#it’s my second to last molar on my right side. the last one on that side already has a chunk missing. I have gastroparesis which has been

[h20]

A third tooth feels like it’s on its way towards breaking. Money would literally solve all of my problems and I have never seen as much money as I need to fix my teeth ever in my life and now it looks like I’ll have another one to add to the bill. Life is a joke

[moonstruckme]

i know you have the reader saying “i love you” first to poly!m, but would you be open to doing one with just sirius? And doesn’t have to be reader saying it first, could be either, but just the first “i love you” with siri?

Thank you for requesting <33

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 2.2k words

Sirius has been meaning to tell you, he really has. It’s only that feelings weren’t something encouraged in the house where he grew up, and he’s still not very good at them even now that he has the words, and though he’d called James a prat when he said Sirius was bad at vulnerability James is usually right about those things. Every time Sirius tries to say it, the words stick back in his molars like caramel. He wants the moment to be right, but not too heavy with gravitas so he can play it off as casual if he needs to. Also, he thinks that if you don’t say it back he’ll probably have to move countries and change identities. Still. You deserve to know. 

Sirius decides all this whilst watching you sleep on a Sunday morning. Time moves like sap as you wake up, slow and sweet. First your face turning to the side, cheek pressed into the pillow. Then your body follows, and you’re laying on your stomach, one leg hiking up so your calf brushes Sirius’ thigh. Your eyes crack into the sunlight, then shut again. Sirius thinks about tracing every slope and curve of your face, starting with your nose and working his way outward. You mumble something, half in a dream. Eventually, you catch him looking, and your eyes flutter open, smile stretching lazily across your cheeks. 

The sun rises in Sirius’ chest.  

“Hi,” you murmur. 

He gives in to one touch, drawing a line from your temple down to your chin. “Hi,” he says back. 

He thinks that he has to tell you now. He’s known for weeks already, and when’s better than when he feels it so strongly and has just resolved to have you hear it? 

He traces the same path back up your face, letting the words take form on his tongue. Your eyes flare before he opens his mouth. 

For a moment, Sirius wonders if you’ve read his mind. But then you gasp out, “What time is it?” 

He tells you, and you vault out of bed, suddenly wide awake. 

“Oh my god,” you laugh, passing an anxious hand through your hair as you hurry towards the bathroom. “I was supposed to meet Mary for coffee at nine! I can’t believe I forgot to set an alarm.” 

Sirius sits up. “She won’t hold it against you. Everyone sleeps in on Sundays, whose idea was it to meet before noon anyway?” 

“Hers.” Your voice sounds garbled, and he guesses by the sound of it that you’re brushing your teeth. The sink turns on. “I just hate the idea that she’s been waiting on me all this time.” 

He pummels his feelings back into submission, getting out of bed. “I’m sure she hasn’t, doll.” He pads into the bathroom, hugging you from behind whilst you speed-run your skincare routine. “James said he was out with her and Lily last night. I really doubt she remembered to set her alarm either.” 

“Really?” You sound hopeful. “I don’t want her to think I ditched her.” 

Sirius presses a placating kiss to your shoulder. “She’s probably just waking up herself. Want me to give her a ring?” 

“Would you?” 

“Sure, baby.” 

“Thank you.” You turn around, kissing him properly. Sirius’ lips buzz with the things he can’t say. “You’re the best.” 

Well, at least he can be that for you. 

~~~

The second time Sirius tries to confess, it’s just as impulsive. What can he say—planning was always more James’ thing, Sirius never had an affinity for it. He does best thinking on his feet. 

You’re in a pub, your friends and drinks left at a table in the corner. It’s loud and crowded, one of those electric Friday nights. And this pub, in what Sirius chooses to believe is a happy turn of fate, has a hallway. It’s short and sparsely lit, leading only to an employee bathroom. Through rose-tinted glasses and possibly also beer goggles, it looks to both of you like an opportunity too good to pass up. 

Sirius has you pressed between stacks of chairs, your laughter fizzing on his tongue. You taste like cider and the sticky toffee pudding you’d ordered on a whim to split with James, and one of your fingers is hooked through Sirius’ belt loop as if to keep him tethered to you. As if you need to do anything at all to be sure of that. 

He pushes his knee between your thighs, and your lips curve against his. 

“Cruel,” you say. “You can’t do things like that in public.” 

Sirius plays dumb. “Things like what, lovely girl?”

“Tease me.” 

“Oh?” He peeks at you through his lashes, and you’re looking at him, too, eyes glittery. “And what is it that you think you’re doing?” 

“Kissing you.” 

“Right. That’s all?” 

He can practically feel the giggle bubbling in your throat. “What else?” 

“No, nothing. Nothing at all.” 

You press your lips to his, and Sirius thinks it, crystal clear. An obvious truth. He thinks that it might be fun to tell you this way, to let you feel how his lips form the words against your own. Maybe you can roll them around in your mouth and give them a taste. 

“I—”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” 

You’re looking behind him, expression one of shy contrition. You’re smiling just a tiny bit, eager to be laughed off and forgiven, but the pub manager Sirius finds when he turns around appears only weary. 

“Just go,” he says. 

You don’t need to be told twice, urging Sirius out of your little alcove and pulling him by the hand back towards your table to relay the story embarrassedly to your friends. The moment passes. 

~~~

The third time, Sirius actually does plan, but you don’t show up. He considers this a probable sign that he should never plan anything ever again. 

If he’s being honest with himself, he’s pretty put out. James got all this stuff into his head about romance and home cooked meals and even though Sirius doesn’t consider himself good at either of those things, he did try. He made the simplest thing he could find that you might like, cleaned off the kitchen table for the first time in forever, lit candles and then blew them out because that felt like too much. Lit them again, because who was he kidding. 

It was supposed to be a surprise when you came home from work, only now it’s an hour past when Sirius had been expecting you and you’re not home. Not your fault, obviously. He hadn’t hinted you were doing anything special, and you’re not obligated to keep him abreast of your comings and goings no matter how much Sirius wishes you would right this moment. He’d caved and called your work a few minutes ago, worried about you, but there’d been no answer. Your office is closed for the day. 

He nearly jumps out of his chair when you come in, a cold wind coming with you before you shut the door on it. 

“Fuck.” You give a shiver, setting two drink containers down on the counter before starting to pull off your coat. Your hair is wind-whipped and your lips look chapped. Sirius has a suspicion that if he pinched the tip of your nose it’d be frozen solid. “It is gusty out there.” 

“What happened to you?” Despite his best intentions, there’s a bit of accusation in Sirius’ tone. “Did you go somewhere after work?” 

“It’s so—” You laugh, taking off your shoes. “It’s so stupid, honestly. But in my defense, I had no idea how long it would take.” 

“How long what would take?” 

“Okay, you know how—wait.” You look around, noting the candles and the set table. “Did we have plans?” 

Sirius winces. “No. We didn’t. This was…impromptu. It was going to be a surprise.” 

“Did you make dinner?” 

“Well, it’s cold now.” 

Your lips part, crestfallen. “Oh. Sirius, baby,” you breathe, moving towards him, “I’m sorry. I’d have come straight home if I’d known.” 

“I know,” he says, fighting his own umbrage at the humiliating blunder. “I didn’t tell you. It’s fine.” 

“But you made—” 

“Would you just—really, it’s okay.” Sirius uses your hands to pull you down into the chair next to him. “Just tell me what happened.” 

You still look miserable—really not what Sirius had hoped for tonight—but you start to explain again. “You know how you were obsessed with those salted caramel hot cocoas that one coffee shop had?” 

Sirius feels his eyebrow lift. This feels like an odd place to start. “Yeah. The one that they sold out of after two weeks?” 

“Right,” you say weakly. “They said it was because they had troubles with the vendor and ran out of the syrup.” 

“Yeah…” 

“Well, it turns out there’s more than one of that particular coffee shop. This girl at my work was talking about this salted caramel hot cocoa she’d tried, and she said she got it at another location of the same place. They’re, like, a local chain or something.” 

You’re still looking guiltily at the cold plate of food beside you, but you’re picking up steam now, talking more animatedly and fishing a tube of lip balm out of your pocket as you tell the story. 

“So, I looked it up and it turned out there was one right close to my work. I figured that had to be the place she got it, so I went down there to snag one after I got off.” You smear lip balm on while you speak, Sirius’ attention captivated by the movement. “I waited in this whole long line, and when I got up there the guy said the same thing they told you at the other place. They hadn’t had it for months. 

So I called my friend from work, and apparently there are actually three locations and she’d gotten it from the one near her flat. And her flat was totally across town, but I figured I’d already waited in line, why not just commit? So I took the bus down there and…” 

You stand, going to the counter to retrieve the drink containers you’d come in with. Sirius had forgotten about them. 

“...got us these.” You pass one to him. “The guy said hardly anyone ever orders them there, for some reason. I got him to sell me a thing of the syrup, too.” You point with your chin to the counter. “It’s in my bag. I thought we could try to make our own, even if they’re not quite as good.” 

Sirius is appalled. “You spent over an hour after work running across town…to get me a hot cocoa?” 

You smile sheepishly. “I told you it was stupid.” 

“Are you kidding me?” He sets his hot cocoa down on the table, taking your face between his hands and kissing you ardently. “I love you.” 

He knows your eyes are open without having to open his. When he does, pulling away from you gently, your lips stay parted. 

“Sirius,” you say slowly, the way you might talk to a wild animal, “it’s only cocoa.” 

He grins, a nervous tic. “I realize that makes the whole sentiment sound rather conditional, but it’s not really.” 

“Do you really mean it?” you almost whisper. 

Sirius swallows. In his head, blurting it out involved much less explaining. This seems like that vulnerability thing James warned him about. 

“Yes,” he says. Forces himself to do it without fanfare. “Of course I meant it. Why wouldn’t I mean it?” 

“It just seems like the sort of thing you might say on a whim,” you admit. Later, Sirius thinks, you might laugh about how close to the truth you really were. You look bashful now, shrinking in on yourself and lip dimpling like you’re biting down on a smile. He chooses to interpret this as a good sign. 

“It’s not a whim,” he reassures you. “It’s…I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He cracks a smile, grateful when you let yours loose too. “Felt like you ought to know.” 

You give a little laugh. “Is that why you made dinner?” 

“Not my best plan. We can blame James.” 

“James knew?” 

“Well, I—” Truthfully, there’s not much that goes through Sirius’ head that James doesn’t hear about. Usually immediately. “He’s got some more practice with this stuff than I do. You know, considering he’s been professing his love to Evans since he was about eleven years old.” 

You’re still smiling. A private, amused sort of smile. “So you consulted with him.” 

Fuck. Now Sirius feels about eleven years old. “Humiliating, isn’t it?” 

“No.” You wrap your fingers in the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer. “Sweet.” 

You kiss him much more nicely than he had you, soft, gentle presses of your freshly moisturized lips. Your hand moves to cup his face. 

“Oh,” you mumble. “I love you, too, by the way.” 

Sirius lets out a relieved bark of laughter, too loud and too sharp. “Good to know,” he says. “Thanks.” 

You laugh, too. “Sorry I forgot to say it. Fuck, I really ruined your confession every way imaginable, didn’t I?” 

“That’s okay.” Sirius leans back in. “I ruined it first.” 

[dontopenfairies]

She’s standing in front of the bathroom sink, getting ready to brush her teeth, when he comes looking for her. “Hi, honey,” she says as he wraps his arms around her waist and leans his head against her shoulder. “Are you ready for bed, too?” He nods sleepily against her shoulder.

“Is your diaper still clean?” she asks. Another nod. “That’s good.” She sets down the toothpaste and starts brushing her teeth.

“Will you…” he starts to mumble something but gets embarrassed and gives up halfway through, burying his head in her shoulder.

She takes the toothbrush out of her mouth. “I’m brushing my teeth, sweetheart. One second, okay?” He nods again, and just stands there with her while she finishes brushing and spits in the sink.

“Okay, what’s up?” she asks, rubbing the back of his head and kissing his forehead.

“Would you…um…”

“Come on, baby. You can say it. What do you want to tell me?”

“I want you to…uhm….” He hides his face again.

“What’s up? Did something go wrong? Ohh, did you have an accident while you were in here?Do you need a change?” He shakes his head roughly. “You’re still clean?”

“I don’t need a change,” he says, slowly raising his head. “Would you mind brushing my teeth for me?” And then his face is right back in its place against her and she can feel the warm redness in his cheeks.

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I can do that. Pass me your toothbrush.” He does so, so quickly he almost fumbles it over the sink. She squeezes out a little toothpaste on it and runs it under the tap. “Open your mouth and lean your head back a little. Wider. Okay. There you go. Perfect.” She braces her left hand against the side of his cheek as she brushes his teeth, probably getting spots in his back molars he usually misses. “Stick out your tongue, that’s important. Good boy. Okay, now I’m going to get the very front one last time. Bite your teeth together. Okay, there we go. You can spit now.”

He leans down and spits in the sink and she rinses off his toothbrush and puts it away. “Okay, are you ready for bed now?” she asks. “Aw, you’re all red. Did that get you worked up?”

He looks away and nods very shyly, almost imperceptibly.

“Aw. You’re so weird. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

RED-WING BLACKBIRDS AND DARK DAHLIAS (XVII)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER XVIII ||

PAIRING: Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick x F!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 4.3k

WARNINGS: Blood, wounds, angst, guns/weapons, injury, abduction, talks of abduction, talk of interrogations, protective/worried Gaz, Gaz's POV, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

They called him back to the US the second word got out that you and your mother were gone, and all through the flight, Kyle couldn’t stop clenching and unclenching his hands.

His eyes stared straight ahead, jaw so tight that he could feel his molars screaming at him to let off the pressure. All he did was bite down harder. Leg jumping in one of the metal seats of the C-17, the Sergeant had already run through his gear multiple times just to try and pull some semblance of surety from them—a weight of normalcy. 

He had his magazines, he had his med pouch, and lines connecting his radio. Straps and ties, scissors next to wire cutters. 

None of his mind games were helping. He couldn’t run through his mental checklist any more than he already had; having to be up into the twenties of times he’d counted through items and packed goods. Kyle was always steady—he was always ready. Yet, he can’t say he’d ever been as thrown off his course as he had when he got the hurried phone call from Laswell. 

They’re gone. Get back here as soon as possible. 

There hadn’t been a moment of peace afterward—the man doesn’t even think he’s slept, much less eaten beyond a granola bar and a sip of water. Price had been side-eyeing him since his impromptu interrogation session back in Russia; the blatant disregard of orders. He’d been less than impressed about it, even if it had hailed them the answers they’d been looking for.

Gaz can’t even care to remember the hissed words he’d been passed in the car back to base—can’t think beyond the heavy-set fear in his breast. His heart beat hard in his ribcage, like a hammer shattering glass. The man’s eyes are beady and small. His shoulders wound high.

With a small growl under his breath, Kyle moves his spine back stiffly to connect with the back of the seat, feet resetting themselves. 

Johnny, across the way, spares him a glance, lips thinning. Over the noise is the hard assurance. “She’ll be fine, Mate, yeah? Just focus on gettin’ down there and finding ‘er.”

“Right,” brown eyes aren’t able to convey the same hope, and Gaz says the word on autopilot. He doesn’t want to talk—he needs to move. A man of intelligence brought down to the level of sprinting head first onto the scene because of a single woman. 

The Scot frowns, sharing a glance with Price. It isn’t any use, they know the Sergeant is restless. 

Even as the plane is landing, Garrick’s skin is stiff across his skull, scars pulling tight. When the cargo hold is open, he’s the first off the ramp. 

Kate waits impatiently a small distance away, eyes grim.

“Laswell!” Gaz calls, jogging lightly away from the friction in the air from the C-17. The woman stares at him, blue eyes glancing back as Price catches up easily. The last two follow, bringing down the bags with their gear plus Garricks. Kyle licks his lips before speaking, sunglasses at the collar of his vest swinging. 

“How did this happen?” He hisses, teeth bared. “Bloody hell, you said Alex was on her—I was told she would be under twenty-four-hour watch.”

“Sergeant,” Kate levels. “There’s been more activity here than I’d like to admit.” Her attention shifts to the Captain, who slips up and speaks stiffly. 

“What’s the situation, Kate?” 

“John,” the woman sighs, tilting her head. “It’s good you’re all here—we need as many eyes on this as possible. Follow me.”

“Kate,” Garrick moves forward, but a firm hand snaps to his shoulder, keeping him back. John’s unblinking eyes dig. The correction was as clear as day: show some respect—the information was coming. It wouldn’t help to rush into things, and, under that heavy blue gaze, Kyle won’t. 

When had the Sergeant forgotten his training?

Gaz darts his head forward and clenches his jaw in thin understanding.  

The flight from Russia back to Chicago was over thirteen hours, all four men were tired from running in circles and the time difference. But the job was the job. Gaz would drink as much caffeine as needed, even if he knew that he needed the rest more than anything, if not for his body then for his mind. The meeting room was a short and quick distance—the door barely shut and locked before business began in its regular grisly fashion. 

Gaz refused to sit, instead standing with his hands hanging from his combat vest, thumbs tapping in a repeated, and obviously anxious, manner. 

He needed to find you—safe. Alive. He needed to, and he can’t describe why out loud. The man had thought that maybe your lack of a phone call the night previous had been because of general fatigue and sickness; it would make sense with how you’d been nauseous all the time. On a few calls, you’d been falling asleep mid-sentence.

The flashing images of you possibly injured, bloodied, or even dead, left Gaz’s throat clearing quickly; face going from rage to fear to panic in a split second before forcing itself back to a practiced nothingness he reserved for interrogations. Except it felt like he was the one in the chair this time around. 

Please, he thinks. Please, for the love of God, let her be okay. Fuck…this never should have happened. 

He never should have left.

Laswell starts explaining just as the Captain lets off a grunted sentence. “What’s going on?”

“I went after her, but by the time I heard the gunshot, it was already too late.” The woman shakes her head. “This base was on an entire lockdown—no one was allowed close to our building.”

“Gunshot?” Gaz takes a step forward, head leaning closer as if he’d heard wrong. The others move past it, knowing there’s more. “Why was there already a lockdown in place?”

“Any cameras?” Ghost asks, partially interrupting. His intimidating form looms near the corner, casually leaning against the wall. 

“That’s why I called you back so quickly,” Kate breathes. “Look.” The laptop is grabbed from the side of the main table and dragged over as everyone mulls around. “I didn’t want to risk it over an open channel. Who knows who could be listening.”

“Kate?” John asks, a bit confused as the man’s legs shift weight. “Listening? Who are we talking about?”

“That fellow?” MacTavish asks, glancing at the others curiously. “Chiyou, was it?”

“If it is,” the woman breathes, “then every one of my hunches is proved right.” Blue eyes dart up as the projector whirs to life from above. The light blinks on, shining to the white screen along the wall. “No one else has seen this, and I’d like to keep it that way, boys. All of it from this point forward is completely Black. Off the books.”

“Then let's get to it,” Gaz states firmly, nearly shaking from inaction. His attitude is snappy; body eager to move. He has to do something. “We’re wasting time, Laswell. Every moment is a second lost where Spitfire could be hurt—”

“We all know how much you care, Kyle,” a stern face bares down into his, but the Sergeant’s gaze doesn’t falter for one instant. “But this is far more complicated than anything we’ve encountered before.” A pause. “Focus.”

“I am focused, Ma’am,” Gaz utters, clenching his hands again, feeling the scrape of rough material from his vest. His eyes are sparking with rage, brimming with a deadly promise. “Lazer.” 

“Good,” Is the easy response. “Because you’ll want to see this.”

The first image Gaz sees is you, and for that small instant, his pounding pulse stutters like a schoolboy. The grainy motion of your body as you sit down into the seat outside, placing down your journal and your laptop…brown eyes finch closed in confusion. 

Journal? 

Wasn’t that your father’s? When did you find that? Kyle’s mind runs, but all he can settle on is the possibility of you finding it back at your estate…and never mentioning it to him. Despite it all, there’s a quick flicker of something like a smirk across his lips before he watches you cough into your arm through the video. From there, though, Gaz’s attention becomes sharper, honing in like a blade the longer nothing happens.

Kyle studies every frame—every shift from the bushes and your hands pulling out your coin from your pocket, the item glinting in the low light. He’d never got to ask you why that thing was so important. A pang hits his chest, making Gaz’s sweaty hands twitch a bit harder. Seeing you there made his lungs crush in on themselves—there’s a need to try and break through the projection just to grab you back. 

Focus, the Sergeant has to think. Get her back.

But his mind jumps to every time you’d stared into his eyes up to now, your growing bond that he felt proud of being a part of—some semblance of healing. Your lips so very close to his in the remnants of a dark room. 

By the time the figure slips up behind you, the realization is enough to make Kyle’s hands drop seriously; Johnny, Ghost, and Price all going stone-still as their eyes snap back in slight shock. Gaz’s face drops.

Because it was no one else but your mother that now goes and points a gun at your head. 

“What the fuck,” the Sergeant hear’s Johnny whisper under his breath. 

It’s as if the fire is stolen from Garrick’s chest in one foul gust of wind. A chill so deep it leaves the hair on his arms standing pulls from the depths of his gut—intestines bunching; stomach writhing. His eyes stare so hard, that the tendons behind them pull like a tight string. 

Your mother. 

It all fit together so well, that the sudden realization made his mouth water with the warning of bile. Gaz wants to will the video to stop—and his teeth grind together as he glares at your pixelated form, none the wiser as your matriarch raises and levels the black barrel behind your head just after your fingers grasp at a something from the journal; dropping another piece of paper to the ground before quickly bending to retrieve it.

“Turn around,” Kyle harshly whispers to himself. “Fucking hell, Love, Please turn around.” 

He pleads to whatever God might be listening, no, even then, to any anti-christ or demon that grips at his blackened soul—any of them; any broken, rotten bit of his heart. Something had to move you.

The gun raises, it follows the shifting of your head.

Kyle’s legs wanted to bolt, to run to wherever this footage had been filmed on some off-chance-hope that this was all a big farce—some lie; a test. A test he can break apart and analyze, a test he can understand. But Gaz can’t understand the raw fear that makes his eyes snap from you to the gun like a quivering child.

Suddenly he’s a little boy again, and his mother is giving him his father’s watch and explaining why the man isn’t here. Kyle feels very, very small. In fact, the Sergeant had never felt like more of a failure in his entire life. 

