#i was like “this will be long and complicated to do so I'll skim over it”

[hpowellsmith]

how does this final chapter keep growing

[ckret2]

Chapter 56 of human Bill Cipher probably not about to be the Mystery Shack's prisoner much longer:

Bill and Mabel wrap up their impromptu lesson on the second dimension, while Ford and Dipper wrap up their final preparations for Bill's execution.

Dipper peeked in through the door to the gift shop. When no one acknowledged him, he cautiously meandered across the living room toward Ford, straight between Bill and Mabel without either of them glancing at him; they were too caught up in Bill answering Mabel's question about how to see through walls with the fourth dimension.

When Dipper was nearly out of the room, Bill suddenly focused on him. "Hey stinky, what have you been up to?"

Dipper jumped. "What?"

Mabel laughed. "Yeah! You smell like burning hair."

"You smell like nightmares," Bill corrected.

Ford muttered a curse under his breath. Ford hadn't noticed a smell, but Dipper's soul had fallen into the Nightmare Realm—did its distinctive scent still cling to him? Would Bill realize what it meant? If he did—

Dipper swallowed hard. "I... was... having a nightmare?"

Bill considered that. "Ask a stupid question..." He shrugged and turned back to the grid he'd been adding notes to.

Dipper sighed in relief. He joined Ford in the entryway to watch the lesson in bafflement. Under his breath, he murmured, "Has this been going on a while?"

"At least the last fifteen minutes." That was how long Ford had been watching. He'd learned a couple things about higher dimensional physics even he hadn't known.

"Wait," Mabel said, "Bill, I get it! You don't look through walls, you look over them!"

Bill's face split into a wide grin. "Explain it!"

"It's like, if I was floating above the second dimension, I could just see over all the walls! But Flatworlders don't even know what 'above' is, so they'd think I was looking through the walls somehow! So there's got to be some kind of fourth dimensional place 'above' the third dimension, right?!"

"On the money, star girl! Give yourself another sticker!"

"YES!" She'd run out of facial real estate for stickers, so she slapped it on her headband.

Bill beamed proudly at her. "How come your brother's the one with the straight A's, huh? You could blow him out of the water if you wanted."

Mabel's smile immediately disappeared.

Dipper hissed between his teeth. "Oooh." Under his breath, he said, "Mabel hates people saying things like that. I should go rescue her." He crept back into the room. "Hey! Bill!"

Mabel turned toward Dipper. Bill only glanced askance at him. Flatly, he asked, "What."

"Uh..." Dipper skimmed the papers coating the room for anything that he could talk about, and focused on the ringed planet behind the TV. He pointed at it. "Is... that Flatworld?"

Bill shrugged apathetically. "Sure, you can call it that."

"Why are all the countries off the planet?"

"Do you think we lived underground?"

Mabel perked up. "Dipper! The shapes live in outer space! In between their home planet and the planet's rings! They only use the planet for vacations and underground science buildings and stuff."

Dipper asked, "Underground science buildings?"

Bill sighed and turned away from the grid, giving Dipper a look that said I'll give you my attention, but I won't like it. "Research facilities. Like wave pools, particle accelerators, and solar farms. Gigantic equipment like that is more stable anchored in bedrock."

(Ford remembered, suddenly, over thirty years ago, Bill telling him that he ought to dig out a subterranean cavern for the interdimensional portal. "A big machine like this," he'd said, "you want that anchored on all sides by solid rock. It'll be a lot more stable that way." Ford had never dreamed that was a trillion-year-old cultural artifact from a dead civilization.)

Still studying the map, Dipper asked, "How do you tell where your country's borders are if you're just floating in empty space?"

"How do you?"

"We use... rivers, and..."

"And sometimes you just make them up. It's not that complicated."

"Were they all as oppressive as the country in Flatworld?"

Bill gave Dipper a withering look. "This isn't a politics class, kid."

(Ford cast a dubious look at the blood-red letters reading "ANTI-MONARCHIST ANARCHISM".)

Dipper scowled, crossed his arms, and looked over the map again. "But, wait—if you were floating in outer space, and you could just... float up and down between your planet's surface and the ring, then why isn't there anything further out than that? What was stopping you from floating all the way to that moon?" He gave Bill a challenging look, as though he'd uncovered a logical fallacy that undermined the whole map.

Bill rolled his open eye. "This is what you get for coming late to class." He pointed his crayon at his star student. "Shooting Star?"

"They did float all the way to the moon!"

Dipper's shoulders dropped. "Oh."

"It was a big extreme sports bragging rights thing," Mabel said. "Like climbing Mount Everest! Except first you have to get through the rings without dying! And it'd take like thirty years to fly there and thirty years to get back!"

"Approximating the human years," Bill said.

"So they couldn't go until they invented cars, because they're fast enough to get through the rings without getting hit and it only takes a year to drive to the moon, but that means you still have to carry enough supplies for two years, and—"

"Hold on," Dipper said. "Cars?"

"Yeah!"

"But there's no ground! They're flying around in the air! They don't have wheels, do they? What makes a car different from a rocket ship?"

"Um..." Mabel looked to Bill for help.

Bill said, "Firepower." He drew a rocket sailing up toward the moon at an angle, its fiery trail cutting through the planet's rings. After a thoughtful pause, Bill added, "I know a guy that used to work at an observatory on the far side of the moon."

Dipper said, "So what happened to your world?"

And there was that hesitance, that guarded look Ford had remembered seeing whenever Bill got too close to teaching Ford enough for him to recognize the danger to his dimension. He turned away from the kids, busying himself with refining the shape of the moon. "Do the math. I'm over a trillion years old! Stars burn out, universes go cold. Your planet will barely last twelve billion years. That's the way planets go."

"Well, if you're so powerful, why didn't you just—I dunno—keep it alive?"

The crayon snapped in Bill's hand.

Mabel gave her brother an irritated look—"Dipper, don't be mean,"—but it turned to a worried look when Bill rounded sharply on them both.

Bill snapped, "Who says I didn't, smart aleck?"

"Wh—I—"

"It is alive, thanks for asking. I made sure of that."

"Then where is it—?"

"Do you think I let you sit in here so you could ask stupid questions?" Bill planted a fist on his hip and pointed toward the door. "All you've done is derail the lesson and bring up stuff we covered three hours ago. Scram, kid."

"What—? But..." Dipper looked to Mabel for help.

Mabel shrugged. Dipper sighed, got up, and trudged out of the living room to join Ford in the entryway, giving him a forlorn look as he did.

Ford muttered, "I used to get kicked out of classes for challenging the teacher, too."

Dipper snorted. "Did he ever kick you out of class?"

Ford thought. "No—but why would he? He needed me to think I was his star student."

Although one time Bill had woken Ford up at two in the morning in the middle of a dream during the portal's construction, because Ford had forgotten some measurements he'd taken in the basement and he hadn't left his notes somewhere one of Bill's eyes could see them. And then, once Ford had retrieved his notes, the irritation of being woken had prevented him from falling back asleep and returning to his Muse.

They'd laughed about it the next night.

"Do you think his world does still exist?" Dipper asked.

Ford shook his head. "The Oracle said he destroyed his dimension himself in his pursuit of power. I trust her more than him."

They stood outside watching as Mabel asked Bill if there was any way for a normal human to see into the fourth dimension without busting their eyeballs. Bill started illustrating a way to grind glass to refract light from several minutes in the future, before abandoning it halfway completed to start explaining to Mabel how regular three-dimensional refraction worked. Ford recognized the unfinished illustration. Bill had included it in his miniature grimoire, too.

Voice low, Ford murmured, "You can't tell your sister we're ready."

Dipper nodded. "She'll be heartbroken."

Ford remembered having the exact same thought that morning. He squeezed Dipper's shoulder. "I suppose I won't be going with her to that concert in Portland tomorrow."

####

"... and that," Bill concluded, "is why the Time Giants banned sixth-dimensional tourism. But by then the damage was done—which is why there's only one survivor left."

Laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, Mabel said, "I'll never see balloons the same way again."

"Nobody ever does." Bill clicked shut his marker and dropped it on Mabel's chest. "So that covers the last fifty billion years of local politics! Did that answer your question?"

Mabel paused. "I don't remember my question."

"Good. I don't either." Bill sat on the floor beside Mabel and crossed his legs. "Anyway, you owe me fifty grand. All the info I gave you today is worth at least a year of college classes on this planet."

"Pssh, yeah right!" She paused. She sat up. "Wait. Really?"

"I might've skipped a few names and dates and formulas—but sure! We covered all the important stuff!" Smugly, he said, "So, still think I think you're dumb?"

Mabel stared at him, and then around the room at all the papers coating the walls, covered in Bill's handwriting. "You did all this just to prove I'm smart?"

"You proved you're smart. I got a captive audience for the afternoon. Quid pro quo!" Bill grinned. "I wasn't kidding earlier! You've got twice the brains of any of the other morons you'll share a classroom with. I'm surprised it's your brother on the honor roll instead of you."

Mabel's smile faded. Oh. "Yeah," she grumbled, pulling her knees to her chest. "You and everyone else." This wasn't much better than Bill thinking she was stupid: now he had expectations for her.

She'd heard it a million times, any time she did anything intelligent. You're so smart too, why aren't your grades better? Why don't you make grades like your brother?

Because Mabel liked art, music, motion, and stories (and usually not even the stories they read in English class); and Dipper liked—or at least was good at—math, science, and history. Because Mabel's brain fuzzed over with TV static when she tried to read a textbook, and the static got louder the more she was forced to reread it to "study"; whereas Dipper could read a chapter once, retain everything that mattered, and then skim it a second time right before a test to remind himself of the important names and dates. Because Mabel's bulb was just as bright as Dipper's, but hers had faulty wiring, making it flicker on and off outside her control; and she could only get it to glow steadily for things her brain was interested in; and she couldn't choose what her brain was interested in; and school wasn't on that list.

But how did she explain that when her parents were disappointed in her C+ test because Dipper came home with an A? When they told her she just needed to apply herself, how did she explain she was already applying herself five times harder than Dipper and still trailing behind him when the whole family knew she had just as much brains as him? It might have been easier if she actually was stupid. At least then they'd know she was doing her best. But she wasn't doing her best.

She got it from everyone. From her parents, day in and day out; from aunts, uncles, and grandparents; from teachers she'd taken by surprise with a particularly passionate essay; sometimes even from friends. Why aren't you making A's like your brother? So why shouldn't she hear it even from Bill Cipher.

Bill leaned back in surprise when Mabel curled in on herself. "What? I'm calling you smart, kid. Most humans like that."

Mabel shook her head, pouting at the floor. "Forget it. It just—it doesn't matter what my stupid grades are, all right?"

He stared at her in bafflement for a moment; and then said, with a tone of growing horror, "Oh. Ohhh. I sound like your dad."

She hated how much he knew about their home lives. She never knew when he was going to reveal he'd combed through one of her most shameful memories. "Just forget it," she repeated. "I just don't make grades like Dipper, okay?"

"Kid, I didn't mean it like that. I..." Bill floundered for a moment. It was weird to see him struggling for words. He leaned forward, cheek in hand, putting himself eye level with Mabel. "You know—I don't think I'm fond of your brother."

That dragged a small laugh out of Mabel. "Really? You hide it so well."

"I know! I'm a real gentleman," he said. "So when I say 'hey, why aren't you getting A's,' I'm not saying you should be more like him, ugh. I just want to watch the alpha twin trounce that little nerd."

She laughed louder. "Bill! Be nice, that's my brother!"

"And you have my eternal sympathy."

"Bill!" She punched his arm. "I don't want to compete with him, though. Even if I try a zillion times harder, I'll never get grades as good as his." She sighed loudly. But Bill was watching her, full attention on her face, expectant, so she continued: "I don't want to be a slightly worse Dipper, I just... want to be a really good Mabel! And—and maybe a really good Mabel is just okay at school. It's fine if I just... graduate with C's and go to some boring local college to get a boring degree for a boring job... while Dipper goes to some... big, fancy stupid technical college... or..." She trailed off, chin in her hands, staring at the carpet.

"Or while he gets private tutoring from some genius with too many PhDs?" Bill said wryly.

Mabel didn't answer, trying to swallow around the lump in her throat. "I know he wouldn't have actually left me behind."

Bill grimaced, sucking in a breath between his teeth. "Yeeeah, no, he would have," he said. "Sorry, kid. If it weren't for Weirdmageddon, he'd have taken the apprenticeship."

Mabel's stomach flipped. "Oh."

"So, you're welcome," Bill said.

Mabel socked him again, more seriously.

Bill just laughed. "Hey—if it helps, he woulda been worse off for it! He made the right choice sticking with you."

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" He paused. "Poor choice of words. I'm not lying to you. He'll be better off suffering through a middle-upper-class Californian high school beside you than he ever woulda been hiding in the woods catching gnomes in butterfly nets."

She nodded. That was some comfort. Even if, in another life, apparently Dipper would've ditched her.

Bill gave her one of those long, piercing looks he sometimes did; and then he nudged her. "Hey. Don't worry about school—that's your parents talking, not you. And don't worry about what your brother does. Let him bust his butt at a big stupid technical college! Flunk every class and draw flowers on the SAT bubble sheet! You'll have plenty of your own things going on, and your dumb grades won't matter for any of them—"

Mabel flung her arms around Bill. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Hey. You're gonna be fine, kid." He leaned his head on Mabel's, one shut eye pressed to the crown of her head. "I—know it's hard. But you'll be fine."

She didn't know how he could know it was hard. He already knew everything, it wasn't like he ever had to worry about grades. But—the fact that he cared (that he cared) meant a lot. "Thank you."

