#know this is old but it reminds me of when I was talking about clois and somebody asked me if was like miraculous lady bug

[jokin-around]

thoughts on the killing joke movie? i cant stop laughing at joker looking dead at the camera looking like an anime villain going insane.

you mean the famous shot from the actual comic ? the one that, for all intents and purposes, likely started that trope in the first place?

anyway, yes, it was bad.

[artdcnaldson]

Tie Break || Art Donaldson x Reader ; Patrick Zweig x Reader

this can be read as a sequel to changeover or as a standalone :) enjoy <3

Rating: E (18+)

Word Count: 7.7k

Warnings: SMUT (p in v smut x2, f!recieving oral, handjob, creampie, cum eating), angst with a happy ending, infidelity, toxic relationships, everyone in this is kind of a horrible person, language obviously

Summary: It’s summer in Atlanta, 2011. For the second time in your life, you’re the clear second choice. When the opportunity arises, you find a temporary distraction in Art Donaldson.

A/N: FINALLY here it is! The 2011 Atlanta fic. They’re back, they’re older, they’re even more toxic. Let me know if you’re interested in a part 3!

It was hot, even though the sun had long since dipped beneath the horizon. It was a cloying, oppressive heat that made the stupid, business-casual top you wore stick to your skin. 

The article you were working on was halfway written, something you could knock out in the next hour if you really tried. Your drink was watered down from the heat, weak when it hit your tongue. A frown turned your lips, but you really shouldn’t have been drinking anyway.

"Working late?”

The voice was so familiar that you could’ve recognized it anywhere, any time. Art Donaldson was one of the most recognizable men in the country, but to you, he seemed so different. The boyishness was still there, but it lay beneath a new level of confidence.

You took a sip of your drink, trying to appear nonchalant, like it hadn’t been four years since you last spoke. “I’m on deadline. I’m writing a feature on Anna Mueller heading into the US Open next month.”

Without asking, he sat down across from you at the small bistro table. He was so close you could smell the minty gum he had been chewing. It nearly made you smile. Old habits die hard.

“So you write about tennis?” He asked, meeting your gaze. 

“I write about athletes,” you corrected. “I was going to be here anyway, and since Anna is heading for a Grand Slam, I thought it would be easy enough. Grab a couple of interviews, watch a few matches.”

He nodded, leaning back in the chair, trying his best to be causal in a situation that definitely wasn’t. You sipped again at your drink, peering at him over the edge of the glass. 

“You have a match tomorrow,” you said, as though he needed reminding. “Shouldn’t you be listening to shitty pop punk to get yourself psyched right now?”

A smile spread across his lips, and he looked so much like the guy you knew from college that it made your chest tug uncomfortably. Same hair, the same smile, the same crinkle at the edges of his eyes when he was amused by something. You couldn’t help but smile along with him, like the past four years were nothing. “I don’t do that anymore,” he said with a laugh. “Do you want another drink?”

You looked down at your glass, mostly water and thin ice cubes. “Rum and coke?” You asked, giving him a tiny smile. He nodded and disappeared towards the bar.

It felt strange, sitting there in the quiet, your article the furthest thing from your mind. Four years. It felt like yesterday and an eternity ago that you’d last spoken with him. He was a familiar stranger, nearly unknowable. 

Your cursor blinked a few more times before you shut your laptop and slid it back inside your beat-up work bag. 

“Running off?” He asked, catching you in the act of packing your things. You shook your head and accepted the fresh drink with a smile. “You said you were going to be in Atlanta anyway,” he said as he sat, spreading out, making himself comfortable in the shitty bar seating. “When you were talking about writing about Anna.”

You nodded. “Mhmm, I did,” you replied, chewing the inside of your lip nervously. His gaze was intense, falling just on the other side of casual. You felt tiny under that gaze, like you were guilty of a crime you didn’t know you’d committed. 

“And you’re here for Patrick?” The words were nonchalant, but you could hear the accusation beneath them, the history of the two of them just in one sentence. It turned something in your stomach, the possessiveness in his voice. You could hear it, even four years out.

The new drink was strong, but it was the perfect way to hide the distaste in your expression. The burn of liquor into your chest grounded you back in reality instead of the easy allure of nostalgia. “Yeah,” you said after a beat. “I try my best to go to all of his matches.”

Art narrowed his eyes, just slightly. There was still an element of exaggerated friendliness, the casual smile on his lips, the open body language. All of it masking the lingering resentment and hurt that was buried beneath mountains of nostalgia. Deep enough that neither of you had realized it was still there until you found yourselves face to face. There was an unspoken question, one that he didn’t want to ask, one that you didn’t want to answer. 

How long?

You took another drink. 

“Where is Patrick?” He asked, glancing around like he might materialize out of thin air.

“He went out for a smoke, or to walk around and clear his head, or something,” you said with a shrug. “I’m not his keeper. Where’s Tashi?”

His jaw clenched and he looked away— a sore spot. A scab you wanted to pick at until it bled, dig your nails in. Maybe that was your eighteen-year-old self talking. 

“You never used to let her get too far away from you,” you noted, mirth dripping from each syllable. “Bet you came down here looking for her. Your leash must’ve been just a little too loose this time and she slipped it.”

You took a long drink, nails tapping against the glass as you considered your words. Tashi wasn’t the type of woman who let a man hold her back. If you were trying to be more accurate, rather than just piss him off, you might’ve fixed the analogy. Art was the sad little puppy following her around. She tied his leash to a lamp post for a fucking break.

“Do you remember the day Tashi got injured?” He asked, changing the subject suddenly. 

You blinked slowly, appraising him. But his expression gave nothing away. “I do.”

A wry smile spread across his lips, and he met your gaze with a coldness that you didn’t recognize. Mean in the way injured animals like to snap at the nearest hand. “It was Patrick in your room that night, wasn’t it?”

Your brows furrowed, face falling at his words. “What?”

He made a face, something akin to skepticism, but crueler. It made your stomach turn. 

“You were fucking someone in your room,” he said plainly. “And I’ve always had a suspicion that it was Patrick. Was it?”

That didn’t do much to clear up your confusion. “You were there?”

He laughed, mirthless, and nodded. “I was, uh, sitting by the door like an asshole. I came to apologize, to beg for you back, but instead, I spent the night listening to my girlfriend getting fucked on the other side of the door.”

Annoyance flickered in your gaze. He knew of a wound of your own, and he relished in picking at it the way you’d relished in digging your fingers into his. “I wasn’t your girlfriend, Art.”

“Right, you weren’t. But you’re Patrick’s girlfriend now, is that it?”

Heat burned in your cheeks. Your relationship with Patrick was… tempestuous to say the least. Most of the time he was your boyfriend, but others he was just a friend that you could count on for a good fuck, sometimes not even a friend. At the moment, he was the former, but that could always change.

It wasn’t easy, being with someone whose emotions ran on an equally short fuse. You’d sound too much like his parents, or he’d devalue your work, or Patrick would forget to take out the trash in your apartment and you’d snap, or you’d mispronounce a word one too many times and it would drive him crazy. Insignificant things could feel big with him, because of him. For better or worse. 

“At the moment, yes.”

“At the moment.” He echoed, laughing like he was in on some joke you were painfully unaware of.

”That’s amusing to you?” You asked, raising a brow. 

He shrugged, picking at his jeans. “Your choice of words is interesting.” He lets that hang in the air before he meets your gaze again. “Do you think Patrick would’ve even noticed you if it hadn’t been for me?”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “Does it matter?” You asked. “You realize that we’ve been together going on four years now, right? Broken up, dating, fucking, whatever. You realize that there may be more important things in our life than you?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. I think you know that whatever you have, it’s built on the fact that you were a warm body when he needed it. Just like you were for me.”

That arrogant expression, like he actually fucking knew anything about you anymore was the last straw. You stood suddenly, grabbing your bag. You weren’t Art Donaldson’s little lapdog anymore— you didn’t have to sit there and take all the shit he doled out. 

“Goodnight, Art. Thanks for the drink.”

It was funny, how your weaknesses were still so exposed. Art’s was Tashi, and it probably always would be. His desire to be seen, to impress, painted upon every lovely feature. And yours, raw and bleeding and obvious— the unbearable, visceral need to be wanted.

You made it to the elevator before you felt his presence behind you. Wordless, but so close it was suffocating. You jabbed the up button over and over in frustration, knowing it wouldn’t speed anything up. 

Art stepped into the elevator with you, so close you could feel the body heat radiating off of him. He always burned hot, like a human furnace. 

It was silent as the lift lurched upwards. You pressed against the back corner, watching the number of the floor increase one by one. 

“Patrick is with Tashi,” Art said without looking at you, just as the elevator opened on the floor of your room. You froze, swallowing hard. “I saw them in the hotel bar, then they left together. What do you think they’re doing right now?”

You shook your head dumbly, pulse thrumming in your throat. “Go fuck yourself, Art,” you said weakly, because what else was there to say? You stepped into the hallway— lit with dim yellow light so you couldn’t see where the wallpaper peeled and the carpet was stained.

“If you need somewhere to wait them out, and you will, I’m in room 13 on the seventh floor.” The elevator doors closed, and you were alone. 

The hallway was winding, and you felt a bad sort of anticipation of what you might find, like a sick feeling in your gut. You stood in front of the room, 306, and froze.

The door to your room was closed, no light shone from beneath the door, but you could hear them. Muffled, but clear enough. A pretty voice and breathy moans. Patrick’s laugh, the thud of something falling off the dresser.

Your room key was in your purse— you could’ve gotten it out and stopped it, but what good would that have done? You’d still spend the night humiliated, facing opposite walls as Patrick, lying in the same sheets he’d just fucked her in. 

You dropped the bag by the door and took a slow, shaky breath to calm yourself down. 

Tashi Duncan. She had lingered on the edges of your relationship with Patrick too. She was Patrick’s first choice, just as she’d been Art’s. You’d never blamed them for that, you knew where you stood, and you chose them anyway. 

It was easy to choose them when you thought that the threat was nonexistent— when distance made you feel safe. You could hear her and him, but it felt like mere static in your brain.

You knew how Art felt, back at Stanford. Sulking outside the door, unable and unwilling to stop what was happening on the other side. 

You were in the elevator before you realized you’d walked away. Shitty soft rock played over the speakers, and a poster on the wall advertised a continental breakfast. Your stomach turned uncomfortably. 

You knocked on the door— room thirteen, an unlucky number. Maybe it didn’t bode well. As you waited for the door to open, your nails tapped a staccato rhythm against your thigh.

Art opened the door like he’d been expecting someone else. Maybe he had half-expected you to interrupt and send Tashi back upstairs, but no. He got you standing at his door with fiery eyes and an expectant expression. 

Second choice, second choice, second choice.

Art kissed you for the first time in four years, and you let him. Not because you wanted to hurt Patrick or Tashi, but because you knew it would hurt you. His tongue pressed between the seam of your lips like he belonged there, licking into your mouth like he wanted to reclaim every part of you that Patrick had touched. You pushed him with a firm hand on his chest and he stumbled backward into the room. Despite everything, he smiled. 

His hotel room was nearly identical to yours and Patrick’s. But you didn’t have time to really take in the details when he had his tongue in your mouth, kissing you hungrily.

That afternoon, you kissed Patrick after he lost his match. You wondered if Art could still taste him on your tongue then, if he wanted to drown out the taste of him. 

It was different than you were used to. Four years with Patrick meant that you’d grown accustomed to certain ways that he did things— the intensity behind each kiss, each touch. His emotions— good, bad, in between— were never masked, never repressed. 

When Patrick kissed you, when he touched you, when he fucked you— both of you were laid completely bare. 

Art was different. When he kissed you it was through a certain level of performance, like he’d learned how from a searing romance film. In college, you’d believed that he kissed you like that because deep down, he did love you. Even at that moment, years out from your relationship with him, it muddled your brain.

Your sensible work heels had long since been kicked off by the door. Art’s fingers undid the button and zip of your jeans deftly, with a confidence that had only doubled since Freshman year. They wound up in a heap against the hotel dresser. 

In his haste to remove your (also sensible, and very business casual) button-down, he popped about half of the buttons off completely. 

“Sorry,” he said. The grin on his lips made you wonder if sorry was really how he felt. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Stop talking.” You pulled off your bra and lost it somewhere across the room in your haste. Art was pulling off his clothes— his hoodie and the shirt beneath. His jeans and shoes toed off and left to be dealt with later. 

He kissed you again, guiding you exactly where he needed. Your knees hit the back of the mattress and he eased you down without moving his lips from yours. When your head hit the sheets, you smelled perfume so sweet that it was nearly intoxicating. You turned your head, breathing deeply. Tashi. In this same bed, in this same spot. It made something stir inside you— right in your chest. A hint of wrongness, a hint of hurt. 

Art pulled back, moving his lips along your jaw, down to the junction of your throat. 

“Stop thinking,” he murmured against your skin, kissing down to your tits. “I don’t want you thinking about Patrick. Not when you’re with me.”

The words were mumbled against soft, supple skin. His eyes were intent as they looked up at you, the demand of momentary fidelity in his eyes. You wanted to slap that expression off of his face, or run your thumb along his cheek and hold his face in your hands. 

How was it fair that he asked you that when he’d lingered like a ghost on the edges of whatever it was that you and Patrick had? How was it fair for him to look at you like that?

He took a nipple into his mouth and you gasped as his teeth grazed against the sensitive skin. Soft kisses before he suckled softly. “Okay,” you gasped, lying through your teeth. “I’m only thinking of you.”

His hair was still long, kept the same way he wore it in school. Your fingers tangled in his hair like muscle memory, scratching against his scalp as he kissed along your skin with wet lips, treating your other breast with the same, hungry attention.

“Still so fucking hot,” he mumbled against your skin. “Should’ve— fuck— should’ve kept you. What do you want, huh? Tell me.”

Your mind swam with possibilities, but you didn’t even know where to begin. Your mind was stuck on his previous words. Should’ve kept you. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?  “I don’t know,” you replied, completely honest. “Whatever you want.”

He accepted that easily— it was so similar to how you’d been for him in college. You gasped as he kissed down your sternum, then your stomach. His lips found the waistband of your panties and he grinned, tugging at the lace with his teeth, letting it snap back against your hip. 

He peeled your panties down slowly, letting his hands trail down the expanse of your legs. The possessiveness of the touch sent a thrill up your spine. His lips grazed along your skin, from your ankle, up your calf, then your knee. Your legs spread instinctively, welcoming him right back where he knew he belonged. His pretty lips trailed wet kisses up your thighs, stopping just where you wanted him. 

You expected him to rush. He’d seen Patrick and Tashi leave, which meant they’d finish before you two, more likely than not. There was every reason in the world to make things quick— to fuck you and make you leave. 

Instead, he took his time with you. Soft, teasing kisses peppered on the supple skin of your thighs before he nuzzled into your cunt. The first delve of his tongue was slow and exploratory, tasting the arousal that had pooled at your core. 

”God, you still taste so fucking sweet.”

Another thing you’d nearly forgotten about Art— in all things, he was methodical.

He started with kitten licks at your clit— light brushes with his tongue that made you whimper needily for more. His tongue circled you there, and he relished in the way your fingers tugged on his hair at the sensation. 

Then he wrapped his lips around the sensitive bud, sucking with more pressure until a strangled moan squeezed past your lips. Your thighs tensed on either side of his head, holding him there as he alternated between slow, soothing licks and firm suction.

It was frustrating, how wet you were. Art had brought out the worst in you, turned you into something that left you feeling genuinely embarrassed. And still, you were slick, dripping down to the sheets. A mess of arousal and Art’s spit. 

When he eased a finger into your cunt, it slid in like your body was made to fit whatever he could give you. At that point, you very well could have been. What were you, if not an object orbiting in the atmosphere of his life?

He looked up at you, seeming so fucking intent on making it feel good for you as he crooked his finger. It rubbed against the soft, spongy spot within you and you cried out, eyes rolling back. 

“That’s it, huh?” He cooed as he pressed a second finger inside of you. Your arm was slung over your face. You couldn’t let yourself keep looking at him when he was looking at you the same way he had in college. The same fucking expression that got your head all mixed up in the first place. 

He pressed a soft kiss to your clit and you whimpered. “I know it feels good, baby, just relax.”

His fingers thrust within you with a slow, deep pressure as he continued to make out with your clit. It was always so good with him— you’d nearly forgotten how easy it was for him to bring you to the edge. 

When you came, it wasn’t like what you had grown used to with Patrick— sudden and overwhelming, like it had been ripped from some secret place within you. It was intense, but slow to build, seeming to last forever as Art’s fingers and tongue worked you through it. Your breath was shaky as he pulled back, pretty mouth wet with your arousal.

“Do you want to stop?” He asked, looking up at you expectantly. 

