#writing challenge completed

[diyasgarden]

Presenting 1960s! Patrick Zweig: a product of a conversation with @lvrrgirlll and watching a complete unknown!!!

"So you'll come?" Patrick asks, hand digging into his coat pocket and pulling out a lighter. He flicks it open and slowly raises it to the cigarette carelessly dangling between his lips. When he presses down for the light, it only subtly flickers. He tries again in vain, and you just huff out a sigh before reaching for the lighter yourself.

Your hands shiver against the frosty air, but with one strong press you light the cigarette on your first try. He hums pleased and moves to take a proper drag. You catch the impish gleam in his eyes as he inhales. Instinctively, you move your head and narrowly escape the smoke he blows in your direction. Patrick snickers amused at your avoidance and you roll your eyes, taking the cig. He follows the motion of your hand and the corners of his eyes soften as the cigarette presses against your lips.

Your head tilts up as you blow the smoke out, and you feel his hands pull back the cigarette before you can protest. He doesn't take a drag, and you look back to him eyebrow raised. "So" he asks, thumb gently running over the mark your lipstick left.

"No"

Patrick just lets out another laugh, a heartier one. Deep from inside his chest. He smirks once more and raises the cigarette to his mouth, lips encircling the lipstick mark. He stands up, smirk growing. "C'mon," he says.

You roll your eyes before getting up to go with him.

[ink-flavored]

well. i guess i'll keep writing anyway.

[lynzishell]

The Present ❤️ Selvadorada

Prev // Next

Transcript below the cut:

Asher: The sun is starting to go down; we should head back. Atlas: Yeah, you’re probably right. There’s a lookout over here. Do you want to check it out real quick? Or should we turn back now? Asher: We can take a look. A few minutes won’t hurt.

Atlas: Did you mean what you said earlier? That your wish is to be with me forever? Asher: Of course I meant it. Atlas: You know I want that too, right? Asher: I know.

Atlas: The only reason it didn’t occur to me to wish for it is because I’m already yours, for as long as you’ll have me, and I hope that’s forever, but I don’t want it to be because of a wish, I want us to be together because we wake up every day and choose to be.

Asher: I want that too; you know I do. The whole wish thing, it was just a hypothetical.

Atlas: I know. It’s just… Look, I don’t know how to do this, so I’m just going to ask you, okay? Asher: Ask me what?

Atlas: Will you marry me?

Asher: Really? Atlas: Really.

Asher: Hell yes, I’ll marry you!

Atlas: I love you. Asher: I love you too. Atlas: Not to ruin the moment, but we only have an hour to get out of here before it gets dark. Asher: Shit. Okay. Five more seconds and then we can go.

[daeyumi]

Cycle of the Stars: Prologue II

https://archiveofourown.org/works/60104758/chapters/158660371

Prologue II

Ipseity

***

23rd day of Rising Sun

It happened again today. That uneasiness, a looming duress; like thunderheads come at last to devour the hungry sky. A catalyst. It seems a portent of things to come. I feel it when I walk the streets of the town, a grim wind between the crowds. Not in their faces or in the busy markets, vibrant as always. But I feel it all the same.

Reports are the same as ever. Monsters to the west, far across the sands; dispatched by the party who brought the news. An unconcerning pattern. Our people are strong, we carry the wind and the sky in our swords.

All is well.

And yet….

Current emotions: apprehension, stability, resilience

24th day of Rising Sun

I passed by her effigy. I didn’t intend to, lost in thought and wandering the back streets of my city, away from my pretensions and the relentless eyes of its denizens. I’ve walked these streets so many times, day by day over the years, the markets, the inn, the homes of my people. Our lives.

I know them like the tracks on the back of my hand, each line a story, an introspection, a defiance. I do not walk the path that leads to her. Always taking alternate routes- a lifetime of avoidance, of cowardice; a king hiding like a rat from the burning glare of a sun that was never meant for me.

And yet I saw her. That abhorrent goddess. Weathered stone worn smooth by the ardent consecration of many hands; an immutable effigy to match its subject. She leers down at me from her hallowed alcove; her cold eyes watching me, freezing me, judging me. Using me. She would use me if she could, as she has so many of my predecessors. I reject their fate, as I should have rejected their path and tread another.

Sometimes I think I should have chosen a different name, far removed from this accursed title and its implications. But the associations persist, groundless; and so I remain.

Current emotions: defiance, wistfulness, steadfast rejection

25th day of Rising Sun

I keep running it over again in my mind. Did I feel this way before? Yesterday? This morning? There’s no evidence. My records show the same; the persistence of my resolve unequivocal in these pages.

I feel they’re plotting against me. The goddesses.

Every movement I make, I suspect interference of a higher power. A puppet on divine strings, a doll tossed to the callous earth and left to rot amongst the refuse, swallowed by avarice and the fetters of eons spent in limbo.

I wonder if she smiles down at us as we fight and kill and die in her name like playthings.

I will wander no further down this path tonight; I have other matters to occupy my mind.

Current emotions: introspection, suspicion, anticipation

26th day of Rising Sun

The merchants whisper of strange disappearances across the sand, some travelers claiming to have lost contact with inhabitants of the far dunes.

Swallowed to the earth without a trace.

These allegations are unsubstantiated at best; yet still I am forced to consider the implications of an unknown actor upon my lands.

Current emotions: scrutiny, quietude, steadiness

27th day of Rising Sun

Another skirmish broke out on the northeastern border with Hyrule. None of our own were lost, yet I cannot but suspect that larger pieces are in motion. For today, I remain grateful that all my warriors have returned to me.

Current emotions: peace, requital, suspicion

28th day of Rising Sun

I couldn’t sleep last night. My dreams were filled with faces; features scratched out and incomprehensible, looking down on me from a formless haze of revelation. So many in their number that a thousand lifetimes could not count them, and yet so few that they seemed only One. Flaying the skin from my bones with their judgment until nothing remained of me but the crest upon my right hand, tattered skin peeling back from the bone and shredding, fragmenting, returning to the sand in all corners of the world; scars releasing their hold on their captive and fleeing to the edges of my vision, absolved by the light in the piercing eyes above. And still those etched triangles remained. I felt my eyes recede into sand in the wind as I woke, my consciousness ebbing to the void at the same time it returned to me in wakefulness.

And yet nothing disturbs us in my waking hours.

Current emotions: foreboding, apprehension, resistance

29th day of Rising Sun

They say a Hero has appeared. They say he heralds a great darkness, the misfortune only endowed upon those forced to the wrong side of fate. The Hero’s rise has only ever spelled desolation for us. It’s the same damned prophecy I’ve been running from my whole life. The Princess, the Hero, and the sinistrous man held fast by the thrall of the dominance forced upon him by birthright.

I see my deepest fears laid to light before me. Strung out along my path like corpses wrung by the neck, withered husks prefacing a descent to erasure. They beckon me forth with voices of autonomy and empty promises.

Is there any other recourse to be taken than to wait? For if I make a move now, I throw myself willingly down the same declivity of actions as all those who came before, abandoning my will to providence and to the whims of the curse upon my flesh.

Current emotions: unease, disgust, rejection

30th day of Rising Sun

Hyrule wants war with us. They won’t state as much, but I see it in their eyes; the way they look at us, at me. Blame.

The envoy arrived this morning with an air of finality. Only a handful of Hylians; ambassadors and their guards. That woman striding brazenly at their helm. That Gerudo-turned-traitor, come to accuse us; burying the intent of Hyrule’s words beneath pleasantries and clarifications. Hiding behind the swords and shields of a so-called honor guard.

Their precaution is telling enough. And their adjurations when we spoke has only strengthened my conviction.