“Please,” is all that he can mutter past numb lips, the others in the room irrelevant in the grainy shadow of a mangled woman trying to piece together her family's broken bits of polished glass. A kaleidoscope of crimson shards, dripping blood over her head; he knew how much it weighed on you, damn it, he knew. The things you’ve already gone through, he burned because of it. All of this is some great brand that sears his flesh: sinner.  

Kyle shakes his head, jaw grinding before his fingertips threaten to draw crimson crescents in his palms.

“Just turn around.” He snaps, voice grating in his throat like a dog—eyes tight.

By the grace of whatever God had heard him, just before the quick flare of the bullet being discharged from the gun, your body drops to the ground. 

John grunts beside him, arms shifting, and a great heaving sigh rattles through Gaz’s lungs. Your figure scrambles as pages erupt into the air—the journal on the table having been struck at the angle your mother had pointed the weapon; trailing down with her arm steady at the force. 

The sense that she’d held a gun before was a quick thought, nothing more, as Kyle’s brown gaze sears the projector screen. Scrambling, the Sergeant holds his breath as you break for the cover of some potted plants, limping because of your thigh before your mother turns her head and calls sharply to someone out of the camera's range—there’s no sound on this footage, so the command is lost. 

There’s a crackle on the screen, and the video snaps to black. Kyle’s heart breaks itself.  

“Bring it back up!” He barks, neck straining itself. Gaz rushes forward, grabbing at the computer as his Captain gruffly reprimands his actions. 

“Garrick!” 

“This is all we could grab,” is the even tone. “There were multiple arrests in our surveillance building, they’re all being questioned right now. No one’s spilling.”

The Sergeant’s hands run the keys, messing with the space bar. Brown eyes land on the silent woman in barely hidden desperation.

“Where’s the rest of it? Where’d she run off to—there needs to be more we can go through. A–” He trails, teeth snapping. “A direction, a lead, something, Laswell.”

“What the fuck is going on,” John grinds out, moving his glare from Garrick to Kate. 

“Her own mother?” Soap adds, raising a dark brow and making a noise under his breath. “Talk about a special family, aye?”

“Could say that again,” Ghost utters, huffing. “She got the package deal.”

“Bloody watch it,” brown eyes barely move from the screen as silence seeps into the room. Gaz’s fingers shift back the time to when you were rushing past that potted plant. A sharp sheen of horrified analysis was rooted like veins into Kyle’s sights now—a feral want.

You had to have left him something to find you. You were smart like that; you were devilishly sneaky when you needed to be—when there was only a second of lightning-strike action. 

You had to have.

An aggressive fire so rare to the Sergeant seems to easily overtake him every time your mother’s face is visible to the camera. A blood-red adding of his brain so much so his hands visibly twitch along the pad. 

“Major breach of all functions on base,” Kate answers the Captain, looking deathly serious. “We have no clue how long this has been going on.”

“The mother,” John levels. 

“I had a hunch,” the woman admits.

“Why didn’t you say anything,” Kyle’s body straightens from where it was hunched over the computer, anger getting the better of him. “Fucking hell, Laswell. Spitfire,” he breathes, “my charge is gone and you had doubts?!”

“Sergeant,” the Captain’s voice is deathly cold. “...Stand down.”

Blazing brown meets Kate’s deep blues—drilling.

“I left her here,” Kyle forces out, shaking hand moving into a slow fist over the laptop. 

The room is swept with a delicate pause. 

Laswell sighs, blinking. She looks to the side, averting her eyes. “There was no actionable intel on her mother. I did the best I could without support, but it was limited to what Alex could find out and relay to me.” The woman shakes her head, motioning with a hand. “Medicine was going missing from the hospital building, but the records never showed that was the case—it was word of mouth. Business dealings that didn’t add up from years back after the failed interrogation of Spitfire’s father; all of it not enough. The tracks were hidden so well, it would have taken a team that sat in the hundreds—thousands, even.”

“Needle in a haystack,” Ghost breathes. “The cell overseas?”

“East China?” Kate blinks, tilting her head.

“Only lead we’ve got,” John grunts, shaking his skull and glaring at the table. “Doesn’t help much, Kate. Whole country.”

“That’s if she’s still alive,” MacTavish adds under his breath, sharing a glance at Gaz. 

The other Sergeant isn’t even listening—the pointless babble of the ones who’d ripped him away from you; as if it wasn’t his own hands that had sent in that reassignment form. ‘

“C’mon, Spitfire,” Kyle bites his lips, fastly tapping the arrow keys to see every frame over and over again. 

Your quick duck, the whites of your eyes, that slackened jaw of terror—he doesn’t think you even realize that it’s your mother, just the threat of death enough to block it out. You turn, and the item in your hand bunches with the tightness of your grip. 

Gas interrupts the hurried speaking from the others. 

“The journal—the USB, did you find them?” 

“All of it was recovered,” Kate answers. “Except whatever it was that she was holding.”

Kyle’s spine hunches, looming closer to the screen. It’s the grain that blocks his vision from the truth—the utter shite of the quality pathetic even to him. 

“Where was this?” The Sergeant asks. “The camera recording?”

Laswell nods, giving away the information as if citing off a report. “It’s a small rest area off the back entrance of building C. We kept them both there as new personnel cycled through.”

Kyle’s already out the door, only blinking at the last image of your hand slapping the side of a potted plant and the glance backward as your mother once more raises the gun. A stupid hope was that you’d be here, despite it all. But the slam of his boots only echoed to his ears alone.

Brown eyes shifted from one area to the next, scanning table and chair—everything had been searched already; most likely by Laswell and Alex. 

“Anything,” Kyle turns a circle, hands sweaty. He needed you back. He needed you here minutes ago; hours ago. Your rare eye contact, your laugh that he had become addicted to drawing out of you like honey, the way you spoke, and walked. It had become too much for the man, and his affection for you was so deep now that it was impossible to deny—you’d snuck your way into his heart when he wasn’t looking, and even if you never returned the feelings that you’d infected him with like a poisoner, this agony was unlike anything definable by vocalization. 

This was torture that he couldn’t fight against. 

“You’re smart, Sweetheart,” he gasps, expression pained. “You left me something, I know you did. You left me something to follow.”

If you were the hare, then Gaz would become the hound. You wouldn’t be gone for long, mark every work he’d ever said and most certainly the ones that he hadn’t. He was getting you back beside him, and then he needed to look into your eyes and spill every secret that was ingrained into his DNA. 

Lashes moving, Gaz’s legs carry him across concrete and patches of grass, the crunch of it underfoot. He glances at the table, giving it a once over, bending to study below it—nothing. Kyle grunts lowly, growing more desperate as the seconds draw longer. 

The man passes the potted plants, shifting to run his boot over the grass and ruffle anything that might be stuck in the earth. 

Nothing. 

“Spitfire,” Kyle growls under his breath, backing up a step stiffly. He runs a hand over the base of his neck, fingertips dragging to stimulate the heated skin. 

When it’s all nearly lost, there’s a moment when the light of the sun perfectly aligns with something metallic from the corner of the Brit’s vision. A tiny glint of reflection from the sun leaves Gaz’s eyes flinching in a reactionary display. Grunting, the Sergeant’s head tilts away in annoyance, looking over with a growling ill-temper to the dirt of the first potted plant, ready to snap at it with vitriol. 

But the insult to the inanimate object dries like a desert storm slashed through Gaz’s mouth on the back of a lion. It’s a small thing, hidden under the deep brown of the dirt—the Sergeant doesn’t even know what it is or if it’ll even help before his hands are grasping and ripping away the top layer rabidly. 

His heart pounds, bruising his ribs with the frantic pulse of life. Dirt flies through the air, and Gaz’s grip slides over something metal—something cold. A sharp hiss is barked from him as he accidentally slices his fingertips as he snatches it, the crinkle of paper mimicking before that, too, is stolen with a fast thought. 

“That’s my girl,” Kyle chuckles, though it's serious—lacking anything more than a hurried second of relief. “That’s my fucking girl…okay. Okay, I can work with this, yeah?”

What is pressed into the soil is your coin, the one you always try to carry no matter what, and a piece of lined paper. 

Gaz thinks out loud.

“From the journal?” He asks under his breath, brows pulling in. His attention jumps from one word to the other, but the sudden color of red steals the only ounce of hope he may have gotten. 

Blood. 

Your smeared fingerprints spread along the page and Kyle’s face balks back with a blink of panic, eyes snapping this way and that until it’s clear that the display of gore was more than residual splatter—it was circling a sequence of numbers; if the contents of the letter were anything to go by, the date of your expected graduation from college. 

A sequence of numbers. 

Kyle’s jaw slackens, and he reacts much slower than he knows he should just off of the anxious shaking of his hands as he clenches the paper and the coin. 

“USB,” he utters, breathing heavily. 

And the coin—that tiny piece of your life, that small item you fiddled with but never showed beyond a quick glimpse when you were twirling it. Kyle flips the image as he stands fully, licking his lips as he begins to jog back to Laswell and demand the USB. 

Yet, there’s something that makes a startling amount of pained sense about the inscription on that coin. But he still takes it like a knife to the stomach with a sharp breath. 

‘TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE: UNITY, SERVICE, RECOVERY.’ A triangle with the image of the Roman numeral ‘I’.

It was a one-year Alcoholics Anonymous sobriety coin.

—

“Where was it?” Laswell takes the note and blinks down at it, face stiffening at the smears of blood. Kyle’s fingers grasp and drag the laptop to him, panting from how he’d run. The man doesn’t answer, muttering under his breath the numbers as the screen blinks to life. The USB was already plugged in—a result of the fast call that Kyle had thrown the woman’s way, needing it to be ready for him.

Kate passes the paper to Price, who walks to stand behind Gaz—Ghost and Johnny both following to see what the Sergeant had found before he busted back through the meeting room door. 

“She hid it,” Kyle grunts. Long fingers tapping, the keys give way as the numbers are typed in one after the other. “I knew she’d left me something—there was no way she wouldn’t.”

His Captain’s fingers push away dark particles of dirt, but his blues blink up to stare at Garrick as, finally, that password screen breaks away to the pop-up of the file selection. 

“Yes!” Gaz says under his breath, eyes intense; nearly unblinking. 

There isn’t much left to do except look—study. But there wasn’t time for that. Wherever you were, if your mother had you, there was an urgency that couldn’t be overlooked. There had to be something in this USB that gave the answers that everyone was searching for—what you had been searching for.

The location of a hub. But now…there could be something even more valuable in these files—a place where Gaz could bring you back to him.

Brown eyes slip from one file to another, all labeled from ‘2006 Dealings’ to ‘Reports from 04-03: Row’. All organized neatly, maybe no more than ten plainly visible.

“Sergeant,” Kate shifts closer, reaching. 

“I’m getting there, Laswell,” he breathes, “I need to find her before she’s gone forever.”

Kate and John share a look. The woman breathes, “This needs to go to the proper channels for analysis. We can’t rush this intel—one wrong step and the USB could wipe itself if there’s a failsafe hidden in the code.”

Gaz huffs, clicking through documents ruthlessly. “Bullshit.” 

Soap blinks in shock. They all knew that Garrick could be hotheaded and stubborn, but it never extended itself so much as to be a repeated hindrance to the team—in Russia and now were the exceptions. 

“Gaz,” Price says under his breath, watching tightly. “We all know you’re worried, but until we get solid intel, we can’t move after her. Location is only a part of what needs to be understood, Sergeant.” 

Long fingers flinch to slam into the file near the very bottom, and the screen freezes before Gaz blinks at it in anger—in rage—as his palm slaps the table, eyes spearing the individuals behind him.

He barks, “You’re not the bloody people who promised her she’d be safe!” 

The second the sentence sparks electricity in the room, an explosion of blueprints, diagrams, and progress charts move over the laptop screen. Attention snapping back, flinching wide, Gaz’s face pulls as all of it settles on the very last image—the only one he needs to see. 

It was an aerial view of Eastern China, and along the vast coastline, there were markings in the tens of navy-colored pinpoints. Port locations, maybe; warehouses and factories. But all locations.

Gaz stands up, blinking down at the map slowly. 

Taking a slow breath, Kyle swallows down the saliva in his throat and grinds out lowly into the deathly silent room, “When are we starting, Sir?”

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[grandmother-goblin]

Field Study - Chapter 6

Ao3 - Masterlist

Chapter Summary: After an argument with Cas, Astarion decides that it's best to try to make things right. Preferably, before Wyll has the chance to sweep her off her feet and he loses his chance.

Relationships: Astarion x Female!Tav

Rating: Explicit (18+) for eventual smut.

Word Count: 7.8k

Chapter Tags: Smut, oral sex, blow jobs, cunnilingus, fingering, penetrative sex, enthusiastic consent, mild begging, mild disassociation, references to past trauma, jealousy.

Note: Part of this chapter has already been posted as an excerpt.

Dawn crept over the horizon, accentuating two long shadows as Cas and Wyll returned to camp, looking equal parts exhausted and triumphant.

Astarion couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

The part of him that was irritated with the reckless idiots waged war against the part that was thankful to see them return in one piece. It meant that they didn’t have to stage a rescue mission for them. Or, more likely, find a way to deal with the tadpole without them. At the end of the day, Cas’s connections and Wyll’s reputation opened a lot of doors that might otherwise remain closed to them.

Astarion brought his foot up to rest on his knee and focused his attention on the book in his lap. Or rather, he tried to focus. Gale had been kind enough to lend him a book on Netherese magic that he just happened to have on hand for no suspicious reason at all. Not that he was complaining. The book was interesting, but his eyes kept darting back to where Cas and Wyll trudged up the path.

Blood stained the front of Cas’s leathers, and a gnarled staff had joined her bow in the weapon sling on her back. Judging by the smell and the way Cas carried herself, the blood on her armor did not belong to her. A sense of relief tickled his heart. It almost chased away his lingering irritation, but when Wyll tossed his arm around Cas’s shoulder like they were best fucking friends, Astarion ground his molars and went back to the book.

The way his own body responded only furthered his annoyance. Pushing the idiocy involving Ethel aside, the conversation with Cas prior to the unnecessary venture did not sit right with him. For multiple reasons. Not only had she turned him down in favor of playing hero with Wyll, she seemed to see straight through his plan to use her for his own benefit.

Cas wasn’t wrong, of course, but she also wasn’t supposed to figure that out.

Astarion had been careful to conceal his true intentions. It was second nature to him. Over the centuries he had lied to, seduced, and manipulated others to lure them back to Cazador so many times that he’d die of old age before he could recall each instance.

It wasn’t the first time someone had been suspicious of his intentions, but getting caught never really bothered him. It just meant he had to move on to the next unlucky idiot before Cazador got wind of his failure. But with Cas, a pinprick of guilt prodded the back of his mind with the insistence of an angry seamstress and he didn’t know why.

“You were amazing last night.” Wyll’s voice was soft, reverent even, over the sound of boots scraping against sunbaked earth. “It was a complete honor to fight a monster like Ethel at your side.”

Trying to be discreet, Astarion let his eyes drift back in their direction just in time to see Wyll pull Cas into a hug. One that lasted two seconds too long and did not seem entirely innocent. At least, not on Wyll’s part.

Cas gave Wyll a pat on the back before she put a single step of space between them. “Careful not to get blood on you,” she said with a light laugh, gesturing to the state of her shirt.

“Wouldn’t be the first time, my friend.” Wyll returned the grin and planted his hands on his hips as he looked her over head to toe, his eyes lingering on some areas of her figure longer than others. “There should be a spell to get that cleaned up. It can be a pain to get bloodstains out of leather like that,” he said and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Since you’re heading right back out, I might have a chest plate that will fit you. Or, at the very least, cover up most of the blood.”

“I think anything of yours would be too big for me,” she said. Then she seemed to realize the implications of her statement, and held out a single finger in warning. “Don’t even think about it.”

Holding up his hands in mock surrender, Wyll bit back a laugh. “I was just going to say we can find a way to make it fit.”

Cas smacked the back of her hand against Wyll’s chest playfully. “I’m going to…” her threat vanished into a bubble of laughter. “You go get some rest. Clearly you need some sleep.”

Sleep wasn’t the only thing Wyll needed. He could also likely do with a pair of fangs in his throat, but Astarion likely wouldn’t get away with that. No matter how much he wanted to at that moment. It wasn’t like he had any sort of claim on Cas.

But that did not mean he couldn’t have a claim on Cas.

Wyll did not seem like the type of man to pursue a woman who was already spoken for. Except for Lae’zel, no one at camp knew about their midnight liaisons. No one saw the way Cas smiled at him under the moonlight, or heard the way she moaned when his mouth was on her neck, or how she laughed when he teased her. After their conversation last night, he wasn’t even sure if he would have the luxury of being close with her like that again.

An uninvited memory of the night outside the swamp invaded his mind. The way she had saved his life from the Gur without a moment’s hesitation, and after when she wrapped her arms around him as he kissed her against a tree. He should have taken her right then and there. Then maybe the thoughts that plagued his mind would cease.

But it just hadn’t been the right moment.

It didn’t feel right because he wasn’t supposed to feel anything at all. Pursuing Cas was about survival, not pleasure. And it certainly should not have caused the clusterfuck of emotions he had going on.

Astarion pushed the memory aside. Knowing the kind of emotions that cropped up whenever she was around, was it even worth it to continue pursuing a relationship beyond superficial friendship with Cas? If what she said was true, she would help him regardless of the thing going on between them. Was this thing worth the trouble if he would get access to her powerful connections without it?

Absently staring at the book in his lap, he listened as Wyll excused himself to his tent followed by the sound of light footsteps that approached from his left.

“Good morning, Astarion,” Cas greeted as she stopped just out of arm's reach. “I hope you rested well.”

“I did.” He continued to stare at his book, unwilling to look at those pretty brown eyes with what they tended to do to him. “Sounds like you and Wyll had a lovely time together,” he added before he thought to stop himself. “I take it you’ve successfully avenged your vampire friend. Do you think he would be happy with your kill?”

Leaves rustled in the wind. Cas said nothing, letting his passive aggressive words hang in the air like a cloud of smoke.

“I don’t think he’d care, honestly.” Her tone, friendly and warm just seconds ago, iced over in an instant. “But slicing the hag��s throat means she can’t go looking for Eroc any time soon, so I suppose there’s that.”

“How incredibly violent of you,” he said and did not bother to hide the disinterest in his voice.

Mentally, he slapped himself. Why was he being hostile to her when part of him just wanted to set things right? It was like a reflex, or some sort of self-defense mechanism he could not quite explain. Irritated with himself, he took a breath and tried a more neutral tone. “When are we heading out?” he asked, just to steer the conversation towards something more productive.

“About thirty minutes,” she answered without missing a beat. “Are you okay with watching the camp with Karlach for a bit while Wyll gets some sleep?”

His fingers paused just as he was about to flip to the next page in his book. So, she was leaving him behind. She hadn’t done that since the day after they first met. Granted, it seemed everyone besides Cas and Shadowheart had gotten at least one day of rest. He could not help but think that she wasn’t giving him a break as much as she was taking a break from him. A cold feeling seized his chest and he promptly ignored it in favor of putting on a face.

Plastering a smile on his lips, Astarion finally turned to her. “Darling, I’m hurt,” he said as he pressed his hand to his heart in mock offense. “But I suppose I can suffer a day at camp while Wyll gets his beauty sleep. It sounds positively dreadful.”

The blank expression on her face did not budge an inch. Not a hint of amusement or irritation. “We’ll be back before dark,” she said, her tone taking on a business-like quality that grated on his nerves.

When Cas started towards her tent, Astarion forced himself to keep his mouth shut and returned to his book.

—

Six blissful hours of peace and quiet passed before the Bastard of Frontiers emerged from his tent looking like he didn’t know what day it was. A fresh bruise bloomed on Wyll’s hip where his trousers hung indecently low, and Astarion found himself glad that Cas wasn’t around to see what the monster hunter had on display. Compared to Wyll, Astarion was a scrawny little shit and that knowledge bothered him in a way it hadn’t before.

Even with the scars and the fake eye, Wyll was an objectively attractive man with his sun-kissed brown skin and a bright smile that made it seem like he hadn’t had a bad day in his life. Once upon a time, Wyll was exactly the kind of person Astarion would dream of marrying. Back before his entire life was upended in an undead nightmare. As things were, Wyll appealed to Astarion the same way an orchestra might appeal to a deaf man. He could understand why someone would have an interest, but he simply had different tastes.

Nearly two hundred years had passed since Astarion last saw his reflection. Time had turned his own face into a vague memory. Given how people responded to his presence, with coy glances and blushing cheeks, he knew he couldn’t look terrible. Hells, that was an understatement. The main reason he was successful luring people back to Cazador was because most people found him attractive. Beautiful, even. But his looks were nothing like the human man strutting around camp with his shirt off and looking like he just came off the cover of an erotic novel.

Once again, Astarion tried to focus on reading, wishing Karlach hadn’t taken Scratch with her to go to the grove. They were a far better distraction than the book.

For a while, Wyll left him alone. He took some time to train and make sure all of his gear was in working order. Why he did that all without a shirt on, Astarion did not know. He supposed it was a hot day. Maybe Wyll just didn’t want to dirty any more clothing.

However, the silence between them was tragically short lived. Wyll approached late in the afternoon with a flask of whiskey in hand and a smile on his face. From what Astarion could tell, Wyll wasn’t drunk. Small mercies. The Blade of Frontiers was a chatterbox when he was too deep in his cups, and Astarion was in no mood to deal with that.

“I’ve got a personal question for you,” Wyll said as he settled beside Astarion on a split log they used as a bench. “Cas said something last night that made me wonder…. Is there something going on between the two of you?”

A vague question, and one that invited divulging far too much if he didn’t care to think about it. Inexperienced magistrates and politicians easily fell into such traps because their need to hear themselves talk left little time to consider the weight of their words.

“Clarify something,” Astarion said and picked up his bookmark, sensing that the conversation wouldn’t be completely boring after all.

Wyll lightly nudged him with his elbow. “You know what I mean,” he said. “I get the feeling the blood might run a little hot between you two.”

That was one way to put it. Yet, he could tell that Wyll was being intentionally vague. As much as Astarion liked to gossip, he liked it significantly less when the subject matter was personal.

“And what makes you say that?”

Wyll shrugged and took a sip from his flask. “Cas seemed upset last night,” he said as his smile faded. “I tried to talk to her about it, but she didn’t say much except that you were giving her a hard time.”

