#the voices(tm) have forced my hand

[crystallizsch]

i know glomas encore is over but listen i-

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

big question. i'm cis (afab) and my gf is trans (amab) and i'm sorta having a hard time reconciling something. i've been a hard line feminist since i was about 8, by 12 i was a practical library on everything and anything womens lib. i'm spending a lot more time around trans people especially my gf now and i'm sorta struggling to reconcile the trans experience with my feminism. like- i'll see trans women being like "i hate my body :(" "my voice is awful" "i need [x thing to try to pass] ugh" and like my first thought is always "NO! THATS HOW THEY FUCKING GET YOU!!! THE PATRIARCHY WANTS YOU TO HATE YOURSELF SO YOU ENSLAVE YOURSELF TO CAPITALISM AND LIVE IN A CONSTANT STATE OF NEED FOR NEW PRODUCTS TO WARD OFF THE EVER PRESENT SELF HATRED BROUGHT ON YOU BY SOCIETY" and they go "well then how do i pass/transition?" and i honestly don't know and i also don't know how far it goes before its no longer dysphoria but instead the intentional subjugation of women by patriarchy for profit. i wanna help my fellow ladies but i honestly don't know how to like- apply the feminism i was taught as a child to trans women and i want to learn as soon as possible so that i can start doing it like yesterday

hi there,

I'll be honest: if it feels hard to apply the feminism you learned as a kid to your trans friends, that's probably because the feminism you were taught didn't have trans woman in mind.

luckily, the answer to this is something that I consider to be feminism 101: what a woman does with her body is, ultimately, her fucking business.

listen: I agree with you that the beauty industry(TM) is evil. it's misogynistic, it's exploitative, it thrives by making women feel bad enough about themselves to make them spend money on shit they don't need, etc. we all know this.

now, having said that: women who like makeup or wear heels or get laser hair removal or whatever other asinine thing are not my oppressor, nor are they my enemy. dare I say, we have bigger problems.

we also need to consider that many trans women are coming to these choices from a VERY different place than many cis women are. while I think my fellow cis women really benefit from reminders that they're allowed to stop shaving or wearing eyeliner or dieting or whatever, that's because most of us have had those actions forced on us from very young ages and may genuinely need a hand to feel secure breaking out of those behaviors.

the majority of trans women are not coming from a background where they were encouraged to partake in the same personal grooming habits and modes of presentation as cis women; many of them have, in fact, been ostracized, bullied, threatened, and otherwise hurt because of forays into forms of presentation that are considered feminine. no matter how good your intentions may be, approaching your advice indelicately can, unfortunately, make you come across as no different than any transphobe on the street trying to enforce cisnormative societal expectations. it also must be said that, for many trans women, the ability to "pass" is a matter of security - for having their status as women recognized at all, and to avoid harassment and abuse in public spaces. if you live in America, like I do, politicians in power currently have an extremely explicit anti-trans agenda that can make it harrowing to be visible as a trans person, and trans women in particular are frequently targeted for violence.

there are absolutely critiques to be made the way the many trans women are expected to perform hyperfemininity. the notion that someone is duty bound to drastically change their appearance in order to transition at all is itself extremely rooted in cisnormativity, and "passing" is often contingent on being young, thin, able-bodied, reasonably wealthy, and hewing as closely to Eurocentric standards of beauty as possible. that's not awesome! but that's also not the fault of any individual; no trans person asked to be born into a world where gender norms are so narrow and failing to pass can come with a very real risk of physical danger.

also, if I can circle back to this: again, women who participate in aspects of the beauty industry are not our enemies. there are always going to be some number of women who enjoy doing their makeup or like spending time fussing over their little outfits or want breast implants or whatever. some of those women are going to be trans. my official feminist stance on this is that I don't give a shit, because I believe in bodily autonomy even when it involves things I would not do personally and the choices that individual women make about how they want to style their little meat body don't even crack the top 100 things that I'm worried about right now. it's actually kind of vitally important, politically, that trans people be able to safely pursue their preferred gender expression; while it's not particularly revolutionary for a cis woman to go outside all dolled up, whether a trans woman can do that safely is a pretty basic litmus test for how safe a given space is for queer people. it's a ridiculously low bar, and many places will still fail to clear it.

so, yeah, I don't know, dude. be there to talk to your trans girlies if they want to start unpacking some of the pressure they feel to conform to a very rigid idea of womanhood, but whether or not they can walk down the street in your neighborhood safely is a WAY bigger issue than whether they decide to do voice training or not.

if you really want to cut to the root of the insecurity and vulnerability that the beauty industry thrives on exploiting, your time is much better spent working to ensure the trans women in your life feel safe and supported and have a community where they can find support regardless of how they look.

necessary disclaimer I'm a cis girl, any transfemme folks please share your voice here and feel free to clap my ass if I've said something out of line.

[chaotic-iguana]

Refuge | chapter one. 

prologue/previous chapter | next chapter | masterlist 

chapter one: tainted homecoming

wordcount: ~1k summary: what if reader and joel were married before the outbreak? what if just another mundanely late night at the office on the night of the outbreak separated them for a decade? warnings: fear, panic, passing out, reconciliations, estrangement, unwanted touching (not joel ofc), slightly unreliable narrator because she isn’t doing too well, angst boys i just binged good omens and i have thoughts ^tm. a/n: so, this was supposed to be out two days ago. life got in the way, unfortunately. kinda bummed me out because i was SO excited to share this but didn’t get to finish it on time and yada yada anyways. its here now, as usual please let me know what you think!!

When you gasped awake, you’d been moved from the harsh tile of your shop to the worn couch you kept on the first floor. Your jacket had been taken off, leaving you in your flimsy tank top. The room was uncharacteristically dark - a menacing omen looming over your head and shrouding your senses in a sense of danger as you came to a realisation.

There was someone in your kitchen. Multiple someones. 

Eerily familiar voices were whispering rapidly from behind you; hissed exchanges you had to tilt your head to make out. Your panic from before had melted away, and in its stead was the cold emptiness you had taught yourself. Sheer focus honed by the desperation to stay alive. Who the fuck are these people?

“…didn’t tell me she was with ya, could atleast’ve told me she was alive…”

“…hardly gave a shit, don’t fuckin’ lie to me now…”

“…married?…”

“…didn’t know you were that much of a family man…”

Your fingers inched towards the pencil on the coffee table before you, body tensing up not to let the couch groan. Thoughts racing at a speed just beyond your grasp, brain struggling to catch up with what you were hearing, forcing you straight into a fight-or-flight response. Tucking the pencil into the palm of your hand tightly, you silently inched to the ground, crouching to shuffle to the edge of the sofa and crane your head to catch a glimpse of whoever the hell was sitting in your home. 

Taking in the scene, you felt a laugh bubbling in your chest for the first time in years. Fate’s cruelty makes for masochistic amusement, does it not? 

Before you sat a ghost. One that had haunted you day and night; one whose smile, eyes, hands, mouth, everything lingered in your memory like a scent from your childhood sticking in the back of your mind - never quite there, but never quite gone, either. Like a word you wouldn’t dare voice that sitting smug on the tip of your tongue. 

When your eyes met his, everything else turned into static. An afterthought. Air was punched out of your lungs, your own heartbeat echoing in your ears, eyes blinking quickly to let the illusion dissipate. Except it didn’t. You could barely comprehend anything beyond him; barely realise that someone was behind you with his hands under your shoulders and his chest pressed against your back. The arm wrapping around your waist and the bullshit placating words whispered in your ear failed to register, too. 

Your last moments before the blackout flashed through your mind - Fred’s curiosity as he told you about Jackson’s new residents. Tommy’s brother - Joel. If there was someone with him, it had to be Sarah. You hadn’t even let yourself think of his name all these years, let alone wonder whether or not he was alive. It was easier to convince yourself you didn’t have time to care. Easier to convince yourself that you had the strength to slide your eyes two inches to the left and see your daughter again, too. Suddenly, your clothes felt too tattered, your hair too tangled. The jut of your cheekbones and the tremble in your fingers just felt too inadequate to face them again. 

Didn’t he once say my smile could light up a room? 

Even my laugh has a bitter edge to it now. 

You doubted you’d ever find it in you to crawl back to that version of yourself again. The one you had been when you had it all, when you had them with you. Radiant, carefree, so openly loving. 

She had been your first kill. You had ripped her to shreds, just so no one else could. The ache of loneliness had then made a permanent home on your shoulders, and you had welcomed it if only for the protection it offered. 

You blinked, and the moment shattered just as suddenly as it had come. Air rushed down your throat, making you choke as you clawed at the arms restraining you in a frenzy, but they refused to budge. A grating voice was in your ear, telling you to just calm down, baby, foul breath fanning across your cheek. 

Before you could so much as open your mouth, the scraping of a chair rung out and heavy, swift footsteps making their way and coming to a stop before you, a hulking figure looming over you and your captor. 

How the hell was he still so…big? 

What the fuck had he been eating?  

This had to be a nightmare. This cannot be real. Tommy would have told me if he was alive, because Joel would have reached out. It’s just a dream, I need to wake up. Just a second shy of your plan to attempt pinching yourself -  in what you considered a fool-proof test to see whether or not this was, in fact reality -  you were wrenched out of the grasp of the man behind you, a larger, more firm pair of hands gripping your wrists and pulling you to put himself between you and the man who- no fucking way was that Fred. No goddamn way were his hands just all over you, his voice trying to calm you. 

A wild panic began taking over your senses - the fight-or-flight instincts returning with full force. And as if even after all those years he could still feel it, Joel stood unyieldingly like a physical wall between you and the idiot. The idiot who was currently yelling about his “relationship” with you in your husband’s face. 

A snort and high-pitched giggle sounded from behind you, the adrenaline forcing you to turn and locate the source immediately. When you finally looked into the eyes of your girl; the one you had desperately hoped to see again for the past decade and a half, your heart stopped. Cold dread dropped heavy like stones in your gut as pure fear burrowed into every single cell in your body. 

This isn’t my fucking daughter. 

hello loves, as always - thank you for reading. comment your thoughts or find me on ao3. stay hydrated and have a great day! taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @imherefordeanandbones, @theywhowriteandknowthings, @josephquinnswhore, @millerscoffee, @nostalxgic, @sscorpiiio, @pedrosaidsheispunk, @its-nebuleuse, @sofiparallel, @mandoisapunk, @bastardmandennis, @pawnshopblues22, @breakfastatjoels dividers are my own!! series taglist: @spookyxsam, @obscurexsorrows, @planet-marz1, @lunxramour, @anavatazes, @joeldjarin, @stunkbiggu, @joels-darlin

[emo-batboy]

thoughts on battinson with his like seven kids and they have to suffer through everyone wanting to fuck him cause have you seen him??

Alright so this response kinda works in a competely separate realm of canon than what I usually post. I’m gonna preface that right now, but BOY do I have thoughts :D

So when I think of Battinson and his (non)accidental orphan acquisition, I see Battinson as being on a much more even playing field emotionally than most other iterations. He’s not really as stoic and put-together, so having kids (especially multiple) would cause a LOT more chaos and drama. So in this case, I like to think that it happens at a very rapid rate. (Again, I’m saying this because this require straying from the film’s canon to a much larger degree than I usually do.) SO by the time he’s 32, he has an 11yo Dick, a 9yo Jason, and an 8yo Tim. And they probably grow with him much like teen parents do with their kids. He’s not as authoritative as most parents. Instead, he starts out as like half older brother, half dad, then graduates to the roll of batdad after his whole vengeance era.

THAT ALL BEING SAID!! BECAUSE THEY’RE SO MUCH OLDER AND BRUCE IS YOUNGER, THEY DEAL WITH A LOOOOTTTTTT OF CREEPY LADIES TRYING GO GET WITH THEIR DAD. (AND THEY ARE VERY. SMART. FOR THEIR AGE)

Dick, older brother and the leader of the “Save Dad and Our Childhood Innocence” brigade teaches the three everything there is to know. He is the most experienced with these awful public events like galas and charity auctions, so he is in control.

And it is SO much easier to get the creepy suitors to back off when they work as a team

Dick talks everyone’s ears off. He’s the golden boy (getting perfect grades and gold medals in his school’s gymnastics team) so he EASILY gets away with distracting people

Dick will insert himself into adult conversations all the time, and Bruce always lets him, which allows Jason and Tim to wreak havoc on whatever target they chose.

Whenever it isn’t too obvious or it’s late enough in the night, Jason will fake a cold or a headache sometimes (he’s prone to falling sick) and Bruce will insist that he take his kid home and tuck him into bed himself, very fatherly

Tim uses his Youngest Child points to woo the nicer ones and direct them away from Bruce, but it doesn’t usually works on the gold diggers (and thank god because Tim HATES acting cute) so he’ll use it on Bruce instead

When those three plans don’t work, the three gremlins start getting Creative TM

Jason, taking a swig from some wine glass and proceeding to spray it all over Vicky Vale’s white dress: “This isn’t grape juice!”

Tim, resident iPad kid and (despite popular belief) The Most Evil of the Three, sees some lady touching his batdad so he finds her phone number on an online directory and prank calls her every time she gets too close

Suitor: “Your father is very handsome.” Dick: “My father’s dead :(” “…” “Oh wait, you mean Bruce! Yeah, he’s nice.”

One lady starts hanging off of Bruce, but he needs to run off to say hello to an investor. Jason appears from nowhere in his dapper little tux and the lady just says, “So uhh, you like the Wiggles, right?” Jason: “Nope! Have you ever read Crime and Punishment? :)”

Dick “accidentally” slaps some obnoxious guests with his wild hand gestures “Oh no! I’m so sorry :(( Let me get you an ice pack” and pulls them away while the other two hide their laughter

One of the ladies who is WAY too comfortable and forward when flirting with Bruce is forced to sit down with Tim and he goes in head first “what are you doing with my dad?” “oh you know what adults do, honey. Messing around, having fun” and he’s like “well My dad doesn’t look interested” “of course he is! who knows? Maybe we’ll hit it off and make another one of you one day” which gives Tim intense psychic damage, but he’s a horrible little brat so he doesn’t give up. He hits her with the innocent doe eyes and asks in the cutest fucking voice “Where do babies come from?” she BOOKS IT (they never see her again)

Anyway, to answer your question: they are little terrors. and Bruce knows they’re little terrors, but he doesn’t care because he hates the creepy attention even more than they do, but this way it comes with a show :D

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Hungry for you

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, day 6

Prompt: Cooking together

Rated: M

CW: sexually explicit language

Tags: No UD AU; modern AU (if you squint); record shop owner!Eddie; restaurant owner!Steve; sexual tension; seriously, it's so thick you could cut it with a knife; top Steve; bottom Eddie

Notes: This is actually taken from a waaay longer AU that I've been rotating in my head for a while but haven't had time to expand on yet. So this was actually the perfect opportunity to get some of it out.

Eddie is in danger. 

Mortal peril, in fact. The cold-sweat-beading-on-skin, heart-in-your-throat, limbs-heavy-with-dread kind of danger. He's minutes away from sneaking to the bathroom and calling Gareth, ask him to bail him out under some pretense. 

Only he'd probably laugh at him, the fucker. 

Because, granted, being trapped in your hot neighbor's fancy kitchen with a glass of wine beside you and candles burning on the windowsill does not sound like a dangerous situation. 

But it is.

Oh God, it so is.

Eddie's an idiot. 

Should've known this was a Bad Idea (capital letters, TM) the second Steve said he wanted to invite him to dinner. 