I spell it plainly here, so my future self can recall these terms without influence or bias- above all else, I must know my own thoughts. They suspect us for the monster attacks that threaten their kingdom; they claim the border skirmishes are waged in self-defense, citing raids on the settlements at the fringes of Hyrule. For disappearances and deaths. Brutality.

I demanded proof. They had nothing to show. Only discarded shards of bone, warped beyond recognition. A splintered, massive claw, serrated at its edge; holes driven through the carapace as if awaiting new growth from within. The tip of a weathered blade, blood rusted upon its surface. Nothing but refuse and remnants and blame. Blame for the past. Blame for the future. Blame for the unknown and the secret and the goddess-scorned and the false. They left in a stone-faced resolve, disappearing in the haze of heat across the sun-smeared dunes.

They’ve said nothing about the whispers of the hero. Is it ignorance, or subterfuge? And what does it say about my own state that I am unable to discern between the two?

I ill wish for bloodshed, but I will do what is necessary. Always.

Current emotions: tension, regret, unease

31st day of Rising Sun

I’ve begun to wonder if I’m overthinking this.

Perhaps what I sense is merely a facet of the larger scope. If the enmity I perceived was instead representative of a more tangible threat. I’ve had time to reflect upon the events of the past few days; and now having a clear sense of Hyrule’s intent, I fear the threat of men over formless cosmic interference. War. Or perhaps she has once again played me for a fool.

And when my senses fail me, I can trust nothing more than my own writings.

Current emotions: doubt, intrigue, contemplation

1st day of Zenith

I feel once more a fell wind upon our city. The masses pray in earnest to their delusory goddess; beseeching salvation from a burden which should never have been theirs to bear. I do not begrudge them their faith, though I wished they had chosen a better target for their prayers.

Current emotions: contempt, rejection, stability

2nd day of Zenith

Nāori brought the report today. One of our scouting parties did not return from their sortie; a routine patrol to the southwestern border. They were expected back at dusk two days past; a search party already dispatched to their aid. This development... it weighs heavily on my mind. I wait until the morrow, but no further.

Current emotions: impatience, unease, worry

3rd day of Zenith

Trouble. A giant pit in the sands. My soldiers are missing. Glass sphere. Vast abyss. I will write more as time allows.

Current emotions: anxiety, resolve, anger

4th day of Zenith

I found them.

I set out yesterday at dusk, after one of my soldiers returned bearing news that their scouting party had been swallowed by the desert. She cited a massive pit in the wasteland like a giant abyss; it opened up suddenly in a in a flash of searing cold, rending a hole in the dunes. Isa is her name. She claimed herself the sole survivor, witness to the desecration. I have no reason to distrust her, though I am forced to consider the possibility that she is an agent of a higher power, sent to lure me away. I go forward regardless. I will not risk the safety of my people to send another.

I tread the long path to the southwest, to the cruel corners of the desert, following Isa’s footprints until the sand reclaimed them; tracking my soldiers by the moon and stars alone. Out to the far reaches of the kingdom, away from the border with Hyrule.

I saw it there.

A gaping fissure in the earth; a compressed sphere of sand above, its surface glassy and dark as if burnt by the sun, forging a black eclipse in the arid sky. It cast an ominous presence above me. I descended along the cliffs in the midday sun, finding rest along the shallow crevasses in the sun-baked earth; seeing no one, hearing nothing. Only the wind howling rough across the entrance to the abyss. The further I plunged, the more the cracks in the walls opened up, pushing deeper into the earth like the seamstress’s needle on coarse cloth. I found the entrance to the cavern far below; a tunnel rough-hewn but steady, unnatural.

I beheld the first signs of despair upon that threshold.

Empty eyes. Twisted, broken limbs. Once familiar faces contorted into mockeries of amity. Blood on their bodies and the floor and the walls and the ceiling; glittering rubies dyed crimson with the sunset draining from the sky, leeching the color from ashen skin. The final nightfall before the end.

Rhine. Luka. Ryza. Fyrani. Palu. Osa.

Their bodies haven’t even started to decay yet. Maybe it would be easier if they had. Perhaps then, they would not be so easily recognizable. That I would wish for the desecration of those I should have mourned…. The cycle begins anew like violence welling up beneath my skin.

I never want to forget this feeling. Numbness; ineptitude; guttural, sickening, twisted fury. I dared not move for fear that I would act upon my impulses. I refuse to allow her a way in.

I will not become her tool.

…

The silence has afforded me the time to write, but little else. I wish it were not so. I sit with them still, one final vigil in the gloam.

It is all I can offer them now, ill solace that it is; this and the promise of vengeance with every breath I take.

It is not enough.

It will never be enough.

Current emotions: wrath stability, perseverance, vengeance

—NO—

preservation

***

I cannot sleep.

I remember the carnage on the sands. Standing amid the corpses of a dozen grown men. A child. The feeling of the spear haft in my grip, battle hardened and slick with blood and sweat, sticking between the crevasses of the treated wood and freezing my hands in place. And I remember Sumiira’s eyes. Holding me, pleading. Not for her life, but for mine. She was wrong. Unseeing; the vitality in them extinguished by the ring of persecution laid lifeless at my feet. And all I could think about was what I could tell our mother. Feeling even then that I had already fallen victim to the curse of my forebears.

Enough.

If I have time to write, I have time to search.

Tonight I will return my soldiers’ remains to the desert, and press forward into the hungry earth. There are still more bodies unaccounted for.

5th day of Zenith

I am running out of time. I swept the catacombs from the early hours of the morning til the sun disappeared once more from the tenuous horizon, dripping light from the edges of the hollow eclipse hanging over me. Unable to sleep, unable to rest.

These tunnels reek of her influence. “Divine intervention”. It seeps into the floors and the walls and the air, clawing it’s way into my throat, infecting me from within. I hear voices calling in the darkness but I dare not open my mouth to respond, for fear that she will use that ingress against me.

I make haste to the depths of the labyrinth now, wondering if I lead myself to the precipice of my demise.

Current emotions: unease, impetus, melancholy

6th day of Zenith

There are other corpses still, in the tunnels. I passed ever more in my descent: those unfamiliar to me in their garments and features. And some of our own. Rotted flesh flayed beyond recognition. The stench settled heavy around me as my footfalls broke the requiem to sully the tainted ground beneath me. Alone, I walked the winding crevasses beneath the sands; alone I searched in vain for the last of the unaccounted for.

I heard them, first, but suspected another trick of the fetid air. Their silhouettes came into focus as I rounded a corner in the catacombs, stone-still and broken. But the bodies that crouched amid the blood and rubble still drew breath— their eyes desperate and wary, reflecting back the firelight of my torch. Five living in total. Makure cradled her sister’s limp body in her arms. All of them bore wounds. Even so, knowing that they yet lived strengthened my resolve and justified my quest; I was more relieved to find them than anyone may ever know.

I forged on.

I left the survivors but long enough to confirm the passing of the final two missing women; laid cold and solitary at the back of a dead-end passage. Time spared no kindness for us this day. I honor the dead by reconciling the living.

We returned through the winding paths of the chasm, ascending; emerging once more to the surface under the watchful reign of hardened glass, sun piercing the sky around its edge. I brought my warriors home. Delivered them hence to their families and their lives, carrying the wounded on my back and the dead in my heart. Yet still I feel the weight of an imminent future upon us. Tonight, I ordered the southwestern dunes closed off. I haven’t the numbers to investigate this anomaly further; and my own attention needs be turned to preparations for the inevitable conflict ahead of us.

I feel her eyes on me still; scorching my back in the candor of the sun, binding my hands and committing my mind to preclusion.

This is not the end.

Current emotions: foreboding, resolve, resistance

[Exerpts from the diary of Ganondorf, 71st King of the Gerudo.]

