#ty for asking i have so many vague concepts hanging out in my head

[grossestjay]

OC ASK: What was your Tav doing when they were kidnapped by the nautiloid?

My Tav Cian was actively on the run, with The Guild finding out exactly how much info he'd been feeding the Zhentarim. Hopefully things turn out okay when he's forced back into the city because of the tadpole. >:)

My unnamed bard/druid (bruid) that I'm developing for my silly Tav/Durge/Gort fic I'm working on was chilling in Waterdeep after traveling a wile, determined to never return to Baldur's and avoiding the men who ruined his life

[happyandticklish]

Sensitive Connections - Part One

Notes: Based off a conversation I had with @tickles-tea and some others about the intermingling of voodoo magic into the drrr universe, and thus this was born. It ended up a tad longer than I expected, as I got vaguely carried away with exposition. 

Summary: Shinra comes into possession of an exciting new artifact that he’s eager to show his friend.

Shinra was practically vibrating with excitement when he met Izaya at the door, quickly flinging it open before sprinting back to the earlier room without so much as a word of greeting to the other. Izaya blinked, hand still raised where it had previously rested against the door in the imitation of a knock.

“Hello to you too,” he said, narrowing his eyes with vague irritation. “And such a warm welcome…”

Shinra popped his head back into the hall, seeming surprised that Izaya had not already followed him. “You got my call, then?”

“If by call, you mean the voicemail I received in the middle of the night calling me over here for some ‘strange new phenomenon you discovered, urgent’, then yes, I received it,” Izaya said, hanging his coat by the door and kicking off his shoes. “This couldn’t have waited till morning?”

Shinra wrinkled his eyebrows, giving his friend a strange look. “Well, I mean, it could have. I honestly didn’t think you would come right away. I didn’t imagine you would be this invested.”

Izaya bristled at the implication, but before he could say anything in argument, Shinra had moved back to the living room. Izaya sighed, following after him reluctantly.

Shinra stood triumphantly before the table in the center of the room, whereupon lied a simple doll. It appeared to be made of felt, almost like that of a stuffed animal, and was entirely featureless save two black buttons sowed where its eyes would be. Stitches crisscrossed its body, giving it a disjointed looking appearance. It sat utterly splayed out on the center of the table, its single occupant.

Izaya glanced between Shinra and the doll a couple times, attempting to decipher what he was looking at. “You called me here, in the middle of the night, for a… doll? A toy?”

“It’s not a toy,” Shinra countered, waving one hand at the notion. “This doll is actually one of the most powerful artifacts in this entire household.”

Izaya raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

Shinra sighed, rolling his head back as he searched for a way to explain it. “How much do you know about the ancient art of witchcraft and the occult?”

Izaya had come across the concepts many times over the years, though he’d never devoted that much interest to them as he considered them the wild fantasies of fools. Admittedly, meeting Celty had certainly bought the ideas more validity, but each and every time he tried to look into it, he found himself unable to take the ideas seriously.

“Not much,” he admitted honestly, picking up the doll and examining it. It had a deceptively innocent appearance, that, knowing Shinra, was sure to be disproven soon. “Is this a talisman of some sort?”

“How do you know what a talisman is but not a voodoo doll?”

“Is that what this is?”

“Yep.” Shinra peered over Izaya’s shoulder, smiling affectionately down at the doll like a proud parent would. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Voodoo. That made sense. Izaya was vaguely familiar with the concept, mostly from pop culture and casual references of it over the years. Now that he was looking closer at the doll, he wasn’t sure how he had failed to pick up on it earlier. Leave it to Shinra to find something like this.

“And how exactly did you come into possession of it?” Izaya asked, glancing back at the other.

“Well, I’m not sure how much of that I could safely confess, but I can tell you that I received it from a good friend.”

“A good friend?” Izaya racked his brain, trying to think of the people Shinra was in association with. Celty, of course, and Shizuo, but he doubted the brute would have managed to acquire something like that. Celty maybe, but it was unlikely that she would care for such things. For some reason it irked him that there might be someone else Shinra was close friends with, close enough for a favor of this size.

“Of sorts,” Shinra agreed. He noticed the look in Izaya’s eyes, smirking suddenly. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Of course not,” Izaya sniffed, tossing the doll back on the table. He whirled around, falling into onto the couch absently. “So how does this thing work exactly?”

An excited glimmer entered Shinra’s eyes, the likes of which Izaya had encountered many times over the years. It meant that the info broker would not be leaving the flat for quite some time. “I’m glad you asked. We’re still trying to work out the theory of it. Based off the myth, sensations placed upon the doll will be reciprocated on the owner, without any physical marks. For instance, if you pricked it with a pin, there would be no evidence on the owner of any kind of damage, but they would feel it as if it had poked them all the same.”

“The owner,” Izaya mused, leaning his head back. A vague hint of devilish interest entered his tone. “So are you the owner then? I think I would quite enjoy stabbing needles into you after all you’ve done to me.”

“Done to you?” Shinra scoffed incredulously, rolling his eyes at the other. “What have I ever done to you?”

