#the they find comfort in eo trope is so SO SO -

[lil-vibes]

dazai and chuuya sharing a bed or a sleeping space is so dear and precious to me bro put it in a fic and im ON that shit like a house cat at 5am in the mornig climbing your legs for food

[letstalkwhump]

Let's Talk Whump!

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host today. 

Here with us today is the fabulous @angstafterdark !

Hello! Good to have you here! How about we start off with a fact or three about yourself?

Oh man, hello. If we're not talking about whump, I'm really bad at talking about myself. It's not that I'm boring, I'm just shy and awkward. I'll do my best though! 

My name is Vee or V or ✌🏿. My favorite color is red. I love emojis even though I'm still trying to figure out what half of them mean. I'm very passionate about getting more POC and well written women into the media I read and write in. I firmly believe everyone wins when there's more diversity! 

What does whump mean to you? 

Catharsis, a healthy way to get the pain in your brain out so you're not harming yourself or others. For me, whump isn't the only thing I look for, I like a little plot with my pain. Whump and all its tropes and genres are seasoning to great storytelling! 

And how did you find the whump community? 

I stumbled into the community completely by accident and during a pretty rough period in my life. I started out in writeblr and somehow found @sweetwhumphellacomf's Prince and Paladin series with Eos and Valerie and it just hit everything I loved about storytelling! Dex is a fantastic writer and that series will always have a special place in my heart. So after I read it, I started reading more, got hooked into a discord server, started to actually interact with Dex and other whump writers, started writing my own stuff and went from there!   

Do you feel like your view on whump has changed since you joined?

It's definitely changed! I've gone in a different direction with my writing and become a lot more open to certain tropes and people I once thought were weird or taboo. I think, personally, that's helped me grow as an author. I've had to do research to write some topics with sensitivity and care and that, in turn, has led me to other blogs and people I have the pleasure of calling friends! 

And now my favorite question to ask! Do you have a favourite whump trope?

Whipping, Bedside Vigils, Creepy Comfort, Captivity, Whump Emotional/Psychological Whump, Sickfics/Fevers. I've really been into the BBU (box boy universe) lately. As someone who loves engaging with others about OCs and writing stuff, my favorite thing about it is its collaborative nature. It's so fun and contrary to popular belief, people are very aware and sensitive about the triggering tropes and topics that are often explored in that sandbox. There's also the ability to explore the real world struggles of POC communities, minorities, and other vulnerable populations and thats something I’m really passionate about. 

The BBU universe is amazing with its sandbox structure and I think a lot of the whump community has really connected through BBU’s shared universe. Do you have a favourite piece you've written? 

I have two blogs so I'll link two if that's alright! I love this one! Taron and Zizi were my first whumpees. They hold such a special place in my heart. And this one! (slight nsfw)! Wick's fear here was so fun to write and so palpable. 

I love Taron’s distress and internal conflict in the first one. So good! Do you have a regular writing routine or just whenever the inspo strikes?

Oh gosh. I have a kid, a fulltime job, and a pretty busy life so getting writing done is kind of hard. I try to take Mondays off from parenting and working and I usually find myself at Panera Bread for a few hours. I really like sitting in one corner of the place. I’ll usually put on my wireless headphones and put one song on repeat. The song depends on which story or character I’m writing for.

I do like having a snack when I'm writing but sometimes I get into the zone and completely forget about what I'm eating. It's a problem!  

And do you find it easier to write some things than others?

Comfort is really easy for me to write. I don't write it a lot but when I do, it flows really easily. I love a good comfort fic but I usually slip in a bit of angst. I gotta have my angst. 

Take us behind the curtain, is there anything new you’re working on at the moment?

I have several stories in the works but I'm currently working on the escape portion of LIKE A BULLET LOVES A GUN. Someone dies and that's all I'm gonna say about that. 

I've also taken up drawing again. It's not great and I hate not being immediately good at something but I'm trying to stick with it! 

Do you have a joke or pun you would like to share to spread some smiles today?

I usually save my witty lines for my writing. I’m not great at being funny when I’m under pressure. Sorry. 

Advice time! What would you like to share?

Yeah! I have two pieces of advice!

The first: Have a writing buddy! Write with someone you trust who is going to be supportive of you and excited about what you're doing. The second: no matter how discouraged you get, NEVER DELETE YOUR WRITING OR YOUR BLOG! Be your own fan first. Reread your own writing (you write it for a reason. It made you happy). There's absolutely NO shame in reblogging your own work and screaming in the tags. It's not annoying and it's not egotistical.

Finally let’s shout out your favorite writing/whump blogs, bffs or people who've inspired you. We're hyping everyone up here!

Oh God. There are so many! Whether it's screaming in the tags of my writing, giving me space on discord to be my sometimes messy self, collaborating with me, or just being a sweet, positive force in the community, I'm genuinely grateful for each and every one of these blogs. 

@mottinthemainpot (who nominated me) @wildfaewhump @flowersarefreetherapy @siren-of-agony @ashintheairlikesnow @justplainwhump  @noirineverysense @just-horrible-things @gritpyre @winedark-whump  @studyofwhump @clockworknightmares @redwingedwhump @amethystpath-writes @gottawhump @girlsjustwannadrawwhump and @oddsconvert 

I also gotta shout out a few of the discord servers I’m a part of so shout out to the whumpawoman server, especially to @whumpstash and @mirasmirages who are the most amazing and supportive co-mods! 

Shout out to The Whump Oasis and every one in there as well! 

Anything you'd like to add?

Yes, thank you. albino-whumpee would’ve been on that list of whump blogs that I’m grateful for. I'm still so grateful for the conversations we had and their beautiful commissioned artwork. I hope wherever they've ended up, they're happy and pain-free. Please consider visiting the memorial @whumptr0pes put up for Moya and donating to The Trevor Project in their memory. 

Oftentimes when we're writing whump, we’re dealing with our own traumas and insecurities. It's cliche to say but you never know what someone is going through so kindness and understanding always has to be a priority even if - especially if - someone is writing about a topic you don't personally enjoy or can't engage with for whatever reason. 

We all write and enjoy topics that can trigger someone else and it's important for us as a community to support each other. Please, please, please don't hesitate to reach out. There is always someone in your corner. 

(Note: This topic may still be extremely fresh for some folks and it can be extremely triggering, but we here at Let's Talk Whump want to make it known that we are all a big family (the whump community). No matter what differences we may have, no one should ever feel alone. That being said, if any of you are struggling at home, feel lost, hurting, and don't know where to reach out, attached is a website that has international suicide hotline numbers and resources available from countries A-Z.

https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/ )

Thank you so much for sharing, @angstafterdark. It was so good to have you here today! 

And to all you folks at home, have a whump-derful day!

* @angstafterdark is an 18+ blog only. Minors please do not interact with their works or with their blog. 

[lollily]

hello bbs^^

Just checking in on you!

How are you? Have u been eating and drinking water? Just a daily reminder that ily and you're amazing.

nd just a random question, what's your favourite romance trope in the tokrev pairings? (canon or not doesn't matter!)

Hii darling♡ Thankyou for checking up on me! I'm doing good hope you're taking care of yourself too and ofc ily2 vvv much <3333

fav romance trope you ask? I doubt I can narrow it down to one because I find aspects to love in every ship.

There's the friends to lovers where there's just so much comfort and understanding that even with no words exchanged they can see right through each other.(Bajifuyu, Takehina, Doramitsu)

There's the soulmates who had/have so many hurdles but are willing to even die for the other's happiness. Poignant and from the heart. (Kakuzana, Mitake, kokonui)

The couple who bonded over chaos and on the surface it looks like they're one mean pair but watching just the two of them together living in the moment like they're the only ones in the world, is a different kind of solace (hankisa, Bajitora)

Childhood friends to lovers, a classic. (Kakuzana, kokonui, Pahumi)

Obvious x tsundere but there's a lot of mutual caring (Drakema, Rinzu because yolo)

Enemies to lovers (Fuyutora, Angry x Rindou, putting Yasuda x Peh too because ik a blooming love when I see it)

The "fateful encounter" (Bajifuyu, Mitsukai)

The in another life :') (Drakema, Hankisa, Kakuzana)

Is there space for Simp x "omg he's an idiot... but he's my idiot" ? (Mitskai, Mitake goes both ways like a pendulum)

Oblivious mutual pining because I said so (Bajifuyu, Bajifuyutora, Emhina, Mitsukai, Shinwaka, takeshin, alright all the Black dragon founding members for eo. Polyamory ftw!)

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection Day 30: Wing Fic

Purifying Snowflakes | @ialwayscomewhenyoucall

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1855 Main Tags/Warnings: depression, snow, first kiss, emotional hurt/comfort Summary: “I was asleep, then I had a nightmare.” Dean closes his eyes, schooling his face to stillness so he doesn’t wince. Angel or not, all the trauma Cas has been through in the past few years means he needs to sleep sometimes. And that same trauma means his sleep is almost always interrupted by nightmares. It’s a vicious cycle, one Dean would do anything to break. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. Cas shakes his head. “It’s...my room feels too...confined. I need to get out. Could you...would you...walk with me?” “Outside? It’s the middle of…” He’d meant to finish with ‘winter’ but seeing the hope fade from Cas’s eyes changed his mind. “Sure, Cas. Give me five minutes to change. This robe ain’t exactly cold weather gear.” As he’d hoped, this brings the hint of a smile to Cas’s lips. “And you too. I don’t want you wasting your grace just to keep yourself warm. I know it’s not what it once was.” Bristling, Cas starts to protest, but Dean holds his hands up to stave off argument. “Come on, Cas. You take care of me. Let me take care of you, too.”

Always and Forever | @ialwayscomewhenyoucall

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2306 Main Tags/Warnings: greek mythology au, god!cas, hunter!dean, bittersweet ending Summary: Falling to his knees, the hunter spoke. “Forgive me, Bright One. These woods are not always safe. It was only instinct that caused me to draw a blade. But I would never harm you. I could never…” His voice trailed off as he stared into up into the face of the god. Castiel drew the hunter to his feet. “I am Castiel.” he said simply. Dean’s eyes widened. “God of the dawn? I have aptly named you Bright One! You bring light wherever you go. Flowers bloom for you. Birds and bees fly in your wake. Mortals…” He paused, blushing. “Mortals sing songs of your beauty.” --a loose retelling of the myth of Eos and Tithonus--

Feathers | @rogueangelshunter

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2703 Main Tags/Warnings: Domestic fic, wing fic Summary: Early one morning, Dean stumbles onto something kinda amazing. *Set sometime during season 14, when Cas and Jack are living at the bunker and Cas still has his angelic mojo working.

Eros | @supernatural9917fic

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3350 Main Tags/Warnings: Canon Universe, Wing Kink, Angel Magic, Dean finally getting his head out of his ass, Sam Winchester is Scarred For Life, switch Summary: Sam finds a spell that can heal Castiel's wings, but there's a bit of a catch...

What Bare Eyes Can't See | @gii-heylittleangel

Rating: General Word Count: 3553 Main Tags/Warnings: Cas with wings; hunt Summary: One of the first things Dean learned when he first met Cas was that he couldn’t see all the planes that Cas exists at outside of his vessel, so when they’re on a hunt for a hellhound and Dean looks at Cas with his scorched with holy fire glasses, he can’t believe his own eyes.

on feathers and dreams | @pomegranatedaffodil

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 4984 Main Tags/Warnings: Fairy Tale, Winged Castiel, Inventor Dean, Mutual Pining, First Kiss Summary: Once upon a time, an angel fell in love with a man. But Castiel's brethren did not approve of their bond, and so it was put to the test: if Dean could prove his love and his devotion to Castiel in spite of overwhelming obstacles, and if Castiel could keep his faith in Dean for the duration of his trials, only then would they be permitted to be together.

Angel Wings | @Clio-philyra

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6094 Main Tags/Warnings: Wing kink, fluff and smut, hurt/comfort, Christmas, Summary: Christmas night in the bunker and Dean gets an unexpected visit from an injured Cas.

Finding Flight (WIP) | @ialwayscomewhenyoucall

Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 11960 Main Tags/Warnings: space diplomat au, alien!cas, human!dean, mutual pining, angst with a happy ending Summary: Dean, a low-level (human) diplomat stationed in deep space, is part of a team trying to negotiate peace between two peoples who have been arguing for decades. Cas is an alien brought in to negotiate for the other side. When their lives collide, neither will ever be the same.

Cursed or Not | @dates-with-cas

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 15520 Main Tags/Warnings: canon!verse, witch curse, casefic, mating cycles/in heat, winged!dean, masturbation, public masturbation, reference to intended non-con, sex toys, top!Cas, bottom!Dean, implied switch!Dean Summary: When Dean is cursed by a witch, he doesn't even realize at first, so he doesn't bother Cas or Sam with the sudden, unusual pain until it turns into something he can't deal with on his own.

Birds of a Feather | @tucuxia

Rating: Mature Word Count: 17829 Main Tags/Warnings: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester, Wingfic Summary: Cas wants a pet. If he can't have a cat, he will find something else.

The Last Repentant | @spnsmile

Rating: Mature Word Count: 23000 Main Tags/Warnings: Graphical Depiction of Violence, CanonDivergent Summary: Who will have mercy on his soul? The first time they landed in Purgatory, Dean was forced to leave the angel behind, oblivious to the many things that happened until Castiel escaped with the help of Heaven. Unknown to them are the Shadows lingering in the Forsaken Land, the tortured Souls that haunted the angel, only to be forgotten when Heaven attempted Castiel’s reform. Years later they dived back in Monster land with a mission to end the greatest manipulator, but with bond strained and brotherhood severed, how will Dean and Castiel reconcile? Especially when Dean wakes up to find the angel taken away by the Leviathans. There has to be something to save them before the tortured souls win another one in their number. Injured and beaten, Dean remembers friendly advice inside a confessional a long time ago. Bless me father…? Nope. A prayer.

Grooming Instincts | @jemariel

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 26153 Main Tags/Warnings: Wing kink, grace sharing, angel soul bonds, massage, miscommunication, top!Cas, bottom!Dean Summary: There's something going on with Cas. Dean is determined to help him through it, in whatever way he can. He might end up with more than he bargained for. OR: Dean helps Cas scratch an itch. As it were.

The Angel's Widower (WIP) | @pray4jensen

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 50697 Main Tags/Warnings: Wingfic, Enemies to Lovers, Soul Bond, Switching, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: After Castiel dies, the portal to the other world opens and obliterates the universe that Sam and Dean know. Bobby takes them in, teaches them how to survive in a world with new rules and new consequences, a world where humans live in camps enclosed by high walls to keep angels out, where angels will do anything and everything to seduce and lure humans away. Why and to where beyond the wall, no one knows. While Sam struggles to find a way home, a grieving Dean loses all hope. But then one night, while Dean's guarding the wall, in the middle of a snowy blizzard and under the cover of darkness, an angel with beautiful black wings and a familiar face appears. His name is Castiel. And he asks Dean to go with him.

[darrowsrising]

The Red Saviour, the Gold Saviour and the Ares: the promised analysis cometh.

I was thinking of Rose Armitage from Get Out and how she overthrows the white saviour trope - she seems like the rose blooming above the thorns, but she is actually just as bad as her family if not worse.

Then, it hit me - how do Darrow and Lysander fit into the white saviour trope? More importantly...how does Fitchner fit?

Fitchner au Barca was a Bronzie - fake Gold - Gold, but not quite enough, genetical malfuction and all of that. He was Gold, but Society has treated him as lesser than. He had the privilege over the other Colors, but his very existance was denied by his own. And then, when he tried to build a life of his own, they took it from him in a heartbeat. And he spent the rest of his life trying to seek vengeance only to find it empty and cold. He figured out that the system was sick and it made sick people even sicker. So he went on some sort of liberation crusade, so to speak. But Fitchner was never a saviour. He was a warlord. Fitchner had to learn why vengeance is empty on his own. He had no mentor, no figure to remind him that there is something at the end of the tunnel. Fitchner had to come to some conclusions of his own, he got a grasp of what it means to be opressed, but he had to understand other Colors to understand what he wants from this war he waged. He understood that someone from the lowest scale of the pyramid will have to rise and bring his people with him.

