#and I don’t even have the faith in myself to go apply somewhere else because I’m convinced I can’t. they really fucking broke me

[hobisexually]

I feel so, so old but also so, so young and it’s starting to freak me out

#Not to get too existential but. #32 is hitting me harder than 30 for some reason? #(the reason being work being awful and feeling like everything I fought for was. fruitless? So what now?) #and time keeps running out and I keep losing things and people #my brain keeps yelling TOO SLOW TOO LATE TOO NOTHING all the time #they took my drive away from me and broke my spirit a little bit and now I’m just. scared and sad and angry all the time #and I don’t even have the faith in myself to go apply somewhere else because I’m convinced I can’t. they really fucking broke me #and if I don’t have work. #what do I have #it was the (1) thing I thought was going well and now that isn’t so what the fuck else do I have #I can’t buy a house I’ve never had a relationship my whole body is fucked #I still didn’t write a book #I can’t keep up with my coworkers I can’t keep up with my same age/older friends I keep just. walking with blocks on my legs while everyone #else is running marathons and finishing them #not to be a stereotypical ambitious workaholic Capricorn bitch but #what the fuck else am I #you know?

[chronicbatfictioner]

Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 20

The dinner was just as Jason expected, bland, dull, a lot of formalities in which Bane was visibly struggling with and did not even bother to pretend to know the difference between steak or salad forks. Jason, Dick, and Tim managed to keep the conversation alive and light, somehow without offending the formality of the dinner. Good thing, Jason thought, that The League had taught him of formal dinner etiquette and whatnot, otherwise he would have been slurping the baiwang with the soup spoon instead of the Chinese soup spoon provided by Alfred - like Bane.

Dick, for all of his lack of etiquette education, won in the manners division - regardless of the fact that Tim was helping him by pointing out which cutlery should be used for what. At the very least, he was not beneath asking what he wasn't sure of. 

The day after was a little duller. Alfred merely informed them that the police were there along with the District Attorney, Harvey Dent, to arrest Bane on several counts of murder. Bane was arrested nearly without a fight - he had been purged of his venom strength and knew that he had no chance against some of the cops who were ready to taser him.

Jason was... frankly, a little disappointed.

"Would've been nice if there was a brawl or something," Dick voiced Jason's thought out loud just as he walked outside.

"Oh, goodness, I'm just glad this is over," Bruce commented, glaring apprehensively at Dick's back as the latter walked away with Damian. There was a good long silence before he added, "I presume now that Bane is out of this house, Damian will no longer need you two? I mean, he has me now - and his grandparents." he pointed out.

"I have vowed to guard Damian until he is an adult," Jason replied simply. Ignoring Bruce's sudden change of expression. "it is my order."

"Well, Talia... no offense. But Talia won't-- is no longer around to hold you accountable." Bruce argued.

"No, she's not. But Damian is." Jason looked at the child, sitting under one of the Manor's massive trees with a thick sketchbook before him. Dick, Jason knew, was on the tree. Even with Bane arrested, Oracle had warned that as long as he's not fully incarcerated in a maximum-security facility, he could still either get out and hurt the Waynes - including Damian. Therefore Jason asked Dick to remain with them for a little while longer. Thankfully, Dick didn't mind.

"He's a child. Children adapt well with changes of environments," Bruce said. "and if you're afraid that Bane would come back, I can hire some bodyguards for him."

Jason managed to hold back his smirk. People always thought that he was there to protect Damian; not realizing that he was protecting others from Damian's temper. Instead, he smarted, "like you protected your parents by sending them overseas."

"Oh, now, that's not fair." Bruce protested. "It was... we all thought that... at least mother and I..." he didn't finish his sentence as he exhaled exasperatedly. "His DNA check is back," he continued after a few moments of silence.

"Obviously, he hasn't a drop of Wayne blood in him," Jason suggested, a little dryly. "Something anyone with knowledge of the molecular structure of DNA would have known right away. You accepted Damian right away because you saw he has your mother's ears, in spite of his green eyes. Yet you doubted your father's denial in spite of the fact that there is nothing on Bane that resembled any of you - including about all of the portraits of your ancestors.

"And then there's something else I realized. Bane came with nothing; whereas Damian came with the Al Ghul wealth. You were more accepting because Damian would not equal splitting the Wayne wealth..."

"That is not true!" Bruce growled. "I would not have turned Damian away even if he was not Talia's child. He is my child, and I know that he is!"

"Then we're back to my initial point: You were unable to defend your parents because you did not have 100% faith in their virtues. The Al Ghuls are known leaders of the League of Assassins, to which the leadership shall now be Damian's. What will be your argument, when he decides to take over the League fully? 'Oh, I can't be associated with criminals, even if said crimes were just allegation and not a video recording of someone snapping off another person's neck'?" Jason sneered. "Now, Mister Wayne. I also would like to remind you, that I have Damian's legal custody. If you insist I should leave, I shall bring him along."

"You can't do that," Bruce scowled. "He's my biological child..."

"You have studied your country's laws, Mister Wayne. But you forgot the one crucial thing: Damian is not your country's boy by any means other than your claim." Jason mentally realized that he has placed one of his ace cards onto the table. But he honestly prefers this kind of conversation not to be had when Damian is present. And from the looks of it, he has packed his sketching materials and was making his way back indoors. "Do not try to deny Damian's access to me, or the League, Mr Wayne. He is not yours to manipulate," he added softly while Damian was still out of range.

"Hey guys, Damian and I are hungry," Dick announced as they went past the door. "Think Alfred would let us have cookies?"

