#like i've always been here and that's not something i've felt w any other fandom

[redwayfarers]

house of grief and sunlight

fandom: wayfarer ship: cassander/aisanne characters: cassander inteus, aisanne bjornsdottir rating: gen words: 1625 note: this is my entry for @idrellegames' three year anniversary event! prompt i'd chosen is paramour - expected of me, i know - but i've hardly written about cass' bisexuality and i felt like it needed to be written about! excuse the ya-sounding title lmao i could not resist also, aisanne is a gw2 oc that i've ported to wayfarer. she lives over on @i-mybrunettelady most of the time :) divider credit

I am tired of grief.  I don’t know if it ever goes away, but for fuck’s sake, I’m so tired of it. It’s summer, though, and a part of me feels like the sun will chase it away, if only for a day or two. Our house needs the sun right now. Grief hangs over it like a veil, and we don’t speak of it, but maybe the rays that come through our window each morning help. 

Or so I hope. Hope’s a stupid thing by and large, because every time I hope something happens it decidedly doesn’t, as if the gods above or whoever sits and watches this farce of an existence keeps laughing at me and says, “Add more!” But I can’t help but wish, in my heart of hearts, that sometimes, maybe one day in this lifespan that’s entirely too long for one guy, I don’t feel like a tossed out, crapped on kitten on the streets. 

It’s summer. That feels important to repeat to self. I am feeling a little less grief. The room around me is loud and messy and sounds jump from one place to another like rabbits, in a cacophony ruled over by the harmonious noise of music. Sanne’s the one behind the harp, golden under the candlelight, and if she was a different woman, she’d be singing in a Meissandic temple. 

She cares little for the traditional rites, though. She cares little for the chants I’d attended once or twice when I was a kid. She looked at me all confused when I told her how courtly, Vestran services happen, and said, in a strange tone, “I don’t understand how people like that.” I don’t understand either, and thank fuck I’m not a Vestran aristocrat anymore. 

Her place is telling stories of heroes and events long gone, to be a musical wayfarer. She’s doing that tonight. I was drunk when we first met here and she had to hold my hair while I was throwing up, apparently. Can’t say I remember that attractive trait about myself. I’m not drunk right now, however, sitting near the small wooden stage, taking small sips of my cider. The drink is irrelevant; she captures my attention more than any alcohol could. 

She’s radiant and shiny, half covered in shadows, which makes her golden crest stand out. The bright sheen of her golden hair disappears and reappears after the movements of her head. I can’t see her freckles clearly from here, but I can see the ink on her neck, the roundness of her full lips, an occasional yellow in the blues of her eyes when the candlelight reflects off them. I’m not blind to beauty, but there’s beauty in a way a finely made building is beautiful, and a way a person is beautiful. 

You don’t wanna fuck buildings, do you? And if you do, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?

Others are looking at her too. That doesn’t matter, because it’s my bed who she comes to tonight. Or is it me coming to hers? Not fucking important. 

These feelings are new. For most of my life, interest like this fell to men. Part of me wonders if I’m just that desperate for any kind of tenderness in my life that my head would start making up attraction; but the way this feels can’t be anything but a solid fucking reality. Women were always beautiful the way buildings were, but now they’re flesh and bone and soul and personality and there’s something so weirdly appealing about that that it catches me off guard. 

Not all women are your mother, you dumb fuck. 

I know, but women have never been.. This. I think about Sanne when she’s away. I watch her practice for the performances, mesmerized. There’s peace and blood rushing to my face when we’re laughing in bed, or making lunch, or eating, or just existing in the same space. My insides get all twisted up, like I’m a kid again crushing on older Wayfarers. It’s like Senna again, and I simply forgot how it feels like to be crushing on someone this bad. 

Nothing will ever happen between us, however. It would be so crappy to prey on a widow’s feelings. She rarely speaks of her dead husband, but he’s not even that cold as far as dead people go; maybe a little more than us Wayfarers, but not by much. Our living together is a result of loneliness, desperation, not a desire to find a partner again. But I was dumb enough to pretend I didn't see it. 

She’s cooking, some days after her performance. Sun is shining through the window, leaving her figure in semi-shadows and catching on the ends of her shiny, metallic hair. She’s not as glamorous as she was at the show; right here is a Sanne that’s more down to earth, more solid, dressed comfortably, not worried about how she’s perceived. I’m folding clothes nearby and doing a half-assed job of it, too. It’s hard to concentrate some days over the deafening noise of all this fucking attraction confusion business. 

Every so often she turns back to look at me with a strange smile on her face. “That’s what I wore to Kiaran’s funeral,” she says suddenly. I jerk and drop my gaze to the dress in my hands. Sunlight washes away its dark color in places. There are little holes in it that I want to sew shut, but I don’t have her consent to. She’s weirdly sentimental about it. 

My Spire didn’t have a funeral, and us survivors only have ashes as funerary garb. 

“What’s this stain again?” I ask, raising the dress and jerking my head in the direction of the big, grayish blob on the skirt. “I keep forgetting!” 

She sighs and throws a full, peeled onion at me. It hits me right in the forehead and the poor plant, already under threat, pricks my eyes. “You’re horrible,” I say in mock offense. “You don’t want your dress to stink, do you?” 

“I’m not burying anyone anytime soon,” she says lowly, in a tone that implies I’m hitting a boundary. I wince and put the dress down, careful of the location of the onion. 

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I approach, gently placing the vegetable on the table. She gives me a hard look. “I shouldn’t have joked about the dress. It means a lot to you and I tend to joke around, right, about the things that I’m sensitive about so people don’t attack me for it first? Offense is the best defense kinda thing? And I forget that sometimes - a lot of the time - people don’t function the way my fucked up head does?”

Shut up, Cassander. You’re making it worse.

Something tightens my throat, like hands choking me from the inside out. I grip the table and swallow thickly. My stomach twists up, and the smell and feel of onion fills the kitchen and I can only focus on the dents in the dark wood beneath my fingers and the uneven pattern freckles of my hand. 

“Cassander,” Sanne says. Her tone is too much for me to analyze right now, try as I might. “Cass.” 

“What?” 

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” 

“Picking at your scar. Stop it.” 

I lower my hand from my face and grip the edges of my tunic. The edges of my braid - I need to take care of those ugly fucking ends one of these days - tickles my hand. You’re scaring people. Enjoy your lifetime of solitude, whether you’re actually into women or not. Who would want someone as shaky and deranged as you are? 

Vestra should’ve killed you, if you were so determined to go back. 

“I’m sorry,” I murmur to my feet. 

“I’m not angry. If you pushed, I would’ve been, greatly so. But you didn’t. Stop shaking like a leaf.” There’s something in her tone that feels like cold water to the face. I breathe out and blink away a small selection of tears. Saltiest one always drops first! I’m imagining a little tear race now, little tear spectators cheering the racers on, tear savants testing the levels of salt in each one. The thought makes me giggle and I bury my head in my hands as I laugh. 

“I’m not angry with you,” she repeats, gentler than before. Her voice is still as steely, though. “Go finish the laundry while I make lunch.”

Without a word, I retreat to my location at the corner of the room, where still wet clothes wait to be sorted and hung to dry. I put the dress to the side and continue sorting through the clothes; sometimes, I look at her, her back turned to me, and the shaking of my hands grows for a split second. 

I try my best not to cry. Better save that energy for the worst of the shitshow that I know is yet to come.

I’ve forgotten that this is a house of grief and no sunlight can fix it. And I’ve walked over her grief in the same way I would walk over my own, but where I’m used to it, she isn’t. And even when we go to the same bed that night, seemingly forgetting what happened, and even when the sun rises the morning after, this is still a place where two grieving people decided to seek comfort because being broken together is somehow better than being broken alone. 

No summer nor new kinds of sex can fix the holes in your heart. 

I am tired of grief.  I don’t know if it ever goes away, but for fuck’s everloving and everlasting sake, I’m so tired of it.

[munsonsduchess]

Rock N' Roll Dreams Come True

summary: you've been joining corroded coffin on tour and at a big show eddie can't keep his hands off you w/c: 2.767 warnings: 18+ only minors dni, swearing, oral (f receiving), use of afab language to describe the reader (pussy, cunt), p in v sex a/n: i love rockstar eddie with my whole soul and my whole 🐱so this one getting the most votes on the poll seemed like a no brainer, again i did take a lot of this from something I'd written before for a different fandom but i've edited it and changed some stuff

if you like this please consider reblogging it and leaving a comment, it always helps me out

(moodboard by me)

It had been a dream come true when the Band got picked up originally. They’d played small shows here and there at first, bigger bars than the hideout, a couple local music festivals nothing mind blowing. That came later when Corroded Coffin had been asked to be the warm up act for the warm up act for a very famous band. 

Now here you all were, it had been ten years of climbing the ladder but Corroded Coffin could sell out an area almost as quickly as Metallica or Iron Maiden or any other band you’d care to mention. 

Everyone at home who had cheered them on, who’d believed in the band, they were the original fans. They might not be screaming their songs back to them in a sweaty crowd of metal heads or getting riled up in a mosh pit but there was no way Gareth, Jeff or Eddie could forget those friends who’s faith had never wavered. 

Dave the new guy maybe didn’t understand at first when a guy in glasses and pink Ralph Lauren polo showed up backstage with a girl who wouldn’t stop running her mouth in the most beat up pair of red chucks. Or why a certain hard nose reporter was only too happy to do fluff pieces on the band's meteoric rise to fame. He understood the California Stoners a little more but it still kind of baffled him when everyone begged one guy to take their pictures. 

This was Eddie’s family. Your family. The band and the Hawkins group. You were all older now, maybe not wiser but you would always share something deep, spring break 86 had truly bonded  you all for life. Most of Eddie’s early song writing for the band after Spring Break is what got the band picked up in the first place. 

So there you were. Sitting on a busted amp backstage watching the boys argue before going on stage. Eddie had apparently broken some sort of rule about being 'cool' and 'metal' to the point where the other three guys just couldn't let it go. Gareth had even decided  to document the 'crime' with his polaroid and now everyone was playing keep away while the photo developed and threatening to give it to the next reporter they spoke to, 

“You’re ruining my image!” Eddie protested, "come on dude don't be a dick" 

“You’re ruining your own image! You’re drinking out of a juice box! What are you six?” Gareth shot back, holding the picture above his head and signaling for Jeff to take it

“I need the vitamin c!” Eddie shot back, "it's not my fault  you all want to get scurvy" 

You couldn't help but laugh as Jeff took the picture and handed it off to a random crew member telling them to guard it with their life while Dave and Gareth wrestled with Eddie. This was the Corroded Coffin people didn't get to see, just four guys who loved each other and loved music, not the on stage personas, not what the media loved to make them out to be and  you were so fortunate you got to experience it all.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

The sound of the crowd cheering and chanting the band name sent chills up your spine and looking up at the others you could tell the band felt it too,

“Knock them dead babe” you smiled reaching up to grab Eddie by the lapels of his worn leather jacket to bring him down for a searing kiss, 

“Always do” he laughed before shrugging out of the jacket and draping it over your shoulders. A little pre-show ritual he swore brought the band luck and with how the tour had been going so far, no one could fault him.

You watched as the band took the stage and the crowd went wild. Your chest swelled with excitement as Eddie started playing, a wink thrown to you waiting there for him before his attention turned to the rest of the band and all that nervous energy transformed into an unbelievable stage presence.

You’d read every article that came out about the boys and  saved every article you’d found, clipped from magazines and pasted into a scrapbook you were keeping so that in years to come when you were all old and looking back on the glory days of your youth, the boys could look back at their beginnings. Along with Gareth's collection of Polaroids, embarrassing or not. 

The articles that made you laugh were usually the ones written about Eddie and his stage presence. The way he acted when he was playing had these journalists convinced he was some sort of tantric sex god, they drew their conclusions from the energy he put out while on stage and how touchy he was with you after. The band thought it was hilarious honestly and put it down to lead guitarist syndrome, everyone assumed because Eddie played lead he was just this amazing lover who could never be sated and while it was partially true it wasn’t everything the assorted press made your relationship out to be.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

Eddie’s hair shone under the stage lights, his body covered in a sheen of sweat as he played his heart out to a stadium packed full of screaming fans. They were here to hear him play, just to hear their band. No one else. It had been a long time coming, from playing the hideout every Tuesday to a band of drunks who yelled and threw empty beer bottles at the chicken wire surrounding the 'stage' and demanded old country songs to being hare, now and playing a sold out stadium of die hard Corroded Coffin fans. 

His eyes flicked back to where you were standing, your arms inside his oversized jacket as you sang along to every song and danced along to the music. You knew every word to every song they played, you’d been there when most of it was written and Eddie swore up and down you were the band’s good luck charm. If you hadn’t been there at the club there’s no way the band would have ended up where they are now. 

Turning his attention back to the crowd, Eddie poured his heart and soul into their last few songs knowing that everyone else would do just the same pouring every ounce of their being into the music. That's what it was all about in the end, the lights, the crowds, the fame, it was all secondary to the music itself.