“Nothing more than a lover’s quarrel, my friend,” he said, just to prod him a bit. It was clear that Wyll was after something with his line of questioning, he just didn’t know what. At least, he didn’t know anything for sure.

Although he had a sinking feeling.

“Truly?” Skepticism coated the word so thickly it was almost insulting. “I wouldn’t have thought that someone like Cas would — ”

“— It was a joke,” he said before Wyll could shove his foot into his mouth. Astarion wasn’t sure what Wyll was going to say, but the end of that sentence could not have been anything good. He decided to be offended just on principle. He turned back to his book and said, “I caught her sneaking out and we had a little spat. You know how Shadowheart and I felt about dealing with the hag.”

Wyll took a drink. “So, there’s nothing going on with you and Cas?”

“Nothing at all,” Astarion confirmed drily, not sure why he was lying. “Everything is just tickety-boo.”

There was definitely more going on between him and Cas beyond their petty argument, but Wyll didn’t need to know about that. It wasn’t any of his business.

Leaning back on his hands, Wyll hummed as his eyes trained towards where the sun was setting beyond a copse of trees. “I admit I’m relieved to hear it. I like her, you know? I want to see her happy.”

Astarion blinked. There was something to Wyll’s tone of voice… the way he spoke about her….

Shit.

Wyll didn’t mean those words platonically, did he?

That wouldn’t do. Not at all.

Part of him wanted to backtrack and confess that he had lied before. There was something going on between him and Cas. What that something was, who the Hells knew? But it was there and that meant something.

What they had was special to him, if nothing else. It wasn’t something he wanted to lose. Not when he still needed her for more reasons than he cared to admit.

He couldn’t let Wyll get any ideas. Astarion needed to act fast. It wouldn’t take long for Cas to realize that Wyll could offer her a whole lot more than he ever could.

He couldn’t let that happen.

An idea popped into his head. It was a low and petty notion, but hopefully subtle enough that Wyll wouldn’t perceive it as such. So long as it made him second guess pursuing Cas, Astarion didn’t really care.

“Well, I’m certain your little outing last night would have made her perfectly happy,” he said all too casually. “It was probably just like spending time with her brother. What with both of you being monster hunters with theatrical titles.”

Wyll chuckled and brought the flask to his lips. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, the wheels turning in his head as he weighed the implications of Astarion’s statement.

On one hand, it was a compliment. On the other, no man wanted the woman he was interested in to be associating his likeness with that of her brother.

“You’re ridiculous,” Wyll finally replied. “What I’ve done is like a teaspoon of water in an ocean compared to the Huntsman. Comparing me to him is like….” Instead of finishing his thought, he took a swig from the flask and shook his head.

“You’ll get there some day, I’m sure,” Astarion added just for good measure. He turned his attention back to his book, pleased that his little comment seemed to wriggle its way under Wyll’s skin.

A few seconds of silence passed. Wyll sat beside him quietly as if he was trying to determine whether or not he should say something. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Astarion’s game, but it did take a certain type of person to play it. And Wyll wasn’t that type of person.

Wyll gave him a friendly pat on the back and thanked him for the talk before he excused himself, saying something about having to get dinner ready.

A little knot of insecurity twisted in his stomach as Wyll walked away.

Wyll was a good person. Probably the best of them, if the way he spared Karlach was any indication. Especially since he implied that he put his own life in danger by letting Karlach live. Everything about Wyll screamed “hero”. Someone a person could look up to. Someone a person could trust.

Astarion was none of those things.

If he was honest, he wasn’t sure if he could be even if he tried.

—

Though he would never admit it, Astarion needed that day of rest. Not just for his body, but to give himself time to sort through the thoughts swirling around in his head. Mainly, it gave him time to figure out what he wanted to do about Cas.

He needed to set things right with her. Both as an ally and as the closest thing he had to an actual friend. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had anything close to friendship with someone. It would have been foolish to give it up so easily.

It didn’t take much to see his relationship with Cas was different. She spent her time with him because she enjoyed his company, not because she had nowhere else to go. As much as his instincts told him to twist her kindness, generosity, and naïveté to his advantage, part of him didn’t want to. Deep down, he knew that he simply enjoyed her company as well.

The dark desires that came with immortality easily infiltrated his genuine feelings. It was difficult to pick between the thoughts, or to figure out which ones were tainted by his affliction. Did he really want something more than friendship with Cas? Was his desire for more fueled by a lust for power or something else entirely?

He didn’t get to dwell on his thoughts long before Cas and the others returned to camp. Lae’zel seemed beyond pissed off, paying no mind to anyone or anything as she immediately went to work dismantling a training dummy with an ax. If he had to make a wild guess, something went terribly wrong with their quest to find the Gith crèche. Despite his awkward conversation with Wyll, it seemed staying at camp was by far the more enjoyable option. He did not want to imagine what it was like to walk miles upon miles alongside an enraged Githyanki warrior.

Cas and the others, thankfully, didn’t seem to share the Gith’s frustrations and simply went about their business as usual.

When Cas acknowledged Astarion with a soft smile and a nod, his heartbeat quickened in his chest like an answer to his previous question. The dark desires courtesy of his vampiric nature were cold, calculating, and yawningly empty. Whatever was stirring in his chest was anything but. Warm and pleasant, like a thick blanket around his shoulders that guarded him from the cold.

Her smile melted away some of his anxieties. Despite his behavior from that morning, she didn’t seem to hold a grudge. She was giving him another chance. A chance that he did not want to waste.

Astarion went out to hunt while his companions busied themselves with their own dinner. By the time he returned to camp, Wyll was sharing a drink with Shadowheart, Karlach, and Gale around the campfire, laughing and telling stories while Lae’zel was still beating that innocent training dummy into oblivion. When he asked where Cas had wandered off to, Wyll cocked his thumb towards the river and said she went to wash up.

Perfect. Just the opportunity he needed to get a chance to chat with Cas alone, away from the potential interruptions from camp. Although interrupting her bathing wasn’t ideal, he didn’t want to sit around and wait for a more appropriate moment either.

Between the sound of friendly chatter and dull thuds of Lae’zel’s steel blade meeting packed straw stuffed in armor, none of his companions seemed to notice when Astarion snuck off.

Enough time had passed since Cas had left that he felt she’d be done with her bath and he was hoping to intercept her on the way back to camp. When he spotted her, it appeared as though she had just gotten out of the water. A beige towel wrapped around her torso, barely covering the curve of her ass as she carded her fingers through her damp hair. The faint scent of lavender scented oil and soap reached him just as Cas noticed his presence.

Her dark brows furrowed at him in question, but she continued working the lavender oil through her hair, focusing on the tips. “Please don’t tell me you were watching me bathe,” she said dryly.

“I considered it, but no.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets as his eyes were drawn to the way the towel clung to her subtle curves. “I just wanted to catch you alone for a moment. Figured we needed to talk about some things.”

Cas dabbed a few more drops of oil into her palm and began to work it through her hair. “I suppose we do,” she said and exhaled deeply as she averted her gaze. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. It wasn’t right for me to accuse you of using me for my brother when you had only just found out about him.” Her fingers worked through her hair, but in a way that was more nervous than productive. “I won’t bore you with excuses, but I am sorry. You didn’t deserve it. I hope you’re able to forgive me.”

Not what he was expecting, but he didn’t disapprove. The words stirred a funny, unfamiliar feeling inside him. When was the last time someone he knew apologized to him? For anything at all? While the apology was nice, and appreciated, it was something else she said that dug deep in a way he hadn’t expected.

You didn’t deserve it.

For centuries, there was always a reason why he deserved every moment of agony he endured. He failed to bring back prey for Cazador. Or he spoke too loudly. Or too softly. He wasn’t standing straight enough. Didn’t smile when he was supposed to. Stood six inches to the left of where Cazador expected him. According to Cazador, he had deserved every harsh word, every cut along his skin, every missed meal. For centuries, the only things in life he didn’t deserve were the good things.

Cas adjusted her towel, holding the thin material in place more with her arms crossed over her chest than with the corner tucked over the edge. She laughed sheepishly and brushed a damp lock of hair behind her ear. “I suck at apologies,” she said, her eyes almost pleading as they fixed on his face. “If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you–”

A smile crept across his lips as she bumbled over her words. Adorable. How could he have ever been upset with her? It was difficult to hold much of a grudge when she was wrapped in a towel like a gift and spoke such sweet words.

“I suppose I can forgive you, darling,” he said, as if forgiving her was some dreadful chore. A droplet of water ran down her neck to the hollow of her collarbone before it disappeared beneath her towel. Astarion licked his lips. “But if you insist on making it up to me, I might have some suggestions.”

The subtle sound of her heartbeat quickened in his ear as her mind went exactly where he wanted it to go but the noise was quickly drowned out with a laugh. “And what might those suggestions be?” she asked as she took a single step closer, keeping herself just out of his reach.

Astarion feigned interest in a non-existent speck of dirt beneath his fingernails, which only seemed to amuse Cas more. “Do I really have to spell it out for you, darling?”

His eyes wandered over curves the towel scarcely kept hidden, from the swell of her breasts to the roundness of her hips. As much as he wanted to close the distance between them and tug the towel loose, he resisted. He was a gentleman after all. Well, that was a lie. But he could very well pretend to be enough of a gentleman that he would at least ask before ravishing her on the spot. “I’m suggesting that we kiss and make up.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” A smirk on her lips said she was intentionally being difficult, like she was waiting for him to just ask her outright. “Or are you more interested in the ‘kissing’ part?”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “You’re cheeky, aren’t you?” he said as his gaze landed on her full lips. “If you aren’t interested—”

“— I never said I wasn’t interested,” Cas said as she stepped closer until they stood toe to toe, her chest brushing against his. “But I want to make sure you’re certain about it. Now that you know who I am—”

He didn’t bother to wait for the end of her sentence. Astarion cupped her face between his hands and covered her lips with his own by way of an answer. He was certain. In this situation, her being the Huntsman’s little sister mattered as much as him being Cazador’s spawn. Which was to say, not at all. For a few moments, they could both forget who they were and the situation they were in.

A sound of surprise came from deep in her throat as his tongue brushed against hers. Sweet peppermint coated his tongue as he stroked hers, and it might as well be his new favorite flavor. Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt as his hands slipped to her waist. He pulled her body flush against his so she could feel the effect she had on him. His cock, already half hard at the sight of her, swelled and thickened between them. “I want to take this towel off,” he said, his lips brushing against her ear as he spoke.

When he bit her earlobe, she made a sound that fueled something primal deep within him. Something that only understood need, want, and possession. Something that took the fire in his core and doused it in whiskey, making the flames burn even brighter. His fingers hooked into the towel impatiently, wanting and waiting. He would still play the gentleman, though he wanted to be anything but being gentle.

Her hips pressed into the hardened length and he groaned at the moment of relief the pressure provided. Her movement was slow and deliberate. Taunting him, daring him to take what he wanted. Then her hand slipped between them as she palmed him through his trousers.

She unbuttoned the front of his pants and Astarion suddenly found it a little hard to breathe as her deft fingers ghosted over the inside of his briefs. It was the first time Cas had touched him like that: the first time she had gone for what she wanted rather than following his lead. A sense of familiar numbness mixed with excitement. It felt different than the countless others who had touched him. It wasn’t blind demand fueled by lust. She seemed to be focused on him as she wrapped her warm hand around his aching length.

She stroked him gently and a groan rumbled deep in his throat as he pressed himself into her palm. “You want this, don’t you?” His words were a sultry whisper against her ear. “You’ll have to ask nicely.”

Cas hummed in contemplation as she kissed down his neck. Carefully, she slipped his shirt from his shoulders, letting it fall to the grass behind him.

Then she lowered herself to her knees.

“Love,” he said, caution sneaking into his tone. “What are you doing?”

Of course, he knew exactly what she was doing. He just didn’t know why she was doing it. What in the Hells was she playing at? He was supposed to be the one in her position, the one offering pleasure, but not the other way around.

Lustful, doe-like eyes gazed up at him as she traced her finger from base to tip. “I’m asking nicely.” She licked her lower lip and her eyes went back to the bulge just inches from her face. “Unless you’d rather I do something else with my mouth. It’s up to you.”

Some mechanism in his brain sputtered. He couldn’t even remember the last time someone had made such an offer. Years. Maybe decades. Hells, she even left the choice up to him. She actually bothered to ask what he wanted in the first place and….

He could say ‘no.’

The realization sent a shockwave through him. For the first time in centuries, he could refuse someone.

Somehow, he knew she wouldn’t push it if he told her that he wasn’t interested. It would have been a lie, but just the knowledge that he could refuse her made him feel more powerful than he had in ages.

His heart picked up speed and his throat felt a little tight. “You’re sure?” he said, and mentally slapped himself. Gods, he was supposed to be seducing her! Not… whatever he was doing at that moment.

What the Hells did this woman do to his brain? Sometimes, he swore she affected him more than the tadpole.

Part of him expected her to change her mind. After all, her own pleasure was the only thing she wanted, wasn’t it? That was all anyone ever wanted from him. If his needs ever got taken care of, well, it was usually just because he got lucky.

“Very,” she said and kissed him through his briefs. Then, with a playful tilt of her head, she added, “Please?”

Astarion ran his fingers through her still damp hair. “If you insist, darling.”

Easing down the waistband, a faint hint of redness colored her cheeks as she took in the sight of him. Fuck, he had been in Cas’s position hundreds of times that it felt almost wrong to have someone kneeling before him.

Cas looked up at him with eyes that were simultaneously so innocent and so mischievous. Slowly, she dragged her tongue along the underside of his shaft and his fingers tightened in her hair. Just that small touch made his whole body tense as heat rose to his cheeks.

“Let me know what you like,” she said before wrapping her lips around the head of his cock.

His jaw fell open as she took him into her mouth and every single thought he had vanished. Nothing registered except for the warm, slick, heaven surrounding him. For a moment, he just watched her. Her movements were slow and delicate, like she was savoring him. And he wasn’t sure if anyone had ever paid him attention the way she was. He couldn’t bring himself to look away even if he wanted to, mesmerized by her lips wrapped so beautifully around his cock.

“Fuck, Cas,” he hissed. His fist tightened in her hair as he eased his cock further into her mouth, guiding her into a deep, steady rhythm. “Just like that, sweetheart.”

Cas was a quick study, figuring out exactly what he liked with just the smallest direction. Shamelessly, his eyes locked onto the sight of her lush lips sliding up and down his cock, following her movements, unable to look away even if he wanted to. He groaned when she sucked him a little harder, and took him a little deeper until the head of his cock nudged the back of her throat.

Gods, he couldn’t remember the last time someone touching him felt… not terrible. Heat pooled in his gut as his hips bucked involuntarily. Fuck. If he didn’t stop her, it was going to be over before it ever really started.

“That’s enough, darling,” he said, his voice somewhere between a groan and a primal growl. With his fingers tangled in her hair, he eased her off of him before he came down her throat. With a wicked glint in her eye, her tongue lapped over the head of his cock once more and he bit back a moan.

Her hands settled on his hips as she gazed up at him, pupils blown wide with lust. Waiting. Watching his reaction with parted lips.

She must have seen something in his face because then she breathlessly asked, “Do you want to stop?” The question almost made him want to laugh.

Astarion leaned down, putting his face close enough to hers that he could feel her breath across his lips. “That is the very last thing I want to do.”

His lips crashed against hers in a bruising kiss. It was like something ignited in him like a shot of whiskey tossed into an open flame, sudden and intense. Like the fire spread beyond his body, Cas inhaled deeply as her fingers sunk into his hair with unabashed passion. Astarion wasted no time pushing her down onto the grass.

The towel Cas had wrapped around herself had loosened completely and began serving a much nobler purpose of keeping them off the grass. Mostly. It was an admittedly small towel, but it was better than nothing at all.

Every instinct he had told him to plunge his cock inside her and fuck her until she couldn’t see straight. Once he removed the rest of his clothing, it took every bit of willpower he had not to do just that. Cradled between her thighs, his hard length prodded her entrance, teasing her as she arched to meet him, desperate and wanting. But he didn’t press into her just yet, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Normally, for him, sex was just about going through the motions. It was something that he had been forced to do for so long that he didn’t even have to really think about it. But Cas had completely thrown him off with a few words and a blow job. Gods, she had actually been willing to stop before she ever got her pleasure. She didn’t even seem to be upset by the prospect. All he had to do was say the word and… that was how it was supposed to be, wasn't it?

But after centuries of being denied even the most basic human decency, it felt like a godsdamned gift.

Astarion’s lips moved against hers, hot and eager, as he held his weight above her with his palms on either side of her head. He dragged his mouth down the column of her throat, over the lovely bruise on her neck, more interested in tasting the salt of her skin than the blood that pulsed beneath. His lips wandered to her collarbone, then her full, rounded breasts. Her dark nipples tightened to stiff peaks as his tongue flitted over the tips, one after the other.

“You’re gorgeous, darling,” he said, his voice thick and unrecognizable and far too full of desire. He drew her into his mouth, sucking the most sensitive part of her breast until she was squirming beneath him.

A small gasp passed her pretty lips when his fingertips brushed over the heat between her thighs. “Already so wet for me,” he purred as his fingers delved into her.

The response was immediate. Her hips rocked to meet the movement of his fingers as he kissed between her breasts, his lips trailing down to her firm stomach, lower and lower. His thumb strummed over her clit in practiced motions as he kissed her mound and her inner thighs. Everywhere but where she wanted him. Even in the moonlight, he could see the red flush to her cheeks and the sighs that escaped her lips were like music to his ears.

“Astarion,” she said, his name like the softest caress on her breath. Her fingers tunneled through his hair, blunt nails trailing over his scalp in a way that made his skin prickle with pleasure. Though he expected it, she did not pull or guide him to where she so obviously wanted him.

He glanced up at her and eyes met for a brief moment. A spark of electricity shot through him. Something more than lust, more than simple desire. It was too much. He closed his eyes, breaking the connection, and lowered his mouth between her legs.

Cas’s breath hitched when the steady rhythm of his thumb on her clit was replaced by his tongue. Like she was fighting the urge to hold him there forever, her fingers tensed in his hair without pulling it. As he dragged his tongue through her folds, his fangs ached with the sudden urge to bite her. To taste all of her; blood and sex. He let his fangs graze over her without breaking the skin, sending a satisfying shiver through her.

Cas arched when he began to suck on her clit. His fingers curled within her, stroking her sweet spot in a way that had her hips lifting off the ground. He pressed his forearm over her hips, pinning her in place as he licked, sucked, and tasted her.

Her legs pressed around his ears, her thighs trembling as her walls tightened around his fingers. “I’m going to come,” she panted as he lapped at her swollen clit like he was trying to brand her with his tongue.

It was only another second before her whole body began to shake. Then all of Cas’s muscles went taut as she let out a choked moan, her pussy clenching around his fingers as she came undone. Astarion glanced up and was greeted with the sight of her flushed face and her hand clamped over her mouth as she tried to muffle herself.

Gods, was she beautiful.

While Cas caught her breath, Astarion withdrew his fingers and pressed soft kisses to the inside of her thighs. He trailed kisses up the length of her body, his cock aching to be inside her.

His heavy length ground against her soft skin, desperate for any sort of relief and impatient for a response. The need he had to feel her around him, to fill her with all of him, was indescribable as it was instinctual. He spread her thighs with his knee and pressed himself against her, sighing as the slickness between her legs teased his cock, warm and welcoming.

“Tell me you want me, darling.” His lips brushed against her neck as he spoke.

“I want you.” Cas raised her hips in encouragement. “Please.”

Something primal rumbled in his throat as he notched his tip against her entrance. “I love hearing you say ‘please.’” He thrust into her with one deep, hard, steady plunge that buried him to the hilt.

Her mouth fell open as her pussy clenched around him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as if trying to pull him even closer, deeper. “Gods, yes,” she said as she pressed her face into his neck, nipping his pale flesh as she rolled her hips against his.

Astarion went still as his breath shuddered, cock throbbing inside her and his hips pressed against hers. Though he had done this exact thing thousands of times, she felt so incredible. So warm and snug around his length as she pressed delicate kisses over his neck to his jaw. Then, with her hand on his cheek, she captured his mouth with hers.

For a moment, something like shame and trepidation flickered within him, before he kissed her back. There would be time to dwell on that later. It was different with Cas. Cas wasn’t a victim, or a target, or just another meal for Cazador.

She was… so good to him. She defended him, protected him. Though she was obviously attracted to him physically, it was clear that there was something more. There was something in the way she smiled and laughed with him. Something in the way she wanted to spend time with him, hear his thoughts, and was willing to stand her ground when they disagreed.

For the first time in centuries, he might have an actual friend in Cas. A real connection. Usually he couldn’t wait for his sexual encounters to be over, but with Cas, he almost didn’t want it to end.

Worst of all, he was still manipulating her.

He was using her the same way others had used him.

She was far too valuable, and he had to keep that in mind. His feelings on the matter be damned. He could push them aside, just like every other time they got in the way of what needed to be done.

“Is everything okay?” Cas asked, her voice thick with lust as her brown eyes watched him with a touch of concern.

With a rakish smile, he rocked his hips. “All of your nipping makes me want to bite you back.” The lie rolled off his tongue easily and grazed his fangs along her neck.

Before she could think to question him, he withdrew almost completely and slammed back into her. A pleasured cry tore from her lips as her blunt fingernails bit into his shoulder. Astarion gathered her in his arms and his hips gently rocked into her, the practiced movement putting steady pressure on her clit. Her walls fluttered around his cock, and every time he slid in deep her breath sighed out as she held him tight.

He couldn’t remember the last time sex had made him feel so connected to another person. So close and so vulnerable. He couldn’t remember the last time he looked a lover in the eye as he was inside them. It was as liberating as it was terrifying.

Cas’s hands roved over the contours of his body, from his shoulders to his ribs to the curve of his ass. Fingertips traced over the marred skin on his back like she couldn’t even feel the scars. No part of him went untouched. No tormented past, no uncertain future, just her body against his like nothing else in the world mattered except their pleasure.

It wasn’t long before she was quaking, her eyes shut tight as she took every last inch of him. With a soft cry, she was coming again, biting into his shoulder to stifle herself. Fire spread across his skin as he picked up the pace. Sweat clung to their bodies as he found a steady rhythm. Just two people at the utter mercy of each other’s touches and her moans were like the sweetest harmony to his ears.

