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parvulous-writings · 2 months ago

Note

Aagh thank you so much for taking my Selkie!reader request!! it’s so cute, I absolutely love it!! 💓🦭 I would love a one-shot if you wouldn’t mind 🫶🏻

Warnings: Reading is referred to with she/her pronouns and fem descriptors, vague descriptors of peeling off skin. Somewhat abrupt ending, maybe? Not sure, I've been staring at this for too long

Words: 2.4K

Notes: My requests are currently open! My request post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist! Original character list - please request for these too! If you’d like to support me more, consider reblogging! I’d appreciate it loads!!

Gale had certainly been one of your more courteous companions, on your group's slow and steady journey up to Baldur's Gate. Whilst a lot of the others - particularly Astarion, and at times, Lae'zel - would often mutter or complain about how often you would need to stop to 'bathe'. The only ones who didn't try and hurry you along were the wizard, and Wyll. Wyll understood why the others were getting so frustrated, and so did Gale, you were all under a tiny bit of a time constraint on the road. "It's only once a day," Wyll would often defend - not that you were usually in earshot of this. "It is rarely even over an hour or two - I am well aware that we have issues to resolve-" He held up a hand to silence Shadowheart, who had just opened her mouth to retort, most likely with some remark about how they would all be in deep trouble if they kept stopping for everyone's habits, bathing or otherwise. "But, she is the one who holds us all together, and for such a feat, I feel we could... Afford her this much." "Perhaps I should start bathing as much." Astarion drawls, examining his long nails idly as he spoke. "I mean... If one of us can 'afford' to do it, then evidently the rest of us can as well, hm?" Wyll gave the vampire a look of mild exasperation, whilst Gale spoke up. "That isn't what Wyll meant - and you are well aware of that fact." He stated, his voice firm. "You know that she has been incredibly kind to us - you in particular - so we are showing her some kindness in turn." He folded his arms across his chest as he practically scolded the Elf, trying to appear intimidating. It didn't work all that well, at least, not from Astarion's perspective. "But, if you are really so intent on being bothered by this, I will go and ask her to hurry along..." He then continued, as Astarion's eyes became dour. If there was something that the wizard didn't want to do, it was irk the paler man's ire.

With that, Gale trotted off down the same path that you had taken merely half an hour prior, muttering to himself about how easily he had caved to the demands and how he should have stood his ground more. If not for his own dignity, then for your sake. Gale was immensely fond of you, perhaps more than he should have been, considering the short amount of time that he had known you for. But for the wizard, the kindness that you had shown him meant the world. It was the same kindness you showed to all the other companions, but he felt it was special, when it came to him. After so long without such affections - if they could even be called such - Gale's mind was going into overdrive in the presence of it, latching onto you in a way that he tried consciously to ignore, but every time the thoughts of staying at arms length from you left his mind, he would slowly drift ever closer to you. You had never shown any aversion to him. Even when he had admitted to you about the perilous situation thanks to the orb embedded in his chest, you had not shied away, nor had you cast him out. It was more - so much more - than he deserved.

The stroll to the riverbank only took him about ten minutes or so. He had been so wrapped up in his internal battle about whether to just turn around and leave you be, to stand his ground, that he almost dipped his boot into the cold water. He blinked for a moment or so, shaking his head to centre himself, before he made his eyes try to focus on the banks. Where had you decided to take your dip? He assumed it wouldn't be right at the end of that small path, where anyone would be able to wander and see you - you liked your privacy. So, he began to wander, sweeping his eyes across the spaces in front of him, looking for any sign of you or your belongings. In bushes, behind the odd tree, but there wasn't anything, for quite a while. He was beginning to grow concerned - what if you had been caught unawares by a bear, or even a stray goblin? No, that makes no sense, the rational voice in his head countered. She has taken on owlbears practically by herself. Why would a goblin pose a threat? He couldn't argue with that voice, he had seen you do marvellous, perhaps even borderline terrible if the circumstances were different, things. Whilst he was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he almost ended up face-first in the slick grass of the verge after stumbling over one of your boots. Thankfully, he caught himself, saving him from such embarrassment. Gale hummed gently to himself, discovering your discarded blouse and trousers not far from where he had tripped. But you... You were nowhere he could see. He thought about calling out for you, trying to grab your attention - wherever you may be... In the nearby reeds, perhaps? Before he could, however, the splash and ripple of the water beside him diverted his attention from his forming words.

Upon turning his gaze, he locked eyes with something he had not expected to see, so far from the coast of the North. It was a seal. The roundest, darkest eyes just stared back at him, unwavering. Despite the creature being rather adorable, the stare was downright unnerving, and almost... Human. That wasn't entirely something he was expecting - that level of sentience behind it's eyes. Even when he had consumed a potion of animal speaking, there wasn't that look, that shine, to an animal's eye. "Um, forgive me, I-" Gale wasn't entirely sure why his first instinct was to speak. He hadn't taken a potion of animal speaking since their last long rest last night, he would have no way to understand the beast. His eyes trailed back down to the clothes he had discovered as the animal started hauling itself out of the water, and onto the verge. "I was looking for someone, I think she might be somewhere around here..." Why was he still talking? He had no idea. But for some, inexplicable reason, it didn't feel at all weird. Perhaps he had been relying too much on the potions, recently. "These are her clothes, see, and-" He started to turn back, and instead of the seal becoming the focus of his gaze, it was, instead, you. Dripping wet, a mirthful smile dancing across your features. Peeling away from your body, and still partially clutched in your hands, was a seal skin. Gale's mind completely blanked for a moment, and his eyes drifted downward of their own accord, towards your chest as his cheeks began to heat up. As soon as he realised he was beginning to practically ogle your naked form, he averted his eyes. "By Mystra's robe, I-" He started, clearly flustered. His mind felt like it was going blank, over and over, unable to make any clear thoughts.

He tried to focus his eyes anywhere else, anywhere but you, his mouth opening and closing over and over, but little more than stuttering sounds leaving it. "Gale." Your voice breaks him from his thoughts, but he still cannot quite get himself to look at you. He offers a gentle hum, to show he heard you. "May I have my clothes, please?" Without another word, he gathers your garments, holding them out to you, one by one. "Shouldn't you... Dry yourself, first?" He asked, hazarding a glance your way. "It's just a bit of water, Gale... It'll dry." You chuckled, pulling your blouse on over your head. It did stick in a couple of places, but, for someone who had just come out of a river, it wasn't as bad as Gale had anticipated. Perhaps that was the seal skin? "Did you need something, Gale..?" You asked, whilst in the middle of redressing yourself. You glanced over to the wizard as you spoke, noticing he had his back to you, clearly still bashful about seeing you in the nude. It was rather sweet, really, how sweet he could be. "The uh... The others were wondering where you were..." He replied, almost lamely. "So I came to see if you were... Finished bathing..." He was finally able to meet your gaze again, now that you were fully clothed, and he didn't risk catching a glimpse of something more intimate. He wasn't entirely sure what to think, or what even to ask. Why had you been a seal? How had you been a seal? You spotted that look of inquisition in his eye - that twinkle that always seemed to appear when he had a barrage of questions stewing in his mind.

"Something on your mind?" You asked him, your voice almost teasing. You knew there was, it was impossible to miss; and you were well aware of how odd the situation the one he had just seen you in could look, even to someone as well-studied as him. "I just... How?" He asked, vaguely gesturing to you as you gently folded your seal skin, carefully placing it in your pack, right at the bottom, away from prying eyes. "You were you when I saw you this morning, and now you're some sort of seal... Shifting... Creature?" He asked, the cogs audibly turning in his head as he continued waving his hands about, as if this would help him to think. You had to hold in a laugh - this was a seriously confusing moment for him, but you would have thought with all his time spent with his nose stuck in a book before this adventure, that he might have had some sort of idea of what you were... Part of you didn't want to tell him; it took a lot of trust to disclose to anyone what you were, you knew all too well that there were many humans who were all too eager to take advantage of your situation. But, you were almost backed into a corner now. He had seen you, not just in your seal, but physically peeling it off, too. Why had you done that? We trust him, a small voice, nestled in the very back of your head spoke quietly. He has been kind to us... Perhaps he is not like the stories. You considered this for a moment. Before your unforseen adventure, you had always tended to avoid humans; tales from your family and friends had struck the fear of them deep into you. But now that you had been travelling with a few for a while... They didn't seem so bad. Sure, none of them knew that you were a selkie, but they had shown no inclination that they were malicious, for the most part. Wyll was the pinnacle of a knight in shining armour, and Gale was a very considerate man, especially after such a long period of isolation before his abduction.

"It... Is a thing that I keep somewhat... Secret." You said, slowly, and this caught Gale's attention. A secret? Something you had kept from the rest of this group, for all this time? "Is it an... Affliction, of some description? A curse?" He asked, his brows furrowed, clearly concerned for you. "To an extent, I suppose..." You shrugged slightly. "The only real 'curse' of it, is needing to swim, and be in water, as a... Well, a seal, often..." Gale's expression turned contemplative at this. "Your daily habits..." He mused, more to himself than to you. His hand absent-mindedly moved to his chin, slowly stroking at the stubble that littered it. "Shedding skin... Seal.. Must be near to water..." His voice was low as he murmured his thoughts aloud, trying his best to connect the dots. Then his eyes lit up, and his head all but snapped towards you. "A selkie-?" He blurted. Ah, so he did know of your kind. You give a somewhat sheepish smile, telling him all he needed to know. His gaze shifted to one of pure awe. "I... Had no idea - I mean, you had given no true hint, I suppose. You're beautiful, to be sure, but I never realised that it was because-" He stopped himself mid-ramble, his cheeks flushing as he realised what he had just said in his hurry to rationalise himself, and his thought process - or lack thereof in the past couple of months. You give him another smile, "You think I'm beautiful?" You asked the wizard, teasingly. Gale slowly began to nod - he couldn't exactly backtrack his words without insulting you, which was something he did not want to do, at near any cost. "Breathtaking, even... If I may." His voice was low, little more than a murmur.

The two of you share a look, then. A look of what could only be mutuality. And it was - you had eyed Gale for the past two weeks, at least. He had been caring, attentive to your needs, to your likes. It was hard for you to deny the flutter in your chest, that only seemed to be caused by him, or his presence. Without another word, you held out your hand to him, which he took without question, not even a second guess. It was something he had craved for a while, himself. Holding your hand in his, it felt right. Like bliss, even. He was happy to oblige you. So, the two of you began to walk back. You were anticipating a flurry of questions - things both mundane and not, about your life as a selkie. Yet, the wizard was oddly quiet, seemingly basking your presence, now that there were no secrets between the two of you. It felt nice, to him. Freeing, even. It was like, for the briefest of moments, there was nothing and no one outside of the two of you; no illithids, no pressing quest, no monsters lurking on the road ahead. Gale wanted it to last forever, and kept stealing glances your way, finally being able to take in your beauty without shame. Part of him knew he would be teased by some camp members when this came to light, but he didn't care. Perhaps now, the pair of you could bond more. Gale would like that - and he was starting to get the impression, that you would very much like it too.

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x-press-it · 3 days ago

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Devilish Desires - 1/9?

Dangerous Temptations, Irresistible Touch 🎞️❤️‍🔥🌹🖤💻🖱️

Sub!Logan Howlett x Dom!OC (They/Them)

Summary: Logan, typically guarded and dominant, finds himself captivated by E, a mysterious being with a devilish allure and ancient presence that challenges his control.

Context: This story unfolds 'within' the "Days of Future Past" new timeline, during Logan's early years as a history teacher at Xavier’s School. It’s set well before his consciousness from the original timeline reconnects with him in 2023, as seen at the film’s end.

Content Warnings (for the whole story): Smut 18+ (Dry humping, Edging, Unprotected p in v.) - Dom!Logan into Sub!Logan - Pet Names (Good boy, pretty boy, pet, pup, amongst others...) reversed age gap (Logan is younger) - OC Notes: Established name, backstory, powers, fighting style, female body but gender fluid character (Logan misgender them at first because he doesn't know, even in the descriptions) - Fluff with Dark Undertones: Emotional tension and possessive affection - Worship Themes: Religious imagery, reverent language and awe - Ancient Mysticism: References to otherworldly or demonic presence - Mental Health: Power dynamics, personal vulnerabilities - Trope: Rivals to lovers.

I'm back after 10 years of iatus and fairly new to how things are done on tumblr now, so sorry if I missed any warnings. Also english isn't my first language so there might be typos/weird sentences...

Notes: Got very inspired by @gothgoblinbabe writing of sub!Logan and repeated listening of "Between wind and water" by Hael. Cover made with canva from an idea I got from this post. If you know who made the picture, tell me so I can credit them - Click on the divider to find the creator.

Also this was meant to be an imagine turned into a full story. Just so you know, some chapters are very short, other are long. I'm in the process of editing/writing/rewriting parts so I'll post a chapter everytime I have one fully edited.

Chapters: 1/9?

Word Count: 1.8K / 30K+ for now

The soft click of the office door broke the silence in the hallway. They stepped out, adjusting their suit jacket, their posture elegant and composed, though a subtle tension lingered behind their calm exterior. Their long black wavy hair cascaded down their back, brushing against the fabric as they moved with an effortless grace. Those days, they felt more woman than anything else—their skin a rich, dark brown that gleamed under the soft lights—but it wasn’t always the case.

It had been a few weeks since they’d started working at the mansion, handling the Institute’s legal affairs. Most of the students gave them a wide berth, and the staff kept their distance—there was something about them that made people uneasy, even if they didn’t understand why.

Them on the other hand, they liked it that way.

As they stepped into the hall, their senses picked up something different. A low hum of energy—wild and untamed, charging the space around them. It tugged at their instincts, drawing their attention before they saw him. He turned the corner, boots heavy on the carpeted hardwood, an unshaven jaw covered in scruff, and a bag slung over his shoulder like he’d just walked out of a warzone. Broad shoulders, rough hands, and that look of a man who didn’t take orders from anyone. Not even Charles, from the way he stormed down the hall, barely noticing anything else in his path. His clothes were dusted with travel and grit, and that sharp, brooding look in his eyes didn’t soften even when they landed on them. He was raw power wrapped in flesh, every muscle taut, every movement deliberate.

Logan Howlett.

They’d heard the name whispered by the students, seen it on paperwork, but this was the first time they’d laid eyes on him. And the sight of him made their mouth water.

Logan had been gone for weeks—tracking down some personal leads, putting down problems before they grew too big. He had just parked his bike in the garage when he caught a scent that wasn’t part of the usual mix around the mansion. New. Feminine, with a dangerous edge to it—like spice wrapped in smoke, rich and heady, making his senses bristle. Whoever this was, she wasn’t some harmless new schoolteacher.

He rolled his shoulders, tightening the strap of his bag as he headed down the familiar hallways. The kids were nowhere to be seen, probably off in some class, and that suited him just fine. His boots made a steady, heavy sound on the floor, his mind set on dropping off his report with Chuck and catching a few hours of shut-eye.

He rounded the corner and froze, catching sight of her.

She was walking out of Charles' office, high heels clicking in rhythm with each step, her silhouette sharp and commanding. But there was something else—a flicker of something above her hairline, two subtle obsidian bumps that disappeared under her carefully styled wavy hair.

Horns?

His eyes trailed lower without permission. The plum of her lips, the curves of her breasts and the sway of her hips pulled at something primal in him, something he thought he had under control. There was power in her stride, something that made his instincts fire up in ways he hadn’t expected. Damn. He’d seen plenty of women in his time, but none with this kind of presence. The way her clothes hugged her body, her confidence… it wasn’t just a walk—it was a challenge. Logan’s gaze lingered a little too long, his nostrils flaring slightly at that scent again, his eyes trailed down once more, uncontrollably drawn to the curve of her hips.

Hell, he’d been gone for a few weeks, and he came back to this?

For a moment, neither of them moved. The air between them felt charged, a crackling tension that made their skin prickle. His eyes swept over them—sharp, assessing, like he was reading them just as much as they were reading him. The way he looked at them was different from what they were used to. Not with the hesitant caution most men wore in their presence, but something else—something hungrier, more primal. Something that resonated with the darker parts of themselves they tried to keep buried.

They shifted, folding their arms across their chest as his gaze lingered a little too long.

The way his nostrils flared slightly, his eyes flicking from their face to the faintest hint of their horns beneath their hair. Not that it mattered. He was focused on something else, too—the curve of their hips, the allure of their heels against the polished floor. They didn’t need to look to know he was watching.

They almost smiled. Almost.

Her scent got stronger as she started walking again, coming closer, sending a ripple through him that he quickly shook off. Whatever game she was playing, he wasn’t about to fall for it. He’d dealt with enough trouble in his lifetime to recognize it when it crossed his path.

But damn, those hips.

He grunted, pushing it all down as she passed by, brushing close enough that the faintest touch of a thin tail coming from under her pencil skirt grazed his leg so lightly he almost didn’t feel it. Almost. The scent grew stronger, messing with his focus, making him forget for a second that he had a report to deliver. He forced his eyes forward, giving his mind something else to chew on, his eyes on the door to Charles’ office, but he couldn’t shake the feel of her.

"Mr. Howlett," her voice was silk, controlled, the hint of a smile lingering at the edges of her lips, like she already knew everything about him. “Welcome back.”

He gave her a quick glance, a low grumble leaving his throat. “Who the hell are you?”

They saw the tension ripple through him as they passed. For all his tough exterior, Logan wasn’t immune to theirs. He wouldn’t admit it, of course, but it was there in the way he set his jaw, the brief flicker in his eyes as they greeted him. He’d noticed more than just their horns. The tail that skimmed his leg had been subtle, but they caught the way he stiffened.

A small victory.

His eyes were a storm—full of warning and curiosity, a predator assessing the situation. They liked that. Liked that he wasn’t some fool who would melt at their feet like so many others. Logan was… different. Stubborn. Dangerous.

But if he thought that would stop them from having their fun, he had no idea who he was dealing with.

When he spoke, asking who they were, his voice was gravelly—rough, like the scrape of metal on stone—and it made her horns itch with anticipation.

They turned fully, eyes locking with his, letting the question hang in the air for a heartbeat longer than necessary. A sly smile curled at the edge of their lips as they put their hand on their hip, her gaze not shying away from him in the slightest, piercing blue eyes steady.

“I’m E,” they finally said as if it was the most normal name in the world, feeling the weight of his stare. The air between them thickened and then their voice came again, smooth, steady. “The new lawyer.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed, suspicion darkening his features. He stepped closer, just enough that E could smell a faint metallic scent and the earthiness clinging to him. A wild animal, barely restrained.

“Lawyer, huh?” He grunted, but his gaze didn’t waver from theirs, as if he were trying to dig deeper, to get past the surface. “Ain’t seen a lawyer look like you before.”

E’s smile widened, something dangerous glittering behind their cool expression. “And I haven’t met a man quite like you, either, Mr Howlett,” they shot back, their voice smooth, teasing at the edges of something darker, something far older than this hallway or the mansion, or even him.

Logan’s lips twitched, a flicker of amusement passing over his face, though his eyes stayed sharp. “Don’t trust lawyers.”

A smug smile tugged at their lips.

“I’d be disappointed if you did.”

He let out a low, rough chuckle, shaking his head as if dismissing them. But they could feel the tension coiling in him, that primal urge battling with the cool control he tried to maintain. He brushed past them, closer than necessary, the tips of his fingers ghosting near their side. E’s skin tingled at the proximity, their body reacting even though their face remained neutral.

He paused, turning just enough to glance over his shoulder, eyes catching theirs again.

“Don’t care who you are,” he growled softly, a challenge hidden beneath his words. “Long as you stay outta my way.”

Even as he was walking away, they could feel the way his presence lingered in the air, heavy, magnetic. For all the danger that clung to him like a second skin, Logan was… intriguing. His scent still hung around them, earth and steel. But it wasn’t just his physicality that had their pulse racing—no, it was something deeper. Older.

Something that felt almost familiar.

Trouble.

He was going to be trouble, and they knew it.

But then again, trouble had always been their specialty.

Their fingers tapped against their hip as they considered his retreating figure, their thoughts swirling like dark, smoky tendrils. Logan probably thought he was unreadable, a closed book no one could crack. But they’d read men like him before—hungry, guarded, full of secrets they refused to admit, even to themselves.

Still, there was something different there. He wasn’t just another man to be toyed with. No, this one… this one might bite back.

They straightened their jacket again, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as they watched him stop in front of Charles’ office. The muscles in his back flexed under his worn leather jacket as he pushed the door open, and E couldn’t help but smirk.

Yes, Logan was going to be fun.

The door clicked shut behind him, but the scent of her still clung to his senses. He let out a low growl, shaking his head as if trying to clear his mind. What the hell was it about her? That scent, those eyes, those hips… she stirred something in him he didn’t like.

The primal part of him was curious—drawn in by the challenge, by the aura she carried. E. Didn’t matter what the hell she called herself. Something ancient lurked beneath that smooth exterior, something that made his instincts roar to life, like he was staring down a predator disguised as prey.

His claws itched beneath his skin, and not in the usual way.

He grunted, shifting his bag on his shoulder, trying to focus on the task at hand. But hell if his mind wasn’t already circling back to the sway of her hips, the way her voice slithered into his ears like smoke. He wasn’t some lovesick idiot, and yet…

He shook it off.

Trouble. That’s what she was. And he’d be damned if he let himself get dragged into whatever game she was playing.

To be continued...

Notes: If you enjoyed it, don’t forget to comment and spread the love 😊

More on the way!

✨ Masterlist ✨

Don't forget to follow the tags "Devilish Desires" and "xpressit writings" to stay tuned for the next chapters 😁

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sugarandspiceandeverythingelse · 11 months ago

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Ryu Si-Oh/Kang Nam-Soon one-shot

Background: I'm working on a sort-of alternate universe series for Strong Girl Nam-Soon; where the main couple is Ryu Si-Oh and Kang Nam-Soon, and it revolves around Nam-Soon's life and Si-Oh's redemption. For some reason, it's harder for me to start at the beginning and write chronologically so until I figure out how I want things to begin in this AU, I'll just post the cute/fluffy one-shots that pop into my head.

Prompt: Nam-Soon wins a bet.

Nam-Soon didn't even try to conceal the teasing grin that stretched across her face as she approached Si-Oh. She began to dance, moving her body joyfully and shimmy-ing her shoulders as she lightly sang the tune of Gangnam Style.

Si-Oh watched her approach with an indulgent curl of his lips, tipping his head back to stare at the blue sky above as she drew closer. Only looking back down when she hopped with both feet to stand at attention in front of him, staring up at him triumphantly.

"Shall we?" He gestured for her to walk in front of him towards the company car, but she stayed stubbornly planted before him.

"Not until I hear you say it." She slyly replied.

Si-Oh sighed, experiencing an odd mixture of both annoyance and affection towards his pint-sized assistant. Normally such insolence would have lit a fire in his gullet, triggering a defensive response that demanded he crush whoever had the arrogance to challenge him. But coming from her, with her sparkling eyes and infectious smile ... he found himself basking in the warmth of her camaraderie.

"Ah, yes. You were correct, I concede defeat."

Her chin lifted proudly, as she reached up with one hand to flip her long hair over her shoulder. "Thank you, thank you. Naturally, I deserve a prize for this display of business prowess. What are you willing to give me as a reward?" Her tone was light and unserious, her face open and happy.

The question from anyone else would have had him tensing in preparation for conflict. From her, he only felt what most people must mean when they refer to getting butterflies. The answer left his lips before he consciously made the decision to reply ...

"Anything."

Nam-Soon's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Anything?" She repeated in question.

Si-Oh nodded definitively, before voicing his confirmation. "Anything."

"Hmm..." She pondered aloud, raising a delicate finger to tap at her chin, and squinting her eyes dramatically. "That is quite the invitation. I'll have to think on it carefully. An opportunity like this shouldn't be wasted, you know." She chirped pertly, before turning on her heel and beginning to stride towards the car. He followed at a more leisurely pace, keeping his strides shorter to match her shorter legs.

"Should I be worried?" He volleyed back, fully knowing he needn't worry at all.

"Oh yes," she said sunnily as the driver opened the side door for her to climb in. She peeked back at Si-Oh from over her shoulder, taunting him in a comedic timbre "Be afraid, be very afraaaiidd..." her voice pealing off into silly laughter as she climbed into the dark vehicle.

Si-Oh found himself smiling once again as he seated himself next to her. It seemed to be happening more often the more time he spent with Nam-Soon. He was both curious and intrigued by the development. He didn't know necessarily what it was about her that drew him, like a moth to a flame. All he knew was that the more time he spent in her presence, the more the cold, dark spaces inside of him seemed to shrink. He wanted more. No. He *craved* more, more than any drug he'd ever used. Being near her was like being injected with pure light, concentrated sunshine. And for a man like him, who had been denied every affection and comfort since he was a child ... he was helpless to resist her.

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grandselfmythologizing · 2 months ago

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falling in love, ramshackle stone x reader

♡ ྀི ₊ i feel i am falling in love, with all my heart ⊹ ࣪ ˖

pairing ramshackle stone x reader genre romance, x reader, general head-canons, canon-compliant, gender neutral tw implied underage drinking, insinuated substance abuse

dedicated to the sweetest stone simp i know, anomaly @dmr-au ♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ kindaaa based the reader off of u tbh haha but kept it vague enough so that anybody can enjoy the fic 💕 i still plan on writing that oneshot about stone and sora, but this is just a little bit more do-able for me rn, so this is what i am gonna do for now !! hope u like it <3

ྀི ₊ …all i heard you say is, “all i want is to be yours.” ⊹ ࣪ ˖

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ in direct reference to zeddyzi’s tumblr posts prior to the thesis film, she alludes to stone’s ineptitude in matters of romance. in quotation to one post in particular, she mentions that stone would be, “drinking A LOT more than usual” on the occasion of being hopelessly smitten with somebody— and insinuating the general implication of his…romantically challenged disposition of character.

this inclines me to deduce that a gradual slow burn between the reader and him is most feasible out of anything else !! a ridiculous, absurd amount of pining, longing, heart ache, and bottles of…adult juice chugged and discarded— culminating to a confession and eventual relationship ♡

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ speaking of which, i personally believe that he’d be averse to acknowledging his feelings, let alone disclosing them in a DECLARATION OF LOVE altogether !! and would infinitely prefer to conceal the lamentations of his heart— content with admiring from afar, never risking your relationship at present.

either refusing to confess and forever holding his tongue, or unwittingly divulging his feelings in a moment of raw, inebriated honestly. which, is met with an immediate flush marring his cheeks, anddd maybe a frantic, vigorous swig of his bottle. awe, poor dude— good thing you like him back, don’t you? ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ upon your positive reciprocity, he’d be absolutely ecstatic— save for a slight irritability elicited by Vinnie’s incessant, yet inevitable teasing— but wouldn’t particularly know how to express his inapparent joy. indubitably though, he’d be keenly and UTTERLY engrossed in attempting to communicate his fondness regardless.

during the first few days of your newly forged affections, he’d take an acute, particular interest in becoming closer to you— a privilege he was previously denied prior to your relationship. seeking to know, love, and cherish in a way never before; engaging in your interests, prompting you to talk about yourself, attentive and adoring to your every move— occupying himself wholly in you. okAY ME WHEN !! /j

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ as stone navigates through his emotions, his burgeoning affections might manifest through delicate, almost imperceptible shifts in behavior. his once aloof demeanor could soften, revealing a hidden tenderness emerging like a blossom in the dawn ♡

in these moments, he may offer you fragments of his inner world—intimate revelations and personal anecdotes previously shielded behind his façade. each shared secret becoming a thread weaving the tapestry of your connection, imbuing it with a profound sense of mutual trust and understanding that every good relationship necessitates <3

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ and despite his best efforts, stone might grapple with self-doubt, the shadows of insecurity lingering at the edges of his consciousness. this introspection could lead to poignant, heart-to-heart dialogues where he lays bare his fears and vulnerabilities. and while tinged with his characteristic gruffness, reveal a deeper yearning for affirmation and acceptance— a testament to the genuine depth of his affection.