"He's the one who is hungry, Todd," Damian told Jason. "I shall wait until tea time for the cookies. It is only a mere hour away."

"Why don't you scrub up a little? Tea should be ready by the time you're done." Bruce suggested.

Damian's scowl could have killed a cobra. "While I am planning on refreshing myself, father, it would be kind of you to cease directing me as if I am an imbecile," he stated, and for the second time in less than 10 minutes, Jason bit the inside of his cheek to stop a snicker.

Bruce, however, was not amused at Damian. "Well! That is not what a child should say to his father!" he admonished.

"Todd," Damian glared at Jason. "Did you not inform Mr Wayne here that I merely referred to him as 'father' due to common societal practices?" he asked with air quotes around the word 'father'.

"I have informed him that, Damian," Jason assured him.

"Do remind him on a daily basis that I am not obliged to remain here beyond what is demanded by his country's societal norms." Damian continued.

"I shall, Damian," Jason replied.

"Very well, I shall be in my quarters until tea time. You might consider feeding Grayson here, Todd," Damian said dismissively.

"I actually have some matters to discuss with you, Damian, if you don't mind. I think Grayson can fend for himself just fine," Jason told him.

"I don't mind. Let us, then." Damian said, leading the way back to his room.

Jason nodded politely to Bruce and motioned Dick to join him. "Mr Wayne, Grayson."

As they left Bruce, still standing in confusion - probably - Dick remarked, "ouch," softly.

"Go on and get your own cookies, Grayson," Jason remarked.

"I need to discuss something with you, too. You two, actually, somewhere safe." Dick said. Both Jason and Damian paused their steps. "Yeah, and we might need to call upon a certain bird for backup," Dick added, almost nonchalantly. It was not until then that Jason noticed the tenseness on his shoulders. He remembered that Dick, too, was trained to keep an eye out for danger.

"You go on ahead with Damian, I'll ask Alfred if he may have tea in his quarters." Jason decided. Damian nodded, realizing the urgency in Dick's posture, and stepped a little closer to Dick as Jason turned the other way.

Whatever it is Dick has to say, Jason could be certain now that besides himself, Dick would protect Damian fiercely. And/or protect other, possibly innocent people, from Damian's tempers.

He was just wondering why did it seem that Bruce Wayne was so intent on removing him.

And why Dr and Mrs Wayne would suddenly take a trip to Europe right after they were proverbially and literally freed from Bane.

Alfred, as usual, was in the kitchen preparing for tea time. In spite of being Americans, the Waynes seemed to like the habit of afternoon tea time.

Jason told Alfred of Damian's request, and Alfred nodded slowly. "Is Master Bruce still in the sun-room, then?" he asked.

"Last time I saw him, yeah."

"Ah, then... young Jason, may an old man request something from you and your vast knowledge of herbs?" Alfred's face was as impassive as ever when he said that, just a shade before he returned to his task of preparing some small sandwiches. But Jason was a little confused. Why would Alfred ask him for herbs? As far as Jason could tell, he was as healthy as... well, someone Jason's age, which has got to be at least a third of Alfred's; half at most. Jason didn't think that Alfred was any older than mid- to late-40s.

"Sure, how can I help?" he answered, anyway.

"Oh, I was wondering if there is any method you may suggest to... how do I put it... Chafe off surgical remains within oneself? I have had work done for my nose, you see, on a whim as a young lad; and I do not believe it looks becoming on me as I age. I feel as if it makes me look like another person is inhabiting my body, as Master Bruce was wont to say."

Jason blinked, and partially wished Dick was there to confirm his thoughts. In spite of being the exact same height as Jason, Alfred was bowing his head a little as he spoke; and Jason knew that there was a surveillance camera that would be able to record their conversation in the kitchen. His shoulders were tenser than the task of cutting bread would have required.

"Well, wow... okay. I'll need to actually search my books. You know some of the ladies back then would apply something to their skin for scars or bruises. But I'm not sure if it'll work on surgical stuff. I'll let you know?" Jason replied carefully.

"Thank you, Jason, for considering. While it shames me for being vain, it is... rather crucial." Alfred smiled at him.

"No problem, Alf," Jason patted him on the shoulder and made his way back to Damian's room - where each and every surveillance device has been disabled and/or misdirected by the combination of Tim, Barbara, and Damian's own skills.

Once Jason walked in and closed the doors of Damian's room behind him, he was greeted by both Damian and Dick's voices.

"That man is not my father, Todd! I believe my grandparents may still be in danger!" Damian exclaimed as Dick stormed over and announced 'There was an increase of drone activities outside, that's why I brought Damian in!' - followed by Damian and Dick glaring at each other, and Damian said, "Todd, we might need to acquire some new exit strategy!" at the same time as Dick saying, 'I've sent a text to Tim, but he hasn't answered. I've texted Babs, though!'

Jason cringed at them. "Whoa! Hold up! If this is how you two kids report, nobody would need surveillance equipment to hear you from Gotham Harbor!" he snarled. The two promptly stopped and glared at each other again, as if they both were hoping to have Superman's laser vision or something. "Okay, I've heard you both, and I'm upping the ante. Alfred just asked me practically for a method to dissolve foreign objects inside someone's body and allude that someone in the house is not who they seemed. And said someone might be Bruce."

Damian threw his fist to the air, stating, "I knew it!"

Dick's eyes were wide as saucers. "Okay... I would... I've wanted to say the same thing since we got in. But I was kinda scared I might be wrong. What makes you sure?"