"Sure," Eddie had stammered. (No, answered. He's a grown-ass adult with his own record store, he does not stammer over the sexy restaurant owner from across the street suggesting dinner.) "I'll swing by the restaurant tomorrow, or-" 

"Not at the restaurant," Steve's eyes had lit up with that fond glint, voice dropping into a low timbre. "My place. I wanna take my time with you." 

The alarm signs were all there. Wailing sirens, big fat neon letters spelling DANGER and ABORT and STOP. 

But Eddie's sense of self-preservation has always been a bit skewed. 

So here they are.

"I hope you like pasta?" Steve asked a few minutes ago. "We're making Tagliatelle al Limone with green asparagus." 

"Sounds great," Eddie said, when in all honesty, he hadn’t processed much beyond the word pasta. Too distracted by the way Steve’s shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing trim arms dotted in flour. "I make SpaghettiOs for dinner all the time." 

Steve makes his own pasta. He's currently rolling golden dough into an even layer to cut it into stripes. Eddie forces himself to quit staring at the flexing muscles in his arms and returns to his own task. Namely, peeling the asparagus. With a potato peeler. 

He's peeling asparagus with a fucking potato peeler like a ten-year-old who can't be trusted to not cut himself. Which is a frustratingly adequate assessment, in all honesty, so he didn't complain when Steve handed him the thing. Only now he's feeling like an idiot, standing at this hardwood counter between all these pans and pots and shiny appliances. Christ, his own kitchen is two cabinets with lopsided doors, an electric hotplate, and an ancient microwave pulling double-duty as an oven.

What the fuck is he even doing here?  

The answer to that, apparently, is fucking up his one task, because his hand slips and he almost manages to cut himself on the potato peeler. The stem - or stick or whatever the fuck it is you call them - of asparagus in his hand snaps and the tip flops to the countertop. Eddie swears, which causes Steve to turn and arch an eyebrow. 

"Everything okay?" 

"Oh, I'm peachy," Eddie brandishes the mutilated asparagus at him. "Unlike this little fella here, but y’know… collateral damage or whatever." 

Steve eyes the battlefield of fallen and mangled asparagus brethren on the counter and smiles. 

"That's alright," he shrugs. "We're cutting them into pieces anyhow." 

"Oh," Eddie just says, because one, if it's okay, why didn't Steve tell him before, and two, if it's okay, then why is Steve sauntering over with that ever-so-slight, blink-and-you-miss-it sway of his hips? 

Which Eddie definitely isn't doing. Blink, that is. He thinks he may have lost the ability to.

Before he can recover, Steve is already slotting into place behind him - an entirely unnecessary move in the spacious kitchen - sliding his arms around his waist and covering Eddie’s hands with his own. They're large and lean and graceful, those hands, all long, skilled fingers and soft, tan skin. Eddie has a very unhelpful mental image of those hands on his naked skin. Those fingers in his mouth, that honeyed voice ordering him to suckle, get them nice and slick for-

"You know," says Steve, right by his ear. His hands have started guiding Eddie’s, holding a stem of asparagus on the countertop, slicing the outer layer away with gentle but firm strokes. Eddie can feel his body heat through their clothes, feel Steve's breath leaving a hot trail on his skin. "Asparagus is rumored to have a very special effect on the human body…" 

"Wha-?" Eddie starts. His blood can't decide whether to rush to his face or his cock. It makes him all woozy - which will forever be the excuse he tells himself for what next comes out of his mouth. "Oh, I know! It makes your piss stink." 

Steve's hands freeze. Eddie considers killing himself with the potato peeler. 

And then Steve laughs. Rumbly noises from deep in his chest that send vibrations all through Eddie’s body. 

"No, silly," he says, voice dripping with that gentle condescension that should make Eddie livid but somehow only serves to kindle the coiling heat in his abdomen. "It's an aphrodisiac."

Eddie blinks.

"So it … makes you horny?" 

Steve hums. "Allegedly." 

Eddie gulps. Stares down at the potato peeler lying limply in his hand. Steve's hands have migrated to his hips at some point during their exchange, thumbs pushing up the hem of his shirt just the tiniest bit. 

"Crazy," he hears himself say. "Haven’t even eaten any yet." 

Steve presses his lips to his neck in a not-quite-kiss, just a coy smile touching skin. 

"So it's working?" 

Eddie wants those lips and hands on his skin, wants Steve's tongue and teeth all over his body, voice and touch and warmth seeping into him until he forgets how to think, forgets his own name, until all he knows is Steve and this burning, all-consuming want, want, want-

Steve laughs, pats his ass lightly. Eddie yelps as if slapped. 

"All in due time, baby. Can't have dessert before dinner." Steve winks. "Better continue with that asparagus." 

Eddie is not going to survive.

Part 2

All of my holiday drabbles

[sapphicseasapphire]

IT’S ME, I’M THE FOOL.

This whole time I’ve been saying that people with God Powers TM are Marked. They all have something on their face! (Except Legend, what’s on his face is just scales, don’t be confused).

But this WHOLE TIME I’ve been drawing Sun without her Marks. Like. She’s literally Hylia. She has God Powers, she should have them. Anyway so this is my Sun redesign for real this time. Just pretend that she looks like this in my “I am Sky” comic.

Anyway so here’s some information about her under the cut.

I don’t have a big story for her like I do for Flora because Cryptid Sky’s story barely changes Skyward Sword like at all. He’s formed that the very very end, after the Goddess’s Silent Realm, so most things involving Sun remain the same.

I will say that she didn’t always have her Marks. When she was born as Zelda, her face was clear, like every other Skyloftian. But when she fell to the Surface and began a quest of her own, when she discovered her divine origins, she started to remember. She’d pray at the springs to recover her memories and her powers, and one by one, her face would be Marked.

By the time that Link had secured all of the Sacred Flames and forged the Master Sword with them, Sun was already lost. And in her place stood a Goddess.

I don’t think that people give her enough credit for all she’s been through. Sun deserved so much better, she lost her life to Hylia’s plans just as much as Link did. And when Link merged into Sky, he was merely mimicking the transformation that his dearest friend had already gone through. Sun’s soul is still split in half, still shared between herself and her Loftwing, but in that empty part of her core lies the domineering presence of Hylia herself. Her life as she knew it is over. Is she Zelda anymore? Or is she Hylia?

She loves Link SO MUCH. When she first comes out of their thousands-of-years long slumber, she’s in shock to see that he’s gone. She falls from the amber shards and lands squarely in Sky’s arms, and Sky envelopes her in his soft wings, holding her as if she’s the most precious thing in the world. In the haze, she doesn’t realize the change in her dearest friend. But when she opens her eyes, she’s devastated.

As far as she’s concerned, it’s her fault. She used Link. Forced him to go on this quest, forced him into the Silent Realms, forced him to wield the Master Sword and the Triforce. She’s the reason that he fused with Aepon; she’s the reason that Link is gone.

But Sky laughs the same as Link would, relief in his eyes when she gathers the strength to stand. She holds her hand in his own, and it feels just like the hand she knows. His face is the same, for the most part: his hair is different and he’s got red spots on his cheeks, but the more she looks at him, the more she sees Link. And as they make it through the Temple together, as she watches Groose fawn over him, she realizes that he’s not gone at all.

He’s changed, just like she is. But just like she’s still his Zelda, Sky is still her Link. The guilt still worms its way into her chest, but as long as Sky is smiling, she’s able to see past it.

Sky does not smile for very long, as a certain Demon Lord shows up mere moments later to ruin their happy ending. To be honest, Sun doesn’t remember much of that night. She remembers the anger in Sky’s face as his body trembled on the ground. She remembers the cold cruelty of Ghirahim’s voice against her chest as she was carried away from her Link- her Sky. She remembers feeling so weak and helpless, cursing the Goddess- cursing herself- for being so useless.

And then all she knew was pain. Blinding, burning agony that enveloped her entire being. She thought she was dying, weightless and alone and scared.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was inside the Sealed Temple. Groose held her. Sky was nowhere to be seen.

She cried into Groose’s chest, something she never would have dreamed of doing a year ago, her head still reeling from that feeling of hopelessness, that pain. All at once, she was scared and relieved and safe and in danger. And Groose held her through it.

Sky would stumble into the Temple much later, limping and bleeding and spasming. His right arm would be totally friend and his wings would drag on the ground, feathers in disarray. He’d lean away from Groose and fall into Sun’s open arms. And when it was time to return the Master Sword to her final resting place, he’d do so with a heaviness in his eyes that’s uncharacteristic and a weakness in his body that’s frightening.

Both Sun and Sky take a long time to recover from that. And really, neither of them ever do. But as Sky starts to physically heal, Sun starts to see more traces of her dear Link. Being around her closest friend and newfound lover is healing, and after the adventure they’d had, they don’t leave each other’s side for a long while.

Sun is very protective over Sky, just like she always was with Link. They exchange Loftwing feathers (Sky gives her his own). And just five days after they’re reunited, they’re separated again.

Okay okay okay. This was less about Sun and more about Sun AND Sky, but they’re pretty much inseparable I think. From Sky’s perspective, there’s a lot of confusing feelings that I’ll get into when I actually write a fic (I’m starting a fic!), but Sun just loves him so much. I have a little comic series which is actually a collection of little short stories in a much bigger plot called “I am Sky.” The short comics aren’t all finished (and they can be read as stand alones) but the order they go in is:

“I am Sky” Stories: Pipit

“I am Sky” Stories: Groose (I’m not done with it I’m sorryyyyyy)

“I am Sky” Stories: Zelda

This all takes place after the Demise battle, when Sky is healing and has the chance to sit down and reflect. When he gets the opportunity to learn about himself, the person that his two halves made him. He struggles a lot, but these specific stories have a lot of comfort. He’ll be fine. Probably.

[lemon-russ]

A small inbetween due to popular demand- Cato needs to get The Talk (tm)

Poor Guillidad is at the end of his rope having to do this. But he's a better Dad than Emps so he grits his teeth and does it lol

taglist: @sleepyfan-blog @undeaddream @scriberye

Part 16.5/ ???

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Ao3 || Taglist request ||

Cato Sicarius x F!Reader

CW: Sex talks, just awkward father son time

Summary: Cato gets The Talk (tm)

word count: 1,171

Cato follows behind Guilliman while he does his rounds of checking in on the various machinations of the chapter. To keep him busy, the primarch told him. They walked through the hangar now, and Guilliman stopped by a gunship, giving it an admiring look over.

“These have improved.” He says with a nod to the stormhawk. “We didn't have these back in my time.”

Cato watches as Guilliman gets closer to inspect the craft, looking over it's interior admiringly.

Somethings been on his mind though, since he was spoken to in the primarchs office.

“My Lord, may I ask you a clarifying question…?” He asks, standing straight backed with his hands behind his back, trying not to look nervous.

Guilliman looks over his shoulder out the ship door from where he was inspecting the various control panels. “Of course, Sicarius.” He says, motioning for him to come in. The primarch sits himself at the pilots chair, and Cato reluctantly sits co-pilot.

The proximity would make this more difficult, but at least they weren't looking directly at each other.

“Earlier, when you said, well… the talk….” Cato starts, turning his attention to some controls to his side and flipping a switch back and forth.

Guilliman freezes, then slowly gives Cato a sidelong glance. “…You… require some guidance…?” He asks, clearing his throat.

Cato frowns, not looking his gene father in the eye. “Well- just a question- we are taught in our training and initiation that Astartes are… well, infertile.” He says nervously, fidgeting with some controls.

Guilliman's face grows pale. “They- they tell you that-” he makes a tired groan, rubbing his temple. “Oh, terra. That's… can I assume you've been… operating under this assumption…?” he asks in a strangled voice.

Cato grimaces, glancing up at Guilliman and giving a small nod. His primarch sighs a weary sound.

“Well, you're not. No astarte is.” He says as he bores holes in the controls with his stare. “This must be a… miscommunication. Astartes don't have families, because they're supposed to be celibate, and if they aren't, duty comes first. But that does not mean the inability to… well, create a family…” he attempts to sound like he's reading it from text, matter of factly.

Cato swallows hard. “Does… does that mean the Ambassador-”

Guilliman scrunches his face in disgust and holds a hand up to stop him. “No- no, not… necessarily.” He says in a pained voice. “How long ago…?”

Cato looks hard at the panel. “The first time was… about a week and a half ago…?”

Guilliman makes a noise, “First time? How- when did you get a chance- wait, weren't you on the run on a rebel planet-”

Cato slinks down in his seat as Guilliman's eyes grow wider in horror. “Sicarius, you did not!” the primarch gasps, “While you were being hunted by an army? What, in a dirty hidey hole somewhere?”

“I mean- it wasn't like… in the dirt….” Cato defends in a mumble, face growing hot. “I held her up and-”

Guilliman groans and holds his hand up again. “She could get infections, or who knows what else,” he says, rubbing his palms down his face. “Okay, it's fine, she seems fine- I'll need to institute a sex-ed class for the whole chapter, it's fine” He grumbles.

Cato frowns, swallowing a nervous lump in his throat. He didn't mean to make her sick. He was immune to almost all disease and infection, it never crossed his mind that a baseline human could get sick from something so trivial.

“Did you…” His gene Father shifts awkwardly in his seat. “Did you, you know… do the riskier things…?” He forces out, unable to look at him.

Cato turns a little so his back is more toward Guilliman, playing with more switches, shoulders tight and raised nervously. “Y-yes.” He admits. “Is she… you know…” he mumbles, voice thick with worry. He heard that baseline women die when they give birth sometimes. Or die from being pregnant. So many things apparently can just kill a little baseline, now even sex?

Guilliman lets out a deep sigh. “Not necessarily.” He frowns and studies Cato, curled on himself anxiously. He squeezes his eyes closed and rubs his temples. “Alright, we're just going to cut straight to it.” He says, steeling himself and sitting up. “I'm going to explain all of this to you, answer your questions, and then I never want to talk about what you and the Ambassador do together ever again.”

A couple hours later, they leave the Hangar. Cato with a little more confidence in his step and smiling, Guilliman looking haggard, like he'd just returned from a months long campaign.

Cato now was an expert in the ways of sex, grilling his gene father for information for two hours straight. Now he understood everything- the Ambassador won't die, they have medical technology to handle things. He also learned he should not be taking her in dirty caves or in natural water like the hot springs- hearing what they did in natural hot springs and sand made Guilliman immediately order a full check up for the ambassador- but it's alright, he knows better now.

He smirks to himself. He can't wait to be allowed to go find her so he can use all his new knowledge on her, show her that he was a sex expert now. Of course he wouldn't flaunt that the information was new. He was Cato Sicarius. He was always the best at everything, of course.

There was one thing Guilliman told him that he was thinking he wasn't a huge fan of. How to not get her pregnant. He'd have to medicate her, or finish outside of her- not even a possibility in his mind- or use an annoying plastek like glove.

He smirks to himself. Now that he was an expert on all things reproduction, he is capable and qualified to make his own choices on the matter. And he thinks maybe the Ambassador would look cute all round. And she's good at handling things, doing her job with a child would hardly hold her back. Plus, He'll be forcing his way into a lot more of her body guarding roles, so if they had a child, he'd be there, and they'd both be totally safe.

Yes, he decides, working so hard to avoid it sounds like nonsense. It wasn't a guarantee anyways. So, might as well enjoy her fully. Sure, Guilliman would be annoyed with him, but he's been annoyed with him a lot recently, and things still were going great for him.

He'll just take the slap on the wrist if anything happens. Plus, He’s Cato Sicarius. He’s the best at everything. Everything includes fathering babies and caring for his little Ambassador, he assumes.

[athanasius-symposium-of-writings]

Hello! May I make another request?