You should’ve stopped— rationally, you knew that it was best to turn back and quit before you fucked up the situation beyond repair. 

But it was Art. He could’ve had anyone else, but he wanted you. Maybe not forever, or even longer than that night. But for then. 

You shook your head softly. “No. Do you think we should stop?”

His fingers moved between your thighs, circling your clit. “We definitely should. You’re with Patrick.”

You sighed, eyes fluttering as he caressed you with featherlight touches. “Don’t fucking talk about him,” you said, but your words came out with no bite. How could they, when he was playing with your body like a favorite toy?

“No?” He asked. He was wearing a smug sort of expression. “You don’t want me to talk about your boyfriend, huh? Too personal?”

You moaned as he applied more pressure at the apex of your thighs, making your cunt clench and ache to be filled. 

“Does Patrick know how much you’ve missed me?” He asked. Your breath caught in your throat, and he just smiled. “I bet he does. I think he knows that if he just drops my name in a conversation, your pussy gets wet.”

You moaned softly at his words, chest heaving with soft pants. You weren’t even sure if it was true, but it felt like it could’ve been then. He leaned down, his words spoken close to your ear.

“I can go slow. Make it last for you.” His lips brushed the shell of your ear, making you shiver. 

You nodded eagerly, turning your head to capture his lips with yours. The kiss was slow, like you had all the time in the world. His tongue against yours, the weight of his body on top of you, the feel of him hard, pressing against your thigh. 

He sat back to strip off his boxers, and you relished in the sight of him laid bare before you. You’d nearly forgotten how pretty he was— big and flushed nearly red with need. It made your heart hammer with nerves; your excitement and shame and need rolled into one messy, electrifying tangle. 

His hair flopped into his eyes as he held himself over you, just like you remembered. You reached up, brushing it out of his eyes with a tender hand. His lips brushed against the inside of your wrist, right where your pulse thrummed in your veins. 

“Tell me you’ve missed me.”

Heat flooded your entire body, as you repeated the words. “I missed you, Art.” You reached between your bodies, wrapping your hand around his cock, and guiding it towards your entrance. He moaned and bucked instinctively into your hand.

”Tell me you want me to fuck you, no one else.” You could hear the implications in his words. Tell me you want me, not Patrick. 

“I want you to fuck me.”

Art pressed himself inside of you, sinking into the welcoming warmth of your cunt. You wrapped your legs around his waist, squeezing him closer, deeper, until his balls pressed firm against you and there was nothing else to give.

He thrust shallowly, rocking against a spot deep within you, one that made your eyes flutter with each brush against it.

“You’re so tight still,” he moaned, lips moving against your throat. “Pussy’s made just for me.”

He touched you like he hadn’t forgotten how you felt or what you needed. Spoke to you like you were one of his possessions.

You lost yourself in it— the sweet, filthy words spoken against your skin, and the rhythm of his body moving against yours. His lips captured yours with a hungry insistence, like he could convey four years' worth of unspoken words with a few brushes of his tongue against yours. 

When he pulled back, lips spit slick and looking so pretty, you thought maybe there was a sort of understanding between the two of you.

His head fell back as he sped up his thrusts, chasing his release. There wasn’t time to stretch it out, to spend as much time as you could with each other’s bodies. 

“Need you to cum,” he said, sliding a hand between your thighs to rub your still-sensitive clit. Your cunt was squeezing him tight, body aching for it, for him, brought to the edge simply because he’d asked for it. “C’mon— you get so tight when you cum, need to feel it again.”

It was like your body was hardwired to give him exactly what he wanted. You came with broken moans of his name and legs squeezing him closer, deeper. Your chest heaved with shaking breaths and punched out whimpers as he kept fucking into you.

He was practically crushing you with his weight, pinning you down, groaning into the junction of your shoulder. 

“Gonna make me cum, baby,” his words vibrated against skin tacky with a thin sheen of sweat.

”Want you to.” Your arms slung around his back, holding him close to you. “I’ve got an IUD, so you can— you can cum.”

His lips met yours as he came, with a pretty moan into your open mouth and slow, messy kisses that made you want to just melt into him and stay that way forever. 

Spent, he rolled over and turned on a lamp at the bedside. The alarm clock announced the time in a dim red glow— five past one.

You lay there, damp between your thighs from the mixture of your releases, unsure of what to do. It was cold beneath the hotel AC. He was peering over at you, wearing an expression you were scared to dissect.

When his hand touched your arm, you nearly flinched. Your breath caught in your throat as he ran his thumb along your skin, so sweetly that you felt that same discomfort tug at your chest. 

“C’mere,” he said, an offer. His arm was splayed over the pillows, giving you the perfect spot to lie down and press yourself against his side. To pretend like you belonged there.

But you didn’t belong there. You belonged four floors down with Patrick. That’s where you had belonged for four years. The reality of what you’d done had set in quickly, and you knew you needed to get out of Art’s room. 

”Art,” you said softly, shaking your head. “I have to go.”

He nodded and sat up against the headboard. You watched him grab his boxers and pull them back on, a strange smile on his face. He must’ve sensed your confusion, even without you saying. 

“It’s funny how things change,” he said. “Here I am, asking you to stay for once.”

You didn’t say anything as you picked up your clothes from around the room, redressing as you recovered each piece from its hiding spot around the room. Your shirt was unsalvageable, so you grabbed Art’s. He had plenty of brand sponsors that would jump to replace it, and Patrick wouldn’t recognize it.

“I loved you, I think,” he said suddenly. “Back in college.”

You froze, arms crossed over your chest as you looked at him. “Art—“

“No, I did. I loved you, I just did it all wrong.”

“Art, just stop,” you said firmly. Embarrassment hit you all at once— the guilt of what you’d done, and the shame over who you’d done it with. Your eyes stung as you looked at him. “Why the fuck would you say that?”

His lips twitched, dipping into a frown, then back into as close to a neutral expression as he could manage. “I just thought you should know. It’s only fair.”

You laughed mirthlessly. “Fair? Jesus Christ, you really haven’t changed, Art.” 

His expression fell completely. It looked like it had back in the hotel bar— icy. “I haven’t changed? What’s that supposed to mean?”

You sighed as you looked at him. “It means that if this were Stanford, that would’ve made me crawl right back into bed, lay by your side, and daydream about what it could mean for us. If one day I might be Mrs. Art Donaldson. It means that you say these sweet things to me every time you can feel me slipping away, but they mean absolutely nothing. We’re not nineteen anymore, Art. I’m not leaving Patrick to be your plaything again.”

His jaw tensed, and he looked down at the bed briefly while he picked at loose threads on the sheets. “You think that’s what I want?”

You frowned. “I think you want what Patrick has.”

He scoffed. “Patrick doesn’t even want what he has,” he said, relishing in the wounded look on your face. “If he did, he wouldn’t be fucking my fiancée right now.”

Fiancée. You felt stupid for not knowing it, but you swallowed down your hurt and met his gaze. “I guess we’re both going to have to be content with being the second choice.” You slipped on your shoes and went for the door. “Good luck with your match tomorrow, Art. I sincerely hope that I never have to see you again.”

The hallway felt colder when you stepped outside of the room and shut the door firmly behind you. A very big part of you wanted to go back, to knock and apologize and grovel like you might have when you were a freshman.

Maybe you hadn’t grown up that much after all. 

The elevator was playing Billy Joel. You leaned against the side of the elevator, relishing in the cold against your sticky skin. When the doors opened on your floor and you stepped out, you blinked in surprise. 

Tashi stood in front of you for the first time since college, looking just as stunning as you remembered, probably more so. Her hair was pulled up, slightly damp at the ends. Her eyes flicked down to your shirt, Art’s shirt, you swallowed as an understanding passed between the two of you— wordless, because what was there to say at that point?

”You left your laptop in the hallway,” she said, skipping formalities. “I took it inside so it wouldn’t get stolen.”

“Okay,” you said, chewing on your lip. She stood there like she expected something more. You felt her surveying you, and froze as she reached forward and rubbed at your bottom lip.

“He could’ve at least cleaned you up a bit,” she said. Her fingers delicately fixed your hair, tucking it back into place. She wiped a smudge of lipstick from the side of your mouth. Once there was nothing left to fix, she looked at you one last time and nodded. “You should be fine now.”

Before you could process that, she stepped into the elevator, and you were left alone in the hallway. When you made it to the room, the door was cracked open, so you let yourself in.

Patrick was on the balcony smoking a cigarette, a towel slung low around his waist. The bed was a fucking wreck, not that he seemed to mind. 

When the door clicked shut, he stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking and joined you back in the room. 

“Are we going to talk about it?” He asked. His jaw tensed as he looked at you, like he was ready if you were going to start a fight.

“I just want to go to bed, Patrick,” you said, annoyed by how wobbly and pathetic you sounded. 

He stepped forward and kissed your forehead. “Okay. We’ll go to bed.”

You kicked off your clothes, but left on Art’s hoodie. Patrick didn’t ask where it came from, or what happened to what you were wearing earlier. You knew he already knew, that he could tell the moment you walked in. He dropped the towel onto a heap on the floor, climbed into the bed, and held out his arms for you.

A stronger person would’ve told him to fuck off, but you weren’t a stronger person. You nestled into his side and felt the hot sting of tears in your eyes. 

He rubbed your back soothingly and kissed your forehead. The sheets smelled like Tashi, he smelled like hotel soap, and you smelled like Art’s cologne. 

“Do you want room service in the morning?” He asked softly.

“Patrick—“

“I’m serious. We can have breakfast in bed, do some tourist-y shit, maybe we’ll go watch a couple of matches, then come back and—“

“Are we supposed to just forget what happened?” You interrupted.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.” He kissed your forehead, tender, sweet. “I’ll tell you everything if that’s what you want.”

You met his gaze. “Do you… do you want to know? About Art?”

He went quiet as he played with the ends of your hair. “Did it make you feel any better?” He finally asked. 

“Yeah,” you said softly. “Then it didn’t.”

He kissed the crown of your head. “No?”

You shook your head, sighing softly as his kisses trailed down, over your nose, to the sides of your mouth. “No. It was a mistake.”

”Tell me about it,” he said, murmuring against your jaw. “Tell me how he touched you.”

You shivered, tilting your head to give him more access. Your nails scratched softly against his scalp as he sucked bruises onto your throat. 

“He was desperate,” you said, heart hammering as you began recounting it to Patrick— your boyfriend. There was no world in which he should’ve wanted to hear about it… and yet. He moaned against your throat, encouraging you, wanting to know more. “Kissed me like he wanted to taste you in my mouth, like he wanted to overpower you.”

Patrick moved his lips to yours, kissing you with a sloppy brush of his tongue against yours. “Like that?”

You shook your head and leaned in, deepening the kiss with slow laps of your tongue into his mouth. He moaned softly, matching your pace in a way that was rare, but made butterflies dance around in your stomach. He pulled you on top of him— hands roaming from the backs of your thighs to squeeze your ass as he deepened the kiss. It was just as slow and sweet as before, but you could sense the need and hunger behind it.

You pulled back, just enough to remove your lips from his. Both of your breaths came in needy pants. You weren’t sure why you were enjoying this, but you were, so you kept going. “He took off my clothes, and laid me down on the bed.”

Patrick moaned, chasing your lips. You sat back and just looked at him— lying there with still-damp curls, his pupils blown with lust. His cock was hard, resting against his stomach, precum beading at the tip.

You pulled off Art’s hoodie and tossed it across the room, relishing in the way Patrick’s eyes raked over every bit of exposed skin like it was the first time he’d seen it. “He ate me out, made me cum on his fingers first, then again while he was inside of me,” Patrick’s breath caught, just for a moment. Desire, or jealousy, or both flickered across his gaze. “He fucked me like he wanted me to fall in love with him again.”

Patrick’s chest was heaving as you moved a hand between your bodies, grasping his cock in your hand, stroking slowly. “Is that how you fucked Tashi? Like you wanted her to pick you instead of her fiancé?” He moaned as your thumb ran over his slit, smearing the precum that had begun to dribble out. 

“No,” He groaned. You nodded encouragingly, squeezing him tighter in your fist. “Fuck. I fucked her like I wanted her to know she made a mistake. Made her cum until she tapped out”

You ran a thumb over his bottom lip, tugging slightly. “With this pretty mouth, huh?” He nodded, wordlessly. “And with this?” You gave a slow stroke of his dick, making him buck up into your fist. Another nod. 

“Show me.”

Patrick’s brows furrowed in disbelief. “Show you?”

You nodded and continued stroking him. “I told you about Art, so I want you to show me how you fucked Tashi.”

You recognized the fucking insanity of what you were asking, but you didn’t care. It was a strange form of closure— closing the circle, or whatever. 

“Fuck, okay. Lay back,” he said, patting your thigh. You slid off his lap and settled atop the sheets, watching him expectantly. 

His fingers hooked in the waistband of your panties, and he slid them down slowly. “Fuck.” Your cheeks flooded with heat as he held the sodden fabric up, wet and sticky with Art’s cum. He groaned and hooked your thighs over his shoulders. “That’s… god, that’s really fucking hot, baby.”

Oh. The mix of embarrassment and desire was something new— burning hot in the pit of your stomach as Patrick licked at your pussy, tasting the evidence of your arousal mingling with Art’s release. He moaned against you, holding you so tightly that his fingers dimpled your thighs. 

His tongue lapped at your entrance, pushing into your cunt as deep as he could manage, then back to licking at your clit. It was messy— a combination of spit and cum and your juices.

“Fuck!” You cried out, tugging his hair as he sealed his lips around your clit. He moaned loudly against you, encouraging you to do it again, the fucking masochist. 

He redoubled his efforts, pulling you closer, moaning against your cunt. It was like he wanted to devour you, to lick up every bit of Art that was left inside of you. You wanted him to try— you wanted him to replace every part of Art that was left in your body and soul.

“Patrick,” you gasped. He murmured an mhmm against your pussy. Eyes closed, right at home between your thighs, lost in the taste of you. “Need you inside.”

He planted one, two sloppy kisses to your clit before he pulled back, his lips shiny with your arousal. He wiped the mess away with the back of his hand, smirking down at you. “You need me, huh?”

You nodded, chest heaving with each panting breath. Patrick sat down at the headboard and patted his thigh. “Prove it.”

You sat up, crawling up the bed until you were straddling his lap. “You made her do all the work?” 

He laughed, running his hands up your thighs to squeeze your ass, tug you closer. “I didn’t make her do anything.” Patrick had a hand wrapped around his cock, and you moaned softly as he guided it between your thighs to notch at your entrance. 

You sank down slowly, forehead pressed against his as you took inch after inch. “Fuck,” you breathed. You leaned forward, brushing your lips against his as you gave a slow roll of your hips. “Fuck. You’re so deep, Pat. Feels so good.”

His head fell back against the headboard as you began to ride him in earnest. “Fuck, just like that,” he groaned, still wearing that fucking smirk, even balls deep inside of you. “That’s it, baby, take what you need.”

And you did. The way he was looking at him was proof enough, he was eating up every fucking second of you fucking yourself on him, using him like a toy. 

Your noises were near-pornographic— Right there, fuck, you’re so big baby, so fucking deep.

The poor soul next door slammed on the wall, begging for you to just shut the fuck up. Patrick silenced you with a hungry kiss— a mess of tongues and spit. His fingers moved on your clit, pulling you towards the edge with desperate need. 

“Close,” you gasped. 

He nodded, moving his fingers faster. “I know you are. I’ve got you.” 

You collapsed on top of him as you came— hips canting weakly as he worked you through it. He thrust up into your tight walls, groaning at the feeling of your cunt spasming around his cock. 

“Fuck, you feel so perfect,” he groaned, burying his face into the junction of your throat. “Gonna cum— fuck—“

You moaned softly at the feeling of him spilling inside of you— the soft pulse of him, the warmth of his cum flooding your cunt. You stayed on his lap, kissing his freckled nose, his eyelids, his mouth. 

When you finally moved off of him, you whimpered at that loss of fullness, and of the slick mess seeping out between your thighs. If you were smart, you would’ve gone and cleaned up, but there was nothing more you wanted than to lay there in Patrick’s arms and fall asleep. 

Whatever. You’d leave housekeeping a very generous tip. He sighed contentedly as you lay there— like you were made to fit against him perfectly.  A warm hand rubbed comforting circles on your back, and you felt so at home, even in an Atlanta hotel. 

“I love you, you know that?” He asked.

You looked up and nodded. “I know. I love you too.”

You found yourself staring up over at Patrick with a stupid, persistent smile on your face. He turned to watch you watching him, wearing a matching grin on his face. It was hard to tell who started laughing first— you or Patrick. At the absurdity of it all, at yourselves. 

“God, we’re so messed up,” you said, with another laugh.

