowe – copyright protected

Location: A dense woods in the North of England  (Bleaklow – Peak District – West of Sheffield)

Warnings: werebear x known character, grief, romance, potential smut, survival tests, bisexual,

After his wife’s tragic death, Adam Price’s friends and family suggest he go on a personal retreat trip to renew himself. Both the boys were off to college, and he had mourned for 3 years now. It was time to get a life back, one where he could feel joy again. Adam packed up for the 3 days hike that the brochure had suggested. Parked in the designated parking area, and started off on the intended trail, following the geo tags his phone gave him. It felt like checkpoints in a game, and he shuddered to be thinking like his kids, then warmly to be thinking about the men they are becoming. About an hour into the hike; he heard some wood being chopped very aggressively, and smoke rose from a small wood cabin about 50 feet ahead of him on a ridge. He smiled, desperately needing some company, and a break.

As Adam got closer he saw the lone figure chopping some wood. She, which surprised him a bit was burly, tall, maybe 5’11", light brown hair, shorter, cut in a stylized mohawk across her crown, and landing in a braid down her back, that curved across her muscular shoulder. Her skin was a bit dirty, warmed by the sun, but olive and it glowed in the cascading sunlight that broke through the trees. She had some ink on her upper right arm, in scrolling lettering it read, “Stay strong”. Her tank top of grey jersey knit stretched against her pert bosom, and her thick thighs hugged the legs of her navy green cargo pants. The pockets gaping open on the sides, from use. She heaved the axe over her head and swung down again, splitting the large log in three pieces, some shavings skittering as her roar of triumph rung through the forest.

Adam’s mouth gaped a second, then he swallowed and walked a bit closer to her, before he spoke. She saw him right away, and swung the axes down again, after repositioning the larger chunk of the three, “Yeah? What can I do for you?” her voice was feminine but throaty, a mixture of high altitude and wood dust inhalation. As Adam answered, she swung down again grunting.

“Hi, I’m Adam”, paused with a smile, “I am on this hiking expedition, (he moved to show her his phone) and I was wondering if you knew about the summit part of this trail, also do you have a bathroom?” 

She stopped and wiped her brow, sort of squinting at his phone, “Yeah sure, come on in, I think I know that trail your talking about”. She started to trudge toward the house and Adam diligently followed, marking his first few steps with a “thank you”.

She shouldered her way into the cabin door, leaving it ajar as Adam entered behind her. He Set his rucksack down on the porch and walked in, feeling grateful to have a moment with the bag off.  She washed off her hands, and turned as he stopped just inside the door, having to duck a bit to clear it.   “The bathroom is over there” she said pointing towards an inward door. Adam nodded and went straight to it. In the shadowed light of the cabin, he could see her eyes, and smell her scent, a heady mixture of pine, grass and earth. It was in a word, intoxicating.

              Adam used the facilities, and washed his hands, drying them on a towel hanging near the toilet. Everything seemed to have a place, and it was “homey” but not, hmm.. Adam thought. There was something, different about this place, he just couldn’t figure it out, yet.

Adam came back out of the bathroom, shutting off the light. She looked up from her glass of ale, and visibly sniffed at him, “So how long is the hike?” She asked.

“oh, sorry, sorry. I meant to ask, what is your name?” Adam put his hand out in introduction again,

She readjusted her position on the bench seat of the kitchen table, and went to shake his hand, “I’m Callisto”, she said, taking a tug on the bottle of ale, she tipped one to him, “You want one?”

Adam shook his head, “No, thanks I’m fine. So, you live up here? Year round?” 

Callisto looked at him, amused, “Yeah. I do. What of it?”

Adam was captivated, she was gritty and gorgeous and peculiar, “Oh, no reason, jus curiosity I guess, thanks for the use of your, um, bathroom. So as I was saying there is this trail, (he pulled out his phone again)”.

Callisto looked at the screen and grinned, her bare teeth has an eerie glow of white against her tattooed neck and dark eyes, “Yeah, that’s the Peak trail to Bleaklow, I mean, if your interested I could take you up myself”. Her voice warmed a bit, looking at him now.

Adam, looked at his phone to reset his mind, “Um, sure, if its not too much trouble. A guide would be great. I have to tent up here, (he pointed at a checkpoint on his map) by tonight, so any help would be appreciated”. 

Callisto nodded, “Yeah I can get you there before night fall. Its nearing a new moon tonight, so you’ll have a chance to see the stars”. She winked at him, and Adam nearly blushed.

He nervously laughed, “Great. Well, um, I should go check my gear again, when did you want to start out?” 

Callisto looked at an army style multi watch on her right wrist, “We should head out in about 20 minutes”. Adam looked at his own watch, “Ok, sure. I’ll have snack then and rehydrate too”. Callisto finished her ale and set it down, “You do that” she chuckled mildly and stood up from the bench, moving her thighs across the bench and sweeping a leg up to cross back to the bins by the stove. A clatter of glass on glass rung through the cabin. Adam stood up and walked out the front door, still agape from their entering.

Callisto wiped her face and back of her neck off with the tap water cold. She ran her fingers through the top of her mohawk and sighed. He was a nice piece, she thought. Tall, and handsome, and, she laughed, fit. He looked like he could take her on, if she let him. A wry smile crossed her lips, “or maybe I’ll take him on”, she mused to herself. Callisto moved to the back room where her bed and wardrobe trunk were and gathered a small rucksack, throwing in some rope, a trail knife, some water bottles, and a first aid kit. She grabbed a hoodie over the footboard of her wood frame bed and shoved it into the rucksack as well.

Callisto returned to the main room of the cabin and grabbed a stick of salmon jerky off the counter, tearing into it with vigor, her large fangs exposed as she masticated the dried meat and scales. Adam was grumbling on the porch, she could hear him. Callisto walked to the entrance and stood in the doorway watching him repack his own rucksack.

“Trouble, dear?” her endearment playful and surreptitious.

Adam looked up, and smiled immediately, seeing her from this angle, at his knees, “No, I just swear I packed this other set of spikes, but I guess I didn’t. I’ll just have to hope the trail doesn’t get too loose footed higher up” he chuckled.

“It won’t. I know these trails pretty well. I’ll take you up to where you need to make camp”.

Adam, “And what about you? You get back to the cabin before dark?” his look of genuine concern was gentlemanly, Callisto noted that.

She scoffed, “I live here, remember, I can get back home by scent alone”, she snorted and tipped her nose up to him, crossing her arms against her chest.

Adam stood then, showing his true height and Callisto actually watched him this time as he rose. Adam turned and put the sack onto his back, “Well we’d best be off then, ya?”

Callisto put her sack on her own back, and shut her door, “yeah let’s get started”.

---

(dear readers I have much more I want to post for these two, but alas I had a double today and could not finish the last act of chapter 1. So more parts to come, hopefully after the weekend).

Lyn's Writing Event 2024

Tag list:

Please PM me if you want to be tagged for the remainder of the challenge this month.

@legolasbadass @scariusaquarius

@middleearthpixie @evenstaredits @sweetestgbye @lathalea

@riepu10

[alpydk]

THINGS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT MY FELLOW WRITERS

this is a super fun tag prompt list, thanks @orangekittyenergy

tagging: @sofancydancy and @senualothbrok

Right, let's see how this goes.

Last book I read: Pride and Prejudice. Had never read it before but the whole Tim Downie cameo got me doing it. Then watched the BBC series with a friend and we swooned something major over Colin Firth. I've picked up some other books since then but just haven't found the motivation to get through them. Looking at Dark Tower book 5 as well for the last year...

Greatest literary inspiration: I'm honestly not sure. My partner is the real reader of the two of us. I've enjoyed Dark Tower, The Witcher Series (Honestly still in love with Cahir from them), and Leaves of Grass is my poetry go-to. But inspiration, going to be silly but the Hardcore series by Andy Remic (RIP), is such a great series of books. They're not the most literary genius type books but the action is cool, I love the characters. They make me want to write cool shit too.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write:

Smut. Honestly, my abilities with writing smut are limited. I have no patience for flowery language (yeah I write poetry but I know what I mean.) but it means when it comes to writing my own smut it is very matter-of-fact and lacks what I'm looking for. I'm also very picky about my smut due to an annoying logical brain. If you say someone moves their arm and then they move something else I see that and if I can't follow it directly I'm just going to put it down.

You can recognise my writing by:

Lots of short prose-type sentences. I like the effect of repetition and I especially like writing in a more personal talking type way. I especially love to monologue so if anyone does recognise my writing it's probably from these things. I especially love writing anything angst, it's so therapeutic and I love being able to draw out emotions from other people. I can do this with sweet fluff stuff too but angst really is more enjoyable.

My most controversial take ( current fandom):

I hate the word folds. (Not fandom relations but still.) Makes me think of a packed ham sandwich.

Fandom-related though - Astarion fans can get pretty feral over their views of his character. I get it, Gale fans are the same but I've left groups over the rabidness.

Current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): Currently about a 4 but it can vary depending on the hour and the inspiration. I completed the Nana story and now feel a little lost as to what the next project will be. Ideas are escaping me.

Top three favourite tropes: The whole "enemy to lovers" thing. I mean this in a 2 people who argue and fall in love, not as in the real enemies to lovers.

Star-crossed lovers, especially if they really are both doomed. Astarion/Karlach if she is going to burn up. I love that tragic acceptance. Give me more of that.

I like a loveable rogue too. Hook from OUAT.

Share a random frustration: AU fiction losing characterisations. Once your fiction hits a point where you could replace the characters with any other from any other series I'm going to stop reading it. Great, you want X to be sub, but if he wouldn't actually act that way in canon, why are you even using him as a character? It's AU, fine but then make it OC or use another fandom. Don't force me to read through 13 chapters of semi-ok stuff just to destroy the characters so you can fulfil the soap opera-esque drama that gets you the hits. I get it's difficult but this is my pet peeve. Rant over...

[consceleratuswrites]

Hi Hi hi ANOTHER ANON HERE (I just wanna be private) I just wanted to say I love your work and your writing rocks!

I was wondering, despite the obvious voice lines and what we kinda get from Galactic Emperor Sigma's depiction (for the crumb it was - thanks Blizzard) how do you go about characterizing him? I kinda like how you aren't afraid to make him into a bit of an asshole (lol) do you have a headcanon you go off?

There are quite a few of you guys! And it's all cool - as long as you're all comfortable! Never wanna force anyone x

This is an interesting one as it relates to my personal views on Sigma as a whole, which I could go on for HOURS ABOUT. Mainly because the trailer makes him come across as this maniacal hubris-based scientist who is incredibly intimidating and self-interested in his own research. Then you have the in-game characterisation which is this rather tragic figure being manipulated by an organisation that uses him as a weapon. 

There is this beautiful dichotomy in his character (which is why he's so beloved, as he has this depth on a self-referential level). I do not doubt that he is equally as gentle and a tragic anti-hero as he is an egotistical and (at times) a vicious-mad-scientist force to be reckoned with. That's due to the in-game Canon!Sig voice lines range from quite endearing to being quite callous (to me at least). And I could go on and on about my personal feelings about the mental health allegories that can also be gleaned from him (I'm someone who has pretty bad anxiety and PTSD, so the drifting in and out of thoughts is something that got to me).

So for Emp!Sig, I wanted to magnify those aspects and dial them up to be more ruthless and more arrogant. And I loved that we got this antagonistic-bad-guy version who will call you a "pathetic worm" if you get in his way. But then I like the thought of him being multifaceted here too (I have this saying that I talk to my friends that I think of 'salty and sweet' when I write him). And I like giving him these little anxiety-fuelled moments where he's painfully vulnerable.

I have a lot to thank @akoiromanticstudent for (I tag her a lot as it's her help that's made her indulge this hard, and I love how she writes sig in his professor ways).

I have a literal page-by-page list in my notebook (because I'm crazy and do this for fun HAHA) of who I've taken some inspiration from for his characteristics so here we go I shall list a few (and this isn't even all of it so - lmao YOU ASKED)

Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister is a massive influence on me as well. His dialogue is excellently written, and he was my favourite character in the series for being this rather diabolical yet magnificent bastard. I love how Charles Dance plays him as this character hardened by the world around him and too far gone with using violence as a means to an end. He's undoubtedly cruel and has this stubbornness that is fun to emulate and spar with.

I also take some inspiration from Hades - the Hellenic god (being a bit more of a neutral yet incredibly threatening force within ancient Greek polytheism). And his representation from the HADES game series and the Disney-fied version (for the back and fourth in his dialogue and dynamic).

I also really loved Peter Stormare's representation of Lucifer from the 05' Constantine film - I love how terrifying and threatening he is with his presence and invading personal spaces. Stormare plays him as this ancient, wise, sinister force, and I just adore it. Despite the film being of typical noughties-popcorn-movieness (but I love it for that too). So I've taken little pieces of that there as well.

Obviously, Star Wars plays as an influence (Darth Vader/Anakin being the tragic villain he is and Palpatine because I just love that silly evil old man.)

There's obviously a few Lovecraftian cosmic horror elements in there as well.

Also adding loads of representations of various Gods, Kings, and Emperors in history, Leonidas being one of them, Ceaser, Odin, Ra the list goes on and on all of which are in the mixing pot.

Thanks for reading this if you did I hope it was interesting - I get started on something and then it grows and grows because, as I said, I'm crazy.

[theunboundwriter]

Characters Out of Context Tag

Rules:

Include one character quote — of your choosing ⁠— from each chapter of your WIP (or as many chapters as you'd like)

Give absolutely no context, save for what's between two parts of an interrupted sentence, should that occur. You may mention who said it.

Have fun, no pressure!

Tagging (with no pressure): @airic-fenn , @eriquin , @acatwrites , @awordchemist , @creatrackers , @clairelsonao3 , @madnessfromthemountains , @werehamburglar , @calicoy , @a-fox-who-writes , @theflyingchair-mjh

I'm on a roll with The Sea is in Her Blood rn so here we go!

Chapter One:

“She’s no good to me dead,” the captain continued, fiddling with one of his rings now. “And believe me, if she were worthless, I would have gotten rid of her a long time ago.”

Chapter Two:

“Drink this and don’t argue with me.”

Chapter Three:

“No offense, but you look like death warmed over.”

Chapter Four:

“Humor me, then. If you could wish for anything at all, no limits, what would you wish for?”

Chapter Five:

“Being incredibly handsome and good looking, just an overall sexy bastard, brigandage, pilfering, and general lawlessness?”

Chapter Six:

“I like your socks.”

Chapter Seven:

“I always look troubled; this is nothing new.”

Chapter Eight:

“Pity.” June responded dryly, brushing past Pierson, and pushing through the thick leaves and vines that blocked their entrance. “We would have had more fun alone.”

Chapter Nine:

“I know a thing or two about fathers with god complexes,” Bates said. “Nothing you do will ever be enough for them.”

Chapter Ten:

“You know. Are you only keeping him alive because he’s useful to you?”

Chapter Eleven:

“I’m cashing in that favor you owe me.” 

Chapter Twelve:

“This mess needs to be cleaned up come morning,” the captain had said. “I don’t care who does it, as long as it gets done. Wait until after he’s dead. I want him to suffer a miserable and slow death for the trouble he’s caused.”

Chapter Thirteen:

“She killed her boyfriend for it.”

Chapter Fourteen:

“Yeah, we. When we first met you were bleeding out in a tender in the middle of the ocean. Forget about June’s survival instincts, you need to worry about your own because I suspect you don’t have any.”

Chapter Fifteen:

“Listen lady, you can stop with your whole tragic backstory monologue,” Jesse interrupted. “I stopped listening roughly half an hour ago.”

[streets-in-paradise]

Fate - Chucky (2021) Oneshot

Word Count 1.8 K

Characters: Junior Wheeler, Jake Wheeler, Chucky/Charles Lee Ray. 

Warnings: References to greek tragedies. 

Summary: Chucky is stucked on a literature class of Junior and Jake. He hopes to get a good chance of reading them both together and evaluate the most fitting candidate for his plans, but some things he didn't sign for emerge through it.

Tags: @losersclubisms​​

The hyperfocusing on sports that Logan demanded of his son had some consequences on the academic balance. The exigences of competition would take a lot of time from Junior and it wasn’t weird to see a parade of personal teachers coming to help him prepare for some exams. His literature teacher was particularly nice with Jake as well, even when he wasn’t her student. Coming back after his tragically circunstancial move to his uncle’s house showed her a situation that made her worried for both kids. Caring for them was part of the work of any good teacher, she couldn’t and wouldn’t be a mere reciter of curricular content. 

“ Do you want to join us?” She asked directly to the boy at one time she saw him passing by when her class was about to start. “ You have to take the test as well, it’s good for both.” 

Junior wasn’t very fond of that plan, but he wouldn’t complain. If she would comment on that with her father he would get in trouble for making him look bad. Jake stayed, but sat away from him placing Chucky in the middle like a divisory line. 

It was a strange attitude that the teacher noticed, he sat the doll as if he would be a third student. 

