#would probably be for mutuals only at a very low rate

[sleepy-steve]

@steddieangstyaugust 04/08 // angst with a happy ending

wc: 2.3k // rating: G // cw: language // tags: post-s4, eddie lives, eddie in WITSEC, mutual pining, phone calls

divider credits @steddiecameraroll-graphics

“So, where are you now?”

Steve knew he wasn’t going to get a real answer to this question—given that Eddie wasn’t allowed to say—but it was basically tradition at this point to ask. 

Eddie chuckled through the receiver. “Hmm… it’s windy. And cold as balls. Will probably start snowing soon.”

Steve raised his brows. “Snow? This early?”

Dustin, from Steve’s kitchen island, mirrored his look of interested surprise, and immediately started looking over the map laid out on the countertop. It was dotted with little red and yellow stickers and various scribblings.

“Yep,” Eddie responded, popping the P. “Pretty shit going out for a smoke, but lots of trees around, so the view is decent at least.”

“Lots of trees,” Steve repeats, with a pointed glance at Dustin, who hurriedly starts marking different spots on the map. 

“How’s Henderson’s map going?” Eddie asked, knowing by the tone what they were doing.

“It’s… going?” Steve responded with a shrug. “He thinks he’s worked out the movement system.”

“I have worked out the movement system, thank you very much,” Dustin snarked, not looking up at Steve. “We can track their movement from the West Coast back up North, hence the snow.”

Eddie laughs again. “Kid’s too smart for his own good.”

“You’re telling me,” Steve grumbles, moving away from the kitchen, as far as the cord allowed him to. He drops his voice low. “How you holding up?”

“I dunno,” Eddie sighs. “Same shit, different place… Same shitty government officials with the same shitty requirements.”

Steve wants to say so much, to reassure and comfort him, but holds back. Keeps it in. “How’s Wayne doing?”

“He’s alright, doesn’t love the cold…” Steve can picture Eddie looking over at where Wayne is probably sitting nearby. “Hopefully they’ll move us somewhere warmer next.”

“D’you know when that’ll be?” A small pit of anxiety swirls in Steve’s gut. As it did any time they spoke of Eddie needing to move.

“Nah, last time was six months, but time before was only three. Hopefully this is just another quick one.” Steve can hear Eddie chewing on his lip, can picture him playing with his hair.

“Steve!” Dustin calls from behind the wall. “Ask Eddie what kind of trees are around him!”

Steve snorts. “Did you get that one?”

“Tell him I have no idea,” Eddie deadpans. 

Lowering the receiver, Steve calls over his shoulder. “He doesn’t know, buddy.”

“What kind of trees…” Eddie grumbles, only slightly mocking. “I guess I can’t blame him for trying.”

“It’s how he deals.” Steve keeps his voice low. “He misses you. I miss you.” His brain scolds him—too much—and he quickly adds, “We all do.”

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs, and Steve’s almost sure he hears him hit his head on the wall. “I miss you too. All of you.”

It was a thing that happened often, for how infrequently Eddie was able to call. A kind of vulnerability that Steve supposed came from the fact that they couldn’t see each other, and wouldn’t for a long time yet. They’d skirt around it, but it was there, pulled taut between them, ready to break with one wrong move.

“How much longer?” Steve asks, like he doesn’t already know, like he hasn’t been counting down the days since Eddie got taken away.

Eddie exhales heavily, the sound muffling through the receiver. “Bit under three years.” Steve can hear the sad smile in his voice.

“Right.” Steve leans back against the wall, head tilted back as longing shoots through his gut. They were almost at the halfway point. There was so much he wanted to say, but he just… couldn’t. Steve would wait.

Steve’s kicking snow off his boots at his front door when he hears the phone ring from inside. He bolts in, slipping on the floor slightly in his haste. 

“Hello?” he answers breathlessly.

“Hey.”

A wave of relief washes over him. “Eddie,” he breathes.

“You okay? Did I wake you up?” His tone immediately switches to one of concern.

“No, no, I just got back from the Henderson’s,” Steve says, running a hand through his hair, willing his heart to calm down now that he’s answered the call. “We wanted to call you, but… y’know.”

“Yeah…” Eddie sighs. “I wish you could.”

The silence settles, and they just listen to each other breathe for several long moments. Steve knows that Eddie is holding back, the same way he is. Saying things that are only close to what they mean. Their quiet filled with unanswered questions and things they wish they could say. Finally, Eddie breaks it.

“Are you by yourself?”

“Yeah, just me tonight,” Steve says, shrugging his jacket off. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Eddie doesn’t laugh at the joke. Steve didn’t really think it was that funny. Their constant need to skirt around the thing developing between them led to him saying some dumb stuff. He rolls his eyes at himself.

“I don’t think I could handle talking to anyone else tonight,” Eddie says, voice growing soft. “It’d be, I dunno, too much. With you, I can just… be, y’know?”

Steve is surprised—as he often is—at the honesty. He tries to make his next words sound casual, but he’s sure he fails miserably. “I’m glad I caught you then.”

“Yeah… me too.” Eddie doesn’t let the silence linger for too long this time. “So, any new Henderson theories to update me on?”

Steve snorts. “Of course.”

Letting him talk about his day at the Henderson’s, Eddie hums in the right moments, asks a few follow up questions, makes little jokes, but is otherwise quiet, seemingly content to just let Steve ramble. Happy to hear his voice. He lets Steve talk until he’s yawning too much to complete a full sentence.

“Sorry, I should let you go to sleep, it’s late.” Eddie’s tone is gentle, but like he’d rather be saying anything else.

“Nah, it’s cool, man,” Steve argues sleepily. “Don’t wanna waste your call.”

“It’s never wasted with you.”

“Eddie…” Steve doesn’t know what to say. Or rather, he knows exactly what he wants to say, but doesn’t know if he should. If he even could. He yawns again.

“Come on, bed time,” Eddie’s voice teases.

Steve feels the pull of his eyelids, begging for sleep. “Yeah, alright… Talk to you soon?” He tries to ask it casually, but again, can’t seem to manage it. Something like pleading coming through in his words.

“As soon as I can,” Eddie promises, voice tight with sincerity. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Eddie.” Steve pauses. “Merry Christmas.”

He can hear the sad smile in Eddie’s voice. “Merry Christmas, Steve.”

“How much longer now?” Steve asks, already knowing the answer.

“Two and a bit years,” Eddie sighs. “Past halfway, at least.”

Even Steve can tell he’s trying to convince himself it’s a good thing, but neither of them feel any happiness about it.

It’s been almost six months since Steve heard from Eddie, much longer than any gap between calls before. Anxiety gnaws away at him, a constant presence whispering in the back of his mind and sitting like a stone in his stomach. The kids—barely even kids now, having graduated high school—were starting to show their worry. He begged and pleaded with invisible entities that they’d hear something soon.

The phone finally rings.

“Hello?” Steve answers with urgency, as he did every time it rang these days.

“Steve?” the voice croaks.

“Eddie!” Bringing a hand to his face, Steve’s eyes welled with tears. “Eddie, are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine, it’s okay,” Eddie reassures him, sounding anything but. “They just had us somewhere remote. We didn't have a phone.”

“What the fuck? Can they do that?” Quiet rage slips through Steve’s chest.

“Evidently, they can do whatever they want,” Eddie seethes. “Didn’t stop me from bringing hell at every check up until they moved us again.”

Steve winces at the pain in Eddie’s voice. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. It’s fucking awful, what they’re doing to you.”

“It’s bullshit!” Eddie snaps. “I’m so fucking sick of it. I can’t believe this was their solution. Like, I’m the one demonised and hunted down in Hawkins and somehow I’m the one that ends up punished for it! It’s not even a solution. All it’s doing is fucking me around.” He takes a breath. “It’s hurting me. It’s hurting us.”

To anyone else, it would sound like Eddie meant him-and-Wayne-us, or even him-and-the-entire-party-us. But Steve knew. Heard it in the way he almost whispered it. Steve wanted to match his anger, throw something, hit something. Instead, he willed it down.

“It fucking sucks,” Steve says, keeping his tone soft. “But we’re so close to the end now. It’ll be over soon.”

“I just…” Eddie’s voice lowers. Steve can picture the way the air deflates out of him. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish… you could’ve come with me.”

“Me too.” Steve lets the back of his head hit the wall, eyes squeezed shut. “I miss you. So much.”

“I miss you, too.” Eddie says it like it’s painful. Like it gets caught in his throat halfway up. Like he was saying something else entirely.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know why I called when I don’t really have anything to say.” It’d been close to silent for more than five minutes before Eddie says it, voice soft. Almost timid.

The corner of Steve’s mouth lifts in a half-smile. “It’s okay. I’m just glad to hear your voice at all. To know you’re alive.”

The silence settles between them again. Comfortable, somehow. Eddie’s voice is smaller when he speaks again. “Only six months left.”

“Only six months,” Steve repeats, slightly more optimistic.

“We can… we can do it, right?” Eddie sounds so unsure. Steve can picture him playing with his hair. “It’ll be okay? When you visit?”

Steve knows what he means. He’s felt the same way for a long time. Scared that once they’re reunited, whatever this thing was—this delicate bubble of vulnerability—between them would burst. Each phone call found it wound tighter and tighter, pulled like a rubber band that would eventually reach its limit and snap, hurting both of them in the process. 

“It’ll be more than okay,” Steve says, sounding more sure than he feels. He wants more than anything to be able to hold him. To reach through the phone and wrap his arms tightly around him, feel the rise and fall of his breath and listen to his heartbeat.

“Promise?” Eddie asks, and Steve can picture him chewing on his nails.

“Promise.”

“One month left,” Steve whispers in the dead of night. No one else is there, but something about the late hour makes him quiet. Or maybe it’s what he’s saying. Like a wish that needs to be kept secret, or it won’t come true.

“One month,” Eddie repeats, just as soft. “You’ll be here?”

“Wherever you are, I’ll be there,” Steve assures him.

He’s sure Eddie can feel it too. The thing between them growing more palpable, more solid, more real. The less time they have left, the stronger it becomes. It terrifies both of them.

The car stops in an urban area of Chicago. Steve glances around as he gets out of the backseat, giving a quick thanks to the government official who drove him. His heart races. This is it. Double checking the address on the small piece of paper, he looks up to the block of apartment buildings, scanning the numbers.

Steve doesn’t need to look for long. At the next building, standing in the entryway, with his curly hair pulled into a messy bun, shadow of facial hair around his jaw, face more angular than Steve remembers, is—

“Eddie…” The name comes out in a soft breath, like a prayer. His eyes well up and he quickly blinks, as though the man might disappear if Steve couldn’t see him.

Whatever was holding Eddie to the stoop of his building breaks. He jumps down, skipping the stairs completely and landing with a thud of his boots. He runs, as quick as his legs allow him, until he crashes into Steve, almost knocking them both to the ground. With his arms around Steve’s neck, Eddie whispers his name over and over. Steve pulls him tight, arms wrapped around his waist. Steve can feel Eddie’s heartbeat matching his—racing, pounding, about to jump out of his chest. They hold each other like they’ll never let go, afraid that all of it could be taken away again.

Finally, Eddie pulls back, one hand softly entangled in Steve’s hair, and looks at him, huge eyes filled with tears. “You look different,” Eddie says with a wet laugh.

Steve can’t help but smile. “In a good way?”

Eddie nods with enthusiasm, grinning despite the tears. “In a really good way.”

Their eyes are locked on each other, and Steve can’t hold back anymore. He leans in, cautiously at first, before Eddie gives him a tiny nod, leaning in to meet him halfway. Their lips finally meet, crashing together, and Steve gasps at the feeling. It’s messy and desperate and shy. It’s everything they wished they could say, given to each other in their kiss. Steve brings his hands up to hold Eddie’s face, feeling the tears spill over and wiping them away with his thumbs.

They pull back, laughing and crying. Steve kisses him again and again and again, on his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, before finally just looking, taking in every detail of Eddie’s face. The deep brown of his eyes, the thick lashes, the faint dusting of freckles across his nose. “I’m never letting you go. Never again.”

Eddie laughs again. It sounds like a sob. “Never again. You promise?”

“I promise,” Steve says reverently. “I love you, Eddie.”

Eddie’s smile grows wider, a fresh lot of tears spilling from his eyes. “I love you, too.”

[cheeriecherrymain]

Viktor x Reader (WIP #1 - finished draft)

Pairing: Viktor x fem!Reader Format: bullet-point draft Finished? Not yet, but I need the dopamine lol Rating: 18+ MDNI Content Warnings: accidental aphrodisiacs | mutual pining | incorrect lore/science | allusions to Viktor’s slut era | virgin!Reader | oral (f receiving) | vaginal fingering | (brief) anal fingering (f receiving) | Viktor has a whore mouth and does not shut up | p in v sex | big dick vik lol Summary: Viktor requests your help with something HexTech-related. Your slight-unethical approach to science ends up having...consequences.

---

---

Pre-Written Segment

The fun thing about working with experimental materials is that you never really know exactly what’s going to happen. You can hypothesize as much as you want, using logic and common sense in an attempt to accurately predict that which is to come. But at the end of the day, when you’re the one discovering new mixtures and compounds, and writing their laws, you’re likely to stumble across surprises.

It’s a weekly occurrence by now: you find something incredibly interesting during your scientific endeavors - like a metal that grows stronger when it’s heated, or a substance that when blended with water, makes it light and fluffy and dry - and you just have to show your best friend.

Every single time you make a discovery, you rush to tell Viktor. You’re fully aware that very little of what you study would ever be useful to him; you’re both scientists in your own right, but your fields are completely different.

And yet, every single time you run pellmell into the lab, with your work clutched tightly in your hands, he humours you. He sighs deeply the second you barge in, but he puts away whatever he was doing and settles in to learn about whatever it is you’ve brought.

He’s resigned about it, you know, but he listens nonetheless.

He slouches back in his chair and leans his cheek on his palm, asking specific questions where they’re appropriate, and otherwise remaining silent while you speak.

Such has been your routine for years now. You know you’re probably a significant annoyance in his life, but you can’t help it - you’re passionate about what you do, and you want to share it with him. 

Him. Viktor. The only person who’s ever encouraged you to strive for your goals.

—

Which is why it’s such a shock when he shows up in your lab one afternoon.

Startling your diligent but nervous underlings as he makes his way over to your desk, garnering the attention of the entire room as he stops behind you, clearing his throat when you don’t notice him right away.

You’re certain you look a mess, with your hair sticking out in every direction, and two pairs of goggles balanced carefully on top of each other, lab coat rumpled and your tie folded into a wayward knot around your neck.

“Could you spare a moment of your time?” he wonders, keeping his voice low. “It’s about…”

You watch as he glances over his shoulder, and bite back a snicker when your students suddenly disperse and go back to their studies. Only to pause and peek over again when Viktor’s gaze is back on you.

To their credit, they do try to be subtle in their nosiness - you’ve seen your kids when they’re blatantly asking questions, staring without shame and interrupting you every time they want to know something. That being said, they’re definitely scientists, not spies.

And Viktor knows it, too.

“Perhaps I might explain myself when we’re…less likely to be overheard?” he suggests, once again turning his face to glare over his shoulder. “The matter is confidential, and I’m sure your students are good people, but…”

He sighs softly, and tightens his hand on the grip of his cane.

“Jayce and I have hit an unintentional roadblock, and we can’t proceed until we figure out what’s going on,” he explains. “It’s a little bit out of our area, and though figuring it out would be an entertaining challenge, we don’t have time on our side. Would you come by the lab tonight, if possible?”

You’re surprised that something in their line of work could pertain to your own, but you’ve never been one to resist helping a friend.

“I’ll drop by when my shift is over,” you agree, with a soft smile.

The “I Got Lazy And Decided To Jot Everything Down Instead” Segment

-All this leads to The Reader doing as she’s asked. She still can’t figure out why her help would be needed with a hextech experiment, but she’s not going to pass up the opportunity to spend time with Viktor.

-She arrives at the lab a little later than intended, but only by a couple minutes. The time is inconsequential. She knocks on the door once, before pushing it open and peeking into the room.

R: Viktor? Jayce? Sorry I’m late, I had to help a couple of students with their projects.

-Despite her introduction, nothing is said. There is no movement in the lab, no sound. Even the lights are off, casting the room in a cold and eerie gloom.

-She enters the room, and briefly wonders if perhaps she was TOO late. But then why would the door have been unlocked?

R: Viktor?

-As if on cue, there’s a small clatter as Viktor’s head suddenly shoots off his desk, startling both himself and The Reader. She stares at him with wide eyes, but he only seems perplexed. And dazed. The Reader can’t help but smile.

R: Did you fall asleep?

-He returns her stare for a couple moments, before breaking it to rub at his eyes.

V: It would appear so. Jayce had a prior engagement tonight, and I suppose without his constant chattering, I wasn’t able to keep my head up.

-He looks sheepish.

V: What time is it?

-The Reader shrugs, moving closer.

R: ‘Bout half past eight - not terrible, all things considered. You know, it wouldn’t kill you to lay down every now and again, and get some actual rest. There’s a couch in here for a reason.

-Viktor rolls his eyes at her gentle chastising, though the action isn’t annoyed or malicious. Rather, he seems quite fond of her worrying, despite the fact that such things are usually met with disdain and ignorance.

V: I’m fine, see? Napping at my desk is hardly a bad thing.

-The Reader presses her lips into a thin, disapproving line. She wants to say more, but at the end of the day, the choice is his. She already bothers him enough, with her constant visiting and chatting, and she doesn’t want to give him more reasons to not be around her.

-As if sensing the desire to change the subject, Viktor pipes up.

V: I asked you here for a reason, though.

-He stands, stretches briefly, and leads her over to a small table, upon which a short three-legged stand is set up. Sitting in the crux of its hold is a sphere, about the size of a fist, made out of what appears to be glass.

R: Is…that some kind of jumbo hex crystal?

-Viktor grabs the ball off the stand and inspects it for a couple seconds, then hands it to her.

V: Similar, but no.

-The Reader turns the object over in her hands, studying it closely.

V: It doesn’t generate energy like the crystals are meant to do. Rather, it’s designed to store it, and keep it safe for later use.

-The Reader glances up at him.

R: A battery?

-Viktor nods.

V: Just with a significantly lower decay rate, and less volatility than the traditional hex crystal. If we could implant these into machinery, it would erase the need for fuel, like the original crystals would. It would just be…

R: …less likely to explode?

-He smiles again.

V: Precisely.

-His expression falls slightly, though, as The Reader further inspects the sphere. Rotating it around, and scrutinizing the details, until she finally notices something. Within the orb, a thin sheen of liquid, clear but with the slightest opalescent hue.

R: What’s the stuff on the inside? Does it help store energy?

-Viktor frowns slightly, and sighs.