He nodded. “Really messed up, but whatever. Apparently your brain isn’t even fully developed until you’re 25.”

“Great, so we have one more year until we’re normal, rational adults.” He laughed, holding you against his chest. 

He reached over and kissed your forehead. You were so sticky and gross that you really needed a shower, but, again— it was a tomorrow problem.

It fell quiet, and you could feel yourself slipping into comfortable drowsiness when Patrick finally spoke up. “Are we going to be okay?”

You blinked slowly. With your hand resting on his chest, you could feel his heart thudding just beneath your palm.

When you were twenty, you met Patrick’s parents. Crowded into his childhood bed with your head resting against his chest, his heart pounded as he apologized for the intense grilling you’d received that night at dinner. It was the first time you ever felt like his bravado had been shaken, like you were seeing through to the core of him. 

You always knew you would be the one to say you loved him first— it was just the way things went. “I don’t care if they like me,” you had assured him. “I love you.” His heart beat harder, faster. He didn’t say it back until two days later, when he was fucking you in that very same bed— forehead to yours, skin sticky with sweat. “I love you,” breathed into your mouth like air. 

When you were twenty-two, you moved into an apartment in Manhattan and Patrick followed like a housecat— no rent, no job, just company and a mouth to feed. The tour wasn’t going well, and you were working for a shitty, clickbait news site that hardly covered the cost of your place. 

Things were good, mostly. Comfortable, domestic. Patrick tried to be a good boyfriend, you tried to be a good girlfriend. Both of you were trying to figure out what that meant for the other as best as you could. Patrick would bring you flowers from the corner store and take you out for drinks and dancing on weekends. You’d drive out on holidays to visit his family and wind up leaving early to go back to the comforts and peace of your apartment. 

When you could, you’d follow him out to tournaments. If he won, he’d take you out with the prize money. If he lost, you’d take him back to the hotel to cheer him up.

On rough days, one of you would come home to the apartment and pick a fight over laundry, or a dish left in the sink, or even what he’d left on TV, and the other would give it back tenfold. Your neighbors would beat on their walls in annoyance as you yelled at each other, until one of you slammed a door and sulked in another room for a few hours, or you had make-up sex that gave the neighbors another reason to bang on their walls. 

The breakups were infrequent but severe. You’d kick Patrick out, he’d live out of his car, or in a motel, or fuck off to some tennis tournament that you’d previously promised to go to. One of you always broke first, returning to the other with promises of love, and to do better.

You did love each other, really. And things usually got better. It was just easy to live with your feelings dialed up to a ten where Patrick was involved: bigger good moments, worse bad ones. 

Your career had vastly improved. Patrick had moved up in the rankings, only slightly, but it was something. You could afford a bigger apartment in a nicer area, maybe get a dog. And you didn’t just want those things alone, you wanted them with him. 

You pressed a kiss to the center of his chest and nodded. “We’ll be fine,” you assured. It felt like the truth.

He nodded, looking down at you. His freckles were so much more pronounced after tournament after tournament in the blazing sun. “Yeah, probably.”

The next morning, you both got the continental breakfast you’d seen in the elevator while housekeeping dealt with the aftermath of the previous night. You did tourist-y shit— went to a museum, found a nice spot for lunch.

At the end of the day, you sat in the oppressive Atlanta heat with Patrick and watched Art Donaldson win his tennis match. You and Patrick left early, fucked in the backseat of his car, and decided to head home early. 

As you started the drive back, you held his hand over the center console and listened to a shitty mix CD with songs he’d ripped off of LimeWire. You gave him shit when Kelly Clarkson followed Lil Wayne, but you both sang along to every fucking word. 

You were right. You and Patrick would probably be fine.

[mrhowells]

Smallville 4x02 *chanting* clois clois clois cloisss

Why are they psychoanalyzing each other already lmaoooo

that's some quality yeeting😌

First of all, MOTHER. Second, imagine being able to pull off that orange jacket, I could never

"Lois!!😳😨" The queen doing queen shit while Clark is just standing there clutching his pearls, THEE DYNAMIC

Why is her dad so extra tho💀

I'm having so much fun right nowwww🤗 Have I mentioned that I love Lois? Because I love her a lot

Clark being super upfront with his parents never stops warming my heart🥹

name a more entertaining duo I'll wait

both Lana and Clark seem quite different from season 3, it's almost jarring

PLSSS imagine if he was wrong💀💀

Women supporting women, we love to see it😌

an understatement if I've ever heard one💀

"The awkward tension is just getting started." Lois I love you

I'm memeing the hell out of this episode just so you know

"I can see why you're in love with her." *the bisexual Lois agenda*

Clark: "Look you're really not the person I wanna talk to about this."

Clark, 5 seconds later: "So here's what happened-"

she looks so pretty here it's insane actually

"To keep an eye on me, is that it, boss?" ugh the way she says that is so hot don't ask me why

"My heart isn't exactly what it used to be." They keep reminding me and I hate it😭😭

Clark is having some unpleasant flashbacks right now🤡

watching Lionel get stabbed like whatever, he'll survive🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyway, back to what I was saying-

askajskajsak the old geezer💀😭

the love of my life everyone

"I don't know how you ever survived without me." I feel like she's saying that to me but also YES, Lois saving Clark since day one👏👏 (flash forward to Loisidiedwhenyouleft he literally CANNOT survive without her I'm-)

bless🥹

He's like gimme credit I did good work too Lois acknowledge meeee🥺

Chloe's like can y'all stop making prolonged eye contact I almost got murdered and I wanna go home👀

🙏🕯Manifesting Lionel in prison and out of commission for as many episodes as possible🕯🙏

Jonathan defending Lex while Clark won't have it? Oh, how the turntables...

"It's funny isn't it? After everything we've been through, I thought it would take us longer to get over it." OOUCH

"Us?" He's like in what universe-

"Yeah, you and Lois."

"Lois? She's bossy. She's stuck up, she's rude. I can't stand her."

Clark Kent, you beautiful beautiful clown🤡 Look at the face this mf made when he said the first part, "she's bossy😍😏😍"

"Do you believe in destiny?" "I don't want to."

yeaaah he really doesn't😬

The more Lex emotionally controls the situation when he's with Lionel, the less threatening Lionel is. Really makes you realize that he only has as much power as Lex allows him to have, if Lex stops caring (which I don't think he ever fully will but I digress), Lionel becomes irrelevant. Even if he still managed to outsmart Lex in whatever way, as long as Lex just shrugs it off like "Whatever old man, smart move I guess." any victory on Lionel's end really loses its impact🤷🏻‍♀️

I still want to know how old Jason is btw👀

[justmoreocs-writing]

Dick felt sick. The tape kept playing over in his mind, an impossible to ignore loop that made him desperately want to get out of the mansion. To don the Nightwing costume Bruce had let him house in the Batcave. But the instructions had been unmistakable: No suits.

‘We’ve still got time,’ Bruce said softly, attention focused on the small phone screen. On the paused image of A.J. that Dick believed to be imprinted on his own mind’s eye. ‘Zsasz will keep his word on timings.’

‘What if he filmed it earlier?’ Teddy asked, voice pitched higher with fear.

Slowly, Bruce lifted his gaze to meet Alfred’s, and then Teddy’s. For once, Dick wanted to yell at him that they needed to work fast.

‘A.J. tapped the arms three times,’ Bruce reminded him gently, as if it were merely a lesson rather than a matter of life or death. ‘She knew the clock was a decoy.’

‘Six hours instead of two,’ Alfred said with shocking calm. ‘Time not to make mistakes.’

‘What if Zsasz is using that one?’ Tim put in, scrunching his mouth to the side when he was finished.

‘His watch was right.’ Bruce’s words were said with the air of somebody not terrified for a life. It made a prickle of anger run down Dick’s spine, but he forced himself to acknowledge it then move on. Anger wouldn’t help save A.J..

‘So, what’s the plan, Master B?’ Alfred asked.

Bruce took a breath, and Dick wasn’t entirely sure he was going to like what he heard next.

The room smelt like cloying blood; the faint fragrance of A.J.’s perfume barely an undercurrent to it that flipped Dick’s insides. Bruce’s plan had hinged on Barry, and the speedster had come through; now, the two of them were talking to the press outside, claiming A.J. was already in hospital to give them time.

‘T – Talk to me, Nightwing,’ Teddy said softly through the coms.

Dick swallowed, despite the sudden dryness of his mouth. Teddy and Tim were still at the Manor; Babs, Roy and Wally there to help. Alfred, dressed in an old Batman suit, was idling a Batmobile out back to drive A.J. to safety. All Dick had to do was get her there.

His chest felt too tight. There’d been no time for Barry to check her, to tell them if it had all worked. People often spoke about a sixth sense, an internal knowledge of safety linked to those closest to them. Of all the people he knew, Dick had always assumed he’d know if A.J. was gone. But he’d missed her disappearance – abduction, he now knew, which turned his stomach once more – at the party.

‘Nightwing?’

‘I’m going in, T.W.,’ he said, forcing the door open. ‘A.J.?’

Dick was on his knees in front of her in an instant. Two hours. It had taken them two hours to check the plan could work, but there was a window of eight hours that A.J. had been unaccounted for.

‘Who’s there?’ A.J.’s voice was hoarse, and yet Dick would have recognised it anywhere. Selfishly, part of him had hoped the tattered dress was a decoy; a ragged thing worn by another poor soul. Too many training sessions together, however, made him acutely aware of her physique; at least, that was the protective bubble of reason his brain was giving him.

‘Nightwing,’ he breathed, using the sharpened end of a Wing Ding to cut the rope at her ankles.

A.J. sucked in a terrified breath. ‘You can’t – I don’t know where he went. You need –’

‘Flash got him,’ Dick assured her gently, forcing himself to stand. To carefully pry the blindfold from over her eyes. ‘You’re… safe.’ The word felt like a lie, seeing the cuts over her arms that were Zsasz’s handiwork. Safety was a promise he couldn’t give until she’d been checked over by Leslie, who was on her way to the Manor. One cut ran way too close to her eye; it had saturated part of the cloth with blood.

A.J.’s breath hitched on something that sounded like a sob. It shattered something inside Dick’s chest.

‘Buddy, you good?’ This time it was Wally’s voice through the communicator.

‘Two minutes,’ Dick replied tersely, before putting the Wing Ding away. He couldn’t use a blade. Not now. He forced himself to crouch, to untie the rope at her wrists with gentle hands, desperate not to touch any wounds even accidentally. ‘We’re gonna get you home.’

‘Where’s Zsasz?’

Dick’s hand slipped, but he made contact with the arm of the chair rather than A.J.. Only once had he ever heard that level of fear in her voice, and it had been at his bedside when he was thirteen years old.

‘The Flash has him. And a group of G.C.P.D. officers,’ he told her, getting to work on the other wrist. ‘The Batmobile is the other way. You won’t have to look at him.’

Dick forced his attention not to linger on her injuries, on the rope burns, as he reached shaking hands to the noose around her throat. It was too familiar, too close to his biggest failure.

‘Nightwing,’ she said softly, catching his wrists briefly and meeting his eyes. Despite the fear, there was a steadiness there that Dick could lean on. ‘I trust you.’

Dick nodded, not trusting his voice, before he got a Wing Ding out again. A quick glance up, not fast enough to miss the flicker of panic in A.J.’s eyes, told him the noose was more for show than anything. He took a slight step back and hurled the Wing Ding at the dangling rope.

A.J. collapsed like a marionette on cut strings. For a petrifying moment Dick thought he’d missed; that Zsasz had hidden a trap as well. But A.J. had sagged forwards in relief; outstretched her arms to cling to his waist for support. He felt her sobbing, even before he had the chance to gently put his arms beneath hers, to guide her to standing.

Distantly, he heard the Wing Ding collide with a wall, off target after the rope. But Dick’s focus was A.J.. With his hands gently on her ribs, he felt the erratic beat of her heart; the sharp gasps of her breath.

‘Let’s get you out of here,’ he whispered, trying not to think about the cut trailing over her collarbone, towards her chest. Her heart.

‘Thanks,’ she said as he shifted to stand beside her, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist. He offered his free arm in front, giving her the option of support without confines. For once, A.J. clung to his arm and wrist bruisingly, drew it across her front as they shuffled towards the factory’s backdoor.

‘Always,’ he vowed, voice breaking ever so slightly before he pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. For once, he regretted all those times arguing with Bruce over his rougher treatment of criminals. Near blinding anger made him long for the days when Bruce simply hadn’t cared about human welfare.

The gentle tap of A.J.’s fingers against his arm brought Dick back to himself. Forced him to take a calming breath before he opened the door. Revenge like that made them nearly as bad as the criminals themselves; it was a line he could never forgive himself for crossing. Least of all in the name of someone who would be disappointed in him for that transgression. So, all he could hope for was that this time Victor Zsasz would stay locked in Arkham for the rest of his life.

[chasetriesagain]

Can I be so totally honest with you folks? (I can because this is my blog.) I'm so, so, so tired of Donald Trump. And not (just) because he's a threat to democracy or to people I care about or to my very way of life and a roadblock to just about every stitch of progress my country is desperately in need of.

I'm tired of hearing about him. I was an adult with a fresh college degree and a (too) slowly shifting political compass prior to 2016. Do you know what Donald Trump was to me back before 2016? Nothing. Not jack shit.

He was a failing reality TV star living off his family name and careening through one business venture to the next, doomed to fade from the public's attention because he was a boring old bigot.

Then he decides to run for office, and for eight fucking years I have to hear about the patron saint of the banality of evil every goddamn day. From a third of this country and constantly from the media. He is dull, obnoxious, and ignorant, and I do not care about him.

I do not care what outrageous thing he said. I do not care about his golf game. I do not care about his victim complex. I do not care about his ego. I would not care if he loved his country. (He doesn't.) I would not care if he was a genius. (He is not.) I don't care who thinks he's a good guy. I don't care when someone thinks he made a good point. I don't care about how people who support him see him.

If I had the power, I would wish him away. I would make him disappear from pictures and history books like in Back to the Future. Not for any political aim, simply because I do not wish to be reminded any more that he exists, has existed, will continue to exist for some unspecified amount of time.

He's boring and uncouth, and because he has money and says things people aren't supposed to say, and because the media loves a mess, I have to hear about him. And there's a good chance that even if he loses, I'm still going to have to hear about him.

It's like the dog decided to drag in a dead skunk and instead of disposing of it and cleaning the house, we've installed it on the mantle, festering and rotting and stinking, and also everyone just keeps talking about it so even when your nose blind to the stench, you have to get hourly updates on the maggots.

And I think I would probably feel this way to some degree even if he were someone I agreed with, that I didn't loathe. The obsession with him is exhausting. Popstar fandom is less insufferable.

And yes, unfortunately, right now we need to talk about him. We need to talk about the threat he poses and the realities about American life he has exposed because there's a too real chance he can get re-elected, but I pray, really, genuinely pray that there will come a day when I don't have to see his face or hear his name or think about his odious little family and their transparent bullshittery and their cloying attitudes and their punchable mugs because they're all just so weird and boring and dumb, and I hope next time I have to live through some historical shit the people are involved are at least funny.

[katieskarlette]

Between having Covid and then being laid off from my job (sorta...long story), I’ve had a incredibly shitty time lately and I needed a new mindless distraction.  After watching CallMeKevin on YouTube play Stardew Valley, and talking to a couple RL friends who have played it, I decided to give it a shot.  Instant addiction.

Cut for off-topicness.

The game appeals to my love of collecting stuff, organizing stuff, and exploring.  I’m too ace to care about the dating aspect, and so far I suck at fishing, but the rest is right up my alley.

I haven’t even visited the desert yet despite unlocking the bus ages ago because there’s just so much to do.

I started with the beach farm because A.) tropical beaches are my favorite aesthetic (even though it turns out this one isn’t tropical), and B.) that’s the one I watched CallMeKevin play.  I’ve learned since that it’s an annoying choice because you can’t use sprinklers on the sand terrain, but since I’ve never known anything else I don’t mind it that much.

I have cows, goats, pigs, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and a horse.  I want ostriches but haven’t gotten to the place where I can get them.  I named my rabbits after Watership Down characters, and my ducks are named for Donald Duck’s family members.  I had to turn off breeding for my goats because they kept having babies.  I tried to be patient and wait for my pig to reproduce because they’re so expensive, but after a year in-game I gave up and bought a second one.  Yay, Truffle$!

I made the tier list here, but excluded characters I haven’t met yet.

Linus is a pure cinnamon roll.  Krobus is the cutest sewer-dwelling shadow creature I’ve ever met and now I feel bad any time I have to kill one of his kind in the mines.  Marlon gives me serious World of Warcraft character vibes for some reason...possibly the beard/’stache combo. Evelyn is everyone’s grandma and she sends me baked goods in the mail.  Willy is super nice, too, and I have to like someone who’s that obsessed with fish.