Can I request a Frederick x fem reader. Ya know the scene where he pulled out the gun and pushed orphy with it and pointed it on the ground when he told Alice to place the box on the ground? (Him with a gun is so hot) can it be like a similar situation, for example reader and Alice are close friends and they went to the manor together. nsfw

I was just talking to @turbulentscrawl about the THAT scene, buddy only had one round and if he shot it then his glass jaw was done for lolol also based it off this post

Rated Mature | Warnings: Reader has a past (tm)

Alice deserves to be called 'good girl' (listen!)

“A single barrel pistol,” Cold, “Meaning you have exactly one bullet.” The Composer's eyes narrow at your words, “Once that bullet is gone, you will have only maybe that cane of yours as a weapon or you better start running.” Laying out his choices.

Alice stands behind you, rather you place yourself in front of Alice who looks at you surprised. Back at the orphanage, you always were the defender the children flocked to; Alice too back then looked up to you.

Still does as she knew for this investigation she will need an ally. Someone to watch her back.

“Better make that shot count, Frederick.” This is not your first time being held at gunpoint, sadly as a kid, you were the fighter. It was your only way to survive, none of the adults helped— Whether they cared or not, it didn't matter, you had to fight. As you got older, you got involved with the wrong side of the law. A driver, the type that helps with getaway driving and deliveries– No questions asked, no identification shared on your side.

Frederick looks at you, you know desperation when you see it.

The roar of thunder echoes, blood spills, and Frederick stands there in shock.

You grunt in pain but strike him with a right hook, he stumbled backward holding his face, hand dropping the cane in his hand.

“(False Name)!” Alice catches you before you fall to your knee, blood slipping out of your shoulder from the bullet wound. “Are you crazy!?”

You laugh as Frederick doesn't get up as Orpheus, who so happens to show up after the showdown, restrains him with a rope he found at the stables.

“Is the bullet out?” Alice nods at your question and points to the ground where it landed, “Good. Remember what I showed you?”

Alice does first aid, not her first time patching you up after a firefight.

“Good girl.” A low voice to have only for her to hear you as she makes a sling using your jacket.

“Gonna dump him in the same spot as his great-grandmother's favorite horse?” You ask Orpheus who gives you an inquisitive look.

“She is not my great-grandmother.” Frederick corrects you.

“Whatever, we can just say he went missing.” Shrugging then hissing at the pain.

All of them look at you like you said something horrible.

“He almost killed me, remember!”

You once told Alice, as a joke, that you would stay with her like the Cheshire cat as she makes her way down this rabbit hole. You are loyal to her, always have been since the orphanage. And even as the world turned to a new nightmare, as the truth about the manor became murky yet clear, you remained steadfast to your word. 

Driver, this is the title given to you upon the first match.

The game is akin to a story you have read once during your late shifts of being the getaway driver. Something about man being the greatest beast to hunt. This game is just like that.

A single hunter versus five survivors. Only, the twist is that everyone has strange abilities that can make or break a game.

Ciphers. Exit gates. Dungeons to escape. Chairs, the fucked roller-coaster ride seats with loads of fireworks under it with a timer attached.

It's a sick game you are forced to play with others.

You try to put science to all this but none of it makes sense. Maybe… You hate having to accept this is outside the realm of science you know or logic that is well, logic.

Alice is not safe, and you aren't either, but she is your priority.

Two ciphers down, fuck this game, the hunter is tailing you like a wolf hungry for meat. You stumble as you climb through a window after using a pair of gloves that boost your speed.

The hunter loses you thanks to a person titled Batter.

You limp over to a toolbox looking for hopefully some form of first aid— That miracle syringe Doctor has.

The people in your group are Journalist, Batter, and Composer.

Yeah, strange seeing— much less being in a group with a guy who nearly killed you run over, after priming the cipher, to you and patching you up the best he can. His hands are steady, nibble, and quick as they all had to learn how to patch each other up. This isn’t a game one can win by playing lone wolf, in order to survive everyone has to work as a team. Even if that means working with someone who tried to kill you.

Now, to say you hang that over his head is not true. In the line of work you had been in, you sometimes had to work under pressure with people who may have threatened you with any form of physical violence. You rolled with the punches, often literally, but you lived. Life hardened you, and you moved on (though moving on does not mean you forgive them). Guilt bites at the Composer in a way that you had not expected.

Relationships are not unheard of but rare. One-night stands are not rare but not as common because most do not want to deal with drama while trying to get through a match.

You were open to having sex, it is a destresser and you can do it with no strings attached. Luca was one you had bedded a few times, fun guy. Norton too but he is a messy one, the mood swings had ended the arrangement fast (though you did let him have it when you both got into a fight in the duo match).

Past adventures, the present adventure is the man now kiting with you against Naiad.

The gate currently opened (thanks to Alice), is blocked by the mer-bitch (you… dislike her or rather going against her).

Composer takes a hit to distract as he hasn’t taken any damage during the match. You follow up by shooting the hunter with the flare gun then dashing to follow out.

The match ends in a victory for the survivors.

“See you tonight.” Upon entering the manor you pat his shoulder before leaving off to check on Alice.

Frederick Kreiburg could be considered boring.

There are not always nights with that raw passion that would make the Gods blush sort of thing. Nothing like romance novels with the life-altering sex the protagonists have.

It is… Well, it is like making love honestly.

With Luca, you had fun. Playful and a lot of teasing. With Norton, it was like a fight, rough and hard that left you swore for days. Even the time you slept with Demi after a long of partying, it was fun and sweet.

With Frederick, this love. He is the composer and you are the orchestra. Each symphony played with care, practice, and with love.

You never made love before. Sex is one thing, fucking around is another, but love is different. It is just as consuming as lust but lingers longer than lust. It has you biting your lip as Frederick removes your slippers from when you bathed, his lips kissing the top of your foot, his hand massaging the soreness under your foot.

It is like being worshiped and adored in a way lust cannot give you.

He travels upward slowly, his gloves tossed to the floor, your leg brought up to rest on his shoulder and the other leg guided to open you up to him.

Like a flower, or something poetic.

“Frederick.” You don't realize how pent-up you are until he kisses the inside of your exposed thigh. The bathrobe opened and slumped around your waist. “Fuck.” Moaned out.

He enjoys making you sing, enjoys seeing that hardened exterior crumble to expose that you are just as starved just as him. He takes his time preparing you. Every action is blessed by a tune he knows you ask later what song he is singing. You enjoy hearing him talk about his music.

When he finally lets you cum, you nearly jump him in your eagerness to get him naked. The Composer is different from you, you like that.

“I love you.”

To think he pulled out a gun and had shot you during the struggle.

“Say it again.” Between his legs.

“I ah l-love you.”

The hum of an old song, Clair de Lune, sounds pretty, as you blow him is fun. He has to guess the song before he cums.

The fun part is after when you let him gather himself before the union. The crescendo (you told him and found it amusing that you tried learning musical terms to flirt with him), the part that you both have to fight to not be so loud. Even if his room is free of neighbors (a few less than other sections), you more than once had to tell Naib to shut up with the teasing about Frederick moaning.

Yes, you possess those moans and the Mercenary does not need to be an ass.

The low, yet comforting part, is the post-orgasm part.

Lying there basking in the glow. You are clingy and praising him endlessly, it is something you enjoy doing with your partners. He falls asleep fast when you ‘overwork’ him, the man needs the sleep and you need to let out some post-match steam.

[tmariea]

What If I Told It In My Dreams

Fandom: MDZS/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/The Untamed

Pairing: Xiyao

Characters: Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao

Rating: M (There will be a second chapter of this, and this will Increase at that point)

Summary:

To the best of Lan Xichen's knowledge Jin Guangyao had not been a sleepwalker before the war. Not once while on the run had he woken to see his companion’s slight form - the same one now silhouetted in the faint moonlight from the open door of the Hanshi - wandering about their camps or rooms.

Jin Guangyao sleepwalks his way to the Hanshi, to his er-ge's bed, and straight into a love confession neither of them were expecting out of a mundane visit to the Cloud Recesses.

Read on AO3

This fic is result of meing being possessed by this post, and a very fun back-and-forth brainstorming conversation with @dumbbo-yyy. 'This will be fun and short and sweet!' I said, 'this will be good practice before getting into Xiyao prompts for the gotcha4gaza' I said. Well, most of these things are true, but hope you enjoy 5K words of silly and sweet goo before an eventual smutty chapter 2 to come - rating and tags will be adjusted accordingly at that point, but for now all you'll have to look out for is a flash of Lan Xichen's Horny Thoughts(TM).

When Lan Xichen woke in the middle of the night to the sound of the Hanshi’s door opening, his first reaction was to call Shuoyue to his hand.  He felt this was a reasonable reaction; everyone had been more on edge since the war, and to the best of his knowledge Jin Guangyao had not been a sleepwalker before it either.  Not once while on the run had he woken to see his companion’s slight form - the same one now silhouetted in the faint moonlight from the open door - wandering about their camps or rooms.

“A-Yao?” Xichen asked, his voice rather rougher with sleep and more confused than normal.  He sent Shuoyue back to her stand with a flick of his hand and his qi.  “Is something the matter?”

A-Yao didn’t reply.  Instead he crossed the room to where Xichen was still lying half propped up on one elbow.  He placed a hand on the bed so he could lean closer.  Xichen was very aware of the way the bed dipped to the side of him, the warmth of A-Yao so close, the way he could just barely feel A-Yao’s breath ghost over his face.  He scarcely dared to move.

Xichen was not ashamed to admit to himself, but perhaps he would be ashamed to admit out loud, that he had dreamed of this at least a few times before. A-Yao would seek him out some time in the evening, or even later at night when he should have been asleep.  He would breathe out, “Er-ge,” or if Xichen’s mind was feeling particularly forward, “Huan-ge,” and then climb into his lap or over him in bed and kiss him, every hot and lovely line of him pressed up against Xichen.  Things would inevitably progress from there and Xichen would wake up in desperate need of a good long while in meditation or an early morning dip in the cold springs, all the while reminding himself that the sound of A-Yao crying his name as he finished was not a thing he got to have.  Or sometimes, he would not need either of those things at all…

Despite certain similarities, that did not seem to be what was happening now.  All of his senses were far too sharp, for one, and he really wasn’t sure his mind would make up something quite like A-Yao saying, in a much more light and affectionate voice than usual, “Goodnight kiss for Zewu-jun,” just before kissing him right in the center of his forehead.

“A-Yao, what?” Xichen managed to force out around the sudden and all-consuming squeeze of his heart in his chest.  His skin was tingling where A-Yao had kissed, and a delighted, if also slightly confused, shiver ran down his spine.

Instead of replying, A-Yao said, “Goodnight kiss for er-ge,” and kissed the same spot again.  This time his hands also came up to cradle Xichen’s head, thumbs running back and forth across the place that his forehead ribbon would lay if he were not dressed for sleep.  That plunged Xichen into an entirely different kind of wanting, the kind where his ribbon was A-Yao’s to touch, his to keep.

It already was, but up until this moment Xichen had not been sure it was something A-Yao might even want, for all his own personal longings.

He’d barely had time to catalog, much less actually sort through, any of those feelings, before A-Yao straightened back up and turned to leave without another word. Xichen stood from the bed, feeling as ungainly as when he was young and still learning how to grow into his long limbs, and took a few large strides across the room to catch A-Yao with a hand on his upper arm before he could walk back out the door.  “Please, A-Yao, is something the matter?  You are acting… unlike yourself.”

When A-Yao didn’t turn to look at him, or make any other acknowledgment that he’d even heard, Xichen took his other arm and gently turned him himself.  A-Yao moved without any sort of resistance.  His eyes were open and looking forward, but they did not appear to be seeing.  

For one terrible moment of stomach-dropping terror, Xichen thought that somehow his younger sworn brother, his A-Yao, his heart, had been turned into a puppet.  He yanked at the collar of A-Yao’s under-shirt, pulling it down far enough to see that his neck was still unblemished in the moonlight.  It was impossible anyway, wasn’t it?  There should have been no remnants of Yin Iron anywhere near Gusu to trouble them.

“A-Yao, are you… asleep?” Xichen asked finally, as the last possible option.  This time, he did not expect an answer.  “Let me take you back to your rooms.”  He placed one hand at A-Yao’s back, between his shoulder blades, and took his hand with the other, to guide him down the short set of steps leading up to the Hanshi.  How he had managed to navigate up them without tripping or making noise the first time Xichen was not sure.

By the position of the moon in the sky, the shichen was zi.  Cloud Recesses should be quiet and mostly empty, but Xichen still took them along lesser used pathways behind buildings and through wooded gardens just in case.  A-Yao would not appreciate being seen in this state of undress.  

It did have the unfortunate side effect of giving Xichen plenty of time to think on his suddenly heightened awareness of A-Yao beside him, of every place they touched.  His hand between A-Yao’s shoulder blades, and the way he could either spread out his fingers to cover much of the span of his back, or how he could let it slip lower to rest at the curve of his waist.  The loose hair brushing across the back of his hand, soft and lovely and so tempting to run his fingers through.

A-Yao’s hands, Xichen was more acquainted with.  He had been so bold as to run his thumbs soothingly across them the first time that they met, after all, trying to communicate wordlessly that he deserved far more than the scorn heaped upon him by the young cultivators around him.  And then, when Xichen had been injured and weak with fever on the run from the Wens, those hands had tended his wounds with competence and gentleness.  Since, he had watched A-Yao’s hands on teacups and on swords, held forward to bow, and in controlled, elegant gestures as he explained some brilliant idea. This didn’t mean, though, that Xichen had any tolerance built up against the wanting inspired by A-Yao’s touch.  Right now his hand was limp and relaxed, but Xichen could imagine the sensation of those smaller fingers lacing through his own.  Could dream of A-Yao lifting their hands to his lips to kiss Xichen’s with a secretive smile on his face.  It was for the best for both of them, perhaps, that they were walking uninhabited paths of Cloud Recesses, as Xichen felt his ears flame at the idea.

Reaching the walled courtyard around the guest quarters was a relief from Xichen’s own mind, but did present a new problem: although Cloud Recess was back to it’s old quiet, isolated self, everyone felt more comfortable with an increased watch after the Sunshot Campaign.  The disciple at the gate looked alert for a Lan at this time of night.  Objectively a good thing, although it meant they would require another route in.  How A-Yao himself left without raising notice was a question he suspected he may never get an answer to.

“Apologies, A-Yao,” Xichen said, and hooked an arm beneath his legs to lift him.  The way his relaxed head and neck drooped backwards was too disconcerting, so Xichen arranged the man in his arms so that A-Yao’s head rested against his shoulder, and his arms draped around Xichen’s neck.  Then, he had to take a moment just for himself, to revel in the feeling of A-Yao pressed to his chest, the perfect comfort in that pressure and weight.  Xichen’s precious burden and his feelings secured, he jumped silently over the fence.

They landed alongside A-Yao’s pavilion, in the shadows between it and a tall pine tree.  In the courtyard, no one lingered outside of their rooms, although it seemed a few might still be awake by the diffuse light from behind window screens.  Xichen made sure to step carefully and stick to the shadows along the building, until he could slip through the door to A-Yao’s room.

Inside, he crept through the dark, aware that if he were to kick over a table all his caution would have been for not.  The bed itself, he could see as his eyes adjusted, was well rumpled, as if before A-Yao began his nighttime wanderings he had not been sleeping restfully.  Xichen didn’t have the hands to rearrange the bed neatly again, so on top of the blankets it would have to be.

Except, when he set A-Yao onto the bed and made to stand, he was stopped by the arms around his neck.  It seemed at some point that A-Yao had clasped his hands, and would not be so easily dislodged.

“Please, A-Yao, I need to return,” Xichen murmured to him.

