#that feeling of being in a perpetual state of awe and delight at their very existence

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

don't mind me, i'm just thinking about the studio brussel interview photos yet again 🫠

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

[thiswasinevitableid]

#56, OT4, NSFW if possible. Thank you for providing Winter-y cheer for us all!

You’re welcome! And this is indeed NSFW

56. my little sibling/cousin makes me sit on santa’s lap and when santa asks me what I want for christmas, I blurt “someone to love” and you’re the cute elf that overhears (or I blurt ….[insert here]) 

He’s exhausted, but he promised he’d take his cousins to see Santa after work while his aunt does some shopping. As is traditional, half the Newton family is already in town, even though it’s three and a half weeks until Christmas. 

Dove and Robin each take their turns, and then insist in that terrifyingly forceful way of six year olds that Duck do so as well. Given he nearly blew it last year when they asked him if Santa was real, he decides he should play along. At least he changed out of his work uniform first so fewer of the other mall employees will recognize him as a twenty-three year old man sitting on Santa’s lap.

“And what would you like for Christmas, young man?”

“Ned, please, make this easy” he hisses at the man playing Santa. 

“Well, then, answer the question dear boy.”

“I, uh, I really want…”

He can’t lie and say something bland, and the only thing he’s really hoping for this winter is-

“I want to get laid.”

He regrets the words and all of his life choices as Ned booms out a laugh. His cousins are too busy studying the toys strewn about the room to hear, so he counts that as his luck for the day, takes their hands, and hurries off into the mall.

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

“He really said that?” Barclay looks back at Stern as he restocks cookbooks.

“Yes. I was photo elf today so he didn’t see me cracking up.”

“Don’t know why they hide their cutest elf away like that.”

“Because I’m tall.” 

Barclay turns, glances around to be sure no one is watching, and kisses his cheek. 

“Nah, you’re perfect.”

He blushes; even after nine months of dating, Barclay has a way of acting as if he’s in a perpetual state of falling for him. 

“What did the guy look like?”

“On the shorter side, and his eyes where two different colors. Works at R.E.I.” It’s his best attempt to protect Duck’s dignity.

A conspiratorial smile crosses his boyfriends face, “Keep an eye out for my manager for a sec, babe?”

“Of course. What are you doing?”

“Matchmaking. I hope.”

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

Duck’s on duty in the tent and sleeping bag area when Indrid Cold appears. Indrid works at the tattoo shop across the way, and has a habit of taking lunch the same time Duck does, sitting on a metal bench and trying to draw. The mall gets crowded and loud around then, and two months ago Duck started sneaking him into a back corner of the store so he can have lunch in peace. Indrid, a few years his senior, with his tongue piercing and tattoos, the ratty black pants and various tank-tops that show off a skinny frame Duck would love to get his hands on, is the kind of guy Duck would’ve had a crush on.

Now, Indrid is the kind of guy who makes him so hard he does embarrassing-ass things like say “I need to get laid” in front of his cousins.

Indrid leans his shoulder on the wall, grinning, red glasses making him resemble the mothman tattoo on his right arm. 

“Howdy, sir, got questions about the tents?” Duck smirks. 

“Indeed. Which one is best for sex?”

Duck barks out a laugh, claps a hand over his mouth when a nearby shopper gives him a funny look. 

“Any that ain’t a one-person deal. That your way of tellin me you got a hot date tonight?”

“I might” Indrid peers of the rims of his glasses, “a little bird told me you had a rather, ah, explicit Christmas wish.”

“Aw fuck, who even heard me othern’n Ned?” 

“I suspect it was Joseph. Poor man is stuck being an elf, and it was Barclay who texted me the hint.”

“Ughhhhwait-” Duck stares at him, “you came over here to ask me if, uh, if I wanted to, uh-”

“Yes. Oh dear, was my innuendo unclear? Or was it not even an innuendo?”

Duck has him against the wall in two steps, not touching him but bringing his mouth up to growl in his ear

“Your place, sugar?”

“I get off at seven.”

“Won’t be the only time you get off, I gauran-goddamn-tee it.”

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

Indrid’s grip is flatteringly eager as he pins Duck to the door of his trailer.

“Damn, sugar, didn’t know you wanted me that badAhnnnnnohfuckyeah.” He rolls his hips as Indrid yanks his collar down to set hickeys in his skin.

“I have though you were attractive from the moment I saw you, and have wanted to fuck you since that time you made yourself laugh so hard you nearly snorted soda out of your nose.”

“Kinky.” 

“I meant” Indrid grabs and shoves and guides him across the floor, “that the moment I saw that smile I wanted to see what other smiles I could draw from you.” The kiss is a counterpoint the heated touches, so gentle and sincere Duck changes course.

“Fuck it” he hops up onto the kitchen table, discarded illustrations crunching under him, “I can’t wait anymore, you’re so fuckin cute, all fuckin romantic and shit.” He pulls him down into another kiss, groans as clever fingers undo his pants. Duck shifts as Indrid gets them mostly down, refusing to break the kiss all the while. The wire of the taller man’s glasses bumps his skin, and he finally gives in, pulling away so he can guide them off Indrid’s face. 

“I’d very much like to touch.” Indrid’s fingers are tense, poised on Duck’s thighs. He looks shyer without the glasses, almost virginal, which is fucking remarkable for a guy who came onto him in broad daylight. 

“Touch whatever you like, sugar, long as you let me do it back.”

“Gladly. I, ah, that is, should I stay on the outside?” 

He thinks, trying to sty a step ahead of his own brain to see if this is a day where penetration might set it off. 

“This time, yeah.” Duck hooks his legs round Indrids, keeping them close. 

“Does...that mean there might be a next time?” Indrid is gnawing his chapped bottom lip.

Duck waits for him to meet his eyes, then nods so Indrid can know what comes next is pure teasing. 

“Depends on how well you doOHfuck, ‘Drid, that’s it sugar, c’mon, jack me off.” He grinds his hips, Indrid experimenting with different movements, grinning every time Duck moans. 

“Touch me, please, Duck, I want you, want you so much.”

It takes a few seconds of fumbling and two muttered “fucks” before he gets Indrid’s pants undone enough to get his hand around his cock. A tattoo peeks out over either hip, and Duck decides his new plan for the winter is to discover every inch of Indrid’s skin with his mouth and hands. 

There’s a whine as Indrid buries his face into Duck’s shoulder, working him harder as Duck’s fingers go slick with pre-cum. 

“I, I am not going to last very long, wanted this too long, too much”

“Then cum for me, sugar.” He picks up the pace and in four strokes discovers Indrid isn’t kidding, the silver-haired man cumming down his hand. 

“D-don’t stop, don’t stop until I’ve made you cum. AH, ahnnnyes, yes” Indrid squirms with a delighted smile.

“You like that? Knowin I’m gonna wring you dry unless you get me off?” 

“Yes!”

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin needy, you’ll even take me bein rough just so you can fuck me.” He gives up on being gentle, moans when this makes Indrid find just the right pressure and speed. When he cums he let’s go of his cock, uses both hands to drag Indrid into a kiss and feels him shuddering with pleased little sounds. 

“Jesus fucking christ.” He slumps back on his elbows as Indrid drops into a chair, forehead resting on the table “shoulda opened my big mouth in front of Joe sooner.”

“Mmmhmm” Indrid bumps his arm with his nose. Then he cracks his eyes open, the shyness back full-force, “if, ah, if you need to get home I understand but, ah, I was wondering if you’d like to stay awhile?”

“Told my folks I’d be out late. You anglin to cuddle and steal my body heat?”

“Maybe.” A kiss to his arm now, Indrid gazing at him adoringly. 

“Then I’m gonna snuggle the hell out of you.”

Soon they’re nestled under the covers of Indrid’s bed, watching the Repair Shop and talking, Duck’s head on Indrid’s chest. 

“Kinda funny that our exes set us up, ain’t it?”

“You consider Joseph an ex?”

“Kinda? Sounds better than “friend I fucked a few times Freshman year of college.”

“True. I must admit, the thought does make me wish I’d been a fly on the wall.” Indrid freezes as soon as the sentence hits the air, “ah, that’s, I apologize, that just sort of came out.”

“No harm done.” Duck kisses the top of his head, ignoring the ideas conjured up by the admission. Why stick to Indrid watching when he could be involved? And he bets Indrid goes full-on tease with Barclay, something he’d love to see, and there is definitely a recurring fantasy of fucking Joe from behind while someone else came down his throat….

Later. He can think about those things later. Right now, he’s utterly content and happy to focus on the lilting voice rambling about art restoration and the bony hand holding his own. 

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

A side benefit of Duck and Indrid getting together is that they can now go on double-dates with himself and Barclay. Or, as Joseph is starting to call them “put all three men he’s attracted to in a room to see if he cracks” dates. He honestly didn’t mean for it to become that, but the more time they all spend together, the less he can deny the wish that it was just one, four-person date. 

His feelings for Barclay are self-explanatory; he’s his boyfriend of nearly a year who, among other things, treats eating him out as something akin to a religious experience. Indrid, he now understands, plays at his long-running interest in the strange and unusual. The fact his intriguing exterior hides someone a little awkward and very well meaning makes it all the better.

And then there’s Duck. They’d hooked-up a few times in college, when Joseph was newly out as trans, and being with someone who wasn’t weird about it had been the icing on the beefcake (a phrase he used once and made Duck laugh and fall off the bed). Duck has only gotten better with age and, looking at his strong arms and rounded face, the ass he wants to sink his fingers into, Joseph understands that the awe he felt whenever Duck was naked wasn't solely to do with the newness of the act. If ever there was a body to be worshiped, it’s Duck’s.

So, yeah, he’s had a lot to think about while listening to parents art director their children for their picture with Santa. 

Tonights “double date” is a little odd. He and Barclay are each getting a small tattoo (not matching, he’s too sure that’s a way to jinx things) courtesy of Indrid, with Duck tagging along so they can all go to dinner after. Barclay is the last client of the day, and Indrid’s boss locked the four of them in with a reminder to Indrid to arm the alarm when he leaves. Duck flips through magazines as Joseph reads off Buzzfeed Unsolved conspiracy theories for his entertainment. 

“You should do one of those shows. You got that whole nerdy but stylish thing going for you.”

“Duck, my work uniform is an elf costume.”

“But the rest of the time you look like Special Agent Cooper.”

He blushes, “Special Intern Stern is more like it.”

“You’re gettin there, city mouse.”

He looks up at the old pet name, just in time to see Duck throw an Adbusters up as cover and start talking about the image he’s staring out. Joseph lets him. For now. 

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

“There. A safely wrapped present to yourself.” Indrid double-checks the bandage on Barclay’s upper arm. 

“Thanks, man. Can’t wait to see what it looks like all healed. Sure it’s gonna look fucking great.” Barclay still sounds a little shaky from the adrenaline. 

Indrid allows himself a burst of pride that his friend thinks so highly of his work, “I just need to clean up and then we can be on our way.”

Barclay gives an affirmative grunt, staying in his chair. There’s a spike of fear in Indrid’s stomach; did he do something wrong? Is Barclay about to pass out?

Circling the chair to check replaces the fear with pure, skin-prickling lust. 

“My, my, is this why you’ve waited so long to get a tattoo?” 

Barclay whines, shaking his head, his eyes shut and his cock pitching an obscene tent in his jeans. 

“Are you lying?”

“N-no. I, uh, I mean I like pain, but I didn’t think this would happen.”

“That’s a new development.” Indrid leans against his workbench, enjoying the view. 

“Joseph and I have been trying out a bunch of things, figuring out what we like.”

“How very methodical. And unfortunate; if memory serves, once you get wound up it takes time for you to unwind.”

“Indrid please” Barclay’s gritting his teeth. Indrid’s remembering just how fun it is to have such a big man wrapped around his finger. 

“Please what?” He cocks his head.

“I, fuck, I dunno, talk about weird morbid shit. Disasters. Anything that will make it go down.”

A sinful image enters his mind, unshakeable in it’s appeal. 

“I can do you one better. Joseph? Would you come here? I need your help.”