Darrow of Lykos was built to be a god among men. An Iron Gold among Golds. But he was more than that, he is human. And he loves. And to protect what he loves. He broke the chains to make a world where nothing bounds his love, nothing endangers the people he loves. 

Darrow is a Red, he is from the bottom of the pyramid - on his people's backs the entire Society has been built. He doesn't just understand the Red pain, he lived it. Not only that, but family love is at the core of Red culture, but they also dance alone. What does that mean? They are the qualities Fitchner looked for in the messianic figure he wanted to lead the Rising.

You can't make just anyone the leader of the Rising, you have to pick the right person, the one who wouldn't be corrupted by their own power.

Darrow fights for his family, but 'dances alone', meaning he doesn't let his love make him reckless.

Any other Color would have fought for themselves, as they do not have the same sense of family as Reds have. Any other Color would have relied too much on others as they are used to it.

Darrow was born and raised in the mines for 16 year. He was a HellDiver at 13. He knows the struggle, he made it his purpose, he tried to make life work for him. And when that illusion shattered and he saw the entire picture, he saw that it's not only him, only Gammas, there are entire societies in chains.

Darrow hasn't experienced a Pink's life, a Blue's life and so on, but he empathizes. He won't fight just for one side, he will fight for a world where his family can live safe and sound and that means making a world where that is true for everyone. He doesn't come to bring people on a silver platter happiness or 'what is best' for them. He just brings people hope to fight for their own freedom. What they do with their freedom concerns them and defines them.

He doesn't come as a hero on a white horse to solve everything, a prince fated to bring the light to the poor shrouded in darkness. Darrow rose from the pits of Mars with the help of all kinds of people and Colors. He is not a superior creature, he is human. He isn't some heaven-spat miracle for the poor oppressed. He too was lied, manipulated, opressed. He too was a slave.

Lysander is a Gold savior, or rather, the white saviour trope. His life hasn't been easy, but he was still born with the silver spoon in his mouth. He wants to bring order and peace and 'what is best for humanity'. He is literally the heir coming back from exile to save everyone from the big bad Reaper and his mad ideas of freedom. He hails himself an Iron Gold, he wants to be one, he wants to sheperd the worlds like some sort of god-like figure, deciding what is best for his stupid, but very useful sheep. They do not need freedom, they need order. He can decide their lives, they don't need to decide themselves, they just need to be useful to him, to Society, to progress.

Lysander has been raised to ride horses, to rule Society, to conquer, to control. He was educated, trained and not very loved. He was raised in comfort and taught to adapt to any situation, gradually - a game of orientation in the forest, a walk through the dessert, survival lessons done so he wouldn't die like a fool. He has never known hunger or helplessness or opression.

Darrow has cults and is indeed the most god-like figure in the series, but he does not use his own myth for proclaiming himself any sort of ruler. He does not want political power or 'to sheperd the worlds'.

Darrow learnt how to dance in the dusty tunnels of Lykos from his alcoholic uncle. He has never seen daylight, let alone a book or a horse until he was 16. He learnt maths while sitting in his own piss and sweat on the elbow of a clawDrill and after a few weeks he had to sit in a clawDrill and actually apply that maths to dig for helium-3 while avoiding pitVipers and gas pockets.

Lysander self-sacrifices for what he believes is the greater good. But he just wants power over other people whom he considers beneath him.

The reason Fitchner took the role of Ares instead of trying to be the messianic figure is because he didn't feel suited for the role. He is a Bronzie, he has been persecuted by his own Color, but he does know that he is not the right person to build a myth around. And the cause is not about ego, it's not about him, it's about a better world. And he can't do it alone and he can't do it himself.

Cadus often asked himself why did Fitchner choose Darrow, a Red, out of all the people. Why not him, an Orange? Well, that seems quite the rethoric question - Cadus wanted to lead the Rising for all the wrong reasons, pride most of all. Darrow wanted to break the chains, not for himself, but for his people.

Change comes from the bottom up, it doesn't trickle from the peak down and it doesn't spread from the middle.

And Darrow wanted change for everyone, even Golds, he believed Golds can change and together, all the Colors can make that better world Eo and Fitchner dreamt of.

Lysander, a bit like Rose from Get Out, thinks he is the rose blooming above the thorns. He thinks he brings the best deal to the table for everyone - giving fairer treatment to Colors and showing thr Golds how to sheperd fairly. But a fairer slaver is still a slaver. He is still just as bad. Rose drops the young liberal persona fast, but Lysander is actually convinced that he knows best. And whether that has something to do with the brainwashing he suffered or not, he is still very much a piece of shit.

As cheesy as this entire analysis sounded to you, I hope this explains why Darrow is not a white saviour, why Lysander is and why Ficthner is so much more important and complex and vital for the Rising than originally thought.

Howl on!

[eirabach]

Dangerous Games [1/2]

Hi. I don’t want to tell you how shockingly hard I fell for this ship, but suffice to say this started as a tiny wee one shot somewhere mid season two. And now it’s uh... none of those things. Enjoy? I hope you like tropes...

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go!

Rating: M [eventually]

Word Count: 13.8k ishhhh

AO3: Here

Summary: 

In which Penelope plots, and lives to regret it. Possibly.

But then again, possibly not.

[or, Pen and Ink versus TOS episode The Cham-Cham. Except with hardly anything in common with The Cham-Cham. I don’t make the rules. They do.]

There is a peculiar sort of etiquette to tea.

Penelope prides herself on knowing all the funny, fusty old rules that most of her generation have no idea ever existed. The rules she’d learned at the knee of a paper-skinned grandmother, her bony hands holding Penelope’s shaking ones as black lace had blurred her vision, and her mother’s teapot had seemed unbearably heavy in the shocking finality of her absence.

“Careful now, Penelope. A lady must not be seen to tremble.”

Of course according to her dear departed Grandmother, a lady ought not do a great many things.

Ought not make a scene, nor involve herself in politicking. Ought not wear a skirt above the knee, nor ingratiate herself with men whom she’d do better to avoid. Ought not to smile beguilingly. Ought not to welcome such overtures in return.

At least Penelope has always obeyed her in regard to tea.

It comes as easy as breathing; the perfect four minute steeping of the leaves, the gentle six o’clock folding in of the milk, the way she lifts the porcelain to her lips and sips delicately. She’s a study in ladylike composure and British reserve.

If her grandmother knew how hard her heart was beating, how she struggled to keep her hand steady, if her grandmother knew why -

Somewhere in the distance, she imagines she might hear the sound of the chapel’s flagstones rippling as her grandmother’s bones spin wildly in the vault beneath.

A giggle bubbles helplessly up from behind the rim of her teacup.

“Something funny?”

“No I - Would you believe I was thinking of my dead grandmother?”

“Oh yeah? Hilarious. Almost as funny as this - thing . What is it?” Gordon holds up one of the delicate little crustless sandwiches, the ones she’d made herself after sending Parker and the cook away, and peers at it with a disdain she finds offensive.

“It’s Coronation Chicken,” she says with a sniff. “It’s a classic filling.”

Gordon drops the sandwich back on the plate and nods solemnly “Of course it is. Mind if I stick to cake?”

She giggles again. Giggles, for goodness sake. The chapel shudders around her grandmother’s post-mortem assault. “Not keen?"

Gordon appears mortified, shaking his head frantically. “No it’s - I mean - This is, nice? You know. The tea, it’s nice.” He pats his belly and leans back like a man truly satiated. “Really great tea, Penelope. Really.”

Penelope hums politely, sets her teacup down with a final sounding clink , and takes a moment to observe her guest.

Sat on the little velveteen loveseat Gordon looks awkward, cumbersome, in a way he never usually does. His eyes are bright, his mouth as quick to smile as ever, but there’s a tenseness in his jaw she doesn’t remember from before the incident. A twitch in his fingers that she’s never noticed before.

And if there’s one thing Penelope has become good at in recent months, it’s noticing Gordon Tracy.

He might be free of the casts and braces now, but he still holds himself as though his body might betray him at any moment and send him sprawling at her feet. She’s heard the stories. Been pre-warned. She knows it might.

(She doesn’t know if his heart is racing like her own. Doesn’t know what she's supposed to do if it isn’t.)

He’s fiddling with the tea cup now, back ramrod straight in a way that absolutely cannot be comfortable but is surely demanded by the shades of older brothers and a military father when one is invited for tea with a Lady. And maybe she knows the etiquette, but Gordon is following the rules.

Penelope makes her own rules.

She takes a breath and reminds herself that she’s not the only one out of her comfort zone here. If they can take down international criminals and rescue recalcitrant Frenchmen they really ought to be able to manage a civilised cup of Assam.

“Well that is a relief,” Penelope sighs, and sits back a little in her seat, feet crossing and uncrossing at the ankles. “I am rather an expert at afternoon tea.”

“Really?” Gordon sounds genuinely surprised, but quickly schools his features into something that he probably thinks looks neutral. Penelope doesn’t think Gordon could wear a neutral expression if his life depended on it.

“Surprising, is it?”

Gordon shrugs his good shoulder. “I thought that was what Parker was, y’know. For.”

“Never let him hear you say that,” she scolds, only half joking if that. “And to be perfectly frank with you he’s rather a philistine when it comes to tea. Would you believe he puts the milk in first?”

“No,” Gordon gasps, mock scandalised. “The audacity.”

He leans forward then, closing the distance between them and casting a shadow over the now neglected cups. “Bet I know someone worse.”

Penelope raises one eyebrow. “Indeed?”

“Ever met my Grandma?”

“Touche.”

He grins. "Thought so.” Then, slightly chargrined, “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“I’ll never tell,” Penelope agrees.

“Thing is -” he picks up another piece of Victoria sponge and studies it as he speaks, “she’s been great recently. She really has. And it must be boring for her stuck following me around all day - or not. I mean she can’t even follow me half the time I’m just sat there. Beached. And I love her and all but jeez - ” he puts down the cake and looks at Penelope like a man condemned. “I can’t eat anymore of her cooking, Pen. I’ll die.”

“Somewhat dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Have you ever eaten her meatloaf, Pen? Have you? No - “ he holds up a hand “no you haven’t, because if you had you’d understand.” He sighs dramatically, picks the slice of cake back up, and stuffs it in his mouth.

Penelope watches him chew with narrowed eyes, the germ of an idea forming in her mind.

It’s probably not a good idea.

It’s objectively a terrible idea.

Gordon’s still healing.

Her heart rate still won’t settle.

Her superiors will be furious.

His superior will lose his mind.

But Penelope is Penelope. And Penelope lets the words fall from her lips regardless.

“Gordon, have you ever been to Geneva?”

----

Last time Gordon had been to Geneva, Scott had helped drop him into the centre of the supreme hadron collider.

Scott’s got a case of deja vu.

“Geneva. With Lady Penelope.”

“Yeah,” Gordon grins at him from the other side of their father’s desk. “Pretty awesome, right?”

“Pretty,” Scott agrees, eyes wandering over to the half drunk bottle of scotch he’s going to need after this conversation. “Is it uh, a personal trip?”

Gordon’s ears flush pink, and Scott finds himself wishing for a full bottle.

“Penelope’s working.”

That’s not exactly an answer. It’s probably the only answer he’s going to get.

“And you’re going along for the scenery?”

“She asked me,” Gordon says, as though that’s all that could possibly matter. To him, it probably is.

Not for the first time Scott wonders if there’s anything Lady Penelope could ask of Gordon that he wouldn’t agree to in less than half a heartbeat. Not for the first time he sends a silent prayer of thanks that she’s on their side.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Gordon.”

“Why not?” Gordon’s smile fades into a scowl. “I’m no good to anyone here. You’re sick of the sight of me”

“That’s not true,” Scott says, reassuring. False. Because the truth is Gordon is grounded. And a grounded Gordon is a bored Gordon. And a bored Gordon is little better than a menace. But a Gordon halfway around the world and embroiled in what Lady Penelope calls work sounds a lot worse.

There’s only so much Colonel Casey can cover for them. They need the GDF onside.

And it isn’t that Scott doesn’t trust his brother, it isn’t, but he’s been Gordon’s big brother for twenty five years now, and the kid has form . Form and a fractured spine. Form and legs that can’t quite hold him steady on the other side of the desk.

When it comes to Gordon life is entirely heart over head, and that’s a risk Scott just can’t take.

He shakes his head, watches Gordon’s face fall, and swallows the guilt as he speaks.“You can’t -”

“No.” The venom in Gordon’s voice is enough to stop Scott in his tracks. Gordon leans forward, pressing his weight into his knuckles where they’re curled at the edge of the desk. “No, Scott. Just listen to me ok? I’ll tell you what I can’t do. I can’t sit here any longer just - just watching . I need to do  something. Be useful.”

“You can be useful here!”

“Can I?” Gordon rocks back on his heels, and Scott can’t help but notice the unsteady little sway that follows the action. “Because all I’ve done for the past six weeks is sit on my ass , Scott. Grandma won’t even let me run dispatch for God’s sake. You let EOS run dispatch.”

“EOS isn’t injured.”

“EOS isn’t even human!”

“Fine, you want a job? I’ll find you a job.”

“I’ve got a job. Penny’s - “

“Penny.” Scott half scoffs. “Listen, what Penelope gets up to is only as much of our business as it absolutely has to be, I can’t have you compromising International Rescue’s reputation.”

Gordon’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Penelope would never -”

“No.” Scott stands, and the height difference between the two of them is suddenly as pronounced as it was ten years ago when the rows were over innocent things that felt so dangerous at the time. “She wouldn’t. Which is why I can’t figure out why the hell she’s invited you along.”

This time the sway is more pronounced, a bodily ricochet from words that Scott already regrets. “I didn’t -”

Gordon brushes off the hand reaching for his shoulder, eyes suddenly darker than Scott remembers seeing them in years. That would have meant tears once, he remembers. Now it’s the herald of something far worse.

“Right,” Gordon says, voice unnervingly steady. “I hear you. Loud and clear.”

“Gordon I didn’t mean -”

“Mean what?” the false jollity is somehow worse than the anger he’d expected. “That I’m not the obvious choice for a covert op? Well jeez, Scotty, the thought hadn’t occurred to me!”

“That isn’t what I mean and you know it. ”

Gordon twists his mouth into an approximation of a sneer that sets Scott’s teeth on edge. Somewhere beyond them he can hear the chime of an incoming call, but he can’t quite bring himself to break from Gordon’s glare to answer it. John will redirect it. Scott has his own situation to deal with.

“Isn’t it?”

“I just don’t like the idea of it, Gordon, You’re not a spy. It could be dangerous.”

Gordon does laugh then, a great belly laugh that has him clutching at his knees and wheezing from damaged lungs. “Dangerous. You’re funny, Scotty. You should be the funny one, you’ve a real talent.”

He turns to leave, and Scott tries not to wince at the stiffness he sees, the mental load he’s dropped on already physically pained shoulders.

“Gordon, wait.”

To his credit Gordon does, but he doesn’t turn around and Scott is forced to deliver his next words to his back.

“If you go, just swear to me you won’t over do it, okay?”

Gordon’s shoulders drop as he turns and throws Scott an exasperated look.

“It’s just a party, Scott. I’m great at parties. The best. It’ll be fine .”

Yes, Gordon is great at parties. Really great. Too great. International news making great. That is a further complication he hadn’t wanted to dwell on. Scott sighs.

“Penelope’s parties are never just parties , Gordon. Remember that.”

Gordon clearly takes this for the implicit permission that it is, throwing Scott a distinctly poor salute and - if not beaming, exactly - smiling more broadly than he has since he woke up in hospital blues.

“Scouts honour!”

“Weren’t you expelled from the Scouts?”

The grin’s a little wider, now, and Scott’s heart a little lighter for seeing it. “I’ll never tell.”