A-Yao made a noise in his sleep, a displeased sounding one.  As if he had heard and understood.

Xichen contemplated his options.  Coaxing A-Yao’s arms away would be easy enough, or he could slip his head out from between them, but the thought was suddenly unconscionable.  A-Yao hadn’t been sleeping well here, and the dark circles beneath his eyes had not gone unnoticed either, so Xichen suspected he was not sleeping well at home either.  He could not bear to disturb him when it seemed, in a mirror of Xichen’s own wishes, A-Yao wanted him to stay.

He could lay down right here next to A-Yao and fall back asleep.  He was sure sleep would come to him very easily, even though it wasn’t his own bed, with the comforting warmth of A-Yao beside him.  But then, what explanation could be given for the sect leader having spent the night in his own guest quarters?  No, it had to be better to bring A-Yao back to the Hanshi after all.  The two of them had taken breakfast together before, or gone for walks in the early morning, on days when A-Yao was awake early enough to keep Lan hours.  Although Xichen now had a suspicion that it may be after nights when he had not slept at all.  That would do - he would just need to wake A-Yao in time in the morning and no one would be the wiser.

Back out through the door they went, then, and over the wall to retrace their steps through the gardens.  This time though, Xichen held A-Yao the whole way.  A-Yao had not released his arms, and so the thought of putting him down had barely even crossed Xichen’s mind before it was gone.  

They made better time that way, as he didn’t have to be as aware of all the hazards that A-Yao could not see and may trip over.  Before long, he was sliding open the door to the Hanshi, and then laying A-Yao down for a second time, on his own bed.  He immediately missed the weight and heat of him.

Xichen sat down beside A-Yao, leaning down so as to not tug on his own neck.  He ran a hand up and down A-Yao’s upper arm soothingly, and said, “I promise I will stay.  Will you let me go?”  A-Yao made another set of sleepy grumbling noises, which Xichen found unbearably cute, but then surprisingly released his grip.  He left his arms stretched out across the empty space of the bed, as if he was reaching for Xichen even still.

Xichen slid into the empty side of the bed, and carefully draped one of A-Yao’s outstretched arms across his own chest before he could get caught in thoughts of what they each would or would not do in the daylight, the lines of propriety he was choosing to cross in the shadowy, unreal time between dusk and dawn.  Some small, unnoticed tension leaked out of Xichen’s body at the weight.  A-Yao, for his part, made another noise and cuddled closer, his head shifting until it nearly touched Xichen’s, and the arm across Xichen’s chest tightening just enough to be holding rather than laying limply.

Xichen let out a shaky breath through the sudden squeeze in his heart, and turned his head so he could kiss A-Yao on the forehead in a mirror of the kiss that began this all.  “Goodnight, A-Yao,” he whispered into the small, warm space between them, such an intimacy that it seemed the words were swallowed by the silence of the house.

He wasn’t sure if he would be able to sleep, through the onslaught of feelings that A-Yao here in his bed like this caused in him, but Xichen was out almost the moment he closed his eyes.

Jin Guangyao startled awake sometime in the small hours before dawn to the sensation, of all things, that he was too warm.  That barely even happened in Lanling’s hot and stifling summers, much less when visiting Cloud Recesses.  Next he realized that he was in the wrong bed, and the source of the extra, unexpected heat was another person in it next to him.  In this moment perhaps more than any others, he was grateful for his body’s instinct to freeze and assess when startled, as he breathed through a jolt of fear.  

This was not the brothel.  

He was many years away from the risk of a patron finding their way to his bed uninvited. 

By the pervasive scent of sandalwood and pine, he was still in Cloud Recesses, and a quick assessment of himself showed he was unbound, uninjured, and still clothed.  His instincts had kept his bedmate from waking as he did - despite the way one of his arms was slung across a broad chest and his knees tucked up between his body and the person’s hip - which would afford Jin Guangyao the chance to carefully draw himself away and see who this person was, and then slip away with them none the wiser.

Even still he had to clench his jaw to help concentrate past the rapid, fearful beat of his heart as he gently leaned back from where their heads rested on the same pillow, only a cun away from Jin Guangyao pressing his forehead to their temple.  The man’s face came into focus, the serene sleeping features of Lan Xichen.

There had been fury waiting in the wings of Jin Guangyao’s heart, hidden behind the fear.  He was grateful to be lying down in the face of his sudden light-headedness as both feelings drained away.  

So then, what had brought him here?  He didn’t feel sick or in pain, at least no more than usual, so this was not a case of a sudden illness in the night and er-ge staying by his side at the healers.  Nor had he fallen asleep in the Hanshi; Jin Guangyao had a distinct memory of walking back to his own guest quarters after taking tea with er-ge last night.

That left one option.  More than once since the war, Jin Guangyao had fallen asleep in his own room and woken sometime later standing in a garden or colonnade or empty hall echoing with the silence of deep night.  He’d taken to locking his door, but had foolishly, hubristically, thought that here in Cloud Recesses he might have less to guard against.  He wasn’t even sure that had been a conscious thought, which was infinitely worse.

And where had that thought brought him?  To er-ge’s bed.  As if his sleeping mind knew what he wanted most, and discarded all of the barriers he put up against it in his waking life to bring him right here.

The last time they had slept like this had been when they were in hiding together.  Single rush mats or hard, small beds; threadbare blankets that left them both shivering horribly, it had only been… sensible to share.  Jin Guangyao didn’t think he’d had as good of a night’s sleep since.  Not in Nightless City under Wen Ruohan’s ever-paranoid eye, or in Jinlintai amongst it’s unique crowd of vipers.  He took all of those questions about the last time he’d felt safe enough to relax and sleep without worry and shoved them to the back of his mind.  He’d always known what it meant to do what was needed, that was no different.

This though, this was not needed.  It would not advance his reputation or his plans, may in fact actively harm them were anyone to find out and decide to gossip.  (He might be safe from the Lans.  Might.  Jin Guangyao knew better than to trust even rigid rules when pitted against human nature.)

And yet.

And yet.  He had shifted the blanket down off of his shoulder without thinking about it, and now he was the perfect temperature.  Warm and sinking into the bed, surprisingly soft for his expectations of the Lan clan.  Er-ge’s breathing was quiet and even, bringing Jin Guangyao’s into pace with it, and stilling much of the storm that was always stirring in his heart or mind.  If he let himself forget for a moment all of the reasons and admonishments, he could let his head fall forward, lean against er-ge’s temple the way it almost was when he woke.  He could linger here, in this quiet, timeless moment suffused with the smell of sandalwood incense and fir trees, and with a wanting so gentle it nearly didn’t hurt.  Just long enough to fill his heart with something that could sustain him for a little while when he needed to leave.  He could do this and still slip away before er-ge and the rest of Could Recesses woke.

He remembered dozing for some time, stretches of peace without thought interspersed with indulgent awareness of comfort, and soft robes beneath his curled hands.  And then, he was waking to the feeling of er-ge rising from bed, and cursing himself for letting his guard down a second time within the same night.

Something made Jin Guangyao stay still and keep his eyes closed.  He let himself lie sleepy and relaxed in er-ge’s bed, as he listened to him move about the room.  The sounds of rustling fabric as he dressed, a comb through his hair, and then his footsteps were returning to the side of the bed.

Lan Xichen leaned over and kissed his forehead, right where he painted his cinnabar dot.  With his lips still close enough to brush Jin Guangyao’s skin as he spoke, he said, “I will be back with breakfast momentarily, love.”

Jin Guangyao had years and years of iron control to draw on.  Years of holding himself still, and smiling, and subservient, or whatever other emotion another person expected of him.  Years of speaking with perfect care, always choosing the words that would show himself as a refined gentleman, that would only enhance his reputation.  All of it deserted him in an instant, as he opened his eyes and reached out to grasp at the sleeve of his er-ge’s robes.  He asked, “Do you mean it?”

Er-ge jerked just the tiniest bit in surprise, and some distant corner of Jin Guangyao’s mind wanted to smile at catching him, always so perfectly upright and graceful, off guard.  “Huh?  A-Yao did I wake you?  I am sorry.”

Jin Guangyao ignored that question in light of repeating his much more pressing one.  “Did you mean it?”

Now er-ge just sounded confused rather that surprised.  “Mean what?  That I will return with breakfast?  It really will just be a moment, but you can sleep longer if you wish.”

Merciful Guanyin, was he going to have to say it?  But no, he had years and years of practice keeping it behind his teeth, all the way back to when his er-ge was only Lan-zongzhu and there had been an impulse in his fingers to sign off every secret letter, “In case I never see you again, I fear I have fallen in love with you.”  It kept him from being able to say it now.  Instead, his hand flexed a little tighter in the fabric of er-ge’s sleeve, and he said, “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”  He’d intended it to come out a bit tart, a bit teasing, but the slowness of early morning diluted his tone down far too close to pleading.

Er-ge’s eyes softened, and he sat back down on the bed.  Jin Guangyao was hyper-aware of how their hips nearly brushed, the blanket between them pulling tight across his waist as it was caught beneath er-ge.

One of er-ge’s hands reached out, as if to touch Jin Guangyao’s face, but then stopped at the last moment.  Instead he laid it over the hand on his sleeve.  “Does A-Yao want me to mean it?” he asked.  He did a much better job at a teasing tone, but underneath was a steady earnestness, that promised if Jin Guangyao said no, he would step away and get breakfast.  They would eat and drink tea, perhaps walk the paths on the mountain, and the conversation would drift in other directions, never to find its way back again.  If that is what he wanted.

He did not want that vision, not at all.  He wanted his er-ge’s love, wanted to be able to love him in return.  Even if it did nothing to advance his plans, to advance his reputation.  He swallowed hard, and turned that iron control in a different direction, towards making himself speak.  “I want you to mean it.  Please, er-ge.  Please mean it.”

Er-ge’s face lit up, like he’d set off a firework beneath his skin.  “A-Yao, my A-Yao, my love.”

Jin Guangyao felt his cheeks heating, and resisted the nonsensical urge to say ‘you can’t say things like that!’  He was the one who had asked for it after all.  Instead, he ran his hand up from Xichen’s arm to his shoulder, and tugged lightly before ordering.  “Come back here, then, and kiss me.”

The way er-ge’s eyes darkened was very interesting; he cataloged that away for the future.  And then, he didn’t think anymore at all because a pair of soft, warm lips were pressing to his own.  Jin Guangyao let his eyes slip shut and wrapped his other hand around the back of er-ge’s neck.  

It kept him from going very far when he pulled back, and searched Jin Guangyao’s face.  He must have been satisfied with what he saw, because he smiled so brightly, and tipped forward again, this time to rest their foreheads together.  Even more than the kiss, the feeling of the metal cloud piece of er-ge’s ribbon against his skin made him gasp.  “My er-ge.  My Lan Xichen,” he tested out into the bare inches of space between him, his voice curling around the words possessively, and heard er-ge’s breath hitch.

And then er-ge was kissing him again, once, twice, three more times.  Each just that bit firmer than the last, enough to start to bring up the heat in Jin Guangyao’s blood, before he pulled back.  Jin Guangyao was just about to work himself up to a pout when er-ge asked, with a truly incandescent joy in audible in his voice, “Would A-Yao mind if breakfast was delayed?  I did not get the chance to properly appreciate holding you.”

Well, now, how was he supposed to complain about such a sweet request like that?  He found himself shaking his head, while the arms still around er-ge pulled him in closer in answer.

Er-ge planted one knee on the bed, so he was momentarily looming over Jin Guangyao, which he filed away for more exploration later given the swoop in his stomach.  Then er-ge swung his other leg up too, to the other side of Jin Guangyao, and tipped himself in an undignified sprawl onto the empty, opposite side of the bed.  The corners of his mouth were drawn up in delight and amusement, seemingly at his own antics, and his eyes crinkled up.  The near-laughter on his face carried over into his voice as he said, “Come here,” and reached out an arm to drag Jin Guangyao over on top of him, so he was laying with his back to er-ge’s chest.

And, oh.  Jin Guangyao breathed out and felt as if all of his muscles and bones had deserted him with how easily he relaxed into that hold.  He tipped his head back so it was pillowed on er-ge’s shoulder, and his eyes drifted back shut almost without his own accord.  His body reminding him with a vengeance that he’d had an interrupted night of sleep and this was still earlier morning than he preferred, and then throwing in, just for good measure, that he was now warm, comfortable, and safe.

“I’ve dreamed of doing this,” er-ge said, wrapping his arms across Jin Guangyao’s chest and belly, and pressing a kiss against his temple.  “I will be content for as long as you might want to still sleep.”

Jin Guangyao didn’t fully sleep again, but he did let himself drift as the sun slowly crept up over the windowsills and across the floor.  He could feel the rise and fall of er-ge’s breathing against his back, and a hand rubbing gently up and down over his side.  But, he wasn’t accustomed to lazing for particularly long, no matter how blissful the excuse.  Eventually he stretched a little to indicate that he was fully awake again, and reached out to take one of er-ge’s hands and lace their fingers together above his stomach.  He could feel er-ge’s delight in the sharp breath against his back.

“Good morning, A-Yao.”

“Mn, good morning,” Jin Guangyao said, and then asked one of the questions that had been on his mind.  “Er-ge, how did we end up here?”  He lifted his free hand to indicate the bed, the Hanshi, all of it.

“Do you have no memory of it?”

“I have a suspicion about what happened, but will er-ge tell it for me?”  Jin Guangyao hoped that he hadn’t made a fool of himself in some way, but there was a touch of anxiety swirling low in his gut over the answer.

“I am not sure what happened before this, but A-Yao came to the Hanshi last night while you were still asleep-” yes, just as Jin Guangyao had feared “-ostensibly to say goodnight, and to give me a… goodnight kiss.”

Oh dear.  If er-ge was stumbling over his words even after they had exchanged more kisses, he must have behaved egregiously.  He kept his body relaxed against er-ge’s chest with a force of will, and asked in a lighthearted tone, “Hopefully I have been able to provide better kisses while awake?”

Er-ge laughed lightly at himself, and shook his head.  “A-Yao only kissed my forehead.  But it was unexpected.  Before that, I wanted to believe that this is what we meant to each other, but I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want to show it,” Jin Guangyao whispered.  “It was…”  He thought of promises from sect leaders.  Of tower stairs.  Vicious rumor mills that had said things about him and Nie-zongzhu even when Nie Mingjue had never looked back at him with the same kind of heat he recognized in Lan Xichen’s eyes.  Rumors that were more than happy to look at all his accomplishments, his cultivation, his status and attribute them only to the bedroom at the slightest hint…  The way much of that was still there, would always still be there.  The way that this one wanting had never been meant to grow so large as to put at risk all the others.

“Mn,” er-ge hummed gently, and tightened his arms in a silent acknowledgment.  Jin Guangyao breathed out all the tension from his chest and his muscles at not having to say it out loud.

“So then,” he brought them back to the topic at hand.  “What occurred next?”

“I walked A-Yao back to his rooms, but we had to go over the wall to avoid the guard.”

“That seems like a flaw in your guard rotation, er-ge,” Jin Guangyao interrupted, with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Ahem, well.”

He turned his head so he could glimpse er-ge’s thoroughly pink ears, and took advantage of the proximity to shift just a bit further and press a quick kiss to his lips.  “I’ll stop, I’ll stop.”  A part of his brain peeled off to consider modifications that could be made from his old Nie rosters to work for the Lan, but that was a concern firmly for later.

Er-ge stole another kiss before he continued, “When I tried to return you to bed, you ah, wouldn’t let go.  I decided it would be easier if I brought you back here.”

“Easier how?”

“We often take breakfast, or morning walks.  It would raise less questions.”