“ As I was saying, we are going to follow the thread that connects the pre and post trojan war related tragedies together. It’s important for me that you understand things in context and it will make it way easier for you on the test. Greek tragedies are a chain of events that follow families through generations. Self fulfilled curses tied one with another in deliciously cruel ironies. “ 

“ I’m not going to get lost, I read the Percy Jackson books as a kid.” Junior interrupted. “ I know enough about the gods and some about a few mortals.” 

“ Riordan is to greek classics what Disney is to the Grimm Brothers: kid friendly versions that serve as a great startpoint to get little ones familiarized and invested. “ She kindly corrected, trying to show she was not being demeaning of his contribution. “ Those books wash out a lot of darker details that can be hard to swallow for our modern tastes. You will see it in our first play for today, ‘ Iphigenia in Aulis’. It tells the story of how the greeks managed to sail to Troy after a long wait in the port of Aulis because of bad weather. The huge army gathered was growing impatient because many days were passing and the winds wouldn’t blow, so their leaders consulted a seer and he had terrible news for their commander in chief, King Agamemnon of Mycenae.” 

“ …The goddess of hunting was angry at him because he killed a sacred deer.” Jake followed, recuperating scratches of the few things he got to hear in class during his short span of attention. “ She was stopping the winds to paralyze the ships and the seer said that she would only let them leave if the king would sacrifice his daughter.” 

“ … His favorite daughter, princess Iphigenia.”  She continued, then smiled in approbation before getting into the more proper explanation. “ She was the eldest of her house, around your age when the play takes place. The argument focuses on the trick that leads to her sacrifice.” 

Junior was deeply disturbed, surprisingly even more than his cousin. 

“ Wait… Did he kill his daughter?” 

“ In some versions he gives the deathly strike by his own hand, but Euripides says that the goddess had mercy on her at the last hour and took her away before she could be killed.” 

“ Is there any version where the king thinks ‘ Well, maybe I will not kill my daughter to save my ass’?” 

“ It’s his reputation, Junior.” She corrected, trying to help him challenge what she thought was just a modern bias. “ He was the King of Kings among greeks, he would have lost everything if he would have refused to give Iphigenia when all the other parents were giving their sons for the war. A war that he and his brother cared about the most, since they gathered all the greek forces through an old oath.” 

“ Well, I think Agamemnon should have killed himself before making his girl die for his pride. He could have offered Artemis his own life, sacrifice himself and leave his brother to lead the army, but I bet he didn’t do that because he liked the power. A good father would have died for her, not sacrificed her to his ambition.” 

“ Woow, woow, woow. Slow down, Achilles.” She stopped him with a subtle mock. “ I have to play devil’s advocate on Agamemnon because you have to get all the viewpoints if you want to understand what’s next. Queen Clytemnestra, the girl’s mother, never forgave her husband and that wound sealed the fate of the entire family. “ 

Junior was too invested in the story because he couldn’t help feeling identified with Iphigenia, seeing in both of her parents his own. The descriptions of the bond between the queen and her princess during the Aulis events reminded him of the special bond he had with his own mother. In Agamemnon he would see Logan killing a little bit of him every single day for the sake of his wishes. A child sentenced to death for the achievement of the father’s goals, the perfect son he was forced to be in sacrifice of his truest self to please him. 

When the narration and discussion advanced another argument started because, on the topic of Clytemnestra’s revenge and its consequences, Jake showed understandment of Electra and Orestes. As if the cousins could never possibly agree on anything, they exposed their points to one another in a pretty heated tone that showed too much investment for a simple literature lesson. 

“ The queen abandoned her other two children for the one she lost. They were her siblings, they had lost Iphigenia too, but she only cared for her pain over her one dead daughter.” Jake was attempting to correct one of Junior’s interventions. “ Her grief made her abusive, Electra and Orestes needed a mother but she could only be Iphigenia’s. For the love of her memory she made their lives miserable.” 

He was thinking of his father, projecting into the characters the situation he faced with him after his mother died. Lucas focused too much on his pain of husband, abandoning himself to grief and neglecting him in every possible way. Junior was indignant to hear that the younger siblings sided with the father, the killer of their sister, but he had no idea of what living alone for years with a parent consumed by grief was. 

“ Agamemnon manipulated his children from beyond his grave to kill their mother… How was it even possible? Clytemnestra did nothing wrong, she avenged their sister and released them from their prick of a father who would have killed any of them if their names would have been on the list. if I was Orestes, I would have killed him.” 

Chucky observed the situation very carefully, so fortunate for his planning that he was barely able to believe his luck. Murder was being discussed and both kids were opening crossed point views,  Junior being the surprise of the evening. 

He wasn’t expecting the self satisfaction to end in the way your explanation almost killed it. 

“ Agamemnon is for them the absent father. In absence he is idealized, Electra was barely a little girl the last time she saw him and Orestes practically a baby boy. Their dad left on a killing spree for ten years, a time in which they knew nothing about him.” 

It hitted too close to home to not get an involuntary reaction. If the kids were thinking of their parents, Chucky got reminded of his children and the void he left with his absence.To some extent, he wondered if they had fabricated any idealized images of him that he could appeal to in case of need. Surprisingly, the class was giving him a lot to think about. 

The doll moved his head and blinked his eyes to the teacher, who wondered if it was somehow broken. 

" Is that normal?" 

" I like to imagine that, when he does that, it means he is getting invested. " Jake lied carefully. " It gets activated too easily, most people find it creepy." 

She did find it disturbing, but wouldn't want to admit it. 

" We can leave the topic of the children for later. Commiting either parricide or matricide is the breaking of a fundamental law on greek lore, to the eyes of ancient greeks that makes you a monster. Things get more complicated for Orestes after that, but there are other aspects you have to understand first. Let's get into some character analysis of a very important player on Agamemnon's downfall.  He didn't come back alone from his victory in Troy, he had Cassandra."

" The girl who was taken for crazy because she told the truth. '' Junior added, commenting from his bits of overall knowledge. " Nobody believed her and she ended up the only survivor of her whole family. " 

" The cursed seer, exactly. " She confirmed. " During the fall of Troy she was raped by Ajax the lesser, but Agamemnon took definitive possesion of her. She arrives in Mycenae as a slave, her will and body belong to the man who slaughtered everyone she cared about. The ironic point here is that Agamemnon has no idea that, from the moment he crosses his gates with her, his fate is sealed. " 

" Life is short... hahaha" the recording voice of the doll called. 

Chucky couldn't help thinking of Nica, who he possessed ríght after finding her pervert doctor on the act. Whose entire family he killed, who he pushed to be seen as crazy. 

" Well, little buddy. In that you are ríght. Life was, indeed, short for Agamemnon after that. " She continued in a mock, marveling at how on point was the strange recorded catchphrase of the doll. " The interesting thing I find here is how, in his lack of self awareness, Agamemnon puts two women he wronged deeply in the way of each other to indirectly fulfill that dark fate. Cassandra knows that he is going to die and her warning triggers everything. For the first time ever she can weaponize her curse and she does it even though she knows it's going to bring her death too. Clytemnestra is her enemy, her eventual killer, but there is a silent complicity in wanting that man dead that goes beyond that. " 

" She has nothing left to live for, he took everything from her and when he ran out of things he took her. " Jake followed. " That's devastating, she is not a person anymore at that point, but a thing. "

" Nothing left to live, nothing left to lose." Junior concluded. " Agamemnon you dumb asshole, how could you think that was going to work? "

Chucky's mind was circumstantially tangled in paranoia, feeling as if her words were direct warnings to him. It couldn't be, she was just giving the damn class to the kids. 

Whatever that was, it saved her life. He could have pulled on her a deathly trick as soon as she would be alone exactly like when he killed the housekeeper, but he was too haunted by the moment to try anything. 

[akechi-stole-my-heart]

I posted 3,882 times in 2022

That's 3,882 more posts than 2021!

263 posts created (7%)

3,619 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

gothitelle-goddess

daz4i

nebulaleaf

almightyrozenidiot

soft-shuake

I tagged 3,881 of my posts in 2022

#p5 - 3,456 posts

#goro akechi - 2,036 posts

#akira kurusu - 1,600 posts

#akeshu - 1,160 posts

#ryuji sakamoto - 259 posts

#ann takamaki - 227 posts

#sumire yoshizawa - 209 posts

#futaba sakura - 201 posts

#phantom thieves - 193 posts

#haru okumura - 148 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#trying to figure out a way to upload the clip was too much effort for what it’s worth i’m probably never doing it again outside this one ep

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The reason Akechi's death is thematically satisfying is because of his role as Akira's antithesis. Akira is actively fighting against a fate that will lead to his death throughout Persona 5, and he only defies that fate through forging his bonds with his friends and remaining true to his sense of justice.

Akechi dies because he and Akira share the same fate--death--as Yaldabaoth's pawns, and he is unable to escape that fate because he did not create bonds with others or remain true to his sense of justice, which has become utterly divided (as seen with his personas, which are diametrically opposed to one another).

Akechi represents what would have and could have happened to Akira had he been friendless and alone, abandoned by society and twisted to lose all sense of justice and truth. Akechi is the fate that Akira only barely escaped himself. The themes of the game are strengthened with Akechi's death, tragic it may be, because it shows us the antithesis to Akira's thesis, the other side of the coin. What could have happened to our hero if things had been different.

However--Akechi did forge one bond. One bond, with his antithesis, forged a little too late, yet still strong. And that bond is the reason Akechi can survive in Royal. That bond reminded Akechi of his true sense of justice. It showed him a different path, a better path, one that is not walked alone.

Akechi isn't ready to walk that path--yet. But maybe, someday, he will be.

250 notes - Posted October 16, 2022

#4

Persona 5 Strikers really said the Phantom Thieves empathize with morally gray villains because of shared experiences and want them to be redeemed and atone because no one is ever too far gone and then proceeded to never mention Akechi Goro once in its entire 50 hours of gameplay.

445 notes - Posted May 3, 2022

#3

497 notes - Posted May 5, 2022

#2

I've seen different takes on Akechi and his attitude toward his fame in fic I've read but I think a lot of them oversimplify things. Usually he's portrayed as being disillusioned or annoyed by his fans, and while I think that is true to an extent, it's also a lot more complicated than that.

Goro gets his self worth from other people. His success, his skills, his perception, are all how he values his worth as a human being. So when he first achieves fame, becomes Tokyo's new sweetheart, of course that's all going to go straight to his head. People love him. They're obsessed with him! He's going to revel in that, in the feeling of being liked and adored for the first time in his whole life.

And I think that there's always an underlying fear and bitterness, because that love is for a fake version of himself. People love the Detective Prince. They don't love Goro, and they never would, not if they knew the real him.

But all that doesn't really hit him until the public turns against him. The superficial and fickle nature of their love is abundantly clear once they all turn on him. I think it's then that Goro really starts to sour on the public and fame in general.

But of course, he still gets his self worth from what others think of him. No matter how much he wishes he didn't care what ignorant strangers think about him, on a deep level he can't quite control, he does. They hate him even as the Detective Prince. Even when he's the ideal person, even when he's erased every bit of his unlikable traits, he's still not good enough, and that hurts.

By the third semester, he's probably relieved to not have the public's eye on him any longer. He no longer has to perform the image of a perfect Detective Prince. But I think part of him probably misses it too. Misses being known and adored by strangers, misses being loved, even if it was by people who could never understand him. Which makes him hate his fame all the more, because he shouldn't miss any part of it. He shouldn't want the approval of others, he shouldn't care what anyone thinks. But of course he still does. He can't stop caring, not when he's cared for so long, when that's the only basis on which he's measured his self worth for as long as he can remember.

But he's done performing. He's done acting the perfect role of the lovable hero. Akechi is free to finally be himself. So Akechi stops trying to be liked, stops trying to be loved, and starts pushing everyone away instead. Because if he's not able to be loved, what's the point of even trying?

Goro thinks his true self is inherently unlovable. He's a failure and a murderer and there's no possible way anyone could overlook that. He thinks the only reason anyone ever liked him at all is because of his perfect fake public persona. And that's what makes Akira so incomprehensible to him. Because even when Goro drops that persona, even when he becomes the person he thinks he is--the asshole who no one could ever love--Akira still loves him. Akira sees the real Goro, and he likes him. Goro can't use his true self to push everyone away. It might work on the Phantom Thieves, but it just makes Akira love him even more.

676 notes - Posted May 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

3,430 notes - Posted July 15, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Any opinions on what sort of food or other supplies the kids and/or Gran-Gran packed before they flew off to rescue Aang in episode 2? We know that Aang used all the blubbered seal jerky as campfire kindling by episode 3, but what else would they have been eating?

Gran Gran definitely packed akutaq, considering that in its pemican-like bar form, it's the ideal travel food (calorie-rich, light, compact, doesn't spoil easily, isn't messy). It also needs a lot of time to make. About four hours, not counting the prep work in cooking the finely ground/minced meat in it and rendering the fat which serves as the main ingredient. If i'm remembering correctly, the travel bar version needs to set overnight as well.

Which has given me the cutest idea of Gran Gran mixing everything together because the kiddos are going on an adventure and she can feel it in her little old lady bones.

Also, as an Alaska Native and a fan of the show, Sailor Boy Pilot Bread canonically exists as far as I'm concerned. If I have to deal with non-Natives voicing Water Tribe characters, then they can have pilot bread. I can't remember who asked if Water Tribesmen had hardtack in the tags of my bread post, but that's my official stance. Not just any hardtack, pilot bread crackers that come in the long blue box.

These bad boys. Hell yeah.

Very good with tea of any kind and a little big of jam (or in this case, homemade cranberry sauce) also divine with smoked salmon but we are tragically salmonless.

Gran Gran and Sokka would have known to pack pokes of seal oil. Seal oil is the condiment of choice and is traditionally said to keep you warm. There are also irl anectdotal mentions of fat or oil being rubbed on the skin for hygiene since we didn't make soap or have things like yucca root. I don't think it would be the same as oil meant for eating but i'm not sure how different it would be.

As for supplies, Sokka's weapons and hunting equpment, at least one pot and one pan, probably a bucket and dipper, rabbit skin rags (for Katara if you headcanon her as cis or for Sokka if you headcanon him as trans), uluit for all food prep cutting needs.

One last comment: i actually can understand why Aang would slip up and use "blubbered seal jerky" to start a fire. Seal meat is really dark, and you'll see in the photo below that seal paniqtaq (meat or fish cut in thin strips and air-dried; think of it as our version of jerky, also called dried meat or dry meat) has an almost charcoal look to it

It can be a little difficult to distinguish the shapes of the pieces here, but it could be easily mistaken for some kind of tree bark if you don't know what it is.

[rpd-rookie]

The One Who Runs Away, The One Who Runs Back (Leon S. Kennedy x Reader)

Author’s note: This is a sequel to “A PAST WITH HER, A FUTURE WITH YOU” and the end of my three-parts fan fiction "I TRUSTED YOU WITH MY HEART" I decided to write after so many of you asked for it. Sorry it took so long but I was navigating from one fandom to another. (BTW, if there are any Devil May Cry fans up here, you can read my DMC fan fictions here) PS: Even if I said it before, I have no hate whatsoever towards Ada or Aeon.

Tagged: Angst, Fluff, Romance, Post-Break up, Sexual Content 

Part 1 / Part 2

***

Do you remember? We started this story by quoting some sitcom character that was clueless about love. Well, here’s a suggestion. Why not ending it by quoting someone who knew a little more on such matter.

William Shakespeare - you know that English dude expert on tragic ‘drink this poison, stab yourself’ kind of love - apparently once said ‘Love runs away from those chasing her, and those who run away, she throws herself on his neck’. I say ‘apparently’ cause, even though I have a master in English lit, this quote is from the internet, and also … who knows what the guy truly said?

But it’s the quote that’s important. Not the author. The quote it’s important because it sums up perfectly how this story is gonna end. However, before starting, let me tell you this quote is going to be the only Shakespeare-worthy sentence in this final chapter. You’ve been warned.

Love runs away from those chasing her.          Well, this part was definitely written for someone like Ada Wong. Owner of countless gold medals and possibly a world record at this point, that woman is basically the Usain Bolt of the ‘Running from Leon S. Kennedy’ competition. Unchallenged winner since the creation of this sultry version of cat and mouse game, it’s better not to think about the number of times she successfully ran away from her favourite agent.  But this year, this formidable titleholder in a gorgeous red dress will have to face her Nemesis in the championship. You. Though the comparison to the hideous bio-organic killing machine might not be very complimentary to you but you get the idea.  This year you enter the Kennedy Olympics. And this year you run like Sonic the Hedgehog and you win the damn competition (screw you Usain Bold!). And you do this with your head high and without an ounce of regret. Ignore all the texts and flowers Leon might send on your track Mario Kart style. His gifts are not as slippery as banana peels and they can easily be dodged, I promise. Well, most of the time, when you’re not lying on your bed in the middle of the night crying and sobbing while reading his messages or playing his voice in your voicemail again and again until you’re nothing more but a giant mess with puffy red eyes drowning in a puddle of your own tears.        Screw those messages too! And screw his broken yet terribly sexy voice as well!

