#people over fanfic

[semidecentpoet]

So I’ve been thinking quite a bit ab this.

I can’t in good conscience support Dream, so I’ve been considering rewriting my fic to take him out of it (which wouldn’t take a whole lot of editing, and it’s not centered on him anyway)

I want to hear others’ thoughts on this decision

Please let me know your thoughts in the notes, too

(I’m not looking to argue/debate anyone. I just want to know others’ thoughts on this and only this)

[legayllyblonde]

drawing i made for a narumitsu fic i’ve been writing for the past couple months! it’s 29k words of phoenix tackling his hardest case yet: getting edgeworth to agree to a pet name. completely finished & uploaded, T-rating, established relationship… link’s here if you're interested, if not, enjoy the sillies!

for venturing under the cut, i reward thee with the title card & section break illustrations! my favorites are the origami family and the popcorn pigeon :P

and finally... tigerworth...

[misshuntereevee]

think retail therapy my new addiction: a self-indulgent little rambling about you slowly learning to let sylus pay for you because you're prideful .˳·˖✶𓆩𓁺𓆪✶˖·˳.༄

sylus ... likes to slip things off at your doorstep. he's learned that if you are given away to return it easily, you will. so he's decided to just not be in sight for that to happen.

sylus ... will let you put your card down at the restaurant, but he switches it out with his own at the last second with his evol

sylus ... who takes notes of the things you say you want and makes sure they end up easily accessible to you

sylus ... finding subtle ways to get rid of what debt you have without outright giving you his card ( the debt collector is suddenly out of business or has a new owner or is dead... )

sylus ... taking you shopping whenever you mention liking a new style. he also loves buying you pretty things. necklaces, bracelets, rings, gems, etc. if he thinks it'll look pretty on you, it's in his cart. (it happens way too much, and you have a special jewelry box for all the things he's gotten you. it's over flowing.)

sylus ... giving a little 'good girl' the first time you use his card without asking for permission. after all, to him, giving you the card was the permission.

[collophora]

Do yourself a favor and go read the entire fanfic work of @fanfoolishness

(In order: Under sun and shade, Blind Side, and Breathless (patching up is one of my fav too, I just had no cool sketch idea for it)

[maglors-grief]

I'm so confused about all the people that have been insulting targaryen!readers and ocs as "boring" lately.

You expect me to believe that a reader/oc that has a fucked up family and can ride a dragon is somehow uninteresting...? This is a big fandom. There's room for everyone to write what they want. There's no reason for some people to be so judgemental. Fic writers are providing us with free content about our favorite characters. They are taking time out of their day to write us stories. You aren't expected to like every fic. This entitlement in fandom is ridiculous. Fanfiction writers owe you nothing. If you don't like what they write then that's your problem not theirs.

Most of these characters have hundreds of fics written for them, there is no point in dwelling on the fics you don't like. The Aemond/ofc tag on ao3 has over 2000 fics, the Aemond/reader tag has over 1000 fics, but yet I'll still see people whining in the fanfiction tags on tumblr about how a writer dared to write a reader/oc or plot they personally didn't like. Again, you are reading free content, we don't need to hear your criticisms. Not liking a fic is not some crisis we need to urgently address. You can keep your thoughts to yourself and move on to something else. My rant is over. Be kind to fic writers. Life would be miserable without them.

[coulsons-band]

pedro pascal doesn’t owe you shit.

it is absolutely fine to be disappointed by his absence at cannes. i am too. but he does not have to be there.

for whatever reason he’s pulling away from the attention. the esquire article talked about how guarded he is and his socials have really slowed down. maybe he’s unprepared or overwhelmed by all the tlou hype. i mean his follower count went up by the tens of thousands the day after the premiere. that’s insane.

but some of you have lost the plot. the ones wearing d*ddy’s little girl shirts in fucking public and yelling d*ddy at him at events and trying to convince everyone whether he’s queer or not and complaining there isn’t an explicit scene of him fucking in the strange way of life. it’s not a gay porn made for your fetish. ‘oh but narcos!!’ that’s called characterization. read literally any article from almodovar and understand why sex isn’t the point.

interacting with paparazzi content and making cute little edits - jfc. that’s creating demand and supply and paparazzi know no fucking boundaries. man’s got anxiety and no doubt the paps and fans watching his every move are probably making that worse.

let him make movies and rotate through his four shirts in peace. pedro pascal doesn’t owe anyone shit.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

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

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[justaz]

a spell is cast on camelot that thins the veil enough for ghosts to appear. the catch? the ghosts that appear are spirits of people that were killed by the person they’re haunting. the knights have a good amount of bandits/raiders/whatever that they took down in battle, maybe a few shady knights have genuinely innocent people that they murdered and got away with. the executioner’s killings are transferred to the king since he was simply acting out the king’s commands. arthur has quite a few. uther has hundreds of sorcerers in various states of gore and horror. those who were hanged have perpetually bent necks, those who were beheaded have either no head or just a head floating a bit above their body, and those who were burnt are more charred remains (the most grisly of them all). merlin has more than anyone expected (which was zero) and all of them keep calling out for arthur/uther’s death and camelot’s downfall while also turning to merlin and calling him a traitor.

[ao3-shenanigans]

Shout out to all the beginning authors, don’t be afraid to write badly and to write for yourself

we will love you regardless

[rafeandonlyrafe]

perfect wife

words: 1.9k

warnings: 18+ only, smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex, breeding, mating press, established relationship, marriage, housewife stuff? cooking and cleaning

taglist: @drewstarkeyslut @thelomlisrafecameron @f4ll-for-you @dilvcv @drudyslut @drewsbabygirll @jjmaybankswifes-blog @rafescokenostril @jjsmarijuana @jjmaybankisbae @seeingstarks @angelofcigs @cece45450 @babygorewhore @vanessa-rafesgirl @michelleisheres-blog

it’s not that you enjoy cleaning all the time, but you get in certain moods, when your energy level is high and you got enough sleep the night before, that you absolutely love to clean, especially satisfying deep cleans.

today happens to be one of those days, and ever since you woke up, smiling at the note that rafe left you on his pillow, wishing you a good morning and saying he regretted not being there with you upon waking up, but also couldn’t bear rousing you from your sleep when he had to leave for work. it makes your heart flutter to see it signed not by his name but rather ‘from, your husband.’

you’ve been married to rafe for two whole months now, and it feels like a fairytale, somehow even better than being his girlfriend. you feel like a truly good wife as you already scrubbed all the bathrooms spotless before 10 am, and are now working on the common areas before hopefully cleaning the bedroom before rafe gets home from work.

you hum along to the music you have playing throughout the house wide sound system as you wipe down dusty surfaces, taking care to clean all the little crevices that normally get missed. 

time flies and before you realize, your stomach starts to grumble as noon rolls by. you take a pause from your work, having just finished the living room, and move into the kitchen, deciding to make yourself some food before getting to cleaning.

you love to bake, but cooking is not your favorite thing, so you make yourself something simple before you get a spark of creativity, making a stew to simmer so it would be ready by the time rafe got home around dinner. you finish your meal, having disregarded it halfway through to make the stew. 

you clean the kitchen while stirring occasionally before it gets to the point that you can lower the temperature and walk away, now off to clean the bedroom. you grab rafes hamper, filled with clean clothes that he didn’t have time to put away last night, too busy kissing and cuddling with you in bed.

you dump them onto the freshly washed bedsheets, taking the time and care to crisply fold everything or hang up what went on hangers. you even spend some time organizing rafes closet. he kept it pretty clean already, but you wanted to make everything perfect.

you run downstairs to check your stew before continuing onto your closet, it being a much bigger mess than rafes. you have a terrible habit of trying on clothes, deciding its not want you want to wear for the day, and tossing it onto the floor instead of putting it properly away.

“baby!” you hear rafe shout just as you finish up. you quickly flatten your hands over the comforter on the bed, smoothing out any creases to make the room truly flawless before you rush down the stairs, greeting your husband with a kiss as your arms loop around his shoulders.

“something smells good.” rafe says, taking a sniff of the entryway, the smell of the stew having radiated throughout the whole house.

“i made you food.” you tell him, smoothing your hands over his shoulders, keeping your body close to his having missed him all day. “it should be ready in about 30 minutes, just enough time for you to shower.” you know rafes routine well enough, he liked to shower right when he got home from work, to wash the day away.

“you’re the most perfect wife ever.” rafe bends his head to press kisses to your neck, making you giggle when he focuses on your ticklish spot.

“go shower!” you shoo him away, wanting him to have the soup when it is nice and hot.

“love you, honey.” rafe kisses your cheek before heading up the stairs. you echo the words back to him before heading towards the kitchen to check on the stew, but pause when you hear rafe calling your name from your bedroom.

you rush up the stairs, worried that you maybe accidentally threw something out that was important or moved something and he didn’t know where it was.

“what is it rafey?” you question, eyes wide as you see him looking around the room.

