#the undercut and everything. maybe not a lion though

[thehandwixard]

i need sora to do some mask of my own face shit with the heart hotel gang. but like. not exactly that. something like in the parade people are cheering for the effigy of me which is me wearing my own mask, but at the finale i grip it and tear it away and leave them to consider who i really was

[yeyinde]

bos taurus | dogmeat series pt., i

mafia butcher Simon Riley x Reader

You don't question your brother when he sends you to drop off packages to his friends, but when the enforcer for the 141 shows up to teach the small-time dealer selling on their turf a lesson, you realize there are different ways to pay someone back with pounds of flesh.

(OR: your brother owes them, and Ghost is content to let you settle the debt. after all, if you wanted freedom, then you shouldn't have caught the eye of the butcher of the 141, should you?)

18+ SMUT. noncon. objectification. marking. kidnapping. threats of violence. unsafe sex (manipulation into unprotected sex). rough sex. size difference. breathplay. 10k of foreplay. light pussy slapping. overstimulation. mafia au.

SERIES MASTERLIST | AO3

The goal is to be as quick and discreet as possible. 

In and out, he says, looping the baggie around his index finger. Inside, a snowfall of white powder settles at the bottom. 

Meth this time. Oxytocin the last. 

He ties it tight before giving the bag a quick shake, breaking up the clumps. Satisfied with the way it looks, he turns toward you. Levels you with a sombre look, the picture of a concerned older brother. 

You almost fall for it. Believe it. But the clouded, flat edge to his gaze undercuts his worry for what it really is. A farce. 

“And if it seems sketchy—”

—run.

But your knees are locked, soles glued to the pavement. You can't move even though everything is screaming at you to flee. 

The problem, maybe, is that there's nowhere to go. Escape cut off, filled by a body, a man—even though the idea, the mere notion, of thinking this behemoth as human, flesh and bone; blood and tissue, is laughable when he's so clearly a beast. A monster. 

He fills up your field of vision. Your line of sight was eclipsed by the thickness of his waist, the broad expanse of his shoulders. Thighs that are as wide as the trunk of a tree. Arms boxing you in. A prison of obsidian. A black shadow. 

In the panic that surfaces, surging to the top like an oil spill, you catch a pocket where he doesn't root. A small alcove between the bend of his elbow and the slot of his knee perched against the wall. Enough room for you to—

“Wouldn't do tha’ if I were you.” 

His voice seems to shake the earth, rolling out of his broad chest like the low, brassy roar of a lion; a rumbling thunderclap. 

You feel sick—

The leather covering his hand is cold when it closes around your arm, grip tight. Bruising. Trapping you with just the slightest effort. 

“Go’ a problem, you and I,” he starts, and it's almost conversational. Might be, perhaps, if the clean, sleek outline of his gun inside the unclasped holster around his ungodly thick waist wasn't threatening you more than the grip he has on your arm. “How do you reckon we can fix it?”

You have a meagre twenty dollars in your pocket. Less money for them to take if things go awry. If they decide that the little girl standing in for her older brother was an easier target to rob—money and drugs���than to settle things fairly. Money, goods. Hand over hand. 

Just like the movies, he'd said. 

Just like the movies, you think when he leans in closer, bulk swallowing you whole. 

There is a pockmark in the corner of his crooked, misshapen nose and the crease of his eye. A scar, maybe. It's circular—almost perfectly so; a silver-pink moon on the angular ridge of his nose. Uneven, craggy, like crumpled printer paper. 

It looks almost like—

You think of the mark on your arm. Soot-stained. The smell of burning hair, tissue. The searing pain. 

“I–I can pay you—” you stammer out, tearing your gaze away from the ugly mark on his skin. A cigarette burn. It makes you shudder. 

He cocks his head slowly like a big, dumb dog, but there's something eerie in the ink spill of his eyes. The soft matte of a saltwater crocodile staring at you from beneath the murk. Calculative. Hungry. 

“Pay me?” He echoes slowly, dragging the words out mockingly. “D’you know ‘ow much trouble your brother is in? For sellin’ ‘ere of all places?” 

“No,” you swallow. It feels like your heart is stuck inside your throat. “I–I just—”

“Run ‘is errands,” he finishes cruelly but you can't deny it. “Ain't you a good little sister? Almost makes me wish I ‘ad somethin’ as sweet as you f’myself growin’ up.”

You don't answer. He doesn't seem to be looking for one, really; just empty words to fill space. To echo in your head, barbed wire around any sense of comfort you might have felt. Punishing cruelty. 

He has the upper hand, it says. He's the one who makes derisive jokes while you tremble in his grasp, and try to make yourself as small, as unassuming, as possible. Hiding from the predator in plain sight. Hoping he passes you over for something bigger, more calorie-dense; the effort to catch and consume you expends more energy than the return. Hardly worth it in the long run. The comfort of a risk-reward ratio, right?

But he's opportunistic, it seems. A snacking scavenger. 

Could eat, it says, like a basking tiger keeping a mouse trapped between his paws, letting it squirm and squeak as he slowly licks his lips. Not enough to fill its belly but enough to satisfy the gluttonous urge a predator has to eat. Sharpening its teeth on flimsy bones. Child’s play. 

It's a fitting image, especially with the way he arches over you, looms; fingers looped around the thick of your arm, holding firm, but not—

Not as tight as he could. 

It's a loose-fisted grasp. Lazy, almost. He knows you won't run—or, at the very least, knows you won't get far. 

You peel your gaze away from his, dropping it to the curve of his shoulders—the width of them is just as dizzying as his height; broad, muscular. Pulling it further down the length of his arm, covered in a thick jacket. Black corduroy. Ashes stain the cuffs. A bulky watch juts out from his wrist. Gold. Glinting even in the grey-blue gloom of an overcast evenfall. 

His muscles tense. Hand tightening around your arm, fingers digging hard. Rubbing muscle painfully against bone. 

A warning, maybe. Stop looking—

But something else catches your eye. Blood red. The colour of meat. A fresh kill. 

The back of his hand has a blooming rose. Petals spread out, unfurled. In the middle, a milky skull sits. Stencilled in boxy, yellow letters is ONE-FOUR-ONE—

You know what it means even as your mind whirs, gears turning, turning; plummeting into a tailspin, making excuses as it falls, dragging your heart down alongside it. An area code. Some special date. An inside joke. 

But you've seen the marking around town before. Heard whispers about them from your brother, his friends. 141, they say, and then: mafia. 

The real deal, he said, puffing around a joint his friend rolled. It's too tight. He scoffs, and rips it out from between his lips. Shitty roll, man, make another one—

Mob. Mafia. Gangsters. It seemed so extreme, Hollywood. Fiction, fantasy, all rolled into one. Tony Soprano. Ralph Cifaretto. Michael and Vito Corleone. Tony Montana. Larger-than-life men created on paper. 

You think your brother thought so too. Child's play. Grown men selling weed to kids for two hundred an ounce. Buying themselves sleek, black cars—G Wagons, Escalades, Cullinans—on the Xanax they sell at clubs, parties. Cocaine. Heroin. 

Nothing to worry about. 

Then his friend went missing. 

Sent out on a routine delivery to drop off cocaine to well-dressed men in suits outside of a local butcher shop. A normal, nondescript Tuesday. 

But he wouldn't answer his phone. Texts were being delivered, read, but no chat bubble appeared. Nothing sent back. Calls went straight to voicemail. He wasn't at home. Wasn't at his mum's. No one saw him. Heard from him. 

Your brother didn't call the police. Didn't report him as missing. 

It's just not what they do, he said. You don't involve them. Ever. 

The most shocking part of it was that no one saw anything. He just vanished. Disappeared—stock an’ all, your brother angrily spits—without a trace, picked up off the streets. 

If it was the police, someone would have said something by now. They're hardly discreet. And a rival—

Well.

The biggest problem was that your brother was blindsided by his own small-time success. An accumulation of little wins bolstered his confidence. Overfed his ego. This fallout was tunnel vision. A refusal to see the bigger picture. 

Or the storm clouds looming on the horizon. 

You'd heard of the 141 in passing. Little quips, anecdotes from the passel of friends that congregated around your brother—often getting high on the couch and watching old cartoons; sharing a joint back and forth between gossip. 

Through rheumy eyes, they'd talk about the real gangsters in town—much to the irritation of your brother—and swap tales of run-ins and feats they heard from a friend (of a friend, of a friend). Most of the guys were known already. Soap and Gaz are the biggest names that cropped up on the streets through reputation alone. Both fighters for a gym. MMA, mostly, but whispers of street fighting and extracurricular activities weren't uncommon. 

Liked the thrill of it, they said. But the worst was a man simply known as the Ghost. An enforcer for the 141—a fucking butcher, more like, Liam cut in, jaundiced eyes widening—the guy who took care of problems. 

“Can't be,” your brother scoffed, lifting off the couch to reach in his back pocket for his wallet. A small anthill of white powder poured into the glass table. “They don't get involved in our shit—”

And for the most part, you're sure that's true. Dealing to the same circle of people—outreach spread through word of mouth—seemed paltry in comparison to the scale of an operation that had a money laundering gym. But the problem was that your brother lacked common sense. His ego often got in the way of foresight. The shadow greed casts blocking out the bigger picture. 

Like—

Territory is territory—regardless of what's being pushed. 

You wish there was a modicum of surprise when his friend turned up. Barely recognizable. Sent right to the morgue as a John Doe. 

Most would see the marks on the man's skin—the distinct lack of blood—as an indicator to abandon ship, find the boss, beg for forgiveness, and maybe even try to strike up a deal. But—

That picture is hidden under his anger. Greed. Selfishness. 

He sends you instead. 

You're somethin’ they ain't expectin’, he said. Won't mess with you.

Right. 

He catches the realisation dripping down your brow—beads of sweat gathering at your hairline; anxiety, fear, churning your stomach—and hums. Cocks his head to the side. 

“Was expectin’ ‘im t’show up, though—” he murmurs, hand tightening around your arm. The pressure, the sting, is eclipsed by the gnawing sense of dread biting viciously into you. “Told ‘im if I caught ‘im sellin’ on our streets again, there'd be trouble. Thought we ‘ad an agreement after ‘is friend. But—”

His eyes cut to yours. It feels like a knife to your guts, sinking into soft tissue. A pain you can't breathe around. 

Won't mess with you, you think, and then viciously—sadly—he knew. Was warned by them and still sent you out. Let you take his place for whatever comeuppance they decided he deserved. 

It should shock you. You almost wish it did. Desperately clinging to the threads of surprise that slip through your oily fingers, grasping onto the nothing but empty air. Numbed to the resignation that trickles in. 

Of course he would leave you here to save himself. Letting you fend off whatever they threw at you alone. Leaving you trapped between a brick wall and a wall of a man. 

The excuses are there. They pool on the tip of your tongue—it isn't me, don't do this, it's my (stupid, selfish) brother you want, not me—but you swallow them down and try not to wince at how quickly they dissipate when you do. It doesn't matter in the end because whatever you have to say won't negate the drugs in your backpack. The empty house you'll lead them to—your brother probably squirrelled away somewhere until this blows over. Half-hopeful you'd call him and say everything is fine, the deal went smoothly. You're on your way back. Or that the debt he racked up with them is settled by you. 

It's half-hearted when it slips out again, caught between resignation and dread. A brittle whisper. A prayer—

“I can pay you. Whatever he owes, I can—”

He's already shaking his head. 

“Too late for that, birdie. ‘sides, I don't want your money.”

He moves back, rocking on his heels to put a small measure of distance between your bodies. In that scant space, he drops his gaze, sweeping it over you. His eyes darken.

When he pivots them down, catching yours, you can't stop the shiver that crawls up your spine. 

That calculative gleam is back. 

“But I think we can work something else out.”

Something else turns out to be ushering you into the backseat of an old Ford pickup. 

The door whines when he opens it. Rust flaking off, falling to the ground by your feet. Your mind reels. Spins comparisons to falling snow, dried blood. 

He hauls you in with his hand wrapped around the nape of your neck, thick thigh sliding between your own to boost you up. The protest—a mindless, reactionary squeal at being manhandled—only makes him chuff. A brief flex of his fingers around the skin of your neck is the only warning he gives before it pulls away, and wraps tight around your waist. His thigh flexes, muscle drawing taut as he shifts his foot up to the running board, lifting your feet off the ground and seating you fully on his leg like a child.

(In his hands, you feel like one, too.)

The motion makes you slip, back glueing along his broad chest with a shallow thump. You feel the rumble of his laugh trembling up your spine before you hear it. 

“Careful,” he drawls, oiled with amusement. “Might slip.”

Anything you could say in response is choked back when he bumps the corded steel of his thigh into the seam of your legs, pushing tight to your clothed cunt. His intention is unmistakable this time. Unignorable. And with the rasp of filtered, balmy air against your crown; the pull of a groan when you rock back into his groin, the noise still slicked with mirth, you feel a knot of dread spool tight in your belly. 

Something else is dragged back to the forefront, coiling like wisps of smoke around you. 

And you knew. It's shocking, you think, but not necessarily a surprise. To call it a dichotomy would be lying to yourself, and so, you settle against it. This notion that what he wants—wanted—is flesh. Not money. Not retribution. 

Not to talk things out like you'd hoped he’d try (grabbing onto the idealistic thread, holding it tight to your chest); bringing you in and forcing you to convince your—stupid selfish greedy—older brother that quitting was the only option. Dangling you—baby sister—over his head in an appeal to his emotions. Familial bonds. Love. 

That thread is cut. Snipped. 

Probably severed when they first came to him with an offer. No strikes against him and yet—

The idea of using you to make him bend was expunged from the drawing board. It's not even a plan b, or c, or z. 

And—

You knew. Have known. Maybe that's why it's so easy to swallow around the panic when it lances through your chest, climbs up your throat. You can think and feel and breathe around this dagger in your back like it was there the whole time and you've only just noticed it now. 

Nothing but a small, whispered oh in the roiling polyphony of your emotions. 

It sits there as he manuevers you into the passenger seat of his truck, your head spinning around the indescribable sensation of being woefully cognisant despite the paralysing fugue pressing against the bubble of stark awareness that keeps it at bay. It manifests itself as a numbed sort of shock. Or more accurately—

Indifference. 

Defeat. 

His hand brushes your cheek, the snag of dry leather against humid skin tugs uncomfortably at your flesh, stinging as they dance down to your jaw, the delicate line of your vulnerable throat, skimming over the curve of your breast—

And it's too much. Too present. Too real. 

Autopilot. Dissociation. Derealisation. All of these concepts slip past the bubble of hypervigilance, skidding the surface like a pebble thrown over a lake. Out of reach as he unashamedly gropes you, barely making an effort to mask his actions as just buckling you in. 

You pretend, though. Curl your fists around the sides of the seat, fingers digging into the worn foam. Head lulling back on the headrest. Eyes fixed out the window as he walked around the front, head and shoulders still visible in the windshield despite the height of the truck. It makes your heart leap, stuttering in your chest as the absurdity of his size is brought back into focus. Too big, you think. Grossly so. 

There's a moment when you think about running. Toying with the idea of sliding your hand over the lock, pulling the door open when he's too busy on his side to notice. It'll give you an advantage—a head start. Enough time to slink through the dense forest of concrete buildings lining the industrial zone, and into somewhere safe. Help, a behemoth is chasing me—

But the door clicks. Swings open with a squeal of rusted metal just as your fingers twitch toward the handle. Hope evaporates with each lurch of the cab as he climbs inside, metal creaking under his weight when he settles in the seat. 

From the corner of your eye, you can see his head tip. Chin angling toward you. Staring. Assessing. 

When he speaks, you feel the words like cold fingers dancing maliciously down your spine. 

“‘pected you t’run.” 

It's said idly enough. Nonchalant. Tone even, if a little cruel, and you wonder if this is some test. One that you passed—and failed—in equal measure. 

He doesn't look away. It takes less effort than you wish it did to peel your lips apart, to breathe in the stale, mulch scent of the cab—something overgrown, rotting, and damp—and mumble:

Where would I go?

It seems to amuse him. He hums around a mouthful of mockery before turning away, pawing at the ignition. Gloved hand curling over the wheel. 

“Smart girl.”

You don't feel very smart. In fact, you feel very small. Stupid. Maybe you should have taken a stab at it—running. Tried, at least, to save your own life before the jaws of the beast closed over you like an iron bear trap around your ankle. Fought like hell. Clawed and kicked and screamed. 

When most kids read the back of a cereal box, you learned about secondary locations. You know better than this. 

But the truck sputters to life in a belly-deep rumble, hacking up soot into the air as he pulls the lever into DRIVE. The fight inside of you—however ephemeral it might have been—dies inside the smoke spilling out of his exhaust. Gone so quickly that you begin to wonder if it was even there at all—

Must be, you think, eyes listing outward. Keen. Mapping the twists and turns—a futile effort in the end: he doesn't bother hiding where he's taking you, and you've been down these old, grim streets more times than you can count. 

It doesn't surprise you much when he turns down the street leading to the butcher shop. An old relic that still carries the marks of a booming farming town before it fell victim to industrialisation. Concrete skyscrapers in place of lush cornfields. Warehouses over old barns, ranches. Cattle, meat, produce—it all used to be a mainstay here but now hides under layers of steel. 

The dark windows of the small shop gleam with hazy smears of neon blue, red, when you pull up, catching on the array of rowdy bars across the street. All clubs that belong to the 141. A playground of drugs, sex. More money than you'd ever see in your lifetime. 

It's an uncanny juxtaposition to the quiet, assuming street right across from it. Barber, butcher, accountant firm, antique store. All dark inside and bathed in the smeared stream of glimmering neon as lights flash in the fading glow of twilight. 

He pulls up to the curb in front of the shop. A bold move if the streets weren't so empty. Lifeless. The clubs won't be open for four more hours. Everything else follows the same nine to five as the rest of the world. The shops closed an hour ago, and everyone in town seems to know not to linger here after dark. 

The air seems to stagnate in your lungs when he cuts the ignition. Slips the key into his pocket. 

“Don't get any funny ideas in tha' pretty little ‘ead o’yours.” 

“Funny ideas,” you echo, toneless. Flat. It rolls out with your exhale. Words that might have been smarter to swallow down. “Like following a stranger to a butcher shop?” 

“Lippy little thing, ain't you?” He scoffs. The truck creaks when he shifts. “Ain't go’ no one t’blame but yourself. Told you what would ‘appen if you kept sellin’ in our territory. You should ‘ave known better.”

“That was my brother.” The words slip out before you can stop them. “Not me—”

“‘ow am I suppose t’know that? You were sellin’ where I told ‘im not to—” he has the gall to shrug. Spit these careless words at you like it wasn't life or death. “That's all there is to it, birdie.”

“That's not fair—”

The truck groans under his weight, shaking from side to side as he leans over to push his door open before turning back to you, rolling his eyes. 

“Life ain't very fair, is it?” 

The acerbic words are flicked out from between his teeth; an apathetic, droning curl clinging to each syllable. He doesn't care. Won't. What happens to you next is your choice, and yours alone. 

And he's just doing his job—

“When I get out of ‘ere, you ain't gonna do anythin’ funny—”  

His hand lashes out. Gloved fingers close over the thick of your throat in a blink. Fear lags by a beat, giving him enough time to sink his fingers over your neck, and when it catches up—heart rabbiting in your chest, thudding in your ears; roaring as your pulse thunders beneath the press of his thumb—he’s already got you in his hold. The width forces your chin to lift, stretching up to accommodate the curl of his hand around you. 

Trapped like a rabbit. Cattle to the slaughter. 

He tilts his head down, keeping his eyes on yours as he forces your crown into the headrest, chin lifted up. It's uncomfortable. The curve of your neck cuts off your airways. Constricts your breathing to shallow gasps. An ache grows in your nape. 

The swell of panic, fear, in your eyes makes him hum. But there's nothing echoing back. An absence of light in the deep, placid pits. It looks like still water. A stagnant lake. 

It's unnerving how dispassionately expressive his eyes are. Wild, wild. Vats of ink. Pools of obsidian. Ringed in red-lined ivory. Long, ashen lashes dusting over the smears of charcoal under his eyes. Sleepless nights, maybe. Fatigue. The corners are tattooed with coal, leaving behind a thumbprint in the crease. 

But empty. Barren. No light.

Like black holes. Eating everything around it. Devouring all that gets too close, but giving nothing in return except a bottomless crater in the bruised-plum nebulous of space around it. 

You're not sure you like it. You can't look away. 

But in staring back so hard (getting pulled in deeper and deeper), you catch the twitch in his left eye. A shallow spasm. It throws off the symmetry when he blinks, one eye a sliver of a second behind. Desynchronized in a way that seems so—

Unlike him. 

Disjointed. 

You blink in response. Perfectly synchronous. 

His lid twitches again. Just once. Brief. Pale, pink eyelids drop, unveiling a nebula of indigo veins on the smooth, thin surface as they roll down to half-mast over his eyes, now narrowed slightly in contemplation. Thought. 

Whatever is happening in his head can't be good. It causes a ripple over the lake. Little rings rebound outwards. 

He looks away first. A quick slide of his eyes to the corners, glancing out of the passenger side window. Whatever catches his attention is unknown to you. The anchor on his hand around your throat keeps you still. Immovable.

(Every instinct in your body compels you not to look away from him because nothing outside could ever be scarier, more dangerous, than him.)

A second later, he breathes in through his nose. The fabric of his mask is pulled into his nostrils from the force, forming little black holes under the crooked arch. 

You hadn't really given much thought to his appearance outside of big, massive. But there's a strange asymmetry to the slopes and valleys beneath the balaclava. Trying to map his face, fill in the blanks with just black cloth and vague, lopsided outlines, is impossible. There are too many gaps. Too many missing pieces. You can only wonder, then, what he looks like under it. 

Monstrous, you hope. 

It's just a coincidence that he looks at you the moment the thought passes, but you flinch like a naughty child getting caught doing something you shouldn't when the heavy, dour weight of his impenetrable stare is levelled at you once more. Your heart stutters. It's loud in your ears. In the truck. 

You wonder if he can hear it just as loudly as you do—

Another blink, and his gaze flickers down, settling on the gap between your lips, watching the little tremble they make with each shallow hiccup of air you greedily suck in. His head tilts to the side, eyes never leaving your mouth even as he leans down, masked lips brushing over the beading sweat gathering on your hairline. 

It's a brief touch. A taste. You tremble when he pulls back, fingers tightening around your flesh. 

His eyes are lavascapes.  

“Are you, birdie?” 

You almost forget what he's asking. The conversation hidden between the scant beats it took for him to measure your worth with the blistering intensity of his stare, and the tumult of your feelings still looping around each other in your belly. Knotting up tight into a ball. There's fear, of course there is. 

But the rest—

You'd rather not think about. 

The grip on your throat eases just enough for you to shake your head no to whatever he is asking. Doing anything funny, you think, scrambling at the tangle of memories flipping past, trying to connect the pieces to a puzzle you've already forgotten. 

It must be the right response. Or maybe it's another question like before, a test where there’s no right answer. 

Run, stay. 

Smart and stupid. 

But it seems to appease him—marginally. His eyes crease. Tightening. His other hand folds over your throat, sliding until his palms kiss the sides of your neck in a near-perfect symmetry. 

Something frissons across the blank, placid lake of his expression. Another ripple. A shudder. He leans in for a moment, nose touching the apple of your cheek, and when he breathes in, it’s sharp, reedy. Cold air ghosts over your skin. Long, pale lashes flutter when you swallow. 

He hums quietly under his breath before peeling back. The flatness to his gaze is back; a cold, impenetrable distance widening like a chasm as he uncoils around you. You almost fall for this—this indifference. An icy nonchalance. But you've been eating the minuscule quirks of him just as ravenously as he's been devouring yours. 

There is something there. A fracture, maybe. A splinter. 

But what leaks through from the other side isn't anything close to warmth. It's—

Hunger. 

The shift in your throat draws his molten gaze to your neck, still wrapped tight in his firm grip. Your reflection blooms in the vat of black; eyes wide, all white. Pupils narrowed to a pinprick. Mouth slack, corners tugging downward from the pressure of his hand. The tilt of your head. His thumbs press under your chin, pushing you back further until it feels like your neck might break—

He stops. Shifts. You puff out a shallow breath. 

What looks back at you is unremarkable in the murk. A sliver of fear. A slip of unease.

Eye of the beholder, you think when his breath chuffs out shallowly through the mask. When that hunger is ground down to a raw, esoteric fissure hairlining the black of his eyes. The widening expanse of his pupil. 

You wonder if it's your fear that itches under his skin, dredging up something predatory in his hindbrain. The urge to chase. To bite. 

But the nearly indiscernible flicker of his gaze has you brushing that idea aside when it snags on the expanse of his hand coiled around your throat. Easily swallowing it whole with just his palms. 

You're not a small thing, but the indomitable size of him makes you feel insignificant. 

You think he feels it, too. 

His fingers flex over your nape, stretching. Pulling. It pushes the flat of his palm into your throat, ridges crushed against your trachea. But you can still breathe. It's shallow. Hoarse. A touch painful. Dizzying in a way that makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster. A teacup ride that just spins and spins and spins—

The gap closes. A sliver of air snakes down your throat. Muscles flexing, shifting. Struggling to swallow around the pinch of his hand. A harrowing task when you feel the gloved fingers link to the first, then the second knuckle, tying together in a too-tight, impossible, noose around your neck. Thumbs overlap. Fingers slide into place. It forms a chain of his hands with no gaps between them. Not a single sliver of skin shows from under the leather of his gloves. 

He makes a sound when they meet—a nasal groan in the back of his throat, mouth clenched shut so the air has no choice but to tear through his nose. It's raw. Fractured. The devastating moan of a tiger nuzzling at its meal. 

Your vision blurs. A black fog presses into the edges, seeping over the arch of your peripherals. Dripping down slowly over the hazy smear of the man. The way the ochre sun peeks over the angular roof of the accountant's office illuminates his back and casts swaths of shadows over his front. Drenching him in murk. 

Despite the flickering darkness shuttering over your sight, you don't blink. Even as the tears prickle at your eyes, they stay open. Fixed on him. Black holes, you think, watching as the fever marbling those obsidian pools recedes. Cools. 

He makes that noise again. Softer this time. A purr from deep in his chest. A breath. And then he peels back. His hands go slack. His shoulders slumping back into the lax, easy spread from before as you gasp hard, nearly choking on the flood of air that roars down your throat. 

Your cheeks feel hot for a moment, and then cold. Icy. You don't have to touch them to know that you're crying. That the deluge clinging to your lashline spilt over, dripping messily to the collar of your shirt. 

The placid lake is back. In the stillness, you heave. Mouth hanging open, chin quivering. His thumb lifts, slides over the curve of your chin. You don't feel it. Numbed, maybe, by the brief kiss of hypoxia. But you see it. Watch as he slides it up to the jut of your lower lip, the black, angular tip tickling over your skin. He follows the seam between skin and lip, tracing it to the corner of your mouth. It's slick. Drool pools in the crease, dribbles over the top of his finger. His eyes drop when he mops it up, catching it on the pad. 

He makes another noise. An arid rasp bubbling between the soft tissue behind the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue. It's ugly. The shiver you try to fight back slinks through. 

His hand peels away from your neck, movements lax. Slow. The unwinding gait of an idling tiger in no real rush, no hurry, because there's nothing in the frigid Arctic that can touch him. 

You watch him with flared eyes as he brings his thumb to his clothed mouth, and rubs your spit into the fabric of his mask. 

His eyes don't break away from yours once. 

Your spit doesn't stand out against the black of balaclava, but the idea of it burns through you. Throwing you headfirst into a dazed stupor. Dizzy. Confused. 

Satisfied with whatever it was supposed to mean, he clambers out of the truck before coming around to your side. Distantly, you're sure this is what he meant by funny ideas when he passes the headlight, head straight and eyes gliding around the empty street. An opening to run. You know where you are. It would be easy to flee. Hide in the construction zone just ahead, tucking yourself into the tightest corner you can find until help arrives. 

Help, though. 

Officer, please. I got caught selling meth in the mob's territory and now they're going to skin me alive. Please hurry—

Right. 

They'd rather help bury your body than get in the way of the mafia. Gangland violence isn't their concern unless it tumbles out into the street. Fat wallets keep even the most compassionate person quiet. Willing to turn a blind eye. 

You'd be thrown in a cell. Or dropped off at their doorstep. 

Either way—

You won't be coming back alive. 

There's nothing to steel, harden, when he pulls the door open, your nerves long since ground down to fine powder. Nothing to fight against, either. He hauls you out of the truck, hands firm on your skin. Bursting blood vessels easily between his fingers. Barely any effort at all to crack your bones. 

