#i'm seriously in love very very creative

[cnth-rb]

WIP

[valiantvillain]

Eh, honestly, I'm fine with the next Dragon Age game having a new game. The Veilguard actually sounds more interesting to me than Dreadwolf. Don't get me wrong, the first one was fine but I don't mind the game focusing more on the new crop of heroes and the player as opposed to Solas, especially for people who might not have liked him as a character or villain that much. I'm looking forward to learning what the Veilguard is and the characters who will form it.

[planetallure]

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺ dark!fic recs

CW: once again, these works contain dark and explicit themes that may be upsetting or triggering to some. please use your discretion and discernment.

@cherienymphe : when i first seriously got back on tumblr and got into dark!fanfic, cherie's was one of the first blogs i found. her writing was essentially my indoctrination. it was terrifying how much i loved it/her writing. truly phenomenal. i've read quite of few of her stories (mainly for rafe cameron, jj maybank, steve rogers, and peter parker) but i'll list my faves.

"when the party's over" - its something about this series...i think about it often. if you're into forced pregnancy or corruption tropes, tap in.

"wicked games" - i actually first read this one on ao3 before i discovered her tumblr and was absolutely gagged. another one i think of often.

"amnesiac" - the first series of hers that i ever read. absolutely traumatized me and i sobbed reading it. amazing storytelling.

"the hills" - another bangerrr. a one night stand ends in complete and total blackmail and entrapment. he just wanted to give her a better life *clown face emoji*.

"his father's son" - after ward death, rafe takes over the reins in more ways than one.

"teenage dirtbag" - this series single handedly made me a jj girl. the tension??? yup yup mhm.

"the less i know the better" - ironically my favorite part of this story is readers relationship with rafe but seeing jj slowly and then rapidly descend into madness? yeah.

"claimed" - a/b/o dynamics. brought me back to my wattpad days. still eat it up.

"daddy dearest" - steve meets a single mom and decides to be not the stepdad, but the dad who stepped up.

i'll be honest, i was a non believer in dark!peter but: "she's with me", "one last time." "suburbia" and "basic training" made a believer outta me. hands. down.

@lambtotheslaughterr : it absolutely amazes me the things that come from her mind. the level of creativity and originality needs to be studied. oona, you are criminally underrated.

“rise” - the first series of hers that i read. arguably the best series i’ve read on here thus far. this is the first part to her “the day the world ended” universe and it completely blew me away. i couldn’t believe that something like it had come from some silly little boat show. just brilliant.

“when the bough breaks” - the first work of hers i read. this one for me was a heartbreaking slow burn story, but the smut…makes up for it. yes yes.

“i burn” - sex!addict reader x rafe cameron. need i say more? actually, i will. the smut and tension in this one towards the end? it was shameful how turned on i was.

“one way or another” - buckle up, grab a snack, and prepare for the ride of a lifetime. that’s it.

“something wicked this way comes” - a single mom trying to escape her past, except her past is rafe cameron. this was one very spooky scary la la.

"summit" - the second part to the tdtwe universe. its still brand new but its already feeling like another banger, i mean it's oona. tap in.

@harryspet : rae was also apart of my indoctrination and boy did she do what needed to be done. her perfectly curated moodboards alone did it for me. very mindful, very demure.

"homestead" - what can i say...i'm a sucker for pregnancy stories :( and this series was no exception. absolutely delectable. enjoy.

"well kept" - classic millionaire ceo x reader, my younger wp reading self cheered gleefully. my love language is acts of service and boyy was this one speaking my language. had me at "scheduled braiding appointment."

"bambi eyes" - this one was one of those that made me want to take a good long look in the mirror and ask myself, "is this who we are...is this what we represent?"

@sherrybaby14 : this one is for the mcu girlies. more fics than you could ever ask for. everyone say "thank you, mother!"

"the distraction" - i'm starting to notice a kidnapping/stockholm syndrome pattern here...ANYWAY! work is realllyy stressful for steve and you just happen to be the perfect distraction.

@straywords : she's no longer active but her incredible writings remain so please, peruse. its like a beautiful museum over there.

"a break" - *gasp* another pregnancy story! stucky edition.

@darkficsyouneveraskedfor : an icon, a legend, she is the moment! another infinite library for my mcu girls. roo has all you could ever want or ask for.

@perlelune

"all too well" - yes, yes, another one, its who i am. rafe cameron proving once again that you can't escape him.

"lucky" - best friend!rafe x reader. he didn't know what he had until it was almost gone

"tag, you're it" - never read a scream fanfic before this one but boy did i have fun! chad is so pookie in this too :(

@honestsycrets : back when i was in my miguel era, sy single handedly kept me fed.

"starved | mio" - "mio", in which you babysit mayday and it gives miguel baby fever and "starved", in which he made you a mom...but its left less time for other activities.

"stung" - sex pollen/abo. reader gets bitten by an anomaly causing a reaction that only miguel can cure

"amor y respeto" - he just can't love you the way you need to be. so you and miguel break up...at the worst possible time.

"exclusive" - you and miguel are fuckbuddies. you want more, but miguel can't bring himself to give it to you. so you find company in hobie, who's there for you in all the ways that you need. miguel's not happy about that.

"canary" - you're a singer in the 1920s who's fallen in with the dangerous o'hara brothers.

"grande" - sex!worker miguel x assistant!reader. think...a pepper x tony kinda dynamic. except, miguel doesn't take kindly to certain slights. :)

@starfxkrinc : last but certainly not least! moony is a ridiculously talented writer and a mutal of mine. i found her early on during my resurgence on here. this is her new side blog (rip lovesickbrat and starfxkr!!) luckily she was able to salvage a lot of her past works and is back like she never left. i recommend her "western nights" series (really just the trailer park!jj tag in general) and her "ode to eaters" au. a queen of all things taboo. she does it for the girls who are drawn to the dark and scary. the gross and weird. <3

[prettyflyforawhitelie]

Hi I love your work so far, do you think you could do headcannons for all the different characters of the main Hazbin Hotel cast when their lover comes to them injured? Like how they would treat you and then how they would deal with the person who harmed you. I would love to see this ahhhh 😫

Ahh of course! I love this, thanks for the request! I hope you like it!

Trope: Hazbin Hotel x Injured!reader

Characters: Alastor, Charlie, Vaggie, Angeldust, Husk, Sir Pentious, Lucifer

Warnings: Physical violence, mention of death, injured reader, blood.

author's note: hey guys! this is my first time doing one of these, and I'm still getting better, so forgive me if its a bit shabby. If you have any requests, feel free to send them in! I'm in a creative buzz rn lol. Enjoy!

🦌📻Alastor📻🦌:

The day that your attacker decides to hurt you is the day that they decide to die. Messing with the Radio Demon’s plaything is about the last thing you want to do. 

Alastor often sent his shadows to follow you into town when he couldnt be with you, so the second you were attacked, Alastor could sense that something was wrong. 

By the time his shadows had carried you back to the hotel, your attacker had already escaped, but luckily, his shadows saw everything.

When he rushed down to see you, he seemed rather indifferent at first. He carried you up to his room, immediately conjuring several healing ointments to heal you quickly.

He laid you in his bed, in which you almost immediately fell asleep.

He hears the whispers of his shadows, and gains all of the information he needs out of them. 

With a single snap of his finger, the issue was taken care of. Rumor has it that the screams of your attackers' seemingly “random��� death could be heard about 3 rings down. 

While waiting for you to wake, Alastor conjures two steaming bowls of his mother’s jambalaya. Placing one on the side table next to you, he sits down next to your sleeping body and lightly grazes your head, singing soothing songs until you wake up.  

😈🗝️Charlie🗝️😈:

Would of course be so very angry at whoever did this, but her first priority would be healing you up and making sure that you’re absolutely 100% okay and comfortable. 

Would set you up in her bed and assure that you have anything at all that would make you feel more comfortable. Tea? Yup. Ice pack? Already got it. Cuddles? Of course!

Would definitely let you cuddle with Razzle and Dazzle for as long as you needed.

She would try her best to talk to you and figure out what happened - to figure out who did this to you.

As you told her, she seemed surprisingly… calm? She simply thanked you for telling her and left the room. 

Though Charlie doesn't seem like a particularly violent person… She can get protective over the people she loves. So, let's just say she got that issue taken care of real quick. How stupid to mess with the Morningstar family. 

🪽⚔️Vaggie⚔️🪽:

Anybody in her vicinity needs to watch out when she hears that her love is hurt. 

Like, seriously, heads will roll. But not before she checks on you to evaluate how badly she needs to fuck up the person who did this to you. 

When she sees you, bruised and bloody, she can't help but hold you so tight and cry, scolding you for getting yourself into a bad situation without her there to protect you.

Vaggie knows what it feels like to be beaten and dumped on the side of the street like garbage. She could never forgive herself if she allowed that to happen to anybody else, let alone the genuine love of her life. 

When she asks for the person who did this, you can only give her a vague description. That’s alright though, she will use her former exterminator skills to scan all of Hell and find the person who dared to do this to you. She will not leave this alone until she serves you justice. 

🕷️💖Angeldust💖🕷️:

Coming home from the studio to find you in his room, crying and bruised, he immediately drops whatever he’s doing and comforts you in the biggest hug ever. 

Angel has plenty of experience with being abused and left to fend for himself, so he doesn't immediately resort to asking questions. No, that’s not what you need right now. You just need to know that you’re loved, beautiful, and that this does nothing to affect your worth or value as a person.

He carries you from the floor to his bed, covering you in blankets and laying next to you with Fat Nuggets. 

“It’s okay baby. You can cry, it's okay.” he whispers as you sob into his chest.

He allows you to initiate the conversation of what happened, not wanting to push you past your limits. 

Once he finds out what happened, he knows what he has to do. He waits until you fall asleep, and heads down to the club where your attacker happens to frequent. For once, being a famous pornstar will actually serve in his favor. He tempts your attacker to follow him, and immediately beats him to an absolute pulp. 

He allows the person to live, saying “I am only letting you live so you can know how it feels. You ever try this shit again, and I will find you. Except that time, you wont leave here looking so… whole.”

♥️♦️Husk♦️♥️:

Husk is used to all the residents of the hotel bitching and moaning to him about all of their issues. With Charlie coming to him and oftentimes crying about the many failures of the hotel, tears were no foreign sight to him.

But coming from the kitchen to the bar and seeing you there, looking an absolute mess, was different. 

“What the-What the fuck happened?” he yells. When you flinch, he knows that something happened.

When you explain to him what happened, he immediately needs a description of the attacker. He takes possibly the largest shot you've ever seen and storms out of the hotel.

He wishes that he could do more to protect you. Back when he was an overlord, he had power beyond anybody's imagination. He could've snapped a finger and your attacker would simply disintegrate (but not before he tortured him a bit first). But now that Alastor owned his soul, his powers were limited. 

You know what wasn't limited on husk, though? His pure physical strength.  

He immediately finds the guy walking on the street adjacent to the hotel (dumb, right?) and absolutely obliterates him. 

As the attacker is begging for his life, he just keeps hitting, blind with rage and love for you.

When he wants back into the hotel bloody and exasperated, he sits in the stool next to you and wraps you with one of his wings. 

“It’s all okay now. I’m here” he says as you lean on his shoulder, so ready to go to bed. 

🐍⚙️Sir Pentious⚙️🐍:

Sir Pentious always loved coming to your room to show you his many zany inventions. Normally you welcome him in with open arms, a sweet smile on your face, but today was different.

When he knocked on your door, he was met with absolute silence, which isn't normal for you. When he listened a bit closer, though, he could hear your small sniffles. He trusted his gut and slowly opened the door, fully ready to be denied entry.

Instead, you looked at him shyly, turning away and crying. He could've sworn that he saw a… black eye?

He took this opportunity to come and sit next to you on your floor, placing his arm around you and letting you lean your head on his shoulder. 

When he noticed that you were calming down a bit, he asked you what was wrong.

You explained that while you were engaged in a turf war, some ruffian beat you up, and badly. The girl you had momentarily teamed up with had left you behind, and you were left to trek back to the hotel on your own, barely able to walk. 

You could see something change in his eyes. 

He curled his tail around you, his cool skin calming your nerves. He assured you that he was here now, and nothing like this would ever happen to you again. He then swiftly called his egg bois to entertain and comfort you while he prepared his airship. The idiot that did this to you was going to pay, and not just in turf.

😈🐣Lucifer🐣😈:

Bursting into Lucifer’s room, the only thing you could mutter is “Help” as you fell into his arms. 

He frantically carried you to a chair and tried to assess your injuries. Man, someone fucked you up, and badly. Too bad he would kill them before they could brag about their success. 

He rushed to find ANYTHING that could help you. Bandages, ice, your favorite food, a rubber duck, ANYTHING. 

When he finds you absolutely passed out asleep in the chair, he gently moves you to his bed and tries his best not to stir you. 

As he sits watching you, thinking of your beautiful smile (and how he’ll brutally kill the person who did this to you), he observes your features with great detail. 

When you wake up, you smile. Lucifer must have gone, but sitting on your table is a bowl of soup and… is that a rubber duck that looks like you?

[astrologylunadream]

Are They Attracted To You?💋🌺🌹 (Pick a card/Tarot love reading)

Hi it's Lunadream❤️ This is an honest reading for whether or not that person on your mind has romantic attraction towards you! hope you find your message💌✨️

Notice: Only take what resonates because the most important thing is your own judgement!♡ If anything doesn't resonate, don't worry! It's not your message right now <3 (Entertainment purpose only. All rights reserved)

Now, shall we begin~? ^w^ Think of the your person, and pick whichever pile that fits the energy you're feeling~❤️‍🔥

Pile 1🩷

Pile 2💋

Pile 3🌺

Pile 4🌹

Take your time and choose carefully with the heart~♡

On to the readings —> ❤️

Pile 1🩷

Sign energy: Facial expression, Body, Art, Right, Demand, 5th house, Taurus, Aries, 2nd house, 9th house,📞🤪🏜🙅‍♂️

🎀Your person's energy: Okay hi so this person is quite smart, they might often be right about things or they always want to be right. They could have sort of a dominant way about them, like they want to be heard.🗣☝️ There is prominent aries or 1st house placements here, also Taurus. Sagittarius, Leo, actually all fire signs wow so this person has a straightforward or directness to them. One of the first things that came up is their body is a work of art lol😂😭 Seriously they might have the build of a greek statue for some, they could be phsyically fit or in shape I'm hearing "sculpted"🦵💪👀 That could mean someone who is creative or into making things too take what resonates.🪄 I feel like this person could make some really funny faces, like they could have very animated facial expressions.😜 Your person may trive on having attention on them, or they just get it without trying. Their voice is attractive, also they can be interested in many exotic genres of music.🎧🎼 For some of you this person is from a hot climate, or they are just hot themselves😉 They are sensual and headstrong, this could be someone from a long distance but I only see that for a few of you. They are exciting and want to enjoy many hobbies, there is a thirst for adventure in them.🪂🌋 They could love food especially from different cultures, they are expressive in their body langauge aswell😅🔥 This person might appear wild or reckless. Possibly a bit demanding sometimes or even selfish it depends on the person, but I think they are a youthful spirit.

🌺Are They Attracted To You: Dating, Warrior, Reconnect, Passion, Finger, Leo, Pisces, Moon, Neptune, Chiron,🔊🥺💁‍♂️🪃

Okay there is a lot of passion here, for some of you this person wants to date you!🫵❤️‍🔥 Like they are energetically pointing at you like "pile 1 date me now😤" lmao. They have a desire to reconnect with you emotionally and heal you with this passion and devotion I'm hearing, but I think your judgement is needed here because the situation is iffy.🤨🔍 Although there is a lot of attraction from this person, it could be more like infatuation for them. This person feels restless and easily bored, I do see that this person would get an ego boost from dating you.🔝🏆 They are very vocal about their attraction to you my pile 1's, but they're wearing rose colored lenses a bit when it comes to you. This person fantasizes about you, and they want to win your heart.🫢❤️‍🔥 It's like they are in a gauntlet of war competing with your potential suitors in the spiritual realm lol😂⚔️ Be careful though as this person's attraction may be unstable or flighty, the spark they feel may ignite but also burn out fast. They could lose interest easily in relationships I'm hearing, it's hard for them to keep focus. I think they have a soft spot for you though, they want to prove themselves to you.🎁✨️ This attraction to you feels more loyal and devoted than they usually are. They want to reach out to you, for some of you this person wants to apologize for something or heal any emotional wounds you have.🫂💞 This person's attraction to you is more on a spiritual and emotional level than phsyical but I'm seeing that too, they feel attached to you most energetically.🔗💭 They are attracted to you because of the psychic bond you two share, your soul is so precious to them and they don't want to see you suffer. Wow I think this person is very emotional over you, there is a mixture of passion and love for this pile.🌹🩷 For some of you this person is having dreams of you, their subconcious is very attracted towards you. I think this person is healing, maybe that is why their energy was so chaotic at first. You may be keeping them in tune with their more caring or nurturing self.

💌Messages from your person: I still love you, It's the start of something new, You're pretty, Nothing else matters, I can't believe you would choose me, You read my mind, I stay asleep dreaming of you, It feels so good. 🐇🛑🍪🕯(Wow yes they dream of you pile 1 and they fantastize of you, definitely a psychic connection here!❤️🥹)

Thank you my pile 1's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🌺💋

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 1 with the pink heart emoji~🩷 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🥰

Pile 2💋

Sign energy: Back off, Lesson, Glow up, Top, Force, Air, Neptune, Jupiter, 6th house, Pisces,♂️💦🍒🍭

🎀Your person's energy: Wow this person does not like us channeling their energy right now lol😅 Their vibe seems confused and very resistant, they could be very busy or unavailable right now.✋️😠 I feel like this person has a defensive energy towards my pile 2's, they try to be realistic I'm hearing. For some of you this person is masculine or dominant, they could even be phsyically bigger for some of my pile 2's🫢 Air sign energy, Pisces, Sagittarius, Virgo, those could be in their chart. Maybe Neptune in pisces or in the air signs for some, jupiter in 6th house is possible, also pisces mars or neptune-mars aspects. these are all mutable signs actually. This is someone you can learn a lot from, or you will learn valuable lessons from your connection with them.💡 This person is so resistant you guys like they are in this energy of pushing you away?? It feels like they are being way too hard on themselves as well as you.💔 This person is very cautious and intelligent, they may not believe in fairytales or misleading fantasies. Honestly for some in this pile it seems as if they think you are getting your hopes up with them, that could definitely be the case for many of you. They might feel like they are more mature or responsible in some way, they seem to be very strict or judgemental towards you.🤨 I mean, this person is very forceful in their intentions and I think they don't want you to get hurt or have your dreams crushed.💭🚫 There is an absence from this person, they could be distancing themselves from you or there is some lack of engagement physically. I mean this person is very attractive and their chest is very noticeable, some of my pile 2's may be unrealistic about this person.😓 Their energy is currently very tense, they have a lot of discipline I'm hearing. They are forceful and driven. Behind their functional facade they are quite emotionally challenged, but they try to hide their feelings or control them.❤️‍🩹

🌺Are They Attracted To You: Libra, Force, Society, Honey, Frozen, 11th house, Pluto, Moon, Leo, Pisces,📚🧲🎠🧐

Ah so this is interesting pile 2! Force came out twice in this reading and with pluto I think there is a magnetic pull towards you here actually.😳😍 I'm surprised by their initial energy but it seems like they are stuck fighting their emotions, their attraction towards you may go against their own societal expectations or they are worried about their image😱👤✨️ They have a lot of pressure on them, so I think their energy is quite intense towards you. You make them emotional and this confuses them, they feel unable to take any action I'm hearing. It's like this person is frozen with indecision about my pile 2's🧊❄️ They could be weighing their options right now, for some of you this person is also faking their confidence in front of you. They are hiding their feelings, but they feel a a psychic pull towards you pile 2!!💭✨️ They might be searching for information especially online in order to identify these emotions omg.😨 They may have an strange thirst for knowledge about you that they can't explain, they are deeply curious about you without even realizing it. For some this could even mean possible obsession, they can't seem to figure you out so I think that morphs into a type of attraction for them.🧠🖤 This is quite the plot twist. They may not be aware of their interest in you, but there is a strange attachment to you. For some of you they may even be silently learning more about you through social media or any way they can. It is possible this person is definitely not aware of their attraction to you and they may not even feel it at first, but it is subconcious.😳💭 Either they are putting on an act about how they feel or for others in this pile they haven't realized they feel an attraction to you, but this secret is yet to be revealed for them my pile 2's❤️‍🔥

💌Messages from your person: My future is with you, You have so much to say, I have no boundaries with you, You're so delicate, You are, It's all fake, Can I hold you? I'm trying to find myself.🎎🤩🚨🙃 (Okay pile 2 so this person admits to it they have been putting on an act, they have been hiding their true energy towards you relentlessly but they just can't hold back from you. They are lost and trying to figure things out, my pile 2's this person wants to hold you.😫❤️)

Thank you my pile 2's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🌺💋

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 2 with the kiss emoji~💋 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🥰

Pile 3🌺

Sign energy: Vision, Star, Try, Control freak, Meaning, Gemini, Virgo, 3rd house, Vertex, Earth,😇🕷🍪🤙

🎀Your person's energy: Exciting! This person feels witty and analytical, they may be a fast thinker or use their head a lot.🧠💭 They can be focused and may be good at communicating, also a very angelic personality🥰✨️ They try to be helpful and have meaningful conversations with others, but they can also be very controlling for some. They are skilled with their hands, and they may be very good at many things including speaking.🗣👑 They could be Earth sign, Gemini, Virgo, or Mercury dominant. 3rd house placements, also virgo in 3rd house for some. This person may talk or think excessively.🤯 For some this person is very social and may have many friends or converse with lots of people often. They do well at may at school or work, they have a professional/well put together vibe about them. They want to be a fast and efficient person.🔨✨️ They are talented and there is a star quality about them in their expertise. May be very thorough and detailed. They could have a good reputation or people see them as bright example.⭐️ They may be a rolemodel of some sort or you look up to them. This person possibly struggles with overthinking or anxiety, they often have their mind on many different things.👀 They are mindful and think things through. Try to appear cool in most conversations😎 Very clever and sweet I'm hearing, they might freak out about some stuff sometimes. Like for some of you this person could be afraid of spiders or like not completing an assignment lol things like that😂

🌺Are They Attracted To You: At last, Responsibility, Ladder, Masculine, Accessory, Aries, 7th house, Sagittarius, South node, Eros,🐓♈️🌫🪂

Okay so there is a lot of passion in this pile, they see you as something hot and untamable! There is heavy aries influence here, some of you may be aries🤭 This person is normally level headed and responsible but you bring out this wild side to them😳🔥 There is a lot of attraction to you my pile 3's, honestly you really turn them on😭 This person may feel tempted by you, or you challenge them in some way. You make them want to act tougher or more dominant with you, you bring out a reckless version of this person, it's like a hidden monster that has been waiting to be unleashed.👿⛓️ Mhm this person is wild about you honestly, their feelings are loud and clear here. They are attracted to your free spirit, they want to take risks with you.🪂🔥🚀 Something about you is foreign to them, almost forbidden. If you're in the room with them, the air feels thicker. They have such a passionate fiery energy towards you, but this attraction is also an interest in a commitment with you. They may desire a long term relationship instead of a fleeting romance. This person feels like you complete them, and they may be very attracted to you as their romantic counterpart take what resonates of course.💍💖 They feel an obligation towards you, like they have to be strong or reliable for you. You excite this person, there is a spark they see in you.🔥😫 They might feel like you are dangerous for them though, and there could be lots of physical tension between you two. They try to keep composed, like they are fighting their demons.🥊 You make them feel empowered and full of passion and drive. They may especially view you as phsyically attractive or their ideal type. I'm hearing you cloud their judgement and you could even make them lose their inhibitions.❤️‍🔥 So much attraction!

