#so the thought here is that its body- save for the ‘clay’ which is bare n tough skin- is furry rather than straight up lava

[quixot1sm]

heatmor from memory and heatmor from reference

[basicallyjaywalker]

Trying To Make Something Out of Clay

It only took me getting back at school to finish editing this! I am not kidding good grief

Anyways! At long last @cboffshore I deliver you: JAY! my specialty

Prompt: Jay, Look Who’s Inside Again by Bo Burnham, eagle, fastidious, pardon, clay, separation, earthquake, and protest

AO3 Link

Fic also under the cut!

Pottery classes wouldn’t have been Jay’s first idea for a birthday gift to himself, but he could never dodge his mother’s chipper voice in his head. 

Coupons! They’re like an excuse to do things. Always keep your eyes out for the real deals… From there, she’d go into a spiel about good versus bad deals, ones designed to make you spend money rather than save it, and eventually that would develop into discussions of unit prices and store brands and what-have-you about “mother’s know-how.” 

All that to say, when the coupon came in for “Free Pottery Lessons!” with the purchase of a starter pack, Jay knew how to calculate the value. Cost was the starter pack, lessons would cover all of the basics of pottery, he would be able to make more cool gifts for his friends and family… worth it. Plus, the studio said once he finished his lessons, he was still welcome to come back and use their equipment to mold and fire the clay. Plus plus, if he decided he didn’t like it, he could always use the clay and tools in the starter kit for another project. No matter what, there wasn’t a way to lose! His mom would be so proud. 

And that was how he ended up sitting in front of a clay-stained table, almost a month after his birthday, sculpting. Now Nya’s birthday was coming up and he was making her a seagull figurine. Unfortunately, they hadn’t gotten to the “figurine” part in his basics classes, so Jay was having to wing it with what he knew. However, what he knew seemed to be very lumpy and not very gull-like. 

He frowned, examining the vaguely bird-shaped lump of clay on the table. Its legs were short and thick, holding the uneven, bulbous body up off the table. Jay had thought he made wings, but they seemed to be lost within the sinking mass. The head was little more than a drooping oval, the end of which molded into the torso much too high up (or maybe this gull's neck was just in the middle of its spine). 

… Yeah, he couldn’t pass this off as a seagull. He could barely pass it off as a bird. Maybe he should just make Nya something else.

 Just as he reached to put his tools up, the studio door opened behind him and he spun around to see his teacher, Kat, in her clay stained apron.

“Ah, pardon me,” She smiled at him and raised her hand in a wave, it was stained reddish orange, “just grabbin’ somethin’ for my next group. Whatcha makin’?”

“Something for Nya,” Jay said, trying to shield the misshapen heap from her view. The light-up grin on Kat’s face told him he failed. 

“What a lovely turtle! I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“It’s supposed to be a seagull.”

“Oh.” 

Jay sighed. “Yeah, we’re not quite there yet.”

“Well,” she clapped her hands together, sending a few splatters of rust-colored clay flying, ”trust the process! It’ll turn out swell, I’m sure. Do you need a reference?”

“That might help,” was what he said out loud. What he thought was, I know what a seagull looks like. I don’t think looking at another one is going to help. Still, he managed to hold his tongue. As much as he liked Kat, some days, her teaching just bugged him. She always went on about “the process.” Trust the process! Everything looks bad until it’s done! Sometimes, it even looks bad after, it’s just the artist's way. 

As she left the room, Jay continued ruminating on that idea. Trust the process. He stared at the ugly lump on his table. He wasn’t sure “the process” could save this one. Still, he supposed giving it a try was better than giving up. 

Frowning, he tried to fix the head, adding some clay to make it rounder, more… sharp? Less like a turtle. A few globs there, a dab here, some shaping… hey! Now that was a seagull. The legs could use some carving, but they were sleeker now; he could actually make out the shape of wings in the blobby body, and the neck wasn’t coming out of the middle of the spine! Jay could almost envision the thing trying to steal his french fries on the beach, as long as he was squinting really, really hard. Slowly, he drew his hands away.

Immediately, the head drooped and detached from the rest of the body.

“Oh, come on!” Jay exclaimed just as Kat walked back in and interrupted what was about to be a long string of words about the clay, gravity, and the concept of seagulls in general. In her hands she cradled a majestic gull perched on a rock, caught mid-caw.

“This is from one of our old students. She left it here and never came back, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you used it as reference.”

“Thanks.” Jay took the figurine and examined it. It was a simple shape, lots of round circles, and some small details for the wings and feet. It looked easy enough to make. Looked being the keyword. 

Kat looked at the self-decapitated bird and tilted her head. “Fix-it attempt gone horribly, horribly wrong?”

He nodded, pursing his lips. 

“You’ll get it,” she said, spirited as ever, “it just takes some time to master, y’know? New skills and all that.”

He nodded again. She’d told him the same thing during his first few lessons, when the teacup he tried to make for Master Wu ended up looking more like a soup bowl made by an avant-garde artiste. He knew she was right, it was just the way learning went, but it didn’t stop the nagging irritation he felt staring at the pathetic pile of muddy material in front of him. 

“I’ve gotta get my next class started, lemme know if you need anything else.”

One last nod and Kat was gone, leaving him alone again. Jay sat down and continued to stare at the distended body. He placed his new reference next to it and felt the minute bit of confidence that sprouted from his forming gull fly away. 

Maybe he could pass his off as a seagull that went through a tsunami or earthquake. Then again, that felt a little too morbid. Maybe a mutant seagull, left alive to propagate his species after a nuclear apocalypse wiped out the rest, save for him and the perfect specimen sat beside him, a symbol of a simpler time? 

No, that was too far-fetched. 

Sighing, Jay figured his best way out was to start from scratch. He pushed the majestic reference gull out of the blast radius before slamming his fist down on his failure. The wet clay gave easily under the force, body and head merging into one flat, knuckle-imprinted puddle. Jay knew it wasn’t necessary—and rather messy—to do it this way, but it allowed him some sort of catharsis. That alone made it worth the bit of splash onto his apron and face. 

Now, he could start again. 

His hands started to shape the clay, eyes focused on the reference as he tried to imitate the product in front of him. He didn’t need the rock, just the bird. That was enough of a change to keep it from being plagiarism, right? Could you plagiarize a clay sculpture?

As he worked, his mind wandered. Initially, it was just about the concept of plagiarism and if copying the reference counted. He was pretty sure he watched a video recently on that. Could one plagiarize an artstyle the same way they plagiarized research? Then it moved to the feeling of the clay. It squished under his hands like mud, but held like a sand castle. He used to build sand castles in his yard, when he was too young to help his parents build their various projects. His mom would give him a water bottle and tell him his job was to make a palace for the nearby ants to live in. Jay took his job very seriously, working fastidiously far after his parents went inside and even when Edna tried to call him in for dinner. He never truly mastered the art, despite various attempts to mimic the grandiose castles he saw in the storybooks his father used to lull him to sleep. His castles always ended up a solid mound. No doors, no windows, and definitely no rooms where the creatures nearby could rest. 

Well, that little memory didn’t bode well for this project. 

Jay clenched his jaw and forced himself to focus on the task at hand, but still his thoughts swirled about his head like a storm. He was good at so many things, how come castles and seagulls outsmarted him? He was an inventor, for First’s sake! Sure, he fell out of practice recently, but he’d done it his whole life! Surely no one loses skills that fast, right? All his years of practice should amount to something, should translate to making a clay bird? But wires and gears and cogs were so much different than clay. They were rigid, fixed. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle and always worked as intended. They were predictable. Clay wasn’t like that. It morphed not only under the weight of its creator’s hands, but under its own. Sometimes, it held its shape perfectly, strong like a tree in a storm. Other times, as Jay experienced over his time learning to sculpt pots and cups, it drooped or flattened or folded itself over like a cloud rolling over the horizon. Capricious, that’s the word he would use to describe it. Clay was capricious.

Okay, maybe inventing wasn’t his best comparison. He rifled through his skills toolbox again. An art form would serve better as a comparison. Painting? Paints could be difficult too. When he first started learning, driven by the small pieces his father used to make of the night sky, he hated it. The paints always turned to a muddy mess on his canvases, leading him to ruin more than one still-wet attempt by throwing it into the sand. He only got the hang of it after sitting down with his dad one day, both of them looking to capture a gorgeous eagle that landed in their junkyard. It was rare to see them in the Sea of Sands, as they preferred the shores of Ninjago more, but here this one was, perched on a pile of scrap his dad pulled out for a project the day before. At first, Jay didn’t understand why his dad had a sketchbook and pencil out or why he took a picture of the bird. Instead, Jay went straight to trying to capture its glossy feathers and curved beak, only to be vexed when the browns and whites he was using merged into one murky beige. He tried to fix it, but the problem only worsened until, with a yell, he scribbled over the whole thing in black. The commotion frightened the bird away, which only served to heighten Jay’s frustration. Great. Great! The bird was gone. Now he had to remember what it looked like to try and paint it again. 

That was when his father picked up his painting, examining the mess he made. He commented on how they would have to repurpose the canvas for something else and Jay felt a hot flush of shame hit his cheeks. He apologized for his outburst, but his dad just patted his head and sat with him. He explained how painting wasn’t just about putting paint on the canvas, but how you needed a sketch to start with so you could have an idea of how to make the picture by hand, how to plan your layers so your colors wouldn’t all mix, and how to control your brush so there were no stray bumps in the smooth lines. Jay still didn’t fully get it, but this time he actually finished the painting. It was rough, looking closer to a pigeon than an eagle, but it was dry and not covered in sand. His dad hung it up in their living room. 

Maybe Jay could draw on his painting skills. Paint was finicky, often felt like it had a mind of its own. Surely, there was something within this childhood memory that could help him out now?

Splat.

The noise roused Jay from his thoughts. In his daydreaming, he’d pulled the neck of the gull out too thin and the head—which was just a little bead at the end of the spaghetti string—now drooped on the table. 

Dammit. 

Jay squished the horror noodle back into the body and checked his watch. The place closed in an hour. He’d made no progress. His deadline wasn’t imminent (Nya’s birthday wasn’t for another few weeks) but it still weighed heavy on his mind. He wanted to get something done today, before Kat asked him to clean up. There was no telling when an attack on Ninjago might drag him away from this, swallowing his time and bringing the date closer and closer until he was forced to rush the project to completion.

Change of plans. He wasn’t good at sculpting, but he wasn’t willing to switch to painting. He was going to make the most of this studio and his work so far. He was good at engineering. He stared at the clay. This gull wasn’t a sculpture, it was a… a machine! Like Zane’s Falcon. Yeah, he could work with that.

First step of the process, separate the parts. Separation was easy, since the limbs of this bird seemed intent on breaking apart. There was the head, the wings, the feet, the torso… he could break those down further! The head had eyes, a beak, feathers on top? Little hairs? Whatever. The point was, he could break it down. He could maybe get somewhere with that.

What next? He had the parts, now he had to figure out how they fit together. The bird needed a base, otherwise its feet would be too small for its body (or alternatively, to support itself its feet would need to be comically large, which must’ve been why the original had a rock base). Then, the torso rested on the feet. The wings then melded to the torso, becoming almost part of it. The head was connected by the neck, which needed to be enough to set it apart from the body, but not too long and skinny that it would fall. That’s where his issue was. The first-forsaken neck. Solve that, he solved the whole thing.

Maybe he was a genius. Maybe he’d finally cracked the code! …Okay, maybe he already knew that was the problem, but breaking it down helped! The storm in his brain calmed and he could focus his attention on the task at hand: fixing this stupid bird before Kat—

“Hey, Jay!”

Are you kidding me?

Kat bounded over, her apron, arms, and even parts of her face stained orangish brown with clay. She grinned from ear to ear as she settled back into her spot across from Jay. “How’s it going?”

“Eh, fine. I’m just trying to figure out how to make the neck work.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “I can’t figure out how to make it look like a neck, y’know? Like… How do birds even function? I know their necks aren’t super complicated, but it’s like I put the head on and it all goes splat!”

“Have you been using an armature?” 

“...what?” 

Kat burst into giggles. “You’ve not been using an armature this entire time? It’s what helps the clay keep its shape. You’ve been freeballing it?”

“I didn’t know!” Jay protested. This whole time he’d been missing a key part of the body—robotic, flesh, or clay—skeleton! Muscles! That’s why the stupid bird kept self-decapitating! It had no bones! How hadn’t I realized?!

Kat leaned over, examining the bird while Jay’s face cycled through shades of red. “Well, in that case, as an act of freestanding feathered figurine formation, you haven’t done a half bad job.” She held her hand out. “And if you can come back tomorrow, I’ll show you how to make a wire armature. Then, we can get you going on this project, for real this time. Deal?”

“I’ll try to make it.” Jay sighed and held his hand out, still covered in clay. “Deal.”

After a messy handshake, Jay washed, put away his tools, gathered his things, and left. The late afternoon sun hung lazily above the horizon, not ready to dip fully out of sight, leaving the sky a brilliant, cloudless azure. The golden light reflected off the lush zelkova trees that lined the sidewalk outside, turning the leaves chartreuse. Crickets chirped quietly at their feet and in their branches, warming up for their song later in the evening. Other than that, the streets were quiet. Warm rays hit his face and he sighed. In the distance, he could smell something cooking, maybe a barbecue in the residential area a few blocks over? His stomach growled. It really was time for him to head home.

Tomorrow, he’d come back and make an armature. Then, that stupid bird would finally come into form. 

All things considered, Jay figured he made good on that coupon. Free figurine lessons! And he didn’t even have to buy a second kit. Plus, something about working, letting his thoughts roam free… Jay wasn’t sure what it was, but he was excited to go back there soon, and there wasn’t much more to say about that.

[yandere-daydreams]

what about yandere persephone and hades sharing a darling?

Ah, the most functional Olympian couple. That’s not saying a lot, though, considering how quick they’d be to argue when it comes to their Darling… I can only assume things would get out of hand rather quickly, all things considered.

Title: Lovers’ Quarrel.

TW: Unhealthy Relationship, Mentions of Kidnapping, Blood, Minor Injuries, and Implied Past Abuse. 

~

Of all people, you’d thought Persephone would understand how you felt.

Sure, she’d come to love Hades with time. Not as romantically as the story-tellers would’ve liked, but there was a fondness in her eyes when she looked at him, the kind of endearment a friend would hold for their closest companion or the trust a queen would save for her favorite advisor. She’d come to terms with her place among the dead, with the throne she hadn’t asked for, but once, she’d been a captive, a prisoner in a realm she didn’t fully understand, of a man she didn’t know to trust. She’d been like you. She’d been just as confused as you were, just as devastated, just as scared. She must’ve been.

But, it’d been centuries since then. She’d had so much time to grow comfortable, so much time to adjust. She’d had so much time to forget, and you could only assume she’d used it wisely.

You’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t, if you were in her place.

If Persephone harbored any sympathy for you, she didn’t feel the need to put it on display. Rather, her gaze was cold, unyielding, her smile sharp and careless as she fiddled with the hem of your clothing, her other hand splayed over your hip, keeping you pinned in her lap without so much as a solid grip. Chains and cuffs were unnecessary, despite her husband’s concerns. You’d been little more than a pliable doll since you first laid eyes on her, since she first pulled you into her arms, ran her fingers through your hair, and asked so sweetly if you’d behave for her. Part of it was fear, most of it was fear, but you could hardly be blamed for letting her intimidate you. Her resemblance to her mother was apparent, but whereas Demeter’s warmth was only faded by experience and loss, Persephone was simply faded. As if someone had drained the color from beneath her tan skin and replaced it with molten ivory. As if her blood had been exchanged for ice long ago, and the cold was all that survived.

“We should’ve waited a few more days,” Hades muttered, his voice low and gruff, abruptly reminding you of his presence. He was seated less than an arm’s length away from Persephone, from you, but if she was winter chill, a wind so intense and cutting you couldn’t hope to ignore it, he was the ice that lingered beneath more hospitable snow, all pale skin and dull edges and dark eyes that made you want to look away and sink further into Persephone’s chest, an instinct she encouraged with a light squeeze to your side. With an idle grace, she tilted her head in his direction, silently signaling him to continue without letting her sight stray from the court. A spirit was still pleading his case, trying to win a more favorable afterlife than the Asphodel Meadows, but if either deity was listening to his impassioned speech, neither felt the need to do so attentively. Persephone usually took joy in the morbid proceedings of the Underworld, but even she was distracted, today. You could only lament being the cause of their disturbance. “Look at (Y/n), they’re practically shaking. If we just gave them a little more time--”

“If anyone’s shaking, it’s because someone only knows one way to invite people into his home.” Persephone’s retort was flawless, her tone never wavering nor shaking, but you winced at the mention of your… invitation, as she’d put it. Your skin was bruised where his fingertips had dug into your wrists, pinning your hands at the base of your spine as you thrashed and screamed, and you could still feel a steady ache where your stomach had been pushed against the edge of his chariot. Your discomfort must’ve been obvious, because Hades sent you a regretful glance, the closest he’d come to apologizing since your arrival. The closest he would ever come, if his pride was as unswallowable as his brother’s. “This is fine,” She went on. “You’d much rather be with me than locked inside of that cramped, lonely bedroom, wouldn’t you, my love?”

“I don’t mind my chambers,” You mumbled, letting your attention fall the stone floor. It was a simple arrangement, as plain as a room could be when gold and gemstones were used in the place of clay and stone, but you liked it. Or, rather, you liked having a place to be alone, especially when your hosts were so determined not to give you that luxury. “If you’d like me to leave, I can--”

You couldn’t finish, you didn’t get the chance to, not before she caught you by the jaw. Long, pointed nails threatened to pierce your skin as she tilted your head back, forcing you to meet her eyes despite your frantic attempts to avoid her stare. “I don’t think that was the question,” She said, her thumb digging into your cheek, drawing something warm and wet that you desperately didn’t want to identify. “I asked if you wanted to be with me. And I do expect the answer to be agreeable, if that isn’t too difficult for you to handle.”

You opened your mouth, a plea for her forgiveness already playing on your tongue, but Hades was faster than you were, holding up a hand to silence the proceedings as he leaned onto the arm of his seat, twisting his body to direct an unadulterated glare towards his wife. “Don’t resort to that so soon,” He snapped, gesturing vaguely as he spoke. “Be gentle. Keep your temper in check, or you’ll break your toy before you even get the chance to play with it.”

“You’re acting as if this is my doing.” When Hades bristled, Persephone was quick to respond in turn, growing hostile, baring her teeth but releasing you all the same. Instead, she took you by the collar of your robes, keeping you grounded as she spoke not to you or her husband, but for herself. Aiming to stoke her own sense of righteousness as much as to nurture Hades’ anger, nursing it the way a survivalist would a flame. “Remind me, dearest, whose idea was it to bring our beloved home? Which one of us wasn’t satisfied with admiring from a distance?” She paused, tapping her chin in faux-thought. “You might call me volatile, but between the two of us, who lost their temper first?”