"Buuut, if you ever decide you do want to be an honor roll kid, call me up! I can give you some advice."

Warily, Mabel asked, "Study tips?"

"No way! What a waste of time!" Bill rolled his eyes. "But I can teach you how to cheat."

####

After Ford told Stan and Soos the news about the Dontium, he headed downstairs to fuel up his Quantum Destabilizer. It had been waiting on a worktable in his study for weeks, the corded power adaptor Fiddleford had made plugged in where it usually took fuel, its empty fuel tank laying nearby.

Fiddleford had said the adaptor he'd invented only gave the destabilizer enough power to act like a common laser—not enough to completely destroy matter and energy. It was insufficient for the job at hand. Ford unplugged the power adaptor, carefully coiled it up, and slid it into a storage pocket in the destabilizer's carrying case.

He picked up the fuel tank, retrieved the milk jug of NowUSeeitNowUDontium, and poured it into the tank, eyes never wavering from the jug until every drop had been poured inside and the tank re-sealed. He triple checked the destabilizer's safety before he plugged in the fuel tank. Then he put the destabilizer in the carrying case as well, and shut and latched it.

As he headed toward the door, Ford spied Flatworld laying on his desk—Dipper must have left it downstairs. He picked it up... and then sat down, studying the cover. It showed a square with arms and legs peering through a telescope.

How much did the book really matter? The kids must have cracked open something in Bill's psyche by reading this book, with how talkative he'd been today—Ford suspected he'd learned more about Bill's world in less than thirty seconds of staring at the crayon drawings in the living room than he had in all the years he'd known him. He itched again to start recording revelations in his journal.

Would Bill have been this forthright years ago, if Ford had remembered more about the book then and asked about it? Or was Bill only willing to share so much because the Pines already knew the truth about his cruel intentions and he had nothing more to hide? No, that couldn't be it—just a year ago, long after he'd revealed his plans, Bill had been willing to guardedly confess to Ford that he'd "liberated" his dimension, but nothing more. The only descriptor he'd given of it was "flat." He hadn't even shown Ford an accurate illustration of his home world.

Then was it because he'd died since then—a ghost desperate to share his life story before he dissipated completely? Or was it just because Mabel had asked?

If Bill had been honest when he'd said he wanted to be Ford's friend... then, Ford supposed, it was possible Bill was also sincere in caring for Mabel. No, Ford was sure that was sincere. How many times had he seen Bill lost in thought, staring at the friendship bracelet she'd given him?

Ford idly flipped through Flatworld, choosing a passage at random to read, wondering how much he'd remember.

SQUARE. Most illustrious Sir, I can observe plainly that you are a Circle, though I know not by what magical means you have found an ingress into my dreams. Would your Lordship deign to satisfy the curiosity of one who wishes to know the identity of his esteemed Visitor?

SPHERE. Your question is more difficult than you may realize. To begin with, I am not a Circle, but rather a Sphere, the definition of which I shall explain to you in due time; and you, my humble pupil, if you exercise the full extent of your intellectual and rhetorical capacity, I hope shall be the Square who changes Flatworld. 

SQUARE. Your Lordship both honors and confuses me. I shall strive to be worthy of your high estimation, but I am naught but a mere Quadrilateral and know not how I could contain the potential to achieve such a feat.

SPHERE. I see I have gotten ahead of myself. I shall explain the purpose of my visit. I hope to find in you—as being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician—a fit prophet to receive the Gospel of Higher and Lower Dimensions, which I am allowed to preach to only one brilliant mind in a century. 

SQUARE. Pardon me, my Lord, if I am speaking blasphemously in my ignorance; but would not a messenger from beyond this Plain who delivers Gospels to Prophets be better described as an Angel?

SPHERE. You may refer to me as an "Angel" if you so wish, as my nature is not so different from the creature you call such. However, I have come not to offer a revelation of the truth of the Higher Dimensions, but to bless you with the inspiration to discover the truth for yourself. In this manner, I am less like unto an Angel than I am to a Muse—

Ford threw the book on the floor.

####

When Ford headed back upstairs, he resolved to tear down all Bill's crayon drawings and throw them away, lest he give into the temptation to waste the rest of Journal 5's pages meticulously cataloguing them.

But when he reached the living room, the walls were bare, with no sign the papers had ever been there aside from some stray crayon marks and a little extra damage to the wallpaper where the tape had peeled up, and a faint smell of smoke.

Ford followed the smell into the kitchen. There was a cast iron skillet on the dark stove, embers and the last few strands of smoke trailing up from it. Bill was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, staring out into the night, nursing what looked like the second cider can of the night.

"What's all this?" Ford asked.

Without turning around, Bill said smugly, "I knew you'd be back to try to get those papers."

"Wh—? I was coming to throw them away."

"In the middle of the night?" Bill scoffed. "Please."

Ford frowned at the skillet. Well. Temptation removed, just like he'd wanted. Although a petty part of him was miffed that now Bill thought he'd been coming to rummage through his detritus for secrets about his home world, rather than seeing Ford confidently throw it in the trash. "How did you get the stove on?"

"Oh, is it on?" Bill asked innocently.

Ford double checked. It was not, and the knobs to operate it were still removed. But it radiated heat as though it had been; Bill hadn't just dropped the papers in the skillet and ignited them there. (Which would have been an entirely new concern.) Ford checked the cabinet where they kept the stove knobs—all still there. If he asked Bill how he'd achieved that, he'd probably just profess ignorance.

Fine, Ford had plenty of other questions he wanted to ask. "How long have you been able to levitate objects?"

"You mean like this?" Bill lifted his empty cider can, tapped it twice with his index finger, and left it suspended in midair.

"Yes, like that."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I can't do that," Bill said.

Ford sighed in frustration. "Was it the eclipse? You said you were—what was it, 'better at floating' than us? Did it... unlock something? Or have you always been able to do this?"

"This is what I used to like about you, Stanford. You're so curious. You come up with the most interesting connections between things. Sometimes connections I'd never thought of! And you keep—asking—questions. Even when nobody answers you." He finished his second can, used both hands to crush it, and left it floating in the air next to the first. "You used to be such a good student."

You used to be such a good teacher, he wanted to shoot back—but that was a lie. Bill had never been a good teacher, he'd just pretended to be one.

He'd been a good teacher to Mabel today.

Why isn't he always a good teacher? Why had he chosen to be a poor facsimile when he could have chosen to be the real deal? Why hadn't he been better? Why hadn't he been better? Why did they always seem to have these conversations in the middle of the night?

"Why are you..." Ford spread his hands helplessly, gesturing at all of Bill, everything he'd ever done—golden god of infinite wisdom, poisoned by lies and cruelty, trapped in a slowly rotting body. "Why are you like this."

Ford wasn't expecting Bill to get out of his seat and round on him so fast. He didn't even see the blow coming before Bill punched him.

Ford seized Bill's wrist and only barely caught himself before he broke it.

Bill didn't even acknowledge Ford's grip. "I'm so sick of you." His voice was hard as iron. "If you ever ask me that again, I'll burn down this shack with all of us inside."

Ford stared at Bill. He let go of his wrist.

Bill silently swept around Ford and out of the kitchen.

"I'm sorry."

Bill's footsteps fell silent. After a moment, he muttered, "Might've overreacted."

Something about the grudging not-apology hit Ford harder than a proper apology ever would have. He remained standing in the kitchen until long after Bill had gone upstairs.

The cans had fallen at some point during Bill's departure. Ford knelt to pick them up. Experimentally, he tapped one twice, and let it go.

It fell to the floor again.

It occurred to him that, depending on what happened tomorrow, those might have been the last words he'd ever say to Bill.

####

Bill shuffled to his sleep spot under the attic window, flopped unsteadily onto the cushions, pulled Journal 4 from its hiding spot, and carefully stuck the gold star Mabel had given him earlier that day to one of its pages.

And then he filled half a page with all the things he should have screamed at Ford.

####

Mabel came into the bedroom, shut the door—it had been patched earlier that day by Soos—and flopped face up on her bed. Staring at the ceiling, she said, "Dipper I know everything now."

Dipper was already under the covers, eyes shut. "About what?"

"Bill."

"What shape was his dad?"

Mabel paused. "I know almost everything about Bill."

"Pfff."

"But I do know his mom was some kind of supermodel or something! He says that's where he got his good looks. I don't know if he's actually good-looking by Flatworld standards, or if he just has really high self-esteem, but if his mom was a model I guess he could have inherited whatever Flatworlders think is good-looking—"

"How do you know he's not lying?"

"Why would he lie about that? I'll never meet his mom."

"To make his family sound cool?"

Uncertainly, Mabel said, "I guess." After a pause, she loud-whispered, "Did you read Flatworld?"

Dipper figured he wasn't getting to sleep any time soon. He pushed his covers down and sat up. "Yeah."

"It was really messed up, huh?"

Dipper thought about it. "I... guess it was, yeah." He hadn't thought about it much earlier—he'd been trying to wrap his head around the math and visualize the fourth dimension, and then his quick tour of the Nightmare Realm had pushed it from his mind completely; but... "The author's really obsessed with dead baby shapes, huh."

"You remember those old 70s cartoons with singing numbers we watched in class to try to teach us multiplication?" Mabel asked. "I was expecting it to be like that but for old timey people. Not about shapes getting executed for having short sides."

"Or squares getting locked in insane asylums for heresy if they tried to say the third dimension existed."

"Or major sexism against lines."

"Yeah, what was that about? Did they really think lines went around stabbing everyone to death just because they're pointy and they could?"

"I don't know, maybe lines really did do that. If I kept being told to shut up because my head was too skinny to hold a brain, I'd stab my husband too."

"I guess that makes sense." Light through the attic's triangular window illuminated the room a deep gray-blue; but as Dipper watched, the room darkened as a cloud covered the moon. It was probably going to rain tomorrow. "And... this is where Bill grew up?"

"Yeah," Mabel said quietly. "Some details are different from the book, he said so. Like he told me colors weren't illegal and peace-cries were just a dumb etiquette thing. But..."

"What about the executions? Or—or triangles being treated like servants by everyone else?"

"I don't know. He didn't want to answer questions like that. He talked about stuff like dance clubs and gardening in space, but he got super mad when I tried to ask about the serious stuff."

"Maybe he got his power as part of some... triangle uprising? And then he went crazy and decided to destroy everything?" Dipper was thinking, again, about the Axolotl's half-remembered prophecy. That maybe Bill was here to help them against some threat even worse than him.

"I can see why he destroyed his dimension," Mabel said.

Dipper winced, "Okay, but—sure, it was bad, but that doesn't mean his entire dimension deserved to die."

"No, of course not," Mabel said quickly. "But like I get it. If all that was going on."

"If it was. Just... how much is different from the book, and how much is true?"

"I don't know."

The room fell silent again.

"Welp," Mabel said brightly, "I've got the rest of summer to get the whole story out of him! Goodnight, Dipper!"

Dipper's stomach flipped with guilt. "Yeah." The rest of summer. Mabel left for Portland in the morning. "Goodnight."

He lay down, pulled his sheet back up, and stared at the ceiling.

Friday, 11:00 p.m.

####

(Next week's chapter is exactly what you think it is. But before we get there, I'm looking forward to hearing what y'all think about this week!)

[nonnieapple]

Afk journey, Sinbad, trans male/gender neutral reader, nsfw fanfiction. (I love this man very much)🤍

⛈️☂️Hook, Line, and Sinker☂️⛈️

• (Sinbad x trans!male!Reader)

• r a t i n g: e x p l i c i t • 4 1 4 0 w o r d s

• p o s t e d: 01.11.2024🌧️ navigation

n o t e: sinbad is so hot, i wish men were real :( s u m m a r y: sinbad walks in at the worst possible time, and the following events complicate your relationship further.

It was nearing night, and the hamsters were fast asleep as well as most guests of the inn. 

  When Sinbad walked into your room, you were staring out of the window with a wistful look, like the look his mothers had when they gazed out at the sea, remembering their husbands, lost forever to the fog and unrelenting waves. He wondered who you longed after, if anyone. Maybe you longed for home. Or for something he couldn't possibly imagine. 

  Before he closed the door, you broke the silence. 

  "You dare disturb my rest?"

  Even turned away, you heard him. Your voice sent tingles up his leg. The room veered towards cold, the windows open, making the curtains flutter like sails. 

  "You're really living it up in here," Sinbad remarked, inviting himself to sit down on the fancy armchair flanked by another and a couch in the west of your room. 

  He hadn't ever been in it yet, and he was sure you wouldn't mind if he just sprawled out a little, he stretched, his boots hitting the leg of the short table. Lit candles sitting upon golden thrones flickered on it. Two glasses and a bottle were there as well. 

  "As I should, I was to have a vacation, and I'm still getting it, Cedartown or not." You made your way to the couch, your visage somewhat blurry from all the glamour swallowing up your form, the air around you swaying. 

  If he looked at you too long, he could see something was terribly wrong. It was not something anyone could notice at first, or at second sight, only those looking for it might begin to pull at the thread. He stopped examining you. He wasn't sure what he'd find. 

  You were like the fog that had almost killed him- leading him in mental circles until he went mad trying to get himself out of it. 

  Sinbad's leg jerked when you approached. You stood, close, your robe made of small, black, and knitted net. It should've revealed everything you wore under it- instead, everything around your chest and hips darkened and blurred. 

  The magic that wafted off you made his head spin. Or maybe it was that he drank too much. Sinbad sighed shakily as you ghosted your touch over his face, your eyes sharp and inhuman. The next second, they turned warm. 

  "Did you drink that swill again? Here, drink something good for once." 

