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egcdeath · 3 months ago

Text

out in the open

pairing: patrick zweig x f!reader

summary: your wedding night doesn’t go as smoothly as you expect it to. succession au - tomshiv adjacent (previous parts: part 1, part 2, part 3)

word count: 8.8k

warnings: failmarriage, fluff in the beginning, cheating, angst, jealousy, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcohol and smoking, suggestive content, insecurity, patrick is kinda the worst in this. he does get better though.

author’s note: full disclaimer things are pretty angsty and they only get angstier from here. cheating is a major plot point from this point forward. there will be a few happier moments but it’s mostly bad vibes and tension from this point on.

i say this with every fic i post in this universe but i truly could not have written this without the help of my succession anon!! weddingnightgate (WNG) is such a big moment in this au and they really helped me get my thoughts in order and helped me world build. i hope you all enjoy the upcoming pain!

When you were young, you always dreamed about your wedding. You fantasized about a huge venue somewhere halfway around the world that would easily fit all of your closest friends and family members and of celebrity guests who would give you well wishes for the marriage and smiled at you in spite of their envy at your beautiful event. You imagined a gorgeous, intricate dress with a train so long that you’d need assistance going down the aisle, a cake the size of your tallest guest, and a groom who was as handsome as he was loving, pressing the promise of True Love’s Kiss onto your lips after he read you his vows.

Maybe your enthusiasm for weddings was fueled by a few too many movies where the princess found her prince charming and lived happily ever after with him, but you still fell in love with the idea of love, and the thought that a wedding should be as beautiful as the love itself was.

You would never forget the first wedding you attended, despite being so young that you shouldn’t have really recalled it. You somehow managed to worm your way into being the flower girl at your aunt’s wedding, skipping excitedly down the aisle of the beachside venue, tossing flowers with reckless abandon. As you watched the rest of the ceremony from the safety of your mother’s hip, you couldn’t help but to imagine yourself being the one to walk down the aisle someday.

Much like your first wedding memory, you also couldn’t forget the first time you learned about divorce. Though you were young, the memory of your best friend crying next to you during recess as she sobbed out the news that her parents were splitting forever stuck out in your mind. You’d been fed the idea that love was strong and everlasting for so long, that the very notion that there were some things that love couldn’t withstand rocked you to your core.

From that point on, you became more grounded in your approach to love. Love was rarely a fairytale, and it was naive for you to assume that your future wedding would be one either.

As the years went by, you grew more realistic about your expectations for the future. You found a boyfriend who you dated throughout the latter half of your undergraduate years and through your time in business school, and fully expected to settle down with him—though you knew you’d be settling in the most literal sense. While he was a stable figure in your life, he was boring, and his aspirations in life for both you and himself didn’t align at all with what you saw yourself doing. He wanted a wife, and you wanted to make a name for yourself doing the work that was meaningful to you.

When he got down on one knee in front of you, you realized that you had two options in front of you: follow your own dreams or follow his.

Naivety be damned, you chose yourself and never looked back.

In your pursuit of making your non-love related aspirations come true, you abandoned all hope that your pipe-dream of a fantasy wedding would ever come to fruition. It occasionally felt like your hopes were incompatible—to be a successful businesswoman meant giving up all prospects of a romantic life. It seemed like everyone you encountered was put off by your lack of work-life balance, or wanted to hunt you for sport and turn you into a trophy wife.

You’d practically given up all hope by the time you met Patrick, fully expecting to be able to use him for a brief fling and a connection to get into his family’s company. What you weren’t expecting was to find someone whose company you genuinely enjoyed, who understood you on a level you hadn’t experienced with anyone else, and a love that occasionally left you wondering if you were a protagonist in the movies you loved watching as a girl.

If someone told you that years after meeting Patrick, that one day you would be gazing into his eyes with tears in yours as you listened to his vows, or telling him that you do take him to be your husband, to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘till death did you two part.

Your wedding ceremony felt straight out of your girlish dreams, with Patrick’s beautiful family castle serving as the venue, paparazzi-worthy guests, a dress that felt like a direct product of your wildest imagination, and a groom that seemed to be as close to a prince charming as reality could get.

You were on cloud nine throughout the ceremony, basking in every single moment. You felt like you were floating by the time you got to the reception, your brain in the clouds as you and your now-husband cut your massive cake and gave toasts.

It was all a blur in the best way possible, your elation making what you thought might be an embarrassing moment of a first dance exciting, and the subsequent socializing with guests substantially more bearable.

What was slightly less bearable was the speed at which you were separated from your husband, the two of you occasionally catching the others eye from across the room, but otherwise being separated from surprisingly demanding guests who wanted to wish you luck on your marriage or excitedly share how amazing they found the ceremony to be.

Occasionally, you were able to squeeze in a brief moment with your spouse, bringing him a flute of champagne and momentarily pulling him away from an exceptionally chatty shareholder, but you seemed to be frequently whisked away from each other.

After what felt like a lifetime apart from each other, you felt the familiar, comforting warmth of Patrick’s hand on your lower back as he approached you from behind. When he announced to the extended family members standing across from you that he needed a moment alone with you, you almost leapt with joy. Nothing seemed more appealing than a private conversation with him after a long night of socializing with friends and colleagues.

It almost felt ironic that during an event that should’ve been focused on the two of you as a pair, you were separated and kept apart by people with business pitches and opposing interests, excited to hop onto whatever opportunity your union might bring them.

Patrick took you by surprise as he led you up the stairs and to your bedroom. It seemed a little early to begin your wedding night festivities, but if he was really that enthusiastic about it, you were certain that you could share some of his excitement.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” you commented as you shut the door behind you. “So much for not talking about work at the wedding. I guess it’s too much to ask for one day to celebrate you being my husband before talking about the business again.”

You walked over to the vanity, preparing to touch up your makeup. You shot a glance over at your partner, who cautiously sat himself down on your bed, fidgeting with his hands as he did so. Not paying him any mind, you began to reapply your lipstick in the mirror and looked at his reflection, catching that he seemed to be in deep thought, but not thinking too much of it. It was probably something a shareholder told him. Maybe his sister was planning yet another attempt at a hostile takeover of the business.

“Husband. Wow, you’re my husband now. That feels so crazy to say. Husband, husband, husband,” you mused, a ball of excited energy. “Well, husband, what did you pull me in to talk about? Is it Sherry’s dress? It’s really hideous. I can’t believe she would wear something like that to our wedding,” you continued to ramble. “Or do you want a sneak peak of what I’ve got going on under this dress?”

You were shocked to find Patrick mostly unresponsive to your rapid words. He was never one to turn down the opportunity to gossip about his social circle or flirt with you. You pulled your attention away from yourself in the mirror and turned your head back to look at your husband, only to be met with a mostly unreadable expression, apart from the hint of a sad smile on his face.

Suddenly, things didn’t feel so fun. For some unexplained reason, you felt a small pit appear in the depths of your stomach. While you didn’t know exactly what was wrong, something obviously didn’t feel right. There was no reason for your partner to be looking as unsettled as he did on his own wedding night.

“You’re not having second thoughts already, are you?” you stood up and began to approach him from where he was sitting on the bed, making it more apparent to you that his brows were drawn together in what could only be the beginning of a frown.

“Of course not,” he assured you, though guilt was written all over his face. You weren’t sure how you should interpret your husband looking like a child who just broke an expensive vase on your wedding night, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. “But I need to tell you something.”

“What?” you laughed nervously, the small pit that appeared in your stomach growing into a slightly larger pit. As much as you wanted to dismiss it as nothing, the heavy tension hanging in the air warned you that the odds of his confession being nothing were growing slimmer and slimmer with each passing moment.

“Uh,” he paused as if he was considering his next words very carefully—almost as if he didn’t want to say them at all. You desperately wanted him to speak, rather than keep you hanging. With your nerves exponentially growing with every passing second, you began to feel like if he didn’t say anything soon, you might throw up all over your reception dress.

“Patrick, please spit it out. You’re kinda scaring me,” you could already feel yourself growing upset, despite the fact that he hadn’t said a single word to indicate what was going on with him. Your heart quickened in your chest as you anticipated his next words, despite not having a clue about what might come out of his mouth.

“We always said that if something happened, we could handle it like adults,” the statement was vague and simple, yet Patrick seemed to be choking it out. His cryptic message rattled around in your brain as you desperately searched for meaning in them. Before you could even begin to ask him what he meant, you registered the dismissive, callous language.

Though he didn’t say it often, he had confused you with those very words before—the verbiage alarmingly reminiscent of what he told you before your bachelorette party, or when you brought up the lack of an infidelity clause in his prenup.

If anything ever happened with anyone else, we could both handle it. We’re adults and we can handle things like adults.

Though his words were curious, you dismissed them at the time, never expecting that to be an issue. Of all of your problems with Patrick—his difficulty expressing his emotions, his complicated relationship with his family, his lack of experience in love—you never expected infidelity to be one of those problems.

You swallowed, your saliva feeling thick and poisonous as it slowly crept down your throat. “Honey, what do you mean?”

Patrick didn’t speak, looking down at the pristinely folded sheets in front of him rather than at you. “I’m sorry,” was all that he managed to get out.

You looked at Patrick blankly, waiting for him to tell you that whatever you were assuming wasn’t true or that he was pulling some sort of cruel prank on you. Instead, all you were met with was the sound of blood urgently rushing through your ears and the faint bassline of whatever song the DJ was playing at your reception.

“You know that love is complicated for me,” he looked in your direction, but couldn’t sustain eye contact with you. “Can we be adults about this?”

Once it became clear to you what exactly Patrick was trying to tell you, your knees gave out on you, the rest of your body overwhelmed with the unfathomable information that your brain was trying to process. Patrick cheated on you—and he was telling you just hours after you got married.

The truth of the situation sucked the air right out of your lungs and the strength right out of your body. Your knees buckled under you, and you desperately seeked out anything you could sit on. You settled on the foot of the bed, across from where your husband nervously sat.

“Fuck,” you dug the palms of your hands into your eyes, surely smudging the makeup on your eyelids as you attempted to collect your thoughts. “Who was it?”

“It didn’t mean anything to me,” he pathetically attempted to explain away. It all sounded like gibberish to you. For all you knew, your husband was speaking a totally different language to you.

Despite your question and Patrick’s non-answer, you somehow felt like you knew exactly who he’d been with. The answer was all over his discomfort when he saw you talking to the woman without him by your side, and the way she sized you up and attempted to psych you out of marrying Patrick not even 24 hours ago.

“Was it Tashi?” you asked, not even listening to his empty words and keeping your face frighteningly neutral. You spoke the words like you were playing a round of Guess Who, calm and even despite the budding feeling of dread in your stomach.

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. His deafening silence was answer enough

“Can I kick her out?” you asked with an alarmingly stable tone, still mostly unable to process this information, but knowing that it wasn’t good.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, head still hung and unable to make eye contact with you.

As you took in the truly depressing sight in front of you—your husband’s hunched over posture, a shame so strong that he couldn’t even look at you, and his clipped, short answers—you couldn’t deny that you were tempted to comfort him. In any other situation, if Patrick was feeling a fraction of the negative emotion he seemed to be feeling in that moment, you would instantly be at his side, holding his hand reassuringly or holding him close in a way that told him that if no one else was there for him, you would be, but you weren’t sure you could legitimize his bad behavior with such a response.

Instinctually, you reached out to touch him like you’d done a thousand times before, giving him a hug before a big event or spooning him after a family member said something that got under his skin, but you instantly reprimanded yourself. Despite how sad he looked, Patrick was the one who hurt you. You were the one who deserved comfort.

You opted to pat Patrick’s back instead, a strange and impersonal action. For a moment, you felt less like his wife and more like a practically estranged family member, not sure how to greet you after meeting you for the first time three Thanksgivings ago.

Your husband barely reacted to the stiff action, only looking at you wordlessly with glossed-over eyes. You got up from the foot of the bed and left wordlessly and neutrally, a robot whose only orders were to get out of the bedroom and shut the door behind you.

The moment the door closed, the next goal settled into your mind—you couldn’t let Tashi spend another second in the venue, socializing with your family and drinking the wine that your parents so kindly provided to the wedding, as if she hadn’t been partaking in an affair with your husband.

You felt half a bride and half a zombie as you left the confines of the bedroom and wandered the hallways. You were stone faced as you made your way back to the reception, trying to wrap your head and heart around devastating information that was shared with you at the most inopportune time possible.

You made a slow march down the stairs, movement hindered by your dress, and imagined what you might say to Tashi once you saw her. You should’ve known something was off from the start. You should’ve trusted the bad feeling you had when she sized you up at the bar, smirking at you like the cat who got the cream before feeding you anecdotes about how sleazy your husband used to be for no apparent reason. You should’ve trusted that feeling when Patrick rushed over to pull you away.

You wished you paid attention when Patrick faintly smelled of feminine perfume when you surprised him by coming back from a business trip earlier than anticipated, or when you noticed a bracelet that didn’t belong to you sitting on your coffee table, one that disappeared the very next day. It was so easy to write the signs off at the time–the fragrance of your personal chef and the jewelry of one of his sisters–but it no longer felt that simple. Patrick was a lot of things, but you never expected that a cheater was one of those things.

The thought of Patrick with someone else made you nauseous, especially in your own home. You faintly wondered if they’d fucked in your bed or on the couch. If the answer was yes to either, you desperately wanted to burn the pieces of furniture. In fact, that would be the first thing you set out to do when you returned home after your honeymoon. Maybe you would even beg Patrick to move to a new place, one not haunted by the memories of him and another woman.

That was, if your relationship even survived through the honeymoon. Let alone the night. You didn’t have a clue what your next steps would be. Would you be the fool who stays with a man who proved himself to be disloyal? Or would you be the fool who offered herself to the wrath of one of the most powerful families in the world? You would lose your husband, your job, and your livelihood in one fell swoop, surely being banished back to your family home in Minnesota, destined to be a receptionist at your father’s law firm for the rest of your life.

The entire situation felt surreal in the worst possible way. You couldn’t believe that while you were dealing with the aftermath of this information, Tashi was waltzing around at your reception. More than that, you couldn’t believe the information itself: Patrick cheated. Your fiancé cheated. Your husband cheated on you.

The same Patrick who became a groomzilla, laser-focused on giving you your dream wedding, cheated. The same man who confessed that he didn’t know what love felt like before he met you cheated on you. Your husband, who went out of his way to do anything to make you happy, even at the expense of his very powerful family, hadn’t been loyal to you.

None of it made sense. Maybe you would walk back into the room and your guests would jump out from behind tables and reveal that this was all a cruel joke—a little hazing as you officially became a Zweig—their laughter filling up the room at the thought that you would ever believe something as ridiculous as Patrick cheating on you.

You bit back bile as you walked into the room, the party continuing on the same way it had before you left and before you reentered—no prank to be found. The cacophony of loud music and the chatter of your guests filling your ears once more—what felt fun and exciting just moments before, now being far too overstimulating for someone trying to process information that could fundamentally alter the course of their relationship. You did your best to block out all of the extra noise and focus on your goal at hand.

Find Tashi. Send her home.

You weren’t sure what you would actually do when you saw her. Would you yell at her? Slap her for being a homewrecker? Cry at the sight of her? Laugh at the absurdity of your husband telling you that he’d been having an affair with her on your wedding night?

Peripherally, you heard someone call your name excitedly, only slightly pulling you out of your trance. Still, you couldn’t find it in you to acknowledge whatever excited friend or family member as your eyes set on your target. Tashi Duncan, Patrick’s coworker and ex-girlfriend.

Where you admired her beauty and confidence just a day before, you found you now resented every positive aspect about her. As she stood by a table and talked to one of Patrick’s sisters, surely bored out of her mind by the delusional ramblings about his sister someday being the president, she nodded and smiled diplomatically.

As you really began to think about it, you realized that she was the perfect candidate to be Patrick’s wife. She came from a background similar to his, his sisters liked her far more than they liked you—though that didn’t mean much—and physically, she seemed to be exactly your husband’s type.

Part of you wondered if she was feeling as miserable as you were; if she’d spent the day imagining your wedding to be her own, if her own jealousy was blinding her the way that yours currently was blinding you, or if she’d begged Patrick not to marry you during their work meeting the previous night. The other part of you wondered if she thought of you as pathetic as you currently felt—a stupid woman so blinded by her own love that she overlooked every beaming, bright red flag.

