#oh and... yeah still stuck on how to articulate that one observation I made in my analysis of the source material for my thesis

[1989nihil]

How to describe Berserk: Gayme of Thrones

with a huge communication problems

[secretshinigami]

All Noble Things

Author: @kiranatrix For: @resilicns Pairings/Characters: Near and Gevanni Rating/Warnings: Gen, no warnings Prompt: Near reflecting on his relationship with Wammy’s and L’s reputation Author’s notes: In How to Read, it says that Gevanni’s hobby is building ships in a bottle. So I imagined a scene where Near is observing Gevanni, now in the role of Watari, building a special ship. The time period is flexible but I imagined it after the C-Kira case and before the case with Minoru. This is a loose interpretation of your prompt but I hope you enjoy it!

—

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Gevanni.” Near didn’t look up as he carefully laid out another domino on the floor, perfectly spaced from its neighbor and approximately two centimeters from chaos. Pinched fingers pulled back carefully and twisted around a strand of white hair. “Two things, really.”

Gevanni looked up from his workbench as the long but comfortable silence between them was broken. Since Roger had died and he’d taken on the role of Watari, he was usually the question-asker. Would you like lunch now? Have you heard back about this or that piece of evidence? Did you have another nightmare last night? 

He’d gotten used to it, to Near. To being the bedrock that an island could rest upon. “Two questions?”

No, he was more of a species imported to Near’s world and being gradually altered by the isolation, evolving to fill his niche. But he had no complaints–it was a quiet, stable life and Near paid him well. He didn’t mind the solitude. “You’re exceeding your daily allotment. I’ll have to demand a raise if this keeps up.”

“I believe I gave you a raise just three months ago. If these demands keep up, I’ll have to find another Watari.” Near deadpanned it but his eyes flicked up briefly, and Rester knew he was joking. Another domino clinked against the terrazzo floors, this one with hand-carved scrimshaw detailing a breaching whale.

Gevanni snorted and turned back to the ship in a bottle he was working on. “Good luck finding someone else to source those pajamas with the specific blend of Pima cotton you prefer. I’ve kept that a secret. Iron-clad job security.” He grinned as he carefully reached a long wire into the bottle to pat down blue and white putty mimicking ocean waves. “So, what’s question number one?”

“Can you tie back my hair? It keeps getting in the way.” Near flicked a long strand over his shoulder but it fell again, dangling dangerously close to his creation. “Mind the–”

“Dominos? Yeah, I’m practically a ninja at this point.” Gevanni pushed his loupe glasses to the top of his head before carefully making his way over spiraling lines of set-up dominos to Near at the center. He knelt and pulled a hair-tie from his pocket, holding it between his teeth as he gathered up all the silvery strands. “Holf spill,” he murmured around the band. Near was stone-still as he made a quick and slightly messy ponytail, leaving some loose hair around the face for twirling. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.” Near very briefly made eye contact as Gevanni went back to his workbench before looking back to his pile of dominos. He sorted through them for another scrimshaw piece. Gevanni had made a special set for him on his last birthday but he always saved them for the end. 

“Mmhm.” Gevanni slid back into his chair and picked up the little ship, a model of a 19th-century whaler. “So what was the second question?” 

“I was curious what you were working on.” Near let a domino tumble across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. “You’ve never spent that much time on just one ship before.” He caught the domino with his thumb and placed it next in line. 

“Oh, so you noticed?” Gevanni held up the little whaler on his palm, clearly proud of the highly detailed craftsmanship. All the masts were down and tied with an array of strings that could be pulled up once it was in the bottle to raise them. “I guess this one’s special since it doesn’t really exist. Thought I’d challenge myself. It’s…well, it’s how I imagine the Pequod to look, the whaling ship in–“

“Moby Dick?” Near stared at the miniature vessel, head slightly cocked as he smoothed a loose strand of hair. “The ship Captain Ahab used to chase his white whale.”

Gevanni smiled. “That’s right. It’s one of my favorite books. Have you read it?” 

“Years ago. I remember not liking it very much. The whale killed him in the end.” Near placed the last couple of dominos and let out a long sigh. The moments before flicking the first piece were the ones he both cherished and dreaded. The satisfaction of creation could be drawn out like a  monotone note, but when it was finished, the spectacular destruction was often over too soon. So, he hesitated and stood up instead, padding to Gevanni’s workbench to watch more creation. 

“I bet you’d like the book more these days. Single-minded obsession to defeat a power past human control? Throwing all caution and sense of self-preservation to the wind? The thrill of the chase?” Gevanni arched a brow. “Can’t tell me that doesn’t sound familiar.”

Near frowned slightly and hunched in on himself. “I suppose you mean L. Or do you characterize me as so foolish?”

“You’re L now.” Gevanni disliked that he had to remind Near of that even now, years after the first L had died. “But yes, it reminds me of what Matsuda told us about your predecessor’s obsession with Kira. I never met the first L, but maybe I can understand him, in a way.” He quoted Melville, "All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.’ You’re L but you’re not him, and I’m glad for it.”

Near wasn’t sure if he was glad for it or not. So many times over the years he’d compared himself to that avatar and wondered if he could measure up. Drily, “I guess that makes me Ishmael." 

"You survived, didn’t you? Lived to tell the tale and learn what he couldn’t." 

Gevanni turned back to the little ship, carefully threading another string through the rear-most mast. He worked quietly for a while, cognizant of Near’s focused attention and feeling sorry for bringing up the Kira case. It wasn’t often that Near took such an interest in his own projects, or perhaps the man was merely thinking about what he’d said. “Sit down, if you want to. I’m about to get to the exciting part.”

Near pulled a chair closer and slinked into it, one leg pulled tight to his chest and the other dangling off the end. “Which is the exciting part? Stuffing it into the bottle?”

“That’s part of it. The thrilling part for me is raising the masts and sails inside the bottle.” Gevanni pointed to the flat masts and the multiple lines of string leading from them. “If anything goes wrong or a string gets tangled…or some bit of glue doesn’t hold, well–”

“You’re screwed.” Near smiled faintly and rested his chin on his knee. “Hours of planning for one moment of glory. Or disaster.” It also sounded familiar, so familiar.

“Exactly.” Gevanni chuckled and looked over at Near, pleased to see that small, rare smile. That in itself was the product of so much patience, of hours spent in understanding and the slow building of confidence and trust. “Once I get the ship in, would you like to raise the sails?”

Near’s eyes widened and he rocked slightly in the chair. That was Gevanni’s moment of glory and he deserved it after so much time and hard work. The inlaid wood, the meticulous paint, the delicately carved and articulated ship’s wheel capped in brass. The hand-sewn sails and gold script that read Pequod on the ship’s side. Each detail was evidence that someone else had built this and he would only be stealing the best part, swooping in for the end of the trick.

“You built it so you should do it.” It didn’t help that he was worried about making a mistake and ruining it at the last moment. How would it even fit? Despite the masts lying flat, it seemed impossible that the ship would make it inside the bottle. “I don’t know how.”

Gevanni sensed Near’s hesitation and uncertainty, recognizing the subtle tics of anxiety. “I can show you. You’re great at stuff like this.” He motioned to the vast lines and towers of dominos filling the room. “Plus, I trust you.” 

When Near didn’t answer, he turned back to the ship, placing a small line of glue at the bottom and oh-so-carefully maneuvering it into the narrow mouth of the glass bottle and onto the ‘waves’ of translucent blue putty. It was a very tight fit and when it stuck down in the right position, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Not bad, huh?” The strings dangled from the bottle’s mouth as he held it up to show Near. “Offer still stands.”

Near wanted to do it, to try. Honestly, he wanted to ask Gevanni to show him how to build one of his own, how to trump the rigid enclosure and build something impossible inside. To raise it up not by magic but by human ingenuity and patience. A creation not to destroy but to keep.

“Alright.” His fingers moved from his hair to tentatively touch the white strings hanging from the bottle’s mouth. “All of them?”

“Just these.” Gevanni pointed out several lines connected to the three masts. “Don’t yank, just pull slowly until you feel resistance and I’ll tape them up.”

“If it works.”

Gevanni laughed quietly. “It’ll work. Stop stalling.”

Near mumbled, “I’m not stalling,” but stalled a moment more before gently tugging the strings. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat when all three masts raised in unison, perfectly aligned and straight. He smiled as Gevanni secured the strings, then slid off the chair to gaze at the bottle from the side. This floating world, this impossible thing that’s bottled the sea. “I can see why you like these so much.” 

“It passes the time.” Gevanni felt warm inside since it was rare that they connected like this, despite all the time spent in each other’s company. He glued the strings to the ship with a long wire and then cut them, leaving no trace of how it had really been made. Setting it on the bench to dry, he said, “Would you like to have it? I have about a dozen. I mean, if you want it.”

“As a warning against white whales?” Near smirked and climbed back into the chair. He fingered the hem of his specially-ordered Pima cotton pajamas, the exact blend he preferred. “Or for the memory of Ahab?”

“Neither? Or…maybe both.” Gevanni knew that so much had changed for Near when Kira died. Monster or not, that moment of destruction had ultimately felt unsatisfying. He knew Near struggled with assuming the name and reputation of L, a legacy that had become so confused in the mind of a world that would never know two L’s had died and a third now had to make peace with that. It was easier to bottle ships than emotions.

Mildly, “Or maybe just because it’s something we built together.” It was odd, but somehow it would mean a lot to him for Near to have it. “How about it?” 

Near found a loose string at the hem of his pants and yanked it, snapping the thread. He got up and crouched beside the winding, spiraling rows of dominos and pressed a slender finger against the first one. That catalyst set off the reaction, the staccato clack clack clack! that echoed in the high-ceilinged room. It was over in seconds and silence crept in again. 

“I’d like that.”

-End-

[The title comes from a quote in Moby Dick: "A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy. All noble things are touched with that.” It reminded me of  Gevanni’s rather solitary hobby as well as the occupation of solving cases as L.]

[pomp-and-circumstance]

Oh man, friends. Here we are. Episode 115. 

Making their way (MAKINGTHEIRWAY) through the cold frontier of Eislecross, Caleb sets up the tower and allows the Nein a night of warm comfort. Beau asks for some cocoa, chocolate covered strawberries, and a glass of chardonnay. After some moments of staring at it nervously, she gets into a warm bath and pulls back the letter like it’s a magically infused explosion waiting to happen.

And it is, just not in the way she expected.

First of all, I have to say that I love how the ENTIRE cast started to go crazy once Marisha said she was pulling out the letter, because I think it’s SO important to see everybody’s excitement not just for the characters, but for the growth Ashley takes here. Travis and Laura are excited, Liam laughs, Sam starts dancing and shifting his shoulders, Taliesin starts clapping, and Marisha has a “okay girl, it’s your time to shine” smile on her face.

(You deserve better than this unflattering angle Travis, I’m so sorry.)

These friends are ALL IN on this romance, and I’m so happy there’s this kind of... I don’t know if representation is the right word, but that example of friends who all love each other and are invested in this story they’re telling together. Nobody is rolling their eyes or groaning or checking out, but they’re ready to see where Ashley takes this and what she’s done with this poem. You can come up with all kinds of criticism about Critical Role, but the one thing you can’t debate is how much they love to love each other. It’s so wholesome and so badly needed in today’s world.

At the top of it, it’s a whole paragraph that is crossed out and scraped, and you see some words like “Beau” and “abs” and “shorn” and “envelope” and things like that, and it’s all crossed out, and underneath it...

Beau,

Yeah, this was a poem but then I realized it was a dumb poem and I can’t write poetry. Sometimes I have an easier time when I put the pen to parchment, so here it goes.

I’ve rewatched this bit maybe four times in the last couple of hours, and I’ve been struggling to come up with how I’m going to do this. This letter, much like Yasha herself, is loaded with emotional gravity disguised in simple verbiage. It’s so telling that Yasha scribbled out the entire top of the poem and wrote the letter on the same page than grab a clean piece. Maybe she didn’t want Jester to get hurt that she asked for another page and didn’t use the poem. Maybe there wasn’t any more paper nearby. Maybe the hints of the poem above was a simple reminder to Yasha that the most important thing when it comes to Beau isn’t to be flashy, but to be honest. She didn’t need to be eloquent. She needed to be herself.

I’ve watched you. I don’t mean that in a creepy way. I mean, I am a little bit of a creep, but I know that you know this by now; it takes me a minute to open up. So I watch, I observe, I take it all in as opposed to letting it all out. I guess the only time I let it all out is when I fight, which I’m not sure is the healthiest thing in the world. But here’s some things that I’ve noticed about you.

This is such a brilliant tie-in by Ashley. As I’ve been watching this campaign for the first time, something that really stuck out to me in the beginning was how quiet Ashley was when she returned to the show after a few weeks off. It had to be so hard to try and cover all the bases as a Barbarian while also filming a show in New York. I don’t know how they conducted things behind the scenes for her, if they gave her a synopsis on what happened the week before, or how much she was really aware of, but it has to be intimidating to want to play this game with your friends, but also have to suffer a bit from missing out on sessions AND having to “perform,” for lack of a better word, in front of people in a stream. Whether it was intentional or not, it creates layers in Yasha that are super effective once she came back permanently and was able to flow with everyone else. The beginning of this letter is weirdly complimentary while also feeling like Yasha might’ve gotten a little distracted by nerves while writing it. “I mean, I am a little bit of a creep... I’m not sure is the healthiest thing in the world.” She doesn’t have a chance to erase her words, or, again, grab new paper, so she takes those moments and makes them about Beau; “I know you know this by now (complimenting her smarts, as I noted a lot in the previous entry) but here’s some things I’ve noticed about you.” The first and last sentences of that paragraph are terrific bookends. “I’ve watched you. Here’s what I’ve seen.”

You’re strong, you’re a leader, you’re really smart, you’re really funny, you’re honest, even if it hurts, but the thing that really gets me about you is that you love so fiercely. And I know you feel like an asshole most days, but I kind of like that you’re an asshole. 

Beau has grown up under the expectations of somebody who lived his life by fear, and that fear manifested itself in several ways with her. She liked talking to people and visiting places and finding new ways to sell the wine, but her father said no. She was actively working to expand this small empire her father had built, was even being smart about it by bringing barrels to places where she fought, and man, what a great selling point to the owner of a tavern, to get the Lionette wine from the daughter of the maker, and hey, she can kick your ass, too. Thoreau clipped her wings instead of watching her grow and shipped her off as a result. When she didn’t comply, she was seen as a problem. The line between the world and Beau’s heart is a tremendously delicate place, so delicate that she’s made herself a human weapon to defend it - and she LIKES that about herself. But that also means reaching that delicate place takes time, but more importantly, it takes trust. Yasha knows now that Beau trusts her, and to tell Beau that she trusts her, too, it’s not so much that she tells Beau that she’s seen, but that she’s wanted on top of that. “I kind of like that you’re an asshole” is a big deal. Beau has been seen as hard to love because she’s asshole. Yasha is falling for her despite it... and admittedly because of it.

You stick up for the people you love, and you make me feel stronger. 

It’s not just that she’s an asshole, it’s part of her that loves so fiercely. I love that being an asshole and loving others are in back to back sentences. They really do go hand in hand with Beau; to be in her company and be defended by her is an honor, and Yasha is admitting to that here. “You’ve done this time and time again for the Nein, even for me, when others might’ve questioned it, and I feel stronger because of it.” Everybody has had some moment in this journey where Beau has stuck up for them, and that’s not lost on Yasha at all, even with missing time. We know Yasha is already in love with Beau at this point, so she counts herself in this category. Imagine how Beau’s insides must’ve warmed reading that she, the smaller, dexterous, crafty Monk, makes this hulking Barbarian of immense power and soft heart feel stronger. But on top of all that...

I can hold my own, I know that you know that, but you make me feel safe. I don’t even know if that makes sense, but I know no matter what, you’ll have my back, no questions asked.

-Yasha

Yasha has gaps in her memory, undergoes trials from the Storm Lord, has been taken control of by Obann twice, and has had people in her mind actively kill her friends and loved ones. She doesn’t NEED Beau to be any more powerful than she is, but she WANTS Beau, because of all the people in her life, it’s Beau that makes her feel safe. The line between the world and Yasha’s heart wasn’t as delicate, and she was made into a killing machine to offset what a soft soul she is, as though her tenderness is a burden, not a strength. “You make me feel safe” speaks to this. Yasha can be who she is, without judgement or expectations, when she’s with Beau. They can tackle gods, take on ancient civilizations, battle dragons, smarmy wizards, anything really... and she’ll feel stronger and safe with Beau simply because she’s there. Beau is more than just the body she has, or the perceived troublemaker that was “too much” for the Lionette household. Yasha has seen it at work with the Nein, and has only fallen for her harder because of it.