As the band finally finished their set before the encore they came back off stage to change quickly and rehydrate. Eddie had other ideas apparently and rushed at you, sweeping you into his arms ignoring your cries of protest about how sweaty he was and demands that he at least wipe down first,

“Need you now baby” he groaned in your ear, pressing himself against you so you could feel just how hard he was. The energy from the crowd had been unlike anything else they’d experienced all tour and Eddie needed you.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

You were giggling as Eddie stole kisses as he dragged you towards the band's dressing room, the rest of the boys staying behind with warnings that Eddie better not miss the encore and threats of serious bodily harm if he did. His kisses were heated the closer you both got to the dressing room, your protests about his sweat slicked body dying in your throat before you had a chance to voice them. Instead they surfaced as little moans as Eddie’s hands roamed all over your body, he pushed you through the dressing room door and kicked it shut behind him.

Eyes dark as they took in your form, your home made corroded coffin shirt you wore to every show since the first one you'd ever been to,  but above all you were still wearing his jacket and Eddie would freely admit what seeing you in his clothes did to him,

“Baby do you have any idea how hot it is knowing my girl is on tour with me?” he grinned, his hands reaching out to pull you in close by your hips, “knowing everyone is looking at you but they can’t touch”

His teeth nipped at your neck as he sucked a bruise at the base of your throat, his hands trailing down your body to push your skirt up around your hips. You moaned openly as his hands kneaded your backside, Eddie knew exactly where to touch you to make you melt into him. 

You pulled at the hem of the tank top Eddie was wearing and managed to pull it off with his help. As soon as the tank top was off Eddie’s hands were pushing you back towards the couch, 

“Gonna fuck you so good baby, gonna make you scream my name so everyone knows who you belong to” he growled into your ear. 

You let out a yelp of surprise when the back of your knees hit the arm of the couch, reaching out for something to grab onto so you wouldn’t fall but only grabbing air as you toppled backwards. Eddie smirked and licked his lips at the sight of your legs propped up by the arm of the couch while the rest of your body lay flat on the couch. 

Crouching down so he was at eye level with your throbbing pussy, Eddie pushed your legs apart and settled himself between your opened thighs. You could feel the heat of his breath against your panties, the sensation only made you wetter as you waited for whatever Eddie had in store for you.

It wasn’t much of a wait as Eddie’s large hands trailed up your thighs, over your panties, his fingers ghosting over the waistband. Placing soft kisses to the inside of your thighs Eddie moved his fingers along the seam of your panties chuckling to himself when he started rubbing his thumb against clit and hearing the moan you let out in response,

“That’s my good girl, be as loud as you want baby. Want everyone to hear you” he crooned fingers rubbing your soaked panties against your needy cunt,

“Please Eddie, need you, please” you begged, you wanted more than this teasing sensation. Needed him to stretch you out with those thick fingers, needed him. 

Eddie laughed at how needy you were for him. Who was he to deny his girl anything she wanted? His good girl..

“Since you asked so nicely” the sound of fabric ripping filled your ears before Eddie’s mouth was attached to your dripping pussy, licking up the slick from your folds and moaning at the taste of you. Always so sweet for him, he could stay here for hours and had done so on more than one occasion.

You keened loudly at the feel of him, his tongue working wickedly between your legs as he sucked on your clit like it was his favourite milkshake, “taste so good honey” he purred as he slipped a long finger into you.

“Please Eddie, need more” you gasped, “please, please” 

“Greedy little girl, you want more than this? Tell me what you want” 

“Need you to fuck me, need your cock inside me” 

Eddie almost gave in then and there. His cock was straining against the denim of his jeans, it was painfully hard but he was a man on a mission and he would not be deterred. Instead he added another finger using them to stretch you open as his mouth went back to work on your clit. 

The room smelt of sex and sweat, the sounds of your moans and Eddie’s fingers in your wet pussy filling the air to the point that you were sure the crowd could hear it from the main stage. It was music to Eddie’s ears and he wasn’t going to stop until you made the sweetest sound of all for him.

Adding another finger he worked them in tandem with his mouth as he found the spot inside that had you seeing stars and gripping his hair tightly in your hands begging him not to stop. You could feel the coil tightening in your tummy, you were so close and Eddie could feel it too with how your walls were fluttering around him, 

“That’s it baby, cum for me” he encouraged, his fingers moving quicker and quicker until you felt the pressure inside you boil over and you came with a loud moan of his name soaking both Eddie’s fingers and his chin. 

He didn’t stop until he was sure you had come back down from your high and you were panting on the couch trying to catch the breath he’d stolen from your lungs. 

Standing up Eddie quickly unbuttoned his jeans and slid them down around his ankles. He looked down at you, your face flushed and chest heaving. God you looked so pretty like this, all wrecked after an orgasm. Almost as pretty as when he fucked you into your shared hotel room bed every night. 

That was for later, for now Eddie needed you and he wasn’t going to wait. He lined himself up with your entrance and pushed in, gripping your hips tightly as he did so. God you were so tight, so warm, he had to be careful not to blow his load there and then. 

A string of curses left his lips until he bottomed out. The stretch was almost unbearable every time Eddie filled you but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t love the feel of his thick cock dragging through your pussy walls. 

The way Eddie fucked you like each time was the first and the last and he’d never get to feel this again, dragging his cock out of you until just the tip was left inside before slamming his hips back against yours. Again and again, angling his hips so that the tip of his cock hit that sweet spot inside of you. 

You were clawing at the couch, his arms, anything you could reach. Moaning loudly at each deep stroke inside, you were sure you could feel Eddie in your stomach and it felt incredible. 

You could feel yourself getting close again as your pussy clenched down around Eddie’s cock. Knowing you both weren’t going to last much longer he reached between your sweaty bodies and rubbed quick energetic circles on your clit encouraging you to come apart around him. 

It didn’t take long for your high to wash over you again and you were screaming Eddie’s name for everyone to hear as your vision whited out, Eddie continued to fuck you through your high his own not far behind as he released into you with a grunt.

You stayed like that for a moment as you caught your breath. Splayed out on the couch with Eddie’s weight on top of you, his head resting on your stomach. Finally he looked up at you with a boyish grin on his face,

“Fuck honey you were amazing” he praised, a small kiss placed against your belly button as he pulled out and you groaned at the empty feeling left behind. 

Eddie disappeared from your line of sight for a moment before coming back with a warm wet towel to clean you off with. He placed another chaste kiss against the inside of your thighs before helping you stand and fix your clothes and hair. Not that the other members of the band or really anyone backstage wouldn’t know what the two of you had just been up to. 

Reaching up you captured his lips with your own and smiled into the kiss. Maybe the magazines were on to something after all. The moment was broken when Jeff began knocking hard on the door of the dressing room,

"You have two seconds to get out here or I swear to god I'll kill you myself!" 

Eddie pulled the door open wide and grinned at Jeff's irate expression as if he hadn't just been fucking your brains out on the couch,

"Relax, I told you I wouldn't miss the encore!" Eddie gave you a quick parting kiss before following after Jeff to finish the set for good.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

Days later Eddie came back to the hotel you were currently crashing in with a ‘surprise’ for you. Peeling off his jacket he was able to show off a brand new tattoo, a heart with both of your names written inside. Eddie showed it proudly on stage that night proclaiming to all the world his love for one girl. 

His sweetheart.

Taglist: @pillow-titties @eddiemunsonwillbethedeathofme @munsonology @thegirlblogstuff @boomhauer @prettyboyeddiemunson @hellfireeddie6 @that-lame-ghoul9000 @flashyourgreeneyesatme @anxiousstark @ruinedbythehobbit @winnifredburkleismyhero @manda-panda-monium @insertcoolnameherethanks @aftermidnightwriting

Let me know if you want to be added!

His sweetheart.

[ca-suffit]

what are your thoughts on lestat/gabrielle bc parent-child incest is always abuse yet sometimes it feels like fans treat that r/s and akashastat as jokes, maybe bc they can’t recognise female abusers or bc they don’t understand abusers (i.e. lestat) can be and often are victims of abuse themselves.

I already know this is gonna be a rly long reply bcuz there's a lot to talk about to answer this.

gonna put it under a cut for what the topics are. don't click if u don't want to read about incest and abuse obviously.

first, as I've said in other asks here and there, fandom does have a lot of problems with criticizing at least white women in fiction bcuz it's too much of a mirror held up to what fandom spaces are usually made up of to begin with. this is also why darker topics become jokes. it's all a way to create distance for engagement, whether the distance is not to look at urself or maybe ur own trauma (it's usually both here). I've seen a lot of this in the book side of the fandom over the years. it's also why lots of stuff is focused on surface level words ("it's gothic fiction," "they're all monsters") instead of any in depth exploration.

secondly, not to sound like a shitty book person, but incest *is* a major part of gothic fiction. the intention *is* to be repulsive, horrifying, and taboo. ppl should obviously take care to avoid topics that u find overwhelming and might harm ur mental health, but otherwise this *is* part of the genre.

lestat and gabrielle also....don't rly get that much into it tbh. the fandom makes it sound like more than it is. idk if the show is gonna make it more but I doubt it. although there was a dig about it in the trial script that I never saw anyone mention btw

"if u want to kill ur lover, or fuck ur mother, it'll have to wait."

I personally find the shifting power dynamics between human life and vampire life to be rly interesting. I don't think it's something the books explored enough tbh. bcuz lestat and gabrielle are the only vampires who came from being a human parent and child to the child then becoming the vampire parent to his own fledgling vampire mother.

it's clear in their human life that their parent / child boundaries are fucked and tbh that's the worst part for me. especially bcuz the fandom doesn't want to explore that bcuz ppl don't like to criticize gabrielle, as mentioned above. her life is awful so ppl give her a pass a lot. but she starts off as the human parent and she's a p bad parent in a lot of ways tbh (cuz she never wanted to be one).

anyway. I always saw the vampiric era incest as a metaphor for their broken relationship otherwise. like I said before, the fandom makes it sound worse than what even happens too. they never fuck each other. at most they kiss and think or say things that are inappropriate about each other's bodies and their feelings towards it, but modern day stories have had a lot more brutal depictions of incestual relationships between mothers and sons tbh. not saying that to downplay it or say "get over it" or w/e but just to touch on that, cuz it does get weirdly annoying here about it sometimes. ppl act tough about their love of "gothic fiction" all day for other topics in the books that are rly more graphic than this, then act like this is the one thing that goes too far? It's fucking weird, although I have theories about why that happens too.

back to the point tho. they're kind of a "failure" mother and son in life, so that's how I tend to read why this happens in the first place. lestat wants a mother and gabrielle wants to be a man (she directly tells him at a point "u are the man in me").

this is from TVL, before he leaves for paris (when they're both still human)

"I tried to take her in my arms. She stiffened at first but then I felt her weaken and she melted against me, and she gave herself over so completely to me in that moment that I think I understood why she had always been so restrained. She cried, which I'd never heard her do. And I loved this moment for all its pain. I was ashamed of loving it, but I wouldn't let her go. I held her tightly, and maybe kissed her for all the times she'd never let me do it. We seemed for the moment like two parts of the same thing."

after he makes her a vampire, they're kissing each other a lot in that first night. lestat saved his mother from dying and created his first vampire, which he wasn't sure he could do, and she isn't sick anymore and has more freedom than she knows what to do with. she's no longer his human "mother" either. he mentions a lot in these moments that there's no hesitance when they kiss each other like there was before. bcuz they're both happier in their individual issues and this is how they can express that as vampires now. he feeds her blood from his mouth later on in their first night and it comes across like more of a nurturing action than something weird and sexual.

so there's obviously incestual themes present but, to me anyway, this always felt a lot more sad than anything. like they don't know how else to meet each other's needs so they do this as vampires to act out a type of intimacy that otherwise they don't rly have still?

but ya. lestat did not become who he is from nothing. both his parents were abusive in different ways and akasha abuses him too. he constantly has vampirism forced on him against his will and tries his best to ignore how it makes him feel, especially about his own body. he has a lot of trauma attached to how he looks too and it's a whole thing. gabrielle and magnus tap into that in ways too.

fandoms don't rly like to look at cycles of abuse bcuz it's easier to say someone is just "bad" than to feel like maybe ur a bad person too if u sympathize with them. that's why ppl here are working hard to usually make any of these characters either the abused or abuser, depending on which side they relate to the most. it's almost always a combination of both in everyone tho.

[celestie0]

Hello!! I wanted to ask some advice 😞 I have a fic idea but I've never posted any writing before and its like a very very specific band au and I'm scared no one will care to read it because of how much music context it requires 😭 I really admire your writing so like...what do you suggest...