💌Messages from your person: I know it's hard, I love the shape of your lips, The pain will go away, You're a genius, Don't just stand there, So what? You're too kind, Of course you won't. 🆚️✍️😡🤐 (Ohh pile 3 this person is hot and bothered, they think you're really sweet and smart and they know you won't just let it go to waste🥰 This is a mix of tension and appreciation from this person, wow I think they want to compete for you🥺)

Thank you my pile 3's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!💋

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 3 with the hibiscus emoji~🌺 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🥰

Pile 4🌹

Sign energy: Beloved, Model, Leo, Blush, Make out, 12th house, Air, Pluto, 11th house, Mercury,⛓️🥀💆‍♀️⛪️

🎀Your person's energy: So.. some of you wanna make out with this person right now😂 lmao just kidding but yes there is a lot of attraction to this person haha. Some of my pile 4's really love this person, they make your day. They could be a model or they have that kind of allure to them, they just earn effortless attention and obsession lol.💫 You may dream of them, even fantasize of them. You feel spiritually connected to them, and of course it is very apparent in the energy that you are interested in them through tarot/astrology. Some of you met this person online or they don't know your identity, only some. This person could be famous or people's heads just turn to them.👤✨️ Could be actor or creator for some, they are talented in something. Some of you are not with this person right now, there could be phsyical distance and lack of communication for you two.📵 They could be an Air sign, Leo, Pisces, Scorpio, Aquarius, Gemini, Mercury in 12th house, Pluto in Leo or Pluto in 11th house, Mercury in 11th house for some. I'm hearing this person is a religion lol what, they could have a lot of secret admirers like for some in this pile take what resonates lol. They could be religious, also for some they have a following on social media or an influencer.🤳 Hey they are pretty attractive I could see why, this person might make you blush.🤭💗 You may be too shy to talk to them or you just can't for some reason, they are quite captivating and glamorous.💋✨️ May attract lots of jealousy because of their radiant energy and confidence. You admire their unique qualities, they are super special. Their presence is intense and magnetic, maybe even serious for some in this pile. Strange things about them make you giggle and smile, I'm hearing they have a hold on you. You might feel like they're your soulmate, but there is an air of mystery to them. This person is so hot, some of you may fantastize being touched by them and you may not even know them that well, it feels like your heart is captured by them, maybe even a little addicted for some.🫢🩷

🌺Are They Attracted To You: Baby, Wedding, Performance, Spring, Ex lover, Taurus, 2nd house, Vertex, Aries, Leo,🕊❤️‍🔥🔑⛲️

Hm interesting, so this is giving a lot more info actually. Wedding came out my pile 4's😏💕 This person finds you naturally attractive and full of charm!😍💋 They have a playful interest in you, also very passionate and sweet. They think you're pretty, aesthetically pleasing to them in many different senses.✨️ For some in this pile this is an ex that wants you back, like the classic "come back to me baby" stereotype lmao I can hear that for some of you😅💌 they are still burning with passion for you. This could be a flame that just started for others in this pile, your connection with this person is meaningful and possibly a key aspect of your life. That is especially true because this person may want to marry you and that could actually work for them!💍💗 They have a lot of charm and attraction to you, also with the dove emoji they might definitely plan to confess or get the message across to you. They want your attention fast, they might even put on a show for it.😂 They are dramatic about you. Like for some of you this person is trying to be flashy to get your interest, they might be dressing nicer or flirting a lot. You make this person feel very flirty omg, with this mix of energy it feels like sweet talking.🗣🍬🩷 Like they feel so attracted to your warm kindness, they find you to be irresistible. They love your personal feminine qualities you whether it's like making things nicer or shopping, even your voice🥰 Some of you may be born in spring, also there are definitely some Taurus in this pile! This person is attracted to your earthly beauty, even if you don't feel pretty they see you as a goddess.🪞 This energy is very persuasive I think this person is so captivated by your aura and presence.💖 Their attraction to you is a grand, passionate and devoted kind, you are like wood they need to ignite their flames.🔥 They feel like they can trust and rely on you, they're attracted to how stable and beautiful you are pile 4! There is a lot of desire here, they want to be seen by you. Also they want to give you their attention, they're such a charmer😩❤️‍🔥

💌Messages from your person: I need you in this lifetime, Pretend you don't know me, I love the shape of your lips, Why not? Let's break up, They're jealous of me, I believe you, Focus on yourself.🧤🔮🤴🫰 (Wow of course they are quite dramatic lol. They are very attracted to you, this person may be unable to be with you right now. Some of you are dating this person or they want a relationship with you but others are jealous😳 People may want their hands on you/them, or for others it could be timing or situation that is coming between you both. This person believes in you though, I mean they believe in the divine connection you have but they want you to focus on yourself right now. There is so much love for you and they don't want you to get dragged into all the drama, they wanna be with you now but they want you to prioritize your self care and wellbeing most importantly.😩💗)

Thank you my pile 4's! If you feel this resonated, you may tap the heart to claim this message!🌺💋

I hope you enjoyed your reading! ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ If you did be sure to let me know pile 4 with the red rose emoji~🌹 Thanks for scrolling through, Hugs hugs hugs!! See you in the next reading🥰

Wanna see more readings like this? Check out my tumblr for accurate readings for you!💗🌊🌸

Thanks for reading! \(*^w^)/💌 -Lunadream <3

[talekinesis]

I need Stan and Ford to see their mom again

Like let's say she's still alive and in her 80s, she's in a wheelchair (ambulatory, she has customized canes) she still lives in their old home because a part of her hoped Stanford would come back, and she didn't want to leave their home, so he'd know where to go back to.

She wanted to stay put in case Ford came back.

So imagine her shock when both her boys come back home to her

Obviously Stan immediately starts apologizing for faking his death, putting her through grief, her arranging and attending his funeral, but she stops him like "I'd much rather it be fake than real." That's her baby boy, back from the dead, something most people don't get, so to her it's a miracle.

Her Jersey accent is thick, and it actually brings out the twins' accents that had faded over time (Stan's sounds natural to him since he always retained it a little, but everyone finds it funny when Ford's accent comes back because he just doesn't seem like the type to speak like that)

THEY MOVE HER INTO THE SHACK

The boys wanna take care of their mama and keep her around since it's been so long, and Caryn is delighted to be moved out of a loud city with rough memories and into a quiet little town where the people are odd but nice. Ford and Stan both work together to make the Shack accessible for her. Ford actually sat in her wheelchair to test everything and make sure she could get around on her own.

They catch her up on everything, and at first they don't think she'll fully believe them but she's like "Stanford built an international portal and got lost for 30 years? Stanley took his place and turned his home into tourist trap? Yeah, that seems like something my boys would do."

When she learns Stan taught himself engineering to re-build the portal, she's obviously very proud of him. "You were never dumb, Stanley, ya just learned different. Honestly, I always thought ya had A-D-H-D but Pa never wanted ya tested. But look how smart and creative ya turned out, son! I think ya did good." And Stan is definitely not crying.

Personal headcanon: Caryn was also really smart and picked up on things quick. The boys had to have gotten it from somewhere, and it wasn't Filbrick. He just took the credit because 1) he was the worst, and 2) times were different back then and no one would have really taken her seriously. But she's the one who would fix things around the house since she taught herself how to keep the place together and running since Filbrick wouldn't pay anyone to come and repair anything.

Imagine little Stan standing behind her with a flashlight while she fixes the wiring in the wall because an outlet stopped working. Both of the boys helping her while she fixes the car for the third time that week because it keeps breaking down. Mama Pines taught herself how to keep things up and running because no one else would or could.

Caryn meets Mabel and Dipper when they come back in the summer, and Mabel is THRILLED

She's technically met them before but they were still newborns at the time so they don't remember her, and she hadn't gotten a chance to see who they'd become

Mabel makes her a sweater and she wears it with pride. And I really think it would go like that scene from Elemental

Caryn: You made this?

Mabel: Oh, yeah, it's nothing-

Caryn: Nothin? Babygirl, my designer dresses were made by 'nothin.' Oh sweetie, you have got to do somethin' with this skill. And to think, I have an original 'Mabel Pines.'

And don't think I'm leaving Dipper out of this, he gets his great-grandma's attention too. She loves talking to him and listening to him tell stories about the monsters they've encountered in the past. She sees a lot of Ford in him, but she also sees a lot of Stan in him in other ways.

I think Dipper's love for "girly" music is something Stan used to share before Filbrick "disciplined" him for it. Child Stan used to sit in the kitchen with his Ma and sing along to the radio, usually listening to whatever she had put on.

Now all three of them sit in the kitchen and listen to the radio while Stan cooks.

Ford feeling like a failure for putting everyone in danger, and Caryn just goes, "Come talk to your mama." And he does. He goes and talks to his mama, like he always has in the past. She's in her 80s and they're grown men in their late 50s, but she's still their mom, and you never really quit being a mom.

I might actually write a short fic about this, I love it so much.

[xylophonetic]

maybe someday

im reminiscing on xylophonetic now… shiloh my love i know its been two years but if you’re still out there you can always come back <3

[jinwoosbabyboo]

“Will You Marry Me?"

How I imagine LADS Men would propose. This is part 2 of 2. I tried to do the sweet elegant writing, but that ain't me so here you go....

Xavier

Our lover boy Xavier is a literal prince. I feel as though he'd be very traditional with his proposal. The only unfortunate part is he can't ask for your fathers/family blessing because you know .... Anyway :)

He would definitely court you for a week even if you’ve already been together for over a year. The day of his proposal he would take you to a spot only he knows that has zero light pollution. Of course it’s deep in the forest.

MC: If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re trying to kill me and hide my body Xavier: You have such creative thoughts MC: Seriously where are we going? Xavier: Somewhere special MC: So mysterious even after a year of dating

He’d bring you to a clearing that seemed like it was being lit up by a spotlight. It’s not though he chose to propose on a night with a full moon and clear skies so you could see how beautiful the stars are without all the city lights.

MC: It’s otherworldly Xavier: This was my favorite place to come when I needed clarity MC: Why didn’t you show me sooner? Xavier: I wanted to save it for a special day MC: oh what are you going to propose or something?

You’d be laughing and boom he pulls a ring out of his pocket shutting you right up.

MC: Oh shit! You’re really proposing Xavier: Yes im really proposing

His speech is so sweet it could give you cavities not only would he emphasize how much he loves you he’d let you know just how much he is solely yours. Even if you were to one day forget him and how much he loves you he would still always be yours and would do anything to keep you safe & most of all happy.

Xavier: My lady will you marry me? MC: I want nothing more

He might’ve been sweet and soft spoken during his proposal but that shy boy facade went out the window when you two got back home.

Sylus

It’s canon that Sylus gets nervous when he wants to ask you out. So just imagine how nervous he is getting ready to propose! He already constantly gifts you pretty gems and the gifts just keep increasing over the course of 3 months.

He second guesses himself thinking you may say no so he keeps putting it off but continues to shower you in gifts, quality time, full body massages, shopping sprees, dinner dates, lunch dates, you name it he’s doing it, you want it he got it. He’d be spoiling you so much you’d have to sit him down and ask him what’s going on. He would dismiss your concerns of course.

MC: Are you guys leaving for a while? Kieran: Why do you ask? MC: Sylus has been acting weird I feel like he’s about to disappear again Luke: That was one time and boss only did that because you asked him to leave you alone MC: I know but I’m worried now Luke: Relax miss hunter you’re overthinking

The twins would indeed gaslight you while Sylus worked up the nerve to propose. When he finally has the nerve to do it he goes all out. I’m talking he'd rent out the most exquisite restaurant money can buy. A whole staff at your beck and call. He'd wine and dine you with delicious food and expensive wine. By the time dessert comes you'd want answers.

MC: You're leaving me aren't you Sylus: Jumping to conclusions are we? MC: I'm serious Sylus you haven't been yourself lately you're worrying me Sylus: I guess this is the part where I explain myself

With two snaps of his fingers the twins would rush out; Kieran placing a giant box bouquet of red roses in your arms and Luke placing a crown on your head before rushing out leaving the two of you alone.

MC: What's this? and what am I a Princess? Sylus: You are and I'd love to change your title to Queen MC: Stop are you....

I don't picture Sylus giving a long winded speech. I feel like he would be the type to write it down so you could cherish his words forever.

Sylus: Will you marry me Miss Hunter? You can say no if- MC: Of course I'll marry you

Yet again I'm tackling this man as soon as he slips that ring on. Need to be in his arms immediately. Expeditiously.

Zayne & Rafayel here…

[cherrylovelycherry]

Hi! I wanted to say that I really love your writing, I spent hours binge reading without even noticing! I also love how creative your "menu" is. I wanted to ask if you take requests? If so, could I request a Boothill x Fem reader souffle? It can be any kind of plot or without plot at all. I just really like your writing and would like to see one of Boothill. Thank you so much for your time -anon

.note. hihi anon! aww it's nice that you like my writing, thanks! (ㅅ´ ˘ `) this took me a while, uni is being hard on me. sorry if there are any spelling mistakes, english is not my first language. anyway, i'm kicking my feet as i write this. i have the hc that boothill is sweet and gentle when it comes to intimacy, the complete opposite of his appearance, so yeah. hope you like it! ദ്ദി (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)~✧

𓂅new order. "soufflé and a éclair au chocolat."

You know what they say — save a horse, ride a cowboy!

pairing. Boothill x fem!reader cw/genre. nsfw, fluff, cunnilingus, blowjob, some praise kink, first time, mdni synopsis. you ended up fucking a cowboy full menu

You're were with Boothill this afternoon, as he was willing to give you lessons on horse riding after he realised how incredibly inexperienced you were.

You were lucky he taught you, though you assumed it would be his way of repaying the favors you did him, fixing and improving his robotic body countless times.

The countryside is just outside of the busy city, so, as somone who lived in the city, being with Boothill in the countryside was very different.

After an hour or two, you started to grow tired and Boothill noticed it. He offered for you to come to his house, or so you thought, since that was where he was staying for a while, instead of walking all the way back home in such a tired state. You nodded, exhuasted, just wanting to lay your head on a pillow.

As Boothill walks with you check your phone, and there's a message from your roommate asking where you were. You quickly text that you're staying at Boothill's for the night.

Another message appears, and when you open it, it says;

"You're staying with Boothill for the night?? OMG, you know what they say — save a horse, ride a cowboyyy!"

You felt the heat rise to your face almost instantly as you read the message. Which caused curiosity in him, approaching where you were.

"Hey, you ok? You're turning red, darlin'."

As if trying to see what the message was about, you moved your head to the side. Which ended up being for the fun of it as you quickly put your phone away.

The evening sun was already peeking out, being chased by the darkness of the night.

With somewhat quick steps, it managed to set before you, curiosity etched across his features, Boothill reached out to touch your cheek. "Seriously, you look like a ripe tomato. Did somethin' happen?"

Your heart skipped a beat as his fingers slowly touched your cheek. You took a shaky breath as his hand continued to touch your face.

You quickly looked away, trying to avoid his gaze.

"I'm fine, just tired. That's all," you said quietly, trying to sound convincing.

The feeling of his hand on your skin sent chills down your spine, reminding you of the message your roommate sent.

You let go of his grip, as you both continued walking.

Was it possible that…he was thinking the same thing?

You shook your head slightly at the thought.

"Just my stupid roommate making a dumb joke." You tried to laugh it off, but even you could hear how forced it sounded.

Boothill continued to watch you intently, his eyes lingering on your face for a moment longer before he spoke.

"Darlin', I can tell when you're lyin'. You're makin' it kinda obvious," he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Hah, right, whatever you say." You scratched your cheek with your hand, hurrying your pace.

He merely laughed lightly at your response.

You both walked towards where Boothill was staying, it was a somewhat remote house, but it was in the city.

The house was somewhat large, the owner of which was a grandmother, who Boothill had once saved. She was extremely sweet to let him stay there if he needed it.

As you arrived at the house, you noticed how the sky had darkened even more, the stars slowly appearing as the night settled in.

As you both reached the house, Boothill unlocked the front door. It creaked open, and he stepped back to let you walk in first.

With a muttered "thank you", you entered the house. It was cozy and comfortable, a warm place that seemed to radiate with a hint of nostalgia.

Boothill closed the door behind him and led you into the living room.

"Make yourself at home darlin' I'll go and let her know I've brought you with me," he said before disappearing into the hallway.

You took a seat on the couch in the living room, and as soon as your butt met the cushion, you felt your phone vibrate.

Another message… probably from your roommate.

You fished your phone out of your pocket and quickly unlocked it, curiosity getting the better of you.

Sure enough, it was another message from your roommate, still riding the horse/cowboy joke.

This time, she sent a gif of a cowboy riding a horse, with the message; "Yee-haw! Ride that cowboy, babe! 😉"

You couldn't help but sigh, feeling a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment. And even some amusement at the gif she sent. Your roommate was way too invested in your supposed "crush" on Boothill.

You groaned inwardly Great. It was never going to end. Your roommate was going to make this into a running joke for months, maybe even until the end of time.

Your irritation was interrupted as you heard footsteps approaching from the hallway.

Boothill appeared a moment later, walking back into the living room. He took a seat on the opposite side of the couch, still maintaining a respectable distance from you.

"She's just glad I'm finally bringin' someone here," he chuckled, referring to the house's owner.

He leaned back into the couch, his eyes still fixed on your form. There was a small smile on his face.

You shifted in your seat, feeling a mix of embarrassment and warmth at his words.

"Yeah, well, I'm sure she's had to deal with your antics for a while now," you quipped, trying to sound lighthearted.

Boothill let out a mocking gasp, placing a hand over his chest in mock offense.

"Excuse me? Are you implyin' that I'm a troublesome guest? Me? A perfect gentleman?"

You rolled your eyes, a small smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

"Oh yes, the perfect gentleman," you said, sarcasm dripping from your tone.

He feigned an expression of innocence.

"I'll have you know, I am a model guest. I make sure to clean up after myself, respect the property, and always ask for permission before snackin' on somethin'."

You couldn't help but laugh at his attempts to defend himself.

"Right, because asking for permission to raid the fridge is the epitome of good manners," you teased, raising an eyebrow. "And let's not forget the time you accidentally broke a vase and tried to mend it with duct tape."

He fakely frowned a little.

"Hey, I still stand by that duct tape solution. It looked pretty darn good once I was done with it," he chuckled, a hint of guilt in his voice.

You shook your head, still amused.

"You're lucky the house's owner has a soft spot for you. Otherwise she wouldn't let you stay here any longer."

He shrugged, a cheeky grin spreading across his face.

"What can I say? I'm irresistibly charmin'."

He stretched lazily, his metal arms extending with a soft whir.

"But seriously, she knows I ain't cause no real trouble. And besides, I keep the spiders away for her," he added with a wink.

You snickered. "Ah, yes, the dutiful bodyguard against the eight-legged critters. She must be so thankful for your bravery."

He laughed, clearly enjoying the playful banter.

"You laugh now, but when you have a spider the size of your hand crawlin' up your leg, you'll be beggin' for my services," he teased.

"Please, like I'd ever let it come to that," you retorted. "I'd fight that spider off with a rolled-up newspaper if I had to."

He chuckled again. "Oh, I don't doubt that for a second darlin'. You ain't afraid of much, are you?"

The lighthearted atmosphere was refreshing, and you found yourself enjoying the exchange.

"Heh, I guess not."

You put a lock of your hair behind your ear, while Boothill turned on the medium-sized television in the room. The fireplace made the cold outside not felt at all.

The soft glow of the television filled the room, casting shadows on the walls.

Boothill grabbed the remote and started flicking through the channels, looking for something to watch.

"Anythin' ya want to watch?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the TV.

You tilted your head, pretending to think for a moment before answering.

"How about a cowboy movie?" you suggested, a teasing tone in your voice.

"Hah! A good one then."

As you glanced at Boothill, you noticed the way the light reflected in his eyes, their artificial luminescence dancing with the flicker of the screen.

"You hungry? I can whip somethin' up for ya in the kitchen," he offered, his voice still carrying a hint of humor.

You considered his offer.

"Nah, I'm alright," you replied, your attention half-focused on the TV.

The more time passed, the more interesting the movie became. You both let out one or another comment about this. Until you and him were silent.

He leaned back against the couch, his metal arm resting along the back. Despite his mechanical parts, he still managed to exude a sense of comfortable familiarity.

His gaze flicked away from the television, locking onto yours.

"You okay, darlin'? You're a little quieter than usual."

You were caught off guard for a moment, surprised by his perceptive question.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you answered, a little too quickly. Lie, you were falling asleep.

The truth was, you were fighting the urge to yawn.

"I'm just a lil tired ," you added, trying to sound nonchalant. Another lie, your whole body hurt from the physical exercise you were doing earlier in the field with Boothill.

He raised an eyebrow, a hint of skepticism in his gaze.

"Uh-huh, 'a little tired,' ya say," he said, clearly not buying your act.

He leaned forward a bit, studying your face.

"Your eyes are heavy, and you're yawnin' more than a kitten."

He thought for a second before placing a cushion from the couch, which they were sitting on, over his legs.

"Here." He said, patting the cushion a few times, so you could lay your head there.

"Are you calling me a tired kitten?" you protested, unable to stop a small yawn from escaping your lips as you spoke, proving his point.

Your eyes widened slightly as he patted the cushion on his lap, offering it to you like some kind of makeshift pillow.

Your heart skipped a beat, the situation feeling suddenly more intimate.

But your body yearned for rest, your tired muscles calling out for a moment of peace.

He smirked, clearly amused by your tired protest.

"I dunno, if the shoe fits…" he joked, his gaze still fixed on you.

As you hesitated, hesitating to accept the offer, your tired body won out over your embarrassment.

With a defeated sigh, you slowly leaned down, resting your head on the pillow of the cushion, now laying across his lap.

Your heartbeat quickened as you felt the firm but gentle support of his thighs beneath you.

He chuckled softly as he noticed your hesitation, but allowed you to lean down and rest your head on his lap.

"There you go, darlin'," he murmured as you settled into the makeshift pillow.

A small, satisfied smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Boothill remained silent for a moment, observing your tired state.

"Comfy?" he asked finally, his voice a low rumble.

"Mhm." You let out an affirmation towards his words.

You closed your eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion that tugged at your eyelids.

The sound of the movie in the background faded away, replaced by the steady rhythm of his breathing.

For a moment, there was a silence between you, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

Instead, it felt soothing.

He watched you closely as you let your guard down, your eyes slowly drifting closed.

With each breath you took, your body seemed to relax further, almost melting into his lap.

Boothill's metal fingers gently traced the outline of your hair, almost on instinct, as if seeking to provide some kind of comfort.

A soft, almost silent chuckle passed his lips as he noticed your tired state.

You felt your body relax as tension drained from your muscles, the weight of the day's physicality finally catching up to you.

Boothill seemed content to remain silent, allowing you to rest in comfortable respite.

Your mind started to wander, thoughts blending together seamlessly. You felt strangely at peace in this position - head resting on his lap, his metal fingers brushing against your hair, the sounds of the movie like a distant hum.

You felt utterly at ease, your tired body finally getting the rest it desperately craved.

Boothill's presence was both comforting and grounding, his touch a constant reminder of his attentiveness towards you.

Your thoughts gradually faded into weary tiredness, your mind struggling to stay awake longer.

You found yourself drifting on the edge of sleep.

He continued idly running his metal fingers through your hair, a soothing rhythm that seemed almost designed to lull you deeper into relaxation.

As your breathing slowed, growing more rhythmic and steady, he could tell that you were moments away from drifting off to sleep.

His eyes never left your face, taking in your relaxed expression and the soft curves of your features.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. There was a certain satisfaction in seeing you at peace, especially after a long day.

You felt his fingers running through your hair once more before you fell completely asleep.

Your mind slowly slipped away from consciousness, and the world around you faded into a drowsy haze.

You don't know how much time passed, but you slowly opened your eyes, keeping them half-lidded.

You weren't touching the couch and you felt like they were grabbing you.

Oh, you were being carried.

Keeping your eyes the same way, you looked up, watching as he was carrying you up the stairs.

You felt like in those princess stories in which the prince carefully carries the princess.

As he carried you up the stairs, his grip firm and gentle around you, he took note of your half-lidded eyes slowly fluttering open.

He chuckled softly as he caught your gaze, realizing you were half-awake.

"Hey there, sleepyhead," he teased quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

He continued up the stairs, navigating carefully to not accidentally hit your head or anything else.

"Go back to sleep, dear"

He was taking you to a spare room so that you could sleep more comfortably.

Even in your semi-asleep state, you heard the soft rumble of his voice, the sound soothing your tired mind.

A small, sleepy smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you heard him call you "sleepyhead." It was a nickname you hadn't heard from him before.

He carried you gently upstairs, the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor blending with the silence of the house. You kept your eyes half-open, still disoriented and groggy.

"Mmph…" you managed to mumble in response, your drowsy brain struggling to form coherent words.

He chuckled at your sleepy attempt at a response, finding your disoriented state endlessly endearing.

"Shhh," he whispered, his metal fingers gently brushing a strand of hair away from your face.

"You're barely awake, darlin'. Just go back to sleep, we're almost in the guest room."