Barclay’s eyes snap open, Indrid grinning at the excitement in them. 

“Is everything alright?” Joseph steps through the door, Duck poking his head in worriedly after him. 

Indrid points to Barclays cock, “I have to clean up, and that needs to be seen to.”

“And you want me to, um, see to it with you two in the room?”

“Only if you are both comfortable-”

“Yes” Barclay and Joseph say it at the same time, the dark haired man crossing the floor and dropping to his knees in front of his boyfriend.

“Should I, uh?” Duck glances between the three. So polite, even when Indrid can see the flush spreading up his skin from here. 

“Please stay.” Joseph is panting, in spite of only now getting Barclay’s zipper down. 

“Barclay?”

“Fine by me, man. Long as you know I’m gonna fuck your boyfriend into the floor for fucking with me like this.”

“That I’d like to see.” Duck shuts the door, grabbing Indrid’s chair so he can sit.

“There is one caveat, sweetheart; you are not allowed to cum right now. I promise I’ll show you new ways of being rough with me if you do.”

“You drive a hard bargain, sugar.”

“No fucking kidding, maybe you should get to fuck him before me since he’s being so meEEan, fuck, yes babe, goddamn I love your mouth.” Barclay arches in the chair as Joseph sucks him off. Indrid’s own cock perks up at the sight, becomes insistent as he turns his back and cleans to the sound of Barclay growling profanity in time with the wet sound of his cock defiling Joseph’s throat. 

He gets things cleaned and in order as fast as his rapidly dwindling focus will let him, turns back to see Barclay whimpering as Joseph kisses and licks along his shaft. Duck is still seated, rubbing his thighs together as he watches them, hands digging into the faux-leather seat. Indrid supposes he should scold him for stimulating himself, but he looks so very handsome right now.

Instead, he strides over to the pair in his client seat and fists his hand into Josephs hair, gelled strands breaking free in his fingers as he guides his mouth back over Barclay’s thick cockhead.

“We do not have all night, pet. So get to it Snap twice if it needs to stop.” He pushes him down by his hair until Barclay’s pressing the back of his throat, then yanks him almost all the way up. Joseph moans steadily, blue eyes darting between him and Barclay beneath black lashes as Indrid forces him up and down. 

“Fuck, babe, you look so fucking good on your knees, taking my cock like a good boy.”

“Ahem.” Indrid manages to look stern. Barclay is just able to tilt his head up enough for Indrid to dip down and kiss his full lips.

“Thank you, baby, thank you for letting me get offAHshitshit.”

“Close, dearest?”

“Uhuh, socloseohfuck”

“Do you want to cum down his throat?”

“So bad, Indrid, please.”

“You heard him, pet.” He holds Joseph’s head down, pre-cum thoroughly staining his pants as Barclay jerks up and Joseph frantically gulps him down. He brings his head up without warning, gathering the stray droplets of cum from his lips and fucking them into his mouth with his fingers.

“Good boy.” He purrs and Joseph whimpers happily. 

He looks at Duck, and for a moment he’s terrified he went too far, ignored him for too long. His boyfriend’s eyes are wide and dark, locked onto where Joseph is still eagerly sucking his fingers. Slowly, his gaze drags up to Indrid, crooked smile blossoming as it does. 

“Indrid Cold, you’re a fuckin genius, and I am gonna fuck you into next week.”

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

It’s not next week, but it is ten at night and Indrid is being fucked well into it. 

They’re at Joseph’s apartment, his lack of roommates giving them optimal privacy, and Indrid is on his back on the tidily made bed. Barclay fucks him hard, grunting out thank yous for the privilege, which Indrid would reward with praise were his mouth not currently occupied with Duck riding his face. Joseph is near his head as well, having cum earlier via Barclay’s tongue (“this one of the best goddamn things in the world and I’m gonna show you two how to do it right”) and now rapturously groping Duck. Indrid can’t quite hear all the praise he’s directing at Duck’s body, but he’s going to hazard a guess he agrees with the statements.

“Can, fuck, can one of you make him cum? Wanna feel this demanding little ass tighten.”

“On it.” Joseph grips his cock and oh, no wonder Barclay looks so blissful most days. The man gives masterful handjobs and Indrid cums hard, whimpering when neither Duck nor Barclay lets up. The base of Barclay’s cock thuds against his ass so hard he’s wondering if that part of him can bruise, and Joseph switches his attention to Indrid’s nipple piercings, toying with him just like Duck demonstrated, Indrid squeaking as he sucks Duck’s dick. 

There’s a groan as Barclay cums, working himself through it in Indrid’s increasingly sensitive ass while Duck cums on his face, petting his hair as his hips jerk. 

When he’s finally able to sit up, it’s to a portrait of tender debauchery. Barclays head is on his stomach, his beard and hair a royal mess that Joseph is gently stroking down to some semblance of order. Duck is snuggled up beside him, kissing his shoulders and holding Indrid’s hand. 

“That was, um, something.” Joseph murmurs. 

“A whole hell of a lot of somethin.” Duck opens his free arm so Indrid can nestle against him, Barclay shifting to put his head onto Joseph's thigh. 

“Is it...something we wish to happen again?” Indrid’s nerves creep back up.

“Hell yeah.”

“Yes.”

“Yep.”

“Thank goodness. I. Ah. I am realizing I am fond of all three of you and, ah, very attracted to all three of you as well.”

“We should lay out some ground rules, right?” 

Barclay’s stomach growls, “For sure, babe. But can we please get dinner while we do? I’m gonna start eating the strap on. 

“You better not, that one was expensive.”

They clean up themselves and the room, frequent kisses prolonging the process. As Barclay orders pizza and Indrid starts water for tea, Joseph loops an arm around Duck’s shoulders.

“We should get you to blurt out Christmas wishes more often.”

“You got a deal. Just, next time, not in front of Ned.”

[darth-void]

On the Streets of Coruscant

Chapter 3 

~

AN: Thank you @sydnubabu for being my beta and catching all the commas I miss, there were so many, thank you! 

Rated G (for now 😏)

Words: 3k 

~

You heard your comlink chirp early one morning as you were getting ready for the day. It was Maul attempting to contact you. You checked yourself in the mirror quickly, and answered his call. 

“Maul, what a pleasant surprise.” 

“My lady, I hope I am not bothering you this early.” 

“No, it’s fine, I’m an early riser. To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“You said before that you would like to take a ride on my speeder bike when it is finished. Is that interest still there?” He asked. 

“Y-yes, certainly,” you answered, trying to hide your growing excitement. 

“Splendid. I have finished it and done several test-drives. It is ready for me to show you.” Is that a smirk? You thought to yourself. He looks pleased. Paired with his perpetually furrowed brow, he looked almost wicked. 

“Well, it’s a good thing you called early, there is no session at the senate today, and I had yet to make plans. Until now.” You smiled as you spoke with Maul. You were privately eager to hear from Maul again, your last encounter hopeful for another one, and it came sooner than you imagined. “My apartment has a small landing platform off the balcony, I can be ready in an hour, if that works for you.” 

“I shall be there, my lady.” And with that, the call ended. 

~

Maul was waiting at the dock outside your apartment on his speeder bike. He had ditched his hooded flowing robes for a more sleek look for the ride. He saw you making your way out of your apartment and noticed you too had decided on trousers and boots over your usual formal senate robes that he was used to seeing you in. 

You started to head outside and your security captain had begun to follow, so you stopped, within hearing distance of Maul. 

“Captain, I promise you, I will not need you for this. I trust Maul to keep me safe, and I will stick with him for the duration.” 

“Senator, please-“ Captain Cen began to protest, but you cut him off. 

”We talked about this, and you are staying.” You had a finality in your voice that Maul assumed you used while working in the Senate. He liked hearing you exert your power. 

“Are we ready, my lady?” Maul said standing next to his bike as you approached. 

“Yes, quite.” You smiled at him, excited for the ride. You looked at the bike and noticed the seating was a bit cramped. “So, how will this work?” 

“Unfortunately, this speeder was not exactly built with two riders in mind, but I think there is a way for us to fit well enough.” 

“Will it be safe?” 

“You’ll always be safe with me.” 

Maul went to sit on the speeder bike, straddling it, and making sure to scoot back. 

“You’ll sit in front of me, here” he gestured to the small bit of padding left between his legs. You looked a little apprehensive, then he held out his gloved hand to ease you in. 

The fit was tight, but it looked like Maul had found a way to adjust his handlebars and the backrest so you both fit and he could still reach around you to steer the bike. You were a bit scrunched up with your legs bent and feet resting on the bars above the footrests. Maul’s arms reached around you and caged you in close to his chest as he started up the bike. When you both were situated and as comfortable as possible, he took off. 

 ~

Maul stopped the speeder bike and helped you off first. You stepped away and looked out over a vast vantage point, a panoramic view of the main hub of Coruscant. You could see the Jedi temple off in the distance, and the Senate building. The view reminded you of your first time on the ecumenopolis, the start of your Senate work, and the awe you felt in those early days and weeks, looking out at the vast city from your apartment. 

“How have the proceedings been going in the senate lately?” Maul asked you as you took in the view. He could sense you wanted to talk. 

“It has been… difficult. As always. Some days I do not know why I want to be a senator. Getting bogged down in petty squabbling and nothing ever happening.” You let out a little huff. “But, I do not know what else I would do, honestly. This does truly feel like what I should be doing. It’s just- it can be difficult most days.” You looked back at Maul who was casually leaning on his speeder. “That is why I’m glad I got your holo this morning. I needed a good break away from work.” 

“You said you were not going into the Senate today,” Maul stated quizzically. 

“Yes, that is true, but I do not have much of a life outside of my work, and I usually spend days off in my study preparing my work.” You had a feeling that Maul was the same, always working and never truly having time for himself. “What of your life, Maul. Have you been busy with… apprenticing?” 

“I always am. If I am not busy with a specific task put out for me to do, my master insists I spend any free time doing work for myself. That’s how this speeder came to be.” 

“A pet project then. Lovely. Tell me about it then. You said you made this from scratch?” You asked. 

“Nearly. It is from a Razalon design that I stripped apart to pieces and rebuilt completely to my specific requirements,” Maul replied. 

You enjoyed Maul opening up and hearing about his passions. 

“I named it Bloodfin, after a powerful and deadly creature. The Bloodfin are a dark red, semi-aquatic predator native to the oceans of Bastion. For the rebuild, I had its energy systems modified to divert all power to speed. It can go 650 kilometers per hour, but I was sure to make it silent.” 

“Are you a predator like this fish, Maul?” You toyed. 

Maul smirked at that but stayed silent. 

“There is something to be said for working with your hands,” you said. 

“Indeed.” 

The two of you shared a look… 

“Come, let’s continue,” you said to Maul and walked back to the speeder. 

~ 

Maul drove you around all over the city, no true direction in mind. He often took long rides and knew the city well. Maul always felt a sense of emptiness and frustration as an apprentice under Darth Sidious, so he would often take to the streets. 

You two also stopped at specific places throughout your trip through the city, once for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall eatery Maul claimed was decent for the likes of a senator, and he was pleased to see you actually enjoyed it. Maul told you half-truths about how he came to know the area so well. He did have work in various parts of the city, sent by his master. For mechanical reasons, they were not. He drove with you until the sun went down and the city lights grew brighter before he headed back to your apartment. 

As you got to your apartment, Captain Cen walked out to meet you, clearly having been worrying all the hours you were gone. 

“Senator, good to see you back safely,” he said to you, then eyed Maul suspiciously. Maul smirked back at the man. 

“Yes, I appreciate your concern, I’m back and now you can rest easy. Thank you for today but that will be all.” You quickly dismissed Captain Cen, but he stood there with a confused look. 

“My lady?” 

“You are relieved for the night. You may leave a single guard at my door if you insist, but that will be all.” To Maul’s delight, you spoke again with that authority in your voice, and Captain Cen had no choice but to submit. 

“Very well, my lady. I will leave one person for you tonight. Good night.” He gave a quick bow of his head, and he was off. 

You turned back with a smile to Maul, who was still sitting on his speeder. 

“So, would you like to join me for dinner again?” 