Harvey is shy and socially awkward in an endearing way, even if he’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.  Penny is a sweetie who homeschools (er...librarymuseumschools) other people’s kids out of the kindness of her heart.  Robin built most of my farm and was nice enough to sell me a catalog that essentially puts her out business as far as furniture making.  Abigail has gorgeous hair and I like how early on she has some grouchy interactions and some friendly ones instead of being all grouchy or all cheerful like some others.  Gus is super friendly and helpful.  I’m still a mage at heart even when I’m not playing WoW, so I have a soft spot for the wizard, plus he’s mysterious so I can imagine him being cooler than he probably is.  Elliot is a pretentious snob but in a fun way and reminds me of an old OC of mine.

Lewis is an interesting character but he’s a politician...with all that implies.  Emily was the first person to start sending me random gifts in the mail and her smile is infectious.  Gunther has my dream job, running a combination museum/library.  George ranks this high because grumpy old men in video games are much more fun that they are in RL.  Marnie provides me with adorable animals. Vincent is one of those rare child characters who isn’t cloying or annoying.  Alex is nicer than I expected a jock to be.  I liked Clint to begin with but after he turned up his nose at several gifts that I thought he’d like, had a pity party for himself at every holiday gathering, gave off incel vibes, and closed his shop stupidly early in the day...yeah, not such a fav anymore.  Gil doesn’t say much but I have to respect a guy who  sits back and orders others to kill huge numbers of slimes...Khadgar vibes, you could say.  ;)

Demetrius is smart and gave me ‘shrooms.  Leah seems nice but I don’t know her that well.  Sam is pretty nice but I can’t take him seriously with that anime hair.  Caroline is pretty boring except for that whole rumor about her having an affair with the wizard.  Pierre charges an arm and a leg for inventory upgrades and is kind of cocky.  Kent is okay, if standoffish for understandable reasons.  I feel guilty ranking Grandpa so low, but he looks like Santa Claus went through a machine spraying fake snow, and he didn’t cut me any slack for not having a perfect farm on my first playthrough.  Shane is rude, and although I’ve read up on his backstory and his demons I still don’t like him, and I hate his frayed hoodie.

I haven’t interacted with Maru much but haven’t really been inspired to, either.  Pam is okay but I can’t condone drunk bus driving.  Sebastian is a cliche emo kid and that’s never been my thing.  Jas has stupid hair, and I gave her a nice gift once but the next time I interacted with her she said she’d never met me...ungrateful brat.  Haley is vain, said I was smelly, and has outright ignored me multiple times.  I don’t know why Jodi annoys me, but she does.  I ranked the Governor so low because he didn’t like my contributions to the stew the first two years, when I was actually trying, and the third year when I almost forgot and just threw in a random item he actually liked it.  The dwarf ranks low because I sold off all the scrolls I should have given to him, and of course now they won’t drop for me again.  

Morris is an evil corporate scumbag and has a stupid bowtie.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

Rose Colored Glasses

Summary:  Ethan sacrifices everything for family. Then, with help from a familiar face, he moves on.

Notes:  Just a little something brought on by me lamenting the fact that there aren't enough fics out there that just have the Winterses and Bakers being normal friends and family.

AO3

The third time Ethan dies, he wakes up warm.

It’s a large step up from the frozen wasteland Eveline greeted him in, but the process of coming back is still just as painful. This time, it’s not his chest feeling hollow or his ribs burning as they scraped together after being shoved into the cavity where his heart was supposed to be. Now it’s mostly a full body ache; for a moment, before his thoughts reorder into some semblance of sense, Ethan thinks wildly that he has the flu, that everything since Mia had finished making dinner had to be a fever dream. She made soup--maybe because he’s been sick? She was always better at noticing when something was wrong than Ethan was. She probably put him to bed after dinner, gave him a cold compress maybe, and he’d passed out and thought up the entire nightmare because of that stupid children’s story.

The ache eases, though, almost immediately, leaving behind the warmth sinking into his bones. Ethan sighs but doesn’t open his eyes. It was all real--he knows that. He died--again--and now he’s...somewhere else. But the air isn’t cloying in his lungs, and he doesn’t hurt anymore, and it’s so, so comfortable, so he doesn’t suppose he minds too much. Rose is safe, Mia is safe, even Chris is safe. Hasn’t he earned a little rest? Hasn’t he earned the right to close his eyes for a while?

Sensation filters back in gradually, and Ethan realizes all of a sudden that he isn’t wearing his jacket or hoodie anymore. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbow. He doesn’t feel the heavy weight of his hiking boots on his ankles. His pants feel clean and unwrinkled, rather than stiff with bloodstains. There’s a constant pressure at his back holding him up, like lying on a brand new mattress. Then sound fills his ears; rain against a windowpane, his own soft breathing, the far-off sound of pots and pans and a stove turning on. His nose twitches when he smells something spicy and full-bodied, a good home-cooked meal. But Ethan still does not open his eyes. They’re too heavy. The ache has passed, but Ethan’s body is so very heavy.      

Even when a hand passes over his brow, Ethan can’t seem to find the strength to open his eyes. The fingertips are square and blunt, the skin worn from hard work. The palm rests gently over his brow before moving on. Ethan thinks of Mia, running her fingers through his hair every time he’d get sick, and cannot keep in a tiny, miserable noise.

“Shh, you're alright, son,” says a familiar voice. It’s less rough now, less demented than Ethan remembers it. Kinder, definitely. “You’re alright now. You’ve gone through enough pain to warrant a little rest.”

Ethan murmurs incomprehensibly, even to himself, and drifts.

When he wakes again, he is still warm. It makes him sigh and settle before finally, finally, opening his eyes.

The room he is in is rustic, with old, worn carpets and wooden furniture. The bedframe is wood too, and his blanket a deep blue, obviously hand-knit. The rain still patters away at the window above his head, but it's gentle and calm. A pair of loafers he recognizes as his own wait at the foot of his bed.

Sitting at his bedside, his glasses slipping halfway down a sloping nose, is Jack Baker.

“Hello, Ethan.”

“Hello, Jack.”

Ethan sits up, scrubs a hand through his hair and over his eyes. A phantom pain twinges through his wrist and he hisses, but it’s gone the next second. Jack hums and nods. “You’re feelin’ some pain?”

“Just the old ones,” Ethan tells him, letting resignation drip from his words. Waking up to a dead man-turned-monster after his own death is just par for the course at this point. Somewhere between getting his hand chopped off by a monstrous version of his wife and realizing that Mother Miranda ripping his heart out was not, in fact, the first time he died, Ethan stopped trying to make the world make sense. Jack Baker waiting for him in the afterlife? Fine. Sure. Why not?

“That’ll happen for a while,” Jack tells him, still gentle as a lamb. “The older they are, the more the pains stick around. They’ll leave you eventually. Just takes some time.”

Ethan nods and swings his legs out of bed. He looks up, considering, and at the openness of Jack Baker’s face, quirks the corners of his mouth up. “This is it then, huh? This is the end.”

Jack smiles too, wider than Ethan thinks he could manage. “Don’t know ‘bout that--but this is what we have for now. Reminds you of old times, huh?”

“Just not the good times,” Ethan says.

“No,” Jack agrees tiredly. “Not the good ones.”

His companion is silent as Ethan slips on his shoes and, after another pause, clumsily folds the blanket he has been given. Afterwards, he has to admit he can’t prolong the inevitable any more. “What are you doing here, Jack?”

Jack seems to take him at his real meaning, take his words for what are you doing here with me, Jack? “You remember what I told you the last time we saw each other, son? What I asked you to do?”

“‘Free my family.’” Ethan repeats. Those words have haunted him for longer than he’d have thought possible. All that death and the blood resting squarely on his hands--could it really be labeled as freedom?

Jack leans forward and, telegraphing his movements, slowly places his hand over one of Ethan’s. His fingers are square and strong and soft against Ethan’s reflexive fist. He finds himself relaxing far more quickly than he’d have expected. “You did as I asked you, Ethan,” Jack tells him. “Even though it pained you, even though it was the most difficult thing in the world for me to ask of you, you helped us. You didn’t have to.”

Ethan stares at him blankly. “Sure I did.”

“Oh?” Jack smiles, leans back and crosses his arms. His rocking chair is more stable than the one they’d had Eveline’s old body stored in back in Dulvey. It creaks with his movements. “You could’ve broken a window and run for it. You found your wife and could’ve gone off into the woods instead of facing Eveline. But you stayed, and you helped, and now we’re here instead of stuck in that mold.”

“Well--but--it wasn’t like I had a choice--” Ethan tries, his tongue feeling thick and strange in his mouth. No one has ever actually sat and talked with him about what happened in Louisiana, never acknowledged what he’d had to sacrifice before Ethan himself brought it up. Even Mia shied away from it. Taking a deep breath, Ethan tried again. “It was just the right thing to do.”

“But you did it, Ethan. No one else. So thank you.”

And well, that is true, so Ethan keeps his mouth shut. He shrugs, feeling awkward and embarrassed and not sure why. Jack Baker takes pity on him after a silent moment. “Since you helped us, we decided to wait for you. To make sure y’all are safe and sound when it came to be your time.” Jack looks over the rim of his glasses at Ethan, and for a second Ethan feels like a little boy about to be scolded. “We thought it would be quite a while before you showed back up, son.”

Ethan snorts. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Don't see why you should apologize for saving your daughter. There is nothing disappointing about you, Ethan.”

That warmth increases in Ethan’s chest. “Who else is here? Marguerite?”

Jack nods and softly claps his hands on his thighs. “She was fit to be tied when you showed up so unexpectedly. She’s downstairs now, getting some supper ready. We figured you’d be a bit peckish.”

For how well his last dinner with the Bakers went, Ethan feels considerably less apprehensive at the smells wafting upstairs. “What about Eveline? Lucas?”

“Lucas comes and goes,” Jack tells him. “He’s--he’s Lucas. It’s been harder for him than the two of us. He’ll come around.”

Ethan privately thinks that is the absolute last thing Lucas Baker will ever do, but keeps it to himself. “Eveline?”

“Nowhere we can see.”

He thinks of the cold, the snow, the mud and dirt and loneliness he woke to when he died at Miranda’s hand. “She probably doesn’t like company these days,” Ethan mutters.

If he hears Ethan’s comment, Jack doesn’t react. He stands then, and cracks his back, letting out a loud groan. Ethan smiles a little more at the humanity in the action. This is who Jack must have been before--well, before everything. Perhaps, if he and Mia had met them under different circumstances, they'd have been friends with the Bakers. Perhaps neighbors. Perhaps they’d have let the Bakers babysit Rose once in a while.  

“Zoe is the last one we’re waiting for,” Jack says. “She won’t be here for a long while, God willing. You’re welcome to wait with us for as long as you like, of course.”

“I’ll need to stay for Mia and Rose.”

“Of course. Would you like some company?”

Ethan blinks before taking Jack’s offered hand, letting the older man pull him to his feet. “You’d wait with me? Even if Zoe comes first?”

Jack claps a hand to Ethan’s shoulder and lets it rest there, warm and reassuring. “For as long as you’ll have us, Ethan, it would be our privilege.”

The gorge in his throat swells, his face grows tight and his eyes prick. “Thanks, Jack.”

Jack inclines his head and leaves the words hanging in the air between them, comfortable and knowing. As he turns to lead Ethan out of the room, Jack pauses. “Oh, you got any good stories about little Rosie? I’m sure Marguerite would love to hear some. Been such a long time since we had a baby in the house.”

Ethan smiles, and nods, and lets the warm glow of the home beyond his doorway guide him out.

[ramonahblog]

Sooo apparently my latest fic is going to be a series and yes, I did just link it because no shame over here. We are all on tumblr, no point in having shame.

There are plans to have both Clark and Lois’s POV in that series. Possibly different fics, possible different chapters in one fic. IDK. Anyway point is, I’m trying to keep it canon-compliant up until 2x13 which means I’ve got to really delve into their minds and decision-making. Especially regarding their parenting choices in regards to Jon throughout the series. 

Spoilers for CW Superman and Lois. All the Spoilers. Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers. 

And now that I had time to process my Superman and Lois binge...I realised another thing. The way Clark and Lois treat Jon reminds me of how people’s relationships with their parents change once they are  adults. It’s like they forget he’s also a fourteen/fifteen year old? So when he makes a dumb teenage mistake, they react like he is an adult still living at home and not paying rent. 

And to be clear, I don’t think they mean to. Especially in season one, for the most part, he reacts and acts maturely. Like enough that I can see how Clark and Lois might accidentally place higher expectations on Jon than Jordan. Because Jordan, for the most part, acts like a fourteen (then fifteen) year old.  

And the thing about teenagers being “mature for their age” is they often get punished more severely than their peers. Because of those expectations. And they also often get the “it will be fine, just give it me more time” treatment which if you really think about it, is just “suck it up” in a pretty outfit. Basically adults forget they are dealing with teenagers so when those “mature for their age” be, you know, teenagers, they get punished more severely. 

And at the start of season one, these boys were only fourteen. And now they are fifteen. So Clark&Lois are dealing with young teenagers. 

The other thing is when Jon makes a dumb teenage mistake, he really makes a dumb teenage mistake the himbo. Like he’s the kind of teenager that would dive into water off a cliff and break his spine. But when he isn’t being a himbo  making dumb teenage mistakes, he acts older than his fourteen/fifteen years. 

And it goes the other way around. Like, in season one, when Jordan made the really dumb teenage mistake of trying to punch another kid in a head. With super strength. And the twins were outside despite the rule being stay in the hotel room and only outside because Jordan wanted to go with the team. Like Jon initially turns down the Smallville’s team offer to go out and get drunk and seems rather firm in it. Jordan is the one that accepts the offer and he does it by trying to get Jon to accept as well. Jon follows him.

Huh. 👀 Anyone want to write an AU where Jon does not follow Jordan here? 👀 The angst and drama and tragedy potential. 👀

And Clark and Lois weren’t pointing out that Jordan did mean to hit someone and in the head. He just didn’t mean to hit Jon. They left that out. And they did know this because Jon says it to Jordan in front of them and, well, context clues even if Jon hadn’t. But their response to this was a stern talking to Jordan and then an offer for ice cream the next day. The fuck, Lois? Why are you rewarding him here? 

Verses Clois’s response to Jon preventing this from happening and getting a broken arm as a result. Was to dismiss his feelings and no follow up once Jon (visibly upset) takes himself to his room. Lois also straight up tells Jon that it could have been worse. Which sounds so incredibly dismissive and most teenagers (hell most adults) would take it as dismissive. Okay, Lois. The night of injury is not the time to say that. Let your FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD be upset about his broken arm. 

And tbf, this is followed by Clark telling Jordan that Jon has the right to be upset. But no one followed Jon.  

While Jordan gets ice-cream the next morning. Again, the fuck Lois? Did Jon get ice-cream, Lois? Did you offer him ice-cream, Lois? 

And if you consider this as Clois responding to Jon as if he’s older than he actually is while treating Jordan as the age the twins actually are or younger. Because the fuck, Lois? It makes perfect sense. Because then Clois is going with the assumption that it is obvious to Jon because they are treating Jon as if he’s older then he is. 

Problem is Jon is fourteen (and then fifteen) and they need to stop going by that assumption that Jon will automatically know these things. 

Also I don’t think we talk enough about how Lois drops the parenting ball with Jon as well. And also Jordan. Different extremes (being directly responsible for breaking your sibling’s arm because you were planning to hit someone’s head with your super strength is certainly a situation you should get ice-cream for /sarcasm) but still dropping it.

Skip to season two, Jon makes really dumb teenage mistake and does drugs. Clois are focusing on external factors because they are stuck in this weird-ass belief that Jon is older than he actually is but also they can somehow protect him like he’s newborn. So, to them, it looks like Jon took drugs for superficial reasons and is apparently covering for an actual drug dealer for no reasons. Which is why, even after a night’s sleep, they aren’t getting to the bottom of anything because they aren’t looking at the internal factors. Or why Clark keeps interrupting Jon’s attempt to explain what he was/is thinking. 

You can even see it when Jon-El crosses over to Prime World. Jon gets snappy with Clark because Clark lets Jon-El go in order to not hurt Lana’s feelings to keep his secret (only for that to be reversed by the end so it was pointless, A+ parenting Clark 👍) and is sent to his room by Lois (A+ parenting Lois 👍). 

Let’s reiterate: Jon is actively being hunted down. He’s also having painful seizure-like attacks that leave him writhing on the floor. Clark had the chance to actively stop the threat to Jon’s and didn’t. Jon gets snappy (and if you wouldn’t in the same situation you are either lying or need better self-esteem, please work on that). He is sent to his room.