The soft hallway lights cast long shadows ahead of him, dancing softly against the walls as he continued on.

Finally reaching the spare room, he carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Gently, he laid you down on the bed, tucking the blankets around you like he was handling a delicate artifact.

As you were gently lowered onto the bed, the soft sheets and blankets wrapping around you like a comforting embrace, your body automatically snuggled into their embrace.

A small, satisfied sigh escaped your lips as your tired muscles sink against the mattress.

The cool sheets felt soothing against your skin as you slowly settled into the bed, still in a half-asleep state.

You felt his touch once more as he carefully adjusted the blankets, ensuring you were tucked in properly.

"There we go," he murmured, his voice low and almost soothing.

As you were laid on the soft mattress, the blankets wrapping around you like a cosy cocoon, you felt the exhaustion fully taking over again.

Your tired mind was too drowsy to think clearly, your eyelids feeling heavy once more.

You vaguely registered his movements around you as he seemed to be adjusting something near the bed.

"…Boothill?" you mumbled his name, your voice still thick with sleepiness.

He paused, looking down at you with a hint of surprise at the sound of his name.

"Yeah, darlin'?" he replied quietly, his voice a gentle rumble.

He finished adjusting the blanket, ensuring you were completely covered and tucked in.

He then leaned closer to the bed, his eyes studying your sleepy face for a moment, before a soft smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

"You need somethin', or are you just makin' sure I'm still here?" he teased gently.

Your sleepy brain struggled to form coherent thoughts, the drowsiness making it difficult to string words together.

"Mmph… jus' makin' sure…" you mumbled, your voice barely audible.

You felt strangely vulnerable in this half-asleep state, the tiredness leaving you without the usual guard you had up.

The room was quiet, the only sound being the soft rustling of the blankets as you shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable.

You could feel his presence close to the bed, his eyes still fixed on you.

Literally the idea of what you were going to try to say left you. So you frowned, keeping your eyes closed.

Until you managed to remember something, "The girl who is with you will be…very, veeery luckyy,"

He raised an eyebrow at your drowsy mumble, his grin widening slightly.

"Is that so?" he murmured, his voice soft and amused.

When you mentioned the hypothetical luck of his future girlfriend, his gaze softened, a hint of something unreadable in his expression.

He chuckled lightly, shaking his head slightly. "You're still dreamin', darlin'."

He reached out, his metal fingertips lightly running through your hair once more, a soothing gesture.

He stood silently nearby, watching you as you fought against the fog of sleep.

As you mumbled something about the girl he might date, his expression softened even further. He couldn't help but find your sleepy ramblings both amusing and endearing.

You hummed with pleasure as you felt his metal fingertips gently run through your hair once more, the sensation sending a soothing wave through your tired body.

Your eyes remained closed, too heavy to open, and yet some part of your tired mind stubbornly held on to consciousness.

"Mm…not dreamin'…jus' sayin'…" you protested, your words slurring together slightly.

Your mouth attempted to form more words, but fatigue weighed heavily on your tongue, making it difficult to speak clearly.

"Lucky…" you mumbled once more, the word sounding more like a sigh than anything else.

He chuckled softly beside you, his voice filled with a mixture of amusement and something else you couldn't quite place.

"…Darlin', you're not exactly makin' sense," he teased, his tone warm and affectionate.

He continued to run his mechanical fingers through your hair, the soothing motion seemed to melt away any tension still lingering in your body.

As you mumbled about luck and being lucky, he chuckled again, the sound low and gentle.

Your words came out alone, almost like a yawn that couldn't be stopped. "C'mere…" You said, as you looked at him, you opened your eyes a little this time.

His hand paused in your hair, caught off guard by your request.

He looked at you, your half-open eyes peering up at him through the haze of sleep.

A mix of surprise and amusement played across his face. "You want me to come closer?" he asked, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

He stood there for a moment, as if trying to decipher your sleepy request, before moving closer to the bed.

“Mhm,” You blurted out, affirming his words.

His eyes scanned your face, taking in your half-open eyes and the sleepy smile on your lips.

"You're a bossy little thing, even when you're half-asleep," he said with a soft chuckle, shaking his head slightly.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight.

He leaned over slightly, his metal hand still resting on your hair, gently smoothing out the messy strands.

By the time he got close enough, your body acted on its own.

"Lucky.." You murmured as you grabbed his face with both hands and placed your lips on top of his, quickly but softly.

Caught off guard by your unexpected move, his eyes widened slightly when he felt the softness of your lips against his. For a moment, he froze, his brain trying to comprehend what was happening.

But it didn't take long for him to respond. His hand on your hair slid down to your cheek, the coolness of his metal fingers contrasting with the warmth of your skin.

He returned the kiss, his lips moving against yours with a gentleness that contradicted his cybernetic appearance.

After a few seconds, he pulled away slightly, "Darlin', you're gonna be the death of me…" he murmured

As you felt his response, his cool fingers contrasting with the warmth of your skin, you couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction.

You leaned into his touch, your eyes still closed, a small smile playing at the corners of your lips.

Your tired mind was still in a sleepy haze, but the kiss seemed to awaken a different kind of energy within you. You let out a sleepy giggle at his words, your eyes still half-lidded.

“You’re a little too cheeky when you’re sleepy," he admonished, a hint of amusement in his tone. "You're gonna give a cowboy a heart attack."

It was a nice way to put it since he physically had no heart.

His eyes tracing the curve of your smile on your lips. Your tiredness seemed to fuel a playful energy within you, making you even more endearing in his eyes.

He shifted his position slightly, his body now facing you fully, one knee on the bed. His metal hand cupped your chin, tilting your face up towards him as he leaned in slightly.

"And here I am, trying to be all gentlemanly and let you get some sleep," he teased, his voice low and full of mock reproach.

A sly smile tugged at the corners of your lips, the drowsy state making you even more cheeky than usual. Besides, despite being tired, your consciousness was more exact. You were leaving the state of drowsiness.

"Gentlemanly, huh?" you mumbled, your words still slightly slurred by sleepiness.

You pushed yourself up on one elbow, leaning towards him as much as your tired body would allow. "That's cute," You commented, your other hand reaching out to touch his chest.

You chuckled softly, "Besides, whose fault is it for being so irresistibly kissable?" you retorted.

You liked to see how his face turned slightly red, being visible only by the night light that came through the window.

You were enjoying the unexpected turn of events, the boundaries between friendship and something else starting to blur.

His eyes widened slightly at your words, the compliment catching him off guard.

He watched intently as you leaned forward, your touch against his chest igniting a spark under his metal skin.

Thanks to you, who had been able to connect and 'create' new nerves that would be connected to his robotic parts, managing to have at least a slight sensation of touch in his body.

His eyes flicked down to your hand before returning to meet your gaze, his expression a mix of amusement and something else he couldn't quite hide.

Your words had found their mark, and he couldn't deny the reaction they provoked. Despite his usual confidence, there was something about your sleepy flirtations that had him uncharacteristically flustered.

He swallowed hard, trying to maintain his usual cool demeanor, but a hint of a blush betrayed his reaction.

He leaned in closer, his body nearly hovering over yours as you leaned up on your elbow. His metal hand moved from your chin to the back of your neck, his fingers tracing circles on your skin.

Your senses seemed hyper-aware in this exhausted state, and the feeling of his metal fingers tracing circles on the back of your neck sent a shiver down your spine.

The way he loomed over you, his body hovering just above yours, made your heartbeat quicken. There was a sudden tension in the air, a subtle shift in the dynamics of your relationship.

You looked up at him, your eyes no longer had that flash of tiredness.

He could see the change in your eyes, the drowsiness slowly giving way to a sharper focus. A silent understanding seemed to pass between you both; the tiredness had faded, replaced by a different kind of awareness.

He leaned in even closer, his face now only inches away from yours. His eyes held a mixture of curiosity and barely concealed desire, studying your features as if seeing you in a new light.

The air thick with an unspoken tension. Your skin tingled where his metal fingers touched your neck, a mix of cool certainty and unexpected delicacy.

"You're awake now, aren't you?" he murmured, his voice lower than usual, hinting at the effect you were having on him.

His fingers continued their gentle dance along the back of your neck. He seemed to be wrestling with something, caught between his customary charm and the unfamiliar surge of vulnerability.

Your lips parted slightly, the proximity making it difficult to focus on anything but him.

His eyes were searching yours, studying every detail as if trying to memorize each inch of your face. His gaze remained fixed on you, watching how your eyes responded to his closeness.

But, oh, he was holding back, there was an evident hunger within him.

A hunger he never thought he wanted, specifically from you.

He saw your reaction, the slight intake of breath, the way your lips parted slightly.

His mind was hazy with a million thoughts, all centered on you and how much he wanted to close the remaining space between you.

His metal fingers moved up from your neck, tracing a path along your jawline before gently brushing against your bottom lip.

"Tell me to stop," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your breath hitched slightly at his touch, the feeling of his metal fingers on your lip setting your nerves alight.

His voice was soft but laced with a barely restrained intensity. He was struggling with his own desires, trying to hold back but also aching for more.

You hesitated for a moment, caught between wanting to give in to the budding intimacy and fearing the consequences.

Your eyes met his, searching his gaze for any hint of insecurity or doubt. But the desire in his eyes made it clear that this was not a whim or a passing fancy for him.

"But I don't want you to stop," You responded also quietly. Your eyes left his for a moment, looking down at his lips.

Your words were like music to his ears, banishing the last remnants of his hesitation.

His breath hitched slightly as your eyes drifted to his lips, the silent desire in your gaze mirroring his own.

His hand shifted, moving to cradle your face, his thumb resting just under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his gaze.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.

And, with just a nod from you, he couldn't help it anymore.

Being careful not to hurt you, he somewhat carelessly brought his lips to yours, pressing them with need.

Your confirmation was all he needed.

The moment your heads met, there was an explosion of sensation. He deepened the kiss, his other hand gripping your waist, drawing you closer to him. His body pressed against yours, the coolness of his metal chest contrasting with the warmth of your skin.

His tongue eagerly explored your lips, seeking access to your mouth, a silent plea for more, for more of you.

There was a certain urgency in his actions, a hunger you could practically taste in the way he held you, the way his tongue moved against yours.

As his tongue sought entry into your mouth, you didn't hesitate to respond in kind.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him even closer, needing to feel more of him against you.

His hands roamed restlessly over your body, as if trying to memorize every inch of your skin through your clothes. He needed to feel every part of you, as if the physical contact could quench the hunger burning within him.

The kiss grew more urgent, more demanding. His cool metal fingers gripped your waist, holding you tightly as he pressed you further into the mattress.

His tongue danced with yours, a silent battle for control, each movement charged with raw desire. There was a hint of something wild in his demeanor, the usually controlled cowboy succumbing to his most primal instincts.

He groaned softly into the kiss as your hands tangled in his hair, the feeling both pleasurable and arousing.

Your body responded eagerly to his touch, arching against him in a silent plea for more.

His hands explored your body, tracing the contour of your curves, the cool metal of his fingers leaving goosebumps in their wake.

He broke the kiss, his lips moving to your neck, leaving a trail of kisses and gentle nibbles along your sensitive skin.

"You drive me crazy," he murmured against your neck, his voice hoarse with desire.

A gasp escaped your lips as he moved from your mouth to your neck, his teeth grazing against the sensitive skin.

Heat pooled in your core, his words and actions igniting a fire within you.

Your fingers gently tugged at his hair, a silent signal urging him on. A soft moan escaped from your throat as he bit down lightly on a particularly sensitive spot.

"You have… no idea," you managed to gasp out, your voice shaky with need.

He hummed against your skin, the sound vibrating along your sensitive skin.

Your gasps and slight moans only fueled his desire, the sound of your voice shivering with need causing a shiver to run down his system.

His hands roamed over your body, tracing every curve, as if mapping out a territory he now desperately wished to claim as his own.

He smirked slightly against your neck, his lips leaving a trail of kisses that were slowly moving down to your collarbone.

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea," he retorted, his voice carrying a low, sultry tone.

His hands moved lower, resting on your hips, gently guiding your body against his.

His smirk against your neck sent a shiver down your spine. You could feel the heat of your desire growing with each passing moment.

His hands roaming over your body and his lips tracing a path down your collarbone added fuel to the flame.

You tilted your head back, giving him better access to your neck. Your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling slightly as he continued his assault on your skin.

"Boothill…" you whispered, his name sounding like a prayer tumbling off your lips.

Your whispered plea, his name falling from your lips like a litany, sent a shock through his system.

He paused his ministrations for a moment, lifting his head to look at you.

Your eyes were half-lidded, your cheeks flushed, and your hair slightly disheveled. You looked utterly captivating in that moment, your desire for him written all over your face.

His hands left your body, this time heading to your shirt.

I was about to roll it up until his brain made him stop for a moment.

"Do you want…to do it?" He dared to ask you, seeking your consent. His eyes boring into yours gently.

You met his eyes, seeing the mixture of desire and restraint in his gaze.

Your breath still slightly ragged, you nodded slowly.

"Yes," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I want this. I want you."

As he pulled your shirt off, his hands skimmed over your skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

He paused for a moment, taking in the sight of you, partially undressed before him.

"You're beautiful," he murmured, his eyes roaming over your body, his gaze filled with a mixture of desire and admiration.

His words, a simple compliment carrying more weight than usual, caused your heart to skip a beat.

His eyes trailed over your body, taking in every detail as if you were a masterpiece hanging in a gallery.

The way he looked at you, with a mixture of desire and admiration, made you feel both vulnerable and powerful at the same time.

His eyes were fixed on you, taking in every inch of your exposed skin.

"You're perfect," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

He leaned down, his lips finding your neck, his mouth leaving a trail of kisses along your collarbone and down your chest. Finding your bra very annoying.

The combination of his touch, his kisses, and his words made you feel like you were slowly unraveling.

His mouth trailing along your skin was driving you insane with need and desire.

His lips trailed down your neck and down your chest until they reached the barrier of your bra. He paused for a moment, his hands gently tracing the edge.

"Can I?" he asked quietly, his fingertips brushing against the fabric.

The way he was handling you, with a mixture of reverence and desire, made you feel both cherished and desired.

His lips returned to your neck, leaving soft, teasing kisses as he waited for your response.

As his fingertips traced the edge of your bra, your heart pounded in anticipation, your body aching for more of his touch.

His request, whispered in a soft, hoarse voice, set your nerves on fire.

You nodded, your voice barely above a whisper, "Yes,"

He didn't need further coaxing. His hands quickly unclasped your bra, freeing your chest from its confinement.

His lips continued their journey, leaving a trail of kisses down your newly bared skin. He seemed to savor every inch of you, as if unable to get enough.

The feeling of his lips on your bare skin was nothing short of maddening.

His hands, now free from the barrier of your bra, roamed freely over your torso, as if he were mapping a new territory.

His hands instinctively went to your breasts, massaging them slowly and gently, touching the tips of your breasts. Causing you to flinch at the coolness of his fingers.

Without further ado, his mouth moved to one of your breasts, his other hand touching the other.

He sucked and nibbled gently, drawing a gasp from your lips.

His mouth on your sensitive skin sent a shiver down your spine, your breath catching as his tongue flicked against one of your nipples.

Your hands tangled in his hair, holding him close, your fingers clenching tightly as he continued his ministrations.

You gasped, arching your back towards him, silently pleading for more of his touch.

His hands continued to explore your body, his touch firm yet gentle, as if trying to memorize every contour.

His fingers traced circles over your hip bone, then moved lower, slipping under the waistband of your pants.

This time he didn't ask, he raised his head and looked at you, with those eyes full of pleading.

Oh, that look you never thought you'd see in him.

The look in his eyes was one you never thought you'd notice coming from him.

It was a silent plea, a silent "Let me take care of you."

Hearing your gasps and slight moans, he wondered why it had taken him so long to cross this line with you.

You could feel the desire growing inside you, a burning need for more contact, more of him.

You raised your hips, silently giving him permission to remove your pants, your breath coming in ragged gasps.

Slowly, he slid your pants down along with underwear in one go, his hands skimming over your skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. You could feel his eyes on you, taking in every inch of your exposed body.

He ran his hands gently down your thighs.

Now you were completely naked in front of him, your body on display, vulnerable and exposed.

His gaze roamed over your body, taking in the sight of you in all your glory.

In his eyes you were the most perfect thing that could exist, a goddess, an angel come down from the heavens.

"Beautiful," he whispered, his voice filled with reverence and desire.

He leaned down again, pressing his lips against your stomach, leaving a trail of kisses. Then, he pressed light kisses on your legs, moving closer and closer to where you needed him the most.

Your body was aflame with desire, every touch of his sending your senses into overdrive.

Your legs opened slightly, inviting him closer, silently pleading for more of his touch.

His lips moved over your skin, his kisses growing more insistent as he made his way to the inner part of your thighs.

"Please," you managed to gasp out, desperate for him to touch you where you needed him most.

He chuckled softly against your skin, enjoying the fact that he had you completely at his mercy.

His chuckling set your blood boiling, your body arching towards him in a silent plea.

He knew what you wanted, what you needed, and he was enjoying every second of it.

"Patience, darlin'," he drawled, his lips trailing along the sensitive skin of your inner thighs.

He was taking his time, teasing you, drawing out the pleasure, and driving you insane in the process.

He continued his assault on your inner thighs, leaving gentle bites and kisses, slowly moving closer to your center.

His hands were now firmly gripping your hips, holding you in place, preventing you from bucking up against him in a plea for more contact.

Until after that little torture of his, his lips hovered over your aching center, kissing above your lips, softly and gently.

You were a wreck.

Your body ached for more contact, more of him, and he was purposely taking his time.

Instead, he began to trace small, feather light kisses around your aching core, his lips moving slowly but purposefully, avoiding the place you wanted them most.

You gasped again, barely managing to hold back a whine in protest.

"Please," you repeated, your voice a desperate plea, "Please, Boothill."

He chuckled against your skin again, enjoying the way your body responded to his every touch.

When he finally moved his lips to your center, his tongue lightly flicking against your sensitive bud, you gasped loudly, a shiver running down your spine.

His tongue started to explore your most sensitive parts, flicking and swirling gently, sending waves of pleasure through your body.

Your head fell back against the pillows, your eyes closing as you surrendered to the sensations he was creating.

His tongue's teasing touch against your center sent sparks of pleasure through your body, your breath caught in your throat.

Your hands tangled in his hair again, pulling slightly as he continued to explore you. "So beautiful and sweet," he murmured against your skin, the vibration of his voice adding to the sensations he was causing.

He wrapped his lips around your clit, gently sucking and nibbling, driving you even further into frenzy.

Then, his fingers entered the equation, slowly slipping inside you while his mouth continued to work its magic.

Your body trembled, the combined sensations overwhelming your senses.

You were at his mercy, your body completely under his control, writhing and gasping under his expert ministrations.

His fingers moved inside you, curling and stroking, while his tongue continued to flick against your sensitive bud.

The sensations were quickly building toward a climax, your breath coming in quick gasps as you tried to hold back.

"Boothill.. I can't.. too much.." you managed to gasp out, your body arching off the bed.

He seemed to know exactly how to push your buttons, his mouth and fingers working in perfect harmony to elicit the most intense reactions from you.

You couldn't think straight, his touch sending you into a state of ecstasy that was almost overwhelming.

Your body was caught in a tempest of pleasure, every touch of his tongue and fingers driving you closer to the brink.

His fingers curled inside you, hitting a particularly sensitive spot that made your breathing grow ragged.

It looked like he was licking and eating a candy.

Your fingers gripped in his hair, tugging slightly as the pleasure built within you.

"Oh god," you breathed, your voice a ragged gasp, "Please, I-"

Then, suddenly, he stopped, drawing back just as you were about to reach your climax.

You let out a gasp of frustration, your body aching for release.

"Not yet, darlin'," he murmured against your skin, his lips leaving a trail of kisses along your inner thigh.

At the lack of his lips and tongue on your clitoris, you felt a slight breeze that made you shiver. Not to mention how you felt it pulsating.

His free hand gently massaged your hip, as if trying to reassure you.

Your body was taut like a bowstring, the sudden lack of stimulation leaving you feeling empty and needy.

He slid his fingers out of you, stretching them a little, watching as your juices covered them completely, almost spilling out.

He let out a light chuckle, before bringing his fingers to his mouth, drinking in your delicacy.

Your view, which was clouded with ecstasy, focusing on the scene of him sucking on his fingers, was completely provocative.

It was all too obvious that he was more than needy.

Your breathing grew ragged as you watched him suck on his fingers, your eyes wide.

The sight of him enjoying the taste of you was almost too much to bear.

"You taste so good, darlin'," he murmured, his voice thick with desire, "I could do this all night."

When his eyes met yours, that's when you realised.

You had been so focused on your release that you hadn't realised how much he wanted this.

His face flushed, his lips moist.

Oh, he looked so damn needy.

He looked completely undone, like he was restraining himself from taking you right there on the spot.

He was tense, as if he was holding himself back.

Your skin thrumed under his hot gaze, and you could see the way his body reacted to the sight of you sprawled out before him.

It was the cutest thing to see him like that.

You rose slightly from the bed, pushing his chest back now, almost to where you were lying before.

You knew it was now your turn to make him feel good. More than he was.

As you gently pushed him back, reversing your positions, he let out a low growl, but he didn't protest.

He leaned against the wall, watching you with a mixture of curiosity and desire.

He looked absolutely wrecked.

His hair disheveled from your hands, his face flushed, his body thruming with need.

All that for you.

You straddled his hips, sitting on top of him and relishing the position of power you suddenly found yourself in.

Your hands roamed over his chest and bare torso, feeling the firm metal muscles. You could feel the heat radiating off him. His systems were beginning to overheat.

You leaned down, peppering kisses along his neck and jawline, enjoying the way he responded to your touch.

He leaned his head back against the wall, exposing more of his neck to your touch, a low, guttural groan escaping from his throat as your lips and tongue traced a path along his sensitive skin.

His hands gripped your hips, his fingers digging into your skin as you kissed along his neck and jaw.

He let out a low moan when you nibbled on his earlobe.

He was coming to terms with the new sensation of being underneath you.

He was used to taking charge in many situations, but something about letting you take the lead seemed different.

He liked it.

He needed it.

His moans and groans were music to your ears, showing you how much he was enjoying your touches.

His breath was becoming ragged, and his hands held onto your hips tightly, as if anchoring himself.

"Darlin'," he gasped out, his eyes half-lidded as he looked at you.

Your hands began to wander lower, tracing the line of his abdomen and feeling the metal muscles twitch under your touch.

As your hands reached the waistband of his pants, you paused and looked up at him.

"Can I?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded eagerly, his eyes dark with desire.

He was more than willing to let you continue.

His eyes were dark with desire, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps, and his body was taut with tension.

"Yes," he managed to say, his voice thick with need, "Please."

You tugged on the waistband of his trousers, and he lifted his hips to help you pull them down.

He was begging you, and he didn't care.

As you slid them down his legs, you couldn't help but notice the evidence of his arousal straining against his boxers.

Oh, you forgot that could happen.

You remember that at his request, you made a modification to his robotic body.

Specifically a synthetic limb.

It was one of your best modifications as it was also connected to the nerves that you also gave him. Not to say that his blue blood would help bring it to life when he had to go into action.

You didn't really think you could test if it really worked.

Would you be the first to see if it worked properly? You didn't know.

You hadn't really thought much about it before. After all, it was just a standard modification that you had done. But now, as you saw the physical evidence of his arousal, you couldn't help but wonder if it would work as intended.

Your thoughts were quickly interrupted when he groaned loudly, drawing your attention back to him.

You had started touching his length over his underwear without even realising it.

With just the touch of you, you were surprised to feel the slight warmth that came from it.

He inhaled sharply at the touch, his body tensing even more.

"Please," he repeated, his voice hoarse, "I need you. I need you so bad."

You smiled at their pleas, apparently it was a very good idea to amplify the sensitivity around the area.

He was already a mess, and you had barely touched him yet.

His gasps and moans filled the room, and his eyes were dark with desire.

You could see how badly he needed you, how much he wanted you.

He was begging you, pleading with you to touch him more.

You looked down at the noticeable bulge in his boxers and then back up at his face.

"You're so beautiful," you murmured, "So needy."

He let out another gasp, his body arching towards you as you continued to touch him through the fabric.

After a while of appreciating the good view you had, you pulled down his underwear, revealing his length.

His breath hitched as you pulled his underwear down, exposing him to your view.

He felt so vulnerable, so exposed, but he didn't care.

