#offline queue

[vel17]

[calamitysshatteredson]

To (hopefully) get my brain deciding to move a little more in a making words direction, and to encourage interaction, please do like for a thing in your ask box. The trick is, you get no say in what pops up in there. Or when, but soon. In-character (IC) interaction will only happen with other RP blogs, but we don't have to be mutuals or have had any interaction for you to tap the little heart for a something.

[royalbratprince]

"Still haven't gotten a satisfying explanation for why kings are required to eat vegetables."

[goldendivinewrath]

To (hopefully) get my brain deciding to move a little more in a making words direction, and to encourage interaction, please do like for a thing in your ask box. The trick is, you get no say in what pops up in there. Or when, but soon. In-character (IC) interaction will only happen with other RP blogs, but we don't have to be mutuals or have had any interaction for you to tap the little heart for a something.

[stonecoldmeme]

What if . . . Prompto witnessed Noctis take his final breath at the end of the game before dawn came again ?

What If..? Scenarios | accepting but slowwwww

He didn't-- He didn't know why, he didn't know--

Their numbers were starting to dwindle. The daemons. They were still fighting, yeah, but he noticed it on reloading. A few less emerged from the shadow on the ground each time a new wave came, and then...

"You guys got this." He'd already turned to sprint up the stairs, just knowing. It was a feeling in his gut, it was an instinct he couldn't define, didn't understand, didn't want to understand, it was--

Prompto had no memory of the elevator ride. Little memory of the direction he sprinted in, but he knew, he knew where to go, he knew where Noct was, he knew...

And in some ways, he also knew what he'd find. It wasn't like they hadn't been told. At the campfire. Like he didn't try his best to hold in the sadness and the rage and smile.

Like the weak smile that greeted him after he'd managed to take the stairs three, four at a time, managed to face the throne and-- It--

Noct. He couldn't say it. The... the sword through his chest. The look on his face, the...

He smiled. One more moment. Smiled at him, and then his eyes just sort of...

Dimmed.

So did Prompto. Falling to his knees at his king's feet. Laying his head in his best friend's lap. Sobbing for--

More. More than that. More.

He didn't feel the warmth of the sunlight on his back.

[polinsated]

3.02 -> 3.08

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?

[vel17]

[goldendivinewrath]

@full-of-mercy

Much as he tries not to think about fighting during times like these, he can't help it. They move well together. They move well together nearly always when they're not quite thinking about it, and that means the goal is being achieved. Vash almost laughs, but the whole of his attention is stolen easily.

Finally, finally, he gets to see what he'd mapped out with his hand before, and it's-- Oh. Intriguing. It'd been intriguing before, of course, but to see the piercing, to take in the full sight of it makes his mouth water. Unexpected. Suiting. Questions to ask but no answers needed, but then he--

Vash finds himself lacking words. Certainly not lacking a voice, because it's a full-on guttural moan harmonizing with a sudden surge of resonance. His fingers pause in their continued exploration, but shiver along with the rest of him, motion like a wave across his body. Focus is absolute but scattered at the same time, unable to pinpoint exactly what makes it feel like something's gotten knocked loose in the best possible way, but...

He feels it, how his body shifts fully; or the one part in particular, anyway. The filling out, the way his petals tremble open as far as they can as if presenting the quickly filling bud, lengthening and thickening in full instead of opening up. There's no missing it, and no missing the way it becomes the epicenter of sensation when fully hard, sensing the finest details of heat and texture and his own slick mixing with saliva, and--

He's leaking something else from the tip. Honey-sweet and thicker, and it's been-- It's been so long that he's not ready for the jolt of hot-tingling-pleasure that comes with that for him. He just hopes it's not minded. It must not be. He doesn't know what the experience might be for Wolfwood, but he's sure there will be protest if necessary.

The thinking aligns and then fades out like a bad signal. Unneeded, forbidden even in the midst of worry. He's only got enough concentration for what's in front of him, what he needs to get back to, grateful for the fact that he's partially being held up when the shiver continues to move through his body in pulses. Inside. Right, back to the goal, wanting to reach for, find, that place that's going to shake the other man to pieces like he deserves. Vash tries to be delicate, fingers still slick, starting with a single digit and savoring as slowly as he can stand--

There's a little giving over to another distraction, though. Too curious to know what that metal might feel like against his tongue. Flexible though he is, there's balance to think of, extra shifting to do to reach fully, but bracing himself a little more steadily against the bed with his prosthetic hand, he can at least easily flick his tongue against the metal nearest the base of the other man's length.

Thinking.