“Certainly, my lady,” Maul replied and gladly dismounted. 

~

The two of you ate with a more casual conversation, a big difference from the first dinner you shared with him. Maul spoke little still, but it was better than nothing. Not to get too cocky, you felt pride in cracking his hard shell throughout the day and seeing a tiny sliver of him. 

“I am trying for a different approach this time around. The Republic has an army, though a small one since we are a galaxy at peace right now. And the Senate has its delegates that form committees, what need is there to send the Jedi to do Republic bidding? I do not believe that the Jedi should be sent on behalf of the Senate to participate in negotiations. Negotiators. Ha! Why do they need those dangerous weapons for peaceful negotiations, hm? They should just stick to being religious beings that hole up in their precious temple learning about the force.” 

You finished your small rant and felt a little better, but also a little guilty once again at unloading so much on a new friend. You took quite a big swig of your drink and placed the glass a little too forcefully on the table. The two of you had finished dinner and were standing at your balcony and looking out at the city. 

“I’m sorry, I know I can get a little passionate when I drink, I-“ 

“Do not apologize for your rage, your passion. Let it out. I encourage it, let me hear your anger and see your feelings.” Maul’s eyes were lit up, they looked to literally be glowing. He looked like he basked in your rage, to see it flow freely from you in a moment of your unguarded true self. 

“It’s just- They take children from their families! And so young… it's all so they can brainwash them into believing their ways, so they don’t know of anything other than the order.” At these words you noticed Maul's face darken. 

“Were you…” you started quietly. You felt you shouldn’t continue in this exact question. Instead, you changed your direction.  “I feel like I don’t know enough about you, Maul. May I ask you something?” You looked at him, and he made no gesture of acceptance or refusal, so you went ahead anyway. “Do you have a family?” The question was a little out of the blue, but you knew where you hoped this line of questioning would go. 

Maul did not answer, but looked down. His brow still held his scowl. 

“Are you force sensitive?” 

Maul stayed pointedly silent. You took that as an answer in itself. You were almost sure you knew the answer anyways. 

“The night you saved me in that alley, you were not close enough to the man, and I saw him get thrown against the wall. I wasn’t sure what had happened initially because it all happened so quickly, but… I played it back in my mind after you left my house that night.” 

Still silence. 

You started to languidly step closer to Maul, but he stayed still as you approached him. 

“Is that why you dislike the Jedi?” You asked him. “They didn’t come for you.” You whispered so low, but he heard you. He looked down at that, then you took one last step and were so close to him …

You gently put a hand to his cheek, thumb lightly brushing against his prominent cheekbone. He looked back up, and his glowing eyes were boring into yours. His face was the most gentle you had ever seen it, the creases around his brow relaxed and soft. 

Maul finally spoke, his voice low yet clear. “I do not remember my family. I was… given to my master as his apprentice when I was very young. I have been here ever since. He raised me, taught me. He is not an easy man to know, but he has trained me well through the years.” He paused for a second, his eyes giving away his internal conflict of whether he should go on. 

“You are correct in your guess. I am force sensitive. Though the Jedi not taking me in is not my reason for hating them. I-“ he paused, figuring out if he could twist the truth into the lies he’s already told you. “I cannot say. It is a long and terrible story. Maybe someday, I will share it with you.” He looked up into your eyes, your hand still gently on his face. 

You had hoped this would be the moment he would open up to you, he really looked like he wanted to, but you understood why he didn’t just yet. The two of you had only met a few times, and yet you already feel a bond with him. You didn’t want to push the trust he had given you so, you accept his answer. 

“It’s okay, I understand,” you replied with a nod. 

You noticed him look down at your lips then quickly turned his head to look away as if he wanted to do or say something but couldn’t. You brought his face back to look at yours. The two of you were so close you could feel his breath on your face. 

Still gauging his comfort, you brought your face closer and kissed him, your lips lightly pressing on his. Maul was hesitant at first, but relented and kissed you back. He brought a hand to your waist and to your hand that was on his face. 

He was gentle with you in this moment, as he always was with you. You kissed for a moment until Maul pulled away, pressing his head to yours. You stayed like this for a beat longer, wondering what he was thinking. 

You finally decided to break the silence. “I’m sorry,” you said in a whisper. 

“No, I apologize. I just. I don’t know if I should,” Maul replied. He looked conflicted. “It’s getting late, and it’s been a long day. I must return.” 

The two of you stayed like that for a moment longer, neither wanting to move away first. Finally, Maul pulled away, and took your hand away from his face but still held your hand in his. 

“I must go but I will return.” 

You nodded in reply, not knowing what else to say.  

Maul let go and turned to leave. He started up his speeder as he mounted it and looked back at you before he took off. You stood on the platform and watched as he flew further and further away. 

~ 

Just as Maul arrived at his lodgings, he received a holo from Sidious. “Come to me at once my apprentice, we have much to discuss.” The call was terminated before Maul had a chance to reply. He quickly changed into his formal robes and went out again to the apartment of Senator Palpatine. 

Maul made a slight detour when he spotted two Jedi, a master and an apprentice, on the streets speaking with some citizens. He couldn’t help but hover in the shadows and spy on them, allowing it to feed his rage and hide his true thoughts before he met with Sidious. The encounter was short, and he slipped back into his path to Sidious. 

Sidious scolded Maul for his distraction with the Jedi and threatened him with punishment of death if Maul ruined his well-made plans. 

“I know you are keeping something else from me. Tell me what else you have truly been up to. I can feel it. I know you are hiding something from me. Tell me now,” he demanded. Darth Sidious had a cold aura about him, and he was always scheming. His hold on Maul was tight and nothing Maul did escaped his grasp. Maul knew then that Sidious had known what happened with him and the senator he was sent to tail weeks ago. 

“I have made contact with the senator, my lord master,” Maul admitted as he bowed his head in submission. 

“More than just made contact. I ordered you to follow her at a discreet distance. She was never meant to see you!” Sidious yelled. “You have disobeyed me. Do not let it happen again.” Sidious started walking and Maul followed him. “Since it is too late and you have made contact, tell me, have you learned any more?” 

“The senator does not seem to give up easily and is often changing direction for how to get her bills and legislation seen by the senate. After the attempted assassination, her security has been increased and no second attack has been made, yet.” Maul told as much information as was pertinent to what Sidious was after. He did not think that the private and intimate time you two had spent together was something he wanted to tell his master. They were special moments he wanted to keep to himself. 

“Very well. I do, however, have a task for you.” Sidious explained his mission and sent Maul away to fulfill it. 

Maul went back to his place and readied for the Kellux system. He decided before he left to send a one-way holo message to you. 

“My lady, I wanted to let you know that I am going away. I do not know when I will be back but I will call when I return. I do not have time to say goodbye, I must leave straight away. Know this, I will be thinking of you.” 

With that, Maul sent the message and boarded his ship.

[corporationsarepeople]

So the Republican Party has finally reached the place towards which they have been marching with single-minded fervor for forty long and awful years, and everywhere the smoke from their Bonfire of the Sanities makes the day into a choking twilight, while the flames make the night a lurid hellscape as Trump and his wingnut mob put one civic institution to the torch after another.

The Liberal fire-brigade is out there too, as we have always been, passing buckets from hand-to-hand, frankly pissed off and exhausted from forty years of warning this day was coming and being slandered and ignored for our trouble. Saying "Fuck these fucking fuckers!" as the wingnut mob capers from building to building, spreading the conflagration, while we try to focus on the immediate crisis -- saving what we can from the ravenous, racist malignancy of the Right -- and at the same time not lose sight of the long-term need to rebuild our civic institutions once the Trumpfire is brought under control.

And from the United States Constitution to the cemetery at Normandy to the steps of the Lincoln memorial, the leader of the mob -- the Arsonist-in-Chief -- goes right on lobbing incendiaries in every direction to the delight of the Republican Party.

The Trumpfire is even licking at the walled enclave of the American punditocracy. There is no personal danger to any of the pundits therein, of course -- the ivory tower atop which their offices are located may be a little scorched and smoke damaged around the base, but it's a mile high and has been continuously upgraded with the latest fire-suppression technology -- but there is no longer any doubt that there really is a fire and it really does run from horizon to horizon.

Which brings us to the matter of Mr. Michael Gerson: former George W. Bush chief speechwriter, senior Republican policy adviser and reliable Beltway Republican stalactite who now exists in a perpetual state of shock that his Republican Party is full of Republicans.

But since Mr. Gerson is a member of the Can-Never-Be-Fired-No-Matter-How-Fucking-Wrong-They-Are Pundit Guild, amid the voracious flames and suffocating smoke of the Republican's Bonfire of the Sanities, he still feels perfectly at ease writing the umpteenth banal variation of one of his favorite columns: lecturing the Left and the Right, both alike, for their lack of civility (emphasis added.)

[kogo-dogo]

i’ve never heard of the video game series u talked about in that last ask, but i loved ur character analysis for torque! i’m very curious to hear abt dr killjoy if you want to share ur thoughts there too? even just the name dr killjoy is bitching as HELL

You do not know how happy it makes me to talk about Dr. Killjoy.

Torque may be one of my favorite characters of all time, but Dr. Killjoy is… he’s up there. And he’s a lot more fun to talk about because he is a fabulous disaster, as well as the poster child for the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Since Torque is such a vague character, whose personality and backstory are revealed gradually and oftentimes subtly over the course of two games, Killjoy is really the motherfucker who steals the show and is very obviously the favorite of the creators. Even the other sentient spirits on Carnate Island take a backseat to him, and he ends up being a massive driving force in the plot and the one who actually helps the player unravel the man they’re playing as.

(I can’t even say “the guy who you’re put in the shoes of” because Torque doesn’t wear shoes.)

Spoilers follow, but I’ve already told y’all you probably don’t wanna actually play these games. 

Dr. Killjoy is the most well-intentioned, terrible person you will ever see in a video game, probably.

Dr. Killjoy is the spirit of a deceased alienist who was the head doctor at a facility known as The Carnate Institution for the Alienated in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Basically, he’s a psychiatric doctor who hails from a time when lobotomies were still in high fashion and experimental procedures on the mentally ill were less than savory, to put it lightly. Killjoy specifically was known for being rather extreme even at the time, having a very experimental mind and extreme delusions of grandeur. While it’s never outright said he was anything beyond “insane,” he operates in a perpetual manic state and is very, very animated and melodramatic.

How melodramatic? He acts like he has a live studio audience at all times. His whole schtick is that he appears from old film projectors. In a game that is mostly mired in the realm of realism (barring the ghosts and monsters), he creates a fucking weird-ass magic machine that lets you cast spells and basically says, “Ta-da! Look! I made brain magic that will cure your psychosis, Torque!”

(It does not, in fact, cure his psychosis.)

The problem with Dr. Killjoy is that he’s very much a product of his time, and obsessed with the idea of scientific progress over all else. He firmly believes that what he’s doing will further a cause that will eventually work out to help people, but the lives lost in the process are just par for the course. The remnants of his hospital (still used as of the first game, albeit as a hiding spot for COs to smoke, drink, and party) are littered with the mummified bodies of former patients and captured corrections officers that Killjoy decided to experiment on.

He will gladly tell you about all of the dead shit laying around his house, too. He loves to hear himself talk.

In the first game, he fixates on Torque as a special interest case and is absolutely obsessed with figuring out how to “fix” him. Most of the time this involves testing him in positively batshit ways. Sure, it probably seems like bad form nowadays to lock a guy in a burning cafeteria or a room full of monsters with shivs for hands, but to Killjoy? Makes perfect sense, since you can really see a man’s character based on how they react to high-stress situations, and what’s more high-stress than a near-death experience?

But whenever he shows up, whenever he has anything to say, whenever he decides to grace Torque with his presence, it’s always under the belief that he is doing something good for the guy. While he never outright says anything to the effect of “I care about you,” his chipper attitude and his absolute determination to coax Torque into doing what he feels will be for his benefit makes it obvious. He’s adamant about every death trap he lures Torque into or every “diagnosis” he tosses out or every “treatment” he devises, and is even the only character from the first game to follow him into the second…

… Because he feels like Torque isn’t well yet, and he cares enough about this random guy that he’s just going to tag along and try to find a way to help him out. In all the worst possible ways.