(Also super excited for next kickoff ! I've never been this invested in a fic)

hii my love!! omg a band au sounds like so much funnn are you kiddinggg i would eat that UPPP. my advice would be to just go ahead n write it!!! it's super nervewracking to share work, especially if you've never shared before, so for the time being you can just write w the idea that no one else will read it except for yourself! that'll help you establish a healthy relationship w your writing & your hobby in general even before you post should you choose to post

as for the specificity n music context, i personally think thats SO FUCKIN RAD!!! i love a story where i can enjoy a romance but also have aspects outside of it that i can learn something new from or take something away from. i have read some pretty incredible fics & books, but the ones that have always had a lasting impact on me are the ones i went into knowing nothign ab a specific something, but then i leave it feeling like i've learned something i wouldn't have ever known before!!

it's a totally valid feeling though, esp in fanfiction where you might think readers want to read ab only their fave characters or specifically romance. i felt this way a lot with including the film major & photography aspect to kickoff, i feared readers would find it boring and would just want to read ab gojo x reader. i think in ch9, gojo only had like 40% of the chapter screentime and didn't even make his first appearance until like 5k words into the chapter, but i'm still really happy w the chapter and the response i got was great too. i see some of my writer mutuals break the norms n experiments w their stories all the time too, and honestly, i think that makes for some of the BEST and most MEMORABLE stories :)

as for fears that people may not see your story, i totally get that. keep in mind, i think the jjk fandom specifically doesn't really have too many long fics, at least compared to what i've seen in other fandoms, n tends to steer towards oneshot content (i could be wrong ab this but it's just what i've noticed! at least on tumblr. long fics always get lots of love on ao3 tho) so don't worry too much if you're not getting as many notes or reblogs etc as some other authors, bc if you choose to post series content, then you'll technically be in a niche category for this specific fandom. BUT i have noticed that the quality of interactions w longer stories is very amazing and totally worth being a part of this writing community for that reason!!

when i first started posting, i really didn't know what to expect since the last time i had a fanfic blog was for like two months when i was 12 on deviantart LOL. and now i'm just extremely blown away n humbled by the support. but that's the thing- you'll never ever know unless you try! again, just write and picture it that you're the only one that's going to read it, so put all that juicy music context in there n really write w that passion in mind!! (i'm assuming you're into music or bands n that's your inspiration? don't be afraid to let that interest show!!) and that's really the only thing you need to get started, after that it's just simply copy pasting n then posting :)

if you do get around to posting or sharing it then feel free to tag me bb!! i'd love to read it n support you. good luck to u n much love!! <33 i hope this helps in anyway

and thank you for looking forward to kickoff :)

ps. in case you want any specific writing advice i have some on my page here (sorry bb i just realized i wasn't sure if you were asking for actual concrete writing advice haha my bad if i misinterpreted)

[douwatahima]

idk i'm feeling kinda riled up today and i want to talk about why the fight for ofmd is so important to me.

so listen. i've been in fandoms for a loooooong time. i remember when the sheer idea of a show (that wasn't something like, say, queer as folk) having any sort of lgbt representation was a major rarity. the idea of a random character suddenly coming out in your favourite sci fi/fantasy/action show? no way in hell. and those of us in fandom kinda came to accept that. we were queering the hell out of everything we came across, don't get me wrong, but it was because the idea of a series suddenly having a character textually be queer was just…not a thing that happened most of the time.

then came the age of queerbaiting. as someone who was in the supernatural fandom from very early on, i remember how those first few seasons of the ~great destiel saga~ felt to watch. they actively hinted at and joked about their relationship! they acknowledged the elephant in the room! surely they wouldn't do that unless it meant something!!! but then of course came the years and years of the cast and crew sneering at the people who had the audacity to…listen to the words that came out of the character's mouths and have thoughts about them. and yeah, eventually (like a decade later) cas told dean he loved him, but even now the people who worked on the show seem reluctant to say that that was a romantic moment. and that's just one example that i'm more intimately familiar with! there are so many others! just straight up gaslighting queer fans so they can keep making money off of us with no intention of actually giving us what we want; all while acting like they were doing us a favour by doing anything at all.

and it sucked! it clearly sucked! but the more time went on the less surprising it became. because at the end of the day it came down to what it always comes down to; money. there's this idea (not just in media) that there are certain people who are the "default". people whose experiences are universal and easy to understand. white people. straight people. cis people. when it comes to media, stories about these people are seen as something anyone can watch and understand. but when you try to tell stories about people who fall outside of these categories? well, now you're making niche content that only people who fall into that niche will be able to identify with.

and look, i know i'm preaching to the choir here. this is tumblr. we all know there's a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in the world. my point is that the narrative around queerbaiting from an industry standpoint seemed to be "yeah, we want the ad revenue from all of these lgbt people watching our shows, but if we commit to actually making any of our characters queer we're going to isolate our straight audience and lose most of our viewers". and there was never any concrete way to disprove that. so yeah. we would occasionally be blessed by a ~very special show~ that actually depicted queerness (usually about younger people coming out, or about the tragedies that can and have faced people in our community), but the idea of branching out beyond that seemed like a no go.

and then along came our flag means death. a show about pirates that also talked about toxic masculinity and had characters who were casually queer in every different variety and also featured people with different body types who came from different cultures and who were all treated with kindness and grace. a show that didn't necessarily market itself specifically as ~a queer show~ (which, was probably in part due to trying to bury the lead which sucks, but the point still stands) but rather a fun show anyone could watch. that wasn't specifically about coming out or tragedy but was more so about joy, and community, and love. and here's the thing. here's the wild as fuck thing that happened. this show? it didn't lose all of its viewers when those last two episodes of season 1 aired and it confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that ed and stede were in love. the opposite happened. this show fucking soared into the stratosphere.

i remember the first time i saw those parrot analytics charts showing that ofmd was the most in demand new series; out performing marvel even. i was so overcome i legit broke down in tears. because it turns out all of those times i had been told to sit back and accept the scraps i was given because that was all my community was profitable enough to get, those people were wrong. we could've had this the whole time! WE COULD'VE HAD THIS THE WHOLE TIME!!! and as the weeks progressed and ofmd remained at the top of every chart, as the show continued to succeed, i felt such an immense amount of joy! those people were wrong! we can just have this and it'll do well!!!

and yeah, apparently that wasn't enough to convince the powers that be. they spent forever deciding whether to renew it and when they finally did the budget was cut nearly in half and the people at max decided they needed to oversee the show a lot more. all of this sucks. but the thing is they made season 2 and they fucking did it again! the show got even better critics scores than last time! the show was doing numbers better than season 3 of succession! the merch, only released in october, became some of the best selling merch of 2023 on the max shop! by max's own admission season 2 was one of the biggest hits of the year for them!!! like, what more is there? the show is a success!!!

so yeah. i'm not going to accept the fucking stupid excuses max gives as to why they cancelled it. saying that it didn't have the numbers (it did), or that they didn't know how to market violence (they do), or that it didn't have awards buzz (it has literally been nominated for awards and there's still active fyc ads the company itself made) just doesn't cut it. there was no reason to cancel it other than the idea that diverse media "doesn't sell". and max, by airing this show you have shown me that that fucking isn't true. it's never been true. so i'm going to keep fighting for this one until someone picks it up or until i'm old and grey because it isn't just about ofmd. it's about the belief that our stories, the stories of people who aren't "the default" are worth telling. by every metric they are worth telling. and that is something that i know is worth fighting for.

[datastate]

(sending this as an ask because it got WAYY too long to be a reply whoops) i really like your opinions on the routes!! especially on the ais waugh…. i am planning on playing kanna's routes whenever i eventually replay this summer + i am excited to see what they entail…. but yeah overall i really like your thoughts and man do i need to replay yttd T_T it has been so long. (+ this is where the reply turned into a small ramble about qtaro because the autism) plus your comment about how the main games have gone + the qtaro thing. sorry i am ill about him. glad to see someone who understands his intent there because although i am not active in fandom ANYMORE i used to see so many people absolutely hating him for that (<- like obviously not the best way of going about things but he had intentions. okay?) (also i would like to make the comment of although in 8th grade i had intense hyperfixation on alice, ever since my first playthrough in 6th grade (HOW HAS IT BEEN THAT LONG?!) qtaro has + always will be my favorite sorry society….). i still remember when 3-1b came out + so many people were like "oh maybe qtaro is not deplorable" meanwhile i was over here #1 qtaro fan sobbing. sorry this is so long

(in response to this ask! also, for my own sake, i've broken up replying this into little sections :] <3 but i don't mind at all!!!)

REPLAYING YTTD

oho...!! i do think even a general replay (without seeing other routes) is really worthwhile to get a better feel for the characters & see how you can recontextualize things they're doing/have said at the time... i love combing through to see what nao and kai were up to in particular just before the main games <3

while i do think there was more that nankidai could've stood to do to differentiate the two routes particularly to make kanna & shin's separate routes feel like an actual choice, i do think that what small things are changed are still worthwhile & cool to see! i hope you enjoy your replay!!! :D

Q-TARO

YEAH exactly... i'm really sad that it's taken until his literal death to truly appreciate him as a character when more morally ambiguous characters like... well. shin, keiji, and even kai (though i'd honestly argue that most people don't see kai for who he is, you know; rather they place emphasis on his attractive appearance...) -- what they've done & how they behave are excused because they're, frankly, thin enough to care abt.

i've gone on about this before, so i won't linger much more than i need to, but i find it so strange that most people don't seem to recognize that - if not in the moment, i can understand that everyone's emotions are in a swirl. even the player's, but in chapter two when he says he felt a connection w kai - q-taro is autistic. and this definitely makes how he approached things in the first main game all the more understandable, personally... being so blunt about it when he'd settled on it being the clear solution, he even outright says that he doesn't want to see any of them just resign themselves right away to being voted out! & then we learn in ch3 as well that he's also experienced suicidal ideation which just lends so much more value to what he says...!! he doesn't want anyone to die, but certainly not with the belief that it's the only option they had. he wants them to at least have the chance to fight, just in case. and he's willing to hold himself to the same standard!

of course, first impressions mean a lot, but i feel like people saw this and completely missed the entirety of chapter 2 where he quickly warms up to gin afterward & even apologizes to sara for all she's had to deal with, despite it not being his fault, and expressing that he wishes there was something he could do even irt miley... he cares so much abt the kids within the group, even if it takes a lot of courage to support strangers when he knows he has other kids waiting at home for him... he still tries his damnedest, you know? i feel like there's something about that you have to respect. even when he's attempting to leave, you visibly see how conflicted he is about it & it's why sara can pick up on it so early, because he doesn't want to do this, it just feels like the only option... which. well. there's something to say about how gin's the one who's freely handing out tokens and yet q-taro goes to someone like sara first. someone who's been steadily pushed into the figurehead of the group, who is clearly strategic... versus someone who resembles the people q-taro's trying to get back to. hmmm. i sure wonder what the implications are here. (& i have a post for you. that you might enjoy... i've been meaning to write it for a while but i forget. but the idea is there.)

but. yeah... they didn't give him much room to grow in their mind after this point, which is so disappointing & definitely created a very toxic space. beyond that, it played into general southern stereotypes of him being the only homophobic/transphobic one, which i honestly often find treatment of to be in poor taste (it can be used well in stories, but you shouldn't just. throw bigotry on characters simply because you hate them...) -- but also just. blatantly untrue?

even just. everything about his treatment of people in general being so understanding once you explain something to him, or his desire to be a good person worthy of looking up to (which is why it doubly wrecks him when he sees himself become disabled/suicidal in the hospital, because he's become such a rotten person and he feels it and it's a terrible, terrible cycle) for the orphanage kids & to prove something to the parents who abandoned him that he's still worthy of being loved too... he believes in equivalent exchange in social dynamics, only ever giving out what you can take, just... in what world would he be so insensitive?

and this isn't even bringing up the fact that he has slightly longer than shoulder-length hair + nonetheless treats kai/mishima with a lot of respect and care even with them both generally being considered (physically, as well as in their demeanor) strange. combined with the fact that he relates to kai on the basis of being "lonely" rather than "loved" for what's unchangeable about them... there's so much there to read into. not just with autism or ptsd, but. gestures. transgenderism, being mixed, so on. things that sara had people to help support her with prior to the death game, or that she lacked altogether (if she's fully japanese)

but i digress! i'm glad that ch3-1 skirted some hatred toward him, but i definitely agree -- he's such a well-rounded characters even prior to that & it deserved to be acknowledged...!!