"Alfred referred to Bruce in the past tense when talking to me," Jason said. "You? --wait, no, Damian first."

"He looked and behaved differently than the videos mother had shown me," Damian replied.

"I second Damian on this. Well, dude... we need to communicate better, don't we?" Dick said, telling the last bit toward Damian. "I've only met him once, way back when-- when my parents were... you know. But like I've told you, I remember everything from that day as if it has just happened. I remember Bruce Wayne was there with a blonde girl wearing chinchilla fur, a 50s hairdo, and an actual pearl pin. But when my parents... right after, I saw him directing traffic of people out of the tent calmly. His presence then was literally calming, like, everyone was looking at him for direction. This Bruce... generally, looked too nervous on everything; if that makes sense."

Jason thought a moment. Dick was really good at reading people's body language - even the most stoic Alfred. Before Bane was removed, Dick's assessment of Alfred was that he was uncomfortable with Bane, yet very welcoming of Damian. Thus his immediate trust in Alfred. However, since Bane was arrested and proven to not have been a Wayne; Jason hasn't got the chance to ask Dick to re-assess Alfred.

"Okay, I'll retrieve the video footage of your dad from 10 years ago from the League's servers. We'll cross-check. We'll tell the Birds once we're sure, yeah?" Jason suggested.

"Agreed," Damian nodded slowly.

"I'll have Tim keeping an eye on the Doc and Missus while we're at it, though. I mean, you know, precautions and all." Dick suggested.

"Okay, call Tim. If he doesn't answer, call Babs or his mom. I'd like this whole thing settled quickly before Bruce can do anything to harm Damian." Jason huffed a breath slowly, wondering what the hell is it with the Waynes that seemed to run on endless conspiracy theories, anyway.

#Batless!AU #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Bruce Wayne #Damian Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth #JayTim #Red Ghost!jason #Talon!Dick

[the-melting-world]

Strength | Side A: "Sol"

art by @ ligiawrites

~ In which a secretive barhand tames many beasts at once...

The Trio Appearances: Kipling | Khleo | Ozy

Arcana LI appearances: Asra | Nadia | Lucio | Valdemar

Track Origins: “Sol” by Blanco White

Not sure if this is the right track? The full album can be found here: Strength

Khleo is Non-binary and uses she/they pronouns interchangeably

cw: descriptions of monsters

~ 2.8k words

****

Ozy and Kip waited anxiously on a grated walkway in the framework. Just below them was the chamber of Rooms that they had created to hold the monsters who brought darkness with them wherever they went.

“Do you think that maybe we should go down there and check up on her?” Kip asked, holding Taro tightly enough that the lemur had started to squirm. She looked down at where Ozy was sitting with one of his legs dangling over the side of the bridge.

Ozy turned to Abaco, who was perched comfortably on his shoulder. The bird gave a little hop and ruffled his feathers. Finally, Ozy glanced down at the Room and said, “I think we should wait for Khleo to let us know when it’s okay to come inside.”

Kip nodded in agreement, but her eyes were distant. Ozy turned his gaze back to her and shifted a little. He held out his arm and beckoned her over.

“Kipling. Come here.”

Soon Kip was sitting beside Ozy, under his arm. She let her legs dangle over the edge too as she leaned into him. It wasn’t often that they shared this sort of affection, but Kip had always found Ozy’s bright citrus scent and the sound of his chirping beads quite comforting.

“I have faith in Khleo mostly because of you, Kip. I’m sorry if my anxiety kept me from expressing my gratitude, but… thank you for talking to them. For helping them rest.”

Kip reached up to scratch the five o’clock shadow clinging to Ozy’s jaw. “You did most of the talking, coz. You told Khleo everything they needed to hear exactly when they needed to hear it. You showed them the moments from our past that I was too scared to show them myself.”

Ozy sighed and chuckled against Kip’s ticklish fingernails. “I worried myself silly trying to get the timing right. Confrontation only works when the time and the place is appropriate. You know I’ve always struggled with that in the past.”

Now Kip was tugging on Ozy’s ghost lock. “You’ve gotten so much better at it though.”

Before Ozy could respond, a voice called out to both of them. Ozy and Kip got to their feet and looked around. It wasn’t long before they realized that the voice was coming from inside the Room.

“They’re asking us to open the Doors,” Kip whispered.

Because there were eight of them total and they were all very heavy, Ozy and Kip had to work together to create an opening into the chamber. Once they could both look down inside the Room, the umbras were taken aback by all of the darkness that had been replaced with an usual sort of light. Soft, multicolor beads of brightness moved about the room languidly, as if alive.

It took them a moment to realize that the lights made up the anatomies of the individual monsters. Many were drakelike, but there were also furrier, multi-headed beasts and cloven, multi-eyed creatures.

Khleo walked into view, holding a juvenile in her arms. This one had the head of a foal, the body of an eel, and a large, cyclopic eye. Khleo cradled them in one arm and stroked their head with the other. She looked up at her friends and smiled.

“It’s safe. You can come down.”

The barhand let the strange chimera slither out of her arms and undulate away on the absent breeze. Even though Khleo seemed completely in control, Kip and Ozy still looked about warily at the slow-moving, bioluminescent creatures patrolling the space.

Khleo escorted the two of them around, explaining the nature of the monsters and how they all answered to one queen. The queen selected Rooms to lay her eggs in the walls and shut them off in darkness so that she can protect her nest in relative peace.

Inevitably, Ozy started up with his questions. “Did the queen try to attack you?”