“The time I was stabbed and you just—” Izaya started, but Shinra quickly cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“Okay, okay, point taken! I guess you could say we’ve both done some pretty horrendous things to one another.” Shinra sighed, taking a seat besides him. “The answer is no, by the way, to your question. I considered it, in the beginning, but Celty quickly vetoed it. She insisted it would be too dangerous, especially considering we don’t know if there are any harmful effects of it yet.”

“So it’s blank right now?” Izaya confirmed, throwing a suspicious glance back over at the doll. Its empty face gazed back at him, devoid of sympathy. He felt an unmistakable shudder make its way down his spine.

Shinra nodded, oblivious to Izaya’s inner conflict. “It could just be considered a normal doll in its current state. You’d have to actually connect it to a person for it to activate into anything.”

Izaya couldn’t tear his gaze away from the doll. There was something captivating about the concept that held his curiosity like a moth to a flame. He wanted—no, needed—to know more about it. Even as he grew more invested in the subject, however, he felt strangely reluctant to let the other in on his interest.

“Say you were to attach it to a person,” Izaya said slowly, trying to force as much nonchalance into his tone as possible as he spoke. “How would one go about that process?”

For the next half hour Shinra spoke excitedly, laying out details and charts and theorems before the other, entirely unaware of how closely Izaya was listening. Eventually, Shinra had to excuse himself to go grab something from his lab for demonstration. He bounded down the stairs, leaving Izaya utterly alone in the apartment.

He couldn’t explain what called him to do it. Only that before he knew what was happening, Izaya had snatched the doll from the table, racing over to the door where his coat remained hanging. He quickly pulled it on, shoving the doll inside its folds and out of eyesight. He was just shoving on his shoes when Shinra returned, holding a small object in his hands with wires sticking out of. Heaven only knew what it was meant to be, and Izaya certainly didn’t have time to find out.

Shinra tilted his head in confusion when he saw him, frowning. “Izaya? Where are you going?”

“I just figured it was getting late, you know,” Izaya explained breezily, quickly brushing the issue aside as he tugged on his final shoe. “I have quite the busy life, you know; wouldn’t want to disappoint any of the many people waiting for me.”

“You mean your online friends?” Shinra asked wryly as Izaya opened the door, waltzing merrily out of it.

“Try not to be jealous, my dear Shinra—it doesn’t look good on you.”

Shinra shook his head as the door closed on him, smiling indulgently.

 The clock ticked slowly on the wall. Three in the morning. Izaya spun slowly around in his desk chair, hands steepled under his chin. He glanced back at the doll. Two emotionless buttons stared back at him. He spun himself around once more, kicking off on his desk. The room whirled around as his thoughts did the same.

The drive home had held a strange energy to it, a mixture of excitement, nerves, and growing interest in the doll shoved inside his jacket. For once he was silenced, a blessing that the taxi driver escorting him was highly grateful for.

The walk to the door had been silent as well, a calm, practiced walk that spoke nothing of the ancient mythos hidden on his person. With every step up the stairs of his apartment, he could feel its weight. It was only once he finally set it upon his desk and was faced with the blank doll once more, a harmless toy, nothing more, that he began to feel maybe he was overreacting over the whole situation.

He pressed his foot to his desk, catching himself on his final spin. “I suppose there would be no harm in trying,” he mused at last to the empty room; Namie had taken the evening off for some unnamed activity she refused to reveal, so he had the place to himself for the night. “After all, the worst that can happen is I discover it truly is a simple doll after all and this whole evening has been a waste of my time.”

Reaching up, he pinched a stand of hair between his fingers, tugging firmly. He winced at the momentary pain, rubbing his scalp.

Shinra had explained the process of connecting the doll to an owner thoroughly, at Izaya’s bored request. There were a couple different methods one could try, but the simplest one would be to connect a piece of the chosen owner to the doll in one fashion or another. Izaya wrapped the hair carefully about the doll’s arm so as not to break it, tying it into a gentle but resolute knot.

Feeling a tad silly about the whole situation, he pressed his thumb to the doll’s forehead, tracing down to its chest and finally stomach, reciting as he did so, “I name you—Izaya Orihara.”

Afterwards, he removed his thumb, placing the doll once more on the table, and waited. For a while, nothing happened. No strike of lightning or crash of thunder, no cupboards rattling with sinister intent. Outside he could hear cars honking and racing past each other as people shrieked in joyous conversation. Nothing out of the ordinary for the bustling city. His body felt entirely his own, the only things he could feel being the leather of his chair and the slight stinging of his head from earlier.

Izaya sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. “Well, I can’t say I’m not surprised,” he said wryly, reaching out for the doll. “After all, what did I expect coming to Shinra for—”

He sentence broke off halfway in shock. Where his fingers had brushed against the doll, Izaya had felt a bolt of mirrored sensation run up his arm, sending pleasant shudders down his back. He jerked back with a start, narrowing his eyes. His fingers were curled hesitantly in midair from where they had retreated. After a moment, he reached out once more, stroking a finger down its arm. Again, sensation crawled unbidden up his skin and he instinctively shook his arm to rid himself of it, though the action did nothing to alleviate the feeling.

Izaya’s eyes widened. “Incredible,” he murmured softly, fascination lighting up his features. Quickly, he opened one of the many drawers in his desk, retrieving a pen. He held it up, carefully poking the doll up its leg. He winced as he felt the minor pain reflected in his own body, his leg tensing up with each stab.

