#kip talks for too long

[the-kipsabian]

the backside of the new gear says "the gallery"....

[smudgekip]

My self worth so low you wouldnt even trip on it

[paradlselost]

. ⋮ ULTRAVIOLENCE .ᐟ ֹ

doctor phosphorus x female reader

⎨ 𝐀𝐍 ⎬ fun fact i’ve wanted to eat uranium for a long time so he is the worlds most perfect man to me . also sorry for not writing anything in so long , i’ve been busy and jumping from hyperfixation to hyperfixation for a while now as you can see by my unfinished mouthwashing fanfics . but i watched the show last night and he is my favorite and there’s almost nothing about him so i had to . enjoy !

⎨ 𝐂𝐖 ⎬ monster ! reader , mentions of body dysmorphia and imposter syndrome / depersonalization , religious trauma + blasphemy ( cause i can’t help myself ) specifically in catholicism , catholic rituals , depictions of eating raw meat , depictions of wounds , hurt / comfort , depictions of cannibalism , described body horror . smut : fire / burning kink , dry humping , fingering , male moans ( yay ! ) .

3 . 1 k words ++ not beta read .

PART TWO OUT NOW : CINNAMON GIRL

Eyes flutter closed, allowing darkness to wash over you. Soft sounds of birds chirping fill the room around you, drowning out the constant humming of the chip in the back of your neck. You’re hyper aware of everything, the fabric of the blanket that covers you and the cold air that stings your nose as you breath in; chest rising and falling in rhythm.

You remember how reluctant the guards that watched over you were to allow you the sounds you so desperately needed to sleep, not believing your pleas to quiet your constantly racing mind. Nearly a week without rest made them understand rather quickly, when, despite the power dampener locked around your neck, talons began to grow out of your hands and your spine contorted with the growing of fleshy wings.

It seems you’ve been blessed, something has gone right for once in your life as you’re now able to change the sounds to whatever you wish instead of the constant rushing of waves. Secretly, you’re happy to have been put on this mission. Grateful, even, as much as you could be to a monster like Waller. Perhaps you could even forgive her for the electrocution you’d been put through.

Weasel kips at the foot of your bed, stuck to your side since the day you had snapped at him: barred your fangs and shoved him away from you. Something about the beast had been so pathetic that you ended up apologizing and giving a hesitant scratch to the back of his ears. He’s good company, loyal if not a bit of a flea concern, and he listens when you speak to him unlike many of the others in the special containment of Belle Reave.

Nina was kind, as well, perhaps a bit out of her element, though. You’d once tried to make small talk with GI but that ended as quickly as it had started with his sudden interrogation on if you were a Nazi. And god, you wouldn’t dare bring anything up to the others.

Crickets chirped through the headphones you had been allowed to wear, owls hooting and birds calling. A forest at night, a beautiful scene you were sure you wouldn’t be able to see freely again, but you do not indulge in those negative thoughts. You can already feel it looming over you, exhaustion and stress mingling to bring it out. The thing that stirrs inside you, monstrous and ugly. Its hungry, and you know better than to ignore that hunger lest the Weasel that kips at the foot of your bed be more than a scrap of fur.

So, you stirr. Sitting up in the bed you remove your headphones and push the blanket from your form quietly as to not disturb him. He’s almost cute when he sleeps, like a crusty old dog that resembles more of a tattered blanket than a pet. Regardless, you close the door quietly behind you and walk down the long winding hallways of the palace. Truthfully, you had never been anywhere quite as lavish, never had a king sized bed all to yourself or a private bathroom. Its almost too big, especially at night when the shadows dance up the walls and cast an ominous glare over just about everything.

You know better than to gaze at your shadow as you pass the large walls with royal family portraits. Unworthy, unrighteous, evil. The rosary marks still pierce your skin, forced to pray this thing away day and night till your palms and knees bled. You’ve grown resentful towards the being that shares your body. It makes demands of you, to feast, a single slip can give way and allow it to control you. Some kind of devil, the reason you’re here in the first place.

Your mouth had begun to hurt in your search for the kitchen, gums beginning to bleed and pool against the base of your tongue.. You’d have thought you’d be used to this by now, that your world wouldn’t continue to be turned upside down, that the Lord’s Prayer wouldn’t recite involuntarily in your mind as it all starts over again. You stumble over your own two feet, finding yourself silently wishing you had that power dampener around your neck once again. Your stomach rumbles more.

It feels like an eternity till you finally find the kitchen, thankful that all the servants had retired for the night so you can spit your mouthful of blood into the sink. Crimson stains the marble, dripping from your chin as you turn on the faucet to wash your mouth of the taste. Your fangs had grown in now, taking space in front of your canines and piercing uncomfortably against your bottom lip whenever you close your mouth. Hunger gnaws at your stomach as if beginning to consume the lining itself.

You throw open the fridge door with little care of the noise it makes as it slams into the counter beside it. Eyes scour for something, anything, till you land on a large, raw goose marinating for tomorrow nights feast. Shaky hands reach out to grab it, allowing the glass tray it sits in to fall to the ground and shatter. The shards prick at your bare feet, cutting and marring your skin with more blood, though you don’t seem to notice.

Fangs sink into the bird, soft flesh breaking at the intrusion. The taste is almost euphoric, never had you tasted a meat so rich and fatty; your body had gotten far too used to the awful prison food they served in containment. You rip out a large chunk; tendons harshly snapping from the body as you swallow nearly without chewing. Your eyes gloss over as you devour the bird, reaching in to grab at the sausage links that had also been waiting to be cooked the next day.

You hadn’t realized how much you had truly lost yourself till a harsh green glow halted your feast. Head whipping around to greet the skeletal face of Phosphorus, a hiss falling from your lips that still wrapped around a chunk of meat like a food insecure cat. He was your least favorite of all, acting as if he knew everything simply because he had been a doctor before his incident. Not like it mattered in Belle Reave, and certainly not in the monster sector they were kept in.

“Woah. Calm down, I’m not takin’ that from you.” A huff came from him, head tilted to the side as he watched you, almost intrigued with the way you acted. He simply stepped past you, walking over to the sink and simply staring down at the blood that had graced the basin. “This yours?”

The link fell from your mouth, rolling into the shards of glass and crimson as the fangs retracted back into your gums, eyes returning to normal. All you could do was stare at him, as if he had asked the most stupid question in the world. Smartest man in the room your ass.

“Who else’s would it be?”

“Don’t know, thats why I’m asking. Flag and I got into a fight earlier and I totally won, so I’m just wondering.”

“Oh.”

He leans back against the countertop, facing you now, the sleeves of his hoodie protecting him from burning through the granite. Part of him had always intrigued you, in a way, everyone but Weasel had a signature outfit; but him? A hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. It was almost comical how simple he was, though you supposed there wasnt much he could keep. A step towards him, wincing at the sudden realization of what you had done.

His gaze followed yours, looking down to the glass and blood that gushed from your feet and ankles. The light from the fridge and his green glow illuminated the space between you two, dancing off the shards on the floor. Your mouth was covered as well, sloppily wiped onto your cheeks as you had feasted. God, you looked a mess, but the pain distracted you from that fact. Biting your bottom lip to muffle a pathetic whimper of pain.

“Cmon don’t cry, what’s a little glass among friends?”

“I am not crying.”

If he had eyes to roll no doubt he would’ve. Stepping over to you and hooking an arm around your shoulder to help you stand without any warning. Your first instinct is to fight him off, to tell him no and shout at him, but you don’t. Instead, you lean into the touch and allow him to help you hobble up the stairs to, what you originally assume to be your room, but soon discover he’s guiding you into his, and then, into his bathroom.

Theres something almost intimate about the way he grabs your hips to help you onto the counter so he can patch you up. You hadn’t asked this from him, but it didn’t seem to matter much now as he filled a bucket with warm soapy water, dunking a rag in a few times and using the help of tweezers to pick the glass out of your skin. You do your best not to flinch, using the time to preoccupy yourself with washing off the blood from your face.

John 13. You detest the thought, Belle Reave had ripped every ounce of belief from your body, but the ceremonies and rituals of your youth had not quite left your mind, and the intimacy of the moment didn’t help. Silence filled the room, the only noises being the soft sounds of the wash cloth being dunked into the water and squeezed out. You’d seen it before, a relatives wedding, the washing of the feet ceremony. It’s meant to be intimate, to be between spouses, to show commitment and love just as Jesus had to his disciples. You feel far more like Judas, however, with the monster that festers inside you.

“So. What was that?” His voice snaps you from your thoughts, eyes fluttering down to look at him, hesitating at his question. You don’t have a good answer, not one that wraps everything up into a neat bow at the least. Just what you know, which isn’t much.

“It’s the reason I’m classified as a monster. Theres… something that lives inside me, a devil of sorts I was always told. It’s been there for as long as I can remember, its why I had to wear the collar back in confinement. It starts to creep out whenever I slip, get too comfortable or let my guard down.” You’re quiet, not wanting to break the softness of this encounter. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

“You don’t have to apologize. We’re all freaks, its the whole point of this task force.”

“I guess. I’m still sorry.”

A huff comes from Phosphorus as he grabs a clean washcloth, dunking it in fresh water and reaching up to wipe off some of the blood that you had missed, that still marrs your mouth and flesh. He’s close, now, very much so. He smells of sulfur, though it does not cause you to recoil or scrunch your nose; its a scent you’ve grown accustomed to with the monster that shares your body. Can a skeleton be attractive? Is that possible?

You lean into the feeling of the warm washcloth against your cheek; having been so long since someone had touched you. Before you had been arrested you indulged in sin, lust, it had engulfed your body and it wasn’t a feeling you ever wanted to encounter again. How it could consume your entire being, give control over to someone other than yourself. It’s a fine line for you, but you feel the distantly familiar feeling of butterflies flutter in your stomach at the proximity of him.

You feel sick; like bile will creep up your throat any moment, but it doesn’t feel bad. Not with how he lets the cloth be a barrier between the two of you, between his hands that will burn your body at his touch. You’d welcome it, to let him cauterize your wounds and fix you. Your hands creep up to wrap around the back of his neck, protected by the hood of his sweater as you pull him closer. He’s warm, comfortable.

“I don’t like you apologizing, you look like a kicked puppy.”

“You’re smiling, though.”

“Can’t help it, I’m a skeleton, doll.”

His voice is a giveaway, though, possibly the most upbeat you had heard him despite the quiet and intimate nature of the room. You feel it, the radiating warmth from his other hand creeping down to your thigh, rubbing soft, soothing circles against the fabric that protects your skin from his touch. It would hurt, but a part of you almost welcomes it, wants to feel it.

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes focused on the hand that slowly crept higher from your thigh. He’s close, his heat rivaling that at your core. You miss the way his head tilts to the side at your demeanor, hands grasping and releasing the fabric of his hoodie over and over.

Phosphorus said nothing as he continued to wipe some of the blood from your mouth, lingering over your bottom lip while his other hand becomes preoccupied with cupping you over your pajama pants, skeletal fingers pressing in to give you some friction.