“you cleaned all this while i was at work? and put away my laundry?” rafe questions, seeing that even the baseboards have been cleaned of the bit of dust that always collects on them.

you give a shrug. “i like cleaning for you.” “you know you don’t have to do all this baby.” rafe moves to wrap his arms around your waist. “i mean i appreciate it, but don’t feel like you’re required to now that we are married.” “i know.” you smile, cupping his jaw in your hands. “i seriously just wanted to.” “okay.” rafe nods, satisfied with your answer. he knows you get little bursts of cleaning, but doesn’t want you to get the wrong impression about your role, even if you do stay home while he is at work.

“go shower.” you press a kiss to rafes lips before leaving him in the bedroom, smirking to yourself knowing that he’s about to see that you cleaned the bathroom as well.

you return to the stovetop, stirring everything together before preparing the final touches, even setting out the perfect silverware for the occasion, choosing the dining room for such a meal rather than the island where you and rafe usually eat.

you jump when rafe enters the kitchen. he always moves so quietly through the house that it catches you off guard.

“god, if we weren’t already married i would propose to you all over again right now.” rafe wraps his arms around your waist as you work on ladling the stew into individual bowls, deciding to keep the rest in the pot on the stove for easy splitting up into tupperware later.

“i like making food for you.” you hum. “don’t expect it all the time though, i also love getting take out.”

rafe laughs and nods his head in agreement, you have a habit of ordering food at least two times a week, making it a tradition on fridays to watch an episode of tv while you eat in the living room.

“let me carry them in.” rafe stops you before you can carry the bowls yourself, picking them up and following you into the dining room.

you blow on your spoon to cool the stew as rafe begins to eat, commentating over and over how delicious it is, even going so far as to moan and roll his eyes back into his head, but when you take a bite you can’t help but admit that it’s very good.

“when we finish eating-” rafe says after a few minutes of silence, too engrossed in your meal. “i’m going to take you upstairs and fuck you.” “rafe!” you giggle at the sudden lewdness.

“i’m serious, baby. i need to after you did all this cleaning, put away my laundry and made me food? i need to put a baby in you immediately.” 

“well… hurry up and get back to eating.” you gesture to rafe. you talked about having kids after marriage, but this was the first time since your wedding that rafe brought up actually bringing them into the world.

you both rush through the rest of your meals, leaving the dishes on the table to be taken care of tomorrow as rafe sweeps you into his arms, carrying you up the stairs with ease. he sets you down on the bed, his lips connecting with yours as he works on taking off his pants, throwing them in the general direction of his hamper before pulling away to pull your shirt off over your head.

“i can’t fucking wait to see you all filled up with my kid.” rafe says, massaging your breasts through your bra, unable to keep his hands off of them, even to take off the fabric covering them.

“need that so bad, rafey.” you whimper. you’ve always wanted to be a mom, and it feels like the perfect time to make that dream a reality.

“gotta fuck you now, princess.” rafe says, quickly taking his shirt off, his cock already completely hard as he pulls his underwear down, clearly excited to put a baby into you.

you reach behind your back to take your bra off before sliding your leggings and underwear down in one go, needing rafe just as desperately as he needs you. you move up the bed, resting your head on the pillow as rafe moves to hover over you. 

“i would eat you out or finger you but i need this right now.” rafe says, reaching down to rub at your clit as his tip presses against your entrance.

“i need you right now too.” you tell him, letting out a moan as he pushes in, moving slowly to let you adjust. you wrap your arms around his shoulders, rafes chest heaving with deep breaths, trying to control himself.

“you can move.” you tell rafe after a minute. he doesn’t give even a second for your comment to sit before he is thrusting in and out, making your joint moans echo throughout the room.

rafe presses sloppy kisses against yours, lips vibrating together when you’re both unable to hold back your noises of pleasure. “feels so good.” you whimper, his thumb still rubbing against your clit, never stopping making you feel good.

“i know it does, princess.” rafe says. “you’re doing so good for me. gonna fill you up real good.” “you’re gonna be the best daddy.” you tell rafe, and its true, you know just from the way he treats you, how he straightened out and takes care of you, that he’s going to be an amazing dad.

“fuck-” rafe curses, somehow able to move faster, slamming in and out of you, annihilating your cunt with the ferocity he is thrusting into you at. rafe is grunting with the effort he is giving as you grip his shoulders tightly, sure to leave red marks from your nails come morning.

“gonna go fucking crazy, your pussy is so good.” rafe says, as if he hasn’t already gone crazy with the way he’s fucking into you.

“keep rubbing rafe, i’m close.” you moan, back arching off the bed as his thumb rubs over your clit easily due to your slick.

“cum for me princess.” rafe begs you, needing to feel your cunt squeeze around him. you’d never deny your husband as he rubs you to orgasm, entire body shaking as your high hits you, moaning wildly as rafes cock maintains its blistering pace.

as soon as your clit pulses underneath his finger and your back settles back against the bed, rafe moves, pulling out briefly to reposition you, slotting his hands underneath your knees and pushing your legs up and open, spreading your cunt wide for him before his cock reenters you.

he begins to thrust immediately, keeping up the aggressive, feral pace. you’re so sensitive from your orgasm but you can’t complain when you know he’s working to get his cum inside of you, to fill you up, to grow your family.

“gonna cum.” rafe warns briefly, his words slurred out, his eyes half lidded from the ecstasy of your cunt as he pushes in for a final time, shooting his cum as deep as he can, leaning forward and pressing you into the mattress, not even caring as your thighs burn from the stretch.

rafe grinds himself into you until there is nothing more to release, moving your legs back to a more comfortable position but keeping his dick buried deep inside of you.

rafe looks at you with a smile, his sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. “gotta make sure it takes.”

[zara-renata]

Even the rocks on the roadside in the N109 Zone could tell | ao3 | masterlist

Summary: How could you tell I was nervous?" -mc, phone call with Sylus "Remote Support". Sylus makes one final miscalculation. You wake up from a nightmare in a place you weren't ready to revisit. Sylus has to reckon with the inevitable consequences of how he treated you when you first met him, but you're paying the higher price.

Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Kieran and Luke POV. Slow burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers. This story contains: grief, angst, a panic attack, self-destructive behavior, threatened violence (both real [against other characters] and imagined [against mc]), reference to in-game violence on Sylus's part, mc with PTSD, mc with self-esteem issues and negative self-talk, hurt/comfort, a shampoo epiphany This is probably the lowest point in their relationship, and has the least amount of comedy of the series. But Sylus's bullshit from their beginning needs to be addressed before true love can really take off.

You’re here again. You think you’ve always been here, and any other memory is the dream. You have always been here, in this echoing house, the worn floorboards under your feet, still polished, still perfect for sliding along on socked feet, competing to see who can careen down the hall and hit the door at the end first. You have gotten so many bruises from slamming into the door at the wrong angle, but every one was worth it, to collapse with Caleb into a fit of laughter at the end. Even when he lost, and hit you instead of the door, slamming your body back into the door a second time—doubling your chances of concussion, as your grandmother would scold afterwards. But you’re not wearing socks now, and no matter how far you walk, the door at the end never comes closer. The closed doors lining the hall approach and pass with your steady booted stride, landmarks that offer no guidance at all.

You look back on the fever dreams of what you thought was your real life until you found yourself here, in this place again. The first time you reached out and clasped Xavier’s hand in yours, pulling him to his feet, trying to help him brush off the dirt from his beautiful white battle gear. Being held in his arms as the shimmering starlight of his evol lifted you both into the air to safety. Offering him a bite of your snack, watching his normally placid face light up with pleasure at the taste.

The first time you startled Rafayel off of his stupid, unsafe ladder. Walking barefoot with him along a deserted beach, the warm water sweeping over your ankles. Picking up seashells, and asking him if this one would fit in with his jumbled collection of knick knacks contained in his chaotic studio? Coming upon an eel trapped in the sand at low tide, the only sign of life an occasional gasp for oxygen—watching him carefully dig it out of the sand and release it back into the water. It swam away energetically. He said it was a dumb little eel, and would just get stuck again with the next low tide. You told him that you’d both just have to come back often to ensure that wouldn’t happen. 

The first time you saw Zayne again as an adult, crisp white lab coat over the broad shoulders of a man, so incongruous to your memory of the narrow shoulders of a little boy. His achingly gentle touch, when he listened to your heartbeat through the stethoscope, how he inexplicably held your wrist in his soft fingers to count your pulse instead of using the fingertip monitor. How he kept the flowers you gave him on the windowsill in his office and shook his head every time he had to stitch your wounds.

And … Sylus. 

The first time he held you bound before him, the glow in his eye blinding as he ransacked your soul with all the care of a corrupt cop. How his rough palm wrapped around your throat, and the paralyzing strength with which he tightened his hold. The suffocation, and the hate, and the fear, crushing your breath. The first time he called you a disappointment. All of those things, and everything after—the soft caress of his hand in your hair, his warm body wrapped around yours. Those achingly gentle faux memories, not even dreams, probably. Just daydreams, fantasies born from the pathetic need to be held gently again, in the way you hope someone held you as a child before you lost your memories.