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[luminique]

Lighter with a chubby s/o more flesh for a pillow! (and also to hold...)

i am so sorry anon, i have a smaller figure (on the thinner and small side) so i will try my absolute best to write something but please forgive me if i get anything wrong. if there are any mistakes, please give any feedback so that i can improve. if there are any lighter writers who have a chubby body type, i would be more than happy to reblog their post instead !!

we’ve established that lighter LOVES cuddles, and your body type is absolutely perfect for that. not to say that he has a preference, he loves you either way.

there are times where he wants you laying on top of him and he’s insistent on making it happen. you can tell him 193739370272 times that you’re too heavy for him and to that… he’d just give the dumbest grin because you both know how strong he is. he loves wrapping his arms around you while also comforting you that he is alright. something about seeing you look up at him with your chubby cheeks has him head over heels, wanting to caress them but the thought embarrasses him so much that he fails to so his hand is just awkwardly in the air (we love a boyfailure)

OH I THINK HE’D LOVE LAYING HIS HEAD ON YOUR LAP/THIGHS !! they’re the perfect pillows and especially after a long day…. he’s a simple man, all he needs is to lay on your lap, have your fingers in his hair while he not so secretly gazes into your eyes behind his sunglasses. a sigh escapes his lips, what a perfect way to end the day.

and if ANYONE makes any negative comments about your looks, he’s already challenging them to a fight. as he said, “an issue that can be solved by fists is no issue at all” and he stands by that. especially about his beloved, no one is allowed to throw insults at you or at him and if they do…. well we’ll see if they can rise from the ashes.

[seiwas]

sellie bee! for your game > touya + flicker?? (if you feel comfortable writing for him again, your touya from the shoto fic was so beloved to me) 💕

amber!! thanks for sending in a lil prompty 🥺 ofc i would write him again!! for you!! anything!!! 🥺 my touya from that fic is also so dear to me 🥺 i'm glad you like that little guy 🥺

help me get back into the writing groove! send me a character + any word and i'll write a short blurb about it!

contains: non-canon au, childhood friends

touya + flicker

there's a light by your bedside, one that flickers when its loose wire finds itself tangled around the leg of your bed frame. it doesn't happen all the time, but it's always bothered touya, ever since you were kids.

"fuyumi says that when lights go on and off like that they can go boom," he mimics an explosion with his hands, not quite knowing the term for it yet at 5.

(when you recall the memory, you realize that he must have meant a spark, not the flickering of lights.)

it bothers him so much that he figures out a way to fix it by age 10. he uses a small claw clip, a translucent gray plastic you've seen on his mother many times before. he clips the wire to your bed frame that way, keeping it in place.

it's a bandaid solution, because time creates cracks on the plastic, the metal spring falling apart despite being fused at the hinges.

(and again, looking back, you should have noticed that time had left its mark on touya the same way.)

the light flickers again.

"you'll have shitty eyes if you don't change it," he moves the wire aside until it stops. at 15, touya's become jaded. what once was a twinkling set of aquamarine is now a dull pair of teal, staring straight at you as he speaks.

you know it has something to do with his family, but you don't ask unless he talks about it.

(in hindsight, maybe you should've. because when touya runs away from home the following year, you only catch glimpses of him in the next ten years.)

he visits you at 17, taller and dressed darker than what you're used to. his hair is dyed a jet black, a few cuts and bruises scattering the expanse of his arms. he sees that your light is still flickering and fixes it like muscle memory, not once acknowledging the fact that it's been two years since he's seen you last.

"you can stay with me," you offer him, desperately.

he gives you a wry smile, "can i?"

and you know it's not really a question. you'll be heading off to college soon; there's no real place where you can keep him.

when you move into your dorm in the first year of uni, you leave your lamp behind but find that the lights in your shared bathroom flicker just as bad. it makes you think of him, in the lonely hours especially.

you're surprised when you bump into him at age 20, near campus, barely recognizing him at all. for a brief moment, you see the same shock mirrored on his face, but it disappears when you blink, and when you say his name, "touya—"

"dabi," he corrects you.

it's at 22, when you move into your own apartment and bring the same light from your childhood bedroom, that you find your thoughts floating back to him once more.

you offered right before graduating, the last time you saw him―told him you'd be moving into a new place and he could stay with you there. no one would know about it, no one would bother him.

but touya is a flight risk, appearing in and out of your life like the flickering of your bedside light. you outstretch your hand and he bats it away instinctively, withdrawing from you until he feels like you won't bring it up again.

you do though, every time. the next year, the year after that, when you're both 25. you look for him more consciously now, finding that he's always somehow nearby―by the potted flowers on your windowsill that remain alive despite week-long work trips; by paid for cups of coffee in cafes, the doors whooshing shut as you look for who it could possibly be from.

you've known touya for almost all of your life, and giving up on him isn't an option at all. your heart can't take it, the same way you can't bring yourself to fix your bedside light, its flickering an odd source of hope that he might one day be so fed up, he'll have to come and fix it himself.

and then he'd have to stay―to keep the flickering at bay. to keep the light working. one day.

[serickswrites]

I'm Just Not Well

Warnings: rescue, captivity, torture, broken bones, blood, bruises, hurt/aftermath, hurt/recovery, hospital

"Whumpee, you gotta talk to me, please," Caretaker said as they sat in the back of the ambulance with Whumpee.

Whumpee's skin was mottled with bruises in various stages of healing--some deep purple almost black, some red and swollen, while others had taken an almost blue green tint as they healed. Their collar bone was clearly broken. Blood had dried in their matted hair, clotted on their split eyebrow, and had dried on other parts of their body that was visible.

They sat quietly on the gurney, responding only to a few questions asked by the EMT. Their voice was low and hoarse. Clearly they had been screaming from days. They stared out with a hollow look in their one not swollen shut eye.

"Whumpee?" Caretaker tried again.

"I'm alive," they croaked, "I'm just not well."

Caretaker's heart sunk. They had hoped Whumpee would open up a little bit more to them. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Whumpee closed their one good eye and leaned back on the gurney. "There's nothing else to tell you, Caretaker. I'm alive."

Caretaker opened their mouth and closed it. Clearly Whumpee wasn't ready to talk about whatever horrors they had endured at Whumper's hands. "Well, I'm here if you ever want or need to talk, Whumpee."

Whumpee nodded, but didn't say anything. They kept their eye closed, their body swaying with the motion of the ambulance speeding down the city streets.

"We'll be at the hospital soon, Whumpee. You're going to be ok," Caretaker said, hoping that their words were true and Whumpee would be ok.

Tags: @mousepaw @jumpywhumpywriter @knightinbatteredarmor @hufflepuffwritingstuff2 @anightmarishwhump

@steh-lar-uh-nuhs @celestialsoyeon @st0rmm @ay5ksal @pedro-pedro-pedro-pedro-pe

@artisticdemon

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[qlala]

Whump prompt requests?? :o Pretty please can I request Barry gets kidnapped and Len finds him tied up? (Do want: muzzle/gag, handcuffs. Don't want: pet p!ay, established relationship)

i think this is the only prompt i've ever gotten with a detailed list of wants and don't wants, and you know what? i love clear instructions

the devil you know (coldflash, 5.6k, rated M)*

(*note: this fic makes implied reference to threats of SA/noncon, but none occur)

When Iris West tracked Len down three days into the Flash’s latest disappearance, Len sent her on her way with a shrug. He didn’t know or particularly care where Barry was, and he privately doubted Iris’s insistence that Barry wouldn’t have gone off anywhere without telling his team first. 

Still, he made an idle mental note to follow up if another week passed without any sign of him. Making that promise out loud might’ve gone a long way in wiping away some of the bitter disappointment out of Iris’s eyes as she left, but Len had a reputation to protect. 

Besides, Barry had a bad habit of popping up in Len’s life at the most inconvenient time possible. Ten days without the Flash interfering in any heists or Len’s attempts to follow the hockey playoffs undisturbed? He wasn’t that lucky. 