Scott watches him leave, still leaning a little on the railing to help him up the stairs, then flicks the comm on his father’s desk over to the secure line. Penelope doesn’t take kindly to either instruction or demands, but if she wants to drag Scott’s wounded brother out of his sight she’d better get a handle on both.

She must be expecting his call, the comm chiming out only once before she’s hovering above the manila file that contains Gordon’s hospital discharge papers and the details of Tracy Industries latest bequest.

“Scott.”

“Lady P. I expect you know why I’m calling?”

One perfect miniature eyebrow rises slightly. “I assure you, I haven’t the faintest. Business or pleasure?”

Her Ladyship loves to play this game. Normally there’s some urgent disaster relief effort or international criminal conspiracy that prevents the two of them from taking pot shots at each other. But occasionally she’ll get in a dig about old money versus new, or he’ll cast aspersions on the validity of the English aristocracy in the twenty first century, and their conversation will devolve into the sort of sniping battle of wits that only two people with their history and connection can enjoy.

It’s been months, though, and maybe Penelope has forgotten that Scott can play this game too.

“You tell me,” he says, “what exactly are your intentions toward my little brother?”

And maybe Scott’s forgotten the rules, because small and blue tinged she may be, but Lady Penelope is absolutely hovering above his father’s desk and blushing .

“Jeez, Penny,” he says, somewhat taken aback by her reaction but somehow also not altogether surprised. “Did I strike a nerve?”

Penelope’s face fades back to its normal porcelain and she sniffs in that haughty fashion that she only ever uses when she’s trying to get one over on Scott.

“Nonsense, Scott. I have no nerves, you know that. I simply thought Gordon could do with getting off that island for a little while.”

“He came for tea, didn’t he? He’s not a prisoner."

“No?” There goes that eyebrow again, and even though she’s looking up at him Scott has the distinctly uncomfortable impression she’s actually looking down on him. Penelope makes him feel uncomfortable a lot. It’s a skill not many people possess, and one that she has in common with the brother in question. “I don’t think the realities of Gordon’s current situation are entirely in line with how he feels about it. He came for tea and quite frankly he was such a misery I didn’t know what to do with him. He’s bored witless, Scott.”

It’s Scott’s turn to raise an eyebrow, but Penelope doesn’t rise to the bait.

“So you thought you’d involve him in a little light espionage?”

“Well yes,” Penelope says in that gleeful sort of tone that means she’s got an idea and Scott is about to agree to it. “I thought it would do him good. Exercise his mind.”

“Yeah his mind , Pen. You know he’s nowhere near 100%. If it comes to a fight -”

“I’m perfectly capable of dealing with any threats that may appear.”

“And if you need back up?”

Penelope smiles, small and secret. “I’m perfectly capable, Scott.” Then, harsher. “Don’t you think Gordon can look after himself?”

“That isn’t the point."

“Actually,” Penelope says, not unkindly, “it rather is. Let him feel useful, Scott. I’ll keep him out of trouble.”

Scott doesn’t even know why he’s arguing. Gordon has already received his tacit permission and will no doubt be already be throwing his belongings into a case with as much joyous abandon as a half healed broken arm and fractured cervical vertebrae will allow. It’s as much of a waste of breath as Penelope thinks it is, but he tries anyway.

“I’ve been attempting that his entire life, Pen. Current events notwithstanding, my success rates have been pretty poor.”

“Then let me try.” Penelope crosses her arms and lifts her chin in that way that always means that she considers the conversation finished. Her rule, law. “I will return him to you in no worse condition than I receive him.”

“How encouraging,” Scott deadpans. “All right. Fine. You can have him. On two conditions.”

“I’m listening.”

��One, you keep an open comm to Thunderbird Five at all times. If anything goes wrong we will extract you both and we won’t care about your cover, understood?”

“Unnecessary, but understood,” Penelope says. “And the second?”

Scott takes a moment to think how to phrase this oddest feeling of requests. More than hospital next-of-kin, more than field commander, this feels most like a job that Dad should have had and he feels a brief frission of irritation with Penelope for not just waiting until Dad was back to do it. He takes a deep breath.

“When I say look after him, I don’t just mean don’t let him get into a bust up with some mafioso. I don’t pretend to know what’s going on between you two, and frankly, I don’t want to, but -”

Penelope holds up her hand.

“If this is the part where you threaten to have me killed if I break your brother’s heart then, please, stop there. You have nothing to fear in that regard, Scott. I promise you.”

Her tone is cool, her words more so, but that faint pink flush is on her cheeks again and Scott can’t help but test her one more time.

“You know for a good spy you’re a horrible liar."

The scoff and the snapping off of the comms link is really all he needs to prove him right.

----

It really ought to have been Scott.

If it were to be any of them, of course, and perhaps in a different world it wouldn’t have been. Perhaps there would have been someone else, if she’d been someone else. If she hadn’t been his daughter, and they hadn’t been Jeff’s boys. If the world was kinder, perhaps, and hadn’t taken them all for its own. But she wasn’t and there wasn’t and it wasn’t. And it really had ought to have been Scott.

He’s six feet plus of all-American primogeniture topped with blue eyes and dimples and filled with a sense of duty so finely tuned that sometimes it makes her teeth itch to hear him. And she, well. She’s old money to his new. Pretty and pink cheeked and connected. A perfect little love story boxed up and beribboned and really not a love story at all.

Love stories aren’t for the likes of them, after all. Much better to be practical than romantic, when one distracted moment might get you killed.

It makes sense. Scott. Her father had thought so, and his. Parker still does, and her refusal to agree is a needle in his side.

( “H’I won’t live forever, M’lady,” all too often muttered under his breath as they wave Thunderbird One off from the manicured lawns, though she suspects he will, regardless. On purpose, even. Determined to see her down the aisle on the arm of someone he deems h’ppropriate.)

It isn’t Scott though. It was never Scott.

As long as it’s been anyone, it’s been him.

Which makes this all the more inauspicious a beginning.

Penelope is used to travelling under the radar as and when required. The economy seating and stretch polyester are a small price to pay for the anonymity they can afford her on the flight from London to Geneva. Any faintly curious glances sent her way are soon dissuaded from further investigation by her day-three hair and shiny leggings. That girl might look like Lady Creighton-Ward, but she wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that. Simple. Effective. Utterly depressing when Gordon turns up looking like that.

He practically bounds out of arrivals, all bright yellow glee, his case swaying on the trolley as he drags it along behind him, and the dreadful Swiss grey neutrality of the airport brightens like sunshine at his approach. If no one looks twice at her they crane their necks to look at him, and maybe she hasn’t quite thought this through.

Gordon has never really been one to blend in.

“I’ve never seen anyone look so happy after an economy flight,” she says wryly as he sweeps her own cases up and balances them precariously on top of his own. “Doesn’t your back ache?”

The smile shifts into a grimace, followed by a one shouldered shrug.

“I’ll live.”

“So you’ve said.”

She really hasn’t thought this through. Not when she was talking her superiors into allowing him to accompany her, nor when she was trying to convince Scott of the same. At no point in her appeals to his bravery, his quick wit, his need to do good, had she outright considered the truth of the matter.

Penelope hasn’t the faintest idea what is supposed to come next. Outside, of course, the clinical and satisfying success of a job well done. This - whatever this is - is a mystery.

And the other passengers filter away, leaving the two of them standing, silent, three feet apart and breathing the same recycled air.

“So,” he’s still grinning at her, waiting for her. Always waiting for her and she with no clue how to proceed. How inconvenient. “You ready?”

----

There’s no FAB1 waiting outside Geneva airport. No Parker to glare meaningfully into the rear view mirror and set her at ease with his usual maudlin complaints about Swiss road systems. Instead the two of them make their way toward the long line of automated taxis provided for the airports regular clientele.

There’s a long and rather embarrassing moment of confusion when it turns out that neither Penelope or Gordon have the faintest idea how to program one. Money, it seems, does not buy everything, or in this case perhaps it has brought them both a little too much.

After much poking, prodding, and occasional language unbecoming to a Lady, they eventually pull away from the airport and away from the beaten track. The car makes its way through twisting mountain passes, the low afternoon sun barely visible through the peaks until they begin their final descent. The valley before them is lit up as the little vehicle makes its way along a narrow, rock-strewn path before veering left into a cleft that had lain hidden in the shadows. The ride through the narrow little crevasse is less than comfortable. Gordon turns paler with each jolt of the suspension and Penelope winces in sympathy.

“It isn’t much further,” she offers as helpless reassurance, but he doesn’t answer beyond a tight nod and gritting of teeth. She wants to tell him that it will all be worth it but that seems like an arrogant presumption, at least that is until they emerge from the crevasse into a secret pocket of unutterable beauty.

Then, at least, it feels more like an observation than a promise.

“Now, wasn’t this worth the trip?"

The car stops a few dozen metres from the shore of a crystalline lake, its waters liquid gold in the sunlight, the mountains rising around it pink as rose quartz. At the Northern shore stand a cluster of traditional alpine chalets, the largest of which is built into the mountainside and rises above the others capped with a blanket of undisturbed snow. It is, Penelope concedes to her own satisfaction, truly lovely.

Perhaps this whole thing may work our rather well after all.

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed.” Almost without thinking about it she takes him by the hand and tugs him behind her until they’re stood at the foreshore, the setting sun burnishing the edges of the mountain above them. “It feels like we might be a million miles from anywhere.” Then, at his hummed agreement. “Not that you’re not used to that, of course.”

“I dunno.” Gordon leans forward for a better view of the water. “No rockets taking off during swim practice? No Scott hovering around like a bad smell? No John in charge of the TV repeats?” He straightens up and grins at her. “Sounds like paradise to me.”

“Am I to assume that my company is preferable to Scott’s?”

“Penelope I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I would rather spend a weekend caged with starving piranhas than spend another ten minutes watching Scott give himself a hypertensive crisis every time I sneeze.”

“Is it truly that bad?”

“It’s worse .” Gordon swings their joined hands and she tries to relax into the motion, but this sort of easy affection is as alien to her as the good natured way that Gordon scoffs, “he’s a goddamn nightmare when he’s worrying. I don’t know how Alan puts up with it.”

Penelope, who rather suspects Alan quite likes being smothered in affection no matter how oddly expressed, lets go of Gordon’s hand in order to tuck her arm through his.

“I’m afraid I did have to promise Scott I’d look after you.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Like a pet?”

“Like someone recovering from a rather ghastly accident, which -” she holds up a finger to silence him before he can begin to protest, “I am afraid that you are.”

“I’m practically better!”

“Practically won’t get you back in that submarine and it won’t wash with me either. Now come along, it’s cold.”

He mutters indictments under his breath, but allows her to keep her arm tucked through his until they reach the door of the smallest chalet.

“Better bring the cases,” she tells him as she enters the keycode, “these automated taxis run strictly to time and we wouldn’t want to send all our clothes back to Geneva.

He opens his mouth. She raises an eyebrow.

“Fine, okay, but I thought I was an invalid? You’ve brought enough cases to clothe most of Switzerland.”

“And I thought you were practically better, and a gentleman.” She shoos him off, he rolls his eyes, and the little chalet that will be their temporary home is revealed just as the taxi begins its lonely journey back to the airport.

The two of them stand alone at the threshold, cases piled at Gordon’s feet, and a little warm flame of satisfaction grows in Penelope’s belly and spreads to her hands, her chest, her face.

Perfect.

She steps into the room, turns to him, and smiles.

“Well? What do you think?”

-----

Gordon does not read romance novels. Doesn’t read much of anything if he’s being totally honest, not unless Brains’ manual updates and John’s debriefs count. And even if they do - well, John’s couldn’t be further from romantic if they tried. Brains’ gushing prose is usually directed towards things beyond Gordon’s personal proclivities. So he doesn’t read Romance novels. He never has.

Grandma loves them.

And maybe it’s by osmosis, or maybe it’s because he seems to have spent an alarmingly large period of his life confined to bed and her tender mercies, but Gordon knows quite a lot more about romance novels than he’d really care to admit.

He’s rich. She’s feisty. There are love children and doctors and sheikhs and vestal virgins with the sexual appetites of extremely rampant rabbits. There are misunderstandings and malicious exes. Elevator breakdowns and holiday romances and office politics.

There’s only ever one bed.

There isn’t an induced coma on Earth that could stop him from figuring out where that particular plot point goes.

There is, however, a non zero chance that he’s still unconscious somewhere on the seafloor or battling his way out of a coma, because there’s no way, absolutely no possible way that this could actually be happening. This must all be some sort of dying man’s daydream, albeit one with a depressing amount of physical therapy and way too many annoying brothers.

Penelope’s still standing there, waiting, and she probably thinks he’s gone insane and that’s okay because he probably has and he knows that Alan must have set this up somehow. Someone is bound to come bursting through the curtain at any moment and did you see his face, Lady P?

Gordon? Are you quite alright? You look like you may be about to have a stroke.”

Oh, beautiful . What phrasing. It gets better.

"I uh - I think there might have been some sort of mistake?”

Gordon stutters his way through the question, frozen in the doorway with nothing between them but the mound of cases and a signal fundamental fact: the bed is not a mistake.

Penelope Creighton-Ward doesn’t make mistakes.

“Hardly, darling,” she says, sashaying into the room proper and pulling a small black box from the front pocket of the leading suitcase. “We are supposed to be playing a couple, you know. Separate rooms lead to gossip. Gossip leads to suspicion.” She presses a couple of buttons on the little box and the room is bathed in a soft blue glow and a high pitched sound that fades away to leave ringing in Gordon’s ears.

Or maybe that’s just his brain finally disconnecting from reality. There’s no way this is actually happening. This is a prank. The worst prank. He’s going to kill Alan. Kill him.

Penny looks at him with an expression of pinched concern.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

No. Yes. God he didn’t think this through. Scott was right, this is a dangerous game.

He doesn’t think he can manage to answer, so instead he nods at the black box.

“What was that?”

Penelope slips the device back into her suitcase and busies herself with the bedside holocomm.

“A broad spectrum communication blocker,” she says, turning the holocomm over and examining the base. “It will prevent anybody listening in on us.”

Gordon’s mouth goes dry at the implication that there might be an us to listen in on, but Penny seems unfazed. She concentrates on peeling a small silver disc from the bottom of the holocomm and pockets it swiftly.

“There,” she says, “much better."

She drops to sit at the edge of the bed, folds her hands in her lap, and smiles up at him beatifically.

“Well?” She pats the bed beside her. The ringing in Gordon’s ears is starting to sound like the emergency alarm. “Are you going to stand there the whole time?”

Gordon doesn’t move. Can’t. “Probably, yeah.”

“Gordon.” She’s stern, but not unkind. “I feel fairly confident a lady has invited you to sit on a bed before now.”

Oh, sure, yeah. Ladies. Plural. Several. But a Lady? Capital L? Penelope?

“Not as often as you’d think,” he says, then wonders why the hell he said it. This is going to be a hell of a long weekend if he can’t even get a grip on his mouth.

But Penny laughs, and when Penny laughs his own inability not to humiliate himself feels slightly less of a burden. “I promise, your virtue is safe with me.”

Penny bounces slightly on the bed, the springs squeaking beneath her, and smiles wickedly when he groans.

“I’m fucking all this up already, aren’t I?”

She unfolds her hands and smooths them over her knees.

“Stuff and nonsense,” she says, not quite meeting his eyes. “I have every faith in you. You only have to pretend to be utterly devoted to me, how hard could it be?”

He doesn’t even begin to know what to say to that, but luckily she doesn’t seem to expect an answer - just shakes her head a little bit and reaches out to pat him on the knee.

If Virgil ever found out how close he comes to falling over at that moment he’d never ever live it down. Ever.

“Oh, Gordon. Honestly. I’m just teasing you.” She stands and moves to drag the cases onto the bed. This at least reminds some primordial part of Gordon’s brain that he’s supposed to be a gentleman.

“I got it -”

Penelope lets him take the case from her, but watches him hoist it onto the bed with a furrowed brow.

