#thought that has been marinating in my brain for a good month

[pearlofthewoods]

Spuffy band-fic ramblings (long-post)

I think about this scene so frequently because…"Well, I sing.” 

Yes, of course he does. That man was a poet, he could write such gorgeous lyrics, and no one can tell me Spike wasn’t an active part of the rock scene in the 70s.

Honestly, a whole Spuffy band fic has been marinating in my brain for like a good 6 months now, (like seriously, it even has its own playlist, that’s when u know it’s getting real)… but since I’m only a baby writer I wanna get some writing practise in before I embark on the project, so that I can do it justice. 

However as I literally cannot keep these thoughts to myself, allow me to invite you into my brain for a while. 

(Be warned I'm basically spoiling half the plot of a future fic under the cut so scroll away if u only wanna read it when, or if, it gets written.)

So in my fic idea, there’s a huge underground vampire music scene (particularly in LA), since because vampires are immortal, they’ve lived through so many different eras of music that they have a really deep understanding of music history. They’ve seen so many famous bands live etc (which obviously is one of the few human experiences open to vampires, since so many gigs take place at night and are tied to nightlife culture). 

I’d also say that since vampires have no need to work, if they can get their hands on instruments they'd have plenty of time to practise/dedicate themselves to the craft. 

One head-canon that I have comes from the idea that Billy Idol “stole Spike’s look” from him. What if he stole something else too?

Bear with me here. 

Vampires don’t age, so they could never risk becoming famous in the human world, since people would very quickly notice that they weren’t human. Vampires need to keep a relatively low profile. They also can’t really make money easily from music by playing for other vamps, cause it’s quite unlikely the vampire scene has much money flowing around. Why would it? Everyone can just steal/mug to get what they need.

So in the vampire music world, they’d mostly just be playing for each other to stave off the boredom of eternal life, but with no worries about finances or putting food on the table. 

And dear God that music would be experimental, with none of the usual restraints of human life.

Like I think their music would be very interesting/ outside the mainstream. Perhaps they’d play stuff from entirely different decades which had completely gone out of style, but not amongst vampires who never aged/got uncool (unlike the humans who played it)….

Vampires would also have so many different first-hand musical influences that they’d create the most weird and wonderful sounds. Think Spike’s Victorian musical upbringing mixed with jazz mixed with rock, mixed with… well, you get the picture.

And tbh I think some people would try and capitalise on that, on that raw vitality. Perhaps there’s a demon who records demos secretly in the crowd or steals entire songs and sends them to someone in the know in the music industry. And since vampires don’t exactly have passports, social security numbers or any real documented presence at all, there’s nothing they can do about it. Like what if, in this fictional world, Billy Idol didn’t just steal Spike’s look, but his music too? Frankly, it'd explain the resentment.

Anyway, in my head Spike hasn’t played music for a while, he took a break to look after Drusilla and then got wrapped up in the scoobies and their shenanigans. 

But after Buffy dies? He needs somewhere to put all those emotions. He needs to write goddamn it, he hasn’t felt heartbreak like this for a long, long time. He’s not used to death, he doesn’t know how to deal with it. No vampire does.

So when he’s drinking away the pain in Willy’s one night, some demons he used to know are down from LA and offer him an open spot to sing with them at a new demon club. Spike’s about to turn it down, but they tell him things have changed. Like Wolfram and Hart, demons are all in business now, and this new club will pay.

Spike doesn’t need money… but Dawn does. Tara and Willow won’t tell him anything, (they don’t want to be put in the moral position of whether to accept mugging-proceeds from Spike), but he knows that finances are tight. And this is something he can do for Dawn, and in a way… for Buffy.

So Spike joins a band!

I think he’s probably pretty famous from his past in the 70s vamp rock scene, but this time he wants to change up the music genre. He wants a fresh start. It’s the nineties goddamn it, and he’s certainly not the same vampire he was twenty years ago. He’ll play, but he’ll play on his terms. 

I imagine his newer music to basically be Jeff Buckley’s (my fave 90s musician), which I know might seem a bit melancholy for Spike, but with his current grief, it feels quite appropriate.

Tbh since I basically know nothing about music and can’t even imagine lyrics for toffee, I'd probably even just give him Jeff’s discography and call it a day. It’s fanfic I can do what I like. Grace? Spike wrote it. Job done. 

For example, the lyrics to “Opened Once”?

"In the half-light where we both stand

In the half-light you saw me as I am

I am a railroad track abandoned

With the sunset forgetting I ever happened

That I ever happened"

Half-light = the twilight, the safest time of day for vampires (to quote Edward Cullen, sorry lol). also a metaphor for the place between the vamp world and the human world. A place where Buffy and Spike "both stand", as she’s the slayer and he’s a vampire that can’t hurt people.

‘You saw me as I am’ - After Buffy's resurrection, Spike’s the only person who truly understands what she’s been through, and the experience of crawling out of your own grave. They meet each other where they are.

‘Railroad track’ - ‘railroad spike’. Railroad is a pretty unusual and archaic way of phrasing that word. At least where I’m from. ‘Railroad spike’ is too good of a coincidence. 

‘Sunset forgetting I ever happened’ - Spike doesn’t get to live in the daylight. the sun (and the sunset) are both out of reach for him without the danger of dusting. He doesn’t fully feel like a true vampire anymore, but the human world won’t accept him either. In fact, his human life was so long ago that even the sun itself has forgotten William Pratt.

I also think Spike/ Jeff Buckley is a fitting parallel  since, if I stick to major-canon events, Jeff’s unfortunate passing very early in his career would also fit roughly timewise with Spike’s death at the end of season 7. 

The last unfinished album that Jeff struggled so hard to write? The one Spike wrote when he was getting over his ensoulment and entirely reevaluating who he is, and what that means for his music.

Unfinished final album? Yes. Unpublished? No. 

Because when he accepted wearing that amulet, Spike had a pretty good idea he was going to die. So he did something a vampire never plans to do. He wrote a will. 

If he’s dead, there’s no more worries about fame exposing his immortality right? So his music is published posthumously in the human world (with some bullshit about his talent going undiscovered by the industry during life).

And combined, the proceeds pay for Dawn’s college bills, and lift all of Buffy’s financial worries from her shoulders. 

In the end, that’s Spike’s last gift to Buffy, his music, his poetry…and it finally allows her to rest. 

[catboyclarity]

Only YOU can eroticize killing someone with a sword. And it’s your duty to do your part every day.

[fuctacles]

<< 13 | 0 | 15 >>

Going on a lil break from wips as I'll be balancing christmasy, event, and personal shit. (Single dad Steve should still go out on Wed, tho.) Check out my events: @stevieweek @genderthings @stmonstercalendar And I'd like to thank you again for supporting me on ko-fi. I'm less scared of the upcoming months <3

Eddie feels the need to take his thoughts away from the public eye. Even if nobody can actually see them, he'd feel safer marinating in them in solitude. 

The inside of the house is chiller than the outdoors, which reminds Eddie of the financial gap between him and Steve. Whoever was in charge of building this place, must have known his shit. The Munson trailer is impossible to sit in without melting in the summer days. 

From his safe perch on the kitchen island, Eddie looks over the party outside. Everyone is having fun and none of them has any idea about his perverted, subconscious scheme. He's kind of disgusted with himself, but on the other side, he wonders what his brain has been trying to accomplish. He wonders if Steve was freaked out last night when he started undressing in front of him and if swinging his dick out this morning was an act of revenge. 

On one hand, Steve looks innocent and lovely in the afternoon sun, laughing at whatever joke someone has said. On another, he's a bat-biting lunatic with a mean streak known through the whole Hawkins High. He absolutely could flaunt his ass out of spite.

When the glass door opens, Eddie almost jumps out of his skin.

"Sorry." Will smiles apologetically.

"You're fine, Byers. Just drifted off a bit. What's up?" he asks with a tilt of his brow. The kid had an imagination that could match his own, and he'd grown fond of him even in the short period of time he'd known him. 

"I volunteered to grab sodas for everyone." Will points his thumb to their friends sitting outside. "Figured you wouldn't want Dustin bothering you if you need some space." 

Eddie can't help but smile. 

"That's very thoughtful of you, Will the Wise."

Will shrugs. 

"I try." He walks up to the fridge, but he seems to hesitate there. Eddie gives him time to think, sipping on his soda. "Do you need space? Or do you want to talk?" he eventually asks. 

The older boy hums. 

"I think it's too soon to talk about it. I'm not even sure what it is," he admits, heels kicking against the cupboards below him. 

He startles again when Will appears at his side.

"For fuck's sake, get a bell or something!" he hisses, clutching at his chest. But Will ignores his joke, looking thoughtfully somewhere else. 

"You've been spending a lot of time with Steve."

Eddie forces his shoulders to relax. There's no way he was that obvious, right? He himself has just figured it out. 

"Well, we can't spend all our time with you twerps," he defends. He risks looking towards the party and finds Steve looking back, frowning at the two of them talking inside. But he sends Eddie a small smile and turns back to the grill.

"No, of course. We're too young to chat about wills and taxes," Will shoots back with a serious nod. 

Eddie slaps his shoulder.

"Watch it, youngster, or there won't be any Will in my will." 

Byers presses his lips together, but Eddie knows it is a good joke, the kid just doesn't want to admit it. They're all buttheads like that.

"You know I'm gay, right?"

He blinks at the boy. 

"That's not going to take you off my will," he reassures, but Will's expression turns only more pained. "No, seriously, I don't care. As long as you're not diddling kids, or animals, or, or corpses—"

"You know what?" Will pushes away from the counter to gather the sodas he's been sent for. "Forget about it. Figure it out yourself. And please never use that word again."

"Which one? Diddling?"

"Yes. That."

Will is halfway through the living room when Eddie suddenly realizes what just happened. Little Byers was trying to give him The Gay Talk.

Little Byers. 

Who must have barely figured it out himself. 

Eddie shoots up from the counter, almost falling on his face in the process. 

"Byers, wait!" He sprints the small distance to stop him from getting to the door. Will looks unimpressed but he's more focused on balancing the cans in his arms so he stands still and waits. 

"Am I really that obvious?" Eddie asks in a whisper, sparing a worried glance over his shoulder. Thankfully none of their friends' attention was on them.

"You both are," Will informs him with a roll of his eyes. "It almost hurts to watch." 

It stuns Eddie enough that Will pushes through him towards the door. 

"Both? What do you mean both?"

"Figure it out!" Without looking at him, Will opens the glass door and leaves him alone with his thoughts again. And that's a dangerous company on a good day.

Because, both?

Could Steve Harrington, high school heartthrob, and Mister Hair, be into guys? Into Eddie, of all of them?

He looks up to search for him again, but it's not hard, as their eyes meet again. Steve raises his eyebrow and makes a little sideway nod as if asking him if he's coming back. Eddie nods wildly, makes a "T" with his hands, then points one finger up. In a minute. Steve smiles, visibly relieved, and holds up two plates of deliciously looking food.

Eddie's stomach somersaults as he realizes he has saved food for him. He quickly runs away to the kitchen to collect himself and grab something to share as well. 

On his way back, he passes by the stairs and suddenly freezes as the memory of last night hits him. 

Maybe Steve wasn't looking at his crotch because he was grossed out by Eddie's actions. 

Maybe they both should be sprayed with cold water like horny dogs. 

ko-fi (the smallest amount counts as the PLN to USD exchange rates are in my favor)

tags: @noodle-shenaniganery @jaytriesstrangerthings @imaginary-maggie-waggie @samsoble @croatoan-like-its-hot

@dragonmama76 @storyranger @scoops-aboy86 @ollyxar @estrellami-1

@stevesworldxx @ajeff855 @live-laugh-love-dietrich @thelittleclare @wheneverfeasible

@bumblebeecuttlefishes @blasvemous @n33dlew0rk @manliest-of-muppets

@ravenfrog @dreamercec @tartarusknight

[steviewashere]

Pacific Waters

Rating: Teen and Up CW: Depression, Minor Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Negativity Tags: Post-Canon, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Steve Harrington Whump, Depressed Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Self-Worth Issues, Steve Harrington Feels Like a Burden (again), Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents (Sorta), Steve Harrington Talking About His Dreams, Steve Harrington Has a Special Interest With Marine Biology, Neurodivergent Steve Harrington (If You Squint), Eddie Munson Comforts Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Steve Harrington Loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, But There's No Love Confession, And They Very Much So Don't Get Together Here, Water Imagery, Ocean Imagery Well, this is the depressed Steve at the beach fic I've had in my drafts for a couple months. This is the original draft of "My Scars Are Hiding (My Branches Don't Show)", but obviously this draft was heavily modified in the final version. Sorry if the ending of this is overly sweet, I just didn't want it to be super depressing.

🌊————————🌊 The sand clumps between his toes as he digs them further underground. Wind slaps him across the face, one-two, one-two, one-two. They’ll be ruddy and well blotchy when he makes it back inside. Hair wild around him, catching tangles into his eyes. Ocean water rushing up to the very tips of his toes, kissing them with pecks, receding back.

He tightens his arms harder around his knees. Legs folded up to his chest, chin resting on his knobby joints. Fuzzy skin to his baby faced chin. Sunglasses squished up the bridge of his nose, nearly one with his brow bone. T-shirt billowing lightly at the hem, air tickling up his ribs, and smoothing the shirt back down with the same featherlight fingers.

Eddie wades in the shallow water. Ocean to below his knees. Holding up pant legs in his tight, naked fingers. Hair in thick wisps above and angled to the left. He’s looking out at the horizon, at the midday sun, at the crystal catch-alls of sunlight. There’s peace cascading down his body—evident in the relax of his shoulders, the loose straightness of his spine. It’s him rippled by a calm, a sense of wonder.

“I’ve been to the beach before,” Eddie had told him, “many, many years ago. Down in California on a Disney trip paid for by my grandpa. I haven’t seen it since. I’m going to take you.”

Steve thinks Eddie looks good like this.

Wishes he could figure out how to be like Eddie in this moment. Instead of some knot tethered in the sand, in the fine dust of eroded rocks and shattered beer bottles and crumbled crustacean shells.

He swallows around nothing, breathes through his nose. Tongue like tongue—a wet sponge in his mouth, a muscle that jumps when he unclenches his teeth, an organ. His whole mouth tastes like grief; of things he never did, things he should’ve done, things he can’t wait to do. It’s cardboard and salt and smoke. Staleness, too, that he figures is from forgetting to brush his teeth this morning, last night, the day before, and the day before that one, too.