That nausea you had felt earlier returns tenfold, punishing yourself for feeling anything remotely good. The situation reminds you far too much of the last time, dipping too far into bliss. It seemed you had only blinked when the body of the lover you had found for the night was strewn across the room, spitting half eaten entrails out of your maw. He guides you to lean back against the mirror, your hand clasping over your mouth to muffle your sounds as he slips below the fabric of your nightwear.

You can feel it again, the hunger that rises to your chest. Your hands shake against your skin now, nailbeds aching with the growing of your talons. A whimper, squeezing your eyes shut. You are selfish, greedy. You’d rather relish in this than warn him, to have one moment that allows you to feel human, to feel wanted and loved.

A sudden burning feeling rips you from your thoughts, your hand had been removed from its post over your mouth and was held in his. Tears well in your eyes at the feeling, the searing pain that washed over your body and forces you to see white. It aches, branding you.

“Shit.” Is all that falls from his mouth, moving his hand away before you needily grasp it once more. Intertwining your fingers, keeping him there. The pain had forced the monster away, talons no longer threatening to protrude from your nailbeds and spine ceasing its contorting. You are lucky, graced with an opportunity to feel something beneath the endless pit in your stomach. To feel him.

“Don’t stop.” Your breathless words are more than enough to encourage his continuation, slotting himself between you legs and pressing the suddenly tight fabric of his sweatpants against you. A soft sigh falling from your lips, head tilted back, hair fluffing up on the mirror as he began to rock against you.

“I wont.” Slow, at first, as if testing the waters to gauge your reaction. Soft whines emitting from somewhere behind the skeletal teeth that were on display for you. Your hand scrunches up his hoodie, dragging his chest closer to you as he began to pick up the pace.

Needy and pathetic, his hips grinding rougher against your pajama pants, the tent in his pants catching on your covered clit; pulling a gasp from you as you arched your back. He focused his movements in that spot, up and then down to elicit soft whines and moans from you. Matching his neediness, having been touched starved for so long.

You’d grown up with depictions of heaven, imaginary white fluffy clouds somewhere high above the Earth. But here, right now, you’re more than convinced this is paradise. Rough fabrics rocking against each other, keeping you grounded on the countertop you sit on, the mirror behind you beginning to fog up with your heavy breathing. Your hands still intertwined, the harsh stinging drowned out at the near bliss you faced.

Hes sloppy now, nearing his finish far faster than you despite your state. Harsh whines fall from him as he grinds against you a few more times before panting and leaning against you. He’s winded for a moment, catching his breath, though the hand not holding yours travels back down to rub against your core.

Hes rough, guiding you to gush around nothing. You can feel your heartbeat below, drumming uncomfortably as you bury your face in the neck of his hoodie. His hand slips below your pajamas once more, continuing to tease your swollen clit and soaked folds as tears pricked at your eyes, squeezing his hand to single for him to stop.

Within a moment, he did. Ceasing the torment though not removing his hand from under your pants. Allowing your juices to pool against the cotton of your underwear before guiding his hand lower, placing his palm flat against your thigh and removing his other hand from yours. It stings, the cleansing fire emitting from him, your hand already burned as he brands your thigh with his handprint.

“Perhaps we should act like this didn’t happen… I’m sure it would make being on a team awkward.”

“I-... Yeah. Agreed. I should, um, head to bed.” Awkward you lift yourself from the counter and fix your pajama pants, slipping off the granite and setting against the cold tile floor. Your feet still hurt, though not nearly as bad as they had hurt before and surely nothing in comparison to the feeling of him against your skin.

He gives little more than a nod as you slink out the door, stumbling down the hall to find your own room and quickly running a hot bath. It would soothe you, make everything better, you deemed. Stripping to allow yourself to sink into the warmth as a sigh falls from your lips, eyes drawn to the handprint marked on your thigh.

You trace the outline with your finger, over and over almost obsessively and silently cursing him for his words. An asshole, you remembered, your least favorite in the little ragtag team. Though, with the way he had whimpered and moaned against you, you were halfway convinced you may be able to fuck the sarcasm and ill wit out of him.

[hermitknut]

Kip and Buru Tovo and opposing perspectives

OKAY so time for a little mini deep dive on my current obsession.

One of Kip's major challenges is always about coming home. About how his family and community treat him, about how they see him. From his perspective - well, it's in the opening section of Hands of the Emperor:

By the time he reached the bottom of the Spire he no longer felt like Cliopher Mdang, personal secretary to the Lord of Rising Stars, Secretary in Chief of the Private Offices of the Lords of State, official head of the Imperial Bureaucratic Service, unofficial head of the world's government, the Hands of the Emperor. He was, instead, merely everyone's Cousin Kip, the one who left.

He thinks of people back home as bafflingly insular, as unappreciative of anything outside of the ring, and he thinks that he doesn't rate highly enough to merit much from them - he's too much and not enough, as he says to Fitzroy in At the Feet of the Sun. He didn't find what he was meant to do at home, and he sees himself as without a place there. He assumes people a home barely think about him, and if they do it's trivial or negative. He doesn't doubt that they love him, and he doesn't think of them as bad people - but he doesn't feel seen or appreciated, and he's made his peace with that (well. he tells himself he has, anyway). He assumes they see him, fundamentally, as too foreign, and inadequate.

There is a lovely little microcosm example of this, when he is about to tell Buru Tovo (and his Radiancy, Rhodin, Conju, Ludvic) about his life. Kip feels the need to have a flame present in the room, even if it is only symbolic, so he gets the brazier:

He lit it with the fire-starter, knowing even as he did it that this showed a certain want in him. His great-uncle watched him narrowly, obviously noting the symbolic presence of the fire and the use of a Solaaran method of lighting it.

showed a certain want in him. Oof. But that's how he feels!

Now skip over to Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander, and there's this incredible, almost shocking shift in perspective. Because we can suddenly see what Buru Tovo can see - we can see past the snide little comments about Kip's clothes and how long he's been gone, and we can see the anxiety over his absence that drives it. Kip sees these things as people wanting to knock him down a peg, and that's not entirely untrue - but he has no idea of how much he is valued, back home. Both as a person (as we find out from Bertie's letters and some of the later scenes), and more broadly as the rising tana-tai - people care so much about what he does and what happens to him, and they are so bad at telling him that (Kip's perspective is entirely justified, given the information he has and the way people talk to him, and it hurts).

And going back to the microcosm, this is the part that always makes me pause, because look at the lighting of the brazier from Buru Tovo's perspective:

Tovo watched Kip light the fire in the velioi way, which had the merit of taking bare seconds. When the fire had caught - first try, of course it was first try -

Not only is Tovo entirely neutral on the method - he notes that it's foreign, and the pro is that it's quick, that's it! - he is immediately distracted by the fact that Kip did it on the first attempt, because of course he did, because Kip is just that good.

We don't dwell on this moment in the text, because it's immediately followed by Kip revealing to Buru Tovo that he's been practicing the fire dance, which is understandably a Big Deal. But! the contrast!! between the two versions of that moment!!! kills me every time. Kip, sunk in to the rut of his own belief in his own inadequacies, can only see a lack. He can only see something he could be doing better (as if Kip has ever done something worse than his best, I swear). And Buru Tovo, looking back at him, can only see just how brilliant he is.

Every time I come back to this I have to take a goddamn moment, so I thought I'd share. It's only a tiny moment, and of course it's a theme that the books return to at much greater length, but I really love the deft way this is done.

[wings-of-ink]

Since I'm feeling angsty after reading the "Why do you think I love you ask?" I came up with the following scenario (for Oswin alone):

So, MC learns they are not going to survive no matter what. And they should return home. By that point both Oswin's and MC's had confessed their love to each other. Yet, very much when they were about to reach MC's home so they could rest from the unsuccessful journey, MC falls from their horse.

Oswin, of course, goes to assist them. The fall, fortunately, didn't cause any damage. But even if it had, it wouldn't have changed anything. MC is about to die, and there is little to do now.

Oswin of course screams, so everyone can come. They are so close to home... Yet, maybe they won't reach them in time. Maybe Oswin alone would be the only one to be with MC when they eventually die.

MC stops Oswin with a gentle hand on his cheek. Their face, while sickly and full of sweat, somehow is as radiant as it could be. MC could be the sun, and Oswin was a simple planet orbiting around them. Their eyes, so calm, so loving. MC's voice is both tender and painfully weak as they say:

"Don't worry. It'll be fine. Could you just hold me? If there is anything in the other side... I want to go remembering your warmth... Your scent... Your embrace... Please Yarrow... Hold me, just once. I won't ask for more".

The childhood name had slipped from MC's mouth. Neither said a thing about it.

When everyone reaches them, MC is gone. A smile slowly fading from their face.

Ouch, Nony. You okay? This is rough. What makes it worse is that technically, if the curse does get the better of MC, this would happen on their 25th birthday. So yeah, that hurts a little extra, lol.

I don't have it in my soul to do a POV with this for poor Oswin (giving him a little break), but I can tell you some things he might do in response.

Not take it well, naturally. We're talking nuclear levels of not okay and unhealthy coping. It would take all his family and friends to keep him functioning and from working himself to death.

He'd change his name. No one can tell him no. If he was Yarrow in the end for MC, he will be Yarrow until the end of his days.

I don't think he could love again, not in the same way.

He'd quit is job and stay with his family, probably getting more obsessive over their care and well-being for a while. I am actually also thinking that Kip and Dov would be under this banner. I can honestly see Oswin moving in with them so they can be there for each other.

Grief would be a huge uphill battle for a tremendously long time. And it never is really over (grief never is) - time and space just lets him breathe a little easier. I think eventually he would meet some sort of peace, but it would take just so much time and working through. He would always look forward to meeting MC again in the hereafter. He secretly holds to the belief that their souls will be reincarnated together.

Thank you for the ask, Nony! We'll find something sweet today to go with this angst too. ^_^

Just a disclaimer: I don't have plans of killing off poor MC, not that life will be getting much easier for them or anything, lol. (I can't torture them if they're dead!)

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Price takes Nikolai to a gig and gets more than he bargained for.

cw: sexual content towards the end.

Price stood on the outskirts in the standing area of Liverpool's Olympia stadium tracing back the decisions that had led him to this moment. He clutched half a pint of the worst lager he had ever tasted in one hand, his fingers bending the plastic inwards under a tense grip, while the other hand remained deep in the pocket of his jeans, turning his flat keys over and over.

Nik had thrown the flyer down on his desk about a month ago, and those big brown eyes had been turned onto their pleading setting immediately. Laswell likened them to the eyes of her barrel-shaped black Labrador; big, loyal, soft, irresistible. Price had asked her whether her wife knew there would soon be a third in their marriage and she'd thumped his arm hard enough to leave a mark. "Liverpool, this is where you live," Nik had said, stating rather than asking. "Can you help me book this?"

Nikolai could fix you a handgun in Liverpool no problem, replete with silencer and enough hollow point ammunition to create a very bad night for the Merseyside police force, but booking and attending a gig was apparently too much. Price had snagged up the flyer, squinted at the band name as if he had a chance in hell of recognising it, and then agreed.

Because why the fuck not? Brass were pressuring him to book some leave so they could tick the 'monitoring mental health and well being' box on his performance management, so it was as good excuse as any. You can kip on my sofa, he'd said, I can cook a better sarnie than the Premier Inn.