Your pace quickened as you walked towards Tashi, heels clicking annoyingly as they marked your pace. As you made your way to the table, you found yourself growing more anxious, the first real feeling you’d felt since Patrick shared with you the truth about his infidelity.

“Hey,” you greeted Tashi and Patrick’s sister, voice surprisingly even for how agitated you were. “Mind if I chat with Tashi?”

“Go ahead,” Cornelia shrugged. “Let’s stay in touch?” she asked Tashi, who politely agreed and watched the other woman walk off.

Tashi opened her mouth to speak to you, presumably to comment on something asinine about the wedding, or to make an observation about your wedding that you’d already heard a thousand times that night. If you weren’t so upset, you would make a bet with yourself on whether she’d tell you how beautiful the wedding was, or how beautiful you and your husband looked at the altar.

“Your housing for the night fell through,” you explained in a very level tone. It wasn’t the best excuse, but it was what came out of your mouth.

“Oh?” she asked, sounding more than a little skeptical, before lifting her drink to her lips. “Do you know where else I might be able to find lodging at this hour?”

“No,” you replied quickly and with ease. “Actually, it’d probably be best if you just went home now.”

“Home like…?” she trailed off and eyed you curiously.

“Like back to New York. I’m sure you can find a flight.”

She laughed in slight disbelief. “You realize this is a work function for me, right? I have work to do.”

“I’m sure you can do that work back home,” you dismissed, not backing down. By now, it was clear that Tashi was putting together the pieces of what you knew. In fact, you could pinpoint the exact moment when it occurred to her why the two of you were having this conversation in the first place.

Maybe it was the lack of your now-husband beside you, or the barely concealed emotion on your face. Regardless of what was your biggest tell on the situation, you continued to stare her down, resenting the way her lips shifted into a small smile, as if she still had the upper hand and knew something that you didn’t. It was almost as if she found the whole ordeal to be a little amusing, which only bothered you more.

“No need to make a scene at your wedding. I’ll be on my way.” She lifted her glass up once again to finish the drink off, but you stopped her.

You returned intense eye contact with her as you took the stemware right out of her hands and put it to your own lips, finishing the drink in a few large gulps. Though your action was impulsive, it felt like somewhat of a necessity. You desperately needed the liquid distraction from your less-than-ideal situation, and you didn’t want to give her an excuse to linger at your party a single moment longer than she needed to.

She continued to stare at you, her expression somewhere in the middle of being impressed and weirded out. “Alright then. Well, congratulations on the wedding.”

“Fuck off,” you spat out, turning on your heel and walking away without bothering to see if she stayed or left.

You made your rounds around the reception, smiling and talking to your guests with a fake smile plastered on your face. The shock of Patrick’s initial confession wore off shortly after you told Tashi off, but you still couldn’t help but feel completely numb to the situation. How else were you supposed to react when you found out the love of your life was sleeping with someone else?

You continued to man the reception on your own, occasionally scanning the room but not catching a glimpse of your husband. You wondered if he was still in your bedroom, head in his hands as he wondered if he just opened a Pandora’s box on your relationship, or if Tashi went to go find him to discuss how poorly you reacted to the information. For all you knew, the two of them could be laughing at you or having sex in your wedding bed at the same time that you attempted to pretend that everything was perfectly fine. You grew faint at the mere thought.

Eventually, you felt a familiar hand on the small of your back, something that typically was a welcome, comforting gesture. Instead, you wanted to flinch away from his hand like it was hot. You couldn’t believe that Patrick had the nerve to touch you like everything was fine after dropping such devastating information on you. Then again, at least he wasn’t hooking up with Tashi one last time.

Still, even under the spell of a sadness that hadn’t quite settled in yet, you leaned into his touch instinctively. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t feel as comfortable as it did a few hours ago.

“Such a beautiful ceremony,” a family friend of Patrick’s gushed to you. “You two have something really special.”

You felt Patrick’s eyes sear into you, desperately pleading for you to look back into them and show him that everything was going to be okay. That what you had was special enough that you’d be able to move past this. Like adults, as he said to you earlier.

You weren’t so sure that you could.

The rest of the night moved painfully slowly. Where the two of you socialized separately before his private conversation with you, he seemed to be attached to your hip now, bringing you apology offers of champagne flutes and hor d'oeuvres.

Though he pleaded with you to handle your situation like adults, you wanted to act more like a petulant child. If you had it your way, you would reject his offerings of food by tossing them onto the floor, or throw a glass of sticky alcohol in his face as if you were a Real Housewife.

If you had it your way, Patrick wouldn’t have cheated on you in the first place, and you’d be celebrating your wedding without the baggage of uncertainty for the future of your relationship.

As you walked through the reception, you weren’t particularly angry or sad, you just felt numb. There was a strange concession in knowing that what happened in the past already happened, and that there was no way for you to change your husband’s behavior. For a moment, you wondered if the numbness was a symptom of the shock that was Patrick’s confession, or you would feel the dull thud of nothingness for the rest of your life.

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding as you watched the last of your guests filtered out of the venue, relieved to finally drop the façade of being a happy newlywed and to embrace the true feeling of shock that had been biting at you all night.

Somehow managing to break away from your suddenly very clingy spouse, you wasted no time gathering an unopened bottle of wine for yourself, along with a cigarette and a lighter, which you unceremoniously exchanged with a caterer for a Venmo payment. You then headed outside to a balcony that overlooked a beautiful sprawling garden.

You looked out on the neatly trimmed hedges and the bench where you sat with Patrick not even twenty-four hours ago and distantly thought about how perfectly the night should’ve gone. You got married at a beautiful venue, had every detail down to the positioning of napkins meticulously planned, and most importantly, were marrying someone you genuinely loved and couldn’t see yourself living without.

It was all rather devastating now, to see how just a few words managed to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life.

You took a swig from the bottle, lamenting the fact that his affair partner had been drinking this very wine earlier that night. At the thought of Tashi, you took yet another hefty swig.

Just as you reached for the lighter to light the cigarette you so desperately needed, Patrick burst through the doors of the balcony, slightly out of breath and sweat beading on his forehead. In between his heavy breaths, you swore you caught a sigh of relief.

You couldn’t say that you were pleased to see him—after all, you’d escaped to the balcony to get a little time alone and to think through the night—but as you took in his dramatic entrance and disheveled appearance, it became abundantly clear to you that he’d been urgently looking for you.

“Want some?” you asked, gesturing to the bottle. Your question was more than just an offer for a drink, but a peace treaty, offering Patrick to stay outside with you despite your more complicated feelings towards him.

“Sure,” he agreed, still slightly out of breath. He collected himself as you passed him the bottle, locking eyes with you as he took a swig from the expensive drink. It felt like time moved a little slower as you watched his lips wrap around the opening of the bottle and the way his Adam's apple bobbed while the drink went down.

You suddenly realized that complicated didn’t even begin to cover how you felt towards Patrick. You loved him more than anything, and you were sure that you needed him in your life—but beneath the thick layers of numbness was a reservoir of hurt, far deeper than you ever imagined you could harbor for the man.

He passed the bottle back to you, his hands gently brushing over yours. Momentarily, you felt scandalized by the action, unsure if you should feel your cheeks heating up from the small touch or if you should flinch away from it. By the time the brief moment was over, you hadn’t done either, electing to set your gaze back over the rail instead of at your partner.

Patrick stood silently beside you, not requesting anything more to drink or even attempting to make small talk. It seemed that he was just as aware as you were that he’d changed your entire dynamic with just a few words. You wondered if he realized just how much he’d fucked both of you by fucking someone else.

You shivered in the cold night, your dress not providing you much coverage in the elements. If your wedding night had gone any differently, Patrick would’ve offered you his suit jacket, draping the item over your shoulders and kissing you sweetly. Then again, if the night had gone differently, you likely wouldn’t be shivering on the balcony in the first place.

You squatted to set down the bottle on the ground and rediscovered the cigarette and lighter. Though you weren’t usually one to smoke, you desperately needed it after the shitshow that was your wedding night.

Though you put the stick to your lips, you struggled to light the cigarette, the frigid breeze making everything slightly more difficult. It didn’t help that you hadn’t smoked since you were a teenager, giggling with your friends as you clumsily attempted and failed to light up the stick, the match pinched between your fingertips quickly burning down. The contrast between the silly memory and your far less silly reality felt jarring, to say the least.

“Here, let me,” Patrick said softly, taking the lighter from you and cupping his hand around the tip of the cigarette. You tried not to look at him too closely as you listened to the soft clicking sound of the lighter. Though he should’ve focused on the action so he didn’t burn his finger tips or the palm of his hand blocking the wind, he didn’t seem to be able to look at anything but you. The light of the flame briefly illuminated both of your faces, momentarily giving you a better look at his sad eyes.

You inhaled as the flame touched the tip, and turned your head to exhale the smoke, not wanting to blow it in the face of your partner or have to spend another second under the scrutiny of his intense eye contact.

Even as you looked away and into the garden below, you could feel Patrick’s eyes burning into you. You were sure that if you looked back over at him, you would see him looking particularly downtrodden, lips parted for words that were on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite say yet, and eyebrows drawn together in a way that only seemed to highlight the sadness in his eyes.

Unspoken questions lingered in the air like the smoke from the cigarette dangling from your lips. Though you didn’t care for the smell, you were pretty sure you preferred the smoke to the questions.

Finally, a quiet question was spoken into the air, “Can I?” Patrick asked, his eyes flitting from your eyes to your lips.

“Sure,” you replied noncommittally as you pulled the cigarette away from you and passed it to your husband. Electing to watch him instead of the unchanging garden, you observed as Patrick’s lips closed over the space where yours had just been, covering the hint of a lipstick stain that you’d left on it. After a long drag, he passed the cigarette back to you, his hand brushing softly over yours once more as you did so.

This pattern continued, a heavy silence falling between the two of you as you shared the cigarette, your hands caressing the other’s softly.

“Here,” you murmured as you approached the filter. Instead of passing it back to Patrick, you brought it up to his lips, watching him intently as he breathed in the smoke.

For a moment, all you could see was his face, illuminated by the burning end of the cigarette, pupils blown with something you couldn’t quite place. You weren’t sure if you wanted to ravish him right there on the balcony or push him off of it.

He blew the smoke right back into your face, electing to still share the last of the cigarette with you. You wondered if that meant anything. It probably didn’t.

The two of you stood looking at each other, staring wordlessly as you waited for the other person to move a muscle or say something—anything. For a moment, you considered telling Patrick that you wanted an annulment. But then again, that wasn’t exactly the truth.

“I’m going to bed,” you broke the silence with your announcement. “I need to change out of this dress.”

You wished it were that simple. You desperately wanted to scrub the day off of you and to pinch yourself until you woke up. Surely, this couldn’t be your actual wedding night. Maybe you could wake up in the morning and find that this was all a bad dream—the manifestation of anxiety before your big day.

But, as Patrick trailed behind you in the hallway as if you would disappear if you left his sight, you were pretty sure that this was the reality. You wouldn’t wake up and find that your husband had been loyal to you.

Your return to the room was a silent one. The moment you stepped foot through the door, it felt like you were back in that horrible moment; like Patrick was moments from revealing to you that Tashi was the tip of the iceberg.

Bile rose in your throat once more. You made a beeline to the bathroom, hoping that the change of scenery might halt your thoughts altogether.

You stepped out of the bathroom with an entirely different mindset than what you had as you entered. Sure, your wedding night wasn’t at all what you expected it to be, but it didn’t mean that you couldn’t put it back on the right track. In the bathroom, you slipped on a silky nightie, what you hoped would be a reminder to both of you that this wasn’t any old regular night, but your wedding night. Though, with the day you just had, you weren’t so sure that either of you would be up for a particularly romantic night. You guessed it couldn’t hurt.

You left the bathroom as a woman on a mission, your eyes set on Patrick as you crossed the bedroom floor to get to him. Though he’d been laying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling like it had the secrets to the universe written on it, the sound of your entrance drew his attention over to you. You gently bit your lower lip and hoped that your face said ‘sexy’ rather than ‘so nervous you might be sick.’

His eyes stayed locked on you as you crawled into bed, and you hoped once more that the action of you moving towards him on your hands and knees didn’t appear as desperate as you felt on the inside.

It felt like your evening consisted of one desperate plea after another: Please don’t do this to me. Please just pretend that everything’s fine. Please don’t leave me.

He followed your lead as you trailed your hand up his arm and looked at him as seductively as you could manage before pushing him down onto the bed and straddling his lap. Distantly, you wondered how Tashi imitated things with him—if she did anything that Patrick liked more about her than you. You did your best to push that thought away, but failed miserably.

Mechanically, you ran your hands through his hair and kissed him passionately. You tried to ignore the lump in your throat and reminded yourself that it was just Patrick. Things weren’t all that different, except for the fact that he was your husband now—and that he cheated on you.

You tried once more to push that thought out of your mind as you moved your hips against his lap, but your attempts were in vain. It certainly didn’t help that as you kissed him, you tasted the cigarette you shared earlier in his breath—an unwelcome reminder of the awkward tension that lingered between the two of you after he shared the truth about his infidelity. And surely, it was just your mind, but his lips almost tasted like the chapstick of another woman.

Suddenly, all you could think about was Tashi with your husband. Him and Tashi in your bedroom, or in a hotel room, or on your couch. Did she do anything special that drove him crazy? What did she have that you didn’t?

Your body said one thing, but your brain said something completely different. You did your best to power through the thoughts of your husband being with another woman, but you were beginning to realize that when it came to cheating, you weren’t all that tough. You bit down on Patrick’s lip in what you hoped would be a light nibble, but the taste of iron quickly filled your mouth.

You slowed down your movements as your thoughts sped up before you gave up entirely. You supposed it was a classic case of mind over matter, and your mind was not nearly as strong as any of your physical urges.

You shifted off of Patrick far later than you should’ve, feeling like a complete and utter failure. You couldn’t even do the one thing you should’ve been able to do during your wedding night. No wonder he found solace in someone else’s body.

“I’m sorry,” you said weakly, your voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

It took you rolling off of Patrick to realize that his face was damp, eyes glossy with a thin layer of tears threatening to fall. The pit in your stomach that had been steadily growing since Patrick pulled you aside to tell you something finally came to a head when you realized that your husband was crying.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last syllable of his question.

A fresh tear rolled down his cheek, which was then followed by a few other droplets. He turned his head away from you and wiped them away quickly so you wouldn’t notice them, but the damage was already done.

You’d never seen Patrick cry before—not when you watched sad movies that left you bawling, not when the two of you watched advertisements for puppies in shelters, not even when he thought his dad might be dying. To see him shed tears over you felt particularly unsettling.

“Patrick?” you said his name softly, like he was delicate and going to break.

“I should be the one who’s sorry,” he looked towards you once more, eyes now rimmed with red. “I ruined everything already. I'm so sorry.”

This was a complete wild card on top of a stack of wild cards. If someone told you that your wedding night would end with your husband telling you he cheated on you, a pathetic failed attempt at sex, then watching your partner cry for the first time in front of you, you would’ve laughed in their face.

His crying continued, becoming slightly more intense as sorrow racked through his body. You’d never been in a situation like this before, so you were completely unsure of what to do.

With all prior restraint to show him physical affection gone, you awkwardly slotted your arms around your husband. He automatically leaned into you, burying his face in your shoulder as he continued to shed quiet tears. Your shoulder quickly grew damp as you threaded your fingers through his curls, the repetitive petting being just as soothing for you as it was for him.

Despite it all, you still felt a general sense of nothing at all. You were beginning to grow concerned, knowing that deep down there were certainly emotions that weren’t ready to approach the surface. You worried about what it might look like once those feelings finally came out, but that was the least of your worries when it came to your weeping husband.

Patrick continued to cry quietly, the only sound in the room being his soft, occasional sniffles. You couldn’t even place how you felt or how long you sat there stone faced as you cradled your husband.

Eventually, the tears on your shoulder dried and the intervals between sniffles grew further and further. Soon, the soft sounds of weeping turned into the long and deep breaths of rest. Between you playing with his hair and holding him, he must’ve fallen asleep. You couldn’t really blame him—given your eventful day, your all-nighter the previous day, and the energy it took for him to cry.

You gently laid Patrick back down on his side of the bed, pulling a blanket over his chest and pushing back the hair on his forehead to press a kiss to him. He stirred slightly against the forehead kiss, but didn’t seem to wake up all the way. Even when your feelings were complicated towards the man, you couldn’t help being affectionate towards him. In some ways, you felt like you needed that affection just as much as he did.