V: That’s actually why I requested your assistance. When Jayce and I were charging the prototype -the one you’re holding- it…began to fill with gas.

-He takes the orb back.

V: We feared the glass might not hold under the sudden shift in internal pressure, so we stopped the experiment. For now. At least until we can figure out what’s inside, what its purpose is, and how to stop it.

-The Reader nods sagely.

R: And you need my help because…?

-Viktor looks genuinely surprised by her question.

V: You’re adept in chemical science. You study reactions and interactions, and molecular structure. I figured something like this would be easy for you.

-The Reader hums thoughtfully, her mind already going off on its tangents, trying to figure out what the mystery gas-liquid is. She’s never seen something like it, at least not that she remembers.

R: It’s more complicated than you think it is. However, I’ll do my best to help out - so long as you promise not to fuck around with this stuff if I’m not present. I don’t think it’s harmful, but we won’t know until we crack the thing open. And I’ve been wrong before.

-Viktor’s eyes widen at the idea of shattering the orb, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows that the pursuit of knowledge sometimes requires breaking things apart and dissecting them. He eventually nods.

V: I assume you won’t want to open the sphere until you know for certain what’s inside?

-The Reader is surprised now.

R: What? No, I want to crack it tonight. I’m curious. But I do think we should wear gloves. And maybe masks. Goggles too, honestly.

—

-Twenty minutes later, they’re decked out in the best gear they could find. Nothing extraordinary, but hopefully enough to protect them from a little bit of mystery goo.

V: It’s cooled down by now, so disrupting the glass probably won’t be an issue.

-The Reader tosses a towel over the unsuspecting orb anyways, raising a small hammer.

R: It might still be pressurized because of the accumulated fluid. Cover your ears; this won’t be pleasant.

-He does as he’s told for once in his life, and The Reader brings the hammer down.

-As she predicted, the moment the glass cracks, the orb explodes. Not as violently as either of them were preparing for, but certainly very loud. Loud enough that The Reader immediately hisses and drops the hammer, her hands flying to her ears.

-Like some kind of sound grenade, her entire head is left ringing, allowing very little other sound in. Viktor’s attention is on her immediately, neither of them paying attention to the remnants of the sphere. His hands on her shoulders, checking quickly for signs of physical damage.

-His voice is muffled still, but the ringing is thankfully beginning to fade, slowly allowing the world to creep back in.

V: Are you alright? Did any of the debris hit you?

-The concern in his voice is real, his grip on her tight and intense. She’s bordering on hyper-aware of him, though that’s something she deals with frequently. She sighs.

R: I’m okay. The pop took my hearing for a second, but it’s coming back. I…guess we probably should have worn earmuffs too, huh?

-She’s sheepish, and despite their covered faces, they share a goofy grin, which is only obvious based on their body posture. The Reader’s heart is fluttering wildly in her chest now. She’s certain they both look a mess, with all their protective equipment askew, on the brink of laughing wildly.

-Until Viktor pushes the goggles up onto his forehead, and tugs his mask down a little bit. He looks serious all of a sudden, but also looks like he desperately wants to say something. Taking a breath in and opening his mouth.

-Until The Reader stops him abruptly.

R: Do you smell that?

-They both take a deep breath in, curious about the sudden sweet, flowery scent filling the air. They’re distracted for a moment, both of them seemingly growing intoxicated, especially Viktor, who almost seems entranced. Until The Reader gathers her wits, and turns to look at the covered remains of the orb.

-The towel, saturated with an unknown fluid, and a reddish gas pouring forth from it.

R: Shit! Put your mask back up - I think it’s oxidizing.

-She hurries around to grab the glass jar they’d set out earlier, sweeping everything into it with a gloved hand. Even through her mask, she can still smell the deliciously sweet perfume, so delightful that it’s almost making her dizzy.

-But even once the experiment is cleaned up and sealed away, the room is still fogged slightly. She wonders if the gas has changed the temperature, but she doesn’t see how. If anything, the air feels cool on her skin, which has become warm to the touch.

-But she’s worried by the fact that she can still smell whatever chemical was released.

V: Should we crack a window open, perhaps? It’s…a little warm in here.

-She’s relieved that it’s not just her who’s feeling it.

R: We shouldn’t let it spread into the hallway, and we have no idea what might happen if it gets outside.

V: Surely in such a small quantity-

R: It only takes a single bead of mercury to completely destroy a ten tonne aluminum barrel. We don’t know what this stuff is, which means we need to keep it as contained as possible.

-Viktor looks like he wants to argue, but he knows that she’s got a point. He watches silently as she moves over to the backpack she brought, digging out a couple supplies. Little testing kits, by the looks of it, and a fresh notebook.

R: It’ll take more extensive research to figure out what we’re dealing with, more than what I packed. But we should be able to learn a little bit about it, in the meantime.

-She grabs a pen out of her bag as well, and hands the two objects to Viktor. Trying to ignore the electric sensation of their finger brushing for a moment.

R: I’m going to need my hands for this, so do you think you’d be able to take the notes?

-His gaze is trained on where they briefly touched, before snapping up to her face. Dazed, and red on the tips of his ears, he nods.

—

-Over the next half hour, they run their tests. The red mist in the air doesn’t seem to be dissipating or settling, and both of them can smell it clearly. The Reader knows that some of it has gotten through their masks, but her hope is that any harmful properties will be lessened if they’re slightly filtered.

R: Will you read off what we’ve got so far?

V: Should I list ‘lack of focus’ as a side effect?

-The Reader grumbles a little bit.

-They’re both sprawled on the couch now, feverish and sweaty. Both of them have foregone their shoes and outer layers.Viktor’s tie is draped over the arm of the couch, and both of them have their pants and sleeves rolled up as far as they’ll go. Their shirts unbuttoned beyond what is professional, foreheads damp. Protective gear still diligently donned.

V: Fine. Substance: unknown. Oily texture when in liquid form, with the thin consistency of water. Clear in appearance, save for a slight light-reflecting, pearly sheen.

-He tugs at his collar a bit.

V: When the liquid comes into contact with oxygen, or perhaps carbon dioxide, it reacts violently and quickly starts forming a red gas that hangs low in the air. It appears slightly heavier than oxygen, but prolonged exposure suggests it mingles with the particles, rather than consuming or bonding with them. Without external prompting, however, the gas does not naturally disperse and instead remains in a cloud-like formation.

-He turns the page with a shaking hand.

V: In…in liquid form, a particular scent is unable to be discerned, due to it’s volatility with breathable air. The gas, on the other hand, has a strong, sweet smell. Like a confectioners kitchen, or fresh-blooming lilacs. It permeates the room, but is not overpowering to the senses.

-The Reader nods along as he speaks, a little dazed and distracted. The sound of Viktor’s voice is intoxicating to her - he always is, always affecting her in some kind of way. But never like this - never to such a desperate, unhinged extent.

V: While the gas doesn’t immediately appear to be toxic, it does seem to have an effect on the human body. Raising the core temperature by no more than two degrees, it seems to also cause some delay in cognitive function. Perhaps because of the fever, but perhaps because there is another reaction going on in the brain, or the nervous system. Long-term effects are unknown.

-He swallows hard, his throat clicking slightly with how dry it is.

V: The gas…doesn’t appear to…to…

-He pauses a moment, taking a breath.

V: The gas doesn’t appear to have a taste, and the liquid is undetermined. Effects may be different if ingested, rather than inhaled.

-He lets the notebook lay flat on his lap, his head falling back to rest on the couch. Displaying the pale expanse of his throat. The Reader’s heart flutters.

V: Is there anything else you would like to add?

-He sounds breathless.

R: Muh…

-It takes her a second to gather her thoughts.

R: Muscle weakness. And slight tremors. Increased heart rate, and possibly elevated blood pressure.

-He hastily scribbles it down. The Reader tries paying attention to her body, to what’s going on, but it proves fruitless and embarrassing. She’s a scientist, but she still doesn’t want to admit all the ways that she seems to be altered.

-Increased sensitivity to the world around her, the crawling, tight feeling in her lower abdomen - it’s been a while since she’s felt this amount of physical desire, but she recognizes it nonetheless. Lust. Made worse by Viktor’s presence, and her pre-existing feelings for him.

V: You’re distracted again.

-The Reader pops back to attention, and Viktor huffs a laugh, a sound which sends little chills all through her body.

V: I said, is there anything else you can think of?

-The Reader swallows thickly, and despite their mutual face coverings, she feels as though he’s staring right at her.

R: I- um. No. No, not unless you want to add anything.

-He apparently stares at her for a few more seconds, before turning to the notebook to begin writing. Extensively.

-The Reader watches for a moment, before her thoughts and eyes inevitably start wandering. Observing his hands while he works, nimble and dextrous. Trailing up slender forearms, noting all the little dots and freckles.

-Up to his shoulders, surprisingly broad for his lean stature, the sharp edge of his collarbone visible where his shirt is undone. His throat, where she wants to leave countless bruises.

-A new wave of warmth washes over her, then, making it particularly hard to breathe, her chest tight and her throat dry and sticky.

-Suddenly choking on nothing, she fights with her mask for a couple seconds before ripping it off, coughing. Drawing the attention of Viktor. He appears to be startled or concerned by her sudden lack of protective face-wear, but more-so with the fact that she momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

-He reaches towards her out of instinct, but he pauses just before they touch, thinking about his actions before pulling back slightly. As if he couldn’t stand to lay a hand on her.

-Anxiety begins to bubble up. Has he noticed how she’s feeling? Is he put off by it? Angry? Disgusted? He doesn’t say anything, but she can feel his gaze on her. Pensive. Contemplating.

-And then, all at once, The Reader feels dizzy. But not nauseated. Like she’s floating, or embraced in a warm hug. It’s dazzling, and addicting. Is she dying? Is she slowly asphyxiating, after all? What a way to go.

-She briefly notices Viktor making to remove his mask alongside her, but she’s quick to raise a bumbling hand.

R: Keep it on, V.

-He hooks his fingers beneath it.

V: It’s not going to kill us-

R: It’s certainly doing something, though.

-Figuring there’s no sense in hiding it any longer, she yoinks the goggles off her head and sets them on the arm of the couch. She’s utterly faded, and as much is obvious. Her eyes are lidded, and her pupils are blown wide.

-Viktor observes her for a moment, before pulling his own eyewear off, followed by the mask. He flops back into the couch cushions, while the gas takes full effect over him. His breath catches in his throat, before he relaxes fully and goes boneless.

V: Do you…supposed we have mistakenly created a drug?

-The Reader hums halfheartedly.

R: We don’t know the full effects of it yet. For all we know, this is how it kills us.

-He sighs.

V: I have my doubts.

R: I thought I was the expert?

V: You are - I just-

-He sighs again, louder.

V: It’s obviously having an effect on the nervous system - otherwise it wouldn’t feel like this. Every neurotoxin I can think of will kill you in under ten minutes - or at the very least, render you unconscious.

-The Reader swats at him

R: Firstly, there are so many neurotoxins that don’t follow that rule. Secondly, where have you seen this stuff before?

V: I haven’t seen it! I’m just saying - poisons have their limitations, and their rules-

R: Rules are meant to be broken. That’s literally what hextech does.

V: I- you’re not wrong, but-

R: But what? Nothing else created in this lab behaves exactly the way it’s expected to. Why would this be any different?

-Viktor appears to be growing frustrated, agitated, perhaps because of the gas.

V: Hextech still follows the laws of physics-

R: Does it? The hex crystals: a source of perpetual energy, explosive and volatile, yet with no other energetic decay or radiation output?

V: Why do you know so much about physics?!

R: I study chemicals and molecules for a living! I have to know how things behave!

-They’re both riled up at this point, though The Reader can’t really discern why. She feels the same as before - she’s not even upset or angry. She feels good. They’re both sat up straighter, leaning slightly towards each other, like some kind of violent flirtation game.

-They stare at each other for a couple moments, not a word uttered between them. Breathing softly, gauging the other’s reactions and movements. And then, in a split second, Viktor’s hands are on her. Brazenly linking his fingers behind her neck, pulling her closer to mesh their lips together.

CHAPTER TWO (THE PORN CHAPTER)

-It’s hardly even a kiss. Their mouths are open, teeth clicking once or twice, allowing the obscene sensation of tongues sliding together, breath mingling. The Reader gives in immediately, clutching hard at the loose fabric of his open shirt, pulling blindly at it until more buttons pop open.

-She’s positively feverish now, though Viktor hardly seems cool against her, meaning they share a temperature.

-Their lips part for the briefest moment, so Viktor can untuck The Readers shirt and start on the remainder of the clasps. The Reader quickly busies herself with other activities, namely in the form of sucking a dark bruise onto the perfect column of Viktor’s throat.

-A groan rumbles forth, and his hands still for a moment.

-Before he collects himself a little, and continues with his task. Both of them pulling at each other’s clothing, shamelessly groping the flesh and fat hidden beneath.

-All the dizziness from before has changed, morphed into fluttering pulses that travel down every nerve, lit up by each desperate touch, coalescing lower. She still feels elated, high even, especially by the fact that Viktor is actually here with her.

-But rationality is screaming in the back of her mind, beneath all the desperation and desire. Her anxiety, her fear, growing louder and louder. Viktor’s fingers, reaching for the clasp of her bra.

R: Wait.

-He stills immediately, though she can feel the tremble of his body against her own. He peers up at her, pleading, desperate, searching. Waiting.

R: If - if this stuff is acting like an…aphrodisiac…then you’re under its effects.

-Upon hearing her words, he scoffs quietly, and continues with his previous ministrations. Unhooking the clasp with concerning ease.

R: Viktor-

V: If I am under some kind of spell, then certainly you are, too. And yet you only worry about my state of mind?

-The Reader backs away slightly, shame and embarrassment crawling up the back of her throat. Even as she helps him shrug her garments off.

R: It’s different.

-Viktor seems perturbed, pausing again.

V: Why? We both inhaled the smoke. We’re both-

R: It’s just different, okay?

V: Why?

-She’s surprised by the sudden ferocity with which he grips her jaw, nearly forcing her to look at him. The shame bubbles over, and her eyes fill with tears, knowing that he’ll reject her. Knowing he doesn’t feel the same way. That he might even consider it all a hindrance.

R: Because I don’t need a stupid drug to feel like this about you! I don’t need it to want this! And you-

-She sighs sharply, hiding a sniffle, and moves to get off his lap while she avoids eye contact.

R: We shouldn’t be doing this. If you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t want this-

-She’s once again shocked by how hard he grips her, dextrous hands finding firm purchase on the fat on her hips. Pulling her back down towards him, down harder, grinding her clothed core against him, where he’s obviously hard for her.

V: You think that this-

-He rolls his hips into her

V: Is because of a drug?

-He walks his hands up her sides, until he’s able to squeeze at her breasts, kneading her tenderly and flicking his thumbs over her sensitive buds.

V: You think I don’t struggle to remain professional, every time you’re around? The way your pants hug your thighs? The angelic sound of your voice? The scent of your perfume when you lean over my shoulder to watch me work?

-The Reader whines quietly, warmth rising to her cheeks. He catches one of her nipples between his finger and thumb, rolling it around, plucking, squeezing.

V: You think that I don’t take myself in hand the moment I’m alone. Finding my release with your name on my tongue?

-He pinches hard, until she squeals and squirms, and he has mercy. At least until moving to the other side.

V: You think I wouldn’t readily bend you over and greedily take whichever hole you’d let me have? Your mouth? Your perfect cunt? Fuck, your ass would squeeze so tight around me.

-The Reader lets out a shaky, desperate noise, her underwear fully soaked through. Viktor leans forward and wraps his lips around one bud, wetting it with his tongue before sucking it into his mouth. The Reader tentatively knits her fingers into his hair, gently stroking the soft, fluffy strands.

R: How was I supposed to know you wanted that? I’ve thought for years that you were only tolerating me - that you were too nice to tell me to fuck off-

-He pulls off of her with a wet pop, almost looking angry.

V: You’re the brightest part of my life. Your kindness. Your humour. Your creativity and ingenuity.

-He leans forward to press an open mouthed kiss to the trembling column of her throat. Nipping slightly.

V: I’ll fuck you until you believe me - and whenever you want after that. I’ll fill your tight little cunt up-

-The Reader warbles at the promise, grinding down against his thigh, desperate for friction of any kind.

V: Or your ass - you’d look so perfect, split open on my cock, with my come dripping out of you.

-The Reader has no idea where the utter filth is coming from, but she’s not complaining.

V: I’ll bring you pleasure; again and again and again, until you soak the sheets - or the floor, the carpet, I don’t care where we are.

-He’s only speaking to her, close to her ear. She’s only grinding against his thigh. And yet she’s so close to coming. Trembling and shaking, whining, gripping his shoulder for balance.

R: I- I’ve never…

V: Never what, milý?

R: Never…n…

-She’s wholeheartedly embarrassed to admit her thoughts. However, he needs to know what he’s working with, needs to know about her inexperience and worries.

R: I’ve never done any of that. I’ve…never even had sex.

-It makes him pause for a moment, his movements faltering, but not for long. Not until he returns with full force, doubling his efforts, squeezing her hips as he helps her grind down against him.

V: You’d let me be your first?

-The Reader huffs a laugh.

R: You’d be my only, if I had my way.

-He groans quietly, and coaxes her up off his lap so she’s standing in front of him. So he can fiddle with the buttons on her trousers, popping them open before sliding them down her legs, along with her ruined panties.

-He watches with rapt attention as a gooey string stretches between the soaked fabric and her pussy. Until he’s unable to help himself, and leans forward to shove his tongue between her folds.

-The Reader cries out the moment he makes contact, swiping over delicate skin a few times, before zeroing in on her swollen, puffy clit. He holds her close by the hips, not allowing her to escape his unrelenting feast.

-She’s just about to come, embarrassingly fast, when he suddenly pulls away and stares up at her with the most fucked out expression. His lips slick with her essence.

V: You’ve really never…? None of it? 

-The Reader shakes her head.

V: Not even on your own?

-The Reader shakes her head again

V: You’ve never pressed a couple fingers into your ass? 

-She shakes her head a third time, growing more flustered.

V: Or come so hard you squirted all over your hand? Not even-

-The Reader feels like she’s about to combust at the mere suggestion of such things. Of course she’s been curious in the past, she’s just been slightly intimidated, not knowing where to start.

R: I could never figure it out! It’s not like I’ve had any kind of reliable source on how to do it! Besides… I’ve…

-She grows shy

R: I’ve heard a lots of guys say they think that kind of thing is gross, and messy-

-He brings his mouth to her again, keeping eye contact, once again working her up to the edge before pulling away completely.

V: Sex is messy, milý. No matter how you go about it - it’s sweaty and sticky, and someone is always slippery.