He’s equal parts a perfect foil to Torque and a driving force to the narrative, being the one who lays down most of the scraps you get about Torque’s mental health (though a lot of it is conjecture, outdated, and wrong), the island, the monsters, and even the drama in Torque’s life. He’s like a weird, gossipy old lady with a very out-of-date medical degree, and he is delighted whenever he sees his favorite patient and excitable about pretty much every goddamn thing he sees.

And it’s funny to watch Torque and Killjoy interact because Killjoy is so exuberant and loud, and Torque is just Very Done With This Shit. In the first game, Torque mostly responds to him by glaring at him stone-faced until he stops talking, and in the second game he seems actively annoyed whenever Killjoy has the audacity to open his mouth. And Killjoy? Does not give a single iota of a shit, and will just gleefully quote Othello at Torque as he’s trying not to get himself killed, or idly chit-chat with him while he’s struggling to figure out how to get out of a room Killjoy locked him in.

But I cannot overstate that despite how annoying, how unpredictable, how dangerous, and how utterly in love with himself Killjoy is, he is absolutely dedicated to the idea of curing Torque. There is actual good intent in what Killjoy is doing, and he seems to legitimately give a damn about Torque and vouch for him to pull through all of the trials thrown at him. Again, this man essentially built a magical machine to try to cure schizophrenia and, even if it worked about as well as shining him with a UV light, that’s some dedication.

Hell, when Torque escapes Carnate Island, as previously stated, he follows him just to double down on helping him understand what is going on and making sure he gets a shot at treatment. He’s so fucking flippant and apathetic with literally anyone else he encounters (all the people Torque is trying to save mean nothing to him), but he is rooting for this man so bad. So bad. 

There are hints dropped that Killjoy has known Torque for a while longer than even Torque was aware of (and even an implication that he was acquainted with Torque’s dead mother), and he’s just so disdainful of Blackmore, Torque’s nebulous nemesis, and when compared to the other spirits across both games, he’s actually the only one attempting to offer any assistance at all. Horace Gauge (the “good” spirit) mostly just whines about how much pain he’s in and how unfair life is, and Hermes (my EXTREMELY PROBLEMATIC THIRD FAVORITE of this series) is actively trying to kill Torque or convince him to kill everyone around him. Creeper and Copperfield in Ties That Bind are just irredeemably awful and… yeah.

Yeah. Don’t look up either of those last two.

Killjoy is of the mind that he and Torque are a team, it seems, and this ghost would follow him to the ends of the earth for no reason other than to make sure he succeeded at defeating his inner demons, basically.

… Ugh. Okay. I can’t really do Killjoy any more justice in words. Here’s every cutscene involving him from the first game. Ignore how ugly this game is. Also, I know I linked it before, but he also has a really good boss theme. 

[thesoundofnat]

Still fixing all the cracks

ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD

Summary: When May reappears after the snap, it’s in front of a moving car. She survives, but needs to stay at the hospital for a while. Where else is Peter supposed to go but to stay with Pepper, Tony and Morgan?

A/N: I turned an angsty prompt from @insane-sociopath slightly less angsty by having May (and Tony!) survive. I hope you like it!

Warnings: Endgame spoilers, nightmares, hints at trauma and PTSD.

Words: 2 100

Tony had known May Parker had vanished after the first snap, and as awful as it sounded he’d been grateful for it. The pain he’d been feeling after Peter had turned to dust, disappeared right in front of him, had almost broken him. He couldn’t imagine how May would’ve felt, losing someone who was her own flesh and blood. If he was to lose Morgan now he was certain he’d go insane.

Not that his love for Peter was any less because of their lack of a blood relation. He would still kill and die for that kid.

Point was, he was grateful May hadn’t had to go through it. It hadn’t been fun.

“Mr Stark?”

Waking up at the hospital, a model of a prosthetic arm on a table across from him courtesy of Bruce, had been jarring. Partly due to the pain and the drugs, but he’d been so sure he was hallucinating Peter being back for the first couple of days that he’d hated his brain for doing that to him.

“How am I alive?” had been his first sentence. The second a demand to see Pepper and Morgan, even though Pepper had been sitting next to him, her trembling hand holding his own. Only something like this could’ve turned Tony Stark into a confused mess, Rhodey had joked, his eyes wet.

“Mr Stark?”

Tony’s body had barely been in any shape to keep his heart going. They all called him a miracle. A once in an existence type of survival.

“I did it for you, you know,” Tony had said to no one in particular, because truly it didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered and it would never matter.

“I’m so mad at you,” Pepper had said one evening or morning or midafternoon (Tony hadn’t been keeping track). “You could’ve died.”

Tony had smiled, or at least had tried to smile. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“The worst part is that, if you hadn’t done it, you would’ve lived with that regret for the rest of your life.”

“I can’t seem to calm down, can I?”

Pepper had stroked his face. “I’m sure you’ll be calm now.”

“Mr Stark?”

“Hmm?”

Peter - the actual real life alive Peter - must’ve said his name at least three times before he’d realized. Tony focused his gaze on him; took in the tears streaming down his face. “Shit, Pete-”

“It’s nothing bad!” Peter said, sniffling, panicked, voice too loud in the quiet hospital room. “It’s just… well, Aunt May reappeared and-”

Shit, shit, shit.

“An accident and-”

How the hell could life take away the last blood relative that precious kid had?

“She’ll be out in a couple of weeks and-”

“Wait, hold on, back up.”

Apparently May had vanished into dust in the car and reappeared in front of another one, breaking several bones as Earth had welcomed her back. Typical. She’d be fine, but she was going into surgery and wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital for a while.

“I don’t know why I’m such a mess,” Peter said, still his rambly self, after everything.

Tony, only days into his new life post snap, blinked at him. It was, unfortunately, all he managed before the drugs knocked him out again.

When he woke Pepper had made a decision for all of them.

“He’s staying with us until his aunt is back on her feet,” she said. Tony didn’t protest. Why would he?

“I could just crash at Ned’s,” Peter said for the hundredth time, but Pepper shushed him. Tony could tell she’d handle teenage Morgan with no trouble.

By the time Tony got to go home, Peter had been staying there for two weeks already. May’s condition, though not entirely life threatening, had been worse than they’d thought. Peter tried to not let it show how worried he was, for some reason, but it was all but written on his face. Tony, weak and constantly exhausted, felt so helpless he nearly cried.

“I like him,” Morgan said, the two of them alone in Tony’s bedroom, just about avoiding spilling the juice of their melting popsicles onto the bed sheets.

“He’s nice, eh?”

“Very. He makes me laugh.”

“Ah, a comedian. Maybe I just never appreciated his weird gen Z humor.”

Morgan didn’t provide his to her strange remark with any response. Tony had to resist the urge to wrap her in his arms every other minute. As close as they were, he was sure she’d start getting annoyed at him eventually.

He had no idea how much she knew. How close he and the world had been to being entirely ruined. He prayed to god she had no clue, but she was smarter than any kid he’d met (and to be fair, than some adults as well).

If she knew, she hadn’t told him.

“What do you think about him staying with us?” Tony asked her, attempting to sound casual.

“I think it’s fun.”

“But do you miss it just being us?”

“A little,” she said, swallowing the last of her ice cream. “But it’s okay. I like him and he needs us. That’s what mommy said.”

“Mommy’s right, you know.”

“She says he’s like your son.”

Tony doubted Pepper had worded it like that, but he tilted his head anyway. “I care about him.”

“Why did he never come visit before?”

Crap.

“He was away, for a bit.” Tony smiled, ignoring the sudden rush of emotions. “I’m happy you finally got to meet him.”

*

“Mr Stark, you have a daughter.”

“Yes, Pete, we’ve established that.”

Morgan’s feeling toward Peter were nothing compared to Peter’s delight and utter surprise at Tony having put a child into the world (or well - Pepper). Every so often, usually after Tony and Morgan had interacted in any way, Peter would repeat these words. Tony wasn’t sure if he should be offended at the awed tone or not.

“How was it?”

“How was what?”

“When she was being born?”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure you’re asking the wrong parent here.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I mean, how were you feeling?”

Tony shrugged. “I was a complete mess, to be honest. Crying and laughing and pacing all over the place. When I first got to see her-” He broke off, clearing his throat. “It was the best moment of my life.”

Peter’s smile could light up the whole goddamn world. “I wish I had been there.”

Tony reached for him, pulling him into a half-hug. “Me too, kid. Me too.”

“But I’m here now, and I’m gonna be the best- uh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What were you about to say?”

Peter had turned red. “I was gonna say big brother, but I felt like- well, I didn’t want to-”

“Of course you’re her big brother, you nerd.”

“Oh.”

Tony snorted. “Well, she did call you my son.”

“Did you correct her?”

“Nah.”

This time Peter’s beaming face was turned downward, bashful.

Tony ruffled his hair. “Come on. Let’s go make the queens of the house some dinner, shall we?”

*

The weeks of Peter’s stay had some dark moments, mostly consisting of Tony’s body not cooperating or Pepper’s heart breaking all over again if she remembered almost losing him or Tony thinking of the moment Peter turned to dust, over and over. It was sleepless nights and trips to the hospital for check ups and visits and all the while Peter feeling guilty for enjoying his stay when his aunt was alone in an empty room.

“You’re there about 90% of your days,” Tony told him. “She doesn’t expect you to do more. In fact, I think she’d kick both your ass and mine if I allowed you to sleep in those torture devices to chairs.”

Tony went to visit her without Peter at times, when he was in school. They didn’t say much because it wasn’t needed.

“I’m sorry you had to spend five years without him,” May said one day, her hand gripping Tony’s perpetually trembling one. The prosthetic one was steady.

“We fixed it,” he said, voice hoarse and slightly too quiet.

“I’m so glad you did.”

“We lost some along the way,” he added, his mind on Natasha, as it often was.

May gave his hand a squeeze. They didn’t speak again for a while.

*

Having a teenage superhero in the house meant helping them with - and forcing them to do -  homework and making them promise to not be out to late and “no, Pete, Spider-Man isn’t needed tonight.” Maybe he was being hypocritical, but at least he could laugh at each look Pepper shot him whenever he reprimanded Peter for things he’d probably done himself.

It also meant running into him when they were both wandering the house in their sleepless states, both confused, both feeling too much with no relief in sight. Tony had been surprised seeing Peter the first night, but, despite his saying he had nothing to make him feel like this really because the snap hadn’t lasted five years for him, Tony couldn’t blame him.

“I’m sure it was traumatic in ways you can’t explain,” Tony said, remembering the hysteria just before he vanished. “And to be fair, the whole goddamn battle was a mess. I’d be worried if you weren’t having trouble sleeping, as much as I wish you didn’t.”

“Does it hurt a lot?” Peter asked then, eyes on Tony’s trembling arm.

“This? Nah. It’s just my body not being as strong anymore. It’s getting better.” Tony hadn’t told any of them of the times he’d entered his lab trying to create something only for him to scream in frustration and not go back in days. His prosthetic arm was working just fine, but the rest of him, parts he’d gotten so used to using whenever he built or tinkered around, were still recovering. That was what Tony said, at least. No one had promised him his old body back. He reckoned he couldn’t really expect them to lie so awfully to him.

“I’ve never been as scared as I was when I saw you sitting there, arm practically crumbling-” Peter cut himself off. “Sorry. Jesus. You probably don’t wanna hear about that.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Talk.”

“I can’t.”

Tony understood.

Some nights, Morgan found them, blinking up at them in the light of the kitchen, confused. “Daddy?”

“Hey, pumpkin, why aren’t you in bed?”

“Why aren’t you?”

And Peter would grin, whenever the tiny little four year old would be smart with her genius father. Tony’s heart was never as full as it was in those moments.

And then, it was over. May, recovered, got to go home and bring Peter with her. They all knew it had been coming.

“You’re sad, aren’t you?” Pepper said the first night without him.

Tony nodded. “A bit. It’s silly.”