A sudden shriek of a whistle interrupted his thoughts and he nearly fell out of his chair, his heart slamming about a mile a minute in his chest. The kettle. Of course. He had completely forgotten he had set it on. He quickly stood up, leaving the doll and the pen discarded upon the table as he sprinted to retrieve the screaming pot.

Removed to the kitchen now, he entirely missed the sound of the door opening and the disgruntled voice of Shizuo calling out, “Hello?”

Upon receiving no answer, Shizuo sighed, slowly clicking the door shut behing him and collapsing against it in exhaustion. The rounds that night had seemed to go on forever, and almost every client had decided that day of all days to pick a fight for reasons entirely unknown to the tired man. Tom had offered to let him go early, but Shizuo hadn’t wanted to leave the other alone. So he had stayed. And now it was three in the morning and all he wanted to do was sleep.

He dropped his stuff by the door, wearily making his way over to the living area where Izaya usually spent most of his time. He glanced around, but the info broker was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found a bland doll thrown haphazardly on his desk in his place.

Shizuo raised an eyebrow. Knowing Izaya, it almost definitely wasn’t as harmless as it seemed. “Izaya? You there?”

Izaya paused midway through the process of pouring the kettle, his heart stuttering a little in his chest at the sound of the voice. He had almost forgotten Shizuo had promised to stay the night with the other amongst the chaos of everything Shinra had shown him.

“Late, are you?” he called out in response. “I was starting to think you had run off with Tom instead.”

Shizuo huffed a laugh, taking a seat in the leather-bound chair. “And what if I had?”

“Then I would burn to the ground everything you loved until you returned,” Izaya replied blithely.

“Mm, that’ll be unfortunate for you then. Deciding to experiment in self-arson, Iza?”

Izaya chose to ignore the heat creeping up his neck at the nickname. He poured the remains of the water into the pot, hopping upon the counter as he waited for the mixture to steep. “Flattery will get you nowhere, my dear brute.”

Shizuo smiled fondly, the exhaustion receding slightly as he fell into the ease of conversation. He turned his attention back towards the doll on the desk, wondering at its hidden purpose. There was no way in hell it was just some toy. He picked up it slowly, holding it up to his face as he turned it left and right in examination.

Sitting on the counter, Izaya’s mouth fell open in a surprised O as he felt a warmth clutch his body tightly, the comforting presence of a human body when there was nothing there. At first he was taken over by the sudden panic that maybe he had truly gone insane after all these years, when he remembered the doll sitting on his desk.

Shit.

Izaya slid off the counter with the intention of intervening, but before he could a sudden poke at his stomach made him jump, his mouth clamping down on a strangled yelp. Just as soon as he’d begun to regain his bearings from the first attack, there was another poke, this one angled down more towards his hips and sides. Izaya’s nerves flared up in anticipation, and he squeaked, falling quickly back against the counter, holding on with one hand for support.

Shizuo, meanwhile, had no idea of the effect he was having on the other. He innocently poked the doll as he searched for some kind of switch or button to activate whatever the toy’s true purpose was. He traced his fingers over the stitches lined haphazardly over the doll, scratching curiously at a cluster of them gathered at Izaya’s hip.

Izaya’s knees crumpled at the fluttery sensation, his face breaking out into a helpless grin. “S-Shizuo!” he stammered, sliding down to the ground. “Wait!”

“What is it?” Shizuo asked, momentarily stopping his attempts. “Wait for what?”

Izaya warily regained his footing, worried all the while for a sudden attack. “Nothing,” he responded, making his way out of the kitchen, tea entirely forgotten. He flashed him a disarming smile, hoping for a distraction. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Izaya—”

“Ah, I see you’ve discovered my secret,” Izaya interrupted, nodding towards the doll. “I found it on the road this morning and figured it belonged to one of the various Ikebukuro brats. I was just going to go out and try to return it.”

“You were…what?” Shizuo asked, genuine confusion wrinkling his brow. “You were going to return it?”

“Yes,” Izaya snapped impatiently, moving forward to try and snatch the doll out of the other’s hands. “So if you could just—”

“Since when have you cared about children?” Shizuo demanded, jerking the doll back and out of his reach.

“I’ve decided to branch out in my hobbies, now will you just—ah!” Izaya’s arm shot back where it had been reaching for the doll, coming down to snap against his side. When Shizuo had moved the doll back, his thumb had curled into its sides accidentally, shooting sparks of sensation throughout Izaya’s core. It was still there, still digging in, and fuck, Izaya was going to kill him.

Shizuo narrowed his eyes at the other. Izaya was strangely doubled over on his desk, but instead of a grimace of pain, his lips were turned up into a wobbly grin. Experimentally, he moved his thumb again and Izaya twitched, the softest of noises leaving his mouth.

“Izaya,” Shizuo said slowly, rubbing his thumb over that same spot on the doll’s side as he talked. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I-It’s a v—hmm!—ah, that is, a voodoo doll,” Izaya stuttered, his arms coming down to wrap around his sides though he knew it would do nothing to prevent the sensation. “Shinra g-gahave it to me.”

