#recognizing rage bait is not the same as staying away from it

[squarerice]

sometimes you get really angry at someone online for being an asshole and then you check their blog and they are in fact being an asshole all around and not just on the post you saw. and you know what? being able to close the tab and disengage is a beautiful skill that i need to practice more often. it's literally not worth my time and energy to be upset at a mark zuckerberg

[solarsbrace]

EPHRAIM came to a halt in the streets of faerghus, eyes widened at what he had seemingly stumbled into. what had started as a routine afternoon of checking off objectives and requests from the church had led him to a gruesome sight. people lined the streets watching what could be clearly interpreted as a public execution. how things happened here was hardly the business of a foreign king, and yet he couldn’t help but turn his head to the scene. resigned to his own curiosity, he made a full stop and idled restlessly behind the crowd of people to spectate.

with baited breath and a strong tap of the foot against resounding stone, he watched as each action unfolded without pause. five men stood on trial, looking battered and beaten, on their knees looking on listlessly… like there was nothing left. for a moment he saw short blonde hair and lifeless blue eyes, blood and sweat smearing her skin. ( selena… ) with a force that could have given the average man whiplash, he forced his gaze elsewhere, cursing under his breath. thankfully the uproar of discontent in the masses made it easy to drown out the thoughts, and the ghosts that followed him.

like ephraim had first deduced, the workings of a country not his own did not concern him. he should not feel injustice or regret, these people were not his own to rule or govern. steady like stone, he watched as the masses raged, each person of their own opinion. just like he had once felt, violence solved violence, and perhaps these people thought the same. a shame they were equipped only with words, and not say, a sword… much like the one that was now drawing the blood of the more aggravated populace. he should not care, and yet he could not help but clench his fists and tighten his jaw in silent frustration. 

like a cruel guardian, ephraim watched with a cold inaction as another and then another protester fell to their knees. finally all came to a halt, however, when they began to move the bonded criminals to the proverbial chopping block. almost on instinct, like he had with so many things, he turned his head from them and the piles of people and knights. almost unable to contain the conflict within himself, the king made to walk away from the scene. what was the point of torturing himself over this sorry sight, he could do nothing… and even if he could, his hands too dripped with the blood of innocence. 

without a glance back to what he would leave behind, he placed one foot in front of his other. yet, he stopped again, features scrunched in regretful contemplation. there was little point to this exercise in futility, he had well established this, but why did he feel the need to stay. he sighed out in silent anguish, wishing he could simply leave these feelings to people better suited for them. why did being human require so much confusion, so much conflict… so much shame. even as he wished it away, he knew that doing so would only shame his father who surely watched over him.

as moments passed, and he stood facing the crowd and the criminals once again, he felt the presence of another. a smaller woman with unique hair and an empty gaze. though she spoke to him, her eyes did not reach him, and he was all the more happy for it. fully getting a look at her, ephraim recognized the woman as eramaya(?)… or no eremiya, someone he had shared a ride with to this place. even with a simple exchange of pleasantries, the woman irked him without pause.

her cold eyes and features that gave nothing away… they almost reminded him of how… nevermind. “you misunderstand… i simply meant to make my exit from this sorry exhibit.” a brisk reply was given as he eyed the hand that halted him from his movements. so frail and yet so confidently placed between him and the path he meant to make. “it’s not the duty of foreign power to intervene in rulings of a kingdom, but it doesn’t mean i have to sit idle and watch this ridiculousness.” in a moment of sheer anger, he wished those who were oblivious the same kind of loss his country suffered. would they learn to treasure what they had then, if they were to lose everything?

“the swift execution of unsavory individuals is one thing… but to make a spectacle of it… to harm the people… how cruel must you be to sit by and allow it to continue��if only i-” almost like a thought to the wind, something whispered to himself in confusion, and yet said aloud. 

♡ ・ your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue ━━━ eremiya & ephraim

MISSION BOARD: RECOVERY / public opinion prompt.

[wormstacheangel]

Suptober Day 1: Harvest

wc: 1.7k tags: fluff with the side of tiny case fic, established relationship, spoilers but cw they are drugged with cider,

It was a long hunt. One that they accepted as their last one, but, of course, they can never sit still enough not to take an easy local hunt. By local, he means a two-day trip away, but still, they saved a couple of old folks from a ghost, which was fun. Dean sure enjoyed getting thrown around until Cas finally burned the dentures.

Like he said, long hunt.

They stayed at a nice little Airbnb overnight. During breakfast, their waitress told them of the Harvest Festival a town over. Cas was still a little bruised up, but Dean convinced him to go, at least to try their famous apple cider.

“We’ll make a day of it! Just me and you.” With that, Cas agreed, taking Dean’s waiting hand across the table.

The festival was lively when they arrived in the afternoon, with more people than they expected considering the small town they were in but apparently when they say famous they meant it. The tents lined up with food from funnel cakes, donuts, chicken, and some pumpkin spice beer that Dean chugged down even though it tasted like shit.

They eventually ended up with bags filled with treats and souvenirs to take home to the kids--Sam and Eileen fall into the kids’ category. They each held a bag while Dean held Cas’ hand tight in his own, dragging him around from seller to seller, buying and tasting as he went.

“We should start heading home, or soon you’ll be too full to drive.” Cas teased as Dean finished off their bag of apple crisps. “You think we’re feeding an army.”

“Considering how Jack eats, we might as well be.”

“He gets that from you, you know.”

They continued their banter as they made their way out of the festival and to the parking lot.

Then they were stopped by a woman wearing a volunteer pumpkin shirt, “Aw, leaving so soon? Don’t ya wanna stay for the fireworks?”

That quickly took Dean’s attention, brightening up his whole face so much that once again, Cas couldn’t find it in himself to refuse. Instead, earning himself a small kiss on the cheek as a thank you before being was dragged to the car to drop off their items.

Once back in the festival, they walked around until another volunteer told them about the amazing view of the fireworks at the middle of the corn maze.

“It’s a small maze, but in the middle is a little hill. So it’s usually first-come, first-serve. But I haven’t heard of anyone taking it as of now.”

Once again, Dean was easily hooked in and took Cas along for the ride. Not that he was complaining. He enjoyed watching Dean get excited over small things, things he wouldn’t have permitted himself to get excited for before. Of course, it helped when Dean hooked his arm around Cas’s waist to tug him close, whispering, “Ever kissed someone in a corn maze, Cas?”

“You know I haven’t, Dean.”

That did it for Cas. A promise of a spectacular kiss that will put the fireworks to shame.

At the entrance of the maze stood a cider cart, and Cas made a beeline for it. “I at least wanna be warm if you are going to make me walk around in the cold.”

“On the house.” The saleswoman winked at them, and something uneasy passed through them, but they ignored it as she motioned them to go right on in that the fireworks should be starting soon.

They took their hot cider and walked right in, taking hold of their hands as they walked through the maze in comforting silence. Watching the sky above them change from orange and pinks to the dark night sky.

When the maze opened up to a clearing, Dean started to run—taking the small space on top. It was tall enough to see over the cornstalk and watch the lights twinkle from the festival up ahead. They could even see groups of people exiting the maze from their left, and for a second, Dean wondered why they didn’t run into anybody on their walkover. It looked like a lot of people were going through the maze, but nobody passed them.

That thought was quickly dismissed as the first firework lit up the sky, cheers from the crowd echoed the loud boom, and Dean felt secure with an arm hooking around his shoulders to bring him in closer. So they sat there watching the firework show and polishing off their now cold cider until Cas couldn’t wait another second.

Gently, he turned Dean’s face just enough so they could start the kiss slowly. The snap crackle pop of the fireworks above their heads just kept lighting up the fuse between them until Cas asked for them to find another place to spend the night.

“Should we go now?” Dean kissed down Cas’s jaw, feeling the hastily nods instead of seeing it. “Okay. Okay, let’s go.”

They both stood up and took one last look at the view before they got down. Turning left, where they were sure they saw the other folks exit from before. Every few steps, they pulled each other for another kiss-- smiling into them like giddy newlyweds--until they started to realize they’ve been walking for way too long.

The fireworks had long been over, and they soon realized it was their only source of light. It soon became so hard to see anything that they didn’t dare let go of each other’s hands. They tried to go back to the hill to see if maybe they could see the trail from there, but it was like it never existed in the first place.

“Fuck!” They turned the corner to find another dead-end. “Isn’t this shit for children!”

“You know we haven’t seen or heard anyone in a while. Not since-”

“We came in here. I know. I was thinking the same thing earlier when we were on the hill.”

“Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“Cause you stuck your tongue in my mouth and impending doom took a backseat.”

They started to run, calling out for help as they did, but it only felt like they were going in circles.

Then Dean yelled, “Hallelujah!” When a flashlight shined into their faces.

“There you two are. It’s time to go.” The old man sounded so relieved to find them. He didn’t look sinister. He didn’t even make it sound like they were gone for that long. “You two okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. We got lost, I guess.” Dean shrugged, watching as Cas stared ahead of him.

“Many people do. But they always find their way out, though.”

They followed the man out of the maze while Dean’s knuckles brushed alongside Cas’. They were listening to the man recite a memory when suddenly Cas tugged at Dean’s arm.

“Dean.” It was a shocking gasp.

“Cas?” Dean turned around to watch; Cas’s eyes rolled to the back of his head before dropping like a ragdoll. “Cas!”

And just like that, Cas was out to the world.

Dean fell to his knees to take Cas into his arms, but it was useless. He was heavy, and Dean’s body was starting to tingle, his muscles becoming weaker with every passing second.

“Don’t you worry about your little friend.” The man flashed his light on Dean’s face. Blinding him, but Dean kept glaring up at him. “Just like you, he won’t feel a thing.”

“What did you do to him?” He tried to growl, but it came out too breathless for it to be threatening.

“Same thing we did to you. Same thing we do every year to a couple of tourists.”

Dean could feel himself slipping out of consciousness, but he kept trying to shield Cas from whatever was coming.

“Don’t fight it, boy.” The man walked over to him, raising his flashlight high above his head. “Hate it when they struggle.”

And with a single hit, Dean was knocked out. Falling over Cas. Hoping that at least he gets killed first this time around.

Dean woke up again when he felt someone kicking his legs with little to no effort. His arms were numb, and he realized it was because they were pulled back and tied around some huge boulder.

“Dean?”

Dean recognized the voice and happily groaned out a complaint. “Hate small towns. Creeps. All of them.”

Cas chuckled in relief. “Glad you’re okay.”

Dean blinked a couple of times before his eyes focused, looking across from him to find Cas in the same position as him. Cas looked dirty, a few scratches on his face from being dragged, which made Dean furious—tugging at the ropes that hold him back from checking for any more injuries.

“Fuck! Shit! You okay? They hurt you?”

“Not as much as they did you.” Dean didn’t feel much pain besides the stretch on his shoulders and a raging headache. “I guess that’s not true. You have a swell on your head.”

“Yeah, well, I went down swinging. Unlike you.” Cas didn’t look amused, but he looked concerned. Dean followed his gaze, looking for an explanation or a way out. “I guess we’re either bait or dinner.”

“I’m used to being bait.”

“And I’m used to being dinner. Well, aren’t we a match made in heaven?” This time Cas glared, and weirdly enough, it made Dean relax a little. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

The plan was simple, while Cas may not be a full-powered-up angel, he was still an angel. And he was stronger than an average human. So with a little more force, Cas had his arms free, rubbing his wrist while shrugging at Dean, “I always see humans do this.”

“Yeah, cause it hurts, so if you can just-” Dean motioned for his arms and Cas quickly reached to untie him. Then, when they were both free, they once again started to look around the empty cornfield. “I say leave now and call for backup; come back in the morning.”

“Considering we have no weapons, I think that would be for the best.”

“So much for date night.” Dean took Cas’s hand, and they quickly started to get themselves out of there. Running like maniacs as they pushed through the endless corn.

“I actually enjoyed myself today. You know, before the whole being drugged and left for dead part.”

“Really? That was my favorite part.” Dean joked, squeezing Cas’s hand as they made their way to safety. “You think all the stuff we bought was drugged?”

“Won’t stop me from having another donut.”

“Man, I love you.”

[ddarker-dreams]

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID THE TRUTH.

I admit that i enjoyed act 3 but it feels like really rushed i have so much complain with that.

The build up until act 2 was so good it give us so much premise but the final blow si meh. Sorry that i want to share thing long rant with you

1. Why the final talk is with yae, no offense to her but we need ei to explain not to mention she witness khaenriah downfall so she can give us more information, i feel like they do it for the plot armor so they can just keep dragging this

2. So many things that quite inconsistant, the shogun is show no mercy to anyone that even did a little thing outside what she think its right, how come she can still have a talk with signora, when sara is falling like that, and also there is no clarification about sara right now.

The traveler was so done at first they refuse to help thoma and ayaka at the beginning. But they seem so happy and forget everything how come they are not RAGE ( okay maybe this is to bias and personal) when this nation provide nothing about our siblings information and also why they are not mention anything about their problem in ei stroy quest. Its nonsense! She is right in front of youu, ask about your siblings, ask about khaenriah, ask about ukmown god!!. How come they can just forget like that. Also mihoyo really waste the potential about twin things i thing ei will give us so much help bcs of the sympathy that we both rn lost our twin but noooo.

3. Kokomi seem lost some brain cell, she make a very succesfull grand intro but she become meh in act 3, how come a great strategist like her let the sus sponsorship slip just bcs they are desperate, not to mention her screen time is really small and her role seem so unsignificant and it feels lile she is a plain npc.

4. The awesome world quest that we have done doesnt get any mention at all! Inazuma owe us so much with cleansing sakura, thunder sakura, tatarigami, obarashi quest. It has so much potential that yae or ei or anyone else aknowledge what traveler has been done but nooo.

cracks knuckles... i suppose it's time for my promised dissertation. interestingly enough, you touched on a lot of the main issues i had with chapter III.

i think that if i had to pin the main issue, it's a lack of overall cohesiveness? we were jumping all over the place without the chance to ever flesh things out. inazuma is a smaller cast, but i feel like we didn't get to see any of them shine. since i'm most interested in the genshin characters, i'll break down my problems by going over everyone and their (lack) of impact on the story.

was ayaka not questioned or placed under suspicion for being close to thoma before his escape? i wanted to see her broken up over her duties as they relate to the yashiro commission, paired with having someone she genuinely cares about in danger. it would've been an interesting struggle if she was forced to choose one or the other. instead she just kinda took a back seat.

speaking of thoma, i don't even have anything to say, because he just... was there? for .0001 seconds. said "lol this sucks ig" and that's about it. i know we're going to get a story for him in the future since he's a 5* but i'm not getting my hopes up 😭 then in the raiden shogun's character story, man is peachy keen! be upset with the raiden shogun! have some inner conflict! even if it's just using loaded language because he's under surveillance for going against the raiden shogun, that'd be so cool. saying something like,

"Traveler, what's with that expression? Oh please, there's nothing to worry about. We're under the Statue of the Omnipresent God's protection. Nothing bad has ever happened here." *wink*

i also don't know what to say about gorou. he was... there....... i think. what is he fighting for? what are the stakes for him? what makes him place so much trust into kokomi? i'm out of things to say about him because i don't remember anything he did or said.

kokomi... oh kokomi... i was so hyped. so excited. i thought that maybe we could see a foil to the raiden shogun. that she'd have a moment where she's forced to realize, just like her opponent, sacrifices must be made that will hurt people who will never understand why she made them. or maybe something to show her military prowess. but instead she just accepts a mysterious patron's help (?), sees her people aging like the grateful dead from JJBA, and goes oh well. that sucks. what can ya do. oh bye traveler i guess, good luck with that. ????????????? HUH... similar case to thoma where she's gonna get a character story but like. she won't be the leader of the resistance anymore. that was her whole shtick. they took her shtick away. also she forced me to interact with more NPCs whose names i've already forgotten so i'm tilted about that still.

KUJOU SARA... AN INJUSTICE. A DISGRACE. a slap to my woman loving face. the build up was there. yae miko's comments about sara probably knowing the tenryou commission is involved in shady dealings, but is choosing not to think about it. sara being forced to confront reality and challenge her adopted father with the truth. being able to blaze a new path for herself in the process. when she started running to the raiden shogun i was ultra hyped up. sara, a devotee to the shogun for so long, was about to see her god interacting with the same people who led inazuma to this awful state. how would she react? would she stay ignorant, like yae miko so coyly said, choosing to look away in favor of following her god's footsteps? or would she be forced to recognize the raiden shogun isn't as divine as she once thought, and challenge her belief system?

we open the door to see the raiden shogun. the loading screen ensues. the camera pans to the ominous room, clouded in darkness, hinting at the ominous confrontation that is to come. the music takes a serious timbre. and then...

well fuck that potential character arc i guess. (we still don't know what sara made of any of this since she poofed out of existence from the story at this point)

kazuha also was handed a similar treatment. we've been with him for a while longer now. he is our introduction into inazuma, the one who first gets us emotionally involved by regaling us with the bittersweet tale of friendship that led him to becoming a wanted criminal. a kind soul who loves nature yet was dealt a cruel hand by fate, forced to watch his home nation turn into a hostile place, where his dear friend ultimately perished as a result. we get the scene with his friend's vision lighting back up. he parries a block from the raiden shogun, in the same area where his friend was killed by her. the parallels. the drama. except this time, he wasn't too late. he protected the traveler where he "failed" to protect his friend in the past. did he feel redemption at this? or was it a bittersweet reminder of what could've been?

WELL i guess we'll never know because we didn't get to talk to him again 😭 idk who got a bait and switch worse, him or sara. jesus christ mihoyo.

then we have signora. why is the raiden shogun talking to her? does she know about the gnosis being taken, and if she doesn't, what was her plan to get it from the archon? what does she think about scaramouche? and oh, okay, we're fighting here now. good fight + god tier music. pog pog. okay, now we've beaten her up, and raiden shogun wyd— wait no not signora her lore is still on CUPS not YET raiden shogun and— ah she's dead. okay. non nerds who didn't read artifact lore are going to know nothing about her. signora has such an interesting story, and yet... well. ok.

then we get raiden shogun redemption (?) arc. i was hype for this as well, though at that point, idk why i bothered being hype. i knew they were gonna do a cute power of friendship something or another, and i'm good with that, so long as it's executed well. what i was envisioning was like seven different buffs to correspond with the seven different visions, the dreams of those whose ambitions were stolen serving as the spear to penetrate the raiden shogun's heart of stone. maybe a hydro vision giving us extra healing for a time, with the voice acting over it being like,

"Even if the rest of the world forgets us, let our will carry you through this one final time. Succeed where we couldn't, Traveler."

so on and so forth.

but instead we got— you get the idea at this point. why bother spelling it out anymore.

at that point i was surprised the raiden shogun didn't go "oopsie woopsie!! we made a fucky wucky!!!" because that was the vibe i was getting. i love ei, don't get me wrong, but i wanted to see her challenged with what she had done to inazuma in the past year. maybe meeting NPC #2345259 who lost her sister to the vision decree or something, reminding ei of the love she held for her sister... being forced to come to terms with the extent of what she's done in pursuit of eternity.

anyway. please for the love of god mihoyo hire better writers for the main story. that is all i ask. thank you.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Can I just say Bones does not get nearly enough credit for how well he reads people?? Like, we all forget that he is not only a doctor, he's a psychiatrist as well. And not only is he insanely good at reading Jim, we also see him read and understand Spock (who is his opposite and with whom he frequently disagrees) and push him when it's necessary. It's Bones' words that make some of the most powerful exchanges out of all the 79 original episodes. Here is proof (and there's a lot of it):

Balance of Terror

Jim's doubting himself and is dealing with a lot of stress because of all his responsibilities and the burden of making decisions, and asks Bones, "What if I'm wrong?" This is an incredibly vulnerable moment for Jim, who always has to be strong, and when Bones starts to answer, Jim gets up and says "I wasn't really expecting an answer."

Bones immediately puts his hand on his shoulder, stops him, and says, "Well, I've got one." Completely unexpected by Jim. Bones starts off by saying "This isn't something I'd usually tell a customer," then gives the speech we all probably know, about how there are millions of possible earth-like planets, "but in all of that, and possibly more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk."

Let's break down why this is so good. First, Bones lets Jim know that he sees how vulnerable Jim is being and that he's talking to Jim as a friend. He recognizes that Jim's identity is fundamentally tied to his role as a captain, and also acknowledges how deep Jim's doubts are going, and at the same time reminds Jim that he is the one in control of himself (something very grounding for Jim) and he is not alone (because Bones is supporting him). Most of all, he doesn't dwell on the vulnerability Jim's expressing, but encourages him to take action, which is Jim's natural bent. He perfectly adapts to how Jim functions and knows what to say to get him back into a place where he can do what he does best: lead.

The Ultimate Computer

Jim has been been feeling insecure and threatened this entire episode, because a computer may take away his role as captain. Twice he seeks out Bones for comfort. First, he tells him that he has concerns about the computer, but worries about his motives. "You have my psychological profiles; am I afraid? Of losing my job? ...Daystrom's right, I could do a lot of other things. Am I afraid of losing the power, the prestige? Am I that petty?"

Bones replies, "Jim, if you're self-aware enough to ask that question, you don't need me to answer it for you. Why don't you ask James T. Kirk? He's a pretty honest guy."

Breakdown: Bones responds beautifully by once again reminding Jim that he knows himself and is in control. That sense of confidence is all Jim is after. He also establishes earlier in the conversation that what Jim is feeling is not unusual and can be understood. Brilliant.

The second time Jim reaches out to Bones (this episode is my favorite for a reason), he's doubting his role even more intensely, having just been blatantly insulted and called useless (affirming his insecurities). He left the bridge, silently, by himself, and even Spock didn't follow him out. Bones knew he needed help and went to him, with some drinks (Jim initially responds that he's not interested in eating--coping by losing interest in food) and a joke and light-hearted attitude, so that Jim can feel comfortable expressing himself. Jim puts on an air of not caring (shutting himself off from his emotions) and says he's never felt so useless, and makes a cynical joke as a toast, "To Captain Dunsel" (the insult from earlier, meaning "unnecessary").

Bones stops him, looks him in the eye, and says "To James Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise." Jim says softly, "Thank you, Doctor," and when he downs his glass, Bones follows suit.

There's just so much good about this. Bones seeks him out even when he was trying to isolate himself because he knew Jim tends to distract himself and unhealthily repress things. And he doesn't let Jim get away with being blasé about how he's been hurt, but he doesn't force him to be honest either; instead, he lets Jim know he sees how he's feeling and how deeply he's hurt, and also reaffirms that Bones still cares about, respects, and most of all, believes in him. When Jim starts talking after the drink, Bones just listens and lets him talk, and when Jim responds to the call to the bridge, he follows him out. Back in action, and another job well done.

The Trouble With Tribbles

Just a brief point with this: Spock is just being silent here, which is typical for him. But Bones asks him "What's the matter, Spock?" seemingly out of the blue. Spock responds with, "There's something disquieting about these creatures," which means that he was feeling off, and Bones picked up on it. Bones then makes a joke ("Don't tell me you've got a feeling!") which lets Spock know that Bones sees what he's saying but isn't treating it as unusual (since the joking between them is their normal behavior). And when Spock continues talking, he hears him out (although it eventually degenerates into their typical spat).

