#me and my hoarding problem against the world

[sunlit-mess]

it's not even half the percentage

[messydiabolical]

i’d once read a Mass Effect take that has been stewing in my melon ever since, about Wrex and him demanding a cure for the genophage during the war in 3. (I think it was on twitter but I can’t remember for sure. Just the idea of it stuck with me.) The general sentiment was that this was a dick move on his part, that there were “bigger problems” and this wasn’t the time and it was cruel and manipulative of him to put Shepard in that position. He should have helped out first and Shepard would have helped him back once the war was over. A lot of people chimed in agreeing, saying how they stopped liking Wrex after that. It bothered me for a bunch of reasons I didn’t feel I could adequately articulate, but i’m gonna try now. Prepare for my meandering thought style! The governing bodies of the Mass Effect Galaxy have repeatedly proven that they believe themselves superior to other species and know what’s best for everyone. They don’t let all species have a say in the council, always look out for their own species’ interests in so much as it pertains to keeping things as they are, and will happily go along with literal genocide to aid this. They approve of secret police and biological warfare espionage tactics. They weaponise bureaucracy to hide their cruelty behind ‘oh red tape has us bound, sorry uwu’.   I’m going to try to remain pertinent to the Wrex subject but as one great example of these governing bodies ways of dealing with percieved outsiders: The first contact war is a great example of how ludicrous and fascist things are.. ‘It’s ilegal to use this thing so we’re going to kill you for it’ without so much as a heads up. How were humans supposed to know that, exactly? The governing bodies of this place do not care about anyone outside their own self interests. Fall out of line and they will work to end you. Until you prove you might be useful or of interest to them in some way (or a threat). And then of course we later learn the asari were breaking these laws themselves, hoarding this tech to stay superior. Classic. Anyway, back to Wrex. Wrex knows this. Wrex has seen how the krogan are regarded and treated, the dangerous monolith species, outsiders who can never be let in, never forgiven, never given a chance to grow or change. For a long arse time. “But the krogan were getting out of control and also committing genocide, the genophage was a last ditch resort to stop a galactic war” … And it’s been hundreds of years since then. That 'last ditch resort' wasn’t used as a stop gap, a reset to even out the playing field so that new negotiations and relations could be developed. It was used to end the krogan, and has been actively maintained to continue that, ever since. Do you really, truly believe that if Wrex petitioned the council/ world leaders to negotiate reversing the genophage, they’d even let him have an audience with them? And if they did, do you really think these people, with their history and all the shit they pull, would listen and be reasonable? I can already hear the responses, that weaponised bureaucracy (“you raise an interesting point Mr Wrex but unfortunately we are recovering from a war don’t you know, please come back in 300 years for review, we are very interested in discussing this further then!”) Wrex is old, wise and knows exactly what is up. The only way the governing bodies of power were ever going to have a listen, was if he had something they needed. The war with the reapers provided that. And even then, he knew that they wouldn’t listen outright; having Shepard’s voice was a way to get the foot in the door. It makes my heart hurt to think about that honestly; how dehumanising (dekroganising?) it must feel to be the ruler of your people and know that you have to rely on your alien friend to even get someone to listen to you, when what you want to say is an extremely reasonable “hey committing genoicde against my people sucks, stop that now”. Anyway, Wrex was right, this was his one chance to save his people and he took it. Good for him.

[thescarletnargacuga]

IT'S ME AGAIN! BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER KINGDOM AU REQUEST!

Could you do one where Pomni gets kidnapped by the gummi bandits and taken to the dark lands where the Ether dragon (sun and moon) is? And then have Caine come in to rescue her?

And have a romantic ending? 👀👀👀

ALSO BUBBLE TRANSFORMING INTO A HORSE BECAUSE CAINE NEEDS A NOBLE STEED HEHEHE

A/N: a classic fairytale setup, I like it!

MY HERO

A KINGDOM AU SHOWTIME ONESHOT

AU credit @allisonraeyt @tadk-ask-blog

WARNING: fantasy action

~~~

Pomni felt dizzy as she slowly came to consciousness. The world was still dark when she opened her eyes. She tried to move. Only to find that her hands and ankles were tied. She let out a gasp and her voice was muffled by the rag tied around her mouth. Her heart started to race and she struggled against her bonds.

Torch light blinded her against the night when the bag over her head was violently ripped away. "Knock it off!" A gruff voice barked in her face. Pomni flinched away and froze in place, breathing heavily against the gag. "Cooperate, and you won't get hurt. Understand?"

Pomni had no idea where she was other than some cave. It smelled dank and reeked of animal filth. Three anthropomorphic gators stood over her. The largest held a bright burning torch that lit the whole cavern.

"Boss," The smallest of the three gators spoke. "When is the dragon gonna be here? The longer she's with us, the more likely-"

"Shut it. They'll be here when they get here. The amount of gold from their hoard they're offering for her will be worth the wait." The largest gator pointed a jagged knife in Pomni's face. "And once you're no longer our problem, you can scream and struggle all you want. No one gets past the Ether Dragon."

~

Gangle knocked on Pomni's door not long after sun up. "Princess? Are you awake?" The bedroom was silent, so she opened the door carefully. "Princess Pomni? I'm terribly sorry to-" The room was completely upturned. "Skies above! Guards! GUARDS!! PRINCESS POMNI HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED!! GET PRINCE CAINE!!"

Not even a minute later, Prince Caine rushed into the bedroom. He was just as taken aback as Gangle was on first entering. "What...!? How did this happen!? Did none of the patrols hear anything!?" He roared at the guards that followed him.

"No, my liege. We had no reason to believe anything was amiss." One guard answered quickly.

Pink magic glowed along the edge of Caine's pupils. His mystic sight scanned the room. The room was a mess, but jewelry and expensive silks were still there. Pomni fought back. She had to have cried for help.

There was a strange aura to the room. He could feel it. He kicked aside a broken drawer to find the source. A piece of scroll parchment covered runic symbols was stuck to the floor. "A silencing seal. That explains why no one heard her, and tells me they don't have natural magic."

He went to the open window. It was a long drop from her bedroom. Claw marks scratch the strong stone wall. "Strong enough to climb several stories without rope." Caine commented to himself. At the bottom of the tower, something glistened.

Caine vaulted out the window, much to the shock of everyone else in the room. He let himself freefall most of the way down before teleporting short range to the ground. He knelt down to inspect the shining magic only he could see. A single drop of water, sparkling on a single blade of grass.

"A tear!" Caine elated. "Well done, Pomni!" He looked ahead and saw another shining tear in the distance. Caine whistled loudly and Bubble flew to him as quick as a lark. "I need you to be my wings! The princess is in danger!"

"Right away, your majesty!" The tiny voice of the bird shapeshifted into something much larger and more regal. A pegasus. His bright white coat shined in the morning sun as he pawed the ground, eager for take off.

Caine mounted bareback, no time to saddle up. "Ya!"

Bubble reared, flaring his wings and galloped into take off. His powerful wings putting distance between him and the ground quickly.

Caine watched for tears on the ground, steering Bubble to follow. "I'm coming, Pomni."

~

Pomni wiped her cheek on her shoulder. Her face was still wet with tears. She hoped the spell Caine taught her worked, even when they knocked her out. She and her three captors sat in silence for a long time before a booming echo came from the entrance. Something huge landed at the entrance to the cave.

With each rumbling footfall, Pomni lost more and more hope that it was Prince Caine. From the dark emerged a two headed, dark blue and bright gold dragon. Its colors split down the middle like the horizon at twilight. The golden head glared down at the group. The dark blue head gazed down with indifference.

"We got your prize. Hand over the gold and we'll be on our way." The leader of the three bandits boldly states to the Ether Dragon.

"Stifle your arrogant tone, mortal. Or I will burn it away." The eyes of the golden head flared like stoked flames.

The two meeker bandits backed up. The leader stood steadfast. "This mortal successfully stole from the High Prince himself. I have every right to be arrogant, but we're not here for me. You want to Princess? Hand over the reward."

The golden head huffed angrily, but remained silent when the dark blue head looked at her. The blue half clutched a large chest and set it down in front of the bandits. "As honored."

The lead bandit kicked open the chest. It was full of treasure from the dragon's horde. He gestures to his lackies to bring Pomni forward. "She's all yours. Pleasure doing business with you."

Pomni fought the grip of the bandits, doing everything in her power to stay out of the dragon's clutches. She screamed against the gag as the clawed hand of the golden dragon reached for her.

A pink bolt streaked through the air and exploded on impact against the scaled hide of the dragon's claw. The Ether Dragon roared in pain and turned to the entrance of the cave to see a winged horse and rider swooping into the cavern.

"UNHAND HER!!" Caine held up a shining silver sword, blazing magenta with magic.

With all attention on Caine, Pomni headbutted the bandit lacky next to her. He doubled over and dropped his knife. She awkwardly hopped over and managed to get a hold of it. She struggled to try to cut her wrist bindings as the cave shook with the movements of the huge dragon.

The golden head immediately shot a stream of bright orange fire that heated the whole cavern. The blue head tried reaching for Pomni again.

Bubble flew forward bravely headlong into the wall of fire. Caine pointed his sword straight ahead and a powerful beam of pink magic split the dragon's fire.

Pomni barely dove out the way in time to avoid the pearly white fangs of the blue dragon head snapping at her. Her ankle bindings held tight but she was making progress on freeing her wrists. She squirmed away as fast as she could out of reach of the reaching dragon head.

"Foul light bringer." The dark blue head bared its fangs, unable to reach further without the cooperation of its more temperamental half.

The bandits sheltered in place the best they could. The packed treasure chest was too heavy to move quickly and they were staying out of this fight.

The golden head roared and snapped its jaws at Caine as he flew into range. Caine lashed his sword and pink magic flared out in a wave, slicing into the dragon's face. Both heads felt the pain, and the dark blue head turned to fight Caine as well.

Caine was waiting for that. He has Bubble swoop down and he reached out for Pomni. Pomni had just got her wrists free and dropped the knife and rope as she reached out for Caine with both hands. Caine grabs her wrist and hoists her up in his lap on Bubble's back.

Bubble double timed it out of the cave. Both dragon heads roared as the dragon gave chase. Once outside, the massive wings folded to the dragon's sides unfurl and the Ether Dragon takes to the skies. Both heads release a breath attack, orange fire and light blue lightning merge to create an overpowered blast of elemental energy.

Caine held his sword out vertically behind him and shielded Pomni with his body as the energy hit the sword's defensive aura. Fire and lightning blazed around them with terrible force. Bubble's wings were singed but he kept flying as fast as he could.

Caine's eyes went completely pink as he whispered to his sword. The sword sang with a metallic ring and he threw it. The sword flew like a guided missile and sliced through one of the dragon's wings multiple times. The dragon rapidly lost altitude, despite its best efforts to stay in the air.

The sword boomeranged around to Caine's open hand. He blinked the light like from his eyes as he watched the Ether Dragon crash-land on a hillside, roaring furiously.

Caine tapped the rope around Pomni's ankles with his sword and the binds disintegrated. Things were finally calm enough for Pomni to pull off the gag in her mouth. "Blegh!" Her mouth felt horribly dry, so instead of speaking, she buried her face in his chest in a right hug.

Caine snapped away his sword and hugged Pomni back. "Thank the stars you're okay."

Pomni looked up, tears of overjoyed relief walked in her eyes. Caine gently caressed her cheek. "The tears shall lead you to the Kingdom. I'm proud of you for remembering."

"I had a good teacher." Pomni said quietly.

~

The three gators bandits. Slowly carrying their massive box of loot, the smallest makes conversation. "Why didn't the Ether Dragon steal Pni themselves? Aren't they super powerful?"

The other lacky answered. "The castle has special defences just for ol' two face. They can't get close, but even if they could, they're massive! Caine would see them coming miles away and he's quite powerful himself. He's High Prince for a reason."

"Oh."

They stop when the ground starts shaking out of nowhere. It's not until they look behind them, they see the massive enraged Ether Dragon sprinting right at them.

"No Princess. No deal." Stated the blue head.

"I'M GOING TO DESTROY YOU FOOLS!! YOU LED HIM RIGHT TO US!!" Screamed the gold.

[mllemaenad]

Why so anti-Brotherhood?

At their best (Roger Maxon, Elder Lyons, Paladin Danse) they're massively effective humanitarians; even at their worst (Father Elijah, Paladin Casdin) they posess admirable traits (valour and determination); and most of the tine they are somewhere in the middle (Arthur Maxon, Knight Maximus): flawed but ultimately well-intentioned men and women trying to stop humanity from repeating its biggest mistakes.

They helped out in the early days of California, and when the NCR began to start following in the doomed footsteps of the old world, the Brotherhood tried (unsuccessfully to stop them). On the East Coast, they helped to save the Capital Wasteland from drought, and they stood up to the reckless experimentation of the Institute. In Filly, Lucy Maclean would probably have died without Maximus's intervention.

They can be unsubtle, and heavy-handed, and sometimes almost arrogant, but they ARE good people.

Hi, Anonymous person.

It feels like ... maybe you have the wrong end of the stick here? It sounds like you think I've got some kind of specific grudge against every individual member of the Brotherhood. And I ... don't. That would be silly and unfair. The Brotherhood has existed for a couple of centuries now. People are born into it, or indoctrinated as children. That's ... sort of the point Fallout: New Vegas is making with Arcade and Veronica – the forward-thinking children who have to contend with the mistakes of their very backward parents.

My issue is with the institution, not some random guy in power armour.

I'm not going to go through that whole list, because that's a lot. But – well, Maximus, since the TV show is going to be the hot topic.

Maximus is a refugee from a recently fallen civilisation who joined up with the Brotherhood of Steel because he was briefly impressed by the image of a knight in very literal shining armour, whom he saw breezing safely through the destruction of his home.

Then he found out that they are a group of militant cultists who use brutal beatings and ritual humiliation to "condition" their recruits (and possibly force them to take on new identities, as Maximus seems to be a name they "gave" him). His friend Dane is so frightened of going out on a mission with one of these knights that they actively injure themselves to avoid it, and Thaddeus's experience confirms that Maximus's treatment is completely normal.

When he is assigned to a knight, he quickly discovers that literally all of Titus's dignity comes from wearing a helmet that makes his voice sound deep and commanding, and underneath all that armour he is a bully and a coward. Not just a bully and a coward, but the kind of bully and coward who can't figure out that specifically bullying the only guy who might be able to save his life is a really fucking stupid move.

Nothing in that series made me think "Wow! The Brotherhood are good guys!" It made me think ... "Get out now, kid. Run as far and as fast as you can."

It is true that Maximus steps in to protect Lucy. It is equally true that Maximus would have very much died of dead-battery-in-soldier-suit had Lucy not intervened to help him. I'm not sitting here wishing ill on Maximus. But this ain't a story about how the Brotherhood are worthy saviours of the wasteland; it's the story about two lost kids (and one embittered pre-war Ghoul) finding their way together through hard won trust and understanding, which are pretty much always presented as the hopeful counterpoint to Fallout's grim "war never changes" theme.

I mean ... Maximus also falls uncritically in love with Vault 4 because they give him oysters and slippers. This is his standard for joining up with anywhere. He is a starving refugee whom the Brotherhood exploited.

I have no patience for The Brotherhood of Steel because they are violent, bigoted, technology hoarding isolationists whose defining trait is their extreme arrogance. They treat every problem as a nail and themselves as the hammer, and even when individuals in the organisation are actively trying to do good it's astonishing how ineffectual they are. I'm not sure they've had a relationship with another organisation they haven't poisoned.

They are actively genocidal towards Ghouls, Super Mutants and Synths. Owyn Lyons is undoubtedly one of the more open minded members, but a) one of the reasons they are able to appear as "the good guys" in Fallout 3 is because the particular nature of the FEV disaster going on in the Capital Wasteland means that there are virtually no non-hostile Super Mutants b) even Lyons' people still just shoot indiscriminately at Ghouls, an attitude that is simultaneously so morally bankrupt and tactically stupid that it makes me tear my hair out every time I think about it.

Also: The Brotherhood of Steel kills Danse. I don't think you can reasonably put Danse on your list of reasons why they're worthwhile without also noting that they, you know, send you out to murder him because he's a Synth.

And ohhhhhh they are so very bad at everything. It's actually quite difficult for me to think of things they've done that don't piss me off.

In the original Fallout they're sending aspirants off to die in The Glow because they think it's funny.

Lyons may be the (relatively) benevolent protector of the wasteland in Fallout 3, but he's also responsible for The Scourge: the wanton slaughter of half the population of the Pitt, the looting of their technology, and the kidnapping of their children. Undeniably conditions in the Pitt were awful, but this was no mercy mission: it was more of their mutants-aren't-people-and-all-your-stuff-is-ours bullshit. And they leave a guy behind who starts a raider gang and is basically the reason slavery exists in any large scale form in the Capital Wasteland. I'm not sure it's possible to fuck up worse than that.

Even in Fallout 3 ... they are not what you'd call an inspiration. Half of Lyons' forces threw a hissy fit and went off to sulk in Fort Independence because apparently obsessively hoarding laser riles is infinitely more important than helping people. By 2277 no one's even looking at the water purifier. That situation gets resolved because James finally decides to get off his arse and finish the project (I respect the man's commitment to procrastination). They don't manage to deal with the source of the Super Mutants. They basically spend a couple of decades mostly adequately guarding GNR – while places like Big Town get overrun – and tinkering with their stupid robot. They don't even fix the stupid robot. You know what the answer to fixing the stupid robot was? "Hey, did anybody think to ask Madison how the power supply works?" Useless.

In Fallout 4 they roll in and start extorting the settlers, like those people don't have enough to deal with, and the things they say if you bring Nick or Hancock with you to visit them are appalling.

I've recently been reminded of them threatening their allies at gunpoint in Fallout 76 because they think they have the right to steal everyone's research.

Okay. Enough ranting.

What's my problem with The Brotherhood of Steel? They are the walking definition of "following the doomed footsteps of the old world". They are just about Vault-Tec: military edition.

So we have to grab every schematic, every holotape, every book, and every goddamned note that holds the building blocks of the Old World before it's too late. Our Scribes will hold onto them, preserve them, perhaps even progress beyond them. And the Knights will protect them. Like a hard shell around a precious seed. One day, when the time is right, that seed will grow. And a new civilization will be born. – Fallout 76: Preservation of Technology

They think that somehow they are the true last bastion of civilisation, and that they have the right to decide when the world will begin anew. They can't even deal with the idea that there are different kinds of people in the world these days that your standard homo sapiens. They hoard, and they look backwards, and for all their self-righteous we-are-protecting-the-world propaganda, in practice all that means is that they get to keep all the big guns and threaten everyone else with them.

But civilisation has always just been people choosing to collaborate and help each other. And they have zero right to interfere with that.

Also: I think power armour is stupid and no fun at all to play in, and I am sitting here judging the Brotherhood for their obsession with the stuff. :)

[blouisparadise]

Today we have the fifth part of our short fic rec list! All of the fics on this list are a nice quick read that is less than 10k. If you missed the other parts to this rec list, you can find part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here. Happy reading!

1) Shut Your Mouth, Baby | Explicit | 3,028 words

While fooling around in a closet at a New Year’s Eve party, Louis can’t seem to keep quiet. All he needs to do is hold off until midnight, when Harry will finally uncover his mouth and let him come at full volume.

2) Heaven In These Sheets | Explicit | 3,557 words

Bunny Hybrid Louis has it out for his boyfriend’s phone.

3) Tide’s Deathless Death | Explicit | 4,350 words

The Red Serpent gleamed in all of her marvellous glory from where she was anchored a meagre few miles away from the land. Her flag waving proudly in the afternoon sun. The image was certainly memorable, of the flag, that is; a serpent coiled viciously around a human heart, fangs sunken into the organ and blood oozing from the very spot. If not for the ship herself, the flag had its own repute of conveying the message that the captain was not to be trifled with. There was no single man who had survived after taking up arms against the captain. Well, there was one man, but including him amongst the hoard of common faces would be a foolishness on the feared-by-all captain’s part. That man currently stood silently staring after the captain, palm curled around the handle of his blade, and teeth clenched in anger. He was certainly going to relieve all the navies of their plight by taking down the captain. At least then, in his relatively newfound life of piracy, he would have done one good deed.

4) Always Tell The Truth | Not Rated | 5,027 words

Harry is Louis’ dentist and getting a wisdom tooth removed shouldn’t be the end of the world.

5) I Knew It From The Start | Explicit | 5,233 words

Louis starts calling Harry ‘daddy’. Consequently, Harry discovers that he has a daddy kink.

6) Spaces Between Us, Hold All Our Secrets | Not Rated | 6,441 words

The thing about Harry is, is that he is the most wonderful guy you´ll ever meet. He is kind, compliments you on things you are usually insecure about, which shows he truly pays attention to who you are as a person. And he befriends everyone. Except Louis.