[hyukalyptus]

i feel like younger fandom writers on tumblr are starting to feel like they have to be sort of ""influencers"" and respond to every single bit of feedback and get as many reblogs as possible but that's never been what tumblr has been about and it's sad because i've seen this idea people give themselves drive writers off the website in newer, younger fandoms. if i'm in your inbox, even if it's some big idea i'm putting down, you can just reply like a conversation. i'm not expecting a piece of writing, i really just want to tell someone and have them respond "OH MY GOD I'M FOAMING AT THE MOUTH" and maybe even "thats so hot and he'd do this too" but i feel like writers are putting a lot of pressure on themselves lately, or maybe it's just this fandom idk, to write a fic for every single idea that comes into their mailbox because they feel like "that's what writers do" or something and it's like??? you don't have to be a Public Figure here. it's just a fuckign social media website and the weirdest most fucked up one. i'm sure you get asks like "hey why didn't you write such and such" but like. you're just here to converse and share the things you make this isn't your fucking job so ignore that shit and do what feels comfortable to you. idk if this sounds harsh or not but really the point is just do whatever the fuck you want

hello!

idk if this is a rant specifically toward me or if it’s supposed to be a suggestion for others..but i feel like i have a pretty clear boundary and that is stated clearly in my guidelines. i do understand that this is something silly and meant to be fun and i treat it that way.

i’ve never felt pressured to do something i didn’t want to do. i know i posted a “i have a full time job and i go to school!” post yesterday but that’s because i have drawn that boundary and i do understand that this is a low priority and it’s for fun. if i don’t like an ask, i delete it! which i do so often tbh. i don’t rly advertise that bc i want ppl to feel like they can inbox me.

and again, i’m not sure if this is directed at me fully, but i have never said anything along the lines of “because that’s what writers do.” as i’ve said in my guidelines, i understand i am not here for you or any other reader. and i am fully comfortable deleting any ask and blocking whoever tf i want.

perhaps this in response to saying something like “this didn’t get a whole lotta notes :(“ or something? and if it’s that, that’s not meant to be taken too seriously! it’s more of a “omg why doesn’t anyone else wanna giggle about kai with me rn?” just like irl if i’m w a group of ppl and i’m sharing something i rly like and that i created and i get very little response i’ll be slightly :/ but i’m not taking it personally. i’m sorry if it came across as pressuring others to provide feedback.

perhaps this is in response to my poll i have up rn. i’m doing this because many readers have suggested us writers interact back with them. and they’ve requested that from multiple writers. which i see as a fair request to be completely honest. however, i don’t feel pressured into doing that. i want to show appreciation to my readers that leave feedback and idk maybe it’s because i’m autistic, maybe it’s because i’m old and don’t do social media well, but it can be very difficult for me to talk to people in any form (online or offline) so i wanted to know what form would be best received.

but at the end of the day- i definitely do not see myself as an “influencer”—that is actually my worst nightmare. i have never felt pressured to write a response to anything, i’ve never felt pressured to respond within a certain time frame, a certain length, or anything. i still haven’t posted half my kinktober shit! i’ve never prioritized this over work or school. i do write whatever the fuck i want or i wouldn’t write about “unpopular” things like kai smut (bc let’s face it, they’re always super unpopular), chubby!reader, or other kinks. and i make that clear in my guidelines!

and yep, i see this as something silly that i do as a hobby but that isn’t my place to dictate how other writers should feel about their blog. if they want to take it seriously bc they view as their art, that’s fine with me. if they wanna write for validation or for as many notes as possible, that’s fine w me because they’re doing whatever the fuck they want.

writers: i do encourage you to not feel pressured to write to things you don’t want to, but i don’t feel like many of you do that anyway. this is meant to be something fun and if you’re not having fun, don’t do it! but i’m still having fun with this so i’m gonna do it. and i’m sure y’all are having fun too. i ofc hope my moots stick around, but i would of course understand if you decided to never log back in again someday.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

wip game!

tagged by the lovely incredible amazing @backhurtyy <333

Here’s how it works: in a reblog (or new post w/ rules attached), post up to five (5) filenames of your WIP’s; not titles, file names. 

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to post!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write three sentences in that file. If the file name is one you can’t share (for example, an event fic), write three sentences on it anyway, and then write three more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join, or just post. 

wips (tried to do a mix of fandoms! one a.tla, a couple s.k8, a coiple b.sd, a couple m.lb, couple n.injago, a couple j.jk... oh, one m.p100... i think that's all lol):

before the falling and decay

chuuya pretends to kidnap kenji to piss dazai off

chuuya's throwing shoes & they're cursing

fear will be our enemy & death its consequence

heal my heart and mend what's broken

how to (legally) obtain a tractor in one week

just the sound of your heart in your head

left with nothing but time

miracuclass Trauma™️

see a world so beautiful and strange (spinning off somewhere)

something's in the air / i feel the heat

sun comes streaming through the window (& i can't sleep anymore)

take me where my soul can run

when it finally rains it's gonna pour

here are some sentences from my current bby sun comes streaming...

In the center of this world of abilities and powers wasn’t gods, but humans. And Kenji, although always smiling, always cheerful, and (almost) always powerful, was just that: a human. A human who felt fear and anger and self-hatred just as much as the rest of them.

Yosano once lived in a world where she bowed down to her ability, where she was treated as a god—giving life and taking it away. Ranpo was the first person to truly see her humanity, to show her that her gift wasn’t something to fear, but was a part of her. That it wasn’t inherently bad, that she was capable of beautiful things.

imma tag @cowgirlwizard & @zenithpng & @shorthairzuko (jeg siger undskyld if you've already been tagged! i feel like this could be done with art, too? i've seen it done with art ay least haha anyways feel free to ignore if ya want <3)

[escapaldi]

So… I followed you a long time ago, and then I left tumblr. I can’t remember if we interacted much back then, but since you’re also active here I have to ask: what did you think about the specials as a Capaldi fan?

Hello! I know I've seen your name around before, so welcome back! Even when I wasn't posting on this blog specifically, I was still on tumblr posting fic and stuff, so even though there is a gap I've always been here.

Now, as far as the 60th anniversary specials: I haven't watched them and don't plan to for a long time. A long-winded and salty rant by me is under the cut.

To be honest, I haven't felt the need to watch any new Doctor Who since Capaldi and Moffat both left because it all sounded like boring and cringey fan fiction (derogatory) I wasn't really jiving with. If that makes sense? Then RTD came back on as a showrunner and I was severely disappointed because it felt like such a step backwards. Plus that Tennant was going to be in it? No thanks.

Like... I get that to a lot of people, his return makes these specials "feel like Doctor Who again". I've seen that statement a lot from both randos and people I know. Which, fine, whatever, I'm not begrudging people for it, but for a lot of folks saying that, the statement includes a bunch of the show that doesn't feel like Doctor Who to me. I came in w/s5 because of a series of events that turned me off to the show early on. I was nearly sixteen when s1 premiered in the UK. That should have stuck me in the prime demographic to not only love s1-4, but have a sort of nostalgia filter over it to help facilitate excitement over the 60th specials. Well, there's some problems with that.

I can't stand Rose Tyler and any reference to her as something positive makes me cringe. Doctor/Rose in any form makes me viscerally nope out of anything. She was not as likeable as people lead others to believe.

I've been Pavloved into disliking Tennant due to the oversaturation of his interpretation of the Doctor in the series and the fandom as a whole, despite the fact he's just meh. The Doctor is not his best role and in general he doesn't do it for me in the looks department, especially as the Doctor. Which, it's fine if you like watching him (I'm sure Georgia loves watching him and she is a very good sport about a lot of shit) and I know my DW experience has been enhanced by watching the pretty but I am a demographic outlier lol.

What I did see of s1-4 before I got into s5 was Rose being an idiot, getting a deeply unsettling feeling over Jack Harkness, being pissed off for Martha and Mickey and livid about Donna, being irritated by the Master and the angsty space Jesus shite, and thinking Ten and Donna would make a good couple actually.

Oh yeah, and very specifically I'm mad because I watched The End of Time Part 2, like, almost soon as I could, and knew immediately that Martha/Mickey was Pair the Spares Race Edition even though at that point I hadn't watched all of s1-4 and for all I knew they hit it off in an unseen-by-me episode for a reason that wasn't getting drunk over their mid-tier white exes hooking up. Like, I clocked that shit back in 2009. There was a lot of shit I was not clocking in 2009, but I caught onto that, which should be an embarrassment.

...and, like, I'm on the internet, so I've seen spoilers. It's difficult to not see spoilers. Some of the spoilers I love to see hello Fifteen's THIGHS we love us a good slutty Doctor and I do have one UK-based friend specifically whom I've talked to at length about the specials. My fiancé also has been watching this entire time w/o stopping since 2005 (bc he caught it all as it premiered here in the US and at least he got to watch s1 Billie Piper; I fault him for nothing), so he's been giving me updates on what's going on as well. He is a good man who has done saintly things like drive me across three state lines to meet Peter Capaldi at a Doctor Who convention, so... he's generally trustworthy, but also a lot more forgiving than I am. But he was also the one who broke to me the news about Rose Noble because he knew I'd get upset that she's not Donna Jr. So I've got some good fonts of information. They tell me that I'd like the second and third more than the first, that we've just got some extra Ten-Donna adventures, and that generally everything's stepped up a bit from Thirteen.

...but to me, a step up from Thirteen is still not a step towards where we need to go.

You can't go from Eleven and Twelve, an ancient eldritch god trapped in a body with the grace of a baby giraffe and a legit punk who punches diamond walls for his wife and racists for his daughter, respectively, to a Tory apologist who never really got a scary "I am the Doctor and you're stuck here with me now what a shame :)" moment like Nine through Twelve got and think that "a step up" from that is going to catch me. I'm not enticed by the prospect of another Ten-Donna adventure done by the man whose writing and showrunning kept me away from Doctor Who for so long. I. could. not. care. less. There is literally no nostalgia filter making this okay to me. I cannot see what other people see.

I don't want to be an anti, I don't want to be a NMD, but they keep pushing my fucking hand and now I'm sitting here having not watched new episodes of what is literally one of my favorite shows since before the pandemic, watching from an arm's length as it sort of caves in around itself, going and absolutely pissing away their chances at having a really cool, massive-multi-Doctor bonanza like no other. You could have twelve Doctors. TWELVE DOCTORS. Eleven if our most venerable just kinda taps out like nah I'm done unless you give me Bill's job from the Three Doctors special. Like, the fuck, y'all. That got whizzed right down the fucking leg. Did they even try? Did they get rebuffed? Whose decision was the 60th specials? Do they even like Doctor Who? Or are they part of the set that thought that Tennant's Doctor would never be topped?

So... yeah... that's the gist of it. I'm sure it's gonna take being sat down for a marathon by Mr. Nehs before I get into Doctor Who again, which is honestly sad. The BBC has hated this show and been visibly trying to run it into the ground since they decided to make the divisive decision of casting Matt Smith (which worked out great in the long run but having been on the internet at the time as that announcement I can assure you it was not received well) and now they've got Mouse Bucks and some straight-up boring as sin seasons/series under their belts and idk what in the hell's coming for us now.

[myeolines]

still haven't finished totk bcs i keep getting busy w uni but i kinda just wanna rant about the main plot line lol

The continuity issues of this game is frustrating if you try to mince the main plot, shit just doesn't add up. As fun the open worldness is, being able to solve the puzzles any way you want, it feels as if they had to cut corners when it came to the plot 💀 Like it's some afterthought djsbdkwnkdns Having cutscenes fully voice acted has so much emotional power, like I kinda wish they made the most out of it jdjsbkwndke

I've read here in tumblr before about how it's as if the original direction of the zonai shifted, because I do remember Rauru's hand being creepy. And then the game releases and he's apparently a good boi! But it's fine, sometimes art do be like that it just takes a whole new direction. But the way they interweave things w botw is very inconsistent. Like they could have really did more with it yanno

Personally, it would have been better if we didn't start the game exploring the ruins ? the castle depths ? idk what's it called but like, we got to experience following Zelda as she puts in the effort of "restoring Hyrule". We get to see the glimpse of their life together after the calamity.

The thing is, does Hyrule need to be restored? Most specifically, the castle. Also it makes me wonder how people reacted seeing what seems to be the princess of legend come back, the princess they've heard from their grandparents. But I guess it's easy to interpret it with Zelda being vital to their worshipping of Hylia. And Hyrule Castle seems to serve as a seal for Ganon, and for more generations to come

It would have been more meaningful to see beloved characters from the series intermingle with the new characters. Though the new characters look cool, they also feel so out of place. I get that Penn replaces Kass in terms of role but it would still have been fun to see Kass just chilling at home. It would have also been fun to see Zelda and Kass interact, after all Kass' teacher is the court poet that regularly accompanied the princess. They could reminisce the stories of the past... Kass going "Ah, my teacher used to tell me stories of (this and that)" and Zelda enthusiastically recalling these stories... It would also have been cool to see how the whole Zonai Survey Team was formed. Since Tauro was a solo explorer and his passion for field research is what made Zelda choose him to be the leader of the survey team, it would have been nice to have a neat little side quest of getting to know the guy. Same goes for Yona. It would have been less surprising if Link and Sidon were penpals and they'd regularly write to each other, Sidon would recount some childhood memories with Yona. If maybe we were there to welcome Yona as she arrived, her introduction would have felt smoother? I'm not against the idea of Sidon and Yona but their relationship feels so abrupt HABSJABDKANDK Would have been fun to see how Sidon slowly realized he loved Yona, something like that.

I'm really digging the idea that totk zelda should be playable. Totk's story is more about her dilemma. It would have been more meaningful experiencing the Dragon Tears memory as Zelda, we get to move around as her. I mean, she's apparently the strongest Zelda in the series I think it would have been so monumental.