Meanwhile Lois goes to talk to Sarah about Jordan. Jordan finds this out and gets snappy at her. He is comforted.   

Result: Jordan gets snappy at his mom because she talked to his newly ex-girlfriend about him. Lois comforts him. Jon gets snappy at Clark for letting a threat to Jon’s life escape and BONUS said threat is the reason Jon is having painful seizure-like attacks. Lois sends him to his room. 

Why no getting sent to room for Jordan, Lois? What lesson do you think the Kent Boys learnt from this? If you get snappy because your life is actively at risk, you deserve to get sent to your room. But if you get snappy because your mom *checks notes* talked to your ex-girlfriend, you deserve to be comforted. 

Also speaking of this episode and Clark’s A+ Parenting 👍. Clark literally tells Jon that the Secret keeps the family safe right after the secret is directly responsible for letting Jon-El aka active threat to Jon’s life right now escaping. Jon doesn’t know this at this point but it’s literally only TWO SCENES later. 

The fuck? The actual fuck?  

IDK. Am I making sense here? Thoughts anyone? 

Sorry if I’m not making sense. Apparently, I am coming down with something if the hot/cold, tiredness and my head feeling like someone decided to use it as a knifeblock is any indication. 

[hansoulo]

lay back in cloying sin

part three of “Pillar of Salt”

Pairing: Boba Fett/Princess!Reader (she/her pronouns, no Y/N)

Warnings: NSFW-ish; references to marks and bruises, kissing, probably inaccurate descriptions of ballroom dancing, fluff, mentions of alcohol consumption

Word Count: 3.3k

Gif Credit: (x) by @/ktfhett

A/N: boba & reader: [tyler the creator voice] oh no i hope i don’t fall 

༓ series masterlist ༓ 

Dinner was a tedious affair, filled with hollow pageantry. It was one last hurrah before the send off of the honored guests, one of which you’d never talked to and the other who was nowhere to be found. The former, Lord Vader, sat at the head of the long table and made for very unamusing company. You had the distinct impression that he’d rather be anywhere than here, having to listen to his uniformed subordinates squabble in grating voices and your father simper about mining collectives. That made for two of you.

But the cavernous banquet hall was always beautiful, if a bit ostentatious, and the food never disappointed, so you consoled yourself with a loosened corset and the promise of a second dinner by servants who pitied your forced small portions.

You floated into the large room, shuffled through by the compounding procession before an older man offered to help you into your seat. The ornateness of your evening wear made you grateful for the help, watching in sincere thanks as he pulled out the high-backed chair.

“Thank you, um…” the color of his robes and the softness of his hands signalled high rank and you chanced a guess. “Duke...?”

“Sagcock,” he finished for you. “Jovron Sagcock.”

He has got to be joking.

Evidently, he wasn’t.

If the man saw you choke on a laugh, sputtering it into a hiccup as you sat down, he pretended not to notice. After all, princesses knew better than to be unbecoming or crass or know why any part of that exchange could be fodder for humor.

Fighting down one last cough, you attempted to regain some sense of decorum. What a wonderful start to the evening.

The arrangement of persons on this particular night was strange though, even disregarding the title of the man now seated beside you. There were more people than usual filling out the hall tonight, all fancily clad and buffed to shining. Boba wasn’t anywhere to be found.

The supposed importance of the occasion probably necessitated a shuffling of seats to soothe egos and encourage conversation, but you weren’t used to being so close to the head of the table, near parallel with your mother. Usually your elder sisters sat higher and provided you the benefit of distance. Of course, they were all gone now. Your brother was still too young to be at evening dinners, so there was no buffer between you and your parents’ ire.

Maybe this was the Maker’s way of getting back at you for your tiny tryst. Maybe they all knew about what happened in the garden and were just waiting for the shoe to drop, branding you as a harlot and finally letting you free. Vader’s static words travelled down the table and mingled with your father’s but you were too busy entertaining worse-case scenarios to understand conversation.

People were observing you, you realized partway through the first round of courses. Watching you with strange eyes as if you were the last scrap of halfway-spoiled meat for imperial officials and all the nobility that had come to pay their prostrate respects. No one had really given half a damn about you before, which made it all the more strange.

A heel foot softly kicked at yours underneath the table, breaking you out of your glazed thoughts. The fork you had been mindlessly moving across your plate stopping mid-swirl. Looking up, you met the quiet glare of your mother and cleared your throat.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” you asked. Your question was punctuated with a smile too large to be genuine. The queen’s head jerked towards the grizzled man seated to her right and you turned towards him at her behest, face open in trained invitation. “Oh, hello, General.”

General Enes, current commander of the army of Quas Killam. Not strictly Imperial, but aligned close enough to have him in the king’s good graces and to reside permanently at court. He was also a Duke and probably a cousin thrice removed, but who was counting?

“No need to stand on pleasantries, your Highness,” the gray-haired man assured you, one large hand resting over his stomach as servants replaced the dirtied plates in front of you with new ones. You only sipped delicately at your algarine as he chortled and remembered, “It seems like yesterday that you were running around the palace with your sisters. A little sprite of a thing, weren’t you?”

Was he drunk already? “Yes, I remember,” you tread pleasantly; carefully.

The general settled and let out one last chuckle before his eyes grew hawk-like again, trained in the jewelry and accoutrements that signified your being old enough to marry but young enough to have not yet been taken. Like a prize. Or a charity donation. “You’ve grown into quite the young woman, you know.”

So that’s where this was going. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes and tried to look gracious. “Thank you, sir. That’s a high compliment.”

“How old are you again, dear?”

Masking your surprise at the forwardness of the question, you supplied your age to a nod of approval from both him and your mother.

“A good age, I’d say. ‘Round the same as my youngest.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you shot a look down the table and caught a glimpse of cropped flaxen hair, its owner sitting enough seats down to prevent any shared conversation. You counted your blessings for it and smiled, tight-lipped. “Your son and I shared company when we were children.”

“Well that’s very nice,” the queen interjected quite loudly and looked around the long table with a light laugh but cold eyes. “Isn’t that nice?”

Your father looked at you for the first time all evening as if on cue, boring a hole into your face with the words he seemed to be telepathically trying to put in your mouth.

The taste of bitter wine on your tongue made your thoughts fevered, though not borne out of alcohol so much as the memories of someone else’s touch in the same places. “Yes,” you repeated vaguely. “Very nice.”

Darth Vader apparently didn’t remove his helmet. You wondered why he came to dinner at all.

The remaining evening hours had been whittled away by dessert and drinks. Everyone who cared to stay shuffled into the ballroom, a behemoth of a thing filled with inky windows and sparkling artifice. It was a blur of waltzes and predetermined couplings with boys you’d been ignoring since you were old enough to kick them in their shins, but you didn’t care enough to go to pains to avoid it. They broke up the monotony of introductions, at least, and let your mind and body be somewhere else for a while.

All compounded, the night left you flushed and tired. You needed alcohol. Or air. The latter was probably the more reasonable choice of the two.

Being in the midst of ballroom theatrics allowed for an easy enough escape, and a side entrance to a balcony overlooking the palace grounds became the object of your attention.

The tall double doors lay open in their glass encasings and spilled out lamplight refractions on the guests’ gaudy clothing and gaudier jewelry, everything sparkling and warm. But you were far enough away from it to still be chilled by the night air, a balm for your flushed cheeks and fizzling temper.

Usually guests ignored it in favor of staying indoors, so you were fairly confident in the promise of solitude and an undisturbed breeze.

But someone apparently had the same idea as you.

“Hello,” you ventured out a greeting to the silhouette not yet fully in your vision. You stepped closer and the heels of your shoes echoed on clay tiles. “I’m sorry, am I bothering you?”

Royal Highnesses shouldn’t really care about whether or not they were disturbing strange party guests, you could make them leave if you felt so inclined, but something in you was feeling magnanimous tonight. You tried not to think about why.

The figure didn’t turn back towards you, still facing out towards the blurry glitter of urban lights far off in the distance. It looked pretty this far away, all glowing masses and amorphous buildings that scraped the sky. You’d never  been close enough to see all the dinge and smog that made its home in places not populated by princesses. Marble felt more familiar than metal.

The man wore metal too, and his voice scraped at your chest when he answered. “You’re not bothering me, princess.”

Oh.

You ventured cautiously towards the balcony’s edge, next to the man you now could recognize as Boba. The thick stone railing was cool to the touch. “Hello.”

His helmet tipped to the left, which was probably his way of saying it back.

“I didn’t see you at the dinner,” you noticed quietly. Would it be presumptuous to assume he was avoiding you? Intellect said yes, but ego didn’t listen. You leant forward, the speckled marble digging into your elbows as you mirrored Boba’s sightline out into the city. “You know, you wouldn’t have needed to make conversation. Lord Vader was the guest of honor and all he did was sit there.”

“I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah.”

A silence lapsed between you, awkward as if you were strangers. You were though, weren’t you? Strangers. Not friends. Not lovers. Not really.

But if he asked you to crack yourself open for him, you would. You would rip apart every satin petticoat and snap the boning in your corsets until your hands were raw if it meant he would touch you; skin to skin. You’d run away and cite a hidden fountain as the reason why.

You didn’t know what he’d give up for you, if anything. Boba didn’t seem like the type to have much in the first place. Either by choice or by necessity.

The garden afternoon nagged at you after having time to form coherent thoughts, and the fizzy shine of palace lights reflecting off his helmet reminded you of what you’d been meaning to ask.

Night made you softer-spoken. “Why did you let me take off your helmet?”

Night made his edges sharper. “Why did you want to?”

“I asked first,” you volleyed back as reason enough to get an answer first.

Boba wasn’t a Mandalorian in the true sense of the word, at least that’s what gossip told you, so it didn’t really matter if he took the helmet off or not. But he kept it on in front of everyone else.

The hunter gave you visor-silence and your impatience made you concede. “I just wanted to see you,” you breathed out, still not looking at him.  The admission sounded much more naive than you intended.

His words held their characteristic aloofness but were edged by gentle teasing. “What if I said the same?”

That he wanted to see you?

You still didn’t understand half of why he did what he did and what he wanted, but you turned to face him head-on anyway. Cold moonlight fell on your neck and the air cracked with fever. You tried to reply in jest. “Then I’d say that you were being stupid.”

“You’d be right.”

A swallow bobbed in your throat. He always seemed to take up your vision; fill it and suffocate you with seemingly no effort. “And then I’d ask you to do it again.”

“Do what, princess?”

He knew. He just liked seeing the words come out of your mouth.

“Let me take your helmet off.”

This time, he guided your hands up himself. They were slow and almost careful running across your palms, placing them on the mechanisms your fingers found in quick memory. Set on the balcony railing, the helmet seemed to be a prop. An upside down bucket filled with all the things you had yet to say to each other, spilling out onto the ground in a fog.

“I like you better without it,” you decided when he turned back towards you, his weight still resting on the railing with one cocked hip. Everything about the way he looked was dark: inky black curls and scarred brown skin and eyes that pushed the air in your lungs with a stall and a catch. They looked even darker next to tan clothes and green armor.

His voice wasn’t entirely lacking in humor. He did that. Humored you. “Do you now?”

“Mhm.” you nodded with fake seriousness, slightly giddy and slightly too brave. You blamed it on an excess of wine and good company. “Better-looking.”

He only scoffed, a flash of pearl-white canines serving as one half of a smile. A smile that had been wider when it was against your collarbones, your neck, your mouth. A smile that you wouldn’t mind being in other places.

You nudged Boba’s shoulder with your own when a waltz kicked up in the background, faint through the open ballroom door. “There’s music,” you implied, half-joking and half-expectant. There had been this whole time, of course, but acknowledging it now seemed better than never. “You should ask me to dance.”

“I’m not one for dancing, your Highness.”

The title made you roll your eyes, a commonplace formality that you usually insisted on but now found overly facetious. Coming from him, that is. “Clearly not,” you almost snorted. Pushing away from the marble ledge with a finality that seemed almost comical, you held your hand out and waited, eyebrows raising and fingers beckoning. Well? your face seemed to say, Are you coming?

His sigh was bone-deep and settled in your chest like chunks of black plaster, but it felt good. “You’re not going to let me leave, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” you replied, as if it’d be ridiculous to expect anything else. Princesses danced with men at parties. You were a princess. Boba was a man at a party. In a roundabout sort of way. “It’s easy, I promise,” you assured, wrapping your hand around his wrist and pulling him away from the balcony. His glove slipped down a bit; just enough that your thumb could press one soft circle against the tan skin over bone.

Uncomfortable wasn’t really the correct word for how you thought he felt. You doubted Boba could ever be uncomfortable. No. No, the right word would probably be… bemused. Like he was in a menagerie watching a creature, something exotic and pretty, with mild interest while it still had his attention. But you did have his attention. That was something.

“You put your right hand on my waist,” you moved to reposition the large fingers more accustomed to blasters than they were to bodices. Boba smirked, almost boyish, when you caught his hand wandering someplace else. “Not that low,” you chided with quiet exasperation, placing your palm atop his and guiding it back up.

The pale leather was warm underneath your skin and you bit down a smile, almost awe-struck at how strange your hand looked next to his. Yours was polished, weighed down by heavy gold bangles and softened by years of idle play. His, you suspected (for you didn't actually know; hadn’t yet actually seen), was anything but.

“That’s good,” you supplied lightly. “And then I do this,”your other hand reached to rest on Boba’s shoulder. “And then- no, no you give me your left hand. Hold it out- good.”

Still looking down, you were careful not to trip over your skirts or his boots. “And now we just-” you breathed out and glanced up, surprised to find his expression strangely careful. Almost tender. You gulped down the quiet notch in your throat. “-now we just um… sway. Like this.”

You eschewed complication in favor of a simple rhythm, just letting your feet fall wherever they liked so long as they didn’t tangle in themselves. Now wasn’t the time for anything laborious; you didn’t have faith enough in Boba’s footwork. But he actually wasn’t too bad all things considered. A bit stiff and a bit gruff, but those were part and parcel. It was a bit like dancing with a tree trunk. A very handsome, very broad, very taciturn tree trunk. It was easy to let yourself sink into it a little with how solid he felt.

The man arched an eyebrow when your fingers stretched to thread together with his. “Just sway?”

“You’re welcome to do a jig instead if you’d like,” you replied wryly as your weight shifted from foot to foot. The hand around your waist stiffened at the prospect and a grin escaped your face.

“Nevermind.”

The amusement that had previously only been in your throat escaped in a quiet laugh. “Thought so,” you whispered, victorious. Tension, bunched up in your shoulders and collected in your bones, melted completely when he pulled you closer and let your head fall against the space of his neck. Sinew fit against silk like puzzle pieces and warmed the quiet moment that followed. Neither of you spoke for fear of disturbing the fresh peace.

You found yourself dwelling more and more on hypotheticals. Unrealistic and stupid, you knew, given who you both were. But still you dwelt, unable to fathom a reality outside of the last nine hours and inside a reality within which Boba was gone.

Would he fit here, with the stucco and plaster and ivy? With all the sheltered society of an insignificant court? With you?

You wondered if he dwelt on hypotheticals, too.

Swallowing cold air as Boba thumbed the collar of your dress, you felt the light scatter of broken blood vessels from hours before smart again. Your cheek pressed against the pauldron of his beskar, but neither of you were really dancing anymore. “I- I wanted to talk,” you began quietly. “About earlier.”

“Did you not like it?” Did you not like me?

“No! No, I…” you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of his assumption. The crystals hanging from your headpiece tinkled with every soft movement. “No, I… I liked it. I like…” The lump in your throat seemed to travel down back into your stomach. “You,” you finished, swallowing the final word and leaving all its implications to settle in the night.

He could feel the rise and fall of your chest; delicate and airy and resigned. You spoke again. “But you’re leaving tomorrow and... and we could’ve been caught. And the more I think about it the more I really am not looking forward to the idea of some court scandal or being cloistered up like a nun because I—”

He called you your name.

He’d never used your name before.

You lifted your head off his shoulder, desperate-eyed and looking for answers you both knew he couldn’t give. “Yes?”

“Kiss me.”

You barely breathed out an okay before the arm around your waist tightened, crushing you against cold metal and a warm body.

He kissed you how a lover would. Like how a first kiss should’ve been.

It was gentle. Warm. Tender-mouthed and aching, placing promises down your throat with a soft hand and closed eyes. It was… It was…

It was broken up far too quickly.

A voice called out your name from somewhere far-off, regally accented and not at all welcome. It called your name again, first middle and last with all the titles in between with much less patience. Your mother, queen consort.

The groan of displeasure that escaped you was muffled in Boba’s mouth and swallowed up before it could give either of you away. He recovered much faster than you did, peeling back from your body with eyes already alert and scanning the shadows for passersby. There were none. For now.