7) Outline Of My Sins | Explicit | 6,551 words

Prompt 453: AU where alpha Harry is an art student who is taking a figure drawing class and omega Louis is the nude model. In the many years that Harry has taken art classes, he has never been more hot and bothered than now, having to stare at a beautiful nude omega model for hours.

8) Shouldn’t Cry (But I Love It) | Explicit | 6,586 words

They're roommates. They're quarantined. There's a small problem coming up.

9) Your Name Is Tattooed To The Bottom Of My Heart | Explicit | 6,613 words

Prompt 114: a PWP where Louis gets an arse tattoo with Harry’s name for his birthday.

10) Leave Like The Summer Breeze | Explicit | 6,551 words

When Louis and Zayn are stranded in Alabama, a farmer offers them shelter. He just asks for one thing in return.

11) Smile for the Camera for It Knows Everything, Hollywood Star| Mature | 6,676 words

Prompt 132- The story of Nancy Reagan being called the blowjob queen of Hollywood but it’s Louis.

12) The Writing On the Wall | Explicit | 6,705 words

When BookToker Louis receives a gift basket filled with all his favorite sweets, wines, and stuffed animals alongside the new Harry Styles book, he’s shocked at the story he finds in the pages.

13) Muffins & Cigarettes| Mature | 7,591 words

Louis pouts. “You can’t pout your way into this, Louis”, Harry said as he was fixing his tie, watch and rings glinting against the soft sunlight filtering through the window. “Of course, I can. Watch me.”

14) The Knothead Neighbor| Mature | 8,058 words

Prompt 3: Neighbors AU, preferably ABO! Harry works evenings/nights (maybe like a surgeon something that requires him to be gone for long hours) and has a cat. The cat has a little kitty door at the back so that it can explore and such. Louis just moved next door and the cat seems to always end up at his door. Eventually, Louis lets the cat in, as he’s new and he’s feeling quite lonely. They become fast friends, so much so that the cat prefers to stay with Louis rather than go home. Harry gets concerned that the cat starts to stay out all day/night so he eventually leaves a note attached to the cat’s collar with its name and phone number. Louis texts him telling him he’s his neighbor and not to worry, the cat just likes to hang with him as it might be lonely. Harry gets pissed that this stranger is stealing his cat so he goes to confront Louis and tell him to stop stealing his cat. Of course, as soon as he sees Louis, he falls in love with him and the rest is history. (If ABO could be cute that both Harry and Louis like to cuddle with the cat because it holds the other’s scent)

15) Kiss It Better | Explicit | 8,080 words

Harry shakes his head with a light laugh and leans down to kiss him again which Louis happily accepts even if he is a little confused by the reaction. "Baby, not a night has gone by that I haven't thought about you in my bed, naked, and begging for my cock." Blinking up at him with wide eyes, Louis opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. While they did flirt a lot over the last few weeks, Harry had never said anything like that. It shocks him as much as it turns him on. "News to me." "I won't lie and say I like random hookups or casual sex, but to me this isn't what that is." Louis swallows thickly, unsure of what to say to that but once again Harry gives him an out. "So, If you want we can stay up here and I can show you all the things I've thought about doing to you." Another kiss, quick and sweet. "Or, we can go back downstairs and we'll dance all night."

16) Could Start A Cult | Explicit | 8,750 words

He lowers down the top that Louis is wearing, successfully unclasping his nursing bra as well, letting Louis’ tits bounce at the sudden movement. Harry massages both breasts to stimulate the milk flow, and he can feel his cock hardening inside his pants.

17) Should Be, Meant To Be | Explicit | 9,174 words

Prompt #65: Louis signs up for a Sugar Daddy dating website on a drunken dare. He forgets for a while, until one night he gets a notification for a message request from none other than his really hot (really rich) boss, Harry Styles.

18) Into It | Explicit | 9,197 words

Louis meets Harry. They hit it off.

19) Something To Prove | Explicit | 9,425 words

Louis is the first and only omega to work at Red Valley Medical Center. Despite being more than qualified, he still faces prejudice for his career choice everyday. From patients refusing his treatment to condescending alpha doctors intervening with his work, practicing medicine in Boston is more challenging than Louis had ever thought it would be.

20) Sugar Water | Explicit | 9,454 words

When his most familiar begins to feel all too unfamiliar, Harry finds out what it means to love like real people do.

21) Hook You Up (Charm You Down) | Explicit | 9,600 words

Swiftly, Harry raises his right hand to his head. Bringing two ringed fingers up, he touches the brown hat sitting on his head, tipping it with a raise of eyebrows in the direction of Peter Pan. He punctuates the whole action with his signature smirk. The reaction is almost immediate. Like Harry hoped it’d be. Though he expected the grin he received, he can’t say he directly expected the man to come forward his way. But he surely isn’t going to complain. “Captain! Fancy seeing you there,” Peter Pan says when he reaches Harry’s space. And wow. Seeing it from up close, Niall was right. Face of an angel, totally Harry’s type and all that. 

22) Poppies In May | Mature | 9,603 words

And maybe he deserves it, Louis thinks bitterly. His hand curls around the fence tightly, and he feels like if he lets go he’ll slid onto the cold ground and never fucking get up again. Maybe standing here, staring at Harry’s hunched over, retreating back is what he deserves.

23) Wanna Do Nothing With You | Explicit | 9,606 words

The accident happens in the stupidest way possible. One minute Louis is demonstrating a skateboard trick he’d just learned for Lottie, the next he’s waking up in a hospital. He’s told that he wasn’t unconscious the entire ride, but he has absolutely no recollection of it. One second he’s fucking around in his own garden and the next he’s being assaulted with the strong sterile scent of a hospital. So. There’s that.

24) Hello, My Name is Louis | Explicit | 9,686 words

Louis hurried to hang up the phone and take off his headset, throwing it away as if it was burning hot. He hugged himself by the shoulders and hid his face in his knees, sitting in his desk chair like a swimmer ready to dip into a pool, a pool of embarrassment. Not many people got past "Hello, my name is… " and even fewer engaged in a full conversation with him. And if they did, it usually went better than this.

25) Got It Right Such A Long Time Ago | Explicit | 9,699 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

There are a lot of people Harry might expect to find on his doorstep at three o’clock in the afternoon these days. It could be the delivery man, come to drop off the pair of boots Harry impulsively ordered online last week. It could be one of his neighbors, dropping by to complain about how a party he’d thrown weeks ago had clogged up the street. It could also be any number of his friends in L.A., who stop by unannounced most days to mooch off Harry’s food or whisk him away to try some new yogurt shop.    As a rule, it definitely cannot be Louis Tomlinson, although Harry’s blinked at least three times now, and it’s still Louis standing there, a backpack slung over his shoulder and a duffel bag at his feet.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

I really appreciate Taash and the bond that they and my nonbinary Rook have developed, but I didn't like the decision I had to make for them. Nor did I believe the dichotomy needed to be as stark as it was, especially given how the Antaam are in DATV.

As a whole, DATV is up there as one of the better games I played this year. It's a lot of fun, especially when the world opens up. I love the characters, environments, humour, puzzles, and Rook. Too, the narrative framing around some of the companions is cinematic in a way rarely seen in videogames. A moment during Emmrich's quest had me laughing in delight as they deliberately used the techniques of old horror movies... because that's what genre Emmrich is in, he's the protagonist of a black and white horror movie. (Knowing that, do I think it's a good idea to let him become a Lich? 🤔). It was theatrical, experimental, a little campy, and I loved that they could play around with genre and narrative this way.

But I understand some of the criticisms. The world of Thedas is still complicated but much is hidden in text. So while I don't feel the loss as others do, I read everything and there are also things I don't actually want in the games ever again (broodmothers, for example), I can see how DATV would feel far from its previous worldbuilding if you rely on environmental storytelling. Especially with how the Qunari have been handled. The Antaam is a fascist sect that broke away from the Qun, but without more Qunari to balance them, it does feel like an excuse for the game to have a faceless hoard of othered enemies.

Taash's quests were a good opportunity for a counterbalance against the Antaam but I feel like their conclusion made the problems with the Qunari worse. Maybe The Iron Bull needed to be there in some capacity to fill that whole situation out properly?

[alessiathepirate]

Resident Evil 2 - Resident Evil 4

SHARED WOUNDS HEAL TOGETHER THE BEST: Leon S. Kennedy x fem!reader

Summary: Relationship development through nightmares and shared trauma.

Notes: English isn't my first language. I apologize for any mistake I made while I wrote this short story.

Warnings: swearing, referenced PTSD, trauma, mentioned death, described violence, hurt/comfort

•••

Half a night full of nightmares

Escaping the unsurvivable doesn't come with good feelings at all.

It didn't fill her heart with pride or joy after she survived all those monsters in Raccoon City, even though she almost laughed from relief when she found herself far away from that God forsaken place with Leon, Claire and Sherry on her side.

No. The aftermath wasn't happy and it definitely wasn't fun. It was sad, insufferable and painful.

The mornings were alright - she didn't have any problems with those, especially when she could talk to either Leon or Claire, or take care of Sherry. But the nights - the nights were horrible and the first few after the incident were the worst.

She saw hoards of the undead in her dreams, attacking her or killing the people she cared about. She heard the noises of the lickers and the turned dogs, but the worst were the loud steps, making the walls and the ground she was standing on shake.

On the first night she relived the journalist's death so vividly, she didn't know where she was when she woke up. She saw him backing away and then the strong arm of the tyrant pushed through the concrete wall, it grabbed his head and crushed it like it was nothing. She remembered how the blood dripped down to the floor, how his eyes popped out of their places and how they were hanging out of his eye sockets, only a few weak muscles keeping them attached to his body.

When she woke up she couldn't breath, her chest was heavy, her throat felt both tight and dry and she was crying, the tears quickly running down her cheeks. She didn't know where she was or who she was, her mind was too far gone, still living in the world of the nightmare, not finding the way back to reality.

Two sudden hands on her shoulders pushed her back to the present, to the dirty motel room with the lights on, but with the curtains closed.

"Hey, hey! It's okay, it was just a nightmare! You're safe, I'm here. Do you hear me?" Leon's voice was full of fear, but he did his best not to panic as he tried to calm her down. His words made her breathing slow down and she felt like she can get some fresh air in her lungs again. "You have to take a big breath with me, okay? In and out." She followed his instructions as he brushed a few locks of hair out of her face, which got stuck to her forehead from the sweat. "Again- breath in... and out." He made eye contact with her, making sure she's feeling better. "You can calm down, it was just a bad dream."

She nodded, now understanding the situation she found herself in.

"Thank you." her mouth felt dry as she said those two words out loud.

"You have nothing to say thank you for." Leon smiled at her reassuringly. "Do you feel better now?"

She just nodded again, not trusting her voice this time. Leon backed away and sat down next to her on the bed.

She felt awkward as she sat up, leaning against the bedframe as she pulled the duvets to the side, because she felt like she was burning alive under them. She hugged her knees to her chest as she looked at Leon again.

"You can talk about it if you want to. I had one too, you know... a nightmare."

She stayed quiet as she thought about what to do, but then her strength to keep all the fear in herself broke.

"I had a dream about the journalist's- about Ben's death... It was like I- relived that moment, you know. When the tyrant killed him." she explained as a shiver run through her spine at the memories. "What was yours about?"

"That we never made it out alive." he started. "That every one of you died right before the finish line and when I tried to get back to you I got attacked as well."

"I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"I don't know." she answered after she realized how stupid it would be to apologize for the whole Raccoon City incident, when it wasn't her fault - nor their fault at all. "For scaring you because of some shitty dream I had... For what happened or- I don't know."

"It's not your fault. You can't do anything against the dreams you have and I'm sure you did your absolute best in Raccoon City. We all did."

They smiled at each other, but it was a very broken, pitiful smile.

"I'll always be here if you want to talk about, you know- what happened."

"The same goes for you." she said. "Where are the others? Claire and Sherry?"

"Claire wanted to get something to eat and Sherry wanted to go with her. You fell asleep so I didn't want to leave you alone." Leon explained and then added jokingly: "And then I fell asleep as well so I guess we were both too tired to care about food. They should be back in a few minutes."

"Thanks for staying with me."

Leon just smiled and then stood up, walking towards the only table the cheap motel room had.

"Claire was able to get some tea from that nice lady at reception. Do you want some? I mean, it's already cold, but-"

"It's perfect. Thank you."

A few moments later they were both sitting on her bed, drinking that ice cold tea as they made sure the other was feeling better after half a night full of nightmares. Neither of them knew how important that little gesture will be in their shared future.

•••

The already full jar of trauma

The moment she heard Leon's voice from his bedroom, she was up, her bare feet were on the cold floor, not caring about what she had on or how low the temperature in their apartment was. Her reflexes, which became quite sharp after that horrible night, acted on their own accord, and the next thing she knew she was running to her flatmate's bedroom, not bothering to knock.

Just like she thought - Leon's body was sweaty and he was tossing and turning in his bed with an uncomfortable look on his face. All the tiredness was gone from her eyes as she sat down next to him on his bed and put one of her hands on his chest while the other was gently caressing his face.

"Leon?" she spoke up kindly, her voice rough from sleeping beforehand. "Leon, please wake up! It's just a dream. Leon?"

He suddenly opened his eyes as he sat up so quickly she had to lean back so he won't bump into her.

"It's okay!" she tried to reassure him as she touched his arm. "It was just a bad dream."

He looked at her, his eyes teary from both dream and sleep and the next thing she knew, he hugged her, his arms keeping her in place tightly, afraid to let go.

She was shocked at first, that moment being the first time ever he hugged her or was that close to her, but she didn't complain. She knew how bad a nightmare can be, how bad of a reaction it can get out of someone. So she hugged him back and stroked his arm as his breathing became more even.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she said, her face still pressed against his shoulder.

She felt him swallow.

"Do you remember Marvin?" he asked even though he knew the answer.

Marvin was still a fresh wound and a painful topic - especially the way he died and the why he died. The man was a hero; he saved them from getting eaten and he gave them the right weapons and best gear they could ever find.

She nodded, but the memories still hurt.

"I had a dream about him."

"I'm sorry. You had to shoot him because of me."

It was true and she'll probably always feel guilty because of it. It was her fault - her fault that Leon had to shoot him dead and with that add to the already full jar of trauma.

She wasn't careful and let the turned Marvin attack her. His hands were already on her and if Leon doesn't react quickly, he would've bit her right in the neck.

"It wasn't your fault." Leon said and after taking a long breath he continued: "He was already gone. It was between you and him, and he was already gone."

Even if it was a painful topic, she knew she can be thankful that Leon was there and acted quickly.

"Thank you for being there that day." she said after she pushed Leon back so she can look him in the eye. "But you can't blame yourself either. I hope you know that."

He nodded, silently saying that he does.

"Are you tired?" he asked.

"Not anymore, no."

"We can watch something if you want to."

"Yeah." she answered, knowing none of them would be able to fall sleep again. "That would be great. A shitty comedy would be great."

•••

Keep on talking

She was so tired she felt like she could cry at any little thing - yet sleep stayed far away from her. It didn't want to come, it didn't want to give her what she needs and covets.

Her whole body hurt from that morning's obstacle training and hand-to-hand combat - both lessons left cuts and purple, blue or even yellow bruises on her arms, legs and stomach. Her muscles were aching, screaming for even a few hours of sleep, but both the sleep and dreams stayed away.

"Are you still up?"

Leon's question was so sudden in the darkness that it gave her heart an ache from fear, her heartbeat becoming faster.

They shared a bunk bed together. Leon chose the lower part so she owned the upper one - but deep down she knew Leon made that decision so he can look out for her and be her guard dog until the end of the damn training.

"Yeah." she whispered back, not wanted to wake up the others.

"You can't sleep?"

"Exactly, but I want to." her voice became high pitched, so she had to swallow to keep the tears back. "God, I really want to."

Leon whispered her name, his voice was full of worry and that was what broke the dam. The tears started to fall from both mental and physical pain, tiredness.

"Are you okay?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't without waking the others up, knowing her voice would be rough and high pitched.

She heard him pull the duvet to the side, she was sure he sat up on his bed. Then his bare feet made contact with the floor and in the next moment she could see Leon's face as he grabbed the side of her bed. His expression was full of sadness.

"Do you want to sleep next to me tonight?" he asked quietly, gently touching her hand.

She nodded.

"Come here..."

She did her best to stay silent as she wiped away her tears and then climbed down, her arms shaking as she did so. Leon was there to help her, holding her, keeping his hand on her back as support.

When she was down he turned her towards himself, wiped the remaining tears away and gently stroked a bruise on her collarbone. She only then noticed that he had a few bruises himself as well, a purple one hiding right under his jaw, but she could still see it in the moonlight.

"Who did you fight with?"

"Why, you want to beat him up?" he asked teasingly, trying to crack a joke.

She didn't giggle, caring about his health and well being too much to take it as a joke.

"Of course I want to."

"You can have one guess." he sighed.

"Krauser?"

"Who else?"

"What an asshole." she whispered.

"What about you? Who do I have to beat up?"

"You can have one guess." she quoted him. "I had hand-to-hand combat right after you."

Leon didn't say anything to that, he only stroked her cheek reassuringly and then gestured towards his bed. She lay down on his bed and tried to find a position where she leaves place for Leon as well. He joined her moments later and pulled the duvet over the two of them.

"Try to rest, okay? You need it." he whispered.

"I know." she started. "I just got to a point where I'm too tired to fall asleep."

"Do you want me to keep on talking?"

"If you want to."

One of his hands found her waist and pulled her shirt down to cover her skin, and then through the material he started to draw different shapes into her. First a square, then a circle, a triangle, a star and then a smiley face.

"Did I tell you that Claire called right before we had to come here?" he asked.

"No."

"Well she did. She told me all about what she wants to do" she closed her eyes as he started to talk. "and about who she met. She asked about us. She was surprised that we became flatmates, joking that that's how dumb romance books start..."

She fell asleep right after that, her mind finally finding peace at his words. What she didn't realize was how she was admired while she was sleeping and how well Leon slept next to her that night.

That was the first time they asked themselves if they are really just friends or something more.

•••

You'll always have Prince Charming, cariño

Their first night together as a couple shouldn't go like this - with this heavy, burning feeling inside their chests.

The well known feeling of guilt made that night harder than ever. It's been a while since they were this afraid of falling asleep and it wasn't easy to get used to again, even if they both got a routine for those nights.

Taking a shower, getting dressed for bed, cooking dinner and then watching something on the TV - trying to do everything slowly to avoid going to sleep, trying to keep their eyes open so they can concentrate on the crappy movie, trying to not think about who they lost.

"We should go to bed or you'll fall asleep on the couch." Leon was the first to break the silence and the tension in the air.

They were both watching some stupid comedy on the TV, but while Leon was sitting with tired eyes, she was resting her head on his thigh. Her eyes closed a few minutes ago and she almost fell asleep when he spoke up.

"I don't want to." she started. "I'll have nightmares and I really can't deal with them tonight."

Leon's hand started to stroke her back and she sighed - being there with him gave her a peace of mind, but it also made her really sleepy.

"I know what you mean - but we have to give it a try. We've been a through a lot and we need to rest."

"I know. I just-" she sat up so she can look at him. "I just don't want to relive Luis' death... I just can't."

Leon looked at her like she said the exact thing he had been feeling and thinking about. He gave her a sad smile and took her hand in his, drawing the usual shapes into her skin with his thumb.

"Luis didn't deserve to die." she continued, trying to get everything what hurts off of her chest. "Even if he was always flirting or being annoying; he was nice. And he was really trying to do the right thing."

"And he was your biggest supporter." Leon added with a small, honest smile.

"No, he was our biggest supporter." she corrected him, letting out a giggle as she remembered all the things he said to her. "He was trying to make me see what our relationship truly is- that what you and I have is more than friendship."

"He was right, wasn't he?"

She nodded and the smile she had disappeared as she got back to reality. To the reality where Luis Serra is dead no matter how hard she tried to save his life.

She thought about the memories she shares with Leon and realized that no matter what they do or where they go, they always meet with tragedy and death. Those things overshadow their relationship and its development, not letting them fully enjoy what they have.

Luis would've loved to see their confession. He would've loved to see their faces when they realize they both feel the same way about the other. He would've wanted them to be happy.

Even if it's hard to be happy and smile.

What would he say? Something cheesy and romantic. Something like: You'll always have Prince Charming to make you smile even on hard days, cariño.

And he'd be right. She'll always smile when she sees Leon. She'll always laugh at his jokes. She'll get through everything if he's by her side.