“I don’t think you do, actually.” She catches hold of his sleeve as he turns for the next case. “Sit.”

“Not Sherbert,” he grumbles. She twitches a single eyebrow. He sits.

“We have until tomorrow morning to make sure our cover is air tight, and to do that I need you to listen to me.”

“Just as well I’m great at taking instruction.”

“Is that so?” And she’s blushing, just a bit, just at the crest of her cheekbones, and this is better. This Gordon can do .

“Ask John, oh, wait,” Gordon grins and holds up the holocomm. “You can’t. Guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Hmm,” Penny taps her fingers on her hip bone and holds up the tablet between them. “Speaking of situations.”

“I thought we were speaking of John?”

“Is there a difference?” They grin at each other, and the hysterical butterflies calm, just a little bit. Okay, so he’s sat on a bed with Penny. So he might be sleeping with Penny (the butterflies mount a resurgence just at the thought, no matter how literally meant), but it’s Penny, and it’s him. They can do this. They’ve been beating around this particular buddleia bush for years. Nothing’s changed.

Then Penny scoots just a little bit closer, lays the tablet across both their thighs, and - maybe.

Maybe things are changing, just a little bit.

“Here.” Penny opens a file and the room is bathed in soft green light. Above them hovers a man on the wrong side of middle age, head polished to a gleaming shine, moustache bristling above unsmiling lips. “Recognise this gentleman?”

Gordon squints up at the image, a tickle of recollection at the back of his mind.

“I think - yeah, maybe. I think I’ve seen him before. Hey,” he lifts his chin and peers a little closer. “Wasn’t he at that shindig you took Scott to? The one with the Russian incident?”

“The less said about that the better,” Penny mutters, but then, “Yes. He was there. He’s Colin Vishkin.”

And Gordon might not be too great at faces and he might spend most of his life forty thousand leagues under the sea, but he doesn’t live under a rock .

“As in -?”

“As in,” agrees Penny, and skips to another file. This is a news report, looming over them with Vishkin’s still unsmiling face projected over the anchor’s shoulder.

Mr Vishkin, who manages some of the music industry’s brightest talents, was unavailable for comment after today’s revelations. Sources say -

“Hang on.” Penelope pauses the playback and looks at him expectantly. “ Colin Vishkin is coming to this party?”

“Gordon, you really should know by now, my parties are rarely ever just parties .”

“That’s what Scott said,” Gordon says, begrudgingly. “But he’s just some showbiz guy, he’s not a spy. Is he?”

“If he was, you wouldn’t know,” Penelope says with that small secretive smile that she always seems to wear when it comes to her work. “But no. No I have no intelligence to suggest he’s working for any governmental organisation. I’m very much afraid Gordon, that Mr Vishkin is our bad guy.”

That makes him sit up a little bit straighter, sends the butterflies into retirement as Gordon Tracy Lovesick Idiot is pushed to the side by the somewhat more capable Thunderbird Four.

“Bad guy how?”

Penelope flicks through another few files. News reports, mainly. The odd magazine article lifted from the cloud. Vishkin’s artists, all falling out of one bar or another. All caught with powdered noses. Glassy eyes.

Dead at twenty five .

And then flight logs. Hundreds of them. Bogata. Kabul. Los Angeles. London. Sydney. Jakarta. Concert venues interspersed with trips in the dead of night. No overnight stays. Land and go.

“See a pattern?”

“He’s running something, all right.”

“Oh, certainly,” Penelope agrees, but then she flicks over again, and this time it’s an image created to tug on Gordon’s heartstrings. People. Dozens of them. Young and younger still with wide desperate eyes, crammed into a container the like of which he hasn’t seen since commercial shipping was done away with. “Not just some thing, though. Some ones .”

“People smuggling?” Gordon practically spits it out. “It’s the twenty first century, Pen!”

“Indeed it is.” Penelope is looking at the picture, lips pursed in concentration, but there’s none of the rage in her expression he feels in his heart.

“How can you just -” he waves his hand at the image. Wills it to disappear under his touch. “It’s inhumane!”

“Man’s inhumanity to man is nothing new, Gordon. It’s been here as long as we have as a species, and it will remain until we are all gone.”

“Why hasn’t the GDF taken him down?”

“The GDF have neither the evidence or the jurisdiction.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Penelope turns to him and he expects a rebuke for his language, but instead she’s just looking at him. Considering.

“Indeed.”

Ah. There’s a stiffness in his spine now that has nothing to do with compound fractures or economy seating.

“So that’s where we come in? Catch him at it?"

“He’s highly unlikely to bring a crate full of human cargo on an alpine holiday, Gordon.” She smiles again, and this is a new one. A cold one. “But don’t fret. After all, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

“Care to share?”

“Certainly.” She flips to another screen, and this person Gordon does recognise. He lets out a low whistle.

“Margot Mearns.”

“The very same. Did you know it’s her birthday this week?” Penny flicks through a few more screens until she settles on the one she wants. It’s a mass of words and letters that make minimal sense to Gordon. “Hence the little trip out here. Vishkin was convinced that a nice holiday might be all she needs to begin work on another album.”

“I thought she’d retired years ago?”

Penelope mouth narrows grimly. “So did she. But if Mr Vishkin wants you to do something, you usually do it.”

Gordon looks again at the tablet’s projection, notes the flight times interspersed with dates. Places. ‘MM’ over and over and - “You think he’s blackmailing her?”

“I think she may be willing to share a few secrets if the price is right,” Penelope says, swiping the file closed and dropping the tablet onto the bedside table. “These people can always be brought, Gordon. Always.”

"But Vishkin is rich as hell, he can -”

“I don’t mean with money.” Penelope sighs, and tilts her face up to look at him. “This is why I wanted to bring you,” she says. “You’re just so terribly good . You remind me what I ought to be, perhaps you will be more successful than I in appealing to Ms Mearn’s better nature."

“Don’t be stupid,” he scoffs, “you’re a good guy. The good guy. Capital G’s.  Good Lady? You’re the best, Lady P.”

“If you say so.” Penny seems to concede the point, but then, “I’m afraid there’s more, and this part I suspect you really won’t enjoy.”

----

He takes it surprisingly well, the lengths they are expected to go to to keep Vishkin from realising he’s been led into a trap. He accepts the case full of bulky skiwear and acrylic sweaters with good grace, even though the palette is rather muted for his taste and they both know he won’t be going anywhere near the slopes. He does grumble just a little when she pulls out the hair dye,

What’s wrong with holotech, Pen?

(Pen, for goodness sake. Pen. Penny . Like he’s already ten pages ahead of her. Already crossed the rubicon into something that Penelope herself is only just beginning to name.)

Dampners, remember?

However, he disappeared off to the bathroom without any further complaint. He’s still there now, she can hear the shower running, which is advantageous in that he’s not witnessing what might be the closest thing to a panic attack Penelope has ever had.

That’s not quite true, of course. She’s felt worse, trapped in safety on the deck of the Solar Explorer. In the belly of ancient mine. Curled up on the back seat of FAB one en route to the hospital.

These events all seem to have one common denominator, and now he’s turned off the shower and is shouting through the door.

“It’s okay! I still look amazing!”

“Of course you do, dear,” Penelope mumbles, eyes fixed as they have been for the past ten minutes at least, on the silver bands in her palm.

“Dapper as hell!” He bursts out of the bathroom, arms outstretched in a tada ! Gesture, and really, really this would have been just a touch easier if he’d at least put his clothes on.

“Really Gordon?”

He does have the grace to blush then, she can see the way it spreads down his throat and along the ridge of his collarbones.

“Sorry, got excited.”

She doesn’t think she could formulate an answer to that if she tried.

“Looks good though, right? I could totally have been a ginger. Except for the sun thing, that would suck. I reckon that’s why John chose space. Keep him pale and interesting.”  He spins on the spot to show off his new hair - auburn, a shade or two darker than his brother’s - but does at least hold on to the towel as he does so. “Well, interresting-ish, I suppose.”

It’s a small mercy. Penelope closes her fist over the rings and steels herself as best she can against the assault of his smile as he turns to face her again.

“Will I do?”

A terribly pertinent choice of phrase, that.

“Lovely,” she says, hoping against hope he doesn’t notice the crack in her voice. “Now be a dear and put on a shirt.”

“Spoilsport.”

He snatches up one of the sweaters from where he’s dumped them unceremoniously across the top of the dresser, and disappears back into the bathroom long enough for Penelope to physically shake some sense into herself.

This mission is shaping up to be far more dangerous than she might have expected. Or just as dangerous as you ‘oped , pipes up a familiar little voice in her head. One that has had far more to say about this trip than is warranted, in her opinion.

But then Gordon is back, and she can’t keep a neutral expression to save her life, and God knows if she’s fooling anyone anymore but she certainly isn’t fooling herself.

He looks ridiculous in knitwear. Utterly ridiculous. It is entirely too unfair that a man she sees so often in skin tight neoprene can look like that in a cable knit sweater that isn’t even cashmere.

Gordon frowns.

“Penelope? Are you okay? You’ve gone a bit pale.”

Well. Isn’t that just smashing.

In for a penny, as Parker says. She goes in for a pound.

“I’m afraid you have to marry me.”

It’s Gordon’s turn to go a rather odd colour now. In his case it’s a rather fetching shade of puce that clashes horribly with his newly dyed hair.

“Uh.” He says. Freezes. Then, “Are you asking ?”

“I’m afraid GCHQ have beaten me to it.” Penelope finally unfurls her fist and holds her open hand out between them. Gordon stares at the two slim rings as though they might, in fact, be tiny metallic alligators. “Not the nicest quality,” she says, both by way of breaking the silence and genuine apology. “Budget cuts. I’d have brought some myself, but I don’t think my cover and I have similar tastes.”

Gordon’s head snaps up then. “Right, yeah. The cover. So we are?”

Penelope lets out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, and slips the smaller ring over her finger before holding out the other for Gordon to do the same. He hesitates only a moment before doing so, then turns his full attention back to her as she begins to unpack the minutiae of their cover lives.

She has a wig, brown contacts, a collection of extremely frumpy fair isle sweaters, and a passport in the name of Pauline Jones. Pauline is a strict vegetarian, an excellent cook, and well known in the hospitality business for her professionalism and discretion.

Pauline’s husband is a ski instructor turned chalet host, banished from the slopes after a nasty accident the season previously. Very much the junior partner in their rental business, he’s still learning the ropes.

His name is Greg, and he has three juvenile convictions for possession of narcotics and terrible taste in music.

(“Hey!”

"I don’t make the rules, darling.”)

Penelope piles up the belongings of these people who don’t yet exist, and atop it all she lays a holopad already pre-loaded with photographs they’ve never taken. There’s a wedding dress in there, she knows that. A hideous meringue affair that Penelope would never be seen dead in.

She tells herself that’s the reason she bats Gordon’s hand away when he goes to open the files.

“Time for that later,” she says, only too aware that she’s been the one insisting on getting their cover straight. “Are you hungry?”

“Are you an accomplished chef?”

He has the good grace not to call her on the change of subject, at least.

“I’m whatever I need to be,” she tells him truthfully, and gestures to the far wall of the room where an understated metal box protrudes from the wall. “but at least in this case I do have a little back up.”

----

The replicated food is warm and tasty enough, but it doesn’t do much to help the unsteady lurch of his stomach as he watches Penelope tidy away her - sorry, Pauline’s - clothes into the room’s only dresser.

"Why Greg?” he asks her, mostly for lack of anything else to say that won’t lead to more extremely awkward silence. “Greg’s an old man’s name.”

Penelope pauses her folding and rolls her eyes.

“Says the man called Gordon .”

“Hey, could have been worse.” He smiles, and she turns from the dresser to face him properly. “Could have been Deke. Or Wally. Or Virgil.”

Penelope tilts her head very slightly to one side and crosses her arms.

“You look nothing like a Virgil.”

“Nah you’d have needed a different dye job for that one,” he agrees, taking both their plates to the automated kitchen module and dropping them in for recycling. “And maybe some stilts.”

“I don’t think they’d have fit in the case,” she murmurs, attention back on the dresser, her palms smoothing over fabric.

“Hey, I brought my own case,” he nods over to the Tracy Industries industrial number that’s still lying where he dropped it by the door to the room. “You could have saved yourself the effort, you know.”

“And what did you bring?” Penelope arches an eyebrow. “Hawaiian shirts and Neoprene?”

“Long sleeved Hawaiian shirts,” Gordon says, mildly offended. “It’s cold here. I’m not an idiot.”

She looks at him as though that may be somewhat debatable.

“And I look great in Neoprene. Really makes an impression.” He risks a wink because, well, he’s still not sure exactly what’s happening here but he’s pretty certain she won’t mind .

She pauses, as though considering, then, “Rather depends on the impression you want to create. I’m not sure the bright blue skin tight wetsuit is the most subtle of disguises, Gordon.”

He hums, and nods solemnly. “It is tight.”

Penelope blushes, a bright, fierce red that clashes with her pink sweater, and Gordon’s heart soars.

“Distracting.” He emphasises the consonants and watches with disbelieving fascination as the blush spreads down her throat.

“Oh hush,” she splutters eventually, balling up one of ‘Greg’s’ ugly sweaters and launching it at him. “Parker will have you shot."

Gordon grins and drops back on his elbows, kicking his stockinged feet off the floor.

“Worth it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You invited me.”

“And I so rarely make decisions I regret.” Penelope lays the final item of clothing in the drawer and turns to him with narrowed eyes. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

Gordon bites back the urge to ask is that so, and sits up straighter.

“Seriously, though,” he says. “I don’t -” he flails about for the words to say what he means without offending - or worse getting an answer he won’t know how to live with. Not that he knows what that answer might be. Not that he knows anything , and Scott’s never been more right and he can absolutely never know. Whatever Penelope says next he will have to carry to his grave. A place, that going by the thudding in his chest, he’s approaching sooner rather than later. “What is it you expect of me, exactly? Because Pen I swear whatever it is, I’ll do it, you know that. Whatever you want. I just -” he shrugs, and she’s frowning, and he feels small and stupid and young .

He doesn’t feel like a Thunderbird. He definitely doesn’t feel like a spy.

He feels like a boy faced with the girl of his dreams, and only one bed.

“Think of it as a rescue,” Penelope says, and that’s enough of a non sequitur to have his head spinning again. “We don’t know what will happen with Vishkin, it’s better to follow my lead and -”

And oh god. Oh god she thinks he’s talking about Vishkin.

He ought to be talking about Vishkin.

She’s stopped. That funny little frown right between her eyebrows again and he decides then and there that he hates it. Hates it directed at him and hates even more that he’s put it there.

“You keep calling me Pen.”

“I - what?”

“You keep calling me Pen.” She’s shaking her head and that little frown hasn’t shifted and wow, wow he’s bad at this.

“I’m… I’m sorry?” It’s his turn to frown now. “I hadn’t realised.”

“It’s quite alright. I quite like it.” She smiles again, still small, still secretive, but nothing like the cold twist of her mouth from earlier. “Don’t tell Parker, will you.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

And then she’s laughing, and then he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s really, truly, fucked.

“Hold on a moment, let me introduce somebody.” She pads her way into the bathroom carrying a small pile of clothes and a little black bag with a golden zipper and shuts the door behind her. He doesn’t hear the click of the lock. If she decides to get her own back and appears in a towel, he will absolutely, definitely die on the spot.

When she does reappear what feels like half a lifetime later, Penelope is transformed. Dark where she was fair, lips chapped and nose pinked like those of a woman who spends her life on the slopes, and it doesn’t so much impress Gordon as it terrifies him.

“There.” Penelope steps back from the mirror to admire her handiwork and holds out a hand to him. He takes it and rises to stand beside her as though he’s on autopilot. Maybe he is. He certainly doesn’t feel like her has any control of his limbs or the thundering of his heart as her fingers wrap around his.  “Now look, Greg meet Pauline.” She beams up at him. “Don’t we make quite the pair?”