All Our Yesterdays

Spock has begun degenerating into a pre-reformed-Vulcan version of himself. He gives up on trying to get back to their proper time and becomes irritable. Bones notices that something's wrong almost immediately.

He starts by asking about Jim (because he knows how deeply Spock cares for him), and Spock responds apathetically. This clearly shocks Bones, who then says "I don't believe it, Spock. It's just not like you to give up trying." When Spock doesn't acknowledge something's off, Bones presses him: "I understand. I never thought I'd see it, but I understand. You want to stay here. In fact, you're highly motivated to stay in this forsaken waste!" Spock deflects again, and Bones keeps pressing, which leads to Spock grabbing him by the neck and saying angrily, "I don't like that. I don't think I ever did, and now I'm sure." Bones simply looks him in the eye and asks calmly, "What's happening to you, Spock?"

Instead of hassling Spock about why he isn't doing more, he focuses on what's wrong with Spock himself, and he clearly has a deep understanding of who Spock really is. He starts by trying to get a feel for Spock's emotional state by going to ground 0: Jim. And he doesn't back down when Spock tries to blow him off.

Seeing that he's getting nowhere, Bones bides his time, and then starts something with Zarabeth, knowing Spock will jump to her defense.

When Spock pins him against the wall, Bones calmly says, "Are you trying to kill me, Spock? Is that what you really want? Think! What are you feeling? Rage, jealousy--have you ever had those feelings before?" Spock is clearly affected by this, and says it's impossible, since he's a Vulcan. Bones sees his opening, saying "The Vulcan you knew won't exist for another 5000 years! Think, man! What's happening on your planet right now, at this very moment?" Spock answers with the facts, and Bones tells him flat-out what's going on: he's reverting. Spock falls quiet, and says, "I've lost myself. I do not know who I am."

Bones is specifically structuring his responses (both here and earlier) to cause Spock to evaluate himself--to think, which has always has grounded Spock. Bones indirectly (so that Spock doesn't feel as threatened by the accusation) indicates that Spock's being too emotional. He wants Spock to see for himself that something's wrong, so Bones asks questions or makes open-ended statements so that Spock will have to respond. He also provides enough evidence (pointing out the emotions Spock is feeling) to prove he has a point and guide Spock towards a conclusion. He's talking Spock through it, using reason and logic, which Spock has always responded to. Bones' questions are also phrased so that the answers are objective facts--he's bringing Spock back to the verifiable, Spock's comfort zone. Finally, he does the analysis for Spock, telling him what's undeniably happening, but leaves the course of action open to Spock, so that he can regain control of himself by deciding how to proceed. Bones smoothly and logically guided Spock to the delicate realization he needed to have.

Of Bread and Circuses

Then of course we have this iconic exchange. Jim's been separated from the both of them and they are all in danger. Spock is pulling at the bars although he knows it will be futile.

Bones calls him out on this, and then thanks him for saving his life. When Spock brushes him off and keeps his walls up, Bones says, "I know why you're not afraid to die, Spock. You're more afraid of living. Every day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip--and let your human half peek out." Spock is silent and looks away, and Bones continues, now smiling slightly: "That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling." His face makes it clear he's gently baiting Spock, who then looks back at Bones and says, "Really, Doctor?" Bones replies softly, "I know. I'm worried about Jim, too."

First thing: Spock's theme starts playing when Bones corners him. So we're supposed to get that Bones is really laying him bare. But starting from the beginning of the scene, Bones recognizes Spock's anxiety through his illogical behavior. He takes the time to thank Spock for saving his life, in an effort to remind Spock that he is competent and in control--basically, trying to calm Spock down and reassure him. When Spock refuses to deal with his emotions productively, Bones is having none of it, and shows Spock just how much he knows. He can tell Spock isn't worried for himself ("you're not afraid to die") but also is well aware of Spock's actual fears (which are coloring his current behavior towards Bones). Basically, Bones is saying, "this facade of yours can't keep me out. You're understood. You're not alone." Saying it in those terms, though, would just make Spock feel weak for unsuccessfully trying to mask his behavior, so Bones frames it as a gentle challenge. When Spock looks away, he can tell he's hit the nail on the head, and he smiles because he's getting through to him. His face as he says "you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling" telegraphs to the audience that he's not actually serious, but is looking for a response. And he gets it--Spock acknowledges, as Bones had intended, that he is currently dealing with emotions. And that's where Bones wanted to get him, because now that he's admitted it, he can move forward; but Bones doesn't want this admission to go unrewarded, and definitely doesn't want Spock to go on believing that Bones meant what he'd said about not knowing what to do with feelings, so he again tells Spock that he understands what's really going on, but without challenge this time. He just accepts it and reassures Spock that he's not alone: "I know. I'm worried about Jim too." They're in it together, and now that Spock is a little more vulnerable, he's able to see that Bones is right beside him.

So that was a lot, but there is definitely even more. Basically, give Bones the appreciation he deserves, because his emotional intuition is off the charts. (After all, as he is so fond of reminding us, he is a doctor!)

[felidaefighter]

Love You To The Point Of Violence

[CW: angst, mentions of Quackity’s torture of Dream, fiance breakup]

Sapnap scoffs. “What, so Dream just told you how it worked? That doesn’t sound like him.” Quackity chuckles a bit in faux disbelief. “I know, right? I mean, it did take a bit of convincing-- hey at some points it was like pulling teeth-- but in the end, I managed to extract the information.” His voice lowers into a conspiratorial semi-whisper. “The reason he was apparently oh-so-powerful, the reason he stayed alive and continued to hold power over all of us-- that’s no longer just his, baby! I know it now too!”

“Oh, so now you’ve got the same sort of power that Dream had?” Sapnap asks, seemingly cheerily. It’s a leading question. It’s a tone that masks righteous fury. Quackity would know that if he’d paid any attention at all to either of his fiances lately.

“Yeah, yeah! Exactly!” Quackity says, getting excited. “Isn’t that great? We don’t have to worry about needing to go to Dream for revival anymore, we don’t have to worry about Dream overshadowing our every move!”

Stubbornness is not the equivalent to stupidity. Even with a reputation as a warrior and fighter first and foremost, those are preceded by the ability to stay sharp and think fast. Being able to connect the dots is a simple skill. The willingness to connect them has to be there first, however.

Sapnap’s no stranger to the way bloodstains that couldn’t quite bleach look on white shirts like the one Quackity currently wears. He knows the way voices sound raspy and hoarse from screaming, when a single uttered “yes” is painful. He can figure out what that means about things that lead to other things. And most importantly, he’s familiar with the way men of power hold themselves when they’ve decided that nothing is going to stand in their way, no matter what it takes, no matter the cost.

“And what’s stopping you,” Sapnap replies, trying so hard to keep his temperament in check, voice oozing venom, “From becoming just like Dream, then? What’s stopping you from being just as bad as him, huh?”

Quackity’s tongue isn’t silver, but he coats his words like it is, his voice falling into a melody and tone to lull whomever he’s talking with into trust. But even false silver is easily tarnished when it is grabbed with force and pried away. “No, no, Sapnap, listen to me, it’s not like that! You know me. Would I ever--”

“I’m not stupid, Quackity, alright?” Sapnap pins Quackity bodily to the wall, leaking rage (and hurt, and betrayal), and grabbing the front of his shirt. Quackity puts his hands up, but the look of easy confidence and control never leaves his scarred face. “I know I tend to talk with my sword but I’m not stupid, alright? And it kinda hurts that you’d think I wouldn’t figure this out.”

“Figure out what, Sapnap? What are you talking about? All I said was, Dream-- that’s the guy we’re talking about, remember? The bad guy who was butting into everyone’s business and wanted all the power to himself?-- he doesn’t have all the power anymore! He’s shared it. With me. And I just-- I just wanted to tell you the good news! Because I thought it would be great, for us, for--”

Sapnap cuts Quackity off again. “Cut the crap,” he says, and Quackity’s gaze hardens. Steady and calculating. The look of someone who’d pull the trigger without a trial. “Dream was my best friend. You think I don’t recognize this? You’ve been after power since day one. Since you ran in that stupid election all you’ve ever wanted was power.” Quackity opens his mouth but Sapnap barely lets him breath. “That was why you created El Rapids, you told us straight up! To get power. And yeah, you could-- you could say it was power against Dream you wanted, but was it really? Because Dream’s in prison and can’t hurt anyone from inside but you’ve still managed to get his blood all. Over you.”

Reflexively, Quackity looks down at his shirt. Too late he realizes it was a bait. The barely-visible stains could’ve been anything, could’ve been anyone’s blood if it was blood at all-- until he proved it. “You’ve become just like him,” Sapnap says, and the disgust isn’t enough to match the betrayal in his voice. “Okay, listen,” Quackity tries to gesture, but Sapnap’s running on instinct and adrenaline and his grip automatically tightens again at the movement.

“Someone I love decides to cut me and all the people who care about him off. He decides to manipulate people into doing what he wants because it’s “for the best”, he decides to kill and torture anyone who stands in the way-- who am I describing, huh Quackity? Huh? Huh?”  Quackity doesn’t answer, because he knows the answer. There’s nothing to be said.

Sapnap leans in close to his fiance’s face, and for a moment, they are both reminded of simpler days, when an action like this was a preclude to a kiss. Instead, Quackity feels the hot metal of a blade just itching to spark into flames at his throat, the Sharpness of the sword drawing pinpricks of blood even as it’s basically only hovering over his skin.

“I loved you, Quackity,” Sapnap says, sincerely, and Quackity stares into glistening but steady eyes. Maybe if it were earlier his heart would’ve faltered. Maybe he wouldn’t’ve already crushed those feelings out of himself in pursuit of what he craved. Maybe he would have understood the intent. But Quackity is not a man who falters, not anymore. He is not a man who lets his emotions control him. He is not a man who lets his attachments dictate his actions. “You don’t understand.” It falls on deaf ears.

“You know what? I still love you,” Sapnap confesses, and with a blink his eyes no longer glisten. And it intrigues Quackity to hear this, because there is no love in his voice. All he can hear is a promise of violence. “But right now? You’re worse than Dream ever was. So I’m gonna make you the same promise I made him.” His breath is right against Quackity’s own. There’s something intimate about betrayal, especially from someone you love.

“And what’s that?” Quackity asks, almost sounding bored of it, wanting to get the conversation over with and the blade away from his throat. “If you do anything out of line, I’m going to be the one stop you. And I’m going to kill you. You can trust me on that.”

The blade comes away from Quackity’s throat, and Sapnap drops his grip. Quackity straightens his collar and cuffs, collecting himself and his thoughts, keeping his emotions in check. “Well, I guess we’re done here,” Quackity says smoothly, “And... I guess we’re done.”

“Yes,” Sapnap says, “We are. But this-- this isn’t over.”

Quackity leaves, and he’s no stranger to the hunter’s gaze that follows him. That’s fine. He’s used to being prey. He’s adapted. But his fist shifts on his weapons, and he finds himself methodically adjusting and readjusting the part of his shirt where Sapnap had gripped it; remembering when his grip meant something else, and loathing the way his clothes now held lingering traces of his ex-fiance’s smell. Too little too late. No time for regret or love.

Still, there is something that stirs inside of him, some sort of slow-dawning realization when he puts thought into what Sapnap said. Rightfully, Quackity thinks, Sapnap shouldn’t love him anymore. Quackity has long since stopped caring about the physical prowess of those who oppose him, is beyond fear. It means nothing against words, in the end. But Sapnap does still love him. Loves him, with so much of his heart. And Quackity realizes what that truly means for him. To love someone is to promise to destroy them if the time should come.

And Sapnap has never broken his promises.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello mbti-notes, How do you do? Hope you're having a good time in your vacation!

I'm a 25F (unhealthy, level 1) INFJ, and my mother (late 40s) is ISFJ. I- have some issues myself and it's affecting my relationships. I currently stay away from socializing and bottling up my issues and problems. If it gets bad I cry alone in the bathroom dealing with mixed feelings of love and resentment.

I don't know how to start but I recently realized my mother has toxic traits and this causes some inner conflict. I understand she has went through a lot in life (so did my dad, still typing him)...but I want her to realize she too is flawed, not just us. There are various times she hurt me with words and during some of those incidents, we end up fighting and I say things in anger that hurt her. She believes she is never in the wrong and adapts the victim mentality. Whenever I try to reason with her, she doesn't admit her faults and immediately brings up things I did in the past. She actually repeats whatever we say in a taunting manner out of spite. As I write this, I am realizing this sounds ridiculous.

While growing up, she hated me being close to my dad and manipulated me using the victim mentality, so she succeeded in making me dislike my father in childhood. One time when we fought, I told her, "now I understand why dad doesn't bother to clear up things with you! You never listen and twist words!" She took this as betrayal and thinks I'm completely on dad's side, who hurt her. I did not dismiss her pain. I want her to understand all of us are messed up and we need to work on ourselves and fix things.

I fear that as she grows old, she'll grow more stubborn and become narcissistic. I fear that I would become like her in the future after getting married and act like her to my children and spouse in the future. My parents themselves are unhealthy due to having grown up in unhealthy and toxic environments themselves, and their parents were bounded by toxic traditions like patriarchal misogynistic practices. I am afraid of this cycle continuing, the cycle of unhealthy parents hurting their children and they grow up like that too. What should I do? How do I make my parents realize we all need help and need to improve ourselves?

I know first and foremost I should be improving myself, but I am also worried about them. I am not saying I am perfect, I also have some toxic traits but I watch myself when interacting with others. There are so many I's and reeks of narcissism, need to stop that. Also realized that I'm probably having a problem with my parent's toxic traits, maybe it's my high standards not letting me accept these flaws. They took great pains to raise me and my sibling, but it also hurts me to see them like this, I just want them to be happy and be in harmony. Apologies for this rambling, it's hard to put them in order since English is not my first language.

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

The main problem is that neither you nor your mom is capable of healthy relationship boundaries. When two people don't set, respect, and enforce proper boundaries, they easily end up in a vicious cycle of conflict, even when they love each other. Why? In a close relationship, two people know exactly what buttons to push and how to bait each other into conflict. Why bait each other into conflict? When there is a serious underlying problem and/or traumatic wounding in the relationship that remains unresolved, the two parties will rehash the problem or replay the trauma over and over again, in an unconscious attempt to achieve resolution or feel a sense of closure.

Unfortunately, resolution or closure rarely happens, because during the conflict, the pain is never truly heard or addressed. The cycle of conflict then gradually escalates, as both parties get more aggressive in wanting to be heard and validated. Each person uses the conflict to act out their unresolved ego dramas and traumas. You both claim to be victims and you use each other to reinforce the victim narrative. While it might be true that you are both victims in some form, it is unproductive to keep accusing each other of being the enemy or victimizer. Nobody will ever "win" this conflict because nobody is really listening to the pain that is being expressed. The blame game destroys the good will required to reach mutual understanding.

A repetitive cycle of conflict continues because BOTH parties are putting energy into it and perpetuating it. Oftentimes, one major contributing factor to the original problem/trauma was poor communication skills or hurtful communication habits. Until at least one of the two parties improves their ability to listen and communicate maturely, there is nothing to stop the cycle of conflict, short of severing the relationship for good.

Your mom has "toxic traits" that created a toxic environment for you growing up. You acknowledge that you have similarly toxic traits and want to address them. Good. You're an adult now. An important part of growing up is becoming independent and taking personal responsibility for the trajectory of your life. You make the decisions as an adult, so your problems are in your hands. Her problems are hers to handle. Your process of healing should not require anything from your mom or even blaming your mom.

The fact that you want her to admit fault, accompany you, or work on herself means that you are violating her boundary. You want her to change, when she isn't ready or doesn't want to. You use criticism to pressure her and that causes her pain. Her maltreatment of you during conflict is an expression of the pain that you're causing her. Similarly, the way that you mistreat her is the manifestation of the pain she has caused you in the past. The longer the pain remains unresolved, the more likely it is that the hurt turns into anger, then rage, then spite...

You don't like the ways in which she tries to manipulate you to be who/what she wants you to be. That's fair. But you're not fully recognizing that you're doing the same thing to her. You're essentially saying that you won't be able to grow up and move on with your life until she becomes the mom that you want her to be. In a way, you're holding the both of you hostage. It doesn't matter if you believe that you're being altruistic and it's "for her own good" - she believes exactly the same thing when she tries to change you. Trying to change her, against her will, amounts to an attack on her being. If you're not able to love someone as they are, you're in no position to help them. If you're not able to communicate with someone without causing hurt to yourself or them, you're in no position to help them. "Helping" is about supporting people in their efforts, not about constantly pressuring them to live up to your standards.

You are too emotionally entangled with her. You want her validation, her support, her empathy, her cooperation, her confession, her atonement, etc. It sounds like none of that is forthcoming, nor is it even necessary. As long as you can't face the reality of who your mom is and keep expecting her to be different, YOU are choosing to keep yourself tied to her and her toxic ways. Yes, everyone needs social support in life, but as an adult, you should no longer need a "mom".

To become independent, you need to draw your own personal boundary in life and work within it to heal your personality problems. When you become a capable boundary setter and carve out your own space in the world, you know to rest and recuperate within its bounds and you know to keep people out when they don't respect its bounds. If you need help or support with your healing, she is obviously not the right choice, is she? She is not capable of entering your boundary without the conflict arising again, is she? There's nothing wrong with needing help/support, but you are not going to find much success by seeking it from the least qualified of sources.

Children aren't born knowing how to conduct healthy and mature relationships, so they can't be expected to understand boundaries when no one taught them. However, as an adult, it is your responsibility to address that knowledge deficit, if you hope to break past patterns and have healthy relationships. Do you understand what a boundary is, how to set one, and how to enforce one? It's about respecting your own being, respecting the being of others, and learning how to mingle with people without allowing hurt or violation. I suggest that you work with a therapist who specializes in relationships and boundary setting. Judging by the nature of your disagreements with her, you need to work on your communication skills and conflict resolution skills too. See the related tags and book suggestions on the resources page.

[music-of-melody]

A Fanatic Heart

Author: @acotazriel

Word Count:  7k

Rating: T {canon-typical violence & language}

Relationships: Riven/Musa 

Summary: What if all the Winx fairies were specialists and all the specialists were fairies? What if Riven doesn't realise how he feels for Musa before it's too late? What if he never has another chance again? May be continued into a series.

A/N: So this started out as a simple picture but ended up being an entire universe thanks to the amazing @acotazriel - Skye you have been honestly incredible throughout this all, especially given that I gave you like 3 sentences to work with so all the kudos to you! It has been a joy editing this and being a part of the creative process!

Riven hovered on the balls of his feet as he scanned the forest clearing. The woods were far too silent, with no noise in the way of birds, insects, or even a breeze among the treetops. The forest was waiting, like him. He scowled, feeling familiar eyes on his back but not turning around to face them. The Burned One had disappeared only thirty seconds ago; he knew it couldn’t have gotten far. He took the brief moment of respite to wipe the sweat from his brow as his eyes raked over the stand of shrubs, seeking any and all movement that might betray his quarry’s presence.

A twig cracked to his left and from the corner of his peripheral vision he caught sight of a charging, blackened figure. He whirled and dropped into a crouch just in time for the Burned One’s misshapen claw to swipe uselessly at the air above his head.

It fucking snuck up on him. How the fuck had it done that?

Riven didn’t waste time wondering; instead, he leapt backwards away from the swinging, venomous claws. The Burned One snarled and snapped but still Riven danced backward, drawing his opponent onto the offensive, forcing it to take the lead. After several seconds of distanced swipes, it took his bait and pounced forward—just as Riven anticipated. He timed his own leap to react to the Burned One and took the smashing blow right in the center of his reinforced chest plate.

He smirked even as he staggered two steps backward from the force of the blow. Right where he wanted.

The Burned One was strong, and in the following second Riven focused his mind on that kinetic energy it had imparted on his chest plate. He lifted his hands upward with his palms out and then let forth that same force in a wave of energy, blasting right at the Burned One’s approaching figure.

Riven grinned as the Burned One immediately tumbled backward, heels over scaly head, until it finally rolled to a stop forty feet away. “Thought you’d like that,” he taunted.

It slowly got to its feet, baring jagged fangs at Riven as it straightened to reach its full height. Riven sank into a crouch and raised his hands, palms outward again, and focused on the Cinder at its core.

It charged, screaming its demonic yowl, legs striding faster and faster over the uneven ground. It was thirty feet away and closing fast. Riven’s leg wobbled beneath him, still sore from the wild kick it had landed on him when it had first jumped them from above. At least it hadn’t broken his skin—he wasn’t Infected.

Yet. He reached out with his mind and felt the Cinder as it smoldered within the approaching Burned One—hot to the touch and full of dark energy, friction, and hatred.

Fifteen feet away now, screeching for all it was worth, reptilian feet pounding over the earth as it lunged. Riven drew a deep breath and visualized the Cinder bursting into smithereens.

Nothing.

The Cinder stayed intact and still the Burned One charged. Riven exhaled sharply in frustration and rolled to his right to dodge.

The Burned One spun on its heel to follow Riven’s progress, and he braced himself for the bite of its claws into his left shoulder—

Just as Musa leapt over his head and slashed her staff downward with both hands against its neck.

It screamed again, that horrific squall that chilled Riven to the bone (though he’d never admit it), Musa’s staff splitting into the three sections with which she fought as she charged the Burned One. She was a blur of forest green and ivory, her staff appearing as three pieces or as one when it suited her, leaving no place for her opponent to dodge or avoid the striking metal. Riven watched with satisfaction as she struck its head, its gut, its thigh, and its neck in quick succession. It slumped to its knees in agony, its maw gaping with an unheard scream of pain, and Riven raised his hands again and closed his eyes.

The Cinder beat like a defective heart, seething and bubbling with aimless rage. Riven clenched his fists as if squeezing the Cinder from the outside and Musa raised a forearm to cover her eyes. The Cinder exploded into a thousand fractals of light and energy that ricocheted outward through the forest and faded harmlessly into nothing.

When the reverberation deadened, Riven opened his eyes to see Musa bracing a booted foot against the Burned Ones’ corpse to roll it onto its back.

She jerked her staff upward in the snapping motion that folded the three pieces parallel to each other and lifted her gaze to him. “Thought you were going to take that one down by yourself?” she asked in a mock casual as she sheathed her staff into its quiver on her back.

“I had it under control,” Riven said with a grin as he straightened up. He scanned his body quickly, looking for any tears in his armor or breaks in his skin. Coming up empty, he cocked his head towards the unmoving corpse. “Just didn’t want you to get lazy.”

She huffed a laugh. “Right,” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, I’d be a real couch potato if I didn’t have to jump up and save your sorry arse every five minutes.”

“I was fine. I could have taken it,” Riven said. One of these days he’d take one down all by himself and prove to Farah he didn’t need Specialist support. Prove to himself that he didn’t need anyone.

“Whatever. Toss me the sampling kit.” She knelt to the ground beside the Burned One while Riven unclipped the small leather pack at his belt. He tossed it to her and she caught it deftly, unzipped it, and withdrew Professor Harvey’s biosampling tackle.