Because you’re here again. And it feels so timeless, and so real, compared to these other faded memories. You must have always been here. You hear someone cutting an apple, the dull thunk of the knife hitting the butcher block, the juices misting with each snick. You press your ear against every door you pass. He’s so close. You’re sure of it. You lift your steel-toed boot and slam the flat of your foot into the next door in this endless hallway. It doesn’t even rattle. You kick it, again, and again. You’re sweating. Your head is pounding. You’re losing your breath and you can’t feel your legs anymore. You kick again. And again. And again. With what little breath you have left, you start to scream, the tears and the snot running down your face. He’s right there. If you’re strong enough. If you’re persistent enough. You can get to him. You can break yourself out of this nightmare, if you’re just enough. 

You scream, and you scream, and you kick, and you kick, until your throat gives out.

You wake up, and the scream from your dream is just a whimper in your throat. Your legs are asleep from how your body is folded in on itself, lying in what seems to be a bed.

You wake up in the dark.

You have no idea where you are.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, a jackhammer in the cracked cement of your body.

Your hair, your face, the pillow, the sheets on the bed you’re lying, what you’re wearing—wet. Sweat. Tears slipping from the corner of your eyes into the hair at your temples.

Where the fuck are you?

You sit up, wince at the tingling returning to your legs. Feel along the bed. Nothing. Your hand finally hits something smooth and hard. You pat around, find the base of what you hope is a lamp, let your hand drift up. You switch on the light.

Impossibly, your heart begins to beat even harder. No. No. You don’t want to be here. You aren’t ready to be here. As long as you see Sylus anywhere else—on the street, in a crowded club, in your apartment, even in your bed, you can keep the memories squashed deep, deep down with all the other things that frighten you, that cause you pain, and you can handle being near him. But you can’t reconcile your memories from this place with the memories of being swayed gently in his arms in a crowd, the tender touches on your couch, your bed, a glass of water held to soft lips, your head pillowed against a strong chest with a steadily beating heart as you fall asleep.

You can’t be here.

You crawl to the edge of the bed, land on bare feet on a plush rug over a cold marble floor. The room is empty. The bookshelves, the imposing desk in the corner, the chaise lounge at the foot of the bed, the black leather armchairs and marble topped coffee table. The dark walls, the record player. You recognize each and every object, although you have refused to return here in your mind since you were allowed to leave. You could walk through here blindfolded. You wish you were blindfolded.

The thin sweater you find yourself wearing is soaked through with sweat. You shiver in the air of Sylus’s silent bedroom. You swivel your head, searching for your own clothes. For your boots. Nothing. You don’t want to go deeper into his room, away from the door, an exit, toward the bathroom and his huge walk-in closet for your clothes, or even to borrow more of his. You want out. You can live without shoes. You can’t live if your heart explodes from the panic clawing its way up your throat.

You silently slip out of his bedroom into one of the echoing corridors of his base, with its deep maroon paneled walls and marble floors, the dense gloom of the N109 zone filtering through the huge windows lining this hallway. You remember every single detail. You hear nothing. Just the thundering of your heart. You stride through the labyrinthine halls, the high ceilings soaring above you along with the elaborate, savage designs of the chandeliers. You avoid going near the dining hall or the kitchen or the den or living room, sticking to the outer edges of the wing you know will lead you to the front door. To the way out of this place filling you with so much dread you could collapse under the weight if you falter for even a stuttered heartbeat.

Miraculously, you make it without seeing a single soul. You turn the gothic monstrosity of one of the double front door handles, fully expecting it to be locked from the inside, but it shifts easily in your hand. You open it only as far as necessary to squeeze your shivering body between the doors and let it close softly behind you.

The night is cold. It’s autumn now, after all. Since there are no natural trees in the N109 zone, the wind gusts unchecked against your already cold body. Sylus’s base sits on a cliff overlooking the valley of the N109 zone with its towering skyscrapers thrusting into the perpetual night like crystalline stalagmites in a vast cave. His house is accessible only by a long and winding road up the hillside. A proper villain’s lair. It’s going to be a long walk through the cold and dark if you don’t figure something else out.

You hate yourself, for your tendency to make assumptions. For not asking enough questions. For refusing to think about all the things that you should keep in the forefront of your mind every single second of every single day. Why had you assumed that Sylus was taking you to a hotel to wait for the evol linkage to dissipate? Why didn’t it occur to your stupid ass that he’d take you to his fortified base, where he is the safest, where it doesn’t cost him any money, where it is his home, since you were already in the N109 zone at Amnesia?

You just fell asleep in his big fucking tank like an idiot, without asking a damn thing.

You will deserve the walk ahead of you. Hopefully it will be what you need to never forget again that this man is using you for his own purposes, and probably every single thing he has done up to this point has been to further his goals involving his need for your resonance. After all, the shopkeeper made it plain from the very beginning: you can’t resonate with someone who frightens you. Someone you dislike. Someone who disgusts you. Sylus has never disgusted you. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. But fear and hate, individually, are probably sufficient to block whatever it is in you that allows you to connect to another in such an intimate way.

And what’s the best way to get someone to stop hating you? To stop being afraid of you? Determine what they need the most, and then give it to them.

Your insomnia. Your desperate loneliness, always there, under your skin, for as long as you can remember, but amplified in the aftermath of losing your family. Your craving for human touch and connection, the kind of touch and connection you can’t bring yourself to ask of your friends. That you can’t stand to seek in strangers anymore, after so many failures.

And of course, Sylus has known what you so desperately want, since the very first night you met him. Your mind drifts to your hand, wrapped securely in his. To him pulling you against him, and reading you bedtime stories about indemnification and allocation of risk and remedies in case of breach. To his soft kisses along your shoulder. How many times did he drop in at your place after he released you from his base? Three? It’s only taken three evenings to accomplish his plan that probably began with the deal about the brooch. Lull you into complacency, acquire your affection instead of your hate, and your willing help instead of your fear. Three evenings, to replace him choking you until you blacked out. To replace … everything that came after.

You look down at your bare feet and bare legs. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

You make an inventory of your current situation. You’re barefoot. Unarmed. Soaked in sweat, and the wind is gusting. You don’t have your phone. But you do have your Hunter’s watch. That’s enough. You’ll get far enough away from the base to avoid Sylus or his minions alerting to your absence and finding you outside, call for help, find some shelter, and wait for someone to come pick you up. You recall that the landscape along the winding road leading up to Sylus’s base is fairly isolated. You gamble that there won’t be anyone coming all the way up here at this time of night.

Once you’re home, you will be able to think straight. When your heart isn’t jackrabbiting in your chest. When this jittery feeling, like you can run a marathon without breaking a sweat, isn’t coursing through your pounding veins. When the lingering despair from the nightmare about your grandmother’s house has faded to the tolerable thrum of grief you’re used to these days. And you will uphold your end of the deal with Sylus. You meant it, when you let the coin decide. You can be as resolute in your decisions as he is. You will be his friend. Why, when you know that most of his behavior toward you is calculated, manufactured—a talented forgery? Because Sylus is very good at getting what he wants. He wanted your affection, and your willing help. And he has been successful in acquiring it, despite your best efforts to resist his charm. You’re honest enough to admit that to yourself. And what even is friendship, if you expect something in return? He may only be able to think of friendship in transactional, cost-benefit, return-on-investment terms, but you don’t want to live that way. Despite your best efforts, you like him so terribly much, and that’s the beginning and end of it. 

You will help him with his love, for whatever your help is worth, and you’ll finally wipe the slate clean. You just need… you just need your heart to stop for a minute. That’s all. And that can’t happen here, in the place where Sylus treated you more honestly than he has ever treated you since you were allowed to leave.

You take a deep breath and begin to jog. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

After being thoroughly entertained at Amnesia by Sylus’s Hunter, Luke and Kieran finally managed to dump Noah with Linda after settling the terms of their bet regarding how long they think it will take their boss to successfully woo the object of his unhinged obsession.

The one rule: no interference that could tip the odds one way or the other. Luke, Kieran and Noah must act as neutral observers of the hilarious conundrum their boss finds himself in regarding the highly skilled, highly oblivious Hunter not being able to see what is obvious to anyone who has the unfortunate opportunity of being within a five kilometer radius of the two of them: that Sylus is head over heels, and so is the Hunter.

Each concerned party committed to upholding this sacred rule of non-intervention. Each of them lied through their teeth while making such a commitment. But Luke and Kieran can tell that countering whatever Noah will likely come up with to drag out this complicated courtship will require all of their combined talents to ensure the odds remain in their favor, and that Sylus will convince the Hunter to accept him sooner rather than later.