“It’s not.”

“Maybe not.”

“You can visit him this time, you know.”

Tony laughed, so loudly he must’ve startled Morgan, wherever she was in the house. “I know.”

“I’m gonna miss having him in the house,” Pepper said. “It wasn’t the same being in the Tower or the Compound. People feel so much closer here.”

“It’s because this is a normal house, which apparently is what normal people live in.”

Pepper laughed. “Domesticity suits you.”

“I try.”

“I know.”

She always did.

“How are you?” Peter asked a couple of weeks later. They hadn’t seen each other since he’d gone back home.

“Me? Doing better. How’s May?”

“She’s doing much better.”

“And how are you?”

Peter didn’t reply immediately, eyes finding the street they were walking next to. “I’m doing all right, mostly.”

“Ah.”

“No new nightmares.”

“But old ones?”

“Always the same ones.”

“I know the feeling.”

If Tony could take all of Peter’s pain and trauma, he would, but he knew that wasn’t possible, so he did the next best thing.

“Let’s grab some ice cream. I think that daughter of mine has made me addicted to that stuff.”

Peter laughed. “I miss her.”

“Well, then I think it’s about time you come visit her, hm?”

“Just say when and I’ll be there.”

“No need. You can show up whenever you want, as long as it isn’t in the middle of the night. Unless it’s an emergency, of course.”

“You say that now, but I bet you’ll raise an eyebrow at me when I walk in on your date with Pepper.”

“As if we won’t have enlisted you to babysit Morgan to begin with.”

“Happy won’t be happy. Hah, that was unintentional.”

“Happy will have to learn to share his duties.”

They were gonna be okay.

[dandyfics]

taste ; lee minho ☆

━━☆

— summary: as many say, even the smallest things can create small clusters of happiness. what if that happiness comes from somewhere familiar? perhaps the local creamery you’ve grown too fond of?

— genre: fluff, a whole lot of fluff, ft. other skz members — pairings: ice-cream boy!minho x office worker!reader — word count: 2.6k — warnings: explicit language, cursing 

— author note: beware of spelling & grammar errors ! this was based on some random sub reddit so uhm– it doesn’t really have a theme ?? but i hope you enjoy my first **published** fic nonetheless bubs ! and of course, gender neutral !

You hate Mondays. The endless demands from your co-workers to grab some coffee, the hideous traffic anywhere you go, your boss shouting like a bewildered orangutan, and of course the ravenous feeling that washes in your stomach. You fear that you’re not going to make it by the time lunch break rolls in.

Obviously, this doesn’t only apply on Mondays. But the fateful day decided to be a special snowflake to you and your work ethic, which makes it ten times shittier than any other day. Not to mention the hefty piles of paperwork that you need to finish at home before August. A year into the work experience in Seo’s Publishing & Co. and you still struggle to get that promotion you’ve been opting since January. At least they pay you well.

But you weren’t alone on that exact Monday. Summer and it’s endless supplies of heat waves decided to enter your life before you even know it. As Han Jisung likes to say, what a great time to be alive. Not.

“It’s so fucking hot.” Felix limps on his desk chair, frantically fanning himself with a big blue binder. You, on the other hand, already prepared long before with two hand fans screeching atop your desk. “Why is the AC off?”

“Because Mr. Seo said ‘fuck global warming’, which is ironic since his office has two air conditioners that are always on,” Kim Seungmin says, plopping on his chair before turning on his brand new industrial fan that he keeps on bragging about since the beginning of July, claiming that he’s got the weather ‘under control’. Felix doesn’t respond at this rate, instead, he oggles weirdly at the fan Seungmin got from God-knows-where.

You groan miserably. “Turn that damn thing off, you’re perpetuating hot air onto my face.”

“I’ll do that. Once Jisung stops wasting all the cold air from the fridge.”

“I swear to God, Han. If you eat my frozen waffle once again.” Typical Felix who will always protect his food. That kid will protect his cream cheese bagel even if WWIII decided to occur.

Jisung frowns childishly. “It’s just too hot. I’m evaporating, literally.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m in the room.” Hwang Hyunjin merrily waltzes into the conversation, earning a few annoyed gazes and grouses from his co-workers.

“Choke on a baguette.” Seungmin grunts, throwing a crumpled printer paper at him. “Your presence isn’t needed here anymore, not after that promotion of yours.” Hyunjin smiles smugly, taking a sip from his ‘Best Uncle’ coffee cup. 

Yearly promotions have gotten a toll on you, ever since Hyunjin got his place as the assistants’ assistant, he’s been moved to the 3rd-floor cubicle; located right next to the main office, which – you’ve guessed it – is completed with a working air conditioner. Big headed Hyunjin has and will never stop mentioning it. ‘We’ll stay together till one of us gets fired’ my ass.

“You’re just jealous because I earned that cool cubicle on the 3rd floor. Unlike y’all peasants who rely on factory industry fans.” Hyunjin scoffs, emphasizing on the last sentence. Seungmin chokes on his coffee mug.

“You got a problem with Becky?”

“It has a name?” Jisung half-whispers at you, earning a shrug.

“Shut up, Hyunjin, just go back to your fancy little office and do your five stacks of paperwork that you haven’t touched since last week.” You quip, earning a high five from Felix. “Oh, and neither your niece nor nephew likes you, Hwang.”

Hyunjin gasps dramatically, hiding his graphic cup from your sight. “How DARE you.” Jisung cackles his ass off as if he’s enjoying some random Netflix show, watching Hyunjin as he takes an indignant sip from his cup whilst trying to explain that his niece just ‘mildly dislike him and nothing more’. You – being the only one with a sane state of mind – take a glance at the clock.

“Oh, shit. It’s already 12.” You murmur. “Anyone down to get out and grab lunch? I’m not talking to you, Hyunjin.” Felix goes in for another cheeky high five as Hyunjin flouts.

Seungmin pushes his glasses from the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Look, Y/N. As hungry as I am, I’m not going to burn into a crisp of bacon outside in this weather.” He retorts, continuing on his Pdf file. “Fun fact, it’s almost 34° Celcius outside. I’d rather starve to death than sweat to death.” Jisung sheepishly agrees, engulfing in the cold fridge air.

You turn to Felix sympathetically, expecting him to join you. “Can’t you see that I’m hyperventilating?” Felix whines like a wet dog, thudding his head repeatedly on his messy desk. You click your tongue at the pathetic sight.

“Okay, so no one’s gonna join me?” You ask for the last time. Rethinking again about getting burned in the midst of the July air. Was it worth it? Should you really drag one of your co-workers in the ungodly weather?

Silence.

You huff, disappointed lacing your features as a genius idea draws onto your mind. “Well, I’m heading to the creamery near the park. Don’t come at me trying to get a lick from my rocky-road cone.”

“Shit, ice cream sounds great right now!” Jisung squeaks from the floor.

“Please, Y/N, can you get me the mint chocolate one? I need something to cool me off.” Felix jolts from his seat seemingly refreshed and youthful again. Seungmin cheers from his desk, presumably also in the mood for something cold and creamy. Hyunjin screeches like a pterodactyl from the corner of your eye, screaming something about chocolate.

Your co-workers haven’t really grown up, have they?

“Suddenly I’m your servant? Nice try.” You reply playfully, raising an eyebrow at your half-melting co-workers. They all groan in unison. “Nothing is free. Everything comes with a pri–”

Jisung surges from his butt. “Tell you what, I’ll buy you dinner. Chinese at that place you always wanted to visit!” He offers, making the others try to think of a better deal than his. “Only if you get me the cheesecake ice cream.”

Seungmin follows up. “Y/N, if you get me a cup of cookies and cream, I’ll finish reviewing that book for you. Oh, and also a stack of your paperwork. What do you say?” Jisung boos at Seungmin’s boring choice of flavor.

“I’ll give you a foot massage!” Felix adds.

“Tempting.” You snicker smugly before turning to Hyunjin. “Aren’t you going to offer me something, Hwang? Anything?”

Hyunjin avoids eye contact with you before crooning. “Fine, I’ll give you a ride in my convertible for the rest of the month.” You mentally tap yourself in the back for getting great deals just for a bucket of cheap ice cream. Drastic time does require drastic measures, they say. You grab your bag and walk towards the elevator with a jolly good feeling.

“You all got yourself a deal. Better be ready for that foot massage, Lix.”

Dori Creamery. The sweet scent of vanilla and cream whiffs onto you as you walk near the entrance. You spent almost all of your college days being a customer in the said creamery. The place is medium sized, petite but fancy. The light neapolitan colors being the aesthetic of the shop brings back all the memories. You recall the seconds when you had your first date, celebrating your graduation with a cup of mango-sorbet, and your heartbreak spent accompanied by a tube of berry delight.

You liked the place. No, you loved the place. Hints of nostalgia always hit you whenever you enter the calming aura of the room, only this time, the creamery is packed with people. And not just any people; sweaty, loud, body-odor inducing people.

You managed to squeeze in the back of the line, avoiding the nasty body-sweat that lingers around. You can also go to another shop, but hey, where’s the fun in that? If you can’t even get some ice cream, what’s even the point?

“Excuse me, coming through.” You mumble as some guy nearly bumps you out of the line. The whiff of wind in the room is prominent, but the body heat everyone seems to be sharing nearly evaporates you apart.

You opted on scrolling through your phone while you wait for the person at the very front to make up their mind about ‘I’m on a low sugar diet but I really want to try the strawberry shortcake, should I?’. After a while, the line started to dry out, until there’s only you and a few others before you.

Everything was fine and dandy until you feel a force coming from beside you, nearly shoving you down to the floor. “Hey, what the hell?” You scold. A woman suddenly stands in front of you, cutting your precious time and line.

“I’m in a hurry.” She claims, whipping her head to decide on her order.

If you’re in a hurry why the fuck did you stop for ice cream?  A rasp of vexation coils in you, leaving you to do nothing but scowl at the woman. The heat isn’t helping either. A part of you wanted to flip everything off – including the woman – but you remind yourself that you’re no cavemen and it’s just some ice cream, it’s no big deal.

You couldn’t do much but sigh and wait for your turn, hoping that no one else would do something as ignorant as she did. Not even a single sorry? Great, just what you needed.

The woman finally decided on a pistachio order and storms off with a receipt in one hand and a double-scoop cone on the other. You irkly glance before walking towards the counter, repeating the order in your head.

“Uh, hi. I would like a cone of–”

“Rocky road with whipped cream?”

“Yeah, that. And– wait, how did you know?” You eyed the cashier, who’s smiling meekly at you. Nearly staring in awe, you almost forget about the whole order after meeting the enthralling smile painted on his face. “Do I… know you?”

He chuckles lightly, handing his co-worker a slip of paper. “No, it’s just that you always order that. Don’t you ever get bored of it?”

“It’s too good to be bored with.” You say, beaming idly. Finally, a nice–decent human being with good manners. “So, you’re not new here?” You mention, raising an eyebrow. The boy beams, reminding you of the Cheshire Cat – mere charisma laced in his smile. 

He shakes his head, denying your question. “Actually, I own this place.”

Your eyes widen. “Really? How come I’ve never seen you before?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” The boy teases. “I mostly work at the kitchen, perfecting my secret recipe. But I always know my customers.” He playfully answers. “Oh, and if you don’t mind, I added your order to that woman’s receipt. Can you imagine cutting a line just for a cone of caramel and pistachio?” Your eyes widen. Not so sweet after all, huh?

“Wh– isn’t that illegal or some shit?” You ask, worrying that your favorite ice cream parlor will shut down because of the FBI finding out about your stupid cone of rocky road. The boy shrugs innocently.

“Not if you don’t get caught.” He winks.

You scoff, an unfamiliar feeling clusters in your stomach, just like the thrill of first crushes but with a different – slightly bizzare taste. “I’m still ordering something else, though. Tell me, is the rocky road free?” You ask, still unsure of what just happened. Free ice cream isn’t something you get every day, come to think of it. He pretends to think for a while before nodding.