He watched her scrape some of the Burned One’s scorched flesh into a vial and wished he’d paced out his cigs better. Now he was restless and directionless until they could return to camp. “Maybe I’ll just let it get you next time,” Musa said after a long beat. He arched an eyebrow at her. “Once it Infects you and I have to kill it, maybe you’ll see why Farah wants everyone to fight in teams.”

“Yeah, Farah’ll really go for that,” Riven scoffed.

“Farah says mutual trust—”

“It’s not a question of trust,” Riven cut her off. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a tree trunk with his eyes narrowed. “It’s a question of you doing your job, and me knowing that you’re gonna do your job.”

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d had this conversation. He avoided her frustrated expression and uncrossed his arms to withdraw the small throwing knife he kept in his boot, running his thumb over the blade to test its sharpness. He checked that Musa was still busy with the sampling kit and made another notch in his leather chest cuirass. “That makes nine,” he announced.

She wrinkled her nose. “I thought it was eight?”

“No, I’m counting that one back in the moor for us.”

She huffed another laugh. “Sure, just don’t tell Silva that—I already saw him tally it up in his count.”

Riven shook his head and clucked his tongue. “He really lets getting chosen by a dragon get to his head, doesn’t he.”

Musa laughed, for real this time, her chestnut brown eyes glinting with glee. “You’re just saying that because he’s the only fairy to beat you in hand-to-hand combat.”

“That was a technicality—” Riven had just begun his retort when a loud shout echoed behind them. They both whirled, Musa already jumped up and her staff drawn and ready, studying the surrounding woods for the source of the noise.

“There,” Musa pointed out. In the far distance Riven could just make out a couple of trees that were swaying back and forth in an unnatural motion—not from the trunks, but from the roots. Another cry—this time a feminine scream.

They broke into a sprint at the same time. “I think it’s Flora,” Musa panted as they darted between trees and over shrubs.

“Nah, that’s Brandon’s style,” Riven refuted, thinking of the motion of the tree trunks. “Besides, I got way too good at recognizing Stella’s screams back when she was with Sky—”

Musa shot him a glare, but they both saved their breath as they ran through the woods. They reached the top of a ridge and paused when they caught sight of two Alfea uniforms—one Specialist, one fairy.

Brandon was down, lying on his side with one hand clutching his stomach and the other outstretched in front of him. Stella’s twin swords flashed in the sunlight as she hacked and parried the Burned One in front of her. The ground beneath their feet rippled and rolled like waves on a pond—every time the Burned One raised its arms, it stumbled on the erratic ground while the forest floor beneath Stella remained as steady as a rock.

But she was hurt, too—Riven could see from the way her left arm lagged behind her right, and sure enough, within a few seconds the Burned One managed to knock her left blade from her hand.

Musa and Riven didn’t wait another moment. They charged down the hill, Riven already reaching his palms outward, making sure to stay two steps behind Musa’s staff.

This one was bigger than the one they’d just killed - it towered over Musa’s compact form, although he knew this just played into her strength: speed. She was a flurry of flashing metal and darting green as she dodged the Burned Ones’ swipes and claws.

Riven reached Brandon and crouched on his haunches. “It got you?”

“Fuck me, yes,” Brandon hissed, and pulled his hand away from his stomach for long enough for Riven to see a smear of red blood and black Burned One bile webbing outward from the wound. “Got Stella too.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Riven promised. He rested a steadying hand on Brandon’s shoulder and turned to look back at their Specialists. Musa and Stella had already managed to bring it to its knees, and within a blink, Musa drew back with a powerful swing and leveled the Burned One with a furious strike to its neck. It keeled backward, and Stella raised her right sword with both hands and stabbed it downwards into its chest, pinning it to the ground.

Riven approached, palms outward again, and now—with little danger from the lifeless form—cradled the Cinder in his mind, then crushed it with minimal effort, squeezing his eyes shut as the energy rippling outward nearly surged through them.

Stella let out a slow, rattling breath as the Burned One’s life force drained away. She staggered back, catching her breath, and then immediately hurried to Brandon. In the span of seconds she reached his side, knelt, and rolled him onto his back. Riven and Musa approached as well, Riven drawing forth his first aid kit from the pack at his belt.

“I’ll be okay,” Brandon said thickly. His breath was ragged and both hands clutched at the wound in his stomach. His eyes never left Stella’s. “I’ll be okay.” Riven had the sense that his words were more of a plea than an assurance.

“Of course you’ll be okay,” Stella shushed him as she cradled his head in her lap. “It’s dead, we just have to get you fixed up.”

“And you’re okay, Stel?” Musa asked, running a questioning hand along Stella’s left arm.

“Fine,” Stella answered absently. “Just nicked my wrist, that’s all.” To justify her nonchalance, she extended her left hand out to show Musa and Riven. Her sleeve had torn and there was a line of blood where her forearm met her hand, but it didn’t appear serious.

Riven handed over gauze and healing potions. “Think you can walk?”

“I’ll be okay,” Brandon repeated. “Just give me a second.”

Musa took Riven’s forearm and pulled him backward to give Brandon and Stella space. They watched from behind Stella, handing her additional bandages and tinctures as she tended to her fairy. Within a few minutes, the color returned to Brandon’s face, although he couldn’t hide the pain that flicked over his features when he tried to stand. Riven offered an arm to help Brandon limp back to camp but the other fairy brushed him off. “I’m fine, I’ll just go slow,” Brandon said.

Stella looped Brandon’s arm over her shoulder so she could help him walk. “We’ll see you guys back at camp,” she said. “And thanks for the assist.”

“Yeah—thanks,” Brandon forced out before Stella led him forward.

Musa and Riven watched them walk away for a long beat before Musa collapsed her staff back into thirds, sheathed it, and then ran a hand through her hair. “That was a little scary.”

Riven shook his head dismissively. “I’ve been telling Brandon for weeks he leaves his core too exposed when he fights. And I’ve heard you yourself telling Stella she needs to tighten up her left side.”

She glared at him. “That’s harsh, Riv. People make mistakes—that doesn’t mean they deserve it.”

“I didn’t say they deserved it—and we don’t make mistakes,” he grinned. “We haven’t lost yet. Not with real ones, anyway.” The simulation Burned Ones that they’d faced back when they were still training didn’t count.

“Yeah, but…” Musa’s lips formed a thin line as she stared after Brandon and Stella’s receding forms. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re going to be saying that shit behind my back if I ever make a mistake.”

He hissed an exhale in frustration. “You think I wouldn’t have done the same for you? I’m doing my job, Musa, which means I’m not leaving you on the ground to die.”

“Even if I left my core too exposed or didn't tighten up my left side?”

She threw his words back at him, her tone mocking, and he stopped short and turned to face her. “Fine, you want me to say it? I do. I do care about you. You’re a fucking good fighter and I don’t want anyone else at my side.”

Her mouth curved into a mischievous grin. “So you do trust me.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what I heard.”

He huffed a sharp exhale through turned-up lips that ruffled his quiff. “Whatever. Let’s just keep patrolling.”

Before he followed her forward, he notched another mark on his cuirass.

===

They returned to camp a few hours later. The first thing they did was check on Brandon in the infirmary tent being tended to by Harvey, and then Musa went to wash up while Riven headed to the mess tent.

He loaded up his tray with as much food as he could fit before looking for Sky in the fairy tent.

“Heard you had a productive morning,” Sky asked from his cot, looking up from the throwing stars he was cleaning.

Riven nodded through a mouthful of stew and puffed out his chest to show the two new notches he’d made. “Told you we’re the best team,” he said with pride after chewing and swallowing. “What did you and Bloom do?”

“Killed three, actually.”

"Bullshit!" Riven exclaimed, but Sky just chuckled and shook his head.

“Ask Silva.” He stood up. “Actually, I’m heading that way, you should come with. He asked me and Bloom to try out his new idea—”

Riven's eyes narrowed, projecting his disappointment as irritation. "What about our debrief hike?"

Sky’s gaze dropped back to his hands and the pile of cleaned throwing stars at his feet. "Can't today—I already promised Bloom I would."

Scowling, Riven picked up his bread. "Right, can't compete with a shag now, can I?"

Sky frowned and glanced back up. "It's not a competition, Riv. I'm just moving our mates time, I'm not bailing so I can get laid."

"Right—you're just bailing and getting laid."

Sky rolled his eyes, set down his rag, and grabbed his cuirass from its hook over his bed and pulled it over his head. “You’ve got a letter, by the way,” he changed the subject and pointed at the desk against the far wall.

Riven lowered his head to his lunch and shrugged, ignoring the spike of inadequacy at its likely contents. "Don't care." Sky fastened the straps on his cuirass with a puzzled expression that made Riven's ears burn. He hated pity, and in his desperation to fill the silence with anything else he spoke again. "It's probably just Dad telling me not to come home next time we get leave."

"Riven..." Sky's tone was so full of unsolicited sympathy that it further frayed Riven's already irritated nerves.

"Read it, I don't care," he said through another bite. "Go on."

Sky finished tightening his chest harness, walked to the desk, and slit open the envelope. "'Dear Riven, you are most welcome at home in two weeks,'" he read, his voice rising hopefully. Riven raised a hand for him to read on, and Sky looked back down at the letter. "'...however your stepmother and I will be on holiday in Melody. You can let yourself in. Write soon.'" He finished, deflated, and dropped the letter back onto the table, at a loss for words.

Riven shrugged to prove to Sky that he didn't care. At least it was longer than his father's usual letters, he thought dryly.

"I'm sorry, Riv.” Had Riven been less peeved then he would have appreciated the sincere apology in Sky's voice. "Let's do our hike when I get back."

"Yeah, sure," he replied dully. "Enjoy spending time with your ball-and-chain."

"She's not my ball-and-chain, Riven," Sky sighed, exasperated as he laced his boots. "She's more than that... she's my lifeline."

Riven made a retching noise in the back of his throat, gagging at Sky's sentimentality, but after Musa’s comments this morning, the comment hit closer to home than he thought it would.

"Right, well, see you when we get back." He left the tent, leaving Riven to finish his meal in silence.

===

As soon as he was done Riven tossed his tray back into the mess tent and shoved his hands into the pockets of his uniform. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he couldn’t help but feel let down by Sky. Sky was the one who’d dragged Riven on these hikes at first, a way for them to have some time to themselves away from the girls, just the two of them like before. Riven had gone along begrudgingly at first but had in the last few months found himself looking forward to them—a chance to compartmentalize and destress with his best friend from the furor of battle and camp life.

And now, Sky had blown him off.

He set his jaw as he paced through camp. He knew that Sky didn’t mean anything by it, but it still niggled angrily in the back of Riven’s brain. He kicked a rock in the path, savoring the sweet agony in his toe because it distracted him from the nervous energy in his mind. He could have that relationship with Musa if he wanted—he just didn’t want to. They were soft, all of them, and if Riven knew one thing it was that the people you trusted always let you down in the end. If you gave them a piece of your heart, it was inevitable that they would crush it.

“What is it?” A voice in front of him spoke and Riven looked up, surprised to find himself in front of the infirmary. Musa looked up at him from where she knelt in Professor Harvey’s herb garden. “Does Dowling need us?”

“What? Oh, no,” Riven said quickly, silently cursing himself. He knew better than to connect the dots that thinking about Musa led to him finding himself arriving at one of her usual haunts. “I, uh— how’s Brandon?”

To his surprise, instead of a simple answer Musa glanced back into the tent, then stood up and brushed the dirt from the knees of her trousers. “Let’s talk out there,” she said quietly.

Riven nodded, falling into step beside her as they paced along the path and out through the temporary barrier erected around their campsite. “Huh, I didn’t know it was bad.”

“It hit his aorta,” Musa admitted, pushing aside the underbrush as they walked vaguely north. “He’s not Infected or anything, it’s just going to take him a lot longer to heal than they thought.”

“That sucks,” Riven agreed. Still sensitive about Sky’s comment, he chose not to offer any more opinions about Brandon’s form—in fact, he regretted his previous remarks. He thought back to his earlier conversation with Musa and cringed. “Stella must be pretty cut up.”

“She definitely feels guilty,” Musa admitted in a low voice.

Riven pressed his lips together, holding a branch out for Musa to walk beside him and not get whacked in the head. “She shouldn’t—it wasn’t her fault. The one they knocked heads with looked like a nasty bugger.”

Musa allowed a small smile up at Riven. “It was—and someone’s being generous,” she teased. “Did Riven grow a heart?”

“Wow, say something nice about a guy on death’s door, and suddenly you’re a saint,” Riven shot back. “Brandon’s a damn good fairy. We need him.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Musa said, her tone dropping from teasing to mocking. “He’s just doing a job.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“That’s what I heard,” she said again. She drew up short and turned to face him. “Tell me, have you ever trusted anyone?”

He stopped as well, feeling a twist in his gut. He didn’t want to continue this age-old conversation, but for a different reason than usual—he was alarmed that she was upset. He didn’t want one more person to push him away. “Why does it matter to you?” he asked. “Why do you care so much about trust when we should be worried about Burned Ones and Rosalind and fucking psycho Beatrix—”

“Because if I’m just a job to you, Riven, then I can’t do this.”

His lips parted and he stared, dumbstruck.

“If you can’t trust me then I don’t want to do this. I’m going to ask Dowling to be paired with someone else.”

His brain sagged at her announcement, briefly flashing through his life if he didn’t have his Specialist next to him. Having to start over with someone new… someone likely less capable… someone worse. Someone that wasn’t her.

“Musa—”

“No, don’t, Riven—”

An otherworldly scream cleaved the air above their heads. Riven flinched and looked upward in time to see a Burned One drop from a tree above their heads.

Fuck.

He reacted instantly with his training and skittered backward, stumbling at first and then more skillfully as his training took over. The Burned One had missed them in its initial lurch, but it was already upright and snarling towards them as they hurried to overcome the surprise.

“Got a shot?” Riven shouted as he ducked beneath a swipe of its jagged claws. He rolled to his feet and glanced quickly at Musa—thankfully she had kept her staff with her, and it was already twirling in her hands, a blur of metal and ivory.

“Take it,” Musa yelled back, and Riven acknowledged with a quick “Aye!” She was asking him to use his energy absorption powers to take a blow and then reverse the energy back onto it. Riven straightened up and danced backward, taunting the Burned One to prowl forward and away from Musa while she got her bearings. “Come here, you little fuck,” Riven shouted, hoping to distract it.

It lunged and Riven leapt sideways to take the brunt of its force on his breastplate. It struck true and Riven almost laughed in delight as he focused that energy back through his palms, and blasted the Burned One twenty feet backward.

With some breathing room now between the pair and the Burned One Musa charged. Her staff was a spinning twirl of silver and white as she advanced and struck forward as the Burned One pushed itself to its feet. Her staff struck over and over at any exposed areas the Burned One left open, causing it to keel backwards in pain. Musa rained so many blows on the creature that it keeled backward, stunned by pain, and if it had been anything but a Burned One Riven would have felt sorry for it.

Riven advanced with palms out, his mind sharpening on the Cinder at its core. Musa struck out again and again on Burned One while he located that beating mass of rage and hatred. He closed his eyes and focused on it, imagining it bursting into smithereens.

“Now,” he called out, their sign for her to shield her vision, and the Cinder exploded in another blast of light and energy.

The silence that followed the Burned One’s destruction felt more weary than usual. Riven dropped to his knees, cowed by the surprise and viciousness of their sudden fight, and opened his eyes to see Musa shakily folding her staff by hand into thirds before glancing over at him.

“Fuck, they’re getting bolder,” she said, and he nodded.

“Got to be on guard.”

“Luckily we’re ‘the best,’ right?” Musa said with a jittery chuckle. Riven’s lips thinned—they’d been caught by surprise. Only their training had saved them.

“Yeah, the best.” He righted himself, dusting off his uniform where he’d rolled on the mossy forest floor. Despite himself, he couldn’t help replaying Musa’s earlier words from that morning in his head—so you do trust me.

He knew by any other metric that’d be true. Riven finally forced himself to admit it. If Bloom was Sky’s lifeline, then he knew Musa was his. He could call it whatever he wanted, but it was trust.

The thought of admitting it to Musa made his gut twist again. It went against almost everything he stood for, to admit that he was wrong—except for his number one principle: honesty. If that meant admitting to Musa that he trusted her, then that trumped everything.

He opened his mouth.

Musa cocked an eyebrow at him—waiting for his smarmy retort—but before he could speak the brush behind her solidified from thorny oleander to the shape of a Burned One.

His words died on his lips, replaced by a silent scream.

The Burned One struck out at Musa from behind—her staff lay limply in her hand and her eyes were fixed on Riven. On him. Instead of herself and her back and the slim body that he should be defending.

It was like she recognized what had happened before he did. Her chestnut eyes sought his as the Burned One’s claw sank into her back, and he felt her scream on every level—physically, mentally, psychologically—and even fucking deeper than that. He felt her scream in his very bones.

He watched her fall almost in slow motion, her arms raising first in reaction to the pain, the staff falling from her grip and clattering uselessly to the forest floor—then her legs as she pitched forward, knees buckling, and the rest of her body followed, a rag doll to the deep wound from the Burned One’s dagger-like claws.

And her face. Her fucking face. Warped in surprise, with pain glossing over her features in a slice that made Riven feel as much if not more pain than she. His Specialist, in pain—attacked.

She crumpled. The Burned One stood over her body, crowing victory in its nonverbal tongue and still slashing at her body, and Riven felt a fire that he’d never felt before alight in his veins. It spread from his heart to his gut to his extremities, carrying surprise and rage and a loss that he had never before felt in his life.

Musa. It had hurt Musa. It had hurt Musa to the point that she’d collapsed and he was still standing, and he ceased to be Riven—he became a pillar of furor and mania.

It had hurt the one person who had fought by his side the last six months.

It had hurt the one person who was always there when he needed her, conscious or not.

It had hurt the one person who knew him inside out and still chose to fight beside him.

It had hurt his Specialist. His Musa.

He screamed in guttural rage and it felt as though his voice ricocheted through the entire forest.

Suddenly, in the midst of his fury, pain exploded between his shoulder blades. It wrenched through him with enough violence to cut short his cry, and he staggered forward as if pushed by an invisible force. Beneath the anger and passion he felt something else—something kinetic and physical, something fundamentally different about himself.

He fell forward onto his knees and pressed his hands to the dirt, blinking back tears of pain as something huge—something massive erupted against his back, ripping his shirt in half at the back seam. He crawled forward on his hands and knees, seeking to escape the burden on his shoulders, to slither out from beneath whatever-the-fuck-it-was now weighing him down and pressing him against the earth. It had to be a Burned One—another had snuck up on them, and gotten Riven this time, and this was what it felt like to be Infected, to have the venom coursing through his body, paralyzing him—

He wouldn’t be able to help Musa.

The thought made his head fly up and face her, every atom in his body resisting that thought. He had to save her. He fucking had to.

He grit his teeth through the pain and dared a glance behind him. Another yell escaped his throat at the sight—this time from surprise. Indigo talons twice the size of an eagle’s hovered over his shoulders, almost dagger-like in shape, connected with a lighter purple webbing—

He choked as he connected the pain between his shoulder blades with the apparition in front of his eyes.

Wings. He had fucking wings.

Riven fought to regain his breath as he pulled himself to his feet, stumbling a little as he compensated for the additional weight on his back. His shirt and reinforced breast plate fell from his chest but he barely noticed. He had wings.

More than that, he realized—he had power.

He could feel it thrumming through him—where before his magic had been a murmur, now it was a roar. It vibrated against his bones and he could feel it crackling at his fingertips. Power.

He barely had to focus—the only thing in his mind was Musa, collapsed at the Burned One’s feet, and Riven simply raised his palms.

The Burned One took a step backward, daunted by the change in Riven’s appearance. He flexed muscles that sixty seconds ago he didn’t know he had and spread his wings as wide as possible to make himself appear larger and more intimidating.

It recovered from its fright and charged at him in a frantic frenzy, but Riven found his reaction times halved by his normal standards—each swipe of the Burned One he met with a slap of his own hands, swatting it away before it could puncture his skin. It yowled in frustration and tried to clap its hands together around Riven’s torso but he simply ducked, leaving it hugging itself in a bizzare embrace. He closed his eyes—almost lazily—and within milliseconds cradled that Cinder in his mind—He didn’t need to concentrate on his focus nearly as much as before.

He focused that rage and energy onto the Cinder and felt it explode into nothing, from boiling hatred to empty peace, and then he opened his eyes.

It was gone. The Burned One had disappeared but Musa still lay on the ground. He knew she wasn’t in danger of Infection, but like with Brandon’s injury there was no time to waste. He scooped her into his arms bridal-style, and when her head lolled against his chest he felt a plunge of something deep in his chest, near where his wings had taken root.

Musa. His Specialist. He needed her.

He didn’t even know how he knew to take flight, but he just knew. His wings carried him through the forest, low and darting as a dragonfly over the brush and through the trees. His shoulders ached with the exhaustion of muscles weak with lack of use, but Riven didn’t care. He forced himself forward, not stopping until he reached the barrier, and even then he pumped his wings forward until he reached the infirmary.

He landed awkwardly on his feet and barrelled inside, Musa still in his arms, knocking aside equipment and paraphernalia left and right with his wingspan. He didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was the seep of her blood onto his shirt and then the floor, and how he had to stop it.

He had to save his Specialist. The one he trusted with his life.

Professor Harvey straightened up from Brandon’s cot, his eyes as large as saucers as he took in the sight of a winged Riven holding Musa’s limp body. A healing fairy stood in the back of the tent behind him, her jaw agape, gaze locked on the violet daggers of Riven’s wingtips.

Riven lifted Musa towards Harvey as if presenting a macabre offering. They weren’t helping. They weren’t moving. They just fucking stared.

“Help!” he bellowed at Harvey. “Help her!”

Harvey blinked but the spell finally broke. He leapt forward to take Musa from Riven’s arms and the fairy behind him hurried over as well. Riven and Harvey lowered onto a cot, her back and the worst of her injuries facing upward. Riven sank onto his knees and ran his hands through Musa’s hair, then over her face as if he could stroke life back into her. Her face was paler than he’d ever seen—even her lips looked desaturated. Her eyes were closed and looked far too relaxed, as if she was asleep, but he couldn’t think that because that’s always what people said when they d-

He forcibly stopped that thought and clutched at her head. “Musa,” he choked. “Musa, wake up—”

“Riven, I need to get by you,” Harvey said above him. Riven felt a pressure on his right side somewhere unusual and realized that Harvey was trying to lean over Musa through his still-flexed wing. He shifted two steps to the left so he was at the head of the bed, but he felt a hand on his arm.

He looked up at Sky, concern written all over his blue eyes. “Riven, come with me—”

“No,” Riven said, clutching closer to the metal frame of Musa’s cot. “No, not without her—”

Sky’s hand closed more firmly around Riven’s arm. “Riv, you’re in the way—let the healers work.”

Maybe Sky was right—the healing fairy squeezed past his wingspan to reach the supplies above his head—but he couldn’t leave her. It was his fault she was hurt, they’d been arguing—he should have protected her.

But Sky wasn’t leaving him a choice. Silva appeared next to him, and between the two of them they grasped Riven’s upper arms and pulled him from the tent, his errant wings still knocking bottles from shelves and curtains from their rods. Riven’s vision stayed fixed on Musa, dread pooling inside him at how small and frail she looked on that cot.