Trust shared. Trust exchanged. The ball is in your court, Beau.  

Yasha thinks she can’t write poetry. Heh.

(This entry is always going to feel incomplete to me because I don’t think I articulated my thoughts as well as I wanted to, but I think that’s more of a testament to Ashley’s writing this letter than anything else. Feeling safe with someone is a struggle for me personally - not that you need my sob story, but it’s there - so wrapping my mind around that sentence is something I’m still trying to do, even after months of knowing that it was coming. What I will point out instead is the split second Marisha and Ashley make eye contact immediately after Ashley finishes the letter. It’s the only time it happens before the scene switches to Jester and Caleb, and damn, is Marisha both overwhelmed and so proud. No wonder it took her a moment to continue from there.)

[bereft-of-frogs]

loki series discourse thoughts dump: (I’ve been hanging onto them)

- honestly, I’m not touching the selfcest=problematic discourse because I think you can guess my feelings (who cares, it’s hot tho right? hahaha also not the worst thing I’ve ever shipped so) and also I vehemently agree with the twitter thread that’s like ‘....y’all know this is not a scenario you will ever have to face in real life, right?’ like, this is the ultimate fantastical ship, it’s been around for years before this, I do not care that people are upset about it

- I think one of the problems, for me, with the ‘is it objectively good or bad’ discourse is that the negative takes are so negative sometimes that it genuinely makes me question my perception of reality and my ability to critically view television. like, I’m talking about the ‘the effects are the worst and amateurish and it sucks’ sort of hyperbole. (I thought for the most part the effects were quite good, which is why the couple times they were bad really stuck out to me). or ‘they had no chemistry!’ (I actually thought the chemistry was great, particularly in their first episode together, I was really surprised by how quickly I was like ‘oh but I like this dynamic). things like that where they’re either of a subjective nature or they are problems, points if I were inclined to write a larger critique I may have mentioned as well...but they’re perhaps not as big a problem as some people are making them out to be, which is what’s throwing me off.

- this also I think, comes from ‘contextual reviewing’ or in this case the lack thereof. like when I talk about it being good, I’m not saying it’s prestige television. but I’m placing it against its direct competitors - the disney+ series: The Mandalorian, Wandavision, Falcon & Winter Soldier most directly, but also its similar genre shows. for me, the series was right up there with The Mandalorian and a bit better overall than Wandavision, but was it Dark? Was it Altered Carbon? No, but if I want those things....I’m not going to the MCU for that. I was entertained, which is about as deep as I expect out of it. And yeah, the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig for those buried themes, but I’m also not super bothered because I think Loki fit really well into the MCU

(*and if you think this is just me bootlicking disney or whatever, accepting mediocrity from the mouse, I think this problem of contextual reviewing is something that exists even not talking about the mouse. like, I have different standards for a show if I know it originally premiered on SyFy or the CW, versus HBO or AMC, versus Netflix or Amazon, and I have a whole longer post to be made about why some shows are struggling in the age of prestige tv, because we’re flattening the context and holding shows that would have been perfectly well-received on SyFy to HBO standards and I do think it’s sometimes unfortunate and perfectly fun shows get raked over the coals because they’re not performing to prestige TV’s standards)

- I’m starting to see a potential evolution of my predicted conspiracy. still not as intense as tjlc just the rumblings but I gotta say. Cut it out. it is inappropriate to speculate on the personal relationships of actors. It is doubly inappropriate to with no evidence make vague accusations of an intensely personal nature. leaving this one vague. but just...speculating on accusations of a personal nature because you are disappointed in a tv show is inappropriate. stop it.

- that being said I’m also operating on the assumption that the ‘let’s get a protest mob to tom hiddleston’s house’ anon is trolling but still. stop it. seriously. it’s inappropriate. the show was perfectly fine. it may have disappointed you and you have absolutely every right to be disappointed but you do not have the right to attack people who were doing a job, even if you didn’t like the end result. they pitched a show. their pitch was accepted. they made the show. that’s it.

- speaking of, an interesting observation I’ve had throughout the show’s run is how the fandom seems to feel we’re at war with the creators. a lot of putting them down like ‘[theory] but they wouldn’t be smart enough for that’ or bitching about ‘Michael Waldron’s OCs’. Michael Waldron’s job is to write OCs. he has to make characters for Loki to play off of and to further the plot. There is no reason to assume that fanfiction writers are better or smarter or care more than original content creators. in general, canon content creators are held to different parameters than fic writers. honestly, even calling them OCs feels weird to me because creating new characters and worlds is the literal job of the canon creators? but I guess it also makes sense in a way because they are creating new characters in a world already establish but...I don’t know. it’s different somehow. further articulation on this point required.

I think that’s it for me - I probably have some more episode-specific points to contend, but I think that’s it for my general discourse opinions, just to know where I’m standing at this point. I was really entertained, I hadn’t looked forward to a weekly airing of a show this much since the second season of The Mandalorian finished up. As I said last night, looking forward to the multiverse fallout and season 2 and the other films in the lineup!

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Chapter 1- I saw Emma Kissing Santa Claus!

Hi all! If anybody is still there/ I’m caught up in this song. It’s given me the idea for like seven chapter- here is the first. MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎁! The rest will be late, like those gifts that trickle in when the glow of the holidays is getting hazy. We need Christmas cheer to linger after this year, so I’m gonna publish as I write! Enjoy! And share!

They talked about it later, years after their lives had taken off into space in opposite directions, the moment they knew.

Well, the moment he knew.

"Wait, what?" Emma asked, looking up from the hollow she'd found between his arm and chest when the December air found the crevices in the windows and chilled their skin. She'd get goose flesh and he'd run his hands up and down her limbs to warm her, then pull the flannel up and over them, no matter how warm he was from doing all the work near their end. "We kissed? When we were TEENAGERS?"

"Well, I was technically a teenager the first time we slept together too."

"We didn't sleep."

Harry wiggled his eyebrows at her and smirked, "Oh, I know."

"Oh my god, I really don't remember this!" She turned all the Christmas parties she'd attended at his mum's house over in her head. Emma figured she'd been at the annual event every year since she was 15 or 16, the age he says he was when they kissed. She has almost three years on him. Maybe she was 14 at the first one. That one she recalls well, She's pretty she still had braces. Nobody kissed her. If her math is good, it's her last Christmas before moving. "No wonder you were so ballsy last year!" She slapped at his chest and he grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips.

"Nah, that was more to do with last year. I was just flush and nobody had turned me down in so long I didn't think anybody ever would again."

"I did!" She at least pretended she wasn't captivated.

"You did. At first!" He reminded her and bit her fingertips before sucking them into his mouth. "Made myself irresistible evidently." He wiggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes thinking back at his dogged flirting. He'd found multiple reasons to be near her and had found her close enough to the mistletoe and was charming enough that she accepted the kiss he negotiated out of her as inevitable. Negotiated, that was laughable, he laid one on her and it overwhelmed her reason. Emma thought she played it cool enough, though she remembers they held hands for the the 10 minutes after, at least.

She accepted the other things he was offering on the strength of that kiss, and the fact that since he'd slipped his tongue into her mouth so seamlessly, convincingly, all she could think about for the hours intervening was what else his mouth could do.

While she replayed the memory of that first kiss, the one that counted for her, another blurry memory flashed in her mind.

"Oh! Was it underneath the mistletoe, too?"

Harry rolled his eyes, and her beneath him in the same breath. "You were under the mistletoe the second time!"

"I was mistletoe adjacent, at best." She sighed, she meant to jest, but his long lean body pressed along the length of her clouded her mind and convinced her she wasn't tired anymore or too tipsy off champagne.

"The first time, was me under the mistletoe."

"I kissed you?"

"You did." He confirmed with another kiss.

"How'd I kiss you? Like full on?" She was a little mortified she'd kissed little Harry.

Gemma would have killed her. Would still! That was why she and Harry always just flirted at the party and met up at the inn when the wine had everybody off their head. Nobody knew, it was their Christmas surprise. The secret she looked forward to all year.

"Well, you weren't brave enough to slip me the tongue." He stuck his tongue into the corner of his mouth; that was too attractive by half.

"Hmph." Was all Emma could come up to answer with. "Did I say anything?" She smoothed her hands up his back.

His face got dreamy, and he seemed to be reliving something. "Yeah, you told me 'you're getting cute little Styles.' I always hated that nickname, but I felt a little taller that night."

Harry was descriptive, which was funny considering he could be so quiet at times, but he was quick and he knew a lot of words, more than her. He was working on his third language. He would basically narrate while they fucked and it drove her crazy when he'd describe how she looked and felt and what it was doing to him.

"What do you want to ask?" He pressed his nose to the place her collarbones met and she could fill him growing between her legs.

"How'd you know I want to ask something?" He was too observant.

He reached up and pulled the lip she didn't realize was between her teeth free. Ahh.

"Ask." He kissed the lip still imprinted with her teeth marks.

"Tell me about it. Describe it, like you do for me when you're inside me."

He blew out a breath, "Should be easy, I obsessed over it for ages after, before even."

"Before?"

"Yeah, I have had a crush on you since you were 12 and started coming round with Gem." He revealed.

"No, I don't believe it!"

"I loved that you already had your whole life planned out and you were sooo smart and then the next year you had boobs."

"That started out so well." She almost protested, she had boobs at 12!

"I was very impressed by the boobs, you wore this sweater—" she clapped a hand over his mouth.

"No more talking unless it's about that party."

He smiled at her and his eyes went soft at their corners, his dimples were suggestions of a deep feeling. "I think you had this idea, like this was your last Christmas here, in Holmes Chapel—"

She had had that idea. She'd intended to leave for a summer term in Sweden that spring and wasn't sure she'd be coming back. And she'd always loved that party, and Gemma's family. Even Gemma's goofy weird brother who was getting cuter and more confident. "Why do you say that?"

"Dunno," he tilted his head and his mouth flattened out and his eyes went somewhere else, he was looking at her but not the version in front of him. "I think you reminded me of my cousins' when they could first drink. Seemed like you were just throwing caution to the wind, letting it fly. Like you had nothing to lose, cuz this place was about to be a memory."

Emma could only find the energy to stare, she thought she nodded. He was spot on, but she wasn't even sure she could have articulated those feelings then. And she hadn't been that reckless ever before or after that day.

"I'd been watching you, and like I said, had a crush for years, um, and like, you were wearing that shiny top, like liquid silver and your long brown hair was all curled up and your cheeks were red with your merry making and I'd always loved your laugh. You're usually so calculated—"

"That's not a nice word."

"I don't mean it like a bad thing, like maybe a better word would be careful. Like all your moves were preparation for the grand future you were working towards. But when you laugh, it all falls away. Tears leak from the corners of your eyes and you bend at the waist and just lose it. That night you did it a lot." He kissed her knuckles. "Did you notice I was kind of shadowing you that night?"

"Honestly, not really, I was kinda out of it, or maybe really in it instead of 5 years ahead." She always was at least a week ahead in her mind. In the actual moment, she was usually just ticking that day's checklist off to get to the next thing.

"Yeah. I could see it, you were really in your body, and it made me want you more." He laughed. "The only other time I ever see you like that is...ah..."

"Go on!" She jostled his shoulder.

He bit his lip like the imp he was and said, "When we fuck, it's like when you laugh, there's no tomorrow, or next semester, or internship you have lined up, just the next orgasm on the horizon."

She knew she was blushing but she ducked her chin and shrugged. She couldn't deny it. She could feel that when he moved inside her, when they moved together, it was like when she really lost her head and laughed at something. Better, more. Emma definitely did not tell him it was never like that with anybody else.

Not her college boyfriend, or the Danish guys she'd enjoyed over their version of freshers, and certainly not the completely nice guy she'd been dating for two months back in Amsterdam. Not one of them made her get out of her head the way Harry could. They'd be following every direction she gave them from tongue placement to tempo and she'd be observing the feelings as opposed to experiencing them. But even remembering her first kiss with Harry was a sensory experience. She gave him direction because that's who she is, but she's fairly certain even if she didn't, he'd be able to get her off just by watching her.

She wondered if it was the same as her. He was more cerebral than anybody gave him credit for. Maybe if he talked more about the kiss she'd find out.

He caught her chin, "Where'd you go?" He asked with dopey green eyes.

"I'm just trying to remember." Emma lied. "Tell me more, maybe it will come back to me."

"Oh, from my memory of the proof of your breath you may never remember." Emma could feel her cheeks heat. She had really tied one on, she was absolutely rough the next day. Utterly useless.

"Yeah, I wasn't sure I'd ever be here again."

"In Holmes Chapel? Really? You thought you'd never come back?"

"I always wanted to leave so bad, I genuinely thought I wouldn't miss it."

"But you did? You do?"

She nodded. She didn't want to explain that the first time she was way more homesick than she expected and this year, well, this year she wanted him for Christmas again.

He gave her this face then and a kiss that made her think he really was a mind reader, his crystal ball in the shape of her body.

"Not everyday." Take that Mr. Intuitive.

He gave her a smile that looked like a wink and started talking, "Like I said, I'd always just found you so impressive and you were always so pretty. But you came back from Amsterdam different."

"It was all the bike riding," she deflected and ran her hands down his arms to his lower back.

"Nah, it wasn't your body. That's always been nice. You just seemed like you were so happy and it was coming out of your pores."

"With the mulled wine?"

"Yeah! Definitely the mulled wine." He kissed her one then pressed his mouth to hers," Might have been your legs."

She snorted, "See it was the biking."

"You also had them out!" He defended. She had worn a daring skirt. "And maybe the biking." He laughed with her. "You also did that snort laugh I'd only heard through the walls during sleep overs and I was kinda tracking you."

"Stalker." He made a face. "Sorry probably not a joke to you." They didn't really talk about the peculiarities of his job. He was just Hometown Harry to her. Gemma's little brother. Her Christmas gift wrapped in deliciousness the last two years.

"I didn't really mean to, honestly. Was just like water to it's path."

"That's poetic." She teased.

"Hey, I'm a songwriter."

"I'd like to see evidence of that." Emma raised an eyebrow.

"You will." She wanted to ask but he just kept going. "Wanna know the funny thing? I never really had to look hard to find you." He went on. "You always seemed to be in the corners of my eye, like a dream I was trying to remember.

"I kind of remember that." She rolled her eyes and summoned some courage, "You looked different, and I tried to ignore it, but the more wine I had, the more I found myself comparing you to the boy I remembered from two years before."

"Hadn't been that long. I was with Gem when she told you goodbye."

She cringed. "I don't think I really looked at you that day."

"Oof, good thing I have crowds of people to stroke the old ego." At least the laugh seemed genuine though his eyes were a little dull.

"I was really remembering you in your red jumper from two parties before."

"Tell me about that party- we got off track talking about the last one." Last year she remembered In technicolor.

"Where were you the year after?"

"Studying, of course."

"Yeah makes sense." He pinched his lip, then bit hers.

"I remember thinking your jumper suited you so well and—"

"Matched your eyes."

"Yeah." She could feel the wonder of his eyes.

"But by midnight I saw that guy Spencer with his arm around your waist. Went to get a drink and was sulking with my own wine when you passed me. You had this look."

"Drunk?"

"Mischievous." He raised his eyebrows and bit his lip, "And then you pointed to the mistletoe."

"And said, 'caught you.'"

"You do remember!" He accused with a still annoyingly attractive chicken neck.

"I didn't, but I'm having a sense memory now." She widened her hips so he fit in like a piece of ikea hardware.

"Care to relive it?" He was trying to sound nonchalant, but she could see the hopeful blush.

She answered him by fitting her lips between his perfect ones and giving a lighter pressure than she had for two Christmases, waiting for his direction of how her bold move had turned out. He moaned and she sucked just a bit like she suddenly recalled. She really thought that was a wine fueled daydream, she swears. And then her mouth opened on a gasp and she slid her tongue against his and licked into his mouth before sliding her nose to the other side of his. The kiss depended until it was all over them and they would have wound up naked if they hadn't been already.

"This is different."

"We can re-enact it a little bit more faithfully later. It can be your Christmas present." Emma whispered between kisses.

"Nah." He was actually blushing, all the way down. "You're my gift."