But back to the actual story, it could have been more... Though it's fun seeing that Link isn't as alone anymore, teleporting to Lookout Landing always feels nice because I know that's where Link's friends are, I just wish Zelda had more screentime.

Thankfully the fandom has people rewriting the story to fill in the gaps so that's what I'll be busy reading once I finish the game to scratch the itch that is inconsistent storytelling sjbskdnsns that's my totk rant for today 😘

[toburnup]

I usually don’t really like pov switching in fics bc like you said for me it disrupts the flow of the story and sometimes I like not knowing what the other person thinks and feels and their intentions bc it feels like I’m living the story with the person whose pov it is, but let me tell you, you blew my mind with the Eddie chapters. It was so interesting to look inside his brain and to see his point of view and realize that I, just like Steve, was blind to some things. Like how Steve was always the one to show up unannounced, how he could spend a week without coming not knowing Eddie was waiting for him bc he’d come every day before that. And to see that Eddie was also blind to some things like Steve’s alcohol problems (from what I understood he noticed but didn’t realize how bad it actually was?). And I also loved that those chapters weren’t just a retelling of Steve’s chapters word for word, it just felt like I was watching a montage of some moments through Eddie’s eyes, the ones that were memorable to him and maybe the ones that he still thinks about. I’m sorry for this essay, I just wanted to tell you that this fic has already become one of the best ones I’ve ever read in any fandom, thank you for this. I hope you know how talented you are❤️ Can’t wait for the next chapter!

💙💙 i'm!!!! ahh!! i'm so happy! writing eddie's pov was both very fun, and also very clarifying for myself.

also :) the examples you gave! love them. and i want to get into both a little more, so.... rambling below the cut!!

steve letting days go by without visiting because he doesn't realize eddie is waiting!! such a big misstep between them both. in steve's (slight, biased) defence, he didn't know that bothered eddie. steve said (fairly early on) that he "can't tell if you want me to keep coming over" and eddie's response sums up the different way they communicate their feelings. eddie doesn't say, "yes, i want you to come over." he says "if i didn't want you here, you wouldn't be." which is very different in terms of messaging. less direct. also untrue, lol. but steve is more comfortable with verbalizing that kind of thing so he follows it up with "so you want me to stay?" and eddie doesn't answer, just holds out his hand, which is an answer of sorts.

but steve asks again: "is that you saying it?" so that's 3 times that steve is asking this question of do you want me here? and eddie is unable to answer. because to him, admitting that he wants steve there is admitting that he notices when he's not, that something fundamental is missing. that he's lonely. and it's much easier to tolerate being alone when you don't think of it that way.

eddie not realizing the extent of steve's drinking - they wouldn't have the language for this, but eddie's dad was pretty much a functioning alcoholic. like in the opening section of eddie's first pov chapter, his dad is drunk when he drives them out into the storm. i've both struggled w/ addiction, and later on worked with people in recovery, and some people are able to live their lives while being heavily addicted w/o their communities noticing. eddie knew his dad was drunk because he'd seen it happen so many times, but it was also normal for his dad to be drunk and not necessarily act like it. so steve's own drinking wouldn't really be a red flag for him, it's just something he Notices and then moves on from. he's not concerned because why would he be?

the only time it seems to bother him (from steve's pov) is when steve drives over drunk on new years, but even then, from eddie's pov we see that his irritation isn't from steve being drunk at all. it doesn't really register for him like that. he moves steve's car, lets him climb into bed. he's just annoyed because he thinks steve has been avoiding him (not visiting) since he was "back in hawkins" after christmas. this isn't a judgement of eddie that i'm making, either. i think he's a victim of circumstance in a similar way steve s in this particular instance.

a montage of some moments through Eddie’s eyes, the ones that were memorable to him and maybe the ones that he still thinks about - nothing much to add, i just really really like how you phrased this. lovely.

as i went through steve's chapters and picked out some sections to write eddie's pov, there were a few that i wrote bits of, or added to. i had a lot of fun writing the sections where steve's perception misaligned with eddie's. or when he'd say things when he was drunk or post-orgasm lmao, and wouldn't necessarily remember.

super long answer. thank you for sending this message!!

[landograndprix]

Hey I was that anon that sent the message about engagement. I’m so glad to see that what I said didn’t offend you as that wasn’t my intent; especially b/c after sending it I felt like I had trauma dump about something that could have just been a light hearted post. I will say that I try to be as obnoxiously over the top in my praise for those blogs that create amazing content and are also kind to their audience; almost as a small way of showing those in my sphere that this blog is safe to interact w/ (also how sad is that, that you have to feel out how a blog on the internet is likely to interact with people). I agree with you that it seem that some people are willing to take the abuse b/c the content that is produce is so incredible, I wasn’t able to though. There have been blogs that I just unfollowed and if a mutual reblog then I’m willing to read and like, maybe even comment. But there are other that 100% received a block. There is no content on this hellsite that I’m willing to let effect my mental health or allow myself to reblog that could be a danger to my mutuals.

I also think having discussions like this are a good way to change the culture of the F1 fandom; b/c until we except that there is an issue in the community and work together to address the problem I don’t think it will get any better. And while this community has some truly excellent creator and content consumers; I’ve notice an extremely high turn over rate for both. It seems that we gain and lose both at a much high rate than other communities; and I think it has a lot to do with how we both interact and gatekeep.

-🩰

Oh no, there was no need to feel bad after sending it, It takes a village to offend me! 😉

I completely understand people who unfollow/block people who are not their cup of tea and with most blogs I do too but my fear of missing out on content that I do enjoy is bigger than that– that and I usually just roll my eyes and ignore their weird morals, I'm not going to lower myself to their standards but last night might've struck a nerve i didn't know i had😅

And I agree, the gate keeping in this fandom is like nothing else I've seen and I've been in so many fandoms already. I've been watching this sport for years but only got really involved in this kinda content at the end of last season but the negative posts about people just joining the fandom made me shut my mouth about being new here because girl, I'm not, I'm just new in your world 😅 and the whole oh you dts fan is so lame..cool, you got into the sport because of the series? welcome, ask me anything you want to know! The more the merrier! 😃 but maybe that's just me though, couldn't relate to trying to gatekeep something that makes someone happy.

Sadly, I'm convinced fandoms in general will always be a toxic place to be in but it's up to ourselves to make it less toxic so yes, discussing these kind of things should be happening between more people (even if might not help)

[ray-the-fanatic]

god i felt that headcanon post in my soul. ngl the main reason i chose to back away from the rise fandom (tho i'm referring to now, i dipped into it from time to time back when the show was still airing on nick) is bc of the fans' flight or fight reactions if you don't always agree w/ them, and/or if you have different hc's and opinions generally, that would range from 'eh doesn't sound interesting' to 'no, here's where you're wrong'.

i was interacting with some of the fandom for almost a month and a lot of them gave me, along w/ other pre-movie fans, so much crap for hcs n preferences like 'i hc donnie's eye's the same colors as his googles' 'i believe leo's the second oldest' 'i think raph should stay as leader and have leo be second in command/co-leader' ect.

the worse part is that this is mostly with the newer, younger fans that came after either the movie trailer or movie in general came out (sort of a baby's first fandom ordeal). like yeah there were obv bad eggs but i remembered the fandom being generally chill with each other back then, same with the general tmnt fandom tbh, now it just feels like any other fandom 😞

((been wanting to get this off my chest for the longest time now ^^;;))

In part this is why Im not to much into Rise fandom I mean the drama over Leo/sagi alone but yeah it is for sure an issue I see with fandom as of late the new fandom is just not as accepting of things as simple as don't like don't look. They dont seem to understand not everyone is going to share thier thought as well or that some people may headcannon something other than they do for whatever reason. It's a big shift from what I'm used to myself but I've always stuck more into smaller areas of fandoms but as of late i tend to enjoy older shows and such more.

because many of these fans tend to skip to what is current they may dip into older stuff and some have looked into other tmnt series. Not many others have. I have noticed how vocal they can be for headcannons and such and ya knows it's fine to have your headcannon but wanna know what is also fun? sharing and seeing others?

I always love seeing other peoples reason for why they may see something for a charater. Best example i got atm is my friend states Casey anger being more cold over how often anger is related to fire. And I love that because it fits so well for him. I find it a bit silly how protective over certien things people can get like the turtles eye colors alone. Sadly I was keeping away from tmnt when rise came out I was one of the fans who didn't watch it till far later just before the movie so i'm not sure how it was then I know it's not all bad but some cricles can be but that is fandom over all. Thoguh I'm old and I just notice that this part of fandoms may be small but are awfully loud. This is why I keep to smaller corners or older shows. Like 2003 and 2012. Im a tad obsessed with Fast Forward ATM just cause i've been re watching it lol. It's annoying for sure, and it can damper the mood when fans just can't be chill with each other.

[shachaai]

#SHACHA#THIS IS THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING#I admittedly only seen the first season of Hannibal so I'm not super familiar with everything#BUT THIS#the mess of Arthur's private life suddenly thrust out in the open and Ludwig forcing him to open this door for Gabriel to come in#DELICIOUS#I AM SO HERE FOR THIS PLEASE TELL ME THERE WILL BE MORE#I am so intrigued by Madeline and her connection to Arthur and Gabriel#and GABRIEL#if Hannibal plot is to be followed Arthur darling you really have no idea what you're getting into lol#I absolutely love the a/b/o dynamics intertwined in the plot#ahhhhhhh#I'll sit here anxiously waiting for more if there is any but this is already so DELICIOUS

@needcake

My initial threat to Hoof was to transform my really long Hannibal a/b/o AU WIP into Hetalia, but I thought I'd start with something simpler first.

I've felt bad about not writing anything for hetalia lately, but I was horribly, horribly ill at the beginning of the year and couldn't write anything, so I'm just glad to be back in the flow of writing something (and that something is, currently, Hannibal). I have, also, been asked multiple times to write a/b/o for hetalia... but I've come to realise that any desire to write that trope completely anew for this fandom vanished quite a few years ago. Just doesn't work any more. I've tried. orz And a combination of these two conversations led to the gentle threat to Hoof.

The bit you read is the first chapter of my casefic/babyfic WIP, The Lindworm's Lullaby. It's actually set right after the second episode of Hannibal, so your knowledge of S1 of that show is plenty enough to cover it, as TLL is meant to be a shortfic that doesn't even reach the plot of episode three.

...Would absolutely be keeping the cannibal angle though. It's too much fun. >>

I actually had a lot of fun reworking the chapter! I tried shifting the setting to the UK, initially, but there was too much reliance on guns and the whole serial killer thing was too American. So this was more a study in reworking the narrative voice and speech/movements of the characters. I think the above still needs a little work, but it was a fun first attempt!

I'm glad you like the way I handle a/b/o; that's always reassuring/flattering to hear! I tend to call my brand of a/b/o 'societal a/b/o', as it focuses more on how gender and dynamic plays into society than just smut and. I'm still not a very fluent smut writer. =w=;;;

If you and others like this, I'd be happy to continue reworking the fic (and potentially my other Hannibal a/b/o fics) for Dreamwidth or tumblr-only reading. (Sure, I've changed the character names and voices, but the plot and setting is exactly the same as the original work so it'd look weird on my AO3.)

This comes by the way of two dares (Hetalia a/b/o and filing serial numbers off of things) meeting a very loving threat I made to Hoof a while ago. It’s a teaser? Tester? A bit of fun? The first chapter from fic from another fandom.

Won’t be your cup of tea if you’re not into the kind of artistic horror Hannibal provides (or not old enough to watch that show). Read at your own risk.

No insult is meant to any country/nationality by the character assignments/roles; I just picked personalities I thought might be closest to my original portrayals.

You are made of flesh and nerve and thought, of heart and love and wonder and grief, as I am. - Jeanann Verlee, For the Woman Who Loved the Predator More Than His Prey

But it is better to dissect than abstract nature… - Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

*****

Arthur Kirkland’s lecture hall is dark, its only true light the bare bald glare of the projector screen on his back. It reflects back on the eyes of his attentive students in the audience: on the white sclera, on the thin glowing rings of alpha red and omega gold. On the occasional flash of fangs when lips part and teeth chew down on lips, shadowy heads bending over the desks in front of them to type or scribble notes.

Arthur, front of room and frowning against a headache that is determined to rise even in a room hush with learning, leans back against his desk and resists the temptation to reach up and knuckle at his eyes. Monday afternoons drag on for everyone, and, if Arthur yields too visibly to his own tiredness, many of his students will take his cue and switch off to follow suit.

“Opisthokonta,” he declaims instead, pausing momentarily for the clicks of pens and keys to find themselves a new line. (Or the spelling.) A percussive response, mentally filed away as rote by the time Arthur has gotten to this, his third identical lecture of the day. “The large supergroup of eukaryotes - that would be organisms whose cells contain a nucleus - which includes both the animal and fungal kingdoms.”