"Oh god," you blurted out at the sight of his limb.

At first glance you could tell it was working properly.

You were kind of proud of it.

He shuddered at your words, the sensation of your eyes on him enough to make his body shiver.

He was so sensitive, so receptive to your every touch, and it was all thanks to your modifications.

You moved down towards his arousal, cupping it with your hands and releasing light kisses that went from base to tip.

He let out a guttural moan as you kissed him, the sensation sending waves of pleasure through his body.

Your touch was light and teasing, driving him wild with need.

"Oh, sweetheart, that's so good," he gasped out, his body arching towards you as you continued to touch and tease him.

He was putty in your hands, completely at your mercy.

He had never felt this way before, completely surrendered to another person.

And he loved every second of it.

He looked down at you, his gaze full of desire and need.

Without waiting too long, you licked his tip, without taking your eyes off his face.

You were beginning to like the way he was moving beneath you.

He groaned loudly at the feeling of your tongue on his tip, his body arching slightly off the bed.

He couldn't believe the feelings you were invoking in him.

He felt like he was on fire.

He needed more your mouth, more of your touch, more of you.

He reached down, tangling his fingers in your hair, trying to hold himself.

To that, you smiled.

And, without further delay, you shoved as much of his length as you could into your mouth.

His entire body trembled as you took him into your mouth.

He could barely believe how good it felt, how good you felt.

"Oh god," he gasped out, his grip on your hair tightening.

He was completely lost in the sensations you were giving him, unable to think clearly.

He felt like he was on the brink of explosion, barely holding on.

Your mouth felt like heaven against him.

You continued, lowering and raising your head, while also moving your hands up and down his length.

You looked up at him from time to time, just to watch him come completely undone.

His face was flushed, his eyes half-lidded, his mouth open and panting.

His breathing was ragged, and he was making little gasps and moans that sounded like a mixture of your name and incoherent praise.

He was a mess, and it was all your doing.

He was completely under your control, and he loved every second of it.

His breaths were coming in short, ragged gasps, and he was clinging onto you like a lifeline.

His body was trembling, his systems threatening to overheat.

"I'm close," he gasped out, his grip on your hair tightening even more.

He was teetering on the edge, completely at your mercy.

"Please," he panted, "Please don't stop."

You loved the way he was begging you, the way he was completely at your mercy.

You didn't stop, if anything you increased the pace, determined to push him over the edge.

His grip on you grew tighter as he got closer and closer to the brink.

"Oh, swetheart," he groaned, his voice thick with need, "I can't- I'm gonna-"

And, before I reached my limit, your movements stopped, ceasing to suck his length.

You laughed lightly, catching your breath for a moment as you watched him frown in frustration.

He stared at you, his body still shaking with need, his breathing ragged.

He looked completely wrecked, and he was not happy that you had stopped.

"Why'd you stop?" he gasped out, his voice full of frustration and need.

He was so close, so damn close.

He needed you.

But you just smiled at him, enjoying the way he was squirming beneath you.

You smiled as you stood up a little, stretching your back.

"Patience, sweetheart." You somewhat mockingly repeated his words he gave you moments before.

He groaned in frustration, his body still thrumming and begging for release.

He wanted you, he needed you desperately.

How could you be so cruel?

He watched as you stood there in front of him, your smirk making him even more frustrated.

"You're a tease," he grumbled, his voice rough with need.

You positioned yourself on his lap, without sitting down.

With one of your hands you cupped his cheek, as you placed a soft kiss on his lips.

"You were a good boy."

His breath hitched as you cupped his cheek, and he leaned into your touch, despite his frustration.

Your words made him shiver, the praise stirring something in him.

"I was," he murmured, his voice slightly pouty.

He was still needy, still on edge, but he loved the way you were handling him.

He wrapped his arms around your waist, holding you close, as he nuzzled your neck, breathing in your scent.

"Can I have my reward now?" he murmured against your skin.

"Heh, of course you do." You said, as with one of your free hands you grabbed his length, positioning the tip at your entrance.

He gasped at the feel of your hand on him, and he held onto you tighter.

He was so sensitive, every touch sending sparks through his senses.

"You're so perfect…," he whispered, his breath hot on your skin.

As he felt you position him at your entrance, he felt a shiver of anticipation. He needed you, he needed to be inside you.

He was on the brink of losing his mind from desire and need.

"Please," he pleaded, "Please don't make me wait any longer."

You smiled, as you slowly tried to make his length spill inside you.

Which in itself was difficult and painful for you, as this was your first time.

He could feel how tight you were, and he felt a pang of desire mixed with guilt.

As you tried to take him in, he noticed your slight discomfort, and he immediately stopped you.

He looked up at you, concern in his gaze, and he gently lifted you off him.

"Sweetheart, are you alright? You're hurtin'," he asked, his voice filled with worry.

He was still needy and desperate, but he didn't want to hurt you.

He cupped your cheek, his thumb gently stroking your skin, as he watched you intently.

You tried to hide your discomfort, but he saw right through it.

His concern and tenderness made you feel warm all over.

"I'm fine," you said, trying to downplay the pain you were feeling.

"I just need a moment to adjust," you added, a slight tremble in your voice.

He looked at you for a moment, his eyes searching yours, looking for any signs of discomfort.

He gently caressed your leg, his fingers tracing light circles on your skin.

"We can do it slowly, without pressure, my dear" he said, his voice gentle.

Your body relaxed at his words, grateful for his understanding and patience. He placed a gentle kiss on your forehead.

He took his time, gently guiding himself inside you once again, with great care.

He was still sensitive, craving your touch, but his main priority was ensuring that you were comfortable.

He slowly pushed himself in, his eyes locked on your face, watching for any sign of discomfort.

He could see the mixture of pain and pleasure on your face, the way you chewed your lips, trying to hide your discomfort.

He continued to move slowly and gently, giving you time to adjust to the new sensation. You took deep breaths, trying to relax and get used to the feeling.

It was slow, and it hurt, but having him be attentive and considerate, made you feel safe.

As he gently slid further in, the pain began to subside, replaced by an unfamiliar but not unpleasant feeling. He stopped once he was fully inside you, pausing for a moment.

He leaned in, placing gentle kisses on your face, trying to soothe you.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice tender and worried, his gaze fixed on you.

You looked up at him, meeting his gaze, and gave him a small nod to let him know it was ok to continue.

His gentle and patient manner was making your heart flutter, and the way he watched you with such care made you feel even more connected to him.

"Y'know, sweetheart? This is my first time too." He said, still not moving.

He tucked one of your hairs behind your ear. As he placed several kisses on your cheeks in an affectionate way.

You blinked in surprise at his words, not expecting that revelation.

You really thought he would have done this many times by now because of the way he behaved, you were wrong apparently.

The realization that this was his first time too, and that he was just as nervous and uncertain, added a new layer of intimacy to the moment.

You reached up, cupping his cheek, and gave him a gentle smile.

"I didn't know." you said, your voice soft, "You're being so kind and patient with me."

Then you reached up, running a hand through his hair, feeling its texture and smoothness between your fingers.

He nuzzled into your touch, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation.

He felt a little vulnerable admitting that it was his first time too, worried you might think less of him. But the way you smiled at him, the warm touch of your hand on his cheek, made any anxiety melt away.

He leaned into your touch, enjoying the feeling of your fingers combing through his hair. It was soothing and grounding, helping to steady his racing thoughts and nerves.

He gently began to move again, slowly and carefully, still watchful of your reaction.

He watched as you ran your hands through his hair, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

"Besides, I wanna make sure you're enjoying this just as much as I am." He whispered, his breath warm on your skin.

You shivered as he began to move again, the gentle friction sending small tremors through your body.

The way he was moving inside you was still a bit uncomfortable, but the pain was beginning to fade and be replaced by a different kind of sensation.

You closed your eyes, letting yourself get lost in the sensations you were feeling. He was being so considerate, taking his time and making sure you were comfortable.

His words made you smile, and you opened your eyes to meet his gaze.

"I am enjoying it," you replied, "more than I ever imagined it could be."

Your hand continued to run through his hair, and you pulled him closer, pressing your forehead against his.

His heart skipped a beat as you pulled him closer, a warmth spreading through his chest.

He was relieved and happy to hear that you were enjoying it. All he wanted was for you to feel good and safe with him.

He continued to move gently, trying to find a pace that was pleasurable for both of you.

He relished in the feeling of your hand in his hair, and he loved the way your body felt against his own.

"You're so beautiful, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice thick with desire, "I could lose myself in you forever."

He leaned in, kissing your neck and collarbone. He opened his mouth to bite your neck, leaving a mark much more noticeable than the others he had left on your thighs.

The feeling of his mouth on your neck sent a shiver down your spine, and you let out a soft gasp as he bit down.

You could feel his teeth sinking into your skin, and you knew it would leave a mark, a reminder of this moment.

You tilted your head back, giving him more access to your neck, silently encouraging him.

The sensation was a mixture of pleasure and pain, but you didn't mind. It felt possessive.

Claiming. You wanted him to claim you, to make sure that everyone knew that you were his.

You arched your back, pressing closer against him, encouraging him to continue.

"Please," you murmured, your voice low and wanton. "Don't stop."

He was sensitive, and the feel of you around him was almost overbearing.

He felt your body arch against his, your voice low and pleading, and it made him shiver with desire.

He loved the way you reacted to his touch, the way you leaned into him and asked for more.

Hearing the words "Don't stop" spill from your lips was like music to his ears.

He continued his assault on your neck, his mouth moving to new spots, nibbling and biting and sucking, marking you as his own.

Instinctively he moved his hand to one of your breasts, pulling the tip and massaging it.

He began to move a little faster, a little deeper, his pleasure increasing. He groaned against your skin.

The feel of his hand on your breast sent ripples of pleasure through your body, your breath catching in your throat as he teased and played with your nipple.

The combination of his mouth on your neck and his hand on your breast was almost overwhelming. You let out a soft moan, arching your back in response.

As he began to move faster and deeper, you felt a wave of sensations wash over you. The pain had faded, replaced by a pleasure unlike anything you had ever experienced.

You could feel him beginning to lose himself.

Unconsciously, your hand moved down to your clit, touching yourself as you moved your hips slightly with his every movement.

That increased the pleasure you felt, making your inner walls clench at his length.

He looked down at you, his gaze filled with a mixture of desire and awe.

He was lost in you, drowning in your scent, your touch, the way you moved against him, the sounds you made. He couldn't get enough of you.

As he watched you touch yourself, his breath caught in his throat. Seeing you give yourself pleasure while he was inside you was an image he was sure to never forget.

He groaned, unable to keep his own pleasure contained.

"You're so perfect, sweetheart," he gasped out, his words interrupted by his ragged breaths.

He kept moving, faster and deeper, his mouth never leaving your neck. Every gasp and moan that escaped your lips only spurred him on.

Every movement, every touch, every breath felt like a shock to your body.

You were lost in the sensations, your mind unable to form coherent thoughts.

"Please," you panted, "Please, I need you-"

You weren't sure how much more you could take, the pleasure was almost too much to bear.

The combination of his words, his touch, and his movements were making it hard for you to think straight.

Your mind was swirling with sensation, and you couldn't focus on anything but the feel of him inside you, and the pleasure he was bringing you.

One of your hands grabbed onto his hair, the other one still rubbing your clit. A constant stream of soft moans and gasps was falling from your lips.

He walked away from your neck, having left countless marks all over the area.

His face could not have been redder at that moment.

The sight of him with narrowed eyes, tilting his head back and mouth open, trying to formulate sentences and words that would not come out, being replaced with incoherent sounds.

It was simply a delight for you.

He tried to form a coherent sentence, but the words were escaping him. His mind was consumed with desire, his body on the brink of ecstasy.

You knew he was entering his climax, as his movements became somewhat erratic and slightly sloppy.

And, him doing so, hit your g-spot.

He was losing control, his body moving on its own, driven by pure animalistic need. He wanted to hold on, to make this moment last, but he knew he was reaching his limit.

He leaned down, his forehead resting against yours, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

He looked at you, trying to steady his breathing and speak. But all that came out were ragged gasps and incoherent sounds.

"I wanna-" he pleaded.

For that, your eyes were full of tears of pleasure.

You could feel him reaching his limit, the way his breathing was growing more labored and uneven.

The way he was trying to speak, but unable to form words, only adding to the intensity of the moment.

You were lost in the sensations, your body on fire. Each movement, each gasp from him was driving you closer and closer to the edge.

"Please," he pleaded once again, his voice ragged and needy, "can I…?"

His words trailed off, but you knew what he was asking for. And you were more than willing to give it to him.

You could see the desperation in his eyes. He wanted, no - needed to release.

He was on the edge, and you were right there with him.

You could feel him getting close, his movements becoming more uncoordinated, his breaths coming in short gasps.

"Please," you whispered, your voice trembling.

You were so close yourself, teetering on the brink of ecstasy. You could feel it building deep inside, like a coil winding tighter and tighter.

He turned his lips to yours, both of you stifling your moans and groans.

He moved his lips against yours, his tongue tracing your lips, seeking entry into your mouth.

You parted your lips, allowing him in. The kiss was messy and needy, both of you clinging to each other in search of more contact.

He let out a low moan against your mouth. He tried to hold back, to draw out the moment a little longer, but he was too far gone.

He looked into your eyes, his gaze pleading.

"I'm gonna-" he gasped out, his voice strained.

But he couldn't finish the sentence. He was completely lost in the sensation, the pleasure almost overwhelming him.

He buried his face into your neck, his body shivering against yours, as he held on to you tightly.

"I'm gonna-" he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

You could feel him on the edge, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. He was close, and so were you.

"Me too," you breathed out, your voice trembling with need, "I'm so close. Please-"

You gripped onto him.

He moved his lips to your ear, his warm breath tickling your skin.

And so, giving a few more deep penetrations, he reached his release. At the same time as you, as he pressed hard on your sweet spot, he made you come without hesitation.

As the waves of pleasure washed over him, he shuddered against you.

He let out a guttural moan, his body tensing up, as he released himself deep inside you.

He held onto you tightly, as he rode out the waves of pleasure. His eyes were closed, his breathing labored.

He tried to speak, to form words, but the only sound that came out were unintelligible gasps and moans.

For a few moments, you both were lost in the intensity of the moment. All that could be heard was the sound of your erratic breaths.

He collapsed against you, his body trembling from the aftershocks of pleasure. His forehead rested against your shoulder, his breaths ragged and heavy.

He wrapped his arms around you, holding you close, as if afraid to let go. He buried his face into your neck, inhaling your scent.

For a few moments, neither of you spoke. You both laid there, your bodies tangled together, simply enjoying the afterglow.

His breathing slowly returned to normal, his body relaxed against yours.

He lifted his head from your neck, looking down at you.

"You're so amazing," he murmured, his voice husky.

He cupped your face, rubbing his thumb against your cheek. His eyes were soft and filled with tenderness.

"That was…" he trailed off, unable to find the words.

He let out a low chuckle.

"There are no words to describe how incredible that was."

You let out a shaky breath, a sated smile on your face.

You smiled weakly, still feeling a little boneless from the intense pleasure.

"Yeah," you agreed.

But you couldn't find the words either.

"Intense" was an understatement.

You turned your face into his hand, nuzzling into his palm, enjoying the feel of his cold skin against yours.

"I felt the same way," you replied, your voice soft and gentle.

He leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

"You're perfect," he murmured, his lips brushing against your skin. "Absolutely perfect."

He shifted slightly, pulling out of you with a soft groan.

He gently placed you on the bed as he leaned further back on the bed, no longer sitting up.

He pulled one of the blankets off the bed and placed it over his body, then took you in his arms, placing you on top of him, making it slightly more comfortable for you than just being pressed against his metal body.

He pressed you against his chest, your head resting on his shoulder.

For a few moments, you both lay there in silence, enjoying the closeness and the feel of each other's bodies.

His arms cradled you spectacularly, in an attempt to make your body try to unwind from the previous physical activity. Then he ran his fingers through your hair, his touch soft and soothing.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, his voice laced with concern.

You lay on top of him, your head resting on his shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

His fingers were gentle as they threaded through your hair.

When he spoke, you could hear the concern in his voice.

You shook your head, lifting your face to look up at him.

"No, you didn't hurt me," you assured him. "You were perfect."

You shifted slightly, snuggling deeper against him.

"Now I'm just very tired.."

He chuckled softly, hearing you say that you were tired.

He continued running his fingers through your hair, rubbing soothing circles on your scalp.

"Exhausted, huh? I take that as a compliment."

He smiled, feeling a sense of pride that he had managed to tire you out so thoroughly.

He gently shifted under you, making himself more comfortable beneath you.

"You can sleep, sweetheart. I'll be right here."

He covered you with the blanket you were on top of, making sure you didn't get cold.

You melted into his touch, the feel of his fingers in your hair soothing and relaxing.

You let out a soft laugh, a little delirious from the lack of energy.

You snuggled against him, feeling more relaxed than ever before.

His touch was soothing, his fingers in your hair creating tingles on your scalp.

You let out a small sigh, feeling the exhaustion start to wash over you.

"Thanks," you murmured, your eyes drifting shut as you nuzzled against his chest.

He chuckled again as he felt you relax against him, your body sinking into his embrace.

He continued to lightly massage your scalp, knowing that it would help you fall asleep faster.

He felt your breath start to slow, your body growing heavier in his arms.

He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of your head, feeling a sense of contentment wash over him.

"Sleep, sweetheart," he whispered.

Your eyes opened slowly, getting a little used to the light coming through the window.

Attempting to stretch out, you felt trapped.

You looked up, seeing Boothill lying there. His eyes were closed.

Perhaps he was recharging his battery, you looked down again.

As your eyes cleared, you saw your legs and torso almost uncovered, which caused you to wake up completely.

You felt an incredible heaviness throughout your body, as if every bone and joint ached.

Mentally recoiling in an attempt to remember why, your eyes opened wide.

You'd had sex with him, in someone else's house, out loud. Your face turned red, "what a shame," you thought.

You sighed, leaning your head back on his chest.

Oh, but before you could try to get any more sleep, your hand reached as far as it could to your trousers, which were at one end of the bed.

When you managed to reach them, you pulled out your phone, going straight into the chat with your roommate.

You deleted the incomplete message you didn't get to send yesterday, typed in a new one and then proceeded to send it.

It read; "I rode a cowboy".

The chat almost immediately began to fill up with messages, none of which you read, proceeding to toss your phone to the side, closing your eyes again.

©cherrylovelycherry do not repost, copy, translate, modify

[takes1]

p.2 one night stand aftermath with needy!tsukishima

this boy is gonna get whinyyyy in the next one. sorry i haven't been posting like everyday anymore, i'm either hitting a wall or i'm exiting my manic creative fever

warnings. sfw-ish, conversation/narration about sex. minors DNI

info. fem!reader / smut build-up / flirting / one night stand aftermath / needy!tsukki / timeskip!tsukki / museum setting / miscommunication / 1.6k words / reply to be added to taglist for part 3!

haikyuu collection. part one here.

more links. masterlist. my ao3.

"Are you sure they're not in your bag?"

You did not want to bother somebody at their job because of your nephew's inconvenient tendency to leave his eyeglasses around.

The six-year-old stopped and you watched him search through his little Indiana Jones-themed bag. No glasses. Just the sandwich you packed for him, a coloring book, and pencils to go with it.

"Shit," You sighed under your breath. You had already been in the museum for an hour and a half.

They could've been anywhere. You rubbed the back of your neck and looked at the reclined worker behind the service desk in the lobby.

"We'll... we'll ask if they've seen any, alright?"

"Okay!"

You approached, hoping the man would break the ice first when he noticed you.

All he did was keep tapping away on his phone.

If anything, he shrank lower in his seat when you came up to the counter so you couldn't see him as easily.

"Hi, um- Excuse me, we just wanted to know if you've seen any glasses around- Or if anyone had come by to turn some in."

It was difficult enough to muster the courage to speak. But to make matters worse, the worker peeked out from around his shoe with the rudest 'Go away, I'm busy doing nothing' stare that he could muster.

Pressured frustration built in your chest and you readied yourself to speak louder, be more assertive so he could understand this wasn't a problem that would just go away.

It fizzled at a flash of short, fluffy blond hair.

Your fingers twitched from the memory of how soft it was against your shoulder, between your legs, against your palms.

His eyes widened with recognition. He took his legs back down, a lanky hand setting his headphones to rest around his neck.

You realized you had forgotten his name, so you couldn't express that you knew him so easily-- it left you speechless, grabbing at something to say.

Thankfully, it was a problem for later, because he confirmed that he heard you after all.

"You wear... glasses?" He asked.

His face worked, soaking in every new detail of your natural features he didn't get to see the last time you were together.

"No, I don't," Was all you could say.

You motioned to the child hiding behind your back, clinging to your shirt.

A nearly open-mouthed look.

"Oh!" You covered a small laugh at his unnaturally wide-eyed stare, "He's not mine!"

You held your hand to your heart, then placed it atop your nephew's head and ruffled his hair.

"Just babysitting my nephew. He wouldn't stop asking me to come here,"

The kid leaned all his weight to the side and squinted around, using you as an anchor to hold him up. He couldn't be bothered listening to you.

"He loves the museum."

He spared a glance to the little one rubbing his eyes behind you and, to his own surprise, found sympathy in his heart.

It was a quiet and incredibly uncomfortable search. You remembered his name along the way, thankfully.

It didn't help that it was nearly empty besides your small group making a sloth's pace throughout the vast, never-ending halls. Frequent stops at places you lingered at earlier to read plaques or marvel at figures put some occasional ease on the tension.

Tsukishima walked slow, with his hands in his pockets, and looked at anything but you.

Simply by his wordless agreement to help you, you could tell this job wasn't something he took very seriously. If he didn't already know you inside and out, he would've turned his music up to drown out your plea for help.

His calculated, but somehow yet disinterested gaze stood as strong evidence that he wasn't warm.

You held yourself to silence a shiver.

So, why did he look so heartbroken when you left his bedroom?

A quiet, toneless voice wrenched you out of your inquisitive thoughts.

"You do this often?"

You didn't understand how comfortable you actually were with the quiet until you had to come up with something to respond with. What was he referring to? The museum, or the sex?

"Um-?"

His face was so intense when you tried to look at him for more elaboration. Like you had stepped on the back of his shoe.

You quickly looked down.

"With the kid," He muttered.

"Oh, yeah," You blew a breath of relief, "Yeah yeah, I see him every couple weeks. We usually come here."

He hummed.

It was getting quiet all over again. You felt an obligation to try, now.

"Do...you like working here?" You winced. A dumb question you already knew the answer to.

His response wasn't as cruel as you expected. He even pretended to consider it.

"It pays for my tuition."

A generous nugget of information- your nephew began searching on his own accord around this old, interactive archeological sand table and you lingered next to Tsukishima for a minute.

"Tohoku University?"*

He nodded at your question as you both sifted through the sand in front of you.

"Me, too," You smiled, "Kinesiology major."

There was a small laugh on his lips. He smoothed the display back out when it was obvious there were no glasses here and you continued on your way.

"What, are you some snooty med student?" You scoffed at his perceived pretentiousness.

It wasn't rare to come across people who discriminated based on major when you interacted with so many aspiring nurses and surgeons. You liked the student athletes at your university better.

"No," He shook his head, "I- Just- yeah. It's nothing."

You believed him, but he left you confused and hanging on by a thread by his odd mannerisms and avoidant speech. It was difficult to make any lasting judgement about him.

Regardless, he stuck around and, though not enthusiastically, helped you search for the next twenty minutes.

There was the chance he could've been doing it all to repeat that night. If he gave you any indication that he was interested in a round two, you were prepared to take him up on the offer. But you had a feeling he would've already tried to flirt, or talk more, or just flat out tell you instead of dancing around, exhausting your politeness if it was the case.

Another room, another few minutes spent searching.

When nothing came up again, you got his attention with a frown, "You don't have to keep helping. I know this is pretty dull."

His face grew a bit warm. You both looked away.

"I'm not just gonna leave," He managed to work around your invitation to go away and reference your night together.

At first, you trailed behind him on the way into the next hall, but shook your reaction off and caught up to his side.

"So, why did you?"

He cut the niceties and put it all on the table, but you weren't at all expecting it to be laced in guilt, or shame, on his end.

Maybe if he had a sweeter resting face, or didn't kiss you so fast, or wasn't so handsy in the Uber back to his place, or didn't fuck you on the floor because he couldn't wait to get to his room, or didn't talk to you like he owned you, or didn't tell you to scream his name-- maybe if he just had an ounce of patience at the start, you would've foreseen his cuddly side and stayed a bit longer.