Thinking is the enemy right here and right now. That's right. They'd agreed in their way. They'd come to an accord of sorts in their own way, and things progressed as they did, and now…

Now.

Now he aches. Now he has his face buried in feathery soft and wet and luminous, his senses utterly subsumed in scent and taste and warmth and heat and if he had a thought to spare he might be worried about just how much he has fucked up his mission and maybe just how much he has succeeded in it. (That really bears no consideration; the Gung Ho Guns are not in the room, nor are Knives or Legato, after all).

He has had a few breaths and a few heartbeats to skip past the sensitivity of biology—still human, after all, or close enough to count. This, too, does not enter his reckoning, because something else more immediate has his attention.

Movement.

Specifically, movement with an admission, but movement is both a thought and an action and Wolfwood grunts his assent before Vash even begins to shift. Assent becomes assistance—assistance of a sort, anyway, the kind that they oftentimes offer one another in combat, one part interference and one part sheer geometric ridiculousness that somehow ends up with more property destruction and the same number of idiots still capable of gunning them down in the none too distant future. Most of the time, at least in the beginning, Vash intended to keep Wolfwood from shooting his (literal) shot, and now it seems like an attempt to encourage a more figurative one, but that involves thinking and Nicholas is not about that in this moment.

Broad palms seize Vash's hips. While they might be points of restraint, they are also points of bracing; a raspy breath sounds almost like a snarl as the Independent makes his rotation, the inside of a knee grazing Wolfwood's head and carding sweat-and-other-matted hair askew. It is not as graceful as it could be, not as fluid, but he is more concerned with other fluidity in the here and now.

Hands to hips, fingers dig divots into the rounds of buttocks. Vash presses and he's hard again. Still, maybe, with his mutated biology, aching and arched but focused on something else entirely as is his preference.

A tug and a shimmy tuck his forearms around the outsides of pale thighs, and then with little more than a guttural thrum that might be a sarcastic 'right,' might be just a more primal affectation, he moves.

Pulls Vash's hips down, thrusts his face up, burying himself from nose to chin while laving, licking, sucking, humming.

He needs this. Wants this. Seems they both do.

[calamitysshatteredson]

Now technically officially taking the week off though of course I will pop in to spread news of the chocobo auction far and wide, you know how it be, but I will also link to this official invitation to pop into the stream at any point this week. They're good folk doing good things and we could all use a little more of that right now, yes?

[royalbratprince]

@themageofmany [From here because muse and brain declared it so.]

Oh, he was no good at being reassuring. Or offering much of an innocent smile. Where was Prompto when he needed-- Ah, right, the blond had seen right through him and made himself scarce. Damn, some best friend.

"What? A guy can't ask if you like frogs? And mud?" Oh yeah, that wasn't suspicious at all.

Another tactic, then. "Do you wanna... help the advancement of science..? Somehow? With frogs?" Not... better...

[goldendivinewrath]

@eventheodds [From here for... reasons..?]

He tries not to let himself feel overwhelmed. He tries harder and far more often to keep himself hopeful, positive no matter the circumstances, but sometimes--

He can't use the phrase "only human", obviously. Wouldn't think to try. But sometimes there are moments, and he hates it when anyone else is there to witness them. Like that's an extra mistake he's made. It's temporary, he knows, and it's Meryl, and it's... okay. Mostly okay.

It's uncomfortable, though. The heat along with the adrenaline that has yet to fully let go. Vash isn't usually all that affected by temperature, really, but it's all circumstance. He can survive longer, under harsher conditions, but that doesn't mean it's pleasant.

Complaints feel petty at best when Meryl directs them to somewhere cooler. She's the one he ought to worry for, not himself. It's got nothing to do with strength or capability; water supplies running low and the fact that even when the heat of the day does finally give way to night, the temperature will drop dramatically and it all matters more with humans. It matters more with her, even if he isn't prepared to admit that to himself in full.

He's ready to refuse the water until he notices the dryness in his own throat, electing to take a sip instead. Just in case. Prepare for the worst while hoping for the best, right? "We got out alive." He agrees, internalizes, careful to enunciate the words while keeping his voice soft. There's no point in aggravating his throat, after all, but he reaches for Meryl the moment she starts coughing miserably.

Vash's hand lingers in the air, not quite connecting. Not quite pulling back, either. There's little to do but rest a bit, to wait and keep going in turns. He's used to this. He wishes she weren't getting to be about the same, if she's not there already.

Making a decision with a little frown, his organic hand finally rests gently on her shoulder. Comfort, assurance. Acknowledgement. No more talking. And, as usual, he's a hypocrite immediately. "A few minutes." His throat's still dry. It's still hot. There are still questions to answer, and he can feel the salt tear tracks dry and flake, otherwise unacknowledged.