Khleo nodded calmly. Without elaborating, she brought them over to the largest of the beasts. When they were close enough, she held out her hand to signal Ozy and Kip to keep their distance. Only after Khleo knelt to where the queen was resting, did she explain, “They’ve all got a sensitive spot somewhere on their bodies.”

Khleo snuck her hand under what Ozy and Kip presumed was the head of the queen and scratched until the great thing lifted her horned skull and yawned.

“See?”

It was hard to pay attention to what Khleo was referring to, what with the unraveling of the queen’s three crooked rows of nested jaws and green, pimpled tongue. But below her maw of shards and behind her fluffy goatee was a layer of veined, membranous meat. It pulsed fleshy blends of red and pink light.

As soon as Ozy and Kip got a good look, Khleo closed the goatee curtain and stroked the queen back to sleep.

“If you can reset the leader’s buttons, the others will follow. It’s just a matter of finding the weak spot and getting close enough to apply the right sort of pressure.” Khleo stood up. “But I also think that snapping them out of that state helps them recognize my scent better.”

Ozy crossed his arms and nodded. “The beasts must think you’re one of them. It’s the only explanation for why they aren't attacking Kip and me right now.”

Khleo’s face was one of acceptance, but they still shrugged and asked, “Why, though?”

Kip spoke up. “Your patron’s blessing. It has to be. It must not be something that you can see or touch, but the creatures living in the walls can feel it.”

Khleo considered this as they approached the two of them. They looked at Kip first and then up at Ozy.

“So now what?”

The excitement was back in Ozy’s murky hazel eyes. He drew up Khleo’s wrist and studied her knuckles, which were bruised from driving them into the queen’s weak spot.

“We’ll need to get you some gauntlets later, but this means that now… we can make shortcuts.”

****

~ The Palace ~

After releasing the subdued monsters into the framework, Ozy carved a pathway back to the Palace for the three of them. Khleo wasn’t all that surprised to find Asra and Nadia waiting for them in the reception hall with Hefe’s head resting in the Countess’ lap. What did catch them off guard was the sight of Basil, who they hadn’t seen since he helped them escape their blood curse.

Kip went to greet Asra and Ozy was preoccupied with Nadia. Hefe approached Khleo first, gently encouraging her to speak candidly with Basil.

When Basil hugged Khleo, she was relieved to sense no bitterness or anger in his touch.

“I’m sorry I kept so many things from you,” Khleo rasped. “It was the last way I could… protect what little I had–”

Basil shook them. “Gah! Khlee, stop. I know.” He pulled back, trying to blink the shine out of his clear blue eyes. “You don’t need to explain. Just… read this. It’s for you.”

The mixologist retrieved an envelope from his pocket. He opened it for Khleo before handing them the contents. Khleo held the documents up and read them slowly. Then they reread them. Again. And again.

Ozy and Kip didn’t notice that Khleo had taken off running through the Palace until Nadia brought it to their attention.

By the time Ozy caught up to Khleo, they were already hurdling themself over the Palace gates. He only managed to keep up with the help of the Doors, phasing him in and out of Khleo’s reality.

When Ozy asked if Khleo intended to run all the way to the Chandrian by foot, the barhand panted, “How the hell else am I supposed to get there? I still can’t open Doors!”

A new presence appeared in between the two umbras.

< Get on my back, cub. >

Ozy grinned before opening a Door and disappearing altogether. Khleo didn’t stop running, but they shot Hefe a suspicious look. The lion blew a puff of frustrated air.

< You’ve done it before. How else would you have reached your own gate in the past? >

Still uncertain, but curious to see what would happen, Khleo reached over and grabbed the scruff of Hefe’s neck without breaking their stride. Then in one swift maneuver, they mounted their familiar’s back and tucked their legs neatly against Hefe’s sides.

The lioness picked up speed, bounding faster over the cobblestones of the Heart District until a Door exploded into existence before them. Khleo’s heart leaped as Hefe carried them through the Door and into a tunnel of rotating seawater. Ozy was on the other side, closing the Door behind them as the barhand and their lion sailed away.

~ Hefe… you’re glowing! ~

Even in her mind, Khleo didn’t have the words to describe all that she was seeing. Hefe crossed the astral planes as if she had been born there. Her pale creamy coat shimmered and kicked up a snowy dust-storm all around them.

As they traveled the framework, their presence drew in any nearby beasts. Creatures that would have otherwise camouflaged themselves were now flanking Hefe’s heels and undulating languidly past Khleo’s shoulders.

Kipling came into view shortly thereafter, holding open a Door that dropped Khleo off directly in front of the Chandrian. As soon as Hefe landed on solid ground and slid to a stop, Khleo took off again, not bothering to wait for her friends.

The barhand had so many questions as she shoved open the doors to the tavern – her tavern. The other barhands were there to greet her, including Basil. They congratulated her, poured her two – three hefeweizens and shoved one mug after the other against her chest.

There was so much excitement, it was clear that questions had no place here. Not now. When things had settled somewhat, Kip came to wrap her arms around Khleo from behind. The gardener balanced her chin on Khleo’s shoulder and kissed them on the cheek.

“It’s not your beer garden, but it’s a step.”

Khleo swallowed the words she didn’t have with the help of the beer in her hand. She took a breath and looked around at the rejoicing still going on in her tavern hall. The fiddles were out, people were on the tables moving and twirling. The only stillness in sight were a couple of patrons calmly dining at a booth towards the back of the hall.

“Those two women over there have been waiting this whole time,” Kip whispered. “I think one of them wants to talk to you.”