The moment in the car seems miles away when he pulls you in front of him, hand curling over your nape. Any flicker of humanity rendered out when he pinches you tight and shoves you forward. Dragging you back to the butcher shop by the scruff of your neck, leading you down a narrow set of stairs to the basement where pale white carcasses hang from hooks on the ceiling. He laughs when you tense. When your heels dig into the brown-stained linoleum. 

Ain't gonna hang you, he mocks, fingers dipping punishingly into the sides of your neck. “Not yet, anyway—”

It brings little comfort when he drags you to a room in the back, kicking open the door with the toe of his boot before pushing you inside with a nudge against your nape. 

It's dark. Walls covered in stains; mould, mildew. Something you hope is just rust. A single mattress is shoved into the corner; sheets stained with sweat and grime. Tinged a pale brown. Two pillows sit at the top, lopsided and matted with use. Threadbare. A twisted, black heap of fabric sits at the bottom. Wisps of cotton poke out from the cigarette burns. 

A pair of muddy, black boots sit against the wall at the end of the bed. A basket of clothes—jeans, black shirts, black sweaters—is piled on the wall across from the door. 

The room smells of stale sweat and old cigarettes. 

You don't want to be here. The thought is abrupt. Immediate. Unease prickles along your nape, warmed and damp under his gloved palm. Between the look of the room—the floors stained the same suspicious brown, the rumpled bed in a corner—and the smell, you know this is not a place you want to stay. To be trapped inside with a man cut from Everest; whose hands are more dangerous than the sharp end of a knife. 

He must feel the tension brimming beneath your skin; the spark of adrenaline surging through your veins. The clamp of his hand on your nape digs in tighter. Holding firm. 

A breath tumbles out, thickening with mockery. “Like I said,” he leans down, pressing the mountainous width of his chest into your spine. The accentuation in your size difference, how big he is in comparison to you, makes you feel like prey. Small. Brittle, thin. He eats you whole. Spares nothing for later. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” 

Another nudge and you're pushed further into the room. He leans away, foot shoving back on the door until it snaps shut with a noise that cuts through the gossamer that spun around you, bifurcating reality from dream. The haze is wafted away, and all that remains is a barren room with a lumpy mattress, the smeared stain of rotten blood coagulating on the floor, and his body boxing you in. No escape. 

The rumble of his chest shakes loose the cobwebs spooling across your thoughts. A brush of humid air ghosts along the line of your jaw, dampening the skin below your ear as he leans in close, too close, and purrs: 

“Go on now. Strip for me.” 

Each scrap of clothing you slowly roll off of your body is exchanged for a slip of information about him—who he is (Simon Riley, the name rumbled through the split between his teeth; a low, brassy purr as his eyes gleam in the dark, drilling into the expanse of skin unveiled to him)—and what he wants—

Nothing, he tells you, lifting one massive shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. Jus’ what's owed to me, pet. For stickin’ my neck out f’you. 

You don't think he did. Not really. But you're harshly reminded of the unsubtle threat. The gun balanced on his massive thigh. So wide, so big, it seems to make it look smaller in comparison. Tiny. A toy. 

Child's play. 

It's made worse, somehow, as he lounges. Sprawls out on the bed, legs spread, pulling taut on the jeans that stretch around the thickness of his upper thigh, bunching around his calves in a half-tuck inside his black boots. Arms flexing. Folded over his broad chest. He rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbow, showing off an impressive tapestry of harsh, faded black ink. Crisscrossing lines. All asymmetrical. Guns, barbed wire. A bullet with a wide, toothy grin—

All of it knits together; woven into a tangled mass of muscle. Of man, hidden under scar tissue. Rope burns on his wrists cut so deep that the skin is permanently dented in. More cigarette burns hidden inside the mess of ink. Jagged lines—from a knife, maybe; bullet wounds. 

His skin tells stories of a terrible life. Ink spills over the worst of them, but they're visible under the fading charcoal. A series of burns—acid, fire, chemical—and raw, torn skin. He looks like he's been mauled. Pressed into the cold metal of a wood chipper until chunks of flesh were taken out. But even with these deep gouges, craters of missing tissue, he's big. Bulky. Soft—like a tiger. Predatory muscle tucked away under a thick layer of fatty tissue. 

The pillowed pouch of his belly, the softness around his biceps—

It belies the danger underneath. The steel. 

But as scary as it is, it has nothing on his eyes. 

Glinting in the dim room. Dark pools of obsidian that follow each movement with an almost clinical keenness. Sharpened to a razor's edge. 

They might be pretty, you think, if they weren't so intense. So liquid. His eyes gleam like wet ink, languidly rolling along his lashline as you clumsily shed your jacket, your blouse. Shoes, socks. Pants. Until you're in nothing but your panties.

Swallowing around the influx of panic that flutters like little birds beating their wings against the soft walls of your throat, you slip your fingers into the hem, now or never, and—

And you hesitate. 

There's a difference between undressing willingly and doing so to save your life. It should spurn you on—survive, survive, survive—but you freeze at the apex. The summit is within reach. 

You know what happens when you climb it. Cross over the invisible threshold. 

What you've been trying to ignore this whole time, ever since he shoved you into the room with a huff, taking his perch on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, but in such a terrifying state of vulnerability, nearly nude, you can't any longer. Can't avert your gaze to the stained linoleum in a thinly veiled effort to keep from glancing at the thickening bulge lying prone against his thigh. 

His—

Well. 

You knew what he wanted when he grabbed your face in his hand, squeezing your cheeks until your lips pursed, puckered for him to run his finger along the inseam. Prying your teeth apart. Rubbing his finger over your tongue, eyes dark—full; black holes pulling, tugging you in, dragging you closer to the event horizon framed in a ring of arsenic—and locked on to the sight of his gloved knuckle disappearing into your mouth. Wanting. Hungry. 

You knew. And now—

Committing to it is legions above what you’re mentally prepared for. Nausea brims, churns your stomach. Unease curdling inside of you like rotten milk. 

You don’t want this. But you don’t have a choice, do you?

That notion, the idea, prickles along your nape, raising the fine, peach-fuzz there until it stands on end. 

You freeze. Movements still as every muscle in your body tenses. Coils. You can't do it. Can't—

A huff is dragged out of his chest as he sits up, knocking the gun carelessly to the mattress. His eyes daggering, sharpening into needlepoints, as he stares at you. 

“Gotta do everything f’myself, do I?” 

A grunt and he’s up. Pulling himself to his feet with nothing but the flex of his abdominal muscles. 

There's no reprieve. Not a moment graced to gather your bearings before he crosses the distance between you. Once a comfort, a chasm, now conquered in a single stride.  

The tips of his gloves are cold when they brush over your skin, sliding down the slope of your waist until they meet the hem of your panties. The last piece of modesty you have—

But he doesn't wait.

You're aware that this isn't a non-consensual thriller where the lead looms over the hapless love interest, eyes blazing with passion and need. That each interaction is drenched in a thick, palpable tension tethering the two together. Urges coalescing. Threads pulling taut, magnetic, dragging them closer and closer to the brink until they tumble over. 

This is reality. And he doesn't stare into your eyes with an all-consuming desire as he slowly removes that last scrap of fabric keeping him from devouring you. No. 

His skin-warmed fingers push under the elastic band with a rough shove, curling into the fabric until it tightens across your pelvis and thighs, and then he huffs, annoyed, and pulls. Pulls—

Until something gives. 

The lace yields to the tension in his flexing bicep, and scrapes over your skin as it rips apart in his hand, threads snapping. Popping. 

It hurts. Stings. You hiss, but the noise is ignored when he peels the ruined scrap of fabric from your legs, shoving it into his back pocket with a grunt of satisfaction. He looks back to you, eyes rippling like the dark, ink-black surface of a lake during nightfall, and coos, mocking and mean—

“Not s’hard, was it?”

He leans closer to you, a hand skimming up your spine before his fingers curl around your nape, keeping you still for just a breath before he pulls you into him with too much force. Your hands lift, palms slapping against his thick stomach when the movement nearly topples you over and threatens to break your nose on his chest.

“Makin’ me do all the work when y’supposed t’be payin’ me back? Ain't very nice o’you, is it?”

He touches you like he's taking stock of your worth. Grabbing a heavy, rough palmful of your beast in his hand, squeezing. Testing the weight, the softness, how supple you were between his fingers like he might with a piece of fruit. Meat. Prodding into the flesh, feeling the ripeness there. Gauging whether or not it was a piece he wanted to keep. 

It's demeaning. Humiliating. He treats you like cattle; presses into the elasticity of your muscle, examines every inch of your skin for blemishes. Scouring for imperfections. There's no softness in the way he grabs handfuls of your body—squeezing your breasts, pushing them together, rolling your nipples between his thumb and forefinger; pinching your belly, your sides, your waist; curling his fingers under your thigh, lifting it until it hitches over his waist, cunt exposed and pressed tight to the bulge trapped in his jeans. Your ass is handled rougher than the rest. Each cheek sitting in a hand, squeezed and punched and spread embarrassingly wide. 

He ruts into you as he does it. Pushes the thick, fat length of him into your belly, rolling his hips against you with a heavy, ragged puff of air. 

He feels big. 

Everywhere, of course—it’s not so much his height, but the absurd width of him that really digs into your hindbrain, crossing all those intricate wires until they're tangled up, knotted together. Seeing his thigh, the same scale as a tree truck, slotting between yours—a mere branch by comparison—makes your belly flop. Turn over itself.

The muddled wires spark. Heat pools between your hips.

He could crush your head between them like a bear pushing its paw down on a watermelon. 

It's fear and heat. 

The two work in tandem, forming a seamless cohesion, as they flit down your spine, brimming up the urge to sink to your knees, the need to roll over and show your belly. A paradoxical desire to both run and be chased. 

You're not sure if he's tendering your meat to eat later or if this is the usual type of foreplay he engages in, but once satisfied you're softened up enough for him, he shoves his fingers between your thighs with an abrasive hum that reverberates through his belly, tickling your palms. 

“Tired o’waitin’,” is what he says when your head jerks up, eyes widening in shock. Terror. Horror. “Don't look so surprised,” he huffs, dryly. Voice a rough scrap over your cheek. “What'd y’think was gonna ‘appen?”

“Wait—” but he doesn't. 

His fingers twist, pushing through your folds to graze your clit. It isn't gentle. It's sudden, quick. You gasp more from shock than pleasure; the rough slide of leather feels strange on your flesh, and your head is too muddled to separate fear from bliss.  

Despite that, your body heats. Reacts to his touch. Your lower lip wobbles. You bite back another sound that crawls up your throat when his knuckle catches on your clit again, the pressure just shy of too much. 

The burn, the fever, melts the unease. Shallow gasps spill out. Your cunt clenches, fluttering around nothing—throbbing, growing sticky, slick; achy and empty—when he starts to glide his digit between your folds. Little sawing motions drag each groove and stitch of his gloves over your pebbled clit, each thrust of his hand between your thighs making heat pool between your hips. It's done so clinically, so detached, like his hand rubbing over your leaking pussy was nothing to him. An action to get done, a task to complete. 

It's the shame of that, the embarrassment, that makes you want to weep. Your fingers dig into his chest, nails pulling uncomfortably on the pleated bumps of his jacket as you grip the fabric right between your fists, clinging to him like a newborn fawn—all wet-nosed, teary-eyed; knobbly knees threatening to buck. 

“S–stop—” you mewl when the monotonous rhythm melts into something harder, more intense. Heart thudding in your chest, heat burning you up as he turns his hand, palm up, between your sticky, shaking thighs. He rubs his hand back and forth, curling his middle finger up when he passes your hole, tip pushing against your leaking rim. 

The friction aches. The stretch stings. The leather feels strange, foreign when it pries your folds apart and dips inside of you. 

You don't like it. It's too much—

He makes a sound—a tut—when you pull away from him, standing on the tips of your toes until the blunt curve of his finger slides out of you. He sucks his teeth in a mockery of disappointment before digging his fingers, hard, into the sides of your neck. A warning. You whine. Whimper—

It goes unheeded. And when you press your thighs tight together, shivering at the slip-slide of your skin rubbing against each other, he growls. The noise is inhuman. Animalistic. 

Your act of deviance comes with a swift, bruising punishment. 

His fingers tighten on your neck once again. A warning squeeze as he reaches down with his other hand, grabbing your hip. It keeps you still, immobile, as he bullies his boot between your feet, kicking your legs apart. You're not expecting it. When you stumble, he huffs in amusement. Can't hold yourself up? Want me that bad, huh? Needy fuckin' thing, ain't you?

You don't get a chance to respond. His palm splays wide over your hip, leather creaking as he flexes, stretching his fingers out, tapping some soundless beat out against your skin. Touching you like he's owed the privilege. The right. And in many ways—

Go’ a problem, you an’ I

—he does. 

Brute strength, and an unmatched, almost laughable, dearth in your physicality ensures that he has the upper hand—even without the gun he left on the mattress; darker and flat, a full matte compared to what you were expecting. 

(They're always so shiny in movies, aren't they?)

The threat of it—dull as it might be—roots you to the spot as he slides his hand down, thumb brushing over your belly button, dipping in; pressing until your stomach starts to ache—

It peels away when the whine wells up, sloping down, down. Teases your mound with the tips of his fingers, gentle swipes along the sensitive seam of your belly and pelvis, the sensation is an odd tickle that pulls at your navel, pulses at the apex of your thighs. You mewl—a slow, soft thing that barely makes it out from between your teeth—and he lets his hand drop. Palm flat against the soft flesh of your mons, fingers reaching, spreading, until they curl over your folds. Index and ring finger tucked tight into the hollow bend of your pelvis and thigh. The tip of his middle rubs gentle strokes over the skin above your clit. It's a whisper of pleasure. The idea of a touch. 

Mindless, your hips flit, following his hand—

“Needy.” 

It cows you. Douses you in icy shame. There's barely any mockery in his even, observant tone, but you feel it unfurl over your shoulders all the same. 

He doesn't give you a moment to think, to let the ripples of humiliation take over, forcing you to pull away, hide. His fingers trail over your hood, the pebble of your clit. The sensation, the cool undertone in the leather of his glove, is unlike anything you'd felt before. The thick stitches in the fabric catch on your flesh, nerve endings flaring in pleasure. Heat blooms in your belly. 

It feels good. 

You gasp, head tipping back. His hand winds around your waist when your knees buckle, catching you with a rasping huff—

“Feelin’ good, ain't you?” He pulls you tight to his chest, finger rubbing circles around your throbbing clit. Your cunt clenches, empty, and you whine, needing something more. Something to fill the ache inside of you—

His finger slips. Slides easily between your folds, parting your lips around the thick of him until he reaches your drenched hole. The sounds it makes when he taps his finger against your fluttering core makes your toes curl. Has heat blistering over your cheeks, down the slope of your neck. 

It makes him groan. The low growl makes you throb, clenching in needy little pulls, pulses, as his finger dips into the slick dripping out of you. 

“Suckin’ me in,” he grunts, and pushes his finger inside, thrusting up to the last knuckle. Palm tapping against your folds as his index and ring finger close to give him more room to sink deeper into you. The messy, slick squelch is loud, rolling over the mewling gasps that tumble from your lips. 

Heat floods your belly at the belly-deep groans he lets out when you squeeze around him. 

“Stranglin’ my fuckin’ finger, birdie—” 

He leans down, knocking his forehead against the side of your face. It's more intimate than you were expecting. Jarring. The proximity plays a twisted game inside your head—the urge to run, to roll over coalescing into a paralyzing tailspin. Rooting you to the ground when the warm, damp knit of his mask grazes your cheek. 

The intimacy of his head on yours is eclipsed when you can feel the shape of his mouth through the fabric. 

It's softer than you expected. A plush, fleshy give when he presses his lips against your skin. And—

A gap.

On the side of his mouth, there's a gouge. A pockmark. You feel the gap, the absence, of his flesh when he rolls it over your cheekbone. You try to read the asymmetry of his face—mapping all of these misshapen parts; his mauled lips, the crooked nose that digs into your skin and leaves behind a tacky smear of condescension when he breathes out through his nostrils in a heavy puff of air—and convince yourself that you're doing it so you can bring these patchwork pieces to the police later. 

Survival, you think, your head tilting back as he noses down your neck, tickling along your skin. 

(And when your cunt flutters around the rough, thick drag of his finger petting along your walls, you add: a bodily reaction. That's all it is.)

He takes another lungful of your scent before he rocks back on his heels, pulling away from you. Straightening up. Looming above you once more. 

“Now—”

He pulls his finger out of you slowly and you try not to whimper at the empty feeling that brims up. The way your hips rock toward him, seeking and eager. Wanting.

Needy, just like he said. 

Just a bodily reaction—

He holds his hand up to the dim light flickering over his head, fingers spreading apart as he takes in the glossy shine of his middle finger. 

The gleam of it makes your ears feel hot. Shame pools in your belly as he makes another noise—a groan, deep and low, in the back of his throat. Eyes darkening as his pupils bloom, eclipsing his irises in an endless pool of black. They flicker toward you, listing half-mast in a way to leonine, so predatory, that it shudders through your bones. Run, run—

His hand flexes around your waist when you twitch. A warning. A threat. You tremble when he leans in, masked lips brushing over your cheek once more. Breath ghosting through the fabric, tickling the inside of your ear. 

He smells of war. Of fire and brimstone. Napalm and nitroglycerine. You want to close your eyes, look away, but you can't. His proximity alone roots you to the spot. Turns you into a prey animal, frozen on instinct alone as he prowls around, creeping closer. Maw stretching wide, drooling dripping off razor-sharp canines—

“Let's see if y’worth all the trouble.” 

—and he bites.

Knocks his palm into your sternum, roughly shoving you down on the mattress.

His hands fall to the button of his jeans. “Ready?” He asks, but doesn't seem to care about your answer. Opts, instead, to fall to his knee beside you. It pulls on his zipper, tugs it all the way down with a sharp, metallic sound that cuts through the stagnant air as each ring of teeth is pried apart. 

You can't help it. You look. Dragged there by something primal, magnetic—the morbid curiosity to see the monster for yourself as it tries to take a bite. 

And almost immediately, you wish you hadn't. 

The spread of pale skin, dark curls jutting out from the split of his jeans, makes everything feel more real, and moving fast. Whiplash quick. Happening in a blink:

The shift of fabric as he pulls the mask up over his lips, letting rest on the crooked bridge of his nose. A flash of his mouth, mangled. Mauled. Full of ugly, pale pink scars. A gap where tissue once knit his upper lip together. The bite of crooked teeth as he brings the sticky, wet tip of his glove to his mouth, sinking in. Pulling. Tugging. The roll of skin—a rose, a gun, a skull—all encased in barbed wire; thick rivers of blue-green veins. 

Another pull and it's free. Dangling between his teeth for a moment as he reaches up and shoves the jacket off his shoulders. Rolling and thick. Wide. A broad chest. Soft belly. There's an inch of flesh around the expanse of him—biceps, thighs, calves, chest, stomach, shoulders—but it's a buffer for the corded, streamlined muscle beneath. A layer of fatty tissue. 

Like a tiger, hiding its dizzying musculature beneath a thick, loose pelt. 

When he moves, it flexes. His shoulders roll; muscles bunching together, pulling taut under soft skin. The jacket slides off. Falls to the ground behind the mattress. Forgotten, discarded. The glove is next to go. Dropping from between his teeth, landing just beside your ankle with a muted thud. 

He follows after it. Ink spilling over his lashline as his eyes drop, staring at the roll of his skin tucked on the outside of your thigh. Trailing up to your knee. Your hip. The split of your cunt beneath your other leg; knee tucked to your chest. 

A flash of something, a flicker, is the only warning you get before the back of his hand is nudging the glove off of your skin, replacing it with the rough, calloused grip of his palm. 

You jerk at his touch, flinching back—

He's intimidating above you like this. Leaning back on his haunches but still as tall as you are standing up. The sheer absurdity of his height—his width—is dizzying. Gives you vertigo when you look up. 

His throat shifts when you move. A swallow. Coarse stubble grows down the column of his neck, dusting over his lower jaw, chin. The rest is swallowed by the balaclava bunched around his crooked nose. 

He's not—

He's not handsome. 

A smattering of crisscrossing scars, burns, skin pocked and gouged out in deep pockets along his flesh—the slide of a knife carving away at him, you think; digging down to his marrow—all take away from any sense of modern attractiveness you might feel for him with his broad, jagged nose and full lips. 

But there's something rugged about him. Untamed. Wild. Appealing in a dangerous way. 

You don't know if you would have let this happen under different circumstances. If this minacious beauty of his would have worked on you enough to want it outside of this awful, almost unfathomable trade. 

He's too big. Wouldn't even fit inside of your house—

The graze of his thumb on your angle knocks the thought loose, and you're dragged back to the heat of his hand. Rough and coarse; palms slightly damp from the glove. It tugs on your flesh as he draws it up, a rubbery sort of pain as it catches on the soft, dry skin of your ankle. Your shin. 

He follows behind a second later, pulling himself into the mattress with a huff, knees shuffling forward as he crawls over you. The jostling rocks your body. Makes your breasts shake as he lumbers on the bed, hand still sliding up, up, until his fingers curl over the bend of your knee. 

The bed dips under his weight. Your body sagging, rolling into the divot beneath his knees. Tucked under him. Loomed over. He stares down at you through the cutout of his mask, eyes liquid in the gloam. Pools of melting, dripping obsidian. Black holes. Event horizon—

You look away before it drags you in. Submissive. Softened under the harsh burn of his flat, wide stare. He chuffs when your nose brushes over the thin skin of his wrist, mouth sliding over the thick, pulsing vein stretching down from his inner arm and curling into the bend of his hand. Your lips purse, and he makes that noise again. 

Quietly amused, and—

He shuffles forward until the backs of your thighs are pulled over his, spread out on his lap. Bare. Open to him. 

And he looks. 

And looks. 

Hungry, you think. Quietly amused and hungry—

The notion is wrenched out of your head when he shifts his weight. Watches the folds of your pussy open for him as he pulls your knees wider apart, head dropping between his massive shoulders, gaze drilling into the split of your thighs. Gasping at the sting, the sudden stretch, does little to deter him from shoving your leg down until the outside of your knee touches the bed. Muscles straining. Pinching. It hurts; hipbones twinging in agony. 

But the embarrassment burning through you singes all the pain. 

You're spread open under him. Bare. Legs tangled around his waist, stretched wide around the width of him. Ankles knocking into the hard plains of his lower back each time he shifts. 

“Fuckin’ hell—” he grunts. Snarls. The word ripped up from the back of his throat, forced through the twisting channels of his nose. Nasal and ugly when it scrapes out between his teeth. “Gonna ruin this pretty pussy, birdie.”

It's a threat. A promise. You twist, mouthing your protests into the warm skin of his wrist. 

There's something about his voice—that airy, brassy tone—that strikes a chord deep inside you. Makes heat pool between your thighs, leaking out in a syrupy mess—

His hand peels away from your knee, sliding down your sticky, damp inner thigh until his knuckles graze the sensitive slip of skin sitting between your outer lip and hip. That ticklish, belly-fluttering sensation blooms in your groin as he rubs his scarred knuckles over the crease, catching the slick gathered there on his thick, meaty thumb. 

“Fuckin’ soaked,” he groans, shifting his fingers until they cover the whole of your cunt, cradling you in his hand. He holds you like that for a beat, eyes locked on the way you're swallowed up by the broad stretch of his palm. 

The rough drag of his skin over your folds feels good. An all-encompassing heat spreads over your tender flesh from the curve of your ass to the bump of your mons where his middle finger rests, almost touching the strip of skin between your loins and your belly. Held in his grasp. Cradled in his palm. 

Your thighs twitch. A shallow jerk as your knees try to bend over his hand, but you can't. With his thumb and pinkie tucking into each crease between your outer lip and leg, it keeps you from closing your legs. Hinged by the wide, flat cup of his palm. 

And it shouldn't bludgeon through you the way it does. All heat. All want. Need. A growing ache you can't think around. 

(bodily reaction, you think even as the image of his hand—big with thick fingers, scarred knuckles; streaks of faded, ashy ink etched into milky, veined skin—laying over your pussy, swallowing it whole, sears into your mind—)

“Can feel your little cunt,” he grunts, feeling the pulse, the little throbbing pulls of your muscles as they twitch at the sight. The feeling. Clenching down around nothing. “Greedy little thing, ain't you, birdie?”

Anger paints his words as he rasps them out. A teeth gnashing, jaw clenching frustration that needles into the scorn, the fury, forced out between the tight seam of his crooked teeth. 

You don't understand it. Can't, maybe. 

But it's tucked away as quickly as it appeared, shifting into an ugly, mocking derision. Dry. Acerbic. His teeth flash, lip pulling upward in a sneer—a snarl—before he hums, sliding his hand down. The drag of his damp, rough fingers over your swollen folds has your knees falling open wider around his thick thighs, baring yourself willingly to him. 

Want it bad, don't you? He mocks, and the sound of his voice alone has your pussy clenching tight, belly fluttering around the abrasive scrape of his tone. Brassy and full. Gritty. You whine, hips inching up—

His hand peels off of your slit. The rush of cold air drags another whimper out of you, hips pushing up to chase the heady, molten feeling of his skin on yours. And he's amused by it—a laugh echoes out, crackling in the hollow of his throat at your desperation—but you're too achy, too hot, to feel the simmer of humiliation nipping the apples of your cheeks. 

He's not even making a real effort to pleasure you, to make you feel good, and yet—

Your hips twitch toward him in needy, mewling cants; please sits on the tip of your tongue, cradled between your teeth. Slips out on a shaky, breathless gasp when he meets you on the next buck of your hips, palm slapping over your wet slit. 

The crack echoes through the room. Rough, dry skin on soaked flesh. 

And it shocks you more than it hurts. The sting is there, of course, but it's just an afterthought to astonishment. An eye-widening disbelief masking the way your cunt smarts, throbbing from the slap. Nerves muffled behind the burn in your eyes, the searing heat pooling in your sinuses. 

Wrenched open, unblinking as you stare up at him, your eyes begin to sting, to water. You blink, and feel something hot trickle down your cheek. A tear. His eyes snap to it. Pupils narrowing to a pinprick as he watches it slide down your face, little droplets clinging to your jaw. 

“Poor baby,” he mocks, tilting his head as he tracks the teardrop. “Better behave.” 

Behave. Like he's admonishing a child and not an adult. 

It morphs; rots. Becomes yet another thing you shouldn't feel feverish over. The slick, sticky feeling grows between your thighs as your cunt flutters at the humiliation of it all. 

And deeper—maybe—the bastardized sense of care—

(Punishment is affection in its own, special (awful) way and you've been aching for something just like it, haven't you—)

It's pushed down. Swallowed. And you know in the back of your head that if you keep eating these feelings, you're going to be sick. But you can't stop. Barely breathe around the idea of them sometimes—

“Tha’s’it,” he coos like he knows. Sees them bright and burning behind your irises. Little flickers of need, a smouldering want that you'll never grasp at yourself. 

So he gives it to you. 

The rough slide of his hand, all scarred and dry and calloused, scrapes over your slit once more. A full, flat stroke upward until your clit bumps into the ridge of his palm. Then down, down—

His fingers spread. Ring and index prying your folds apart as he pushes up once more, opening your seam to slip his middle finger through the slick, sticky mess that drips out of your burning cunt. 

“Gonna be good f’me?” 

The slide of his fingers drags the tip up to the bump of your clit. You stare down at it, fixed on the jut of his ink-black knuckles threading through your folds. The crease of his nail as he slips his fingers up higher, pad pushing over your pebbled clit. They're dirty. Grey-black under his nails. Congealed with dirt. Blood, maybe. 

Your stomach churns even as your hips lift. Eager, searching. Hating yourself each second of it. It's gross. Disgusting. 

You want his dirty, thick fingers inside of you—

“When I ask a question—” the tip circles over your clit. A shallow roll that pools heat between your thighs. “I expect an answer.” 

“Y–yes,” you stammer out, hips flexing against his hand. Seeking more of that white-hot bloom of pleasure he brings with each pass of his finger. 

“Good girl—” and you hate how it burns you up from the inside out. “Wasn't s’hard, was it?”

The retort is bitten back with the slow swipe of his finger drawing tight, small circles around your clit. His fingers are rough, scarred. Too dry. The abrasive drag over your soft sensitive flesh makes you whine—a drawn-out whimper nestled between clenched teeth. 

It's too much. 

Too harsh. Too sharp.

He rolls your clit under the pads of his fingers in jerking half-circles. Puts too much pressure on the bundle of nerves than you ever would—your touches are always soft, sickeningly sweet; gentling your flesh until you cum—and the sting, the burn, of it makes your toes curl. Body burn. 