  He barely caught the bottle you threw into his arms, and he thought, somewhat incredulously, You're too kind.

  But, really, Magister- I don't know what to think of you. One second you wanna kill me and the next you're my savior. 

  I'll never know who you are, will I?

  His eyes skimmed over the label. Dark liquid sloshed within darker green walls. "Woah! Fancy stuff. It's actually red."

  The wine he was used to at most establishments was pale, watered down to save costs. You shrugged. You must've been used to good wine, good food, good people. He envied you. 

  "It's from an... old friend."

  The way you said that with so much hesitance made his heart drop. 

  "They must be rich."

  Sinbad popped open the bottle and poured himself some. He might as well indulge, and your room was a good place to do that. Upon second thought it might be questionable. 

  He had to hold back on drinking. He couldn't afford to do something stupid.

  "Beyond that, and a massive drunkard I could never deny, but as I don't drink I have no use for his gifts." You took up the whole couch, propping up your head with a hand, the other playing idly with the belt of your delicate robe. 

  If he was to be mean, he'd liken you to a fish caught in a net, but he couldn't lie, you were more of a siren. 

  You hummed.

  "I guess I could have a glass."

  You poured yourself nearly half the bottle, and swallowed a third of the glass, drinking like a fish. He struggled not to gawk at you. 

  "Old friend... bet you have plenty of those. Not like it bothers me," he tacked on at the end, scratching at his scalp lightly. 

  The fireplace crackled and sputtered red. Strange, it gave off no warmth. Was it magic? Sheesh, what about you wasn't magic? 

  The rug beneath his boots was sure real, and a real good rug, too. If he were to get piss drunk he'd choose the rug over the street to pass out on. Oh, there were even pillows on the floor. Perfect. 

  "I mean it. We were friends, he isn't an old flame- as far as I know."

  As far as you knew?

  "You sure about that?" He raised a brow. 

  "Quite. Though one actual old flame, I wonder how she's doing. It's been a while, I last saw her in Holistone, it has been months since then. Damn Hogan for sending me on this "vacation", now I'm stuck in the middle of the sea with no idea when I'll see him or Valen. He should've gone with me."

  Pushing aside his slight offense at the Rustport slander, you had mentioned General Hogan and Valen a few times. One was a Magistrate and, guess what, General of Holistone, the other some swashbuckling knight who, as he understood it, was hitting on you. 

  "Well, I'm glad he didn't."

  "Hm? Why is that?" You smirked, your eyes glimmering like the wine you swished in your hand.

  If Sinbad was pale, you would've seen his face lose color in an instant. 

  "I mean- I meant- he would've drowned in his armor, is all! It would've been worse than what happened to Chippy." 

  He drank quickly so he couldn't see your gloating expression.

  "You're holding your glass like you're throttling a neck." 

  Even if he drank and drank, he still heard your voice, and if he plugged his ears, you'd get into his mind, too. 

  He couldn't tell if that was a way to hint at his discomfort or point out his terrible manners. 

  "I'm not much of a wine drinker."

  You, on the other hand, held your glass between your thumb and forefinger ever so lightly. That fucking hand was calling him poor just at a glance. 

  "This better?" He emulated the way you did it, though it was nowhere near as graceful. 

  "Much better. The wine compliments your shirt." 

  The red, satin shirt, an illusion you cast, felt good nonetheless, and the wine was divine. It was bright, just sweet enough, and with a hint of berries and zest. It tasted more like the few fruits he had tried than the usual- as you put it- "swill" he drank. 

  It settled warmly in his chest, with the occasional sour tingle in his cheeks. 

  Sinbad didn't want to leave your room. It was fancy, and more importantly, it had wine AND you. 

  "How've you been?" You said between sips, your expression softening. 

  "Good. I've been spending a lot of time poking around the ship, avoiding going to Brineville so I don't have to explain myself. Things are better than before I met ya, anyway, I can finally do what I want, and... everything's so calm." 

  It was strange to not have to think about every little expense anymore for the village now that no one threatened its safety, and he was essentially a "hero". Sure, he still had to make money somehow and Rustport was as rusty as ever, but so much had been lifted off his shoulders. 

  By you, no less. 

  He'd said he'd repay you. That nagged at his mind sometimes. What could you possibly want? 

  It was nothing to worry about. It wouldn't be worse than what he had gone through. 

  "Planning on leaving soon?" 

  If he wasn't mistaken, he saw you frown ever so slightly. 

  "Not yet. I've got a lot to do here before I leave. What about you?" 

  You threw back your head and let your hair spill over the edge of the couch. 

  "You know, been here and there, helping people as I do, went fishing with my familiars. I like helping people and spending time with them but I do need alone time." 

  That was why the hamsters were in another room. Sinbad had to admit, they were cute and had grown on him. You truly were the most precious thing he had ever found washed up on the beach. He'd be no one without you. 

  "Are you leaving soon?" 

  You shook your head. "I want to stay a bit longer, until you leave, I suppose. I won't have much to do then. I'm dealing with people's problems rather quickly." 

  Of course, you weren't staying only for him. You were busy. 

  "I'm glad you're staying a bit longer." He couldn't imagine being without you now. You were the closest friend he'd had. Everyone wanted something from him, and you had asked for the least, always generous, if quirky. 

  You smiled, returning his giddy expression, which he hadn't noticed himself pull. 

  He felt his face get warmer. Must've been all the wine. 

  He and you listened to the crackling of the fire, finishing your glasses. You lounged like a cat. You were the image of peace when you closed your eyes. He rolled up his sleeves, feeling somewhat hot all of a sudden. He waited for you to kick him out, it'd happen sooner or later.

  You watched from under your lashes. 

  "I was surprised that you had tattoos, though they are common here," you said. 

  He had helm tattoos on each forearm. "Funny story, I got them when I was drunk, like, extremely. I don't remember where or how exactly I got them." At least they healed fine and he had not felt much pain. He hadn't felt much at all.

  "They suit you well." Your eyes lingered for a while. 

  "I have more that you haven't seen." He smirked, putting on that smooth-talking persona again. 

  "Although tempting, you won't smooth-talk me, Sinbad," you said sternly. 

  He sighed. A guy had to try. You were so damn hard to scam and trick, it was annoying. You were one of the only people immune to his charms. You were looking at him like he was a helpless animal. Again. 

  Instead of words of pity, he was hit with: 

  "You look upset. Mope in another room, I'm exhausted," you said, yawning and turning away from him unceremoniously. 

  He left with a huff. 

  "Good night to you too, Magister Merlin." 

  ...

  "Good night." 

  He should've been asleep.

  Sinbad crept across the hall towards your newly luxurious room, careful not to make a sound, like he was escaping from a dungeon (like he had many times). 

  Sinbad cracked open your door. Strange, he left it unlocked, he thought. The room was dark and silent except for the sounds of the breeze coming in through the windows, like breaths.

  You seemed to be asleep, as far as he could tell. He was sure he had heard something from your room. Maybe it had been the wind.

  "Magister?" he said into the black, closing the door behind himself. It was not entirely dark, he noticed as he moved towards your canopy bed, as there was a lone candle burning close to the window. 

  The fireplace had no remains of smoldering wood. 

  The windows- they were closed shut. The sound was not from there. Had it been the draft instead? If this was how noisy the good rooms were, he'd go complain to Bols later. 

  Sinbad pushed past the closed curtains of the canopy bed, the fabric heavy and lush, a velvet he hadn't even dreamed of touching before, with much trepidation, his heart tense, ready for a beast to lunge at him any moment. 

  He didn't see what happened, it happened swiftly, the shape in the bed shifting loudly. The sound of the breeze halted. 

  "Ah, Sinbad. I was just thinking of you," you said, and it was undeniably you, your voice quiet yet clear, a little exasperated, your breathing so shallow he would've believed you if you said you had run around the whole of Rustport in a minute. 

  He would've believed you if you hadn't been in your bed all this time.

  "Why aren't you asleep?" he stammered with wide eyes, gaze lost as he adjusted, making out your fuzzy shape. It was leaner than usual. He sensed none of your usual glamours on you.

  "I could ask the same of you." 

  He leaned his knee on the bed, and you moved away. 

  "Some noise woke me up, and I thought it came from your room. Was I right?" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, seeing that you lay rigid and didn't want him to come near you. To him, it seemed that something had happened, and you were uncooperative as to what. 

  One of his jobs was to get information. Clearly, he wasn't much good at it with you around. 

  "Did something happen, Magister? You're worrying me." His brows lowered over his honey-brown eyes. 

  "You didn't knock. You should leave my room." The light brightened against your face. Your skin was dewy and your hair was disheveled, the bedsheets in disarray. You were a mess. 

  The Merlin, a mess? 

  "I did know- and- you can't kick me out again!" He leaned over you as you leaned against cushiony pillows.

  You pushed on his chest to get him away, your hand hot and humid. 

  "... Are you dense or what?" you snapped. "What do you think I'm doing in a dark room, alone, in my bed, gasping for air?" 

  His face transitioned from bewilderment to horror. 

  Oooh.

  Embarrassment hit him like a wave. Holy Tritonus, he had heard you moaning. In this case, he was dense beyond belief. And the reason you were recoiling wasn't because something was wrong, it was, because, well. He chose the worst possible time to intrude. 

  And the reason your frame seemed leaner now was because you had no glamours concealing your body indeed, and no clothes besides that robe. He could see your bare skin between the fabric you held together with a tense hand. 

  He had trouble not looking. And it wasn't the wine, that had long left his system. 

  "Shit, I... I didn't..."

  He had no excuse, and so close to you, caging you in, neither of you could escape, captured in the world's most awkward stalemate. The words drowned in the depths of his mind.

  "You said you were thinking about me earlier. Do you mean...?" he trailed off, his voice mumbling and strained. Everything felt like a dream. He'd pinch himself if he wasn't frozen. 

  "I left the door open for you. I didn't expect you to come." 

  Sinbad's breathing had accelerated. He had already had thoughts about you. He couldn't possibly resist anything you asked him to do. That hint of servitude remained in him, and he was all eager to please. 

  "I'm here." He tried to smile, but it came out rather strained. 

  You pulled him in by tangling your hands in his freshly dried hair. Your lips were one push away. 

  He had already gotten ready for bed- his skin infused with whatever fancy soaps he managed to snatch this time. It mixed with that woody scent of a faraway home that clung to you no matter how many times you got drenched with rain or seawater. 

  "So?" 

  He felt your every breath. Berries. 

  "So..."

  You kissed him first. 

  You were far from a reserved, shy mage. You nipped at his lip and broke the kiss just to piss him off. 

  He cursed like the sailor he was. Next thing he knew, his boots were lost in the dark along with his scarf (it felt like sacrilege to wear it during this), his shirt untucked and partially unbuttoned by your nimble fingers. You traced over the anchor tattoo between his collarbone and shoulder. 

  That wasn't how he expected you to find it. 

  Your hips were fuller than they appeared, filling him with thoughts he couldn't possibly speak, and your waist was small, perfect for holding when he-

  Your chest wasn't quite... flat. That made him stop. His silent question hung in the air. 

  "I'm trans," you said, amused at how he was surprised by you again and again. You had hidden your chest to a point where he couldn't have guessed. 

  He had never been with someone like you (in any sense), but he didn't mind. 

  Your chest was soft, each breast perfectly fitting into his hand. At each caress and pull you reacted accordingly. It was his turn to be amused, and he was enjoying it immensely. 

  Your face and voice did not falter, the only thing betraying your feelings being your shallow breathing. Would your breaking point be easy to reach, or would he reach his first? 

  Goosebumps raised on your thighs when he felt them up with his calloused fingers. Only the richest of the rich could have pristine hands in Rustport. Sinbad spread your legs with little resistance from you, his hand wrapping around most of your thighs' circumference. 

  His hand dipped between your legs. You were wet, the wetness covering parts of your inner thighs. The hotness ignited a fever in him, a fever he hadn't felt in a long time, and never so strongly. Most of his prior fucks were hookups, and sometimes, to get out of uncomfortable situations in his jobs. They didn't happen often and he hardly looked forward to them. With you, he could hardly stop his hands and other body parts of his from thrusting right into you. You were by far the hottest guy he'd been with.

  At the rough touch on your clit you jolted with a soft sigh, your legs closing on instinct, but they were stopped by Sinbad being in the way. 

  The thought crossed his mind that you were surrounded by others from all sides, and at any second, anyone could walk in. He didn't mind- he liked a bit of danger. 

  "How are you feeling?" he whispered close to your ear, hand exploring all the places that could feel best for you. He would make sure you'd remember this as a positive memory, and even if you left and never saw him again, the scene would stick in your mind.

  "I've been better," you said with a shortness of breath, but impressively coherently.

  "Don't you think this is a bad time for jokes?" Would you still talk like that if he filled you up? Would your face still be so serene? 

  "It's a perfect time for-" he interrupted you as he slid his finger over your clit over and over again, making your legs tremble and your brows lower. He might've not been experienced, but he was a quick learner.

  After he got you to a point where you were panting and your pulse hammered relentlessly, he lowered his finger to your entrance, teasing it. You covered your mouth. A thin string, like fishing line, followed his hand as he withdrew. 

  Sinbad began with one finger, your tight walls even hotter than your wetness. Fuck. It felt amazing on his fingers. It might've made him cum instantly if he tried fucking you like that. 

  "Relax your muscles, there's no need to be tense," he said soothingly. 

  You visibly stopped straining and let him push his finger in fully. It circled your smooth cervix. You were pretty shallow inside. 

  He was clueless at that point, unsure of what to do for you. 

  "Curl your finger towards yourself."