You let out a long sigh as the reality of everything truly began to set in, and you no longer had to be strong for your weeping partner. You couldn’t wrap your head around the sight of Patrick crying for the first time, or the fact that he cheated on you. You flicked off the bedside lamp, the only source of light in your otherwise darkened bedroom.

You rolled over in bed and laid on your back, setting your hands on your stomach and staring up at the ceiling. You traced your eyes over the pattern of the ceiling, though it was dark and not all that clear. You wondered if you looked at it long enough, if you’d be able to make some sense out of it. You glanced over at Patrick and wondered the same thing.

You just couldn’t understand why he’d cheat on you. You’d always been under the impression that he was just as happy in your relationship as you were. Despite his promiscuous past, he never seemed like the type of person to not be loyal to you.

You noticed a teardrop trail down his cheek in his sleep, and you gently thumbed it away. The small movement turned into you tracing a line down his nose and over his lips, then over his eyebrows and back down through the few freckles that dotted his face. Maybe if you watched him long enough, if you learned every detail of his face, someone would reveal to you why he’d done something so illogical and cruel.

You worried about how the two of you could move forward from something like this. Though Patrick always approached the topic of infidelity with a dismissive attitude, cheating had always been a deal breaker for you in your past relationships. It shattered your trust in a way that was so foundational, you couldn’t fathom a world where your relationship with Patrick stayed exactly the same after this.

Part of you knew already that moving forward, you’d constantly wonder if he was genuinely working late or if he was having an affair, or if his eye was wandering at events despite you standing by his side. And that was just trust when it came to relationships—obviously his lie was far deeper than just that. Now, you knew that Patrick had the capacity to hold a secret that massive from you, then share it at the worst possible time.

In fact, his timing felt so terrible that you momentarily wondered if it was some sort of power play. Was Patrick trying to remind you that you weren’t equals in this partnership? Was he trying to manipulate you by only sharing this information to you after you were married to him and couldn’t easily call everything off?

Your stomach turned at the possibility that Patrick wasn’t really who he said he was, and that you’d been baited and switched. You recalled the first time you met Patrick’s family, how he switched on a dime and became far more calculated and cruel to them than you’d ever seen him be with you. Was that the realest version of your husband, and the person he was with you just a façade? Was this some sort of long game he was playing with his family to piss a few people off? Did Patrick even love you?

For the first time in your relationship, you felt like you didn’t know who you were sleeping next to. Surely, this couldn’t be the same Patrick who you set out to have a quick hook up with, and ended up talking to him for hours. It couldn’t be the same Patrick who held you tight at night and gave you kisses every morning in your kitchen. The same Patrick from your vows a few hours ago, whose hands shook as he read from notecards and declared his love for you.

You frowned as you looked over Patrick once more. You resented how he was able to sleep so peacefully after inflicting such hurt on you. Did he even understand how destroyed you were? You couldn’t see yourself sleeping through the night in the foreseeable future, your head too filled with questions about your relationship and questions about his relationship with her. Would they continue the affair? Would they still work together after this, leaving you to wonder for the rest of your life if they were still going behind your back?

You desperately wished the thoughts would stop, but they kept coming, punctuated by the sounds of Patrick’s soft snores behind you.

By the time the sun began to peek through the blinds, your hand was on Patrick’s face once again. You wondered how it was possible for him to hurt someone he loved as much as he loved you, if his definition of love was so skewed by a lifetime of abuse labeled as love from his parents, and siblings who used cruelty as a form of affection.

Maybe you should’ve listened to the warnings everyone gave you, from your parents who warned that your husband and his family may be more than you bargained for, from his sisters who never seemed to be able to fully wrap their head around Patrick committing to someone, let alone you. Maybe you should’ve even listened to Tashi’s coded warning about his inability to commit and stay loyal. It seemed like everyone saw the fate of your relationship coming except you.

With the early morning light illuminating the room, things felt a little clearer for you. Beneath the numbness that protected you the previous night was a more painful undercurrent of hurt that was already beginning to eat away at you.

For the past several years of your life, you hadn’t had to deal with any painful feelings on your own. Patrick was always there beside you to hold you tight and reassure you that everything would be okay. As you laid next to him, you realized that despite all the pain he’d inflicted on you, all you really wanted was to be held by him.

Knowing that he was sleeping peacefully beside you, you opted to hold him, draping your body over his and pulling yourself as close as you could manage to him. You leaned your ear against his back, taking in the warmth he gave you and listening to his heart beat. As the two of your breaths and heartbeats began to match the other’s pace, you lamented that even now, your hearts beat as one.

For the first time that evening, your eye prickled with the threat of tears.

You lost track of how long you held your husband, but it was long enough to notice the pattern of his breath changing. You’d woken up beside him enough times to recognize that he was clearly awake, yet he made no other indication to you that he was awake. He wanted you to hold him. You wondered if he thought this might be the last time you ever do that for him. You wondered if it was the last time you’d ever do that for him.

The two of you pretended to be asleep despite the fact that you were both obviously awake, but no one commented on anything. After your arms began to grow numb, you turned your back to Patrick, hoping that he would return the favor and give you what you really wanted. You were pleased to find that he just as eagerly wrapped his arms around you, holding you tight and breathing quietly in your ear.

The two of you sat in complete silence, pretending you didn’t know what the other person was doing. Somehow, it felt like that was about to become a recurring theme in your relationship.

#patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x you #challengers x reader #challengers fic #patrick zweig smut #art donalson x reader #reader insert #josh o'connor x reader #josh o'connor #patrick zweig angst

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cheesycatz · 2 months ago

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The Wormton AU is officially two years old now! (I really gotta start writing faster...) For the occasion, I redrew the original two sketches of Wormton. I had a few ideas before I came up with the winner, but this was the first time he was a "computer worm" rather than just some worm on a string adjacent thing(s). Honestly, he hasn't changed that much; just became more fleshed out as a character and fictional species (and the fact that he used to be 3 feet tall).

The fic is officially at 150k words! That's about three Great Gatsbys, or one A Tale of Two Cities if you prefer. I'll yap about it below.

Ahh, is any "take him home" style Spamton fic complete without him running away from the person trying to help him at some point? This might be the second time, actually. Does it still count as running away if you stalk someone daily afterwards? Unrelated question.

I've got an entire pile of angst to get through before these guys' relationship can be salvaged. Spamton really doesn't want to address his feelings, so he plays into the addisons' assumptions that his motivations were entirely transactional and that he is physically incapable of caring about them. And, when the addisons have so little to work with in the first place, it's an easy lie for him to spread, to the point where even Blue thinks he hates them at this point. This story would be so much shorter if this mf was mentally stable enough to be honest about his positive feelings instead of trying to repress them. Bro is so deep in the platonic closet

I got to write a (mostly verbal) fight scene? It was fun writing Pink chew Spamton out, because, while they're definitely still grossed out by him, they never hold his malworm status against him. They see him as a parasite because of the way he acts, not because he physically is one. I want Pink and the others to seem justified in their anger/disappointment, even if the readers would know that's he's not really as heartless as he claims to be. Trying to remove the pissed off 16 ft long writhing mass of muscle, teeth, and claws freeloading in your friend's closet by hand was never a good idea, though.

Man, I wanna talk about the plot in detail so badly 😭 I must limit myself to scraps so that I spend more time writing the fic than rambling about it. Last thing I'll say for now is that I've finally got a good plan for the resolution! The final length depends on how much fluff I want to add to the end. I need at least a little bit to make up for all this angst

#spamton #spamton fanart #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune fanart #spamton g spamton #cheesycatz art posts #wormton au #cant believe this dumpster freak is what motivated me to write a 600+ page book worth of au fanfiction #can tumblr stop ruining the formatting on my posts i swear to god why is this even a glitch #love editing something 8 times because tumblr insists on deleting my readmore and doing nothing when i edit my post

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heavyeditsnz · 3 months ago

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Wipe(d)out (part 2)

so this one turned out to be way longer than i thought... but here it is! the long awaited second half of this lil' saga! i hope you're all ready for more gay sneezy cephalopod fluff >:3

srsly tho yall have no idea how much fun it is writing these two

tags: M/M, cold sneezes, hurt/comfort-adjacent, a few stifles and holdbacks (and subsequent egging on to not do that)

CWs: there's no egregious mess, but definitely a step up from part 1

word count: 5k

Asahi awoke to find himself alone in a car and parked in front of a pharmacy.

A strained groan of discomfort escaped him as he blinked his bleary eyes open and looked around the tiny space, gingerly stretching out his stiff legs as his fever-addled mind tried to catch up. Just a few minutes ago he was in the lobby with Ren, and now he was… in a car, feeling hot and sweaty and barely able to breathe through his nose.

As he pushed himself up he gave a thick, useless sniffle as he roughly rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up in the car’s seat, drowsily thumbing at his chapped nose and cringing as his fingers came back wet. He couldn’t have been asleep for long and yet the congestion had returned in full force; his irritated sinuses nearly compacted with inky snot that still threatened to drip down his chapped upper lip, like both of his nostrils had been sealed off with glue… or wet concrete, Asahi thought bitterly. For now he was stuck taking shallow breaths through his mouth, at least until he could blow his nose.

There was no doubt about it at this point, he was feeling awful. Not only physically, but there was a nagging guilt trying to worm its way into the back of his mind, about having to cancel his plans with Ren today, having him drop everything just to take care of him…

Still exhausted from his short nap, Asahi swiped his chapped nose on his hoodie sleeve, wincing as the rough fabric rubbing against raw skin started to sting. His eyes watered as his nose scrunched and wiggled, the wall of congestion shifting in his head and making him feel heavy and hot and all-around gross.

Where was Ren? Still foggy with delirium, he squinted and tried to peer into the building’s windows and seeing only blurred blobs in front of him, wincing as the dull throbbing in his head grew worse as he tried to look. Maybe… not doing that was a good idea, and he slumped back into the car seat with a rough sigh that immediately turned into a coughing fit that left him wheezing and reeling.

The seats were hot, strangely enough, soothing on his aching body and warm enough to keep him from shivering. He reached up to swipe at his nose, rubbing against his hoodie sleeve as he shuffled around trying to make himself comfortable again. Occasionally he’d glance out of the windows; he didn’t really recognize this area of town… that, or his feverish mind wasn’t allowing him to recognize it. Everything was starting to sway and shift around again and Asahi gripped the door’s handle as he waited for his vision to stop spinning and swirling every which way.

With no one else in the car, the sick Octoling was left alone with only the radio and his fever-addled thoughts. The thumping bass from the sound system sent uncomfortable vibrations through his aching body, even when he leaned to rest his feverish head on the seat belt, even with the volume this low. He’d only laid down for a second before the buzzing from the speakers began to irritate his sinuses, already sensitive and all-around overworked.

The hitching came on fast, though weak and unstable, and Asahi wiggled and scrunched his quivering nose, attempting to dislodge the itchy buildup somehow before it got too annoying. His hands were quivering, unsure of whether to try and catch the inevitable eruption into his hands or the crook of his elbow.

Asahi’s eyes were wet with itchy tears as the buzzing behind his eyelids grew more and more overwhelming, needling across his tortured sinuses and barely moving. His hitching breaths grew more jagged and desperate, and suddenly he reeled back with his shaky hands now awkwardly cupped and braced for impact as his watery eyes finally flickered shut… and just as quickly the teasing itch spiked and suddenly receded, and all that came out was a shaky sigh.

…Asahi slumped against the heated seat. That was… weird.

With another thick sniffle he swiped at his raw nostrils and tried to relax a little, leaning back and letting the heated seat soothe his achy body. This was Yui’s car, wasn’t it? She was the only person he knew with heated seats and a sound system like that. At least he wasn’t somewhere entirely unfamiliar, this bringing a small amount of comfort to the ill Octoling.

Maybe a few extra minutes of shut-eye wouldn’t hurt, Asahi thought to himself as he settled in. His eyelids grew heavy as he laid still, warm and comfortable with something to chase that persistent chill away, and he would have dozed off again if the static behind his eyes hadn’t suddenly alighted with renewed fury.

"—eH'pSSHIEW!!"

The itch behind his eyes spiked and with a shaky gasp Asahi pitched forwards without thinking, hitting the dashboard with a small but noticeable misty spray of saliva. He gave a dizzy groan as he resurfaced, muffling a liquidy sniffle into the wrist of his (now well-used) hoodie sleeve as he struggled to stem the warm, inky gunk threatening to spill out of his cold-ridden nose.

Yikes… that was a little too close for comfort. Asahi had just barely avoided a mess.

He’d snuff the mess back up as best he could, but he could only go without blowing for so long.

Now with his leaky nose buried into his sleeve, a desperate attempt to stem the flow of inky snot threatening to drip down his upper lip, his eyes darted around the car interior in a desperate search for something he could blow into. There had to be a napkin or something laying around… He wished he kept his mask on.

His sniffling increased in frequency as he frantically searched the car, but there wasn’t a single tissue nor paper napkin in sight much to his dismay. “sdrrrk-- Ohh, God…” Asahi muttered to himself as he searched the glove box for anything resembling a napkin or a travel pack, thickly sniffling back another wave of snot threatening to leak out… and wincing as the inky gunk rippling against his overworked and inflamed sinuses sparked another burning itch behind his eyes, deep-seated and spreading agonizingly slow. There had to be something here, anything…

“h’heh–... hehh–!...”

Asahi’s vision went fuzzy as the urge to sneeze crept up on him, and he hurriedly pressed the flat of his tongue to the roof of his mouth, stalling the tickle and buying some more precious time.

God, not now! There was a hefty chance he’d drench himself and Yui’s car if he couldn’t hold back, and Asahi wasn’t sure if the sleeves of his hoodie could take any more damage.

Still, he’d sniffle again and roughly wipe his chapped, leaky nose on his hoodie sleeve and searched in vain for a napkin he could use… too caught up in his desperate search to notice Ren making his way back to the car, too focused on keeping his runny nose under control to hear the car’s doors unlock and then open.

“Oh hey, you’re finally up.” Ren’s voice startled the sick Octoling out of his near trance, visibly flinching in surprise at his return. He probably looked pathetic, with his runny nose buried in his hoodie sleeve while he desperately searched for something to blow into while Ren stepped into the driver’s seat. “You were out the whole ride here. Passed out almost as soon as we left the lobby. Figured you needed some sleep, so I didn’t wanna wake you…”

So that’s why he barely remembered having left the lobby…

“Got you a few things, too.” In Ren’s hands were a few plastic bags, likely filled with all sorts of cold supplies and remedies… and hopefully some tissues. He reached over the seat, about to deposit the grocery bags on the back seat and out of his reach when Asahi finally found his voice.

“R-Ren?” He’d gasp out despite the crack in his tone. “I-I need a tihh-” His voice went shaky as the itch in his nose from before suddenly reignited, and Asahi couldn’t finish his sentence before his eyes squeezed shut and he wrenched forwards with a desperate “hiI’gKSSCHHIIEW!!!” -- into the waiting sleeve of his hoodie, drenching the fabric in a barely contained shower of snot and inky mist.

The damp spot was the first sensation he clocked, then the unmistakable, uncomfortable warmth now oozing out of his nose and onto his upper lip… and Ren’s eyes on him, as Asahi woozily blinked back itchy tears and tried wiping his leaky nostrils on his ruined sleeve, but for all his effort this only managed to spread the mess around… and to add insult to injury, he needed to sneeze again, and before he knew it he was already reeling back, with barely any time to see Ren’s expression before he lurched forwards again into his soiled sleeves, soaking the hoodie in more inky snot. “hI’H-... hE’gKSSHHUHh!!”

One of the first things Asahi was aware of when the haze in his head finally settled were the tips of his ears absolutely burning in shame.

He withered underneath Ren’s stunned stare as hot stinging tears began to well up in his eyes and spill over his cheeks, and before he even realized it he was quietly whimpering, ineffectively sniffling back the deluge of snotty ink oozing out of his nose and soaking into his sleeves.

So much for avoiding a mess.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he finally glanced up at Ren; probably shock or disgust at how snotty and all around miserable he looked as he tried to avoid looking into the Inkling’s eyes… and finding neither of his own expectations.

“H-Hey! What’s wrong?!”

The sudden explosion definitely made Ren jump, of course, but his startled look quickly melted away once he caught sight of the tears bubbling up in Asahi’s eyes, and he quickly reached behind the driver’s seat for one of the plastic bags.