Nik's entire face had lit up. "Good! And you can come with me," a single beat of breath, "or I might get lost." There has been no time to argue the point because Garrick had knocked and entered, only to be scooped into a hug with a boomed, "Gaz, my brother, good to see you!" and the Russian-shaped whirlwind had disappeared.

So Price had done just that. He'd booked two tickets at the same time as his annual leave - three days should get them off his back - and put it out of his mind.

Not that there would have been much time to mull it over; they shipped out on a week long recon mission the following day, and the fallout that followed had taken up the rest of the time. Before he knew it, he was sitting on the train with Nik opposite, watching the British countryside sprint by in a blur of green and grey, drinking a beer and playing cards.

Being around Nik was easy. It wasn't just that he didn't take up energy to entertain, or require a certain mask from Price, it was more than that. Like he slotted into a part of Price's psyche built precisely for him, and Price felt happier when he was there. Laswell said it was like Nik removed the stick from Price's arse as part of his exfil service and Price had told Laswell to fuck off.

They had spent the afternoon mooching around Price's gaff. Not much to see really, but Nik had been fascinated by the dusty family photos on Price's wall and asked after every face; mother, father, sister, two nieces, a nephew, grandparents. He'd wanted to know about them all.

Then, with an hour and a half to go before Olympia's doors opened, they'd got changed for the evening. Price had thrown on the only shirt he owned that didn't come from the bargain bin of a Mountain Warehouse or the Army Surplus catalogue - a Ralph Lauren his sister has bought him one Christmas instead of the much preferred fishing-themed memorabilia - and stepped out to be confronted by Nik in a Slayer cut off tank that showed off the sides of his torso in a way that made Price feel hot under his designer collar.

"You look," Nik had said, studying Price carefully, head tilting to the side with a wry little smirk, "ill-prepared."

"And you look like Ozzy Osbourne took some steroids so I reckon it evens out." Nik had laughed at that and thumped Price's chest, and in the next moment they were sitting in the back of a taxi, Nik talking through the set list with the same excited gusto he did when pawing over a new bird in the hanger. Price was just glad he had remembered his Loop earplugs and couldn't help but smile along at Nik's excitement.

After drinking together through the support band and watching Nik grow gradually more and more restless, Price had sent him into the pit. He stood watching Nik from afar - "your shirt is too nice, captain, you stay here and finish your beer, I'll be back," - a man ten years his senior, orchestrate what the lead singer was calling a Wall of Death. More, more, further. Don't be a pussy! And then they sprinted at each other to the crescendo of a shredding guitar. Jesus fucking christ. Price lifted his lager to drink and then hesitated; he was pretty sure he'd felt something wet slosh over his face and shoulders, into his drink, and he couldn't be sure it wasn't piss, so he put his inordinately expensive and shit lager down on the nearby bar.

The last gig he had been to was at fifteen, a year before he joined the service. 3rd November 2000 at Wembley in London; the Smashing Pumpkins. He remembered it so clearly because of the hiding his father had given him for not only hitchhiking his way to London, but stumbling home off his head on cheap vodka the morning after. There hadn't been any Walls of Death at the time.

Nik stumbled out of the melee that had followed the wall's demise just as the song ended, and a line formed down the centre of Price's brow. A knot twisted in his belly, and a little further down, at the lumbering mess of a man that approached. His tank clung to the curves of his chest, darkened with sweat, his usually neat hair ruffled and erratic, the sheen on his arms and collar bones reflecting the strobe lights and drawing Price's eye. A shiver of something that felt far too fucking much like longing ran down his spine.

"You're bleeding," Price said dumbly, his throat tight. His gaze settled on the split in Nik's lip and the blossoming bruise on his cheekbone.

"Eh," Nik huffed, wiping a smear of blood on the back of his hand. "The other guy looks worse." There was that feral little grin. The same grin Nikolai wore in the field when shit had gone Pete Tong but they had still come up golden through sheer grit, dumb luck and the precise application of violent savagery. It set a fire in Price's chest, made something feral and untamed rouse from slumber, and suddenly there was an itch beneath his skin.

"Damn fuckin' right," Price replied, reflecting Nik's grin back at him. A breath passed between them, something unspoken and wild as their eyes met. And then there was a strong hand gripping his jaw, another on his hip, pushing him into the wall behind him. His back hit home, knocking the air from his lungs, and his fists bunched in the sweat-soaked material of Nik's shirt as Nik's lips pushed to his. The coppery taste of blood mixed with cheap beer and cigar smoke, and every sane thought fell out of Price's head, replaced instead by a maelstrom of chaos centered around the feel of Nik's tongue, the softness of his lips, the demand of his teeth and the rock hard bulge that ground into Price's hips.

Price was sure his moan would have been audible but for the thump and scream of the music. Nik kept that grip on his jaw as he damn near plundered Price's mouth for what he wanted, but the other hand left his hip to push against the wall, clenched in a fist near Price's head. When they pulled apart, Price sucked in a strangled gasp of air and Nik pushed his face into the scruff of Price's beard. "Ty prekrasen," Nik breathed, "ya tebya hochu."

Price had been practicing Russian. He still couldn't read it, but even if he hadn't understood the words or the low growl in Nik's voice, the hunger in Nik's kiss on his neck would have communicated his meaning just fine. "Bloody hell," Price arched against the hard line of Nik's body, fists shaking. "Yeah. Fuck. Wait..." He shoved Nik away, just a fraction, but held onto his shirt with the same desperation. Caught in the conflict between what he wanted and another part of him that had been wounded once before. "I'm not your three a.m. shag, Nik. We clear? I don't do that. If this is--if this is what this is, then no, look at me, you hear?"

Nik let out a burst of a chuckle, eyes soft as he met Price's gaze. "John, you are and always will be my everything." He was drunk enough to struggle around the 'J' in Price's name, defaulting the zsho- inflection, but his eyes were clear as he said it.

"Fuck," Price responded, eyes wide, and Nik kissed him again, slower this time. When he stopped, Price was shaking.

"And you?" Nik breathed into his lips.

"Not here, not... I can't hear myself fucking think."

"Then home." Nik pulled him from the wall and soon they were navigating the corridors crowded with drunks and staff into the night. The cool air bristled over Price's skin, but it did little to cool the heat in his body, barely able to keep his hands off of Nik when they fell into the back of the cab. Nik sat contentedly, the backs of his fingers stroking up and down Price's forearm as he watched the city speed by.

Price's hands shook as he shoved the key in the door of his flat, and he turned just in time to be crowded across the threshold by Nik's chest. The door slammed shut and they tumbled onto the beaten up old sofa padded out with a spare duvet and pillow. Nik tore into Price's clothes remorselessly, thirty-ish quids worth of buttons skittered under Price's coffee table as the shirt was k.i.a. It didn't matter, because the feeling of Nik devouring his chest, scrubbing his stubble into sweat, hair and cologne with a deep, guttural groan, was worth every shirt Price owned and then some.

They fumbled and wrestled out of their clothes in search of skin. Nik worked his way down Price's body, wrenching his jeans and boxers over his thighs to lick a long stripe up the hard line of his prick before swallowing it in one. A strangled noise broke from Price's chest as he buried a fist in Nik's hair; the responding moan that vibrated in Nik's throat sent pleasure licking up Price's spine like tongues of flame. Nik kept him teetering on the brink, pulling away with a soft pop to work his way back up Price's body and squirm out of the baggy cargo shorts far enough to free his own cock. He took them both in one big hand and rutted forward, grabbing at the arm of the sofa behind Price's head for purchase.

Slicked by their precum and Nik's saliva, Nik fucked them both into his palm with enough pace and force to make the old sofa creak. He leaned down to kiss the moans and whimpers from Price's mouth in between growled pants of want, slipping in and out of Russian, English and some of the other eight languages he knew, like his brain had short-circuited and was spinning out. Fuckin' hot, is what it was. One of Price's hands joined Nik's, if only to feel the silky iron of his prick against another part of him. He squeezed tighter as his pleasure crested, balls pulling tight, and spilled between them.

Nik practically fucking purred with delight, thrusting against Price's spent cock until he grunted in discomfort before pulling away. No fucking way Price was letting him keep the upper hand; he snagged Nik's shorts and used them to yank him up until Nik's cum-slick cock hung over his face. His palm gripping one plentiful arse cheek, he sucked Nik into the back of his mouth, encouraging him to thrust in with a firm squeeze and low growl.

If Price had thought Nik had been loud before, the act of fucking Price's face had unearthed a whole new vocal range. Nik moaned, growled and panted like an animal, fisting Price's hair as his balls settled against the bristles on Price's chin. Price's throat spasmed, his chest ached, his damn eyes watered, but fuck he wanted Nik buried in him forever. His fingernails bit into the flesh of his arse, his spent cock flicking with interest across his belly, as Nik staked his claim. It took only a handful of deep thrusts before Nik hit his peak, buried to the hilt and spilling down Price's throat with a euphoric shout.

His grip loosened in Price's hair and he withdrew slowly, cock still twitching as it drew over Price's tongue. He replaced his prick with his mouth, kissing the taste of himself on Price's swollen lips with a bone deep moan, before lapping at the tear tracks on Price's cheeks.

At some point, Nik must have moved them to the bed, because Price resurfaced from his haze with his face on a thick, furry chest and a strong arm around his shoulders, the bedsheets draped up to their waist. Nik traced vague circles on Price's bicep, half lidded eyes unfocused as they stared at the ceiling. "I meant it," Nik said, clearly sensing Price's return from his post-fuck delirium. "Everything I said."

Price swallowed hard. How did you respond to that? Nothing in his life so far had prepared him for Nik's devotion. "I know," he murmured. "I... Me too. For a long time."

Nik shifted, rolling Price onto his back so he could look down into his eyes. "Then we make it work."

"Nik... Our lives, we... Shit could go upside down real bloody quick."

A finger pressed over his lips. "I specialise in upside down, captain."

"You just put your prick in my throat and you're still going with captain."

Nik shrugged, lopsided grin slipping back into place. "It is hot. Maybe I will fuck you in your uniform next time, hm?"

"Presumptuous, Nik..."

"Maybe over your desk." Nik sank down to kiss Price's neck.

"Cleaning lady would have somethin' to say about that."

"She is not invited. I do not share." A nip against his throat, and Price arched into Nik's chest.

"Fuck, okay... Mate, you're rabid."

"Hm, only for you."

Fuck. Only for you. Price closed his eyes as Nik's hand slid beneath the blanket. Yeah, fine, they could make this work. They could have this. They deserved it, this one thing, and fuck did Price want it bad.

[high-qualitymoron]

Deep Space Discounts trailer breakdown? i guess?

In celebration of episode 1 releasing next week! (can you believe it guys? dsd, just a week away! /reference) it’s really just my thoughts on stuff in order it appears. but there are quite a few thoughts so Long Post Warning!!

‘congratulations!’ from previous video, 'deepblueink gets blackmailed.' idk how i didnt notice that sooner lol

I assumed deedee's head was a robot head and they're a robot, but i also noticed that it has what seems like an opening around the neck, so it might be a helmet of some sort. idk

INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVE PROGRAM in all caps, obviously significant. i also have the thought that what if this is in universe. because i think it'd be funny

the scribbly thought bubble. deepblueink moment

deedee looks at camera when thought bubble says deep space discounts. idk if that’s important or anything but i noticed it!