His eyes roved over her parted lips, her flushed cheeks, and the way her breasts bounced as he rammed into her over and over again. A sight just for him, and he wanted it branded in his memory. His movements became uncoordinated and reckless, immersed entirely in the feel of her. With each thrust, the fire pooling low in his abdomen grew stronger, wilder, until it burst into an inferno. He followed her over the edge, spending himself deep inside her as flames ignited him from within.

When Astarion slumped over her, Cas wrapped herself around him tight like she needed him close. Her heartbeat pounded in his ears as they both caught their breath. A comfortable, satiated, silence fell between them, the sounds of night and the rush of the nearby stream grounding them back to reality.

Astarion rolled them onto their sides. Cas curled into him, her arm draped across his middle as his fingers traced along her spine. His mind eerily blank, he smoothed her still damp hair with the palm of his hand as they listened to cricket song.

It was peaceful. Calm. He just wanted to hold her for a bit longer. To feel the heat of her skin against his as they laid together without doing anything more at all. To just be.

But it was far too soon to be getting sentimental.

At the end of the day, it was still about protection. And repayment for everything she had done for him. It would have been foolish to wish for anything more.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I take it you enjoyed yourself?”

“Do you really need to ask?” She raised a brow at him, but the blush on her cheeks betrayed her attempt at sass. As if she was suddenly shy, Cas buried her face into his chest and said, “I think I left a love bite.”

An unexpected bark of laughter passed his lips. “It’s not like I haven’t done the same to you, darling.”

She traced a splotch of red skin on his shoulder with quiet fascination. “You’ll be able to cover it pretty easily,” she mused as she pressed a kiss to the mark.

“You didn’t cover yours.” Astarion’s fingertips brushed over the fading bruise surrounding the two puncture wounds on her neck that no one else could claim. “Though, I do think it’s only fair that I return the favor,” he said as his mouth found the junction between her neck and her collarbone and inhaled her scent: lavender mixed with the salty scent of sweat. A mischievous grin grew on his lips as he gently nibbled her soft skin. Not hard enough to leave another bruise, but just to make a point.

Cas pushed herself away from him with a laugh. “Don’t you dare,” she said and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory it brought to mind. The one of the night where she so generously allowed him to drink her blood and he tried to go in for seconds. She had laughed and pushed him away then, with the same words on her lips.

They fell into easy conversation as they cleaned up and dressed. When Cas offered to fix his mussed-up hair, she did so with an uncertain smile, her eyes darting to his lips every few seconds. Unsure if she was being too forward, or being too tender, for whatever their relationship was. He soothed her worries with a kiss.

It wasn’t often he had that simple luxury. That he got to spend some time with someone after he had slept with them. Usually they left because they had been satisfied or because Cazador had taken them. Either way, his job was done once the clothes came back on.

He didn’t know what his relationship with Cas was. Or how sex might change it. But he knew one thing for certain: he didn’t hate it.

If anything, he wanted more.

---

Beginning

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

[stevmarie]

Our boys finally get to learn a little more about each other...

Saint of Steel AU: Part 6

Gajeel retired to the tent not so exhausted but extremely agitated. Of course, he had no right to be. Because he should be thankful for the hospitality, and above all, for the warm place to sleep. But still... did it have to be in the captain's tent?

He scrubbed his face with his hands.

Earlier that day, Laxus had left him before the empty tent, allowing him to choose where it was he wanted to sleep. This allowed Gajeel to pick a place close to the entrance of the tent, and later, once Laxus had helped to set up the rest of the camp, had placed his own on the opposite side. If the captain took notice of the positioning, or if he even cared, he had shown no sign. Which would be very much like him, come to think of it.

The word chivalrous came to Gajeel's mind, unfurling rather like an origami bird losing its shape to poor craftsmanship.

He let out a sigh and pulled his robes tighter around himself before stoking the small stove to help warm the small space. He was sitting on the ground contemplating a cup of tea when the captain came in. He gave Gajeel a cursory glance before removing his cloak to hang near the stove.

Gajeel feigned disinterest, but still watched the man out of the corner of his eye.

"Father, do you truly think I am merely a mercenary captain?"

Laxus removed his gloves and his gauntlets and set them to the side. He dug through his bag and procured a whetstone, settling down on his own bedroll with his long legs flat against the ground. He drew his sword from its scabbard, and the ring of metal made Gajeel's molars taste like copper. On another man, all of this would appear very relaxed. But there was nothing in the way Laxus carried himself that said at ease. It occurred to Gajeel that this man could go from this calm state to ready to fight in the seconds it would take Gajeel to even register danger. There was a quality about him that spoke of a well-fed predator. For the moment, it was sated and content to bide its time. But turn your back at the wrong moment...

"Do you often work with the Pegasus Temple?" Gajeel asked.

Laxus blinked down at his sword, processing his words. If he was surprised, he showed no sign other than a slight twitch of his brow. He slid the whetstone against the blade, sharpening the edge.

"More often now than we used to," Laxus replied.

"What sort of things does the Pegasus Temple contract with mercenaries for?" Gajeel said, and then gestured vaguely towards the opening of the tent, "Aside from escorting merchants and their precious wares."

"Oh, usually we're escorting healers, or lawyers, or The Bishop," he paused at that last one before continuing, "They're a practical lot, the priests of the Pegasus Temple. So practical they often don't understand that they could be in danger."

"I see..." Gajeel said slowly.

"You know, a friend of mine, Gildarts, once told me he was told to escort a healer through the red lamp district. The man was against it. He was afraid a man with a sword might scare some of his clients."

"I can understand why he'd be worried about that," Gajeel replied, "I can't imagine any red lamp district would take men with swords walking around."

"Yes, well, there was an issue of headless bodies being found around that area," he replied, his tone dry.

"Ah..."

Headless bodies? Now didn't that sound familiar...

"When this fact was pointed out to him, do you want to know what the healer said?" Laxus shot him a tired look, "Who would ever murder a healer?"

Gajeel chuckled, "I think if someone is to the point of chopping off heads, they might not care who it is."

"You understand my friend's dismay, then."

"And... you think the murderer has moved north, do you?" Gajeel asked, again looking at Laxus only out of the corner of his eye.

Laxus hesitated.

"Surely, you don't think I'm the murderer?" Gajeel asked, unable to stop a lopsided grin, "Why the secrecy?"

"No, of course not," Laxus rushed to say, his eyes widening slightly, "It's just... ah... the Bishop is concerned about mass panic."

Gajeel raised his eyebrows, "The Bishop doesn't want to warn people about someone going around chopping people's heads off?"

Laxus studied his blade for a moment, his eyes going hard as he thought. Then, he seemed to make up his mind.

"We know who, er, we know what is doing it,” he said at length.

Gajeel blinked at him, “What?”

“Yes. That same friend of mine, Gildarts, stumbled on one in an alley. It was a man, or, it looked like a man. Or, ehh… it was a man’s head made out of clay. Somehow, and I don’t know how, it removes the head of the victim and replaces it with its own. And then it uses that new body until it decays enough that it needs a new one.”

The story in the tavern suddenly made a lot of sense. A body found missing a head, and a different head found nearby.

“A… clay head?” Gajeel asked, not understanding.

“Yes. We’ve been calling them smooth men because, well, they look like men unless you look at them closely. But they’re made out of clay.”

“They? As in…?”

Laxus nodded gravely, “More than one.”

“And you think they… what? Fled north?”

“No.” Laxus said, “We think they came from here.”

“That story, from the man at the tavern…”

“Five years ago, yes. We think that someone is making them, a wonder worker of some kind, and that they may be heading back to them now that they’ve been found out.”

“How many are there?” Gajeel asked.

Laxus shrugged, “We don’t know. We destroyed two of them, and a warehouse where it appeared new heads were being made, although those weren’t alive.”

"And the Bishop doesn't want to warn people because...?" Gajeel asked, mildly horrified.

Laxus's smile was wan and wry, "Could you imagine what people would do if they were told there were pale creatures who looked like men on the loose beheading people? And that we didn't know how many there were or where they were hiding?"

"Oh." Gajeel said eloquently, "That... wouldn't be good."

"Mass panic." Laxus iterated, "We'd be doing more harm than good."

"So that's the real reason you're heading across the mountains?"

"It wasn't out of distrust that I didn't mention it," Laxus said quickly, "But imagine I had and we dropped you off at the next small village we came across? And imagine you told them a band of armed men were searching for strange clay human look-alikes that were out beheading people?"

"Yes... I can imagine."

Gajeel could imagine. He could image very, very well, actually. He himself had to hide parts of himself for fear of what people would do if they found out. And he was at least human.

"People would tear apart anyone they saw as an outsider... or burn them at the stake."

"Yes," Laxus hummed contemplatively.

They lapsed back into silence as Laxus continued to work. Once he was done sharpening his blade, he stripped himself of his tabard, revealing the chainmail beneath. The tiny ringlets glittered in the dim light of the stove as he pulled the heavy armor from his shoulders.

Gajeel tried very, very hard not to stare.

The man was fair with skin almost as light as cream. Skin that was pulled tight against each curve of every muscle on his chest and his back. Gods, the man had such with shoulders, and surprisingly, a tattoo of black ink. Gajeel didn't know much about tattoos, except only that many religious orders didn't like them. He did know enough about them to know these were decorative and not a symbol of slavery or imprisonment.

Gajeel was just letting his eyes trail down the curve of the man's hips when the captain did the unthinkable. He paced back over to his bag and began rummaging around, bending over. For a very long, very foolish moment, he appreciated what leggings could do to the man's ass when he was bent over like that, and the muscles of his thighs. And then he promptly laid down and rolled away from him, telling his heart to stop beating so loudly or else he'd rip it out and throw it into the cold.

Gajeel was shuffling through the narrow corridor of the monastery. Smoke made his lungs burn and he heard his brothers yelling about fire in the distance. He ran for the altar room, his eyes burning from the smoke as heat closed in on him. The altar was on fire. The red and orange flames danced in dreadful, jittery motion across the old wood. He gazed at the tapestry of Saint Metalicana, gazing down with red eyes and a genteel expression. He needed to save it, he needed to get the tapestry down. When he reached for the altar, it was burning.

"Father..."

Gajeel kept reaching towards the flames, trying to reach the tapestry without his robes catching on fire. The smoke made him choke. It burned his throat and his nose and he couldn't see through the tears in his eyes.

"Father..." someone was calling him , "Gajeel."

"No..." Gajeel gasped, "I have to save it..."

"Gajeel, you don't have to save anything."

But I have to. I'm so close, I can almost reach-

"Father, you're dreaming."

I'm... dreaming.

Gajeel's eyes snapped open. He gasped for breath, swinging his gaze about wildly.

"Father..." Laxus's voice was calm and it was deep. It was the voice of a dear friend, the voice of a brother, a voice that could be trusted above all else, "You are safe."

I am... safe...

Gajeel's eyes focused on Laxus. The captain was on his knees close to him, but not close enough to touch. At he come to his side when Gajeel had begun having his nightmare? He would have believed the captain had been on his knees the entire night standing guard.

"Father, when you have these dreams, can you be touched?" he asked in that calm voice.

"I..." Gajeel swallowed, "I don't know."

"I can touch you, if you wish. If it will make it better. If it will offer you comfort," Laxus said, and Gajeel believed if he only said yes that Laxus would scoop him up into his arms and hold him in a way that might ease the terror still clawing in the back of his mind.

"No... I'm... I'm fine." Gajeel said, pushing himself up, "Thank you."

Laxus didn't move, just watched him patiently, "Would you like to talk about it?"

"You don't want to hear about my problems," Gajeel said, trying to sound light and failing. He rubbed his eyes and searched for something, anything to use as a distraction, "Would you care if I made some tea?"

"No," Laxus said grimly.

Gajeel rose and filled the kettle with water. He picked up some tinder and through it into the mouth of the stove, slowly stoking it back to life. He could feel Laxus watching him and something in him said he owed the captain an explanation. Maybe it was because he was tired, or possibly because of that voice that had awoken him, but he felt he could trust him... at least with some truths anyway.

"They came at night... the raiders," Gajeel said quietly, setting the kettle on the stove, "They found a way to fortify the windows and set the back entrance on fire, forcing us to have to leave from the front.."

The thing about the beast was that it was a beast, and beasts don't enjoy fire no matter what they are. So they had all awoken, groggy and confused and alarmed, and stumbled into halls already choked with smoke.

"You like to think you'll know what you'll do in a moment of panic like that," Gajeel continued, gazing into the coals, "I didn't do anything useful."

"You were frightened," Laxus said, his voice warm and concerned. He could lean into a voice like that. He could let a voice like that strip him of all of his worries and sorrows and just bask in the gentle calm of it. He wanted to.

"I kept thinking I needed to save the tapestry to the saint..." Gajeel's voice wobbled despite how he tried to keep it even, "Father Reizen found me and dragged me away..."

He remembered how it felt for his chest and throat to burn from the smoke. The fire had been so hot by that point that he thought he'd collapse from that alone. If it hadn't been for Father Reizen, he probably would have died in that room clutching the tapestry, coughing until his lungs had bled.

"When we came out, there were men there ushering us away. They told us we just had to walk a little way and we'd be safe. We thought they were there to help us..."

"Of course you did," Laxus said soothingly. His voice wrapped around Gajeel's chest and squeezed delicately. The voice of someone who actually would help if only given the chance.

"They led us into the barred wagon. By the time we realized they were our captors, it was too late. We were trapped."

And shortly after, Gajeel had fallen ill. The smoke had done some wicked damage to his lungs, a then the fever had settled in. He remembered being confused and begging them to just kill him. Kill him so he wouldn't accidentally transform and kill the others. Their captors hadn't believed him at first, thinking he was trying to use his illness as a means of escape. The thing that had convinced them was when he'd been too weak to even stand and walk from the barred wagon. They'd dragged him to the ditch, still delirious and begging them to just kill him until he'd fallen silent. Perhaps they thought he was already dead. Or perhaps they thought he was more trouble than what it was worth. He would be dead soon anyway.

His brothers were still captured, still at the mercy of those men. What had happened to them while he'd been nursed back to health? How many of them were still alive?

Gajeel felt a lump forming in his throat and pressure causing pain behind his eyes. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle fingers.

Don't you dare, he scolded himself, don't you dare break down now. You have it easy.

"You must think I'm terribly emotional," Gajeel chuckled, a sour thing like broken glass being swept to the side.

"No. Never." Laxus said, still using that same voice, "I think you've been through something terrible. I think you haven't had a chance to grieve."

"I don't have time to grieve," Gajeel said, glaring at his hands, "I need to save them."

"And when you do save them?" Laxus asked, "Will you grieve then?"

Gajeel turned to look at the captain. Half of his face was shrouded in dark shadow. His depthless golden eyes appeared dark, nearly black. Gajeel recognized the darkness there and wondered what horrors could have caused such a thing. Gajeel didn't answer his question, and after a time, Laxus let out a held breath in a sigh.

"Bickslow has nightmares as well," he said. Although his voice was calm, it was no longer the voice that had woken him. This was Laxus's usual voice, no more or less compelling than what Gajeel had grown accustomed to, "He doesn't talk about what he sees, but whatever it is, it makes him violent."

Gajeel suddenly understood, "And Bickslow... sleeps alone."

"Yes," Laxus said gravely, "Never, and I mean never wake Bickslow when he is having a nightmare. You can talk to him until it passes, though."

"Oh." Gajeel said, wringing his robes in his hands until he realized what he was doing and stopping.

"And you?" Laxus asked, looking him in the eyes in a way that was dreadfully perceptive, "Can I touch you? Or would you prefer I talk to you?"

He's asking to touch you again. He wants to touch you.

Don't be ridiculous. He is being nothing but kind.

"Speak to me, if you wish," Gajeel said, and removed the kettle from the stove.

Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #100

This will be my 100th generic letter to you. Imagine that! Assuming you can hear me somehow, we've been on a very unorthodox journey for a while now, no? How marvelous!

I spent some of today checking on my epoxy spheres. It needed a few small adjustments. I made another mess. But I'm feeling pretty good about how these are gonna turn out, and I'm looking forward to showing the finished spheres to you very soon!

I spent the bulk of today writing up descriptions for various items, though. I'm pretty excited about it, actually! But I can't tell you what it's for; sorry about that. With any luck though, my intentions will become clear in maybe a decade or so, assuming I can maintain my focus and my faith in my own efficacy. I suppose we'll see.

Along the way, I made myself a couple mugs of jasmine green tea! I was surprised, though, to find that we were out of milk. I improvised with whipped cream for the first cup, and ice cream for the second cup!! And I gotta say, these were THE BEST improvisations!! 11/10 stars, absolutely would recommend! I'll show you a couple pictures!!

At 4pm today I went for my orthodontics consult. I went to go see an orthodontist because I've got some weird jaw issues on my right side because of the way I gotta move my face when I try to chew things. And also, my dentists have been bugging me about getting orthodontics done for the last couple years, because there are certain teeth in my face that can't be cleaned properly because they got confused and wandered off, presumably to chase butterflies.

I was hoping that I'd be able to get away with using Invisalign to avoid needing to get teeth removed, but… well… the fact of the matter is that I simply do not have enough jaw to work with, and I am WELL beyond the age when things like palate expanders would work. So 4 of my teeth need to come out in order for the inside of my face to be aligned properly.

…And this really fucking sucks, because if my parents had given even a fraction of a genuine shit about me, this ALL could have been prevented. My jaw could have developed properly with upper and lower expanders. I could have avoided the crowding and the overbite and the crossbite and the resulting damage to my jaw joint if this had been taken care of like it should have been when I was a little girl. But, no. Instead, my parents were too busy being in denial about the fact that they wish I was not born. So here we are.

The reality that is, "because of my parents' negligence, I now have to get body parts removed and pay lots and lots of money because insurance doesn't cover it past a certain age" is just… fucken… it's WILD, man. Admittedly, I'm struggling with it. And I'm struggling with the resulting VERY angry thoughts. But that's okay. I can feel angry. It's allowed. And thoughts are just thoughts - passing noise that is not reflective of who I am or who I wanna be:

…I can make use of my coping skills. The technique outlined in the video above is one of them, and I make ample use of it on a near-constant basis.

Admittedly, I don't really understand why we can't just use the Invisaligns to scooch my molars back to where my wisdom teeth used to be (I thought being able to move teeth backwards was the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT, but I could be mistaken, so whatever). But I forgot to ask. I'll call them up tomorrow and find out.

Anyway. Wanna see my skull? And my weird-ass teeth? Of course you do. Why not. But I'll put it all the way at the end, after the part where I put my name, just in case you don't. Hahaha…

…Ya know… Sephiroth… admittedly… some days I get real tired of this meat-mech I'm piloting. I've got a host of rather unpleasant genetic issues. The defective collagen thing sucks; it impacts literally my whole body. The misshapen skull thing sucks. The misshapen eyeballs and misshapen lenses thing sucks. There are other things - lots of them; it'd be a long list if I wrote 'em all out. I'm really not gonna be sad when the one I've got can't clunk around derpily anymore. But I'm not gonna rush the process, either; I've got shit to do - I've gotta make sure someone I love is safe, even if it might take me a long time to get it done.

But ya know. Maybe when it's time to go get a new meat-mech, maybe by some small miracle, I'll get to visit you for a bit until it's time for me to cycle into something new! Tell you what - if that happens, I'll bring you some matcha ice cream or something, okay?

For now… I'm gonna get back to writing up lists and descriptions of items; if you're not gonna make sure you're safe, then someone's gotta, and if someone's gotta, then I might as well, right? I mean… what else am I gonna do while running around confusedly in a capitalistic hellscape on a dying planet? Aside from eat cheese directly from the refrigerator like a weird little goblin, anyway…

I'll write again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

P.S. Weird pics of my skull and teeth below, if you wanna see!

[omarandjohnny]

GETTING TO KNOW MEME

Tagged by @blmpff <3333333333333333333333333

Last song: Inexplicable/The Correspondents, an absolute favorite 'can't help but wiggle in your chair' song.

Favorite Colors: Suspiria red and slime green!

Currently watching: Several things, but they're all second to Pit Babe. I haven't enjoyed a show this much since Kinnporsche (or followed a show from audition day to finale with the same level of love, just glad I didn't have to suffer another Filmania type of heart attack with this one, lol)

Last movie: had a rewatch of Boys on the Side (1995) a little after Christmas, and watched a decent chunk of The Lake (2022, Thai) last week with Dad. He's dyslexic so he watched with the dubs on, and I tried to lip-read and translate the words/simple phrases I knew, it was a lot of fun :D

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Can only enjoy the meekest of spicy thanks to my body betraying me (I miss spicy food so much omg), and can only tolerate blander sweets now (it's large conversation hearts season, only valid thing about January/February), so savory is my big main. On my good energy days I enjoy cooking and experimenting with flavors I know I can tolerate (did a subtle switchup with my usual seasonings for a crockpot beef roast last week and it was HEAVENLY)

Relationship status: single

Current obsessions: Pit Babe (natch), watching music reactions (my brain's currently being a little too loud, so watching reactors get silly over songs helps drown out a lot of that), and foodwise? LARGE CONVERSATION HEARTS, MY BELOVED. The soft kind, not the molar-cracking ones XD

Last thing I searched: (had to doublecheck the year 'cuz I can't remember shit anymore, lol)

Selfie or another pic you took: last selfie was right before my tattoo meetup with the BFF in December-

Black Christmas t-shirt and black glitter nails= FESTIVE AF.