Khleo shot Kip a perplexed look as she kissed them fondly on the cheek one final time and lifted the mug out of their hands. Kipling’s hand then came to the small of their back and gave them an encouraging push.

Khleo didn’t know what to expect as they wandered over to the booth. They were sure that they had never met the first woman. However, they recognized her deep brown skin and warm garnet eyes. Because the second woman who finally turned around in her seat happened to have them too.

Khleo froze.

“Mir?”

Her old coworker smiled radiantly as she got to her feet. There was something she was holding in her arms. Wrapped up in blankets and so small, Khleo could hardly believe the obvious.

There were words of deep gratitude exchanged, as well as warm affection, but all Khleo could focus on was the round, slumbering face. The tiny fingers and tinier fingernails.

“She’s so small.”

Samira laughed because for a moment, Khleo truly looked as if she feared the blanket would swallow the infant whole. Giving her strong arms a playful nudge, Samira asked, “Wanna hold her?”

Khleo had never held anything or anyone so awkwardly in her whole life. Just minutes ago she was rocking chimeras to sleep, but now her arms felt damn near useless when it came to deciding how best to snuggle Samira’s baby against her.

“What’s her name?”

Samira, who was close enough to save Khleo should she need it, whispered, “Lily... It means: she’s gonna grow.”

She lifted her eyes to meet Khleo’s. The two shared a smile before shining their happiness back on the little one.

****

~ Not Long After ~

Khleo was at her gate, standing in a field of wildflowers at the bottom of a hill. She had tried to run to the top of that hill so many times before.

She tried again.

Like before, the muscles in her legs burned as her heels dug into the earth, kicking up enchanted daisies on the way. Her arms fought air resistance as they pumped harder and harder.

Drive. Drive!

Khleo zig-zagged to sidestep the pressure of gravity trying to hold her back. The top of the hill came into view faster than it ever had before. But Khleo was not stopping or slowing down. Her breath came out energized rather than labored.

And she leaped...

Khleo’s feet never did make contact with the peak of that hill. Instead, her momentum took over the mound.

Beyond.

.

.

.

Khleo found Kipling resting in the flowers, scratching lines of new poetry into her journal. The barhand gently interrupted the gardener and encouraged her to rise to her feet.

“C’mere. I wanna show you something.”

When Khleo had led Kipling a good distance from the rest of their friends that had joined them in the realm, they called forth something from the framework. Something from their past.

Kipling gasped at the sight of a shimmering ocean drake coasting like a sentient ribbon down from the clouds.

“Remember?” Khleo asked with a smile, waving the drake over in their direction. “From when we used to ride our bikes to and from the market?”

Khleo directed the sea drake from their childhood to revolve around themself and Kip in an infinite loop. The creature fanned out their webbed frill and tail, sweeping up more of the glistening flowers. It flew in a tight circle around Khleo and Kip, giving them no choice but to come together chest to chest.

Khleo tilted Kip’s face up by her chin and kissed her.

“So that day, in the caves… the day the Door took me…”

Kip’s breath hitched. “I remember.”

Khleo dismissed the lumps in her throat. “Well there was something I wanted to tell you.” She glanced down at Kip’s necklace. “It was too hard for me to say back then. And it’s still hard, but…”

The sea drake passed in the background, twisting once in midair, the rest of its body snaking into the rotation like a wave passing through a column of seawater.

“Some things never change, I guess. Still, I wanted to say this.” Khleo breathed in deeply. “I loved you so much back then, Kip.” They placed a kiss on her forehead. “Just as I love you now. As I always will. As it should be.”

Kip found that even as Khleo kissed her through her tears, she could not speak. Even though she had screamed her feelings for Khleo inside those very same caves, she could barely whisper them now.

This was strange for someone like her, for whom words flowed like water and blossomed out like flowers. But Khleo understood what that was like, so they kissed Kip through her tearful wordlessness.

They closed their eyes and purred knowingly and in plain happiness when Kip hugged Khleo for all she was worth, buried her face along the side of their neck and worked her lips into a soundless confession.

Khleo’s body was sensitive enough to feel the truth. They soaked up the love — the years and years of love — enough to make them wish they could open their throat and roar.

And then… the moment came when it was time for Khleo to be alone in their realm with their lion and their patron.

Their friends, Kipling, Ozy, Nadia, Asra – and their familiars, all left.

Khleo stood in the place where they were reborn, listening to the wind blowing over the fields. They had never done this before, but the next move came so naturally to them.

Strength watched from the top of one of the hills, her red headscarf drawn down by her shoulders and her rough curls catching wind and daisies.She watched Khleo walk over to their golden throne and take a seat there. She watched Hefe softly approach and curl up by Khleo’s ankles.

Khleo got comfortable and snug before closing their eyes and breathing in long and deep. She had a thought, which yielded a glass mug to materialize in her hand. Beer collected and bubbled up to the top until foam was spilling out onto her knuckles. But the barhand didn’t break her relaxation to lick up the mess. She would see to it later.

For now she was calm. Not like the tall woman in the background watching over her. Not even like the great, pale lioness resting at her feet.

All of Khleo’s calmness and control came from within.

#the arcana #arcana albums #arcana albums: strength #khleo the barhand #kipling the apprentice #ozy the grey mage #asra alnazar #nadia satrinava #the arcana fanfiction #the arcana fanfic #the arcana fic #my writing

[itsclydebitches]

Do you think Ruby will kill Grimm!Summer and if so, how do you think that will clash with her objection to killing Penny?