-The Reader snorts a laugh, some of her tension dissipating when he smiles up at her, warm and entranced.

V: That’s part of what makes it pleasurable. Getting to reduce your partner to such a state - it’s vulnerable, it’s trusting. Even when there aren’t feelings involved, it’s fun.

-The Reader hums a little bit, some of her insecurity rising up again. She tries to hide it, but Viktor knows her well, and takes note of it immediately. Laying a kiss to the soft of her tummy, staring patiently up at her.

V: You’re thinking too hard again. What’s bothering you?

-The Reader chews the inside of her cheek. Contemplating.

R: You just…seem to know a lot about this kind of thing. I feel kind of inadequate.

-She sighs.

R: It’s stupid, I know-

-He pulls her back down into his lap, not seeming to care that she’s soaking his trousers. Encircling his arms around her waist, he brings her into a sweet kiss, tender and gentle.

V: I will not lie to you: I’ve been with…several people. Intoxicated one-night stands, hook-ups with a couple of my old classmates from when I first started at the academy.

-He kisses her again.

V: Trysts that were most certainly entertaining. But…not particularly meaningful.

-He holds her close, letting his head come to rest in the crook of her neck, his hair and breath tickling her skin.

V: If this isn’t something you’re ready for, we can stop. We can go back to our rooms for the night, or you can come over and we can talk.

-He kisses her collarbone.

V: Even if sex is something you never want, that’s okay. I just…I want you. Whatever you’re willing to give me. I’ll happily take it.

-The Reader’s eyes nearly well up with tears again, this time from sentimental emotion, and the genuine love she has for Viktor.

-She cups his jaw, and tilts his face towards her.

R: You say all this like you weren’t just about to make me come.

-They stare at each other for half a moment, before they start giggling and snickering, dispelling nearly all of the tension that had accumulated. Filling both of them with a distinct fondness for one another, and their situation.

R: I want you, Viktor. Tonight, and every night after this - I want everything with you. Sex, romance, that dorky couples’ shit.

-They smile at each other again, but it’s significantly softer this time, warm and affectionate and full of love. Their next kiss is gentle and sweet, explorative and more thorough.

-But it’s not long before their minds start getting addled again, and their touches become harder, hands wandering and grabbing. The Reader tries grinding down against Viktor again, but unlike before, he now holds her in place.

-She’s puzzled for a moment, pulling back to ask him what he’s doing, but she doesn’t get the chance. He dips a hand between her legs and strokes a finger through her folds, still dripping for him. His finger catches on her clit, and she lets out an involuntary gasp.

-His lips find her neck, leaving a slew of wet kisses over every area he can reach, while he slowly slides a finger into her. It’s not much of a touch, and she knows she can fit more, but every sensation seems to be amplified under the effects of the mysterious gas. 

-He pumps tentatively into her, mostly just feeling how she clenches around him, getting used to how hot she is, and how slick. After a moment he adds a second digit, and that’s when he really starts trying to bring her pleasure.

-Crooking his fingers within her to nudge up against her sweet spot, as well as spreading them apart to help stretch her open and prepare her for what’s to come. Marvelling at the obscene sounds emanating from her, the delicious squelch of her cunt and the breathless little moans falling past her lips.

-She wants to roll her hips down on his fingers, to try and coax him deeper, but he keeps his other hand tight on her hip, making sure she stays still despite the fact that she’s trembling with effort. She keens when he picks up speed, slowly beginning to build up her orgasm again.

R: Viktor…

-She’s bordering on whiny, but neither of them really mind. Instead, he lays a kiss in between her breasts, and then peeks up at her with mischief.

V: Do you think you could take another one?

-It takes her a moment to figure out what he’s talking about, but once it clicks, she hastily nods, on the verge of begging him for it. Thankfully, he’s merciful, and wastes no time slipping a third finger into her.

-She definitely feels the stretch this time, whimpering softly when he starts spreading all three digits open, stretching her further than she’s ever gone on her own. It burns so good, but it’s nothing compared to when he curls them inside her.

-The stretch, coupled with the relentless press against her g-spot and the grind of his palm against her slick clit, is enough to send her over the edge. It’s sudden and almost startling, washing over her like a wave and sending warmth rolling down every nerve. 

-She’s not really aware of what kinds of sounds she’s making, or what she looks like, far too focused on the feelings echoing through her body, everything made stronger by the drug.

-Until she slouches forward, breathless and boneless against Viktor. He wraps his arms around her, holding her tightly while she tries to regain her composure, though she can feel him smirking into the skin of her shoulder.

R: Mmn…

-He chuckles airily

V: Surely it wasn’t so good that you’ve lost consciousness?

-His tone is playful and joking, but The Reader wonders if there’s not some vague insecurity hidden beneath it. She stirs a little bit, drawing back from him so she can plant a kiss on his cheek, and his other cheek, and every feature of his face until she gets to his lips.

R: It’s good. Because it’s you, it’s good.

-She reassures him, before drawing him into yet another kiss. They stay like that for a little while, and though The Reader’s head has cleared slightly, Viktor’s surely hasn’t. 

-His skin is still hot to the touch, and his hands tremor slightly when he touches her. She can tell that he’s trying to follow her lead, to not press for more if she’s not the one asking for it, and while she’s grateful he’s being patient and respectful, she wants him to feel good too.

R: You’re allowed to touch me, you know?

-Her tone is gentle and quiet, but Viktor looks puzzled. She stoops down and lays a kiss just beneath his jaw.

R: I can tell that you’re holding yourself back. But you can touch me - however you want, wherever you want.

V: You have no idea what I want. I don’t want to pressure you into things you’re not ready for-

-The Reader sets her forehead against his, looking him in the eye. Her tone is firm.

R: I meant it, when I said I want everything with you. If you think I don’t know something, then tell me. Tell me what you want, tell me all the things you’ve thought about doing with me - doing to me. Trust me to speak up if I don’t like something.

-He groans, a low sound rumbling from his chest, and in an instant, her weight is thrown sideways onto the couch. It’s lumpy and a little uncomfortable, but she doesn’t care, not with the way that Viktor takes up space above her.

-Her legs, held open by his slender hips, the perfect position for him to shove his pants down to the middle of his thighs and free his cock. Thick and heavy, flushed the prettiest shade of red at the tip. He gives himself a couple strokes, and then lets it lay against the slick flesh of her pussy.

V: There isn’t enough time in one night to tell you all the things I want to do to you.

-He rolls his hips a little bit, his cock gliding effortlessly through her folds, sliding against her clit.

V: Every night, there’s a new thought in my mind, a new vision of you. Bent over my desk, crying out for more even though your ass is already split open on my cock. Or helplessly restrained, your legs held wide so I can bring you pleasure again, and again, and again - no matter how much you squirm.

-The Reader clenches around nothing, the ideas turning her on more than she ever expected they would. Filthy thoughts, but strikingly delicious, considering she’s the main focus of them.

-He presses the blunt head of his cock against her hole, but doesn’t quite push inside.

V: I’ve thought about keeping you under my desk during the day, looking all pretty with your mouth full of my cock. Or slipping my hand beneath those short little skirts you like to wear, working you up to the edge but never letting you come.

-The Reader wiggles a little bit, trying to encourage him to slide into her.

V: I’ve also wondered what you’d look like if both your holes were stuffed. I…am not particularly keen on sharing, though.

-The Reader whines.

R: You could make a replica, if you- if you wanted to.

-He seems to genuinely ponder it for a moment, his mind trailing away to how he might go about doing such a thing, especially in secret, since it would be hard to explain. The Reader whines again.

R: Viktor..

-His attention snaps back to her, and she stares up at him.

R: Fuck me.

-He looks like he wants to tease her more, to tell her more about his imagination, but his patience has apparently run out. He grips his cock and slides the head through her folds a couple times again, gathering some of her wetness to make everything go smoother.

-The pressure against her is dull, but it doesn’t take much for her to open up. His cock slowly stretching her open, more than his fingers had prepared her for - it burns, but in the best way possible, making her feel fuller than she’s ever been, than she ever imagined she would.

-She whimpers quietly, and Viktor pauses, looking to her face to gauge her reaction. But once he sees that she’s not in pain, he continues. Deeper and deeper into her, filling her until she can nearly feel it in her throat. He seems to be going on forever.

-Until finally, his hips meet the backs of her thighs, and his movements still. The Reader cracks her eyes open, only to groan slightly at the sight of Viktor in front of her. His hair mussed and in disarray, his grip tight behind the backs of her knees, holding her open.

-His expression, wholly and entirely fucked out, debauched and without a single care. He stares shamelessly down at her, leering over every inch of her body, particularly at where they’re now joined.

-He reaches down to stroke the pad of his thumb over her puffy clit, startling her slightly, and making her jolt. But he’s quick to hold her down, keeping her still with one hand while he continuously flicks and abuses her bud.

-Feeling the way she clenches around him, the way her breath catches in her throat, half-releasing broken cries and sobs of pleasure. As if he truly enjoys torturing her in the most delicious way possible.

-He relents after a couple moments, allowing her a brief respite to calm down. But not for long. It doesn’t take long for him to start fucking her in earnest, pulling out almost all the way before quickly sliding back home.

-He pulls a startled cry from her when he first fucks into her, and a pitiful wail when he finds a relentless pace. Hard and fast, keeping her legs held open and her body nearly bent in half, plunging as deep as he possibly can. Again and again.

-The Reader can barely breathe, the breath punched out of her with each thrust. Her entire body is trembling, every nerve alight with bliss. She grips blindly at Viktor’s forearms, only to ground herself, rather than trying to push him away. Her nails digging into his skin, only seeming to spur him on.

-And then, all at once, her world is turning again. Viktor releases her and quickly helps her flip over, onto her knees and elbows with her ass raised in the air.

-And then he’s back inside her, resuming his pace. The new angle makes The Reader squeak pathetically, as he repeatedly slides over her sweet spot. The obscene noise of wet skin slapping echoing throughout the lab.

-She knows that she’s dripping onto the couch beneath her, but she can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed about it, or even really care. All she wants is to feel good, by Viktor’s hand, and watch as he loses himself to the pleasure as well.

-She slips an arm beneath herself, hoping to get some friction on her clit, desperate for her own release again. But a hand colliding hard with her ass cheek startles her out of it, stinging hot enough to make her gasp.

V: Keep your hands by your head, milý. You’ll come when I say you can come.

-She whines softly.

R: But-

-Another harsh smack. She’s embarrassed by how tightly the action makes her clench, and by the fact that Viktor notices.

-His pace never falters, even as he lays the palm of his hand hard against her again. And again. And again.

V: You’re so sweet during the day.

-A smack

V: So compassionate, and gentle.

-A smack

V: But you’re really a slut, aren’t you?

-Another smack, and The Reader whines.

V: Doing exactly what I tell you to, letting me stuff you full over and over again. Squeezing around me so perfectly.

-He massages the now-tender meat of her ass, soothing the sharp bite of his hand.

-Even without a single touch on her clit, The Reader isn’t sure how long she’s going to last. She feels like she’s about to burst, like she’s never felt before. Nothing like the orgasms she’s had on her own.

-She barely even notices the wet pop behind her, too dazed to take note of much else. But she definitely tenses slightly when something wet glides against her asshole. Persistent and warm, soaking the velvety flesh.

-She whimpers when it breaches the ring of muscle, slowly, sliding into her where she’s never been touched. It’s the strangest sensation, though not a bad one. It sends little goosebumps all over her body. And it takes a moment, but eventually she realizes it’s Viktor’s thumb, spreading her open.

V: I’d love to have you here…

-His words are punctuated with the movement of his digit, allowing it to slide in and out of her in time with his thrusts.

V: But not tonight. 

-He leans down and presses a kiss in between her shoulder blades, his movements slowing down for a moment, and The Reader whines at the loss.

V: Not enough patience, right now.

-He straightens up again, and resumes fucking her, with a renewed vigor. Removing his thumb from her, watching as she squeezes around nothing. Gripping her hips to pull her back to him.

-The Reader is nearly boneless with the onslaught of pleasure, and it’s all she can do just to breathe properly, allowing him to do whatever he pleases to her, enjoying every moment of it.

-Then, the grip on her hips tightens by a fraction, and Viktor’s pace begins to grow sloppy and uneven. She knows that he’s close, and, willing to risk his ire, she tentatively slips her arm beneath herself again, in an attempt to rub her clit.

-He notices.

V: You just can’t help yourself, can you?

-He’s breathless and rough. But he doesn’t try to dissuade her this time.

V: Come for me, then. Fuck - let me feel you-

-All it takes is a couple swipes of her fingers, and her entire mind goes blank. The outside world fades out of focus, and all she can feel is the blinding pleasure of her orgasm, more intense than she’s ever experienced. Knowing Viktor is the one who’s made her feel like this. Finally.

-His thrusts falter for a second, growing quicker for the briefest moment, before he pushes in as deep as he can, and stills. Nails digging into the fat of The Reader’s hips, a debauched, broken cry falling past his lips, while he curls inwards, his forehead coming to rest against her back. Hair tickling her skin.

-Both of them stay there for what seems like forever, trembling and catching their breath, letting their orgasms run their course and gradually dissipate. Letting the world fade back in, and their minds clear.

-Slowly, tenderly, Viktor wraps his arms around her waist, carefully pulling her up into a sitting position, and then coaxing her backwards. The two of them now reclining somewhat comfortably against the arm of the couch, with her back on his chest.

-He lays kiss after kiss on her exposed shoulders and neck, on any piece of skin his lips can reach. Stroking his hands over her abdomen and sides. Neither of them say anything for a little while, not having the mind yet to form words. Not even having the wherewithal to pull out of her.

-After a couple minutes of gentle touches and affection, though, they’re finally able to speak.

V: It…wasn’t too much, was it?

-The Reader hums

V: If it was too much, you need to tell me - I won’t go so far next time-

-A grin stretches across The Reader’s face, and she turns slightly towards him.

R: Next time?

-He presses a kiss to her cheek.

V: Of course ‘next time’. I told you earlier, yes? I want you. All of you, for as long as you’ll have me.

-The Reader’s heart swells with warmth, filling with love and affection. She squirms around in his grasp so she can lay more comfortably over his chest. Both of them wince when he finally slides out of her, and his spend dribbles after.

R: We have so much cleaning to do.

-Viktor presses a kiss to her hair, and then to her lips.

V: No more than any other experiment would warrant. We have the rest of the night to make things presentable, though, so…let’s stay like this a little while?

[fivelila]

Completely ignoring personalities and everything, purely on the based of looks, how do you think they rate each other? What is their respective type physically and how close are they to it?

That's a really interesting question!

In the very beginning of the story, I think their mutual rating would be very low, but perhaps only because they would never admit anything else. 😅 But that later changed. It's like when you don't see someone's attractiveness at first, but later something changes and you see that person in a different light and you find someone attractive, even if it wasn't like that before. I think that was their case.

But I also feel that the first "rating improvement" came already in S3. He might like blonde Lila for obvious reasons and she complimented his suit, so he could make a better impression without the school uniform.

I don't think they are each other's "type" in this sense of the word, but I like it all the more. Looks are a fleeting thing, so being with someone based on other things is a pretty healthy and mature decision. Above all, I think Lila understood that physical type is not the most important thing in a relationship.

I think Five likes blondes. It's actually interesting because Dolores had dark hair as a mannequin? But in his mind, she was blonde. Also, the dancer at the club was blonde. The one he made his "guy remarks" to. (That seemed really random to me, since he did it about twice in the whole series, shortly after, like it was written into the script by force...). Maybe it was related to Grace? I don't know, but it seemed to me that his idea of Dolores was a bit similar to Grace. 🤔 Actually, it might even make sense.

It would probably be fair to say that Lila is attracted to tall muscular men with beards. But I have a feeling she's more attracted to intelligence than looks. Because Five was in many ways the exact opposite. But I definitely think Lila's weakness with men was their hair (I totally get it).

[ladyduellist]

Epistles of Saints & Sinners

Chapter Summary:

Tav finds a way to fed Astarion blood.

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Story Summary:

When Astarion meets the humble bard, Tav, he soon finds out he's the only one between them that knows they are bound as soulmates through their marks. Deciding it's more trouble than its worth, he refuses to tell her along the course of their journey across Faerûn.

But, unbeknownst to him and their companions, Tav is harboring a gruesome secret that she only thought was nothing more than a traumatized period in her life.

As they both come to face to face with their pasts and presents, will they choose to move forward or let it consume them?

Healing isn’t linear—after all.

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Chapter 17: Poison

Ao3

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Word count: 5.7k

Pairing: Astarion x female bard Tav

CW: Language, Violence, Act 1 Spoilers

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♫ Traveling under the sunless sea, We were both trying to breathe, Tied with an invisible thread.

When colors seem less monochrome, And the soul doesn’t want to roam, Emotions felt with everything unsaid.

Little by little it starts, Devotion of a once vacant heart, The dawn’s shard’s bringing light.

Moments of sweetness and inner strife, Holding on to each other like a knife, So that our tale will be worth the fight. ♫

— Tavelle Swiftchoir, a song entitled ‘Genesis

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“Do you trust it?”

“Hmm?”

“The dream guardian. Do you trust it?” Gale persisted, biting softly into an impeccably made cheese sandwich.

Shaking herself from focusing on the shoddy stitch work in her lap, Tav amusedly spied a couple breadcrumbs becoming lost in his unkempt beard “No? Hells, I don’t know. It certainly told us a convincing tale. What about you?”

“I typically like to err on the side of caution, but I’m in agreement with you: it did tell us a convincing tale. The fact that it conveyed nearly the same story to us through our dream state, makes me think we are its only hope,” he pointed out, brushing away flakes of bread from his robes. “But this could be yet another trick. Let us carry on and see what comes of this protector of ours for the present.”

The bard took a deep breath, carefully mulling over their current state of affairs. “At any rate, we do have the creature to thank for us all still being alive.”

Around them, a chilled breeze in the late afternoon warned of the beginning transition into sunset. The day had been wrought with conversations surrounding the group’s mutual restlessness about where the lines of reality and dreams blurred pertaining to the abnormal guardian angel inside the prism. Dreamy’s narrative certainly seemed believable enough, but Tav was concerned that it appeared to each of them in a different form—craftily tailored in the guise of familiarity, blindsiding them to gain their trust. Yet, not a single one of her companions opted to reveal who’s shape it took on, as if they, too, had been unsettled by the imitator’s projected image.

And honestly? She probably understood the need to conceal such unbosomings better than anyone, given the shapeshifting protector’s introduction in Algos’s body. There was very little doubt that her companions would be understanding about why she murdered her husband, but what they didn’t know—what she hid—was that she would one day face extreme public scorn in the pillory before having her neck kiss the bladed edge of a guillotine, for misdeeds far graver than Algos’s demise.