"All right." she spoke up suddenly, making Leon stop his movements. "We can try and get some sleep- together."

"Together." he agreed and then leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead.

God, Luis would be smirking with that proud, annoying smirk of his.

A few moments later they were cuddling under the duvets in Leon's room; her head was on his chest as he was stroking her back. She didn't dare to close her eyes yet, but she enjoyed the closeness with her lover.

Lover, she thought. It's good they had Luis to make them see they are better lovers than friends.

That's how she should remember him. Luis Serra, the best wingman the world has ever known. The bravest, kindest wingman the world has ever known.

"Leon?" she spoke up in the darkness as she closed her eyes.

"Yes? Is something wrong?"

"No. There's nothing wrong. Everything is fine when I'm with you." she explained when she heard the fear in his voice. "I just wanted to say I love you."

For a moment Leon's heartbeat and breathing changed, and his hand stopped.

"I love you too, darling. Now try to get some sleep, okay?"

"Promise me you'll wake me up if you have a nightmare..."

"I promise, but the same goes for you."

Leon pressed one last kiss to the back of her hand and then they both closed their eyes, trying to enjoy the other's presence, knowing they don't have to be afraid of nightmares. Not when they have the other.

•••

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

To Lady Celestine, from Magopon

Bonjour, I suppose? I don’t really think I know you yet so.. I was wondering, why not do an info exchange with each other I guess. Though I do know about you and Arthur. I do think it’s cute. So my barrage of questions starts now. First question, how did you get to know each other? Second, what is your favorite misadventure? Third, what do you like about Arthur, don’t think that I can’t see you two being lovey dovey. Well, I suppose I should keep my end. Things to know about me: I was the feared (yet cute) ogre of Kitakami. Next, uh let’s see, umm… Oh! I’m with Meta! And um, probably the easiest to provoke within my group I suppose. Well that’s all, I guess. Signing out, Magolor! -Magolor/Ogerpon

Such wonderful questions~

They don't deserve merely simple answers, how about a story instead

Truth be told my acts of vigilantism weren't for the fame or the glory... it was to atone what had happened to Shiver Star. Had I not told Absolum & Uther my vision...

Shiver Star wouldn't have had an... even worse fate than I had originally seen... Then I started to question everything... I had come to find out that all my visions of warning were ignored (by other Heroes of Yore & the Ancients) unless there was a benefit to them.

They didn't care about people who suffered from their acts, unlike them, I could see them... I could feel their pain too... I couldn't help but think that I had made everyone's life worse...

Until one day I just had enough.... I was done crying over my mistakes... I had to do something!

So the moment Triple Star was created I vowed I'd make up for all the damage I did with my visions. I'd "my future sight" to hunt down Nightmares monsters before they'd even had the chance to do any harm. I'd use my magic & alchemy to fix all the damage the GSA did to civilian planets.

(Basically, she did the same thing of what Edward did here but in secret)

But I will admit I did have my own little fun when I was out there as well...played a practical joke here or there swindled some swindlers... unleashed a hoard of flying pigs every time I played a prank but you get the idea.

My actions did go unnoticed... people could tell that someone in the night was fixing their homes & cities. Someone was taking out the monster even before Uther's soldiers (and Sir Uther didn't like that.) All they knew was a mysterious old mage wearing a blue cloak was helping them.

The people were starting to rely on me... I didn't want that to happen.

I wanted to stay anonymous but with how things were going to be difficult to hide myself for very long... there was another problem I was not long for the world

But that was around when I got Kirby's prediction.

There was a glimmer of hope left in the galaxy... Nightmare terror against the galaxy would end along with the Ancients & Uther's reign would end however there was a catch...

For those of you who haven't read (The Wart of Them All)

My visions were vague in nature but this one carried the most uncertainty.... I had no idea what wild goose chase this vision was leading me on... especially after I saw all my options...

I just needed to find the match; it didn't tell me how they fit into Kirby's prediction, nor what role they played in all this. But I did know this... I WAS NOT GOING TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN AND TRUST ANYONE WITH MY KNOWLEDGE!

I needed to exhaust every avenue and be sure I was making the right choice... So I had to reveal myself to them as "Merlyn."

Actually, I didn't name myself Merlyn just yet... that'll have to come up in the next part.

To be continued~

Prev. ((The Wart of Them All) -

Next. ("The Start of Something Great")

@kirbyoctournament

Shoutout to @poyoofthestars Thank you so much for giving me such a great question it gives me all the power to lore dump!

I know what it looks like I did this on purpose: (For you those of you who aren't familiar with the Pokemon games: at the start of your journey you are given three choices as you're starter )

Basically, what Celestine was doing was choosing "the right starter Pokemon... to kick start Kirby's journey." But the main difference is that if she chooses the wrong one the galaxy is royally screwed! OUR GIRL WAS UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE

Also, another fun lore dump Celestine never actually called herself Merlyn... it was actually Arthur who accidentally named her Merlyn.

Hope you guys enjoyed it see you in the next part.

[franki-lew-yo]

Let everybody be messy

So Primos is coming out in a few days. It looks bland (I've never seen Loud House or Casagrandes); mostly I'm still mad at how the main voice actress spoke about the controversy. There is, however 'good for children' it may be, one thing that stood out to me about this show and what it was being criticized for and that's the backgrounds.

Tater and her family have a very messy, unkept house. Not hoarder bad but messy. Among the talk of the show being racist and making latinos look bad, this was one talking point I remember people harping on: that the messy house was demeaning to hispanic people and made them look ''dirty''.

The thing is, while I don't condone things like unsafe plugs being shown on screen, I myself have grown up in and around a lot of messy homes. I don't think it's inherent strike against the show to have the reality of messy homes be a part of the visuals - or, to put it another way, I think it's sad that me and my white family can be messy and get nothing for it but a latino home gets deemed 'gross' or 'unsanitary' for the same thing. Messy homes happen. Especially when you are busy and ESPECIALLY if you have kids.

My paternal grandma was a dean of graduate studies at a university. It was a prestigious job and she was the matriarch of our family because of it, but she did NOT have gigantic house. She was busy grading essays, dissertations and finals in her room all day. She also had SEVEN kids and lots of grandkids who were all trying but unable to truly clean after themselves all the time so the house was always cluttered. Because she was always so busy and so was every one of her children, we didn't eat luxurious things and her kitchen was especially wrecked.

I don't have pictures, but to put it a different way I'm not ashamed of that reality. It wasn't hoarding, it was just what being in a house owned by that person and filled up with my whole family was like.

My grandma was Polish-American. I just find it sad that for any non-white family this real-but-expected outcome of living is seen as making you look bad. That's just not fair.

There's a lot of things that should be seen as universally quirky or just part of living that I see people of color get judged for. (cw: non-mutilated but still very much human-corpse) Caitlyn Doughty did a whole video about it with a rapper who wanted his body propped up like he was DJing at his funeral. A white biker got to be buried on his bike; it's unfair that we see it as 'creepy' or 'gross' if a BIPOC person does it. It's not creepy and gross. There are customs in world cultures that ought to die because they are bad for everyone (Russia and circus bears; east Asia and Ikizukuri, cockfighting anywhere, America and rattlesnake roundups, something that's not animal-related but I'm stuck on the animal ones rn sorry, ect) but then there are customs which are not fair to judge or rule as evil because they aren't 'yours'. In other news, water is wet. And, if it isn't customs, it's double standards.

Let everyone be their own trashy. You don't know their lives. Leave people with messy homes alone. If it's not hoarding or distinctly unsafe it's not fair of you to judge. And if it being grubby or messy around a person's home leads you to think less of them as people and as a culture, get a life! That's a you problem!

[hildegardladyofbones]

It is so fucking baffling how little care people have when talking about the ussr, even when they're the same people that are super respectful about imperialism, genocide, etc. Not saying they shouldn't be, I'm just wondering where it all goes when the soviet union comes up. Like sure, we're white people, the world isn't systemically against us, not arguing against that, but that doesn't erase the 51 years of dictatorship that we had to live under.

People that barely even know what was happening behind the iron curtain make jokes about stalin, lenin and brežnev. Whenever someone said the word "us" the replies were always "*communism intesifies*", though luckily thay trend seemed to die out. It was disrespectful nevertheless. And if you're from an ex soviet country and say that you don't mind them, good for you, idc. Your opinion doesn't invalidate mine. This not a joking matter. I'm not calling you a bad person if you like those jokes, but the discussion about what was going on is seemingly non existent and we need to have it! People need to at least be aware when they talk about these topics!

I may not have lived through it, but my mom, and her mom did. My grandma has serious hoarding problems now because of the trauma of not having anything. People were afraid to help each other because if you help the wrong person you'll get labeled a traitor. You couldn't escape because you would ruin the life for people that you left behind, because if a family member was against the system then you couldn't get permits for buying cars, let alone moving. There were fucking book burnings. People got sent to siberia for looking at someone wrong. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What it was was not communism, it was a dictatorship. So don't call me an anti communist. Instead of doing that, pick up the beauty of history by viivi luik. The English translation is free on the Internet archive. If you can get on your hands on it, read the seventh spring of piece and pay attention because that book you have to read in between the lines.

Tl;Dr respect my (and other people's countries') country's trauma and learn what the school didn't teach you because there's no way that this disrespect would exist if people knew.

[bethany-sensei]

Y’all voted yes and now no one can stop me, so

Welcome to Pride Month 2024 featuring my

Weird Queer Characters

As today is International Aromantic Visibility Day, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite aros

Tempest:

Hahaha, Tempest is a study in how overpowered a character can get without breaking the narrative, and his answer is “it doesn’t matter if he has all the magic all the time more than that I really meant all, as long as he’s far too lazy to cause problems with it.” The thing with Tempest and magic is 1.) it got him out of a very bad situation when he was very young, so always learning every new type of magic he encounters is a trauma response, and 2.) the first type of magic he mastered was time magic. Since what humans* have the potential to learn is limited mainly by their lifespan in this setting, Tempest basically unlocked the ultimate cheat code to becoming the worlds’ most terrifying sorcerer**, and occasionally the people around him get reminded of that.

Nobody actually named him Tempest, he came back from nowhere with no social skills and a strong need of a new name. Someone misheard him, and he decided to keep it. Afterward he met Caspar, a prince who was on the run from assassins at the time. Tempest became Caspar’s bodyguard, Caspar did a decent job of domesticating Tempest, and the rest is history.

Tempest is somewhat romance repulsed but likes to joke about it (he openly calls his friends gross for doing romantic stuff). He has an expanding polycule and a wing kink. He tears pieces off of people who try to hurt anyone he considers his. (So not 100% domesticated, no.)

Tempest has appeared in four volumes so far.

*he starts out human and has an out-of-species experience, which happens in Balances

**he argues against being called a sorcerer, since he hoards magic and never uses it professionally

[penny00dreadful]

Return of The King - Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 AO3

Eddie closed the back door quietly behind him and sat down in one of the lawn chairs, tipping his head up and staring at the scattered passing clouds as he smoked.

He could hear muffled conversation and an awful lot of tears from the house behind him and it nearly made him want to cry himself. There was so much relief filling him up both from Steve being back and finally getting to do what he’d been planning to do to him since he first got to know him but also that the healing within the Fellowship could begin. He just hoped it didn’t damage anyone further.

He had no idea how he was going to do it. How the both of them were going to do it. How on earth were they going to tell all these extremely broken people that the reason they were broken wasn't a reason anymore. That he was back? And how were they going to explain that he was back different but not bad? 

It could go so very wrong.

But maybe it would be enough comfort to them to know that Robin was talking again. Hell, not even just that she was talking again but that she was even… conscious again. That she was existing in the world again rather than around it.

He must have been ruminating in his own head for at least a half an hour vacillating in between smoking and worrying about the fallout of all this and watching the clouds and feeling that giggly excitement that comes with a new relationship and all the things they had left to do to each other and experience together when the door creaked open behind him and a pair of thin arms wound their way around his shoulders.

“You’ve been hoarding him.” Robin’s voice came soft and thick from the floods of tears she’d no doubt shared with Steve inside.

“Hoarding, Buckley?” He reached up to grasp her wrist. His heart was soaring. It was so good to hear her voice again. “I wouldn’t call it that. Though I suspect my Stevie exclusivity is coming to an end now that he has you back in his life.”

She hummed into his hair and tightened her arms around him, gently rocking the two of them back and forth as much as she could without toppling them over. “If I was gonna share him with anyone, I’m happy for it to be you.”

Eddie smiled to himself and tipped his head back onto her shoulder. “Awh, you’re gonna make me all misty eyed.”

“Join the club,” she let out a wet laugh, rubbing her eyes against his shirt, “it’s what the rest of us are doing.”

“Where is the man of the hour anyway?”

“He’s giving us space to say my ‘thank yous’ for taking care of me and everyone else for the last month or whatever.” 

“Ah.”

“So like, thanks or whatever.” She whispered, her levity coming through clearly despite her humour.

“Not a problem, Buckaroo.”

She gave him one last squeeze and placed a kiss against the side of his head before disappearing back inside.

Eddie followed not long after, desperate for a shower and to finally get back into his own jeans. The pair he was wearing last night hadn’t been his favourite but they were a worthy sacrifice especially considering just how they were destroyed. How Steve's supernaturally strong hands had effortlessly gripped onto the tough denim and ripped them clean in two right below him, all the little noises he'd managed to work out of him with his tongue and his hips as he'd slowly, torturously slowly, sunk in-

He turned the shower water icy cold, he needed to keep his head clear for the next few hours ahead and he definitely wouldn’t be able to do that if the only think that was knocking around his brain was the continued idea of fucking around with Steve.

When he came back downstairs, he and Robin sat Steve down and tried to summarise everything that had happened in the last month. The complete and utter fuckery that the California crew went through, Joyce and Murray’s little vacation to the Soviet Union where, oh yeah, Hopper was alive but imprisoned, the cracks in the earth that had split the second Steve died, inadvertently saving Max from mutilation, the wide open gates that creatures would crawl through every so often, the fact that Hawkins was half abandoned, his parents…

It was a lot to take in and Steve took it all surprisingly well, almost like he’d been waiting for some catastrophic events to hit Hawkins for a few years now.

The next challenge that was presented to him was just how they were going to tell everyone. If they just sprung Steve on them out of nowhere it would be disastrous. They could all collapse into grief, they could run scared, they could attack him, believing him to be some fucked up trick of Vecna’s, there was so many things that could go wrong.

At the very least Wayne was going to be out of the house for the rest of the day so he couldn’t accidentally get caught in the crossfire.

Eddie sat at his kitchen table bouncing his leg so quickly his whole body was jiggling. Robin and Steve had helped him write out what to tell the others over the walkie to get them to arrive.

It wasn’t easy.

He needed them to know that it wasn’t a world ending Code Red but at the same time wasn’t it? Steve was back and that was a huge thing on its own but definitely didn’t warrant sending them all into a blind panic and putting them on edge, especially when the thing that was waiting for them was enough to implode everyone in the worst ways possible if handled incorrectly.

So he had to tell them it was urgent without skyrocketing everyone’s collective stress levels.

“Eds, it’ll be fine.” Steve tried to soothe him as the three of them sat waiting. He had a gentle grip on the back of Eddie’s neck, rubbing his thumb in small circles. It wasn’t working. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Eddie and Robin shared a look for a long moment while Steve glanced between them.

“Okay, I don’t love this,” he said, pointing to each of them in turn, “whatever this is.”

“D’you think you’d be able to dodge a bullet if it came down to that, Stevie?” Eddie asked from behind his hair with his head hung low.

“Nance wouldn’t shoot me.”

“Yes she would.” They answered at the same time.

“She’s gonna think you’re some Vecna trick like I did.”

Robin nodded, agreeing. “Yeah, and you can’t fuck the doubt out of her like you did with Eddie.”

Eddie lifted his head just a fraction to glare at her but she didn’t back down, just raised her eyebrow.

“That’s not what happened.”

“No?”

“No, I wouldn’t have let him fuck me if I still thought he was the spawn of Satan.”

Robin scoffed with a cheeky smirk on her face. “That’s a lie. But maybe it’ll be Hopper who’ll try to shoot you, Steve.” She blinked innocently over to him. “You could try to fuck some sense into him?”

“Robin.” Steve hissed, his whole face turning red.

“You had a thing for Hopper?” Eddie couldn’t help the shit eating grin that started to pull at his mouth, quickly joined by Robin as Steve tried to glare at the two of them with as much venom as possible.

“You never heard those words come out of my mouth.”

“No, but Robbie insinuated which is as good as a confession.”

“I hate the both of you.”

Eddie and Robin shot to their feet, cooing and crowding around Steve, squeezing him tight in between the two of them with a downight dramatic level of sarcastic comfort and affection. Steve just scowled harder but wormed his arms around the two of them squeezing back, unable to hide the upward curl at the corner of his mouth.

They only broke away from their mocking ‘you love us’ ‘you looooove uuusss’ when they both felt Steve tense under their arms.

“They’re here.”

Eddie shot to his feet, his adrenaline and anxiety coursing through his whole body. He needed to move, he needed to get it all out somehow. Fuck this was it. Everything was about to change. Again.

God, it could all go so wrong.

But it could be so good too.

It could fix everything.

“Are you hidden?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. Only you and Robin can see me.”

“Okay good, you know them, they'll just burst in-”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the front door was thrown open and a gaggle of teenagers spilled into his hallway. Eddie felt a short kiss be pressed to the back of his head, just a silent reminder I’m here before he took a deep breath in and tried to steady himself as best he could.

There wasn’t the usual noise and chaos that used to be so normal with the kids, there were no childish arguments or rapid fire discussions. They filed into his house quietly and without bluster, each finding a spot to sit around the dining table or lean against a kitchen cabinet looking at him expectantly, barely sending a glance in Robin’s direction who had marginally retreated back into herself. Whether it was the pressure of the situation or so many people around he didn’t know. He couldn’t really blame her or the group for their reactions.

Steve was staring around at all of them with wide eyes, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But instead of any kind of delight or smugness or smart remark about finally getting them to quieten down, he looked heartbroken. Like he hadn’t realised just how changed everyone was.

“Well?” Nancy snapped. Short and eager to get to the point as she always was these days and Eddie could never hold it against her.

He realised he’d been watching Steve’s reaction too closely. It probably looked like he was staring off into space while they all filled in around him. 

So he took a deep breath in and began.

“Okay, uh,” he started to thread his fingers through his hair, picking out individual curls and twisting them, anything to keep his hands occupied, “it’s not bad news. It’s actually good news, or it might not be good news depending on how you view it and how we had to get here, but it’s news! I’m gonna be honest, I’m having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to tell you all because it’s gonna be really hard to swallow at first-“

“Eddie.” Dustin interrupted, his voice lacking its youthful energy and his face as grim as it had been for the last month. “Does Robin really need to be here for this?”

Robin startled at the mention of her name and seemed confused for a second. Eddie supposed it was a fair question, Robin hadn’t exactly been present in the last month and the rest had mostly gotten used to talking like she wasn’t in the room. Most of the time she wasn’t, really.

Eddie looked over at her along with Dustin who’s eyes widened at the sight of any emotion on her face apart from blank despair.

She looked up to meet Eddie’s eyes and gave a small nod. The whole room seemed to have caught the tiny movement, automatically straightening up and becoming much more engaged. Because if it was something that had the power to pull Robin out of the pit of her mind, it must be something extreme.

“Get on with it.”

“I’m trying, Nance, but this is actually very nerve wracking-”

Nancy glared at him, hard and cold. None of the warmth he’d seen in her before was present now and it hadn’t been for a while. She crossed her arms before speaking in a very stern tone of voice.

“Eddie, I don’t have time to waste with this bull-” she stopped herself short, swallowing harshly before continuing, “with this nonsense. So just-”

“It’s Steve.” He blurted out before he could stop himself, sudden and loud and impossibly catastrophic.

Silence crashed in around all of them in the wake of his statement, filled with so much tension he could feel it tingling against his skin. They were all staring at him, some with anger, some with devastation and some with just blank expressions that hurt more than anything.

The sound of a chair scraping against his tiled floor screeched loudly through the kitchen, almost too loud to bear. Dustin stood and without a backwards glance, began to walk away.

Eddie opened his mouth to call after him, his heart breaking in two but before he could say anything a voice made itself known from behind him.

“Dustin!” Steve called out to him, cracking through the air in the kitchen like a hammer against stone. 

The air was sucked out of the room like they’d all entered a vacuum chamber. Dustin stopped dead and the silence that permeated around all of them felt both fragile and immovable at the same time. 

The delicate click of a gun being cocked echoed around them and there was a heartbeat where nothing happened before the room erupted into chaos.