Arthur taps a button on the projector remote in his hand, patient against the reactive flinch that goes through his audience as the screen behind him switches from plain white to the - primarily - black, intricate branches of a phylogenetic tree. “If we, humans - not-so-proud members of the biological kingdom Animalia, if anyone was in doubt -, trace back far enough on the genetic family tree, we discover our distant cousins in the Holomycota clade down the street: fungi, and those eukaryotes liker to fungi than animals.”

No pointing out of the relevant branches on the diagram is required; Arthur had highlighted Opisthokonta, Animalia and Holomycota in red on the tree before uploading his presentation.

Another tap of the remote, and the phylogenetic tree is replaced with a blare of technicolour: a photograph of a killer, and one familiar to Arthur’s class of FBI trainees at that. Another reactive flinch goes through Arthur’s students  - less pronounced than before as their eyes adapt -, the mingled scents drifting in the currents of the room sharpening with recognition.

One Berwald Oxenstierna, recently apprehended, stares out stoically from the projector screen, the look in his frozen eyes as strained as the smile failing to stretch his lips. The media had given the beta man many names when the details of his crimes had finally come to light - the Gardener, the Mushroom Man - and used just as many different candid shots as they could get of him, but Arthur, unwilling to slap garish and distracting headlines into his presentation, had snagged the photograph on Oxenstierna’s last work ID - now stored in Evidence - to use instead.

(It’s a terrible photo with the light reflecting blankly off of Oxenstierna’s glasses, and something small and cruel and petty in Arthur had picked it almost precisely for that reason.)

Arthur raises one hand, gesturing to the screen behind him and feeling each button on the sleeve beneath his blazer press firmly to his wrist. (The cuffs on omega sleeves are unforgiving bastards.) “Berwald Oxenstierna was interested in a family reunion. He used his position as a pharmacist to tamper with his victims’ medications, inducing diabetic comas in seven men and women of mixed dynamics before planting them in the ground. Still - however temporarily - alive, but highly unlikely to ever regain consciousness. Fertiliser.”

Tap. Pause. Tap. Pause. Tap. Arthur cycles through the crime scene photographs taken of Oxenstierna’s ‘garden’, waiting briefly between one image and the next to give his students time to absorb both the layout of the scene and what it might infer. The seven graves all in a row, and the gradual - and thoroughly documented - excavation of each. The decaying, fungi-ridden bodies of six of the victims in the arms of the on-scene emergency medical technicians: organisms raised from the earth more humanoid than recognisably human. The quickly-snapped shot of the - at that point - still-living victim being wheeled towards an ambulance.

In the blanketing darkness of the lecture hall, someone audibly gags.

Arthur ignores them. The trainees will need strong stomachs if they hope to work in the field one day, and a few crime scene photographs is the very least they should be able to handle. (Crime scene photographs do not, yet, communicate smell.) “Decomposition was enthusiastically encouraged. The victims were all buried in high-nutrient compost and fed intravenously with a regular supply of dextrose, advancing both the growth of the local fungi and the gradual decline of the victims’ endocrine systems.

“Despite what you may immediately assume from these photographs, for Berwald Oxenstierna’s seven victims, death, eventually, came by way of kidney failure. Something almost entirely incidental to their killer’s greater vision.”

A new gust of air disturbs the room: the door to the lecture hall opposite Arthur’s desk has opened, and a familiar bulky silhouette slipped inside. Content for now, it seems, to loiter in the doorway with shoulders broad and grim. Blocking the exit.

Arthur’s headache picks up another irritable notch as glowing alpha eyes meet his own across the room, a slow and steady thud in his skull sounding in pace with his heart.

Arthur raises his chin and turns his gaze deliberately to sweep across his students instead, a challenge to the class. Someone needs to make sure the next generation of FBI agents can actually rub two brain cells together. “To Oxenstierna, the point was not that his victims died. His goal was evolution: for the fungi to grow, for his victims to join the vast, intelligent mycelial networks that can stretch for miles under the surface of the earth. Crossing the boundaries that occur naturally between organisms in life. And death.

“If you walk into a field of mycelium, they know you are there. They respond to your presence. They communicate.” Arthur switches back to the presentation slide using Oxenstierna’s work ID, the sombre visage of the killer behind Arthur matching his own flat glare out at the room around them. “Berwald Oxenstierna viewed his own actions as helping others to communicate - with nature, with each other, and with themselves. Connecting individuals into a greater whole. He was caught only because others finally stumbled onto his garden and because, after the FBI rescued his eighth victim before she could be planted in a new location, he was desperate to communicate with others himself.”

Such a pity certain people (an invasive species whose greatest attribute, if gossip is to be believed, is their ability to extract information in the bedroom) had decided to help Oxenstierna with that mission.

“To that end, the attempted abduction of a comatose patient from John Hopkins Hospital was Oxenstierna’s last bid for understanding from others before being caught. Rather than attempting to escape, he chose to make what amounts to a personal plea for empathy.” To Arthur. “To feel as he feels. To see as he sees.”

In another world, at another time, by a different method, Arthur might have listened to Oxenstierna’s entreaty. In this world, however, Oxenstierna had chosen the still comatose and incredibly vulnerable form of Madeline Williams to try and deliver his message: not a step but a whole leap beyond the pale for those already pricked in tender places by the abuse of innocents. Arthur ever-vigilant now of sleeping defenceless daughters. He had saved Madeline once from her obsessive killer father; he’d be damned if he let the likes of a fungi-focused wallflower take her before she even woke up into her new life free of her father’s chains. 

Arthur’s fingers still itch now, twitch, at the memory of that day in the hospital basement. Of Madeline’s hair spread like a long golden fan on starchy hospital pillows, and Oxenstierna clutching at his own shoulder, bleeding on the floor. The beta man’s pallor curdling like spoilt milk.

(What would have happened in a world where Arthur was a better shot?)

Arthur’s tongue flicks out briefly over his dry lips, feeling the pulse of his heartbeat between his brows. “The desire for understanding is a dangerous thing. Luckily for us, however,” another slow pass of Arthur’s gaze across his class, the darkness that renders one student almost indistinguishable from the next, “it is often the way we catch the supposedly uncatchable.”

The lecture concludes not long after that, Berwald Oxenstierna’s crimes only the tail-end of a much longer lesson, and the yellowed lights of the lecture hall buzz back to life overhead. The students blink back into animation with them, and cobwebbed dreams of blood and shadows flee away.

Arthur talks briefly through his students’ next assignment before everyone starts gathering up their belongings - and pointedly reminds the two hopefully querying hands raised in the audience of his office hours. Class is dismissed a few minutes shy of the Academy bell, and the tide of students streaming out of the lecture hall is a cacophony after the almost reverent hush before.

The silhouette by the door is a silhouette no more. Ludwig Beilschidt, head of the BAU, had stepped to the side to allow Arthur’s students to pass him by but now, as the last of the stragglers make their way out of the room, approaches Arthur’s desk, his hands lax in his pockets with a studied casualness: affability that doesn’t quite ring sincere when Ludwig’s shoulders are so stiff.

Arthur is rapidly becoming versant with what that stance means when it is adopted by Ludwig Beilschidt, of the warmer and bread-and-chocolatey notes of Ludwig’s alpha scent when the man hopes to be cajoling. Cedar and yeast: similar but distant to the woods that surround the Wolf Trap refuge Arthur calls home, life and death and the cycle of decomposition as the leaves are falling. Let’s not vex the moody omega before he performs his party trick.

“Do you think they followed?” Ludwig asks in lieu of a greeting, making no pretence that they both don’t know that Arthur had long since observed him by the door.

Arthur keeps his head low but neck covered as he continues packing away his belongings: prey behaviour, hoping to be left alone. “I’ll let you know once I’ve graded their essays.”

Ludwig waits patiently, solid and immovable with his weight on his heels. Ever hoping for word of a new FBI Wunderkind.

Alas, to only have disappointment to provide.

Arthur sighs through his nose, shoving the last folder into his satchel with a little more force than may be strictly necessary. “A few of them still mistake understanding with condonement.”

“That sounds like an issue with objectivity in the field.”

“That what you’ve come looking for?” Arthur asks dryly, lifting his eyes to Ludwig’s chin. They both know this isn’t a social visit, for all Ludwig had the courtesy to wait until the end of Arthur’s class. Ludwig’s suit is still too sharp, not a strand of his blond hair out of place. “Objectivity?”

Ludwig nods, shameless about it. “And your particular type of understanding. Arthur, we have a new case in Ohio. Three are dead on-scene. The flight leaves shortly and I would like you to ride along, tell us what you see.”

“What, now?” Arthur baulks, seeing the immediate confirmation in Ludwig’s expression. Though his lectures might be over for the day, Arthur has other obligations. “No can do.” He finishes buckling the straps of his satchel closed, already shaking his head to Ludwig’s next protest as he knots a brown scarf around his nigh-bare neck. “My babysitter doesn’t work Mondays.”

Ludwig huffs sharply through his nose, his scent turning to something exasperated, peppery and hot on the tip of Arthur’s tongue like burnt coffee. Arthur prefers tea but is growing unfortunately familiar with the taste of caffeine served this way - though Ludwig at least, still, has the decency to keep the heat of his disapproval on Arthur’s face rather than on the obviously unmarked slope of Arthur’s neck that Arthur’s scarf fails to conceal. If you won’t talk to your family, you should at least have a mate to take care of this.

It’s easy enough for a mated alpha with no children of their own to pass comment. Alphas with absolutely none of the manners their mothers ever taught them pass judgement with their eyes long before the stereotypical bullshit comes tumbling out of their mouths, and there are plenty that have something to say about an omega being unmated at Arthur’s age, no claiming bite or collar on his throat, especially when that selfsame omega is newly a mother.

Ludwig would have an easier time of getting his way with things if Arthur had a mate or family he actually tolerated to drop his baby off with - but, oh, woe, tragedy indeed, Arthur’s private life and personal decisions fail to revolve around Ludwig Beilschidt.

“Is there a problem with the services the Academy’s crèche provides for your daughter?”

“The crèche closes at 9, Ludwig,” Arthur points out as he slings his bag over his shoulder and rounds the desk, keeping his tone extraordinarily reasonable, he believes, for a man with a bad head half dreaming of getting home with his daughter sometime soon, half calculating when he can take his next dose of aspirin. “When all the sensible students and professors have head home. Can’t get to Ohio and back before then.” Even assuming all their flights will be on time.

The 9 o’ clock close of the crèche at Quantico is later than most places of business with crèches on-site choose to close, the increased hours only a result of the FBI Academy’s presence on a military base. Gender, dynamic and family rights have progressed in - comparative - leaps and bounds since the Stone Ages in which the Academy was first founded, and the safety and security of the nation cannot be endangered by single parents unable to find adequate childcare.

“If you’d like to bring her along -”

“No,” Arthur hisses, sudden and vehement enough that Ludwig startles back away from him as Arthur’s eyes begin to prickle - undoubtedly bleeding gold. “I am not bringing my baby to a crime scene, Ludwig.” The thought is unconscionable, a boundary blurred into something monstrous.

Ludwig’s instinctive retreat had only been half a step, and half a step alone, but that half a step had been much further than Ludwig had been expecting to go. He pushes back now, failing to see that the line Arthur has drawn lays in concrete rather than sand. “It would be not trouble to get an agent to look after her while you’re occupied-”

Sure, the nameless agent would love that.

Arthur bares his fangs, letting his irritation spill out into his own scent, the lightning-struck forest more dangerous than any burning tower. Ozone and pine: a flammable mix. “You think I’d trust her in the care of a stranger? She’s six months old!” He turns to stalk away.

“What about Dr. Bonnefoy?”

Arthur pauses, caught before he has managed to leave the hall. “What about Dr. Bonnefoy?”

“She’s the child’s godmother, isn’t she?” Oh, Ludwig is finagling now. “Unofficially.”

Unofficially. As most arrangements Arthur has with Marianne Bonnefoy are. Especially when she’s been carefully avoiding him and his questions about the new arrangements for Madeline Williams’ care after the events at John Hopkins, still wary of Arthur’s attachment to the omega girl he had orphaned.

Arthur purses his lips. “I wasn’t aware Marianne had a lecture scheduled this evening.”

“She pushed back her morning lecture today.”

Huh. “Looking to see what consultants you had on-site to grab before you left?” Arthur asks, his voice bordering on scathing - but bites his tongue at Ludwig’s immediate forbidding look in reply. Ludwig is only willing to accept so much of Arthur’s bad temper.

Lines, boundaries and connections. The give and take of favours and affection, work and home, death and delicate daughters who, outside the adult concept of time, are either sleeping or young enough to immediately forgive their mother for all the time he spends away from them.

Arthur considers, gathering up ideas like wet pebbles from the bed of the stream that runs through his mind. Feeling the weight of each before choosing which ones he wishes to discard. “...I’ll go. But only if Marianne is able to babysit.”

Ludwig is triumphant. Ludwig’s triumph dies in its nascency, because, when he and Arthur make their way over to the lecture hall assigned to Dr. Bonnefoy for her lessons, Marianne is unable to babysit. Marianne is not there.