“Gave?”

“Or rather I stole it from him—don’t!” Izaya squeaked as Shizuo scratched a finger over the doll’s hip again with a disappointed frown. The subtle tickling was insistent against the area, and Izaya found himself at a loss for what to do. No matter how he attempted to rub the spot, the feeling wouldn’t go away. Giggles, of all things, fell unbidden from lips. “S-Shizuo—”

“So, let me see if I have my story straight. You stole this from Shinra, a voodoo doll, a dangerous artifact, brought it into our home, and connected it to yourself? Why would you do that?”

“I wahahas t-testing ihit—” Izaya tried to explain, his sentence breaking off into more stuttered laughter. Of all the outcomes for the doll’s potential effects on him, this was certainly the least expected. He hadn’t anticipated Shizuo to take advantage of the artifact’s power so blatantly. Once again, the other had outwitted Izaya’s expectation.

Usually, this annoyed Izaya. However, as he fought against invisible sensations dancing merrily along his hips, the helplessness of his position beginning to set in, he found that he was almost… excited. Panic, irritation, delight… all of it mixed together into a confusing concoction inside him, and he struggled to find a way to understand just what it was he was feeling. He was finding it difficult to concentrate, with Shizuo now intentionally scratching his nails against the doll’s hips, running his touch featherlight along the other’s bikini line.

Izaya gasped, crumbling instantly to the ground as his laughter rose several octaves. “N-Nohoho, nohoho, nahahat thehehere y-yohohou—fuhuhuhuck!” His insult was lost between expletives and squeaked giggles.

Shizuo watched this display in amazement. Despite the very obvious effects it was having on Izaya, he still found it difficult to believe that it had worked. Voodoo. Genuine magic. He wasn’t surprised to have found it in the info broker’s possession—he was constantly discovering strange and unusual artifacts scattered about their apartment. Still… he couldn’t say he wasn’t impressed with this particular find.

Shizuo couldn’t help but agree that it was the perfect oppurtunity for revenge. For the past week Izaya had been taking advantage of Shizuo’s inability to defend himself against this particular method. Sneaking up behind him and squeezing his sides when he wasn’t expecting it, Izaya would quickly render the man useless on the floor before he could muster enough strength to fight back.

Now, however, the tables had been reversed. He smirked as he held the doll securely in one hand, dragging sweeping touches along his hips with his thumb, the index of his other hand setting to work scratching gently around the place where his ears and neck connected.

There was something so oddly intimate about that casual touch, the slow, gentleness of the gestures, that somehow served to make the whole situation a lot worse. Izaya felt his face warming for reasons entirely outside the tickling.

Curled up on the ground, Izaya was taken over by fits of breathless giggles, unable to continue any kind of rapport. His fingers curled around the folds of his shirt, twitching and gripping it tighter as he forced himself to somehow deal with the devastatingly light tickling. If he would only move off that one spot, for even a moment—

“Can you imagine if I possessed something like this back in our heyday?” Shizuo mused, pretending like the other wasn’t dying on the ground before him. “I would have ruined you with this. What do you think all those top dollar yakuza would think if they saw you like this?”

Izaya dearly did not want to have to think about it. The mere thought of the Awakusu-Kai, or one very specific member at that, discovering a weakness such as this sent a chill down his spine. Luckily for him, holding any thought in his brain was becoming very difficult due to his current predicament, so he didn’t have to dwell on it for too long.

It was when Shizuo’s fingers curled just below the doll’s hips however, that delicate area where torso met thighs, that Izaya began to truly get desperate. “Shizuo please, no, don’t, c’mon, not that—”

“Are you… begging?” Shizuo repeated incredulously, startled delight ringing through his words. “Is the great Izaya Orihara begging?”

Izaya’s mouth snapped shut and irritation flooded through him at the trap of his own making. There was no way to get out of this without shattering his dignity through genuine begging, yet at the same time there would be no dignity left to salvage if Shizuo pursued that spot. In the end he settled on fuming silence, neither a confirmation nor a denial.

Shizuo examined him for a moment, clearly debating the risk versus reward in his head. In the end, he shrugged, holding the doll limply in his hand and thusly removing the threat. “Alright. You win. If you can’t handle it, then I’ll stop.”

Izaya eyed him suspiciously, doubt flickering among his features. “I’m impressed Shizu-chan—that was almost believable.”

“Hey, take my word for it or don’t, but I promise I’m done.” He held the doll out as a peace offering, its limbs splayed out invitingly in his hand.

Izaya narrowed his eyes. He waited several moments for the other to do something, but Shizuo merely appeared bored, his arm growing tired from its outstretched position. Against his better judgement, Izaya slowly stood up, walking over and reaching for the doll.

“Thank you. I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses—ahAHAHA SHIHIT!”

Izaya let out a veritable squawk of laughter as Shizuo jerked the doll back suddenly, curling his fingers into the death spot. Izaya’s legs buckled underneath him as he cackled, and he stumbled forward, falling into Shizuo. Luckily, the other managed to catch him just in time, letting go of the doll and placing it quickly on the table.