The immediate concern for him caught Asahi off guard; his tear-filled glassy eyes went wide, like a minnow entrapped by an angler fish’s light. And yet the only reply he could muster up was a thick sniffle and a pathetic whimper, slightly flinching as Ren reached over to rub behind one of his rounded ears.

It took a while for Asahi to muster up a response, and at that point the dam caved in.

“I-I feel awful…” he finally admitted, even as he shrunk away from Ren’s touch. “I mb’essed u’b our pla’ds and rui’ded everythi’g a’d… a-a’d I just feel gross!” He eventually choked out a quiet sob, his body shuddering with each shaky inhale, with little hiccups and useless sniffles in between, and Ren sighed softly once he realized how unnecessarily guilty his partner had been feeling… and all over getting sick, no less.

With no other response he then moved his hand to stroke across Asahi’s cheek, delicately wiping away his boyfriend’s tears despite the sniffling and his attempts to pull away. He frowned, almost as if the teary look of shame on his partner’s pale face had him feeling guilty as well-- he had to do something.

“Hey. Look at me.”

With his other hand he took hold of his partner’s chin, gently pulling him close so that he was facing Ren despite his weak attempts at escape. The sudden boldness had the desired effect, stunning Asahi so that he was completely still, and once he had his attention he shifted that hand to rub behind Asahi’s ear. “You are not gross, okay?” he spoke firmly. “Why would I be mad at you for getting sick?”

Asahi sputtered. “B-But…”

“No buts,” Ren quickly silenced his boyfriend’s protests with a kiss to his warm forehead. “You’re not a burden, Asahi. You didn’t ‘ruin’ anything, I promise. So what if we couldn’t practice today? We can always come back when you’re in better shape, yeah?”

And then he pulled him in across the seats for a hug, despite the thick sniffling ringing in Ren’s ears and his arm still held up to his face, and even moved to rub his back- unmoving even as Asahi eventually wrapped his own free arm around him- leaning into his boyfriend’s warmth as the tears in his eyes began to dry, muttering a weak ‘tha’g you’ into his boyfriend’s neck before pulling away.

Now that the tears had stopped, there was something else Ren had to attend to-- namely, that leaky nose of his.

“C’mon, let me see the damage,” he’d prod as he grabbed Asahi’s wrist and gently pulled his arm from underneath his dripping nose. The fabric on his sleeves had definitely taken the brunt of the damage, with a thin line of snot connecting his leaky nostrils to the stain on his wrist.

Ren noted a few smaller, dried stains on that sleeve, and a quick offhand glance revealed similar small streaks on the hoodie’s other sleeve. And all while Asahi continued to avoid eye contact, still looking embarrassed about the mess on his hoodie. Just how long had he been doing this? No wonder his boyfriend’s nose was all raw and chapped if he’d been using his hoodie sleeves as a snot rag for who knows how long.

“Old habits die hard, eh?” Ren joked in an attempt to lift his sick boyfriend’s spirits, only getting an exhausted half-chuckle in reply.

“It’s nothing a pre-soak can’t fix, though,” he would decide as he popped open the box of tissues he just bought and swiped up a few, then pressed the clump around Asahi’s nose— gently lifting his head so that he could gaze into his glassy, unfocused eyes, and stopped for a moment.

At this point he’d known that vacant expression all too well, and reached for another tissue to add to the wad bunched around his quivering nostrils. He held the clump close even as Asahi tried to pull away from his hand between short, breathy gasps and fluttering eyelids. Was he seriously still trying to fight off his symptoms?

Getting an idea, Ren would gently press the flat of his thumb against his nose, lightly rubbing the textured tissues against his flaring ink-rimmed nostrils, and slowly nudging that quivering appendage up and down while applying a small amount of pressure. It was nothing drastic, just a small bit of movement to distract Asahi from trying to hold back.

Or to coax that itch out. Whatever came first.

“R-Re’d—?” Asahi gasped out between tickly gasps, quivering as he still tried to pull away from the Inkling’s hand. “W-What are you-? I-I gotta-hhh-...”

“I know,” Ren replied rather directly. “Stop trying to fight it, ‘kay?”

So despite his protests he held his hand in place, protected by layers of facial tissue, while Asahi hitched and squirmed in his grasp. Ren kept his grip steady even as Asahi stopped pulling away and began to tilt his head back, even as his breaths grew more shallow and desperate as his eyes welled with itchy tears, then flickered shut. “hehh-... HE’gKSSHHYOO!!”

Ren held his hand firm and steady as Asahi finally pitched forwards, remaining unfazed as warmth filled his palm, and he shifted his grip ever so slightly to make sure the tissues completely covered his nose despite the force.

“Yeesh, that sounded rough,” Ren chuckled, using his free hand to flick a stray tear from Asahi’s cheek. This was where he noticed the misty, unfocused look in Asahi’s eyes; his lips slightly parted and his chest heaving again with short, tickly gasps— he wasn’t done, clearly.

“Still itchy?” The dazed, shaky nod was all the confirmation Ren needed, and he pinched the tissue wad around his quivering nose as his flickering eyelids closed again.

“u-uhh’hh‐… hh’tSHHUUHh!!” Ren’s hand grew warmer and heavier as Asahi pitched forwards into the clump of damp tissue… then reeled back again, gasping in a strangled breath. “gh’hehh-... he’PSSCH— -g’KSSCHh— -KSHHUuh!!!”

And he pitched forwards into the squid’s hand with an uncontrolled, rapid triple, drenching the soft paper in stringy, snotty ink as each sneeze ripped through him, but the itching finally backed off afterwards and Asahi slumped into his partner’s hand; groaning in relief, barely aware of Ren reaching out to rub the top of his head. “Bless you. Feel better?”

“Uh-huh…” The sniffle that followed was long and thick, but exhaustion overshadowed any embarrassment Asahi felt, and he couldn’t help smiling a little. “Tha’g you, Re’d.”

He froze.

Tha’g you, Re’d. Those three words brought a surprising heat to the Inkling’s face, the tips of his ears burning with an unknown feeling. He felt weirdly giddy, hearing Asahi trying to thank him while horribly stuffed up. Coupled with that sickly smile on his face…he’s still cute even when he’s this wiped.

“R-Re’d...?”

Another soupy sniffle brought him back to the present.

Ren glanced down to see Asahi staring up at him, his pale cheeks suddenly flush with color. “Y-You’re stari’g…”

“S-Shit, sorry.”

He quickly shook off that weird giddiness.

Right, Asahi was more important right now, he could deal with those weird thoughts later. He gently wiped around his boyfriend’s quivering nose before pulling the ink-stained clump of tissue away. For now, he’d stuff the used tissue into the cup holder as he reached for the box again to pull up a few fresh sheets.

Ren was gentle; tenderly cupping the clean tissues around Asahi’s nose while he gazed into his boyfriend’s glassy eyes. He couldn’t help chuckling to himself watching his boyfriend lean into the tissues without a second thought this time, clearly picking up the relieved sigh that escaped the sick Octoling’s throat. “These feel nd’ice,” Asahi muttered.

“Of course they’re gonna feel better than cafe napkins and cheap toilet paper,” Ren would gently rib as he tried to lighten the mood somewhat. “These have lotion in them, though.”

He pulled his hand away once Asahi reached for the tissues clumped around his nose, effortlessly passing the wad of paper into his hands, only to take a second glance at his sick partner in the passenger’s seat next to him.

His tentacles were still very pale; lethargic and limp as they hung from his usual ponytail, and under the sunlight they appeared to have lost even more color. His skin was no different; clammy and beaded with sweat, save for the inflamed tint around his quivering nose, buried deep in layers of tissues with a thick, gurgling blow that sounded desperately needed.

Most of all, however, Asahi seemed tense— even as he tried to clear his sinuses; straining against the aches and fatigue permeating every inch of his body as he gasped in another exhausted breath and blew as hard as he could with a spluttering honk that quickly lost its strength. He groaned in discomfort before leaning to blow again; this time with more force and less regard for how embarrassing he sounded, but still quickly losing steam.

Ren watched as Asahi carefully crumpled up the sodden tissue so that the mess inside remained inwards, then followed his boyfriend’s lead in stuffing the soiled paper into the cup holder, on top of the tissue from earlier before reaching for the tissue box again.

…At that moment, Ren made another mental note to thoroughly sanitize his sister’s car before returning it to her.

There had to be something he could do to help, Ren thought to himself, reaching over to place one of his hands on Asahi’s shoulders, mostly out of sympathy for his sick partner— and then an idea hit once he clocked just how tense the Octoling’s shoulders were.

A few extra minutes in the parking lot wouldn’t hurt, Ren rationalized, before turning in his seat to place both of his hands on Asahi’s shoulders while he was preoccupied with blowing his nose, startling him out of his focus.

“W-What are you—?”

“Want a shoulder rub?” was Ren’s nonchalant reply. The suggestion seemed out of nowhere, but… in all honesty Asahi was too tired to argue, and the idea definitely sounded nice.

He gave a slow, tired but trusting nod and Ren began to do just that; rubbing and gently applying pressure to the tensest parts of his shoulders. Asahi shuddered underneath the Inkling’s hands as the aching in his body ebbed away, if only for a while, and before long his eyelids fluttered shut and he leaned across the center console into Ren’s hands.

Meanwhile Ren chuckled to himself watching his partner melt in his hands, all tension in his neck and shoulders evaporating almost as soon as he laid hands on him. He seemed on the verge of falling asleep then and there, his movements slow and floaty even without the shoulder rub. And despite the weird posture he had to affect to be able to reach both shoulders, he didn’t mind too much as long as Asahi was at least a little bit comfortable.

“Feels gooood…” Asahi mumbled out, eliciting another laugh and a deeper rub. Time seemed to slow, even though the two had only been like this for maybe five minutes. Though he had to pull away after some time though; this position didn’t really agree with him no matter how flexible and limber Ren assumed he was.

Naturally Asahi began to pout once he pulled away to focus on getting home and cut the shoulder rub short. “I can keep going once we’re home,” he quickly added as a compromise, and Asahi reluctantly agreed.

With his seatbelt on, Ren reached for the gear shift, only stopping to take one last look at Asahi before pulling off, and decided that he should maybe keep that tissue box within his sick boyfriend’s reach. So he unceremoniously plopped the box into his lap, startling him as soon as he was about to doze off, along with another important item he’d bought- a bottle of orange juice, which he’d placed in the only other open cup holder where Asahi could reach it. “Got you some juice, too,” he called out to bring his sick partner’s attention to the drink, then he turned to focus on pulling out of the parking lot for real this time— or he would have, had Asahi not spoken up again.

”T-Thank you…” the sick Octoling muttered. His voice, though clear of congestion now, still came strained and weak. “F-For the tissues, and t-the orange juice, and…”

“Don’t mention it,” Ren replied. “You sound better, too.”

He looked over to notice that Asahi was avoiding his line of sight again, hiding behind the wad of fresh tissues pressed to his nose. There was visible embarrassment in his glassy eyes, and he shrunk in on himself once he caught sight of Ren.

“S-Someone in the lobby bathroom said I sounded like a jammed Nautilus…”

And then Ren snorted; unable to suppress a giggle at that comment; unable to stop giggling despite the pout on Asahi’s face. That was… so out of pocket and Ren would be lying if he claimed he didn’t pity his partner being jabbed at by a stranger in the restroom.

But it was so specific and weirdly blunt that the comparison blindsided him, and he couldn’t help but just laugh. Not to mention the added irony in Asahi’s recent decision (last week) to try and take up the weapon in question. A perfect storm all-in-all.

”It’s not funny…” Asahi gave a weak rasp, and Ren eventually stopped laughing. “S-Sorry dude… that was just so outta pocket.”

Still unconvinced, Asahi continued to pout, and Ren eventually sighed in defeat and reached out to rub behind his ears again. He was surprised to see him resist, weakly pulling away from Ren’s hand as he continued to rub, but he held out for exactly four seconds before the sick Octoling relented, slowly leaning into the embrace as the pout melted from his face. “Knew you’d come around eventually,” Ren chuckled.

”But seriously, it’s no big deal. Just wanted to make sure you were at least a little comfortable.” He pulled away from Asahi’s ear once he began to lean back in his seat, gently patting his cheek before returning to the wheel— for real this time. “I’m no nurse, but I do know how to make a cold less painful. So don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”

…Okay, he may have been a little overconfident in that last statement. But Ren was determined to make sure his sick boyfriend didn’t suffer too much, and it even seemed to alleviate Asahi’s concerns as he began to settle in his seat for the ride home. He kept the tissue box in his lap, of course, as he reached to crack open the bottle of orange juice to take a sip… which turned into the delayed realization that he’d barely had anything to drink all day, if gulping down half the bottle was any indication.

“S-Sorry we still couldn’t do any warm-up rounds, though…” Asahi admitted after a period of silence, staring down into his bottle of juice.

“C’mon, you don’t have to keep beating yourself up over it. We can go back when you’re in better shape.”

That seemed to finally convince him, and Asahi eventually slumped into his seat, carefully re-capping his orange juice before placing it back in the cup holder. He gave a soft, crackling sigh as he got comfortable in the car seat, humming contentedly as he settled in against the soothing heat radiating along his back… Ren chuckled to himself, wondering when Asahi would notice the car’s heated seats. “Feels good, don’t it?”

“Mmhm…” Asahi purred, slowly sinking into the seat’s warmth.

“Alright, let’s get outta here. You wanna get somethin’ to eat before we head home?” Ren asked as he buckled himself in and shifted gears, but got no response… He glanced over to find Asahi asleep in his seat, lightly snoring with his head resting precariously against the seatbelt.

He smiled to himself. “You’re gonna be alright. Swear on it,” Ren reassured again, as he moved to plant a small kiss right in the middle of his warm, sweat-slicked forehead.

It was a small display of affection, sure, but the sleepy smile on the feverish Octoling’s face meant a lot to him.

——

“Yui won’t be back till seven,” the tall Inkling rattled off as he shouldered his sick partner all the way up to the complex doorstep, “so until then we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

Noon had only barely passed when the two made it back to the apartments. At this point Ren was essentially dragging a delirious and clearly sleepy Asahi into the complex he shared with his older sister, held up with his arm braced across his shoulders and matching his uneven, staggering pace, keeping him upright as they hobbled up to the doorstep and Ren dug for his house key.

“We’re almost there, just hang on.” he’d reassure him as he guided him over curbs and low steps that Asahi would have no doubt tripped over in this state.

At this point Ren sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself rather than the one who actually needed it, who seemed barely responsive save for a weak nod and a shuddering, unrepressed cough that caused Ren to wince in sympathy.

There was something needling at the back of his neck… Pity.

It sucked seeing Asahi so ill; so low. He didn’t deserve this, if anything! Someone so sweet and kind and gentle, laid low by the changing seasons… He didn’t deserve this!

“Hang in there, alright?” Ren would try reassuring him as the two hobbled up to the front door. Now he just needed his house key, and he’d be home safe and Asahi could properly rest…

As he retrieved his key and unlocked the apartment door, Ren glanced over at his ill partner, who seemed barely awake while he leaned his full weight onto him for support. His eyelids would frequently flicker between thick, inky sniffling, and he still shivered even underneath the blazing sun.

Asahi suddenly whipped to the side before doubling over, and his grip on Ren’s arm would clench even tighter as more deep, heavy crackling coughs wracked his trembling frame. The force was enough to nearly pull Ren down with him, and he winced in sympathy once the coughing subsided and Asahi was left dizzily wheezing.

He wasted no time in pulling his boyfriend through the front door and into the air-conditioned space before locking the door behind him.

“Chez Takahashi welcomes you,” Ren announced with a goofy flourish once the two were inside, hoping to get a giggle or at least a smile from his sick boyfriend. And it worked, somewhat; his silly little show eliciting a small, tired giggle from Asahi, though it quickly dissolved into another fit of coughs.

Home safe, finally, Ren thought to himself as he guided Asahi to the couch, letting him sit down so that he was finally off of his feet. “Kick off your shoes, make yourself comfortable! Remote’s right there if you wanna watch TV.”

He’d have to run back to the car to grab their backpacks as well as the supplies he bought, as getting his unstable boyfriend inside was his main priority, and once Asahi was seated and stable he ducked back towards the door to grab everything he’d forgotten.