Deedee is so suspicious. they are most definitely evil. However. they are also wearing a uniform. different than the others but still with the glowing armband which i assume is significant. So like, maybe they just work here too and have weird vibes?

walking scene. they all have different walks which show their personalities well and. augh i love the animation dbi did so good

shoutout to gub's arms moving more smoothly/wiggly-ly (??? in a wiggling manner) instead of normally like everyone else. because slime man

multiple shots of immy being stressed and doing weird stuff. idk what to say about this

another shot of the team walking, this time dancing! again, they all do it differently, with much personality! (except immy who is just walking normally/stressed)

but also where is clayre in the dance scene. i’m worried about them. and also who is this robot guy???

shots of characters doing stuff

clayre throws some guy across the room (good for them), gub is on drugs i think??, vee gets some sort of message from deedee and is sad after, and immy looks into space

voice actor reveals! if only i knew voice actors lol. anyway im going over all of them with the note 'its interesting that this is what they those to define the character'

immy is holding some kinda critter i think? we'll see them again later. vee is also there

vee is in... bed? to me it looks like they're lying down in bed with how they grip the thing in front of them, but its probably not. idk what it is

deedee talking to camera. guy (mannequin?) in front of deedee has 'i <3 dsd' shirt on. probably something they sell?

honestly idk what kip is doing. some weird hand motion

gub looks like they're whining about being told to do something. based on surroundings probably cleaning the bathrooms?

clayre is about to throw something again i think. they like to do that it seems

i was saying that deedee has a uniform and armband so i think they're less suspicious. yknow who doesn’t have a uniform or (visible) armband? xancis. they are also no where else in the trailer, and all they do is turn towards the camera. even more obviously evil than deedee

immy holding the weird creature-thing again. it moves a bit and others in the background have reactions. clayre and vee look pretty happy, but kip and gub seem upset

another walking loop, not on screen long enough for me to tell if it's the same one, and deedee winks at the camera

the end!

thanks for reading so much, and also sorry. my phone wasn't loading anything else one day and a whole class period with nothing to do but watch this on loop may have driven me a bit insane (positive). also um does anyone know these character's pronouns. do we have that officially anywhere? because i dont want to assume

[vodika-vibes]

Hey Pretty Girl

Summary: After the war, Echo picks up music as his hobby. And it wins him a girlfriend.

Pairing: ARC Trooper Echo x Reader

Word count: 896

Warnings: Fluff

Song: Hey Pretty Girl by Kip Moore

Divider by saradika

“Any new talent playing tonight?” You ask the bartender as you lean against the bar waiting for your drink.

The other woman laughs, “Of course we do! There’s a new guy who sounds a-maz-ing,” She gushes as she places your drink on the counter in front of you, “And he’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“Ooh. High praise coming from you,” You joke before taking a sip of your drink.

“Right? I mean most of the guys who come in here for these shows look, well, like trolls. But this guy…” She mock swoons over the bar, and you laugh. “If I wasn’t happily married, and, you know, very gay, I would climb him like a tree.”

You shoot her a look of amusement, “Well then, I’d better get a good seat.”

“I saved you a spot up front, baby doll!” She cooed to you, “You need a good man in your life. And your bed.”

“Wow. It’s tragic that you think you're funny.”

“Your love life is tragic, babe. Now, go catch yourself a man!”

You roll your eyes and head to the front of the club, easily finding the table that was saved for you. You settle on one of the stools and sip your drink as the club slowly fills.

Eventually the lights dim, and the music lessens, and the owner of the club announces the 22nd live artist show, and you settle in to enjoy yourself. 

The first few artists were okay. Not great, but not terrible. 

And then the third artist steps on stage. He’s absolutely gorgeous, with dark eyes and curly hair just long enough to bury your hands in. And he’s carrying a guitar.

The bar falls silent as he starts playing, and somehow, his gaze locks with yours. And he smiles, slow and lazy. And then he starts singing, “Hey pretty girl, won’t you look my way-”

You listen as he sings, and it feels like he’s singing directly to you.

And soon, too soon, the song is over and he’s leaving the stage, and you know, just know, that you have to meet him. So you down your drink as quickly as you can and you slip back towards the bar, intending to ask the bartender to get you a meet and greet.

But it was unnecessary, because he, apparently, had the same idea.

“Hi,” He greets, his gaze locked with yours.

“Hi,” Your mouth is dry and you feel like you should be nervous, but, somehow, you aren’t, “You’re a really good singer.”

He smiles at you, and your stomach flips, “Thanks. I needed a hobby when the war ended, and I chose music.” He offers you his hand, “Echo.”

You take his hand and introduce yourself with a bright smile, “Well, you definitely picked the right hobby.” You praise, and there is a thrill of delight when pink dusts across his cheeks.

“Thanks. It was my brother's idea, actually, for me to try this.” He gestures to the bar, “Do…would you like to go somewhere else? To just…talk?”

Your smile widens, “You know, I would actually.”

Echo shifts, almost nervously, “Maybe, we could go next door?”

“To the dance club?” You ask.

“Yeah. I like dancing.” Echo replies with an easy smile.

“As it happens, so do I.” You reply as you take a half step closer to him. 

“Good to know,” He lightly places his hand on the small of your back and guides you out of the club, and to the dance club right next door.

And as soon as you’re inside, he leans in so his mouth is right next to your ear, “Hey pretty girl, can I have this dance? And the next one after that?”

You blush, deeply flustered, but you favor him with a bright smile, “You can.”

He grins at you, and spins you onto the dance floor, pulling you close against him and holding you tight.

One dance turns to two. And then three.

You lose track of just how many songs you share with Echo, lost in his warm gaze, and the tight way that he’s holding you, like he’s afraid that if he lets you go, you’ll vanish into the night. 

You cling to him just as tightly though, so you’re not going to be too judgemental.

Slowly, like two stars caught in each other's orbit, his head leans in and you lean up, until your lips meet in a kiss that’s sweet and gentle and everything that you ever dreamed of in a kiss. 

One kiss turns into two, which turns into three.

And Echo drags you off the dance floor, to a slightly more secluded corner, where he kisses you over and over and over. And you lose yourself in him, but he loses himself in you at the same time.

“Pretty Girl,” He murmurs against your lips, “Can I walk you home?”

You press against him and kiss him again and again, “Yes.”

His gaze locks with yours, and his fingers are warm against the skin of your hip, “Oh, pretty girl,” He sounds adoring, “Can I stay with you?”

You trail your lips across his cheek and jaw, “Yes,” You murmur, “Please.”

And he smiles.

True to his word, Echo walks you home. And he stays.

And he doesn’t leave until noon the following day. Though by the time he leaves, you’re his girlfriend.

[kindheart525]

Dottieverse Fun Facts

Just a list of random fun facts about the Dottieverse cast! I've done separate posts on some of these tidbits but I wanted to put all the info in one place and add some bits that might not warrant posts on their own

I’ll keep editing this post as I come up with more fun facts! This isn’t complete by any means so keep checking back for more. Please feel free to suggest some too and maybe they’ll be added to the list!

Dottie Dompler

Her favorite drink is boba tea

Writes film reviews on Letterboxd in her free time

Doesn’t remember what she studied in college as she spent most of her time there picking up dudes

Keeps two diaries: One for general thoughts and feelings and another exclusively for documenting her love life in detail

Has an OnlyFans

Actually has some ex-girlfriends (one or two from experimenting in college and a few trans lady exes who presented as male when she dated them)

Kip Pimling

Is left-handed

Loves Chappell Roan and other similar artists

Used to do musical theater in middle school and still loves to do karaoke

Started seeing a therapist as an angsty preteen and still goes regularly for mental health upkeep

Sucked her thumb to self-soothe until she was 5 years old

Now she fidgets with her hair when stressed

She and Dottie dressed up for the Barbie movie 30th anniversary theater re-release (in 2053)

Got her B.A. in psychology fully online so she could stay in her hometown and intern for Smiling Friends

Whenever someone is bigoted or just plain mean in her presence she donates to corresponding charities in their name (ex: meeting a queerphobe and donating to an LGBTQ organization for them)

Ell Pimling

Giorno’s nickname for her is “Slowpoke”

Fucking horrible at driving; always goes way over the speed limit

When she wants to talk to a tall person she just climbs them

Her taste in women overlaps with Giorno's so they often bond by gushing over attractive female athletes together

Nee Pimling

Has a small, persistent bruise on his bicep where he pinches himself every time his conscience “acts up”

Dur Pimling

Secretly skilled in graphic design; all of the advertisements for his and Nee’s laundromat were made by him

Blep Simpson

Multilingual in Wingon, Latin, American Sign Language, Hebrew, and English (which she never speaks but can understand)

Gola Simpson

Talks with Allan’s inflection and pronunciation style

Wore a wig as a teenager out of insecurity

Giorno Simpson

Ell’s nickname for him is “Twiggy”

His social media is mostly full of videos of him doing various workouts but he also has a "making fun of short people" series which has featured Suzy, Eep, Chad, and Ell

Secretly very good at singing but he isn’t super open about it

Glorp Simpson

Suzy Simpson

Owns a vast collection of hats to wear for every occasion

Is a horse girl; she owns a little pony named Rapunzel with a long mane that matches hers

Really wants to do coordinated Halloween costumes with Eep, but since Eep will never go out with her she does it with her niece Royal instead

Eep Simpson

Has a collection of hair bows much like Suzy’s hat collection; they share a literal “hats and bows” closet

Very prone to anxiety-induced stomachaches

Terrified of Halloween

Chad Simpson

Enjoys collecting fancy watches, and also has some silly kid ones from his sisters

Likes horses like Suzy does, but he doesn't like dirt so he bonds with her over sharing facts and watching races rather than riding them

Crawdad Crustacean

Has a southern accent that comes and goes

Chucky Dompler II

His Zodiac sign is Cancer (born in July)

Was born a full two weeks past his due date

Very skilled in Dungeons and Dragons

Pim “Beef” Pimling-Simpson II

Lost his legs from getting them tangled in holiday lights and falling down the stairs

When strangers in public ask him why he doesn’t have legs, he makes up different horrible stories about how he lost them to make them regret asking

[blackjackkent]

A drabble dedicated to @rhysintherain because this has been living rent-free in my head since I posted yesterday about Rakha and Lae'zel going to shake down Zorru:

------

Karlach settles into camp quickly. She has spent a lot of time on the move as part of Zariel's army, and part of being a soldier is being able to make herself comfortable in any random bit of space big enough for a kip. Hells - having her own tent and space around it is practically palatial compared to the bunkroom full of cambions that was her primary resting place in Avernus.

Almost the first thing she does as soon as she's got her tent set up is sprawl out on the ground and stretch her arms and legs out as far as they'll go in all directions and let the sun beat down on her. It's not really home, not quite yet, but it's close. This is the happiest she's been in a long time.

She's halfway to dozing off for a comfortable nap when she realizes Rakha has wandered back and is just...standing there, staring at her.

Karlach opens one eye and peers up at the half-orc curiously. "Can I help you?"