Gordon reaches up to adjust his new red locks, but Penelope bats his hand away and turns him to face the mirror. Two strangers look back at him - one reminds him of John, though not as tall or as scrawny but just as badly dressed, and a girl with dark hair and dark eyes rimmed thick with kohl and crinkling at the corners from Penelope’s smile. Almost ordinary, he thinks, except for that smile.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we do.”

----

It’s getting late.

It’s getting late, and it isn’t that Penelope has a habit of retiring early - quite the opposite in fact - but they’ve an awfully busy day tomorrow cosying up to international criminals and the flight had been so very terribly uncomfortable and -

And Gordon is clearly so very uncomfortable with the idea of sharing her bed that she isn’t quite sure yet whether she ought to be offended.

She’s packed away Pauline’s belongings, and usually she’d have packed Penelope up right along with them, but she’s not quite ready to let go of herself yet. With Vishkin still comfortably settled in his London abode, she has time to indulge herself just this once, surely?

But it’s been rather a long time, and she's rather embarrassed to admit that she’s somewhat out of practice.

There is a distinct possibility that she hasn’t had any practice at these particular sort of bedroom shenanigans. For fun, for information, for something to do after another interminable gala perhaps, then yes, plenty. But she’s becoming more certain by the day that whatever this thing is between Gordon and herself it doesn’t fall into any of the categories she’s comfortable with.

Gordon sits on the edge of their soon-to-be shared bed wearing Greg Jones’ pyjamas and socks with goldfish on and smiles at her. A new category indeed.

“Something funny?” she asks. He shrugs, still favouring his right shoulder.

“Nah, not really,” he huffs out a laugh. “This is weird, right? I feel like this is pretty weird.”

“Rather the usual for me I’m afraid,” she says mildly. “International drug-dealing people smugglers are my bread and butter.”

“Yeah, that isn’t what I meant though, is it.”

She stiffens slightly, unused to being called out in such a way, but then she sees the way he can’t quite meet her eyes and maybe she isn;t the only one skirting at the edge of their comfort zone tonight.

“It’s a little weird,” she admits. “Do you prefer the left or the right?”

“Eh?”

“Side of the bed.”

He shrugs again, but he meets her eyes this time. “Rarely get the choice. International Rescue only supplies singles.”

“Well we wouldn’t want you boys to get a reputation would we.” He grins, and she drops down next to him and rests her hand on his knee. “If that’s the case, I’m afraid I really must insist on the right.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Is it?”

She would be proud of the way she can strike him silent, but it’s not exactly helping the awkwardness of the situation so instead she squeezes his knee and says seriously, “I’m also afraid that I snore.”

“Really?” Gordon shakes his head, but the smile’s back and that’s what matters. “Lady Penelope, a snorer ? Whatever would the tabloids say.”

“They’ve never been so fortunate to find out,” she leans up toward him and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I trust I can rely on your discretion?”

She watches the bob of his throat as he swallows. “Scout’s honour.”

“Weren’t you expelled from the Scouts?”

Gordon sighs dramatically, “One time. You flood a hut one time .”

“Then I’ll allow it.” She rubs at the edge of his hairline where a little of the dye has sunk into his skin and left a bruise-like stain. “Are you sure you’re ready for all this?”

“That’s a loaded question.”

“It’s just a bed , Gordon.”

“Oh,” he’s smiling though, a dangerous smile. She likes it. “And here I thought you were talking about the whole being a spy thing.”

She lets her finger run down the side of his face and then taps it against his mouth. His eyes follow it and her breath hitches.

“I have every faith,” she says, the words catch in her throat and come out as whispers. “In your complete and total professionalism.”

That wicked little smile feels like a promise against her skin. “Shame.”

“You know Scott would be utterly horrified if he heard any of this conversation, I do think he’s afraid I might be out to corrupt you, you know.”

“Did you tell him about the one bed?”

“Need to know basis, darling.”

Gordon laughs then, drawing back and letting the moment drift away into something less like a promise.

“No doubt John will fill him in, he’s probably having kittens right now.”

Penelope is a spy, and spies are liars by habit, so it hardly even feels like one when she says, “And how would John know?”

“Thunderbird Five? The all-seeing eye?” Gordon waves up to the ceiling. “If he hasn’t got a line in this room right now I’ll eat Greg’s woolly hat.��

“No one gets a line in unless I want them to, that I can promise you.” Penelope says, ignoring the gnawing feeling in her stomach as she follows his gaze. “Can’t have my sleep habits disseminated to the media, it wouldn’t do at all."

“Really?” And luckily she doesn’t have to answer, luckily because she doesn’t want to take away from the way Gordon relaxes next to her, all the stiffness and nervous energy draining from him. “You know, I don’t know if I can remember a time one of them wasn’t watching me? I’m pretty sure Scott had tabs on me in the womb.”

“They love you.”

“They’re terrified.” He stretches his arms out in front of him, then twists his neck and winces. “I give them plenty of reason, I guess.”

“You do have a terrible habit of chasing down danger,” Penelope agrees. “It’s most inconvenient, you know. Does awful things to our blood pressure.”

“Tell me about it.” He drops his hand on top of hers. “I would say I don’t do it on purpose, but -”

“But,” she agrees, and winds her fingers between his. “I think it’s time for bed, don’t you?”

“Jeez,” and he’s smiling, squeezing her fingers between his, “I thought you’d never ask.”

----

Morning breaks, bright dawn light making its way through the gauzy curtains and alighting on Penelope’s back as she sits at the dresser.

Sorry, Pauline’s back. Penelope had been gone before Gordon opened his eyes, her side of the bed smoothed flat and cool to the touch, and he’d been half convinced he’d dreamt her by the  time a stranger exited the bathroom.

Gordon sits up in bed and watches as she puts the finishing touches to her transformation, the wig and contacts and polyblend sweater topped with enough makeup to fool even her own father and practicing a fake French accent so convincing that it makes his skin crawl.

It’s all just a little too good. A little too sharp a reminder of what Penny actually does day to day. Of what he’s about to do alongside her. Gordon Tracy. Spy .

Wherever dad is, he hopes he’s laughing.

Penny blots her lipstick and tucks the wig’s dark curls behind her ears.

“There,” she says, “lovely.”

“You are really, really good at this,” he tells her. “Scary good.”

“I do aim to impress,” she says and okay, okay it’s pretty weird to hear Penelope’s voice coming from someone else’s face. Maybe the accent isn’t so bad after all. “Vishkin’s flight arrives at fourteen hundred hours. Feel free to familiarise yourself with the files and be ready to meet me in the main chalet at thirteen thirty.

She smiles at him, that last lingering vestige of the Penelope he knows, and leaves him alone for the first time since he’d boarded his flight in Sydney.

“Fucking hell,” he tells his reflection - red hair and redder eyes because God as if he could ever have actually slept next to her - “fucking fucking hell.”

And he opens the file, because what else can he do but dwell on the feeling of her breath on his neck until he curls up on the spot and dies ?

Because it turns out that Gordon, when it counts, has absolutely no game whatsoever and if his brother’s ever find out -

If his brothers ever find out, Greg Jones might just be a better guy to be.

Luckily, Greg’s life has been that of a pretty average guy. The sort of guy Gordon might have been, he supposes, if his mother hadn’t been dead and his father hadn’t been rich as fuck. Greg’s father had served in the military during the war. He has an obnoxious overachiever for an older brother with whom he apparently does not have to live with on an isolated island. Sure, he had a  misspent youth, but Gordon thinks Greg’s version sounds a hell of a lot more fun than spending High School in training for the Olympics and then nearly dying a bunch .

Greg Jones is emphatically not a billionaire.

Greg Jones has married the girl of his dreams.

Gordon Tracy doesn’t know whether the roiling in his stomach is nervous nausea or bitter, bitter jealousy.

“Get a grip,” he tells his reflection regardless. “Do not fuck this up.”

Despite the impossibility, he almost thinks he can hear John’s long-suffering sigh in his ear.

“Alright, alright.” He swats at his imaginary earpiece and turns his attention to Vishkin’s file. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people out there relying on this guy being taken down, and this, this Gordon knows he can do. “Lets get on with the rescue.”

---

It’s a bitter cold morning, the mountain air sharp in her lungs and against her flushed cheeks. The lake is a flat blue with ice glittering at its edges, the sky cloudless perfection.

Coward. Coward. Coward.

It rings through her, up through the soles of her heavy boots as she stamps through the snow, in every ridiculously loud thud of her heart.

Somewhere up above she imagines John, bagel in hand, judging her and finding her wanting.

A coward and a fool .

By the time she reaches the great hall of the main chalet she may actually be able to catch her breath. Which is just as well, because as she steps through the door she’s greeted by the hustle and bustle of her undercover team running final checks. She’s pleased to see people she’s worked with before and found to be reasonably competent. There’s Lester, tapping tiny screw-head bugs into place along the edges of the wooden bar, and Verne, his erstwhile partner, running loops of false footage on the large holovision screen. A few others too whose names escape her - a young girl she’s seen in the corridors of GCHQ, a chap she knows to be on his first mission wiping the bar top over and over with a dirty cloth - but they all stop and turn as soon as they see she’s entered the room.

She takes a deep breath.

This, she can do.

“Ah, good. You’re all here. I imagine everything is in order?”

“Absolutely Ma’am,” Verne assures her,  flicking the screen over to some newsreel footage. “False flags in place.”

“Excellent. And our guests’ facilities?”

“Only the best, Ma’am,” affirms Lester, tapping the bar top. “All top quality.”

“Lovely.”

A light knock at the door, and Gordon peeks his head around. When he sees her he beams as though he hasn’t laid eyes on her for months rather than minutes. Her heart stutters, and she finds herself fiddling pointlessly with the ends of her wig.

“Hey,” he says, slipping into the room. “All ready for launch?”

“Hey, yourself. You look… warm.” He’s wearing a neon yellow ski jacket that she’d chosen as a nod to his own rather garish taste. It’s bulkier than she’d imagined. Much bulkier than the t shirt he’d slept in, the one that stretched over his shoulders and made her fingers twitch against the covers.

“Thanks, I think.” He looks around at the gathered staff in their borrowed uniforms, and waves. “Hey guys, how’re you doing?”

Lester and Verne look at each other, then at her.

“Uh,” says Lester. “Alright, sir?”

Okay, perhaps there are reasons Penelope rarely socialises with her undercover teams.

“Good, good.” Gordon claps his hands together then sways back on his heels. “Do we get discount at the bar or -”

“I should bleedin’ hope not!” It comes from the shadows, from a man who she’d barely noticed upon entering but now can’t believe she’d missed. A man, she’s fairly certain, she left behind in London with very specific instructions regarding Bertie’s feeding schedule and her father’s upcoming meeting with the Princess Royal. A man, she’s even more sure, hadn’t looked like that .

“Parker! What on earth have you done to your face?!”

---

“Fancied a change, M’Lady.”

Parker’s moustache bristles magnificently beneath that giveaway nose. It makes Gordon’s face itch just looking at it. It looks uncannily like something Brains might use to unclog Four’s inlet pipes. Perhaps, he thinks with a grimace, it is.

“Parker,” he says in lieu of greeting, “I didn’t think you were coming.”

Parker’s answering glare could cut glass. In fact Gordon’s sure he hears a distant tinkling from the back of the bar as he replies, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean Mr Gordon, sir .”

Gordon shrugs. “Not really your scene? I thought you were dog sitting?”

“Wherever ‘er Ladyship is my scene ,” Parker hisses. “And when she’s insisting on putting ‘erself in danger -”

“Penny can handle Vishkin.”

“Ain’t ‘im I’m worried over.”

“Hey! What’s that supposed to - “

“That’s enough,” Penny snaps and both men stand a little straighter. “Parker, there will be time to discuss why you felt inclined to disregard my request after we’ve brought Mr Vishkin to justice. Gordon? Are you ready?”

Gordon blinks, looks down to where she’s rested her hand on the fist he hadn’t even realised he’d clenched. Beyond the doors he hears the tell tale thrum of engines, the sound of grit under tyres. He nods, and Penny motions to the man behind the bar.

All at once the men and women scatter, disappearing almost as swiftly as they had appeared, until it’s just Gordon and Penny and the lurking figure of Parker in the shadows of the furthest corner.

“Honestly,” Penny mutters under her breath as the engine noises cut out. “Men .”

A heavy knock at the door, and she steps forward to fling it open her scowl shifting into such an expression of rapturous joy on her face that Gordon almost gets whiplash. Again.

“Ms. Mearns!” she cries, Pauline’s accent bell-like in the echoing room, “such an honor!"

That is, Gordon thinks, one word for it.

In the brief few months young Gordon had had to be a regular teenager between swimming and WASP and agony, he’d had a terrible crush on Margot Mearns. An international singing sensation, she’d been the entertainment at one of Tracy Industries annual fundraisers - one that dad had allowed him to come to in one of his occasional, brief efforts to ‘bond’ with his most unimpressive son. (Although Alan had still wet the bed at that point, so Gordon may have had a brief rise in the rankings). His main memories of that night are of the constricting nature of his first ever penguin suit, and the glorious sight of Margot Mearn’s thighs gyrating within thirty centimetres of his spotty, flushed cheeks.

It had been a defining moment, alright. Even dad had listened to his teenage gibbering afterwards with good natured indulgence and cheerfully purchased a lifesized poster that young Gordon had hung in every closet he’d owned ever since. It had even come to the island with him, afterwards. A reminder of a time before IR and sleepless nights, when pretty girls with pretty thighs had been something he’d had time to dream about.

Now Penny - Pauline - is taking the hand of his childhood crush and shaking it gently, and it’s an awful long way from any kind of dream. More of a nightmare really, because Gordon has been in the rescue business all of his adult life. He knows desperation when he sees it, and it's written all over Margot Mearns's face.

Penny is slim, but the bones beneath are steel, her grip firm, all lithe muscles shifting beneath a porcelain shell. Margot seems brittle in comparison, delicate, her veins blue beneath translucent, clammy skin.

Her smile is too tight and her forehead is too smooth, and when she walks she seems to half fall from one foot to the other, lurching along like something undead from one of Alan’s favourite games.

He thinks of that poster, still hanging behind years worth of outgrown neoprene, and feels suddenly, terrifyingly, old.

“Christ,” he mutters. “Penny, Christ .”

Penny isn’t looking at Margot anymore though. Penny has much bigger fish to fry.

The man at Margot’s side isn’t the type to draw many second glances even in those with far more time to spend on celebrity gossip than Gordon ever has, but Penny makes a beeline for him, cooing greetings in that voice that he hates and snapping her fingers until the ‘staff’ reappear and begin busying themselves with the guests’ coats and luggage.

Vishkin.

He reaches for Penny’s hand and lifts it to his mouth sending a visceral shudder through Gordon’s body even as she slips free and beckons him forward.

“My ‘usband,” she says, and he wishes he hated that accent a little less because honestly he could dwell on those words forever. “We are so very honoured that you have chosen to stay with us Mr Vishkin, sir.”

Mr Vishkin, sir, looks down at them from his stacked heels with rheumy eyes set in a face like cracked leather. He wears enough gold to drown him in six feet of water, and this is a fact Gordon tucks neatly away in the back of his mind for safe keeping.

“I demand discretion,” he says. “Complete and total. Do you understand? I have guests attending who the media would just love to spread tall tales about. I would hate to think any came from you.”

“Of course! We pride -”

“Total. ” He turns his watery eyes on Gordon, and smiles coldly. “I have heard about you Mr Jones.”

Ah, right. Drug dealers. Misspent youths. Gordon isn’t yet quite sure how Greg Jones reacts to veiled threats, so he channels John Tracy instead.

“Honoured, I’m sure.” Vishkin’s eyes become slits, and Penny glares at him over his shoulder. Maybe not John, then. Maybe Alan. “I’m like - such a big fan,” he gushes and if the change of tone is enough to make him dizzy Vishkin at least doesn’t seem to notice. “A guy like you coming to stay here? Wow. Really. Amazing.”