[thegeminisage]

oh boy it is MAJOR star trek update time. i've fallen behind (thanks, hades). tuesday we watched "tribunal" and "the jem'hadar," wednesday we watched "the search" part i, and last night we watched "the search" part ii and "house of quark." whew!

tribunal:

O'BRIEN DOES SUFFER MORE THAN JESUS. THE MEMES WERE RIGHT

them shooing him out of the door at the beginning was so cute. he is like a worried mother leaving the station alone. mister workaholic

TECHNICAL MANUALS ON VACATION. scotty would be proud

i love o'brien and keiko so much. i like that their marriage is imperfect but also they're still wildly in love even after being married for a few years and having a baby. i mean, they were literally just rando side-characters on tng and ds9 has elevated to a whole new level. like, o'brien saying multiple times he didn't want her there to see him the way he was, especially if there was gonna be an execution, and her like oh hell No, there are star trek ships that have had less compelling courtroom drama. THEY MADE COURTROOM DRAMA ACTUALLY INTERESTING. even the spirk courtroom drama was a little dry comparatively, all respect due ofc.

keiko was amazing in this. odo was like you are gonna show up and NOT give them the show they want and she was like oh absolutely and followed through. her and odo getting ready to raise hell together was not what i expected but i loved it

it's like such a nightmare scenario for her too. she's never sure when her husband is gonna get hurt when he's away and never sure when she's gonna get that bad news and she still just sticks it out. more on keiko in a few episodes but i love her

unexpected bonding between odo and o'brien!! i loved that tbh. odo is so harsh and suspicious sometimes it shocks me (i'm kind of used to thinking of him as just a little birthday boy), but i love that despite that o'brien's speech genuinely moved him, and he did everything he could to help

i really love when we get into o'brien's cardassian issues. firstly, having seen people he knew be taken and brought back all kinda fucked up, including picard, he must've known exactly what he was in for. he got off lightly compared to picard, but it was still really shocking and upsetting to see him stripped and "processed" also his poor molar. secondly, WHO can blame him for being racist after this...this episode was almost enough to make ME racist. like, the cardassian ideas of trials and justice are so horrific. he was so lucky to have people working on figuring his shit out for him, because that system is DESIGNED to make you give in to despair and become totally resigned, which he almost did do for a second there. that was SCARY.

also, i guessed the plot twist about the guy secretly being a cardassian before they revealed it, which made me feel like a smarty

the jem'hadar:

was prepared to hate this one because it was a "quark being annoying" episode and i am TRYINNGGGG so hard with quark but it's a struggle. i want to connect to him emotionally just a little bit like JUST a little bit. he really is so funny and entertaining sometimes, i'm ALMOST there, but it would be easier if they didn't make him annoying on purpose

that said, sisko episodes for MEEEEEE. we never get enough sisko content. him encouraging jake re: his science project and then also trying to BE A DAD TO NOG even though he didn't want nog along...mwah. and then he also got to have his own action hero moment!! AND he wouldn't that lady leave quark behind even though he didn't want quark there to begin with. HE'S SO GREAT my best friend sisko

i'd like to point out that jake's first request was NOT to visit the gamma quadrant but to pilot the shuttle, which he did eventually get to do lol and good for him

jake and nog were great in this. i really love watching their little shenanigans

plot twist about this lady being a spy was EXCELLENT, i never saw it coming. quark delivering the news (and picking the fake lock!) is an extra nice touch. i like quark better than i like dax, i think (i have yet to connect emotionally with either of them, but generally he's a more fun presence onscreen), and tbf the "are you racist against ferengis" thing was a pretty good running bit

the search part i:

okay, we had to watch this one without subs, so i probably missed a fair bit of it, but i did NOT care for this one as much

firstly, introduction of the defiant, which is definitely just the tng set with the lights turned off lol. come on, get your tng out of here!!

i did like the romulan being there. it really is the wild west out there on ds9 they can just talk to whoever

i loved the bit about jake and sisko finally unpacking 😭

unfortunately neither was not his best self in this episode, which is the main reason i didn't like it.

meanwhile, odo is being a dick to kira who is trying to comfort him and being a dick to ME by extension because i want to enjoy my odo/kira shared screentime, and then we play him needing to go into his bucket in front of quark for laughs when it was Such a big deal in the lwaxana episode, and finally he just KIDNAPS kira and takes instead of staying and fighting? i guess it's not like there was anything he could have done, but it still didn't feel great compounded with "oh i have compulsion to go to this nebula that i'm gonna yell at kira about" who yells!!! like it felt like he was putting the compulsion ahead of what he would normally do. and also, kira spent the entire episode trying to comfort him and he kept rejecting that comfort...come on dude are you crushing on her or not

also, sisko privately being like yeah i tried to keep odo from getting fired but they kinda had a point though...ouch. that's not My Sisko, Who Always Backs Up His People

drove me nuts because odo FINALLY FOUND HIS PEOPLE. i wanted to be excited but i was just tired of him being a dick to kira :(

that said. dax's hair looks MUCH better in the updo. still way too big. but much more bearable.

the search part ii:

luckily. LUCKILY. this episode blew my tits clean off

odo asking All His Questions and kira gently reminding him it's not a police interrogation and him NOT. being a dick to her.

goop hand sex??? did he fuck this shapeshifter lady right in front of kira's salad??? he makes hands to touch people with but also, to goop with.

hey, wtf was up with the implication that odo is SUPER old and possibly fucking immortal? like, they said he'd been gone a long time and they weren't expecting him for another 300 years...do you think he knows how old he is? i don't think he does. he doesn't even know his own birthday. he may not have known the average lifespan/rate of aging for his own species. and now he's getting told he's got at least 300 years left. jesus christ

when dax and obrien showed up i was like no way are they on the fucking holodeck or something that was WAY too easy and then i kept getting convinced it was real but something else would happen and i'd go back to being paranoid AND I WAS RIGHT!!!!! god i love correctly predicting plot twist. i also love being surprised by them so you can never go wrong with a good plot twist for me

"solids" and "monoforms" is really good shapeshifter lingo. i love that. also "changeling" being a reclaimed slur is SO funny

admiral whoever the fuck from tng showing up to be like yeah we are doing another treaty the romulans will have no complaints 😇 girl, like the native american episode? like they didn't have complaints?? i hate this bitch so bad

ACTION HERO GARAK IN THIS EPISODE. however briefly. him knocking that guy out was spockcore. like when spock pretends there's a spider on your shoulder to know you out. same thing with garak said loose thread. i can't believe we got him again so soon...he only had a bit part to play here but hey, did he fucking die?? did fake garak die inside julian's brain??? while in his arms? did julian just have to hallucinate holding garak tenderly as he died for their cause?? are they okay???

oh yeah also whatever the fucj he had going on with sisko was EXTREMELY flirty. wow.

anyway garak dying plus transfer orders made it a sure thing that it wasn't real, but i was so pleased also to have guessed there was holodeck shit behind the shapeshifter door about .2 seconds before we saw it happen. i can't believe odo said "the door was made to keep something in" and still opened it. he is insane(ly in love with kira and would do anything for her including opening cursed doors).

the ending of this episode is what really got me. the shapeshifters BEING the founders. kira having to be the one who goes "you're with the dominion" and odo having to be the one who goes "you're THE FOUNDERS." they figured that awful truth out TOGETHERRRR

furthermore. when odo was like "but why kill so many people, these solids just want to expand their knowledge via exploration" and this lady was like "the solids are nothing like us." HIS. FACE. we got to watch him in realtime evaluate his entire life in about .5 seconds

like, imagine this. he has looked for home his entire life. he has been an outcast his ENTIRE LIFE. and just when he finds it and experiences the brief euphoria of feeling at home in his own skin, so to speak, he finds out they go against everything he stands for and in that split second he realizes that 1. he has more in common with the humanoids he has felt like an outsider to this entire time than he ever will with these other shapeshifters 2. he is no longer an outsider to these particular people because they are his friends 3. he is going to count himself among the humanoids instead of his OWN PEOPLE because this bitch is crazy. ALL OF THAT IN AN INSTANT.

I ALREADY HAVE A LINK: THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! KILL MEEEEEEEEE

also the founder lady being like yeah you think you like justice but you actually want order, like us, you're like us was SO EVILLL like he literally does take his justice too far sometimes. he has the potential to be evil AND HE CHOOSES. NOT TO. AUGHGHGHGH

AND THEN THE VERY LAST SCENE...oh my GOD

like. he's seen kira at so many low points and now she is seeing him go through this

AND

SHE

HELD

HIS

HAND

HE MAKES HANDS FOR KIRA SPECIFICALLY TO HOLD!!!!!!!!!

the way he leaned in his he was tempted to kiss her. do you think that's the first time he felt that urge. did he even recognize it. he may have had shapeshifter goo sex with that lady but they didn't KISS. he's never been kissed and he wants a little kissy AUGHGHGH

also, the way she leaned in like she was tempted to kiss HIM. do you think she acknowledged that to herself later or firmly repressed it because she's technically still banging bareil. girl, forget him. odo could be your man

also, hi, kira touching HIS COMM BADGE TO ACTIVATE IT. AND NOT HER OWN. im going to be ILL i had to pause between episodes because i was in hysterics

kira/odo is. so important adn good. i was terrified after the search part i that it would be bad. but, it is so good that i am dying

house of quark:

i think beating hades and watching odo and kira hold hands in the same day made me invincible bc normally i hate quark episodes but i didn't even mind this one. i thought it was the best quark episode we'd gotten yet

i do like the like. every once in awhile you see quark have an emotional response to something and then firmly repress it. like he accidentally killed the klingon and looked down at the blood on his hands and he was SHOOK but then the very next scene he's like alright we're rolling that HEY EVERYBODY I KILLED A KLINGON! which is like, funny, His Antics, but he did the same thing is that little game episode (i know lol) when he found out he was playing with peoples' lives - he doesn't really wanna be responsible for all of that. it's not what i want from him exactly but at least it's consistent and proof he DOES have emotions under there

at the end of this episode when they were like...quark, now people respect you. it's true. i do respect him a little more after all of that. not only was he uniquely suited to sussing out this klingon's crimes he also outsmarted their system of justice and had to be a little brave to do it. "i got lucky" gambling man indeed. his moment with rom at the end was also kind of sweet, but it makes me wish rom was more than comic relief more often.

i also really liked this klingon woman?? normally klingon politics are pretty dry to me, but even though the sexism was annoying her plight and subsequent solving of it was engaging. it's too bad "quark's ex-wife" isn't a subject that's going to get him roasted in future episodes

B-PLOT. keiko and o'brien!!! man. women? feminism?

so i feel like keiko left because the actress was pregnant...idk anything about it and i'm not gonna look it up bc spoilers, but ik she isn't leaving the show permanently so this seemed like a way to explain a temporary absence. and they could have done that a million ways but they CHOSE to make it about her happiness

like, you could have said "oh keiko's doing fine she's just not here rn" for half a season. you could have done "yeah keiko found out her true passion IS teaching and forget botany." they could have even said "the arboretum will fix her!" like, i would have bought it! she's got plants now! but instead they explored her unhappiness and what she wants out of life and how her needs aren't being met by being a SAHM/teacher. she loves botany. she's passionate about plants, and making her profession her hobby WOULD be unsatisfying. RESPECT KEIKO JUICE?? idk it was so nice. she still deserves that arboretum though

also, she's sooo pretty with bangs. suddenly keiko the most attractive woman in the world idk

anyway, i'm so close to coming around on quark. i should watch more quark episodes right after being extremely difficult video games. manifesting this happens for me in the future

NEXT TIME: "equilibrium" and "second skin."

[trip-to-nature24]

Are Dental Bridges Safe And Long Lasting?

Tooth loss is very common as there are many reasons for this problem. Poor oral health is the main reason most people lose their teeth. Failure to have regular checkups with your dentist will also contribute to tooth or tooth loss.  However, among the many factors that contribute to tooth loss, ignoring these unsightly gaps will cause a struggle to chew and speak.  These are factors that can cause low self-esteem and affect how you function, but can be avoided by using dental bridges in Om Sai Dental Care.

 Many people who have lost teeth in the past struggle with the decision to get a dental bridge. A dental bridge allows you to save your jaw. If the gaps remain unfilled for too long, the jaw will likely deteriorate as it no longer receives stimulation from the missing teeth.

Types of Dental Bridges Near You

Dental bridges provide a solution to missing teeth by providing an artificial replacement for the gap between missing teeth. The solution is effective and available at Om Sai Dental Clinic in 3 different types of bridges including:

 Traditional bridge  This type of dental bridge involves teeth on both sides of the gap. They are rearranged, so that crowns are placed on top of two teeth - filling the gap.

 Cantilever Bridge  This type of dental bridge includes a tooth shape and crown next to the gap.  This type of procedure is recommended on teeth that cannot withstand intense pressure.  Unlike molars, they can break under high chewing pressure.

 Maryland Bridge  This type of dental bridge near you does not involve adjacent teeth.  A tooth is attached to a metal wing because the bite is less forceful.

 A dental bridge procedure takes about two days. During the first day, adjacent teeth are reshaped to accommodate the crown. During the second visit to the dentist, the permanent bridge is placed.  This is checked and then to your satisfaction, the crown is cemented into place.

after care

 After a dental bridge procedure, there are some precautions that include minimal chewing on the side of the procedure and using the opposite side of your mouth.  Hard foods should also be avoided as the bridge can be pushed out of place.  Extra care should be used during cleaning and flossing, especially during healing.  The patient is advised to avoid alcohol or smoking after treatment.

 What will my dental bridge last?

 Most people have not acquired the full information about dental bridges, and the main question is whether they are permanent. The answer is yes, dental bridges near you will last for a long time. This is especially true in patients with strong and adequate bone volume. Proper oral hygiene can extend the lifespan of dental bridges. Replacement teeth can be made from one or a combination of materials, depending on your preference and preferred cost.

 Gold alloy, porcelain or zirconia are the most popular.  All these elements are powerful and aesthetically pleasing.

 safety

 Worried about the safety of having dental bridges?  You don't have to worry...the good news is that they are a safe and effective option.  The biggest thing to consider is making sure you dedicate enough time to finding the right dentist in Guwahati. Consider their experience, expertise and success rate of previous clients.

 Every patient should have the right attitude for any dental procedure to be successful.  Talk to your dentist near you about dental bridges before committing to the procedure, or any procedure for that matter.  Be mentally prepared and determined about what you want.  Know that your efforts to maintain your oral care significantly affect the success of your new restoration.

Maintaining excellent oral health is important to your self-confidence and overall quality of life. If you are interested in finding out more about dental crowns and bridges near you, please do not hesitate to contact our dedicated dental team at Om Sai Dental care. This clinic is one of the best dental clinics in Guwahati. We are pleased to offer our patients a variety of restorative dentistry options so they can maintain excellent oral health for a lifetime. Contact us to book your comprehensive oral exam today. We can’t wait to help you achieve the smile of your dreams.

[h20]

the emotional agony of yet another chunk of our tooth (this time a whole different one that the one we originally posted about weeks ago. That tooth is our last top left molar. This one is our last top right molar) we had some chicken earlier and it was crispy and we shouldn’t have eaten it but we were so hungry so we did, and now we were just eating a soft snack, sort of using it on the not so broken right side and overcompensating, and a chunk of that tooth just fell apart into my mouth. I freaked out for a second. And now I’m just dissociating. my X-ray appointment isn’t until November 7th ☹️ I’m so petrified of the dentist and getting this taken care of and I can hardly imagine fucking affording it but I cannot keep living like this everything is so agonizing. I probably shouldn’t be chewing at all from this point on and letting go of that is scary and upsetting. Any advice for tasty food to eat is very much welcome

[writingandsleeping]

So, I've decided to start writing my intrusive thoughts like stories to get them out of my head better and now I feel like I need to post them to really get them out. Send them off. Eject them.

If anyone actually reads this, please know that I'm aware that it's probably inaccurate. I did no research into proper procedure. The point was therapeutic writing, not proper world-building.

Time slowed down as it sped up. Each excruciating second felt like an eternity but passed as rapidly as each shallow breath. She had no idea how long she actually laid on the floor. Did she just fall or had she been down for a while? Was she still screaming? How had her roommate not found her yet? Or had she called 911 already, and she just couldn’t hear it over the throbbing in her ears? The way she could practically feel each drop of blood jump with the pounding of her heart in each eardrum?

Oh god, the blood. So much blood. Her pants were wet, her face was sticky, and her mouth was full of the tangy taste of it. What about her ankle? She couldn’t see or feel any blood down there but oh god was it throbbing.

Wait. Why couldn’t she see?

She couldn’t see.

Was she screaming again or was it still the same scream?

So much pain. She clenched her jaw despite the sharp protest of her molars. Okay, so that meant she probably cracked her jaw or bit her tongue hard on her way down. Explains the blood in her mouth at least. Her hands flexed at her sides. She wanted to wipe her face or grab her back or punch the cabinets behind her. She couldn’t pick, so she settled with digging her nails into the sensitive skin of her palms. It helped for a second, allowed her to focus on a new sharp point of pain and assess the situation for a microsecond.

It was the cat’s fault. Her roommate’s cat was eating her dinner leftovers again as they cooled on the counter. When she stormed over to scare the cat off, it jumped at her instead of ran away. That was new. The cat had never attacked her before. But this time, it flew at her face with claws extended, and that was the last she saw.

She felt the claws hook into her right eye, her eyebrow, her cheek, her ear. She felt her knees buckle. She felt her hand drag something off the dish mat behind her. She felt her back hit the cabinet hard and scrape downward. She felt her tailbone make sharp impact with the hardwood floor. She felt all the resulting, reverberating pain that echoed throughout her body like radar, pulsing from the pressure points, bouncing against neighboring waves, and throbbing back again.

The pain was starting to dull at least. Maybe. Her toes didn’t tingle anymore, nor her ankle throb. Was she getting used to it or was she going numb?

And where the hell was her roommate? Surely, she had been on the floor for an hour now.

She had stopped screaming at least. Her jaw was so stiff it was certainly never going to open again. But her breathing hadn’t slowed. It was coming in batches punctuated by slightly deeper breaths. Five barely filled inhale-exhales, one shuddering, passable inhale, five barely filled inhale-exhales. Her face was feeling heavier and heavier with each hour-long second. She was sobbing. Definitely ugly, snot-dominated sobbing.

“Oh my god, are you okay?”

Her roommate. Finally. With the stupidest question ever uttered by mankind.

“Call 911, damnit,” she yelled. She choked a little on the blood still in her mouth, felt her jaw click with each syllable and spittle fly out with unintended emphasis.

Huh. Well, maybe she didn’t look as bad as she felt? Maybe there was more snot than blood after all? Perhaps it was all superficial and she was overreacting. Was 911 worth it if it was all superficial? How did that meme go, a ride in the woo-woo wagon broke the bank of underpaid millennials? She briefly considered how expensive an Uber’s cleaning and sanitization fees would be compared to an actual ambulance.

But then she remembered she couldn’t see and freaked out all over again.

In the background of her existential crisis, she heard her roommate telling 911 that she didn’t know what happened but they needed an ambulance to their address right away. She demanded her roommate pass her the phone with more expletives than at all necessary. It took a moment to pry her stiff fingers out of their fist formation to accept it.

“Hi, I’m the wounded in question. A cat scratched my face. I believe I got a claw directly to the eye because I cannot see at all. I’m fucking blind, and I can’t feel my legs.”

Wow, that was so calm. Where did the reasonable tone come from? Good job, she congratulated herself.

“Hello, ma’am. An ambulance is on its way. I’m going to ask you a few questions about your condition. Do you think you can answer to the best of your ability and stay calm?”

“I can certainly try, but I can’t promise to stay calm.”

“I understand, ma’am. Thank you for trying. Can you open your eyes and not see, or are they instinctively closed?”

She paused. That was a good question. Had she tried opening her eyes? Maybe not. She took a deep breath — when did her breathing steady a little? — and relaxed her face. Her eyes were definitely closed. She tried to open one and screeched.

“Ma’am?”

“They’re closed. I tried to open them, but it hurts too much. Like something sandy between the eyelid and ball.”

“Okay. That’s good to know. An important distinction.”

“Yes.”

“Do you wear glasses?”

“I do need glasses, but I wasn’t wearing them at the time.”

“So there’s no chance of broken glass?”

“No, thankfully, no broken glass.”

“Okay, that’s definitely good.”

“Yes.”

“What about the rest of your body? You said there are a lot of scratches on your face. Did you get hurt anywhere else?”

“I fell backward when the cat launched itself at me. I definitely hit my head on the way down.”

“Are you currently on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Are you laying down in a prone position or sitting upright?”

“Um. I’m kinda slouched up against the cabinet. I doubt I’d be upright if there wasn’t a cabinet behind me though.”

“Okay. And you said you can’t feel your legs?”

“No. There’s a heavy, bad pinch in my lower back, like the small of my back, and that’s all I can feel. Well no I can feel that my butt is going numb from hitting the ground and not moving.”

“How long have you been on the floor?”

“I have no idea. I think this just happened. Maybe like five minutes?”

“Okay, that’s good. The EMTs should be there soon. They’ll help you and ease your discomfort as best they can before taking you to a hospital.”

“Right. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, ma’am.”

“Yes I do. You’re keeping me so calm, it’s astounding.”

“Well, I’m glad I’m helping you stay calm. How are your eyes? Are they still closed?”

“Yes. I don’t want to try opening them again. I’m afraid to.”

“That’s alright. I understand. I recommend you keep them closed until an EMT can assess them in person.”

“Okay.”

“The ambulance is approaching your building. Will someone be there to let them in?”

“Um, I think my roommate can buzz them in, yeah. It’s just the two of us here.”

“Okay. Well let her know to stay by the door then. She should definitely stay with you not go to the front door.”

“Can you warn the EMTs that it’s a walk-up? We’re on the fourth floor, and there’s no elevator. So that’s three flights of stairs.”

“That is a good note for them, thank you, ma’am.”

“My name is Erin.”

“Alright, Erin. Well, it’s nice to meet you. How are you doing? Still calm?”

“Yes, thank you. Breathing easier now.”

“Are you still in a lot of pain?”

“Oh, good god, yes. 23 out of 10, lots of pain.”

“Alright, hopefully the EMTs will help with that. What apartment number are you in?”

“Number 14.”

The door buzzed almost immediately 

“Thank you.”

It buzzed again.

“Ashley?” I yelled.

“Sorry!” I heard her yelp from far away. Was she not waiting at the door? Did she think the EMTs would axe their way in?

The seconds stretched into eternities again before she heard a pounding on the door that shook the floor.

“Hello, we got a distress call,” she heard distantly. The voice sounded rushed and impatient until it changed its thought mid-sentence. “Oh shit, wow, so you’re the patient.”

There was a lot of pushing and thudding until she felt a body beside her. She just knew a man was there, felt the shadow of him step over her outstretched legs and then crouch down beside her torso. She didn’t know how she knew it was a man. It didn’t feel like an especially large presence, but it seemed extra hunched in the small space between her and the window, between the oven and the egg crate of boxed and canned food.

Maybe she was overthinking this and just assumed it was a man because it had been a man’s voice at the door.

Another presence appeared to her left, the opposite side of the man. It felt smaller, gentler, uncertain. Either a new, inexperienced EMT or a woman, she decided.

“Do I look that bad?” she asked. The EMT to her left took the phone away from her, assured the attendant on the line that the patient was being seen to, and tossed it out of the way. She heard her roommate huff but couldn’t care at all.

“You certainly don’t look ready for prom,” he answered. He didn’t quite laugh. The bad joke did nothing to cover his shock and distress even though his voice was even.