That earned a grimace. Persephone wrapped an arm around your midriff, but you couldn’t be sure whether the gesture was meant to be protectively or possessive. “Watch your tongue. Whether it’s your gift or mine, it can still be taken away.”

Persephone huffed, letting out an airy, desolate chuckle. “You’re not my master--”

“I am.” Unlike Persephone, his declaration was absent of her playful levity. “You’re in my domain, and therefore, you belong to me. As long as you’re here, I am your sovereign, and my word is law. Keep that in mind the next time you decide when and where to discipline your pet.”

Persephone’s jaw clenched, her gaze narrowing into something vicious, but she relented without further argument, and your heart skipped a beat before resuming its normal rhythm. You hadn’t noticed you weren’t able to breathe, not until Persephone’s grip loosened and a crushing tension shattered in your chest, earning a sigh of relief echoed by Hades as he fell back into his throne, allowing the trail to continue with a single, easy nod. You wanted to relax, to let yourself ease into a more tranquil state of panic, but with a guiding hand, Persephone pushed her fingers in your hair and guided you towards the crook of her neck. For a moment, you thought it was her final selfish act of the day, an instance that, if you were going to rest, you were going to do so because she allowed it. That may’ve been true, but she had something to say, too, even if you couldn’t be sure she cared that you were listening. “Don’t listen to him,” She whispered, her voice tender but far from empathetic.

“He just wants to make himself seem nice before he breaks you in.”

[mk-wizard]

Sailor Moon 90s Anime is STILL the best

Hi. I know I am on a Sailor Moon binge here, but after seeing all of Crystal, Eternal and on R (season 2) of the first anime, I want to get this all off of my chest... and before I go further, since these are all animes, I will refer to them as 90s, Crystal and Eternal. And after watching them all, I have to say that the 90s takes the gold medal as the best Sailor Moon anime so far and this is why;

1- It had the best pacing. - While I admit that sometimes, it went too far with the filler, 98% of the time, it worked with the 90s. It took its time to make you get to know the characters for better or for worse, it made you see different sides of them, it gave them a chance to truly develop and be multi-dimensional, and it made you care about them. When a death happened, it felt tragic. When a victory happened, you cheered. And when you saw what side characters did, it mattered. I mean, who can ever forget the contribution 90s Naru Osaka had to the story? And everyone who has seen the 90s anime cannot forget her. More on the character development and getting to know characters later.

Sure, it wasn’t true to the manga and even the characters had different personalities, but I let that slide by because when Crystal and Eternal did follow the manga to the letter, we didn’t get a chance to digest anything. The only characters who develop are Usagi, Chibi-Usa and the outer guardians, and for the last bunch, it was the bare minimum. Crystal and Eternal were fun rides and I would be lying if I said I didn’t like them, but they were like roller coasters. They gave you a thrill, but fast and been done. The 90s was like a slow scenic ride that gave you surprises, emotionally touched you, made you cry, made you laugh, made you root for the heroes and even at the age of 37 years now, I keep rewatching this series.

2- The art of the 90s was better because it was sketchy, dark and edgier. - I know Sailor Moon doesn’t seem like this on the surface because the heroines are lovely girls in cute costumes, it emphasizes femininity and all things pretty, it has a romantic theme and is all about love, but Sailor Moon is also one of the darkest, grittiest, edgy and violent magical girl animes I have ever seen since Magic Knights Rayearth. Sailor Moon has on screen deaths which were permanent most of the time, on screen stabbings and the drawing of blood, and fights that got so hardcore, that real punches and kicks were thrown. The dark edges, black line art and sharp edges worked with the atmosphere of the story. I mean, look at the difference between the halls Dark Kingdom of the 90s (above) and that of Crystal.

And if that is not enough to win you over, the characters were much more animated, organic and conveyed more emotion whether they were exaggerated or serious.

In Crystal, the expressions and body language was very dulled down. Not to mention, very stiff.

Everything is also too bright and soft which makes the characters look like velvet dolls with too much make up especially with the line art. I will give them props for adding better details, cleaner lines, the glow of magical items, and details in the gems, but everything else is all wrong.

Eternal was better, but still not quite there. The colours are still way too bright and the characters still look too much like dolls from having line art that is too wispy. And I really do not like how the eyes have this unnatural glow to them. The edgy scenes become lost with all this brightness.

3- We got to see that there was so much more the characters than just heroes or villains. - Since Usagi is the titular character, let us just talk about her in the 90s since I could go on forever about how much we learned about the characters. In any version of Sailor Moon, Usagi’s role as a Sailor Guardian has always been the core of the story and she does indeed show progress as one. However, the 90s tells us that no matter what, she is still going to be herself too which is just as important and she shows character development as just plain old Usagi too. The manga, Crystal and Eternal which only paint Usagi as not doing anything right except be a Sailor Guardian, but the 90s show her hidden talents and learning new skills. For example, she was bad at cooking at the beginning of the series.

However, by Sailor Moon R, she gets the hang of it and is able to cook a meal by herself. Yes, she is messy, clumsy, never gets the hang of making cookies and is nowhere near Makoto’s level especially when it comes to presentation, but she is good at cooking food.

Another hidden talent of Usagi’s is her drawing skills. She isn’t just good at drawing. She’s got talent at it, so in the 90s, Usagi is quite the artist.

And it is admirable that 90s Usagi is open to trying new things even if she isn’t good at them. She practices, she explores and tries to enlighten herself. Sure, academics, coordination and organization will never be her fortes, but she really does have other and tries to discover more.

In Crystal and Eternal, she is good at being Sailor Moon, she is a good friend and a good girlfriend, but that is it. She is one dimensional here and she isn’t the only one to painted like that. Everyone is only the obvious and that is all the audience gets.

4- Better character redemption. - I mentioned before that Sailor Moon had grit and was dark, but the 90s also made it more complex and did character redemption right. It was open to the possibility of bad people becoming good. For instance, the Black Moon Clan Specter Sister are unforgettable for being successfully redeemed.

Yes, I admit that the monster of the day would get killed by the hands of the Sailor Guardians, but they also clearly showed that the monsters were not people or even alive. They were made of energy, clay or sand. When the monster of the day was a possessed innocent, they were saved through exorcism. Very rarely was an actual person ever killed and even when they were, it was either by the hands of another villain, their own hand, self defense or as a last resort. They never used killing as means of dealing with every single bad guy.

Furthermore, the bridge arc about the Makai Tree that also served as a prologue to Sailor Moon R could be seen as a story about mercy, kindness and love. It stands out as the one time the big bad was actually a misunderstood big good being the Makai Tree herself. And even Ail an An were never bad, but were raised bad. And even then, they changed. This story is unique only to the 90s so far, but it was great and stood out for that reason.

In Crystal, the heroines will kill a person without a second thought which I am shocked that no one brings up how repetitive and contradictory that is. The pretty warrior of love and justice should by all means protect the Earth, but doing so by killing off the bad guy all time is not love or justice. I also think the caption in this picture sums up how I feel about how the one and only time bad guys were given a chance to be redeemed...

Eternal was better because the Asteroid Guardians got redeemed and saved. However, even then, I feel like there is still a double standard. They were one of the good guys to begin with and Sailor Guardians. In the 90s, the Amazoness Quartet wasn’t, but were given a chance to change anyway. I find it cool that the Quartet turned out to be Sailors and even better that they will go on to become Chibi-Usa’s team, but mercy is not just for your allies or for your own benefit. Everyone should be given at least one chance to fix their mistakes.

5- We got to know Mamoru better. - I admit that no matter the incarnation, Tuxedo Mask will never be as powerful as Sailor Moon except when he is King Endymion, but the 90s take on his character made him better even if they did omit his super attack being Tuxedo le Smoking Bomber. What the well dressed masked man lacked in firepower, he made up for in intelligence, insight about the enemy’s weakness, courage and skill. The only times he ever did get overpowered was either by bad luck or because it was intentional because he was taking a hit for Sailor Moon. And even then, he always got back up. He’s a real man like that.

More importantly, we get to know him as Mamoru too. Even before he confides being an amnesiac to Usagi, we see his struggles with feeling alone in the world from having no memory of his life before a tragic accident which also killed his parents. Now, him being a stern cynical person makes sense because I probably wouldn’t be pleasant to be around either if I lived with that. Once his walls come down, we see that deep down, all he wants is to belong somewhere and have a family. It should also be noted that 90s Mamoru doesn’t love Usagi because he is “destined” to. He loves her because he wants to. Even during that brief period where he broke up with Usagi was an act of love. The thing I also always liked best about 90s Mamoru is that even though he loves Usagi more than life itself, his life doesn’t revolve around her which is a healthy thing and he tries to encourage Usagi to be the same way for her own good. He is studying to be a doctor, he has a job and he even has his own crowd which I think is great.

In Crystal and Eternal, while I do see an attempt at trying to follow this trend by showing that Usagi and Mamoru were on their way to falling in love even before they got their memories back, I still find he was one note and we never really learn much about him that has nothing to do with Tuxedo Mask, Endymion or anything royal related. Sure, we know that he’s studying to be a doctor and is a genius to an extent too, but that is it.

I would like to end this by admitting that the 90s was not perfect either, but out of all the takes on the tale of Sailor Moon as of date. Crystal and Eternal were ok, but they just cannot stand up to the quality of the 90s. The only thing I can say I find Crystal did better than the 90s were the costume designs. Specifically, how they let Venus keep her chain belt, Pluto’s key chain belt, Uranus and Neptune’s shorter gloves, Uranus’s sword, Uranus having two earrings, Mercury’s suit is shoulder less which I always found suited her better, and I liked Sailor Moon’s brooch and necklace better in season 1.

And even then, I should have liked it if Jupiter’s antenna was always on display as it is just something I always found cute in the manga, I liked Mars’ five point star earrings better in the 90s, and I like how in the 90s, each of the Inner Guardians’ sailor stripes were a little different.

Of course, this is all my opinion. I would like to hear which of the animes did Sailor Moon right in your opinion and why. Thanks for reading and stay safe, and have a great day.

[rein-ette]

for @needcake's request, 5 times Engport died and one time they saved each other.

III.

Portugal finds him in the attic. The ceiling of the inn is heavily slanted, and through the drawn curtain hardly any light comes through. The room is musty and damp and smelled of — of rot, of festering wounds, of things falling apart.

England himself is still.

No one had bandaged his wounds, so lying on the bed infested with all manner of pests his body was a rich tapestry of reds and browns and mottled grey. Sickness cradled his spectral figure in its wings, perched on the headboard as it tore into its meal with abandon. For a moment, Portugal thought England was already dead.

Then he coughed, eyelashes fluttering weakly. Gabriel, he mouthed, voice long consumed by the illness — by the war, damn those things — that ravaged his body. Portugal saw the question in his eyes, anyways. Why are you here?

"To take you home," he murmured, brushing his knuckles over one bare cheekbone, rising from his pale skin like the spine of a great beast. "Did you think I could not find you? That I would not come for you?"

England only gazes at him. In the desolate landscape of his face, only his eyes remain a fevered green, too bright. Two jewels, set in clay.

He does not — cannot — protest when Portugal wraps his body in cloth, cradling his frail figure against his chest. Does not protest when Portugal carries him down the stairs, does not protest when he's forced onto the horse and Portugal rests his forehead against his and murmurs. It's not far. Hold on to me.

He does not protest, but oh — oh, how Portugal wishes he had.

England is dead now. Lying on a soft bed, cradled by linen and silk and velvet canopies, he's hidden away like some stolen treasure — an antique sword, a broken childhood doll — stashed in an opulent corner between Lisbon and the sea. This far away from his isles, the sun finally warms his skin, but his eyes are fixed and dark.

Portugal guards his corpse and regrets.

IV.

Tomás was — to say the least — confused.

He began getting a little disoriented when the first Dutch cannon struck their ship, and when the Dutch themselves boarded he was kind of lost — but to be confused in the chaos of battle was normal. Fights with the Dutch were normal. Even losing was pretty normal; their captain may fight like the undead, but the crew was only human, and they had been caught alone without escort.

At least, their captain had fought like the undead, until a tall Dutch sailor put a sword through his belly and a shot in his shoulder. Then he’d really just been dead.

That was when Tomás’ confusion really started. Because after killing their captain, the Dutch soldier had simply waved a hand and left, soldiers straggling behind as they made their way back to their own ship. The cannons fell silent moments later, and Tomás own battered comrades hadn’t tried to pursue. Watching their enemy’s flags disappear into the distance, Tomás had helped drag their barely conscious captain below deck as he pondered over this strange occurrence: in the middle of a war, a Dutch warship had just caught them, trounced them, and simply let them go.

But that had not been all. For just as he was leaving the sick bay, an officer had grabbed him in the hall and rasped, “Tell the navigator to set course for Dover.” Wide-eyed, Tomás had only managed to squeak out an affirmative before he’d been released, leaving him standing there with a bloody cloth with one hand and absolutely no clue why they were about to head into enemy territory after they had, uh, just been utterly destroyed by their enemy.

Still, Tomás had done his job and relayed the message, expecting that to be the end of the madness. He was only a rigger, he reasoned — if he just followed orders surely everything would straighten themselves out with time.

He was wrong. Now, a week later, Tomás still understood nothing. He had orders to find one Sir Kirkland, Lord of Canterbury, but he had no idea if he’s found the right one. When he’d asked the first mate what this Lord Kirkland looked like, the first mate had only shrugged and said, “Never met ‘im. Probably a geezer, since he’s a lord.”

Yet this young man standing in the doorway in front of Tomas, claiming to be Lord Kirkland, could not have been older than twenty.

“Are you or are you not one of Gabriel’s men?” The man demanded impatiently. His Portuguese was heavily accented, but clear.

“Yes. Yes sir.”

“And? What does the bastard want with me?”

“He’s dead, sir. My first mate asked me to come get you. Sir.”

The young man — Lord Kirkland — raised his eyebrows. His gaze seemed to skewer Tomás right through his skull. “Dead.” He repeated. Tomás nodded hesitantly. Lord Kirkland muttered something in his own language under his breath, then rolled his eyes and said, “Fine.” Fine? “Joseph!” He barked to someone in the interior of the manse. “Get this man a horse and ready the carriage. And call the doctor, for god’s sake, Gabriel’s gone and gotten himself killed again.” He whirled around and pinned Tomás with another look. “What’s your name?”

“Tomás Santiago, sir.”

“Thanks for your hard work, Santiago. After we put your captain back together, I’ll tell him to give you a bonus.”

Tomas stared. Put him back together? Bonus? Wasn’t the captain dead?

But this Lord Kirkland guy was still look at him expectantly, so he stuttered out a “Yes, sir” again and thanked him.

A few minutes later, Tomás left on a fine horse more confused than ever.

Notes

Scene 3 is set during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Portugal brings him to the Ribeira Palace, which used to be where the Praça do Comércio is now situated.

Scene 4 is during the Dutch-Portuguese wars. But it’s pretty much crack, so there’s really no need to say more.

[raelly-writing]

Tiny Big Demands

Silly 5.4-5.5 fluff that’s been lounging in my WIPs folder for several months. There’s some Thancred/WoL at the end but otherwise it’s mainly uh... nutkin shenanigans.

---

“What the Hells Than..red…”

Frowning, Viana rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face into her pillow to shut out the early morning light. Another sharp, nipping sensation at her other ear followed shortly afterwards, rousing her involuntarily further from her sleep.

Her quiet curse was muffled against her pillow as she blindly reached out a hand to find Thancred and hit his shoulder or chest for the unpleasant wake up call.

But all she found was empty air and cold sheets. Immediately, a harsh sense of disappointment cut through her sleep-logged mind.

Right, he’d be far past the Garlean border by now.

Exhaling, she burrowed back into the covers in a sudden bout of moody resignation. As ridiculous as she felt for missing him so sorely, it was a small comfort that the scent of him still lingered on her sheets, even after the days since his departure.

Maybe she should heed the voice at the back of her head that urged her to rise and face the day, but the warmth of her bed was too comfortable. After the hustle of finding a cure for tempering and applying it to the kobolds, nevermind dealing with a new Ascian’s gloating, she was ready to drift back to sleep, if just for a little while longer.

The soft brush of fur against her arm, followed by a familiar, insistent chittering made her crack open an eye to squint against the morning light. Dark eyes stared back at her, a pink nose and long whiskers wiggling in what could only be described as petulant manner as the nutkin squeaked loudly at her.

Viana blinked owlishly, utterly confused at its appearance. Surely she wasn’t missing Thancred so much she was dreaming about his pet. “Why're you…?”

The only answer she got was another series of high pitched noises. Before she knew it, it’d scampered up her shoulder, sharp claws digging into the fabric of her shirt and soft fur teasing the bare skin at the back of her neck. Definitely not a dream then.

“Ow, okay okay, I’m awake, you little monster,” she groaned, and carefully pushed herself up on her elbows.

If she didn’t know better, she could swear the critter sounded victorious as it scurried up over her head before hopping down onto her pillow. It’s big dark eyes stared up at her as it made a big show of rubbing its clearly empty cheeks while fluffing up its tail in an indignant manner.

Viana snorted and slowly sat up.  Rubbing the sleep from her eyes she yawned widely, “How did you even get in here?”

Glancing down at the nutkin, she watched as it stood on its hind legs, squeaking up at her.

“Mhm, well, figures,” she muttered drowsily.  “Now I assume this isn’t just a friendly visit?” It flicked its tail and gave a singular squeak. It would appear that in Thancred’s absence it’d decided that she was best to see to its needs. “Thought as much.”

Sighing, she held out her hand to the nutkin, and it quickly hopped up into her palm, evidently eager to have its demands fulfilled. “Very well then,” she mused as she climbed out of bed. “Let’s see what we can find for you.”

In response she got a series of satisfied squeaks as it excitedly turned in circles in her palm. Though the stone floor was cold beneath her bare feet, she couldn’t bother to find a pair of socks for the short walk - besides, judging by how the nutkin kept chittering while twisting and turning, she doubted such delays would be tolerated to start with.

“Why, I agree, it’s most cruel of him to leave you again so soon.”

Taking her keys from where she kept them on her desk, she left her room and wandered down the empty hallway towards Thancred’s. Well, at least nobody would give her strange looks for walking around in just shorts and a simple top while talking to the small rodent in her hand. “And he didn’t leave you with enough tasty treats?” The nutkin chittered and nuzzled into her thumb when she absentmindedly petted it - a rather abrupt shift from its more aloof behaviour with her in the past, and one that left her feeling oddly manipulated at that. As sneaky and charming as its owner, clearly.

“Just Tataru refilling your bowl with plain seeds and nuts?” she tutted. “How dreadful. You better have a chat with him once he gets back from Garlemald so he knows such things won’t be accepted.”