Being a man of word, Leon kept his promise. And for months you kept on running peacefully, marathoning away from this past relationship that had destroyed you like no other before while tranquilly fixing your broken heart on the way. That run was a good cardio.

But sometimes, cardio is not enough, and even just the small sight of an overpriced whisky bottle or the smell of Leon’s perfume on some guy’s clothes is enough to reopen your wounds.           And when it happens, you always do the same thing, you break the damn bottle - and run cause damn! it’s expensive! -  or you tell the guy his perfume smells like cheap cologne and that he should definitely change it, which is an improvement on your past destructive behaviour, since there was a time shortly after the break up when you would have simply dragged the guy to your place to let him fuck you senseless while imagining he was Leon. All that just for the illusion to feel him again and for the sake to kick him out the next morning, screaming like a hysterical psycho.

So imagine, for a small second, the wave of intense feelings surging out of your healing heart when, in the middle of a cafe, you hear some dude sitting behind you ordering Leon’s favourite whisky while wearing the same bloody perfume. “It’s got to be relentless persecution at that point!” You sigh, already annoyed, closing your book more violently than intended. Hope you’re ready, stranger! Because you’re not in the mood to deal with this right now.            You turn around with a fake smile that reflects perfectly your irritation, ready to give him hell, your sharpest riposte already burning your tongue. After all, he deserves it and you can’t help it.         But when you meet familiar – and freaking gorgeous - baby blue eyes you freeze and stare, suddenly confused and lost and refusing to believe that in spite of the intense running, love just jumped at your neck after all and it was sitting there, taking the shape of Leon S(tupid) Kennedy.

You should have stood up and left, run for your life, run for your heart. And yet, you didn’t.    You stayed there staring at him looking at you, allowing all your memories, the good ones and the bad ones, all your buried feelings to come back from the dead, embracing them as if you had missed them, which, let’s be honest, you probably had.            You tried to scream to yourself “Come on, Y/N! Shake a leg!” but it seemed that what you brain understood was something like “Cum on him! Open your legs!” as a couple of blurry hours later, you were on Leon’s bed, legs wide open, screaming his name and begging him not to stop his amazing thrusts.

Six months, you ran for six months … Well, looks like the run ends here and now. After a minute-long deep stare, an afternoon of amazing sex and two hours long of something blurry in between.

“I missed you.” And there you were! The moment all couples that broke up have after one of them (in this case Leon with the infamous ‘I missed you line’) starts to believe they miraculously rekindled their love. The fatal post-coital cuddling session that you don’t know how to react to, as you think of all the possibilities before you.      Possibility Number 1) You tell Leon you missed him too and cuddle, enjoying that embrace you secretly yearned for months. But that includes forgetting what he has done or pretending that nothing happened.     Possibility Number 2) You push him away, get dressed, leave again and act as if this afternoon never happened. But if Leon doesn’t remind you of it, the ache between your legs will, that’s for sure!   Possibility Number 3) You jump him again until you sore even more and hope that you’ll be able to leave afterwards.         Frankly, all possibilities suck because, in all cases, it seems like you lose. Since,       with Possibility Number 1) you lose the run forever, with Possibility Number 2) you lose him again and with Possibility Number 3) well it’s result 1 or 2 + your body aching like crazy for days. I suck at math but no need to be Einstein to know the result of this calculation looks unpleasant.    So what do you choose?

You see a triangular dice rolling in your head, showing a never-ending succession of 1, 2 and 3 that doesn’t make any sense and that confuse you even more than you already are. 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2 ! Oh for fuck’s sake!

You grimace, angry and pissed at Leon and probably even more at yourself, and finally leaves his bed and his strong warm arms, feeling the tears furiously forming in your eyes. “I can’t” You can’t look at him in the eyes. You don’t want to see his confusion, don’t want to see his pain as he witnesses all his hopes shatter to pieces.         “ What do you mean?” You can hear the sheets crease behind you, alerting you of Leon’s agitation, so you hurry and pick up all your clothes scattered in his room. You must leave, now. 2! 2 it is!  “This! All This! This afternoon never happened.” You tell him, putting on your clothes with sudden clumsy and trembling hands, not caring if your bra is correctly hooked or if you put your shirt on back to front. Your heart. You have to think of your poor heart first.          “Hey, hey, hey.” You feel Leon’s hand softly grabbing your arms and you let go of whatever you were holding right now. His voice is sweet and trying to be comforting. Don’t look at him Y/N! Don’t look at him! “Look at me.” You do. Damn it! And you see his gorgeous blue eyes staring at you, studying your flustered face and the tears slowly drowning your (colour) look. You missed those eyes. You missed them so.damn.much ! As much as you missed his hands cupping your face and his thumbs wiping up your tears. God! How many tears those thumbs have missed recently. “It’s alright.”

You want to believe him. You really do. But there is this voice screaming in your head and very clearly this time. A voice shouting, forcing you to remember that night, that awful nightmarish night, the one when you felt your heart break and your dreams turn to ashes. All that because of him and his obsession for her.

“No, it’s not alright, Leon.” You shake your head and miraculously manage to take a small step back. You never thought you could. But you had to. You can’t stay close to him. You can’t let him touch you, feel you. Not if you want to run away. And you have to run away. Like her! Like Ada. Ada! “I told you. For as long as you have feelings for Ada, I can’t … we can’t…”     “Please don’t talk about her.” He begs and rubs his hand over his face. Is he trying to chase her away from his mind? Is she still in here? Please, let her not be in here.    “But she’s the reason we’re in this situation now. She’s the reason why we’re in this mess.” You insist only for the sake to see his reaction when you mention Ada, to see if she’s still under his skin, somewhere. “Ada is not the reason. I am!” Leon corrects you, a finger directed at his heavy chest as he is putting the full blame on himself for the first time since that night. “I am the one who went after Ada when I shouldn’t have! I am the reason why we broke up! I am the reason why we are so miserable!”         “But I was fine!” You shouted back in an attempt to show him he was wrong refusing to listen to that part of you who knew he was completely right. You were miserable without him. “I was doing fine until you came back and fucked everything up! I was healing goddamnit!”             You felt new tears rolling along your red cheeks and quickly wipe them off with the back of your hand that felt so callous and rough in comparison to Leon’s gentle touch. “You can’t just jump back into my life like this and expect me to forget!”

Leon nods, agreeing with you in a certain way. But the truth is, he doesn’t want you to forget. He doesn’t expect you to erase his mistake. He just wants you to forgive him … No, he just wants you to come back to him. Period. And that’s got to be what you want to. It has to!   “So why did you have sex with me, huh?” He finally asks even though he already knows your answer. “Tell me!” You’re not the kind of person who has meaningless sex, not the kind of person who worships one’s body with divine kisses and devoted caresses if they mean nothing. “Why did you have sex with me?” And yet the answer he wishes to hear doesn’t come out. “For fuck’s sake Y/N! Answer me! Why?” He shouts making you shiver and cry even more.    “Because I LOVE YOU!” You finally scream. And it hurts. It hurts but it feels good too. Like a weight lifted off your chest. “Because I missed you too! Because those months without you have been terrible! Because I don’t know how to handle even just the thought of you or the sound of your voice in my voicemail. Because each time I see something that makes me think of you, I’m a mess and I do things that normal me would never do! You fucked me up, Leon! You fucked me up but I love you! And I hate to love you!” You grunt in pain and relief, enraged but happy that you finally let everything out. And Leon listens in silence, frozen by your powerful honest confession. But he doesn’t know how to react. He doesn’t know what to say. Part of him is overjoyed, ecstatic that you still love him but there is another part that just feels terrible, sorry for the pain your love for him caused you even in his absence.   “But you see—“ You continue “That’s the problem in our relationship, Leon! I love you in ways that are so intense, that go beyond sanity. And you love me by half.”    You see him crumple, his horrified face looking suddenly very pale as if he had just heard some dreadful news. Is that really how you feel? Is that how you see his love for you? Is that what he has made you believe?         “Goodbye Leon.”

With the full intention to leave Leon’s place for good and never come back, you grab you bag on your way out of the bedroom while carelessly shoving your underwear inside of it since you forgot to put them on in the midst of panic and precipitation. Get out of here, Y/N! Now! A reasonable voice encourages you. Listen to me!    But this not what Leon wants.

“I never loved you by half.” He declares and you abruptly stop, asking God if he’s some kind of sadist that loves seeing you in pain from the comfort of his divine sofa somewhere in heaven. “Never.” But it’s not God and his sadism that makes you turn around. It’s you, and your masochist love for that blue-eyed man before you.     “I don’t believe you” Your voice almost doesn’t leave your throat as you try not to sob.           “But it’s the truth.” He says with a calm soothing voice as he slowly approaches you. “I never imagined my future with Ada. I never wished to grow old with her or build a home with her.” You want to tell Leon to stop talking, to stay where he is but your body doesn’t seem to respond. And when you feel him grabbing your hands in his and the comforting warmth that goes with that simple touch, you know that leaving is now an almost impossible task. “Yes. I admit it. My feelings for her were real.” Even when his honesty hurts you, you don’t know how to leave anymore. “But they were nothing in comparison to what I feel for you.”     You try to let go, pulling your hands away from his loving grip but he holds you back. And you’re not strong enough. Or maybe, you just don’t want to be strong. Everything is so confusing. Everything is tearing you apart.     “But they’re still here, aren’t they?” You question, hoping his answer might give you a clue, might give you the strength to make the correct decision. Do you leave? Or do you stay? “And they’ll keep coming back each she goes back into your life. You can’t let go of her.”    “You’re maybe right.” His words hurt you more than you thought they would. They hurt like hell because you realise there are not the ones you wanted to hear. You wanted to hear him say that he would let go of Ada, for good, for you. You wanted to hear that because deep down … YOU WANTED TO FUCKING STAY! “But can you let go of your past?” He continues and you shake your head refusing to hear any other word coming out of Leon’s mouth.       “Don’t!” You beg, weary.           “No! Listen to me this time. Ada is my past, Y/N. She’s my past. And you … you’re my future. You’re my life, damn it!” He doesn’t cry but you don’t need his tears to sense how emotional and how honest he is. And suddenly, you just want to listen to him. “And I was a fool not to see it sooner. When you left me, I felt a void I had never felt in my entire life. I felt like a part of me was missing. And then, the bombing in Washington happened, and it was like I had nothing left. I needed you. I wanted you. You. Not Ada.”      “Leon” You whisper and he cups your face again, blue eyes staring deep into yours, allowing you to see everything in him, his strong love for you and all the weaknesses he hated to admit. “It was you in my mind. Only you. And it will always be you. Because I love you. Now. Today. And I will always love you.”

You cry even more, uncertain if those tears are tears of sorrow, tears of joy or a mix of both. God, how can your emotions be such a mess right now? How can you be wishing to shout at him with all the anger you’ve accumulated and, at the same time, willing to kiss him with all love you’ve got?

“If you got to believe something. Believe that. And if that’s not enough and you think you can be happy with someone else. Then go. I won’t hold you back.” You frown. He is fucking lying. You’re sure of it. “You can’t stop running after me and you know it.” He smiles and scoffs, sensing that hint of sudden defiance in your tone he enjoys a lot.  “True. I can’t sop running after you. But I’ll do my best not to catch you if that’s what you want. But you got to tell me. Is that what you truly want?” You don’t reply. Truth is, you’re not sure what to say not because you’re not sure that’s what you want but because you’re not sure you can trust him if you let him in again.                        “No.” You whisper. “No, that’s not what I want. I want you. All of you.” You can see Leon struggle to contain his growing joy as it starts to glimmer brighter and brighter in his irises. He doesn’t want to cry victory just yet. He is cautious and rightfully so. “But can I?”        “Want me?” He smiles. “ Have you completely?” You correct, searching for a promise in his eyes, one you hope, you wish he would not break this time.     “Trust me with your heart again and find out.”

This better not hurt this time…

[beskarberry]

Into the Twilight

Solisequious, Chapter 5

(Cyborg!Ezra x F!Reader with last name) [+18]

In that short moment between the light and dark the sunless void took its opportunity greedily, enveloping you in its shadowy embrace and leaning in close enough to whisper a secret in your ears.

Look.

<-Previous Next->

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 9.8k

Content warnings: Language, Ezra being a fucking dick, side character deaths, in-depth descriptions of aurelac harvesting, tragic backstory. Hurt/comfort, wound tending, lots of pining, secretive kisses. Sad ending for the CHAPTER, not for the STORY.

A/N: That last tag is important! This chapter ends on a cliffhanger so if you don't like the suspense it's ok to skip this chapter for now and wait for the last one. I don't do sad endings, I absolutely will not, promise! One more to go!

Swirling clouds of fog blanketed the forested landscape, concealing the dawnlight that peeped through the mist in spears of righteous gold, flickering elusively across the river's surface flowing below you. Steam rose from the waters as the days’ temperature steadily increased through the morning, curling into miniature cyclones in the wake of the hovering longboat. Gliding through the haze, the skiff flew over the water in silence, looking like something from a ghost story with her keel cutting through the fog and not the waves.

You and Ezra sat in the prow, his arm comfortably around your shoulders since you couldn’t hold yourself to the skiff, your own wrists tied and numb behind you. How unfortunate -ironic really- that it was under this same arm that you’d fallen so hard for his warmth, the fire of it rising with the profession of his affections, his desire for your kiss; yet now it scalded you like you were sitting next to the devil himself.

“How much further is it?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“You said that an hour ago.”

It’d gone like this much of the morning, Ezra reliant on your topographical knowledge and none too pleased about it. You liked the power it gave you over him though, the way his lip scrunched and his circuits crackled. He hated not being in control.

“I’m startin’ to wonder if you actually remember the directions-”

“There!” Finally. As you rounded a bend in the river, the placid waters tumbled over the edge of a rocky waterfall, churning frothy rapids through boulders of black granite. From there it spilled into a basin framed by the mist-shrouded jungle, snaking through a colorful meadow until it disappeared into a canyon carved from the same dark rock. As the skiff coasted over the rumbling falls and the tide-like plumes of fog, the canyon revealed itself until it consumed the horizon, a labyrinthian scar of stone walls and roaring waters.

Somewhere in there, was the queen.

Ezra’s grumpy sigh could shake the heavens down if it were any stronger. “Pray tell me little bird, is that valley yonder the site of what we seek?”

“Dunno, gotta get closer.” So I can push you off the edge.

He grumbled his acceptance, waving at the helmsman to continue onward. “For your sake, I hope that it is.”

The meadow passed under your keel in a sea of color, dots of orange and vermillion swaying in an ocean of soft greenery that danced with the wake of the skiff, still wet with morning dew. Lush vegetation thinned and diminished the closer you got to the canyon’s edge, becoming a shoreline of onyx gravel that fell away entirely down the vast ravine. Water-filled corridors of streaky sediment branched and forked for miles, cracking the moon’s surface as if it had been struck by lightning.

There were dozens of them.

Ezra huffed at the sight, scrubbing his chin with his good hand in thought. “I must insist that you disclose which of these abysmal gorges are we headed for, Hawkins, because contrary to my affable nature, I am not a patient man.”

“Water.”

“You are not in any position to barg-”

“Get us something to drink, cyborg, or I’ll just let you roam that hellhole for the next decade looking for rocks.”

“Where did you learn to negotiate?” Ezra fixed you with his half-glare, scratching absently at the strip of cloth tied around his busted face. His single eye flickered from where he held you to him to something along the edge of the meadow, a smirk twisting his bushy lips. “Perhaps I’ll no longer require your assistance after all.”

He patted your arm roughly and stood, making the floating longboat wobble dangerously as he let himself out. Surprised that he just… left, you watched him, unsure if the sparks licking his brain had finally driven him mad or not. Where the meadow washed against the dark gravel, between the green and black, a red-brown smear pushed through the thin soil, unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t know what to look for.

“Kevva favors those who are relentless.” Ezra shouted back to the boat, stabbing his hands to his hips and popping his stance. “I believe we are gettin’ closer to the queen than I thought. A pawn of hers has wandered too far from her protective bosom, and so loses the gambit.” You rolled your eyes, sick of his flowery speeches, but he had his back to you and probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. He fluffed his dark olive overcoat behind him to kneel in the gritty earth, brushing some of the dirt away from his prize.

Aurelac.

Items materialized from his pockets, canisters of fluids and field trays that he arranged around himself. He turned and peered over his shoulder, flashing you that wicked grin with a -snick- of his blade, the steel flashing brightly in the midmorning sun. Turning back to his work, he stabbed the pustule and carved it like he was serving holiday dinner, the meaty sound carrying horrifically over the rushing rapids.

“Is that an aurelac?! Let me see! I promise I won’t touch it, I-I just want to get a better view!” Tillie, ever true to her professional passion, wiggled in her bindings to get a better line of sight.

“It looks like roadkill to me.” Fiona, doing better today, clacked wearily at her overly excited friend. “I hope it fucking bites him.”