Four days later, a meta-snatcher tossed someone down onto the ground in front of Len's chair in handcuffs, a black hood, and very little else, and Len's first thought was that being right all the time was exhausting.

Narrow hips and shoulders, a lean and powerful body (although, underfed as he looked at the moment, that balance tipped closer to just lean), long legs folding under him as he settled uncomfortably—if prettily—onto his knees before sitting back on his heels. 

The concrete floor couldn’t have been comfortable. Len had put together the de facto throne room they were in precisely for meetings like this. It sat at the heart of a creaking warehouse abandoned at the edge of the docks, largely off the CCPD’s radar given the overwhelming impression that it was going to slide into the river with the slightest gust of wind. (Len encouraged that impression at every opportunity; he liked to post Mardon up on the roof to howl a few well-timed gusts of wind through the corroded metal walls during particularly lucrative negotiations. It made people antsy, and antsy people made worse deals.) 

He’d emptied the place of everyone except for himself and Mick for the evening’s entertainment, though. Call it a hunch; meta-snatching had largely dried up in the past couple of years. Most of the meta-humans with both valuable powers and common sense had already aligned themselves with one big player in Central City or the other—never mind that the distinction felt increasingly like choosing sides for a scrimmage. What mattered was that neither the Rogues nor Team Flash took kindly to their allies getting grabbed off the street, and meta-snatchers had learned quickly and painfully that they were better off finding safer professions. 

Of course, it helped that most meta-humans had also developed a healthy fear of the few meta-snatchers still bold enough or desperate enough to stay in the game. Len had taken that night’s meeting for the same reason that trophy hunters set traps on the edge of their own camps; the bolder the animal, the bigger the teeth. 

When the meta-snatcher pulled the black hood off with a flourish, Barry didn’t even have the good grace to look chagrined. 

“My, my,” Len drawled, settling back into his chair with a slow smirk. “What big teeth you have.”

It was too perfect to resist; he’d had the line ready even before he’d seen the muzzle, and he hadn’t landed on the top of Central’s food chain by ignoring chances landing in his lap like that. 

It was stark black leather, something Len would’ve expected to find in a very particular kind of club and not a meta-snatchers toolkit. He wondered idly if they’d had to improvise; a week of Barry Allen bitching his ear off, he sure as hell would’ve reached for the nearest gag, too. 

And it did seem to be functioning as a gag. It was well made from a single piece of leather, the breathing vents cut into the sides clearly designed not to allow enough give for the wearer to actually open their jaw. It fit snugly over Barry’s mouth and nose, looped securely over his ears, and came together in a heavy buckle on the back of his head. With the way it just skimmed the line of Barry’s high cheekbones, it was nearly a perfect inverse of the Flash’s usual mask.  

It was a better look than the cowl. Shame Barry would probably drop him in Iron Heights for suggesting that he take inspiration from the meta-snatcher’s fashion choice. 

Based on the flatly unimpressed look Barry was leveling him over the mask, Len was going to have to put that one on the back burner for a while. 

A quiet snort from Len’s right pulled his attention momentarily to Mick. Barry was lucky Mick hadn’t boomed a laugh the second the hood had come off; the plausible deniability that he and Len didn’t know who the Flash was under the mask was wearing thin enough as it was. 

Mick leaned against the side of Len’s chair and rumbled, too quiet to carry, “And it ain’t even your birthday.” 

The meta-snatcher cleared his throat self-importantly and Len flicked him a glare as he pulled his smirk under control. He was some distant relative of the Santinis, which made it all the more idiotic that he’d been poaching metas on turf that Len had chased the rest of his family off of years ago. Len had disregarded his first name as soon as he’d heard it; he didn’t plan on needing it. 

“He bite?” Len asked, pushing himself lazily out of the chair. 

Santini tucked the hood into his back pocket, clearly sensing a sale, and backed up a few steps in the universal invitation to inspect the wares. 

“Nah,” he said, conversational now that Len was showing interest. "I muzzle anything with a meta gene. That’s from experience. I caught one once, she could literally talk someone's ear off. And I mean literally. It would shrivel up and just..." He mimed a splat. 

Barry’s dark shock of hair was sticking up wildly around the straps of the muzzle, and Len could see a purple bruise blooming just over the edge of the leather at one temple. However they’d gotten the thing on him, he’d put up a fight. 

A hell of a fight, Len corrected himself, as he got close enough to get a proper look at Barry in the dim light. There were more bruises mottling his skin further down, and they weren’t showing any signs of healing. Len couldn’t see what kind of cuffs were holding Barry’s arms behind his back, but he would’ve put money on power dampeners.

"Meta gene, hm?” Len reached out and trailed his fingers through the air a scant inch above Barry’s mussed hair, just to feel the novel lack of static humming around him. "What can it do?"

The glare Barry shot him at the word "it" looked awfully annoyed for someone who was supposed to be in fear for his life, and Len raised an imperious eyebrow back. 

“Tests can’t really tell you that,” Santini said, patronizing enough that Len cut him a warning look. He put his hands up, an easy surrender. “...as you know,” he tacked on, mollifying. “I’ll tell you, though. He burnt through the first two pairs of cuffs we put on him. Whatever it is, he’s packing heat.” 

Len snorted. There were understatements, and there were understatements. The man had hooked a great white shark and thought he was selling an unusually bitey tuna. 

It gave Len exactly the information he’d needed to know, though. He hadn’t really thought Barry’s identity had been compromised, not with the way Santini had shown up alone, unarmed, and without several other bidders in tow.

He expected some kind of cheek from Barry, a tilted head that said “I told you so,” muzzle or not. Maybe even Barry pushing to his feet once Len got close enough, overly confident that Len would uncuff him and the game would be up. 

But Barry only tipped his head back to hold Len’s gaze as he sauntered toward him, and he didn’t stir from where he was kneeling. 

Len ignored the clear attempt at eye contact and began pacing a wide circle around him, appraising. It left Barry with the option to either twist to follow him or give up, and Len had to tamp down a smirk at the churlish way Barry snorted under the muzzle as he swung his head around to face forward again.

Up close, though, Len’s amusement began to evaporate. Barry didn’t look like he could stand. 

Power dampener cuffs were clamped tight around his narrow wrists, as expected. Homemade, but not shoddily so—Santini was an ambitious amateur. Bruises spanned the range from purple-black to fading yellow-green, the Flash’s missing week accounted for. 

Even with their more recent, less murder-y history, he expected Barry to have enough of a survival instinct to tense when Len passed behind him, some kind of instinctual response to having his back to someone who had once made it his life’s mission to kill him. 

Instead, as soon as Len’s path put him between Barry and Santini, Barry relaxed.  

Len’s feet stilled without permission from his brain. He waited for the trick, but none came. The longer he watched, the slower Barry’s too-sharp shoulder blades rose and fell, breath evening out, chin sinking by degrees towards his chest, like he’d finally allowed a week’s worth of exhaustion to catch up to him at once. 

Like he finally thought he was safe. 

Something dangerously close to alarm spiked through Len’s chest at the thought, and it took everything in him to repress the instinct to rear back a step. 

He shoved the panic down instead, held it under until it drowned, and got ahold of himself. The annoyance that bloomed in the aftermath, on the other hand, was welcome. 

Barry and his stupid, endless, goddamn faith that Len was a good man. He’d always trusted him too much. But up until now, Len had had the plausible deniability that it was only because Barry was counting on his powers in the event that Len did betray him.

Now, he was faced with the unfortunate reality that things were far worse than he’d let himself believe. It was his fault, really. Barry trusted too easily; it was an immutable part of who he was. Len had watched people wriggle close enough to Barry to sink their knives in his back too many times to count. None of it made a difference, not in the long term. 

