#perpetual mourning posting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

venomvalley · 1 year ago

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(DON'T) FIGHT THE FLESH

chris redfield x gn!reader x leon kennedy // 9.4k words

summary: It starts off as a workplace affair borne from physical necessity. You love the distraction and Chris loves to help people—no emotional strings attached. Until Leon Kennedy shows up, a guard dog with sharp teeth and sad eyes, and things (feelings) get very complicated.

warnings: 18+ ONLY (penetrative sex, blowjobs, deepthroating); heavy themes of alcohol abuse; everyone is traumatized; brief mentions of blood/gore

notes: this is the first part of an eventual poly fic and everyone is dysfunctional right now but it gets better. im so sorry about the word count. set after vendetta

>> read on ao3

There’s blood on your face and the target is dead and the world keeps moving. Soldiers, medics, agents all mill about, preparing body bags, grouping up for post-mission discussions, weaning off the adrenaline. The fight is over. You should be happy.

But it never ends. Next week, another rat will skitter from its hole and you’ll be sent off to another part of the world to face a new set of inevitables. Strife is inevitable. Evil cannot exist without good, but fuck—when was the last time you felt something good?

Back on base, the teams join to break out a fifth of whiskey in equal parts celebration and mourning. Paraphernalia in any other circumstance, but you survived. Spike gave his sacrifice. Everyone deserves it.

A single wall separates the common room from where you reside post-shower, scrubbing fruitlessly at the blood beneath short-clipped nails. Though muffled, you catch whirlwind anecdotes of good times passed, shared with an enthusiasm only drunkenness can perpetuate.

Fifteen minutes into staring at a well of pink sink water, after scrubbing your cuticles raw sans progress, you relent. The blood will stay with you until it doesn’t. Maybe it’s meant to be. A reminder, a lesson, a manifestation of consequence.

Once upon a time, someone told you that the worst thing a person could do is grieve alone. Humanity thrives on connection—a sentiment written in the literal stars overhead, in a time where aliens align more with longing than conspiracy. What a pitiful plight of humanity, always searching for companionship, truth, breakthroughs. Finding love in the strangest places.

Funny then, that you struggle with that final step over the threshold. You lean against the door frame and count your team and come up short, and a surge of nausea leaves you gritting your teeth. In part, you’re to blame for your own spiral. Death happens. It happens as often as sunrise, as flowers wilt, as conception itself. Your leadership isn’t good enough to cheat the inevitable, however badly you wish it to be true, and shouldering that kind of pressure was bound to break you the moment death knocked on your front door.

Outside, you join the other smokers sat in a wonky circle made up of folding chairs and opened beers and cigarettes, and everyone looks smaller without all the gear. Five in total, only two faces you recognize—one being Chris Redfield himself. Icon, legend, hero, but tonight you can’t bring yourself to care. The blood is there. He’s just another man.

Everyone is exhausted, that much is clear. Reads in sunken eyes and slumped shoulders and Lieutenant Reeves even nods off in his seat in the corner. It’s always like this. The aftermath. The weight of leadership.

You take the unoccupied seat beside Chris (servicemen thrive off of routine, and habits form after twenty-one days—you’ve surpassed stone-set by an extra one hundred and eighty-three) and he’s kind enough to offer you a lighter. Not that you need one, but you appreciate his small attempt at support. He gets it. The first time, the first death, is always hard.

He says nothing at first, and neither do you. Not much for small talk, too weighed down by the shackles of grief. It’s a relief. You nibble upon leftovers of another conversation and smoke your cigarette until the filter begins to dissolve with a cloying, bitter smell. Kinda reminds you of burnt hair. A little.

Maybe you’re just imagining things.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says, leaned in close enough that you taste metallic rot at the back of your throat. He showered a short while ago, cropped hair still damp, but the stench still coats his skin like an oily film.

Gore probably leaks from your own pores.

When you reply with a simple nod, he sighs through his nose, opaque smoke billowing into the space between you. It dries out your eyes but covers up the smell so you lean into it and, by proxy, him.

“Listen, I get it. I do. But your team needs a leader now more than ever. You can't afford to dwell on it.”

You know. You know. You've seen death at its most peaceful and its most gruesome. Most days you blink and the blackout darkness bleeds red. You've patted Death on the back and brushed shoulders with ghosts and shaken hands with skeletons. You've experienced the end a thousand different ways. But this is different.

You shake your head, not to disagree, but to filter away the thoughts that aren't helping your spiral. “I could've—”

“Stop.” His voice mumbles quiet. More quiet than you've ever heard him. He smells of gunpowder and body wash and tobacco and resignation, and your eyelids flutter. “You know that's bullshit. Can't stop the inevitable.”

He's right. You know he is. And you meet his eye and the air between you shifts like a thunderclap back toward reality.

One minute you’re on the front patio smoking, and the next you’re being fucked (hard, angry, just the way you need it) into the mattress with Chris’s mouth on your neck and your pants caught on your boots. He's a heavy weight against your back, a choking fullness inside you. A travel-sized bottle of lube sits just out of reach and every thrust is slick and noisy, the mattress creaking with each snap of his hips, and you can't help but revel in his selfish hands.

On the field, his touches are simplified down to necessity, a professional on all accounts, a convolution of sharp edges ripe enough to cut. On more than one occasion he's dragged you back to safety by the scruff like a disobedient puppy, and you've seen him manhandle soldiers unconcerned with their own self-preservation.

Here, alone, he takes and he savors and the rasp of his callouses liken to baptism against your waist and back and chest. His teeth seek permanent indentation along the curve of your shoulder, a kind of dying-star desperation that in thirty years his place in your life will forever be fossilized by your reflection in the mirror. The pain is exactly what you need, and he knows that, and such intuition scares you.

But here’s the thing about Chris: he doesn’t do one night stands. This situation—whatever you can call it—is more of a symbiotic relationship months past conception. A situation coincidental to when you became smoking buddies. You need the skinship and he loves to save people. The first week post-mission is hell to spend alone. Sex helps you feel something good. You both get your orgasm then say goodbye then fly off to opposite ends of the world for an indeterminate amount of time. Until the next time you meet again.

And there is a next time, as always. Deadly circumstances, per usual. But there’s a wrench thrown in the routine: a new player. A DSO agent with a name you know well.

Leon S. Kennedy. He keeps that middle initial close to his chest, cups the mystery like a baby bird who lost its nest. A mother that flew too close to the sun. He’s an asshole when you first meet him at the debrief, your judgements proven right (the pre-deployment gossip keeps you occupied and you can’t help but internalize a few common threads), but Chris swears up and down that this isn’t him.

He knows him via his sister who escaped Raccoon City—Ground Zero—by the skin of her teeth, which is where S.T.A.R.S. and Wesker and Jill Valentine and Chris himself come into the picture. A whole clusterfuck of horrible luck and wrong-place-wrong-time coincidences and intersecting relationships, and look. Chris has a history. Leon does, too. Trouble sniffs them out and chases them up trees like it’s the universe’s full-time hound dog job. But you’ve expended too much energy and time and blood into The Cause, and you’re stubborn to a concerning degree, so you refuse to back out now and let everybody else take all the credit.

The bird touches down ten miles from the FOB, a humvee awaiting the transport of your crew. You recognize Nav, a communications expert best known for tracking the shipment of a B.O.W. across three different European countries. Your new stand-in for Spike.

His crooked smile stings. “Glad to be here, boss.”

The FOB is little more than five large tents and a sea of desert. Egg-frying heat. Before you even step onto the sand, sweat pools beneath your gear and stings at your eyes.

Your team is here on surveillance, employed once again by the BSAA. Redfield’s doing, no doubt. He keeps his circle close.

Chris meets you at the gate, a flimsy thing held together by scrap metal and prayer, and the driver waves you off once bags have been collected and taken to the bunkhouse.

“Really giving us the royal treatment out here,” you say, fetching the crushed pack of cigarettes from one of the pockets in your fatigues.

“Being the best means you get the least resources.”

“It's more like your people hate me.”

“Or they know you love low profiles.”

Your team spends the next two days settling in, making friends, playing cards on some rickety fold-out table much too small for the five-to-seven people that crowd around it at any given time.

You stay close to Chris on instinct. A connection borne from an all-work-some-play arrangement and the knowledge of his doggish loyalty aided by how fucking good he is at his job. You trust him with your life—a sentiment held by everyone who's met the man. His reputation precedes him.

Things start out well, and things quickly devolve. You're stuck in the desert with two dozen people who don't know how to sit the fuck down, who would rather die than wrestle a moment of silence with their thoughts. And then, a week in, Leon Kennedy steps out of the humvee looking fresh off the front page of a magazine. Fresh gear, shiny guns, a head of hair not flattened down by grease.

His hiring was an expensive one, and the American government never fails to show off.

Your team looks on in poorly-guised, bitter disbelief. He's groomed, probably had a nice meal, maybe watched a show during his flight, experienced the luxury of air conditioning. You're a little pissed about it, too. Standing and sweating beneath the sun because there are too few fold-outs to seat everybody and Redfield's team stole half of them to play musical chairs (there isn't even any music).

At least you have a stockpile of cigarettes. The one luxury the BSAA left you with, all thanks to Redfield's influence.

Chris moves in close to greet him, and you miss Spike. He would've shaken you by the shoulders, made some silly comment just to see you smile. Always good at that, you suppose: timing. Now, your memory of him is tainted by the sight of a broken, emptied-out skull. You never knew blood could be so red.

You blink and Leon stands before you, Chris at his shoulder. There's a sharp order of be nice written in the squint of his eyes.

From the ground behind you, Taylor snorts. You choose to ignore her.

“Well,” you say. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Agent.”

He leans to the side, just enough to look past you. Blue eyes more stark than you remember, a pinprick sea amongst miles of sand. “I can see why. I wouldn't even let my dog stay here.”

You perk up at that—finally, some common ground. “You have a dog?”

His brows dip and your heart shatters a little. “Figure of speech.”

Suddenly you're back in bootcamp. The days are impossibly long, every muscle in your body retains a perpetual state of exhaustion, your peers fail in their efforts to befriend you. The drill sergeants are harsh, punishing (when it rains, your fingers always itch for a mop after that endless week of thunderstorms and sidewalk punishment).

You've always hated being told what to do, hated the politics that came with military life, and they all but beat the spark out of you within the first six months.

Everybody always asks you why you joined in the first place, and you answer the same exact way: I had some things to escape from. A half-truth. Really, you just wanted somewhere you could belong. A family. You believed the stories about brothers-in-arms and that's the fault of some younger, more idealistic version of you.

But you're tired.

You nod your head as Taylor snorts out a laugh and Chris shifts on his feet. It's humiliating. You're eighteen again and the drill sergeant told you to wipe the stupid fucking smile off your face. You were trying not to cry.

“Right.”

You were never meant to belong.

Chris sits on the balcony of your apartment in a shitty chair almost too small for his bulk, his third cigarette of the hour lit at the end in sunstorm orange, indentations of his teeth scarred into the filter. It's the first time your intimate relationship has ever breached the walls of a military base. An ultimate display of defiance, a rage against the military industrial complex that leaves the teenage version of you cheering somewhere beneath all the dog-teeth brain matter.

He looks different like this, less a legend and more a regular man indulging in post-coital habits. Dressed in nothing but a pair of plaid boxers and the dog tags he forgot to leave at base yesterday (there's something hot about that, though—the lip stain of forbidden fruit). The sweat has yet to dry on his neck, the bridge of his nose, dark curls of chest hair matted to his skin.

He looks up at the flick of your lighter, a gunshot cutting through the silence.

“You're chainsmoking,” you say, shuffling over to the unoccupied chair beside him. You move the plastic ashtray closer to you.

If he notices the way you favor a hip when you sit down, he doesn't comment on it. “I already have a mom. Don’t need another.”

He shuts down like this sometimes. As if the ghosts that plague him, dormant most days, return to torment his psyche. His thoughts make him angry, and he needs somewhere to store all the baggage. You tilt your head and the bites along the curve of your neck sting and you almost purr at the sensation. If your body is his graveyard, you'll swallow the dirt and the bones with pride.

You can't remember a time when you prioritized faith, but the crinkle of his pretty eyes when he grins at you makes you want to believe in some form of God. He sits before you rough-worn and weary, and the smoke from his cigarette curls and bleeds into starshine sky, but his cheeks puff up when his smile deepens and you know. You know.

You're fucked.

After the sweep of an underground facility and the acquisition of fresh new intel, HQ sends you a continent over to delve into salty seas and wade through lush rainforests. There's more waiting ahead, but at least you found a cure for the humidity.

The beach you stumbled upon is small, more pebbled than sandy, but it's quiet enough to hear leaves rustle and birdcall and the voice of your thoughts, and the streak-skied sunset steals your breath as you sink down into the water. A chill that settles deep, spikes your heart rate, tethers you to consciousness—

(what a cruel thing existence can be).

Redfield slips between the trees, boots loud enough against the grass to alert you to his presence. He appears less daunting in casual clothes, yet every bit a Captain—military perfect posture, a severe twist to his brow stamped to permanence years ago. Your spine straightens at the biting call of your name, his voice thick with exhaustion. Habit, second nature, an imperceptible reaction to the dominance of your betters.