Honesty was probably best.

"I just," There was difficulty in your voice, "I just didn't peg you as the type to want more than-,"

His eyes were narrow and focused, fixated on your glossy lips as you spoke. It forced you to end your sentence short.

A minute passed and you were back to the skeleton displays.

As you watched him across the room, leaned under a bench to help search despite it being well over his paycheck, your heart squeezed.

He was a pretty boy- and kind where it counted, as far as you could tell. The most obvious trait of his was how much he liked you, even at the very start.

The way his face worked when he looked at you; intensity in the form of longing you'd never been the subject of before.

You'd be lying if you said it didn't make you feel pretty special to make a guy like that crumble.

"Found them." He called.

You groaned out a yes, excited you didn't have to pay an arm and a leg for a replacement. You jogged over to watch him wipe off the lenses on his shirt and hand them to your nephew.

"Glasses are expensive," Tsukishima placed his hands on his hips, unaware of how intimidating he was to a small child, "You should keep better track of those."

The kid apologized at a barely-there whisper and quickly clung to you again, embarrassed.

After all the searching, you were both tired and relieved to be able to go back home. Part of you weighed your legs down to this spot, though.

"I- suppose I owe you an apology, too," You admitted.

The double meaning was not lost on him. His chest swelled with a tentative, slow breath and he bit the inside of his cheek.

"You don't have to do that."

You were almost certain he was about to invite you back to his place. Just when you thought you had him, he slips away.

It was risky, but as you watched your nephew sprint over to a display he didn't see earlier, you decided it was more appropriate to try again.

"I'd love to make it up to you," You placed your hands on the back of your hips and tried to emulate the same look you passed to him in the club. Through your lashes, real casual, but unwavering eye contact.

His jaw worked at your not-so-subtle request to be invited back. It gave way to a hand rifling through his short, bouncy curls and red-tinged ears.

He looked over his shoulder to check you weren't being listened to.

A familiar sound was his low, interested mutter, "Are you free tonight?"

taglist.

holy shit tsukki gets so much love on here. thanks for supporting and tuning in! part three will be hornier

@little-stitious-studios @sunshinesx-264

@hrts4hanniehae @lord-hqcifer

@inofish @integers @ushijimaschubbs

@sharkubi @imiqz @yuyunhoo

reply to be added!

masterlist. requests closed.

*the uni mention: idk what the fuck i'm talking about lmao fan wiki failed me i tried to find out where he actually goes to college don't burn me at the stake

[ngtskynebula]

I talk about its creative process on my Dreamwidth journal (🇧🇷). But I'd love to do things like going out to commemorate a big milestone, or baking a themed cake, things like that. I think it's lovely and cute. I love seeing other writers partying about their books and fics! ☺️

Writing Wednesday Week #23

Do you celebrate your work? How?

Event Details

[total-lunareclipse4]

🌜One sided hate🌛

pairing: five hargreeves x reader

summary: you work for The Commission, but so does your coworker who you hate. After a sweet gesture during your special day, you begin to wonder if maybe you’re the problem.

warnings: none I can think of

word count: 1.9 k

There wasn't anything extraordinary about today. You'd felt the same as always when you had woken up by the alarm blasting from your phone, and when you'd gone to turn it off, you'd realized that you didn't have any messages. Not that this came as a surprise to you, you hadn't even felt disappointed like years prior. The type of life you chose to lead was a very solitary one. Having a family wasn't compatible with working for The Commission, and friends got tired of associating with you when your work caused you to miss every important event in their life. Also, there was the fact that you didn't even stay in one place for long periods of time, traveling through humankind's history as if you were going from one country to another.

As you got in the shower, you dreaded going to work today. Usually, you were very fond of what you did, but today you were going in to do paperwork. Whenever a mission was over, you had to spend the next couple of days writing endless detailed reports about everything that had gone down for your supervisors to go over. In some cases, you would be called in and scolded for doing something reckless that had put in danger the integrity of the organization. That had only happened to you once, but the pain in the ass you had for a coworker had not let you live it down. He was the perfect employee, your boss adored him and everyone in the office was constantly kissing his ass. Not you, however, you did not care how good he was at what he did, you were also pretty damn good about it and didn't need to put others down to prove it.

Distracted by these thoughts, you lost track of time, realizing that you were now running late. Annoyed that you were going to have to miss breakfast, you quickly headed for your place of work. Upon arriving, you were quick to get inside, trying to hide from your boss so she wouldn't realize you were late. However, as your luck would have it, she was waiting for you by your desk.

With her red lips pressed firmly in a tight line and her pale arms crossed over her chest, she gave you a frown before speaking;

“Agent, a word.” She started walking towards her office and you had no choice but to follow. Once both of you were inside the room, you closed the door and sat down reluctantly.

“After today, that makes what? Three times you've been late this month?”

Four, actually. But you weren't going to correct her.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, wishing to be anywhere but here.

“No excuses today?” One of her eyebrows shot up.

With a sigh, you replied, “No, just a promise not to let this happen again.”

She looked taken aback by your change in attitude, being used to the endless rants that explained why you had been late that day. Some of your best stuff had been used during these meetings, realizing that you were most creative during the early hours of the morning.

“I love this job, and I'm good at it. I won't be late again, I promise.” You tried to keep your sentences as short as possible, wanting this conversation to end quickly.

Your boss rested her chin on her hand and waited a few seconds before speaking again.

“Look, I'm gonna be honest with you here. You have one of the best success rates, however, being a good killer doesn't necessarily make you a good worker. You need to take this job more seriously. Be on time, dress more professionally, hand in your reports when they’re due. Next time I won't be letting you go with just a warning.”

You tried to ignore her comment about your clothes, since you thought you usually looked very professional. There was a lot of thought put into your outfits. But this wasn't the time to argue with her.

“I'm sorry. Like I said, it won't happen again.”

“Good. Close the door on your way out.” You gladly took this as an opportunity to get out of her office, but when your hand had reached the handle, you heard her call after you.

“Wait, before I forget,”

So close, you thought.

“Have Five go over your report once you’re done with it.”

“What? Why?” your words carried a little more aggression than you'd intended, something that didn't go unnoticed by your superior.

“Because I'm telling you to do so.”

You debated if this was a discussion worth having, deciding that it indeed was.

“But he has the same rank as me, why is he supervising my work now?” You could tolerate putting in some extra work now that your job was sort of on the line, but answering to Five was something that you thought you could not tolerate.

“You have the same rank, yet, he’s never been late.” You knew this was a sign to drop the subject before she regretted not firing you in the first place.

You opened the door, resigned to leave.

“One more thing,” you heard her say, “don't ever question me again.

“Yes ma’ am,” you replied and went to sit over at your desk.

This was proving to be the worst birthday ever.

Once you were all settled in, you decided to start moving some files around, figuring that if you wanted to be taken more seriously, you had to start by cleaning up your place of work. That’s when you first noticed the little brown bag and the paper cup with your name written on it. Upon closer inspection, you realized they happened to be your favorite drink and pastry. There was also a note attached written in very neat handwriting that read: “Happy birthday, enjoy breakfast on me.” On the bottom left corner were three doodles you figured were a poor attempt at drawing balloons.

You looked around the office, but none of your coworkers seemed to be paying you any attention. Against your better judgment, you took a sip from the beverage, thankful that you were going to be able to eat some breakfast afterall.

Around noon, you were almost ready with your report, and you decided to take a quick lunch break as a reward for your work. You headed for the snacks machine, almost having forgotten about the terrible morning you’d had. However, things seemed to be going bad again when you noticed a particular coworker standing by the machine.

Taking a deep breath, you chose to rise above and walked over to get some food. You noticed he was whistling your favorite song, apparently not having realized you were there.

“Goodmorning,” you said as to let him know you were there.

Without turning back to look at you, he bent over to pick up the soda that had fallen from the machine and replied,

“Actually, it’s the afternoon.” Already annoyed, you looked down at your watch to realize he had been right. It was exactly twelve PM. You chose not to say anything, waiting for him to leave so you could buy your lunch, but instead, he opened his can with a loud POP and leaned against the machine.

“Did you like the breakfast? I wasn’t sure if that was still your order,” he asked.

You were shocked by the revelation, expecting the gift to have come from anyone but him. You had so many questions, and a couple of insults too. Regardless, the only thing you could mutter out was a poor attempt at being grateful.

“Yeah, thanks,” you spoke dryly.

“I know you never have any breakfast so I thought it an appropriate gift.” He took a sip from his soda.

“You couldn’t possibly know that,” you spat, annoyed.

He gave you a half grin, an insufferable look that said please, who do you think you’re talking to?

“You’re always late, usually looking like a hot mess. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you don’t have time to eat breakfast. Not saying that I’m not a genius though.” You hated that he was making assumptions about your life like that, however true they may be. He didn’t know the first thing about you.

“And humble too,” you replied, anger taking over your tone.

He furrowed his brow, as if confused by your response. Did he seriously expect you to act any differently after he called you a mess?

“Have I done something to offend you?” He asked.

You let out a loud puff. Where could you start?

“I don’t appreciate you treating me like garbage just because you’re on the good side of our boss.”

He let out a laugh, an actual audible laugh that made you want to strangle him.

“Buying you breakfast on your birthday is treating you like garbage now?” He always managed to twist your words to leave you looking like the bad guy.

“That’s not what I was talking about.”

“Then what were you talking about? Enlighten me please, when have I ever been rude to you?”

This was your opportunity to show him how insufferable he had been over the years, however, after giving it some thought, you couldn’t come up with much.

“Like that time I got told off for making a mistake during a mission and you made fun of me afterwards.” You felt silly saying it out loud. It sounded so childish.

“That’s what this is about? I was just playing around, that’s what friends do!” He laughed again, taking another sip.

“We’re friends?”

“We aren’t?” He asked. His brows furrowed in a confused looked.

Suddenly, you realized all of the anger you had held against him over the years was nothing but one sided and utterly pointless, given that Five actually thought you two were friends.

“No, not to my knowledge,” your tone was soft, no longer mad but a bit embarrassed by your past attitude.

Five took a good look at you, inspecting you for a moment. He seemed to be making a choice in his mind, which he shared with you when he spoke again.

“Tell you what, let me take you out for dinner tonight, as a way to celebrate your birthday properly. We can actually talk and get to know each other then. That way you can make an informed decision about whether or not you wish to be my friend.”

You pondered about it for a few seconds, unsure if to trust the guy who you'd considered your enemy for as long as you’d worked here. After a little bit, you came to the conclusion that eating dinner with a coworker was better than sitting alone in your apartment feeding on leftovers, even if that coworker was Five Hargreeves.

“Fine, let’s have dinner.”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“Yeah sure, whatever,” you smiled. You figured you could try to be a little kinder to him after years of unjustified rudeness.

He smiled back and began walking away, once he was a few feet away from you, he turned around to face you again.

“And hey, don't forget to have that report on my desk before you clock out today,” he said with a wink before leaving you alone.

The anger came back, making you feel the urge to punch that stupid grin off his face.

Maybe all was not forgiven.

……..

author’s note: I’ll probably do a part two if this goes well of them having dinner!

[comic-sans-chan]

Fic I'll never write where Dukat decides the biennial Cardassian Festival of Whatever the Fuck (it is never actually specified) should be hosted on Deep Space Nine as a way of bridging the gap between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples. Sisko and Kira are both Ehhhh about it, but Dukat is obnoxiously persistent until finally the Bajoran government and Federation higher ups are like “K”, on the condition that no Cardassian military (or Order) personnel be allowed. All security for the event will be handled by Odo and Starfleet. Dukat is suspiciously cool with this, which puts everyone on alert, but soon Cardassian vendors and decorators start showing up and they turn out to be pretty chill people, so they let it happen.

While the preparations for the festival are underway, another operation has started. A motherfucker from Garak's past is doing typical motherfucker things on the station. One of these things is scouting Garak's quarters, learning the layout, tracking Garak's routine. It becomes clear very quickly that the rapidly increasing number of Cardassians on DS9 is putting Garak on edge, though, because he seems to be fiddling more with his security protocols, so the motherfucker realizes they need to make their move and they need to make it fast.

They succeed. Sort of. With the circumstances as they are, they had to get a little... creative, but it should do the trick.

By early next morning, every PADD, screen, and computer system on the station is streaming seventy-two different poems on a constant loop. Love poems. Ardent, anguished, often utterly indecent love poems, all with the central theme of being about one Doctor Julian Bashir.

Quark is one of the first to notice the problem, being the type of asshole who opens early despite this only increasing his bottom line by a fraction of a fraction. At first, he's furious that his systems have been tampered with, but after reading a few lines of what his normal menu and advertisements have been replaced with, he's laughing, and by the end of the third poem, he's on the floor.

"Odo!" he shouts, banging on the bastard's door twenty minutes later. "Odo, open up! We've got a problem!"

Odo slinks under the door and slips up between it and Quark's pounding fist with a glare. "Quark! I'm not on duty for another hour. What could possibly be so urgent?"

Quark's sharp little rat teeth are splitting his face clean in half as he holds up the PADD. "Take a look."

Odo scrolls through a couple poems, then squints and scrolls through several more. "Erotic love poetry? I didn't peg you for the type."

"To like erotica? Hoo, I thought you paid better attention than that, Constable."

Odo returns the PADD with a dry expression. "To read."

"Oh, you're hilarious." He taps Odo's chest with the PADD. "The whole station is filled with this stuff. My bar, the Replimat, the Celestial Cafe, the promenade. Someone's either desperate to make a statement, or we've been sabatoged."

Dramatic sci-fi music swells and we get a close-up of Odo’s eerily hairless face and nasal cavity.

The next few hours are dedicated to trying and failing to seize back the servers and briefing the bridge staff on the situation.

"Are we sure these are all about Doctor Bashir?" Sisko's voice booms across Ops. He's on his second cup of coffee and a pile of useless PADDs lay beside him.

Julian has remained stoic throughout the discussion and he remains so now, avoiding eye contact with anyone who's smiling a little too wide. Like Jadzia. "Oh, definitely," she says. "He's mentioned by name in three of them, and several others make a point of highlighting the subject's 'golden sand dune skin', 'aristocratic' features, and 'voice that never stops singing.' Sounds like Julian to me."

A few snickers break out, but Sisko is taking the matter seriously. Thank fuck, Julian thinks. It actually looks like it's giving him a headache, which would make two of them if Julian was capable of having headaches. The captain's rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And the source..."

"There's a clear data trail back to Garak's quarters. Whoever did this, they wanted us to know where it came from," Kira reports. A muscle jumps in Julian's cheek.

"I tracked Garak down for his statement on the issue," Odo says, gruff, "and he told me he had nothing to do with the virus. In fact, he denied ever having laid eyes on the poems in his life. He's claiming he's been framed." He rolls his eyes.

"Okay," Jadzia says, "we all agree he's lying, right?"

"But which part..."

"Oh, they're Garak's. I've read enough Lloja of Prim to be familiar with traditional Kardasi meter and syntax, and that isn't even going into all the parallels drawn between our doctor and Prime. Sand, heat, rainforests. Bit of Romulan imagery in there, too, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of flowers and vines. Wasn't Garak a gardener?"

"I see no reason why anyone would want to embarass themselves like this," O'Brien cuts in before Jadzia can make it worse. "Even if he is trying to distract us or something, this seems counterproductive in the long term. Everyone’s watching him now, not just us. The rumor mill is running rampant. Not exactly a spy’s MO."

"He did blow up his shop once."

"Because someone was trying to kill him," Julian pipes up for the first time, looking concerned. "Do you think this might be another cry for help?"

"Oh, it's a cry for something," Jadzia quips, and Julian shuts the fuck up.

"Dax," Sisko snaps, like the good benevolent Wormhole Alien Jesus he is, and Dax shuts the fuck up, too. Sisko gives them all the stink eye. "Constable, you're nearly as familiar with Garak as the doctor is," he says, and holds a hand up before any jokes can be made. "What do you think?"

"I don't think he's behind this, sir. None of the pieces add up, and he seemed genuinely agitated when I spoke to him, in his way. At present, I believe he is as much a victim here as the rest of us."

Sisko sighs. "All right. Do we have any idea who is behind this?"

The room is silent for a time, before Odo reluctantly answers for everyone, "Not yet, sir."

"Find out," Sisko demands, "and Chief, get these damn poems off of my reports. Dismissed."

Julian is out of the room before anyone else has stood up.

The rest of the day is spent ducking in and out of his office, only treating those who ask for him by name and keeping all conversations strictly professional. Any mentions of poetry, the festival, Cardassians, or Garak are firmly sidelined, and on a couple occasions, rewarded with a none-too-gentle hypo. He skips lunch altogether and extends his shift by two hours to avoid the dinner rush.

By the time he's leaving the Infirmary, it's late. Unfortunately for him, not late enough that the halls aren't still speckled with observers to his personal soap opera. With the Festival of Frank’s Hot Dogs less than a week away, DS9 is becoming increasingly crowded with tourists, mostly Cardassian, but a surprising amount Bajoran, too–apparently this festival was a rare bright point during the Occupation, when their oppressors were not only lenient with them for once, but generous with food and drink and freedoms. It doesn't hurt that the only Cardassians on board are civilian rather than military, so the atmosphere is rather more colorful, courteous and conversational rather than cold, dark and aggressive. It would make Julian smile if he wasn't so busy being gawked at.

"I don't see it," one Cardassian man grumbles and Julian's accursed augmented ears pick up. "He's even smoother than a Bajoran."

"Oh, yeah," his companion replies, "just think of how easily he'd slide around."

"Tanett!"

"Oh, hush, Grandpa. You're just xenophobic. He's cute."

"Well, you be careful who hears you say that. That Garak fellow is in the Order, you know. Ears everywhere. You don't want to know what things a man like that is capable of."

"Wasn't he exiled? Hardly intimidating now. Apparently all he's capable of anymore is whimpering over an alien like a pakrela."

Julian covers his ears and walks faster.

But that just brings him within range of a cluster of Bajorans. "Oh, there's the doctor now," one is saying, up on the balcony. 

"The one the Cardassian tailor wrote about?"

"That poor fool. He thought they were friends, but here this whole time it was perverse. I can only imagine how much that hurts."

"Happened to my friend once. He thought a glinn was being kind because he was having a crisis of conscience and wanted to help him escape. No, he just wanted to–"

He could go to his quarters, but a flash of memory - Garak's bright eyes at the end of his bed, his figure encased in shadow - sends him in the opposite direction. Before long, he finds himself on an oft-unused Observation deck, since it offers no view of the wormhole or either Bajor or Cardassia's suns. It's blessedly empty, as usual, and Julian settles on a bench and stares into the dark nothingness of space for a long time.

At some point, he finds that his hand has retrieved the PADD from his medical bag, and the screen is lit up automatically with the first poem.

He reads well into the night.

—

The next morning finds Garak with a tall glass of rokassa juice and two eggs, staring intensely into a mysteriously operational PADD at the far end of Quark's bar. Quark pops out of his backroom like a jack-in-the-box.

"Ha! Well, if it isn't the man of the hour himself, gracing my fine establishment so soon after nearly destroying it. Do you know I've had to have menus printed, like we're in the dark ages? Do you have any idea how extensive my menu is? I ought to sue you for damages." He catches a glimpse of the PADD's screen and its decidedly unpoetic contents. "Hey, you fixed it? How?"

"It was just a simple virus. Viruses can be purged," Garak says without looking up. He barely seems aware of Quark's existence.

When no other words are forthcoming, Quark huffs. "Well, can you purge it from the rest of the station, then?"

"I gave the program to the Chief last night."

"And he didn't immediately come here to fix my bar? I'll have to file a complaint.”

Garak offers no reply. Just continues to stare into his PADD.

There are other customers he could be seeing to, but Quark can't pass up this golden opportunity. He's known Garak a long time and known of him even longer, and now that he has the guy's guts all neatly lined up on several dozen isolinear rods, he's never felt closer to the man. He makes a point of knowing things about his customers, but before yesterday, the most he knew about Garak was that he was an assassin, a tailor, a mean, weepy drunk, and friends with Bashir, Odo, and a smattering of other shopkeepers. That was it. But now...

He leans over the counter, closer to Garak's unblinking face. "You know," he says, with a smile rising slow on his cheeks, "if it's humans you like, I have a couple holosuite programs that might be just what you need."

Garak's gaze ascends as if on a motor, smooth and mechanical.

Good. He’s considering the bait. Now he just has to get him to bite. "All completely customizable. Skin, eyes, hair. You like long legs, they've got long legs. Scrawny, they're scrawny. Whatever you want. Although if you're really hung up on the one face, that can also be arranged. For the right price." When Garak just looks at him, Quark switches tactics. "Or maybe it's the uniform that does it for you? I've got 'em, but I'd suggest something out of my lingerie databases. I've still got some little Cardassian numbers filed away that I think even a man with your discerning tastes could appreciate. Just imagine, Doctor Bashir in a–"

He doesn't see the hand coming until it's already crushing his windpipe. Quark claws at it for several long, desperate moments while Garak continues to look.

Leeta scuttling over and yanking him away is what ultimately puts a stop to it, and it's while Quark is gasping in dramatic bursts of air that Leeta says in a rush, "Garak, please! Whatever he said, he didn't mean it!"

"Oh, I meant it," Quark coughs out with a high, strangled laugh, "he just didn't like it."

"Whatever conclusions you've drawn in the last twenty-six hours, allow me to dispel them," Garak says primly, as if he hadn't almost committed murder in broad daylight. "I am not a xenophile and I do not have feelings for Doctor Bashir. There are no less than two-hundred Cardassians currently aboard the station, and I assure you, none of them like me. Those poems were obviously planted."

Oh, but Quark is a little pissed now, unwise as that is. "Please, Garak," he says, "who has time to write that many poems about Julian just to mess with you? Two or three, maybe, but over seventy? If you're going to lie, at least don't insult our intelligence."

Garak's eyes flash and Quark ducks behind Leeta, repentant. Leeta sighs. "Garak, what's so bad about loving Julian?" she asks softly. "I thought the poems were really touching. It’s sweet how much you care for him."

But he's already staring into his PADD again. "I'm sorry, Miss Leeta, but I am a bit busy. Perhaps we can discuss my hypothetical feelings for your paramour another time."

"Julian and I have never been serious," she tries to assure him, but he's engrossed again, or at least pretending to be. Her and Quark share a look and leave him to it. Lesson learned.

"Let the bastard be pent up and miserable, then," Quark grumbles from the other end of the bar as he pours Table 3's drinks. A prickle on his neck has him looking up and there Garak's eyes are again, piercing, and Quark rushes off to deliver the drinks.

The three young Cardassians there are much more friendly. One has their nose stuck in one of the useless poetry PADDs while the other two smile at Quark while he sets out their orders.

"Three Raktajinos, extra bitter," Quark says, and is thanked. Polite. One even praises the drink's exoticness. Klingon coffee, exotic. Heh. "Your food will be out in a few."

Before he can finish turning, though, a hand is touching his arm. "What is the title of this anthology you include at every table?" the young man asks.

"Oh, that's not..." He sighs. "It's new. I can't remember."

"Find out for us, please," he says. "Works like these can be hard to come by on Prime and we make it our business to collect them. Whoever this author is, they're very unique."

"If these aren't banned on Prime already, they will be soon," his friend comments with a giggle.

"No doubt."

"'In my desolation, I am as weeds: Cut my roots and Let the waters take me, To drown and bloom anew, in You,'" the one with her nose in the PADD reads aloud, and shivers. "They'd burn the whole Central Archive down just for this one. It's so explicit."

"Let me see that," the boy demands, as the other one is already surging over to read over the girl's shoulder. Watching them fight over the PADD has Quark thinking back to the isolinear rods in his safe, and he hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder.

Garak isn't looking.

—

Glinn Halon Duvur. Former underling of Gul Dukat. Out of uniform, vacationing on Deep Space Nine with his wife and nine children. Spends his days gambling while his kids play unsupervised in the holosuites and his wife visits old friends. 

Beloved uncle sent to trial by the Obsidian Order in 2356 and executed that same day for crimes of attempted sabotage against Cardassia.

Garak watches the man wander down the promenade sans his proud lineage, jingling a fat little bag of gold-pressed latinum and yet-unconverted leks. He wanders out of range, so Garak switches to the next camera and there that unfortunate face is again. He drums his fingers on the desk. It won't be long now.

An alert rings in his ear and he almost initiates the shockfield on impulse, but the flash of smooth, brown skin on a monitor stays his hand. The knocking comes, and that haunting voice calls out, "Garak! Are you there?"