It's good. 

And that's the problem. 

It shouldn't be. His touch shouldn't make you so wet, growing slick and sticky between your spread thighs, bare to his hungry, prying gaze. Shouldn't make you moan. Hips twitching with each stroke of his fingers—

And then he peels away from you, but the time to mourn the loss of his touch, the fear of losing this trembling ember pleasure, is snuffed out when he presses his wet, slick fingers against the inside of your knee. The touch is intentional. Insistent. He makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat before pushing it down to the mattress. The twinge of pain swallowed up as quickly as it forms when he drops to his elbows between your thighs, forearms curling under your legs, and tugs you sharply into him. 

Heat floods your belly when the backs of your thighs press tight to his broad, muscular shoulders, but it's nothing compared to the sight of him on his knees between your legs. It's so obscene you nearly weep—

And then he leans down and licks a long, broad swipe of his tongue over your cunt. 

You hadn't expected it, maybe. His mouth on your pussy, his broken, jagged lips sealing over your pebbled clit. Going down on you seemed too intimate for what he was after. His end goal. It does nothing for him at all—

You realise your mistake when he dips his tongue into your hole and his hips jerk forward. Unconscious. Eager. Seeking. The shifting drags his jeans down his hips, and his cock slips free. 

Most of the cocks you've seen—in porn, pictures, art—jut out from the person's groin. standing at attention, the nasty comments used to say. Jokes whispered on the playground. But his falls. Droops down between big, folded thighs. Skin marbled in shades of red, peach. Deep gouges dot his upper thighs, some sinking deep enough to reach bone. More scar tissue than flesh. 

—than man.

It looks raw. Fresh. Some injuries not too dissimilar to the Wagyu hanging in the front of the storeroom, on display and oh, so out of place in a town where the richest man must be just a hair above the poverty line. 

On paper, anyway. 

You swallow, avoiding his gaze as he pauses, dark eyes watching you with his mouth pressed against your seam. Unmoving. Still as a predator between your thighs, cock visible between the bow of his torso, jutting sickeningly from mangled legs as you gawk at this hideous thing that makes several, half-hearted attempts to spring up towards you, spitting clear, milky liquid all over with each jerk. Tugged down by its own weight. Too heavy to fight against gravity like the rest of the cocks you've seen have done—

Normal cocks, you amend. Textbook. 

His is anything but. 

Ugly, you think again, stomach churning. Roiling. Obscene. An odd thing considering what you're looking at but all too fitting with the way it droops, big, flared head drooling pre-cum all over the bed in long, dangling stands that prickle over your jaws—half nauseous, half hungry, too. Saliva pools in your mouth even though the sight of his cock scares you. Fills your belly with dread. Misery. 

It looks like a bruise. Skin smeared with purples, reds. Patches of pink. Long, thick veins run up from the fattened, full base to the divot of his frenulum. Thick. It hangs low. Drips. 

He raises slightly and shoves his hand down between his thighs, big hand curling over the fat base of his cock. His grip is tight around himself, and he strokes up, from base to tip. It squeezes more precum from the flushed, fat head, and dribbles between your spread thighs in a thick, pearlescent puddle. 

It makes your mouth dry. That twinge in your jaws coming back. Festering. You wonder if he'll make you take that thing in your mouth. Choke you on it. Taste his precum—

“Fuck,” he snarls into your cunt, hand jerking over his cock. “Keep lookin’ at my cock like tha’, birdie—”

You gasp at the rough grunt, the way it seems to tremble through your sensitive flesh. More, though, from the way he sounds. His voice brassy, rough. Unkind, but the words bloom a fresh heat behind your navel. 

His voice does things to you. Things you're not allowed to like. 

Those thoughts are knocked from your head when he bows down again, eyes still fixed on you, and seals his wicked mouth over your cunt. It's hard to compare it to anything else other than being devoured. Eaten in the truest sense of the word. 

His tongue splits down your seam, tip digging into your slick hole. A groan bubbles up at your taste—the soft, fluttering clench of your body trying to drag him in deeper. Needing him deeper. A huff of air ghosts over you, dipped in the same derision as earlier but the harsh slap of skin on skin, his hand working furiously over his cock, makes you acutely aware of how much this affects him. 

“Taste good, birdie,” he grunts, and then sucks your fold into his mouth, laving it with his tongue and teeth until the skin is tender, swollen. “S’fuckin’ good—”

Your breath catches when the crooked arch of his nose presses taut to your clit. Pleasure twisting in a dizzying pirouette inside your belly, winding tighter and tighter—

His nose jerks up on your clit. Lips moulded to your seam, you hear him rasp eyes on me, birdie. Don't fuckin’ look away—

The rough snarl trembles through your body, sinking its teeth into the coil until it snaps under its jaw. Your knees snap around his head as your release locks your joints tight. His name, Simon, a hoarse cry on your lips. You barely have time to bask in the ripples of pleasure throbbing through your body before he rips away from you with his teeth bared, and his chin wet. 

“Fuck—!” he snarls again, shoving your knees apart as he lifts his massive body up from between your thighs. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gotta be inside your tight cunt—”

He towers over you, grinding his cock into the apex of your thighs. The drag of his cock—a little damp from being stuck inside his jeans all day; balmy—against the dry skin of your belly makes you shudder. Shivering beneath him as he huffs through the mask. Head bowing. Dipping to look at the way his cock slaps down on you. Cockhead nudging above your belly button, dribbling a small puddle of pre-cum that gets smeared into your skin when he rocks back on his haunches. 

His hand wraps around the thick base of his cock once more, squeezing tight as he grips himself above you. It makes the head swell, engorged with blood. Thickening in his hand as globs of pre-spend leak out onto your belly. That feeling in your jaws comes back—nauseous and wanting. 

He leans back with a hum. “Like my cock, eh, birdie?” 

The crass words bring a fresh bloom of heat simmering in your veins, creeping up your collar. Like doesn't really cover what you feel when you stare at it—his inked hands running along the long, veined shaft—and the unsettled feeling in the pit of your belly rears when he nudges forward, the weeping head of his cock bumping your mound. 

It's humiliating how much want floods through you just looking at it. At him. Disgust, dread, desire. 

You don't answer. Not that you really need to—

Your silence is loud enough. 

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, the rasp thick in his throat. “M’gonna give it to you, pet—”

And he does just that. Slips the head of his cock down the slope of your mound, letting it graze your clit until you're panting, whining softly for more, and pulls it over your slit until his pre-cum is smeared over your drenched folds. You know exactly what this is even without glimpsing the ugly burn of his possessive desire smouldering in the back of his eyes—ownership. Greed. Hunger. It revels in the stain on your skin, from belly to slit; his, all his. Outside and soon—

In. 

It shocks a creeping sense of worry into you. “Wait, what about a condom—”

He snorts, ugly and caustic. “What about ‘em?” He taunts, and it's flat. Playful. 

“You should—”

He drags his gaze away from the pearlescent smear of his spend on your folds, your clit, and the even, placid look in that stagnant lake tells you everything you already knew. 

“I've never—” you start, wincing at the kernel of fear lacing your hoarse words. “Not without a condom—”

It's the wrong thing to say. Near cataclysmic. He drops his head back with a groan that rumbles out of the slope of his throat, sounding like the rip of a chainsaw. 

“Firsts for everything,” he purrs, and he nudges your entrance with the bare, weeping tip of his cock. 

“But—”

His hand lifts, catching your jaw in the too-wide span of his palm. The force makes your teeth clack together. 

“Need me to gag you, birdie?” 

You swallow. It's not much of a choice. Gagged and fucked raw, or—

Just fucked raw. 

No gag. No condom. You fight back a shiver and wish it was all just from fear. 

“No,” you murmur, like you have a choice. “No gag.”

“An’?” 

“Um. No–no condom, either—”

It's not enough. "What are you gonna let me do to this pussy, birdie?"

You know what he wants. What he's angling for. But there's a line, you think. A delineation between unwilling participant, coercion, and giving into the need that slinks down your spine, and rots inside your belly.

(Being forced to ask for it isn't permission, but what happens when you want it more than your next breath?)

The shame can come later, you think, and feel yourself give in. 

"Cum—cum inside me—"

“Good girl, birdie.” 

You hate what that does to you. How eagerly your body reacts to the dark possessive curl in his eyes when you do something he likes. 

He nudges your entrance again, this time with purpose. Intent. A heavy pressure pushing on your rim. Too tight, you think, and the sting of the first inch he feeds—forces—into you burns, pulsing behind your navel. His tip isn't even in yet, and it's already too much. 

You think about telling him so, offering up your mouth instead, but he leans down on his forearms, and catches your lips in a bruising, biting pantomime of a kiss. A blood-soaked parody with more teeth and tongue—sinking into your lips, nipping hard until the skin splits; catching all that spills with his tongue. 

With his weight pressed against you like this, there's nowhere to run when he cups your throat in his hand, winding the other up above your head, forearm tight on your crown to cage you in. And then he shifts. Bears his hips down on yours until the fat head of his cock pops inside of you. 

Your squeal is chewed up between his teeth, swallowed down with a rumbling groan. 

Caught beneath him, trapped, he works himself into you demanding, heavy thrusts. Each inch burns more than the last. A stinging stretch that brings tears to your eyes. It's already too much and it's not even half. Barely even the tip.

“Can't—” you slur into his wet, demanding mouth. “No more. I–I can't—”

The breath rushes out between his teeth. Your watery eyes drop to the divot above his canine. A permanent snarl. A condescending sneer. 

“You can,” he says decisively, words ground out from between crooked teeth. He presses them to your cheek, nipping at the skin under your eye. Possessive and wanting—

(Hungry for something you can't name—)

“And you will.” 

—Or maybe you just don't want to. Can't look at the thunderous need draped over his mangled, battered face without thinking of the rumble in your chest that echos back against his thundering call—)

Stupid, foolish thing—

The dark promise of his words isn't a threat until his hand tightens around your neck, nails grazing your skin, and he adds, all of me, birdie as he grinds his hips into yours shallowly. Broad chest expanding with each ragged inhale. Cementing his taunt with a steel edge as you try not to come undone beneath him. 

You'll take every fuckin’ inch—

He pulls back until only his glands stretch you open, and you know what's coming when his fingers grip the sides of your neck tight. Holding on. Anchoring you to the bed as he nudges his forearm tighter between your skull and the wall, a protective hold. 

Before you can tense up, bracing for it, or even cry out no, please, don't, you can't take it, he huffs, and then slams his hips forward, splitting you open on the fat stretch of his thick, too heavy cock. 

Maybe it's hysteria, delirium, but the blunt press of his length against your tender, sore walls balms the ache, the sting. The deeper he pushes, the less it hurts. A paradox that leaves you whimpering under his hand, heels digging into the broad stretch of his waist as you struggle to decide if you want to kick him away or pull him closer. 

A war you don't have the power to win when he surges forward, burying himself to the hilt with a growl that shakes the fragile tendons surrounding your heart. Fear, misery. Pleasure, pain. It admixes. Coalescing into a dizzying sense of fullness, unbearable pressure. Catastrophic in its heaviness as your mind reels, struggles to come to terms with the gut-wrenching, heart-aching uncertainty of how you're supposed to go on without having him seated as deep inside of you as he can get. You've never known emptiness before him. Before now. Mere seconds ago. 

And now, the thought of it leaves a palpable hollowness itching behind your ribs. Festering. Rotting tissue and bone. 

“Simon,” you choke, sobbing his name out under the firm press of his hand. “Simon—”

But he knows. 

His arm curls over your head like a crown, and you can easily forget the pinch of each thorn when he holds you tight. Protectively. Possessively. Securing you in his arms before he lifts up, palm sliding over the mattress, touch tender against your cheeks, and then settles it on the indent of your knee. Widening you for him as he spreads his thighs under yours until you're opened up for him. 

Those dark eyes are dragged down to the split of your legs where his cock disappears into your slick, swollen cunt. You follow it down, gazing at the impressive width of his stomach bowing over you until they land on the jut of skin pushing out from a messy smatter of damp curls around the base of his cock. 

The coarse hair of his groin unfurls as it sticks to your wet lips, and he rolls his head back over his shoulders he heaves through the too tight stretch of your walls over his length. You feel the pulse of him inside of you, thudding like a heartbeat. It blooms molten under the feverish weight of his lidded, dark gaze. 

“Fuck, birdie,” he rasps, and it's scorched. Charred. “Look at you—”

As the world is condensed, narrowed down to nothing but the near impossible stretch of his cock seated as deep inside of you as he can get, he leans down, scarred, mangled lips brushing cruelly over your ear, and whispers, see? Told you'd take me. 

Every fuckin’ inch. 

Your hand jerks to your belly, fingers dancing over your navel as if to feel him there, bulging from under your skin. Nearly hysterical as you try to come to terms with the pulsing, white-hot ache of him inside of you, slowly acclimating to his girth, his length. 

He grunts when he sees what you're doing, eyes flaring as your fingers skirt around your navel. 

“It's—” you shudder, gasping for air. “It's too much, Simon, I can't take it—”

He rolls his hips with a groan. “m’cock too big for you, birdie?” 

His usual cadence is flat, droll, but an unmistakable sense of masculine pride, a deep, egotistic sense of satisfaction, drapes itself over his brassy words. Glueing to the scorching rasp of his voice in a way that makes you unerringly certain that he likes it. Likes that his cock is too big for you. That it hurts. 

“Y’can take it,” he prompts, forcing more of himself into you until something snaps. Splits. Makes room. Carves out a space for him to fit. 

The brief flash of pain is soothed when he's seated deep. That same paradoxical balm making itself known as he flattens his hips into yours with a noise—half a grunt, or a growl; a lazy, pleasure-soaked snarl. You're not sure what it is, but the sound knocks the air from your lungs, igniting inside of you like a spark inside a tinderbox. 

It's only when his balls are flush against you that the same masculine pride brims up again. Primal. Animalistic. The urge to present your soft belly rears up suddenly, and it's only stifled when he grunts again, looking down at you with lidded, black eyes. 

“Now, be good and let me fuck your tight cunt.”

He's not looking for assent. Nothing you could say at this moment will sway his mind one way or the other. There's a nasty spool of determination welling up like blood on a pricked finger. Beading up to the surface in a clean, neat droplet as he rolls his broad shoulders, and shuffles into a comfortable position on his haunches between your spread thighs. The motion jostles his cock in a way that makes your breath hitch with each jerk. 

It's not painful. Not particularly. But you're overwhelmed by the sensation of utter fullness in a way you've never experienced before. Each grind of his cock against your overly stretched walls deeping that incipient feeling of anxiety brewing in your belly that one wrong move and you'll tear. He's just—

Too big. 

And despite his claims—or rather, in spite of them—you don't think you can do it. Don't think you can take him. It's too much. It feels like being turned inside out and then put back into place. An uneasy sense of discomfiture blooms with each too-tight, too-sharp tug of his cock pulling taut on your rim. 

Almost deliriously, you think you can feel the pulse of his cock inside your goddamn throat. 

“Simon—” you start on a tremulous breath but he cuts you off with a hum. 

“Relax.” 

You can't. Can't—

“Fuckin’ hell, bird,” he rasps, leaning down suddenly until his face was pushed tight into the curve of your neck, breath shallow on your thudding pulse. “Stop squirmin’ ‘round me like tha’ or I'll cum right fuckin’ now.”

Your heart stutters. Gallops painfully in your chest. His words make you dizzy because for as much as this feeling of him, his cock, inside of you dances on a delicate precipice of being more than you can feasibly handle and somehow the most incredible thing you'd ever experienced before, you hadn't considered how he'd feel. 

Inexplicably, it pleases you. 

There's something so strange—so extraordinary—about bringing a man like him, like this, to his knees. Pleasuring him by just heaving through the white-hot stretch of his cock inside of you. Making him bury his head in your neck, groaning about how he was gonna fuckin’ bust, pretty thing, fuck—

It was a powerful feeling. 

Unwarranted, maybe. But incredible, nevertheless. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, and you feel his throat work around a thick swallow. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gonna fuck this pretty cunt so fuckin' hard until you beg me stop—”

And he does just that. Rears back from your neck, and settles again between your thighs—quicker this time. With an urgency that makes you whimper when his cock grinds against your walls hard enough to bruise. 

When he finally pulls out until only the flared head of his cock remains, you knot a fist into the thin pillow, clinging on, and latch the other onto his hip as if that could somehow stop the vicious promise in his eyes about poundin’ you into the goddamn mattress. There's a flash, a brief flicker of his eyes, and then he thrusts back inside of you with a grunt that makes your belly clench, and your back arch. 

True to the promises he gave, it's brutal. Violent. 

Any pleasure you feel is leached through osmosis. A tether bound around his own. 

His arm is shoved under your back, angling your pelvis up. Thighs dangling over the thick spread of his own, ass seated in his lap. He drives into you, thrusts deep—grinds his hips until your moans break into hoarse screams, whimpers. Makes your eyes roll so far back, all you see is black even when you blink your eyes up at him. 

He carves a spot deep inside of you with each delirious piston of his cock, pounding into you with brutal thrusts, and then holding tight when his balls slap against your ass. Digging the head of his cock into the seal of your womb until it aches behind your navel. Each breath feels like glass in your lungs—

“Tha’s it,” he slurs in your ear, mouth damp against your skin. “Take my cock so good, pretty birdie. Little pussy was made for it, weren't you? Tight cunt all mine—”

His gruff words tug on that tether until you're wrapped around him like a bow. Following him down this endless spiral as he slams inside of you over and over again, cooing in your ear about the sounds you made for him, pretty cunt so fuckin’ wet f’me, birdie, hear tha’? all f’me—

“Cum f'me, birdie. Want this pussy cummin’ ‘round my cock—”

“Can't—” you gasp, arching into him, desperate and needy. It rides a line between pain and pleasure; a needlepoint you wobble on. “Need—”

You try to reach down, to touch your clit, but grinds his hips into yours with a snarl. “Cum ‘around my cock, birdie.”

“Touch me—”

“Fuckin’ hell—”

It edges on too much. Pain and pleasure teetering on a knife's edge, split apart by a line the width of a razer. Looping and tangling around each other until you can't differentiate between the two. But it makes sense, you suppose, staring up at him arched above you like a black cloud of smoke. All hunger and fire. Consuming, devouring, everything in its path. A wildfire. 

Butcher, you think again when his hand wraps around your throat. A mimicry of what he did in the truck, forcing your eyes on him. Your life tucked neatly against his palm.

These hands take lives. It's what they're made for. All scarred, and thick. Scar tissue and bone. Muscle and cartilage. Meant to render meat of cattle. Slaughterhouse in the shape of a man. Consumption personified. 

But where there should be fear, all you feel is an echoing sense of hunger. Leatherbound to each other, maybe—

The look that passes over his eyes as he stares down at you, cupped in his palm, seems to fit perfectly into the fractured gaps inside yourself you try so hard to ignore. And what doesn't—

Well. 

He'll make room to fit. 

You reach up, curling your fingers around his thick wrist. His eyes flash, but he doesn't slow his thrusts. Doesn't stop. Just watches as you peel his hand away from your neck, bringing it up to your mouth. 

On his palm, there's a piece of skin that's unblemished compared to the rest of his worn, burnt hands. A strip just big enough for you to sink your teeth into. 

And you do. 

“Fuck, Birdie—!” The snarl is ripped from his throat. His thrusts grow harder, sloppier. Each bit of strength in his muscled hips and thighs is used to pound into you until your vision blacks out. It hurts. Aches. Your heels slip down, catching on the broad expanse of his lower back. And you tighten them around his waist, pulling him closer. Deeper. “Fuck, Birdie, fuckin’ cunt was made f'me, wasn’t it? So cum on my cock. Now—”

Whining, you shake your head. “Can't. I can't. I need—”

You don't get to finish. With a huff of anger, he rips his hand off of the mattress, leaning back on his haunches, and shoves his hand between your thighs, scarred fingers stroking over your pebbled clit. It's rough. Sloppy. His anger hums through his body, skewering into you as he glared down, gaze swinging like a pendulum between the split of your thighs where his cock disappears into your swollen cunt, his fingers rubbing over your clit, and back up the hand around your neck, the tears staining your cheeks. 

There's an edge to his thrusts. A viciousness in the way he pistons his hips into you. Dark eyes catching every flicker—each wince, gasp, moan, whine all meticulously catalogued and exploited. He finds the spots that make your hips jerk, twitching both toward and away from him. Angling into the ones that have your eyes rolling back into your head, drool dribbling past your slack lips as you gasp his name out into the dank, humid air. 

It smells of sweat, sex, and him. Something brutal, bloody, and dark. Rotten leaves. Charred forests after a rain shower. Dangerous. Tinged with a slight acrid, chemical stench—benzene, oxidizing iron. It drips down your throat, and drenches your lungs. Staining you from the inside out. 

And he exploits that, too. Leans in, and breathes heavily against your upper lip, your cheek. Drowns you in his scent. His sweat beads along his jaw, droplets raining down over your brow. Soaked in his essence. Unable to see, smell, or touch anything that isn't him. 

With his hand over your mouth, teeth sunk into his palm, all you can taste is him, too. Leather. Gun oil. Blood. 

The ravenous look in his eye sharpens, turning into deadly points. 

“Such a pretty fuckin' bird.” He rasps, the words shattered, mangled in the back of his throat. They carry the scent of blood when you breathe them in, and you wonder if he forced them through glass. Pushed them out with his bloody fists. 

You bite down harder in response, keening through the white-hot pain of his cock spearing deeper than before, stretching you past your limits. The taste of blood on your tongue, the rasping snarl pulled from his chest, his fingers toying with your clit, push you over the edge once more. Again and again, and again, and—

His hand peels away from your oversensitive clit, dropping down to the mattress beside your face. He follows quickly after several impossibly deep thrusts that shove you higher up on the mattress, pressing in until his balls sit flush against your ass, cockhead battering against your cervix, and he groans—deep and liquid—when he comes, spilling inside of you. Rooted deep, cock twitching, Simon drops to his elbow beside your head, smothering you under his weight as the tension in his body bleeds out. 

Your teeth stick to the divots in his hand, and the sensation of ungluing them from the wounds you gave him makes you shiver. Slowly, you roll your tongue out, chasing the drops of blood, and breathe heavily through your nose as he burrows deeper inside of you, chest shuddering over yours. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he rasps, hips jerking into yours with a slap that echoes through the room. “Little tease, ain't you?” 

Even with his cock softening inside of you, it's still thick. Fat. Stretching you open as he yawns out above you, bloodied hand dropping down to cup your neck again, forearm resting heavily between your breasts. He raises slightly on his elbow, black eyes glinting in the shallow dark of the room. Piercing as they drill into your sweat-slicked face. 

It aches when he moves. When he presses his hips harder into yours, the muscles in your legs throb as his broad waist splits them apart. Your feet dangle, sliding uselessly down his back, over his ass, before coming to rest curled around his thighs. Melting into the mattress, tender and sore and all chewed up—

You feel like a massive contusion instead of a person. A pestle. His. 

The thought makes you shiver, and his eyes flash in triumph like he knows. 

The feeling of him pulling out of you draws a whimper from your lips. The drag on your sensitive, bruised walls is a strange mix of tender pleasure and pain. He chuckles at your mewl—dark and low; the sound of nightmares, you think. Crackling sap on charred wood. 

You try to pretend it doesn't make you shudder, but the way he hums in response dashes the feigned oblivion before it can form. All you can do is heave on the bed, and watch him through narrowed slits as he leans back on his haunches once again, head cocking to the side. His dark eyes fixed on the split of your legs. The ache in your cunt growing sharp under his molten stare. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, the shallow groan pulled out from between clenched teeth. You wonder if the mangled curse was unintentional. Ripped from his throat before he could clamp his jaws around it—a crack in the facade. A hairline splinter in the indomitable mask he wears. 

Your heart lurches. None of this makes sense, but your head is too muddled, too syrupy, to think much at all. A quandary for later when he throws you from his bed with a harsh slap on your ass and a and don't think about doing this ever again. 

But you don't think you can move. “Give me a minute,” you start on a trembling breath. “And I'll—”

His brows move but his eyes stay fixed on your sore cunt. You can feel him leak out of you, spilling on the mattress in thick globs. The sensation makes you shiver. 

“You'll what?” 

It looks like he has to forcibly tear his eyes away from you, reluctance forming a cold, angry crater between his brows. The brunt of his ire—white, burning—makes you want to supplicate yourself at his feet, roll over on your belly and show the beast you mean no harm. 

(Run, and run far—)

He huffs. “You'll what, birdie?”

It takes a minute to find your voice through all the panic clogging your throat. “I'll leave, um—”

He peels away from you with a loud, rough snort, and drops to his his elbow beside you. Hands curling possessively over your waist, fingers tight. Unyielding. 

“Not goin’ anywhere, birdie. Told you, didn't I? You're mine.” 

“I'm—”

“Go to sleep.” 

He pulls you roughly to his chest until your head is pillowed on his shoulder, and then rolls on his back, keeping you cushioned at his side. You try to move, but his arm wedges under your neck, curling over your shoulder. Trapping you to him. 

The panic wants to come now. To rage against the shackle of his embrace, to run home and scrub your skin until it bleeds. But the exhaustion collapses over it all until your eyes feel too heavy to hold open. Too painful.

As you drift, aimless and dreamless, his voice cuts through the fog. “Gotta learn ‘ow to cum with nothin’ but my cock inside of you sooner or later, birdie. Or you won't be coming at all—”

It sounds like a threat. A promise. You fall asleep with the words echoing in your head, his arm an anchor around your waist. 

He wakes up hungry. 

A gnawing in his belly pulls him from the thin doze he fell into after fucking you three more times—with your face pressed into the mattress, ass in the air for him to rut against like a beast; teetering over his hips, the spread of them too wide for your thighs to split over leaving you precariously unbalanced and shifting your weight above him as neither knee sat comfortably on the mattress; and on your belly with him crushing you to the floor under his bulk. The memory of which makes his spent cock stir, twisting limply against his damp, sticky thigh. Matted down with drying cum, sweat, the slick wetness of being buried inside your messy cunt. 

Filled now with his cum. 

He groans low in his throat as he thinks about it. The sloppy way you let him take you over and over again until you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore, passing out before he finished. Letting him fuck his cum inside of you as you whimpered in your sleep—

Perfect little thing, aren't you? So good to him.

Simon can't remember the last time he fucked someone, much less when it was this enjoyable (an understatement, of course; in the back of his head, wheels spin round and round as he tries to come up with a plan to keep his cock buried inside of you at all times while still doing his work—), and the overflow of unquenched lust churns in his belly. A hunger he can now slake on your willing body. In the silence, he purrs—

But the effort, the exertion, dredged up a different need inside him. 

Simple hunger. An appetite. 

He could eat—

his eyes slant toward the top of your crown in the dark, and he amends it, quickly, to: in more ways than one. 

He'll go home in a minute. Make himself a steak from the prime cut he butchered a few days ago, leftovers that no one had any qualms about when he took several pieces home with him. 

(and really, why would they argue with the butcher who keeps their wallets fat and their bills paid?)

It was left on the counter earlier before he got the call that your brother was making another move. Now a perfect room temperature as it waits for him to come back. Cook it the way he likes—

Rare. 

The perfect grill is a nice char on the outside, but bleeding red on the inside. Basted in duck fat and garlic. A sprig of rosemary in the pan, but not touching the meat. Just enough to give the juice that earthy, sweet flavour. Let it rest for ten minutes under foil with the rest of the fat poured over it from the pan. Served as is with maybe a dash of salt and pepper on the side. 

Simple. But incredibly difficult to perfect, he finds. 

Everyone tries to make it fancier than what it needs to be, but at the end of the day, meat is meat. And going from picking scraps from the garbage outside of the Italian butcher on the corner to ordering his own pretentious filet mignon still gives him a sense of unease. Whiplash, perhaps. Nothing to something—how about that, Tommy? 

Maybe that's why he prefers to raise and butcher his own cattle. A never-ending supply of meat for him to sink his teeth into even if this whole thing goes belly up and he's back to begging for morsels on the corner. Tommy hiding in the shadows with a baseball bat waiting to ambush the richer men who happen to feel altruistic that day. 

This practice bled over into his current occupation, too. The basement of that same Italian butcher shop he used to sneak expired sausage from out of the bins is now his home base of sorts. A money laundering front of the 141. Headquarters for them to congregate in secrecy upstairs. And here—

A torture chamber for those who tried to cross them. Strung up on meat hooks like the cattle they eat, the ones he feeds them, until he makes up his mind on what he wants to do to them. 