“It’s my mother,” you whispered, letting your eyes roll seemingly out of your skull. “They’re probably doing some send-off for Vader’s entourage.”

Neither of you mentioned the fact that Boba was part of that entourage too.

Your last words were rushed before the footsteps became too close and the mercenary pulled away. You didn’t really want to stay to hear the answer. “Will I see you again?”

Boba Fett, you’d come to learn, wasn’t the kind of man to offer more than what he knew he could give.

The helmet went back on. “I don’t know.”’

[sigmaleph]

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

[arllenn]

Staring down at Ruri- no Chime is his name, before you, you can help but feel tired. None of this is making any sense it’s all too much at once.

Bonderev, one of the dickheads behind what happened at black swan bay, had apparently been alive and living well enough to the point where he could give lessons on morality in his final moments. Imagine that! HIM a man who BLEW UP an ORPHANAGE and who had personally shot you and Renata, what he persumed to be, dead! And he had the nerve to ask you to, no- TELL you to protect his son, to not let his actions get in the way of YOU PROTECTING his SON! You’re so frustrated to the point where you’re not sure if you want to burst out into maniacal laughter, break down and cry or just destroy everything in your sight the same way that dickhead had done to you and your family all those years ago.

He had gotten everything and more. A family, a happy life, power and he was freed from all the consequences of his actions. So what about you what did you get? A permanent fear of trusting anyone because “hey I’ve already been used as a genetic experiment by the man I considered a father who then proceeded to blow me, everyone and everything I’ve ever loved to kingdom come! But sure thing nice stranger who I just met let’s be besties!” Makes so much sense. Oh, oh! What about stealing years away from your life! 20 to be exact, man you could’ve been married, had a family, gone to the capital and achieved everything you had wanted to! But no instead what you’re doing is standing here, the same 18 year old who couldn’t do anything to save your friends, your family, as you watched them die in front of you. You’re the person who even in her last moments Renata had to look after and protect. And wow doesn’t that smart, doesn’t it hurt to look down at Chime to see how weak he is, with a voice that trembles and eyes that seem one glare away from overflowing with tears, doesn’t it hurt to look at him and see the worst parts of yourself reflected back at you? The parts you wanted to bury so deep down inside that they’d be forgotten by even you. But here they are, loud and angry and demanding your attention.

Your throat closes in on itself, the hand on your hip tightens. It’s a painful squeeze that’s only purpose is to remind you that, no you can’t cry here, you can’t let anyone see you like that, you cant let yourself be like that, not here. Not in front of people who you should know, who you should trust but who you don't You've spent more time running around for them then with them. It's mean and the ugly cloying feeling that rises up from your chest makes you look back at your relationship with 'your' uperclassmen. Were you even close enough to be called comrades? friends? Most of the time it felt like you were just there. A living phone running to deliver messages from one of them to another. Running errands, throwing yourself into danger or just escaping death for what? People who, people who you- people who you... what even are they to you? Right now your upperclassmen feel miles away from you, both emotionally and physically.

Your nails were starting to dig into your skin in a way that was more then painful. You could feel the moment the skin on both your hip and the palm of your other hand broke. Pulling your lip in between your teeth you try and tune back into the conversation waiting for the right words, for your upperclassmen to throw another request at you so that you can leave, preferably go outside and beat the shit out of one of the trash cans out back before running off into danger once again to fulfill their orders like you always did. And wow, isn’t that something... even now, even now, you’re still just blindly following people’s orders, never asking questions, never saying no. What... what is wrong with you? Hadn’t you learned your lesson already? Hadn't you learned after Herzog that you don't, you can't, just do that. Last time you did that you grabbed onto a rotten rope, a horribly, disgustingly, rotten rope.

"Promsing to protect somebody so recklessly is a foolish thing... nevertheless... thank you." Chime's retelling of his life comes to an end at a convient time. It's perfect really, and so you take that moment, the lull after his thanks, to leave.

You walk out into the lobby of Takamagahara the slow calming jazz music a horrible contrast to the thoughts and feelings that are swirling inside you right now. You make it two-thirds of the way to the bar when you're met with an extremely unpleasnt sight that has you cringing for more reasons then one.

Crow and Yasha are sitting the bar, resting most of their belegirantlty drunk weight on the actual contertop instead of on their chairs. They're demanding extra achoul, Crow shouting about how he can't take something anymore who knows what. And yikes heres a thought, Chime Gen is in the VIP room right behind them, those two who, even if they are drunk out of their minds, are Chisei's aides. They find Chime or even gain the smallest inkling of an idea that he may be here and you'll have more to worry about then cleaning up the counters from their drunk cry fest. Normally you'd step in here, and take over for Quinton the poor bartender on duty who always seemed to get the worst of the costumers but you really aren't feeling up to it today.

Just as you're about to turn around to give the trashcans outside the beatings of their lives Crow says something that you can't help but stop at. "You know I like Sakura don't you?" It was a question directed at Yasha who was only able to groan out what he thought was a response. You debate staying for a second. This isn't something that you particularly care about, nor is it something that really concerns you. But it just, you just want to know a little bit more about what Sakura was like before she became another one of Herzog's victims. Its with that flimsy excuse and the puppy dog look that Quinton gives you once he notices you're there that has you stepping closer, leaning against one of the pillars that trap the bar in its own seprate space.

As Crow continues to slur his feelings out Yasha seems to sober up a bit, it's not by much but its to the point where you're no longer worried about him getting into a bar fight, more just what taxi service to call for him when he inevetably passes out and where to send him afterwards.

Yasha leans over the bar apparently ready to give Crow some type of advice when the following happens. 1) he trips and stumbles over his words "Don't.. Don't worry. We are brothers. I... will never... mock you." sweet right? It would've been if not for 2) The fact that he lurches over its a face you recgonize all too well.

"Quinton get out of the-" 3) Yasha hurls all over Quinton, your words left to hang just as Yasha's icky face goop is left to hang off of Quinton. And now you're royally pissed. Sure you were pissed before but this is the type of rage that can only be quelled by you being left alone to stew in it. Its not the emotional type of rage that you felt earlier when you wanted to smash every glass surface you came across no this is the cold type of rage that leaves nothing but apathy in its wake. because as much as you've been trying to ignore it theres so much more that you had been trying to ignore, so much more that had been pushed to the wayside that you're angry about. You look up at Quinton whose looking at you like a lost kid in a mall that had mistaken you for their mother. Running a rand through your hair you harshly scratch at your scalp. "Quinton," you let out a frustrated sigh, "Take the rest of the night off, you'll be paid regularly and you can take extra pay if you wake up sick tommorrow." You turn to him and start to walk behind the counter switching places with him.

“Right thanks a bunch, manager." He rushes out. Turing towards the staff area most likely to change into his extra uniform instead of going home covered in puke. Staring down at Yasha's mess which was covering most of his area of the counter as well as the floor under his chair your annoyance hit an all new peak. It's not the chunky kind of throw up that can be easily cleaned up, its a mush that resembles watery baby food. It's obvious that this wont be a quick clean and that both mops and floor wipes are just going to push this stuff around instead of soaking it up.

Today just can't get any worse can it? Pushing your hand back into your head you aggitatedly rubbed at your scalp, pushing and pulling at the skin there. You’re pissed off. To come back after fighting against Herzog, let’s not forget HERZOG WAS THERE TOO! HE WAS THERE, HE WAS THERE LIVING AND BREATHING, AFTER ALL THAT HE HAD DONE, HE HAD THE NERVE TO GET UP ON THE PEDESTAL THAT HE HAD CONSTRUCTED, DESIGNED AND BUILT HIMSELF THROUGH EXPLOITING THE INNOCENT TO TEST HIS FREAKY DRAGON DRUGS ON, HE HAD THE NERVE TO TALK DOWN TO YOU! ACT LIKE YOU WERE STUPID OR SOME KIND OF PREDETERMINED FAILURE! You get back from that battle exhausted , emotionally drained, and wanting to destroy yourself to find Finger leisurly drinking with Humpback! After you thought that he died you thought that you had lost another person, only for him to be there and fine. It was reliving yes, but just fucking horrible at the same time. So when you stare down at that mess and the first thing you see when you look up is the VIP room that the others are in you felt like you were justified in deciding that you would be acting on your tiredness and handing off this task to one of your upperclassmen like they do to you so often.

Actually you retract your earlier statement today can in fact get worst. Crow and Yasha have apparently had enough to drink both uncoordinatedly slamming down the money to pay for their drinks, you really don't care wether or not is correct you just want them gone, they BOTH step into Yasha's puke tracking it out the door with them. Yeah, no- you're not cleaning that up nope, nu uh, never. You blow out a heated breath and start to walk towards the VIP room careful to avoid all of the face mush on the floor. Pulling on the curtains that served as the door to enter you called out to the occupants.

"Right, sorry to ruin the fun but I just had two costumers who puked and tracked the throw-up everywhere so I need one of you to go out and clean it up preferably like," You looked down at your wrist as though you wore a watch. Truthfully it was just to hide the annoyed look on your face, "right now please." You glanced up at them Before clarifying "Chime I'm not asking you to clean it up, just focus on resting." Because as much as you wanted someone to clean that nonsense up right away you were also specially tuned into just how draining it could be to meet Herzog like that. "Cool thanks guys!" You clapped your hands together and prepared to leave the room when Luminous started complaining.

"Aw, come on no way newbie, I don't wanna clean something like that up!" He put his hand to the back of his head, a tick you had noticed he did when he was complaining, nervous or worried, "Come on can't you do it? You were already out there.." And there it was normally you would excuse that tone as just being something that made Luminous, well Luminous but today the whiny tone was grating on your ears and you were two steps away from man handling him like you used to with Anton when he was being uncooperative. The thought of him hurts. Witnessing his final moments, being there when they happened, it was both the same and different then the others. Sure you had watched all the others die but Anton's had always stuck with you in a way that was far too painful for someone who you really didn't like. And now the urge to cry was back, you felt your eyes burn with unshed tears that were a culmination of too many of your emotions to name.

Caesar brought a hand to rest on his chin tapping away at it, before he even got the chance to talk your anger had already started to peak "Luminous is right newbie, theres no reason for us to do it, you were already out there and knew the areas that needed to be cleaned. This just seems like a waste of both yours and our time." Yeah, yeah, you seriously contemplated grabbing Caesar by his ponytail and using him as a mop for a second.

"You just cleaning it up would've been more efficient." Johann unhelpfully chimed in. Yeah, maybe you would use Caesar as the mop and Johann as the counter rag.

"Yeah freshie! Everyone knows that newbies do all the grunt work, you can't expect us to do it can you?" Fingers nasally voice made you want to throttle him the more he continued to talk. Sure he may have meant it as a joke but you really weren't at the point of caring. In fact you couldn't care less about anything right now. The anger that had just been building had condensed into a vengeful apathy that demanded the souls of those around you.

Once again Caesar spoke this time however you decided to cut him off. "That's right newbie, using my authority as team leader I order you to-"

"Damn I kinda don't care," You said scratching at the back of your head in an obviously exaggerated way. "Yeah actually..." you started mimicking Caesar's earlier stance, "If you're invoking your team leader rights then I'm invoking my manager rights."

"Hey wait-" Luminous tried to interject.

"Yeah as your manager I order you all to have that throw-up cleaned within the next half an hour." A bit long of a time slot, sure, but really who cares as long as it gets done.

"No way newbie team leaders out rank managers, which means my order still stands." Caesar's stubbornness in this situation could be something to praise if not for the fact that a) you don't care and b) you're two steps away from bringing your thoughts of using him as a mop to fruition.

"Team leaders outrank managers when we're out on the field sure, but right now we're in Takamagahara not battling death servitors, which means your team leader status is moot." You made a slicing motion over your neck. "You may be the leader appointed by the college but right now that means nothing, were not fighting and this isn't reconnaissance, we're working."

"That doesn't change the fact that Caesar is team leader freshman." You can always count on Johann to speak up for what he believes in. Too bad you're not here to praise your upperclassmen but instead get them to work.

"Cool! And I'm still the manager. Right now you all are technically on the clock at Takamagahara which means what I say goes. Caesar may be the team leader and you may be my upperclassmen but that doesn't change the fact that right here right now what I say takes precedence in all matters that aren't dragon related because I'm the ma.ne.ger. " You smile your best costumer service smile and speak in the same tone that you do with costumers when you say this. Then you turn on your heel and walk out calling out behind you that "I expect to not wake up to puke covered floors in the morning! I'm going to bed good night."

And well if Finger chose not to comment on your behavior because he watched you break down in the elevator through the security cameras then that will remain with him. And if Caesar and Johann chose not to speak on it because they heard you sobbing from outside your room that night then thats something that stays between them. And if Luminous caught a glimpse of the empty look in your eyes that night when you left your room for water then he definitely held that as a close secret to his heart. Choosing not to comment on it. And if you noticed that your seniors were just a bit more gentle with you or asked for your input before sending you off on recon missions when they didn't before then you don't comment on it.

[its-a-humanriot]

Common Language, pt. I

(This is the beginning to a bunch of Fallout 3 works I have knocking around my brain. I’ll post bits and pieces here and then post the full work to ao3 once it’s done)

(pt. I) / (pt. II)

---

Charon realises very quickly that he does not understand his new employer very well.

In the first instance, this is very literal.

Not many words were exchanged during her introduction as his new employer and him subsequently blowing Ahzrukhal’s brains all over the walls of the Ninth Circle. It’s not until after they make a very rapid exit and they are out in the quiet of the museum atrium catching their breath that he really pays any attention to her. Not much about his employer’s appearance immediately seems wildly unusual – she looks pretty healthy for a wastelander, if somewhat pale, and probably one of the youngest people to come through Underworld in several years. Her face is grubby with the expected dust and dirt of travel under her mop of short curly brown hair, slightly pink from sunburn across her nose and a clean strip of pallid skin around her eyes from the goggles that now hang around her neck (the look of it reminds him briefly of some small animal from before the war, though he can no longer recall its name). Although they look relatively well maintained, her armour and rifle have clearly been scavenged at least third-hand, and a faded red bandanna is tucked around the collar.

Charon takes all this in with a practiced eye, trying to evaluate what kind of person he is now bound to – as satisfying as it is to know that Ahzrukhal’s head is now spread all over the Ninth Circle, it has come at the cost of knowing his opponent. The girl in front of him does not look wealthy to be spending the number of caps he knows Ahzrukhal would have asked for his contract, nor hardened enough to have carried out whatever unscrupulous task he would have accepted as alternative payment. He can’t quite pinpoint it, but something doesn’t seem right. When she opens her mouth, his instincts are proved right.

“Well, fuck. I came to Underworld to cop a flop and a sling and hang loose for a while, maybe zee out for the night, and buddy up with you. I was not expecting to have to beat feet with a dead body behind us.”

Her accent is like no wastelander he has ever heard, and he doesn’t understand half the things that come out of her mouth. Charon can’t claim to be up to date with young people (as so few of them come through Underworld and most of Ahzrukhal’s associates were people who should absolutely not be allowed anywhere near children) but even among the various communities in the Capitol Wasteland there is usually a fair amount of common ground. This – whatever this is – is something else entirely.

His well-practiced poker face seems to keep his confusion hidden at least up until she turns to him with an uncomfortable smile on her face – she certainly has cleaner teeth than a lot of wastelanders, and not even any missing that he can see – and sticks her hand out in his direction.

“This isn’t how I was expecting to have this go but, uh, I’m Billie. Nice to actually meet you properly, Charon.”

He stares at it. A lot of people would avoid unnecessary physical contact with ghouls, even if they weren’t outright ghoul haters, and certainly none of his previous employers have ever tried to engage in something as cordial as a handshake. When he doesn’t react, she leans in a little sheepishly. “…I think you’re supposed to shake hands when you meet someone new, right?”

His stare moves up to her face. She looks about as confused as he feels. What rock has this kid crawled out from?

“What?” It’s hardly the first thing that he means to say to his new employer now they have time to talk, but this whole interaction is leaving him feeling entirely unfooted. She tilts her head at him and looks even more awkward, her outstretched hand dipping slightly before she withdraws it entirely and starts to comb it through her hair instead.

“Uh…I’m not used to meeting new folks? A couple of people have told me what passes for manners above ground but honestly, I’ve not had so many chances to try it on people who weren’t trying to vent me first.” Her face twists in an embarrassed grimace. “Is it the accent? I’ve been told it’s a little hard to understand. I can try, uh something else,” She drops her hand, brushes some stray curls out of her eyes and clears her throat. She offers her hand again and manages to take him by surprise yet again: saying clearly in an almost perfectly pronounced pre-war Transatlantic accent “Hello Charon, my name is Billie Morgan. Pleased to meet you.”

