#wn lmao

[morgana-ren]

What are some things that Ilya is willing to compromise on if his darling is able to convey that she’s hurting because of him (obviously) but also stopping his own chance for happiness?

Well, there's a lot to try and compromise on. There's his obvious sadism, but truthfully, that will (sort of) decline with time-- insofar as that he won't seriously hurt you for his own amusement. Not like he's stabbing you in the gut or anything, but uh-- you know.

Horrible things get him off, same as most of the lads. He doesn't care much for consent or boundaries. He enjoys crying and begging. He wants to be the one in power and is willing to do terrible things to keep that power. He likes bruises and blood and all sorts of degenerate shit. But same as with Nighty and Reaves and the rest of the lads, the more he cares, the softer he becomes. Horrid shit still gets him off, yes, but there will be a little more give and take.

Ilya is fully willing and capable of giving pleasure -- more so than Nighty, actually -- and you'll notice a difference. He won't do it just to fuck with you. He will do it because he wants to.

The biggest issue is his emotional unavailability, honestly. Even more than his sadism.

Ilya is cold, cool, and calculated. He was raised very differently, and even his ideas of ideal love are challenged in his own mind. It's remarkably hard for him to be available in any capacity that would be expected from an actual lover. He never had a good frame of reference. He watched his mama play his father like a puppet on a string. He watched his father be distant and cold to all his children and wives. He has nothing good to draw on when it comes to love.

He's never been emotionally vulnerable before. He's never shown that he cared or put himself in a position where he might be rejected. He took what he wanted and walked away when he didn't anymore.

When you choose to be with him, no matter how you may have started, you'll notice that he's quite.. distant. He always has this aura of aloofness. It might've been a relief at first, but when you're trying to break through to him? Not so great. His demeanor is always very chilled, and calm, and almost creepy. No matter how upset you might get, he's just going to blink snake-like eyes at you slowly, and occasionally give you an absolutely infuriating small smile. He will shrug you off while lounging in a chair like the king of fucking England, and it will feel like you are talking to a pretty wall.

The hard part is he does love, and he can care so much. But he literally has no idea how to show it. He is the literal emotional embodiment of a shrug and a chuckle.

When he thinks he's losing you, he will simply coil tighter around you. Remember, leaving isn't an option. His first line of thought isn't 'Oh hells, I'm doing something wrong.' It's 'They aren't going anywhere.'

But if you level with him and tell him that this (being his invulnerability, and not just his presence) is hurting you, it's going to... confuse him. He literally won't realize what he's doing or what is happening.

Ilya has... issues. He has anger issues, abandonment issues, basically there's a list. How he copes with those issues is by keeping a tyrannical rein-in on his emotions. What that means is no vulnerability. No shows of love outside of small, distant gestures like gifts, nothing real. Because if it's real, he has to work at it. Because if it's real, that means he can lose it.

Look, he's a broken basketcase to be sure. But with a lot of patience (and I do mean a lot of patience) you can make him realize that if he wants a real love, he has to fucking earn that by being in a real love. He can't separate himself from it and still have what he wants. Even if you ignore it and pretend it doesn't bother you, he's eventually going to catch on that something isn't right.

I hate to say it, but basically, he is going to have to be fixed, and even then, he is still going to be busted as fuck. You can take his hand and lead him through it, if you know how to. You're going to have to make him understand that he cannot have the benefits of vulnerability without being vulnerable. If he wants love and a family, he has to let his guard down. He has to be willing to grieve, and hurt, and feel.

And feeling is what he avoids most in the world. Even when he is feeling.

[clonesbians]

fine, FINE 😡

[add1ctedt0you]

What a plot twist you were. [x]

[possibilistfanfiction]

More surgeon suffering pls! Maybe bea learning more about Ava’s injury?

