#regular folk eat blood all the time anyway

[heph]

Food - More than Sustenance

[abugsjournal]

A Cowboy's Cup of Coffee ☕

Arthur Morgan x male reader

Summary: This first chapter is mostly just introductions and getting to know our main character! Also hinting at mutual attraction. The real plot starts soon 👀

Content Warning: internalized homophobia (sort of?)

Chapter 1: The Handsome Stranger

Y/N's POV

     You wake up before the roosters sleeping in the local farms can wake up the rest of the town. You used to rely on them to wake you up but after a couple of months rising before the sun, it became routine. As the owner of the only café in Valentine, part of your job is waking up before everyone else and having coffee ready for them by the time they roll out of bed and make their way to you, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they order. Coffee is 5 cents per cup, and for an extra 3 cents you add a fresh baked pastry to go with the drink. You bake a different pastry for each day of the week. On Saturdays you make mini strawberry shortcakes, on Mondays you make blueberry muffins, and on Tuesdays you make peach turnovers (your absolute favorite). Your little café is closed on Sundays, you won't get any business while everyone is at church anyways.

     Today is Saturday and you're feeling particularly nostalgic. You remember how you were surprised by the news of your beloved uncle's passing, and even more surprised by the amount of money he left you in his will. He never had children of his own so you were the closest thing he had to a son. As a child you spent your free afternoons helping him run his butchers shop. You only helped at the register since all the meat and blood made you squeamish.

     Along with his life savings you also inherited his mismatched collection of coffee mugs and tea cups. That's what inspired the name for your business; The Collector's Café. You scavenged every estate sale you came across for cups, silverware, plates, chairs, and tables. No two pieces of furniture or dishes were the same. You found a vacant building in a small growing town named Valentine. Full of cattle ranchers and folks with big dreams. You hoped to fuel those dreams with coffee. You spent the remainder of your inheritance on the deed to the building, an oven, a few French presses, and your first order of coffee beans and baking ingredients.

     Two years later, here you are, unlocking your doors at five a.m. Within minutes you're greeting your regulars, as tired as they are loyal, and getting started on their usual orders. It's the busiest day of the week but it passes by without incident. You close up shop at two in the afternoon and finish up with your cleaning and other closing tasks by four. During your walk home you take a short detour through the nearby woods to unwind. It's the middle of spring and the native wildflowers are in full bloom. However, it's not the flowers that catch your eye. Peering into the center of a bright orange flower, you find a ladybug.

     Growing up you were always the shortest boy in your class and more often than not you were teased for it, so you developed a soft spot for the small creatures that were overlooked (or squished) by others. You pull out your sketchbook from your worn leather satchel and begin to draw what you see. You usually save drawing for your day off, but the little creature in front of you is just too precious to leave undocumented.

     After you finish walking home you eat dinner and quickly fall into a comfortable sleep, knowing tomorrow is you day off.

     You spend your Sunday morning tending to the house chores you neglected throughout the week. In the afternoon you stock up on groceries and supplies for the café. You spend the rest of your free time out in the woods drawing every little insect you can find. Before you know it the sun begins to set and you know it's time to turn in for the night.

     The roosters begin to caw as you pull your first batch of blueberry muffins out of the oven and set them on a rack to cool. As you unlock your doors and flip your sign to "OPEN" you can hear hooves and boots squelching through the muddy path through town. As the sun rises high enough to send warm beams of light through the windows, your usual group of regulars walk in, each greeting you with  a sleepy grunt or a gravely "Mornin',". Trailing at the end of the usual morning rush you see a new face. He walks in confidently but when you look into his eyes you can see something else, he looks lost. Maybe he's new in town?

     As he approaches the counter you try to make him feel welcome, "Good morning friend, welcome to The Collector's Café! It's not often I see a new face, especially this early, what's your name?"

     Shocked by your level of energy at such an early hour, the stranger takes a second to answer, "Arthur Morgan."

     "That's a fine name Mr. Morgan. I'm Y/N, nice to meet ya!" You smile as you take in the man's features. He's nearly six inches taller than you. Brown hair curls around the rim of his hat and back of his neck and matching stubble covers his jaw and chin. He has a strong nose that looks like it's been broken more than once, suntanned  skin, and the most piercing blue eyes you've ever seen. In the light coming in from the windows you can see they aren't just blue, they have a ring of green around the pupil that bleeds into the blue irises and for a split second you are drowning in them. You blink and remember you're supposed to be running a business. Clearing your throat, you ground yourself, "Now how can I help you?"

     Arthur's eyes wander from your face to the hand written menu propped up on the counter. "I'll have a coffee. Black."

     "Lovely choice, anything else?" You watch him narrow his eyes, still reading over the menu.

      After mulling it over in his mind, he replies, "Add one of them blueberry muffins too." He begins fishing out change from his pocket and drops eight cents into your hand.

     "Thank you Mr. Morgan! Go pick out a seat and I'll bring everything to your table in a moment."

     Arthur nods and begins looking around the eclectic café he finds himself in. He finds a seat in the back corner, a comfortable red chair next to a round oak table.

     You pull a still steaming muffin off the cooling rack and place it on a dainty plate decorated with ivy leaves around the rim. You fill a yellow mug from the freshest brewed batch of coffee and make your way over to Arthur, gently placing his order on the table in front of him. "There you are, holler at me if you need a refill!"

     "Thank you mister." He replies, looking up at you from under the brim of his hat.

     You think he might be a man of few words, or maybe just shy. You're already busy clearing tables as Arthur takes his first sip. You glance in his direction between each table, watching to see if he enjoys what you've made. New customers always make you feel a little nervous, the same nervousness you felt the day you opened your café. Thankfully, you see his eyes go wide as he takes a bite of the muffin, a slight smile forming at the corners of his mouth. You let out a small sigh of relief and return to your work, feeling a swell of pride in your chest.

     You're washing cups behind the counter when Arthur gets up to leave. "Have a nice day!" You call as he heads out the door. He silently tips his hat towards you and then he's gone. When you go to clear the table he was sitting at you notice that not a drop of coffee is left in the mug, and there's hardly any crumbs on the plate. It always warms your heart knowing your customers enjoyed their treat.

     The rest of the day flies by you. As you drift off you find yourself wondering if you'll see the handsome stranger again.

Arthur's POV

     You wake up to the sounds of the rest of the gang starting their days. You groan as you sit up, not looking forward to the tasks that will be given to you as soon as you exit your tent. Hopefully it won't be too bad, you're still worn out from setting up camp. You only just settled in this spot outside of Valentine and Dutch said we should lay low for a while. You get dressed and get your hair semi-decent before stepping outside.

     Javier and Hosea are sitting by the fire drinking coffee. "Bout time you woke up," Hosea greets you as you sit down to join them, "Dutch has been looking for you."

     "Won't kill him to wait one more minute." You pour yourself a cup of coffee and take a large swig. Your face involuntarily contorts in disgust as you swallow and you promptly dump out the rest, thinking about how much better the coffee tasted at the café you discovered while exploring the town yesterday. You make a mental note to go back after finishing up with whatever Dutch has planned for you.

     Walking over to his tent you see Dutch open his arms, the day's first cigar between his teeth, "Arthur! There you are," He throws an arm around your shoulders, "Would you mind escorting our lovely ladies into town today? They will not quit pestering me about it and I think it's about time we started gathering some intel."

     "Sure, I'm up for babysitting." You smirk at your own remark, entertaining yourself as you often do with your sarcasm.

     Dutch laughs and pats you on the back, "That's my boy! Hear that ladies?" You hear a chorus of excited giggles and turn to see Karen, Tilly, and Mary-Beth practically skipping towards the wagon. You can't help but smile at their giddiness as they chat and sing the entire ride into town.

     After hitching the horses you all split up. Luckily you weren't given anything specific to do in town other than making sure the girls stay out of trouble and making sure they get home safe, so you head right to the café, eager to get your caffeine fix for the day.

     Pushing open the door you hear a small bell ring above your head. "Hey Mr. Morgan!" Y/N smiles at you as the smell of coffee and peaches washes over you, "Back for more already?"

     You chuckle at how formally he addresses you, "Hey Y/N, you can drop all the 'Mr. Morgan' nonsense, Arthur is just fine."

     "Oh, okay! Well what can I do for you, Arthur?" As you look down at the barista you notice his eyes are the same deep brown color as the coffee he serves, perfectly matching his hair. His skin, despite being freckled, is almost as pale as cream.

     "I'll have a black coffee please, and do you have any more of those muffins?" You peek into the display case but you don't see any.

     "I'm all out of muffins, but I do have peach turnovers!" You must have looked as disappointed as you felt, the barista quickly adds, "I promise these are just as good! They're actually my favorite."

     Since your mouth has been watering since you walked in, you cave in and decide to try one, "Alright alright I'm convinced," You slide eight cents across the counter but Y/N slides three cents back towards you. You raise an eyebrow at him, suddenly doubting your ability to count without coffee in your system.

     "Go sit down, breakfast is on me today." He winks at you and starts preparing your order.

     Shocked by his kindness, it takes you a moment to remember your manners, "Thanks Y/N." You make your way to the same corner table you sat at yesterday. The café is full of customers, all happily chatting with Y/N as he weaves between tables clearing dishes and refilling mugs. You're surprised at how quickly he has your order ready. The cup of coffee is steaming and it warms your face as you bring the mug to your lips. After drinking the dirt water the rest of the gang calls coffee for so many years, you forgot what good coffee tastes like. You take a bite of the peach turnover, it's somehow better than the muffin you had yesterday! As the flaky crust softly crunches between your teeth and you bite into the juicy sliced peaches inside, you can see why these are Y/N's favorite.

     You continue watching him as he works. Everyone that walks in gets greeted with the same warm smile and he seems to know exactly how everyone likes their coffee without having to ask. After the majority of folks finish their drinks and file out, Y/N picks up the cups and plates and returns to wipe each table off with a rag.  He places his left hand down on a particularly long table and bends forward slightly to wipe down the edge against the wall. Your eyes travel from his shoulders and down his back. You can't help but stare at his slender waist and how his jeans hug his hips.

     Suddenly, as if he can feel your eyes on him, Y/N stands up and snaps his head in your direction. You feel your cheeks flush warm with shame, you lower your eyes and quickly finish the last of your coffee. Y/N glides over to you, "Need a refill?" Despite being taller than him, you suddenly feel very small with how he's looking down at you in your chair. Is the smile on his face playful? You're too wrapped up in your own embarrassment to know for sure.

      "Ah, no thanks," You can't stand his stare any longer and abruptly stand up, "I think it's about time I head out." Avoiding meeting his eyes you quickly walk past him and towards he door.

     "Oh, alright. See you round Arthur." You feel Y/N's gaze follow you as you go. You walk back towards the wagon, trying to shake the image of the barista's blue jeans from your mind. The girls are already there waiting for you. You silently ready the horses and climb into the wagon.

     "What have you been up to, Arthur?" Tilly asks as she climbs into the back seat.

     "Not much, just had some actually decent coffee," Not wanting to think about how the rest of your morning went, you quickly change the subject, "Did y'all hear anything useful?"

     "Oh yes," Karen interjects, "We'll tell you all about it when we get back to camp."

     The ride back is quiet, the afternoon sun through the trees dappling your path in shade. Upon arriving, you quickly look for something to do and settle on chopping wood for tonight's fire, hoping no one bothers you during the meditative task.

     After dinner you retreat to your tent, tossing and turning restlessly in your cot, unable to take your mind off of how Y/N was looking at you earlier after he caught you staring. You thought he would have gotten upset with you, but you were met with a smile. You think you saw a hint of mischief in his eyes but you quickly convince yourself you imagined it.

     You fall asleep cursing yourself for eyeing him the same way you would eye a woman.

//

Thank you so much for reading! This is my first time writing a fic and I can already tell I have a lot to learn. I'm open to constructive criticism, all I ask is that you're nice about it lol let me know what you think about it so far!