Luckily for them, this shitshow is a win-win situation. As long as Sylus is happy, Luke and Kieran are happy. And they can tell, the Hunter is already making Sylus happy. They can see it in how drastically his mood has improved ever since the protocore auction. He no longer vacillates between the few emotions he has shown in the years they’ve known him—rage, utter boredom, and the worst: an unsettling blankness. A cavalier attitude regarding whether he lives or dies, whether he wakes up in the morning or not, whether his heart is beating or at a standstill. He’ll sometimes make off-hand comments about the banality of just… surviving, of waking up to find that he’s still alive and being utterly indifferent to that fact. Every time he says shit like that, shivers run down Luke and Kieran’s spines. They’d much rather he punch holes in walls in a fit of rage or blow up buildings out of boredom than encounter him when he’s at his most… empty.

But ever since the auction, the twins have seen a veritable rainbow of emotions clear as a Linkon City’s sunny afternoon on their boss’s otherwise impassive face. Amusement. Worry. Fascination. Yearning. Pining. Longing. Craving. 

“Luke, I’m truly proud of you for actually reading the thesaurus,” Kieran says from behind the steering wheel of their sleek, powerful muscle car. It was a present from Sylus. He claimed it was a bonus for their help in a particularly ugly business feud that ended up in more corpses than anticipated, but they both thought it was hilarious that the “bonus” arrived on the exact date of their latest birthday. Their boss really is the best.

“Thanks, man. It was like, really mind-blowing to learn how many words there are for Boss’s thirst for his pet.” Luke leans back in the sexy black leather bucket seat and enjoys the seat heating. Tonight is the coldest it’s been this fall. He fiddles with the sound system.

Kieran swats his hand away. “Driver’s choice. You know the rules.”

Luke pouts. “I’m not in the mood for Bach. Boring. I want Rachmaninov.”

“You don’t need to get wound up this close to home. It’ll take forever for you to settle down if you listen to Rachmaninov right now, and we really need to get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re about to get really busy with how distracted Boss is going to be with the Hunter.” He drums his fingers along the steering wheel. “He’s going to need all the help he can get.” 

“Ugh, fiiine.” Luke hunches further into the comfy seat and stares out the windshield, watching as the bright headlamps slice through the dark gloom, lighting up a swath of the deserted road leading up to their home. Suddenly, he jolts in the seat.

“What the fuck—”

“Is that—?”

“The Hunter, yeah—”

“And, what the fuck—”

“Yeah, no shoes—”

“Call—”

“Boss. On it.”

Luke already has his phone clutched in his hand, and the ringing fills the car through the sophisticated sound system Sylus ensured the car had, along with the fastest, strongest engine for this model on the market.

Kieran watches the Hunter disappear in the rearview mirror, while simultaneously slowing the car as quickly as possible without making excessive noise that could spook the Hunter.

Sylus’s deep voice suddenly fills the car. “Speak.”

“Uh, Boss?”

“Who else, Luke?” Sylus says dryly. “Speak.” 

“Do you know where your Hunter is?”

The line is silent for a beat. “I left Kitten in my bed, asleep, while I went to take care of some paperwork in the study.” He pauses. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?” Anyone who didn’t know their boss like they do would think his tone of voice was indifferent. But all Luke and Kieran hear is a spike of worry.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure we just passed someone on the hillside road to base who looks, like, a scary amount like your Hunter. With no shoes on. Or coat.” Luke winces in anticipation of their boss’s response.

The line goes dead.

Kieran has slowed the car sufficiently to be able to pull a u-turn without tires screeching, and expertly swings the car around. He cuts the headlights, counting on the light from the blood-red moon to provide sufficient visibility. He then accelerates until he has the Hunter in view, and slowly follows the lonely figure, ready to provide protection until their boss can arrive and take the situation in hand. Luke and Kieran can tell that whatever you’re experiencing, this is not a situation that they are equipped to handle, and if they come up too quickly behind you, they’re worried you will bolt off-road and be even more difficult to collect again. They really, really hope you don’t notice their presence behind you until Sylus arrives.

Fuck. You’re being followed. And you haven’t found one damned area along the roadside that looks like it could serve as good cover since leaving Sylus’s long, convoluted driveway, because this region is a lifeless wasteland of bare dirt and rock and only small outcroppings of earth along the hill’s descent.

You didn’t remember it being so desolate. Probably because you were just so relieved to be escaping with your life, you were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and failed to notice that the area leading up to Sylus’s base is as hospitable as the N109 zone’s red, red moon.

You had stiffened, almost pausing in your steady jog along the roadside as a sleek, sexy car that looked like it was built for racing came careening around a bend in the road, the two figures in it just silhouettes behind the blinding headlights as they roared past in a huge gust of wind and gravel. You had hoped, with all of your wildly out-of-control heart, that they were just business associates heading to the base for a meeting or something, and that whoever was in that vehicle wouldn’t recognize you or care about a lone nutcase going for a middle-of-the-night run in the middle of nowhere.

But you’re a highly trained Hunter, and you’ve gotten more sleep lately. Without turning around, you can tell that the same car is following behind you, which would be alarming enough, without the fact that whoever’s driving it is trying to be a sneaky shit with the headlights off. As if you can’t hear the purring of that sweet engine even over the strong wind. Idiots.

Your mind races. You have no weapon. You don’t even have shoes. Surprise is the only means of gaining an advantage. You half-turn, wrap your arms around your stomach and drop into a crouch, as if your stomach hurts and you can’t keep jogging because of the pain. Head down, you watch out of your peripheral as the car keeps slowly approaching in the dark. You let one arm drop from your waist on your side not in view from the car, and feel around on the ground until you find what you’re looking for. Then you wait.

When the car is only just a couple meters from you, you launch yourself from your crouched position and sprint directly at it. Its brakes screech as the driver is taken by surprise, but it’s too late. You’ve already vaulted from the hood onto the roof, and you’ve brought the heavy, dense rock clutched in your hand as hard as you can against the driver’s window. As it shatters, you reach through the now open space with your other hand and grab the driver by the throat, half pulling him out of the tinkling window frame. You hold the rock high above your head.

“Why the fuck are you following me,” you bite out through clenched teeth.

You hear the other car door open, but remain focused on the person you have by the throat.

“Don’t come any closer or I will make your friend unrecognizable for identification at the autopsy,” you snarl. You see the other person freeze in your peripheral vision.

You return your focus to the driver. Staring into his grimacing face, you see a young man, one you don’t recognize. He has a riot of floppy dark curls, shaved to a sharp fade on the sides and back of his head. His big dark eyes reflect the light of the red moon as they dart all over your face. He takes a deep breath.

“If I told you that you do not have anything to fear from me, or my brother, would you kindly put me down?” he asks in a voice that sounds alarmingly familiar. Your stomach cramps almost as painfully as your heart has been for the past hour. Without letting go of the driver’s throat, you turn and look at the man standing at the open passenger door, looking back at you with the same face as the man you have in your grip.

You let go, and Kieran sinks back into the car with a grunt. You scramble off the car roof and back away from it.

Just as you’re about to apologize, you see headlights cutting through the dark. You’re suddenly overcome with the wish that Sylus had killed you when you first met, because you can’t imagine how he’s going to react now, when he sees that you assaulted his employee and damaged his property with the rock that is now falling out of your nerveless hand.

You want to turn and run. You want to put this fucking night behind you. You hate that you’ve been thinking that so often lately. Every single time, you just want the night to be over. You’re so tired. Your heart won’t fucking stop doing that horrible thing in your chest, and you still feel like you need to run until you collapse to make it stop. But you’ve learned by now that there is no running from Sylus. Not in any way that matters. So you just stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to enjoy toying with his prey tonight, because he quickly comes to a stop and parks the tank behind the twins’ car. He gracefully climbs down from the driver’s seat, slams the car door, and strides up to Kieran’s side, his black biker boots with the chains crunching on the broken glass. You wince with each footfall. He leans down and looks at Kieran. “You good?”

You can’t hear Kieran’s response, but you see Sylus nod and straighten. He gestures for Luke to get in the car, who obeys without comment. He then taps the roof firmly, twice, and strides toward you as Kieran pulls the car into the road, hangs an efficient u-turn, and disappears into the night.

You close your eyes and wait for Sylus to… you’re not sure? Hit you? Slam you with his evol? You brace yourself. Just because he’s been affectionate up until now, even through you throwing the duffel at him in front of an audience, doesn’t mean he’ll suffer you hurting his employees for no good reason. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time you've ever seen them without their masks on, and that it felt incredibly threatening as they followed you, for some unfathomable reason, with their damn headlights off.

Sure, you could fight back. Try to block his blow. But at this point, you feel like you fucking deserve it. You want to punch yourself in the face for hurting Kieran. You don’t know him, but he’s never been mean to you. The worst he’s ever done is give you a flare gun and pretend a pair of handcuffs could magically restrict Sylus’s evol. He didn’t deserve to be scared half to death and choked through a broken window because of his earlier prank. It occurs to you now that maybe stalking you with the headlights off was the twins’ idea of another prank? And you broke their car window and choked one of them. For fuck’s sake, at this point, you’ll welcome Sylus’s fist.