They can’t know. They can’t find out. It would put them all in danger.

It terrified Tav, the knowing that time was running low before everyone discovered her real identity. That a condemned woman as she was on the path to possibly become a hero—unexpectedly following in her mother’s footsteps—except her accused transgressions would see her dead before the first opus honoring her deeds was composed. But she had, in some sense, accepted that she would offer herself up to Faêrun’s judgment when the bell tolled for her fate. Taking as much as she gave to the world by balladeering her final mortal liturgy, while still protecting those in need to the very end.

The wizard took another large chomp into his snack while he plopped down onto the crate, moaning in culinary bliss. “‘av, ‘o yoo wa’t ‘um? I’s ree’y goo’!” he excitedly said, pointing at the sandwich with his mouth full.

“I’m sure it does taste good—judging by how loudly you’re chewing—but I’ll pass this time, Gale. Thank you,” she hastily replied, growing more frustrated with the lapse of her sewing needle determined to create a crooked line.

“Ah,” he jetted out, swallowing more chunks of Waterdhavian down his hatch. “Honestly, all that’s missing is a bottle of Athkatlan clarry wine.”

The needle pierced the tip of her finger, making her wince. “Bollocks! I can’t deal with this right now,” she huffed out, tossing the tailoring kit and torn shirt aside.

Gale turned to her, a fair amount of worry dimming his bark colored eyes. “Want to talk about it?”

How could she ever possibly explain her constant hindrances to him? Whenever she began to dwell, she could feel herself packed to the brim, ready to burst through those seams at any moment. The tadpoles. Algos. Their journey. The dream guardian. Whatever the fuck her involvement continued to be with Astarion. Tav had taken on so much in such a short period, that she was wound like a rubber band ball about to unsnap.

The bard lifted her knees to rest the side of her face against them. Her hair unplaited, captured the last chirps from the evening songbirds upon each strand blown in the wind. “I’m not even sure where to start.”

“The beginning may be as good a place as any. After what you did for me—standing for my honor against the others concerning the Netherese orb—listening is the least I can do for our worrisome leader.”

Tav seriously pondered over his words, quickly electing to keep her sentiments to herself. “You don’t owe me anything. None of you do. Being here is sufficient.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Is it? Sufficient, I mean.”

“What are you implying?” she asked with a hint of unease in her soft pitch.

Gale raised his head to peer out towards Wyll and Karlach preparing the evening campfire. “You know, when I locked myself up in my tower for that fretful year, I had nobody except for Tara,” he proceeded with his thoughts. “One full year, waffling in my depression and consuming whatever magical items I could to stabilize this infestation in my chest. One full year of never reaching out to another to relinquish some of my misery, convincing myself it was my own burden to bear.

"Maybe I could have blamed some of my pride on my lack of seeking another’s sympathy, but I will say, after I was captured by the mind flayers and settled with you all, I realized just how starved I was to share my struggles with those that would have my best interest in heart.”

As she listened to the wizard’s voice attempting to lull her into a vulnerable place, Tav began to trace all their companion’s names in elvish Espruar letterings into the dirt. With each elegant curve she made, her index finger either thickened or thinned its script. She wondered if amongst her digit’s fluidity imprinting these names into the ground, which of them—if any—could lay their hands over her metaphorically slumped body in an act to invoke a holy dove for her healing. Yet, her impulse to safeguard what was still left within her reverberating heart took precedence, leaving her with bouts of emptiness where trusted connections should form.

Astarion had been right all along: nothing was holding her hostage except herself.

“What I’m trying to say is that perhaps it’s not me you wish to unload any of this haul of yours onto, but I have zero doubt that a single one of us would turn you away if you wished to do so,” Gale ended, fixing his gaze on her.

Tav froze her mindless scribbles in the middle of drawing Astarion’s name. She lifted her head to gently grin at him. “You are singing to the bard here, Gale,” she replied, laughing at her own corny joke. “But know that it is never something to take personally. Maybe after I’ve found time to think more clearly? Would that suffice?”

He patted her on the back, grunting a noise resembling a throaty “yes.”

Familiar post-mortem gouge, A skewer through her vitals. Rearing bestial head, With another cycle.

Scraping and howling, Blow down the bricks to her castle walls. From high above the turrets, Tearfully shoot the animal until it falls.

And then mourn its lifeless shape, For the offense of trying to see inside.

“Ahem,” an unreserved voice cleared itself, announcing himself specifically to the bard.

Leisurely strolling by with his impossibly straight nose pointing down into a book, Astarion sank in his cheeks to follow up his known presence with a “tsk.” His loose curls relaxed along the nape of his neck as his chin tucked a little further into his chest.

Gale sat up straight in his seat, running a hand through his brown hair to find relief from the assaulting tresses tickling his face. “How many times has he passed by us now?”

“Three. He’s pouting and hoping I’ll change the terms of my arrangement with him,” Tav responded, sighing. If Astarion meant to hold up his boisterous charade, she was resigning herself to her bedroll for the rest of the evening.

“Arrangement? As in feeding or…um…something…well,” the wizard inquired, shooting her an embarrassed glance.

Her lower lip hung open, the sound of a forced dry chuckle leaving her diaphragm. “Are you asking about my sex life, Gale?”

“WAIT, I ONLY MEANT—” Gale held up his hands, face turning every shade of pinkish red one could imagine. 

She casually covered her mouth, hiding her raspy titters. Gale reminded her of jam spread upon a biscuit: reliable, easily abashed, and sweet at the same time. 

“Do I simply not exist?” the vampire sneered, keeping his garnet view studying the pages in his book. “You do realize I’m able to hear the two of you gossiping hens from here, don’t you?” 

“Hello again, Astarion,” Gale called out. “You’re sounding rather optimistic tonight. Is there anything we can do for you?”

“Oh, Gale, you really need to stop flirting with me—I’m not interested,” Astarion scowled, turning a page in his book.

He’s more agitated than usual, Tav reflected. And his skin…is it possible for him to be any paler? Unless he hasn’t—damnit!

Tav jumped to her feet, giving the ties on her stays a quick glance over to check for their support. “When’s the last time you fed?” she asked aloud.

Astarion lifted his head to peer over at her. “Does it matter? I think you’ve made it perfectly clear where you stand on that particular concern.”

Gale nervously lurched his nutty eyes between the two ex lovers, seemingly deciding it was better to stay clammed up on the subject by the way he pursed his lips together.

Slowly approaching, she nibbled at the inside of her cheek, ruminating on her last interaction with Astarion during their spar. Did he believe she was trying to punish him with the boundaries she set? Of course she was undeniably irate over how he treated their riptided companionship, but she refused to be held responsible in any way for his fickle stubbornness.

“You need blood,” she composedly pressed, stuffing her hands into her pant pockets. “This isn’t healthy, especially with us facing the gith tomorrow.”

Astarion waved her off disdainfully. “Sorry darling, but I think my palette is evolving to a taste that’s less…stale.”

“So, you would rather hold out for a different ‘thinking creature’ than the woman standing in front of you still offering her neck?” Tav frowned, knitting her brow. “I’m not going to chase after you about this.”

Yes, you will.

“Don’t mislead yourself.” He gently closed the book, skimming a hand over the front cover before fully regarding her. “We both already know that you have quite the tendency in refusing to give up on anything.”

Astarion knew exactly how to rile her up, sucking upon her good character like he was the village witch. With pitchforks and orders of decree, town riots were held because of men like him. There had already been plenty of occasions when he knew she couldn't turn away from his dilemmas, premediating he wouldn't even have to ask. Killing Gandrel. Drinking her blood. The promise to fell Cazador. Examples upon examples of the way this captivating rogue had kept her within his apocryphal sepulcher.

“And you’ve taken advantage of that knowledge, haven’t you?” she retorted.

Astarion took a few steps closer to her, tilting his head to the side. “Haven’t I? Don’t you mean, haven’t we? I’m not the only one that’s pursued a special interest amongst the two of us.”

The bard narrowed her eyes. “Y-you think I used you only for intimacy?” she choked out, fighting back the watery spouts in the nooks of her eyes. “...Astarion, that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Again, don’t mislead yourself. Everybody wants something from someone else,” the pale elf goaded, slanting his body inwardly to gawk at her underneath his black lashes. 

A dull ache unspun in her chest as it began to propagate from the words of Astarion’s morose piano sonata he unexpectedly disclosed to her. Her previous fears had come true: he honestly thought she was using him for little more than sensual rendezvouses. 

“I want to talk more in depth about this,” Tav murmured, staring at the tome in his hands. Was it just her imagination or was it lightly trembling?

“And I want to leave,” Astarion shot back, abruptly turning away from her, unwilling to share any further exchanges. “I bid goodnight to everyone not named Gale.”

“Yes, well, please do let us know how we can inconvenience you yet again on your fourth stroll around here!” the wizard shouted as Astarion roamed away towards a set of ruins overlooking the mountainous valley.

Tav started to sluggishly pace, thoughts scattered as she ran the risks of martyring her self appointed walls over and over again. Usually, she would pay no heed to his sarcasm and mockery—which was half of his personality—but the steady quakes jumbling his grip around the book, nettled its way beneath the five million nerve endings of her skin. What was he hiding? 

“Tavelle,” Gale said unevenly. “Are you okay?”

An idea struck her. Impulsive and dangerous. She laughed at herself for the mere consideration of it, and furthermore, at Astarion’s prediction of her defiance to throw in the towel. He surely must’ve laced his fangs with poison with the way he continued to seep into her veins.

Wiggling a dagger out from its sheath tied to her belt, she placed the sharp blade against her right forearm. “Gale, do you think you could find me an empty bottle?”

Confused, he observed her impromptu actions. “Let me jot down that bloodletting is an active interest of yours. Whatever are you doing?”

“If Astarion continues to be stubborn in his feedings, I’ll just have to concede to a different way in helping him. He’s not the only one that can tempt another,” she half-jested, discerning on the proper area to slice. 

Mouth agape, pupils larger than copper coins, Gale ran off to retrieve her request with his robes swishing fastidiously behind him. Almost instantaneously, he returned stumbling over his feet with an empty bottle, clean bandages, and a quartered-filled healing potion.

“Here, this should do. The healing potion should stop most of your bleeding, but not right away—hence the dressings.”

“Greatly appreciated,” Tav beamed. “Actually, this may go better if you could hold the bottle for me. If I die, lie to Shadowheart and tell her I forced you to help with a charm spell before she resurrects me.”

Gale silently assented, standing close enough to hold the container under her arm. “I realize this may be none of my business, but why even bother? Is he really worth continuing to sacrifice your own health for? You and I have had this disagreement before and I can’t help but think it’s best to still leave him be. Nobody wants to see you hurt; we need you just as much as you need us.”

The bard grit her teeth together, slowly cutting through several blood vessels in her arm. As her crimson dripped in hurried rivulets, she positioned the wound over the glass.

“I-I care about him, Gale,” Tav weighed in, starting to feel lightheaded. “There is something inside my gut that tells me not to abandon him, no matter how much of a pretentious asshole he can be. I don’t think he understands what living a good life means and, gods help me, I’m determined to at least help give him a real chance to do so.”

He took a deep breath, careful in the way he spoke his next words. "Do you think this could just be your affectionate emotions speaking and not your logic? It's evident you have a strong bond with Astarion, regardless if you feel something deeper with him or not. I'm not trying to deter or judge you, but I went through a similar situation with Mystra. I loved her and it cost me everything."

Tav elevated her head, taking in the warmth of his stare. "Isn't that what life is all about? Putting your heart on the line and hoping everything works itself out," she proclaimed, sheepishly smiling.

A sympathetic expression washed over his face as he held tighter onto the small container while it filled with her blood. “I didn’t before, but I think I slightly understand now why you protect him—us—as you do. You’re too good for this world and I pray Astarion sees what your compassion is capable of doing.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,“ she timidly blushed, resheathing the blade as she scrambled to unravel the bandages to tie around the gash. “Mayhaps I am being preposterous, but I want to believe Astarion has something good inside him that’s been suppressed in growth for 200 years just so he could survive. Would it be so terrible of me to help him search for that?”

“Terrible? No. A damned lunatic? Yes.”

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Rosymorn Monastery Trail was a location that appeared suspended in time. Vast jagged mountainous rocks reaching high into the heavens above. Overgrown trees refused mercy to the ridges they shoved their roots into, leaving behind a surreal sight to behold. Built alongside the trail were shrines and statues dedicated to the dawn god Lathander—some in literal ruins, others standing proud. All forgotten, left to nature’s decay.

The dusk showed the first presentations of celestial bodies over the breathtaking scenery, dimly twinkling as they labored to shine brightest through refracted streams of light. They reminded Tav of the vampire she was on foot to visit, peacocking his demeanor as if he wanted to be noticed while a preferred distance remained a tumultuous comfort.

In her hand, she clenched the bottle of her prepared blood, wondering how Astarion would receive the expiatory truce. Gale’s woes weren’t without merit about the spawn’s needs extending beyond her remediable efforts, but her memories of the past decade were a potent drug denying her withdrawal from him. She had been alone. Frightened. Traversing the lands with no support. Her name: a stain on her people and her family’s triumphs. Because of this, Tav vowed to herself and the incorporeal buzzards circling overhead waiting for her collapse, that nobody else she knew would have to face their suffering alone as she had.

The tiniest granule of real unfettered hope could change everything for Astarion. 

Hope. A word Algos used to berate her for even suggesting the power it could wield, contrarily believing fear held more dominance. A decade later, she could still hear his voice echoing in leftover thoughts germane to him. Though, she was confused as to why her recent trances were constantly enthralled by him, hounding her into turbulent—sometimes insomniac—nights. Could it be her mind trying to warn her of the similarities between Algos and Astarion? Both had exhibited behaviors of egotism, manipulation, cruelty, and concerns that were border lined obsessive with outward appearances. Comparative personality quirks, yes, but didn’t they hold their differences?  

Astarion was the only one between the two men that had treated her as an actual human being despite his historical flaws. He respected her autonomy, although he loved to disagree with her. When she announced her boundaries, he didn’t barge through them to try and control her. Most of all, he never took anything from her unless she first offered. To Astarion, perhaps these actions meant naught to him other than some part of his personal compass he routinely enacted. Whereas for Tav, these were exhibitions of consideration for her well-being that he may never understand what they truly meant to her.

Still, the songstress couldn’t shake the parallels betwixt them. 

Maybe she really was a lunatic caught within her own patterns, blinded by her feelings. Maybe she was some idiot who couldn't help but to throw herself into another man’s haunted house. Or maybe her muddled head was overthinking so many disorderly thoughts, that she failed to notice her arrival at the wrecked archway attached to what was left of an abandoned sanctuary.

Shivers prickled down her spine while she briskly searched the area for any evidence that the spawn was closeby. “Astarion, are you here?”

Over crumbling and desolate blanched stones, she berthed herself with the foundation of her lower body. The bard’s eartips perked up, attuning to the awakening eve’s sonances. Save for the mating cricket chirps, it was pleasantly silent. She walked through the open arch, peering out towards the empty cliff behind the building.

“‘Starion?” Tav whispered.

“Ah, and thus does the bouquet arrive to offer unto me chastisements for biting words,” a nasally voice odically narrated on the other side of a neglected wall holding the arches afloat.

“Oh my gods!” she yelped out in surprise, nearly dropping the vessel of her sanguine fluid.

He was leaning back casually against the ruinous wall with his eyes peacefully shut, letting her ogle bluish thin capillaries webbing his lids. The black and plum coat he often wore was unbuckled, opened wide, revealing a plunging neckline above his usual ruffly shirt underneath. And, oh, did the moonlight ever decide to accentuate the forbidden dips of his collarbone and pointed jawline right when her gaze fluidly crossed his path.

Tav’s view dropped away, cheeks reddened as if she had caught him in a private moment. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over vampires' corpselike stillness,” she noted with a jittery chuckle, coming down from her adrenaline spike.

The vampire’s right eye opened, appraising her gestures as he inhaled heavily through his nostrils. “Are you wounded? You smell like you’ve been doused in your own blood.”

“Something like that,” she confirmed, lifting up the bottle and confidently pushing it in his direction.

“A potion? Darling, you shouldn’t have! How did you know this is what I’ve always wanted?” Astarion mocked in annoyance, pushing off the wall to grip the bottom of the glass.

Tav shook her head. “Not a potion. Open it.”

He skeptically gaped at her as he popped the cork out. A single sniff into the dense bottled air, bathed his expression in euphoric and ravenous delight. The tips of his fangs glistened with a string of saliva connecting one of them to his tongue when his mouth fell open. Low groans, short and reverberating, slipped out, leaving the woman’s heart fluttering.

Seconds passed before he spoke, his accent thickly laced with hunger. “What did you do?” he mumbled, bringing his sight to level with hers.

Tav removed her hand from the object, allowing its heft to nest in his grasp. “The day after you told me you were a vampire, we made an agreement for you to drink my blood as needed. I mean to uphold what I promised to you regardless of what’s going on between us.”

“Where?” he breathed out.

“Where what?”

“Where did you cut yourself open?”

She held up her forearm, swathed in fresh bandage strips. “It doesn’t hurt much; I drank half of a healing potion to stop the bleeding. I wanted to catch up with you before it chilled.”

Astarion narrowly squinted at her arm, then back to her shy simper.

“Don’t do this again. Not for me; not for anyone. If I need your blood, I’ll feed from you when the others are around—per your suggestion,” he firmly stated, frowning.

Like a hallucinogenic taking effect, there was a waxing vagrancy in his eyes. Tav assumed some recollections of his chronological life, where the electric wirings in his brain became polluted, had swam through his cerebral nerves.

That was not the reaction she had anticipated. Tinges of guilt cratered themselves in her stomach, like bombs being dropped onto the ground. Amid their last tiff, Astarion had been absolutely resilient—dubious even—when Tav proposed a new feeding arrangement due to his disassociating incidents. Why did he suddenly change his mind?

She resisted sinking her teeth into her lip. “Have I upset you? I’m sorry if—”

He combed his thieving fingers through his fluffed coif, ending with a sigh. “You haven’t upset me, songbird.”

Tav clasped her hands together, avoiding his unreadable guise. “Okay, good. That's good."

Loud barking at the camp’s site saved her from the awkward silence they were wallowing inside. Someone shrieked—possibly Wyll—at Scratch for stealing their underclothes off the temporary clothesline they erected. The distracted bard merrily puffed away a chuckle, imagining the feisty dog darting through their tents with a pair of shorts in his muzzle.

As she directed her attention back towards Astarion, swift torrents from her bottled crimson cascaded into his gullet as he swallowed. Her lips were consumed with a summery smile as she watched visible glowing pinks tint his pallored skin from her blood filling his body. Engrossed by the sight of him, Tav allowed a single memory of teeth marks and tongue frisks branding her. She introspectively touched the side of her neck, finding that she missed the two punctures that had mended.