The nutkin gave a singular high squeak in reply, one paw braced on her ring finger as it peered up at her expectantly. A small smile curled the corner of Viana’s mouth. It really was adorable when it wasn’t driving Krile to the brink of sanity by stashing nuts all around Thancred’s unconscious body.

Or when it decided to demand attention from Thancred just when the two of them were having a private moment.

The moment she unlocked his door and slipped into his room, the nutkin’s attention immediately fixated on one bookshelf in particular.

Her gaze found the familiar wooden box sitting amidst the various books, one she’d seen Thancred retrieve several times. “Suppose you never made a fuss to anyone else before, because nobody else knew where he kept the good treats, hm?”

It squeaked again.

“Well, don’t think I’m going to spoil you just because Thancred’s not here,” she said firmly as she set down the nutkin on his desk, the dark wooden surface being void of any of the document folders and notebooks that usually had occupied its surface since their return from the First.

The nutkin instantly hopped to the edge where it perched atop a discarded book, watching her intently as she took down the simple but sturdy box from the shelf. The heavy lid opened easily on well-oiled hinges and Viana took out approximately the same amount of the big nuts she’d usually seen Thancred retrieve before closing the lid once more.

Before she’d even had a chance to return the box to its place, the nutkin was squeaking excitedly. It stood on its hindlegs, small pink paws already raised as if grasping for its treats.

Viana paused, clicking her tongue. “Such ill manners,” she tutted.

The only response she got was an impatient flick of its fluffed up tail and wiggle of a pink nose as it defiantly stared up at her. It really didn’t have a shred of fear, did it? Sighing, she held out her empty hand and it quickly jumped into her palm, attention honed in on the nuts in her other hand.

But rather than waiting patiently for her to find a bowl for the nuts, it leaned off from the edge of her hand, as if readying to jump.

“Hold on now, no jumping!” Without thinking Viana quickly cupped her hands. A delighted chirp instantly resounded from the nutkin as it surveyed its pile of nuts, then latched onto a particularly big one, twisting and turning it in its hands before starting to gnaw at it.

“My my, one would almost think you’ve had naught to eat for days,” Viana chuckled. Then she looked around, the mirth making way for dismay when she was unable to locate any bowl or other container into which to deposit the hungry critter and its nuts.

Hells, she was too tired for this. With a sigh of resignation, she walked over to Thancred’s reading chair and curled up in it, cold feet tucked beneath her, while careful not to disturb the happily gnawing nutkin that was utterly oblivious to her dilemma.

Viana looked on as it began to make short work of the sturdy shell and dug into its delicious prize within, stuffing it into its cheek for later. “You know, if you’re gonna wake me like this while he’s away,” she drawled, “you could be nice and not interrupt us when he gets back.”

The nutkin paused to look up at her, almost as if it was contemplating her words, before digging back into the next nut.

Huffing out a little laugh, Viana leaned back and closed her eyes. “Well, it was worth a try,” she sighed.

With one thumb she slowly petted the nutkin’s soft fur, earning her another series of happy little noises and the distinct feeling of a nose nuzzling against her hand. Maybe she should just get a box with nuts and seeds and put it in her own room. And a bowl.

It would save her the walk over here every time it decided it wanted some attention.

Yawning, she snuggled back into the chair. Well, she could look into that later today. Before she knew it, the sound of the nutkin happily eating was lulling her back into a light sleep.

---

Thancred carefully set down the sturdy clay bowl on Viana’s nightstand, but the nutkin barely noticed, too busy with digging around amongst the seeds and nuts for its favourites to pay him any heed. For now, at least, he thought as he climbed back into bed.

“Well, I am glad to hear that the two of you got along while I was gone,” he said. “I do apologise though, I did not expect her to bother you.”

Viana made a drowsy noise as she rolled over to rest her head on his shoulder once more. “‘tis fine,” she murmured. “I suppose we did come to an understanding. Even though it required a few early mornings.”

At the sound of her voice the nutkin looked up and squeaked, as if in agreement, before digging back into its meal.

With a soft chuckle, he grasped her hand and - mindful of her shoulder - pressed a kiss to her fingers. “Glad to hear it,” he mused. Why he hadn’t thought of putting a box with the nutkin’s food in her room he wasn’t sure. Unwillingness to intrude on her space, perhaps? Ah, well, she’d taken the step herself.

“Hope this means fewer… interruptions,” she mumbled. Thancred couldn’t help but smile at the sleepy tone of her voice while his chest felt warm and comfortable. Twelve, he’d missed mornings such as this - nutkin interruptions or not - where he just got to treasure her presence. It wasn’t many who got to see the fearsome Warrior of Light in a half-asleep state like this.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” he snorted with a glance at the critter in question.

The only response he got was a muffled hum. Clearly she too was still worn out from the fighting in Pagl’than the day prior.

With a quiet, fond laugh, he brushed his fingers through her hair, prompting her to snuggle closer to him. After giving the nutkin a last pet, Thancred let his eyes fall shut and sleep reclaim him.

[tra-sh]

Just a Touch (Din Djarin)

Request from Anon: “First i just wanna say I really love your writing! If you’re still taking requests, Could I ask for one with the mandalorian? Like touch-starved din maybe smut? Thanks!" 

We simp for Din Djarin in this household. I might make two parts for this if that's alright! 

Part 2 Here! 

Being in a relationship with a Mandalorian was unheard of, to say the least. Their culture was famous for restraining from unnecessary touches and hiding their bodies from the world's prying eyes. Knowing this, it never ceased to amaze you how much you truly loved the Mandalorian that sat before you. And by some Maker's miracle, he loved you too. 

You and Din had never established your relationship with words. He was a man of very few, and you were in no rush to stake your claim on him. You knew that this was unfamiliar territory for him and the last thing you wanted to do was rush him into anything. You took your time and never pushed his boundaries, much to the man's pleasant surprise. Din knew you to be exceedingly patient. You never touched him unless he initiated it (which was only in times of need) and when you prepared meals you would smile and leave his plate in the cockpit as if it were completely normal that he ate in solitude. 

Din was thankful for you, but he couldn't help the guilt that bled into his thoughts. Surely, he was holding you back from something better? You deserved only the best and he was convinced this was something he couldn't give you. 

You, on the other hand, were more than content with this life. You didn't need Din to offer you the world or recite pretty words to make you feel loved. You saw it in his actions. You knew he loved you when he took a blaster shot to the shoulder in your stead, and when he told you his true name late one night while flying. You knew more than anyone that this was his love language and you were happy just knowing that he returned your feelings. 

Din, however, was not. 

His breaking point had come one day on Lah’mu, where he'd taken you and the child to relax for a bit. He'd told you it was to secure an idea of potential hiding places should trouble strike again, but you knew him better by now. The three of you were exploring the farming planet and taking in the lush flora and wildlife. Din would never say it out loud, but he adored the look of awe that settled on your features. The way you held the child to your chest and bounced him absentmindedly as you walked-- Din couldn't help but entertain the thought that the three of you looked like a family. Something he never knew he wanted until you came into his life. You smile down at the child while you walk, feigning interest as he prattles off incoherent words to you. You 'oohed' and 'ahhed' at his babbling (which he greatly appreciated because usually, NO ONE listened to him) and occasionally respond with "Is that so?" or "And then what?" 

Din allows the barest hint of a smile to ghost over his lips as he watches you interact with the kid. His eyes trail to the ground and he notices a patch of mud left over from the previous night's rainfall. Before the Mandalorian could utter a warning, your boot catches in the slippery clay. You squeal as you fall backward and clutch the child to your chest, hoping to cushion his fall. You're pleasantly surprised, however, when a pair of leather gloves catch your arms and steady you against a broad chest. You turn to say your thanks when you're unceremoniously shoved away. You stumble a bit but manage to catch yourself before you and the giggling baby in your arms faceplant into the mud. You turn to look at Din, and he freezes. He hadn't meant to-- gods knew he'd wanted to hold you like that for millennia-- but he'd pushed you away on instinct. He tries to drum up an excuse or mutter a 'sorry', but the hurt look on your face makes his apology die on his tongue. He'd never seen you look so distressed.

You quickly try to save face and offer Din a small smile. You hadn't meant to let that slip, but something about his quickness to get you off of him didn't sit right in your stomach. But you knew that at the end of the day it wasn't because of you. This was how he was raised; this was who he was. And you'd accepted that a long time ago. "Sorry, Din," you apologize quietly. "I should have been looking where I was going." And with that, you turned away and continued your walk. 

Din watched you leave with a pained expression under his beskar helmet. He hated being the cause of your discomfort. He hated knowing that he was the cause of the pain that flashed across your face. And he hated himself for making you think you had to hide your feelings. He knew something had to change. 

***

The first time Din had sought out your touch, it was so small that you'd thought it was an accident. 

You had just put the child to bed and turned around to find Din standing there beside the ladder. "Oh, Hey," you greet, keeping your voice low as to not wake the sleeping kid. You see his helmet tilt slightly, nodding in response. You glance over your shoulder to the child and smile at his peaceful state. One of his ears twitches as if sensing your stare. You turn back to Din, who remains perfectly still. 

"I'm going to make dinner now. I'll leave yours on your chair?" Another wordless nod.

You hum quietly as you move to side-step around the Mandalorian and make your way up the ladder. Just as you go to leave, you feel the slightest brush of leather against your hand. Your head snaps up and you look at Din in shock. He's not facing you; his gaze is trained on the child. You open your mouth to ask him if he'd meant to do that, but you quickly close it. You didn't want to scare him off. You stand rigid at the base of the ladder, afraid to move. You felt as though you were coaxing a turtle from its shell; patiently waiting to see the next move. The leather-clad fingers timidly brushed over your palm as if testing out the new territory. Your chest swells with anticipation and you watch with bated breath as he almost-- almost-- holds your hand. But as quickly as the touch began, it ends when Din walks over to the child's pram. Your heart is pounding and you can't help the contagious smile that threatens to overtake your features. You turn back to the ladder and make your way up, silently reveling in the knowledge of the touch. 

***

The next few times Din touched you, they weren't so fleeting.

 He'd brushed his hand to yours when you passed each other in the hallway, his fingers lingering to brush the back of your hand ever so gently before he would eventually turn away and stalk off. You'd grown accustomed to these little moments and they were quickly becoming treasured memories in your mind. It felt silly being so elated with these barely-there grazes, but you knew how much they meant to Din. He was pushing his own boundaries and stepping out of his comfort zone for you.

After he'd let down his walls with the first touch, he slowly began to crave more. Although your hands only came in contact with his gloves, he could just imagine how your skin would feel against his. How soft it would feel when your thumb rubbed small circles on the back of his hand. He was delving into dangerous territory by letting you touch him now; he almost felt guilty for enjoying it as much as he did. Every graze of your fingers left a burning trail in it’s wake-- and Din desperately wanted to feel more. It was almost drugging, the feel of your touch. He had been on his own for so long, with only the other Mandalorians and the occasional bounty as his human-- or alien-- interaction. He'd never craved contact with anyone the way he did with you. Perhaps it was because of this that he began to allow you to venture further. You'd lace your fingers together with his, silently holding his hand as you played with the child. At first, he wasn't sure how to react. His muscles were tense against yours and he seemed to freeze where he stood. But after some time, you felt him relax in your hold. He'd even begun to hold your hand back, which made your heart flutter in your chest. 

***

Din was positive you were doing this on purpose. Because if you weren't, you surely were the worst kind of tease. 

He'd left the Razor Crest to buy some food and medical supplies to stock up for the next bounty hunt to Tatooine. But on his way to the market, he'd run into some trouble with a group of Storm Troopers. He'd managed to escape with only a few scratches here and there, but the minute he told you what happened you'd gone into a frenzy. You had insisted on checking him for potential wounds and wouldn't take no for an answer. 

That was how Din ended up with you hovering over him as he sat on the metal bench in the downstairs of the Crest, across from the bed. He had no idea, however, how the two of you got in this particular position. 

Your knee sat on the metal bench between his thighs as you do your best to check for wounds without removing any beskar. Your hands run along the curves and dips of his body and you occasionally glance up to see if he would wince or give off a sign of injury. So far he hadn't so much as moved. Din wondered momentarily if he was dreaming. He'd taken a blaster shot to the helmet that rattled him a bit-- perhaps he was really unconscious on the side of the road somewhere. How else would he explain this? The most surprising part for the Mandalorian was the fact that he allowed you to touch him like this. Your hands run over the back of his neck, brushing over a sliver of exposed skin between his shirt and the helmet. Din's breath catches in his throat and his hands tighten their grip on the edge of the bench. You're quick to notice this and frown. "Are you hurt there?" You ask carefully. Din isn't sure how to respond. No, I'm not injured. I'm just aroused by you barely touching my neck. He definitely couldn't say that. He could just push your hands off of him and leave the room. He should stop you. He really should.

He also really doesn't want to. 

Din realizes you're still waiting for a response and tries to find his voice. "...Yes." 

He was screwed. 

You let out a soft gasp and begin to run your fingers over the 'afflicted' area, searching for any physical wound to fix. Din has to bite back a groan as your nails lightly ghost over his neck. "I have bacta spray here somewhere," you murmur under your breath, turning to reach one hand into the bag of medical supplies that sits on the far end of the bench. His neck feels cold at the sudden loss of your hand and he fights the urge to lean into your remaining touch. The way you caressed him tenderly, lovingly, it made something in his chest ache. He didn't want you to stop. 

You let out a victorious 'aha' as you pull a small silver container from the contents of the bag. You turn back to the Mandalorian and offer him an apologetic look. "I need you to bend your head for me," you instruct. He goes limp in your grasp, allowing you to pull him gently forward and bend his head close to your chest. You lean forward to peer over his shoulder and spray the bacta on his exposed skin. Din's mind goes blank as your chest fills his vision. He'd never been this close to another person before and certainly not in an intimate manner. "Does that feel better?" Your voice breaks him from his dizzying trance and you pull back to gaze down into his visor. 

"Yes," Din rasps out. His voice betrays him as the word leaves his lips in a breathless groan. If you notice the sudden change, you don't mention it. You smile, seemingly pleased with your work. "I know this is probably uncomfortable for you," you say quietly. "I'm almost done, I promise." 

Please, Din thinks, don't stop. It's almost embarrassing how much this is turning him on. He's one fleeting touch away from losing control and bucking his hips against your knee just to feel relief. 

Your hands ghost over his helmet, noting the blackened outline of a blaster shot behind his left ear. "You were shot?" It's not as much of a question as it is an accusation. He told you he was fine and had no injuries. He didn't tell you he got shot. Din can't bring himself to speak after the earlier incident and instead remains quiet. He knew you wouldn't even dream of removing his helmet-- you held too much respect for the Mandalorians. He didn't stop you as your hands traveled over the beskar surface, pausing to cup his face in your hands. You stay like that for a moment and absentmindedly brush your thumbs over the cool surface. A tiny smile plays at the corners of your mouth as you lose your train of thought, content to stay there for the remainder of the day staring lovingly into the dark visor. 

 "Well, thank you for being such a good patient," you joke lightly, breaking the silence. You feel a small burst of confidence and lean forward to press a gentle kiss where his forehead should be. You pull back and bite your lip, hoping that you didn’t go too far. 

Din is frozen in place. All he can do is pray to the Maker that you wouldn't look down. It was just a kiss. One small kiss to his helmet. His body sits rigidly on the cool metal as he tries to push all of the indecent thoughts from his head. Thoughts of you, naked and writhing beneath him. Thoughts of kissing you deeply and trailing hot kisses down the soft skin of your abdomen. 

You begin to squirm uncomfortably when Din doesn't move at all. Was that too much? Maker, you needed to apologize before he never touched you again. You'd just barely gotten him to hold your hand-- of course a kiss would be too bold. 

You push off the bench and offer him an apologetic gaze, grabbing the bag of supplies. "I'm sorry," you murmur quietly. "I shouldn't have pushed it." You excuse yourself from the room and hurry down the narrow hall to put the bag back in its destined locker. 

Din watches you leave in frustration, letting out a strangled groan as his head falls back to hit the wall with a soft 'thud'. He needed to do something about this-- fast. 

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Herodotus, Ibn Khaldun and post-nomadic empires-II

Arab warriors fighting on horseback in a 12th-century manuscript. Credit: Alamy 

“Post-Nomadic Empires  

André Wink

2. Ibn Khaldun

Such environmental determinism as is here encountered in Herodotus, it is well known, is inherent in ancient ethnographic and historical thinking generally.7 The essentialism of the nineteenth-century ideas of race, with their emphasis on biology and heredity, is still lacking in these earlier notions of human difference. Instead, it has its roots in analogical reasoning. While individual bodies differ to a degree, the constitutions of peoples are thought to resemble the dominant characteristics of the climate and environment in which they live. Thus wild, untamed environments are equated with barbarian peoples. It is a mode of thinking, often vague, that is inherited from the Greeks by the Romans, Byzantines, medieval Europeans, and medieval Muslim geographers and historians alike. It should, for this reason, be no great surprise that Herodotus’s deterministic vision of the history of nomads was closely replicated by an author who wrote almost two thousand years later—the medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406).8 Here the same environmental determinism is found in its most elaborated form.

Ibn Khaldun observes that civilization can take two forms. One is the desert civilization of the Bedouin, which he calls badāwah, and the other the sedentary, cosmopolitan civilization of city dwellers, which he calls `umrān. Both the Bedouin and the urban-sedentary people are “natural groups,” which, in Ibn Khaldun’s view, “exist by necessity.” The two different forms of civilization represented by these “natural groups” exist because differences with regard to the abundance and scarcity of food in the various inhabited parts of the world—the different environments—affect the human body and character in different ways. Wherever the land is strewn with rocks, no seeds and herbs will grow and the inhabitants have a hard life and eat little—their nourishment and food consists of milk and meat, either little prepared or not prepared at all, save that it may have been touched by fire, and they may get some grain and seasonings from the hills, but this is not much, and whatever they obtain is usually no more than the bare necessities, sometimes less, and never enough for a comfortable or abundant life. Yet the Bedouin, who lack abundance and grain and seasonings, are healthier in body and better in character, have keener minds, while they are also more perceptive, and, above all, more courageous than sedentary people, and tougher. This is because the Bedouin enjoy a natural way of life and fresh air. The Bedouin are nomads, or inhabitants of villages and hamlets in outlying regions and mountains or near pastures on the fringes of sandy deserts where they undertake some crop cultivation in combination with animal husbandry. Although they can satisfy their needs with a minimum of labor—because they are so little used to luxury—they get a great deal of physical exercise because they move around a lot, when they ride their horses, or go hunting, or go in search of the things they need. Just as hunger may greatly improve the physique and shape of the animals of the waste regions, it has a favorable influence on the health and well-being of the body and the intellect of humans as well. Hence, in the desert there is little need for medicine, and physicians are nowhere to be found. Furthermore, the toughness of the desert life of the Bedouin is manifest not only in their nutritional deprivation, but also in their clothing and mode of dwelling. Here, again, there are no conveniences and luxuries. The Bedouin use tents of hair and wool, or dwellings of clay and stone that are not furnished elaborately, and they also live in caverns and caves. The purpose is to have shelter against animals and the weather, and nothing more. The Bedouin have no walls or gates to protect themselves, and they have to provide their own defense, always carrying weapons. They can take only hurried naps when they are in the company of each other or when they are in the saddle. In all these various ways, the desert is a place of hardship and starvation, and if the Bedouin are as concerned with worldly affairs as sedentary people, such concern only touches the necessities of life and not luxuries. To get the full picture of desert life, we also have to keep in mind that the Bedouin live far away from the laws of government, and they have no education—almost all of them are illiterate. Their tribes are held together by sheer “group cohesion” (`asabīya), and are restrained by their elders and leaders only, while their hamlets are defended against outside enemies by a tribal militia composed of the noble youths of the tribe who are known for their courage. Group cohesion results from blood relationship only, or something closely corresponding to it, such as clientage or alliance, and for this reason desert people attach great importance to the purity of lineage of their “house,” and they believe that only they who have a “house” have true nobility.