But instead of the hit you’re still bracing for, you jerk a little when you feel the heavy weight of a warm coat being draped around your shivering body.

You open your eyes. Sylus stands in front of you, wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

“If you wanted to go for a run, sweetheart, you could have just told me. We have a perfectly functional home gym, equipped with treadmills with big screens that make you feel like you’re running on a serene mountain path or along the beach. There’s no need to endure the desolation of the N109 zone’s ‘scenery’ when you’re here with me but want to work out.”

You just stare at him. 

“What’s wrong? Crow’s got your tongue?” One corner of his mouth lifts as he taps the corner of your mouth gently with his index finger.

What the hell is happening? “Are you not mad at me?” you ask, completely at a loss.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

You gesture a little helplessly. “I hurt Kieran. I damaged your property. I interrupted whatever you were doing since you’re now out here instead of back at your home.”

“You didn’t damage my property. The car belongs to Luke and Kieran. Can I touch you?”

“What?” Your heart is a bloody, clenched fist, punching your body from the inside out. Sylus’s apparent calm in the face of all the mess that is you is making you feel like you’re insane.

“I said, can I touch you?” he repeats, as if he has all the patience in the world to repeat questions you clearly heard the first time.

“Like, can you hit me? Or strangle me? You want my permission to give me what I deserve?”

Sylus’ face changes. If you hadn’t been spending so much time recently watching videos on micro expressions and bluffing and acting, you might have missed it. He looks furious for a microsecond, and you want to take a step back. But you deserve whatever it is he’s feeling right now. You force yourself to stay still. You look up into his now neutral, lovely face.

He breathes in through his nostrils. “I will repeat this as many times as you need to hear it,” he says calmly, as the wind sweeps his silver hair across his forehead. Your heart is going to kill you, as you live through the eternity of the pause in this sentence. “I will never, ever hit you. And I will never think that you deserve to be hurt, for anything that you do, or don’t do.”

Okay. Okay, weird. He’ll strangle you, but he won’t hit you? He thought you deserved to be held captive for three days, denied food and water, forced to resonate, but he expects you to believe that he doesn’t want to punish you for fucking up as big as you did tonight? Where is the thin red line here? How can he say that he will never think you deserve to be hurt, when he hurt you so terribly during those first three days?

“Ask your question,” he says, but it’s not a command. It sounds more like a gentle invitation. What alternate reality have you stepped in tonight?

“I don’t understand how your mind works,” you say instead of obeying him.

“If you don’t ask, then you’ll continue not knowing how it works.” He still sounds infinitely patient. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t read your mind. Unless you ask, I won’t always know what you need from me.”

You shiver, even under the warmth of his heavy coat, but can’t bring yourself to answer. You close your eyes against the memory of his calloused hand around your throat. Of him tossing you in front of a huge mecha battlebot, sneering “You can handle it.” Of him telling you to survive the night, or else enjoy your last meal at his table. You open your eyes.

Sylus is watching your face, thumbs hooked in both trouser pockets. He shakes his head a little. “All right. I propose that we go back to the base, and you can pose all your questions there, no strings attached, without you standing out here freezing to death on your bare feet.”

This time you do take a step back, shaking your head. “No. No, nope, no thank you. If you could just dump me somewhere closer to the city, I can just get someone from the Association to pick me up. We can talk another time.”

He watches you closely, and you feel naked, with your heart a sledgehammer against the brittle framework of your ribs, and the sweat still soaking your hair. “Is there a particular reason you’re reluctant to go back home with me?” he finally asks.

You choke a little on a laugh. “You could say that,” you say dryly, with all the calm you can muster through the chaos in your chest.

“Care to share?” 

You’re so tired. You’re so, so tired. None of it seems to matter anymore—whether he hits you, leaves you on the side of the road, or splatters you onto the gravel with his evol. “Do you really not know, Sylus? With all of your insight, do you really need your aether core to figure out why I wouldn’t want to go back to your criminal headquarters?”

“I thought you were getting used to the idea of the criminal aspect of my life,” he says slowly, as if that’s the important part.

“You’re right. I care less and less, every day, that you’re a wanted outlaw. But I really have no interest in reliving the days you spent choking me out and trying to brute force your way into resonating with me,” you murmur, because it’s so hard to say out loud, let alone think about it. You’re shaking. You’re shaking so hard, your bones hurt. Your teeth are chattering. None of these things have anything to do with how cold you are.

Sylus becomes very still, with the red, red moon above him, the wind still gusting through his hair, pulling at his sweater, and the dead earth stretching behind his tall figure.

“Can I touch you?” he asks again. 

Can he touch you? Of course he can. All he has to do is what he has always done. He can just reach out and take what he thinks he deserves from you. As he has done since the first moment you met. But you don’t want to have to give him permission for it. You know you deserve it, but you still have enough of a sliver of self-preservation, or pride, or backbone—something in you refuses to give him this last bit of yourself by being complicit in whatever he wants to inflict on  you right now.

“Can I touch you? Not to hit you. Not to choke you. Not to cause you any pain, in any way, whatsoever.”

You’re so confused. “Then why are you asking for permission, when you’ve never done that before?”

“Because I can see that bringing you to the base tonight, without talking to you about it, when you haven’t been back since our first few days together, was a mistake on my part. I may be many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I do not intend to make the same mistake more than once.” 

“I was stupid for not asking you where we were going,” you try to protest, although you don’t know why, through your clicking teeth.

“No, you weren’t. You trusted me to take you somewhere you would be comfortable. It was my fault for not considering that you would not feel safe in my home because of the way we began.” His voice sounds so resolute.

You just look down at your toes.

“Can I, please, touch you?” he asks, yet again, but this time he sounds a little strained.

Now that you know he’s not going to try to hurt you, you can finally nod. As soon as you start to bob your head, you feel yourself swept into the air, his strong arm under your knees, the other under your shoulders, and he holds you tightly, so that your face is tucked into his throat.

He carries you to the tank and manages to get the door open without letting you go, but instead of putting you on the passenger seat, he sets you on one of the bench seats further back in the vehicle, pulls the door shut behind himself, and sits next to you. He pauses, taking you in from head to toe, and then leans forward next to the driver’s seat and fiddles with something on the dash screen. He then sits back and pulls you onto his lap. Apparently, he hadn’t turned off the vehicle when he first arrived, because it’s so warm in here. He rests his hand, somehow still warm after standing out in the cold, against your heart.

“I know you want to go home right now. But it’s over an hour away. You need to get warmed up sooner rather than later. Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole armored vehicle?” he speaks, lips against your wet hair.

“It’s a tank, Sylus,” you protest, because even now you can't help yourself.

“Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole tank?” Sylus murmurs into your hair.

You don’t want to go back there. You just want to close your eyes, and be anywhere else but inside your body right now. Your mind drifts back to how thirsty you were in that house, the house he wants take you now. How thirsty you were, and no water was given. And when the terror would recede and exhaustion seeped into its place, the awareness of your hunger, and no food was given. How did you ever trust him to come near you again? How can he possibly ask you if you trust him enough to take you back there?

But being in his arms like this, despite everything he has done to you, his hand against your broken heart, is calming you in a way that makes trust and choice seem meaningless. You want to just stay right here, in this moment, where the past and the future are just fever dreams, and the only reality is Sylus’s hand, his lips, his chest against your shoulder and side. You want to carve your way into him, force him to carry you inside his skin so you’ll never be cold again. Even though he's the reason you're cold to begin with. You're so tired of this tangled, terrible bond with this terrible man.

And yet. Like always with him, when he's right here, holding you with such fierce tenderness, you find yourself surrendering to the temptation, to the seductive illusion that you’re safe with him, and you let him have whatever he wants.

You just nod, your cheek rubbing against the soft sweater over his clavicle. You feel his chest expand in what might be a relieved sigh, or just exasperation, and the vehicle begins to move. You startle, but he shushes you. “It’s in self-drive mode, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You relax again, and the way back is a blur. You don’t want to look, as he lifts you from the car and carries you through the underground garage beneath the base, into the elevator that lifts you to the floor on which his bedroom is located. The same expansive windows, soaring ceilings, subtle light in wall sconces stream by as he strides forward.

“I can walk,” you try to protest, but again, he softly shushes you. 

“No, you can’t.”

“I’m cold, not paralyzed,” you counter, exhausted, amazed you still have the capacity to argue with him.

“Yes, yes, but you haven’t seen your feet. And I have.”

“What?” you lift your head, but he presses your face back into his chest.

“You ran five kilometers without shoes on a semi-paved road, kitten. I’m pretty sure you’re not accustomed to barefoot running, based on the state of your feet.”

You shudder even harder. You hadn’t even noticed the pain.