YOUR ardent reassurance in these moments become the anchor that steadies him amidst the his uncertainty— good luck to you, lovebird (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵) !!

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ as your relationship matures, Stone’s expressions of love might evolve into more nuanced of gestures and intentions. his once sporadic acts of kindness become deliberate, thoughtful endeavors— perhaps, a surprise visit to a place that holds significance for you, or an earnest attempt to engage in activities you cherish. these gestures, though not always grandiose and often mild, resonate with an earnestness that speaks volumes about his evolving capacity for affection.

possible instances of this might be: playing a song for you on his fiddle, laying his coat on your shoulders when he notices that you’re cold, the very act of noticing that you’re cold in the first place, sharing food despite his evident lack of it …

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ in addition to this, eventually though, Stone might make a twirling display of your relationship, a culmination of all his efforts and growth. it could be a heartfelt confession or an action that signifies his commitment and deepened feelings deeply personal to just u and him !! even if it’s not a grand public display, but it will be incredibly intimate and reflective of his journey from reluctance to open-heartedness 💕 allowing ur imagination to run wild for this one, u take it from here !!

♡ ♡ ⸝⸝ following this revelation, stone’s growth would continue to manifest in subtler, yet significant ways. his once-stiff demeanor may give way to a more fluid, expressive engagement with you— an ongoing journey of balancing his innate reticence with his deepening affection. each shared moment, every moment spent with your quiet companionship, becomes a testament to the unique bond you’ve cultivated together, rare and precious as your relationship further progresses. look at you two, how cute !!

that’s all i can offer at the moment !! for now, i wish you two all the best, lovers ♡

⊹ ࣪ ˖

OKAY WOW I DID NOT PLAN IT ON BEING THIS LONG but erm all my fics are never intended to and yet !! BUT ANYWAY woaghg first x reader fic since like, 2016 or something !! have honestly never done anything like this before, so i hope this does just fine :)) skipp and vinnie are next BTW !! i totallyyy want to do one of these for each character in ramshackle !! then deliberating on taking requests bUT ANYWAY thank you for reading my work !! no matter how silly haha i really appreciate it :)) BUT MOST OF ALL THIS ALL FOR ANOMALYYYY THE BIG BROTHER EVER !! looking back at you like THIS !!

#fictional indulgence; fanfictions ⋅˚₊‧ 𐙚 ‧₊˚ ⋅#ramshackle x reader #ramshackle stone x reader #YIPPE ALL FOR YOUUU ANOMALY ILY /fam

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penvisions · 4 months ago

Text

of beskar and kyber {chapter 21}

Pairing: Din Djarin x Force Sensitive! Reader (the Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader) ; brief OMC x Reader

Summary: Memories and feelings overwhelm you, conversations need to be had about how things crumbled between you and Din, but the wedding is only a few days away and a plan of escape needs to be made despite it all.

Word Count: 8.6k

Warnings: canon typical language, canon typical violence, noncon touching and physical affection, reader initiates sexual advances even if she does not want to, reader is complicit in an uncomfortable situation, sexual situations, adult content, talk of past arguments, talk of past miscommunication, din raises his voice one (1) time, argumentative language, inner musings of reader, mentions of past heartbreak and pain, reader is being held captive against her will, talk of self-harm, references to past self-harm, mentions of IV ports and shots, deadly poison, talks of injuring / killing people, um i think those are all the major ones?

A/N: been struggling with inspiration lately, this fic means so much to me and i didn't want to force the writing when it wasn't working. but here's the next chapter and i hope it holds up to the rest of the fic. we do get a pretty big moment in this one though, so i hope that makes up for the absurd amount of angst

ao3 link || series masterlist || main masterlist || ko-fi

His voice is low, reverent as he asks if you’re okay, only for another current to overtake your body. The harsh sound of the pain stealing the words away from you as your voice distorts into something sharp and loud. It’s too much, you think, too strong a sensation for your already weak mind and body, for all the months of stress and manipulation. Convulsions shake you in his hold, his large hands cradling you close and trying to take what he could from you.

The power of the Force flares, trying to combat the currents, and you feel completely helpless as you try to fight something that seems to be happening in the very synapses of your brain. And then it’s waning, as suddenly as it had begun, the only evidence of the storm raging inside your body is the one that mirrors the intensity outside in the howling of wind, of too many lightning strikes, of booming thunder and pouring rain.

You’re barely able to get half-breaths in, panting at too high a staccato to really ease the dizziness setting in as you pry your eyes open and see Din staring down at you with his brows furrowed. Maker, his eyes are so beautiful and his shaky chuckle tells you the words had managed to slip from your trembling lips.

He whispers your name, calling you back to him as your focus blurs and your eyes begin to slip closed again.

“She…put something…in me.” You try to explain your scattered thoughts, the memories of the last time you had been in the same room with him knowing it was him trying their best to resurface. But you push them down as each interaction since then vies for your attention, and it hurts to think he had been beside you this whole time and you hadn’t the faintest clue. The man who you felt so connected to had been at your side, waiting, helping, learning how to interact with the version of yourself that feels so flat all of sudden for all that you hadn’t been able to recall. The emotions of the past few months dousing you tenfold, assaulting your nerves and capacity to handle the realization. “She’s…she’s controlling the currents…somehow.”

“I’ll fix it,” His voice is low, noticing how each deafening clap of thunder is making you wince, like it had so long ago back on Tatooine. “I’ve been trying…I’ll make it right, mesh’la, I swear to you.”

“O-okay,” Is all you can manage before you feel consciousness slip from you, drained from those few moments of pure clarity and everything that had come with it. You’re reaching up a shaking hand, caressing your fingers along the side of his face. His eyes flutter shut at the first touch to his furrowed brow, his breath hitching as they gently glide trail over his eyelids. His skin is warm to the touch, even though the fabric of his mask and cowl you know is beneath as you lay your palm on the side of his face, attempting to cup the glimpse of him he’s allowing you to see.

“Din, I’m…I’m so tired.”

“I know, mesh’la, but you’ve been so strong, you’ve been so unbelievably strong. I’m so proud of you for remembering, you did such a good job, mesh’la.”

“Ad’ika, is he…where…can we…?” But you never get to finish your sentence as another current strikes through you, making your hand fall from his face and your consciousness slip from you completely.

Footsteps are loud as they race through the palace hallways, heard over the rain pelting down from the angry sky. Din is running as fast as he can, being mindful of the unconscious form of you in his arms. He has to get you somewhere safe, he has to get you to the quarters he shares with Cara. He uses all of his senses to try and ensure no one catches a glimpse of either of you as he enters the quiet servant’s quarters.

Cara isn’t asleep when he carefully opens the door and she jumps up from where she had been sitting atop her bed with a halo net tablet in her lap. The volume was low on the video she had been watching, a map of the city of Maldovan disappearing as she presses it off and throws it onto the blanket. She’s up and watching silently as Din carefully lays your unconscious form down on his own cot. He’s so careful, so tender as he pulls the blanket up around your body, ensuring the flowing nightgown you were in, lined with lace and silk, is covering you up.

“Mando…”

“She remembered. She was running down the hall and collapsed, something…some kind of current was assaulting her. But she remembered.”

He trails bare fingers over the track marks in your arm from where you had been injected, a line hooked up to you obvious in the indented line it left along your inner forearm, the port still in place and clamped shut by a piece of plastic. There’s a mark on your neck that concerns him, a tear in your skin that hadn’t healed yet though he smells the bacta thick on your skin.

He’s not talking, not explaining further, too enamored with having you back beside him, he’s sitting on the edge of the cot and leaning over you. His breathing is even despite how hard his heart is beating in his ribcage.

“She remembered.”

“That’s…that’s great, but we’ve got to get her back to the infirmary wing. If her mother or the prince go in the morning, and she’s gone…they’ll trace her down until they find her.”

“Just…a moment, just give me a moment.” He doesn’t voice his pleading, but it’s the closest he had been to you in months, the time apart as he searched for you, the time we was nearby but still just a stranger to you as he tried to help cultivate a rapport with you. He can’t help keep the vulnerability out of his voice as his eyes rove over your unconscious face. Cara remains quiet, knowing that this means so much to him. She keeps her steps quiet as she goes into the common room for the quarters.

An hour goes by and you begin to rouse, your eyes flutter open slowly and the first thing realize is that you’re laying down in a small bed. But it isn’t the one in the infirmary you had fallen asleep in, it’s one in a room you don’t recognize. There’s a shadowed form hovering close and you feel panic spike, before you see brown eyes glittering in the dim light of the lantern on the bedside table.

“It’s just me, mesh’la.” Din’s voice is deep, unmodulated and smooth. It’s jarring, to hear it so close, to feel his bare hands tracing up and down your arms again. It feels so good to be by his side, to know who he is once again, but your heart is heavy, and your head is swimming.

“Din…”

“We can’t just run, the prince would send endless hunters after you until you were returned to him. Your mother too, would stop at nothing to keep you under her control.” His words are true, you know in the very core of them both, they are children who wish to not lose what it theirs. They would stop at nothing to have you under their control should you slip away or disappear from the palace. They would surely target Din once again, track him down, rightfully thinking you returned to him or he came and stole you away. He had been here, for nearly two months now, beside them without them knowing. He had…he had removed his armor, his helmet to be by your side without suspicion. He had given up part of his identity to ensure your safety in the midst of a den where you were surrounded by nothing but striking snakes and constricting regulations.

But the thought of spending one more second within the stone walls of the palace, within the large, imposing walls of the palace grounds. One more insipid conversation about details of a wedding you did not want even when you could not recall who you were, one more touch of your mother’s hands to your skin, you couldn’t bare the thought. It made your stomach roil, nausea rising and you take in a deep breath to keep it at bay.

“We didn’t before, we were worried about you lashing out, of running from us because you didn’t know who we were or believe us.” You see the struggle reflected in his eyes, their glittering brown in the dim light, the way he’s keeping them on you so intently. You feel your stomach flutter, his eyes. You’re looking into his eyes, the eyes of the man who you had never anticipated feeling so intensely for in the way that you do. That he returns, despite the circumstances of your connection of your lives.

You feel so strongly for him and your fingers itch to reach for him. To caress the exposed part of his face and find out if it’s as soft as it looks despite the wrinkles you see set into his skin. If the hairs of his brow are soft to the touch, would he even let you run your fingers over them? You don’t deliberate long as you watch your hand cup the side of his face. His eyes flutter close, and he leans into the touch, the fabric of his mask like liquid against your palm. Holding your breath, bottom lip between your teeth, you raise your hand and trace the tip of your pointer finger over the arch of his brow, first one and then the other.

The moment is still, everything in the room fading around you as you focus on the man in front of you.

His hair is soft, his skin is soft. He’s as still as a statue but he’s not as stoic. His brows furrow and give away his trepidation and worry as you greedily take in every detail of the exposed part of his face. A crease forms in his forehead as he keeps his eyes closed, long dark lashes fanning out over the barest top of his cheeks revealed for your eyes to see. The outline of his nose is just below and you lean in to press your lips to it without thinking, as if you’re allowed to.

“We’ve dealt with it before…with ad’ika.” You lean back a little, propped up slightly, but at the flare of pain in your temples, you’re leaning back onto the pillows with a small gasp. He’s standing suddenly, his hands coming up to cup your face, his eyes focused on your own as you try to keep them open. “Where-?”

“He’s safe, he’s with Cara. You’ll see him soon enough, I promise.” You weren’t sure if you were ready to see him, if you were completely honest with yourself. The small child would be all you needed to give into the urge to run, your instincts telling you that he didn’t need to be anywhere near the people who were doing this to you, because they could do the same to him. Endless threats hidden in the shadows of your life growing and expanding, looming over not just you but the child and Din as well.

Your words feel flat, the sentiment behind them lost in the worries that plague you, that had become a reality once again. He was right, just disappearing wouldn’t resolve the situation, it would only amp it up to a degree in which would rain down continuously on your little trio.

Turning your face into his palm more, you feel warmth bloom in your chest. His skin is so soft, the middle of his palm especially, while the pointer and middle fingers of each are a little more callous from years of triggers and weapons. His hooded eyes are wide, holding so much emotion as he looks down at you, brows furrowed and small wrinkles taking on shadows in the dim light. He looks so vulnerable, so unlike the demeanor he puts on underneath the helmet. You see the movement of his lips beneath the fabric of his mask, faintly, the barely there motion telling you that he has his cowl securely in place underneath it.

“I don’t want to have to worry every time we land on a new planet, take a new job and think that it’s a trap, feel…fear that you’ll walk down the boarding ramp and I’d never get to see you again. Should you want to travel with me, with us still. I would do it, if you wanted to just go now…but mesh’la, I don’t want that for you. To be constantly on the lookout like you’ve been your whole life. You deserve to be free, truly free.”

You’re quiet, reaching for his hand and tangling your fingers with his. You see his eyes close, the deep breath he takes as his chest expands beneath the black flowing robes he dons. He’s sitting back down on the edge of the cot, his body angled toward you as he leans forward to touch his forehead to yours.

The door is opening and Cara is peeking in with a hardened expression. Her own flowing robes are a cerulean blue, complimenting the light tone of her skin. Pulling the dusting of pink over her cheeks and of her lips. You recall the pull you had felt toward her, days before.

“Guards just got sent out on a search, I think someone got paranoid with the storm. They’re sure to check the infirmary during their sweep to secure the palace.” She’s trying her best to keep on a hard gaze, but her eyes soften and her lips twitch when your eyes meet hers. “It’s so good to see you again, cya’rika.”

“We can say I asked you to walk me to the greenhouse room to watch the storm, I did that…when I was first here quite a bit, it’s believable I would stray away once again.” Din is helping you to sit up, the sleeve of your sleeping gown falling at the action but his bare fingers are fixing it back into place. You feel embarrassment flare, recalling the way you had nearly screamed at him, accused him of wanting you all to yourself after that incident in the bathhouse.

He's strong but gentle as he helps you to stand, your legs are weak but thankfully not aching or sore from whatever your mother had ordered done to you this latest visit to the infirmary. Your head throbs with the shift, hand flying up to rub at your temples.

“Just…really quick, are there…marks in my forehead or anything here?”

Din is quick to step in front of you, an arm around your middle to help keep you balanced. His eyes, scan your face, the skin above and around your eyes that you motion to, keeping rubbing at.

“Mesh’la, I don’t see anything. But they could’ve used bacta or surgery to cover what they did, you said that you felt like she put something in you?” He’s gently tracing over your face with the pads of his fingertips, searching for anything that could indicate work being done or implants being put in. But there’s nothing; no protrusions, no bruising, no marks of bacta patches being removed, nor scalpels having touched you.

“My head just…it keeps throbbing, the thunder and lighting- it kept almost coursing through me. A current of energy, nothing like the Force. More like…electricity.”

“I’ll look over the records tomorrow, once things calm down, I promise you.”

When you approach the door, you’re shifting on your feet to balance a bit better before you throw your arms around the woman’s shoulders, stunning her. Her arms slowly come up around you to return the embrace. Her body flush against yours and making you feel a little better about having to return to your role of the obedient wife-to-be and daughter.

“Thank you, for helping me.”

“Anything for you, you know that.”

The hallways are quiet despite lights that had been turned on outside to illuminate the grounds. Thunder and lightning still flashing over the sky. Din is silent beside you, a hand on the small of your back and one of his outer robes draped over your shoulders to help cover you up. The sleeping gown and bare feet might be a bit of a giveaway that you had quite literally run from the infirmary, but your lie of wanting to watch the storm would work.

There’s a tension between you now, as you walk alone down the halls, unasked questions and worries about how this is all going to play out from this moment on. If…if you were to return to the Razor Crest with Din and ad’ika. If you were going to be…together in the way you two had begun to speak of and express to each other. You can almost sense the questions forming on his tongue, pushing against his teeth as he remains quiet. You’re sure he can sense the ones you have for him too.

How long did it take for him to look for you, to realize you hadn’t run off. Had he thought you ran off, had he even cared about the damage his stumbling and ill-thought-out words had caused. Did he come to save you out of some obligation to your freedom, a verbal promise made all those months ago now on Sorgan. Did he…did he still care about you even if he had no desire to be with you the way you had made it obvious you wanted to be with him. It was all so much, too much, to handle in the moment.

“San-“

“Not right now, please. It’s…it’s too much right now.” You’re unable to look over at him, to see the emotions clearly in his eyes. It’s still, it still hurts a little, to know that he had removed his armor and helmet to blend into the planet’s population, into the palace. You had never wanted him to do something he did not want, even at the core of your affection and need to feel close to him. The thought of skirting his Creed, of feeling him instead of seeing him under the cover of darkness had crossed your mind. But his…rather immediate lack of words and agreement to even talk about that had made you feel far worse for speaking it when you had all those days ago now. “We can talk once this is all over. I think- I think we need to.”

“Yes, mesh’la.”

The hall that holds the infirmary, the entirety of the medical wing is only guarded by a few soldiers. The ones you had skirted around still at their posts, but the one who had left from in front of the door to your room was back in front of it. A frown on his features as you and Din round the corner and begin to approach him. The furrow of his brow and the narrowing of his eyes above a similar mask and head cover as Din sparks an idea in your mind. One you hadn’t used in a very long time because it felt far too morally grey to implement. But if the people controlling you weren’t going to play fair, then you weren’t either.

“Princess, I thought you were safely in your room.” Din visibly tenses, as he senses this interaction may not work in favor of hiding your true whereabouts. “I didn’t know you snuck out.”

“I was in my room the entire night.” You pull on the power of the Force, harnessing it and sending it over the guard with a smooth wave of an open palm across your chest.

“Of course, you were in your room the entire night.”

“You didn’t see me or Aliit this morning, returning to the infirmary.”

“Of course, Princess. I never saw you or Aliit this morning.”

“Please step aside for me.”

“Of course, Princess. Stepping aside.”

Din is pinning you with a curious look, a glint in his eyes as you both step through the door and back into the room you had been put in by your mother. Whatever she had ordered to be done to you had required around the clock supervision and check ins, at least until you had shown signs of rousing. The scent of her perfume had lingered in the room when you woke, telling you she had left just moments before.

“I’ve never done that to you, I swear.” You look to him as you sit on the side of your bed. The silk sheets cold and the beads of the tapestry above it glittering. When he nods his understanding, you turn to read the Basic inscription on the programmed screen of your intravenous line. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, just fluids to keep you hydrated and a low-grade pain preventative serum.

“Why didn’t you? When I first found you.”

“Because I was weak.” Is your simple answer. The real one heavy on your tongue as you reattach the line to the port still embedded in the crook of your right elbow. “And because you didn’t deserve your head to be messed with. You showed your true colors in saving the child. Even if you had tried to turn in him.”

“Back on Sorgan, you didn’t do it either. Even when you ran.”

“I almost did. But something…a feeling told me it would be a huge betrayal of trust. An invasion of your mind and since you did not show your face, it was an even worse offense. Mandalorian’s are pure at their core. Religion and culture a reflection of exactly that.”

He doesn’t say anything, his eyes watching as you settle into the extravagant bed. His fingers twitch and his knees creak just the slightest as he goes to take a step but second guesses it.

“I like the code name. Very on the nose.” You muse as you begin to pull the covers atop the bed back. A crack of your own knees and a throb of your temple cause you to slowly settle in the sheets and pull them over your body.

“Native language seemed best, to help with your memory.”

“Smart.” You offer him a small smile, feeling warmth in your cheeks as you realize how self-conscious you’re beginning to feel around him the longer you’re both alone. It’s far different from before, when there was an understanding. But now…now you just feel completely and utterly self-conscious and all too aware of his denial of your advances. It didn’t seem to matter that he had scoured the galaxy for you, came to your side as soon as he undoubtedly could and had stuck by you even when you couldn’t recall who he was. There was something passing between you, unspoken and far too fragile to begin to dissect.

“I’ll see you tonight, Aliit.” Leaning back, you feel the material of his cloak bunch around you. Leaning up, you’re unfastening it from around your collarbone but one of his hands rests over yours to stop you.

“Keep it.” He’s leaning down over the bed, his warm forehead touching yours and that same flutter erupts in your middle. Your eyes flutter shut, unable to meet his gaze and when you open them back up he’s gone from the room completely. Snuggling down further into the blankets, you can’t help but take a deep breath of the bunched up fabric and a small smile pulls at your lips as the familiar scent of him calming your frazzled nerves.

“Darling, it’s time to wake up now.” The cloyingly sweet voice and scent of your mother is hovering over you, the weight of her body pressed against your side causing your breath to rush in and your eyes to fly open. Body tensing at the feeling of someone beside you, of being trapped underneath the covers that laid over your body. “Oh, oh, oh, it’s okay. It’s just me.”

Glancing around, you notice that you’re no longer in the infirmary but the gilded cage of a cell. The bars are thick only a few feet from the edge of the bed, pushed to the center of the wall that backs the space.

You can hear the faint hum of electricity despite there being no obvious source for it down in this dim basement of a floor. Most likely from a programmed door shielding you away doubly so from the little freedom you had when your memories were suppressed. But you had them, them and the power of the Force. You spy the slight curve of the wall just outside the bars, a staircase leading up rather steeply.

Hands are smoothing your hair, caressing your arms. And you turn to see your mother watching you, a glint of something in her dark eyes.

“I had to protect you, there was a scare late last night of intruders. One of the New Republic politicians was sure he spotted two people running about the palace hallways. You’re safe down here, my love.”

“But mother-“

“No arguments. Your safety is the most important thing, especially after that little fit you had the other day. I bet you don’t even recall having one, do you?”

You don’t, because you hadn’t had a fit. You had forced her hands off of you, power surging through your hands as you guided it to your advantage. But Din’s words, Cara’s reassurances that they had been doing everything in their power to prevent the routine use of the mind flayer to eradicate your memories and keep you in the dark. You feel a flash of fear should they have not been able to track you down, how much of yourself would you have lost, how much was still lost at the hands of your mother.

No, mother. I hope I didn’t hurt you,” You feign innocence, playing into the palm of her hand the way she expects you to. You have no idea what she did to you for the currents of shocking electricity to assault your body, but it hadn’t happened since last night when the storm was raging outside.

“No, my love, you didn’t.” She’s kissing your forehead as she stands, hovering over you as she fusses with the covers, ensuring you’re completely tucked in. Her hands are wringing together in front of her as you go to sit up, but the motion is halted by the clanging of metal and a weight around all four of your limbs.

Cuffs. You were cuffed to the bed by short chains, attached to the wrought iron foot and head rests of the bedframe.

“It’s for your own safety, please understand. I don’t want you fussing about in your sleep or hurting yourself by moving around too much. Please don’t be upset with me, my darling.” You don’t even get to respond before you feel the prick of a needle in your arm, too distracted by the cuffs. You should’ve known, you had been to unawares around her despite the history, despite the game she played, the dirty moves she made. The easy way she did it over and over again, You hadn’t even noticed anywhere on her body for her to hide the syringe, she’s dressed in her simple sleep clothes.

“Mother-“

“Shh, it’s okay, my love. Everything is going to be okay. It’s just until the festivities of the marriage, and then you’ll be free to move about the palace once again. I swear to you.” The back of her hand is soft as it traces the curve of your cheek.

“Mesh’la…I have an idea but it’s going to have to be set up for the last possible minute before the ceremony.” Din’s voice jostles as he takes the steps descending into your new ‘room’, his boots silent on the stone that makes them up. His robes billow out behind him, his head cover and mask securely in place. You don’t doubt he had known where you were moved to the second it had happened, the access card needed to open the door atop the stairs already swiped from someone. The guard surely relieved of their post in a ruse of him taking over.

You had roused from the dose of sedative just hours ago, the effects of it not seeming to last as long as the previous one. Whatever the reason, you were glad. The time alone down here allowing for your to click the locks of the cuff open and explore the space in relative peace. There was no easy way for anyone to escape, but you weren’t just anyone. You had the Force on your side and a few flicks of your wrist would promise your freedom. If only it were that simple.

“Consummation occurs the night before the ceremony, it’s Maldovan tradition. That would be too late, I…I haven’t had to lay with him yet and I…I don’t-“ The words tumble from you, the thought of laying with someone against your will again unsettling in your stomach, churning it up into unpleasant waves.

“I promise you that will not happen.” There’s an edge to his velvet voice, weight that grounds you even as the glaring nature of the conversation is not lost on either of you. He doesn’t ask about the time you have spent with the prince after dark nor do you supply an answer for him.

Cara’s form appears at the top of the stairs just as Din stands in front of the thick bars and you’re grateful for her presence. Being alone with Din feels tumultuous. Too many words on the tip of your tongue, on his.

“I want to use poison, something native to this world. But…”

“But what?” Din is looking between you both, his eyes sparkling in the light from the lanterns along the wall, the rays of the sun that sneak down the steps that lead down into your new cage.

“She’d have to take it too, to really sell the political angle. It would be seen as a disagreement with the union should the prince, the soon to be princess, and her mother all be poisoned the night of the first traditional ceremony.” Cara explains, hoping the extent of what needs to be done is understood, is taken with great caution and thought. She wants you to be on board with whatever decision is made, whatever plan is decided on. You would be the one to take great risk to your wellbeing in order to get your freedom back. You’re the one who would have to make it seem as if you had nothing to do with the murder of your own mother and the prince.

“I would need to take enough for the effects to show, for it to be recorded. I would need to be found at the scene…in the same bed as the prince, in his quarters. My mother, it wouldn’t matter much where she was found but she keeps to herself during the evening after dinner.”

“We can slip it into the glasses of wine served at dinner.” Cara suggests, though you and Din both shake your head. It’s too open-ended. The glass could get served to someone else, could get spilled, could heighten the effects of the poison or dull them alternatively. It was too risky, too many factors that could go wrong with extra servants, cooks, and guests. Too many hands it would have to go through before it landed in the one’s of its intended target.

“That’s too risky. San could overdose that way, intake just enough to make it harder to reserve the effects.”

“I could administer it to Cala, just before anything happens and then take it myself. One of you could slip it into my mother’s evening tea.”