Chapter 2

Taglist: @photo1030

[thegreatnpowerfulspuukiiz]

clarence is soooo interesting to me bro i just wanna put him under a microscope and study him for hours i have soooo many questions.

like??? are his parents straight edge too or is it just him?? and if it’s just him what MADE be like “nahh.” and choose to become straight edge??

why doesn’t he have claws like kazu?? i get that they’re different types of vampires but what even IS a nosferatu??? google said it’s just another word for vampire 😭 do imps outrank nosferatu or vise versa??

he likes cooking things that can be enjoyed by all devils INCLUDING nosferatus and in any art we see of everyone eating, he’s usually just drinking a blood bag so does that mean he literally can’t eat/digest certain foods unless they’re made with his devil type in mind?? is bro not hungry??

bc we often we kazu eating loads of different things but once again they’re different devil types so ig i can’t keep comparing them i just idk RAH

it seems clarence’s biggest issue is having to take the blood straight from the source (hence why he’s always drinking from bags) and ik that both nosferatu blood and mandragora fruits are life forces but i wonder if clarence would’ve gotten the same effect from drinking yahgie’s blood since he’s not either of those devil types??

i think i recall yahgie saying some of his own blood was mixed into the ramen as well but it was the nosferatu/mandragora mix that made clarence go into blood rapture, yahgie’s blood likely just being an added strength bonus. i recall clarence mentioning that he's weaker than pandy bc of the type of blood he drinks, but when they went on the field trip he wasn't put in the group with weak devils like nemo and kazu.

and from the action panels of clarence vs kaiko, he seems to understand how to use these power ups. this plus the panel where he says “no one should have this power.” and talks about how it disgusts him, makes me guess that this isn’t the first time he’s gone into rapture.

i just wonder what he’s seen or heard or even DONE himself that made him so against utilizing his powers?? and if i’m remembering correctly, in the flashbacks/arts we’ve seen of baby clarence he didn’t have the straight edge tattoo and neither did his parents, one of which who can FLY (his mama), so i’m assuming that this was a recent decision he made when he was older??

also if he drank fresh devil blood would he be able to fly on the regular like his mom?? and do non-straight edge nosferatu vamps just go around biting folks for fresh food?? like I'D HAVE AN ISSUE WITH THAT TOO PROBABLY

HE’S JUST???? SO INTERESTING I WANNA KNOW mORE ABOUT HIMMMMMM I JUST???? I LOVE HIM SM ANSWER MY MANY QUERIES @devilscandycomic PLS IM BEGGING SOMEONE ANYONE

*collapses to my knees in anguish and sobs*

anyway all art/panels taken from the official devil’s candy site (where it can be read for free!!!!) or tsuala’s insta/twitter!!

also the next volume drops in july and my boy’s on the spine and front cover let’s heckin goooo 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[creedock]

Can I ask for some jury headcannons please???

indeed you may

Alastor

-wears heeled shoes to make himself taller

-helps manage the jury's funds despite that absolutely not being in his job description

-i kinda have two separate sexuality/backstory headcanons for him that i frequently switch between lmao

-the first one is that he is a closet gay from a fairly wealthy family. he also has a wife and a child who he does not speak to or even think about a lot. deadbeat dad with INTENSE internalised homophobia.

-alternatively, he is transmasc + bi and also an actual immortal vampire who founded the jury hundreds of years ago as like. a scam that got out of hand. no ones realised its him yet because he keeps faking his death and then popping back up within the organisation.

-secret enjoyer of trashy vampire romance novels (writes fanfiction) (would kill anyone who found out immediately)

Lorelei

-has back problems that prevented her from actually being a dancer

-was in a lot of competitions/pageants growing up, kinda has a fucked up sense of self worth

-relies on her curse a lot in her manipulation and stuff, cos without it shes kinda. not a great liar??? like she just has a lot of trouble sounding genuine

-VERY dry and sarcastic sense of humour, can also be quite mean-spirited even if unintentionally

-has cut contact with her entire family, literally the only people she actually speaks to on the regular casually are alastor and diana

-she and alastor have private bitching sessions together where they talk shit about everyone else in the jury. they are besties your honor

Diana

-lesbian lesbian lesbian LESBIAN LESBIAN

-has a specific (all-female) group of jury captains she surrounds herself with. its basically just a massive polycule

-while on duty shes terrifying, very cold and detached, off duty shes actually pretty chill

-her reason for joining the jury isnt that she wants to destroy witches and more that she wants to protect non-magic folk and sees the jury as the best way to do this

-i could see her getting a redemption arc of sorts somewhere down the line where she starts seeing the many faults in the jury and changes her opinion

-she can play the guitar and will sometimes do little performances alongside lorelei by like. campfires and stuff for fun

Lance

-you can pry aussie lance from my cold dead hands

-he and alastor fucking hate each other. literally the only time lance can be remotely subtle about his emotions is when hes making passive aggressive jabs at al.

-surprisingly really good hygeine for a nasty little rat man, still ends up smelling like blood sweat leather and piss half the time anyway

-has to be tied up after large battles so he doesn't immediately loot every corpse in sight (he has severe kleptomania)

-calls people gay as an insult while tenderly kissing bandy on the mouth

-has a habit of developing intense one-sided rivalries with literally everyone he interacts with, eira is the only person to have actually reciprocated this which is why they are. like that.

Bandy

-has never been to clown school, doesn't even have a license to clown

-keeps dyeing his hair to a slightly different shade of ginger despite already being a natural ginger and wearing a hat most of the time, this is purely to fuck with people

-keeps trying to sneak into alastor and lorelei's bitching sessions

-the high juror keeps trying to have him fired, but he just keeps coming back

-actively embezzling funds. where are they going? who knows.

-hes meant to be morally grey, and i think thats how he'll stay. like the idea of a bandy redemption is nice its just. it would be more interesting for him to switch sides at a moments notice, and to instead put the work into redeeming a less morally grey character

Dock

-basically lives in a laboratory in the basement of the jury headquarters. said laboratory is filled with all sorts of medical equipment, preserved gore, and even a couple saw traps

-he also has a pit full of giant man eating leeches with a chair placed precariously over it. why? because he fucking can

-despite his status as a quack, hes actually pretty good at fixing any problems or ills his patients have. the issue is that he never says what he's curing. he could be removing your stomach pains, or he could be removing the part of your brain that controls your sense of self! its a gamble with him

-there are no records of where he's from. no one knows where he comes from, how old he is, or even his real name. any answers he gives are either entirely nonsensical or very contradictory

-under his mask he's either very hairy or very bald

-always insists that he's a pacifist and will obey the hippocratic oath. this is false.

there you go! feel free to fight me on any of these lmao but remember these are just my personal headcanons.

[mickmundy]

SORRY IDK WHERE ELSE TO POST THIS. slapdash combobulation of some bushmed vampire au thoughts i’ve been knocking around in my head for the past few months. whee! i’d like to eventually turn this into a polished fic once i’m done with my main medsnip fic. i don’t want to spread myself too thin but once i get an idea its hard for my brain not to just go nyoom

Sniper is a local hunter who gets brought into this German town in the mountains to deal with population control of these “feral wolves” that have been literally plaguing a lot of land for a long time. They’re harder to kill than regular wolves and Sniper’s a talented beast-hunter so the people of the surrounding area call on him for his expertise and help with finding out wtf is up with all of these Damn Wolves!

So sniper stakes out and observes the wolves and notices that they love eating meat. Almost for Fun. And it doesn’t stop there… they’ll go so far as to lick blood off of the ground, almost draining their kills dry. Not natural for just a normal wolf… and he ends up having to engage with a few of them and shoots them dead with perfect skill (of course). He observes them for about a week before he decides to make a move.

Sniper follows them to see where their den is and they make quite a trek to this huge castle and go in through some concealed undercroft. So clearly they have a master.. but what good would it do to just have a bunch of wolves killing a bunch of people for literally no reason.. nobody in the area is particularly rich and anyone living in a castle like this wouldn’t need anything from common folk anyway. So he decides to approach the castle… and he’s not a people person really so he knocks the elaborate knocker and takes his hat off (polite.. hehe) and clears his throat and isn’t really expecting an answer but the door opens by itself… and sniper hears a booming voice from up above somewhere that’s like “Come in, Herr Hunter! I'll be with you in a moment!”

Sniper’s like ??? but brushes it off… looks up at the impressive balcony and is like 'How the fuck did he know who I was or what I did… “Hello, sorry’a bother you but is there any chance you’ve been commanding those hellhounds that’ve been bleeding the local areas like stuck pigs? S’bad for the environment, mate. So if y’don’t wrangle in your spoiled dogs, I’ll have tooo- uhh…” And at the top of the balcony… Sniper can see the swish of coattails… and then…. appears Medic… vampire Medic…!

He leans over the balcony and grins down at Sniper and is like (hello fraulines! voice ->) “Hello, Herr Hunter!” and does a giddy giggle as he leans over the balcony and is kind of sizing Sniper up… of course plenty of other people have come here to try and stop him, but never because they’d made the connection with his wolves… Ohhh.. this hunter is special! “How can I be of service to you?”

Medic is prepared to kill him like he's killed all the other hunters before him but he's kiiiinda hoping he doesn't have to kill him because he's... cute... in a scruffy bloodbag kind of way...,. and Sniper’s just totally taken aback by how friendly this vampire is so he’s like "Well-..." Clears his throat.. "I've noticed you’ve been a bit of a disturbance.... y'know.,., what with the.... your mutts feasting on the folks around here," and Sniper usually comes in super gruff etc. but Medic is just.. wow..... not like other vampires he's killed....

Vampire Medic hums and is like "Oh, ja, that... I'm afraid it can't be helped! I'm a very... very.... hungry man, after all.." Sniper swallows because well yeah, that much is obvious! And Medic smirks because he can hear sniper's heartbeat like thumpa thumpa! awooooga!!

Sniper's like "Well. Be that as it may, any chance you can stop drainin' folks like stuck pigs?" Medic puts his hands behind his back and is like "Hmm.... well, you're a business man, aren't you, huntsman? You understand that I cannot simply do these things for nothing in return." And Sniper swallows bc he knows how powerful medic is... he can practically smell it and it is not a good idea to fuck with a vampire like this! So he's trying to play his cards a certain way so that he doesn’t have to end this with conflict…

"Well... what's worth an entire town'a people? Dunno how you can just wager-" Medic leaps down from the balcony and lands gracefully on his feet and stands up straight… and Sniper has to crane his neck to look up at him because… holy dooley… that’s a big… well fed…. spoiled vampire… Medic stands at about 9 feet tall and (some) vampires grow in relation to age and how well they feed.. Crikey…!! Not bad on the eyes, either.,.,

Medic cuts him off and is like "You. I would like you! ^_^ &lt;3" Not just bc he thinks sniper is kinda cute... but he's a very good vampire hunter and he could do work for Medic so.... it seems like a good deal to him! A very fair trade…. if he was going to be going ‘on a diet’ for a little while, it would have to be worth it after all! Sniper's like “WHAT?? Y’GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!” And Medic's like "I know you've been the one killing my wolves. I'm very impressed by you, hunter! ^v^" [VERY threatening aura despite hiii <3 vibes] and Sniper’s like “Yeah well what if I’m not interested in negotiatin’ about this, mister-(trying to be condescending)?”

Medic eyes Sniper’s knife and grins and is like “Please! call me Ludwig! (didn’t get that he was trying to be condescending) and of course then you’ll walk out of here alive, just as you came. I must say I would find it interesting that you wouldn’t leap at the chance to be the hero of the local people, though.” And would grin smugly… because sniper’s one life for the lives of the animals and humans of the entire area seems like more than a fair trade… but Sniper’s stubborn as hell and he’s a good enough person but definitely not a saint.

Sniper’s like “And what does all this mean for me? That I’d be some kinda hors d'oeuvre for you until you decide to snap my neck and drain me dry?” Medic’s eyes widen and he laughs and is like “Goodness, no! how barbaric! We shouldn’t focus on how I could kill you. Life is too short to think so heavily about how we might die.” And smirks and Sniper arches his brow, deciding to hear the vampire out..

Medic shrugs and is like “I’m a powerful vampire. I won’t reveal my age to you on our first date (pauses to grin gleefully because he can hear Sniper’s heart flutter at the mention of them being on a date), but I like my home and I intend to stay here and carry on as I’ve had. However, I am not above making compromises!” And shakes his finger and puts his hands behind his back and continues “Of course you know vampires exist. What you might not know is that we don’t all get along.” And says it kinda spitefully and Sniper’s like ???

Medic carries on and explains that vampires are constantly fighting over turf and feeding grounds and whatnot but killing another of their kind personally is… in poor taste. But if Sniper helps Medic take over other territories he won’t need to feed on this area. Less vampires means not as many people die and having both a human and a vampire working together is great for both people and vampires… “But that’s where you would come in, hunter!”

Sniper scoffs and puts his hands on his hips and is like “Y’want me to be your own personal vampire hunter. A vampire hunter that works for a vampire.” Medic hums and is like “Precisely! It has a delectable ring to it, doesn’t it! Hoo hoo!”

Medic approaches Sniper closer and Sniper's on his guard, and Medic bends over at the hip to look Sniper in the eyes and is like “I know you’re a capable hunter, mister Mundy. My wolves have told me (he can communicate with/see “through” their eyes). And if you went from being a small-time crocodile-wrestler and chose to pursue more… exhilarating prey, I can assure you that our deal will give you the thrills of a lifetime.”