She's already learning that her new friend is kind of a strange one, even without what she's been told about the other woman's memory loss and intrusive murder thoughts. Rakha doesn't always seem to know how to talk, and certainly not what normal conversation sounds like; she just says things, blunt and clipped, without concern for niceties. And she blinks just slightly too little, which makes her steady gaze a smidgen unnerving.

"I have a question," she says.

"Oh?" Karlach sits up slowly into a cross-legged position, jerks her head to indicate Rakha should sit down. "Well, let's hear it, then."

Rakha does not sit - does not, in fact, move at all. "Your race. Is it tiefling or teeth-ling?" she asks, with the same level of gravity she might have brought to ripping Karlach's head off.

Karlach blinks rapidly. "Sorry, what?"

"You are like those in the grove. The refugees," Rakha says. It's not a question, merely a collection of facts gathered for appraisal. "Gale called you tieflings, after we killed two rescuing Lae'zel. Lae'zel, however, pronounced it teeth-lings." She squints at Karlach intently. "I require your clarification."

"Oh." It's not really fair to laugh - and really, Karlach's amusement isn't at Rakha's lack of knowledge. It's the incredible seriousness of the demand, as if this question lies on par with all the unanswered ones about the worms in their heads. "Well, I can understand the confusion," she says, keeping her expression serious with an extreme effort of will.

"Yes." Rakha folds her arms. "Lae'zel would not mislead me, I think," she adds pensively after a slight pause. "She guided me from the nautiloid. She speaks with knowledge and without pretense."

"And Gale doesn't?" Karlach grins crookedly.

Rakha's expression twists with something like confusion. "I do not understand Gale," she admits slowly. "He knows much I wish to learn. But I feel foolish when he speaks."

"Too many words," Karlach agrees commiseratingly.

"Yes."

Well, it's almost an act of kindness, then, if that's how she feels about it, Karlach thinks to herself. A morale boost for her friendship with Lae'zel. It'd be doing her a favor.

But really, it's just the fact that it's the first time she's had the opportunity to do something funny in almost a decade, and she's not emotionally strong enough to resist that temptation.

"Well, I can tell you for certain, it's definitely teeth-ling," she says, serious as a funeral. "Lae'zel was right on top of it."

Rakha nods gravely. "Ah. Excellent." A pause. "Thank you."

She turns and walks away. Karlach crawls at once into her tent, curls into her bedroll, stuffs the pillow in her mouth, and howls with laughter.

-----

"This is your doing, isn't it?" Gale asks her several days later.

"No idea what you're talking about," Karlach says around a mouthful of the camp's latest attempt at "stew". It's a particularly unimpressive attempt tonight; the vast majority is carrots, and the rest is a very uninspiring cut of meat that is uncomfortably grey. And yet, somehow, it's still better than anything Zariel ever fed her.

"Rakha called Zevlor a teeth-ling to his face this afternoon."

Karlach lets out strangled giggle. "Oh, my gods. Seriously?" She drops her spoon back into her bowl with a clatter and gives him her full attention. "Tell me everything. What did his face look like?"

"Even my prodigious powers of description fail me on the subject. I think we may count ourselves lucky that he was too perplexed to be offended," Gale says dryly. "But most significantly to the point, any attempts to correct her afterwards have come to naught. She claimed that you were responsible for this particular crime against pronunciation and considered the matter irrevocably closed."

"Hmph," Karlach says cheerfully. "It was Lae'zel who came up with it. I just confirmed it."

He rolls his eyes. "You're enjoying this linguistic catastrophe, aren't you?"

"Listen, Gale - she's not hurting anyone, and the last time I had a little stupid harmless fun was 1481. Give me a break."

[ehlnofay]

The Founder!

the founder : foundations, community.

Old Lady Silda (who isn’t actually that old) is sitting cross-legged under a shop awning, ignoring Torr with all her might.

“Please,” Torr says, again. “I saw you. I know you can.”

The purse she’d lifted from a passerby’s hip, easy as anything, lies sedately beneath her knee. Torr’s sat back on his haunches with his feet flat on the ground. The snow hasn’t reached the spot under the awning yet, so he’s not getting wet, but it’s falling, feathery-soft. It doesn’t look likely to get bad, especially not this far into spring, but he told the kids to stick around the Grey Quarter alleys just in case, not far from the Cornerclub – Torr’s only been out here a few months, but already he’s learned that Ambarys is a better bet than most of the temples when it comes to begging for a roof over your head, which is a pretty damning indictment of the temples seeing as Ambarys is an utter prick. Which Torr means in the most graciously grateful way, of course. He doesn’t do charity, but as long as they’re able to scrounge up some way of paying for the privilege they’re okay. With the temples you have to beg and scrape and hope they’re in the mood to put you up, and Torr’s found, the last few months, that he doesn’t mind begging and he doesn’t mind scraping and he doesn’t mind lying or stealing or cheating but he can’t fucking stand waiting around hoping. Can’t stand trying and trying and not even knowing if anyone will listen.

Talking to Silda is proving difficult.

Not-really-Old Lady Silda looks at them now – hair threaded through with silver, only one eye focusing properly on their face – and she says, with her wobbly sort of impatience, “I’m not a schoolmarm. Go home, lad.”

Torr’s first thought (you go home!) is the kind of childish shit they can’t really afford, now, so they hunch over onto their knees to shield from the wet drifting wind and they make their cracking voice curt and serious and they say, “My parents died in Morning Star. I’ve got my sisters and my brother. Teach me how to pick pockets.” It seems like less of a production than housebreaking – which they’re no real good at in any case. They don’t know where to find the valuables, and they’re too antsy about being seen. If they got arrested they’d all be fucked.

A gaggle of people pass by, cloaked and chattering, stamping flat footprints into the snow. Torr looks at it, at the dirt in it.

“I’ll trade you,” he says.

Silda is watching the group of people go, but he still sees her raise an eyebrow. She asks, “Trade me what?”

How should Torr know what she wants? “Anything. Whatever.” They flick a hand, fingers stinging red in the springtime cold snap. Been ages since not having gloves bit this hard. “Whatever you want – I’ll get it to you.” They can’t imagine she could want anything so complicated they couldn’t figure it out. They kept the kids alive through the winter and the bitter slush of early spring – they’ve got a couple gigs running errands here and there – they’ve managed. They’ll manage.

(They’re meeting people; making connections. Ambarys – the washerwoman that pays them to do deliveries every other Tirdas – the people in the marketplace who’ll fork out a few coins for someone to help them set up and carry shit. Silda, omnipresent beggar and pickpurse who they’ve seen on street corners for their whole life, wouldn’t be a bad person to know, they think.)

“You’re a shit haggler,” says Silda, sounding vaguely pleased. Her left eye doesn’t quite focus on anything she’s looking at; it drifts upward, to the mould-edged canvas of the awning. Above that, the blank white sky. Is the snow slowing? Torr hopes the snow is slowing. With any luck they won’t even need to cajole Ambarys into letting them kip in the corner. (It’s almost impressive, the way he is; the sheer dedication of a quite nice sort of man, when you get down to it, to acting like an asshole. Torr wonders if Silda is the same way. She’s kind of talking like she’s making fun of them.)

“’M not haggling,” Torr says, anyway. He rubs his hands together. It doesn’t really help. His right little finger is always flushed these days, like permanent frostnip. “You help me, I’ll help you. That’s all.”

Silda says, “You’re a little boy.”

That grates, a bit. (Torr bets they’re as tall as her, as much as she slumps; Torr’s not little in any sense of the world. They threw all that out with the bathwater. He’s a little boy like a feral dog is a house pet.) He bites his cheek, teeth grazing the old marks of chewing there, and he shrugs, and he says, “The others are littler.”

A bit of snow falls off the edge of the awning to land on the ground with a poof.

Silda looks at him. There’s a faint scar on her chin. With finality, she tells him, “Ten gold.”

Ten gold – “Are you serious?”

“Proper minted,” she says, implacable. “None of that hack shit. Call it your first lesson – set a cap on what you’re offering.”

“I asked to learn to lift purses, not how to bargain.” Torr wraps their hand around their little finger; lifts their chin and sets their jaw. “And I said anything on purpose. Show me how and I’ll get the money to you.”

(Ten full gold is no small change, but if she teaches him right the whole endeavour will basically pay for itself.)

Silda wipes her mouth with a knuckle. Her teeth are small and yellow. ���All right,” she says, something appraising in her face. Snow dribbles down from the awning again. She knuckles at her cheek. “And tell your sister to stop digging through my stuff. I keep seeing the dark-haired one messing with my spots.”

A blink. “I don’t have a sister with dark hair,” Torr says; she looks at him with scepticism, and he says, “I don’t. I don’t know where you keep your stuff. But if I see someone doing that I’ll tell them to knock it off.”

“Do,” Silda says firmly. The street has drizzled out to almost empty; with a quickness that belies the scabbed, quavering fragility of her hands, she takes the purse from under her knee and tucks it into the band of her skirt. The purse is blue. The skirt looks like it might have been too, once. Torr exhales their relief, and it crystallises in the air, pale as smoke.

[farolero-posting]

Who would swap with who in a Swap AU of OneShot:

Here’s what I already have

Prophetbot and Prototype

Silver and Kip

Alula and Calamus

Also the Solstice trio will keep their memories and be so confused but know they must fulfill their roles

Ooooo ok so this is a tough one! The toughest part comes from counting how many characters you wanna consider and how to get the most out of the AU. I'll give you a Long explanation of how I'd work things out. Anyone can feel free to add your own ideas as well!

Traditionally the Barrens would have 3 (Silver, Prophetbot, Prototype), the Glen has 5 (Calamus, Alula, Magpie, Maize, Cedric), and Refuge ranges from 5 to 7 (Lamplighter, Ling, Kip, George, Rue, and then add Watcher and Mason, for example). The World Machine may or may not be swapped, but in my opinion the only one fitting to swap with it is like, Niko. So that's a pair that's outside the 13-15 characters mentioned. The Author probably wouldn't count at all either.

Let's see. Silver - Kip, and Calamus - Alula makes a ton of sense. They're pretty intuitive swaps.

The Solstice trio is tricky, but not because of themselves but about who switches with them. Like you either rotate them so Proto takes Cedric's place who takes Rue's place who takes Proto's place (or in reverse). Or you have to choose someone Else to take their roles. Would these characters gain awareness of the simulation? Would they be related with each other in some way? Is the character in Cedric's place also piloting a flying machine or another transportation? Is the character on Rue's place a talking animal or are species kept the same?

Let's try to fit in other characters, though. I'll keep Prophetbot - Prototype because it's an easy parallel, and... Maybe add Maize - Rue. These two make sense to me because they're both one of a kind in terms of species, and seem like comforting and wise characters. They share this nostalgia and hope, but while Maize is pretty much doomed to die, Rue is betting on a second chance. They are both hidden too.

Cedric is harder. On one hand you could switch him with George, as being the closest to the Author, and one of them representing hands-on knowledge versus theory based knowledge. I could see Cedric becoming a librarian, and would make sense to have him involved with his writing. George could have one hell of a role if she had self awareness of the simulation. The other option is Plight, because they'd both share overworking habits, but Plight is pretty self conscious about his knowledge. Plight would be interesting in a high pressure situation, and I wonder what Cedric would do in Plight's position as well.