“First, let’s look at your eyes,” he continued. She could hear gloves slap against his wrists and suddenly someone was gently holding her check and chin in one hand, tilting  her face to the right, toward him.

“The cuts look superficial.” The voice floating on her left was forceful but effeminate. Knowing she guessed right about the second EMT being a woman helped her take a calming deep breath.

The first EMT agreed. “They should clean up easy enough without stitches, but I’m worried about the amount of blood coming from her lashes.”

And she was hyperventilating again.

“You need me to open them don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I do,” the first EMT said.

“Do you wanna squeeze my hand?” the second asked.

“Do you mind if I accidentally break your fingers?” she asked with a weak chuckle.

“Do your worst,” the EMT said. Smooth gloves gently picked up her fist and tried to open her fingers. “Um, it only works if you open this first.”

“I know, sorry. It’s a pain response. They’re so tight, they’re kinda stuck that that. My other hand is still open though.”

“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll take that hand.”

Her left hand was placed in her lap, and then her right hand was covered by the smooth gloves. She turned her hand over to grip whatever part of the gloves she could reach.

“Alright. Take deep breath in and open your eyes slowly whenever you’re ready,” the first EMT said.

She took a shaky breath. She let it out as a long shuddering exhale. She breathed as deeply as she could, telling herself that she preparing for a dive at the start of a swim meet, nothing more, and opened her eyes into just a squint.

More expletives were screamed. The second EMT yelped as her fingers found themselves in a bear trap. The first EMT dragged her eyelids up the rest of the way.

She didn’t know what hit her first: the pain or the light. Her eyeballs felt like they were on fire. Or being electrocuted. Or stabbed. Simply put, they were in the most pain she had ever felt before in her life. The lights didn’t help. The white pinpoint beam of a flashlight was inescapable, made worse by the glow of the kitchen’s yellow light above.

Vaguely, she commented to herself that she was definitely going to have a migraine from this for a solid fortnight. Fortnight? She usually only used that word in reference to tennis tournaments. What happened to all the lights? They had been so bright a moment ago, she thought slowly.

The EMTs were talking over her, but she couldn’t comprehend any words. The tones definitely got harsher. Bad news then. That was fine. Maybe if she just slept it off, everything would be fine and she wouldn’t need a ride in the woo-woo wagon after all.

“Hey!” a feminine voice snapped very close to her ear. “Stay awake!”

“So, that still hurts real bad, huh?” the first EMT asked.

She tried to speak and nod, but neither seemed to work. All she managed was a positive-sounding murmur.

“Alright, close your eyes again.” There was pressure on her eyelids, then on the top of her eyeballs. He must have closed them for her. 

“We need to get her to the hospital now,” the first EMT said.

“How do you propose getting her down all those stairs?” the second EMT asked. She couldn’t decide what the EMT’s tone was though. Nervous? Sarcastic?

The first EMT was definitely anxious. “I know. Go see if the roommate knows anyone in the building. Hell, go directly to the crowd outside. Maybe someone will be willing to help.”

The presence left her left side, and she suddenly felt incredibly cold and alone.

“Can you walk by any chance?”

“I still can’t feel my legs,” she managed in a flat tone, “or my ass anymore.” She was vaguely aware of her head rolling toward the EMT but mostly sagging toward her chest.

“Oh. That’s not good.”

“I didn’t… think… it would be.”

“Alright, well, can you lean forward? I need to see if there’s anything making you uncomfortable. It could just be a reaction to the hard fall and sitting still so long.”

She didn’t grace that with an answer because she could hear in his voice that he didn’t believe it himself. But she was so stiff, she couldn’t move either, until the soft pressure of an hand was placed on her mid-back and pushed her forward.

She heard him gasp but was too afraid the ask. Moving even just that small amount sent jarring waves of pain throughout her entire nervous system to the point that her tongue tickled, her shoulders cramped, and her fingers felt pricked. She was definitely awake again. Yet still nothing in her knees and toes.

The EMT sat her up again, sending a fresh bout of radar waves through her abdomen and frantic butterflies loose in her chest. He mumbled something and walked away as well. She had never felt so cold and alone in her entire life, which, honestly, was impressive.

There was a gasp from the door, a deadly silent pause, then shouts echoing in the hallway. The EMTs needed assistance urgently from someone able to support a stretcher. Another nervous voice spoke up in the distance, but she didn’t bother trying to hear anything anymore. Her calm was rapidly evaporating. It was gone.

Five shaky inhale-exhales, one shallow, uneven breath, five shaky inhale-exhales.

She wasn’t going to be okay, was she? Her eyes weren’t working. Her legs weren’t working. Her hips weren’t working. She hadn’t tried to use or move her arms in forever, but she was too exhausted to try now. They probably weren’t working either. She tilted her head back and tried to breathe through her nose, but the snot was clogging it again. Good god, she was probably a hideous salt and snot-covered mess.

She was sobbing now. Full, heaving sobs. She was still barely drawing in breath though, so at least they were silent sobs. 

Damn, she hated sobbing like this. Yeah, she was an over-emotional mess on a regular basis. There was no denying that. But just sitting here crying? That wasn’t her. She blinked, despite her eyes never really opening, took another deep, shuddering breath, and shouted for her roommate. Someone appeared at her shoulder, standing over her and trying to soothe or shush her. She thought she recognized it to be the second EMT’s voice as it joined her in calling her useless, so-called friend.

“I don’t want to get in the way,” she heard her roommate saying.

“Call my dad,” she demanded. She could hear the EMT saying something as well and doubted she was heard, so she took another deep breath and repeated, “You need to call my father right now. Tell him what hospital we’re going to. Call him now. Please.”

“Of course! Right!” There was a pause. “What’s his number?”

“You should have his goddamn number!” she practically screamed. A hand was placed on her shoulder, and she forced herself to take more deep breaths before reciting her father’s cell.

“Okay, got it.” She felt vaguely bad for being so harsh on her roommate, but seriously. They had purposely exchanged their parents’ numbers when they first moved in together in case anything drastic happened. Like this. Exactly like this.

The EMT was mumbling soothing nothings in her ear again, but she blocked it out, preferring to sit in her anger. It was so strong it almost felt tangible, like stress-relieving silly putty in his clenched fists. At any rate, it was the only thing keeping her awake.

“Hey, you got any the extra gloves?” The other EMT was back. His presence felt far more hulking, overbearing than before. She lifted her head and took in the shadows she she couldn’t see that leaned over her, turned her closed eyes slowly left and right, realizing he had at least two new people with him. “This is Chris and Alex. They’re gonna help us get her on the stretcher. And possibly down the stairs.”

“I, uh,” a new voice stopped, sounding hoarse. She worries he was going to vomit on her. Was there that much blood? Or did she just really need to learn how to apply makeup? “I’m still not sure how you think you’re gonna get her down those stairs. Two people can barely walk up them next to each other. And I mean skinny white girl types.” There was a pause. “Uh, sorry?”

“I may be a white girl, but I ain’t skinny, bud,” she muttered. “I’ve been worried about the same thing.” 

“It won’t be comfortable for anyone, but it’s going to happen,” the second EMT said fiercely. “This young woman needs to get downstairs and into the ambulance right now.”

“How can we help?” another new voice asked, much clearer than the first. She liked him more than the first one.

“Here,” the second EMT said as if the question wasn’t even posed. “Put these on. You’re going to help me stabilize her shoulders, and you’re going to lift her legs with my partner, once he gets the stretcher set up here.”

There was movement over her and the sound of snapping latex. She braced herself for waves upon waves of pain.

“Yeah, this is as close as I can get the stretcher given the space.”

“Christ on a fucking cracker!” she burst out.

Silence followed.

She took a deep breath and punched her numb thigh. She assumed she did, at least, because of the stiff material that met her fist. Her jeans, probably.

“Just.” She stopped to take another deep breath. “Please just start moving me. Can you turn me sideways and roll me onto it? I assume there’s something sticking out of my lower back, and given how long it’s been in, I’m never gonna play tennis or soccer or swim again at this point anyway. So just fucking get me out of here.”

Fresh, warm tears fell, and her next shuddering breath turned into a cough with how much snot clogged her nose and throat. Gloved hands gently wiped her lower eyelids before she had a chance to blindly flail her fists at her face.

“She makes a good suggestion,” the second EMT said, still radiating calm authority. “You’re still on her legs. You’re still on her shoulders. Alright, Eric, go help him with her legs, too, please.”

There was shuffling movement all around her and a buzz of nervous conversation forcing its way into the apartment, like the steady press of blood oozing out of a paper cut.

“Okay,” the first EMT said. “Very slowly, we’re going to push her onto her left shoulder toward Debra and pull her legs out so that her body is straight. It’s very important that she stays as straight as possible. Keep her ankles and knees together. Keep her shoulders flat.”

“She’s going to want to hunch in on herself, so it’s very important that we keep her body straight, flat like the board we’re moving her to,” the second EMT agreed.

“Crawl not butterfly, got it,” she mumbled to herself, forcing her shoulders back. The EMT to her left must have noticed because a gentle hand returned to her shoulder.

“On the count of three,” the second EMT said.

She squeezed her eyes, fists, and jaw even tighter and willed herself not to start screaming again as four sets of hands grabbed her with various degrees of gentleness. At least one “oh, god” was stated. At least one person manipulating her choked back disgust. Then her chin bounced into the floor and she bit her tongue. She couldn’t say she was held perfectly straight and flat like the stretcher board the whole time, but she felt herself land halfway on the board, then fully on it. Her face was pushed into a cushioned hole, and straps were pulled across her shoulders. There was some new pressure added to her lower back, and she just imagined one of the EMTs was applying pressure to the wound as every medical moment of every television show ever suggested. She tried to focus on that one spot and the minimal comfort it offered.

“Um,” her roommate’s tiny voice shattered the moment. “Her parents want to know if they can talk to you?” 

“No,” the first EMT said. “We finally have her situated. We can’t waste more time getting her down those stairs. Tell them we’re going…”

His voice faded as the pressure in her back and semi-comfort of being laid out rather than hunched over lulled her in a calmer darkness than she’d felt all day. Distantly, a voice that might have even been her own told her that she had to stay alert, but she just couldn’t focus on it. She couldn’t focus on anything. God, she was exhausted. Who knew sitting for so long could be so tiring? Was it even that long? She revisited her initial pondering as to how long she had been on the floor. Surely, the EMTs hadn’t been working on her that long. They were trained for dramatic situations and triage, after all. Speed was key. She knew that from the many medical shows she loved, too. Alright, so she wasn’t a casualty of the Korean Conflict. That didn’t mean she didn’t deserve some speedy, sassy, gorgeous doctor though. Hell, she’d even accept a cranky, old guy with a drug addiction so long as he took the whole episode to fix her up, good as new. Or an autistic doctor who played with her muscles and bones in his mind, mapping out the best, uh, procedure. Yeah, that. Procedure…

[angelictyphoon]

“Yeah, buh why they gotha be tho hard?!” 

Traumatized, Vash spits the seed into the earth at his feet and finally retracts his tongue. 

“Don’t be mean to me,” Vash whines, pausing to distractedly lick his molars. He squints a forced grin while Wolfwood laughs away: Are all my teeth still there? Nicholas's laughter is a good sound, even if it comes at his expense. Tonguing over the crowns of his teeth, he half expects to find cracks in the enamel. After a few seconds of checking and finding none, Vash hunches over in relief, then juts out his hip to bump it against Wolfwood’s. 

This time, he nibbles tentatively at the edges of his “bread” to avoid his earlier mishap. 

“Sister?” Vash finishes, his head slowly canting to one side. Farther and farther he goes, until he grows close enough to vigorously rub his face against Nicholas’s and rattle his lips against stubble with a loud smooch. Fingertips gloved and bare brush briefly against the outside of Nicholas’s wrist when he pulls back with a smile. “You can thank her yourself.”

He pops what’s left of the carob into his mouth while taking care to organize the hard seeds into the pocket of his cheek to discard later. “She can’t talk to humans really, but she can hear you just fine. She’ll understand when you go up to her. Besides, it’ll mean more coming from you.”

They have to go back that way anyway if he wants to take another pass at the activity log on that console. 

Vash looks around them one last time before they depart from the green room. 

"I think there will be." Even if his smile is tinged with sadness for what came before, he's hopeful for what comes after. "Good, I mean."

Along the way back to the control center, Vash gives Wolfwood a brief overview of his plan. He's never actually tried fooling a fingerprint scanner this way before nor does he know if the technology is sufficiently advanced to detect attempts at fraud, but it's worked in crime novels and he's read plenty of those, so–

"That counts for something, right?" Vash laughs as they re-enter the room with its softened blue lighting and the murky Plant shroud. He gestures towards his sister with a head tilt. "I'll be working the computer in the meantime."

Not far.

Vash snatches a lab booklet from one of the tables and tears the clear cover off and sets to work stripping the wood from the graphite so he can crush it into a fine powder between the fingers of his prosthetic hand. Sprinkle a bit of that over the thumbprint on the contract, blow off the excess, lift with the clear sheet, hold it over the scanner’s eye…

Huh.

Somehow a part of him hadn't actually expected that to work. Now that he has access to the submenus, Vash revisits the subject directory and scrolls down through the activity log. The first few file-opens were clearly part of Tedra (or Tedra-Zazie) getting over a learning curve and opening random profiles before figuring out how to filter through all the subject data. Specifically, acting members of the Eye who were still alive from before the Citadel had been abandoned. Wolfwood included. 

Drill-downs through various listed serums, trial results, and compatibility scores.

Suddenly, all that worm activity around Hopeland feels rather ominous. Vash chews on his bottom lip while he thinks about the feeder worm that had managed to sink its stinger into Nicholas’s arm earlier.

Vash pokes his head out from behind the monitor. “Hey, Nick? I might need your help interpreting some of this stuff.”

Every Eye of Michael stronghold may be like this one, filled with evidence. Decades, a century and a half of crimes. Who is culpable? People always want a scapegoat, even if the whole ordeal was secret, hidden from the public. The Eye of Michael spread across the wasteland, burrowing into the institutions of every major city, and all under the direction and vision of a man who survived the Fall.

Who lived at Knives's behest, and only at his behest. Who died at his hand. How much of that was Knives, and how much of that was Count Revnant Vasquez - Doctor William Conrad?

Maybe the texts and digital documents here will help to sort that out through the lens of religious worship and general idolatry. Maybe it will remain a mystery. The Earth and Federal forces will likely want to leverage that evidence, hunt any remnants down.

The Gung Ho Guns were all slated to die. Every single one of them, Wolfwood included. There was no way to fail their missions; it was a no-win proposition. One way or another they would bring torment to Vash the Stampede, pushing him to the brink, pushing him to transformation, transmutation, through the valley of Death and into Knives's embrace once again.

Vash defied it. All of it. Somehow. As always. He had to make a choice, but he made a choice for a reason completely at odds with his brother's screed, and that...

That means something. Any curl of guilty rumination fizzles and fades at the brush of lips. Nicholas tips his face toward Vash, allowing himself to be pulled right along. He stands shoulder to shoulder in the muted shadow and artificial light surrounding the tree, and reaches out to set his palm on the corrugated bark just in time to see Vash shove half a pod in his mouth. Chomp chew chomp -

Snrrk.

Nicholas bites his lip and tries. Tries hard, but a wheeze escapes him regardless.

And then full-blown laughter—shoulder-trembling laughter, arm-snaking-around-waist laughter, leaning and squashing face to shoulder laughter.

Not for any particular reason. Not at Vash's unfortunate dental encounter. It is a burst bubble of tension, ringing and warm and utterly at odds with the horrors of this place. Defiant in and of itself. It takes Wolfwood a moment to catch his breath, nose and brow pressed to the fabric of Vash's jacket, and his first answer is to rattle the little round jar he stole from Chapel's desk.

Or took as his inheritance.

"They're seeds, jackass, what did you expect?"

Laughter eases, lingering like clear air.

"...mmm."

Nicholas hooks a thumb into Vash's belt loop, or near to, tipping his head back to look up through the boughs.

"John the Baptist was said to have wandered through the desert, preachin' and performin' baptisms. Out in the sands he lived on a diet of locust and wild honey. So uh. They renamed it Saint John's Bread."

He leans in then, absconding with a bite of the other half of Vash's pod. Brows bounce, and he carefully works his tongue around in the pulp to spit the seeds out before chewing with an abiding hum. A little hopeful. Strange to feel that. Maybe the excavators can get the tree somewhere safe. Maybe they can take the seeds, start growing them around geo-plants, help feed the growing population.

"Be good for somethin' good to come out of this place,” Nicholas murmurs, reaching up to snag a few more of the pods to tuck into his pockets. “Can you thank her for me? Your, um.” The Plant. His sister. He should've brought a backpack or something. Angelina's panniers, maybe. Those will be full of the clothes and supplies he intends to pilfer, but that's neither here nor there.

"You were, uh. Doin' something with a pencil."

Right. He is a little too eager to get out of here despite this diversion being one of his own make.

[donutloverxo]

A Royal Scandal 3

Modern Royal King!Steve au

(Image from Pinterest)

cowritten with @lizzygal​

Note - There will be no taglists for this. You can subscribe to the  ao3 story to receive updates!

Please note that my stories are not to be stolen or reposted on any other site. Reblogs are welcome. This blog and this story is 18+. Do not read, follow or interact if you are not 18+.

Summary - Modern ruler, His Majesty King Steven G Rogers, is on a quest to make his long term secret relationship the real thing. He is a man in love and wants his lover and partner to be his queen.

Warnings - Smut (m/f), dub con/non con, sex tape, scandals, mentions of past domestic abuse, soft dark Steve, possessive Steve, spanking, power imbalance, mentions of previous domestic abuse, somnophilia.

Pairing - King!Steve x reader

Word count - 7k

Story masterlist

Sometimes Steven forgot that you weren’t that much younger than him. He forgot about a lot of things when it was only the two of you. You did that to him. You made him forget things that everyone else reminded him of constantly, intentional and not.

Early that morning was no different.

Long before his alarm went off, Steve found himself on his side watching you sleep. Feeling in every way equal to you, like there was not this huge ocean of things that he did not have in common with you, opposed to what the two of you shared.

Obviously, he was the son of kings and tyrants while you were the daughter of immigrants and a blue-collar family. You’d grown up in a house full of love and kindness and acceptance, he had not. You’d ended your teenage years going to college and then travelling and ending up here, where you chose to stay and work and travel and live a life that Steve could only dream of, his own had never been his own and never would be.

You had dreams and hopes, little things like aspirations. He didn’t.

Steve’s life was dictated by things like duty and obligations, expectations. Yours was not.

Maybe that was why he’d been so drawn to you?

Compared to all the royals around Europe and titled individuals, politicians, even old families, none of them interested him even a fraction of the amount that you interested him. To Steve you were exotic. You were a fascinating creature who might as well have come from Mars.

He couldn’t even say what it was or why.

For so long it had felt right to be alone. Considering the blood of monsters ran through his veins, Steve had been uninterested in any sort of companionship more than a brief encounter at a private location.

For Christ’s sake, he refused to sleep in the bedroom that his father had slept in.

Upon assuming the throne, he’d selected to take up older quarters in an unused part of the palace living complex. As if to ensure he was as far away from the rooms that his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had slept. Choosing to sleep in a bed untainted by any of those men, stored from when his land was ruled by an emperor. Hoping with the hopes of a young king that it would save him from their madness.

Beside him, you slept so peacefully, trustingly.

Steve had never brought anyone into his private apartment. Nor had his bed seen any carnal action since it’d gone into storage. Until you. He’d simply never been so inclined.

A rough sound from the growth on his cheek rubbing against his pillow. A pleasant reminder of that night that felt so long ago, yet also like only yesterday.

He’d had a beard back then he remembered.

A full bushy one.

One that had made you laugh softly at, roll your eyes and still manage to pull off an acceptable bow when you greeted him that late night.

“They beat Canada then Your Majesty?” You had inquired with good nature, setting down a whole stack of papers and folders onto the very modern conference table in a big room that could fit two dozen, more if the people were standing.

He’d beamed.

Steve remembered he’d been in a particularly good mood that night. Even if he was working late on the education push into the outer regions of his kingdom. A good amount was still very rural, many simple villages that lived as they had fifty or more years ago. Many parts of his kingdom were still deeply rooted in the past.

“Indeed. Eleven to four.”

He was beaming. Beaming! You were pretty sure you could see molars. It made you shake your head and begin to sort out all your work into piles to go over. Not that you’d ever admit to secretly being caught up in the hype of the team being so close to gold at the Winter Olympics. “So then the beard stays?”

“You of all people,” he admonished, coming over to help you. Picking up the well-marked up maps you’d spent hours annotating.

Making you roll your eyes.

On he went though, obviously needing to drive home the seriousness of this matter. “The beard stays until we win gold. Next we play Norway. I don’t think it needs to be said that we cannot risk it.”

He was serious. Really serious. If that full glorious beard was any indication.

More focused on the organizing task yourself.

Sorting your work by region, pile by pile, each had taken much work and effort and negotiation, endless phone calls and trips and emails to each area to get them to work not only with you, but one another. It was like herding cats. It had taken you months to get this all sorted out for Steve to see. His ideas weren’t even ready to be implemented. This was just the pre-gaming, the leadup, the work in preparation. You weren’t even on Step One. You were on Step Zero.

“Now that I know, I’ll be sure to grow a beard next Winter Olympics.”

And then you were rewarded with a rich hearty laugh from your king.

Well not your king, as you weren’t a citizen of this country. But you still liked to think of him as your king.

Watching you sleep was something he’d never tire of. Never get enough of. It was a luxury that he didn’t realize he wanted day in out.

The ability to wake up with you tangled up in blankets. Curled back against his front. Hogging pillows as you did. Allowing Steve to run his fingers up and down your bare thigh, along the curves of your body. Letting him lean forward to press his lips to your shoulder and see the peaceful rest of your face in his slowly lightening bedroom. Every last inch of you here for him.

Hungry.

That was what it was, he was hungry for you. Like a big bear that woke from hibernation after a long winter. At times he felt such a way. Never having felt this way about anyone prior.

In his own time, he slipped his fingers down along the round of your ass underneath the flesh of your hip. Warm. Soft. Smooth. Neither of you had left the bed since the late night bath in his tub.

Further down Steve allowed his fingers to trail.