Sniper’s looking into Medic’s eyes and then looks down as Medic runs his clawed hand over the sheath of Sniper’s knife holster that’s mounted on his shoulder… and Sniper clears his throat and is like “How’d you know I was-“ and looks behind Medic and sees some of the wolves and looks back at him... Medic smiles toothily and shows off his fangs… and well… the bushman's always admired pretty sets of teeth… control yourself Sniper!

“Imagine this kinda servitude is for life, then.” Medic chuckles and is like “You won’t be trapped here, you’re not my ward. You don’t even have to live here, though I’d be happy to supply you with the finest living quarters you could imagine. Fed, paid, and free as a bird. I do require that in regards to other vampires, your loyalty will be only to me. Of course, there would have to be.. unfortunate repercussions should you betray my interests for another vampire’s.” Sniper snorts and is like “You’re out of your bloody mind.” And Medic laughs…

“Certainly!" He agrees, "So go on and think about it, and come back to me if you decide to take me up on it. The offer is always open.” So Sniper leaves and goes back to the village and gathers up his stuff and finds the locals and tells them “Found a way to deal with the wolves. Gonna take care of it at their den. Shouldn’t be a bother anymore.” They pay him and Sniper stays there for a few more days while he thinks about that vampire’s offer…

Late at night he arrives to Medic’s castle and sees the wolves growling at him as he approaches, but then.,., they stop once they smell him and sit politely! Sniper’s like ???…. and he kicks the door a few times to knock (his hands are full) and the door opens again and Medic smiles pleasantly and is like "I didn't think I'd see you again, huntsman! Welcome back," and Sniper's heart flutters and Medic can hear it… <3 but Sniper stays on the porch.

“I stay, y’leave those people alone. There’s plenty’a eating around here if you’re not greedy about it.” Medic snorts and is like "My pets must eat, you understand (they hunt for him and he can Get Energy from them through blood synthesis. i have a lot of thoughts on this BUT to keep it short lets go with this). As must I. what do you—”

Sniper reaches down and grabs raw meat, intestines, etc. he’s brought and starts tossing it to the wolves outside in the snow, and Medic's pupils dilate at the smell. He knew Sniper must have hunted it (ethically) from local wildlife… and he’d brought it to keep them good on their word… which Medic appreciates because he didn’t have to do that. It’s not anywhere near as good as living blood (truly “fresh”), but the gesture is nice.

Medic’s like “Oh, and are you going to be taking me up on the living quarters?” and sees Sniper’s bags and stuff at his feet looking like a homeless lil hunter and Sniper frowns and is like “‘Course. Clear i don’t live around here, isn’t it?” Medic grins toothily and hums and effortlessly picks up Sniper’s bags for him and is like “Abundantly. Come along then, hunter! I’ll show you to your wing!”

Medic shows Sniper to his quarters which is nicer than anywhere he's ever lived! He's in total awe of the place and that it has electricity and is just so bloody nice… and now he’s living here too… holy dooley. Medic shows Sniper to his “room” which is more like a huge wing that has its own balcony, bathroom, bedroom with a big fireplace, lots of windows…. very very nice. But Sniper’s still totally suspicious!

Medic’s like “I hope it is to your liking! You can of course alter it any way you’d like. I’ll leave you alone for now to get plans for your dinner started. Is steak alright? Oh! And we can start our real work tomorrow!” Like calling behind him as he’s standing at the door…

Sniper’s like this is too good to be true. what the fuck. But instead says “Right. so when do you eat my heart out of my chest then?" and the vampire stops with his back to Sniper and turns his head and gives him a toothy smile and is like "When you beg me to. And not a moment sooner. :) Gute Nacht, Herr Mundy." and delights in the sound of the pounding pounding pounding of Sniper’s heart as he retreats to his main quarters and thinks about his handsome hunter... who is now all his... hoo!

Sniper swallows and is like Wrow… Ummm Okay.,, Hot.,,., and as time goes by he starts to get used to the fancy lodgings and the fact that somehow/somewhy Medic isn't killing him and is actually holding up his end of the bargain, and they're getting so comfortable coexisting together that even a few of Medic's wolves start to warm up to him... and sometimes Medic looks out his Brooding Window to see Sniper playing in the snow with them or them falling asleep in front of the fireplace together... and they start to fall in love... hehehe

okay yeah. as soon as my main bushmed fic is done im polishing this up what the fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!! i need them to fuck nasty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ashleywool]

Coach Z is not a character anyone wants to admit finding relatable, and YET, here we have a cartoon from 2006 that perfectly depicts my mood since 1/21/2024, and also serves as a convenient segue into me info-dumping about my weird health issues.

I'm getting more bloodwork tomorrow to further confirm or deny the possibility of Cushing's, and/or to narrow the culprit down to either the adrenal or pituitary glands. Endocrinologist doesn't think it's Cushing's based on what I told her, because of course she doesn't, and she was skeptical in all the ways I knew she would be. But I'm trying to be patient and not take it personally or assume the worst...after all, I'm just an autistic rabbit-hole researcher with too much unstructured time, and she is the actual expert. It's her JOB to be honest about what she thinks and not jump immediately to the conclusions I want to hear. Goodness knows I'm always lecturing people about not jumping to conclusions and running their mouths about MY area of expertise. Besides, even the most compassionate doctors are working within a system that sets them up to burn out and work ineffectively.

That's why I'm still not mad at the ER doctors at Bellevue who dismissed my ovarian torsion pain as "stress." They were surrounded by clearly destitute and houseless folks who were just looking for a place to sleep or something to eat or to clean a wound before it got (more) infected, because God forbid we actually enact a single piece of legislation to help these people stay safe, sheltered, nourished and cared for on a REGULAR basis so they don't have to rely on emergency rooms because there's literally nowhere else to go. Like. Of course the doctors weren't thinking about the possibility of ovarian torsion at 3am. Who has the energy for those thought processes when you're too busy trying to put Band-Aids on a constant, systemic bullet wound?

Buuuut it's still frustrating to feel like you're not sick enough to be taken seriously (or, more to the point, not fat enough). I really wanted that MRI. But for now, we've got a dexamethasone suppression test (took the pill tonight, will draw blood tomorrow morning), plus a testosterone test and a DHEA sulfate test, both of which would either identify or rule out underlying adrenal issues.

I also ordered the cortisol saliva test and 24-hour urine test on my own, because I already know they're gonna make me do it anyway and I don't have time to wait to be told to do something I already know I have to do. I had no idea ordering your own lab work was something people could do--you technically can't do it in New York, but I'm close enough to Connecticut to access facilities that will do it.

So yeah, those are my creepy Coach Z problems today. Sorry it's not fun Broadway stuff. When I get to the bottom of this and rectify the problem, I promise we'll get back to the fun Broadway stuff.

[think-pieces]

Sunjoy signing on

does anyone else think about the Vampirism to Cannibal pipeline? Or am i just psychotic?

I see so much (occasionally) cannibalism poetry. It's metaphor bridge to sex, selfishness, over consumption, even as a love thing. It's beautiful I won't lie. Some of it. Those that understand the depths of it and can spin this horrible thing into lines of beauty. They have talent.

I think it's their shared senusality and devotion. To eat your lover, drink their blood. I'm sure some of yall have seen those videos of people getting vials of their lovers blood. Hell Mary Shelley herself with her husbands calicfied heart.

I think it's the idea of being disturbing and off putting to others that draws us regular folk to ideas like that. Yet deep down it does in fact disturb us. Those of us that are disturbed find it infitnetly facsinating. What we should find fascinating is a dictionary. (I can't spell. usually I'm really good at it, but lately? Sheesh)

Anyway, where was was i? Yes, the pipeline.

For most of us, it's loving vampire shows as kids or teens. Mine was Draculaura from Monster high. Next is picking up Tender is the flesh because of what you've heard of it. then it's a deep dive into all things cannibalism. Nothing can compare to that all consuming need. If you're more of a tradionalist, I'd say Frankenstein, or Dracula. But alas, it's only speculation.

It's an odd thing to think about, but Vampirism isn't all that different from Cannibalism. It's a venn diagram of sorts.

Similarities includes: -Consuming part of a person -Uncontrolable "hunger" -All consuming want -It can read as sensual -Horrifying after three seconds

These are just off the top of my head.

Will I still read books on cannibalism and watch vampire shows? Yes. Yes I will. I eat that shit up every single time.

Signing off

Sunjoy

[mrevaunit42]

You know honestly this is one of my favorite jokes in the movie because how much care and love went into writing not only a funny scene but writing it in such a way that there's two jokes for two different crowds (the dnd players and regular folk) and neither is left out.

The first joke is, of course, as shown as above.

The second is a funny meta joke.

Intellect devourers are some of the scariest fucking creatures you will ever encounter. They might look cute and silly being brains with feet but those little fuckers will mentally stun you, crawl inside your head and slowly eat your brain until there's nothing left then proceed to mech suit the shit out of your body for their own purposes (there's a reason no sane person wants to go into the Underdark). Whatever you did, they can now do.

The saving grace is that Intellect devourers, as their name suggest, go for high intelligence characters for their tasty tasty brains.

Everyone in the party don't have intelligence as their primary stat.

DnD is a party game, you play with other people despite what some kinds of folks like to think. Your class has a job that it's good at and it's nearly impossible to roll or set up your stats in a way that you're the typical anime protag so you need to put your stats into what your class excels at.

The party comp is as follows:

Holga/barbarian: Primary stats they use is strength and constitution cuz she'll beating people up and taking blows. Strength to hit harder, Con to have more health.

Edgin/bard??: That's his job for sure but bards actually have magic in dnd and my group were joking he was a rouge who picked up a level in bard and forgot he had magic. Anyway, he was the face of the group so high charisma regardless if he was a class bard or not. for those sweet sweet slivery words.

Simon/Sorcerer: Sorcerers were born with magic in their blood. Literally they have a close connection with magic that no other spellcaster has and that allows them to change their spells to break rules the others have to follow. Charisma is the stat used for casters and creatures that naturally have magic.

Doric (Best girl)/Durid: Druids get their magic from the wild, a close connection to nature. Wild shape is something all druids can do though there is a subclass of them that focuses on it heavily. Druids also have a wide variety of element magic that's dope as fuck. Their main stat is wisdom because only they can prevent forest fires.

And of course last but best Xenik the palabro: Devote servants of their gods, these guys are on the frontlines smiting the wicked. unless they follow a bad god then they're smiting the righteous. So this class is the only class that actually has two requirements instead of one. Most of the time if you pick a class you just need to focus on a stat and have it high enough. Paladins, however, need a minimum score of strength and charisma. Strength I get but charisma is an odd choice cuz the other religious class clerics use wisdom but i think it's tradition or to spice things up.

Right long example aside, none of these classes use intelligence for their primary stats so they can have it lower or even dump it (cheeky way to say it's their lowest stat.) and because they're all low intelligence, the brain devourers don't even notice them. They too dumb to eat.

And these things like this all over this movie. god I love it so much.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES 2023, dir. Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley

[static-fucking-mess]

So the last near week has been a hot mess. On Saturday I went to the ER because of extreme abdominal pain. Having had a kidney stone, and this pain feeling worse, I got a little concerned. They did blood tests while I was vomiting in pain, and everything came out clear.

The ER doctor told me I was likely experiencing gastroparesis and to go home. I was turned out of the ER with my IV still in my hand. I had to go back in and ask for it to be removed. All this time, I was given one dose of regular tylenol to kill my pain. I threw it up because pain.

I wasn't nauseated as much as I was in severe pain.

Anyway they sent me home. I knocked out on Sunday. Sunday late in the evening, I manage a snack and the pain comes back full force all through Monday. I want to also say that the doctors didn't tell me how to care for myself after they sent me away. They didn't tell me to come back if it got worse.

They left a note in my file that they told me. They fucking didn't.

Because I was in so much pain, I called around to my different clinics to see if anyone would help. I got told:

You probably have the flu

That sounds like a cold.

Try advil.

And finally my neurology nurse told me there was a note in my files from my ER doc. Go back to hospital. So cue breakdown of a life time because I am in the most pain I have ever experienced. Crying, throwing up, shaking, sweating.

I go to Raymond. They give me instruction to give urine sample. I piss straight up blood.

Doctor asks if I've had an ultrasound. No. I have not.

The dark look that crosses his face as I tell him no. I'm sure he wanted to euthanize some doctors let me tell you what. So he books me an ultrasound in lethbridge. Head hung low, I get transported back to Chinook. They do an ultrasound.