But then her yearning was replaced with antipathy aimed at herself, remembering how mortified she felt when he inferred she was only using him for sex. 

Astarion wiped his mouth, gingerly swiping up blood droplets. “Something wrong?”

Tav swallowed the constricting ball in her throat. “What you said prior, it isn’t true.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

“That’s not why—you know I didn’t sleep with you because I only wanted sex, right?” she replied.

“Are you actually sullen over that? I only said it to make a point, not to have another one of our famous parleys,” he threw out, obviously deflecting. “In fact, I’ve already forgotten most of what I told you.”

Her vision roamed to his fingers tightly wrapped around the bottle, thinking back to those faint tremors from earlier. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend that you’re unbothered by things when they do bother you. I would never be upset with you for expressing your wants and needs."

Seconds flew by without any movement from Astarion. She observed as his pupils dilated and undilated, battling through miles of his ageless carnage until he finally blinked at her.

He raised the blood-filled container to his mouth, muffling behind the glass. “I highly doubt you’re done prattling on, so do soldier on.”

“Right.” She studied him under gossamer lashes as he ingested another red mouthful, unsurprised by his interpolation. “Us being intimate came as a bit of a surprise to me. You see, you were also my first—“

“What?!” he coughed up after gulping a huge liquidly glob.

“In a decade!” Tav giggled, obliviously fixing her bangs. “I’m sorry! I meant that you were the first man I’ve slept with since my ex.”

“Bloody hells! Had I a functional heart, I think it would have seized just now.”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t been propositioned during her ten year drought. On the contrary, plenty of men—sometimes women—pledged marriages, endless wealth, distinguished titles, even rare treasures, to have her in their company since her last relationship flatlined. Compelling words they undulated into the flue of her ear about tasting her skin until she would give her heart to them. Oaths were recited about helping her to become the most famous bard in Toril, like enticing wildfires from treacherous tongues.

But, none of it mattered. Tav already knew she couldn’t trust them. They never offered her what she wanted—what she needed. Never bothering to unfasten even a fraction of her armor to see what was moored underneath. All her fragility and sorrow waiting to be exposed like a creature sliced open upon a taxidermist’s table.

Until she met Astarion and he saw right through the remnants she tried to mask.

Astarion swigged the rest of the bottle’s contents, releasing a pleased keen. “Call me a scamp all you want, but if you had asked me to deflower you, I would have at least treated you to a romantic dinner of half-eaten apples and stale bread beforehand,” he teased, spryly reaching out to brush the back of his knuckles along her jaw.

She playfully pushed his furled fingers away. “Knave!”

“Oh, forgive me. Would you have preferred tenderized lamb shank and white wine?” he taunted, examining his spread fingers out in front of him. “Our options are clearly limited to a more—bleh—provincial lifestyle.”

Laughing, she lightly thudded her back against the wall, pulling fountains of hair over her shoulder. Astarion mirrored the elf, resting his body next to hers, shoulders inches apart. Their breaths tapered into steady and mellow flows, each trying to match the other.

“So, was your ex love your first?” he curiously asked after a time, wiggling his brows.

“No, thank the gods,” Tav informed. “Aah, my first was a young elven man. A sailor visiting his family in Highmoon. It happened so fast, I barely remember anything from it aside from the—ahem—initial pain. He was sweet and a gentleman, so I suppose it could have been worse.”

“Tsk. Had it been me, I would have taken my time with you," he boasted.

She blushed, crossing her foot one over the other nervously. “What about you? Who was your first?”

Astarion’s face tensed. “I can’t remember,” he said softly.

The songstress looked at the ground somberly, simultaneously saddened he may never regain his memories and confounded that the person that had hurt her the most amongst their group was also the one she felt the most comfortable with.

The spawn shifted, placing a loose fist under his chin in thought. “Ten years without so much as a single caress, huh? No wonder you were so…” he trailed off.

“So, what?”

“...sensitive.”

“Oghma’s right nut! I should’ve taken that one to my grave,” she lamented, florid embarrassment heating tender skin down the length of her ear from pointed tip to lobe.

Astarion laughed at her, showing his upper row of teeth. He rotated his head, focusing on her with roguish eyes aglow. “If you would like to do the honors of fluffing my ego, why choose me to be your first after all that time?”

Under the cosmos, they connected by flesh. Lonely wanderers: drifting, searching, waiting to be free. Under the cosmos, they did part. Runaways still enslaved by scars of old stones.

Though she discovered through their brief reverie that they may not have been meant for each other, the bard confessed she had wished for more with Astarion. Yes, she had every justifiable reason to abhor the man—especially with how he had caused her immense grief—but Tav could not forget how he made her feel that her heart could stir once more, even if he didn't feel the same.

There lay something bittersweet in that insight as she clung so tightly to her whirl-winded emotions. The former lovers were both guilty of different failings and with everything they had already been through, Tav knew death's hand could claim their lives at any moment with no pardons for final contrition's, unless they meant to absolve their mistakes. Which begged the question: would they be able to give themselves over to forgiveness and acceptance in order to move forward?

She gazed up at the stars, focusing on a smaller troupe overhanging them as she gathered the courage to bare a part of herself to him. “Do you remember when I said we needed to get to know each other better before we had sex?” 

Astarion gradually nodded, quelling his expanding lungs. “Yes.”

“I said that because I wanted to learn more about you as a person. You are attractive. You are a fantastic lover. But, that’s not all you are. And if I ever made you somehow believe that wasn’t true, then I wholeheartedly apologize."

Twisting her neck, Tav swept her overcast dewy-filled eyes up the scope of his neck, directly meeting his widened ruby stare. “You’ve hurt me, Astarion. Badly. Some of the trust I extended to you has been broken and I’m admittedly struggling with that. Yet, I can’t help but feel like maybe you’ve harmed yourself too.”

“How so?” he inquired, leaning away from her.

Before she could dab them away, a few tears sprung free, seeking shelter in the crevices of her nose. She placed a flimsy hand in the middle of her chest, above her troubled heart. “Pushing yourself to have sex with someone when your heart doesn’t truly desire it, is wrong. It’s a complete violation to your body and soul.”

The weary creases between his brows deepened as he evaded her eye contact by squeezing his eyes shut as if he was in pain. He was deathly quiet, drooping his shoulders so he appeared vaguely hunched over. Perfect white hair waves subtly moving along with the clouds above, were the only indication that he hadn’t left for the land of the damned.

“Please say something,” she weakly begged.

He opened his eyes to glare at her. “I certainly wasn’t expecting us to be acknowledging our sins in the god’s acres, but what do you want me to do?” he hissed.

“This isn’t only about what I want, it’s about what we want. About what you want,” Tav intently replied.

Astarion flaccidly touched his forehead as if to nurse an oncoming migraine. Mouth opened, he audibly exhaled mid chafing laugh. Whatever vagrant demons were crusading inside his head, he seemed to be frantically fighting against them gaging by the rapid shifting in his sight.

The bard waited patiently for the darkness blotting out his thoughts to disperse. Periodically, his chest inhaled, presumably using the scents around them to hook him away from the undertow.

After a couple of minutes had passed, Tav reached out to graze his arm with a feathery touch. “If you’re unsure, maybe we can start by actually trying to be friends this time? No sex. No forcing yourself. Just looking out for each other and maybe a fist pound or pat on the back here and there,” she suggested, unearthing a compassionate smile. “And if you discover I’m not your cup of blood, then that’s perfectly fine. We can get on without being anything other than occasional allies.”

The vampire peeked at her through his fingers. “Gods, am I ever glad you didn’t decide to try taking up being a comedian as a profession,” he retorted, lips curling impishly. “But a fist pound? Really, Tav, how pitifully atrocious! Sometimes I forget you’re a country bumpkin from the Dales.”

Tav beamed stupidly at him, laying her index finger against his lips to quiet him. “Could we sit here in silence for a little while and watch the stars?”

Astarion nodded, depositing a faint smile she couldn’t see, into the heavens above.

[chihirolovebot]

and so it is possible to evaluate the attitude of other participants in the game of a physicist from one to ten? I'm terribly interested in the relationship of physics and maki.

i THINK i understand what this means but if ive gotten it wrong just . shoot me another message clarifying and i'll redo it . i believe ur asking me to rate how the other participants feel about physicist on a scale of 1-10 ? let's say 1 is enemies and 10 is their closest friends.

i'll start with physicist's weakest relationships and work my way up to their strongest !

shinguji — 1/10, not really any friendship built before the incident where shinguji tried to murder phys; likewise, phys always felt vaguely distrustful and creeped out by kiyo even before the incident. a very safe last place.

yonaga — 3/10, one of the only characters physicist has had a real, longstanding problem with. phys is generally pretty passive, but yonaga definitely managed to piss them off by brainwashing kiibo and trying to control the student population. i don't think yonaga had any grudge against phys personally, though.

shirogane — 4/10, phys seems very neutral and sometimes irritated by shirogane. throughout the story, shirogane is rarely seen standing up for physicist, generally quick to believe they are guilty when accused.

houshi — 5/10. i don't think physicist ever had any sort of problem with houshi, they simply didn't know him well enough before he died to really feel close to him. i think they would get on if they had more time to spend together.

yumeno — 5/10. again, physicist is mostly neutral on yumeno, but their opinions on her probably skew a bit more positively than shirogane. yumeno has definitely earned sympathy points from physicist and has moments where she tries to believe in physicist's innocence.

gokuhara — 6/10. we're starting to move onto people physicist likes now. gokuhara is ranked low because i wouldn't consider himself and physicist to have a very deep relationship beyond generally liking each other, though. their relationship was definitely tainted by chapter five, too. i think gokuhara only cared for phys as much as he did all the other students, and physicist liked him well enough and felt it hard when he died.

iruma — 6/10 physicist tends to think iruma is a little much, but they definitely appreciate her as a scientist. iruma is a coward, so she's for sure very jumpy and paranoid around phys after they kill korekiyo, but killing game circumstances nonwithstanding i think they'd be pretty good friends.

akamatsu — 6/10, akamatsu was definitely super important in physicist's early development, i think she gave physicist a lot of hope and she would be remembered a lot more fondly by physicist if she hadn't murdered amami and started the killing game.

harukawa — 6/10, an interesting relationship for sure !! they start out in a super rocky place with harukawa accusing physicist of amami's murder and being stubborn when confronted with reason, and physicist disliking her because of it. there's a lot of shaky points for them, but i think they've both grown to a place of mutual respect. they may not ever be close friends, especially in the killing game, but they've learned to appreciate the other at the very least.

momota — 6/10. a source of strength for physicist, although their philosophies dont always align. their relationship is weakened a little by momota refusing to see physicist's agency in their relationship with ouma.

toujo — 7/10. ranked a little lower for the whole uhhh toujo considering killing physicist and trying to throw them under the bus about it thing. but pre-ch2 they were very close. i think phys is the closest anyone got to seeing toujo as a person, and toujo genuinely cared for and respected phys a lot.

chabashira — 8/10. another relationship that needed a lot of time to evolve. chabashira and phys didn't really interact meaningfully until chabashira discovered them after killing kiyo and helped cover it up. since then they've grown incredibly close, something of a result of chabashira being the only one to see phys like that, and continuing to have faith in them. one of the only people to see the real phys, i think.

saihara — 8/10. these two have a more subtle relationship i guess, but still extremely close. saihara believes in phys a lot, not just because of his detective's intuition, and they mean a lot to him. both of them care for the other deeply, and beyond that, want to be cared for by the other. they each find comfort in talking about their grief and regrets, and have near-unwavering faith in the other.

amami — 8/10. only isn't a 9 because of his secrecy and the amount of stuff physicist doesn't know about him, but needless to say amami very much acted as physicist's rock in chapter one and that losing him in such a brutal way damaged them to their core. amami, in turn, adored physicist in a sorta big-brother way, felt pretty protective of them. i think it said a lot that he told them he'd come find them first after ending the killing game? he grew to feel pretty close and protective to them in the short time they had together. physicist constantly looks to his memory for advice on what to do when they're struggling.

ouma — 9/10. this bastard. he's so high up because he probably knows phys better than anyone else, and the same goes for phys knowing him. phys is closer to him than anyone in canon ever got, and although they've had a very very rocky journey they both harbour indisputable respect for the other. there's something so intimate abt their knowledge about each other, the way they know the exact things the other wants to keep hidden the most. he's ranked a point lower than a ten because of his obsessive paranoia and trust issues, and also his struggle to get over phys killing kiyo and using them in his plan to kill iruma and gokuhara.

kiibo — 10/10. u may question this ranking when thinking about the recent distance between them but i raise you . in regards to each other , everything phys and kiibo have done is a result of extenuating circumstances and not their own actions. phys only allowed iruma to be killed because they believed the world is virtual and iruma wouldn't actually be dying, and only distances him because they can't tell anyone at all about the plan to catch the mastermind. circumstances nonwithstanding, physicist and kiibo love each other. they are best friends, they trust the other wholeheartedly, always the first to jump to the other's defence. kiibo's faith in physicist is incredibly stubborn at times because he knows who they are deep down, and the same for physicist. anyway. they mean everything to me :3

[hardworkandguts]

Ranma ½

らんま½

(original Anime)

Martial arts romcom by Rumiko Takahashi

Era: 1980s, 1990s

Rating: C

Plot: Master of the Anything-Goes style school of martial arts Soun Tendo receives a postcard from China from his old friend Genma Saotome saying that it is time for his boy Ranma to get married to one of his three daughters, ensuring the continuity of the Tendo family dojo. When they arrive, however, the Tendos only see a panda dragging a girl with red pigtailed hair.

Length: 161 episodes

Thoughts: Alright, this is the one that's getting me in hot water but I don't think the original adaptation is that great as an whole, or at the very least squanders a great start by running well past Best Before date. The premise is great and shows the versatility Rumiko Takahashi has, and it might be the most interesting cast of characters she put on paper - we have our gender-flipping titular character and the mutually tsundere love interest Akane. Nabiki, the shameless opportunist, always proves to be a great source of entertainment when given a chance, and entering the whole assortment of fiancées and pretenders, from the completely delusional Tatewaki Kuno and his sister Kodachi with her incredible ojousama laugh, Ryoga, the only character who can stand up to Ranma but could get lost walking in a tunnel, Shampoo, the clingy Chinese amazon who generally acts like a wrecking ball opposed to the more reserved Ukyo, the only of Ranma's pretenders to act relatively normal (and with whom Ranma feels more at ease)... at least for someone who's a master of Okonomiyaki-based martial arts, because imagining normal activities with martial arts thrown in is a delightful plot device. All this (without accounting for one-off and other secondary characters) gives room for plenty of different dynamics, most of them have that that frenemy vibe to it, in the sense that yes, they'll help each other if the occasion demands it, but always looking for an opportunity to get ahead on their goals. Giving some room for kung-fu treachery is always good.

It has, however, some characters who are also on the bad kind of annoying - sure, Gendo Ikari Lifetime Award recipient Genma is annoying - after all, most of Ranma's misfortunes lie on his terrible decision making (such as training in China without knowing how to speak or read the language) but is usually never too far from being kicked into a body of water by Ranma, who is also never that far from being drenched in water as payback. On the other hand, Happousai in particular kills dead any episode he's on for more than two minutes and later the new school principal and estranged patriarch of the Kuno family adds more duds to the story at a point it started to feel thin. Finally, I'm not a fan of overly long shows, and I feel Ranma played a big part of that, there's just too too much of nothing in long stretches of the show, and the animation quality drops to very low standards by the end. Once again, I feel this is might have a case of "ran too long", and drops what would have been an easy A. I'll probably look at the OVAs and movie at a different time, as I don't think they'd do enough to help improve the rating here, but would get a better grade together.

It's a show that I've found *severely* dragged down by these factors, here's to hoping the 2024 series (which will be on its own post soon) gets 40-something episodes and keeps doing a smoother and more streamlined version of the story - reminding people of what they liked while discarding what they didn't - which from the start certainly will be rated much, much higher. As for the classic adaptation... I'm sure someone has compiled a list that lists the decent-to-good episodes that runs a bit over 70 or so.

Recommended to: fans of Rumiko Takahashi, but generally everyone who feels they can hit the low point and call it quits instead of sticking until the end (also, it doesn't have one).

Plus:

It's still a classic for very good reasons - it has an incredible cast of unique characters who are in their own way being all sweet or at least normal and then turn into the worst backstabbing assholes once situation changes.

Ranma might be the most interesting character concept RT did as far as what you can do with.

Minus:

Once again, i feel it touches extremes: what it does well, it does really well, but what's annoying about it is past deal-breaker point.

I don't mind filler if it's used to, you know, fill a short production blank, but in a show that starts to drag after the midpoint, you can probably attribute that to a substantial number of episodes being filler.

[train-fans-anonymous]

Im back with answers and more random thoughts, first I'll answer the questions you had from the last ask. Questions will be in blue and answers will be in white/black (depending on your settings)

"Do you think it is because they wouldn’t want to lose their luxuries? are they afraid of living knowing that if they speak up they can be silenced? or do they simply not care about what’s lower than them?"

it's mostly the last reason, it simply doesn't effect them and they don't care all that much unless it effects them in some sort of way. Some do have the other reasons, but it's mostly the last

"Even if they were somehow to find someone willing to undergo a large surgery do you think it’d be safe? would there be people who take advantage of this and charge low with high interest rates to trap someone into servitude?"

It would most likely not be all that safe, with heavy risks of malpractice or outright lying about what they end up doing. I do think it would be safer to go to a Doc who us less well known or has less to gain from lying to them. I actually hadn't thought of that other idea, but now that you mention it I can totally see it happening. I think it would most likely only happen to hyper specific cast mechs, something that is harder to get by normal means.

"Are they shunned by their former friends and followers and do they continue to have the opportunity of luxury AFTER empurata?"

It really depends, it's possible to maintain a mechs status after empurata but it's very hard. If they are well known enough and their appearance is not as important to that they should be OK. (Kind of like how celebrities who do bad things can still remain in good standing)

"Do you think any (probably viewed as insane) noblemechs would display their empurata as like a “message”? or propaganda, trying to express their views."

Yes, if their personality seems to fit and that they hadn't had their personality or anything changed. There is one AU I've seen where they had starscream under go empurata, and he would definitely be the type to show it off as a statement.

"Do you think he experiences phantom pains from his hands like cramping? Or maybe sometimes he’s reach over and knocks something down because he still sometimes “feels” his hand? Is this a point of distress for him?"