Blend in with the locals. Keep a low profile. Find out who Simmons is.

Some parallel-universe, optimistic version of you would consider this a vacation, so if Chris wishes to break your solitude, he'll have to get wet. You swam far enough out that your toes brush plant life, submerged up to the neck.

Be honest: you just want to see him squirm.

“Care for a swim?” you call upon his approach, unphased by the cross of his arms or the glare on his face that warns of a verbal reaming.

Nobody leaves the safehouse past dusk. You're breaking rules by roughly an hour and a half, but the call of water proved too urgent to ignore.

You also like to cause a bit of trouble.

He offers up a shrug, mouth twisting into an echo of a smile (you think he's forgotten how to do it after years of cutting teeth and breaking fingers). “No can do. Forgot my speedo.”

“Would you believe me if I said I was naked under all this water?”

“Not for a second.”

“You are the antithesis of fun.”

“I get that a lot.”

His eyes are black as midnight, and each passing minute bathes more of his silhouette in sharp-edged shadows. A branch overhead bisects his face into two halves, perfectly centered on the bridge of his nose.

“I could write you up for this,” he says, a hint of danger to his tone. Warning. Your stomach burns hot.

“But you won't.”

He steps just out of reach of the incoming tide, marked clear by a sharp line in the sand between wet and dry.

You try again, a hairsbreadth away from desperation. Urgency. “Swim with me.”

As a child, you played games that none of your peers wished to join. You used to beg them—c'mon, please? just for five minutes, it'll be quick—to the point of tears, until resignation finally set in. Nobody wanted to be around you. You played alone and you ate alone and you read books alone.

This isn't like that—at least, it shouldn't be. You're a troublemaker and he's just doing his job. But still, that childish desperation rears its ugly, disfigured head, and you grin at the sound of his caving sigh. Corrupting the straight-laced Captain… like something out of a trashy paperback erotica.

He takes off his boots first and your heart surges into your throat. Sagging realization almost drowns you beneath an incoming wave of water (he would break rules for you), and you swim closer to shore to meet him.

At the tree line, a silhouette appears, human in shape. Chris follows the line of your wide-eyed stare, every muscle in your body tensed up at the first whiff of danger. Until the shape steps forward into the kiss of moonlight, and you aren't sure whether relief of irritation floods your system.

It's Leon Kennedy. Definitely both.

There's a sadness settled deep inside his bones that the rumors never prepared you for. He walks closer, kicking up sand with each step, and the lighting pales him to a ghostly mirage. Back at the FOB he kept to himself. Spoke when spoken to. Occupied the same chair like he paid for it, all crossed arms and scowling at anybody who dared breach the invisible line of his personal bubble. Everyone except for Chris.

There's a history here you fail to pick up on, a thickness that cloys in the air. Words left unsaid, a silent grudge years in the making. But beneath all the rot, therein lies an unshakeable foundation built on trust.

“I thought we had a curfew,” Leon says, looking more hollow than human from where you stand half-submerged.

Still, the blue of the water could never compare to his eyes. You remember their vividness even as they are now, bathed in shadow by his brow.

You wonder for just a moment (Spike’s voice echoes inside your head: you spend too much time in the clouds, Lieutenant) what he looks like when he smiles. How long it's been since the muscles worked.

“I'm a bad influence,” you say, and for a moment, when their eyes meet, you think you've disappeared into the ether. A buoy treading water.

They share in silent conversation before Chris nods toward the direction of the safe house. “Let's head back.”

The glare he gives you holds no room for argument.

You wade back onto the beach and the sand sinks between your toes. If you stood here long enough the beach might just swallow you up, and the thought shouldn't be as comforting as it is.

Nearby, your clothes sit in a pile, half-buried in sand by the wet-hot wind that pools sweat at the base of your neck. The weather is a stifling scorch, made even worse on the walk back by trees that trap in humidity.

Leon falls back to walk beside you, bathing the forest in an uncomfortable silence. You have nothing in common, and he possesses the social prowess of a rabid dog, but maybe that's the thing that draws you in. You have a penchant for picking up strays. Hell, your entire team is a patchwork quilt of sewn-together outcasts too talented to be thrown aside and forgotten. Old dogs can, in fact, learn new tricks. Teaching them how is your specialty.

You get it.

He rubs a palm over the stubble at his jaw, gaze trained on the canopy above. The creatures here are active at night. Noisy. A fluttering insect catches your attention before landing on a nearby branch. Moonlight casts deep shadows upon the terrain, bathes the ground in sharp cuts of jagged shadow. You pass beneath a large leaf and Leon disappears entirely for half a second.

“So,” he says, tone flat as a board, as if he'd rather bloody his fingers clawing on tree bark than speak, “you're the friend I've heard so much about.”

You can't see his features well in the low lighting, but the cut of his gaze sears you. Dark circles—shades of deep blue and faded purple, the color of bruises—a mile deep, rings of blue framed by midnight black and vessels of red. Like he hasn't slept in weeks, like he just came back from an extended bender. It's—

“I guess so,” you say, because you can't ask about the scabs on his knuckles, or the long-healed scar on his cheek, or why his eyes seem so sad.

There are a thousand Leon Kennedys in your line of work. The same story told a thousand different ways. You recognize the signs of epidemic, the symptoms of deadly viruses, and the man before you belongs to a sub-category pockmarked by trauma.

You look at him and see the choke chain pulled tight around his neck, scarring where the skin's grown around each metal prong. Yours probably looks the same.

But it's none of your business, you suppose. You lock your bullshit up tight and tuck it neatly in the back of your brain that grows cobwebs, and then you let it rot. Not your fault if the miasma sometimes leaks through.

Leon exhales a scoffing laugh. “To be honest, I didn't think Chris had friends.”

A grin twitches the corners of your lips, and you glance ahead to spot the broad width of Chris's back before he ducks under a low-hanging branch. A warmth stokes to flame, curls a tender smoke around each of your ribs. “We knew each other before the BSAA. To be honest, he's the only reason I joined. Gave this big speech about saving the world and shit, I couldn't say no.”

He nods and looks at you with softened eyes. “Yeah. He has that affect on people.”

It's the first thing you and Leon Kennedy have in common.

Chris promised Leon a drink.

You find yourself sat at some bar in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, him on one side and Leon on the other. It's packed, and the music is a touch too loud, and the crowd is rowdy.

Nobody says a word. Not when things ended the way this last mission did.

Failure.

The bartender, some grumpy man with a long, greying beard and a permanent scowl on his face, sets a whiskey down before you. The glass sticks to the tabletop when you pick it up, and you can't remember how many drinks you've had but you know that the trip back to the safehouse will be a hazardous one.

A thousand people dead. Too late to stop the bombing of the small village Umbrella pinged as their testing ground. A travesty, a massacre.

The alcohol burns inside your mouth, burns all the way down to your empty belly and leaves behind a wave of nausea. You wonder how packed the bathroom in this place is.

There was a little boy.

You deserve the burn. Deserve for it to consume you, to eat away at your viscera until acid bleeds from you pores.

You killed a little boy.

Someone grabs you rough by the curve of the neck, pulls you back, curls an arm around your shoulders.

“Hey, we're heading back.” Taylor, voice loud to beat out the music, slurring in your ear. “You gonna be alright?”

You've seen dead children before. Dozens of them of all ages, all manner of decomposed. Victims of Umbrella. Collaterals of evil. But you've never been the cause of it. Never been the perpetrator.

It cuts deep. Cuts deeper when you think of Spike. All the people you've failed.

Our lives revolve around death, he had told you one night, sat swaying on a barstool a lot like this one, and one day we're gonna be consumed by it. Can't have your cake and eat it, too, as they say. Gotta exist in one plane or the other.

She shakes your shoulder, grip rough without all your gear, with more alcohol than blood in her veins. “You good?”

You blink in shades of red. “Yeah. Just be careful on the way back.”

When she goes to leave, Chris catches her by the elbow. Says something you can't hear over the music, but she glances at you and nods her head. You don't care enough to find out.

To your right, Leon sweeps a hand through his hair. Leans over to stare at you beneath hooded lids. “You get used to it.”

There it is. The chain around your neck pulls taut, and you choke back the bitter tang of whiskey in your mouth. Might as well choke on your words while you're at it.

He handles his alcohol too well. A worrying observation in any other circumstance, but you'd be a hypocrite to accost him and an asshole to deny him his coping mechanism, however harmful it is.

What good is living a healthy life when you've one foot already in the grave?

Your fingers itch for a cigarette. The pit of your belly craves a dirty mattress and a bottle of lube and the man at your left who keeps nudging his elbow into your arm each time he sets down his drink.

A hypocrite, you'll never be.

So you settle for the cigarette and say nothing when Leon waves the bartender over.

“Been doing this for almost a decade, and I'm still waiting,” you say, head balanced on a sweaty, sticky palm. “Don't think I could ever get used to killing kids.”

Beside you, Leon takes a long few gulps from his drink. “Yeah, that's… different.”

You grow bold from the whiskey sloshing around in your stomach and lean in close, well past the boundary of his personal space. Behind the long-dried sweat and the brandy on his breath, you smell the death that lurks beneath his epidermis. Like a dog that's rolled in a rotting corpse, bits of viscera still trapped in its fur.

“Have you ever killed a kid?”

He glares at you from the corner of his eye, throat bobbing as he swallows. “Too many.” Choking down the memories.

He's pretty and perfect, ruddy at the tip, thick all the way to the base. The perfect size to deepthroat (long enough to choke off your breath without the stretching pain). You tried it once with Chris and the last inch or so made you tap out, and you remember vividly the pinched grimace on his face, almost pitying to the way your eyes leaked with tears as you coughed away the searing burn.

I warned you, he had said, leaned up against the wall of some unused supply closet. The start of your workplace affair.

And now, you find yourself on your knees in some dirty back alley, Leon's cock swallowed all the way to the base. A small, insignificant victory, but the taste of him—salt-musk and skin–washes away the blood that sticks to the roof of your mouth.

You pull away and work him over with a spit-slicked hand, hissing a breath through your teeth. You look up to find his chin dipped toward his chest, pretty eyes glossy and lidded, a deep blush spread thick over his cheeks and nose. Cute. It's cute. He's cute.

Maybe that's the whiskey talking.

(Not like you have a history of fucking your coworkers or anything.)

The thought sobers you a bit, and your hand slows. Your gaze sharpens.

“Good?” you whisper, just loud enough to hear over the rhythmic schlick of your fist.

Your conscience flares in a sharp thump against the part of your brain still functioning, and you wonder what Chris would think if he saw you like this. You can envision him now, all disappointed and frowning, maybe a little hurt in the squint of his eyes. He'd bitch at you for being so irresponsible, because fucking around with him has nothing to do with feelings, but shit. What you wouldn’t give to see him jealous.

Then Leon huffs out a breath, says, “Please,” in such a pitiful voice that—

Well.

You can unpack all this later.

Your focus shift backs to the man before you, smile devilish and wide as his head thumps against the brick. “Please what?”

“Fuck. Don't do this right now.”

You shift on the hard pavement, knees screaming in pain. But you can tolerate it. His mouth falls open, exhales a choked off moan when you circle your tongue over the sensitive nerves of his frenulum, and nothing else matters.

The sight of him flayed open, vulnerable, needy is intoxicating. A sharp contrast to when you first met, how he soured at the sight of you and licked his teeth like he craved to grab hold of your arm and shake.

You take him into your mouth again, hollowing your cheeks around each inch in a slow savor of the weight against your tongue, and you think you might go a little crazy when he cants his hips and curls a hand around the back of your neck.

“Gonna—I need—”

You moan around him, the best invitation you can manage, and he's quick to take it. The pace he sets sends fire licking up your spine, hurried and quick, long pumps that tease at the sheath of your throat but never breach. You steady yourself with a hand on each of his thighs, thumbing at the downy-blond hair covering the skin.

He's nice about face-fucking you, the alcohol half-worn off. Cradles your head like he either loves you or the way you swallow his cock, shoulders pressed flat against the brick wall to steady himself. Generous with his sounds (Chris communicates in heavy breaths and grunts, but Leon gets into it, and you aren't sure which you like best).

There's something wrong in the way you compare the men, as if they aren't the antithesis of each other down to each individual atom, but maybe that's the appeal. The best of both worlds.

He pulls out of your mouth after a heaving sigh, foamy spit spread from root to tip, connecting in a thin string to your bottom lip.

“Sorry. Can never finish when I drink,” he says, breathless, frustration bleeding through each sluggish syllable.

“Don't worry. I can't either.” It's an anticlimactic end to the night when he pulls up his pants and stuffs his still-hard cock back into his underwear. Says, “It'll go away in a minute,” when he catches you staring at the obvious bulge stretching the fabric.

You move to stand, knees almost buckling from being bent for so long. A clear sign of your age, a body composed of weary bones and ground-down joints and nerve damage. The inevitable effects of a dangerous, active career.

When you stumble, he steadies you with a firm grip around your bicep. Quick to pull away when you right yourself.

A pang starts directly behind your eyes. You need a glass of water.