Jin Guangyao could admit that the logic was sound, even if it had given him a moment’s panic in the middle of the night.  Well, full story told it did not seem as if he had behaved too egregiously, and certainly couldn’t complain about the end result.  Even still, he sighed, and said, “Ah, it is as I had feared, then.”

“Does A-Yao find himself sleepwalking often?”

“Sometimes, recently.  More often when I am restless or have something on my mind.”

“And did you sleep well here?”  Xichen sounded just the slightest bit hesitant, and hopeful.  It was sweet, unbearably so.

In revenge for that feeling - or perhaps as a reward, he couldn’t quite decide - Jin Guangyao stretched luxuriously, letting one arm land in such a way that it curled around the back of er-ge’s neck.  “Hm, wonderfully,” he said, letting the words stretch lazily across his tongue.  It was the truth, too.  Even his intermittent dozing had left him feeling more rested than he had in days.

Er-ge nosed against Jin Guangyao’s neck, newly in reach, and said into the hollow behind his ear, “Well then, A-Yao will simply have to share my bed any time he is in Cloud Recesses.”

“Er-ge!”

“I had meant for sleeping, but A-Yao can of course share my bed in other ways if he would like.”

There were still things Jin Guangyao would need to think through - what they would be to each other, what they would appear to be to the world.  How this would fit with his other ambitions, or possibly even rewrite them.  But for now, for now he tilted his head to show more of his neck, flexed his hand against er-ge’s skin, and said, “Yes.”

[lord-squiggletits]

I’d love to hear any comments/headcanons you have for pre-Tarn/pre-war Damus!

Those tags about him being touch starved due in part to his Outlier powers had me in my feels 😭😭 I loved that wonderful (and angsty) analysis on him.

Hmm I'm not sure I have that many but let's see if the ones I do have end up blossoming into a more robust list or not

Like most people, I headcanon Damus having an affinity for music long before becoming Tarn; I mean, his outlier power had literally nothing to do with sound at all to begin with (even once he started being able to do it at a distance), so it seems like for Tarn to have 'music lover' as one of his big traits, he would've picked it for a reason, no? Not all parts of Tarn (TM) have to be a complete pretense

Following that, because Damus' outlier broke all electrical devices/machines he touched, he became a singer because his own voice is something he can't break and that no one can take away from him. Maybe he would've tried non-electronic instruments, but he would've gravitated towards singing more than instrumental performance regardless

Also, depending on how you headcanon Cybertronian singing to work (do any of them "breathe"/push air like humans do or are their voices entirely synthesized? Is "breathing" a special mod or does it work as a function of ventilation/cooling), being empurata'd probably could've affected Damus' singing ability since he would no longer have a face/mouth to shape his sounds. Could still sing since he does have a voice box, but I imagine that, considering Damus wasn't able to touch anyone/anything anyways, losing his hands was way less hurtful to him than losing his face.

However, since his outlier ability would make him pretty much functionally disabled on Cybertron (literally everything and everyone is machines), Damus would've had a greater appreciation for physical mediums of art/function more than the average person, I think. In a society where pretty much everything is stored on datapads, computers, etc, Damus would've been a huge pen-and-paper, art canvas, stonecarving, etc kind of guy; a big appreciator of things that can survive without an electrical connection or any machine functioning. He's basically one of those people who, in human terms, would own a lot of antiquated stuff like record players, cassette decks, CDs, etc because his outlier forced him to adapt to (and then eventually enjoy the benefits/unique traits of) physical rather than digital mediums. I imagine this trait would make Damus odd among other hobbyists, since for both anatomical reasons (they're a mechanical species) and cultural reasons (history of mechanical superiority/anti-organic tendencies), most people would probably degrade physical media as less fast, efficient, flexible, etc compared to digital. Which does kind of make it ironic that Damus later became a Decepticon, but I suppose non-electrical/mechanical doesn't necessarily equate to being organic.

On account of not gaining control of his outlier until his outlaw days with Orion and co., I imagine Damus' job opportunities would've been very limited and he would've mostly had a very poor/limiting lifestyle (which also inclined him to be more interested in Megatron's writings and eventually becoming a Decepticon). Creativity isn't running well at the moment, but probably something like waste management (like being a garbage man) or some sort of manual hauling job, although Damus appears to have just been a normal 4-wheeled car alt-mode so I'm not sure he could've/would've gotten hired for heavy manual labor stuff. Perhaps he could've been a courier like Bumblebee was pre-war?

That also begs the question of how Damus compensated for his disability. Maybe to handle electronics, he could do so as long as he wore really thick gloves or something? Probably he'd also take advantage of stuff like voice commands/text to speech on electronic devices, so I imagine Damus' life wasn't completely devoid of any technology whatsoever. Do you think he'd be able to cook food on a stove top as long as he used a pair of tongs to grab it? I bet Damus had to get really good at improvising disability aids and getting basic life functions done without touching things directly with his hands, so maybe he was a bit of a tinkerer back then as well. And now I'm imagining Damus' home being full of elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that do very basic things like turn the stove to a specific temperature and turn it off after a set interval of time klsdalfjkdls

[garbinge]

Charming Life (7/?)

Opie Winston x Teller!SisterOC Joanne ‘Jo’ Teller Jax Teller & OC Joanne Teller 30 Day Fic Challenge (18/30)

Chapter Index 

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: All my fics are 18+ regardless of content. Siblings fighting again, light angst, but other than that mostly fluffy.

Charming Life Taglist: @drabbles-mc​ @livingdeadblondequeen​ @justreblogginfics @chloe-skywalker @kmc1989

“Hey.” Opie’s voice caused Jo to turn around, almost knocking over her salon chair. 

“Hey.” She laughed and steadied herself. 

“You alright?” He frowned, taking a step closer to her. “Yea, sorry just a weird day.” 

“Micky?” Opie frowned and asked. 

“No, why? What do you know?” The girl got nervous, quick. 

“Nothin’, no. Just see you get like this when it’s gotta do with that piece of shit.” 

“For once my problems have nothing to do with him.” She laughed and ran her hands through her hair again. 

Opie frowned looking for an answer from her and she just shook her head. “Jax and I got into it, feel like we haven’t fought like that since we were teenagers and I was yelling at him to turn his music down or he was pushing me down the stairs to get the passenger seat the rare times Gemma took us to school. This was bad, Ope. He said some awful shit.” 

“I remember way worse fights than that.” Opie laughed and wrapped his arm around Jo as he recalled the fight he witnessed first hand. “Think he asked you what it’s like to be so perfect and it snowballed from there.” 

“I pushed him in Gemma’s azaleas, she still hasn’t forgiven me for that.” Her head was pressed against Opie’s chest. 

“He’ll come around.” He was now rubbing her back with his arm. “How you holding up about Luanne?” 

“I’m fine, more worried about my mom. She asked to watch Dil today, think she’s trying to break the cloud around her.” Jo spoke still soaking in every minute of this embrace with Opie. 

“You off work?” Opie asked, hoping it meant he could spend some time with Jo. 

“No, I have a 4:30 client. Who always shows up late and wants a full head of highlights, shit take’s forever.” She sighed. “What’re you doing tonight?” She peeled away from his chest to look up at him. “Want to hang then? I can pick the kids up and have ‘em sleep at my place. We could watch a movie.” She shrugged. 

Opie sighed and dipped his head. “I’ve got club shit tonight. Don’t worry about the kids, Bobby’s sister is watching them.” 

Jo looked up and raised her eyebrows. “You’d be better having Bobby himself watch them.” She teased. “I’ll pick them up, they can stay at my place. Dil loves having them around, I think she breaks them out of their shell.” 

“She does, Ellie was mumbling that song Dillon is always singing around the club the other day. I’m lucky to get her to say more than 5 words a day.” Opie laughed. 

“See. I’ll pick ‘em up after this client. I’ll see you in the morning.” Jo leaned up and placed a quick kiss to Opie’s lips. It was still an unsure thing, the two hadn’t really discussed anything, which was typical, but one thing that was certain without words was something shifted with them. 

“Everything’s going to be okay.” Opie caught Jo’s head before she pulled away too far. 

“I really hope that’s true.” She closed her eyes and before another word could come from her mouth, another kiss was being placed on her lips, this one more passionate than the one she left on Opie, this one he was holding her close like taking any time away from doing exactly this would paralyze him, but his touch was light and tender on her so as not to make her uncomfortable. The kiss was long, and Jo practically melted into him again. She felt the butterflies in her stomach full force, still almost a dream to her that this was her reality. 

_____

As Jo pulled into TM the next morning, she saw Gemma walking from the office to her car. 

“Hey!” She called to her mother before stepping out of the car. Gemma turned and frowned. 

“What’re you doing here so early?” 

“Wanted to check in on you, plus I’m meeting Opie, going to grab breakfast with everyone.” She pointed to her backseat which had all 3 kids. 

Gemma smirked and thought to ask more questions but held off. “I’m headed to give Wayne a ride. Just needed to drop off some paperwork I brought home last night.” 

“How you holding up?” Jo genuinely asked her mother. 

“I’m fine.” She answered quickly and clearly lying straight through her teeth. 

“Here if you need anything.” Joanne spoke just as the rumbles of motorcycles began to sound from down the street. 

“Looks like your breakfast date awaits you.” Gemma’s eyebrows raised and she smiled again before peering into the car to see the kids. 

Jax and Opie pulled up. Opie offered a quick wave as he moved to debrief with the rest of the guys, leaving Jax by himself. Jo would have easily ignored her younger brother if it wasn’t for Dillon undoing her belt and opening the car door to run towards him. 

“Uncle Jax!” She called out as she ran faster than Jo’s head could wrap around what she was doing. 

Without a second guess, Jax was kneeling to the ground to pick the girl up, all smiles on his face. “What’s up Dillybear.” She was now settled in his arms. “Going to breakfast, I’m going to get waffles, french toast, bacon, sausage, maybe hashbrowns,” she started listing off every breakfast food there was before catching her mother’s eyes and frowned. “and a cup of fruit yogurt because mom makes me.” 

“Yea mom can be annoying, can’t she.” Jax said knowing Jo was in full earshot to hear it. 

“So annoying, I hate the yogurt cup.” She crossed her arms and pouted. 

“Dillon, c’mon get back in the car, we’re gonna head out soon.” Jo’s voice was stern. 

“Do I have to eat the yogurt cup.” She tried to negotiate, a tactic she probably picked up from Gemma. 

“Yes, but if you eat the yogurt cup you’ll get chocolate chips in your pancakes.” 

“Deal.” The little girl was squirming out of Jax’s arms and running back to the car. 

“I don’t appreciate you negating me to my kid.” 

“It wasn’t a big deal, relax.” Jax laughed it off, annoyed himself. 

“Nothing’s a big deal to you because you don’t have to deal with it, it’s Jax’s world and we’re all just living in it.” 

“You really want to start this right now?” Jax looked like he was eager to fight with her. 

“I didn’t start shit, Jax. You started this by keeping that shit to yourself.” She pointed at him, it took everything in her not to step up and let her finger lay into him. 

“Can you just trust that I’m going to fix shit?” 

“You can’t seem to trust me, why should I trust you?” She pinned it back on him. 

“Call me when you grow up.” Jax was walking past the girl, shaking his head. 

“Jax!” Jo turned and it caught everyone’s attention but that didn’t bother her at all. “Call me when you actually want to be a brother!” 

It wasn’t a monumental diss, but it sure did get her point across. 

____

Breakfast was silent besides the kids murmuring and giggling to each other. It really was true, the three of them really brought out each other's personalities. While Kenny and Ellie became more vocal and out of their shell, they showed Dillon that she didn’t always have to be into the adult conversations. It was something that came with being an only child, she’d find herself in the mix of the adults, but now she had kids around her age more frequently to keep her occupied from that. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Opie casually brought up the tension as he picked at his plate. 

“No.” Jo was aggressively stabbing her pancakes. 

“Can I have your bacon?” Dillon was peering over at Opie’s plate. He let out a chuckle and looked to Jo for her permission to which she nodded. 

“Here, each of you get a piece.” He handed each kid one. 

“See you just have to ask, they normally say yes.” Dillon thought she was whispering perfectly but it just earned her another chuckle from Opie. 

“I’m so full.” He leaned back in his chair and looked at the kids. Dillon was so quick to copy him by leaning back as well and rubbing her belly.

“Ahhh, me too.” 

“You’re a funny kid, you know that, Dill.” Opie was smiling looking down at her. 

“Can we get pancakes every Sunday.” Kenny was leaning forward on the table, while his feet dangled. 

“If the schedule allows it, I don’t see why not.” Opie said with a shrug. 

“No, like all of us.” Ellie spoke up, still a shy voice, but learning to break out of it. 

This made Jo look up and she saw that the girl was looking between her and Dillon. 

“Yea, Ellie girl, I’d like that a lot.”

[familyabolisher]

do you have any favorite quotes or passages from the locked tomb series?

mmm i don’t really think about prose in terms of “quotes” (not trying to sound like a snob i just find it difficult to make value judgments about a piece of writing when it’s isolated from its broader context!) but i think some of my fav bits of prose in the series are:

like, the whole of john 1:20, but especially the creation of alecto—’from my blood and bone and vomit i conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in, i was terrified you’d find some way to escape before i was done,’ ‘adam and eve, galatea, barbie, frankenstein’s monster with long yellow hair,’ ‘i hid you in me i hid me in you’ etc. just a really really good sequence lmao.

the couple of parts of the john chapters where tm drops the monologuing conceit to have john & harrowlecto do some like rapid-fire dialogue (‘“[...] i couldn’t do a damned thing” / “so what did you do” / “a damned thing, didn’t i” / “i still love you” / “you always say that, harrowhark”’; ‘“do you remember what you said to me once i had done it? when we stood here together? / “yes” / “you said, i picked you to change and this is how you repay me?” / “what else did i say?” / “you said, what have you done to me? i am a hideousness” / “what else did i say?” / “where did you put the people? where did they go?” / “i still love you” / “you said that too”’) are really good.

the final few pages of nona before the epilogue where alecto’s memories start bleeding through into the present-day action (and the splicing of kiriona killing crux with the entry into the tomb + alecto’s memories of entombment … Screaming and throwing up) have some good turns of phrase—’the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen. the teardrop on the hand. the hand that john had fashioned.’; ‘most human voices sounded alike, after all. they were not beautiful. the waters parted for her and it became possible to walk, crunching through the bones at the bottom. the bones at the bottom; what did they make her think of?’ ‘the terrible face with the terrible arms and legs and the terrible middle part, the terrible hair, and the terrible ears: the nose too short, the ears too brief. [...] her own edge had been pushed out, her swinging edge, her toy.’ walking a VERY fine line between lyrical and overwritten and actually landing it. 

really fond of varun the eater and nonalecto’s exchanges—’green thing, green-and-breathing thing, big ghost, the drinker, transformed, what will you eat now? where will your body go? what did he do to you to make you this way? [...] they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. i will pull their teeth. i will make it blank for you.’ REALLY goes. ‘what did he do to you to make you this way’ immediately after asking nona if she ‘loves’ and nona saying ‘ i don’t know what it means, did i ever know what it meant?’ and ‘john loves alecto, john needs alecto’ as the thing that forces alecto’s ‘return’ of sorts … every day i get emails

‘the shimmering white figure of the dead kiriona gaia’ is a very satisfying turn of phrase. i am fond of it

nona epigraph poem (‘you told me sleep, i’ll wake you in the morning / i asked what is morning and you said / when everyone who fucked with me is dead’ etc)

some of the language used in gideon to describe canaan house sets off my little fictional house sensibilities so bad. ‘castle that had been killed,’ ‘the look of a picked-at body [...] a beautiful corpse,’ ‘abandoned and breathlessly waited to be used by someone other than time.’ horrid horrid house i love her so much.

arm scene, obviously. incidentally—and this is present throughout harrow but i think i notice it more in scenes like the arm scene—i really enjoy how much harrow moreso than the other two is written in a voice similar to that of lolita, wherein you have a protagonist with an incredibly affected pretension which the narration pokes fun at them for but which also enables a kind of indulgence in pretension even whilst painting it as such. anyway—'an exquisite conglomeration of bone beneath skin and meat, pocketed in the middle with soft treasures of parenchyma and muscle [...] you were able to see her skeleton as though she had shyly undressed herself for you, as though in the orange hues of the daytime light she’d sloughed capillaries and glands off the budding rose of her scapula’; ‘prayed for a woman you loved to assist you in disrobing a woman you did not’ (insane line sorry); ‘the lovely cup of the radius, the forked embrace of the ulna.’ cowards will call it overwritten but not ME i love sex scenes

& finally, the descriptions of alecto in harrow (which, incidentally—something to be said for the text of harrow referring to alecto predominantly as the Body and the text of nona referring to kiriona pretty heavily as the corpse prince—anyway) but especially the ‘that night the body consented to embrace you’ bit spliced in with john bringing up annabel fucking lee for the first time. deranged.