“Yes well, we wanted somewhere a little off the beaten track as they say.” Vishkin puts an arm around Margot’s shoulders and pulls her into his side. She wobbles at the action, as though her legs can’t quite hold her up. “Isn’t that right Margot dear?”

Margot says nothing.

“‘Ow lovely,” Pauline coos. “Please, anything you need, we are absolutely at your service. Anything at all.”

Vishkin lets Margot go, and puts one gold-bedazzled hand on Penny’s cheek. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says.”Tell me, do you sing?”

Pauline blushes prettily and looks at Vishkin through lowered lashes. “Oh no, Mr Vishkin, I am - ‘ow you say - a strangled cat.”

“Shame, and so pretty.” He tugs at one of her curls as he moves his hand away. “A little hair dye darling, and I could make you a star.”

“She’s already a star.” Gordon reaches out and grabs Penny’s hand. “To me at least."

Pauline’s mouth twists into a scowl, and Gordon has a sinking feeling that it’s actually Penelope’s. “Greg! Don’t be rude!”

“Nonsense.” Vishkin pats him on the shoulder - the bad one - hard enough to make him stagger. “Good to see a bit of loyalty, you don’t get much of that in our line of work, eh Margot?”

Margot smiles, a fragile little thing, and speaks for the first time, her voice barely more than a whisper. “No, Colin.”

“Let me show you to your chalet,” Pauline says, disentangling herself from Gordon’s grip. “Come, come, I ‘ope you will find it all to your satisfaction, I followed your particulars most closely…"

She leads them both from the hall and out into the winter air, the frigid gust she leaves in her wake makes Gordon shiver even through Greg’s neon yellow ski jacket.

“Great start, Mr Gordon,” Parker mutters sardonically as he follows the rest of the staff into the chalet’s backrooms. “Very subtle, that.”

“I was being a gentleman,” Gordon grumbles after him, but it’s too late. The staff have all disappeared like the spooks they are, and Gordon is left alone with a stack of cases and the sinking feeling that Vishkin’s about to be the least of his worries.

He takes the closest case in his good hand, and heads out into the storm.

---

He’s been watching all afternoon. He hasn’t said much - which, honestly, is starting to feel like a blessing - but he’d lingered in each room as she’d shown Vishkin around, neither as subtle nor as comforting a presence as Parker would have been in the same situation. Instead he makes her feel off-kilter. Pauline’s laugh is too loud, her accent too harsh. Penelope is trying too hard and it shows. The truth is that she’s hardly slept, the bed both far too large and not anything near large enough, and instead she’d lain awake counting the cracks in the ceiling and letting her imagination run away with her.

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous.

It is, she decides, all his fault.

“You are risking our cover!” she spits after hours of his nonsensical glaring, the door to their chalet locked behind her before she turns on him.

Gordon scowls right back at her, his arms folded across that stupid ski jacket she’d insisted on packing. Its cheerful brightness is giving her a headache.

“Don’t talk bullshit!” Gordon growls, “So what, ‘Greg’ lets idiots like Vishkin throw his weight around, does he?”

“‘Greg’” Penelope’s finger quotes are even more violent than Gordon’s, “knows that his wife can look after herself perfectly well, thank you very much!” She stops. Jabs him in the chest with a  finger and the polyester jacket crackles like static between them. “I thought you’d remember that. If I wanted a bodyguard I’d have married Parker!”

“Maybe you should have,” Gordon snaps back, “I thought you said he wasn't coming? He your back up for when I screw up is he?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I didn’t even know he was coming, he shouldn’t have come!”

“Well he has, and if I’m gonna be accused of breaking cover what the hell was all that muttering about? Does he think Vishkin’s deaf?”

“I’m not privy to the inner workings of Parker’s mind, Gordon. And it hardly matters anyway, not if you insist on all this stupid manly posturing -”

“I don’t posture!”

“Oh no? Then what on earth was all this about?” She grabs at his hand and tugs it toward her. “Pauline is not Greg’s possession .”

“It’s not - that isn’t what I meant! He’s a nasty piece of work, Penelope!”

“Yes,” she keeps her grip tight. “Yes, I know that Gordon. That’s the point. But he can’t know that we know that, that utterly defeats the object. He has to believe that we are star-struck by him, he has to believe that he has some sort of power over us. It’s arrogance that destroys men like him, Gordon. Your father knew that.”

“And look where that got Dad,” Gordon mutters, and pulls his hand free. “I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. A whole bunch.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” Penelope agrees. “But sometimes we must do whatever is necessary for the greater good. And if you think Mr Vishkin’s flirting is the worst thing I’ve put up with in the pursuit of justice, I very much hope you never read any of my other files.”

Gordon’s face twists unpleasantly and he turns away.

“I’m going to get some air,” he mumbles, and disappears through the french doors. Penelope watches his back as he hunches over the balcony railings. Takes one breath. Two.

This wasn’t the plan. None of this was in the plan. She’s going to have to have some firm words with Parker at the very least.

She’s probably going to have to have a few with herself while she’s at it.

“I’m sorry,” she says, moving into the doorway and speaking into the night air. “This is all terribly strange to you, I’m sure.”

“I’ll play nice.” He doesn’t turn to look at her though. “I won’t like it, Pen, but I swear I’ll play nice.”

“Pax, then?”

He nods, and she takes it as an invitation to join him on the balcony. The air is bitter, the sky above nothing but a carpet of stars.

She lets out a long sigh and leans back against the railing. Gordon’s hands dangle over the edge and his face is turned to the canopy of stars above them. It changes him, this light. Washes the colour out of his hair and casts his features into sharp relief. He watches the stars silently for a moment, and in return she watches him, watches the rise and fall of his chest and the bob of his throat as he swallows. The pull of the hideous jacket across his shoulders as he lifts an arm to the sky and waves.

Penelope follows the line of his gaze then, turning and wrinkling her nose as she squints up into what, honestly, is to her usually little more than a brightly glittering backdrop to her much more interesting plans for the evening.

“See the little blinking thing up there? Just left of the pleiades?”

It’s not an apology, but then she isn’t sure if she wants one. Not now. But she doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t want to spend another night lying in that too big, too small bed listening to his breathing and sinking in regret.

So she hums, twisting her head to try and better follow his finger. “If I say yes will you believe me?”

Gordon’s mouth quirks up at the corner and he grabs her hand, lifting it to follow his own. “There, look. Don’t tell me you didn’t study astronomy in your fancy schools?”

“I suspect our fathers had somewhat differing educational priorities,” Penelope says wryly. “Mine had ambitions for me that were rather more down to Earth.”

Gordon looks at her then, the starlight reflected back at her in his eyes. She’s so terribly glad she decided against giving him the contacts.

“Guess they were both disappointed then, huh?”

“Perhaps,” she says, loathe to spoil whatever passes for a moment. “Or perhaps we simply exceeded expectations. We are rather exceptional, after all.”

Gordon doesn’t answer that, only tightens his grip on her hand, his palm warm against the lakeside breeze.

“Do you see it?” he says, and for a moment she pretends not to know what he means, her gaze fixed on the side of his face, his upturned towards some invisible star.

But the silence draws out a moment too long, so she murmurs something he must take as assent, because he lowers her hand to rest gently against the railing and stuffs his own into his pockets.

“Thunderbird 5,” he says. “Weird."

“How so?”

“Watching John, when he’s not watching me. Doesn’t exactly happen often, you know?”

There’s a nasty sick little ache somewhere under Penelope’s breastbone, the sort that usually proceeds asking Parker to do something he’s spent most of his adult life trying to leave behind.

“Do you -” she pauses, and looks for a word that conveys what she means without risking another argument like the one that had seen them driven out here. “Do you miss it?”

Gordon looks at her. “John?”

“Not John specifically.”

“IR, then?” Gordon furrows his brow, his nose wrinkling. “I mean, yeah. Yeah of course I miss it. Them. My ‘bird. The sea. I could write a book full of all the things I miss right now.”

The ache intensifies and she swallows hard, pushes it down to her belly and tightens her grip on the railings.

“Of course. It was a foolish question, forgive me.”

“I like it here, though.” He smiles at her, and the honesty makes that ache just a little sharper. Penelope doesn’t think she’s ever been as honest with anyone in her life as Gordon is with everyone he meets. “It’s kinda fun in a weird way. And the company’s not bad. Plus, privacy. Kinda in short supply on Tracy Island.”

Penelope scoffs, and pushes herself back, away from the railings and toward the low light of the bedroom. “Is that your idea of an apology?”

“Dunno.” Gordon moves to follow her, his hands still stuffed in his pockets but his expression cheerfully neutral. “Did it work?”

She doesn’t grace that with an answer straight away, just lets the blind swing back into place behind her and lets herself smile at the muffled curse that follows.

“Oh, I’m sure you could do better.”

She heads to the bathroom to remove the worst of Pauline’s makeup. The wig will have to stay at the bedside in case of late night calls, but she’s determined to remove enough of Pauline to remove any doubt as to who is spending the night. Gordon doesn’t have quite as many accoutrements. He’s already sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the bed when she returns, two plates of something green gently steaming on the nightstands.

“An apology,” he says, holding one out. “Don’t ask me what it is, though. I leave the kitchen module to Virgil.”

“I’ll consider it,” she says, sitting next to him and bumping him with her hip, then, after a mouthful of something heavy on basil and light on carbs, “apology accepted.”

“That’s a relief,” Gordon says, swallowing. “This could have been awkward .”

“Heaven forfend.” She smiles at him and he smiles back then stretches, grumbling slightly as he turns his neck. “Are you in pain?”

“Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t sort out, if my bedmate could refrain from snoring like a wild bear.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate.”

Penny bites her lip. If she’d had an hours sleep that was more than it felt, certainly not enough to impress her sleeping habits upon him. She doubts very much it was her snores that had kept him awake. She’d hardly considered that he may have been just as unsure as she last night. They’re anathema to her, these nerves. How much stranger must they be for Gordon, a man who spends his entire life leaping from one adrenaline high to another.

“I could sleep elsewhere,” she says quietly, a genuine offer though one she’d rather not have to follow through on. “You need rest.”

“God, no.” He rests his hand on hers, food forgotten. “It’s fine. You’re fine. Anyway the cover -”

“Wasn’t originally going to be this,” she admits. “I could revert - “

“Penny.” Gordon pushes the plates away, turns to face her fully and pulls her hands into his lap. “This is weird. Really weird. Let’s not - let’s not make it even weirder, yeah?”

“I’ll try,” she says, and squeezes his hands. “I will certainly try.”

[leejungchans]

waitwait your anons as tropes?? 👀

hi!!! 💗💗 honestly i don’t have a lot to go off of bc most of my emoji/names anons haven’t been active in a long time/came off anon :’)) but i miss them lots and i hope life is treating them well!! i’ll answer the ones who i have a stronger memory of/connection with but all my anons were extremely lovely and i have nothing but sweet things to say ab them <33 like i said in my other post i can never tell the difference between trope and au hhgghhhhh so i’ll give a general description as well as more personalised (?) touches!!

🥟 (nene): (hi nene! if you see this i didn’t know if you wanted your @ revealed here ><) for nene, definitely the romance trope bc it makes you feel comforted and cosy <3 something like an established relationship au, where you’re coming home from a bad day while still knowing that you’ll soon be in the arms of someone you love who returns that love :’))) and it’s something i like hope for nene too in an irl sense, romantic or not 💗

💎 anon: diamond anon gives me very sweet vibes, and i think they’d fit the friends-to-lovers trope!! something that’s really wholesome and sweet, i don’t know why but a park and ice cream just came to mind so maybe something like a high school au where you’re hanging out with your best friend at a park during sunset, and as you’re sharing a cup of ice cream you start talking about plans after graduation and realise neither of you are quite ready to let go of eo yet <333

🤙 (stella): stella is super fun to talk to and our convos always out a smile on my face, so i will say something like a romcom!! like maybe a neighbours au situation where they meet under hilarious circumstances (“your cat got into my apartment” or “you took my laundry instead of yours can i have mine back”) and find themselves gravitating towards eo, with lighthearted twists in between that lead up to the big confession whsjwj ✨💗

🐹 anon, ⛅️ anon: both these anons give me similar vibes, both are extremely sweet and kind, so i’d give them the slice of life trope, something lighthearted that makes you feel giddy and excited ab life 💗 like a bookstore au where you and a stranger bond over liking the same book and sharing the same distaste for one of the characters, or a florist au where the endearingly clumsy florist confesses with your favourite flowers <3

[zer0pm]

Photo taken and edited by me~ (Dammit, he’s too handsome) 

Tropes Pt. 2 for my upcoming project.  Alas, the con at the end of this month is taking much of my time, however, I am making strides with making the fancomic mainly in writing that focuses on the interactions of Ardyn and his crew.  So without further ado, here ya go!  Fair warning, long read ahead.

Feel free to leave insight, commentary, heck even stuff that you would like to see come to life between the Ardynights~  For those who are just learning about this project for the first time, you can refer to the link below of the crew I have created for Trash Jesus during his time as a mortal man and hero to his people 2000 years ago:

Ardyn and his crew

Ardyn & The Lancer

If It’s You, It’s Okay – The Lancer lets Ardyn get away with a lot of things, granted he’ll more or less talk his ear off for it

Seeker: “Why do you let him do what he does if you are so vocal in your dislike for his choices?”

Lancer: “Once you’re in his company long enough, you’ll understand.”

Shield: “Ardyn is just…Ardyn.”

Ardyn: “Did someone call my name?”

Straight Man and Wise Guy – The Lancer as the Straight Man and Ardyn as the Wise Guy respectively

Ardyn and his team travel to what would later be known as Altissia to make a pact with Leviathan, the goddess of the seas who is known to treat those who so much as annoy her with an unbridled wrath.

Ardyn: “We board ship, commune with the Hyrdraean, and move that much closer to defeating the ultimate evil.  Sound like a plan?”

Lancer: “The Hydraean is not known for her kindness, Ardyn.  We must proceed with caution.  The wrath of the sea would surely be upon us if we so much as look at her the wrong way.”

Ardyn: “Come now.  I am the Astrals’ Chosen.  What could possibly go wrong?”

(scene cuts to Ardyn and his crew holding onto the collapsing mast of the ship struggling against the goddess’ seastorm)

Lancer: “ARDYN, YOU POMPOUS TWIT!”

Ardyn: “I KNOW, I’M WORKING ON IT!”

Ardyn & The Shield

Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! – The Shield does this to Ardyn as he loses confidence in himself as Chosen.  They brawl it out with the Shield seemingly having the upper hand despite Ardyn possessing superior abilities which further damages Ardyn’s ego, but at the right moment the latter sets his pride aside and overcomes his friend who smiles and proudly accepts his defeat.

Shield: “If you cannot defeat me, then you cannot defeat the daemons.  You cannot defeat the Starscourge.  So allow me to do us all a favor and end your life now since you have already surrendered to your failures.” (moves to attack Ardyn)

Ardyn: (dodges) “Shield!  Have you gone mad?!”

---

Ardyn: “I know what you’re trying to do.” (sword pointing at the Shield)

Shield: (ended in a kneeling position and was unarmed by Ardyn’s last strike, he bows his head respectfully) “Is the king now ready to take his crown?”

I Owe You My Life – Ardyn saved The Shield when they were children, the former was too young to remember as he himself was in the mindset of playing the game of Hero.  The Shield on the other hand remembers everything and dedicates his life to protecting Ardyn even after the fall of Solheim.

Ardyn: “What made you chase after the profession of soldier?”

Shield: “A little boy.  He saved me from a fire when I was a young lad myself.”

Ardyn: “You of all people required saving?”

Shield: (nods) “Since then, I wanted to become stronger.  To have the same resolve and courage as he did…does.”

Ardyn: “Ah, so you think he’s still alive?  That’s good!  It would be a great honor to meet him, my friend.”

Shield: (smiles)

(flashback – Ardyn single-handedly drags The Shield from the burning and collapsing building.  Both boys coughing as they gasp for clean air)

Young Ardyn: (after he regains his breath) “…Are you alright?”