Once outside he’d release a heavy sigh, as the day’s events weighed on him— and it was only just past noon.

He kicked a nearby rock as he went to unlock the car, reaching for Asahi’s backpack first and slinging one of its straps around his shoulder, followed by his own. The grocery bags he could grab with one hand.

“Got the stuff,” Ren called out as he made his way back through the doorway and over to where his boyfriend was seated before depositing the grocery bags onto the couch. Asahi hadn’t moved much from his spot (he hadn’t even kicked off his shoes), groaning and wetly sniffling with his visibly damp hoodie sleeve pressed against his nose, woozily blinking back dizzy tears as he gazed up at Ren… All he could rasp out was a weak, stuttering “sorry” followed by another soupy sniffle.

It didn’t take long for Ren to piece together what happened while he was gone, but he decided not to draw attention to it. At least not yet, anyway.

He searched through the bags for a few choice items, not missing the change in Asahi’s expression once he pulled out the open box of tissues— reddened eyes going wide with a grateful gleam as he reached for the box, then promptly swiped up a few of the soft sheets to bunch around his nose in an attempt to stem the leaking. Ren decided not to comment on the honking, gurgling blow that followed.

While his boyfriend was preoccupied, Ren dug through the bag of supplies again, looking for a few more choice items to help ease Asahi’s symptoms somewhat— cough drops, tea, more tissues (because one box was never enough), cup noodles, an ice pack, vapor rub, and most importantly, nighttime-strength, severe cold medicine. “You have your inhaler, right?”

Asahi gave a weak nod and pointed towards his bag, the one that was just brought in. Which was sitting next to Ren’s backpack on the ground by the door, so that was good.

“You want me to wash that?” he’d question as he gestured down to the snot-stained sleeves, and Asahi shrunk away in embarrassment; this eliciting a small, amused chuckle from Ren. “C’mon, that hoodie’s basically a petri dish. You’re not gonna get any better sulking around in it.”

“B-But I’b cold…”

“We’ve got blankets, yknow.”

Asahi eventually relented, and he shuffled out of his hoodie with assistance from Ren; now he sat in only his undershirt, sniffling and shivering as soon as his exposed skin hit the air-conditioned front room atmosphere. The sudden temperature change definitely wasn’t easy on his tortured sinuses, and he suddenly pitched forwards into the crook of his elbow with an unusually harsh sneeze that left him winded and dizzy. “–hE��tSHHIUUH!! Uughhh…”

There he was, clumsily fumbling for the tissue box a few feet in front of him… nearly dropping it a couple of times as he tried to get a hold of it.

“Still can’t believe you thought you could still play like this,” Ren sighed out without thinking.

He stopped once he noticed Asahi withdrawing in on himself underneath his stare, a faint, embarrassed blush coloring his flushed cheeks.

“Shit, I wasn't thinking straight… Sorry, dude.”

Quickly shaking himself out of his thoughts, Ren slid the tissue box to where Asahi could easily reach it, even plucking up a few sheets himself to help clean him up a bit before folding the soiled hoodie so that its snotty ink stains were inward facing while he blew his nose again. “You wanna take a shower? It’ll warm you up the fastest.”

The idea of a hot shower was tempting to the sick cephalopod, but there was one problem. “S-Shower? B-But I dod’t… ha’be ad’y clothes…”

“So? You can borrow some of mine while I wash yours.”

He’d worn Ren’s clothes before, and in better situations than this.

But even so, Ren’s straightforward suggestion had him blindsided and slightly bashful, but a chill up Asahi’s spine quickly changed his mind and he pushed himself off the couch. “Okay t-the’d…” Besides, the idea of a hot shower definitely sounded appealing to his fever-ridden mind.

He began to sway as soon as he was on his feet and upright, shivering and stumbling while he used the couch’s arm for support, only to double over into a coughing fit— deep, crackling coughs that ripped through his chest and left him stumbling, tumbling over his foot and close to the ground had Ren not swooped in to catch him mid fit.

Asahi gasped in a shaky wheeze once the taller Inkling helped him upright, leaning into his chest for support as Ren eventually steadied him on his feet. He felt heavy. Standing up too quickly made him dizzy, and all of that coughing only made it worse.

“Y’know…” Ren sighed after a short silence as he eased his clearly unsteady partner down the hallway and to the bathroom. “Maybe a bath sounds safer.”

#sp.txt #sp writes #snzblr #snz kink #snz #snzfucker #sneeze kink #snz fet #snzfic #sneeze fic #my ocs #oc:asahi #oc:ren

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thisbuildinghasfeelings · 11 months ago

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It's been a tough year in a lot of ways, but one thing I've been able to consistently count on to bring me joy is the incredible writing in this fandom! I feel like 2023 has been almost a golden age of Tarlos fic. With both the sheer quantity AND quality of fic, it has been a wonderful time to be a Tarlos fic reader! In celebration of this golden age, I wanted to share a list of some of the fic that brought me the most joy in the past year.

Of course, this is not a comprehensive list...as much as I may want to, I can't possibly read everything this fandom has to offer. There's still a lot to get to on my to-read list. And even from the fic I did read, I'm sure I'm forgetting some amazing ones. There's just SO MUCH. But here I have listed (alphabetic by author) some of the fic that most resonated with me the past year, fic that I still think about and reread, and fic that has taken up full time residence in my brain!

There are A LOT...so I'll be putting the list under the cut.

all my blood for the sweetness of his laugh by @alrightbuckaroo

A truly beautiful little fic about Carlos' feelings about TK's laugh. A bit of angst and a lot of love.

anger has told me her real name is grief by alrightbuckaroo

An excellent 4x17/4x18 fic that deals a lot with Carlos' grief and the journey he goes through in those two episodes.

my beatin' heart belongs to you by bartsy

A fic about Carlos' anxiety after the death of his father, manifested in his fears for the safety of his husband. This fic is so beautiful and very in character. I would love it so much if the show would go even a tiny bit in the direction of exploring Carlos' anxiety!

It Beats for You by @basilsunrise

A 4x04 coda, porn with feelings and bottom Carlos...truly, what more could I ask for?? Very hot and SO MANY feelings!

she has almost killed me with love for that boy by @beautifulhigh

Another 4x04 coda (there can never be enough) that's also a study of the different types of love, all of which Carlos has in his life.

How quickly we change overnight by @birdclowns

A pre-canon fic about TK and his relationship with Alex. I particularly love this kind of thing where we have so little concrete information in canon. It's a perfect opportunity for fic, and I really love this one. Alex could easily be handled as some horrible villain, but the way he's handled here is far more realistic and I think it makes my heart break for TK even more.

Even if the World Ends Tomorrow by @bonheur-cafe

A post-apocalypse AU that's a little terrifying but ultimately very hopeful. This is one that I kept thinking about long after I read it.

can i be close to you? by @catanisspicy

A 5+1 fic about TK asking Carlos if he'd still love him if he was a worm. A true delight! This is another fic I still think about all the time.

slowly, then all at once by catanisspicy

A fic about TK and Carlos loving each other, which is one of my favorite things in the world.

The Center of the Maze by @carlos-in-glasses

7 times TK and Carlos thought they would never get married and one time they actually did. This fic covers so many of the most significant moments of their relationship and is so very beautifully written. I think my favorite part is (predictably) the section related to the soulmates scene.

When Soulmates Swim by carlos-in-glasses

A wonderful AU where TK and Carlos get to know each other while swimming together. It's everything: hot, sweet, beautiful, poignant, and sometimes incredibly hilarious.

Release the Hand to Relax the Animal by carlos-in-glasses

A fic that's all about touch and the great sex, past and present, that TK and Carlos have had. A true masterpiece.

We Have Suffered Enough by @chicgeekgirl89

A 4x16 coda. Oh, the soulmates scene! I'm automatically going to love anything even remotely soulmates scene-adjacent, and this one is particularly beautiful.

Shiner by chicgeekgirl89

A 4x15 coda dealing with Carlos finding out about TK's black eye, which is something I desperately wanted to see on screen. I love the way it goes here. It's incredibly sweet.

Cold Feet by @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut

A lovely little fic that has Carlos feeling some big feelings about his soon-to-be husband.

When I'm Like This by cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut

An early season 1 Tarlos fic with a lot of angst and feelings, which is always one of my favorite things. This one is ridiculously hot, yet also filled with so much emotion and feelings and gorgeous writing. Just thinking about it makes me want to reread!

to build a home by @freneticfloetry

A Carlos character study, from pre-series through season 4. If there was ever a character I wanted to study, it's Carlos Reyes. And this fic is beautifully done, expertly exploring the complexities of his character and the gaps canon has left to be filled.

The Sting by @goodways

Shortly after they're married, Carlos gets involved in an FBI sting operation that requires him to go on a date and flirt with another man, something that TK is not thrilled about. This fic is at times funny, emotional, hot and sweet.

First night by goodways

The first time TK and Carlos have sex and all the feelings and attempted avoidance of feelings that comes with it. So many feelings!!!

Take my hand, take my whole life, too by @heartstringsduet

HANDS. What more could I ask for? This fic is an absolutely gorgeous exploration of TK and Carlos' intimacy across their whole lives together. I'm ready to tear up just thinking about it!

But most of it was beautiful by heartstringsduet

An at-home Tarlos honeymoon fic. I call a lot of fic on this list beautiful, but sometimes there's no better word. This fic is beautiful.

broken glass by @irispurpurea

A beautiful, heartbreaking exploration of Carlos' grief. It's all fragmented and non-linear, which only adds to how moving and powerful it is.

a little bit more by krissyloowhoo

An installment of a series in which TK and Carlos adopt a baby girl. This one features Carlos in love with what a good dad TK is.

Stand your brand of love by @ladytessa74

A Tarlos honeymoon fic written prior to the end of the season. This was a go-to reread for me in the weeks leading up to the finale. Even now, when it's no longer technically canon compliant, the emotions hit just as hard.

How I linger to admire by ladytessa74

This fic is pretty much my dream season 5. It has everything: Carlos solving his father's murder, TK and Carlos getting held at gunpoint, and Lou II saving the day. Several items on my wish list for season 5 were directly inspired by reading this fic.

Do it all over again by ladytessa74

TK tries for a do over of the proposal because he thinks Carlos deserves better, which leads to a series of funny, adorable and touching moments. The writing is beautiful, and it even inspired a cross stitch! I have many favorite things about Tessa's writing, but one of my very favorite things is the way she writes the intimacy and affection and touch between TK and Carlos. This fic is filled with some of my favorite examples of that.

All Your Colors Make Me Feel Alive by @lemonlyman-dotcom

This wonderful fic uses the music of Beck to explore moments in TK and Carlos' relationship. Angst and fluff: the best combination.

I'm Not A Fortress, But I Will Try To Protect You by lemonlyman-dotcom

TK and Marjan have a conversation in the wake of the events of 2x04. One of my favorite parts of Lemon's writing is the incredible amount of backstory detail, most particularly the friendship between TK and Marjan. There are hints of this in canon, but here it's beautifully developed and I love it so much.

Call Me If You Get Lost by lemonlyman-dotcom

TK and Carlos go for a romantic weekend while also looking out for a friend. This fic is a delight and so much fun!

Love From the Other Side by @lightningboltreader

Exes to lovers and only one bed...what could possibly be better?? I particularly enjoy the conversation between TK and Carlos that leads to their reconciliation.

We were in screaming color by @liminalmemories21

I was looking forward to this season 4 fic since before the season even started airing! I can imagine it must have been particularly difficult to write, from the ridiculous season 4 timeline to all the plotholes and inconsistencies that the Iris storyline and Carlos' sudden two sisters created, but it was done beautifully. It made me think about so many season 4 details and moments in different ways and ultimately led to an enhanced appreciation of the season.

I need you so much closer by @marjansmarwani

A 4x04 coda. This one focuses on all the many people who love Carlos. I always love to read about Carlos being loved!

where the empty space is a saving grace by @maxbegone

Carlos talks with Gwyn in the time before he's revived by TK and the narcan in 4x04. Beautiful and poignant.

etched in gold by maxbegone

A lovely little wedding moment where TK and Carlos get some alone time during the reception.

By Your Side by @never-blooms

The Reyes kitchen through the years. If there's anything that deserves more exploration, it's the Reyes family and all their complexities. This fic does an incredible job of this and is so beautifully written.

The Calling by @orchidscript

This is a fascinating and beautiful fic about TK using his experience with addiction to help people in the course of his job as a paramedic. It's something I would love so much for them to explore on the show!

Under A Star Spell by orchidscript

In this AU, Carlos practices folk magic. The fic itself is absolutely magical. One of the things I love about it is how different it is from pretty much every other Tarlos fic I've ever read.

Lost and Found by @paperstorm

A 4x04 coda (if there's one thing about me, it's that I love a 4x04 coda). I loved this episode so much but there was so much more I wanted, particularly to see what happened in the aftermath at the hospital, which is why this fic is so appreciated.

Ritual by paperstorm

An installment of Andie's spectacular Missing Moments series. I could easily have put every installment on this list, but I chose the one for 2x11, which is my favorite of the season 2 fics. I'm always a sucker for Carlos working through his feelings about his relationship with his parents!

The Firehouse by paperstorm

An incredible AU with TK and Carlos as childhood friends who meet again years later when Carlos is undercover and TK is living a life of crime. The angst in this one is spectacular, and the payoff is beautiful and earned and extraordinarily satisfying.

peace by @redshirt2

Carlos post-breakup. This little fic is heartbreaking and perfectly captures Carlos' desolate state of mind as he's left alone.

dream this night away by @reyesstrand

A pre-season 4 honeymoon fic where TK and Carlos end up in a motel after their flight is cancelled. A little bit of angst and a lot of love and tenderness.

to which there is no reply by reyesstrand

An absolutely gorgeous honeymoon fic, this time canon-compliant, that features Carlos struggling with his grief and being loved by his husband.

balancing act by reyesstrand

TK and Carlos sharing food and falling in love. What could possibly be better? This fic is so beautiful and it spans the entirety of their relationship. An incredible achievement and a true gift to readers!

the strong will never fall by @rmd-writes

Another 4x04 coda (I truly can never get enough). This one is incredibly tender and emotional.

shine some light on my day by @rosedavid

A sweet, fluffy, gentle fic about TK and Carlos waking up and getting ready for the day together. Domestic fluff at its finest!

and salt the earth behind you by @safeashousespdf

TK brings Carlos to New York 6 months after Gwyn's death and TK grapples with the ways things have changed and the ways he has changed. This fic is incredibly powerful. I read it months ago but I still think about it.

you and me, forevermore by @strandnreyes

A gorgeous wedding coda that made me cry multiple times.

Come what may, I'll still stay by strandnreyes

Carlos struggles with his work-life balance when he becomes a detective. It gets worse and worse until he makes a pretty big mistake that shows him just how bad things have gotten. Lots of angst, but also lots of happiness by the end and so much love permeating through every bit of it. This was one of the THE fics of the year for me and it still lives rent free in my brain!

no rules in breakable heaven by strandnreyes

An AU where Carlos takes a job as a private chef in the Hamptons for TK's family. Jen wrote so many incredible AUs this year, but this one was my favorite. Just the right amount of angst with a proportionately happy ending! And the descriptions of the food Carlos was preparing always made me very hungry.

As long as it's with you by @tailoredshirt

TK and Carlos spend their first Valentine's Day as husbands in the ER, but it's nothing too serious. This fic is mostly soft and sweet. I still think about it all the time, especially the little gestures and affectionate touches between them. It's a lovely little fic that's guaranteed to make you smile.

tell me how by @theghostofashton

Carlos and his grief leading up to the wedding. Beautiful and heartbreaking. I loved this so much.

Back to You and Me by @three-drink-amy

A lovely 4x16 coda. In celebration of finding out that TK doesn't have to worry about Huntington's, TK and Carlos go back to the honky tonk where it all began!

The Weight of Grief by @wandering-night19

This is an absolutely riveting fic that has TK near-death in a coma (again). It's poignant and heartbreaking. One scene in particular in the final chapter makes me want to cry just thinking about it! Some chapters deal with Andrea and Gabriel backstory, which eventually links up to the ongoing story in the present. The whole thing is so well written and beautifully constructed.

living at the centre of a wound still fresh by @welcometololaland

A heartbreaking, beautiful masterpiece of a fic. Carlos struggles with his grief on their honeymoon, but TK is there to help him through. Just thinking about this one makes me want to cry...and also reread!

a long time ago (we used to be friends) by welcometololaland

A masterpiece of an AU, exes to lovers with private investigator Carlos and wrongly accused of murder TK. They work together to clear TK's name and come back together in a beautiful way.