He didn’t even realize they had dragged him into the strategy tent until he blinked and Silva was snapping his fingers in front of Riven’s eyes to rouse him.

“Riven,” Silva said. “What the hell happened?”

Riven stared at Silva, but he wasn’t really seeing him. He saw Musa, her face torqued in pain, the way her knees and elbows bent as she fell, her brown pigtails splayed out against the earth. His fault.

“Riven,” Sky reached out with a hand and turned his chin to force eye contact. “Riven, are you alright?”

He swallowed thickly and jerked his head downward out of Sky’s grip to stare at the ground. “Burned One came out of nowhere—we killed it, but then there was another—camouflaged somehow. It got M—” his voice caught and he stopped, unable to finish.

“But you killed it?” Sky prompted, and Riven managed a brusque nod. “Musa’s gonna be fine, Riven—she’s hurt but not Infected.”

He screwed his face up at that. Sure, she wasn’t Infected. She was just unconscious with pain and incapacitated for who the hell knew how long, and it was his fucking fault.

“Riven.” He wished they’d stop saying his name. He didn’t want any of them—he wanted to be alone. With her. With Musa.

He felt another hand on his arm and tried to pull it away, but the hand clenched harder, forcing him to look up. Silva stared down at him, expression full of something akin to sympathy. “I know you want to blame yourself, but it’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad partner—it means you are alive. That’s life.”

Riven shook his head, but as he ran the fight back through his head, he found the smallest bit of solace in Silva’s words. He drew a shaky breath and gave Silva the barest hint of a nod.

Silva released his grip on Riven’s arm and nodded back. “Want to tell us how you got those?”

Pushing aside his guilt about Musa meant that the sensations of his body all came roaring back, and Riven grimaced in pain. His shoulders ached at the notch of his wings, his chest was sore from taking the Burned One’s blow, and he felt a general sense of exhaustion from his flight back to camp. “When the Burned One got her,” he said and lifted his gaze to observe the tendrils of purple reaching above his head. “It just happened. I was so angry—and then they just burst out of me. It hurt like hell.”

“Looks cool as hell,” Sky said with a grin, circling Riven to admire the wings from all angles.

“What else happened?” Silva asked, and Riven turned back to face him with a quizzical expression. Silva gestured to the wings. “Anything besides these?”

“Yeah,” Riven said slowly, recalling that thrum of energy that had surged through him. “Power. It was like my magic was twice as powerful and half as easy. I’ve never killed one so quickly. Not on my own.”

Sky wolf whistled in admiration and Riven allowed a small grin.

Then his grin vanished, replaced by a grimace of pain. He stumbled forward and grabbed Sky’s shoulder to keep himself upright as his back muscles wrenched and contorted. A keen of pain escaped his clenched teeth—it felt like his back was splitting open between his shoulder blades. He gasped and sank to his knees, pulling Sky down with him, his legs unable to support him in his agony.

As suddenly as it started, it stopped. Riven stayed on the ground, hands on his thighs, breathing away the memory of the pain. He felt lighter and somehow lesser—more muted. He looked up and confirmed what he’d suspected—his wings had vanished, receding inside him.

“Now that was cool,” Silva chuckled.

Riven grimaced again and used Sky’s shoulder to haul himself back upright. “Does this mean I can go back now?” he asked, looking from Silva to Sky. “I can stay out of the way.”

Silva and Sky exchanged a glance, at which Silva nodded. At the smallest motion Riven immediately turned for the tent flap and hurried forward.

Sky came with him, for which Riven was silently appreciative. Even though he didn’t want to talk, he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts either, and Sky was his best friend. He would be a silent companion if that’s what Riven needed.

Harvey begrudgingly let Riven back inside and Sky left Riven in an out-of-the-way corner, an agitated but quiet spectator to Harvey’s ministrations. He returned a few minutes later with water and a clean shirt, both of which Riven accepted gratefully.

They waited long into the night, Riven’s gaze never leaving Musa. Sky’s head drooped against his shoulder and he reflected on what his friend had told him earlier, about his Specialist being his lifeline. Fuck, he’d been right.

===

Some color had returned to Musa’s cheeks, but she was still weak from loss of blood and the extent of the Burned One’s claws in her body. Riven only left her side to eat, which Harvey did not permit in the infirmary. The other teams came in at various times to wish her well and congratulate Riven on his transformation. He always hated when they brought that part up. As impressive as it was (so they said), it was without a doubt the worst twenty minutes of his life.

After a few days’ recovery she lay on her stomach with the white bandages still wrapped around her torso while Riven perched on a stool beside her cot, one foot up on her bedframe and the other tucked on the crossbar of his stool. “I’m still mad I’m the only one who never got to see them,” she sighed and rested on hand beneath her chin. “Stella says they wouldn’t have been out of place at a spring fashion show.”

“My wings were extremely masculine, thank you,” Riven said, and Musa laughed hard enough to grimace in pain and clutch at her ribs. They fell silent and Riven ran a thumb along the seam of his trousers, still unable to think back to that time without flinching. “Maybe I’ll learn to control them, but until then I honestly hope you never see them.”

She gave him a bracing smile, and he knew she understood without him having to say it—that if it took Musa getting mortally hurt for his wings to appear, he’d rather never transform again.

She reached her hand out and he took it, thumbing a wide arc over the back of her hand. His Specialist. His partner. His life.

[slytherinbarnes]

Sub Rosa [81]

x. matryoshka 

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x reader

Word Count: 4.0k

Warnings: violence, death, fighting, angst, language, anxiety.

Summary: The race to save Clarke is on as the time she has left begins to rapidly run out.

a/n: here is sub rosa a few hours early since i have not fallen asleep. also i am going to nap now. the taglist for this series is open! I hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think!!!

previous chapter // season masterlist // series masterlist

You quickly uncuff your wrist and then Bellamy’s, keeping your eyes on the injured leader as you do.

As soon as you’re both free, you and Bellamy exchange a look, and he nods, letting you know to attack together. You motion for him to hold the leader still and you’ll take care of the rest, and he nods in understanding before he starts to sneak up behind Asher. You come from the side, moving just as quietly, and when the two of you are within a couple of feet from him, you lunge at the same time. Bellamy reaches out and grabs him around the neck, holding him in place as the man looks around with a panic, quietly struggling. You come and stand in front of him, dropping to your knees and reaching out to grab the knife attached to his side. He has a split second to realize what you’re doing, and his eyes go wide with panic as he begs, “No, please, don’t!”

You push the knife into his chest anyways, straight to his heart, killing him quickly as you mutter, “You put up a hell of a fight, but now, yu gonplei ste odon.”

You watch the life drain from his body quickly, and once he’s no longer a threat to you, you search his pockets for anything useful. Surprisingly, the only other thing you find is your other knife. You shake your head and give the smaller knife to Bellamy, in case he needs it, and you take the Grounder knife and slide it into your waistband. You can hear the sound of the motorcycles that the Sanctum guards use outside, and you look to Bellamy, getting an idea. “Do you remember when I went after Clarke when that Azgeda army was crossing?”

You see his face light up, catching on. “You wanna disguise ourselves as Sanctum guards.”

“We’ll need to kill them quietly so they don’t alert the other guards, any ideas?”

“You play bait and I'll capture? Breaking their necks will be the quickest and quietest way to do it.”

You nod in agreement, trying to ignore the war within you, a battle raging between wanting to do better, and wanting to save Clarke. A battle between wanting to retire Wanlida, to stop killing, and to do better versus the need to kill to save your twin’s life. Ultimately, you think of your promise to Clarke, and the Universe, that you’d do anything to save her, and you resign yourself to the fact that, at least for now, Wanlida is here to stay. You and Bellamy slip out of the cave, keeping an eye out for Sanctum guards and the Children of Gabriel. As you’re running through the woods, you hear the staccato of bullets puncturing the air, and you and Bellamy exchange a look before turning towards them, sure that the Sanctum guards are the only ones that could have guns.

As you get closer to the sound, you pass a trio of motorcycles on the ground, along with Josephine’s guard, Jade. Everything about the scene screams Clarke, and you can see a line of tire tracks driving away from the scene, indicating that there was a fourth bike before Clarke stole it. You kneel down beside Jade, checking her pulse, looking to Bellamy who is gazing down at you expectantly. “Still breathing, and we should probably keep it that way. It’d be much easier to pass as a guard that isn’t the one leading the cavalry.”

He seems to agree, and the two of you sneak back into the woods again, looking out for the guards who must be close by. It’s not long before you find one of them walking around a small clearing, and Bellamy motions for you to be the bait so he can sneak up behind them. You take off running parallel to the clearing, right past the guards view, and you hear them turn towards you before they call out, “Hey! Stop!”

You freeze in place and they yell, “Turn around, hands where I can see them!”

You lift your hands, turning slowly, your eyes passing over Bellamy as he creeps towards the guard. The guard keeps their gun pointed at you, their hand shaking slightly, and your gaze locks on the movement, brows pulling together. “Have you ever used a gun before?”

“Shut up!'' They take a step towards you, preparing to take you down, but Bellamy reaches them first, swiftly breaking their neck and allowing them to drop to the ground. You and Bellamy descend on them and quickly strip them of their clothing, and Bellamy changes into the uniform and grabs the helmet and gun before the two of you walk off in search of a second guard. You find one quickly, and you and Bellamy set up another bait situation, this time with you pretending to be held captive by him, and you repeat the process, luring the guard in, killing them, and then stripping them of their clothes and weapon. Once you are dressed and ready to go, you and Bellamy both pull your helmets on and head back to the bikes, just in time to see the other guards gathered there. 

Luckily for you and Bellamy, you don't have to pretend to know how to ride the motorcycles, because the group is two bikes short, so you each hop on the back with another person as Jade turns and yells, “We follow her tracks!”

You all tear through the woods on the bikes quickly, making short time of Clarke’s head start, and the tracks in the dirt end eventually, a crashed bike at the end of them. You all come to a stop and Jade turns to look back at all of you, her helmet still missing because Clarke took her helmet with her. “Keep your helmets on and your guns ready, these are the enemy's woods.”

All of you nod and dismount, following her as she jogs over to the bike and places a hand of the metal. “The engine's still warm, she can't be far.”

Jade leads the way through the woods, all of you spreading out to search for Clarke. After a few minutes of searching, one of the other guards calls out, “Over here, I found something!”

You tense up, growing worried as all run over to her, eyes landing on a hatch, hidden beneath a wall of leaves. Your mind flashes to the map of Sanctum that Bellamy showed you and Murphy, remembering the small buildings drawn on the paper, marking the research posts in the area. You think Bellamy is remembering them too, because his hand is hovering near his gun, prepared to take out everyone if Clarke is inside. Your hand does the same, hovering near your weapon, but the need to use it never comes. The hatch is pulled open and it’s empty, nothing inside but dust, vines, and old books. Jade turns to look at all of you, a fire lit within her. “Look for more outposts!”

Everyone splits apart and begins to search, and you and Bellamy keep enough distance to look like you’re playing along, but you stay close enough that you can help each other if necessary. Because you both have vague memories of the location of the research hatches, you and Bellamy find them first, peeking inside and searching for Clarke before you call out to the others to take a look. You search for hours, until the suns set in the sky, and even then, you keep searching. You find a few more hatches as the hours pass, all of them empty, and you start to wonder how you and Bellamy are going to get out of this situation if you can't find Clarke soon. Luckily for you, the Universe offers you a gift.

One of the other guards yells, “Hey! Over here, I found another hatch.”

You all rush towards him, pulling the hatch open with another wave of disappointment, this one just as empty as the others. But as he closes the door back and you all start to split up again, a voice floats through the woods, heading straight for you. “Help! I'm here!”

You turn towards Bellamy, both of you recognizing the voice, and you take off running towards it, the other guards following closely behind you. All of you pull out your weapons as you draw closer, your eyes landing on Clarke, flanked by two people. One is a man that you don't know, the other, much to your surprise, is Octavia. Luckily, with your helmets still on your heads, you and Bellamy are able to hide your shock of seeing the other Blake, though you can sense it rolling off of him in waves. You all come to a stop in front of the trio, weapons pointed their way, and Jade yells, “On your knees! Octavia, drop your weapon!”

The other two guards rush towards Octavia, and one of them grabs her while the other points their weapon at her. You and Bellamy aim at the unknown man, but you’re both closely watching Octavia, who drops her sword and holds her hands up in surrender. The man looks to Jade, his expression pleading, “Listen to me, she needs medical attention. If I don't operate soon, she'll die.”

Fear washes over you, as you peer at your twin, afraid that you won't have enough time, and you’ll soon lose her forever. The guard holding Octavia turns to the man and snaps, “Take your hands off her, cog.”

You pull a face beneath your helmet, the unoriginal nickname almost making you laugh, but all of your amusement washes away when Clarke opens her mouth. “Okay, enough talk. Kill the girl, take Gabriel prisoner, and get me home.”

The sentence hits your hard, the Josephine tone of voice back. And if that wasn't enough to clue you in, the fact that she referred to Octavia as ‘the girl’ and the man as Gabriel is enough to convince you. Gabriel? Your mind starts running a million miles a minute as you all turn to look at the man, clearly not the old man that Josephine warned you about. 

“Gabriel?” Everyone starts moving at once, and Jade makes a beeline for Josephine, pulling her out of Gabriel’s grip and starting to walk away with her. The other two guards split apart, one of them coming to stand behind Gabriel and one of them pointing their gun at Octavia, and Bellamy nudges you slightly, letting you know that now is the time to act. The two of you work in tandem, and he takes the guard on the left and you take the one on the right. One of them starts to yell, “For the glory and grace-”

But her words are cut off by you sending a bullet into her chest as Bellamy takes out the man threatening Gabriel, both of the guards falling to the ground. You both turn on Jade, leveling your weapons on her, and she releases Josephine and slowly removes her gun, tossing it away. You and Bellamy tug your helmets off, and Octavia whispers both of your names in shock, not expecting either of you to be the ones to save her. Josephine rolls her eyes, muttering, “Because of course it is.”

Octavia rushes towards her brother, wrapping her arms around him, laughing with shock and relief, and he awkwardly pats her back with his free hand, still struggling with his feelings towards his sister. You turn away from the exchange to glance at Gabriel, who is watching all of you in confusion. “Take her.”

He nods, walking to his former lover that is trapped in your twin’s body, and he wraps his arms around her. As he does, she collapses a little, her voice sounding small and scared, “I can't feel my legs.”

Gabriel looks to you and Bellamy, as he scoops her up into his arms, already backing away, “We have to hurry, come on.”

“Right behind you!” You swing your gaze back towards Jade, who watches Josephine leave with a look of anger. Your anger, however, is stronger, and you sneer at her, “Go back to Sanctum. You tell Russell that if he hurts any of our people, he'll never see his daughter again.”

She looks at you, still angry, still deciding if she can take you, before moving her gaze to the place she last saw Josephine. Bellamy looks at her, just as angry, and pulls her out of her head by yelling, “Go!”

She turns and runs off, and you watch her until she disappears into the trees, leaving you alone with the Blake siblings. As soon as it’s clear, you turn to Octavia with a smile. “Now what the hell are you doing here?”

“I should be asking you the same thing.” She smiles back at you, happy to have a warm welcome from one of you, and the two of you briefly hug before you pull away and nod to Gabriel’s retreating figure. “C’mon, let's go save my dying twin.”

The Blake’s both nod and jog off, and you follow Octavia back to the camp, since she obviously knows where it is. As you run up on the camp, you see a large sculpture made of radios, some of them repeating lines over and over, all of them playing over each other, and suddenly Josephine's comment in the cave makes a lot more sense. For one, there’s not enough time to worry about that, because your concern is for your twin. 

When you get inside the tent, you see that Josephine is already laying out on a surgical chair, hooked up to a variety of monitors, a brain monitor chief among them. You and Bellamy quickly strip off the top layer of your Sanctum uniforms, leaving you in matching black long sleeve shirts and matching black pants. All three of you settle around Josephine, her body shaking as she nears the end, before you shift your gaze to the monitor that Gabriel reaches up to point at. “Two wavelengths, one brain.”

He looks away from the machine and down to Josephine, his expression curious. “You mind telling me how Clarke's consciousness survived?”

“There's a neural mesh in her head.” You and Bellamy exchange a look, your theory correct. “Her mind latched onto it during the procedure. It's pretty cool, huh?”

You look down at Josephine anxiously, ready to save your twin inside. “What can we do?”

Gabriel looks at you, turning to grab a few tools, “Once I remove her drive, I'll need you to quickly bandage the wound before I restart her heart.”

You give him a surprised look, the worry creeping up in your voice. “You're stopping her heart?”

“Death causes her mind to back up onto the drive. I take it out, then start her heart.”

“And then we get Clarke back?”

Gabriel nods, and you feel a touch of relief that soon this will be over, soon Clarke will be saved. Josephine shifts in the seat and turns to look over at you and Bellamy with something akin to admiration. “She was right to depend on the two of you. Believe it or not, we're actually friends.”

You snort, “We'll see about that if you ever meet in the real world.”

“Real world?”

Gabriel freezes, and you all look at him in confusion as Bellamy nods and clarifies, “Yeah. After we use her mind drive to bargain for peace.”

Octavia speaks up for the first time, clearly noticing something in his tense stance. “What's wrong?”

He doesn't answer, but Josephine answers for him. “He knows that means I'll be resurrected again, and he's not sure if he can let them take another innocent life.”

Gabriel walks back over to her side, a syringe now held in his hand. As he starts to slowly lower it to her arm, reminding you of the time you spent in Becca’s lab, Josephine reaches out and grabs his arm, stopping him. “Aye, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come? But I guess that was okay for you, huh, old man?”

Gabriel’s face gets hard with hidden emotions and haunted memories. “No. It wasn't.”

“You know that there's another way. If you let me keep this body, nobody else has to die.”

“For you to keep that body, someone does have to die. Clarke. Now, no more talking.” You glare at Josephine, the option not an option at all, because Josephine keeping Clarke’s body means that Clarke will be gone to you forever. You shift your gaze up to Gabriel, “Do it.”

Josephine locks her eyes on her lover, making one last ditch effort to keep Clarke’s body. “I know that I've done bad things. I don't remember them all, but I do know that you hate me for it.”

Gabriel’s voice is soft and full of love, and in any other situation, you’d feel bad for the doomed couple. “I could never hate you.”

“I know it. We can still be together, my love. We can take out the drives just like you wanted.” Bellamy and Octavia both turn away from them, annoyance apparent in both of their expressions, but you keep your eyes locked on them, hand hovering near your knife, prepared to intervene if you have to. “We can grow old together.”

Tears well up in Gabriel’s eyes, clearly feeling the impact of Josephine’s words. “I've loved you for centuries.”

She smiles and nods, thinking that he’s coming around, but he surprises all of you by answering, “We had our time, I have to let you go now.”

And before she can object, he injects her with the liquid from the syringe. You watch her expression morph into shock before it drops, and her eyes slowly flutter closed until you hear the heart rate monitor flatline, letting all of you know that Clarke’s heart is no longer beating. Gabriel leans down and whispers, “La muerte es la vida.”

You don't have time to ask him for the meaning of the words, because he immediately pulls away and gathers his tools, coming back to Clarke’s side to finish the process. “Help me turn her over.”

You and Bellamy reach out and help lift Clarke, and you hold her hair out of the way as Gabriel quickly removes the mind drive from her head. He hands you a wad of cotton squares to hold against the wound, before he turns away with the mind drive, saying, “Cover the wound, we need to restart her heart.”

You press the cotton squares to the incision on the back of her neck before you roll her back over with Bellamy’s assistance. Gabriel prepares a new syringe, this one much larger than the last, and then he quickly pushes it into Clarke’s chest and empties the syringe of fluid into her body. You all watch Clarke with bated breath, her revival supposed to be instant, but she lays completely still, eyes still closed. The flatline warning on the machine continues beeping, and you feel anxiety prickle across your skin as you look at Gabriel in alarm. “Why isn’t she waking up?”

Gabriel turns to the screen monitoring the wavelengths in her head, and two lines are still etched across it, both Josephine and Clarke still inside Clarke’s mind. Meaning that Josephine isn’t in the drive, she’s in Clarke’s head. Meaning that the battle for Clarke’s body isn’t over yet, and Josephine is still inside, vying for control. You look at Gabriel in alarm, wondering what he’s going to do, how he’s going to save Clarke, but he just gives you a sympathetic look. “I'm sorry, but her brain can no longer support two minds.”

You feel anger rise up, “What are you talking about?”

Octavia does too, because she looks to the screen and then glares at Gabriel. “Do something! They're both still in there.”

“Latent neural activity continues for a short time after death, but once the head stops working with the heart, it's over. The two organs are stronger together, and without them working together, it’s over, okay?”

Your eyes go wide as you process his words, one phrase sticking out to you the entire time. Stronger together.  You look at Bellamy, whispering the words to him, “Stronger together.”

And then you nudge him out of the way so you can start CPR, pressing on Clarke’s chest in a steady rhythm, before lowering yourself to her mouth and filling her lungs with air. You repeat the process, pushing down on her chest, tears springing to your eyes with each passing second as you realize you’re getting closer and closer to her eventual death with the passing of time. You hear Octavia call your name, but you cut her off, voice rising with desperation. “No! I’m not losing her again!”

You ignore the others around you, continuing your desperate CPR, talking to Clarke the entire time you move, “Come on! Clarke, I need you. Madi needs you. Mom needs you. Now wake up! I should have fought harder for you, Clarke. I should have burned Sanctum to the ground and killed everyone that got in my way, but I’m fighting for you now, god damn it!”

Octavia puts her hand on your arm, trying to stop you. “La lune, she's gone.”

“No, she's not!” You turn to Bellamy, tears falling down your face now, giving your fiance a heartbroken look, the reality of your loss starting again. For the second time in the last few days, you are faced with the possibility that your twin is gone, and you’re not sure your heart can take it again. You aren’t sure you can face that heartbreak again. You stare at Bellamy, your voice a broken whisper, “She can’t be gone.”

He sees the heartbreak on your face, knows the pain you went through days ago when you thought she was dead, and remembers the pain he felt too. He stands at your side, turning to face your twin, his approach just as desperate as yours. He brings his fist down onto Clarke’s chest in hard, heavy beats, trying to forcefully restart her heart. “Wake up, Clarke! We’re not letting you go. You're a fighter, now get up and fight!”

You see his desperation reaching a peak, his voice starting to crack with heartbreak, and he hits her one last time, one solid blow to her chest as he practically yells, “Get up and fight!”

Clarke takes in a loud, wheezing breath, her eyes flying open to look around in a panic. You feel a rush of relief as you lower yourself to her, helping her sit up as you whisper, “You’re okay, shining star, just breathe.”

Behind her, the heart rate monitor consistently beeps, confirming that the organ in her chest is steadily beating, and she looks at you with a confused expression. You meet her eyes, looking into the face of the girl that has been your other half since birth, and you whisper, “Clarke?”

She nods slightly, before jumping towards you slightly, wrapping her arms tightly around you. You start to cry, big, fat tears of relief rolling down your face, and Clarke tucks her head into the crook of your neck, whispering, “Stronger together.”