But usually, Barry seemed to limit himself to second chances, even if he did give them out too freely. There were plenty of people in Iron Heights—hell, in the ground—who had used that second chance to take another stab at him, only to find that Barry’s patience had hard limits. 

Len, on the other hand, had let himself become something unacceptable. An exception. From the moment he’d failed to shoot Barry with his father’s thumb on the trigger that could’ve killed Lisa, he’d become a permanent lesser of two evils. Len didn’t even know what chance he was on, but he had passed second long ago.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, people said. That was Len: Barry’s devil of choice, every time. Len had enjoyed it for a while, no sense in lying to himself about that. He liked the snarls of annoyance when he turned the cold gun on Barry’s other problems, let it stroke his ego that Barry had chosen him over them. 

But he’d let it go too far. Because Barry, it seemed, had forgotten a crucial part of what that saying meant. He’d forgotten Len didn’t play on the side of the angels. 

Lucky for him, Len was going to enjoy reminding him. 

Len forced himself to move again. His gaze lingered on the bruises as he finished circling Barry, despite his best efforts. The worst of it was centered on Barry’s left shoulder, where a hazy ring of deep purple suggested a dislocated—and subsequently relocated—shoulder. He also had a nasty bruise ricocheting over several ribs, and Len watched him breathe for a careful moment. A slow, measured inhale, then a slight hitch and quick, almost involuntary exhale; at least one of them was broken. 

Len’s carefully curated annoyance was already simmering rapidly and unacceptably toward anger when he caught sight of the marks wrapped around Barry’s upper arm. He’d missed them at first glance, easily lost next to the darker mottling from the dislocated shoulder. But the shape of it was unmistakable: four parallel lines around the strong curve of his bicep—a handprint. 

Someone else’s handprint. 

Len caught the thought by the throat before it made him round on Santini. He shoved the thought, snapping and hissing, back into the possessive corner of his mind it had escaped from, and barred the door after it. 

Barry’s surrender had knocked something off-kilter in Len’s brain, sent boxes he’d kept carefully bolted shut spilling open with the impact. Barry may have been his problem, but that was the only “his” that he was. 

And Barry was only his problem because he’d got himself caught by a two-bit amateur with some jerry-rigged tech. A few bruises were the least he deserved; the only reason he was alive was because that two-bit amateur had dumped him at Len’s feet and not someone else’s.

Still, a nasty thought was churning in the back of Len’s mind, and he had to put both hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for the cold gun. He wanted an honest answer out of Santini, not whatever he thought Len wanted to hear. The truth mattered; he needed to know how many pieces the man would be leaving the warehouse in.

“Looks a little worse for wear,” Len drawled, forcing his tone light and sardonic. “Got a discount for damaged goods?”

“Aw, fuck off,” Santini lobbed back, oblivious and good natured. “So he got a little banged up in transit. I told you, he didn’t like the cuffs. He dislocated his own shoulder trying to get out of ‘em. Not my fault. Hell, I put it back in for you.” 

“Not what I was talking about.” Len slid a pointed glance down Barry’s body—miles of freckled skin, very little else—then looked back at Santini. He didn’t lift an eyebrow; he didn’t have to. 

“Oh, the underwear?” Santini scoffed. “I deal in weapons, Cold, not skin. Too messy. Kid’s got every stitch of clothing and virtue he had when I found him, swear on my mother. Besides, he’s not my type.”

The generous two-handed gesture Santini made in front of his own chest didn’t impress Len, but it was crude enough that he took him at his word. He’d suspected as much, regarding the clothes. Barry may have been stupid enough to get himself caught by a meta-snatcher, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get caught and stay in the Flash suit. Whatever trap he’d stumbled into, he’d must’ve had time to throw the suit into some dark corner. No wonder his team hadn’t been able to track him down. 

That unpleasant matter behind them, Len rolled his shoulders back, settling in for another slow circle around Barry. The business portion of the evening was wrapping up, at least as far as he was concerned. He had the information he needed from Santini, and all that was left was to remind Barry that if the meta-snatcher was the frying pan, he was the fire.

If his first perusal had been business, the second was… well. Call it an advance on the clean-up fee he was going to charge Barry for handling Mr. Virtue over there. 

Barry lifted his head as Len started to circle again, tilted it slightly in unspoken question. The muzzle was inspired, Len would give Santini that. Barry had sure as hell never held his tongue for so long in Len’s presence of his own volition. 

Len could hear the list of complaints he’d be in for once he took it off: thanks for leaving the cuffs on for so long, those were comfortable—you know, they sell this new technology nowadays, it’s called an area rug—probably with a dig about his age, while he was at it. 

Len banished the thoughts and the grin that was threatening. Christ, maybe Barry was right. He was getting soft if he was laughing at just the idea of Barry crabbing at him. 

He reached for his earlier determination, instead. He tilted his head with a collector’s eye as he tightened the circle, close enough to touch. 

Barry really did have freckles everywhere, more than Leonard had imagined in the occasional privacy of his own thoughts. Constellations of them between the colorful galaxies of bruises painted over his leanly-muscled shoulders, his chest, stomach, carelessly parted thighs. There was even a pair of them right on the dimples of his lower back, where Len’s thumbs would’ve fit like the space had been made for them. 

It was a tempting thought. Pressing his own claim into Barry’s body, maybe covering up that hand-shaped bruise with one of his own. He was the one playing big bad wolf now, after all. And with both of them dressed for the part: Len, with the fur collar of the parka brushing his jaw, and Barry in those little red shorts. They left absolutely nothing to Len’s imagination, a delicious payoff to years of idle wonderings about what the Flash wore under that suit.

Something of the thought must’ve shown on Len’s face, because Barry looked decidedly less patient when Len caught his eye again. He glanced pointedly back behind himself, then back up again, as if Len weren’t perfectly aware that he wanted the power dampener off.  

Barry wasn’t the only impatient one. Santini clapped once, businesslike, and began walking closer. “You just window shopping today, or—?”

Len cut him off with a look, winning him back silence and space as Santini course-corrected with a gracious “after you” gesture and ceded ground again. 

A week in a cage clearly hadn’t been enough to break Barry’s pride, let alone his spirit. The muzzle was probably the only thing that had kept the meta-snatchers from realizing who he was. Barry would’ve snarked their ears off no matter what they did to him; he’d taken too many hits to be afraid of a little pain. And even with how stupid Santini was, the bared teeth and complete contempt would’ve added up to Central’s apex predator eventually.

The thought was a butane lighter to the sparks of arousal in Len’s veins. It was unfortunate that he wouldn’t be able to take the muzzle off while Santini was still breathing down their necks. He would’ve liked to see the fear in his eyes when he realized the enormity of the mistake he’d made. Delivering the Flash bound and gagged to the one man in the city who had something of a gentleman’s agreement with him…

Len hummed, a little wistful, as he reminded himself that said gentleman’s agreement precluded him from hauling Barry up to sit in his chair and slitting Santini’s throat at his feet. 

But he let the idea of it linger, knew that it would darken his eyes as he skimmed another lingering look down Barry’s body. 

And there, finally—a hint of wariness in Barry’s eyes when Len bothered dragging his gaze up from the dark hair that trailed temptingly down Barry’s lower stomach and disappeared under his waistband. Beginning to remember, maybe, that Len didn’t work for free. 

Len pushed his advantage while he had Barry off-balance. He drew his hands from his pockets, slowly, casually, and held them up at Barry’s eye level. He was wearing gloves, as he always did when conducting business. No point in keeping the cold gun strapped to his thigh if he wasn’t going to be ready to use it. The gloves were a helpful and very visible reminder of that.  

When he was sure he still had Barry’s attention—and he did, something unreadable passing across Barry’s eyes as they darted between Len’s hands—Len turned one hand toward himself, brought the other to its fingertips, and then slowly, one finger at a time, began teasing the glove off. 