Instead, a small handful of adoring students remains clustered around the podium at the front of the room, and the one fielding their questions is -

“Dr. Fernandes.” Arthur stops short.

“Arthur.”

Breaking off mid-whatever he had been discussing with the trainees, the unexpected figure of Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes looks, first, surprised and then pleased to see Arthur darkening his - borrowed? - door. His smile seems to be a real one; even a few metres away Arthur can see how it creases the corners of Fernandes' eyes - though some of the pleasure fades as Fernandes' gaze slides past Arthur to Ludwig coming up on Arthur’s heels.

“A moment please,” Fernandes says to both of them before he turns back to the trainees, clearly - and efficiently - wrapping up the last of the group’s questions despite how they appear to be desperately trying to prolong the conversation. Hanging on his every accented word, drawn in (or at least not dissuaded) by the - very - tight charcoal and cream plumage the alpha has chosen to peacock around in today. Little birds clustering in the shade of a broad, tall tree, chirp, chirp, cheep.

Ludwig advances even as the trainees - reluctantly - depart, towing Arthur forward with him by the sheer force of his presence. “Dr. Fernandes, good evening.” Apparently Ludwig uses the same forced joviality with Fernandes as he does with Arthur. “Please forgive the intrusion, we were searching for Dr. Bonnefoy.”

“Ah, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Fernandes informs them, gathering up his own paperwork on the podium. “Dr. Bonnefoy asked me to replace her in her classes today.” His expression is suitably sympathetic for the occasion, his scent of musk and petrichor by the sea as soft as the dusty shade of his charcoal suit. Beckoning others in with an offering of - not unattractive - alpha security, with a flirt of something rich and bitterly citrus when he moves and fabric brushes against the glands at his throat or wrists, the overworked buttons of his short straining over his chest. “She has flu, and is very cross about it.” Hence the rescheduled class.

“Generous of you,” says Arthur shortly, trying to figure out if he’s disappointed by this development or not. It would have been useful to talk to Marianne and coax the woman into a more agreeable mindset by depositing an adorable baby into her arms - Marianne favours both Arthur’s dogs and child -, but now, with no babysitter available, Arthur gets to go home.

“A small favour is nothing for a friend, yes?” is Fernandes' smooth, sincere-sounding reply - before his mouth curls upwards with a spark of intimate, invitational, mischief. One of his long brown curls dangles boyishly in front of his eyes. “In truth, I find it an interesting change to my usual affairs.”

As though Dr. Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes does not dictate the direction of the majority of his usual affairs.

Arthur snorts. “We’ll let you get back to those then. Ludwig -”

“Perhaps Dr. Fernandes could assist us instead,” says Ludwig.

The casual presumption sticks to the back of Arthur’s teeth and he is just. So tired. “Pretty sure Dr. Fernandes has had a busy enough day already,” says Arthur. His head is still throbbing.

Dr. Fernandes is still radiating a wearying amount of amusement for the end of the general Academy day, damn him and his tight suit and straining buttons. “I still have some energy left to spare. What is it that I can help you with?”

“I don’t,” says Arthur.

“How are you with children?” asks Ludwig. Alpha to alpha.

Naturally, Fernandes only hears the most intriguing remark. “Children?”

“Child. Singular. Infant, actually.” Arthur finally yields to the temptation that has been plaguing him for some time now, reaching up with one hand to knuckle at his eye. Pushing back against the pressure pounding in his head.

“I dealt with many children - including young children - as a medical doctor,” says Fernandes, “though paediatrics was never my speciality.”

Though he keeps his own eyes fixed on a point between Fernandes' nostrils and the sharp wings of the doctor’s tanned clavicles, Arthur is not unaware of the weight of Fernandes' gaze as it travels back and forth between Ludwig and himself, the doctor deeply curious and waiting for elaboration. None is immediately forthcoming; after neatly backing Arthur into a corner of social politeness, Ludwig is waiting on Arthur to offer up his daughter as sacrifice for their travel plans, Iphigenia reborn, and Arthur is. Struggling. To imagine asking a favour of such magnitude. To work out if he even wants to.

Ludwig might be happy to deposit Arthur’s offspring into any set of arms that will hold her long enough for Ludwig to get Arthur out to Ohio to look at his crime scene, but Arthur has to put a little more thought into the matter. Conscious, especially recently, of the weight of trusting daughters (in mind, in heart, and tucked up against one’s shoulder), and the responsibilities of guardianship.

“Do you have a case involving an infant?” Fernandes inquires at last.

Arthur cannot help the way his mouth twists wryly at that. Inevitability - driven along by the determination of Ludwig Beilschidt - bites in deep. Despite all their conversations about Madeline since they had saved the girl’s life together… Arthur had never told Dr. Fernandes he was a mother. “Ludwig has a case. I have an infant. This is apparently a scheduling conflict.”

“...I see.”

Oh, when the sound of recontextualisation is just two little words. Pebbles dropping, said so delicately. Arthur is accustomed to delicate little words that are said one way and meant another, and has had more than a few of them slung his way ever since his pregnancy first started showing. (Used goods. Whore.)

Arthur lifts his head again. Defiantly. If killing makes God feel powerful then the reverse must also be true: God giveth and God taketh away. Destruction is balanced by the act of creation, and Arthur had laboured nine long months and several longer bloody hours to bring forth his daughter into the universe. He looks at her still, sometimes, doing nothing more than breathing in her cot by his bed, and his heart burns fiercer than any heat he���s known.

There are pinwheels of golden green in Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes' hazel eyes, light and darkness both that shine with the doctor’s interest and curiosity. But not a trace of judgement. No hint of scandal or reproof.

The corner of Fernandes' mouth quirks back at Arthur in the most minute of smiles, and the breath Arthur hadn’t even realised he’d been holding shudders, startled, out of his chest.

Delicacy is not an oft-used tool in Ludwig Beilschidt’s arsenal, not when a problem can be presented immediately to the solution. “I realise it is something of an imposition, doctor, but would you be able to watch her for the evening?” The bitter coffee-pepper taste of Ludwig’s impatience is a heavy reminder of his presence. The clock is always ticking, and it gets stuffed up Arthur’s nose. “There is a new case out in Ohio, and the team could really use Arthur’s eyes on the scene while it is still relatively fresh.”

“A girl?” Fernandes asks Arthur quietly, and Arthur looks back at him a little helplessly.

“Ludwig, you can’t just steamroll people into babysitting. Dr. Fernandes -”

“I would be happy to help,” says Fernandes, and Arthur really begins longing for some aspirin.

Ludwig nods, pleased. “Then it is settled. Thank you, doctor.” Arthur chirps, irritated again - perhaps Ludwig would like to double-check this arrangement with the infant’s mother? -, but Ludwig is already back to ignoring him, marching out of the room with one last commandment: “Arthur, I need you to be ready to go in 20.”

20? 20 minutes is barely enough time for Arthur to turn his head - never mind his arse - around, not when he has a thousand and one different important things he now has to impart to Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes.

So he frowns at Fernandes. He could have gone home. “You didn’t have to do that.” Amends - “You don’t have to do this.”

“And leave you - or should I say Ludwig - without a babysitter?” The click of Fernandes' briefcase as it closes sounds like more than one thing being shut. “Arthur, you never mentioned that you’re a parent.”

“It wasn’t relevant to our conversations,” says Arthur. Adding a stubborn, “I find it best to maintain certain boundaries between work and home,” to Fernandes' raised eyebrows. “Where possible.”

“Boundaries can be healthy, they say,” Fernandes observes, making a great show of reaching for his overcoat and sliding it onto his arms. Look at him, so theatrically busy and paying Arthur no mind. “Or isolating.”

Arthur just snorts again, already expecting the sting in the tail.

It isn’t like Arthur believes Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes is the sort of alpha, from more barbarous days of yore, who would either kill or drive off the offspring of alphas other than himself if children were placed into his care. Dr. Fernandes, paediatric speciality or no, has a careful touch with the vulnerable.

Snapshots of the Williams’ kitchen are seared into Arthur’s mind now, each an ever-fixed mark, the mingled smells of wet iron, sour fear and sharp gunpowder all tangled up with the sense-memory of the tiled edges of the kitchen floor biting into Arthur’s knees, the sticky wet pulsing of heartblood over his hands. When the night’s gloaming stretches out dark and dreadful Arthur remembers his own fingers - cold, white under all that blood and trembling - useless on Madeline’s throat as the girl juddered and quaked beneath him, drowning on dry land in that ever-growing river of red - and then the confident touch from Fernandes, stepping in, taking over, his palms warm and fingers sure and steady as he held the last of his patient’s precious life inside of her.

Fernandes had kept Madeline alive long enough for the EMTs to arrive, and then escorted her to the hospital. In the days that had followed, he had been just as much of a fixture in Madeline’s ward as Arthur himself. Falling asleep at Madeline’s bedside, Madeline's hand clasped safely in his own.

Take away the knife, the blood, the floor, the injury - Fernandes has hands tender enough to curve around a trusting infant’s head, long-fingered and sure, and he is strong and intelligent enough to defend her. But - take away the death, the comatose girl, the psychiatric evaluation, the talks of God and power - Arthur has still only known the alpha in front of him for a metaphorical five minutes. A few weeks.

And Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes doesn’t seem like the sort of man who would deal well with having baby spit-up on him. He looks sweet and smooth and easy-going, suave as any rich alpha going courting - or, perhaps, as slyly smug as a particularly pampered cat.

“Tell me about your little one,” says Fernandes anyway, and Arthur sighs. If the good doctor is so determined…

“Lenore,” says Arthur. She whom the angels call - as she fusses back. “Lenore Kirkland. She’s six months old, and looks like the cross between a princess, a pixie, and a dumpling. I had her in March.”

Fernandes makes no attempt to hide the keen sweep of his gaze from Arthur’s top to bottom and back upwards again, shameless in his curiosity. Making an assessment. “You have recovered quickly from the pregnancy. I couldn’t tell.” Apparently confident enough in his abilities as a medical doctor to believe he should have been able to tell that Arthur had recently carried and borne a child, ugh. “Her other parent is unavailable to take care of her?”

“He was never in the picture,” Arthur says. Flatly. His tone very much implying that if Fernandes digs at this topic any more than necessary, Lenore’s other biological parent won’t be the only one pushed out of frame.

Fernandes dips his head - taking the hint - so Arthur continues.

“You’ll need to pick up Lenore from the Academy crèche. It closes at 9, so there’s no need to hurry if you’re busy, and I’ll phone ahead to let them know you’ll be handling pick-up. You should -” Arthur hesitates, the necessary logistics of handing his daughter over into another’s care floating to mind - and then sitting horribly ill at-ease with the vision of the elegant man in front of him, “uh, you should probably take my car. For her car seat. It’s a bastard to take out and put in again so it’s probably easiest for you just to take the whole vehicle.” 

Fernandes' face does a thing. It’s a minuscule thing, so infinitesimally tiny that if Arthur hadn’t been watching the microscopic shifts of the other man’s expressions he would have missed it, but definitely a thing.

Honestly, it’s quite a beautiful thing, as the only way in which Arthur can think to describe it is Arthur Kirkland, I have seen your Volvo. (Marianne has an expression that might be a close cousin to the look, but, somehow, Marianne has learnt the arcane art of coaxing Lenore’s baby seat into agreeing with her long enough for her to transfer it between Arthur’s vehicle and her own. Arthur has yet to develop the knack of it himself.)

“I can get a taxi home from the airport,” he assures Fernandes, solicitous now he has the schadenfreude of Fernandes' dismay to cheer him for the rest of the night. (Let his shitty dog hair-covered car stand testament to a universal truth: even the most smugly prepared soul should look before they leap.)

Fernandes purses his lips, his dismay now warring with his disapproval of Arthur being put-out because of Ludwig’s demands. “At the Bureau’s expense, I hope?”

“My travel expenses will be the delight of the accounting department,” Arthur says dryly - and is promptly warmed as well by Fernandes' soft huff of laughter. So Arthur can afford to be magnanimous as he fishes out his car key. “If you want to fleece them as well, I promise to see and say nothing. You- uh, you don’t have to stay the whole evening with Lenore, you know. My neighbour is always happy to take her if you explain I’m held up - Nancy, with the bright red mailbox covered in flower stickers, house right before mine and perm you can see for miles. You can drop Lenore off there.”

“It’s really no trouble, Arthur.” Fernandes - even with the dual threats of a six month-old and Arthur’s Volvo hanging over his head - still appears to be sincere, those long fingers of his brushing against Arthur’s fingertips as he takes the key from Arthur’s hand. (Citrus again. Like the type used in that English tea: bergamot.) “Though I will need your home address.”

Right. Yes. That will be another not-so-little boundary Arthur is going to have to permit Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes to cross this evening in the name of emergency childcare. “Ah. Yeah, I’ll- I’ll text you that ASAP.”

“You definitely have my cell phone number?”