Your tears start to flow harder, reminding you how much of your strength truly comes from your twin, and how broken you felt living in a world temporarily without her. But all of that is over now. Because now, your twin is held tight in your arms, her left hand reaching out to take Bellamy’s hand, squeezing it in thanks. Octavia watches your trio with a smile, relief evident on her features. Only one person in the room is mourning, and that’s Gabriel, his eyes locked solely on the brainwave monitor beside him, only one wavelength on display. 

Josephine is gone, dead to the world, dead to history, and Clarke Griffin is back and better than ever. 

-

next chapter

[ladyrynofsunnydale]

Bo-Katan Week Day 6/ Bo-Katan and Korkie

Title: Mandalorians are Stronger Together

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Death

Relationships: Bo-Katan Kryze & Korkie Kryze, Bo-Katan Kryze & Satine Kryze, Korkie Kryze & Satine Kryze, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze

Additional Tags: Post-Episode: s05e16 The Lawless, Family, Korkie Kryze is a Kenobi, Korkie Kryze Needs a Hug

Summary: Satine is dead and there was nothing Bo-Katan could do about it, and she needs to tell Korkie. An Aunt and a nephew who haven’t spent more than a day together are now all the immediate family each other has left.

Author’s Note: Happy Day 6 of Bo-Katan Week! Yeah, I just keep putting poor Bo-Katan in these heart wrenching situations. I can’t help it. She needs happiness, but my brain keeps churning out these. I was excited to write this as I love the thought of Korkie and Bo-Katan getting to know each other and developing a relationship, though unfortunately that all occurs after Satine, their connecting factor, is dead. Tragic from the beginning.

Warnings for loss and hurt

Tagging: @bokatanweek

Click on the link above to read or read down below

Bo-Katan watched the boy out of the corner of her eye. Korkie. Her nephew. Officially on his paperwork he was the son of one of her and Satine’s closest cousins and his wife. Unofficially, however, there was no way he was not Satine and Obi-Wan’s son.

Recognizing that Mandalore was a lost cause with the commandos she had, Bo had fled Sundari, leaving a few of her most trusted commandos to keep watch on Almec and Maul, though Maul had mysteriously disappeared. She’d left Korkie with some of her commandos on Kalevala when she’d gone back to Sundari to try to free Satine once again. She’d had high hopes for the Jedi when he’d shown up, but…it was not to be. Returning to Kalevala, Korkie was the first to greet her when she’d descended from her starfighter, his eyes filled with hope. She’d met them and shook her head and had tried to walk away, but Korkie jogged to keep up with her and grabbed her arm. Bo had almost growled and pulled her arm away.

“What happened? Auntie? Is she…?”

“She’s dead, Korkie.” Her words had been clipped and short, masking any emotion, and Korkie had stopped dead in his tracks.

“Dead?” she’d heard him say, and she had finally stopped and turned. “What…what happened?” Tears were filling his eyes, and Bo had clenched her jaw to keep any tears from forming in her own.

“Maul. He used her to bait Kenobi, then he killed her.”

“And you didn’t do anything?!” Korkie shouted, rage filling his eyes.

“There was nothing I could do Korkie! The throne room is designed to be impregnable.”

“You didn’t care about her at all! You just wanted to use her!”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I feel!” Bo had snapped back, striding back to Korkie and poking him in the chest with her finger. “You have no idea! No idea!”

Korkie had glared at her then turn and stormed off. Bo was shaking and to her shame she found she was way too close to crying. She’d stormed her way to Axe Woves, who’d she’d left in charge of the commandos she’d left behind, and demanded a report.

But now here she was, silently eating dinner, and she couldn’t help but stare at her nephew. His words had stung. When she was younger, Satine had been her world. She’d idolized her. After their parents had been murdered she and Satine had been separated, and she’d been scooped up by Death Watch. Her world had never been the same again. But in all that time, despite telling herself over and over that she hated Satine and her regime, she’d still loved her. Pre callously talking about killing her had cut her to the bone, but she’d gone along with it. She had hoped that maybe she could figure out a way to spare her sister. But in the end, Satine’s fate hadn’t even been in Pre’s hands.

She could see the tear tracks on Korkie’s face. He was off to the side, away from her other commandos, and his shoulders were hunched like he was trying to ward off a blow. Bo sighed and stood, walking over to him and sitting down on the log next to him.

“I’m sorry, Korkie.”

Korkie looked up and she could see more unshed tears in his eyes.

“No, I’m sorry Bo-Katan. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.”

Bo bumped his shoulder with hers.

“We’re Kryzes. Lashing out is what we do best.”

That earned her at least a little smile.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Korkie said, his voice sounding so lost. “She’s been there for me for as long as I can remember.” He turned to Bo. “Were you two close?”

“When I was younger? Extremely. She was my big sister. She hung the moons and stars in the sky and I would have followed her anywhere.” Korkie smiled sadly at that.

“What happened?”

“The Civil War. And Death Watch.”

“Auntie,” Korkie began, his voice shaking, “Auntie wasn’t trying to destroy Mandalore. She was trying to make it better, safer.”

“And look where that got her,” Bo snapped and Korkie recoiled, though he gazed at her steadily. There was no way that Korkie was not Kenobi’s son.

“She wasn’t the one who attacked Mandalore with crime syndicates.”

Bo wanted to snap back at him, and she felt the heat of anger rising in her chest. What did he know? What did he know of what Death Watch was trying to do? They were protecting Mandalorian culture that had survived thousands of years. But she paused and glanced around at her commandos. Very few of them who were loyal to Mandalore and not Maul remained. Maul’s plans would strip Mandalore and destroy the planet better than Satine ever could have. Is this what Death Watch had led to? In her mind’s eye she saw the wasteland that was Mandalore’s landscape. Was warfare any better?

She glanced at him and noticed he didn’t have any food.

“Did you eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” he stated.

“You need to eat Korkie.”

“You’re not in charge of me, Bo-Katan.”

Bo opened her mouth to retort, her anger rising again, and bit back her reply. Standing she headed to where the food was being handed out and collected a ration and headed back to Korkie.

“Here. Eat.”

“I told you I’m not hungry.”

“Well, Satine would want you to eat. So eat.”

Korkie hesitantly took the ration and stared at it. With a sigh he slowly began eating, chewing for much longer than he needed.

“You need to swallow too.”

He glared at her, but swallowed. They sat in silence, Korkie slowly finishing his ration, both staring out into the gloomy darkness that was Kalevala in winter.

“This is the first time I’ve been off Mandalore since I was born,” Korkie said, and Bo looked at him. “Not quite what I was hoping for.”

“Kalevala isn’t exactly the prettiest planet.”

“That’s not what I meant.” They sat in silence again before Korkie once again broke it. “Did you know my parents?” he asked and Bo bit her inner lip. Every good lie had a grain of truth in it. Did she know the people who on his records were said to be his parents? Vaguely. She thinks she met them once when she was 6 when she had to go to their wedding. It was a very boring wedding. They seemed nice enough? Their deaths were one of the first of the Great Clan Wars. She remembered that. But Satine and Obi-Wan? Yes she knew them. Admittedly not very well, but she knew them.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “You remind me a lot of them,” she answered truthfully. He met her eyes and she saw the longing in his eyes. “You have your mother’s kindness and fire. And your father’s patience.”

“I wish I could have known them,” he said sadly and Bo’s heart softened for him. “Auntie Satine was the only family I had. The only family I really needed to be honest.”

“She was a good person,” Bo said, nodding. She glanced around and back to him. “You’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you like.” Korkie looked up at her.

“And if I don’t want to stay?”

“Then you don’t have to. But Korkie, those of us loyal to Mandalore, we’re a small lot.” A realization came to her like a knife to her gut. “We should stay together. Mandalorians are stronger together.”

“I’ll think about it,” Korkie said, and Bo nodded and stood, placing her hand on his shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but closed it. Instead she squeezed his shoulder and nodded at him, and he nodded back.

Walking away she had one thought. She’d failed Satine, but she wouldn’t fail Mandalore. Or Satine’s son.

[captain-cerrillo]

Operation Asteria

from x

“Hey loverboy,” Jackson Vance called mockingly from across the open space.

The biotics lit the darkened underground bunker around them, and Isaac turned off the parts of him that couldn’t focus when Eva was near. He wasn’t easily baited and slipped naturally into a familiar, lighthearted rhythm.

“You know, I can’t say I blame you, Cap. I’d abuse all of my power just to get to that sweet heat between her legs too.”

Max Townsend was one of Isaac’s best and oldest friends. He was also a seasoned N7 Destroyer. They’d been cooped up or deployed together for a cumulative total of at least ten years and had spent a fair amount of that time actively trying to kill each other. Which was helpful in a lot of ways generally, but Isaac was extra grateful for it now.

“Look at our girl.” Vance gestured to Eva who looked like she was quite literally fighting for her life and Isaac scrambled to push it all down. If anyone could survive a direct confrontation with two Asaris it could only be Eva. He hoped. “Fucking her way to the top.” Vance faked a sniffle. “I’m sort of proud.”

Isaac didn’t bother to explain the Alliance chain of command. Or how many other old soldiers were more impressive than him. The right arm of his armor frosted as the physical pneumonic of his hand gestures activated his suit’s cryo system to expel a flash freeze that sprayed out in a cone shape in front of him. It didn’t still the Destroyer, but it slowed the targeting mechanisms that his T5-V battlesuit’s VI used to lock onto threats long enough for the Paladin to roll into cover behind a half wall next to a row of terminals.

Isaac could hear the familiar grinding of the suit’s shoulder-mounted hawk missile launcher’s tiny gears as they struggled to shake off the freeze. Vance cursed and leveled his rifle. His armor glowed with a shaky red haze that told the Paladin he’d activated the suit’s devastator mode to boost his damage at the cost of movement. The choice confirmed Isaac’s suspicions that Vance was an idiot thug, not a seasoned soldier, because N7 Paladins were notoriously fast.

“Have you found that mole on her inner thigh? Right in that soft spot where her leg meets her hips. God she tastes so good there.” Vance intended to poke Isaac, but the Paladin didn’t spit back. Eva had a lot of fascinating beauty spots but the one on her chest, closest to her heart, was his favorite. He tried not to think of it.

Isaac popped out of cover, expecting the barrage of bullets to ripple against his suit’s shielding and adjusted his body weight accordingly. He stretched out another pneumonic, detonating the cryo explosion with a burst of fire from his other gauntlet. The plasma blast ate a decent chunk of Vance’s shielding but, again, he wasn’t stopped.

“We’ve got your boy. We’ve got your disc.” The Destroyer grunted as he expelled the heat sink from his rifle and reloaded with practiced speed. “And now we’re going to wipe you off the map before we leave.”

Vance fired a stream of armor-piercing rounds across the open space, chasing the Paladin as he rolled between cover to get closer before the Destroyer could move away. They collided in a show of smoke and fire as Isaac closed the distance only to tuck behind his omnishield when the suit’s shoulder rockets beeped their targeting confirmation. He waited for the ripple to subside and almost let up too early when a barrage of frag grenades shook the ground around him as he hunkered down.

A small piece of shrapnel from the edge of a metal storage crate at his back pierced his armor when one of the grenades rolled past him. He felt the familiar sting of a foreign object bite into his flesh as the scrap metal found a weak joint on the back of his armored knee as he crouched. He couldn’t help the painful yelp as his gloved fingers dug deep enough to pull it out. He threw the bloody piece on the ground, and it made a small jingling sound as it wobbled to a still stop.

“There we go. I knew you could bleed.” The venom in Vance’s voice was dripping. “Do you think Eva is bleeding right now?”

Isaac’s shield fizzled to nothing, and he leveled his pistol expecting the worst. The ringing sounds from the combo explosions and the smoke that filled the space around him were disorienting but he stayed steady on his feet. Isaac choked down the creeping fear at the thought of the Fury being caught in more than she could sustainably handle as every minute of the struggle stretched between them.

He rolled out of the way, just barely, before another rocket screamed by. It impacted another crate behind him that send shards flying. He ducked his back against a wall and popped his shield to spare another jab until the pieces clinked, falling onto the metal floor.

Isaac rolled out of cover, finding his feet lightly, straining his eyes and his suit’s telemetry as he searched for the Destroyer through the smoke. The spot behind his knee stung as the medigel sank in, knitting the raw wound beneath the tight fibers of his undersuit, but he wouldn’t let it affect his certain stride.

He knew he wouldn’t win the long game if Vance had enough ammo so he decided to close the distance. He tucked his pistol and his head, sprinting in a zig zag to delay the missile launcher’s targeting systems until he was close enough to swipe his shield with the full force of his rage of behind it.

The tech upgrades to his kit made a wall of flaming plasma between them and Vance screamed as the rifle fell from his hands to clatter on the floor. Isaac knew firsthand how the heat of the shield could make a man feel like he was going to boil to death in his own sweat. He knew firsthand the impossible weight of it as the tiny motors in his suit amplified his natural strength to unnatural levels.

Vance’s armored boots skidded across the floor and Isaac’s shield fizzled to nothing only for him to step forward and bash the Destroyer again, pinning him against the concrete wall under the weight of the suit and the shield. Isaac was grateful no one would see the way his teeth bared when he doubled down, intent to press the life from the idiot thug before he got another word out.

A cry that his bones recognized as Eva but his ears had never heard rang out in the distance. Isaac’s blood chilled.

“Sounds like they got her.” Vance sputtered, his hands grasping, gloved fingers clawing for purchase but meeting only chemical heat. “Better dead than yours.”

Isaac knew exactly how much pain he had to be in. He knew that if he didn’t move soon the fibers of the undersuit they both wore would begin to fuse with the younger man’s skin in all the hottest places. He knew what that smelled like. He wanted it. But he needed to back up Eva.

His shield fizzled to nothing, and Isaac stepped back to let the Destroyer crumple to his knees. The battlesuit sparked in several critical places and Isaac had a very good idea of the string of system notifications and warnings that the VI must have been spitting out over the Destroyer’s HUD.

“Old age has its benefits,” Isaac started. “Patience. Perspective.” He halfheartedly wondered if the man’s medigel delivery systems were still functional before he kicked him to the ground. “Experience.”

He grunted, a feral sound heavy with the weight of his fear and frustration as he slammed the shield down on the Destroyer’s armored shoulder. Vance howled, a blood curdling scream as the onmishield sliced through his broken battlesuit, biting a chunk out of the floor beneath him with the unyielding impact and cauterizing the wound at the same time.

“You’re an idiot and a thug. And you don’t deserve this stripe.” Isaac bent enough to make sure the Destroyer was watching as he lifted the armored limb that once belonged to Vance and threw it carelessly over his shoulder like he was packing for a trip.

Eva screamed again in the distance and Isaac had to go.

[nothisis-ridiculous]

Duplicity

An AU where Kaidan joins Cerberus for the events of ME2.

Chapter Seven: None of Your Damn Business

The world exploded in a bright blast of color and piercing sound that had him clawing for his ears. The nerves fired and radiated pain from his lower back secondary to the assault on his headspace. His skull would soon burst because of the pressure that welled up inside of the cavity—the pressure and noises from within distorting his world into blurs of shape and color. Namely, a concoction of blues, a familiar burst of color to any biotics. Moreso that it belonged to a certain biotic that he recognized by frequency alone.

Even if those biotics collided into him. Sending him ass over tea kettle and painfully into a crate behind him. Shields and barriers depleted from the head-on collision.

The scion went down, but another took its place, yanking the dazed vanguard from the ground. The cannon exploding at point-blank range into her torso. The Commander went limp, and her corpse tossed aside as the abomination lumbered forward.

Was her barrier up?

He prayed her barrier was up.

Not that his thoughts of her fate were ultimately helpful in the moment, the creature lumbered toward him. His shields tried to reactivate, and his biotics faltered, ebbing away with another painful kick to his temples. He could do nothing but scramble against the metal crate and hope it was distracted or his shields would reactivate in time.

The scion lumbered forward, he couldn't find a set of eyes to focus on. Between the bar piercing through his skull and the pain radiating from the left side of his body, he struggled to face this creature. His gun was off somewhere, knocked out of his hands on contact with a charging vanguard, and his biotics refused to budge still. The Commander's stunt wasn't so lucky this time.

The abomination shredded, bits of wiring and oddly cold flesh coating his front.

"Shepard!" Kaidan cried.

Luckily some of the incessant ringing had faded far enough that he could find Mary's body, pulling it into his lap. Clutching it tightly against him until he felt the faintest trickle of breath against his neck. It hadn't stopped a few premature tears.

"Alenko! Incoming!" Jacob screamed over his comm.

Kaidan raised a protective dome, preemptively swaying the insectoid machine that dropped from the sky. His other arm held Shepard against his chest, hoping the delayed deployment of medigel would not worsen her state. He wouldn't risk the creature descending upon them; it would spell the end for the injured party. Luckily it stuck to a smaller group somewhere behind him where he had initially come in. The other group wasn't on his list of priorities, and only Mary mattered at this moment- the shallow, almost imperceptible breaths that slipped out of her mouth.

It was almost enough to ignore the strain such a bubble put him under, especially after the duress of being slammed by a biotic train.

Something pounded against the barrier, forcing Kaidan to look up.

"Kaidan, we're clear," Garrus shook his talons, mandibles vibrating as the turian examined both of them, "she's-"

He wouldn't accept the placating notion, "alive."

Kaidan finally administered a dose of medigel, blessedly her breathing deepened, but she remained unconscious. Probably for the best. He moved to his feet, cradling the body in his arms, "Joker, we need a pickup stat!"

"Who died and made you-"

"Joker," Kaidan snapped.

"Aye, Aye Sir!"

The next interruption was a little more welcome, even if he could not salute.

"Make sure you visit the Citadel," Anderson said slowly, looking over the pair of them slowly. His pupil's narrowed, and the corner of his lip flickered downward, "humanity could use the return of a spectre. Try to keep her safe, Alenko."

"Aye, Aye Sir," Kaidan returned reflexively.

Anderson's eyebrows creased, his gaze leaving to watch the Normandy pull into view. A slow smile crawling across his features, "keep yourself safe as well. The Alliance will want their report on this."

Garrus spoke once the Councilor had moved out of view and earshot, "that could have gone a lot worse."

Kaidan eyed the turian, "yeah, I guess."

~~~

He waited patiently beside her cot, long past the time Shepard had been changed into something more breathable. But he still sat in full armour, the swelling of the left side of his body ignored in his watch. He recalled Chakwas asking, probably several times over, if he needed anything. But he refused it, refused to do little more than swipe at the dried blood beneath his nostrils.

This was a little pathetic, a little beneath him.

But he stayed. Worried.

Worried over a woman that would snarl at him for staying at her bedside.

"Kaidan," an icy voice snapped, "what the hell happened down there?"

"Coming from the woman that couldn't keep up," he huffed, rolling his eyes as he looked away from Miranda, "rich."

Miranda folded her arms, the weight of her glare heavy on the back of his head. But what could she say? Did he need to bring up the rumor that she had been stuffed into a closet? This mission had spiraled far out of control, it was only because of Anderson's fondness for Shepard that they walked out of there without irons. And that was the best-case, worst-case scenario. The Alliance would let them live, the Collectors had enigmatic plans for the kidnapped humans; he doubted it was kind.

"Look, it went bad- quickly. There's, there was nothing any of us could have done better," he sighed heavily, "intel was bad. We were caught with our pants down."

"That's not-"

"Besides, we know Shepard is particularly bullheaded," even when she's trying her damndest to hate you, Kaidan counseled.

"Fair enough," Miranda conceded, dropping an arm, "the Illusive Man wants to see you in the briefing room."

"Me?"

"You were the only Cerberus operative on the ground."

"Can't this wait?" flinching at the whine within his tone.

"Shepard won't go anywhere," she deadpanned.

Miranda would not ask twice. But Kaidan was in no hurry to answer his summons. Neither did it mean that he would take the time to change either, by the way the woman looked him up and down, he could tell how awful he looked. Standing up reminded him of how awful he felt. His balance was still off, and his head resumed a momentarily dull thumping. It would spell a migraine later. The entire left side of his body felt stiff and awkward, the soreness multiplying unpleasantly.

Eventually, he reached the briefing room, pausing before he got within range of the sensor. It wasn't his first meeting with the man, but each discussion had started and ended with the same kind of dread. Straightening his back, he stepped into the room to find the Illusive Man already awaiting him.

"Alenko, G-" the figure stopped, looking him at with a hint of disgust, "good work on Horizon. You proved to be a valuable asset."

Kaidan's arms folded, "yeah. Could have used better intel."

The Illusive Man's eyebrow raised. Taken back by the bite coming from the usually gentle biotic, but not enough to pull an honest reaction to the accusation.

"The Alliance members stationed on Horizon, how did you miss that one? They don't make a habit of sticking around in the Terminus Systems."

"I may have let it slip that Shepard was with Cerberus and that Horizon might be next," the hologram waved off casually after a drag from his cigarette.

Kaidan's eyes rolled, "so you used the human Councilor as bait?"

"I couldn't be sure he would be there personally, but it proved the Collectors are interested in anyone connected to Mary," he continued dismissively.

Rage coiled in his gut, how could he use that name so casually? After using her to lure in a Collector vessel? His assumption that Mary was a puppet seemed more accurate with each turn, "and about that... did you want her abducted? Great timing with having the shore party arrive just before the Collector attack. Did you see the ship lurking or had hoped they would show?"

"Kaidan," the inflection in the other man's voice grew dark, the butt of the cigarette flying off screen, "I wouldn't risk a several billion-dollar asset so lightly."

"You'll have to prove that one to me," Kaidan chuckled, "we got lucky. Lucky isn't going to cut it."

"Good thing I provided Shepard a team that cares so deeply about her well-being," the Illusive Man's tone caressed anger, "which frankly I worry about your attachment."

"That's none of your damn business!"

"It is my business when the two of you try and destroy my ship, and threaten the resources I have poured into defending humanity," he produced another cigarette, "I had doubts about you coming on this mission. So far collateral has remained minimal- I know the two of you are at odds. I'm only allowing you to stay because I know how much you are willing to sacrifice for her sake. Don't become a detractor from our mission, or I will personally see to it that you are removed."

Both men waited in baited silence; the hologram gave up first, "can I assume you will fall in line?"

"Yes, sir," the biotic hissed from behind his teeth.

"Dismissed."

~~~

Mary struggled to keep her back against the shuttered bay of the medical facilities, an arm pressed against a still tender torso. She had been assured the Illusive Man wasn't expecting her to stand at attention and that he expected her bedridden state. It would be a casual debrief. Casual her ass. She couldn't show him an ounce of weakness.

The Illusive Man sprung into being in the center of the medical bay, a slight smile playing across his lips, "I'm glad to see you survived the encounter with the Collector forces."

"The Reapers will have to try much harder than that to kill me," Mary smirked, "I thought they already learned that lesson."

The man returned a smirk, "they will think twice before attacking another colony. The Collectors will be more careful now, but I think we can find another way to lure them in."

"We have to make sure they don't abduct anyone else," she warned gently.

"I want the Collectors stopped for that very reason. That's why we're doing this, Shepard."

"A little by the seat of our pants, but yes."