It's where you should have been, he supposes, thumb brushing a spot of dried blood on your shoulder, right below a nasty bite mark on your forearm. The ring nearly black from the clotted blood pooling in the indents. It matches several others on your thighs—top, insides, back—and neck, belly, collarbones, sternum. All chewed up. Marked by the butcher. 

In working for the old Italian man who ran the shop when he was eighteen, he learned that most of the butchers preferred to mark their carcasses when they came in. A little x on the fat to signify they'd be the ones carving up the prime meat. 

He didn't think you could handle his knife, so he gave you his teeth instead. But the implication is clear. 

His. 

It's overkill considering his reputation, and the claim he already had on you. Because even before this, back when he saw you through the window of his shop as he was moonlit as a legitimate butcher and businessman instead of the enforcer, the brute, everyone already knew he was, his interest was clear. You were off-limits. His to deal with. 

And while Price refers not to get involved in small-time street dealers, the warnings Soap and Gaz impressed onto your brother should have been the end of an irritating situation and not the beginning of a fuckin’ headache. But no. He had to push. And push.  

Until Price gave the order to take care of it. 

And that he did. 

(With the added benefit of killing one bird and keeping the other in a pretty cage.)

Price probably won't like his solution, but Simon racked up enough favours to keep a little pet of his own. Been a good boy for a long, long time now, and he supposes he's owed a bone. 

Or a sweet thing tucked tight to his side having passed out some two hours ago after he slaked his dizzying thirst on you over and over again even though it doesn't feel like it's been enough. 

It's rare that he has an appetite for people. Even rarer that he lets this meagre hunger consume him like this. But there's something about you that makes his teeth ache in the same way they often do whenever he's hungry for meat. 

He wants to devour you. Consume you. Eat you alive and save nothing for anyone else to taste. 

(So—

Price will just have to let him keep you, won't he?)

The mattress vibrates under him. His phone buzzing with an incoming text. He reaches over, pulling it close enough to read the notification on his screen. It's from Soap.

All her stuff is on your porch. 

He hums, but doesn't reply. Simply opts to drop his phone on his belly, and tug you closer to his broad chest. He'll wake you in an hour, and the stirring in his groin tells him it'll be for another round. Maybe he'll take you in the freezer. Make you cling to the hook hanging down from the ceiling as he fucks you like that. He has a pair of ties for ox, lamb legs, that he can loop around your wrists and heft you up on. 

It'll hurt, he's sure. The binds weren't designed with comfort in mind, but he can easily bear your weight as he pounds into you from below, your pretty legs wrapped tight around his waist. 

The image, the thought, alone has him thickening against his thigh. He reaches down, gripping the base tight in his hand as he pulls you even closer, burying his nose in your crown. 

At the very least, he wouldn't be lying when he told Price he strung you up. 

Three rounds—on your back, your hands and knees, perched above him like a pretty goddess he stole away from a temple—and he still isn't satisfied. Fuck. He breathes in your scent and doesn't think he ever will be. 

He'll get you out of here, take you home. Make you the steak he likes for a late dinner, rare and simple—the same one he gave your brother weeks ago when he dragged him into the shop, strung him up on a hook, and demanded payment for his disrespect. 

Who'd have thought that his payment would be you? 

(fitting, though, since he'd had his eye on you for a while now—)

He nudges you when his phone chimes again with another message doubtless from Soap telling him all your things have been tucked away. Matters dealt with. 

“C’mon,” he grunts, running his hand down your spine. “We’re leavin’.”

You blink at him slowly. “Leaving?”

He nods. “Get dressed.” 

You're quiet as he turns, reaching for his jeans left in a heap beside the mattress, but he hears the hitch in your throat. The click when you swallow. Unbothered by it, he turns, giving you his back as he wedges his feet inside the trousers, pulling them up his legs. 

The bed shifts behind him. “I—I can walk back to my brother's—”

The hope in your voice is a delicate thing. Fragile like fine china. A pretty, vulnerable tchotchke meant to be seen, admired, but not touched. Not handled roughly. 

Unfortunately for you, he's never had much of a gentle touch. 

When he throws a glance over his shoulder, he's not surprised to find your arm folded over your bare breasts as you kneel on the mattress, your palm resting flat between your parted thighs, wrist and forearm covering the slip of heaven between them from his greedy, prying gaze. 

It paints a startling picture, he finds. One with you looking thoroughly ravaged. Taken. But presenting it in a soft sort of sensuality meant to make a man feel both hot under the collar and like an unrepentant voyeur. 

Pretty bird, he thinks, and feels his cock stir. 

He rises swiftly, hiking up his jeans around his thighs as he goes, and then turns to you with a heady desire to crush that gossamer of hope between his greedy hand like a silken cobweb that will stick to his fingers. 

“Not goin’ to your brothers,” he says, pushing his tongue against his cheek to stem the ache burning in his muscles. 

You shiver, eyes growing wide, frenzied with fear as you stare up at him. The shift of your throat when you swallow makes pre-cum dribble out of his fattened cock. He's never really had much of a taste for it, but he's overcome with the urge to see you cry—

“Where are we going?”

Amid the ache in his loins, the flickering fantasies of your pretty, lachrymal face gazing up at him helpless, hopeless, and needy, he catches the edge of panic when you speak. The razor-sharp tremble of fear. 

But buried amongst it, hidden in the bruised look you give him as he towers over you with his cock bulging in his slacks and his eyes burning with want, he finds a keen sense of eagerness amongst the rubble. Agog, almost. 

And fuck. If that doesn't do something awful to him. 

“What?” He taunts, cocking his head to the side as your breath grows shallow and your eyes wide. “Did you think that was enough to pay your debt, birdie?”

“What? You can't—”

“Don't like it—” he lifts his shoulder up in a cool, indifferent shrug, enjoying the dismayed expression that falls over your brow more than he should. “—go to the police.”

“The ones on your payroll?” You spit, eyes flaring wide like an angry cat. “You—”

Several things might have continued in place of your choked, angry sob, but it's swallowed down as pragmatically as it was the first time he cornered you earlier today. And as beautiful as your ire is, he finds the cornered look on your face to be much more pleasing. Prettier. 

“C’mon, bird,” he mocks, holding his hand out toward you with a tick of his lips. “All your stuff is at home. Don't be stupid.” 

“Stupid?” You gasp in indignation, but there's a bruised look in your eyes. A wounded thing that makes his breath hitch in his lungs for reasons he can't really ascertain, but just knows that he likes it. Likes it a lot. “This is—insane.”

Again, he shrugs, but the indifference this time isn't the same manufactured callousness meant to inspire fear. The conversation is stale already. Grating on him. He's not used to having his orders ignored or questioned. What he says usually goes—either through association or reputation, or just the fact that no one has ever come close to filling the same measure of space as he does—and questioning him like this makes him feel too much like a boy, and not enough like the living ghost he pretends to be. 

“You can't do this. It's not right.”

An appeal to his humanity. Cute. He huffs, reaching down to fasten the button of his jeans. The sound the zipper makes cuts through the room. “You're mine, birdie. Better get used to it.” 

Catching your eye as he says it was only meant to reignite the kindling fear you have of him from extinguishing. A scared prey animal was a better pet than an angry one. But the look on your face catches him off-guard. 

It reminds him of a flightless little bird shivering in a child's shoebox. Tiny broken thing his mum warned him not to touch or its mother would abandon it to die on its own. 

“Until the debt is paid off.”

A statement, not a question. He shrugs, but doesn't respond. Tilts his head toward the door. “Let's go.” 

His lack of reassurance doesn't soften the flint in your gaze, but the prospect of recompense seems to spurn you on. Another wishbone of hope to cling to. And despite himself, he lets you keep it. Lets your little finger wrap around the delicate bone for comfort because as much as you might think there's a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bigger piece, he has no intentions of letting something like that get in the way of his appetite even if you do. 

(And his hunger has always been particularly voracious, hasn't it?)

“Come, birdie. Gotta get you home, and fed, don't I?” 

[thekentuckyhimbo]

Hi there :) After reading your blog for ages now and adoring your writing I finally got myself a tumblr acc and some courage to send in a request.

Sooo ... since I am still not over that Alex Shelley/Jay White match at Impact´s Sacrifice ... may I request some jay-centric/ POV smut? Just some post-match, late-night thoughts of Shelley winning their next match turning into the perfect fantasies to get off on for Jay.

<3

Sacrifices

Pairing: Jay White/Alex Shelley

Warnings: masturbation, nipple play, daddy kink, power dynamics, hair pulling, angst

Words: 1.5k

Complete: Yes

Author Notes: Is this what you wanted?! Is it?! No but seriously this was fun lol. Request stuff from me any time 😘 I do not know how to write smut without adding angst though, so sorry for that.

Jay lay in his hotel room bed staring up at the ceiling. Another victory was in the books for him, but he was anything but satisfied with it.

He told himself it was because his Bullet Club teammates Gallows and Anderson had lost their tag team titles tonight, and thus their usual post-show celebrations had been skipped in favour of early nights for all. But deep down, it wasn’t The Good Brothers that were on his mind, nor Chris Bey.

It was Alex Shelley.

A relic of Jay’s past that had come back to haunt him.

Shelley represented everything that Jay had left behind after his Excursion to the US in 2016. In his mind’s eye, Jay still pictured himself as the little kiwi-crushing Young Lion he had been then. Chubby-faced and softer around the edges, with that damned undercut that he’d thought was so punk rock at the time. That had been Shelley’s influence on him; he and Sabin had been hell-bent on building him as some kind of counter-culture hero. Ironically, the evil they’d been so heroically facing in those days had been the Bullet Club.

Maybe that was why Shelley seemed so disappointed in Jay now. The look he’d given Jay after their match backstage had been haunting. Jay wasn’t exactly surprised, but some part of him had hoped Shelley might have been happy for him; proud, even. But no, that kiss to Jay’s head had been the nail in the coffin.

That damn kiss. Jay found himself fixated on it as his eyes bore a hole into the ceiling. Jay had given him a receipt with a kiss of his own, of course, but it hadn’t had the same earth-shattering effect. To disrespect Jay like that so openly, after everything he’d done… He was King Switch, not some kid that Shelley could kiss the hair of and call a good boy like the chubby-faced protege he’d once been.

Jay sighed in frustration at the thought of it. He wasn’t the green kid he’d been in his days at Ring of Honor with the Guns. He was getting hot under the collar just thinking about the way that Shelley had tried to teach him a lesson tonight. Jay sat up briefly to yank his shirt up and over his head, discarding it on the floor beside the bed.

It felt good knowing that Jay had embarrassed Shelley in the end, beating him with the Blade Runner and refusing his post-match handshake. But behind his smug grin, Jay hadn’t been happy. It didn’t make him feel good enough.

Briefly, Jay pondered the alternative outcome of tonight’s match; what if Shelley had won? Realistically, there was no world in which King Switchblade was losing to one half of a tag team that was well past its prime. But Jay imagined Shelley on top of him on the mat, pinning him and getting the three-count. The sounds of the crowd cheering, Shelley rolling off him and climbing up in the corner to celebrate his victory. Shelley’s sweaty body and the inevitable shit-eating grin on his face from defeating his old protege, proving he was still the superior wrestler.

Jay knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of that signature Alex Shelley grin - and what it was like to be pinned under Shelley’s body, now that he thought about it. A much younger Jay White had even enjoyed the feeling.

Not anymore, Jay told himself unconvincingly. Even as he tried to talk himself out of it, Jay’s hands began to roam down his body, one hand finding his nipple to pinch while the other delved lower. Jay pinched his nipple especially hard, chastising the part of himself that still got weak-kneed over his old mentor. But all that did was bring him from half-mast to fully erect.

Jay raked the palm of his hand over the front of his boxers, desperate for some friction but unwilling to give Shelley the satisfaction of still getting him off after all these years. Back in his Ring of Honor days, Shelley had delighted in the way he could take Jay apart and leave him in an incoherent mess.

Jay pictured Shelley on top of him, pinning his arms to the mat. At first they were in the ring, in their gear, Shelley’s sweaty, heaving chest on top of him. But then that melted away and Shelley was on top of him in his hotel room bed, straddling Jay’s hips to hold him down. One hand was on Jay’s chest as Shelley rutted against him, while the other tangled its way into Jay’s hair and tugged on it hard. Jay imagined his eyes watering as Shelley pressed a heated kiss to his forehead like the one his ex-mentor had given him in the ring tonight.

Jay had given up all pretense of embarrassment now, pushing his boxers down below his hips and freeing his cock so that he could stroke it freely. And if he lifted his knees like he might if someone were going to fuck him, he’d never admit it.

Alone in his hotel room, Jay was still fighting the imprint of Alex Shelley on his life. Even in his fantasy he imagined vying for control against Shelley, rolling across the bed until Jay was on top, forcing Shelley’s shoulders down with both hands. But that just reminded him of all the times Jay had been on top in their past - in bathrooms after shows, in cars between shows - and Jay inevitably pictured himself sinking down onto Shelley’s cock. But in this fantasy it was Shelley who was coming apart beneath him, and for once Jay had all the power. He told Shelley what to do and when to touch him, even if some part of Jay knew that it was his ass that was being fucked, not Shelley’s.

Jay stroked his cock rapidly, but the practiced motions of his hands just weren’t enough tonight. And soon he found himself drawn once again to thoughts of the reality where Shelley had won tonight’s match. He imagined Shelley twisting Jay’s arm painfully behind his back, pinning him up against the ring apron in an empty arena - or hell, even one full of people. Of Shelley’s hard length pressed against the curve of his ass. Shelley’s mouth against his ear, nipping at his earlobe, growling, “Come on Jamie, daddy taught you better than that.”

And Jay would fight it, of course, but inevitably it was Shelley who would outplay him and pin him once again. He would strip off his tights; the costume of the Switchblade that Jay wore to conceal the man he used to be - the man Alex Shelley had known so intimately. And Jay would let him, hips keening up at the thought of Shelley undressing him and fucking him right there in the centre of the ring.

Fantasy-Shelley was kinder to Jay than the real Alex Shelley would have been, but Jay allowed the man in the fantasy to grasp Jay’s erection in his calloused hand and jerk him off roughly, all the while telling Jay exactly what to do. Like the ring general he is, Jay thought.

“Come on baby, closer,” Fantasy-Shelley was saying as his hips slapped against Jay’s ass, “Closer, come on, that’s it.”

Jay was panting in real life now, his hand moving frantically against his erection, desperate for it to feel half as good as he knew Shelley’s hands would. Jay’s eyes were closed now, but behind his eyelids he was seeing Shelley bent over him. Not the Shelley from years ago when they had fucked in Ring of Honor, but the Shelley from tonight who had damn near had Jay’s number in the ring. The Shelley that was starting to wrinkle and grow grey around the edges.

“Ungh, daddy,” Jay was saying, though he wasn’t sure if it was in the fantasy or in real life.

“Good boy,” Shelley replied, thumb rolling effortlessly over the head of Jay’s cock, a move that drove him crazy. “Cum for daddy, Jamie,” Shelley purred and Jay could feel his orgasm pooling in his stomach, “Cum on daddy’s cock.”

Jay’s orgasm ripped through him like a tidal wave and Jay could hear the bed rocking underneath him as he thrusted into his own hand through his orgasm, wishing desperately that it was Shelley’s. Wishing for Shelley to pin him down and defeat him just one last time.

But Alex Shelley hadn’t won tonight, Jay had. He had superseded his master and from here there was no turning back.

Jay rolled on his side in the hotel bed, curling his arm around the pillow that lay unused on the other side of the bed. He pulled the pillow towards his chest and pressed his face into it; cool against his red and sweaty cheek.

Jay drifted off to sleep in bed alone, and he knew that was how it would be for a long time to come.

[fruitcoops]

Could you write something about Sirius with a girl and like him feeling uncomfortable about it or maybe like him realizing that he doesn’t like girls? Love your writing!

Oh boy, I hope y’all are ready for some angst that only has a happy ending because we know canon. This counts as pre-Coops as well--bonus points to anyone who fills out a bingo card of Sirius’ repressed feelings! Sweater Weather credit goes to @lumosinlove, but Rachel is mine!

TW for repression and alcohol

Sirius was kissing a girl, and that was…well, it was occurring. She was nice enough, he supposed—Rachel LaChance, she had said over the rim over her cup of beer with a confident smile. She had nice lips, painted a deep red with a full upper lip in the opposite of a Cupid’s bow.

Her brown eyes flashed in the low light of the bar and a few golden curls fell over her brow as she led him further from the crowds by the hand. She walked with easy grace, like she knew she was powerful and wasn’t afraid to shoulder through some people if they didn’t part for her.

For a moment, while she turned around and guided his hand to set his drink on the table before bringing it to her waist, he wondered what she would look like in a Lions cap. Would she turn it backward? Or would she wear it forward, so it dipped down over her eyes and hid her freckles—

Freckles. No. Rachel LaChance, for all of her aesthetic beauty, did not have freckles. He felt her fingers lace into his hair, tugging gently at the nape in a way that should have driven him crazy and instead did absolutely nothing. I guess it feels nice to be touched, he thought as she stroked a hand down his back. She’s warm, and soft.

He moved his hand from her hip to cup her face and found himself surprised when it was a steeper angle than he expected. He brought his other hand up as well, tracing along her cheekbones as his wrists met at the sharp point of her chin.

She smiled against his mouth. “Relax,” she whispered, squeezing his hip. “I don’t bite unless you want me to.” She was tall, maybe five eight or five nine, but just slightly too short for Sirius’ neck to not hurt. Perhaps if she gained another two or three inches…

Something sudden and unpleasant rushed through his whole system and he squeezed his eyes shut. No, no, pull it together, Black. Her waist sloped too much. She was too delicate under his hands, despite the muscle on her arms and thighs. She was…she was a she.

He pulled back for half a second, pretending to catch his breath as he wrestled down the this is wrong alarm bells. Rachel ran a thumb over his lower lip to swipe away leftover lipstick and he tensed slightly before leaning back in to distract her from his rigid shoulders. This has happened before. You know how to deal with it. Just pretend and then leave.

In his mind, her eyes lightened to an amber gold that caught the sunlight like pure honey. Her curly bob shortened into a sort-of undercut that would have looked odd on anyone else but instead curled around the edges of a baseball cap like tawny angel wings. Her jaw filled out and squared off—it was gentle, but stubborn.

Under his hands, the rolling curve of her waist tapered into narrow hips and hardened into muscle that he seen only once, flexing against the mats of the team gym. As he moved a palm up to trace the neckline of her shirt, he imaged he felt the slight bumps of two scars turned silver against golden skin.

The tongue in his mouth did something lovely. “Re,” he breathed, melting into it only to be filled with cold dread a half second later. “—chel,” he finished. “Rachel.”

“That’s my name,” she said, nipping his lip playfully. “Feel free to wear it out.”

He forced a laugh and pressed closer against her, catching a few lingering stares from girls passing by. He nearly laughed for real at that; I promise there’s nothing to be jealous of.

“Sirius,” Rachel murmured, trailing kisses down his jaw. He swallowed around the discomfort with the way she said his name—there was something missing in it. She made it a sultry, sexy hiss, rather than the bouncy, teasing lilt that he adored. “We should head upstairs.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t like he didn’t know that was coming. He had just hoped it wouldn’t. “Um.”

“It’s fine, nobody’ll notice.” Rachel paused and looked up at him through her lashes and why did her eyes have to be just the wrong shade? “I have everything we’ll need.”

Not unless you have copious amounts of lube and also changed pronouns in the last ten minutes. “Um.”

A bit of her confidence was replaced by confusion. “Do you…not want to?”

He swallowed again, mouth dry. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m not looking for that tonight. You’re lovely, though, and a very good kisser.” Sirius cleared his throat and prayed she couldn’t hear him screaming look at me, I’m a raging homosexual! in his head.

Rachel blinked and gave him a strange look. “…okay. Thanks?”

Is that not how straight people give compliments? Fuck fuck fuck fuck—“Have a nice night, Rachel. Thanks again.”

He picked up his drink and waded through the sweaty crowd without a second glance, heading back toward his dark corner where he could keep a few of his friends in his eyeline and daydream in peace. Ten, maybe fifteen, maybe sixty minutes later, he saw Rachel dancing with someone with a shining smile on her face and a fresh coat of lipstick. Good for her, he thought a he sipped his bitter beer. Good for her.

[korgbelmont]

Choices Insiders July 2021

Ramble Alert!!

Undercut Due to length of post

We know you all miss Laws of Attraction, but don’t worry. Gabe, Aislinn, and the crew will return July 7th! We'll see you in court. ⚖️

Glad it wasn’t on hiatus for long, I wasn’t sure what to make of this book before it’s release because Court stuff isn’t up my alley, but I am enjoying this, it has great Love Interests who are likable if you don’t romance them as well, shall be interested to see how the big case unfolds.

Enjoy time with Sam and the twins as you take your relationship to the next level in The Nanny Affair 2. Now available for all players!

I enjoyed the first book and am enjoying this one so far, I think Jordan is a fun character. Curious to see how everything unfolds especially with that scene at the beginning.

Last month was the anniversary of our BLM representation post. Click here to read the updates on our promises and the progress our studio has and will continue working to make.

I read that when it came out and saying that they were going to be doing more gender and race custom Love Interests of characters isn’t what I was expecting to see. 

We also released our LGBTQ+ survey! We want to hear from you 🥰

I wasn’t overly impressed by that survey, simply because I wanted to choose multiple answers on questions you could only pick one. Will be curious to see what impact this makes though.

Since almost the start of Choices, The Royal Romance is a series we've held close to our hearts. After six fantastic (and dare we say applelicious ) books, it feels surreal to close this chapter with one final book. One last adventure is coming this July in The Royal Finale.

I enjoyed the original trilogy, but the Royal Heir kind of took things a bit too far and essentially turned the characters into parodies of themselves. I will be giving the finale a miss.

1. Why did my favorite book go on break? We at Pixelberry strive to do everything in our power to make sure our teams of writers, programmers, artists, producers, and QA testers stay physically and mentally healthy. Sometimes a mid-book break is necessary so a team can produce the best book possible without crunching.

I can understand this, especially if a book becomes popular, there will end up being that pressure. So it’s better to take a break .

2. Is Shipwrecked a VIP and single love interest book? Yes! Shipwrecked will be our next VIP book. It follows the daring storyline of your MC and a single love interest who are stranded together on a deserted island.

I had a feeling this was going to be a single LI book, but I stand by what I said before that they should have said it was VIP in last months email.

3. What other genres can we expect to see this year? Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Well, maybe not that exactly, but we do have some mysteriously horrifying, romantic, and suspensefully sassy storylines on the way! Check the calendar below for more info.

Wildlife book maybe, amongst others?? Not sure what else to say on that.

Not really got much else to say on Royal Finale and Shipwrecked.

The Unexpected Heiress - From what I’ve seen in regards to posts, this is meant to be very good. I will definitely give this one a go once it releases.

Queen B 2 - New book set in a college releasing in the month of the new academic (I see what they’re doing :p). I did enjoy book 1 and am very curious to see what direction this one will take in regards to everything going on with Kingsley and then the mysterious X.

Wake the Dead - Genuinely don’t know what to expect from this book, not in regards to plot, characters, any of it. All I can say is that the image of the different types of Zombies they released a few months ago reminds me of Resident Evil creatures. Do think it is fitting that they chose October for the projected release.

Crimes of Passion -  Think I have said all I can in my posts about this book (check my thoughts and theories page). Looking forward to this, always enjoy a good mystery.

Later this year, (you're all the first to hear about it) we've got a new book, Surrender, in the works! What do you think it could be about?

With only a title to go on and not even an image, I have no clue what to say on this.

Then, over the next few months, prepare yourselves for adventure, mystery, drama, horrors, and thrills. And yes, we’ll have some hot new sneak peeks to share that you won't want to miss. In fact, we just got our hands on this art from our upcoming zombie book Wake the Dead:

I don’t know why, but when I saw this, I thought it kind of looked like the city in the film Priest. I’m guessing it’s meant to be some sort of stronghold that was built in the wake of the apocalypse or something. We shall have to see.

We’ve seen your messages and understand things have been light the past few months, but we took a quick peek at the rest of this year and 2022, and promise what’s to come is 100% worth the wait. We hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable summer.

I did see a post where they said about aiming for more releases in 2022. It’s understandable that there hasn’t been much in 2020 and this year with the pandemic. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

That’s all for this month, stay safe everyone!!

[snaileer]

Chips & Salsa Chp 3

Quick recap from last chapter:

Lance winced and grit his teeth, stumbling forward again before straightening harshly, “This is sweet and all but I’ve really got to go.”

“Why,” Pidge asked, her voice betraying the anger on her face for desperation, “We just got you back from the Galra and now you’re trying to leave! Why?!”

Lance’s eyes narrowed with a cold hardness to them, “Because they chipped me like a f*cking dog and I’d bet you they’ve already called Animal Control on my ass.”

x--x--x

“What?” Everyone paused at the declaration. “What do you mean they chipped you?”

“I mean, they held me down and played a rousing game of Operation as they put a piece of metal inside my body like the bunch of purple furry creeps they are.” Lance bitterly ground out the words. It may have seemed like a joke but they could tell it was just a cover.

“And if they put a chip in you, they can track you anywhere you go and you need-” 

“I need to leave,”  -  “You need our help.” Keith and Lance finished the sentence at the same time, though in vastly different ways

“Lance, why would you leave!?” Keith whipped around to face Lance from standing next to him.

“Because I’m a danger to you. I’m putting you in danger just by being here!”

“We can fix this. We can get rid of the chip, we can help!” Pidge cut in again.

“Not without the Galra finding us first, I don't even know where they put the chip! Once they find out I’m gone, they’re going to come for me! And they’re going to find me... I can't be here when they do, I can't put you guys in more danger, not again.” Lance’s voice was still angry and defiant, but it also sounded a little guilty. As if Lance had any responsibility for what was happening.

“Lance, you’re not-” Keith seemed ready to start up another full-blown argument, but not before Hunk cut in from his surprised silence.

“What if we were able to temporarily disrupt the chip long enough to get it out?” Or maybe not surprised silence, but planning silence.

“How?” Lance turned his head to Hunk, finally stopping his lackluster struggle against Allura. He seemed to be honestly considering the possibility; it was progress.

“Well, remember when we were first fighting Zarkon, and he kept chasing us around the galaxy but we couldn’t figure out how he was finding us?”

“You mean when Allura and Keith decided to run away together in a fit of teenage angst and endanger the whole team? Why yes, Hunk, I do remember that.” Shiro threw a glare at his brother and the princess, who had the good sense to look mildly ashamed. He turned back to Hunk, “But what does that disaster have to do with this one?”

“Well, when we were still trying to figure it out, and before we knew it was the Black Lion’s connection, Allura wormholed us into a space storm that we thought would disrupt their trackers. So...” Hunk seemed to be rambling a little bit, losing certainty as he talked.

“Sooo, if we can find another metallic storm like that one, it would cause enough interference to give us time to remove the chip!” Pidge caught onto the idea quickly and gained confidence the more she thought it through, “Hunk, you're a genius!”

“So, Lance, are you willing to work with us on this? Take a chance?” Shiro looked to Lance with hope and determination. They were so close to being done with all of this.

“I’m sensing I don't actually have much of a choice, do I?” Lance said with a small chuckle at his friends.

“You always have a choice with us. But not this time, not really, no.” Shiro chuckled back with a smile. Lance had barely been back for more than an hour and the team was already healing, he could tell.

“If I let go of you now, you’re going to stay then?” Allura asked.

“Yeah, Princess, you’re good. I’ll stay,” Allura finally released her grip and stepped back, “But only to see if this works, if you can’t get rid of the chip, I will leave. You have to let me leave.”

“Lance, no. We can't do that-” Hunk started, but Lance interrupted him with a stern look.

“Promise me,” Lance looked at all of them, even Coran who’d approached at some point, “Promise me, if we can’t stop the Galra from tracking me, you’ll let me leave.”

“But we-”

“Fine,” Shiro stopped the other’s arguments, “We promise to let you go if we can't fix this,” he paused again, “But I trust in our team’s capabilities, you should too, Lance.” Then he stepped back and led everyone back to the bridge for Allura to wormhole.

Everyone would be lying if they said it didn’t make them smile when Lance sat down in the Blue Paladin chair.

“Whenever you’re ready, Allura, I’ve entered the coordinates for the strongest storm I could find nearby. Zylo-Tuun Quadrant actually. Why, I remember my first trip to Zylo-Tuun, on the planet Ghakin, ugly planet that one, too far from Altea, the people there were too hard, in my opinion. Nothing like you squishy humans.” And by the time Coran was finished talking, they’d already made it to the other side of the wormhole. The team stood to head off to the medbay. Except Lance.