No matter where he goes, his brain follows. It follows with tension. With unknown fear etched deep in the webbings of his fingers, splinter-riddled where he gripped that nail-bat. Bloodshed and blood soaks, where he laid his hands, where he squashed, where he protected when need be. Memories of knuckles to his cheeks, ribs under his palms, blank stares into sterile rooms; broken bones and white irises and floating half-corpses; anger, so much anger.

Confusion. Anger. Confusion. Anger.

Grief; so much grief.

It all sits deep within him in this very moment: a pulsating, shiny, inflated to burst ball in his stomach. Uneasy and nauseous. Nothing digested inside him.

Eddie looks over his shoulder at him. He can’t quite make out the expression on his face. But there’s that heavy weight of being stared at. Steve unfurls his right hand, where it had been tight on his opposite forearm, and sends a finger-wave. Makes his lips do something like a smile, but it’s tight, pinching his cheeks, makes the corners of his mouth ache.

“You good?” He thinks Eddie mouths.

Steve lifts the same hand and shifts it side to side. Sort of.

As soon as he splays his hand back on his own forearm, Eddie begins wading out of the water. He folds his pant legs to rest cinched on his knees. Stomps through the sand, arms out at his sides, fingers splayed as he keeps his balance. And then he plops down next to Steve, breath huffing and puffing as he catches it. He knocks their shoulders together.

“Why so-so? Should we head back to the cabin?”

He shrugs, no matter how little. “Just feel sorta…blank, I guess?”

“Blank,” Eddie echoes softly. He looks out at the horizon, then back to Steve. His mouth opens and closes like a floundering fish—something like Steve feels. And sighs through his nose. Then, soft still, “I’m worried about you, sweetheart.” A hand to the center of Steve’s back, fingers brushing the knobs of his spine.

Steve sighs into the touch. Reaches up to his sunglasses, dragging them into his hair once the sun dips lower and lower still. He blinks at the sudden change of lighting, but doesn’t look over at Eddie quite yet. Instead, he unfolds his legs so that he’s criss-cross and barely sinking, knee hitting Eddie’s thigh. He worms his right hand under the sand, combing fingers through it as if he’s petting the fluffy back of an animal. “How so?” he musters.

“It’s like…like…you’ve disappeared into yourself now that the world isn’t ending,” Eddie murmurs, “like something up and left.”

He sniffs, scratches the skin of his neck, looks over at the sand falling from his grip. That’s me, he notes, the sand. “Hm,” Steve grunts. But he leaves it at that.

“You can talk to me,” Eddie whispers, “if you need somebody to just listen.”

“I know,” Steve returns in the same volume, “I just…it’s just…”

“Just?”

He shrugs again. “It’s just stuff, y’know.” Steve drags a heavy breath through his lungs, heaving them as if lifting weights. The sand keeps passing through his fingers. Not slowly. Not within seconds either. Just…falling. Melting back into the rest of the sand, sitting right where it initially belonged. And yet…yet the imprints of his fingers has disturbed the original mound it had been in. It’ll never go back to that original mound, unless he were to reshape it. But even then, he’s not sure how to do that. Steve swallows around nothing again. “Like…have you ever felt like, no matter what you do, your life isn’t yours?”

Eddie inhales sharply. His whole torso seizes with it. “Sure, in some ways,” he answers, “before I moved in with Wayne. When everything I did was controlled by fear—of my dad, of bullies…my own hands, sometimes.” A gentle pet down Steve’s back, down and up, resting warmly between his shoulder blades. “Is that…is that how you’ve been feeling?”

The sand passes and passes, dust and dust—kuh-shhh, kuh-shhh. There’s the ocean, crashing hard and unrelenting, but the sea-foam kisses soft. He digs his thumb underground until he finds a large shard of shell. Picks it up between his index and middle finger, dangling just above the indentations in the sand. Eyeing it: where the stray sun rays glow the edges, the speckles of sand caught in the fine crevices, leftover chalky residue coating his fingertips.

When crustaceans no longer fit their shells, they find a new one. Molting. Once they can no longer justify fitting in the same shell, they molt; survival, a need.

He always wanted to be a marine biologist. Work out in the ocean. Saltwater cold against his diving gear. Gloved hands brushing sea rocks, the gentle sculptures of coral reefs. It had to be freeing, to work a job like that—to swim with the fish, zig-zag and snake-like. To be free.

Then, his dad thrusted him into sports—outside of his pick of swimming. Not that he didn’t enjoy playing, he did, but it hadn’t been his choice. It hadn’t been his choice to involve himself with the business clubs or the student council. Hadn’t been his decision to get popular. Hadn’t been his decision to cater. It was all just expected of him. That he’d graduate high school, go directly into college, graduate from there with honors, land a big shot career—business, like his dad—find a nice girl, settle down, have kids…big house, picket fence, and a little dog, too. Parts of that he liked the thought of. A lifelong partner. A dog. Good career. But everything else wasn’t him.

At least some of his decisions lead to the Party and to Robin and to Eddie. He chose to help Nancy and Jonathan. Everything else, though, it felt like people were relying on him to do the job, to be there, to take over. He did it, of course he did. He shouldn’t have to be responsible like that, though; he shouldn’t have had to take it all on.

He shouldn’t have to sit here with the remnants of himself, scattered and unfit like the sand below.

“I wanted to be a marine biologist,” he murmurs to Eddie after some thought.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. Wanted to swim with the fish. Wanted to study their homes, their ecosystems. Wanted to know what they ate, how they travelled with each other, who their predators were.” Steve rests the shell in his flat palm and hovers it above his folded lap. There’s sand scattered across his bare shins, his knees right where the shorts don’t cover. “My mom used to take me out here to the west coast, used to stop by the beaches. She’d run around with me. Chase me up and down the sand dunes, help me pick up shells—like this one”—he displays it to Eddie—“this one’s a mollusk; think it’s a scallop, based on the rounded edge of it? She and I would identify them all because of this book I had.

“It was a thick book. Full of pictures and definitions and biological names for all the different mollusks and crustaceans. She’d ask me what shell I wanted to find, and I’d tell her, and we’d go. And we’d find it.” He shimmies the piece of shell so it rests between his fingers again. Holding it up the pale night sky. It’d probably be a pink or purple-pink in the daylight. Here, though, it’s dark and blue and muted. He sighs. Continues, “Now…now I’m afraid to swim in even my own fucking pool. And I just sit around my house, waiting for somebody to fill it. I’d call, but everybody’s busy. Everybody’s always so busy.

“Steve has the nail bat and Steve has the car and Steve is the babysitter. And I enjoy that gig, most of the time I do, but what about his company? I have company, how about that? Steve has another concussion and another concussion and man up, Steve, man up, stop crying, stop it with the nightmares, stop with your unrealistic dreams—be this, do that. That’s not okay, that’s not right; you need to apologize—oh, but I did nothing wrong—apologize anyway! Hey, wanna come watch a basketball game with me? No, Steve, that’s stupid. That’s jock shit—you’re bullshit, Steve, it’s all bullshit.”

In a last second decision, Steve closes his fingers tight around that shell shard. He clenches as hard as he can, knuckles turning white, nails starting to bite the skin of his palm. And when he opens his fist again, the shell is nothing but dust. Sand. It falls between his fingers, something he can no longer grasp onto. He watches it pour over his naked legs, into the well of sand below him, dissipating into just another small pool of erosion beneath him.

It becomes a fine nothingness.

He swallows around nothing once more. Words that should dry up just stuck in his throat, hard to digest.

“My life is bullshit,” Steve croaks, “it’s never mine. Just everybody else’s to have, to use. I’m a sex god, I’m a great kisser, I’m a lonely guy trying to get his fill. I’m King Steve and a jock and a nerd and a dingus and utter horseshit. I’m a wash-up, a smudge. A burden.

“I’m a burden to my own fucking brain, Eddie”—he smiles something sickly and small and humorless—“I’m just…just stuff. Just this with nothing else to it. Sitting here on a beach I used to know the feel and sound of, cowering at the rush of waves that used to meet me as I ran to it. Sitting in complete darkness, feeling awfully sorry for myself. And for what? Why am I here? Doing any of it?

“I…I…never mind. Never mind,” he mutters, shaking his head. His lips roll tight against his teeth, he drags his sunglasses to sit over his eyes again, and he keeps his face pointed at the ocean. At the calm waves. At the coral reefs he wanted to explore. At a dream he left behind in order to chase what everybody else expected of him. Expectations. Steve Harrington is full of other people’s expectations. “Sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laid that all on you like that. Guess I’m just stuck right now. Outside of my body, that kind of shit.”

Eddie’s hand is still. Marked flat in the center of Steve’s back. Silenced. “Steve,” he breathes.

He shakes his head once more. “I shouldn’t have said it all like that. Just…just…yeah. I’m stuck, that’s it. That’s all it is.”

“Steve,” Eddie whispers. Voice somehow cutting over the crashing waves, over the distant bustles of a city rising to nightlife, over boats sailing far away. He blinks behind the sunglasses, but makes no other movement. “Look at me,” he demands featherlight, “look at me, Steve.” The waves kiss his toes again, frothing frozen over his skin, receding. “Please,” he hears plead in a murmur, “please, Steve, look at me.”

Damn him. Damn you, Eds.

If there’s one thing he’s going to do since March, it’s listen to Eddie. Obey commands. Or…really, give himself over to the aching. To the incessancy. To a desire he’s been trying to chase away—melting into Eddie, no matter what.

Reluctantly, he pries the glasses off his face, twiddles them around in his grainy palms, and drops them into the sandpit between his legs. And then, one arduously slow second at a time, turns his head over to Eddie’s voice. His jaw twitching hard, locking right into place. Nostrils flaring, brine air coating and sticking to his nose hairs. Eyelashes heavy, clumped by the salt when he blinks once more—blinks to clear the image, to focus the surroundings, blur the background and soft-spot Eddie. Already, he fizzles, pops, and burns like the bonfire they prepared the other night. Where sticky s’mores melted over their fingertips, frothy beer stuck center to Eddie’s stubble, and their laughs rivaled seagulls making their way homebound. And he was flickering, brave and gentle and anew, for just a moment—the flame in the cold, at the center of it, alive.

The hand on his back travels. Fingers trailing and bumping over spine knobs. Nails shifting the thin fabric of his t-shirt. A palm finally landing, warm and soft and cautious on his neck. Some sort of peace offering; a pheromone; a slurry of words during a panic episode, nestled in the corner of the couch, eyes dropped to his knees so he won’t be startled when he comes to, and a hot drink waiting. Waiting for him to come back. To look.

To see.

“Thank you,” Eddie says softly, “for letting me know what’s going on. Okay?” He nods once at Steve, so he bobbles back—not really an understanding, doing it just to do. Eddie’s eyes flicker like those flames, back and forth and dancing over his face. Dark and searching. Effortlessly adventuring like owls on prowl. “And I’m sorry”—

“Ed, it’s not”—

“No,” he firmly interrupts. “No, Steve. Listen. I don’t…I don’t wanna tell you what to do, but just listen to me. I am sorry, okay? I’m sorry that I might’ve played a part in all this, even in the short amount of time I’ve been able to know you. Because I know, Steve. I know, in some way—whether you wanna approach that hill or not—that I’ve been a part of this.

“But I’m sorry that not only has the world been unkind, but your own fucking life. You deserve to have control and you deserve to have your own purpose and you deserve everything you could want. Even if…even if you feel like you don’t. I get that part, okay? I get it, sweetheart, I do.

“It’s unfair, though. It’s unfair you’ve been treated like some trophy on a shelf. High on a pedestal. And…and…Steve. Steve, I need you to know that your life isn’t over. You’re talking to me like it is and I can assure to you, in this moment, you aren’t done with it. I won’t let you be done with it—that’s one thing I’m gonna dictate over you. The only thing.” Eddie’s other hand comes up at that, too. Slow-like and gentle. Cupping the right side of Steve’s face, his remaining palm going to the left side. Holding him in place between his hands, as if Steve is an entire universe, a planet meant for observing.

Steve swallows, but this time around a lump. A sour lump, solid and immovable lodged deep inside him. It’s the pulsing sphere in his stomach, it’s the tears he has yet to give name to, it’s build-up. Calcium on a shower-head. “Ed,” he mutters, voice wavering, “you don’t…you don’t mean any of”—

“I do!” Eddie exclaims softly. “I do,” he then whispers. “You want a star? I’ll buy you one. You want a garden? I’ll bring you the seeds and the soil. You want to just sleep? I’ll tuck you in. Don’t you get it? Don’t you?

“I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m not asking you to just accept the words tumbling out of my fuckin’ mouth. I’m asking nothing of you. But I care. I care about you, Steve. I care so much about you—if something happened, I don’t know what, but if something were to happen to you, it’d be like Hell all over again. So, I’m gonna ask you a question. Just one question. Just…answer me. However you want, I want you to answer me. That’s the only other thing, okay?” His eyes are flickering again, harder this time, aggressively. The flames of the bonfire tore higher and higher, cascading to the sky; his fingertips had been melded together by marshmallow guts and chocolate tears; the beer sloshed inside him like he was a boat in the ocean; but Eddie held his hand and helped him put it out, helped him find the solution. This is that. The flames. A fire.

He nods once, not much movement, not much to give—head still held between hands, sure and firm and still—but he gives just this one thing.

Like he did in the Upside Down, Eddie does it back. “Okay,” he whispers, “Steve.”

And he blinks, eyelids heavy, stinging. Heat tears down his cheek, biting him all the way to his chin where it wobbles precociously. Doesn’t stop it. Doesn’t want to.

Tenderly, Eddie catches the droplet on his thumbs. Not even acknowledging it with a breath. Then, “What do you want? Out of anything in the world, what do you want?”

A lot of things, he doesn’t say.

My parents. A bedtime story. Hot dinner with a loud house.

To be wanted like a friend, not a fighter.

Maybe a dog or two? Small, though. To keep me company?

You. Your eyes. And your mouth. And your smile. The words you have for me. For your hands to keep holding me forever. A flicker to engulf. For us to be here, at the beach, under this sky with the stars and the birds sleeping on the water and the boats, shells under our legs and for me to identify them all for you while you tell me about Dungeons & Dragons and for us to be happy, stuck in time.

A few more tears trail down his cheeks. He darts over Eddie’s face this time. Not really looking, more just recognizing. Something, he’s not sure.