“I’ll do it.” Cara volunteers, knowing that should Din be left alone with your mother, the potential for emotions would be a concern. Even if the goal is to kill her, the thought is to do it quietly. One wrong or derogatory word from her and the plan could be ruined. He was a professional, but he was also human, especially where you were concerned.

“No…I want, I want Din to do it. I would just…I would feel better knowing he’s as far away from me and Cala should he insist something were to happen and I can’t-“

“You’re to use a blade, we’ll ensure the poison is bonded to the blade. No chance of it not taking that way. Either the poison will take him out or the blade will.”

“The same should be done for your mother then too.”

“It’s a backup plan and cathartic relief all in one.” Huffing, you feel the effects of the last dose of sedative begin to wane, your head feels a little more clear, your mind a little more sharp. “But then I’d need to stab myself too, for it to all be cohesive.”

Din is watching you closely, his eyes trailing over your legs hidden beneath layers of sheer tulle and silk, picturing clearly the scars of blades you had dug into your skin before. He doesn’t mention them and you shake your head ever so slightly to get him to shift his heavy gaze. You know he knows they’re there, but you don’t want to talk about them. To reveal how close you had been to ending your life before, the thoughts of Akiz banishing the notion, of making you feel ashamed for it even crossing your mind. He had sacrificed his life to ensure yours, and you wouldn’t betray him in that way, betray his memory.

“No blades.” Din crosses his arms, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his robes. His mass is…impressive even without the armor. He’s tall, he’s broad, he’s every bit of Din as he is when he’s hidden underneath the armor. Though you can sense that he feels exposed and not just physically. His hands keep resting on the tops of his thighs, as if holding fast to a blaster that is no longer holstered there. He keeps his steps even, as if he is still not used to being without the great weight of his beskar, of the weapons he’s normally laden down with. His brows raise with his questions, which makes you wonder if he’s even aware he’s doing it. Or the furrowing of them if he doesn’t agree or like a statement.

“It’s the most convincing way, even if I’m not too fond of digging a blade into my torso.”

“You’ll bleed out before they find you in the morning.” He’s firm with his words, his body language displaying every bit of strength his armor does, even as it sits in a protected trunk somewhere else.

“Just the poison then. I can track some down in the market after dark, I’m sure it won’t be too hard a task.”

“Just the poison then.” You agree, unable to tear your gaze away as his eyes bore into your own. “Cara, instruct the kitchen to get truffles from one of the higher end places in the tourism sector. We can inject it into those. Cala favors dark chocolate and walnut.”

“Copy that. I’ll go do that to ensure they have them in time.”

“Thank you. Oh, and perhaps just a small trio of white chocolate and fruit ones. So we know which one is for me and which ones are for him.”

As soon as she’s gone, you’re alone with Din once again. Tension siphoning into the air as her footsteps sound on the stone ground and up the tall stairs that lead up to the main level of the palace.

“He makes me feed them to him, when he requests me in the evenings.” You whisper into the silence, unable to handle the way it’s no longer comfortable between you two. But how could it, with you back in a cage, no matter how gilded and extravagant, and him on the other side looking between the bars that hold an electric charge. It’s rather basic, the high tech, sleek look of so much technology at a cultural clash with the desert planet who pays homage to simpler architecture and aesthetics.

“He doesn’t ever touch me, it’s as if he’s afraid to.”

“But he does order you to remain until late.”

“Yes, his requests are…personal.”

“Stop.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say. You’re not saying anything and I see your eyes trained on me. It’s- it’s more intense than the visor. I’m sorry.” Looking down, you stare at your hands in your lap, the way they tremble slightly. Body stressed and mind restless. The roundabout mention of his missing armor and helmet the only thing you could think of to change the subject without asking directly. The feeling of being seen, of being perceived is too intense, Maker, his eyes are looking at you, watching you, reading you. The thought of them behind the darkness of his visor a little less intimidating, but it’s gone now.

“I removed it, yes.”

“You shouldn’t have, if you didn’t want to.”

“I had to.”

“Oh. That makes sense, to get onto the planet, I saw the wanted posters for you depicting the beskar.”

“I had to, but…I also wanted to.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t believe me?” He doesn’t sound mad or upset, no disbelief in his tone. It’s as flat as your own, the words to heavy to implement emotion into them. They carry entire conversations in them, entire sets of intention, of arguments, of resolve.

“It’s not my place.” You mumble, not wanting to close in on yourself but it’s happening anyway. Mind protecting you against the vulnerability of the conversation, of the way the words had been stuck in your ribs since the moment you realized you had asked for too much.

“San-“

“You know the Creed. I know the Creed. How you choose to follow it is not my place. It’s a very personal thing for each individual. You practice, I do not. It’s not my place to question or think on the reasons why you chose to do things regarding it.”

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“Forget it-“

“I can’t! I can’t just forget it, any of it! The look on your face, the hurt and disappointment, it will haunt me until my last breath!” His words are booming, catching you completely off guard and you flinch, pain searing across your forehead and down the back of your neck. But you freeze once it passes, aware of the heat of his gaze locked on you.

“Apologies, I didn’t mean-“ Breaking his gaze, you look down to the stone tiles of the ground. The lines separating them dance back and forth as your vision swims, as your mind tilts and you feel your center of gravity suddenly gone. Your knees knock into each other as you reach out for something to grab onto, but you’re down among the dancing lines before you can even take a breath to try and recenter yourself.

“Gev bic! Si gev bic, San! Bic ru'banar te ara bic ru'banar. Vi linibar at cuyir able at jorhaa'ir a bic. Ni liser't am bic bal gar liser't am bic. Jorhaa'ir be bic cuyir jaon'yc par mhi at nari bat. I am living the consequences of my actions each day and I no longer want to.”

Stop it! Just stop it, San! It happened the way it happened. We need to be able to speak about it. I can't change it and you can't change it! Talking about it is important for us to move forward.

“P-please stop yelling.” You shudder as pain ripples down your body, you feel tears well up hot and sticky behind your eyes and you blink them away as best you can as you try to get back up. His hand is there, reaching through the bars. He’s deflated, his anger gone and in it’s place is the same man who had fetched you from the shower when you collapsed, the same man who had cradled you to him when thunder shook the skies overhead, the same man who holds your heart. He’s gentle as he supports your weight, a silent buoy for you to stand on as you gather yourself. An apology, two float in the air as you remain quiet, he knows he shouldn’t have raised his voice, emotion getting the better of him. You feel the remorse coming off of him in waves, reaching and curling around you as he tries to speak again.

“Ni cuy' olar, ni kelir ratiin cuyir olar. A staabi jii, at tengaanar gar ner troan cuyir te shi kebi o'r ner kov'nyn. Ni ru'kel tengaanar gar, ru'kir gar tionir tug'yc.”

I am here. I will always be here. But right now, showing you my face is the only thing on my mind. I would show you, should you ask again.

“Ni liser't.”

I can’t.

“Vaabir gar copad at haa'taylir? Vaabir gar ganar nayc copikla?”

Do you not want to see? Do you have no desire for me any more?

“Ni vaabir, a ibac cuyir jorbe luubid.”

I do but that is not reason enough.

“Bic cuyir par ni. Tionir ni.”

It is for me. Ask me.

He’s desperate, for you to understand, for you to grasp the depth of his words. But you can’t, unable to accept that he means them with everything he is. He’s done so much for you already, he’s set you free, he’s allowed you to travel by his side, to feel joy in caring for the child, to be wholly and completely yourself in a safe and protected environment. He’s already removed his armor and shown part of his face, he’s already done so much. Continues to do so even when you had no idea who he was, he could’ve taken the situation for what it was. A fresh start, a blank slate to move on without your presence in his life. The complications and miscommunication you had parted on only a blip in his time line, but he hadn’t.

“Din, nayc.”

Din, no.

“San, tionir ni. Gedet'ye. Duumir ni dinuir ibic at gar.” His voice is barely above a whisper, a quiet plea for you to ask something of him. To allow him to give a part of himself to you, but his need for your prompting is what complicates your desire for just that. He could just remove it, of his own autonomy and desire. He could, but he never would. He needs your words, your encouragement and you would not be the reason his creed is broken, shattered after a lifetime of upholding it to every degree. Shaping the core of his very person, allowing him to develop into the man he is today, standing on the other side of the bars.

San, ask me. Please. Let me give this to you.

But the words do not follow his pleading, they get stuck in your throat. A deep sigh from him brings your eyes up, mirroring the movement of his hands up to his face. He’s unfastening the loose mask; the fabric falls to the side to reveal his cowl in place underneath. As his fingers hook into the fabric, you clench your eyes shut and bow your head.

It’s only a moment before you feel his hands reaching through the bars, cradling your face and gently guiding your face back up. His forehead gently touches yours, warm skin where there’s normally cool metal. You feel your resolve begin to thaw, the want for it to be skin each and every time you do this to replace the feeling of his helmet. But it’s a dangerous though, it’s a deadly thought.

“San, please.”

“I-I can’t, Din. I can’t do that to you.”

“You are not doing anything, mesh’la. I want to, I want to give this piece of myself to you.”

“You can’t take it back.”

“I wouldn’t want to, everything I have to give, it’s yours. San, I am yours.”

“Din, please, I don’t- I want to, so much, but I can’t.”

“Then just- let me feel you, please? Will you let me give you a kiss, mesh’la?” Your body hums, blood pumping and chest aching at the desperation in his voice, his desire to give you something, anything. Just as you’re about to breathe out your answer, a resounding ‘yes, please, of course’ you feel the press of soft, plush lips to your own. It’s chaste, it’s gentle, it’s reverent. He’s so warm, his nose bumps yours and you feel the brush of facial hair for the barest second until he’s pulling away.

“Din?” You don’t dare open your eyes, heart in your throat, fingers reaching up to wrap around his wrists. His breath is puffed out against your lips, still so close, his nose is still touching yours, his forehead pressed to yours, and you feel your weightlessness in your chest. He hums a response and you feel it more than hear it, everything shared between you both so quiet now, completely at odds with how you had just been hollering at each other. “Was that your first kiss?”

“It was always yours, mesh’la.”

You’re surging forward, the cool metal of the bars pressed against your ears as you share his second, his third, his fourth. His lips are so soft, so full as they meet yours again and again. Slick bottom lip taken between yours as you breathe deep and tighten your hold on him. Your body is alight with tingles, with the feeling of being exactly where you belonged as you feel his skin against yours. He feels like home, even as you still remain separated by metal and circumstance.

The woman looking back at you from the mirror is beautiful. She fills out the dark green silk and black lace as if it was painted on. The top revealing and the bottoms even more so. Her hair is perfectly blown out and full, waves falling delicately around her face. Everything you’ve ever wanted to look like, but yet, you can’t connect to the eyes staring back at you. Because staring back at you is a slave, a pawn in a game you don’t want to be playing. The victim of endless manipulation and conflict, someone who you swore you would never be again the second your kyber crystal glowed white after purifying it.

You lean back from the counter, your hands splayed atop the white marble of it, shoulders sagging as your head hangs between them.

“Adan.” You call out sweetly, pitching your voice a little higher than it’s normal octave. The box of truffles given to you on the counter. Your eyes rove over the gold of the box, how shiny and frivolous it looks in your hands as you reach for it and leave the privacy of the bathroom.

He’s atop the bed, leaning back onto the pile of pillows he prefers to keep even while asleep. He’s bare from the waist up, his chest and arms on display as he has them lifted behind his head. His eyes trace the curves of your body on display for him in much the same way, robe forgotten on the counter. The second you’re close enough to the side of the bed, he’s reaching for you, pulling him over his lap as a giggle sounds into the air.

“Here, taste this for me, my sweet prince.” You reach for one of the truffles from underneath the flipped top, pressing it to his full lips with a coy smile gracing your own. He’s more than happy to part them and bite into the delicacy, the outer coating melting and smearing on his bottom lip. His hands tighten on your hips, teeth nipping at your fingers as he takes the second half of the dessert into his mouth.

Another giggle sounds into the air, from deep in your chest and you can’t help the giddiness that takes over you as you reach for another one from the box. One would be enough, more than enough. But you feel anger and betrayal flare hot in your middle, consuming you from the inside out. He willingly takes a bite of the second dessert offered to him, his body beginning to move beneath you, his hands guiding your hips down into him in a suggestive motion.

“Remove your set for me, my heart.” He leans up and presses a kiss to the side of your face, to your temple, to your nose. His lips are about to connect with yours when you hear it, the rasp in his chest. The wheeze of his next breath as he leans back against the pillows. His eyes are dilated, blown wide and there is no brown in them, the brown you now associated with another man. He’s gasping, hands tightening almost painfully on your hips, fingers digging into your skin as he struggles to catch his breath.

A haunting rattling in his chest replaces air, his body tensing as it begins to realize something is horribly, terribly wrong. Nails dig into your skin, tearing the flesh and blood beads up before they loosen and fall to his sides. His chest is still expanded, his last breath fighting to keep him alive even as no more is let into his lungs. You keep your eyes open, watching the color drain from his tan complexion. Tilting your head just slightly, you swear you can hear the pops and bubbles of his lungs tearing, the flesh far too delicate and vulnerable to the poison hidden inside the truffles.

You watch as the light goes out of his eyes, as his body adjusts to the lower heart rate its adapted to try and keep things running, keep blood pumping despite the trauma occurring internally. The poison is fatal by nature, causing the lungs to burn, the heart to slow. But if only ingested in small quantities, the slowing of your heart to nearly nothing would be the only effect.

You hope the research had been accurate as you reach over for one last truffle. You hope Din had done right and only injected a half dose into the white chocolate and fruit one you had insisted on adding to the box of Cala’s preferred flavor. You hope that Din is going to be by your side when you wake as you take half of the truffle between your teeth and bite into it. You hope this will be the last thing you have to do to get your freedom back. The intention of only eating half of it seems too hopeful as a current of electricity shocks through you and the entire thing falls into your open mouth. The silent scream from the intensity of the charge sealing your fate. You try to gulp down fresh air the second it passes, the chocolate melting far too fast in the heat of your mouth. Spitting, you try to get some of it out, staining the covers as you hack and cough in panic.

Another current courses through your body and you’re keeling over, body tensing and convulsing with the intensity, consciousness gone before you land on the plush carpet of the floor.

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be-my-ally · 1 year ago

Text

The Lisa-Marie

Big Bunny + The Return Flight (in case you want to catch up!)

Warnings: 18+, exhibitionism (public rehearsal, but no-one else is watching/or sees), elvis is a panty thief for no reason other than it’s now totally canon in my head that he continually stole knickers, fingering, mentions of drug use + abuse, oral (v receiving, p mentioned), jealousy, p in v sex, the briefest mention of a gun threat, references to elvis’ ill health. this is somehow the least-bunny fun + plottiest, while also the smuttiest so uhhh enjoy the angst at the end?

Director Elvis is linked where the scene goes in the middle of this, however there have been some minor adjustments to the opening + closing paragraphs to make it fit *just right* and so they’ve been inserted here.

wc: 12k

Pls forgive me for the longest author note ever:

I went waaaay too far into attempting to make the timeline totally accurate; to the extent that I was noting down what city each night when i wasn’t even referencing them but honestly it was stressing me out so much that I gave up and removed a lot of the references - so this is *mostly* accurate in the general tour dates and vibes but not entirely because … this isn’t a biography, it’s smut with a lil teeny weeny bit of plot.

Confession time! I was and am super unhappy with The Return Flight, there was so much in it that I was excited to share but I think my writing is off and I’m not super sure why, which affected my motivation for this A LOT so apologies for the fact this took a literal months. But hopefully you’ll all think it was worth it! And hopefully a lesser wait for the fourth and final part.

Anyway, I might return Elvis onto the Big Bunny plane for a little spin-off fun but for now, enjoy bunny still being referred to as Bunny even though, by half-way through this, she is no longer a bunny.

October 1974.

You’re awake before him, gently shaking his shoulder as he groaned into the fur comforter that he didn’t want to wake up yet. He eventually shoves you hard enough that you decide it’s probably safer just to leave him as he is, pulling yourself together and redressing instead - he’s still got his eyes closed when you slip out. Ten minutes later you get a note passed to you with details about where to meet them for the pre-show rehearsal but you don’t actually get the chance to see him again, too distracted with dealing with all the matters of the disembarkation and cleaning. After you’re done you change as quickly as you possibly can, ignoring the questions from the other girls about where you’re going - practically sprinting to catch a cab.

He’s already on the stage when you walk in, pacing about - blocking the show as best they can in preparation to allow for the lights crew to have some idea of where he might be at any moment. He looks marvellous - absolutely gorgeous, his hair back but essentially left to do what it likes, all fluffy and soft looking. Eyes bright underneath his tinted glasses. He’s dressed in a white shirt, cuffs like a pirate, damp see-through sweat patches evident when he raises his arms, filigree studded belt, huge against his stomach, blue stones glinting in the lights. You feel your mouth water and tummy start to flip just at the sight of him. He smiles when he sees you, with your tiny little halter dress on, chilly in the cold air of the auditorium at the venue. The breeze causes you to wrap an arm around yourself a little self-consciously as he waves you closer to the stage. You're practically leaning on the edge when he kneels down in front of you and you get a sudden flash of what it must feel like to be a girl at his concert. Someone who hadn't had the luxury of falling asleep beside him, or the feel of his palms against theirs. The feeling of being forced to look up at him, his head backlit by the lights, a halo like he's the goddamn messiah. That feeling of desperately pining for a single moment of his attention.

“Ah-ha! lil Bun-Bun! C’mon up here,” He puts an arm down before retracting it, looking you over more carefully, a note of stern shock in his tone,

“Good lord! That might be more r’vealing than your lil bunny get-up. Uh - here!” He gropes around the floor for his jacket before he thrusts it at you, and you look at it with amusement, it’s a rainbow. Rainbow fringe. It’s truly one of the most preposterous things you’ve ever seen in your life. He grumbles as he holds it out,

“Don’t need every man in here to be starin’ at you. Got work to do - don’t need ‘em bein’ distracted.” You don’t think you’re particularly scantily clad, you’re certainly showing a fair amount of leg but you’re far more covered up than Playboy enterprises would like you to be had you been on shift. But still, it was chilly, so you shrug it on gratefully. The soft leather caresses your arms, encasing you in his thick scent, it’s heavy on your shoulders and big enough that the fringe tassel tickles your thigh.

“Uh Hi, Where-“ You wonder if you should even ask, “Where’d this come from?” You shake your arms out, making the fringe dance.

“Oh - it was a gift,” He grins at you, lips all crooked in his sheer delight, “You like it?” He clearly loves it. So you lean into the absurdity and realise that what you’re about to say wasn’t even really a lie.

“Uh. You know what, yeah I do,” You giggle as you shimmy a little making the strands swing. “I love it.” He looks at you fondly before he leans over the edge of the stage, tugging you up with a grunt.

“Glad you could make it doll, been waiting for you.” You smile back at him, pleased as anything that he’s laying on the charm but that underneath you can still sense the sincerity in his voice.

“Thank you for inviting me.” He pulls you close to him and you brace yourself with a hand on his belt, feeling the weight of the buckle against your fingertips. He reaches down to grasp your hand, pulling it up to press a kiss against it. It’s intimate and gentlemanly and you feel like you’re in a period drama, feeling your chest heave as your breath catches in your throat at the movement, and you’re helpless to do anything but gaze into his eyes. You glance down, eyes catching on the wide white band on his wrist, just above his diamond encrusted ‘Elvis’ bracelet.

You stroke his wrist gently before looking up at him with a questioning brow raised. He kicks his foot out to show you that beneath his gently flaring trousers there’s a matching white band on each of his ankles.

“It, uh, it mimics the weight of the ‘suit, gets me used to it for the performing.” He flicks a wrist, “And, uh, gotta try and get some of this weight off.” He pats his stomach, gripping the side harshly, “No-one wants to see a big doughy ol’ Elvis.” He shakes his wrists at you, and you’re mortified at the fact that it makes you squeeze your thighs, drool pooling in your mouth forcing you to swallow hard. Something about the way the rings on his fingers glint under the stage lights, the way the buckle makes the tiniest little metallic clang, feels akin to being shown a hidden sliver of skin. Makes you think all sorts of things. Of the weight of them around his wrists, of the possibility of them around yours, weighing you down, wrapped around your ankles too, making you heavy and pliable. Or his belt around your middle, the huge buckle pinning you in whatever position he chose. You don’t realise how low your eyelids have slid at this line of thinking until he laughs,

“God - you got them dirty thoughts written all over your face Bunny, this is a respectable r’hearsal, don’t you go getting any ideas now.” He wags a finger at you, you feel like you’re being hypnotised watching it.

“Go on now - hop over there for me, sit yourself down, just watch the show baby.” He slaps your ass, causing you to yelp as he catches your bare thigh, while he grips your upper arm and ‘helps’ to lower you down gently, almost missing his huff of laughter in response. You have to take a second after you're on the ground forcing a deep breath feeling your heartbeat between your thighs.

You take a seat where he’d pointed, content to try and settle down and watch him practice. It’s gorgeous to watch, he struts about the stage, breaking into gospel every now and again, making you smile at the clear little flashes of joy on his face. You’d considered if it was going to be boring, contemplated even bringing a magazine with you but now you were here you can’t imagine being able to concentrate on anything but him. Every now and again he cracks a joke, changing the lyrics to something dirty and tossing you a wink, laughing back at the boys who all join in like a pack of wild hyenas. It’s different to how he is in private, yet shockingly the same - there’s flashes of the insecurity you caught on the last flight, a quietness to him while he waits for a song to be set up or a wire to be fixed. But also an exaggerated boyishness to him, playing the jester for men who don’t seem to be aware he’s putting it on.

He calls a break after you’ve been there about an hour, and he slides himself off the stage to walk over to you. You were going to try and play it cool but you can’t stop yourself from gushing at him;

“You sound wonderful. I can’t wait to see the show tonight.” He smiles, a little bashfully,

“Yeah? I can see you wigglin’ your yittle hips from all the way over there,” He narrows his eyes at you, crinkles forming as his high cheekbones move, “ ‘just wonderful’, ‘s that all I am?”

“Well you’re not - ” You squirm a little under his line of questioning and consistent stare, suddenly feeling a bit too hot in his jacket, “- not bad to look at. You’re so different out here than on the plane.”

“In a good way?” You hum back a non-committal noise and though his brow wrinkles a little he lets it go. Instead leaning back on the chair in front of you, feet crossing between your legs. He folds his arms across his chest, your eyes track the bands on his wrists again and when you look up he’s smirking at you watching him. You can’t take it any longer and his smile grows wider watching you shrug his jacket back off, letting it hang over the back of the chair, fringe tickling your arms as it falls,

“Let’s make this more interesting for you huh, must be boring having to wait for all this - ‘n I can see you’re all fired up for me doll.” You look around, but he’s blocking your view forcing you to focus on him even more, as if he wasn’t already the only thing you could see.

“Oh no, it’s plenty fascinating enough El honestly,” He shakes his head, magnanimously as if he’s doing you a favour,

“No, no, must be boring for an exciting lil girl like you.” He taps his chin almost pantomime-esque in its overdramatic nature.

“Hmm… what shall we do to keep it entertaining.” You squirm silently begging him to stop drawing your attention to his wrists. He bends down, unstrapping the weights from his ankles,

“They’re gonna be a bit big on you. But still,” He kneels down, like he’s the prince and you’re Cinderella, tapping your foot to make you lift it up for him. He slips it onto your ankle, letting it fall down over the top of your foot as the weight drags it down. You wiggle your foot - it’s not particularly heavy, you could definitely still walk and run in them - as was probably their intended use. But they made you feel very … aware, made you notice whenever you wanted to move your leg. He grabs your right leg now, doing the same, placing it back down when he was finished, your legs wide. You glance down at him, realising that your dress was certainly too short for this. You try to close your legs but he stops you with a hand to your knee.

“No, no, darlin’, leave ‘em where they are. That’s gonna be your job ok baby? You’re gonna keep these yittle legs spread, and when you try to wiggle around again these-“ He taps one of the weights “ ‘ll remind you to keep still.” You hiss back at him,

“Elvis - someone’s gonna, you gotta get up - they’re all gonna think we’re up to no good, don’t want - I don’t wanna get you in trouble.” He grins up from between your legs, spreading them further. You cringe a little, feeling the air now brush against your uncovered underwear, feel your wetness start to drool onto the fabric despite the embarrassment.

“Ain’t gonna be no trouble ‘round here little one. ‘Member I’m in charge.” He takes a second to leer at you, and your thighs twitch at him staring straight up your skirt. Finally, he stands up, using your thighs for balance, clutching at them on his way up, you gasp at the firm grip. He leans down over you, one arm bracketed on the back of your chair, and the sudden scent of him, stronger than what was lingering on his jacket almost overpowers you - his cologne almost too much, like walking past a men’s locker room. He leans down to murmur in your ear, his other hand going down to brush against your hip, feeling through your dress for the waistband of your panties.

“C’mon Bunny slip ‘em off, let me have ‘em as a good luck charm. I haven’t got any of yours yet.” Your legs slip a little closer together and while he looks down and smirks he allows it,

“You got a collection?” You ask shocked, tilting your chin up at him, he grins back at you, boyishly and amused ignoring the question.

“C’mon! Hurry up, gotta get back to work in a second baby, want you all bare - so its nice and easy for you to slip a lil hand up there, want you to rub yerself every time you like what ‘m doin, ‘till you’re all silly with it. Okay doll?” He says it like its a totally sane request, and you have to wonder if he’s of completely sound mind. You glance around, double checking that the building is practically empty, and where there are people that they’re all preoccupied with the stage rather than glancing back at you sat in the middle of the row a few lines behind the mafia. You roll your eyes, heart going almost a little too fast, but still obediently lift your hips up to tug your panties down and off, they catch on the weight on the way down,

“No need to be shy doll, I’ve seen it all before.” He winks, as he bends down to pick them up, glancing straight up your skirt as he does. You flinch a little at the sight of them in his hand, if you’d known Elvis was gonna be taking them home you’d have put on something a little sexier, but you can’t imagine that any change could have made his face more gleeful, as he stares down at the wet spot on them before slipping them straight into his pocket.

“You ‘member what you’re meant to be doin’ now.” He whispers in your ear, pressing what would look like an otherwise fairly chaste kiss to your cheek, before sauntering back up to the stage.

You nervously fumble the hem of your dress, delicately sliding a hand up, trying not to noticeably flinch as your fingers brush over yourself. You wonder if it wouldn’t have made more sense to slip your arm down the side of the wide arm-hole of the dress, more subtle perhaps? But all you can hope is that the the way the chairs are placed in front of you obscures your actions should anyone look back. From anyone that wasn’t up high on the stage. You can practically feel his laser focus up your skirt, you’re far enough away that you’re sure he can’t see anything in detail, perhaps not even the way your slickness glistens against your skin, but just the gentle motion of your fingers teasing yourself. There’s a clang as the metal inside the cuff on your ankle knocks against the chair leg and you freeze, anxiously glancing around to check no one had heard. Elvis’ head had whirled around at the noise from where he’s been talking to someone at the side of the stage and you can see the way his face contorts into a knowing smirk.