“Lance, you coming?” The dazed look on Lance’s face made them hesitate, but it disappeared with a quick shake of his head as Lance got up and walked over to the group. 

“I’m fine you guys, just ready to get rid of this thing. I just want to get back to normal.”

“That we can do,” Coran moved behind them down the hall, “First, I’ll need to do a scan of your body to find the quiznacking thing before we remove it.”

“And how do we do that, Coran?” Shiro asked as they entered the medbay, blatantly ignoring the left-over mess and bits of shattered glass on the floor.

“Just need you to step into the stasis pod. It’s not going to close, so no need to worry about that, my boy.” Coran motioned to Lance and moved him into the open pod. A blue light projection scanned over his body and caused something to beep on Coran’s holo-pad. Lance stepped out of the pod.

“Oh-no,” Coran’s aura of cheerfulness drooped as he looked from the pad to the team.

“What is it Coran? What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you Lance, it’s just… the chip… this might be harder than we thought. It’s not somewhere we can just get rid of it.”

“Are you saying you can’t do it? That I’m stuck with this thing?” 

There was a sense of desperation in the air, though it was audible in Lance’s words, no matter how angry they sounded.

“No, but… Lance.. the chip is implanted in your brain.” Coran turned the holo-screen towards them. It showed the scan of Lance’s body, zoomed in on his head, with a tiny solid light blip in the diagram of his brain. 

“Oh my God.” Lance’s voice was breathless, “Oh. My. God,” The second time sounded a bit deranged, especially followed by the huff of almost-laughter. Lance looked down at his hands.

“Lance…”

“I knew it. I knew something was off,” Lance shook his head, then put a hand to his hair. He looked back up, a sort of broken, angry, sad smile on his face, “That’s why they cut my hair… Of course!” He laughed again.

“Sorry, what? They cut your hair?” Keith asked, stepping forward. He didn't like the look on Lance’s face and Keith was just as close to breaking down, probably into a fight.

“Uh yeah, Keith, they cut my hair. You know what that is, right?” Lance’s words were bitter and sarcastic, “Maybe you should try it on that mullet sometime. But this undercut thing I’ve got going on wasn’t my choice. They did it for the surgery! To put that god-forsaken THING in me!” Lance whipped around to point directly at the screen with the chip diagram.

“And now! We can’t get it out! And isn't that just fan-freaking-tastic!” The yell sounded angry and exasperated, but most of all tired. Lance didn’t want to deal with this, he just wanted this whole mess to be done with. 

He had to leave now, Lance knew he would have to leave. It was stupid to think he could stay with his team.

“Lance, we have time. We’re safe in the storm. It’s blocking the chip from sending out a single, they can’t track us here,” Shiro knew 

“But you’re still in danger. I’m still a danger to you.” Lance 

“No, you’re not Lance. We care about you, we’re a family, you’re not putting us in any danger we can't handle.”

“But I’m the one that’s dangerous! Don’t you get that!? I’m the one that hurts people! I’ve done it before! You don't know what I did in the arena! What if I’ve changed?!” Lance’s heart ached as he looked at his team.

How could he ever stay on Voltron? He had so much blood on his hands, blood put there all on his own. And it still wasn't enough blood to keep him from needing to fight.

Shiro stepped in, putting a hand on Lance’s shoulder, “You’re still our family. You don't have to feel guilty for what they forced you to do, Lance. You told me that before, now I’m telling you. What happened was not your fault.”

Lance roughly yanked his shoulder back from Shiro’s touch. He scoffed and his face grew angry, “Well, not everyone can be as perfect as the universe’s golden boy, Shiro. Not everyone is as good as you are on the inside. Some people are just bad!” He stormed out of the room after throwing a hard glare at Shiro.

How could Lance ever stay on Voltron? How could he willingly ruin Voltron with his darkness, his problems? What need did they have for someone like him? Someone who only relaxed when he was fighting and hurting others. Someone who survived on the suffering of others, on hurting them. 

But Lance wouldn’t let that happen to them. Not to them. Never to them. 

Not to Hunk.

Not to Pidge.

Not Shiro. Or Allura. Or Coran,

And not to Keith.

Even if that meant he couldn’t stay, no matter how much he wanted to.

Lance hesitated at the doorway to his room. It seemed like this small pocket of normal that hadn't been touched by everything that had happened. The motion sensor opened the door for him, allowing him in to sit on the bed.

He could stay. He could just lay down now, fall asleep and act like the bed didn't feel too soft compared to the cold floors of a cell. Wake up in the morning, go to breakfast with the team, complain about Altean food goo with them even though he’d tasted worse in the prison. He could pretend.

Lance breathed deeply, trying to convince himself it was okay to stay with the team. As he breathed out, his calm was ruined by the ringing sharpening in his ears. 

His fingers twitched with the urge to hit something.

Of course he couldn’t stay, not when he couldn't control himself. Not when he was still addicted to the fights. Addicted to hurting the people around him. Killing them just because they befriended Lance when-.

No. He still needed to leave. Lance got up from the bed, changing out of the healing suit and into his Earth clothes. And how he relished the feeling of air between fabric and skin. Of the feeling of the cotton in his favorite t-shirt and the rough smoothness of his jeans. It was amazing: the feeling of wearing something he liked, that was comfortable and not prison rags that stuck to his body with blood and dirt.

Still, as he took off the med suit, Lance had to remind himself there was nothing similar in the way this fabric stuck to his skin with sweat from the day.

x--x--x

Keith had destroyed a probably, only maybe, tinsy bit excessive number of training bots after Lance had left the medbay. Shiro had gone to bed halfway through, telling Keith to do the same. Which he didn’t and would probably get chewed out for but it was pfff, whatever. 

He was currently heading towards the showers, if only because he’d get to- have to pass Lance’s room on the way. Usually he’d be fine showering in the morning instead.

“Keith?” 

Keith turned back to see Pidge standing in the hallway outside her bedroom-turned-workshop. 

“Pidge, uhh, what are you still doing up this late?” 

Pidge raised an eyebrow at him, “We’re both standing here, fool.” 

He winced. “I’m coming back from training, just heading to take a shower.”

“Down the one hallway with all of our rooms?”

“I’m worried about him, sue me.” Keith was more than a little worked up from training so hard and all he wanted to do was-

“Don't have the money for it. Oh, this is perfect! I need a second pair of eyes, come here, I want to ask you something.” She perked up for a second then grabbed his arm and dragged him into her room.

“God, Pidge you really need to clean in here,” Keith precariously stepped over the piles of stuff on the floor. “I don't think this place is up to any sort of fire safety code.”

“It’s organized chaos Keith, get with the program.” She leaned over her bed to grab her open computer, which was tangled in a number of wires. “Anyways, I was looking over the coding in the chip Coran found and I can’t tell if I’m missing something.”

“So why ask me? I know literally nothing about coding.”

“Obviously.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Pidge,” He leveled a look at the gremlin.

“No problem, always happy to help. You don’t know coding, but you do know strategy,”

“Uh..huh, and?” Keith was still lost with why she needed him.

“And implanting something in someone’s brain is crazy difficult, especially on a different species. So why would they go through all that trouble instead of just putting it in his arm or something?”

“Maybe so we couldn’t get it out?”

“But-” Both paladins heard a dull thump in the halls and looked towards the door. 

“What was that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think anyone else was awake.” Keith started out of the room, Pidge right behind him.

The corridor had barely enough light to see, just enough for Keith’s Galra genes to catch a bit of movement coming from one room in particular.

“Lance?”

The figure froze, their shoulders bunched up like a teen caught sneaking out of the house past curfew.

Lance turned around slowly, “Heyyy, Keeithh. What’re you doing up this late?”

“Training.” Keith narrowed his eyes, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, y’know, just getting a drink from the kitchen.”

Pidge stepped out from Keith’s shadow, “With all your stuff?” She glanced down at the bag Lance was carrying.

“A long drink...?” Lance shrugged cautiously.

“Give it up, Lance. Why are you trying to leave in the middle of the night?” Keith stepped forward angrily.

“Because I’d thought there’d be less people awake at 1am and that seemed like a better option than midday.”

“Cut the crap, Lance. I’m serious. We want you to stay. What would have happened if you were gone when everybody woke up? Huh? Did you even think about that?” Keith got closer, his voice furious.

“Of course I thought about it!” Lance yelled at him, then immediately lowered his voice again, “Of course I thought about what would happen. How you would feel. I want to stay too… but I also want to keep you guys safe. You’re my team, and I can’t keep you safe if I’m a danger to all of you.”

Keith was close enough now to set his hand on Lance’s shoulder, “For the last time Lance, you’re not a-” 

“Let me leave. All of you promised me, you told me you’d let me leave if I was still dangerous to the team.”

“Yeah but I also told Shiro I wouldn't punch Iverson, yet here we are.” Keith motioned with his hands, “Iverson’s only got one working eye and I’m definitely not letting you leave.”

Pidge piped in after Keith, “Please, Lance, I’m working on something.”

“So?”

“So, It could help with the tracker in the chip. It would let us get back to being Voltron.”

Lance looked doubtful. Keith didn’t, “Lance, I believe in her. If she says she can make something to stop the chip, she can make something to stop the chip. Right, Pidge?” Both of the boys looked at her for the affirmation.

“I can. I know I can.”

Keith turned back to Lance, “So, just give us a chance to help you. Even just one night.”

“One night? Really? You think you can disarm high-quality alien tech in one night?”

Pidge smirked to hide her uncertainties, “Oh Lance, you should know by now not to doubt me.”

“We both know I’ll never learn, Pidge.” Lance looked at Keith seriously, “I’ll give you one night. One. Because I trust Pidge, not you Mullet-Man,”

“Good, then see you in the morning?” Pidge said hesitantly. Neither of them was leaving before Lance, just to make sure he stayed with them this time.

Lance sighed and rolled his eyes before he stepped back towards his bedroom door, “Yeah Pidge, see you in the morning.”

Once the door closed, Lance slid down to sit against the cool metal. He listened to his friends murmur and settle back to their rooms.  

Lance crossed his arms on top of his knees and rested his chin on them. He stared out at the dimness of his own room. It felt crowded and empty at the same time. It was blaringly bigger than the cell he’d been kept in. Yet every available surface was crowded and filled by knick-knacks and souvenirs that he’d found and kept, it just seemed like so much. 

Lance sighed deeply with resignation; there was no way he was sleeping tonight. He moved to the center of the room with a small grunt. 

He laid his back against the ground, breathed once and then sat up. Down. Back up. Down. Back up. Down. Up. Again. Again.

Again.

Again.

9

Again,

10

Again,

11

Again,

12

Again,

13

Again,

14.

Again.

Next Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/616522538695213057/chips-salsa-chp-4

First Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/613092735756402688/chips-and-salsa-chp-1

[beeblackburn]

Pretender Reads A Little Hatred, Part I, Chapter One

It's time. Goes without saying spoilers ahead for the entirety of The First Law works beyond the keep reading. Read at your own risk.

PART I

"The age is running mad after innovation;

and all the business of the world

is to be done in a new way.”

—Dr Johnson

No joke? This quotes gave me chills as a declaration of authorial intent. I have a slightly more optimistic view of The First Law’s world, but even I knew the first trilogy’s intent was, beyond commenting on how much Abercrombie dug Lord of the Rings so much that he wrote a trilogy to show his... appreciation, to show that, as much as people want to change, they are helpless to actually commit by their pasts, being pieces and pawns to the old ways and grudges of Bayaz and Khalul’s “great” war of two old assholes fighting over grudges kept alive solely two great powers butting heads over wrongs long past. 

That human nature is fundamentally unchanging.

But, at the same time? Abercrombie’s throwing down a gauntlet with this quote. With the new flavor of fantasy he’s promising, the new generation of characters he has to usher in to spearhead that new age, he has to change. He cannot rehash the old stories. Cannot repeat the old patterns. Cannot force the old systems continuing to work, having grown rusty and creaky with age. History has to move forward. Meaning he has to pave the path to new ways. The question is, new way in what manner? New ways as in a social progress, positive change, a better world? Or new ways as in Bayaz changing from magic to money, and from spells to cannons, in order to assert the same small-minded ideal of might makes right with different tools? 

It’s a new age of madness, but with human nature being what it is? Abercrombie has shown that a little hatred goes a long way to lead us to stepping upon old roads left behind our parents, who they themselves trod on by their predecessors.

Chapter Title: Blessings and Curses Point-of-View: Rikke

“Rikke.”

She prised one eye open. A slit of stabbing, sickening brightness.

“Come back.”

She pushed the spit-wet dowel out of her mouth with her tongue and croaked the one word she could think of. “Fuck.”

Now isn’t that just a typical Abercrombie sentiment. Actually, what I want to focus on is how this opening is lean compared to The Blade Itself:

Logen plunged through the trees, bare feet slipping and sliding on the wet earth, the slush, the wet pine needles, breath rasping in his chest, blood thumping in his head. He stumbled and sprawled onto his side, nearly cut his chest open with his own axe, lay there panting, peering through the shadowy forest.

—The Blade Itself, The End

From Blessings and Curses, we already see a much apparent crispness of voice, short paragraphs broken apart, an unusual situation of a girl opening one eye and having to come back (come back from what?) There’s a surreal quality that Logen’s opening, as much as I like it as an introduction to The Blade Itself, can’t beat beyond the chapter title. Yet, to remind us it’s Abercrombie, someone has to say fuck. Because of course.

“There’s my girl!” Isern squatted beside her, necklace of runes and finger bones dangling, grinning that twisted grin that showed the hole in her teeth and offering no help at all.

HOLY FUCK IT’S CRUMMOCK’S SHIN-KICKER AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

“I saw folk falling from a high tower. Dozens of ’em.” She winced at the thought of them hitting the ground. “I saw folk hanged. Rows of ’em.” Her gut cramped at the memory of swinging bodies, dangling feet. “I saw … a battle, maybe? Below a red hill.”

Isern sniffed. “This is the North. Takes no magic to see a battle coming. What else?”

“I saw Uffrith burning.” Rikke could almost smell the smoke still. She pressed her hand to her left eye. Felt hot. Burning hot.

“What else?”

“I saw a wolf eat the sun. Then a lion ate the wolf. Then a lamb ate the lion. Then an owl ate the lamb.”

“Must’ve been a real monster of an owl.”

“Or a tiny little lamb, I guess? What does it mean?”

So, full disclosure here: I did read the A Little Hatred blurb before reading, so I already knew we were getting something like this... but holy shit, we’re seriously getting a prophet? I’m going to talk my precise thoughts on this later, in full first impressions of Rikke as a character, but man, I usually hate prophecies and prophets, but with Abercrombie? Dude’s earned enough credit (specifically, everything to do with Grom-gil-Gorm’s prophecy in the Shattered Sea series) at my trust bank to get me to care. And I love how Rikke can still feel the sensory details of her visions, the costs of magic. Magic.

Also, am I a terrible person for, seeing the eats in the prophecy, immediately thinking Eaters? I probably am.

I’ll hold off on dissecting the prophecy at the chapter’s end. 

"Well, I can unveil two secrets right away.” Rikke groaned as she pushed herself up onto one elbow. “My head hurts and I shat myself.”

"That second one’s no secret, anyone with a nose is party to it.”

"Shitty Rikke, they’ll call me." She wrinkled her nose as she shifted. “And not for the first time.”

"Your problem is in caring what they call you.”

There’s definitely a very winning formula with how Rikke and Isern’s dynamic works: the young, soft-hearted naif butting and bouncing heads against the more world-weary, a touch twisted, experienced warrior. Rikke complains about how much the world will react to her, Isern tells her to suck it up because Rikke doesn’t have to care at all.

Also, not going to lie: part of why I love Rikke is that she shits herself during her visions and fits. It undercuts the mystique of magic with the unpleasant consequences, grounded in reality.

Isern tapped under her left eye. “You say cursed with fits, I say blessed with the Long Eye.”

So. First off, fun fact:

Crummock spun one of the wooden signs on his necklace round and around. “I can’t see her letting Bethod lose, and herself along with him, can you? A witch as clever as that one? There’s all kinds of magic she could mix. All kinds of blessings and curses. All kinds of ways that bitch could tilt the outcome, as though the chances weren’t tilted enough already.”

—Last Argument of Kings, Leaves on the Water

History echoes, doesn’t it? Another i-Phail, another user of the Long Eye, and a discussion about the blessings and curses of magic. The players are different, but the sentiments are similar enough to ripple from the past to the present.

Now, my first reaction to reading this part of the blurb was: WHOA WHOA WHOA, Caurib’s Long Eye from The First Law trilogy? OH MY GOD!!!!! Just more connective tissue to link this book from its past, the earliest roots of Abercrombie’s world-building, when he was still tinkering with what he wanted (long eye isn’t even capitalized in The First Law’s mention of it). It’s a nice reference for us long-time readers and a magical power for the new readers. 

Mind you, all I’m thinking is: was Caurib, every time she was decked out and being impossibly beautiful in the way Abercrombie wrote her... was she actually having fits and headaches and shitting for her visions? Because, wow, I can only imagine how frustrated she must’ve been having to make public appearances. I can just imagine her wishing everyone would fuck off so she could have headaches and shit in peace. Already makes me like Caurib a lot more now.

“Huh.” Rikke rolled onto her knees and her stomach kept on rolling and tickled her throat with sick. By the dead, she felt sore and squeezed out. Twice the pain of a night at the ale cup and none of the sweet memories. “Doesn’t feel like much of a blessing to me,” she muttered, once she’d risked a little burp and fought her guts to a draw.

I really do appreciate how much Abercrombie grounds and mixes a curse into magical “blessings.” I was really skeptical of putting in some last trace of magic in anyone, but Rikke’s right in it not being a blessing, and considering magic is on its last legs, there’s no way Bayaz won’t meet her later and clutch his monstrous hands on her Long Eye, teaching her finesse in exchange for getting to aim where it goes towards.

Another tool. Another weapon to kill his enemies.

"Might have to rope you in future, make sure you don’t crack your nut and end up a drooler like my brother Brait. At least he can keep his shit in, mind you.” 

HOW MANY SONS DID CRUMMOCK HAVE. THE FUCK!? I can’t even find a Brait anywhere except The Heroes and that was clearly not him. For one, he didn’t drool!

“My head still aches so bad I can feel it in my teeth.” Rikke wanted to shout but knew it’d hurt too much, so she had to whine it soft instead. “I need no more small discomforts.”

“Life is small discomforts, girl! They’re how you know you are alive.”

Another part of why I like Rikke so much is that, as a character starting out, she whines. A decent amount. She’s admittedly got some good reason to do so, but as the narrative points out and Isern especially, at least living means you get to whine about it and too much of it will only enable more discomfort, make the pain bigger. There’s intentional room to grow for Rikke and the fact that Abercrombie lets her be a bit of a whiner at the risk of alienating readers is a writer’s courage I always try to emulate. 

Character development’s has to start somewhere.

“Guess not. Just, in the songs, it’s a thing witches and magi and deep-wise folk used to see into the fog of what comes. Not a thing that makes idiots fall down and shit themselves.”

“In case you never noticed, bards have a habit of dressing things up. There is a fine living, d’you see, in songs about deep-wise witches, but in shitty idiots, less.”

Snrrrrrk. I got to love how Abercrombie shades lesser and classic fantasies. He does so well with it.

“And proving you have the Long Eye is no simple matter. You cannot force it open. You must coax it.” And Isern tickled Rikke under the chin and made her jerk away. “Take it up to the sacred places where the old stones stand so the moon might shine full upon it. But it’ll see what it sees when it chooses, even so.” 

Huh. Crummock made it clear that there was something special about the moon during his time in Last Argument of Kings. I assumed it was solely just him thinking the moon’s love made men more violent and strong, but did he think it could influence magic? Given his more singular focus on violence and his clear Bloody-Nine murderboner fanboying, I think Crummock was a lot more close-minded about how the moon can affect things. Isern’s a lot more flexible, by comparison.

(Also, are those sacred places that fortress Logen and Crummock and the rest had their last stand in the High Places? Crummock did say it was well loved of the moon...)

“War?”

“It’s when a fight gets so big almost no one comes out of it well.”

“I know what it bloody is.” Rikke had a spot of fear growing at the nape of her neck which she couldn’t shrug off however much she wriggled her shoulders. “But there’s been peace in the North all my lifetime.”

“My da used to say times of peace are when the wise prepare for violence.”

“Your da was mad as a bootful of dung.”

“And what does your da say? Few men so sane as the Dogman.”

Rikke wriggled her shoulders one more time, but nothing helped. “He says hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

Isern’s first line is true, but also makes me think of all the Northmen who came into war, looking for glory and a Name, and came out dead or unable to stop killing, their bloody footsteps followed by fellow warriors with same dreams of glory and a Name, just younger. War chews up men and spits them out, dead or alive, no one living coming out without trauma and/or a score of dead friends.

Also, Dogman’s daughter, huh! Good on him for managing to raise a decent child in the Circle of the World, even if she has her share of flaws. Rikke certainly reminds me of a softer, more whinier Dogman, yet still decent.

Rikke blinked at her. ‘You can’t have been ten years old.’

‘Old enough to kill a man.’

‘What?’

‘Used to carry my da’s hammer, ’cause the smallest should take the heaviest load, but that day he was fighting with the hammer so I had his spear. This very one.’ Its butt tapped the rhythm of their walking on the path. ‘My da knocked a man down, and he was trying to get up, and I stabbed him right up the arse.’

‘With that spear?’ Rikke had come to think of it as just a stick Isern carried. A stick that happened to have a deerskin cover over one end. She didn’t like thinking there was a blade under there. Especially not one that had been up some poor bastard’s arse.

I love Abercrombie’s humor, especially given how actually rather depressing Isern’s age of killing was. It always serves to give levity to some heavy stuff in the story, preventing the darkness from choking most people whole. It’s the “poor bastard” part of that last line that brings the smile and laughter out.

“Girl, you have a ring through your nose.” 

“I am aware.” And Rikke stuck her tongue out and touched the tip to it. “It keeps me tethered.”

Hey, you want to know another part of why I really like Rikke? Nose rings are fucking cool. Gives her a distinct appearance and fashion.

Now if only other prophets had nose rings instead of cloaks and vague portents, I wouldn’t find them so bloody boring.

“You’ve a wolf on your shield,” she said.

“Stour Nightfall’s mark,” growled the big man, with a hint of pride, and Rikke saw he had a wolf on his shield, too, though his was scuffed almost back to the wood.

(Looks at his book) Well, shit! The cover’s actually relevant. I was eyeing the UK cover better, but now that this US/Can one has meaning, I can accept it.

Also, Stour Nightfall is the coolest fucking name. Can’t wait to meet him!

“Nightfall’s the greatest warrior since the Bloody-Nine!” piped up the young one. “He’s going to take back Angland and drive the Union out o’ the North!” 

(Arches an eyebrow) I don’t take issue with taking back Angland, there’s some valid enough history with Casamir that I don’t blame the North for it, but how did what I theorized to be Calder’s son become such a beef-cake? But really? Greatest warrior since the Bloody-Nine? I can’t help but think him a cut-price Bloody-Nine now.

“The Union?” And Rikke looked down at the wolf’s head badly daubed on his badly made shield. "A wolf ate the sun,” she whispered.

Thank you, Rikke, I studied English lit in high school. I can do my own analysis of symbolism and visions.

Rikke’s arrow stuck into his back, just under his shoulder blade.

Her turn to say, “Oh,” not sure whether she’d meant to let go the string or not.

A flash of metal and the old man’s head jolted, the blade of Isern’s spear catching him in the throat. He dropped his own spear, grabbed for her with clumsy fingers.

“Shush.” Isern slapped his hand away and ripped the blade free in a black gout.

The inexperienced child and hardened warrior dynamic continues with Rikke accidentally, not knowing if she meant to or not, dooming a boy to death and Isern, experienced hand at the black business, aims for the kill and gives her enemies no ground to gain leverage upon her. But, ultimately...

“You killed ’em.” Rikke felt all hot. There were some red speckles on her hand. The big one was lying on his face, shirt soaked dark.

“You killed this one,” said Isern. The lad knelt there, making these squeaky little gasps as he tried to reach around his back to the arrow shaft, though what he’d do if he got his fingertips to it, Rikke had no idea.

... no one’s hands in this world remain clean for too long.

“Then killing ’em was all o’ the one choices we had, eh? Your problem is you’re all heart.” And she stabbed Rikke in the tit with one bony finger.

“Ow!” Rikke took a step away, holding her arms across her chest. “That hurts, you know!”

“You’re all heart all over, so you feel every sting and buffet. You must make of your heart a stone.” And Isern thumped her ribs with a fist, the finger bones around her neck rattling. “Ruthlessness is a quality much loved o’ the moon.” As if to prove the point, she bent down and heaved the dead lad into the bushes. “A leader must be hard, so others don’t have to be.”

First off, I stabbed my own chest with my own finger just now to see how much it hurt. I can only imagine the increased discomfort with doing it to breasts.

Second off, to give my first impressions of Rikke... well, it’s funny. I once talked to a great friend of mine who we love to talk tropes and stories and fiction about and I told him I generally don’t gravitate to the rougher shit-talking tomboy and the prophet character tropes. To be quite frank, the former bores me on general lack of craft (everyone seems to think the trope itself constitutes a strong personality!) and the latter is just dry plot exposition on two legs generally, full of billowing cloaks and being fuck-useless 99% of the story.

Rikke might have been love at first sight for a few reasons.

The consequences of prophecy. I keep nailing this point, but I do for a reason: I have rarely seen a prophet actually endure physical ailments for their magical gifts, and the headaches, the fits, the burning hot eye, and the shitting? It helps ground Rikke’s struggles in less abstract details so we can sympathize better. We might not have had visions, but we’ve had headaches, hot eyes and shat before.

She’s got a personality! She’s rough, she gives as good verbally as she gets, but she’s also kind and not someone who goes for violence as a first resort. But, at the same time, she’s definitely got her flaws. She’s a whiner. There’s a touch of naivety and inexperience that shows when she talks how times were different when Dogman was fighting and Isern shuts that illusion down, there’s even a softness in her with how she said they should’ve given Stour’s thugs a chance.

Her partnership dynamic with Isern is really winning, allowing more of her personality to bounce off of Isern while having some sass of her own to snap back at Isern, allowing her to have a personality to bounce off of. It allows for development of both characters in a way that Abercrombie’s first attempt at having an early traveling pair in Malacus Quai and Logen can never match, given all the personality leaping off the screen.

The tonal difference. Rikke is a really decent kid dropped into the Circle of the World. In any other series, my eyes would glaze over in boredom. In here? There’s so much misery and depressing reality that happens in the Circle of the World, that it looks like it’ll be a treat to see how she’ll interacts with the older, hardened generation of characters and how much decency might touch upon them. And that only makes Isern’s advice to her all the more interesting. Because her being all heart is hardly Bayaz’s ideal tool and I get the sense that her turning her heart into stone won’t be a smooth ride.

The nose ring. I’m sorry if it makes me shallow, but that’s a cool design choice and love the tethered justification.

The morning mist was long faded and she could see all the way across the patchwork of new-planted fields to Uffrith, wedged in against the grey sea behind its grey wall. Where her father’s old hall stood with the scraggy garden out the back. Safe, boring Uffrith, where she’d been born and raised. Only it was burning, just the way she’d seen it, and a great column of dark smoke rolled up and smudged the sky, drifting out over the restless sea.

(winces) Well, that’s one part of the prophecy dealt with.

Isern wandered from the trees with her spear across her shoulders and a great smile across her face. ‘You know what this means?’

‘War?’ whispered Rikke, horrified.

“Aye, that.” Isern waved it away like it was a trifle. “But more to the matter, I was right!” And she clapped Rikke on the shoulder so hard she near knocked her down. “You do have the Long Eye!”

Hah! Somehow, Isern, I think she won’t take the blessing of that statement and only see the curse of it.

So! Theory-crafting on the prophecy itself!

The only tower I know of in the North was in the High Places, and given Isern’s with Rikke, I can imagine that’s certainly plausible. Either that or somewhere in the Union, given its towers, especially the Tower of Chains? 

The battle below a red hill will be one of our battle set-pieces. Definitely something like the Casualties chapter in The Heroes.

Uffrith already burnt, but it was the first thing to happen, so the people hanged from towers and the red hill battle are yet to happen.

“I saw a wolf eat the sun” Stour taking down the Union. 

“Then a lion ate the wolf” Leo taking down Stour, which I’d normally take as a sign I shouldn’t get invested because I already know the outcome... but given Grom-gil-Gorm’s prophecy twist, I think there’s plenty of ways this could easily turn twisted, especially with Black Calder about. 