  Now you were the one close to his ear, leaning on his shoulders so he could have better access and less lewd sounds would be heard. 

  When he curled it as you said, he felt a spongy tissue that gave way under his prodding. You bit into his shoulder with little regard for how much that shit hurt. It would leave a mark, or even better, a scar. Yay. One more to the arsenal. He would have a hard time explaining that one, as it was in a visible place between his neck and shoulder muscles. 

  He groaned at the pain, pulling you halfway onto him. One hand of his rubbed your clit, and the other, inside you. You must've been leaving a hickey judging by the slight tingle on his neck. It made him harder than he already was. 

  Feeling every little groove inside and outside you couldn't be replicated by just ramming his dick in, and he thanked you that you had made the choice, since he was unwise- in general. 

  "What would your love-struck Knight think, Magister?" He pressed his lips into your shoulder. Slim, but surprisingly muscled from carrying every situation you got into on your shoulders. 

  You'd look good on top of him. With other people, his mind veered into nonsense and mundane thoughts of what he'd have for breakfast. Right now all he could think about was you, you in every way, in every angle, his. Everyone was right- he was greedy. Just not about money. 

  "Getting fingered by someone you met, what, a month ago? If even that?" Sinbad smirked, making sure you saw his expression. You bit your lip and gazed at him like you were oh so woeful. Would you tell the Knight what you'd done tonight? He didn't care if you did or not, but if you did, Sinbad would've loved like to see his face. 

  "He'd be jealous, I bet," you stuttered out with each thrust and curl of his finger, and when he added a second, you were reduced to adorable huffs and sighs, far from the virtuous Magister Merlin out in Rustport streets, a man of class and poise. A man who was now gasping for air with Sinbad's fingers deep in his cunt.

  He kissed from the swell of your chest, up to your collarbones and neck. You were not a man, not a human, you were a dream, a fog a foolish sailor like him would lose himself in.

  Screw him trying to make you never forget him. He'd never forget you, as he fell for you hook, line, and sinker, a fish falling for bait. He would never find someone like you. Someone who so easily saw through his tricks and had him willingly serve. 

  He could do it every night, sneaking in, fucking you whichever way you wanted him to, and acting like nothing was afoot. 

  You got him. 

  He kept gently fingering you as you gasped in an orgasm, one quite notable, your body going soft against his, your skin sticky and heart pounding. 

   What he had done felt automatic, like his body wasn't entirely his, his rhythm mechanical in nature, following your every whim and whine. He had just gotten you off, willingly, giddily, even, and enjoyed it. 

  That had been a first for him. 

  The first thing you said to him once you regained your breath and composure was: "Go wash your hands." 

  What a sweet way to snap him out of it. 

  It was fortunate that you had a bathroom attached to your bedroom. He didn't feel keen on doing a walk of shame through the halls. 

  The mirror revealed to him how hard you'd bitten him, leaving not only a hefty tooth mark, but even a hickey, too high for his scarf to hide. He cursed you inside his mind. All things considered, it was expected to have him do whatever he wanted to you, not the other way around. If you told him to jump into the sea right this second he probably would've done it. A flush was blooming across his face, not too obvious, but there. 

  You were next in the bathroom, and when you returned, Sinbad was on your bed, grinning. He did not budge a muscle.

  "You're not kicking me out again, Magister. This handsome face needs its beauty sleep." 

  "I'll allow it," you said, tucking yourself in on the other side. Sinbad lay curled to take up as little space as possible. It wasn't exactly comfortable. You neared him, tugging his arms around your back, and you entwined under the thick blanket. 

  Hook, line, and sinker. 

  He didn't want the morning to arrive and so cruelly take you away. He'd savor every moment he had with you. For once in his life, he did not feel bound to you by duty, but by the call of his heart, similar to how he felt about the sea. Like the sea, you'd pull him in, and keep him wallowing in feelings so alien. 

  Did you know what you did to him? He didn't need you to. He just needed you close. 

  "Good night," he said. 

  "Seriously this time?" 

  "Seriously, I promise." 

  The lone candle flickered out.

[eventinelysplayground]

The Dangers Of Reading.

I got the inspiration for this fic and ran with it to the point I had it almost done in one sitting. I am splitting it into two as it turned out pretty long so I picked a fun point to divide it into the two parts. This is the first part and is SFW ans I plan to post the NSFW part sometime tomorrow. Do I now also know too much about pornographic novels in Victorian times...maybe. Kate has a night alone in the castle and decided to spend some time reading. Fluff, funny WC approx 1460.

It was a quiet evening at Crown castle and Kate was taking full advantage of it. At dinner the previous night he had learned from Victor that all the members of Crown would be out all night tonight for one reason or another giving her an extremely rare night of peace and solitude. As everyone else was going to be out she had suggested to Victor that it might be a good chance to give the servants an unexpected evening off and he had readily agreed. Alfons and Lord Elbert had been the last to leave, departing in the very late afternoon for a social event at another nobleman's country estate.

She had waved them off cheerfully while clutching the package Alfons had given her before they left, apparently it was for if she found herself ‘too lonely’ without them all around. As soon as the door shut behind them she dashed off to her room tossing the package carefully onto her bed before stripping to enjoy a luxurious hot bath one of the maids had readied for her as their last duty before their night off.

She soaked in the water until it began to grow cold and her skin started to prune but it was just so relaxing she didn't want to leave it. Once Kate finally pulled her relaxed body out of the bath she dressed herself in a nightgown and sat at the vanity while she dried and combed her hair. Normally she wouldn't dare leave her room in just her night clothes but with all the other residents gone she decided to throw caution to the wind and just stay comfy for the night. Just as she was heading out her door she caught sight of the package on her bed.

“I wonder just what it is?”

Curiosity winning out Kate sat on the end of her bed and unwrapped the package.

“Oh some books!”

Kate turned the two books over in her hands examining them.

“Hmm, I don't see a title or author on them. I wonder what they're about?"

She gave a faint shrug of her shoulders before standing and leaving her room taking the mystery books with her. She bounded down the stairs like an excited child and went to the kitchen to prepare herself dinner. It was nothing fancy or complicated but it smelled delish and she enjoyed it to the fullest.

After taking an extra long time to enjoy her dinner and an extremely rich slice of chocolate cake for dessert the sun had set and Kate was left wondering exactly what to do next. That's when she remembered the books and decided to head to the sitting room. She lit the fireplace and sprawled out across the sofa and opened the top book skimming the first few pages.

“Oh, it looks like it's a romance novel.”

Kate kicked her feet in excitement and eagerly dug into the book. As she read a smile spread across her face, and then it slowly began to fall. All of a sudden her eyes widened like dinner plates and she closed the book tossing it to the other end of the sofa where it bounced off landing on the floor.

“That is not a romance novel, uggh Alfons! I know you can't hear me but argh!”

Kate rose from the sofa and started pacing in front of it.

“How could he give me something like that!”

Kate realized what she said and almost immediately let out a drawn out sigh.

“What am I saying, of course Alfons would give me something like that. Guess I'll just find a different book to read, I'm definitely not reading those.”

Kate walked over to a bookcase studying it for a moment before picking a book off one of its shelves then settled back onto the sofa with her new book and began to read. It wasn't long however before her eyes began to wander from the page to the book laying on the floor. She quickly shook her head and turned back to her book. Another few minutes and again she was glancing at her discarded book.

“No Kate, proper ladies don't read books like that.”

She shook her head and went back to reading, lasting a whole three minutes before she snapped the book shut placing it gently in her lap. She glanced over again at the book on the floor.

“Well it's not like anyone else is here…”

Kate placed the book in her lap onto a side table and got up to retrieve the one that she had tossed away.

“And it would be rude not to at least read a bit more of it since Alfons went through the trouble of getting them for me.”

Kate sat back down on the sofa bringing her knees up close to her chest and setting the book upon them. The night passed quickly as Kate became immersed in her book, the occasional gasp or exclamations of oh my escaping her lips. Before she knew it she had reached the end of the book and she frantically turned the page back and forth a few times while blinking.

“No! It can't end there. I mean after all that tension and teasing and… Alfons I could curse you if you weren't already!”

Kate slammed the book shut and dropped her head onto her knees. She cried out in frustration for a moment before her head snapped up.

“Oh please tell me this is the continuation.”

She reached behind her grabbing the first book her fingers landed on.

“Not this one.”

It was the proper book she had grabbed earlier and she placed it beside her on the sofa before reaching back again. Finally she felt it and brought it forward, opening it as soon as it was in front of her.

“Hehe yes!”

Kate settled back into reading and it wasn't long until she was squirming in place. The vivid scenes played out across the page in incredible, yet surprisingly tasteful, detail given the subject matter. A soft moan escaped her lips and Kate's eyes widened. She closed the book followed by her eyes.

“God, I wonder what it would feel like to have Roger do that to me.”

Her voice was barely a whisper but even then it shocked her to say it out loud and she clasped a hand over her mouth in shock. Her month as fairytale keeper had ended just recently but she had decided to stay. She made that choice because she had fallen head over heels for Roger, even if she hadn't admitted it out loud until now and even if he didn't love her back.

She let out a Shaky breath and opened her eyes and returned to her book. She wasn't sure how much time had passed before a sudden voice startled her.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Roger!”

Kate slammed her book shut and practically jumped off the sofa, the book falling to the floor in the process.

“What, what are you doing back? Nobody was supposed to be back until the morning!”

Remembering what she was wearing Kate frantically clutched at the neckline of her loose nightgown pulling it close together.

“The lectures were a dud and the drinking company wasn't any better so I decided to cut the trip short and came back early, why? You weren't up to anything bad now were you?”

Roger flashed her a smile and she audibly gulped before shaking her head.

“No, no of course not! You just startled me, that's all. Anyways, since your back now I'll just take my books and go up to my room. Goodnight Rodger.”

Kate hurriedly picked up the books off the sofa and ran off to her room. Roger waited for a few minutes before he slowly walked over to the sofa and picked up the book laying on the floor in front of it.

“Now then little lady, let's see just what had your heart beating so fast and what exactly it was you wanted to feel me do to you.”

Back safely in her room Kate collapsed against the door and slid down to the floor.

“That was too close, I am never reading these books again! They're nothing but….oh no, no no no!”

Kate was frantically flipping over one of the books as if that could change her now mortifying reality, she had left one of the books downstairs! She had grabbed two thinking they were it but she had forgotten all about the perfectly normal book she had grabbed earlier.

“I can't just leave it down there, what if somebody finds it, what if Roger finds it!?”

Kate softly banged her head against the door, she didn't have a choice. She had to go back downstairs and get that book back.

[bredforloyalty]

could you possibly elaborate more on how you found that ao3 fic that was previously deleted? i’ve lost soo many memorable ones over the years & if there is a way to find them via backup it would be such a game changer

of course!!! i don't know how you are with computers, i feel like tumblr users in general are pretty good at tech stuff or whatever and people in my circles are within the age range that uses computers or learned how in school so,, forgive me if there are too many details and you feel like i'm talking to you like to a toddler hdsgxy ((my sister, who's only a little younger than me, for example is very very online but not on her laptop and the lessons at her high school weren't very helpful, so she's just not very good at computer. so i tried to be thorough and make this friendly to someone who doesn't torrent, doesn't use excel, etc) <3

first, if you still have the link to the deleted fic (like, say, from a fic rec post or a forum), you can try searching on the wayback machine, but you probably tried that already! or you don't have a link! i just didn't want to leave it out ^^

so what actually helped me is there's this post, that uh i got this from, take a look at it, it might seem long or intimidating but i promise it's not complicated! BUT in case this helps, i'll also write down roughly what you need to know here (and then you can maybe read or skim that post looking for this info if you want): there is an archive of text files from ao3; the zip files of many many fics come with two sqlite files of metadata, basically databases that you can download and view/search with the appropriate program (db browser for sqlite is what op recommends and that worked just fine for me). and what you will be able to see, if you download the metadata, is whether the particular fic you're looking for is in the archive at all + where exactly you can find it in the zip files (so,, which batch of files has the file you want)

then op says that once you know which zip you need, you can download that and extract only the fic(s) you want. but this isn't always necessary actually, more on that in a second, it's just the general idea. i mean the idea is: get sqlite browser → download one of the sqlite files (takes time) → open it in the browser (file → open read only) → filter for whichever column you want to find what you're looking for (you can do the author or the exact title or a relationship and just browse too, ofc) → look at the first column that shows the path, this is where you can find the fic → download that zip (takes more time) → use winrar or another compression program/extractor to get that file and voilà

ok so, when you click on "show all files" on the internet archive, you'll be able to see that 'ao3_old_files' is 6.5 gigabytes, while 'ao3_current' is 18.3. if you're looking for a newer fic, it should be somewhere within the latter batch of zip files, which is hmm not ideal because it took me a while to download just 6.5 gb lmao so i don't know how much time 18 would take.. however !! if you look in the replies, you'll see op (and others?) helping whoever doesn't have the storage space or the stable internet or the time or patience to download bigger files. it's definitely worth a shot to ask them personally to look for what you want (unless it's vague, bc then it might be too much digging to ask a stranger to do but yeah otherwise op seems to have ao3_current.sqlite3)!

and if you want to look in 'ao3_old_files', i have that so obviously i'll check for you! and let's say i check and i find the fic you want. then i can do this

so the zip file (a bunch of excess data) doesn't even have to be downloaded. it just opened the fic in plain text for me 👍 unfortunately i don't know if there's a way to skip steps with the zip files that are queues, as in the ones that contain current fics and mainly epubs.... sorry </3

i hope you can find what you're looking for!! let me know if i can help with anything

[lopunnears]

new & improved about me

hi. you can call me a (it stands for whatever you want it to, send me your guesses if you want). i like fighting type pokemon, music, and traveling, so you'll see some posts about that. i'm an adult and any pronouns are fine.