Most definitely. I think any mech that gets a replacement connected to their systems or processor they tend to get phantom pains, in the case of Shockwave I think he would just permanently offline the segment of his processor related to the parts of the body he had gotten removed. Along with that I believe Shockwave could manually switch the commands used for his dominate hand to his only remaining hand. It's risky and not anything that a normal mech would consider but Shockwave isn't really a normal mech...

now I have another idea, it's related to the cycle of life for sparks and Somethings related to that.

So, new sparks are more connected to the planet and they lose connection as they grow up. They learn to walk, talk, transform, and the basic things required to live from that early connection, and they can learn and give things they learn to the planet (I think more specifically the well of the all sparks) in their early years. There is exceptions, in partial outliers. They maintain a connection and that is where they get their powers from, most don't know that but its the way they get their powers.

Anyway have fun with that one :]

Sidenote: I have finally found someone who knows what I mean when I say I wanna bite people in a good way

YOOO WERE BACK!!! my favorite time reading time 😎👍 glad to see my biting was well received, be sure to smash that subscribe button and hit the bell if you’d like to see more mutual biting xddd

Aaa it’s sad to hear Shockwave just cuts off the feedback from his hand :((( and also crazy how he pushes his physical body to the limits “It's risky and not anything that a normal mech would consider but Shockwave isn't really a normal mech...” Also bro????!?!! that end bit. Hang on just the thought that he goes out of his way to do things that nobody else would consider for the cause is [mindblown] he’s literally changing himself physically and mentally for what he thinks is best ahanbsebevsbbnnjjjjj

Interesting to hear that Starscream would show off his empurata… Honestly he is the victim of a lot already but I could see him owning it, because despite his struggles he still pushes forward towards his plans.

In addition to your thoughts of the possibility that mechs could maintain their status as empuratees, do you think they might even gain some followers FROM their empurata? Comparison between celebrities is interesting but makes a lot of sense, despite supporting or doing bad things - you can still keep power through any means necessary.

Your comment about “specific class” mechs intrigues me. Is this for mechs with a specific function or hard to come by software? Do you think there’s be essentially a body/hardware trade (like how Lockdown from Animated collects parts and mods from his bounties) in that you could trade some important part of your body or maybe even your function to regain your life? (Maybe similar to Nautica in IDW trying to sell her emotions in exchange for Skids)

This is the part I’m really excited in because I always love seeing how people write Transformers being created: their connection to the planet reminds me a lot of things like going immersant from IDW2 where bots who feel accomplished in life give their body and mind back to Cybertron. Interesting how they gather data, knowledge, and power from the planet. Do you think if a bot were to be born nearer to like the helex they’d develop differently or have different knowledge than someone from protohex? what about Cybertron’s moons? Do certain areas of Cybertron have a higher yield for outlier sparks?

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions and to write more, this is really fun to keep up with. And yet again sorry for not receiving the notification 🫡 we stan tumblr mobile web version in this household (lying)

[forsakenruin]

#𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍   —   an  independent  ,    private  ,    &    semi-selective    FANDOMLESS    original  character  ;  𝓶𝓲𝓬𝓪𝓱 𝓬𝓻𝓸𝓯𝓽   :   daughter of world-renowned tomb raider ,  member of the secret society   DAUGHTERS OF ARTEMIS   ,  &  on the run treasure hunter .   |   est.  in  april  ,    2023  .    all  fandoms  are  welcome  to  interact    &    are  highly  encouraged  to  !!    rated  21+  .    minors  DNI  .    extremely  low  activity  currently  .    written  by  R.Z.  (  she/her  ,    25+  )  .

𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐍   —   navigating hostile environments when you’re just a child ,  enemies wearing the face of a motherly figure ,  refusing to let history repeat itself ,  taking control of your own life  &  survivor’s GUILT .

[ CARRD . ] tba

[ DOC . ] tba

[ INTEREST TRACKER . ] tba

[ LINKS ] prompts . character study . headcanons . wishlisht .

blogroll .

@gunchamber / krissy chambers , spn based muse , medium activity , partially uses icons

@hdgcrft / devon ambrose , oc witch , extremely low activity , rarely uses icons

@forsakenruin / micah croft , lara croft's daughter oc , extremely low activity , might not use icons

Hi ! Welcome to my new OC blog , thank you for stopping by . I'm on the EST & i've recently come back to this hellsite after a nearly 9 year long break from writing . Lou from @tobeblamed unintentionally inspired me to come back so here i am !! i hope we can have fun & write together .

This blog is pretty much friendly everything !! I'm open to everything & i hope you will be the same . I won't tolerate hate of any kind , this is my blog . my space that i curate as a positive hub for me to escape my real life for a bit . i won't allow for it to be dulled . so be nice, just be a good egg !!

I will be on my main rp account most days !! ( @gunchamber ) so activity here will probably be sporadic . i also work a full time job unfortunately . i also believe i'm undiagnosed ADHD so i could very well be here shitposting but not replying to things , so patience is appreciated. please don't rush me on replies . if it's been a while feel free to shoot me a message to remind me , but continuous heckling will cause me to not want to write with you . i'll ask you politely once , if you continue then i will unfollow .

I am loosely a mutuals only rp blog , i'm only semi-selective . i also rarely follow first , and it's not me being a snob it's me being a pansy ass bitch that has social anxiety . if you see that we have the same mutuals , then i probably have already lurked your blog and i'm waiting to make the first move . it could be within thirty seconds of discovering you or several weeks . i am trash i know . i'm sorry .

the best ways to reach out and get things started is sending me some memes or tagging me in a starter !! if you are more into plotting , and we are mutuals send me an IM or ask for my discord !! i LOVE plotting some background for our muses to have a connection it's my favorite part !!

Shipping . it's one of those things that back then i would be like , shipping with all the muses that mine interacts with . but now i really enjoy and appreciate even the non-romantic relationships my muse gets into . i enjoy the slow build of our muse and based on their chemistry we will see if things become romantic!! world building and plotting is beautiful like that isn't it ?

Soft Blocking is new to me, but i like the concept . with that being said , if you soft block me and i end up refollowing you . i'm not doing it with ill intent or out of spite , i would just think something with tumblr happened that made me unfollow you . i apologize in advance .

[quaddmgd]

Happy Birthday, Crystal

So today (August 25th) marks one year since I started playing Cyberpunk 2077 and created Crystal. A year is a really long time for me to still play the same singleplayer game with no subsequent playthroughs. Things like that don't happen often, and Crystal means a world to me, so why not ramble for a bit about my memories, feelings towards the game and other stuff. Keep in mind, it's nothing more than a journal entry. Unless you know me a bit better than a typical mutual, you won't find anything of value here.

[VERY LONG POST AHEAD]

Long time ago...

I was really hyped about the game before its release in December 2020, my s/o even more than me. There were some signs that it's going to turn out disappointing, but we were keeping our hopes up. Alas, came the release date, the game hit headlines due to it's poor technical state and some broken promises. We were very upset, especially since all we had to play it on was Xbox One and low-spec by today's standards PCs. First updates showed that CDPR has much more to fix than we expected, so our hype has slowly died down.

Since then, I played through Cruelty Squad, Red Dead Redemption 2, multiple Yakuza, Devil May Cry and Resident Evil games, and I couldn't care less about the game at the start of 2022.

Why I got the game?

I only purchased Cyberpunk 2077 in May-June 2022, along with Kao The Kangaroo (2022) which, to be honest, was the main attraction for me. Both games were physical Xbox releases and I only was hyped to play Cyberpunk thanks my to lil bro, who has finished the game twice, and showed me this trailer with a beautiful cover of Never Fade Away - a song very in-line with my music taste.

Speaking as a seasoned video editor, the trailer was masterfully realized, with multiple great cuts showing off the diverse cast and some of the action. Editing, music and the scenes they chose made the entire trailer feel more like a tribute video - obviously this was made with love.

Now, I played The Witcher 3, and I knew that this game will require time and dedication from me - something I couldn't afford at the time. And despite hearing about the next gen patch (update 1.5) bringing the game to a state it should've been released in, I remained skeptical about it being good. No offense, but people (especially on Twitter) tend to overreact and talk about stuff they know nothing about. Even with recent title releases, folks just assume the latest patch made them better and fixed important issues. But then you sit with the game and a proper frame rate analysis is enough to prove such reports to be false.

My life in corpo

Before we get to August 2022, I want to provide some more context regarding the state I was in. I was working a piss-poor corpo job, which was gradually eating away my soul for longer than I'd like to admit. It wasn't fulfilling and it was (and probably still is) full of ungrateful pricks, that were coming up with issues to justify their payrolls, only to send QA on us to not detect any issues mentioned. To keep it brief, it was a very hostile work environment, that was treating people like garbage. But hey, at least they were smiling, right?

Come summer 2022, I was feeling like a shell of a human being, and I'm happy that fate decided that it's time for me get out and take care of myself. I'm not sure where would I be right now if I didn't.

So, my time at the job was coming to an end and I couldn't give less of a fuck about looking for another one. I needed some well-deserved vacation. I was supposed to work until August 31st and during these last few days I was trying to take it really easy.

Still the work was going as usual, so despite of having only few days left, my mental and physical state was as shitty as before. After each remaining day I was a walking corpse, drinking coffee at 10pm to squeeze these additional two hours from a day and try to enjoy some of my hobbies before going to sleep and repeating the cycle.

Starting the playthrough

My job is the reason why my memory is hazy on how I decided that it's time to start Cyberpunk 2077, but it's possible that it was my s/o that encouraged me to do it. She surely wanted to see the character creator with her own eyes, and was always interested in me creating OCs - something I wasn't doing often back then.

So, on August 25th 2022, I started playing Cyberpunk 2077, knowing nothing about the lore, with a sole intention of creating my character and seeing what happens. It was already late and my entire evening was sponsored by coffee, but whatever.

Crystal/Valerie/V

I'm not really sure how long it took me to create Crystal, but I spent an ungodly amount of time on perfecting her looks. I wanted her to look badass and beautiful, maybe end up being a cooler version of me. While I don't think I based her off my looks, my partner noticed that we have similar jawlines and hairstyles (well, I'm a natural blonde, which later I consciously reflected on her while creating her flashback version).

Needless to say, I instantly fell in love with her. And I know I wouldn't create a female character I wouldn't wanna date :>, but I really mean it. She was, and still is, simply perfect.

Her name was Crystal since the moment I was adding finishing touches (like makeup and tattoos), but I wasn't planning on giving her a standalone story. She was supposed to be V, with her name later revealed to be Valerie - a name I really like the sound of, and it fits her nicely. Still, in my mind her name was Crystal - and I have no idea why... she just looks like Crystal.

So here I was with my nomad V, ready to play through the prologue and possibly the rest of the game.

Playing through the game

My first evening of playing ended on me visiting Wakako (I don't even remember the reason you are supposed to go there tbh but if you played, you know these are still introductory quests) and photographing the hell out of C. My lesbian ass couldn't even be bothered to change FOV (and back then I couldn't really see the issue with default FOV screenshots - it took me months to adjust my eyes tbh) but she looked so badass. The photo mode, for industry standards, isn't that bad too, so I was really hyped to play the game, meet more people and shoot pics. While I already loved her friendship with Jackie and the way CDPR handled introduction to some of the cast, I wasn't sold on the story yet.

some of pics made on the first night :>

Then on the next day I went through The Heist and Love Like Fire, and learned that my actions as Johnny led to 2023 Night City Holocaust. Everyone who played through these quests know how full of events and emotions they are. It was 3/4am on Friday (technically Saturday) night, mind you, and I still was living mostly off coffee. That's a lot to take in for a tired mind and in some way it might have helped me immerse in Crystal's position even more. After waking up as her, with Jackie dead, and a parasite in my head that actively wants me to join him, I was just as clueless as to what the fuck happened. All I knew was that she/we need to survive. I can't let her/us die.

Let me tell you, waking up in her apartment, to the original version of Never Fade Away on the radio, was one of the most powerful moments in the game. To me, it has become a theme song for the rest of the playthrough. Leaving the apartment after getting some irl sleep was just as powerful.

the first time C left her apartment after Jackie's death and Johnny's flashback

The playthrough was going alright and I was hooked. I don't think there are many things worth talking about here. One thing worth mentioning is that I was starting to feel a strong connection with Crystal - something I've never felt to such an extent in any game. Maybe it's my background in corpo, which was only coming to an end. Or maybe I subconsciously designed her to help me with some of identity issues I had back then. I will never know for sure, but either way, she has helped me. She was exactly who I wanted her to be, who she wanted herself to be and was constantly brave and punk about it. I was feeling a growing mix of immersion and adoration as I progressed through the game.

And progress through the game I did! I finished plenty of gigs/ncpd jobs and all available side quests before starting the last mission chain (or so I thought - in the end I totally missed the vending machine one and the entirety of Kerry's questline lmao). During this time I was put out of misery of working my job, each day feeling more alive than the last, playing more and more hours of Cyberpunk 2077, shooting many pictures, enjoying my time in Night City and being Crystal.

yeah it might be using default fov but it's still one of my favorite shots

Last Tapeworm, Chipping In and dying

To me, Cyberpunk 2077 was at its best when it was focusing on the relationship between V and Johnny. Last part of Tapeworm was a very powerful moment. There's no way I'll ever forget the conversation she had with Johnny in that apartment. Going from a foe that actively eating your life away, to possibly the only person that's ready to sacrifice their life to save yours, Johnny and his redemption arc are some of the biggest highlights of the game.

The conversation was of course followed by a side quest sequence started with Chipping In, with another memorable scene at Johnny's grave. Seeing how far we've come together, how many people we met, how often we were agreeing with each other - it was like talking to a friend who was right by your side for every important event in your life. And to think that only few days ago I was watching him trying to smash her head against the window...

side quests really were the best part of the story

It's hard to say which moment was more impactful, but for me it all clicked just after the Tapeworm cutscene. If I remember it right, I spent a few minutes more in this apartment block, staring away at the sunset, listening to waves breaking Pacifica's silence. Not even sure if I'll manage to save Crystal, I wasn't ready to finish it anytime soon. I still had a lot to do and it took me an additional day to finish everything and start Nocturne OP55N1, but I was looking at the game differently than before.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it. For the remaining duration of the game, each time I didn't hear any music, it was just silence of a big city dying from heatstroke and sandstorms, echoing conversations with people I met during my journey, and uncertainty, if I'll even make it out alive in the end. Unfortunately, I can't convey it any better, but it has to do with the atmosphere of this city and CDPR's natural talent for creating gray characters, which Cyberpunk 2077 is full of, and last but not least, my connection to Crystal.

Nocturne OP55N1

So the time has come for me to start the last mission sequence and I knew that it might go bad. The moment I was warned that it's a point of no return, I backed out and went for a walk around the city. Don't know if it was scripted, but the weather was overcast and NC was covered in fog. In my experience it's such a rare occurrence, that either I was "lucky" or it was planned. I visited Judy (VCrystal's sweetheart) for the last time, disappointed by the lack of new dialogues to start, and went back to Megabuilding H10 to see a cute heart made out of consumables by her. I went to sleep in my own bed, probably for the last time.

During my last journey to Embers, Major Crimes by Health started playing on the radio, and I got emotional. Not often games make me cry, but I really didn't want Crystal to die, or my journey to end. It really felt like I was saying goodbye to everyone and not going back.

just look at the weather - shot outside of Embers, before starting Nocturne Op55N1

In the end I managed to go through the Embers section just fine, but very stressed. Then, after suffering through heartbreaking moments at Viktor's Clinic, I got to the rooftop.

Now, I'm not really sure how much time I spent there. Seems like an eternity, looking back on it. No choice felt right (and in the end, none was perfect), but I had to choose something. Unable to decide, I did something I really hate doing - I looked up endings to see which one will let me live happily with Judy... or survive at the very least.

While I didn't know it yet, I chose the happiest ending of the bunch. All I knew is that Crystal will be able to leave Night City with Judy - I didn't know that it'll be impossible to remove the chip in Mikoshi and that there's hope of achieving it in Arizona. Yes, I chose The Star ending.

I still was on the edge of my sit and really scared for C, but deep down, I knew that I probably won't get another chance to mess it up.

The ending was bittersweet and I got an instant hangover. I needed some time to come to terms with it, and make peace with me not getting the happy ending. In the end I managed to create a brief scenario where that guy Panam knows somehow manages to remove the chip, and Crystal and Judy got to live happily ever after.

I beat the game on September 4th.

Feelings Feelings Feelings

See, there's a reason I'm talking about the ending and my feelings about it in such detail. I really fell in love with Crystal. After all, it's the first time I got so immersed into a character and I can't put my finger on why exactly.

Maybe it's because it's the prettiest character I have ever created, maybe I just saw parallels in our stories or feelings, maybe I subconsciously made up all the connections in my head. Meh, it's probably a bit of everything, on top of a really good story, even if most of it is hidden in side content.

The thing is, I was in the right place, at the right time and, like I said, it all just clicked.

Back then, I was tired, angry, feeling exploited and robbed of soul. She was there to help me stop thinking about it, get revenge in a way, even if on a fictional corporation, however dumb it might sound. And the more I was thinking about her, dressing her up in cool clothing (bra + edgerunner combo ftw), the more I strived to be like her. I learned to love myself a bit more, I started dressing up for myself again, putting some makeup on just to stare at the mirror and enjoy the end result, maybe even shoot some selfies. It's almost like, on top of everything I already said, I was trying to express myself through her, which has in return influenced me. I hope that makes sense.

Crystal Hartley

Now, it took me some time to create her own story and separate her from V. And I wouldn't probably do it if it wasn't for my s/o. She was already working on her OCs story, and after many tries she finally talked me into writing my girl. The last modification date of the document with the initial version of the story is February 25th - exactly 6 months after starting the game. Since then, I made some changes and the end result can be seen here. It helped me further resonate with her and she didn't have a deadly chip inside anymore, at the cost of her not getting to know Johnny. She remained a warrior, a true badass who's not scared of anything.

Honestly she was and still is inspiring me. Being it her as V or real Crystal I wrote a few months back, she suffered hardships, she had her all-time low moment not that long ago, but she recovered and she always stands brave against all odds - knowing that in the end everything will turn out just fine.

For now, C has got some closure. She's living in Night City, she has a loving and beautiful girlfriend she's thinking about all the time, they're still doing gigs and getting in trouble together <3 While she still recovers from what happened in her nomad family, she has Elegy, Misty, Claire and Saul to help her deal with it. She's in a good place right now.

Other girls

Some time ago I made EV, a girl that was originally a Cyberpunk version of my Evie from Red Dead Online, albeit I made her personality a polar opposite to Evie's. I don't have a lot about her, really - she's beautiful, photogenic, conveys vibes the best out of all of my OCs. She's probably going to end up as my canon V. She and Johnny are a match made in heaven... or hell. Actually if I put them together in the same body Night City might end up in flames.