“Do you want me to…” he trails off, nodding to the space between your thighs. No doubt you've leaked through your pants, your own need mostly forgotten to prioritize his.

But that's okay. Your brain shut up as soon as you got your mouth on him and that's all you care about. Mission accomplished. You can just rub one out when you get a private moment (who knows when that'll be).

“Don't worry about it.”

“Oh.”

“Not that I'm not interested, but the others are probably wondering where we are.” And by others, you mean Redfield, still left hunched over at the bar.

There had been a silent agreement with Leon after your conversation. A shared understanding that, yes, this was a very bad idea, but adrenaline and alcohol and drowning memories always ends in poor decisions anyway. The weight of inevitables.

You can't remember who followed who out the door.

The silence that follows is unbelievably awkward. Leon can't go back into the bar just yet, and you don't wish to leave him alone. But you have no idea where to go from here. With Chris, the transition progressed naturally: smoking buddies to confidants to friends to fucking each other after an adrenaline-fueled disaster of a deployment (huh, a common theme). The reasoning makes sense: you both need a good orgasm to stave off the stress every once in a while. The tenderness you harbor for him is an inconvenient side effect.

Regarding Leon, there's no history here. You share in trauma, yank against leashes attached to the same hand, hold a similiar respect for Chris. Nothing but overarching ideals posing as interpersonal commonality.

But you have a soft spot for strays. Especially the feral ones with sharp teeth and a mean streak.

Leon adjusts the crotch of his pants, kicks out a leg, and you exhale a laugh. He's frustratingly, awkwardly endearing.

(it's just the alcohol it's just the alcohol it's just the alcohol)

You clear your throat, a bashful heat creeping up the nape of your neck. “Thanks. For the—ya know, the distraction. I needed it.”

He nods, turns on his heel, and leaves the alley.

When you walk back inside, Chris is already gone.

And then the world floods. A solid week of heavy rain that, as you lean against the railing of your balcony, seeks to swallow the cars down below on the street, already halfway up the wheels. A rogue bike floats down the street. The water is deceptive in its surface-level calmness, but you know what lurks beneath. Step in the way of nature and be swept off your feet. They'd find your body half a mile away, lungs filled with muddy run-off.

You've never been religious, and faith has eluded you since you were young—don't think you've ever believed in anything besides the sanctity of life—but the street flooding below reminds you of the popular Christian tale. Two of each animal, a great ark, the end of times (the first of many).

You turn to Chris, stood just inside the sliding glass door that leads onto the balcony. “Do you believe in God? Any of ‘em?”

The wrinkles on his forehead deepen, and you remember a time when his eyes held life. They still spark, but sometimes you fear his anger setting him ablaze. Much to be angry about these days: injustice, evil, fighting for a dead-end cause.

The dead can still burn. You know that well.

There still exists moments where his face smooths out, like the few hours of rest he steals at night, but the damage is already done. Fine lines permanent, a testament to the long-flooded chasm of his worries.

“Never thought about it, really.”

Water pours off the edge of the balcony above, a light spray misting your face as the wind switches course and blows the rain sideways. Your feet shift inside a shallow puddle, just deep enough to splash. A chill forms beneath your skin, raises gooseflesh along your arms and legs, the weather a mere accomplice to the problem (many at this point, some identifiable and others still stuck in the stage of repression) that took root inside your bones.

“Not much to believe in anymore, is there?”

Behind you, he sniffs. “It's been that way for a long time.”

Then he steps out onto the concrete, shuts the glass door with a dull thump. A lighter flickers, barely intelligible over the noise of the storm. A moment later, the cloying smell of tobacco hits your nose, and a hand comes into view out of the corner of your eye.

An offering. The cigarette pinched between thumb and forefinger a sacred gift from a man like him.

“You sound like you need it,” he says, bare chest fitting nice and warm against your back, and you relax into his bulk on instinct.

Always instinct with him.

He's kept his distance since that night with Leon in the alleyway. You know he knows. Tries his best to pretend, to regain the dynamic that changed as soon as you dropped to your knees and unzipped Leon's pants, but there's no going back. And you don't know if you want to. With a life hand-woven by fuck-ups and guilt, you rarely experience the absence of regret, so when you woke up that morning and continued on with your day and Leon crept closer than normal, engaged in muted conversation over the flight back home, you decided you wouldn't change a thing.

Maybe you're too selfish. Too self-serving. Too desperate for a way out of this, but—

Chris's beard rasps over your jaw, lips hot when they press to the skin. A hand slides beneath your shirt to rest flat against your stomach, the muscles there tensing.

—shit, you think you deserve indulgence every once in a while.

But he never escalates past the fluttering kisses along your pulse, a languid savor to the way your heart beats for him. The same way you savor your cigarette. An unusual intimacy that you aren't sure how to cope with. What it all means.

So you ruin it, just as you ruin everything good in your life.

(People like you don't deserve goodness, no matter how hard you grasp for it.)

Fat droplets of pouring rain dissect the thick fog of smoke you exhale. “You saw us, didn't you?”

The fingers on your belly curl inward, almost possessive. Like he wants to burrow elbow-deep inside the cavern of viscera and curl your intestines around his hand—the perfect makeshift leash. You wouldn't mind if it was him.

It's always been this way, hasn't it?

“Of course I did.” A sharp nip to the curve of your shoulder, and your hips twitch forward, a hiss choking off at the back of your throat. “Thought you hated him.”

“Almost dying has a funny way of bringing people together.”

“We know all about that, don't we?”

You hum in agreement as his hand climbs higher, squeezes soft at the curve of your ribcage, fingers protecting each brittle bone. Re-learning your body, testing its limits, searching for… something.

“You said it yourself, Chris. People like us don't get the luxury of romance. Dating, marriage, kids. They're pipe dreams. Gotta stave off the loneliness as best we can, but,” you stamp out your cigarette on the wet metal railing, and it cries out with a hiss as water seeps into the filter, “even the sex is a lie. We know it is.”

A lie you gorge on until your heart swells, bloated and tender to the touch.

His mouth is on you as soon as you sit on the couch, already stripped bare below the waist by two sets of desperate hands. Didn't even have a chance to close the door to the balcony with him shoving you back inside.

The sight of him (an inspiration, a legend, a hero) on his knees never fails to stroke your ego, and he meets your eyes with a grin. Slicks his hand between your legs with a chest-purring hum.

Chris, for all his skill, possesses a one-track mind. He hones in on outcome, completing the mission, point A to point B. As such, he doesn't care for distractions. Takes control—prefers giving to recieving any day of the week. And although the sight of him kissing up your thigh conjures heat at the base of your spine, you have another idea.

“Wait,” you say, already a bit breathless, and he sits back to listen. A good, obedient dog. “Move to the couch. I'll be right back.”

You yank your shirt over your head as if it catalyzed every single problem in your current life and leave for the bedroom. Need lube—a must where his size is concerned.

You return to him lounging on the couch, his bulk sagging its very foundation. An impossibly large, commanding presence, and you're unsure how the very idea of him doesn't collapse your room into a gravity-swallowing blackhole.

He is man. You've seen him bleed, seen him laugh, seen him on the brink of death. And yet the tangibility of his existence awes you even now, after all these years.

The stretch conjures between your legs an impenetrable pressure, made slick by all the lube. And he gazes up at you, seated naked in his lap, with all the reverence of a creation bowed before the altar of its god.

To be perceived is a terrifying ordeal. One you try not to think much about. But here, there's no hiding place brave enough to shelter you from the doggish fealty in his eyes. It's terrifying and wonderful and humiliating, and if you aren't careful, you'll begin to crave the feeling of being wanted.

A dangerous thing, loyalty.

You kiss him—a wet, hurried mess of a thing; tender flesh caught between canine teeth; calloused hands guiding the intensity with a palm against your jaw and the other gripping your waist, fingers sticky with lube. He's as big as you dream about, your insides stretched snug and velvety and slick around him.

He breaks off the kiss with a grunt caged behind grit teeth as you begin to ride him in a slow, grinding rhythm.

“Like this?” you ask, solely for your own amusement (love the way his cheeks get all pink), because you've fucked him well enough to know what he likes.

Still, though. To hear him say it is to be well-fed.

He hums, eyes downcast to the place where your bodies join, both hands a steadfast grip on your hips. Guiding, coaxing, savoring.

The sight of his bottom lip tugged between his teeth almost undoes you. And then he looks up at you with the prettiest, puppy-dog brown eyes, and the world stops. The sun burns and burns and burns until flesh melts from bone.

In the aftermath, cuddled naked and sticky together on the couch, a new star is born, nurtured by the warmth of your bodies. You kiss him, and gravity collapses in on itself.

The rain stops.

A conversation transpires at some hole-in-the-wall bar in Birmingham, Alabama. Why Leon chose this place you'll never know, and why Chris chose you to tag along on this two-person manhunt eludes you even more. Something about needing support, back-up, a friend he could trust. And you said yes. Of course you did.

But he seems to handle the situation just fine.

You lounge in a booth within sight of the bar where the two men sit. Leon slumps over the bartop and Chris rests an arm across his shoulders, both of them leaned in close to keep the conversation private. You feel like you have no right to watch, like the moment was not meant for your eyes. They speak like they've conquered lifetimes together, an intimacy you don't think you could ever fully understand.

You take a sip of your beer and trace your eyes over the sticky woodgrain of the table.

After a few minutes—somewhere between five and thirty, when you've already begun to nod off in your seat—a shadow passes over you, then another.

A large hand claps you on the shoulder. “Let's go.”

You sip on the rest of your beer as you follow behind the men, Leon stumbling over cracks in the pavement, cresting the tumultuous wave of drunkenness. Chris holds him steady by a hand fisted in the back of his leather jacket, and you feel much like a wraith. Intangible, inconsequential, tethered to the earthly realm by the beer bottle that sweats a chill against your palm.

It would be sad if sadness wasn't such a permanent facet of your life.

The motel Leon leads you to is a run-down thing. A few cars scatter around the parking lot, cigarette butts litter the concrete walk that leads to each room, and the lampost nearby blinks in a coincidental mimicry of morse code. As Leon attempts to unlock the door, you stare through the swarm of moths to where the dark-light rhythm spells out

H-E-L-P H-E-L-P H-E-L-P.

You didn't sleep too well on the flight over.

His room fares no better, caught in the sharp-toothed maw of a week-long bender. A red flag, a mental health hazard that leaves Chris sighing as he helps Leon over to the stained, naked mattress he calls a bed. He leaves one leg half-dangling off the side, some trick you learned during the early days of training when every weekend ended in borderline alcohol poisoning and the room wouldn't stop spinning.

A few feet over, you spot a thin sheet and a blanket on the floor, crumpled into a mound of itchy fabric. You choose the blanket to drape over him, wrinkled all to hell, but he doesn't seem to mind. Holds it close to his chest in a loose fist while his other hand grabs your shoulder.

“’m sorry Redfield dragged you into this mess,” he says, eyes bloodshot and unfocused, a certain sway to his words that sends a pang to the deepest part of your chest.

You've been here before, many a time. Can't count the days you wasted sleeping in bushes or heaving over a toilet or so drunk you couldn't even stand, because the alcohol felt good until it didn't, and even now you find something meaningful in the hammering of a morning-after migraine—pain means you're alive, Chris likes to say.

You slip up sometimes (a lot), forget your sober vows when the hardships need a good drowning. The ethanol kills them for a little while, but they always come back. You fool yourself every time into believing the next drink will be different.

It makes sense now. Why Chris chose you to tag along. You stare down at Leon and some parallel-universe mirror image stares back. The beer in your stomach settles like a molten rock.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” A sentence you wish to tell some younger, dumber version of yourself, before you stopped believing in redemption. “Just sleep it off, okay? We'll be here when you wake up.”

You and Chris share the threadbare couch in silence, curled up on either cushion. He twirls one of your shoelaces around a finger, then unravels it, then twirls it again, over and over as the sound of Leon's rhythmic snoring fills the room.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, cheek pressed to the back of the couch as he looks toward a hanging cobweb on the cieling. “It's hard to talk him down when he gets like this.”

“I think you handled it well.”

He exhales a tired laugh through his nose, the shadows under his eyes deeper beneath the pale of moonlight. “Only because I knew I had a backup plan.”

“And what would that have been?”

His lips twitch into a grin. “We drag his ass out of there kicking and screaming.”

“Damn. I'm almost sad the talking angle worked.”

“You would be.”

The comfortable silence stays steadfast for all of twenty seconds before you look over the back of the couch to where Leon lay.

“I hate to see him like this,” you say, wrinkles forming between your brow. “You know those kinds of people, where you can take one look at them and know they've been through hell?”

Chris hums.

“He's definitely one of ‘em.”

He shakes his head after a long moment, brows raised. “You have no idea.”

No. You don't. But it puts his behavior into perspective. Straddles the hair-fine line between excuse and explanation. Hard to develop meaningful, lasting relationships when everyone around you routinely drops like flies.

The night drones on, and on, and on. You should be able to sleep anytime and anywhere at this point, but the two sets of snoring seeks to do your head in. That, and Chris effectively shoved you off the rickety couch in his sleep and stretched out upon the cushions. But that's okay. He needs it.