You didn’t think you’d be into this level of wanton exhibitionism, but the sudden fear that had jumped through you had translated straight into excitement, and you could feel the pulse of arousal swirling with the butterflies in your stomach. You brush your fingers more confidently, rolling your hips with the motion, not even really aware of how much your body was moving, but simply going with it. Your eyes briefly slip closed as you rub a singular finger down your self, trying to build the anticipation, but you can’t resist moving your hand to play with your clit when your vision clears and you witness him moving about the stage - dancing, thrusting. He pauses while they reset something - the mic perhaps, or the lights, and you can feel the thrum of your climax growing; the fear of being spotted, the sheer desire for him, the feel of your feet firmly planted on the floor, weights holding them down, enough to bring you closer and closer.

He starts singing again but if someone had had a gun to your head though you wouldn’t have been able to tell them what, and as you start to move your fingers again you make eye contact with him, swallowing a moan as you watch him attempt to surreptitiously adjust himself. You should feel embarrassed, you think, but instead a sudden boldness creeps over you at the evidence of his undivided attention, and you instead spread your legs wider, your skirt riding into the little roll of your stomach, completely exposing yourself. You run your fingers against yourself, feeling them slip as you gather wetness and drag it up, reducing the friction on your clit when you finally let your finger brush over it again.

Elvis is stood still now, ostensibly staying put so they could manually hold the lights for him to sing a ballad, but in reality in the perfect position to watch you. You watch his face flush as he misses a note, watching you finally dip your finger into your practically dripping entrance. You’re made away of the weight on your feet when your legs try to jerk and your body compensates by crunching in on yourself a little. Making it startlingly obvious to anyone watching, hopefully just Elvis, what you’ve just done.

You let his voice wash over you, and your eyes close as you go to add a second finger, thumb moving to tease your clit with little circling touches. Your climax comes over you suddenly and unexpectedly, a slightly unplanned harder touch directly over your clitoris and the combination of your fingers curling inside yourself sending shockwaves down your spine and belly. You continue to touch yourself through it - dragging it out for a moment. Until you just know that if you push yourself any further you’re going to scream and you have to slow the pace, gently stroking yourself as you slowly come down from the high. Your head had fallen back and with a little effort you manage to bring it back around, shifting yourself upright as you do.

When you make eye contact he winks, mimics licking his fingers, and you look down at your own sticky pair, before following his mimed instruction. You meet his eyes again and watch him trail off mid-sentence as his chest heaves taking you in, squinting under his glasses to try and focus on your fingers leaving your mouth. You make sure for a second that you let your tongue peek out, watching him gulp in response. Before hastily rubbing your hand against your dress, thankful for the colourful pattern that hides all sin. He sets the microphone back onto its stand, slowly, deliberately. Then, he motions you to the stage, and when you make no attempt to move, fear shooting through you that you’re going to be leaving a wet patch behind, he makes the request vocal.

“C’mere Bunny, can’t see you all the way over there.” You rapidly close your legs, weights knocking against each other, and sit stock straight as several of the boy’s heads spin to look at you. Elvis breaks into song, “C’mon and be my little good luck charm.” While pointing to a spot in the front row. You swallow hard, trying to make your limbs cooperate again, but it just looks like pure defiance, and he’s frowning at you when you try to plead with your eyes.

His tone changes, “Ain’t gonna ask again honey,” You flinch as several other heads in front of you turn around to stare. You trip a little as you stand, forgetting about the extra weight on your ankles and when you look up Elvis’ smirking straight at you.

“Can take them off now baby, leave ‘em on the chair, someone’ll clean it up later.” He winks and you suck in a gasp as you do as he directed, the implication of someone having to clean up both the weights and the seat of the chair. You can feel the heat in your cheeks at the complete lack of secrecy, with your mind all muddled you don’t have the capacity to consider that the other people in the room wouldn’t understand the double entendre.

“There we are, right there Bunny,” He points at the same spot again and you gratefully stumble down there, collapsing into it. You can feel your cheeks blazing and you clasp your thighs together, trying to tell yourself to just watch Elvis and not pay any attention to how wet you still are, or the embarrassment of being ordered around in front of everyone.

You sit there primly, for the rest of the rehearsal, ignoring your newfound nakedness under your skirt - unable to draw your eyes off of his wrists, his waist, now you know how those innocuous little white bands feel. Waiting to be dismissed, sent home - although you hope that you might get another invitation. He finishes, stripping off the weights as he’s laughing and thanking the sound guys - although shouting back at them as he stalks across the stage to where you’re sat to the side of the front row.

“That interference needs to be cut by tonight, it’s messin’ with my ears, I don’t care if you have to go out and buy a whole new fucking system - just get it done.” Despite his harsh words by the time he’s kneeling in front of you he’s smiling slightly bashfully. His eyes crinkling at the edges as he mutters to you -

“Don’t know why I keep ‘em around.” He offers you his hand, pulling with his suddenly weightless feeling arms to yank you up with him, clearly overcompensating without the weight, causing you to stumble with the force of it. His arm comes around to steady your waist. He stands there, legs spread and solid, holding you to him, brushing your hair off your neck to whisper in your ear.

“Wanna come back with me, honey? C’mon baby,” He’s pleading with you, entreating you to follow him, babying tone convincing you as if you even needed encouragement. “How - How’d you feel about, I got some things we could watch, we could, could - I sure would love to tape ya, baby.” You lean back, brow furrowing as your mind runs through what he’s suggesting.

(Director Elvis + Model Bunny)

But still, after some consideration you agree, and before long you’re relaxing on the bed with him, taking in the moments of quiet before he’s got to head out into the screaming crowds, performing for the pleasure of the girls and women. He’s magnificent in the flesh, masterful in his ability to command the ultimate attention of the audience. But still, as wonderful as it is to watch him, rhinestones glinting in the stage lights, you have to admit to yourself that you much preferred him in the somewhat faux intimacy of the rehearsal.

By the time you’re all filing up the steps to the plane once more it’s night again, looking forward to a short day-break for you all after the busy past couple of days. Elvis is exhausted, and though he’s gentle with you still you can tell he’s had enough. He wearily waves to the other girls, calling you over to ask for some food before disappearing. You push the cart into where he’s ensconced himself in the bedroom to discover him in the bathroom - door open, and you can’t help but take a peek. Your eyes catch on the little pill bottles lined up on the side, the man himself shaking seemingly every bottle possible into his palm until there was a little cocktail of medication contained in his hand. He takes them with a swig of water and jumps when he makes eye contact with you in the mirror.

“Jeez honey, make a noise next time.” His tone isn’t harsh, it’s not annoyed - but it is solid, serious. You frown, the floor was carpeted but the rickety wheels of the cart still made some noise.

“Oh, uh, sorry - didn’t mean to scare you.” You laugh a little bit in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. He doesn’t respond. “Uh, I’ve got, there’s hamburgers, and sandwiches and uh-“ He’s wiping his hands on a hand towel when he comes out of the bathroom, throwing it back onto the floor behind him when they’re dry.

“S’ok Bunny, that’s good. Just-just leave it over here.” He sits on the edge of the bed, pointing to a spot within arm’s reach. He’s in the tracksuit again, out of the jumpsuit from the show, out of the the sharp outfits you were now used to seeing him in. But he still looks appealing, if not moreso now. Soft, approachable and above all else - cuddly. He’s evidently exhausted, face pale after removing the stage makeup, and he shuffles back on the bed. He’s starting to slur his words a little as he reaches for a sandwich,

“Come. Come sit here baby… come sit here with me.” He pats the side of the bed next to him as he shuffles further up. You do so and he tucks a hand into the crease of your stomach and thigh, thumb brushing in circles, a gently squeezing grip.

“Here.” He holds out a sandwich for you and you take it gratefully, “Gotta…feed you up while I got the chance.” His head is starting to slip forward as his eyes fall closed. You pat his arm, leaning over to take the parchment out of his hand. He grips your wrist, forcing you to put your sandwich down too as he slides down the bed to lie down, tugging you into him.

“S’ok El, just, just close your eyes. You did so good today.” He hums, a little pleased noise like he’s somehow not used to being praised still. He pulls you closer, arm wrapping under and around you, pulling you tight to him.

“That’s it Bunny, that’s it, just - just gonna rest my eyes for a moment, doll. Be…be ready for action in a mo’ - just, ju-“ You shush him, his eyes were fluttering closed, arm clenching around you and you felt it relax a second later as he drops off into sleep.

There’s a few more flights scheduled, but they’re busy ones - short flights with barely enough time to get the men fed and watered, let alone enjoy any other kind of extracurricular activities - there’s a hasty blowjob and an attempt for the world’s quickest round of intercourse and that’s it.

There’s a break for a little while before he cancels the next flight on Big Bunny so you only see him once more, and that time he barely acknowledges you; exhausted from a show he locks himself in the bedroom and doesn’t appear until the plane is touching down. You wave goodbye to him, a little melancholy and hating yourself for wishing that he make some grand gesture to prove it had all meant something, instead he winks at you as he leaves down the steps, whispering a

“Thanks for takin’ such good care of me, Bunny.” As he went.

That’s the last you hear from him. For little over six months you hear nothing else. You’re almost immediately thrust back into the reality of the normal world and you’re kept busy enough that he doesn’t pass through your mind too often.

Occasionally, when you see a tour announcement pop up in the tabloids, or from a fan-club membership that you totally didn’t take out in a pitiful attempt to keep up-to-date with his life, you wonder about him. About whether you were a bit of fun to flirt with, to tease, to sleep with for a couple of days - a distraction from the real life, like all the bunnies were intended to be, or if he’d meant any of what he’d said. The thing is, even if you were curious, you could never know - despite being so intimate, so close to him; had he lied? Did he help every girl through a panic attack with meditation? There no longer felt like six degrees of separation between you, no longer like you were travelling in similar circles, there now felt more like a hundred degrees; what were you supposed to do; ring the operator in Memphis and ask for Elvis’ number? Pull Hef aside on the next flight and ask him? Don’t be so ridiculous, so clingy you tell yourself, disgusted at your inability to let it go.

Time passes, as it does, and though you somehow feel like you can’t escape him, ultimately you have. Months have passed and you’re busy - being promised a promotion, training a couple of new girls and it means that you don’t get to go home for what feels like weeks.

You finally get back to your apartment, relieved to be there for at least a week, with a stack of mail waiting as tall as your arm. You take your time enjoying the peace and by the evening it feels like you can relax for the first time in a long while, glass of wine poured, comfortable little short pyjama set instead of the bunny-approved corset or dress. You’re just starting to open the first of what looks like several catalogues of clothes you’ll never get a chance to wear when the phone rings.

You glance over at the clock, surprised that anyone would be calling you at half eleven at night, when as far as you’re aware none of your friends or family even know you’re home yet. You consider not answering, too content with your night, but it rings insistently so you drag the handset closer, accepting the call.

“Fuckin’ finally,” You’re immediately taken aback by the annoyed exasperation of the voice on the other end of the line,

“Where’ve you been?” You start to protest, to question who on earth is questioning you and explain that you’ve been working but the voice doesn’t give you the chance.

“Listen, Boss’ got a new plane, he’s uh, calling it the Lisa-Marie,” he shouts to someone on his end, “I don’t know man, thought it would sweeten the deal if she knew he’d already named it! Like - ain’t that what you’re supposed to do if you’re negotiatin’ - let ‘em know you have a name?” Right. So, Elvis. Someone is calling about Elvis’ plane. You’re trying to comprehend that when he continues,

“Sorry. Anyway, he wants you on it. He won’t hear otherwise.” He pauses, “Permanently. On call whenever and wherever he needs to fly,” As if he can sense this isn’t the most attractive prospect, “but you’ll uh, all expenses paid for, apartment in Memphis, the whole shebang, you’ll be well taken care of.” You take a second to process that,

“Uh, I don’t quite know what to say - do, do you need to know right away?” He chuckles down the phone at you,

“Well - uh, no, but, he’s goin’ on tour soon and we need the flights staffed by then so….” He trails off, and you know from your limited experience with Elvis and his methods that this means, actually yes, we do need to know right now, and we’re not actually giving you a choice. You take a deep breath, still confused as to why you’re getting this call out of the blue, thinking that you’re going to regret it if you do, regret it if you don’t.

“Oh, uh, ok fine - look I’ll be at one of the offices tomorrow; I’ll give you a call and you can fax me over the information for the dates and things?”

“No need, we need you by July.” You pause, that’s… barely a month away,

“Ok, I’ve got a three week notice period though, I can’t just -”

“We’ll take care of it with Hugh direct.” You laugh incredulously - is that how they think it works?

“Hugh Hefner isn’t my boss - how high up do you think I am? I’m a jet bunny for god's sake.” There’s silence on the other end of the line as if they'd expected you to feel cowed, or awed by their famous friend. You can hear them whispering before the voice returns, just as confident as before;

“Well, we’ll take care of it.” You frown but you’re not sure what else to do but agree - at least this way of something falls through you can claim you had no clue about any of this.

“Ok, but you’ll have to ask for Ellen at the office and I’ve got a notice of -“ You’re cut off by him,

“We’ll make it happen.” Well, you couldn’t say more than what you’d said - you’ll just have to hope they do enough that it all gets sorted somehow, and without totally burning all your bridges.

“Right, well then, -”

“Tickets for your flight on the 26th June to Memphis will be waiting at the airport. Someone’ll pick you up there.”

“Uh ok, um, well then that’s -”

“Thanks again, you’re a doll, bye!” The phone hangs up and you’re left holding the receiver wondering what on earth you’ve just agreed to.

——

It turns out you’ve agreed to a stewardess job pretty similar to any other. You’ve got a cute new little uniform, and it was indeed little, sleeveless and hem skimming the middle of your thighs but Elvis had indeed fulfilled his promise - it was stretchy. With a scarf around your neck and tall boots it almost didn’t feel much different to your bunny outfits. In fact it all would have felt quite similar if it weren’t for the sudden increase in responsibility you were facing. There was another girl who worked on board here and there, but whether as a cost-saving measure (although you couldn’t fathom the necessity considering the gold sinks on the plane) or simply the knowledge that one stewardess and the pilots were enough for a plane of this size you weren’t often put on the plane together. It meant that you were often working alone and solely responsible for the cabin. It was certainly an adjustment, you’d been safety trained before - of course - but you’d never really had to use it; the focus of your jet bunny role had pretty much been to cater to the whims of the people on board. Like a Barbie doll you’d had too many jobs to count, and the responsibility to look good while doing so. On the plane you’d had to be waitresses, dancers, chefs and bartenders but less so a safety officer.

And it’s so strange, you’d not been expecting much but you had been anticipating at least an acknowledgement, or something? But instead on the first flight Elvis collapses in a seat, clearly out of his mind and ignores you completely, There’s this, somewhat odd, hierarchy evident and you somehow just know that you shouldn’t approach him like this - trusting that his needs are being catered for by his entourage. But you can’t help but glance over at him, inspecting that he looks paler than before - almost sallow-like in comparison to the fit tan of the first time you’d seen him in the flesh. So you do your job, and see them on and off the plane with nary a word exchanged between the two of you.

You fall into this habit pretty quickly, flight after flight. When he’s awake his eyes skim over you, unfocused and never stopping for long. You hate yourself for how upset it makes you, he hadn’t owed you anything and yet you still feel like you’d signed up for something under false pretences. It keeps you up at night, wondering how you could have been so stupid - you’d given up a stable salary, a life and an exciting one at that, for this - for him. With every month that passes you’re more and more aware that you’re creeping towards your next birthday and the chance to return to Playboy in any capacity is dwindling. They aren’t shy about declaring there’s an age limit. You feel like you’re trapped, in a never-ending cycle - flight, sort the plane while they’re at a concert, flight, fitful sleep in a hotel, flight, flight, flight.

But then, like magic, two weeks before your birthday - two weeks before the deadline you’d come up with in your head to quit he notices you. He’d been looking better for a few days, on an upward swing or so it would seem, and seems significantly more aware than he had been. He almost does a double-take, as if seeing you for the first time. It’s then that, suddenly, Georgia - the other girl, starts to come on board with you a lot more frequently - taking care of the other guys while Elvis not so surreptitiously pulls you into his excessively decorated bedroom.

It’s not the first time you’ve been in there, you clean the damn place after all, but it’s the first time that you’re able to look at it with fresh eyes, through the lens of the awe of a girl being invited back there as a guest. You feel the bend of the fibres of the plush carpet underfoot, against the smooth sole of your boot.

He sits down, patting his thigh, “Give me your lil footsie baby, them little footsie sooties, put ‘em up here.” You look at him slightly askance, fondly, but still do as he asks, putting first one foot up on his lap, letting him unzip your boot, tugging it off and then your other one when he taps your ankle. He looks up at you, as he holds onto your foot, and you know you’re both getting flashbacks to that first flight, when he’d tugged your heels off, got caught in your pantyhose, the joy of that first time. He grips your wrist, forcing you to kneel onto and then shuffle across the bed as he tugs you while sliding back himself. Pulling you're both placed far enough to the headboard that he sinks down into a lying position and drags you down with him.

“Elvis - I, I, I don’t know what -“

“Shhh baby, don’t worry about anything, just, just feel it with me - you feel that?” He shifts to hold your hand, “Feel that energy? ‘S right between us darlin’ girl, right there.” You’re not really sure what he’s talking about, but you had been feeling the thrum of a connection, willing him to pick up on your silent desires, so you can’t deny a strength of feeling there.

“I feel it.” He hums at you, happily, still holding onto your hand, threading his fingers through yours and pressing his nose against your cheek. He nuzzles at you for a moment, starting off gentle and slow, before rolling you into him and catching your mouth with his. He’s sure of himself, pressing himself skilfully against you - you’re more than aware that this is a skill he’s nurtured, learnt - been judged upon, almost as much as his singing and it shows, it feels no different to the first time you’d kissed. A masterclass in the right moves, just the right amount of bite, just the right amount of tongue, and it makes you buck into him. You’re suddenly desperate for him to break out of the cultured practiced mould, feel him lose control and slip. You gasp, trying to provoke it in him, biting down on his lip a fraction too hard. He shifts his grip to your neck, clutching it to pull you back a little,

“Careful, honey, careful.” You can feel his lips move against your skin as he murmurs and it makes you shiver a little at the tickle of his breath. He kisses across your jaw, little sucking presses, before he returns once again to your mouth.

It’s hard not to assign more feeling or meaning to it than what it is, when he seems to do everything with such feeling. Not for the first time you wonder how it would be possible to be kissed at a concert and then have to continue to go about your life, acting as if nothing huge had happened, as if something totally earth-shattering hadn’t taken place. But then, you imagine, it’s probably not that different to what you have to do.

He pulls back a little, pushing himself up to be more on his knees than lying back, before he slips a hand down between you, pushing underneath your dress to pull at your panties, rubbing a finger on the outside. He pushes them against your folds, circling with his finger until a little damp patch is forming where he’s touching. He pulls them to one side, shimmying his hand underneath, a ring knocking against your thigh and catching on the fabric and your hair as he cups your mound. You reach a hand down yourself, brushing it over his trousers, but you’re slightly surprised to feel him still soft inside. He jerks his hand off of you, gripping your leg instead, shoving your hand away with his other.

You pat his face as it peers over the top of you, the creases in the corners of his eyes a little scrunched up in disappointment and his lips in a slight pout; as if he were trying to stop himself being upset.

“‘S ok El, You’ve still gotta perform tonight too -“ You go to tug your dress back down assuming there was no need for you to remain bare but his hand flies out, gripping your forearm and pushing it against your stomach.

“Take it all the way off,” You look nervously over at the unlocked bedroom door but obediently wiggle down a little, as best you can with his arm still locked over top of you to slither out of the dress. He shifts back down into a horizontal position, sliding himself further down, shirt crumpling with the motion, before gripping you with one hand on an arm and one on a leg, to hint at where he wants you to move to, tugging you until you’re in position, straddling him.

“El - seriously, I don’t think, it’s fine, it happens all the time it’s noth-“ He cuts you off by sharply pulling, with hands gripping right on your hipbones, you closer to him - forcing you to stumble on your knees even further up his body.

“‘Nough of that.” In that wonderful growly voice only he seems able to achieve, he lifts his chin up to press a kiss against your inner thigh. “Can still, still make you feel good Bunny, baby. Still make that pretty yittle cunt o’ yours feel good.” He yanks you so you’re perfectly placed, hands gripping the navy velvet headboard to hold yourself steady. “Just gonna have a lil taste, ok darling? Just needta give me a little more time. Let, let it kick in.” You nod frantically, although you’re not 100% certain what you’ve got to let ‘kick in’.

“Yes, god, yes. Sure.” The kiss, and his brief touches had been enough to turn you on, and you jerk as he holds your thighs to press a kiss against your now bare cunt,

“Oh, fuck.” Elvis laughs against you, and you can feel the vibration up your spine, thetickle sending sparks straight into your stomach. The sheer level of arousal makes you feel almost a little nauseous but you’re distracted by the feel of his tongue moving again, holding you tight to him with his grip on your thigh when the feeling makes you try to thrust out of his hold. You can feel twin bruises form from the thick bands of the ring on each of his hands and the twinge of pain when he lifts the pressure makes you gasp,

“Oh, Christ - Elvis, need, need you to,” You’re not sure if you were planning on asking him to let go, or hold you tighter - but you’re distracted by him shifting to suck down directly on your clit, briefly, just enough to make you choke on your own spit, before he releases, flattening his tongue and moving it down. Every time you clench or move you can feel his fingers digging tighter in and you can’t help but move, grinding onto his mouth and against his tongue. He pulls away, and you shift your hips slightly so you can look down at him, and your head tips back with a moan as he quirks a little grin at you. It’s utterly filthy the way his chin and mouth is glisteningly sticky and wet.

“You like that honey?” You nod, and he returns, surging forward to renew his efforts, your hips circling in response.

“Oh god, yes, don’t, oh, holy fuck, - don’t stop,” You can’t stop moving your hips, and part of you is briefly concerned that you might be suffocating him, but the larger part is more concerned with making sure he keeps licking right there until your building climax hits. His tongue is flicks between lapping at your vagina and your inner folds. Your hips are constantly moving and you grip the headboard even harder, feeling the fabric pile shift and flatten under your hold as he finally captures your little puffy clit in his lips again and sucks hard, reaching up to slip a finger inside you as he does.

Your lower back is starting to ache, thighs beginning to cramp but you can’t think about that, reaching down with one hand to comb through his hair, clutching at it as you thrust up and back, finally your climax rocking through you. He licks you through it, holding you open still, feeling you shudder around him, until you finally insistently tug on his hair enough to make him come away.

You dread to think what it must have sounded like on the other side of the door, the wet smacking having been all you could hear past the blood rushing through your own ears and you’re sure you couldn’t possibly have stayed silent. You watch him wipe his mouth with a sleeve, blushing the whole while before he slips out of the shirt. Fully exposing his bare chest and, finally, reaching down to unzip himself.

You’re sticky and soft when he reaches down, running a finger against you, opening you up to bump against you with his now, hard, cock. You’re not quite sure when it had happened, if it was a delayed reaction to a pill he took earlier, or if he simply was that turned on just by licking you to completion, but you’re not about to complain feeling how his head slips against your wetness, nudging at your clit before he angles himself down, bumping against your entrance.

“There he is, Bunny, got Lil’ Elvie here just for you baby, for my sweet lil - ah, bunny bun,”

Elvis pushes into you, a hand straying to stroke your labia on its way up to clutch at your waist, feeling the way you open up around him - for him. You groan at the sensation - it’s been a while, actually it’s been a long while; the last man you’d been with was the one currently pressing inside of you. He takes a moment to allow you to adjust, although you suspect it also allowed him a moment or two, either to calm himself down or encourage himself up.

“That’s it, honey, there we are, there we go, Oh Lord, here we are, I got you, gonna, gonna do such a good job, you just lie back. I got you, got -“

He’s fucking into you now, slowly, sweetly, accompanying each thrust with his mouth joining onto yours, and sloppy open-mouthed kisses against your jaw and neck. He’s trying to get the angle right, you can tell, but he’s decidedly less sure than he ever used to be, or least how you remember him. Taking longer to hit the right spot, and then almost immediately slipping away and losing it.

“Ah, that’s - that’s it, right there,” You almost cry out as he moves again, begging him in your mind to return to where he was.

Still, he’s not totally unskilled, and the motion of his body against yours, of the feel of his hand reaching down to play with clit, combined with the growling curses and praises falling from his lips, southern accent coming out harder as he loses himself in it, is enough for you to feel yourself start to shudder your way towards a second orgasm, clenching down onto him. That is, apparently, enough to set him off and he takes some time firmly rocking his hips into you, before, with a hand splayed on your tummy for balance, withdrawing fast to shoot across your stomach. He collapses there for a moment, lips in a pout and eyes closed from the sheer pleasure of the minute before.

He rolls off of where he’s pressed against you, where you’d welcomed being crushed under his weight, tummy pushed against yours, hairs tickling your own bare skin to flop onto his back. You watch his chest heave, eyes drawn to his tight little nipples, as he catches his breath back. You take a moment to swipe the cum off your belly with the edge of the bedspread, noting in your head to send it to the laundry later. You know you should be getting up to pee sooner rather than later but he’s holding out an arm to you, and you can’t bear the thought of refusing his offer. Instead curling into him with a sigh. He smells the same as you remember now, that same heady mix of sweat and sex, woodsy heavy cologne combined with the tint of smoke, and you hate how it sends flutters down your tummy again at how you feel a sense of familiarity from it. He murmurs into the top of your head, lips catching on your hair,

“You been here all along Bunny? Hopping around my plane?” You nod and you feel him grimace, “Didn’t recognise you without your ears, or your yittle tail.” You don’t mention that you very rarely wore ears on Big Bunny, and that he had in fact seen you both on and off the plane without them too. He tips your chin up to look at you and you make eye contact with his pair of guilt tinged blue eyes. Your nose wrinkles and he taps it with a finger, “Twitchy lil thing though still ain’t ya?” He pats your cheek, “Still gonna be my bunny? Ain’t got another bunny, got, got,” He stumbles over his words as he takes a breath in, clearly struggling to stay lucid enough to have the conversation, “got other girls, not got ‘Cilla no more, but got, got Linda … and, and - I got a whole list, baby, but no - you’re my only bunny.”

The thing is though, it’s never for long. You prefer the flights after a show to the ones before, he’s more awake before but he’s panicked like a tiger in a cage. It’s still difficult to tell what kind of Elvis you’ll be dealing with on any given night. There’ll be one flight where he’s perfect, drowsy from a show but awake and alert, flirty and fun, and then another where he sleeps for so long and so deeply that you worry he’ll never wake up. The worst are the ones where him and Dr Nick, his father or one of the other boys with that damned black bag disappear into the bedroom for the flight. He stumbles down the stairs after in a daze, clearly half out of his mind. The alternative - that you have to listen to his whimpering cries, that his body aches, that sleep won’t come to him - why won’t anyone listen to him? That he wants his mama, that everyone leaves him, “even my yittle yisa.” Is worse, it makes you wish for when he’s sedated or so over the top in his exuberance that you know his ‘vitamins’ have a lot to do with it. You don’t know how much longer you can silently pick up the pieces - cleaning up when he’s trashed the room in a rage, or left pill bottles littering the floor. Going in to him when he calls for you, acting as his waitress, nurse and on-call girlfriend all at once.