[waytooinvested]

Small Problem... Chapter 2

You can find the full story on AO3

..................................................

Lena was in the middle of grinding up a chunk of dried rhubarb for her latest spell to try and de-miniaturise Kara when Dreamer came hurtling into the room at full speed, almost running right into the far wall when she failed to slow down in time, and startling Lena so much that she dropped her pestle.

‘Nia! What is it? What’s happened?’

She would have been more worried by the sudden entrance, if not for the fact that Nia was now bouncing excitedly from foot to foot, and holding -something- behind her back like a child who had just raided the cookie jar.

‘Have you seen Kara anywhere? She’s not on the snack table’.

There was a tiny huff of air against Lena’s ear, and an indignant little voice muttered ‘I don’t spend that much time with the snacks!’

‘She doesn’t spend that much time with the snacks’.

Nia chuckled at the passed-on-message, tilting her head to peer past the fall of Lena’s hair to where Kara was sitting comfortably on her shoulder, legs dangling by her clavicle and one hand fisted in her shirt for balance.

‘I don’t know why I even asked – I should have known if you weren’t making the most of a fresh batch of crullers you’d be in here with Lena’.

‘There’s CRULLERS???’

Lena didn’t have to speak up for Kara this time, because that had come out at a volume loud enough to make her wince, and definitely loud enough to carry to Nia standing a few feet away.

‘Kara, remember what we said about shouting and proximity to people’s ears?’

‘Oops, sorry…’ Kara patted the lobe of Lena’s ear apologetically. ‘But crullers Lena! I haven’t had a giant cruller yet, and you know they’re my favourite!’

‘Well hang on, that’s not what I came here to tell you! I got you a surprise!’

Nia was bouncing again, and at last Kara was diverted from the promise of fresh doughnuts by her obvious excitement.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s- drum roll please-’

Nia stamped her feet in a rapid tattoo to simulate her own drum roll, then brought out the thing behind her back with a flourish, plonking it down in the middle of Lena’s grimoire so it would be right in Kara’s line of sight.

‘-YOU!’

The big (well, little) surprise was a miniature Supergirl action figure. Just under five inches high, complete with Supersuit, cape, boots and flowing waves of plastic hair. They all stared at it for a moment, and then Kara lifted gingerly off Lena’s shoulder and floated down to have a closer look.

It was not a perfect likeness by any means, but one of the better of its kind, and seeing the two of them side by side was… a little uncanny, honestly. Kara walked a slow circle around her doppelganger, taking in its fixed plastic grin and hands-on-hips pose with a perplexed frown on her face.

‘Thank… you?’

‘What’s she supposed to do with it?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

Kara and Lena looked at the doll, then at each other, then shrugged.

‘Not really?’

‘The clothes. You can take the supersuit off, I checked! Even the boots are proper leather. Well, pleather, but I think they’ll be comfy enough – they’re soft anyway, not stiff plastic, and they look about the right size’.

Kara perked up at that, keen to get back into something that would feel more like her usual self.

Once it had become clear that getting Kara back to her proper size wasn’t going to be a quick fix, they had done their best to get her properly outfitted. Alex and Kelly had taken Esme home to raid her doll box for anything that might come close to fitting Kara, and they had found a few things that worked, which Kara had been wearing on rotation. Her favourite so far had been a tiny pair of blue jean style stretchy pants, and a matching blue shirt with long sleeves layered under short that had once belonged to a Tiny Teen!TM doll. Her LEAST favourite was the ill fitting ‘sleepy bunnikins’ baby doll onesie she had been forced to wear for one humiliating afternoon while chocolate frosting was washed out of her other clothes after an incident of over-exuberance helping Esme decorate cupcakes for her upcoming birthday party. The rest fell somewhere between the two on the spectrum of acceptability, but none had made Kara feel entirely herself, and they had had no luck at all so far with shoes.

Until now.

‘YES! Thank you Nia!!! Lena, would you mind…?’

Kara gestured at the open grimoire and Lena obligingly stood it up on its end to hide her and the doll from their view, hoping that it wasn’t inadvertently insulting to her mother’s memory to use her revered magic book as a changing screen. She and Nia waited patiently for the reveal, sharing an amused glance at the mutters and grumbles that emerged from behind the book as Kara wrestled her plastic twin out of its clothes and pulled them on herself.

When at last she emerged the twee floral dress and pinafore she had borrowed from Esme’s littlest china doll was gone, and Kara was once more dressed in an approximation of her own clothes. She struck her familiar Supergirl pose, hands on hips, newly shod feet set wide apart, and looked hopefully up at them.

‘What do you think?’

Lena examined her tiny friend and nodded admiringly.

‘Much better. You look like yourself again’.

It was true, but not wholly true. The sizing was no worse than any of the other outfits she had been making do with lately to be fair – better if anything, since it was made of stretchy, forgiving material, but knowing how her suit was supposed to fit made it all the more obvious that the sleeves of this one were straining around Kara’s biceps, while the too-long pants wrinkled and the top hung loosely across her chest. Apparently the manufacturers had taken some liberties with Supergirl’s bra size…

Nia squealed and clapped her hands in delight. ‘I’m so glad I stayed up til 4am in an ebay bidding war for it, it was TOTALLY worth it!’

‘Nia, you didn’t!’

‘Yep – there’s loads of Supergirl dolls out there, but most of them are too big, or the clothes are just painted on. THIS one is a much sought after “Superhero In My Hand” model, and the clothes come off so that you can swap them out with other dolls in the series if you want to. I really wanted to get little Dreamer too, but that one still had another two hours on the auction and Brainy changed the wifi password to force me go to sleep, so my nemesis got her instead’.

Lena raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a nemesis?’

‘I do now. Ebay user Iheartdreamer98’.

Nia glared darkly at nothing in particular, then dropped to a crouch so that she was at eye level with Kara on the table, grinning again as if nothing had happened.

‘This is so cool. What do you think of the doll?’

‘I love the clothes, but the actual doll is a bit creepy, and they made me look kind of constipated. Now she’s out of the outfit I don’t think she really looks much like me at all’.

‘So you don’t want to keep her?’

‘Not especially’.

‘Can I have her then?’

Kara frowned. ‘What for?’

Glancing between Kara and Lena, Nia beckoned them both closer before whispering ‘hijinks’.

‘Go on…’ Kara whispered back conspiratorially (then had to repeat herself more loudly, because at her current size a whisper was inaudible unless she practically climbed into your ear canal).

‘Well -’. Nia reached over the grimoire to pull out the doll, which Lena noticed was now wearing Kara’s cast off frills (apparently despite thinking it didn’t look like her she had felt weird about leaving it entirely naked, even though it must have been a pain trying to dress a from-her-perspective-life-sized plastic dummy). ‘-Brainy knows I bought this because he was there when I was ordering it. But no one else does. Alex doesn’t. I thought there might be some good pranking potential in it. What do you think? Something to do while you’re stuck in here?’

Kara grinned back wickedly ‘oh yes’.

After the first couple of days spent getting used to her new size and taking part in a dozen different (failed) attempts at de-shrinking spells, Kara’s mood had shifted from distress to boredom. She couldn’t go to work. She couldn’t fly out to save the day from villains (though she had waged an hours long battle to oust a rat that had been attempting to set up home in the tower, then spent a further day amusing Esme with stories and re-enactments of her daring exploits). She couldn’t even go out without someone’s pocket to hide in, in case anyone saw her and decided to use her relative vulnerability to their advantage. In fact as Nia had alluded to, the main solace Kara had now was her continued delight in over-sized snacks, but even her appetite had its limits, and she was desperate for things to do. It seemed that Nia might just have found a neat solution to both her need for proper clothing and her need for entertainment (even if it was at the expense of her long-suffering sister).

‘You’re with us, right Lena?’

‘I’m theoretically with you. I won’t tell Alex what you’re up to or do anything to spoil your fun, but I don’t think I’ll have time to actively join in. I really need to keep working on this spell so you can get back to normal’.

Lena hadn’t been doing anything but working on spells since Kara’s accident, even though she had long since tried even the most tenuously promising charms in her mother’s book, and was more or less just making things up now. She was using rhubarb, because it was known for its speedy and extensive growth. Bamboo shoots for the same reason. A dose of her artificial yellow sunlight to boost Kara’s innate powers and lend the spell strength… she was about 48 hours away from suggesting that Kara drink up her milk and go to bed early in the hopes that it would help her grow up big and strong, or else poking about in rabbit holes to find the way down to Wonderland and the caterpillar’s magic size changing mushroom, but she couldn’t admit it.

Not when whatever had happened had to have been her fault. She and Kara had been standing over the workbench together at the time looking through her grimoire. Their hands had collided as they both reached to turn a page and Lena had felt the usual surge of butterflies that came with touching Kara unexpectedly. Then suddenly all hell had broken loose and everyone else had been thrown across the room while Kara shrank to dolls house proportions. It must have been some unforeseen magical accident linked to the surge of emotion, or the physical contact while touching the book, or… something. And if Lena’s magic had caused this, that meant it must also be able to fix it.

The trouble was that despite going over the interaction second by second in her mind every hour since it had happened, she still had no idea what she had done, or how. She hadn’t been trying to do a spell. Not just a shrinking spell, but any kind. The idea that magic could just burst out of her uncontrollably like that was terrifying, and another reason why she had been spending most of her time holed up in this room away from the others, where she couldn’t accidentally hurt anyone.

In fact the only person she hadn’t made excuses to stay away from for more than five minutes at a time lately was Kara.

Kara, who was the one Lena had most hurt with her accidental witchcraft, but also the only other person who was as trapped in the tower as Lena was until she learned to keep her magic under tighter control. It felt unfair to turn her away when she was already so lonely and overwhelmed by her new size. Besides, Lena harboured a secret, desperate hope that if they were together enough then whatever she had accidentally done might be undone the same way. They would brush knuckles in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment, or Kara would step onto some special part of the grimoire, and just as suddenly as she had shrunk, she would grow back to her usual size and this would all be over.

She didn’t say that to Kara of course – to her and to everyone else she remained optimistic, assuring them that they weren’t out of options yet, and the next spell might just be the one that would do the trick. Well then, the next. Or the one after that. She would find it eventually. She had to. So she couldn’t let herself get diverted into playing games with Nia and Kara, no matter how hopefully they were looking at her now. That would be like admitting she was giving up. And besides, somebody might get hurt.

Kara crossed the table to her and patted her knuckle gently, understanding something of her distress, even if not all of it.

‘I know you want to work this out Lena, but you’re allowed to take a break. It’s okay if it takes time. I’m okay’.

Lena smiled back at her gratefully, but shook her head.

‘I know, and I’ll take a break if I need to. I just want to do a little more work on this one first’.

‘Are you coming up for dinner at least? J’onn’s cooking something Martian-inspired’.

‘Sounds good, but I’m not really hungry. Save me some left overs?’

‘Sure…’

Kara still didn’t look happy, but she flew up from the table to perch on Nia’s shoulder, and Lena listened to the two of them talking about how best to prank the others with their look-alike Kara as they clattered off back down the hallway, leaving Lena alone with her spells.

Rhubarb.

Bamboo.

Artificial yellow sun.

There had to be a way.

[alectoperdita]

Oh hell, I am all about them drugged confessions. If/whenever you’re up for it. 💕

From Put That Guy in a Situation(TM) Ask Game

Jumped this one ahead in the queue since it's someone's birthday. 💜💜💜 Enjoy, my friend! I hope this has enough of the stuff you dig about them.

13. Drunken/drugged/sleepy confessions

content warnings: referenced non-consensual drug use and mildly spicy because Seto is thirsty

---

The city lights stabbed into Seto's eyes. The city's heartbeat—a frantic cacophony of bumper-to-bumper traffic, music spilling out of late-night shops and restaurants, and an overwhelming pulse of humanity—pulsed against the back of his head like a second migraine.

He lifted his heavy head and tried to get a better look at his surroundings. Not an easy feat when the world wouldn't stop spinning. Seto could feel the planet's rotational force itself.

In the sky, a bloated, sickly yellow moon hung on the black canvas, a dim bulb when compared to the Oriental Pearl Tower's neon blue and magenta on the opposite riverbank. The phalanx of lit skyscrapers behind the landmark formed a blinding wall that threatened to lighten the night sky.

No wonder they were sitting at a standstill in traffic. He was in the Bund. Shanghai. He was in Shanghai. Not for the first or second time, but the city's nightlife never failed to overwhelm.

It came back to him in bits and pieces. The Pan-Asia Duel Monsters Championship was in China this year, which KC was a sponsor of, along with a dozen international and domestic corporations. Seto wasn't here to compete, though. He was here to do business and build guanxi.

Which meant night after night of hard drinking and tedious back slapping as Seto endured their patronizing compliments about his passable Mandarin. Endless rounds of maotai until his blood must be 90% alcohol. That was the preferred poison of the old-school elites, the ones who built their wealth on the backs of a rapidly booming economy that outpaced everyone's wildest imagination. Not even Japan had sustained that kind of boom in the post-war years.

Potential liver failure was the price of doing business in this country.

That was last night, though. Seto was sure of that much, even if the passage of time seemed theoretical at best. Tonight, he'd been swept into a gaggle of their children, mainly the sons of the previous night's party officials and business moguls.

The fuerdai. His "peers."

Ha! Gozaburo had handed him nothing. Everything Seto owned, everything he accomplished, was through his own sweat and blood.

Seto will give them one thing: their tastes were decidedly less provincial. While their fathers drank baijiu like fish drinking water, they preferred cocktails, or at least pitchers of iced green tea mixed with Crown Royal.

Maybe that was his first mistake. Maybe he shouldn't have underestimated how fucked up he could get on such a simple mixture.

That was the last thing he could remember. He drew a yawning gap between the afterparty at the club and this taxi cab.

Seto sank into the seat and squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach lurched. Perhaps it was a good thing that they were stuck in traffic. He might not be able to keep it down in stop-and-go traffic.

An abrasive—a familiar abrasive voice—encroached from the fringes, though. An equally combative voice shot back in a different language.

Seto's head lolled to the side, away from the window and toward the other passenger in the backseat. Reluctantly, he pried his heavy eyelids open. God, why was he so tired? It felt like he'd pulled several all-nighters in a row.

His fellow passenger was Jounouchi, locked in a heated conversation/argument with the cab driver.