Night turns to day somewhere between your anxious pacing around the room and your decision to take the floor, and you wake sweaty, a bit addled amidst unrecognizable surroundings.

Until you recognize the voices sounding from the opposite side of the room. Your hip screams when you rise to your feet, and you're dying for a drink of water and the cool breeze from a fan.

“Morning, sunshine,” Leon says, looking no worse for wear after the previous night. Hair a bit tousled, clothes wrinkled, but bright-eyed and aware. It's both infuriating and relieving.

“Definitely not a good one,” you grumble, because it's far too early to be awake and why are you even here in the first place? Chris could've handled it himself.

(God, you need to chug a glass of cold water. Swallow down a few ibuprofen while you're at it because pain makes you a certifiable asshole.)

Even in your youth, you hated mornings. Hated missing out on sleep, stumbling around for the better part of thirty minutes because nothing could get you awake. Hated the anxious, seven a.m. rush of the world.

A shit career you found for yourself, given that fact. Can't remember the last time you slept a full eight hours (your extracurriculars with Chris notwithstanding).

“I’m not a fan of mornings, either,” Leon says. Passes you a half-empty bottle of water from the nightstand, and you would hate to know how long it’s been there.

Long enough to taste earth-bitter and flat, but it hydrates the inside of your mouth to a blissful degree. You down the rest in three big gulps then squish up the plastic in a fist. The lukewarm water shaves down the edges of your teeth that crave something to chew on; a certain kind of clarity that rears its head only when your needs are met.

“Thank you,” you say, capping the bottle and tossing it beside him on the bed.

He nods. “Don't mention it.”

Chris leaves to smoke a cigarette outside as Leon begins packing what few things he brought with him. You plop down on the edge of the bed, unsure of how to breach the topic of his mental stability. But you feel like you should say something.

“So. How are things?” A rough start given the stare he cuts you with. “I just mean… well, you don't have to suffer alone like this. Chris cares about you, and I do, too. We wouldn't be here otherwise.”

Almost dying has a way of bringing people closer together.

He shoves a rolled-up shirt into his bag with a weary sigh. “I can handle it.”

“I know you can. But I know that shit gets heavy to carry around, so—”

“Yeah. I got it.”

You sit in a silence for a moment, the fabric of his jacket rustling as he scoops it off the floor then shakes the dirt off. Maybe you should clean a bit, take some stress off the workers. But Leon pins you with a look when you ask him for a broom. Says, “This is a motel. Nobody gives a shit.”

You sit back down.

Filth has never disturbed you. You've slept in places that weren't fit for human life, drank water swarming with viruses (in your defense, the order hadn't come through yet, and you suffered through half a dozen antidotal injections as punishment), but it's about the overarching intent of Leon being here. Whether a perfect reflection of his ground-through psyche or his self-taught deservedness for suffering, you aren't sure. It makes you sad regardless.

He sets his bag by the door and settles into the shitty couch, and you trail behind him. “Ya know, it took me a really long time before I ever felt like I could open to anybody. But once I did, it just… it felt nice. Can’t tell you how many times Chris saved me from myself.”

He scoffs. “Sounds like him.”

“He’s just trying to help. But you have to want it.”

“I don’t. Obviously.”

You nod. You've spent enough time around broken people to know when to shut up, to stop digging, and there's a blaring red stop sign over his head. “I know. But when you do, we'll be here.”

Chris Redfield is man, and he bleeds, and he flinches away from pain. He hates needles something fierce yet regularly requires them due to the job. One such example of the comedic irony that lives within him.

So you hold his hand while the stern-faced nurse begins an IV. He's pale in the face, grip weak, sweaty on the palms. Lucky to be alive. A mark of his mortality the deep, serrated gash slicing through the front of his thigh. A gnarly thing, makes your stomach drop when you think about it.

The nurse discards the needle and extra gauze then steps out in a rush, closing the door behind her. Beside you, tucked beneath two hospital blankets, comically large in the bed, Chris breathes a sigh of relief.

“So. How do I look?”

“Like shit.”

He winces, shifting his uninjured leg beneath the sheets. “Gonna be here a while, aren't I?”

“Probably not. Longest part'll be the PT.”

He shoots you a stern glare that tells you to shut the fuck up—a very rare showcase of off-the-field command. “It's not that bad.”

“It is that bad. You're lucky you still have a fucking leg.”

The air of the hospital room thickens. You know the unspoken, chain-of-command line you tread, the luxuries afforded to you because of the softness in his heart where you placed your claim. One such example: you can yell at him without reprimand. Best used when he's being a tunnel-vision dumbass.

You blink and the world bleeds red and there you are, back on the field with a roll of gauze in one hand and a tourniquet in the other. Nobody can find the goddamn medic and he'll be bled out by the time they get here. You bark orders to your team as the writhing mass of limbs and teeth begins to drag itself across the bridge, and you think of Spike.

Chris yowls at the last few turns of the rod.

Not again.

The missions grow more dangerous with each deployment. He denies this over and over and over, says the worst spike of bioterrorism was after Raccoon City, when Umbrella threw caution to the wind and stopped caring about cover-ups. When the government did it for them, when technology wasn’t like it is now.

But frequency and impact are two very different things, and you know an inevitable, a fork in the road, is soon to come.

That's always how these things end.

#leon kennedy x reader #chris redfield x reader #resident evil fanfic #chreadereon #series: don't fight the flesh #my fics #ns/ft

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starberry-cupcake · 1 year ago

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I'm back! Thank you so much for your patience and your kind messages and comments ♥ you are so nice about my silly ramblings, I appreciate it a lot.

previously, on harrowsoup the ninth:

this happened

also I posted this and this as previews and this is the whole tag

currently, chapters 23-26:

"an atmosphere of greater unease had settled over the mithraeum"

aka the emperor's bolthole

btw, no kidding, harrow, I hadn't noticed the unease

so, harrow asks around about the herald situation

I have another deck with dragon heralds but I'm not gonna go on a card tangent this time (you're welcome)

everyone gives terrible and useless descriptions

emperor johnny boy says "Whenever they come I am bundled off to a sealed sanctum at the heart of the Mitrhaeum, so that their insanity can't touch me"

asshole coward awful man

harrobean is trying to ask why emperor asshat is so sure about her having to die and if there's no way she can make it

emperor johnny says yandere twin isn't that good at being a lyctor yet, even if she's surprising and that if he was still giving silly names, he'd name her "Saint of Awe"

harrow thinks "that had not quite suited Naberius"

get perpetually owned, chad

harrow also mentions not being able to remember things well

YOU THINK, HARROW?

"it was as though your brain had formed a scab over everything that had happened to you"

I don't think that scab is healing well

emperor johnny insists on the rapier

idk why they all insist on the rapier

gideon and camilla didn't like it and were the fucking best cavaliers ever

ARE, THEY ARE THE BEST CAVALIERS EVER

PRESENT TENSE

but anyway, at this point, it could very well be emperor johnbro has aesthetic demands

not like he'll explain anything

harrowbean sees not!dulcinea's door closed, which isn't usual

she second guesses a bit because she can't always trust what she sees and she remembers crux saying "you saw what you saw, Lady, and the only thing you control now is your reaction thereto"

I didn't like that old man, but that's pretty cool of him to say

harrow opens the door and sees this

alleged gideon the first aka ortus tells harrow to go away very calmly and in a way that is too nice for him, apparently

harrow is upset at the display in front of her salad and goes to complain to yandere twin

which is a terrible place to complain at because she's both into gossip and into kink

if you want someone to take this seriously, that's the last place to go to

"at least you know who's been moving her—so to speak"

this is what we get combining yandere twin and chad

I've used that gif twice for her already

I forgive her, though, because she says "god is a dickhead" and she's right

she also asks harrow to try to remember why emperor john god has given her the sword

and establishes that harrow previously did something to her jaw so that she couldn't tell her

that's going in the 3d model

CHAPTER 24

apparently people are being less mean to harrowbean because they're already mourning her

harrow says that alleged gideon the first aka ortus has the name ortus because "it was just a banal and uncomfortable coincidence, as though he'd carried the name of a dead childhood pet"

she believes that the name must have caught on in the ninth because anastasia must have like brought it in and named people after her pal

I think he's named gideon

and that our gideon is named after him because of direct relationship of some capacity, maybe to someone involved

I considered the mom, but it's uncertain

in any case, he has to die

so, harrow puts a lot of wards and safety things in her room

kind of like this

home alone styling it

but apparently alleged gideon the first aka ortus can bypass wards

much like the sleeper/waker

much like not!dulcinea

wards are basically pointless, I guess, at this point

so he goes into her bathroom when she's bathing because here in the emperor's bolthole, everyone's a disrespectful asshole

harrowbean says he's "a thanergy void" and "the ultimate nemesis of a bone adept"

he tries to kill her while she's looking like this

I want to give this child some cocoa and play a comfort movie for her, like "the bone collector"

she ended up using the teeth she lost in the fight as projectiles in his eyes and got him to leave

she ended up bloody, unmoving, wet, naked and collapsed on the ground to which yandere twin live reacted to and left

she could have given her a hand

or an arm

she decided alleged gideon had to die and ice cube barbie aka probably annabel lee agreed

when gideon was among us, there was not enough time for her to throw hands at people and here there's so many people she could be throwing hands at and she's not here to do so

camilla too, but camilla threw hands at martita in a way that was legendary enough

CHAPTER 25

harrow goes with the chisme to dr reverend professor emperor john

she says "I swear by the Locked Tomb"

to which he replies "I wouldn't swear by that in this instance"

which I sure hope doesn't mean anything nasty with my girl ice cube barbie annabel lee because I'm gonna kill this man

she might not be entirely alive (maybe she is, maybe she's just suspended or something) but she deserves better than this piece of work

then he says "well, that's unfortunate"

this man really knows how to handle a situation, huh

emperor john says that it's pretty unlikely that alleged gideon the first aka ortus was doing the dirty with not!dulcinea because he never showed interest before and is "legendarily unamorous"

that's another tshirt I need

I need that one and the witch one immediately

also, now we've got a problem

not just because my telenovela about how this man might or might not be related to our gideon got more convoluted

but also because if alleged gideon is aroace, I'm gonna have to stan

I don't make the rules over here, I have to stand by my people

I have a conflict of interest now

emperor john also says "you must think us all a depraved set of immortal criminals"

I mean yes, I do, but not because of sexy times with zombies

I'm not here to judge the sexytimes of necromancers and whatever they do in their spare time

I don't know the intricacies of consent with ghosts or whatever, I can't be imparting judgment

it's not that, emperor john

it's because you're unpleasant war criminals who are killing planets for fun

well, the war criminal part I don't have hard evidence on rn but the situation doesn't seem to be in the favor of these people

I feel like when this man talks about the overall situation I'm getting a speech from emperor palpatine

emperor reverend john asks harrow, who has been awake for 25 years, to go to sleep

yeah, sure, she should go to sleep and wait for this guy to come by and try to kill her for the millionth time

meanwhile, harrowbean keeps collecting hours without sleep like

she makes, at the request of emperor camp counselor john, soup for everyone

I don't remember if it was here or before and I forgot but, this is extremely important

they mentioned cassiopeia being the one who cooked before

cassiopeia the same one with the ceramics collection, if I'm remembering correctly

cassiopeia who was also from the sixth, I think

camilla's house

she's checking every single one of my boxes like a sniper

why isn't she here, we're stuck with the grumpy one and the senior chad

ANYWAY, at the mention of harrow cooking I thought, immediately, "that's an awesome way to kill this guy"

I was picturing more like a poison type situation, although I didn't know how that could be achieved

something like this

but I should have known poison was too subtle for harrowcita

like I established back when protozoa's head was found in her closet, subtle isn't harrow's style

so it was more like this

basically, harrow sectioned her tibia to put some in the soup and then she could necrobend it so that it attacked from the inside

if I'm getting it right

insane plan and I love it

emperor john shadyman says "ten thousand years since I've eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn't really want an encore."

were they snacking on people during the Resurrection???

did they kill people by making lunch?????

???????????????????????????????????????????

"you think we're bad because we have sexy times with ghoulies?? uwu" that's the least of my concerns johnny john man

harrow then breaks down and asks straight to his face WHY THE FUCK MUST SHE SUFFER LIKE THIS

she calls herself a nonsense

the only nonsense here is what this emperor man speaks

she tells him she hasn't slept in six days

for a sleep deprived plan, it was excellent tbh

emperor man over here asks yandere twin to take her to sleep

and then stays with mercygirl to whom he says it's insane that harrow could do what she did and how did mercygirl miss that

this is the situation, as I have previously established

augustine looks at harrow "as if he had seen the ghost of someone he did not particularly like"

alleged gideon the first aka ortus salutes her on her way out

he doesn't even have heartburn

CHAPTER 26

we're back on gideon-less canaan house because it's time for more people to die

in ways that make 0 sense at all for what we know so far

regina george twin is pushed to her death by mayonnaise uncle

sounds fake to me

like, come on

regina george twin can probably murder that feeble guy on sight

we saw her spar with gideon, she wanted to be the cav that chad ended up being

she might not be a necro but she can stand her ground in a physical fight

mayonnaise uncle without duracell bunny nephew is like a sweaty guy on an anime con complaining about girls ruining everything while buying a maid figurine

she can take him

anyway, he does that and he says to her "and somewhere out there, may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered"

now, this is weird

is he talking about yandere twin?

he wants revenge because yandere twin obliterated him?

is yandere twin "out there"?