Linda accompanied him often, and you’re shooed out of the way of her keen eyes as they watch you a little too knowingly. She’s sophisticated and classy though, more than you would be in the situation. More than you are. You take the opportunity to swap with Georgia as often as you possibly can when you know she’s coming with him.

You’d avoided her too at first, often being the only one working on the little plane, not usually that many people on board - maybe ten at most, well within the capabilities of a single girl and the pilots. You hated that you felt the sting of jealousy, of worry that he was fooling around with her too, to the extent that when she, unprompted, had reassured you that she had not slept with him and nor would she ever sleep with him you had laughed it off. Pretending you had no idea what she was suggesting.

Linda though proved difficult to ignore. She was a presence - even when she wasn’t physically there - he was swearing to the boys they were through, broken up, done, and then would spend hours on the phone to her. He’d swear he didn’t give a shit about her anymore; just had to keep his promises to take care of her - but then a week later she’d appear on the plane with him. They’d sit cuddled together half the time, shouting and screaming for the other half. You had no idea how to react when she called you in to the bedroom, Elvis’ head pillowed on her thighs, dead asleep. She doesn’t ask you for much, a coffee and some water to be brought to them. You do so, still slightly surprised to be invited to intrude on what seemed like an overwhelmingly private moment. But then, a large part of your job is being invisible when necessary. You don’t expect to her acknowledge you when you return, but she does - she’s polite and courteous, but quiet, eyes never leaving his relaxed forehead. A cynical part of your brain wonders if it wasn’t intentional, if she didn’t purposefully call you in at that moment to prove she was different, but that line of thinking gets you nowhere. It’s not your place to be jealous.

Occasionally there’s other girls with him, you burn when Sheila comes aboard - you’d given up your cover dreams for this, and it feels like she’s the new kid in town - replacing you in every way. Better than you in every way, she’s pretty and lithe and young; you’re young and pretty too but you’re feeling it less and less. She’s above you - in the privileged position to sit at the side of the King while you have to settle for serving him and her. She had the cover, you had gotten pouring the drinks into branded glasses.

Elvis didn’t help how you felt - the first time she came on board he took it upon himself to personally introduce the two of you. He was sat with his legs spread wide, Sheila’s own legs over the top of his, an arm tucking her tight against his side out in the lounge area, the public display of affection almost too much for you to witness.

“Here she is!” He called out when you came around the corner of the half-dividing wall, and you balk a little before steeling yourself to walk over,

“Here I am.” You respond, flatly. He’d been particularly difficult recently, and your patience was wearing thin.

“Looksies - this here is my Sheila,” He raises her arm, she nods politely, “She’s - she’s a bunny too, she was on the cover.” You smile, what else can you do?

“Oh - wow, congratulations.” You nod at her, she’s silent.

“Two bunnies on the plane! My two bunnies together!” He laughs, and the tone and words immediately make you smart. There’s a cruel edge to it that you don’t quite understand, it’s not like you’ve ever turned him down or refused him, not like you’ve done anything to be treated second best - to have her paraded in front of you.

It makes your skin crawl, furious with every decision that led to this point, cursing those pretty blue eyes that you couldn’t refuse. Makes your skin crawl that he’d sworn you were his only bunny; and as ridiculous as it might seem, the evidence that that wasn’t true at all, that it was an empty promise makes you cry yourself to sleep for too many nights in a row. The first time you’d found a notelet, tucked under the bed having perhaps fallen out of a pocket or book,

“To Sheila,

Love you allways,

E.P.”

You take two weeks off, and debate whether you should even return, if it’s worth how it makes you feel. You don’t have time to see anyone else, and you’re not dating him. But then in some ways it makes sense all your emotions would be put onto him, you weren’t physically seeing anyone else, in general, exclusively cocooned in the Elvis Presley Show bubble. There is, you think after three glasses of red wine at home in your fancy new Memphis apartment, nothing else in your life. There is only Elvis. You wonder if you can use that as the excuse on your notice. You make yourself go back though, determined to get a grip of yourself, of your feelings, give it one last try.

It’s short-lived with Sheila, at least from your perspective up in the air above the reality of the ground below. Ultimately, you feel you somehow won. And although he may, every now and again, bring some pretty young thing up into the air with him or have Linda come on board during some of the tour he’s fundamentally alone again - the same group of men his only constant companions. You form your own opinion of them, watching two of them cringe at the sight of the little black bag of pills and needles and two others writing his signature out on blank cheques.

You’re horrified, making eye contact with Charlie, you think, you know their names now you need to start to use them. You open your mouth to say something, but uncertain about what, but he catches your eye, shaking his head and you wonder if there’s anyone on this plane willing to stick up for him. You’re forced ot consider if it’s something you can do too - turning a blind eye to all of this or if you’re going to be forced to leave because you were unwilling to do so.

But then, there’s a few months where he behaves differently, and he looks different - his face brightens up, and though you don’t dislike how he looked before you can appreciate that he’s slimmed down a little, looking less bloated than he had before. A renewed interest in the happenings of the group. Suddenly, he’s interested in you again - ensconcing you in his bedroom, telling the boys to stop telling you what to do or asking you for things,

“It’s not her job - her job is looking after me.” And you do, distracting him as best you can when that’s what he’s after - reassuring him when it’s not. You have to talk him down from a panic at one point and you’re thankful to have the memory of him calming you down to use as your guideline, even if you find irony in being the one trusted to provide the measured breaths.

The sex though, is still almost non-existent; he apologises constantly, and at one point you try to have a conversation about it, lying with him in the bed, cuddled together.

“I’m not your girlfriend, E, you don’t needta explain yourself to me,” He hushes you,

“You’re my girl as much as any of ‘em.” It’s your turn to stroke his cheek,

“I don’t need to be, you don’t hafta say that to me.” He just hums at you, tucking you further under his arm and cupping your face to his chest. That’s when the gifts start rolling in, before you’d even arrived back at your apartment for a few days off, finding on the doorstep a gift bag filled with lingerie. You smile when you see it, but you’re a little puzzled - he’s not even seen you in your underwear in months. Was this a hint? Were you meant to be the one putting out? You took it as you thought he intended it, picking out and wearing the little white set you found in there, but you were unsurprised when nothing came to fruition on the flight. You tentatively bring it up the next time you’re curled up next to him - the flight not really long enough to justify a nap but happy to be tucked up in his chest. You’re drawing circles with a fingertip through the gaping neckline of his shirt, absentmindedly thinking of how best to bring it up.

“El, what’s -, not that I’m not appreciative but you don’t needta buy me things - especially, especially if you’re not gonna get anything out of it.” You refuse to look at him, anxious for his response.

“Wasn’t that what you told me before? That you don’t dress for me?” You can feel him already grinning at you in anticipation of your reaction and you laugh, surprised he’d even remember that conversation from a year and a half ago.

“Well, You weren’t really my boss then.” He chuckles, wrapping his arm tighter around you,

“Oh-ho, so I can have my wicked way with you now huh?” He squeezes you hard against his side. You giggle, and he continues - his tone turning more serious; “Honey… - Bunny,” he laughs when you squirm at being called bunny still, “I’m just, I can’t, can’t do more at the moment but I uh, I do still - I like thinking about you all pretty for me unner that tiny little scrap of a dress.” He flicks the hem, leaving his hand grasping the back of your thigh and your respond in playful outrage.

“Scrap! You picked out this dress!” You smile into his chest as you feel his tummy move with his laugh, “Elvis - you don’t owe me anything, I don’t need to be bought things, you don’t need to feel like we have to do anything. I just, just want you to take care of yourself.” He hums at you, as non-committal as one can be.

He shifts a little so he’s lying on his side, brushing his hand down your body, fingers fumbling as they graze over your core, he seems remarkably less sure of himself than the last time he’d touched you, and you have to wonder if, despite all these girlfriends hanging around, he hadn’t actually been doing it with them either. Whether it’s because his fingers are a little thicker than before, or his skills are simply rusty, or maybe this is all some new technique he’d thought he’d try, he seems to take a while to do anything. He slips a finger between your folds, gathering the wetness you’d started to feel drip as a pavlovian response to his fingers anywhere near you, and rubbing it up your pussy but when he reaches the apex he seems to struggle, fingertip roving around, rubbing down but not quite finding your clit. You squirm as he continues to rub around just a bit too low, his finger making you pant simply from the virtue of it being Elvis’ finger, but not because of success with his ministrations. You panic, eyes flying open, wondering if you’re gonna have to fake it with Elvis beforehe pulls his hand away with a grunt.

“Ain’t no good little, my hands are hurtin’ too much tonight, got them, got them shakes again.” You nod even though you know it’s at least partially untrue - his fingers not in the least bit unsteady, if anything they’d been a little too solid.

“Just, it’s fine to just cuddle El.” He’s silent beside you for a few moments,

“One sec doll, lemme just -“ He shakes his arms out, staring at the curvature of the plane ceiling as if he’s trying to talk himself up. “Ok, ok Bunny, lets, lets give this another go.” He captures your mouth in his, sucking gentle little bruises across the bottom of your jaw, and lowering himself down to your neck. He concentrates there for a moment as he dances his hand back down your body, shifting your dress up again. His touch this time is more sure, more similar to how he’d always felt, the confidence appeared to be back.

He circles your clit just right, the two fingers curving inside you hitting just the right spot, and he moans with you,

“C’mon darling that’s it, oh that’s your lil button isn’t it - let me, just relax into me baby, relax, I’ve got you.” He crooks a finger, and your hips jerk, his other hand reaching over to pin you firmly against the bed while he takes the opportunity to brush directly over your clit once again. You squeal, panting, as he whispers into your neck,

“Such a good girl, good little baby Bunny, c’mon now,” He croons into your ear, voice unmistakable, “C’mon - for me.” His words, the sight of his face, the feeling of his fingers, it all combines so that in mere moments your back is arching off the bed, clutching at his arm as you tip over the edge.

When you’re back into the land of the living, and your breathing is starting to ease up a little, you’re able to sit up. You get onto your knees for him, expecting to reciprocate but he shakes his head at you, “Just, just lie with me, mama, let me cuddle, ‘s that alright? No-one lets - everyone wants somethin’ offa me.” You frown, standing up, his words manipulating you into believing you’d even asked him for something,

“Sorry El- there isn’t, there’s no pressure from me, I just thought because -“ You gesture to his still clearly wet and sticky fingers, “Just wanted to give it back to you.” He huffs, lying down again, and looking over his shoulder at you. Betrayal written on his face. It softens when you clamber back under the covers with him, and he tugs you closer.

It goes downhill fast, the tours just keep coming, and the random, sudden desires for trips here and there. You’ll be home for a scheduled three, four week break and get maybe 60 hours before a call comes in - he wants to be taken to Colorado, California, to Vegas. Before you know it you’re careening into 1976. He swings like a pendulum from happy to angry - the emotions impossible to keep up with. He wasn’t ever wholly staid before but everything seems suddenly emphasised and the erratic nature of his personality is making you wonder if you can do this job much longer. It’s worse without a girl on board. Linda and he may have argued but he was almost always easily soothed. But she’s coming on less and less, and he’s telling tales about her more and more with the boys. Expressing how he hates her shopping now, how she deserves it but doesn’t earn it, how he can’t stand her nagging. He seems to have more girls than ever before, one or two picked up for him in every city, but they never seem to make it onto the plane.

Without the settling presence of a girlfriend that role falls to you, and although you’ve now spent countless hours with him it’s different; the fits and starts with which you get to see him is completely different to being a girl who’s able to be with him in his home - you find him almost overwhelmingly difficult to manage. The first time he’s brandishing a gun and threatening to shoot you for attempting to put him to bed, you laugh - not expecting to be essentially thrown off of the plane for weeks for such an indiscretion. It doesn’t get mentioned again - not until a while later; simply brushed over, forgotten about. There’s no apology, just suddenly one day, a bashful joke gets made with Elvis tucking his chin to his chest to look at you shamefacedly but almost immediately he cracks a laugh, and you’re forced to laugh it off with him.

His health swings like his moods, it seems to be entirely dependent on a number of factors that all seem to change within a minute’s notice. It’s a combination of his mental health, the exact cocktail of medication at any given time, the number of shows he was doing, how often he was getting to see Lisa, whether he’d been home recently, the financial situation or whether he’d recently liked how he’d looked in the mirror. As soon as any one of these changed it would either send him crashing into lengthy highs or a period of lucidity.

You didn’t sign up to be a nursemaid - it wasn’t the role you were expecting to fill but as time goes on it seems the only form of relationship you can have with him. You don’t truly mind, although you do wish for more, if he’s going to let you have this part of him - the part of him that’s sad and lonely, the part of him that he’s ashamed of - even if just for a few hours on a plane where he can pretend to be distinct from real life, then you think you deserve the same relationship back on the ground. But you would never broach that with him, not even when he’s alone, or when he brings a girl on board who doesn’t even make it to the next city. All you can do is stay.

The last part of the year is particularly hard. He looks awful, you only really get to see him directly after a show, the schedule doesn't allow for more spare days in each spot, and the sweat pores off of him. You can’t say he doesn’t look appealing in some ways, you wouldn’t mind licking him clean, or crawling onto his sweaty chest. But in other ways, his face growing paler and yellower, it makes you cringe away from him. It’s not that you don’t want to spend time with him, or that you’re disgusted - a fear he’d mumbled into your stomach one night recently, it’s that it’s so difficult. Difficult to watch a man, so otherwordly virile to succumb to earthly decay. It’s almost painful - and it’s made all the worse by the fact that you’re only given the choice to witness it in fits and starts - over a tour you watch him, keeping a close eye, spending hours alone with him. But then, as you land back in Memphis, or Vegas, or California you lose him again - with no idea of how he’s getting on physically or mentally, no idea of how he’s feeling. He grows distant - and all you want is to make his journey easier, although the destination at this point is unclear.

--------------

TAGLIST:

i’m just gonna tag anyone that’s specifically msged me about it and/or anyone who commented/reblogged the last two chapters - there’s one last chapter to this ‘verse coming soon(ish) so lmk if you wanted to be added or taken off the list before then :))

@ellie-24, @whositmcwhatsit, @thatbanditqueen, @vintageshanny, @doll-elvis @18lkpeters @prompted-wordsmith @richardslady121 @meetmeatyourworst @marriedtopresley @steph-speaks @a-literal-no-name @elvisabutler @precious-little-scoundrel @eliseinmemphis @iloveelvis @literally-just-elvis-fics @livelaughlove-talia @angelborn1

#elvis smut #elvis x reader #elvis fanfic #big daddy elvis #elvis presley fanfiction #elvis presley x reader #be-my-ally #elvis x you #big bunny #big bunny vibes #be my ally

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daryl-dixon-daydreams · 2 years ago

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Words: 4,721 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female!Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: S10/S11, The Reapers Warnings: references to past injury and trauma (nothing graphic), honestly this part is mostly FEELS A/N: This is Part 5 of a series! Find all the parts on my pinned post, the Master List Summary: Daryl and Y/N finally have some time alone to start catching up on their time apart.

Part 4

Daryl was already on the couch when you came back in from getting DJ settled for the night. He looked up at the sound of your soft footsteps and your heart leapt. You sighed and sunk down on the other end of the couch, one of your legs pulled up and tucked beneath you, your body angled toward him.

“All good?” he drawled, and you nodded.

“Yeah. He’s stoked about the bed,” you laughed. You leaned your head on your hand, propped up on your elbow on the back of the couch. Daryl nodded and anxiously chewed on his bottom lip. “Here’s a question: what the hell were you thinking bringing up that squatter? Highly inappropriate for kids!” you laughed.

Daryl shot you an amused look. “Yer the one that actually did it. I wasn’t gonna tell ‘em the whole thing…”

The laughter between the two of you died down and the silence was suddenly tense and thick between you. “Hey, will you tell me,” you paused and gestured to your own cheek and eyebrow, “how you got this scar?”

“Oh—” Daryl shook his hair back out of his eyes and put a hand up to it. “It’s stupid. Ain’t really nothin’.”

Your brow furrowed. “Doesn’t look like nothing,” you said.

He sat up straighter on the couch and nodded. “Nah, it’s dumb more than anythin’. I was livin’ way out—"

“—way out?” you interrupted him.

“Yeah. Way out of Alexandria,” he drawled, avoiding your eyes, consciously or otherwise because of the nearness of the topic to Leah... “It was after Rick—ya know…”

“Oh,” you said, nodding. “Maggie mentioned something about that but there was so much to cover we never circled back to it. “You were looking for him.”

Daryl nodded. “Yeah. Anyway… I got in a tight spot with some walkers in this old house and—damn metal shelving came down right on my head. One of the shelves, I think, got me in the face. Split it right open.”

Your brow furrowed. “Ouch,” you said, affecting a wince. “Jesus. That must have been a headache. Not to mention a good bruise.”

“Told ya it ain’t a good story,” Daryl drawled.

“Well, you could have lied and dressed it up a bit. Though I have a feeling you have plenty of badass stories on your own without inventing them. And plenty of scars that came with them.”

Daryl gulped and nodded again. He was quite sure it was the same for you. “Uhh—ya said somethin’ ‘bout a book?”

“Oh—right! Yeah. Hang on.” You got up and went to your small pack which was still sitting by the door to the garage. You pulled out a leatherbound book that looked like it had seen many travels. The cover was well-worn and the pages looked somewhat wrinkled from moisture. You came to sit on the couch again, but this time you sunk down right next to Daryl. You held it out to him. “I don’t know what to call it really. A journal? I don’t know.”

He took it from you with curiosity and started unwrapping the leather cord wrapped securely around it to keep it closed. The leather was soft and supple under his fingers. He cracked the spine open and looked at the first page. It was blank except for your name, printed in your distinctive hand, in the middle of the page. He thumbed through a few more pages and they were all covered in your writing.

“The first section isn’t light reading,” you warned him, watching his blue eyes traveling over the pages. “I started it just after we got separated. I think I just needed somewhere to go with all the—all the bullshit in my head,” you laughed dryly. “But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Here.” You flipped to a later section and you stopped at a page that had a Polaroid picture taped to it. It was DJ—but as a still slightly lanky infant. You smiled as Daryl’s thumb smoothed over the white border with your handwriting on it, denoting the date and location. “I didn’t have the camera until he was a few weeks old.” You reached over him and flipped to the next spread. There was a picture of you with him in your arms, looking exhausted but happy. You looked almost exactly the way he remembered you when the two of you had lost each other.

Daryl shook his head a little, fighting an upwelling of emotion that threatened to swamp him like a bubble of cold water rising from some trench in the ocean. “He was so tiny,” he said. Baby DJ had a small shock of dark hair just on the top of his head. Daryl smiled and let out a little laugh. “I dig the hair,” he said, tilting his head slightly toward you, but not tearing his eyes away from the photo. His thumb moved aimlessly to touch the white border again, as if he was hoping to somehow reach himself into the scene and really be there.

You smiled at the softness on Daryl’s face and glanced back at the book open on his lap. “Yeah. I called him Alfalfa until he was about two. Took that long for the rest of it to grow out and match. And then he had these little curls in the back—unbelievably cute. I never wanted to cut his hair.”

Daryl’s heart was soaring just seeing the photos, but it was soaring with an ache in it that couldn’t be cured—it was the ache of lost time, of missing out on incredibly precious moments he couldn’t get back. Maybe you sensed something in him, because you shifted a little closer on the couch and Daryl glanced over at you, suddenly realizing how close your face was to his, only a mere five or six inches away. His blue eyes flickered down to your lips and back up to study the hues in your irises. But you ducked your head the next moment and turned your attention back to the little book even as Daryl’s heart was still racing.

“This has everything in it,” you said. Your voice was low and soft and he found it calming in a way nothing else ever calmed him. Daryl shot you a questioning glance. “Well—not everything, but I wrote summaries in it through the seasons of our life, me and DJ. You’ll find the most important things in there along with the few photos I have, more when he was little because they just change so fast then. But—I found myself writing a lot of it to—to you,” you said. Daryl looked over at you in surprise. “I don’t know why, but a lot of it came out as if I was writing you letters. I don’t know if I really thought you’d ever get to read them or if I just hoped you would but—I wanted you to know our son and our life apart I guess.” Daryl’s blue eyes flickered between yours again. He was overwhelmed at that. “I always wanted to put something else on the first page,” you said with a soft smile. “Um—remember at the prison—Glenn and Maggie had that Polaroid camera? And we borrowed it and took that—"

“—picture in bed that day,” Daryl finished. “When it was rainin’ outside and we’d spent all day hidin’ from it and everythin’ else together.” You nodded. “Yeah. I remember… How the hell could I ever forget that?” His deep voice with that hint of gravel sent goosebumps rising up on your skin.

You sighed and subconsciously bit your bottom lip. Daryl looked at the dark fray of your lashes fanned out toward your cheeks. “I wonder what happened to that picture. God, I wished I had it in my pack when—in Atlanta, I mean. I had this weird fear that I was going to forget your face, like all the horrible shit I kept seeing, all the bad shit that kept happening, it was going to just… push everything good out of my head.” You paused briefly and swallowed down the lump that had suddenly formed in your throat. “But I hope it was just lost and… went into the ether somewhere. Unseen by anyone else but us,” you said, catching his eyes again, managing a sad sort of smile. There was a queer expression on his face. You cocked your head. “What?”

Daryl gulped and cleared his throat. “Ain’t nobody else that’s seen it, but it ain’t in the ether somewhere,” he drawled. Your eyes widened in amazement and there was a stunned silence.

“You—you still have it?” you asked in disbelief.

He bit his bottom lip and nudged his nose up in a nod. “Yeah. It was in your pack back at the church and—s’the only picture I had of ya.” Your wide eyes were a bit glassy.

Your teary smile widened. “Can I see it?”

Daryl nodded again and then handed you back the book, rising to his feet. You expected him to go somewhere to retrieve it but instead he simply slipped off his vest and then reached for his knife in its sheath on the side table.

“What are you doing?” He’d pulled his knife out and was arranging his vest on the coffee table in front of the couch.

He spared you a glance and shrugged. “I—I was worried ‘bout losin’ it somehow, with all the shit that happens out there, ya know.” He skillfully slit open a small seam in the lining on the left side of his vest and quickly pulled out a little plastic bag with the distinctive shape of a Polaroid picture in it. He looked at it for a long moment and then held it out to you.

Instead of looking at the picture right away, you were staring at him with a furrowed brow and slightly wide, soft eyes. “You sewed it into the lining of your vest?” He only ducked his head and nodded. It wasn’t lost on you that it had been in the left side near the chest—closest to his heart. “Daryl Dixon…” you said softly, shaking your head, your eyes brimming with tears now again.

He’d never showed it to anyone—never even told anyone he had it. Not even Rick or Carol. But there was a reason he always wore his vest everywhere, a reason he was so protective of it, why it had been the one thing that was the most unbearable to have taken from him by the Saviors—even over his crossbow. The idea of Dwight wearing that vest around with that picture of you and him in it, his only photo of you, a special and intimate moment captured when things had been so good and had felt like they were going to be that way indefinitely, it was almost too much to cope with.

Finally, you looked down at the photo. It was exactly as you remembered it, except that you and he seemed even younger than you had pictured in your mind. You were lying in bed next to each other, tucked under the covers. You were curled into him with his arm under you, your hand resting on his chest, looking up at the camera with content and blissed out, sleepy smiles. “Feels like a lifetime ago and yet—like just yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Daryl drawled, staring down at his hands, which were now fiddling with his knife anxiously. You held it back out to him and he shot you a furtive glance. “Nah. Maybe ya should keep it now. I’ve had it the last ten years. Ya can add it to the book where ya wanted it.”

You shook your head. “No. I think you should put it right back where you had it. Unless you think it doesn’t belong there anymore.”

He didn’t hesitate to take it back from you and he took another good long look at it, biting his bottom lip thoughtfully, before he slipped it right back into the lining, and you felt your heart skip a beat at that.

“I can sew that for you in the morning,” you said. “I didn’t realize my request was going to have you cutting a hole in your vest.”

“Nah, s’alrigh’. I been sewin’ it closed again for ten years. I’ve got it down to a science,” he drawled with a dry laugh. Electricity seemed to materialize between the two of you again as he glanced back at you—the air was swollen with it like the atmosphere before a lightning strike.

You felt suddenly warm and tore your eyes away from his. Chicken, you thought. “You can hang onto that book for a while if you want. It’ll catch you up faster and—you can at least see DJ grow up in a way. A lot of it is written to you anyway…”

Daryl nodded and accepted it from you again. “Yeah…” He nervously scratched at a non-existent itch on the back of his head. “I ain’t got anythin’ like this for ya. Wish I did. Just got a long line of memories, some foggier than others.”

“That’s okay. I’ll just pepper you with questions,” you said, jest in your voice. He laughed and nodded.

His mind turned to more practical matters, perhaps as a distraction for the way he was feeling, like he was barely managing to balance on one foot at the end of a precipice, about to tumble over if he just let himself tilt forward... He badly wanted to reach for you, but you had just gotten here, weren’t even settled… and some part of him needed to tell you about Leah before—before anything happened. If anything ever would happen? He was wracked with self-doubt. But if he didn’t tell you about Leah, if something could happen between you and him, it wouldn’t feel… honest? Daryl slipped away from those thoughts and focused on how to keep his family afloat. “I was thinkin’, we need supplies in a big way, especially with bringin’ ya’ll in. We ain’t got any backstock or livestock or crops since the Whisperers and the horde trashed everythin’. Probably need to make a run tomorrow and not come back until I’ve got somethin’.”

Your brow furrowed again with concern. “Okay. Yeah. Hey—I’m in,” you said, gently touching him on the arm. “But don’t forget—DJ wants a bike ride,” you said with a smile.

“Can’t forget that,” Daryl drawled. There was a beat and both of you were searching for something else to say when a door opened and soft footsteps came padding down the hall. RJ appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. Daryl was immediately on his feet, your book still clasped in his hand. “Hey, bud. Ya alrigh’?”

RJ shook his head. “I had a bad dream about Mom,” he said.

“Aww, no… Hey—it’s alrigh’. S’just a dream, but I know that can be real scary. Why I don’t I come help ya get back to sleep?” RJ nodded and Daryl shot you a look over his shoulder. You smiled at him and gave him a nod.

“I’m gonna head to bed too,” you said. “Hope you have only good dreams now, RJ.” The two of them disappeared down the hall and you extinguished all the lights except for a battery-powered lantern by Daryl’s vest which you left on dimly.

Settling into the soft bed next to DJ, gently kissing his cheek and stroking his hair away from his face, you were finally able to close your eyes and let yourself sink deeply down into slumber in a way you hadn’t since your home had fallen.