“Then a lamb ate the lion” I heard a decent amount of people say they thought it’d be straight-up Lamb and, man, NO. The point of Red Country is that, deep down, Lamb was only pretending to be a lamb and was really a wolf in lambswool. Someone who genuinely is worthless... Orso, from the blurb, seems to fit the bill, given that Leo’s been hoping for help there.

“Then an owl ate the lamb.” Bayaz with Orso. Owls are symbolized as knowledge and Bayaz’s being the First of the Magi, feels right for that... and given that Orso is part of the royal family and how Bayaz “ate” Jezal, I can’t say him repeating it with Orso is implausible. My only worry is, how will this be new from Bayaz and Jezal’s deal?

PART I

Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Chapter Two: Where the Fight’s Hottest Chapter Three: Guilt Is a Luxury Chapter Four: Keeping Score Chapter Five:  A Little Public Hanging Chapter Six: The Breakers Chapter Seven: The Answer to Your Tears Chapter Eight: Young Heroes Chapter Nine: The Moment

[starslooklikediamonds]

Info On David Harbour’s Hellboy character.

From interviews, there us some random bits of info, directly from the creators & actors of the movie.

You can add to the info, if you got some. Let me know.

Do with it what you want.

“Even though he’s a demon, I have to consider him human. He’s half-human, but I have to consider him psychologically like a human.”

Harbour plans to really examine Hellboy's psyche, particularly his somewhat toxic masculinity. - "I think Hellboy has a certain psycho dynamic, where occasionally he has to prove that he's the lion, has to roar, and I think he struggles with his own masculinity. But I don't think he needs that as much as maybe those other movies. I have a bit of a different take on his capability or his slickness. I sort of think that for me he's a little less skilled at constructing that persona."

In our movie, he’s very much dealing with his own [demons] being ostracized from society. There’s kind of a Frankenstein element to it. There’s a lot more self-hatred. Although those [Del Toro] movies did explore a certain aspect of that, ours is just a lot darker in terms of a character piece, who he is. He’s a much more tortured guy who, in the end, has to do the right thing. He is destined to be the beast of the apocalypse and one of our goals is to justify the temptations of that destiny in terms of the creation of a world where, as a demon, he might be accepted. As a monster he might be accepted, [but] he doesn’t feel [that] in this world.

In our movie Hellboy’s younger. He’s rougher. He’s much more of a teenager. He’s really struggling with the idea of whether or not he’s a good person.

“My interpretation is a little more of that internal turmoil with his relationship to and his place in the world being a little more unstable. And it's maybe a little darker. He's still got this fun thing to him, but underneath it is this scared little boy who really doesn't understand human love and doesn't understand why he's beloved because of his destiny to bring the end of the world.”

“He’s a creature that was meant to bring about the end of the world, and he just sort of wants to be a good guy. He’s got that complexity to him. He’s also a monster who lives among human beings, so he’s in a sense fighting for human beings against his fellow monsters, and yet the humans hate him because they fear him and they think he’s weird looking and everything.”

“On Hopper & Hellboy - “He has a heart that’s really good and with a lot of this crusted-over stuff. What I’m dealing with in Hellboy is a lot different, bigger in a certain way. It’s very Shakespearean. It’s demons and witches and stuff like that. But it has a similar core to a dude who’s trapped in horrible circumstances who’s just trying to be a good guy.”

“David Harbour’s Hellboy is a little bit more dramatic. There’s a different edge, Mignola said. “[Ron Perlman] was very smooth as Hellboy, and there’s a whole different love interest vibe with Ron’s thing. Ron was almost playing this kind of old adolescent. And Harbour plays a grittier Hellboy, and a bit more explosive, emotionally. It’s hard to explain, but it is a very different take. The beauty is, both of them, in their own way, feel like Hellboy. It’s almost like they’re just tipped it in two different directions. There’s something much gnarlier about David’s Hellboy.”

“We met Perlman’s Hellboy at the onset of his career as a paranormal policeman, Harbour’s Hellboy has been around a lot longer, which speaks to why he’s a bit more world-weary and has a lot more attitude. The film is also adopting a key element of the comics where Hellboy is known to the public instead of the B.P.R.D. trying to cover up his existence.”

“In the del Toro films, Hellboy is kind of penned up, and kept secret, and that is not what we have here [in the upcoming film]. This is truer to the comic, in that Hellboy’s been out in the world. He’s not a top-secret, hidden away guy. He’s an out-there-in-the-world, functioning, working adult. So you’ve got that working stiff, been there, done that vibe with Harbour, that you just couldn’t have with Ron because it was played so differently,” Mignola explained, also adding, “[With Harbour’s Hellboy] there’s a little bit more angsty, find-your-place-in-the-world, a frustration with his role.”

“He's spawned into the universe by Nazi occultists to bring about the end of the world. And he is captured by Broom, who decides to raise him. So he's an orphan who was adopted. English isn't his first language, to say the least. He's destined to bring about the apocalypse and he, in his heart, just really wants to be a good guy. He idolizes people he grew up with in comic books, like Lobster Johnson, and he wants to be like a paranormal detective. So he's kind of a silly, sweet creature but also a demon. And he lives in a world where human beings don't accept him for who he is. So even when he winds up saving people, they still show up with pitchforks and torches to try to kill him. I think the biggest struggle for him is he's hunting down monsters, and yet he is one. So what is he doing, exactly? That's a big conflict in him.”

“And he deals with it in certain ways that certainly Hamlet doesn't. He's just very witty. He's got this dry, sort of put-upon humor, but underneath all of that is this desperate conundrum of like, "Where is this going to end? What's the end game for this?"

“He's an adult struggling with adult things. It's not like whether or not I should kill the bad guy by punching him. It's more like, Who's the bad guy?”

“He's the guy who the bad guy will give a huge monologue about — I'm destroying the universe — and Hellboy's like, "You talk pretty tough for a guy with no pants." He's always undercutting the situation and he has these one-liners. The script's really funny. One of the ways he deals with the world is to have this dry humor about it because it's so painful.”  

“Hellboy has a lot more issues. He's a little more lost, a little more confused and conflicted. I think that makes for a darker tone in terms of what he's willing to do.”

“Hellboy like he's such a beautiful weird creature, I mean I wanna say guy but he's like a half demon creature and I have a real kind of soft spot in my heart for what he goes through.”

“The whole idea that he's called Hellboy and that struggle with the father that you live in the shadow of this father and you are of this boy and then you want to become this man but the paradoxes of that are all over the movie. I mean one of the great things is like, there's an initial scene where Hellboy is shaving his horns and his dad comes and helps him, shave his horns, while he (Broom) tells him that he's special and that he loves you. You know and there's something about him shaving the uniqueness off of him (Hellboy) and yet calling him unique, that is very interesting to me and in a way he's right because at the end of the film, it's the villain who wants to grow his horns right but in the end of the film, maybe there's something special even beyond the genetics of the horns that is unique to him, that his father does see. But there's paradoxes of identity all through that and like the control that parents have on our identities.”

“Broom is a brit, he’s (Hellboy) raised by Broom, but he talks like a guy from New York. Part of that was that he traveled all over the world. He speaks Spanish, he speaks all these different languages. I talked to a language coach about this, and he was talking about how kids learn dialects from the people that they grow up with. They don’t learn dialects from their parents. So if you have a Spanish mother or something and you grow up in the United States, you speak like an American kid. So part of the thing for me in terms of finding his voice was that he idolized Lobster Johnson. In my mind, even the trench coat plays into this idea of this James Cagney sort of [thing]”

“In terms of being a demon, one of the things he wants to do is fit in. He wants to be like a private eye who goes and solves crimes, and he is the best B.P.R.D. agent. He’s the best paranormal detective the world has ever seen. He takes great pride in his job and he takes great pride in this persona, and that persona is a lot based on his favorite superhero, Lobster Johnson.”

“Lobster Johnson is a big deal to Hellboy. He dresses up like him for Halloween. So that factors into my psychological process.”

“Yeah, he’s terrifying! There’s that question of, why am I fighting this battle? Just because of some sense of justice, or some sense of good? It’s a really interesting question that sort of is at the core of him, that he struggles with.”

“We’re taking the time to deal with that, the fact that Hellboy is a killer. He’s, truly, a weapon. And I think we spent a little more time on that, as well.”

“One of the things I like about him is that he’s a really messy fighter. This is one of the things that I actually talked to Mike about. I talked about his belt that he wears, because he wears this belt that has these patches and I was like, “What’s in those fuckin’ things?” And he’s like, “Well, he’s a paranormal detective, right? So he’s got to show up and fight vampires and witches or whatever. So he’s got like garlic and silver bullets and all kinds of shit.” But he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. So he’ll throw a bunch of garlic on somebody and then he’ll be like, “That didn’t work!” And then he just goes in and eventually he knows that he’ll just have to knock somebody out.”

“In that way, I wanted him to be strong, but I didn’t want him to be a trained MMA guy. He doesn’t have a lot of training as a fighter. He’s just big and strong and scary and almost like a pub brawler. So one of the things about the fights that have been really fun is that he messes up a lot.”

“There's all this misfit stuff working around him.”

“David Harbour - “Hellboy is probably a virgin…”

“I was describing [what] was a creative process around the sexuality of a half-demon. …”

“I feel like genetically, when you’re half-demon, you respond to different things. And I think human beings are confusing to him. They behave confusingly to him in their ways of their hatred of him, and also their love of him. So to me the genetic predisposition of sexuality was very interesting, and how that sexuality plays out. … To me it was more just about the attraction to the supernatural, the genetic attraction to non-simple human female or male.”

“I mean, he is destined to be the beast of the apocalypse. And I think one of our goals is to justify the temptations of that destiny in terms of the creation of a world, where you know, as a demon, he might be accepted, and as a monster, he might be accepted, that he doesn't feel in this world. The other thing that we explore somewhat is -- I mean, one of the interesting things to me about the Guillermo del Toro movies was that he had like a love interest, right? And she was like a fire starter, and but I just think that Hellboy can't have a human being. He probably can't have sex with a human being because it would probably end disastrously, because of his demonic parts or whatever.”

“So I feel like what I wanted to explore was that loneliness, and you know, there's the temptations that you have to, if you do create a darker world as the beast of the apocalypse, you can have sex,” Harbour continued. "You can have a girlfriend. You can live your life. But to live in the human world and to protect humanity, you have to sacrifice some of your nature, and your actual nature, as opposed to this concept of destiny, just that your actual nature somewhat gets sacrificed.”

“David Harbour quoting lines of main character, from the movie Owning Mahowny - “What was the greatest joy, on a scale of 1-10, you felt gambling?” And he said, “10.” And they were like, “What is the greatest joy you ever felt doing anything other than gambling — sex, food, whatever?” And he was like, “2.” And he was like, “So you’ll have to live with it at 2 for the rest of your life.” And he was like, “I’m okay with that.” There’s something about that thematic that I find is somewhat different in terms of Hellboy’s struggle.”

“On Alice - “her and Hellboy they kinda give each other something that says ‘You’re not alone and we can do this.’’

“The great thing about Hellboy and Alice is that it's a love story, but they're not in love. It's a demon...I think Alice teaches him about love because of their connection, but it's very different from a classic romance story.”

“On Alice - “It’s an avuncular relationship. It’s funny because, in an earlier draft, there was the temptation to do that, and I was very adamant to the fact that Hellboy cannot have sex with human women. I don’t want that to ever be an issue, and I want it to be known for him, whereas there is this Blood Queen Witch in the movie, right? So there is a world that he can exist sexually in, but it is not in our human universe. Alice is, even though she has sort of a witchcraft thing to her, she is a human being. He would never.”

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2019 Part 3: just trick ‘em

Babylon

Well, I kinda asked for it, didn't I. Far removed from any spurious fantasy nonsense with assembly line gimmick ideas, this is a very serious and buttoned-up procedural about a prosecutor going after some political corruption. I mean, two people died, but by anime standards that's essentially serial jaywalking. And that's the part where I have to get hypocritical and say: It's a wee bit unexciting, innit? Say what you want about gimmicks, but they're something and this does not really impress outside of the concept either. Maybe this would work better as the J-drama it could very easily be. Babylon is honestly not bad, and there's a tiny bit of intrigue regarding the pharmaceutical company the scandal is attached to, but it still has severe problems making a case for itself beyond what it doesn't do.

And then I watched the other two episodes that are out and disregard everything, this show is trolling and it owns. Well, provisionally at least. It certainly becomes a lot less bland and some things happen and it reminds me a lot of Paranoia Agent now. So yeah, pretty promising, but it’s a plotty show so now it’ll have to deliver on that end.

Special 7 – Special Crime Investigation Unit

While we're on the topic of crime drama, here's one that definitely does have a gimmick: It's set in a world with vampires and so on. And it has a team of superpowered cops who are also vampires and so on. And quite a bit of action. Yeah yeah, so it isn't really a drama and more akin to Ghost in the Shell meets Cop Craft, only not as respectable or vaporwave as the former nor as ultrajanky as the latter. Before we go any further there's one thing: This is directed by the perp wot did Angolmois, and he brought his texture. Only in the shading of the backgrounds this time and I honestly would not mind normally, but when you’re already a notorious AfterEffects criminal you better be on your best behavior. Apart from that it's... well, competent but nothing special. Middling characters, middling looks, extremely tall dwarves, unobtrusive writing. It’s okay but pretty interchangeable. At least the OP is pretty stylish.

Actors - Songs Connection

You saw this coming: It's a show I watched days ago and I haven't the foggiest. What I do know is that it wasn't what the MAL summary says, which is something about walls of Trumpian proportions and singalong tournaments. I'll probably regret this but let's have another looksie...

Um, it's a School Club Plot with unexciting pretty boys and in particular a guy channeling his sorrow over his Morbus Key-stricken sister into song. I suppose a scientist man randomly talks about teleportation sometimes, so that’s technically foreshadowing and as such technically good writing. The realest thing about it by far is that someone finally acknowledges that Vocaloid songs are not made for humans. But it's provably, objectively forgettable so let's just move on.

Africa no Salaryman

So what if office, but animals? The jokes basically write themselves! They’re just not, you know, very good jokes and like most slim comedies this show has problems justifying its full-length runtime. I won’t even go into detail here because it’s pretty much just what you’d imagine. Of note is that the lion  is voiced by Akio Outsuka, the lizard is voiced by Kenjiro Tsuda, and the toucan is a dick. In fact, the majority of this episodes is the toucan acting like a dick. As far as visuals are concerned this looks occasionally neat and mostly pretty shitty, almost like talented people are making this on a stiflingly low budget. And yeah, the African elephant in the room here is that Aggressive Retsuko is the same thing but much better, and I have an entire second season of that on my backlog. Not to mention that (spoilers) Beastars is obviously also similar and also much better.

Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne! / Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!

No points for figuring out what this is based on the title. WNwHstIyn!/DIStMMAAitNL!?  is one of those curious isekai stories that technically don’t need to be one, and goes one step further by making the main girl not only reborn and then having grown up in isekailand, but also undercover in a new city under a wrong name. So it’s basically DOUBLE isekai. What’s very weird about it is that about half of it is fairly okay, since this is directed by a seasoned Doga Kobo dude and the results is the kind of inoffensive cute fluff you’d expect from that (with looks to match). Of course the other half (which is, as previously mentioned, completely unnecessary anyway) won’t shut up about isekai generics that could not be any less interesting (though, admittedly, they could be less inoffensive too). Sorry, I don’t like inoffensive cute fluff enough to watch it when it comes packaged with that.

Stand My Heroes - Piece of Truth

Stand My Heroes seems to want to be another serious business thriller, apart from the part where it’s also based on an otome gacha game. So the serious nature of the plot is somewhat undercut by the main girl being a wet noodle whose amazing distinguishing feature is being resistant to all drugs (which in practice means an inability to fall for roofies). She’s got a job as a narc where she happens to be surrounded by a harem of pretty boys. Since this is serious business, they’re all professionals, which in practice means they’re all clones of the same smooth, gentlemanly dude. Some are jerks at first, but also in a gentlemanly way. Not very exciting, you guys. The plot of this is pretty confusing and seems to revolve around main girl going around looking for people that get her closer to other people that she can then recruit into her narc department even though they’re already there, and if that is incorrect it’s because this is all too mindnumbingly dull to pay much attention. The looks are pretty bad too, with a kind of soft blur over everything that can’t hide the mostly nonexistant animation. And yeah, everyone looks the same. I guess you can’t improve on (or deviate from) perfection.

Kandagawa Jet Girls

Auteur anoraks take note: this is the new smash hit by the director of the poignant and respectable Tsuredure Children. Well, pay no mind to the other stuff he was responsible for, which is in no way relevant to this anime about team jetski racing where the participants also shoot each other’s clothes off. Yes, this is complete schlock that’s all about the boobies and when it isn’t it’s all about the asses instead. The discerning viewer would be advised to locate the AT-X version, if you know what I mean (if you don’t know what I mean you don’t want to watch this show anyway). Not gonna lie, this is so shameless it managed to amuse me more than not, and that’s something. Of course, it’s also most certainly not good: On a technical level it’s cheap as chips and the only thing it has over Valkyrie Drive is that it’s less rapey, which isn’t even strictly a plus when the appeal here is being as unbelievably outrageous as possible. This is the kind of thing that entertains for only as long as it manages to top itself, and that seems pretty hard to pull off with a first impression like this.

[lady-griffin]

Season 8, Episode 4 The Last of the Starks

My thoughts and reactions. Spoilers Below. Obviously. 

Knew they were going to start with the body burning and with Jorah’s body. I knew it.

Poor dany ☹ I’m sad

Poor Jorah

What is she whispering fo him? Any guesses?

Sansa and Theon, no please don’t cry

She made him a Stark in the end. I’m now even more sad.

GHOST!!!!

GHOST!!! He looks sad too

Interesting Jon “was given Lyanna” to mourn, just because she was named for his mother? or because loss of innocent life? Or cause no one left?

Feast Scene

Is that the scale dress for Sansa? I think it is.

Daenerys dress looks less red…that I initially though, but I can’t quite tell.

Gendry wants to find Arya…aww

Daenerys calling Gendry? Did not see that coming.

Daenerys making him a Lord…Smart

Just a question…How will the Stormlands feel about this? I mean they don’t even know Gendry or anything.

Smart move though

But not a great sign, already playing the political game, as Sandor said when you can still smell the bodies. 

Love Sansa, Tormund and Jon…that was cute. Tormund is just the best.

Sansa seemed Jealous, but I still want Jon and Sansa to interact more and we’re running out of time

Where did Sansa go?

I’m glad Tormund is alive…he’s just so cute.

Is Varys figuring it out?

Daenerys all alone (ominous and sad)

Funny, how Varys seems to be the only who noticed.

I knew that drinking game was going to lead to awkward situations…why Tyrion?

Poor Tormund, he just wants to have giant unstoppable babies with Brienne

Poor Sandor, Tormund crying to him

I suspected we might get a Sansa and Sandor scene…are we?

First Theon, then Tyrion, now Sandor?

Yup…interesting pattern. Like that’s a super interesting pattern and I’m not entirely sure what it’s building up to. I mean I hope Jonsa, but I meant at this point how?

Poor Gendry and Arya, I don’t see this ending well…I don’t know if I want to watch

Yep saw that coming. I want them to get together. But Gendry think he needs a lordship to be with Arya and Arya, Arya is not the same nor ever will be. And I just want it to work for them, but it also seems very Arya to say no.

Brienne and Jaime going to get it on?

Looks like it….Yup

Daenerys dress is definitely reddish, but I can’t tell how much.

Maybe no political Jon??

Out of all of their scenes, this one actually makes me think Jon might love her. Like out of all their scenes, this one seems to confirm it the most. 

Which like…why wouldn’t you have done this from the start then. Instead of half-assing it. 

I always wondered if Jon’s “political lines” were unintentionally foreshadowing the future.

Jon himself when he’s saying it, doesn’t have any meaning. But we the audience knows it’s important for the future.

“I bend the knee, but…”

“They’ll see you for what you are “

But at the same time...you still have all those scenes where Jon seems “annoyed” or “frustrated” or horrified is not that word, but scared of Daenerys and what she is capable of doing. And he seems so desperate to appease her... I don’t know.

Whether or not he does love her, this scene made me think there’s a strong chance he actually does. Like it really did (so kudos to Kit and Emilia).

She’s your aunt there might need to be some more hesitation…oh there it is

Do not like the repeated implication that somehow Sansa is corrupted/ruined by what Littlefinger and Ramsey have done to her…do not like that one bit.

Dark!Dany

Interesting scene…between these two.

It is interesting to me how paranoid Daenerys receives Sansa…like I’m not saying she’s wrong. Sansa is clearly 100% ready to start fucking things up for Daenerys, but at times, it seems so pinpointed and out of nowhere.

Also, I do love that she’s such a source of tension and contention betweent these two. 

War Council Scene

Who the fuck is the new Prince of Dorne? Like this just shows how little they care about Dorne.

Like I know Sansa’s intentions aren’t 100% genuine here, but you should give your soldiers and dragons a rest. Like logically you should. This won’t end well for you. Like Sansa is making such a fucking valid point.

Also, Sansa, fantastic wingwoman. I bet Gendry could’ve used her.  

And Arya did not like Daenerys talking to Sansa like that…that look. Damn.

Arya and Sansa (love them together)

Love Arya just stopping Jon right there

Love Arya’s…who the fuck cares about having allies, I’m a lone assassin.

Wish we got to see their reaction to the news…that would’ve been nice.

Would be nice to see how these characters interact with one another and handle the news and you know spend time with them. I mean they keep shutting us out of the Stark POV and it’s getting so fucking frustrating.

Like I honestly hope they are building to them working together…and we get to see it, but at this point. I just don’t think D&D are really capable of that.

Here’s Bronn

That was disappointing…seriously what is the fucking point of Bronn in this story. Like I have nothing against the actor or even the character, but what is the point of him for the story. Like why didn’t he die during the Loot Train/Field of Fire 2.0?

Are we ever going to see him again? Is he ever going to become relevant to the plot again? What is the fucking point?

You’ve killed him off last season and filled the time his scenes take with some more relevant scenes and characters. Seriously what is the fucking point of Bronn?

Arya and the Hound…never coming back to Winterfell… wait what

Is Arya going to down to kill Cersei or perhaps another Queen?

Sansa and Tyrion

Why her?

Why is Tyrion following Daenerys?

Or why does Jon love Daenerys?

I wish they explained why specifically Sansa doesn’t trust Daenerys. Don’t get me wrong I think there are plenty of reasons to think Daenerys would not be a good queen and I’m sure those (or some of them) are the basis for Sansa not trusting her…but it would be great if she would say them out loud at this point.

It kind of feels like, if Dany goes dark, that it just worked in Sansa favor and she just turned out to be right. Not that Sansa was actually right and people should’ve listened to her critiques in the first place.

You can’t keep saying that Daenerys will be a good queen (Tyrion) without saying how and the same goes for Sansa with saying she will be a bad queen.

And this is frustrating, because I think the subtext and text shows how and why Daenerys won’t be a good queen. But just one line from Sansa…like anything. It could be about how anyone who wants to sit on the Iron Throne is dangerous.

Like just anything.

And it would be great if we could see the scheming. Or Sansa telling Tyrion about Jon and seeing Tyrion’s reaction.

Like this use to be the biggest news (we should see how the characters fucking react to it)

However, I did like Sansa commenting that Tyrion was afraid of Daenerys and her “worst impulses” as he has liked to put it (previously). I wish they just dug into that a bit more.

Even just Sansa saying that it’s hard for her to believe Daenerys will be a good queen when Tyrion shakes every time he thinks she’s about to lose her temper.

JONATHAN don’t you dare abandon Ghost. How dare you!

Ghost is such a good boy.                                                                                      

Sam and Gilly…I think he knows how it happened (I adore Gilly)

Is Sam going to be political? Scheming and such?

I’m just so nervous we’re going to have a scene where it’s revealed everyone was working together to go behind Dany’s back. Like give us hints. Show us something.

Don’t leave Ghost, Jon. Or at the very least fucking pet him, you monster.

He’s sad. I’m sad. You’re a monster Jonathan.

(Symbolially Jon giving up being a Starl?) 

Aww Missandei and Greyworm…I just want good things for you. I don’t think we’ll get them, but I want them.

Interesting comment from Tyrion… all those years of war because Robert loved someone who didn’t love him back. Foreshadowing of Jon and Dany? (I don’t think so at this point), but interesting framing of it. Especially since you know Aerys burned Rickard and Brandon Stark…and so on.

But in all honestly, they keep forgetting that fucking part.

Is it just me or are one of the Dragons going to get shot down? Like they are showing them flying, everything seems so nice and happy.

And I was right. damn...

That is quite brutal. And I thought Rhaegal was going to be the dragon to survive…guess I was fucking wrong.  

Those scorpions are quite impressive to say the least. And they’re designed to look like tentacles, HA!

NO Missandei

No Missandei

Did she die?

I really have to wonder if Cersei is pregnant? I mean Qyburn could just be saying yes, to literally everyone, because he’s 100% loyal to her.

Oh no, Missandei. My poor baby.

Why does she knock over the lion? Am I missing something?

It’s interesting how Varys was saying he would look her in the eye, but he doesn’t. Not until the end.

Also, Daenerys wants the appearance that she tried to avoid bloodshed, but not actually…

To be fair, Cersei is never going to surrender though. So, she’s not wrong.

But it also kind of reminds me of “Bend the knee or refuse and die” – not much of a choice.

Varys rarely ever tries to reason with Dany, but he always tries to reason with Tyrion to get him to see the truth about Dany. It’s interesting to me how that’s set-up.

There’s that phrase again, “worst impulses.” 

“She too strong for him” – See this is why I want political Jon at this point. For one of their Main Characters they have just been undercutting him at every turn. Like is their going to be a twist or is Jon just pathetic and weak sauce now. I mean come on.

I hope there is going to be a twist with Jon (actually I hoped they let us see his POV), but it just seems that they keep undermining him in the narrative to power up Daenerys and Sansa and I guess even Arya. Like you can let them all shine and be capable and shit.

I do like this dilemma forming for Tyrion. He has to make a choice. He truly has to commit. He just does.

I THINK THAT’S THE SPOILER SCROLL (the one Sophie Turner kept).

It doesn’t seem to be that much of Spoiler, if it’s from Varys. Though I suppose that depends on what it says and it could simply not be from Varys. I had always hoped it was going to be from Jon…but it doesn’t look like that will be the case.

“as the rest of her advisors…” I’m curious to what the beginning and end of that sentence is. And what the Scroll says. Also, I assume we’re going to eventually see the scroll, I mean it has to be a prop that Sophie was able to keep.

Also, I love Sansa’s line of how she wanted to be there to see them execute Cersei and now she won’t get the chance. Just a great and cold line to Jaime. But it also has two meanings.

1. Daenerys is going to burn down KL and Sansa won’t get the chance to see it now.

2. It looks like Cersei is going to win now

Also, the struggle between Sansa and Cersei makes a lot more sense to me, because Cersei and Sansa have history and Cersei tormented Sansa. Why does Daenerys hate Cersei? Because she’s on the Iron Throne? What else?

Cersei didn’t kill Dany’s father. Nor exile her family. Like it makes sense for Cersei to hate Daenerys…because well she’s Cersei and Daenerys wants to take everything Cersei has clawed and bled and killed for.

But the same level of intensity from Daenerys, just seems empty. I don’t know.

But I do love that it is a battle between these three…but Cesei and Daenerys are too focus on one another, to even really consider Sansa. (Though Daenerys has been noticing her) 

But I’m glad we got to see some scheming and plotting happening.

No Brienne, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

I am curious if Jaime is leaving to kill Cersei or save her (and what he thinks is his unborn child)

She’s going to push Missandei off, isn’t she? I don’t want that.

I have to say, Dany’s dress looks less purposely grey and just like it’s dirty. Which I think is quite telling. Daenerys “savior” mission is becoming less and less about saving people, so the white become dirty.  

Also, Daenerys’ army (I assume that’s not it…I hope), looks just so pathetic and small. And with the Scorpion weapons, how in the hell are they planning to take King’s Landing. I mean without burning it down to the ground, but again that’s a lot harder to do now too.

Qyburn is such an interesting character and a very different kind of creepy.

Tyrion is trying so hard here.

Is he going to trade himself for Missandei…I don’t think Cersei is going to go for that

She’s going to do it, she’s going to push her off…nope

Oh no, last words.

Dracarys

The way she just said it and how it echoed…damn. I honestly thought Drogon was going to well Dracarys everything. But that is very compelling. And just that that echo, I mean just wow.

Greyworm and his face are just killing me.