I'd say this might be limbo BUT CAMILLA ISN'T DEAD

harrow is going to him and he says "she has not remembered her end" "is this how it happens then?"

and then he yeeted himself into space

that's what I wanted to do with not!dulcinea all along

so, yeah, well, this canaan business is getting more complicated now that it's not just people being shot

people are throwing themselves and others into space

and the memories of harrow in the emperor's bolthole aren't completely lining up with these

and mayonnaise uncle seemed to have been more aware of things than others around here?? or maybe just more forthcoming??? in that cryptic otaku way of his

also, no camilla at all still

Things are heating up in the emperor's bolthole, hope to come back soon with another one and thanks for the patience, hope it was worth it.

#luly reacts to tlt #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #long post #gif cw

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laughhardrunfastbekindsblog · 8 months ago

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Recently read a post on social media from someone who shared that they don't understand why people complain about the lack of mourning for Tech in season 3, because in their opinion the depiction of grief was adequate, season 3 mentioned Tech several times, the squad are all soldiers and it had been 6 months so of course they've moved on, and what did we expect the squad to do, keep crying?

While I completely respect the person's opinion, I do feel the need to put out there that no, based on what I've seen, I highly doubt those of us who are dissatisfied with how Tech's apparent death was handled feel this way because the squad didn't completely fall apart and melt down in tears all the time.

Speaking for myself, at least, I wasn't expecting any of the brothers to have full-on conversations to work through their grief, and I certainly didn't expect waterworks from any of them (except maybe Wrecker, and he did shed some tears in the s2 finale).

I WAS hoping for something like "We're doing this for Tech" or "It's what Tech would have wanted" or even just a short scene of the entire family having a memorial for him. After all, real life soldiers DO honor their fallen brothers even if it's months after the battle, and even if they don't talk about their feelings or cry.

And given that the show has an EXCELLENT scene of one of those stoic soldiers actually honoring a fallen comrade (without talking or crying, I might add) and gaining some closure - Crosshair with Mayday's helmet - there is absolutely NO reason whatsoever why they couldn't have done something similar for Tech.

I didn't want season 3 to show the brothers perpetually stuck in mourning/grieving for Tech (which, ironically, is what the season pretty much ended up doing, and is precisely the reason why I find this aspect of the story to be so unsatisfying). I DID want season 3 to show the brothers healing from the loss of their brother, finding closure, and moving on to a point where they can openly honor and acknowledge him in meaningful ways, because Tech deserved at least that much from the family he had always loved and sacrificed for.

(For the record, while Tech has always been one of my favorites since day 1, if the show had killed off any of the other Bad Batch members and then handled their death the same way Tech's was handled, I'd be equally disappointed and dissatisfied. I don't think any of the Bad Batch needed to be killed off at all and I would have been devastated with any of their deaths; but if it "had" to be done, at the very least give them a Mayday moment!)

And in the end, this is just one of the major reasons why I'll be in the Tech Lives camp forever.

#the bad batch #star wars the bad batch #tbb tech #just sharing my thoughts #tech lives #bring tech home #if the show couldn't be bothered to let the family heal and move on from tech's death then i'm gonna be over here keeping tech alive

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martyrbat · 2 years ago

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heres your reminder to go read the first story in the 1996 comic batman black and white

#id in alt #but yeah.....#perpetual mourning posting #posts from the crypt

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rivetgoth · 13 days ago

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Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse (and to a lesser extent Cleanse Fold And Manipulate) represent such an interesting transitional period for Skinny Puppy to me. Chalk it up to Bill Leeb’s departure and Dwayne Goettel still finding his footing as a new addition to the lineup. It feels like by the time you get to what I think most would pretty confidently call Skuppy’s “golden era,” that is VIVIsect Vi, Rabies, Too Dark Park, and Last Rights, you would never see something like “Love” into “Stairs And Flowers” or “Draining Faces” into “The Mourn” right in the middle of an album again. The latter albums have this tightly edited cohesiveness and … maturity? … that isn’t present in the same way in M:TPI or CF&M.

You could almost say that CF&M is the last time Skinny Puppy feels “gothic,” or derived from “being goth,” if you want to be pedantic about genre-binaries (I think it’s unhelpful to argue if Skuppy is or is not goth, personally, but bear with me here). Skinny Puppy was always inspired by goth music, with early early Skuppy, where Ogre cites The Cure’s Pornography and Joy Division’s Closer as major inspirations, most obviously calling to that. “Smothered Hope,” “Sleeping Beast,” “Basement,” “Dead Doll,” all evoke that cold, dark, horror-infused, tormented gothic agony that the band would have been channeling pretty directly from artists like Ian Curtis. And I think that this lingers in the aesthetics and samples scattered across M:TPI and CF&M, both possessing that kind of macabre omnipresent darkness that gets replaced in later albums with something more novel—fully crafted worlds from the minds of the band members themselves. To compare something like the cawing crows that open “Draining Faces” or the, uh, chainsaw in “Chainsaw,” to the psychedelic Lovecraftian storms that rage across Too Dark Park or the drugged out post-apocalyptic nightmare wasteland of Last Rights is actually kind of crazy.

That said, this isn’t indicative of the actual quality of the songs or albums themselves, nor is it wholly black or white, obviously. I adore every Skuppy album deeply and I love every song I’ve mentioned. “First Aid” and “Second Tooth” have some of the most biting commentary on major societal and systemic issues of any songs I know of the era, “God’s Gift (Maggot)” and “Anger” are some of the heaviest, most intense, insane songs I know of, “Addiction” is one of my favorite songs of literally all time, etc. This is pointedly not intended to be derisive towards these albums. I think Cleanse Fold And Manipulate in particular represents in many ways the absolute pinnacle of Skinny Puppy’s sound at its purest and it might be the album I most often default to if someone wants to start listening to them. I think the fact that it is simpler in a way than later albums makes it marginally more accessible, it retains a lot of that kinda bouncy danciness that made early tracks like “Assimilate” dancefloor staples to this day, while still having all of that heavy edge and complexity that makes Skuppy soooooo good.

But like, it is hilarious in a way, that when you consider the noxious greens of the VIVIsect VI album cover paired with the content of the songs—how hellish and horrific it is to be guided through tracks “VX Gas Attack,” “Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.),” “State Aid,” or “Hospital Waste,” songs that permeate disease and the degradation the human body and depravity of humanity in these utterly visceral ways, even the closest thing to a reprieve being “Testure”—it makes a song built from samples of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 feel adolescent in comparison.

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sirnotsircos · 3 months ago

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Fleur De Morte Ch.1

Hello! There are 4 Chapters to Fleur De Morte. I'll post them as they are edited and ready to go.

This takes place in Dragon 9:49, so three years before Veilguard, and if you've read "Eight little Talons" I've set that in Dragon 9:48 about 6 or so months before this fic. At this point Money is 24!

When I tell you I have a timeline I meant i have a timeline!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monroe wiped their mouth with the back of their hand. What was left of the colourless ointment rolled off on their skin and dissolved in the warm water of the wash basin. Monroe licked their lips, a mild waxy taste, akin to lipstick, but nothing more. What a waste. Monroe mourned the Pillow Talk they never got to use, sitting dormant in its vial stashed somewhere amongst the cluttered vanity. They’d been so close to drawing all the wimpers and moans, all the truths and secrets from those perpetually wine stained lips.

Monroe slid into the seat of their vanity and sorted away their potions. The perfumes and oils lined up in order of most expensive first for prying eyes and the actual poisons and serums slotted into the spring loaded compartment to the side of the unit. The afternoon, while not unpleasurable, was entirely underwhelming.

Avitus, a magister born to piss away his wealth and status, had arrived too soon and unannounced. Monroe had been expecting to chase, not to be chased. A hazard of being trained by Teia, and in a way Viago. Seduction, a tool and efficiency, a virtue.

At around midday there would be a recess in meetings that would make for a splendid surprise encounter. No time to ask questions, no time to wager risk and doubt. Just passion. It was charming in a way, how Avitus had the same idea. Monroe sighed, they almost felt bad. Avitus was the youngest son, thus the one who shouldered the least responsibility. Despite this he did a lot of talking and arguing and a lot of making a reputation for himself. He spoke with the commanding air of the mediocre idealist and none of the substance required to inspire action. He was an extra chair for his family to occupy, nothing more.

But he was loyal, hence the Pillow Talk.

He was also a perfect mark. Monroe had been contracted three months ago to infiltrate the inner circle of Drusus, the oldest of the brothers, and perpetuate his assassination. In all actuality it was Viago’s contract, one worthy of a Talon. Drusus was a big target, someone who demanded either a lot of manpower or a lot of time. Viago could afford neither, but he could contract someonelse's time.

Monroe caught the scent of the eucalyptus bunch hanging in the window before they heard the minuscule whine of the shutters. They saw a flash to the right, sending them left just in time for a dagger to sail past them and hit the mirror’s frame with a thud.

In the window sat Teia clad in traveler’s leathers, her curls coiled up in a tight spiraled braid. It was getting dark, the winter months saw the sun setting as early as four in the afternoon. She had no doubt not been seen, she was never seen.

“The fuck-” Monroe was on their feet, three throwing daggers clenched in their hand from a compartment nailed to the underside of their chair.

“Money,” Teia grinned, Monroe swore they heard a laugh at the edges of her voice, “you were slower than I expected.”

“I dodged,” Monroe shrugged, tucking the throwing knives away. They stood and opened their arms, Teia climbed down from the windowsill and met them in a hug, “What are you doing here?”

“Being dead,” Teia grinned.

“Huh?” Monroe quirked an eyebrow.

“Can I?” Teia gestured to the vanity stool and sat as Monroe nodded, “I died, have to lay low, hence the window.”

“You died in Minrathous?”

“Yep.”

“For how long?”

Teia shrugged.

This clarified nothing. Monroe assumed it was something way above their pay grade.

“Vi’s coming by the way,” she was going through the bottles of perfume on the vanity, scrutinizing the labels. “Can I have this one?”

“When I’m done,” Monroe shrugged, eyeing the expensive bottle, “it’s a gift from a suitor.”

Teia wiggled her eyebrows and placed the bottle back on the vanity. Her fingers danced across the bottles, the charms and tassles swayed and clinked against the glass. In the lantern light of the room Monroe could see Teia clearer, and her state of subtle disarray. Her hair was damp, freshly washed, her skin red and dry, scrubbed clean with no normal after bathing aftercare.

“Rough ni—” Monroe was cut off by a quick succession of knocks, five exactly. Teia and Monroe shared a knowing look.

“Hello?” Monroe sang, sounding blissfully unaware, while blissfully aware. Viago was probably fuming, undercover wasn’t his thing. The fact that to the outside world he was standing outside a high end escort’s room must have been causing some kind of internal meltdown to occur. Monroe revelled in it.

Silence. Uncomfortable silence.

“Are you in?” Came Viago’s voice, obviously through clenched teeth.

Teia stifled a giggle. Monroe mauled over a handful of ways to drag this out, a few phrases to make him squirm. They settled on a pause, just long enough to be intentional but just short enough to interrupt the moment Viago got impatient enough to speak up.

“Just a moment,” Monroe mused.

When they opened the door Viago’s face was drawn up in a scowl, his eyes wide with annoyance. He’s going to kill me, was Monroe's first thought. Their second thought was that they were glad Teia was there, because Viago was always nicer when Teia was there.

“Hello, handsome gentleman,” Monroe gave a grin, less sly and suggestive than the one they normally greeted their guests with.

“Caria,” Viago sounded pained even uttering the faux name, “are you busy?”

Monroe blinked politely, “Am I?”

“Not particularly,” Teia hummed, inspecting an ornate compact housing rose coloured powder.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he huffed, threw up his arms and strode in annoyed, “you’re already here?”

“You’re slow,” she grinned.

“I-” Viago cut himself off, “ you left a mess.”

“I never leave messes,” Teia blinked innocently.

“Never?” Viago raised a brow and grinned.

“No thank-you,” Monroe made a face, “no mom and dad sex talk.”

“We weren’t —” Teia began.

“That’s not what —-” Viago rolled his eyes.

Monroe just held up their hands and shivered with the deep feeling of grossness that washed over them.

Teia, as it turned out, had a boat to catch that evening, Monroe’s temporary apartment was close enough to the docks that she had convinced Viago her visit was strictly logical. Viago, on the other hand, was staying in the city for some time, first to help in Teia’s extraction and secondly to start the end game for the Drusus assassination. He had four agents stationed in Minrathous, one was a low level servant, hired for garden work, another a coachman, and the third, aside from Monroe, was working as a caretaker in the meeting halls. Every other agent seemed to be assigned to find the where and the how, Monroe of course was tasked with the when, which in the world of assassination is the hardest part.