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Patience

Summary: Hohenheim and Trisha sleep together for the first time. It’s somewhat awkward considering that the souls are attempting to be helpful for once, but Trisha is nothing if not understanding, and what could have been a disaster turns into something sweet.

Rated: Explicit

Note: From what I can tell, opinion seems split as to Hohenheim’s sexual activities prior to settling with Trisha, but I’m in the camp that thinks Trisha was his first and only. I’m not going to go into my deeper reasoning here, but I headcanon him on the ace branch of the sexuality tree. Even after he settled with Trisha, I don’t think they had all that much sex.

Patience

It isn’t until they’re inside the front door and it has closed with a soft but very final click that Hohenheim begins to fully appreciate where this is going, and he feels a slight current of panic start to thread itself through his nerves.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to have sex with Trisha. It’s just that she’s the first person he’s ever had those kinds of feelings towards, and he knows that his lack of experience will show. How on earth can he explain to her that he’s still a virgin?

Prolonged life aside, she’s twenty and he’s physically thirty-six (he thinks – he never celebrated his birthday back when he’d been a slave). He really ought to have some knowledge. As it is, he’s got four centuries on her and he’s completely clueless. Four centuries and he’s never had sex. What has he been doing with his life? Not that, obviously. He’s travelled far and wide and he’s met many people, but Trisha is the first one he’s let get close enough for that kind of desire to develop.

Then there’s the ever-present hum of the souls. Trisha knows about them; there’s no way he would have let things get this far without warning her about the half a million unavoidable, if unwilling, observers sharing his headspace. She’s all right with the notion, but right now, Hohenheim himself is having some trouble with them. He’s learned to live with them, but he really wishes that they would all just shut up for five minutes. He knows they’re only trying to help in their own way, but the first time is daunting under any circumstances and absolutely not made easier by a few hundred thousand souls, all arguing with each other over the best way to go about this.

He’s even more confused once they all start yelling conflicting advice at him, and he’s about to give it all up as a bad job and take Trisha back to her own home when her arms slip around his middle and her mouth slants over his, soft but undeniably eager, and Hohenheim surrenders. Maybe, just this once, he’ll let himself have what he wants for a night.

She smiles at him as she breaks the kiss, and he feels one hand come down to his ass, pulling him in closer against her.

“Everything ok? You’ve got your thinking face on.”

“My thinking face?”

“Yeah. You look worried. I don’t bite, I promise.”

She’d said that the first time that she’d kissed him, and he’d been unable to articulate anything other than ‘arp’ for about five minutes afterwards.

“Trisha?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve never done this before.” The words almost fall over themselves in his haste to get them out.

“Really?”

Hohenheim nods, searching her face for scorn, disgust, mockery, expecting at any moment for her either to laugh or recoil, or just leave him standing completely dejected in his own hallway. Not even the few souls attempting and miserably failing to be encouraging in the back of his mind can stop the familiar nervousness of being truly terrible at interacting with normal human beings.

Trisha just smiles. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. I’m sure we can figure out what we’re doing between us.”

“I have every faith in you. It’s me I’m worried about.”

She laughs, but there’s nothing malicious in it.

“You’ll be fine.”

Hohenheim kisses her again, because at least he knows what he’s doing with that. And it’s not as if he doesn’t know the basic fundamentals of what’s about to happen. He could just do without the ‘helpful’ tips generating slanging matches inside his veins. At least they’re shouting at each other and not him.

“Please be quiet,” he hisses under his breath. Trisha touches a fingertip to the bridge of his nose, trying to smooth out the frown line there.

“Hey. Just ignore them for a while. I’m here.” She squeezes his ass and gives him a saucy little look that should be wrong on someone as sweet as Trisha but that does something to his insides and makes that ember of attraction burn a little brighter. “Maybe we ought to go upstairs?”

Hohenheim nods, letting her lead him up the stairs to his bedroom. At least the bed is made and it’s vaguely tidy, which isn’t always the case.

Trisha looks around at the books and paperwork that have spilled over from the study. “Are all the rooms in your house filled with alchemy?”

“Yes.” Considering he’s been known to draw arrays in toothpaste on the tiles before now, he can’t even claim that the bathroom is untouched.

Trisha rolls her eyes and begins to undo his tie.

“Oh, you’re wonderful.” She pulls him in and kisses him before he can respond, but there again, Hohenheim doesn’t think that a response is needed. Just more kissing, and Trisha’s hands finding his and bringing them to the buttons on the front of her dress.

“I think the next step is taking all our clothes off.”

Hohenheim would be lying if he said he has not thought about what Trisha looks like naked. He would be telling the truth if he said he hadn’t thought about it up until two hours ago, when the hints she’s been dropping for a while that she would very much like him to see her naked, and vice versa, ceased to be subtle and even he couldn’t misconstrue her desires.

Since then, it feels like he’s been thinking about it at least every five minutes.

Objectively, he knows what women look like naked. He’s seen enough of them – he’s been studying and practising medical alkahestry for hundreds of years. But there’s something very different about that context and this context, and his fingers fumble over her buttons, his mouth going suddenly dry as he pushes the dress off her shoulders, leaving her in a plain cotton camisole and knickers.

There’s colour rising in Trisha’s cheeks now, and for all she’s taken the lead so far, he’s reminded that this is the first time for her, too. He should probably do something that isn’t just standing here staring at her like a lemon.

“The bed?” he suggests.

“Good idea.”

He’s not quite sure how they manage to make it to the bed, or how Trisha manages to get his shirt off, but then she’s lying back against the pillows with her legs open in welcome, and she’s pulling him down on top of her, and he feels like he’s drowning in a very good way.

You can touch her, you know, some talkative soul points out, but there’s something in the back of Hohenheim’s mind saying that he can’t, that he shouldn’t, that he’s a monster and Trisha is, well, Trisha, and he doesn’t deserve her.

There’s also the fact that she’s petite and slender and he’s tall and solidly built, and he doesn’t want to crush her.

“I won’t break,” she whispers, as if she can tell what he’s thinking. “I’m not indestructible, but I’m not made of porcelain either.”

She reaches up and takes his glasses off, and he blinks a few times to readjust. He doesn’t actually need them; any optician would be able to tell at a glance that the glass is plain. But knowing that he has a doppelgänger out there, he wanted something to distinguish them, and he knows that the Thing in the Flask (no longer in a flask, more’s the pity) would never want to be seen as anything less than a perfect specimen of humanity. So glasses it was.

There’s another, more pragmatic reason. People are less likely to notice his unusual eye colour if they have to look through glasses to see it.

Hohenheim trusts Trisha. He’s never trusted anyone this much, not even Pinako, whose obstinate and enduring friendship is the reason he’s stuck around in Resembool long enough to meet Trisha and form a relationship with her in the first place. If Trisha says she’s ok, then he’s not going to pretend that he knows better than her.

So, he takes his chances, shifting his weight and bringing a hand to her breast, rubbing his fingertips over her nipple where it stands hard and pert against the soft fabric of her camisole.

Trisha wriggles under him, lips quirking up in an expression of pleasure.

“Mm. That’s good.” She pushes him back so that she can sit up, pulling her camisole off and tossing it onto the floor. The flush of self-consciousness is still there in her cheeks, spreading down over her neck and bare decolletage, but her eyes are bright with want as she brings his hand back to her breast. “Please. I want you to touch me.”

In that moment, Hohenheim doesn’t think that he’ll be able to deny Trisha anything for as long as he lives, because in that one simple sentence she’s given him a gift she’ll probably never truly comprehend the scope of. She knows his story, she knows about the souls, she knows about Xerxes, and yet she still loves him in spite of it. She still wants his hands on her, unafraid of him marring her in some way. She still wants him to be the first one she’s ever intimate with.

He leans in, capturing her mouth again and trying to pour all of the gratitude and need into the kiss, trailing down over her cheek and jaw and making her gasp. He pulls back.

“Are you all right?”

“I’d be better if you keep kissing me.”

Hohenheim is happy to oblige, continuing to circle her pebbled nipple with his thumb, and Trisha arches up into his touch, wanting more. He switches to her other breast, repeating the treatment and feeling a little pride at the soft noises she makes. He’s so focussed on her that he startles when he feels her fingertips trail down his arm.

“My turn. I want to touch you, too.”

Trisha’s touch is featherlight as she maps his chest with her hands, drawing out an involuntary shiver as her fingernails scrape over his own nipples, and she smiles that sexy little smile again at his reaction before moving downwards towards his belt and the now completely undeniable bulge below. A part of him can’t help being ferociously embarrassed by his body’s rapid reaction to what’s going on and moreover to the fact Trisha is in his bed wearing nothing but her knickers and she’s touching him and…

“May I?”

Her hand is hovering over his crotch, and there’s that drowning feeling again, and Hohenheim nods. She touches him so lightly, and yet he can almost feel her warmth through the fabric. Suddenly he’s very aware of human anatomy and the fact he’s a lot taller than Trisha and his cock is in proportion with his height, and she’s slim-hipped and unstretched, and this has the potential to be a complete disaster. He closes his eyes, attempting to focus on the here and now and trying desperately to ignore the bluster that’s started up in the back of his mind again.

It’s fine, it always hurts the first time. No, if it hurts then you’re doing it wrong. Virgins bleed the first time, why do you think we had to slaughter so many chickens on wedding nights? Shut up and let him breathe for goodness sake, he’ll be a nervous wreck any minute if you keep this up. If she bleeds then you’re being too rough. Why did we bother with the chickens then? The patriarchy, Mara, that’s why. Can we not get into arguments about the patriarchy right now? My first time hurt like hell. It’s called ‘making LOVE’, it’s not supposed to HURT.

“Hohenheim?”

He opens his eyes to find Trisha’s green ones full of concern.  She pushes him back up onto his knees and scooches up into a sitting position, her legs cradling his as she holds his face with gentle hands.

“Are you all right?”

“I…” Hohenheim sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Trisha smiles. She’s so accepting and so patient.

“I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

“You won’t. If it’s uncomfortable, then I’ll tell you to stop, and you’ll stop. You won’t hurt me.”

She kisses him, softly but still with that ever-present fire, carding her hands in his hair to get him closer and giggling against his mouth when she gets tangled up. Hohenheim decides to cut his losses and pulls his ponytail loose. It’s probably the first time Trisha’s ever seen him with his hair down, and he watches her taking in the sight for a moment.

“You remind me of a lion, with your beard and your hair like that. It’s like a lion’s mane.”

In spite of the remnants of panic swirling through his veins, Hohenheim has to laugh at that, and Trisha laughs too, and she buries her face in against his neck.

“It’s ok,” she says. “We’ve got all the time in the world. Tonight we can just… be close.”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

They break apart by necessity, Hohenheim standing up to take his trousers off whilst Trisha gets comfortable between the sheets. She cuddles in close against him when he joins her, fingers dancing over his shoulder and down his arm, interlacing their hands and pressing a kiss to his palm.

“Feeling better?”

Hohenheim nods. “Trisha, I think you’re the most remarkable person I’ve ever met.”

“Thank you.” She giggles. “You’re definitely the most remarkable person I’ve ever met, but then I’ve never left Resembool, so I don’t have a very wide field of comparison.”

She trails her fingers back up his arm, down his side, round over his hip and up his spine, and Hohenheim feels his skin break out into gooseflesh under her touch. Trisha must definitely have noticed, but she doesn’t say anything, content to keep drawing patterns over him with featherlight fingertips. Emboldened by her ease, Hohenheim mimics her, lazily working his way over her soft skin until she nestles in his arms, closing her eyes with a smile and drifting off to sleep in his embrace.

For a long while, Hohenheim just watches her, the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her breath disturbs the tendrils of her hair that fall over her face. No matter what else happens, he feels like he could get used to this, that spending every night for the rest of forever with Trisha here beside him, in his arms, would be better than anything else in the world.

The souls are still arguing in the back of his mind even as he begins to feel a sense of calm that he’s not felt for a very long time, if ever, and he’s content to ignore all their bickering as he feels slumber take him too.

X

For the briefest of moments when he wakes up alone in a bed that he definitely had company in before, Hohenheim is rather alarmed, but Trisha’s dress and shoes are still on the floor so she can’t have gone far. He rolls over, pillowing his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. Everything seems different in the warm morning light. There’s less urgency, less energy, although still the same amount of desire. There’s time and space to think. Actually, that might not be a good thing. Overthinking everything was what led to all the trouble last night.

The souls are still at it, but they’re much more subdued now. Maybe they’ve realised that they’re not helping and are trying to give him as much space as they can. Maybe they got it all out of their systems whilst he was dead to the world.

The bedroom door opens and Trisha tiptoes around it, smiling when she sees him awake.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. I was surprised, actually.” She slips back into bed with him. “I thought that having another person there would make it difficult, but apparently sleeping with you is as natural as anything. Actually sleeping, I mean. Not the other kind of sleeping. Although maybe that will come naturally too. Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.” She pulls the sheets up over her head in embarrassment.

“That’s ok. I don’t know what I’m saying either.”

Trisha emerges from her cocoon and leans over him, bending in closer and closer until she presses a kiss to the tip of his nose.

“It’s still pretty early,” she says. “And we don’t have to be anywhere.”

Hohenheim knows what she’s suggesting. Maybe they can restart what they cut short last night.

“We don’t.

There’s a pause then, a moment of stillness and silence, and Hohenheim realises that Trisha is waiting for him to take the lead. She’s far readier for this than he is, that was made clear to him last night even if neither of them actually said anything out loud, but being the perfect person that she is, she’ll go at his pace. As if he needed any more reasons to be head over heels in love with her.

He wants this. He never thought, in the past, that it was something he ever wanted. He always wanted to have a family, but after so long alone he’d accepted it would never be possible. Trisha has reignited the hope, and at the same time ignited something dormant that was perhaps never ignited before, the want to be as close to her and as intimate with her as possible not for the sake of itself but because she’s Trisha and she’s wonderful and he adores her.

Hohenheim pulls her down into a kiss that he hopes conveys all that. Her reaction is certainly encouraging, covering his body with hers and tangling her fingers into his hair.

“All right?” she asks breathlessly, cheeks tinged pink.

“Yes. You?”

“Oh, yes.”

She sits up and pulls her camisole off again, and now Hohenheim can fully appreciate the sight of her in the light. His hands follow a familiar course from last night, cupping her breasts and rubbing her nipples to pebbled points, enjoying the way her eyes close and her head tilts back.

“Maybe you could go lower?” Trisha takes his hands and draws them down her sides to the waistband of her knickers. The blush is spreading from her cheeks down over her chest again, and Hohenheim just sits up and stares as she slips off him and pulls her underwear off, leaving her gloriously naked and bathed in a sliver of golden sunrise.

Every language he knows, including the mother tongue he hasn’t spoken in so long, deserts him in that moment, and since he knows in the back of his mind he should probably do something that isn’t simply gawp at her like she’s a fairground attraction, he kisses her again. Trisha curls her arms and legs around him, keeping him close, and they stay like that for a long time until Hohenheim begins to feel his cock responding to her nearness again. He goes to pull away by instinct more than anything, but Trisha holds him tighter, one foot tracing up and down his calf.

“Don’t run away,” she murmurs. “I want to feel you. I want to see you.”

She releases her tight hold on him a little, and although there’s a part of Hohenheim that still thinks they’re about to get on a runaway train to disaster, he takes off his underwear.

He knows he’s never been this vulnerable with someone before, but it’s not uncomfortable with Trisha. She drinks in the sight of him like he did her, and then she’s pulling him back down into her arms, peppering him with kisses over his lips, cheeks, neck.

“Please touch me,” she whispers in his ear. “I trust you.”

That vote of confidence shores him up more than any of the misplaced encouragement the souls can give, and Hohenheim shifts his weight off Trisha, tracing his hand carefully down over her chest and tummy to the patch of soft dark curls on her mound. Her thighs fall open wider for him and he can feel the first traces of her wet and glistening arousal on her folds. His own pulse quickens at the thought of it.

“Is this all right?” He strokes along her slit tentatively, watching the way her hips jerk and wriggle against the sheets, pressing into his touch.

“Mm.” Trisha nods, her eyes fluttering closed, and then her hand comes down to guide his fingers to her entrance, hot and slippery and ever so slightly overwhelming in a very good way.

Hohenheim yelps as Trisha’s fingertips brush over the sensitive tip of his cock and she looks at him, startled.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes. That was just… Would you do it again?”