Garak rests his head next to the surveillance screens.

Predictably, the doctor tries to input his override, but the door remains shut. There's a long pause.

"Garak..." Julian sounds irate. Garak hums. "Did you deprogram my override code? Nevermind how illegal that is, that's dangerous! What if you're injured? Or fall ill?"

He says this just after attempting to abuse his station privileges for personal reasons. Infuriating hypocrite.

"Oh, my barging in at random, odd hours is no less than you deserve, Garak," Julian says as if in response to Garak's thoughts. "You set that precedent in our relationship yourself."

Terrible man.

"Fine. I'll give you some more time, since you want it so badly, but I'll be back and when I am, that override had better work. If it doesn’t, I promise there will be hell to pay, my friend."

Beautiful man.

"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."

Goodbye, Doctor.

Glinn Duvur dies two hours later of alcohol poisoning while his wife is in bed with Gul Rilimn's wife.

—

“I just can’t believe it,” Kira is bitching. Jadzia smiles and sips her drink, looking out over the Replimat balcony at all the happy brunchgoers. “A Cardassian writing poetry about something that isn’t conquest or the wonders of dictatorial rule or, at best, the pride of the traditional family nobly bowing and scraping. I’ve never seen it.”

“It would certainly seem to run counter to Cardassian values.”

“And about Julian!” she shrieks in her inside voice, slapping her hands down on the table. “Garak the spy, writing love poetry about Julian. Going on and on about his–his...”

“Ass?” Jadzia offers.

“Eyes. His eyes! Ohhh, I knew he wanted to have sex with him, everyone knew that, but to write about his eyes like... like that? It’s practically Bajoran.”

“That’s true.”

Kira stops long enough in her tirade to eye her, and presses her lips into a thin line. “How are you so calm about this?”

Jadzia takes another sip. “I’m just fascinated,” she says. “I’ll admit, I’ve been looking at this more through Tobin’s eyes than my own. Have I ever told you that he met Lloja of Prim during his exile?” 

“He did not.”

“He did, and Lloja flirted with him outrageously. It was embarrassing, looking back. Of course, nothing ever came of it, because Tobin was always hopelessly blind to those sorts of things even without the language barrier, but his children liked to joke that many of Lloja’s poems were about him.”

Kira’s jaw is hanging. “Were they?”

Jadzia grins and shrugs. Kira laughs.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Perhaps,” Jadzia allows, “but I do wonder... Being able to call nervous, asexual Tobin the lover of Lloja of Prim would have been quite the notch in my belt. Think of the stories I could have told! And now here Julian is with the opportunity. I know it’s not the same, I mean, it’s Garak. But, you have to admit, to write about him like that...”

“He must really love him,” Kira finishes for her, stumped. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I didn’t see it, either,” Jadzia confesses. “I was still wrestling with the idea that they were actually friends. I thought their association was strictly professional and all the books and flirting were just a front.” She cradles her head in her hands suddenly and sighs. “Ugh, but those poems. The poems are so good! Kira...”

“I know,” she moans. “They’re heart-wrenching. Which one are you on now?”

“Thirty-nine. I came back home, but I came back gone.”

“Ouch.”

“I know.”

A shout from below interrupts them and they both shoot out of their seats. Below, a Cardassian man has just had a beam fall on top of him. Jadzia and Kira bound down the stairs to him, Jadzia already slapping a hand on her comm badge. 

“Dax to Infirmary, a man has just been crushed, possibly impaled. Send a medical team to Replimat and be ready for emergency beam out.”

“Acknowledged, we’re on our way,” Girani says, but already Kira is looking up at Jadzia helplessly, the man’s wrist laying limp between her hands.

“He’s gone.”

“Shit!” Jadzia hunches over, hands on her knees. “That’s the third one today. Are Cardassians always this accident prone? No wonder you won the war.”

“No,” Kira says. “They’re not. You don’t think...”

“I don’t know,” Jadzia says grimly, and looks around at the crowd that’s formed. All Cardassian, all terrified. “But we need to find out.”

—

A Cardassian is sitting at the bar. This isn’t an unusual sight now, with the Festival of 90s Funk and Beyond coming up, but seeing one so young and looking so hunted is odd. Quark approaches him casually.

“What’ll you have?”

The Cardassian’s eyes dart. “Uh...” He leans over suddenly, cups both hands over his mouth, and whispers, “E. G. Special.”

Christ, these kids are going to kill him. “Coming right up,” he says in a normal person voice, and reaches under the bar for a glass. A little drink-mixing magic later, a beautiful fizzy blue drink is sitting between them, with an isolinear rod tucked neatly in the straw.

The Cardassian takes the drink between both hands excitedly, and Quark snaps his fingers in front of him. “Oh! Right,” the kid stutters, and all but launches the latinum at Quark’s face. “Thank you!” And off he goes, out of the bar with the glass still tight in his grasp.

“Idiot,” Quark mutters to himself, crouching carefully down to pick the latinum up off the floor without dirtying his expensive pants. “You’re supposed to take the straw, not the entire glass. That’s it, I’m switching to plastic. These little rebel brats don’t deserve my ni—Oh, hello, Constable! I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

Odo looks as unimpressed as ever. “That’s a funny question since last I checked, I don’t drink.”

“Ah, right, because you’re a liquid. How could I forget. You know, one of these days, I ought to serve you up with a little umbrella, see how people like it. I’d bet you taste bitter.” Odo harrumphs, and Quark makes himself busy with wiping down the counter. “Well, out with it then. What nefarious scheme am I up to now? I love to hear your little stories.”

Four isolinear rods drop onto the counter, right where Quark was just cleaning. “Hey now,” he says, throwing a performative glare at the changeling. “Careful. If you shatter glass in my bar, you’re cleaning it up.”

“I just had the most interesting conversation with the Tokal family,” Odo says, steamrolling right over him. “It seems their four darling children had somehow come into some questionable reading material. They tried searching for it in the Central Archives and yet, despite it being clearly Cardassian in origin, they could not find it. And I don’t need to tell you that when a piece of Cardassian reading material isn’t in the Central Archives...”

Quark, from his plastered position on the floor, stares up into Odo’s face directly horizontal to his and smiles. “What?”

“It’s illegal,” Odo sneers, stretching his body even further over the bar and nearly sending Quark starfishing. 

“Okay! Odo! I get it! But what does that have to do with me?”

“Quark!”

“Okay, okay! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I’ll stop! I’ll stop, okay?”

“I know you’re going to stop, because I am going to confiscate every copy of Garak’s poetry that you have absconded with and destroy them.”

Quark gasps. “Book burning? In this day and age?”

“Garak did not give his permission for you to sell his work! He didn’t even want anyone to see it in the first place! Those poems were stolen. Now, I expect a list of every person you sold a copy to and a full and complete refund to be issued by tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”

Quark glowers. “You’ve made yourself something, all right.”

“Quark...”

“Okay! All right. Consider it done.”

-

Turora Lumok. Obsidian Order operative and old colleague. Usually in deep cover in the Organian sectre, but has abandoned post to explore the space station. Barren, unattached. Cold. A model agent, if you ignore her unfortunate habit of going rogue and eliminating civilians on a whim. 

Recruited into the Order by Enabran Tain’s former right hand, Euluk Bucun, who was assassinated by Elim Garak in 2341 under orders from Enabran Tain for suspicions of treason. Turora Lumok disciplined shortly afterward by Elim Garak for complaining that she had wanted to be the one to kill that bitch.

Garak watches as the woman pretends to touch up her makeup while scouting for cameras. “Oh, Lumok, you always were woefully obvious. Have you been expecting me? I wonder why.”

Satisfied with the positions of the cameras, she puts away her mirror and strolls out of sight.

Garak shakes his head. “Fool. You forget how long I’ve lived on this wretched station. I don’t need to see you every second to know where you are.”

But then, the smell of antiseptic. Starfleet issue soap. Herbal shampoo, unique, robust. Gels. Oils. Sweat. 

He’s near.

Forcing calmness with a deep, measured breath, he takes off his eyepiece and slips it into his sleeve. He pays for the food he barely ate. He stands. He turns.

And is promptly thrust into the dark, deep woods of Julian Bashir’s eyes. “There you are, Garak! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the doctor says as if it’s just a regular day on Deep Space Nine. His hot, mammalian body caging him tightly in place against the table betrays the ruse. “Who was it you were talking to?”

Garak tries to step around him. Julian steps with him. “Oh, only ever myself. Forgive me, but you’ve caught me just on my way out. I have a strict appointment at 2.”

There’s Julian’s hand now. On his shoulder. Garak is calm. This is normal. “Well, why don’t I walk you there then.”

“My dear Doctor, I couldn’t rob you of your meal. Clearly you’ve just walked in.”

“Actually, I’ve found I’m craving something a bit different now.”

Garak makes to step around Julian again, and still Julian’s steps match his. It’s like they’re dancing. He doesn’t let this deter him. He’s not sure he’s capable of letting anything deter him now, with his heart trying to pound out of his throat. He keeps stepping doggedly forward, and Julian keeps mirroring, still with that damned hand burning through his tunic. “Well, you only have so much time before you must return to the infirmary, I know. Do not allow me to delay you in securing a table at a different locale.”

“Oh, but you’ve already delayed me so long. What’s a few more minutes?” A peek of teeth, a hint of warning. “Though I will admit... I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”

“Then don’t.” Finally, Garak manages to elbow past this madness and shoot out of the restaurant. The station is so crowded these days, it’s short work to get lost in it. In a sea of ridges and black hair, Garak slips his eyepiece back on and lets the wave take him. 

“Garak!”

Oh, for the Union’s sake—

He does not run. He does not stumble. He walks normally and not desperately, keeping his eye on both the path to the turbolift and Lumok. She’s down the corridor now, pretending to check her makeup again like an imbecile. Just a few paces more. Almost there...

“Garak, you’re the best dressed one here! You are not difficult to spot, you ridiculous dandy! Oh, no offense, Ma’am. Lovely scarf. Excuse me.”

There.

In the reflection of the mirror, Garak makes eye contact with the rogue and taps in the correct sequence on the device sewed into the seam of his pants just as the turbolift doors close behind him.

Like that, Turora Lumok is beamed into space and dies instantly, without a soul to mourn her, and Elim Garak walks back to his quarters with a hand over his mouth and a warmth on his shoulder, without a soul to mourn him, either.

—-

The Festival of Fierce and Fantastic Frogs is two days away and already it is being protested.

Outside Quark’s Bar is a growing army of dissident children with voice amplifiers and holoprojectors shouting to the stars that if they don’t get their porn back, they’ll tear it all down. Signs are projected in the air with essays cycling through them that look to be several pages each, a small holographic fire barely reaching ankle-height is lighting up the length of the promenade, and – perhaps most disturbingly – a comically inaccurate approximation of Odo is rotating at the center of the group, fitted in the typical regalia of the Cardassian military and holding a Klingon bat’leth. It is certainly... something.

“They’re Cardassians,” Quark is saying as he pours out some root beers. “They’ve probably never seen a protest in their lives, they don’t know what they’re doing. The Union puts an end to things like this pretty fast on the surface.”

“Heh,” Jadzia says, “what happens on DS9, stays on DS9.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Kira asks.

“It’s something Julian likes to say. Basically, they figure they can get away with speaking their minds here.”

Kira drums her fingers on the bar, staring into the flailing protestors thoughtfully. 

Right then, Odo arrives back on the scene. It looks like he’s trying to get through, respectfully, but the protestors are not making it easy. Jadzia and Kira come to his rescue just as about fifteen Cardassians start forming a blockade around him.

“I walked around as you do, investigating the endless stars,” one young woman is yelling at him while he stands there with big helpless baby eyes, “and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind!” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Odo says consolingly.

“Clearly!”

“Okay, okay, let him through!” Kira wiggles her way between the crowd and Odo, snatching him by the arm like a fish with a hook. “He’s not your enemy here, he was just upholding your laws!”

“The Cardassian government has no jurisdiction on a Bajoran station!”

“He made his choices!”

“Beautiful Julian would be ashamed of you! Repent! Repent!”

Kira and Jadzia manage to reel him most of the way through the protesters and he shapeshifts the rest of the journey. The protestors try to follow, but Quark bustles over to stop them. “No, no demonstrations inside! Remember who your allies are,” he says, and they all cow back. “Thank you.”

Odo ripples his form a couple times to make sure everything’s back in the right place and harrumphs. “Allies, Quark?”

“Yes, allies. It’s terrible what you’ve done to them. You can’t police art, Odo–-this is culture we're talking about here, the very bedrock of society.”

“And I’m sure this virtuous attitude of yours has nothing to do with the incredible profit you made and lost at the expense of our mutual friend.”

“Oh, I did him a favor.” Quark uncaps another bottle of Kanar and gestures back to the entrance, with its swarm of frothing Cardassian children. “Look, he’s got fans!”

“How has Garak been handling all this?” Kira asks Odo, sharing a look with Jadzia. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he gave us that antivirus program.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Didn’t you have breakfast with him yesterday?”

“Hmmm, that would have been routine. Except he didn’t show. When I made it back to my office, I found a message from him apologizing, telling me he’s so busy with orders he’s lost all track of time.”

“How has he been getting commissions?” Jadzia asks. “His shop’s been closed all week.”

Odo rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the reality is he’s simply avoiding the issue. Dr. Bashir has informed me he’s been treating him like ‘the black plague’ as well.” 

“Julian’s one to talk. He practically pole-vaulted over a vedek the other day to get away from me.” 

“Speak of the devil,” Quark says, looking towards the door, and everyone turns just as the commotion starts–or, more accurately, the commotion abruptly stops. 

The protestors have all gone quiet, in apparent awe as they part around Julian like the red sea around Moses. He’s smiling stupidly as he stands in the center of them, nodding at something a Cardassian man is exclaiming. It’s an incredibly awkward scene, and Quark starts choking at some of the things his ears are picking up. “They’ve deified him,” he tells them, and Jadzia bursts into giggles at the idea, but Quark isn’t joking. “Really. He might as well be one of the prophets to them. You read the poems. You know.”

Ugh. Kira wrinkles her nose in disgust. The worst kind of blasphemy–horny blasphemy. “What is he even doing here?” she asks. 

“Getting his head inflated,” Jadzia says dryly, because now that Quark has mentioned it, it’s pretty clear from the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face that that’s exactly what’s happening. 

“Poor Garak.” Quark says it absentmindedly, but the comment gets several eyes turned on him. He’s shaking his head as he watches the scene unfold. “First, he falls for a human… humiliating… but then that love becomes public knowledge and several young beautiful Cardassians decide that he’s onto something, and now that human is going to get more action in a week than he’s seen his entire life. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of more than a few star-crossed romances, but this might just be the saddest.”

“Julian wouldn’t have an orgy the same week the whole station found out Garak’s in love with him,” Jadzia says, insulted on his behalf.

Quark hefts a tray up onto his shoulder. “He just did,” he says as he leaves to go do his job, and Jadzia whips her head around to see Julian escorting two attractive Cardassians away from the protest. Her jaw drops.

“Bastard,” Kira spits, surprising everyone, herself most of all. Those poems must’ve affected her more than she realized.

Odo clears his throat unnecessarily. “I’m no expert on the behavior of solids, but it seems to me that neither party is handling this situation well.”

“I’ll tell you how the pakrela should be handling this,” an older Cardassian sitting at the far end of the bar cuts in, with a twitch to him that makes it clear he’s more than a few deep. “He should be settling his assets, because he doesn’t have long now. Whatever his human is doing is the least of his worries. Ha. Hehe. Being a traitor wasn’t enough for him. No, now he’s gone and corrupted the next generation with his degeneracy. Exile was too soft a punishment. Uh-huh.”

Kira opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Odo touches her shoulder. “You speak as if you know him,” he notes mildly, because of course, the exact reason for Garak’s exile isn’t public record. It’s barely even private record. The Order doesn’t work that way–or didn’t, as it stands. It is interesting that this man is acting like he has classified information despite being a civilian. 

But then, sometimes day drinkers just like to spout speculation as fact.

The man looks into his glass and laughs at his reflection. “Who doesn’t know Garak these days? But that’s temporary. He’ll be forgotten soon enough, just like the Order.” He finishes his drink and gets up. He insincerely mutters some friendly Cardassian farewell and starts to walk past them, but Kira can’t let it go.

“Excuse me, but what’s your name, sir? You’ve been so informative.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and elbows past the protesters.

—

“Solt Mebol, left behind a widow and child six years ago when he was tragically killed in a transporter accident. In reality, he accepted an undercover mission which required him to fake his death and have his bond dissolved. A significant sacrifice. Certainly not one many Cardassians could have made.”

The Cardassian stares at Garak sitting on his couch. Turning, he tries to exit his temporary quarters, but the door won’t open.

Garak tuts. “Oh, you know better than that, Mebol.” He taps his disruptor with his forefinger, resting harmlessly against his knee. “The festival isn’t for another couple days, yet here you are. Catching up with old friends before the festivities, I assume? Only I haven’t found you in anyone’s company but your own. You must be lonely. Please, let me alleviate your loneliness for a while.”

The Cardassian sighs at the closed door. “Solt, is it?”

“I can tell you the names of your wife and child as well, if you’d like, and the city they live in. Do you know your wife never rebonded? Unusual behavior for a Romulan. Quite dangerous, as I understand it.”

Solt steps carefully into the small living space and sits in the chair opposite Garak, with the coffee table between them. “As one of the last living members of the Order, I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go?”

Garak smiles pleasantly. “I would be delighted.”

“Would you? I had a deal with Central Command and they’ve been good to me so far. You, however, have been known to…” He eyes the disruptor casually turned in his direction.

“Yes, I imagine I must be something of a mystery these days to my people. I have been… squirrely, is what I suppose a human would say, and I must as well now that I’ve been painted with their brush. Oh, it is an incredible sin, I know. That I should enjoy the company of an attractive alien while in exile.”

Solt snorts. “You expect me to believe those poems were the natural result of a fling?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything you do not wish to. I only say that it’s convenient that I should be seen as even more traitorous just as a swarm of Cardassians should enter the station.”

“What’s convenient is that you’re still alive. You have friends in high places willing to go to bat for you, in spite of everything you’ve done. It’s a disgrace. You are a selfish disloyal anarchist and no one is holding you accountable, because you just happened to be good at your job once and everyone likes the idea of having you as a potential weapon should the need for one arise. Until then, they’re content to keep you in a cabinet collecting dust and sentiment. You can wave that disruptor all you want, but we both know you make a poor operative now. You’re in love.” 

Garak is still smiling, but Solt can see the signs of a grimace. Dusty, indeed. Too passionate. Too human. “I’m hardly so foolish. You know better than I the dangers of such things in our line of work. You’re little better than a puppet now that you’ve had a whiff of the truth, Mebol.”

“You’re right.” Solt attempts to raise one eye ridge, despite it being unfit for such maneuvers, and leans forward towards that disruptor. “Pull my strings, then, and let’s test that grip Bashir has on yours.”

—

Kira crashes into Garak’s quarters and kickflips past all his booby traps like Indiana Jones’ hotter cousin.

“What the fuck, Richard?” is basically what she says, only it’s in character, so it’s more like, “What the fuck, Garak!”

Garak spins around in his maniacal villain chair with a look of surprise. “How did you get in here, Major?” Miles bustles his way in after her with his impractically enormous toolkit, and Garak lets out an, “Ah,” then, sedately, “I suppose Dr. Bashir filed a complaint about my tampering with the door codes. Of course, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. You see, it–”

“This isn’t about door codes, Garak,” Kira yells. “What I want to know is why our best suspect for the sudden influx of murders on the station was just found drowned in his own toilet!”

“Oh my,” Garak says. “What an unfortunate end.”

“Don’t play dumb. Not now. We know what you’re capable of, but we’re good people and we didn’t want to accuse a victim until we had exhausted the rest of our line-up. Only, interestingly enough, they’re all dead, so now…” she marches over with the fury of the Prophets on her heels and stands imposingly over him, her teeth clenched, “here we are.”

“That is interesting.” He runs a hand down a roll of fabric in his lap, smoothing it. “I suppose you must have some of that ironclad evidence that the Federation so treasures.”

Kira glares at him.

Garak feigns looking around. “Oh, but I can’t help but notice the good Constable isn’t here with you. What could that mean? Surely not that you broke into my quarters without due cause or a hint of warning–at your own word, not even to fix my glitching door. For all you knew, I could have been in here writing one of my vaunted Bashir epics.”

Kira’s hands are in fists now. “The evidence we have would be more than enough to have your face plastered on every viewscreen in Cardassia and you know it.”

“The Federation and Bajoran legal processes do seem a tad inefficient in moments like these, don’t they?”

“Okay,” Miles cuts in, because he has Turbo PTSD and is not in the mood for a flare up. “I think I'll just wait in the hallway, then. Holler if you need me. Good luck, Major.”

Kira and Garak spend a few moments watching him waddle out of the room and then go back to staring each other down. 

“Look, you ass,” Kira starts, “we couldn’t link every victim to the Cardassian government or some third-party organization, but we were able to link enough of them to recognize that these aren’t just random nobodies having ‘accidents.’ Someone was able to break into your computer and embarrass you and you don’t like that so you’re pitching a fit. I can’t have Odo arrest you – yet – but I can tell you to cut it out. This vigilantism isn’t helping–”

That gets a reaction. “Vigilantism!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Self-defense.”

“They attacked you?”

“Possibly.”

“Goddamn you, Garak! Just… don’t do this anymore, okay?”

Garak looks at her with innocent astonishment, like he’s still bewildered by her totally plausible accusations. “Well. You have my word, I suppose,” he says, bemused.

—

Gul Skrain Dukat. Blessed with a wife, seven children, two sets of living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, minus one father. Habitually cheats with lower ranked military officials, slaves, and barely legal adults, unbenownst to his family. Father was interrogated by Elim Garak and executed by the Union over live broadcast in the year 2350 for the crime of being a piece of shit. 

Elim Garak was shortly thereafter levied with an amateurish execution attempt by Gul Dukat. It failed.

The second attempt will succeed, but at a great cost.

The Festival of Filthy Fucking Foot Fetishists has officially begun, but Garak is struggling to feel any enthusiasm. He is surrounded by his people. The station has been dimmed by 15% to better suit Cardassian eyes and misting stations have been set up in limited locations. Extinct and invented flowers crafted by Cardassian and Bajoran artisans decorate the banisters and doorways. A wash of blue, green, and sparkling gold lights up every direction. There is the smell of freshly prepared Cardassian sweets on the air, a gentle warmth suffuses the atmosphere, and children are laughing on the promenade. It’s the first time the station has felt not just tolerable, but nearly pleasant, in years. 

But then, Garak has never felt particularly welcome among his people. As a child, he was an orphan generously cared for by service workers and sponsored by a government official, and as an adult, he was a member of the Order, which granted him more fear and loathing than it did admiration and respect. Companionship, in its truest form, was a rare thing to come by and not something he was encouraged to come by at all.

Perhaps that is why Dr. Bashir blindsided him. 

In any case, Garak is delicately balanced on the line between proper misery and numbness. He gave up imbibing around the same time that he gave up the implant—or rather, the implant gave up on him—but he’s on his third cup now, wandering through the festivities with no particular direction in mind. The exact spot of this last operation isn’t important, only the timing.

He finishes his drink while a group play a spirited game of cold moba in front of him. It shouldn't be long now.

All the nearby screens suddenly flicker from the event schedule to Dukat’s sharp grin and Garak hums. There we are. He knew the bitch wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face.

“Welcome everyone to the biennial Festival of–” a baby wails, “generously hosted here on Deep Space Nine by Bajor and the Federation, and of course organized by our own prodigous Detapa Council. Ah, that wormhole… quite the view, isn’t it?”

Garak looks around for another food stall that serves alcohol. 

There aren’t any stalls in his immediate vicinity, but there is a young Cardassian couple marching towards him while making dogged eye contact. 

Oh no. 

Garak starts to make a break for it. Not too fast, it won’t do to cause a stir, but there are a number of very good reasons for him to stay far away from any Cardassians who might recognize him right now. Especially if the source of that recognition is those damn poems he was too stupid and sentimental to destroy.

Before he can make it more than a few steps, however, he looks up to see another few Cardassians working their way towards him, also making eye contact.

No, no, no.

He makes to move towards the stairs then, only for his eyes to land squarely on him. 

Him, wearing the silky green outfit he lovingly crafted for him a few months ago. Him, shining in the festival lights, casting him in an even more arresting shade of gold than usual. Him, looking determined and coming straight towards him.