Kidney stone. Pancreatitis. Gallstones.

"Let me call the surgeon and we'll make a plan".

Ex cUSE ME?

3 Hours later I'm given hydromorphone through iv. That's Tuesday night folks. Around midnight. I am admitted for emergency surgery.

They wheel me upstairs and settle me into a private room. I'm relieved. This is so nice.

Get told I'm the wrong patient. Fuck sake. So I'm wheeled into a new room.

Greeted immediately by his snoring so I'm not worried. But let me tell you that this man I'm roomed with makes the entire experience worth it. An entirely amazing individual. We end up having the worst slumber party ever but enjoying the company otherwise.

Learn a little about myself, a lot about cultures I've never had the pleasure to learn so intimately about before. Probably the best conversation I've had with someone. It'll stand out for the rest of my life.

We're both in a bad way. Wednesday I'm supposed to have my surgery. Doesn't happen. I haven't had much to eat since monday when finally on Thursday I'm called for surgery! Brought down.

Nope. Go back. Not enough nurses. Get told to be grateful because a room without nurses is not a good OR. bitter they're telling me to be grateful about anything.

Several hours later I finally get my surgery, and apparently my gallbladder is so inflamed it shocks surgeons a little. Oh and at some point during all this mess I passed a kidney stone. So there's that.

Today, I'm home. Minus one gallbladder, plus one amazing friend, and a whole story about how garbage lethbridge regional hospital is. Again.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary50

10/31 - 11/1/2023

tuesday - wednesday

tomorrow is errands day and tonight i saw a movie. also, happy halloween or i hope there was a good halloween somewhere around these dates.

the movie wasss: texas chainsaw massacre! i've seen it before, i loved it ofc, i loved seeing it in the theater cuz of how loud it was, which really made it more intense, i almost cried a couple times not from fear but empathy with what sally was experiencing and how the movie transferred that onto you, the closeups, the screaming, the camera's moving from closeups to totally unrelated views, beautiful shots amidst the terror. people laughed a lot when she was being beaten, called a bitch, crying, when the men were on screen attacking her, clumsy, never any consequence for that clumsiness until the end, but until then they simply can do as they please, weightless, they seemed to approach the movie like it was goofy or a b movie and not an extremely knowing film about how basically horrifying america is / tradition is / family entrenched in those exact ideals is, and the intentionality behind all the imagery, the cattle toward the beginning, all the folk art-y bone sculptures, stuff like that, i dunno, the movie really presents these extremely regular things that surround us (these kinds of values, that approach to life, animal or human being something to be used until it's all over, or even things like the father wanting to save his electric bill and get the door), and makes us contend with them as the horrific things they are, and present us with the misery they incur as extremely as possible, to drive at a point. it's also a shockingly beautiful film.

as usual when we go to this theater, we unexpectedly hung out with a friend for a while after, and saw our friend who is a waitress at the place we ate at, hung with her a bit. it was a lovely time, pretty much. this friend was at a separate conference while my gf was at hers so it was fun to hear his stories, tell him about the psychosis of arizona. you know. but maybe you don't. maybe i am too exhausted to write the other part of that poem i am doing with my friend tonight. i dunno. i should do that now.

also i didn't record today, i should have, but i got caught up in a vc session. tragic kind of, i wanted to keep my momentum, but i will try tomorrow. some short song(s?) maybe.

anyways, listening to this song a lot:

i didn't expect this record of theirs to be so good, and especially that they'd have a song this good on the album. strange how they really just go for that blood brothers-y thing on this one kind of, not just in the vocals, and not totally instrumentally, not as spastic or fast, but it is pretty whitebelt in the writing of the riffs i dunno. hard to put into words why, but it just recalls that whole thing. i think the record is a little genius but maybe it's because i like that song so much in particular.

anyways, i don't know what else we did today. i didn't eat a lot, i finished all my working out.

anyways, i should sleep now, so

byebye!!!!

[pumpkinpaix]

Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother’s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下，而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭刚才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

[britcision]

Okay so first it’s vitally important for y’all to understand that pregnancy is incredibly dangerous and harmful to ANY human body at the drop of a hat

Like: baby needs calcium and you’re not eating enough of it so your Fucking Bones weaken, your teeth fall out, organs rupturing, your blood pressure just gets completely fucked, infections etc.

Mortality rates for pregnant folks are still high even with modern medicine (though they’re orders of magnitude better than they were about 100 years ago)

This is normal but when they tell you that mysteriously less people want to become pregnant

Cannot imagine why

ANYWAY! We can go in two different directions here and honestly I’m not gonna pick I love them both

1) ghost pregnancy: way easier

The ghost-ified baby just latches onto Danny’s (or Jason’s) core, is intangible, feeds on their ecto so yeah they’re still tired and low on energy but other than that it’s the safest pregnancy ever

Neither of the lads ever show in this version cuz the baby ain’t taking up physical space (and late late term maybe a tiny foot or hand is visible externally during a particularly vigorous kick)

(Ghost Baby tries to grab Dick when he feels Jason’s/Danny’s tummy and he LOSES HIS SHIT is this adorable or terrifying????)

Potentially, they have to stay in ghost form for the duration for this version so that adds complications, especially if Danny gets the transfer so the family actually don’t find out he’s adoption bait until the baby comes out and he can switch back to Fenton

This is also a potential reason to transfer the baby? Since Jason doesn’t have a ghost form/doesn’t want to show it to the bats if he does

Many, many, many jokes about swapping the baby off ensue, especially if they can actually transfer the baby super easily by temporarily overlapping their cores and can just trade who has it as needed

They don’t need to be able to do it to make any of the jokes of course

2) ghost pregnancy: way harder/more dangerous

The baby doesn’t feed on nutrients and stuff you can eat it feeds on ambient ectoplasm and Your Fucking Soul

There’s potential for grabby little hands to merge partway through an organ on top of all the regular kicking bullshit

It’s deadass unsafe beyond even usual pregnancy risks to do in a human form because it shouldn’t even be possible - Jason’s at a much more severe risk than he thinks

Danny’s gotta take the baby and nest somewhere for a while because this Is Not Safe and absolutely no combat even in the vicinity because stress affects normal human babies and we are not giving this ghost anxiety before it even forms

Also, instead of food cravings, say hello to emotional cravings. The baby wants some more intense ecto to grow so whatever you were just feeling? Congrats we’re amping that to 11

Plus the usual mood swings that just kinda happen too, so there’s no way to know what exactly is going to be amped until someone is on the floor

Here we have potential for some serious body horror, especially if the baby can’t be transferred, and Danny having to be Jason’s mother hen/ecto backup the entire time because of how much can go wrong

(Bruce, Alfred, and Danny teaming up to put Jason in a hamster ball for the entire pregnancy but Jason just keeps breaking out if it)

(Solid diet of romcoms and soft lit movies for the entire pregnancy to try and keep emotional stability but then Tim calls one of them trashy and Jason eats the couch)

Either way, Jason does not have a uterus so we can add to the party by tethering baby to the core so it shows up either:

A) stomach level, like actually right beside the stomach they wonder if Jason ate a baby/doll for .2 seconds

B) center chest. Chest burster 1000%. Bonus points if ghost fetus looks even less human than human fetus

Jazz is taking charge of the situation no matter what happens, she’s bullied Ghost Writer for every applicable baby book ghost or human, has bullet points for everyone else to review, and borrows Dora’s dragon shapeshifting to keep all sides of the family in line

(Danny knows she’s like this so how much he wants to hide the news from her too is up to you)

Bonus bonus points if Danny has no idea how the hell Jason got pregnant either and they both have to go ask Frostbite what the fuck is going on and get a birds and the bees talk from a yeti

Jason has been feeling like crap lately. He's been avoiding the other bats more than usual and rarely wants to do anything other than sleep, even his hobbies and his night job have been falling to the sidelines.

He insists hes not depressed, just really tired, but Leslie and any other doctor hes seen hasn't found anything wrong. It wasn't until the bats kidnapped him and put him through intensive testing that they discovered what was wrong.

"Jason. You're pregnant."

Jason stared at Dick like he'd grown a second head. "I'm not trans Dickiebird."

Tim came over with a tablet, "The ultrasound doesn't lie." Sure enough the tablet showed a little fetus growing in his gut. What the hell. He wasn't even showing???

"Jason." Bruces gruff voice made him glare in the big bad bats direction, "Do you know who the father is?"

"Hell if I know! I haven't even slept with anyone in the past few months!" He seethed.

Bruce furrowed his brow, "Then do you know of anythin you might have come into contact with that might have done this?"

Jason flopped his back down onto the examination table with a groan, "If i knew I would have already gotten it when I started feeling wierd."

"What about a person?" Tim asked, "Do you think a mad scientist or magic user could have something to do with it?"

Jason stared at him with wide eyes, "Oh my god."

Tim blinked, "What?"

"Oh my god." Jason grabbed his stuff and practically flew to his motorcycle, fully intending on finding that glowy white haired "meta" that cured his pit madness. &$!% it all made sense now.

Cue Red Hood nearly busting Dannys door down while the latter was busy making mac-n-cheese. Danny opened his mouth, likely to make a quip, only for Jason to beat him to the punch, "You got me pregnant, you @$$!"

------

Aka theres a few prompts where Jason gets danny preggo but not many of the reverse, which I feel is a crime

[bokettochild]

If you’re still taking requests: I read a headcanons where chocolate is native to Lorule and Hyrule has little to none, so what if Legend introduces hot chocolate to the boys? (He gets it from Ravio)

I am so weak for domestic Ravio and Legend, oh gosh!

This ended up only being the first half of your request, anon, but the second part is in the works! I just... felt that this would be a good ending for this part. Hate me later!

Ao3 for when I write Part 2

Part 2

Mr. Hero loves his apples.

It’s clear when he looks out the window to see the other boy standing beneath his trees, singing softly and carefully tending the tree in the orchard, a warm look in his eyes and none of the usual lines crossing his face. Mr. Hero told him once that he’d been tending the orchard since he was a small child, and that the apples there even have healing properties as a result of being tended so faithfully. There was a time when he doubted that, but he’d changed his mind the first time Mr. Hero had made him some cider.

Fruit was a rarity in Lorule, the trees withered and the plants died, and any sweet thing was turned bitter as their world crumbled. Ravio had never tasted an apple before coming to Hyrule, and the first time Mr. Hero had offered him one (the first morning they woke up in the same house) he’d strained his jaw in trying to eat it and had been utterly shocked by the taste.

He didn’t like how hard they were to chew, and the skin on the outside bothered him, so he politely declined the next time Mr. Hero offered him one of the apples he kept in a bowl on the kitchen table.

But then came a night when Mr. Hero had come trudging in through the door, soaked to the skin as thunder rumbled outside. Puddles dripped over the floor and wet leather squelched with every step as Mr. Hero trudged into the house.

Dark bags ringed Mr. Hero’s violet eyes, his rose-gold hair dripping with rainwater and speckled with blood and mud both, tunics drenched and sopping and not even the light cloak he wore doing a thing to protect him from the raging storm he had just emerged from.

“Mr. Hero!” Ravio’s eyes had darted up from one of the items he’d been repairing, worry flickering in their depths as he peered out from beneath his hood at the other boy. “You’re soaked!”

Mr. Hero hadn’t answered, only snorted in a way that might have been a sneeze, casting off his cloak as he did so and dropping it in a corner where Ravio quickly scurried to pick it up.

Honestly, it was a blessing to Mr. Hero that he’d come here! The house was an utter mess half of the time!

Boots squelched their way to the kitchen as Ravio wrung the dripping cloak out into a bucket he’d been using for moping earlier that evening, and he silently bemoaned the fact that there was yet again mud trailing across the floors he’d only just made clean again. He’d almost scolded his housemate, only to startle and jump at the sound of clattering from the cellar which was then followed by something of a ruckus in the kitchen.

Green eyes and dark hair had peered warily around the corner to find Mr. Hero seated at the kitchen table and pulling off his boots with an exhausted expression on his face. Puddles and mud dripped across the floor and towards the door leading down into the basement, but the boots were coming off and there wasn’t a mess of dishes spread across the floor or anything.

In fact, the only difference, besides the dirt, was a mug perched on the table and a kettle bubbling merrily over the kitchen fire, a sweet smell drifting through the air that made Ravio’s nose twitch and shiver with delight and curiosity both.

He hadn’t spoken as Mr. Hero had trod about the kitchen with wet socks and stumbling steps, gathering things from the shelves and measuring different sweet-smelling spices into a cup. But when the kettle had whistled and the smell in the air had been joined with the sound of bubbling sweet something, Ravio had caved.