Trisha smiles that devilish little smile again, her tongue darting out over her lips as she curls her fingers round his length and strokes gently. Hohenheim’s masturbated before, he’s no stranger to this kind of touch but from a hand other than his own is something entirely different and indescribable.

“Are you ready?”

Is he? He’s pretty sure his brain’s only half there, but…

“Yes.”

It takes a lot of awkward fumbling for them to get into the right position and lined up properly, but Hohenheim knows that Trisha’s giggling fit is not directed at his ineptitude but at the entire situation, and he’d far rather that she was giggling and happy than not giggling and not happy. But then her arm is around his back, and her face is buried in against his neck, and he’s pushing into her and everything falls into place.

“Tell me if I hurt you.”

Trisha nods against his neck and Hohenheim begins to move slowly, going a little further with each thrust until Trisha’s hand stops him.

“No deeper, please. Not this first time, at least.”

The implication of there being a subsequent time after this one must mean that he hasn’t completely disgraced himself, and Hohenheim keeps going, as carefully as he can, Trisha’s thighs tightening around his back. He can feel the tension beginning to coil in the pit of his stomach, and Trisha is so warm and velvety around him. For a minute or so, his entire world is reduced to him, Trisha, and the bed frame under them; he can even drown out the souls.

He retains enough presence of mind to pull out before he comes, but not enough to be able to warn Trisha and stop her from getting her thighs covered in his sticky seed.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to, not inside you…”

Trisha just kisses him again, and for a long time, nothing more is said. Hohenheim rolls off her onto his side and Trisha follows him over, snuggling in close again as their legs get completely tangled up in the sheets.

She smiles softly, pushing his hair back out of his face.

“All right?”

Hohenheim nods. “More than all right. And you?”

“I don’t think we did too badly for a first attempt. And you know what they say. Practice makes perfect.”

“I think I’ll need a minute before any more practising.”

Trisha laughs. “You’re wonderful, and I love you.”

“I love you too, Trisha.”

The souls are blessedly quiet as he continues to lie there in the rising sun with Trisha in his arms, never wanting to let go of her.

There’s a part of him that knows it can’t last. She’s human, he’s immortal, the entire thing is doomed before they even start, but Trisha is different to anyone else he’s ever met over the course of his long life, because Trisha gives him hope. She gives him the drive to not just accept his fate and resign himself to never making this kind of connection with another person. She makes him want to fight against the inevitability of what will eventually come. She makes him want to be mortal again, to regain a normal life and live it out with her. She makes him believe that somehow, somewhere, the means to do it are out there and he can achieve it. She trusts him despite everything he’s told her about himself, and although he’s barely trusted anyone since he made the mistake of trusting the Thing in the Flask, Hohenheim trusts Trisha with every soul in his veins.

She makes him believe that, just maybe, he’s worthy of love and happiness after all, and for Hohenheim, that’s a gift far more intimate than what they’ve just done.

[burnedbyshoto]

Can I get uuuuhhhhh.... a scenario with Iida and his s/o? (This is about to get real detailed, buckle up!) The class is hanging out after school in the dorm commons and Jiro is playing music from a stereo. Tenya’ s/o’s favorite song comes on and they sing and dance along. Tenya watches them fondly for a while until s/o pulls him up to dance and goof off with them! Tenya’s flustered at first, but he gets into it and is able to let loose and have fun! Hope you can whip up something awesome!! ❤️❤️❤

iida tenya x reader

warning: fluff

word count: 918

a/n: this was super cute request, and sorry it’s super short, but your request still made me super happy to write out even if you think its short and im sorry but blfoijeiapfda theres really no excuse except that next time i will definitely be adding lots of drama because I owe everyone longer fics LOL also this was totally based of THAT sketch

You swayed your body in some type of dramatic inflatable tube man fashion as you faced off Kaminari to who could create a better impression. With Jirou presenting her newest mixtape to the class, it was only reasonable that a dance competition to take place, not that anyone in the class–outside Mina–could actually dance. 

“NO!” You screamed, pointing a finger accusingly at Kaminari who was using his quirk to intensify how aesthetically cool his moves are, “THAT’S CHEATING, KAMINARI!!!”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over my sick ass moves!” Kaminari sang as most of your class was now rooting in favor of the electrical quirk holder, and it annoyed you. You weren’t a sore loser, just a competitive person who didn’t like losing when people involved quirks where they shouldn’t be. 

“Everyone!” The ever so commanding voice of your dorky boyfriend Iida articulated, and everyone froze and the music stopped, the entire class looking over at the boy who’s armed moved more than his mouth, “Please be respectful to our peers who are currently sleeping! It is now nine p.m.!”

“Iida-kun, no one is asleep.” Midoriya laughed as Iida mentally counted the heads in the common room, and surprisingly enough, everyone was down here.

“Yeah, even old man Bakugou is awake!” Kirishima chimed in, a hearty laugh leaving his lips and he got a high five from Kaminari and an elbow from Bakugou.

“I see,” Iida nodded his head, his cheeks flaming in his miscalculation, “Then, carry on!”

As if there was no intrusion, to begin with, the dance competition was back in full swing.

After a few songs, a few more rigged dance competitions, you were laying on the couch, with your head laying on Iida’s shoulder, “Are you taking a break for long?” Iida asked you, and you shrugged letting out an exhausted groan.

“I just cannot beat Mina and I’m going to cry.” You joke as you watch Mina break out into a full freestyle dance and ended it perfectly as the last few notes of the song echoed through the room, crushing any attempt of victory over an obviously pissed off Bakugou who was baited into competing. “I don’t think I will ever be able to–”

Then the beginning notes of your favorite dance song began: Shut Up and Dance. Your eyes widened immediately, a shriek escaping your lips as responding shrieks came from other class members who all enjoyed dancing to this song. Moments of defeat and exhaustion were forgotten as you break out in a dance with such intense energy it looked as if you had just begun dancing.

Iida watched in adoration of your dorky moves as you grabbed your classmates hands, everyone who was dancing was leaping from corner to corner without a care in the world. Iida couldn’t help the foot-tapping that went through his body as he sat there observing. His eyes widen as you’re suddenly in front of him, pulling him to his feet, your body never stopping from dancing.

“Dance with me!” You pant slightly, the high energy of your dance inhibiting you from speaking normally.

“I don’t know if I can!” Iida protested flustered as he was afraid of making a fool out of himself, but you shook your head as you continued dancing and singing.

“She said, Oh don’t you dare look back, Just keep your eyes on me, I said you’re holding back, She said shut up and dance with me” You sang out dragging him out, despite his protests. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over my sick ass dance moves!” You scream using Iida’s hand to twirl around.

You grinned at Iida who was now moving with the song, his body swaying side to side. “YES IIDA-KUN!” You yelled cheering for your boyfriend as other members of your class started focusing on the class rep who was slowly getting more and more comfortable with his dancing.

“GET IT CLASS REP!” Another yell came, and soon enough, everyone was chanting for Iida who was breaking out in the most unbelievable dance moves.

Fortnite dance moves.

“OH SHIT BRO!” You heard Sero’s voice yell above Kaminari’s screeching as Iida was getting really into it, his movements still entirely sharp and precise.

You watched on with a scream stuck in your throat as Tsu, Mina, and Kirishima joined him in his dancing, and you couldn’t help the overjoyed giggles that left your lips as you immediately joined in.

So there Class 1-A danced, far past midnight following whatever quirky dance moves your boyfriend was rocking to.

yesyesyes, iida was actually a lot of fun to write for??? hes an unexpected baby and my heart loves him so much :,)

bonus!

You giggled as you dragged an overly exhausted Iida into his room, his body giving out to his exhaustion. “You danced so beautifully baby, like a majestic roadrunner. But I don’t think that using your Recipro Burst was necessary to get you to spin the fastest in the class! I mean you even broke your first pair of glasses from this, not from Hero Training!”

“Worth it…” Iida grumbled into the floor and you laughed once again, as you managed to get him into his room.

“You’re a cute dancer,” You laugh as you heave him to his feet, “I could learn a few things from you. My tube man is nothing in comparison to yours.”

Iida chuckled as he stumbled to his feet, and he pressed a sweet kiss to your lips, “There is nothing in the world that can be compared to you.” He whispers before falling onto his bed, you still wrapped in his arms.

[pathetic-has-been-rockstar]

Carols and decorations

Pairing: Dean x Castiel

Written for: @spnchristmasbingo​

Square filled: singing Christmas songs

Warnings: none

Summary:   When he has to put on the last touches around the bunker, Dean finds himself thinking about several things and humming holiday songs. Castiel doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about it, and Dean’s singing talent is not the only reason.

Words: 2246

This can be found on AO3, here! If you’re interested in the whole series, you just have to click here!

The atmosphere in the bunker is mostly happy and relaxed. The accident with the haunted Christmas tree has been quickly forgotten, and everything seems back to normal, as far as normal goes when a family of hunters is involved.

While you and Jack are gone to pick up chestnuts, luckily bringing Crowley along with you, Sam, Dean and Eileen are in the kitchen. They’re currently working on thinning out the endless provisions of Christmas cookies bought by Jack and Castiel along with the ugly Christmas sweaters.

When Dean catches the stares between Sam and Eileen, and he notices how their hands keep touching under the small mountain of discarded wrapping, he knows that's his cue. He grabs a handful of candies and stands up.

“Well, guys, I'll go check if Cas needs help with putting up the rest of the decorations. You stay here, we'll call if we need help.”

The happy couple barely look at him while he leaves the kitchen, mindlessly popping another candy in his mouth. He heads for the library, finding Castiel sunk in his favourite armchair, reading “A Christmas Carol”. For a second, Dean stops chewing on whatever it is in his mouth, and looks at Cas.

He looks deeply absorbed by the book, the inseparable trench coat gathered under his body, half covering him, half draping his figure. Dean feels a sudden lumps in his throat, and unconsciously wets his lips. He's done it a million times before, in every kind of situation, but the idea of calling Cas now... it bothers him.

Besides, he knew what would happen. Cas would lift his head, and he'd look at him. At the thought, Dean feels the knot in his throat getting tighter, and he's frustrated with himself. He's Cas. He's his best friend. He's the angel that's been in countless battles with him, whose eyes Dean can read as much as he can read Sam... and now he's being childish about looking at him. That won't do.

“Hey, Cas?”

Exactly like he predicted, Castiel stops looking at the page and lifts his gaze, moving his attention on Dean. The moment their eyes meet, he automatically smiles.

“Yes, Dean?”

“Uh... why are you reading?”

“I don't understand the nature of your question” Cas answers, tilting lightly his head on a side. Dean's stomach is surely making a number right now.

“I thought... uh, Metatron didn't kind of... poured every bit of human culture in your head?”

“Oh. Yes, he did, but you know I like doing things my way. Besides, Jack was asking me about Christmas stories earlier. There's a version of this book with puppets and another with... ducks, apparently?”

Dean smiles at Castiel's confusion. “Yeah, the Disney one. It's pretty good.”

“Another childhood memory I can shatter?” Castiel asks, making Dean grin like a schoolgirl.

“No, you'll have to do better than that, this time. But if you were planning on zapping me to Disneyland, I might make up some shit.”

“I never pegged you for a man who might want to go to Disneyland.”

Dean just scrolls his shoulders. “Believe me, it's not the first surprise of these holidays. Anyway... I was about to put on some decorations. Wanna help?”

The way Cas casually throws his legs off the armrest has Dean wondering about how long he needed to master his vessel to such a level of grace. He zones out for a moment, trying to think about the times he's seen him doing something graceless or even just slightly clumsy. He can't recall any, but when he comes back to reality, he finds Castiel intently observing him.

“Dean? Are you ok?”

Forcing his brain to start working again, Dean swallows hard. “I... yeah. I'm great. This way, there's a lot of stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“We gotta... hang the lights, check the baubles in the tree, and... you know, stuff like that.”

“Fine. Any inspiration?”

A wide grin spreads on Dean's face while he answers “Yeah. I was thinking about something looking a bit like... you know, the huge one in New York, with the ice skating thing under it.”

“Don't you think it's a bit ambitious?” Castiel teases him, but he's actually slightly worried. Dean has been on a sort of Christmas high for days. He might actually try something extremely over the top.

“I stopped the Apocalypse three times, and I killed Hitler. I can deal with a Christmas tree.”

“Sure. The same Christmas tree from which I had to save you?”

Dean rolls his eyes, slightly exasperated. “Will I ever hear the end of it?”

“... would anyone in this bunker hear the end of it, if they brought along something haunted, and almost wreck the whole festivities?”

“... probably not.”

“Then probably not” Castiel states. Dean could swear that he's trying not to laugh.

“Alright, sassy pants, you know what? I don't have to stand here and be treated like this.”

“You asked for my help.”

“Yeah, to hang decorations, not to become the punchline of your jokes!”

“I'm just doing what you usually do with me. Friendly banter, right?”

Incredulous, Dean is now absolutely sure that Cas is making fun of him. He's also very surprised in finding out that he might actually find the whole thing quite pleasant. “You're getting too used to this humanity thing, you know? Get back to your book, I don't need no judgement while I hang my Christmas decorations.”

“Your decorations? You mean those Jack and I bought?”

“Shut up.”

After a couple of hours, Dean is humming Christmas songs again. He's surprised when Castiel starts humming in tune with him, and shoots him a weird look before laughing.

“Come on! I'm a great singer!” he declares, balancing some delicate glass ornament in his hand. Castiel just nods, unusually quiet.

“Guess that Emmanuel thing really stuck on you, uh?”

“The... Dean, how did you find out about that?”

Castiel stammers, looking at Dean like he just casually confessed some incredible truth. Dean has rarely seen the angel so surprised, especially when he's not even supposed to be.

“You... you were called like that, when you were a healer, after Leviathans, weren't you? We came to find you, remember?”

“... oh, that... that's correct. Yes, indeed, I was called Emmanuel. I... forgot about that.”

“Yeah? Then why did you freak out that I knew?”

“Because I didn't remember that you knew.”

“Cas, you still are a shitty liar. What are you not telling me?”

Castiel seems uncomfortable, but ultimately sighs and starts talking. “Well, that... that song you were singing... I might have been the one involved in his creation.”

“... you... what?”

“The person who wrote this... John Mason Neale. He was a pious boy, who was challenged to write a new hymn because he told the old ones in his community that he felt the old ones didn't make justice to the Lord.”

Dean seems genuinely curious and moves a hand to encourage Castiel to go on.

“So... I showed up. To help him.”

“... wait, what?”

“I was supposed to inspire him with holy visions, appropriate to his religion, of course, and... that song was the result.”

Dean scoff, incredulous. “You are telling me that you inspired one of the most... I don't know, world-spread Christmas songs of all the frickin' times, and you never once thought to tell me?”

“Dean, I also discussed poetry with Christopher Marlowe and tried to convince him not to take that deal, but you never once asked me about it.”

“... Christopher Marlowe? The... the dude who died with a knife in his eye?”

“Yes. How do you know that?”

“I dated a chick who was pretty into English literature and... and...”, Dean stammers, reading a certain annoyance in Castiel's eyes. Not the best move to talk about her, probably. “It was like... a lifetime ago. High school, go figures. It just stuck.”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“So... is that why you picked the name Emmanuel after you came back from the Leviathans thing?”

Castiel tilts his head, almost surprised. He never made that connection. “I don't know, actually. It must have been set somewhere in my memory. I couldn't remember anything, but that name just felt... right. It must have been called in joy and devotion, to stick so deeply.”

The notion that Castiel remembered the name some random guy gave him centuries ago, and not the one he used around him, makes Dean feel terrible.

“Well... I hope next time you have an amnesia you can remember your name, after all that we've been through together.”

“What do you think I'm implying here, Dean?” Castiel's question is asked with an unusual kindness, almost with care. It catches Dean by surprise, and forces him to articulate his thoughts.

“I don't know. That you forgot your name because we never used it with enough... reverence, or devotion, or whatever else?”

“I surely wasn't implying anything like that.”

“Well, it sounded a lot like it, actually.”

Castiel must make a real effort to stop himself from smiling. Of all the new things that are happening, seeing Dean uncomfortable around him might be the most surprising.

“Dean... you're being needlessly defensive. I have no idea why that name stuck with me, but I was just referring to the fact that, for about three hundred years, that hymn that I inspired has been sung all around the world, to sing praise of my Father. Can you understand what I was trying to say, now?”

Of course Cas was talking about a bigger picture. Of course he made a fool of himself. “... I think so.”