And then, you’re back in his bedroom. You feel him shift, toeing off his shoes at the threshold. He passes the lounge area, his hulking desk, the bookshelves and the bed, and takes you into the black marble cave of a bathroom you recall from your hunt for the brooch. He sets you on the padded bench thingy that probably has a fancy name that you imagine every rich person has even in their bathrooms and then goes to the walk-in shower and turns on the water. Almost immediately, steam begins to fill the expansive space. He returns and kneels at your feet. 

“Your clothes need to come off,” he says softly, but loud enough that you can still hear him over the spray.

Since you’re back here, the place where you spent so long helpless and trapped, it’s easy to slide right back into that space, but this time you don’t have the energy to even try to help yourself—you just nod again, but don’t move.

Sylus pauses, but then slowly reaches out and slides his coat from your shoulders. Then, so, so gently, he lifts the lower hem of the sweater you’re wearing, knuckles drifting along the sensitive skin of your stomach, and gathers the material under your armpits. With his other hand, he lifts one of your arms and pulls it through and out of the sleeve, and gently rests it back at your side again. He repeats the movement on your other side, and lifts the sweater over your head. Then, with one arm, he scoops you from the bench, gently but efficiently peeling the sleep shorts from your hips and over your legs. You’re left in just your underwear.

He carries you to the shower, the steam warm on your skin, and lowers you on one of the marble benches built into the wall. The water streaming from the shower hits him full on, and his own clothes are soaked through almost immediately. He reaches behind himself and pulls the sweater and undershirt over his head and tosses them back into the bathroom. He then grabs his belt, unbuckling it in practiced moves. Unzips his trousers, slips out of them, tossing them behind him as well. Clad in only a black pair of boxer-briefs, wet hair tarnished silver, he sits next to you on the bench and pulls you onto his lap again, your back to his chest. 

And then… the two of you just sit like that, floating together in a timeless space composed of water, skin, and the steady shush of the shower water. His arms around you are as tight as a straitjacket, securing you against him as if he thinks you’ll dissipate like the steam and drift away if he doesn’t anchor you to his own body. He doesn’t say anything at all. He doesn’t ask anything at all. He just holds you, his cheek resting in your hair, and doesn’t let go.

Slowly, so slowly, your heart slows in your chest. Your body-wracking shivering ebbs in violence, until, finally, you are completely still. Now that your muscles aren’t locked into defending against the convulsions from the cold, and… everything else, you melt into Sylus, head lolling on his chest, the spray of the water soothing everything that hurts, and his steady heartbeat at your back soothing everything else.

But of course, because you’re you, and this life is your life, this peaceful emptiness doesn’t last long. You slowly become aware of the most terrifying need welling up inside you, one you’ve managed to resist since… now that you think about it, since the last time you were in Sylus’s home. You need to fucking cry. 

All of your efforts to avoid this feeling—the terrifying loss of control, the exposure of the weakest part of yourself to yourself, or to another—refusing to speak about the terror and the pain inside you, the terror and pain you carry through every minute of every day, to your friends, to your doctor—all in a desperate bid to keep the floodgates of your tears bolted shut, are crashing onto the shore of this ocean of need. The need to cry. You’ve tried so desperately to avoid it, because once you start, you’re afraid that you will never, ever stop.

But now, being held by this man, who is so deeply threaded into the source of this feeling, somehow triggers the switch in your brain that says safe, safe, you can release the flood behind the gates, and you will not drown, because he’ll hold your head above water, no matter the cost .

You have no idea why your brain thinks this. You can guess why your brain considers a gunshot the same as a bomb, or why your first instinct when approached from behind is threat threat threat, neutralize first, ask questions later . But you cannot fathom for the fucking life of you why your brain sees Sylus and whispers, Shelter. Sustenance. Safety.

You can’t help it. The first tears begin to gather at the edges of your eyes. Your breath quickens, your chest begins to heave with the effort of holding it in. Your face is hot. But despite all of your will focused on not. fucking. crying... the tears begin to fall. At first, silently, but then from deep inside your chest, the sobs clawing their way out of your lungs through your throat, and suddenly you’re howling.

It hurts. It hurts so much. You hate it. You hate that Sylus is here as silent witness to all the weakest parts of yourself. You twist in his arms, straddle his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face in his throat, and then you weep. You wail, snot and spit and tears sliding down his chest, because you’re blocking the shower’s spray.

And Sylus? He keeps his arms wrapped around you, his cheek still in your hair, and doesn’t say a thing. After a while, you realize that he has started to shift on the bench, gently rocking you as you fall apart in his arms. One big hand, pressed flat on your back, runs firmly from the top of your spine to your lower back, and then back again. Still anchoring you to him. You feel a low vibration in your chest, under all the other sounds of the loud shower, and realize he’s humming very quietly. You have no idea if he’s humming something in particular. But the feeling in your chest is so soothing, eventually you realize that your sobs, and your tears, have slowed, just as the shivering of your body did while wrapped in his arms.

And then you’re done. You don’t have anything left—just the hollow relief of not being afraid, not shivering, not crying—the relief of not feeling much of anything at all. You try to hold on to it, grasp it in your fists. But like everything else, it slips through your fingers all the same, and you feel the shame come.

Miraculously, the shower water is still hot. It’s beating down on your back, your lowered head, still tucked under Sylus’s chin. You try to sit up, move away, but he just tightens his hold.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” he asks, sounding like he has sounded since the end of the auction. Slightly amused. Curious. Infinitely tolerant. 

You can’t say anything. You’re so embarrassed that he just witnessed all of… that. You just want to escape now.

“Hmm?” he murmurs into your hair, to emphasize his question in the face of your refusal to respond. And then, “Why are you always trying to leave me?”

You’re so surprised by the raw vulnerability in his question that you pull back to look into his face. He’s still holding you so tightly, your noses brush. His eyes are wet from the shower spray, droplets clinging in his dark lashes.

“What do you mean?”

“You leaving the base without saying a word is the second time in just one night that you were considering leaving me, without even telling me,” he says evenly, big hand still spread across your back. “Why?”

Suddenly, you’ve had enough. You are so tired of not understanding him, of trying to decipher clues from his inexplicable behavior, the incongruous way he touches you, treats you when you’re at your lowest, compared to how he treated you when you first met. “Why do you even care, Sylus? No amount of utility that I may have for you is worth you putting up with… this,” you gesture to yourself, face twisted in disgust.

“Utility?” he repeats, tilting his head. The hand on your back drifts upward until he has his big palm wrapped around the back of your neck, thumb along the side of your throat, fingers plunging into your hair.

“The dating advice… the resonance,” you remind him, though you don’t know why. You assume he knows exactly what you were referring to, that he’s just buying time to think of an answer that will make you stop asking inconvenient questions.

“You think I’m… ‘putting up’ with you, as you so charmingly phrase it, because I want your help with convincing my beloved that I’m sincere, and because I want you to resonate with me again? Is that what you’re saying?” he summarizes your thoughts.

“Why else would you go to all this trouble to spend so much time on me, when at every turn I end up doing something ridiculous? First, almost having a panic attack at the auction. Then, the very next time we’re out in public together, I make a scene during one of your business meetings. Then, the same night, because I’m just that awesome, I have another panic attack and almost kill one of your employees because I thought they were some human trafficker thinking he had an easy target tonight.”

“Why did you think they were human traffickers?” Sylus asks.

“He was following me with his fucking headlights off in the middle of the night on a deserted road in the N109 zone! What would you have assumed?” you demand, forgetting the whole point of this conversation.

He tilts his head, makes a little moue with his mouth. “Fair enough,” he acknowledges. “And that’s exactly why I’m not mad at you. I didn’t believe for a second that you would attack him for no reason. And, neither did he, by the way. Which is why you’re still in one piece.”

You eye him. “What do you mean?”

Sylus considers you for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you think you’re up to getting washed up before we unpack what you just said? I’ll make us something to eat and we can talk about everything once you’re clean and dry.”

You look down at your fingers, and see that their tips resemble raisins. You’ve made Sylus sit in this shower for at least an hour while you lost your shit. Despite the rich bastard being able to afford never-ending warm water, apparently, you can’t imagine this is how he wanted to spend his version of his evening. You nod.

“Finally, some sense from you,” he smiles slightly, lifting you in his arms. He sets you gently on the shower floor, and grabs a bottle from the built-in shelving containing a bunch of shower products. He kneels in front of you, his broad back blocking the spray from hitting your face. Despite the heat in the room, you shiver as he reaches toward you, as you feel his fingers slide from your calf to your ankle. Your brain stalls out and you can’t bring yourself to protest as he lifts your leg and gently foams some fragrance-free soap, and as delicately as possible washes the now-stinging sole of your foot. He gently lowers it back to the shower’s marble floor, and does the same with your other foot. When he’s done, he simply holds your foot in his palm, looking at it contemplatively, thumb running along the skin near your ankle. 

After a few moments, he eyes your face, and then his gaze drifts to your hair.

“I probably suck at washing someone else’s hair. Can you teach me how to do yours?”