Dinner was ordered up to the room, Viago spent a very long time testing the different elements with all sorts of brews and concoctions, and they ate. Well Monroe and Teia ate, Viago grazed, still entirely unconvinced of the quality of the meal. Rich boy. Monroe liked to take jabs at Viago’s decadent sensibilities. It was part of the reason he never went undercover, that and the poison paranoia. Monroe often joked that Viago had only recruited them because he needed someone to do all the jobs he didn’t feel like doing himself. Viago agreed readily every time. He’d even referred fondly to Monroe as his “most worthwhile investment” a handful of times.

“You know they charge me for the whole plate,” Monroe mumbled surveying the scattered remains of Viago’s plate, only the moist inside of the bread were eaten, the hardened outside of the cheese sliced off, the centers of the sliced sausage missing.

“The centre is the hardest part to poison,” Viago shrugged. Liar.

“There’s kind of a nice metaphor in there somewhere,” Teia hummed, picking at the centreless round of sausage from his plate.

“Hm,” Viago rolled his eyes playfully and unhooked a small flask from his hip, taking a swig with no hesitation and no grimace. Wine. Sometimes it was diluted poison.

“I have bottles you know,” Monroe gestured to a crate in the corner with a hinged lid that housed non-perishables and wine, lots of wine.

“ Your wine?” Teia gasped, “you mean bottles of snake venom?”

“Deathroot extract actually,” Monroe corrected, “venom gets lumpy after a while.”

“My apologies,” Teia hung her head, “ I did not mean to insult you, master poisoner.”

“I know-” Viago said through tight lips, “ you two are making fun of me, but neither of those would work well with wine. You taste both.”

Monroe made a mental note, as much as Viago’s poison paranoia was a quirk to pick and prod at, he was in fact a master poisoner and more deadly than Monroe and Teia combined. Poisoning took time and patience and Monroe wasn’t particularly good at utilizing either, they were much better at luring and striking. Which is why they’d been so surprised when Viago had contracted them for this job. Not that Monroe hadn’t gone undercover before but they were usually short term jobs or travel personas. Monroe had been living as Caria for months now.

“Speaking of assassination,” Viago turned to Monroe, “report.”

“I’m doing good, thanks for asking,” because, in his own way, he was, “ Avitus came by earlier, wanted to see me before he left for a trip next week.”

“Avitus doesn’t have a trip on his itinerary,” Viago’s brow furrowed, he no doubt memorized every shred of information his agents had fed him.

“Nor does Drusus, and yet —” Monroe nodded towards the vanity, “he’s leaving tomorrow night for a meeting outside of Vyrantium.”

A trip so close to Vyrantium, a city nearly completely under siege by the Antaam, could only mean there were nefarious talks underway. While Money knew little of the reason behind the contract, they'd guessed it had something to do with the Antaam's sudden increased in fire power and the suspicious lack of Venatori intervention in the last few months in Vyrantium. While Avitus was too simple to be a Venatori mastermind, Drusus was a different story.

Teia pushed her stool back as Monroe pulled open the left drawer, amongst a litany of combs and hair oils they fished out a bound pack of papers.

“Letters, notes, missives,” Monroe explained, “some given, some taken.”

As Monroe unfolded the bundle they explained each piece, some were patterns they’d noticed, preferred lounges, regular meetings, pseudonyms they managed to narrow down. Most importantly, Monroe had managed to tip a waitress into translating a document they’d swiped whilst Avitus had bathed. The letter detailed a trip, of course written in code, but the same one Avitus and his brothers had used in their other communications before. Drusus was set to leave Minrathous a full week ahead of his brothers.

“Reduced collateral,” Viago hummed.

“If the goal is to keep his solo travels secret he’ll have a smaller personal guard,” Teia agreed, “all we have to do is get eyes on him before he leaves the city.”

“He’s traveling by carriage,” Monroe said, pulling a ledger page from the bundle, “the rest are traveling by boat, so he’s headed in-land. He’ll be leaving from the west side of the city.”

“I can have people ready -” Viago cut himself short.

They’d all heard it, the second top most step gave a whine as someone ascended to the third floor. Viago stepped clear of the door, should Monroe have to answer a knock he’d rather be unseen. Teia did the same, pressing herself against the wall next to the vanity. They waited for a moment, Monroe humming to themself as they gathered the bundle silently, tucking the papers into Viago’s outstretched hand. Then it came, three light knocks.

“Morraine,” Monroe sighed quietly, “staff.”

Viago and Teia released their breaths but stayed tucked away.

“Coming, love,” Monroe called. On the other side of the door stood Morraine, she was half Monroe’s height and had wirey grey hair scooped up in a slouching bun, in her hand was a bottle of wine with a fine gold seal.

“That man’s sent you something right nice,” she muttered curtly then rummaged around her apron's big pocket, “an’ a letter.”

“Thank-you, Mory” Monroe smiled sweetly, “between you and me, I think the wine would be better enjoyed by the staff?”

Morriane smiled for the first time, her grin filled with greyed teeth. She enjoyed wine.

“Certainly,” Morraine nodded happily, bringing the bottle to her chest as if it were treasure.

“The letter?” Monroe reminded her. Moraine could’t care less, tossing the letter over the shoulder as she turned. Monroe caught it as it fluttered through the door frame, the thick cardstock and ornate seal confirming it was a letter from Avitus. For what was supposed to be secret correspondence, Avitus had an inability to be unremarkable. Every letter he sent was always gilded and gaudy.

“Test it,” Viago huffed when Monroe began breaking the seal.

“Vi-” Monroe ceased their protests as the letter was snatched from their hands.

Viago ran a series of tests, a spritz of some kind of root juice here, a swab and mix there. In a turn of events both Monroe and Teia saw coming, the letter was unpoisoned.

It was a last minute request, a secret rendezvous under the stars. Romantic both Monroe and Teia had agreed, stupid Viago frowned. Monroe got the feeling, as Avitus had left earlier that afternoon he’d not gotten his fill, yet his afternoon meetings couldn’t wait any longer. It should have been expected. Another chance for Pillow Talk perhaps.

“It’s dark enough,” Viago looked out the window, off towards the docks, “Teia we should get going.”

“ Goodbye mi amor,” Teia reached up and grabbed Monroes shoulder, pulling them down so she could place a kiss on their crown, “you’re too tall.”

“Sorry, I’ll shrink for next time,” Monroe grinned, pulling her in for a hug, “I’ll be back soon.”

“You will,” Viago agreed, “this is almost done.”

“Next job, Vi,” Monroe spoke through Teia’s bun, “can I just be the end game guy, I miss good coffee.”

“We’ll see,” Viago smiled to himself, he’d never tell Monroe how much he’d missed them. Although, he considered throwing out a stray comment about needing them back sooner rather than later to help control Jacobus and his thirst for action. Instead he settled with a rare bout of sincerity, “you’ve done good work.”

I’m proud of you.

They both left through the window, Viago considered leaving the way he’d come but figured Morriane would be too deep in her bottle to notice if he came or went. Monroe locked the shutters, as nice as Teia’s unannounced visit had been, they preferred their guests to use the door. The room was quiet and empty, the same quiet and empty it had been since they got here. There was no squabbling or grotesque shows of awkward affection, no feldglings to rile up on a midnight excursion or Heir attempting to tame said intensity the next morning. Instead it was pretty peaceful all things considered, Minrathous was a city filled with action and scandal but Monroe found themself rather alone in it all.

Soon, they reassured themself as they say at the vanity to ready themself for their late night rendezvous.

#dragon age veilguard #rook #rook de riva #viago de riva #teia cantori

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scuttlingcrab · 3 months ago

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BoneDaddy prompt because I’m also suffering the brain rot!! Emmrich tending to a nasty slice on rooks ribs, tender kisses and then… well, who can say where it leads. But, you know. Nothing cures wounds like tender breathless make outs and orgasms, as they say.

Thank you so much for this prompt @keepingupwiththekardamomme! I took a few liberties with this one, hoping to save some of the smutty stuff for a later post, but this includes lots of sexual tension and wound tending after a near death battle with darkspawn. Just another day for the Veilguard. I hope you enjoy and please send me more!

(Also this was heavily inspired by this amazing post by @sailorsatina!)

Summary: Emmrich and Rook are fighting for their lives in the Hossberg Wetlands, barely escaping a sea of darkspawn. After saving Rook from the brink of death, they share an intimate moment discussing some of Rook's past scars and perhaps what the future may hold for them both.

Notes: A continuation of the last story, the Perfect Teacher.

You can find it on AO3 too.

BTW! I'm open to receiving any/all prompts on Emmrich, so please send away! xx

Old Wounds

(Image via oni-ino)

First came the explosions, the blistering blight erupting, the ground quaking from the deafening thunder of a horde of darkspawn emerging from pools of corruption. With them arrived the screams, the chaos, and the abject terror.

Emmrich Volkarin was haunted by the shrieks, the hair on his arms standing tall. If he had known any better, he would’ve listened to that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that was clawing at him from the inside, warning him to take flight. Flee you imbecile! Get as far away from that wretched growth as possible! Run or you’ll die here, you’ll die, is that what you desire? RUN!

He was accustomed to his fair share of horrors during his tenure in the Mourn Watch, most of which precipitated from the transgressions of mortalkind. Even so, nothing could have prepared him for the atrocities that were Ghilan'nain’s creations.

These animated sacks of flesh, haphazardly thrown together from a hodgepodge of heads and torsos and limbs, were ghastly abominations. It left a sour taste in Emmrich’s mouth at the notion of how they came to be, the lack of respect for each vessel that once harvested souls of the living—it went against everything he stood for as a necromancer. And yet, there was nothing he could do to help these creatures but obliterate them. Over and over and over again. Stuck in this perpetual state of fear, of helplessness.

These darkspawn had an uncanny intelligence, going far beyond being mere puppets of Ghilan'nain. When Emmrich got too close, fighting toe-to-toe, more times than he’d like to admit in the recent days—their deep-set eyes, glazed over yet frenzied, glowered at him. As if they were searching his very essence for something to claim, to infect, to turn him into one of their own. Some of them knew how to counter his attacks, to dodge his necrotic spells. They were learning, adapting, at an alarming rate. And they’d do anything to rip him apart. Emmrich gulped, an ache in the back of his throat as he tried to soothe the blasted nerves.

Rook, Davrin, and Emmrich were in the Hossberg Wetlands, sent out by the Grey Wardens to investigate some recent disturbances in the area. They had followed a trail of blighted roots to a cliffside, discovering a massive boil sitting in the centre of some ruins. It pulsed irregularly like a festering wound, the rotten stench making it increasingly difficult for Emmrich to keep his breakfast down. As soon as they approached it, the air changed, growing heavier as darkspawn sprouted into existence, more boils forming around it. The group were separated instantly in an attempt to eradicate the increasing number, to keep the blight at bay.

Rook and Davrin were at opposite sides of the ruins as they continued to repel their own swarms. Emmrich couldn’t tell if their work had any impact at all on the blight, how long they had been fighting for, or if they were about to be overtaken … swallowed whole by the corruption…. He had never seen so many darkspawn in one place, and they were all charging towards him. Him! A professor with no inclination of battle tactics, whose only proper tussle was once punching a fellow colleague, twice,for accusing him of plagiarism. And he would’ve punched him thrice more if given the chance…

With each burst of necrotic energy, Emmrich’s limbs grew heavier, his fingers twitching in an effort to keep his staff held high. Behind, to the right, up above, and back behind, to the left, the right, the left ! Everywhere! His pulse raced, the sound of his heartbeat thrashed in his ears, drowning out the howls of the darkspawn. No rest, no moment to breathe. Go. Move. Dodge. Back! He knew he was exerting himself too fast, his mana depleting quicker than a sinking boat without a hull—but it was impossible to do otherwise if he wanted to survive.

The darkspawn pushed in closer, manically swinging their weapons, ripping off parts of themselves to throw at Emmrich like spears. He took a step forward, his foot wobbling as a rush of wind slapped his cheeks, barely ducking in time to miss another clawed attack. One more step to the side and he was teetering, spots of black peppering his vision.

“Assan, NOW!” Davrin boomed, his voice cutting through the bedlam.

Assan shrieked in response, the griffon diving from above and scorching the earth in front of Emmrich, incinerating the darkspawn that had been breathing down his neck. He fell to his knees, panting, cold sweat building at the crook of his neck, as he stared at the blackened ground in front of him.

Oh thank the…

The ground vibrated again. Thump. Thump. Thump! Each tremor made its way through Emmrich’s fingers as he gripped the dirt, travelling to the very tip of his skull, his teeth rattling. Thump. Thump. Thump!

By the time Emmrich could pull his head up, the dread was already pooling in his chest, his body locking in response. An ogre bolted in his direction, parting the darkspawn that remained with each stride as it picked up momentum.

Was it Rook’s shouting or the guttural howls of the ogre that came first? Emmrich couldn’t recall. He inhaled sharply, bracing himself for the incoming blow.

Rook slid in front of Emmrich just as the ogre’s club swung at him. She released a pulsing surge of magic to shield the attack, a purple orb hugging them both. Its club met the shield, and it somehow held, ripples from its impact coursing through the mana.