“Both of you be quiet! I need to concentrate.” Ezra barked from behind the shield of his coat, drawn up over his face to keep the creature's venomous spittle from his last good eye. The ground fizzled and squeaked, gurgling with some kind of solvent that he’d poured down the hole, and when it went still, he snaked his iron arm into the meaty fissure to remove the pearl’s pouch. You were glad to be so far away from it, disgusted by the milky-white bag Ezra was tearing from the ground, slicing through the umbilical with a wet snap.

“Hoo-wee! Lookit the size of it!” He held the slimy sack up for everyone on the boat to see, making Tillie nearly vibrate with excitement as if that wet bag of goop wasn’t justification for her execution. Ezra’s long blade split the bag open and discarded it after retrieving an even nastier chunk of offal from inside. He dropped it in the little metal tray, holding it between the gloved fingers of his left hand, but his right seemed to hesitate.

He cycled through his cutlass and the jointed picks, his five-fingered hand, and at one point a butcher’s knife, his head tilting this way and that with his thoughts. The hand returned to pick at the side of his face, fidgeting with the exposed wires of his cybernetic like he was adjusting his glasses, and the victorious realization dawned on you.

He can’t fucking see.

“What’s wrong, poo-paw? Forget your bifocals?”

“Don’t distract me, damn it! I’ve got it under control.” Ezra settled for the blade, picking away at the squishy exterior with careful cuts. Slow and deliberate, he circumnavigated the ball, nearly reaching his starting point when he exploded in a storm of curses, some of which you’d never heard before. “Seven fucking hells!” he bellowed, rising from his haunches and stomping about like an angry toddler. Your snickering drew his ire, and he fixed you with that bloodthirsty glare. “You think that’s funny?! That was a damn fine gemstone that just melted!” he scuffed his pointy peg around in the sand, looking for another specimen, his face beet red with fury when he found no more.

“Looks like you’re stuck with me then.” You purred, getting as comfortable as you could in your seat. “Sucks to be you.”

“Indeed it does.” Ezra grumbled as he climbed back into the boat, shoving a slower pirate out of the way and pulling a canteen from somewhere on his person. “Drink, and let’s be on.”

“Fiona first.”

Oh that scrunchy face. Ezra was getting wicked tired of being made a fool in front of his crew, but in truth he would have you no other way than the venomous little spitfire that you were. Somewhere in that gear-addled head of his, he was still hoping you would change your mind about his offer, but for now he was going to have to continue playing the beast while you unknowingly played his beauty. Begrudgingly, he did as you asked, giving both your companions a meager sip of water before you, ripping the canteen away before you’d gotten close to your fill.

Dickhead.

The longboat glided on, sliding over the cascading rapids and into the dark walled canyon, the obsidian corridors snuffing out the sun. Cold spray plumed over the rails, slowly soaking into your clothes and forcing a shiver down your spine. As agitated as you were with him, you were somewhat thankful that Ezra’s broad arm was taking the brunt of the chill off your shoulders with the added bonus of cooling his grumpy ass down.

You guided the skiff along the rapids, giving the helmsman your most confident directions, but as the canyon narrowed and the river deepened, you were beginning to worry you may have gotten the boat lost.

Ezra was, as he had said he would, running out of patience. His fingers drummed steadily along your arm where his hand rested, picking idly at the seam of your jacket and grumbling every time the river forked. Eventually the canyon walls grew so close together that the tips of the longboat’s sail would scratch and scrape the gravelly walls, knocking dark sediment down into the howling waters until it was eventually forced to a halt.

The river, furiously lashing against the canyon for eons, had carved its way into the unyielding stone, plunging into the dark heart of the moon and well beyond where light feared to tread. Jagged outcroppings hung like waiting teeth from the cavern’s mouth, hungry for any who dare enter.

You swallowed thickly around a dry tongue, wishing you had the aurelac on hand to double check your heading, but as much as you didn’t want to venture into that abysmal hole, you knew in your heart of hearts that this was the way to go.

“Are you certain of this?” Ezra asked you in a whisper, a slight twinge of doubt added to his twang. You nodded, and, surprised that he would trust you so easily, directed the longboat as close to the cavern as it could get. Along the edges of the river ran a thin ledge where the water had once flowed higher but slower, just wide enough for carefully calculated steps. Ezra demanded a handful of crew to come with him, with the last one in charge of keeping watch over Fiona and Til. “Hawkins, you’re with me.”

“How exactly do you expect me to walk with my hands tied-”

The cyborg cut you off with a growl, hauling you roughly to your feet and practically tossing you out of the boat onto the ledge. Wet with spray, the granite was slick and dangerous, made worse by your lack of arms, but Ezra was quick to follow. “Hold still.” Gripped by your wrists, you were tugged backwards against your instinct to flee from the sound of his blade, and were suddenly surprised by the feel of him cutting through your ropes. He leaned in close, scraping the sensitive skin of your ear with his cheek, the sound of his teeth parting sending a shiver down your spine. “Do not make me regret this, starling.”

Pins and needles spiked through your fingertips when the ropes fell away, and you reflexively brought them back in front of you, rubbing at your bruised wrists. Whatever. The longboat was dismissed, floating back up to the top of the canyon with your friends, leaving you alone with Ezra and his men. As it abandoned your search party you could hear Tillie yowling up a storm, demanding to be taken along to see the fabled aurelac queen.

“Are you absolutely fucking kidding me!? I came all this way to see - don’t you tell me to calm down, Fiona! No! I’m a fucking zoologist you sons of bitches!! You don’t even have to untie me! Just let me watch!! At least take my camera!!! HAWKIIIINSS!!!”

Sorry, Til.

Ezra swallowed his doubts and cycled his wrist appliances to the flame thrower, producing a low blaze to illuminate the way into the dark. What little daylight filtered down from between the canyon walls vanished within a few steps, reducing your world to the shadow of the cyborg before you, and the dewy, fear-filled eyes and uncertain steps of the pirates that followed behind.

Firelight danced over the jagged ceiling as you made the descent, reflecting off the wet stone and fast-flowing rapids thundering mere meters from where you so carefully tread. You tried to focus on where Ezra walked, following in his peg-legged footsteps. If there was a slipperier spot, he would be the first to go.

Or, so you thought.

-crack...splish!-

“Shh!” Ezra hissed for silence, a finger in the air. The firelight danced in his dark eye as he looked for the source of the noise, his ears turned both ways down the tunnel.

….-crick… cRaCK!-

Behind you there was suddenly shouting, the tumble of boulders, the hungry splash of the water swallowing the landslide down as the path behind you collapsed. Clawed hands and gaping mouths broke the illuminated circle of the rapids before vanishing further down the void, taking the pirate’s terrified screams with them.

Rock bit into your back as you were forced against it, watching in horror as half of the designated crew were lost. You waited with ears perked, breath bated for any sound that they had made it to some kind of safety, but you were only met with the roaring of the rapids and the thundering of your heart.

“It’s alright, I’ve got you.”

The affirmation came as a slight surprise, but when you looked down you found you weren't held to the wall by your own volition. Ezra’s strong arm had you pinned as far away from the ledge as he could get you, his eye watching for more of the path to give way. He swallowed a lump in his throat when none presented themselves, and finally met your eyes.

His expression was soft, caring, worried for a moment, a split second of the genuine charmer you had been growing your affections for. The man that snuck you sweets and seared lingering touches on your skin that followed you back to your bunk at night. A man who kissed like it was his last day alive, and loved you when he was certain that it was.

And then he was gone, the creases of his face hardening in a serious scowl, a pirate and a cutthroat once again. Releasing you from his protective grip, he grumbled something about being more careful to the remaining crew, and resumed his journey into the void.

It felt like forever that you were trudging through the dark, your feet becoming accustomed to the slick stone in a way that was more dangerous than helpful, but you made it all the way to where the river ended and split your path in two. On one fork the water dove into the rock, tumbling away towards the center of the moon for all you knew; and the other led away into a dryer cave. With no other choice to make, Ezra plowed down the waterless walkway, a sigh of relief bouncing back to you now that he had more room to walk.

His relief was short lived though, for as the tunnel continued to widen it also started to split. Narrow fissures shot off from your protective halo of torchfire, growing in size every few meters until they were full blown caverns large enough to walk through, and soon they were all that were left of your path - the wheel of fortunes’ spokes as seen from the axle.

Ezra raised his fist, halting your spelunking expedition. He quirked an eyebrow at you, his single eye fixing you with a ‘Well? Now what?’

You spun slowly, taking in each new trail and trying to remember what the map had shown, but as best you could remember it had all been surface level. The river marker, the bends in the forest, the waterfall and the meadow, lush jungle and sprawling canyons, a cavern that you’d expected to be the lair -those you remembered. But nothing like this.

You were just as in the dark as he was.

“Hawkins…” Ez growled, realizing that your double-takes were not just for the picturesque scenery. He flashed that wolfish, dangerous grin of his, a beast in his own dark den greeting prey that had so foolishly wandered through. “I’m not seein’ any aurelac. Actually, I’m not seein’ any anything, except… you. You didn’t just lead us down this hole for the fun of it, did you now?”

Maybe. “No! Not like you can see anything anyway. Give me a moment to think.”

The fire from Ezra’s blazer flared brighter with his agitation, sending shadows flying around the cave. “And why is that exactly? That my vision has been reduced to such a state?”

“Uh I don’t know, maybe because you were going to murder everyone and take over the ship? Ring any bells, metal man?” You jabbed a finger in his broad chest, storming up to him with no restraint. “Don’t make me take the other one out as well!”

He glowered down at you, his remaining eye darker than the void you were consumed by, flashing with the hellfire sputtering from his mechanical arm. “Don’t you threaten me, Hawkins!” He bellowed with a wave of fire, nearly incinerating one of the pirates in the process. “If you’ve sent us on a wild goose chase then so help me I’ll insure that you and daddy dearest meet together sooner rather than-”

The wave of his arm made the firelight sputter just a moment, a faction of a second that let the dark in closer. It’d been held back by the searing flames, but oh how it ached to reach you, to brush your skin and drag icy fingers down your spine, claim you for the inevitable abyss where it would never have to let you go. In that short moment between the light and dark the sunless void took its opportunity greedily, enveloping you in its shadowy embrace and leaning in close enough to whisper a secret in your ears.

Look.

“Ezra shut up and turn your light out.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Turn it off!”

The cyborg snarled at you, his teeth flashing in the glow, furious that he was being ordered around in front of his remaining men, but you were steadfast; and try as he might to put on a ferocious front, the way you stared him down, reduced him from a monster to nothing more than a man, made his heart ache for you.

Reluctantly he obeyed, the bright and hopeful glow of his flame winking out of existence, replaced by a void so black and barren that your soul swore it had been taken to the underworld. You blinked a moment in the abyss, reaching out unconsciously for something to ground yourself on, and found Ezra’s warm body right where you expected it to be. His hand found yours, pulling you close enough that you could feel the warmth of his chest, the slight hitch of his breath giving away his surprise at your touch.

You waited for your eyes to adjust, the darkness behind your lids seeming to hide just a bit more light than the world around you. It was a moment, a few seconds stolen in pitch black privacy, and Ezra took them greedily. You felt the heat of his breath before you felt the touch of his lips, missing your own completely to land on your cheek. Before you could turn and tell him to blow it out his ass, he recalculated and caught your lips, pressing you into a searing kiss.

And damn it straight to hell did it feel good.

The light scratch of his bristles, the plush of his lips, the faint brush of eyelashes when he closed his eye - uselessly still open. His human hand snuck to the small of your back, his hot-iron right kept safely away, but you he wanted to keep close. He inhaled with you, stole your breath for himself - the thief - savoring your shared air in the pocket dimension that had been willed into existence for the two of you alone.

This man made you so angry. He was dangerous, reckless, a literal pirate and mutininer, and yet you gladly melted into him, returning the desire for his kiss with your own. In that quickly stolen moment you felt his entire charade dissipate, writing his truth against your lips. Want and willingness, desire and desperation and something deeper. Something that he kept under tight lock and key when the eyes of others were on you, but still screamed at him from his very core, exploding from its cage in these private little moments like his heart was made of fireworks.

For him, there could be no darkness, as long as he had your light.

“Oi! I seeya lioght down tha tunnal!” One of the pirates chirped, obliterating the quiet tranquilty of your secret embrace. You both opened your eyes and saw it to be true: the faintest illumination coming from what seemed an eternity away, but it was there nonetheless.

You felt more than saw Ezra turn down to you, and heard the crack of his chapped lips splitting into a grin. “Well done, Hawkins. You may yet live to see another day.”

The light came first from the rocks themselves, sprawling swaths of lichen glowing with a soft, otherworldly light - stars twinkling in the twilight zone between the stygian darkness of the cavern and the green-grey daylight filtering from somewhere far away.

You had to shield your eyes as you stepped out of the tunnel even though the light was nowhere near as strong as the surface world, but nearly blinded you nonetheless. With your eyes partially covered, you focused on your other senses, with one in particular coming up front and center on your brain-stage.

Stinky.

Wherever you were headed into reeked of sulfur and brimstone, carrying on the cool cavern air, and if it wasn’t for the pleasant subterranean temperatures you would have sworn you were walking right into an active volcano. When your pupils were brave enough, you let your hand down from your face, blinking as you took in your new surroundings cautiously; a faint gasp escaping your lips at the sight.

“Stars above…”

From high, high above you the light of day shone through the mouth of some crater, a near-perfect circle hidden from the surface by the swaying trees, their roots dangling and dripping into the conical grotto you stood in now. Mineral-rich water trickled and fell for hundreds of feet before landing in the center of the caldera, carving a shallow basin over thousands of years and inviting growth from the surface world to thrive.

Obsidian soil crunched wetly under your boots as you walked into the sanctuary, not watching your step, your eyes too wonderstruck to look down. Thick greenery seemed to grow in piles, mossy and rich, sprawling over the bottom of the grotto and climbing up the walls, reaching for the elusive sunlight reflecting in enormous quartz crystals soaring from the hexagonal basalt walls.

All you saw was beautiful and natural, sculpted by Kevva xerself with more love and adoration than any single star, but in the center of it all something artificial desecrated this holy ground.

Were it not for its obvious straight lines and perfectly machined surfaces, the rusty, overgrown object could have been part of the scenery. It jutted up from the lush green like a middle finger to its surroundings, standing lazily on jointed legs like a drunk that should have gone home hours ago, arguing with the cosmic bartender about last call.

Pretty as it all was, the rank odour was stronger here, making you crinkle your nose. You weren’t really sure what fresh aurelac smelled like, but if it smelled anything like rotten eggs and metallic earth, then you were getting close. Ezra seemed unphased by whatever that stink was, starstruck as he took everything in. He sauntered right past you, trudging through the rivulets of water peacefully carving through the stone towards one of the more lumpy moss mounds. Here, he knelt into the soil and brushed the plush foliage away, and, after a rib-shakingly sharp inhale, he burst into laughter.

“You have got to be shittin’ me!” His baffled roar carried through the volcanic amphitheater, echoing with his own personal laugh track. He leapt up on unsteady legs and plowed towards a second lump, digging happily through the dirt with another excited holler. When he turned around to look at you his face was the picture of delight, big bright eye and an even wider smile crinkling his cheeks. “Aurelac! It’s all aurelac!!”

The remaining pirates flew past you like labradors set loose on the beach, joining their cyborg captain in celebration. A few of them surrounded Ezra to watch him extract the priceless gemstone, but a pair of deviants went right for their own mound. Before Ez could stop them they were plunging their swords into the fleshy growth, eager to get their own share of the bounty.

A meaty slice, a screeching hiss, roars of pain and agony, then silence consumed the cathedral of basalt and brimstone as the overly-ambitious treasure seekers met their deaths in the acidic spray vomited up by the ground dwelling beast.

Ezra only sighed and rolled his eye at the melted faces of his once-crew, their corpses twitching on the warm earth. “If you don’t seduce her properly then she will retaliate with ‘er most wretched defenses, as all women do. Isn’t that right, Hawkins?” He purred with a leer, grinning like a fox at your disgruntled huff. “Worry not, I am a firm believer that no love is too intimidatin’ if’n it be true.”

He settled up to the closest mound and drew his blade, tapping the hollow exterior and listening for the best entry point to carve into. As soon as he made the incision, he poured something from one of his canisters down the hole and covered his face with his coat. “Chem calms the brine, without it, a dry breach will make its claim. Preferably of limbs or life.”

“That how you lost your arm, cyborg?”

“Alas, it was not. Pay ‘tention now.” The aurelac sizzled and squelched for a bit before falling silent, bidding Ezra’s claws into the open wound to retrieve the gem sack. “Oh. Oh Kevva it’s a big one...” He strained a bit, grunting loudly as he tore the opelesent bag from the ground.

It was massive.

“I-I didn’t know they got this big…” he nearly whispered to the bag that was almost as big as his head. He went through the same procedure to remove the meat ball from the center, once again hesitating to make his cuts. “Hawkins, as much as it pains my pride, I do believe I will require assistance.”