You start shaking your head. “I may have hurt my feet, but I’m still capable of washing my own hair. You really don’t have to do this for me,” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“Just indulge me. Please.” He looks steadily at you. Something about the way he says please, and the fact that it’s the second time tonight he’s asked you so earnestly for your permission to touch you, has you nodding, again. 

He gently squeezes your foot, and then moves to get a few more bottles from the veritable drugstore he has stashed in the shower shelves. He then kneels back at your side and shows you, to your amazement, the same products that are sitting in your own shower back home. “Show me how you use these,” he says.

You stare at the bottles. Then you stare at his face. His eyes seem to gleam through the shower steam.

“Why—?” you ask, but he just shrugs.

“I was hoping you’d visit me,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to stock all of his friends’ personal hygiene products in his bedroom’s en suite bathroom.

Your mind drifts over all of the assumptions you’ve held about this man since you met him. All of the assumptions that have been utterly incorrect. You think about your assumption that he was dreaming about someone else, as he was biting your neck. You think about your assumption that the person he was describing in the Lethe lounge was someone else—anyone else, either one of your friends, a fellow Hunter, or someone you don’t even know. You think about the deal he made with you tonight—the help he says he needs in convincing someone that his feelings are sincere. Someone who refuses to consider that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive in treating them with kindness. In spending time with them. In devoting his precious free time to caring for them. Your gaze drifts between the bottles of the mid-range shampoo and conditioner he’s holding in his strong hands, because you can’t afford the really fancy shit you would really like to splurge on but you have too much pride to just buy the stuff from the grocery store. 

You understand the nature of tools. You work with tools every day in your job. Your knives, your swords, your guns. You maintain your tools with a diligence that others may consider fanatical, but which you know will help you survive, in the end. A whet stone, to sharpen your blades. Gun brush and oil, to clean and ensure the weapon doesn’t jam when you need it the most. These things are essential in caring for your most useful possessions. 

If you are a tool, the only things Sylus needs to maintain your utility are an absence of fear, your willingness to help him, the strength of your body in being well rested and well fed. Everything he has done up till now could be interpreted as serving the purpose of maintaining a tool he intends to use in the future. But a tool doesn’t have to be attractive. A tool doesn’t need clean, well-moisturized hair to function. The cosmetics of the thing are irrelevant, as long as it can efficiently serve its purpose. But you also know that Sylus likes shiny things. He likes the best, finest things. But if he wanted you to be as attractive as possible for aesthetic purposes, he could have bought the expensive, top-of-the shelf products that you’re sure he buys for himself if he was hoping you’d visit and inexplicably be showering in his bathroom. But no. He bought the products that you use. That you’re used to. That he knows you like because you had bought them for yourself. You cannot understand how the presence of your own shampoo and conditioner in his shower could serve any of the purposes of an owner maintaining the utility of a tool. 

You look back up into his face, and he’s looking at you patiently, but also with an eagerness to get started on helping you with your hair. Aside from everything else—how you started, how he treated you in this house—you don’t dare believe that the assumptions you’ve been making up until now are wrong. You aren’t ready to handle the emotional devastation if you begin to hope that the person Sylus wants in his life is… not someone else, only to find out that such an assumption is also wrong. You can’t. You can’t, not yet.

So you just gesture at the shampoo. “I start with this.” 

He sets the conditioner down. You proceed to tell him how you take care of your hair, and he follows your instructions silently, with a clumsy obedience that is incredibly endearing. His fingers along your scalp are so soothing, you melt into him as he washes your hair, your back to his chest. When he’s done, he takes the same care with the conditioner, touching you like you’re made of the most delicate blown glass instead of the scratched and scuffed stainless steel you imagine yourself to be.

When he’s done, he withdraws his hands from your hair and says next to your ear, “I’ll leave you to finish washing up. Towels and clothes will be on the bench. Call for me, and I’ll bandage your feet.”

And then you’re alone, with the water still beating down on your chest and shoulders. You peel off your underwear, and just sit there, knees drawn to your chest, letting the soothing heat stream down your back.

Your mind drifts. Again, you think of his calloused hand around your throat. You think of him sneering that you’re such a disappointment. You think of the thirst, and the hunger. You think about him dragging you across the floor with his evol, every time you tried to claw your way of the room where he forced you to resonate, over and over again.

You think about his embrace as you danced at the auction, your clasped hands as he let you decide when to detonate the bombs before you slipped into a panic attack. You think about the first time you fell asleep with him, on the back of his motorcycle. You think of a pot of poisonous flowers, wine the color of his eyes in a glass held to your mouth, his hands in your hair tonight.

You know that you can’t continue like this. Something has to give. You can’t be his friend, while being terrified of your memories of him. You need to do what he has asked and ask him questions, so that you can finally reconcile the man who just washed your feet so tenderly with the man who suggested cutting off your hand to break the linkage between you the first time the energy shackles bound you two together. The man who brings you wine, and more food than you could eat in a week, with the man who starved you for days.

You slowly get to your feet, wincing at the pain in your soles. You must have cut your feet up pretty bad, but you don’t want to look. You hobble to the shelves and let your hand drift over the array of neatly organized bottles. Your hair products are the only familiar products. Everything looks fancy as hell, with minimal branding, dark and masculine. You find body wash, and squeeze some onto your palm. The scent of citrus rises to your nose—you’ve finally found the source of oranges you sometimes detect on Sylus’s skin. You eagerly lather the soap between your hands and quickly cover your body with it.

When you’re done rinsing, you hobble out of the shower and find the towel and clothes stacked neatly just as Sylus had described. You even find the same type of towel you use specifically on your hair. You wrap it around your head, slip into the silky tank top, shorts and robe, and sit for a moment, elbows on your knees. You see yourself in one of the huge mirrors above the large sink and counter. You look so fucking tired. It’s time. You can’t keep shoving everything down, down deep. You need answers.

“Sylus,” you call. You wait. He appears in the doorway, leans his long body against door frame, shirtless with black silken pants hung low on his waist, warm looking slippers on his big feet.

"Yes, my dearest treasure?"

You laugh a little at the absurd endearment. Somehow, even when you're feeling at your worst, he always manages to make you laugh. It would be so easy, to close your eyes. To pretend that the way you began with him was the dream, that his gentle touch and silly endearments are the real Sylus. The only Sylus. But you're tired of lying to yourself. If you try to shove it all down, down deep, what happened tonight will only repeat itself, in possibly worse ways. You need to find a way forward, a way to realign the conflicting images of Sylus, to sift through them like mirages in the desert. You'd rather see him clearly, from his most malignant to his most tender selves, than continue to be lost between your horrific memories from those first three days and how he's looking at you right now. As if you're somehow precious to him. You take a deep breath.

 “Can we talk?”

[erinwantstowrite]

bear with me here because i'm gonna ramble about something i've been thinking about for a while... and i'm not complaining, i'm just noticing

sometimes i think we've leaned so far into the vigilante side of the batfam that we miss out on what really makes their characters: detective work. we need more mysteries in their lives that don't lead up to some big bad "we already know who's doing it" or an "end of the world" or "yet again: this fucking guy." we need more stuff where spy movie music plays in the background and dumb adventures that don't lead up to some huge grand event with a big name villain. the shock factor stops being shocking or interesting in any capacity if we're like "Gah! the Joker! ... Again!" or whatever

does that even make sense? like "yeah sure they're blowing up a building again and there's hostages. oh look they're gonna poison the water supply." these aren't bad and that's not what i'm getting at because obviously this is a classic for comics. you need to have characters/antagonists that show up more than once and who can make a story better by being in it. and i did say to bear with me- that's because im tired. so like i hope im getting this across the right way? it's just that sometimes i don't wanna see a huge explosion, i want these motherfuckers solving a regular murder or a disappearance or regular corruption in a local office without it being tied to a grand reveal like "actually this person knows you as a long lost relative" or "they were at that circus can you guess which night they went?" that kind of thing? if you get me? like... more of the small time stuff makes the big stuff important, it makes it stand out more. at some point, the format gets repetitive even if you're switching up the villains. you can make these situations/mysteries still fun to solve for the characters and fun to read for the audience if you do it right

the concept of a detective dressed as a bat and having a sidekick in traffic light colors is inherently goofy as hell??? but that is what is so charming about it??? i think we have lost the balance between them being silly while also being intelligent with important conversations that criticize the world as we see it and teach lessons and can go over dark topics. nowadays it's always end of the world problems or just straight up the most gruesome true crime you can think of?? or they can ONLY do the dark stuff and the criticism without offering a balance of the good in the world. or we keep coming back to the FUCKING JOKER-

like yes they are vigilantes and with that comes a different level of their work, but their brand should be a mix between a black and white detective film that can get very nitty gritty and a classic spy movie, that kind of thing. at the end of the day, it's what makes them so different from the superheroes. that's what appeals to me.