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #FIC REC

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wiratomkinder · 3 months ago

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got tagged by @sludgenaut for. music albums top 11, in no particular order.

murder of the universe - king gizzard and the lizard wizard. chunky shrapnel tears through everything around me

the girl who knew poetry - j a seazer. terayama's poems put to music -- "ash girl" is excruciatingly beautiful

atrocity exhibition - danny brown. i listened to this album on constant repeat my first year of grad school. also excruciatingly beautiful but in a very different direction than seazer

in a poem unlimited - u.s. girls. had this one on equally heavy rotation on an internship commute. i would just line this up with carpenter brut's trilogy and play both over and over, which made for an interesting driving experience

soul food taqueria - tommy guerrero. go-to focus music; "it gets heavy" is now overwhelmingly nostalgic because of it

there existed an addiction to blood + visions of bodies being burned - clipping. counting these as a single album-- conjoined twins-- "something is underneath" has such impeccably structured cadence

the worm - hmltd. wyrmlands was my #1 most played song last year by a large margin lol

maggots: the record - the plasmatics. if i had a nickel for every time i liked a concept album about allegorical worms and worm adjacent creatures infesting the world, two nickels, etc

manic candid episode - the murlocs. "withstand" got me through a lot of circa two years ago 🫡

black sails in the sunset - afi. afi was my obligatory highschool era emo-ish band. this album holds up imo

0 + 2 = 1 - nomeansno. album and band that i am normal about

if you read this uhh you have to tell me a top three albums of your own so i can add them to my to-listen playlists

#i didnt do the poll format thing because i got scared. Of the formatting. also i wanted to talk about albumz

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nerevar-quote-and-star · 1 month ago

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Hey there, just wanted to pop in and say your story I Didn't Know You Were Keeping Count is absolutely perfect. Ever since I saw the Skyrim Romance Mod, I prayed someone would write a well-written, scathing fanfiction about how horrible Bishop and the other men are (bonus points on pointing out all the lore inaccuracies in the mid! 😂)

Bravo!

Oh my gosh, thank you so much! It means a lot that you think I Didn't Know You Were Keeping Count is a well-written rebuttal to the mod! It was really meant to be a humourous one-shot, but it's evolved into something beyond my wildest dreams. I'm just so happy to be able to share it with everyone! Thank you! 💕✨

The lore inaccuracies really get me. Like, yes, there's wiggle room for some things in the actual lore, and then there are things that have so many different sides that it's really up to YOU what you think happened, but SRM doesn't even try to be lore accurate or even lore adjacent. It's lore antipathic. No part of the fic shows that more than the Grand Crystal Ball chapter duology, Swan. Ask any of my friends—my attempts to make lore sense out of this have led to a LOT of discussion.

So much, actually, that I'm slowly turning my TESblr Discord server into a Keeping Count Cult Fanclub!

And don't even get me started on the whole "Bishop's parents dedicated him to Mara as a baby" but "Bishop doesn't have a soul" thing. That is a can of worms.

For anyone wanting to check my fic out, here it is on ao3.

#azura's ask box #i didn't know you were keeping count #skyrim romance mod #skyrim #fanfic #ao3 #bishop #grand crystal ball

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rambunctioustoons · 2 months ago

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movie night! [+ ao3 link]

monty/reader , word count 1,300

The one where Monty watches a horror movie with you. ... Gators like horror movies, right?

The gentle thrum of the cheap projector is occasionally cut by even scratchier audio quality. An impulsive purchase from the local thrift store, and quickly attached to it in all its mediocre glory.

Sneaking personal items into the 'Plex hadn't ever been much trouble, but sneaking yourself in here after hours tended to be.

Overtime unwelcomed, but as if you weren't excitable to the prospect of cheap Fazco candy and hanging with a pal.

Couldn't convince him to wear a costume though. Scowling briefly to the suggestion.

Casting still dawned with neon vibrant hues, some crackles in the white skeleton adjacent paint along his arms.

For someone who seemed so adverse on gimmicky holidays, Monty sure seemed to enjoy it. Leaning more toward the trick part of trick or treat. Unsure if it's a good or sorrowful thing he can't be out roaming the midnight streets terrorizing people.

Though, given the option, it's difficult to believe he would anyway. Who knows!

A offhand remark on he's as scary to you as the girl from the Exorcist, only taking some back and forth before pinning his frustrations on why you're calling him weak and feeble.

"You haven't see it, have you?"

"Tck. If it ain't made by Fazco, then no."

Covering the irritated flick of his tail with a sharp pathway around you. Directly into some old freaky storage room.

Not much needed to add heart palpitating ambience, you'd both need it to stay conscious through all the dreary talking bits.

The visual effects for the time were endearingly unsettling, but you just never could take ghoulish possession stories all that seriously. The spooks lingered around every dark ridden corridor of the 'Plex had ruined the fun quite some time ago.

The appetite for indulgent horror had for sure dwindled when you lived through it.

Tossing popcorn in your mouth from the pile you've collected in your hand. Noting each and every time you reach for more, Monty's gripping the fabric of the sofa tighter, and tighter.

The final time you claw your hand for another handful of buttery popcorn, his sprawled out claws had begun to splinter the fabric of the sofa.

... He's so bored, he's going to shred the thing before the movie finishes. Shame too, guess he's even programmed to revolt entertainment not surrounding the 'Plex.

Eventually, wide red eyes flicker to your peeping direction. Unrelenting on the staring, you just continue eating popcorn.

"Sorry dude, didn't think it sucked this bad." You say, watching his posture relax some. Claws still indented in the sofa though.

"I'll turn it off." Immediately beginning to search for your phone.

"... What? Think I can't handle watching some cheap ol' movie?" He scowls. Flopping back to slump against the sofa. "Seen worse. Heard worse."

"Have you now." You quip. “Prove it.”

One hand reaching into the popcorn bucket, crumbling some of the pieces as he tosses them directly at your face.

Opening your mouth as some of them do made it in. Most of them just hit the bridge of your nose though.

Too busy laughing as your lamely impressive skills draw his attention, attempting to toss more into your mouth. He can hit cheap point shots and arcade high scores with uncanny ease.

Entirely purposeful the way he just carelessly flicks a few pieces at once in random directions to watch the struggle. Stubbornly trying to contort the best you can.

It's not until he slices a pack of sour gummy worms open that you protest his nonsense. "Do not! I'll literally eat those off the floor if they fall and get sick."

"Psh," He huffs, nudging your upper arm. "Even just one would make ya hurl? Floors ain't that bad."

"I'll get sick and die dead and it'll be all your fault." You insist, stupidly warmed to your dramatics cracking through that demeanour of his.

But Monty drops the one in hand anyway, drops one right on the floor with a full blown shutter. Like a monster trailed it's cold incorporeal fingertips up and up his spine. Expression blown wide to match.

Sometimes. Your friends did things you didn't understand, evasive to things that were mostly normal. Monty didn't like closed spaces. He did not like the bowling alley

Dude, is the word that almost ghosts past your lips. The one that dances to be said on the very tip of your tongue.

The grainy output of the projector catches your attention first. You'd recognize the scene anywhere, you recognize the frame.

It had been a jump scare. Cheap and tactical for the time period. One that never settled that eerie uncomfortable dread in your chest the way it was supposed to.

Wide eyed gaze darting back to the Gator.

And he's stressed. He's so freaked out the entirety of his claws are out.

And you. Are a raging asshole.

"Wanna turn it off? Kinda boring." You shrug, not bothering to hide the sheer amusement a horror movie from the 70's is what's got him so damn rattled.

" No ." He scowls, whipping his frame so roughly back to face the screen it shakes the sofa, knocks a couple popcorn kernels out of the bowl. "Scared? Thought ya said this was boring. Why you wanna turn it off so bad, punk."

Swatting a hand over to give you a little shove. Doing in back wouldn't do much good, besides. He'd have to push you so much harder to wipe the triumphant grin from your face.

Montgomery Gator is scared of at least one beloved horror film.

You'll keep such a secret tucked tenderly to your chest, much to his gruff and tuff dismay.

"Maybe." Turning back to the movie yourself, a small smarmy hum following. "Maybe it is a little scary."

Silently shifting the snacks barricading the two of you off to the side. Wordless offer of solace should he want it. Pretending he'd just been drumming his fingertips atop the armrest instead of shredding it.

It had been awhile since you'd watched the movie in full, much less never tucked away inside a closet decorated with cobwebs. Finding yourself shifting closer.

Discovering you really hadn't needed to shuffle all that far. Your legs tucked up on the surface bumping against his thigh.

The next scare that you'd already known was coming, still has you jumping alongside Monty. Despite his stature, manages to curl himself around you, practically eased into your lap.

It's so ridiculous you try and fail to stifle your laughter, winding your arms around his shoulder. He hunches further down to evade your gaze.

"Shut up, shut up. Only watchin' this 'cause you wanted to so damn bad! I ain't scared!" He grumbles, wobbly and dishevelled.

Apologizing in strings of words to cushion the sting of giggling yourself stupid. You'd seen Moon crawl down all tangled from ceiling beams, and it had been the visual of a human person that freaked him out so bad.

Strange.

Giving his upper arm a squeeze, very well knowing the ticking time bomb of well deserved frustration would keep stirring in your lap, until you'd inevitably end up shoved face first on the ground.

"... You really aren't scared'a that?" He huffs. Resting his head oh so subtly on your shoulder. A little awkward, but you'd take it. "Somethin' wrong with you. More than the usual."

"Oh something is. Something is for sure." You muse. Leaning further back against the sofa. "We can turn it off now, if you want. Doesn't get much better than this."

"Maybe." He relents. "Depends. What else happens? Everyone else get possessed by demons too?"

"Naah. That'd be a pretty good twist though. Demon infects everyone else, couldn't even imagine how terrible that'd be."

"... Yeah." Monty parts your frame with a pat to your thigh. Kneeling up to turn the projector off himself. "Terrible."

The lens flickers off with a faint click.

#writings #monty x reader #monty fnaf #as always ->#platonic or romantic. choose your own adventure!#fluff and horror movies!#everyone is a menace

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honeysmokedham · 7 months ago

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It's Conditional || Nora & Regan

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Saol Eile, Cliodhna's house. PARTIES: Regan @kadavernagh and Hamstring @honeysmokedham SUMMARY: Regan is ready to go against her training. She's ready to tell Hamstring what Declan is supposed to be.

“Declan is going to die in front of you. That’s how it works. You are going to love him, and he will die because of it.”

The thought of opposing Fate, of even thinking about it let alone suggesting it, roiled in Regan’s stomach like her grandmother’s cooking. Yet she was doing just that. As if the clandestine plans she had made with Wynne weren’t bad enough (but she didn’t need to be part of them herself, she didn’t, she was going to think about it, and that’s what she was doing, not–) her attempt to convince the ham child that this place wasn’t what she thought, was in direct opposition to Fate. Declan was going to die, and practically all of Saol Eile knew it. How many banshees had screamed for him already? And even if, somehow, someway, he managed to escape his destiny, they could not let him leave this place alive.

Yet Regan was still going to try one more time. The way her chest felt loaded down with rocks was surely a response to the disobedience possessing her, and not out of the compassion she was still trying to exile. Regan waited until her grandmother had left – there was a highly-anticipated worm race in preparation of the holiday – and found the ham child in the guestroom, drawing something, and becoming less and less like a guest every day. That was about to end. “Who’s that one for? Declan? We need to discuss him.” She couldn’t count the number of times she had declared that, then been brushed off, or ducked away herself, too cowardly to say what was necessary and go against her kin. This was the first time she had broached the subject since actually seeing Declan, screaming for him, though. And if she had any hope of pulling the child out of here in the short window they might have soon, she had to strip the paint from whatever rosy walls the child gazed into all day.

She invited herself past the threshold of the door (was it inviting? This was her place of residence) and leaned stiffly against the wall as the child sketched out some of the finer details of a badger’s skull. The child was talented, there was no doubt, but something stung like dirt rubbed into an open wound whenever Regan walked by one of the drawings adorning the walls where there had previously been only blank space. Cliodhna was fond of them. She did not smile, but the small grunt of approval at that first drawing of a dead cow replayed in Regan’s head, where bitterness gnawed like it had teeth.

Regan watched, sternly, pointedly, before realizing the child was too absorbed in what she was doing to listen (and probably wouldn’t even so; it was no wonder Emilio let her do as she pleased). Had the child even heard her before? Regan cleared her throat, tight and controlled; it would have broken nothing. “I will first say what I’ve said every time I’ve spoken to you: leave, because I am not.” It was lip service at this point. The child wouldn’t, even though this was detrimental to the both of them. And as for Regan… she glanced down at the ring on her finger, the one she had almost lost in the lake for making her feel like even half a person every time she saw it, and she had lost the ability to pin her failures on it.

The child’s assent did not come; of course, the child would not go either. Regan had a decent idea of what would get her attention. “I met Declan. He had an appointment with me. Did he tell you about that?” She was probing for potential knowledge about what Declan was, the honor that awaited him (had the child been a banshee…). Her wings flicked in agitation. “You don’t listen. I’m doing this to you as a favor right now.”

—---

Each day the barrier between guestroom and her room was dissolving, the letters of guest morphing into something adjacent to home. After discovering, and approving of, Hamstring's drawing prowess, Cliodhna had supplied her with paper and charcoal, in return Hamstring had been making her art. The older banshee appreciated the grotesque and morbid art Hamstring was supplying, something the humans in Wicked's Rest would blanche at; shuffling away with muttered lines of distress because monsters were what haunted them and not what they appreciated.

This badger skull was a new one for Cliodhna. When she returned from the worm races, they would have bone broth and discuss banshee things. Cliodhna's English was confusing. Sometimes she spoke in easy-to-understand phrases that followed all conventions of English grammar. Other times her questions felt badly translated, "Is your flesh ready?" "Are you bonded?" To which Hamstring would employ years of media training. You see, telling interviewers you don't understand their questions is rude. It makes you look uninformed, and being uninformed means you don't care. Instead, you deflect the question, bringing up something new. Deflections were easy when Hamstring was genuinely curious about the giant worm statue and the story that goes with it.

The heavy thrum of instruments slamming and a "vocalist" screaming leaked out of Hamstring's headphones. Head down, her fingers worked on the fine shading of the badger's skull. Hamstring discovered that Cliodhna liked her bone art to be true to the source, but she still added a twist of her own, a break near the temple where a knife and worm were entwined. A whisper of words, catching on Declan, brought Hamstring to attention that she wasn't alone. Hamstring looked up, slipping off the headphones and staring blankly at Regan. This was new. Normally it was Hamstring walking into Regan's room every morning, asking the banshee if she was ready to go home yet. "Sup?" Hamstring was considerate enough to turn the music off, eyes plastering on Regan.

"I want to leave Regan." That wasn't true anymore, it was a lie that slipped easily from her tongue to dance in the space between them. A jester performing for his king out of duty and not out of joy. Because if Hamstring left, her days of lounging by the waterfall with Declan would end. That alone was enough to chain her to Saol Eile for the rest of her life, despite the promises she'd made to return to Wicked's Rest. But they wanted her there in one piece. Return whole, is what she had promised. Declan - and this was hard to explain- felt like a piece of her. Leaving him and returning would break something in her. A broken promise. A broken Hamstring. Those were too many breaks, it was easier to stay here, where life was simple.

"But we both know I can't without you. If you want me gone, say you're ready and we'll be out by tonight." Regan wouldn't call her bluff, Hamstring knew, Regan was still searching for something here. Hamstring suspected that something was supposed to stop Regan from feeling like an outsider and fit in. What Hamstring had found here. In Hamstring’s mind, the jealousy of seeing Hamstring fit in this place she was forced to run from, was tearing them apart. Constantly Regan would turn the other way if she saw Hamstring coming, avoid conversation with her, or simply make an excuse to leave her presence. But Hamstring understood. Hamstring knew the bitter feeling of watching someone else thrive where you longed to simply belong, so she didn’t hold it against Regan. Hamstring would also have given anything to help Regan find that missing piece. Maybe with it, she’d feel confident enough to return home to those waiting for her. Or happier with their life in Saol Eile.