Barry tracked the movement with his eyes without prompting, giving Len a quickly-dismissed impulse to reward him. A quizzical furrow formed between his brows, and he stole a single glance up and risked a quick, faint tilt of his head to one side. Confused, yes, but not combative. The difference between “What are you doing?” and “What the hell are you doing?”  

It was Len’s turn to feel an annoyed burn of impatience. Barry was on his knees in front of a convicted killer, bound and gagged and stripped to his skin, and Barry still thought this was all part of a plan. Len had killed three men in front of Barry—and counting. The only plan he had now was finding out how far that stupid, blind trust could bend until it broke.

Len finished drawing the glove off slowly, and in the quiet of the room, nothing but the distant sounds of the river rolling past outside, he was certain Barry heard the rasp of leather over skin. 

Barry’s attention fractured as Len watched. His gaze flicked up from the glove for a single, distracted glance at Len’s eyes. Just below the line where the muzzle dug into the underside of Barry’s jaw, his throat bobbed on a swallow. 

Good, Len thought. Nervous was the first step toward suspicious, and suspicious might just keep Barry alive. 

Len looked away with easy disinterest, settling his attention to Barry’s unbruised shoulder. Barry sat up straighter as Len reached out with the glove in his hand, a hitch in his breath visible in the stuttering rise of his bare chest. 

When Len laid the glove out on the bare, unmarked skin there, Barry twitched like Len had stuck him with a knife.

Almost getting it, Len mused. Ignoring the urgent, searching flicker of green eyes in his direction, Len reached out with his newly bare hand and rested the tip of one finger just under the corner of Barry’s jaw. 

The black leather there was butter soft and warm from Barry’s skin. Just as slowly as he’d pulled off the glove, Len stroked the finger up the line of Barry’s jaw, following the sharp edge of it through the muzzle. Only then did he slide his gaze back to Barry’s to watch the emotions dart through those pale eyes. Confusion, yes, then surprise, with another sharp inhale. And then, with the first flush of healthy color to Barry’s face since he’d been dragged in, understanding. 

Yahtzee, Len thought with a smirk. 

He didn’t give Barry a chance to pull away. He caught him with two fingers under the edge of the muzzle, hard, knuckles snug against his windpipe, and jerked his chin up.

Barry jolted with the movement, full-body, back arching to accommodate the sudden, demanding angle of his neck, the glove tumbling to the ground. Eyes wide, he made a sound behind the muzzle that might’ve been Len’s name if he’d been able to open his mouth enough to say it. 

Somewhere behind Barry, Santini started to object, but he shut himself up before Len had to look his way again. Likely Mick had warned him off, a pointed hand on the heat gun’s handle, or the man had just remembered who he was dealing with. 

Len held Barry there at attention, letting him hang off the hook of his fingers. Heady wasn’t a strong enough word for it. It was a level of control he hadn’t imagined even back before Barry became Barry, when the Flash was a problem to be solved and not a single facet of a more fascinating, infuriating whole. The hero of Central City helpless at his feet, stripped of that golden cloak of lightning he wore everywhere like armor… 

And still not fighting Len an inch. 

Barry’s chest heaved, breath coming quick and shallow, that broken rib apparently the furthest thing from his mind. When Len met Barry’s gaze, his own eyes narrowing in frustration, Barry’s were stunned and breathless. But still, no fear there. 

Agitated, Len crooked his fingers tighter, forcing Barry’s chin up another inch. Barry’s lashes fluttered—maybe feeling that rib now, after all—and Len watched the muscles in his thighs flex as he nearly forced him up onto his knees.

Fight back. 

Barry didn’t so much as twist in his grip, eyes half shut. With Len’s fingers hooked under the edge of the mask, he could feel the heat of Barry’s breaths, nearly panting now. His face and throat were stained pink, exertion clearly catching up to him, and Len wondered if the mask was starting to cut off air after all. 

He loosened his grip and allowed Barry to relax back onto his heels. Barry’s breathing stayed ragged anyway, blush touching the top of his chest as Len frowned at the unreadable expression in his eyes, gone round and almost glassy. 

When Len slipped his fingers free of the mask, Barry didn’t move an inch, head tipped back where Len had left it. 

Len’s patience snapped, curling his gloved hand into a fist at his side. He could’ve snapped Barry’s neck in less than a second, bared to him like that, all fragile skin and sharp tendons. It would’ve been easy as breathing, and there would’ve been nothing that Barry’s powers or his little team could’ve done about it. 

Len took a sharp step forward, closing the rest of the distance between them. It brought the front of his hips nearly flush with the muzzle, his boots between Barry’s knees, which were falling open a little further with every uneven breath. 

It was—too much, frustration at the completely unearned trust, frustration that Barry had been reckless enough to get himself caught, both tangling confused with frustration at Barry. That even stripped and submissive on his knees in front of Len, offering him his throat, he was still the one goddamn thing Len wanted and couldn’t have. 

Len should have conceded that his self-restraint was clinging on by a thread. He should have taken a step back, drawled something droll and amusing, and ended the night with his sanity intact. 

Instead, Len curved a hand around either side of Barry’s neck and stroked them upwards slowly, deliberately.

How many ways could someone kill you just like this, Barry? 

Barry’s throat worked under his hands and he shivered, hard, even as he tipped his head back further, giving Len more room to take advantage of. Barry made another, fainter noise behind the muzzle, half-swallowed as his throat bobbed. 

One point to Len. Even Barry couldn’t miss the threat of Len’s fingertips pressed against the fragile bones of his neck. 

Len lifted them to the edge of Barry’s jaw, followed the line of the straps around his ears, and then reached forward to trace the leather up until his fingers met at the buckle on the back of his head.

The movement brought the parka up on either side of Barry’s head, caging him in, hopefully adding to the claustrophobia of having Len so completely in his space. Len hooked a finger under the loop of leather where it passed through the buckle. He paused there, poised to pull it tighter, and was about to close his hand around the strap and tug when Barry did the one thing he wasn’t counting on. 

He gave in. 

All of the last remaining fight went out of those narrow shoulders at once, nearly unbalancing Len where he’d been bracing his wrists on the steady line of them. 

Instead of using the opportunity to duck away—point made, Snart, let me out of this thing—Barry only swayed deeper into the circle of Len’s arms. Before Len could jerk backwards, half-certain that Barry was finally passing out—Barry brushed closer and rested his forehead against Len’s lower stomach. 

For the space of two heartbeats, Len’s mind went perfectly blank. And then he realized, with a level of disbelief so incredulous that he could feel it bleeding against his will into respect, what Barry had just done. 

He’d called Len’s bluff. 

No suit, no speed, no backup, bound and gagged and as powerless as Len ever could have hoped to have him, and Barry had called his goddamn bluff. 

Chips down, cards on the table, there was nothing else to do—Len took a step back. 

Cold air rushed back between their bodies. Even with that dampener keeping his powers in check, Barry must’ve been a hundred degrees, and Len’s jaw ached against the loss of his heat instantly. 

Barry fell back onto his heels, and Len didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. He hooked a finger through one of the ear loops, forcing the last shreds of anger into the movement, and jerked his head back up.

For the first time all night, Barry didn’t jolt to meet his gaze. Instead, he let three full seconds tick past before he lifted his eyes, as if looking up had been his idea all along. Hair disheveled, pupils nearly swallowing the thin green ring of his irises—

Barry smirked at him. 

It was unmistakable, muzzle be damned, eyes narrowing in such viciously smug satisfaction that Len was torn between shoving him away or dragging him into a dark corner.

Len tightened his grip in the edge of the muzzle, on the brink of deciding, when a low whistle cut through the room. 