_ _ _ _ _ _

You awoke early the next morning and the house was still silent and dark. The sun was not yet high enough above the horizon to touch Alexandria as you peered out the window at the still streets. DJ was deeply asleep and you pulled on the only change of clothes you had, much cleaner than what you had been wearing, and moved through the house silently. You were surprised to see, when you reached the doorway into the living area, that Daryl was asleep on the couch. Your journal was beneath one of his hands, dropped down onto his chest as if he’d fallen asleep reading it. On the coffee table beside him, the photo of you and him that you’d taken at the prison was out again from its safe place in his vest, lying face up on top of the worn leather. You felt a stirring in your heart as you looked at him and a profound desire to wake him up so you could look into his bright blue eyes and tell him—tell him everything that wanted to burst out of you. Instead, you took one last long look and tried to memorize the scene, before letting yourself out quietly through the front door.

You walked around the interior of the wall and passed a couple people on guard at the section that was being repaired. Otherwise, you saw no one until you paused in front of a large building that was built out of lumber that still looked fairly new. Then, you heard soft footsteps behind you and your hand strayed to the handle of your knife in its sheath as you spun around.

“Whoa! Sorry,” chuckled the man in front of you. He was tall and lean with a salt and pepper beard and held his hands up in a gesture of goodwill. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

You swallowed the tightness in your throat down and breathed a small sigh of relief, but your hand stayed on your knife. He eyed it and a small smirk tugged at his lips.

He pointed to it. “You were out there a while,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Anybody with reflexes like that has sure as shit been in the shit.”

You still didn’t say anything and eyed him warily. He seemed at ease despite your stoic reception of him.

“I, uhh—I saw you come in yesterday with the rest of the new crew,” he explained. “Planning to stick around? I know it doesn’t look like much but—” he shrugged, glancing around at the construction at the wall and the half-ruined buildings. “—this place ain’t bad.”

Your brow furrowed and you stared at him. “Who the hell are you?” you finally asked.

“Uhh—” he shifted his weight a little anxiously and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Knew we’d get to that eventually,” he said with a wry laugh. He smoothed a hand over his short hair and for the first time seemed uncomfortable. “I’m Negan…”

You nodded. “Okay. Negan.” He was watching you carefully as if to read your reaction but your expression was blank, perhaps purposefully so. It wasn’t lost on him that you’d walked in with Maggie and the rest of her people. He could only assume that his name had meaning for you.

“I just—I saw you had a kiddo with you,” he said, ducking his eyes from you for the first time and replacing his other hand in his pocket. “Thought maybe it would help to know that this is—this is actually a good place.” He hazarded another glance up at you but you were still unreadable. Your hand was still on the handle of your knife too.

“If I thought otherwise, do you think I’d still be here?” you replied.

He chuckled nervously and nodded. ��Fair point.” He hesitated for a moment, at a loss of where to go next with this failure of a conversation. “So, do you—”

“I know who are you, Negan.” The muscle in your jaw tensed as his hazel eyes, now narrowed almost in a wince, met yours. “I know what you did. Not all of it, yet, but enough.”

“Yeah…” He hung his head again, his shoulders seeming to sag on his frame.

“And that kid?” you went on. “My son. His name is DJ. It’s for Daryl Jr,” you said pointedly. Negan’s eyes shot back up to yours immediately and went slightly wide.

“Ah, shit,” he swore under his breath. “Look, I was just tryin’ to have a conversation. I’m—I—,” he said. Then he paused again and glanced back up at you. “Daryl has a kid? He’s got a kid that old? How the hell did—” His curiosity suddenly overwhelmed his shame about his past and his concern that the archer would hear he’d been sniffing around you.

Your eyes narrowed dangerously. “You think I’m going to explain our story to you? I don’t even know you, and the bits I do know—” you cocked your head, “—not a fan. So, just do me a favor and stay the hell away from DJ, and from Hershel, and from Maggie. If you don’t, I’ll be the one to kill you. Not her. Deal?”

He nodded. “Yep… Deal. Got it.”

You turned and left, heading back to Daryl’s, hoping you’d gotten your point across well enough. Maggie had of course told you what had happened at the line-up, how she’d lost Glenn, and what the Saviors had done to the communities and the war. She had also told you that Daryl had been taken prisoner, though she didn’t know any details about what that had been like for him. She said he never spoke about it to anyone, except maybe to Carol. Maybe Negan was different now. Some of your old family seemed to believe he was, but some things were unforgivable in your mind…

When you quietly entered the house again, Daryl was awake and softly moving around in the little kitchen. He turned when he sensed you come in to the room. “Hey,” he greeted you. “Everythin’ alrigh’? I thought ya were still sleepin’,” he drawled.

“Yeah, all good. Just took a walk when I woke up,” you explained. “I, uhh… I met Negan,” you said, carefully watching his expression. His face immediately darkened.

“The hell was he doin’?” Daryl growled.

“I don’t know. He must have been doing the same thing I was, I guess. Taking an early morning walk?”

Daryl’s eyes were still narrowed and he felt a swell of protective anger. “The hell did he say? Look, if he was botherin’ ya, just tell me and I’ll deal with it. I’ve been lookin’ for an excuse to punch him out as long as I can remember.” “It was—it was fine, Daryl. He came over to introduce himself or something. Said he saw us come in yesterday and wanted to tell me Alexandria was a good place… because he saw DJ with me.”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “I’ll talk to him. Tell him to fuck off,” he said darkly, the muscle in his jaw tensing as he clenched his teeth together. If there was any one person he wanted to stay away from you and DJ, it was Negan Smith.

“It’s okay. I already did,” you said. “I told him if I see him coming near DJ or Hershel or Maggie that I’ll kill him.”

Daryl shook his head and actually let out a small laugh. “I—I shoulda known ya’d already have it taken care of.” He leaned back against the counter behind him, his arms crossed over his chest. It seemed to make the broadness of his shoulders and the tapering of his body to his waist more pronounced and you felt a wash of heat in your chest.

“Yeah, it’s alright… He knows about DJ. I wanted to make that clear.”

Daryl nodded. “Okay.” He sighed heavily. “He ain’t—he ain’t like he was. But I still dun trust him all the way. And I definitely dun fuckin’ like him,” he growled.

You nodded. “It doesn’t change what he did, though, even if he isn’t the same now as he was.” Daryl ducked your gaze and nodded, now anxiously shifting his weight from one hip to the other.

“No. It fuckin’ doesn’t.”

You sighed. “Sooo… How far did you get in that book of mine last night?”

Daryl was about to answer you, suddenly realizing of course that you must have seen him passed out on the couch when you left this morning. But suddenly Dog came barreling into the room, quickly followed by a smiling RJ and Judith. It wasn’t long before DJ was also up and about, probably awakened by the noise you all were making in the kitchen. Soon you were heating up the last little bit of stew from the night before on the stove for the kids, while Daryl was setting the table. You couldn’t stop glancing over your shoulder at him and and smiling because he was smiling and because after so long he was made real in front of you, and he was different but the same too. As you were sure you were. After the makeshift breakfast, Daryl and Judith washed the dishes together while you and DJ helped dry. It was positively domestic. You felt as if you’d stepped through a magic door into a different dimension. Finally, Daryl turned to DJ and smiled at him.

“Well, what d’ya think ‘bout takin’ a ride on that bike I got?” he asked him. “As long as yer mom is still good with it. We can see if there are any rabbits out there, maybe set some new snares—get some dinner for everybody.”

DJ glanced over at you with a pleading smile on his face and you grinned. “Of course. You’ve got a helmet for him?” Daryl nodded. “Good. Alright.” You bent down to his eye-level and put your hands on his shoulders. “You stick right with him, okay? And you do whatever he says if there’s any trouble.”

“I know. I will,” DJ promised you. You kissed the top of his head and met Daryl’s blue eyes.

“We won’t be gone too long. Ya mind watchin’ Jude and RJ?” Daryl asked, tilting his head toward the living room where they were coloring on some scraps of paper with Dog laying down as if on guard.

“I don’t mind. We’ll pay Carol a visit and see what we can do to help around here,” you said.

Daryl nodded. “Alrigh’. We’ll only be a couple hours and then—uhh, if yer still up for it, you and I can head back out. We’ll have to see if Maggie and maybe Rosita and Gabe can watch the kids.”

You nodded again. “Yeah. I can swing by and see.”

DJ came running back out with his small pack on and his bow in hand, absolutely grinning from ear to ear. His knife was in its little sheath on his belt too.

Daryl ruffled his hair with light in his eyes that seemed entirely new. “Alrigh’, boss. You and me. Let’s do it. See if we can get yer mom some dinner.” He headed toward the door and then looked back at you as you called a last goodbye.

“Be careful,” you said.

Daryl nudged his nose up in a nod. “Hey—I ain’t gonna let anythin’ happen to him.”

You smiled and nodded. “I know.”

He gave you a long look, as if he was memorizing the sight of you. Maybe he was. “We’ll see ya later.”

“I know that, too. Good luck.” And with that, they were into the garage and you soon heard the roar of Daryl’s bike droning into the distance.

#daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon twd #the walking dead #twd fanfics #daryl dixon drabbles #daryl imagines #daryl x y/n #fanfics #writers of tumblr #twd drabbles #protective!daryl

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maestro04yayyy · 2 months ago

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Random musings, but Chloe's perspective on relationships, as I tend to write it, is fascinating not just in how its very informed by the awful adults around her, but also seems very clear cut but the moment she tries to apply it, it doesn't even stay coherent, but she tries anyway cos this is all she knows.

For reference it was largely inspired by observation and a discussion with an excellent author, but basically, in Chloe's world there is the accessory and the wearer, the weak personality and the strong personality, follower & leader.

Gabriel and Audrey were leader, Andrey & Emilie Accessories.

The job of the former is to make decisions, guide and protect the occasionally reward the former. While the latters duty was to listen, assist, praise and enable the leader. This is her idea of a healthy relationship and the people modelling it were... Well even worse than that sounds.

This is basically how she acted in accordance with Sabrina, with Chloe as leader & intern, she made herself an 'accessory' to Ladybug & Audrey without a second thought.

However, as said, this doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

On a more... positive bent, her relationship with Adrien is extremely fluid. Chloe expects to lead, but also looks to or listens to Adrien when he seems better suited to the task. Though Adrien himself seems a little unsure how to handle the latter times.

Meanwhile on a more messed up level is her relationship with Andre.

Where-in she's basically doing an elaborate role-play of her mother for her father (& mother, but Audrey doesn't notice) where it looks like she has command. But we see Andrey will yank on her chain the moment she inconveniences him, and that she has to layer it in in with a lot of praise and affection that just feels... Off. Which is a heavy contrast to Audrey & Gabriel being stiff, cold and distant at best, which Chloe also demonstrates with Sabrina when they aren't doing 'playing'. IE, most of the time.

I think on some level Chloe liked but also couldn't contextualize the idea of an equal partnership and Adrien was about as close as she got to that, but again, she can't consciously acknowledge that without undermining her entire world view so she... struggles.

In the Context of Chloleka AU, I imagine Juleka's also sort of scrambled her wiring a little, or more, that Chloe is trying to parse out who is in what role. But as said, this idea of a relationship doesn't actually work when put into practice; it can't work and stay coherent without being essentially revised for each and every relationship, making it kind of worthless even outside the toxicity.

But I digress, this would definitely be fed into with Juleka's modelling and anything Chloe can do to aid in that. She can be 'useful' in this scenario, which gives her a nice dose of self worth, but also matters cos it helps define roles. The trick her is, Chloe kind of wants to be Juleka's accessory, IE be the subject of intense devotion and aggressive passion and protectiveness. But, she also wants to be useful, to give good advice, to help up-lift Juleka.

But it can't be a partnership, because those don't exist, right?

Uhhh that's a nice analysis and yeah it's pretty accurate and on point!!!!!!

And it's always hood when we aknowledge that chloe wanted a good relationship with adrien!!!! And she actually values him and his ideas!!!!!! Even if she knows she shouldn't because she is the leader!!!!

Also when chloe get exposed to the idea that a couple can be made of two equals and not a leader and a follower, it's gotta blow her mind(and probably she would be in denial for a long time)

#miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #match my freak au #juleka couffaine #chloleka

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positivelybeastly · 7 months ago

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First question, what year was Hank born? Second question how might the events going on in our world have affected the characterization of Hank? Beyond the 90s incarnation of the character might make a post about this later…

So, asking for a set birth year for a comic book character is a bad idea, because with very few exceptions, they don't exist. For example, Google tells us that Captain America was born on the 4th of July, 1920.

Or maybe he wasn't? Apparently that got retconned and it isn't 4th of July, but it was 1920? Already we run into problems. COMIC BOOKS.

Outside of very specific characters, they just don't have birth years or birth dates, they exist within the Marvel sliding timescale. If you're not familiar with the sliding timescale, the basic conceit is this:

Modern Marvel comics began in 1961 with Fantastic Four #1. This is essentially the start of the modern Marvel era, and every other superhero group is contextualised in relation to this, pretty much. The Avengers were formed maybe six months, a year later, the X-Men not long after that.

For every 3-5 years that passes outside of comics, 1 year passes inside of comics. E.g. Fantastic Four #1 took place either 13 or 21 years ago, or somewhere in between, it's not an exact science.

As for Hank specifically, well . . .

October, 1983, was contemporary to Hank saying this.

That plot took place in a comic book from 1974, nearly ten years before this, and yet Hank says it's just "a few years ago." So time is passing, but slowly. Hank here is explicitly in his early 20s, maybe 22-23, but the Hank we saw in this week's X-Force #50 was not 40 years older than him. So, how to make it all make sense?

A lot of headcanon and kind of inferring based on contextual hints. Hank is depicted as being roughly 17-18 when he joins the original X-Men, given that he's stated in dialogue to be the oldest of the team, and seems to have been on the verge of graduating high school when his normal human life was interrupted. So, now you just work backwards.

If Hank was 17-18 when the original X-Men were formed, and it's been 21 years since then (referring back to the sliding timescale), then it stands to reason X-Force Beast is 37-38. If he's 38 in our current year of 2024, then logically, he would have been born in . . .

1986!

Which is what I've been running with for as long as I've been writing him. It isn't quite compatible with stuff like this, which is very obviously written in the 60s and set in the 60s, and which explicitly positions Hank as an Atomic Age hero, with radiation based origins and a super scientist pedigree . . .

But eh. We move.

As to the second part of your question

. . . Ooohhhhh boy.

Um.

There's a lot? And I hate to bring it all back to 9/11 and the War on Terror, but it's kind of all about 9/11 and the War on Terror?

Media about terrorism, security, threats to mankind, all looked very different pre-September 11th, 2001. Go back and watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and see how Kira Nerys, a character who is explicitly called a terrorist in dialogue, is treated for her actions. She's positioned more as a World War II resistance fighter than anything else. If that show were made now, she would be an intensely different character, because the American cultural and media consciousness has never recovered from that day.

If you want to read more about this, there's quite a lot of academic discourse on how this has all changed. Here's a decent start.

But specifically Hank? Well, the X-Men have had their own 9/11. Multiple times. The Genoshan genocide, as depicted in New X-Men #116, actually just a few months before 9/11. It's entirely possible that this entire storyline might not have been made if it had been written after.

The Xavier Institute bus bombing.

The Decimation.

The X-Men became a beleaguered minority, besieged on all sides, reduced to the island of Utopia, just 198 mutants and falling. Cyclops explicitly became far more ruthless, willing to ally with former adversaries and use kill tactics to get the job done, and you could see his portrayal, the infamous #Cyclops Was Right movement, gaining a lot of steam during this era. People really like this Cyclops.

And where's Hank in this? Well.

He's the moral counterpoint.

People don't like to acknowledge this, and I feel like there might be a degree of cultural difference going on here, but Hank is correct. I feel like it's not even controversial to say that kill teams are bad. Right?

But people hate Hank for this. They think he's a whiny little bitch who won't and can't help, who runs out on his people, who prioritises his morals over being there for the X-Men. People legitimately think this of him.

Hank is the left wing, conscientious objector and anti-war viewpoint. So, naturally, there's a tendency to look upon him as a whiny little bitch. Just look at how shows like 24 contextualise that kind of moral viewpoint.

I do feel like the writers of this era wanted people to at least question who was right, between Hank and Scott, but the readers pretty much unanimously fell on Scott's side, because even as Scott started to use morally corrupt tactics . . .

He wasn't doing it for America, bullying small countries out of their oil in the name of democracy. He was doing it for a marginalised minority metaphor, fighting comic book supervillains, which is simpler, easier to root for. He had to use those tactics, you understand. He was fighting monsters! He was fighting the good fight.

Is 00s era X-Men War on Terror propaganda? I don't know. I'm not a political scholar, though I do have a B.A. in History. Interesting how the fandom seems to view this ideological conflict, though.

Anyway, time moves on, and then something starts to creep into Hank's character. Something that inevitably happens to characters like him.

Anti-intellectualism.

No longer is Hank the moral counterpoint, now he's the intellectual who will lead us all to ruin because he's smarter than he is wise, because he's an idiot with no impulse control.

This characterisation is wholly incorrect and runs contrary to the fact that Hank learned his lesson about unethical experimentation practises in the 70s, in an incident that only harmed him, but whatever. It doesn't matter at this point, does it?

Only people with real world experience, who are level headed, who aren't eggheads, can solve the real problems of the day. People like, uh.

Hmm.

Who does have the solution to the problems of the day?

Ah, I see.

We just forgive him for all the heinous shit he did on Utopia, huh?

All that stuff he did, the releasing bioweapons, the kill teams, that was fine, because he did it to the right people.

Well, that's all right, then.

Mmm-hmm. So much better than the egghead. Look at him in the corner, fumbling around, making more problems than he solves. What a motherfucker.

So, yes, let's talk about American anti-intellectualism.

I don't necessarily think Bendis is anti-intellectual. But I do think he spends a lot of time across multiple comics criticising Beast and valorising Cyclops, considering the worst thing Beast had done up until that point, vandalising the space-time continuum to get the O5 back into the present, was done explicitly so Bendis could play with X-Men with only 8 issues of continuity to keep straight.

But anything Cyclops did? All that X-Force stuff? Ehh. Don't worry about it. The only crime we care about is the death of Charles Xavier, for which Scott was possessed, so we can't make a moral judgement.

It's a whole ass topic, and a lot to get into, but I genuinely do think that Hank is one of those characters who especially suffers when written by a writer who doesn't trust vaunted intellectuals, because he's certainly not going to fucking flourish, is he?

And then it all comes full circle.

Ben Percy, enter the ring.

Wolverine, the unequivocal hero of X-Force. Beast, the unequivocal villain of the series. The heart vs. the head. The man of action vs. the intellectual. The rugged thug vs. the fancy pants necessary bastard.

It's the same thing, just more extreme, really. I think X-Force is meant to be a critique of the CIA? If so, it's an extremely bad one, considering it ends on this note.

Ah yes. Our heroes. The CIA.

I'm gonna quote the frankly incredible @brw here because they put it way better than I could on this point:

"This is genuinely a larger problem I have with Krakoa, is that rather than explore the culpability and complicity of all the characters involved in not just the creation, but the active maintenance and survival of what is, categorically, an eugenicist, oligarchy ethnostate, we instead act as if Krakoa would have been fine if not for Evil Hank/Evil Moira/Evil Sinister for ruining it all for the rest of us.

Because are Sage or Logan ever properly thought to be bad people for standing by as long as they did? It isn't even that X-Force are the people who do the dirty stuff–it's Hank that does that, and the rest of the character get to keep their hands relatively clean, at least narratively. They're sympathetic, or understandable.

Hank is positioned as this demon in the shadows ready to snatch you up and kill you which is a weird decision to make with what you describe as the CIA.

The CIA isn't evil because evil people are in charge of it, the CIA is evil because it is a fundamentally evil institution based off evil systems! Benjamin, you can't write mutant CIA if your closing statement is how awesome the mutant CIA is, and it's a shame about that one evil blue guy that ruined everything for everyone."

Good thing we got rid of that Beast guy! What a fucker, right? Nasty, gross, intellectual pustule he was, with his oily words and grossness. Look at him, reading books. Sage is fine, though, because she doesn't read books. I mean, she's quantifiably grossly incompetent in this series, but we like her better than Beast, so it's fine.

Beast, from the 2000s era onward, is a very political character. It's just a shame that a lot of comic book writers tend to be grossly ill-informed when it comes to actual politics, capable of only surface level hot takes like CIA bad or kill teams good, actually, because now we've gone from 'Beast is the left wing conscientious objector' to 'Beast is the literal anti-Christ,' and I don't really like what that implies about what we think of the former.

But eh. I'm just a writer.

#water-god19 #outofmuffins #hank mccoy #blood tw #fire tw #explosion tw #genocide tw

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cowardlybean · 1 year ago

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Hey. The Times They Are A Changin’ by @bandtrees and @tigsbitties amiright (muffled face down on the floor)

more (some unsettling things) beneath the cut :3

(Image 3 is my favorite sequence from an animation for TTTAAAC I’ve been working on, so here it is just in case I never finish </3, image 4 is me thinking about Mob’s house. If. That makes sense.)

OH MAN. OH MAN OH MAN. this fic has altered my brain chemistry in a way that has doctors baffled and leaves tragedy in its wake!!!!!!!!! Absolutely a masterpiece I’ve reread it 3 times now and every time I notice a new detail, there’s just SO MUCH CARE put into it. I think I could write an essay about every page of this fic LMAO it honestly blows me away, huge kudos to everyone who was a part of the project!!!!

Especially the multimedia aspects, they were so much fun to find and in some cases decode (Scared the SHIT outta myself with Breathe I think it’s one of my favorites). the youtube videos were so cool as well

Realizing a third of the way in that things will never get better was such a gut wrenching experience, and by the time I realized just how deep the hole Mob dug himself into was it was absolutely too late for anything to happen (the end of act 1 was horrific in the most amazing way. So many things stuck with me: the state Reigen was left in compared to how he was, Ritsu’s “surgery”, Dimple losing his best friend, Shou’s report to the police, Minori’s conversation (if you can call it that) with Mob?? Bone. Chilling.

One of the parts that has been sitting in my gut is Reigen’s fall, where he starts to ramble through fragments of old times. I genuinely thought he was calling out to Mob until just as the same time Mob did I recognized the words and it hit me like a HAMMER. I don’t know how to put it into words but Reigen rambling on like a broken record tore me apart, and then it gets WORSE. I only realized on my second read that the intro of the fic. (Correct me if I’m wrong) IS REIGENS PERSPECTIVE OF MOB SEVERING HIS TENDONS???? Holy fuck. Holy FUCK. The vague semblance of consciousness written there is so deeply unsettling I’m absolutely OBSESSED with it. ESPECIALLY THE FACT THAT EVEN IN THAT STATE HE STILL WANTS MOB TO BE HAPPY (the cheer ^^ mob bit) and idk if I’m interpreting right (this is gonna be so embarrassing if I’m not) but him recognizing the filthy jacket as well. Taking me OUT. AND. AND THE FACT REIGEN NEVER SPEAKS AGAIN AFTER THAT?????? (I could be wrong oops)

The mental states of every character in the fic are written so chillingly well. I can understand how Mob spirals, the anger and grief Tome feels, Shou's spite and anger, Teruki's conflict, Dimple's loss of his best friend, Serizawa's waning optimism, I can't name every character in this fic but they are ALL characterized so well. There's no needless conflict that make them OOC, there's a reason behind every little tragedy building upon themselves and creating a giant disaster that deeply affects the entire cast. Not to mention how its not just the loss of Reigen and Ritsu, but the loss of Mob too. If they were to have died on impact, its unsettling to think that things may have turned out better than this.

There’s a lot of things I wanna say that would basically be restating the fic (dimple losing his best friend, teru shaving, and the irony of ritsu’s powers being taken away by mob) so instead of writing 20 more paragraphs I’ll ask some questions I’ve been mulling over (ofc yall don’t have to answer if it’s revealing too much or smth)

Does Mob actually end up getting investigated or arrested? The formatting of the social media posts and texts makes them seem as if they're evidence and so does the ongoing "interview?" with Shou throughout the fic

In the party, is Reigen saying he doesn't like citrus a reference to the lemon sour :eyes:

I'm probably missing something but im curious about the metaphor around Reigen and a stray cat (hair clinging to Mob's clothes, comparing him to a stray cat finding a place to die, comparing him to a cat outside Serizawa's door)

If I'm not wrong and the "glitchy" sections at the beginning and end of the fic are Reigen and Ritsu's povs respectively, is their mind constantly like that or is it just in the specific circumstances where they have a small burst of consciousness?

last (thats a lie im definitely drawing more fanart in the future) but not least, some notes from when I was re-reading

#sorry for hiding literally everything below the cut i dont wanna jumpscare people #BUT ANWAY.#holy fuck. a masterpiece.#literally tried drawing vase scene (as ive dubbed it for convenience lmao) 3 times its SO HARD to get right #i doubt i was able to truly do this fic justice its so amazing #mp100 #tw blood #tw body horror #(not really but the animation is close enough)#TTTAAAC #mob psycho 100 #shigeo kageyama #ritsu kageyama #reigen arataka #teruki hanazawa #dimple mp100 #so many thoughts about this fic #sorry for my damn essay oh my god #< biggest TTTAAAC fan

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pasta-in-the-pudding · 10 months ago

Note

Okay... So this request might be weird and it's nothing really like dating or anything like that.

I've been having this idea like... What would X-virus do if the reader had a large pet Ascaris Nematode and takes care of huge bacteria as well?

Like, the reader would take care of the bacteria and they separate the dead bacterias into a container for the nematode's to eat. And the bacteria would be the size of a grown mans hand while the nematode is as big as a average dressor.

My oc does this and I am curious as to how other people will write about this.

This is such a cool concept i literally love this!! And for x-virus too?! Ugh, wonderful

Also I did my best with some light research, but ya boy does not know much about bacteria so i apologize if something is inaccurate <//3

Thank you so much for requesting!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

X-Virus with a pet Ascaris Nematode

Generally, he would think your pets are really cool

(With your permission) he would love to go study and observe your pet(s)

He's never really heard of anyone taking care of bacteria like this, so he is curious to see how domestication affects the species

Even if they aren't really like other living things with consciousness, he still thinks it would be cool to study

The only times he interacts with bacteria is either for his job, or for studies

Never just to have fun with it

He will ask you to just do your thing, go about feeding your bacteria, cleaning their enclosures, etc

He will be observing, writing notes down, taking pictures and taking videos the entire time

And then, once he is satisfied, he will go back to his room and study further on his own

He will heavily cross reference behavioral things with your pet bacteria, seeing how the average kind of whatever bacteria he's studying at the moment compares with the bacteria you keep as pets

He would also like to get some hands on experience

Whatever you are comfortable with him doing, he will do

He will help feed, help clean, help organize, etc

And he will also study how the bacteria react to him versus you taking care of them

Once he is certain his study on your pets is complete, he will share his findings with you

And depending on the outcome of the studies, he may begin collecting different bacteria for himself, pushing the limits to see just how many different types of bacteria can be "domesticated"

He will keep them in his lab, though

Far away from his beloved pet bunny Jade

If the bacteria got anywhere near her, he'd freak out

He will also request for your help in studying his own pet(s)

Considering you have the experience, he finds you trustworthy enough to help him out

And then the process starts over again

He studies, he records, he cross references, etc

And every now and then, he will come visit your pets, bidding them a good morning/afternoon/night and talking to them

Those nematodes probably know his darkest secrets at this point

"yeah, i was in and out of fostercare my whole life"

"..."