Oh shit they’re going to behead her.

NO NO NO NO….not Missandei…NO NO NO NO

OMG

Oh no Greyworm, he couldn’t even look. He looks like he’s going to throw up. His one fear came true.

Omg… I do not like this.

I’m going to cry.

Daenerys shaking. That anger. That sadness. The shock. I take it back about Daenerys not having enough reason to hate Cersei with such intensity, they gave her a very good reason (by fridging Missandei in all honesty)

That look. I know I say that a lot. But Daenerys’ angry look is getting better and better and it is fucking dark. You can feel the anger and hatred coming off of her in waves.

And I’m not saying Emilia is ugly, by any means, but it’s not a pretty angry face. Which I love.

She almost stumbles when she first starts to walk away. Like she’s in shock. Which she probably is. She didn’t look away.

Also, it looks like things are going Cersei’s way. She wants Daenerys to be pissed and angry. She clearly wants it. So I have to wonder does she even have a plan? Or is she just planning to go out with a bang and take as many as she can with her.

And that’s the end. 

Promo

It’s very telling and quite interesting to me that we don’t see Daenerys in the promo. I mean we see her at a distance, next to the window (with her hair down…interesting) and on the throne. But that’s it. I mean, that seems to scream to me that we’re going to see some dark fucking shit with her.

I mean they’re building her up in that promo.

 I still think there’s a chance for Jonsa or at least I hope there is one…but it seems less and less likely with every episode. I mean, Sansa does come across as jealous (to me) but I’m not sure if that’s just how I see it or if that’s actually what’s happening.

There’s also the weird “former flame” per episode kind of vibe they have going here. Theon episode 2, Tyrion episode 3, now Sandor episode 4. 

I mean, it’s like they’re cancelling all the pontential romantic partners she could have before she gets to the final one?? I don’t know. It honestly feels like a stretch. But it interesting how poeple jumped on board with Theonsa in episode 2, the Sanrion in episode 3 and maybe Sansan in episode 4....maybe. Their interaction seemed the most final. 

I wish we got to see Sansa and Arya react to the news of who Jon is.

I’m just not as hopeful as I once was for Jonsa ☹

The Last of the Starks

Interesting title…like I hope some people write-up to why they think it’s called this. I can’t think of reason as of right now. 

Other than we saw the last of Starks all together (finally) but for like one scene.

 Maybe that will be the last time we see them all together ever again…that’s fucking sad. But definitely a possibility with the way they’ve been treating the Starks.

Update: I just realized that Arya says that the four of them are The Last of the Starks in the Godswood, before Jon reveals he’s not their sibling. That went over my head.

[lidoshka]

The conspiracy coarkboard

Me: *chilling out with a frozen coffee: @sheithbigmeme: starts Me: fuck that was today??

++++

And to think he started this day looking forward to seeing Keith.

Last movement they got a message from Keith, he needed to cross-reference some information with the castle archives and so he would be making a visit.

Ever since Keith left for the blades, there have been an empty space around the castle where Keith used to be, conversations where Lance of Pidge stopped for a second waiting for a witty or sarcastic remark that never came, people not using the training room at certain hours because those hours used to be Keith’s.

In Shiro’s case, the absence felt worse, there was a piece inside himself that was missing and he suspected he’d not feel whole again until he had Keith in front of him again. Shiro felt this lack of Keith every minute. He felt the loss when he was turning to his right and not finding his confidante, in the sleepless nights spent in the observatory without someone to talk to, and in the missing warm hand on his shoulder.

So when Keith’s ship landed and he immediately locked himself in one of the private rooms on the library with strict instructions not to be disturbed, Shiro was more than disappointed. He had so many things to say to Keith, so much of his feelings to confess...

In hindsight, he should have suspected Keith and his knack for throwing curveballs at him and his plans.

Keith showed in his room in the middle of the night cycle, for a few seconds Shiro thought he was dreaming, but his dreams had never been able to make justice to the beauty that was Keith.

“Keith!" he said as he jumped from the bed. “You’re here.”

“I’m here” god, his voice was deeper now.  He was still dressed in his blade uniform, allowing Shiro to see Keith’s lean musculature, “I have so much to tell you” Keith whispered.

God, having Keith's purple eyes on him made his heart beat faster.

“Me too” he said, happy that for once his dreams and his desires where in alignment.

“Not here”, said Keith as he took a step backwards and away from Shiro's arm, “someone can hear us”

“Then where? “

"Come” said Keith as he grabbed Shiro’s hand and pulled him into the hallway, away from the sleeping quarters and then all the way up to the Black Lion’s hangar.

“Here? Are you sure?” While he had thought about having an intimate moment together locked away in the lion’s cockpit once or twice he hand never actually dared imagine a scenario, it felt a little disrespectful since the lions have self-awareness.

“It’s the perfect place, no one can find us here.” Keith said as Black lowered her jaw.

“God Keith, are we making out or hiding a body" he joked, but the look Keith gave him was so dark that he aborted his laugh.

Keith dragged Shiro up the lion’s mouth and into the storage room and Shiro really wished he had stayed asleep.

Back on earth, Keith had a board with all the information he gathered about the energy readings and the blue lion. It had photos and newspaper clips and post it notes and even treads of yarn all over. Lance and Pidge called it a conspiracy board, and Shiro agreed with them, even though back then he was quite impressed with it. A visual aid to help him understand everything Keith had done and seen while Shiro was imprisoned. How Keith had cut newspaper articles that doubted the Garrisson’s stance about “pilot error” and how he mapped entire areas of the Arizona dessert. It was a fond memory for Shiro.

Now? Not so much.

“Keith, what’s all this?” he asked as he stared at Keith’s work. There were photos of Shiro –actual photos printed in paper- oh Shiro’s undercut and some closeups of Shiro’s eyes.

Meanwhile Keith was looking at him with an odd expression as he gripped his hands, “listen to me," he started, "this is something important that might change the way you see things," why was Keith talking like he was a nurse talking to a terminal patient?  "but I want you to know I’m going to help you and it’s going to be alright”

It was a conspiracy board.

About him.

And somehow Keith even got red yarn to string around the many colored papers; he couldn’t read the papers fully, but a few of them had a bigger font and said things like “Prosopagnosia,” “common signs of Capgras delusion,” “Systemic pH Changes and possible changes in Human Brain patterns” and “behavior altering parasites”  “you didn’t answer my question” he heard himself whisper.

“You’re not him” Keith said as he stared right at him, “you’re not Shiro. My Shiro”

“Excuse me?”

“I think Shiro’s body disintegrated in the battle against Zarkon, and you’re what’s left of his subconscious.”

“I’m- what? Keith, what are you talking about?” Shiro shook his head. There was a black hole in his stomach at it was becoming denser. What in the world? was this a prank? had Keith finally reached the limit of hours without sleep? this was not how he imagined a lover's getaway.

Apparently asking was all Keith needed and he took off. What followed was a 40-minute presentation about how the current Black paladin couldn’t be the same person who left for Kerberos. It ranged between how Shiro’s eyelashes were a different shape, how Shiro’s hair when he was captured had been way too long in contrast to the time he had been missing, how his scars had been removed –even though they had all assumed the glara has placed Shiro in some form of healing pod— and how his current demeanor was different that how Shiro used to behave.

“You must have noticed something odd” Keith said.

Right. Because that’s the logical hypothesis to make when you’re missing time.

“And you think this all points to me being a spy—“

“A sleeper agent: a spy knows what’s going on and is actively deceiving people around him and you don’t have the lying skills necessary to be spy. You’re a decoy to stops us from looking for the real Shiro at best, or a sleeper agent at worst.” Keith said and he leaned forwards, squinting at Shiro’s eyes, “do you hear other voices inside your head beside your own?"

“What? No I—"

“Do you have blackout periods during the day?”

“N—I—sometimes…”

“Aha.” There was a tilt on inflection on Keith’s voice, like Shiro’s lapses were suddenly the last evidence he need to confirm this… whatever it was.

Then Keith continued with the next section of his board, in which he addressed how the black lion had been hesitant to take him back, how the lights of the cockpit weren’t as bright as before and how silent Black had been recently.

And now Shiro was beginning to have his doubts, because while he could excuse Keith’s rambling as stress and maybe a lack of sleep, he had felt that hesitance in the black lion. Every time he moved the controls he felt a resistance that was impossible to ignore, like Black was reluctant to work with him but had to.

It made him feel inadequate. Like he had come back with something missing.

Shiro took a deep breath and let it go slowly, then he took another one.

“Ok,” said Shiro as he lifted his hands and pulled at his hair. “Ok, say you are right about” he waved his left hand at the board, “all this. But I’m still standing here, so if I’m not Shiro, then who am I? and where’s the ‘real’ Shiro?”

And the lion’s lights turned brighter. Now he could feel it too. It was Shiro, or something that felt like Shiro, permeating the whole room.

And Shiro –can he even call himself that?—began to cry.

Keith paused mid-explanation about how he suspected his arm—Shiro’s arm had been used to clone a body (god only know why the galra wanted that) to look at him.

“Hey… hey,” Keith said as he kneeled in from of him and cupped his faced between his hands, “just because you’re not the original Shiro doesn’t mean you’re not him, or at least a part of him.”

And then Keith kissed him.

“I love you, I love ever part of you two.” Keith smiled at him, the same soft smile he remembered, even though he had just spent the last hour twisting everything he knew and his sense of self. “Don’t worry, we will figure it out. I’ll help you find any of your missing parts.”

Really what else was there to do but dumbly nod?

 ---

Notes: I have no idea how people write humor without somehow ending up with something halfway serious, but suddenly I have more respect for every author out there.

:P

[velkynkarma]

April Fool's Prompt: would you ever write smol!Slav

A smol request? Only for you, onions. Only for you. (For the 2018 April Fools Prompt Day)

———

There’s an enormous, thundering crash from the adjacent room, followed by a high-pitched squeal of surprise. Shiro groans as he looks around, and sure enough, his charge has disappeared again.

But not for long. Five ticks later, something comes skittering out of the room on his right, surprisingly fast for its small size. The slinky creature scuttles on multiple legs and makes a beeline straight for Shiro’s foot.

In any other situation Shiro might think it was some sort of giant alien space-bug, and reacted accordingly. He knows better now, though. He resigns himself to his fate as the creature reaches his boot, claws its way up his pant-leg like a particularly insistent kitten, slithers across his back, and comes to rest curled around his neck.

“What did you do?” Shiro asks sternly, once Slav is safely situated over his shoulders again.

“I didn’t!” Slav—a much, much tinier Slav—squeaks in a much more high pitched voice than usual. “It fell. It wasn’t safe at all.”

Shiro sighs in exasperation. They still have no idea why Slav appears to have gotten so tiny, or so much younger. Coran says Slav certainly looks like a young bytor, and not just an adult that was shrunk. Based on his behavior he acts a lot younger, too.

But nobody knows how it happened. The Olkari reported heading for Slav’s lab to check in on the status of a project, only to find the engineer much, much smaller, and cowering away in the corner. He’d howled whenever any of the Olkari came near him, and the paladins—more specifically, Shiro—had been called in to fish him out.

The Olkari are working with Coran, Hunk and Pidge to try and reverse-engineer the instruments in Slav’s lab to figure out what happened. But in the meantime, they—more specifically Shiro, once again—are stuck with a much younger Slav until the situation can be remedied.

And if Slav was a handful as an adult, he’s nearly impossible as a child.

Shiro sighs. “What were you doing to make it fall?” he clarifies, as he pokes his head into the room. It’s one of the project rooms, where Pidge and Hunk frequently fiddle around in their spare time for useful enhancements, or just for fun. Some sort of device is now tipped over on its side on the floor, and parts are scattered everywhere. He winces despite himself. They aren’t going to be happy about that.

Slav hesitates. Shiro can feel him trembling, just slightly, against his neck. “I just wanted to see how it worked,” he whines, after a moment. “I could improve it. I bet it’s not efficient.”

That’s the problem with a younger Slav, really. Even young as he is, it’s clear his intelligence is still through the roof, and his vocabulary and basic understanding of science are exceptional. Unlike his adult counterpart, he’s still got the wildly curious nature of a child, and an inherent desire to get into and take apart absolutely everything—only to inevitably scare himself when it goes wrong.

“That’s not for you to take apart,” Shiro scolds. “You need to ask, first.”

“I could make it better, though,” Slav insists, stubbornly.

“Well, we’re not going to do that without asking,” Shiro says. “But you can talk to Pidge and Hunk later about your, uh…improvements. Maybe they’ll listen.”

He steps forward to at least clean up the mess and put the device upright again. But the moment he does, little Slav screeches directly in his ear, and digs all four sets of tiny hands into Shiro’s neck. He’s never been so grateful for his undercut, or he’s sure Slav would be pulling at fistfuls of hair. “No! Don’t go near it! It’s dangerous!”

“Ow! Stop that!” Shiro reaches around by feel and manages to find the scruff of Slav’s neck, plucking him—carefully, with his left hand—from his shoulder. Little Slav almost automatically curls like a pillbug, stubby little tail twirling into his multiple arms. “We talked about that. That’s not nice.”

Little Slav only looks the tiniest bit contrite. Most of him seems more concerned with checking how close to the device they are. “It fell! It tried to kill me! That means it’s dangerous. There’s a chance that it could still be dangerous!”

Little Slav hasn’t quite graduated to estimating by percentages exactly what the danger level is, nor has he rambled about realities—those must be things that he’ll develop later—but he is still a nervous little thing, when his excitement and curiosity don’t get the better of him. Shiro sighs. “Okay. Fine. We’ll leave it for now. But you ask first, next time, got it?”

Slav nods.

Shiro doesn’t expect much to come of it. The next time a distraction comes up, this will happen all over again. They haven’t even had Slav for a full quintent yet and he’s already gotten into more trouble than Shiro thought possible.

He’s already completely disassembled one of Coran’s handheld monitors, a holopad, the spare controller for the Mercury Gameflux II, and the food goo machine. The last had resulted in a complete mess in the kitchen, but when Slav had learned a bath was involved—in water—he’d fled into the Castle’s ventilation system. Then he’d gotten stuck, and squealed until even the mice had complained, and Pidge had been forced to crawl into the ducts to find him and haul him out. Figuring out how to clean the dust and the food goo off of him without submerging him in a tub (or, at his size, a big bowl) of water had been a veritable nightmare, and even cleaning him up with a wet facecloth had resulted in him screeching about everyone trying to drown him for the duration.

Keeping him still would be ideal, but activities that would keep most children occupied for hours don’t seem to interest him. Lance’s idea of hide and seek had turned out to be terrible—Slav had squeezed himself into a cabinet of tools, gotten stuck, and screamed bloody murder until Allura had found the codes to let him out.

“At least he was easy to find?” Lance offers sheepishly. But while not wrong, he’s banned from further babysitting. Which is a pity, because in any other situation, it would be easy to foist off most kids on Lance.

Movies don’t work either. Slav is indifferent to most cartoons, having little interest in animated animals from a planet he doesn’t know anything about, and bored with the songs characters burst into every twenty minutes. When they try other classics, he complains.

“The science is fundamentally unsound,” he squeaks, in the middle of Star Wars. “That doesn’t make sense. Hover technology doesn’t work that way!” He whines and complains through all of it, fidgeting incessantly, until Shiro finally gives up on that route—mostly to save Slav before somebody murders him for insulting a classic.

Coloring works, sort of. They find crayon equivalents in the Castle of Lions, and settle Slav down at a table to play. The crayons are half as big as he is, and take three sets of arms for him to use, but he draws happily, for a little while at least. Until Shiro eventually realizes it’s not a drawing of his favorite animals or people he likes or anything else kids normally draw. Instead it’s a surprisingly technical document detailing the schematics of some sort of machine, measured and labeled in meticulously precise detail.

“I think it would actually work,” Hunk says, bemused, when he sees the drawing. “Although I…don’t actually know what it does.”

“Should we put it on the refrigerator?” Lance asks, scratching his head.

But not even drawing keeps little Slav’s attention for long, and eventually he gets antsy. And starts disappearing on them, when his curiosity gets the better of him—only to come running shortly thereafter, when he realizes whatever he found is actually pretty scary. And considering how tiny he is compared to everything on the Castle of Lions, most things turn out to be pretty scary.

At least Shiro can sort of keep track of him. He’s not sure Slav actually remembers him from Beta Traz, but he does seem to trust Shiro over the others. More importantly, Shiro is the tallest person there. And when Slav gets scared, he climbs the tallest thing, where he’s safe. Which, most of the time, is Shiro, so he’s fairly easy to keep track of.

(A few times it’s not Shiro. It’s shelves, or crates, or on one occasion, one of the Lions. Once he gets up, he can’t get down, not unlike a kitten, and he wails until someone comes to get him down. Shiro’s almost glad it’s him most of the time; it saves everyone the hassle).

Like now. With a sigh, Shiro settles Slav back down on his shoulder, where the little engineer immediately sidles up to his neck again and curls around it as much he’s able. Adult Slav is long enough to curl over Shiro’s shoulders and around his torso like a python, but little Slav can’t even wrap fully around his neck from tip to tail. He’s still shaking a little, which guarantees he’ll stick with Shiro for at least ten doboshes or so. Until he forgets why he was scared and gets distracted, anyway.

Shiro needs to figure out something to keep him from getting distracted. Slav’s so small—annoying as he is, quite a few things on the ship could hurt him, and at some point he’s going to get himself into real trouble. “What do you want to do instead of that?” he asks, as he leaves the project room and closes the door behind him.

(A closed door won’t do all that much, unfortunately, not if Slav really wants to get in. He can squeeze into far too many place for his own good. But Shiro needs to at least make an effort).

“Experiments,” Slav says promptly.

Shiro blinks. “Experiments?”

“For science,” Slav says, and his high pitched little voice seems to get higher with excitement. “You can do all kinds of things with science. But you have to experiment to figure out how to do them.”

“What kind of experiments?” Shiro asks, cautiously.

“Building things!” Slav says. He slithers across to Shiro’s other shoulder in excitement. “Like a machine that can make you invisible. Or like your robot arm!”

Shiro rolls his eyes. Slav’s fascination with his arm has continued even as a child, although Shiro has to admit it probably is pretty cool from a kid’s perspective…provided they aren’t trying to pull it apart to see how it works. Which little Slav had already tried. Twice.

But this could be something he could work with. “Or the thing you drew earlier? What would you need to build things like that?”

“Yes!” Slav rattles off a number of tools and parts excitedly. It doesn’t sound terribly complex, and it might keep him occupied for a little while. Shiro considers, but eventually detours to a different project room. Slav seems curious and seriously ready to clamber down off of Shiro’s shoulders to explore, until a machine in the far corner makes a loud bang, and he presses close to Shiro’s neck again with a screech of surprise.

“It’s okay,” Shiro promises. “And we won’t stay. Just getting your, uh, supplies for your experiment, and then we can go back to the lounge. How does that sound?”

“Acceptable,” little Slav says. “But hurry. There’s a high chance that things get more scary the more we’re here.”

Shiro doesn’t waste any time, mostly because Slav is apt to forget why he’s scared if they stick around long enough for him to get used to the noise, and then Shiro will have to find him again. He grabs a hover tray and a box, and fills it full of tools, screws, interlocking metal pieces, and other bits and bobs when Slav points and says, “That, too!” Once he’s done, he takes the whole mess and pulls it back to the lounge, where he dumps it carefully over a table.

“There,” Shiro says. “Is that enough?”

“Yes!” Slav says. He sounds positively delighted, and swarms down Shiro’s arm like an excitable ferret, diving into the mess of parts. Shiro’s never seen his adult counterpart seem so enthusiastic. Even building the things he’s known for, like his gravity generator, seemed to bring  a sense of accomplishment, but never this level of outright wonder. It’s almost endearing—if one can forget Slav’s numerous eccentricities and bad habits.

Shiro is surprised to find his last-ditch effort actually works. Slav seems enormously content working on…whatever it is he’s working on…screwing things together, dragging things around, measuring and reorganizing. On occasion he’ll demand Shiro’s assistance with a wrench that’s too big for him, or instruct Shiro to weld two pieces together with his ‘robot arm,’ which mostly consists of pinching two bits of metal together and lighting up for a few seconds. He’s a bossy little taskmaster, but it’s still infinitely preferable to him disappearing, or getting himself stuck somewhere and screeching until somebody gives him attention.

In the end, two and a half vargas later, he’s built a…a something. Shiro’s not really sure what it is. It resembles the thing Slav had drawn, but like Hunk said, it doesn’t appear to have any practical purpose. It has a few moving parts that click and hum in a not unpleasant way, and it’s maybe as long as Shiro’s forearm, but that’s about all that can be said for it.

Slav seems pleased with his work, though. He preens as he crawls all over it, and gives Shiro a superior look. “It’s complete!” he says excitedly. “My experiment is a success.”

“It’s…very nice,” Shiro says, for lack of anything else to say.

“Because I made it,” Slav says, with his usual lack of tact, only amplified by his much younger age. Then he yawns. Apparently having worn himself out with all his science…ing…he scuttles over to Shiro’s Galra hand on the table, pushes it over so that it faces upward, and curls up in the palm.

“Wait,” Shiro says, “that’s not—“

But it’s useless. Little Slav, worn out by his very exciting day, is already fast asleep in Shiro’s hand.

“That can’t even be comfortable,” Shiro says, mildly exasperated. His hand is metal. Surely Slav would be more comfortable on something softer.

But little Slav seems content enough where he is. Two sets of hands are wrapped around Shiro’s metal thumb, not unlike a child hugging a stuffed animal close. The rest of his little hands curl close to his body. He’s just slightly too big for Shiro’s hand, and his tail and back legs flop awkwardly between Shiro’s other fingers.

It doesn’t look comfortable, but Slav is already snoring, and Shiro doesn’t want to risk waking him now. Little Slav is a terror by himself. A cranky little Slav would be infinitely worse. He supposes Slav can stay put, for now.

…Although that means Shiro is also stuck where he is. If he moves, Slav will surely wake.

He sighs. It’s going to be a long quintent.

[askmerriauthor]

Hey, I got to see Avengers: Infinity War on company time ‘cause my job was nice enough to buy the staff tickets.  This movie has given me... feelings.  Major spoilers ahead, so hit the jump below to read my thoughts on the matter.

Man, what a boring disappointment of a movie.

I’ve really been digging the last handful of Marvel films for their overall quality, especially where the characterization and banter are concerned.  Both Captain America movies?  Dug ‘em.  All the Thor movies?  Man, I could watch Hemsworth doing prat-falls getting hit by cars all day long and never tire of it.  First Guardians of the Galaxy was great, though number two had missteps.  Ant-Man was a fucking delight from start to finish.  Spider-Man: Homecoming was pitch perfect.  Black Panther has the best villain of the entire MCU thus far.  On the other hand, the Avengers movies were a bit clunky by comparison but were overall enjoyable with some great character moments.  They served to temper expectations about what big group-event films in the MCU are like.  So my gripes on Infinity War is not out of some kind of beef with Marvel/Disney, nor is it out of overblown hype.

With that in mind, Infinity War was incredibly dull as a film.  The bulk of the movie is divided into fight scene after fight scene (to the point that they actually cut away from one massive fight to peek in on another concurrent massive fight), introducing characters to one another (generally via fight scene), or Thanos getting “character building scenes” (immediately before or directly in the middle of a fight scene).

One thing I love most about the Marvel movies is the character interaction.  It’s why these cinematic versions are so beloved by the fandom, why there’s so much creativity spawned around them - they have chemistry and interesting relationships with each other.  A:IW has precious little of that at all.  The lion’s share of character interaction goes to Vision/Wanda and Thanos/The Scenery, and not in a good way.  Each of these two relationship elements are only present to build up a false sense of drama that falls flat in the end.  Though there is one particular scene between Rocket Racoon and Thor (yeah, who saw that one coming?) where the two have a heartfelt conversation that Hemsworth just knocks out of the park.  That moment of Thor recounting just how much he’s lost and it being clear how much agony it’s causing him behind a cocky grin is the kind of characterization I adore in these movies.  Vision and Wanda being melodramatic about a plot point that is clearly never going to go anywhere in the film is not appealing at all.  Their entire story thread from start to finish across the film is Vision wanting Wanda to destroy the Mind Gem (and thus kill him) to prevent Thanos from getting it, and the emotional roller coaster that entails since the two are now in love.  Except that entire concept is a total non-starter, doesn’t go anywhere, and ultimately amounts to nothing at all.  It’s just a waste of time that eats up writing and screen time that could have been put to better use elsewhere.

Onto the villain: I could not give two flying flips about Thanos.  I will fully admit that a part of this is that I personally loathe the cliche “nature is out of balance, I must purge life to restore it” villain trope.  That does play a big part in my dislike here.  But setting that aside, he’s just a terribly dull character with feeble motivations and justifications for his actions.  There’s a major dissonance between what he does and how it’s presented to the audience.  While the movie does give a one-line bit of lip service to him being insane and misguided, it’s never fully addressed as a defining aspect of his character throughout the movie.  The comics put a major emphasis on the fact that Thanos, for all his scheming and intelligence, is coo-coo bananas.  He’s called the “Mad Titan” for a reason.  The movie fails to put a light on that fact and it makes Thanos feel like a flat character since all we really get is him just blankly marching toward his end goal the entire film.  He has no arc or development and is wholly unsympathetic no matter how many times the movie takes us aside with him in solitary, artsy moments and yells “LOOK AT ALL THIS PATHOS” in our faces.

Thanos’ entire villain scheme is that he wants to destroy 50% of all intelligent life forms in existence in order to bring a balance to the universe.  He directly states that the universe’ resources are finite and that life allowed to grow unchecked will snuff itself out by over-consuming these precious few resources.  So his solution - which he has been practicing on a planet-to-planet basis for decades by the point the movie takes place - is to divide a world’s population in half.  50% is murdered on the spot while the other 50% lives, purely based on whoever happens to be standing on the left or right.  It is explicitly described by Thanos as being totally random who lives and who dies so as to be “fair”.  His win-scenario is that the species of whatever world he 50% Genocides thrives in the wake of the purge because they now have a more controllable population size - nothing else beyond that.

So... I mean, right out the gate, that’s the stupidest damn thing possible.  It’s not like he’s going to each of these worlds and carefully examining the state of conditions, then deciding they need to be culled because of their abuse of their resources.  He’s just doing it willy nilly without any justification as to whether such a culling is actually necessary or whether it would even be beneficial to the world in question.  I mean, hey, how can openly slaughtering 50% of a world’s population at random possibly be a bad thing?  Surely that won’t throw their entire society and culture into a death spiral, right?  It’s how he picked up his adopted children - Gamora in particular.  While he was busy murdering 50% of her world, he just sort of kidnaps her because... uh... because he wants to, I guess.  He literally just walks up to her in the middle of wrecking her world and decides he arbitrarily wants to take this one tiny green girl with him for no apparent reason whatsoever.  So, hey, way to undercut your own practice there, Thanos.  50% of the population dies with it being completely random and fair... unless I happen to fancy taking a souvenir, apparently.

The movie beats us over the head with the idea that Thanos is in turmoil because of his mission to balance the universe.  That it is a massive strain on his soul, that only he has the willpower to endure what he sees as a necessary culling.  Not a “necessary evil”, mind you - he never views his actions as being morally wrong.  Just difficult.  But, y’know... it’s kind of hard for me to sympathize with a character introduced to us as being an omnicidal maniac who has built a fanatical cult of personality around himself and callously murders literally trillions of people.  Especially so since, as cannot be overlooked: HE’S DOING IT ALL BY HIS OWN CHOICE.  The whole universal culling this is entirely his idea and pet project, so he is completely responsible for whatever so-called internal suffering the movie is trying to make us feel for him.

This whole affair becomes especially annoying when Thanos acquires the Soul Gem.  There’s a little test he has to perform to get it - he must sacrifice the one thing he loves most.  It turns out this is Gamora, aforementioned adopted/kidnapped daughter.  He has a moment of realization, cries stoic tears, and murders her by throwing her off a several-hundred foot tall cliff to that he can get the gem.  He then spends the rest of the film with the fact that his choice is emotionally wrecking him inside, that he’s grieving and saddened, that his quest has taken everything from him and--

Y’KNOW, YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO THROW HER OFF THE DAMN CLIFF, RIGHT?  NOBODY WAS FORCING YOU TO DO THAT.

Gah, this entire character angle just pisses me off because of how inane it is.  “You must give up the thing you love”.  Thanos, you smug bitch, you kidnapped a girl at random while in the process of murdering everyone she knows and loves, then spent the next 20 years putting her through an endless array of physical, mental, and emotional abuse to try and shape her into one of your fanatical Thanos-worshipping minions.  IN THIS VERY SAME MOVIE you tricked Gamora into thinking she brutally killed you just to see if she’d feel bad about it afterward, then literally dismembered her sister before her eyes to force information out of her.  Then, y’know, you murdered Gamora herself.