Eddie whipped around but it wasn’t Nancy that had drawn her weapon, it was Hopper. He couldn't even make the appropriate salacious jokes at Steve's expense about that because such a panic had gripped him at the room's collective response, he found himself frozen solid. 

This wasn't going well.

Shit.

Shit!

Robin threw herself in between Steve and Hopper with her hands out, screaming at him to wait! 

Everyone else looked a mix in between terrified and shocked. Like Vecna himself had just manifested in front of them, Max and Lucas were shouting, their heads ping ponging between Steve and Hopper, Mike and Will were shouting questions at Eddie. Joyce had pulled Will back, trying to push him behind her, Jonathan and Argyle were trying to stand defensively in front of Joyce but Jonathan also had a hand fisted in the back of Nancy’s shirt, who was pulling a pistol out of her bag, El was staring up at Steve, silent and considering, Erica oh god Erica was crying, she was just a child, Hopper was barking at the kids and Robin to stand down and Dustin…

Dustin hadn’t moved. He still had his back turned to everyone, both fists clenched so tight the colour had left his knuckles. 

“Shut up!” He screamed, high pitched and cracking, somehow making himself heard over the cacophony of noise that swiftly came to a halt at the sound of his voice.

Steve had an arm around Robin’s waist, having pulled her out of the line of fire while she scrambled against his immeasurable strength to try and get back in front of the barrel of the gun but he too froze at the sound.

Dustin took a deep breath in. “Eddie. What makes you so sure?”

Eddie looked in between Steve and Dustin. What could he say? He couldn’t exactly tell everyone what had transpired in the last twelve hours, he definitely wasn’t going to mention the sex. What had originally convinced him? Would it be enough?

“He…” Eddie swallowed. Somehow he’d never felt more vulnerable than right now, every single eye in the room was on him and he had the power to make or break everything. “He laughed at me? I insulted Vecna to his face and he… he thought it was funny.”

It sounded stupid, it sounded so stupid when he said it out loud. He couldn’t even bear to look up at them all to see how that explanation landed.

After a few seconds of heavy silence, El spoke up.

“What was your insult?”

Eddie glanced at her, she had her head tilted slightly to the side and her face was calm but curious. “I, uh, I called him a lump of unseasoned bolognese.”

“A dickless lump.” Steve interjected, a small smile on his face despite the tension in the room. Like a spell had been cast through the group at the sight of that smile, the strain on them seemed to lessen. Steve probably didn’t even realise he was doing it, there was just something about him now, something about his smile brought calm to them all. Maybe he’d always been that way. Eddie couldn’t really be sure.

Dustin whirled around and stomped his way over to Steve, the rest of the group parting like the Red Sea for him.

He stared up at Steve, an angry tilt to his brow and his jaw set, like he was ready to punch him in the face if he moved wrong.

“How many puffs?”

Eddie supposed the question must have been some kind of test, he certainly didn’t know the answer to whatever the fuck had just been asked, and no one else around him seemed to know either. No one else except for Steve.

“Four.”

Dustin’s lip quivered for just a second before he gathered himself, slamming his eyes shut again and turned his face away.

“El.” He called over his shoulder.

“Dust-” Steve started, reaching out, but was cut off.

“No!” Dustin yanked his shoulder away, his voice sharp and cutting. “I can’t- St-” swallowing harshly he continued a little quieter. “I need to be sure before I can- I need to be sure.”

Steve retracted his hand slowly, letting it fall to his side where it was quickly snatched up by Robin.

“Okay.”

El took a step forward but was halted by Hopper’s hand on her shoulder.

“We don’t know if this is safe.”

“I’ve been inside Vecna’s head.” El took her fathers hand and gently lifted it away. “If Steve is an agent of Vecna he will not be as strong. This is not the most dangerous thing I have ever done.”

“And that makes this okay, does it?”

“What else would you rather do?”

Hopper scowled at her, the downward tilt of his mouth making it clear he didn’t have an answer.

“I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

El stepped out of Hopper’s space and towards Steve, holding her hands out and waiting.

Steve nodded down at her before leaning forwards, effectively slotting his head carefully in between her hands and they both closed their eyes.

For two and half long, long minutes the room collectively held its breath, waiting in anticipation for her to draw down her verdict.

Eddie was sure as shit that he hadn’t had sex with Vecna in Steve’s body but god damn if the thought still didn’t make his skin crawl.

El’s brow furrowed and her grip tightened around Steve’s head as though she was trying to burrow her fingers into his skull. Steve grimaced as she dug in hard but held himself steady, his hand still clutched in Robin’s.

Dustin had moved to stand beside Eddie, staring wide eyed at the scene before him. Eddie had never seen him look so young, so small, so lost. He slung an arm around his shoulder and pulled him back towards his chest, holding him firm, trying to impart comfort in any way he could. Dustin sagged into him, barely holding on by a thread.

A small hand slipped into his. Erica refused to look at him but the shake of her hand and her silent tongue told him all he needed to know. For all her bravado and all her snark she was still the baby of the group and by a long shot too. While she protected herself and made herself seen with her attitude, it often made them forget that she was barely out of elementary school.

In some ways she was the biggest victim of all of this, no one else had been thrust into this apocalypse as young as Erica Sinclair.

And based on the little he had heard about how she had gotten introduced to all this, Steve was there. Steve, Robin and Dustin were the ones around trying to keep her safe against some kind of underground Russian spy operation or something. No wonder she was affected by all this.

Eddie pulled her back towards him too, his other arm around her shoulders, all three of them huddled in close together, watching and waiting.

“There’s something else there.” El muttered as her fingers relaxed, gently combing through the parts of Steve’s hair she’d messed up. “This is Steve. You are Steve. You are here. But there is something else here too.”

Steve’s face paled just a fraction. “Vecna’s not in my head.”

“No, it’s not Vecna, it’s something else. A cloud.”

“A good cloud?”

“No.”

The tension in the room ramped straight back up.

“A b- a bad cloud then?”

“No. It’s just a cloud, but pushed and tugged. Made into long legs-”

“The Mind Flayer?!” Will shrieked out in a burst of panic.

“El, is he Flayed?” Joyce asked, somehow calm but straight to the point.

“No. No it’s not like-” not like Billy. “The Flayed were Vecna. Vecna puppeteering The Mind Flayer. This little bit in his head… it’s free.”

“So he’s…” Dustin huffed, his voice cracking again. “El, please, in plain English? Is he safe? Is he Steve? Is he- is he back?”

El nodded. “He is safe, he is Steve, he is back.”

She barely had the words out of her mouth before Dustin had ripped himself away from Eddie to throw himself at Steve. Steve unwound himself from around Robin quicker than should have been possible to be able to catch Dustin in time but catch him he did.

“You- you died. You died! You told me you loved me then you just went and died on me like an asshole. How could you- please, please don’t ever do that again. Swear to me, I can’t… I can’t-” Dustin was screaming, wailing into Steve’s neck, the sound echoing loudly around the room while everyone simultaneously tried not to intrude on their moment while not being able to bear the thought of leaving Steve.

“I know, I’m so sorry, Dusty. I’m so sorry. Never again, I swear on your mother.” Steve tried for humour but even he couldn’t push past all the emotion in his voice. “Never again.” He had his own face buried into Dustin’s hair, his arms wound tight around him, unable to keep his voice from wobbling.

Once Dustin had stopped screaming and cursing and was able to take a few deep breaths, he loosened his arms slightly, allowing Steve to glance up towards the other kids. 

It was all the invitation Max needed. 

She threw herself against Steve and Dustin, clutching on to them for dear life. She had barely made contact before the rest of the kids were rushing forward, grabbing onto any piece of Steve or each other they could reach.

Dustin unwound an arm from around Steve’s neck, opening his body up, looking back towards Eddie and Erica.

She shot forward, being pulled right into the centre of the group hug, right up against Dustin, Steve and Robin.

Robin still had herself pressed in close, her arms around Erica and Dustin while the kids all muttered and cried and punched and breathed. They told Steve they couldn’t lose him again, they practically fell all over themselves to tell him how much they appreciated him, how important he was, the guilt at thinking him dead and having never told him how much he meant had been eating away at all of them for a solid month. They even turned to Robin and told her how happy it made them to have her back too. They’d missed their Aunt Buckley. 

That started a fresh round of tears from everyone.

Movement to his side caught Eddie’s eye. Nancy was standing a little bit away, pale faced and swallowing repeatedly, trying to keep her emotions in check. She looked like she was desperate to throw herself into the fray but didn’t know if she’d be welcome, didn’t know if she was allowed. 

Her eyes were shining and her mouth was tight as Eddie approached her. He took her hand in his and pulled her forward. She turned her wide gaze on him as he led her closer, scared and apprehensive but Steve raised his head and held his own hand out to her. Will and Mike almost immediately shifted to the side, pulling her into the group with them.

Steve sent a short thankful glance Eddie’s way before turning his watery attention back to that wild eclectic group of people that loved him so incredibly.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 AO3

@romanticdestruction, @darkwitchoferie, @justforthedead89, @didntwant2come, @estrellami-1, @warlordess, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @weeennussy, @studentlife-with-sassyaf-friends

[veliseraptor]

flying across the country later this week so as usual it's time for a 150 WORDS MEME!!! send me a number (or up to three) and I'll write 150 words in that wip. annnnd go, excerpts under the cut (and you can find summaries for the fics here)

1. “I didn’t ask this of you!” Xingchen said. “That you would - sully your hands with demonic cultivation, bring back the person you hate most in the world, for my sake–” 

“You never got that you were the only one who really mattered, Daozhang,” said an all-too familiar voice behind him. Song Lan’s entire body seized up and he twisted around to see Xue Yang perched on the windowsill, his eyes fixed on Xingchen like there was nobody else in the room – in the world, maybe. Song Lan’s blood turned to ice. Xingchen’s mouth opened, his head lifting, but Song Lan couldn’t decipher the expression on his face.

“Xue Yang,” he said, his voice a trembling whisper. Xue Yang’s face broke into a smile, his eyes feverishly bright.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s me.” (Life After Death)

2. “So,” he said, and then realized he didn’t really know what to say next. Xue Yang watched him with a look of wide-eyed innocence that said he knew Xiao Xingchen was struggling and wasn’t going to help him. A spark of annoyance had Xiao Xingchen pressing his lips together.

“So what do you do when you’re not…”

“Getting scraped off the road by nice boys?” Xue Yang said with a crooked smile, and Xiao Xingchen’s face heated up a little.

“I assume that’s not how you spend most of your time.”

“Not usually, no,” Xue Yang said. “Maybe I should try it more often, though.” (Redux)

3. By the time they pulled up to the house Pete and Macau had apparently picked out, Vegas was exhausted, despite the fact that all he’d done was sit in a car for a half an hour. That was bad enough, but then the walk up a short flight of stairs to the front door left him out of breath and a little dizzy. He ended up leaning on Pete, the burning in his chest not just from what apparently counted as exertion now. 

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It’s okay,” Pete said soothingly. “The doctor said you’d get tired–”

“I know what the doctor fucking said,” Vegas snapped at him. “I didn’t think that meant ten stairs would be a problem.” His heart was beating very hard. What was he supposed to do? If riding in a car and a few stairs wiped him out like this–

Useless. Worthless. Pathetic. (post-canon vegaspete long(er) fic)

4. “Pete said the shootout happened around noon,” Vegas said. “By the time you told me, it’d been hours.” 

Porsche wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions, so his discomfort was obvious. “Well,” he said, “there was a lot going on, and–” 

“Don’t bullshit me, Porsche,” Vegas growled, interrupting. “You held off telling me what happened on purpose. Was that your idea or somebody else’s?” 

The fact that Porsche didn’t look happy just made Vegas angrier right now. If he at least had the grace to be smug and shitty about it then that would be something Vegas knew how to take, and how to deal with. (Undercut)

5. He realized that for all Xue Yang’s vicious words, he had never spoken in any detail of that time. There was his mention of a garden, his assertion that Xingchen had been happy, and that one brief goading allusion to a relationship that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Other than that…nothing. It would, he thought, be an easy weapon for Xue Yang to use against him, to rub Song Lan’s face in the knowledge of their – friendship, however false it had been. 

And yet there was silence there. That’s not yours, Xue Yang said, like memories were something he could hoard, possess, like a stolen sword or – or a piece of candy. (Walking Far From Home)

6. Nai had a strange look on his face, vaguely distressed but also like he was thinking very hard. “What was his name?”

Wolfwood opened his mouth on a lie but found himself saying, “Vash.” He filled his lungs with smoke and held his breath for a little while before letting it out, watching Nai closely. His expression looked like he was trying to remember something, and a chill went down Wolfwood’s spine. What happened if the old Knives suddenly just…woke up, like this, got all his memories back and…what would he do? What would he be able to do? 

But then Nai shook himself and squeezed his eyes closed. “Vash,” he said again, out loud. “And you’re Nicholas D. Wolfwood.” The way he said it was so careful and serious that it was hard not to crack a grin. This was all still too weird to actually follow through with it, though.

“Wolfwood works,” he said. 

“Why not Nicholas?” Nai asked, apparently genuinely curious. “Doesn’t sound as cool,” Wolfwood said, improvising instead of saying well for one thing it’d be really fucking weird for you specifically to call me that. If baby Knives got to calling him Nico that’d be it. (The Second Coming)

7. “Pain makes you snide,” Gabriel said. “But I would rather you not strain yourself anyways, my dear.” There was a towel over his arm and he carried a bowl and a pitcher of water. “Are you hungry?” 

Lymond’s eyes tracked his every movement, a falcon observing an eagle. “That depends. What price sustenance?” 

“No price,” Gabriel said. “And I shall take that for answer.” He shook his golden head. “I wish you would not insist on thinking so poorly of me when I simply seek to care for you in your time of need.” 

“Simply that,” Lymond said. “I see. And should I decline your gracious offer?” 

“I fear I cannot oblige,” Gabriel said. “How could I permit your self-destruction when I can prevent it?” 

“Quite easily, I should think,” Lymond said. (et ipsi sunt jacula)

8. “A month,” Xue Yang said. “You’ve got a month to impress me. I’ll leave your baby brother alone and you get to see him, once, before that time’s up. And you tell me everything. If I think you’re holding anything back I’ll have a fierce corpse tear you apart. Maybe it’ll even be your a-Ning.” His grin was full of teeth. “And if it works out then maybe we can keep it going. How’s that, Wen-daifu?”

“I don’t imagine I’m going to get anything better,” she said flatly.

“You won’t.” Xue Yang cracked his neck to one side and stretched his arms overhead. “All right, then. So what d’you have for me?”

Wen Qing kept herself from exhaling in relief. A terrible relief: it was a poisoned bargain, a pathetic shield, and right now all she had. Maybe by then…maybe by then things would be different. Jin Guangyao had said…

She couldn’t trust anyone’s word. Not here. 

Except, funnily enough, she thought she could trust Xue Yang’s. Whatever else he was, there was a strange kind of honesty in him. She didn’t doubt he could kill her without blinking and never think twice about it. But she thought he’d keep his promises. (fall apart, destroy, release)

9. Liu Mingyan was a problem. 

If she had to be fair (though Sha Hualing was not generally interested in being fair), she was less annoying than her brother, but that was setting a remarkably high bar, and she was more annoying to Sha Hualing specifically. As far as Sha Hualing could tell, Mingyan-guniang had made it her business to interfere with Sha Hualing’s business at every possible opportunity. Sometimes it seemed like she couldn’t turn around in the Human Realm without running into her, even when Sha Hualing wasn’t doing anything wrong. Or hadn’t done anything yet, anyway. 

Or at least hadn’t done anything Liu Mingyan could possibly know about. (under pressure)

10. “Don’t suppose you’d take these off now,” Xue Yang said, holding out his arms. “Seeing as we’ve got a common enemy.”

“No,” Song Lan said flatly. Xue Yang turned his eyes hopefully on Xiao Xingchen, who seemed like he might be a softer touch, but he seemed to be busy cleaning out the shallow wound that’d sliced open Song Lan’s left arm. Xue Yang suppressed his prickle of annoyance and held onto his smile.

“Really? I’m not your biggest problem anymore, Song-daozhang.”

“You’re still a problem,” Song Lan said. Xiao Xingchen raised his eyes briefly from Song Lan’s arm to his face, and then glanced toward Xue Yang. Xue Yang held in the urge to show his teeth, but Xiao Xingchen just turned his eyes back to the wound he was tending anyway. “Freeing you would make you a worse one. Turning the wolf loose when there’s a tiger hunting doesn’t give the hare a better chance.”

“Does that make you two rabbits?” Xue Yang said. (strangers once united)

11. “Why won’t it work, you mean?” Xue Yang said, and laughed. “I can’t tell you all my secrets, Zichen.” 

Don’t call me that, Song Lan almost wrote, but he stopped himself. There was almost certainly no better way to ensure that Xue Yang called him nothing else. Instead he wrote, I would expect you to want to brag.

“Ha,” Xue Yang said. “What would be the point? It’s not like you’d be impressed. And you already know how good I am. Was.” His smile fell away a little, momentarily, and for a split second Song Lan saw him as he’d truly been when he died, hollowed out and exhausted, bloody and beaten even before Song Lan slid Fuxue between his ribs. “You are how good I was. My greatest creation. Even more than the Yin Tiger Seal. I just remade that, after all, but you were all mine.” 

Song Lan couldn’t actually vomit but the nausea was still overpowering. He gritted his teeth, controlling himself through the waves of hatred and disgust that rolled through him. (the poison in your bones)

12. “What is it?” Anders asked. “You’re upset.” 

Fenris bit his tongue on his first response and instead said, “I think you can agree that it hasn’t been a particularly good day.”

“Oh,” Anders said. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He paused. “Wait. Where’d all the Templars go?”

“To the Maker’s embrace, I suppose,” Fenris said. 

“They’re dead?” Pause, then, sounding a little disconcerted, “did I kill them?” 

“No, mage,” Fenris said, his patience running even shorter. “I killed them. Now shut up.”  If Anders were just a little shorter he would throw him over his shoulder. If he wanted to risk a brain injury that would incapacitate him even longer Fenris would knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, neither option was viable. 

“Oh,” Anders said. But thankfully, for once, he listened.

Or, as it turned out when Fenris turned his head to look at him, he’d just passed out again. (the best all lack conviction)

[theladyofbloodshed]

A Court of Tangled Flames - Epilogue

Big, big thank you to my Neris lovers who've enjoyed this fic. A kiss on the forehead for all of you.

Life as lady of the castle was perfectly splendid. Nesta felt as if she was playing pretend most days - as though somebody would pinch her then she would wake up back in their run down cottage in the woods. Life was good. More than that, it was brilliant. She never wanted to go to bed, always wished the evenings would stretch out for longer, or she looked forward to the next day to see what it held. New servants had settled within the castle including a cook who found Nesta to be far too skinny for his liking, so spent his days concocting new creations in the kitchen for her to try. Eris had established solid trade agreements with both the Summer and Winter court so there had been an influx of new foods and spices flitting over the border for her to try. It did mean though that her body was softening. Instead of hollowed out, sharp cheek bones, when she smiled, her cheeks were like two rounded apples. She resembled Elain more that way.

Her mother-in-law visited from time to time and tried to encourage her to share her love of gardening but it was not for Nesta at all. Flowers were lovely to gaze upon, but having soil wedged under her fingernails was irksome. A handful of times when Lucien had visited in search of his mother, Nesta had gone with him to fish. She despised that too – and screamed the first time her line caught a fish – but it was enjoyable to sit beside the sea and watch the world roll by. Lucien was always good company. They never mentioned Elain or Beron, but found their own conversations. Nesta had also traded getting pummelled into the mud by Niamh for riding. She found she rather enjoyed the company of the horses, once she had learned how to saddle and brush her mare down. It allowed for freedom to explore without needing to know a destination like when she winnowed.

Without any coaxing from Eris, Nesta wanted to take a more hands-on approach to his court. Their court. Her court. Delight lit up his face at her suggestion. There had been no encouragement from him to do it but she felt it was her duty to be seen as their lady. His reign had not been without difficulty; a number of loyalists to Beron still remained though Nesta could not understand how the male had ever warranted such support. 

Her days were spent flanked by soldiers visiting far flung villages to speak with the locals about their lives. It was important to Nesta to be present. There were likely many families like hers who didn’t have a voice, who had empty bellies, and cold, stiff fingers. When she proposed helping those families, Eris did not try to talk her out of it. On the contrary, he led her to the vaults beneath the Forest House and encouraged her to see if she could make a dent in the vast hoard of treasure. Handing out gold did nothing though. Money would have solved many of their problems as mortals but it never got to the root of it. 