Such, then, are the nomadic Bedouin of the almost city-less Maghrib and Ifriqiya, who live in tents, camel litters, and mountain fastnesses; the large mass of stationary Berbers of the same regions who are inhabitants of small communities, villages, and mountain regions, and make their living through agriculture; the “true” Arabs—Arabs who roam the waste regions. They include all other peoples who make their living from animals requiring pasturage, such as sheep and cattle, and who usually travel around in search of pasture and water for their animals, and who are called “sheepmen,” that is men who live on sheep and cattle, and do not go deep into the desert because they would not find good pastures there—Berbers again, but also the Turks, Turkmans and Slavs; and they include, finally, all those who make their living by raising camels and move around even more than the “sheepmen” by wandering deeper into the desert, and who are the most savage human beings that exist, on a level with wild, untamable animals and beasts of prey—the Bedouin who make deep incursions into the desert and are most rooted in desert life because they live exclusively on camels, certain groups of the nomadic Berbers and the Zanatah in the West, and many of the Kurds, Turkmans, and Turks in the East, even though these latter groups live off sheep and cattle and horses as well as camels.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, there is the second form of civilization—the civilization of the city dwellers and all those who practice agriculture and live in villages and small towns which fall within the orbit of cities. For beyond the deserts are the plains, where the soil is well balanced and favorable to plants and where grain, seasonings, wheat, and fruits are found in abundance. It is “natural” that here—in what Herodotus calls the “soft lands”—a different way of life emerged. Settled in their comfortable homes, sedentary people enjoy all kinds of pleasures while, at the same time, they acquire blameworthy and evil qualities. The great amount of food they consume and the moisture it contains generates pernicious and superfluous matter in the body, which, in turn, produces a disproportionate widening of it, as well as putrid humors. Because of their life of plenty, because the air in cities is foul and polluted, and because they lack exercise, illness is common among the inhabitants of sedentary areas and cities. Inevitably, sedentary people become lazy and get used to a life of ease; hence, they sink into well-being and luxury. This is what happened, over the course of centuries and millennia—in Egypt, Iraq, Mesopotamia, Syria, Spain, and, especially, India and China—where people from ancient times were much concerned with agriculture and where the profound influence of sedentary culture is also manifest in crafts and scientific knowledge.

Like Herodotus, Ibn Khaldun goes on to show how desert nomads, because of their superior bravery and energy, conquer cities and create royal dynasties and empires in the sedentary world, but then they fall prey to their own success—their superiority is undermined by the softness and luxuries of sedentary life, they become weak and decadent, and they are then replaced by another horde of invaders from the desert, who defeat them and deprive them of their lordship, after which they live out a merely apathetic existence.

History, for Ibn Khaldun, unfolds like a natural law of endless repetition of the same cycle. At the beginning of the cycle, when a nation is savage and lives in the desert, it is better able to achieve royal authority than others, since savage nations are braver than others. While a nation is savage, its members have the strength to fight other nations; indeed, they are among human beings what beasts of prey are among dumb animals. Such savage peoples also have no homelands that they might use as pasture and no fixed place to which they might repair. Since all regions and places are the same to them, they do not stop at borders and swarm across distant lands and achieve superiority over faraway nations. The superiority through which royal authority is achieved is the result of an explosive combination of great energy, rapacious habits, group cohesion (`asabīya)—qualities that, as a rule, are found only in the desert—and some form of religious propaganda based on prophethood or sainthood that temporarily restrains the fissiparous tendencies of tribal politics. The first stage of a royal dynasty, therefore, is always that of desert life.

Nomads may thus acquire royal authority and create empires, but they cannot hold on to them forever. Time gets the upper hand. As Ibn Khaldun puts it, “time feasts on them, as their energy is exhausted by well-being and their vigor drained by the nature of luxury.” The greatness of a dynasty, the extent of its territory, and the length of its duration depend on the numerical strength of its supporters. If the group cohesion is strong, the dynasty is also strong, and its life of long duration. But, inevitably, when royal authority is acquired in settled lands, it is accompanied by a life of ease and increased opportunities. “Whenever people settle in fertile plains and amass luxuries and become accustomed to a life of abundance and refinement,” Ibn Khaldun writes, “their bravery decreases to the degree that their wildness and desert habits decrease.” Safe behind their city walls, without the need to carry weapons, successive generations grow into a way of life that makes them like women and children who depend upon the master of the house. The inevitable reliance of sedentary people upon laws destroys their fortitude and power of resistance. As a result of the sedentary life, group cohesion disappears—the isolated inhabitants of cities have a “house” only in a metaphorical sense.

The entire process occurs in stages that are associated with successive generations. At first, when the sedentary way of life has just been adopted, the people of a given dynasty always follow the traditions of the preceding dynasty. The first generation, which is that of the “builder,” accomplishes the successful overthrow of all opposition and the appropriation of royal authority from the preceding dynasty. The ruler does not yet claim anything exclusively for himself, group cohesion continues as before, as do the desert qualities of toughness and savagery that accompany it, and people submit to the new dynasty out of fear. Sedentary culture is transferred from the preceding dynasty to the later one, and, at this stage, luxury will give additional strength to a dynasty. But subsequently, when the trait of savagery undergoes transformation and the natural tendencies of royal authority to claim all glory for itself and embrace luxury, tranquility, and peace have been firmly established, the dynasty will begin to approach senility, and luxury corrupts its character. Its people continue to adopt ever more new habits of luxury and sedentary culture and the soft life, and they sink ever deeper into them. The vigor of group cohesion is broken to a greater or lesser degree. The ruler gains complete control over his people, then makes himself independent of them, and pushes them aside to make room for new followers. Yet, many old virtues remain because he has had direct personal contact with the first generation of the dynasty and its conditions of life. Eventually the dynasty comes to depend upon some form of militia or on clients and partisans from groups not related to the ruling dynasty. But this is only a temporary cure. For the third generation is the one that merely adopts the tradition of its predecessor. It has completely forgotten the period of desert life and toughness, luxury reaches a peak and leads to a life of prosperity, tranquility, contentment, and ease, in which the fruits of royal authority are enjoyed and all energy goes into collecting taxes, regulating income and expenses, bookkeeping, erecting large buildings and spacious cities, presenting gifts to embassies, and so on. This is the generation that becomes cowardly, like women and children who need to be defended, worn out, and senile. This is the last generation of which the ruler is in complete authority. It is followed by the fourth generation, which is that of the “destroyer.” It is in that generation during which ancestral prestige is destroyed by waste and squandering, pleasure, and amusement, and when the dynasty is seized by senility and the chronic diseases that lead to its downfall. Royal dynasties thus have a natural life span—like individuals. They last at most for four generations. As a rule, dynasties do not last longer than 120 years. Most commonly the life span of a dynasty is one hundred years. It is this fact, according to Ibn Khaldun, that generates the cyclical pattern of history.”

Source: https://href.li/?https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935369.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935369-e-29?mediaType=Article

The Mongol siege of Mosul from a manuscript of Rashid al-Din’s Jami‘ al-Tawarikh, 14th century (source: https://muslimheritage.com/some-manuscripts-and-printing-examples-from-muslim-civilisations/)

André Wink is an emeritus professor of history at University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is known for his studies on India and the Indian Ocean area, particularly over the medieval and early modern age (700 to 1800 CE). He is the author of a series of books published by Brill Academic, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press on al-Hind – a term used in Arab history to refer to the Islamized regions in the Indian subcontinent and nearby regions. (source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Wink)

Shrine in Tinghir, southern Morocco Credit: Amira Bennison (source: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bringing-berber-empires-into-focus-as-contributors-to-islamic-culture )

[rainbirdsky]

Awakening

A Spirit awakens on a dark mountain to relive a memory. Warning for Angst.

Warmth.

Signet awoke. Their mind was hazy and their body felt numb, except for the tiny warm hand Signet felt clutching theirs. Signet looked down to see a small child clad in orange and wearing a clay mask. The small child looked up that them and Signet tried to remember where they were or what had happened. Looking down they were surprised to see their own hand was ephemeral, and their skin had turned a starry teal. Their eyes travelled up their arm to check the rest of themselves – all teal, all ghostly.

“What’s wrong with me?” Signet asked the small child.

“Woo..?” the child replied, sounding somewhat like the mantas of Prairie. They did not appear to speak the same language, and Signet knew they weren’t going to get any answers from them. The child tugged Signet’s hand and, unsure what else to do, Signet followed.

The landscape was barren and rocky and the clouds above rolled like boiling water in a red sky. Signet tried to make out any landmarks but the architecture was badly broken and blackened. The child pulled them toward a spark of light in their path and Signet’s throat tightened as they touched the floating light. As if in reaction to touching the light, stars drifted from Signet’s skin and scattered, turning into spectral blooms on the stone around them. The ghosts of flowers.

The small child lead them on.

Signet helped the small child climb the jagged rocks – they appeared to be heading up a mountain. The child was so small, and Signet wondered why they were alone. When they reached a safe spot the child turned and bowed repeatedly, which Signet understood to be thanks for their help. They pulled Signet toward a crack in the wall and Signet barely managed to fit through. Inside was another floating light, which the small child excitedly tugged Signet toward.

As Signet touched the light it felt like their stomach sank and they were struck by powerful nausea. More stars lifted from their skin to become spectral images of Stars excitedly pointing up the mountain, and Signet felt a flash of recognition,

“Oh, right, the Elders were coming today...”

The small child looked to Signet with large bright eyes, clearly not understanding but responding to the sound. They ‘woo’ed softly before continuing on, bringing Signet with them. As they moved on Signet frowned, watching the image of Stars fade as they walked away.

“But… They were going to Eden to meet the King...”

Signet was pulled from their thoughts by the bright blue light of a Dark Dragon. They grabbed the child and pulled them back behind a rock so neither of them would be seen, which seemed to startle the child. They let out several woos of complaint, but Signet didn’t put them back down until the beast had passed. Signet looked in the direction the child was leading them and saw two of the giant dark beasts.

“Two..? I’ve never seen more than one Dark Dragon… Have they been breeding? How long was I unconscious..?”

The child pulled them into the next shining spark with little warning, and it seemed Signet’s reaction to each one were getting worse. They dropped to their knees and groaned through gritted teeth. Once again the stars lifted and scattered, turning to festive decorations and plant-life laden with fruit and flower.

“Little one, I don’t think I can keep doing this...” Signet gasped as the child tugged them to their feet with surprising strength. Signet’s breathing was ragged but the child waited for it to return to normal before pulling them onward.

The next light was ahead on a large worn slope but the child stopped and gestured for Signet to wait. Signet was grateful for the break – the nausea and pain was starting to make its way behind their eyes, and flashes of… some memory… were igniting in their mind. It turned out the small child was waiting for a rock-slide – though Signet wasn’t sure how the child knew it was coming. The pair watched massive boulders tumble down the slope, only moving toward the spark when the dust had settled.

This time Signet screamed. They couldn’t help it. There was an unfathomable pain that tightened their chest and burnt behind their eyes. The stars on their skin lifted to recreate… something… that Signet could not properly see through teary eyes. It felt like something huge had reached into Signet’s ribs to grab their innards and they felt so, so heavy. Signet felt their knees hit stone again, and they fell forward to catch themself. Signet sobbed, gasping for air. They felt a small warm hand pat their back and looked up at the masked child.

“What is this? I can’t… It hurts… Why do I feel so sad?”

The small child did not reply, just reached up and brushed Signet’s hair out of their face and rested a tiny palm on Signet’s cheek. It was soothing, and warm, but it could not fix the heavy empty feeling in Signet’s chest. Signet blinked away tears to see the illusions they’d cast when touching the spark – several Stars standing in a small group looking toward… another illusion of the Elders.

“What...”

The Elders, or the spectral image of them, were heading into the mountain. They were further up the hill and Signet could not make out much but the shapes of them were unmistakeable. They all appeared to be there except Daleth, the Elder of the Isle. Their masked faces were unreadable, but their posture was formal and rigid… and Signet thought Lamed looked hesitant. A Dark Dragon patrolled the entrance to the mountain, but it ignored the spectral illusions of the Elders. Lamed, the Vault Elder stood by the next spark, and seemed to be looking back down the mountain toward Signet and the child. Signet felt a lump in their throat and looked back down the mountain, along the path they had taken. Yes, from up here and looking back they could see it. The plants were gone… the landscape blighted… the mountain was dead, but,

“Oh no… No no no… this is Eden.”

The small child tugged Signet’s hand toward the next spark and Signet tugged back,

“No, I can’t… I can’t… What happened? How long...”

The child tugged again, pointing to the spark on the mountain.

“If… If I touch that I will remember..?”

Signet let the child lead them toward the final spark of light.

In some detached way Signet knew the child waited for the rocks. Feeling simultaneously distant and terribly present they saw the child keep them hidden from the Dark Dragon. But Signet saw these things in their peripheral vision, their eyes locked on the twinkling light that suddenly seemed so cold. Behind it and framed in the doorway was a shadow of Signet, kneeling and hugging itself as if trying to get warm.

Signet touched the spark and pain exploded through them. Like fire igniting their every nerve they threw their head back, and as they screamed the stars on their skin tore them apart.

And then Signet was in Eden. The Eden they knew.

It was a beautiful day, bright but not hot. The clouds were slender fingers lightly caressing a pastel sky. The gardens of Eden were in bloom and Signet remembered the green smells of life. It was a day of celebration – the Elders had gathered for the first time in what felt like forever. There was murmuring of a new energy source that would power the arks a million times over and never fade. That the kingdom was saved.

There was a flash so bright Eden turned white. Signet clutched their eyes, it felt like all of Eden had become light itself. The world seemed eerily silent – and then it wasn’t.

A shock-wave rolled through Eden obliterating everything it touched and tearing up boulders like a tsunami of stone. Signet looked to the entrance of the mountain to see light come crashing toward them. There was no time to run, Signet leapt from the mountain but the energy blasted them in mid-air. They felt themself die.

Signet reappeared on the blackened dead mountain, looking down at the child that had brought them here. They cried out wordlessly – what words were there?

The child mimicked the sound and Signet felt themselves fading. They were being pulled backward, toward the mountain, and they didn’t have the energy to fight it. They felt dizzy, like they were falling backward head-first, and the last thing they saw was a massive red diamond ripping up their world.

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (58) || atz

You sit in the sickbay, quiet, uncomfortable as San moves around without a word. There’s the clatter as he mixes something, from the smell, probably some sort of herbal salve to prevent infection, but that’s not the most important thing right now. Even more important than your hand. Even more important than your pain.

You tongue the inside of your cheek nervously. San is practically stomping around the room, his movements only increasing in volume with every second that passes, you can clearly see the wound up tension building in his shoulders. That intimidates you, but you need to at least try to make everything okay.

It’s the least you can do.

“Master?” You begin, hesitantly. San doesn’t respond first, whether he can’t hear you or he’s plain ignoring you, you don’t know, but you swallow the lump in your throat and call, louder this time. “Master?”

San freezes, hands hovering over the work table. Suddenly lost for direction, aimless, without purpose. “What.” His voice is curt, short, trembling and when he finally turns around to meet you, his eyes scream “what” even louder, and you’re shocked to see that tears are clinging fiercely to his lashes, refusing to fall.

The sight stings like a whip to the face.

“Master–” You begin to say, desperate to fix this somehow, but San doesn’t look at you, fingers digging into the wood of his work table so hard that his fingers turn white. He’s angry, no, furious with you, that much is obvious.

How are you supposed to make things right?

You merely watch in silence as San takes three deep breaths to compose himself, the furious expression vanishing only to be replaced by an emotionless mask of steel. You’re not sure which one you prefer, the tension between the two of you merely thickens like growing smog. He continues smashing the marigold petals with more force than necessary, the sound of mortar meeting pestle going clack-clack in your ears like an ominous echo.

The sharp smell of potent marigold paste fills your nose, but its familiar scent isn’t comforting you, instead you close your eyes and try to will the pain in your hand – and in your heart – to go away.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Wha-” You say, confused for a second before you realise, oh, that’s what he’s talking about. You had your reasons, sure, but speaking them out loud suddenly seems way too daunting a task for you to handle. You fumble around for the right words, but they don’t come to your mind.

“I said,” San repeats, through gritted teeth this time, and the fury makes his voice tremble. “Why didn’t you say anything about the bleeding?”

You press your lips together for a while, keep silent. Trying to figure a way to phrase your reasoning into words seems impossible at the moment and your head hangs while San doesn’t say a word either, the tension only growing between the two of you.

San finally finishes preparing the poultice with lips drawn in a tight line, his eyes don’t meet yours as he steps over to you with a bandage in hand. Crouching before you, he continues to avoid your gaze even when he picks up your hand with the utmost gentleness, as though he can’t bring himself to translate his rage into a physical form.

Your heart squeezes painfully in your chest.

He swipes a finger over the skin around the wound, taut expression unchanging, and a shower of tiny flakes fall to the ground. They look like snowflakes.

What are those?

“What are those?” San echoes your thoughts brusquely, curiosity clashing with some attempt to remain upset. You frown, confused, bend down to squint at the small shapes. But then San shouts in horror, staring at the hand that he has clasped in his.

Shocked, your eyes instinctively follow his gaze to the wound on your hand, and what you see terrifies the hell out of you.

“Master!” You scream, panicking. Everything is going haywire. “My hand… it’s–”

San cradles your hand urgently in his, as if that would be of any help to you, but it only ends up doing the opposite. The two of you can only watch in terror as a crack splits down the tip of your index finger, tiny web-like patterns splintering across the skin. Your heart leaps into your mouth, but before the two of you can do anything about it, your index finger breaks off completely, falling to the ground and breaking clean in half.

What?