YOU DON’T FUCKIN’ LOVE HER.  THAT IS NOT LOVE.  I don’t care how many melodramatic “single tear down the cheek” moments you have - there is absolutely nothing about this character or his established, presented backstory that gives even the slightest hint he cared about Gamora beyond her ability to serve him as a tool.  If the Soul Gem was really supposed to be using this “sacrifice your love” test as a measure of who gets to take it, then Thanos should have just failed flat-out.  Even if one tries to argue something like “Oh, well, it was genuine love in Thanos’ twisted perspective”, that doesn’t matter.  The Infinity Gems - especially the Soul Gem - are presented as being semi-aware and capable of making decisions as to who they want to serve.  So it’s not Thanos’ call as to whether or not Gamora is the thing he loves, but the Soul Gem’s.  But it works because we need to get to the next fight scene but quick, so off we go!

The final climax point of the movie is right after Thanos finally gets all the gems and snaps his fingers.  He wins.  In that instant, 50% of all intelligent beings in the universe just sort of go away.  They don’t really die, per say, but rather just poof out existence.  Effectively dead but maybe not specifically so?  It isn’t explained.  So we get this lengthy montage of main characters going poof into particle-effect clouds one by one, with how abrupt or extended the disintegration is depending on whether or not the writers wanted to give them a dramatic final speech.  Oh, how sad.  How very sad.  Boo hoo.  My eye-rolling on this point isn’t because of the meta-awareness of me knowing Marvel isn’t going to purge its main character roster because money.  Rather, it’s because the movie itself takes a moment to pull us aside and assure us that literally NONE OF THIS MATTERS AT ALL.

During an earlier point in the film. Dr. Strange takes a moment of meditation and uses the Time Gem to peer into the future.  He looks at millions of potential futures and says that they only beat Thanos and win the day in one of those probabilities.  It’s done in a way that seems to impress upon the audience just how hopeless this whole effort seems, but it’s a blatant Chekhov’s Gun moment since Dr. Strange acts extremely out of character with his decisions from that point on.  He surrenders to Thanos and, right before dying himself, looks at Tony (and almost directly into the camera) to assure everyone that “this is the only way”.  Whiiiiiiich very blatantly means that his out of character decisions were actually intentionally made to set up the one lone “we somehow manage to win” future he saw.  Because HE SAW HOW TO DO IT BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE TIME GEM DOES so literally NOTHING that happens beyond that midway point in the film matters because it’s all predetermined to end up well for the heroes.  Which, right along with the “kill everyone to restore balance” trope, is another of my hated cliches because IT’S SO DAMN LAZY.

That’s really what this boils down to for me.  A:IW is lazy.  It’s all flash and fluff without anything really satisfying under all the sparkly varnish.  There’s no genuine substance to it.  Just a few faux plot concepts that are dressed up to look like they’ve got weight, but just end up being hollow.

Also... Thanos?  Buddy?  If your whole bit is that the universe has finite resources and there’s too many mouths to feed, why not just use your newly-acquired phenomenal cosmic powers to make more resources?  I mean, if you can literally snap your fingers and cause an unimaginable volume of matter (ie, people across the universe) to just spontaneously stop existing, why not just make the universe bigger and fuller for everyone’s benefit?  That maybe might go over better with the crowds, y’know?

[ellipsesarefun]

it’s just like any other day, really.

FOR @hoetabekaltin for @otayuriwcgiftexchange !!!! :D

A/N: Just casual talking and some otayuri. This is kinda my first fluff? haven’t written in a while.. but I had fun writing this, so I do hope you have fun for a short? haha (I really hope it’s to your liking <3)

Fresh summer air and warm sun kisses on a long break is one of those days that Otabek looks forward to. Sure, he's still rearranging his notes from his classes in color-coded pens, but he's not in a rush. He's thoroughly enjoying his learning despite the cold small texts and the mindless terminology and his spirits are lifted further with Yuri by his side.

Yuri. His friend.

Almost everyone knows that one blond and green-eyed beauty who flaunts a scowl at almost everyone but has a soft spot for animals and some certain special people in his life, like his grandfather (and Otabek but that would be too much of a stretch). He was supposed to be working by the cashier today but, as usual, decides to skip altogether just to study (laze around). He even gets away with it by flirting with (threatening at) their coworker to cover for him (not that he's jealous or anything; just saying).

And so here he is, tending to his lecture notes while listening to Yuri's rambling on some old bald guy (his brother) and some pork cutlet bowl insanity (his brother's boyfriend) and their crazy shenanigans (it's only just his brother buying flowers for his boyfriend; nothing special) and how wrapped up this old bald guy is into pork cutlet bowls (he doesn't want to know what that means). Some part of him indulges the thought of Yuri actually wanting that kind of intimacy his brother's love life has. That train of thought only continues to choices he's uncertain to make. But suddenly, fuck it. It's a lucky day and he's in a good mood to shut Yuri up.

It's only when he interrupts with, "I could do anything for you, Yuri." as casual as possible that it jolts him Yuri to a stop. Otabek looks up from his readings and he swears that Yuri might have some magic to look deep into his soul and is catching on to what he's planning. But that's a stretch.

"So you'll give me anything I asked for?" Yuri prompts, taking a seat. There's a twinkle in his jaded eyes, yet Otabek ignores it and casually takes another bite of his sandwich without leaving his focus away from his textbook. Whatever he’s thinking isn’t going to hurt him. This is a game they’ve played for awhile and Otabek has lost several times to know anything better.

"Sure, whatever you ask for." He repeats, waving a hand at the blond before tousling his undercut, "Give me your best shot." A stillness lapses between them and Otabek pays no heed of the chatter from the people around him. His obsidian eyes run along the paragraphs, while his hand notes down the key details.

"I want a lion." Yuri says, shuffling closer. Pssh. Easy. Otabek stays rooted to his posture, not once lifting his head. Yuri has to try much harder than that. It’s not everyday for him to feel as though he has the upper hand.

"A real lion." He emphasizes, twirling his blond locks, "That I can see with my own two eyes." He pauses, trying and failing for a dramatic effect. He was answered with a flip of a page, a sip from the cup, and a nod of his head. Yuri really isn’t trying that hard at all.

"Done." Otabek replies a minute and another turn of a page later. Somehow his lack of reaction goads his crush into frustration once more as he hears Yuri puff out a breath before speaking again.

"If I die young, I want you to bury me with knives." He says, careening his head forward in search of an obvious reaction. If he could laugh out loud, he would. But then he’d lose. He has to keep this up for three or four minutes before Yuri shifts his attention to something else. Maybe a bribe of some sort would be a rewarding gift for his victory.

"Alright. I have a collection. I can prepare a will for you if you want." Otabek replies in that same monotone, and even from his perfect dark eyebrows, he hopes that Yuri can't know whether or not he was joking.

“How about throwing my brother and his stupid pork cutlet bowl into the lake?” Yuri sidles closer to the point his vanilla scent reaches Otabek’s nostrils. The urge to plant his lips onto his is strong but he steels himself against it, knowing that the action itself would ruin whatever they have.

“You’re not trying very hard, are you?” Otabek asks and his absolutely certain that the capricious glint scintillates once more in those gorgeous irises.

“That’s because I have another agenda in mind.” He’s grateful for his strong resistance against the charms of Yuri Plisetsky. He could stop everything and take a silver lining of a chance his best friend is seemingly throwing at him but again, where is the fun in that?

“And what agenda would that be?” Otabek keeps the charade instead, maintaining his gaze on his text and jotting down the notes he’s already familiar with so as not to arouse suspicion that he isn’t studying at all.

“Oh you know.” He doesn’t even have to look up to know Yuri is now looking at his nails, “Something that can fuck up that impenetrable stoic mask you fucking put up with all the time.”

He guffaws, straightening his back but keeps his head low enough to read the text (and avoid Yuri’s sultry gaze). Ah, Yuri and his colorful words, “I doubt there’s anything that would-” he says, but his words were silenced by a heated gaze that can bend the will of an emperor and soft skin that met his lips.

It barely lingered, however, for all that remained was gone in a second and Otabek was back to his textbook and Yuri... Yuri was beside him like it’s just an ordinary day and a kiss was just simply a kiss to fuck up that impenetrable stoic mask Otabek fucking wears all the time. And it worked. An unexpected agenda planned by none other Yuri Plisetsky.

Well.

“We could go on a date.” Otabek says after a minute of staring at the word “membrane potential”. What are membrane potentials again?

“Yea?” He flips a page. Nothing comes to mind but kisses, kisses, and more chocolate kisses. Because casually asking someone on a date--Yuri Plisetsky no less (how many times has he said his name again?) is just like discussing the genetic expression of a certain cell organ after three dreaded hours of lab work.

“Yea.” Otabek confirms as he scribbles three more bullet points about some certain topic he’s supposed to remember (membrane potentials or genetic expressions of mice uterus? what?). It’s in perfect cursive though he’s not sure if he really wrote that (too blinded from the kiss, he supposes).

“No flowers.” At this rate, he has no will to write anything more than a bunch of shit he’s memorized but he keeps his eyes away from Yuri still.

“Flowers are pretty but not practical and can wilt. Unless you want it pressed and preserved.” And at this rate, he’s going to end up rambling about this in case Yuri’s turned off by his smart-assery.

But the blond says,“I like your thinking.” Otabek hears a pause and he already has figured out the next sentence, “But I want something edgy.”

“The amusement park? A ride on my bike to the beach?” He can no longer fight his own smile as he finally looks up at his gorgeous lab-partner-friend-something-more. He’s rewarded with a shit eating grin that totally says everything and more.

“Maybe.” Yuri says, slightly closing the gap and pressing his forehead against his, eyes gleaming, “If we hold hands and make out under the sunset, yea, I’m in.”

Otabek smiles, “Deal.”

Other prompts used:

1. “I want a lion”

2. “If I die young, bury me with knives.”

[ptw30]

Ficlet: A Secret to Share

Summary: Shiro kept a secret from Keith - but it just might save his life. 

A/N: Quickly written to satisfy my burning need for a resolution to the Kuron issues. Btw, if Voltron is going the route of clones and alternate dimension, I can have this.

Keith sat down in the Black Lion’s pilot seat, closing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh. The team was coming along, but he wanted – needed – Shiro back. And Red had located Keith before. Why hadn’t Black gone after Shiro – wherever he was.

Keith curled his hands about the Black Lion’s controls and murmured, “Help me. Please. Tell me how to find him.”

The Black Lion growled to life, but when Keith opened his eyes, he no longer sat in the pilot’s seat but stood to the right of it, where he always stood when near Shiro. Shiro sat in Black’s chair, and for a moment, Keith’s breath caught in his chest. Shiro was here? Shiro was back? But when he lurched forward, his hand swiped right through Shiro’s shoulder, like how the Black Lion phased through solid objects.

So Shiro wasn’t really there? Was this a memory?

Shiro looked terrible, hand covering his face, clenching fingers dipping into his white bangs. Before Keith could ask Black what was wrong, Shiro sat up. His head tipped back against the rest and showed Keith how upset his best friend was.

When he spoke, his broken voice rose no longer than a whisper. Tears shimmered on his eyelashes. “Black – please. If something happens to me, you – you have to tell him for me. I – I can’t. He’ll – He’ll think – He won’t understand. He’ll hate me for keeping this from him, and he won’t understand why. He doesn’t know just how much he means to me, and – and I can’t lose him.” 

The lion snarled and grumbled. He was not happy and relayed his thoughts, that Keith wouldn’t hold it against Shiro. That he’d understand and accept Shiro, despite his personal transgressions.

But Shiro shook his head, tears slipping down his cheeks. “He’ll doubt everything, and he’s already lost so much. We both have. He’s – he’s my family, Black. My only family. I can’t lose him, too.”

Black snapped his head up, jerking Shiro in his seat in a playful reprimand. Keith wasn’t his only family, not anymore.

Shiro laughed and rubbed Black’s console. “Yes, thank you, Black. You’re right. we’re no longer alone, but – I can’t perform my duty if I die. And Keith’s going to need someone to guide him, to tell him who he truly is.”

Black whined. He’d do it – only because Shiro was a coward.

Shiro laughed again, and Keith reveled in the joyous sound. He missed it so much.

“I must be strong for the others, for Keith.” Shiro eventually sighed. “Let me have this, Black.”

Begrudgingly, Black granted his request.

All too soon, Keith found himself back in the pilot seat, fingers hanging loosely over the controls, but Keith closed his eyes again, reaching out through his bond with the lion. “Show me, Black.” Maybe he’d get to see Shiro again. “Show me what Shiro wanted you to.”

The gut-wrenching images flashed before his eyes, one after one, the story of his past finally coming to light. By the end, he gasped and slammed back against the chair, chest heaving as if he’d just broken the water’s surface. The tears came unwillingly but flowed as he tugged his legs onto the seat and curled inward.

Like Shiro had wanted, he reached out instinctively to Red and Black for comfort.

The Castle of Lions picked up a distress signal from the remains of the Galran home world, and Shiro debated not answering it.

“It has to be a trap,” he warned, and though Keith agreed, it didn’t sit well with him that Shiro didn’t want to check it out.

Allura, thankfully, agreed with him. “We cannot ignore anyone who seeks our assistance.”

What they hadn’t expected was to accept a foreign-looking ship into their hanger and to be greeted by familiar black and white armor.

The appearance of a second Shiro was like a punch to the gut, especially when Shiro tugged off his helmet and stopped, letting it drop to the floor with a loud clunk. Fresh tears glistened in his eyes.

“Keith…”

“…Shiro?”

Suddenly, Shiro – their Shiro – stepped in front of Keith, blocking him completely from the newcomer. “I said it was a trap. He’s trying to trick you!”

Though Keith couldn’t see, he heard the newcomer’s hand buzz to life. “Who – What are you?”

Keith immediately reached for his bayard as did the rest of the paladins, and it only took Lance leveling his sniper rifle for the newcomer to take a step back, hands raised. “Lance? What are you doing? It’s me!”

“Yeah, well, y’see, we kinda already have one of you.”

“Fire on him!” their Shiro ordered.

Lance gasped, eyes widening incredulously but never leaving the newcomer. “What!”

“Shiro!” Allura, this time.

But their Shiro activated his own hand. “He can’t be trusted. The Galra – they took my hand. They could have cloned me, too.”

“It’s…possible, I guess, but I’m not a clone.” The newcomer’s voice firmed, hands still leveled. “I – I was teleported by the Black Lion into another reality. I fought alongside other paladins and came back here, to my reality. At least, I…I think this is my reality…”

Suddenly, the newcomer looked so hurt, so crestfallen, like all his hopes rode on that one fact and the paladins had crushed them by showing him their Shiro.

But their Shiro never spoke about clones before and he jumped so quickly to demand Lance to shoot.

“Do it, Lance,” he continued. “What if he can steal the Black Lion from Keith? What if he can take control of Voltron? We can’t risk it!”

“Waitaminute,” Hunk tried to reason, but Shiro wouldn’t have it. “Lance!”

“Stop!” Keith yelled, hurrying about their Shiro to step between him and the newcomer. Again, his chest clenched. The newcomer’s face was familiar and kind, uncertain but firm, waiting for an outcome, not rushing to any demands. His hair, though longer than when Shiro left them, had the appropriate undercut and white bangs. He watched Keith with that gentle affection he’d always held for him, his surrogate little brother whom trusted him completely.

And when Keith looked at him, he felt safe and complete – not the way he felt with the Shiro behind him.

The words flew from his mouth in a desperate plea. “Tell me how we met.”

The newcomer’s eyes rounded and trembled, became pained and horrified. He quickly looked away, shame coloring his expression and darkening his features, but their Shiro stole Keith’s attention before he could demand more.

“We met at your outpost not far from the garrison’s base,” he spoke, a fond but forced tone overtaking his voice. “You were frightened, scared when we met. You’d been alone for so long, you didn’t know how to react.”

Keith accepted his answer with a rigid nod and then turned back to the newcomer, who lowered his arms and stepped forward, tears now coursing his cheeks. He stopped when Lance fired a single shot, hitting the floor next to his boot, and then he closed his eyes, hands forming trembling fists.

“Keith…I’m sorry.”

There was so much Keith wanted to say, heart bleeding but unimaginable relief flooding him. He needed to hear the truth from Shiro himself. “Tell me.”

Shiro swallowed but refused to meet his gaze. “I – I met you on the day of your birth…” and he collapsed, one knee upon the hanger’s floor, fist against his chest, “…your highness.”

Hunk turned to Pidge, muttering, “Did…you hear what I just heard?”

Allura blinked. “Your…highness?”

Lance pulled the trigger the moment “their” Shiro took a step toward Keith, glowing hand raised for a death blow. The clone slammed hard to the floor, blood splattering all the way to the real Shiro’s boots.

But Shiro waited, never moving, barely breathing, and from the Black Lion and Shiro’s memories, Keith knew to walk over and place a hand upon Shiro’s shoulder, as per royal protocol.

Shiro immediately looked up, expression telling a story of misery and strife. “Your Highness, I – ”

“Shut up!” And suddenly, all the rage and insecurities and melancholy spilled over. “I don’t care that you lied to me. I don’t care that the rebels made you my protector and sent us to Earth. Damnit, Shiro! You were a kid, too!”

“It’s – It’s customary,” Shiro explained, pitiful of an excuse as it was, “for a ruler and his protector to be paired during their youth. It creates an unbreakable bond as well as – ”

“I said I don’t care!” Keith collapsed to his knees, too, staring into eyes so familiar and warm, he wondered how he hadn’t realized the other Shiro was a fake earlier. “I don’t care that you didn’t tell me who I am, even though you knew this whole time.” He lunged then, wrapping his arms about Shiro’s middle and pressing his face into his brother’s chest. “You’re here. That’s all that matters.”

And that was all that would ever matter

"It's good to have you back," he muttered, and after a moment of shock, Shiro replied, arms curling about Keith’s shoulders and holding him close, "It's good to be back."

The others gave them a few moments to themselves when Keith just reveled in Shiro’s warmth, his steady breathing, his thundering heartbeat. Shiro was here. Shiro was finally home, and the nightmare that was reality ended.

Of course, it was Hunk who yelled, “Paladin Group Hug!”

Trapped between so many arms and legs, Keith barely managed to mutter, “You’re failing at your job.”

Shiro laughed, and it was the most precious sound in the world.  

Headcanon: Keith is Zarkon’s son by an Altean woman (Haggar didn’t remember they were married for ten thousand years, so...), and as per Altean protocol, royalty are raised alongside their personal guards to create unbreakable bonds and loyalty. Why doesn’t Allura have a BFF guard? Idk... 

[holleringhawk65]

Day 1: Endurance

5 times that Shiro and Ulaz went through something unpleasant and the 1 time it was really nice

(Teen rating, normal angst that comes with a Shiro fic, a little bit of racism from Allura, some mistranslation, mentions of injuries and sex)

I.

“I want him awake for this.” Haggar’s voice is clear; there will be no arguments made against her.

Still, Ulaz falters. Usually patients are given some kind of basic sedative; there’s no reason to traumatize them with the pain. Indeed, it would be rather counterproductive to give someone an upgrade only to have them unable to use it.

It only takes a few ticks for Ulaz to resume his movements. Haggar is suspicious, he knows that.

Shiro is scared. He knows what’s going on and he’s more than scared, he’s fucking terrified. Who wouldn’t be?

Ulaz wishes that his eyes conveyed that he was sorry, but he’s rather sure that his all yellow eyes only frighten him more. It probably doesn’t help that he has to turn on the saw right away.

He wants to throw up as Shiro tries to keep a straight face when his arm is cut clean off, as tears well in Shiro’s eyes when the synthetic arm is attached, and as Haggar breathes as if she’s looking at the most beautiful piece of art when the arm starts to glow.

II.

Shiro is looking around the room, so uncomfortable and at ill ease. He’s just defeated another opponent, but his nose was broken in the fight. It’s bleeding because it was cut at the top too, something that’s going to leave a nasty, identifying, scar.

Ulaz has been told just to set it and clean up the wound the best he can. He muses that it’s basically the simplest form of first aid that he can give to the Champion.

“How’s the arm?” Ulaz asks, partly out of curiosity, partly because he actually cares. Sometimes, when people get a Druid enhancement, it goes to their head and makes them go insane.

Shiro glances at him, looking confused. It makes Ulaz wonders if the words translated properly or not. “It works.”

Ulaz moves the sleeve to check it for himself. The skin looks a little inflamed, so Ulaz goes to find some antibiotics, just to be on the safe side.

When he comes back, the Champion is looking down at the floor. Ulaz wonders if he was attractive on Earth, before the mandatory undercut for prisoners who make it through their first fight, before the one tuft of hair turned white because of the Druids.

And now he’ll have this scar, smack dab in the middle of his face.

“These will make you feel better.” He extends the pills out, and he’d like for the Champion to take them, but he’s not going to force them down his throat. Not if Haggar doesn’t make him.

Shiro must be in more pain than he’s letting on, because he takes them rather quickly, grimacing as he dry swallows them.

Ulaz feels guilty as Shiro falls asleep nearly instantaneously. Maybe some rest, however artificial it is, will help the Champion’s condition.

III.

He’ll be honest; he doesn’t think he should be alive. In fact, he’s not really sure how he is. By all accounts, activating the space and time fold inside of the Robeast should have killed him.

But here he was.

And of course, Shiro is elated. He didn’t think he was ever going to see the Champion smiling and blushing like this. Shiro wanted Hunk to pull out all of the stops for a dinner celebration. He was cleaning out a room for him, conveniently located near his. Ulaz, for his part, was more than willing to help Pidge look at Galra tech, to answer Keith’s questions about the Blade of Marmora, and to help Lance understand different ways of alien courtship.

It would all be going great, if it weren’t for Allura.

Allura was suspicious of the fact that Ulaz was alive now. Nevermind that they were now allies with the Blade or anything. They had to deal with her and her being a racist. She was almost positive that he wasn’t the real Ulaz; how could it be him, when they all witnessed Ulaz sacrifice his life for them?

So, Shiro had to deal with all of the unhappiness that Allura dished out. On some level, Shiro knew that she was acting like this because she wanted to protect them all, after everything, but…

“You are jealous that someone wants to be with Shiro.” Ulaz says it calmly. It’s just the two of them, in one of the lounge areas, because the paladins are training and Coran is attempting to make a dish that will one up Hunk’s culinary prowess.

Allura lifted her head from her data pad. “Excuse me?”

He repeats his claim again, just as level headed. It really should have been more obvious. While Lance has not stopped his advances on Allura, he’s no match for her. But with Ulaz and Shiro, they practically are a perfect match. Is Ulaz potentially a little bit below Shiro’s league? Yes, but they are much more evenly matched than Allura, a princess, and Lance, who aside from being a Paladin, is far beneath her.

Allura looked Ulaz straight in the face. “Even if I were jealous, what does that have to do with you?”

Ulaz blinks. Had she really not been cognisant of what she was doing? “You have been very hostile towards Shiro whenever we are together.”

Allura straightened up. She looked just a little guilty. Maybe she hadn’t meant to be acting like she was? “I… I apologize for my behavior, Ulaz. I do not mean to cause you or Shiro any distress. You have to understand that I am just trying to protect the Paladins whenever I can. The fight against the Galra Empire is not easy, as you know all too well.”

Well, an apology was a good start.

IV.

Ulaz is the one who is injured. He could probably tell Shiro how to help him, but all of a sudden, the translators had stopped working. He growled in frustration, which sent Shiro reeling backward, afraid he had offended the Galra. There was a bloody cloth in his hand from trying to stop the bleeding, but Ulaz isn’t sure that would be enough anyway.

Ulaz is breathing through his mouth. Everything around him is spinning and he just wishes that he could Shiro’s voice, but his head got slammed to the ground and everything is ringing.

When Shiro does talk, Ulaz only understands a handful of words. He really needs to learn English, like Shiro wants to learn Galra. The Black Paladin says something about his lion, Ulaz thinks. Maybe there is medical equipment there? But he reaches out to him with a hand. He doesn’t want him to leave. He thinks that, potentially, dying alone is the worst way to go, so he wants to avoid that.

Though these shouldn't really be life threatening injuries, he thinks. He’ll just be very uncomfortable if he’s not allowed to use a healing pod back at the castle.

Still, he keeps his hand on Shiro’s thigh until Shiro picks it up and interlocks his fingers. Obviously, he doesn’t seem worried about being growled at again, especially as he lays down, pressing himself to Ulaz in an attempt to conserve body heat.

It’s a while later, maybe an hour later, that the rest of the team shows up. At first, everyone thinks that Ulaz is dead (again), but then he twitches, an arm around Shiro tightening. Even though they both must be in pain, albeit varying degrees, they created such a peaceful image that the others almost didn’t want to disturb them.

That is, until they noticed the dark stain on Ulaz’s uniform and a fresh cut on Shiro’s head.

V.

Ulaz and Shiro are practiced at dealing with each other’s panic attacks, flashbacks, and nightmares. What they’re not used to dealing with?

Parents.

The funny thing is, these parents are neither Ulaz’s nor Shiro’s, because the former’s have been dead for a long time and the latter’s are relatively safe, tucked away on Earth.

They’re Kolivan’s parents, who are kind of like the parents of everyone in the Blade of Marmora. And the way the act is kind of endearing, because Kolivan’s mother is the tough ass who’ll knock you around, and Kolivan’s father is the one who’s likely to bring cookies to you.

But, given that the courtship between Ulaz and Shiro is one of the few things of interest, aside from defeating the Galra empire, that are going on around the base, that means all of their attention is on the two.

“Have you begun to plan the ceremony?” Kolivan’s father asked them as a tray of a tea-like-substance and what passes as Galra sweets are set before them.

Ulaz’s ears twitched and his cheeks became a darker shade of purple. With the way that it translated, Shiro thought that the ceremony was like a wedding, which was an embarrassing idea in a way.

Ulaz vigorously shook his head. “There will be no ceremony for us.”

Shiro looked over at his significant other. He knew that it would be a long time until they would have time to get married, but to say it wouldn’t happen? Shiro fisted the fabric of his pants and he felt Ulaz’s eyes on him, but there was no comment made.

The visit went on as one would expect a visit with a grandparent would go, which is to say slowly. Shiro was glad when it was over because it meant they could escape to Ulaz’s rooms.

When they got into Ulaz’s bedroom, safely tucked away from everyone else, he bent down and kissed Shiro deeply, pressing him up against the wall. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, when they broke apart.

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “You know that I love it when we kiss.” It was pretty much all they did, aside from the cuddling together.

“No, no. About what he said in the beginning, about…” There was that flush again.

“Us getting married?”

Ulaz’s head tilted. “That can’t have been what it would translate to.”

“No, it translated to ‘ceremony,’ I just assumed that you were talking about, you know, getting married.” Now it was his turn for his face to flush.

Ulaz couldn’t stifle a laugh. “I’m glad it did not directly translate. What we were talking about is something less polite. It’s much more of a traditional event, nothing that I would take part in, or that Kolivan would force us to do.”

Shiro frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“When people mated for the first time, it used to be a public affair. That’s all that we were talking about and I just wanted you to know that I would never put you through that.” Shiro’s heartbeat spiked at hearing what they had been talking about. The idea of it almost made him want to throw up.

But then Ulaz brings up Shiro’s hands and kisses his knuckles. It’s his own little way of cementing something that he just said and the soothing motion of it works every time.

VI.

The Galra empire has been destroyed. It feels like they’ve all been fighting for decades, but for the Paladins it’s really only been a few years. Shiro is exhausted, most of all. He’s been through absolute hell and Ulaz just wished that he could erase it all.

At the very least, he could give Shiro an amazing, real, first time. And that’s what he was going to do.

There were scented candles, rose petals, a fresh set of sheets on the bed, calming music, and the approval of Black (not that Shiro needed to know that).

They started the night with a nice, warm, shower and then a bubble bath. Ulaz is almost constantly nuzzling Shiro, in between the two of them cleaning each other off. After they’re all dried off, which takes a great deal longer for Ulaz to do then Shiro, they went into Shiro’s bedroom. They’re doing it here because this is Shiro’s space, this is where he feels comfortable.

Ulaz leans down and kisses Shiro.

“I love you,” he whispers.

Shiro’s arms are around Ulaz’s neck and his eyes dilate and this beautiful, miraculous, human breaks out into a smile. “I love you, too.”

Ulaz leaned down and nuzzled Shiro’s neck. Yes, that first time was rather perfect, if you asked him.