“No, he didn’t tell me,” Hamstring answered, looking up with a question at Regan. Regan had been telling Hamstring to be careful around Declan since the moment they met. To leave him alone, give him space. So while Declan had told Hamstring about his doctor's appointment, the lie was once again easier. To stop a familiar argument from repeating. It would be a waste of time, a record on repeat forced to play the same song over and over again. Hamstring took a deep sigh, looking back down at her art and starting again. “And what is this huge favor, Regan?”

—------

Hamstring didn’t want to leave. If Regan said she was ready to go right now, would the child even go with her? (She wasn’t ready to go (she might have been ready to go), not unless– and even then, how– no, she couldn’t leave, even if she wanted to (did she? Did it matter? (yes, there were things that mattered, people that mattered, one person (Jade, it was Jade (did she get the message?). But her brothers were also (what about her mom? And her dad would have hated to see her here, it was what he spent his whole life trying to avoid))– and they would never know why, would never understand. (but what if they could?)) who mattered so much she–) Did anything matter beyond these short, wind-up toy lives the humans had?), and she didn’t want to, she didn’t, don’t think about the lake (the plan, there was a plan, a loose plan, but a–), focus on them).

Regan frowned, trying to ignore what was definitely indigestion (she was a medical doctor).

But no. Hamstring had Declan here. She had been able to reinvent herself even if it was as something she was not: the child was able to do what Regan couldn’t. No wonder her grandmother approved. Sometimes Regan wondered if Hamstring remembered she wasn’t really Hamstring. The way she looked at Cliodhna with admiration that Regan never possessed for her grandmother… it wasn’t going to last. Declan was going to die, and Hamstring had to be gone before his body grew cold. And Regan sat complacently by. She had. She held Declan up at the clinic for an unnecessary examination to keep the two of them away from each other, her efforts to tell Declan of what else was out there came from a half-stone heart, and if it hadn’t been for Wynne, for the lake, she was not sure she would have been brave enough to be standing here right now.

Bravery often felt like the worst kind of foolishness, didn’t it? Could a coward be brave? Would her grandmother have looked upon her boldness and declared that it came from a weak heart wrapped in undisciplined muscle and a body attached to wings and lungs she did not deserve?

Regan’s gaze dropped. The child’s question was not what it seemed – not only did Hamstring not really want to leave, but leaving without Regan was still out of the question. Regan wouldn’t play her hand yet. “I don’t know what your plan was. You can’t get out the same way you got in. They wouldn’t… even if I… they wouldn’t let me leave again. There is no walking out.” Which didn’t mean she wanted to go (but–). She couldn’t want. She didn’t. She hadn’t. She couldn’t. Yet worry about those back h– in Wicked’s Rest hooked onto her skin even more than the feeling of fae all around her, and that tiny, stupid, remaining ember of hope for something better kept sparking no matter how many attempts she made to drown it out.

She had told Wynne she would think. This was thinking. That indigestion really was homicidal.

Wynne left the lake yesterday, sensing that the purpose of this journey here had been worthwhile, feeling the victory of a successful mission, if only they could wait her out for a few more days. Regan remained deeply uncertain. When she came back here last night, Cliodhna’s eyes tracked her in. Her grandmother was silent, until she wasn’t.

“You breathe,” her grandmother had remarked, and Regan registered the concealed disgust in her tone.

“Yes.”

Regan had meant it as assent, agreement, that she had failed and would always fail. Her grandmother had raised a brow and let her slink upstairs. Only now did Regan recognize the defiant edge that had developed that day. She did not feel nearly as sharp as that single, cutting word.

Her disobedience made her feel the burn of the lie she’d told here weeks ago to keep the child away from her grandmother’s scream, it forced her to remember the other lie she’d told at the clinic to afford Wynne and Elias enough time to get out of here if they were smart enough to use it, it made her recall how she spoke of cremation with Declan in a voice so quiet it did not feel like it came from her lungs, it reminded her how obvious the message she’d sent yesterday had been, how even Wynne knew who Regan had been inspired to talk to. There was a common thread weaving all of these together, and it was not Fate, but something more tangible.

It made clear, finally, why she was standing here right now. Regardless of whether she remained here or not, she cared.

“Listen to me.”

Regan wasn’t sure how much she believed that Declan didn’t immediately run to the child after that appointment, but it almost didn’t matter. Declan wouldn’t have told Hamstring what Regan was able to tell her about the rites. All of Hamstring’s gratitude was reserved for Cliodhna, though, not her.

The child was as stubborn as Regan was desperate. “Put your pencil down and listen to me. The favor is information.” Information she was supposed to spill to the child weeks ago. She had tried, though, she had. Just… not that persistently. Not like this. Never like this. Regan rolled the back of her skull against the wall. She wasn’t supposed to tell humans any of this, but right now, Hamstring was not in a position a human would ever be in. Regan had put her there. “Declan is… he’s part of your an chéad scread. You’ve heard my grandmother mention that, yes? Of course you have. It’s all she talks about.” If Hamstring heard bitterness seething behind her words, no she did not. “It’s a rite. We all go through it. I did. And the second it happens for you, you’re going to be revealed as a fraud. You won’t scream. You won’t have wings. You will break, but not in the way you’re supposed to.” And Regan hadn’t even begun to think about what might happen to her for perpetuating this lie. “Let me guess. She’s asking you about how fond you are of Declan, and how prepared you are to accept what’s yours, or something along those lines.”

She had never asked Regan any of that. She just… she just…

Regan tried to stand a little straighter, pushing her shoulders up, but she wasn’t sure she’d be standing had the wall not been propping her there. Never had she spoken of this so plainly with anyone, and it felt like a betrayal coating her mouth with ash, even though her heart told her it wasn’t a betrayal at all; it was exactly what she needed to say. Like the protective lies, like telling Declan about her father’s smile, like sliding her ring back on her finger.

“Declan is going to die in front of you. That’s how it works. You are going to love him, and he will die because of it.”

—--------

"There is always a way out. We could steal one of the cars. We could walk. I can turn into a bear and you can ride me out. You have a personal entourage of talented people, and Elias. We'll make a way out for you." This was their impasse, the reason Hamstring knew she'd have more time with Declan. A rock pressing against a hard place, each expecting the other to move, each an immovable force. What was that book she'd started reading? Greek mythology was always good for comparisons. Perhaps Regan was Sisyphus, pushing the boulder Hamstring up the hill to send her home, and each day Hamstring would roll back down, starting the day in Regan's room, proudly proclaiming she was still there with her presence. Or the metaphor could go the other way. Hamstring had never been good at metaphors.

Regan had a serious tone. Combined with the fact this was the most Regan had spoken to Hamstring in days, she decided to take this seriously. Hamstring placed her charcoal down, and turned in her chair so she was facing Regan dead on. Blank eyes staring at blank eyes. A contest of emotionless presenting. Hamstring had heard of her chead scread, an event she assumed was the banshee equivalent of a debutante ball. Which, by the way, was something she only escaped having because of its roots in white supremacy and was not feminist, as her dads put it. Hamstring knew her dads would have loved to present her to all their peers in a ball gown with a dance. Actually, hadn't that been what happened anyway? This was not paying attention. Hamstring drew her mind from her past, the past that didn't matter now that she was Hamstring.

Hamstring took a moment to digest everything Regan was saying. It was a loud accusation. It felt like a slap. A sting of pain shot through her body. Hamstring had to sit with it for a moment. Why did these words hurt? "I ran away from my home." Hamstring looked away from Regan, her eyes searching the bright blue sky out the window. Anything but eye contact. "I wasn't good at being my fathers' daughter. I didn't fit into their idea of family and success. I'm a monster. And they are human. It was never going to fit. They loved me. I love them. But I could never love myself there." Her hand started tapping at the desk. The only sign, in a perfectly crafted mask of indifference, that something was wrong.

"Two years after I left, they adopted a new baby. She's... just a kid. But I think she'll be a better fit than I ever was." A moment, a pause. A silence. "It hurts to see her take my place. Fit in better. Be where I should be and do it right, knowing that I could never." A deep breath. "I'm sorry that's what I'm doing to you here. I would help you, if I knew what I was doing right. This shouldn't be you vs me. It's us vs them. Which is why I don't understand." Another deep breath, as the anger started to boil over. "Why you're trying to scare me again? Every time I do things you don't like, you do this. You tell me someone is going to die. I broke into your house, suddenly I'm going to die. I'm getting close to Declan, fitting in here, and you don't want me, so I better leave so Declan doesn't die?"

Hamstring was on her feet now, her monotone tinted with emotion. "I know it sucks. But that's not my fault." The anger was too much for Hamstring. She started shoving her way past Regan, intent on leaving the house, putting some distance between them and walking this big emotion off. Maybe then she'd be ready to deal with it.

—--------

“You will leave even if it’s without me.” Regan was firm, giving her final words on the matter, knowing that it would likely come down to this, and much sooner than the child thought. She would hate Regan for the rest of her life, but she’d be alive to do that.

Unlike… it wasn’t what Regan had expected, the way the revelation of Declan’s death seemed to wick right through the child’s face. It hadn’t been absorbed, only heard. If the child were to move her head, Regan might see the sentiment dripping out of her ears. “Are you listening? I told you to pay attention. Declan is going to die.” And as she said it, Regan realized her mistake. Not one right now (though she was sure there were many now too), but months ago. Why should the ham child believe her about someone’s death when, in a moment of perceived retribution, she had managed to make the girl think her death was near? That she had taken off into the mines shortly after – Regan’s words no doubt on her mind – was something Regan still tried not to think about. Even though Regan didn’t think she was getting to the child, Hamstring did still have a thoughtful look on her face, one aimed toward the past and not the future.

When the child did eventually speak, it was a seeming non-sequitur. Her being a runaway made sense. Regan always knew there was something, some personal interest, that kept her personally involved in Regan’s situation. In hiding in Regan’s luggage, she had been seeking something for herself, too. Regan didn’t even pretend to know where this was going, not that it mattered – the child was doing everything she possibly could to not even look in Regan’s direction. “Why… why would you run away if they loved you?” She probably shouldn’t have asked, but she did; she had known a family that loved her, and the only force that could have pulled her away from them was Fate itself. Something else slipped across her mind, but if it was irony, it was gone before she could see it. And Regan did understand not fitting in, never being able to measure up. She did. Was that the child’s point? No, that didn’t seem right.

It hurts to see her take my place.

That was it. A connection she never would have made on her own sparked, making her hair raise as if it generated static. “What?” The t came out hard, flipping out of her mouth. A couple of days ago, she might have been able to hold it back, to keep her lip from curling and her brow from lowering, but now the accusation skimmed off her epidermis. She stood up straight, pushing herself off the wall.

“Are you out of your blistering mind? You think I’m jealous? You think…” Regan had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping in the wrong direction, “This is not some adoption, dúisigh. My grandmother does not adopt. Have you watched her at all, downstairs, with the animals? The carcasses with blood crusted around their ears? She deafens them and hollows them out, displays their pelts as triumphs, and then she is proud.” Hamstring didn’t see it. “She is proud of her rows and rows of patellas, selected and cleaned and organized precisely how she wishes. The first words she spoke to me after she– after my– she said ‘at least your wings will be impressive’.” Desperation seeped from Regan’s voice in too many places for her to plug up. She had been leaking since walking out of that lake, shoulders hung in defeat, and it would take decades to undo it. If she ever could. She suspected she couldn’t. After all… it wasn’t working.

Hamstring was not tolerating any of this well either, though probably for other reasons. She had never heard the child speak this much of her past, and for it to surface in this way– did she feel robbed? Like she had bounced around looking for something like this for years, and finally found it? Regan didn’t care. She was going to feel robbed of so much more if she didn’t listen. “Stop!” It came out as a screech that sent a stab of humiliation through her. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The door swung on its hinges, Hamstring pushing out. Regan chased the child down the stairs and found the front door much the same, with only Hamstring’s silhouette ahead. “You’re not listening to me. He’s– he’ll– it isn’t about fitting in. He’s–” Outside. They were outside. And all of Saol Eile could hear this. Regan’s mouth dropped open. She debated following, but she couldn’t keep up with a bear, nor would it be good to provoke the child to become one. With one last breath, one last attempt, Regan called after her. “It’s conditional.”

#chatzy #chatzy: regan #it's conditional

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dukeoftheblackstar · 1 year ago

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Love, I Guess?

Summary: Sometimes you just need to ask the question that seems to become a staple in every relationship known to exist.

Pairing: Plo Koon / OC/Duch/ Reader (idk how this works — sorry!)

Word Count: 1.6K

Rating: (no smut) Fluff, maybe? Foolishness, high probability.

Notes: I just wanted this out of my wip box. I'm also leaning towards OC being akin to my OC, so pardon the inconsistencies.

Color thingies because I'm deranged to not use them: Orange: Plo Koon Pink: You/OC/Reader

Perfect divider by @idontgetanysleep with itty, bitty, cutie-patootie Plo Koon face ♥

“Please tell me this is not about yesterday’s discourse.”

And it was indeed about yesterday’s discourse that you’ve found yourself feeling ‘severed from cromulency’ as he had eloquently stated. It would have been apropos to succumb into ‘a mood’ had ‘cromulency’ actually existed in the books, but a play on linguistics to lighten the mood is so very and innately Plo Koon that any attempt to sour yourself failed.

You’ve known for centuries that behind the rebreather and the goggles, he was so damn—well proud of that joke that the creases on his face were a compound of both tense and lax. He didn’t laugh, but the very overture of his symphonic voice laced with an effervescent tune was enough to give it away.

Oh, and the elbow nudge that was always quite comical even for himself. He’s expressed his dislike towards it; how very not-Plo Koon it is for him to do and yet, here he is — nudging his elbow onto your side as if silently egging you to burst into a fit of laughter.

You would’ve — of course with all the love you hold for him and him alone, but today was the day of fuck-all because he should’ve answered it correctly.

“It’s still me but like… In a teeny, tiny, worm’s body.” Came your bone of contention. “You know what? Okay. Okay. Okay. What if I was clean? Like lab-grown clean, hmm? Not some slimy, under-bedrock worm in dirt.” You shuddered at the thought; to be covered in filth? Death would be more promising.

“You could also just be as you are now, little love.”

Plo emerges from the quaint room adjacent to the bed in a rarity of blue. Cerulean tunic-like robes that pooled and dragged as he walked with the grace of a true Baran Do Sage about to zap the living daylights out of a runaway thief in Dorin. Trotting like a majestic, seasoned, stallion with absolute panic in his eyes as he turns to realize that you have still not donned your custom rebreather while Dorin gas heavily permeated the air-tight quarters.

“But why not though?!” You bleated, brows congregating in complaint as Plo settles on the bed where you’ve made yourself quite comfortably sat.

For someone as fearsome as him, having even merited high reverence from the likes of the Grand Master himself, Yoda, and a few adversaries he’d have either done battle with or have known of his prowess, Plo had never once cut you with his talons or held you in such a manner threatening to the pristine state of your skin that bruised even at the slightest of bumps. In fact, the custom rebreather has a higher chance of leaving darkened welts under the grove of the mask than Plo’s talons with how it would lock onto your skin since your anatomy provides little to attach it to.

You watched him arduously detach and reattach the mask over your face until it was canted enough to situate over the lower chambers of your face. He’d veer his head periodically as if to address you in silence, asking if there were any discomfort in process of — to which you responded with soft ‘Nhn’.

Placated by the fact that you are now masked as he was, Plo takes his place beside you on the shared cot, draping both your legs under the covers. With a datapad in hand and his claws tapping and gliding over the screen, he pulls up a schematic of the rebreather that now clung to your face.

His talons lingered for a moment and you swore on all things of great value to your existence, that he smiled a little too dotingly at the fact that you’ve actually done well in crafting one for yourself. It’d be an understatement to say that he even caressed the screen with such a delicate touch before closing the tab to pull up something in relation to the GAR.

Plo had not given any comments about it, even upon close inspection that you’ve matched your self-made antiox mask against Dorin gas in the same pattern as his — his lineage, his family, his ancestors of Koons. You’d think you’d have room within your soul to wonder if your self-made rebreather is Kel Dor - approved, or at least Plo Koon - approved, but you knew it was. It probably isn’t as durable as Plo’s, but the gesture alone speaks volume — or at least that’s what you could come up with each time he’d get a chance to hold it. He’d do so with so much care that part of you believed it was shit to begin with that it’d crumble between his large hands.