[definitely sooo gentle & no present-day suffering lol but here u go]

//

‘you can ask.’

beatrice’s gentle, callused, careful fingers still along your back, their patterns you can’t quite decipher gone quiet. ‘i would never do that.’

her voice is so soft and so relaxed, it’s not at all a reprimand; you can’t say it aloud, not yet, but you love her. you roll over so that you can see the gentle planes of her face through the silvery-blue light from the moon and the night outside her big windows, the blinds not yet drawn. she looks at you openly, patiently, like there’s nothing she wants to take from you; everything she wants to give. you know — in your heart and through your friends and your family and your therapist telling you over and over again — that you have so much to offer: you’re beautiful and funny and very smart, and you love the world more than anyone you know. you also know that beatrice is sometimes less sure of herself than she seems: she clams up every time her parents call, unable to tell them to, unequivocally if it was up to you, fuck off; she loves to be lazy and sleep in and wants no one to know; she still is in the habit of downplaying accomplishments, anything from a surgery she mastered (impressive in that you know how hard it is) to a new route she climbed at the gym (you have no idea but lilith was jealous and you can imagine it’s hot); she’s a horrible cook.

‘i know,’ you say, and you do. you let a finger drift down the bridge of her nose, count her freckles, feel the chapped bow of her lips beneath your thumb. she has a scar, small, through her left brow, and you trace it. ‘what’s this from?’

she smiles, always so quick to understand, always so generous. it makes you feel like you could light up the entire world sometimes. ‘i was five; my brothers were trying to teach me how to rollerblade.’

you think about it: beatrice’s gap-toothed grin and the delightfully terrible bob haircut she had for so much of her early childhood, the photos making you laugh when, unprompted, lilith showed you a few weeks ago when you’d all had dinner at a good oyster place near bea’s house. ‘can you rollerblade now?’

‘no, it frightened me. i never learned.’

‘putting that on the short list of things that scare you. good to know.’

she holds up her right arm so you can see the small scar on her elbow, the skin darker than before. ‘at university, i was drunk and my crush dared me to climb a tree.’

you can’t help the laugh it pulls out of you. ‘oh my.’

she nods. ‘yes, quite. needless to say, amelia and i went our separate ways fairly soon after.’

‘well, her loss. i’d have paid to see you fall out of a tree.’

‘i didn’t fall,’ she says. ‘i scraped my elbow on the way up, but i did continue.’

‘of course you did.’

she shrugs. you trace the scars across her chest, ones you love. 

‘camila told me you tried to go back to classes a week after your surgery. like, the day after you got your drains out.’

bea laughs. ‘yes, and promptly fell fast asleep about three minutes in.’

‘front row?’

‘well, the second.’

‘knew it.’

‘i can keep going, if you like. i have a good story about a scraped knee during field hockey at boarding school.’

‘homoerotic, i hope.’

she rolls her eyes, but based on her silence you know you’re right.

she lets you sit in it, easily, and her house is beautiful and warm and, you’re beginning to think — to hope — it might be full of your things one day, too. it’s easier to be brave here, but your words, the worst of them, still get stuck in your throat. ‘well, what do my scars tell you?’

she weighs it. ‘you know i’m more interested in cardio.’

‘you’re the smartest person i’ve ever met.’

‘well, you favor your left hand when you’re practicing sutures, and i know your left foot gets numb often. you have trouble with temperature regulation and walking long distances, but an easier time standing for the most part; your neck aches, i think all the time.’ she pauses. ‘your handwriting is abysmal, although i suspect that has nothing to do with your injuries.’

you’re about to start crying, but she makes things lighter, even now.

‘all i care about, ava,’ she says, soft and sure, a hand tangled in your hair and then gentle on your cheek, ‘is that you get the care you need, that you tell someone — me or anyone else who can help. and you can tell me whatever you like, if ever you feel ready.’

‘i can’t — i want to.’

she kisses your forehead. ‘like i said. it’ll always be up to you. i’m here.’

you take a deep breath. ‘my mom had a garden,’ you say. ‘she died, uh —‘ you get a little caught, stuck on the way her eyes looked when she wasn’t alive anymore, when you couldn’t move, when you were stuck for so long, screaming and so, so scared — ‘she grew all kinds of vegetables.’ your voice shakes but beatrice only nods. ‘and flowers. we were going to —‘ you sniffle and beatrice just wipes your tears — ‘i think she wanted to keep bees. i don’t even know if that was possible; we had a little yard. but everything grew.’

‘that sounds wonderful.’