There was no room for witty retorts or snide remarks, the object of your quest being so generously presented to you. You knelt in the loam with Ezra, “What do you need me to do?”

“That’s my starling.” He boasted softly, giving you a one-eyed wink. He fished a right-hand glove from his pocket and handed it to you. “The stone is encased in three layers. The first is the formation sack, then the blister, then the membrane. If the blister is punctured it releases carrom acid, and if that comes into contact with the gem it’ll melt and fuck the whole thing sideways. Keep her steady for me’n I’ll free her from her confines.”

Ezra held his blade with both hands, his head tilted off to the right so his bold nose wouldn’t obstruct his singular vision. Worrying his lip between his teeth, he began cutting around the ball, his knife vibrating with the same seductive frequency that had coaxed lucrative treasures from you as well. So that’s what it’s for.

“That’s it, hold it like you love it…” He rounded the ball successfully, nodding at you to pull the empty carcass away while he retrieved another canister, this one of a reddish fluid. “This is fazer, if it touches meat it’ll blow us all to Kevva’s sweet embrace faster’n a bullet to the brain. So I’ll uh, try not to spill.” He dribbled some of the rusty liquid onto the cream-colored glob, humming some indistinct shanty to himself in his excitement, and you couldn’t help but feel it too.

Slowly but surely the tissue fell away, revealing the lemon-sized gemstone and eliciting a unified collection of gasps from everyone present.

It was perfect. Clear as glass with a drop of aurellian sunshine glittering in its heart, the sparkle matching the gleam of Ezra’s eye. “Congratulations, Hawkins. You may have very well made us the richest bunch’a miscreants in the entire known sector. I knew there was a good reason to keep you kickin’.” He pocketed the stone and rose from the ground, dusting himself off and handing trays and canisters to the few crewmates that remained. “Start harvestin’, and under no circumstances may you deviate from my method, lest you plan on joinin’ your face-down friends o’er yonder.”

You waited until the pirates had eagerly dashed out of earshot, loaded down with more gear than brain cells. “You’re brave to trust them with that, Ez.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, but my eye is givin’ me a helluva fight tryna operate this arm of mine. Need to see to it.” He reached up to fuss with the hole under his bandage, but you stopped him, your hand carefully catching his mechanical wrist.

“Do you want me to take a look at it? I still have two eyes.”

The smile on this man was the kind poets wrote about, soft and sincere and a little skeptical. “Lucky you, huh? Alright, since you’ve so benevolently offered your services, I shall accept.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?” You chided, directing him to sit on a tall lump that could have been a boulder as much as another aurelac growth.

“Frequently. Can’t say I understand why though.” He joked, trying to hide his nerves as you approached him. He took his hat off for you, toying with the hole you’d put through it while it rested on his lap. When your hands came up to the bandage he almost jerked away. “You did quite a number on me, starling mine, I can’t promise it’ll look very-”

“Ez. Stop talking, for fucks sake.” Your scolding shushed him, and he sighed dejectedly at your touch. The ratty strip of cloth covering his eye socket was soaked in a multitude of fluids, none of them pleasant. “Damn it Ezra, this is going to get infected. You should’ve let me take care of it earlier.”

“Yes, ma’am…” He closed his remaining eye when the strip fell away, unwilling to see the disgust on your face he believed would be there, but what he didn’t see was your sadness instead. Sure, he’d deserved your attack, your very life and the life of your companions at stake, but his beautiful face was a mess, a delicate, priceless painting marred seemingly beyond repair.

The cybernetic eye was nowhere to be found, probably in his pocket, but the exposed connectors in the back of his empty orbit still needed attention.“Gimme your hand, I need the picks.” You demanded, shuffling closer to him so you were up between his knees. He swallowed and obliged, the jointed tools click click clicking from his mechanical arm. “I’m gonna try not to hurt you, but I can’t promise that I won’t. Just hold still, ok?”

He almost nodded before he agreed verbally, holding his breath while you used his own appendages to debride the wound, clearing chunky scabs and bits of ceramic away from the delicate machinery. Ezra watched you as you worked, torn between closing his eye in comfort and observing the spectacle that was his surprise field medic. Stars, you were so close, literally up between his legs, your breasts grazing his chest from time to time, and he couldn’t help the way his free arm ghosted up to your hip. The moment you felt his touch you scowled at him, but he was quick on the draw. “Just keepin’ ya steady, don’t want you to lose your balance and find my brain while you’re in there.”

“Uh huh, sure.” He was so full of crap, but you had a goal in your hands now, a mission, an objective, the drive to complete it narrowing your focus to your combined hands alone.

Ezra’s brow quirked a bit, studying the spark in your eyes while you fixed his broken face, his lip teased between his teeth as he spotted something familiar. “I recognize that glint… That light behind your eyes. It’s inherited, isn’t it?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I said I was good at fixing things, didn’t I?”

“Nah nah nah, not that, that. That determination. That spark. Brighter’n a supernova, that one. Was the same one I saw in your father’s eyes. You get it from him.”

“I don’t get shit from him! Don’t insult me while I’m digging through your eyehole.” You tried to continue, but now you were both angry and intrigued. “What do you know about him anyway? I didn’t get to know him, why did you?”

Though you were the one dangerously close to his retinal nerve, he was the one that had struck something sensitive. “Hawkins Jr. was a prospector. And a damn good one at that. Took me un’er ‘is wing and taught me all I know in regards to havestin’ aurelac, an odd recompense for shooting me, but it paid well.”

That caught you off guard in more ways than one, and you had to withdraw your tools from his head-hole to meet his subservient gaze. “He shot you?! Where?! Why?!”

“Here.” he said, tapping the humerus strut of his right arm. Your confused glare drew a soft chuckle from him. “I was just a greenhorn prospector, didn’t know the fringeling laws of the territory, and unfortunately I came across an orphaned digsite. Thought it was my lucky day, turns out it wasn’t as abandoned as I’d hoped it was. Took a bullet for it, but I managed to sweet-talk my way out of getting a second. We did our best with the wound but infection claimed my primary weapon, and spread to all you see missin’. Occupational hazard to be fair. Managed to make off with a good couple’a stones though, and your pa helped me pay for replacements.”

The cyborg chuckled nervously through your aghast stare. “Thick as thieves we were, following the rumors of aurelac across worlds, lookin’ for the fabled queen. Never found it, but he never gave up. One day he came upon that map’a yours, whether he stole it, bought it, or drew it himself I’ll never know, but suddenly he didn’t want my company anymore. Was gonna claim it all for himself.”

Ezra’s one eye looked away in shame, unable to meet your piercing inquisition. “The fallout was cataclysmic. Words and metal flew, and before he escaped in the drop ship that he’d spent all our coin on, I managed to get a shot off to her converters, cripping his ship the same way he had crippled me. Ironic, really, but he still got away. Guess he didn’t make it very far after all.”

“Guess not.” Your voice was steely and cold, level as a blade. You began working on his wound again, but he stopped you, wanting to meet your eyes with his own.

“I’m sorry, starling.”

“It’s fine Ez, I barely knew him.”

“No, it’s not fine. He may have been a traitor and a disreputable old scoundrel, but he was still your sire, and to you, his daughter, I truly am sorry for my contribution to his passing. No amount of aurelac is worth the price of life, but I’ll gladly part with all my share of the harvest if it brings you an ounce of solace to whatever grief you still carry, even if it's hidden under all that tenacious ferocity you wield so well. I will say though,” He paused, cupping your jaw, sliding the pad of his thumb along the edge, his touch radiating with pleasant warmth. “That sun-seekers’ glint looks so much better in your eyes than his.”

Ezra may have been a professional liar to his men, but to you, the unexpected light in his life, he told you no falsehoods. You saw it in his beautiful amberdark eye, and the smooth arch of his fine scar, the way the corners of his lips tugged all the crinkles of his weather-worn face into something soft and pliant. He really was sorry.

Probably for more things than one.

“S’ok Ez, let’s just get you patched up and we can figure it out later, yeah?” You pressed a soft kiss to his palm, a ghost of forgiveness that left his heart a little lighter. He gave you dominion over his prosthetic again, his human hand returning to it’s designated spot on your hip. To hold you steady, of course.

Doubling down on your efforts, you tweezed something nasty from his socket, so determined in your operation that the feeling of his fingertips slipping between the hem of your shirt and the top of your belt went unnoticed.

He couldn’t help it. The cyborg’s nervousness calmed at the feel of your skin under his fingers, the warmth of your body, the smoothness of it. He pressed in slightly, testing the give of your flesh, tracing the arch of your hip bone under the plush of your flank. Were he not undergoing such primitive surgery at the moment he might have let his thoughts wander to what else would give under his touch, where else you would spill between his fingers, how you would taste on his tongue...

“Ezra!” You hissed, snapping him from his thoughts. “I can feel your damn dick twitching. Knock it off before I kick you.”

His laugh was as sweet and innocent as the fresh light of dawn. “Apologies, starling mine, I can’t help my wanderin’ thoughts with you pressed so close.”

“Well stop your wandering for a hot minute, I’m almost done. Where’s your eyeball?” His warm touch left you finally to present you the cyberoptic. The moment you had it in your hand, Ezra’s own palm returned to your hip with much less discretion than before. You ignored him. Flecks of dried something-or-other flaked off when you brushed your thumb over the copper colored metal to clean it, knocking another mug chip or two off in the process. “Alright, keep still, and hold your socket open for me.”

You leaned against him to brace yourself, and he accepted you into his space even more willingly, tightening his thighs against yours and drawing his calloused hand up your back, encouraging you into his embrace. The softer metal scraped a bit against the iron of his fingers where he was holding himself open, a grimace twisting his scruffy face when the eyeball popped into place.

He sat back from you, blinking while the false eye went through it’s boot-up, the warm glow slowly returning as if day were breaking for his eyes alone. “Well, I’ll be damned! Hello, gorgeous, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

The pile of aurelac was nearly up to your knees within hours, all shapes and sizes of gemstones to be had and every one of them more perfect than the next. With his eye functional again, Ezra was making short work of every tumorous node he encountered with near-surgical precision and out-digging the others at breakneck speed. Must have had one hell of a mentor.

With him having everything under control, you opted to explore, enjoying the lushious sanctuary before it was pitted with harvesting wounds. The structure in the center drew your attention away from the natural scenery, and you moved to investigate.

The overgrowth was thicker here, lichen and moss giving way to soft, thin-bladed grasses that swayed in the gentle breeze coming down from the crater’s mouth. Water dripped on your head as you went, splashing gently into your hair and trickling down your back. How long had it been since you’d felt rain? It almost never did on Montressor, and you couldn’t help closing your eyes and tilting your head back, enraptured in the soft pitter patter of raindrops kissing your skin. Lost in your guilty pleasure, but still moving towards the pod, you failed to watch your step, tripping dangerously over something hidden that tore you from your aqueous indulgence to glare down at what had reached up to grab you.

Bones.

Human bones.

Whoever it was had been there a while, their clothing long decayed along with their flesh, leaving nothing but a wet, moss-covered skeleton and a scattering of metal fittings from their equipment. Shell-like mushrooms grew in their rib cage in place of their once-beating heart, crawling with all manner of invertebrate life that sought shelter in the absence of it.

You wondered if your father had shot them too.

More careful of your steps now, you approached the little ship, green and silver in the limelight of day, stripped in dark tracts of rust from ages under the drizzle. The thing was surprisingly small, it couldn’t have survived a space journey for more than a few days with barely enough room for two people, and honestly how it got through the atmosphere alone was a mystery. Its struts had sunk partially into the soft, damp earth, the first buds of a new aurelac cluster growing at its feet. It’d been here a while, but probably less than a decade, which didn’t help your suspicions.

You went for the circular bulkhead, the door mechanisms long since grown over, but with a grunt and some elbow grease you got the wheel to turn. It screeched its displeasure as you opened it, years-old pressure finally escaping its prison with a blast of fetid air. For such a pretty place, everything in this cave sure did fucking stink.

Inside the circular drop pod you immediately found a second corpse, though this one was in better shape than the one that’d been left to the elements. In their fleshless hand some kind of firearm pointed away from where they were slouched against the wall, their other hand clutching the hole in their sternum. They had retained most of their clothing, though the decrepit fabric wrinkled and sagged where flesh had once been, but the colorful patches were still as vivid as the day they’d been sewn on. None of them were familiar, though from their bright hues and easy-to-discern shapes you guessed they were sponsor logos, and though all of them were completely alien to you, one of them you unfortunately recognized: a fat, six legged creature wearing a spacesuit.

Something Ezra said clicked in your mind like a pistol’s hammer:

Words and metal flew.

“Anythin’ good in here, starling?” Ezra’s sweet southern drawl snapped you out of your concentration, the cyborg clambering in through the narrow door with a smile on his face. It vanished when he spotted the body. “Poor bastard, but that’s prospecting for you. Not everyone’s as fortunate as I was.” He glanced around the room a bit, taking in the state of things. “Looks better from the inside by a long shot. If I was a bettin’ man I’d say a lil’ bit of TLC would get this bird in the air again, or maybe just as far as the hole in the ceilin’. Be a shitload easier than haulin’ all that aurelac back through the tunnels.” He fixed you with that cockeyed grin, a flash of inspiration in his newly-repaired eye. “Think you could fix it?”

You shrugged, “Worth a shot I guess, though it’s nothing like anything I’ve ever seen on Montressor. There’s no sails on it.”

“That’s because it’s not from Montressor, or even Crescentia. It’s Terran.”

Terran!

The birthplace of your species and his. And your father’s and his father before him. You’d never been, most rumors said it wasn’t even there anymore, but humans - in their unending search for the edges of the cosmos - had settled on so many worlds that Terran would always live on in your hearts after it had long since been wiped from the star maps.

How strange it was - or, maybe how fitting - that nearly every interaction you’d had with your own kind had been thoroughly soaked in blood.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Leaving you to your own devices, Ezra fixed his sights on the largest of pods, a devious smile skewing his bristly lips. Though he’d harvested enough aurelac to last a thousand lifetimes, he didn’t come this far, sacrifice so much, to leave with anything less than the motherlode.

His canisters were running dry, but it was probably enough for one last harvest. The lump he set his sights on sprouted from the farthest wall, so full and heavy that it swelled pregnantly over the ground, alluding to the biggest root pearl ever grown.

He just had to have it.

Carving with rehearsed precision, Ezra had the queen ravaged within moments, locating the milky white bag deep within the pod. His hunch proved correct, albeit challenging, requiring two hands to pull the monstrosity free; the strain making him giggle like a school boy.

The aurelac squeaked and screamed with the intrusion, a sound the cyborg had long gone deaf to, so focused on his prize. Digging his peg and heel into the soft soil, he braced himself and hauled, throwing his weight backwards against the aurelac’s colossal heft. Kevva’s concubines the fucker must be bigger than a newborn bonzabeast.

Pop!

Ezra fell back on his ass when he finally pulled the gem sack free, nearly crushed under the slimy weight. Excitement kicked in, and he set to work on the extraction, ignoring the queen’s protests as he cut the umbilical line and plonked the pearl pouch into a field tray, the disgusting treasure so massive that it sagged over the edges.

Everything he’d ever worked for was right in his mismatched hands, the disgusting slosh of the meat bag like music to his ears. The wet fleshy sound and the hum of his blade, paired with his own tuneless humming and the imagined jingling of coin in his pocket was all he could hear, and all that he wanted to hear. A siren song of a man’s life’s work coming to fruition rendering him nearly deaf.

So he heard not the gurgling of the queen’s death throes.

Not the crackle as it withered and died, the open fissure of the wound curling into the gaping hole.

Not the faint grit of the volcanic soil slipping ever so slightly into the void created by the creature’s death.

And certainly not the faintest crack as the basalt column above the ancient animal succumbed to its own weight, moving barely a hairsbreadth, but even the smallest domino can topple the greatest kingdoms.

No, Ezra didn’t hear any of these things, too busy washing the last of the membrane off the gigantic geode with the remainder of his fazer fluid. Free of the mucky tissue, he stumbled to his feet and held the aurellian prize aloft, catching a stray sunbeam just as you had done when you revealed the map and oh, what a sight!

All eyes in the grotto turned to their captain and his prismatic light show, the basketball-sized chunk of aurelac washing every surface of the sanctuary in golden light, nearly bringing the cyborg to tears. Fuck, it was bea-utiful.

The glorious enchantment flared and faded with the sudden loss of the sun, and for the first time since tapping the queen, Ezra listened.

And looked up.

“Mother FUCKER!!”

A faint woosh was all that accompanied the massive quartz monolith as it fell, unbelievably bigger up close now that it was plummeting to the ground and heading straight for Ezra’s head. He practically danced out of the way, limbs flailing, white and bright of his eyes flashing as he scrambled to get to safety before the ten-ton crystal crashed into the earth and splintered into radiant shrapnel.