“What are you doing, Mr. Hero?”

“Making cider.” Mr. Hero responded, voice weary and heavy as stiff fingers had mitted themselves with a spare dishtowel to remove the whistling appliance from the open flames and pour its contents into an earthen mug. Steaming golden liquid had poured from the iron kettle into the cup, and as violet eyes darted his way, a second mug was produced and similarly filled.

Ravio moved slowly around the doorframe into the kitchen, head cocked to one side as he watched Mr. Hero's nimble, yet stiff, fingers fly across the things spread across the counter, and before he knew it there was a warm mug being deposited into his hand as his housemate walked past him.

Surprise had sparked in his mind at the comforting warmth of the drink in his hands, and his eyes had trailed after the pink-haired hylian as Mr. Hero had stalked over to the fire, pulling down a monstrously bulky quilt from a shelf and curling up before the raging fire with his mug held tight in his trembling fingers.

Cautious, the bunny merchant hadn’t dared touch the contents of his cup; he’d been poisoned before, and while it smelled utterly delectable, he resisted until he saw Mr. Hero take a drink first. It’s not that he distrusted the other boy, but he knew better than to actually trust him yet. They were both relying on each other for something, depending on the other to provide what they needed to solve a mutual problem. Their relationship was as business partners, nothing more, and Ravio knew better than to trust most business folk.

But then he’d watched the shivers die as Mr. Hero nursed his cup slowly, eyes drooping further as they blinked sleepily, a soft squeaky yawn breaking the silence as the hylian had settled his empty mug on the carpet and promptly proceeded to doze off where he sat.

Ravio shook his head, setting down his own mug and gathering a few pillows from the couch to prop around the hero. It wouldn’t do to have the single person who could save the both of their countries running around with a crick in his neck and pains in his back, now would it? (Ravio hadn’t known at the time that that was just what Mr. Hero did on the regular, but he’d learned as much later and it made him doubly glad that he had done something).

With Mr. Hero soundly asleep, with not even the rumbling thunder outside doing anything to wake him, the merchant had turned his attention back to the sweet-smelling substance in the mug he’d been handed.

Something golden warm and almost clear sloshed in the earthenware mug, bits of spice and a stick of cinnamon clinking about inside as he swirled it around. It smelled delectable, like nothing he’d ever had the chance to smell before, and he’d hesitantly lifted it to his face to breath in the warm steam.

A sigh escaped him as the smell washed over him, and entirely on impulse, Ravio took a sip.

Sweet and savory nectar, tasting faintly of apple yet warm and smooth and entirely too delightful to be possible sparked across his tongue and made him start in surprise, before humming in pleasure and settling where he stood.

Never before, nor since, had he tasted anything so delectable as apple cider.

Mr. Hero came back time and again, dusted in snow or sodden and wet, or simply wounded and exhausted, and every time, his first priority was to stalk into the cellar, bustle in the kitchen, and emerge with a mug in either hand, one which he deposited in Ravio’s delighted fingers while the other was taken to where the veteran hero had settled beside the fire. Mr. Hero would sip on the sider, wrapped tight in a blanket and watching the flames, and would drift off entirely after finishing his mug.

Ravio would sigh and shake his head, setting aside his own partially finished drink in order to clean and bandage wounds and tuck the blanket tighter round his companion, making sure that Mr. Hero lay in a way that wouldn’t hurt his back, before returning to whatever he’d been doing, a mug of cider nestled in his grasp as he worked, a satisfied smile on his face.

But then there had come an evening where Mr. Hero had trudged through the door only to collapse in the entryway. Eyes rolling back as Ravio had squeaked in alarm, all but flying to his housemate’s side and struggling to pull the other boy upright again to help drag him to the couch.

Shivers and coughs broke the still silence as he’d bandaged a stab wound, and when Mr. Hero’s tired volet eyes had blinked awake again, Ravio was perched at his side with a worried frown playing over his face.

Mr. Hero couldn’t see it, but he was worried, terribly so.

Maybe it was the cider, maybe it was the house, maybe it was the light banter between the two, but he’d been coming to see his doppelganger as something a bit more than a business partner, and seeing the other boy lying weak and drained on the couch made his heart twist and clench with worry.

He’d had to all but force Mr. Hero to take a break, but had come to the horrid realization that the other boy was entirely incapable of actually making himself sleep.

“I have to be ready to move.” Mr. Hero had scowled across the room, eyes resting on the sword Ravio had leaned against the wall. “You can’t rest out there safely, and I can’t sleep anyways so what’s the use?”

Stubby fingers had fiddled with his scarf as he’d stared in shock and concern at his maybe-friend.

“But you always sleep fine when you’re here! It’s safe, you’re warm, what on earth could be keeping you awake?”

And violet eyes had avoided his own, shoulders rising as shuddering breaths had grown harsher, and Ravio found pity springing up where he never thought it would again as he stared at his housemate.

“I suf- I deal with insomnia. I can’t sleep most days. When I do sleep it’s...” Mr. Hero’s long fingers ran through his bedraggled pink hair in an irritated manner. “I have nightmares.” Mr. Hero’s voice dropped low and soft, barely above a whisper as he’d curled up on the couch. “And I don’t want to see those right now.”

“You need to relax. You’re sick.” Ravio had stated softly, worrying his lip between his teeth and watching Mr. Hero nod in acceptance. The other was clearly too tired to protest, and that was all the confirmation Ravio needed that he wasn’t doing so well. “How come you sleep well normally? When you’re here I mean?”

“Huh?”

“You come in, make that-” A warm shiver crept up his spine, delight blossoming inside at the mere thought. “-cider stuff, and then you fall asleep.”

“Oh.” Mr. Hero blinked slowly. “My Uncle used to make me cider to help me fall asleep. Neither of us knew anything about tea, but we would sleep best when we drank something warm first.” He shrugged. “It just helps me relax.”

Warm? Warm things helped Mr. Hero relax?

An idea sparked and Ravio jumped to his feet, chuckling nervously at the alarmed expression that his abrupt movement caused before he darted towards the kitchen. “Say right there! Don’t go anywhere.”

As he left the room, he heard a scoff and the rustling of the blanket. “What’s he think I’m gonna do, run back outside in the middle of the night? Tch.”

It had been a while since Ravio had made cocoa, especially when he’d learned to love cider more, but unfortunately (or tragically in his mind) he didn’t yet know how to make the cider itself and thus couldn’t make it for Mr. Hero. Fortunately, cocoa was also good, although not as good, and would serve perfectly well in the place of the fruity drink. After all, he mused to himself, cocoa was chocolate, and chocolate had caffeine, which, while caffeine was the love of his life and kept him awake, seemed to have the opposite effect on Mr. Hero.

They’d had tea once together when Ravio had been left some by a customer as a thank you, and Mr. Hero had been surprisingly calm for the rest of the evening before he had to leave the next morning.

Setting chocolate to melt and measuring out some milk into a saucepan was the easy part. Pacing up and down the kitchen and hoping Mr. Hero wasn’t getting impatient with him while the chocolate melted was the hard part. But it was a practiced process that was tried and true, and not even Hilda could resist his hot cocoa, so it was worth it in the end when he had two steaming and frothy mugs in hand and was headed back on his way into the living room, leaving Sheerow with full rights to cleaning up the rest of the chocolate he’d had left over.

Mr. Hero was still awake, unsurprisingly, considering his earlier revelation, and he cocked a brow at the sight of the mugs, a wary look on his face. “What is that?”

“Cocoa.” He chirruped in response, only to be met with a confounded expression on Mr. Hero’s thin face.

“Co- what?”

Ravio started to a halt, eyes blinking wide as he stared at his friend. “Have- have you... never had cocoa before, Mr. Hero? How is that possible! It’s wonderful!”

Soft violet eyes, nearly devoid of life or any emotion, stared back at him. “Ravio, I have traveled to all of seven countries and I’ve never even heard of it. What the heck are you on about?”

The merchant was bundling himself onto the couch at the hero’s side in mere moments, eyes sparkling with delight as he shoved a mug into Mr. Hero’s startled hands. “Oh, you’ve got to try it then, it’s-” Delightful, wonderous, nearly as good as cider but not quite- he wasn’t sure which word to settle on, but he didn’t really have the chance to choose, cutting off as he saw Mr. Hero’s nose shiver slightly, eyes growing wide as the hylian all but shoved his nose into the cup, sniffing appreciatively with a startled expression before taking a cautious sip.

The expression ‘stars in your eyes’ had never made sense before, but Mr. Hero’s twinkling lavender shades finally helped him to understand as the other boy had stared into his mug as if he’d just discovered the fabled sword of Lorule. Mr. Hero’s mouth opened, forming an ‘o’ shape before flapping slightly, only to eventually close again around a gulp of cocoa as he sat staring in astonishment at the drink in his hands.

Ravio giggled softly into his own mug, letting the froth on top tickle his lips as he watched his friend discover chocolate for the first time. “It’s not as good as cider but-”

“Are you kidding me? This is-” Mr. Hero sighed out, both hands wrapping around the mug as the hylian’s shoulder relaxed, his gaze slipping closed with another sip of the warm chocolate. “This is freaking heaven.”

Ravio would contest that, did, in fact, contest it repeatedly, but Mr. Hero argued back.

If Mr. Hero made cider, than Ravio would insist it was better than cocoa while Mr. Hero snorted that it didn’t even compare, meanwhile when Ravio made cocoa, Mr. Hero pointedly glared at him over the rim of his mug (never mind that chocolate clung to is face and upper lip) as he drank it slowly and pointedly. Ravio would scoff and again assert that cider was better, but the blissful expression on his friend’s face was something that was terribly hard to argue with.

Both demanded the others recipes, and both refused.

“You’ll never make cider if you can make cocoa.” Ravio had pouted, and Mr. Hero had grumbled that the same could be said of the cocoa, hence why he would never share his recipe.

But then their adventure was over, and in the middle of packing up his things to leave through the portal for the final time, Mr. Hero had grabbed his arm and dragged him down to the cellar.

Ravio had spluttered and huffed at his friend’s odd behavior, but then found himself sitting wide eyes as Mr. Hero explained how to properly prepare the apples and slowly, surely, Ravio realized what was happening.

Green eyes flicked up from the apple in Mr. Hero’s hands to stare at the face across from his; violet eyes downcast and weary, and face lined with care and hurt as it had been when they’d first met. He longed to reach out and smooth the frown lines, but it would only make Mr. Hero scowl if he rubbed juice onto his face.

Once he’d been shown how to start the cider, Mr. Hero dragged him upstairs and very pointedly lectured him on spice usage and proportions, all the while mixing up a batch of heavenly smelling nectar that made Ravio want to squeeze his friend in his arms and whisper a tearful than you.

But Mr. Hero’s face was still grim, and with every step it sunk in just why the forbidden recipe was finally being revealed to him.

He was going away. He was going away and never coming back, and Mr. Hero, the dear that he was, had decided to let him have the recipe he loved the best. Be it because Mr. Hero didn’t want to stop him from enjoying it, or maybe as a final expression of friendship, it felt...hollow.

Mr. Hero had just saved both their worlds, and now he was giving Ravio a special part of himself. He was sharing how his uncle had taught him to make cider, something important, intimate. Something that had been his and his alone to remember his uncle, or so he’d whispered on a lonely night ages ago when they were still getting to knw each other.

And Ravio, as always, was just taking it, with nothing given in return.

That simply wouldn’t do! Mr. Hero deserved something as a comfort, as a thank you! And... well, if I would help remind him of Ravio, than the merchant wouldn’t mind that either.

Hand’s full of mugs were halted as Ravio took both, earning a look of protest from his friend until he was leading Mr. Hero back into the kitchen. “You shared,” He explained with a light smile, one Mr. Hero could actually see now. “Now it’s my turn.”

That night, they curled up on the couch with mugs of cider and cocoa, silently enjoying their final night together.

In the morning, Mr. Hero loaded him up with apples and spice, and Ravio scoured his bags for every last trace of chocolate to stock the hero’s cupboards. Neither would last forever, something that niggled the backs of both of their minds, but both sought to drown the thought with checking over house and bags respectively one last time.

The goodbye was tearful, both from the princesses and Ravio himself as he flung himself into Mr. Hero’s arms, blubbering and sobbing in a right mess, but Mr. Hero only sighed, shoulders trembling slightly as he’d gently patted his back (arms tight enough around him that Ravio could hardly breathe) the softest of sniffles sounding from his friend as the hero let him cry out all his goodbyes on his shoulder.