The sound hits Charon like ice cold lead in his stomach, a noise he hasn’t heard in decades beyond the occasional old holotape. It rings in his ears as fresh as it was then with all of the other memories he’d tried to bury - the cloying surgical smell of the lab in his nose, the claustrophobia of the sim pod – Scanning vitals… Welcome subject: 2875, identifier Charon. Beginning training simulation in 3, 2…

A hand touches his arm and the tension in his body spikes – Charon finds himself staggering backwards into a defensive stance. His hand, still moving on instinct, gets as far as the handle of his combat knife before his conditioning kicks in with a short shock of pain – the subject cannot harm the employer – and the opposing reactions form a strained stalemate and force him to a standstill, buzzing with adrenaline, as his presence of mind returns. His employer is now a few feet away, her brown eyes wide as she raises her hands.

“Woah, okay. Won’t do that one again. Sorry.” The artificial enunciation is gone and her original accent has returned, but she is speaking more slowly and clearly than before. He can’t tell if she’s just doing it to try and pacify him or if she is consciously trying to make herself easier to understand. Now that he has the frame of reference for it her natural inflection definitely has something pre-war about it, but it’s hard to pinpoint. “Easy there, big guy. I’ve got no scrap with you and I’m not gonna hurt you. Okay?”

Charon has at least a full foot of height on this kid, and while she looks healthy she does not look strong – the idea that she would be able to hurt him in a close quarters fight is almost laughable. Slowly, he forces himself to let go of the knife handle. The tension in his shoulders stays where it is.

“I am unable to harm my employer. Physical violence on your part invalidates our contract.” The default line gives him something to fall back on for a moment while he straightens back up to his resting position.

“That’s…something.” She doesn’t look reassured, but she drops her hands. “So we’re shiny? Cause you looked real ready to stab me for a second there.”

“I am unable to harm my employer.”

“…Right.” She appears to wait a moment for clarification that does not come before continuing. “So about your contract – it’s kinda hard to read and I didn’t really get the full shakedown before you greased Ahzrukhal so I don’t know what your rates are. I’m a little low on caps at the moment but I can pay you some upfront and then I can earn a bunch back from whatever scavving we do in the next few days to get you the rest of your cut, then we can work out an arrangement. Sound okay to you?”

“I do not require payment.”

“So what, I keep you watered and fed and breathing and we’re square? Seems like a pretty cheap deal to me.”

“I do not require protection and you are not required to provide for me, though several previous employers have chosen to do so.”

“Wait.” Her brow creases. “What does the contract say?”

“The holder of my contract is my employer.” The words come readily to his tongue after many decades of repeating them. “My employer has my services in combat and in any other duties as they see fit and I am honour bound to do as they command for as long as they hold the contract. The contract prevents me from harming my employer while I am in their service. Physical violence by the employer against me invalidates the contract.”

She stares at him hard for a long moment before she speaks again with horror in her voice.

“You’re a slave?”

“I belong to no one.” The response is automatic, the only protest he is able to make. The words taste sour in his mouth.

“You’ve just told me that you don’t require payment of any kind and that you have to do what I say. If that’s not being a slave, I don’t know what is.” She turns away and pulls on her curls for a moment while she paces before turning back to him, her face stormy. “If I’d know that skeezer was a slave owner on top of everything, I might’ve taken a pop at him myself before you ventilated his face. Fuck.” Her eyes widen again. “I bought you from him.”

“If you find the terms of my contract objectionable, you may pass it on to another.”

“I object to you being bound to the contract. Passing it over to someone else doesn’t fix that.” Pulling a face, she pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, then pulls his contract out of her pocket. She looks over the worn paper for a moment, then a takes a single step closer to him and thrusts it in his direction. “Here.”

The ebbing tide of the adrenaline rush in his veins suddenly leaves all at once, and he is left staring at his employer’s hand again. There must a misunderstanding here. Again.

“You wish me to…hold the contract for you?”

She rolls her lips together before making deliberate eye contact with him.

“I want you to have it. Permanently, free of charge. The contract belongs to you - no more employers to boss you around.” Turning her eyes skyward for a moment, she takes a deep breath. “I’m hoping that greasing former employers of yours isn’t like a tradition or something, cause I kinda like being alive out here in the fresh air despite everything. And I have someone I really, really need to find.”

He stares at her for a long moment, stupefied. She stares back, with an expression that is perhaps supposed to be comforting despite the fact that her hand is shaking slightly. After the events at the Ninth Circle, she doesn’t have much reason to suspect that anything else will happen apart from her apart from the inside of her skull being spread all over the atrium.

“I cannot accept.”

At the sound of his voice she seems a little calmer, and gives him a warmer smile.

“Sure you can. No charge, no nothing, just like I s-”

“You misunderstand. I am physically not able to accept.”

“What?” The look of confusion is back.

“I am not able to hold my own contract. It is stated clearly in the contract terms.”

“You didn’t say that thirty seconds ago!”

“The contract terms are long. I paraphrased.”

“You paraphrased.” With a furrowed brow she pinches the bridge of her nose again with the hand holding the contract dropping to her hip, though her mouth pulls up at the corner – whether it’s from amusement or concealed frustration, he’s not sure. She takes in a breath, then drops her hand. “Right. Okay. And if I destroy the contract?”

“I am compelled to stop you from doing so, through any means necessary.”

“Even if you harm me? I thought you said you couldn’t do that.”

“Preservation of the contract takes priority over the life of my employer, though I must also take all possible actions to preserve your life.” Comforting people is not a talent Charon considers to be in his skill set. From the look on his employer’s face, he evaluates that this is still true.

“There must be a section in the contract for how it ends though, right? Surely no contract is gonna be able to hold you forever.” The naivety of the comment grates on his nerves more than he expects. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the adrenaline rush and the bewilderingly abrupt turn that this already baffling interaction has taken, but Charon’s response come out with more of a bite than he means it to.

“It’s not that simple, smoothskin.”

“But you don’t want to be bound by it, right?” Seemingly undeterred by the epithet or the warning in his tone, she continues earnestly. “If we just-”

“I said -” His voice is sharper than he would ever dared let it be speaking back to Ahzrukhal, louder than he has spoken in so very long, and he wrests control of himself back too late – his voice echoes back to him from the polished granite walls so that it rebukes him as much as it does the kid in front of him. Her eyes are wide, shoulders bunched up to her chin level, and he realises that he has unconsciously drawn up to his full height. The echo hangs in the air for a moment, and when it dies his words are back to their normal volume, even if the tone is strained: “ – it is not that simple.”

The moment continues to stretch out thin and the young woman doesn’t move or answer – just keeps staring at him. The silence leaves him feeling as unbalanced as the conversation did - worse now that he feels exposed in the wake of his outburst. Charon takes a rattly breath and fills his ravaged lungs to their full extent as he winds himself back under control – shoulders down, arms by his sides, he reverts to his typical guarding stance. When he speaks again, it in the direction of the young woman’s clenched hand rather than to her face

“For good or ill,” Charon says towards the faded scrap of parchment “I am in your service.”

[slightlycrunchy]

letters to all might au pt.5

|| pt.1 || pt.2 || pt.3 || pt.4 || pt.5 || pt.6 ||

The timeline is kind of fuzzy right now since I’m just vibing but…I think it’s mostly coherent. Btw, Izuku is 27 in this au.

a year and eight months

Today was not a good day, Dad. I’m shaking a bit, and my penmanship is horrendous--ha, reminds me of the early days in UA after my hands were first injured. Why is that where my mind is going? Those are not pleasant memories to think of right now.

Right, sorry. Got off track. God this entry is a mess, kind of like my old hero analysis notebooks. Ugh! You’re probably wondering what the hell this could possibly be about by this point and it’s absurdly minimal, I assure you, though it doesn’t feel like it at the moment. Sometimes it feels like the smaller the reminder, the more it hits me; like it’s a needle, just the right size to get under my skin, between my ribs, get right at my heart--

I made number one today, Dad. I did it. I finally got here. And this is supposed to be one of the best days of my life, yet I could hardly get through it all without crying. Everyone was so kind and the smiles were blinding...you would have loved it.

Now, ‘that’s a big thing’ I hear you saying; something I’ve worked toward ever since you gave me One for All, and you would be right it is a big

(I feel like I’ve done this day a major disservice already by starting off saying it was a bad day when really it wasn’t there were just bits—just pieces of it that were excruciating)

It is a big thing! It was a good day! Damn it, it was a good day…I will remember it as a good day…

I regret starting this, I think I should have waited a bit until I calmed down. Oh well, one thing I’ve always been good at is doubling down on hastily made decisions.

I thought about you from the moment I woke, Dad. I thought about you when they talked up my achievements and throughout my speech that I barely managed not to ruin. I thought about you when my name was shown on that billboard in lights, with a sparkling number one right next to it.

I did it. I’ve done it. And I was fine.

And then I was walking home, and…honestly it’s the smell that did me in. That sticky, cloying grease smell that you only get from a good burger joint, all fried potatoes and burnt cheese. Did I ever tell you I’d never had a real ‘American’ burger until I met you? You probably knew, with how enamored I was with the whole experience. I could tell I made you happy when my eyes lit up at that themed restaurant you first took me to all those years ago now, and also by the way you made it a regular thing to take me there again.

And now it makes me think of you.

There are a lot of small things that do this, Dad. I can’t look at red, white and blue quite the same. I can’t look at red sports cars without hearing your voice pitch in excitement about ‘me and David used to scour the streets in one of those, did ya know?’. Yea, I knew Dad, since you couldn’t ever not tell me, and even when I would roll my eyes, I need you to know that it was only ever to poke fun. I could have listened to those stories forever, I’m not sure it would have ever been enough.

Sometimes I lie awake and wonder just what I will never know about you, and those nights run long. Who you are were, lost to me now except for what I can keep inside of my imperfect memories. They’ll never capture you right, All Might. Not even close.

I missed you today, and god it aches something awful.

I just don’t know how I made it here, to this moment we spoke about so often and you’re not...with me. Is this a dream? Sometimes I think it is and I’ll wake up into reality at some point, but then the notion just leaves me feeling colder than ever. You were so warm, Dad. Your very presence was like a flame, and I can’t even describe what I mean by that. It was your demeanor, your voice, the words you chose. Every piece of you from your deepest insides to the top most hairs on your head was warmth.

God, I need it. I need you. I think it’s going to be another night on the couch in front of the tv for me. Been too many of those lately. But don’t worry! I’ll be alright. ‘This too shall pass’ or whatever they say…

Whatever they all say, all the time…

I don’t know how to end this one, Dad.

Goodnight.

Love, your Izuku

[mia-ugly]

Breakable Things

Martin is big.

Not in a strapping film-star kind of way. Not tall or broad-shouldered, not a ‘mountain of a man’ or a ‘tall drink of water’ or anything like that.

Just big (a dumb, blunt, smack of a word.)

He was big as a lad, he’s bigger now. He always had the kind of body that inspired too many teachers to push him toward wrestling, football, rugby even (apparently his dad had been involved with the clubs. Apparently he’d been a fair tighthead back in the day, before he left Martin’s mum, and left Martin to gather up the pieces, cutting his fingertips on every one.)

It didn’t take Martin’s teachers or schoolmates long to realize that Martin’s size did not equate to any sort of athletic skill. And once the - inevitable rumours started circulating around Year Seven, well. Any motivation he might have had to be ‘part of a team’ was drained out of him like a tire going flat (that metaphor needs work. Doesn’t really convey the violence, try again.)  His motivation left him like the air being knocked from his lungs, shove after hard shove against the lockers.

Martin is strong.

Physically. He doesn’t know why - got it from his father, didn’t he - his wide back, his thick fingers, his solid legs. He took a cricket bat to the face once - ought to have broken his nose, blackened his eyes, but it didn’t. Got in a car accident when he was seventeen, didn’t even crack a rib. Flipped the whole thing into the ditch, and his mum screamed herself hoarse when she found out, but Martin walked away from it. Physically. He walked away.

He doesn’t bruise easily. If he cuts his hand chopping vegetables, it heals quickly. He doesn’t have any scars (he has stretch marks though, all over his stomach and thighs, and for all that he is strong, he’s soft. He’s soft and he knows it, all pudding and poetry and fear, oh, fear most of all. It's pathetic how easy he is, how quickly he caves, rolls over and does whatever's asked of him.

In most situations, anyway. With most people.)

“Why don’t you want me coming with you?”

Jon is in his office, seated in front of that bloody tape recorder as always. The sight of him there is so familiar, like the negatives from a film camera. Like even if Jon wasn’t there, the imprint of him would still linger, white as a ghost against the darkness.

He doesn’t seem surprised to hear Martin’s voice. Neither does he glance up from the desk where he’s shuffling papers, gathering up books. His hands move constantly, restless and bird-boned and Martin is always looking at them, even when he tries not to.

“I don’t want you getting hurt.” Jon’s voice is low, rough with exhaustion, and it makes Martin wince. Makes him want to fuss (when is the last time the man got a decent night's sleep? Someone should bring him a cup of tea, someone should rub his shoulders, someone should do something -

He knows he has a caretaking thing. He knows it’s not - good. And the sharp ones get to him like anything, he wants to win them over in a pathetic, salivating way. It’s a sickness, but - 

- but there was a point when it suddenly stopped being about Martin’s Whole Thing, and just started being about Jon.

He’ll talk to someone about it, swear. A professional, even. If the world doesn’t end.)

“It’s fine if you get hurt, though, is it?”

Jon does look up now, and Martin forces himself not to take a step back under the dark-lashed scrutiny. The heavy eyebrows, the shimmer of scars.  Sometimes Jon’s skin reminds Martin of the surface of a planet, a rough and distant moon. He wonders how it is that Jon can be so narrow, so small, and still take up so much room in the Archives, and in the world, and in Martin’s big (and soft and so so stupid ) heart.

“It is my job.”

“No. This - this is not your job.” Martin struggles to put the words together in the face of this vast, ridiculous injustice. “Going off to - what? Do battle with some sort of evil, circussy death-cult, that’s not your job . You don’t get paid for that.”

Jon snorts, derisive, and Martin wishes he could be angry. It’d be easier if he was angry with Jon.

But he isn’t.

“Melanie needs you here. And I can’t be - there, thinking about -“ Jon stops. He swallows and looks back down at the scattered papers on his desk. A snowfall of horror stories, laid out neatly on Hammermill Bright White. “Worrying about you.”

(“Leave it, Martin, I’m fine just - leave me alone -” Mum smacks him away with a vein-bruised hand.)

“Because I’ll make a mess of things - is that what you think? I can help you, I want to help you-”

“I will feel better knowing you’re here.”

“And how do you think I’ll feel? Knowing you -  you and, um Tim and Daisy - are out risking your lives while I’m sat on my hands, drinking tea, being useless -”

“You aren’t.” Jon’s voice is suddenly loud, as if he’s in pain. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “And I don’t - I can’t - you’ll be helpful here. The Institute needs you, and Melanie needs you, and I -”

-don’t, Martin hears.

Though Jon doesn’t say it, Martin hears it.

“Right,” he manages. “All right.”

He should go. He’s going to go. But he lingers for a moment more, committing as much of Jonathan Sims to memory as he can. The angles of him, compact and rigid with anxiety. The fall of hair across his forehead, ink black shot through with grey. Thin pink lines that a blade left below his jaw, a ripple of lacy scar tissue on his hand (and Martin mostly, mostly doesn’t wonder what those scars would feel like against his own skin. On his shoulder or - or sliding down the length of his throat. At the back of his neck, tugging him into a kiss.)

Come back, come back, come fucking back. Martin isn’t religious, never one for church, but it’s as much of a prayer as he’s ever said.

“Is there something else you want?” Jon asks, terse and tired and - for one thoughtless moment he is the Archivist and only the Archivist, and Martin can’t help but gasp out a shocked, “yes.”

Jon knocks a book off the desk. It slams to the floor loud as a gunshot, and Martin flinches.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, “I’m sorry, I -”

“No, I’m - I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking -”

“It’s fine - I know you didn’t -”

“I would never -”

“But you can.”

There’s a horrible silence, like the moment after the tape recorder shuts off, statement ends. Martin feels sick to his stomach and Jon looks like - like -

He doesn’t know what Jon looks like. Maybe that’s why he keeps talking.

“You can ask me. What I - what I want.” Heat is rushing to his face, a blush that feels like thorns. Jon just stares at him, and this was a bad, bad idea. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Jon doesn’t even need to ask the question, probably knows the whole awful story just by looking at him. “If you wanted.”

When Jon says nothing, just keeps staring, Martin tries desperately to double back.

“Never mind, that was -” He flaps his hands a bit, moving towards the door. His shoulders hunch, an old defense mechanism, useless body trying to make itself look as harmless as possible. Trying to make itself so small it’s beyond notice (it never works.) “I shouldn’t have. I can’t believe I -  just - be safe. All right? That’s all I -”

“Martin -”

“That was - stupid, such a - I’m sorry, I only -”

“-what do you want?”