At times he’d remind you to clean it, not that he needed to. He’d talk about certain parts of the rebreather native to himself at random as if dropping hints on how to further upgrade your own mask without overstepping as you have ‘vehemently’ insisted that this was your personal project to perfect. Even so, you appreciate every obvious hint that included a hand-written note on where to find it, tucked in pockets of your clothing.

“That’s just mean, Plo.” Huffing as you folded yourself onto the bed, back turned as you hauled the covers over your frame angrily. You began grumbling, only to squirm under the weight of his touch along the contours of your side and defensively toss yourself away.

“Why must you always torment yourself with queries you already know the answers to?” Resigned, Plo leaned firmly against the headboard and left the datapad idle over his lap. “Are we not past that at this point, my sweet?”

You continue to grumble under your breath, rolling your eyes even and standing on a defiant ground —taking a moment before your cheeks have turned to cerise hue.

“It’s a thing that you’re supposed to ask someone… y…you like.” And before Plo could put a word in, you pulled the magazine from under the bed and showed him the marked page of two earthling lovers and their 1000 questions of professed love.

“My darling, what we have is not something undercut as ‘like’. Am I loved less today than yesterday?”

You wanted badly to say ‘yes’ to that for the sake of banter, but the genuine worry in his voice reminded of the peculiar situation that you and Plo have; a not-quite lovers, not-quite exclusive, not-quite looking for someone else, and not-quite permitted but somehow accepted kind of setup. Evenly perturbed that he might take it to heart, you thought well of your next response — the make or break of all responses.

And with a steady heart determined to not only preserve love that transcends beyond realms of tradition and normalcy, unbridled by any word of law or doctrine, you scour the depths of your existence to offer yourself in complete surrender — to bear him words that would solidify the unbreakable connection that spanned the entirety of your respective lives.

“Yes. You are loved less today than yesterday.” And so you speak, now propped on your elbows.

“Quite a dilemma.” Replied the ever-resigned Plo Koon, gaze scanning the contents of the magazine and nodding curiously before turning back to his datapad.

Sensing your disappointment as you slowly lowered the magazine and dropped it onto the floor by your side of the bed, Plo turned his head to address your tantrum-stricken visage with a palm that had engulfed the entirety of your face.

You utter a lengthy whine with apologetic and impatient undertones that did very little to deter him from having his attention drawn once more to the device.

“So you really won’t love me if I was a worm, then?”

You’ve started to take this little game of ribbing to heart given that you’ve had a long day and sometimes, all you need is for Plo to be a little less unhinged on the proper side and more clement to silly whims of the heart.

You hear a daunted sigh as the massive hand of your beloved Kel Dor retracts to his person; as if you were so much in the wrong you’ve upset Plo Koon to a degree that is most unfavorable for you both.

“My little wonder, just as I would tread the path of the Jedi once more in another life, I would not indulge in the slightest of change, for it is that consistency and restraint that had led our courses to cross. It is that same resilience to the unearthly call of pleasure and attachment that has allowed me to not only bear my heart and soul to you, my sweet, but to shake the very core of my devotion for the Order and its teachings. I do not just ‘like’ or ‘love’ you, my precious one — I simply am one that is yours as I am in the Force. I can only hope that is more than enough.”

Plo takes your hand into his with an attempt to reassure your worries with a gentle squeeze. And even behind the protective goggles, you knew within you that those silver eyes of his bore so much gratitude for not only the presence of your company, but the existence of you in his life as he would often remind you of.

You smile, reaching up to his face with a freehand, tracing the intricacies of the metallic contraption that sustained his life outside Mother Dorin’s familiar embrace. And in that moment with such tenderness in your voice, you simply could not help yourself but bestow upon him the honesty that burns with your heart — and you so you speak.

“So you would still love me if I was worm, Plo?”

And with unmatchable enthusiasm, he replies.

“No. I will most certainly not.”

~ Fin

This is a tribute to my favorite meme of all time because idk what it is with that picture that beckons me to live another day, but it does. And also, it's the worm question. Icky, icky, worm question. Thank you for reading ♥ - Duch

#♝#plo koon #plo koon x reader #plo koon fic #plo koon x oc #ploduch #the wip is out #i can now hide #plokoonxreader #plokoonxoc #plokoonfic #ρℓσ∂υ¢н

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dw-flagler · 5 months ago

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well you do have to account for his personal incompetence and general unluckiness. like, he'd probably rate higher if his contraptions didn't explode at the slightest inconvenience.

you also have to account for where we are in the series. his machines in Cracking Contraptions are ludicrously complex while also being useful only in extremely niche situations, but in the movies he has far more useful stuff, culminating, I think, in curse of the were rabbit, where he has the giant rabbit vacuum

it's so over for me. was just rewatching wallace and gromit a close shave and thought: "hm, wallace would be a tinker 5"

#there's also the sidecar plane from a close shave which is impressive. that's where i got the tinker 5 from #but also it only keeps pace with. A Car. so it's not That fast or That compact.#kid win did better and he's rated 4 #worm adjacent #i'm not counting the rocketship by the way. space travel isn't a worm thing they can't do that

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skelavender · 9 months ago

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“Mulder.” “What?” “I’m sleeping.” “No you’re not, you’re talking to me.” “I’m trying to sleep.” “Well you aren't doing a very good job.” “Shut up, Mulder.”

read chapter five of shelter on ao3, or below the cut!

April 1996

Scully seals the last box with the flick of her tape wand, and looks around at the remaining boxes and bins that are scattered around her, soon to be old, apartment.

There are a couple of boxes of photo frames and albums stacked by the door. Her dishware and furniture was moved into the house last week, courtesy of the Gunmen’s van. Mulder is putting the last of the clothes that normally hang in her wardrobe hopefully folding them before putting them into the box.

She didn’t expect to feel so emotional about it. She’s moved plenty of times over the course of her life, even crossing the entirety of the US a couple times. This time, she's moving mere miles away, but she has tears brimming her eyes.

There’s just so much that has happened in that apartment, good and bad. It had been her home since she graduated Quantico, where she had hosted dinners and birthday parties, but it was also where Melissa had been fatally shot. And she can’t look out the front window anymore without seeing Duane Barry about to punch through it and attack her. This will be a good thing, to get away from it, she concludes. A fresh start, one with Mulder beside her.

“Do you miss her?”

“Every second she’s not by my side.”

Mulder’s exchange with the medical examiner in Las Vegas from a couple months ago bounces around in Scully’s head. She shares the sentiment. Beyond her inability to sleep well without him, she finds herself reaching for his company whenever he’s not around, like there’s an empty, Mulder-shaped spot at her side.

The man himself comes through the doorway with the last box from her bedroom. “You set?”

“Yep. That was the last box.”

“Great.” He smiles at her over the box of clothes. “Let's go home, Scully.”

Over the years, they’ve started referring to just about anywhere as home. “Let’s go home, Scully” could mean a hotel room, DC, his place, her place, the office, anything. But now, “Let’s go home, Scully” means their house with the stained glass and the mismatched furniture and the love.

***

Their first night fully moved into their new house, Mulder and Scully eat take out directly from the containers and sip wine from mugs, the closest cup-adjacent dishware they could find, while sitting cross legged on the kitchen floor. It’s pretty much the only space not covered in boxes. The apartment is a damn maze. Queequeg is somewhere among it, his claws tap tap tapping through the labyrinth.

It’s so new, yet so familiar. Scully can’t count the number of times they’ve sat together like this, bickering good naturedly about cases and just about anything else. Scully feels comfort radiate from inside her chest, and basks in the warmth of Mulder’s presence.

“I’m glad we’re doing this.” Scully says, voice bright.

“Me too,” Mulder agrees. He sets his paper plate on the ground and leans slightly forward, elbows on his knees. “Scully, can I be sappy for a second?”

“Okay.” She puts her food down.

“You’re the most important person in my life. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I love you.” She lets herself say it, lets the words tumble from her lips on their own accord, leaping towards Mulder, trying to find a safe place to land. He provides it, cushioning their landing in a catcher’s mitt and tucking it into his chest.

“I love you, too.”

She pushes up onto her knees to hug him.

“Thank you for being my best friend, Scully.” His voice is slightly muffled by the shoulder of her cardigan.

Scully would expect this to shatter her. For the pain of… not quite rejection, but of the mismatched sentiment, to worm between her ribs and slice into her chest. Instead, she is warmed by his confession, however platonic. He loves her. Maybe not in the same world-ending, all consuming way, but he does love her too. At least she has that.

***

Mulder is laying in bed, eyes wide and staring at the back of Scully’s head. They’re both on their sides and she’s holding his arm to her stomach tightly, so he couldn't move if he wanted to. And he doesn’t.

He’s just… awake. His mind is going too fast, jumping between topics like a chatty 6 year old. He taps his fingers on Scully’s belly distractedly. She grunts.

“Are you awake?” Another grunt. “Scully, what are your thoughts on Amelia Earhart?”

“Mulder.”

“What?”

“I’m sleeping.”

“No you’re not, you’re talking to me.”

“I’m trying to sleep.”

“Well you aren't doing a very good job.”

“Shut up, Mulder.”

“Ok.” Scully is just starting to drift back off when Mulder opens his damn mouth again. “What about Jack the Ripper?”

Instead of responding, Scully turns around in his arms to face him, and levels him with a glare. “Mulder. Shut. The fuck. Up. I am sleeping.”

“Sorry, Scully.”

She turns back around to face the dresser again, but he’s woken her up now, dammit, and she’s thinking about Jack the fucking Ripper. “It was a woman.” she mumbles.

“What?”

“She was a woman.” She turns onto her back and looks to Mulder. “People theorize it could have been a male doctor due to the precision of the cuts on the victims, but a midwife would have the necessary anatomical knowledge to carve out women’s uteruses, too, and could have gone around unsuspected.”

“But the leather apron!”

“Can be attributed to mass hysteria fueled by the media. No one would bother a midwife walking down the street covered in blood, they would just assume she came from a particularly nasty birth!”

“But none of the suspects at the time–”

“Were women? Wow, shocker, Mulder, people in the 1800s didn’t frequently consider women murder suspects.”

Their bickering continues for longer than Scully would like, and she finally manages to shut him up by smothering his laughter with a pillow, and turning away from him. He resumes his position curled around her, and they sleep.

***

In the end, the house is a good mix of their styles and furniture. The wood is dark, as it was in Mulder's old place, but the bright counters of the kitchen and open floor plan are reminiscent of Scully’s. Her couch, chair, and coffee table are used in the main living area, but Mulder's round dining table is right behind it. Mulder's trusty leather sleeping couch resides in their new basement office. After years of working on the X-Files below the streets of DC, it only felt fair that the small basement be used to house their work at home as well. They each have a desk down there. It also makes it easier to have Scully's family over without having to shuffle files away when Mulder inevitably leaves them out. Scully’s room is painted a dusty pink. It's the larger room of the two, but still not huge. Not that she needs much.

What Scully likes most about the house is the windows. Not just the stained glass ones, as beautiful as they may be, but the regular, brown panes. The grills are diamond shaped, and reinforced metal that isn’t glaringly protective. No one would notice the difference between them and a standard set of windows unless they were closely inspecting them. She won’t be attacked through the window of her own home again, like she was last year. Her excuse for buying a house with Mulder had been safety, and the house does exactly that.

Scully reflects on all of it one morning, curled up on the couch with a mug of tea while Mulder sleeps on in his room. She does truly feel safe there. The windows let in the light and came out the dark. A week into living there full time and there are no dark corners that Scully’s eye projected horrors into. There are no bloodstains on the hardwood.

When Mulder stumbles out of bed, Scully greets him with a chipper “Good morning!” He replies only with a sleepy grunt, and beelines for the coffee machine.

“Didn’t sleep well?” She asks after he’s taken a couple sips.

“Slept a little too well. It’s almost noon.”

“That’s what Saturdays are for. We don’t have anywhere to be.”

He smiles at the we, at the joining of their plans and their lives with a single word. “What’s your opinion on brunch, Scully?”

“Generally positive.”

“Good. We’re going. I’ll go get dressed.”

Scully smiles into her tea as she takes the last sip.

***

Scully, though generally considered the more emotionally intelligent half of the X-files division, does not like having important conversations. So when she stands with her arms crossed at the bottom of the stairs to their home office claiming that they “need to talk,” Mulder is concerned to say the least.

“Okay,” Mulder replies hesitantly and turns his chair around to give her his full attention, “What about?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t have people over.”

“I…what?”

“In non-platonic contexts, I mean. If you’re going to have… sexual encounters… I'd be more comfortable if you did it elsewhere.”

Mulder blinks at her. This is not where he thought the conversation was going. “Do you think I’m… Jesus, Scully, I’m not hooking up with people while I’m married to you!”

“Oh.”

“Did you think I was?”

“I mean, you’re a very sexual person, Mulder, don’t blame me for making the assumption.” She sounds almost defensive now, “The magazines, the tapes? You go so far as to take them into the office, for chrissakes!”

Mulder laughs. “Scully, I have those videos and magazines because I don't have sex very often. And I’m getting better about porn in the office, give me some credit.”

Scully gives him that head tilted look of disapproval, the one he sees near daily. “Mulder, you left a tape in the VCR in November.”

He rolls his eyes. “My point is, you don’t have to worry about seeing or hearing anything you don’t want to.

“Okay.” She accepts, and pulls a book from the shelf before taking a seat on his old couch and Mudler turns back to the computer. He doesn’t ask if she’s planning to have sex in their home. He's not sure he’s ready to hear the answer.

“Mulder?” He turns towards her once more, “For the record, you don’t have to worry about me bringing anyone around either, Mulder.” She says after a couple silent moments. Sometimes he wonders if she can read his mind. In reality, she can just read him.

Mulder meets her eyes and nods. The look they share is electric. He wonders if she’s on a similar train of thought as he is. Well if I’m not having sex with other people… and you’re not having sex with other people… what if we just…

His eyes fall to her lips momentarily. God, he wants to kiss her. He knows he can't. He doesn’t think she’s ready for that yet. The kissing she might allow, but the second their lips touched he would collapse into a puddle of oh god, Scully, I love you, I love you. That's what he really fears would break things. What would end up pushing her away, causing Scully to withdraw the attention and affection he’s been basking in for the past couple months they’ve been living together.

Neither one says a word. Scully breaks the trance and turns back to the book in front of her. After letting his eyes drink her in for a moment too long, Mulder follows suit. The air is still tense.

“You really couldn’t find a better way to say it?” Mulder says with a tense laugh and a half assed smile that disappears from his face almost immediately. “You that uncomfortable about sex?”

“I like sex, I’m just not very good at talking about the intricacies of it outside of medical settings.”

“My god Scully, you’re like a stereotypical catholic schoolgirl.”

“I’m no blushing virgin, Mulder. I've had plenty of sex. Maybe not recently, but I've had plenty of it.”

“Careful Scully, you’re gonna start making people think you’re all stoic because you’re pent up.” He waggles his brows suggestively. She knows he’s trying to wind her up to break the tense air in the room. It works, and she doesn’t think before she speaks.

Scully rolls her eyes. “I’m an adult woman, Mulder. I do own a vibrator.” She knows, as soon as it leaves her mouth, that this is the wrong thing to say.

“Oh yeah?” He leans forward. “What kind?”

Scully blushes fiercely, and Mulder wants to touch her red cheeks, feel the warmth of them. “That’s none of your business.”

“No blushing virgin, my ass. What color?” He’s teasing her now, with that stupid cocky grin which is going to make her need to use the vibrator later, goddamn it. Scully buries her face in her hands, and Mulder laughs at her.

“It was a gift!” Her voice is muffled in her hands, and she’s so goddamn adorable like this Mulder thinks he’s going to explode from loving her so much.

“You’re not making this any less interesting, Scully.”

Her face is still bright red when she lifts it from her hands. “It was an elaborate gag gift from my roommates when I graduated from college. They all chipped in and got an absurdly expensive one and made a joke about releasing tension.”

Mulder laughs. He tries to keep the bright desire out of his eyes. “And did you?” He wriggles his eyebrows.

“Oh, don’t you start with me, Mulder. Or else I’ll describe in great detail what I did with it, and you’ll be in an awkward situation too.”

Hngh. Mulder wants. Instead, he chuckles again and turns back to his computer, shaking his head. “A vibrator. Not the topic of conversation I was expecting for today.”

<- previous chapter next chapter ->

#LTW: shelter #LTWrites #fall into place series #the x files #fics #.txt

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