Memorizing every last second to get him through his day. From how you felt pressed against the front of him, how your back moved against his chest with every steady breath you took. The way your legs tangled in his buttery sheets with his own, how the soft cheeks of your bottom pressed against his alert groin.

Most definitely though, how your skin tasted and felt beneath his mouth. Smelling like yourself from all your favorite bath products kept in his bathroom.

You’d smelled so good that night too.

You always smelled good.

It was something that he had noticed but hadn’t given any real thought to.

It seemed to be a mix of perfume and body lotion or cream. Cause Steve found the flowery smell would linger after you walked by in the way that perfume did, infusing the air and making his brain scream out that you were near. But also, when you shook his hand, it always had that sweet fresh clean smell afterwards.

Now, whenever Steve smelled it, all he could think about was you.

Those smells danced around him. Making the late hour bearable. Making the fact that the offices were empty but for the two of you, when you both should have been home in bed, not matter.

“Ok…” you were talking to him, pointing out places on the massive map that was his nation. Arms crossed. Legs spread. Standing beside you as you informed him with tones that indicated your happiness, your displeasure as well as your utter irritation. “…so I managed to get in touch with every Education Department in all nine of your territories.”

Though you were not looking at him, Steve nodded, laser focused on this project he’d tasked you with months ago.

“All of the department heads are on board with your desired overhaul to completely modernize the entire system. Unfortunately, they told me that I had to call all the district heads for all forty-six provinces to get their agreed participation too.”

Your tone went from pleased with yourself then skeptical and then annoyed.

You turned your head to look at him. “Which is what I spent the last three months doing. It was something of a thing.”

Steve could only imagine.

He was quiet though so you could go on. More than pleased with how well you worked in this position. He’d originally been skeptical with your being a foreigner. How dedicated would you be to a job in a country that was not your own? One hundred percent as it turned out.

Your hands flattened out dramatically on the table. Outrage surged from you. “I’m still waiting on two appointees because their predecessors apparently died during harvest season and no one could be bothered to replace the position. I literally had to fly out to the outer reaches of civilization to find this out. Cause all the government offices are closed during harvest season, fyi. But they’re literally filling the positions now.”

Such was the challenge of having a large kingdom with one foot in the future and one in the past. Such things led to the difficultly of keeping a Chief of Staff.

Steve’s previous Chief of Staff had come highly recommended and lasted a little over a month.

Whether it was from a lack of dedication, the obvious frustrations of the job or maybe he simply had not wanted to jump on a plane and fly six hours then ride by car five hours to remote areas in order to complete his work. Steve could not be sure. All he knew for sure was he’d keep you as long as humanly possible.

In his eyes, you were a saint.

“What’s with the question mark?”

Making you look to see which question mark you’d marked on the map full of stickers and marks and tabs. Hours had been spent working on the damn thing.

Seeing which question mark in question made your nose scrunch. “Oh…them, they refuse to even answer my calls until they are allowed to take their traditional name for their province. Which is way above my pay grade. Someone else is going to have to deal with them. I tried.”

Ah, Steve nodded, that was far from surprising. The far outer regions were notoriously independent or rebellious, depending on your stance.

He would deal with them accordingly. Not how his father did, but in his own way.

Steve’s attention was drawn to two nearby provinces. Each had a frowny face sticker. Without asking, he merely pointed.

A noise of pure disgusted frustration came from deep in your throat. Making you stand and look to him, brandishing your hands in all directions. “I tried my best with them. I really did. Both of those provinces absolutely refuse to take part in anything if the other is involved. Apparently, they’re still salty at one another over something that happened in fourteen-seventy-three and refer to me as the foreign she-devil. So…good luck with them Your Majesty.”

Soundly you slept.

Comfortable. Safe. At peace.

Making him feel like a true man. A provider able to care for you, protect you, satisfy you. As if he were stripped down to what nature intended. Instead of what society had dictated for you both.

Reaching down to that heavenly place between the V in your thighs, Steve pushed his fingers further to find your softness slippery, your skin slick with viscous arousal. In pushing his finger up further, running it around the edge of your slit to where the gateway to your body was hidden, he found you heavily aroused. Coating his fingers with a thick fluid that promised you would be able to take him now. Oozing into the cervices between his fingers and smearing thickly down his palm and over the back of his hand.

Unable to help himself, he brought his hand out from between your legs in order to look at your arousal. Merely the sight made his balls clench in eager anticipation. Tasting the bodily excretions had his hips moving against yours on their own.

A noise came from you. Though you were far from waking. Always one to enjoy your sleep.

On his tongue you were heady, ripe. Tasting like sin. Steve licked his fingers. Eyes closed so he could savor the taste, how you clung to his tongue and were thick, like a burst of brandy swirling with his saliva.

Awakened now from his deep sleep. Ravenous like a beast of the forest. He pressed a lingering kiss to your shoulder. Making you mumble. Making you wiggle in your sleep, causing you to reach your arm out for a pillow to pull close. Hooking your leg up higher too. Becoming more comfortable in the bed in addition to opening yourself up more to your king. As if your body had connected to his on a level your mind was unaware and encouraged him to take you.

Down he peered. Strands of hair fell across his forehead at the harsh angle. A soft lightening of the sun through drapes he never closed last night allowed the sight of moisture. Folds of bare skin sheened up at him. Tempting him with that webbing of goo that promised him you were ready.

Taking himself in hand, he caught sight of your name curled over his side. Reminding him of your absolute possession over him. Sending his hand low to pull his foreskin back in order to feed this hunger of you that consumed him.

Your signature was all swoops and swirls.

Recognizable above anyone else’s writing he came across on a daily basis.

All over paper and on the maps. In little corners. Highlighted. In different color pens. On stickie notes. Written on napkins or on the back of random pieces of paper.

At the time, he’d had no idea how far gone he really was.

Not even when he watched you take note after note with a purple inked pen, your hand flowing across paper like a swimmer cutting through the water. Taking down his every word, every command.

A incredibly distinctive feeling of being full woke you up from your glorious sleep, in a very singular sort of way that could be from only one thing. Only one thing on earth felt like that when waking you up.

Pulling you out of a warm blissful sleep only to wake you with the exquisite feeling of being stretched open, pushed into, filled up. Making your fingers clench bedding or pillows or whatever they could grab.

A low breathy moan came from you in the time between you were woken and awake, your face burrowing in a pillow was followed by a soft profanity. Weight slowly covered you. Weight pinned you down to the bed a little at a time. Skin and sheets and soft dustings of hair rubbed against you.

Only when you had fully woken did you feel pubes brush against your cheeks. A light tap of scrotum bumped you too.

Long arms wrapped around you. Wet lips mouthed along the curve of your neck.

This was a far superior way to wake up. Compared to your apartment, in bed alone, to your neighbors loud shrilling alarm clock through your paper-thin wall.

Groaning out at the feel of His Majesty’s cock stuffed safely up in your secret garden. You found yourself whining at Steve at whatever time it was in the early morning. “…fuuuuck…what’d I say about doing that…” A swivel, nay, a swivel with a pop of his pelvis followed, making you see stars, gasp deeply as if you’d been stabbed in the lungs and then add on for God and Country. “…My King…shit, My King…oh shit, My King.”

Though it may have been said in jest, his tone was hot enough to scald. “If memory serves me correctly…” another deep push of thick hips shoved you forward into the pillows. “…you say, not in my ass unless I’m awake.”

Stars.

So many bright and colorful stars.

Mmm.

Yes, that was something you had told him on many occasions and it still held very true. If Steve was going to put anything in your ass, forget that thing he claimed was a dick, you needed to be fully awake so you could both physically and emotionally prepare yourself.

Nothing at all could have prepared you for the drastic turn your life was about to take that night.

Nothing.

Everything had been so normal. It was so regular. Like many a long night working late hours at the palace before. Hours had been spent going over all your hard work contacting each and every head in each education department per province, as well as per territory. In addition to the national department of education, preparing to prep them for what the king wanted.

Like any other late night, Steve helped you put all of your paperwork back in the correct order you had it in. Like every other time, he requested a palace car take you to your apartment. Granted the apartment you shared with your best friend was walking distance away. It was late and simply not safe and you found were touched that Steve would think about your well-being.

For a king, he wasn’t that bad. When it was the two of you anyway.

Looks aside, which he had in spades, he could be very funny in a sarcastic sort of way. He was very well read and intelligent, quick on his feet. Although people seemed to think of him a certain type of way based on his father and his own kingship at a young age, when he really was his own person.

You’d noticed he had a definite interest in the classical masters and had on rare occasion seen him sketch out something on a flight or during a less than stimulating event. He had an artistic ability that would never come to anything due to his role.

His strong sense of duty paired with a disgusting moral obligation pretty much guaranteed his life would be spent in service to his country. Period.

You could see why people thought he was hot. The man had been blessed by the genetic gods. Plus he was a king. Who didn’t grow up dreaming about being a princess? Or think about a literal Prince Charming from fairy tales?

Having now had the benefit of working in a real life palace. You knew the realities of that fantasy.

You had two pages of notes that could attest to the reality of your childhood Disney Princess movies.

Reality was always so different.

Not for the first time, you found yourself repeating yourself. “…and let me say one more time. Thank you so much for talking with my parents. I know it was only ten minutes, but, I know how busy you are and it just completely topped off their visit. My mother has been telling everyone about how she met the king. You even have my father cheering for the hockey team.”

A smile came over Steve’s face that was real.

It wasn’t one of his practiced smiles. It was an actual smile. You could tell because it reached his eyes.

“Well,” Steve answered you with a shrug, sounding genuinely pleased even if he also sounded tired and like he wanted nothing more than to go off to his living quarters in the palace and crash into bed, before he had to get up to start a new day. Helping you stack the last of your papers up. “Anything to convert a soul to hockey. Technically, it is his team too.” And because he could not help himself, Steve added on, “Even if his grandparents fled from here for a cushy life in the west.”

Up your hand flew to your chest.

Your jaw dropped in mock pain. “Ouch, Sir! That one was painful.”

His smile grew at your over-the-top reaction.

Still though, he dipped his head and you noticed there was a little blush on his cheeks above where that magnificent beard grew. Chagrined, he quickly followed up with, “I apologize. That was a cheap shot.”

In a physical sort of way that his people were known to interact, personal space be damned, Steve reached over to touch your arm apologetically. Not something he did frequently. Although he had done it a handful of times. The press of his mouth to your cheek was new. The little kiss was brand new. Steve’s lips were gentle on your skin. His beard tickled your face.

Never in your life had your heart pounded as violently in your chest as it did at that gesture. Quickly, your head turned. Though you did not move back or say anything. Instead, you found yourself staring at Steve. Looking into those pools of blue that were looking at you with the same amount of surprise that you felt. His lips were right there, right there.

Blood roared in your ears, your heart pounded faster and faster and faster.

He kissed you.

Did he really though?

Was it a kiss or was it a kiss?

For a moment in time, you leaned in. Leaned closer. Leaned till you almost touched him because that was what your body wanted to do. Until you remembered that Steve was a king. A KING. Remembering that made your head command your body to lean backwards a bit. Allowing you to see that he had leant in to meet you.

He’d leaned closer to kiss you.

What were you doing? What in the hell were you doing? You had no business doing this, no business at all messing around with Steve.

Fingers moved along your arm, tracing up the back of it softly. That simple touch made goosebumps break out over your skin. It made your breath hitch. Your hands began to shake so you grabbed the fabric of your skirt.

However, you made no move to step away from Steve. Nor did he make any sort of move to step away from you.

Another attempt at a kiss was not made.

Fingers touched your face instead. Steve was close enough to you that you felt his legs brush yours. You felt his breath against your face. Fingertips ran across the swell of your cheekbone, down over your lips, tracing the bridge of your nose in what felt like a desire to memorize your face.

Steve was gentle. His fingertips felt like feathers on your skin. He made you shake like a leaf in terror because you wanted him to touch you more. You wanted to be touched. You wanted to feel his hands on you and the soft glide of his thumb along the line of your jaw was painfully insufficient.

Without thinking, you reached up with your hands until you remembered that he was the king.

Were you allowed to touch the king? You weren’t sure. He was touching you and it was fabulous but were you allowed to do the same? You wanted to. You so deeply wanted to. You just were not sure what was allowed in this situation. It had not exactly been covered in the Royal Protocol Guidebook you had.

Then came Steve’s voice. Harsh. Gravelly. Desperate.

“Touch me. It’s ok. I want you to.”

For only a heartbeat or two you remained still, observing him, making sure. Only after that did you reach up with your hands to cover his wrists. Rub along the fabric of his button-up shirt. In doing so, you not only felt the strength in his well-muscled wrists, or how warm the silky fabric was, but, you could feel him tremble. He was shaking about as much as you were.

A rush of air surged from his lungs as if you had burnt him.

Curious, you turned your head so you could place a single kiss on the inside of his hand touching your face, right at the base of his thumb. In doing so, you ripped a noise from deep within him. A noise that was both pained while also infused with wanting.

“This is ok?”

“Yes,” he croaked out, as if he were terrified you would stop.

Never would you have ever imagined he would be so responsive. Almost touch starved it felt.

Sometimes, Steve still felt as if he were a little touch starved to you. Sometimes it felt like he’d gone his entire life without having that physical connection between two people. As complicated of a man as he was with as complicated of a life as he had, you at times forgot that he was still a human being with human being needs that were essential to thriving.

And it wasn’t like you were complaining.

Far from it.

Not after the orgasm you just had, not from on top of him either. Lounged across the front of him. Loose limbed. Languid down to your marrow. Peppering the damp skin of his neck with slow wet kisses and scrapes of teeth. Long drags of your tongue collected drops of salt that tasted of him. Lazily. Heart to heart. Stomach to stomach.

There really were worse ways to wake up.

Like, for instance, in your apartment taking cold showers cause the building’s water heater was ancient. That wasn’t fun at all and usually had you shivering and hurrying through an icy shower. Straight up not a good time.

This? This was soooo much better.

Feeling Steve’s long legs wrapped up in your own, paired with his softening member filling you by virtue of sheer size not letting himself just pop out…this was a much better way to wake up. Far superior in every way.

Not that you were willing to waste precious time like this luxuriating in post-coital bliss. No, no. A burning question was hot on your mind that kept popping up after last night. After all, you were a modern woman and this was a serious relationship. You had every right to ask this question at any time you wanted. Even now. As your boyfriend, the king, fondled your breasts in his hands with such intensity that you would have thought he’d just broken out of Alcatraz after a decade of no nookie. Not that you were in the least bit complaining. Not one bit.

“Am I going to have to quit my job?”

It was something of a concern.

You loved your job. You loved working with Steve. You loved your life as it was and a big part of you suspected becoming queen would mean big changes.

Not that you lifted your head from his neck, or ceased your trek down towards his collarbone. Trail of your kisses never slowing or stopping. No hint of any sort of disruption came. Not for a moment or two. Not till your ravenous boyfriend squeezed your breasts possessively. Thumbed your nipples and finally opened his eyes, as if it were the biggest chore on earth.

His voice was rough. His tone felt like hot gooey honey that just got everywhere. “No…not yet…”

Leading you to make a noise. A pop followed when your mouth left the dark spot you’d been sucking on nearly at his collarbone. What with your name already etched on him. What else could you leave in a display of ownership over him? “Nothing else to add My King?” For added emphasis, perhaps you gave you vaginal muscles a clench knowing what that did to him.

A grunt came from beneath you.

Wrapped up in yours, Steve’s legs clenched in response to what you did. White teeth sank into his upper lip and you absolutely thrived at the sight and feel of him arching up against you, shifting around beneath you at the way your body squeezed him.

Those hands left your breasts only to reach down, run over your waist as they had so many times before, leading you to grab them. Snatch then right up. Press them down into the mattress over Steve’s head. Since the man was far larger than you, this sent you leaning downwards and ever closer to his face. “Steve? I asked you a question.”

How easy it would have been for him to get free. Yet, he seemed content where he found himself. Still wedged within you. Warm in bed. Body a sea of a complex cocktail of chemicals after physically releasing into you. A far better way to wake up than alone in a massive bed. Or worse, to his mother jabbing at him to urgently tell him something that was not urgent at all.

Feeling your breasts press against his chest. Lightly brushing over his skin, your nipples little points that sparked a definite interest in his dick.

God did he want you to be his queen.

“Not yet,” Steve ground out, nearly close to being overwhelmed by you. Each and every word was enunciated to utter perfection, as if it took all of his concentration and effort to get them out. “I’ll have the palace leave your name out of the official statement today. We can go slow. Ease you into things…ease you out of your job…” and to reward him for such a thoughtful statement, you clenched around him once more.

However, it seemed, there was more and even though his eyes rolled up into his head at the feel of your core squeezing his not entirely soft organ, he pushed on with the determination of his ancestors. Grunting. Arching back into the bed as the pillows had all wound up on the floor. Perfect teeth clenched together. “M-my people…will…love you…too.”

So, it was entirely possible, that you were feeling all kinds of powerful watching him writhe beneath you. Knowing exactly what sort of repercussions this could have to your morning. Which was still progressing on time. It was entirely possible that you may have intentionally pushed your own pelvis against his to reseat yourself.

“Oh yeah? How can you be so sure? You saw what happened with those two over in England. And that prince isn’t even next in line to the throne.”

Perhaps it was the seriousness of the direction in which your conversation had taken, Steve remained beneath you. Taking no action, even though you could quite literally feel his dick grow more interested in what your hips were doing.

A panted out, “…fuck…” escaped from him, before he opened his eyes to look at you seriously, if not also a little heatedly. “Quit obsessing over them. The King of Jordan married for love. Queen Rania was a commoner. If you must, focus on them.”

Sudden movement found you falling off Steve and onto the bed, shoved onto your back and in a flash, he was on top of you again. Over you. Hovering. Though he’d escaped out of your body, you could feel the king’s most delicious semi, slick from your previous copulation, squish between you both.

Admitting on an exhale, “Forgot about them.”

“Everyone does.” He agreed, surveying down, taking in the sight of you. “My country appreciates you. They’re fond of you. You’re in all the papers and they’ve given you a nickname.”

And that. That. Nearly killed the mood.

It sent your eyebrows together dubiously so.

Everytime you were in the press it was when your skirt had been blown up on a windy day, or if you’d accidentally gotten food on your shirt. Or that time a baby goat pooped on your shoes. Or when you’d tripped and fallen off a dock into a lake. Who could forget that time you’d accidentally called the Prime Minister of Canada a ‘moose fucking cannibal’ when you’d still been getting the hang of the language, your first year on the job?

You’d been affectionately dubbed, ‘the King’s Foreign Devil’ and it had stuck.

Hell, you still got asked about your thoughts on the Canadian Prime Minister whenever a member of the press was around.

“Most the time, you have a higher approval rating than I do,” he added. Much to the consternation of Maria Hill in PR. “Trust me. There is nothing my country loves more than a hard-working loyal servant of the people who talks shit about western leaders.”

Mood totally killed, you seethed and not for the first time, “That was an accident! I was trying to call him Canada’s Disney Prince.”

***

The note had been hand delivered to the palace and was now crumbled into a ball in the Queen Mother’s bedroom as she stormed off, once more, that early morning in a fury of rose satin and silk. Her perfume clouded around her, drifting behind her, much like the wake of a boat cutting through the water.

Thick carpets silenced her heels. Doors opened for her as she neared them, allowing her to not need to slow her step even for a second. Not a single moment wasted as she made her way through the private living quarters of the palace.

Down hallways and around corners, over to the rooms that her grown son had selected as his own.

It would have been so much easier if he would have just taken the rooms that his father had lived in.

Although, with the horrific memories attached to those rooms, how could she blame him when he elected not to? She had her own private rooms. The dead kings rooms were locked up tight and still not used. Abandoned like so much he’d done, started and accomplished in his life.

Upon coming to her only child’s rooms, those doors were held open for her and on she pressed on. Sailing through his rooms, one after another, until she got closer to his bedroom and could hear his shower which was the direction she headed.

A brief glance was made at the mess that was his bed.

A roll of her eyes was followed by a shake of her head.

Some things males never grew out of it seemed.

“Steven!” She called out in warning, should he be in the bathroom about to come out in the nude. Which was the last thing she wanted to see.

Not only was his bed a mess but his clothes from yesterday were all over the floor.

She had every intention of telling him that he needed to straighten up this mess before the cleaning staff came in his room. The last thing she wanted was for them to think he was messy and then tell their families and friends when they went home that the king had a messy bedroom and word would get out that her son was a slob. Ugh. No. She’d make sure that he straightened up.

Speaking of the devil.

As his shower ran, Steve peered out of the bathroom with a wet head. A midnight blue towel was wrapped around his waist. A toothbrush was in his hand. To Sarah, it was very clear that her grown son had not shaved yet either.

Seeing him in such a state that morning along with his messy room and the fact the shower was going wasting water. It did not make her mood any more agreeable.

Though her son was taller than her and considerably more muscular, she never feared him.

She knew he would never hurt her like his father had so many times. Towards the end, Steve had even defended her from his father’s physical attacks. Those days. They had been dark. Horrible. Terrible. When she noticed that her husband had begun to carry a knife to protect himself from his son. Well. What was she supposed to do?

Attacking her was one thing. Being violent towards her was one thing. There were some things that she learned to tolerate. It was unescapable. Their son though. To take a knife to their son? Her son? Sarah would never allow such a thing.

She was queen at the time.

It was not so difficult to get the drug that she put in her husband’s evening nightcap. She’d used all of it. Thrown the vial away the next day when she went to rouse the king as she did every morning, only to find him dead in his chair. Fireplace having long gone out. Slumped down. Cold. The coroner had said it was a heart attack. Exactly as she’d been told the drug would work. He’d been buried with no one the wiser. Not even Steve.

“Yes mother?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You are not growing another beard. Last time you looked like some man that lives up in the mountains in a tiny shack.”

Just as her own father once did, Steve’s eyebrows rose in surprise and question.

No. That was not why she was here.

Sarah had a higher calling that morning and straightening her slim shoulders, she so informed him. “Hope and Janet are here in the city. They’ve come for a surprise visit and will arrive at the palace within the hour.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed at her in response to her information.

It was horrifying. It was outrageous. It was not what he wanted to hear that morning one bit. Not at all. Not one single bit.

Hope and Janet?

Those were two names he never wanted to hear with the additional words being, ‘on their way’. No. Just no.

All he could say that was remotely civil, after what the then Princess Hope van Dyne had done, came out in something of a tone. “I don’t want to see either of them. If you want to see them, that’s your choice. Keep them away from me.”