I think it's all going to hinge on a) how the story portrays Ruby reacting to Jaune in Volume 9 and b) what sort of shape grimm!Summer is in.

First, they may not have Ruby kill Summer at all. And I don't just mean that the plot will twist to ensure someone else has to (somehow, without silver eyes) do the deed because she's unavailable, thereby freeing her of that hard choice — precisely like how Ruby was conveniently in the void by the time Penny needed to die. Rather, Summer might still be able to be saved. Many (myself included) have theorized that if Ruby's eyes destroy grimm and grimm only, she might be able to destroy the portion of a grimm that possess a person (for lack of a better word), leaving the rest of them intact. That's mostly come up in Salem discussions — could Ruby remove the influence of the grimm pool, leaving human!Salem behind? — but now that same question applies to Summer too. When she used her eyes on the Hound we saw the grimm part of him get stripped away, revealing the faunus underneath, before the goo of the grimm started Venom-creeping back over the rest of him. If Ruby could give off a more powerful blast, perhaps she could erase the grimm portion entirely, all in one go, sort of akin to how they won the geist fight in Volume 4. Hit it harder, all at once, until after a single blow only the core of the beast remains. In each case the grimm would leave the thing it possessed.

So that's Option B: is Summer in a state where it's possible for her to recover in some way? How deep do these grimm experiments go, are silver eyes capable of destroying the grimm without killing the person? How much of the original Summer would be left without the grimm parts? etc. etc. Lots of questions we don't have any answers to. Option A, however, comes up if we're given a scenario where Summer is beyond hope. She's a grimm now, no way to fix it, killing her is seen as a mercy. And that, I think, is the crucial difference. Ruby unequivocally said no to killing Penny... but Penny also wasn't presented as having to die. It's one of the rare moments in the volume where I 100% agree with what Ruby is saying. Penny has been hacked, her order is to open the vault, and then she's set to self-destruct. So how does killing her benefit anyone in anyway? They obviously want to save Penny, so all killing her at the manor would do is hurry the self-destruct along, the thing they want to stop. They want to keep the Maiden powers safe, but killing her might risk sending them off into the world, lost, or even wind up with Cinder if her attempts to steal them formed any connection. Obviously we know now that the powers didn't go to Cinder, that Penny was able to think of Winter and send them to her, but my point is that just killing her then is a HUGE risk. Finally, there's no real danger in opening the vault. I mean yeah, they don't want Ironwood to get the staff... but like, he just wants to leave. If Ironwood were planning to use the staff to, idk, decimate all of Atlas I can understand the group considering killing Penny to be worth avoiding the potential death of an entire kingdom, but there's no threat to anyone if Ironwood does somehow snag the relic. The only threat here is that opening the vault will allow Salem to get the relic instead, but the group decides to open the vault anyway. Penny is basically going, "If you don't kill me now then I'll open the vault, which will lead to Ironwood escaping Salem with a large portion of the kingdom and standing down from his bomb threat, and then I'll die!" So you want them to kill you to avoid... other people not dying? And you want to die so you don't... die?

It's absolute nonsense.

This is basically a long-winded way of saying that killing Penny in that moment wouldn't benefit the good guys in any way, shape, or form. The fact that Penny suggests it at all is monumentally stupid. It's a Deep, Dramatic Moment that makes absolutely no sense. "You have to kill me!" she cries... even though killing her does nothing good, likely does a whole lot of bad, and absolutely does a Big Bad by hurrying along one of the major things everyone is trying to prevent: Penny's death.

Of course Ruby said no. That's the smartest Ruby is in the whole volume.

But when Jaune is faced with the question? Well, it's meant to be a very different context. I've gone on the record multiple times as saying that the show did a HORRIBLE job of justifying the need to kill Penny, but I also recognize that we're supposed to believe that was the best option on the table. Unlike at the manor, Penny's death does achieves something here: giving her the ability keep the powers safe. It's also presented as inevitable: Penny will (supposedly) die regardless, so better that she die when she chooses, preventing Cinder from getting more power, then dying in a few minutes with more risks attached. The manor death had nothing going for it. The finale death — no matter how badly executed — is meant to be justified to some extent, whether we personally agree it or not. We're still meant to realize, "Yeah, Penny is dying, no way to avoid it, so killing her will at least help keep the power out of Cinder's hands and will give her some agency over the time she has left." It's still stupid, but it's a "You wrote this scene really badly" stupid rather than a "This entire concept is nonsensical" stupid.

So Ruby has never actually been in Jaune's position. For all her insistence that she won't let anyone die, Ruby has never actually been in a scenario where killing someone would do the most good for the world, or would put someone out of their misery, or would give them some agency over their own existence — all the things that Penny's death is (again) supposed to represent. We don't know what she'd choose if death was inevitable and she was faced with providing a "kinder" death, or what she'd choose if a death was, from a practical perspective, presented as the best way forward. That's because right now the story is horribly written and Ruby isn't forced to choose anything, but if they actually brought her back to her Volume 1-5 self, I can easily see her killing her mother as an act of kindness. Summer was turned into a monster by Salem. The very thing she's spent her whole life trying to eradicate. There is no possible, other way to help her. She is a danger to Ruby and all of her friends. Perhaps, if a part of her is still lucid, she expresses that she doesn't want to continue living like this, being the thing she despises, being Salem's tool, being a danger to her daughter. So Ruby kills her as an act of mercy and love. It's presented as a release from a nightmare existence.