That night, in the big, stately, but painfully lonely and uncluttered, kitchen of Lorule’s castle, Ravio made apple cider. It didn’t taste quite like Mr. Hero’s, a far cry indeed, but that may have just been the salt in it.

[buckyskorpion]

11 hours - part three

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x Reader

Summary: bucky is the mystery you can’t wait to solve. if you can get out of his bed long enough, that is. a biker au.

Warnings: gang-typical violence, sex scenes, alcohol mentions, probably more to come so stay tuned

A/N: we got some spicy things happening this chapter folks!! a lot of natasha too and plot and a tiny bit of fluff at the end. i hope you enjoy!! let me know what you think. i wont be taking tags for this so please dont ask.

title taken from 11 hours by wet | playlist

part one | part two

Mrs Shoreditch had agreed to meet you at the cafe you’d been inhabiting daily as you kept watch on Steve’s shop, and you’re waiting for her now at your usual table with unusual trepidation. Your leg is bouncing under the table, you’re darting looks left and right down the street trying to catch sight of her. You have to finish this job - seeing Bucky last night confirmed that. Looking into his friends and his life feels wrong, and you want to end it as soon as possible. It’s none of your business unless Bucky wants it to be.

She’s late, one o’clock ticking by and then some, anxiety hiking with every passing minute. The file on her husband sits unremarkable on the table in front of you, and you drum your fingers against it unconsciously. The sooner this meeting is over the sooner you can move on with your day, maybe go see your dad, take on some normal clients who don’t have eery connections to your personal life and keep you up at night.

Someone approaches the table and you’re about to feel relieved, until you look up and instead of seeing Mrs Shoreditch apologising for her tardiness you find Natasha standing before you. She blocks out the sun, a ring of red wisps escaping her ponytail lit up like a halo behind her head but the calculating look in her eyes is nowhere near angelic. She looks nothing like the girl you met at the party - gone is the sundress, replaced by an outfit weirdly similar to yours. Leather jacket, skinny jeans, Docs and chipped black nail polish you catch as she wiggles her fingers at you in that same, condescending wave.

“Natasha?” You can’t believe she’s caught you, but you’re technically not doing anything wrong right now - you just feel like you are, with the way she’s looking at you like a ‘gotcha’ moment not gone your way.

Natasha nods, smirking, and says, “What a coincidence.”

“Yeah,” you breathe, but you know neither of you believe it. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting Steve,” she says. It takes everything in you not to glance over at the tattoo shop, giving yourself away. You bite the inside of your cheek and keep your eyes trained on hers, furrowing your brows in an approximation of confusion. She waits a beat, you don’t think you’ve convinced her, but then she says, ”He works over there.”

She jerks a thumb to the tattoo shop and you nod, following her finger with bone-deep relief. It doesn’t last long, tension eating it’s way back up your spine as she asks, “What about you? I haven’t seen you here before.”

Been here every day, lady, you think, but say with a tap to the folder on the table, “Work. Meeting a client.”

“Oh?” she asks, an eyebrow raised. She doesn’t question you further, but that in itself is suspicious. Everyone always presses for more with your vague answers - client? For what? Announcing you’re a private investigator kind of ruins your confidential reputation so you often have to work a lot harder than this to keep your work life private. Natasha doesn’t press it, though. Like she already knows. Dread curls low and heavy in your gut.

At that moment, Mrs Shoreditch finally shows up. She doesn’t seem harried, out of breath, or concerned she’s late in any way, shape, or form. She takes the seat opposite you, offering you a smile and placing her ridiculously expensive handbag on the table. With blonde hair tossed over one shoulder, to your absolute horror she looks up to Natasha and smiles at her, too. Recognition, as Natasha returns it.

“You should come over to the shop when you’re done,” Natasha says to you but it sounds more like a demand than a request, shattering the silence with a sledgehammer. You’d miscalculated, somewhere. Something isn’t right.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you say, making eye contact with Mrs Shoreditch and hoping Natasha understands. You hardly think Mrs Shoreditch would want you going in there after you reveal that’s the place her husband has been shovelling her money into for months. Mrs Shoreditch avoids your gaze, however, picking at her perfect manicure. It clicks, then. You’re so fucking stupid.

“See you in a minute,” Natasha says, ignoring what you said entirely with a sparkle in her eyes that doesn’t bode well for you. She crosses the street, gone in a second, and you turn back to Mrs Shoreditch as a numbness creeps into your veins.

She’s a typical socialite, perfectly up-kept in every aspect and dressed to the nines even for a rubbish cafe in Red Hook. You didn’t think she was capable of hoodwinking you, and maybe that’s where you first went wrong. She finally meets your eyes, apologetic and almost tearful. She reaches a hand out, resting it on the file you’d prepared as if she realises last minute trying to touch you is a bad fucking idea.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, “I’ve been wasting your time-“

“Natasha hired you to hire me,” you say, cutting her off with the coldness in your voice. She nods mutely, retracting her hand back to her lap as if burned. “You already knew about Mike’s other bank account.”

“Yes,” she admits, rolling her lips together. At least she has the decency to look ashamed. “Ms Romanoff said she’d pay off an instalment of Mike’s debt if I hired you, and I- I didn’t ask questions. I’m so sorry, you seem lovely-“

You don’t wait to hear her finish, standing from the table and leaving your useless file behind without a second glance. You head across the street, for the first time approaching the front door of the tattoo parlour. Natasha knew you’d come here eventually, knew you’d see Steve and start putting dots together. She baited you here, but why? You were Bucky’s fuck buddy, nothing more. Why play this game at all?

You take a deep breath before shouldering the door open, entering the permanent twilight of the shop you’d come to know so well through the lens of your camera. It’s cool in here, the street noise dampened so all you can hear is pop-punk playing low through speakers and the buzz of the tattoo gun. Steve is at the back, bent over someone’s arm and doesn’t break concentration when the bell above the door rings, announcing your entrance. Natasha waits, however, hip propped up against the counter and smiling as she sees you stop at the door, not daring to enter further.

“What do you want?” you ask, calling out across the shop. It draws the attention of the two guys in leather, Steve’s regulars, sitting on the couch in the waiting area. They eye you suspiciously, as does the kid who mans the cash register you often see doing homework instead of his job. Natasha pushes off the counter, beckoning you to the back of the store where you know Steve’s office to be. You follow, heart in your mouth, aware you’re walking further into the trap you hadn’t even known had been set for you.

Natasha closes the door behind you and takes a seat at the desk, covered in stencil designs and files which she seems to entirely disregard as she crosses her feet on top of them, dirt smears be damned. You sit in the chair opposite, back ramrod straight with how uncomfortable you are, and wait for an answer.

“You’re smart,” she says, which is not what you were expecting. You blink, confused by the compliment, and Natasha smirks. “And a lot more observant than Bucky gives you credit for.”

“It’s my job,” you say, unsure of what to give away. Obviously she knows you’re a private investigator or you wouldn’t be in this mess, but she doesn’t know what you know. Not yet, anyway.

“I know,” she says, inclining her head, “I googled you.”

That makes you uncomfortable. Bucky doesn’t even know your last name, how does she? All that she would’ve found is your business website because you’re not stupid enough to put your life online, but still, the thought that she had been trying to look into you makes your blood run cold. You’re starting to really regret going to that party with Bucky - if Natasha’s weird behaviour then wasn’t a tip off, then your deep-dive into their secret lives has clearly shown you there’s a lot more to Bucky than he was ever intending of letting on. Natasha’s intervention in your job merely confirms what you’d already figured out.

“Why did you get Mrs Shoreditch to hire me?” you ask. Natasha regards you for a second, thinking, and it’s a look that reminds you eerily of Bucky.

“I wanted to see what you’d find,” she says. You feel your jaw clench, despite yourself - she’s being evasive even now, and it’s like she can read your frustration because she smiles then, says, “And I wanted to see if Bucky’s choice to trust you was a wise one.”

“He doesn’t trust me,” you say, defensive, too quick. She raises her eyebrows. Frustrated at this cryptic and frankly dramatic conversation, you ask, “Can you just tell me what you want? You’ve wasted weeks of my time and I think I deserve to know why.”

“As I said,” Natasha said slowly, clearly amused at the rise she’s managed to get out of you, “I want to see what you found.”

“Are you going to pay for it?” you snap. You don’t want to tell her - you don’t know why. Clearly, she already knows far more than you ever will, but this is the only thing you have over her and it feels like the most important thing in the world in this moment.  

Natasha rolls her eyes and says, “You’ll be well compensated, don’t worry.”

You have a small stare off with the red head before you huff, conceding. That was a fight you were destined to lose, anyway. You grab your laptop from your bag and send a quick email of everything you’d collected to Steve’s business email. His monitor pings with a notification and and you raise your eyebrows towards it, watching Natasha unfold her legs off the desk and lean forward to start reading. You don’t trust her with your laptop as far as you can throw it, so you make sure it’s shut down completely before placing it back in your bag.

Natasha reads for a long time, because you’d found a lot. Her eyes dart across the screen almost too-fast, the set of her mouth growing tenser and tenser as each silent minute passes. You feel a weird, sick sense of satisfaction at that - clearly, you’d surpassed her expectations.

You had been thorough. Pictures of Steve, the kid working the counter, the regulars who park their bikes at the back, the bikes themselves, the inside of the shop from your window vantage point, Sam at one point, Natasha at others, meetings they held and rough angles of deals gone on inside the shop. You couldn’t get a clear shot, but you saw them exchanging money with leather-clad strangers for something. The long hours after closing they spend at the tattoo shop doing everything but tattooing is all captured and saved on your computer. You’d written up a run-sheet of the shop’s routines as well, based on what you’d observed from your little cafe spot - Natasha spends longer looking at that then anything else, mouse hovering over the word you’d written at the bottom. Gang?

You’d researched them all, except for Bucky. He never appeared at the shop while you were watching it, and it gave you the perfect out to leave him alone in your investigation. Steve and Sam had wrap sheets longer than your arm, and Natasha notably had nothing online at all. None of them had social media, which is weird, and the only photo you could find dated back to a highschool cross country picture of Steve and Sam, first and second medals respectively. You refused to look for Bucky. It made you sick just thinking about what you’d find on him, so you decided you just didn’t want to know. Not like that, behind a computer screen in your apartment with a bottle of red-wine half gone beside you. Bucky doesn’t belong there.  

You could have kept digging, given more time. It had been eating at you, though, consuming the hours you were supposed to be sleeping and waking you up when you finally closed your eyes. It didn’t matter how much you found, ten more questions would arise from it, and you were becoming obsessed. So you decided to end it. Clearly, you’d come to that conclusion a bit too late.

“Bucky doesn’t know your last name,” Natasha says, suddenly, shocking you enough to flinch. She doesn’t look away from the screen, but goes on, “He doesn’t know you’re a PI, where you live, what you do in your spare time. He knows noting about you, but he doesn’t seem to care. I told him that was stupid.”

You swallow past the hard lump in your throat. You knew Natasha hadn’t exactly warmed to you at that party but you hadn’t expected this level of- what would you even call it? A threat? You feel threatened, a metaphorical knife to your throat as Natasha finally looks at you again, pinning you down with a cold green stare.

“He’s not in any of this,” she says, tapping a fingernail on the keyboard to emphasis your research. It’s not a question, but you know what she’s asking.

“I wasn’t hired to look into Bucky,” you say, refraining from adding because I have self control and I don’t need to invade his privacy to have sex with him. “Anything I need to know, I can get from him.”

Natasha is silent for a long time, staring at you, and you don’t dare look away. This, too, is a test. After god-knows how much time has passed, she stands and you do too, hurrying to grab your bag and meet her at the office door she holds open for you. Conversation over, you suppose - you’re starting to get used to Natasha’s cryptic ways even if they piss you off beyond belief.

“Delete everything you just sent me,” she says. You scoff, rolling your eyes at her, but she stares you down with the darkest, scariest look you’ve ever received from someone who’s a head shorter than you. You think about that word you’d written in your notes, gang, after one too many red wines and thinking back to the way Natasha looked at you when you described them all as a family. Maybe you shouldn’t argue with her, given everything you’d experienced today.

“I’d cover that window if I were you,” you say, instead of answering. A muscle ticks in her jaw but she says nothing else, so you take your leave. Steve waves awkwardly as you go but you ignore him, shouldering out of the shop and practically running down the street.

Energy burns in your muscles that you can’t seem to get rid of, even as you chose to walk all the way back to your apartment which takes over an hour. It’s anger, you realise, fisting your hair and pacing around your apartment like a crazy person. Uncontrollable rage at being played with, tested at every turn, and for what? You never asked to be a part of this game. You’d never done anything but exactly what Bucky asked and it still wasn’t enough.