“To be a marine biologist, Ed,” he murmurs, “to not be afraid of getting in the ocean with you. And I can stand there, pointing out all the…the creatures and shit at our feet. Be taken seriously as I talk about what I love. The seashells. The wildlife.”—he swallows the lump, warm and sleepy, somehow content after it all—“To be free.”

There’s a soft, small smile on Eddie’s face. Just barely stretching. “Will you do something with me? You can say no, but I just wanna…wanna try something. That alright?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You see the tide right now?” Eddie stretches out his left arm, finger pointed at the foaming edge of the water. His hands fall away from Steve’s face. Following where Eddie’s pointed, he hums his acknowledgement. “I think—if you hold onto me—we can kneel in that bit of water there. And maybe you can talk to me about any shells we can find?”

Looking closer at the tide, Steve blindly reaches out and wraps his hand on Eddie’s wrist. Squeezing hesitantly, yet tightly. “I…I don’t know if”—

“We don’t have to,” Eddie whispers, his voice close—it’s as if his head is turned, his mouth directly next to Steve’s ear, but he can’t bring himself to look. “I just thought that, well, if you want to be a marine biologist, then we gotta start with the basics. Right? So…this’ll be exposure or something. Again, though, we don’t have to”—

“And you’ll be there? You won’t…you won’t let go, right?”

“No,” he murmurs, shaking his head—a stray curl whips the side of Steve’s head. “I’ll keep holding on as long as you want me to.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Steve hums. He takes a slow, deep breath. Lets it out just as slowly. “Okay,” he says, “but not too far in.”

At that, Eddie gently rises from the sand, pulling Steve up with him. They tread over the sand, wobbly footing and knees shaking as they keep their balance. Far enough that the tide meets the soles of their feet, but doesn’t rise farther than the tops. However, Eddie doesn’t kneel down until Steve begins to. Going just as slow as Steve needs, one moment at a time.

“It’s cold,” Steve whispers, still kneeling down.

Eddie breathes out a tiny snort. “Yeah, I should’a mentioned that, sorry.”

“’S’okay,” he murmurs, “just watch out for jellyfish. We’ll have to go back inside if they sting you.”

“Duly noted.”

Finally, when Steve is fully sat back on his haunches, Eddie meets him in the sand. The water laps around their shins. Foamy and cold and biting. But the water doesn’t rise, doesn’t try to knock them down.

It’s odd, both distant and full, how Steve welcomes the water back to himself. Nothing like being under it, though, swimming his heart out—until it’s pounding and he’s heaving for breath and needing to get out because he’s pruning. But it’s still comfortable, for now, at least.

Eddie’s left hand digs into the sand at their knees. Rummaging and digging and burrowing until he makes a small, “a-ha!” and presents a shard of something up in Steve’s line of sight. “What kind of shell is this, Stevie?”

He snorts, taking in the object that’s held right in front of him. “Eds, that’s a shard of a beer bottle. That’s not a shell.” Before he lets Eddie get too downtrodden, Steve is searching in the sand, too. Holding up his own find. “This one’s a sand dollar,” he explains softly, “it’s not a shell. Not technically. In fact, it’s not even dead.”

“It’s not?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see Eddie tilt his head slightly. It’s cute, if only he could work the courage to say that. But venturing into the little bit of water is enough for tonight. He shakes his head. “No, it’s very alive. A very alive, flat sea urchin. See how this is super dark?” Lifting the sand dollar up higher, he lets the bit of light from the moon brighten it. “This one’s almost black. Kinda like a deep purple. And if I flip it over”—which he does—“you can see all these little things on the bottom.”

The underside glints and shifts, but shadows with how Eddie moves closer. “Whoa,” he lightly gasps. “What the hell are those things?”

“Bristles,” Steve answers, “they move kinda like worms or, and this is kinda gross, like maggots do. Squirming. See?” He tilts the sea urchin again, holding it closer for Eddie to see. Taking in the even tinier gasp that elicits out of Eddie, he knows he’s done his job. “They act as little legs or arms for the urchin. Dragging microorganisms—like plankton—to a small opening in the center of these bristles. Essentially bringing the plankton in for eating. It’s cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, “shit, Steve, this is probably the coolest biology lesson I’ve had.”

“You’re only saying that because you used to fall asleep in biology, Eds.”

“But I’m being honest! Seriously, Stevie, this is genuinely super cool.” Eddie gets closer again, nearly stitched into Steve’s side. “Will you show me other stuff? How ‘bout…”—he digs in the sand again—“…how about this one?”

This time, Steve actually full bodily laughs. “Eddie,” he sighs. “Ed, that’s another glass bottle shard.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know?”

“I’ll find some more, Eds. Help me dig?”

Eddie gives him a sloppy salute on his forehead. “At your service, future marine biologist.” Steve rolls his eyes, but before he can get too far into his distracted digging, Eddie’s pulling on his arm. He looks over, curious—mainly to see if it’s yet another glass shard that he’s being shown—but he’s met with Eddie’s soft, beautiful face. “I’m serious, Stevie. I’m gonna help you get to that dream career again, no matter what it takes.”

He smiles. Soft and personal and just for Eddie. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, sweet”—

“No, Eds,” he murmurs, “thank you for listening. For…for trying to help me. It means a lot to me.”

“I’ll always listen, Steve. No matter what, sweetheart. Now, let’s get digging; I’ve got some learning to do.”

Tonight won’t fix it all, but it’s a start. And Eddie’s right. His life isn’t over yet. This is a new beginning.

🌊————————🌊

[alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody]

kinktober #25

Olympian 🏛️ / Kaiju Attack! 🐙

It's been a little over a month since the restaurant reopened when Mako spies him through the little window between the front and back of house. Blond hair, pale skin, navy sweater — she’s seen his headshot on every review he’s ever done.

“Hey,” she says, grabbing Newt the next time she sees him. “I’ll take out table five’s food when it’s ready. Leave it to me.”

Newt squints at her, then stands on his toes and peers through the little window. “You know him?”

“That’s him,” she says, widening her eyes. “Becket.”

Newt looks at her blankly. “The critic,” she says impatiently. “From the Jaeger.”

“Oh, your guy?” Mako nods. “Huh. Thought he’d look a little edgier. Yeah, I’ll leave his food for you. Want me to give him some complimentary sake or something, warm him up a little?”

“No!” says Mako, and Newt grins. “No, I want his honest opinion. Not his opinion after one of your sake pours.”

“All right, all right,” says Newt, holding up his hands. His vibrant movie-monster tattoos practically glow against his crisp white waitstaff button-down. He’s not supposed to have the sleeves rolled up, but Mako’s already gotten tired of reprimanding him for it when it never works. Sensei might have been more militant about it, but Mako can’t bring herself to care that much. She’s got bigger fish to filet, like the fact that her favorite food writer is sitting just through the door.

She slices and rolls with practiced precision as she waits for Newt to pop back in with Becket’s order. She’s been reading the Jaeger for the better part of five years, studying what factors merit a good review and what factors have tanked restaurants she otherwise respected. She’s spent ages dreaming up her own omakase lineup, how she’d introduce each dish and what flavors she would include, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t imagined how she would present it to Becket, specifically. She’s even imagined what he might say to review it, praising her use of seasonal produce to enhance the menu — chirashizushi with salmon and braised pumpkin, carrot, and burdock root— or her take on Edomae-style comfort food —- marinated tuna and conger eel donburi with akazu, shiso bamboo shoots, and shredded egg crepe —- or her unconventional use of traditional ingredients — a totally vegetarian hand roll with miso-marinated grilled Japanese eggplant and matsutake mushrooms that has won over even the staunchest sushi purists.

Newt makes a beeline for Mako the instant he comes through the swinging doors. She raises her eyebrows expectantly, and Newt says, “He ordered karaage and ramen.”

Ten years of omakase menu plans crash down around Mako’s slip-resistant boots. “What?”

Newt shrugs. “I talked up your menu! I even mentioned the wagyu tataki and daikon salad. But no. He was pretty confident that he wanted ramen.”

“Which one?”

“Spicy tan-tan.” Newt shrugs. “He asked for it with everything, as hot as possible. He’s not a coward. You still want to bring it out?”

Mako purses her lips. Their tan-tan ramen is hot, and the menu makes that clear. “I guess so. It might be my only chance to ask what his problem is.”

She stews while the kitchen prepares Becket’s ramen. He’s reviewed every other omakase in the city, but he comes in here and orders ramen? Does he think her place is too offbeat or too new to have perfected an omakase menu worth his time? And who made him the expert, anyway?

She pauses in chopping carrots and takes a deep breath, trying to find Sensei’s voice amid the boiling in her brain and focus on it. He wouldn’t let this get to him. Sensei put in the training; he taught her practically everything he knows. He’d never cared about reviews, just that he was making good food that people enjoyed. He’d be confident enough in his own expertise not to worry what some white guy thought. So too will Mako.

She carries Becket’s food out carefully and sets it in front of him. “Tan-tan ramen,” she says, bowing her head. “For the critic.”

Becket smiles ruefully. “You recognized me, huh.” It’s strange seeing him in person after reading so much of his voice online: he’s a real person, a flush in his cheeks and a few more pounds on him than in his headshot. His jaw isn’t as sharp, his frame broad and soft, folded over the little two-top in the corner.

“Mako Mori,” she says, extending her hand to him. “I own Kaiju now. I’ve been reading your work for a long time.”

He shakes her hand, his own skin warm and a little rough, though his face falls a bit, unexpectedly. “Raleigh Becket, but you know that. Is Stacker Pentecost still here?”

She takes a step back at Sensei’s name. “He passed a little over a year ago. I’m his daughter. I took over after some renovation.”

“Oh,” says Becket. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was an incredible chef.”

“He was,” Mako agrees, and the follow-up question burns on her tongue: Then why have you never reviewed us?

But Becket sounds genuinely saddened by the news of Sensei’s death, and it throws her off her game just enough to feel uncomfortable actually asking. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says. “Please, let me know what you think.”

But Becket leaves without a word, several bills shoved beneath his plate before she or Newt can even duck back out with a check. He overpays, but it doesn’t get the sour taste out of her mouth.

—

Mako keeps an eye on the Jaeger page for her review. When it doesn’t appear after a week, she sets a Google alert and tries to forget about it. But no alerts come in, and she starts dreading that it ever will. Surely so much time between his dining experience and his review can’t be a good thing? Or maybe he’s got a long backlog of stories queued up and hers won’t be published for months still. Or maybe he doesn’t review places where he actually talks to the chef. Or maybe —

“He’s here again,” says Newt one night, maybe a month later. “Your man from the Jaeger.”

Mako’s heart tries to sink and leap at the same time and instead skips a few beats altogether. “He’s back?”

Newt nods. “Guess what he ordered.”

She frowns. “Ramen again?”

“Yup. Kara miso this time. And takoyaki. That’s progress, eh?”

“I’ll take it out to him,” she says, setting down her knife and taking a long sip of water from the plastic quart container that she’s marked as her own with a little cat doodle on the bottom, its ears forming an M. “Give him the extra sauce for the takoyaki. If he ordered the tan-tan last time, he can handle it.”

“You got it.” Newt salutes and hurries off, and she takes another sip of water, brushing her bangs back from her forehead with her wrist.

Becket is wearing another sweater when she goes out with his order, though this one is oatmeal-colored and intricately cable-knit. It’s been so long since Mako has knit anything; the last thing she wants to do when she gets home is another fiddly thing with her hands, but his sweater’s cable has a pattern like a fishtail and it makes her fingers itch to figure out how to recreate it.

He half-smiles when he sees her, his round cheeks pink. “Chef,” he says, nodding, and she returns the nod with the barest trace of a smile.

“Your ramen,” she says. “What did you think of the takoyaki sauce?”

His eyes light up. “The citrus one? Amazing. Was that — blood orange? And togarashi?”

“Yes,” she says, surprised. “And some pickled ginger.”

“Yes!” he says, grinning, and for a moment her guard drops and she grins back. “You don’t bottle that, do you?”

“No,” she says. “It’s a Kaiju exclusive. And you have to ask for it. I only trust certain people to appreciate it.”

“Well, I’m honored to be one of them,” he says, and when she goes back into the kitchen, she dices vegetables like a madwoman as she tries to process the interaction. What is his deal? He can’t just come in here and appreciate her flavors and light up about her food and then not review her. That’s counterintuitive to the whole process. He’s supposed to leave the restaurant already bursting with adjectives and metaphors to tell the Jaeger’s readership how much they need to taste her food. He’s supposed to order the omakase!

She sends Newt out with the check and a complimentary dish of salted plum sorbet and she’s not even happy about it. It’s not a gesture of goodwill, it’s a challenge. If he can eat that and still not feel compelled to evangelize Kaiju’s menu, then she’ll forget all about him. Sensei used to warn her against putting her heroes on a pedestal, and apparently this is what he meant.

She waits and waits. There’s no review.

—

It’s a while before he comes back, and Mako mostly succeeds in wiping him from her mind. As autumn deepens, she develops a new donburi around taro root, soy-braised tofu, and kombu, a eel and sweet potato tempura roll with umeboshi sauce, and a roasted kabocha nigiri. She’s still making up her mind about which one she’ll add to the omakase when Becket shows up again.

It’s fate, or something like that, that he walks in the moment after Mako has clocked out for her break, planning to go sit on one of the parking barriers in the tiny, leaf-strewn parking lot and enjoy the crisp fall air. But as she watches the host lead him to table five through the little window in the swinging door, she hears Sensei’s voice in her head, telling her to go after what she wants. The whole world is hers, or at least the whole world between the four walls he left her. He’d even chosen the name Kaiju for her, after the old monster movies they’d spent evenings and snow days watching together.

Raleigh Becket is not Godzilla. He’s just a guy who writes a column, and he owes Mako some answers.

She lets Newt swoop out and pour him water, but motions him back into the kitchen before he can take his order. He comes when he’s called, one eyebrow raised over his glasses, and she shakes her head.

“I’m taking care of him,” she whispers, and Newt shrugs, nods.

“Fortune favors the brave, chef.”

She waits until Becket has opened the menu to pounce. He looks up and smiles when he sees her, and she does not like the feeling that bubbles up in her chest, like sparkling sake shaken too hard.

“Hey,” he says, and she pulls out the chair opposite his and sits down.

“Hi,” she says. “Can we talk?”

His sweater today is a deep spruce green; she likes it on him better than the oatmeal. The knit is equally complex, and she stops herself from trying to puzzle it out in front of him. “Sure,” he says. “What about?”