Oh, fuck no.

“Garak,” Julian calls out, likely reading the panic on his face and stance and soul.

“Today, I am not a Gul, though,” Dukat is saying. “I am but a humble representative of the Cardassian Union in its totality, and as such, I would like to thank Colonel Kira Nerys and Captain Benjamin Sisko for their hand in this week’s festivities. They have been nothing if not accommodating these last few weeks while our coordinators ran rampant through their halls.”

He should have accounted for the possibility of this. Thinking of Julian had become excruciating as of late, but that was no excuse. Whatever interaction Julian had been hoping to have with him couldn’t be allowed, not now, and not only for the sake of Garak’s traitorous, disgusting feelings. Even if it would give the sweet man closure, it would not be worth his life. 

“Now, it may be a bit unorthodox, but I thought it would be only fitting if the first Reenactment was carried out by our benevolent hosts, and the Lakarian City Acting Troupe were all too happy to take them under their wing.”

More eyes are turning towards the screen now, the laughing and playing and sloshing of cups quieting down. Julian is nearly with him, his approach halted only by the gathering crowd, and Garak can only pretend to be interested in Dukat’s speech while he racks his brain desperately for a solution. Any solution. Anything.

“I trust that the history of Cardassia is in capable hands.”

The screen flickers again and changes to a shot of one of Quark’s holodecks, where a lone Bajoran man stands in a beam of red light.

A hand grabs Garak roughly by the arm, and he nearly cries with relief when he sees that it’s Lumok.

Well, Lumok with the face and attire of a Bajoran, but that ever-present spark of unchecked malice in her eye is quite unmistakable to someone who worked with her for over a decade. 

“Surprised, you ugly old regnar?” she asks under the actor’s impassioned opening monologue.

He sucks in a breath as the sharp edge of something presses into his back. “Impossible. They found your body caught on one of the station’s spires.”

“A simple bait and switch,” she purrs, pressing the weapon closer, slicing through his tunic. A pity. This was one of his nicer ones. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”

He manufactures a smile. “A knife, then? A favorite of yours, I recall, but terribly messy for such a public venue. Not to mention if your aim is even an inch off, I’ll be in and out of the infirmary within the day, as if nothing at all had happened.”

“Don’t lecture me,” she growls. “You can’t do that anymore. You’re not anyone to anyone. Your master is dead, and what did you do the second you were off leash for the first time in your life? You went and choked yourself on the first Starfleet sotl you could find. You’re pathetic.”

It took incredible effort to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his skull. “Oh, just stab me already.”

“I’m not going to stab you. I’ve done a bit of outsourcing, in fact.” She slid the knife from his lower back to his side and looped her arm through his, pinning him in place with a wide smile. “All I had to do was suggest to my new friend that you were infiltrating the Federation. That you were poisoning them against Bajor from the inside, uniting Cardassia and Starfleet in a secret alliance under the guise of wooing the CMO. No, no, you won’t be killed by one of your peers. Your death will be at the hands of a perfect stranger. A pointless death for a pointless man.” She leans in and whispers into his aural ridge, “It always was so easy to make people hate you.”

The next few seconds are a flurry of chaos. One second he’s watching as Human, Bajoran and Cardassian actors alike are all holding hands and reciting ancient poetry and the next he’s on the floor with a searing weight bearing down on him from calf to shoulder. There are screams and footfalls coming from all directions and Odo’s voice is immediately discernible shouting over the commotion. His back is on fire, he can’t breathe, and there’s a slash in his side, but he doesn’t miss the thump of Lumok’s body a few feet away, dead before she hits the ground.

“Garak? Garak?” the weight on him is speaking frantically, pawing at his head and shoulders. The weight shifts and the hands flip him onto his back. Those same hands pat him down, blazing a path down his chest and his stomach and his sides, stopping at the superficial gash near his rib, and Garak knows who this is before he even opens his eyes.

“Garak,” Julian sighs with relief. Garak was meant to be dead by phaser blast right now, but instead Julian Bashir is smiling down at him like he’s important, kneeling beside him, his hands on him, branding him with their incredible heat. It shouldn’t be possible. No one could be that fast. 

“Doctor,” he manages on a wheeze. One of his ribs might be broken, actually.

“Dukat,” Sisko growls from the monitor in billowing robes and a long flowing wig, surrounded by flowers.

—

“Explain,” Sisko commands.

Having decided that showing weakness right now can only help his case, Garak is sitting hunched to the side, holding his reeling head in one hand. It’s through a hiss that he replies, “A woman named Turora Lumok was responsible for sabotaging the station with those poems forged with my data signature. The Bajoran woman who was just assassinated–she was no Bajoran, but rather one of the last remaining members of the Obsidian Order. She was hired by Dukat to kill me during the festival under the guise of a hate crime. No doubt because of her indomitable reputation, I’m sure. A number of Cardassian casualties these past several days were at her hands.”

Sisko walks to the viewport to stare out into the stars for a moment, processing this. “All his talk of friendship between Bajor and Cardassia…” he trails off, the ghost of a sneer on his lips as he turns back around. “His goal was just the opposite. He wanted to destroy any hope of cooperation.”

“And get me out of the way in the process,” Garak grumbles. 

Sisko hums and wanders over to Garak’s side, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me who assassinated Ms. Lumok?”

Garak stares at the floor through his fingers, his eyes glazed.

“Or who your informant is on Dukat’s involvement?”

“Captain,” Garak mutters, not looking up, “I have sat here concussed after an attempt on my life and shared with you everything that I know, and here you have not even told me who the tailor of your magnificent robe is.” He tugs half-heartedly at a strip of embroidery on the fabric. “I must admit, I am feeling a touch betrayed you didn’t come to me.”

Sisko flicks his eyes up to Julian, who has been standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. “Very well, Mr. Garak. I release you into Dr. Bashir’s care for now, but I expect to continue this conversation soon.” He massages his forehead. “Once I figure out what to do about this damned festival.”

Julian comes over to help Garak out of his chair, but Garak snaps upright and to the door before he can touch him. Sisko takes the opportunity to lean into Julian’s face and whisper, “Get more information out of him.” The doctor nods.

Julian isn’t angry when he steps out of Sisko’s office and sees that Garak is walking in the exact opposite direction of the infirmary, but he is disappointed. 

“Mr. Garak,” he says urgently once he’s caught up to the idiot.

Mr. Garak interrupts him in the same tone, “Now, now, my dear doctor, we both know I have a dermal regenerator in my quarters, so we need not extend–”

“And I think we both know this is about much more than a few bumps and bruises. I’m afraid the time for beating around the bush passed quite a while ago.”

“You’re right, Doctor,” Garak says, coming to an abrupt stop and rounding on him with wild eyes. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.” Julian’s eyebrows raise, and Garak nods severely. “Oh, yes, let us not ‘beat around the bush.’ We should talk about how you threw yourself directly into the line of a lethal phaser blast on the one in a millionth chance that you might save my life. The cost of such an action being almost certainly your own life, and yet, here you stand, and here I stand. Will wonders never cease.” Julian opens his mouth, but Garak raises a finger. “Nevermind that I was in the middle of an altercation with a very dangerous, very volatile woman who would not have hesitated for a second to dispose of you. She had a nasty habit of that. Now I knew that you were naive, Doctor, Doctor! I knew that! What I did not know – what I never could have guessed after all these years – was that you are an idiot.” 

Julian stares back into Garak’s hissing face, unimpressed. Garak feels a wave of deja-vu and does not like it. It has no place here. And yet, Julian takes in a breath and smiles, raising his shoulders. “All right, Garak. If it’s really so important to you, we can talk about your suicide attempt.”

“What?” Garak bites out.

“You were going to let yourself get shot, yes?”

“I was n–” Garak starts to lie, disgusted, but is stopped by Julian stepping entirely too close. He stumbles back a step, then another when Julian attempts to crowd him again, and the familiarity of the routine has him shutting his eyes, rueful. They’re dancing again. It’s humiliating, the things this man makes him do, how effortlessly he can gain the upperhand. Most of the time without even having to lift a finger.

“You figured out Dukat’s plan and arranged for Lumok to die if she succeeded, but you expected her to. You didn’t expect to be saved,” the doctor tells his blank, unresponsive face. His eyes are still closed, his hands tense at his sides, but he knows Julian’s stepped closer again by the heat of his livid breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Very well. I didn’t figure it out. I was informed.”

“So, the captain was right.” He sounds bored, but Garak seizes his chance. His eyes open in a sudden burst of animation.

“Yes, I had an informant. I believe the major was familiar with him, a fellow by the name of Damoc who was recently presumed dead? Though I knew him far better as Mebol. We first met on Romulus, you see. In the event of my death, he had strict instructions to reveal Dukat’s plot in my stead and protect my remaining assets. In return, he was to receive some valuable coordinates, which by now he will have long accessed. I suppose he’s already booked passage off of the station, if he hasn’t already gone.” 

“Quick to abandon you,” Julian says, completely off-script. Garak’s carefully measured breathing stutters.

“Surely Captain Sisko would like to have a word with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Doctor…” Garak says, lost. “There isn’t time to was–”

Suddenly there are two hands slamming into his chest like they’re iron forks and he’s a slab of meat, rocketing him back into the nearest wall with a loud thud. Garak gasps at the strength of it, astounded, but all his attention is quickly monopolized by Julian’s snarling words.

“Stop trying to distract me, Garak! Stop racing away before I can even properly get into the room, stop begging off lunch, stop ignoring my comms, and stop acting like your bloody life is over just because it was found out that you have feelings for me!” 

“I–I don’t–”

“Lke hell you don’t! Thirty-seven.”

Garak blinks several times. “What?”

“Thirty-seven. That’s how many direct references to our literary discussions are in your poems. All chronologically concordant with the dates of those discussions, and six of which from that classic Earth album I recommended to you a year ago that you swore up and down sounded like a pack of voles had been crammed into a bucket and shaken around. I knew you were having me on. You love Mitski, and you love me.”

Garak’s face shutters. 

Finally, Julian takes a step back. His hands remain on his chest, pinning him in place, but he allows him some oxygen. Exactly twenty seconds pass like this, before the doctor becomes impatient and huffs, “You can’t possibly have nothing to say.”

“What would you have me say, Doctor?”

“I would like you to admit it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve heard it from friends and coworkers and strangers and every tourist on this damn station, it feels like, but I haven’t heard it from you.”

Garak is silent for a long time. Finally, he quietly asks, “You would further humiliate me this way? Knowing what you do? My dear friend…” He, carefully, with only the gentlest of pressure, puts a hand over one of Julian’s. “Please. You’ve read everything I could possibly have to say. What more could there be?”

Julian’s hands are unforgiving, but his eyes soften at the simple lowering of the curtain. It’s not the direct confession he was looking for, the I love you completely, traitorously, ruinously that his poems professed and a deep, broken part of Julian desperately wants to hear, but it is, it is. For Garak, this is as explicit as it gets, and Julian can feel his heart trying to catch in his throat.

“Garak,” he starts to say.

Garak isn’t scowling anymore. His eyes are shining as he looks away and sucks in an aggrieved breath. “Oh, please, let us skip this excruciating precursor. I have no intention of remaining on this station.”

Julian goes unnervingly still. “Excuse me?”

“I will need time to pack up my shop and settle my lease, but then I promise, you will never suffer the consequences of my unfortunate… condition again.” When Julian only stares at him with mounting alarm in his lovely eyes, Garak grimaces. “You must know I had no intention of pursuing you.” At least, not after the implant had been shut off and he’d realized what horrors he’d stumbled into with the doctor while under its influence, and by then, it was already too late. He was too weak to stop speaking to him, but he was not a complete monster. “I wouldn’t have. My writing was never about nurturing the emotions, only managing them.” A bit of a lie, but only a bit. He does love to languish and he never could resist a good innuendo. Their friendship had been infinitely precious to him, though, and he couldn’t bear the slow death it would undergo now that everyone knew the truth.

The worsening rumors that would spread. The suffering of Julian’s reputation, career, and love life with the Cardassian spy’s drastic affections hanging over everyone’s heads. The danger it would place them both in, the damage it had already done. The way Julian would know every time Garak flirted now, it was never idle. It had never been and could never be. 

It would be a torture hitherto unthinkable. Better to sever the limb before it could rot.

Still, Julian is silent. The pressure on his chest is more a suggestion than a command now.

“Doctor, I…” he swallows back anymore hideous truths. “I apologize. Your rage is understandable, but I swear to you, I have every intention of righting this wrong.”

“Oh,” Julian says then, softly, as if he isn’t speaking to Garak at all,  “you don’t know.”

“Doctor?”

He makes a bizarre human gesture, skimming the heel of his hand off his forehead. “My God! Of course. I thought it was pride, or shame, or paranoia. Anything and everything but this, but of course you would be this ridiculous. Well. That’s an easy enough problem to solve.”

“Doctor–?!”

The hands on his chest are gone. Instead, they’re seizing him by the head and pulling him up to connect his mouth to Julian’s.

Oh.

If Julian’s touch was a brand before, this is lava running down his throat, into his stomach and down, down, down to eat through the twenty inch thick duranium floor. Slow, thorough, and final in its devastation. A transformation that cannot be persuaded. He grapples with it, hands scrambling stupidly over and across his doctor’s shoulders. Whether it’s to pull him closer or push him away, he doesn’t know. He’s too busy being brutally altered to give it much thought.

His hands settle for burying themselves in his hair at some point. When doesn’t matter. Time holds no power here. It happens, and then he knows how soft Julian Bashir’s hair feels, and there is no going back.

The loss of control becomes alarming enough that he finally manages to pry himself away, gulping in desperate, anxious breaths of frigid station air. It works. The fire and the madness that followed it calms down and he manages the strength to push Julian back, but the wet smack of their lips disconnecting will echo in his dreams for the foreseeable future, as will the dizzy grin on Julian’s face inches from his own. There’s a hand on his ass keeping him from tumbling through the hole in the floor and a couple unlucky passersby gawking at the gruesome scene and Garak is a different creature entirely, incandescent and strange, forged anew in the curious fires of mutual attachment. 

He feels insane.

“Doctor, you cannot truly be this naive.” 

Julian looks anything but naive right then. He can’t focus on that, though. He needs to focus on the fact he was nearly assassinated; the fact that the kindest man alive nearly died with him out of some misguided terran idea that all lives are of equal value and importance.

And yet, Julian is leaning in to kiss him again, so Garak puts a hand on his chest and says, “You know what I am.”

Julian’s expression turns complicated and it’s clear he understands. Garak’s roiling emotions can’t settle on being relieved or horrified. How to go on after this? After knowing intimately what he almost had, with the smoke of it still thick in his eyes and his throat and his heart?

A gentle hand on his jaw brings him back to the moment, where Julian’s eyes are serious. “I know,” he murmurs.

Garak sucks in a wet breath.

“The question is,” Julian continues, even quieter, “do you know what I am?”

His head is spinning. “Doctor?”

Julian just smiles sadly, and it's clear that there are some long conversations in their future. But for now… “About that dermal regenerator in your quarters,” Julian begins, and Garak is relieved to find out that whatever stupid, lovely thing he’s become can still appreciate an innuendo.

—

Not long after, in the middle of telling Sisko all about Mebol over Julian’s comm badge while its owner watches expectantly in a state of teasing half-dress, he’s horrified to find that whatever thing he’s become is also rather eager to please.

—

A couple days later, the two of them are picking from a generous cut of flaming taspar in the Replimat.

Or, Garak is picking, anyway. Julian is stuffing his face. Ordinarily, this would mildly scandalize him, but the fact it’s taspar, one of the most traditional delicacies of his homeworld, being shoveled enthusiastically into that pretty face makes it so he can feel only hope.

Rather than giving into that inadvisable feeling, he takes a dainty sip of his tea and tries to look nonsuspect. Cardassians from all sides and angles are staring.

“About Miss Leeta…” Garak begins.

Julian wipes his face with the side of his hand. Disgusting, but oddly compelling. “What about her?” 

“When will you be breaking the news to her?”

“Oh.” Julian smiles, bemused. “She knows.”

A tightness in his chest dispels slightly. “Does she?” he says faintly.

“She’s the one who first brought it up. We performed the Rite of Separation days ago. She said it was great timing, what with the festival and all. We didn’t even have to leave the station.”

“So you were together then.”

“Well, in a sense. We weren’t in love, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Garak takes another sip, lowering his eyes. “I wasn’t worried. Only concerned for the young lady’s feelings.”

Julian’s face is incandescent. A Cardassian to his far left is openly gaping. “Of course, of course.” He leans suddenly over the table then, moving a hand forward to rest on his knee. “So, should I take this line of questioning as an indicator that you’re open to a relationship with me?”

Garak shifts a little in his seat, moving his knee further under the table and its shadows, but otherwise doesn’t pull away. “It would be unwise,” he says quietly, without actually saying no.

The hand squeezes. “It isn’t as if people won’t assume anyway.”

“Rumors can be dispelled. Redirected. Altered.” He reaches forward to take a small saucière and pours a bright red sauce over a couple groatcakes. “There would be no coming back from a confirmation.”

Julian’s hand falls away. “Would it be so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Garak says, splitting a cake up into three neat sections. “Would it, Doctor?”

A Bajoran couple walks past their table then, and while one purposely avoids eye contact and seems to be giving them a wide berth, the other throws a meaningful glare Julian’s way. This is the fourth judgemental or pitying look he’s received since they came in for brunch. Julian calmly returns the look, refusing to be the first to look away, until finally the man averts his eyes and Julian looks back to Garak with a stern smile. Garak inclines his head.

“Be careful, Doctor,” Garak goes on. “Rumors can ruin lives. End careers.” He scoops up a bite of his cake, dripping with red sauce, and lifts it to his mouth. “Kill,” he finishes, and eats.

At that, Julian leans back in his seat with his arms crossed tight. Garak gives him his time. It’s a relief to have finally made a dent in Julian’s lovesick, idealistic conviction–and Garak can admit, after the last few days, that it is lovesickness. Julian’s decided he loves him back and there will be no stopping him from pursuing this, but there may yet be some tempering. A small, equally stubborn, sentimental part of Garak despairs at the whole horrid affair, but the behemoth of his good sense squashes this part down with little difficulty. 

It’s this moment that a smattering of young Cardassians, accompanied by one Jadzia Dax, arrive at their table. Immediately, Garak recognizes them as the ones that nearly intercepted his meeting with Lumok and his stomach drops. Julian, on the other hand, brightens back up.

“Well, hello there,” he says warmly.

Jadzia responds first, with each elbow leaned on a Cardassian’s shoulder and a knowing sparkle in her blue eyes, “Hello to you.” The Cardassians all echo with similar greetings, some shy, others giddy.

One young woman standing at the front, with her hair in three elaborately plaited braids and little makeup, is looking at Garak with particular interest. “You’re the one who wrote the poems about Julian.”

Garak looks at the girl coolly. “Do you mean Dr. Bashir?”

She goes blue. “Oh, um. Yes. I do.” She tucks an imaginary lock of hair into her perfectly coiffed hair and lowers her head respectfully. “My apologies, Doctor.”

“Hey now,” the doctor scolds with good humor, “none of that. We’re all friends here.” 

The girl throws another searching glance Garak’s way. “Friends?”

That’s enough of that. “This is certainly quite the surprise,” Garak says genially, plastering on his most pleasant smile. “Is there something you needed? As Deep Space Nine’s resident Cardassian tailor and reputed troubadour, I’m always happy to be of service.” Julian sends him a sharp look, which he ignores. 

Jadzia is looking as foxy as she ever does, with a grin nearly to her spotted ears. “Julian asked me to bring them here,” she says too happily, and Garak has to sit back in his seat to process that. Julian scratches his neck with a guilty smile, obliviously alluring. It cannot be overstated that there are, still, eyes on them from all directions and angles.

“Garak, sir,” the Cardassian woman-child begins again, earnest, “let me start over. My name is Inia Milam. I am the President of the Ivory State Liberation Library. We collect–”

“Madam,” Garak interrupts her quietly, stunned. “This is hardly the time and place.” He blinks, still shocked stupid by her brazenness, and leans towards her, peering into her distressingly young features with beseeching desperation. “And I am hardly the audience.”

Milam doesn’t appear to process his warning at all, though. She just continues to look inquisitive. She has that gleam in her eyes that is common in Cardassian women, calculating and intelligent, but there’s something else there. Something indefinable that he’s seen hundreds of times over an interrogation table, but without the fear to staunch it. Without the hopelessness. It makes his stomach flip. “On the contrary, you are exactly the sort of person we look for.” She bows her head. “Dr. Bashir promised that if we assisted him a few days prior, he would introduce us so that I could formally welcome your book of poems into our shelves. I apologize if this comes as a surprise. I wish only to thank you for your excellent contribution, E. G., and tell you that we hope to welcome many more pieces from you in the future. I’ll be in touch. Dr. Bashir.” She nods to him, returns his gentle smile, and walks confidently away. The rest of the group mirror her, voicing similar words of polite farewell and appreciation, and leave.

Garak forces himself not to track their departure and instead picks up his fork again, as if nothing world-shattering has occurred at all. The cake is tasteless in his mouth.

Julian is concealing nothing of his thoughts, however. He’s staring openly at Garak, as if he’s a bomb and he’s trying to figure out which color wire to cut.

Ultimately, it’s Jadzia that breaks the tension. “Well,” she says, “that is some harem you’ve got there, Julian.”

“Jadzia,” Julian barks. She laughs.

“I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” Uncharacteristically, her impish smile turns regretful. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do have to bring your friend in for questioning,” she says, and that explains that. “I’m sorry, boys. I stalled Ben as long as I could.”

Garak polishes off the last of his meal and takes one last gulp of his tea to wash it down. With that done, he stands with a placid, conciliatory smile.

Julian puts a hand on his shoulder before he can take a step. “I’ll come see you after my shift.” Those lovely, dark, deep eyes search his, pinning him like a moth above his fireplace. “Okay?”

Garak inhales. “Without end,” he murmurs, waits for Julian’s eyes to light in understanding, and then aloud says, “I am at your disposal, Doctor. Good day.” With that and a firm, friendly pat on Julian’s hand, he limps away.

Jadzia rather pointedly watches him limp to the exit for a few long seconds before throwing Julian a rakish grin. “Well, well,” she says largely. Julian pretends not to notice, and Jadzia pivots on her heel after Garak.

“Before we lock you up and throw away the key, could you sign my datarod,” Julian hears Jadzia asking, and he shakes his head, unsuccessfully trying to rub away his smile.

Without end Do I think of you and so Come to me at night. For on the path of dreams at least, There's no one to disapprove! Ono no Komachi

[theabigailthorn]

Do you think you’ll ever write a book, either philosophy related or maybe memoirs? I really love your content and your ideas and would love to know more about how you organize your worldview.

FUNNILY ENOUGH

I've been seriously considering writing a book about the way the NHS treats trans people, and more broadly about institutional pathologisation in the current global moment we're having. I've had meetings with some big publishers, even drafted an introduction and proposal, and gotten offers back!

BUT

I don't think I'm going to do it, for a few reasons. In no particular order:

Writing a book about that subject might raise the consciousness of a few folks, but does it help build material power for trans people against my country's healthcare system, and the other systems that subjectify trans people globally? Not really, no. In fact it would legitimise the elite media consensus that engaging with elite media is the path to achieving change. Books aren't just books, they're "media events," and accordingly they increase the power and prestige of the media they happen in. If I wrote this book, newspapers would review it, chart it, I'd be invited onto Radio 4 and shit to "debate" and "discuss" it... Does doing that actually help get medicine into trans people's hands? Not really! Writing books and "getting ideas out there" is pretty busted as a theory of change unless it builds power. The fantasy of writing a really good speech or article or book and suddenly the scales fall from cis people's eyes is just that - a fantasy. No minority group has ever gotten change or justice that way. All that would happen is I'd "enhance my brand" - which means that I, with my private education and privilege and opportunities, would make money and get clout whilst contributing to the elite capture of trans rights as a political struggle. I'd become "a leader in the community" and get invited to some dinners and media events and blah blah blah - meanwhile the violence continues. That media event would also enhance the brands of those cis-dominated media outlets and the "having conversations" industrial complex, who are part of the fucking problem! The struggle should be led by the poorest and most vulnerable among us and link up with other material struggles like resisting immigration raids, prison abolition, decriminalisation of drugs and sex work, etc. So I could likely do more good for my community by donating my time and money to good causes and also by some uhhhh... other stuff - let's call it 'direct assistance' - which I already do and find fulfilling.