{{ooc: my other blogs are @snowpointmailguy and @greatesteagle , but they all follow from here!}}

{{ OOC UNDER READMORE -- I RECOMMEND CHECKING IT }}

warning: i'm wordy. you don't have to read this whole thing, but i'd appreciate it if you at least skimmed the bold parts!

i've been meaning to update this blog with a fancified account for a hot minute since i got a (frankly surprising) amount of followers from this post--originally, when i started pokeblogging, i was mainly just intending to interact with my friends and they more or less know what i'm about. i think that, since i'm planning on kicking this blog back to life with an event, it's fair that everyone have some basic information about me, what i will and won't interact with, and my character.

for me: hi, i'm eve. i'm also an adult (21) who uses any pronouns, like my character, but that's where a lot of our similarities end, lol. as i'll elaborate on a bit later, this blog is sfw and i don't care if minors follow/interact, but i want this info out there so people can set boundaries as they feel they need to. i'm not excessively familiar with pokeblogging but i've been roleplaying on and off in various places for a long time! i'm wordy and i can be a bit blunt but i promise i'm friendly and would love to rp or talk :3

general boundary-setting:

like aforementioned, anything to be posted on this blog is sfw. for clarifying purposes, this refers to sexual content exclusively, and not necessarily violent content. any interactions of explicit natures will be ignored, and i would rather not extensively interact with any predominantly nsfw blogs; i'm happy to write with sfw sideblogs though! i want this blog to be safe for all ages; generally, i aim to maintain a pg-13 rating, so (for other adult muses only, please) mildly suggestive flirting that fits within that rating is fine!

i'm not familiar with all of the pokeblogging terms, but as a general rule of thumb, i'll interact with any kind of rp blog. canon protagonists, oc protagonists, fallers, sapient pokemon, it's all cool with me. however, i'd rather not interact extensively with any non-rp blogs, because...

i do my best to keep ic and ooc interactions purely separate. i am not generally comfortable interacting ic to ooc, ooc to ic, which means i politely ask you not to reblog my posts (with additions) on non-rp blogs because i will ignore them. asks from non-rp blogs are fine on or off anon as long as they aren't intended to be long-form interactions. i just need it abundantly clear that i am not my character and my character is not me.

about the character:

all of this information below is ooc and most muses have no way to know it. there will be hints for attentive muses but please don't pull anything revealing on him without letting me, the mun know beforehand.

a is an oc protagonist for legends arceus. he is alive in a day close to the present, primarily hanging around in paldea. he looks like a particularly haggard thirty-something, and that's the age range he claims, but he has lived for over a century. he has protagonist-level knowledge of the base game canon and will interact with legends arceus characters with that knowledge in mind. also, warning for a canon-typical complicated relationship with arceus/god figures in general.

a is not his real name. i would say she wouldn't give out her real name, except an attentive muse might notice this blog's connection to @snowpointmailguy at some point. the connection is that they're the same person, from two different points on the timeline. snowpointmailguy is drew pre-hisui timejump, lopunnears is drew many years post-hisui timejump.

various heavy content warnings may apply; i will tag to the best of my ability but feel free to ask if something is showing up frequently that i'm not tagging. if i start any major arc that will have frequent sensitive material, i'll make an announcement post warning for it!

if you got to the bottom, wow, i can't believe i actually wrote that much. i'm no good at being succinct, lol. thank you for reading and i look forward to writing with you!

[inscryptions]

there are three constants: the sun, the moon, and alhaitham’s ability to grind kaveh's gears. an unfortunate reality in its own right, though the architect ought to be grateful for any semblance of stability and reliability in his life, considering how often things (and people) seem to slip through his fingers.

the past is complicated, and relationships even more so. a stranger turns into a best friend, and a best friend to…well. whatever this is now. in an odd way, it reminds kaveh of the thesis he once ripped up and pieced back together all those years ago — still comprehensible, though far removed from its original state. 

but even in the face of never-ending arguments and bickering, there is an indisputable truth to contend with: alhaitham has done for him what others have not. and though kaveh is loathe to admit it, he finds that the most unshakeable part of his life is a friend that will never change — for better or for worst. 

he waits for alhaitham to step out before sneaking into the other's bedroom. it’s there that kaveh places a bottle of wine on the nightstand, along with a book titled, “In Other Words — A Unique Collection of “Untranslatable,” Culturally-Bound Words Across Teyvat.” 

A note is stuck to its cover: 

“I skimmed through this and thought you'd find it interesting. ”

With a P.S at the bottom:

“In the spirit of the New Year, drink to whatever it is that makes you happy in your own time. Just make sure you wash your glass after. I've already done the dishes.”

Signed with a flourish,  - Kaveh 

Oh.

I shouldn't be so surprised, considering how sentimental the man is, but finding that Kaveh has obtained gifts for me still takes me off-balance a bit. Perhaps I have only my history with him to blame for my lack of expectation, in which case he has succeeded at springing this gift on me. And how thoughtful it is, as befitting the man: a copy of In Other Words, which despite the resources at my disposable I had had yet to get my hands on the most recent version; and a rather delectable-looking vintage that based on its appearance will do well for welcoming the beginning of the new year. Despite the words on the note, he must've spent some time finding and procuring these items, and for a moment I wonder how much he spent on them. If he hadn't saved up beforehand... well, it makes me curious, and hopeful that he was able to get a good commission preceding their acquisition. And that, of course, he didn't spend all of said commission on these gifts.

I like to think that after so long I have become well-versed in the particular language that is Kaveh, and for all that we (more often than not) rile each other up after our fall-out, we still have at least a shadow of the friendship we once shared. This present wishing me a cordial New Year's is evidence of that on his end. After everything, he still cares in some way, shape, or form. It's... kind of nice, these little moments in which I realize all over again that our brotherhood, though tattered and torn to shreds, was not irreparably burned to ashes.

And now I don't feel as nervous or silly about the new foreign toolset I snuck in his nightstand. If he hadn't gifted me anything, he would've most likely felt embarrassment at having nothing with which to reciprocate as well as believed he'd incurred a debt and attempted to pay it back and, well, that's one headache I definitely don't need. Apparently our timing lined up well in the end, and how funny is that? (I don't think I'll be able to keep a straight face however if that Fontainian curve ruler makes its way into his hair with the rest of his architectural accountrements. No doubt it works well for him, and it still gets me every time that it does so well. It's very Kaveh, now that I think about it.)

I chuckle as I take both presents and hunt down a clean goblet before pouring myself a glass and sitting down to crack open the book. Now I want to see his reaction to the toolset if only for the look on his face.

"Mm, happy New Year indeed."

[spressocup]

Fighting back against my disordered eating and embedded diet culture mindset: DAY ONE

This morning, I was REEEEALLY HUNGRY. But I told myself "noo you can't eat yet, you don't need breakfast, wait until lunch!"

I was so fed up (bad pun, unintended) that I got on YouTube and watched some shorts made by Colleen Christensen. Her videos show me what my disordered mind wont: that obsessing over calories, setting up complicated rules around food, and imposing a sense of morality around certain food choices is just so JOYLESS and LIFE-DRAINING. Not only that, but it makes an impression on the little ones who look up to us.

So, watching these videos gave me the courage to eat breakfast after chapel. And then, something *wonderful* happened. The student association was handing out free donuts!!! I was overjoyed, and I ate that doughnut without ANY sense of fear, guilt, or shame. It was the most magical experience, and I bonded with a friend over the simple joy of enjoying a doughnut. After that, I got a sandwich that had BACON on it. REAL. BACON!!! I put half and half in my coffee instead of skim or almond milk, and I didn't even think about estimating how many teaspoons of it were in my cup.

Later, I wanted some ice cream. So I made a trip to the grocery store, and this trip was a shopping experience like I've never had before. Why? Because instead of overthinking what has the fewest calories and should I get the diet version, I just grabbed whatever looked like it would be tasty and nourishing and make me feel good. There was produce and greek yogurt, but also ice cream and noodles! And every item, both healthy and no-so-healthy, was one that I love to eat. I've never felt more fulfilled walking out of a grocery store.

The amazing thing about all of this is, I spent less time than ever thinking about food today, and I didn't eat any more than I would have if I'd obsessed over macros and restricted myself from fear foods like donuts and bacon.

Today has overall been a much better day. I took a long walk and didn't look at how many calories I burned. I bought a container of yogurt without checking out how much added sugar was in it. I hope I can continue like this. There is still a voice in my head saying I'll lose control and "let myself go" if I'm not obsessing over what I eat.

But when I look around, I see so many of my peers who eat what they want without playing mental games and they are all just fine. If so many people are doing alright without micromanaging their nutrition, then so can I.

[hidelias]

Chapter 5: The stolen box | A bend in space-time (season 1)

Chapter 5: The stolen box | A bend in space-time (season 1) The Umbrella Academy

March 25, 2019 - 10:09 am

My mind is still sizzling from the conversation I just had with Five. Because of his complicated quantum physics words? I don't think so. No, it's more to do with the realization that - after all - we're less alike than we'd thought. I'll need to think about that, but first things first. Right now, I'm going to pick up Klaus when he wakes up from his lethargy.

It's hard to see outside when walking through Hargreeves Mansion, but the few rays of light seeping through the stained-glass windows let me know that the rain has stopped. It really only lasted long enough to wash away the memory of Reginald Hargreeves.

As I reach the bottom of the grand staircase, in the hall, I see Pogo. His simian features are drawn into a deeply disgruntled expression, and he scans me as I pass with a form of suspicion. I hope he's not associating me with whatever stupid thing Klaus might have done.

I find him again in the reception living room, as I pass through the large door under the gallery balcony. He's there, sitting on the sofa. Talking… to a lamp. His dignity isn't much greater than it was the day before: he's still without his clothes, except for that horrid rainbow leopard brief. I sigh. At least he doesn't look like he's in a coma anymore. I enter silently, my footsteps muffled by the felt of the carpets, and stand in front of him, pointing an accusing index finger at him:

"You missed the Rocky Horror Picture Show".

On hearing this, he flinches a little but then turns to me. His first reflex is to check that he's not 'completely' naked, and quite frankly I can't decide whether that's thoughtful or pathetic. Plus, I'm quite convinced he's super proud of his choice of pattern.

"Oh. Rin. Hey," he stammers, holding onto the lampshade. "You were talking to that lamp. And by that, I mean 'really', to the lamp: not to whatever ghost might be lurking beyond. He shrugs. "No, I swear I don't. Besides, his conversation is lousy."

(…)

↝↝↝↝ Read 'A bend in space-time' ↜↜↜↜ Full chapter : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN Full story : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN

I chose to insert an OC - Rin - into the plot of The Umbrella Academy season 2, appearing almost only in deleted scenes. I try to give her an interesting story on her own. What to expect: digging into the psychology of the canon characters, seeing their daily lives through the eyes of an outsider, deciphering what's only skimmed over in the original series. A bit of fun, too, uh?

Any comment will make my day! ♡

[strugglinguist]

Disclaimer: It should go without saying, but all the views here are my own and do not represent any other person or my institution. We’re just having a bit of fun and talking about Linguistics and Academia. Also, cannabis is legal both recreationally and medicinally where I live in New York State. I am also not physically at work nor will I be including identifying information of anyone involved [Please include any and all caveats you can think of here. I checked the university code of conduct and everything.]

Hi Internet! Welcome to Episode 2 of High Linguistics with Taylor. I'm on the last of my weed stash today. I blitzed right through my dispensary buy because I ended up needing it a lot for pain and brain wrangling for that campus visit. I am not on ADHD medication, and I am OVER IT! But we're back for today at least. I need to save my money for a few weeks. I can still post about Linguistics, though! It will just be Not High Linguistics with Taylor.

Today we are working on a project for a book I am contributing to. My colleague and friend is the main editor of this book that includes like 16 or something people applying a particular methodology of finding wordhood in languages all over the Americas. I'll let you in on a secret, we linguists have NO idea what a word is. We can tell you things about them in different parts of the grammar (e.g. for sounds, for meaning, for sentence structure) but an overarching definition of the thing we all take for granted as a thing? It... may not be a thing.

Anyway, this book project is a VERY cool project and -in part- based on my dissertation, so it always makes me feel famous and awesome. ANYWHO! I am contributing two chapters. The first is already written and ready to be proofed for printing. I have to do that by Tuesday (June 6th). It shouldn't take too long really. I think I might try to get it out of the way today honestly.

The second chapter is a Commentary Chapter where I summarize and speak on the overall volume's findings (all 16 chapters or whatever). Some people found that there were clear candidates for a word. Others found mixed results. Others are left shrugging. These indigenous languages are often known for intensely complicating "word" and meaning manipulation, so wooooooo boy. They break every definition that has ever been proposed, and that's AWESOME! That means that they are crucial to us figuring stuff out. YEAH SCIENCE!