‘it was, even though i hated eating my vegetables.’

beatrice laughs softly, admonishing in a way that’s harmless, fond. ‘you’ve grown so much since then.’

‘hey, i’ll have you know just today i ate, like, seven bites of a salad.’

‘very impressive.’

‘can i — not right now, because i think i’ll just cry too much, but — can i tell you more about her? i wish you could’ve met her.’ i wish i could remember her more; i can’t forget.

‘i would love that. and, if she was anything like you, i’m sure she would’ve lit up an entire room. it would’ve been an honor.’

‘bea, i really don’t want to cry again,’ you whine.

‘you should know,’ she tells you, a little firm, so there’s no argument. ‘she would be so proud of you. i know it; who wouldn’t be?’

‘that’s —‘ you bury your face in her neck, just for a moment, soft and warm and safe. 

‘would you like to plant a garden?’

‘in my tiny ass apartment?’

‘no,’ she says, and you can’t see her but you can practically feel her rolling her eyes. ‘here. i have the whole back yard and, frankly, no real interest in a lawn.’

‘i —‘ you back up so you can look at her, and her eyes are clear. ‘really?’

‘of course. i’m actually quite interested in self-sustaining agriculture, and the pacific northwest has great growing conditions for so much wonderful flora and fauna.’

‘wow. okay, but — it’s your house.’

she pauses. ‘ava.’

‘i just — you’re sure?’

‘i would really enjoy it, if you’d like. also, my friend marco, from the climbing gym, runs the community garden in their neighborhood and has been pestering me to meet you.’

‘you talk about me?’

‘of course.’

‘well, if marco will do all the heavy lifting, and preferably both of you not have shirts on, i’m so in.’

‘it’s february.’

you shrug. ‘you’re tough.’

beatrice laughs, and you sink into it, delight in it. you could light up the whole world, ava, she told you after two glasses of wine and half an edible the other night, entirely serious, crammed onto the small couch in your small apartment, your life expanding far beyond, past any walls you knew. 

‘next weekend, when we’re both off,’ she says, ‘we can go to the nursery nearby and get started.’

‘you’re —‘ the love of my life sits right on the tip of your tongue, but you kiss her instead. ‘thank you.’

‘thank you for telling me about your garden, and your mother.’

all you can do is nod, and then hold her after she turns over and falls asleep.

[trans-xianxian]

the tower -> the star -> judgement

[travalerray]

I am going to slap you myself

[twistedappletree]

Why do I get the feeling that Lan Sizhui just doesn’t give a heck who touches his forehead ribbon? He exudes such intense platonic love vibes: all his friends are his soulmates, his family are his soulmates, everyone he loves and cares about are his soulmates so like… who cares actually, touch the ribbon, he loves you all equally

[miasanmuller]

I was tagged by @smolnerdz to share 9 of my favorite books!

I tag @probayern @thomas-mvller @gxtzeizm and @youknowitsworthfightingfor :) Feel free to ignore it tho

[laerryncoramar]

so you’re telling me while alba and kty were pouring their hearts out to give us this emotional devastating goodbye, there were just some dudes in bright green spandex waiting to carry and lift alba through the arc???

[bazaarwords]

are u interested in ava/beatrice/lilith? smth with them pls, or a roommate au, or a fwb? ur other prompt fills are amazing!!!!

hello!! thank you so much @amazingpurplehoodie! i hope this works!

-

If Lilith had a modicum of patience for the two idiots living in her apartment, she wouldn’t have bought the plane tickets.

In the sky above Europe, she doesn’t have to think about the horrible, yearning glances. She doesn’t have to think about the way they bump into each other in the galley kitchen and then blush and stutter and it is driving her insane. To her infinite regret, she currently does not have enough money to rent on her own in Madrid. So she’s stuck until she either wins the lottery or finds a new job. With the current market, the lottery is more likely, so she remains in the middle of a horny war she wants nothing to do with.

Were she a more involved friend, Lilith would have said something. Ages ago.

But she is not involved, she does not want to be involved, and this is why she is heading to Greece. This is why, on a sun-drenched beach in Mykonos, she has opted to silence notifications from them both and is taking in the gorgeous weather and a few glasses of ouzo.