San’s eyes dilate at the sight, his breath leaving him in unsteady, terrified pants. You feel no pain, but your heartbeat resounds in your ears, like a faint echo. You’re so calm you’re surprised and, raising your hand curiously, you see more cracks already starting to appear along the skin of your knuckles.

“Chin Hae!” San screams, alarmed, but you don’t hear his voice, instead you simply continue to stare at the webbed fissures blossoming across your hand, down to your wrist. The skin turns an earthy brown before your eyes before they fracture into tiny pieces, falling away like chaff blown away by the winds.

There’s another crack, a sharp breath, and then your entire hand falls to the ground.

It shatters into a thousand pieces.

You sit there, stunned, staring at the broken shards that had used to be part of your body. Where warm blood had once flowed through, you only feel empty pain there, a phantom ghost of what had used to be.

Instinctively, you try to wiggle your fingers.

Nothing moves.

There’s no blood, no nothing. Just a mere stump where your hand used to be, clay fusing with warm flesh at the joint of your wrist.

“I… I need to tell Captain.” San trips over his own words, stumbles over his own feet as he stands to make for the door. But the fingers of your remaining hand find his wrist, encircle it ever so lightly, that is enough to stop him dead in his tracks.

“No.”

San whirls on you, with wide eyes, you can still see shock in the depths of them. It’s clear that your master knows that this is a problem way out of his depth, one that he has no ability to resolve. “Are you crazy?” He demands fiercely, but you can hear his voice breaking. Guilt washes over you, but you force it down and meet his eyes with more calm than you should have.

“You can’t.”

Your voice doesn’t break.

“Why?”

San is furious, he’s powerless and yet here you are, taking away the only thing he can do, calling for help. He wants more than anything in the world to save you, needs to save you. He won’t give up, but you can’t let him tell anyone; most of all your captain.

“– you’re going to die if we don’t do anything about this, Chin Hae! You’ve been coughing blood, having nosebleeds, and now? I didn’t do anything about it and look what happened to you! I’ll be damned if I let you die after all this time, Hongjoong-hyung would be able to do something–”  

You waver for a second, the will in you crumbling. You just want someone to know, someone to help you, but you stay resolute in your decision, immovable as stone. Suddenly, the words come to your lips too easily.

“It wouldn’t change a damn thing.”

There’s a second of stunned silence between the two of you.

“What?” San repeats after you, he looks stupefied that you’d say such a thing. Then the words begin to tumble from your lips, razor sharp knives that tear into your master’s heart with each stab.

“What could he possibly do about this? I know he’s the Pirate King and all, but do you really think a mortal man with a mere blessing could save me from breaking into pieces?” You spit contemptuously, rising to your feet. Your words burn but you’re hollow inside, you continue speaking even as San’s expression turns more and more hurt. “Don’t lie to me. I was created by gods, San. Captain is human… he’s weak, powerless… He can’t save me.”

“He–” Your master begins to say, but even he falters ever so slightly in the face of the unconquerable odds laid bare in front of him. How could a mortal ever solve a problem of such a scale?

For the first time in his life onboard the Treasure, he doubts his captain.

Seeing him waver, you press forward, spilling empty words you don’t believe. “Besides, Captain has so much to deal with already, and it’s not like I’m dying or anything. Stop over-exaggerating, master.” You roll your eyes, get to your feet, and the sound of a tiny sob escaping your master behind you nearly breaks your heart. Why do you feel like crying? “Do you really want to make Captain take on more burden than he already has? It’s not his fault that you aren’t a good enough healer to cure me.”

A soft wail leaves your master’s lips, but you hold your head high and step into your shared bedroom tucked behind the infirmary, slamming the door shut behind you.

And for the first time, you lock it.

Finally, with no eyes on you, you sink to the ground and begin to cry, quietly into your sleeve. Sobs pulse in your chest, tear at you from the insides, struggle against you like the wings of a bird, but you suffocate them. You can’t let anyone hear.

But you’re scared.

You’re so, so scared.

You’re going to die.

And no one can help you.

“Please… no, that’s an order. I order you not to die, Chin Hae. I… no… I won’t be able to bear it if any of you die so please…”

Don’t die.

As if to mock you, something warm and coppery begins running from your nose once again, dripping into your lap, turning your shirt red. You raise the stump where your hand used to be to your nose and blood smears across it, turning it crimson. For a moment, it looks your hand had truly been amputated.

How you wished that were the case.

I’m sorry, captain.

I think I won’t be able to keep this promise.

[frodos-bizarre-adventure]

@gingerreggg y'all mind if I continue this travesty (part 1)

Heads Up- Part 2 (Joseph x Bust! Caesar)

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

The sun shone brightly through Joseph's window, its dazzling radiance rousing the exhausted artist from his slumber.

Well, that was a strange dream, he thought.

He remembered everything that took place last night. When he started seeing things, perhaps having a nightmare, fueled by his anxiety about finishing college. About graduating, becoming a professional, chasing his dream.

Anxious enough to dream that his creation started talking to him.

Joseph sat up and saw himself staring at an empty table across the room. There was nothing there, save for a few pencils and sheets of paper.

"C-Caesar?" he asked, somewhat reluctantly as if refusing to affirm the name from last night's dream. No reply.

He walked out of his room, heading toward the kitchen to make himself his morning coffee. And first thing he saw, resting atop the kitchen table, was his bust, his magnum opus, resting still and silent with vacant eyes staring into nothingness.

Like any proper sculpture should.

Joseph sighed and began to pour himself a hot cup. He turned his back on the bust for a moment, stirring his coffee and taking a sip.

And then he heard a voice.

"Well, Joseph, didn't expect you so early," it said.

Joseph flinched, spitting out his coffee from sheer surprise. He wheeled around with a confused frown, his shirt and face drenched in hot coffee, only to come face to face with his bust--once again animate, expressive and alive, like last night.

Caesar.

Caesar made a few small hops to face himself in Joseph's direction and chuckled lightly to himself, his eyes once again bright and alive.

"Y-you're real..." Joseph said, pointing at Caesar. "You're...not a dream, are you?"

"Suppose not," Caesar said matter-of-factly. "And you'd left me here on this table all night."

Joseph scratched his head.

"Ugh...sorry about that," Joseph said, sheepishly.

"Would you mind setting me down on the floor?" Caesar asked, somewhat annoyed in tone. "I've been so uncomfortable here being so high up and afraid of falling..."

Joseph set down his coffee cup and dried his hands. "Sure thing, I guess," he said with a shrug, and with a little strain lifted the heavy sculpture and rested him gently on the ground.

"Thank you," Caesar sighed, looking around the house now that he was on a more comfortable level. He turned his neck from side to side as he took in his surroundings, looking around from side to side.

"You've got a pretty cozy place to stay, don't you?" Caesar said, as he began to hop. Joseph just stared in confused acceptance of the situation as he watched the flesh-toned bust, looking every bit like a truncated stump of a man, slowly and clumsily make its way toward his living room.

Joseph watched as Caesar hopped, making heavy thumps as he went. He was certainly as heavy as he looked, made of dense clay, and with hop his tiny residue of a torso barely just cleared the floor, propelling him forward a few inches each time.

Joseph felt a pang of guilt seeing how difficult it was for Caesar to move. He felt responsible for his sorry state. Not that Caesar seemed to mind as of the moment, thumping along slowly but surely toward the living room to inspect its contents.

"I better just leave you on the floor for now," Joseph assessed. "Wouldn't want any nasty falls ruining my perfect artwork."

"You're such a tease," Caesar replied.

With a smile, Joseph retreated into his room to check on the rest of his work. With Caesar on the floor and the door locked, he figured he should let Caesar get a chance to look around for a bit after being stuck on the table all night.

-----

Caesar looked around with curiosity and fascination around the house as he hopped his way along. With all the furniture, appliances, and even Joseph himself towering above the living bust, just a bit over a foot tall with only a head, neck and a bit of chest and shoulders, everything appeared huge in comparison to Caesar from his perspective on the floor.

Caesar felt so small.

But why? Wasn't he only created yesterday, as Joseph had said? How come he felt like he should be bigger? That something felt missing? If he had been alive only for a day, how come he knew the names of the things in Joseph's house, like the whirring thing called a refrigerator, or the noisy thing called a television?

As if he'd seen them before?

Yet in his current state Caesar's reduced form didn't feel...wrong. Just... strange. He didn't know whether it was strange in a bad way, or a good way, but he decided he shouldn't be bothering himself with such thoughts as of the moment, as his curiosity got the better of him and he continued to explore the house.

-------

Meanwhile, in his room, Joseph was trying to study. The bust--no, Caesar,-- was his final project, due in two months, but he still had other things to work on, reflection papers, sketches, that were to be passed sooner.

Joseph figured he'd deal with those first and foremost, before he had to figure out how to pass his semester with his project now turned into his unexpected roommate. That problem could wait for now.

But as Joseph attempted to finish his sketches, some heavy thumps from outside, along with faint, strained groans of effort, caught his ears. He tried to ignore it at first, but soon it began to bother him as a few hours passed.

Thump. Ugh. Thump. Ugh.

Joseph dropped his pencil and buried his head into his arms with a sigh.

Had he condemned Caesar to exist as such? As a half-formed, incomplete creation, that also happened to now be a living person?

Joseph wondered if he could complete his project, or rather, add more to it. He after all had only planned Caesar to be a bust--but now that he was alive and aware, was it wrong to keep him a bust?

He didn't know how to sculpt bodies, which why he'd stopped with a head in the first place. He pictured how much extra clay he would need, how long it would take, weeks maybe, and whether he should set aside his other projects to make Caesar complete.

What was more important right now? His semester, or the being he accidentally ushered to life?

It was late afternoon by the time Joseph surrendered in his attempt to finish his sketch. His stomach grumbling, he left the room to fetch himself dinner.

--------

Joseph opened his door to be greeted by a series of bouncing thumps. He looked downward and saw Caesar hopping toward the kitchen.

"You seem to have gotten quite good at this," Joseph said, amused.

"I've been practicing," Caesar replied. "It's all I got going for me."

Joseph watched amazed as Caesar continued to hop around. He'd learned how to thrust his head forward with each jump, and, able to move his residual shoulders ever so slightly for added momentum, was able to catapult himself for longer, more stable jumps, managing to maintain his balance upright with each landing on his now-flattened base, which had rubbed off a little paint but was otherwise intact.

Joseph wondered if it was uncomfortable for Caesar. Did he get tired? Did his muscles ache being forced to move this way?

But looking at Caesar, as he inspected the cupboard under the stairs, he felt not. He hopped like he'd always had, despite his earlier complaints last night about not having a body, and being made of clay, Joseph supposed he didn't have any muscles for him to ache, anyway.

It was surprising how quickly Caesar managed to adapt.

"What are these?" asked Caesar, as he hopped over to a small box on the floor. Using his lips, he gently picked up a small object--a paintbrush-- and turned to look toward Joseph with the brush in his mouth.

"Those are my art supplies," Joseph scolded, as he came over and took away the brush, placing it back in the box and lifting the box onto a table, out of Caesar's reach. "Please don't mess around with them." Caesar frowned in disappointment.

"Though I do have to admit, I'm impressed," Joseph chortled as he placed the box of art supplies onto the living room table. "Looks like you've also learned how to pick up and hold objects with only your mouth."

"It's not like I have a choice," Caesar replied with a shrug, or at least the closest approximation to a shrug that he could manage. "I have no hands, remember?"

"Like I could forget," Joseph snarked back, kneeling down to be closer to his level and playfully poking a finger into Caesar's partial chest.

"And since you've figured out how to move around, and pick up and hold stuff, perhaps I ought to teach you how to do some tasks and activities, so you won't be all too helpless, even though you're...well..." He gestured toward Caesar's stub of a torso, prompting an annoyed grimace from the clay figure.

"Hmph, oh well," Caesar grumbled. "At least that sounds kind of nice to have something to do, it's been dreadfully boring the entire night on the table."

Joseph smiled down at Caesar, but before he could reply, a knock on the door caught both of their attention.

"Joseph!" said a cheerful female voice from outside the front door. "I'm just here for a visit!"

"Suzi!" Joseph exclaimed, panicking. "We can't let her see you!"

---------

(Previous Chapter)

(Next Chapter)

[creative-de-stuck-tion]

Introduction

TW: dystopia, mutilation, child death.

The burning sun, the moons of pink and green, and below them the nations of Prospit and Derse; great masses of land, gold and purple, twisted teardrops hooked one to the other and separated by the narrowest of ocean channels and millennia of war. The tempests rage along the coasts, and the clouds and the lands turn in their endless dancing spirals.

Noontide City, in sandstone and clay of yellow and white, simple and smooth in shape, decorated more than enough by the blossoming vines crawling up every wall. The roads are beaten earth, sprouting more grass every day, turning yellow in the baking sun. The people, dressed in airy cotton, smile and laugh as they go about their work, as merry as the day is long - and oh, the days in Prospit are long and long indeed.

Midnight City, in basalt and agate of purple and black, not a leaf to be seen, ornately carved and trimmed in amethyst and jet. The roads are paved and polished, tidy slabs scrubbed clean. The people, wrapped in warming furs, diligently focus on their work, their stares intense, their eyes and thoughts only on what they do, that they might do it well and finish it before the long nights come.

Watch them. You can see it...

Prospit bustles most in the night. The sun beats down so hard a being will crumble under its weight, and the clouds provide not half enough cover; under direct light at noon, bare skin will blister, then boil away. All that can take the sun is the plant life and the already dead, and in the heat and damp they grow and grow. Everyone sleeps with windows tightly covered by layers of cloth nailed to the frames, no matter the heat. In the worst times, with a summer rain, green growth cut back to ground can creep in through cracks and fill a cottage overday, or fungal spores can form wet festering growth on every piece of bare wood, and that would be a mercy for then the kingdom's many predators would be slowed down on their way in. 

Derse stirs most in the day. The ever-thickening layer of smoggy cloud blocks the sun, leaves the inhabitants sickly-skinned. The winds blow cold, and even the rain is salt and soot and acid. The soil is volcanic, but near-useless. It once was fertile, as the great coal and oil deposits show, but not for many centuries has the land birthed much more than stone. The people scratch out a living from scrubby plants in stony soil, and gather closely together in their homes for warmth, burning dried dung in place of wood. Predators roam here too. The people, desperate, eat them, and wear their skins, and block the cracks in their walls with their fur, to keep the whispering of what else lurks in the night away.

Reach out. You can feel it...

The last child of the last jadeblood line in Midnight City lies awake and listens to her mother weep. No one else born to the task is left to nurse the city's Mother Grub with them. Carapace pawns do what they can, but they are created fully-formed; they have no natural urge for childcare, no in-built knowledge of the task. The Grub lays fewer and fewer eggs, smaller ones, and the drones grow more aggressive. Out in the countryside, the Mother Grubs are dying one by one. Trolls are the warriors of Skaia. With so few born, what will they do? She dreams of Prospit outbreeding them, the city overrun.

At dusk the jadeblood grubherds of Noontide City urge their charges out in a flood that packs the streets from side to side. The grass has grown through the trodden earth since yesternight, watered by the humid air, and the grubs mow it down to nothing. They suck dew from stones and moss from walls, and gobble down the foot-long worms and slugs and centipedes and the fist-sized spiders and the nests of rats and mice from every crack and crevice. They swarm the bigger beasts, stray cats and dogs with festering wounds, and in turn the beasts devour or kill many of them. The grubs turn on their own wounded brethren, or those addled by the toxic weeds and mushrooms they have found, and consume them too. The grubherds let it happen. The weakest ones die first. The runts and mutants have already been culled long before.

Breathe deep. You can smell it...

Outside the city walls of Noontide lie the fire trenches, ever burning, making the daytime all the hotter. Rotting and dampening wood is culled without mercy from the buildings every day, and dragged out here. So too come funeral processions, the bodies burned in colossal metal dishes over the flames to save the ashes. The workers wear masks; in Prospit, spore and virus alike can spread so fast and hard even the fires can't cleanse them all, and disease dances on the air with the soot. The filthy, smoking clouds pour upward, and the prevailing winds carry them over the Skaia Channel to Derse, as if the kingdom spits on its ancient enemy. Still, Derse's clouds could hardly be filthier already.

Outside the city walls of Midnight, every spot of land which can be made to grow something will be made to grow. Fields are dug and dug, stone battered into soil by force of the workers' will. In Derse, there are no funeral processions, except for those of the very highest ranks. Even they will be buried in earth beneath the stunted fruit trees and the grass grown as green as it gets over them. Once there were tombs, but no longer can bodies be wasted outside the hungry soil. Near everything that grows in Derse grows on a grave. The poorest's dead don't even make it that far. Hunger gnaws, and the cold keeps them from rotting long enough.

Swallow. You can taste it...

The river of Noontide rots within its banks, and stinks from miles away. Recently, sewers have been installed, magic and engineering combined to keep them sound, channeling out on the seaward side; it's not enough. Fertile loam clouds the water from its very source, and the plants within it feed and grow. The creatures which feed on the plants grow too, until the river chokes with bodies or with algae. Workers clear the scum, but not as fast as it can grow. So much life births and shits and fucks and dies in the river that they'll never get it clean.

The river of Midnight is cold enough to burn, and black as death. Nothing lives in it; all that moves in it are reflections in its oil-slick top. Soot and sludge and who-knows-what taint it all throughout its course as it passes mines and factories, and by the time it reaches the coastal city nothing that lived or died in it is left. The dead things might rot further up, or wash downstream perfectly preserved by the chemical taint, as if in resin. It smells faintly sweet and smokey, pleasant even, of coal and gasoline.

Listen. You can hear it...

The market's bustle is pierced by wails. A brownblood youth has fallen to his knees, sobbing his heart out, from fear or exhaustion or some deep sorrow; none around him will ever know why. There is no shortage of reasons, in Noontide City. The crowd ignores him. If he had a moirail, it would be their duty to stop the disturbance. He does not, or they are not here. The carapace peace officers are, and he is restrained, though now he wails even louder. Too late to run. Causing a disturbance through rejection of Mirth. The law is the law. The carapaces' tealblood master takes a short knife and slits the brownblood's cheeks from ear to ear.

Coins clatter on stone, drowned out by shrieks. A corner of the Midnight City town square is roped off; highbloods in their carriages and litters watch the show. In the arena, troll and human children in rags claw and bite for pennies thrown at them hard enough to bruise their bony bodies, and bets of more money than the children will ever see changes hands in wagers. Today, for the first time in many months, a human is triumphant. She's a rangy little thing, maybe ten years old, hollow-eyed and wielding bottle shards, and she's the last one standing while others groan and bleed. She picks up all the coins and limps away. She will die tonight, slowly and agonisingly and alone; her last troll opponent was old enough for her venom to come through in her bite, and it already burns within the human's blood. The surviving children will take her coins and her clothes and the trolls will devour her, bones and all. The humans cannot eat the venom. They hunger still.

Listen. Closer. You can hear them...