So to recap:

Proto - Prophetbot

Silver - Kip

Calamus - Alula

Maize - Rue

George - Cedric

Magpie - undefined

Lamplighter - undefined

Ling - undefined

(if you add Mason and Watcher they'd probably swap with each other)

In the end what you can do to fix this is either create a trio of swaps with Magpie, Plight and Ling, or add another character to swap like Kelvin. Imagine Magpie swapping with Ling and Plight swapping with Kelvin maybe.

There are very few rules in swap AUs and I think there isn't one single way to do this really. You just need to know the roles each character fills in and how they do it with their own personality. Like, what would a carefree character like Alula be like if she was an older sister?

Besides that, you can ask yourself a lot of setting questions right? Is this a Canon divergence? Is this some code corruption? How does TWM feel about this? Can it do something? Or was this always meant to be and it's a fully parallel universe? How much of their personalities are kept and how much changes?

Anyways, I hope I gave you ideas to work with.

[the-present-is-a-gift-au]

Chapter 36: In Which Twig Is Put Back Together

I told them everything. And I did it crying harder than I thought was mortally possible, Twig scratched onto the pages of a hardcover journal. I blabbed everything and I did it while dribbling all over them both. I think they were more grossed out by the dribbling part than the ‘me indirectly killing an entire bunker of people’ part. I tried the same garbage as always to argue my point that it was my fault, and Celebi looked ready to slap me. I think she honestly might have if Dusknoir didn't grab her midair and walk her away in his hand. It's a good thing he did, because I started crying even harder when Grovyle said something like he's glad I survived the fire and Kip gave me the saddest look ever. He started crying too. I don't think anyone should see two people bawling their eyes out and clinging to each other like we were. It was kind of gross. If Dusknoir and Celebi stayed to watch, I might have died of shame. Grovyle being there was hard enough. 

The Future Trio stayed over for a while longer at Kip's place. There was a lot of talking that happened, and I honestly don't remember a lot of it. I should have written it down as it happened. Basically it was just people talking circles about how they couldn't believe I thought they hated me and how I meant a lot to them. I think I fell asleep mid-sentence at one point because I was so worn out from the crying. I'm never crying again. The one time during the hug was okay— it was fitting. But Celebi gave me an English dictionary before they all packed up and left, and I didn't even realize I was crying until she was grabbing for tissues. That felt pretty ridiculous. It's just a book. But it almost felt like she’d given me a drink of water the night I left my bunker behind. Dunno how to say it in a normal way, but it helped me feel better. 

It's a real one. She found a real Oxford Language Dictionary. It's missing pages and dogeared to heck and back, but Arceus, this thing is like my baby. I keep taking it off the shelf just to hold it in my hands. I'm sure she had to have pulled some strings with Dialga to bring something like this back from the past or future or whatever, but she kept saying it wasn't any problem to get. Judging by the look Grovyle gave her, it was a big problem to get, but I'm glad she went through it to give it to me. There’s even etymology included for a lot of the words in it. Pronunciations and everything. It's gold. 

What else to say… When Dusknoir said to try keeping a journal, I didn't think it would be so hard to decide what to write! As always, his ideas are annoying and weirdly effective. It does feel like I'm not as frazzled now that I'm writing regularly. What else to include, though… 

Kip asked me if I wanted to move back in with him. I tried to, but I actually got homesick for Verdant Village after a while. We decided to just keep a room open for each other at each of our places so that we can crash at either house whenever we want to. He loves the library in Verdant Village whenever he comes over. I'm pretty sure the Swadloon that runs it has a crush on him, but I don't think he knows. I'm eager to see how long it takes for him to realize it. 

I finally took up Gardevoir on her offers to have me over for dinner. Lyra never fails to show off some new toy or trinket to me whenever I come visit. At first I thought that she just wanted to talk to someone new about her things, but it clicked for me the other day that she wanted to talk to me in particular about them. That… um. It was weird. Nice, but really weird. She's a good kid. 

I wonder if Manaphy is old enough to visit Treasure Town by now… I need to figure out how to contact Walrein. It's hard to send letters underwater, I think, but I'll figure something out. 

She set the journal aside and stretched her arms and back, rolling her shoulders as she stood up from the writing desk Kip had begged her to buy. It was more than worth the investment. She was never writing using the floor as a table again. Her entry for the day written, she stepped out into the warm sunlight trickling between the leaves overhead and started her usual routines. She chopped firewood, she brought water in from the spigot at the edge of her property to wash the dishes from last night, she went to the market and got some peppers that seemed like something fun to try cooking with. It was her day off between running her shop and going dungeon delving, so she decided to go for a walk like usual to kill time before she'd need to meet up with Gallade for Lyra's exploration lessons. 

The hiking trails were well-kept in Verdant Village, sometimes to the point of being better maintained than the main roads that people traveled through town with. Twig had discovered a number of real hidden gems since she'd moved back in, and she made use of them as often as possible. 

Oddly enough, apparently Darkrai frequented the trail she was on right then as well. 

She hadn't seen him since the day she bore her soul to everyone she'd been keeping secrets from. He'd vanished somewhere between their argument and the hug that sent her spiraling head first into all the heartbreak she'd been refusing to acknowledge, and he hadn't shown his face in the months after. Celebi kept in touch with him via telepathy and responded to Twig's occasional request for an update on where the heck is this guy and what the heck is he doing by saying that he was doing some traveling and thinking. Twig could believe the thinking bit— Darkrai was calculating and cautious, and Ark was analytical and prone to deliberation— but really? Traveling? It seemed strange to imagine the Legend as being a globetrotter all of a sudden. But then again, he had taken in all the sights on the way to Cresselia’s mountain with such awe and enthusiasm that it was easier to imagine him enjoying that sort of thing than she thought it should be. 

He was supposed to be traveling. He was supposed to be on some sort of quest of soul-searching and pondering. But here he was, several yards off the path, hidden in the foliage and tucked within the shadows. 

“Dude,” Twig eloquently began, “I can see you.”

There was a moment of hesitation before he rose from the shadows, plainly bewildered by her ability to pick him out amongst the dappled shade of the trail. 

She sighed. “You're still you–shaped when you do that. You mess up the rest of the shadows around you. And you're… I dunno how to put it, your shadow is noisy, I guess. If that even makes sense.” 

He hummed a low note. 

“I don't think I ever thanked you for what you did. Um. I appreciate it. Or at least I do now.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you have to thank me for?”

“Ark, I'm not stupid. It was pretty obvious looking back on things that you waited until I was in earshot of the gang to start really getting under my skin with what you asked me. If you hadn't, and if they hadn't overheard me chewing you out for it, I probably wouldn't have said anything to anyone about…” She waved a hand. “It's because you did that that I've been doing better, even if it's indirectly.”

“I see.”

“So, uh… How you been?” 

“Well enough,” he answered, and did not elaborate. 

She frowned. “Cool. Have you seen anything neat on your travels?”

“Many things.” 

“Many, huh? Stuff like…?”

“Nothing leaps to mind.”

He's way less chatty now. Weird. “When…” She leaned against a tree opposite to him and fidgeted with her hands, trying to summon the courage to ask him a question that had been eating away at her for months. “When did your memories come back?”

He gave her a wary look. “Why this interest?”

“I've had some other stuff come back for me while you were gone. I wanted to ask so I could get an idea of what's triggering their returns. It seems random at times.” 

Darkrai looked away for a moment, hackles raising. “It was… on the expedition we embarked on. You took a hit intended for myself. I recalled a young human doing the same for a grovyle, and somehow understood that it was you in the memory, though that was only the first to return.”

“The first—? You really only remembered that one snippet?”

“It was in bits and pieces that the entirety of my memory returned; a gradual process. Your rejection of my request to join Team Venture was when everything fell into place and I understood what the scattered recollections meant.”

That gave her pause. “You knew then? And you didn't say anything until I totally healed up from my leg getting broken?”

“It was… difficult to reconcile the perceptions I had of you. On the one hand, you were an adversarial nuisance who foiled my every effort to achieve anything. On the other, you had showed me a care I had not received in living memory and given me a new perspective.”

Huh. Celebi wasn't kidding about me changing his mind. Wonder how I managed that. “I can get that. It took me a bit to get used to the idea of you being so different when Cresselia first met you.”

He gave her a vicious glare, cold and poisonous. 

“Calm down. I'm not going to let anything slip about your past, especially when you haven't blabbed about mine. Thanks for that, by the way. Dunno if I could've handled Dark Crater if you had said anything back then.”

His glare twitched, venomousness flickering as it gave out into something softer, though schooled by an uneasy sternness. “My failure to blab did not come from a place of kindness at that point. It was leverage I didn't intend to give up. Surely you can grasp that.”

“I can. Doesn't change the fact you didn't say anything before I did.”

Silence. Leaves brushed together in quiet whispers as the wind passed through the treetops. The air was heavy around them. Twig could smell rain on its way. 

“I'm sorry,” he finally said, and Twig realized she hadn't been able to pick out the mournful crease of his brow or the barely noticeable desperation in his posture when she first met him in Mount Travail all that time ago. Before, he was practically unreadable to her. Now she was able to see the nervous twitch in his fingers, the hesitancy in his volume. He’d always seemed so closed-off in her mind’s eye, but he had swiftly become an open book, given time. 

She blinked, taken aback by his words. The shame in them, the disgust with himself— it was obvious he wasn't apologizing only for holding her past as leverage, and it was an apology he didn't expect to be accepted. 

“Hey.” She punched him in the arm, earning a startled grunt. “You got somewhere to stay?”

He squinted at her. “No.”

“I've got a bunch of spare rooms if you're down.” 

“If I'm—?” His eyes widened, then narrowed. “You're making fun of me.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“I…” He tilted his head slightly, looking like he was trying to pick out a seed of sarcasm he was convinced lay in her words. “If you're certain it is well with you.”

She nodded as a sense of heaviness lifted from her. Somehow, a weight she'd been carrying was taken away by those words. “I'm gonna finish my hike. Let's walk and talk; Celebi made it sound like you saw every corner of the globe and I want to hear the highlights.”

She started off down the path,  Darkrai falling into her wake as she passed. “Globes don't have corners. Not having corners is the entire purpose of a globe.” He sighed. “I suppose I could enlighten you. There was a number of locations you’d likely have found interesting. One in particular had a population that prided themselves on preserving a number of human words and phrases in their daily language…”

Twig enjoyed going for walks alone. It turned out she like to go for walks with company even more. 

***

Life was surprisingly mundane despite Twig having a Legend for a roommate. Darkrai insisted that Twig fill her house up with a more typical amount of furnishings, and Twig asked him what exactly she should fill the empty rooms with. He was at a loss and didn't answer. She had her suspicions that he hadn't been in many homes before, but didn't push him on the subject. She eventually figured out she'd been living almost exclusively out of her living room and that the numerous guest rooms in the back of the house were actually a study, a bedroom, and a pair of guest rooms, and that she should probably populate them with the proper furniture accordingly. Given time, Gardevoir no longer looked like she was going to have a conniption whenever she visited, and Twig was actually kind of proud of the decor she put together. 