Young Shield: “I…I think so.”

Young Ardyn: (looks at him and smiles gleefully) “That was a most excellent time!  I can’t wait to tell, Lancer!  Let’s play again, yes?” (scurries off)

Young Shield: “……” (looks at the retreating boy with slight awe)

(flashback ends)

Lancer: “So that was you.  And after all this time, I thought it was a story he made up.”

Ardyn & The Seeker

Only Friend – The Seeker has made many ties whilst wandering Eos in her personal quest, these people including the Oracle; however, she outright states that she never allows herself or anyone to get close emotionally.  Over time, however…

Seeker: “It…has been a long time since I can openly admit to trusting someone.”

Ardyn: (shrugs) “You trust us enough to travel with us in our perilous journey.  Three men, I imagine, is not ideal company for a lady.”

Seeker: “That is different.  Saving Eos forces one to place reliance onto others because that is what is demanded.  But trust…that’s a sentiment, a gift.  Something I scarce allow…”

Ardyn: (smiles) “Is this the part where you confess your love to me?  At long last?”

Seeker: “No.”

Ardyn: (fakes being emotionally hurt by her rejection)

Seeker: (she smiles slightly in response) “You are strange, Chosen.” (moves to prepare for their next objective)

Ardyn: “Seeker.”

Seeker: (turns to him) “?”

Ardyn: “I trust you too.”

Ship Tease - for the most part, this relationship seems very one-sided as Ardyn is a persistent flirt while the Seeker does not appear to be one for romance.  Still, they have a interesting enough dynamic for this trope to properly be referenced to and one of many banters to match.

(Seeker treating Ardyn’s wounds)

Seeker: “Hold still.”

Ardyn: “It’s not that ba-hss!” (winces)

Seeker: “True.  Lucky for you, you will not have scars.”

Ardyn: “Ahh, but the female masses fancy scars. Look at the Shield.”

Shield: (a short distance away, surrounded by fawning/fussing women though he nary gives them attention in return)

Ardyn: “See what I mean?”

Seeker: “I’m sure you can find safer ways to appeal to them.”

Ardyn: “I will try everything, risks and all.”

Seeker: “Sounds like a lot of effort to attract attention. You do plenty of that without even trying.”

Ardyn: “Whatever it takes to keep your eyes on mine.  If scars are to mar my person on a regular basis to ensure the promise of your hands and attention tending to me…then the pain is worth it.  I seek only to appeal to you.”

Seeker: (finishes dressing his wounds and dismisses him) “Enough of that.  Go tend to the others, Chosen.”

Ardyn: “As you wish, my temptress.”

Seeker: (sighs)

You Are Better Than You Think You Are - they give each other lectures of this in the fluffiest of ways, here are my favorite moments.

(The Seeker telling this to Ardyn)

Seeker: “Ardyn, that is not true. The ring and the Crystal does not define who you are. It does not tell you that you are less.”

Ardyn: “Then who am I? What more could I be?”

Seeker: “A good man…that has taken the burdens none could carry to save the lives of all. One who evidently believes himself to be… a man of no consequence.” (A/N: I squealed when I wrote this tbh)

Ardyn: (chuckles)

Seeker: (smiles) “Ah, there is that man.”

---

(Ardyn telling this to the Seeker)

Ardyn: “Seeker…”

Seeker: “If this is another one of your advances to make light of the situation then hurry up and get it over with.”

Ardyn: “I just wanted to say…that you are worth more than you make yourself out to be, that despite your words and your actions, you are a good soul and the bravest person I know.  It is your side that I will proudly stand by until the end itself.” (after a long-filled silence, he moves to leave her to her thoughts, but is stopped when she grips his sleeve, preventing him from going.  He looks back at her questioningly and is taken aback when she further initiates physical contact by embracing him.  No words were shared and he embraces her wholly, offering the comfort she wanted)

The Lancer & The Shield

Cultured Warrior – when not under the threat of daemons or battle, The Lancer passes the time with fine spirits and engages in deep political discussions, mostly pertaining to the recovery of Solheim should they succeed in their mission to purge the Starscourge.  The Shield prefers discussing literature, but will not turn down a drink when offered.

Lancer: “Shield, whilst they are handling this task, I have a spotted a promising tavern nearby.  We should discuss recovery efforts of the lands.”

Shield: “You just want to drink.”

Lancer: (sighs) “Very well.  Pass me enough spirits and you can share your thoughts on your latest read.”

Worthy Opponent – The Lancer considers The Shield this.

Ardyn: “Back at home, Lancer and Shield would be sparring on the training grounds constantly.”

Seeker: “I’m guessing The Shield rose victorious after each session?”

Lancer: “Admittedly that is the case.”

Shield: “You came close, Lancer.”

Lancer: “Closer each time.”

Shield: (nods) “Then I look forward to the next.”

The Lancer & The Seeker

Deadpan Snarker – They can have a battle and we’ll never know who will win.  This one is mixed with If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Him...

Lancer: “Ardyn has told me that I should apologize for my words about your home earlier.”

Seeker: “And yet by your approach, the gesture will not be made.”

Lancer: “How very keen.”

Seeker: “So then what is it that you wish to say?”

Lancer: “My brother is easily ensnared by the…fairer sex.  He will trust you without reason.  He has a warn heart.” (steps closer to her) “If broken at any time, the next moment will be my spear through yours.”

Seeker: “….” (glares at him, but then looks down)

Lancer: (follows her gaze to see a dagger pressed against his lower abdomen)

Seeker: (carefully puts the dagger away) “Sorry, reflex.” (with one last glare, she walks away)

Headbutting Heroes - when they first meet, Lancer was extremely distrustful of her, being a stranger that can hold her own in a fight and all of mysterious origins, and the Shield is not too keen on sharing personal information let alone her intentions either

Lancer: “Abstaining to share only makes us suspicious of your character.”

Seeker: “Look, if I wished for your demise, I would have left you all for the daemons to ravenously pick at back at the surface.”

Revenge Before Reason – They hate the daemons more than anyone considering their Dark and Troubled Past

(recounting why he wants vengeance)

Lancer: “I trust…you will not tell Ardyn what you saw.  If he knew…”

Seeker: “I won’t.  And I understand.”

Lancer: “….Thank you.”

Seeker: “They will pay.”

Lancer: (nods) “Every last one of them.”

---

(when the Seeker pursues her own vengeance)

Ardyn: “Lancer…did you know of this?”

Lancer: “Some fury cannot be quenched by love and comfort alone.”

Ardyn: “She will die!  And you let her go?!”

Lancer: “When there is a wrath that burns that ferociously, the only price is blood.”

The Shield & The Seeker

Birds of a Feather - they both have made oaths to protect

Shield: “We share the same oath.”

Seeker: “Yours pertains to one ward, mine extends to all.”

Shield: “My ward has all resting on his shoulders.”

Hidden Depths – all have shades of this. The Shield is an avid reader and actually collects books during the journey.

Seeker: “Sir Shield.”

Shield: “Lady Seeker.”

Seeker: “I have taken notice of your souvenirs and could not help but recognize one of them.”

Shield: “Which one?”

Seeker: “The Indigo Character.  We had the copies of the same story back in Memento.”

Shield: “A good read?”

Seeker: “You will not be able to put the book down.”

Shield: (smiles slightly, almost enthused) “That is what I hope for.”

---

Shield: “Here.” (hands the Seeker a book)

Seeker: “What is this?”

Shield: “A journal.  The previous owner was a researcher that studied flora all across Eos.”

Seeker: “I am not one for flowers, truthfully.”

Shield: “Give it a look.” (this even would lead to the Seeker learning something from her homeland)

[tearsofthemushroom]

podcasts wot i listen to

this is a rec list of sorts

okay, so, in the order i listened to them:

welcome to night vale - everyone and their mother has heard of wtnv, it’s the first podcast most people listen to, and it is deserving of that fame! funny, creepy, weird, and great on representation, it is an exceedingly well written and thought out podcast. in case, for some inexplicable reason, you haven’t heard people banging on about it enough, it is in the format of a local radio show in the small desert town of night vale, where every conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard is true.

the orbiting human circus (of the air) - ngl, this is my comfort podcast. it is the nicest sounding thing i’ve ever listened to. the way voices and music blend together creates a plethora of delights for the ears. the story of the first season follows julian, janitor of the eiffel tower, and tells weird and wonderful stories that are pure magic. the second season is a different story, but is just as beautiful.

within the wires - the format for this one is so. clever. it had me hooked from the beginning to the end, and the writing and the way the story unfolds is genius. it is quite unsettling, but in a good way if that makes any sense. it is told in the format of relaxation cassettes addressed to you, the listener, in a medical facility.

alice isn’t dead - okay, so, i’m not really a horror person, but alice isn’t dead is too good for that to matter. it features absolutely stellar acting from jasika nicole, and brilliant writing from joseph fink. it follows a truck driver as she journeys across america to find her missing wife, and encounters strange and horrific things along the way. 

wolf 359 - this was my first non-night vale presents podcast, and boy did i like it! the characters are endearing and complex, the pacing of the story is perfection itself, and the soundtrack! hoo man, the soundtrack is awesome. the podcast follows the uss hephaestus station in orbit around the dwarf star wolf 359, and features crew antics, strange happenings, and feels.

wooden overcoats - i have to be honest here, i love podcasts, but the us-centric nature of them made it really nice to find one made in the uk. as an english person, wooden overcoats was a refreshing touch of home. plus, it is very funny. it follows rudyard and antigone funn, funeral directors on the channel island of piffling, as they deal with the arrival of eric chapman, a new opposition to their monopoly on funerals.

eos 10 - i love this podcast. i love it so much i can barely formulate words. it is funny, and heartwarming at times, with characters that i just want to bundle up and hug. it is about life in the medical section of space base eos 10, and details how the main characters deal with medical emergencies, addiction, deposed alien princes, and (alleged) terrorists.

the penumbra podcast - another favourite! it has a great format, alternating stories about juno steel, a non-binary, bisexual, PI on mars, with other stories set in different locations, including but not limited to lesbian bandits in the old west and a disabled knight in a high fantasy setting. every episode is consistently stunning, and i guarantee you will fall head over heels for the characters.

the bright sessions - you may have heard this summary before, but ‘superheroes go to therapy’ sums it up accurately. to be more precise, it follows the practice of dr joan bright, who provides ‘therapy for the strange and unusual’. the superheroes are known as ‘atypicals’ and the episodes detail how their powers affect their lives. it tackles themes of isolation, involuntary testing, ptsd, the difficulties of being a teenager and many others. the characters and acting are awesome!

inkwyrm - this is an amateur podcast written and produced by high schoolers, and it. is. so. professional. the team have gone above and beyond to create an awesome podcast, with great characters! the voice-acting is really good and they’re great on lgbt+ representation. it follows the crew of inkwyrm magazine, an intergalactic fashion publication produced from a space station.

marscorp - this is another one for my sorry english ass. the humour is very good, i have laughed out loud in several places! the setting is on point and i love the characters. (please, can i hug david knight?) it follows e.l. hobb, who is woken 400 years late from suspended animation and now has a degraded, sloppy first attempt at colonising mars to get into shape.

alba salix, royal physician - so i only started this one today, but i’m loving it! i’m two episodes in and already know that the characters and worldbuilding are great. it’s clear the writers know their fantasy, as it effortlessly pokes fun at tropes of the genre. it’s laugh-out-loud funny and i can’t wait to listen to more. the podcast follows alba salix, physician to the king and queen as she deals with a helpful-to-the-point-of-annoyance fairy assistant and an apprentice who just wants to learn dark magic.

[oraculideluna]

VERY LONG CHARACTER SURVEY

repost; do not reblog !

    ϟ     BASICS

FULL NAME: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret NICKNAME/S: Not many so far. Vi sometimes calls her Sailor Moon, some people have called her Lu, but not much that’s been very consistent. (After all, isn’t Luna kind of her nickname anyway?) AGE: Default she’s 24, but for me that’s verse dependent, and also when in the timeline a scene takes place.  BIRTHDAY: September 24th ETHNIC GROUP: Tenebraean NATIONALITY:  Caucasian?  LANGUAGE/S: (This one is largely headcanon based rather than founded in canon.) Though the local language in Tenebrae has been slowly integrating the common language into it until pure Tenebraean is rarely spoken anymore except at major celebrations and ceremonies, and in religious sites, Luna can speak it fluently, and in fact, it is her first language. She learned the common tongue spoken across Eos second, and her common is spoken with a Tenebraean accent. Growing up, she was also learning the local dialects in Lucis, particularly what’s spoken in Insomnia and by the royal family, but after the invasion of Niflheim, studies of that were put to a stop. She has a passable knowledge of what’s spoken in the Niflheim capital, though speaking it is heavily accented, and she reads it better than she speaks it.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Probably demisexual with a leaning towards men. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Demiromantic. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: By default, engaged to Noctis, but this is all verse and timeline dependent.  CLASS: Royal, and holy. CURRENT HOME: Tenebrae, but as usual, verse dependent. (Bevelle, Dollet, Citadel, etc.) PROFESSION: Ex-princess and Oracle. (Verse dependent: queen/oracle, high priestess, duchess, etc)

    ϟ     PHYSICAL

HAIR: Light blonde, long with a bit of a wave and some soft curl at the end, hanging between the ends of her shoulder blades down to her hips, depending. EYES: Light blue, perceptive, and the most expressive part of her face when she’s trying not to show emotion. NOSE: Slim, with a soft curve at the tip. The bridge of her nose bumps up ever so slightly in the way that many Tenebraean noses do. FACE: Oval face with a slight and gentle elongation of the chin; almost heart-shaped, but not quite enough to call it that. LIPS: A bit wide-set lips with a soft curve around the corners and a pronounced cupid’s bow. COMPLEXION: A fair complexion that easily shows any color (blushing, bruising, etc) BLEMISHES: Nothing notable, though she does have a small beauty mark on the curve of the right side of her jaw, and one on her right collarbone at the base of her neck. She also has a few scars, though these are more prominent in the timeline after Altissia: a scar across the side of her right upper arm (grazed with a bullet during the fall of Insomnia) that remains slightly raised with a small knot of scar tissue; a white line of a scar across her left cheek (during the fight in Altissia) that’s barely noticeable except in some lights and with careful inspection; a large scar that traces about a 6” line across her abdomen (being stabbed by Ardyn in Altissia), knotted in a couple of places, pulling the skin tight. TATTOOS: None, but in some verses, she wouldn’t be against it. HEIGHT: 5’6” without heels. WEIGHT: Timeline dependent. Probably close to 125lbs until she escapes Altissia. After that, with all the fighting and weapons training she puts in, she ends up closer to 155lbs. BUILD: Slender, but adds more tone definition and a bit more weight as she trains. She probably ends up closer to an athletic build. ALLERGIES: None. USUAL HAIRSTYLE: Usually it’s held up with decorative braids and gemstones, with her bangs styled to be parted over one eye. When possible, she wears it down, and much prefers it down. USUAL EXPRESSION: Very neutral and straight-faced, lips and jaw set, eyes taking in everything around her. USUAL CLOTHING: Dresses. Embroidery, beads, lace, flowing skirts, decoration and accessories, headpieces. It’s fairly rare she gets to dress down, save for days when she has no appointments or public appearances. On those times, she wears far simpler clothing, a lot more relaxed and casual, while still maintaining what propriety is expected of her.

    ϟ     PSYCHOLOGY

FEAR/S: To quote the woman herself: “I do not fear death. What I fear is doing nothing and losing everything.” She’s long since accepted that she will die before she wants to, so the fear of death doesn’t come until well after the war ends. Once she’s survived and realizes she now has the rest of her lifetime to live, she finds that death becomes something she’s less…comfortable? with. She may not fear it, but she also is far more careful with her life now.