Swipe, after swipe, after swipe. The ogre was relentless. It hammered down on them, each blow weakening the shield, leaving it closer to splintering. Rook tensed, gritting her teeth as she concentrated on keeping it together. Emmrich squeezed Rook’s shoulder, hoping to pass along any energy he had left.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted a small crack forming underneath the ogre. It grew, quickly travelling to the edge of the cliff. More fissures formed, each one bigger than the last, until the ground crumbled. Emmrich didn’t have time to gasp, to scream, let alone think of any last regrets, before the earth fell away. The ogre disappeared into the darkness below them, Rook slipping from his grasp as they both joined it… falling…. falling… falling…

---

“Emmrich. EMMRICH!”

Emmrich’s lungs burned as he gasped for air, liquid spewing from his mouth. His eyes shot open, blurry, stinging. He pulled at his armour, struggling to free himself from the confines of his clothing. Too much! The fabric felt foreign against his skin, weighing him down, the pressure mounting, mounting, mounting!

The world soon came back into focus and his breathing slowed. A shadow loomed over him, their shape, their features becoming more distinct with each inhale, each exhale… It was Rook. Rook. She knelt beside him, one hand pressed against his chest, the other cradling his head.

“Thank fuck.” She blurted, staggering to her feet.

Emmrich rose, leaning on his elbows, coughing up any remaining fluids. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in… It was wet. Everything was… clammy. Why was he drenched? He blinked again, looking down at his hands. They were submerged in shallow murky water, along with the rest of his body. He was sitting in a pool of it, one of the countless marshes in the Hossberg Wetlands.

“I… Rook, I’m in your debt.”

“You can thank me later, Emmrich. We’re not out of this yet.” Rook extended her right hand, eyes fraught as she scanned their surroundings. “Can you get up?”

He paused, eyebrow raised in question before grabbing hold of her hand. In one swift motion, she hoisted him to his feet. Emmrich reeled slightly as he found his bearings. Rook grimaced at the movement, clutching both fists as she turned, preparing to march the opposite way.

“It seems so, yes. But are you alright? Let me—”

“We need to go. More are coming.”

“More?”

As if on cue, high pitched screeches came from behind them. Emmrich jerked his head back, eyes widening as the recollections of the past few hours resurfaced, jolting his memory of the severity of their predicament—the consequences if they failed, the darkspawn…

The cliff where they had fallen from was ablaze, the fire roaring, devouring the blight as the flames licked high into the sky. A flood of darkspawn ran down the precipice, falling on top of each other as they fled, giving the illusion that the mound was increasing in size. Assan circled above, every so often diving at the waves of darkspawn and calling out to his master.

“Davrin…” Emmrich began, “Is he…”

“Alive. Yes. He’s finishing the job. He’ll be able to find us when it’s safe… I hope.”

Emmrich nodded, there was no time to doubt. The sounds of the approaching darkspawn grew louder with every second wasted and Emmrich loathed the thought of having to fight any more in his state. They started running, sloshing through the marshes. His bones ached, a stabbing pain spreading from his ribs, worsening with each stomp. He kept his eyes on Rook as they continued, her movements stiff, posture slouched, dissimilar from her usual gait. She was wounded, but he couldn’t discern the severeness, not while they were still in danger.

Everything around them blended into one as they ventured deeper into unfamiliar territory. One decaying tree after another, passing identical ruins, and bog after bog after bog… it was growing increasingly difficult for Emmrich to make sense of their surroundings. Any signs of the darkspawn that had been chasing them vanished however, silence enveloping them save for their own ragged breaths, as it all became a distant thought. A nightmare.

“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Emmrich asked eventually.

Rook didn’t respond. Strange. She was always so quick to retort in that humorous way of hers, and since their impromptu dance a few nights back, she had offered him more banter than usual, riddled with innuendos—an added layer compared to how she spoke to the other companions. Instead Rook swayed, clutching her right side as her movements slowed. She stumbled, falling onto the closest tree to keep her upright.

“Rook!”

She raised her hand in protest, shaking away any kind of help from Emmrich as he approached.

“I’m fine. I…need, I know how…”

Rook slumped forward and Emmrich caught her before she fell to the ground. He helped her back to her feet, breath catching at her disposition. Rook’s face was pallid, lips tight. She winced with each gulp of air, her eyes flickering as she struggled to keep them open. Her short plum coloured hair was knotted around her forehead, now near burgundy from the blood and dirt that caked it.

“Have to… can’t…if we…”

Rook pulled herself out of Emmrich’s arms in an attempt to walk on her own volition. She immediately keeled over, crumpling into herself as she cried out in pain.

“No more heroics, please.” Emmrich whispered, carefully picking her back up. “We must seek refuge, it will give me an opportunity to tend to your wounds.”

Rook looked up at Emmrich, head lolling, eyes glassy as she laughed at his words.

“Oh do be serious, Rook. You’re—”

An eerie, primal howl filled the air, unlike any of the other sounds that came from the darkspawn he had encountered so far. He instinctively held Rook closer, not wanting to let her go, as his mind theorised a thousand variations of monsters, ghouls, or other atrocities that were likely coming in his direction.

“Run…” Rook whispered.

“I… yes. We run! Of course. Hold on, Rook.”

Emmrich cleared his throat, taking a deep breath as he steadied his core. He lifted Rook, carrying her in his arms as he darted forward. It was sloppy but they were moving, as fast as he could manage. The pain in his chest was unbearable, the world around him uneven.

“You need to h…”

“Hush.” He responded, out of breath, “save your energy.”

Emmrich rushed towards an approaching rock face, nearly slipping when his boots met the muddy rocks. His eyes searched for any sign of cover, a hide-out, a cave, or possibly… Yes! A cabin! A small dilapidated cabin sat atop a small hill, nestled against the base of another crag. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. He sprinted towards the structure, and within a matter of seconds was inside it. The cabin was small and most importantly, vacant of mortals and monsters. A single bed sat against the far wall, with a tiny stove and kitchen near the door.

He delicately placed Rook down on the bed before barricading the door behind him, finding whatever furniture and abandoned items he could to shove against the entrance. Much good that would do, really, with an enormous hole in the ceiling and a single gust of wind likely to knock down the entire structure… but it gave him peace of mind.

A long moment passed, Emmrich waiting on bated breath for another noise, for something to burst through the door… but it was silent. Emmrich leaned against the wall, letting out a long pained sigh as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. His chest throbbed, he could feel his sides swelling. Likely a broken rib, or two.

“Where…” Rook whimpered, her words barely audible, but Emmrich spun around, rushing towards her.

“I’m here. We’re safe. We’re safe. For now.”

Rook’s eyes were closed, but she smiled faintly. Her skin was paler than Emmrich would’ve liked to see on someone who was still living. She was shivering, sweat collecting on her forehead. He placed his hand on her cheek and recoiled.

“You’re boiling, Rook. This is… far worse than I thought. I will need to act fast. Do you trust me?”

She only groaned in response, eyes still shut.

“I will take that as a yes. Now brace yourself Rook, and my sincere apologies for any pain this may cause.”

Emmrich lightly rearranged Rook’s body so she was lying straight on the bed. He searched her person until he found a standard dagger, unsheathing it.

“I’m going to take off your armour, which may cause some discomfort.”

Emmrich used the dagger to slice through Rook’s leathers. He peeled away the first two layers of protection, and what garments remained underneath were drenched in blood. He cut the tunic in two until her top half was bare before him. Rook writhed in pain with every slight movement, digging her nails into the bed as he worked.

“Oh, my dear Rook…” Emmrich shook his head as he discovered a gaping wound on her side, spanning from her underarm to the middle of her ribcage. “With my current limitations, my healing won't be the strongest. But rest assured, I will do my best.”

Emmrich hovered his hand above the wound. He moved his fingers in slow circles as if stirring a cup of tea. He closed his eyes, searching deep within himself for an ounce of mana left, anything that he can use, hoping, praying to whoever might be listening, that there was some power not expended.

His fingertips glowed as flows of green magic poured into Rook’s side, the wound gradually closing, turning into a long raised scar as the skin reformed. Without notice, Emmrich’s focus faltered, cutting him off from the source. He collapsed on his knees, clinging to the bed.

Rook opened her eyes, colour steadily returning to her cheeks as the remnants of his mana coursed through her body. She turned to him, brows furrowed in concern.

“Emmrich…”

“It seems I’ve… I’ve exhausted myself. I did what I could, but you must rest.”

“You’re mad. You should’ve sorted your injuries first.”

“Nonsense. Mine are inconsequential.” Emmrich lifted himself so he was now sitting on the corner of the bed, running his hands through his hair to regain any semblance of balance. “It's been... decades since I've healed a wound with that intensity. I’m afraid I might’ve left a scar.”

He glanced at her side, his cheeks burning at the realisation her upper body was still exposed.

“Oh, how dreadfully rude of me, here…”

Emmrich quickly gathered some of the discarded bedsheets and handed them to Rook, bowing his head in an apology.

“It’s OK.” Rook murmured, slowly sitting up. She took the sheets from Emmrich, loosely covering the front of her chest. She flinched, her side still tender, as she looked down at the freshly healed wound.

“I don’t mind. The uh, scars, I mean.”

“It will make quite the addition to your collection.”

“Oh, yeah. Hard not to notice them all, I guess. I’ve got so many.”

“I find them beautiful, Rook. Our flaws hold such unique truths. Stories of victories, resilience, pain, redemption. Even the most minute blemish can tell us so much about how a person lived.”

Rook smiled, placing a hand on his forearm.

“Usually I get annoyed with fancy talk, but there’s something about you that… I just… well, I could listen to you yap all day about scars, or anything else for that matter.”

“Ah, speaking of which, may I inspect the wound, there’s something I—”

Rook’s words, although they weren’t as scandalous as some of the previous things she’s whispered in passing, hit him like a boulder. He paused, back straightening as he looked at her. Her smile had grown, cheeks flushed. He tilted his head in hesitation, checking her eyes on the off chance she had also obtained a head injury.

Emmrich cleared his throat, his mouth was dry. Again. An annoyance, truly, as he found this a constant side effect whenever he was alone in her presence.

“Your wound, Rook. May I?” He gestured to her side.

Rook nodded.

Emmrich ran his fingers over the scar, ensuring there were no mishaps, no chance of it ever reopening. He hummed in approval, quite satisfied with his work, despite the shoddy circumstances. And yet, when he was done, his fingers lingered on Rook’s skin. He couldn’t bring himself to remove them, instead he slid his digits down her side, tracing them along every scar he could find.

“Your scars…” Emmrich whispered, “may I see more?”

Rook shivered under Emmrich’s touch, but she turned her back towards him, showcasing the vast expanse of scars and blemishes that covered her muscular frame. Emmrich suppressed a gasp, his fingers trembling as they followed the different shapes and textures, leading down to her tailbone.

“How exquisite…” he whispered, “like a painting. A work of art.”

His eyes greedily absorbed the scars, trying to savor the moment, capture the intricate details on every aged wound, the variations in colour, the raised lesions, recognising the types of weapons, spells, that might’ve caused them.

“What a life you’ve led, Rook. I've only a few scars, due to… more unfortunate occurrences, and no doubt less grandiose from all you’ve experienced outside the Mourn Watch.”

He leaned in closer, to inspect them, his body temperature rising along with the temptation to kiss her… to replace his fingers with his lips…

Emmrich stiffened, shaking his head in shame as if he had committed some heinous crime. But it might as well have been, letting these emotions get the best of him, under such damning events. This was not the time, nor the place. And this was absolutely NOT how he conducted himself! You dolt! What kind of gentleman would he be if he succumbed to his lust, these emotions… he’d be no better off than some of his former lovers.

As he attempted to remove any trace of vulgar thoughts from his mind, one scar in particular caught his eye. A pale circular lesion that covered nearly her entire left shoulder blade. He traced circles around it, massaging the skin, as Rook melted into his hands.

“Tell me, how did you get this one?”

“Um… that one… oh! A bar fight, ha. Hanged Man in Kirkwall. Went there with Varric once to follow a lead apparently, but between us, I think it was for a book signing.”

“Book signing?”

“Mmm. Remind me, Emmrich… to show you some of his books when we’re back at the Lighthouse. You might be shocked to know what Varric gets up to in his free time.”

“Ah,” Emmrich hesitated, removing his hands from her back. “Did you want to talk about Var—”

Rook spun around, leaning towards Emmrich in an attempt to kiss him. Their lips almost touched but she winced at the last possible moment, holding onto her side as she collapsed on top of him. Emmrich nearly fell off the bed, cringing from the embarrassment and pain from his ribs.

“Rook.”

“Too much?” She steadied herself, looking back at him sheepishly.

Emmrich stared back at her, narrowing his eyes in disappointment, but ended up softening under her gaze all the same.

“I’ve thought about this moment…” Emmrich turned away, sighing dramatically.

“Aw, what? You mean tending to my wounds? I knew you were charming, but this is a whole new level.”

“No. No not that. I’d enjoy nothing more than to… to share this moment with you further, Rook, but my dear, you’re still wounded, you’ve lost blood… It would be unbecoming. And until we’ve returned to the Lighthouse your safety is my greatest priority.”

Rook giggled, leaning in again, but Emmrich held her steady.

“Later, Rook. When you’ve fully recovered, I’d love to broach the topic again. Properly.”

“Sorry. Was worth a shot… I guess I ruined the mood, huh?”