‘The farmers need to be supported financially. Farming needs to be seen as desirable to encourage more into the profession. It is hard work and not for the faint-hearted.’

Eris nodded from his seat at his desk. ‘A court with full bellies is a happy court.’

‘Can I count on you to propose it at a council meeting?’

He reached out his hand for her to take then Nesta was pulled onto his lap. He kissed her cheek. ‘You could do it.’

‘Certainly not. You can wage war for me. I will stay here and look beautiful.’

‘To which you do an excellent job, my love.’ His lips grazed against the curve between her neck and shoulder. ‘The offer is always there to speak up in council meetings. You offer a perspective to one of the rarest populations in the court.’

Her brows furrowed at his words. ‘And who is that?’

‘Those lucky enough to be married to such a handsome male. Such a rarity.’

Nesta couldn’t hide her snort as she climbed off from his lap. ‘What a high opinion you have of yourself. For clarification’s sake, Azriel is objectively prettier than you.’ Before Eris could raise a complaint, she held out her hand. ‘Come, my darling husband, or I will begin to think you are having an affair with your paperwork.’

Indeed, Eris shuffled to bed later and later as court duties kept him busy. He needed to learn to delegate, but his upbringing meant that he was unlikely to trust others with such important tasks.

In their new bedroom, Eris collapsed onto the bed with a sigh. Each of them had a pile of books on the bedside table; hers were romances whilst his were ancient texts about Prythian. Out of the corner of her eye, Nesta caught sight of the eight-pointed star on her back in black ink. It was a constant reminder of her life in Velaris. In the bond’s absence, she felt no different. There had been no ill-effects on her. But this tattoo lingered there, marring her skin.

‘What do we do with this?’

Eris caught her eye in the reflection of the mirror. ‘Keep it so we always have a higher ground against he who shall not be named.’

‘I hate it. It’s ugly and reminds me of him.’

It was a discussion that they had had many times before with no clear path through. Although Nesta could understand the merits of keeping it, she did not need a reminder of her life under Cassian’s rule. She wanted to move on from it all. To do that, it meant fulfilling the deal which had to be done face-to-face and she wasn’t ready for it yet, nor did she know what she would ask him for.

A knee sunk into the mattress as Nesta crawled towards Eris. She curled up beside him then brought his arm around her body. ‘I don’t want you to go tomorrow.'

Never in her wildest dreams did Nesta think she’d be begging a male to stay in her bed. And she’d never admit that to Eris because he’d gloat about how amazing he was.

‘It’s one night. I believe you told me that on Solstice.’

‘Yes – and look what happened then. What if you find your mate when you’re apart from me?’

There hadn’t been a night apart since Solstice when everything had gone disastrously wrong at breakfast. Even on the nights where Eris was late to bed, Nesta could never settle fully until he was beside her, no matter how tired her body was. It somehow always knew he wasn’t next to her.

‘I will spend the night with my brothers. I truly hope a bond does not snap to one of them or the Mother has a very wrong sense of humour.’

Nesta made a harumphing noise, still not happy with the arrangements.

‘And it’s tradition,’ he added.

Nesta gave a little groan as she nuzzled closer to him. ‘We are already married.’

As was his nature, Eris had insisted on researching absolutely everything about mortal weddings. He had bugged Lucien to allow him to talk to Jurian about it though the male had little information to pass on and the scant information he did have was severely outdated.

‘That tradition exists because couples never spend time together without chaperones so they do not engage in physical acts. We are married and have engaged in them.’

‘Multiple times,’ Eris said.

‘Exactly. So why do you need to spend a night away from me?’

Eris’ arm tightened around her body, squeezing the air from Nesta’s lungs. He gave a noise of discontent. ‘Because I have arranged for Gwyn and Emerie to stay in my stead but you cannot let me ever surprise you.’

That was a surprise. Nesta prised his arm away and rose up on her elbows, eyes lightening with excitement. ‘Truly? They’re coming here?’

In his dramatic fashion, Eris clutched a hand over his heart. ‘You would accuse me of lying?’

She couldn’t resist arching a brow at his question which made him smirk.

‘I never lie to you. Others, yes. To you, I simply omit some truths on the rare occasion.’

***

The desperation to give Nesta a mortal ceremony was an itch that could never quite by sated. There were countless obstacles that Eris could not manage to overcome. As Elin still required feeding every couple of hours, Feyre Archeron could not attend the wedding without bringing the babe which had been strictly forbidden by Rhysand therefore Feyre would not be attending. Nesta had taken the news well enough, shrugging that she had not expected her to come anyway. He had teased her, asking how she’d respond if he tried to forbid her from doing anything. Nesta had given him a look that suggested Eris would find his knife wedged into his balls if he tried such a thing, having well and truly had enough of others ruling her life.

Elain had not replied either way. Lucien had asked her directly for Nesta’s benefit and Eris would even put up with their shadow singer in attendance if that could coax the elusive, middle Archeron to the wedding. Still, she had not committed herself to the wedding. That one did hurt Nesta. She tossed off her hurts, throwing her hands in the air and declaring why should she care if her sisters couldn’t make an effort, but that told Eris enough.

Emerie had been easy enough to bring to the Autumn Court as Niamh was still a regular feature of her life. Gwyneth had been difficult, but Lucien had managed it all for him. At least there were two guests that Nesta truly wanted in attendance. He had to wonder what the females were up to in Nesta’s last night of freedom. Eris imagined it involved a great deal of squealing and laughing in Orla's home.

A far cry to his evening trying to resurrect a relationship between his brothers after centuries at each other’s throats. Still, Eris tried for their mother’s benefit. It was painful. Wedging splinters into his nailbeds might have been preferable. They had opted for archery and drinking. What could possibly go wrong? Ashur was on hand – sober – to ensure none of his brothers shot a wayward arrow through his heart. Eris did not truly think they would dare because they were utterly terrified of his darling wife. He might have dropped information into conversations between them about her penchant for revenge and devotion to him to enhance those beliefs.  

Eris knocked an arrow to his bow then shot an apple from the tree.

‘Easy shot,’ smirked Phelan.

His brother had adapted well enough to one hand. Instead of the long bow, he managed to use a crossbow and a specially made device that was fitted onto his stump to hold the bow. Phelan’s brow creased as he loaded an arrow then aimed for one of the fruits near the top of the tree. The arrow went wide, grazing the skin but not succeeding in tearing the apple from the tree.

‘I’ve only got one hand,’ he said by way of an excuse.

Lucien, who had always been the best with a bow, could not resist the opportunity to show off. ‘And I’ve got one eye.’

His arrow hit the apple that Fellen had aimed for, but as the fruit fell, he shot another. The arrow pierced it and held it in place against the trunk at head height.

Uther rolled his eyes at the display.

‘Amarantha would have been better off cutting out your tongue,’ muttered Xander.

They never spoke of that time beneath the mountain. It was an unspoken rule across Prythian that those fifty years weren’t to be spoken about. Lucien had freedom during that time, but Eris doubted it was pleasant. Maybe one day, the brothers would heal their wounds together. It was too much to manage for now. Having Lucien present amongst the others was already tentative ground.

‘Lucky for me, I have both hands and both eyes – and my tongue,’ said Eris, stepping in before any words could be said about Hybern’s general. ‘And I taught all of you everything you know.’

He downed a shot then loosed another arrow that embedded itself a whisker away from Lucien’s arrow.

‘Mother will have kittens if we tarry too long.’

It earned a collective laugh from his brothers then Uther chimed in with comments about being a mama’s boy. A secret part of him was glad for them.

***

Being walked down the aisle was a rite of passage denied to Nesta. Had her father been alive, she could not say that she truly would have wanted it either. Eris would have been a perfect choice hand-picked by her mother because, on the surface, he was rich beyond belief, with an outstanding social status. She’d have disregarded the infamous cruelty. They would not have cared if he really was wicked because their goal for Nesta was to stamp her way to the top. She supposed she had simply been lucky that beneath it all, Eris had a heart made of gold.

‘Oh, look at you,’ murmured Orla, dabbing at her eyes, as she gazed at Nesta in her wedding gown.

‘It’s only a wedding,’ Nesta said, casting off the compliment before it landed.

Gwyn’s eyes popped. ‘You’re not excited?’

‘I am,’ she insisted, ‘but he’s already my husband. We already have our life together.’

Niamh, who was finishing threading flowers through Emerie’s glossy curtain of hair, shrugged one shoulder. ‘I think it’s Eris’ excuse to ply you with more cake. Since you’re filling out your clothes better, you both reek of sex.’ She flashed a sharp-toothed grin. ‘More to grab onto.’

It was true that her changing body had been well-received by Eris. Her softer thighs were plastered with kisses. His hand never strayed far from her stomach even when she tried to breathe in and hide it. Where her skin had stretched on her hips, faint threads of purple could be seen, but any discomfort over them was washed away by Eris’ gentle caresses. As Niamh had said, there was more to hold onto. Her wedding dress had been altered a number of times to the point where the seamstress had threatened to cut her off desserts if she had to adjust the gown again. Nesta had asked Eris if he preferred her when she was heavier, but he’d replied that he preferred her when she was happy.

‘The carriage is here,’ Emerie called. Her hands were braced on the windowsill, peering out towards the garden.

A small smile ticked up the corner of Nesta’s mouth. ‘Wouldn’t it be delightfully funny if we did not show up?’

Niamh cackled at the suggestion.

‘Oh, don’t be so cruel to him,’ said Orla though she tried to hide her own smile.

She was tempted to send Safila wearing her veil though she’d miss out in seeing Eris’ exasperate expression.

Her night had been spent giggling into the darkness with her friends at Orla’s house. Gwyn had fallen asleep first so Nesta had moved into bed with Emerie to continue talking without disturbing, but they hadn’t slept until the first rays of light were beginning to bleed into the sky. The thought of having to socialise all day with stiff-upper-lipped lesser lords of the Autumn Court did not thrill Nesta with joy. She could endure it for her husband.

Their chatter didn’t fade as they climbed into the carriage and gazed out upon the rich forests of the court that she called home. It hurt her a lot that Feyre and Elain couldn’t make an effort for her wedding, but she had the females that mattered in the carriage with her. Gwyn and Emerie had gotten her through her most miserable moments in Velaris, and Orla had done the same when she had arrived to the Autumn Court. And Niamh, well, she was just Niamh. The female in question had cocked her legs over the side of the carriage so they hung loosely – wild through it all.

The castle came into view on the horizon. A salty sea wind blew through their hair. Never did Nesta think she’d be so calm around open water after everything that had happened, but she did enjoy spending every moment that she could gazing out across the sea.

Her lips parted in confusion when the carriage veered towards the left rather than the well-worn path towards the castle.

‘Where are we going?’

She craned her neck behind her, trying to catch a glimpse of flowers or guests, but came up empty. None of the others seemed remarkably surprised by the carriage’s direction.

Gwyn and Orla had to force themselves backwards into their seats as the carriage made its way up a steep hill otherwise they’d have fallen into Nesta’s lap. Her own back was pressed against the seat from the tilt of the hill.

‘I do hope the horses will make it,’ murmured Emerie.

Niamh flashed her a wide smile. ‘If they fail, I’ll pull us along.’

It earned a snort of laughter from her sister.

‘Through love, anything is possible,’ Niamh shot back.

‘So it seems, dear sister.’

Nesta raised her eyebrows. ‘Is it bad if I almost wish the horses would stop to see Niamh try.’

‘It can be a wedding gift.’

The carriage rolled to a stop and eyes fell to Niamh, but she jerked her chin to a path ahead. Pink and purple heather had been cut back to reveal a sloping path covered in sand.

‘Does my husband intend we hike to the altar?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Orla with a wink as she held open the door to the carriage for them all to exit. ‘We’ll go first as is your mortal tradition.’

These confounded traditions, thought Nesta. As her friends began the short walk upwards, her heart fluttered against her ribs. It was silly. They were already married. Why did she feel so nervous at the prospect of marrying him again? Nesta had been vehement that in the absence of her father – whom she would not have wanted to do the task anyway – she needed nobody to give her away. No more males needed to rule her. Although Lucien had offered, Nesta knew how to take care of herself now. It did mean that she had to do this walk alone and she was terribly struck by nerves all of a sudden.

When Emerie’s wings became a blur on the horizon, Nesta began her own walk. The warmth was pleasant enough though not stifling and she was helped along by the brisk wind blowing upwards from the sea. She pinched her skirts with one hand, lifting them from the sand, and held her bouquet with the other. It lacked elegance or subtlety; bright sunflower heads were interspersed with deep red roses. They had been grown by her mother-in-law however which made it far more special.

The breath whooshed out of her lungs as she crested the hill. Nesta had expected row upon row of sour-tempered old males who were invited out of duty as well as numerous representatives of other courts who were all strangers.

She was sorely wrong.

Amongst the rugged gorse and lichen-covered stone, a modest crowd was gathered. There were less than thirty in total, and all ones that Nesta knew personally. It was so relaxed. Maceo was there, sat beside Lucien. Ashur sat behind them with two others that Nesta recognised as Eris’ closest males within the army. Her group of females, in their burnt orange gowns, stood to one side of the altar, smiling and whispering. A jolt of shock ran through Nesta at the sight of Elain, hesitant and nervous, but resplendent in a pale-yellow dress in a seat next to Eliška. Her heart softened and her eyes grew teary.

Eris held his hand for her to take as she reached him.

He stood beneath a canopy that was dripping with brightly coloured flowers. The view from the cliff that Eris had chosen for their wedding was incredible. The sea stretched out in front of them; powerful waves met the cliff. Their castle stood in full view amongst the shallows and a tall ship was moored at the port further in the distance.

‘On a clear day, you can make out the Cliffs of Mohirn on the Continent,’ he murmured, squeezing her hand.

‘It’s very pretty, but you assured me you’d never make me hike.’

‘It was a little hill.’

‘In a wedding gown.’

‘And how beautiful you are with colour in your cheeks,’ he leaned down to kiss one.

A priestess that she recognised as the one who officiated their rushed ceremony where Nesta wore a night gown was there to officiate once more. She gave Nesta a smile in greeting, likely thinking of that day. The vows that day had been repeated in a state of numb disbelief.

They held hands, facing each other. There was a slight tremble to Eris’ hands.

‘Why are you nervous?’ She whispered. ‘It’s not like I can say no when I’m already married to you.’

That remark had his lips curving into a smile. ‘True enough.’

Her thumb drove in a circle atop his as she recited her vows. ‘I vow to protect you, to love you, to worship you, and to always be at your side. As the Mother is my witness, I am forever yours.’

Eris turned to the awaiting crowd, ‘We all heard her vow to worship me, didn’t we?’

‘I’ll have a statue built to the sky in your honour,’ she replied, rolling her eyes.

For his, Eris released her hands. She was pulled a step closer. One hand rested on the small of her back, the other cupped her face. She loved those amber eyes, the sharp edges of his face, the constant whirring of the gears behind it all.

‘I vow to protect you, to love you, to worship you, and to always be at your side. As the Mother is my witness, I am forever yours. You lucky thing.’

The kiss was chaste in the presence of his mother, Nesta was delighted to note. A faint pink even stole across Eris’ cheeks. She leaned towards his ear and whispered, ‘Like a blushing maiden.’

The evening was beautiful. There was no awkwardness when all the guests were such good friends. Even the Vanserra brothers were on their best behaviour under the watchful eye of their mother. The female in question had well and truly bloomed once more. She laughed easily, reminding Nesta of Lucien; she had a wit as quick as Eris’ and engaged anybody in delighted conversation. Her and Orla gravitated towards each other too.

Nesta had danced with every guest, including Elain where she took the lead as if she was male, making Elain giggle. ‘I’m so glad you came.’

‘I am glad to be here.’

‘Did Lucien-’

‘Yes,’ she replied quickly. ‘He persuaded me.’

A grin spread across Nesta’s face. ‘Did he now.’

‘Not like that,’ she clarified, colour blooming in her cheeks. ‘He said his mother had rare orchids in a greenhouse amongst other plants and I could take as many cuttings as I wanted back to Velaris.’

Nesta had to wonder whether her mother-in-law had perhaps planted that seed in her son’s mind. It did not bother her either way; she was simply glad Elain could be a part of the celebrations.

Eventually, Eris managed to spirit her away from the dancing by hauling her into his arms and carrying her off. His fire danced above the ground, lighting the way, then they stopped near the edge of a cliff.

‘You’re not planning on throwing me, are you?’

He laughed heartily. ‘Not today.’

His lips pressed against her neck. ‘Did you see the tall ship earlier?’

‘I did.’

‘I heard it is a tradition for newly-wedded couples to take a trip and enjoy each other’s company.’ Another kiss. ‘Winnowing seems dull when I could pretend that I know how to sail.’

‘We’re going on that ship?’   

Eris nodded. ‘If we don’t like it, we can abandon the crew and winnow. I might get terrible sea sickness.’

‘The High Lord of the Autumn Court defeated by waves.’ Nesta linked her fingers into Eris’ and brought his hands to rest on her abdomen as she leant back against him. ‘What is our destination, captain?’

‘The Continent. Elain mentioned that you always wanted to. Think of all the book shops and bakeries that you can explore.’ He gave a soft laugh. ‘I’ve been monitoring Briallyn and Koschei. Azriel too. I’d never take you to danger. Everything is safe.’

‘You are wonderful.’

‘I know,’ he replied, kissing her again. ‘But so are you. My wife is so nice that I married her twice.’

‘Oh no, don’t tell people that.’

Nesta knew that would only encourage him. Once he decided to be mischievous, little could ever dissuade Eris.  

‘I might change my name to Eris Archeron.’

‘Do I need to divorce you twice or will just once do the trick?’

Eris held her hand, ready to lead her back to the crowd. ‘Thank you for taking a chance on me, many months ago. It was the best thing that ever happened in my life.’

‘And now we have a forever together.’

‘Here’s to forever, my love.’

[scifrey]

Carpe Diem

Status: One-Shot

Series: the Hob Adherent series

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death.

Relationships:  Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Lucifer, Patrick the Bartender, Crowley, Aziraphale, Johanna Constantine, Matthew the Raven

Summary: Hob turns six hundred and sixty-six, invites some fellow Immortals to his bar to celebrate, and receives a gift from Satan herself. Or, the Key to Hell was always going to Be a Problem(tm).

Set between the epilogue and chapter one of Cling Fast.

READ ON AO3 OR READ BELOW:

Hob tells Patrick he’s turning thirty-six. 

About five minutes before the party is set to start, he takes immature delight in adding a tiny little x2 between the 3 and the 6 on the poster wishing him a happy birthday with a sharpie. Normally Hob doesn’t make much of a fuss about his birthday–it’s too easy for his fellow, aging humans to start tracking them that way–but it’s May 1st in the Year of Our Lord 2022, and Hob Gadling is turning six hundred and sixty-six years old.

He figures that deserves a party.

They close The New Inn for the private event, and Patrick, grumpy bastard that he is, refuses to hire in a catering staff so he can enjoy himself, too. 

“It’s your birthday, Bob,” he says, as Hob is tying off the last of the bunting above the banquettes. “I’m not having a stranger back here screwing up your orders.”

“We do need to hire a server before the summer, though,” Hob points out, jumping down and wiping the tread-prints from his shoes off the leather seat. “And a new kid for the kitchen.”

“Well it’s not happening any time today, so just… let me celebrate you from my happy place.”

“Fine, fine,” Hob grants with a smile. Patrick is very, very good at his job. He also has an anxious fear of crowds, when there isn’t wood and fridges and pint-glass washers between him and other people. “But tell me you’ll try to relax a bit, please. It’s my party, and I want you to have fun.”

Patrick gifts him with a set of bowfingers and turns his back to resume prep. Hob wonders what the Signature Cocktail du Jour is going to be, with that many sliced limes, peaches, and strawberries.

Hob is generally very pleased with himself and the world. He’s in a university and profession he loves, he’s inspiring young minds and hearts towards kindness and generosity to their fellow humans, he’s very slowly restoring the White Horse one city council fight at a time, he is master of The New Inn and it’s domain, and he is swiftly becoming best friends with a magical talking raven. 

And, of course, in the nine months since Morpheus has broken free of his prison and returned to Hob’s life, he has become a fixture of his Tuesday afternoons and no small part of his attention and affection besides. That's something worth celebrating, too. Hob's Stranger has somehow, wonderfully, become his friend. And he’s agreed to come today, which is even better. Hob has been getting better at couching his requests in dares, and highlighting his pleas with sad puppy eyes. The two things Morpheus, humanity’s facet of Dream of the Endless, seems to be weak against are a bet, and Hob showing any unhappiness or disappointment.