Your phone begins to ring, Bucky’s name flashing across the screen, and with a scream of pure frustration you throw it full-force into the nearest wall. It makes a dent in the drywall, falls to the ground and the impact shatters the screen but that won’t stop it vibrating uselessly against the floorboards as Bucky rings and rings and rings.

You won’t pick up. This time, or ever again. And not just because you’ve now fucked your phone beyond repair, either. You never asked to play this game, so now you’ll take yourself out of it.

***

This is exactly why you keep yourself so guarded - cutting people out is easy when they have nothing to hold onto. You change your phone number when you go to get it fixed, and it’s like Bucky never even existed. He doesn’t know where you work, where you live, and you don’t go back to any of the bars you went to with him. It’s easier than breathing to remove him from your life.  

The same cannot be said about removing Bucky from you.

He’d crawled inside your ribcage and stayed there, burnt a cigarette hole in your heart to claim it as his and you hate that. You never allowed him to do that. So he might not be physically in your life anymore but he’s still there, a ghost of a hand on your throat and an ache that might mean you miss him.

His friends are crazy and he’s in a gang, you tell yourself daily, like it’ll help. Like you believe it even slightly. It’s better this way.

“You’re quiet, kroshka,” you dad says, handing you a cup of tea. You remove your thumb from your mouth where you’d been gnawing at a hangnail to take it, smiling up at him in thanks. He doesn’t go back to his armchair, though, rather kicking a cushion off the couch to sit beside you. You dip with his added weight, closer to him, and he allows you to rest your head on his shoulder while you both blow on your teas in unintentional tandem.

“Kroshka is tired,” you mumble. He clicks his tongue at you, which is fair. Shit excuse, anyway. You sit up, twisting to face him, and ask, “How do I know if I’m overreacting to something?”

“With you, overreacting is baseline,” your dad says, grinning as you slap him on the arm. He takes a sip of tea and says, “Tell me.”

“No,” you say, aware you’re being a brat, but what are you going to say? This woman tricked me and she’s smarter than me so I cut the guy I like out of my life because I can’t let anyone in or I feel like I’m going to die? Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

“Well,” he says, giving you an unimpressed look, “If you’re questioning whether you’re overreacting, I would say there might be some truth to the feeling. It’s not like you to be unsure, though. Are you sure everything’s ok?”

“Yes, papa,” you sigh, going back to leaning on his shoulder. He might have a point. “You’ve just raised an idiot.”

“I did no such thing,” he says, placing his tea on the side table to pull you into a hug. You feel small, like you’re a little girl again, and you close your eyes against your father’s chest. Maybe you can just stay here and forget about the mess you’ve made of your life. He rubs circles into your back and says, “You’ll figure it out.”

“Ya lyublyu tebya, luna,” you say softly. I love you, moon. You’ve been saying this since before you can remember, your dad whispering it into your hair when he tucked you in at night or you calling across the playground when he’d drop you off at school. In your secret language so no one else knows, a message just for him - from you to your entire world.

“Lyublyu tetbya bol’she, zvedzdy,” he responds, kissing your hair. Love you more, stars.

He sends you off with a bag of donut holes, an obvious reminder you’re both not actually Russian but New Yorker to the bone, and you eat two on the subway ride home while you think. Deleting Bucky from your life is instinct, protection - he’d gotten too close. But really, when you allow yourself to examine the tight knot of feelings sitting in the base of your throat, what’s making you run is guilt.

You crossed a line, investigating his friends. You pried into the life he very purposefully kept you away from and you’d changed your number not because you didn’t want Bucky contacting you anymore, but because he might decide not to and you couldn’t live with watching your phone for a notification that would never come. Natasha will have told him everything by now, probably even showed him, and he’ll never trust you now. You’d blown it. You could be angry at Natasha for baiting you into doing it, but she never would have felt the need to if you had just been honest.

You stuff another donut hole in your mouth to stop yourself from crying. It works only a little bit.

The apartment feels colder, lonelier than it ever has even though being alone was what you thought you wanted. It just allows you to think of Bucky some more, curled up on your couch with the bag of donut holes now empty on the coffee table, sniffling into the sleeve of your hoodie. His smell, the way he always runs hot, the callouses on his hands probably from working in his garage you’ll never get to see now. Stubble, short-shaven hair, tattoos all down his left arm you never gave proper attention to. You can’t remember them all. Just the star, red and big in the middle of his deltoid. You thought you had more time.

“Fuck it,” you say, fishing your phone out of your jeans pocket. Bucky might not have your number anymore but you have his. Maybe if you just called him and heard his voice for a second, just that rumbly ‘hello,’ it might scratch the itch driving you insane. Before you can dial though, you get a notification from your banking app - a deposit from a new contact.

Natasha Romanoff jumps out at you, stopping your heart in your chest. Does she have a sixth sense for any time you so much as think about Bucky? She’s transferred you an obscene amount of money, and it takes you far too long to realise she’s paying you for the Shoreditch case that turned out to be one giant trust test you spectacularly failed. The reason you’re being a pathetic mess alone in your apartment pining over a guy who, as Natasha said herself, doesn’t even know your last name. Get a grip, Jesus Christ.

You open up the notification just to check it’s real and she really did triple the quote you’d given Mrs Shoreditch. That’s when you read what she’s written as the name of the transaction - an address for somewhere in Queens. You should probably at least think about jumping up, grabbing your jacket and practically sprinting from your apartment to an address sent to you by someone you’re 99% sure is part of a biker gang, but you don’t. You have a pretty good idea of what that address means, and curiosity is your biggest vice. Natasha’s sending you a cryptic message and you might not quite understand what it means just yet, but you’re certainly not going to ignore it.

Half an hour later you’re standing across the street from White Wolf Mechanics, hiding in the gaps between street lights and watching Bucky fix up a motorbike. The three huge roller doors are all open, letting light spill out onto the street as well as the thump of a baseline from a song you recognise, because you showed him it. Natasha sits on the work bench cross legged, scrolling on her phone and occasionally handing Bucky tools as he asks for them. He stands, wipes his hands on his skintight black t-shirt and says something into the depth of the shop. Sam appears, grinning wide and tossing a greasy rag at Bucky’s head which he catches easily.

He seems well, and that makes you happy. It’s only been a couple of days since you last saw him but it might as well have been months from how much you’ve spiralled. He might not have even noticed you’d separated yourself from him, and that thought makes you sick. You should go. You need to go. But your feet carry you across the street, jogging into the shadows so they don’t see you. You’ll hear his voice and then you’ll go.

You linger by the farthest roller door from them, sticking outside the pool of light and half-hiding behind the wall of the shop. You can still see them, though, Bucky’s face now turned towards you as he learns over the bike. Brow furrowed in concentration, and you want to smooth out the dent between them with your thumb but that’s not for you anymore. It never was.

“Have you talked Sam about it?” Natasha asks Bucky. You watch him glare at the part he’s holding in his hands and his whole body stiffens. He keeps his back to Natasha so you can see the anger play across his face clear as day.

“What’s there to tell?” he snaps. “You’ve taken care of everything, fuck what I want, so what’s the point?”

“Cut it out, James,” Natasha snaps back, “You know I was protecting you.”

“When did I ask,” Bucky grits out through a clenched jaw, throwing the part to the ground so the clang of metal on stone echoes out onto the empty street, making you jump. He balls his fists up at his sides and says, “You were out of line.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says evenly. She unfolds herself from the table with an unfair amount of grace and steps behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Bucky sighs, shoulders curling in and tension leaking out of his body. You want to hug him, but you will yourself to stay where you are.

Eventually, Bucky shrugs off Natasha’s touch and says, like a moody teenager, “Whatever.” Natasha rolls her eyes, watching him go back to work on the bike with a bit too much aggression that is strictly necessary. She hands him the part he threw silently, and it takes him a beat to unclench his fists and take it. A peace offering, you suppose, in Natasha’s strange language. She doesn’t go back to the workbench, rather staying by Bucky’s side despite his annoyed grumble.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, she says, “You proved me wrong, and I’m not too proud to realise that. I am sorry.”

Bucky looks up at her, as confused as you feel because where the fuck did that come from, and says, “Proved you- have you completely lost it?”

But Natasha isn’t look at him anymore. She’s looking at you.

Busted, you think, and you consider turning around and running before Bucky can see you. It’s a bit late for that, though, so you step into the light of the shop and halfheartedly return Natasha’s welcoming grin. It takes Bucky a second, snapping his fingers in front of Natasha’s face like he’s worried she’s actually gone in insane before he follows her eyeline and lands on you.

You’ve never seen Bucky shocked before, but he looks it now as for the second time the spare part he’s holding hits concrete with an ear-grating clang. You flinch at the sound despite yourself, and that seems to shock Bucky back into action. He whips around to glare at Natasha, pointing at you as he does.

“What did you do,” he demands. Maybe coming here really was a bad idea after all.

Natasha, ignoring Bucky completely, walks over to hold out her hand for you to shake. I’m lost, you think, as she says, “Let’s start again. I’m Natasha, James is the only family I have and I’m neurotically protective of him. He’s right to trust you, as much as it pains me to say I’m sorry for meddling in your relationship.”

You don’t take her hand. You’re not entirely sure you want to forgive her just yet, even if she did extend the olive branch to get you here. You fold your arms over your chest and say, “Next time, if you want to know something about me, just ask.”

She quirks an eyebrow at you, retracting her hand back to her side and you hate the way she always seems to be laughing at you. Natasha ducks her head, smirks, and disappears into some back office without another word. It’s just you and Bucky, the body of a bike between you as well as the weight of all the things you never said that’s all out in the open now. You’re looking at each other like you never have before, eyes open to the vast chasm of secrets you’ve both been keeping, and for the first time since you met Bucky you keep your distance.

“So,” he says, folding this arms over his giant chest. Not fair, you think, as his biceps flex against the tight sleeve of his t-shirt. Bucky averts his eyes to somewhere beyond your head and says, “You’re a private investigator.”

“You’re in a biker gang,” you reply, mimicking his folded-arms tight-lipped expression. He raises his eyebrows in a silent touché, and now that it’s out in the open you feel something inside you break off, slide down the tense hunch of your shoulders until you feel weightless. You should want to lock up tight, keep Bucky out because he’s gotten far too close already - you should use this blight as an escape. Somehow, though, having Bucky see you like no one else really has doesn’t feel as scary as you thought it would. Maybe because you have something of him, too, tucked against your head and healing that metaphorical cigarette burn. A secret for a secret. You can work with that.

“You changed your number,” Bucky says, and he’s walking over to you now. Guard dropped, hands by his sides, pinning you in place with his eyes on yours for the first time in what feels like centuries.

“I was scared,” you say, coming out more like a breath than a sentence, too transfixed with Bucky being so close to you when you never thought you’d get this again. He smells like car oil and sweat, but you’ll take any gross combination over nothing at all. He places his greasy hands either side of your neck, pulling you closer so practically standing between his legs.

“You know,” Bucky says, rubbing his thumb over the protrusion of your collarbone like he’s trying to turn your brain and legs into jelly, “Nat doesn’t have a high opinion of a lot of people. She means a lot to me.”

“She’s terrifying,” you say, and Bucky throws his head back in a laugh that has you grinning like an idiot. That sound settles warm in the pit of your stomach, spreading through all the dirty guilt and fear you’d been living in for the past few days. Biting your lip as you sober slightly, you say, “I’m sorry for prying, I should’ve just-“

“Don’t,” Bucky says, stern, shutting you up pretty effectively. “I’m sorry Nat is a nosy bitch-“

“Hey!” Natasha’s voice comes from the back office, startling you both into laughing even as Bucky turns to face the door with a murderous glare on his face.

“Don’t you have anything better to do!” Bucky yells, voice thundering through the echoey garage. He waits few beats for absolute silence, neither of you convinced Natasha had actually left, but it’s the best you’re going to get. He turns back to you, small smile on his face so at odds with how rough and messy he looks. Hulking muscle and scars and tattoos and you should be cautious, should be running, shouldn’t be letting him back you up until you hit the wall and he can pin you there with his hips pressed into yours.

But you’ve never been one to ignore something as intriguing and mysterious as Bucky Barnes, no matter how dangerous it might be. Bucky slides one hand up from your neck to splay across your jaw, fingers pressing almost too tight into the soft skin, and you should run from this, too. A reminder, a promise, a warning. You let him.

“Are we even?” Bucky asks, mumbled into the minuscule space between you. You can’t find your voice so you just nod, and Bucky cocks his head to the side as he asks, “You can still leave, y’know. I’ll understand.”