Then there's Thalia. A girl I initially only mentioned as a friendly gang member in Crystal's mega lore post. She wasn't hanging around with Crystal's group of friends, but they got really close after getting to know each other during a party. Officially, she sacrificed herself to save Crystal and the rest when they got overrun by enemies. She did survive, with help of [REDACTED] and is looking for Crystal in Night City to reunite with her and [REDACTED]. Hopefully they meet soon! It'll probably bring some unpleasant memories back, but in the end Crystal will reunite with Thalia and, with Elegy, they'll make a dream team.

Some stats!

Why not wrap it up with some interesting data!

Since I started Cyberpunk 2077:

I got all the achievements and I intend on doing the same for Phantom Liberty

according to Xbox I played the game for 268 hours* **

I made 3405 captures, taking up a whopping 36 GB of space*

421 of these captures were made during my initial playthrough

* - at the time of writing ** - including time I was afk

Conclusion

So... I just wanted to post some thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 and, especially, Crystal. Going from a game I wasn't even that stoked to play, to an ongoing hyperfixation, that has helped me through tough times and still influences me to this very day! I even made some internet friends!

When I was working on a standalone story for Crystal, I decided that her birthday is the day I first played the game - 25th August... today.

Happy birthday, Crystal <3

[fushigidane]

You are now legally required to infodump about the gameplay mechanics that you think up for video games fanfics.

HELLO BELOVED MUTUAL I AM VERY HAPPY YOU ASKED

it involves a variety of things like sometimes when i am writing FE fic i'll think about hypothetical level designs, recruitment requirements for certain characters in the au, things like that

what's got me thinking about this NOW is i've been brainstorming a fe awakening/XC3 fic for the past couple weeks and considering what their classes would be

the ones i've got most for are lucina and severa, who with cynthia would be the kevesi trio here. i'm only including six characters bc i'd overload myself otherwise,,

lucina is an attacker with good all-round stats but particularly strong atk, dex, and agility. her class skills:

aether: chance to pierce/heal dealt damage

charm: party accuracy up 

dual strike: grants art follow-up to party members within a fixed radius [lvl 5 inheritance]

awakening: increased crit/accuracy/avo at low health [lvl 15 inheritance]

for plot reasons, her blade (i.e. the one summoned through the iris) ISN'T falchion. her blade is a lance-staff combination that deals good damage while empowering allies, bc i feel that mix of offence and support is How Lucina Should Be. falchion, unlocked later, would come with its own set of arts (which are more strongly offensive) and probably be switched to via the talent art.

severa is a defender. she acts as a hybrid dodge/hp tank, having strong hp, agility, and def but lower dex and atk [stats based off her fates incarnation]. she also has high base crit. her class skills:

competitive: increases damage dealt to enemies targeting her

triumphant: boosts aggro when dealing a critical hit

strong riposte: increases damage dealt when hp is 50% or lower [lvl 5 inheritance] 

fierce rival: increases crit rate for every critical hit performed by an ally [lvl 15 inheritance]

she uses a sword, generating aggro via swift attacks and high aggro arts. some of her arts also have crit recharge, and her talent art has crit damage up. she has less focus on party defence than other defenders tend to, which is complemented by lucina and cynthia’s ability to more or less handle themselves. this is a fun class to put in the context of xc2 bc it'd one where you'd equip an avant-garde medal (crit healing) and win

the last of this trio is cynthia, a healer, and i've got less ideas for her right now? she's similar to lucina but has more focus on support than offence. i'm considering making her fairly buff-focused though not as broken as signifier is. her provisional skills:

rally speed: increases ally evasion within a fixed radius

heroic spirit: boots party damage dealt by 5-10% for each active buff (max: 200%)

luna: when landing a hit, deals damage as though enemy ether defence was 30-50% lower [lvl 5 inheritance]

[unnamed]: increases healing power with number of party buffs

luna would be the inheritable ether counterpart to ultimate qigong (same skill but physical def), which is REALLY needed in the xc3 meta. i don't know much about her arts yet either but they'll probs be ether-based.

i've planned much less for this au's agnian trio (owain, inigo, brady) BUT vague outlines:

owain is the defender purely because the way he acts and stuff he says can't NOT draw attention. he also has good crit, like severa, and basically all his arts are ether + AOE to some extent. he's more the hp sponge type of tank, being very good at handling crowds of enemies (and probs has a skill that reduces damage taken per no. enemies in battle)

inigo is the attacker with good combo access (topple + smash) and strong offence. he can find himself taking aggro from owain at times. to counter this he has a skill called "stop staring at me!" that increases damage dealt to enemies targeting him (he makes them stop targeting him by killing them, which is exactly how i play the attacker role in-game) and his talent art both has increased damage when aggroed AND eliminates aggro.

brady is the healer, and a very traditional one at that, dealing in strong healing, reducing party damage, and increasing party debuff resistance. his blade is a staff. one of his skills, which is inheritable, is:

miracle: 50-70% chance to survive a KO with 1hp and five seconds of invincibility (once per battle, does not stack) [lvl 5 inheritance]

bc i don't actually think any other class gives you that aside from soulhacker.

anyway, if you got this far you have my congratulations and eternal respect. this was fun to ramble about :DDD ty for the ask!

[moonfurthetemmie]

I’ve already forgotten how much about it here and how much I only wrote in the notes for the AU, but Phrikeh’s economy is kinda fucked up rn

Since the whole point of taking over from Delusion was to be a better ruler than him, Byte’s trying to actually be a halfway decent queen. She’s mostly doing a reasonable job (aside from some really odd things happening and some things now being punishable by death. Which is not discouraging the rumors that she and Slash, if not also Pluto, were murderers), too.

Having been a non-Royal citizen for most of her life, Byte’s very much aware of some of the actually serious problems in the kingdom that she now has the power to get fixed. And she’s prioritizing the worst of them! The people are actually quite happy about this

But she’s gotta pay for all of it to be fixed. And she’s never even SEEN this much money in her life before. So she’s not being super responsible. Slash isn’t any better. Pluto could be but he’s not. He didn’t realize how long it took to build up the treasury to where it had been.

Byte raises taxes some (and after all she’s done to fix stuff, most people are actually okay with this), but they know she can’t raise it too much because not everyone can afford that and if she makes people go broke because of taxing she’s doing.

So they’re trying to figure something else out.

Pluto says the best option is to get a trade agreement with some place that can pay good money for whatever they’re offering, but they don’t have much that they aren’t already exporting or is unique enough to them to justify a price over the going market rates.

So while they attempt to figure that out, they have turned to some less noble solutions

Which Hunter gets in on

If Byte ever needs to visit another kingdom on royal business, and it’s not someone they’re already allied with, she’ll have Hunter poke around their hosts’ castle. If she’s hoping to make a new political or trade friend, that’s the extent of it to start with. But if she decides, before arriving or after talking to them, that she doesn’t like them and won’t be making any kind of agreement with them, she has Hunter stuff as much of their money into a bag as he can in about five minutes, tops.

Slash also “borrows” some of the more expensive finery. Which Hunter sells for them. Under a fake name.

The only reason they don’t also steal from their allies and existing trade partners is because they know that’s the fastest way to loose those allies and trade partners. Not that they’re not tempted to. Every so often they seriously consider risking it, but they don’t. They’re not ready to deal with that shitstorm. They’re already on thin ice

No one’s been able to prove anything, but most of the places the royal posse has visited are real sure those little shits stole from them. And the rumors spread. And since Byte was completely unheard of to Phrikeh’s allies until she became queen, none of them are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt just yet. Especially because of how she gained the throne.

Girl took a very rigorous queenly etiquette class (tm) in the first week of her rule, and she’s very gracious and accommodating if they ever come to visit (and she’s screaming mentally the whole time, because she has to play 4D chess about all of it. Can you people not just fucking talk straight and say what you mean??? Gods above.), so it’s pretty much just that she came out of nowhere and pushed Delusion out of the way.

Pluto…they were never a big fan of him. And the feeling’s mutual! But they’re not sure he wouldn’t stoop low enough to steal from them.

He would. But he’s the one who said it was a bad idea, if they wanted to keep their allies. Which they probably should.

Especially since Aphotia has been beating the war drums and trying to take over pretty much the entire world. A sudden change in leadership, especially one that caused so much upheaval, would be a very good opportunity to invade.

[mielmoto]

(Pushing Chilchuck in here for the heart meme)

Drop me a character name and I’ll reveal my muse’s heart...

💔 Non-existent || 💗 Very low || 💗💗 A little || 💗💗💗 Hopeful || 💗💗💗💗 High || 💗💗💗💗💗 Maximum

Aha! There he is. I was worried you weren't going to make it, your majesty.

VISUAL ATTRACTIVENESS: 💗💗💗💗 (purely aesthetic appreciation of looks)

Going off of what we mutually agree is how we actually imagine Chil/picture him while writing + interacting? yeah buddy. while the breadth of what she finds visually attractive is pretty extensive, it's probably no secret at this point that Honey has a particular weak spot for the mature sorts—from the little peeks of grey which fleck through thick sideburns, the creases at the inside corners of his eyes echoing long nights, hard work, and worthy stories, to every blessed little hair which trace his arms and legs down to their endpoints; Mr. Tims is, quite frankly, a very appealing man by her standards. A little rough around the edges, with callouses and other little souveniers from ventures in dungeoneering and business alike, he looks very real—earnest, familiar, tangible... While she can (and does) appreciate the prettiness of things which are smooth, flawless, and symmetrical, Honey finds a lot more

FRIENDSHIP LEVEL: 💗💗💗 (how close a friend they consider them)

"Hopeful," as specified in the ratings above, is actually a good descriptor for once—they're still getting to know each other, as things stand, but I'd say the early impressions have been more than favorable, and even if nothing more involved were to come out of their acquaintance: Honey very much enjoys the moments they've stolen from one another, so far, and looks forward to more in the future. She's always in the market for a good drinking buddy, (though hopefully someone will collar both of them a little in that respect), endlessly appreciates a good (potential) business partner... and, perhaps more unique to him than many of her other friendships: she very much enjoyed meeting and entertaining Puckpatti, and would more than likely feel the same about seeing the long-suffering father play off his other daughters. *As the flamboyant, flighty, dramatic and bubbly sort that she is, I think Honey very naturally settles into dynamics with people who are a bit more straight-laced, dry-wit, and practical. Call it grumpy/sunshine or, as I think of it, a classic straight man/funny man compulsion.

SEXUAL DESIRE: 💗💗💗💗+ (...you know ( ͡°ᴥ ͡°) )

When we say DILF in this household we MEAN IT!! The mans seriously needs to relax, blow off some steam, and wholeheartedly indulge himself in ways he clearly doesn't allow himself to often enough—and, perhaps, hasn't for quite some time; to shirk off the mantle of responsibility, propriety, and nagging thoughts of what he should do or how his actions and choices might be perceived to—if only for a short while—listen only to what he wants and gives him pleasure... and she'd be more than happy to help deliver a little bit of that, given the chance ( ꈍ ᴗ ꈍ )

ROMANTIC INTENT: ........💗💗💗½ /+💗 (hoping for a romantic relationship)

Honey vc: ....okay listen. LISTEN.... [takes off running and jumps out the nearest window] ...surprise? (it certainly was for her)—but thinking long and hard about this one... yeah. Maybe it has something to do with her being a fair bit more established in the dunmeshi setting/verse (which is still being fleshed out), not as flighty and wayward in nature, but I'd safely attribute most of it to just Chil being... him, I guess. (Never could have guessed how much of a psychological impact seeing someone be a good dad to their daughter would have, lmao—) Chilchuck is well established in his community, committed to his people and his work (at times to a fault), and is obviously driven to be a part of his family's lives—perhaps making up for a bit of lost time, in some respects, but clearly investing his whole body, heart, and mind into those things he values most, with clear priorities. He establishes clear boundaries and refuses to be taken advantage of, but when he does agree to lend himself to something, he seems to give it 100%. ...all this to say: he doesn't seem the sort to do anything by halves. And that sort of attitude, that consistency, quiets a lot of the worries which usually nudge Honey away from the idea. *oh, and, I'd be remiss not to mention: the fact that he already has children, all mostly grown, and knowing isn't looking to expand it does play a part as well. not wanting to have children of her own has been a big deterrent in her 'romantic' pursuits in years past, as Honey knew she wouldn't be comfortable giving/be able to give a partner the 'family experience' if they decided that's what they wanted.

[enrichedacademy]

Does Your Financial Advisor Pass the Test?

There are good reasons to seek out an expert when it comes to managing your investments. For most of us, it comes down to a lack of knowledge and/or a lack of time.

Whether you work with an investment firm or rely on the services of your local bank, that financial expert is taking care of your life savings. Despite the considerable consequences of their job performance on your financial future, a lot of us spent more time evaluating our mobile phone plan than we do our financial advisor.

If you haven’t given it much thought, why not run through the list below and make sure your financial future really is in good hands.

Do you know which funds you own and their approximate rate of return?

It sounds obvious, but many people can’t answer this basic question. If you have to go searching for a statement only to find you don’t really understand what you are looking at, don’t assume it is due to your lack of financial literacy. Regardless of your financial acumen, your financial advisor has a duty to clearly explain the type of investments you own and keep you up to date on whether or not they are making you any money!

Do you feel the service used to be better, faster or more attentive?

Your financial advisor may have too many clients, your investments may not pay them much, or they may be relying too much on your loyalty or a friendly relationship to keep you as a client. You wouldn’t go back to a restaurant with terrible service even if the food was good, so why would you put up with poor service when it comes to financial advice?

Is it nothing but a sales pitch every time you talk?

The best financial advice at any given time may not be, “buy more financial products”. A good financial advisor should take into account the current situation with your family, career and any other relevant issues before they start recommending more investments. Many financial advisors are commission-based and not fee-for-service based, so it is in their best interest to sell you financial products, especially ones that have higher fees or commissions.

Do you know how much you paid in fees last year?

We seldom buy things without knowing how much they cost, and your investments shouldn’t be any exception! Canada has some of the highest investment fees in the world and they are not always readily apparent. Fees can be added on by your financial advisor for transactions or other services and/or included in the price of a fund (like an MER on a mutual fund). You may have to do some digging to find the true extent of the fees. Many people also don’t realize that seemingly low annual fees can easily add up to tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of an investment.

Do they write things down?

Forgetting a few details is excusable, but if it seems you are repeating yourself every time you see your financial advisor, they probably aren’t that interested. You may also consider a financial planner or some sort of financial life coaching services. They take a more holistic approach to your overall financial wellbeing and work closely to build a relationship, not just manage your investments.

Do they contact you more than once a year?

The annual RRSP deadline is like Christmas in February for many financial advisors and it’s normal to hear from them about that little nugget. However, financial advice needs to be timely, and a good financial advisor will be reaching out when the opportunity arises, not just when the season calls. Sitting back and simply relying on quarterly statements to keep the clients up to date is a good signal that your financial advisor doesn’t care.

Are you happy with your returns?

Saving time and professional advice are two areas where self-directed (DIY) investing breaks down, but don’t forget that a financial advisor is paid for exceptional performance. Regardless of what any financial gurus claim, it’s very hard to beat the market. Always monitor your returns (minus the fees of course) and confirm the cost/benefit of your financial advisor matches your expectations.

There are plenty of financial education services to help Canadians who prefer the freedom and lower fees of a self-directed investing approach, but a professional financial advisor can also be a good choice — or use a combination. Regardless of your level of financial literacy or the size of your portfolio, if you’re not getting exceptional service from your financial advisor, it’s time for a change.

[tinkerbitch69]

nah that’s ok I love hearing people talk about the things they like even when I don’t like those same things :3

that does sound really touching and I’m sure it would hit hard for others but from what I’ve seen of the game at least I just…dunno feel like I’ve seen it a million times before and and am too familiar with all those story beats to find it all that compelling.

That’s not to dismiss your connection to the storyline, I understand it’s very much a personal taste thing and yeah karlach is probably the most (only tbh) interesting one to me but even that is not really on the same level I connected to and cared about all the da companions in past games so I just don’t think I’d be motivated to play through the whole game. In a similar way to you and shadowheart, i got really invested in the companion narratives of the da games and that made dragon age one of my favourite video game series.

MINOR SPOILERS FOR DA:INQUISTION

For example, Cassandra Pentaghast is one of your first companions in inquisition and my inquisitor HATED her at first lol. And it didn’t improve over the early game. Her approval even got so low I got the cutscene where she gets drunk and threatens to leave the inquisition but I talked her down from it since I still wanted her around even if I struggled to get along with her. Then as I progressed into the mid game I started make little choices she could respect more and slowly they all added up until her approval rating swinged the complete other way. And in the end I developed a relationship of mutual respect, admiration and even deep friendship with her while still holding very different viewpoints and neither of us being afraid to admit them. And I don’t think that is something that would occur across all playthroughs so it really felt like I built this relationship and forged that connection myself. Which is not an experience that is very common with companions in video games where it feels like they were just mechanically designed to like you very easily. Yeah I thought hearing about your connection with shadowheart was really sweet and it just made me wanna share my own story with Cassandra tbh :3

All of that to say the dragon age games are really really personal to me and I may have gotten a bit overzealous in hating on baldur’s gate 3 both to hype them up and, on a more personal level, cuz I know a lot of people irl who obsess over bg3 but have never played or intend to play the dragon age games and it just feels like I can’t really share their enjoyment in it or my own in some of my fav games because of that so I ended up being a bit of hater of the game tbh. Kind of a toxic trait I know but I try to stay silly with it :3

Me: Maybe I should give bg3 a try even if I’ve never played a baldur’s gate game in my life or have much interest in the forgotten realms setting or find any of the companions interesting at all really. It might scratch that dragon age itch tho.

*Dragon Age: Veilguard releases at long last*

Also Me: never mind bg3 gtfo

[paladinbaby]

thinking about opening up a few v limited test tarot card commission slots

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Devil’s Advocate (S.R.)

Summary: Spencer’s been hooking up with the defense attorney in secret. At some point what was purely physical turned into something else. Request: Spencer and reader (a defense attorney) are fuck buddies for a while. One day she gets hurt/scared so she calls Spencer on instinct- He shows up, fluff + epiphany + confession Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Comfort/Fluff, RATED T (16+) Content Warning: References to sex, sexual relationship, harassment, violence against Reader (not graphic), bruising, mutual pining, very brief mentions of losing children/family and murder/death Word Count: 4.3k

MASTERLIST

Rules are fickle, funny things. I’ve always been interested in them. From the laws that I built my career on, to the social traditions that ensure I’m never appropriately compensated for said work, I’ve studied and defied pretty much every rule I’ve ever encountered.

All but one. In the grand scheme of things, it probably wouldn’t seem like a very important rule. In fact, it’s exactly the type of rule that they write about breaking in romantic comedies and cheesy teenage magazines.