These facts are carefully recorded in his mental List of Things I Know About The Stranger. The list is growing longer, slowly but surely, which is thrilling in itself. Hob is starting to feel like he knows Morpheus, for a given value of ‘knowing’ when it comes to interacting with a singular facet of anthropomorphic personifications of vast universal concepts.

He’s also not above using this knowledge to his advantage, although he’s careful to deploy this hoarded wisdom to his own advantage very, very sparingly. No point in tipping his hand this early in their fragile friendship.

Hob is immortal, he’s happy, he loves his life and the people in it, and it’s his birthday. 

What isn’t there to celebrate?

The first guests arrive around happy hour, and clump together on one of the banquettes. They’re his colleagues in the History department, with the addition of a PhD hopeful who’s clearly tagged along in order to get into Doctor Gadlen’s good graces before the mad race for a thesis supervisor begins in the summer. Patrick knows some of them, as Hob’s dragged them here from the university often enough, and is happy to take care of them while Hob fiddles with the music. 

He's curated a playlist of his favorite songs from the last six and a half hundred years (the ones he could find recordings of, of course), and damn anyone who complains that the mix is weird.

Hob’s offering up beer and wine on the house, as well as soft drinks for those who prefer it, and platters of nibbles. Word must get back to the school because soon a second wave of professors and TAs slide through the door. The maxim is entirely true: academics are cockroaches and will pop up anywhere free food and booze are on offer. Hob’s happy to welcome them in, even if he only knows a few of them on sight, and even less by name.

A party is a party, and it fills him with joy to know they’ll be going home full and happy. Hob is High Priest of the Last Temple of Morpheus. It’s his duty to ensure everyone who comes through the doors of The New Inn leave in a state of mind and body to rest peacefully and fully.

Hob’s colleagues are joined soon enough by some of the bar regulars, folks from the social charities and organizations that Hob works with to keep the people on his little patch of city well-cared for and housed, and a few people who serve on the same Heritage Protections board as he’s a member of on behalf of the White Horse.

But there’s one particular person he keeps craning his head around to see, every time the little bell above the door jangles. The one particular person who has not yet arrived. Hob distracts himself with gracefully accepting presents he very specifically told people not to bring, offering up cheek-kisses and handshakes in return for the collection of cards, wine bottles, and novelty teacher mugs.

The sun sets, bringing along with it Johanna Constantine, and Ric the Vic, both of whom Hob knows peripherally through the Goings On (™) of London. They offer him their congratulations, and slide into one of the tables in the corner to enjoy their free libations and pretend strenuously that they’re not not planning to leave to fuck in the next few hours.

Hob had spread word through what passes for a grapevine in the sparse community of Otherfolk of the city that they, too, would be welcome at Hob’s birthday party. After all, they’re the only ones who’d understand–and enjoy the irony–of the number. He doesn’t actually expect many of them to take him up on it, but manners are manners.

All the same, he’s fairly sure he sees some of the Doors slipping in and out between his supply cupboard and the bar with a platter of pigs-in-a-blanket, and Bod Owens chatting up the PhD hopeful by the loos. The Marquis de Carabas’s coat catches his eye and Hob turns to welcome him, only to come face-to face with a very different imposing nobleman in a long distinctive coat.

“Happy Birthday , Hob Gadling ,” Morpheus greets him. He’s got the world’s tiniest potted cactus cradled in his palm, and he holds it out awkwardly to Hob. The tips of his ears, mostly hidden by the puff of his dark hair, are delicately pink. They’re the same shade of the seductive-slick curve of a conch shell, of the secret inside curve of his lips when he pouts, the tip of his tongue when he chases a stray drop of wine in a startlingly mortal gesture.

It’s adorable.

It’s not fair .

Hob really needs to get this stupid crush under control.

“Aw, is this for me?” Hob asks, delighted, as if the cactus pot wasn’t already embraced by a silky red bow.

Morpheus just raises his eyebrows, as if to say, Are you daft? so Hob takes it. He wonders if it would be too forward of him to buss a kiss off Morpehus’ cheek in thanks, as he has been doing with all of his other gift-givers this evening. 

It’s a step more intimate than the hand-holding they do when one or the other of them needs comfort during a difficult confession. But Morpheus is Hob’s friend now, and it’s how he greets his other friends. Morpheus deserves no less. He decides to go for it.

The King of Nightmares takes the kiss with startled good grace, and Hob pulls back quickly so he’s not imposing on Morpheus’ personal bubble. His friend can get prickly when he feels his sovereignty threatened, or his independence violated, for very understandable and obvious reasons.

He fiddles with the cactus, turning the pot around in his fingertips and admiring the single dusty-purple bloom at its apex. He hopes it’ll get enough sunlight in here.

“Where’s Matthew?” Hob asks, to fill the awkward silence.

“Behaving extremely poorly for a denizen of his station. ”

“Come again?”

“ Out front, entertaining some of your regulars by repeating filthy words for peanuts,” Morpheus says, amusement and disdain warring in his tone. Morpheus is forever despairing over Matthew’s constant desire to be in the spotlight. 

Hob laughs, delighted, and chivvies Morpheus over to the bar for a glass of his teeth-suckingly sweet wine. He directs his friend around to the empty place where the bar meets the wall beside the tiny area cleared of tables and chairs for dancing. No one has moved to that side of the pub yet, so it's empty of the press of dreamers that Morpheus sometimes finds overwhelming. 

Hob slips behind the bar to pour Morpheus's libation himself, ignoring Patrick’s eye roll. He doesn’t understand why Hob wants to be the only one to touch the wine. Sure it’s expensive, but it’s not like Patrick is going to pour it wrong or something.

But for Hob, it’s a ritual. It’s a gift.

It’s an offering to his friend and god.

It means something that Hob is the one who pours, who presents, who proffers.

Morpheus takes the cup with all the dignified grace that the gesture demands, and backs into the shadows to enjoy it in peace. Hob moves the cactus to pride of place on top of the coffee machine, and goes about fetching himself his own first drink of the evening. Now that Morpheus is here, he can finally relax and indulge.

“Don’t get any ideas above your station,” someone hisses at the little plant, and Hob peers around the machine to find The Bentley Snake hunched forward on his elbows, propped up behind the hidden corner of the bar, whiskey in hand. His dark red hair is shorn short on the sides this time, a long standy-uppy flop at the top, and he’s wearing the latest in a long line of painfully slim-cut black suits. 

Sometimes Hob wonders if he’s doing Immortality wrong, being the only one of the lot who seems to like wearing more than black or white.

“Please don’t threaten my new plant friend,” Hob asks him.

“Needs ssssssome threatening,” the Snake says, sunglasses trained on the cactus. “Thinks its high n’ mighty just cause it sprouted in the Dreaming.”

Hob processes this as he pulls a pint for himself. “You know about the Dreaming?”

“Sleep, don’t I?” the Snake mutters.

Hob refills the Snake’s whiskey glass, and clinks his pint off the Snake’s tumbler. “I don’t like to assume.”

“Oi, I sleep, don’t I, Lord Shaper?” the Snake says, with a jerk of his chin at where the bar meets the wall. 

Morpheus is little more than a black shadow and starshine eyes. He must be feeling a bit crowded, to have retreated so thoroughly. Hob doesn’t blame him–it’s starting to get stuffy, what with all the bodies and the salt-rank whiff of booze and sweat. The music is a touch loud now that there's so many voices competing to be heard over it, and Hob is thinking that now’s a good time to open the windows, let the pre-storm breeze that’s kicking up wash the place fresh.

Though he doesn’t point it out to the man, Hob’s Stranger has been different since his return. 

While before he was reserved and formal, now he’s skittish about touch, always buttoned up to the throat in whatever clothing he manifests for himself, and reluctant to allow himself to be crowded or contained. They're working on it, with long walks along the quay or visits to farmer's markets, but overcoming trauma is never a fast process. Even the occasional therapeutic hand-holding Hob imposes on him has to be well telegraphed, or Morpheus will shake him off without realizing he’s done so.

These are all very understandable and normal reactions to the torture he’d suffered at the hands of Burgess. But while Hob has done his best to comfort and guide Morpheus toward healing in his limited, mortal way, it’s not like he can he can force the God of Sleep to make an appointment with a headshrinker.

Hob flashes a glance over at Colonel Williams, by the front door, who is one of the social support folks Hob knows from helping the unhoused get back on their feet. She specializes in suppressed trauma and PTSD, and Hob wonders if there’s a way he could maneuver Morpheus into an ‘accidental’ conversation with the woman sometime tonight.

“ So deeply that I cannot oust you from my realm for decades at a time, Serpent, ” Morpheus rumbles, and right, Hob’s forgotten that he’s supposed to be mediating between two otherworldly entities. Morpheus turns his gaze to Hob. “What is he doing here?” 

Morpheus sounds two thirds curious and one third jealous.

He doesn’t mean it like that , Hob tells himself. It may be my birthday–well, the date I chose to be my birthday–but I’m not going to get that lucky.

An odd tension frazzles the air, and the Snake rolls his impossible spine backwards a bit, not retreating, exactly. Just not standing so close to Hob.

Huh.

Who knew that Morpheus would be so territorial with his head priest?

Hob laughs, trying disperse the feeling that if he’s not careful, he may inadvertently start a supernatural brawl. “Come on, my friend. You think after six and a half centuries, you’re the only creepy-crawly I know?”

“I am not a creepy-crawly, Hob Gadling,” Morpheus rumbles, with all the theatrical offense of a maiden-aunt. “But I did not think you would consort with the likes of him . Not with your upbringing as it was–”

The Snake bristles. “Hey! I was invited!”

Morpheus steps out of the shadows just enough for his face and hands–and empty wine glass–to be visible in the dim pub lighting. Night has well and truly fallen outside. He sets the glass on the bar top with a challenging tink .

“ Invited ,” Morpheus repeats flatly.

“I just let it be known among the Othered set that they were welcome to drop by,” Hob hisses, low enough that Patrick won’t be able to catch it over the conversation and music around them.

“It’s a special number, you know. I felt like it should be celebrated with everyone , especially those who really know what it means.”

Morpheus inhales sharply and turns narrowed, laser-focused, glacier-blue eyes to Hob’s face. “ How did you phrase this invitation? ” he asks with no little urgency.

Hob blinks. 

“Uh, something something freely welcome to partake of my hospitality, all those who know the number something something?” Hob says, nerves flooding him. He tugs on his ear. “Did I… um… say something I shouldn’t have?”

“ All those who know the number ,” Morpheus groans. “The number of the beast.”

"Six-one-six," the Snake says.

"Six- six- six," Hob corrects, "According to modern translations. Which is also the number of years I've… oh. No. No, it's my birthday ,” Hob says, sweat beading by his hairline and trickling down the back of his shirt. “That’s… that’s what I meant.”

“But that it is not what you said .”

The Snake straightens up all at once, eyes popping wide behind his glasses if the sudden height of his eyebrows are anything to go by. He slams back the rest of his whiskey and chokes: “That’s me out, then. Many happy returns, you poor doomed bastard. If you ever get any.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” Hob says, and chugs half his beer.

The Snake wends his way to the front door and is gone in a gust of chill spring breeze, and the sound of the rain just starting up outside. Hob hopes Matthew has found a good roost under one of the table umbrellas. One of these days, he's going to make good on his threat to get the raven a Service Animal vest, just so he can come inside in weather like this.

Morpheus fully manifests, posture tense, nostrils flaring. He scans the crowd. For who, Hob can guess, but he doesn’t like to think on it.

Morpheus has, after all, told him all about his trip to Hell.

And then the lights flicker.

Hob is… well, he’s almost disappointed by how dramatic the Devil’s entrance is. 

In the last six hundred years, he’s come to learn that people like him tend to lay low and not bring attention to themselves. Even Morpheus, with his fine clothes and fist-sized ruby, behaved as a mortal might at their meetings–walking into the White Horse, sitting down, no excess displays of power or even wealth, really, save for the handful of dreamsand he’d blown in Lady Constantine’s face.

But Hob has to give the Devil their due. When they play, they don’t play small.

The storm that’s been brewing since sunset suddenly, and violently breaks. Rain cascades against the roof like the rush of an oncoming train. A clap of thunder loud enough to rattle the martini glasses in their hangers above the bar shakes the room, making more than one person yelp. The crack of lightning that follows flares like an atom bomb, white light blasting in through the windowpanes, casting everyone in harsh, dramatic black-and-white chiaroscuro.

Ears ringing and eyes sparking, Hob sets down his beer and scrubs at his face.

(Okay, so he’s also a little disappointed there’s no fiddle sting to accompany their appearance. But then again, the New Inn is hardly Georgia.)

When his vision has cleared, Hob whirls around to check on his friends and colleagues. There’s probably something dangerous about turning your back to Satan, but he’s got the King of Nightmares guarding it. He’s more worried for the humans than the two celestial entities that are, if he knows his friend, puffing up and posturing. Hob skims out from behind the bar, heading for Patrick, who has stopped a few steps away from the service gap. 

And he's… he's just standing there.

Fear seizes Hob’s throat, and for a terrible second, he worries that the light really was an atom bomb, that everyone he’s ever known and loved in this life are nothing more than people-shaped pillars of ash, and it’s his fault. He invited them here, and then he invited the literal Devil as well, and now they're—

But no, when he reaches Patrick, his friend is alive. He breathes, he blinks, his flesh is soft and warm. But he’s frozen. Hob looks around and… yes, the humans in the room–well, the mortal ones, at least–have simply stopped moving.

“Are they…?” Hob crackles.

“ They will be fine,” Morpheus assures him. His hair is sticking straight out, like a furious cat, and he’s starting to lose coherence around the edges. His coat swirls off into shadow like heavy ink in water, his eyes are as fathomless as deep space, and his fingers elongate into razor-sharp and obsidian-tipped claws. “Time has stopped for them. When it resumes, it will be as if the lost moments never happened. ”

Not all of them, Hob thinks, seeing Johanna’s eyes darting around the room with terrified fury. He decides not to point it out, though, in case the Lightbringer decides to do something permanent and terrible about it. He just gives her a long look, and tries to put as much reassurance in his expression as he can. I’ll get us out of here safely, don’t you worry.

Johanna blinks back once, slow and squinty like a cat. Message received.

A quick glance also confirms that the rest of the Otherworld denizens have made themselves as sparse as the Snake. He doesn't blame them.

Then, finally, when he’s assured himself that everyone under his roof and thus in his care is as safe as they can be, with the literal Ruler of Hell sharing that selfsame roof, he skirts around the bar to join Morpheus on the empty dance floor. Only then does he allow all of his attention to settle on his new visitor.

They are… tall . ‘Grand’ is the adjective that comes to mind first, followed by ‘statuesque’ and ‘ literally awe-inspiring’.

That’s an angel , Hob things. Or at least, they used to be. Of course they’re so… present. So overwhelming.

It’s like having all of his senses buffeted all at once–all he can smell is the acrid tang of sulfur, all he can hear is a high-pitched screech, all he can see is an overwhelming brightness that might actually be an overwhelming darkness, and his skin feels like it’s covered with biting fire ants. He gasps, reaching out clumsily behind him to clutch at the bar, the crush of the gravitas emanating from the corner stealing the breath from his lungs.

One of Morpheus’ fingers stretches out, impossible and eerie. It taps Hob gently on the forehead, right where his third eye would be, if he was that kind of spiritual. The drowning rush of screaming discomfort snaps off, like a faucet cranked shut. Air rushes back into the room. 

“Be not afraid,” my hairy arse , Hob thinks, as he coughs and scrubs his eyes again. It’s a wonder the blessed virgin didn’t shriek her head off and go running off into the night.

“I’m… I’m fine,” he reassures Morpheus, as his friend shuffles a step closer, hand resting protectively on Hob’s shoulder.

It takes him a few seconds to actually see what he’s seeing. Satan themself is presenting as a white woman, with fair, severely arranged golden curls that resemble nothing so much as a crown of thorns across their forehead. What Hob took for giant bat wings is actually a luxuriously patterned black pashmina, draped artfully over across one shoulder, over a rich white tea-length dress.

For being the ruler of Hell, Hob has to admit that they actually look… well, glamorous . 

“Hello, Robert Gadling,” Lucifer Morningstar purrs from the empty stage in the corner of the pub. It’s little more than a triangular riser jammed against the wall, just big enough for a tall stool, a mic stand, and some folksy performer on Sunday afternoons. But it gives them an even greater height from which to look down their nose at him, so of course that’s where they manifested. “I am ever so grateful to be included.”

“Er, yeah,” Hob says, pushing himself upright and wiping his clammy hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Welcome, then.”

“ Hob ,” Morpheus says, scandalized. Shadows writhe anxiously in a puddle by his feet, the Nightmare side of Dream closer to the surface in his worry. 

“What?” Hob says. “Doesn’t hurt anyone to be polite.”  Hob steps forward and holds out his now-dry hand for the Devil to shake.

“Certainly not,” Lucifer agrees, and takes his hands between theirs. They pull him forward a few more steps, pressing his fingers between their palms as if they could taste his sins on his skin, and peers down at him with intelligent eyes the same color of the storm clouds outside. “And it’s been ever so long since I’ve been to a party .”

Hob cranes his head back to look up at them. They’re just a handspan away now, only their entwined arms between them keeping them parted, and for an absurd moment, he thinks that Lucifer is going to kiss him. Morpheus must think so too, because he lets loose a ripping growl, warning and threat in the sound to rival the thunderstorm outside.

Lucifer laughs and lets Hob go. They take a dainty step down from the stage, and sashay their way toward the bar on totteringly-high bleach-white pumps.

“I, uh, I‘ve got wine and beer,” Hob says, spinning around and scrambling to catch up with them. “Or anything harder. Or softer. Whatever you like, really. What can I pour for you?”

“Red wine, naturally,” the Devil purrs.

They stop at the bar just an arm's length from Morpheus, a clear challenge. They lean elegantly on one elbow against the padded edge, eyeing him up like they’d either like to eat him alive or gouge his eyes out. Possibly both. Hob slips between them like a fleshy immortal shield. Maybe it won’t actually keep them from lashing out at each other but, meh, he can’t die if they do.

He reaches over the bar, grabs one of the open bottles of Syrah, a glass from the rack above their heads, and pours a generous measure. He holds it out genteely to the Devil, and they accept it with good grace.

Hob then immediately refills Morpheus’ abandoned glass with his Vinsanto, and tops up his own with an awkward backwards reach for the amber tap. 

“So… are you gonna release them?” Hob asks, once Lucifer has raised their glass for a clink, and he’s very cautiously obliged. It feels like bad luck to drink from it right away, though, so he turns to offer the same toast to Morpheus, who stares hard at Hob as they clink glasses, as if he’s drilling a blessing into Hob’s skull.

“No, I think not,” Lucifer says, taking their first sip, and offering Hob an appreciative eyebrow bounce at the taste. “No need to cause a panic. But don’t worry; I shan’t stay for long. I only wanted to pop in and wish my new friend many happy returns.”

“Is that what we are?” Hob asks, with a huge gulp of beer. “Friends?”

“Of course!” Lucifer says, their eyes narrowing a little, shoulders tensing up, lips slimming tightly and… “We are friends, aren’t we Robert Gadling? Why else would you have extended your invitation to all who know the true number of your years?”

Which is… a bit of an odd thing for the Lightbringer to be worried about, honestly.

Hob looks again. There’s nerves there. There’s concern. Why would…

Oh . Hob thinks. They’re lonely, too.

Hob risks a glance back at Morpheus, who is clutching the stem of his wineglass tight enough that it’s creaking. His eyes are leaking purple-black starstuff around the perimeters, which whisps away like the leading edge of a fast-moving cloud. Otherwise, he's perfectly still, posture ramrod straight.

“Yes,” Hob answers, turning back to Lucifer. “Yes, we are friends. Why not? I’ve no quarrel with you, unless you’re here to drag me to Hell?”

Whatever it was the Devil was expecting Hob to say, it wasn’t that. They look first genuinely surprised, then flattered, then secretly pleased, then distraught in such quick succession that Hob barely has time to pass each expression as they pass over their face.

“Of course not!” Lucifer says, so quickly and so completely surprised that it comes out in a rush. They sound genuinely hurt at his assumption. “My kingdom only contains those human souls who believe they should be there. They send themselves to Hell. Please. I have better manners than to drag anyone against their belief and will.” They narrow their eyes at Hob and take another sip of wine, struggling to regain their teasing nonchalance. “Why, have you done something worthy of punishment?”

Many things, Hob thinks. Terrible things. Things I just hope one day I live long enough to be able to atone for. 

“Ah, well, this isn’t about my death,” Hob hedges. “Which I am still not interested in, thank you very much. This is a celebration of my life!”

“It is indeed. Happy six hundred and sixty-sixth birthday, Robert,” Lucifer says, and they clink glasses once more. 