“But,” He says. “You have to do me a favor in return.” You raise your eyebrow, preparing yourself for any stupid favor he has in mind. The blossoming feelings doesn’t stop pounding in you, and suddenly it’s middle school all over again. “How about your number? That seems fair, yeah?” He smiles coyly. You snort.

“Sir, am I hearing things wrong or are you flirting with me?”

“Well, do you want your precious rocky road cone or not?” He playfully sniggers at you. You cognitively slap yourself back alive, lured in by his small tricks. You had no choice, do you? Hey, at least the boy’s cute.

You grab a piece of tissue from the counter without answering. “Do you have a pen?” Handing you a pen, he rests his head on top of his palm, watching you write down your number carefully – trying not to rip the tissue or create a hole. He smirks in satisfaction, watching you as your face washes in a flustered demand. “What’s your name?”

“Minho. Lee Minho.”

“As in the actor? Wow, I’ve never thought he’ll be selling ice cream downtown.”

“I wish.” You giggle at his response, handing him the nearly ripped tissue paper. 

“I’m Y/N, by the way.” You say, awkwardly rubbing the back of your neck. Minho slides the paper on his pocket, handing you a cone of rocky road with whipped cream and sliced strawberries on top as an extra dressing. “Thanks, I’m also ordering two medium buckets of cookies and cream with chocolate and mint-choco with blueberry cheesecake. No toppings, please.” You finally excecute the order after countless unsuccessful rehearsals in your head.

Minho writes down the order before sliding the paper towards his co-worker who seems to be wiggling his eyebrows from your view. “Wow, that’s a lot to eat in one sitting. No toppings?” You shake your head again.

“It’s for my co-workers. Oh, and spit on the chocolate one, if you may.”

“Kinky, but it’s not something I’ve never tried before,”

“I’m just kidding, geez.” You huff, trying to hide the bubbling smile as you wonder, trying to imagine what happened to occur that precise course of action.

“You work at the publishing company now, huh?” He asks, pointing at your nametag as he passes your two buckets of ice cream. You nod enthusiastically. “I remember you coming here late at night in your pajamas doing calculus while shoving cookie dough up to your face. Good times.”

A coral blush crept from your cheeks. “Okay, now you just sound creepy.”

“Well,” He says, his face panning closer to you as you flinch back in surprise. “I’d like to stay and chat, Y/N. But you’re holding the line.” Minho reminds you, cocking his head towards the line. “Let’s continue some other day, yeah?”

You glance at the clock and then at the line behind you. “Oh shit, you’re right.” Clicking your tongue, you mention silently. Disappointed that you have to go back to your crusty co-workers, who’s probably whining over the fact that you’re still not back yet. “How much for the two tubes?”

“Twenty five.” He answers watching you run swiftly through your wallet. “But if you’re willing to go to dinner with me next Saturday, it’s free.” Minho says. Your heart does a cartwheel as you stare into the boy, wiggling his eyebrows at you. What more can you ask from a good looking guy like him? Cheeky bastard.

“How can I say no to that?” The coral blush that tinges on your cheeks fades into a deep red. “To be honest, I’m baffled. You sure know a lot about me, but I don’t know much about you, Minho.”

He hums. “Let’s fix that, shall we?”

“You got yourself a date, Mister. Now if you’ll excuse me, someone at the office owes me a foot massage.” Minho winks one last time before you leave the ice cream parlor.

With heart in your hand and ice cream in the other, you walk out the creamery with a delighted feeling. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll melt away like ice cream in scorching hot weather if you think about the ice cream boy too much.

[yeoldontknow]

Time Runner: 4

Author’s note: i have no historical or deep background on the true location of Teruel or the kingdom of Aragon, so if there are any details that must be corrected please let me know Pairing: Chanyeol x Reader (oc; female) Genre: time travel!au; suspense; drama; romance; angst; sci-fi Rating (this chapter): R Warnings: explicit language; dark themes; mentions of war; mentions of death; themes of abandonment Word count: 3,394

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18 May, 1484 Teruel, Kingdom of Aragon, Spain

It should have been surprising, how quickly you lost track of time - the time at which your body grew and decayed, hair growing long as linear comprehension of chronology faded into little more than a fond remembrance.

It should have been surprising, how quickly you lost track of time, but at Chanyeol’s side forward direction dissolved, no longer having any place in your life, likely never did at all. Time, you knew, moved, continued onwards as a natural law, but you moved through time, and, most days, you felt with confidence that time moved only for you.

With Chanyeol, life and loving were blown apart by the creation of a new and more profound syntax, born of when and where, born of your heart and birthed every time your lips came together. With him, you accepted life for what it was, and for what so many had tried to convince you it should not be:  an endless cycle of mystery and beauty, anguish and pain, a perpetual challenge to push the act of feeling to its most abject limits.

With Chanyeol, life itself suddenly became alive.

Eventually, he dropped you in a terrain unlike any you had ever seen, or would again.

The landscape was flush with grass whose green ran deep and vivid, the earth untarnished by industry, tar, and oil. Before you, the field seemed an enduring sea of colour, striking shades full of wildflowers and bush, all in a rapturous state of bloom. Beneath your feet, a long dirt and stone lead towards the center of town, winding and winding down the hill in the charmingly whimsical sort of way you had only read about in books.

In any other year, any other season, you would have turned to Chanyeol and begged him to settle with you there, to bring you back when it was safe to stop running, when the price for his head wasn’t so high. You wanted to live and die with him in peace, in the cradle of a terrain that welcomed the spaces between your toes with softness, and kindness. The water could be fresh and cool, the sky unmarred by smog, lungs finally learning how to breathe easy.

Instead, you dug the nails of your fingers into his gloved hand, attempting to pierce the leather as daggers. You clutched him, pulled him towards you with trepidation as the hairs on your arm stood on end. The air was thick with iron, poisoned with rot and decay, the stench turning your tongue sour; the silence was intense and insistent, a tangible thing to behold, no animal sounds beyond flies taking their fill, birds driven out or driven mad. With no hum of life, your ears began to ring.

Before you, was death, and you were trespassing on a world that was meant to stay locked in time.

Green as it was, the softness and sweetness of the grass was tainted, flattened and painted with brown marks of blood and upturned dirt. Blades had been pressed down where bodies had laid and bodies had fallen, where bodies had chosen to die. The fertilization of human decay had enriched this world, but the stain and scab had remained. Even after the bodies had been buried or moved or simply thrown together in a pit, the earth still bore its scars, the weight of it preventing the grass from standing tall.

You walked slowly together, eyes wide and grazing the world as though hungry for the barren fest. This sort of silence became the caution of your footsteps, wholly unlike your usual rush through a town all bombast and sprints towards shelter, and for a moment you could have called this walk a promenade had it not been born from horror. As your approached the town, there was no laughter of children, no merchant call like the one you had started to crave from France, just your heartbeat flooding your ears, abandoned homes whispering secrets in a language neither of you could ever interpret.

Voices began to echo from the distance, harsh in timber and dissonance, growing louder with your approach. Before you could even react, Chanyeol was pulling you towards an empty stable where you came to kneel behind the door.

‘I thought the forcefield was around us?’ you asked, quickly looking from him to the road and back again.

There was a braveness to the way you leaned beyond the frame to peer into the world, emboldened by trust and curiosity. It struck you, then, how similar danger is to excitement when one believes they are protected. This, you knew, was privilege.

‘It is,’ he nodded softly, gently tugging you back towards him, ‘but I don’t want to take any chances. Nothing is safe here.’

Narrowing your eyes, you regarded him cooly. ‘And when is here?’

Chanyeol seemed hesitant, as though the truth and reality of bloodshed would change you, indefinitely and irrevocably. You wanted to tell him it did not matter, that war is the one thing humanity could count on apart from death and tax, and that you had grown accustomed to the blood soaked pages of your history books. But he spoke first, whispering with a shame that made your heart sink.

‘What would eventually become Spain, in the 1400’s.’

It made sense, you thought, the era of the plague and mass graves, the era of loss and population reduction so large whole countries bled off the map. Chanyeol’s eyes fell to the panel on his arm, distracting himself with the gentle glow, boyishly avoiding your gaze. Shades of remorse sunk into his cheeks, a profound ruefulness that resonated from his speech and carried a tangible guilt.

‘Why did you take the key?’ Hesitantly, you reached a hand to his knee, softening in the effort of being his confidant as you gently pressed at him. It was important he knew you wanted him, craved to orbit around him as a lonely satellite until you could capture grazes of his skin; he was not meant to suffer alone. ‘If you knew the rules, why did you break them?’

Chanyeol lifted his head, surprised by the tone of your voice. For several moments, he studied you quizzically, brow furrowed as though he had expected a different conversation entirely. A flush crept along his cheeks and ears as he considered your words, poisoned by blame and accusation.

Bowing his head slightly before he spoke, he tenses his jaw and took in a deep breath. ‘Because I’m selfish.’

The low richness of his voice startled you, loud as thunder in the thick silence. You said nothing, merely hummed and smiled, waiting for him to continue.

‘I thought if I took it,’ he began, eyes darting to the road briefly before returning to yours, ‘and could date it, I could stop the destruction from happening at all.’

Cocking your head to the side, you offered him a smile as you smothered a giggle of warmth and affection. Even with great risk, he acted out of love; at the risk of his life, he acted out of hope, and you could not understand why he didn’t believe that was true. ‘That’s hardly selfish,’ you encouraged, feeling yourself swoon at the size and breadth of his goodness.

Chanyeol shook his head, adamant ‘It’s very selfish,’ he said, sternly. ‘Selfish and stupid.’

Voices broke in the distance, loud and commandeering as though sharing orders and effectively ending your conversation. Chanyeol pressed a finger to his lips, reminding you to keep quiet as he knew you were wont for thrill. It was the privilege, you thought, that made you so gloriously delighted to see history first hand; your privilege and Chanyeol’s privilege transforming into a tour guide of unprecedented magnitude. It would not have been the first time pleasure consumed you at the sight of something strange, would not have been the first time you would have almost given yourself away, buoyed by awe.

Slowly and with domineering steps, a group of men came into view, cloaked in silver armor with shields strapped tightly to their arms. Their boots crunched at the earth, making bones of the rocks they tread, as the clattering of their metal echoed amongst the trees. They paused before the stable, the sun gleaming off their armor and the sweat that stained their brow. Bags and worry lines had etched into their skin, covered with dirt and grit, fluids you were sure belonged to other people.

Immediately, the world around you seemed to grey, the coldness and harshness of this era sinking into your chest to take root. Mind racing, you pieced together what you had seen - the blood on the grass, the hollow emptiness of this town, the silence that smelled of death and forewarning - mouth running dry as you accounted for all the grief. In the center of each shield was a signia that seemed vaguely familiar, an elegant, embellished crest you had seen perhaps once or twice in history classes.

Swallowing thickly, you sought your voice with concerted effort, speech working at your throat like knives. ‘What’s that symbol?’

Even as you spoke, you were unsure why you even bothered to ask, for you knew the answer. Even as you spoke, you were unsure if you wanted confirmation, a celebration of your wisdom, or denial, the tepid reassurance of your safety.

Chanyeol leaned forward with brittle movements, the action, you knew, attempting to placate you and occurring just for show. ‘The seal of the Holy See,’ he murmured, reading the words with a broken, unpracticed accent. ‘Tribunal del Santo Oficio -’

You interrupted his recitation with a whisper soaked in bitterness. ‘The fucking Inquisition?’

He said nothing, just stared straight ahead at the soldiers with tension in his jaw and neck, unable to truly look at you. For a moment, his hardness shocked you, reminded you that he too was just as powerful and lethal as the men who stood only paces away. He wore his duality as a cloak, at once acting as your Chanyeol - a man with a heart the size of the sea, with lips that kiss as though they are permanently seeking salvation, and hands that hold you as though you are treasure - before turning into a man whose actions were as dark as his fatigues, running head first into death without any consideration or consolation.

This time, the guilt did not seep into his skin. For his actions, now, he was unashamed and unapologetic.

Glancing between him and the soldiers, panic started to flood you, chest becoming hot. ‘Chanyeol,’ you hissed, reaching for his arm and squeezing, demanding to be heard and felt. ‘What the fuck are we doing here?’