seeing them in the big superhero groups is fun, don't get me wrong. it's always funny to see them standing next to people who are so powerful they never really fit in with anyone but each other, who chose to step up and use their powers for good. the Bats' specialty is Gotham and yet here they are stopping a god or whatever. and they do stop the god or whatever, all the while being an important leader and strategist to their teammates. they're important to have in these cases. but if there's a world ending event every time i pick something up, it's not as fun

the fact that they are so very human and not fantastical is why i like reading them. it's what makes the joke of people, even Gotham citizens, theorizing about them being cryptids, funny. they're fucking weird but that's because they're detectives. people who love to solve mysteries usually have a fatal flaw of curiosity. they forget the bounds between social interactions sometimes because they're used to working through problems or being intertwined with partners that understand them. but they're very much human. so human that it hurts them in many ways. and idk i've just been thinking about it lately and idk what point i'm trying to get across actually

it's just that in my eyes that's how it really is for Batman- a black and white movie narrated by a very serious man who took up a job to help people, one that has a deeper commentary on the world and viewed outwardly as pessimistic but actually has a deep hope for his city and who tries to help even the people who have wronged others. He's a stationary man in the belief that him being a constant can serve to soothe others and help them move forward. He stays in the middle of the path so he can tell everyone what is up ahead. he blends into the Gotham rainy night to serve justice but in a way that saves both the victim and the perpetrator. (the way he tucks a Robin into his cape is the same he does for Gotham with his mere presence.) and his background is actually so important to his story and yet people still somehow gloss over the lesson from it? he lost his parents because of a man who was on the opposite end of the spectrum to where he was in life. and yet he chose to help the people like the man that killed his parents. he could have done anything else with his power and money, but he instead is choosing to bring as many people up with him as he can. He's Mr. Serious that no one else can get a read on. and yet he walks into a room and he's already piecing together your life and what you're going through because he thinks it matters. he comforts people who have lost something or someone or themselves. I picture Batman and I don't picture a man trying to save the world, I picture a detective walking around a crime scene and trying to save at least one person every time he puts on the cape. and he put on the cape and became a vigilante because then he could go out of the bounds of what laws have been set up- and specifically, Gotham has other people in power who are corrupt, keeping the system that way. that's why Batman being a billionare and throwing himself into helping people at the risk of his own life is so important. he knows that if you are alive, you have something or someone to lose, no matter who you are. the dude is a bleeding heart but he doesn't know how to express it, in fear that if he gets too close, if he moves down the path with them, he'll be lost again

and then he's met with someone who should be a complete opposite, but isn't at all, because they're two sides of the same coin. his partner in crime, his son, a boy that is nothing like the black and white world that he sees. and that's the point in his life where he first sees that potentially getting lost is worth the risk. Robin is color and passion that needs guidance to move forward, but can not do so unless the stationary man learns to move with him. the kid is loud and reckless and you'd think he's from a different genre from the detective but they aren't so different, really. not when you look close enough. Dick grew up moving from place to place and seeing the world, knowing so many different people from different cultures. He's been learning to fly and jump and embrace the free fall his entire life. He's clever and he's sharp, and he thrives in the action and adventure. it's that perspective that compliments the stationary man. one is steady and the other pushes. he's the same genre but a different generation. and Batman introducing him to the way of life he chose for himself was another way he could save someone. because let's be real for a second? Dick would have gone down a very dark path had he not had Bruce, who understood, who saw not just himself in the kid but also saw who the kid has been his entire life until now. he saw Dick's parents, he saw the family he had in the circus, he saw the joy he had in what his family was doing. he saw the grief and the fire and the color that Dick's world was made of. because to Bruce, it always matters. Dick had to come to terms with Bruce's perspective to help anyone who they come across, to always give more chances, and it kept Dick from losing his color

what gets me is that the man who lives in the black and white world can actually see many different shades of gray (because black and white always needs the medium), whereas the boy in a world of color and light can get so focused on the bright that he can become single minded. and yet the boy sees a world of color and delves deeper into the lives of the peolle they come across and can be much more open minded, and the man in the black and white world sometimes forgets the shades of grey are right there. they are just like each other. they can exist without the other, but do they want to? because the black and white can be built up into the colored image, like the inking and shadows drawn on a comic book page before the colors are added in. they meet in the middle to complete each other. Bruce has been passing the story over to the next generation for a long, long time, even before his story was complete. and just like with the first Robin, it was so for every Robin afterwards. they each color in the lines differently, but that's what makes Robin so special, so unique. they are an art style that branches into their own life, but can not forget where they started: tucked into Batman's cape and the inky black of his world

and so detective work really frames their hunanity to me. the mysteries they get their hands on, the glimpses into the lives of Gotham citizens that they swore to protect, it's fascinating. it's what makes their story stand out compared to the people who can lift trucks or cast spells or run around the world in seconds. so yeah ig that's what i'm trying to say? that i want to read more of that? in both canon and fanon. cause even the small time villains we see can be like. AWFUL people and it takes out the fun of their gimmicks. and if it were any other day this would be a more coherent post but alas, it is not any other day

[spicy-apple-pie]

Thank you @cdelphiki for giving us a Damian that is a normal(ish) eight year old boy.

(GO READ THE IN FOR A POUND SERIES RIGHT NOW ITS SO GOOD)

[clovariia]

we can finally post our pieces for @huntlowfanzine!!! this project was so much fun. i was the beta reader mod, i wrote a fic, and i drew spot art for several people's fics/poems. thank you SO MUCH to @skeptical-rainbows for drawing such beautiful spot art for my fic!!! 💚💛

🔗 https://archiveofourown.org/works/59088022

you can see more of the spot art doodles i made for other people's fics and poems below the cut.

thank you to the many authors who allowed me to work with them! i'm so glad i got the opportunity to beta read and draw art for so many fics. :)

[szynkaaa]

Mandatory relationship graph to get to know my ship(s) better. And yes, two graphs because I see DO and SWK as two different person and the dynamics would differ too.

Some thoughts

I have SWK listed up taller than DO - in my AU, the DO starts out being 160cm tall and then grows with each artifact he collects. It's also why in some of my art you can see DO being taller than Oz, or the same height as her.

By the time the journey comes to an end, Oz's hair has grown longer. She's still undecided about cutting it or not.

I don't think the DO has a high horny level, I think he is faaaar too focused on completing his quest of obtaining all the artifacts. But he does get flustered very easily when Oz sometimes grabs his hand or clings on to him cause something scared her, or when she compliments him.

DO does very easily get jealous though, he is a wee bit possessive. He does't like seeing other people or yaoguai get close to her, it makes him want to just wrap his arms around her and not let her go while glaring thousand daggers at the other person. He was not happy when Oz jokingly asked if the Yin Tiger is married and if not he would marry her.

DO and Oz switches between big and small spoon, although I think the taller DO grows the more he prefers to be the big spoon. SWK is the big spoon no questions asked ("You're such a koala sheesh." "I do not know what this koala you speak of is.")

With DO, Oz had lot's of different names to call him, mostly just to get his attention. "oi, you. Monkie. Kiwi. Peach. Luffy (kudos if you get the reference)".

With Su Wukong, it's mostly him that has the endearing nicknames for her, stuff like 樱花 (Yīnghuā, cherryblossom bc of her hair color), 心肝宝贝(heart and liver treasure), darling, princess, my queen.

I don't see Oz having a lot of nicknames for SWK though, she'll most likely refer to him with Wukong. If she is calling him The Great Sage, Your Highness, Your Majesty, she is being sarcastic.

There is no confession between DO and Oz, I think both are being far too busy trying to survive, with one trying to get all the artifacts and the other trying to go home. But there is no doubt that they care for each other and have become good friends.

SWK confesses first. My HC is that after the whole journey to the west + buddhahood + leaving buddhahood + gamble and plan his death + the experience and memories he gaines as DO traveling with Oz made him a lot more mature and appreciate the things he has in his long (immortal) life. And that includes Oz. Of course he still maintains a mischievious streak. He knows what he wants and he wants to be with her. He also knows that she has other shit to deal with, like the Celestial Court trying to put a leash on her now (because family history) and that she is still looking for a way back home, so he tell her how he feels, but that he understands she has other priorities at the moment, aaaand that he will continue to support her and be her friend, but also that he will wait for her because what is another 500 years of waiting ("yeah i don't think I'm gonna live that long.")

also also, SWK is definitely the hornier one. But he doesn't get jealous or possesive like DO does. He is very secure in himself and he trusts his partner. Ofc if someone is being pushy and makes Oz uncomfortable he will step in ASAP

I've also marked DO as having no relationship experience because I don't see him as having any, i feel like all his life he was preparing for this quest. But since he gets SWK memories after he finishes the quest, I do think that makes him having some experience? Especially since the game mentiones SWK and White Bone Demon were a thing, and he was im trever able to let her go and it was one of the reasons he left buddhahood. Idk about you but I do think that indicates a deep bond they had.

aaaaand that's it. Here is the empty template for those who also want to do it:

[television-overload]

(reblog for sample size, yadda yadda yadda)