The man's eyes narrowed, otherwise moving on as if the barb was silent, "I'm devoting all resources to finding a way through the Omega 4 relay. We have to hit them where they live. Your team will need to be strong... as will their resolve. There's no looking back."

The Illusive Man made sure he held her gaze, demanding every bit of her attention, "the same goes for you. Can I assume your past relationships will not impede our mission?"

"None of your damn business."

For the briefest of moments, he looked amused, "I was beginning to wonder when your temper would return. Here I thought Alenko would be the compliant one... if it affects the mission, better you should leave it behind. Unless you want that distraction removed."

Mary set her jaw hard, the narrowing of her pupils the one true sign of her feelings. Not that her feelings around the biotic were completely clear, to begin with. Obviously, she cared, proving that by how she rushed in blindly to save Kaidan. But in the same heartbeat, there was hesitation, a gnawing sense of betrayal to find him in league with Cerberus.

"Shepard, once you find a way through the Omega 4 relay to the Collector homeworld... there's no guarantee you'll return. To have any hope of surviving, you -and your entire team- must be fully committed to this alone."

"Let me worry about them. You just find us a way to the Collector homeworld," Mary fought a growl, her eyes moving to a noise outside the flickering image before her.

"I just want to be upfront about your odds. You''ll need everyone at their best," he threw done a spent butt, "I've forwarded three more dossiers. Keep building your team while I find a way through the relay. And be careful, Shepard. The Collectors will be watching you."

The image flickered away, leaving Mary to face the physical man in the room.

[baku-no-alt]

sriracha sauce | 11

bakugou x reader; in which Bakugou and some other students from UA are doing a work -study abroad in NYC. also Bakugou is nice to you for once

cw: violence, a tiny bit of body horror, angst 

a/n: thank you thank you thank you if you’ve been waiting for this and you’re still here reading

You can feel Katsuki’s stare rip through your soul from across the room. You tear your eyes away from him, but the image of his unnaturally bent fingers is seared into your memory. You feel some bile rise in your throat, and squeeze your eyes shut and force it back down. 

When you open your eyes again, you focus on the object in front of you - the stone in the center of the room. Mentally, you filter through all of the languages you’d studied in the past, but the carvings on the stone don’t resemble anything you’ve ever seen before. And, yet-

“Oi. Let her go,” Katuski repeats himself, and your heart cracks at the weakness in his voice. You almost can’t bring yourself to glance in his direction, but your head snaps over to him when you hear him groaning. One of the villains in the room, a large man with leathery wings protruding from his shoulders, is putting pressure on Katsuki’s fingers. 

“Stop, please.” Your voice is garbled and your control over your quirk wavers as the intensity of the situation rises. 

The man, however, doesn’t stop. He gives a small flap of his leathery wings and starts pulling at some of Katsuki’s fingers. Sparks shoot out of his palms, but he isn’t able to produce anything more powerful than that. You can tell he’s trying to hide his reaction, but his expression betrays him as it contorts in pain. 

“Stop!” you scream, and you feel the familiar rumble of your ultimate move in your bones. The power of your voice surprises even you, and the winged villain staggers a few steps away from Katsuki. Relief floods through you, and you return your attention to the stone, having finally realized that you do recognize the language written on it. 

Well, sort of. 

Some of the markings start to unjumble themselves in your mind, and you’re grasping at straws for any semblance of what they mean. 

“So we can make you use your power?” The villain grins, and your stomach turns. 

The fact that Katsuki was never the target of the attack is now crystal clear. He was the bait. 

“You want to know what it says,” you say to the villain who first spoke to you. What language are you speaking? Estonian? Latvian? Your words have a bright staccato lilt, and your r’s roll gracefully off your tongue. 

“Don’t,” Katsuki grunts, in Japanese. You throw him a quick, reproachful look before returning your attention back to the villain. 

“If I translate it, you’ll let us go?”

“If you translate it, we won’t kill you.” A woman steps forward - she’s speaking Spanish, a language you’re already somewhat familiar with, so your quirk doesn’t have to work as hard. You’re grateful - the constant switching is wearing you out. Her long, dark hair hangs in loose curls and she has two full sleeves of tattoos trailing up her arms. She runs a finger along her left arm, and the pen tattooed there seems to float off of her arm and takes shape. 

She hands it to you. You notice weapons tattooed on her arms as well. 

“What happens when I do?” you ask her cautiously. You step forward towards the stone, run your hand along the markings etched into it. 

Everyone is silent.

“You don’t know what it does?” you ask, looking around at the group of villains in front of you. You start to feel uneasy - who are these people? 

The (possibly?) Estonian man swallows thickly. “Translate it, or we’ll break your friend’s arms, too.” 

You turn your focus back to the stone, unsure of where to begin. You can hint at some of its meaning - there’s something about a journey, and a bond. But everything else seems to be just beyond your mind’s reach. 

“What are they saying to you?” Katsuki groans from the corner.

“Shut up,” someone in the room says in Greek. 

You shut your eyes briefly and purse your lips together - it’s too much, all of these different languages. A headache begins to form.

“I need more time than this, I have no idea what it says,” you say. It’s true - the language hasn’t been spoken to you, so you’re having a hard time using your quirk to understand it. 

“You don’t have more time,” the woman says curtly. She nods to the winged villain. 

To your horror, he steps towards Katsuki again and grabs a hold of his hand. You try to run to him, but the woman conjures a knife from her arm and holds it in front of you. 

You shake your head violently. “No - I just need more time, don’t hurt him,” you plead. You scan your eyes frantically over the stone, trying your best to glean any meaning, but it means nothing to you.

Katsuki grunts as the villain starts crushing his fingers. “Stop,” you whine breathlessly, but your voice doesn’t have the power it did the first time.

“Use your Quirk, and I’ll stop,” the winged villain says calmly in - Finnish? You can’t tell, it’s one of those Scandanavian languages.

“Don’t worry about me,” Katsuki’s speaking Japanese and your head starts to pound. 

“Stop, stop talking,” you whimper, bringing your hands to your forehead. It’s too much. 

“Más,” dice la mujer and you grind your teeth, willing your ultimate move to show up anytime now but you’re coming up empty and your heart rate skyrockets and you can feel the blood pulsing at your temples.

Katsuki tries his best to stay quiet but you can hear him suck in a breath as the villain puts more pressure on his broken fingers, one by one. You look away from him, the sight of his mangled hands making your stomach turn. 

“Randmed,” says the Estonian villain and you freeze because it takes you a few seconds to realize he’s talking about Katsuki. 

You hear the snap and immediately you’re lightheaded. Katsuki moans in pain and bends forward, trying to cradle the wrist that had just been broken. He lets out a painful sob. 

Thought and understanding leave you, and you scream. 

And you are devastating. 

The scream rocks the room; windows shatter, people are losing their balance, including the woman - who drops her knife. You draw in a gasping breath, filling your lungs with as much air as you possibly can, and scream again, and you know you’re not speaking a language but you feel like you are - one of rage and pain and fear. 

The crack splits the stone and cleaves it in two, and it falls to the floor. 

While everyone is stunned, you grab the knife from the floor and run to Katsuki, who thankfully doesn’t seem as fazed as everyone else. You help him out of his chair and race through the door, grabbing him by his upper arm to avoid his injuries. 

You rip the door open and race through the hallway, glancing behind you every few seconds to check on Katsuki. 

“I’m fine,” he assures you when he notices, but you know he’s not. 

You whip your head around, looking for the elevator or a flight of stairs. You were hoping for the elevator - 37 flights would be a rough climb down. 

Shouts are coming from behind you, but they’re either too far away or you’re too exhausted to understand what they’re saying. You start to panic when it’s taking too long to find the elevator, but then you spot it as you’re running past another hallway. 

You drag Katsuki in the direction of the elevator and hit the button as hard as you can to call it - and thank god it’s still on the same floor from when you arrived. The doors open and you help Katsuki in, watching the villains entering the hallway from the corner of your eye. 

You smash the close door button but the doors won’t budge. Just your luck - it must be one of those fake buttons. 

“I’ll handle this,” Katsuki says quietly. 

“You can’t,” you whisper back, “you’re hurt.” 

But the villains are approaching, and you have no choice. You take a few steps back and let yourself hit the back wall of the elevator. The doors are starting to close, but you know it’s not fast enough. Katsuki winces as he raises his arm, some sparks popping off of his hands. 

When the villains arrive at the door, he lets off an explosion that sends them flying backwards, and you instinctively raise your arms up to cover your face. A fire alarm goes off, the elevator shakes and you’re momentarily deaf from the explosion. 

Then you feel the burn and realize that his quirk also backfired. 

Your forearms are covered in burn wounds, some places seared several layers deep into the skin. Everything is happening in slow motion; a look of horror flashes across Katsuki’s face when he sees you, and then he’s at your side as you sink to the floor. Tears are springing from your eyes and you can vaguely register him apologizing to you in Japanese, but your quirk isn’t working so you can’t understand anything else. 

He’s frantically looking around, losing all of his composure. “Stop talking,” you say weakly, squeezing your eyes shut, You can’t understand him. You can’t understand anything. 

You feel the elevator start to move. Then the world goes dark. 

—

masterlist

@shareyourfandomfaves, @ha-tep, @reyna-avila-ramirez-alreanaldo, @ayeputita, @lookslikeleese, @alinakaisato, @loxbbg, @micheladakenzo, @bnhaismylife, @aurorahoneybuns, @anything-and-everything-here69, @overkill-is-underrated, @sizzlingbarbarianglitter, @squeaky-ducky, @hallothankmas, @thenezuko, @icythotsenpai, @kageyamasbabygorl, @your-typical-giggle, @tpsice283

[raleighcarrera]

bruised

ride or die | colt kaneko x mc (ellie wheeler)

colt and ellie bump into each other in a bar.

happy epilogue day, @rodappreciationweek!

tags: @choicesarehard ; @lovehugsandcandy ; @pixeljazzy ; @beccadavenport ; @zigtheeortega

~3.9k words | E (18+)

everything grinds to a sudden, startling halt when her roommate, mia, leans in close in the crowded, noisy bar and says, “hey -- don’t look now, but that guy over there looks a lot like the dude from your prom photo.”

it’s the second semester of her junior year at langston, which means they’re rapidly approaching the three-year anniversary of that day. she’s just turned twenty-one, so she and mia can finally drink legally at the bars in new york near langston’s campus that never carded them, anyway. 

ellie finished her last midterm this morning. the day had been filled with promise when she’d left the lecture hall, springtime sunny with the weekend stretched out ahead of her. 

now it’s after midnight, and there’s only the inevitability of this interaction waiting, in direct contrast to the optimism she’d felt earlier.

she turns her head and catches sight of that familiar profile immediately, the one she’d know anywhere. she’s certain she’d recognize the back of his head in times square on new year’s eve. 

ellie turns away before colt has the chance to notice she’s staring, and wets her lips. shakily, she answers, “it is him.”

mia’s eyebrows jump to her hairline. “what? are you sure?”

as sure as she’s ever been of anything. she tips her head back and finishes the watered-down cranberry vodka in her hands in one last swallow, holding out her empty plastic cup. mia takes it from her wordlessly, dropping her own drink into it, doubling-up.

“i’m going to go say ‘hi,’” ellie murmurs calmly -- far more calmly than she feels. “are you alright over here for a few minutes?”

“yes,” mia answers, her brow furrowing as her lips turn down into a frown, “but are you sure you want to...”

her voice fades into the music playing in the bar and the cacophony of conversations that swallow it up when ellie steps away, out into the crowd.

colt’s drinking alone, near the bar at the front of the room. he notices her as soon as she pushes through the throng of people that’d been in the way between them and hones his dark gaze on her steadily while she approaches.

ellie can feel her hands clench into fists at her sides when, from behind his glass of something brown, he looks her up and down slowly, his eyes lingering lazily on her bare legs.

“what the hell are you doing here?” she demands, hoping her voice sounds a little more angry and a little less panicked. frantic. nervous. spiraling out of control.

colt lifts the cup in his hands. his answer is just as sharp as ever -- too defensive, a challenge she can’t resist. “drinking. it’s a bar.”

“a college bar,” ellie bites back, effortlessly taking the bait, “at my college. and you live two-thousand miles away.”

he blinks indifferently back at her. “what’s your point?”

“my point is that if you’re here to check up on me, you have some nerve --”

because he hasn’t called. he hasn’t texted. he hasn’t even tried.

“ellie, there are over one-million people on the island of manhattan.” blind rage boils up inside of her, threatening to pour steam from her ears as a smirk starts to form behind the lip of his cup. “how could i possibly know you’d be here?”

“that’s what i’m asking you!” she practically shouts back, though fortunately the bar’s loud enough to cover her. not that she cares at all if she’s causing a scene -- it’s the least he deserves. “what are you doing in new york?”

colt watches her silently, obviously unafraid to let himself look. he’s never been like her, in that regard; she’d be too embarrassed to be caught staring at him, cataloging the ways he’s changed over the last few years, but he’s unashamed, and looks his fill until her face feels hot with something other than outrage.

“working,” he says finally, reaching around to leave his cup on the bar behind his back. “i had meetings in the area. i didn’t realize you owned everything above one-hundred and tenth street and west of the park.”

ellie’s eyes narrow in on the twitch of his fingers where his hands rest casually on his thighs. he’s rattled. not as rattled as she is, but not as unaffected as he’s acting -- like he knew there was a chance this might happen but that he was still ill-prepared for it. 

she can’t believe how long it’s been.

so much has changed, yet so much is still the same -- colt is still wearing that beat-up leather jacket; he’s still clean-shaven and tense with a tightness in his jaw that betrays an axe to grind with someone or something. she can see flashes of the same temper in the danger underlying each of his words, can read barely restrained fury in the line of his broad shoulders. 

he still looks at her with the same intensity he always had, like he and he alone can stare directly down into her soul and see everything she is or ever will be all at once. 

“you could’ve called me if you knew you’d be by campus,” she says, because at least that much is true. with everything she wants to say to him -- it’s a start. it’s what’s weighing most heavily on her mind. why hasn’t he called her?

colt leans back against the bar. “would you have picked up?”

it’s an unfair question, because he doesn’t even know how many times she’s tried to call him. the number she has for him is out-of-service -- long since turned off -- yet she still uses it, whenever the city feels too big and lonely, or she hears screeching tires, or she yearns for someone to talk to who just gets it, who knows and understands her completely and totally...

or when she misses him so terribly she would give anything to hear his voice, even just one last time. 

“yes.” the answer doesn’t come freely; ellie has to force the word up. it costs her everything to admit as much. it feels like a big revelation. it’s been three years, after all -- she should be a different person, by now. she shouldn’t still want this.

especially not as much as she does.

but she's not different at all, so of course she still wants.

colt finally shifts his gaze away from her to scan the room. ellie watches him do so quietly, though her breath catches audibly when his eyes pause on the restroom in the back of the bar, behind the throng of students in the space. she twists over her shoulder to look at it, too -- there’s no line.

when she wheels back around, the smile on his face is sinister. 

“come on,” he orders, like he can read her mind, sliding his fingers over her wrist before he strides purposefully toward the bathroom.

the ghost of his touch makes her shiver. part of her wants desperately to be able to defy him, to dig her heels in and stay where she is or take the opportunity to slip away behind his back, to grab mia and get the hell out of here.

but she follows colt helplessly, her eyes trained on his silhouette even when he finally stops at their destination, holding the door open for her with a grin.

it clatters shut behind him, loudly, and she squints at colt and the sharp line of his jaw, now illuminated by the suddenly bright fluorescent light, his expression a harsh contrast to how soft he’d seemed out in the dim ambiance of the bar.

the sound from outside cuts off into a dull whisper in the background. 

now they’re alone.

the look in colt’s eyes is as calculating as ever, like he’s still trying to work out just what makes her tick. it’s like there’s every option in the world waiting before him, and all he has to do is decide which play he wants to run.

she can practically see the moment he makes up his mind.

it’s just after she deliberately steps back and hops up onto the ledge of the sink, leaning over in the cramped space of the bathroom to pointedly thumb the lock on the door.

he moves in a flash, accepting the invitation for what it is and crowding in against her, so that she gasps when he pushes between her legs and her head thumps back against the mirror behind her in surprise. 

it hurts, but that’s the least of her problems, because colt’s lips have found her neck and he remembers exactly where to take them to elicit a response, scraping his teeth along the column of her throat mercilessly as he works his way to that spot that still makes her shudder.

then she aches all over, distracting from the way her head is throbbing where it’d smacked against the mirror, because he’s triggering a muscle memory for a muscle she hasn’t exercised in a long time.

colt pulls at her top, and she draws in a quick breath, her grip on the sticky sink counter white-knuckled where her hands are clutching it on either side of her thighs. he holds her wide-eyed gaze as his hips roll forward once, slowly and forcefully, letting her feel him against her even through all the denim in their way.

her lips part, something hesitating on her tongue. it’s impossible to get out with him staring at her like that, like this is something more to him than just the heat of the moment. his fingers stroke slowly over the bare skin of her stomach, beneath her top. 

“do you want this?”

ellie nods.

“say it.” there’s that thread of danger in his voice again, lurking just beneath the command. her eyes flash, but colt continues to stare at her, waiting.

“i want this,” she huffs, already frustrated by the attitude she’s not used to, anymore -- not like she was. 

she had imagined their next meeting -- because she’d always been certain there would be a next meeting -- thousands of times. of course, in some of the scenarios, he’d been a total asshole, like he is being or even worse, but in most of them she’d pictured something softer. in most of her dreams he was happy to see her. in her favorite ones, he told her he missed her, held her close and promised not to let her go again.

but that was only a fantasy, and an unattainable one, at that. 

this is something more realistic, something she should have expected. he hastens to get her shorts undone and it’s not what she’s been hoping for but it still feels right, in a way, like they sealed their fate and signed up to meet again in this gross bar bathroom three years ago when they had their last goodbye.

ellie helps him pull them down to her ankles, letting them dangle off of one foot. then she rushes to get his jeans open, too, all on her own since his hands are otherwise occupied working their way over her body, pushing her shirt and her bra up with one hand while the other yanks her thong to the side. 

it’d been hot in the bathroom before they started this but now she’s sweating, her hands clumsy when they fumble for his arms where he’s still wearing his fucking jacket. “colt,” she breathes, his name both a prayer and a curse at the same time. ellie stares in fascination at the way he screws his eyes shut in response, then repeats herself. “colt.”

his fingers nudge between her legs, as practiced as ever. he’s always had a remarkable talent for making her shake and this time is no different; it only takes a few swipes of his thumb against her clit before ellie is moaning, directly into his ear where she scrambles to tug him in closer. 

colt stares at her the whole time he touches her, his expression unreadable. she used to pride herself on being able to analyze even the slightest shifts of his face, but looking at him now is like meeting him for the first time all over again -- he may as well be a stranger, with how well he’s managed to close himself off to her.

ellie lifts a hand to his hair and draws him into a kiss before he can stop her. if he’s going to make her do this his way, then she’s going to take something for herself, too.

except that he makes a sound into her mouth that makes her hips jerk, an answering whimper slipping unbidden from her lips. colt pauses, twisting his wrist, then kisses her back harder, as though the last measure of his restraint has finally snapped.

she’s helpless to do anything but let the fire of his kiss consume her, so she does. she melts in his arms and colt devours her, easily, the movement of his hand between his legs not even faltering for a second while his mouth relentlessly pulls groans from her, keeping her present -- reminding her that she’s here, with him, and that they’re doing this -- that there’s no going back, now.

that was how every moment with colt felt. every day was a new leap off a new cliff. a new opportunity for her to tumble to pieces, if she misstepped.

and she misses walking that particular tightrope more than she could ever say.

ellie comes apart with a gasp of his name, her thighs trembling beneath his iron-clad grip, her body confused by the dichotomy of how his touch feels almost like a reprimand when her heart is so full of love for him, still. 

colt pulls back to look at her once she’s caught her breath and lifts his other hand to her flushed face, softly brushing her hair out of her eyes. 

his stare continues to be inscrutable, despite how desperately she wants to know what he’s thinking.

she licks her lips, dipping her fingers back into the open front of his jeans. “colt,” she murmurs, “please.”

he stills like she’s hit him, then kisses her again, just as frantically as before. 

their hips slot together perfectly, as seamless as the last time. it’s been almost three years and she can’t help but wonder about all he’s done in between the bookends of these encounters, where he’s been since the last time they did this and tonight. 

she wonders if it feels as good to him as it does to her -- so good it doesn’t even matter what he’s done since she last left him, so good she nearly sobs with relief when he finally presses his cock all the way inside, so good she’d happily be the first on the sign-up sheet to have ill-advised unprotected sex with her ex-almost-something in the college bar she’ll never be able to revisit without blushing a thousand times over again.

what it comes down to, she thinks, when his first forceful thrust rattles the sink beneath her, is that colt has always known something about her she had never wanted to confront: that there is nothing else satisfying out there for her but him and this, this thing she’s been running from and constantly second-guessing. 

no matter how much distance she puts between herself and her past, there will always be the inevitability of wondering if she’s made the right decision.

the next buck of his hips wipes her brain blank, fortunately, saving her from agonizing over the argument she’s had with herself thousands of times before and pulling her violently back to the present, where colt is acting like he has something to prove, her face still tenderly cupped in his right hand.

“oh, god,” ellie groans, her gasps rhythmically timed to the movement of his hips, “oh, fuck.”

colt’s face tips into the side of her neck, his panting breaths hot on her skin. “christ, ellie.” the sound of his voice is a low mumble she has to strain to hear, certain she won’t want to miss a word of what he’s saying, even when remembering it later tonight will feel like torture. “you sound so...”

it’s more words than she’s able to string together. her brain is a jumbled mess of expletives she doesn’t usually indulge in and colt, colt, colt, her body trembling under his touch as she holds onto him tightly. “good?” she questions. she has to know.

“perfect,” colt moans emphatically, his lips brushing against the dip of her throat with each syllable. “you feel even better.”

they both exhale when the words make her squeeze around him, though colt’s breath sounds like it’s punched out of his chest. he sounds as torn apart as she feels, so she can’t not look at him any longer, the shift between them as they fall easily back into their old habits practically palpable.

ellie lifts his face parallel to hers, sighing sweetly when he tilts their foreheads together. any animosity that had been between them falls away as their eyes lock. she can tell by the look on his face that he sees the naked adoration in her gaze, and revels in the open affection he offers her in turn.

colt’s movements slow to a dirty, groan-inducing grind, and she whimpers into his mouth when his lips brush hers softly to match them.

her nails rake through his hair, and then again when the scratch of them makes him grunt and press forward forcefully.

“colt,” she whispers, “please don’t -- don’t -- god, don’t ever stop.”

he squeezes her hip, his grip hardly tight enough for the bruises she’s been hoping for. “i won’t,” colt promises. “never, ellie.”

that’s the only thing she wants -- to live in this strange, secluded moment with colt forever, to know that she won’t have to be alone again once it ends.

because it has to end. 

he swears loudly when he comes, the same as he did the other times they did this. he kisses her through the hiccuping shivers of her own orgasm and keeps kissing her, long after she’s settled again, so severely that it makes it impossible for her to catch her breath. 

colt’s the first to break the silence between them, his eyes dark pools of intense vulnerability where they’re trained on her face. “come home with me.”

she swallows. “colt...”