Izaya wheezed, the disorientating feeling of the sudden sensation and its abrupt removal leaving him reeling. He blinked wearily, only to find his face inches away from the other. He decided to blame the pink tinge to his cheeks on the laughter.

“Hello,” Shizuo greeted, grinning.

“You are atrocious, you know that? A despicable human being.”

“Hey, save it for tonight.” Shizuo leaned in, softly kissing him in a manner that made Izaya’s bones melt inside of him. When he finally pulled away he found Izaya glaring at him, though it wasn’t very convincing.

“You cannot simply kiss me and expect everything to go back to normal.” He stiffened when Shizuo pressed his lips to his neck in a manner that was altogether far too distracting. “This is not going to work.”

“Mm.”

“I am—” Izaya broke off, struggling to remember how words worked—“still very angry with you.”

“You talk too much.”

Izaya frowned in dismay down at the other, before eventually relenting with an exhausted sigh. He pulled Shizuo’s face up to his, kissing him properly this time. “You are truly insufferable,” Izaya murmured against his mouth.

“And you are tremendously annoying,” Shizuo agreed. It was as close as they got to saying the simple phrase, three words that would make all of this seem too real for safety. So instead they stuck to petty insults, each understanding their hidden meanings.

The doll lay discarded on the desk, but by no means forgotten. In several days, a disgruntled scientist would discover the missing doll and a long-suffering info broker would face the consequences of the phone call that would follow. But until then, the two were content to let the night go on without them as they sat curled together in the slightly spinning chair, their bodies saying what their mouth could not.

Izaya decided that maybe the night hadn’t been a total waste, after all. 

[jaxsteamblog]

A Series of Confessions Chapter 4

Read Chapter 3

Five years ago, Zuko knew exactly where his life was going. He walked through the hall, taking the scrolls various ministers handed him while only vaguely registering the words they were spouting. The conversations moved past him like stalks of dried grass. Concepts parted around him, with details clinging like desiccated seeds.

Trouble in the northern provinces was rumored to be spirits, a new tax was being protested by the gentry, and he needed to sign the approval forms to relocate funding to replace the irrigation system in the capital city.

Occasionally, a briar would snag on his skin, making him grimace.

“About the Lady Mai.” One minister began.

“What about her?” Zuko asked dryly.

“Well, Fire Lord, her departure has caused a slight scandal.” The minister continued.

The procession paused as they came to a doorway and Zuko pushed open the wide double doors. His pace quickened and the ministers following in his wake scrambled to keep up.

It wasn’t the most decorus thing he could have done.

“Any scandal is a problem of her father’s, not mine.” Zuko stated.

“But the fact that she-” The minister tried but stopped as Zuko halted to flare at him.

“That she what? Left with Ty Lee?” Zuko tilted his head as his good eye narrowed further. “Are people upset about her relationship with a woman or does someone assume I’ve been unmanned because of it?”

The minister took in a sharp breath and Zuko straightened, clenching his jaw. He had lost his composure, but the minister only saw his disgust as an external feeling. The minister bowed, making Zuko let out a sigh.

“The Lady Mai had a moment of impropriety, but there is nothing to be said on the matter. I won’t hear another word against either of them.” He said and turned away, continuing on his path toward his office.

None of this was easy and his missteps were mounting. He was still young and had to deal with a young man’s heart; he was hurt and angry, but he had to work with ministers who were easily double his own age. Deep down, Zuko wanted to take his swords out and hack apart as many training dummies as he could, setting anything larger than his fist on fire.

“Has the Fire Lord considered inviting a guest to the Fire Blossom Festival?” Another minister asked.

Zuko felt stress tighten the nerves in his neck but managed to keep his shoulders set.

“I keep a rather dull post during the festival. I wouldn’t want to subject a lady to such a boring evening.” He replied, his voice low.

“Your mother made her debut at the Fire Blossom Festival.” The minister said, her voice brightening.

“I will keep that in mind.” Zuko replied, straining to keep his tone even.

Moving out of the main administrative area, Zuko opened the door to his office and stopped. The people following him crashed into each other, not wanting to topple into the Fire Lord.

“Sokka?” Zuko asked, seeing his friend sitting in his chair at his desk, folding paper gliders and slinging them into the air.

“And Katara.” A voice came from behind the open door. Peering around the edge, he saw Katara wave with one hand while her other arm cradled a number of paper gliders.

“What are you two doing here?” Zuko questioned.

“You stopped hanging out with us so we came to you.” Sokka said, flicking another glider into the air. Katara hopped on one foot to catch it.

“Oh blazes they’re back.” A minister behind Zuko muttered.

“Go lock up the good tea pots.” Another minister whispered sharply.

Zuko smirked, shaking his head.

“I’ve got a festival to prepare for.” He said.

“We like festivals.” Sokka said, leaning back to propel a glider toward the ceiling.

“Where did you get those papers?” Zuko inquired, watching the glider loop over before diving toward Katara’s open hand.

“Desk.” Sokka replied, already folding another sheet.

“Sokka. This is my Fire Lord office, not my private one.”

“And?”

“And those are important papers.”

Katara shook open a glider and tilted her head to look at it.

“Huh. Yeah, he’s right Sokka.” She said.

“Of course I’m right! This is my office.” Zuko said with a laugh caught in his indignation.