But that potential, future characterization depends on whether Ruby understands the choice Jaune made. Again (again, again, again) I think the story did a terrible job writing that scene and that it didn't succeed in justifying the kill, but for the purposes of what I think the story was trying to do, Ruby may well parrot all that back in Volume 9: "Yes, Jaune. Penny was dying and there was no way to save her even though your semblance is healing. There was nothing else you could have done even though you might have gotten her through the portal and saved here there. Killing her then kept the powers safe messy lore aside. You did the right thing, horrible as it was." And that acts as setup for Ruby doing the same thing for Summer later on. Either that, or she's initially furious at Jaune and comes to realize — after some messy and contradictory character arc — that he did the right thing all along and she was just too grief-stricken to realize it. Which I will hate if we get that given how badly it'll all end up lol.

So those are the two theories I'm leaning towards. Either the story, in the fashion of Volume 8, will ensure that Ruby never has to make the hard choice of whether to kill her mom or not (oh god I'm imagining a scene where Yang offers to do it instead as some act of sisterly devotion/a sacrifice so the "pure" sister remains pure no no no no), or Summer's situation is (no doubt just as badly) presented like Penny's second request for death, as a necessary act that Summer wants, will assist the heroes in some way, and is definitely the Best and Only Thing To Do.

Of course, Option C is that this is... just never resolved. It definitely speaks to my lack of faith in RWBY atm, but given how many important things we've dropped I would not be surprised if Summer is never actively introduced into the series again. RWBY may well treat this as the answer to a mystery that never existed until said "answer" arrived, the writers viewing this merely as the explanation of what happened to Summer and nothing more. Don't get me wrong, viewers are 100% right to expect more in the future. This change raises even more questions than were already attached to Summer's disappearance and the existence of the Hound absolutely implies that, in a well written story, grimm!Summer will appear somewhere down the line. But, to be blunt, RWBY is not a well written story. So if some number of years from now we look back and go, "Wow, the answer to how they'll handle this is that they... didn't. This was never brought up in a meaningful way again" I really wouldn't be surprised.

#rwby #mymetas

[j-reau]

There’s something I want to talk about that’s been sitting in my head for a few days now. I kept telling myself not to talk about because tumblr struggles with the line between feelings and drama, between change or growth and confrontation and vauging.

That’s not what this post is for me. It’s not drama or a vague post. It’s trying to work through how I feel, trying to talk to the community at large about stuff I think we can do better, or at least stuff I want for me and for my friends and writing partners. 

I think somewhere along the way, in its inability to wrestle with grey areas, tumblr as a whole lost the middle ground between self care and hurting others, and in doing so turned communication into confrontation. I’ll be clear about something to start this off; you don’t owe strangers on the internet anything. You don’t owe someone an explanation as to why you don’t follow them. You don’t owe a mutual an explanation as to why you write with someone else more or where your muse goes that day. You don’t owe anyone your time. You don’t owe anyone your mental health. Curating a safe space is important. Creating boundaries is healthy whether they’re for you or for someone else. I believe all of that to be true and I think that it’s important that on tumblr we absolve some people of the pressure put on them by themselves. I was once stalked by someone who I had never once talked to on this website who demanded to know why I wouldn’t write with them. I did not owe them explanation. Not for why I didn’t follow them and certainly not for why I eventually blocked them. And once they messaged me over and over from different accounts, my boundaries had been crossed and I felt very uncomfortable. So I understand the importance of making sure people know that that kind of pressure is fucked up. Because of my decision not to follow them, that person posted at length about how I was an elitist, unfriendly, etc. They even threatened self harm and guilt baited. And it is instances like that where I think it’s important that we make clear over and over and over that you don’t owe people an explanation. 

With all of that said, I think somewhere along the way we started applying all of those posts about how to deal with toxic people and strangers and started applying them to our friends. And that’s where things get uncomfortable for me and worth talking about for me. So I guess that’s what I want to do. Because to me, you absolutely owe your friends some communication. You owe your friends a reason. Even if it’s as simple as “hey I think I need some space, please don’t contact me for a while.” Relationships come and go and on a website like tumblr we get very close to some people fast, or we talk a lot and share a lot, not everyone is going to click. Not everyone is going to jive and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But in relationships, communication is a crucial and important part of adult hood. Ignoring problems isn’t adult. Failing to communicate isn’t mature or conflict free. My best and closest friends are the people with which I can communicate. And in some relationships you’ll learn that your communication styles don’t match. And that’s okay too. But communication is important to any friendship, partnership, etc. Something as simple as “hey can we not talk about that? It makes me uncomfortable.” Something as simple as “will you do me a favor and blacklist your posts about _____ because seeing them makes me anxious.” Or even communicating needs for validation like “I’m feeling really sad and anxious today. It’s nothing you’re doing but could you give me a little reassurance?” Or “hey I’ve been busy this week. It’s not you but I need some space away from discord.” Communications don’t have to be arguments. They don’t have to be confrontations. They’re just expressing a feeling and allowing someone else to then accept the boundary or need you express and meet it, ask questions if they need to or whatever it may be. Like for example, “sure I can give you space. Do you want to just hit me up when you feel better or should I reach out in a few days?” 