“Well, shit. You really have got a way with ‘em, huh?” 

Santini’s voice was an unwelcome reminder of the unfinished business Len had to attend to, and he dragged his gaze away from Barry only after a dark look, promising him that he’d deal with him next.  

“Or maybe just with this one in particular,” Santini continued, grinning like he and Len had agreed on something. “Funny thing—he finally stopped burning through those cuffs when he overheard me tell my crew I was considering Cold as a buyer.”

Len slid his gaze back to Barry. Barry, who was looking anywhere but Len, apparently deeply interested in hearing anything Santini had to say for the first time since he’d dragged him through Len’s doors. Barry, who was still breathing hard and blushing to his roots. Barry, who was trying to draw his knees together even with Len still standing in between them. 

“Did he, now?” Len asked. 

The question wasn’t aimed at Santini, but he answered anyway. 

“Mmm-hmm.” He rocked back on his heels, inclined his head to Len in a pantomime of tipping a hat. “You got a reputation for looking after yours, after all. He must’ve thought you’d have some use for him or another.” He flashed a salacious grin; his objections to the ‘skin game’ clearly ended where his sales instincts began. “I figured maybe the feeling was mutual, and you’d appreciate first dibs on the sale.”

Lips pulling into a sharp, predatory smirk, Len lifted the toe of one boot and planted it on the inside of Barry’s thigh. “I’m considering it.” 

Len pushed Barry’s legs apart with ease. Barry’s color deepened, and he jerked his head like he had any chance in hell of jarring Len’s hand loose from the strap of the muzzle now. Len clicked his tongue in a light, mocking reprimand, and Barry flashed him a glare for it, even as he stopped twisting under his grip. 

He didn’t fight it when Len drew his head to one side, far enough to give him an unimpeded view down the front of his body. The blush stretched halfway down his chest, past nipples that were hard and peaked like Len had just spent an hour teasing them with his tongue. He didn’t need to nudge Barry’s thighs wider to see the thick, heavy outline of his cock straining at the front of the red shorts, but he did it anyway, and was rewarded when it twitched at the demanding press of his boot.  

“I’ll take him,” Len drawled, and Barry’s hips hitched forward as Len guided his legs apart another inch, pulling the thin material taut over his groin.

Across the room, Santini laughed. “I haven’t even told you how much.”

“Not paying.” Len didn’t bother looking up; Barry had lifted his gaze to him again, and Len was going to need a more compelling reason than a low level Santini to look away from the impatient heat in his eyes. “Mick?” 

Mick strode past them without a glance. Santini took one stumbling step backwards, then did the first smart thing he’d done all day: turned heel and ran.

Something in Len’s smirk made Barry blink, brow furrowing. He said something behind the muzzle, chin lifting in a way he probably thought was authoritative, and came across entirely the opposite on his knees. 

Len had heard the words “No killing” come out of that mouth enough times to recognize it from cadence alone, but he tugged Barry up by the muzzle instead, until he got the message and stumbled to his feet. 

“Didn’t catch that,” Len drawled. 

Barry looked ready to argue, as if he weren’t half-wrecked already, skin flushed, hair wild. But he did a distracted double-take when Len shrugged out of his coat, and his gaze went dark and intent as it slid down the dark clothes he was wearing underneath, shouts behind him forgotten.

“You can fill me in later,” Len said, turning away. He shucked his belt as he sauntered toward his chair, let the buckle ring when he dropped it to the concrete. 

Barry was still standing indecisively in the middle of the room when Len settled into the chair with a comfortable sprawl, legs spread, boots wide. His gaze caught on the thick press of Len’s cock, hard against his jeans, and Len flashed his teeth at him in something too sharp to be a smile.

“Got somewhere to be, bolt cutters are in the workshop.” Len indicated a door to the side with a tip of his head, even as he moved his hand to the front of his jeans. “If not...” 

He rubbed his thumb over the button of his jeans, enjoying the pressure against his cock—one slow circle, another. The third time, he slid the button free. 

And Barry came willingly. 

[akecsu]

old wip i found today. from pre-s6 times. i actually quite like this

Losers... (i say as i sink into the ground) mapicc is very important to me actually. he is so improtnat to me. i don't write about him enough.

i really like the comparison between planet and mapicc (who are Very Different characters) as bacon's teammates.

especially in the line, "being declared something worth fighting for".

i don't think i completely understand mapicc's character, but i think this is very mapicc. his loyalty, his willingness to let go of his status of powerful scary good pvper to team with bacon waffles zero. the Guy who sucks at pvp. mapicc's selfless in that regard.

while... s5 planet is unable to fight (metaphorically) his desire to be powerful, not even for the sake of bacon. planet is powerful physically at the beginning of s5, but still weak at the end of the day. weak in the way that he cannot face his closest ally in s4 after killing him in cold blood. completely icing him out after everything, like it all means nothing. it's selfish. it's cruel. i'd imagine it would be painful as fuck.

so in s5, we see mapicc, reduced down to a husk of his physical strength seen in s4 by choosing to team with bacon. planet, more powerful than they've ever been. mapicc, who does the things planet does not, sacrificing his status for bacon. planet, who leaves bacon behind, so easily, because hearts mean more. the parallels!! the contrast!!

bacon and mapicc are people from two entirely different worlds (s4) and you'd think they would be incompatible. but they work. they work so well. this is deeply upsetting actually

[moredifferentthanusual]

my atla au fanfic pet peeve is people making katara angry or reluctant at zuko joining the group. katara was the FIRST one to trust and forgive zuko. he spent >5min telling her he had a tragic backstory and she was ready to use up her one and only vial of superultramagical healing on a cosmetic problem because it would make him happy.

katara is thee Most forgiving, trusting, and generous of the lot. thats Why she could be betrayed at all. Because she trusted so easily! the fact she holds a grudge at a betrayal that got her best friend killed severely injured does not mean she is anything less than the most trusting and willing to take a chance on others of the group!

if in an alternate universe zuko wound up joining the group earlier or the betrayal never happened she would be the first to accept him, she would welcome him with open arms and fight on his behalf with the groups true skeptic ie sokka

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home Arc 2 Part 20: FINAL

So guess what I realized this morning. Today, November 13, 2023 is the one year anniversary of me posting my first DPxDC fic to tumblr. It was the original fill for this very fic. (Which you can find here.)

So I decided I just had to finish this arc and get it posted. This year has been amazing and so much fun. I've become a much better writer and joined a community that has brought me so much joy. I'm glad to be here and I'm glad so many of you like to read what I'm sharing.

I noticed I got a few new readers over the past week or so, so welcome to all of you! Hope you enjoy this early update!

In personal news, my nephew was born and he's adorable and I'll be meeting him tomorrow! (As soon as I'm done posting this, I'm off to make food for his mom.)

Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

Arc 1

Arc 2: Part 1, Previous

Word Count: 1.2k

-----

In the end, it ended up taking several hours for Danny, Sam, and Tucker to escape their families and converge on the park. In that time, Tim had called Bruce to let him know he’d be back in Gotham by tomorrow and finished most of his homework.

While he worked, Wulf and Bart were having an animated conversation in Esperanto.

Tim was pretty sure Wulf would be bringing Bart to the Ghost Zone for a tour sometime and started making plans to learn Esperanto himself and bribe Bart to get in on them.

Cassie was helping Conner sort through some of the music Sam had given him. Tim was jealous as he solved more banal trig questions. Why did school have to be so boring? He tapped his pencil on the paper in time to the beat of whatever music Conner had playing.

Tucker was the first to arrive. “Danny and Sam not here yet?” he asked as he plopped down next to Bart and Wulf.

“Nope. Haven’t heard from them, either,” said Tim. He opened his phone notifications again just to be sure, but there was nothing new.