“Hob,” he offers up. “My friends in the know call me Hob.”

“ Hob, ” Morpheus hisses again. “ You are being unwise. ”

“I’m being personable ,” Hob corrects, but takes a tiny step back, closer into Morpheus’s orbit, to appease him. One of the swirling black shadows wraps around Hob’s ankle.

“Dream Lord!” Lucifer greets him, sounding as if they have just noticed him behind Hob for the first time. “What a delight to see you again so soon.”

“Lightbringer, ” Morpheus growls in return. 

“And how do you know our dear little birthday boy?”

Morpheus lets out another grumbling snarl, all without changing the placidly haughty expression on his face.

“Robert Gadling is my head priest, as well you know, ” Morpheus intones, voice as deep and dangerous as the fathomless darkness at the bottom of an ocean. “ You stand in my temple uninvited. ”

“Just as you bullied your way into Hell?” Lucifer asks silkily. They sip their wine showily. “Besides, I was invited, wasn’t I?”

Both pairs of eyes fall on Hob, their weight like a physical blow, and he buys himself some time by taking a long drink of his beer. Which, of course, goes down the wrong pipe, and leaves him coughing like a complete tit in front of two of the greatest powers in the universe.

Oh yeah, that’s me. Hob “embarrassingly human” Gadling.

Morpheus sets down his wine and hastily lays a hand on Hob’s curved back. It’s probably meant to be as possessive as it is calming, but at this point, Hob doesn’t mind. It feels good to have the comfort of his friend’s proximity. And the very visible gesture of his claiming and protection.

“I see I am in danger of wearing out my welcome,” Lucifer sighs, as if put upon. They finish their wine in a serpent-like gulp, opening their jaws wider than the mouth of their human-shape ought to allow, and set the glass aside. 

“Quite.”

"In which case, allow me to present me with your gift unto you now, Robert Gadling of Essex," Lucifer says.

With a flourish, they're suddenly cupping something spindly and large in both their palms. It is the ivory of old bone, gnarled and pitted, and looks nothing so much as a big, eldritch key. There’s a circle at the top, crowned with four spikes, and the teeth on the shaft look as if they may be made of actual fangs.

And, of course, much like Morpheus’ cactus, it is topped with a whimsical, cheery red bow.

Morpheus lets out a horrified gasp.

“I had intended on bestowing this differently,” Lucifer drawls, eyeing Morpheus meaningfully. “But as it is in poor form to attend a birthday party with no gift for the celebrant.”

She turns the full weight of her gravitationally heavy gaze on Hob.

“Er… thank you?” Hob asks.

“You will not, soon enough.”

Yeah, okay, that sounds like a trap , Hob thinks. But with no clue how or even why he might refuse the gift from a literal fallen angel, and what the eternal ramifications of that action might be he does, Hob reaches out to take the key.

“ Do not accept! ” Morpheus all but wails. “ If you become ruler of Hell, you will never again cross the threshold into my realm.”

That’s saying a little more than I think Morpheus means to , Hob thinks, fingers frozen in the air, hovering above the ribbon. It sounds less like “you’ll be barred from my realm” and more “I’ll never see you again.”

“Is that true?” Hob asks. "This will make me ruler of Hell ?"

Lucifer smirks triumphantly.  “I have already emptied Hell of all its demons. The gates are shut. Even now, the fires ash and grow cold. I have renounced my crown. A new King is required. They who next touch this Key will become that King.”

Hob shudders, short hair springing up, skin crawling with horror. Demons. Loose on Earth. Loose everywhere . And unable to be commanded to return to Hell by exorcism or spell, for the gates would be barred to them.

He cuts a look to Johanna, who is clearly following all of this. There are tears running down her cheeks. Sweat breaks out on Hob's brow, heart pounding hard behind his ribs, dread creeping down his spine. He hasn't felt this sunk with terror since he first came face-to-face with a machine gun in a muddy trench.

He's being given a choice.

It's not much of a choice.

Hob licks his lips, hoping his voice is steadier than his trembling, hovering hands.  “What happens if I don’t accept your gift?” he crackles, voice barely above a whisper.

“Then I will think that you have very poor manners indeed,” Lucifer pouts. 

Hob's breath shudders out of him, leaving his skin cold and nerves on high alert. “That’s all?”

"Of course, I will then have to bestow the Key upon the next most worthy candidate,” Lucifer says, eyes slinking up to Morpheus over Hob’s shoulder like toxic honey and, ah, there it is.

There’s the trap.

If Hob accepts the Key, he will become King of Hell, and never see Morpheus again. But he could command the armies of the damned back into their pits, and possibly, like he has in his little kingdom here on Earth, find new and better ways to help those there punishing themselves.

But if Morpheus accepts the Key, then Dream of the Endless will become King of Hell, plunging every sentient being in existence into unspeakable horror every time they fall asleep.

Which makes Hob’s choice a very, very simple one.

Before Morpheus can stop him, Hob plucks the key out of Lucifer’s hand. 

" Hob !" Morpheus wails.

He reels back, as if all the places he was touching Hob suddenly burn him. The floor shudders beneath their feet, the foundations rumbling without warning. Thunder? Hob guesses, then, No, earthquake!

The room shakes with the power of Morpheus' fury and agony. Hob grasps at the bar to stay upright, and wonders if now that its head priest has become overlord of another realm, the temple of the New Inn will defile and crack apart around them all.

Morpheus keens like a wounded hart, clutching at his chest. He staggers, rocked by the judder of the floor, what little color he had manufactured for this humanish form draining away entirely. Outside, Matthew is cawing furiously, battering against the window in a desperate attempt to break in.

Hob's stomach heaves, and he's not sure if it's from the shaking of the building, or the enormity of what he's just done. What he's just accepted.

“What, no kiss for my gift, your Majesty?” Lucifer laughs, shrill and triumphant. 

They seize Hob's face between red-taloned hands, and press a fire-hot, acid-slick mouth against his. Hob screams , the crawling burn of his flesh melting from his lips outwards throwing his animal mind into a mindless, terrified panic. Someone's hands fist in the back of his jumper, yanking at him, but the Devil's grip has seared him down to the bone, fingers embedded in his cheeks, nails scraping against the side of his teeth and tongue. The searing agony reaches his eyes, sizzles in his tears, so all he can see is the poisonous green steam of his own eyeballs boiling in their sockets.

Glass shatters, a bird cries out, a door slams open, cracking against a wall, a sonorous voice calls his name, and Hob flails, kicks, screams, and screams, and screams and—

"Forgive me, I am a titch late. I got caught up reading and… goodness me!" a prim voice gasps. "Well, this won't do at all!"

A loud noise, like a fleshy crack, rings out. 

As suddenly as a snap, the pain is gone.

Hob gargles on the tail end of a scream that aborts somewhere behind his teeth. 

His nose is filled with the scent of the rain and the petrichor from the gravel drive beyond a broken window and a wide-standing door, not with the reek of burning flesh. His heart races wildly, but it is still within his body. The rigid tension of his hell-electrified muscles ceases and Hob flops backwards, dropping against Morpheus' chest. Strong arms come around his chest Morpheus tilts his pelvis to cradle Hob's sacrum, one strong thigh behind his legs to keep from folding. He plays one hand up Hob's throat, caressing, paling his face, checking for damage and soothing all at the same time.

Hob pries his aching lids open, and finds his eyes have not boiled away after all.

The New Inn is unshaken, all in one piece, save for the way the front door is hanging off its hinges, cracked straight down the middle. The person who did it is obscured by Hob's view by the coffee machine, and the little, forlorn-looking cactus.

"What did you do to him?" Matthew caws from the mic stand, puffed out to twice his size, wings spread and a murderous gleam in his eyes. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

" I will end your miserable existence! I will throw you into the sulfurous lake from which you should never have crawled, you worthless, lothesome, hateful—"

"I'm fine!" Hob chokes out, feeling like he's vomiting up half his esophagus with every syllable. "I'm fine! " 

" Your dare! I will tear your atoms apart and scatter them across so many universes that you will never again—"

" — peck your fucking eyes out — "

"Oh, dear! I do apologize, I believe I broke your door in, I'm so sorry, my dear boy—

"Guys," Hob gags. "Just let me catch my breath…"

And before him, unmoving and unperturbed by the overlapping, rising threats and verbal assaults, Lucifer watches him with a knowing, miserable look on their face.

"Enough! Quiet!" Hob thrust the Key into the air, and silence drops like a guillotine. He heaves on a few more breaths, then swallows hard, licking his lips. In an agonized, throat-shredded whisper he adds, "Please."

Because it never hurts to use one's manners.

Slowly, agonizingly, with the gentle help of Morpheus, Hob gets his feet back under him. The first thing he does is reach for his half-finished pint and drain the glass. The alcohol burns its way down, and Hob tastes the faintest touch of blood. Christ's nails, how loud had he been screaming?

Feeling more settled, he turns to face Lucifer.

Whose lipstick and painted fingernails are still utterly pristine.

They… they didn't kiss him.

"You…" Hob pants. "You didn't do that?"

"No," Lucifer says softly, and folds their hands together with elegant contriteness, fingers pointed downward in a reverse prayer. 

"But you," Hob starts, then has to stop to swallow the bloody spittle that his screaming has produced. "You know what just happened?"

"The Key does it," Lucifer whispers. "Changes you. Every Devil needs a Face."

"I don't want a Devil Face," Hob says stubbornly.

Lucifer smiles, but it's thin and pained. "You don't get to choose."

Hob snarls and drops the Key onto the bar top. He half expects it to be stuck to his palm, or burned into his flesh. But it falls from his grip easily and lands with an unsatisfying clack . Morpheus, still hovering at Hob's side like Peter Pan's shadow, reaches out for it.

Hob smacks his hand away. "Don't you fucking dare."

" I would not see you suffer—"

"And I would not see all of humanity suffer, so you just fucking back right up there, friend."

Morpheus lowers his arm, but utterly fails to back up. If anything he presses closer. If the skinny little fuck had any bodyheat to speak of, Hob was sure he'd be feeling it through his own clothes right now.

The man by the door steps out of Hob's blindspot behind the coffee machine, and comes around to stand a respectful distance away, and peer at the Key. It's the queer little Bookseller of Soho. Late to the party, because he got caught up in reading, and Hob couldn't be more grateful for his perpetual absentminded tardiness.

“Well!" the Bookseller exclaims. "That’s where that silly old thing has gotten to! You would not believe the fuss that has kicked up in The Silver City. If you’ll give me just a moment…” He snaps once, a downward motion, as if yanking on an old-fashioned Edwardian-era bell pull.

A golden chime rings through the air and the Bookseller nods as if he's done some sort of momentous good deed. "Help is on the way, dear boy. But, ah, I would be ever so grateful if you did not tell them it was me who alerted them? I couldn't bear the paperwork."

And with that, the Bookseller is straight back out the door, which, miraculously, isn't actually broken off its hinges like Hob had thought it was. Turns out the window isn't broken either; it must have been a glass Matthew knocked over on his desperate flight inside.

Lucifer, very graciously, and very apologetically, refills Hob's pint glass by reaching over the bar for the tap, as Hob had done. Hob takes the pint (half head and spilling over the side; Hob guesses the Devil can't be good at everything ) with a nod of thanks. His hand is shaking so badly that Morpheus has to steady his arm just so he can drink.

"Well, friend," Hob says to Lucifer, once he's had a few long pulls on the cold fizz. "That was a hell of a party trick."

Lucifer snorts extremely inelegantly. "Pun intended?"

"Entirely."

" After what you suffered, you would still call the Morningstar friend ?" Morpheus asks, horror in every syllable.

"They didn't do whatever that just was to me," Hob points out. "The Key did. In fact, if that's what it feels like to hold it, then honestly, I don't blame you for wanting rid of the literally damned thing."

Lucifer's red, red, red lips part in gentle shock. They touch one lacquered nail to their own soft, pale cheek, then brush their palm across their neck as if double checking that the flesh there is indeed intact.

"You are generous in your forgiveness, sire," Lucifer says demurely.

"No more generous than all those who punish themselves in Hell for their past deeds deserve, I think," Hob says back. Including you , he doesn't add. But he doesn't need to.

Lucifer offers Hob a grateful bow.

Matthew makes a confused sort of snorfle sound. He hops his way down and across the room to Morpheus, who stoops to allow Matthew to perch on his hand, then transfers the raven to his shoulder.

"So now what, my lords?" Matthew croaks tentatively.

"Now we wait for whatever help was supposedly—" 

Another unexpected surge of light interrupts Hob, and he squints against a golden flash-bulb flare of it. When it clears, two male-presenting beings that could literally only be angels stand before them. 

This corner of the pub is starting to get awfully crowded, Hob thinks with all the hysterical sarcasm his ordeal allows him to muster.

The angels are both statuesque, both blonde, both clad in raiments of glowing white, with enormous golden wings. Hob glances at Lucifer, who rolls their eyes as the pompous way the angels carry themselves.

"Dream King," one of them says in deferential greeting. Both of the angels bow low to Morpheus.

" Remiel, Archangel of Hope.  Duma, Archangel of Silence. Your presence in this moment is most welcome." 

Morpheus inclines his head in a shallow bow, not letting on that it was the Bookseller who called them here, as asked. Hob doesn't know much about the hierarchy of celestial beings, but if the depth of their bows and nods to one another are anything to go by, Morpheus is a lot higher on the celestial pecking order than Lucifer's address to him has made it seem.

"Thank you," the one who is clearly not the Archangel of Silence says. "And our gratitude, also, for summoning us."

As one, the two archangels turn to the fallen one.

"Lucifer," Remiel says.

"Brother dearest," Lucifer sneers.

"The Divine Creator demands that you take up the Key and return to your throne."

"It's not my throne any longer," Lucifer sneers. "It's his now."

Remiel spares a glance over his shoulder at Hob that makes it very, very clear that the imperious twat thinks Hob is not much more evolved than pond gunk. The angel turns back to Lucifer.

"A mortal cannot rule Hell."

"Not mortal," Hob speaks up, just because he does not appreciate being snubbed in his own pub. And on his own birthday, to boot.

"Still human , though," Remiel sneers, the facade of literally-holier-than-thou superiority cracking a bit.

"And what's so wrong with being hummmuph," Matthew harrumphs as Morpheus reaches up and pinches his beak shut.

"Oh, well, guilty as charged then," Hob sneers right back, shoving his hands into his pockets and slouching his shoulders in the most insolent way he knows how.

Duma strides silently to Hob's side. Gently, but inexorably, the angel takes Hob's chin between his fingers, and holds his face still for his gaze.

"Doesn't hurt any more," Hob answers the ethereal creature's silent question. "But now we've got a bit of a problem, if you say a human can't rule Hell. Because it looks like it's either me, or Morpheus, and we all know what will happen if Dream of the Endless is forced to don that crown."

Duma's gaze grows tearful and sad. He shakes his head, just once, then releases Hob. Then, with the same hand, he reaches for the Key.

"Brother!" Remiel gasps, grabbing at his draped sleeve to stop him.

Matthew shakes free of Morpheus's fingers and, in a resounding voice that is clearly not his own, booms: "Hell cannot be entrusted to other than those who serve the Name directly… I shall take over Hell."  The raven shakes himself all over, blinking rapidly. "What the fuck was that, boss?" He turns his sharp beak toward Duma. "Hey, don't use me as a puppet, man, that's violating!"

"Duma, no ," Remiel protests, but halts in the face of Duma's implacable silence. Remiel curls into himself in shame. "Very well. I cannot allow my fellow to drink from a cup I have refused. I will go with you."

"Have fun, boys," Lucifer sing-songs. "Oh, and there's a bit of a trick to getting the cold water in the palace pipes. There isn't any! Ha!"

Remiel sends Lucifer the stinkiest stink-eye Hob's ever seen in six hundred and sixty-six years.

Duma reaches for the key again and Hob is struck with a sudden flash of inspiration.

“Wait!” he shouts, throwing out a hand to block the Key. He doesn't touch it again though. He's reckless, not stupid.

"Wait?" Remiel echoes, agog. " Wait ? Who are you to command the Host to—"

"I'm the King of the Hell," Hob challenges back, puffing out his chest. "At least until you touch this Key."

"You are no Demonic Monarch, you lowly—"

“Oh, stuff it,” Hob snaps at Remiel, sick to the teeth with being polite to Celestial entities to clearly don’t feel the same courtesy toward him. “Before I give you the key, I want something in return. And I'm not giving up my one and only chance to do a deal as the Devil.”

Lucifer laughs, overjoyed. Morpheus makes a worried, confused sound. In the corner, Johanna's eyes narrow in concern.

But none of that matters. Because Hob’s remembered, all of a sudden, what Matthew had gossiped about, when he was recounting the parts of Morpheus’ trip to Hell that his friend had left out.

The boss stopped at this… this window in a spire, and a woman had called out for him with a name I’d never heard before, the raven had slurred, deep in his cups one evening while Morpheus had been trapped in the Library and sent Matthew for Tuesday Hangs in his stead. She’d reached for him through the bars, tugged on his coat, sobbing. She thought he’d come to rescue her and instead he just left there, like some heartless– He’d mantled his feathers then, shaking his head in a very human gesture like trying to disperse a bad memory. I asked Lucienne about her. She was sixteen, man, she was a kid, and the boss did her pretty dirty. She was heartbroken. It’s ugly.

Remiel bristles, the small feathers along the upper curve of their glossy white wings frazzling in irritation. “You do not bargain with God,” they hiss.

“But our absentee parent not here, my sycophantic sibling,” Lucifer purrs. “And Robert Gadling has not yet abdicated. Hell is his gift to bestow. Or to hoard. Oh, do say you will hoard it instead, little man. It will vex our creator so.”

“No,” Hob says, horrified by the idea of being sole ruler of all suffering for the rest of eternity, and being barred from Dream and the Dreaming to boot. 

Lucifer shrugs, like it was worth one last try.

"Very well," Remiel grits out, sounding like every word is costing them a gallon of golden ichor.

“Nada,” Hob says. "She goes free."

Morpheus clutches hard at Hob's shoulder in his shock. " How do you know her name? How—"

"Not now," Hob says gently to his oldest friend, taking his hand from his shoulder, and twining their fingers together behind his back. Then turns his best flinty, bandit's glare at the angels. "Nada is released in exchange for the Key. Those are my terms."

"We cannot simply release a soul from Hell," Remiel says slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. "Without a corporation, it will be naught but a ghost."

"Then give her a corporation," Lucifer says, studying their nails as if bored. "We both know the paperwork is not as persnickety as the Quartermasters make it out to be. There's stacks lying around, waiting to be inhabited."

"Sibling!" Remiel hisses at Lucifer in warning. The former devil just bares their teeth at him. Remiel tries a different tack: "The Dream King condemned her to Hell himself. We cannot give her leave until he recants—"

Hob steps on Morpheus's foot.

Hard.

" I recant!" Morpheus yelps, glaring daggers at Hob. Then he clears his throat and resumes his customary haughty expression. "Nada has been unjustly punished, and it has gone on far too long. I recant my oath, and rescind my ire. Nada is no longer prisoner by my will, nor my pleasure."

Remiel gawps.

"A new life for Nada," Hob repeats firmly, bringing the conversation back to its point. "Reincarnation. A chance to do it all again, without suffering, in return for the Key. Are we agreed?"

Duma looks between Remiel, Morpheus, and Hob.

" Agreed ," Matthew booms, and then squawks: "Man, fuck off!"

"It is done."

Hob removes his hand from the bar.

Duma grasps the Key.

The only indication that it is paining him, that it is burning his face off even as Hob is staring at him and nothing is happening outwardly, is a slight squinching of his features. Remiel makes a disgusted sound and gestures with his hand, and the faint echo of a newborn baby's cry vaults through the room, perfectly audible over the susurrus of the gentling thunderstorm.

New life.

And she shares Hob's birthday.

How about that.

"The bargain is fulfilled," Remiel spits with disgust. "Brother, come."

Both angels snap their wings out—one of Remiel's slapping Lucifer in the face, clearly intentionally by the snarl they let loose—and in the powerful thrust of a gong-like wingbeat, are gone. The Key is gone with them.

Hob immediately squeezes Morpheus's hand tight and turns to gauge whether he's fucked up their friendship forever.

Surely, surely, Morpheus must be furious at Hob for overstepping so completely. Nada had gone to Hell because she'd died by suicide, but she'd only killed herself because Dream of the Endless had seduced her against the rules that forbade him for lying with a mortal ( Do I count as a mortal? Hob wonders frantically, Would we be punished if—focus, Gadling! ) and her people had been slaughtered in retribution. And Morpheus, in his pride, had left her to rot there when she refused his hand in return for rescue. It had all been, quite frankly, some epically toxic masculinity bullshit , and Hob is prepared to square off with his friend about it if he has to. 