Sokka turned and gave him an icy stare as he slid his thumb over a fold sharply.

“Guess that’s why I didn’t see my letters in here. They’re not important.” He said, punctuating his sentence with another knife-like fold.

“I will do anything to get you to stop doing that.” Zuko said.

Katara walked over and dumped her collection of gliders onto the desk. Sokka ignored the both of them, swiping a clear space for him to continue folding. Katara walked to Zuko, taking the scrolls from him and handing them back to the ministers. She barely looked at them, choosing instead to smile warmly at Zuko.

“Come on, I want to show you a new move I learned.” She said softly, putting a hand on his arm. Zuko relaxed so suddenly it brought tears to his eyes. Blinking quickly, he nodded, not trusting his throat to work properly.

“Fire Lord…” A minister said cautiously.

“I won’t be long.” Zuko said and the group of ministers bowed.

Katara kept hold of him, her hand sliding down his arm to lightly grasp his wrist. Her touch was light but he could feel each fingertip like a patch of ice.

It felt nice to be touched so familiarly.

[forcestruck]

fuckign i just want you to know that in 2.07 when Eliot says to Margo "all the time we've been investing in his is paying off" or smth that my mind immediately went to your damn office AU

Omg, I don’t know if you mean the original concept post or the fanfic based on it that I wrote for Matty, but idk, I feel like I’ve just won an award for this.

…

… >.>

“What’s wrong, never got the hang of Thursdays?” Eliot asked in amusement as Quentin came slinking in almost shamefaced, a cardboard carrier filled with styrofoam cups balanced on one hand and a large splotch of coffee staining the front of his shirt. 

“Douglas Adams,” Quentin responded as he sat the tray of coffees down on the desk and brushed his hair back behind his ear. “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hey, can I borrow a hair tie? Mine snapped.”

The last bit was said to Margo, who raised her eyes as she stopped pretending to ignore Q and opened a drawer on the desk to fish out a hair tie before obligingly handing it over. “Wow, it really has been a day for you, hasn’t it?” She asked, waiting until Quentin took the hair tie before reaching out to gently start working one of the cups of coffee free. “Did he at least win this round of your game, Eliot?”

The ‘game’ in question was something new that had recently sprung up between Quentin and Eliot, something that was more due to what certain people called ‘nerd behavior’ than any actual sort of competitiveness. Eliot would, every so often, drop some sort of sci-fi or fantasy reference and while they were generally either ignored or missed by most of their coworkers, Q had started pointing them out, responding in kind like an eager little kid trying to say ‘look, I fit in with you, I get that joke!’ until one day Eliot smirked and announced, ‘you missed that one.’

Eliot, it turns out, had a truly frightening level of awareness when it came to Patrick Swayze and Quentin, in response to that revelation, started keeping count of just how many times he caught Eliot’s references even if they weren’t directed at him. 

“I did,” Quentin assured her confidently, tying up his hair before stealing the coffee cup right from her hands and sitting it back down so he could grab the right cup for her.

“I gave you that one,” Eliot answered dismissively, coming back from a filing cabinet tucked away in the corner of the room and labeled with numbers instead of letters. In his hands was a still packaged button-up shirt that he held out for Quentin, who merely looked at it in confusion until Eliot sighed and announced in a put-upon tone, “Yes, I have a collection of men’s shirts in various sizes stored in the office. Yes, it’s necessary because some of you are fashion disasters that make my eyes want to bleed. No, I don’t actually know your size, but my mental measurements tend to be pretty damn close. Now take the shirt, hand me my coffee, and give us a show, would you?”

Margo clapped a little in response to Eliot’s decree and Quentin rolled his eyes even as he obligingly took the shirt and traded it for Eliot’s coffee. “Is this going to cost me something?” He asked, pulling the shirt out of the packaging before working on taking off his tie. “Midnight jelly doughnut runs to your apartment or something?”

“Are you offering?” Eliot asked in a tone of voice that made it sound like Quentin had suggested something dirty and Quentin jerked his eyes towards Eliot, only to blush when he realized Eliot actually was watching him undressed unabashedly.

Still seated in the desk chair with her legs hanging over one arm, Margo was doing the same thing with an expression that looked like a cat that knew it was getting the cream later. It made Quentin wonder vaguely what the requirements were for sexual harassment in the workplace and if they had rules in place for all the shit likely to cross Eliot and Margo’s minds.

Likely not, but as someone that had gotten off with a coworker in a supply closet during a party, Quentin didn’t feel like he had too much moral high ground. (Nor did a large part of the company, probably. Everyone knew that anyone who went in the copier room on the fourth floor wasn’t actually making copies. They couldn’t, the copier had been broken for going on two years and Fogg never did anything about it. Considering Fogg himself had reportedly gone into the copier room a few months ago with some board member named Bigby, chances were he didn’t care to do anything about it, either.)

“Speaking of doughnuts,” Margo finally said once Quentin was halfway finished buttoning up his borrowed shirt, not entirely surprised that it seemed like a better fit than the one he was wearing before. “Didn’t you have a lunch date with pretty little miss Quinn yesterday?”