Tucker shrugged and pulled out a stick of jerkey to munch on. “Not surprising. The Fentons will be all overprotective after the mayor was kidnapped by a ghost on live TV. And Sam’s parents are just as bad. Only they smother rather than check the weaponry.” He turned to greet Wulf in Esperanto.

An email came through on Tim’s phone and he groaned. “Our evening interview was canceled. No one wants to hear us try to defend Phantom anymore.”

Cassie cursed. “Course not. Bet the paper won’t publish our editorials either.”

Conner looked over, confused. “Won’t they? Clark works for the Daily Planet. They publish stuff like that all the time.”

Tim didn’t look up from his math as he answered, “That’s the difference between a big, Pulitzer winning publication and a small-town op-ed.”

Tucker sighed. “Well maybe someone will remember your interviews from this morning in a positive light.”

Bart rolled his eyes. “Come on, we can’t change it. So let’s move forward. Next step, make friends with more ghosts! Wulf says there’s a bunch of cool people in the Realms.”

“Realms?” asked Tim.

“It’s what he says the Ghost Zone is actually called. The Infinite Realms.”

“Huh. I’ll have to check JL databases, see if they have any information on them.”

Tucker asked something in Esperanto and Bart burst out laughing as Wulf looked on in confusion.

With Bart’s help, though, he rephrased until Wulf was able to reply. And then the three kept to Esperanto. Tim really had to find time to learn it.

Sam was the next to arrive. She grinned and sat down next to Conner. “How you liking the music?”

Conner grinned and showed her the sheets where he ranked the bands so far based on which songs he’d listened to. She then took over the speakers and searched for specific tracks to try and change his mind about some of the bands he liked the least.

Tim let his eyes close as his friends’ voices washed over him.

After some indeterminate time where he dozed between sleeping and awareness, a foot nudged his hip. Tim grumbled out what was supposed to be a, “What?” but was too mumbled to really be understood.

“Come on, Secrets. You can do better than that.”

Tim cracked an eye open to see Danny grinning down at him. He pushed himself up slightly and blinked heavily in the sunlight.

“Finally got away from your parents?” asked Tim.

Danny collapsed on the ground next to him. “Ugh, don’t remind me. They’re freaking out over everything that’s happened the last few days. Jazz and I are basically going to be on lock down until they feel confident the ghosts are gone.”

“Did you have to sneak out to get here?” asked Cassie.

Danny shook his head. “No, I told them I was going to find you guys to make sure you were all safe. You’re welcome to come back to ours tonight, by the way. Mom and Dad basically insisted on it.”

“What do you guys think?” asked Tim. “Spend one more night here at Danny’s and head out in the morning?”

Cassie sighed. “My mom’s already freaking out that I’ve been gone longer than planned. I should get back tonight.”

“I’ll stay,” offered Conner. “I’m your ride home, anyway.”

“Why don’t you come to my place, Conner,” offered Sam. “Your nails need a fresh coat after fighting today. And I need teach you about the different brands of makeup and what to look for in terms of cost, quality, and ethicality. Plus I can get you more music.”

Tim laughed when Conner looked to him. “Go for it. Have fun.”

Conner grinned. “Then yeah, let’s do it!”

Bart shrugged. “Wulf is going to go back to the Realms soon. I’ll head out after. Wally and Linda want me over for a family dinner tonight.”

“Well, looks like that’s it, then,” sighed Danny. “Been fun having other heroes around.”

Tim nudged his shoulder. “Join the Young Justice. You could join us and we'd help out whenever you wanted. Get you around people who actually appreciate what you do for them.”

But Danny was already shaking his head. “I have to stay here. And now Amity trusts heroes even less. I want to improve that, not make it worse.”

“Even if you don’t join,” declared Conner. “You’re not getting rid of us now.”

Bart nodded his agreement. “Yep. We’re gonna be stopping by all the time. You’re in the group chat.”

“Exactly,” agreed Tim. “And we’ll figure out ways to help you. Starting with how to minimize property damage. That seems to be the big thing people focus on. You can make shields, right? How big can you make them and how much power do they take?”

Danny smiled wryly. “Can’t say I’ve really tested it.”

Tim laughed. “Well, I know one thing we’re doing tonight. We’re going to go back to Nasty Burger—” Tim looked around at the whole group “—all of us. Then Cassie and Bart are going to go home. Danny and I, at least, are going to take a nap. Then we’re gonna test the current limits to Danny’s powers.”

Danny bumped their shoulders together. “You know, this is just like gaming with you all those years.”

“Yeah, well, it’s best to be thorough.”

“We’ve measured, like, his top speed and stuff,” said Tucker, pulling out a PDA. “Want to see what we’ve got so far?”

“Absolutely.” Tim took the device and looked through it. “You’ve a decent amount of information here. Maybe instead of taking a nap, I’ll help you organize it and come up with a testing plan.”

Conner flew over to him and pulled the PDA out of his hand. “Not after pulling an all-nighter you won’t. We’re going to get some food, then the two of you are going to sleep for at least four hours.”

“I’ll set Jazz on you, too,” threatened Sam. “Don’t think I won’t.”

Tim pouted as the device was given back to Tucker. And grumbled more when Conner picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.

“Come on, food time.”

“I am going to put kryptonite in your phone,” threatened Tim.

“Bingo!” shouted Cassie.

Danny laughed as he stood. “Does this mean I can join the next round?”

Tim scowled. “Traitors, all of you.”

-----

Next

And that's the end of this Arc! Arc 3 will pick up where the original fill did. (Only this time, Tim won't be the only DC character there to help Danny.)

I'd say something like I can't believe it's only been a year, but so much has happened to me in the last twelve months that it feels like a lifetime ago, to be honest. But it's been a good year and I'm glad this community has been part of it.

Please follow the subscription post if you want updates for when I start transferring this arc to AO3 or begin posting Arc 3.

[topsyturvy-turtely]

turtely's OTP challenge!

now on AO3! (tumblr link)

read the (slightly improved) 7th part here:

summary: When Mrs. Hudson passes away, the unusual family of three is devastated. Sherlock shuts off, Rosie cries every day and John is desperately trying to keep it together for their sake.

Until one day, Rosie asks for "Lock", and the great detective shows a talent John wasn't aware of yet.

General Audience, 2112 Words. Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Parent!lock, Minor Character Death, it's sad i am sorry, but it is REEEEAAALLLLY sweet, i promise you won't regret reading this. (i mean you never know but i tried my best to make this rude prompt into something wholesome still)

tag list! (tell me if you wanna be added or removed please 💚) @justanobsessedpan @helloliriels @catlock-holmes @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @hisfavouritejumper @rhasima @forfucksakejohn @ohlooktheresabee @turbulenttrouble @so-youre-unattached-like-me @totallysilvergirl @peanitbear @train-mossman @loki-lock @smulderscobie @timberva @grace-in-the-wilderness @chinike @jawnn-watson @whatnext2020 @escapingthereality @missdeliadili @kettykika78 @musingsofmyown @7-percent @speedymoviesbyscience @astudyin221b @francj15 @ladylindaaa @we-r-loonies @mxster-jocale @sherlockcorner @noahspector @our-stars-graveside @jobooksncoffee @baker-street-blog @macgyvershe @myladylyssa @battledress @a-victorian-girl @dreamerofthemeadow @oetkb12 @ohnoesnotagain @mutedsilence @jawnscoffee @raenchaosandcozyadashofmurder @lisbeth-kk @quickslvxrr @compact-and-beautiful @kabubsmagga @sunshineinyourmind

[ineed-to-sleep]

I'm still working on this btw. Chipping away at it one little panel at a time 🥲

[whatevermakesyoubreak]

why haven’t any of u FREAKS (affectionate) written a challengers movie inspired post-canon bluelock x reader fic??

like?? hello?? the opportunity is RIGHT THERE???