Right. Jounouchi was also in Shanghai this week. Except he was here to compete in the tournament. And unlike Seto, he didn't speak a lick of Chinese.

Not that his laughable grasp of English fared any better.

"Fuck, I'm telling ya, it's the other Marriott!" Jounouchi groaned in Japanese, running a frustrated hand through his bird's nest hair. It looked softer than it had any right to be, though. The strands ought to be bleached to hell and back after this many years.

But Jounouchi had been updating his wardrobe and his deck in recent years. Every victory advanced his look and style, and even netted him some media training like someone deserving of media notice, which was why he was playing in the Pan-Asian championship. Seto couldn't ignore him like he once did, like he still tried to in vain sometimes.

(And sometimes, he very much didn't want to ignore Jounouchi, wondering if he could catch the other man's attention in return...)

None of that explained why they were in the same cab, though.

Jounouchi tried again to communicate. It hurt to listen to him butcher English to that extent. The cab driver appeared to grow even more irate, threatening to eject them entirely.

Giggles spilled uncontrollably out of him. Of course! Of course, Jounouchi's incompetence got them stranded on the opposite end of the city from their hotel.

Fortunately, he was a snack to look at, even if his brains were nothing to write home about.

Seto's words croaked out of him, repeating in Mandarin what Jounouchi had been trying to convey. God, why did it hurt so much to speak? But even his drunken slur sufficed, earning a grousing retort from the driver that Seto should've just said so sooner while shooting a death glare at his other passenger through the rearview mirror.

At the sound of Seto's voice, Jounouchi jolted in shock, releasing the driver's headrest he had been clinging to. After several awkward moments of staring, he inched closer to Seto, stopping short of touching him. But the proximity and the tight enclosure made Seto's skin crawl. Not in an unpleasant way, though. His body tingled and felt a touch flushed.

How would Jounouchi's skin feel against his?

"You alright there, Kaiba?" asked Jounouchi, seemingly floating closer. He waved a hesitant hand in Seto's face.

Base urges welled up in him. He wanted to grab Jounouchi's hand and bite it, no better than a dog, as he once mocked the other man for being. Better yet, he could drag his tongue across the rough palm and lap at his knuckles. Suck his thick fingers into his mouth and learn contentment from how they could fill his mouth.

Seto was never drinking green tea mixed with whisky ever again.

He managed a small noise of confirmation before he twisted away, curling as best as he could around the seatbelt. Something like a whimper pushed at the back of his throat, but he refused to release it. He wouldn't humiliate himself any further. Just as he wouldn't crawl across the middle seat and cuddle into Jounouchi's lap.

But god, he wanted that so much it hurt.

A warm hand landed on his back, and he nearly surrendered as Jounouchi rubbed soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

"It's okay." Jounouchi spoke softly, but somehow it rang louder than the many decibels of Shanghai traffic. "We'll be back at the hotel in time. Just hang in there."

Seto spent the rest of the journey folded into himself, wedged firmly against the side of the taxi, trying and failing not to tremble under Jounouchi's caring touch. With a hushed tone, Jounouchi explained what had happened. It was pure coincidence that he ran into Seto and his "party" at that particular club. (Coincidence is giving chance too much credit. There were only so many high-end nightclubs in the city.) Jounouchi had wandered over to say hi before rejoining his own group. But out of the corner of his eyes, he'd noticed that Kaiba was acting unlike himself. In fact, the entire group seemed a bit off.

Seto was coming to his own conclusion before Jounouchi shared his.

Seto had been drugged. And since he knew better than to take random shit handed to him by strangers, it must've been slipped into his drink. Or maybe it was in the communal cocktail pitcher to begin with.

"They were trying to drag you off to someplace else. Don't ask me where. But you didn't look like you wanted to go, so I stepped in," Jounouchi trailed off. He'd yet to remove his hand, but it sat unmoving, a steadying weight on Seto's back helping to ground him to reality.

"I can't imagine they were happy," Seto muttered.

Jounouchi chuckled. "Not one bit. Acted like I was trying to kill the party. One chick threatened me with her stiletto heel."

"My knight in shining armor." Seto found himself laughing, then regretted it when his head throbbed.

"Don't worry, I didn't hit any of 'em. Mighty tempting, though. I just kinda threw you over my shoulder and high-tailed it outta there. That was how I knew you were really outta it. You barely cursed me out."

Heat associated with both shame and arousal rushed through him. It turned out those biceps he secretly admired weren't just for show.

"Finally, we're here!" exclaimed Jounouchi. His hand also regrettably retreated.

Seto watched blearily as Jounouchi overpaid the driver and leaped out the door. He didn't go far, though. He jogged around the vehicle to Seto's side and yanked open the door. As he leaned in and over Seto to undo the seatbelt buckle, the woody scent of Jounouchi's cologne flooded Seto's nostrils. And his strength was plainly evident as he braced his arms around Seto's shoulders and hip.

"Alright, up we go," urged Jounouchi.

Under any sober circumstance, Seto would've never allowed this to happen. To let Jounouchi touch him, especially as a caretaker. But Seto was the farthest thing from sober, fucked up on whatever combination of alcohol and party drugs he had been unwittingly fed. He didn't have the strength to stand on his own two feet.

So he relied on Jounouchi and his strength. Clung to the man's sweat-slicked neck.

The doorman didn't give them a second glance. Why should he? Seto was simply the latest in an endless stream of drunken guests stumbling back into the five-star hotel.

A lobby concierge approached and tried to help, though. Both Jounouchi and Seto waved him off. Jounouchi likely because he didn't want another stressful not-conversation, and Seto didn't want anyone but Jounouchi touching him right now.

"Hey, what floor?" Jounouchi asked after propping him against the wall of the elevator carriage.

Seto patted down his pockets and was relieved to find his wallet. He didn't expect the fuerdai to rob him blind like a common mugger, but you never knew. He tossed the leather wallet to Jounouchi and croaked, "Key card."

The tournament competitors were provided with single-bed guest rooms. Seto, on the other hand, occupied the Vice Presidential Suite for the week. Their elevator shot toward the top floors, bypassing the dozens of floors between the ground and the suites.

As they ascended, Seto snuck covert glances at the other hand. Despite the air conditioning running at full blast, Jounouchi was still huffing and sweating. Who could blame him? Summer in Shanghai could be blistering.

"Can you walk?" asked Jounouchi when the elevator doors finally parted.

Struck muted, Seto shook his head. His heart raced as Jounouchi wrapped a burly arm around his waist, and together, they hobbled down the hall to the suite's door.

The lights flicked on automatically as they entered, drawing an impressed whistle from Jounouchi as he took in the room.

"Yeah, guess I should've known. You wouldn't be caught dead living like us commoners. Where's the bed in this joint?"

The mention of bed caused something hot and heavy to coil in Seto's navel. Without meaning to, his arm tightened around Jounouchi's neck, which only prompted the other man to grip him tighter, mistaking the action as a plea for more support.

"Bedroom," he moaned, knocking his head against the side of Jounouchi's. He might be imagining it, but he swore Jounouchi shivered and pink flooded down to his neck.

Seconds later, they stumbled into the adjoined bedroom. The spacious room apparently didn't warrant any comments, because Jounouchi deposited Seto on the bed and disappeared from sight.

To say Seto was disappointed was an understatement.

It may be a blessing in disguise. Jounouchi had already done the "decent" thing: extracted him from a dicey situation and brought him to safety. Seto didn't need to embarrass himself in front of the other man any further.

He jumped when a hand grabbed his shoulder, kicking a leg out blindly.

"Relax, it's me."

Silly though it was, Seto did relax as soon as he registered Jounouchi's voice. His firm but careful touch.

"Here. I got you water from the minibar and a cool towel. It's unopened. I promise."

Seto stared helplessly at the two items being offered to him. Jounouchi made no moves, either. They were at a stalemate. At least until the other man sighed and pressed the moist towel to Seto's sweat-dampened forehead. His eyes fluttered closed, and he unleashed a faint moan at how good and chilly it felt.

"C'mon, you gotta drink the water, too. The whole bottle, then I promise to leave you alone."

Panic spiked through Seto's system. Being alone, something he never minded before, suddenly sounded unbearable. He didn't want Jounouchi to leave.

He reached out. Not to take the proffered bottle, as refreshing as its content may be, but to grab Jounouchi's forearm. Jounouchi froze under his clutch.

"You can't leave. I won't let you," said Seto before he could stop himself.

Jounouchi's breath hitched. As he stared at Seto's face, his eyes darkened with something unspeakable. He licked his lips. "Okay, not leaving. Not tonight. Guess someone's gotta keep an eye on you and make sure things don't take a turn for the worse. But you gotta at least let go of my arm. I'll take the couch outside."

Seto slid closer. "I want you—"

Jounouchi gasped. Seto could kiss him at that instant, but his head spun.

He wanted Jounouchi in every conceivable way. Wanted to feel his naked skin against his skin. Wanted to feel his weight pressing down on him as his cock pushed into Seto's hole. Wanted to shatter apart and then let Jounouchi piece him back together in the afterglow, warm and content.

He thought Jounouchi might grant him those things. If only he'd ask for them. But the words remained stubbornly lodged in his throat as sobriety started to creep in on the edges.

"I want you to stay with me," he whispered, holding Jounouchi's shell-shocked gaze.

Tonight and tomorrow. Maybe even for the rest of their lives. One day, Seto would give voice to the whole truth.

Read other prompt fill ficlets here

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

WIP Weekend

Weekly WIP Update

3 out of 31 ficlets for the @steddieholidaydrabbles are done, and my little ideas document is slowly filling up with plans for all of them. I can't wait to write all of these down! ⛄

Currently working on chapter 7 of The King's Gift, and The Horrors(TM) are back!! 😱

Chapter 1 of Saltwater Symphony (aka Selkie!Steve) should post some time next week! I'm very much looking forward to sharing this one! 🦭

Send me an emoji, and I'll write and share three sentences from that project. 🏰 The King's Gift 🦭 Saltwater Symphony (Selkie!Steve) 🎄Steddie Holiday Drabbles

Snippet from 🏰 (CW: drowning)

His body flies into action while his mind is still reeling with terror, hours and hours of lifeguard training kicking in and taking over his movements. His naked feet burn as they come into contact with the snow, but he knows that his boots will drag him down. He throws off his coat and the sword belt, too, but keeps the weapon clutched in one hand. He’ll need it. 

“Help!” he bellows, as loud as his voice, shaking with cold and nerves, will allow it. Hoping and praying that someone back at the castle will hear. “We need help!” 

Then, still in his pants and shirt, he jumps in. 

The cold feels like a vice closing around his chest. He lets out a hoarse wheeze through a closing throat and he almost drops the sword, every single muscle in his body going rigid, and it hurts, he’s dying, he needs to get back out, he needs to-

Breathe. He needs to breathe. 

He’s never been in water this cold before, but he knows that he must stay calm and allow his body to ease into it or neither of them will have a chance of making it out. He forces himself to go still. 

Inhale. 

Hold. 

Exhale. 

Repeat. 

Relax, relax, relax. 

He doesn’t have time to relax, every second he wastes up here is precious time running away from Eddie, is Eddie getting pulled further into the icy depths. 

How deep is the lake? Has he hit the ground by now? Are they pinning him down there, the light from the surface a taunting, unreachable thing as the air slowly leaves his body? 

Don’t think about it, he needs you to stay calm! Breathe! 

Nothing has ever been harder than staying here, motionless, and waiting for his body to adjust to the cold. It feels like hours before his breaths stop hitching in his chest, before the tension bleeds out of his aching muscles. 

The moment he feels he can move without his body betraying him, he starts wading. He can’t feel his fingers or toes in the water, his vision is filling with dark needlepoints of black at the edges, and he knows that it’ll be minutes at best before he blacks out. 

Eddie must’ve blacked out by now. 

He must be quick. 

He grips the sword as tight as his numb hand will allow it, sucks in a breath, and dives.

[writingplotbunnies]

Best Served Cold (7/?)

Pairing: Jax Teller x OFC

Summary: Sophie learns not all consequences are bad as SAMCRO embraces her after she saved Gemma.

Word Count: ~3900

Warnings: angst, illegal activity, possessive behavior, sexual content, canon typical violence

“My car?” Sophie asked as they walked into St. Thomas. 

Jax laughed. “Sent Sack for it. It’s safe and waiting for you at TM.”

“I know it’s silly given everything else.”

“Nah,” Jax said, smile in his voice as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “It’s normal, and I know how you feel about that car.” 

Walking down the hallway, she saw a mass of leather-clad bikers. For a moment, the walls contracted around her. She’d been down a hallway like this, seen bikers loitering in the halls like this. That time, she’d been too late. That time, she’d allowed harm to come to her family. Blinking back tears, she forced herself to be in the present, to remind herself that everyone was fine. Then all she saw was leather because each biker took turns pulling her into a massive hug. 

“So glad you’re alright,” Chibs told her.

Tig held her face gently in his hand, turned it left and right, brows knit in confusion. “Thought she shot you?” 

“Nah,” Jax said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, chin resting on the top of her head. “Soph shot the bitch in the shoulder. The other shot went wide.” 

Tig’s whole face lit with a smile. “You ever get tired of Jax, sweetheart, I’ll let you make an honest man out of me.” 

Sophie snorted. “I don’t know that anyone could make an honest man out of you, and I like you too much to insult you by trying.” 

Smile still on his face, Tig ruffled her hair before moving back. 

“She here?”

Sophie glanced up, saw Clay walking towards her. She’d never seen him look so serious, and she gulped at the intensity of his gaze. 

“Clay - ”

“Not now, Jackson.” 

Sophie moved herself from Jax’s arms, thankful he didn’t fight her on it too much and faced the SAMCRO president head-on. When Clay’s arms wrapped around her, she felt the whole atmosphere change. She hadn’t known what to expect from the man, but, when she felt a few tears escape his eyes to land on her neck, she understood. Whatever else these men were, they, like her, loved their families. 

“Thank you,” he whispered against her skin. “I don’t know what I would have done if - ” 

Sophie nodded. She understood far more than he knew. No one deserved the fate that might have awaited Gemma tonight. The fate that Olivia had faced. 

Clay pulled back, rested his hands on her shoulders. “Whatever you need, Sophie. Anything. You say the word, and I’m there.” 

Sophie smiled up at him, tears pricking her eyes. “Thanks. I’m just glad I was there to help her.” 

Clay nodded. “Gemma wants to see you.” 

She followed him down the hall to Gemma’s room. She smiled up at Sophie when they walked in. No bruises on her face, no cuts, no vacant expression. No tears. Something warm nestled in Sophie’s chest as she stared at Gemma.  

“Can you give us a minute, baby?” she asked Clay. 

“Sure thing. I’ll be outside when you’re done.” 

Sophie nodded, waited until Clay left before crossing over to where Gemma lay in the bed. Nearly collapsing into the chair at her bedside, Sophie managed to get a grip on Gemma’s hand before her face fell forward and the tears streamed freely down her face. For once, Gemma didn’t say anything, didn’t ask her any questions, but she could feel them in the air above them. Instead, Gemma carded her fingers through Sophie’s hair, which only made her cry harder because Gemma was the one hurt - alive, but hurt and here she was the one getting taken care of. 

“It’s okay, baby, let it out.” 

After a few more minutes of crying, Sophie lifted her head, wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled at Gemma. 

“How are you feeling?”

Gemma gave her a wry smile. “Like I got hit in the back of the head.” 

The response startled a laugh out of Sophie. “I’m so glad it’s not worse.” 