Turning to face you, Chanyeol grabbed your hand with urgent desperation, clinging to you as though you would run from him at any moment. He was unapologetic or his actions, that much was true by the firmness tucked at the corners of his lips, but he was unwilling to compromise the loss of you.

‘The men who are after me,’ he explained, tone sharp and clear, as though this honesty was the one he had been meaning to share all along, ‘the members of the Tempara Ministrum, are less likely to breach important historical events. Our interference could eradicate the fabric of time.’ He held your gaze momentarily, letting you process his words and the true name of the men you had been running from. It was the first time he had shared a detail of his future. ‘It’s why Denver was safe for a while, why we could be there and feel calm. They only come if there is no other choice.’

You searched his face as you worked through meaning of his actions, falling through fear, disappointment, shock. There was no great pattern to the journey he took, no bewildering mystery, just the urgent mapping of someone entrenched in terror.

Furrowing your brow, you tugged your hand from his grip, only to find he would not release you.

Narrowing your eyes, you pressed your tongue behind your teeth, furious. ‘So you just dragged me into one of the most volatile points of time for, what? Sport?’

Chanyeol tightened his hold on your hand, shifting to reach for your other one, which you pulled away from him. ‘To buy us time!’ he hissed, sounding more like a plea.

‘It looks like you’ve bought us death!’ you spit, biting back a tragic regret at his crestfallen expression. ‘We need to leave before either they, or the Tempara group find us. I genuinely don’t know which fate is worse.’

‘Please,’ he whispered, shuffling closer. ‘Please don’t hate me for this.’

Rolling your eyes, you huffed. ‘Chanyeol, I don’t hate you, we just -’

He squeezed your hand, silencing you as he fixed you with an intense, heated stare. ‘I will die before I let harm come to you,’ he promised, voice thick with passion. ‘I don’t know how to be without you.’

You knew he meant it, knew that he would protect you at all costs, even at the cost of his life. You knew, fundamentally, he would not have brought you here if he did not think it would create an advantage, knew that he did not make choices erroneously, not with you in tow. You knew, but it did not mean you were appeased. And so you nodded your head, accepting his honesty but ensuring the conversation continue later.

‘I want to be in charge of where we run,’ you stated, matching the strength of his stare. ‘When we get out of here, you teach me how to lead.’

Emotion broke through him, his body falling forward and pressing you against the door. Brow furrowed and tense, mouth set in a hard line, he rested his forehead against yours, breathing deeply as though he were taking you deep within his lungs, the essence of you filling his blood. Chanyeol shut his eyes, hair messy against his forehead and lips set in pout, as he spoke slowly with more assertive ascendency than you had ever heard from him.

‘Walk slow, walk quiet. Do your best not to disrupt the air.’

You had no opportunity to reply before he kissed your forehead, lips moving down your nose and to your lips. He poured himself into the kiss, into the way his hands gripped at your waist as his tongue ran across your bottom lip. It took effort swallowing the sigh that threatened to spill from you, born from somewhere deep within your longing and rising only to drench him in ardor. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you reminded yourself all was not forgiven, but that it was easiest to try with the memory of his mouth burning against yours.

Parting from you with a gaps, he struggled momentarily to catch his breath before lifting you from the ground by your hand. You followed his rules, sticking close to his side and keeping his pace, as you planned your movement from the stable. Idly, you wondered if silence mattered at all, if the slowness and carefulness of your steps held any weight at all in this world, if the beating of your heart driven by the volume of your anxiety would give everything away.

As you moved from the stable, Chanyeol glancing around corners to map your escape, the tone of the conversation around you shifted. The soldiers spoke with laughter in their mother tongue, the topic of discussion seemingly casual as though they were entirely nonplussed by the cavernous, morbid emptiness of the small town. You wondered if it was casual at all, if the topic of bodies burning and bodies dying was their version of light hearted camaraderie. Did they speak of split bones, of heretics and thieves; or perhaps of their families and their Sunday meals, as if their hands were soiled with none of the blood?

Acid burned at your throat, the desire to hate them, to curse them, taking root at the base of your heart. But you had learned the winding, unforgiving reality of history, knew they had their orders, knew they’d be hunted if they didn’t obey the Papacy.

They had their orders, and you had yours.

Holding your hand in reassurance, Chanyeol guided you around the group, keeping his eyes straight ahead and walking with purpose. You were used to this, to walking through thick crowds and ensuring you touched no one, moving around and within without ever being seen. Space was at your advantage, but the tremors of nervousness and keen understanding of their strength made walking along the dirt path feel more like an art of will.

You passed them without issue, the soldiers continuing their conversation and boisterous laughter, the echoes of their humour accompanying the celebratory squeeze Chanyeol offered your hand. Keeping your eyes straight ahead, you saw the smirk pull at his cheeks, his own eyes glancing down to admire you briefly. With one simple look, he could always turn you to liquid gold, making your spine elongate, fixing your posture with pride. He would want you later, want you with the full length of his tongue, and you would gladly have your fill of him.

The breeze against your back put dread into your legs, motions feeling heavy and sluggish. The change happened swiftly, a too violent dip in the atmosphere for casual stroll or the laughter of men. Your lungs held a breath, a seemingly innocuous inhale as you turned back expecting the slash of metal only to see a cold steel visor and a gun in its place.

A group of men appeared behind you, guns drawn as they too began to run, swift with their movements as through trained to keep pace with you. You were dragged along behind Chanyeol, the heaviness of your legs making you stumble and caught off guard by how quickly he had realized you’d been found without turning his head. He pointed towards a woods behind a small series of homes, motioning to make the portal escape behind a house, losing them. Without a proper start, the terrain challenged your balance, adrenaline making your motions erratic and anxious, mistakes marring your steps. Where he could clear branches and natural dips in the earth with ease, you tripped and released cries of anguish, suddenly seeing everything has a veritable threat.

‘Chanyeol,’ you cried, breath hot in your chest, ‘you need to slow down!’

He paused briefly, turning back to watch your struggle momentarily before continuing at the same pace. ‘It’s fine! Just keep moving, we’ll be out of here soon.’

He was panting, scared just as you were, and while it helped ease the loneliness you felt in your panic, it did little to reassure your feet.

‘Just think of somewhere to go, now!’ you demanded. ‘Please!’

He cut a turn quickly around a pile of logs arranged for a burning, a bonfire meant for human remains, and the swiftness with which he turned forced your hand from his grip. You collapsed sidelong in a heap onto a bed of leaves and twigs, and you crawled on your hands and knees toward his distant feet, urgently rising to chase after him.

‘Chanyeol!’ you called, reaching towards him and taking strides longer than you could truly manage. The muscles in your thighs burned with the strain, joints of your knees beginning to ache.

Chanyeol turned his head quickly, eyes wide in abject horror as he called your name, body lurching towards you before he disappeared completely.

‘Chanyeol!’

It was too late, you knew. He was long gone from you and Spain and the Inquisition, abandoning you to the whim of time.

Behind you, the thud of boots halted, replaced by clanking of armor, alerted and alarmed by the echo of your voice.

You were alone.

No forcefield to protect you.

An accomplice to a thief, a visual heretic, curves of your body exposed in your clothes and deeming you a whore. There was no time travel here, no science or technology in this world that would save you. All you had were your hands and your feet, and a will to survive.

All you could do, without fanfare or the expectation of a new land, was really, truly run.

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [491]

“Why do you look so smug?” Ellana asks, hands stilling over Astra’s back as Bull saunters over to her. He saunters. That’s the only verb that Ellana can use for that particular sway of the hip. He saunters over to her and she feels her skin prickle with anticipatory irritation. There is only one thing that particular sway has ever done for her and it’s brought her absolute frustration of the most fundamentally violent sort.

Bull grins, putting his hands on her waist, picking her up and giving her a little spin. Ellana is unamused. And she remains to be unamused despite the fluttering of people’s gazes at them.

She supposes that this seems like a rather romantic image.

This is the Iron Bull stoking the flame before delivering the killing blow. Ellana is not excited or any sort of delighted for this.

Ellana releases Astra onto the Iron Bull’s face before he can put her down. Perhaps it is possible to train a cat, because Astra lands, claws out with a hiss. Bull grunts, dropping Ellana and going to get the cat off of him as Ellana straightens herself out.

Bull doesn’t look any less smug, despite having a cat dropped on him. Astra jumps out of his hands and winds himself around Ellana’s ankles.

Cats can definitely be trained, because Ellana is certain Astra’s learned this behavior directly from her.

“Have you heard?” Bull asks.

“Clearly I haven’t,” Ellana replies. “Is this something I should be hearing from someone else?”

Bull bends down and whispers in her ear, “Trevelyan’s tapped me to fight the three dragons in Suledin."

Ellana feels part of her…depart. It just. Gently separates itself from her body and floats off into the very ether, free of the shackles of this perpetual state of undeserved punishment.

“Surely,” Ellana pauses and licks her dry lips as her mind scrambles to understand any possible reasoning behind this, “Surely you jest.”

Because he did go with Evelyn and he was present when the Inquisitor slew the High Dragon in the Approach. And it is, without question, that Evelyn did see his reaction to that. His very. Very. Physical reaction to that. And, undoubtedly, Evelyn also saw the kind of damage it did to Bull who is, even thinking methodically, a man who’s fighting style is derived from taking as much hits as possible to his own advantage.

And Evelyn, surrounded by tacticians of all sorts, would know that it is not a good idea to bring the Iron Bull to three High Dragon fights in the harsh winter conditions of Suledin.

“I need someone to corroborate this story,” Ellana says, turning around and seeing a very, very tired and resigned looking Stitches on the other side of the courtyard.

He raises his hands in surrender.

“No,” Ellana mouths.

“Yes,” Bull says. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”

“Why is it you?” Ellana groans.

“Because no one could convince Sera to go.”

Ellana looks down at Astra who takes this opportunity to flee. Turn-cat.

Bull wraps his arms around her, gently turning her around and pressing a kiss to the center of her forehead.

“Don’t I get a kiss for luck?” He asks.

“I don’t think that’s how a good luck kiss works,” Ellana says. “Do you even know how a good luck kiss works? They don’t have good luck kisses where you come from.”

“And how would you know, Wolf?” Bull replies.

“For one thing a good luck kiss would imply that I wish you luck,” Ellana says.

“You aren’t going to wish me luck against three High Dragons?”

If anyone needs luck it isn’t going to be Bull, Ellana knows that for certain.

Ellana sighs, stretching up on her toes to kiss the side of his mouth.

“You don’t need luck, vhenan,” Ellana concedes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Bull laughs, picking her up for another spin now that she doesn’t have a cat to drop on his face as he kisses her cheek. “We’re heading out tomorrow morning bright and early. You in for a goodbye round, kadan?”

-

This is…the utter lowest she’s ever been.

The Wolf is lightly jogging alongside, invisible to all but her, and laughing like a little boy.

“Spectacular!” the Wolf jeers, practically skipping. Skipping! She’d be confined as addled if she ever told anyone this. It’s awful.

Bull kisses her temple.

“Mistakes happen,” He says, careful as he adjusts his hold on her, causing her to roll a little into his chest. “Even to the best of us.”

“I can walk.”

“Not on that foot.”

Ellana is currently sporting a gash on the bottom of her foot that would make it rather inconvenient to walk, but she’d rather risk the possible infection and pain if it means she won’t have to be carried like this.

“If you frown that much your face will get stuck,” Bull says. “I mean. Sure. You look cute. But I don’t think you’d want to be stuck looking like that forever.”

“Put me down.”

“Again. Not on that foot, you don’t. Pride goeth before the literal fall, Lavellan. Let me take care of you, alright? It’s what I’m here for.”

“Is it?” Ellana mutters. “Is it really?”

“This is what happens when you don’t wear real shoes,” Bull says.

“I was wearing boots!” Ellana snaps. “It cut through the sole.”

“Sure it did,” Bull says. Ellana scowls at him. He isn’t looking at her, but he ought to be feeling it.

Ellana glances over to where the Wolf is in a rather festive coat of red and brown, eyes glittering a strange shade of orange.