And the screams sound exactly the same.

[notapaladin]

we are all walking each other home

Did anyone order plotless summer family fluff by the pool with snow cones? No? Too bad, that’s all I got. In which Acatl and Teomitl and their family have a good day.

Also on AO3!

-

If the young and devastatingly attractive Revered Speaker of Tenochtitlan wanted to invite his Imperial Consort’s close family to the palace to stave off the heat of the rainy season in his gardens and pools, none of them were going to gainsay him—especially not Acatl. Though his obligations nagged at him, he could set them down for a few hours to spend time with his brother and sisters. It would be nice to simply rest for once; Teomitl insisted it was the least he deserved.

Though I’m not sure how restful this is going to be, he thought. The gardens Teomitl had inherited from his predecessors were certainly lovely enough, all lush greenery and tiled fountains, even if they couldn’t measure up to his lover’s dreams for his own under-construction palace across the Sacred Precinct from Acatl’s temple. If they’d been left alone to walk the paths and stretch out under the trees, Acatl imagined he’d find it comfortable enough. But they weren’t alone, and that made all the difference. He was glad to have mended his relationship with his other sisters, he loved his nieces and nephews to distraction, but all of them together in the same space was...

“Ollin, stop running by the water! You’ll fall!”

“So then I said to Citlalli, I said...”

“And nobody’s offered for you yet, Coaxoch? Why, when I was your age—”

“Auntie!”

...Well. It was a lot.

He’d claimed a seat at the farthest end of one of the intricately dyed reed mats Teomitl had had spread out, watching the chaos unfold from under the shade of a sprawling tree. Ollin had not stopped running; he and a few of his similarly aged cousins had all gotten into what appeared to be an impromptu game of tag with Acatl’s dog Miton, who was yipping up a delighted storm and wagging his tail so fast it was an orange-tipped blur. His sisters Nelli and Icnoyotl had shown up gossiping about something someone’s brother had done and hadn’t so much as paused for breath since, with their husbands providing increasingly colorful—and increasingly loud—commentary. Mihmatini, enormously pregnant, had lowered herself into the waist-deep pool nearby and kept dropping down to dunk her entire body underwater in a way that suggested she was trying to either muffle her nephews’ shrieking or grow gills, whichever happened first. And Teomitl?

Teomitl was in his element. He’d shed all his finery save for the emerald piercing his septum—still too new to be removed so soon in the healing process—but he didn’t need any, not with the way he was crouched down and beaming at Nelli’s fourth daughter showing him a bug she’d caught. It could have melted a stone; Acatl’s heart didn’t stand a chance. He knew he was smiling helplessly, knew his adoration would be clear to anyone so much as sparing him a passing glance, but just then he didn’t care. I love you. I love you. You’re going to be a wonderful father.

“My lords!”

A few of his family members twitched. Nobody except Teomitl seemed to think that the servants carrying trays loaded with bowls of compacted mountain snow and pitchers of fruit juice were talking to them; he, meanwhile, sprang up and announced, “Ices for everyone! Excellent, set them down just there.”

“We get ice?!” That was Nelli’s daughter, her voice rising in a delighted shriek.

“You get ice,” Mihmatini informed her, accepting Teomitl’s arm to heave herself out of the pool with a grunt. “Eat it before it melts.”

Nobody quite swarmed the trays—they were all too polite or too overawed by the match their Mihmatini had made—but there was a general purposeful drift in that direction. Even Teomitl’s gray-and-white hound Ehecatzin slunk over hopefully to try to steal some; when one of Acatl’s brothers-in-law nudged him away, he settled for being scratched behind the ears. Miton, more singleminded, had to be ordered to sit. Acatl watched, finding himself disinclined to move. It was true that snow carried down from the mountains was a treat reserved for those of imperial blood or imperial alliances, especially on such a hot day, but he didn’t really feel like inserting himself into the crowd when everyone was debating fruit toppings.

Eventually, Teomitl padded over with a bowl in each hand, stretching out his long legs as he sat down. It was closer than he ought to be with so many eyes around them, but once again Acatl found he couldn’t really mind. Not when Teomitl was quirking up a smile as he set down a bowl of pineapple-drenched ice for him.

“Brought you some,” he said quietly. Not that he needed to keep his voice down; there was no way to put two dogs and over a dozen people in one space and not have it be loud enough to drown out any conversation they might have. Still, Acatl appreciated the discretion.

He picked up the bowl, noting that Teomitl’s own was the violently pink shade only pitaya fruit juice could give. The runners were fast and the ice had been stored well; it was still cold enough to chill his fingers through the clay. “I would have gotten up.”

“You looked comfortable.” There was another of those soft, sunny smiles, and he couldn’t help smiling in return.

“Mm. So did you.” His lover was always at his best in a friendly crowd, laughing and joking until his family saw past the jade and turquoise to the man beneath. All that energy needed a purpose. Rather like our dogs, he mused, but he knew better than to ever say that out loud even if they did all share a tendency to snore.

Teomitl shifted a little closer, so that they almost touched. The fingers of his free hand twitched as though he wanted to twine them with Acatl’s own. “I’m more comfortable here.”

Then he licked at his half-melted cup of snow, erasing all chances of Acatl managing to reply. The fruit juice was staining his lips and tongue; though he was graceful as he usually was when eating, a drop clung to the corner of his mouth and Acatl itched to brush it away. He didn’t. He wasn’t sure he could move. Teomitl made a soft noise of pure pleasure that sent a lightning surge of want through his veins, and he couldn’t look away. “Ngh.”

Teomitl cast a glance at him from under lowered lashes, lips curving in a wicked smile. “Hm?”

They couldn’t possibly be any more in public. Taking a deep breath, he wrenched his mind away from memories of what that tongue could do. “Nothing.”

Teomitl hummed, smugly pleased with himself, and motioned to their bowls. “Have some. It’s good.”

He studied his bowl for a moment before trying it; there were chunks of fruit as well as juice, cold and sweet enough to make his teeth hurt. The pain was well worth it, because it was delicious. He let his eyes slide closed as he ate, focusing on the sensations around him—the warmth of the sun through dappled shade, the chill of the ice on his tongue, the tingling awareness of Teomitl’s body next to his, the happy chatter of his nieces and nephews and siblings. He caught slivers of conversation too, Necalli’s first campaign and Nelli’s recipe for washing blood from dyed cotton mingling in his ears. His heart felt like a tiny sun.

This is what makes life living. He inhaled, breathing in the scents of fruit and crushed grass and warm water. The flowers, the jade. Mihmatini was right.

Eventually, all the ice was gone. He was aware of his siblings’ conversations around him; two of his brothers-in-law were discussing the weather with the grave importance it deserved, while his sisters were discussing Mihmatini’s pregnancy with a frankness that was turning Icnoyotl’s always-squeamish husband Chimalli slightly green. The children, unsurprisingly, were the first to throw themselves back into the water; Neutemoc and Chimalli were next, theoretically to keep an eye on them but actually to tow the smallest ones around in the water while they screeched with joy. Teomitl, still eyeing the remains of his ice as though there might possibly be some fruit left, actually set the bowl down and perked up at the sight.

Acatl nudged him. “Go on, help them corral the flock. It’ll be good practice for you.”

Teomitl’s smile was a little crooked, a little helpless, and terribly endearing. “I hope the baby gets along with its cousins.”

“They’ll certainly have plenty of options,” he replied dryly. Between Neutemoc’s five and all his sisters’ spawn, Teomitl’s child would have over a dozen cousins to play with by the time it was born. As always when he thought of it, he sent a brief mental prayer to the gods for Mihmatini’s continued health. She’s the Guardian of the Sacred Precinct. The Imperial Consort of the Revered Speaker. And she’d have my head for fretting over her.

“...They will.” Now the smile was wistful. “Your family is wonderful.”

He nudged him a little harder. “Our family. Or did you forget you chose this?”

Mihmatini was sliding back into the pool, and Teomitl’s eyes followed her for a moment. His fingers just barely grazed the back of Acatl’s hand. “Hmm. I did choose this, didn’t I?”

Then Teomitl left his side and plunged into the water, and he realized that he had perhaps miscalculated.

His lover was always beautiful, whether he was in a warrior’s armor or all the gold and feathers of his office. Even in the plainest clothing, the curve of his cheekbones and the brightness of his smile could take Acatl’s breath away. He’d thought, with the years they’d been together, that nothing could surprise him anymore.

Duality preserve him, he was wrong. He’d never seen Teomitl like this—all rippling water and rippling muscle, laughing and shaking water from his hair as Mihmatini splashed him playfully and Ollin clung whooping to his arm. Droplets hung sparkling in the sunlight like stars, running in rivulets down the well-sculpted lines of his chest and stomach. Surrounded by water—surrounded by family, head flung back in brilliant careless joy—he was more magnificent than he’d been at his coronation. Acatl had just eaten, but he felt as hungry as Toci. I love you. The words beat in tune with his heart. I want you.

Every line of his body felt like a taut bowstring, but he couldn’t move. If he moved, he was going to do something stupid.

Neutemoc’s voice snapped him out of his trance. His brother leaned on his elbows at the edge of the pool, water dripping off him onto the tiles, and flashed him a tired grin. “I’m sweating just looking at you, Acatl. Join us!”

“Nhm,” he managed.

Teomitl lowered Ollin back into the water and gave Acatl a grin of his own. “Please?”

Well, it was hot. But he was still strangely reluctant to move, and it took a long moment before he could stand up, stretch well enough that something in his back stopped complaining, and amble over to the water. The sun hadn’t warmed it as much as he thought; when he slid down into it, he had to clench his teeth at the chill. For a while he simply stood next to his brother, watching their family play.

Neutemoc elbowed him. “See? Told you it was better in the water.”

He nodded. True, they were surrounded by bright flowers and screaming life, but it was...peaceful, here. It reminded him of his childhood, before their father had died and everything had started to go so wrong. No. He shook his head, banishing that line of thought. Today had been wonderful so far, and that was how it would stay. He was standing in cool, clear water with a belly full of delicious food and his family around him. His nieces had roped Teomitl into some sort of splash-based war that involved a great deal of high-pitched giggling on all sides, whereas his older nephews were skipping the splashing in favor of an impromptu and very messy wrestling match. He was on the sidelines, content to observe.

And then someone’s errant flailing limb sprayed him with a fine mist, and he jolted out of his reverie.

“Sorry!” Teomitl called. It would have sounded much more sincere if he wasn’t grinning.

“Hrmph,” he grumbled, closing his eyes. He knew he was failing at suppressing his own smile, and Teomitl must be able to see it.

The peace of his immediate surroundings didn’t last long. The sounds of splashing water grew louder and closer, and his nieces’ shrieks took on the sort of gleeful pitch he associated with trouble. Oh no.

That was all the warning he got before a gout of water arced down and drenched him completely. He yelped, inhaling water, and as he coughed and spluttered and caught his breath he decided that someone was about to be in deep trouble. Grimacing, he scraped his hair back from his face, blinked water out of his eyes, and looked around for the perpetrator.

The unrepentant perpetrator. “You looked hot?”

He took a deep breath and leveled a glare at his lover. “Teomitl.”

“Ah,” Teomitl began.

And then Acatl taught him one of the benefits of growing up with a brother close in age. Namely, when you had someone who was willing and able to throw you into the nearest body of water at any opportunity, you got very good at fighting back in kind. He pushed off from the wall, wading rapidly towards him; before Teomitl could scramble out of range, Acatl’s arm came up to splash him in the face. “You asked for this!”

Teomitl danced out of the way, a grin splitting his face, and wasted no time splashing Acatl back. “Is it war, then?!”

It was war. Their nieces and nephews joined in, splashing both of them indiscriminately; Acatl reeled under the onslaught, but managed to stay on his feet no matter the weight of his wet hair. Teomitl was stronger than he was, but unused to fighting such a battle. It was easy to back him against the edge of the pool. And then the dogs, wanting to be a part of the fun, plunged into the water in a cacophony of howls and a storm of wagging tails, and he had to stagger back as Miton all but flopped on top of him.

“Bad dog—ack!” Opening his mouth was a mistake, for Teomitl took advantage of his distraction to splash his face again. He glared at his lover through the curtain of his dripping hair.

Teomitl took one look at his face and his eyes went wide; Acatl had a moment of satisfaction before his lover ducked sideways, dodging behind a very surprised Necalli. “Protect me!”

Just as quickly, Necalli darted out of the way. “My lord uncle, you are on your own.”

Teomitl was the furthest thing from a coward, but evidently he had learned when discretion was to be the better part of valor. He turned and waded rapidly for the far edge of the pool.

“Get back here--!”

Teomitl laughed brightly. “You’ll have to catch me first, Acatl!”

Oh, so that’s how it is. Feeling his face split into an unaccustomed grin, Acatl ran after him. Teomitl was younger, faster, and in better shape; but when he heaved himself out of the water and took off down the path, Acatl wasn’t too far behind. As he ran, he realized he didn’t have a plan, but he didn’t need one; it was a beautiful summer day, his blood was pumping, and he was alive. That was all that mattered. Teomitl swerved around a densely-flowered shrub, and he followed.

Whoever had planned the layout of the palace gardens had desired privacy; it was darker and quieter here, the chaos of the pool muffled by the greenery. Anything beyond that Acatl didn’t have a chance to absorb, however, because Teomitl was grabbing him and pulling him into a hot, hungry kiss.

Oh.

That was the last coherent thought he had for a while. His mind was full of Teomitl—of the heat of his wet skin, the strength of the arms around him, the way he still tasted of pitaya juice and mountain snow. One hand settled at his waist; the other slid up into his hair, burying into the thick strands until a soft growl of pleasure reverberated through them both. His body knew just what to do, arching to press himself even closer, and when he dug his nails into Teomitl’s back he was rewarded with a whine. If he didn’t need to breathe, he could have kissed him for hours.

When Teomitl pulled away, mouth red and eyes glittering with desire, he whispered, “I missed you. I’ve been wanting to do that all day.”

He wasn’t the only one. But before he could say that, a calloused hand slid down his spine, and Acatl sucked in a hard breath at the way Teomitl’s hips pressed against his own. His blood was still up, but now all that simmering energy was alert to a new purpose. “It’s only been a few hours.”

Teomitl’s expression turned wicked as that hand reached his ass, giving it a lingering squeeze. “And? You’re irresistable.”

Perhaps there was the occasional downside to having such a young and enthusiastic lover, he thought. Out loud, he huffed, “The children will hear us.”

“They’re playing with the dogs.”

The barking, splashing, and cheering ringing through the gardens were loud enough to muffle them—if they were careful. Still, Acatl bit his lip and shook his head. Children were one thing; his nosy sisters were another thing entirely. “My siblings will hear us.”

Teomitl scowled lightly at that. “Am I Revered Speaker or not?”

“Teomitl!” he hissed.

The scowl vanished as though it had never been. Teomitl lowered his head to nuzzle at Acatl’s throat, voice so soft it was almost inaudible. Any sweetness was tempered by the way he drew his nails lightly up the column of Acatl’s spine, hard enough to sting pleasantly but not enough to leave a mark. As his lover’s lips moved against his skin, Acatl shivered. “We’ll be quiet.”

It was tempting. Gods, it was tempting. Teomitl kissed him again, long and slow, and he felt his resolve weakening. His family could entertain themselves for a few minutes, surely. Half an hour. He would prefer more time—would prefer to give Teomitl his full attention all night—but he wasn’t a fool to turn down what was so freely offered. The breeze was cold in the shade, but that didn’t matter when his lover was so warm in his arms,  the slide of skin on skin setting his blood on fire. “Mmm...”

“Come on,” Teomitl breathed, and shifted to press a thigh between his legs. Acatl found himself wishing briefly and desperately that they’d have the forethought to hide against something solid, but then Teomitl was mouthing at his throat and he wasn’t thinking anything at all.

“Nngh...” At any other time, he might have been embarrassed at the whine that escaped him, but shame was very far away at the moment. His self-control was hanging only be a few very thin threads, and only the din of his family gathering not nearly far enough away was keeping it in place. We could. They’re having fun without us; they won’t be looking for us yet. But...

But they could. Of course Mihmatini knew, and he was almost sure that Neutemoc did as well, though of course they’d never discussed it beyond the most vague assurances that yes, he was perfectly happy—but his other sisters were clueless, and the thought of their reactions if they discovered him in Teomitl’s arms was enough to turn his bones to ice. Reluctantly, he panted, “No. We shouldn’t.”

Teomitl sighed and pulled back, but he kept Acatl within the circle of his arms as though he couldn’t bear to let him go. “I hate when you’re reasonable.”

“No, you don’t,” he murmured fondly.

When Acatl lifted a hand to cup his cheek, Teomitl tilted his head into it with a faint stirring of a smile. “...No, I don’t.”

There was a particularly loud splash from the direction of the pool, and Acatl winced. “Let’s get back before they wonder where we’ve gone.”

“Mm.” With one final caress, Teomitl let him go. “Alright.”

Later, there would be dinner; later, there would be dancers and musicians to entertain them. Later, he and Teomitl would be properly alone. But for now, they would bask in the warmth of their family and the bonds they’d made.

[ktheist]

| the wrong star

warnings: mentions of gun, death, too much dick shoutouts and implied smut.

jimin isn’t exactly someone you’re supposed to get attached to. not that you were planning to in the first place. but things... things happen.

at first, it’s a trip to some island that’s supposed to be famous for its volcanic clay produce. the chalet they got you was nice. a single room with the bed facing the sea and almost translucent curtains covering a clear wall-sized sliding door that could let a sniper put a bullet in your head in your sleep.

but you tend to be more lax. it’s a hard-earned vacation and if someone is going to assassinate you in your sleep, they’re gonna wish they hadn’t.

after leading the devilishly handsome man you had a few too many drinks with at the bar, you find yourself in your room. articles of clothing falling onto the ground faster than you can register. it’s when the back of your calves hit the edge of the bed, do you wedge a foot around his ankle and swiftly step to the side, sending him tumbling down into the silken sheets.

a groan escapes his lips and you wonder if it’s made up. if he meant to sound like he’s caught off guard by your sudden movement, but you don’t have the time to ponder on it as you pull out a gun from beneath the gap between the bed and the floor.

“who sent you?” your voice is as cold as steel, hands groping around his chiseled body for a wire.

“easy, sweetheart,” his tone becomes more calculated when he feels the cold barrel against the back of his neck, hands coming up to his head, “believe it or not, i’m here for a vacation - well, or was.”

“oh, isn’t that just a big fat coincidence,” you mock, “two assassins, in the same island, at the same resort.”

as the odds stack up, you feel the muscles in jimin’s back tense up, “it’s got the best view of the beach and if you’re as good as you seem to be - which you are, judging from how you noticed i’m an assassin too - you probably earned as much as me which explains why you got the most expensive room they have.”