Mako girds herself the way Sensei would. She is the expert here. She knows what she’s doing; she knows what she’s made of. This person’s opinion doesn’t mean she’s any less of a chef.

“You’ve reviewed every omakase in the city,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Except for mine.” Then, when he opens his mouth, “Except for ours. I know you didn’t review my father’s, either. Like I said, I’ve been reading your work for a long time. You’ve never reviewed us at all. Why?”

To his credit, Becket looks sheepish. “Believe me,” he says. “It’s nothing against the food. Actually, it’s because of the food.” He clears his throat. “My brother and I used to come here all the time for ramen. We grew up near Pan-Pacific, and when I heard that your father was opening his own place, we defected here instead.” He smiles a little. “I didn’t know your father beyond meeting him a couple times at local events, but I knew I wanted to follow his cooking wherever he went.”

It’s so strange to hear him say the name of the restaurant where she grew up, where she learned almost everything she knows, stranger still to hear him claim such devotion to her father’s cooking. Why has he never written about them, if Stacker’s food meant so much to him? Becket’s not shy about injecting his reviews with personal experience; he’s written extensively about Trespasser, the Chinese-Peruvian fusion restaurant uptown, and his long friendship with the head chef, Tendo Choi, and the travel diary he kept during his trip across Eastern Europe and Asia a few years ago was almost as much about the people he met as the food he tasted.

She squints at him, trying to make sense of it. He’s not meeting her eyes, and she doesn’t love that. “So?” she prompts, trying to keep the steel from her voice. “Why not write about that?”

He exhales. “My brother died two years ago, and it completely took me apart. I even missed the news about Kaiju closing and reopening. When he was alive, I never reviewed it because it was our place, you know? I didn’t want it to get overrun. And after he died, I wanted to keep it somewhere I could come for comfort and always get a seat.”

“Oh,” says Mako softly. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

He nods, staring into his lap. “I’m sorry, too,” he says finally, raising his head. “For not doing this place justice, and for wanting to keep it for myself.”

Mako sits silently for a moment. “I can understand,” she says. “It was the opposite for me. After my father died, I needed to make sure everyone remembered him through his food. We hadn’t even really talked about my taking over after him; I think part of me thought that it would never happen. That it could never happen. But I couldn’t just let it go. I had to make sure he was still alive somehow, even if the menu has a lot more of my fingerprints on it now.”

“Well, let me be the first to thank you for that,” he says, smiling wryly. “It’s been a huge comfort to me since my brother passed.” He rests his hand on his stomach, its round swell visible even through the thick knit of his sweater. “Probably more than I need. The omakase really does look good, I swear. I just get in my head about deviating from the pattern we always kept, you know?”

Mako nods. Even though the kitchen has been updated since Sensei’s death, she keeps everything exactly where he would have, even if it doesn’t entirely make sense. She’s honed her own knife skills through plenty of YouTube videos and high-level culinary classes, but at the end of the day, she always returns to what she learned from watching Sensei’s large, brown hands when she was barely tall enough to see over the counter.

“Come back tomorrow night if you want to try it,” she says. “A little before closing. I’ll do something special for you, so it can feel different.”

He smiles, a little sadly. “I’d like that.”

“Me too,” she says, standing up. “Ramen tonight? I’m impressed by your spice tolerance.”

His smile broadens. “Thank you. It’s taken a lot of time to hone. I really liked the kara miso last time. Anything else you’d recommend?”

“The kabocha nigiri,” she says without hesitation. “I’ll bring it out first.”

—

“Mr. Becket,” she says the next night, stepping out from the swinging doors. “I’m glad you could make it.”

He gives her a little wave from where he’s standing by table five. “You can call me Raleigh,” he says. “Mind if I sit at the counter?”

“No, please do.”

She’s been prepping all day, letting her kitchen staff take the lead on the usual daily activities. She’ll close up at the usual time and do a private event for Raleigh, just the two of them and the menu.

Sure, the prep has taken up a significant amount of her time, but the distraction of the menu has taken up the rest. She intentionally designed it with eleven courses, an homage to Sensei’s own menu. He’d originally designed his own with ten courses to represent having survived his first bout of cancer — the number nine traditionally being associated with suffering in Japanese superstition — but when Mako had gotten interested in cooking, he’d added one course that he’d let her choose, and he’d had the omakase offerings printed on little menu inserts each day, always with one of the ones in 11 stylized smaller than the other to represent himself and her.

Raleigh chooses the stool closest to the swinging door and sets his bag on the seat next to his. Today he’s wearing a navy cardigan over a blue button-down that looks endearingly like it fit better a few pounds ago.

“Do you drink?” she asks, and Raleigh nods.

“I trust your judgment. Whatever you think pairs best.”

She chooses a junmai that’s a little fruity and just a little spicy, almost like sake’s answer to mulled wine. He nods approvingly after a small sip, and she smiles.

“There are eleven courses,” she says, bracing her hands on the counter and leaning forward. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” says Raleigh. “Hit me.”

She starts him off easy with salmon belly nigiri with scallions and yuzu ponzu, then starts rolling the next course — uni with bird’s eye chili mayo, sweet white shrimp, and cucumber — as he eats.

“This sauce is fantastic,” he remarks after the first bite of salmon and ponzu, and Mako grins slyly.

“Wait until you try the next one.”

The bird’s eye chili mayo makes him set down his chopsticks and just stare at her for a moment. Mako beams.

“You see what you’re missing?” she teases, assembling the next course’s wagyu nigiri and snuggling it in between bunches of pickled ginger and daikon.

Raleigh shakes his head. “I can’t believe I told you I came here for comfort ramen and then you made it impossible for me to be satisfied by your ramen ever again.”

She pauses, unsure of how to respond, but he clears and throat and adds, “That was a joke. Mostly.”

“You’re always welcome to order the ramen,” she tells him, sliding him the wagyu nigiri and starting in on the eel and sweet potato tempura maki. “From now on, at least. And you have my permission to ask for the bird’s eye mayo on anything you want.”

“Thank god,” sighs Raleigh, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. “I’m already thinking of how good it would be with your karaage.”

“Or I could build a ramen around it,” she muses, drizzling umeboshi sauce over the maki rolls. “I couldn’t name it after you, though. People might think you were biased.”

Raleigh laughs. “Maybe I am. I definitely would be if you designed a ramen for me.”

“I guess you’ll just have to keep coming,” she says, pushing next plate in his direction.

“Oh, good luck getting rid of me now. I’m thinking about asking if you’ll lease me table five.”

“Maybe a seating plaque wouldn’t seem quite so biased.”

They grin at each other, and Mako blushes and looks back down at the bowl of chirashizushi she’s preparing. She layers in salmon, braised pumpkin, carrot, and burdock root over a bed of rice, then drizzles tamari and a sprinkle of chili flakes over it all. Normally people order omakase as a group: this is her first time preparing the whole thing for one person, and she’s becoming aware that it’s a lot of food for just one. But Raleigh accepts it all gamely, making satisfied sounds and enchanted faces.

Next is a torched tuna roll with black salt and togarashi-strawberry chutney to cut through the warm umami of the chirashizushi. Raleigh actually moans when the chutney hits his tongue, and Mako thrills as she rolls marinated crab with avocado, oshinko, and seared salmon.

“How did you even come up with this?” he asks, popping the last roll into his mouth. “I’ve had a lot of unusual hot pepper flavors, but not that one.”

“Strawberry is my favorite,” says Mako. “And it’s a surprise with the togarashi. It tempers the heat and the pepper brings out the sweetness of the fruit, but also some of the acid.”

“I want to put it on ice cream,” says Raleigh. “Have you tried it that way?”

“No, but now I want to. Is Kaidenovskys' still open?”

Raleigh checks his phone. “Nah, I think they close at eight.” Then, at her raised eyebrow, “I live right over there, I don’t just have an encyclopedic knowledge of every restaurant’s hours in the city.”

She laughs. “Well, maybe we can go sometime. I’ll bring the chutney. Do you want more sake?”

He hesitates. “Maybe half a glass. I want to focus on the food.”

He starts on the marinated crab as she pours, sighing happily at the contrast of sweet seafood and sour pickle. Mako smiles to herself and shapes the miso-eggplant and matsutake hand roll between her palms.

“Oof,” says Raleigh, shifting on his barstool, and she glances up at him.

“Getting full?”

“Starting to flag a little,” he admits. “But I’m in this for the long run.” He pats the swell of his belly. “I can handle a lot, don’t worry.”

Her heart jumps like water in a hot pan. “I believe in you,” she says solemnly, and they both laugh.

“You know,” he muses around his first bite of his next course, “I’m not even really an eggplant guy. Or, I wasn’t. But this may have converted me.”

“It has that effect. One of my staff is a real meat guy, very into beef, and it’s one of his favorite rolls on the menu. Even more than the wagyu.”

“Wow. You’re a magician,” he says approvingly. “This has all been incredible.”

“Thank you. We’re not done. I saved some of the best for last.”

“Oh, man,” says Raleigh, pretending to rest his head on the table. “What’s next?”

“Pan-seared Hokkaido scallops with soy sauce aguachile.” She arranges the scallops on the plate so that they overlap. “This is the final crest of the ride.” She mimes a roller coaster with one hand. “We’re going to go savory-sour, then savory-savory, and then finish on sour-spicy-clean. Ready?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, and she slides the plate in front of him. Then, after his first bite, “Oh, that is sour. But perfect. Those scallops are like butter.”

“They’re my favorite,” she says. “In the summer I do them with a grapefruit aguachile and they’re even better.”

He sips his sake. “That sounds incredible. I’ll come back for those. I mean, I’ll probably be back tomorrow, if I’m not too full to move. But I’ll also come back for those.”

She laughs as she plates the amberjack nigiri. “Are you familiar with Edomae? I’m working on putting more on the menu, but I like what I’ve experimented with so far.”

“Fermenting, right? And aging?”

“Yes. This is jukusei aged amberjack, dried and pickled in salt.”

“I haven’t tasted much of it, but I’d love to learn more about it.” He takes a small, experimental first bite, and his eyes go wide. “Oh, fuck, that’s so good. Sorry for the language, but oh my god.”

She laughs aloud. “I’m so glad I got to witness this.”

“Can I sponsor you to get more into Edomae?” he asks, covering his mouth as he chews. “Is that weird?”

“Yes, you can,” she says, smiling. “Through a process called ‘eating at my restaurant’ that will benefit both of us.”

Raleigh laughs. “Okay, fair.”

“All right, last one,” she says as he clears his plate. “How are you feeling?”

“Definitely full,” says Raleigh, palming his stomach. “But also having a religious experience, I think.”

“Well, don’t have it all just yet,” she says, presenting the last plate. “This is kombu-cured sea bass with wasabi oil and lemon.”

Raleigh exhales hard, chopsticks poised in his hand. “All right,“ he says. “I’m ready.”

She watches the sea bass melt in his mouth, watches his eyes close as the kick of wasabi hits, then the zing of lemon. He chews slowly, silently, and then he lays his chopsticks down across his plate.

“Damn,” he says finally. “That’s one hell of a closer, Mori.”

“Thank you,” she says, bowing slightly. “And please. It’s Mako. I don’t do private omakase for anyone I don’t consider a friend.”

“So we are friends,” says Raleigh, leaning back as much as he can, a playful smile crossing his face. “I wasn’t sure before tonight.”

“No, we are,” she says with a sheepish smile of her own. “I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, no apology necessary. I should have reviewed you years ago. You have my word, I will this time. And not just because of the private omakase.”

He muffles a burp in his fist and his cheeks go pink. “Oof, sorry,” he says. “That was … so much food. But so worth it.”

Mako nods. “It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone finish all eleven courses on their own.”

“No!” he says, laughing. “Oh, god, really? I swear I’m not this much of a glutton all the time.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” says Mako, pouring herself a glass of sake and opening the salted plum sorbet to scoop some out for him. “I’m flattered. It’s the best compliment you could give me.”

—

A week later, there’s a new post on the Jaeger’s site: Kaiju’s Homage to Old and New: An Omakase’s Journey through Family, Tradition, and the Best Damn Spicy Mayo You’ll Ever Taste.

[greypetrel]

Oooh I'd love to know more about Rolling a Wave 👀

Hi Mo!

It's the general plot of my original story which I'm translating into English. I'm working on character studies, but it's been slow these last months. I hope I'll finish Raina's in this winter break and quickly design secondary characters. I may pick Priscilla back as a design, who knows. I can't wait to start planning actual pages. xD

First act summary under the cut, tagging also @bfire92 who asked me about this. :3

ACT I – Iceland

1907. A marine biologist, Aisling, is finally at the head of her very own arctic expeditions to study the social behaviour of sperm whales. She has to reevaluate her plans, when she saves a harponeer from the shiprwreck of the Hvalur, a whale fishing ship caught in a bad storm. She’s the only survivor, and also a woman, Naroa, from San Sebastian, who crossdresses to work on the ship, and tells her that it was a sperm whale to cause the wreck.

The expedition was born unlucky: Aisling has received very low fundings, both because nobody really trusts her in a leading position as an unmarried woman, both because her father was a former professor for the same institute that funds her. Small detail: he was stripped of his role and exiled from the Kingdom for having used public money from the university to finance the Irish rebels/Fenian society. Aisling was really able to get some money and sponsorship because she asked for years upon years, has a couple of contacts that vouched for her, and basically is a person that causes very little trouble. Her goal is to gather enough data to demonstrate that sperm whales are highly intelligent social animals, and that their hunting should be severely limited before their number drops. It’s very important to her, not only for personal satisfaction and crowning a lifelong dream of becoming a proper scientist, paid enough for a living and with prestige that female researchers in female colleges were not granted in England, but also to avenge her family. She MUST publish in Oxford because it was the institute that kicked her father out, she must reinstate the good name of the family.

So, with very little money to her name, she rented the smallest, most run-down hovel she could find, 40 minutes from the harbour, fix what she could to make it inhabitable, and hire a small sloop with a fully female crew. Ex piratesses running from the law, widows of fishermen and other figures that needs a living runs the Lusca, not for gold, but to chase whale pods.