"it was really stressful for me, but i found my love of science through it, so i can't be too mad"

"..."

"yeah, you get it"

#creepypasta #slender mansion #creepypasta x y/n #creepypasta x you #creepypasta x female reader #creepypasta oc #x virus

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x-press-it · 14 hours ago

Text

Devilish Desires 2/9?

Dangerous Temptations, Irresistible Touch 🎞️❤️‍🔥🌹🖤💻🖱️

Sub!Logan Howlett x Dom!OC (They/Them)

Summary: Logan, typically guarded and dominant, finds himself captivated by E, a mysterious being with a devilish allure and ancient presence that challenges his control.

Notes: Got very inspired by sub!Logan and repeated listening of "Between wind and water" by Hael. Cover made with canva from an idea I got from this post. If you know who made the picture, tell me so I can credit them - Click on the divider to find the creator. Also this was meant to be an imagine turned into a full story. Just so you know, some chapters are very short, other are long. I'm in the process of editing/writing/rewriting parts so I'll post a chapter everytime I have one fully edited. Get ready for some push and pull.

Previously: in Devilish Desires

Chapters: 2/9?

Word Count: 5.1K / 30K+ for now

The smell of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air, thick and rich. Logan leaned against the counter, arms crossed, his usual black drink steaming beside him. This was his morning ritual—his quiet moment before the mansion came to life. It was the one part of the day he could claim as his own, a sliver of peace amid the chaos.

Then he heard her before he saw her. The soft click of polished shoes on the tile floor, a subtle shift in the air, and a scent that was both unfamiliar and intoxicating. It unsettled him, that scent—it reminded him of something dangerous, something he couldn’t quite place, out of time, ethereal.

E stepped into the kitchen, moving with that effortless grace that always put Logan on edge. Their sharp blue eyes scanned the room before they approached the coffee pot, casual, composed, like they belonged in every space they entered.

Logan’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t sure what it was about her that got under his skin. Maybe it was how she moved, like a predator—silent, sure, and entirely aware of her surroundings. Or maybe it was the way she didn’t acknowledge him with the same apprehension or deference others showed. No fear, no caution. Just… presence.

They poured their coffee—black, just like his—and took a long sip, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of their lips as they leaned against the counter opposite him. The air between them thickened. For a second, their eyes met, and Logan felt the weight of her gaze, heavy and searching, like she was peeling back his layers one by one.

He grunted, turning his attention back to his mug, refusing to acknowledge the sudden prickle of heat crawling up his neck. But E didn’t need him to say anything. They felt it—the way his focus shifted, however briefly—and they drank it in. It was like fuel to them, feeding something deep inside, something dark and hungry.

“You always this quiet in the mornings?” E finally broke the silence, their voice smooth, too smooth, like they were toying with him, testing boundaries he wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

Logan’s grip on his mug tightened. He didn’t like how she talked, like she knew something he didn’t, like this was a game and she already had the upper hand. “When I got nothin’ to say,” he muttered, keeping his eyes trained on the dark liquid in front of him.

E made a soft sound, almost a hum, taking another sip of their coffee. Their eyes never left him, as if they were studying him, waiting for something. “Strange. You strike me as someone with plenty on their mind.”

Logan’s gaze flicked up, his eyes meeting hers for a moment longer than he intended. She was watching him with an intensity that made the back of his neck tingle, amusement dancing in those bright, unflinching blue eyes. “You don’t know me,” he muttered.

“Don’t I?” E’s voice dipped lower, almost a whisper, but it carried the weight of something deeper, something more dangerous. They set their cup down, the movement deliberate, controlled, before stepping closer. Too close. Logan’s muscles tensed instinctively, his body coiled, ready, but for some reason, he didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“You don’t like people seeing through you, do you, Mr Howlett?” Their voice was soft now, yet sharp enough to cut through the thick air between them. “It makes you uncomfortable.”

His brows furrowed, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as an old, familiar defense mechanism kicked in. “I don’t care what you think you see,” he growled, his voice gravelly, rough.

But E’s smirk widened, a flicker of something wicked glinting in their eyes. “Oh, but I do see plenty and it’s fascinating, really.” They leaned in even more, their voice a low purr, words wrapping around him like a net. “The way you try so hard to keep that mask up. Makes me wonder… what happens when it finally slips?”

Logan swallowed, his pulse quickening despite his best efforts to stay calm. He didn’t like this feeling—being out of control, the way she so easily slipped under his skin and played with his instincts. But damn if he wasn’t drawn in, hooked by something primal, something he hated to admit.

E’s eyes flicked over him, slowly, deliberately, as though they were savoring the conflict bubbling beneath his surface. “Don’t worry,” they whispered, leaning in closer, their breath warm against his ear. “I won’t bite. Not yet, anyway.”

Logan’s jaw clenched, every muscle in his body taut, every instinct telling him to move, to get away. But he stayed rooted to the spot, caught in whatever spell she’d cast over him. His breath hitched—barely noticeable, but E caught it. Of course they did. Their smirk deepened, a silent acknowledgment of their victory.

And just like that, they pulled back, their composure perfectly intact, as if the entire exchange had been nothing more than idle conversation. They picked up their coffee cup, taking one long sip, their eyes never leaving his.

“See you around, Logan,” they said, voice lilting with amusement as they turned to leave the kitchen.

Logan stood there, fists clenched, heat still simmering beneath his skin. He watched her go, tension radiating through his body as he tried to shake off the lingering effects of her presence. But he knew, deep down, that this wasn’t over. He was in deeper than he wanted to be—and he wasn’t sure if he could get out.

The sun hung high in the sky, casting warm golden rays over the garden, and for a moment, it almost felt peaceful. Logan jogged down the stone path, his muscles loose from the run, sweat clinging to his skin. The garden wasn’t a place he came often—too many damn flowers. But here, in this quiet stretch of the grounds, he could think. Or rather, try not to think. Fewer people, fewer distractions.

His boots hit the stone in a steady rhythm, the soft whisper of the breeze the only other sound. The air was fresh, almost cool, and he welcomed the solitude. For days now, he’d been trying to shake this nagging tension that had settled between his shoulder blades. It gnawed at him, an itch he couldn’t scratch, a restlessness that no amount of running seemed to ease.

As he rounded a corner, his steps faltered. She was there.

Sitting on one of the wrought iron benches, her long black hair cascading over her shoulders, a thick leather-bound book resting on her lap. The sun kissed her deep, radiant skin, glinting off the small obsidian bumps above her hairline, and for a moment, it seemed as if the light itself was drawn to her. Logan’s breath hitched—just for a second, but enough for her to notice. His senses sharpened, every instinct firing off in a way he couldn’t quite control, as if she was a predator waiting, calculating, and he’d just stepped into her line of sight.

She didn’t look up. But he knew she felt him. The air shifted around her, just the faintest change in posture. It was subtle, deliberate—the kind of thing he’d notice in the heat of a hunt. Her fingers turned the page slowly, like she wasn’t in a hurry. Like she had all the time in the world. Like she knew he was watching.

Logan gritted his teeth, forcing himself to keep moving. His boots thudded against the ground louder now, as if the noise could drown out the unsettling quiet that coiled between them. He wouldn’t get drawn in again. Not today.

But as he passed, they tilted their head just enough to catch him in their peripheral vision. It was barely a glance, but it hit like a shot of whiskey straight to his gut. A shiver crawled down his spine, one he tried and failed to ignore. Against his better judgment, he glanced back. A mistake.

Their eyes met his, sharp and knowing. They didn’t smile—they didn’t need to. A flicker of something—satisfaction? amusement?—crossed their face, gone as quickly as it appeared. But it was enough to make Logan’s pulse quicken, enough to unsettle him.

“You always in a hurry, Logan?” Their voice slid into the air between them, smooth and teasing, like they already knew the answer. Their eyes had returned to the book, fingers trailing over the page, as though this conversation was just a casual aside to whatever had their attention.

Logan’s jaw clenched. He kept moving, even as something in his guts told him to stop. To engage. “Just trying to get some air,” he muttered, not slowing his stride, not letting her pull him in.

“Air, huh?” Their voice held that same amused lilt, like they were playing a game only they knew the rules to. “Funny, considering how tense you look.”

Damn it.

Logan stopped. He couldn’t help it. His muscles tightened under his skin, irritation flaring hot in his chest. He should’ve kept going, should’ve ignored her like he’d been trying to do since they first crossed paths. But there was something about the way she spoke, the way she prodded at him—casually, confidently—that made it impossible to walk away.

He turned slowly, narrowing his eyes at her. “What’s your point?”

Their eyes finally lifted from the book, locking onto his with an intensity that made his skin prickle. And there it was again—that hum in the air, electric, thick with something unsaid. Their gaze wasn’t just piercing; it was probing, searching for the crack in his defenses.

“My point…” they said softly, closing the book with a soft thud and setting it aside. They stood with deliberate ease, every movement slow, unhurried, as if they knew exactly how much space to take, how close to get without pushing too far. “…is that you seem restless. Distracted, even.”

Logan snorted, crossing his arms over his chest like it could shield him from whatever she was about to say next. “You think too much, sweetheart.” The nickname came out sharp, deliberate, as if he were using it to keep her at arm's length, a verbal wall meant to keep her at bay.

But they ignored it and took a step forward instead, their smile small but dangerous. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re the one thinking too much.”

Another step, and Logan could feel the heat of her presence, the air between them charged with something he hated to admit was getting under his skin. She stopped just shy of invading his personal space, but close enough that the tension between them was palpable, a tight wire stretched too thin.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Their voice dropped lower, softer, like a secret meant only for him. “That tension… the way the air shifts when we’re in the same space.”

Logan swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He hated how right she was. Hated how much he noticed her, how much his body reacted without his permission, as if some primal part of him recognized the threat—and the allure—she posed.

“I don’t feel anything,” he growled, the words rougher than he intended, betraying the lie he was trying to sell. He knew it. Hell, she knew it too.

Their lips curved into a knowing smile, slow and deliberate. “You’re lying.”

They didn’t need to step closer. Didn’t need to touch him. Just the way they said it, with that quiet confidence, made Logan’s blood simmer. His fists clenched at his sides, every muscle in his body coiled tight, ready to spring—but he couldn’t move. Not yet.

“Maybe one day,” they murmured, their voice dropping to a purr, “you’ll stop fighting it.” Their eyes never left his, watching, waiting for that crack in his armor, for the moment when he’d let something slip. And damn it, they were close. Too close.

Logan’s heart hammered in his chest, his pulse thudding in his ears. He wanted to walk away, to tear himself free of whatever hold she had on him, but his feet wouldn’t move. His fists clenched tighter, knuckles white.

“Don’t talk like you know me,” he muttered through gritted teeth, almost a growl.

Their smirk widened, just enough to send another shiver down his spine. “Oh, Logan,” they whispered, their tone dripping with something dark and sweet. “I know you better than you’d like to think.”

With that, they turned, their movements as smooth and deliberate as ever, leaving Logan standing there, chest tight, blood pounding, the weight of their presence lingering in the air like smoke after a fire.

He stood frozen, his breath coming in ragged pulls, his body still tense with that simmering heat they’d left behind. It took every ounce of willpower to shake off the feeling, to force himself to move again. But as he walked, the itch—the pull—they’d left behind only grew stronger, gnawing at him with every step.

And deep down, he knew this wouldn’t be the last time.

The sound of fists pounding against the heavy bag filled the gym, echoing off the walls, mingling with Logan’s low grunts as each strike landed. Sweat trickled down his back, soaking through his shirt, but he welcomed the burn in his muscles. It was another way to keep his head clear—pushing his body until he couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything but the raw force of each hit.

He shifted his stance, throwing another punch, harder this time, letting out a sharp breath. Just as he pulled back for another strike, the gym doors opened, drawing his eye.

There she was again.

Logan’s fists slowed, his attention shifting against his will as she walked in, crossing the room with purpose until she stopped at the bench press. He kept throwing punches at the bag, though his rhythm faltered. She eased under the bar, wrapping her hands around it before lifting a weight that would make most people hesitate, her body moving with a sleek, powerful grace that tugged at something deep in his chest. The bar rose and fell smoothly, muscles straining under her skin but never faltering, her breathing steady and focused.

He wasn’t easily impressed, but there was something about the way she moved—so precise, so damn effortless—that made him pause.

For a moment, he just watched, his brow furrowing slightly. Most people in the mansion wouldn’t touch that kind of weight, but she handled it like it was nothing. A flicker of surprise ran through him. Admiration, even.

He quickly shook it off.

E finished their set, their chest rising and falling as they sat up and wiped the sweat from their brow with the back of their hand. Logan felt the pull before he even realized it, his eyes meeting hers across the gym. Her blue eyes were sharp, sparkling with an intensity that sent a jolt through him. It felt like he’d stepped into her space—invaded it—even though he’d been there first.

Logan’s jaw tightened, and he forced himself to look away, turning back to the heavy bag. He swung again, his fist connecting with more force than necessary, trying to drown out the sudden spike of heat that had crept up his neck.

But it was too late. They’d already sensed it. That brief flicker of admiration—of unspoken curiosity—it rippled through them, feeding that bottomless hunger that simmered just beneath their surface.

Logan could feel it in the air, thick and electric, as if the room itself had shrunk around them. He could sense her gaze lingering on him, watching him, but he refused to meet it. His knuckles slammed into the bag again, harder, trying to force the tension out of his body. But all it did was stoke the fire that had been building for days now, ever since they first locked eyes.

Footsteps padded softly across the gym floor, and Logan cursed under his breath. He didn’t have to look to know who it was. She was getting closer—he could feel the heat of her presence, the way it shifted the air around him, making it harder to focus.

He kept his fists flying, trying to ignore the growing need that tightened in his chest, in his gut, making it damn near impossible to keep his head straight.

“Nice form.” Her voice was smooth, that teasing, silk-like tone threading through the space between them. Close enough now that it was impossible to ignore.

Logan didn’t respond, didn’t stop. His fists continued to pound the bag, but the rhythm had faltered, his focus slipping. He could feel her just behind him, standing too close. Close enough that he caught the faint scent of her sweat, her skin, mingling with his own.

“What is it about you that makes you go quiet every time I try to talk to you?,” they continued, circling slowly, casually, as if they weren’t even trying to get under his skin—but they were. Every move they made, every word, was deliberate. And it was working.

Logan finally stopped, his fists lowering as he exhaled sharply, his chest heaving. He still didn’t turn around, but he could feel her at his back, her gaze searing into him, making the hairs on his neck stand on end.

“Not in the mood,” he growled, his voice rougher than he intended.

“Oh, I think you are.” Their voice dropped deeper, the teasing edge more pronounced now, hinting at the heat pooling in his lower stomach. They stepped closer, just a fraction, but enough for Logan to feel her body heat at his back, enough to make his muscles coil with tension. “You’ve been in the mood for days now. Haven’t you?”

Logan’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. Every ounce of reason urged him to move, to put some distance between them, but his feet stayed planted. His instincts—the feral part within him—wanted nothing more than to pull her closer. Damn it. Why the hell was it so hard to walk away from her?

“You’re real sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Logan bit out, finally turning to face her. His eyes were hard, but his chest felt tight with something else—something that felt like surrender, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.

They were standing close, too close, their lips quirking into that infuriatingly confident smile. “I’m sure of what I see,” they replied, their gaze flicking briefly to his chest and shoulders, before locking back onto his eyes. “And I see a man who’s barely hanging on by a thread.”

Logan’s breath hitched, his hands flexing at his sides. “You got no idea what’s goin’ on in here,” he muttered, tapping his temple with a rough finger.

Their smile widened just a fraction, head tilting as they stepped in closer, their voice dropping to a soft, lingering murmur. “Maybe.” They paused, closing their eyes for a heartbeat before looking back at him, deep satisfaction dancing on their face, as if savoring the richest taste. “But I can feel this.” Their gaze roamed over him once more, a spark of hunger lighting up their features as their hand rose—slowly—hovering just above his lower belly, palm not quite touching but close enough to stoke the fire burning in him through his t-shirt. “That delicious tension building inside you.” The words rolled off their tongue, each one deliberate, dragging out the moment. “The want…” Their voice dropped even lower. “The need…” Tantalizing. “I know exactly what you crave, Logan.” Their eyes locked onto his, piercing and intense, the heat coiling tight in his abdomen until his breath turned shallow.

Logan swallowed hard, knuckles white, his throat suddenly dry. His pulse raced, blood pounding in his ears. He should’ve pushed her back, should’ve told her to get lost—but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not when each of her words sent a shiver down his spine, not when the air between them was thick with tension, every inch of space charged with the unspoken need that he was trying—failing—to ignore.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he growled, but even to his own ears, it sounded hollow. Weak.

They leaned in just a little, their breath ghosting over his jaw. “Liar.”

And with that, E pulled away, their gaze lingering on him for a moment longer before turning back to the bench press. Logan stood there, rooted to the spot, watching them walk away, a noticeable bulge in his sweatpants. His fists were clenched at his side, his jaw tight, throat dry, heart hammering in his chest. Every muscle in his body was taut with the effort of holding himself together. The heat pooling low in his gut and that tension between his shoulder blades were getting worse by the second.

And he knew—damn it, he knew—they were right. He was losing control.

Logan’s boots barely made a sound as he moved through the library, the soft thud against the polished floors blending into the quiet. His intention had been simple—find Marie—but that goal dissolved the second he saw her. Seated under the warm glow of a desk lamp, she was surrounded by a stack of documents—papers, brown files—engrossed in whatever work she was doing.

The library, once expansive and peaceful, seemed to shrink in around him. Logan paused mid-step, his gaze lingering on the curve of her neck, tracing the line of her arm, down to the way her fingers moved with precision across the papers. Every gesture felt purposeful, calculated—yet there was an ease to it, a control that pulled him in.

He knew he should move. Keep walking. Find Marie and get the hell out of here.

But then E’s eyes met his. Calm, but laced with that flicker of hunger he knew too well. It twisted something deep inside him, tightening his gut, stirring up emotions he wasn’t ready to confront, stoking the fire he tried so hard to put down when he saw them. And the smirk—barely there, just a hint at the corner of their lips—felt like they’d caught him in the act, exposed something he hadn’t meant to reveal.

Logan’s jaw clenched, the muscles in his shoulders tensing as he snapped his gaze away. He turned quickly, moving deeper into the rows of shelves, needing space. Needing air.

But even as he tried to put distance between them, he couldn’t shake the feeling—the awareness that her eyes were still on him. It was like she had a direct line to whatever was churning inside him, pulling on it, drawing it out even when he was trying his damn hardest to push it down.

Behind him, E leaned back in their chair, fingers drumming lightly on the wood. That brief exchange had sent a ripple of satisfaction through them, a confirmation of something they’d suspected. Despite the tough act Logan was putting on, his resolve was breaking, little by little.

And that? That only made the game more interesting.

They returned to their papers, but they weren’t really focused. Not fully. They were waiting, ready for the next time his eyes would drift back their way, because they knew it was only a matter of time.

The kitchen was quiet, the soft hum of the fridge filling the space as Logan stepped inside, his eyes scanning the cabinets. It was late, the mansion long since settled into its usual nighttime lull, but for him, sleep still felt a long way off. He reached for an apple on the counter, rolling it between his fingers, the cool skin grounding him for a moment.

That’s when he caught it—familiar and unmistakable.

Spice wrapped in smoke.

His senses sharpened as he turned slightly, watching E glide into the room, moving around him with a deliberate ease. They flowed effortlessly, brushing against him just enough to send a jolt through his veins, lingering close as they reached for a cup from the shelf, not even looking his way. Each movement was unhurried, a silent dance that seemed to say the world outside could wait as long as they wanted it to.

Logan’s heart raced, the tension thickening in the air. He tried to focus on the apple, but his gaze kept drifting back to her. Finally, she poured steaming water over the tea leaves, the fragrant scent of jasmine lazily curling through the air, wrapping around him like a warm embrace. Their hair, still damp from a recent shower, fell in loose waves over their shoulders, glistening under the soft kitchen light, revealing the smooth, rounded tips of their obsidian horns that rose just above their hairline, looking a tiny bit longer than he remembered.

"Late-night snack?" Their voice, soft yet intimate, broke the stillness, the sound of it sending a faint shiver down his spine, already igniting the flames in him. She hadn’t even turned to look at him, but Logan knew she was aware of every move he made.

He grunted, biting into the apple with a sharp crunch. "Somethin' like that."

E stirred their tea, the metal spoon chiming softly against the mug, their attention fixed on the swirling liquid as if it held all the answers. Then they turned to face him, and their eyes met his. For a moment, Logan couldn’t look away. There was something unsettlingly perceptive in the way she watched him, as if she could see right through him, past the gruff exterior and down to the parts of himself he kept locked away. His chest tightened in response, and for just a moment, he hated it—hated how easily she could get under his skin without even trying.

"You seem restless." They took a slow sip of their tea, never breaking eye contact, their voice smooth, drawing him in like a riptide.

Logan shrugged, leaning against the counter, trying to shake off the weight of her gaze. "Got a lot on my mind."

They raised an eyebrow, a faint smile teasing the corners of their lips. "I bet you do."

The air between them thickened, heavy with tension that seemed to wrap itself around Logan, holding him in place. He could feel it—the pull she had on him, like an invisible force drawing him closer even though she hadn’t moved a muscle. It gnawed at him, that frustrating desire to pull away while feeling stuck, as if she held onto something deep inside him, a red thread connecting them, so tight she could pull at it whenever she wanted.

E set their cup down and stepped closer. It was subtle, just a shift in their stance, but Logan felt it—the warmth of her body, the way her presence seemed to fill the room. The soft, floral scent of jasmine with a hint of honey drifted between them, mingling with the heat of their closeness, and Logan’s grip on the apple tightened.

"You ever think about finding a way to… relax?" Their voice dropped, soft and teasing, the question hanging in the air like a tempting offer.

Logan narrowed his eyes, his jaw clenching. He didn’t trust easily, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. But the way she said it, the way those words curled around him, made him wonder if she meant every word that escaped her lips—innuendos included.

"I relax just fine," he muttered, taking another bite of the apple, though the tension in his voice betrayed him. Even he didn’t believe it.

E smiled, stepping even closer now. They leaned against the counter beside him, their fingers brushing the surface near his hand, not touching but close enough that Logan could feel the warmth radiating from her. His pulse quickened, a heat pooling low in his belly as his body betrayed him, reacting to her proximity.

"You keep playin' with fire," Logan warned, his voice rougher than usual, like he was fighting to keep himself together. But the usual edge was missing, softened by the heat building between them, the struggle to maintain his composure growing harder by the second.

Their eyes darkened, something deeper flickering beneath the surface as they held his gaze. "Maybe," they murmured, the words dripping with challenge. "Or maybe I’m just waiting to see if you’ll give in."

The silence that followed was thick, almost suffocating. Logan could feel it—the tension tightening around them, pulling him in closer, like invisible threads wrapping around his resolve, threatening to snap it in two. He knew he should walk away, retreat to the safety of distance, but once again, he stood rooted to the spot, his body betraying him at every turn. The rational part of him screamed to break the moment, to turn away and shut her out like he always tried. But another part of him, the part that felt the heat of her body and the way her gaze made his heart pound, wasn’t so sure anymore.

E stepped back just enough to let the moment unravel, lifting their cup for a slow sip, their eyes holding his, unyielding. "I’m headed to bed," they whispered, casual words wrapped in something heavier, something that lingered in the space between them like an unspoken invitation. "You should too…" Their voice trailed off, hanging in the air for a couple of heartbeats before they finished, softer, almost suggestive. "Might do you some good."

Logan’s jaw tightened, his knuckles turning white around the apple. His eyes tracked her every movement as she turned and walked away, her hips swaying in that same deliberate, confident way they always did. But this time, there was a slowness to it, a knowing in the way she left him standing there, like she was daring him to follow.

And for a split second, his body nearly obeyed. His muscles tensed, his feet itching to move, to follow her down the hallway and give in to the pull that had gnawed at him for weeks now. But then he caught himself, stunned by how close he’d come to losing control, to how easily she had him dancing in the palm of her hand, right on the edge of giving in.

Instead, his eyes followed her, glued to the way she moved, the heat in his chest simmering as desire coiled in his gut.

As they disappeared into the hallway, Logan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His resolve was breaking, little by little, and each time it slipped, he found himself caring less and less about stopping it.

Notes: If you enjoyed it, don't forget to comment and spread the love 😊 More on the way!

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Don't forget to follow the tags "Devilish Desires" and "xpressit writings" to stay tuned for the next chapters 😁

🔖 @quillycrow

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ilikekidsshows · 1 year ago

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It just boggles the mind how petty someone can be over a fictional character that they created being popular. Thomas Astruc is ruining his own show and screwing over abuse victims all for a grudge against fans who prefer a character he doesn't. I don't condone hate-mobbing him like some people do on Twitter, but he really can't take any sort of criticism huh. How do you claim to have conferred with a child psychologist (I think) and still produce this literal abuse apologia. I genuinely don't understand.

I'm gonna say that Astruc taking any chance to use the narrative to dunk on Chloé and Adrien being evidence of him holding a grudge against their popularity is my personal interpretation of possible influences for their writing. I have inferred it from Astruc's very curt way of speaking to fans of these characters on twitter and the show's abysmal writing of them in ways that prop Marinette up on their backs. None of it has been proven true, but, when the coincidences keep piling up, at some point you're gonna stop believing it's a coincidence. At this point, he is most likely at least subconsciously bitter over Chloé and Adrien, if not consciously so.

Just like how the show's biases concerning abuse might be subconscious stuff going on in the crew's heads. I remember when @infinitysgrace and I used to have to reiterate again and again that Gabriel does love Adrien even if he abuses him, that's often the tragedy of parental abuse, when the fandom kept insisting that Gabriel abusing Adrien was evidence that he didn't really love him. The crew also seems to have a very limited view of what "counts" as child abuse. Apparently isolation, neglect, abandonment and consistently referring to your child by the wrong name don't count as abuse, because all the kids involved got to eat, didn't get beaten and are loved by the people harming them.

I agree that it's very obvious that Astruc can't handle criticism and that mobbing him or harassing him isn't the solution. Astruc has a right to act like an entitled jackass even publically online, just like any other creator or random person. I instantly side eye anyone trying to turn me against someone based on only the accusations that they're deleting negative comments and blocking people giving negative feedback. The fans might be entitled to their opinion, but they are not entitled to a creator's time and attention.

I'm also going to say that, just like I don't read highly personal vent fics, I'm not going to watch vent shows. I stopped paying any attention to Teen Titans Go after they started dedicating several episodes to mocking fans of the original TT cartoon (after their show piggybacked on the fame of said show by mimicking the character designs and using the same voice cast no less). I'm very much done with paying Thomas Astruc's increasingly inane ramblings any attention. It's pretty obvious that social media is influencing his creative process negatively but it's his right to engage with a space that affects him like that. None of us are his friends, family or doctor. It's none of our business what he does.