“It wasn’t a date,” Quentin pointed out as he grabbed for his tie and felt a faint wave of hate for the object. “Why do you call her that, anyway? You know her name.”

“No reason,” Margo said with a shrug of her shoulders that wasn’t casual at all. “So how was your lunch meeting?”

“Why do you keep asking -” Quentin started, only to lose track of his sentence when Eliot stepped forward and batted his hands away.

“Here, let me,” Eliot said, handing his coffee over to Quentin before attacking the crumple of cheap material masquerading as Q’s tie, fingers quickly and expertly looping the material into a perfectly placed knot while Quentin helped himself to the drink in his hands. “Margo thinks Alice is interesting. Alice thinks Margo is a shark who smells blood in the water and Margo is a predator, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about having her eat them alive.”

“Eliot,” Margo chided without any sense of actual rebuke in her tone and Eliot turned his head to give her a fond smile as he smoothed down Quentin’s tie, stroking along his chest.

Letting the contact linger just a beat, Quentin eventually cleared his throat and stepped back, grabbing the cardboard drink tray before he said, “Thanks. For the shirt. I’ll come back and grab my other one later and get this one back to you tomorrow.”

Eliot nodded and Quentin started to back up towards the door, only to halt when Margo shouted, ��Q!”

Looking back over his shoulder, he watched as Margo straightened in the chair and then betrayed her eagerness even more by leaning forward. “Help me get an opening with Alice and I’ll tell you who you got handsy with at the Halloween party.” She offered.

Quentin gave a quick shake of his head, some of his hair falling free of the tie. “I already figured that out.”

“What?” Margo said at the same time as Eliot said, “You did?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“How?” Margo demanded, annoyed that neither she nor Sunderland had known and fully planning on texting the higher up to complain about the development. 

“Did you know some people have a standing date in the copier room?” Quentin asked. “And some of those people keep a file on their phone with all their access codes and passwords? I swiped the phone and hacked my way into the security footage from the night of the party so I could see if they arrived in a car or taxi and once I found out what he drives, it was easy to figure out the rest.”

“You went through all that trouble just to identify a drunk hook-up at a party?” Eliot asked in disbelief and Quentin wondered just how many nameless people Eliot had gotten off with in his life. “You stole from a higher up to invade someone’s privacy?”

“Margo not telling bugged me,” Quentin offered in explanation. “And it’s not like I got caught. The two of you would have already heard about it if anyone knew.”

There was a look of warmth in Eliot’s eyes, a light that made Quentin feel praised, and Margo had a smile like she’d just heard the juiciest, most scandalous piece of gossip of the year. “Wow, Q.” Margo finally purred. “I don’t even know how many company policies you got away with breaking for that one.”

She reached out a hand for Eliot and he turned to her, taking her hand and squeezing it before looking back at Quentin. “Hmm, I think the time we’ve invested in him may actually pay off.” He said in undisguised fondness and Margo hummed as Quentin ducked his head and resuming his attempt at making a quick escape from the pair.

[elizabethrobertajones]

lizzy? what are your 10 top supernatural episodes?

D: what sort of a question is this? Do you know how MANY episodes there are??

Let’s see… Desert Island Discs… What would I take with me?

Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie

On The Head Of A Pin

Monster Movie

The Man Who Would Be King

LARP and the Real Girl

Safe House

Baby

Heaven Can’t Wait

Clap Your Hands If You Believe

Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets

As you can see I am A: Edlund and Robbie trash and B: helplessly sold on the Perfect Monster of the Week concept over any plot episode. 

Can’t tell if my buzz over 12x10 is going to last but it feels like an all time great and I want to roll around in it forever. It also seemed to directly reference at least 2 of the episodes also on this list (like all the clowns) and live up to all my standards of melodrama and characterisation I eat up, and is possibly the most perfect Destiel episode we’ll ever get (it’s like the overtness of 11x18 crossed with the style of an old Edlund or Robbie episode in delivery… Mmm) so… I put it last on the list cautiously because it’s had to usurp yet another Robbie episode to get on there.

The fairy episode is just a weird little favourite of mine, because I was busy procrastinating writing an essay about fairies for university and realised this silly show was still on the air and binge-watched all 6 seasons and somehow or other, the stars perfectly aligned that I crawl from the library after researching folklore and fairies all day, boot up my laptop to get some downtime, and bam, there’s a kid looking dubiously at the cornfields and I’m just like oh shit this show would never do aliens, it’s more fucking fairies. Obviously my kink is being right, so.

9x06 is one of those nuggets of an episode that’s STILL got brilliant mileage for analysing it, and the Dean and Cas stuff is amazing, and… I practically don’t have anything profound to say about it? I just really love watching it and experiencing first hand everything it showed us about Dean and Cas’s relationship.

Baby, Safe House and Meta Fiction I all debated being on here, and any one of them could have been ditched for Lily Sunder. When all’s said and done I love 9x18 with all my heart and it’s what got me into fandom, and I will always be thankful for it, but on the other hand it’s pretty gruelling to watch, I’m 50:50 on if I LIKE Gabriel’s depiction in it or not so half the time I watch it he grates my nerves and half the time I roll around in glee at the ridiculous fan fic version of him… But it’s pretty bleak and better in context, so you can just extract the important speeches from Metatron and hang them on a wall like a trophy but in the end, not necessary to be on this list as a favourite… Which leaves Robbie’s parting gifts of the 2 best-written MotW episodes this show has ever had, just for pure showing off or filming glee. His overall contribution to season 11 was just loving all over the show, but these were the stand-alones and they’re just really really excellent writing and I think can also make you fall back in love with the show when you watch them.