She understands, objectively, that the spontaneous trip is several, active steps away from her goal of financial and personal freedom, but if she stays one more consecutive day in the apartment, she’s going to kill one of them. She doesn’t have the money to bail herself out of prison, is the thing.

It is heaven on earth until her phone rings.

Because of the ouzo, or maybe because she’d been half-asleep (although she’d never willingly admit to that, she is constantly vigilant) she picks up the phone right away. The rationale being: it could very well be work. It could be my boss, and she could need something that requires my immediate attention. These thoughts last the duration of the phone’s movement from the beach towel to her ear, and then it is this:

“Lilith, if you don’t answer her she’s going to break into my room. She already got into my apartment! I don’t even know how—”

“Camila,” she says, as firmly as the ouzo will allow, “I am trying to relax.”

“That’s what I told her. She’s having a crisis and—“

In the background, Lilith can hear the unmistakable sound of Ava Silva’s panicked shouting. There is not enough alcohol left in her bottle to field this.

“I’m hanging up, Camila. If she’s on death’s door… you can consider calling me. And only after the ambulance.”

“No, please—“

There’s what sounds like a struggle on the other end, and then Lilith’s ear is full of labored breathing. The following sentence comes out like one, unbroken word. “Lilith? Lilith, I saw her boobs. I came home and she didn’t know I was there and I was in the kitchen and she came into the—“

Lilith hangs up. She turns her phone off.

She downs the rest of the bottle and she lies in the sun until she falls asleep.

—

She’s wandering through Athens, completely disconnected.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to practice her poor Greek, and she’s had a fair amount of encouragement from elderly women and street vendors alike. She feels at peace for the first time since before she’d co-signed her lease.

The last time she’d tried opening her phone, she’d been overrun with messages and missed calls and the deluge of notifications had soured her mood. She’d sent an email to her boss, stating phone troubles, ignored five consecutive messages from Camila, and turned it off. It’s been two blissful days since, but she only has so much time left before real life has to creep back in.

A young man selling intricate, handmade candles on the street is impossibly kind to her and patient with her Greek. He tries out some English and Spanish with her, and then hands her a free candle on one condition: she follows him on Instagram.

He looks so young and so hopeful, and the business really seems to be his passion. Lilith does not consider herself a particularly generous person, but there is something in this man’s eyes that makes her want to help.

So she does. She turns her phone on, and follows him.

It’s been just long enough for her to have a lapse in judgement, however, because he asks if she’d be willing to share a picture of his stand and tag him in it, and she doesn’t hesitate in saying yes.

It takes fifteen seconds for her to get a call.

“Your phone,” the man says.

“My phone,” she says, and hazards a glance at it.

This time, it’s Beatrice. Another lapse in judgement: she answers.

“Hello,” she answers, not a question.

“Hello Lilith. I’m glad you’re alive.”

“What is it,” also not a question, “that you want, Beatrice.”

“I, um… I wanted to ask when you’d be coming back?”

It sounds innocuous, but Beatrice is not Ava. Beatrice will dance gingerly around an issue and then crash land on her request, no parachute. She’ll reel someone in with a false sense of composure and then spring the true nature of her panic like a bear trap. Beatrice does not break into her friend’s apartments. Beatrice knocks on the door and sits on the couch with some tea and slowly turns into a homosexual mess before one has the opportunity to realize what’s happening.

“Two days.”

“Ah,” Beatrice says, and then there is a pause and Lilith considers hanging up six unique times. “How are you enjoying… wherever you are?”

“Get to the point, Beatrice.”

“I…” Lilith can hear her shift gears. Beatrice has a tenuous relationship with tact, so she says: “I’m in love with Ava.”

Lilith pulls the phone away from her ear, and the red end call button glows like city lights in a vast desert. She’s been wandering through the dunes for months. She wants to hang up like she’s never wanted anything before.

But, she hasn’t put Beatrice on speaker phone, and it’s something about the small, pathetic, “Lilith?” that grabs hold of what she imagines to be a cold little black lump in her chest and squeezes.

She sighs and puts the phone to her ear. “I know, Beatrice. Everyone knows.”

“Everyone?”