Castiel puts a hand on Dean's shoulder, squeezing lightly, prompting a curious stare. “Dean... I understand. I know what you've been through, and I know what you are trying to do. This new world, this new life... it's strange. Even for me. It's difficult to think that the absentee father I praised my whole existence is not what I thought I'd be...”

Fighting the lump forming in his throat, Dean scoffs, thinking about his own father. “Eh. You'll survive that one.”

“... and it's almost impossible to understand that we truly and well overpowered God himself. If these events are almost out of my comprehension, I understand that they must be even more unsettling for you. But that's not all, isn't it?”

Dean lets out a strangled sound, followed by an incoherent mumble, from which Cas can only make out “change”, “family” and “safety”. He nods and goes on.

“Adjusting to something new, learning new things about yourself... it can be hard.”

Suddenly awkward, Dean snaps at him, but he doesn't pull back or shy away from the reassuring touch on his shoulder. The awkwardness has shifted to something else. Frustration. Confusion, and, most of all... impatience.

“Cas, you plan on gettin' somewhere or just on my nerves? I'm not Jack. I don't need pep talk.”

“Sure. I'm just saying... don't be too hard on yourself. The whole world changed. If you changed along with it... it would be natural. Perhaps even better. I, personally, am very curious to see the new Dean Winchester.”

“... yeah, I don't know, man. I doubt it'll be a showstopper.”

“Showstopper was the starting point, Dean.”

Just while Dean's cheeks turn to a bright red and his jaw drops a little, Castiel presses a light kiss on his unshaven cheek before drawing back just as quickly.

“Come on, we have many things to do.”

Dean is spared from finding some adequate response to Castiel's gesture by the door of the bunker opening. An instant later, an overly excited Jack rushes down the stairs, holding a basket and running to Dean and Castiel.

He shoves the basket in Castiel's hands and proudly beams at him and Dean.

“Chestnuts!”

Cas nods, looking down at the basket. “Yes, I see that.”

“I picked them up! And I petted a hellhound! Two, actually.”

Dean looks at him, surprised. “You did what?”

“I picked up chestnuts! And we roasted them, too! Have you ever tried them? We could roast them. Maybe lighting a fire outside?”

“No, Jack, go back to the hellhound thing, please.”

“Oh, yeah. Crowley brought his two along, and I played with them. Y/N did, too.”

Dean groans, seeing you and Crowley walking back inside together. He snaps at him as soon as you two move closer, joining Jack.

“Crowley! Hellhounds? Really?”

Imperturbable as ever, Crowley speaks. “Pets are excellent to help children with their development, Squirrel. Everyone knows that.”

“Pets! Regular animals! Not... Cerberus!” It's clear that Dean's nerves come from something else, but you're all far too used to those little outbursts.

“You'll be happy to know that both Juliet and Banquo only have one head each. They're perfectly trained and capable of behaving properly. Perhaps I might interest you in some sessions, Squirrels? Your manners might improve...”

Dean seems about to leash out, but instead he shoots you a deadly glare

“Damn kid, I hope you know what you're doing” is all that he mutters before turning tail and marching away, followed by Castiel.

Too surprised by that jab, you just head to the kitchen to get some water, hoping that Crowley didn't notice your surprise at Dean's words. On his part, Crowley chuckles and looks at you walking away. He then places a hand on Jack's shoulder.

“Come on boy, let's see how we can poke some fun at your fathers. All in good spirit, naturally.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading! 

I truly hope you enjoyed this little story. Every kind of feedback is very much appreciated, just as much as likes and reblogs!

Please, do not repost or copy my works or part/s of it, not even if you give credits.

[dogbearinggifts]

Do you have any headcanons for what Five’s relationships were like with his siblings before he jumped to the apocalypse?

Let’s see here….

Luther: The comics establish they’re twins, and although they’re separated by several ranks, they exhibit a lot of similarities. Luther seems to have been the more serious child, while Five was more exuberant and mischievous; but they both have a clear love of science. Five apparently taught himself advanced physics (and probably several other scientific disciplines) in his quest to return home, while Luther was adept enough with science and mathematics to run an entire research base on the Moon by himself. When they’re waiting in the car for Hazel and Cha-Cha, and the conversation turns to their time stranded alone, we see they also have a penchant for reflection and and deeper thought (“It’s the being alone that breaks you”).

As kids, I think they spent a lot of time geeking out over science and speculation. Maybe they pored over glossy illustrated books about space travel, or took turns reading whatever sci-fi Reginald allowed in the library. Maybe Reginald had back issues of National Geographic dating back to 1903 and Five and Luther devoured them all. They were probably both the type to annoy their siblings with whatever facts they’d learned that day. I don’t think they were any strangers to friendly debate, either: they probably had intense conversations over whatever they’d read or learned. But their biggest and most long-standing disagreement was probably over whether or not Reginald was worth listening to. I’d imagine that one was so contentious they probably just agreed to not discuss it unless absolutely necessary.

Diego: His resentment toward Luther is well known and documented, but I think he had a fairly sizable chip on his shoulder toward Five as well. When Five tells Diego that his explanation would make sense if he were smarter, Diego actually moves toward him as if to attack before he’s stopped. I think this hints at something of a pattern. Five has always been arrogant and done little to spare the feelings of others, so it’s not difficult to imagine Five purposely using the most confusing technobabble possible and then blaming Diego when he didn’t understand it. Maybe Five didn’t do this all the time—maybe sometimes he just got really into an explanation and started using technical jargon that Diego wasn’t trained to know—but I’d be surprised if this were the first time Five has ever used “It would if you were smarter” as a means of shutting Diego down.

They both have a strong willingness to prove themselves, so this might have brought an uneasy truce or even some grudging respect to their relationship. However, I think they both looked down on the other’s means of attaining that respect. Diego calls attention to himself through physical toughness and fighting prowess, while Five does so by practicing his spatial jumps in secret and studying all he can. Diego probably saw Five as an insufferable overachiever, while Five probably saw Diego as a dumb bruiser. I don’t want to say their battle for Reginald’s attention and favor pitted them against each other, but I don’t think it made them friends, either.

Allison: I don’t see her and Five having all that much of a relationship when they were younger. I think they were as close as siblings tend to be, but I don’t think they became close friends the way some siblings do. Allison used her power to get everything she wanted, and Five will only obey authority figures until obedience no longer furthers his goal. I think Allison’s power—and her apparent lack of qualms against using it on those closest to her—would have made Five very leery of her, and not keen to give up his free will in service to her own wishes.

That said, I do think they got along. I don’t think there were a lot of conflicts between them (partly because Five knew she had a means of conflict resolution that effectively kept him from winning) but I also think Allison’s power use increased as she got older. When she was younger, I think she had more reservations about using her power on her family. The memory of using her power on Vanya remained vivid for 25 years, so I think she was haunted by the question of just what Reginald made her do. I think this memory, and the questions it raised, kept her from using her power on her family too often when she was much younger. That power use probably increased as they drew closer to their debut as superheroes, and continued to climb afterward. Five probably noticed this gradual shift and began pulling away, while still remaining polite.

Klaus: There’s a good chance they got along well by virtue of having similarly impish senses of humor. Five could have cheered Klaus through his snide observations of Reginald, while Klaus could have done the same. As children, I think they were both quite irreverent, and probably preferred pursuing their own interests to training. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them covered for each other or traded tips on sneaking out.

However, I also think Five saw Klaus as a bit of an underachiever. Klaus is intelligent, but I don’t think he was ever all that interested in academic pursuits; and he turned to drugs to avoid developing the powers that frightened him. Five, on the other hand, taught himself advanced science and mathematics to undo a mistake caused by his own desire to further develop his powers. Five probably didn’t quite understand this aversion; and while it’s not clear whether he knew of his budding addiction when he left or if he only learned of it through Vanya’s autobiography, he probably saw it as weakness, or a coward’s way out. I don’t think he would have held this view right away—when he first read about it, the news probably devastated him—but as the years wore on, he probably developed an increasingly negative view of what he perceived as foolishness. He used all the difficulties in his life to push himself to greater heights, after all. Klaus could have done the same.

Ben: I actually have very few notions of what their relationship was like prior to Five’s disastrous jump to the future. We don’t see the two of them interact much in flashbacks, and the Five we see for most of the series keeps his emotions largely hidden beneath a layer of arrogance and simmering irritation. Likewise, Ben doesn’t get a lot of development in the first season, so it’s difficult to say just how well their personalities meshed. Based on what Vanya said about him in her autobiography, and the fact the family dissolved after his death, I do think he was well-liked by his other siblings—although this dissolution was probably equally due to other factors, like the trauma Ben’s apparently horrific death caused and the fact it likely caused Reginald to tighten his grip on the surviving siblings.

Nevertheless, I think Five felt at least somewhat protective toward Ben. This is a family where, despite all of the kids being more or less the exact same age, Luther acts like the oldest and Vanya acts like the youngest, with other siblings behaving similar to corresponding birth orders. Ben was also something of a people-pleaser, allowing Reginald to push him further and further with powers he hated. All of these factors combined probably led willful, headstrong Five to view Ben as a younger brother in need of protection. And after he got stuck, he might have gained a new understanding of Ben’s aversion to using his powers. I think reading about Ben’s death was a huge blow to him, and the fact he asks “Was it bad?” the moment he and Vanya are alone seems to support the idea that the loss of that particular brother had a devastating impact on him.  

Vanya: I think sharing a dismal view of Reginald is what bonded them the most. And I don’t mean that as a negative statement toward either of them, or a means of saying their relationship was on shaky ground. I’ve lived under abusive parents. Complaining about them with another sibling is not only cathartic; it’s comforting to hear that it’s not all in your head. Add to it the fact you’d both be in hot water if your parents overheard you, and you have something that brings you closer in a way that can be hard to articulate. If Five listened to her complain about being left out, and commiserated with a story about being sidelined when he was perfectly capable of action, that would have provided them both with a sense of comfort and release. Giving each other permission to think negatively of Reginald would have made them both feel a little less alone.

However, I also think Vanya was as jealous of him as she was of her other siblings. He had powers, after all, and that gave him access to a side of family life she was forbidden to touch. Never mind that it was terrible; she wasn’t a part of it, and that clearly stung. And I think this jealousy formed a crack in their relationship. Maybe Five complained about what Reginald said to him after a mission, to which Vanya responded “At least you get to go on missions.” Maybe Vanya complained about having to stick with Reginald the whole time, to which Five said “Oh, yeah, you had to stay on some rooftop where it was safe. I am so sorry.” I don’t think these remarks would have made either of them any more empathetic; they’re both stubborn enough to dig in their heels and insist their own view is correct. Over time, they might have stopped talking about missions at all, for fear of provoking a fight.

[twitchesandstitches]

Ranamon Redemption

(Warning, this one gets PRETTY long!)

Another day had come; another conquest, another loot, and it all felt pretty much the same to Ranamon.

A down rose on Treasure Planet, light blooming across cities of actual gold. Not gold colored or gold-plated, but buildings made of actual gold. Windows sparkled, the glass perfect prisms of diamond and sapphire, the streets shimmered in complex netways like liquid chocolate, and turn your gaze far enough past islands that seemed to be huge chunks of looted land masses coated in sparkly things, and you might see that the seas glittered, with an effect similar to what happened if you scattered a number of prisms over a lit flashlight. Hard to say what they were made of, but it was probably very expensive.

In orbit there hang a vast ship, several miles long and bristling with armaments, enough multi-directional engines to make it ludicrously mobile, and all shaped in a fashion to look both dangerous and very aerodynamic. Mostly it just looked cool; so awesome that it was in peril of slipping around from being too cool to stay still in one spot for long. You’d have expected any of the thousands of people present as essential personnel to all have sunglasses and disdainful expressions at the world below. Many other ships like it, though far smaller (ranging from battlecruisers to city-wrecking destroyers to glorified barges meant to just hold loot on their way back from their adventures) floated around, or were being polished back to perfect and getting the gemstone luster plated on again.

Around the artificial planet, every single inch whispered of enormous wealth, luxury, and the fame of having a world so fabulous. The very continents were made from the loot of a thousand worlds (or so it was said, mostly by Vriska Serket herself). The sea, something like distilled wine rendered into a biologically appropriate substitute for water, sold for hundreds a dollars a bottle on the very finest of worlds. And that wasn’t even anything to do with the massive stores of loot occupying the center of the planet itself, like tribute to the mighty Fountain of Conquest at the core, radiating its power to every world within the reach of the Cobalt Stingers, so that everyone knew their name and power…

To the digital being presently encapsulated in material-space via a small and very wobbly robot that managed to resemble her true form by coincidence, it had rather lost its luster a long time ago. The extremely wide hips of the robotic avatar swayed, almost drunkenly, as she stared at the ground, thinking hard. She found it hard to walk and think at the same time. She had spent a very long time - but had it been? she wondered. Maybe she’d only been herself for a few years. Maybe much longer than she thought, all the same. How did you really, in your code, KNOW? But however it might be counted, she hadn’t needed to be introspective for much of it.

She was Ranamon. Some time ago, the fleet of adventurers, rogues, scoundrels and mercenaries she had joined had found themselves, along with their rivals in a nomadic group of hedonistic mutants and outcasts, stumbling into the discovery of another plane of reality made from the flow of information. Everything had a shape and a form somewhere, and the concept of data, the existence of it on a server or through the networks between stars, made life. Her own people called this world, their world, the Digital Realm. They were the digital denizens of it, the digimon, and she was among the mightiest of them all, bearing the power of a long-passed heroine and command over the seas.

Join me, had said Vriska Serket then. The glamorous leader of the pirates, the Cobalt Stingers. It had been a threat, an invitation, and an offer all at once, and Ranamon had been intoxicated by the thought of something new.

I’ve seen so many things, she thought glumly as she walked past a gaggle of serfs polishing the walls and bowing low to anyone who came near on pure automatic reflex. Stars getting up and walking away. Monsters rising out of the dark and screaming at what they found there. Giant robots with great big bouncy boobs!

She tried hard not to think about the next thought coming her way, the dreadful taste of it.

It wasn’t boredom. She could handle boredom, and with the Stingers, you could never stay bored for long.

She fled from the thought, and her flight eventually brought her far from the serfs, all the way to a random bar in one of the underground cities, clinging in the warrens like a chamber of a castle beneath the world. And it shouldn’t be possible for a digimon to get drunk in the physical world, especially not in a robotic avatar, but she fancied giving it a try anyways.

“Listen here,” she said irritably at some point, and the image of those serfs bowing stuck in her mind, itching like a bad wound. “Okay, listen here, just listen. Right!?”

“Right,” said one of the Decepticon racers that hung around Admiral Serket’s favorite doctor. The Stunticons. This one was… Motormaster, a big and tough truck-type femcon with a curvaceous figure that had been carefully engineered to be big and strong. She was regarding Ranamon’s robot avatar with a disdainful air.

“Yeah. So.” Ranamon dimly noted a woman in the background, just barely visible. Blue skin, purple hair, an extremely curvaceous body on par with any of those weird moms from the rival fleet… but none of that stood out on this fleet, either. Ranamon was having a hard time thinking about something besides the weird feeling she was trying to articulate, and she kept flashing back to those serfs. Bowing not out of respect, or fear, but just because she was there, as indifferently as breathing.

Were the serfs mind-controlled? Did Admiral Serket have them chained to her will and set them loose like automatons? Were they free in their own mind but not their wills, raised to slavishly adore their lords in the Stingers to the lowest gunner and boarder? Ranamon had no idea and it got her really going.

“Okay, seriously.” Motormaster raised a hand, and she waved it indifferently. “Who cares how the serfs feel? They’re serfs!”

Ranamon held a finger up in protest. She paused. “Shoot. Did I say that whole thing out loud?”

“Yep.”

Her finger lowered. “Oh, okay.” She paused again. “I had. I had. I had. I had a point! I don’t… what was my point again?”

An elf in the crowd raised a hand. “Was it that you’re gonna pay for happy hour?”

“Nuh uh!”

“I HAVE LOST INTEREST.”

Ranamon groaned. “Ugh. Just a few hours ago I was dumping a few tons of interstellar currency into the vaults and, and. Ugh. What is even the point of it all?”

“What’s the point?” Motormaster leaned in, looming over her. Metal breasts, soft like flesh and tough as shields, hovered menacingly beyond Ranamon with a sense of weight, larger than cars. “You were in on a huge score! You’re famous! Rich!”

“Yeah,” Ranamon said. “Rich. Famous. That kind of thing.”