They're still alive, and right next to each other. There's still a little water left, and a slight breeze. A little protection from the suns. He offers the water skin back, but his hand remains on Meryl's shoulder.

[goldendivinewrath]

@typhoonvash

He realizes it, he knows even as Canary answers without really answering, even if Vash did want to look, it's not possible. His head may not move or his eyes may not focus, but the carnage of shattered glasses they both know is there is not to be witnessed. Isn't that awful, though? Isn't that a kind of betrayal? Denial so sharp that it cuts a memory before it can form--

The. Shape. It steals his ability to breathe before he can process what he's seeing. Does he need to breathe? The burning in his lungs insists that he must. He must. He does, nearly choking on air that suddenly smells and feels like thick smoke, then it's gone. Throat still dry, sore, it takes him more time than he wants to swallow, not that there's anything to say. There's nothing to say to anyone, there are no please to make, there are no more curses to yell at the sky.

(He's given up. Hasn't he given up? Why, then, why--)

Vash jumps at the touch, but doesn't shake it off. It's second nature, first nature, to run. To dart between, to feel a little like the buildings are moving instead of him, them, and that's the difference; he's being pulled along as much as he's simply running himself. It doesn't feel like they're successfully running away from anything, but does it ever really? Is there relief or sanctuary to be had?

He says nothing. He can't, throat still dry. The smell of smoke just a memory, but just as starling as if it'd been there. Maybe it had been, in this nowhere place, with the two of them.

Three. Maybe more, but he and his presence and his memory and the plea Vash made that went unanswered, they're all unwanted but necessary companions weighing him down. Or adding momentum.

When it all comes to an abrupt stop, it's a little like being on a planet that's suddenly stopped turning. Might as well be as much, feeling no amount of safety as they stop, as they try to remain unseen. He never could hide, not really. Not fully. He just hadn't realized it at the time...

Canary insists. He pokes. Vash can't talk to himself about it, in his own mind. He can relive it -- live out every moment of it, every little thing that went wrong, that he did wrong, that moment when... when... -- but he can't-- He can't...

He swallows and presses his hands to the wall and wills himself to catch his breath. To breathe. To think. To speak. Everything's shaky and soft to start, from the words to the rest of him. To what's left.

"He's dead." He has to stop after that. Stop and breathe again. Swallow back a sob. "I shouldn't have listened. I should have... stepped in even though he wanted to do it all himself. It wasn't my place, but I already-- So often, I already... interfered..."

But that isn't the whole of it, is it? Fingers pressed hard enough against the brick to be painful, he grounds out between rough breaths, "He saved... everyone, but I... I couldn't..." Save him.

@goldendivinewrath

"I-I—I don't..." Canary doesn't need to look down to know that the glasses underneath the sole of his boot are shattered beyond repaired. The lenses broken into dust—even if they could fix them, they'd never be the same, always warped, always wrong.

He rubs at the corner of his eye with the back of his gloved hand, definitely not fighting back tears. Is this how it's destined to end? Even if he runs, even if he excludes Wolfwood from anything and everything, it ends up like this?

With blurry vision, a shadow catches his eye as it stands atop the roof of the church, right next to the tolling bell. It's hunched—behind it is a familiar cross. It's as if the figure is judging them, wondering whether to open fire on them or not. Maybe he's just smoking a cigarette. Hopefully that's the case. Canary wants more than anything to hide away from his gaze and pretend that he doesn't exist.

And yet, fate cries out for him to follow. To watch and not look away, no matter what. To remember. To acknowledge that he exists, like an old friend chasing ghosts.

Maybe that's what they are. Both of them. Both he and them. Both hims.

Suddenly uneasy, Canary grabs his other self's wrist and bolts, feeling the cold glare on him all the way from the rooftop. The running and weaving through alleyways is familiar—he's been doing this for his whole life, just about. Even grabbing his companion and dragging him along is familiar in some odd fashion, and he's unsure if it's his own memory or someone else's. He feels like a hellfire of bullets rains upon them, but all he hears is silence.

Against the cold brick, he slumps and releases the other Vash, now fully hidden from view away from the church and the shadow.

"Okay... I think the world is telling us that we need to talk about it," Canary gasps through pants, "What happened, and why is he pissed off? I told you my story, so..."

[stonecoldmeme]

...It's the warm weather look.

[polinsated]

*penelope.exe has stopped working*

[beccawise7]

Quality time, disconnected from the world, is everything.

~beccawise7💜🖤