“Almost everyone,” Lilith grumbles, conceding at the thought of her other, stupider roommate. She accepts the candlemaker’s business card and makes her way down the street. “Why are you having this crisis now, Beatrice?”

“I… I just realized.”

“You just—“ The little red button is right there. “Beatrice. How?”

“Well. I was doing some coursework at the kitchen counter and she’d baked some muffins for me—“

“No. No, how has it taken this long?”

Silence. Lilith allots ten seconds for a response before she hangs up.

“Oh. Oh, I—I’ve been feeling this way for months.”

She’s right by the shore. She could throw her phone into the sea.

“Goodbye, Beatrice.”

“Wait! What… what do I do?”

Lilith has given plenty of her time to this. Enough is enough.

“Goodbye.”

—

Lilith prepares herself for the worst, always.

She stands in front of the door to her apartment for ten minutes, trying to wring out the memories of a warm Grecian sun and sweet orange cake and coffee and blue waters. She needs her head on right if she’s going to maneuver the mess they’ve inevitably gotten themselves into while she’s been gone.

It takes three tries, but she opens the door and walks into what seems like an empty apartment.

Her hackles are always up, so she’s mostly prepared to handle Ava when she comes flying into the living room, wrapped in a sheet that trips her as soon as she tries to stop.

“Lilith!” She says from the floor. “You’re back!”

She looks down at Ava, takes stock of the situation. Ava scrambles to her feet, and she’s saying something that Lilith is not listening to, mostly because she’s watching Beatrice tiptoe from Ava’s bedroom to her own bedroom on their side of the apartment, hair a mess, shirt on backwards.

In a rare moment of levity she thinks: well she didn’t need my help after all.

“Hello Beatrice,” Lilith says, deadpan, and Beatrice turns to her like she’s just been shot. It's funny. Lilith doesn't smile.

There is a long moment of silence, and in it, Lilith seriously considers going back to Greece.

“So,” Ava begins, the hand that’s not holding the bedsheet up to her bare chest waving between her and Beatrice. “We figured everything out. By—well, by having se—“

“I’m going to sleep,” Lilith interrupts. It’s four in the afternoon. She wants to be unconscious.

“Okay, yeah. Cool. Nice.” Ava says, gives her a thumbs up and almost trips again as she backs up on the way to her room. Beatrice follows her, the very picture of a walk of shame.

In her room, Lilith sits on the edge of her bed and ruminates on the fact that she might finally be able to live peacefully in her own home. It's a nice thought. She's almost happy for them.

Her phone buzzes. It’s Ava.

Almost.

Ava Silva, 4:06PM

do u still have those noise cancelling headphones??

maybe…… u should wear them

for...... idk like an hour?

She dismisses the notifications and goes to Google: cheap flights anywhere.

[nevalizona]

He looks so cute! I wanna squeeze him lol

[daisychainsandbowties]

"...inventing new types of star wars droids..."

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Sneak peak🥺 (unless it would be spoilers)

^_^ of course you can have a sneak peek!! i wanted to post one anyways so this is quite convenient 😌

///

The ship sat, looking like a stranger dressed all in black. A clamp held it down against the deck and every part of it had been buffed to a shine so that it appeared as a dark coin among the off-white masses of transports and starfighters and ungainly freighters packed around it. Beatrice approached it cautiously, wondering whether Lilith had set alarms, if the wings would suddenly erupt with a dozen flesh mines. She’d seen it happen before on Outer Rim worlds, where laws were very palpably invented, when they existed at all.

It was something she’d never forget, watching a woman creep up towards an unguarded ship with a toolbelt slung over one shoulder; how she moved and how it felt to Beatrice, standing two berths away. She sensed the intention before she ever saw the woman – a chorus of want sliding over her shoulders in gossamer folds. She’d been rubbing her thumb against the paint job on their ugly, beautiful starship. Trying to look busy when a sourceless voice came and whispered to her of theft, bright as a polished blade.

She turned, found the mingled sense of rightness and wrongness, and stood with a strange apprehension curling in her gut. Picked the woman out clean from the crowd as she broke through it, as she put one foot past the chalk markings on the ground.