In spite of being broke, Aisling welcomes Naroa in until she feels better. Their forced convivence is difficult at first: Aisling is over-enthusiast over whales and is actually diving with the whales to observe them better during the day (“I thought I would have drown today, but Cacciucco was absolutely adorable, you see, so it’s ok, he can bump me again.” “… Da fuq.”), Naroa had fished them for years, and after the shipwreck has not much love for the animals, of course there is only one bed. After a while, Naroa starts working, and embarks on the Lusca to help out, too, there’s some mutual pining and they slowly confess they like each other, fuck gender roles and so on and so forth.

Until one day arrives a letter from the Royal Society, informing Aisling that they’re gonna cut her fundings: the season good for sailing is ending, they’re not willing to pay her to stay another winter doing nothing. Winter that Aisling was planning to use to organize her notes and write the essay for the peer review: it must be done exceedingly well if she wants to have a chance, she doubt they’ll give her another chance if she fails now. She manages to obtain another month, but nothing more.

She quarrels with Naroa: the harponeer tells her that even if her research should fail, it won’t be the end of the world. She has a roof upon her head, a fucking university degree (in France, more open for women), she can decide to do anything else, she has brains and possibilities, what’s the problem? Plus, if her research gets published, it could hit an industry that offers work and livelihood to so many people that have not her chances and possibilities, and for whom losing the job would be much more of a problem. For Naroa it would be: her family is still in San Sebastien, she’s the first of 4 sisters, her father died, and she’s sending money home. Don’t mention she introduces herself as a man because she doesn’t fully feel herself in women clothes and canonically female roles: she can’t afford to lose the job. Plus, she’s Basque, and technically in Iceland it was legal to murder Basques until 2014 (old medieval law they forgot to abrogate). Naroa can’t understand why Aisling is so stubborn and so compliant towards a bunch of idiots that don’t consider her, and all for what? Personal pride? What if her research fail, she’ll be better off without it.

Aisling gets mad, just a little bit. She can’t tell the RS to fuck off, and chances for female biologists aren’t that many. She isn’t very sensitive for whalers, as Naroa fails to understand why an academic research is so important. They split up pretty badly, Aisling leaves for London.

ACT 2 - London

ACT 3 - Alghero (necessary quote)

[shyfoxsky]

Photo Credits: Jim Cumming, Aline Bedard, Brian Hall, Ron Gallagher, David Burt, Jake Putnam, Megan Lorenz, Anne Dorcas

If you've been following this blog for more than a couple of weeks, then this post will come as no surprise to you. I've been using tags and writing posts as if I've already confirmed the red fox as a theriotype, but that actually isn't the case. I really wanted to wait and give myself time to determine if this was a cameo coming back or potentially the season affecting how I feel, but it's been three months, I've graduated college, and now that it's my awakening anniversary, the same day I first confirmed this species nine years later, I feel it's time to officially announce.

I've spent some time to myself, really looking into my identity and who I am over the course of my final college semester, and I feel like my therian birthday/awakening anniversary just after my graduation from college is a good time to graduate from my state of questioning. I've done some in-depth research on therian terminology as well as watched and tracked my shifts, my moods, my days, and more, and through that I've come to a conclusion.

Foxes are my theriotype and wolves are a heartedtype, alongside horses. I used to consider vultures, bats, and even marine mammals to be the same, but with some time to really look into the term itself and the experiences of other otherhearteds, I realize they're simply animals I like and relate to and have had some influence in my life. I've found horses to fit under the heartedtype label due to the longevity and intensity of their influence on my life, as they've done so since I was a small child, and my connection with them, and wolves are similar. Otherhearted people have described their heartedtypes as just shy of theriotypes, something they felt like they almost were, something they longed to be, something they 'ought to be, but aren't. Many describe seeing themselves in their heartedtypes, thinking like them, even having shifts. Many said that they feel more deeply and strongly about them than they do their own theriotypes, and though I could say that's how I feel with foxes, it honestly fits wolves better. Though I feel they look like me, they don't feel like me more than foxes. My behaviors, vocalizations, and just general feelings all point to me being a fox, but not a wolf.

Wolves are a recent thing, red wolves in particular being discovered by me in college, just before I first questioned them. In college, I had to be in friend groups for my own human social needs, and I think that caused me to think of myself as more social than I really am. In my final semester, I wasn't in any groups, I barely attended clubs, most of my time was spent by myself in my dorm working on my thesis with my mate as one of the only people I talked to at all, and that's when I started seeing myself as a fox again. My life became wrapped around wolves as I prepared for my thesis, and I think that deep appreciation and connection for the species led my brain to becoming confused as to what I am. I think that earlier in the year, when I said I might consider myself a wolf because I want to be one and have it easier in the community and be seen as cooler and more powerful, I was right. I never really thought of myself as a wolf when I was younger, even when I knew less about myself and both wolves and foxes and I was aware of them and their ability to be red-furred and enjoy water, whereas with foxes, there was no question that I was one when I first awakened. I just always knew, but it was never the same when it came to wolves. I love wolves, they're amazing animals, but they just aren't me. I don't see myself in how they act, how they live. From sociality to vocalizations to especially body features like the tail, they get trumped by foxes.

Otherheartedness has been something I've struggled to comprehend for some time. I've struggled with finding that line between an animal I like and one I'm connected to and one I identify as. It's like looking at a blonde as a ginger. I identify with them, we both have light hair, but I can't put myself under their specific label, because though we are similar, I don't have the same feelings and experiences as them. It's an inconsequential thing, but if someone were to say I was blonde, I'd feel they were wrong, because I know myself to be a ginger, even though I wouldn't mind or care if I was blonde. I feel similarly with wolves. I can see myself as one, I can look at one and think "that looks like me", I am a canine like them, but I'm not one myself, I don't have the same feelings and experiences as them, and I can't ignore that fact anymore. My friends, family, even my mate all can see the fox that I am, so much that even those who don't know I'm an animal consider me to be like one. I rarely get that with wolves unless I make it obvious, to the point that my mate has made sure to ask me and clarify that yes, I do see myself in wolves and consider them part of my therianthropy.

Of course, this is something I've honestly known for a few months now, since September, but with four years identifying as each species, I really wanted to take my time with my questioning. I didn't want to just give into my rose-colored nostalgia goggles and drop one label for the other because it had been my theriotype before or because it had been my theriotype for so long. I think that was the right choice for me, waiting. I also think I was right in getting off Instagram for this. That's where most of my therian journey has been, some posts dating back to 2018, before I even knew red wolves existed, and while I love that side of the community, I've made some genuine friends on there, it's addicting to post as often as you can with big, grand essays about your identity, especially when it comes to questioning and confirming and having some news to share, rather than little side posts whenever you feel the need to post about anything you want. In that way, I think I prefer Tumblr. Not only do I not really waste anything by posting something small three times a day about how I'm feeling and what shifts I've had, but it's not a numbers game. I don't have hundreds of followers to write super eloquently for. I love my essays, just take a look at this post, but it's nice to be able to go back to my roots and embrace my younger self, the little kit who told everyone how she had a super fun mental shift and of her new tail and about the epiphany she had that morning at breakfast. The switch helped me reconnect with the part of me that first awakened and knew without hesitation that she was a red fox. I've missed her, and I hope that if she could see me now, she'd think I'm everything she wants to be when she gets older.

That leaves me with one conclusion; I am a red fox, just like I thought and said back when I first awakened. They are so very near and dear to me, and I have a deep, rich, and complex history with them. The universe, fate, whatever you call it, has put them in my life for years. From the first time I ever saw wildlife other than a squirrel or backyard bird, to my awakening, to when my mate immediately guessed I was one when I told him about therianthropy, they've always been there. Wolves are one of my favorite animals, the defining animal of my college years, the species I dedicated my senior thesis to, and they have had a big impact on my life, but they are not what I am. I share certain behaviors with them, but I believe they more than likely only feel like me because they are so alike the human world and body and mind I was born into. It's easy to behave similarly to them when we share the same nuclear family, dispersal style, socialization behaviors, and body types. Foxes are so different from humans, and I think that as I learned how to hide my animality and assimilate into human society, especially in college when friend groups feel the most like temporary dispersal wolf packs, I forgot just how different my natural instincts are from humans. I am a solitary, red-furred, water-loving, forest-dwelling, little hunter.

TL;DR I am a red fox therian who is otherhearted to wolves and horses.

[mamadoc]

Hey there, I’m slow to post on here, but I posted the fifth chapter of my current Chenford story, Worth the Wait.

The outline of this story has 3 acts. The first and second act have a decent amount of angst (but no major character deaths). The third act is full of happiness and dreams coming true. If you’re not ready for angst right now, please protect your mental health and read some other fluff. But if you’re up for lots of angst with a happy ending, please read and enjoy the ride.

Here’s a segment of the story to pique your interest.

Ashley was staring mindlessly out the window most of the time, lost in thought. But Tim had a plan to make the trip back more interesting than just driving the 5 through the middle of California. He remembered a conversation they had had a while ago about wanting to drive along the Pacific Coast Highway. So, he navigated them around Monterey Bay where they stopped to see some sea lions. Then he drove her down to Big Sur to see Bixby Bridge and the gorgeous scenery there.

As they approached San Simeon, he stopped at the elephant seal colony to watch them flopping around awkwardly for a while. He offered to take her up to Hearst Castle, but she declined and gave him a funny look. I must have remembered that wrong, he thought to himself. Next, they stopped in Morro Bay to see Morrow Rock and watch the sea otters living their best life in the kelp just off the shore.

While they were in Morro Bay, Tim picked up some lunch, and they found a spot along the ocean to sit and eat. As he was eating his cheeseburger and fries, he said, “Well, is this trip down the coast as good as you thought it would be?”

Ashley squinted at him. “I mean, I love looking at the ocean,” she said hesitantly. “And seeing the marine animals along the way has been… interesting.”

Tim furrowed his brow at her. “But you told me a while ago that you always wanted to take this trip along the coast. We talked about what we would see and where we would go. I know we talked about going all the way north to see the redwoods, but if we end up living up there it would be easy to go another day. And you really wanted to see the otters and elephant seals and sea lions, right? You said otters were your favorite marine animal.”

She tilted her head and looked at him for a moment. “Actually, I hate seals and sea lions. They’re bossy and invade huge sections of the beach. Plus, they are so stinky and loud. Otters are fine, I guess. We don’t have issues with them in LA. But if I could find a beach where seals and sea lions weren’t an issue in California, that’s where I would prefer to be.”

Tim scrunched his brow in frustration. He knew they had had this conversation. That’s why he had researched all the vista points along the way to make sure that Ashley could see everything that she had wanted to see.

“Maybe you’re thinking about a conversation with Genny? Did she want to take her kids to see all the animals?”

“No. We talked about going to Hearst Castle, too, and Genny’s kids wouldn’t have enjoyed that.”

“Hearst Castle? Huh. That kind of thing doesn’t really appeal to me either.”

It took him several minutes to realize who had had this conversation with months ago. He remembered talking about making the trip together and all the things that they would see along the way. He even remembered searching for the best restaurants in the area. Then a light bulb flicked on in his brain.

Lucy.

It was Lucy that wanted to take this trip. Lucy that wanted to see all the marine animals and Hearst Castle and Bixby Bridge and the rock formations in Big Sur and the famous Pebble Beach tree. The whole conversation rushed back into his mind. They were at a stake out one night, and she just kept going on and on. But it kept both of them awake, so he just let her talk. And, not one to enjoy sitting idly, he had joined in her search for the best things to do and see and eat along the route.

Once he realized the mistake that he had made, he became quiet and focused on eating his food. Ashley noticed the shift as his posture and facial expressions changed.

After a few more minutes, she said softly, “It was Lucy, wasn’t it? You had planned to go on this trip with Lucy. She was the one that wanted to see all of the things you took me to see.”

Tim looked over at her in surprise. He didn’t have to say anything for Ashley to see the truth on his face.

“I think I’m done eating,” she said. Then she stood up and walked briskly away from him.

Tim quickly gathered the rest of their food and threw it in the nearest trash can. Then he jogged to catch up to her. When he found her a minute later, she was vomiting behind a shrub.

“Ashley…” he started, but she held up her hand to silence him.

When she was done throwing up a minute later, she took a wipe out of her purse to clean her face and hands. Tim had his mouth open, eager to explain himself, but Ashley glared at him. “I think I’d like to go home now. No more stops.” Moving quickly, she navigated back to Tim’s truck.

Crap.

He’d really screwed that up royally. How had he managed to think it was Ashley who wanted to take this trip? For a moment his mind imagined how excited Lucy would have been to see the sea otters rolling around and playing with each other or the elephant seals barking and rolling over each other or the extravagant and beautiful rooms at Hearst Castle. But he had to suppress those ideas down as far as they would go. That would never happen now.

Now he needed to focus on mending the tear in his relationship with Ashley. He jogged after her and helped her into the truck. The last two hours of the drive were in complete and heavy silence. The tension between them was palpable. Tim had tried to apologize several times, but Ashley wasn’t interested in hearing it.

They had to stop a few times along the way for Ashley to throw up. But when Tim offered to help or asked if she had her nausea medicine, he only got a stony glare in return.

When they made it to her apartment, he had to run to keep up with her. He tried to follow her into her apartment, but she turned around and blocked the entry. “I just need some space right now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Ash… Please. I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake. Really. Both of you really like the beach and the ocean, and I must have just mixed it up in my head.”

Ashley scowled at him. “How many of your coworkers have you ever gone on a trip with?”

He was surprised at the question. “Uhhh. None.”

“But you planned to go on this trip with Lucy?”

“She was just talking in the shop on a stake out. We didn’t… We weren’t going to go as a couple. And it’s not like we were actually going to do it together. We were just talking to stay awake and fill up time. At least, that’s what I think I remember,” he said as he thought about it harder again, his brow furrowed.

“See,” she said, pushing her index finger into his chest. “This is exactly what I’ve been trying to get you to see. Lucy was way more than your gopher or your partner to you. She probably still is.”