So far I've skimmed all of the chapters in the volume, and I've sketched some ideas for things to say. I've also got a list of questions to think on from my editor/colleague/friend. So... let's get to it! I'll write later about what I find and figure out. 😁

[awalkoflife-arc]

+ closed belated birthday starter for 🎉 @ltkarma 🎉

he wouldn't have let her birthday go by without making somewhat of a fuss had he known about it on the day of. avi of course, kept it on the downlow, allowing it to go by without so much as a remark or a celebratory comment in passing. if it wasn't for the calendar on her kitchen wall, highlighting a certain number of a certain month, he might not have picked up on it. it's why, when they find themselves at the hard deck, two days after she took another trip around the sun, he decides to dedicate a specific song to the girl who almost got away. sat at the keys, his fingertips skimming lightly across the chords, bradley looks up to scan the crowd for her. ❛ i'd like to dedicate this little number, ❜ he begins, and he smiles once his eyes find hers, ❛ to the sugar pie, honey bunch, belated birthday girl — miss avigail baker. ❜

it's a song they've been listening to on repeat lately, one that's a little ironic considering the depths of his feelings. he sings the opening lines with confidence and it's not long until the entire bar are singing along to the beloved four tops hit. he knows there's every possibility that she'll murder him in his sleep the next time he stays over, but it's worth it if there's so much of a slight chance that it'll make her smile. so, he continues to play, continues to sing, for her, because of her. ❛ sugarpie honeybunch, i'll do anything you ask me to, i can't help myself, i want you and nobody else. ❜ the lyrics ring true, in a way he's not yet ready to confront. their lives are beyond complicated, but tonight, there's just her, and him, and the bar and so, he sings on.

[oathwilled]

He gives a crooked little smile, and he shrugs a shoulder. " It took me a long time t'figure out who I was, " he admits. " Or —— who I was comfortable bein', I guess. " It's a strange admission, though it comes with the quality of it not being the first time he's had the thought, either. He's older than he looks; he's had time to work out a number of complications in his mind.

" I'll tell y'who I was then, I was small and skinny an' without a hair on me aside from my head, an' with pointed ears an' around a bunch o' people who'd never seen elven folk outside o' stories, an' all of 'em twice my size with beards down to their waists an' not knowin' what the hells to do with this scrawny half-human kid who wanted t'swing a sword half his size. So. Aye. Everything I did back then, I did it twice as hard as everyone else. Fightin'. Drinkin'. Bein' a pretentious arsehole. " He sighs, long and even. " Maybe t'prove somethin'. Maybe just to try t'find a place. I don't know. " The sigh turns into a snort of a laugh, though, and he skims a look over. " You, though, aye. I need th'stories o' you gettin' chased half-naked. "

The touch does feel good — it probably won't do much in the end, but for now it just feels nice to work out the stiffness. " I love you, " he says, soberly. " But I en't goin' to lie to you, either. Y'don't smell like flowers. An' neither do I. " He grins, rueful, and leans back a little as he stands, and reaches up to pull himself up. " Shit, I'd be happy with a barrel an' some clean water, " he says with a laugh. " Aye, let's look around. "

It's difficult to imagine Paerin like that now, but it's not so far fetched - he could imagine it to some degree - the years had changed them, hells he'd changed drastically in a matter of weeks. While he'd spent most of his life reserved and quiet, had had no shame when it came to taking his clothes off. That hadn't changed. " I have a hard time imagining you ever being like that. " A smile teases his lips, fingers still caressing over his knee, applying just a little pressure at the sides, if there are any tight muscles around it perhaps he can loosen them up. If not that then it's an excuse to have some down time. " - but it was probably smart, perhaps I should have considered that before I was chased down the streets naked once.. or twice. "

Knowing the two of them, it was unlikely they'd make it to the hot springs and not try to enjoy it a little too much. The thought of his muscles being able to relax so easily like that brought aches and pains forth that he didn't know he had. " If it does not help then it's just an excuse for me to touch you. " It's not as if they don't do that all the time, they do, but it's still intimate, it's just a little different.

The fight they'd had not so long ago it forgotten for the most part, he'd probably been out of line -- too sensitive, to quick to irritate. He should have been used to it by now, maybe he should have bitten his tongue. " You are supposed to say I smell like flowers. " His smile grows and his hand stills above Paerin's knee. " Maybe, maybe that's what it is. I am surprised the smell of us alone did not disarm the traps. " Aksel pulls himself to his feet from where'd lent back and offered the half - elf his hand. Usually he wouldn't, he kept the touching to a minimum around the others but it was a little attempt to help him with his knee and that was enough of an excuse. " Shall we find out? I am not camping out here if there's a chance of a bath. " In their dreams, maybe.

[jackrrabbit]

[excerpts of upcoming works.]

so as i discovered on @dream-theory the other day, i have over 63,000 words of wips right now??

i'm trying to rev myself up to post more, so here are a few excerpts from some of my favorite unfinished works, ranging from smut to fucked up smut! if anything here looks interesting to you, lmk so i'll be extra motivated to finish it ♥︎

pairings included in this post: [BNHA] Hawks x reader ✧ [BNHA] Todoroki x reader ✧ [BNHA] Overhaul x reader ✧ [BNHA] Shigaraki x reader (iwcb p4!) ✧ [KNY] Sanemi x reader (x Rengoku).

cw for all works: 18+, f!reader, all characters are adults. (btw these are the usual shitty first drafts, please have mercy 😭)

[BNHA] Hawks x reader /// Champagne Room

Summary: A petty thief gets more than she bargained for when she tries to take advantage of a pro.

Warnings: stripper!reader, love-drunk Hawks

Status: 2.5k words written out of ~5k total

You wouldn’t call yourself a villain, but sometimes you get jobs. At first it was all anonymous: letters in your mailbox with no return address, voicemails from blocked numbers. A time and a date, a name, a list of questions. And a number. Your reward. You ignored the requests at first, but then the numbers got bigger and bigger—and hey, if they knew your phone number and your address you were already screwed, so…

You made it happen. You did your thing (seduction, interrogation, et cetera) same as usual, except this time you did it on command. It was just one time, and then then two times, and—wow, the money was good. Way better than what you were getting skimming cards. You’re saving up for a house now. You’re gonna retire early. Maybe all the times you got called a tease or a slut or a bitch in high school because of your quirk were worth it, because now the newspapers are starting to call you Heartbreaker. For a villain name, it has a nice ring to it.

Hawks isn’t a job like those, though. He’s more of a vanity project, an impulse target. You’ll go easy on him—you’ll just get his savings account info and take a few rent payments out of it. No harm, no foul. Won’t even make a dent in his hero income, you’re nice like that.

“So…Keigo…do you trust me?” You rub your ass against the stiff bulge and trace fingers down the rigid bones at the top of his wings. You’re laying your quirk on so thick you can almost smell it in the air, you can almost taste it. So can he.

Hawks breathes in and his whole body trembles. “Course I do, angel, of course…fuck, I…” He blinks quickly. You can see it bearing down onto him, pushing away his self-interest: your influence, your charisma. Your quirk. The lights change and the melted gold of his eyes is slashed pink-purple-blue in the reflection. Wings curl around you, closing you in like an embrace.

“Can you do something for me?”

“…sure, if you want…?” Anything you want, anything for you, his hands say, hovering, almost touching your thighs, but Hawks won’t touch you until you give him permission, he can’t.

“Anything?” you ask, staring deep into his eyes like this is a romance novel and not a private room where you’re about to steal from the #2 hero. It’s like hypnosis, to be honest. Needs a connection.

“Anything, angel,” he breathes.

[BNHA] Todoroki x reader /// Experience

Summary: Todoroki knows his relationship with his boss will only work as long as there are no strings attached, but the arrangement gets a lot more complicated when her ex comes back into the picture.

Warnings: office relationship, alcohol mention

Status: 5.3k words written out of 8k (??? who fucking knows) total

They’re both laughing now, giggling like schoolchildren testing out curse words for the first time. The look on Todoroki’s face must not be as neutral as he wants it to be, because Kaminari notices—turns toward him and asks, “what do you think, Todoroki?”

It’s harmless. Todoroki knows that, knows Kaminari and Ashido don’t mean anything by it. It’s the same thing the other students do in university with good-looking professors and TAs, the way they’ve always done. And even though Todoroki doesn’t really understand the way they see you (hot for teacher? ice princess?) he can’t really admit he disagrees.

“Todoroki? You okay?” Ashido frowns and waves her hand in front of his face. “You’re totally zoned out tonight.”

“…I should go,” Todoroki says, standing suddenly and collecting his coat from the seat next to him. Ashido and Kaminari protest (“it’s early! you’re not even drunk yet!”), but he ignores them. “I have to go back to the office.”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re going to work even more,” Kaminari moans while Ashido nods ruefully along with him. “You’re making the rest of us look bad.”

Todoroki doesn’t need to work. He needs one of the account files for a deadline this weekend, and that’s what he tells them while he calls a car to take him back. He could get it tomorrow, Saturday—which is what he was planning to when he left this evening—but he wants to be there now, for some reason…it’s past 9PM on a Friday, and there’s no reason that you’d still be there, but…

There you are, sitting alone in your office, facing the view of the late-night skyline through your window. The sky is flat purple-black—there’s too much pollution to see the stars here in the city, Todoroki knows that—but the surrounding buildings are shimmering in the dark. You turn when you hear the door to the office open, and the expression on your face is like you’ve been caught in a private moment, something you didn’t intend for him to see.

“…Todoroki.” Your mouth moves around his name like you’re testing it. “You’re back.”

“I need to pick up the Steubens file,” he says slowly, hoping you can’t hear any hint of uncertainty in his voice. He didn’t drink much (two, two and half maybe, and his tolerance is always better than people think it is) but he doesn’t want you to think he’s been irresponsible.

“You should take a break this weekend. Don’t worry about the deadline, I’ll take care of it,” you tell him, letting your gaze flick over him. You frown a bit and he wonders what you’re seeing—his dress shirt unbuttoned under his collarbones and the sleeves rolled up past his forearms; his hair a little rumpled out of the style he puts it in for work. “Were you out with the interns? You didn’t need to come back to the office.”

Todoroki pulls long fingers through his hair and you follow the movement. “I don’t mind.”

You have this way of looking at him—always appraising, evaluating him against some secret standard that he may or may not measure up to. Kaminari’s theorized that it’s an intimidation tactic. It makes the other interns squirm, but Todoroki doesn’t have trouble holding your gaze. “If you insist,” you say finally. “But you shouldn’t work too hard. You should enjoy life while you’re young.”

The file is in the cabinet at your right, exactly where Todoroki knows you keep it. He should just take it. He should leave the office and go home, go to sleep. He should stop—standing here, in front of your desk, looking down at you, wanting you. Your hands, your voice, the soft bow of your lips… Maybe he’s less sober than he thought he was. He wants to touch you. He wants to be touched.

“(Y/N),” he says. It isn’t supposed to sound like it does, like a sigh. “I’m sorry…I’ve been drinking.”

You’ve already turned back to the screen of your computer, but you still shrug. “Why are you sorry? You’re an adult, what you do on you own time isn’t any of my business. As long as you’re getting your work done…”

“Not for that,” Todoroki says. “I’m sorry for this.” And he leans down, folds his hand under your chin, and kisses you.

You’re stiff for a second—he can feel the surprised intake of breath with your mouth against his—but he pushes closer to you and you relax, fraction by fraction. Your mouth tastes fresh and sweet, like peppermint. His hand finds the desk—bracing himself, he feels like his knees might give out—and the edge of one of your documents bites into the side of his palm. Let this be real, he thinks. Don’t let her move.

Closer, he has to be closer to you.

Todoroki kisses you harder.

[BNHA] Overhaul x reader /// do no harm

Summary: He'd forgotten what it feels like to want something this badly. (—over the course of his imprisonment in Tartarus, Chisaki develops a fixation on a young researcher sent to rebuild his arms.)

Warnings!!!!: prison setting, ableism, mentions of injury and unethical medical/prison practices, mentions of drug addiction, Chisaki's mental state is not healthy, this one's gonna be pretty fucked ngl

Status: 1.8 words written out of an infinite amount total...seriously I have no idea for this one, it's been marinating in my head since I first created this blog :x

Red—

Lights, cold. His eyes are already open. In the exam room. Someone’s speaking, not the doctor, not one of the nurses, someone else.

Someone else?

White, white. Someone’s hand hovering over his shoulder, latex gloves brushing his skin. Not a doctor. You don’t feel like a doctor. You keep— skimming over his chest, too nervous to really touch him. Your hands are warm in the center, cold at the fingertips. You touch him like you’re afraid. You feel—

He can—he can smell you. Everything here smells sterile and chemical and he got used to it, let it fade into the background until the millisecond of metallic blood smell after they take the needle out of his leg makes him ill. Overhaul breathes in and smells you, smells the soap you washed your hair with. Something—something sweet? He can’t— he can’t— why are you so close? You want him to lie down. Why are you touching him? You’re not a nurse, not a doctor. He feels dizzy breathing you in.

Your voice. You’re telling him to lie down again. He’s trying to ignore you like he ignores everything here but your voice is—

softer, lighter. Different. Don’t look. Don’t listen. Close your eyes, Overhaul thinks to himself, ignore her.

“Please,” you say. “Chisaki.”

You’re touching him now, getting ready to push him flat on his back like an invalid, and with the phantom limbs he can feel sometimes itching and aching in thin air, he wants to wrap his fingers around your wrist and break it.

You pleaded. You said his name. He hasn’t heard his own name in—a year? Two? How long has it been?

He lies down.

He wants to sleep again. He knows what they give him—he knows the name of the drug cocktail and all the chemical compounds that make it up and he knows the effects it can have when taken long-term. It’s a sedative, it makes him feel numb and sometimes if he’s numb enough he can even manage to enjoy it. But if he’s not he feels himself lying there while the drugs crawl through his circulatory system and into his brain, eating away at the parts of himself that he used to think were worth keeping. God, god, it feels filthy. He would purge himself—rip himself to shreds and put them back together clean—if he could.

He wants to sleep, but the smell of your soap—

“Chisaki, do you know why I’m here?”

I don’t know, he thinks. I don’t care.

“It’s about your arms.”