Beatrice dreaded what would happen next only absently; she was caught thinking only that the woman was extremely pretty. Blue tinge to her skin, black hair long and tangled about her shoulders. A surefootedness to her, like she’d walked in all sorts of places, like she’d never been afraid. Her hands had callouses and her shoulders were broad and muscular and Beatrice, in contrast, had spent months feeling small.

And then, like the curtains parting at the opera, a dozen bright balls spilled out from inside the wings of the ship and the woman shrieked even before they touched her, even before they burrowed into her skin and sat there as she collapsed and wheezed and drummed her heels on the ground. Dockers and passengers and assorted spacers scattered from around her, leaving an area of clearance that felt rehearsed, familiar. Something they’d all witnessed before.

“Look away,” her Master told her, appearing from nowhere to put a hand on Beatrice’s shoulder.

She didn’t look away – couldn’t – as the woman raised a shaking hand to her chest, begging for someone anyone please to help her. Fingers digging hard into Beatrice’s shoulder as she stepped forward, already reaching for the Force energies, rehearsing the invisible gestures that would tear all the invading mines out of the woman’s flesh. Primed to run up through the shower of blood it would cause – that rotten liberation of metal from skin - so that she could put her hands down and heal.

“You can’t.” Arms wrapped around her, tamping down on her power like a hand over a hand over a candle’s flame. “They’ll find us, Beatrice. They’ll find the kids.” She meant the younglings hiding in the belly of their ship. The little hands that took crackers and canteens from Beatrice in the early mornings, the small robed bodies she rocked to sleep at night.

They were going to save them, take them far away where the Empire would never find them, but that meant hopping from planet to planet, through warzones in their silly sub-light freighter. Taking tows from ships with hyperdrive, but never far enough. Never away, if that was a place they could go to, anymore.

The Empire was spreading like a hand through the black of space.

We’re going to save them, Beatrice thought, still, and she let go of her power because saving the younglings meant many things. Hungry nights aboard the ship because their credits could not stretch far in the new economy, the shattered body of galactic order most people could not feel slipping from beneath them.

That day, it meant standing with her Master’s arms around her as a woman erupted into a cloud of blood and shredded blue skin.

Would Lilith do that? Her ship had a respectful circle of cleared space around it, a few scattered tool-trays floating uncertainly, some of them doing bored loop-de-loops, magnetised surfaces stuck with wrenches and fuse-guns and screwdrivers.

Her stomach turned at the sight of the cross-slot screwdriver, so alike the one Crimson had pierced through her forearm, but she turned away, took a reckless step closer to the ship. She could die like that, Beatrice supposed, heels drumming out a song on the floor, but there was another part of her – a surefooted part of her – that did not foresee death.

She reached out slowly, ignoring the lightning-bolts of pain that flickered through her arm as she raised it. The tips of her fingers touched cold metal, and nothing happened.

She stroked at the outer curve of the wing, knees bumping up against the low-hanging laser canons. It seemed to hum against the pads of her fingers, and Beatrice was just looking around, trying to spot an engineer or a ship tech who could help her get inside the ship, when the humming intensified.

Her body twitched away from the wing – it was still by and large more concerned with itself than she was, still clinging loosely to self-preservation – but nothing leapt out to eat her. The ship lit up along the sides, a gentle glow that washed over her shoes, picking out the now-dried blood on one sole. Red, of course, spreading after a moment along the wings as webbing, bright and then dim again.

It was a welcome, Beatrice realised. The ship knew her. Someone – Lilith, who else? – had taught it to recognise her.

Beatrice didn’t know how to feel about that so she felt nothing. She ran her hands numbly back along the wing, feeling for the handholds that would let her clamber up towards the cockpit. Her fingers slotted smoothly into them, but she was weak, still, and though there were plenty of ships custom-fitted for those missing arms or legs, those who could not walk or lift themselves by their hands alone; this ship belonged to Lilith. No doubt she propelled herself up onto the wing with a frisson of Force.

Mortal, small, cold, Beatrice looked around instead for a stepladder droid. She’d watched them careen underfoot plenty of times, engineers stepping onto them lazily and then off the other side, carried a scant few feet. She could sense very dimly – not through the Force but through her odd affinity with unspeaking creatures – how happy it made the droids to be useful, to be an encumbrance, to be anything at all.