Motormaster leaned back again, seemingly satisfied. “What more do you need?”

Ranamon staggered up. “Don’t know,” she said, staggering up and walking away gloomily. “Don’t know anything anymore…”

The bar watched her go for a moment, and after it became clear that nothing more interesting than her oversized breasts briefly getting her stock in the doorway was going to happen, they went back to concentrating on their revelry.

Only the blue woman Ranamon had seen wasn’t concerned with her drink, but instead got up and quietly left, sashaying only a little bit out of sheer habit.

And it would be nice to say that, at this point, Ranamon’s life changed forever.

A chance meeting with a stranger, perhaps. A conversation that opened her eyes to her own doubts, her misgivings. And from there, a better path to take. Leaving the Stringers and using her wealth for a better means, or repaying the damage she had caused-

But no. Life doesn’t really work like that.

Even in a universe of magic, where the laws of physics were so loose that they were constantly slipping away, there were stronger considerations and nothing was that easy, nor free. Guilt is a hard thing to face up to when everyone around you won’t acknowledge such a thing. Society bounces people around, and normality, shame, morals; those are all reinforced by what bounces from one person to another. And in the Cobalts, self-indulgence and satisfaction was the only real importance.

And so, more than a year passed for Ranamon to contemplate these matters. She retreated from active duty aboard pirate-y affairs, declining offers for raids or archeological missions, and she’d done enough that she was allowed to hang back and enjoy the fruits of her efforts. Eventually she’d run out and had to return to work, but that would take many years before she ran out of the goodwill she had earned.

A year, mostly of getting wildly drunk on data-records of being blissfully out of it (Digimon handle substances very differently, dear Reader), and doing her best not to think about anything much lately. Sinking deeper and deeper, ruminating more intently on the problems she was starting to notice, and all the while, the blue woman… observed. Like a spider on the wall.

A year of losing all interest in anything that had once mattered to her. None of it satisfied. People were already getting used to her public rants about how fame didn’t matter, not if those prophecies like the Lapis Lazuli Visions were true about something coming. That all the wealth in the world just didn’t feel fun anymore.

She didn’t know how to admit she wasn't happy anymore, and she didn’t know why. And in the fashion typical of the Cobalt Stingers, she dealt with it by getting even more wrapped up in basic pleasures to block out the bad thoughts.

At some point, she wasn’t aware of having left her private manor near the surface, right next to the network channels in… she didn’t even know anymore. Weeks? Months? She didn’t remember anything. Just… a yawning sense of awful.

There came a knock at the door.

Awkwardly, Ranamon came to the door in a makeshift body; a slender robotic model that felt so wrong to wear, too thin in all the wrong places, and too tall, it just didn’t feel right one bit, but she wasn’t in the mood to bother with it.

A vaguely familiar human woman, her skin blue, looked down at her. Ranamon was vaguely surprised to see eight eyes, spider-like, set into her face, and several additional sets of arms (cybernetic, from the seams, but very sleek), and at this point it occurred to her that it was very hard to see anything of her face past those massive breasts jutting out.

“You are slimmer than I expected you to wear,” the woman said curtly, her voice accented with… Ranamon took a moment to place it, synching up with the local computers and taking much too long, a few microseconds, for shame, to recognize it as a sign of one of the languages of the Gaulic language family. Descended from human… French, she guessed.

“And you are goddamn stacked and I hate you for reminding me,” Ranamon groused. “Are you the data lady?”

“No. I am not. May I come in?”

Ranamon considered. “No.” She shut the door.

The woman outside stared at the door for a moment. “Hrm,” she said, and sidled around the edge of the manor. She found a window, putting all her hands to it, and began to climb straight up it, exactly like a spider.

The manor was not hard to navigate. As she suspected, the owner of this place was not in a condition to move fast, and she prepared her game accordingly.

Ranamon took a long route to get back to a drinking room, and even so, she took a moment to recognize the blue woman sitting in a chair and sipping at a cup of fine wine. “What the heck!?”

“It’s not a bad vintage,” the woman observed. “I am not sure what you bother with actual wine, however. You can’t drink it, so I presume it is for friends. Not,” She added, “That you’ve had anyone here for some time.”

Ranamon gaped. She tried to work out something to say, in order of relevance: What are you doing in my house!? How did you get in here!? Who ARE you? Are you spying on me!? But what she actually managed to say was, “Does it taste okay?”

“I did say so, yes. But you have fine taste in wine.” She sipped the glass again. “Do forgive me. I didn't mean to make a wordplay joke.”

“...What joke…?”

“Never mind.” The woman stood up, draining the glass in a single swig, and put it away. “My name is Amelie Lacroix. And you are Ranamon; one of the digital beings that inhabits the data networks of the Stinger information servers across all their known worlds. Uploaded into a robotic body to interact with this world as a whole.”

Ranamon blinked. “Okay…?”

“And you first achieved consciousness in a weather analysis system,” Lacroix said, speaking flatly and without interest, and Ranamon did look up at that.

“Wait, what?” Ranamon stared. “How do you know about-”

“Rather,” Lacroix went on. “ You were that system, given further definition by taking in the power of an ancient heroine.”

“I didn’t! I mean, I didn’t mean to, I mean… how do you know that!?”

“You took her legacy,” Lacroix said, dispassionate.

For Ranamon, everything froze up. “I… I didn’t.”

Lacroix’s gaze was absolutely pitiless. “You were a thief in your very birth. And here you are, comfortable and wealthy, in theft.”

Ranamon instinctively rose up, the wind rattling in the bottles - just enough liquid to react to her powers - and then she thought What’s the point, She’s not wrong, and she stopped.

“Y’ain’t wrong,” she muttered, not looking at Lacroix. She sat down on the floor, too tired to argue. Not tired with thoughts like that, though she was well-acquainted with them. Just… fundamentally worn out in ways she was not prepared to deal with.

Lacroix did not tilt her head quizzically. She gave no indication of being surprised or… of anything really, but chilly and inhuman calmness.

“You regret it,” Lacroix said evenly, and at this, something like warmth came into her voice. It was… softer, perhaps. “I think that you have.”

“...Maybe,” Ranamon said guardedly. “Why do you care?”

“Perhaps someone should. And I think that you may well go a long way before you find someone here who is equipped to grasp why you no longer care for this life-”

‘Wait, how do you know I don’t like being like this anymore?”

“I’ve my sources, dear. Trust that.” Lacroix tapped her temple. “They are there when you dream and when you arose. They were there in the dark, and in the glimmering of the power that gave you shape. They know you, as they knew me.” She reached into a pocket of a long and elegant coat-

Cold numbness flew up Ranamon’s phantom back. She started to scoot back.

“”Don’t be afraid.” Lacroix withdraw a small card. She held it out. “It is only a way for you to… get into touch with my employers, we might say?”

Ranamon awkwardly took the card. It had only a simple number on it.

“Call this number, should you decide that you are truly done with this life,” Lacroix said, walking away towards a window, hands in her pockets.

She was gone. Ranamon scuttled over to the door, peeking out to see her, but there was not even the slightest glimpse of her. Only a single solitary purple spider, upon a leaf, staring straight at her. And then, even that was gone; Ranamon wondered if she had imagined it.

Ranamon was left alone, with a card that had a single number on it.

As she looked it at, a slogan appeared in slow, lovely writing: “For when you’re ready.”

Several weeks more passed.

There was a periodic sign of Amelie Lacroix amid the treasure planet, and Ranamon looked for her. She wasn’t sure why. Seeking more answers? Curiosity? Maybe even an accusation of something. Lacroix never returned her gaze, whether across the bar, at one of the dueling ranges, or from a distance of a dozen feet before one of the light bridges connected the decks of buildings measured stories hall, new catwalks and streets instead of gutters and the light bridges connecting them.

The sight of the light refracting through ten hundred bridges, mixing and refracting into something bright and beautiful, struck something in Ranamon. How long had it been… that she just appreciated something being beautiful?

She looked around at the world, of shining diamonds and gold and splendor, so beautiful and lovely that every second was rich… and now, as always her gaze was drawn to the groupies toiling away, smiling in a distant way.

If she stayed, was she any different from them? A servant to someone else that probably barely knew her name. The way she heard it, Admiral Serket had no idea who anyone else in the fleet was. That was left to administrators like Lusamine and Courtney of Team Aqua.

The phones called to her.

Well, she thought glumly to herself. Why not?

“It’ll just be to check out what they’re offering,” she said to herself, ringing up the number through her onboard phone systems. “I’m not committing to anything. I’m not serious about this… really…”

The phone was picked up immediately. “Come to the fast travel train station around the corner, beneath the hab complex,” a calm and tired voice said, with a Cybertronian synthetic twang to it. “A train will be waiting for you. Blue, with a large X upon it.”

“Wait,” Ranamon said. “What is this about-”

“Be there. You may depart, if you choose not to accept our offer, but you will have no memory of what you may see there. Please, do not dawdle.”

The phone hung up.

About fifteen minutes later, give or take a hurried chauffeuring to the train station in question, Ranamon slunk into the crowd of mingled groupies, pirates, brutes and technicians, all of whom wore some variety of the tight white clothes and pseudo-leathers preferred by the Cobalt elites, and Ranamon felt very exposed in her robot body. No one paid her any interest, though, suspiciously so. Especially as she cautiously approached a small train idling on the monorail, so streamlined as to be like a bullet, and strangely old; age radiated off it like a chill. And there was a large X upon it. Not an ominous kind, just a very discreet set of diagonal lines.

No one seemed to look directly at it. That was strange. Around here, you’d think people would zip straight toward anything novel or intriguingly new, even if it wound up being a catastrophically bad idea or was super suspicious.

As she approached, the doors of the train smoothly opened for her. She stepped inside, not entirely sure of what she was doing.

“Sit down, please,” the same voice from the phone said. She looked around, but saw no one. It was a single cab, of the modern kind that was totally automated, and there wasn’t a conductor that she could see. The voice came from all around, welling out from the train itself.

Ranamon, too off balance to reply, went to the nearest bench. A seat belt obligingly wound around her framework. The train started to go, and she definitely felt a sensation of movement.

This was the point that she no longer really had a frame of reference; the windows chose that moment to suddenly jerk, the view outside distorting like a tub of paints being thrown into a washing machine at full cycle.

The train accelerated, and fired forward far faster than should have been possible at all, and it was moving… sideways? No, down, up. Both, all of those, at the same time, and REALLY FAST, why did she feel like she was turning inside out-

No one saw the train leave, as no one had seen it enter. It was simply gone, though to the sole occupant, it was a much stranger experience.

There was a long moment, perhaps several hours worth of a single moment stretched out much longer than it was comfortable for even a digital entity, as Ranamon experienced dimensions of existence she really had not been programmed to comprehend or deal with in any respectable way. It felt weird, she had absolutely no idea what was going on, WHAT WAS HAPPENING-

“I’m gonna be sick, HELP, I FEEL SICK, MAKE IT STOP!” she wailed.

“Please do not be ill inside me,” the unseen voice said, sounding a bit curious at the prospect all the same. “Hold a moment… you are inside a platform. CAn you even BE ill?”

“Can we please table this discussion until after I stop being about to throw up!?”

“Certainly. We are here.”

And then, they stopped, with such a sudden jerk that it was almost as bad as going that fast to begin with.

Ranamon stumbled down out of the bench as the belt came away, and data streamed out from the little robot. Here, in a space very different from what she had just been in, her information flowed away from the robotic body she had been inhabiting, and it clattered to the ground, devoid of animating force, and then.

Her feet touched the ground. She wobbled, and that was a well-chosen word indeed, to a stop, too dazed to even realize what had happened. “Out!” She gasped, stumbling out the open doors, her legs moving without any dignity at all.

She fell onto her knees outside. Her first sign of something being off was the air, cold and brisk and full of a strange vitality but then… she wasn’t breathing at all. There was nothing to breath, no atmosphere, but the idea of breathing did it for her. Then she realized that she didn’t need to breath at all, so why was she experiencing that?

The third, and probably more strictly sensual one, as her breasts touching the ground. Her actual body! RAnamon looked down and squeaked as she saw not metal and clicky joints, but light green flesh, for the first time outside a computer! She squeaked, standing up as her massive breasts wobbled in front of her, almost toppling her over again. Slowly she placed her hands upon them. Her webbed hands, the blue organic armor of her true digital form right there. Her fingers made little indentations in her spheres, and she squeezed just for the novelty of it.

A bad idea. “Ow!” She whined. Her breasts bounced, in the way that only a bustline as big as sixty percent of a person’s entire body mass can, and she took a few more confident steps forward. She was starting to get familiar with her own body again, and she whirled around, examining herself in wonder. Yes… this was… familiar.

Her skin, moist and faintly green. Smaller than the average human, but obscenely stacked in hips and bust so that she wobbled from every inch with a single step. Blue armor, or perhaps a tight jumpsuit that looked disquietingly organic, clung tight to her hyper-sexed form, two angler fish lights dangling from her forearm gauntlets.

The feathery gills against the side of her face, projecting out from her elongated helmet and the angler lure projecting out behind it, flapped happily. She stamped on the ground, patting herself in wonder. “I’m… I’m here? I’m actually here? The REAL me!? My coding! My everything! My bigness!”

She hugged herself, causing a muffin top of breastflesh to flow over her face, and between her arms, and against her stomach. “I’m here again…!”

“Perhaps I should have warned you, dear,” the unseen voice said again. Now, perhaps more comfortable, it was warming up, with a bit of bounce, and sounded positively jolly, like a gift-giver or a rich and slightly loopy uncle. “We are not in what you might think of as the material realm. The rules are… looser, here.”

Ranamon looked up - in her own body, no platform, just HER - and saw only the train. She stood upon a platform in what looked like an empty void. No, scratch that. She saw a city of sorts, but barely any people walking across… she squinted. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of… no way. Platforms? Mile-long platforms, or perhaps islands floating freely in the void, connected by streamers of vibrant light. Perhaps surges of intense magic, so strong they had become a stable force. In the distance, she saw a small castle, floating around between several other platforms in a way that reminded her of a power core. Perhaps it was… fueling this place, somehow?

She looked away from the strangely shaped islands floating in the dark, and turned to the train. There was no conductor coming out. It was just her. “Okay, am I alone here? Are you… somewhere else? What am I supposed to do?”

“Hold a moment,” the voice said, and it was definitely coming from the train now.

The train… stood up. At least, that was one way to put it. She stared up in alarm as the train shifted forms and transformed into an entirely new form, reformatting itself and moving into a more humanoid configuration. She felt silly; she knew Transformers! She should have expected that! She hadn’t been in a remote controlled train, she’d been inside a Transformer!

The train, interestingly, shed it’s kibble. Most Transformers had elements of their alt form, but she knew that the ones in the Endowed Fleet, rivals to the Cobalts, had engineered a way to allow Transformers to assume entirely new ones on the fly; perhaps this one had gotten the same trick. The cab, the wheels, the underslung rail riding gear all disappeared into its body, exchanging itself for the signs of a born flier. Integrating engines, antigravity pods, a streamlined appearance and jet projectors all along the limbs that were quickly materializing.

It was a lot larger than many Transformers she had seen, too. Broad all over; the hips were very slim, but the arms and legs were huge. The chest was extremely broad, almost like a flat screen, and something about that was very worrying to her. There were no faction decals, brands or insignias. There were a few places which looked like there had been… at least, before they had been scorched away, most likely by this robot’s own hand.

Only one hand, at that. A huge and powerful set of claws, indelicate and badly scarred at the wrist. The secondary form of an old punishment practiced on ancient Cybertron; empurata, mutilating a Transformer’s body and replacing their parts with crude, clumsy replacements to publicly shame them and render them unable to act outside a given function. The other hand, though, was a mass of tools, a shifting and whirring bulk of micro-tools to accomplish any task, but it was also very clearly a massive cannon.

A flat broad chest. Empurata. A cannon-arm, and a distinctive bulky frame. She knew this Transformer.

Thousands upon thousands of horrified aliens knew his name. MAny more had seen his pitiless eye, before they were lost forever in his labs. Their pieces and parts scattered, bloodied bodies abandoned on the floor, entire worlds used for experimentation so horrendous and cruel that it was said even the legendarily vicious Mindfang thought they were too inhumane to even think about-

And now, staring down at her, was a head that had suffered the fate of primary empurata. His head removed, cut away, scarred and mutilated and placed back, all ability to expression emotion stripped away from it, cut down to the very framework. The living metal was a mass of burns and blade wounds, and a single large eye stared down at her.