It was a semi-self-imposed rule of sorts. A mutual agreement reached between two people that came to a respectful understanding following one too many failed attempts at happiness. It should have been a simple rule to follow.

Don’t fall in love with Spencer Reid.

In retrospect, I should’ve known that things would be different when we weren’t stuck on opposite sides of the courtroom bench. I didn’t really realize the magnitude of my mistake until it was two hours past midnight, and I was watching Spencer struggle to stay upright with one foot in his pants leg.

“What are you doing?” I groaned through my inevitable laughter.

“As much as you don’t mind me without pants,” he explained matter-of-factly, right before nearly escaping busting his ass on my bedroom floor, “I think the general public prefers me with them on.”

“Only because they don’t know better,” I countered. I’d deemed myself the winner of the exchange all the way up until he flashed me that damned smile that always broke me down.  

“You’re cute,” was all he’d had to say, and I had lost. The butterflies erupting in my stomach cheered his name, and I tried to drown out the sound by clearing my throat that felt full with my heartbeat.

“Seriously though, Spencer, just stay here tonight. It’s 2AM.”

“You know the rules.”

My least favorite sentence.

“Fuck the rules!” I whined, earning a smile from the man who still continued to prepare his exit. “I can’t sleep with you if you die after you fall asleep at the wheel!”

He cleverly dodged the topic with a playfulness that never failed to make me smile. Abandoning his efforts to leave, Spencer took a long pause to approach me again. He leaned over my naked figure only barely covered by the sheet and said in that low, silky tone, “I never thought I’d hear a lawyer telling me to ‘fuck the rules.’”

“Well, you’ve already fucked me, so...” I tried to joke without giving away just how much his proximity affected me. It didn’t work.

“Is that what this is about?” he asked while continuing to tower over me. The closer he leaned in, the more his unruly curls tickled my face. The squirming it induced seemed to only encourage his teasing, because he sounded positively delighted as he purred, “Did I not wear you out enough? Are you unsatisfied, sweetheart?”

“Stop it. I’m worried about you!” I answered with a firm smack on his shoulder. It did nothing to dissuade him. Despite being the one to remind me of the rules just seconds before, he didn’t seem to mind breaking them by littering my jaw and neck with kisses that were filled with far too much adoration.

“My concern for you is not me breaking the rules. It’s me being a decent human being,” I defended, while struggling to pull him and his distracting affections away. When that didn’t work, I resorted to allowing the giggles to do it for me as I screeched, “Cut it out!”

He finally stopped, albeit with an adorable, cheeky little grin.

I needed some way to regain the upper hand. To demonstrate to the both of us that I wasn’t the only one who’d started to lose sight of the deal we’d struck in the first place.

“Speaking of rules — why do you get away with calling me sweetheart? We said no pet names.”

Like the clever boy he was, he had already anticipated the answer and his reply. It was simple, but effective.

“Because you like it,” he teased.  

I like you, I corrected, to myself. That was a terrifying enough thought to convince me that he’d been right to leave. No matter how badly I hadn’t wanted him to.

“Will you at least text me when you get home?” I asked, unworried about the vulnerability in the request because the need to have explicit knowledge of his safety meant more to me than any potential humiliation that might follow.

But knowing that didn’t make it hurt any less when he shrugged.

“Yeah, if I remember before I fall asleep.”

If I remember, said the man with an eidetic memory.

I don’t think he’d meant it to be a taunt, but that’s exactly what it felt like. A firm reminder that he’d forget me by the time he finished the short drive to his apartment. That it was so fucking simple for him to shake the memory of me from his mind, no matter how beautiful I tried to make them.

“Goodnight, Spencer,” I said with as much false stoicism as I could muster.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

Maybe it was nothing but foolish hoping, but it almost felt like he was doing the same.  

There was nothing quite like a phone call in the dead of the night to remind you that you were hopelessly falling for your hookup. Every single time my damned phone rang past 10:00PM, I would attempt to answer the phone so enthusiastically, that half the time, I’d drop it.

That time the call came in at midnight, and I felt my hopes rising like steam from a kettle. Somehow, I managed to drop my register from the high-pitched squealing I’d kept bottled up inside.

“Hey Spencer, I was wondering if I’d hear from you this week.”

I’d expected him to say many things — really, he was a hard one to predict — but I had never expected the childlike excitement that burst through the receiver.

“You’ll never guess what I found!”

“... What?” It was as much an expression of confusion as it was a genuine question, although he hadn’t seemed to catch the former.

“I found that first edition copy of the manuscript I was telling you about!”

“Oh! You’ve been looking for that for months!”

“I know! I just heard back from the archivist and he said I can come look at it next month,” he squealed, and my heart started to melt at the sound.

He really was just too goddamn cute.

“Wow, that’s really cool, Spencer,” I giggled. While he should have probably been unnerved by the sound in response to his genuine enthusiasm, he was still a little bit distracted.

“Do you want to come? You mentioned you were interested in it before.”

Finding that the answer ‘absolutely not, that sounds so dry’ was just a bit too rude, I squeaked back a hesitant, “Did I?” instead. I could already hear his disappointment over the phone, so I quickly followed up with a much more enthusiastic, “I-I’m not sure. We’ll have to see what my caseload is like then.”

The silence, although remarkably brief despite the company I’d chosen, stirred some unsettled feeling in my stomach. I found myself rearranging plans and dates in my head, trying to find some way to promise my time to him over a month in advance. I barely stopped myself in time. With a firm metaphorical slap on the wrist, I brought the conversation back to where it should have been.

Spencer Reid wasn’t my boyfriend, and he wasn’t entitled to my time. We had a system. There were rules for a reason.

“Anyway, when are you coming over? Should I unlock the door for you?”

That time, I wasn’t the one breaking an awkward silence.

“Oh. I’m actually... not coming over.”      

To hide the heartbreak with an uncomfortable laugh, I muttered through the side of my mouth, “Why not? Was it something I said?”

“I’m in California. Sorry, I didn’t think about the time difference,” he answered a bit too nonchalantly for my comfort.

Speaking of comfort, there was a disconcerting implication to the phone call if it hadn’t been for any of our usual trysts. The silence stretched on, carrying a heavy, anxious energy with it.

“Then why did you call me?” I finally asked.

“I don’t know. I thought you might be interested and I wanted to share the news,” he explained. I could practically see him shrugging as he grumbled, “Pretty sure everyone else would just make fun of me for getting excited about a stack of old papers.”

The grumpy, insecure little boy in him always made me laugh. Too easy to tease, he was.

“I was planning on doing that, too, for the record,” I sarcastically hummed to the tune of his laughter bubbling over from thousands of miles away.  

“I expect nothing less.”

The next silence was more comfortable, but in a way that still mostly hurt. After all, it was a reminder that as soon as the phone call ended — which it should have done by now — we would both be alone again, even if we wished we weren’t.

“Okay, well... if that’s all,” I sighed. Tearing the band-aid off so that I could go lick my metaphorical wounds.

Spencer, on the other hand, didn’t seem nearly as heartbroken by the suggested absence.

“Right! It’s late there,” he chirped. Then, before I could get a word in edgewise, he cheekily called, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

And even though I shouldn’t have, I smiled.

There is no time quite like an emergency to realize that you have no friends. To have that realization to be paired with the sounding of sirens and the bitter taste of iron and regret.

I scrolled through my entire contact history three times over before I gave up and hit the one name that I knew I shouldn’t call. Then, upon remembering that I was a blubbering mess, I immediately hung up and sent a text instead.

“Do you think you could come pick me up from the marketplace?”

Seconds later, his name lit up my screen in a call that was rejected before the first ring finished.

“I’m fine. I just need a ride. I’ll explain when you get here,” I sent in response.

“On my way,” he answered before the screen had even started to dim.

I knew he was angry, but I was too tired to deal with it. There were so many justifiable reasons for his temper. Reasons he should be angry. I wasn’t supposed to text him for things like this. We weren’t friends. I definitely shouldn’t call him unprompted, or without a detailed explanation. We’d made rules, and I’d always been the stickler for following them.

But when Spencer showed up, his anger didn’t seem directed at me in the slightest. He hardly looked angry at all when he saw me, despite his eyes shooting wide open as he bolted through the small crowd of people to join me on the curb of the parking lot median.

“Hey, are you alright?” he yelled, even when he was close enough to whisper. When I flinched from the sound, he dropped his volume significantly, but the worry remained. “What the hell happened?”

It made my stomach sink.

“It’s nothing,” I muttered, continuing to cover the swollen side of my face with my hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I called you. It’s seriously nothing.”

Spencer’s flabbergasted scoff would’ve been funny if not for the disaster in the background.

“Nothing?! Your windshield is smashed and you have a bloody lip, that’s not nothing at all. That is very much something!”

“Calm down. I’m fine.”

“We have very different understandings of the word ‘fine,’” he snapped. That time, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ugh. I know.”

Behind him, though, reality came calling. The officer who had gone to grab a new pen had returned to bother me some more, and as much as I wanted Spencer to stay, I knew it was a bad idea. It wasn’t that I was going to lie, or that he would be hostile to the investigation. I was just… ashamed. Of what, I wasn’t exactly sure. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Other than be a defense attorney, that was.

“Can you give me a second to finish answering this gentleman’s questions?” I asked, gesturing to the cop who was probably just as happy to see me suffering as the person who’d punched me in the first place.

Spencer turned away from me, but I saw the disgust on his face clear as day. He glanced over at my car again, too, but that sight just made him sad.

“Fine,” he conceded with a surprising amount of grace, “But I’m giving you a ride home.”

“Fine! Go wait in the car then.”

The poor man sulked and grumbled the whole way. Every few steps, he would look back at me over his shoulder, checking to make sure that I was watching him. I suspect if I’d given him any leeway, he would have been back at my side in a matter of seconds.

But I didn’t want him to be here. I had called him, yes, but I was halfway hoping that I would’ve been able to avoid this scene altogether. I’d wanted to just flee the scene of my own humiliation and let my insurance work the rest out.

I hadn’t done anything wrong, but the cop’s questions didn’t make me feel that way. When he asked me what I’d done to provoke the seemingly normal, respectable man, I had to tell him the truth.

I’d defended the man who he thought murdered his children, and he was acquitted last week. That was all it was. An understandable anger. A justifiable rage. Grief knew no bounds, and when it came to laying blame, I was an easy target.

I couldn’t blame him. I’d hate me, too.

That was why I didn’t fight or argue the claims. I made it my mission to sound as unbothered as possible, and to go through the motions in a way that would put the matter to rest. I could just buy a new windshield. My lip would mend itself and the world would be better now that some catharsis was reached.

When I climbed into Spencer’s car, the last thing I’d expected was more negativity.

“What are you doing?”

Only halfway into the vehicle, I froze as I mumbled, “Uh... accepting your offer for a ride home?”

“You shouldn’t be done yet,” he explained.

“Oh, right. That.”

It cleared up enough of my concerns that I didn’t feel worried when I took my seat. The man next to me, however, seemed increasingly concerned. Especially when he got the proper answer he was looking for.

“I didn’t press charges.”

“What do you mean you didn’t press charges?!”

I’d been expecting it, but still had to cover my ears as his shouting echoed in the car. He seemed to regret making my headache worse, but I knew it wasn’t his fault.

He always worried about me too much.

“They already buried both of their children,” I said with a sigh, “I think they’ve lost enough.”

I should’ve known better than to expect him to take their side. Still, I saw the struggle in every part of him. He shifted back and forth in his seat almost like he was actively debating himself in his head.

“That wasn’t your fault,” he announced when he’d finally come to his conclusion. It was a sweet sentiment, but we’d both already known that to be true.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s a lot easier to blame me than accept that they’re gone.”

But when Spencer looked at me again, with those goddamn eyes filled with nothing but admiration and tenderness, I broke. For the first time since it happened, I broke down in tears that only stung more in his company.

“This was so stupid,” I said between sobs, “I shouldn’t have tried to talk to them. I should have just left. I’m sorry.”

The world felt like it was crumbling to pieces around me, but Spencer remained. His hand pulled one of mine away from my face so that he could keep me tethered to him. The harder I squeezed, the softer his voice became. I could barely hear him over the sound of sniffling and weeping that had been kept bottled up for too long.

But the longer I heard him, the more I started to believe him.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

That made me laugh. A short, bitter chuckle that was closer to a scoff. I looked at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes as I so politely reminded him, “I am literally the devil’s advocate.”

But then he asked me a question I still hadn’t expected. “Do you think he did it?”

It seemed like such a ridiculous question to ask me at that moment that I didn’t even know how to answer. But then he asked again, with more force behind the words begging for an answer.

“Your client. Do you think he was guilty?”

“I know he wasn’t,” I said without thinking. Then, I backtracked, smoothing out my hair and trying to pretend like I wasn’t having a breakdown in my fuckbuddy’s car. Trying to muster up some facade of dignity for his sake when I corrected, “I mean, I can never really know, but the evidence really didn’t add up and when he looked me in the eyes, I saw…”

The thought couldn’t continue the way I’d wanted it to. Not when I looked over to the man beside me and saw the exact same look I was trying to put into words. I saw the suffering of a man not believed. I saw someone facing charges and accusations he wasn’t able to remember but knew himself incapable of.

When I’d looked at my client, I saw Spencer. I saw him fighting to reclaim his own mind and his hands that were forever scarred by the memory of evil he’d never be entirely sure he hadn’t committed.

“What did you see?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.

“I could never believe he did the things they said he did.”

There was a gentle, almost imperceptible quirk to the corner of his lips as he whispered, “Then you aren’t working for the devil, (y/n).”

He must’ve seen the disbelief in my eyes, because he continued to speak with an increasing level of spirit, “You are surrounded by evil all the time. You walk into it knowing what is going to happen, but unlike me you... You aren’t trying to hunt them. You protect people. Even the worst people, just in case there is still good somewhere in them.”

Just like always, his hands became clumsier the longer he spoke. He spoke passionately and with his whole body. He pulled my hands to his chest and pressed my palm against his heart like it was trying to tell me something, too.

But then he looked into my eyes, and everything else faded away.

“You aren’t working for the devil,” he said in a tone so genuine I was forced to believe him. “If anything, the devil should be very scared of you.”

And I did believe him. I believed that when he looked at me, he saw something I couldn’t. Something admirable and worthy of kindness. That was enough to help me survive the relatively quiet car trip back to my apartment.

Spencer kept my hand in his the whole ride, and neither of made any mention of it. His thumb drew delicate patterns over my hand until it finally stopped shaking from the adrenaline. Until I knew that I was safe.

But then we were back in my apartment, and I knew he had to leave. There was no reason to justify him staying. We both knew I wouldn’t want to have sex in my current state, and that was our rule.

He had nothing else to gain from sitting with me while I cried.

“I’m gonna go... wash my face. You don’t have to wait up,” I said with an awkward half-wave. I waited until I was out of his sight before I called, “Thanks for the ride.”

He didn’t answer. I knew that it was better that way.

I didn’t cry as I got ready for bed, even when the soap and alcohol stung my split lip. I looked at the mottled colors of my skin where the man’s fist had made contact and I cringed. It suddenly made more sense to me why Spencer was worried. You’d have to be a psychopath not to be concerned with the sight.

I’d almost managed to convince myself that his responses that evening had been nothing more than the level of sympathetic understanding he would’ve had for a stranger in the same situation.

But then I rounded the corner back into my living room, and I saw that he’d barely moved.

“Oh... you’re still here,” I started, only to be swiftly cut off by a question asked with an astounding amount of confidence.  

“Can I stay here tonight?”

My answer was significantly less sure.

“Is this a trick question?”

“No, it’s not,” he said, then immediately repeated, “Can I stay here tonight? With you?”

Convinced it was a trick despite his assurance to the contrary, I questioned back, “Why?”

In what was emerging as a rather frustrating pattern, Spencer returned with yet another question.

“Why did you call me?”

“I-I could ask you the same question,” I stammered. The insecurity was bleeding through, and I tried and failed at putting on a convincing show of advocacy. I laughed uncomfortably, speaking words I knew were digging me a hole I’d rather not lie in. I couldn’t stop myself.

“But you won’t answer, either. Because that would break the rules, and you’re too good for that.”

Spencer bit down on his lip hard enough that his jaw and nose twitched from the pain inflicted. He turned to me with enough resolve to demolish the walls I’d so carefully built between us with just one glance. A glance that turned into a battle of wills.

Then he did something I would have never predicted.

Spencer Reid raised a white flag.

“I called you because I wanted to hear your voice. I got good news during a horrible day and I knew that if I could make you laugh... if I could hear that, everything would be better.”

Time seemed to stop and stretch on forever. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears that still rang from the sirens. I heard the ticking of the clock on the wall to remind me that I wasn’t in a dream.

“Was it?” I asked quietly, “Better?”

His lips remained flat and his eyes distant, but he still provided an answer filled with so much tenderness that it made my whole body ache.

“Yes,” he said. “It always is when I’m with you.”

I wanted to give him the same feeling of being seen. Understood and cared for. I wanted to tell him exactly how I felt, but when I tried, my throat closed in on itself.

“I called you because—“

As I choked on the words, I saw him suffer the pain. I saw him be wounded by every second that I was too afraid to tell him how I’d felt. Especially after he’d done the hardest part for us already.

I had to try. For him.

“Because when I’m with you I feel safe,” I blurted out all at once, “I feel safe, and happy, and...”

But the word I was too terrified to say came out of his mouth with just as much fear but none of the doubt that it hadn’t been true.

“Loved,” he said, “You feel loved.”

I hadn’t noticed that I’d started to cry, but it made sense. The only thing more painful than the vulnerability was the tenderness with which his thumb caught the tear against my cheek. He didn’t remove his hand, either. He kept it there, cradling my face and forcing me to watch the way he never stopped looking at me like I was the answer to everything.

“Am I wrong?” I asked.

“No, you’re not,” he whispered from just far enough away that I could feel his lips brush over mine. My lungs filled with a sharp breath that seemed necessary to stop my heart from failing under all the overwhelming emotion.

Spencer kissed me, not as a segue or preparation for heartbreak. He kissed me with his heart on his sleeve and desperate hands pulling me closer. Our faces both wet with tears that felt like rain following after a decade long drought.

He kissed me, and it felt like a miracle or a fantasy that I’d thought I would never be able to have.

When he stopped, it didn’t feel like a loss. It felt like a newfound understanding of love — of being with someone no matter how far away they might go.

But Spencer didn’t want to go anywhere. Not yet.

“So... can I stay here tonight?” he asked again, happy with his attempts to sweeten the pot enough to convince me to break at least one rule for now.

“Yes, please,” I said through a smile.

Some rules were just made to be broken.

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(DISCLAIMER: All persons fictitious.)