“ellie.” he looks as lost as he had three years ago, and just as emotional. how can she possibly be expected to deny him? “think about it, before you say ‘no.’”

“all i do is think about it,” she admits, held captive by the pain on his face. “if there was a way to make it work --”

“we’ll find one.” his voice is suddenly fierce, insistent. “fuck, ellie. we tried it your way, and it sucks, right? we can try --”

“colt.” he cuts off with a clench of his jaw, holding perfectly still between her spread legs. “i have to stay here.”

then he blinks, and his carefully crafted mask of coolness slips back into place, putting a distance between them that has nothing to do with the way they’re still joined at the hips.

he nods.

they redress quietly, keeping their hands to themselves. ellie slides off the sink and onto her feet with a wince, reaching out for colt’s wrist as soon as his jeans are done up again. 

“will you call me?” she shifts around in his field of vision until he looks at her, frowning when colt only sighs as an answer. “please,” she begs, “the number i have for you is off. i hate not being able to reach you.”

he chews on his response for what feels like forever, seemingly weighing his options in his mind. as they’ve gotten older, there’s a restraint to him that hadn’t been there the last time they were together, like he’s trying to decide how much of an asshole he wants to be where before he might’ve just gone full-throttle colt and leaned into it completely without hesitation. 

“you can’t just ask me to wait around forever,” he says finally, an edge to his voice that makes her shiver.

“i’m only asking you to call me.” 

ellie drops his wrist, leaning back against the locked door behind her. 

the eventual sigh he gives is resigned. “alright. i’ll call you.”

neither of them make any move to open the door. after a moment, colt’s palm presses to the wood beside her head and he leans down to kiss her one last time, gentle and finite and searching.

she loops her arms around his waist, fisting the fabric of his jacket to keep him close. ellie kisses him back until her lungs are burning, until her mouth feels as raw as her nerves, until she knows, with certainty, that she’ll never, ever be ready to say ‘goodbye’ to him.

they break apart, and she clears her throat, softly smoothing his jacket back into place. “i really miss you, you know.”

colt’s hand hovers next to her cheek, then pushes her hair behind her ear. “i miss you every fucking day.”

she won’t be able to stop wondering if she’s made the right decision anytime soon.

he’s the one to reach behind her and undo the lock on the door, turning the knob at her side slowly. colt’s lips twist into a little grin when she stumbles as the wood she’d been leaning on shifts, spilling the sound from the bar and the weight of reality back onto the both of them all at once, before she’s ready for it.

they wander into the crowd together. mia’s waiting for her in the same spot ellie had left her in, and waves her over with wide eyes. 

ellie’s able to catch colt’s eye one last time before he disappears. he nods at her, something like warmth jumping back into his gaze. the quirk of his mouth is a little easier to read, now that they seem to be at a closer understanding. she smiles back at him.

with the ghost of his fingers skimming over her wrist one last time, he’s gone.

ellie walks back over to her roommate as if in a daze. “i feel like a need a hazmat suit to just look at you,” mia sighs, scrunching up her nose. “tell me you did not have sex in the bathroom.”

“i didn’t have sex in the bathroom,” she parrots back obligingly, biting down on the inside of her cheek to stifle a smile when mia answers with a roll of her eyes. “are you ready to get out of here? i’m exhausted.”

“oh, i’ll bet.” 

ellie bumps her shoulder into mia’s as they head back down the block to their dorm, tilting her chin up to look at the moon.

colt’s still here, in the city, somewhere. maybe he’s even thinking about her, like she’s thinking about him.

her phone buzzes from where it’s stuffed in her back pocket. the text message displayed on the screen, from an unknown number she doesn’t recognize, makes her chest feel tight. her heart slams against her ribcage at just the sight of it.

let me know when you’re free to talk, it says, and i’ll give you a call.

[astraeal]

Commission for @aciddial! I had a lot of fun writing this; hope you enjoy! Read on AO3 here. 

Stardew Valley, and all characters therein, belongs to concernedape.

Leah’s washing her freshly picked blackberries when the birdsong falls silent. Her days are measured by the ebbing and flowing of flora, fauna, and the babbles of the river, and though it’s growing darker, the birds should still be singing. She flicks the water off her hands, drying them against her shirt as she goes to the window.

The sky is darker than it should be for an autumn evening, but rain is common as the seasons begin to change in the valley; less than the thunderstorms of summer, but still something worth celebrating. Perhaps the rain will push out a couple more mushrooms and berries before winter’s chill sets in; that, Leah can get behind.

Rough sketches, surplus canvases and paints, inventory sheets of supplies, and scattered, dulled tools, resting between miniature scale replicas of future projects cover her only table. She’d rather sit and eat than have to wade back into her workspace. Then again, her cabin is so small, the whole structure could be considered her workspace. She likes to think that she keeps her bed free from her work, but even then she makes exceptions to sketch her dreams from time to time, so.

Perhaps not.

She finishes cleaning the berries, setting some aside in the jars the Farmer had kindly given to her, the rest sprinkling on her evening salad. She perches on her stool, the plate held aloft in her hand as she begins her dinner. As she chews over the fall fresh berries, her mind wanders through the pathway of small cabins and creatives who live inside them, and naturally, she begins to think about Elliott.

He insists that he’s fine down in his little beachside shack, but that doesn’t stop her from offering for him to stay with her every autumn and winter. There are some comforts the forest offers that the beach does not, just as there are comforts her cabin offers that Elliott does not. He treats his piano with better care than he treats himself, despite Leah’s best efforts to improve her friend’s state of living.

Sure, Willy doesn’t mind allowing Elliott’s use the bait & tackle shop’s outhouse, and his electricity bill is nonexistent because there’s simply no lights in the shack. But when Leah points out that maybe those things aren’t exactly good, Elliott refuses to see reason. It’s a point of independence and pride, she knows; they both were running away from naysayers when they each came to Pelican Town.

She still feels that relief whenever she sees him walk into the saloon, that balm of finding another artistic spirit in a place of salt-of-the-earth folk. Of course, there are dreamers elsewhere, but aside from Sebastian and Abigail’s infrequent character art commissions, Elliott is the only person with whom she can talk about her craft.

And right now, she’s in her cozy woodland cabin, eating a foraged salad by the fire, and he’s probably freezing his ass off in his drafty shack. She’s talked with Harvey; she knows Elliott goes to the clinic more often than not in the colder months, and beer doesn’t keep a cold away like mead, according to Willy.

She presses a blackberry to the roof of her mouth with her tongue, feeling it slowly crack apart and turn to sweet, seedy mush. Tomorrow, she resolves; tomorrow she’ll talk to him and make him seriously consider moving in for this winter. Even the community center is well under way; perhaps he could temporarily move in there, and take advantage of a proper fireplace instead of a firepit.

Leah clears her plate to the sink, already planning where she could unroll her extra cot if need be. If she did the work ahead of time, maybe Elliott would take advantage of what she was offering. Maybe, just maybe, she could make him dinner, bring him up to the cottage and have him coincidentally stay while the storm rages on.

Yeah; that’ll be what she does.

♢♢♢

She wakes up to a loud cracking sound outside her cabin, and the sound of something large crashing to the ground. Then, the white noise rushing in her ears registers as rain, the ominous rumble of thunder coming from somewhere to the north. Her cabin is dark, save for the firelight, but even that has dwindled down.

Leah swings herself out of bed, first tending to the fire to coax it back up to full brightness, feeding more logs into the heat. As the cabin glows warmer and brighter, she turns to look around. Nothing seems out of place inside, so she goes to the window, pressing her nose to the glass and looking into the darkness.

Two pine trees closer to the river bank have been struck by lightning, split down the middle, still slightly steaming in the rain. She knows she’s lucky they hadn’t caught fire; the forest could have gone up in flames and she could have been stuck in her very flammable, very toxic-if-lit-ablaze cabin full of art supplies and paint. Still, those weren’t small trees, and while she mourns the loss of two of the older companions she’d had since moving to Pelican Town, she also recognizes the severity of the storm. To be able to strike down such trees, old and strong as they were, required no shortage of lightning and chance.

Again, her thoughts drift to Elliott, in his own drafty, cold cabin, surrounded by much flimsier palm trees. If one of them was struck, the tree could easily fall onto his cabin – or worse, fall onto Elliott himself.

She grabs her galoshes and stuffs her braid into a knit hat, dressing quickly. She doesn’t know what time it is, but if the storm woke her up, then it must’ve woken Elliott. He’s a light sleeper, always has been, and she mentally kicks herself for not heading to the Saloon the night prior, not being able to check in with him.

Before she leaves, she pulls out two thick knit sweaters and sweatpants, as warm and neutral as she can. Much of her and Elliott’s personal taste in fashion overlaps, a fact she’s grateful for, but he can be particular regarding loungewear. Better to be safe than sorry.

Armed with a flashlight and a long waterproof jacket, Leah heads out into the storm. Marnie’s cows are all boarded up in the barn, and the path to town is clear of any debris, though Leah’s footsteps squelch deep into the mud. She moves quickly, running parallel to Willow Lane, skirting between the fence line of the sewer entrance and the trees. The river swells with rain water, and she slips a couple times but never completely falls.

The street lamps at the entrance to the beach have halos around them, the light smeared across the buckets of rain pouring down. She jogs into the soaked sand, and from there on every step becomes twice as difficult. She’s has to be particular with how she moves, taking it one step at a time, fighting towards the door of Elliott’s cabin.

His windows are dark, and she feels horrible for letting him continually choose this version of his independence. The stone pathway does little to give her reprieve from the muddy sand, but it gives her just enough to get to the doorway and knock. A loud crack of thunder sounds from over the ocean, the sky briefly bathing her in white light.

She knocks loudly, even as she opens the door, announcing herself. “Elliott! It’s Leah!”

She shines the flashlight around the cabin. Her cubist artwork still hangs on the wall above the piano. But the table that usually resides in the corner has been pulled into the center of the cabin, with a bucket in the corner catching a rather impressive stream of water. The bed itself has been pulled away from the wall, towards the front of the cabin, and huddled in that bed is where Elliott sits, a book held to his chest.

“Leah darling! What are you doing here?”

Leah closes the door, leaning against it. The movement drags the spotlight of the flashlight across the floor, and it’s then that she sees water bubbling up between the panels. “Elliott, your house is filling with water.” Her voice is somehow calm, despite the freezing rain she had to run through to get here, and the predicament her friend keeps putting himself in. “Your house is filling with water and you’re not even at the Saloon?”

“It’s 2am, I left there hours ago.” He at least manages to look a little ashamed. “I didn’t think the storm was going to be as bad as it was.”

“The Farmer told us the weather was going to be getting worse.”

“The Farmer lives between the forest and the mountains, it’s a completely different biome than here on the coast.” Elliott presents his words with a flick of his hand, yet the ambivalence is undermined by the congestion in his nose and the slight tremble in his fingers.

“Oh, did Demetrius tell you that?” Leah rhetorically asks as she walks over, bringing Elliott’s boots from where they had been discarded by the front door. “Come on; you’re spending the night at my place.”

Elliott blinks in surprise. “Leah, that’s…you really don’t have to do that. I’m quite fine here on my own. And I can’t leave without my manuscript.”

“El,” Leah murmurs, holding the boots out to him. She aims the flashlight at the ceiling, the light cascading down around the both of them, giving them enough to see in the pale white light. “You have the story in your mind. You can bring it with you, if you really need to, but I’m not leaving you here, alone, with–”

Her words are covered by the loud crack of thunder. Pointedly, she gestures around the leaky cabin.

She sees a bit of that classic Elliott pride in his eyes, the squaring of his shoulders. He’s older than her, yet she consistently takes on the leading role, the more grounded approach, because she can’t fully lose herself in make believe worlds. Her work is in reality, and the reality of this situation is that she can’t walk away and leave him here alone.

But the next rumble of thunder in the distance lets them both know that this storm isn’t going to pass overnight; it will likely be here until tomorrow, leaving them in much the same predicament. Leah gives him another withering look, and two minutes later the duo make their way back to the forest.

As they pass over the bridge, Leah can hear the water sucking at the lower side of the stone structure. She watches as it spills over, and can hear the soft wheeze with each of Elliott’s breaths as they walk back to the forest. It’s slight for now, but she can only imagine it’ll get worse with time. Harvey will have something to say about it, that’s for sure.

Together, the two arrive, rain soaked and nearly blinded by the darkness, to Leah’s cabin. She pushes the door open, ushering Elliott inside first, then following herself. “Take whatever you want from the bed,” she says, tiredly gesturing to the bed, flinging some water off her hand in the process.

The two kick their boots off and lay their jackets on the coat rack. Leah watches as Elliott carefully spreads the manuscript pages – only slightly crumpled – onto the darkened WIP table. She peels off her wet jeans and socks, casting them in front of the fire to dry out little by little, picking her way to the bed. She takes her hair out of its soaked braid, her hat also needing to dry.

“If you’re hungry, I can whip us up some tea with elderberry syrup,” she offers, brushing her hair out.

Elliott comes over, clumsily putting his hair up into a bun and taking the softer, baggier pair of joggers from the bed. “Thanks,” he murmurs, his voice a little hoarse.

Leah politely looks away when Elliott takes his shirt off, but she is relieved to see a bare back, meaning his binder isn’t on. He tends to keep it on far past the guidelines for expected use, but that’s an argument she’s too tired to have right now. When they’re both dressed in warmer, dry clothes, she pulls back the sheets on her bed and gestures for Elliott to get in.

“What? I can’t possibly put you out of your own bed.”

She points more emphatically at the sheets. “I have a cot I can use, but you need a warm bed. In.”

He throws a pout at her, but which she returns by sticking her tongue out. She feels better – better that he’s good enough to be teasing her, and better that he’s getting in the bed and following her directions with minimal complaining. She goes to the small array of kitchen appliances she has tucked against the wall, and begins to prepare some elderberry syrup tea. Something to warm them both, and she notes the soft sniffles Elliott keeps giving off.

“Do you want something to eat?” she softly asks, the sound of the rain cocooning them in relative safety. Thunder booms every so often, but it’s not as close now, perhaps moving more towards the mountains, or simply a break in the storm.

There’s no response.

She turns to look, and sees him curled up on his side, the blankets pulled so only his eyes are visible, watching her. She furrows her brows a little, though she smiles in response, and softly prompts, “El?”

He hums a little, and she can tell he’s smiling from below the blankets. “Uh huh?”

“I asked if you wanted something to eat. I have some tom kha soup, if you want. With crab.” She watches as his brows furrow a little – now he’s confused.

“I thought you didn’t eat meat.” Leah’s vegetarian, but that doesn’t mean she can’t stock her friend’s favorites.

She simply shrugs. “Yeah, but you do.” At his resulting silence, she blushes a little more, turning back to stir the heating syrup. “What?”

Elliott remains silent, but she hears the soft rustle of sheets. “That’s really very kind of you, Leah. Thank you.”

She feels her cheeks flame a little, then reaches down into the basket of jars. She pulls out the jar of soup and a pot, clicking the flame on the stove and pouring the soup inside to heat up. “Y-yeah, anytime.”

It’s now that she remembers exactly why it would be so difficult for her to have Elliott permanently in her space. If not for their quite different versions of productivity and rhythms of living, there’s also the unmitigated crush that had blossomed over the course of their friendship. She knows he’s aware of her rocky foundations with romance, especially as it intersects with her art career – she’s told Elliott the story of Kel more than once, sometimes after one too many beers at the Saloon. But Elliott was never anything but supportive, and he always made sure to respect her boundaries when it came to romance.

She knows that he’s currently working on some romance novel, though, and that part of that had to do with the Farmer’s influence. Then again, she’s currently working on pieces for the town art show, also at the Farmer’s influence. Maybe they’re all a little starstruck with the newcomer, or maybe the Farmer just makes for good inspiration. Muses come in all shapes and sizes, and the Farmer’s never been anything but helpful.

They’re the reason Leah has leftover tom kha soup in the first place.

She has a spoon in each hand, stirring the pots in circles, before the syrup reveals itself as ready. Her electric kettle has the water primed and ready, and she drizzles the syrup at the bottom of the cups before tossing in some mint tea and pouring the water over it. The rest, she’ll cool to keep on hand as actual syrup, but the freshly made syrup – or sauce, as it really is in this form – is good to go now.

Taking the cups over to the bed, she hands one to the newly resurfaced Elliott. He looks much softer and safer here, tucked in her bed, the sweater a little tight on his arms but still comfortable nonetheless. He takes the cup with gentle, ink stained fingers, green eyes watching her with something she can’t quite name.

“Drink that and tell me how you feel in the morning,” she says, feeling her words slip quietly out of her mouth.

He nods, and she sees his soft freckles across the bridge of his nose, usually long dormant as the shorter days come about in the colder months of the year. “I have some inkling.” The words seem to puzzle him, and Leah tilts her head a little as he hurriedly takes a sip.

What could that mean?

“Let me get the soup. I’ll be the one eating it, it’s the least I can do.” There’s a darkened splotch on his upper lip, leftover from some elderberry syrup. She wants to reach up and wipe the syrup away, but she instead takes a sip of her own tea, nodding in gratefulness. Her legs ache from the struggle through mud and sand, and she hasn’t sat down since they arrived back home.

Isn’t that a thought? To call this a home in regards to them both.

She sits on the bed next to him, watching the fire dance in the brick enclosure. “You could move in here full time,” she offers, her mouth working without full permission from her brain. “Thoreau ran off to the woods for two years, two months, and two days. Think of the beach cabin as a summer home.”

“Thoreau wasn’t writing what I want to write. But I appreciate the comparison.” He laughs a little into his cup, fidgeting with his earring with one hand.

“Just, please think about it. I mean, what is the cabin going to look like when this storm ends? And winter’s coming, all of that’s going to freeze over, and you’re far enough from Harvey’s that going to an appointment is a whole ordeal, and…Look, Elliott, I just don’t feel comfortable letting you stay there.”

Elliott sighs. “…I’ll stay for the next couple days. At least until I can get the water out of my house.”

“And fix it so that the water stops coming into your house. I mean, do you know how unsafe that is?” Leah is aware that she’s perhaps ranting a little, but she feels it’s deserved.

“Yes, darling, I know. It’s all I can afford though, since no one in this town is moving out anytime soon.” He hops out of the bed, going over to address the soup. Wordlessly, she follows, handing him the only bowl she has in her possession. Enough living materials for one, not two, but she would be willing to make the choices to purchase more for him. She’d be willing to make that space in her life and fill it with Elliott, if only he would let her.

Once his soup is poured, she joins him back on the bed, sitting cross legged and clutching her tea. “You pay nothing to live there; I’m sure there’s gotta be room somewhere. Maybe there’s some apartments above Pierre’s? You know he’d love another way to make a quick buck.”

Elliott laughs, sipping the soup directly from the bowl. “Maybe, darling.” He sounds a little cleared up, and Leah hopes that trend continues. Nothing against Elliott, but she knows he can be a bit of a baby when he’s sick. Not that she finds it endearing or anything, or appointed herself Pelican Town’s resident Sick-Elliott-Caretaker despite knowing this. Nothing like that.

“I just, you know. If you don’t want to come here. I know that my sculpting can be kind of loud, and I know you need quiet to work, and there’s not a whole lot of places in town.” She tugs a little at the sweater by her wrist, suddenly shy.

“I…wouldn’t mind living with you, Leah. I’m sure we could come up with an arrangement to suit both of our styles of work.”  He’s also blushing, but Leah attributes that to the heat in the cabin. Surely, that just means the warm soup is working its magic.

She nods, and the conversation quietly dies. Rain continues to pummel the roof and siding of the house, but thankfully no more trees fall. They finish their tea, and Elliott finishes his soup, and they’re faced with the exhausting prospect of pulling out a cot and making it with pillows.

“Or you could just sleep in here,” Elliott offers, patting the sheets next to him. “I would sleep better knowing I’ve not displaced you for longer than this storm required.”

Leah rubs her eye, looking at the warm inviting sheets – and man within them – and the empty space where she knows her cot could go. “Would…you be comfortable with that?”

Elliott nods. “I trust you.”

That alone makes Leah’s heart race a double time, and she heads over to the bed. She slips between the sheets, nose to nose with her closest friend, feeling safe in the rain. Just in case he catches anything, she knows she shouldn’t be so close to him. But it’s comfortable, and the moment he slings an arm over her waist she’s out like a light, exhaustion finally catching up with her.

♢♢♢

She wakes with Elliott’s arm still around her, her back pressed to his front, and the rain continuing down. It’s less now than it was in the middle of the night, and she hopes that means the damage to the town is going to be less than the forest. Still, she can hear the rushing of the river, still overly full of rain water, and she knows it’s going to be a while before she feels safe taking her sketching supplies to the pier to draw lake life.

Leah yawns, stretching out a little, feeling her muscles yelling at her for having the audacity to go for a midnight sprint through the rain. Elliott tugs her closer, and she remembers that he hasn’t actually left the bed, nor her house, nor her person. She freezes, eyes wide, staring across her cabin at the whorls in the wood.

Elliott is still asleep, breaths deep and even. She knows that there’s a possibility that he wakes up, shy and embarrassed, about them being so pressed together. Even still, there’s only one bed, and it’s a small bed at that, so maybe they can both be forgiven this moment of weakness. She closes her eyes, resting again in this warm embrace.

She’s unsure of how long passes before she wakes up again, this time because Elliott himself is waking up. He rolls away from her, his shoulder hitting the wall if the dull thud is anything to go by, resulting in a sleepy grumble.

Staying still, Leah waits to see how Elliott responds to their morning position. True to the romantic man he is, he reaches over and resumes holding her closer to him. She feels him sigh, his breath moving over her hair, followed by a soft, “Good morning, darling.”

“Good morning,” she replies, wondering how he knew she was awake. His resulting startle tells her that he did not, in fact, know she was awake. Which meant he wasn’t saying that for her benefit at all.

Interesting.

“How’d you sleep?” he asks, still holding her close to him.

“Good; how about you?”

“Oh, wonderful, thanks. Haven’t been this warm since before the Moonlight Jellies arrived.” She can feel his smile through the words, and it makes her laugh a little bit to herself.

“Well, stick around here and you’ll be as toasty as you like.”

There’s a moment of quiet, and then a soft response. “I’d like that.”

Leah blushes, biting her lower lip. “I can get us some breakfast, if you’d like. It’s not too late, I don’t think.”

“That would be nice.” Elliott turns with a stretch, back cracking a little. “I suppose I should see what the damage is at home.”

The dip in his tone makes Leah feel guilty. Of course her first priority was to get Elliott to a safe place, but after that, what of what he had to leave behind? He claimed to do well in his self-imposed minimalist lifestyle, but to Leah, that meant what little he had was very important. It was something he couldn’t deal without, if he’s to be believed.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “Why don’t we –”

A sneeze interrupts her, and she starts, hopping out of bed. The movement makes her muscles protest, and she winces a little, rubbing a hand down her thighs. “We’ll go to Harvey’s first. Then breakfast, and then…the beach? It’s still raining, so it might not be…done.”

It referring to the slow damage done to the beachside shack. She doesn’t want to be impolite, but she doesn’t want to sugarcoat how bad it could be. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get the image of water bubbling up between the floorboards out of her head.