He doesn't want to, of course, but for the sake of a soul left suffering through no wrong of her own, he will.

But instead, he finds Morpheus limp with shock, silently weeping.

"Hob," Morpheus gasps. " Hob, my priest, my devoted one." He surges forward, anoints Hob's forehead and palms with holy, reverent kisses. The last of the lingering pain from the Key's hold  is washed away in the cool calmness of deep sleep and deeper night. It flows down his skin, making him shiver as Hob is consecrated Head Priest once more.  "How beneficent your human heart is. And how shamed I am, that it took you to force me to do right by one I had scorned unjustly and unkindly."

"Yeah, well, don't you forget it," Hob says, when Morpheus pulls away. He rubs his face, weary in a way that he hasn't felt in… well, ever. "So, are we done now? Can we… can we be done now, please? I have a party to—" he looks around the room, at all the people here under his invitation, under his burden of care. "To save."

"By all means," Lucifer says. "They will awaken as soon as I go."

" Then go," Morpheus invites, with no little amount of bitchy snark.

Lucifer offers him a hard stare, but after a moment, relents without retaliation. "I shall make my farewells to you then, Robert Gadling, from one former Monarch of Hell to another."

They lean forward and buss a gentle, warm kiss off of Hob's cheek.

“Where will you go?” Hob asks, as they withdraw. “If Hell isn’t your domain any more, what are your plans?”

“Why, stay here, of course,” Lucifer says. Then they look around at the cramped room, the stuffy air, the frozen mortals. “Well, perhaps not here , here. But as I said, it’s been ever so long since I’ve been invited to a party. I’ve forgotten how fun they can be. Perhaps I will find some space to host my own sinful little celebrations.”

“Like… a nightclub?” Hob asks, wracking his brain for what they may mean.

Lucifer’s eyes spark with intrigue. “Now that is an idea,” they murmur. “A nightclub . There’s all sorts of wicked things a soul may get into there. I’ll send you an invitation to the grand opening, Hob dearest. In thanks for tonight.”

“You know what,” Hob says, finding he really means it when he says: “I look forward to it.”

The former Devil blinks, obviously not anticipating or expecting his favorable response.

“See you then, my friend,” Hob says, holding out a hand to shake.

“Is that a binding promise?” Lucifer asks slyly, reaching back.

“Absolutely not,” Hob laughs. “I know better than to make a deal with the devil. Again.” He cuts a wink at Morpheus, who wrinkles his nose petulantly. “But you tell me when and where, and I’ll try.”

“That is acceptable,” Lucifer acquiesces, and shakes his hand not to seal a deal, but in a companionable farewell.

“Oh!” Hob says, as a dark cloud of absolutely rotten-smelling smokes begins to billow around their smart white pumps. “I used to play some violin, in the 18th century. Should I bring it?”

Lucifer breaks into a wide, frankly dorky grin of sheer delight. “No, friend. I haven’t picked up a fiddle since I lost that bout. I’m more of a piano man, now.”

And before Hob can think of anything clever to say to that, the cloud envelopes the Devil, and they are gone.

“-- the hell was that! ” Patrick shouts from beside Hob, right in his ear, and Hob startles away, nearly falling on his arse in surprise.

Hob catches himself on a bar stool, heart hammering in his throat, as all around him the humans resume moving and talking as if the massive clap of thunder that had shaken the Inn had occurred just a second ago.

“Someone should go check if that hit the pub!” one of Hob’s colleagues says, and grabs an umbrella from the stand of forgotten ones by the door and ducking outside before he can see who it was. “No! All good! No fire!”

Johanna Constantine bounds across the room like she's a bolt of lightning herself. Hob braces for a punch in the nose, and gets wrapped in a tight embrace instead. "You mad bastard," Johanna hisses in his ear. "You mad, incredible, pig-shit bonkers bastard ."

"Yeah, that's me," Hob says sheepishly, squeezing her back.

"Happy birthday!" she says, smacks a ridiculous kiss off his mouth, and then crosses back across the room, grabs Ric by the sleeve, and pulls her through the kitchen and—by the sounds of the slamming door—into the back where the bins make a conveniently shadowed corner.

"Yeah, nobody go back there for a while," Hob announces to the handful of people watching what had just happened with open curiosity.

"Ew," Patrick grumps. He does a double take when he catches Morpheus and Matthew on the far side of the bar, several empty glasses before him that he obviously didn't put there.

For a moment, Hob is worried that his co-owner is going to put up a fuss about the live animal in the building, but then Patrick shrugs in the way that mortals encouraged to overlook Morpheus' oddities by the very nature of his existence do. He busses the empties, and moves on to the next customer.

Hob, not inclined at all to overlook Morpheus, leans on the bar beside him, and grins up at his oldest, and strangest friend.

" Are all your birthday celebrations this eventful, Hob Gadling? " Morpheus asks, eyebrow raised coyly, as Matthew attempts to preen the last of his wet feathers into laying right.

"Nah," Hob promises. "Just the milestones."

" Then I already dread the party you will throw to mark your first millennia."

Hob, who has just enough beer left in his glass to toast Morpheus and toss back the mouthful, does so. Then he chuckles ruefully. "I don't, my friend. Not in the least. As a former Monarch of Hell, I have a feeling my life will be even more interesting in the decades to come." He drops Morpheus a cheeky wink. "And I have so much to live for."

On the far side of the pub, someone shuts off all the lights. A spark of candlelight goes up, and, raised in chorus, everyone that Hob holds dear—in the here and now—begins to sing.

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[houxe]

The Problem with writing Sentient Characters that Like being considered as Pets, Objects, Owned, etc.

TW for discussion of slavery, oppression, suicide, mentions of SA, and abuse.

It took me some time to really admit out loud to someone why this troupe is so bad and harmful, and now that it’s finally off my chest, I want to make a post about it.

I don’t have much influence in the writing world, but this is the least I can do to get people to hopefully understand.

As the title states, there’s a big issue with writing sentient characters (sentient as in on par with humans or whatever creature is ‘owning’ them) that like being pets, objects, owned, etc because it touches far too close to slavery or oppression acceptance.

As in people that like being enslaved or oppressed.

Now, I am not saying that this is every circumstance of a character liking this, nor am I talking about trauma writing, kink writing, or consensual objectification. Characters who know it’s wrong but are too broken down to fight back and the narrative treats it as something bad, dystopian writing, the character is choosing to be loyal but pet/object is used as an insult rather than them actually being a pet/object, or even a character of a different species not knowing the other character is sentient and later fix how they treat them, don’t fit into this category.

What I am talking about is writers who merely write this sort of thing because it's 'not real and it's fun' or it's 'interesting to play with' and have not faced this sort of trauma and don't see or care for the very real harm it can cause and the historical context of treating someone like this. Or those who also then proceed to go on in their notes, interviews, or whatever else, and say this treatment of someone is okay and fine or call it cute and infantilize the victims and abusers.

Characters who know they’re being kept like an animal or property or used by someone or by a corporation like they're an object for entertainment and are fine with it because they ‘they’re happy with it eventually and get to do whatever they want’ or ‘they’re treated well as long as they obey their ‘owners’!' or even 'but they're loved by their 'owners'!', and the narrative treats it as something good and it's very blatantly not consensual objectification, are a problem. This adds up even more when everyone in the story and, again, authors outside of the story, dismisses it as something that isn't bad. Like the Fifty Shades of Gray author.

You cannot treat someone or something that's as sentient as you, like this. It's abuse, it's extremely damaging, and even if you say you 'love' them, you don't. Because if you did, you wouldn't be treating them like this and thinking it's okay or it's fine because they eventually start liking it. Sentient creatures on par with humans (or whatever sentient creature you're using as the 'owner': like a fae, god or alien 'owning' a human, dragon keeping another dragon as an object in their hoard, witch forcing sentient familiars into abusive contracts against their will, etc) cannot handle this kind of treatment. Historically they have often killed themselves, or others, because of it.

It's literally excusing fantasy racism/slavery/dehumanization to a T.

There's a difference between species having different morals amongst themselves, or rival species disliking each other, compared to being racist and oppressing/enslaving or owning an entire species (or even their own species) that's just as smart as them.

Whilst I understand that this writing is fiction and people like writing dark subjects (I do too, believe me, you can see my work), there are limits to what you can write that can be dismissed under fiction/dark fiction and this 'character is fine with being a pet or property' subject is not one of them.

This is very different from stuff that's messy, or toxic; or something like enemy to lovers, dysfunctional, Stockholm-like relationships, etc.

Why? Because being treated like a pet or property has massive and historical ties to slavery and oppression, (look up the disgusting 'breeding' they'd do create more enslaved people or the 'human zoos' that only ended in the 1960s) and as I said before there is a lot of historical and current context to treating people, especially minorities, like animals. Writing a character who’s okay with being treated like that, because they come to like their position eventually and are 'treated well and 'loved', or get what they want', is damaging to a large group of communities and it is something that continues to affect them to this day.

Enslaved people were not the only ones to be treated like this, either. Many communities (people with disabilities, people of color, and people with genetic conditions) were treated like this constantly and still are.

It's harmful to write like this. Especially when writing characters in such position (pet, object, etc.), to be in a sexual relationship with their 'owner'. (And not in a kink or consensual objectification way, that's not what I'm talking about here.)

Do not do that. It is literally SA. There are many real life stories of enslaved people and people without power being forced to please their abusers in such a way and, almost always, whatever children they unfortunately had were still enslaved and owned like property or sent away or killed. It's not cute, it's not some dark interesting thing to write and play with just because it's fun, it's extremely harmful and should not be something written and toned down with different words or portrayed as 'fine' or 'they're a different species so it's not the same' or 'they like it eventually' in any sort of way.

This goes double when you're writing from the abuser's perspective and are actively humanizing them (the abusers) and having them dismiss what they're doing or talking about it like their victims are just cute little things they keep for fun and that 'it's fine' or 'it's different because they're not the same (species, skin color, clan, etc.)'.

There are limits to what can be romanticized, and this behavior is not one of them.

Just recently there was a large creator online, on TikTok, spouting off bullshit about how they’re sure that ‘some slaves liked being kept as slaves’ and writing content where a character likes being kept as a pet or object is only adding to that rhetoric.

Especially when literal governments and hate groups are actively trying to rewrite history to make slavery and this type of 'ownership' and oppression not seem as bad as it actual was.

It is dangerous.

And what a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t know about, is that victims of slavery, oppression, people with disabilities, etc, were kept as pets and animals (human zoos, slavery 'breeding' done on plantations, court dwarves, etc.) because they weren't viewed as equals and being a slave already dehumanized them into an animal or property.

People have too specific of a view on what slavery and oppression actually is and as such, don't point it out when it's being shown.

There are multiple accounts in history of slavers or kings keeping people who were 'different' as pets or items of entertainment (like Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, Sarah Baartman, etc.), and perpetuating the idea that someone is ‘happy’ or ‘fine’ with that just because it’s fiction or under a different name than slavery or oppression and ��they like it eventually’ or 'they're loved though' or 'they're different species, they think differently', is wrong and harmful.

It’s literally like writing the house elves in Harry Potter. It’s saying the same thing. ‘They’re happy to do everything in a house, they don’t need money! They like it!’ or 'They're not human though, they think differently so they like it!' Those are slaves, they are talked about like property, like animals, and have you noticed so many people defending it because J.K. Rowling doesn’t outright call it slavery? Yeah, that’s why writing someone as a pet, object, etc and having them genuinely like it, or 'it’s normal for them', or 'they’ll be okay with it eventually', is a problem.

And you are a part of the problem if you can’t accept that some of what you’re writing does have an influence on people and that it’s damaging and hurtful to many communities. (Like, look at what Fifty Shades of Gray did to the BDSM community.) Especially when it comes from, and is reflective of, a very real and disgusting practice that killed millions of people and still does.

Again, I'm not talking about writers who portray this to help with their trauma or write it in a kink type of fashion.

But if you are someone who's doing this just because it's 'fun to play with' and 'it's not real' or 'it doesn't affect anyone'? Well, it says far too much about you if you’re comfortable with this cute 'master' and their happy 'pet/object' and cannot see how dangerous that sort of writing is. Or at the very least, how it is far too close to slavery and oppression than anyone should be comfortable with.

Obviously, I’m not saying it’s you’re fault if you just don’t know. Unfortunately our world is full of biases, people who have not lived through this trauma, and is more intent on erasing history instead of teaching it. But these kinds of subjects (pet, object, etc.) are things that you have to tie into the real world, they do not exist in a vacuum, and you have understand the consequences and impact it can have on readers.

This kind of dehumanization is happening in the real world to many communities who are at risk because of rhetoric like this. You can’t negate the affects and damage of doing this to someone just because it’s ‘fiction’ when this fiction is dangerous. There are certain subjects in writing fiction where you can’t just ignore the huge historical and current context they have.

It's like trying to write a character enjoying SAed (Not talking about CNC) and that should never be written as something 'okay' because it's 'fiction' or 'fun to play with' when it's such a prevalent and disgusting issue in the real world.

Fiction has been well documented to affect people's perception of reality for a very long time. It is a well known phenomenon. It's quite literally why there is so much backlash whenever people stereotype ethnicities in books, shows, media, etc.

So why is it different to write other dark/messy themes as fine but not stuff like this?

Because toxic, dysfunctional, Stockholm-like relationships do not have the historical and current context that are specific to oppressing many communities like pet/object does. Nor do these themes reflect and spread the rhetoric that a large groups of people, even fucking governments, in real life genuinely want slavery, oppression, and dehumanization to return for people of color, people with disabilities, people with genetic conditions, houseless people, etc.

They do not continue to normalize something that is already very normalized and perpetuated against many marginalized communities to this day.

Other dark troupes are not normalized like this is real life.

Murder, kidnapping, Stockholm Syndrome, hostage situations, etc, are all things the majority know are bad and are taught to be bad. Some of them can even have good reasons for why they're being done. However things like slavery, oppression, keeping someone as a pet/object, and treating someone as an animal or object, are things many people don't believe are bad nor are they taught that it's bad and are typically targeted towards marginalized communities. There is also never a good reason to treat someone like this unless it's their personal accommodation (kinks, mental health, consensual objectification, etc.) and something they agreed to rather than something they like 'eventually'.

These kinds of abuse are things that our own governments condone and even help support. To the point where the people who want to see these communities as 'less than' are, as I stated earlier, actively trying to change history to say the communities forced into this position had 'benefited' from their abuse.

It's extremely dangerous and extremely tone deaf to write like this when it's a growing thought process of many people in real life.

It's why no one thinks Debbie Grayson and Omni-Man's relationship from 'Invincible' is 'fine' and is actively treated with disgust when he admits to loving her like a pet, even when he treated her well. Especially when you tie in the historical context of how Asian women are often fetishized and dehumanized into objects for pleasure because they're 'obedient'.

It's just not a something to write as 'good' or 'eventually liked'.

Again, troupes like enemies to lovers, forced proximity, fake relationships, kidnapping, hostage situations, villains/heroes, Stockholm syndrome, etc, are not as problematic to write because all of them do not help spread rhetoric and carelessly diminish the very real harm and historical context of treating people like animals. Especially when it's something that is still affecting communities today.

In fact, for those who don't know, Stockholm syndrome actually originated in a 1973s bank robbery, because the victims of it got their attackers to humanize them. To be equals. Their attackers even protected them from getting hurt, once they got to know them, or accidentally shot by police, even when their hostages were freed.

The police in Stockholm made up the entire syndrome as a way to blame the victims who were, rightfully, pissed at their incompetence and having to be protected by the robbers instead of the police. Stockholm Syndrome is not even a real syndrome yet people often mischaracterize it anyways lol.

Though note, this does not mean I agree with their actions, this is merely to point out the difference between Stockholm syndrome and treating someone like a pet/object, because some people assume they're same thing, when they're very much not.

This is just to show how one of them (obviously Stockholm syndrome) didn't and doesn't continue harm entire communities. Because while yes, Stockholm syndrome is often used in dehumanizing pet/object stories, the two actually should not coincide. Which is why it's not such a problematic issue to write Stockholm syndrome or dysfunctional relationships/dark topics similar to it (Forced proximity, etc), like it is to write a character that enjoys being treated like an animal or property. It's not spreading rhetoric, especially when it's based on learning to view someone as an equal in a poor situation.

This is even a direct quote from one of the attackers who had a hand in creating the term:

'--They [the hostages] made it hard to kill. They made us go on living together day after day, like goats, in that filth. There was nothing to do but get to know each other.’

This is humanizing someone. It is not the same as keeping someone as a pet or property because the abusers/'owners' in those situations do not humanize their victims. That is literally why they're treated like that, they're not viewed as equals no matter how many 'luxuries' or 'privileges' they get. No matter the fact that they're 'able to do whatever they want' for obeying, or how much 'love' they're given.

They are not equals to the ones 'owning' them. They are viewed as objects of pleasure and amusement. To them, it is literally like spoiling a dog by giving them gifts or letting them run around.

Pet literally means: 'a domestic or tamed animal kept for companionship or pleasure.'

You do not tame people. That's an absolutely crazy thing to say.

As I've stated before, just to drive the point home, this isn’t like writing other dark/messy themes (true enemies to lovers, Stockholm syndrome, fake relationships, etc.) and you should be checking the historical context when writing about certain subjects (like you would when writing goblins or ogres or gnomes because of the historical context of antisemitism, racism, and the fetishization of little people in fantasy).

Other dark, messy, toxic themes do not have historical ties to such a specific abuse and dehumanizing multiple marginalized communities that still damage those groups to this day.

Writing someone that likes being a pet or property and is clearly not writing Consensual Objectification/kinks is like writing 'The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas'. No character would have fun or enjoy being in a concentration camp where they killed the children first, nor should you humanize Nazis. Just like you shouldn't humanize slavers and oppressors. And by humanize, I don't mean talking about them like they're human (they are and that's a scary truth), I mean using instances like 'it's normal in their world so it's not bad' or 'it's how they love they can't help it' or 'it's from their trauma so it's not bad' as a reason to excuse and diminish the awful thing that they're doing.

Hundreds of thousands of people have killed themselves because they’ve been treated like animals and property. Don’t ignore that and say ‘the character likes it!’ or ‘they’re okay with it because they're loved and can do whatever they want as long as they listen!’ or ‘they’re being treated well though so it’s fine!’ or even ‘but they like be treated like this later! They just didn’t like it in the beginning!’ just because you’re reading or writing fiction. All you’re doing by saying this or writing it into the story is perpetuating a harmful thought process that we’ve seen convince people that it’s fine (the house elves from Harry Potter).

Especially because it's a dehumanizing rhetoric that, again, is spreading rabidly in the real world right now.

Obviously I don’t think this will get very far nor will everyone agree with my opinion, but I do hope people who write this stuff in my community and other communities, realize the damage they’re doing by writing this and dismissing it because the character ‘likes being a pet/object’ or ‘they’re being treated well by their 'owner' so it’s fine’ or 'they're a different species though, it's not the same.'

Treating someone like a pet or an object stems from extreme, generational abuse, oppression, and slavery of many marginalized communities, something they're still feeling the affects of, and it shouldn’t be dumbed down into softer words and dismissed or brushed off because ‘it’s fiction/dark fiction’ or 'but they're different species so it's not the same' or even ‘everyone in the story treats it as fine and the ‘owned’ character is treated nicely/loved so they’re okay with it.’

Humans, minorities, are not animals. They are not property. There is a difference between something like treating someone like this for their own personal accommodation, and treating someone like this just because you can or because you think it's 'interesting' or 'fun' to play with. Again, you need to remember the historical context of things like this.

Your writing and your thought processes are hurting a large group of people. You are not in a vacuum.

It is my hope that by talking about this and pointing it out, we can start to notice the damage we may be causing without realizing it and hopefully write in a way that isn't so reflective and promoting of a harmful rhetoric that has been growing.

So please, do research before writing topics like these.

Even if you think writing this does no harm, that just unfortunately isn't the case.

Also, again, to clarify just in case: this is not talking about trauma or kink/fantasy or consensual objectification writing in any sort of way. If you write this subject because of a kink or trauma you are valid and not who I'm talking about.

As usual, do not attack anyone who does write this, this post isn't for that intention nor censorship. It is merely to spread awareness and discussion to grow as a community. People are more than free to write what they want, but sharing how some plots and ideas can be harmful is important to learn.

Remember, just because something isn't censored, doesn't mean it's free of consequence or harm.

(EDIT: Also I tend to edit this often so the wording isn't censorship promotion or too reactive and/or personal (as someone who is disabled lmao), so this is just a PSA!)