“Thanks to you.” Gemma paused, settled back against the blankets. “Whatever it was that brought you to Charming has something to do with what almost happened to me tonight. Trust is a fragile thing. Which is why I’m not going to ask today. SAMCRO takes care of its own.” 

“I’m not SAMCRO.”

Gemma smiled indulgently at her. “You are now, sweetheart.” 

Sophie frowned. “The way you say that, you make it sound almost like a threat.” 

“No, baby,” Gemma said, voice soft. “Not a threat. Even if it was, wouldn't work on you. It’s a good thing. Those men out there - ” Gemma gestured towards the door. “They protect their family, just like you. Tonight, you became part of that family. That’s what SAMCRO is.” 

How did she tell Gemma that she didn’t deserve it? How could she possibly explain her guilt? Each time she closed her eyes she saw Olivia’s lifeless body lying in that hospital bed. 

“One day, Sophie, you’ll trust us enough to let us help you. Whatever you need, whatever trouble you’re in - you’re not alone anymore.”

Not knowing what to say, Sophie stood from the chair. She fiddled with Gemma’s blanket, fluffed her pillow. “You should get some rest.” 

Gemma looked at her with a mix of understanding and disappointment in her eyes. “You too, baby.” 

This fucking town and its nicknames. Sophie wasn’t sure she was ready to take on another family. She hadn’t managed to keep her last one whole. Shutting the door behind her, Sophie closed her eyes, leaned back against it and took a deep breath. 

“You okay, babe?”

Jax’s head was ducked, shoulders rolled forward, hands shoved in his pockets so he could look up at her, find her eyes. As unthreatening a posture as he knew. She nodded. Allowed him to pull her into his chest. Breathing in the smell of him, the leather and cigarettes, she found some balance. All the bullshit with Zobelle aside, she liked Charming. Enjoyed being around the guys. Loved the way Jax always needed to be touching her in some way - as though to remind himself (and her) that they were connected. Maybe she didn’t deserve another family, but that didn’t prevent her from wanting one. Hope they’d accept the tattered pieces of herself - it was the best she could do. If she had any luck left, they might forgive her when they learned the whole truth. 

Sophie leaned back, smiled weakly up at Jax. “I’m gonna go grab a cup of coffee. I’ll be back.” 

“I’ll come with you,” Jax said, falling into step with her. 

She pressed her hand to his chest. “I need a minute to myself. I haven’t had a minute alone since it happened, and while I adore you all for looking after me, I just need a second to breathe without someone there to see.” 

Jax didn’t look pleased, but he nodded. “Okay.” 

Before he could walk away, she grabbed his sleeve, turned him to face her and kissed him. Sinking her fingers into his hair, she held him against her as her tongue danced with his. Every nerve ending in her body erupted in sparks as his arms closed around her, his hands smoothing down her spine. Pulling back a bit, she breathed heavily against him. 

“I - ”

“Go get your coffee. I’ll be here.” 

She nodded, moved slowly from his embrace and walked down the hallway, the heat of his gaze never leaving. It took a couple of minutes, a few wrong turns, before she found a coffee machine, and when she walked up to it, she realized she didn’t have her wallet with her. Everything had been in her car. She shook her head. 

“Shit.” 

“Allow me.” 

Spinning around at the voice, she felt her heart nearly leap out of her chest. Ethan Zobelle stood in front of her. He wore a pleasant smile on his face, but the darkness in his eyes revealed his true nature. In his hand, he held a five-dollar bill. Hand trembling ever so slightly, she took it from him with a mumbled thanks. 

“It’s the least I can do for the woman who spared my daughter’s life tonight.” 

Blood turned to ice in her veins. Nothing could have prepared her to stand face-to-face with the man who murdered her sister. The scene featured heavily in her nightmares. On instinct, she reached for her gun, cursing as she remembered she didn’t have it. Police evidence. 

He held his hands out, palms forward. “I mean you no harm, Miss Cooper. It’s why I didn’t press charges. I saw no reason to make a bad night worse for everyone. And, to your credit, you are a remarkable shot. According to the surgeon, she’ll regain full range of motion.” 

“I know.”

She bit the words out without thinking. Zobelle offered her one of those condescending paternal smiles that men gave to women when they thought they’d done something particularly adorable. 

“I’m sure you knew exactly what you were doing tonight, and while I can’t figure out what stayed your hand, I won’t stand here and pretend I’m not grateful.” 

“Consider it a gesture of good faith,” Sophie offered. “Leave SAMCRO alone. Set up your white hate cigar shop in a different town.” 

His eyes turned down, faux sorrow on his face. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have business interests to protect here in Charming. I did extend my friendship to SAMCRO, but they were…unreceptive. ” 

Sophie nodded. It had been worth a try. Not that it would have kept him alive, but it would have gotten him out of Charming, away from SAMCRO. “In that case, Mr. Zobelle, if you’re determined to remain, you should consider why I allowed your daughter to live. Contemplate the choices you might make that would lead me to choose less honorable actions moving forward.” 

She could see the way his eyes had narrowed, the slight tension along his shoulders. Poking the bear might not be the smartest move, but she refused to stand there and make pleasantries. And since she couldn't shoot the bastard in the face, this would have to suffice. 

“Sophie,” she heard Chibs call as he came down the hallway. “There you are, lass.”

Coming to a stop at Sophie’s shoulder, Chibs eyed Zobelle, took a more protective stance in front of her. Part of the family indeed. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry. I got caught up in conversation.”

“Aye. We’ve met.” 

Sophie cursed silently. She had hoped the overtures Zobelle had made hadn’t been in front of the whole club, but it seemed that her worlds had well and truly collided. Her new family was now caught up in the ashes of her old one. It wasn’t that she didn’t want any help, it was that she doubted they would be willing to provide her the help she wanted. She figured they’d take over, kill Zobelle themselves, and expect a thank you for their trouble. No part of her was going to allow that to happen. 

“Enjoy the coffee,” Ethan said as he inclined his head. 

Neither said anything as they both watched Ethan walk down the hallway, before turning a corner, disappearing from sight. Her shoulders slumped once she could no longer see him. 

“You alright?” 

“No,” Sophie said, too tired to lie. She could feel small spasms in her limbs as the adrenaline began to fade. The symptoms were familiar to her, and she hoped she could keep it together long enough to make it home to a nice warm shower. 

“Come on,” Chibs said, frown on his face as he tucked her close to his body. “Let’s get you back to Jax so he can fuss about you.” 

“I don’t need Jax fussing over me. Zobelle didn’t do anything.” 

“He upset you.” 

She rolled her eyes. Of course, the whole group still stood in the hallway, Tig, Jax - even Clay standing as she and Chibs came closer. She could read the concern in their eyes. 

“What happened?” Clay asked, eyes flinty. 

“Zobelle cornered her at the vending machines.” 

“That’s it.” Jax clenched his hands into fists, turned on his heel. 

Sophie reached out, just managed to grab the sleeve of his flannel shirt. Tugging him to face her, she placed both hands on his arms and forced him to meet her gaze. She couldn’t have him going off after the man. Not like this. Sophie refused to have another man in her life behind bars because of fucking Ethan Zobelle. 

“I’m fine. He didn’t do anything. Gave me five bucks for a coffee and thanked me for not shooting his bitch of a daughter in the fucking face. Now, I’m tired and you’re going to take me home so that I can have a nice hot shower.”  

She watched Jax’s jaw clench, saw how wound up he was about the whole thing, and she didn’t blame him. Understood how he felt. Enjoyed that he felt that upset because of what happened to her. Made something warm bloom in her chest. None of that changed her mind about how things with Zobelle would go down. 

Moving in close to him, sliding her hands up his arms, up to his neck so she could sink her fingers into his hair, she whispered against his lips. “I’ll let you wash my back.” 

Behind her the boys chuckled, a few offered a low whistle. Clay clapped Jax on the shoulder, a knowing sort of amusement in his eyes. No doubt Gemma used similar tactics to keep him in line, to get her own way. It was a dirty trick, but she would use whatever she needed to - a win was a win. 

“Take your Old Lady home, son,” Clay told him. “We’ll finish this at church tomorrow.” 

She mouthed a thank you to Clay who inclined his head. Following Jax down the hall, she knew he still wanted to go after Zobelle. His silence told her all she needed to know about how he felt about it. Sliding onto the bike, she held herself back a bit. She understood that he was upset, but she wasn’t just going to let him go do something stupid. When they pulled into TM, Sophie got off the bike and glanced around for her car. Locating it near the far side, she strode towards it. The shower idea hadn’t just been a ploy to get Jax to leave the hospital. She wanted one, and her shitty little rental house had one with decent water pressure. 

“Where the hell are you going?” 

She turned to glare at him. “Home.” 

Jax’s jaw clenched. “No, you’re not.” 

“Jax - ”

“He went after my mother. She shot you,” Jax spat out, eyes dark with fury. 

Ah. Sophie smiled softly. He was scared about what could have happened tonight. Closing the distance between them, she wrapped her arms around him, felt his own lock tightly around her. 

“I’m here,” she soothed. “She was a terrible shot.” 

Jax chuckled against her neck as he pulled back, his hands palmed her face, thumbs tracing along her cheeks. She covered his hands with hers, moved her face to press a kiss to the palm of his hand. 

“Clay called me your Old Lady. You gonna explain that to me?” 

Jax smirked. “Why you wanna know?” 

“Like I told your mom, seems to be a hierarchy around here. That douche canoe called me a croweater, which next person to call me one gets a bullet between the eyes because I know how the word whore sounds no matter what letters are used.” 

“You’re no croweater, babe,” Jax said as his hands moved down her body. He got a solid grip on her ass and hauled her up his body. Getting the idea, Sophie helped and wrapped her legs around his waist. Laughing as he carried her into the clubhouse. Looking around at the familiar mess that was his room, she laughed even harder. 

“Old Lady better not mean housekeeper because, between the two of us, it would become uninhabitable.” 

“Yeah?” Jax asked, smirk on his face. “Thought the Corps was all about hospital corners and snap inspections.” 

Sophie returned his smirk with one of her own. “I’m retired. No one gives two shits how your bed looks when you’re in the field. Plus, never was much good at keeping things tidy when I was on leave. It was one of the ways I disengaged. Clutter meant I was home.” 

He kissed her then. Slow, tender. The type of kiss that ruined people. Made them think about fantasy endings, a happily ever after. Sophie lost herself to it. She moved her arms up when Jax lifted her shirt. Moaned when his lips traced over her collarbones, the valley of her breasts. Goosebumps erupted on her arms as he slid her bra straps down her arms before tossing it over his shoulder. 

“What are you doing?” she whispered, smile in her voice. 

“Washing your back.” 

He continued to press open-mouthed kisses to her body as he unbuttoned her jeans. Pulling them down her legs he cursed when they caught at her ankles. Boots; they’d both forgotten. 

“Get on with it,” Sophie said with an imperious wave of her hand. “You’re not washing my back fully clothed.” 

She intended to pull her boots off. Honest. But, when Jax pulled his shirt over his head, she couldn’t help but stare. Knew her mouth hung open, knew she licked her lips in an obscene way. God, she wanted to lick every inch of his body, rub herself against him. Given the smirk tucked into the corner of his mouth as he winked at her, he seemed amenable to the idea. Unlike her boots which required the use of her hands, he simply toed off his ridiculous white shoes before pulling down his jeans. 

“My eyes are up here, babe.” 

Sophie nodded without looking away from his body. “I know where your eyes are. I’ll get there.” 

Chuckling, he pulled his boxers down his hips, allowed gravity to do the rest and Sophie let out a low whistle of her own. Now she really wanted to lick all of him. Half hard and hanging to the left, his cock fit the rest of him. When her eyes did trail back up to meet his, he simply raised his brows at her. Getting the hint, Sophie leaned down and unzipped her boots before shimming out of her jeans. Standing, she reached for her panties only for Jax’s hands to stop her. When he’d moved she didn’t know, but the heat from his body rolled into her as his fingers teased along the band of her panties. Hooking his fingers in, he tugged them down. They stood there for a moment. 

Jax stepped back first, running a hand through his hair before moving into the ensuite and starting the shower. Sophie took a deep breath before following him. Noting the SOA tattoo on his back, she licked her lips again. Gently, she reached out and trailed a finger along the edge of the reaper’s blade, loving the way Jax shivered under her touch. 

When the water temperature met Jax’s standards, he held the curtain back so Sophie could step in. Perfectly warm water cascaded down her body. Closing her eyes, she turned her face up to allow the spray to wash across her skin, pull the grime and the sorrow from her face and wash down the drain. 

“Nice ink,” Jax whispered against her ear as he plastered his torso to her back. 

“Thanks.” 

She felt his fingers trace along the rose petals inked into her skin. On each side, she had a black and grey rose with pink rose pedals floating up in parallel lines along her back. He pressed kisses along her shoulders before nipping her ear. His now soapy hands began to trace along her body in strong, sure strokes. She moaned as his hands moved around her stomach, up to cup her breasts, fingers teasing her nipples - making sure every inch of her body was covered in soap. As sensual as it was, she felt her muscles relaxing the more his hands moved over her skin. Even knowing she was wet enough he could slide in with no resistance, something about the moment indicated that he wouldn’t. He was taking care of her, and that realization nearly had her knees give out. 

“I got you, babe,” Jax whispered, hand gripping her hip. “If you’re gonna be my Old Lady, it’s my job to take care of you.” 

He pressed a kiss to the top of her spine. “If you’re gonna be my Old Lady, there’s only two ways it works. I tell you nothing, or I tell you everything. Can’t be any in between.” 

Sophie fought the urge to stiffen at the vague accusation in his tone. He continued to press kisses to her skin, so maybe she’d imagined it. Still, the knowledge of what she held back from Jax pressed against her. Gemma’s words from earlier floating back to her trust is a fragile thing. What would trusting Jax cost her? As secrets went, hers wasn’t really a secret. It’d been in the paper, well, a version of events had been. The court proceedings had been public record.

Her need to be the one to see the light leave Zobelle’s face kept her silent. She barely knew Jax. Knew he had secrets that could have far-reaching consequences - no outlaw biker had safe or insignificant secrets. Placing trust in the wrong person meant people died, and Sophie knew that firsthand, too. Too many engagements had gone sideways because the wrong person had said the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

Sophie reached forward and turned the water off. Jax got out of the shower and held a towel out for her, allowing him to wrap it around her body before he quickly dried himself off. Not even him wearing nothing but a towel tied around his waist distracted her from the dark, heavy place her thoughts had taken her. When Jax pulled one of his shirts over her head, she offered him a small smile. She might never buy clothes again. 

“I only have one real secret, well, one I’m not sure I want to tell you,” Sophie whispered.

Jax cupped Sophie’s face. “Trust don’t happen overnight, I want this thing between us to work, want you on the back of my bike, wanna see my crow on your skin. That only happens if we trust each other.” 

Sophie searched his eyes. He meant each word he said, and she wanted the same things. Times like this made her miss Olivia all the more because she’d know exactly what to say. But, nothing ever got accomplished by running away from it, from hiding. As she stood there staring at him, she realized something. She wanted him. She wanted the messy group of bikers who hovered and cursed and did bad, bad things. Olivia had tried describing it to her, but she hadn’t understood it all, not really, not like she did now standing in Jax’s shirt in the SAMCRO clubhouse. Since retiring, she missed her team. Missed having the camaraderie, the mutual respect and understanding. Jax deserved the opportunity to earn her trust, so show her that he respected her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. 

“My sister, Olivia, she married into an MC. Michael was the Sergent at Arms for the War Boys before Ethan Zobelle came into town. Now Olivia is dead and there’s no more War Boys MC in San Bernardino.”

Part 8

Master List