The LARP episode is also Robbie, I know, but I love it again for the fairies (I’m easily bought) and CHARLIE and the fact that the episode’s message was about having fun. It’s a little blob of light in between some dark storylines. It’s a really neat little episode, not exactly transcendent, but again it’s got some great stuff to analyse in it, and it had Charlie making out with a fairy, and… I’m so easily bought, okay. It’s perfect how it is :P 

While 9x18 convinced me Destiel was canon, 6x20 convinced me it existed at all… I have shipped it basically since that episode aired, and watching Cas watching Dean and hurtling into all his bad decisions and slowly unravelling… Ugh, I can watch it over and over and find more reasons to be miserable for Cas every time. I also think you can basically watch 5x22 followed immediately by 6x20 and not actually miss out on anything :P It’s written as a direct answer to it as well as to fixing and explaining everything that happened in season 6 so far. I appreciate the episode a lot for tying the whole story together, and it inspires me to be the sort of writer Edlund is - running screaming at a story and tripping over hundreds of ideas too ridiculous or terrible or implausible to ever fit in the story, before scraping together the horrendous mess you’ve made of it and hopefully by trying to explain it to yourself, also create a masterpiece along the way with some well-applied framing devices to pretend like you meant to do it that way all along :P (9x18 also is bad writing advice for me because it implies you know what you’ve been doing all along, and Robbie sometimes strikes me as the only writer who planned ahead more than maybe the next episode, rather, I suspect he’s planted foreshadowing for season 15 that we still haven’t discovered, and basically this is not my process at all :P)

Monster Movie cracks me up every time. Dracula. On a scooter! HE HAS A COUPON. And Dean and Jamie is possibly my favourite romance subplot in an episode on the whole show. I love them! Jamie is a favourite character of mine, and the episode is completely hilarious, and I’m absolutely fascinated by Dean immediately post-Hell, and this is a good break from all the drama and trauma to see how he would try and cope and be normal, so despite how weird and kooky the episode is, I’m always coming back to it to try and analyse Dean because I just find him so interestingly written there. If/when I get to season 10 in my lengthy rewatch notes, I’m going to have to give myself a gag order on this episode of comparing Dean’s weird coping methods with the nonsense of this episode :P 

Also 4x16 is basically a stage play but happens to be on TV, randomly dumps the formula of the show entirely by forgetting Sam and Dean exist halfway through to focus entirely on Cas, Uriel and Anna having a domestic, and was the first episode that really delved into Cas and began to show the potential of the angels as a seriously powerful force in the story; not that they’d be great for the plot because it seems like they’d have to be involved with the apocalypse one way or another, but it just sells that Cas’s story is worth telling at all. I’m not sure other writers at the time could have sold it quite as effectively and made Cas worth writing about in the same way, but there was a serious risk involved in hospitalising Dean practically at the halfway point, and letting Cas stomp off to deal with it. Please take a moment to stop and think of one very important fact: this was the first episode Edlund wrote with Cas in it :P

It’s not coincidental that my favourite episode on the entire show is ALSO my favourite episode when you ask me to list top 10 Sam episodes. Funny Sam episodes are rare and perfect little gems. Episodes where Sam gets to be what I think of as an ideal, perfect Sam… That list is even weirder than this one because it’s all about when I end up emotionally screaming about Sam and he beats out anyone else on screen for my attention (with my very particular emotional response to what is my favourite version of Sam, which immediately disqualifies all the serious Sam fans’ fave episodes because I don’t like the show getting emo about Sam because it always vaguely embarrasses me and feels like the show’s working too hard with the puppy dog eyes. You know that bit in the The Hobbit where Bilbo spares Gollum because he’s being too wretched and he just can’t kill him? And the movie didn’t play it subtle at all, it had Gollum looking up at the screen doing the eyes from Puss in Boots from Shrek with a perfect man tear running down his pallid face and you really just want to punch Gollum instead of understanding why Bilbo spared him…? When the show gets all saccharine about Sam it just reads like that to me - trying too fucking hard and over-selling something that doesn’t NEED selling in the first place because it’s already sold and like, I don’t know, a favourite armchair or something that’s by now a 12 year old bit of furniture in your house you favour and would never dream of getting rid of and is just always there for you to flop down on when you  need it…) I mean, fair cop, obviously I am a Destiel fan and Dean and Cas occupy like 90% of my waking life. But SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER and episodes where Jared gets to play him FUNNY? It’s like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. This episode is ridiculous, and hilarious, and plays to all the strengths the show and its actors and writers have, and maybe it’s just because it’s in the middle of season 7 where everything is bleak-bleak-bleak-bleak, but it’s… I don’t know. Same feeling as LARP and the Real Girl, but with extra glitter, and Sam Winchester getting his ass handed to him by the most perfectly choreographed clown fight in the history of visual media.