Ezra never moved so fast in his entire life, clutching the heavy aurelac to his chest as he ran from the sudden impact strike. The ground split and spiderwebbed like glass instead of stone, fracturing the delicate sanctuary into shards as more and more of the crystals came loose and toppled to the earth. Pirates desperately tried to get out of the way in time. Some succeeded, only to slip into the growing gorges that grew wider and wider with each cataclysmic strike.

As the walls crumbled around him, the cyborg bee-lined for the aurelac stash, shoveling as many into his pockets before a chunk of towering basalt toppled, nearly pressing him flat before he dodged it, obliterating the remains of the treasure.

All that work, for nothing.

“STAAARLING!! Get that damn engine going, we gotta go!!” Ezra plowed through the bulkhead of the pod, startling you out of your technical trance more than the earthquakes you’d been ignoring.

“I don’t think it can! I-I don’t have the tools to-”

“Tell me what you need! Right now!” Ezra flung himself to his knees next to where you were under the dash, his arm at the ready.

With his help you made split-second work of the wire harness under the dash that had been giving you a hard time, and the shuttle sparked to life not a moment too soon.

-*CRaSH!*-

A monumental quartz obelisk met the ruined ground, breaking through the obsidian as if it were made of ice, splintering the last of the grotto’s resolve. The pod listed dangerously to one side, tilting into the new hole to catch precariously between the edges, finally pulling the curtain back on what smelled so fucking bad.

Crimson flames licked greedily from the worlds’ wounds as the inactive volcano -long hidden by the scab of vegetation - was resurrected from the force of the impact, molten stone bubbling excitedly as demons do when the gates of hell are thrown open.

Sweaty with fire and fear, you threw switches and cranked knobs, hoping some divinity would take pity on you and guide you through the alien craft’s start up procedures on luck alone. Something other than the earth rumbled it’s fury under you, the propulsion jets sputtering to life after so many years in the grave.

You jammed down on the throttle, and the pod nicked clear of its wedging, but not enough to get it fully off the ground. “It’s too heavy! It’s not gonna make it!”

Ezra exploded in a storm of curses and hefted the skeleton out the bulkhead, along with whatever else wasn’t bolted down. It worked some, and the little pod strained away, still struggling under the weight of more than time.

But not enough.

If the pod didn’t clear the rising tide of lava, or the collapsing caldera, you were done for. Ezra’s circuits crackled as his brain did the math, meeting his own reflection in the crystalline surfaces of the aurelac gem that he’d suffered so much to get.

It was heavy.

But, so were you.

‘Throw her out’ said the demon on his shoulder, purring in his remaining ear. ‘She’s gonna turn you in anyway, and you’ll be swingin’ from the gallows in no time. Not like she cares about you. Not like she loves you! Or you her! You love money, you love aurelac! Gold and Glory! Finish what you started, Ezra Green! Take the aurelac and run!’

But Ezra never was a very good listener.

He went for the aurelac in his pockets first, hoping that just a slight lessening in weight would be all the push you needed to get to the skylight, but that did nothing. Pebbles, stones, geodes, and melon sized nuggets of glittering gold sailed out into the hellfire, vanishing under the molten tide.

Until all he was left with was the queen’s crown itself.

One last glance, one last demonic whisper, one last pining look between the two objects of his affections, of a lifelong love and a potential love for life.

Plunk!

The gemstone sank sluggishly into the hungry flames, and the effect on the pod was instantaneous, as if it had suddenly been loosed from its cage. “Hold on Ez!” You bellowed while you tried to steer with levers and fins instead of a wheel or rudder. The little microwave-sized window was all the visibility you had to dodge the incoming chunks of stone raining from above. Falling like a chandelier cut from a ballroom ceiling, the remaining quartz chunks sparkled as they fell, glass shards peppering hard against your steel exterior and nearly throwing you off course.

Now, where have you seen this before…

Breathe in.

You set your sights on the circle of sky above, on the cracks growing on either side like a sleepy giant’s eye slowly opening. Waking up to greet you before having you for breakfast.

Breathe out.

Rocks the size of houses crumbled from the crater, flying past your viewport as you threw your weight into the steering, spiralling the tiny pod between the sinking boulders.

Breathe in.

The caldera collapsed, the lava surged, all was red and black and glittering gold for less time than it took to fill your lungs. You snapped the steering to starboard right as the gargantuan gateway plunged towards gravity, the ship narrowly avoiding being swatted from the sky like nothing more than a pesky little insect.

Free of all that kept it contained, the volcano erupted in a pyroclast of scorn, sending flaming chunks of molten stone exploding past you, trailing phoenix feathers of fire in their wake.

Alarms flared, sirens screamed, and lights flashed their finality on the dashboard as the aft jets sputtered and died, pointing the pod towards the startled jungle and furious earth. With nothing left to lose, Ezra coiled his arms around you and your seat, hoping maybe his reinforced body would be enough to protect you from the coming crash.

But it never came.

Breathe out???

The skull-splitting shriek of metal being torn asunder stung your ears and made your teeth hurt, made worse by the sudden whiplash of the pod being pulled in the opposite direction. Suddenly growing from the thin titanium wall, the biggest harpoon you had ever seen went through one side of the little shuttle and out the other, swinging the shuttle down and under and over a mighty vessel like a pendulum as it was hauled against its inertia and dropped violently into something hard.

The Dawnbreaker, mighty and true, caught the pod with her deck, the monstrosity breaking halfway into the galley and spilling you and the cyborg from the durasteel coffin, landing in a heap in front of the quarterdeck and her captain.

“Tillie?! Fiona?!”

“Welcome aboard, landlubbers!” Tillie, wearing someone else's tricorn, hollered and saluted you from her position at the wheel, the ship’s true captain leaning against the harpoon thrower behind her - the old bird looking a little green. “You’re not gonna believe what happened to us! We were trussed up like hogs for the slaughter when Fiona here-”

“Incoming! Hard to port!!”

The Felinid cranked on the wheel just in time to miss a massive glob of superheated rock as it flew by, the volcano erupting violently behind you, demolishing the sanctuary, the tunnels, the river, the canyon and the meadow in a single quake. Volleys of stone shrapnel hailed against the Dawnbreaker’s sails, punching flaming holes in the delicate sailcloth and turning the deck into a pockmarked ruin.

“Get us out of here, Til!” You shrieked, muscle memory kicking into high gear and driving you to the lifeline hitchpost. You grabbed a rope for yourself and tied it off, then held one out for Ezra. “Ez! Get over here and-”

“CABIN GIRL!” The line in your hand was claimed by the spider in the web, enormous claws threatening to sever your hands from your body when they clamped around your wrists. You felt your blood drain when you were met with the most horrendous pair of big yellow eyes and a mouth full of saliva-slicked fangs. Mr. Skarn towered over you on many-jointed legs, forcing you backwards as he overpowered you. “Where’sss the aurelac?! Give it to me and I might let you-!”

-*BANG!*-

The monster blinked, confusion written in his heinous eyes and leaking from the fresh new hole between them. The tension on your wrists lessened and fell away as Mr. Skarn crumpled to the ground, revealing the figure behind him, firearm smoking from his wrist.

“Never did like that bug much.” Ezra drawled, blowing at the barrel before swapping his prosthetic for his jointed hand. “You alright, starling mine?”

You made to answer when the shifting of the ship stole all the air from your lungs, throwing you hard to starboard as acting-captain Tillie Doppler veered hard on the wheel to avoid the ground coming up to meet you, the moon thrashing its death throes like a drowning victim not wanting to go down alone. You hit the deck, your lifeline snapping hard around your middle, constricting the last of your breath from your lungs but keeping you lashed safely to the ship.

Ezra was not so lucky.

The roll dislodged the Terran pod free from its crater in the deck, tumbling with the pitch of the ship and taking its harpoon line with it as it rolled towards the edge. The cable whipped across the wood - a furious serpent spitting venom and fury - catching Ezra’s iron leg before the pod vanished over the side.

He had a split second to drive his claws into the deck, carving gouges in the wood as he was dragged overboard, the iron in his body the only thing keeping him from being ripped in half as the line snapped taut, leaving the cyborg dangling over the edge, held by nothing but his unyielding grip.

“Ezra!” you screamed and flew to him, digging your heels into the guardrails and pulling with all your might on his cybernetic arm - only part of him you could reach. “Give me your other hand!!”

Ezra, eyes wide with fear and pain, looked from his captured leg to the swinging pod, then up to where his arm was lodged in the Dawnbreaker’s hull, and finally to you. He couldn’t sever the line without his blade, and if the shuttle caught on the trees it would rip the Dawnbreaker from the sky, or rip him in half trying.

There could be no other way.

The fear on his face was replaced with something softer under his wind blown curls and suddenly-missing hat, the ratty tricorn succumbing to the raging storm building over the volcano. One eye a ray of sunshine, the other a sparkling pool of dark earth, met your own with all the placidity of a willing sacrifice approaching the altar.

And suddenly you’d never known as much terror as you did right now.

His scruffy lips quirked, a flash of a smile, a small, gentle laugh inappropriate for such a precarious situation, but nothing ever looked so good on him as the face he had now, his eyes laying lastly on the most beautiful visage he’d ever had the fortune of setting his gaze upon:

You.

“Shine bright, starling mine.”

In a last act of human decency, his free hand came up and dug into his armpit, unfettering his prosthetic from his body. Then he was hurtling to the ground, leaving his arm buried in the hull while the pod dragged him down to certain death, leaving the Dawnbreaker to speed off towards the stars and far away from the dying moon.

And then he was gone.

<-Previous Next->

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[mittensmorgul]

So for the most part, I outright reject the finale. But I do think, in light of the whole "Jimmy was supposed to be in the bar, and Dean was disappointed by that because his perfect heaven would have Cas in it" just makes me all the more convinced that the final episode was some kind of djinn dream. Like.... There's no other explanation in my opinion. If Dean's perfect heaven was supposed to have Cas, and he tragically gets faked out by Jimmy (????? Why tf would jimmy be there anyway), it just proves that it's not ACTUALLY heaven. That, along with he El Sol beer he's drinking is all the evidence I need. I think after 15x19, Dean and Sam got whammied by some monster, and are stuck in a hallucination, and that's what we're seeing. (My headcanon is that it's actually The Empty doing it, because it knows if it doesn't keep Dean and Sam occupied and spinning in circles, they'll invade the Empty to save Cas. So its trying to prevent that) :)

Hello, anon friendo! I am gonna start by offering the socially distanced version of a high five, because yeah... There is just so much to unpack here, and you provided such a succinct and all-encompassing series of statements to start from. Thank you!

*flings open array of questionable suitcases*

First off, Congrats on having rejected the finale. I know a lot of folks are still struggling with that one, for many reasons. But you have hit upon so many of the points I’ve been trying to make about the finale since it aired. I’d just like to start with some of the assumptions I’ve heard from folks about the finale that make it impossible for me to consider it fully honestly canon. Because so much about it just makes no goshdang sense... like... not at all...

One of the biggest issues I have surrounding the reception of the finale in parts of fandom is that it portrayed a “happy ending.” The show itself spent the entire final season telling us that a gravestone marked Winchester was not and never would be a happy ending (thank you Becky Rosen-- words I never thought I’d say, but honestly and most sincerely meant). Let’s break this down a bit.

Starting from the assumption that “heaven was fixed” so that characters could have true free will there, making it satisfying in any way that Dean died so young and never got to truly experience happiness during life, I would like anyone who has adopted this attitude to then explain Kansas the band. I mean... explain that in any satisfactory canon-compliant way. (hint: you can’t. it makes zero sense in canon, if heaven is truly reformed and “happy” with everyone in possession of free will.)

Which brings me to Misha’s comments about Jimmy being in the Roadhouse. Why, if heaven were truly fixed, would Jimmy ever in a bazillion years attend a party for Dean Winchester? If Heaven were truly a “happy” ending for Dean, why introduce this element of eternal tragedy and heartbreak to his heaven experience? Why taunt him with the eternal loss of Cas-- even if you don’t think he reciprocated Cas’s romantic feelings, he was canonically the best friend Dean ever had, and being forced to exist forever in a place where he had everyone else he ever cared for except for Cas? Is frankly horrific.

How the actual fuck is that a happy ending, in any sense of the word?

How is this the sort of heaven that Dean would’ve made for himself before it was “fixed?” At least in the memorex heaven, he could’ve lived in oblivious peace with Cas, even if it was always just his own memories and not ~actually Cas~. I honestly think that would’ve been happier than the abject tragedy of what we did get, and what we would’ve gotten had the original script played out.

All of this kind of makes me wonder if they ever even actually defeated Chuck. Like... it feels more like Dean got pulled into the Empty at that moment with Cas and Billie, and everything else after that point was the Empty’s endless experience of sorrow and despair we knew it subject its charges to. So that’s one potential for what could’ve actually happened. I mean, everything about the finale was sorrow and despair, you know? Dean didn’t even get to enjoy his pie at a pie festival because Sam smashed in in his face. How is any of it happy, in any way?

Because if that was actually heaven, there wasn’t actually any free will (because why tf would Kansas the band have chosen to put on that concert? why tf would Jimmy have been there, just to torment Dean with the taunt of Cas returning to him only to have that hope snatched away again? It’s cruel. It’s, in fact, a source of intense despair).

The djinn theory could also work, and I’ve read some excellent fix-it fic using that as a premise. But that doesn’t really explain what happened to Jack (and Amara, since she was in there with them) after hoovering up Chuck’s power, you know? I think the simplest explanations in canon are that Chuck actually won via the unified power of Light and Dark being transferred into Jack and effectively using him as a vessel. With Sam and Dean convinced they’d won, they effectively stopped resisting Chuck’s story for them, and using Jack’s understanding of humanity and the Winchesters specifically, Chuck finally was able to implement a version of his story that the Winchesters would just waltz into without thinking it was supernaturally influenced at all. Going bigger and bigger with monsters and cosmic troubles hadn’t worked, but going so small Sam and Dean would barely even notice the influence-- even with the incongruous reappearance of a vampire that appeared in their lives once, for like two whole minutes 15 years ago, and an unsolved case from the journal from more than 30 years ago that John had never even linked to vampires at all.

At this point, I need to mention that I’m watching 10.23 as I type this up. An episode in which we confront the Mark, along with Death, and Dean’s despair, where he learns a version of the truth (but by no means the full truth, or even accurate truth in some respects) about Chuck’s Story, Amara/The Darkness, etc. That would unfold more fully over the next five seasons. And what was the case Dean took in this episode? Vampires. LOLOL omg this show is nothing if not horrifically consistent, yes?

So because of this, I went haring off through my own blog looking for a post I made a long time ago about the symbolism of how various monsters are used on this show (because again, consistency). I got sidetracked by other posts in my monsters tag, including this from after 15.09 aired, which feels particularly awfully relevant. This was my reaction to Chuck’s Story he showed Sam in that episode, about what the future would look like should he successfully trap Chuck with a Mark, and which... yeah is basically exactly thematically consistent with what we saw in the finale, right down to a cheesy twist on vampires. Read the whole post right here, but this is the part that reached up and punched me in the face:

this is how Dean personally reacts when he loses Cas. We know how he reacts when he loses anyone else– think about what he did when Charlie died. He went on a murder rampage against the Stynes for killing her. When Mary died he broke some furniture and went full bore toward both resurrecting her and stopping Jack. But without Cas, Dean loses the will to fight. Sam has… always been different. He referenced Jess in 15.04 to remind us of how he was after she died in the pilot episode. Just like John, he picked up the revenge mission and ran with it. But for Dean, Cas is different. Without Cas… Dean gives up.

Because... Dean gave up. Sure, he and Sam weren’t overrun by vampires in the end. Chuck knew they’d never stop fighting the monsters, one way or another. The only way to get Dean to give up is something Chuck hadn’t quite figured out yet... maybe not until after 15.17, after confronting Cas in the hallway of the bunker, after absorbing Amara’s power, knowledge, and perspective on Dean.

Chuck needed Dean to give up, and honestly? Pushing Billie to clear him off the table and send him (and Cas, that pesky angel who never did what he was told) to the Empty would’ve been a direct way to deal with that... pretty much akin to having one sibling locked in a cage forever, yes?

Also, still looking through my monsters tag, I’m reminded of 14.15, and still cannot differentiate the version of Heaven in 15.20 from what was done to the people of that town. This... is not... paradise. This is actively what Dean has been insisting is the OPPOSITE of paradise since like… 4.22… No ending where Dean was a “Stepford bitch in paradise” ever had the possibility of being “happy,” at the core of things, and this “fixed” version of Heaven just doesn’t hold up to any degree of inspection. Something is seriously wrong here. https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/183465650390/so-can-we-talk-about-this-monster-of-the-week-for

And since I was unable to find the post I wrote who knows how long ago about Monsters and how they’re symbolically used on Supernatural to represent larger themes in the episode, I’ll just attempt to sum up what Vampires have been used for. Revenge. Vampires are always, in some way connected to themes of revenge.