“She was my friend,” he said defensively. “You know that. But I did what you asked me to do. I haven’t talked with her since she visited me at the hospital. You already blocked and deleted her number on my phone. I don’t know what more you want me to do. I…”

“Save it,” she said abruptly with a fire in her eyes. “I…” she started, searching for words to match how she felt. “This is why I asked you to end your friendship with her. You two together…” She was at a loss for what to say and just stood there for a moment with her mouth open. Then she shook her head and said, “I… I just need some time alone. Don’t call me. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

Read more here:

[openphrase123]

i realize this may not be the best time to ask because of the last post you made, but how do you find the motivation to keep up with so many projects at once? the fact that you can is both inspiring and also very scary and i'm jealous. "average person writes 1 fic in their lifetime" WRONG. ficwriter openphrase123 who writes 3276453287 fics in their lifetime all at once is a statistical outlier and should not be c

oh this answer got long here's a readmore

well first of all. i have a boring dayjob that lets me marinate big ideas on the backburner. i can turn my thinking brain off for 90% of my projects at work. i've been working there for seven years, i can plot fanfiction in my head without taking a single performance hit LOL

second. um. i'm thirty in like four months. that is in NO WAY old, but i have been on this earth long enough to know when i, specifically, cannot execute or follow through an idea. i only pursue projects i know i can reasonably finish without going crazy. i just kind of. know how my brain chemistry works? i have reasonable expectations for myself?? i'm friends with my brain even if it likes to overthink or be anxious or have seizures or go down weird ocd-adjacent thought paths

third, which feeds a lot into the above point. but when you are in your teens and twenties it's going to take you some time to figure out the rhythm of how you work. i like to take a lot of mini breaks in between what i'm doing. this does not work for my girlfriend, who has ADHD and is like "if i take a break i will never recover" so she doesn't do that. brains are all different and you gotta find what works for you

fourth. well. this one might just be me. but the reason i have like 8 concurrent projects is because when i get tired of one, my brain is VERY happy to latch onto another one. no matter what i'm doing, something is getting done?? that's why i was writing 3 fics at once trying to decide which one to do next. and why i couldn't figure it out and had to leave it to a tumblr poll

and, fifth. idk. i don't write fanfiction when i don't want to? if you look at my ao3 account i haven't done it since. like. 2021? and before that the last time i wrote any fanfiction was in like 2013. of which i cannot track down that old accout but i swear it probably exists?

s.sixth??? and this one is going to sound the braggiest. and maybe it is a little bit. i'm good at this? not like. naturally. i wasn't born writing 100k fanfics. but i've been writing fiction for like. most of my life. i wrote a lot of awful stupid shit before i started writing good shit. i'm not falling asleep at the wheel or anything but after you're making art for enough time, it more easily falls into place. after doing it for so long you develop an intuition for the kinds of projects you will be sufficiently motivated for. i don't know how to describe this without sounding like a pretentious asshole. maybe i can allow myself to be for like five minutes. i've earned it

i hope that helped??? my brain kind of just. does stuff. i've trained it over the years to do stuff in the direction that makes me happy!! i wish my brain would let me go clean my bathroom instead but eh. tradeoffs?

[ladyarjuna]

"Still, I'm not sure-- Iren, what did you mean when you said that we might not all be alive?"

Iren put his head in his hands. He'd known all along that it was a distinct possibility he wasn't going back to his own body. "Think about it. We've been here for two weeks as it stands. If it was a neurohelm malfunction... Then our bodies are still back home, asleep. Now, there's been some major advances in medicine-- but thehuman body has a very strict set of needs. Three days for water. A month for food. And that's if our bodies don't atrophy to nothing. Right?"

"... Right." Rose was contemplative, as they headed back to Fort Cragg for the night.

~ ~ ~

"-- Speaking of... You mentioned neurohelm malfunctions, earlier, Iren. How much do you know about how they work?" Rose was two cups in and her eyes were already starting to slump right along with herposture. Might as well tell a bedtime story, then.

Still, Iren pondered where to begin when it came to Neurohelmets and the interface and routing. "Well, let's start with a riddle: How fast is the Sun, as Io sees her?"

One of teh people they'd rescued, Meredith-- fellow Adventurers, all of them-- was the one who hazarded a guess. "-- The speed of light? 186,000 miles per second."

"Good. That's how fast light pulses through a fiber optic cable. And if the cable were perfectly straight, and had no attenuation, we could run them across the world and communication would still be a quarter second each way," Iren said, sketching in the air with his hands. "Of course, nothing's as fast as that. The world isn't flat, light cables don't have zero attenuation and need to repeat their signal, and all signals need to reach the correct destination. This is the source of lag."

As expected, Rose had already started to doze off.

".... Then how do VRMMO's work?" Meredith asked, knotting her brow. "I'm pretty sure plugging that much lag into your brain is not a good idea."

"You're right. early VR had a lot of problems, not least of which was that they didn't hook directly into the nervous system and therefore had serious problems with motion. Neurohelms solved that part," Iren continued. "And we came up with regulations about what Neurohelms were allowed to do after.... a lot of history and safety regulations I SUPER don't want to get into right now. If it weren't for the Plagues it probably never would have been done.

"So how do we do it? We cheated."

Now, Marin Malakh, a self-admitted native to Mundus, but familiar with its magic, spoke up. "...my first thought is to imagine some kind of spatial magic. Shorten the distance between two points, somehow. But... you all didn't have breathworking as we know it, did you?"

Iren nodded. "You're absolutely correct, Marin. On all counts. There's only a few ways to cheat space 'back home'. And one of them is what's called a 'quantum router' or 'quantum tunnel'-- you convince two small pieces of the world that they are the same piece, and so long as you have the...

Iren paused. "The correct environment, and nothing comes around to ask them who they are, they don't question it. No matter how far away those pieces turn out to be. It's that 'correct environment' that's the real bastard.

"I don't know all the details myself, I never made one. But it's the foundation of modern connection." Iren paused again, letting his nerves stop jangling. He hadn't tried to recall it for weeks, and now he was being asked while drunk-- though not as drunk as all that, Flamma hath her gifts-- to recall all of it in a coherent manner, and he was always a nervous speaker. "Even then, it's lying on top of a backbone of fiber-optic cable and routers. The stuff I did work with.

".... Considering that. There should be lag, but there isn't.

"That's.

"That's very important.

"I just wish I knew how it was important."

Marin steered the conversation back around, and Iren let sier do it. "...you mentioned, before, that these 'neuro-helms' came with warnings about how to use them."

"Yes. Disconnecting them manually has a tendency to render the user..." Iren paused. With Marin being a native, and most of this explanation intended to be followed by a native, merely saying 'brain-dead' is not the right kenning. "It severs body and mind. The heart ticks, the lungs breathe, but they never wake again and waste away."

"The psyche (and aura?) removed from the anima and pneuma...." Marin paused, head low to the table a moment in thought. Iren still had trouble reading Koboldt expressions, though given he had literally spent all his life among what here would be called 'Andrax' it was likely unsurprising. "Then... wouldn't that the 'neuro-helm' is somehow transporting the psyche out of flesh and blood and breath? And removing it improperly somehow prevents its return? But that sounds like astral projection. Magic, again."

There was a long moment of silence as Iren pondered the riddle, or at least, as silent as it ever got in the inn since they'd arrived-- plenty of people streaming in and out of the place and having their own conversations filled the gap.

Finally, he said, ".... I'm going to preface this by saying that this is so far out of my expertise that I might as well reach to catch the moon in my hand."

Marin grimaced, but let Iren speak first.

"But at home it is known that the same signals we use to create the pulses of light on that fiber-optic cable are mimicked in extremely minute amounts in our bodies-- a reaction that creates what here is termed the psyche." Iren took a draw of his pearry and sighed. "So far as I know, no one has ever managed to take all those disparate signals, the maintaining of body and breath, the seat of thought and volition-- and transfer them any distance at all from the flesh.

"I can't say for sure it's impossible, but... It's far-fetched. It would require... A lot of work, and a lot of mediation, and if any of the hundreds of thousands of messages were mislaid or ruined...

"I don't want to be the entity that would have to handle those errors." The thought drove Iren to have the rest of the bottle.

Marin let out a hiss at that last sentence. "...I have my own suspicions. My own... fears.

"Your neuro-helms allowed the psyche to somehow transcend the limits of space. But the miracle has been, somehow, disrupted." Marin also pointed to the jewel on Iren's ear. "Something's also gone wrong with the Sendjewels. Again, magic that was meant to achieve locality where there was none. They still work, but they no longer transcend the limits of space.

"There's an old saying: once is bad luck, twice is worse luck, thrice means it wasn't luck at all."

Iren set down the bottle rather harder than he had originally intended. "And we already know the Webways are dead. May I have another, please?"

Marin watched Iren, carefully. "...when you invoke the Fourteen, do you ever get the sense that they're looking back at you? The gods, I mean."

Iren rubbed his face in contemplation and creeping exhaustion. For all he'd been ready to hit the road again, maybe the old Orukh had had the right of it. "... A few times. Mind you, being of Flamma means I usually have to take something suspicious to really get going."

"You're not the only one." Marin paused, pulling back, and then said-- "I should be clear: The Fourteen, and the other one, are not native to my own homeland. We don't worship them there, for the most part. But, in this... more-connected age, their influence has begun to be felt.

"I came to this land, originally, to understand them better. To figure out if I could trust them or not. But I did not expect them to notice me as it seems they have." Marin looked among the troupe as she stood, and hummed. "I am beginning to wonder whether our new friend Morriss has felt the hand of Io, as you have of Flamma, or I have of Inpew, since this began."

"... I see." Iren paused, and then snorted. "What was it that Winter Court fellow said to me?"

He imitated the tone perfectly. "'At last, sport worthy of the name!' Fine set of hounds all of us make, eh?"

"Hah!" Marin's slight opening of the mouth and pulling of the eyes was at least obvious enough. "Let's not be hasty. I still do not know if I'm the hound or the pigeon. What does it mean for California, if Io has chosen to withdraw its grace?"

Iren closed his eyes, and tried to recall what he knew about Io, just like he had with the Seedlings a scant day or two before. "Io handles space-- not just the distances, but the-- the connections... oh.

"oh dear.

"I see why you're worried even more now."

"The other option is hardly better," Marin noted.

"Ah, but at least gods can come back from the dead." Iren paused. "And while I'm wishing..."

Marin shrugs. "In the end, we still only have a few pieces of the puzzle."

"Agreed."

"If it was Io's choice, what motive?" Marin moved his hands like the arms of a scale. "If it was unwilling, who could force the hand of a god, and to what end? But in a way, it's the same question I came here to answer in the first place:

"Can I trust them?"

"Only many more lives rely on it." Iren paused, and cracked another grin. "No pressure."

"That's the spirit!" Marin nearly shouted. "And thank you for the... context. This 'California' of yours certainly sounds like an interesting place."

"I just wish I didn't have to live through all this history, you know?" Iren says, clearly making a joke.

"Ah, but once again: it beats the alternative, eh?" Marin winks.

Iren winks back. "That it does."

[ticktocklovex]

♡ DESCRIPTION : coming up with an anniversary gift is a lot harder than you thought.

♡ PAIRING : boyfriend!sim jaeyun x female reader

♡ WORD COUNT : 1,101

♡  AUTHOR’S NOTE: this idea has been marinating in my head for a while but i was motivated to finally write it out when jake went live yesterday. ok i don't wanna sound delulu but i commented "what lego set are you going to build next" and he answered the question!! anyways, i'm back!!

“Wow, you look horrible.” Those weren’t the most pleasant words to hear first thing on a Monday morning. Your best friend gives you a concerned look and tries to comb through your disheveled hair with her fingers as you sit beside her in the lecture hall. You had to agree with Yunjin, you looked and felt horrible. Stress has been eating you alive recently and it definitely showed in your appearance.

The bags under your eyes were growing darker and you were starting to break out. It wasn’t enough that you were stressed from school and work, but now you had an additional reason to be stressed: Sim Jaeyun. Not to be mistaken - you loved your boyfriend with all your heart and soul.

He was the most amazing boyfriend who treated you with the utmost care and affection. Which now brought you to your current dilemma. You were approaching your 1st year anniversary and you had no idea what to gift him. Being an idol, he had the luxury to spoil you from time to time. The latest gift you received from him was a Prada bag from his time spent in Italy for Milan fashion week.

Being a full-time student with a part-time job, you didn’t have as much to spend on gifts often. You could afford to pay for dinner or movie dates once in a while but that was pretty much it. He never failed to assure you that your presence was more than enough for him, but you couldn’t help but feel guilty for not being able to reciprocate his efforts in pampering you.

“Look, I’m pretty sure Jake will appreciate whatever you give him.” Yunjin says in an effort to comfort you. “You don’t understand, Yunjin. I’ve never been with anyone long enough to celebrate an anniversary. My gift has to be perfect!” You pull at your hair in frustration, messing up Yunjin’s efforts in making you look presentable.

“How about making him something instead of buying him something?” Yunjin’s suggestion sparked an idea in your head. You had to admit, you were pretty creative and good with your hands. Embroidery had been your favorite hobby before school, work, and dating took up most of your time.

“You know what, maybe I will.” 

- - 

You enter the apartment cautiously, listening to hear for any movement that would signal a presence in the home. It wasn’t often you went to ENHYPEN’s dorm without Jake but you were glad he trusted you with the passcode for instances like this. The reason for your secret visit was to ‘steal’ one of his hoodies and embroider Layla’s face on it.

Yup, that’s the best idea you could come up with. Jake had actually brought up the request months ago when he first learned of your hobby. He spent his day off with you at your apartment, trying to get as much of your attention in the moments you weren’t studying. After spending a few hours with your nose in a textbook, your brain was completely fried and in desperate need of a break.

You were the type of person who could never sit still. Even in your free time which was meant for rest and relaxation, your fingers would always be itching to do something which is why you enjoyed embroidery, the hobby you picked up early on in highschool. You enjoyed how it kept your hands busy and the finished product gave you the feeling of satisfaction.

“Babe, come on out and take a break. I ordered your favorite steak and pasta.” Jake calls out as he opens your bedroom door. “Oh, what’s that?” He takes a seat next to you on the bed and eyes you curiously. “It’s called embroidery.” you state, your fingers focused on weaving the needle back and forth in the fabric.

“Done!” You hold up the pair of jeans, showing Jake the little daisies you just stitched on to the back pockets. “Wow! That’s so cool!” He pinches your cheeks, feeling giddy looking at your proud face. “You think you could embroider Layla onto my hoodie?” he asks. You promised him that you would but months have passed since, your busy schedule keeping you from indulging in your hobby.

Which brings you to this exact moment. You head to Jake’s room which he shared with Jay when you hear no movement within the apartment. The dorm was empty most hours of the day with Enha being at the company for practice or on set for schedules. You rummage through Jake’s closet and find the black hoodie that he wears most often.

As you exit the room, your eyes fall on the desk and see one of Jake’s Lego projects. He recently picked it up as a hobby and earned the title Lego master from the members and fans after sharing his creations. You approach the desk, admiring the beautiful flower bouquet. Your fingers trace over the delicate Lego pieces wondering why you’ve never seen it before.