It was during the evening as she looked over a bookcase she'd arranged a few books and keepsakes on, and she thought that she liked how she'd done it, that it occurred to her that this was the first time she could remember feeling proud of herself without any strings attached. She just liked how she'd angled a potted plant next to a stack of books. That was all. There was no baggage of doing it to make up for her being worthless or an awful, burdensome person— she'd simply done it for her own sake, and she liked what she'd done. That felt… weird. It felt weird, and scary in a number of ways. But she didn't run from it. She doubled down on her newfound pleasure in filling her home with pretty things. 

It was dumb to take so much joy in something so stupid. She didn't even have any system she used to decorate— she just stuck things where they looked nice with no rhyme or reason or even color palette to keep the baubles cohesive in their looks. It was dumb. But it was something that made her happy. It wasn't her usual kind of happy, either. This wasn't a flashbang of cheerfulness that faded fast and left her empty— it was quiet and warmed her bones even in the dead of night when she fought herself to get over her anxiety and insomnia and just sleep. 

It was easier to fight her insomnia hearing someone else moving about the house at night. Ark was quiet, but the muffled thud of a cabinet closing or a door creaking open as he went from room to room helped her feel like she could give up on her desperate need to be awake and aware at all times. She hadn't thought that sharing a home with him would ever be reassuring, but here she was— she'd woken up from a nightmare of her mind’s own making, another memory that the lunar feather hanging on her wall couldn't dissuade when it was busy canceling out Darkrai's aura already— gasping for breath and finally catching it when she heard the Legend getting himself a drink from the next room over. 

Her memories hadn't come back to her any more than they already had— it was still just those handfuls of images, of the days leading up to how she left her bunker to burn and now one nighttime vignette of Grovyle soothing her as a kid as well, that haunted her sleeping and waking hours. She wondered why her memories hadn't returned to her completely by now, especially when Darkrai's had despite him having amnesia for so much less time. Sometimes she wondered if maybe they'd never come back. But it was becoming more common these days for her to think that it wouldn’t be surprising if they were just dormant and waiting for a safe time to come back into the light. Given time, she was increasingly sure her past was bound to return to her in full, for better or for worse. 

She looked up from her journal. She wasn't writing a real entry at the moment, just flipping through old ones and adding a date here or there where she'd forgotten to include them. Ark was sat at the dining table, one of the heavier books he'd added to her collection sitting untouched before him as he instead pored over a thin book of fairy tales. It had been strange to get used to Darkrai and Ark being truly the same, but she supposed he had to get used to her being herself as well, so they were fairly even on that front. And besides— he still held a tambour and needle in the same way. 

She guessed not much had changed at all, in the end. He was still himself, whatever that meant, and she was still whoever Twig was. She still struggled to wrap her head around people loving her, but she was starting to see that there were some things about her worth caring about. There was still healing to do. There was so much of it that Twig found herself intimidated by recovery most days. There was so much healing to do ahead, but in the end, things had changed, just a little. She had some hope now. The past was still an enigma, the future was uncertain, but between the two sources of so much grief and anxiety lay something she was finally seeing as precious and lovely. The present was an excellent gift to receive, after all.  

She intended to cherish it.

[highfiveheroes]

⭐️ tell us about any section from now I breathe flames>:)

AAAH OKAY

listen this isn't my FAVORITE section but it certainly means a lot to me because i had to work So Hard On It. canon being fictionalized..........and fucking bleem making it So much harder for me because he didn't give us ANY behind the scenes.......

it's fine. i'm proud of this.

What are you trying to forget, Kipperlilly? It’s been too long since she had checked up on the Bad Kids. Oh, she’ll be in for it later, when she realizes—they must know something. Fuck, they must know something, and no wonder Jace has been texting her nonstop to stop being so sloppy— What are you trying to forget, Kipperlilly? Why are you so mad, Kip? "It's really nice how charmed everyone is," she says, the words tumbling out in her sudden fury. She doesn’t know what her face betrays, but every inch of her is tensed as she tries to keep herself at the brink. She asked for this rage, and that means she can’t let it get away from her. Fuck, she can’t let it get out of control, not now, not now— "It’s really nice how charmed everyone is by how little you fucking care." Her smile is fixed in place. She feels like a porcelain doll, cracking at the edges, and she needs to walk away—she gets a message from Oisin saying as much, in fact, but she doesn’t turn as they approach behind her. "I guess egg on my face for wanting something." "What do you want?" Kristen asks. As if she cares. As if this whole candidacy wasn’t a fucking joke to her from day one. As if Kristen fucking Applebees hadn’t just waltzed in with three dead gods on her hand and decided to ruin Kipperlilly’s whole life, her whole future, on the whimsical decision that Kipperlilly’s energy had been wrong. As if Kipperlilly was nothing more than a silly little stock character in the story of the Bad Kids, one never made to be fleshed out beyond her first appearance— "I want you to go fuck yourself," she says suddenly. Behind her, she can feel Oisin’s anger pulse in tandem with the rest of the party’s. Idiot. There’s something of an uproar; Fabian Seacaster starts yelling, Kristen jumps behind a few people, and that imbecile Figerouth Faeth starts acting like a fucking guard dog again. Kipperlilly can barely see past the red screen of anger now. She misses everything else that happens; she hears hissing, and she sees them talk to Mary Ann, and she sees them all making jokes and trying to square up, but it bounces off her entirely. Magic overcomes her, probably for the best—she can’t imagine what Porter would say if she lost it here in the cafeteria, if she forced their hands too early— Oisin casts dominate person on her, and they all leave with little incident. Mary Ann gets her soda, carrying a plush from—somewhere—and—and—god, it’s so hard to think when she’s this mad— "Go home," Oisin tells her as he drops the spell. Somehow, they’ve made it to the front of the school—just the two of them. "Go home, Kipperlilly." "What?" she says. Her voice is lilting funny. She thinks she’s dizzy. "Go home." He casts something else—and for a moment, she’s okay with listening to him. "Right," she says lightly. "I’ll see you at home."

because. okay listen. LISTEN. for this chapter i basically had to take this scene and work fucking backwards. like, based on what we can gather (that the rat grinders didn't actually use the devil's honey???) why would this be the thing that makes her snap? and beyond that, where does kipperlilly go for the rest of the scene???? that whole bit of narration reads not all in one interaction, but then they retcon it to be all the same interaction, so the fact that kipperlilly is just. Gone, and doesn't say a word??? this is also a BIIIIIG part of the changing of the tides—it sort of foreshadows the oisin second in command reveal a few scenes later, because he's the one doing damage control and he's the one trying to get kipperlilly back on track and he's the one who has to dominate person so she doesn't ruin the plan and he's the one that has that one anime stress mark on his temple every time kipperlilly so much as opens her mouth. anyway!! mad kipperlilly is So fucking fun to write!! i absolutely adore her and her stupid flawed way of thinking, because it's so removed from how literally everyone else sees the world. the thing about kipperlilly is that she's an unreliable narrator, especially when she's mad. she jumps to conclusions that don't make sense and she decides things that are fundamentally not true and can be disproven if she had a Single braincell devoted to rational thought!!! anyway i love her, and this scene was. such a fuckin trip to write, because it's one of the only rat grinder scenes we see on screen that i felt like i needed to completely rehash for the sake of "behind the scenes" <3333

[shiftybells]

Ok, this made it official.

Burryaga hated senatorial dinners.

They were just too much. Too many people, too much glitz and glamor. The Force was clear cut and in horrible vibrancy, glass edges cutting against his senses as hidden intentions and double meanings were thrown around like nothing.

Burry wrinkled his nose and hunched his shoulders further, as if doing so would miraculously make him smaller. It only made the tension in his shoulders ache something fierce, pulsing down his spine and through his muscles.

Yeah, this sucked.

Burryaga pursed his lips and cast his gaze down across the open floor from the edge of the balcony, taking in the marbled flooring and the gauzy fabrics draped from the ceiling and indoor balconies, glittering gold as they caught the light in a display of pure opulence. But even that paled in comparison to the clothing senators and Coruscant’s elites were clothed in, glittering gems and silks of the highest quality creating outfits that cost enough to feed an entire settlement on the frontier.

His own clothing was simple compared to the beings around him, his own temple robes pure white with trims of shimmering gold, his lightsaber partially obscured by the cloak around his shoulders. Comfortable, but not as familiar as his mission leathers, worn from years of use. Just how he liked them.

Usually he wouldn’t be bothered by it, but being fresh from the recovering settlements did put things into stark perspective.

Tearing his eyes from the unnecessary show of money, Burryaga narrowed his eyes and returned to scanning the crowd itself, looking for any familiar face. Not that he needed to try.

As if he were guided by he Force itself, Burryaga’s eyes immediately found who he always looked for.

Down in that sea of wealth and double meanings, Bell Zettifar was a beacon of light and compassionate beauty, magnetic in he way he weaved between senators and elites like he was born to. Bell’s own robes fluttered with every step, catching the light as he calmy parted crowds with his mere presence. Burryaga leaned further against the railing, enraptured as Bell accepted a drink and talked with a young, dark haired human and their red headed companion the familiarity a small shock.

Then he looked again, and upon closer inspection it was obvious that the two were actually just Kip and Jom. The conversation didn’t last long, maybe a few minutes before they were moving on. The second they left, Bell seemed frozen in time, the light catching his earrings, then their eyes were meeting, Bell’s face adorned with a smirk that always promised a little mischief. Bell waved, and Burryaga waved back fondly, snorting when Bell turned and made his way across the room once more, now towards the stairwell.

Anticipation set his heart beating quicker, Bell's presence familiar as it grew closer and Burryaga absentmindedly smoothed down a little of his fur.

Just to self soothe a little, he told himself.

Like a liar.

A minute ticked by, then soft footfalls reached his ears, and Burryaga’s heart was racing once again. This time he couldn't blame it on the crowd.

The thin curtains that covered the entrance shifted, signalling another person just behind him.

Lithe fingers gently lay against his back, and Burryaga shivered as they trailed down, past his elbow to gently glaso his wrist in a loose hold. The touch was featherlight, and suddenly Burryaga wished he hadn't worn the cloak, if only to feel Bell's fingers in his fur for a little longer instead of being separated by shimmersilk cloth.

Much to Burryagas discontent, Bell released his wrist to fully appear in view, now staring up at Burry as he leaned his hip against the balcony and rested his elbow on the railing, a flute of something pale and bubbly still loosely held in-between his fingers, warm brown skin littered with tiny scars and burns.

���Party too much?”

Burryaga bit his lip and nodded slowly, mourning the loss of contact. His wrist burned.

Silently Burryaga moved to mirror Bell's position, his forearm stretching across smooth marble as he leaned on his elbow, fingers stretching out enough that the tips just slipped in-between Bell's.

Bell chuckled warmly and gently nudged back, sending another rippling shiver down Burryaga’s spine. It was both too much and not enough. Warmth bloomed in his chest, sweet and cloying as it filled his chest and Burryaga could feel himself choking on it. Bell's eyes glittered in the low lighting, and Burryagas throat dried a little more as Bell lifted up his drink to sip, his smirk melting into a gentle smile, something quieter and more intimate.

Stars Burryaga wanted to kiss him so bad it hurt, wanted to cradle him closer in early morning light and whisper sweet nothing's in the privacy of the dawn.

Burryaga wanted. He wanted badly.

“Burry? Are you alright?”