Overhaul doesn’t have arms. The prostheses are controlled externally by people who think Shigaraki should have finished the job. He can barely feed himself without assistance, can’t even piss without getting permission from one of the penal officers to activate the bionics. They’re not his arms.

“I’m here to see if I can…fix them.”

Overhaul closes his eyes. Black.

[BNHA] Shigaraki x reader /// it will come back [pt. 4]

Summary: You have a bad habit of picking up strays, and the half-dead villain you find bleeding out in a dumpster is no exception. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Warnings: mentions of injury, pain, fear, this is an extremely rough draft ngl I really need to edit :/

Status: 5.2k words written out of maybe 8k total

His bedroom looks like you would’ve thought it would look like if you had ever thought about it. Nice computer with two monitors, some books, lots of gaming stuff. A map above the computer pinned with documents, newspaper clippings, pictures, some of which extend past the wall and onto the ceiling. Serial killer shit. Fitting. The window is blocked out with heavy curtains, and the only light in the room comes from the purplish gleam of the monitors. Tomura sets you and your bag down on his unmade bed and pulls your ankle into his lap along with some ice cubes in a towel, a roll of Ace bandages, a white plastic pharmacy bottle that rattles when he drops it on the mattress.

“Um—I can do that,” you say, but Tomura ignores you, peeling your sock down and wrapping the bandages around your ankle. “You don’t have to—it doesn’t have to be that tight.”

He ignores that too. You’re almost glad that you’re in pain. It’s giving you something to focus on besides his hands.

“Why were you at the bar?” Tomura asks.

“I…don’t know, I got lost on my way back from work.”

“You don’t get lost.” He coils the bandage around one more time before tucking the edge under to hold it in place. “Were you looking for me?”

You inhale, counting out three beats to make sure it doesn’t sound too fast. “It was just a coincidence.” He doesn’t look convinced, so you shrug, hoping you look more nonchalant than you feel. “Really.”

Does he know?

He couldn’t. There’s no way. Stop talking, don’t tell him anything he doesn’t need to know. Stop thinking about him killing kids.

Tomura’s done wrapping your ankle, but he’s not moving away from you. “You shouldn’t go out in the rain like that. You could get sick.”

“You’re…you’re one to talk.”

“You’re different than me. You break so easily.” His grip moves up from your ankle and his hands are cold from the ice. Your ankle feels stiff, achy. You can’t remember the last time you were in this much pain.

How much will it hurt if Tomura touches you? You can’t take your eyes off his hand, stark white and threaded with blue veins against the dark fabric of your skirt. You saw the cast Aizawa was wearing, the gauze taped on his face, the way he winced a little bit whenever he moved quickly back at the hospital. You can’t even imagine how that feels…to have your living body flake off into dust, from your skin all the way down to your bones.

Oh god. Oh god, oh god. Don’t cry. You’ll get out of this. He’s not going to hurt you. Just play along.

Tomura runs a hand over your ankle again and a sound comes out of your mouth that you can’t even categorize. “Is it really that bad?” he asks, and it’s almost worse to know that he’s asking out of genuine curiosity. God knows what he’s been through in the past week—the gunshots. the infection—must have felt a thousand times worse.

You try to slow your breathing but you’re having a hard time remembering what it’s supposed to sound like. “I think I need to see a doctor."

“You’re acting weird.”

You let out a high, tense laugh. “It really hurts, Tomura, what do you expect?”

“No…you’ve been acting weird since I called you earlier.” Red eyes narrow into slits and move over the strained look on your face. “Maybe you did get sick.”

“Sure. Maybe.”

Tomura lifts the back of his hand to his own forehead and then reaches out to you to compare your temperature to his, only—you don’t see that. What you see is the leader of the League of Villains with his hand out, so close to your head that you can make out the dirt under his fingernails. You see the police sketch of his villain costume from one of the articles you read, those grey embalmed hands trapped in rigor mortis around his limbs and his face. You see the news photo of the kids from UA. High school first-years, but some of them looked younger. Like the green-haired kid…you would have guessed 13 years old, 14 maybe. They did an interview with the girl—the cute one with big eyes and a frog quirk? The one he almost killed? She said she could smell the dead hands on Shigaraki’s costume when he was two inches away from her face: chemical antiseptic almost like perfume, layered over something rotting.

Tomura’s not wearing his costume now. He’s never worn it in front of you. But you almost feel like you can smell it anyway.

[KNY] Sanemi x reader x Rengoku /// to the hilt

Summary: After an injury that ends your career as a demon slayer, you struggle to adjust to your newfound vulnerability and the protectiveness of the the two Hashira who consider you their responsibility. (—Sanemi makes threats, and Rengoku enforces them.)

Warnings: protective/patronizing behavior, mentions of injury, dependent reader, possibly coercive vibes??, Rengoku doesn't make an appearance in this excerpt (he shows up later)

Status: 2.8k words written out of 6–7k total

"How many times do I have to tell you you’re not strong enough to be using your hands?” Sanemi's voice is thin with anger, and he lets you hear it. Of course he’s angry. It’s like you’re doing this on purpose, making yourself sicker, forcing him to force you to give up already. The flash of pain that passes over your face is almost enough to make him feel guilty, but you should know better by now. What’s the point of trying to go through the motions? You’ll never fight again. “You don’t need to be useful.”

“I know! I’m not… I know I’m not healed enough, I get it. Do we have to talk about this?”

He glares—do you really understand?—but he lets it go. Settles back, keeps the peace, for your sake. For now. “Just keep eating.”

You oblige gratefully, digging into the food that’s left as quickly as you seem to be able to. Sanemi watches and keeps his mouth shut even when you fumble. He’s too angry with you, too pushy sometimes. He knows. But how else is he supposed to keep you from making your injury worse? If you didn’t need him—him and Rengoku, at least—you’d just leave. Sanemi’s never suggested it himself (to be honest, he doesn’t even let himself think about the possibility of you leaving the dojo), but you could. You’re here because you want to be. Because you’re not strong enough to set your own limits, follow the boundaries you’ve been given in order to heal. You need them. You need them to keep you safe.

Through the window, the moon is rising little by little, saturating the courtyard outside with watery light. There’s a lamp in your bedroom but it’s unlit—seems like you prefer the dim light of the outdoors and the faint glow of the hallway through your door. Were you just sitting here in the dark before he came?

The image comes to his mind too easily—you sitting at the window in your thin kimono for hours, staring blankly as the world outside dips into night. It doesn’t fit you…or at least it doesn’t fit the person you’re supposed to be.

(the person you were before.)

“Why is it so fucking dark in here? It’s depressing,” he asks, stacking your discarded dishes and setting the tray to the side once you’ve finished. The only thing left is the sake bowl, which you lift to your mouth very carefully before patting your lips dry and offering it back to Sanemi.

He takes it, still waiting for your response, but you wait for him to drink before you answer. “It isn’t that dark with the moon out like this.”

You’re right, in a way. By now Sanemi’s vision has adjusted enough so that he can see everything from the moonlight alone—weeds poking out from the stone slabs outside, rippling movement from the wisteria flowers, and…

…the unbound hair unfurling like a halo around your face, your rumpled kimono baring a little too much of your throat, the shadows that your eyelashes paint down over your cheekbones when you close your eyes. Sanemi exhales, shifts back and takes another sip from the bowl. “Are you tired? Did you want to sleep?”

“No, I—“ you turn to the side, looking deeper into the bedroom so your face is caught in shadow for a second. Like after all of this, you can’t look him in the eye when you say it. “You’re leaving for a mission tomorrow, aren’t you? I thought…maybe you would come. And we could have a drink.”

Ah…she doesn’t want to say it. That’s fine. Sanemi knows what you need.

You extend a hand out for the bowl that the two of you have been trading back and forth, but your fingers don’t meet the ceramic—he’s already reaching out for you, pulling you in toward him, and when you bite your lip and nod he lies you down until your back meets the tatami below. Here, right here. Your body underneath his, the only place where he can really convince himself you’re safe.

You fumble to untie the sash of your kimono, slipping awkwardly over the bindings every time you try to get ahold of them, but Sanemi settles himself over you and pins your wrists down and forces your trembling hands into stillness. “Let me,” he says.

if you reached the end of this post, thank you for reading!! please tell me if there were any wips you liked/want to see more of :]

[gunmetal-ring]

If anyone is aghast at me shipping a couple wherein one abducted and tortured the other multiple times immediately before they confessed their love for each other, it's bc in the series everyone has a True Name. Most people don't know what their True Name is. But the evil King figured out Murtagh's True Name, and once you know someone's True Name, you can mentally break them and physically control them. So Murtagh was literally physically forced to torture her. As in it was physically impossible to NOT torture her - not even the "Oh I have to or else I'll get tortured" (which, before the evil king knew his True Name, Murtagh WAS tortured) or "I can't blow my undercover spy position bc then my entire family will die and I'm being directed to torture someone" a la Daryl. No it's like "my entire body no longer belongs to me and I am nothing more than a puppet and have no way either by magic or physical force to NOT do what my puppetmaster tells me to do"

Except

EXCEPT

The evil king only directed Murtagh to torture her while he was there and Murtagh found a loophole that bc the evil king didn't give him directions for every second of every day covering every possible action, so Murtagh secretly visited her in her cell and cast spells to block as much of the pain from the torture as he could so she wouldn't physically suffer to the same degree. And then his love grew from the initial infatuation and admiration and lovesick puppy love from the previous interactions from however many months/years ago when they first met before he was abducted by the evil king and she thought he was dead and he had no way of contacting her bc he himself was imprisoned and tortured and then controlled

And the REASON his love matured and grew and became real adult love is bc he spent so much time secretly visiting her and bonding w her and sharing w her and listening to her and getting to know the real her and she changed his defeatist perspective on the war/life and showed him how its never too late to change your mind and understand why the war is worth it to usurp the evil king despite all the deaths and havoc and unnecessary destruction the rebels are wreacking upon the very citizens of the empire they hope to protect

And then

AND THEN

His True Name changed bc HE CHANGED as a person and so the evil king didn't realize his True Name changed and so he was no longer under his control and tried to rescue/save her and UGH!!! UGH!!!! it kills me it truly does. He loved her for her and she loved him for him and they both still love each other despite the complications and tragedy and UGH!!

Anyway I just had to Spill Feelings all over tumblr so whatever. I want everyone to read the Inheritance Cycle bc it's so fuckin good. Except I basically skim over most of Roran's chapters in the last book bc it's just like descriptions of how he is a fantastic soldier and captain and is clever and a strong leader and each chapter is basically a description of an invasion he leads in a city + the battle and it always ends w him winning and personally I have trouble finding interest in lengthy battles which is why all of my fight scenes in fic are like a paragraph long lol

But anyway it's so good

[marvelmusing]

Making Time

Mobius M Mobius x Reader

Part 2

My Masterlist

“1985, huh?” You say, looking up from the briefing Mobius has just handed you.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll spot a delorian?” He jokes, making a Back to the Future reference. You smile at him, remembering when you’d first mentioned the movie. You hadn’t been at the TVA long, to your knowledge.

You’re sat in one of the cafes, explaining something about the timeline to Casey, and you make an offhand reference to the movie. To which, Casey looks even more confused. You glance at Mobius, who’s been sat next to you, watching your teaching with a smile. You offer them both a small smile, at yet another reminder that you’re from somewhere very different from the rest of them.

“Neither of you have seen it have you?” Mobius shakes his head.

“Not a lot of chances for watching movies when dealing with the timeline. Should we get the chance, I’d love to.” It’s a few days later when you give him the chance.

“Honey, I’m home.” You hear Mobius call out, which brings a smile to your face. Whilst you had your own apartment, you much preferred staying with Mobius, like you did when you first arrived at the TVA. You hear him set down a pile of papers in the kitchen, before making his way into the lounge where you’re sat waiting for him. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

“What’s all this?”

“Back to the Future. I went through my file, and managed to find a version that I watched that was uninterrupted. Then I isolated it, and copied it onto one of those cassette reel things, so that it’ll play on your mini projector.” You pause, before adding, “I probably put too much effort into this but, I thought we could have what my time considers a movie night?”

“A movie night?” Your face falls slightly, feeling embarrassed by your suggestion.

“We don’t have to-“ you start. He shrugs off his jacket and settles down next to you.

“Did I not tell you I wanted to watch it, should I get the chance?”

“Well, yeah.” He gestures to the projector.

“Let’s get this show on a roll.” You grin at him, before quickly pressing play on the projector. Mobius leans an arm on the couch and pulls you to his side. “You finally have clearance to access to your file, and you use it to watch Back to the Future?”

“What else was I supposed to do with it?” You joke.

You and Mobius head to the cubicle where you left Loki this morning. You spot him wapping against the desk with a magazine.

“Training going well?” You ask him. He leans back in his chair, attempting to look casual.

“Yeah.”

“Is that my jet ski magazine?” Mobius asks him. “Put it down. Gear up. There's been an attack. Let's go.” He hands Loki the jacket he’s been carrying. You set the briefing down on the desk, and follow Mobius. Loki trails behind you. “Put it on.” Loki shrugs the jacket on, adjusting the collar before posing.

“Nice.” You tell him with a smile.

“Good. Yeah, smart.” Mobius says distractedly. You soon reach the Timedoors, where a small group of hunters have gathered to wait. B-15 opens up the briefing.

“C-20 and her team went dark shortly after they jumped into the 1985 branch. All signs point to another ambush. We've grabbed enough temporal aura to know it's our Loki Variant. But which kind of Loki, remains unknown.”