“Greetings,” he said in a surprisingly cheerful voice. “We were not introduced. My apologies, I am-”

“Shockwave.” She took several steps back, trying not to upend herself with her own overlarge assets. “Oh God. You’re Shockwave.”

“...Ah.” He stared down at her. His tone was very soft. “You know of me.”

He’s a fucking MONSTER. He makes that maniac Grimlock on the Endowed Fleet look reserved and calm. He’s the one who turned Grimlock and his flock of monsters rabid! He melts down organic planets and uses them for fuel! He’s tortured people to death just to measure the sounds of their screams! He’s made parents eat their own children in psychological games just to test how far people are willing to go to survive! He stitches people to one another after turning them inside out, he replaces living metal with wood, he fills people with parasites, he’s done so many evil things that actual DEMONS are horrified by it. He’s defined what the world ‘cruelty’ actually means and, oh god, I AM ALONE WITH SHOCKWAVE.

It WAS A TRAP, he wanted a Digimon to cut up and do things to, I’m ALONE WITH SHOCKWAVE.

Ranamon raised her hands. “Don’t step any closer,” she said, keeping her voice level, the terror rising in her and putrid-sick. “I’ll put a hole in you. I still have my powers here, I can absolutely destroy you, you sick freak!”

Shockwave stared at her. “I doubt that you can,” he said eventually. “My people are incredibly hard to put down. We can be cut open, melted down, ripped apart, exposed to the emptiness of space, have our minds fried with electromagnetics… and still, we just cannot die.” A faint horror came into his voice. “Processors, cut open and exposed to the world. Spark champers removed and replaced with progressively more incapable fuel systems. The body slowly shuts down as it is damaged, one piece at a time… and yet, no matter how loud we want to die, we just cannot. Not without certain terrible means that, I believe, are not available to you.”

She paused. Something wasn’t quite right here.

”Cosmic rust. Total bodily failure; destroy all the organs of a Transformer simultaneously, and perhaps that will kill us. But do it even slightly wrong, and we won’t die. At least, not right away. We will live. No matter how much we deserve to die.”

Ranamon’s arms lowered extremely slightly. ABsolute terror was slightly fading away in favor of bewilderment. “Oh. You’re… not Shockwave. Are you?”

“I am.” The robot turned his eye towards her. She had seen pictures of it. The photos of the multiverse’s most evil criminal scientist and torturer were always the same: pitiless, heartless, utterly without morality or the hint of any feeling whatsoever. Nothing but logic, cold and empty.

This was anything but empty. The eye was wild, moving this way and that, his entire frame continually shuddered like some awful emotion was trying to tear him apart from the inside out, and though he was quiet for a moment, his body language suggested a mind that was screaming if only it could find a voice big enough for it.

“You remember me as I was,” he began.

“I was Senator Shockwave, a long time ago,” Shockwave continued, voice marginally under control. “Idealist, reformer. I was, i tried to be… good. And then, the Functionalists took my mind from me. They cut it apart and sliced away everything from me but my ability to think logically, and they taught me what cruelty really was. And then, and… oh, yes.”

He spread his arms mockingly.

“Yes,” he said again. “You know of what I became. A true monster. An evil upon the multiverse, exceeded only by young Megatron.” His tone became soft and weary.

Distantly, Ranamon thought that she had heard that Shockwave had disappeared some time ago, after the formal dissolution of the Decepticon Empire. She had assumed he had gone to unknown worlds, to inflict his special brand of scientific curiosity upon all unfortunate enough to meet him. “What happened to you?”

Shockwave turned, rising out of whatever deep pit he had been in, and pointed. Ranamon turned to see a vast blue shape regarding them politely, floating in the vast abyss around them. A huge shape, beautiful and terrible at once, and inexpressibly sorrowful; perhaps mourning for all existence. A vast curtain of white light fluttered around a beautifully alien face, and enormous, kissable lips measured in miles, the rest of the giantess so massive that she was exerting her own gravity, little planetoids around her, and her body was… big. And curvy, really very curvy. Unbelievably massive breasts even larger than Ranamon’s in comparison, hips almost wider than this giantess was tall.

And, nestled between her interstellar cleavage, there was a massive blue diamond. A gem core.

“Oh my god,” Ranamon whispered. “That’s Blue Diamond! I heard she vanished after she was freed from the clutches of the Emperor of Destruction!”

“Megatron, yes,” Shockwave said, now apparently calmed down. “I… met her afterwards. When I was still that thing I had been remade into. And she made me feel…” he trailed off.

“Feel what?”

“Everything. Everything I had ever done. The true enormity of all those lives lost by my hand, the horrors of the things I created. She made me feel the pain of it, and made it so that I could never forget again who I truly am.”

Shockwave began to walk. “Come, little one. We have plenty of time to discuss matters with our patron, but it is impolite to keep an appointment waiting.”

Ranamon hurried, glancing back again at the intoxicating sight of Blue Diamond. The giant gem looked so… serene, and she had always heard that Blue Diamond had her heart broken long ago. And yet, she looked… at peace?

In a strange way, so did Shockwave. “May I offer you a lift?” He transformed again, this time assuming a cylindrical craft approximately the size of a jet fighter, the design somewhere between a baroque rocket and a very fancy plane. He hovered above the ground for her, politely.

“Um. Sure.” She climbed aboard, and the two took off towards the castle… or whatever it was… she had seen earlier.

They parked within it, departing into the depths of the castle, and Shockwave assumed his biped form again as they came to some kind of shabby office within it. As they waited to be seen, Ranamon asked, “Where exactly are we?”

Shockwave looked thoughtful. “An interesting question. A good answer may be another question: where are we not?”

She blinked. “Um. I don’t think we’re in the material plane: I was breathing in something but I’m a data entity. I don’t have lungs or a metabolism. I can feel all kinds of magic around me, so… the magical realms, maybe? But then things would be more hectic and it’s just kind of… empty here? Are we outside, in some other lost realm?”

“Good reasoning! But no, not quite. We are nowhere at all.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Think of it like this!” They were both sitting down now, and somehow their chairs were just big enough to seat their wildly disparate sizes. Shockwave sounded downright enthusiastic, like a gentleman professor eager to be teaching again. It was surreal given his reputation. “We are in a place that is defined by not being anywhere else. We are quite literally outside reality; a special pocket realm, outside the multiverse as a whole, maintained by powerful divine influences. From here, it is possible to access any point in the multiverse, particularly the mortal universes, but time does not pass for us, nor do most normal laws of physics.”

Shockwave went on like this for a while. Eventually three figures appeared; a tall man in a super cool black outfit that was mostly body armor and longcoat garb. Beside him was a giant woman, apparently human and over fifty feet tall, nonchalantly stepping around him. She wasn’t wearing much, and had a lot to keep covered up; breasts bigger than her entire upper body, hips wider than a doorway her size would be, powerful thighs suitable for her frame, Covering her modesty was a pair of micro shorts, in red, a spangly bikini, and a short jacket like something an old school jester might wear but updated for the times.

She was also, apparently, very pale. She leaned over, breasts almost bouncing into the ground, and the other two had to dance away to avoid getting caught. “Heya, doc! You borin’ a newbie?”

“I do not bore, Doctor Quinzel,” Shockwave said loftily. “I educate! There’s a difference but not much of a distinction, perhaps.”

“Hah.” She stood up. Her hair was pulled up into two huge pig tails that dangled down to her waist, dyed alternating colors of red and blue. The overall effect was of zany cuteness. “Don’t forget, we got an appointment tonight. Therapy session pronto, ya hear me?”

“I hear you.”

Doctor Quinzel - Harley Quinn, as Ranamon would later know her - skipped away. The other two figures approached; Ranamon gaped at the taller of the pair. “Amelie Lacroix!”

It was her, and she raised an eyebrow. “Ah, so you decided to come. Good work.”

“Told you she’d take us up on it,” said the other guy smugly. He was wearing a mask that sort of looked like a skull, and a lot like a very stylized barn owl face. He stuck out a clawed hand to Ranamon. “Gabriel Reyes. My call sign is Reaper. When we’re out in the field, I make sure you don’t die horribly.”

Ranamon shook his hand. “Uh… field?”

“...Hrm. She doesn’t know?” Reaper, or Mr Reyes, directed this to Shockwave.

Shockwave nodded curtly. “We are here about that.”

“Right. Well, Waller will see you know.”

Behind them, a door opened. In between explanations about the people they had met (‘Miss Quinn used to be a fearsome villain, but reformed after rethinking a very bad relationship she was in’ ‘Mister Reyes helped found our group here, he was once human but was empowered a long time ago, and made contact with some strange entity that was interested in this whole affair; Zarathos, I believe was the name of it’ and ‘Miss Lacroix; a custom made clone series designed to be physically perfect superhuman soldiers, she was programmed for assassination but once she was freed of it, she sought to make amends), Shockwave gave her some quick instructions.

“Be polite, don’t waste time, and don’t mess about. Miss Waller does not approve of that. But be honest, even rude, and she might approve. Just don’t lie to her, she will know.”

“Okay,” Ranamon said, more confused than ever.

“And bear in mind. If you choose to walk away, no harm will come to you. You will return to where you were, just fine, no harm done to you, but you will have the memory… ah, removed. To be safe, you see.”

“Seems fair,” Ranamon said, in a bit of a daze.

She expected to see an ominous and foreboding figure, perhaps a demonic entity of some sort, but it was nothing more unusual than a robust and heavily built human woman. Dark-skinned, broad featured, her hair cut closely to her scalp, every inch a consummate professional.

Her broad expression was grim, even dour. “Ranamon, I believe,” she said curtly, as Shockwave stood there politely. “Please. Feel free to sit down.” She glanced up, expression softened slightly. “Senator. Feel free to sit, or transform into a more comfortable position.”

He shifted mode into his flight form, laying down on the ground contentedly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Very good. Now, Ranamon.” She went through a heavy dossier, and put it on the table in front of her. “Take it, if you wish.”

Ranamon did so, nervously. “What is it…?”

“Your life, in fact.”

Ranamon opened it. A word right from her thoughts was on the top of a page: ‘I’m so tired of feeling like… nothing.’ “What the heck!?”

Ranamon rifled through it, Miss Waller studying her without any apparent expression.

Ranamon read from the beginning, for it detailed her early life as an In-Training Digimon and Baby. Then, the way her powers had mingled with the ancient force of the heroine AncientMermaidmon; her evolution into her current form, and the vast powers she had developed.

The dossier wasn’t general facts. It detailed her thoughts. Her memories were on open display here, her ideas, idle things they were, written down as plainly as text. Even cross-referenced with events that had led to her being affected by them, and other parts of the multiverse that criss-crossed and influence her own life, and how she affected it in turn…

She read onwards. To her joining the Cobalt Pirates… and her crimes as part of them.

Her growing dissatisfaction, her weariness, her emotional exhaustion. Her desire to be part of something better, to do something that mattered…

All of it so very detailed, precise and knowing. It was written in a way that she couldn’t argue with it, truth radiating from it like heat from a summer-day stone. It simply was. It would be foolish to dispute it.

“We are in contact with certain… shall we say, forces,” Miss Waller said calmly, perhaps aware of exactly what she was thinking. “That have an interest in the multiverse’s safety as a whole. Powerful entities that give us abilities, and information on people like you.”

“People like… me?”

“People who have done terrible things,” Waller said flatly. “Unforgivable, by many standards. And who want to do something better with themselves, all the same.”

Ranamon looked down, into her deep cleavage, for lack of anywhere else to look. That got her pretty good, she had to admit. “Yeah. Like me.”

“Yes.” Waller didn’t smile, but she did seem to approve. “You see, the powers who entrust this mission to me, and in turn approve all those whom Reyes and his allies scout out, can wash the board clean for you… so to speak. If you act in their name to make the multiverse a better place, to genuinely save it, and pull it back from the absolute mess it has become… then we can give you what you want most.”

Ranamon sat back, stunned.

Waller tilted her head. “It differs from person to person. A new start, for some. Perhaps you want a new life, somewhere in the multiverse, where you can start over, clean of your mistakes. Or maybe you want some troublesome curse removed. And maybe you just want nothing so materialistic, just an opportunity to fix things.” Shockwave radiated a bit at that. “And of course, there is always the option to remain with us, and be a part of an organization that wants to help and is equipped to do so.”

Ranamon stared blankly. “You want me to work for you? And I can… help people?”

“Help people? In a sense. You’d be helping the multiverse. Which is comprised of people so… it works out the same way.” Waller smirked faintly, crossing her fingers. “The conditions are simple. Work for us. Every mission you participate with turns the multiverse closer towards safety and long-term happiness for everyone. That, in turn, wipes away a bit of the debt you’ve accrued towards fate and whatever doom you may have visited upon yourself. Continue to do so, working for us in good faith, and eventually… all the evil you’ve done? You will have paid for it. If you can stick with us.” Her expression became cold. “Provided you are sincere. And believe me… we can tell.”

Ranamon gulped. “And… if I die?”

Waller smirked again. “Well. That might be a bit of an impediment. But we can work around that. It won’t slow us down, or you. Believe me.”

“...What would I have to do, if I joined you? Like, kill anyone!?”

“Perhaps. If they deserve to die. Or are evil enough.” Waller contemplated this. “Or if their deaths serve the multiverse as a whole. But we don’t do that sort of thing lightly. The tasks given to you are highly individual; hard to say exactly what will happen. I’d imagine something like what you have already done, but not for the sake of greed or just doing piracy.”

“Ah…” Ranamon thought about it.

Eventually, in very level tones, trying her hardest not to think about everything she might be leaving behind - all her friends, the comforts she was used to, but then was it even worth anything anymore? - she said, “Um. I have a question, miss.”

“Feel free. This is a recruitment interview. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”

Ranamon tilted her head. “You know in advance anything I might say, don’t you?”

Waller’s expression did not so much as twitch. Walls and stone had more emotion than she did. “I can’t see the future.”

“No, no, I don’t mean that. What I mean is… um.” She took a moment to gather her thoughts and the vague idea she had floating in the back of her mind. “Would you have reached out to me at all, if you weren’t absolutely sure I would probably say yes? On the spot?”

Waller stared at her for a moment longer. Her mouth twitched at one side, very slightly, in the manner of someone hiding a grim smile. “Well, well. You’re more perceptive than you let on.”

“Would you?” Ranamon pressed.

The human was silent, for a time, her expression not so much blank as refusing to admit even a hint of whatever she was thinking, or feeling.

Waller than spoke, and Ranamon was not at all exactly the most perceptive of Digimon but nonetheless she still felt a shiver go up her back, the watery portions of her body freezing solid and unfreezing so she could move. This woman, she sensed, was very dangerous, and when she spoke now, there was a sense that every word was being carefully chosen, weighed for effect, and deployed as strategically as a single well-placed shot.

It was impossible to say how much of anything Waller said was an honest truth, or what she believed Ranamon needed to hear.

Nevertheless. She was involved in some serious stuff right now.

“That depends entirely on who I invite down here,” Waller said. “Perhaps I would bring in a wildcard that would like to do the right thing more often than not, and I would hope for the best possible outcome. And as I’m sure you’ve been told, there are safeguards to protect us if that does not pan out. But… well. Known qunatities are the best possible option. I am always sure before I ask someone down here.”

Ranamon noted that this wasn’t really answering the question; at least, she would have preferred a more straightforward answer. But that was likely the best she would get, from the impression Waller gave off.

Ranamon smiled faintly. “Well… okay. I guess you know me better than I know myself.

“I’ll do it.” And Ranamon stuck her hand out.

Waller raised an eyebrow. “...Hrm. That was quick. You sure you wouldn’t rather have some time to think about it, at least? Not even a minute to consider the ups, the downs, the possible traps at play here?” Her tone was challenging, daring: go on, I wanna see what you’ll do.

“No.” As she said it, Ranamon felt… freed. Like anything bad from here on out honestly didn’t matter that much, compared to what she hoped could happen. If it was a trap or not… who cared? If anyone here was being honest or not, did it matter that much? This felt like a good thing she was getting into,

The first good thing she was doing in a long, long time.

“I’m in,” Ranamon said. “I’m joining up, I’m signing for it, I’m all yours. Okay? A chance to make something better and actually do something worth me?” Ranamon said, grinning. “Count me in.”

Waller stared at her a bit longer than was strictly necessary. Then she grinned. She shook Ranamon’s hand.