“Sure,” Elliott says, his breathing a little raspier than before. He clears his throat, brows furrowed, the magic of the morning seeming to fade away. “Yeah, let’s see what he has to say.”

Harvey, of course, was happy to see them both, then contrite at his happiness as if they’d accuse him of being pleased with their misfortune. Luckily, Elliott didn’t seem to have anything serious, besides a growing cold. He sent them home with some medicine, tucked away in a little waxy paper bag folded over, and prescription for rest and hydration. Nothing to do but wait it out, he’d said, and Leah had bitten the inside of her cheek.

Of course.

“Well that sucks,” Elliott mutters as they leave the clinic. The Saloon isn’t open yet, and Leah doesn’t feel great bringing Elliott to a bar first thing in the morning.

“Yeah. Sorry about the sickness, but it could have been worse if you’d stayed.”

Elliott shakes his head. “Not that, darling. That I could have gotten you sick is the real drawback here. I do my best work when left to my own devices, but I know how you like to travel around Pelican Town, gaining inspiration from whatever you can find. I’d hate to be in the way of that.”

Leah frowns a little, biting her lower lip. “Well…thank you.” It’s still strange to have someone care for her when she’s so used to doing the caring for others. It’s not that Elliott is immature, far from; it’s just that he has grand, romantic notions that often leave him far from reality, and that means he acts a little less like one would expect. Then again, only Harvey and Shane seem to be in Elliott’s same age bracket, and each of them is so different from the other, Leah doesn’t know how they begin to compare.

“Here, why don’t we do this? You head home, and I’ll restock on some groceries and healthy stuff. When you’re feeling better, we’ll handle the, uh, Beach Situation.” She gives him a warm, crooked smile, and she’s not imagining the way his face flushes a little, independent of the low grade fever he’s running.

“That could take days, though. Leah, I don’t want to –”

“Please.” She puts her hand on his forearm, ignoring the little look Jodi gives her as she and Sam walk towards Joja Mart. “For me? You’re not going anywhere else for the time being, I won’t let you.”

Elliott raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you won’t let me?”

“Yeah, I won’t let you.” The challenge comes with a bit of familiar sass, and she raises a brow in turn. “There’s nowhere else to go, El, please.”

He sighs. “Fine, fine. You win.” And then a warm smile. “I’ll be waiting.”

♢♢♢

Elliott remains with Leah for four days. It takes two before he starts personally feeling better, but it takes another day before the beach is dry enough for either of them to consider going through the sand. Elliott’s important belongings are salvageable, though bigger pieces like the bed and tables need severe rebuilding to make them serviceable again. The mold and rot creeping up the piano’s legs, however, nearly drives Elliott to tears.

Leah comforts him, passing along contact information she had from when she still lived with Kel in the city and had debated a career in music. It would take a couple months, but the piano could be good as new in no time.

On the fourth day, Elliott and Leah sit in the cozy woodland cabin, each quietly working. Elliott had crafted a space for himself at the table, back to the open windows, writing whatever additional scenes had come together in his feverish state. Leah stations herself at the easel, broad strokes bringing to life a vivid autumnal woodland scene. These quiet moments shared together have the opportunity to become something more profound.

Leah finishes putting the touch on the sunlight coming through the young buck’s antlers before she finally pulls back. “El? Do you wanna go to the fair?” she asks, stretching back and feeling her body thank her after so long of remaining in one position.

Elliott grunts in response, and she looks over her shoulder, seeing him clearly still in the midst of working. She sets her brush down on the paper towel, getting up and going over to him. “Elliott.”

“Huh?” He looks up, brows furrowed, flyaways swaying with the movement of his head. “What’s wrong, darling?”

“The fair. It’s starting soon. Do you want to go?” She comes up beside him, one hand in her pocket of her paint splattered jeans, the other on the table.

“Oh. I’d like that, sure.” He gives her a warm smile, hastily grouping the pages back together. “Sorry about not hearing you. I had a new idea for a story.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes; it takes place in an enchanted forest, where the weather is broken. Snow comes up from the ground, lakes and rivers collect at the bottom of tree branches – very Dalí meets Escher. But there’s one woman who moves forward through time, while the rest of the world moves backwards, and she meets a man who moves only through space but not through time. So everything happens at the same time for him, though he can go to different places to experience other perspectives. And they have to work together to put the forest back to rights, but they each have to rely on the other because while she can see the future, he can see the immediate changes and ripple effects, and they have to communicate that with the other while being completely unable to see what the other can. It’s an exercise in communication, trust, and romance.”

This is the farthest from her understanding as an artist, though she does understand the artistic references. “Wow. That sounds…interesting.”

He gives her a look as he laces his boots up. “…Yeah.” The look on his face is somewhat confused. Or maybe something else.

“What?”

He blushes. “Nothing. Let’s go?”

“No, hey, wait.” She steps between him and the door, looking up at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that it’s a bad premise or anything. I think it’s really cool, it’s just…what are you calling it so far?”

“Sunken Shores,” he murmurs, and she has a small realization, that’s more of an altering of her perspective. Something that was always just slightly to the left, just slightly out of reach, now slotting into the proper place.

“…Really?” That’s not what she means to say, and she watches how his expression shutters. “I mean – Elliott, is that inspired by, uh…”

The pain in his expression shifts a little. “You really didn’t know?”

“I…” There’s no way that she’s going to be able to duck out of this conversation. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Get your hopes up,” he repeats in a whisper, as if completely unsure that she actually means that. “Why…you..oh.”

She blushes. “Yeah, oh.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was going to! But then you were here, and then you were sick, and I didn’t want to make things weird while you were houseless. And you really seemed to like living here, and I didn’t want to say something and make you uncomfortable. You’re my best friend, El. I didn’t want to ruin that.” She starts out defiant, voice raised a little in a panic, but it falls to a whisper by the end of it.

“Oh.” He rolls his lips, green eyes looking askance, before searching her face. “I mean, I’ve liked you for quite a while. I knew how things ended with Kel, though, and I didn’t want to press where you were, you know…still healing.”

She winces a little at the mention of her ex. “Yeah…she did a number on me, huh?” A beat, and then, “I’m better. Than I was. And I appreciate that, and…I…do you, um, want to…?”

Elliott blinks for a moment. “Do I want to what?”

Leah’s face flushes, her entire body heating. “Do you want to go out? Maybe?”

He tilts his head, giving her a warm smile. “What do you think going to the fair is?”

“Oh!” The noise is involuntary, a mere vocalization of a series of exclamation points. She’s flustered, and it only gets worse when Elliott takes another step, further into her personal space. He puts his fingertips beneath her chin, delicately tipping her chin upwards so they can lock eyes.

“A gentleman has no reason to withhold his love from the public,” he murmurs, “yet he should also never kiss and tell. So I find myself at odds, with how to proceed.’

This can’t be happening to her. The most romantic man in Pelican Town can’t be asking her in his roundabout way if she wants to kiss. She nods, barely adding pressure to the fingertips at her jaw, not breaking away from his gaze. “I wouldn’t mind,” she whispers.

Despite his obvious charm, Leah knows he’s never really been with anyone for a long period of time. Part of that was due to his discomfort with his perception before coming out, even to himself; once that veil had been lifted, and Elliott established a new relationship with himself, his confidence grew, and with it, his attractiveness. But he’s still new to all of this, and Leah wants to gently push him along, but all of those thoughts of remaining careful melt away the moment his lips touch hers.

She feels herself wrap her arms over his shoulders, pulling him closer to her, going up on her tiptoes and humming into the kiss. It feels electric, like the storm that had forced the two of them together, yet by some miracle they’re able to keep it semi-chaste. When they part, their gazes remain on the other’s mouth, as if waiting for permission for a second kiss. It comes easily, Leah softly pressed against the wood of the doorway, Elliott now cradling her face between his large, writer’s hands, softly tasting the morning coffee from each other’s mouths.

When Elliott pulls back for the second time, Leah realizes they’re both panting. “Maybe…that was overdue,” she says softly, and Elliott laughs.

“One could say that.” He tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and gives her a fond look that is familiar – one he gave her from between her sheets on the night of the storm. “Come. Let’s go get some of Gus’ specialty barbecue. And, perhaps, some of Farmer’s wine for the lady.”

Leah hugs him, pressing her face to his chest. They have so much more to talk about – the logistics of Elliott’s winter move, affording the piano repair, how Elliott will work in the cabin when Leah does her winter sculpting, when they should make the relationship public, among other things – but for right now she’s content to be here, in her cabin, much less lonely than either of them had been before.

“Sure. Let’s hit up the fair.” And so they do.

[jangofctts]

Between Everything and Nothing (Cassian Andor x Reader)

Rated: Explicit

Word Count: 3.2K

Summary: It's hard to keep your chin up when it seems like everything is falling apart. You're plagued by constant nightmares, but you have Cassian and Cassian has you. It's enough.

Warnings: Smut (duh), language, mad dirty talk, oral sex female receiving, bunch of Cassian love over here

You'd been crying again. Or plagued by nightmares. Maybe both.

Dark swatches lingered like bruises beneath your red rimmed eyes that vacantly stared at your plate. Your fork trailed through the rations absentmindedly, your mouth pressed into an unusual frown. Cassian used to despise your playful quips and teasing chuckles, the man much more used to silence and his own thoughts than someone like you.

Now, though, as the metal tongs of your cutlery scraped against the plate for the hundredth time, he abruptly realized how much he hated your silence. It wasn't right—unnatural and off-putting.

He said your name, the first attempt at catching your attention flying right over your head. The second time your eyes, such curious and bright eyes, fluttered and shot up to meet his. The roguish grin that followed after tugged at something deep inside his chest.

"Hey—sorry," you hummed. "What was that?"

Cassian shook his head. "You need to eat."

"This stuff?" You laughed, scooping up the mush and letting it drip off your fork. It tasted as bad as it looked. "I'd rather get shipped off permanently to droid maintenance."

"That can be arranged," he quipped. "I would finally get some peace and quiet."

"Ha. Ha." You said, rolling you eyes. "You couldn't last a day without missing me, Captain Andor."

He hates that you're right.

"Just eat."

With a grumble you shovel a mouthful in and stick your tongue out.

                                                           -=-

He catches you this time.

His own nightmares had clawed their way to the surface and ripped away precious sleep. He'd wandered to the hangar, feet carrying him towards his U-Wing in hopes he'd be able to find something to tinker with. Though it was a long shot. You were the best damn mechanic he'd ever encountered and Cassian would bet money that his ship could fly better than any fighter ship in the Alliance thanks to you.

He only hears something when he's halfway up the loading ramp, choked sobs and the occasional sniff of someone in the cockpit of his ship. He draws his blaster and rounds the corner. Shoot first and ask questions later.

Cassian freezes once he recognizes those stupid slipper things you'd won off some poor bastard in Sabaac and the ratty old tank top you refused to throw away.

You were curled into his seat, knees drawn up so closely to your chest that it hides your face as your shoulders shake from the force of your tears.

His instincts screamed at him to run. Leave before she notices.  Leave and pretend she's ok.

Yet, at the same time, a deep ache settles within his chest to see you like this. He wants to reach out. Wants to slip his fingers through your hair and cradle you to his chest and pretend for just a moment that nothing but you two existed.

He must've made some sort of sound because before he gets to decide to flee or face you, you look up.

"Cassian?" You sniff, your voice hoarse and wobbly as you wipe at your tears. "What-what are you doing here?"

He takes a step closer. "This is my ship."

"Oh. Yeah." You choke out with a broken half smile. "I guess it is."

You unfurl yourself from the seat, using your forearm to frantically scrub at the stray beads and try to hurry past him with a whispered goodnight. He's fast enough to catch your arm.

His slender fingers are warm against your bare skin, his calloused thumb skittering over smooth flesh and hard muscle. The urge to trail his entire palm up and down the expanse of your arm is torturous and he wonders if you've always been this soft.

You're looking up at him now, the emergency lights casting your features in a haunting red glow. Cassian can still see your eyes in the near darkness, something dark and vulnerable eating away at the edges. He parts his mouth to say something, ask what's wrong, but he can't seem to get the words out. He falters and drops your arm.

"Cassian," you say, much softer than he's ever heard it from you. It makes his heart flutter like a caged bird.  "I—"

"You can stay." He cuts you off, something snarling in his stomach at the thought of you leaving. "I don't mind."

Your brows crease and you study the floor and when you look up again, your face is fixed with another goofy grin. It doesn't quite reach your eyes and if Cassian didn't know you as well as he did, it would have him fooled.

"Thanks," you sniff, backtracking towards the ramp so suddenly it jars him. "Didn't mean to cry all over your chair. Pretty gross, huh?"

He follows and murmurs your name as you step onto the duracrete. This time as Cassian moves to grab your arm again you evade him. He's scrambling for words to keep you here, but nothing springs to mind and you escape.

"Night, Cass." You say, offering him a half hearted salute. "See ya tomorrow."

You disappear behind an X-Wing and Cassian regrets not following.

                                                            -=-

The third time is after after the Alliance had been hit hard. Hard enough that you lose more than a handful of friends. You don't grieve openly. You can't.

You were a beacon of light and warmth for many and letting them see the fissures in your resolve would surely cause spirits to plummet even further. Cassian doesn't know wether to feel lucky that he knows that half of yourself you hide away or devastated that even someone with a soul brighter than any star could be worn down to the very bones of their existence.

He wants to laugh when someone knocks on his door. It was the first time in months he'd been able to sleep with little difficulty and now he's being called upon in the middle of the night.

He throws open the door, ready to snarl at the poor soul who stood on the other side. Cassian's irritation melts away when he sees you. You look as tired as he feels, your hair a bit of a mess from a sleepless night, and yet, you're still so beautiful.

Your teeth clamp down on your bottom lip and he can't help but trace your mouth.

"Did I wake you up?" You ask, fiddling with your sleeve. You're nervous for once and Cassian worries.

"No." He lies.

A long pause ensues as you struggle for words that normally flow like a river from your lips. You start to say something and it fizzles out then comes out backwards or jumbled or too quiet for Cassian to understand. "You know—I should, uh, I should go. Yeah, I'm gonna leave. Sorry about—about bothering you."

You're quick to turn on your heel, but he's quicker and snatches your hand. He doesn't tell you how perfectly your fingers fit into his, but you must know. Right?

"Stay," he whispers, the word sounding much too loud compared to the hauntingly silent hallway. He takes your silence for fear or embarrassment, but he realizes it is surprise and a moment later he's stepping aside to let you in.    

Cassian retreats back to his bed, sheets still warm and sits down. Your eyes are scanning the room, studying the sparse walls and the unfolded pile of laundry abandoned on his only chair. You've been to his quarters before, usually only to get him to go with you to the cantina or keep you company while you work on his ship.

It's different now. Tension thick enough to cut with a lightsaber.

"I'm assuming you're not here to tell me you got caught cheating in Sabaac again, yes?" He tries to joke. It does the trick and you visibly relax with a chuckle.

You wander over to where he pats the space beside him and you crash onto the mattress, bumping your shoulder into his. His heart skips a beat when you don't lean away. "Nah. And if it weren't for me cheating, your sorry ass would still be in that stupid jail."

Ah, that's right.

Cassian snorts. "I had it handled."

"Yeah, I'm sure you did," you retort.

With a sigh, you lean back until you're spread out over his blankets, your legs hanging off the edge. Cassian lies down too and stares at the uneven texture of the ceiling. You say nothing for the better half of ten minutes, and Cassian wonders if you'd fallen asleep. He turns and you've got that vacant stare where you're lost in your head. It gives him an excuse to study the soft planes of your face, your plush lips slightly pursed in thought as your brows furrow. A stray hair covers your forehead and he wants to brush it away.

His heart pounds at his ribcage and with a brief moment of courage, he does so. You blink and look at him, a fragile smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

He finds the words that escaped him in his ship all those nights ago and he asks you why you're here. Are you alright?

Your grin falters and you look away. Your fingers graze against his knuckles and they twitch into your touch but makes no move to fully encompass your hand.

Your words come out slow and soft and his chest tightens. "You—You are the only thing that makes sense to me, Cassian."

He understands and his fingers curl around yours to show that he does. Your breath stutters and you give him a squeeze.

Stray tears trail down your cheek and Cassian props himself onto an elbow. You avoid his gaze. "Look at me."

You listen and with baited breath he cups your face and gently swipes at a tear with his thumb. You mouth his name and he's leaning into you until he's pressing his lips to yours. You melt underneath his kiss, your hand curling into his hair, the other one still tangled with his. Your touch is intoxicating and Cassian deepens the kiss, tongue trailing across your bottom lip. Your mouth opens and his tongue slides along yours.

You part and he rests his forehead on yours as your fingers caress his stubbled cheek. He suppresses a shiver and leans into your touch. "I've wanted to do that for ages."

"Yeah, me too."

He kisses you again, but it's more than that. You're the undertow of a raging sea, sweeping him into your depths and holding him captive until he can't breath. Yet, you're the only thing he can inhale. He could drown in your scent, in your kisses, in your love, and he doesn't care if it kills him. You make a sound low in your throat as he licks deep into your mouth and he doesn't care if your teeth click together because he's desperate and aching for you.

You bite his bottom lip and tug, paired with your hand giving the soft tufts of hair on the back of his neck a gentle yank and he's so fucking gone. He's already half-hard against your hip, he knows you can feel it because you're flashing him a coy smirk and trailing your fingers down the planes of his chest, over his naval and then you're unbuckling his belt. Your fingers hover over his waistband, drawing teasing circles above where he needs you and his patience snaps. He captures your hand and grinds against you and you finally relent

He sucks in a breath like you've punched him in the jaw as your fingers wriggle underneath the fabric and wrap around his cock, thick and hot. You give him a few gentle strokes and then your thumb sweeps over the tip, collecting the bead of moisture there. You lightly scrape your nail across the frenulum and it nearly sends him over the edge and he rips himself away from you. It's embarrassing how fast you bring him towards release and he shouldn't care with you, but he wants this to last.

You sit up as your face contorts and he doesn't mean to hurt your feelings. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, never," he breaths, leaning forward to kiss away your frown. "I liked that a little too much."

You mouth forms a silent 'oh' and you take this little break to pull off your shirt and your pants that end up crumpled on the floor. You're naked and you look like a damn fantasy curled over his bed. His bed. Maker how many times has he imagined this exact moment?

Cassian rips his own clothes off and he's tugging your thighs around his narrow waist so he can mold himself onto you. He plants his lips over the pulse on your throat and he digs his teeth into your flesh, marking the delicate skin there. You whine, huff out his name, and he releases the bruised skin. He presses a kiss against it, likes the way it stands out, and he continues to tongue and nibble over the column of your throat that you readily expose for him until there's a trail of marks left behind.

Soft, fragile sounds are pouring out of your mouth and he wishes he could save them for an eternity. He mouths over your collarbone and trails on hand up to your breast and he pulls back to admire your heaving chest. A tiny smile is etched across your lips and his heart swells so much that his chest aches. "You're beautiful."

He doesn't think he's ever seen you blush. "Shut up."

"You are," he whispers, leaning forward to press a kiss over your sternum. "You're--fuck--so distracting. Nearly--nearly crashed the ship that one time. Remember?"

You dig your fingers into his back, leaving half-moon shapes behind as he brushes his thumb over your peaked nipple, as you whine out a response. With his tongue he swirls teasing circles around the other nipple and when he sucks it between his lips and bites down carefully, you moan and arch into him. He rolls the other one firmly between his forefinger and thumb, your eyes snapping shut.

"I can hardly stand it when you smile at me," he growls, engulfing the entirety of you breast in his warm palm. He gives the flesh a squeeze. "Shit--I love you."

He barely realizes he's told you and it's not as terrifying as he thought it would be. There is some uncertainty but when you open your eyes and flash him a smile so bright and big he thinks his heart might finally explode, all his doubts are blown away. You drag Cassian back to your lips by the jaw and he feels your bottom lip catch against his as you tell him you love him too.

"Will you...will you let me taste you?" He groans, breaking away to bury his nose into your hair. "Please? I've been--been imagining what you--shit-- taste like. I bet--bet you taste good."

"Cassian," you whine, bucking your hips. His cock is throbbing against your hip, harder than reinforced steel but all he can think about is getting his mouth on the dripping wetness between your legs. "Yes. Yes."

He sweeps down your torso, drunk on your skin and suckles another hickey over the protrusion of your hip bone. Cassian hooks your legs over his shoulders and nuzzles his stubble along the velvety skin feeling oh so lucky when you giggle and slip your hands into his hair. Your laugh tapers off into a desperate sigh as he uses just the tip of his forefinger to slip through your slit, the digit coming away shiny with your arousal. He parts your legs wider and finally swipes his tongue over your clit, moaning as he finally gets to taste you.

His mouth his searing hot and his tongue feels like silk as he swipes it over your lips, suckles at your labia and licks back up to your clit. He traces patterns across it, the tip of tongue catching so deliciously and then he dips back down again. You shudder as his thumbs slide up to gently part your cunt and his tongue leaves a burning trail until he reaches your opening. He has to throw an arm over your hips to keep you from squirming so much, and Maker, you feel Cassian smile before he licks as far into you as he can.

You're burning, broken pleas and drawn out moans of his name pouring out of you. And then, any kind of rational thinking is completely thrown out the fucking window as two of his slender fingers sink into your cunt. They curl inside you, brush against something electrifying, and you can't be bothered to be embarrassed about the keening moan that's much too loud for this time of night. It feels too good. You bite your lip and clench a handful of his hair, the vibration of his groan adding on to the pleasure of him sucking at your clit while his fingers slowly begin to drag in and out of you.

He pulls away for a moment, his hot breath fanning over your cunt and you want to cry out in frustration. Your core clenches around his digits at the loss of his tongue and you try to pull him back to you. "Please."

With his free hand, he rubs your thigh and kisses the inside of your knee. "Can I make you cum like this? Let...let you--shit--let you finish over my tongue? You'll look so pretty for me."

You don't know how it's possible to be even more turned on than you are, but it happens and you can feel yourself dripping on to his fingers and leaking over the sheets. His fingers are curling and twisting into something that's got your thighs shaking and fuck. A few more passes of his tongue over your swollen clit and another well placed thrust of his fingers--you're fucking gone.  

You arch your back as everything below your waist is set on fire. The tension in your stomach--wound tighter than a fucking spool of wire--snaps and blinding light flashes across your vision. Your core clamps down on his calloused digits and you cum into his mouth, a flood of wetness staining his mouth that continues to lick you through it. He's moaning and hooking his hands under your ass to pull you closer as you twitch and shake--your brain lost somewhere between chaos and unsurmountable pleasure.

Things feel as if they're in slow-motion as you slowly come back down to reality. Cassian pulls away from your core, wipes at his mouth that's covered with your slick, and slips his body next to your flushed and panting one. He draws shapes and swirls into the space right below your breast and nuzzles into the crook of your neck. He's whispering about how good you were for him, how soft and warm, and wet around his fingers you were and when you're finally able to process and organize your scattered thoughts, he's dragging you into an open mouthed kiss.

You can taste yourself on him and he grinds his cock against the swell of your hip, leaking precum that dribbles onto your skin. He bites at your shoulder, another bolt of arousal shooting through your belly.

"Let me make you feel good."