“No way,” you say with a vigorous shake of your head, probably too quickly if Bucky’s amused smirk is anything to go by. You shut him up real quick with a roll of your hips into his, watching with a sense of victory as his expression darkens and he tightens his grip on you. You say, eyebrows raised, “I’ve still got way too many questions.”

“Like what?” Bucky asks, but he’s not got his full attention on what you’re saying anymore, too busy using his grip on your jaw to tug your head to the side and kiss up your neck, warm and open-mouthed with just a bit of teeth.

You nod your head towards the bike he was fixing before, drawing his attention for a second as he flicks his eyes in its direction before resuming his trail of bruising kisses. A bit breathy maybe, you say, “Ever fucked someone on a motorbike before?”

“Absolutely not!” you hear a male voice practically scream, and soon enough Sam is practically running out of the back office with a smirking Natasha on his tail. “This is our place of work! It’s sacred!”

“Go home, Sam,” Bucky says into your skin, still loud enough for them to hear but he doesn’t get off you. You’re blushing, making eye contact with Bucky’s friends and wishing the ground will swallow you whole but Bucky just digs his teeth into the crook of your jaw and grins as he watches your eyes flutter shut. This mixture of embarrassment and unadulterated horniness is making your brain short-circuit.

“My eyes!” Sam cries as Natasha grabs him by the wrist and drags him from the garage. Not without a wink sent your way, and you’ll find time to be humiliated by that later. Right now, you’ve got Bucky’s mouth on yours to contend with and it’s going to take all of your attention.

Part 4

~~~

let me know what yall think of this part!! THANK YOU

[thirstyforred]

ok so, it's not like a fully fleshed idea, there's no ending, and the amount of words i would like to put into it is just too much atm, bc like at least over 10k sounds sweet, but anyway here's an idea for one of the squares in my witcher bingo - mind-reading spell/curse

it's the role swap au - i could just do "that's so sad, Hubert play Gwent/tavern music", but i think there's actually something to this idea that could be interesting with how some parts of the canon are being twisted and fit back together

Alvin is a vampire, lets just go with katakan, because why not

i might lean a bit into Book of Beautiful Horrors fanon (which i just realized inspired my other post about higher vamps, but for some reason, i completely forgot about it, until last week when i was looking again for this book) and say that katakans are great hunters, capable of tracking they prey just by the smell, but also having more special connection to the blood. like drinking of certain beings gives them certain effects - like how Gael even canonically drinks from drunk folks so he can actually get completely sloshed

but also if i combine it with how Erland never specified what actually are vampires eating since blood makes them just tipsy and isn't the main source of nutrients, let's say that vampires are lowkey like dragons - that they are actually consuming magic. so they would live nearby sources of power or like power nexuses, or like the Unseen Elder in B&W not far from the place where Ard Gaeth opened, which likely would still be pretty charged

which leads me to another point, if they're consuming magic, then possibly can they also use magic - and there are the different way this could be spun, for example, if let's say alp drinks bruxa's blood, then they can talk with birds for few nights, or like combine their own powers with the one they get from blood, and like give birds ability to dream, and then invade those dreams and shape them, like idk there could be some fun combinations here

so considering all of this stuff - Alvin is a katakan who drinks from sorcerers and that makes him so op

and he's at a point where it's not just about feeding himself in the most pleasurable way, by eating beings charged with magic, or just about blood addiction, no, it's about power

and because it's me writing about Alvin, whether i make a big point out of it or not, there's always a shadow behind him of that goth mfs red riders who influenced the way he understands the world - Nam and Nithral - so without deep explanations lets just say, that Alvin is a relatively young vampire, who was basically raised up by Aen Elle Wild Hunt deserter Namrevlis, like seriously who cares, it was always crack and canon bending bs

but the thing is, Nam and her blood smell and taste pretty uniquely like it's not a tone, but still, there's that drop of Hen Ichaer, of Lara's Gene in Red Riders, and i will take this fanon with me to the grave, and that, that taste of the Spiral is what Alvin is really looking for

which he ofc can't find because regular mages while still powerful, their blood making him almost a mage himself, is just nothing in comparison

and there's Hubert - he's a surgeon in Novigrad, just regular boring human, let's fuck with the timeline say in his 20s, but he's also the Source. He's the carrier of Lara's Gene. He doesn't want this sort of legacy, wears tones of dimeritium amulets and whatnot to tame his wild, never trained magic talents, but still, he's plagued by horrifying dreams of the White Frost

i guess would make sense if that sort of thing was more manageable when he was a kid and teen, but got worse with time, and also there are Witch Hunters all over Novigrad, so Hubert has to find some way or maybe mentor, do something about it

so he asks some people he trusts about ideas, like Gael and Queen of the Night, and finally, Queen is like yeah i know of someone, they help hiding mages in Wizima, but also they're very dangerous, and Hubert is like who is it? i need to know! and she's like it's the leader of Salamandra

yes im keeping Alvin being a drug lord, i find it the funniest part of his whole fucking deal

but anyway Hubert travels to Wizima and somehow get's introduced to Alvin, and he just gets a whiff of Hubert and he starts salivating

but Alvin is not an idiot, he knows if he will eat a guy in one sitting it won't sate him for long, and help him really peer through that veil between the world or whatever - he's a fantasy medieval business major, he's gonna put a nice collar on that neck

(i still remember it was supposed to be about mindreading, the idea was just more cohesive and compressed in my mind lol)

but Hubert explains his whole deal and problem, and Alvin is like oh ok cool, then we can have here like a mutual agreement - because he was somewhat educated on the Spiral by Nam, he gets and understands the things Hubert is seeing in his visions, he just can't hold them for too long - while for Hubert everything is just chaotic and a bit scary, and makes him feel lost

but thankfully all higher vamps (but true ones lol) have telepathic abilities, which means that Alvin can just look into Hubert's mind, amplify it by drinking his blood, if they meditated together, created like a mental bond between their minds, they could literally unravel the Spiral together

like all the crazy stuff i have ever written about the Spiral but more

oh and there's like some gay stuff happening ofc

[goodmorningmissmorgan]

One of my first bits that I wrote for this little disjointed Blackwall/Trevelyan story, and still one of my favorites (although in desperate need of revision+polish.) Blackwall and Evelyn chatting at Haven. CW: alcohol, snippet under the cut!

She eyes the warden from across the tavern as she pokes at her food. It’s richer fare than she’s used to, and stew never quite settles properly in her stomach.

He holds his spoon and adjusts his napkin on his lap with a care that suggests he’s trying to be polite, but he can’t seem to stem the speed with which he eats. Habit or hunger, she can’t tell which; he eats like a man starved. He wolfs down two bowls of stew, scarcely coming up for breath, before he tears into his bread roll. 

He didn’t seem quite so ravenous in camp. Perhaps it has more to do with the abundance of food, here, or the fact that it’s a real meal and not just dried rations or scraps of meat. 

By comparison, the ale he savors as though it could be his last; the first sip makes him close his eyes momentarily. He takes another, longer sip after that, and his shoulders droop on a sigh. He sets it down, considers, picks it back up again, and simply holds it to his mouth for a moment before sipping a third time.

Maybe proper sit-down meals are a luxury for wardens?

She finds herself gathering up her meal before she’s even thought it through. It’s too late to change course, though, so she takes the empty seat across from him and sets her stew and watered-down ale on the table.

He looks up, surprised and something else - alarm, perhaps. She freezes.

“Sorry. If you don’t want company, I can…”

“No! No.” He waves off her suggestion and tips his chin towards her. “Please.” 

She eases back down into the chair. He’s eyeing her stew. “Not hungry?” He asks. 

Sheepish, she pokes at it again with her spoon. “Oh… I’m just not much of a fan of stew, to be honest.” She blushes. “I’m sorry, that makes me sound terribly spoiled. It’s just that they serve it a lot, and it’s rather… rich.” Maker, take her. Here’s a man who clearly doesn’t often have the luxury of such a meal, and she’s turning her nose up at it.

He doesn’t disagree with her, that much she can tell, but he’s kind enough to at least smile about it. “If you…?” She nudges the bowl towards him in offering. 

He’s gazing at the food with interest, but hesitates. Maker’s blood, he probably feels like some sort of charity case. “If you want,” she offers, weakly. With a chuckle, he reaches forward, pulls the bowl towards him, and begins dabbing at it with his bread. No harm done, then, she hopes. She sips her ale just to have something to do. 

“So,” he starts, after he finishes chewing and wipes his mustache with his napkin. “‘Herald’, is it?” He’s looking at her with those aquamarine eyes, sharp and inquisitive, and she squirms beneath his gaze. 

“I’m sorry. I should have told you.” She had intended to, initially, but the idea of referring to herself as Andraste’s Herald had the words sticking in her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. And calling herself an ‘agent’ wasn’t a lie - not really. She does the work the Inquisition needs doing, does she not?

“No,” he says, lightly, and then considers. “Well… perhaps. Yes.” He laughs, a dirty little growl of a sound, and scoops a spoonful of stew - her spoon, she notices with a small amount of interest - into his mouth before continuing. “Seeing you close that damned rift was a bloody surprise, I’ll tell you that.” 

They had run into it midway through the frostbacks; the way back should have been clear, the path already traveled, but a new rift had apparently opened up in their wake. Blackwall’s eyes had nearly bulged out of his head with surprise when she ripped off her glove and sealed the thing. “I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it. She cradles her marked hand in her other one, staring down at it with distaste.  

He follows her gaze. “Does it hurt?” He asks, quietly. 

“It did. Not anymore - not lately, anyway. More… itchy?” She opens and closes her palm a few times, watching the green light shimmer, and then sighs and tucks it back under the table. “You have no idea how disconcerting it is to have this magic… thing… strapped to your hand when you have no magical ability to speak of yourself. I feel like I’m going to wake up to find it’s chewed my arm off.” She grins at him and takes a large swallow of ale.

He’s almost finished with his third bowl of stew - her stew - and seems to be thinking as he cleans the bowl with the last of his bread roll. She nibbles on hers. 

“Do you think you’re the Herald of Andraste?” He asks. 

She’s asked herself the same question many times over. She’s a faithful Andrastian - at least, as faithful as any regular folk. She makes her Chantry donations, she’s confirmed as every other Trevelyan has been, she frequently attends services. But to be a Herald? She doesn’t feel like one. “I don’t know,” she answers honestly. 

He seems to take that as answer enough, and takes a long, large swig of ale before popping the last of the stew-soaked bread into his mouth. His hunger is satiated, she thinks, from the way he leans back with a content sigh and traces the rim of his mug with a finger. When he catches her curious gaze, he smiles wearily. 

“Been a while since I’ve had a proper meal.” That explains that, then. Hunger, not habit. “Hopefully I’ll put some of this weight back on. Winter was a bit… rough.” He plucks absently at his sleeve. 

She wouldn’t have guessed that he’d lost any; she’s no great judge of figure, but supposes he looks somewhat gaunt in the cheeks. He’s mostly muscle and belly, veins and tendons standing out like thick vines along his forearms. “I can’t imagine how lonely that must have been,” she says.

He’s running his finger along the handle of his mug, now, and tilts his head as he watches her. There’s an odd, calculating look in his eyes. “Aye,” he agrees. “It was.” He scratches his chin and squints. “How did you end up involved in all of this, my lady?” 

“Ah.” She drums her fingers along her leg, once, twice, and throws him a sheepish look. “Do you know the Trevelyan family?” 

“One of the richest noble houses in the Marches? Aye, I’ve heard of them.” He cocks his head, curious. “Are you…?”

“I’m the youngest daughter, yes.” An expression crosses his face, too quick for her to catch. “My father sent me as a representative to the Conclave. To represent our interests, that is.” She examines her fingernails, suddenly self-conscious. “Everything went to hell, obviously, with the explosion, and this.” She holds up her hand for a moment to indicate the mark, and he nods. “So… now I’m here.”

“I see.” He considers her quietly, sipping his ale. “That mark keeps you here, then?” 

She flushes at this new line of questioning. “I’m the only one who can close the rift, it seems. So - yes.”

He’s still eyeing her curiously with that cool, unnerving gaze. She could leave, she knows; get up and just go to her cabin. Perhaps the drink is making her bolder, more defensive. She stares back at him. 

“You just… don’t strike me as a noble lady,” he comments, finally. “You’re capable. Strong. Willing to get your hands dirty.” 

She’s not sure whether to be offended or flattered. “And, what, you consider us incapable for our status?” 

He holds up his hands in defense. “I’m only saying that some folks get soft when they have wealth. Let servants do the work for them, think the little people beneath them. You…” He shakes his head softly back and forth. “I mean no offense, my Lady.”