“Welcome to Task Force X, Ranamon,” Waller said, with pride.

[webcricket]

Looking Glass

Chapter 11 - Under Your Spell

Pairing: CastielXAU!Reader

Word Count: 3180

Summary: The final ingredient needed for Rowena’s location spell leads to an angelically intimate reveal. Warning for a swear word and non-explicit sexually suggestive situation.

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Retracing his footsteps from the task of securing the door following a soggy return to the bunker and your subsequent sprint to your bedroom in search of a dry clothes, Castiel’s rain sodden boot leaves the last metal stair and lands on the floor with a slosh at almost the same instant Dean materializes in the hall door traveling the well-worn route from kitchen to library.

The hunter carries two condensation glazed amber bottles of beer, neither of which is intended for the angel.

Cas’ fingers pause in their anemic struggle to loosen the slippery blue knot of his silken tie. He eyes the alcohol; the thought passes fleeting that he could use a beer, or thousand. From the wind-mussed mat of dark brown locks slicked to his forehead down to the pruned-skin toes shoved into squishy socks, his demeanor drips defeat over the washed-out chance to kiss you and the continued existential battle waging within between his sentimental heart and reason-ruled mind regarding as to where, should your relationship develop further despite his ineptitude in processing and directing his developing emotion toward you, this newfound and deepening desire fits into his angelic existence and your otherworldly one.

Staring at his friend in the saturation of silence as though he’s also been caught in some seraphim subterfuge for having gone against Dean’s strongly worded decree that you not be allowed outside the controlled confines of bunker-dom, he thinks perhaps Dean should have warned, too, that you not be permitted to breach the boundaries of his heart; it’s precisely the sort of distraction none of them need right now – not that the angel necessarily abides by anything Dean dictates.

“Dean, you’re back.” Defaulting to the observable in the absence of anything more concrete to say about the maelstrom of confusion vexing his mind, the gravelly greyness of his tone emulates the storm roiling outside.

“How was your wa-” Dean’s gaze pops upward, widening upon perceiving the soaked state of the seraph. “-what the hell happened?”

Suit stuck to his skin, pallor oddly pale, a puddle gathers around Cas’ ankles as he tries to decide if and how to articulate to Dean the tale of a perfect afternoon punctuated by a near kiss preempted by an inner tempest of hesitation deluged by a literal tempest with an ending ultimately steeped in regret and the never-ending cycle of life’s uncertainty. It’s the sort of benign blow so consistent throughout the angel’s undertakings that it could be considered his trademark. Preferring to nurse his woes in private, dreading Dean will add insult to injury, he says nothing.

Waiting for an answer, and unlike the droplets of water sliding off the glass bottles to splash the concrete at his feet a darker shade of grey, the Winchester’s patience runs dry. “Cas, why are you wet?” he reiterates his question with specificity.

“It’s raining.” Cas shrugs his slouched trench coat-less shoulders as he mutters the specific, albeit overall vague in actual terms of why, reason for his dampness. He avoids looking directly at Dean.

“Ya think?” Dean gestures the neck of one of the bottles at the atypically disrobed angel. Astute to angelic body language, he doesn’t miss the glancing guilt. “Not to state the obvious, but isn’t this the exact scenario trench coats are made for? Where’s yours?”

Cas misreads the waved refreshment as an offer to take it. Slogging nearer, he reaches out to pluck the drink from Dean’s grip; twisting off the top, he downs the contents in a single long glug. Wiping wetted lips with a wetter sleeve, he professes, “I gave it to Y/N to dry off after she went swimming.” As the bunker houses no pool, which implies your swim occurred significantly out of bounds of Dean’s directive, his eyes dart sidelong to assess his friend’s reaction to the revelation of defiance.

There’s a rise of anger in the guise of vocal gruffness, but not toward the anticipated detail of your outing. Running his free hand through his hair in irritation, he huffs, “Don’t tell me she took a bath in my fishing hole.”

“Dude,” Sam interrupts. His cross-armed figure leans against the library threshold – parched, impatient, inquisitive, or all of the above. A smirk stretches his cheeks. “Why do you insist on calling it a fishing hole when you’ve never caught a single fish?” The arch of his brow wordlessly inquires as to the location of the beer his brother promised.

Grateful for an intermediary and the redirection, Cas contributes, “It would be a miracle if you did catch a fish considering there aren’t any inhabiting your so-called fishing hole.”

Surrounded and outnumbered, Dean’s lip curls in defense. Unapologetic for the angelically absconded beer, opening up the one remaining in his possession and laying claim to the rim with spit, he grumbles around a swig, “The art of fishing has nothing to do with whether you catch anything. I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand the complex nature of-”

“Here we go again.” Sighing, Sam uncrosses his arms and turns to wander into the library. “Heard it before, still not interested.”

Dean and Cas trail after him – the human casts the angel an appalled glare as his soles gurgle and squelch with every step.

Cas senses Dean’s aghast glower. Endeavoring to keep the conversation from detouring to you, he engages in the act of small talk. “Did you retrieve the rest of the ingredients?”

“Yeah, everything except an angel feather. Turns out they’re in scarce supply these days, but I figured you could-” He clasps Cas’ shoulder roughly and apes tugging a feather. “-you know.”

“Of course.” Cas suppresses the wince that threatens to contort his features with a mask of impassiveness. Yanking the rare intact plume from the scarred span of his wings is a bit like pulling a fingernail out by the cuticle; and yet, it’s nothing he doesn’t believe he deserves for his multitude of transgressions. In his heart, he judges this small sacrifice to be the least he can do for what he’s done. “Anything to help,” he adds, mostly to convince himself.

Dean’s grin is as genuine as Cas’ passivity is disingenuous. “Great, Rowena’s waiting-”

“On the wings, so to speak.” Rowena winks, simpers, and rises with a slow stretch from the leather lounge in the alcove. Yawning, she snaps shut a book she wasn’t actually reading and balances the slim volume on the arm of the chair. “Hello again, tweetie pie.”

Cas bobs his chin politely in acknowledgement. He notes mutely that the red-haired witch’s compulsive proclivity for using nicknames must be hereditary based on her son’s penchant for doing the same.

Her pout over the lack of a more rousing response to her flirtatious greeting morphs into one of contrived concern. Heavily mascaraed lashes fluttering, somehow intuiting the precise topic Cas wants to avoid, she extends her delicate dancer’s frame to full height on her heels to peer over their shoulders. “And where’s that poor disturbed child scuttled off to?”

All eyes alight on the angel for the answer.

Cas’ mouth presses into a pallid line under the burden of expectation for an explanation. “After we returned from the walk, she, uh, she wanted to warm up in the shower.”

“Oh?” Rowena’s crimson mouth quirks in avidity of amusement. Her gold-dusted eyes dart to Sam and Dean to ensure she holds their attention. “Because it looked to me like things were heating up nicely until someone stumbled over their cold feet.”

“Wait, what?” Dean sputters and chokes on a poorly timed sip of beer.

Sam smiles – the insinuation of budding romance explaining an abstract aloofness verging on daydreaming afflicting the seraph of late.

“You,” Dean states in disbelief, “and Y/N? Since when?”

“We’re not-” Sidestepping further elaboration, the self-inflicted torture of feather removal being preferable to Dean’s teasing, he veers for his quarters, muttering, “I’ll return with the feather.”

Target out of sight, Dean directs his interrogation at the witch. “Were you spying on them?”

She narrows her gaze. “It’s called scrying, and there’s little else to do for diversion in this dank dungeon of yours.”

“What else are you sticking your nose into?” Dean scoffs.

A soft smile of satisfaction slithers across her aspect. “Let’s just say the seraph’s not the only one with a stimulating secret or two around here. Do our dear young Samuel and haloed hero know about that nondescript box you keep hidden in your closet vent?” Pirouetting, she sinks again into the chair and recommences her non-perusal of the book.

Forehead furrowed mid-brow, Sam’s mouth shapes to utter an astonished ‘What box?’

Before he can speak, Dean holds up a palm. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing indeed,” Rowena titters, licks a finger, and flips the page.

Suit coat draped over his arm, tie slung undone around his neck, white dress shirt flapping agape as he pulls the ends of the damp garment from the tuck of his pants, Castiel peers up from unbuckling his belt as he enters his bedroom surprised to see you seated at the desk.

Freshly showered, snug in cozy pajamas, smelling sweetly of lavender soap, you sit with your eyes fixed not on the computer perched in your lap, but upon the strip of tanned and toned torso visible to you. The intricately beautiful black lettering of a tattoo peeks from beneath the fabric covering the left side of his stomach.

The angel halts in the doorway, spine stiffened under your scrutiny, belt half unlooped from his trousers and hanging in his hand as if he doesn’t know whether to come or go.

Realizing the impudence of your sustained stare, cheeks hot, you gawk with sudden interest at the laptop and punch at a few random keys. “Hey, uh, I was looking for you,” you murmur. “Thought I’d give this Netflix thing another go, but I can’t seem to find the second season of Firefly.”

“The space western?” Relaxing, letting the leather slip forgotten from his fingertips, Cas steps into the room. He slings his coat and tie across the corner of the dresser to dry and moves nearer your side to squint at the screen.

His increased proximity and decreased dress does very little to diminish the hotness flushing your skin. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Frowning at being the bearer of bad news, he reclines against the edge of the desk and shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid that series was cancelled before the second season. I don’t suggest bringing the topic up with Dean, it’s an extremely touchy subject.”

“You’re kidding!” Sulking, you shut the screen, spin in the seat, and slide the computer back on the surface of the desk. You can’t help but steal another glimpse of the tattoo inked across his abs; this close, you recognize the strange symbols as Enochian warding – he’s an angel warded against other angels.

His blues narrow askance. “Why would I joke about that?”

“I guess you wouldn’t, I just thought-” Stumbling over your words, the significance of his tattoo – the possibilities of what occasioned the necessity of it – enthralls you. “Things really are different here, aren’t they? I may come from a world wrecked by an apocalypse, but at least we had six glorious seasons of Firefly.”

“I suppose, apocalypse aside, things have the potential to be quite different here. Hopefully some, too, for the better.”

Glancing upward, you meet his steady gaze. You perceive in the softened sapphire sheen of his eyes a glint of hope that he may be one of those positive differences.

“So-” You shift, nervously looking away to chew your lip; remembering your misreading of the kiss that wasn’t by the pond, you think perhaps your interpretation of this hope is only a mirror of yours and not a reflection of his own sentiment. “Dean’s back?”

“Yes.” He sighs subtly having lost your gentle regard and denies the desire to hook your chin with a finger to again lift up your disarming eyes to him.

You imagine – a pout creeping to downturn the creases of your mouth – you’ll be left alone in the bunker, again. The temper tamed until now climbs your throat. “Then I suppose you’ll be leaving soon to go searching for Gabriel?” Your tone scrapes the air and his ears more abrasively than intended.

He straightens at your harshness, hesitates, then moves toward the dresser. “We need one more ingredient to complete the spell. But then-”

“What is it?” You rise to your feet to follow him, trying not to appear too eager or desperate not to be abandoned. “Can I help?”

He rests his palms on the dresser and peers at you through the hazed glass of the rimless utilitarian rectangular looking glass mounted above it. “It’s not something you-”

“I can help, Cas.” You touch a hand lightly to his shoulder. “I feel so useless locked up in here. Please, let me help you with this.”

The flesh of his vessel prickles pleasantly under the thrum of your fingertips. He wanted to say in the sordid scope of history encompassing the collusions between heaven and humanity, he cannot recall a single soul granted permission to harvest a plume from an angel’s wings, let alone see their corporeal shape beyond shadow. It’s a side of him he reasons you don’t need to be subjected to – a glimpse of his tarnished true form. Proof of his failures. He blinks heavily, focus falling to the sanded twist of a knot darkening the smooth finish of the dresser’s woodgrain – an imperfection, but a flaw that makes the piece of furniture all the more beautiful. Proof of survival. Perhaps, he thinks, there’s a chance you might view him this way. “It’s a feather we need.” The low bass whisper raises the hair on the back of your neck. “One of mine.”

You squeeze your fingers firmer into the muscular arch of his shoulder. “Seems simple enough.”

“Simple, yes, but I’ve never-” He shakes his head. “No mortal has seen any more than a shadow of my wings. Revealing them, it’s an . . . a very intimate act.”

“So, kind of like you seeing me naked.”

“Yes, kind of like that,” he agrees, adding, without processing the intimation of attraction to you in what he says, “only you’re lovely, and they’re . . . not what they used to be.”

“You don’t have to hide from me.” Flipping your hand, you brush the backs of your knuckles down the length of his arm to weave your fingers through the spaces between his where they splay on the dresser; constricting your grip, you urge him into the light with sincere reassurance like he urged you to step into the sun today after so long in the dark. You coil your fingers until no gaps remain and his eyes lock on yours in the mirror.

“Close your eyes,” he rasps the breathy command.

“Cas-”

He covers your interlaced hands with his unconstrained palm and, sliding them from the dresser, spins to face you. “Unless you wish to be permanently blinded when the dimension where they’re cloistered phases into this one, I suggest you shut your eyes now.”

Your eyelids squeeze tight. You inhale and hold a lungful of the charged air building between you. A blaze of light burns bright against your shuttered lashes. A rush of soothing warmth washes sun-like over your skin. The atmosphere quivers to life with the sound of feverish rustling. His fingers fidget – fitful – in your grasp, then break limply loose.

“We need an unspoiled feather to give the spell the best chance of success.” He utters coolly – his voice seems somehow distant to you. No, detached – surely a measure of protection against the judgement he awaits when your eyes open.

Your eyes remain clamped. You worry you were too bold asking this of him; or, too manipulative in likening the revelation of an angel’s wings to the exposure of your body – an unremarkable human form at that, with a structure battered and stitched together by scars, inside and out, he chivalrously called lovely. Lovely. Your heart flutters – the compliment races in a flurry from right atrium to ventricle, circulating hot to sear the held breath in your lungs, then speeding with renewed fervor left atrium to ventricle to oxygenate your limbs in a weakening tizzy of excitement.

“Y/N, it will be easier for both of us if you open your eyes now.”

Lashes lifting, looking upward, you exhale an enraptured gasp and stumble backward; he catches you by the waist.

Imposing jet black wings branch above you; their span curves, cramped, into the corners of the room. In sections, the feathers erupt sparse from scar-coarsened sinew, in others, the quills are frayed and blunted almost to bone, and yet the overall effect astonishes. “Unspoiled, right.” Reduced by awe to echoing, you repeat his instruction.

He dips his head once, chin to chest, and sinks to one knee.

Your attention roves the broad span and finds a prospective plume jutting out near the juncture of his shoulder blades. “And when I find one, how do I remove it?”

His fingers stay at your waist, twisting at the hem of the fabric there as if bracing himself. “You pull. Hard.”

“Won’t that hurt?” You isolate and clutch the bony base of the intact quill in your fist and flatten your palm to his bowed shoulders for leverage.

“Yes,” he hisses between his teeth at your tentative tug.

“Sorry. Sorry! Are you okay?” You flinch at the raw power behind the curtailed flap tensing the insulted appendage.

“You have to pull harder,” he growls. Burrowing his forehead into your stomach, he clutches at your sides to bolster his support.

Readjusting the angle of your grip, you waver. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“I’ll be fi-”

You wrench at the feather as hard as you’re able.

“Fuck.” The respired humid heat of his agonized expletive and succession of pained pants as he struggles not to completely collapse at your feet steams through the cotton barrier of your shirt to moisten the hollow of your navel housed beneath – the graze of his fingers sinking into soft flesh will surely leave bruises.

The angelically absurd exclamation of obscenity and the carnally redolent contact aches as a surge of ardor flourishing at the apex of your thighs. Catching his breath, he leans backward to gaze up at you with watery blues. The spellbinding scent of your unmistakable arousal floods his senses.

The hard-wrung feather floats from your fingers to the floor, fingers favoring instead to card through the angel’s still damp halo of chestnut locks. He doesn’t appear so formidable with his scaffold of scarred wings sprawled behind the shrunken figure of his vessel – doesn’t seem so unattainable sat suppliant on his knees before you, pinpoints of lamplight sparkling in the black pools of dilating pupils. Cupping his cheek in your palm, daubing at a stray tear tenderly with the pad of your thumb, you bend to ghost the gentlest of kisses to the corner of his mouth.

Next: Ch. 12 - A Funny Thing Happened on the Road to Amarillo