(and hooray, I found at least a post adjacent to the one I’ve spent the last four hours trying to find... https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/187207052080/i-obviously-did-not-think-this-through, where I mention that shapeshifters are about revealing hidden truths (mostly about Dean since most shapeshifters are connected to Dean), zombies are about grief and the inability to move past it.)

So why... why at the end of their road is the monster that comes after them-- literally FOR REVENGE for something that had never been blamed on Sam or Dean to begin with, from season 1, directly connected to John’s revenge mission and the first time they learned about the Colt AND the first time they learned in canon that Vampires were even real... like... this feels very specifically like some kind of layers-of-meta levels of shade on them, you know? Vampires are for revenge, so what vengeance exactly is being visited upon Sam and Dean in this episode? If not Chuck’s entire story for them itself?

So yeah, 100% agree, something is incredibly rotten in the finale. And I am sick to effing death of people trying to convince us that anything about this was “good” or “happy” or “satisfying” in any way. Or even “how it was always supposed to end” with Dean dead bloody, as if the entire back half of the series hadn’t been suggesting that a true win was the subversion of all of Chuck’s story for them, and Dean finally being able to have his chosen family all alive, happy, and chilling on a beach somewhere watching the sunset. Nothing will ever convince me that the ending portrayed in 15.20 wasn’t exactly how Chuck thought he “won,” rendering it entirely irrelevant to the rest of canon, unless all of canon was ultimately the tragedy we’d been encouraged to believe would be firmly defeated in the end.

Folks, you can’t have it both ways. 

[sugar-petals]

Baekhyun Doms You: Ending Up Laughing

↳⎡NOTE.⎦thought this’d be an interesting concept & a different side to smut: what if you try things out and it’s both not your thing? w/ a humorous twist and subby bf moments sprinkled in 😄

♡  words. 4k

+ tags ⚠️ pwp hc, bondage, throatfucking, graphic, cum play, unsafe/clumsy practice: do not recreate, degradation, biting, masochist bbh, domme!reader switches unsuccessfully, whips, hair-pulling

imagine that. a wide-eyed baekhyun pacing and tiptoeing in front of your toy shelf, trying to pick a riding crop he fancies. it takes five minutes and several ‘uhh, ohh’ confused puppy noises until he’s able to decide which one he’s taking. 

...literally even if he knows exactly which one does what. you’ve used all of them on him. 

meanwhile, you take three seconds flat to pull out one that fits your mood and proceed to edge the living shit out of him. yes, without literal further ado. teasing his dick and marking his thighs and doing all kinds of delicious things. 

he’s still going back and forth in his head without having even started out. cutely tapping and swaying from one foot to the other. 

it’s like he’s back to school. priceless.

what’s even more hilarious: baekhyun practices random mean facial expressions while trying to decide. he doesn’t seem to be sure what character he’s going for. it feels like he’s rehearsing for a concert or photoshoot, even. absolutely fascinating to watch. 

i mean he’s absolutely photogenic no doubt about that but

you’re sitting on the bed waiting naked like okay is this gonna be william shakespeare deluxe or what is kyoong channelling over there

“um... i think i got it! this one, okay? i’m ready!”

finally he walks over, strutting with his nose in the air and his eyes glaring, muscles tense, a mysterious bad boy charm about him, whip ready to sting, lips tight and punitive...

....and hits his pinky toe on the bed

oh the pain

great master baekhyun flops headfirst into the sheets processing the existential cruelty of bedpost pinewood and needs head pats to recover

lots of head pats

at least twenty of them

so many head pats

more time passes until kyoong is back in character i guess

you probably could have listened to exo’s whole discography in the meantime

and knitted a rug for taemin’s new flat

anyway

baekhyun tries to act very confidently finally getting into it 

adopting a sharp ‘hmph’ kind of tone 

endlessly teasing your back and thighs with the riding crop

so far so good sir pinky toe

but he just goes on and on

you could actually crochet a pair of socks for chen’s daughter now that you think about it

it’s you who has to tell him to get to the point and it’s clear he’s more nervous than he pretends to show

to be fair he’s not the only one

you try to get yourself mentally ready but you find yourself giving him actual orders and even correcting his stance five times cuz he’s so wobbly on the mattress like a pupper indeed

baekhyun mumbles to himself and has a hard time fully implementing the advice on posture but tries to aim well regardless. it seems to work at first

but tragically

he ends up with a miss, hitting his own thigh rather than your ass and moans out loud

now you’re the one confused because you were waiting for the whip to come down

but nope it went elsewhere did it

you wonder how he managed to do all that furious fencing in the obsession mv with an aim like that

looks like he’s so submissive, he straight up whips himself

taking matters into his own hands is he. subs these days.

baekhyun keeps on being wobbly on the bed and looks like he ran a marathon already

may i remind you that this guy does 3-hour long concerts and can practice throughout an entire night

... you both agree to immediately scratch that completely after his next flailing strike sends the riding crop flying into his unsuspecting, non-consenting plushie collection

animal cruelty

moving on

you figure that a change of location might be a good idea

baekhyun sits you down on a chair and bashfully stores away the yeeted whip

he vows to never use a riding crop again already and his teddy bears are thankful for it

now the whole plushie village and whole china knows how you don’t do it

next up is rope

what could possibly go wrong

he practiced wrist bondage on his own ankles for five days straight, you really prepared a lot of things to test out together today 

and he’s seen you tie him up over and over and over

but whatever it is that he manages to install on your arms 

looks like a piece of very experimental modern art that just sold for half a million at sotheby’s

what’s supposed to be a column tie is nothing but a mere... ball

chaotic like baekhyun’s personality. not surprising at all

wait that rhymed

anyhow

even alexander the great couldn’t have cut this gordian knot of a tangly masterpiece

ironically: while baekhyun’s roughly grabbing your chin for an intense kiss... the rope casually falls apart harder than the soviet union in 1991 my loves, you ain’t ready

baekhyun takes ages to notice while he’s teasing and kissing you and ends up sweating bullets when he realizes that the sublime art fell to pieces.

sorry comrade 

the fantasy knots and artistic freedom increases even more when it comes to putting a collar and leash on you

and his guy is supposed to be a dog owner? mongryong, instruct your man

baekhyun is a flustered mess trying to fasten it on you even if he tries very hard to be concentrated

maybe it’s because you’re watching him with literal hawk eyes checking every move (...hoping he learned something from you oh my). you’re not really melting into your role either, huh. the only thing melting is your pussy because baekhyun is acting so embarrassed which is the actual turn-on

if that doesn’t give you away

the leash comes off in two minutes time after baekhyun miraculously ties his own hands together with it

how the fuck did that happen

how do you even manage to do that

eager are we

after whipping his own thigh, self-domination 2.0 i guess

so whipping and bondage are off the programme 

this has been the most chaotic and hazardous attempt at topping in the history of sm entertainment

and they’re literally called s and m

...humiliation is next

when you planned your session you both figured hey he’s tested and tried by exo’s lively debate culture and he might be able to pull that off

and there are no props involved so he’ll have an easy time right

life is an illusion

you find out he can’t pronounce degrading names clearly because he keeps on stuttering them. which in return makes baekhyun crack up. 

carrying on the joke, you correct him every time. 

“i want you to repeat after me: stupid, slutty, bitch.”

it ends up as you doing what you always do 

teaching and training him while baekhyun either shyly or brattily obliges. you don’t even notice how you’re doing it but from the outside, it’s blatantly obvious.

because your brain is still feeling in domme mode, you also find yourself saying the usual things to him without thinking, even when he grabs you and gives orders. “now bend over! i’m gonna fuck your brains out.” — “okay, cutie!” 

which causes baekhyun’s mean face to collapse and he snap out of his command tone immediately, snorting because it’s the last thing he expected

he tries to carry on by punishing you with an actual mouth gag and a harness he can hold onto while fucking you from behind, i mean your pussy is already wet why not

guess what’s gonna ensue

wearing a harness feels kind of strange and new so you wiggle back and forth and all over the place. like what is this, what’s happening. baekhyun’s dick is going into all kinds of directions my friends, the amusement park carousel surely inspired this fucking style right here. 

and wearing a gag — there’s a way different person who needs to have this in his chatty mouth. 

kai and kyungsoo’s dream would come true and yet you’re the one gagged 

something ain’t right

if you’re honest. you’re feeling so weird being on the other end of punishment tonight and not being able to give him any directions. your dom brain is worrying he’s all left to his own devices trying to drive that confused dick home left and right and above and below and diagonal and crosswise. 

the fuck

your poor guts my god

what’s worse: his stamina is gonna sneak up behind him and tap on his shoulder like... bro that’s enough pounding for a whole month please spare these balls from deflating please do not break this device

to which your pussy agrees in unison

how are you gonna love your bub day in day out if you’re that sore

there’s nothing more frustrating than being sore and horny with byun baekhyun at your disposal

or a knocked out boyfriend trying to generate at least a sprinkle of semen after getting completely emptied in one go

probably sleeping for three days straight

alright so the harness and gag come off fast oh dear baekhyun clears those away in a heartbeat

that’s another point off the list 

the more you know

carousel cringe dicking down type of dominance... bizarre, disorderly, totally erratic, not on the agenda, worst rated on bing 

comrade baekhyun keeps on apologizing for making things so messy even if he tries and tries

you’re both so puzzled because you’re used to something so different and need a water chugging pause

baekhyun hasn’t sweated this hard since doing the MAMA choreography

and your pussy has never had to provide this much lubrication at once

where on earth is both of your usual stamina what happened

if a type of sex exhausts you fast and even baekhyun’s balls are suddenly moody you just know you’re wired in the opposite way

safe to say you’re better at giving and baekhyun is better at taking

leave the multidirectional powerfucking to kai or something

and being orderly to xiumin

another rug could have been knitted my friends 

moving on dot org

so, you both figure to take it easier and try to go with something he usually does in passing. you know, turning a typical baekhyun habit into something you can try out casually in bed so he can tease you.

that one should work out right?

proceed: teeth action. you seated, him positioning himself above you. after your approval baekhyun pulls your hair back to expose your neck — so he can deliciously bite into it (or so was the plan). 

reality: his hand gets tangled up completely. 

while he’s busy nibbling and giggling about like a lil’ bunny chomping at a carrot that turns out to be extremely ticklish herself. 

in fact, you start squeaking out a wonky high pitch, startling baekhyun’s fine musical ear to the bone by the obvious atonality. did she just try to outsing my vocal range with a creaking whistle note? 

mariah carey would cancel you on twitter over this one

that’s how you turn a vicious, possessive bite into an eternal meme

every time either of you go for a neck kiss, you end up imitating each other. baekhyun has immortalized himself as a nervous chomping bunny and you as the vocalist anti-christ

lord have mercy

you miss your old sex life already and it’s only been two hours

cause you see... if baekhyun gives you the chance to bite him? he needs a set of long sleeves, scarves, and an extra soft pillow to sit down on for the next two days

like, no mercy bitch

you get right down to business and ravage him and do it properly until he cums in his pants

sure, the way he uses his tongue now is definitely kinda hot mind you

baekhyun is always good with his singing equipment that doesn’t suddenly change aye

and you keep your eyes closed

but with time you notice that he starts drooling and whimpering. baekhyun’s wet mouth is out there betraying him, huh.

same with your body. your reactions give you away, body language just won’t lie. you have a damn hard time staying still. you wanna do something, you wanna touch and guide baekhyun all over.

and vice versa baekhyun keeps on glitching and doing the same thing he really became a living tumblr gif now

this whole session is just so confusing and laced with all these moments of awkwardness it’s really telling you something about yourself and mister pinky toe’s ideal dynamic

baekhyun can’t even get himself to even lightly slap you properly. and when he does, his delicate hands are just so cute. it’s as if legolas came along, scented in jasmine, elegant and fabulous like it’s a l’oreal commercial

he immediately looks concerned after he manages to do it cleanly and you admit it wasn’t really that exciting a feeling yourself. it felt more like, “um ouch, and?”

needless to say, you’re weirded out if anything, baekhyun smacking and dragging you around as a cold-as-ice dom is just a strange thing to do for both of you 

like even exo’s wolf era fashion was more coherent than this carrot fuckery

and those were some of the most intense turtlenecks ever 

is there really nothing dominant baekhyun can pull off. come on he’s the genius idol 

actually 

there’s something that does work out for once

because no rule without exceptions indeed

because hey, you can learn something anyway, it’s the whole point of you going through a list of things to try as a couple

baekhyun is good at doing the more hardcore, faster kind of fingering. who would have thought, totally surprising, revolutionary i know. but that’s where you’re both agreeing hey, there’s some untapped potential you can use for the steamier evenings you have going. 

cuz wow, he can get you off with flying colors. 

...only to succumb to a malfunctioning bobohu wrist 

even baekhyun’s boner for your legs in latex isn’t that stiff

it’s another pause until his hand loosens up again

this poor man just can’t win

and if you’re asking oi hard domming isn’t the only thing you can do

baekhyun trying to summon his inner soft dom: surprise, same old tale. here we go again.

your boyfriend thinks he generally looks way too puppy-like to be your big ole buff daddy taking care of you. oversized sweater, fluffy hair and all. 

you say to him well, it’s not that doms can’t wear casual things. but it’s true that you have to feel your role and find yourself believable. regardless of your looks, in fact. 

unless your partner really enjoys you dressing up as some kind of dominant hyper-archetype? looking the part is relatively unimportant if you’re absolutely made for dominance you say

pretty eye-opening moment for him

in your roleplay, he caresses and kisses you to the point, he can approach and lead you to do this or that position, don’t be mistaken. and he’s good at making presents, he’s indulging you perfectly well and actually likes doing it. but... it still ends up being more vanilla than not a few hours in. the d/s is out the door almost automatically the longer you do it.

at the end, it leaves you with a feeling of “but err, what now? give the maid outfit to charity?” 

baekhyun rubs his neck in search for something else to do, both of you staring at each other with expressions blanker than kyungsoo when a prancing chanyeol is acting up.

how did the quote go again. if you scramble for inspiration, let it be?

it’s exactly that situation when baekhyun soft doms. he can hold you tight and do his thing for a while, but the chemistry of your roles is dwindling into a question mark.

in fact. there’s an uneasy silence as if great mother suho was sitting right beside you critiquing baekhyun’s sugar daddy skills

baekhyun is rich like a motherfucker and can’t even call you ‘my innocent lil’ baby girl’ without looking like he just learned a first grade tonguetwister by heart

you did play your parts with less cracking up, but you clearly tell him that there’s still something strangely clueless and “ah, awkward” (baekhyun’s verdict in response, verbatim) in between the two of you. 

when you take care of baekhyun and tuck him in, you hardly run out of ideas. it just goes on and on. even when you played through an entire scene, you both come up with things to extend the scenario because it’s so much fun. you make him a hot chocolate, massage his feet, brush his hair, do some extra light bondage with a silk ribbon around his ankles to make him feel pretty, feed him pizza, have him cuddle up in your lap, pinch his ass, and do some rimming if he’s feeling a bit hornier. 

the spoiling is nice at the start, but there’s something missing. you want to lead his hands and really treat him, and do it all the time, and baekhyun really finds himself craving it as well. 

baekhyun soft domming quickly turns into — well just normal loving makeouts and gestures. you kiss and touch, there’s nothing hierarchical about it, nothing mega juicy or exciting.

you just don’t get into the groove, you know. there’s nothing particular happening if you try to get into those roles. it doesn’t titillate both of you for an extended period of time, it doesn’t make you curious for more. it’s like... shrug. what about it. 

when you usually dominate, you know something hits home when you think about it all day. baekhyun screaming and crying with his legs twitching pops up whenever you close your freaking eyes goddamn.

you make a note to observe whether you’re going about your daily business thinking about how you could be his innocent good girl. following his every whim, making big eyes at him or something. 

result: more shaky, ruined baekhyun moaning his soul out in the highest of notes and leaking cum everywhere from getting choked and his face sat on. 

daddy baekhyun has simply not crossed your mind. in fact, poor guy no chance to fit in there from the get-go. his particularly whorish, extra subby counterpart is all over your brain cells with his tongue out. and you’re very tempted to grab it between your thumb and index and spit in his mouth for some very good measure. maybe cum in it as well.

um. so there’s that. the more you know.

baekhyun figures as much himself and you try the other side of the equation. oh, oh. here comes hard dom baekhyun.

who gets you on your knees and starts a wild deepthroat session while calling you names. that’s all well and good... nope. your gag reflex decides to yeet some weird coughing facial expressions and reflex cock bites at poor baekhyun who doesn’t know what’s happening. to finish him off completely, you sneeze while having a hiccup and his dick slips out. 