The space around her was empty, though, and she felt a dread gathering in her chest at the thought of asking one of the living breathing speaking looking-at-her ship-techs to help her up, but then her eyes alighted on the tool-tray droids. They sat listlessly, three of them, holding various arrays of tools no one would dare to use because they belonged to Lilith.

Beatrice patted the wing of the ship once before stepping away. The tool-trays flattened out their bodies as she approached. She got the sense from them of outstretched hands, eager to be held. There were tiny light-receptors fitted into the corners of the trays – so they could see her or at least perceive her in some sense. She stopped a pace away as they formed a neat arc around her, jostling each other to be the closest without crowding her.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice caught in her throat with disuse, but the droids didn’t seem to mind. They inched toward her, and Beatrice obligingly put out a hand to run her fingers over their slippery-smooth bodies. She made sure to pay equal attention to all of them even as urgency prickled the back of her neck, coordinates and one-word messages repeating in her mind.

She took her hand back, set it against her chest awkwardly, feeling altogether too formal as she looked at each droid in turn. “I was wondering if I could enlist your aid?”

Cymbal-clashes of eagerness flew at her, and the droids lost all sense of decorum as they jostled close. She’d been having fits of claustrophobia lately, even in wide spaces, but Beatrice didn’t mind them as they butted up against her ribs, though she held her elbow carefully aloft from their blunt sides. They seemed to her like a shoal of fish gathered around an interesting plastic bottle on the ocean floor.

She turned slightly, pointed towards Lilith’s ship. “Do you think you could help me get up on top of that?”

[coridallasmultipass]

TRIANGLE SHRIMP ALERT !!!!

[possibilistfanfiction]

Delicate

it's been a weird day already.

but not, like, bad: the sky is clear and it's not windy, which is such a welcome break from the weeks and weeks of rain you kind of want to dance down the sidewalk or something (you don't, but only because you have on this cool new pair of pants you thrifted last week and one over-exuberant roll through a puddle and they'd be wet for the day); there wasn't a long line at camila's coffee shop, so you were early to work; none of your appointments, even, have been late. good-weird sometimes feels way more unsettling than bad-weird, though, or at least that's what you've told your therapist who nodded — trauma responses, this and that, or so she says.

your first two clients are easy — small, simple stuff, which is always nice to start off with. chanel is finishing her last session on a wicked cool back piece with a chill client, and it's all pretty vibey until you're outside on the little front patio of the studio eating the pizza you'd grabbed from down the street for a late lunch, casually people watching. it all happens so fast: you're taking a bite and then, bam, there’s someone on a bike skidding out of control and then falling with a thump, tangled up in the metal frame and pedals spinning.

'shit,' you say, even though the person is already struggling their way out from under the bike — a good sign, overall. but still, you put your pizza down on the table chanel insisted you buy and wheel down the ramp until you're on the sidewalk, close enough to be able to ask, 'are you okay?'

the person — a very, very hot person, in carhartt overalls, a pristine white t-shirt, and blundstones — groans but then nods, stands up fully from the street and hefts the bike back upright by the handlebars. 'yes. i'll be fine. a minor fall.'

there's an embarrassed blush rising behind freckles and, 'you're bleeding.' it's roadrash, nothing serious, along an elbow, both palms, but still — 'my shop is right here.' you point behind you. 'let me patch you up, we have all the sterile stuff and everything.'

'i — okay.'

you smile, then smile even bigger when this very hot bike-falling blushing stranger takes her helmet off and her short hair — slightly sweaty — is tousled, a little messy on the top, even messier after she tries to brush it back with her fingers. 'sweet.' you offer your hand, even though she's dragging her bike alongside her. 'i'm ava.'

she leans the bike against her hip, grants you a small smile, and meets your eyes, even though her blush gets worse. 'beatrice.'

her hand is calloused and warm and she locks her bike against your railing, then follows you up the ramp.