“Well, you could say…”

Their moment ended abruptly when another animalistic shriek cut through the air. But this one was familiar, aggravating even, the same one Emmrich had heard repeatedly since joining Rook and her team.

“Could that…”

“Assan!” Rook screamed.

The griffon’s call came again, its sound getting closer. Emmrich jumped to his feet, rushing towards the door.

“I for one am looking forward to getting out of here and having a nice, warm bath.”

“Emmrich?”

As he turned towards Rook, the moonlight filtered in through the broken roof, evelopping her in a soft glittering spotlight. She was still bloodied and had a mere bed sheet draped around her bruised and battered body. Even so, the sight of her caused his pulse to start racing again, a shiver coursing through his soul. There was a shifting feeling in his heart, a pang, that worsened the longer he looked at her. Rook. The most magnificent woman he had ever seen.

“Thank you.”

Emmrich returned her acknowledgement with a bow.

“We’re even now, I suppose.” Emmrich said, beginning to unassemble his makeshift barricade. “Until the next time one of us gets into trouble.”

“Well then, I’ll just have to bring you on every excursion from now on.”

“I’d quite like that, actually.”

“Good.”

Emmrich caught himself smirking, not so much at the notion of endangering himself continuously, but at the prospects of the future, and their budding relationship.

#emmrich dragon age #emmrich x rook #emmrich the necromancer #emmrich volkarin #da4 emmrich #dragon age emmrich #dav #dragon age veilguard #dav fanfic #emmrich #emmrook #datv #assan the griffon #davrin x emmrich #darkspawn

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itslyssalala · 8 months ago

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hello tumblr! i'm very nervous to post my doodles but i am very excited for veilguard and wanted to join in the community!

these are just some sketches of my planned Rook: she/her, perpetually tired mourn watch necromancer, weaknesses include sweets and dark-haired men (I can't decide between Lucanis and Davrin!)

#my art #doodles #dragon age #dragon age veilguard #dragon age rook

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communist-ojou-sama · 7 months ago

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In what fucking world is Nasrallah honorable? You wrote that post in bad faith.

Being the leader of a literal terrorist organization is not something that suddenly becomes okay just because another terror state assassinates him. He’s still a horrible atrocious monster of a person and even though an extremely disproportional amount of force was used to kill him, HE still deserved it.

And before you clap back with some accusatory bullshit, fuck Israel, I am not a supporter. I mourn for the innocent victims of their genocide; Nasrallah is not one of them.

That would.be because while the US was funding and arming ISIS to depose the secular legitimate government of Syria, the brave fighters of Hezbollah were fighting them and routed and destroyed them, saving the lives of countless Christians, Druze, Alawis, Yazidis, and indeed Muslims.

It's because when the Zionist Enemy waged a brutal and genocidal incursion upon Gaza with the aid of their USAmerican backers, the first people to come to the aid of the Izz al-Din al Qassam Brigades were the honorable fighters of Hezbollah with the Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (may his name live in honor in perpetuity) at their helm.

Every single fighter and leader within Hezbollah has more honor, more courage, and more fortitude in their pinky toe than youve ever had throughout your entire life you worthless, cowardly, impotent Western leftist. History will remember you an accomplice of the genocidaires.

All glory to the Resistance and to the martyrs. Death to the Zionist Enemy and to it's USAmerican masters.

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swordbisexual · 4 months ago

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A Party

Rolan Week Day Four

In which Rolan seeks Shaxibis out just before sunrise. 2.1k words

(cross-posted to AO3)

“Any minute now. Just you wait.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I swear!”

Gods, but Cal and Lia can be just as bad as the children. They’ve been circling back round to this argument all night, when they aren’t busy drinking or dancing or singing horribly off-key along with Alfira’s relentless lute-playing. Even during a victory celebration, Lia can’t help but see the worst - which Rolan finds all too relatable, and therefore annoying beyond belief - and Cal can’t help but try to keep her from matching, in their words, the “perpetual Rolan sulk.”

The subject of Cal’s optimism is the sunrise; a thing none of them have seen for days now, so long that Rolan has to wonder if they’ve been stuck here for the ages and eons it’s felt like beneath the interminable moonlit night. According to Cal’s reckoning, they’re less than an hour out from dawn, which has only served to rouse the actual children into staying up well past the wee hours just to see it. If anything, Lia’s arguing is likely only to serve as entertainment. She and Cal can be a right double act when they’ve a mind to it, and for once, Rolan is just glad that he’s not the butt of their jokes.

There is something lightening the air around Last Light Inn that feels more widespread and far-reaching than the cleric’s spell. While most of the Harpers are still at Moonrise making a last sweep for straggling cultists, Cal and Lia and Danis and Lakirssa all agreed, quietly, that they’d rather spend the night back here before setting back out with what remains of their fellow Elturians. They’ve scrounged up what they can from the wine cellar and made a proper party of it, or as best they can with what they’ve got.

To everyone’s great surprise, Shaxibis and her band of misfits all came to join them on their last hurrah. It’s fitting, really; the children swarm Wyll and Karlach just like they did back at the Grove, and even Astarion’s skulking in the corner feels nearly the same as his skulking during the party at the riverside camp. All that’s changed is the location, and the quality of the wine, and, well…

Everything.

The city is closer than ever before, and with it his apprenticeship. His future. That there is a greater threat looming feels like something he can actually face, and maybe even stand down, with the help of proper training. He could be more than the greatest wizard the Gate has seen. He could help, like Lia has begged him to from the start, and he could do it with all the heroism and flair as…

As…

Damnation.

Baldur’s Gate and all the accomplishment it promises has been far from the first thing on his mind, truthfully. For the last half hour, Rolan has been watching the door, waiting for Shaxibis to return. After her last duet with Alfira, she’d begged off, saying that she just needed some fresh air. No one else seems to have noticed that her brief step outside has stretched out beyond reasonable measure.

But for Rolan, he may as well be waiting for sunrise of another sort.

No one notices when he slips away as well, picking up a bottle of wine and two empty goblets along the way, stepping outside the inn and starting a slow, searching circuit around its perimeter. She could be anywhere - the lakeside, the cellar, even the upstairs balcony - and he hasn’t the faintest idea of where to start, or whether she actually wants to be found.

“The water is wide, I cannot cross over…”

There. The strings of an instrument; not as richly-toned as a lute, but not as sweepingly ethereal as a lyre, either. There’s a simple, mournful quality to whatever is being strummed, almost as enchanting as the voice it accompanies.

“Neither have I wings to fly…”

Rolan follows the sound of Shaxibis’ voice, soft and low, to the dock below. There she sits, alone on the wooden slats, her feet dangling to nearly skim the water’s surface. Little light makes it down here near the inn’s cellars, but her hair glows like a moon all its own, unbound from the knots she’s taken to wearing it in so that it waves around her neck and skims her bare shoulders.

She’s quiet, and in that quiet there is a new, soft loveliness to her. And that only makes his stomach roil and head swim even more.

Whatever instrument she plays is laid across her lap, its wooden body gently curved at the sides, and only strung with four strings that ring out like a chime with every sweep of her thumbnail. She slides her other fingers along the fretboard with an ease that looks like second, simple nature. This is not an instrument she has studied; this is one she was practically born playing, as much as part of her as her own hands. It’s so like how he naturally slips into his own self-taught spellwork, and like a spell, he’s so entranced that he can’t look away.

“Bring me a boat that can carry two, and both shall row, my love and I.”

He hangs back to listen. Most of the songs he’s ever heard her play are old standards, and always lively, dancing tunes. Things that inspire the bold to dance, and the meek to tap their toes in time, and someone as upright as himself to lean in, just a little, to better hear the sound. This song, though, is so sweetly wistful, and with the simplest of chords strummed on the simplest of strings, he feels it as a knot in his throat and an ache in his lungs.

Her voice trails off, and she turns her head to look just so over her shoulder. “I know you’re there, Rolan.”

Wincing, he steps out of the shadows and onto the dock. “And here I thought I was being stealthy.”

She snorts. “For a crowded city street, maybe.” When he doesn’t move to join her, she turns to look him in full, then pats the space beside her, cocking a brow. “Well?”

Rolan finally lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and he takes the last few steps to the edge of the dock. Carefully, he places the wine and the cups at her side, then sits down with the drink between them. With a small grunting huff through his nose, he tugs his robes up around his knees to keep the hem from dipping into the lake. “You know, you’d have a rapt audience inside.”

She looks down at the instrument in her lap and plucks a string. “This one is just for me, really.”

He gets a closer look. The body is bowed much like a violin’s, but it’s longer and slimmer, with a much less pronounced curve. The carvings on its body are similarly plain: only a pair of twin hearts, charmingly simple, with the notches of whatever knife hewed them out still visible along the curved tops. “What is it?”

Shaxibis runs a hand over the fretboard and smiles, fondly, making Rolan’s stomach flutter. “A dulcimer.”

“I’ve never seen such a thing before.”

“You wouldn’t have.” She strums it again, and he notices that two of the strings are closely paired together, and they echo one another with the same note. “They aren’t seen much in the bards’ guildhalls. Definitely not in tavern rooms.” Idly, she presses down on the frets, and the same tune she’d been singing moments ago hums beneath her touch. “Folk up in the High Forest hills play them at home, mostly.”

All he knows to do is uncork the wine and pour. “So that is where the great Shaxibis comes from.”

She wrinkles her nose at him, but she still takes the goblet that he offers up and drinks deep. “I’m the ‘great’ now, hm?”

“After all you’ve done?” He takes his own drink and swirls it beneath his nose, breathing in the scent of stone fruit beneath the richly tannic top notes. “I suppose you’re at least ‘good.’”

She laughs. “High praise.”

That laugh is more intoxicating than the wine at his lips. He wants to sing her praises as poetry, but for all his appreciation for the fine arts, he hasn’t even the slightest gift for them. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“I would never.” She sets her goblet down and turns her attention back to the dulcimer in her lap, playing a few more bars of the tune, though she only hums along now, keeping the song’s words to herself. The song dwindles away again, and she sits in silence; strange, for her to be so, and it makes Rolan hold his breath as he stares into the deep red dregs of his wine.

Finally, she speaks again. “You’re lucky.”

Rolan furrows his brows and turns towards her. “You must be joking.”

She should be, because that’s her way, but the look in her eyes as she turns her face up to his is anything but droll. There’s a sad shine to that gold-flecked gaze, breathtakingly wistful, and when she smiles, it never quite makes it any higher than the curve of her cheek. “I mean it. To have a family like yours…”

He frowns with a sigh. “Not by blood,” he says. “I’m not…” He gestures in helpless circles with his goblet. “Not really their family.”

“You try telling Lia that.” Shaxibis picks up the bottle and tilts it towards him til he brings his cup over to be filled once more. “See what happens.”

“Fine.” He watches her pour a few glugs into her own cup and chews his bottom lip. “And what of your family?”

She raises her cup back in the general direction of the inn. “Could I join in on yours?”

The words seize him like a bolt of lightning, blinding his good sense for a moment and rooting him to the spot with sudden visions of what it would mean for Shaxibis to be a part of his life. To see her every day, to groan at her constant jokes, to secretly hope for her laugh of delight and hand over his and—

What are you thinking? Just as quickly, he comes to his senses. If anything, it was simply a figure of speech, an easy way for Shaxibis to deflect his question and declare that she is fond of Cal and Lia all in one fell swoop. She could not possibly mean it any other way, and he is a fool for letting his imagination run full tilt away from him at even the slightest suggestion.

Or… perhaps not.

“I didn’t mean…” Her eyes have gone wide, and in the dim light he can nearly see a flush darkening her cheeks. She licks her lips; suddenly, he cannot look away. “I just…”

There is a lightening rosy glow behind her now, reflected off the lake’s glittering surface beyond. Sunrise. So it is still real, and the curse was lifted, and the impossible truly is possible, isn’t it? That is what pushes him to try, to lean in, to tilt his head just so, to brush the pad of his thumb to her chin and bump his knuckle beneath in a wordless question that hangs between his tongue and parted lips on bated breath.

She kisses him, gently, with lips the color and taste of wine. Those lips are as bold as the rest of her, but soft too, soft in this quiet space between. A gentle hum in her throat, the warmest breath of air as she exhales against his cheek, and while she doesn’t move any closer, in truth she doesn’t have to. This is close enough - too close - and the millimeters between his nose to her cheek, her hand hovering at the edge of his jaw, all of those minuscule spaces are brimming with raw, powerful magic, a hum like thunder as steady and rolling as a drum.

Just as surely as she leaned in to him, she is the one who breaks them apart, and he aches with the cool kiss of the air in her absence. “We should go,” she says. “Before they come looking for us.”

Rolan drops his hand from her chin, but he still lets it hang in the space between them. “Shaxibis…”

She moves her dulcimer from her lap and swings her legs up to the dock, moving to stand. “You already thanked me once,” she says, scooping up her wine cup and the half-empty bottle as she graces him with another painfully wistful smile. “I don’t want to be greedy.”

#bg3 #shaxibis #bg3 rolan #rolanweek #rolan x tav #holy rolan empire #my writing #thundersong #spoiler: they kiss :)

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