Arthur nods; he definitely has Fernandes' cell phone number. Not that he has used it for much so far except to confirm two appointments with the other man at Fernandes' office.

“...Um.” Arthur stalls, drawing his lower lip back between his teeth to chew on it as Fernandes looks at him inquiringly. What constitutes a reasonable first-time favour from someone who is not quite a colleague, not quite a co-parent, and not quite an assigned psychiatrist? “If you - uh - wouldn’t mind stopping at mine either way? My dogs will need letting out for a run in the grass, and, if you could give them a scoop each of the emergency kibble in the bag in my kitchen, I’ll owe you one.”

Fernandes' head tilts minutely, studying him.

“...Assuming you don’t have any issues with dogs.”

“I do not,” says Fernandes simply, and Arthur has never been more grateful to not be asked any further questions about his pack of canines. Least of all how many he has of them.

“House keys,” Arthur proclaims instead, depositing the named items into Fernandes' waiting palm after he has dug them up out of the depths of his blazer pocket. And brushed the lint off of them. “And- uh-”

Arthur tugs the (old, mud-coloured, dog-chewed) scarf from around his neck before he can think too hard about it, stepping forward to sling the item of clothing up and around Fernandes' neck.

They share breath for a moment: vanillic paper and apples, petrichor and musky bergamot, oak and - at the soft swallow of Fernandes' throat - resinous vetiver. The scarf’s wool is scratchy in comparison to the softer (expensive) weave of Fernandes' overcoat against Arthur’s skin, and the colour of the accessory turns Fernandes' outfit into something muddy.

Uh.

Though Fernandes is undeniably the taller of the two of them, there is not so much difference between Fernandes and Arthur in height - and yet Arthur feels every single inch of that difference as Fernandes, eyebrows raised once more, looks down at both the offending scarf and Arthur as Arthur stands in front of him holding both of the scarf’s tail ends, willing himself not to flush. Arthur’s wrap shirt that day - designed with nursing mothers in mind and cut in the omega style - has a deep asymmetrical neckline, and, without his scarf as protection, Arthur’s blush would visibly flood his entire face and throat a vulnerable pink. This close to Fernandes, leaning into Fernandes' gravitational field and with the alpha’s scent full in his lungs… it would be like dripping blood into shark-infested waters.

Arthur stalls embarrassment by keeping his eyes trained on Fernandes' tanned jawline instead of on whatever look the doctor has decided to allow into his eyes, instead of on whatever dangerous twist there might be now to Fernandes' mouth. The two of them are not close enough acquaintances to be exchanging items of clothing - especially not clothing that Arthur has worn so often, that has rubbed against his scent glands and has his natural omega scent embedded so deeply in the cloth. It’s. Very personal.

“Lenore won’t settle if you don’t smell like me, so if you just.” Arthur pats awkwardly at both the scarf and Fernandes' breastbone with the flat of one hand - most likely squashing the alpha’s nipple somewhere beneath. A warm drum beats steadily under his palm and Arthur’s chest feels tight. “Sort of tuck her up against that.”

Fernandes recovers quickly, gracefully pretending that Arthur has not just committed a horrific social faux pas by thrusting a scented item at him with extreme overfamiliarity and no advance warning. (Boundaries, ha.) “It’s a good suggestion.” He reaches out to take the trailing ends of the scarf from Arthur and- and Arthur stutters backwards from the other man. Before he can do more damage.

Though it seems Fernandes had only taken the scarf to tie it into a loose knot around his throat. Ah.

“Don’t worry, Arthur. I promise I am not wholly incompetent with babies, and I have your number to call you if there are any problems.”

That is not what Arthur had been concerned about.

Well, that is not entirely what Arthur had been concerned about.

What does Arthur’s private life look like through Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes' eyes? It’s an ungainly thing to set up against Fernandes' polished veneer, to hold up to that finish Fernandes has smoothed out over his charmed existence. All that polish in Fernandes' life, his obvious casual wealth - both socially and materially -, his apparent effortless competence with everything he does. So evidently, easily, alpha that others instinctively defer to him, that Fernandes brings a cooked breakfast with him on trips afield to provide for the less prepared waiflings thrust upon him. Trace back on Fernandes' phylogenetic tree, and his ancestors must have all been the prime of their genetic subdivision.

Arthur life’s, in contrast, is nothing but lumps and bumps, like porridge that needs a great deal more stirring before it can be served for breakfast. Hic sunt dracones, something not in Fernandes' cartography: the uncharted realms of dopey dogs, daughters that are produced like magic tricks, and clunky cars with fur shed on the seats and rattling, rainbow-coloured baby toys rolling around in the footwells.

The cathedral of Dr. Fernandes' Baltimore office is a far cry from Arthur’s farmhouse out in the fields of Virginia where the afflictions of middle class single motherhood for the canine-hoarding and socially incompetent have stamped their mark. There is nothing sacrosanct in a living room camp-bed left unmade that morning, in a small army of used baby bottles and coffee cups on every flat (and some distinctly dangerous) surfaces, and chewed-up tennis balls nudged under every seat. One in every three floorboards in Arthur’s home creaks and groans underfoot, bags of unused supermarket salad expire in the limited space in Arthur’s fridge that isn’t dedicated to either homemade dog food or sanitised bags of expressed breast milk, and muddy towels damp with the smell of dog sit in the towering laundry pile next to stacks of baby onesies and the plaid shirt Lenore had vomited on two nights before that Arthur still hasn’t had the time to wash.

The only way the much more sophisticated puzzle piece of Dr. Gabriel Cardoso Fernandes fits into a jigsaw like that is by way of Ludwig’s presumption wielded as a mallet, and Arthur feels like he should apologise for the mismatch - before he is immediately resentful of the feeling, his pride pricked. And he is then, too, resentful of his own resentfulness, that, even decades on from the humid, poverty-stricken corners of his childhood, a favour still tastes bitter on his tongue, too much like charity.

And yet - there is no judgement in Dr. Fernandes' face or posture as he takes stock of their very different lifestyles. No pity, sympathy or condescension. There never has been, no matter what secrets Arthur has revealed to the alpha. Revelations of parenthood and tenderness weighed equally on the scales against confessions of righteousness, the satisfaction gained from putting bad people down.

Fernandes simply… accepts. It all. All of it.

“Right,” says Arthur. Remembers Fernandes volunteered for this (babysitting, dealing with all of Arthur’s shit, whatever else may be) and begrudgingly adds, “Thank you again. I’ll-” a gesture at the open door of the classroom behind him. Ludwig will have Arthur's head if he makes the team late for the flight, and Arthur still has some aspirin and water he needs to down before he can consent to being trapped in a metal box with Beilschidt and his team for several hours. “I need to go now, but I’ll phone the crèche and then send you my address.”

Fernandes nods, his plush mouth still a solemn thing above Arthur’s ugly scarf though his eyes crinkle, once more, with what Arthur might almost dare to call fondness. “Safe travels to Ohio.”

…He really doesn’t know what he’s let himself in for, does he?

That’s alright, Arthur thinks as he leaves the lecture hall, raising one hand at Dr. Fernandes behind him in a parting farewell. Arthur isn’t too sure what he’s let himself in for with any of this evening’s developments either.

[comradegeorgemoved]

<3

[fizzyxcustard]

My Refuge. 

Masterlist of fan fiction

Fandom: Spooks

Pairing: Lucas North x OC (Amy Holland)

Warnings: Exhaustion, mental burnout, fluff, comfort, dark themes of worrying about death.

Summary: Lucas is burnt out and needs a few days away from work to re-charge. Amy is on hand to comfort him as the dreams and worry become too much.

Comments: As always, if you like the story, please consider a reblog. It really does help. If you would like to be added to any of my story tag lists, or my Follow Forever tag list (where you're tagged in everything) then please let me know.

Lucas dropped down with a dull thump onto Amy's sofa. He immediately put his hands to his face and sighed, trying to push all the events from the last two days out of his mind. Fatigue, hunger, stress. He felt it all. A two-day operation in the outskirts of London where he had been undercover at a protest, which later became a hostage situation. The work never got easier. In fact, the older he got, Lucas found that operations were taking a bigger toll on him once he returned home after the de-brief.

The toilet flushed from down the hallway and Amy entered the living room to see her boyfriend of nearly a year on the sofa. He'd let himself in with an extra set of keys.

She said his name and sat down beside him, curling her arm around his shoulder. "Are you alright?" she asked, knowing that it was a stupid question as she could see very clearly that that he wasn't alright.

Lucas looked at her with a smile. "Come here," he said and pulled her into his arms.

Amy felt him grip her tight, and after every operation that he went on, the grip seemed to get tighter. "I know you can't go into the details, but do you want to talk about things?" she asked.

"No, it's fine. I want to try and forget it," Lucas replied, drawing back from her embrace. "Harry has granted me three days leave, so you'll have me hanging about the place and making it look untidy. I'm just worn out, Aim. I feel like I haven't slept in a month."

"Do you want a bath to help you relax first? I'll go and start one off for you."

"That sounds like heaven, angel. Thank you."

Amy kissed him before leaving. Again, she felt him grip her tight. It made her feel as though he was worried she might disappear.

Lucas made his way into the bedroom he unofficially shared with Amy. He opened the top drawer of a chest which was opposite the bed and pulled out a pair of boxers and a black vest.

A few minutes later and Lucas sank down into the bubbles, feeling the hot water press into his tired muscles. He groaned and slid down the tub, his long legs extending the entire length.

Amy came back in just after, a large mug of tea in hand and a freshly made sandwich on a plate in the other. "I'm cooking dinner at the moment, but if you go to bed in a bit, I'll leave you some in the microwave. It's my mum's cottage pie recipe."

"Come and sit with me a bit, Aim," Lucas insisted as Amy went to slip out of the room.

Amy rested on the carpet at the side of the bath.

They kissed again.

As they drew away, Lucas looked up into Amy's green gaze. "I love you. I worry sometimes that I don't tell you enough."

"You tell me at least once a day," she replied.

"I dread the thought of something happening and I haven't told you."

"Lucas, what happened?" Amy was on her knees at the side of the rub. "You're worrying me. I've never seen you like this after an operation."

He sighed and felt a prickle of tears at his eyes. "Before you, nothing seemed to matter much. I knew that if I died then it wouldn't affect anyone else's life. But every time I leave on an op and go through that door, walking away from you, I can't stop that feeling in the pit of my stomach that it's my last. And I think on leaving you..."

"Oh, sweet," Amy exclaimed. She pulled Lucas into her arms and kissed his head. "I'm proud of you, for everything you are and everything you do. I'd never talk you into leaving your job, but if you're feeling like this more, the longer we're together, do you think maybe it's time..."

Lucas sniffed. "I don't know, Aim. Maybe. I can't bear the thought of you standing at my funeral."

Tears were falling down Lucas' cheeks now, which he brushed away in embarrassment.

Amy could see a flush on his cheeks and his quickened blinking, which meant he was feeling uncomfortable in his vulnerability. "Talk to me. It's okay," she whispered. "I won't judge you on anything. You know me by now."

"You have enough of your own worries..."

"Shhh, stop that." Amy's voice was stern. "We're in this together, Lucas. Whatever you go through and I go through it with you."

Lucas cupped her cheek. "I love you so much," he whimpered.

After his bath, Lucas crawled into bed and pulled the duvet over himself. Amy was stood by the bed, on hand.

"Do you want anything, love? Another cuppa? Something to eat?"

"I'm fine for now. Thank you, angel."

Lucas fell asleep almost instantly. But the rising shadows came, the water, the noose. Screams. Faces. None of it made much sense. It was as if everything bad that Lucas had ever experienced now accumulated in his dreams.

Sweat was pouring from him and he called out into the room, beckoning Amy in from the living room where she had been watching television.

"Lucas. Shhhh.....Lucas," she cooed, getting in bed beside him. She hopped over to him and sat up, beckoning him up to her chest.

"Amy," he gasped. Finally he was away from the pain and the terror. He was in his place of refuge: Amy's arms. His ear rested on her chest, just above her breasts, and for a few seconds he listened to her heartbeat. The sound grounded him back in reality.

She kissed his head and held him on her. "I'm ringing in work tomorrow and staying here. I can't leave you while you're like this."

Both of them ate some of Amy's home cooked cottage pie and vegetables in bed. It was half eight, and the moon was high in the sky, shining brightly against the black backdrop which was littered with stars.

Lucas still felt groggy, but the food settled nicely in his mostly empty stomach, filling it.

The next morning, Amy stood by her word and called into work sick, staying with Lucas. She made him breakfast in bed; a fresh mug of coffee, toast and scrambled egg.

She watched him eat for a few seconds while drinking her own coffee. Would all of this only get worse? She feared for not only his future, but his state of mind. Lucas already suffered from night terrors, nightmares and bursts of PTSD. Despite his outward strength, could he keep doing this?

Lucas hadn't woken up so suddenly in the night, but he had called out a few times, waking Amy from her own sleep.

"You feeling more rested this morning?" she asked. "You look a bit better."

"I'm always better when I'm with you, angel."

***

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