You and Jake have fallen into the habit of sharing everything with each other, especially with so much time apart and so little time together. Your relationship recently consisted of FaceTime chats after classes or work, often resulting in you both falling asleep on call. He would always excitedly show you his Lego sets so it’s odd to see the unfamiliar creation in front of you.

You are so lost in thought as you continue to admire the beautiful bouquet that you fail to hear the members arrive at the dorm. The door of the room opens and you look up to see your boyfriend with surprised eyes. He glances at the Lego bouquet on the desk in front of you before his face scrunches up in distress.

“Naurrr!! My surprise is ruined!” he falls to the floor in a dramatic manner. It suddenly dawns on you as to why you haven’t seen this particular Lego set before. “I was supposed to give it to you on our anniversary. I know how burdened you feel when I give you expensive gifts so I wanted to make you something instead.” He explains as he sits deflated on the ground.

“It turns out we had the same idea.” He looks up at you and sees his black hoodie in your hand. “You’re going to embroider Layla on it?” You nod your head in response and he brightens up instantly. He stands up and wraps you in a tight hug. 

“Presents are nice but just having you in my arms like this is the best gift I could ask for.”

»»————- 　 ♡　 ————-««

thanks for reading until the end! if you want to help grow my photocard collection, feel free to leave a tip :)

[vspin]

2024 Review

I saw some of my mutuals doing this and thought it sounded fun!

games:

BG3 was still #1. Some of that was @silver-horse and I being god's strongest solider and pushing through the buggy MP run. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you sometimes our sessions were 3 hours of disconnecting. Patience is not one of my virtues so I still don't know how we managed to finish that save.

Not pictured, but my favorite games this year were all Warhammer!

Rogue Trader

Dawn of War

Space Marine

Books:

It was a slow year for reading for me. I read 24 books out of my 50 goal.

Lot's of Drizzt. Idk why I picked Ali Hazelwood's new book, I always hate them. I blame her for my slump.

I did start J.D. Evan's Mages of the Wheel series...and let me tell you, if you want want fantasy romance that isn't brain dead, has actual characterization, AND strong world building + political intrigue, this series is for you!

Running:

Strava does a wrapped up?? Anyway, I've been kicking myself for not being as active these past 3 months but this really put it into perspective that it was a good year. But...the stretching and strength numbers really show why i got injured 😂😂

[cobraonthecob]

apologies to all my followers who do not know what f1 is. this fucking rich man's sport has grabbed my brain and is not willing to let go

I am. several months late but my thoughts have been marinating this so um. here we go. a formula 1 post about Nyck De Vries because i really think he deserves a lot better but i understand this sport is cutthroat and red bull happily tosses drivers if they see them as underperforming, which i get. if you underperform, you get the chopping block.

That being said...Nyck being dropped ten races into a season feels like a punch to the face, especially after m/zepin, who at least got a season in (no surprise, money talks big in this rich man's sport, especially if your russian oligarch father sponsors the team) despite posting in his instagram story a video of him groping a woman on his public account. classless.

I will say, Nyck did start off the season coming off as highly arrogant, not wanting to be called a rookie because he is 28 and has been test driving for years (okay fair, he could just be referred to as 'new to officially f1 racing' but that's too long), and thought he was going to be the team lead because of that experience. I do think that was the worst thing he did; was to try and brand himself as not a rookie and thinking he was team lead over Yuki Tsunoda, who has been at alphatauri for much longer than he has. In the eyes of fans, this damned him (seriously, why did no one at PR try to stop him from thinking he - the new guy - would be team lead), and his racing results were lacking.

I honestly think that they should have waited out the entire season to judge him, and that alphatauri had no business tossing Nyck for underperforming in the worst car on the grid. I think that Perspective on youtube has some good points in this video about nyck, and I can't remember at the moment if it was perspective or another youtuber who talked about Nyck in a respectful way, but one stated that in their opinion, drivers should at least have two seasons to be properly judged on their performance. Given how cutthroat redbull is, I say one is enough of a judgement, since they seem to be waiting or searching for the next driver that can measure up to max.

I also do think that Nyck got screwed over by transferring from williams to alpha tauri, instead of signing onto alphatauri, but i wonder if the only reason why alphatauri wanted him specifically was because he's only three inches taller than yuki and they wanted to give yuki preference on the car, rather than say, designing the car around logan or oscar (let's just pretend that these three new drivers are all up for grabs, i don't know how or who gets which driver and i'm not part of that world), who are much taller. though, i'll admit, that thought kind of gets thrown out the door once alpha tauri decided to take on daniel ricciardo and later liam lawson, both of whom are quite tall (and is something mentioned in f1's analysis about alpha tauri)

There's also Nyck being very much hyped over his first race in F1, when he had to stand-in for Alex Albon (who is 6'1, keep that in mind), managed to score P9 in his first official F1 race, and it's not an easy feat for someone who is a test driver, as he couldn't get out of the car at the end of the race, as he stated he was unable to lift his arms. It's one thing if he had just managed to stay in the race, but to be able to score P9 while being pushed to his physical limit. Yes, williams may have the advantage of being perfect for monza, but to manage to climb P9 in a car at the bottom in the constructors' championship and it's not a car that suits you - the original driver being 7 inches taller - I'd say that's pretty impressive to pull off.

and I think that the hype probably put a massive weight on his shoulders. He had so many expectations for himself, the team had expectations for him, and the fans had expectations, and then a series of unfortunate events of getting a car that is fighting to be the worst on the grid and unfortunate incidents leads to him being shown the door.

I think Nyck would've thrived a lot better if he remained at a team whose car he would at least be familiar with, and at a team that would not toss him to the side for underperforming. But unfortunately, time marches on, and I can only wish Nyck the best in life, and that this becomes a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to sign onto red bull/alphatauri.

The overall conclusion is that he deserved a better team and that I can only hope anyone who is similar to him (i.e. been in motorsport for so long that your F1 debut is when you're over the age of 23 and not having a rich parent to buy + protect your place on the team) will learn from the errors Nyck made (the arrogance, specifically).

[randomoranges]

i've had this idea marinating in my head for - 4 years? maybe. eventually i got around to writing it. then it took 1000 other days to type. but, yknow, here we are now.

teacher au

Vroom Vroom

Then

Étienne stands outside the school building and waits for Edward. It is one of the first nice days of spring and being out is rather nice after a cold long winter. His friend has promised him a lift home and so, when he’d walked by Edward’s classroom and hadn’t seen him, Étienne assumed his friend would be outside.

He peers in the direction of the parking lot, trying to spy Edward’s car, but he can’t find it. He hopes Edward hasn’t forgotten about him and curses himself for not reconfirming over lunch. For all he knows, Edward may have gotten stuck in some conversation with another of their colleagues and he figures he’ll give him another five minutes before sending him a message.

Just in case.

He busies himself observing the multitude of parents and guardians picking up their charges and waves at whichever student wishes him a nice end of day. He is just about to take out his phone, when he notices a motorcycle come down the street. He knows of a few parents that have a motorcycle, having seen them at the start of the school year, and he pays closer attention to see if there will be any excited ruckus over it. For some reason, a parent with a motorcycle always stands out more than the regular sedan.

However, the motorcycle goes past the pick-up gates and instead stops by the main doors where Étienne is waiting.

“Need a ride, stranger?” The rider of the motorcycle asks and then pushes up their visor, effectively short-circuiting Étienne’s brain.

For starters, his brain reminds him that he knows that voice.

Actually, that is Edward’s voice, his brain supplies.

But Edward had never ever mentioned riding – or even owning – a motorcycle.

Not that he needed have told him. But – they’d been hanging out for the better part of the past seven months now. Surely, it would have come up in a conversation, or something.

Still.

Even though he knows that Edward has a significant other, he can’t deny that his friend is quite attractive and that under different circumstances, he would have totally asked him out. But, seeing as he tries to be a decent human being and that despite his many shortfalls, he’s not one to ruin other people’s relationships, Étienne’s kept his little crush to himself, buried it deep down and focused on being a friend. (That and he has no idea if Edward is even into men and given the nature of their jobs, it’s best if he keeps this to himself. But again, details.)

Also, there’s something about a motorcycle that’s so very hot and so very masculine and it’s doing things to Étienne’s insides. He’s only human. And he’s not perfect. The eroticisation of the motorcycle is something he is very well aware of, but he’d never thought it would be something that would appeal to him until now.

Regardless, he’s a good friend and not a monster so he’ll keep all his naughty thoughts to himself and instead deal with them later, when he’s home alone with the internet at his finger tips, thank you very much.

However, he has to admit that he likes this side of Edward. Likes that there are multiple sides to Edward’s personality. Layers, really. (He wonders what else he doesn’t know about his friend.) After all, he must admit that even though he fights against the expectations of the stereotypical teacher, he may have made an assumption or two about Edward based on his job and the way he dresses. Yet, at the same time, when he gives it some thought, he must admit to himself that the motorcycle aesthetic also fits with Edward in its own way and he’s totally here for it and whatever else Edward is into. (And, he hopes that with time, he’ll get to find out more.)

“Why yes, I wouldn’t mind to ride, actually.” If there is any inuendo to his words, he means it as a joke, even if it could be flirtatious. Luckily, Edward only laughs and hands him a helmet as he makes his way towards the bike.

“Sit close, but not too close and hold on to my waist.” Edward instructs him.

Étienne keeps his bag on his back and now it makes sense why Edward had asked him if he had many things to bring home. He tries not to think too much about how this is the first time he’s touching Edward in more than a pat on the shoulder way or when they sit on the old couch in his classroom to watch movies over lunch and their thighs sometimes touch. He still finds himself sitting close, (but not too close) and tries to focus on the briefing Edward gives him, before they’re off to a roaring start.

He holds on tightly, surprised by the speed at which they cover ground and it is absolutely exhilarating. He laughs as the wind wipes through him and he wonders briefly if this is what freedom feels like. If this is why Edward’s fallen for the motorcycle, he may just understand why.

“Do tell, how did you manage to get your bike if we drove in your car this morning?” He asks when they’re at a red light and it’s quieter than when the motorcycle is at its full roar.

Edward flips up his visor and grins at him and Étienne’s body goes warm all over. This man is a menace and he will not survive until the end of the school year if his friend keeps giving him lifts on this damned motor bike, it seems.

“Took last period off, went home to drop the car, took the bus to the garage to pick ‘er up and then came to pick you up.”

“Such dedication,” Étienne gently teases, but he likes that Edward made time for something he clearly likes.

“Listen, I’ve been looking at the weather app for the past three weeks trying to figure out when would be a good day for the first ride. At least the season’s longer here.” The light changes and their conversation comes to an end for now. Étienne busies himself with the patches on Edward’s jacket and makes a mental note to ask about them later. He holds on and does his best to keep his mind busy until Edward drives up to his street and parks the bike in front of his building.

If he’s a little bit shaky dismounting the motorcycle, he blames it on the adrenaline of his first ever ride and not because of the sight Edward paints with his leather jacket, his riding boots, his tousled hair when he pulls off his helmet for a moment and the bright smile on his face.

“Same time same place tomorrow?”

Étienne wishes he meant something else by that, but nods instead. “Will you be coming by bike, or…?”

He wants another ride. Wants to chase the freedom with Edward again. Wants – many other things he keeps to himself because he’s a good friend.

Edward gives a sad shake of his head, “Unfortunately not – they’re predicting rain.”

“Oh, bummer.” He means it, but maybe there’ll be other rides in the future and – maybe he’ll have calmed himself by then.

Instead, he watches as Edward mounts his bike once more, pulls on his helmet and then drives off after waving goodbye at him. Étienne takes a moment to breathe, before he makes his way to his apartment, already on one of his many hookup apps.

--

Now

Étienne stands outside the school building and waits for Edward. It is one of the first nice days of spring and being outside is rather nice after a cold long winter. His boyfriend is meant to give him a lift home and so, when he’d walked by Edward’s classroom and hadn’t seen him, Étienne assumed Edward would be outside.

He peers in the direction of the parking lot, trying to spy Edward’s car, but he can’t find it. He hopes Edward hasn’t forgotten about him even though that would be a little strange, considering they live together and have done so for a few years now. For all he knows, Edward may have gotten stuck in some conversation with another of their colleagues and he figures he’ll give him another five minutes before sending him a message. Just in case. (The years have taught him that there are times when Edward can be quite distracted.)

He busies himself observing the multitude of parents and guardians picking up their charges and waves at whichever student wishes him a nice end of day. He is just about to take out his phone, when he notices a motorcycle come down the street.

He knows of a few parents that have a motorcycle, having seen them at the start of the school year, and he pays closer attention to see if there will be any excited ruckus over it. For some reason, a parent with a motorcycle always stands out more than the regular sedan.

However, the motorcycle goes past the pick-up gates and instead stops by the main doors where Étienne is waiting.

“Need a ride, stranger?” The rider of the motorcycle asks and then pushes up their visor, effectively short-circuiting Étienne’s brain even after so many years.

For starters, his brain reminds him that he knows that voice.

Actually, that is Edward’s voice, his brain supplies and he knows it quite well.

Yet somehow, he had completed forgotten that it is the start of spring and that it means that Edward itches for the day he can take out his bike.

He knows Edward mentioned it offhand over the past few weeks, he just – never clicked that it would be today.

Still.

Even though he’s been with Edward for years now, he can’t deny that his partner is quite attractive and that the little motorcycle number still gets to him. (At least now he gets to ogle all he wants, no shame and no guilt.)

But, seeing as he tries to be a decent human being and that despite his many shortfalls, he’s not one to ruin both their good reputations, Étienne keeps his running thoughts, and hands, to himself, buries it deep down for when they will be alone together. (He has it on good authority that Edward likes that he has a thing for the motorcycle getup, so really, it’s win-win all around.)

Also, there’s something about a motorcycle that’s still so very hot and so very masculine and it does things to Étienne’s insides. He’s only human. And he’s not perfect. The eroticisation of the motorcycle is something he has exploited to his benefit over the years, even if he’d never thought it would appeal to him until recently.

However, he has to admit that even these many years later, he likes this side of Edward. Likes that there are multiple sides to Edward’s personality. Layers, really. (The beauty is that he now knows more of Edward’s sides now and he cherishes the time it has taken him to get to know them and looks forward to many more years and such.)