The words are spoken quietly. Barely above a whisper. But Martin doesn’t need to hear them - his whole body hears them, and suddenly every syllable feels golden in his mouth. Saying it out loud isn’t frightening or humiliating, it’s easy. Answering the Archivist is like falling asleep in a patch of sun-warmed grass, or gasping for air after holding your breath underwater.

“I want you to come back.” It’s honey dripping off his tongue. “I want you to come back for me. And I want the world not to end, and I want to know what your hair feels like, whether it’s soft or coarse and whether I can tell the difference between the black parts and the silvery parts just by touching them.”

Jon is absolutely frozen behind his desk. He might not even be breathing, but that’s okay; Martin can’t remember why anyone needs to breathe.

“And I want to help you. And the others. I want to matter. And I want Sasha to be okay, and I want Tim to be okay, and I want Elias to finally face some fucking consequences for once. I want to take you on holiday and - and watch you while you sleep so you know you don’t have to be afraid. I want to wake you up if you have nightmares and make you tea in the morning and bake things for you, and - and I want to kiss you, even if it’s just once. Only once, just so I know, and only if you want me to. That’s what I want.”

The sweetness ends the moment the last word leaves his mouth. Suddenly the honey is cloying and acrid, suddenly his heart is unsteady with embarrassment, skipping beats like he’s just had a shot of adrenaline. Martin chokes on a breath and slams his eyes shut against the spinning room.

“Fuck.” His voice cracks on the word, insult to injury, and he claps a hand over his mouth. “Oh God - I’m - oh God. That was -” He barely remembers what he said, which is the only thing keeping him upright at the moment. He just knows it was soft, pathetically soft. Even his fantasies are as weak as his jawline. “I’m going to - go, I’ll go. I shouldn’t have -”

“W-wait.”

Martin doesn’t want to open his eyes. But he does. Just in time to see Jonathan Sims stand up. Start to walk around the desk.

And Jon is not big. Or strong, physically. Martin knows a bit about anatomy, took a couple art classes, was always fascinated by the bones of things. As Jon steps closer, Martin can only see the breakable things about him. Collarbones, fingers, bridge of his nose. What’s that bone in the arm that everyone’s always breaking?

Humerus.

Ulna.

Jon is not strong, and he is scarred, and he is small and fragile and God he is the bravest person Martin’s ever met.

“Martin, you -” Jon stops in front of him and Martin looks down, gaze almost level with the top of Jon’s head. “You can ask me. What - what I want.”

He’s shaking, Martin can see it - and it makes him realize that he’s shaking too. He barely manages the “What -” before he forgets how to say the rest, forgets how words work (but Jon, Jon is brave.)

“I think - I would like -” Jon reaches for Martin’s hand, and lifts it to his mouth. Presses a dry kiss right in the centre of Martin’s palm.

It’s a ruining sort of softness, and Martin’s big (physically) and strong (physically) but somehow Jon knows where his weaknesses are - the loose dragonscale, the slipped disc.

(And of course, after this the world will almost end (but not quite.)  After this, there will be Elias and Martin’s humiliating tears over a statement he knew damn well, a beholding that came as no surprise to anyone.

After this Jon will die.

Almost. Not quite.)

But now: Jon is murmuring, “I think -” as he leans up to kiss Martin (and his warm mouth is shocking and brief, a knife sliding home.)

But now: Jon is still shaking when their lips part, and Martin’s hands are on either side of his face, tips of his fingers settled lightly in Jon's hair (it’s softer than anything, as it turns out, and the silvery parts are softest of all.)

Their foreheads press together, both of them breathing harder than one kiss should warrant. And Martin doesn’t say any of those other things he wants, any of the white-hot words he’s scratched down on paper or typed into the notes app. He doesn’t say anything about the shape of Jon’s shoulder-blades through that thin grey t-shirt he wears, doesn’t bring up any metaphors about fading light or seaglass or breakable things that are also strangely beautiful.

Because what good is poetry at the end of the world?

“Be careful,” Martin says instead (and Jon won’t be.)

“Come back,” he says (and Jon isn’t going to. Not for a long, long time).

And hours later, standing in that empty office, Martin will see the lighter that Jon left on his desk. He will notice the black handful of ashes in the rubbish bin, and wonder what Jon was burning.

And Martin is soft. People-pleasing and pathetic and terribly, terribly in love.

But Jonathan Sims kissed him once (once) and for a moment, in that office, with a small blue flame leaping in his hand -

Martin is not afraid.

[meliorist-midoriya]

remember me

synopsis: what was he supposed to save, when there was nothing to fix?

pairing: midoriya x reader

genre: bittersweet angst

warnings: n/a

word count: 1.4k

a/n: my first songfic, and it’s revenge angst for @animatedarchives​- i love this song so so much. stan umi, y’all, i love her music and vibe. the song absolutely has has has to be listened to on repeat as you read this for the full effect!

now playing...

                ⋆┄┄┄┄┄┄┄✧┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ ⋆

⠀ ⠀     ⠀    » remember me «

⠀ ⠀   ⠀ ⠀  0:23 ─〇───── 3:19

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀  ⇄   ◃◃   ⅠⅠ   ▹▹   ↻

                ⋆┄┄┄┄┄┄┄✧┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ ⋆

Wrote you a letter…

Now that I’m here without you

The lighter spun in his fingers idly as he watched the smoke curl into the air and out of the open window. He ignored the cloying smell of ink and photo paper burning wriggling into his head and kindling the beginnings of a migraine, tossing another photo into the flame instead. Midoriya didn’t smoke, the silver lighter a well-meaning yet outdated gift, but it came in handy when there was anything that needed to be lit quickly.

Like the photos and letters sitting on the tray before him with their curling edges alight with flame, his smiling face edged with glowing embers and crumbling into ash. 

He always thought that burning memories would be something done out of anger, emotions running passionate and high as the people in the movies took a lighter to their ex-lover’s photos through angry tears and a pull of their third cigarette.

Midoriya knew now.

He only felt numb.

Even as he held the lighter to another paper, watching as the small flame leaped onto the corner of a letter you had written him and ate through ink and old love. Emerald eyes scanned the words again as the letter burned them away, almost as if he was trying to rekindle the feelings that once burned so brightly.

Ashes couldn’t be rekindled, though.

Finding nothing other than a dull ache of nostalgia, he dropped the burning paper into the tray with the rest. This wasn’t like him, it never was. Midoriya was a hoarder by nature, always collecting little trinkets and the memories that came with them. Maybe he was tired of clinging onto these memories for so long. A humorless laugh passed through as his lips as the flame died.

This probably isn’t what Bakugou meant when he told him to throw his feelings away.

Hope that you’re better

Hope that you found someone new

Did he hate you? God, no. Far from it. But he didn’t love you either. Not anymore.

Neither did you.

Where there used to be overflowing love, then a deep seated ache, now was only a void. He knew there was supposed to be something there, but all he found was cordial acknowledgement of a love lost that he knew wouldn’t return. The look you shared with him when you two crossed paths on his patrol earlier today told him all he needed to know. You felt the same.

Maybe that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, ripping him into the cruel reality that the memories he clung onto were just that. Memories. No remnants of love for him to remind himself with, to agonize over and let himself drown in the nostalgia. Oh, he’s tried already, too many times to count, but maybe he ran out of tries, the ache turning numb and the box of letters and dead love only feebly tugging at a corner of his heart. He had to tell himself to feel sad at that point.

Maybe that was for the better.

Another photo went up in flames.

'Cause I'm getting older

Know that I've changed

And I can't go back now

Nothing's the same

Wasn’t love at first sight supposed to always last forever? Those cheesy romance movies you two used to watch together were a joke. A caricature of people yearning for the impossible. Oh, how he wished to go back to those days, where you two were young and stupid and absolutely infatuated with each other. Where interlocked pinkies would make his face bloom with twenty different shades of red, where a brush of lips in an empty hallway were quick and shy.

You two had grown, though, and weren’t in love with what you’d grown into.

His admirable determination turned into horrifying stubbornness and self-destruction, your own ambition now driving you into the ground. What you two had fallen for in each other became your undoing, the rose-tinted glasses slipping off and leaving you two with an empty shell of what you used to have.

That’s all it was in the beginning. Infatuation.

It never grew into anything more.

Midoriya slipped another photo from the pile and actually looked at it before he held a flame to it. At the sight of it, his breath hitched and the lighter paused halfway.

Oh. This picture.

You, holding out the camera to take a selfie of you two on your picnic date as you leaned your head on his shoulder, the crown of daisies and baby’s breath you had woven sitting in his still too-messy hair (he swore up and down that he tried that day. You believed him). You were both smiling, and a distant, long-forgotten promise of another picnic in that very field bubbled up from his subconscious.

Now his heart decides to desperately mend the void again? The tears came unbidden, streaming down his face as the corner caught flame and he tossed the photo in with the rest. He made no move to wipe them away. God, hasn’t he cried enough already?

Midoriya wanted to say that this was grief, heartache. This was nothing but nostalgia and regret.

He didn’t love you anymore.

Nostalgia for those happy memories as he watched them burn away.

You didn’t love him anymore.

Regret for not trying harder to save the last dregs of your relationship.

There was nothing left to save.

He let out a shuddering breath and rubbed at his eyes, blinking away tears and the spots that danced in his vision from blankly staring at the flame sputtering and flickering in front of him for too long. Crooked fingers slipped another picture from the pile, and he winced at the sight of it, the nostalgia and regret sinking into his heart and settling like lead. 

Two in a row, how fun...

Did he remember you taking two photos that day?

We made plans like we would always be

We said by now that we'd have everything and more

I never thought that we'd be dreaming on our own

What would happen to that house on the hill that you dreamed about? Or the future dog that he wanted to raise with you in that house? Wishful promises that soon became empty, set for a future together that would never come. When we have a little more money saved, you would say. When we have a better place, he would respond. Neither of you made good on these promises as your love for each other turned cold and fizzled out.

Midoriya wanted to build a future with you. Really, he did. Spurred on by late night talks of what fate had in store for you, the hopes and dreams you wanted to achieve with him and he with you.

What would happen to those?

You two couldn’t even keep that promise of another picnic, let alone a future together.

…He could always put the ring money into his savings.

Will you remember the way that I was

Will you remember the way that you felt when you're next to me

These were things he’d never let himself think of before, brushing it off to keep himself from letting the despair of a crumbling future eat him alive. Now, he was being swallowed whole, the disappointment, regret, and crushed hope mixing and curling into is very being and ripping him apart until he was nothing but his grief. He heaved as sobs ripped themselves out of his lungs, the flame turning into a too-bright blur through his tears and he buried his face into his hands, rubbing at his eyes until stars bloomed in the darkness.

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. You would never have to see him falling apart over burning photos and old memories, instead with the sad smile he bid you farewell. He would never have to see you doing the same (if you even did), his last memory of you as his lover forever being you smiling that same sad smile he wore. He could cling onto nostalgia all he wanted, but at least you would never see him falling apart in his room at 3 in the morning.

These were the last tears he would shed over this.

He could at least promise that much, he told himself as he sucked air into his lungs. He could at least keep this one promise. Midoriya sat up and he steadied himself, vision blurred but scarred hands steady as he held up the brittle paper, the box next to him empty.

These were the last tears he would shed over you.

Midoriya flicked the lighter open, and your confession letter went up in flames.

I think that was it.

[sandpumpkin]

Henlo you most gorgeous Pumpkin!!! I am super hyped to get into your ask box!! May I request #44 “You don’t have to pretend with me” with Shanks and fem!reader? Thank you so much this is the absolute cutest event!! Sending you all the love and looking forward to the undeniably cute scenarios that are gonna come from this!!

Hello! I’m so behind with these IM SORRY! Also. I went on a huge tangent with this. I’m sorry. I hope it’s okay. ಥ_ಥ

Without Love

Mums the word

Shanks - 44  You don’t have to pretend with me

 The day he strode into town changed your life forever. He claimed to be a travelling merchant but what self respecting merchant would look so..unkept..and in those trousers...what even were they?

And yet nobody questioned it. Even you. He and his group made themselves quite known at the tavern where you frequented yourself. You watched him curiously as he laughed merrily with his group. It was strange. He was humble and strangely polite. Despite how boisterous they got they never harmed or caused damage: only minor damage after one too many drinks but they were quick to pay for their mess. 

You knew his name. Shanks. But you played the fool. 

You saw him the next day when he entered the blacksmith where you worked. “I’ll just be a second!” you called over your shoulder as you finished re-sharpening an old sword. “Sorry about that. Now how can I-” you words trailed off when you realised who was standing in the middle of the store. That striking red hair and those awful trousers.

“I wasn’t expecting to find such a beautiful gem here.” Shanks said, offering the same charming smile as before.

“Right- so..how can I help?” you asked, skirting around his cloying words. 

“I came to purchase some new swords. I was hoping to perhaps strike a deal.” he grinned, 

“I’ll get my boss. That's for him to decide.” you explained, hollering into the back for the older gentleman who owned the smithy. He was overjoyed at the thought of selling such a large amount of swords and ushered Shanks into the back to work out the fine details. 

Night after night you saw him at the bar and occasionally through the town during the day, he always made a point of coming for a quick chat mostly about the weather or pointless chatter.

But on the last night he was in town. You saw him once again but this time he joined you at your table, away from his group. “The beautiful jewel. Lovely to see you again.” Shanks greeted, fetching you another drink. As you got up to leave, he looked at you with such gentle eyes. “Don’t leave..I wanted to talk.” 

Sighing, you sat back down. “So..you’re a merchant..” you said, trying to find a point of conversation “what do you need all those swords for?”

“Well you know..it’s dangerous on the Grandline..pirates and such.” he replied with a shrug. 

He’s a terrible liar..though he’s not wrong about it being dangerous.

“If you don’t mind me asking..” you started, your eyes fell to his missing arm “how did you lose it?”

Shanks set down his mug and smiled with such a tender warmth, as he reached for a hat that no longer sat upon his crimson hair and he replied simply “I gave it to the next generation.”

What an odd thing for a ‘merchant’ to say. You thought as you sipped your mead. But then you remembered hearing about an upcoming pirate. Young and with the same energy of the man sitting before you. His son perhaps? You wanted to know more about him. You knew the rumours and naught else. 

“For a merchant you spend an awful lot.” 

“Well you know...business..” He laughed nervously, 

“You don’t have to pretend with me.” you said sternly, folding your arms across your chest “I know who you are Shanks.” he stared at you with his jaw hung open, you chuckled resting a finger under his jaw closing his mouth, leaning across the table to steal a quick kiss “do you really think I didn’t recognise you? Or your pirate flag floating above the harbour?” you questioned with a playful smirk. Shanks blinked and laughed loudly. 

“I really thought I was being discreet.” 

It was your turn to laugh “How are you discreet? You’re one of the warlords of the ocean! Everyone here knows who you are, the only reason no one has said anything is because they like you better than they like the marines.” you explained, hearing a cheer echo through the bar. “See. Come on lets get some air.” you said rising from your chair, leaving the stuffy bar and out into the cool night air. 

“I never meant to lie-” Shanks announced.

“You could have picked a better cover.” you teased, turning to face him as you reached the harbour “Guess you’ll be back on the seas soon.” you didn’t want him to leave, you had grown to enjoy his goofy smile and playful banter. Still not those trousers though. 

He came into your life like a hurricane sweeping you off your feet but despite all his power he held you so softly like a warm gentle summer's breeze. Shanks wrapped his good arm around you pulling you in close resting his head on your shoulder. 

“Aye..I suppose that’s how it was going to be-” he admitted weakly, “But I fell in love with you.” Shanks added, shifting to plant little kisses on your neck rising to his full height, his hand playing with your hair with a soft smile on his lips “I don’t want to put you in harms way but I also don’t want to leave you here…” he explained, “Will you come with me? Onto the high sea?”

You blinked and threw your arms around his neck “How could I refuse such a request from a handsome pirate.” you teased “should I start calling you captain?” you asked, Shanks looked a little taken back and a smirk graced his lips. 

“Perhaps in...private..” he whispered, capturing your lips in another passionate kiss “I might not live long otherwise.” slinging his arm over your shoulders with a proud grin “come! I need to introduce you to the crew-”

“Not to alarm you but I already know them,” you said trying not to laugh in his face “I’ve spoken to them a few times when they came to collect your swords and we drank at the bar together.” you reminded him.

“-So you have. I was so lost in your beauty I forgot everything else.” He said resting his head on yours “A new journey begins tomorrow. I can’t wait.” Shanks smiled, “Welcome aboard, my beautiful jewel of the sea.”