Considering what the now Duchess Hope had spewed to every reporter, journalist and whomever with a platform…Sarah was a little surprised that Steve was being so kind.

She’d expected a bit more of a reaction from her son.

Could she be holding a bigger grudge against her one-time closest friend’s daughter? After what had happened, Queen Janet van Dyne had become somewhat distant. Which was not surprising. Hope had not broken the engagement gracefully. Nor had she been anything less than opinionated afterwards.

“I suspect she is in trouble,” Sarah confessed. “Why else would they come here? Considering everything that Hope has said over the years.”

Steam continued to seep through the cracked door.

Sarah was about to say something about the shower. Steve was wasting a considerable amount of hot water. She herself was leading the Go Green Initiative in the country and as she stated constantly, it all began at home.

“Mother, don’t take this the wrong way, but, I wouldn’t shit in Hope’s mouth if she was starving.”

Ah.

Perhaps she’d been too quick to judge Steve’s current opinion on the wayward duchess?

Pondering his statement, Sarah found herself looking for any way to come back with a counter when she noticed that the shower turned off. Which was odd. Shower’s didn’t turn themselves off.

What was even more peculiar, Steve reached back behind himself to shut his bathroom door.

It clicked.

Like a light going off.

How could she not have noticed? How could it not have been obvious?

Blue eyes that were a little softer than her son’s narrowed. “You aren’t alone.”

Silence.

Quiet.

Her pink lips opened in surprised. A question hovered on her tongue.

“No mother.”

“But…”

“Mother,” he implored as only a son could. “Not now. She would not want the first time she officially meets you to be when you’re dressed for the day and she is not.”

And though her son’s words were true. They were right. They were exactly what she would have wanted him to say and because she had raised him well, she was even proud that he had made such a quick decision. It wasn’t fair.

Sarah wanted to find out who you were. She wanted to meet the woman that her son was involved with. Was that so wrong? Sarah wanted to meet the woman that her son was considering marrying. There was so much she wanted to say to you, so much to teach you, so much she wanted to learn about you. Perhaps her desperation showed because her son reached out to place a hand on her elbow.

“If you can chase Hope and Janet away, we could have lunch together. The three of us. If not, dinner? Or even tomorrow. I’m not doing anything with Hope under this roof. Not after she referred to our country as a third world plus hellhole full of war criminals and superstitious backwoods heathens.”

Ah, so he did remember.

Those words had been seared into her memory as well. Sometimes Sarah wondered, as Steve had never really given much indication that he cared one way or the other what Hope had said. It was only after she began to speak unflatteringly about their people that he grew irritated, much like herself.

Although, what irritated Sarah more, was the quiet that came from the royal house of van Dyne and Pym a few countries over. Never once had Janet spoke up. Never had Janet said anything about her daughters outrageous remarks or behavior. Nor had she apologized.

Knowing her son, Sarah knew that he would never court anyone who was not kind or compassionate. Steve would never pick a Hope as his queen.

Up came a hand that bore a lovely ring decorated with fresh water pearls from their own waters. “I’ll have them gone before lunch and then we will all sit down together so I can finally meet her.”

[helianskies]

day 5: supernatural

written for @hwsrarepairweek2022, at last we return to a more staple pairing hehe...

rating: teen+ ⠀ words: 3.1k

pairing: nedport 🇳🇱🇵���

read below or over here on ao3!

“You know I can’t let you carry on like this.”

Abel grunts. He’s displeased (putting it lightly) and Henrique understands why, but he has to hold his ground.

“It… It’s for your own good, Abe,” he presses, trying to appeal to the other’s good(ish) nature as he stares up at him, pleads with his eyes, prays that the other will listen. “You’re suffering, like this, and other people are suffering because of it in turn. But I can fix it. I can make it better, and put you out of your misery.”

It would hurt, of course. How could it not? But Henrique is a human, and Abel is a vampire, and Henrique knows that there is only one way this can end for both of their sakes. He can’t continue like this and he can’t let Abel, either. It would be unfair. It would be cruel. In the short time he’s known Abel for, he’s not seen him smile properly, nor has he seen him just be… happy—as in, as happy as he could be, or as he should be. And Henrique wants to fix that for him.

There is only one way he can do that. There is only one way he can help his vampiric companion heal, and feel better…

“Please,” he asks one final time, the other’s hands in his own. “Let me help you.”

It takes a moment. It takes another moment of silent reassurance—promises made with the eyes alone, that Abel will be fine, that Henrique will take good care of him, that it would all be fine in the end—for the other to finally, after days and weeks of nagging, agree. Henrique is relieved. Henrique thanks him.

“It won’t take long,” he says, gesturing for Abel to take a seat in the dental chair. “Get comfortable, I'll just grab my things."

There is a pause in the other's movements. "Things…?"

Henrique quips a too-cheerful, "Oh, you know, the usual. Torture devices and stuff.”

It earns a scoff. That’s the best response he knows he’s going to get.

Henrique is used to nervous patients, of course. Children and adults alike have stepped into his room, unsure of what to expect or what the young dentist—the latest addition to his parents’ surgery—would be like. A smile could say a lot. A smile could hide a lot, too. But he is hardly sinister; Henrique is good at what he does and wants the same good reputation as his parents. Thus, with anyone who does feel nervous sitting down in that chair—be they child, adult, or vampire—he believes in a simple thing: distraction.

For children, that means talking to them, or introducing them to his ‘office pals’ (who are a small collection of stuffed animals that sometimes ‘want’ to keep any anxious children company). For adults, it is a case of talking them through a procedure, being patient, and reassuring them that it would be over soon, and that they wouldn’t feel a thing (well, more or less). 

And, as Henrique is learning right now, in the middle of the night, as he and Abel hide alone in the family practice, vampires require a… similar approach…

“So,” he begins, letting the nitrile gloves snap against his skin as he pulls them on—something playful that he knows might just begin this distraction therapy for Abel; “first thing’s first, I’ll numb the area. It’ll take a few seconds to kick in, but once it does, we count to three, and out comes that nasty tooth of yours.”

“D’you have to numb it…?”

Henrique glances at the other, his smile slipping to one side of his face. “Yes. Because otherwise it’ll hurt, and you’ll never forgive me for it.” 

Once more, he receives a soft grunt. Abel has conceded. Henrique is glad.

Ever since they’ve known each other, Abel has been suffering in silence over one of his molars, which, when he finally allowed Henrique to take a look at it, turned out to be just— just in an absolutely sorry state. There was no saving it. Yet, it has taken three more weeks since then for Henrique to be able to wrangle Abel back into the surgery to finally yank it out of his mouth (though, he made sure to word it more delicately around Abel, lest another three weeks pass!). 

With his tools ready and anaesthetic prepared, Henrique decides to make sure that Abel is also ready and prepared; the other seems to have made himself as comfortable as he can be (which is not very, judging by the unsure frown, the twitchiness, the way he mindlessly picks at the skin around his nails and feigns calmness) and it’s just good that he’s trying. Even if they can’t go through with it, it’s good that Abel has not only heard him out, but also trusts him enough to do this safely and properly. 

Coming from a vampire, he’s impressed. Not that he… knows any vampires other than Abel, mind you…

Henrique moves his tray of goodies over to the dental engine. He can see that Abel’s focus is currently on the wrong thing—namely, the tools of his trade rather than the dentist himself—so Henrique tells him to relax, put his head back, and open his mouth only when he is ready. In the meantime, the human takes the vampire’s hand in his own, locking their fingers together, and sparking up a simple conversation:

“I was thinking,” Henrique says, “that if you aren’t doing anything this Saturday, that you and I could go on a special date.”

“A date?” Abel repeats, seemingly surprised (but only mildly so) by the suggestion. “What did you have in mind?”

Glad that he’s up for the conversation—just another tactic to help settle him—Henrique continues: “I dunno. The local aquarium currently has nighttime tours and events going on, if you wanted to do something a bit different. But otherwise,” he smiles, “even just going out for dinner, or a midnight trip up to the nature reserve to watch the stars…?”

“I would have the time.”

“Sure, but… which one would you want to do?”

“All of them, if you wanted.”

It makes Henrique laugh, his smile falling wide. “You mean that, huh? You want to spend that much time with me?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t enjoy your company,” Abel returns—a remark that does take the other aback, even if only slightly, because of its sincerity. Henrique can’t fault what he’s said—the feeling is mutual—but to hear him say it aloud brings him a whole other kind of joy.

“In that case,” he says, “if I plan the weekend, then you can plan something for next week.”

“…me?”

“Of course!”

“I… I don’t, uhh…”

“Look, it can literally be anything,” Henrique insists, though he isn’t even being totally serious; he hardly expects Abel to plan something if he isn’t feeling up to it, because he would hate to put that sort of pressure on him. But even so: “You might not think yourself to be Mr. Romance, but you should know that just being around you makes me happy.”

The way it makes the other a little flustered, a touch of colour returning to his features, is more than just endearing; it’s alluring, it’s sweet, it’s wonderful, so much so that Henrique wants to grab the other’s face and kiss him desperately. But it seems like the wrong time to do so, when they’re so close to progress, and he… he…

Oh, fuck it! One itty-bitty kiss against the guy’s cheek is not going to hurt, he decides, so that is what he gives him—a soft, quick peck against that faint patch of colour, which in turn only blossoms more profoundly. Who’d’ve ever thought it? A sexy vampire not accustomed to receiving affection!

(Henrique has hit a jackpot with this one, and it’ll be a fight to let him go, now.)

However, with that said and done, Henrique realises he’s running out of distraction methods. He only has so many tricks, so many ploys—and he’s already gone above and beyond for Abel, when he thinks about it. They’re even still holding hands, whether or not the blonde also recalls the fact…

But Henrique also refuses to take that from him, and instead continues to hold on, to gently squeeze and welcome any squeezes in return. Abel seems to be thinking about something—thinking scarily hard, too—and Henrique is almost worried he may hurt himself or pop a blood vessel, until Abel finally looks at him, looks at their joined hands, looks at Henrique again, and announces:

“I’m ready.”

Henrique will not look a gift horse in the mouth. (A gift vampire, however…).

“Thank you,” he replies softly, pausing just for a moment to cup the other’s cheek, giving it a reassuring stroke—a promise in his eyes telling Abel that it’ll all be over soon—before he has to remove his hands entirely from Abel’s person, as hard as it is to do.

The first thing he does is hand over a pair of sunglasses, which he makes sure that Abel puts on, before he flicks on the overhead lamp. Bright as the room is with the main lights on and blinds closed, he still needs the overhead for safety—because he doesn’t want to risk anything.

Once that is done, he tells Abel once more to open up whenever he’s ready, and to practice some slow breathing exercises with him in the meantime. He wants the other to have a handle on any nerves he has, lest Abel’s instincts kick in, a needle go flying, and a poor, unfortunate dentist get hurt. Henrique knows he’d be no match for the other’s strength if he were a human, let alone whatever freakish ups being a vampire gives him. (Though, he… wouldn’t be opposed to finding out, one way or another…).

With the exercises underway, it is a matter of patience. Henrique requires both hands for this next part and is sure to inform Abel of the fact, so that the other doesn’t try to grab his hand for any comfort he may need. He will have to be patient as well, unfortunately.

Then, as soon as that blessed moment comes—as soon as Abel seems to be as relaxed as he can be and lets his mouth hang open, Henrique does not waste a millisecond. He dives in, wanting to make this as quick as possible for both their sakes. As needle meets gum, he hurries to coo and coddle the other with reassurances that, ‘You’re doing great, we’re halfway there. Just a couple more seconds, I promise,’ and before he knows it—

“There, you’re fine. Hard bit done,” he says, rushing away the used needle and exchanging it for Abel’s hand once more, holding onto it. The tightness with which the other squeezes is a sign that he needs it—needs Henrique—and he plans to see him through. “We’re going to let that kick in, okay? It should take long, but I need you to make sure it really is fully numb before I carry on. Oh, and— and talking might get a bit hard,” he adds on, “so you can just nod or shake your head. There’s no need to exert yourself.”

Even so, Abel manages a ‘thank you’. He breathes out, long and slow, and pulls Henrique’s hand closer to his chest. Henrique does not fight him. It’s a shame that the glove is in the way—that they can’t quite feel each other’s skin—but it will do. If it brings the other some comfort, then it will do.

It’s hard, really, being in this position. Seeing Abel in any sort of discomfort is not by any means enjoyable. But Henrique has to remember that seeing him in pain is worse, and that is precisely why they are there: to fix it. 

(How lucky Abel is, to have grown attached to a human that also happens to be a dentist. It almost feels like design, but Abel only learnt of his trade after the third encounter-come-date.)

To his surprise, and even more so to his relief, the wait does not last long before Abel gives him a signal to go ahead. Henrique makes sure, of course—he has to let the other’s hand go and poke around inside his mouth with the dental pick and really, truly make sure he can’t feel anything, but when he asks the other, ‘Can you feel anything?’ Abel shrugs, and shakes his head. Henrique is glad. They can get this over and done with quicker.

“Alright, so,” the brunette says, swapping out the pick for forceps in one hand, and the elevator in the other, “this part takes literally a couple seconds and that’s it. You shouldn’t feel any pain, but there will probably be some discomfort from the pressure.”

Abel nods. He accepts his fate. Henrique swallows and gives him a reassuring smile, though he’s not sure if Abel has his eyes closed still or not, so maybe the smile is there for himself, too. An assurance to himself that this will be worth it. Three seconds of discomfort, and a lifetime of that tooth not causing anyone any grief.

Because with that bad tooth, feeding is hard—Abel struggles to get that initial bite when he needs to feed, be it from Henrique, who offers himself up as much as he can, or some of the unsuspecting bystanders that are just… in the wrong place at the wrong time. Abel promises that he’s always gentle. But with a fucked up tooth, Henrique isn’t sure that’s possible! Especially if it takes three of four attempts for him to actually find the right angle to latch on without it hurting!

That is about to change, however. Abel sits with his mouth open, numb, and waiting. Henrique isn’t going to let him down.

He moves the forceps in place, gripping the pesky premolar that all of this has been for. He makes sure with Abel again— ‘Can you feel this?’ —to which he receives the best ‘no’ that the other can enunciate in his current predicament. It is a green light. Henrique slips the elevator into place as well, the malevolent thing that it is, and he tells Abel to take a nice, long, slow, deep breath, while he counts down. Even though Abel grips the armrests in anticipation, it is too late to turn back now.

“Three.”

A firm wiggle, a push.

“Two.”

A firmer push, a twist.

“One—!”

A tug, a pull, and a nice, loud crunch.

The tooth is out. Henrique has to quickly check, before Abel decides to get up out of that torture chair, to make sure it has come out in one clean break—and it has.

Now both of them can breathe.

“You’re all done,” Henrique tells Abel, hurrying to set aside both the extracted tooth and his instruments so that he can grab the cotton roll.

Following that, he turns off the overhead lamp to spare the other’s eyes and invites him to take off the glasses, which he does before Henrique even finishes talking. However, before Abel can say anything or perhaps curse him for making him go through all of that, Henrique shoves the cotton roll in his mouth, filling the new gap, and tells him to gently bite down on it to help staunch the bleeding. A soft, tired glare is thrown his way—he expected it, to be fair—but Abel continues to breathe slowly, the tension slowly leaving his body now that it is all over.

“You did good,” Henrique goes on, knowing the other isn’t going to interrupt him. “It’ll take a couple of hours for your face to feel normal again, but it’s worth it. It came out nice and cleanly, so… you shouldn’t have any other problems with your teeth—” Abel grumbles and mumbles, but Henrique has a point to make: “This time,” he says, “make sure you’re brushing your teeth properly. Vampire or not, you’ve still got to look after them!”

Abel accepts the lecture (mostly because he can’t retaliate) and Henrique is satisfied that the lesson has been learnt. Vampires may only get sustenance from blood, but Abel is the sort of vampire who will still eat and drink ‘normal’ things for social purposes—like on a dinner date, for example. Which means he ought to floss more often than he would normally!

But that’s dealt with. That’s not really important, now. Abel’s tooth is out, he’ll be back to his regular self in a few hours, and Henrique is satisfied that he’s done his job properly.

In the meantime, however…

“Since you’ll still feel a bit rough and achy,” Henrique proceeds, slowly pulling the gloves from his hands to discard them on his tray, a little mischief in his eyes as the blonde watches on, “there is something I can give you that should make you feel a lot better, and faster.”

Abel tries to talk through the cotton—mumbles that, Henrique figures, translate to: “No more needles!” and it’s adorable, really. For a big guy who looks dreadfully intimidating when he’s lurking in the shadows, he’s still so… human.  

“No needles,” he promises Abel all the same, “or any other kind of medicine. This is a really specific remedy, made especially for you.”

No mumbles or confused noises come, but the silence is equally as good a sign. Henrique pushes away the trolley and removes the white coat he’s been wearing. When he returns to the chair, he has to gently push Abel back down by the shoulder—“I’m not finished with you just yet,” he warns him—and then, before Abel can make any sort of protest, Henrique has hoisted himself up onto the other and has made himself more than comfortable straddling his lap. His hands settle on the blonde’s chest. His eyes cling to the other’s astonished expression.

Henrique, after a  moment, leans in to leave a kiss just shy of Abel’s lips ( hopefully that side isn’t too numb! ) and he moves back—he has a whole little show planned that he thinks will cheer the other up—but just as he does move, a hand stops him. It rests on the back of his neck, keeping him close.

For a moment, Henrique expects words—expects some slew of orders, perhaps—but instead, Abel’s hand slowly moves up and finds Henrique’s ponytail. With one slow, gentle pull, his hair is released. It pools around him, dark waves spilling over his shoulders, and he can’t help but smile as Abel runs his fingers amongst the long locks, teasing at the roots.

Then, he says a quiet, “Thank you,” and Henrique bubbles up with just… pure adoration for this man. He’s never known a lover so tender, so genuine. 

“Anything for you,” he replies—a promise he hopes to keep for a long, long time—and with that, the second part of Abel’s ‘recovery treatment’ begins.

[alloganes-arc2]

@ruinedheart​​,  VANITAS.

     the feigning of ignorance is enough to make his teeth grind; enough to have the live wire of rage snap against the skin of his spine and leave vanitas burning to the touch, desperate for something to spit this surge of venom at. defiled god stands before him and even this simple act is enough to enrage / enrage / how dare this walking corpse look him so boldly in the eye? the weaker half of a pathetic whole, the piece that was torn apart and thrown to the side and how fucking dare this abomination walk as if they were any better than vanitas?      ( they were perfect images mirrored, vanitas and sol. two broken pieces originally forged into one greater whole, forced apart and forced against and of the original unions, vanitas and sol were the weaker sections. they were the part deemed unusable / the failures / the part that was better off abandoned — vanitas could see it. vanitas wonders if sol wants to kill their sibling the way vanitas wants to kill ventus. )

     ❛  you’re the definition of an idiot. you’ve been around for how long? and you think peaceful negotiations and favors are what will bring you closer to your goal?  ❜ monstrosities like them had no use for friendship and bargains / had no reason to trust the words of strangers and their pathetic little posters. vanitas laughs in the face of such a mighty deity and his darkness dares to reach for the shadow that darkens within their feet ( you’re casting such a fearsome shadow, my god. has there always been such a stain of wickedness upon golden veins? has the loss of your better half casted you towards the path of damnation? ) even in their anguish, they were two perfect copies / even in their rage, they were two perfect copies.      for the first time in lifetimes, vanitas has found a heart besides ventus’ that was truly worth devouring.

     ❛  i have one last question before i’m done with you.  ❜ when he smiles, it’s nothing but blood and daggers. when he smiles, he prepares for his feast. ❛  have you considered that maybe she doesn’t want to return to you? i mean, considering how often she’s abandoned you.. your continuous attempts are becoming real pathetic.  ❜ and when vanitas laughs, it’s the song of hysteria. ❛  are those posters working well?  ❜

rage fits sol awfully well.    rages embraces its vessel,  comfortably,  like sol was always meant to be an instrument for anger and divine devastation.    ❪    it feels exactly like the dreams that have haunted you with each passing night,  where you feel the blade of a second throne at your neck    /    where there’s so much emotion and intensity it becomes unbearable    /    where you wake up with tears and fury and too many phantom pains to count.    ❫    knuckles go bone white,  tremor thrumming in the vast expanse of their body,  growing increasingly violent with each passing word.    their lip quivers,  jaw tightening to the point that their molars could shatter from the amounting pressure.    paimon should be here,  anyone should be here,  restrain it    /    muzzle it,  keep them from falling to the sin that all gods eventually do,  no matter how benevolent    /    no matter if ashen corpse or otherwise.

vision begins to blur,  become hazy in the overwhelming cacophony of hate and denial.    ❪    AND IT’S FUCKING HORRENDOUS,  BECAUSE HE’S RIGHT.    RIGHT ABOUT IT ALL,  RIGHT ABOUT THE TEMPTATION TO FALL FURTHER IN TO HELL,  GIVE IN TO THE ECHO OF CRUELTY AND VISCERA CALLING FROM YOUR GHOST.    ❫    but amenity is a virtue,  to uphold the most fundament of the heavenly principles makes it just as unforgivable as those false lords.    they sniff,  feels something wet cascade down their face,  the bleariness in their eyes worsening at the mere truth alone.    ❪    tears?    ❫

they want to kill him.    they want to snap him in half,  break him down,  but the weaker part of them tethers them to the ground like always,  leveled by it’s harsh grasp of it’s sword.    ❪    she would’ve been stronger.    she wouldn’t have tolerated such abuse,  would’ve told you to let all goodwill go and cut down the abomination before you.    the brilliance of the sun has always been weak in comparison to the judgment of the moon.    ❫    BUT SHE ISN’T HERE ANYMORE.    he’s forsaken you,  chose the abyssal depths and heretics over his own fucking kindred and it’s awful,  it’s repulsive just how much resentment sol holds,  even when it wants so desperately not to resent them,  to hate,     ❪    ───    I’VE BEEN KILLING MYSELF JUST TO FIND YOU.    ❫

the worst part is they would’ve walked away.    the worst part is they would’ve let the truth go.

it’s deafening,  the thunder that roars    /    blinding,  the lightning that flashes.    atoms tear apart,  rebuild,  physical body made intangible as the voltage shoots towards him,  crackles around him,  bright and erratically    ───    then,  sol is behind him,  sword extended outward    /    sharp edge of the blade going straight for his neck.