... you both safeword at the same time.

that cleanup has scarred you both for life. what the everloving fuck. no more impulse throatfucking in this pure christian household, then. 

you’ll stick to lazy, twirling, indulgent blowjobs and the usual ruined orgasms for him — the actually planned ones, jesus christ.

like seriously. you invented a whole new language with those confused gargling noises and that wasn’t french, it was advanced level klingon. baekhyun repeats asking if you’re okay and you’re still stuck realizing oh hell, that was not pretty. off the bucket list, you like sucking him off but this style just doesn’t come natural to you. 

the popsicles you could train yourself with are usually gone from the freezer within a day after getting the groceries. baekhyun is wholeheartedly addicted to them. 

he loves cheating on his diet since you told him his fully cheeks are your emotional support squish and kiss pillows, so.

baekhyun rightfully insists he��s better at eating pussy the wild way in the first place — and that you have no business choking on his dick like you’re on hot ones eating the world’s spiciest whatever is trending now.

or actually... baekhyun’s dick can’t be compared to a chili pepper if we’re doing a choking analogy alright. that just doesn’t fit his promotion concept. cinnamon stick is more like it.

ever saw one of these terrible cinnamon spoon videos where reckless people try to defeat god by— anyway, you’ve seen them. that’s how you looked like trying to get your mouth fucked. i think god would actually be defeated by how far away from divine elegance that was and you’re so sorry for subjecting baekhyun to this artless display. 

cinnamon is still best used in small doses. say, for garnishing a creamy cake or pie y’know. 

anyway. you dished up the most butchered attempt at sexy gagging in history and so, baekhyun will preach for days how he’s the one chosen by fate to push down seven big fat inches of your strap still half asleep without even blinking. 

... and that his world-class operatic breath control would probably enable him to bury his face in your pussy on mount everest. baekhyun knows that every domme would sell her soul to get a sub as skilled with breathing as him.

...and that he has the official copyright for giving quality slobbery oral with quality smudged tears. as he will demonstrate to you almost daily from then on. king of messy head and going stupid with the tongue acrobatics. ugh, the noises are amazing, too. give him a grammy for his oral sounds.

gotta leave the heavy-duty work to the experts innit.

at dinner, he also poutingly brags how he can make his spit run out of his nose while he’s sucking himself through your entire dildo collection. and blow spit bubbles. and snort his own semen off his thighs and let it drop off his tongue if he’s in a particularly slutty mood. or a creampie. jeez, baekhyun, the wolf of wallstreet is strong in him. you literally have to stop him from showing off because “hey boy, i already know! i’ve seen it last week bro it was good!”

needless to say he’s talking in essays all day because he wants things go back to normal and he doesn’t have to ask twice.

for real, your candy man with the cinnamon stick has been suffering from the love bites and has to retire his cock for two days from the bruising. 

mind you. the pain he can deal with. that ain’t the problem. by all means, man. he’s a fucking masochist. 

it’s actually more like... submissive you has deactivated his boner and he can’t help it. it’s not you that makes him limp, it’s more like, the klingon choking and the ton of mishaps that just don’t sit right. 

baekhyun feels bad about not doing well enough to make both of you have a good time as well which is lowkey heartbreaking. you have to cheer him up with ‘now repeat after me: stupid, slutty bitch’ jokes to make him chuckle at least a bit.

cuz you gotta understand, baekhyun is very ambitious to develop his talents in all areas of life. if there’s a skill he gets stuck with and he can’t work with his potential, that’s so unusual to him.

and you say man, imagine if you were some kind of uber-talented dom. that’d still not make me sneeze any less.

if you dominate him, it feels easy to do. nothing can really ruin the mood, not even when the lube runs out (baekhyun drools enough to make anything slippery okay). 

except maybe when xiumin rings on landline because he left his favorite fluffy sweater in the subway and needs to vent about it. my god that’s such a tear-jerking story i’m close to sobbing. this shit could kill literally any boner.

or when your hand cramps up after shoving your fingers down his throat and in his ass for like half an hour which should be ranked first as the saddest anime betrayal of all time but it’s justifiable and you had a lot of fun beforehand.

in other words. only the things outside of your control tend to mess with your femdom business. in and of itself, nothing can kill your vibe except a dying battery obviously. 

whereas you trying submission oddly spoils the atmosphere from the inside out and provides a free cringe compilation. like without even doing much, it happens automatically. 

baekhyun relishes in dramatically recounting how you both looked like true clowns attempting a rendition of overexpensive, extra tangly contemporary art bondage. hell, not even employed clowns, completely retired ones, struggling to regain their tightrope tricks from summer 1912 when harry houdini was still hot shit in town. 

you say oh god, that wasn’t even worth a retired clown’s skillset, clowns work damn hard man. you’d be hardpressed to find any circus artist capable of cracking a whip onto themselves baekhyun-style and moaning out loud because it was this good. seriously. that was one for the books.

if baekhyun tried to set foot in some willy-nilly maledom porn, he’d be capable of firing himself on the first day. 

at the end, you just have a good laugh, man. you agree — hey, this ain’t it, but it’s good to know at least. tried and tested, been there, done that. self-whipping and carrot-nibbling and blowjob hiccups.

if you’re both so hopeless and living up to the challenge managed to upset poor mariah carey instead of giving you a hot and steamy time, you very well know where you belong. that’s a good feeling. assuring and a confidence boost for your skills. it makes up for all the clumsiness actually. 

exactly because the try-out part was an entire disaster, domming baekhyun will be even more fun, you can’t see it becoming anywhere near boring. it never really was, but now you know where your strong suits are even more so. and — what to avoid, anyway. 

no more unsafe practice and teddy whipping under this roof my friend

and something to incorporate more often which is baekhyun unleashing his very creative, pianoesque fingering skills on you.

you have lots of anecdotes to rile each other up as well. or, at least, tease another a bit. your high note was too legendary not to be remembered.

baekhyun will use all of these things against you in a positive way if you get what i mean. he’ll say how you being so strangely vocal made him realize just how commanding and compelling your sexy time voice is when you tell him how to kneel, how to kiss, how to revere.

and you teasing him how clumsy a dom he is makes baekhyun more self-assured in his subbing abilities. he knows for a fact you’ve not once roasted him about how well he can use his pretty mouth. cuz it’s the real deal. sloppy, skilled, and eager to please. he’s damn right about that.

hitting his toes has ruined baekhyun’s whole career as a dom and he was mad at first but he did realize that beside the clumsiness, subbing just suits him well as a principle

your experience gives you even more anticipation for all the sex you will have in the future. 

you already knew what you both liked. you know it even more now, it’s underlined, it’s a big relieved yes. no more cringey “daddy, daddy, choke me please!” worship. time to make his day and sit on baekhyun’s perfect face to fuck the shit out of it. 

or you know, actually land a whip on his juicy boyfriend thighs and listen to those heavenly loud reactions in a dead-on pitch (he usually moans in C minor).

long story short and cinnamon sticks aside. it’s even more fun now. you just love your cute subby boy just as he is. he doesn’t have to try to be anything else or step up his game. he’s so ideal just doing what he does like a real angel.

more subby stuff: m.list + ao3

↳⎡FINAL NOTE⎦i love writing crack lmao i hope you were rolling on the floor like i did 😂 write me your favorite part in the comments so we can laugh again and buy me a ko-fi if you wanna 👍

© 2017-2021 submissive-bangtan. all rights reserved. no reposts allowed.

[aworldoffandoms]

Love is a Beautiful Thing - Ethan x F!MC

Authors Note:  HI! I’m back (finally) with another prompt ask fic! I know it’s taken too long for this to happen but my laptop battery decided to shit itself and I needed to send it away to get it fixed and now it’s back and here it is! lol. I’m sorry for my mediocre writing with this one but I hope you enjoy, anyway! I apologise for any spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. Prompt is in bold.

AO3 WORK

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC [Nicolette Valentine]

Word Count: 2, 075 (who allows me to write? Oh, me... damnit.)

Prompt: “Not only am I deeply in love with you, you’re my best friend.”

Rating: G

Warnings: Fluff and Ethan and Nic being cute. 

Tag list at the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Pixelberry and all characters belong to them.

*** 

LOVE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

Ethan knew the exact moment that he fell in love with Nicolette. It was on a Sunday, their first weekend off in two months and Nicolette was staying over, her hair up in a messy bun, red hair slipping out of its hold and framing her face in the most delicate way that made her more ethereal when the sun shone on her hair, making it glow like a warm fire. 

He knew he was in love when she smiles, her cheeks and all of her smattered with freckles that Ethan found himself tracing with his fingers at night, following them like a map as they trailed from her nose, down her cheeks to the lower parts of her chest and shoulders and Ethan marvels each time he gets to see them, touch them...kiss them. 

His chest warms with love when she comes home from grocery shopping in an oversized Columbia University jumper that she got at a conference in her second year of medical school, her Adidas stretch leggings that hugged her legs in the most enticing and her long hair a mess around her shoulders, not caring about her appearance in the slightest. It reiterates how comfortable she was with him. This is Nicolette in her purest form and a smile lifts his lips at the thought that Nicolette, the most gentle, kind-hearted and compassionate woman was able to be herself with him in whatever capacity.

Ethan knew he was in love when he finds Nicolette on his couch, tears tracking down her face and a pile of tissues surrounding her, her eyes glued to the television. One glance at the TV and Ethan realises it’s a Disney movie. He should be amazed and somewhat turned off by the fact that a twenty-eight-year-old cries at a Disney movie but in this particular case, a fond smile raises his lips at the sight even when his heart drops at seeing her crying. He never likes to see her cry. He always admires Nicolette when she doesn’t hide behind a facade of what she should be. If she wants to watch a movie from her childhood then she is going to watch it, if she cries then she’ll do it. She is real. She is her authentic self and Ethan has never been more in love. 

Ethan’s in love when he finds Nicolette, sitting in front of his laptop, researching a case they’ve been trying to diagnose one night, her glasses perched on her face, her nose scrunched up in concentration, the light of the screen emphasising the bags under those beautiful blue eyes. She doesn’t know he’s there, himself tucked behind an alcove out of sight. So now, he just watches her do her thing, sift through notes, type on the keyboard. A silent chuckle escapes him when he sees her tongue poking out of her lips, a sure sign that she was in the deepest trance of her concentration. Nicolette pushes back some of the hair that had fallen in her face and Ethan’s fingers twitch to do the same but he forces himself to resist and stay put. He’s more than content just to watch her. 

It’s then that he really knows it. He could watch her do that for the rest of his life if he wanted to and he’d never get sick of it. Pure happiness and joy settle around him like a warm blanket on a cold night and he sighs at the euphoric feeling. He loves Nicolette and he’ll love her for the rest of his days on this earth. 

“I know you’re there, Ethan so you can come out of your creepy hideaway and come sit with me. I need your brain for a minute.” 

Ethan jolts out of his own trance (or perhaps he should say his Nicolette trance) and pads over to the couch, laughing as he does so. 

“‘You need my brain’? That’s a creative and articulate way of saying you need me.” 

Nicolette glances over to him, giving him a flat look before she smiles and shrugs at his words. “It’s true though, I need you for your brain and nothing else right now.” 

Ethan chuckles, his hand coming up to wrap around the back of her neck as he begins gently kneading it, finding a cord of tension there. Nicolette melts into his touch but her eyes are still focused on the notes in front of her. 

“What a shame. I would have been happy to oblige in whatever else you needed from me.” 

Nicolette scoffs. “Please, Ethan. Maybe go grab some water for yourself because I am sure as hell ain’t thirsty right now. I’m researching this case and I need to study for my boards.” 

Ethan ignores the implication of those words (he did know what it meant, he wasn’t a complete tragic) and focuses on what Nicolette was viewing.

“Practice exam questions for IMCs?” 

Nicolette signs, removing her glasses to rub at her eyes. She had been staring at the laptop screen for too long and they were starting to hurt. She sighs as she puts her glasses back on and turns to her boyfriend. “Yes, they are. It’s the third time I’m going to study it today. Can you please help me through them? I need a sounding board right now. I’m sick and tired of hearing the voice inside my head read questions back at me.” 

Ethan’s eyebrows furrow in concern at the lethargy he can hear in her voice and the small droop of her shoulders. He doesn’t want her to burn out but he figures that she’ll continue anyway. She’s as stubborn as him. 

“Okay, I’ll help. What do you need?” 

Nicolette claps and sits back from him, pulling her knees up underneath her and turns so that she’s face to face with him. “Run through some practice questions with me and then we can get some takeaway and watch a trashy movie or something.” 

Ethan chuckles, a fond smile lighting up his face. He finds where Nicolette was up to and begins reciting the question. “Okay. Here we go… A 23-year-old woman with bone marrow failure is treated with a large dose of rabbit anti-thymocyte globulin. Ten days later, she develops fever, lymphadenopathy, arthralgias, and erythema on her hands and feet. Which of the following is the most likely cause of these symptoms?” 

Ethan already knew the answer but he allows Nicolette the time to answer herself. He sees the clocks working in her mind and her eyes light up as she finds the answer. “Is it immune complex deposition in tissues?” 

Ethan flips back to the practice test answers and he gives a nod and an answering smile at her when he finds that she was correct. He would have told her yes straight away but he knew Nicolette enough that she would have appreciated that he goes to the answered section to make sure that she’s correct. 

“Yes, you’re right! Good work!” 

Nicolette cheers with a resounding ‘yay’ as she claps her hands, her face alight with relief. Ethan grins at her enthusiasm because he knows how much succeeding at this means to her. So, it’s there, in the middle of Ethan’s living room, the sun already on its decline where Ethan and Nicolette sit and work through each question of her board exam practice test. 

It's a few hours after that, the inky black night piercing the living room, both of them leaning up against the couch with Ethan chuckling at a particular answer that Nicolette got wrong (and a particularly hard one at that, he wasn’t going to lie) that he realises he’s having the time of his life. It’s these little moments that set his heart aflame, that bring him a sense of contentment. Rightness.  

Ethan can’t fathom a time where he wasn’t having fun with Nicolette and he is so glad that he is in a position to be here with her. She is his closest confidant, a person with whom he can be himself, his best self, opinions, objections and all. A warm smile lifts the corners of his mouth and he says the next words with an air of reverence, of truth and certainty for they were the truest words to ever leave his lips. 

Ethan grabs her hand, his face serious for a moment and Nicolette stops and stares at the utter warmth of his eyes, the blue of them liquid cyan and the admiration on his face makes her breath hitch in her throat.

“You are amazing, Nicolette. You make every day brighter and I can’t honestly imagine walking through life without you. I can honestly, without any reservation, say that not only am I deeply in love with you, you’re my best friend.” 

Nicolette is frozen, her mouth popped open in evident shock but Ethan sees the effect his words have had on her. Her crystal blue eyes shine like diamonds as tears well up in them and he resists the urge to pull her to him. He needs to say this otherwise he was going to burst. 

“I realise it’s not the best time but I just had to say it. I needed to otherwise—” 

Nicolette cuts him off with a kiss, the kiss so strong that he loses his balance against the suddenness of it and falls backwards, both of them sprawled on the plush area rug. 

Nicolette breaks the kiss after a while and just looks at him, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. Her eyes are shiny and tears are slowly making their way down her cheeks as she whispers, her forehead coming to rest upon his gently, her lips mere inches away from his.

“I can’t study for my boards now since you’ve said that so we’re going to get takeaway. Call for Chinese and I’ll put on a movie.” 

There is a pang in his chest as he hears her words and he can’t help but be disappointed. A part of him was hoping for reciprocation or at least something remotely related to his words. And yet, Nicolette’s mind is different from his, no less fantastically intelligent but different and he realises that she processes things differently from him. Whether it takes her a few seconds, minutes or days, it won’t matter to him. He would wait for her forever. 

He nods, trying to not let the disappointment show on his face and plucks his phone out of his pocket and press speed dial to call his favourite Chinese restaurant just down the main street, a few metres from his condo. 

He’s just staring out at the horizon, his eyes scanning the twinkling skyline of Boston when he freezes as he feels Nicolette behind him hugging him, her head on his back and her arms tight around his torso. He shivers when he feels Nicolette kiss his shoulder, her face buried into him, almost like she wanted to melt into him completely. 

“I love you too, Ethan. I know I don’t say it enough but you’re my best friend and I thank the stars every day that we met.” She squeezes him once more before letting go. “Oh, and don’t forget the Kung pao chicken.” 

Ethan grins and his heart flies out of his chest. God, he loves this woman so much. 

“I would never forget the Kung pao chicken, Nicolette.” 

Nicolette turns to him and gives him a soft smile, her eyes shining with deep affection. “Good. I knew I loved you for a reason.”  

“Oh? Is that the only reason?” 

Nicolette smirks as she makes her way to the cabinet next to the stove where they kept the wine, her eyes alight with mischief as she gives Ethan a wink. 

“A woman never reveals her secrets, Ethan.” 

Ethan laughs, the sound light and happy, a smile on his lips as he orders them dinner. Love is a beautiful thing, Ethan thinks, and he again berates himself for resisting this wonderful feeling for so long. He marvels silently as he stares out at the Boston skyline again, the sounds of domesticity surround him as Nicolette gets ready for dinner and he’s never felt so safe, so calm...so at ease.

Ethan lets out a sigh of contentment. Love is beautiful and if he could have a beautiful life with Nicolette? Well, then... he can call himself the luckiest man on earth.

***

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