“even a child can come up with-” your words get lodged in your throat as the world spins for a split second before you’re slammed into the mattress.

your grip on the gun remains still but a larger hand seems to press on your wrist so it’s pointing in the direction of the sliding door and away from his veins. his thighs lock your hips down and his free hand holds a knife to your throat.

“is ___ even your real name?” he cocks his head to the side, as though giving you a once over before deciding whether you look like a ___.

“jimin can’t be yours,” you scoff. who would be foolish enough to-

“it is.” he cuts your train of thoughts, “you can check my social security number,” his offer seems a bit too willing, “i told you i’m here for a strictly non-working matter.”

all of a sudden, flashes of jimin’s - you’re not a hundred percent convinced, but let’s just call him that for now - suave smile, his hungry eyes and far too carefree hand plays at the back of your mind.

“to get laid.” you offer a better term for him, to which he rolls his eyes.

“yeah, okay,” he huffs, “it’s been sixteen months, don’t judge me.”

at the unsolicited information, you can’t help but narrow your eyes, “if you can’t get laid in the city, what makes you think you can get laid in some island with lesser population?”

“you must never had a girl you met at a club - and yes, from said city - try to cut your dick off when you thought you were getting some,” he says plainly, the moonlight pouring through the clear sliding door providing barely enough light to allow you to see the distorted expression he’s making. as though he hasn’t emotionally recovered from that yet.

“well, second time’s the charm, right?” the littlest gap between his crotch and your hips allows you to root your feet into the mattress and force yourself up, sending his balance off so you’d have enough time to slip your legs over his hips, switch your positions and point your gun against his sharp jawline.

but that also means his hand was free to secure his life by pressing the cold blade of the knife against your neck. and yes, again.

“you don’t look like you’re on a mission to kill either,” he asserts, eyes glinting with a sort of bloodthirsty desire you didn’t notice before - well, to be fair, before he was cracking jokes and wasn’t taking this life threatening situation seriously, “how bout we just... part ways and never speak of this to our organization ever again?”

you take the longest moment to weigh out the pros and cons. pros: you get to enjoy the rest of your vacation without being called back to or ordered to kill jimin. cons: you might have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of this vacation.

the answer teeters on the tip of your tongue but the tangibility of the tension seems to clasp against your lips, forbidding you from uttering-

“yeah, okay,” as soon as the words hit the air, it’s as though a thick blanket of haze has lifted.

you roll off the man at the same time he lets out an audible sigh, the knife falling off his hands and echoing in three thuds before the room goes silent again, save for your breathings.

“god,” jimin heaves out, “i thought i was gonna get my head blown off instead of my dick.”

“how is that better than getting a vasectomy... with a bullet... and on your dick?” you ask into the darkness, the gun lying a few inches from your hand after you let it slip away and fall against the mattress.

“trust me, sweetheart,” you catch him shooting a look at you, “anything is better than living a life without a dick.”

you don’t quite understand how an assassin would be so scared of pain, regardless if it’s around the genital area but you’re just glad your vacation doesn’t have to be cut short just because you cross the wrong star at the wrong time.

after the... incident, you’ve managed to avoid each other successfully. until your last night at the island. some big shot was throwing a pool party and everyone’s invited. jimin was surrounded with three girls with the prettiest faces and curviest bodies, hands trailing up his sculpted abdomen which he lets out to the world as his floral blue shirt hangs on his shoulders, unbuttoned.

guess, his sixteen month dry spell ends tonight.

“you,” an obnoxious voice calls - you have half the mind to slam him against the ground and make him beg for forgiveness for addressing a lady as ‘you’ but you twirl around with a smile and a certain roll in your hips. the host, a young man with a proportionate body and golden blond hair bites down on his lips as he undress you with his eyes, “you came.”

you met him while you were tanning - or rather, the sun seemed to have suddenly been covered by the clouds so you pried one eye open, only to see a man with too much ego and too small a dick standing over you.

taehyung - unfortunately, you don’t forget names that easily - tried to chat you up but after your third rejection, he’d left with a, “i’m having a pool party tonight - you should come and see what you’re missing out on.”

“thought i’d see what i’m missing out on,” you give him a once over, noticing how he’s looking at you with eyes full of anticipation before it darkens with devastation at your next words, “not much though.”

but that baby face instantly lights up when you take a step into the jacuzzi, one hand hovering over the water as you sip the tequila before finally closing the distance. the woman and men who were latching onto him began to leave the warmth of the tub one by one until you’re setting the flute glass on the edge.

“so, where you from?” taehyung begins, only to suck in a deep breath as you press your body up against him.

“less talking, more making out, yeah?” you murmur against his lips, your own curling into a pleased smirk when his hands cup your ass and he devours your lips.

it takes about five shots of jaeger for him to pass out on the suede long couch somewhere in a more private part near the pool. you asked for it because you weren’t drunk enough to ignore the eyes that seem to follow your every move and they aren’t taehyung’s.

with a dejected sigh, you tie the line of your bikini bra around your neck and back before slipping through the white curtain that hung around the gazebo, fully intending to call it a night... until a silhouette step into the pathway to your room.

“thought you were getting your dick blown,” you comment despite knowing that he was probably too busy trying to see through the gaps of the curtains around the gazebo to actually have his dick inside someone.

“thought you were getting one in you,” his tone bears more mockery than yours - dare you say, personal.

“i’m leaving tomorrow,” you brush past him, the sound of the waves crashing becoming louder as you tread further down the path.

“oh,” is all he says - not that you’re expecting much.

yet your chest still aches with a sort of disappointment much heavier than taehyung’s sleeping form and limp dick.

when you come to a stop in front of the wooden door, you finally break the silence, “___ is my real name, by the way.”

it doesn’t take long for jimin to soak in your words. barely more than a second. and before you know it, your lips are melding with a pair of luscious ones. they’re as soft and sweet as the words that come out of them the day you first started talking.

it should feel deja vu, how you’re backing up against nothing and how the two piece clothing you have on is easier to slip off your body than the tank top and skirt from the first time. and jimin’s shirt only needs being pushed off his shoulder - his trunks need a bit more attention because it got stuck around his hardening dick.

but the struggle is worth the wait because you woke up with black and blue bruises and a sort of soreness in your legs that could only mean one thing: that the sex was out of this world.

when you brush the man’s bleached hair out of his face, you half-expect him to grasp your hand like it’s some gun aimed at him while he’s at his most vulnerable. but his eyes flutter open a little too belatedly. they curve into crescents when they see you as does his lips.

“morning,” he murmurs ever so gently - you wonder how he does that with a groggy voice.

you order breakfast in bed and eat them together, laughing and messing around like you’ve known each other for longer than a week. but neither of you disclose what organization you work for. you just... cuddle on the bed until it’s time for you to pack, it isn’t much since you know not to bring too many thins in case you needed to leave quickly. perhaps in the middle of the night.

you part with kisses and hugs like you’re never going to see each other again.

well, you don’t because the organization sends you for jobs all around the country, sometimes even to neighboring ones until you hit your third month of coming back after the vacation. 

you’re decked in a fake diamond encrusted lingerie with thighs gripping the pole better than your wig. the person who requested you had company and among them is none other than jimin. his hair is dyed into a deep brown shade, giving him a mysterious air as he watches you put a bullet in your target’s mouth. a proud smile plastered over his face.

“please, don’t shoot me or my dick,” he holds his hands up in a playful manner once you discard the gun somewhere next to the bodies.

“i’m not even going to ask how you found me,” you trust him enough to know there isn’t any assassins you need to be wary of in the club until at least three minutes before you have to report to your own. his lips tastes like peppermint and beer.

and so it goes your little rendezvous. from tokyo to milan all the way to egypt, you’d somehow find a way to coordinate your jobs in the same city and spend the rest of the nights and days with each other after you’re done with your target. 

“i wanna quit,” jimin announces, one fine night in the hot summer air of the philippines.

“what? us?” it’s just your wishful thinking, because there’s no other reason for him to leave his job unless he wants a death wish.

he sits up despite having your head on his arm - and when he does that, you know he means business. or resignation, really.

“i’m only doing this because i had nothing to lose back then,” his callous thumb rubs the back of your hand - more specifically, the knuckle of your ring finger, “but i have everything to lose right now and i rather not second guess myself until it’s too late.”

“jimin,” you only ever say his name when you want to snap him out of his ludicrous thoughts - and the last time, he proposed getting into a cartel just and staging your deaths, “you do know they’re not going to let you go that easy - you’re an asset.”

it didn’t take too long for you to realize that. and it took you a shorter period of time to let it sink in that jimin had known you were an assassin all along that day but chose to place his bet on you not killing him so he flirted with you anyway.

“which is why i should go over to your organization - they’ll accept me for the information i have on mine,” he pulls out a hard drive from the drawer he kept his guns in.

“and what makes you think you won’t be killed once they got all the information they need from you?” you refute.

“well,” he squeezes your hand, eyes coming up to meet you, “that’ll probably take them six months to realize i have nothing more to give them - and by then, i’m hoping we’d be gone.”

he means dead. legally.

“i don’t know...” and for the first time since you were eighteen, you couldn’t draw up the best course of action to take to get yourself out of a sticky situation, but you do know one thing, “i don’t think of you as just a fling and if this is some heat-of-the-moment thing-”

“i want us to get married,” he cuts you off, or so he thought he got it right.

“not exactly what i was trying to say,” you can’t help but giggle, but you don’t oppose proposition.

it’s been an arduous process since then. scraping for information, risking your identities and suspicion of your own organization when you started to highly recommend jimin to the board. but your supervisor and trainer had backed you up - only because he personally went against jimin and it’d left him with a in his back that disallowed him from taking on jobs and subdued into a trainer for the newbies.

“how long?” the moment those words slip out of namjoon’s lips, you don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that your heart quite literally dropped.

“how long what?” yet you still manage to school your face into a stoic one - they make you take classes for that too.

“look, kid, i’ve known you since you were fifteen with snot running out of your nose every time you have to come in for shooting lessons,” those sharp eyes that seem to peel every layer of your lies with just a glance. he brings up one hand, cigarette in between his middle and ring finger while his index finger points at you, “and i know a look that screams i’ll die for the person i thought is the love of my life but really is just some hot flame i met while i’m in my 20′s, when i see one.”

“he’s not just some guy,” is all you say and hear.

but namjoon begs to differ, head shaking as he lowers his gaze - as though he couldn’t bear to look at a disappointment before he sucks in a breath and meets your eyes, “i don’t wanna see your face bloodied and bruised in that interrogation room,” he waves his index finger in the direction of the hallway where the infamous interrogation room lays, the smoke from the bud forming a circle before it disappears into the air, “or so help me god, i will kill you myself.”

“thank you, namjoon.” the gratitude scrapes against your throat like a knife, because this is him saying he’ll help you - both you and jimin get out of this god forsaken place and that means putting his life on the line for it.

then so begins jimin’s double agency, going back and forth, supplying every drop of information he can for yours until his organization caught wind of his betrayal. but by then, he’s already halfway across the world, taking a job as an assassin from your organization and under its protection.

you don’t talk even though you see each other in the hallway. pretend like neither existed while you fuck like you’ve never had a drop of water in the toilet of some club in the country you manage to coordinate your jobs in.

but that was rare. two assassins in the same country, taking a job.

then comes the ratchet moment. when jimin’s six months are up and they find him more of a liability than an opportunity. the better the agent, the high likely he’ll stab you in the back like he did with his last organization.

something like the saying if he cheats with you, he’ll cheat on you.

but in a way, you’re both cheaters. of life. of death. of everything that you were thrust into in a guise for a better life than the slumps you come from.

“get out of the way, ___,” jimin could have convinced you that he truly, honestly betrayed you as he holds the gun and points it at you.

“jimin, think about it, if you put your gun down, i shoot you, you die an instant death,” it’s not much of an offer but he’s in no position to refuse as the siren ring throughout the building and red lights begin to replace the bright luminescent ones.

it is in that moment, when namjoon slips through the vents and kicks takes your brown haired lover off guard, do you rush in to wrestle the gun out of his hands. someway, somehow, the struggle ended with a bullet in you and you’re like fish gasping for air, your vision slowly blurring as you watch namjoon run after jimin two seconds into hesitating whether to save you or abandon you because the others would come for you.

the chase continues until jimin slips into the sewer - possibly his planned escape route which he thought would be the last step to escaping his pursuers. only to meet his death. they found his body a good one hour later but he’s almost bloated from having been left in the cold water by namjoon who barely made it back to call for back up and sent people to get jimin’s body.

it’s exactly one year later, after going through rehab and barely managing to do menial, daily tasks do they discharge you. the bullet hit your spine and you had to go through multiple surgeries just to be able to feel your legs. it takes you longer than six months to be able to walk properly.

“i almost lost my life defending this very organization and even if you can’t relocate me to some nice, five star apartment,” tears fill your eyes as you speak in front of the board members, “at least let me live the rest of it without having to check my back if i have a red dot aimed at my heart.”

guess that speech was moving.

they never really let anyone go just like that but you’ve proved your loyalty by jumping in front of a volatile assassin and trying to tackle the gun out of his grasp with the help of namjoon.

oh and namjoon? he got promoted as a board member. he’d also been a major influence in your honorable discharge - as honorable as an assassin’s discharge can be.

now, you live somewhere on the outskirts of town. a tiny little house with a lawn and a one dog and one cat. you get by with writing articles and promotional posts for products.

it’s harder to write for longer hours than you remember it but you like it.

sometimes you get parcels every few days. sometimes they’re energy drinks, sometimes snack packs, and sometimes a pack of bullet for your guns in the most unlikely places.

today, moon, your doberman barks at from his special little area at the front yard, signaling the arrival of yet another package. it takes a moment for you to get to the door but when you do, it’s the the usual white and blue uniform wearing man.

“jimin,” you whisper his name like you’re afraid people from your organization is going to pop out of nowhere at the mention of him.

“hey sweetheart,” his smile still makes his eyes close, “i came to pick up my bride.”

you shake your head at his antics, tears filling your eyes as your own smile stretch across your face, “you’re just in time.”

x

note. check out my #excerpt from a fic i’ll never write for more excerpt-from-a-fic-i’ll-never-write-esque fics!

[pendragonsandbuckleys]

hold me like the moon holds onto the tide (3/3)

Summary: Kidnapped and locked in a cell with no escape. Alex and Michael are faced with an ex-Caulfield employee who is prepared to do anything to get alien powers of his own. (Inspired by the Daisy/Sousa scenes in Agents of Shield 7x06)

Word Count: 3,804

[Also on AO3]  [Part One] [Part Two]

“What about the time he tripped over your guitar and smashed his head into the table?” Flint leaned back as he spoke. The hard plastic of the chair was digging into his back and it squeaked as he tried to get comfortable.

He’d never liked hospitals. The strong antiseptic smell that seemed to linger in the air. The rush of people in the day and the quiet hallways at night. The big scary words that made no sense but always seemed to mean something bad. The unnatural mix of cleanliness and death.

He didn’t mind them so much when he was younger. His mother had always told him that they were hopeful places, where illnesses were cured and lives were saved. Thinking back, it was probably just her protective way of trying to calm his nerves whenever a grandparent was sick.

But at that age, her positive nature imbued in him a childish hope that the doctors would be able to help his brother. That soon they would realise that that many broken bones and bruised ribs a year was so much more than just a clumsy child falling off his bike or losing his grip whilst climbing a tree.

He couldn’t remember when he’d stopped wishing for someone to work it out and just accepted that no one would. It was probably around the same time he’d stopped accompanying his brother on his too frequent visits and had left that responsibility for someone else.

The last time he had actually stepped foot inside a hospital was after his unfortunate accident during CrashCon. Healing up in the unwelcoming, lonely hospital room for a week wasn’t fun but at least he hadn’t needed to worry about the condition of anyone else during that time.

No, the last time he’d been on the waiting for news end was during his last tour when several members of his team had been seriously injured.

Until now. Which is why part of him was glad that he wasn’t alone in his vigil.

“He must have been about eight, right?”

“Oh my god, there was blood everywhere!” Gregory grimaced as he looked over at him, horrified that his brother was even bringing up that memory.

Flint laughed softly at how uncomfortable the recollection had clearly made his brother, ”You felt so guilty! I don’t think you even got your guitar out of its case for months afterwards.”

Gregory shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. He wasn’t sure when this game between them of who had the most embarrassing moments had just straight up turned into a list of which brother had managed to injure another the most.

It was true though. He hadn’t slept properly for days after that incident. Every time he had closed his eyes he had seen Alex’s poor little face covered in blood and tears and snot and he’d felt the guilt brewing inside him. He had avoided the guitar out of fear that he would somehow manage to wound his brother with it again.

To this day he still makes sure that the instrument is kept off the floor.

“You know, growing up, I think that was the last time he was in the hospital where it wasn’t dad that put him there.” He replied sombrely.

Flint hummed in response. He had run out of words to say on that subject. It was a topic that had slipped frequently into discussions between the two of them during their months of reconciliation and it always ended in the acknowledgement of their guilt and desire to do better.

Gregory pressed the heel of his hand into his eye. It had been a long day and he could feel the hours catching up with him. “I really hoped I would never have to see him in a hospital again.”

"Were you there after he lost his leg?” Flint asked.

“No, I didn’t even know it had happened ’til months later. Did you?”

”No. I think Dad went though.”

“Seriously?”

Flint nodded with an unamused look on his face.

“Why? It’s not like he went to go play the loving father.” Gregory asked, genuinely confused as to why his dad would even bother to take the time to go and see Alex.

Flint shook his head as he repositioned himself again. At this rate he was honestly considering going on a hunt for a pillow. “That man didn’t know the first thing about being a loving father.”

Gregory’s brows furrowed as he failed to hide his surprise at that statement. The expression was so familiar and Flint couldn’t hold back an exasperated eye roll.

“Don’t give me that look, I may have followed in his footsteps but I know exactly what kind of man he was.”

Gregory watched as his brother played with the cuff of his jacket, his thumb and forefinger running along the edge before tugging uselessly at the material. It was a nervous habit that he’d always thought their father had managed to train out of Flint.

“Do you regret it? Following him?” He asked delicately, noticing how Flint’s eyes remained trained on his sleeve as he answered.

“We all followed him.”

“Into the military, yeah, we didn’t exactly have a choice. But on his little homicidal mission? The rest of us hopped that train before it reached the station.”

“Umm more like he didn’t even invite you onto the train. You have no idea what you would have done.” Flint replied defensively and Gregory was caught off guard by how much the look in Flint’s eyes reminded him of their mother.

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t have done that.” He teased, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah alright, well I’ve apologised, okay?” Flint rolled his eyes again as he leant over and gave his brother a playful shove.

Their conversation fell into a comfortable silence as their gaze drew back to the third presence in the room.

Alex hadn’t woken since Flint had found him but in the hours since they had brought him to the hospital his cheeks had gained more colour and he looked to be resting more peacefully.