“They're the lesser kind, to be clear.” Loki specifies. B-15 sighs,

“Let me see the back of that jacket.” Loki does a small turn, showing the group the back of his jacket, where the bright orange letters reading VARIANT stand out. Everyone is the group shares a small smile. You’re glad you don’t have to wear one of those anymore.

“Very subtle. Well done.”

“I don't want anybody out there to forget what you are.”

“Oh, your only hope of capturing a murderer?”

“No. A cosmic mistake.”

“That's enough.” Mobius interrupts.

“Lovely.” You hear Loki murmur.

“Here's the deal.” Mobius begins. “When we get out on the branch, we're not just looking for a Time Criminal. We're looking for a Loki. A variation of this guy. A type we should all be very familiar with, because the TVA has pruned a lotta these guys, almost more than any other Variant.” He skims through a few of the Loki Variants that the TVA have caught before. “And no two are alike. Slight differences in appearances, or not so slight. Different powers, although, powers generally include: shapeshifting, illusion projection, and my favourite-”

“Duplication casting.” Loki interrupts

“Illusion projection.”

“No, they're two completely different powers.”

“How?” You ask him.

“Illusion-projection involves depicting a detailed image from outside oneself, which is perceptible in the external world, whereas duplication-casting entails recreating an exact facsimile of one's own body in its present circumstance, which acts as a true holographic mirror of its molecular structure. But you already knew that.” He explains. You catch a glimpse of Mobius’s smirk before he says,

“Okay, take a breath. Noted. We're gonna break into two teams, including myself and Professor Loki.”

“Why?” A hunter stood beside you asks.

“Because whoever this Variant is, we haven't been able to find him. So let's bring in an expert.” Loki looks around at the group before adding a quiet,

“That's me.”

As the hunters prepare themselves, you hear Loki ask, “Do I get a weapon?” You laugh lightly,

“No chance.”

“Well, I'll have my magic back. Is no one concerned about that?”

“Of what?” Mobius asks.

“Me betraying you.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You know that we’ll just catch you again.” You tell him.

“And how's betraying us gonna get you any closer to the Time-Keepers?” Mobius adds. Loki leans forward, his attention fixed on Mobius.

“An audience with the Time-Keepers is on the table?”

“Keep that focus.” Mobius tells him. The three of you follow the hunters through the Timedoor, and out into 1985 Wisconsin. Your group makes their way through the crowd of the Renaissance fair before entering a large tent. It’s dark inside, with only a few lanterns to light your path. You watch as B-15 bends down to grasp examine a helmet left abandoned on the floor.

“So he's taking hostages now?” She says, turning to Mobius.

“The Variant's never taken a hostage before.”

“Maybe he's upping his game.”

“Or he pruned her.” One of the hunters remarks, you frown at his callousness towards his colleague.

“A Loki couldn't have gotten the jump on C-20.”

“I think you underestimate, actually...” Loki begins.

“Fan out and search for her. And hurry up, we're at three units until red line.” B-15 orders. Mobius sets a hand on your arm, and the two of you head to the exit.

“Come on.” He says to Loki.

“Wait. If you leave this tent, you'll end up like them.” Mobius stops beside Loki.

“What do you see?”

“I see a scheme, and in that scheme, I see myself.” Loki begins to ramble about an old Asgardian saying.

“Two units. He is wasting our time.” B-15 interrupts.

“Okay. Come on, Loki, make a long story short.” Mobius encourages.

“We need to look for C-20.”

“That's exactly what the Variant wants you to do. It's a trap. He's waiting for you outside this tent.”

“Should I secure the reset charges?”

“No. He wants me. I'm the key to his plan. He knows that I'm stronger. And he rightly believes that together we can overthrow and rule the TVA. But that's not what I want. I have a new purpose. I'm a servant of the Sacred Timeline. And knowing what I now know about his tactics, I can deliver you the Variant, but I need assurances.” He says, looking to Mobius. You glance up at Mobius, frowning slightly. Surely he isn’t believing what Loki’s saying? His eyes catch yours and there’s a small twinkle in them. You hide your smile. Loki circles around Mobius.

“Yeah?” Mobius offers.

“Assurances that I won't be completely disintegrated the moment the job has been done.”

“Right.” Loki leans forward, before whispering,

“We'll need to speak to the Time-Keepers at once. They're in graver danger than we realized.”

“He's lying. Just playing games. There's no one out there.” Mobius calls out to the group.

“Reset the timeline.” B-15 orders.

“You had me for a second. My ears are sharp too.” He points at Loki’s chest. You follow Mobius out of the tent.

“Well that went well.” You remark, hearing Mobius sigh. He runs his hand over his face.

You’re tucking into your lunch when you spot Mobius. He picks out a drink and a salad before making his way over to you. You give him a small smile,

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“How did it go with Renslayer?” He sighs, leaning his head back, before getting comfortable in his seat.

“Well, our Loki hasn’t been deleted yet.”

“That’s good then?” You offer. He sighs,

“Yeah. Though he’s getting more and more talkative.”

“You did say he loves to talk. Where is he now?”

“I’ve left him with the archives, hopefully he’ll be reading for the next few days. Or at least long enough for me to finish lunch.” He begins to eat his salad. Just then, Loki scampers in looking like a manic puppy.

“I found something.” Mobius shakes his head, keeping his attention on his lunch,

“No, I said don’t bother me until you've read all the files.”

“I have.”

“Every file?”

“Yes.”

“Pertaining to the Variant?”

“The answer isn't in the files, it's on the timeline. He's hiding in apocalypses.”

“Which apocalypse?” You ask.

“Any time in history? There's, like, a million of 'em.” Mobius adds.

“Ragnarok. Are you familiar?”

“Yes. The destruction of Asgard and most of its people. I'm sorry.” Loki pauses looking down.

“Yes, very sad.” He immediately perks up again. “Anyway, it got me thinking. Nexus events happen when someone does something they're not supposed to do, right?”

“Well, it's a little more complicated, but, yeah.”

“Great. And then that thing they're not supposed to do, cascades into a whole range of other things that aren't supposed to happen.”

“And so on and so forth, until eventually, a new timeline branches. Yes?”

“Chaotic alterations of a predetermined outcome.”

“Exactly. So, let's just say...” He picks up the salad bowl from in front of Mobius.

“Mm-hm. What are you doing?”

“...your salad is Asgard in this scenario.” Loki continues.

“It's not Asgard, that's my lunch.” Mobius complains, the pouting clear in his voice. You lean forward, a hand on your chin to hide the smile at Mobius’s reaction.

“It's a metaphor. Just hang in there.”

“I want that salad.”

“And I could go down to Asgard before Ragnarok causes its complete destruction and I could do anything I wanted. I could, let's say, push the Hulk off the Rainbow Bridge.” He picks up a salt shaker and puts a large sprinkling of salt across Mobius’s salad.

“There he goes.” You say, feeling rather invested in this metaphor.

“The salt's Hulk?” Mobius asks, clearly not as enthusiastic as you.

“And I could also... Set fire to the palace.” He picks up a pepper pot and shakes the pepper across the salad.

“No, just stop. Don't set fire to the palace.”

“Okay? I can do whatever I want to do, and it would never matter. It wouldn't go against the dictates of the timeline because...” He sets down the shakers after nearly emptying them both. He heads to the table behind you. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, God!” Mobius sighs.

“You!” Recognising the voice you look up to see Casey looking very confused.

“Nice to see you. I just need this for a second. Thanks.” Loki picks up Casey’s carton of juice, before sitting back down at your table. “Because the apocalypse is coming. Ragnarok, Surtur will destroy Asgard no matter what I do.”

“No, don't do...” Mobius sighs as Loki empties the carton over the remains of the salad.

“There's the apocalypse.” You say with a sigh, offering Mobius your bag of chips.

“That's the apocalypse?” He asks, taking a handful of chips from you with a smile.

“Ragnarok obliterates the salt. Ragnarok. There it is.” Loki gestures to the ruined salad with a proud smile.

“What am I lookin' at?”

“Okay, it was a clumsy metaphor. But you see what I mean. It doesn't matter. It could be any apocalypse. It could be a tidal wave. It could be a meteor. It could be a volcano, a supernova. If everything and everyone around you is destined for imminent destruction, then nothing that I say or do will matter, because the timeline's not gonna branch. Hence, the Variant could be hiding in the apocalypse and do whatever he wants, and we wouldn't know!”

“Not bad.” You offer.

“Take me to a real apocalypse, to Ragnarok, I'll show you.” Mobius chuckles,

“Yeah. So you can run away back to your homeland? No.”

“No, I'm not going home. We can go anywhere.”

“I'm not taking you for a stroll along the promenade, much less an apocalypse.”

“Oh, Mobius, come on! What could possibly go wrong? We gotta properly test this theory.”

“Well, here's a fun theory. You lure me out into the field, and stab me in the back. And that's a theory I don't wanna test.”

“I'd never stab anyone in the back. That's such a boring form of betrayal.” He most definitely would stab someone in the back.

“Loki, I've studied almost every moment of your entire life. You've literally stabbed people in the back, like 50 times.”

“Well, I'd never do it again, because it got old.” You both laugh at this. Mobius looks at you, and you shrug.

“Might as well try it?” You offer. Mobius nods,

“Okay.”

“Okay, look, you don't trust me, you can trust one thing. I love to be right.” Loki adds. That certainly isn’t a lie.

Tagslist: @n0obmaster69 @mackycat11 @wibblywobblyjeremybearimy @boriqs @morganwilliams @greeneyedblondie44

If you’d like to be tagged just ask!!

[queenerdloser]

okay bc i just finished rereading and if lit classes did not have some strange antipathy to books with explicit sex scenes in them i would love to teach a course on c.s. pacat's masterful pacing, some of my favorite things about the series from like a critical reading perspective:

the sheer delicious completion of everything in kings rising, from "hey why was damen even given away as a slave in the first place?" to charls' reappearance. every single loose end is tied up and all of it meticulously well-done, thoughtful, and not just narratively plausible but also entertaining as fuck. (the charles scene alone is so good. what a good way to a) make that minor character matter and b) do so in a way that aids the plot AND provides some much needed tension relief)

the relationship pacing between laurent and damen is so pitch perfect. it would be so, so, so easy to have them either fall into each other sooner or stay bitter too long and rush the romance portion, hitting beats too soon or too slow but every bit of their journey from hated enemies to lovers is handled so expertly. it's very easy to get wrong and so hard to do right and pacat makes it look effortless. every beat of their relationship feels organic and balanced - i never once felt like they skipped over the hard work of overcoming their extremely complicated past or that pacat skimmed the real challenges between them.

damen as a protagonist was such a good choice. don't get me wrong, i'll cut someone for a laurent pov of the books but damen is justttt the right balance of sharp intuition - he notices SO MUCH, he is aware of all these little moments in laurent's behavior, in the emotional undercurrents of a scene - and political ignorance, so we get to learn a lot with him. and damen as a character is so interesting, because he's actually really experienced - he's commanded troops since he was 17! - and knowledgeable and while he doesn't necessarily have laurent's mind for political maneuvering, he's very attuned to political currents. and he's decent and forthright and moral - which is used against him, but is also like used as a weapon. he gets more hits in against laurent with hard truths than any other character in the series - he wields it like a blade. idk i feel like it'd be very easy to handle him as other "simple" straightforward characters are, where he's just kind of oblivious or he gets so outmanuevered that his honesty is worthless, but pacat strikes this really good balance that keeps damen interesting while still exploring the weaknesses he has.

the final moments of kings rising with laurent facing kastor brings chills when i read it. it's thrilling, it's full of thematic energy, it's got such elegant symmetry to it. ending on the bells... god!!! a different author would have given us a whole long, tired slog through the aftermath, would have drawn everything out - but pacat found a great place for an ending, a meaningful moment that perfectly ties off her narrative and ends in this beautiful, circular way and just does it.

i wrote THIS BITCH! about 800 times in the book for both damen AND laurent bc they both have such killer one-liners. their energy together in scenes is electric but they also have that kind of bantering, same wavelength appeal that all the best romantic couples (for me) do. they Know each other. they can needle each other like the best of them. and not to go on and on about damen again (he's my favorite) but i do find it funny that laurent is held up as this wisecracking sass master (he is!) while damen has honestly some of the best comebacks in the series and is just as dryly sarcastic as laurent.

competence porn OFF THE CHARTS. damen slaughtering an entire army almost single-handedly? fuck yes. laurent micromanaging his way to a full on coup with eight hundred perfect contingencies? fuck yes. both of them riding horses and hitting bullseyes and managing to snatch spears out of the and tackle someone out of the way in the space of seconds... jesus christ.

speaking of pacing, pacat also really has a great eye for tension release. like there's some genuinely hilarious moments in what is otherwise a pretty dramatic book and they all come exactly when needed. tension relief is something i think a lot of authors of dramatic books struggle with - you need to have it and it's rough to figure out the right time for it. i'm thinking about the charls scene esp. because that one felt esp. well placed - after all this rough tension and wars and deaths and the ramped up energy of their sneak mission through the woods... all of the sudden it's a comedy of errors with charles and his cousin charles and we can relax just a little before going in to the final sprint of the last act. excellent choice to put that right where it was.

idk man i love this series. i could talk at length about how much i love damen and laurent but i think one thing i really really love is just how well-done these books are.

so thinking back i haven't reread the captive prince trilogy since kings rising came out. which is wild bc it's one of my favorite series in the universe BUT also tracks bc when it exists in a subsect of my books where i know if i read it my entire personality will be subsumed. but i'm rereading them now now and my GOD what a delight. i devoured the first two in a day and remembered exactly why they were so so so so good. and i've saving kings rising bc that one changed my brain chemistry when it came out, i've never read such a tightly done, masterfully paced final book in a series to match it.