Burryaga jerked, and was immediately grateful for the fur on his face hiding the blush he could feel heating his cheeks. Bell's eyes had narrowed in concern, eyebrows drawn down as he peered up at Burryaga, as if Bell thought squinting hard enough would let him see into Burryaga's soul.

And Burryaga would let him. He would happily strip open his ribcage and hand Bell anything he wanted, because Bell was irreplaceable in his life. His best friend. His partner.

Burryaga growled softly and nodded again, absentmindedly reaching forward to gently trace the pale scar across Bell's cheek with his finger, thumbing at the old injury. Bell let him do as he pleased, eyes half fondly fixated on Burryaga's own face. Burryaga's heart was pounding in his chest, a forceful beat that he feared that Bell could actually hear it. He dropped his back to his side.

Weirdly enough, Bell looked a little sad at the action.

“You sure? Youve been… distant lately.”

Kind, beautiful, stubborn Bell. Burryaga huffed a soft laugh and stepped closer, further tangling his fingers with Bell's, the increased contact burning. Up closer, Burryaga could see the beauty marks and freckles that dusted Bell's skin like stars, the molten copper that made up his eyes.

“Distant? What gave you that idea?”

Bell's lips drew down into a pout that was way too cute for a twenty-two year old human to be reasonable. He suddenly looked younger, anxiety etched into his eyes as he shifted on the spot.

“I dunno, I feel like you haven't been talking to me as much lately. Have I done something to upset you?”

Burryaga cooed in reassurance, mentally kicking himself for not realising how easily Bell picked up the shift in their dynamic.

“No no you've done nothing wrong Bell, I've just had a few enlightening realisations lately, that's all.”

Bell looked far from mollified.

“Oh?” Bell's voice was hushed, a breathy quality to it that wasn't there previously. “And what were these realisations, if I may ask?”

Burryaga shook his head and stepped as far into Bell's space as he could, their hands still linked as Burry crowded him against the shadowy wall of their alcove where any wandering eyes wouldn't see them, courtesy of the gauzy curtains.

Huh, they actually were useful.

With his free hand, Burryaga plucked the half filled flute from Bell's loose grip and deposited it on the small side table just beside them. Blood rushing in his ears, Burryaga was tempted to place his hand on Bell's waist, but quickly discarded the thought, instead cupping his cheek and tilting his head back until Bell's head nudged the wall behind him, braids swinging with the motion.

Bell's pulse was racing belong the flesh and bone of his jaw, his throat bobbing as he swallowed shakily.

The space between them was thick with anticipation, charged and yearning.

“…I don't think I'm brave enough to put it into words just yet.”

Bell peered up at him through his lashes, and Burryaga felt as if he were the one pinned to the wall, those eyes piercing in every way possible.

“Then why don't you..” Bell's fingers came up to grip his wrist once again, this time tighter.

“Don't say, don't think, just do.”

Burryaga lipped his lips, heart quivering and chest filled with everything he wanted to say and more. But he couldn't, so he did what he had been yearning to do for months.

Fuck it.

He tightened his grip and kissed Bell.

Bell's lips were soft, and Burryaga could faintly taste Bell's drink on his lips. Bell hummed appreciatively, and Burryaga regretfully pulled away.

Despite the chaste nature of the kiss, Burryaga was relieved to feel that Bell was panting in unison with him, heat building as they stared at each other silently.

“Do you get what I was failing to say?” Burryaga asked quietly, as if it were a secret between the two of them. “What I've felt for you for so long?”

Enraptured, Burryaga watched as Bell licked his lips and nodded silently.

“I think I might need another demonstration,” Bell teased in an equally hushed tone. “Or two.”

Disbelief and joy were bubbling up like a shaken bottle of champagne in Burryaga’s chest, and he culould feel his lips stretching into a dopey smile.

Burryaga inched closer once more. “I think I could be amenable to that, Knight Zettifar.” Burryaga teased back.

Bell's hand trailed from his wrist and slid into the fur beside his neck, and then they were kissing again. It was faster, more assured as Bell reciprocated enthusiastically. His fingers tugged at his fur, and Burryaga had to muffle a growl, finally giving into the urge to grip Bell's waist.

Their tangled fingers moved to instead grasp at robes and purchase on each other's bodies. Bell panted against his lips as they parted, head thumping back against the wall. His voice had grown breathy, hitching into a startled gasp when Burryaga planted a featherlight kiss on the underside of his jaw.

Bell pulled him impossibly closer, fingers tangled in fur and shimmersilk as Burryaga pepered his throat with kisses. Burryaga planted a firmer kiss on the hollow of Bells throat, eliciting a high pitched gasp, followed by Bell's hand tightening in his fur and pulling him back.

“You okay? I didnt-”

Burryaga blinked, taking in Bell's flushed features, his heaving chest, his burning eyes.

“One,” Bell begun, lips shiny. “We're still in public, so we really shouldn't be getting carried away.”

Burryaga flinched at the reminder, an apology on the tip of his tongue.

“Two,” Bell continued with a raised eyebrow, daring him to say anything. Burryaga wisely kept his mouth shut. “My neck is rather… sensetive, so we're better off continuing this in the privacy of our own rooms.”

Burryaga blinked, then smiled incredulously.

“Why do you get to be so smart and so pretty all the time?” He griped affectionately, moving to rest his forehead against Bell's.

“Oh I dunno, why do you get to be so sensible and handsome all the time?”

Burryaga snickered, snorted when Bell laughed quietly with him, one hand desperately smothering his giggles

“Soo,” Bell rose an eyebrow up at Burry and moved to gently fix his robes, smoothing the fabric out. “The party should be finishing up soon anyways, and Indeera's looking after Ember for me until tomorrow.” He reached up on his toes and looped his hands around Burryagas neck.

“Did you want to continue this back at my apartment?”

Burryaga gripped Bells hips and briefly nudged their noses together.

“How about my room instead?” He offered with a smirk.

“My beds bigger anyways.”

Bell's eyes widened with shock, then a quiet peal of laughter slipped from Bell's lips as he gently let go and fixed his own robes, and snagged the previously abandoned flute of champagne, taking another sip from the glass.

“I'll see you back at the Temple.” Bell said with a quiet grin, then, when Burryaga thought he was going to slip back through the curtains with nary a trace, Bell leaned once more and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“Don't keep me waiting too long.” He teased quietly, then slipped from Burryaga's grasp, disappearing from view.

Butryaga stared after him, and gently reached up to touch the cheek Bell had kissed as if he could pull an imprint of it off.

Oh stars I'm so in love.

Burryaga exhaled once, twice, then calmly left the alcove, as if nothing had ever happened.

Okay, maybe not all senatorial dinners were bad.

[wings-of-ink]

Hello Lunan,

First, I want you to know how passionate I am about your story. I feel like I read all the IF on itch.io but most of them has been abandoned by their author for a few years. So I am so elated to know that a story like yours with so much potential carry on being written regularly.

I am so fond of Dov and Kip, I never thought I would like growing in my MC's family so much. Usually, our MC's family is disfounctional or without parents or with bad parents. Here, I would have loved being cherished by parents such like them. Especially our Papa. He's my favorite of all the characters. So genuine and caring.

So regarding the story, I was wondering if you will add other POV to help us understand the internal turmoils of the other characters. I am especially asking for Kip and his secret past (Is Dov aware of it? What does he thinks about Kip keeping our MC in the dark? What was Kip feelings about seeing someone from the past he seems to want to forget? Etc) and for Oswin and why he changed so much growing up, what was is state of mind? Maybe a conversation between Kip and him would help us understand something? Are his parents reacting to his change? Do others have noticed how he is acting towards our MC? What do they think about it? I genuinely would be interested in having more scenes with or without Oswin in it that would enlightened us about about how he is acting towards the others? What others are thinking about his behavior? (Maybe Lakota or his parents POV). And obviously I'd like to get Lakotas and the MC's POV too about subject related to the MC.

And finally, I was wondering how would be intimate relationships like depending on the LI? Would they cuddle, kiss, PDA, hold hands, touch subtly or less so, sweet talk them or dirty talk intimately, how would they describe the MC behind their back? I would love for Oswin to be more open with his feelings and especially to the physical aspect of his love towards the MC depending of our MC personality. I feel like Oswin's emotions are bottled up for a very long time, he keeps to himself and even his own brother doesn't understand him. So I hope that we can have more physical demonstration of his love for our MC. I can't imagine being with someone who's isn't physically prone to show me his love in some way publicly or intimately. I see so much potential for Oswin. I can't wait for his character development. I imagine he won't be into soft bdsm but I hope he would be a passionate lover who would try and experiment along with the MC so that they can find "their thing" into the love-making process. I hope there will be choices to make that would encourage and guide our LI at the beginning of our relationship as lovers to help him understand what we like/don't like and find our pace.

I crave to see what others would tell about the MC and their LI once they start dating.

Sorry, that was a lot, I am aware but I re-read the story for the 5th times today and I was wondering how our relationship with Oswin would evolve so I had to ask.

Thank you so so much for gracing us with your talent Lunan. I feel so content every time I dive into your world.

Hello my dear and thank you for your message and patience in getting a response.

I am so happy that you are enjoying the story. I am loving working on it and interacting with readers like you. The project and fans of it have brought me a great deal of joy.

I wanted good parents for our MC from the start. I still appreciate IFs that take on difficult or bad parents, but I needed something a little fresher. The MC is going to have a lot to deal with physically, emotionally, and mentally already - I wanted to give them support and motivation to get through that.

I do plan for some POVs to come up in the future. I go back and forth between doing them as extras or not as I might try to keep the story proper in the MC's perspective. POVs can be really gripping and it's cool to see that inside look in another character's head, but sometimes they're distracting. If I add them to the main story, I want to be sure I'm capable of making it a fluid transition back and forth that adds to the experience.

Dov is completely aware of Kip's secret past and has helped him keep it secret, though he did not want to keep the secret from MC. Since it was Kip's ordeal, he had the final say, and he firmly believes that MC not knowing is safer. It was hard on Kip to see Ansar, but he was mostly focused on his child in the moment. He saved his little breakdown for after MC left. This is why he had the ring when MC spends time with him before departing. Kip had been thinking on it a lot, it was keeping him up at night.

Oswin's shift in mood and personality was pretty evident to everyone in some way. His mother had some good long talks to him about it as did Kip. Ultimately, though, the choice in his actions were left to him. These would be some great POVs as well.

Once the MC has breached Oswin's walls and the romantic relationship has begun in earnest, he's going to become quite affectionate if that's what the MC wants. The goal is to see him soften with time and return to who he really is and was before he lost his way. There's parts of him that can't thaw all the way because he's been through some shit too, but he's soft under that. You'll definitely get a physical demonstration in Oswin's route if chosen. He's been inhibited for so long, that it's a little overwhelming for him at first. Part of the physical route of his relationship is doing just that and getting him accustomed to physical intimacy and literally kind of learning it. He has zero experience so he's a blank slate. There's a lot to discover with him, and it should be a lot of fun.

Thank you for the wonderful questions and discussion, my friend! I have been eager to get to your ask for a long time and really sit down and think it through. ^_^

I've been considering lately of doing a POV special and maybe something spicy to go with it in August. :D