The offers aren't that big! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Writing that book might do harm if it's co-opted into ongoing right wing attempts to dismantle the NHS and all trans care. It'd be intellectually satisfying but not creatively satisfying or fun. I'd have to immerse myself in a very bleak world for a long time: I would enjoy having done it but not the doing.

It'd ruin my career. Right now I actually fly pretty under the radar of a lot of my country's nastiest transphobes. That would end if I wrote a book about the NHS. Newspapers, editors, publishers, journalists, and probably some MPs and Lords would become very invested in tearing me down. I've seen it happen to queer writers and journalists before. Remember, Britain is a small country and our media is run out of one city by a very small group of people who all know each other and who also know all our politicians, in some cases because they're literally the same people! That book would be like kicking a hornets' nest. Maybe they'd come after me publicly, or maybe it would be more British: somebody would make a quiet phone call and I'd suddenly be radioactive. Bye-bye acting career, bye-bye any public career.

For related reasons, writing that book and doing the necessary media campaign would expose me to a WORLD of harassment and shit from some of the worst people in the universe, which I frankly don't want. That might include lawsuits.

My dream job is to play [REDACTED] in [REDACTED]. Writing a book wouldn't take me closer to that. It would cement my brand as 'trans educational writer' instead of 'actress and writer,' which is what I am.

So yeah, all in all, I don't think I'm going to do it. Not right now anyway. I reserve the right to change my mind. Think I'll write a screenplay instead!

[sassydefendorflower]

Holy Server B@tman! Fanfic Rec List 2.0

Hello and welcome back to a very special fanfic rec list! 

The members of the amazing Holy Server B@tman! Server are an extremely talented bunch - many great artists and writers together in one place to foster each other’s creativity and joy to participate in fandom.

That has to be celebrated! 

So, please welcome a list of stories our writers loved to create, their very own Greatest Hits!

(please click on your own discretion - you’ll find the appropriate warnings on ao3)

Fujiwhara Effect by byrambles / @byrambles

Fujiwhara Effect: When two tropical cyclones spinning in the same direction pass so close to each other than they begin spinning around a common center. Or: Dick is NOT a fan of Bruce’s new kid (seriously, WHO brings home a new kid weeks after the old one moves out and then doesn’t even have the courtesy to tell – ). When he gets trapped in Gotham by an East Coast hurricane, though, he has to figure out how to be in the same room as Jason without losing it.

byrambles's words: This was so much fun to write! I think it has a sweet mix of angst and fluff — plus a silly little surprise part-way through!

The Lines that Bond Us by canaf_lilah

Reclusive author Bruce Wayne's most recent book, The Bat Man, was a critical success and a mass market flop. As he struggles to make sense of a sequel, he shocks no one more than himself when he brings home recently orphaned Dick Grayson. Bruce could never have predicted the impact on his life - and his writing - the remarkably resilient young acrobat would have. Batman and Robin may only exist on the pages of Bruce's books, but that doesn't stop them from saving the people they touch.

Lilah's words: to me this is by far the best fic I've ever written. I'm determined to finish it one day, but don't be too put off by the incomplete status! It works well as a standalone.

red like blood (they won't wash clean) by silver_the_phoenix

Tim snaps. It's a lot bloodier than he thought it would be.

Silver's words: I started this one because Tim deserves to go a little feral, as a treat; and I finished it because I'm a simp for Good Brother Jason Todd.

Cared For by 1Zukoneedsafamily2 / @trashcollectshere

Jason smirked as he stood over The Replacement. He stroked the feathers of the splayed-out wings, before he gripped a group of feathers and yanked. Not hard enough to pull out feathers but he wanted him awake when the fun started.

Krys' words: also everyone loves a tower fic right???

Brother, Go Find Your Brother by sleepingcreep (JaySgrech) / @misplacedspleen

Brother, go find your brother: A method of finding something lost by attempting to lose something similar in the same way, in the hopes that it gets lost in the same place and both can be found. “You should match, right?” The grin cracked wider as the lanky captor rolled the knife between their fingers, strolling closer to where Tim was pinned to the wall. Jason didn’t comprehend what the creep meant, too focused on trying to pull his hands against the cuffs in the right way to pop his thumb out of place to get free. There are many years of scars between Jason and Tim before they match.

Jay's words: I'm reccing it because I'm proud of how the settings turned out and I think I wrote a unique take on Jason and Tim's relationship

dirt piling up, putting me to bed by rutaceae / @applejee

Jason never imagined that a simple trip to a bookshop could end with him trapped in the basement of a collapsed building with Tim, but you don't often get what you imagined when you live in Gotham.

Luka's words: i’m quite happy with how contained this little fic is (for me); i always wanted to stab someone, and have someone else panic so bad they don’t realise they’re fucked up themself. fun times!!

Do-Si-Do's Churros & Other Curious Things About Love by sElkieNight60 / @selkienight60

Being a beta in a house full of alpha’s is rough. Especially if you’re trying to be heard.

Selkie's words: I like it because I really enjoy reading Platonic Omegaverse stories, and the Batfamily are so unrepresented here, (I say, in the meaning that I simply crave more of them, there are truthfully quite a few out there, but I just enjoy them so much).

Maui Melon Mint by motleyfam / @motleyfam

In the case of Bats vs. Stomach Bug, there can only be one victor.

Motley's words: I had a ton of fun writing from Damian’s POV for a change and letting Alfred wear his sassy pants

Writer's Cellblock by pinstripedJackalope / @the-ghost-of-jason-todd

Mystery writer and father to five, Bruce Wayne has no great fortunes to fall back on. No reserve of social charisma, no family jewels. He no longer has a butler, though Alfred does his best to visit regularly. He is, in short, not the kind of man who can buy freedom. Heck, he can barely make ends meet some months. So you can understand the… concern… he feels when, late one night, two FBI agents come knocking at his door.

K's words: ngl it was hard to pick a fic, and i would have picked one with more than one chapter but i always did think this one was kind of fun

Golden Silence, Golden Yolks by BabblingBookends / @babblingbookends

Words between Dick and Bruce have never been easy. Dick talks, Bruce doesn’t listen. Bruce talks, Dick is expected to listen. Better if neither of them speak at all.

Babbles' words: If you watch a TV show for long enough, there will inevitably be some character moments in a diner, and I just think that's fun, hence this fic!

keep your head up (it's a cruel world) by lookforanewangle / @lookforanewangle

“If the past is anything to go on, sir,” he says kindly, “this boy will be in your care for a good many lifetimes, and you will do all you can to keep him safe, just like you have with the others.” Or, the Batfam/The Old Guard reverse verse au with Dick's introduction to the world of immortals

Lyss' words: I put a lot of work into this one and while I know reverse verse isn't everyone's cup of tea, I think it works best in this universe in this order, with many surprises yet to come, and room for this universe to grow!

A Promise to Stay by xerzi / @xerziartblog

No one needed Tim Drake, but Tim Drake still needed to be needed. And well, who better to choose than the one person who could never stop needing him? So inherently broken that his job would never be finished. Yet so unfortunately resilient that he would never be left the sole survivor. And so desperate to serve that he would never be betrayed again. In other words, no one else needed Tim Drake, but certainly, he knew there was someone who could make use of his particular skill set. - Tim Drake, 12-year-old independent adult, professional birdwatcher, is offered everything he’s ever wanted…for the low, low price of his verbal agreement. All he has to do is say yes.

Xerzi's words: I just want to put Tim Drake in a jar and try to figure out what's wrong with him…so I put TWO Tim Drakes in the same jar so they can work together to figure out what's wrong with them (and how to fix it)

The End of Man by AuroraKant / @sassydefendorflower

Dick Grayson wasn’t meant to be caged in, but then again… Dick Grayson wasn’t a murderer, and look at him now. (was this what insanity felt like?) Dick Grayson gets captured, forced to shift, and put into a cage - surely, this is the worst that can happen?

Aurora's words: Look... I always wanted to write a deranged Shifter AU in which Dick Grayson goes absolutely mental. What can I say? I love it when my boy is broken and covered in blood <3

Catching Stars and Comets by Faeriekit

From this tumblr prompt: "Reverse Robins AU but instead of making Damian oldest and going down the line so on and so forth, it’s a bunch of assembled weird vigilante-crime men and their accidentally adopted autistic eight year old rich boy, Bruce, who calls himself “batkid” for reasons beyond their mutual understanding of expected kid behavior."

Faeriekit's words: it's been a fun AU to work on, I hope people enjoy it, also it's got kids. It's basically an ageswap!AU where all the batkids are "villains" without Bruce's influence. And it was either this fic or the bees.

cardboard box by A_Canceled_Stamp / @a-canceled-stamp

Robin!Tim is exposed to Ivy's cuddle pollen. For the first time, he reaches out to Bruce for help. How he wishes he hadn't.

Stamp's words: this is my first hurt/no comfort fic and I am very happy with how it turned out! The comments I've gotten on it always make me cackle lmao

a flower called you has bloomed by dottie_dc / @dottie-wan-kenobi

The real problem is that, well. Last time Tim went undercover, he kind of… came home and embarrassed himself. It’s not that he’s shy about being seen in disguise, okay? They can all tease him all they want but it doesn’t bother him. He has way more blackmail on his siblings than they do him, so whatever. It’s just… Caroline Hill is a different story.

Dottie's words: I saw the inspo art and it gave me immediate motivation to write something, which was really fun. I loved writing it and seeing people in the comments be able to relate. queer headcanons my beloved <3

Of The Covenant by Kgraces / @kgraces

Dick Grayson is many things, and foremost among those, he's a detective. He can't stop himself from noticing things about Tim Drake — things that make him question not only his home life but his relationship with Bruce Wayne, too. (Things spiral from there.)

Gracie's words: I’m gonna toss my current longfic your way so hopefully it motivates me to work on it more lmao. It’s a Dick & Tim fic where Dick basically takes a look at all the adults in Tim’s life and goes “is anyone going to take care of this feral, unsupervised child? No? Guess he’s my responsibility now.”

Now and Then by librarylexicon / @librarylexicon

Dick’s spent the past few months recovering from an ordeal he’d rather not think about, so when Bruce asks him to spend quality time with Tim outside of their masks, he instantly agrees. Amid conversations, itineraries, nightmares, photos, revelations and a whole lot of chocolate, he and Tim navigate the Great Ocean Road—and learn more about themselves and each other along the way.

lily's words: Dick and Tim are my favourite Batboys, so I've been wanting to write a fic about them for a long time, because of their long history and close brotherly relationship in the comics. This story is a love letter to their bond, and I'm very pleased with the way all the emotional whump turned out!

How to tape a card castle by Fleur_de_Violette / @fleur-de-violette

Dick saves the new Robin one day. This is it. This is all. It’s not that he doesn’t want to have a relationship with Jason, it’s just that it’s too complicated. He doesn’t know how to deal with being an adult on top of being Nightwing. He can’t deal with Jason, with what Jason represents, on top of it. Except, when a small injury doesn’t heal up the way it’s supposed to, he ends up being the one who needs saving and he’s finally forced to face the new Robin.

Violette's words: This is my longest published fic so far ! I really enjoyed writing it, both the Robin Jason and Dick part and the little case stories in between and I'm happy about how it turned out!

See You At Your Worst by wildsofmarch / @wildsofmarch

Dick has only been a mob enforcer for six months, but delivering a shipment of guns to an up-and-coming crime lord in Gotham should have been easy. All he needs to do is win the man's trust and secure him as a repeat customer. Unfortunately, the Red Hood is not impressed with him.

Wilds' words: I like this one because I go ham with the identity porn!

The Nature of Things by FidotheFinch / @fidothefinch

After a mission gone wrong and a spat with Drake, Robin is benched. Worse than that: Damian is grounded. As serendipity would have it, it gives Damian the opportunity to facilitate the rehabilitation of the manor's new ward, a dog Batman rescued from a fighting ring.

Fido's words: I got to memorialize pieces of my childhood pups in this story, and it was my first fic in the fandom

in vitro by genericlesbian72 / @femmescooter

Shadow-girl did not know much. She didn't need to. But she knew her first kill would be for the baby.

Hedgehog's words: This fic was a challenge to myself on how Cassandra would view her first kill, without words to describe it, while also a take on ‘joining the Batfamily early’ for her that I haven’t seen much before.

this one takes the cake by carol_in_au / @carol-in-au

Jason took a sip from his glass, slowly, synching it with Bruce's words. Bruce cleared his throat, and continued with an authoriative tone that was so not him. "I have something to announce." Bruce Wayne has an announcement to make

Chrys' words: It's fast-paced, has a good comedic timing, a bit of fluff in some moments. When I reread it, I found it pleasant to read and I was quite happy I created it

presumptions by Valkirin / @valkirinii

Batman is away on a long mission with the Justice League when Red Hood attacks Robin in Titans Tower. Red Hood thinks that hurting Robin will get Batman's attention. He doesn't expect Nightwing. Nightwing doesn't know what to expect from Red Hood, Gotham's newest rogue.

Trixie's words: It's one of my favorites that doesn't seem to get as much attention. It's also really fun to let Dick Grayson be angry and intimidating.

Operation Friendship Helmet by goldenraeofsun / @raeofsoleil

When Red Hood meets Dick, he seems almost friendly, compared to the violent hostility he showed Batman and Robin. Maybe, if Dick plays his cards right, he can turn Red Hood from a crime boss to a vigilante. But the closer he gets to Hood, the question nags louder and louder: why does Red Hood seem so familiar?

Rae's words: This is the first time I really dove into my favorite trope, secret identities, complete with a big reveal at the end.

Roadtrip to Nowhere by Ghxst_Bird / @ghost-bxrd

“For the last time, I’m not modifying a car we’ll be ditching a few towns over.” “Why, you got better things to do?” “Yeah, getting food on the table, you leech.” Jason goes on an impromptu road trip with an ex-Talon and ends up running into a family member… who still thinks he’s dead. Oops.

Ghost's words: Calvin Rose deserves more love in this fandom!

Q is for Quintessential by writergeek / @writergeek

"Rodney...you're talking about altering the timeline here." Well...yeah. Wasn't that the point? "...I want you to have a backup plan." Of course he had a backup plan. At this point he could probably list them all by alphabetical order. Or...the story of the backup plan(s) Rodney never wanted to use to save 12 days 25 years 48000 years mankind.

WG's words: not a DC fic, it actually comes from my old fandom, SGA. i just... i enjoy the time loop shenanigans and the fixit nature of it (which needs fixing only bc i broke it shush), both tropes i adore reading (and writing, apparently)

Leaving The Light by TheCallOfTheSea

Jason is alive, but he has fallen. Can the Batfamily save him?

M&M's words: I enjoyed exploring Jason as a villain, but it wasn’t easy writing relentless angst! I still brought out his humanity in a way.

closet space by adelfie / @adelfie

“Hi,” she says in a breathless rush, then takes a moment to swallow and wet her lips. “I, uh, need your help?” “Are you dying?” “N-not exactly.” “Then you don’t need me,” comes Jason’s lazy, uninterested reply. The call ends with a click. . Steph doesn't know what's more embarrassing: that she's been locked in a closet during a party, or the fact that her "friends" aren't really her friends. And to top it all off, Jason's the only one who can come rescue her.

adelfie's words: I love that Steph isn't fighting a big bad villain -- there's something so soft and strong in realizing that other people's judgments aren't what truly matter.

penance by cuephrase / @cuephrase

After Tim dies, his soul remains stuck as a ghost at the Manor. Forced to watch Dick and Bruce grieve him and unable to do anything, the only thing making the afterlife bearable is Jason. Until the day his ghost departs.  Tim assumes that Jason has passed on. But then the Red Hood breaks into the Cave. And for the first time, someone can see Tim.

Cue's words: i just had an inordinately fun time writing it!! there was a lot of catharsis in the process, and i’m very proud of the ending because i feel like i was able to preserve the fic’s bittersweetness- like the happy ending didn’t dilute the sorrow and instead they were able to complement each other

two vigilantes carry a cake across gotham by JBS_Forever / @jbsforever

In a scheming attempt to make them bond, Bruce forces Jason and Tim on what should be a simple quest: retrieve Alfred’s birthday cake from across town and make it back before the party. But this is Gotham. And nothing is ever simple in Gotham.

JBS' words: it's a story that centers around jason learning just how much crime alley appreciates him. it's also a sibling bonding fic between jason and tim

Ghosts From The Past by red_jaebyrd / @red-jaebyrd

Tim stared at an old poster of the ‘The Flying Graysons’ and his stomach dropped. He immediately fixated on the young boy’s smiling face with his eyes bright and full of life; frozen in time in eternal happiness. It was such a sharp contrast to the last memory Tim had of the youngest Grayson laying broken and still on the circus floor. Tim sighed. He wasn’t just at any old circus. He was back at Haly’s Circus where his nightmares had started and never really stopped. Or Bruce is Ghost Hunter and takes Jason and Tim with him to investigate strange happenings at Haly's Circus.

Jae's words: I wanted to try and write my own version of a no capes au adding in my own lore about the characters and their new world.

sons of sky by ScarlettSwordMoon, Kiwilart / @kiwilart

Dick is thirteen, leader of the Teen Titans, and already starting to chaff under Bruce’s thumb. When Bruce gets de-aged to fourteen, Dick thinks this experience will finally bring their partnership back to working order. It doesn’t. And then it does.

Scarlett's words: This fic has challenged me in so many fun directions. It is terrifying and exhilarating to write young!Bruce and to really try my hand at a big novel length plot line. Of all my WIPs, this is the most fun to work on because I'm working with an artist, Kiwili, who supports me during the loneliest parts of the drafting process, and also draws amazing art for the fic. I'm very proud of what we've done so far and very excited to be close to finishing.

we'll meet again some sunny day by Ms_Trickster / @ms-trickster

When Talia rests a hand atop her bed, the sound of paper crunching beneath it fills her ears.

Missy's words: Talia is a character that deserves a lot more depth and affection and it was a blast to write a story in which she is loved.

[sssilverstoned]

couples quiz ꩜ ln4

type: transcription from a youtube video

The GQ couples quiz goes precisely how you both, and your PR teams, expect it to

lily said: i just love world building (even if im not the best at it) so i can't ever leave a concept or pairing alone, so it goes!

part 1 part 2 part 3 2.5ish interlude

Y/N: Why do I feel like I left the oven on in the kitchen?

Lando: Well, because you did. I turned it off on our way out, don't worry about it.

y/n turns to the camera with a bright smile, and lando smiles at the sight of her own.

Y/N: My hero, everyone!

Y/N: And um, I guess we're getting started now? So hi, I'm Y/N L/N, a model and creative director currently based out of Europe.

Lando: And I'm Lando Norris, a driver for McLaren Racing's Formula 1 Team, and this is the GQ couples quiz. And if I may add, I absolutely think I'm going to win.

Y/N: I'm not even dignifying that with banter.

lando turns to the camera, an eyebrow raised.

Lando: Fun fact: Y/N's quite genuinely the most competitive person I've met in my entire life.

y/n's jaw drops with a scoff.

Y/N: No shot! You race for a living, for crying out loud.

Lando: Trust me, Love, you take the cake.

y/n rolls her eyes with no charge, a smile still on both of their faces and small looks exchanged between the two of them,

Y/N: Alright, you first. What's my favorite color?

Lando: (your favorite color), easy. it's the color of your phone case right now too.

Y/N: Yup. What's my favorite place I've traveled?

Lando: You loved Venice, no?

y/n winces, weighing her hands back and forth.

Y/N: I did, but that's not my favorite. In my whole life, I'd say,

Both: Jamaica!

they laugh at their unison.

Lando: And I knew that, I knew that! Because of your grandparents.

y/n nods fondly, giggling at how lando beats himself up about getting one wrong.

Y/N: Alright, what am I most scared of?

Lando: You're petrified of spiders.

y/n gags, and shudders.

Y/N: Don't even get me started.

lando turns to the camera with a faux look of exhaustion.

Lando: This girl refused to go into our bedroom for 3 hours once when I was out because there was a spider on the vanity.

Y/N: Whatever. Where did I go to school?

Lando: Switzerland and New York, very posh.

Y/N: You're calling me posh?

Lando: Can't the pot and the kettle both be black?

a producer bursts out in laughter in the background, making the couple do the same. there's a fondness in both their eyes as they double over in laughter.

Y/N: Okay, okay, almost done. What food do I love and hate?

Lando: You hate mushrooms, and for some reason, you really don't like salmon. As for what you do like, you get stir-fry and noodles a lot, but only from specific places. And you love tomato soup, that's the number one.

Y/N: Right again, nice baby! You make a good one now, by the way.

he winks at her.

Y/N: Who is my celebrity crush?

lando scoffs.

Lando: Dylan O'Brien.

Y/N: Forever and ever. My birthday?

Lando: March 10th, a spicy pisces, as you say.

Y/N: Hey, Olivia Rodrigo herself called me that.

Lando: And what about Scorpios?

Y/N: Nope, not your turn yet, I've got one last question.

lando takes a dramatic breath.

Lando: Alright, hit me with it.

Y/N: Where did we go on our first date?

a big smile grows on lando's face.

Lando: We went to a music show one of our friends recommended, and we both thought it was awful but didn't say anything because we didn't want to leave and have the date be over, so we listened to the most shit jazz music for an hour and a half just to be around each other.

Y/N: Best result from the worst music I've ever heard.

Lando: Ditto. Now, hand me the cards, yeah? I'm about to stump you so good.

the camera transitions to y/n now in the hotseat answering questions, lando teasingly taking his job very seriously with the question cards.

Lando: Alright. Where am I from?

Y/N: Bristol, thought you said you'd stump me?

Lando: This is literally question 1?

lando turns to the producers.

Lando: You see what I mean? Ferocious.

Lando: Moving on, what is our favorite show to watch together?

Y/N: We're rewatching Prison Break, so I'd say that?

Lando: I'll give you that one. Ugh, what was I wearing when we first met? Fucks sake, can we skip this one?

y/n sputters over him.

Y/N: Absolutely not, we're not skipping over this!

Lando: Oh come on, Love-

Y/N: I swear to you, the very first time I met Lando, he came to my 18th birthday party in a full on basketball kit!

Lando: I was told it was "Space Jam" themed!

Y/N: As in dress like you're in space, you fool! Not the Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny movie!

Lando: Needless to say, I was mortified. Seems like she still thought I was cute though, no?

another wink is sent to the camera.

Lando: What's your biggest pet peeve about me?

Y/N: You spoil everything. I can't ever watch a show or a movie without you walking in and going, "Oh, this is the episode before he dies." Like? Who does that?

Lando: Yeah, ah, guilty. Working on it. Eh, not really. What's my nickname for you?

Y/N: Cradle robber.

another producer reacts to this. a sputtering shock of laugh. "you call her WHAT?"

Y/N: We're the same age, mind you.

Lando: Wrong, you've been alive 8 months longer than me on this planet! 3/4 of a year, mind you. But I've got real nicknames for you.

Y/N: Yeah, you do. You call me Love, more than you say my name, so it always feels odd when you do say it.

lando doesn't respond with his voice, but the fond look in his eyes and nod at her answer.

Lando: What irritates me the most?

Y/N: About me? Or, like, in life?

Lando: Life, nothing irritates me about you.

Y/N: Oh, please. But, in life, you're pretty irritable when it comes to selfish people. You've always been like that, though, very compassionate and not a fan of people who aren't.

Lando: Very true, never thought of it like that, I guess. Just don't be an asshole, you know?

Y/N: See? Irritated.

Lando: Anyway. We're on our last question, so I guess you've won because it's not a point question.

Y/N: I won't rub this one in your face, just because you've been a great interviewer.

he gives her a gracious nod, and y/n rolls her eyes.

Lando: You'll never ever know how grateful I am. Final Question, what's something that you weren't expecting about me that you love about me?

Y/N: Oh goodness, are you wanting me to cry? Well, I think something that was initially a hard adjustment was the intensity of your racing schedule, and doing long distance sometimes. We don't really see each other sometimes, but when we do, you always sleep in. And at first it was really annoying to me, because we only have like, 3 days together, wake up! Let's do something! But once you told me that you let yourself sleep in on those days because it's a time to just, be, and we can do it together. So I guess my answer is, I wasn't expecting to love how much you love little moments. You've taught me to be grateful for things we take for granted, and I don't know, I think it's helped me through a lot.

lando stays still for a bit, an adoring look on his face as his eyes swell with what we think were happy tears. we're hoping so, at least.

Lando: I can't wait to marry you one day.