“You are a perpetual fount of interesting sights,” the Wolf says. “I leave you about your business for a month or so and this happens. Marvelous for you, little nothing girl. You’re starting to be something at last.”

Ellana flips the Wolf off. The Wolf just laughs.

“We’re starting to rub off on you,” Bull muses.

“Or maybe I feel as though I have so much job security that I can finally express my true feelings,” Ellana says.

“Is that what they call it these days? Job security?” Bull raises an eyebrow.

Ellana rolls her eyes. “Whatever it is that means that you like me.”

“Are we going to play that game, Wolf? About whether I like you like you, or just like you like you?”

Ellana covers his mouth with her hand.

“Let me just wallow in my humiliation as you carry me around, will you?”

She feels him kiss her palm. She almost wishes he’d just lick it like a juvenile instead. She has no idea why, but something about the Iron Bull becomes completely unbearable when he’s being tender.

Ellana groans and closes her eyes.

“You are going to be the ruin of me.”

“Is that a promise, Wolf? You’re going to give a man ideas with words like those.”

[yourhealthmattersblog]

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[anodyne-sunflower]

Neptune-BalemxReader (Request)

A/N: Balem is ridiculous, and makes it hard to enjoy the Christmas spirit. So picking a plot for him was a challenge lol Also, this takes care of another request...for a reaction I wouldn’t consider very ‘Balem’ but fun to write ;)

MOOD MUSIC: Battlefield by Svrcina

***

A strong-willed woman, that’s what it took, and Balem would find himself incapable of denying you even the smallest of requests. He could not fathom how low he had sunk on his own personal view of people, but who was he to find fault in the love he held for you. As far as he could remember, you had undeniably hooked him into your world and refused to let go. Breaking down each barrier of his brash personality, until all that was left was a ruler who found his one weakness in the form of a gorgeous earthling.

“No.”

“Balem-“ The Primary growled deeply in his throat, almost a purr of annoyance that you had sensed building. He was a stubborn man, but you knew better than to give up on the first try with him. “My dear husband...”

Balem’s inquisitive eyes fell upon your figure, voyaging over the curve of your tempting hip and stopping just when those pretty lips came into his view. He could play this game with you, pretend you had little to no effect over him, but that would be disastrous by the end of it. It was unlikely he was even able to feign such a display, because those pleading eyes of yours were enough to earn a ‘yes’ from him. “Very well....” By now his tone had lost some of its potency, but it would be in bad taste to immediately destroy the aloof reputation he had built himself. He couldn’t have his staff bare witness to these softer moments with you, and judging by the curious stares of his advisor he already felt that part of his life ending.

“Mr. Night,” Balem stared icily towards the splice, not appreciating the way he lingered behind him like some child awaiting permission. The intimate moments he shared with you would remain behind closed doors, and he intended for that rule to apply to the throne room as well. “Do not stand there like some fool-!”

“You can go, Mr. Night.” Your palm fell over Balem’s clenched fist, acting as an instant calmative for the rage filled man. It was endearing how quarrelsome he could become under the scrutiny of his staff, but you suspected being the intimidating ruler of planets could make anyone testy. “You really shouldn’t be so cruel, Balem.” You waited until the rest of the servants left the throne room, knowing he’d be better off to receive your affections that way. “If you really don’t want to go then-“

“You’re a bothersome woman.” Balem scoffed in frustration, crossing his arms as he took a seat back on his hovering throne. You knew better than to take his words seriously in this instance, but it still made you pout down at him. Call it a sweet revenge, but you took advantage of the influence you had over him.

“I only asked for one thing...don’t be so melancholy.” Your fingers tugged gently on the ends of your dress, lifting it up and out of the way as you took a seat on his lap. Despite his initial cold shoulder, you still felt the brush of his fingertips on your lower back, softly massaging the skin that was bare from the dip of your gown. “Do you really not want to go?”

“Hm.” It was barely a reply, but you understood him well enough to know that his simple remarks meant he was caving to your desires.

“Oh, thank you!” With a relieved sigh, you tangled your arms around his neck, kissing his cheek happily and leaving him to gripe about the upcoming trip as you went away to pack.

***

“Neptune?! I thought we agreed we would go to earth? You said that-“

“Earth, Neptune...it’s all the same.” Balem shrugged your exasperation off, his shortened nails tapping away at the rim of his wine glass. He was in no fine spirits to be traveling away from Jupiter, as he usually was, but for you he was willing to make the small sacrifice. He hated most planets, they were often over populated, and the customs changed so frequently he never had time to register what was going on. He relied heavily on his advisor to notify him of such trivial details, but if he had to pick one planet he found tolerable alongside Jupiter, it would be Neptune. It was cold, desolate, and held a peaceful silence he was proud to call his own. He may have promised you a trip for the holidays, a Christmas tradition you forced upon him, but he was under no obligation to make it on earth.

“You stubborn, bull-headed, man!” Was it really so much to expect him to keep his word? He was always so skilled at deceiving his business rivals, you felt he might be transferring those ideals to his marriage. “One Christmas, just one, that’s all I wanted. Back home where people actually decorate, make hot chocolate, sing carols, and exchange gifts!” There was no use covering up your disappointment, and in hindsight you were being rather childish about it. But you were homesick, as anyone would get during the holidays. All you wished was for one Christmas abroad, and to delight in the extravagant traditions earth offered.

“You begged me for a winter, and now you have it.” Balem muttered back to you, gesturing to the white landscape below as his clipper descended onto the docking bay. “Neptune is forever in a state of endless snowstorms. You have your wish, my queen. Do not presume to ask me for more.”

Balem was not an easy man to be married to, but you loved him anyway. However, your forgiving nature didn’t extend to trickery and lies, or his terrible attitude on most things. Christmas was your favorite time of year, and having to brave the boring atmosphere of Jupiter for one more year would’ve been hell. “You are selfish, Balem! I hope you enjoy your solitude, because I’m,” With a displeased demeanor, you grabbed your pale blue cloak from the bed and stormed out of his clipper chambers, barely acknowledging him on your way out. “Going out and enjoying what I can of this foreign place you’ve brought me.” Drama wasn’t your talent, but being with Balem sometimes brought that out in you. Mainly when you wanted to get away and deal with your conflicting emotions on your own. Or, if you were being perfectly honest, to gain some sympathy from your husband.

“Y/N.” Balem rose from his seat, debating whether to chase after you or let you simmer in your anger. He despised conversations about feelings, but he couldn’t deny the small pang of grief he felt at your departure. “Wait...” He grumbled to himself, cursing the gods for ever letting him fall victim to his heart’s passions.

The ship came to a halt on the docks, anchoring to the metal and releasing the ramp for you to exit. You could feel Balem’s presence looming behind you, but in your sour mood it wasn’t worth giving him the time of day now. “That awful...handsome, petulant man...” To say it was difficult to insult your husband would be an understatement, because he brought you more joy than headaches in the past years. However, today he was on your list of people you wanted to slap upside the head for their unbecoming behavior. “I swear.”

You greeted Mr. Night on your way out, smiling when he fussed over you staying warm whilst exploring about. You had never set foot on Neptune before, but the minute you looked out at the sea of white in front of you, your heart nearly stopped from the grand scenery. It was stunningly beautiful, sparkling white in the soft glow of the sun that beamed from so far away. There was very little light that was given to the planet, but regardless of that fact, you were amazed at how gorgeous it looked. Darkened trees dotted the horizon, the lakes frozen over and proving even prettier upon closer inspection. If ever there was a winter wonderland, it was this. The odd part was, that it angered you, because not only had he specifically chosen a planet that would perfectly capture what you wanted, but he went out of his way to even agree to travel. It sounded immature and petty, but you liked to actually stay mad at him for once. Instead of finding out his selfish nature was actually him just working around what you had requested of him.

With a small groan of annoyance, you finally trekked into the snow. The chill of it running up to your knees and causing you to smile in fondness of your childhood memories. You had missed such weather, and knowing Neptune was in a perpetual state of winter made you warm with joy. Unfortunately, the holiday spirit was meant to be shared with your hotheaded husband, who didn’t seem to be following you any longer. “Merry Christmas, to me...” You sullenly whispered, stopping at a stone archway that was covered in iced over vines. The path lead down into the valley, where an enchanting castle stood alone on the hill surrounded by old metal gates and plants that had withered away without proper care. Even then, it still looked elegant to you, and the more you thought it over the more you were willing to spend your vacation here.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” His dark voice trailed into your mind, making you turn around and come face to face with him in his brooding company.

“Yes.” There was more descriptive words you could’ve used to explain your love for this place, but Balem would’ve been smug about it. Something you weren’t willing to fully put up with just yet. “It is.”

Balem sighed heavily, picking up on your cold shoulder and not wanting to further the wrath you had developed against him. Normally he’d be fine with the silence, but the sentimental half of him loathed your aloofness towards him. “My flower.” He eagerly reached for you, ignoring your gentle resistance of his touch when he tugged you into his arms.

He stayed silent, but you felt the love he harbored for you through his embrace. The warmth that came with his hold, it was comforting to your frustrated soul, and even if you still wanted to bite back for his irritable ways you allowed him the proximity. “You’re still in trouble, Balem.”

The Primary smirked at your weak threat, burying his nose into your hair and drinking in the heavy scent of your perfume. It provided its own pleasure for him, and if this was the events Christmas would bring in the future, he was happy to play along next time. “Will this palace suffice?”

The answer, was an obvious yes, but you weren’t going to satisfy his ego with it just yet. He could wait to hear how much you adored him for bringing you to Neptune. Especially when all you wanted to do now was hurry inside and bask in the heat of the fireplace that undoubtedly adorned the castle walls. “Balem,” You pulled away from him, still staying within his hold as you gazed lovingly up at the Primary. He looked devilishly handsome against the backdrop of winter, the distinguished gold and black cloak he wore emitting a kingly vibe. If it wasn’t for your vengeful side, you’d of enthusiastically dragged him into his winter palace and spent Christmas locked in his heated embrace. But that special gift could wait until you got precisely what you wanted. “Do you love me?”

The inquiry caught him off guard, his eyebrow raising in suspicion as he stared curiously down at you. “Little bird,” he warned, scowl growing deep when you simply smiled up at him. He couldn’t gauge what your plan was, but he assumed you wished for nothing more than his suffering. Dramatic as it was, he was not capable of voicing the extent of his adoration of you. “Do not-“

“Answer me, Balem.” You prodded him for a confession, even when you knew he loved you deeper than anything else in his life. You valued actions above words most days, but on the rare occasion, you rather enjoyed hearing him admit it. Nothing screamed payback like watching the most powerful man succumb to his woman.

Balem could not comprehend why you’d burden him with this nonsense, and truthfully he just wanted to whisk you away into the castle and find more creative ways to keep warm. But that determined stare of yours was making him feel a vulnerability he wasn’t accustomed to, and he hated every minute of it. “I...” He muttered, brow furrowing in distaste of this topic. Courting you was the most romantic side of him you’d likely ever witness. He had hoped, in vain, that you’d be satisfied with that outcome. Only now, it would appear otherwise. “This is nonsense, enough of it.”

Balem gently shoved you aside, his mind set on leaving this foolish conversation behind. He had better things to attend to than placate the sentiments of your earthling heart. “Come, I’ll have the servants build us a fire. We’ll have dinner together.”

It was his way of showing you just how much you meant to him, you were aware of that. And you couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort over the topic of love. He was never going to be an open person, but you were his wife, and you intended to tease him about it until the end of your days. “Balem, just say it. It won’t kill you.” You hooked your arm around his, leaning your head happily against his shoulder as you walked along the snowy path and towards the palace gates.

“I said enough.” His words were straight and to the point, laced in a discontent that made you giggle madly. He could be curt all he wanted, because when you glanced up and saw that heated trail of pink along his cheeks you knew you had won this time.

***

A/N: In case it wasn’t obvious, the request was for ‘Balem blushing’. Not a very realistic reaction for the ass, but I tried to put him into a position where I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d blush lol So, hope it was decent 🤷🏻‍♀️