'so you're who moved in,' she says, not unkindly, and you nod. it's a beautiful studio — you'll claim it was 50/50 design choices all day long, but it really was mostly chanel who chose the perfect shelving, the easy colors, the furniture that was simple and comfortable and cool as fucking hell, all at once. 'me and chanel, the other artist and owner,' you say. chanel's gun is very quietly buzzing behind the partition that separates her station from the front desk, and you lead beatrice back to your station.

the scrape along her elbow — delicate, one of the most difficult places to tattoo properly, all small, sharp bones and live-wire nerves — isn't deep or particularly dirty, so you clean it quickly and without too much discomfort, if her comfortable quiet and measured breathing is anything to go by.

'you're an expert on this, i suppose,' she says, as you get out your second skin once everything is clean and dry.

you laugh. 'tattoos aren't too dissimilar.' you allow yourself to look — after a lot of restraint, thank you very much — at her nearly-finished sleeve: fine lines and tender greyscale of flowers and plants, a few bugs, woven together. there's space on the underside of her wrist, still, a little unexpected. 'this is beautiful.'

beatrice smiles softly, a little sad. 'thank you.'

'no, like, genuinely.' you take your gloves off once the second skin is on perfectly and roll back in your chair to see it a little clearer. 'it really is.'

that blush again. 'i'm a gardener,' beatrice says, as if that explains everything. you have a few silly tattoos along your thighs — some are from you practicing along your own skin, a perk of not feeling anything below your waist — and your favorite along the top of your right hand. it's the first chanel did for you, the start of how you became friends — and business partners, eventually — and it's not hard, really, to remember the control you felt when you got to choose to make your body in your own image, when you had someone you trusted to help.

'that's awesome.'

she nods, once, like it's a finite truth. 'along with my sister, i run the florist shop on the other side of camila's. we farm all of our own flowers, only local pollinators.'

'permaculture,' you say, 'sick.'

it gets a laugh out of her — fucking delightful, and, whew, you want to keep making that happen — 'it is.' she stands, looking almost — dare you say it — regretful. 'unfortunately, i do have to get back to said shop for the afternoon. but maybe i can buy you a coffee?'

'camila gives me my coffee for free.'

she blanches and it takes a few seconds before you reach out and pat her hand with a laugh. 'i'm sorry, i was just messing with you. i'd love to get coffee with you.'

'yeah?'

'dude, are you kidding? i want to know all about your plants.'

she's got the most proper accent of all time, and you're kind of wishing for her to say something like, and i, your art, but instead she just nods, a little tongue-tied, you think, which is endearing in its own way too. 'thank you again, ava.'

'anytime.' you pause. 'well, not the exact same circumstances. don't need you flinging yourself off of your bike just to say hi to me again —'

'i didn't fall because of you —'

'i know i'm, like, cool and stunning, but you really should be more careful.'

she rolls her eyes, but there's still a smile on her face. you know you're, as chanel puts it, dangerously charming, so you'll take it.

you watch her walk down the ramp and unlock her bike, then walk it two doors down to the florist that always had swathes of wildflowers in the windows. you've only been here a few weeks, and you'd been very busy setting everything up and getting your clients in asap, but you'd planned to check it out eventually. now, you have even more of a reason to.

and, like, maybe it's a little gay, whatever, but you transfer out of your chair to sit more comfortably at your station while you wait for your next client and start to sketch some wildflowers and their pollinators. bees, your favorites, and maybe it doesn't mean anything or maybe it means something. you don't really believe in everything but you do think that people can be kind and that the earth itself is overwhelmingly good. that's enough, most days, really.

chanel finishes with her client and it's a good-good-weird day because she offers to order dinner without you even having to whine. you fall asleep later at home thinking abt how warm beatrice's skin had been, how it had been easy to make sure she would heal well, all the flowers there, blooming; her freckles and her blush. maybe, if you're lucky, she's thought of you too.

[trans-xianxian]

post w all of my cql playlists (part one, characters) :^)

wei wuxian

lan wangji

jiang cheng

wen ning

lan sizhui

jin guangyao

link to part two

[llycaons]

it's very sweet when wwx is like 'aw jin ling is just like his uncle' in postcanon fics but I have to laugh because in canon he's literally like 'ugh, jin ling is JUST like his uncle 🙄'