After all, he must admit that even though he continues to fight against the expectations of the stereotypical teacher, and even if he may have made an assumption or two about Edward based on his job and the way he dresses once upon a time, he admits to himself that the motorcycle aesthetic also fits nicely with Edward in its own way and he’s totally here for it. (Something about being a rebel in his own right and doing things his own way, and such – it always resonated with Étienne.)

“Why yes, I wouldn’t mind to ride, actually.” If there is any inuendo to his words, he means it less as a joke now and he’s being as flirtatious as he can given the fact that they’re still on school grounds. Luckily, Edward only laughs, far too used to his shenanigans, and hands him his helmet as he makes his way towards the bike. (Because yes, Étienne has his own helmet for such occasions. His own jacket too for when Edward takes him out on longer rides. It’d been a gift, a few years back now, after Edward had gotten fondly tired of Étienne perpetually stealing his and refusing to get one himself.)

“Sit close, but not too close and hold on to my waist.” Edward instructs him. It would be redundant, but Étienne is a fiend for close contact and no matter the number of reminders, he always somehow manages to “forget.”

Étienne keeps his bag on his back and settles in behind his beau. He sees Edward roll his eyes as he sits just a little bit too close for a split second – long enough to get the reaction he wants, before he does as he’s told.

Now that he thinks back to it, it makes sense as to why Edward asked him this morning if he had many things to bring home. He should have seen it coming – knew that it was a matter of time before Edward took out the bike, but it flew over his head as it nearly always does every year.

He doesn’t really mind though; the surprise is always nice.

He’s used to Edward’s touch now, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of Edward’s body or his warmth. He makes it a point to get in as much casual touching as he can when they hang out together in his class to either have lunch or watch movies instead of grading, but it’s still nice to sit close (but not too close) to Edward, almost as if it’s something this side of illicit and illegal. Still, he thanks his lucky stars that the kids (and parents) are slightly too naïve to think too much into it. It’s irritating, but it serves its purpose.

Étienne shakes his head and tries to focus on the briefing Edward gives him, before they’re off to a roaring start.

He holds on tightly, still somewhat surprised by the speed at which they cover ground and it is absolutely exhilarating. He laughs as the wind wipes through him and he understands that freedom might be a little bit like this. He now knows why Edward had fallen for the motorcycle, years and years ago, and if it wasn’t for the easy access to free rides he has, he may have gone out to learn himself, if only for the sensation of it all.

“You’ve gotten sly with old age, Murphy,” He says when they’re at a red light and it’s quieter than when the motorcycle is at its full roar. “You didn’t even mention anything about getting the bike today.”

Edward flips up his visor and grins at him all wicked like and Étienne’s body goes warm all over. This man is a menace and he will not survive until retirement if his boyfriend keeps giving him lifts on this damned motor bike, it seems, (but he knows he’ll come back for more and wait for the next ride, since he is just as addicted as Edward is.)

“Wanted to keep it a surprise,” Edward mentions casually, “Went home to drop the car, took the bus to the garage to pick ‘er up and then came to pick you up.”

“Such dedication,” Étienne gently teases, but he likes that Edward still manages to make time for something he clearly likes. He then presses himself just a little bit closer for the fraction of a second – because he can – and then sits back before Edward can once more gently reprimand him to hold himself correctly.

“I’m surprised you didn’t clue in when I started compulsively looking at the weather app for the past three weeks trying to figure out when would be a good day for the first ride. The season might be longer here, but the rain hasn’t helped at all this year.”

The light changes and their conversation comes to an end for now. Étienne busies himself with the patches on Edward’s jacket and easily recalls what each one of them means. He holds on and does his best to keep his mind busy until Edward drives up to their street and parks the bike in front of their home. He’s still a little bit shaky dismounting the motorcycle, and he only partially he blames it on the adrenaline of his first ride of the season and not because of the sight Edward paints with his leather jacket, his riding boots, his tousled hair when he pulls off his helmet for a moment and the bright smile on his face.

“Same time same place tomorrow?” Edward asks him with a wink.

Étienne fishes the keys out of his bag and nods, playing along to this old and ancient game of theirs. “Will we be using the bike, or…?”

He wants another ride. Wants to chase the freedom with Edward again. Wants – many other things he no longer keeps to himself, because Edward knows him too well and quite frankly, Étienne hasn’t written it off completely that his boyfriend doesn’t do it just a little bit on purpose to rile him up for fun.

Edward gives a sad shake of his head, “Unfortunately not – they’re predicting rain, again.” He says with a little mournful sigh.

“Oh, bummer.” He means it, but he also knows that he’ll get another ride soon anyways, regardless of the weather and it’ll be consolation enough. If anything, he’ll still get that delicious proximity he likes so much.

Instead, he unlocks the door, while Edward puts the bike away. He waits for him, before they both make their way inside and then, finally, when they’re safely behind closed doors, Étienne pulls Edward to him, hookup apps no longer necessary.

FIN

[sol-consort]

I didn't expect the Thane post, i even forgot my og ask, but by chance, I saw it scrolling through my homefeed (which i dont often check bc im not super active on tumblr) and omfggg, the scream I scrumpt. What a happy suprise! We Thanemancers got fed GOOD. Thank you. My heart feels healed. Now, I will need to invest in creating a time machine, clone you, and send your clone back in time to work on me3. Perhaps make a whole army of clones to make each clone work on the writing for every romance. The Kolyat inclusion is peak. Thank you for not forgetting Kolyat, he really is so inportant to Thane. Geniunly made my entire week. I want to print your post out and chew on it everyday. Thank you!

🫡

I felt bad for taking so long because the chances of the original requester actually seeing the finished fic got more and more slim by the day.

And by some twist of fate you actually end up seeing it!! Even though I only started being active again a couple days ago?? Even though you rarely open tumblr??? The fact it was on your homepage rather than you specifically looking for stuff on the Thane x Reader tag???

I'm beyond happy <333

Most of all, I'm really glad you liked it! That fic might not have been the most intricate vocabulary wise, but god, it drained me creativity wise, having to come up with scene after scene, second doubting myself, erasing and rewriting.

I will never underestimate storyboard writers and script makers after this. It felt like a world champion boxing match where I only managed to win by an inch. Damn that story got hands.

I had to scrab the whole Party and Identity Theft II mission stages because words wouldn't register in my brain anymore. Maybe in the future I'll go back and add them, but for now I'm clinging to my beloved short drabbles.

Then there was this whole letting it rot in my draft for months out of petty bc I thought no one was reading my stuff either way, what's the point in posting it– I got upset at the idea I spent so much effort on one story only for it to possibly end up never read by a single person.

I tried not to gloss over Thane's condition or his impending doom. I didn't want it to be a full escapism–which is ironically my ideal style–but a proper sweet goodbye, a final dance, the chance to experience life by his side a little bit more, a small extension on the deadline before the curtains fall.

And I wanted Kolyat to share the spotlight as well, he deserved so much more. Shepard was there during the confrontation, aware of it or not, you were a turning point in his life as much as his father finally stepping up to take full responsibility for his past actions.

Kolyat and Grunt being best friends came out of nowhere tbh, at that point the characters had a mind of their own. And it hit me, Kolyat grew in the hanar world, it's mostly oceans, he must have gone to swim a lot, he definitely knows about the aquatic life.

What if I give him an interest in marine biology? What if that's what he's persuing in his study in uni, hanar granted him a fully paid scholarship—another bittersweet benefit he got handed in exchange for the ruthless job his father took—while working a part-time job himself, living in a modest apartment and leading an independent life.

But Kolyat is a loner. He has no friends, no significant other, or even pets. Which causes Thane great concern, Drell society values finding a parter a lot. Maybe that's why Thane moved into his apartment to help make him feel less lonely and subtly push him into making friends. Blaming himself for Kolyat's antisocial nature.

So, with Grunt being very fascinated by sharks, a massive extrovert, a natural leader personality, zero hesitation to speak his mind and aim for what he wants. He makes the ideal friend for Kolyat!

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The wedding imagery and symbolism in the casino stage are my absolute favourite details. Part of it was because I saw a mod for "wedding dresses" back when I was playing ME2 for the first time, scrolling through the mods page for a nice looking dress to use in the casino mission.

Writing Thane's distraction lines was fun ngl. One scrapped line was about him walking up to a human security guard, mentioning how he's actually dating a human and wanted to get some advice on how to woo you and act, what do humans consider romantic?

But then I remembered Garrus has a similar line, just a little more sexual and I didn't want there to be repetition.

Thane didn't seem like the type to hit on the security guards like other characters, even as mere pretend. He's too devoted to his partner for that. Half of his lines were genuine, wanting to hear about the human's family back on earth as a way to help them vent.

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Lastly, you're so kind <3 Thank you so much for your sweet words fosjofjskfks It made me so happy to receive this. I never expected it, which made it just more sweeter.

100% on board with the whole cloning thing, it should've been me on that ME3 writing board! I would've given Cerberus justice I swear! I would've kept Thane alive by the sheer power of love...maybe some prothean magic too.

Like you receive an email for him stating his concern for Kolyat getting into trouble again, he's been coming home more and more late each night. He asks you to investigate, you oblige.

First stage is following his son through the Citadel stealth style, exactly like Thane Loyalty mission in ME2. But it's much shorter and ends once you see Kolyat board an unmarked spaceship.

You follow him, ofc, try to confront him. He's surprised by your presence but then expresses relief rather than acting what you'd expect from someone caught red-handed.

He explains he read in an asari research paper about a prothean technology that could possibly help repair damaged organs, or at least prevent them from degrading even further. But the research has been abandoned since the war and developing biotics took priority.

Kolyat informs you that he's been investigating and managed to get a copy of the whole unedited first draft of the published paper. Some scrapped information in it were apparently the theorised location of the prothean artifact.

He's going there to retrieve it, with or without your help...but he'd be very thankful if you came. He doesn't know how to uh...hold a gun you see, some skills don't pass down in genetics.

You can agree - Thane lives, Kolyat lives

Both of you go there and you can pick only one other teamate. Kolyat is a bit of liability, but bringing him along opens shortcuts and grants you so much lore about him, his late mother, and Thane's past self. It is Kolyat's loyalty mission in a way. You gain the hanar Marine biology branch as a war assest afterwards. You Gain Thane as a new recruit.

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You agree, but demand he doesn't come along - Thane lives, Kolyat dies.

He went behind your back and boarded a different shuttle, without the Normandy abilities...the ship barely makes it into the atmosphere before the prothean technology defences shoots it down.

Thane is very visibly depressed and apathetic for the rest of the game. You gain Thane as new recruit.

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You refuse and demand he hands you the papers - Thane dies early, Kolyat lives

Plays out the same in canon. You gain Prothean research papers as a war asset.

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You refuse - Thane dies early, Kolyat dies

Same as canon but no funeral this time since Kolyat isn't alive to make preparations. You don't gain anything.

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I imagine the mission to be your run of the million clearing out a base, etc. Maybe throwing in some stray collectors who were hiding their for old times sake? Bringing Javik and Lara gives unique dialogue, but you can't bring both unless you sacrifice Kolyat.

Bringing Javik informs you early that this technology isn't a miracle maker and doesn't magically fix organs. It simply delays the inevitable a little bit. It grants the sick a short extension on their lifespan, the pain mostly disappears, their health is restored...but it's a mirage. Nothing in reality changes much, placebo is hell of a thing.

However, despite you telling Thane about the placebo, it still takes effect. He makes the most of his time, realising he doesn't want to spend the last of his moments in a hospital bed.

But if you don't bring Javik, then you never discover that fact, which makes the eventual death scene when both of you realise his health is still deteriorating, much more painful.

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Ik you're joking about the munching thing, but if you want to save a copy for yourself or just to keep in your files and reread, then I'm more than okay with that. In fact, I crossposted the fic to AO3, which natively lets you download it in any format.

[writeforfandoms]

I, absolutely love your writing, I think I've read born for greatness like 4 times now, along with all your other shifter stories ;w;

I dont know if you do requests but I had to get this put down somewhere and I feel like you would be the perfect author to present this idea I had to just, prent it to you in a little glowy box with opera coming from within.

So- everyone knows how marine parks like SeaWorld or marine land used to catch their orcas yes? The rounding up of pods and then the separation of calves from their mothers.

I present to you the tidbit of brain that said to me me last night 'Human 141 who work at a marine research/rescue center who get a call about an orca being kept in a holding pen at a dilapidated waterpark that had been abandoned a few months earlier. It's a dire situation as the orca being kept has been alone and starving for a couple weeks. The 141 set out to save this orca and sucsessfuly bring them back to be taken care of and nursed back to health. In this time they find out their a shifter and speak to them about their life. After that they make it their goal to reunite the orca shifter with their pod- because -

(interesting tidbit time) orcas are known to live just as long if not longer then humans, they also have their own dialects! (This is why an orca from Japan can not communicate with an orca from Off the coast of Cape Breton) and this means that technically calves who had been stolen from the wild could (theortically) be rehabilitated and set free once more, they would find their pod and reunite with their family.

The 141 end up reuniting the orca with their family who are absolutely ecstatic to have found them again, the the orca shifter dosent wana leave, so the 141 (who's owns baste amount of sea that they've procured as protected land) propose the pod live in the protected waters. So now everything the 141 steps outside their little cottages they see a large pod of orca shifters happily living right outside their facility, one who regularly shifts back to be around their saviors on land

I just had to get this down somewhere, and thought this would be perfect idea to present to you, even if you dont do anything with it lol! Love your works, keep up the good work!

First, thank you so so much! I know you sent this in weeks ago but I needed to read this this morning. So thank you. This means more to me than you know.

Second, sorry for hanging on to this for a bit.

Third... this is brilliant. I love this. So much. I love the idea of orca shifters! They spend most of their lives shifted but occasionally become human... probably for prank purposes. Its probably like a teenage rite of passage kind of thing. Which is just adorable.

And the 141 finding her original pod for her?? My heart!! And then offering the protected waters and watching out for the pod. Just. All of this is absolutely heart warming. This is absolutely my kind of idea. Good bit of angsty hurt with a solid dose of comfort and happy ending.

I'm gonna put this on a back burner for now because life is a wee bit too much right now BUT trust me I absolutely adore this idea!! I'm writing it down in my ideas folder to keep track of. Because I want to revisit this.

I'm already thinking of why the abandoned park had a shifter, and shift-preventing devices, and the utter callousness of leaving her because anyone else would remove the device and she could get a lot of people in a lot of trouble... mwahaha.

Thank you so much friend!