Outside of that, she’s afraid of a loss of control. Twenty-four years spent under the control and rule of someone with an agenda, and she now finds that, in most aspects of her life, a loss of control can cause the beginnings of panic. (There’s a slightly nsfw addendum to this, but that can be saved for later. Or asked about, if anyone even reads this far lol.) ASPIRATION/S: To be a ruler that her people, and the world, can be proud of. But also, to maintain their status as a peaceful nation while still finding ways to impress upon Eos that they are not to be messed with ever again. POSITIVE TRAITS: Generous, kind, thoughtful, isn’t too stiff in demeanor, empathetic NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, distrusting (to a degree), MBTI: ENFJ. ZODIAC: Libra, Virgo/Libra cusp. TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine. SOUL TYPE/S: Caregiver and Spiritualist. VICE/S: Complicated, because Luna spent much of her life being told and considering some basic human needs and wants are vices. She wants to be loved, she wants friends, she wants a minute to relax. She wants conversations deep into the night about everything and nothing. She wants to be kissed, to hold hands, to see the beach.

But as for actual vices, she carries in her a lot of anger and just enough vengefulness disguised as righteousness. 

GHOSTS? No. AFTERLIFE? Yes. REINCARNATION? No, though couldn’t one just wish. ALIENS? No? I guess, if she really thought about it, she’d think about life on other worlds, but all things considered, she’s never thought about it. POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: Oh, that’s a lot to ask in one question. EDUCATION LEVEL: A level of schooling equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, all crammed into tutoring and homeschooling until she was twenty-two.

    ϟ     FAVORITES

BOOK: She’ll tell people it’s religious books like the Cosmogeny, buuuuut give this girl some escapism. She loves stories of adventure, has a fondness for rogue-like characters, and will read the occasional romance novel. MOVIE: She hasn’t been able to see many, what with all that censorship, but she would love a good thriller, suspense, action movie, something in that genre. MONTH: Summertime. Don’t care what month, but the warmth and the summer rains and light dresses and blooming flowers – all of it. SEASON: Summer. PLACE: The beach. Doesn’t matter if it’s an ocean or a lake or a river, she just wants to be barefoot in the sand with water. WEATHER: Warm days and warm nights. She does enjoy a good rainstorm, though. SOUND/S: The sort of not-so-quiet quiet that comes with a peaceful afternoon or evening. The rustle of a gentle breeze through the trees, birds or crickets chittering about outside, the sound of her own quiet breathing. She also really enjoys music a lot, and will usually have something playing softly nearby when she’s working or reading.  SCENT/S: Flowers, especially exotic ones; vanilla, cinnamon, the smell of wood burning in a fireplace. Deep heady scents that are warm and comfortable. TASTE/S: Fruits! She enjoys sweet ones, but finds particular interest in tart berries. Cinnamon is a favorite, and she once tried a heavily cinnamon flavored drink while traveling that she loved, but hasn’t been able to have since. FEEL/S: A warm breeze, soft cotton against her thighs, hot baths, ocean/lake water that isn’t too cold.

    ϟ     EXTRA

GOOD AT: Puzzles, public speaking, dancing, she’s a fast learner, good with her words BAD AT: Self care, driving, understanding innuendo TURN-ONS: Confidence, being trustworthy, a sense of humor, not treating her like she’s made of glass, a charming smile…legs TURN-OFFS: Blatant power plays, a need for dominance, condescension, HOBBIES: Reading, gardening (though she doesn’t get to do it very often), writing TROPES: Cast from lifespan, Nerves of Steel, Stuffed Into the Fridge (the salt is real over this), Super Strength, You See I’m Dying

[saphscribes]

Hey Saph! *chinhands* I was wondering if you had any first date HC's for Pelna? What's his ideal first date like? 😍💜

you come into my house, when I’m some fierce kind of sad, and dump basil boy in my lap, and expect me not to write about him immediately?????

Tagging: @paopuicecream @me-yasato @decision-height @sonsoflucis @rhysspeaces @louisvuittontrashbags @cupnoodle-queen @misssarahdoll @wolfgoddess77​ @elloquench​ @ffxvhoe​ @xnoctits​ @insomniascure​ @goodmorningawfulbye​ @cherryblossomcheesecake​ @vashiane​ @kidolegend​ @ultimoogle​ @themissimmortal​ @zegnautuskeep​

He asked you first—and nearlytripped over himself doing so. He’d definitely have to have his eyeon you for A While before he does, and preferably would like to besome kind of close to you first. (He’s a bit of a sucker for theFriends-to-Lovers trope, you see. If “Friends” exists in Eos,he’s forever lowkey salty that Joey and Rachel didn’t gettogether in the end.)

It’s not the end of the world ifyou’re not terribly close, but definitely expect him to fumble withhis words and actions more. I wouldn’t put it past him to haveprobably rehearsed, multiple times, what and when and how he wasgoing to ask you. (He probably does this even if you are friends, but it’s a weird balance of even more comfortable and evenmore nerve-wracking. He really doesn’t want to ruin whatevergood-natured relationship he has with you.)

In fact, that’s exactly how it endsup happening. You caught him. Rehearsing. Out loud. He looked alittle mortified when he turned at the sound of you clearing yourthroat and saw you standing there, but he recovered fairly quicklywith that boyish smile of his. Or, he tried to. You didn’t have theheart to tell him that he looked nervous as all fuck. (You did havethe heart to tell him yes, with a sweet smile youhad a hard time fighting, and at least he was able to wait until youwere out of sight and earshot before he gave one of those subtlevictory punches.)

He’s pretty traditional when itcomes to first dates—dinner, coffee (or tea for him), and awalk—but it still makes your heart flutter when he picks you upright on time, leaning shyly against your doorway with a bouquet offlowers in your favorite color. But it’s like, the kind of shythat’s endearing, and he knows it’s endearing,and he’s doing it entirely to charm you.

He offers you his arm at first, to beall gentlemanly about the whole affair, but eventually theconversation you fall into is so casual that you don’t need to. Ittakes time, but the more you talk to him, the more comfortable youmake him feel, and the more he feels like he’s on a level playingfield with you, instead of putting you on some kind of pedestal. Andthe even more fortunate thing is that the silences don’t feelawkward in the slightest. They make you feel like you’ve known himfor years beyond reality, even if you’re already friends; it makesyour hand slipping down to take his feel like a smaller deal than itprobably should be. It makes it feel like home.

He will, absolutely, without a doubt,argue with you about footing the bill(s). Not necessarily because hethinks the men should treat the women to a date (and in fact, one ofthe things that endeared you to him was a salty comment he made onceabout how pervasive heteronormativity is sometimes), but just becausehe feels like it’s the polite thing to do. You honored him byagreeing to a date, so in his mind it’s only right to repay you forit. You might have to remind him that it’s not a transaction; hedoesn’t have to pay you for going out with him,but you both know it’s more complex than that.

Eventually you strike up a deal: hepays for dinner, you pay for coffee/tea and dessert. It’s not anentirely balanced agreement, but it’s one thatyou’re both happy to come to. It’s how you find out his favoritetype of cake—Victoria sponge—and that he cradles his cup of teain both hands when he drinks. There’s something quietly beautifulabout the whole thing when the cafe’s an hour out from closing andyou’re the only two customers left, talking and laughing in hushedtones in the corner.

There’s a part of Pelna thatbelieves in love at first sight, and an overwhelming majority thatbelieves that it’s supposed to punch him in the gut when he leastexpects it. It happens, as it turns out, when you smile at him,utterly genuinely, from across the table, and tell him you’rehaving a wonderful time. And that you’d like to do this again if heever has time.

He walks you home, all the way to yourdoor—it’s a matter of respect for him, and he also wants toensure that you make it home safe. There’s a lot of scuffed heelsand cleared throats as you’re fumbling with your keys, and from theway his gaze lingers to the way he jams his hands in his pockets it’spainfully obvious that he so badly wants to kiss you good night.

But he doesn’t. He, respectfully,lets you go, and says good night with his words and a little waveinstead, and stays until you close and lock your door.

It’s only after you’ve taken maybethree steps into your apartment that there’s a knock at your door,somehow nervous and insistent at the same time. When you open it,he’s standing there, eyes burning just as fiercely as they werebefore. The only word on his tongue is a breathless, “Hi,” andyou’ve barely gotten out a greeting of your own before he kissesyou, soft but full of conviction. His hands, half-callused, cradleyour face the way he cradled that cup of tea, and his lips move withpractice. Every moment of pulling away is absolutely reluctant, andhe’s still out of breath when his lips ghost against yours, likethey’re begging for another kiss and holding him back all at once.

He whispers “good night,” again,with that smile that has your knees knocking, and this time heactually lets himself go, so that you’re the one lingering in thedoorway, watching him leave. Because as much as he wanted to kissyou, he certainly won’t stay over on the first date. Even if hewanted to.

One last detail: he texts you when hegets home, so that you know he’s safe. Then he texts you again, ifonly to say, I’d like to do this again, too.

The kiss?

All of it. :)

[booksofrequirement]

I feel like I’m in a rut with the books that I’ve been reading lately. And by rut, I mean I haven’t fallen in love with a new book in a long time, a majority of the books I’ve read this year have either been disappointing or just okay. I’ve been trying to counteract that feeling by rereading books I know I love and enjoy, but I also want to find a new book or series that I can obsess about.

So, if you guys have any recommendations, please don’t be afraid to leave a comment.

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas – ★★★★★ – Yep. This is still my favorite book of all time. Although, I do now consider Kingdom of Ash to be barely a notch below it, if not at the same level.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – ★★☆☆☆

Vicious by V.E. Schwab – ★★★☆☆ – I don’t know what it is about V.E. Schwab’s books that I can’t fully connect to. I like her writing style and her plots, I even like her characters, I just don’t love them like I was expecting and hoping to. I did like Victor and his posse of EOs, almost as much as I liked Kell and the rest of the characters in A Darker Shade of Magic, but I also had the same issue I had before, of being kind of bored and just reading it to finish it.

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye – ★★☆☆☆ – I wouldn’t say that I had high hopes for this book or even that I expected an epic romance, but even without all that, I was sort of let down. I didn’t connect to the two main characters (or any characters) or their unbreakable bond because they spent a majority of the book apart and the constant switching of POVs was disorienting. The romance aspect felt forced and then, at the last minute, switches out one trope for another. The magic system was underdeveloped and the magic itself left something to be desired.

To Be Honest by Maggie Ann Martin – ★★★☆☆ – This wasn’t where I saw the plot going at all, in a good way. I liked that fact that Savannah was already confident in her body so it wasn’t a story of overcoming what other people thought of her, or even overcoming what her mother thought of her, it was more like a story of support. The romance was cute and sweet, but obviously not the whole point of the story.

Mai Tai’d Up by Alice Clayton – ★★★☆☆

2019 Reading Challenge Progress

At the beginning of last year, I combined a whole bunch of different challenges to make one that would allow me to read books I would normally read as well as books outside of my comfort zone. Click here my entire wrap up of the 48 different prompts I came up with for the 2018 year.

…a reread of your favorite book. (A Court of Mist and Fury)

…a book from the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge. (Flowers for Algernon)

…a book you meant to read in 2018. (Vicious)

March TBR

I’m going to start shortening my TBR each month and giving myself more flexibility to change what I read instead of pressuring myself to read and stick to the 10 books I assign to myself.

Winter by Marissa Meyer

And I Darken by Kiersten White

99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne

What was your reading month like? Have you read any of the books mentioned?       Leave a comment!

February Wrap-Up/March TBR I feel like I'm in a rut with the books that I've been reading lately. And by rut, I mean I haven't fallen in love with a new book in a long time, a majority of the books I've read this year have either been disappointing or just okay.

[letstalkwhump]

Let's Talk Whump! No. 18

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Malice and I’ll be your host today. 

Today I’m talking whump with the amazing @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! 

Great to have you here, @crash-bump-bring-the-whump! Before we begin, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself?

Hi! I’m Ruin, I’m a graphic designer and I love horror, drawing, and playing video games!

Alrighty, let’s get started! What does whump mean to you? 

Whump is the juicy bits of a story! It’s the conflict, the agony, the struggle! The good stuff that we’re all here for.

How did you find the whump community?

I found it because I was poking around for more hurt/comfort things to read! @friendlylocalwhumper and @sweetwhumpandhellacomf were actually the first blogs I followed! Lux and the Hunter, and Valerie and Eos were what inspired me to make my own blog. 

Do you feel like your view on whump has  changed since you joined?

Ohhh man all that’s super changed is that I’ve found more tropes that I like! I knew fevers and environmental and self-sacrifice whump were favs, like who doesn’t love a good sickfic or someone taking a bullet for their loved one, but I also really really discovered my love of gore and lab whump, which are just amazing. 

Everyone’s favourite topic: whump tropes! Which are your favourites?

Oh man, so many right now! I love a good drowning, and bouts of hypothermia are fantastic. Those tend to go hand-in-hand though so I usually feel blessed when I find stuff with those. I also love a good fever, “Stay with me”, kidnapping, and self-sacrifice though I’m not as big a fan of death, so this usually also includes intensive caretaking and probably a lot of worry from the other characters which is also amazing.

And your favourite piece you've written?

Oh this is hard, I have a few favorites! 

If I can cheat a little bit and name two, the first is MO-1620, which is my current fav OC Mariano’s prison psych transcript! It was super experimental for me, and I had a blast getting to explore his feelings about his imprisonment and how he sees himself versus the reality of his actions and behavior and circumstances. And the second is my first BTHB 2023 fill, for Possession ! I’d gotten House of Leaves for Christmas one year and the formatting just really grabbed me, so I wanted to try playing with that! Plus I love a good human AU, and my OC Will was too perfect for this prompt.

I love the style and formatting of MO-1620! That’s such a unique idea! Do you have a writing routine?

I usually write during the night! I usually have some flavored water, probably a little snack, and I definitely write best if I can just get a big chunk out at once. I try to write regularly while not putting pressure on myself, so it winds up being every few days at least, unless I’m just super grabbed by something and it won’t let go of my brain.

Is there an easy thing for you to write or anything you struggle with?

Oh I love writing horror. If I can incorporate horror into something, or explore what I think is scary about a situation, then it flows SUPER well. Or if I’m getting to do something with a lot of dialogue. Or lately, smut, because consensual NSFW writing has really been going well too.

I also tend to struggle with delving more into environmental, in-depth descriptions. Or diving hardcore into tactics with my military whump stuff because I…am not a clever man sometimes.  Also patiently staying on a linear timeline is the worst. I can never do it. Which sucks, because it puts me in a situation like now, where I KNOW how a bunch of characters WILL be and I want to write about it publicly NOW but first I have to REINTRODUCE them AND get them through the initial “I want to kill you here and now” conflict. 

Is there anything you're working on at the moment?

I’m working on so much right now! I do written roleplays, my drafts are 15 posts deep, and that’s not even counting my random google docs. Uh I’m working on introducing Mariano’s war buddies again, a bunch of smut, I have a grim reaper fighting a losing battle against a demon, a prompt game request for a friend, a response piece for my co writer, more therapy vignettes for said war buddies, and– you get the picture!

Sounds like you’re pretty swamped! Do you have any advice you’d like to share?

Write what makes you excited! If you don’t want to read what you’re writing, change it! Make it self indulgent! Make more OCs that are specifically catered to you and what you love and want to see! That’s more fun to read anyway, honestly, I love seeing passion!

Shout out to your favourite writing/whump blogs, bffs or people who've inspired you. We're hyping everyone up here!!!

YEAH HERE WE GO! I’ll shout out my co writer @brinkofdiscovery, my bestie @friendlylocalwhumper, my accomplices @comfy-whumpee , @that-one-thespian, and @painful-pooch, uh god there are so many more people. So many people are so sweet! @actress4him, and @inscrutable-shadow, and like everyone in the various servers I’m in, I can’t name everyone or this post would get so obscenely long so quickly… 

Anything you'd like to add?

Thank you for this!! It’s super fun to see this happening, and I like getting to see everyone talking about stuff.

Thanks so much for joining us today!

And to all you folks at home, have a whumpder-ful day!