I haven't heard of the writers consulting any experts on anything dealing with the show, but I do know for a fact that Astruc tweeted a link to a fan's essay on Adrien that was written by someone claiming to be a child psychologist. Said fan praised Adrien's writing and then went on to praise the Sentipeople concept. Since I make it a habit to never actually be the one that starts shit, I never really engaged with their content and blocked them instead, so I can't remember the details of what they said about the psychological perspective on Sentipeople.

Still, I'm 80% sure this is the supposed expert. Regardless, even if this fan wrote essays with 100% accurate real life psychology, child psychology has no one size fits all approach. I, an ECEC professional, sure as hell didn't agree with anything they had to say about SentiAdrien before I blocked them, and that was before canon confirmed the theory in the worst possible way and screwed over abuse victims.

#ml salt #ml writer salt #ml fandom salt

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cuttingpenisblackmetal · 11 months ago

Text

edit: now on AO3!

in the first week after toki's rescue, skwisgaar figures out how to proceed (post-requiem/pre-aotd, 5k words, tw: references to torture, injury/medical stuff)

The doctor goes out of the way to specify that it's not a coma. "He's just tired. God. Don't be so dramatic." Even a human body claimed by prophecy can only endure so much, and Toki's has much to contend with, these days. There's IV antibiotics for the festering hole Magnus has left in his side, a morphine drip for the same reason, IV fluids plugged into the skin further up his arms. There's a glucose monitor plugged into his shoulder alongside the insulin pump, keeping close eye on the damage wrought by several months of untreated diabetes and a diet apparently consisting of, if Toki's bouts of incoherent rambling are to be believed, cat food. A heart-monitor cabled to his chest that almost looks like a stack of amps by the bed. There's medics checking in frequently, changing bandages or administering creams for the shackle-shaped rash around his neck. The periodic anxious visits of band members. The sedative shots they give him every twelve hours, because everyone is still worried about what state his already-fragile psyche will be in when he achieves sustained consciousness, and there's some desire to make his body habitable before forcing him back into it. There's a lot of hand-wringing and touching and disgusting displays of emotion over him. Even for an attention whore like Toki it must be exhausting. He never wakes up for more than half an hour at a time.

Skwisgaar questions the doctor with stoic indifference, like he's just trying to pass the time. He's in that hospital room continuously, keeping vigil at the bedside, and he's taken it upon himself to receive the periodic updates from the band's physician. He is forced to expand his English vocabulary to include words like 'neuropathy' and 'sepsis'. He doesn't understand the fine details of what is told to him (how does one even get sugar in the blood with an all-cat food diet? He's fairly sure there's no sugar in cat food.) He writes down notes for Pickles, because Pickles invariably asks, and then Pickles gets his own reports from the doctor anyways, because Skiwsgaar's notes 'barely count as English', and for some reason Pickles takes issue with the fact Skwisgaar's only remarks are about how his injuries will probably affect Toki's already abysmal guitar skills. They almost fight about it, once, and then Pickles sees something in Skwisgaar's face and cuts short his obnoxious scolding. He leaves Skwisgaar to his lonely vigil by their perpetually unconscious and now functionally useless rhythm guitarist.

They've only had Toki back for a few days, so the fact that Skwisgaar never leaves the bedside hasn't started to cause problems for him, yet. He's stayed up much longer than this before, usually while facing record deadlines and having to re-record guitar parts that had been so handily bungled by the man currently sleeping before him. Surprisingly boredom fails to be a problem. At this point, his life is so shitty and complicated and weird that it's actually a relief to be able to sit in silence, staring at the array of complex medical machinery. He sits for hours thinking everything and nothing at once, strains of random and disarticulated thoughts mingling with ideas for guitar riffs and new song compositions.

He doesn't remember anything from the rescue itself; he's thinking that their next song should feature a canon, two identical guitar riffs played out of time with one another. Being at the centre of a religious apocalypse prophecy is going to fuck with his identity as a nihilist; the canon should feature a melody that starts slow and gains in speed, like a chase. The sight of amateur sutures over an angry red slit in one side of Toki's sunken stomach; his canon won't be any of that classical major-key bullshit he despised in music school, but something epic, something ferocious. An upside-down cross; a dragon chasing a valkyrie through the melting ruins of Greenland, ice flying everywhere, fire ripping through pillars of frost. Toki mumbles something in his sleep, turning his head; Skwisgaar hears clearly a bridge of elaborate harmonic scales plunging in mutual abandon towards a frozen sea. After months of heavy drug use and every best effort at self-annihilation, it comes as a relief to sit with his own thoughts, dark and disarticulated though they are. He hasn't heard music in his head so clearly since before Toki's abduction, since even before Dethklok attempted to break up.

Unfortunately, he is interrupted often. His bandmates are embarrassingly eager to check in on their rescuee, and even Skwisgaar's mumbled warnings that all the attention will go straight to Toki's head doesn't deter them. Murderface comes the most often, usually with some harebrained scheme to try and make Toki "feel better"-- by making him watch Civil War documentaries, by gifting him exclusive Planet Piss merch, by reading him cat memes from his Dethphone-- the fact that Toki is soundly asleep through each visit Murderface doesn't seem to consider a problem, and it is only the appearance of the band physician that succeeds in driving him away (Murderface had acquired a hostility towards doctors that Skwisgaar doesn't care to understand). Pickles has a routine: he comes by three times a day with a bottle in hand, he receives Skwisgaar's update on Toki's condition, he asks Skwisgaar a few incredibly awkward questions about whether he's sleeping or eating much (Skwisgaar does not dignify these with answers), then he goes to Toki's bed, pours a healthy serving of liquor out on the floor near his pillow ('Jus' payin' my respecks!') and stumbles out of the room to find the physician. Nathan visits very rarely, and always seems overly-fragile and distracted when he does, unable to even look at their youngest band-mate except for while Skwisgaar is telling him about his new musical ideas.

"Just, uh…" Nathan concludes one exceptionally uncomfortable visit, hovering in the doorway, "Tell us when he wakes up."

Nobody's remarked on Skwisgaar's constant presence in the room. They haven't commented on the fact that he's been glued to Toki since they found themselves without recollection in the DethBus, and Toki-- emaciated, filthy, incredibly alive Toki-- was tucked under one of Skwisgaar's arms, holding onto his hand with both of his own. If Skwisgaar ever recovers his memories of that night, he'll seriously interrogate his own judgement, how he found himself in the dreadful situation of affectionate physical contact with Toki of all people-- but he'd held him like that for the entire ride home, and he'd practically carried him to the Mordhaus medical wing, and he's not left since. The rest of the band seems to have accepted this as normal-- Toki and Skwisgaar have been ]inseparable since the kid first joined their band more than a decade ago. Skwisgaar's constant presence here is little more than a refreshing return to the status quo.

This works in Skwisgaar's favour, because it means he's the only one who knows that the slumber that grips Toki is not a coma. He's the only one around when Toki wakes.

Toki wakes infrequently, incompletely. Most of the time he's confused when he does; high off his ass on painkillers and sedatives, his brain seems to pick moments from time at random to thrust him into.

Sometimes he seems to think he's a young kid, and he wakes up speaking Norwegian, asking for his mother or begging forgiveness for some chore-related transgression.

Other times he thinks he's in their old apartment, the first Mordhaus. "Skwis-gaar," he whines, without opening his eyes or moving his head from his pillow, "You says we goes to Ikea if de records sells a hundred copies… I buys pekhult."

And sometimes he's back in that abandoned building. "Don't wants no more cat foods, Magnus," he mumbles once to his pillow, "My kitty-friends says he only eats herrings now, you must bring Toki a herrings…"

During Pickles' next visit, Skwisgaar asks him to bring pickled herring, in case Toki wakes up and feels like a snack. The physician overhears. "Are you serious?" he says, "Have you even been listening to me? No solid food until his blood sugar's back under control. Also, pickled herring? He's already been tortured. Dicks."

The worst times are when Toki opens his eyes. It happens rarely-- Skwisgaar glancing up at the bed and finding himself subjected to a sunken-eyed, glassy stare. The first time, now in the harsh light of the hospital room, he notices that Toki's left eye has two new voids at the bottom of the iris, and he stares at them until he remembers that Nathan had blinded Magnus in the left eye. He's so disturbed that he looks away; he hears Toki smugly mumble, "You blinksed, you're a blinkster," and his throat can't manage to form a reply, and Toki falls asleep again soon after.

Probably an iris tear, the physician explains later, someone probably hit him in the eyeball, but is that really the priority here? He's dying of sepsis and you're worried about a cosmetic wound? Jesus.

But most of the time Toki sleeps soundly, and whatever delusions visit him seem pleasant, for he smiles in his sleep. Toki's always been prone to retreating into his own mind during moments of pain and stress-- a habit Skwisgaar understands, with his own tendency to shut down under duress-- however, whereas Skwisgaar's shut-downs draw him into a thoughtless churn of inner music, he's aware Toki finds more comfort in outright fantasies. Of course he's sleeping so much; he's probably off flying through clouds and rainbows in a stupid fairy world on Planet Toki. The real world, where his bandmates let him endure months of literal actual torture because they were scared to address an old drama Toki didn't even have anything to do with, probably seems pretty fucked up in comparison.

On the fifth day they've had Toki back, Nathan enters the room and tells Skwisgaar in no uncertain terms that it's his turn to be a sad piece of shit next to Toki's bed, so Skwisgaar needs to clear the fuck out. Nathan is the one band member capable of making Skwisgaar do anything, and it would be far too humiliating even now for him to fight over his cherished post, so Skwisgaar sulks out of there with only a warning that he'd better not even think about giving Toki any pickled herring. Doctor's orders.

Back in his room he feels intolerably alone-- he hates sleeping alone, how could Nathan not realise that's the only reason he's been in Toki's room all this time, because they're all acting so miserable and sappy that inviting some groupies over would make him look like a total dick?-- trying to postpone his collapse, he takes a shower that feels as if it lasts for years, spends a true hour applying various products to his hair, drinks half of the bowl of beef broth someone left in there for him. He sits with his Explorer for a while, drawing out the preliminary notes of the canon he's been contemplating in Toki's room, but sleep deprivation is turning the melody to mush in his head, everything sounds discordant, inferior, sloppy. Defeated, he throws himself into his bed, attempts to jack off, fails even at that, and, finally, lapses into an unsettled sleep.

Twelve hours later, Skwisgaar wakes in a thrashing panic. He doesn't remember what he dreamed about but he's convinced that everything after the rescue has been an illusion. He swears he remembers holding Toki's corpse. He dresses in a hurry, grabs his guitar, and goes back to the medical ward, trying to keep his pace slow so that nobody might notice his distress.

Inside the hospital room Toki is asleep and not dead. Nathan is also sleeping, doubled over in the chair by the bedside, his face planted into the mattress near Toki's hip. One of Toki's hands is buried in Nathan's hair, clutching a handful of greasy black tresses with a desperate strength Skwisgaar hasn't seen in him since the rescue. Duh, he thinks. Of course that sappy overbearing homo responds to physical closeness. With Nathan's hair to cling onto, he looks more peaceful than Skwisgaar's seen him in a long time.

When Skwisgaar resumes his constant vigil, he sits a little closer to the bed. He has his Explorer, this time, so he can whittle away the hours by composing that canon he's been thinking of. His playing doesn't seem to bother Toki, who sleeps soundly as ever, totally unappreciative of the fact that the world's pre-eminent Guitar God is giving him a private convert at his bedside. He still talks in his sleep, occasionally, and to Skwisgaar's indignation, it's not even about him. "Abigail? Abigail?" he moans out sometimes. Or, "I loves you too, clown, I loves you too." Or, "Fucks you, Moidaface, I goes to the water-parks without you…" He talks to everyone he's ever known at one point or another. He's always been the neediest of them.

But the canon comes along well, despite Toki's unconscious interjections. Sitting in this room, it's easier to recall the notes-- the white of the room evokes the punishing gleam of an ice-sheet, the beeping of the heart-monitor the steady wing-beats of a dragon in flight. The trick is making sure that every note will work with each other when overlaid; it's self-indulgently technical, the sort of music Skwisgaar loves to figure out: compositions that makes him feel like a genius. While Toki dreams his sedated rainbow dreams and argues with nobody, Skwisgaar plays, and he feels better for the practice.

He experiments with things other than music. Toki does seem to sleep more peacefully when someone is close to him or even touching him. When Toki speaks in his sleep, Skwisgaar moves from his chair and sits, instead, at the edge of the mattress, so that his weight dents it. Even this abysmal excuse for physical contact mollifies him, and his nighttime rambling always stops, replaced with a beatific smile. During one of Nathan's scarce visits, Nathan awkwardly blurts out that Abigail told him that she and Toki held each other for much of their captivity, and that his absence made her feel vulnerable. Skwisgaar, a perfectionist, is oddly chafed by the idea that this intrusive producer has managed Toki's well-being far better than he is able to now. As if she didn't realise that spoiling Toki with love will only do him a disservice in the long run.

But he has his composition, now, to serve as an excuse. The physician had mentioned diabetic nerve damage, and Skwisgaar uses a professional interest in Toki's musical aptitude to justify a battery of tests. He starts by pressing his fingertips against the sleeping man's fretting-hand, testing the response (it curls immediately, the fingers twitch towards his.) Next, later, he takes that hand in his own and presses his thumbpad to each of the fingertips; he finds the callouses are still there, but only barely, thin and inadequate over the sharp bones beneath. His next evaluation is to lace his fingers with Toki's. They're much more slender than they once were, even bony, and he doesn't sense much strength in them-- that will have to be rectified with practice, but perhaps the loss of finger-weight will somewhat compensate for any atrophy of skill. When he gropes along Toki's arms he finds them thinner than they were, muscles clinging tightly to bone and stringy under the skin. His shoulders, likewise, feel narrow and flabbier than they once were. Would a loss of muscle tone affect his playing? He factors this into the canon he's writing, forcing himself to run at a lower tempo.

They've had Toki for a week when the physician delivers an update. The major risk of sepsis has passed, it seems, and the nascent infection in the abdominal wound has been abating at impressive speed. The next step is to reduce his sedatives, introduce proper meals, let him regain a degree more consciousness, start thinking about therapy of both physical and psychological varieties. The update is given to Skwisgaar; he resolves not to pass it on to the rest of the band. If they hear Toki will be waking up properly soon, he'll never get them out of here.

So the meds are reduced, and Skwisgaar continues working on his composition. He soon realises that this isn't something he can do easily in analog; he needs a second him, someone to learn the same pattern and play it a few measures behind him, so that he can hear how it's all coming together. The second him he'd need to write this properly is currently sleep-mumbling a Dimmu Burger order, so Skwisgaar just has to make do with his imagination. It's sounding good, despite everything. Not quite as fast or as brutal as he'd like it to be, but he's going to be working with damaged goods, concessions need to be made.

There's one more test Skwisgaar feels he needs to run. The day the doctor cuts the sedatives, Skwisgaar waits until he's certain they won't be interrupted. Then he takes his guitar from his lap and gently, slowly, lies it across Toki's lap. He takes Toki's fretting hand-- the one that's loose, without tubes running from it-- and wraps it around the neck of the guitar. He holds his own breath and Toki's wrist and he waits to see what will happen.

He watches Toki's hand curl around the neck of the guitar. Fingers seek out strings on pure instinct, forming the shape of a nonsense chord, pressing very weakly down. Pure muscle memory. Skwisgaar lets out a long exhale.

Then he glances up and finds that Toki is staring at him bewilderedly. He's frowning, his eyes are puffy and ringed with near-black bruises.

"… Eugh," Skwisgaar says. "Thoughts you might…. urrrh…. needs… to practices."

Toki stares. He blinks slowly. Then he raises his other hand, with its train of tubes, and extends to Skwisgaar one stick-thin middle finger.

Once news gets out that Toki's awake, Skwisgaar bids farewell to his composition time. Toki isn't even really awake-- he still sleeps almost constantly-- but his intervals of waking can now be measured in hours rather than minutes. He can also hold conversations, now, though the painkillers do little to improve his already erratic train of thought. The rest of the band is eager to speak to him, which confuses Skwisgaar, because these conversations always seem to be about nothing. In fact, Toki hardly speaks, but he's awake and vaguely responsive and that seems to satisfy everyone else.

The first real conversation Toki has after waking up is with Abigail. Not twenty-four hours after Toki had begun to enjoy bouts of continued consciousness, they receive the news that Abigail was leaving Mordhaus' medical wing and returning to her own house, in her own city, far from the band who'd caused her so much grief. She comes to Toki's room to say goodbye, and Skwisgaar, still jealously guarding his place by the bed, pretends not to watch as the two abductees embrace each other and weep into each other's shoulders. It is Pickles who drags Skwisgaar out of the room after that first teary embrace. Skwisgaar is forced to join Nathan in miserable exile in the hallway, where they exchange some awkward words about nothing in particular and pretend not to listen into the conversation inside. The words themselves are indistinct, but neither of them fail to notice the genuine love in Abigail's voice, the tender affection with which she comforts the bandmate they'd almost abandoned.

"I think she's uh… mad at me or something," Nathan remarks at one point. "You know, I guess we kind of, uh… took a while… to save them… yeah, I think she's mad at me or something."

"Dat's womens for you," Skwisgaar replies without emotion, staring at the wall.

When Abigail leaves, Skwisgaar elbows back into the room and finds Toki wiping his face with the edges of his blanket. He looks a mess, sitting upright for the first time since he'd been back; his unwashed hair falling limp over jutting shoulder-blades, scarred skin pulled taut over prominent ribs. He looks up at Skwisgaar, both eyes brimming with tears. "She's leavin's me," Toki blubbers, "She's leavin's-- she's leavin's me-- tells her not to leaves me, tells her she can't leaves Toki, Toki loves her more den anythings--"

The first coherent sentences Toki's spoken to him since the abduction, and he's proclaiming his love for some woman they barely know. Skwisgaar makes a derisive sound. "She shouldn'ts has upsets you's." Toki gives him a miserable betrayed look; Skwisgaar ignores him, takes up his post by the bedside, and gets back to work on his canon.

Maybe it's the loss of sedatives, or maybe it's that Abigail's departure breaks something in him, because after that day Toki becomes much more childish. Skwisgaar has always thought of Toki as three different variants of himself: as well as Toki his musical counterpart, there is the fawning crybaby Toki who loves kid things, and the frightening megalomaniacal Toki capable of astonishing violence. He's the crybaby more often now. It makes him easier to deal with in some ways-- he's completely pacified when Nathan starts reading him Watership Down, for example, and Pickles' bringing him a care package of his deaddy bear and several colouring books delights him for a whole day. But the crybaby is also more prone to mood swings than he's ever been before. Skwisgaar finds, to his discomfort, that exchanges which once would've been natural for them now reduce Toki to tears-- any raised voice, any hint of criticism, any cynical statement, and he starts blubbering. It quickly begins to wear on Skwisgaar's nerves.

There's only so much he can take. He concedes. He starts letting his bandmates drive him out of Toki's room so that they can spend their own time alone with him. He has the melody for his canon, at this point, he feels confident about how the notes will fit together. All that's left is to refine it. He starts spending plenty of time in the studio, first recording himself, then playing over the recording. He sits on his hands before he performs the second part, waiting for them to go numb, the way he always does before re-recording Toki's tracks.

He hasn't brought up the canon since Toki's been awake. He's afraid that, if he does, Toki will dissolve under the pressure and start crying again. He'd offered to let Toki practice on his Explorer during one of his first bouts of proper wakefulness, and Toki had been predictable petulant about it, whining that he couldn't practise with those 'stupids tubes' in his arm. He'd shed tears because he'd thought Skwisgaar's offer of practice was an expression of disapproval, so Skwisgaar had stopped bringing up guitars after that, which left him with absolutely nothing to talk about.

It's becoming more and more difficult to ignore that the other band members are so much better at this than he is. Skwisgaar can't stand that he alone is utterly incapable of making Toki feel better. They've always provoked each other, even at their closest, but now that feels less like proof of their bond and more like a glaring fault.

As the week goes on, Skwisgaar visits less and less. It becomes easy to let himself go for days without doing so.

Perhaps it's for the best, his pulling away. The canon hasn't turned out how he wanted it to be. When he first imagined it, he saw fire and ice, dragons and valkyries; somewhere over these awful few weeks it has transformed into something darker and more hopeless. He's anchored the melody with a heavy thud on the lowest string at irregular intervals, which, as the two tracks play over each other, begins to sound like a palpating heartbeat, overlain by anxious minor scales, skittering rats. A pseudo-classical succession of repeating arpeggios evokes churches filled with ghosts. When he listens to his first recording, Skwisgaar finds himself thinking of damp and dungeons, an upside-down cross, crucifixions, shackles, impaled people, burning stars. He listens through it twice, and then he deletes the track.

They've had Toki back for two whole weeks and Skwisgaar is lying on his bed when Pickles lets himself into Skwisgaar's room. "Dood, the're sayin' he'll be allowed out soon," he says triumphantly. "They're takin' him off the drugs and everythin'! He's gonna be okay. You know? He's okay, we can say that now." Finally, a pause. "Uh, hello? Anyone in here?"

"Ugh," Skwisgaar says. He's been staring at the ceiling for the past while, his guitar lying in one arm like a lover, his other hand behind his head.

"You, uh, doin' okay?" Pickles asks. "You heard what I said or…"

"Yueh. Gots it."

A pause. "You should visit him, dood," Pickles says. "He's been askin' about you."

Skwisgaar makes a dismissive sound. Pickles shoots back something about moody teenagers never wanting to leave their rooms, and then he slams the door, leaving Skwisgaar to stare at the ceiling in silence. He's been lying there for some time, trying to decide what to do with the inadequate canon he's composed. He knows he should admit to himself that it's going nowhere, start writing something else, it's not like him to get attached to a failed piece of music. Writing something else sounds less appealing than simply staring at the ceiling. He's been spending a lot of time doing that in the past few days.

It's never going to work no matter how he writes it. The parts may be identical, created for each other, but they are not beautiful when they're combined. The second melody may be equal to the first, but when lagging behind its counterpart it is ugly and discordant, it evokes something resentful, maybe something even hateful, something deeply frustrated. Skwisgaar may have succeeded in evoking the chase he first imagined, but there are no dragons here, no valkyries-- there is a rabbit with a snared leg, designed for speed but failing to run. There may have been magic in this world, once, but Skiwsgaar can no longer capture it. Perhaps it was never his to capture.

And yet, he still wants to capture it.

When he arrives in Toki's room he finds that Toki's fast asleep again. Murderface is slumped over in the chair next to the bed, and a portable DVD player has been set up on Toki's lap; Skwisgaar hears the strains of some corny animated movie over the sounds of Murderface's snoring. He places the two guitars he's holding at the foot of Toki's bed, goes to Murderface's side, shakes Murderface awake. Murderface rouses loudly, begins cursing out Skwisgaar for startling him until Skwisgaar informs him that, if the tantrum wakes up Toki, he'll tell Nathan; the threat of retribution shuts Murderface up, and he takes his DVD player and leaves with only a cursory amount of resentful grumbling.

With Murderface departed, Skwisgaar waits to ensure nobody else will come in. He waits for several minutes.

He meant to wake Toki up. He meant to tell Toki about the song he was composing for them to play. He's brought two guitars-- his own Explorer, and one of Toki's Flying V's, not the show guitars but one Skwisgaar has taken from a shrine-like sconce in Toki's closet, an old battered guitar repaired with duct-tape in places. He'd been going to press the old guitar into Toki's arms and say, practice, for once in your miserable life, and he'll wait out the crying if he had to, and he'll guide Toki's hands onto the strings if it was required. They can't talk like this-- he hasn't been able to talk-- they need to play together if anything worth saying is to pass between them, and so Skwisgaar needs Toki to learn to play again. These past several months have been so desperately lonely.

Lying motionless in the hospital bed, his wounds barely beginning to heal, Toki looks absurdly like the guitar Skiwsgaar's brought to him-- second-hand, hard-worn, duct-taped back together. Skiwsgaar once scoffed at the idea of playing on such an instrument unless out of sheer desperation, but here he is.

He leaves the guitars at the foot of the bed.

Toki is fast asleep, and he remains asleep as Skwisgaar climbs onto the mattress next to him. He feels ridiculous, like a kid crawling into his mother's empty bed, desperate not to be alone. If anyone catches him he'll take all the morphine from that drip and kill himself on the spot. Awkwardly, trying to avoid any physical contact, he positions his body parallel to Toki's. His feet hang off the edge of the bed, dangerously close to the guitars; his head is on the mattress by Toki's shoulder. So positioned, choking on the shame of it, he tries to settle. Toki smells like blood and sweat and antiseptic.

Everything is already so fucked up, everything is already falling apart. They're embedded in some sort of apocalyptic prophecy and nothing will ever be the same. Carefully, Skwisgaar extends one arm and rests it over Toki's lap, low enough to avoid the wound Magnus has created. In theory he's cuddled with people before, but it's been a long time, he doesn't do that with his hook-ups, it's too much. This feels different. He doesn't know what he expected. Not this-- disproportionate smallness, horrid vulnerability. Toki isn't even awake to ridicule him for it, so he doesn't understand why it's so difficult. He shifts a little on the mattress, astonished by how uncomfortable it is. How could they have made Toki endure sleeping on this for weeks?

Suddenly there is a hand in his hair.

Skwisgaar freezes. He sees his life flash before his eyes. He thinks about jumping out of the window. He tries to think of any plausible excuse and finds nothing.

Toki's fingers tangle themselves in his hair, the tips of them sliding soothingly along his scalp before picking up a lock and squeezing it.

"Ams okay, Skwisgaar." Toki mumbles it as if he's just woken up. "There, there. Ams okay. Everything's okays now."

His fingers still move in Skwisgaar's hair. This is mortifying. He doesn't move away.

He shifts closer, lies his body against Toki's side, hides his face in the side of Toki's sharp ribs. Thank Odin, he does not cry, but he's guilty of sniffling a bit. Toki strokes his hair back, then pats him in a friendly way between the shoulder-blades.

"There, there," Toki repeats himself. "Ams okay, ams heres now. Don't worries, ol' Toki's right here to looks afters you."

Is Toki mocking him? Skwisgaar wants Toki to be mocking him-- it would be so normal, so comfortable. But the hand stroking Skwisgaar's hair feels too sincere. He grinds his face into Toki's ribs, marveling at his own shamelessness. Toki is literally the last person in the world who should be comforting him-- it should be the other way around-- none of these thoughts can persuade him to move away. He just lies there, a charlatan, a fraud, a weakling. Toki's playing with his hair again, petting him like a cat. He is so humiliated he could die. He does not move away.

Things have changed; Skwisgaar understands this. He knows things will never again be the way they once were. But at last, miserable and comforted and in spite of it all at peace, he understands something crucial about their weird new fucked up lives:

The end is not nigh.

#metalocalypse #it's mostly just a dumb of headcanons abt post-requiem skwis and toki :')#my fic

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