Clean bandages hugged his various wounds, several IVs were in place to begin replenishing what Hughes had stolen and now all they needed was for him to wake up.

It was strange watching their brother sleep. The last time they would have had the chance was when they were all living under the same roof together, but Alex was always so guarded back then with their father in the house that he would never allow himself to be seen in such a vulnerable state. Starting after their mum had left, Greg could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Alex sleep and they’d all been due to illness or injury.

The hospital ambience of the room, along with Greg’s wandering mind, was interrupted by a text alert on Flint’s phone. He slid his hand into his front pocket and pulled out the device, unlocking it with a quick tap of four digits. He opened the message and Greg watched as his eyes scanned the words.

“It’s Clay. He says he’s glad we found him and to keep him updated.”

Greg’s eyes crinkled slightly as he smiled. It had been a long while since he’d seen Clay in person but he was glad to hear that their brother was also onboard for acting like a family again. “Who would have thought it. It only took us until our thirties but we’re all finally learning how to be brothers again.”

Flint opened his mouth, ready to give a sappy reply about how he much he’d missed the bond they’d all had during childhood, when a small groan from the bed caught his attention.

Alex’s brow was furrowed as he poked his tongue through his lips slightly - a tiny habit that Greg could recall seeing him do all the time when he was younger. After a few moments his eyes blinked open as he let out another involuntary groan.

Greg couldn’t help but grin as he watched Alex slowly register his surroundings. Being closer to the top of the bed than Flint, he leant forward and gently placed a comforting hand on Alex’s arm.

“Hey.” He whispered, keeping his voice low as to not startle his brother.

Alex turned his head slightly, his unfocused eyes drifting to the left as he followed the sudden sound. “Hey,” he replied, his words slow and soft. “You’re here?”

“Of course we’re here.” Greg began to rub his thumb back and forth along Alex’s arm in a soothing gesture. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

Greg was unsurprised at the answer. Alex’s eyes were already struggling to stay open. “Go back to sleep Alex. You’re safe now.”

Alex had only allowed his eyes to close again fully for a moment before they were flying open again, Michael’s name being drawn from his lips with a gasp.

Greg continued the soothing motion, bringing Alex’s gaze back to him. “He’s fine, he’s okay. He’ll probably be here the next time you wake up.”

Alex nodded as he let his body relax once more and drifted back to sleep.

Greg looked over to Flint to find him wearing a matching smile, nodding to himself in an unspoken acknowledgement. Alex was going to be okay.

-

The door to Alex’s room opened carefully.

Michael had noticed that the lights inside had been dimmed so he hadn’t wanted to wake anyone, though he was wholly unsurprised to find Greg and Flint watching him with raised eyebrows as he entered.

“Thought you were gonna try and get some sleep?” Flint asked in near amusement.

“I did get some sleep.”

Greg tilted his head sympathetically. “Michael, you’ve been gone barely an hour.”

Michael shrugged as he took a seat in the one remaining chair on the other side of the bed, “No one specified how much sleep.”

He had tried to get some rest but every time he closed his eyes it was like there was an invisible string yanking him back to the hospital.

Isobel had taken him home as soon as Kyle had assured them all that, in time, Alex would be fine. She had spent the drive spouting on and on about how he had been through as much of an ordeal as Alex had and he needed to rest and look after himself. Or at least let someone else look after him.

The words had been left hanging in the air between them for a good few minutes before he had fully registered her kindness. And then he had just felt a horrible pang of guilt deep in his stomach. Guilt that her compassion and protectiveness didn’t quite warm his heart as much as Alex’s had.

So he listened to her. He ate the small plate of food she had lovingly made for him. He drank the hot cup of tea that burnt his tongue. He showered, letting the scolding water wash away the overwhelming fear that had been building up inside him ever since he first woke up with his hands chained to a wall. And then he crawled into Isobel’s bed and tried to ignore the nervous energy that was still sitting heavily on his chest.

And he had slept a little, he wasn’t lying about that, but it was like his brain knew that there was somewhere else he should be and he just couldn’t take it any longer.

“How’s he doing?” He tugged at his bottom lip as he observed Alex’s still sleeping face.

“Better.” Greg nodded, taking a moment to hide a yawn with his hand. “The doctor came back while you were gone. Said he’s probably gonna be quite weak and achy for a few days at least. But the transfusions are helping and he should be fine.”

Michael ran a hand through his curls. It wasn’t much more information than Kyle had provided earlier but to hear that nothing had gone wrong in his brief absence was relieving.

“He woke up not too long ago.” Greg continued and Michael looked at him, somewhat horrified that Alex had woken without him. It must have shown on his face.

“Calm down Guerin,” Flint snorted, “it was for like thirty seconds, he probably won’t even remember it.”

Michael could practically feel the heat crawling up his cheeks. No matter how protective and borderline possessive he felt of Alex at the moment, it was still embarrassing for anyone but himself to be aware of that fact.

“No it’s good, I’m glad he’s okay.” Michael coughed as he tried to deflect the conversation.

But Greg seemed to know how to catch him off guard all of a sudden as he turned it back onto him. “And how are you feeling?”

Michael took a few seconds to process the fact that Alex’s brother seemed genuinely concerned in his questioning.

“I’m fine, my powers are back and everything.” He replied warily. With Jesse Manes gone, he knew that he wasn’t in any danger from anyone currently in the room, but it still felt strange talking about his alien abilities to any Manes man that wasn’t Alex. “I could probably do with a bit more sleep before I try to use them, but whatever Hughes did to me has worn off.”

“That’s good that it wasn’t permanent. We’ll still go through all the data that Hughes managed to collate though and find out exactly how much he knew.” Flint said strategically and Michael could practically see the mental to-do list he was creating in his head. “And as long as you’re aware that you should be sleeping, I think our job here is done.”

Greg smirked at his brother’s comment. It was very clear that getting Michael to rest was a battle they were not going to win tonight.

“Talking of sleep, you know you two look worse than I do and I was literally being held hostage a few hours ago. If you want to head home for a bit I can stay with Alex.” Michael said innocently as he watched Greg yawn once again.

“Greg, I think that’s code for he wants some alone time with our little brother.” Flint mocked in a hushed tone.

“Hmm I think you’re right Flint.” Greg joined in, watching as Michael’s eyes widened as he spluttered in defence. “Or do you think maybe it’s just our company he doesn’t like?”

“Oh definitely. He’s been waiting for the moment to get rid of us.”

“We must have done something really wrong considering the person he wants to be left with is still asleep right now.”

“That is so true Greg. I mean he’s clearly desperate so we should probably leave now before we make it even worse.”

Michael rolled his eyes as he failed to control his smile. It was a display of brotherly mocking that he never imagined he would ever experience from someone other than Max and Isobel and as embarrassing as it was, it was somewhat heartening to be on the receiving end of it.

Flint chuckled as he stood, his back instantly grateful to be out of the chair, and he took one last look at Alex before leading the way to the door.

“Text us if you need anything, okay?” Greg placed a hand on Michael’s shoulder as he passed him and squeezed reassuringly.

Michael nodded as he watched them leave, afraid to open his mouth incase no words came out around the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. Having seen the hateful side of the Manes men in action, there was something so heartwarming about seeing Alex’s brothers actually be brothers. And to be included in the familiarity was a whole new feeling entirely.

-

Michael looked out at the stars shining through the window. The lights were still dimmed which allowed the moonlight to fill the room around him with a soft, pale glow.

He still remembered all of the constellations that he had taught himself as a kid, back when he was so desperate to soar high into the sky to join them. Back when he’d give anything to find his home planet again.

But looking into the glimmering darkness now, he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d stared at the night sky in search of the home he was unwillingly torn away from.

In fact he couldn’t quite remember how long it had been since home, for him, had started to be a person again.

Michael made no attempt to stifle a yawn as he rubbed at his eyes. They were aching terribly and he could feel his body hopelessly crying for sleep but there was no way he was leaving until Alex was awake.

As if on cue, a small noise from beside him shook him out of his doziness.

He watched Alex’s throat bob as he swallowed reflexively before slowly blinking open his eyes.

“Hey,” Michael whispered. His voice so soft the word barely left his mouth.

Alex’s eyes wandered momentarily, seeking out the owner of the voice. Once his gaze locked with Michael’s, all Alex could do was stare, a small smile emerging as he took in Michael’s presence. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Michael looked at him tenderly as he leant forward and laced his fingers with Alex’s. A somewhat casually intimate move that he didn’t regret in the slightest. “And so are you.”

Alex looked down at the touch and relished in the warmth of Michael’s skin against his. The act of their hands together feeling so natural.

“How are you feeling?” Michael asked, his tired eyes looking longingly into Alex’s.

“Sore.” Alex replied and Michael couldn’t hold back the huff of laughter.

“Well, that’s what happens when you offer yourself up to be a guinea pig for a crazy psychopath.”

Alex playfully rolled his eyes at the accusation. He could practically feel his head pounding in time with his heart but he did his best to ignore it. He’d willingly accept the throbbing of his muscles and the coldness in his bones right now if it allowed him to just stay in this moment.

A few aches and pains were worth it. He was just glad to be alive.

“Did he hurt you?” He asked, enjoying the way the moonlight was shinning on Michael’s curls.

“No, he didn’t touch me.” Michael assured him, “Isobel, Flint and Kyle got us out before he could do anything else.”

“How did they find us?”

“Turns out Sanders was still at the junkyard. Luckily he managed to catch the tail end of our little kidnapping so he called Isobel who called everyone and they spent the entire night trying to figure out who had taken us.”

Michael still couldn’t believe the luck they’d been in that the old man had chosen that night to stay late. They may never have been found if he hadn’t.

“Flint went to the bunker to look for possible alien connections when he found emails between Hughes and your dad. He recognised the name as someone he worked with in Caulfield so he followed the trail and it led him to us.”

Alex added another bullet point to his mental Project Shepard to-do list. If thoroughly digging into every email on the bunker’s computers was what was needed to prevent Michael being targeted again, then so be it.

“Of course he won’t tell me how it led him to us. It seems that’s classified.” Michael brought up the hand not holding Alex’s to do some one-sided air quotes.

“What about Hughes and his men?”

Michael shrugged, “Dealt with, apparently. Your brother is very secretive when he wants to be.”

“Must be a Manes thing.” Alex smirked sleepily.

“They were here earlier by the way. Flint and Gregory. They would have stayed but I used my charm to convince them that you’d much prefer to see my face over their’s any day.”

Michael winked at him and Alex felt butterflies. “Always.”

Michael gazed down at their locked fingers as he slowly ran his thumb up and down in a comforting gesture. He knew what he wanted to say next, but the words just felt so big and he needed to get them right.

“You shouldn’t have protected me like that. And I shouldn’t have let you.” He began sincerely.

“Michael-”

“But I’m grateful that you did.”

Alex’s lips parted but he couldn’t find the right words quick enough.

“We need to talk. Like properly talk. But what happened today, it made me realise how stupid it is to not be honest about how I feel.” Michael looked up and could see how intently Alex was listening. His beautiful brown eyes eager and hopeful.

“I can use as many excuses as I like. How we’re not good for each other. How it’s not our time right now. But you almost died, Alex. And if you had, it would have killed me. And if you had gone not knowing how much I care about you.” Michael shook his head as he looked away. The lump forming in his throat again. “I’m completely and totally in love with you Alex Manes. Always have been, always will. I can’t run away from it anymore and I’m done hiding it.”

Alex bit his lip as he felt the tears start to form in his eyes. He had been waiting to hear those words for so long.

He had been waiting to say them for even longer.

“I’ll never stop protecting you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate that before. I’m sorry I’ve pushed you away in the past and I’m sorry that I wasn’t ready. But I’m ready now.” Alex grinned, almost giddy at the declaration, “I love you Michael Guerin. Always have, always will.”

Michael could feel his heart hammering in his chest as his breath caught in his throat. He pursed his lips in an attempt to curb the ridiculous grin that was threatening to unfurl.

He gently unlaced his fingers, pushed himself out of the chair and leant over to delicately cup Alex’s cheeks, feeling the cool skin under his palms.

As dramatic love declarations go, tonights was pretty remarkable. But maybe it was exactly what they needed. They were here, they were alive and they were in love. That was the truth, spoken aloud with only the stars as their witness and there was no taking it back.

And Michael didn’t want to wait a second longer as he closed his eyes and met Alex’s lips with his own.

It was a gentle kiss. Slow and sweet and just as perfect as he remembered it being.

It was home.

[kiribaku-fics-whatever]

Slow burn

So guys, there were just too much Slow burns to share, so I'm doing more than one list, still don't know how many... Also, I lot of them are like classics, and my favorites!Hope yall enjoy!

Kokoronashi by chiisanaai

It started the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once. There wasn’t a single moment of realization for Katsuki Bakugou, no specific point on his mind’s map that he could point to and say, “There! That’s when it happened.” As with all people, he was constantly developing, feelings coming and going, some fading into obscurity, others growing into a deafening crescendo that took over his thoughts, kept him up at night, spread a particularly spectacular brand of ache through him. Slowly, then all at once.

No Secrets to Sucess by kingdoms

“Hey!” Kirishima says brightly, stepping sideways to be directly in the guy’s path. “I know you!”

“Fuck off,” the guy snarls, pushing past him and barely slowing down.

Kirishima is forced to start his first semester at UA two months late. Somehow he still meets Bakugou Katsuki, makes the most of those two months, and gains a tutor, a best friend, and an exciting way to scandalize his new peers.

Canon AU where Kirishima and Bakugou become friends before Kirishima meets the rest of Class 1-A.

Moment of Truth by Fanficismything

Faced with deportation from Japan, high strung Bakugo Katsuki accepts a marriage of convenience with his partner and co-worker, Kirishima Eijirou. A suspicious immigration officer has him playing along on a trip to Kirishima's family home for his birthday, and is suddenly thrust into the middle of many, many eager friends and relatives, all delighted to know Kirishima's fiance. The longer he stays and sees Kirishima in his element, the more Bakugo unpacks his own feelings on the matter, and on Kirishima himself.

A fanfiction based on the 2009 movie The Proposal that turned into its own storyline and lovingly stuffed full of cliches.

so take my hand(your life will be brighter) by multiclassmaps

When a stranger shows up at the ice rink during Bakugou's usually private training sessions, Bakugou expects to hate him. He doesn't expect to develop feelings that become increasingly difficult to deny, or for them to help each other sort through their emotional baggage.

-

Bakugou really didn't like Kirishima's smile. There was something about it that made his stomach hurt, something about it that made it difficult to focus. He definitely hadn't thought about that smile on his way to the ice rink that day. He definitely hadn't.

quote love unquote by newamsterdam

Sero nods. “It’s the chance of a lifetime, really,” he says. “We want you to date Bakugou, for the sake of his reputation with the press. Some public appearances, a few ‘candid’ photos. For at least a couple of months.”

“Bakugou sent you to ask me to date him?” Kirishima asks, baffled.

“Of course not. We, his people, are asking you to date him. He’s going to have to get on board, if he wants his career to survive. And in the bargain, Riot will get all sorts of publicity, because their lyricist will be dating one of the industry’s hottest stars. A win for everyone.”

When Kirishima Eijirou's band hits the big time, he's not prepared for his newfound fame. He's even less prepared to meet the actor he's been crushing on for years, or to start dating him as a publicity stunt. The closer Kirishima gets to Bakugou Katsuki, the more he realizes he's in over his head. But it's hard to stop, once his heart is in it.

the fool's rush by chonideno

Settling down with each other is naturally what comes after being dorm neighbors for years. It’s time to navigate through adulthood together, to live the daily grind of being pro-heroes, to learn more than they thought they’d like to know about each other, about themselves.

Or how Bakugou and Kirishima find a way to call each other “home” and struggle with the realization that once all their bills are on auto-pay, the only thing they still have to deal with is this pit full of feelings they have ignored for too long.

When You Let Your Heart Win by tea_at_yazes

Bakugou Katsuki finally achieves his dream of becoming Number One Hero, but he still feels like something is missing.

A Meme A Day by PorcelainRose

Boarding school is bullshit. School is bullshit, and Bakugou Katsuki wants nothing to do with it. He doesn't give a shit about grades or homework or any of that crap, and he's more than tired of the damn principal breathing down his neck every second of the day. And to add a cherry on top of the shit sundae that is high school, he suddenly gets reassigned rooms and ends up with a way-too-fucking enthusiastic Hair-for-Brains idiot who's probably got the biggest, dumbest smile he's ever seen. Of-fucking-course.

~

Kirishima's always been happy to meet people and make new friends. Needless to say, he's ecstatic when he's informed that he's finally getting assigned a roommate after a month of living alone in a dorm room. He's more than happy to welcome his new roommate with a smile and help him out with anything he needs. He isn't expecting, however, to meet a seriously attractive blonde with intense irises that shine with his favorite color, and who he also has trouble keeping his own eyes off of.

If I Don't Act... by SilentNorth

The problem with this city is that it's no one's destination, yet they're all stuck here one way or another. It chews you up and spits you back out again. They all have their scars, plenty of problems to cover up and whether or not that's what's keeping them in this city remains to be seen. Eijirou's problem is that he has a hero complex not even his closest friends can talk him out of. It's not his fault. The police are never there and he doesn't want to leave anyone feeling helpless. He's been there. But if they all just keep smiling and pretending everything is okay, then it will be. Eijirou will make sure of that.

Bakugou Katsuki throws a wrench into everything. He can save himself, thank you very much.

Seven Years of Summer by dr_awkward221

"Katsuki was leaning his head against the car window, cheek pressed against the plastic body of the door, feeling the vibrations reverberate in his skull. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be stuck in the car for hours and hours only to arrive in a half deserted village in the middle of nowhere where probably only old people lived.

[...] He didn't care about nature, he didn't care about rivers, mountain animals or stupid old trees.

He wanted to stay at home, where every normal ten year old kid was spending the summer."

Or how Bakugo Katsuki, a lonesome and surly city boy, spends seven summer breaks in the mountains he will grow to hold close to his heart. And where, waiting for him, he always finds Eijirou, with his messy dark hair, carefree smile, sun-burned skin and wide eyes full of wonder. His opposite in almost every visible way, but who maybe understands him more than Katsuki could ever imagine.

Almost Midnight by justyourtypicalfangirl

A look at the odd friendship of Bakugou Katsuki and Kirishima Eijirou over the course of ten years.

One that only ever exists on New Year's Eve each year.

(inspired by 'Almost Midnight' by Rainbow Rowell)

to bear fruit(from clay, in direct sunlight) by taegg

Bakugou dreams and wakes with a fading afterimage of a peach rind sunset and a red dragon painted on a longboard. And a vague, stray thought that maybe he shouldn't give up when he hasn't really tried, that maybe the boy who rides a dragon could really be his.

Bakugou meets a boy with the wind in his hair and feet that don’t touch the ground. Two years pass, during which he learns to carve smooth lines on a longboard, and that he's allowed to love.