I think maybe part of it is about how we place value on “friendships” and on partnerships writing on tumblr. And maybe that’s where some of us differ and I also think is an important thing that should be communicated. For me, I write with hundreds of people. I love writing with people. I love having tons of partners and writing with any of my mutuals who want to. When it comes to writing and people who I have writing partnerships with, my communication style is pretty straight forward. And it starts from jump, communicating if we want to ship or not, communicating what kinds of plots we like. And then later when someone has to say “hey can we drop this thread and start a new one?” Or “Sorry I vanished for a month do you still want to write this?” All of those things are communications and to me, come with trust that you will be honest and receive the other person in good faith. of course, in hundreds of people that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it doesn’t go well, and that’s fine. These are writing partners and while my communication style will always be the same and be as honest and straightforward as I can give it, it may not mesh with someone else’s. But then there are friends -- good friends. And by good friends I mean the people you talk to frequently. The people you talk to about how you feel, about what’s going on in your life, about your insecurities or whatever it may be. The people you write with frequently or have built a relationship with, the people you tell with your words that you love or that mean a lot to you. Maybe some people on tumblr use words like that lightly. I don’t know. But for me those are meaningful things and the people I consider good friends are not the same as strangers and are not the same as casual writing partners. 

Something is exchanged when we RP. I talked about this in my last post. I talked about how it’s not “just tumblr RP” how there are feelings and intimacy that is personal and terrifying in writing with people and sharing your creative work with them and opening yourself up to rejection and insecurity. When you RP, when you talk a lot, when you become friends with someone even if it’s on the internet, just as in real life, you’re exchanging trust. You are opening yourself up to vulnerability in expressing your feelings, in sharing your world with someone and they are doing the same by accepting that, caring for that, sharing their own, etc. To me, once you hit the point of having exchanged trust with someone, that’s when you owe communication of some kind. It can be as small as “hey I can’t talk today” and as big as “this thing you did yesterday hurt my feelings.” But it’s so important to do it. That’s important for a number of reasons. It’s important because maybe there is a misunderstanding that can be cleared up. It’s important because maybe that other person may not even know they hurt you and could apologize. It’s important because vocalizing your own feelings is an adult point of growth for you. And a number of other things. 

And I GET IT. Trust me, I do. Communicating is uncomfortable. What about how anxious it makes you? What about how you feel panicked and sweaty and your heart races and you worry that it won’t be well received. Trust me, we all have been there. It happens to everyone and it fucking sucks. But the only way that gets better is with practice. I can already hear the tumblr mentality that says “you shouldn’t have to feel that way if you don’t want to,” and there’s some truth to that. But any therapist will tell you that communication is the key to coming to the other side of that and that the more you do it, the better it’ll be, the easier it’ll feel. Having been in several relationships with people that projected their feelings onto me or held me accountable for their happiness, learning to communicate boundaries, learning to communicate feelings versus intention and all of that were huge for me. This isn’t something I popped out of the womb understanding. It’s something I’ll surely fail at a thousand times. But it’s definitely something important to me to learn. And I think it’s something tumblr can benefit from. Because while “let people block you” is an important mentality for strangers, for abusers, for toxicity, etc it’s not a good mentality for friendships and relationships. Ghosting your friends is really hurtful. Cutting people who mean something to you out with no communication or explanation causes a snowball of bad feeling and anxiety in allowing you to have closure on your terms and the other party to have none. Expecting people to handle hurt and confusion and sadness in private without ever talking about it to anyone is really fucking isolating. Tumblr mentality likes to push that we should be able to axe people without consequence, that they should not ever wonder why, that they can not talk about it to anyone else, or express their sadness. But isolating people in their feelings isn’t healthy and it isn’t adult. There’s a lot of hurt that could be avoided on this website by people learning to communicate and by accepting that sometimes conversations have to be had, even if we don’t like it. Or at the very least, taking ownership for the fact that if we don’t want to have a conversation, that that is on us and not on the other person for feeling confused and not knowing what happened.

So I guess where I’m at here is that I just wanted to talk about that area, and open the floor a little to remind people about communicating. And what I mean when I say friends vs. strangers vs. partners is that I think we also need to be honest with each other and ourselves about who our friends are. Because once you open that trust with someone, there’s responsibility there with what you do with that trust. So be aware of where you open that trust. Be aware of what you say and how you treat people. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone you run across on the internet. I certainly am not. Even people I love writing with may not be my close friends, but I make sure that those are people that I’m not being vulnerable with and sharing feelings about things with and expressing how important they are to me. They are of course still important, but it’s different. Don’t fake friendship with people. Don’t love people into the safety and security of trust and communication that you’re not willing to have. It’s okay if communication isn’t your thing, but understanding that and understanding how you treat people because of it is important. Because communication is important. To friendship, to partnerships, hell even to relationships with coworkers and family members. As a community, I think it’s really important that we encourage being more communicative, and that communication isn’t conflict, and that sometimes having a quick conversation about something where both parties get closure or can say their piece or clear things up is the absolute best way to handle things. 

#me still posting diary entiries on tumblr because idk what to do with my feelings #you betcha #but i really don't know what to do with my feelings lately and i keep getting off the dash but then i feel sad and i miss it #and idk i feel like there are so many more solutions here than we're willing to have #i'll come back eventually but when i do i think this kind of conversation is what i'm really going to implement on my blog #if that makes sense #idk i would love to talk to more people about this or just hear how you feel #even if it's the opposite

[lostmoonbunny]

Greetings from a Panini World

Yes, I did call this a "panini". I'm hesitant to use the word "pandemic" as I feel many of us have a knee jerk reaction to hide from everything once hearing or seeing that word. However that's the current stat of events. The year? 2021 Where I am located its very much so post quarantine and society has attempted to "return to normal" but its impossible. Between the anti- maskers, anti-vaxxers, and everything else it truly is impossible. "What do you mean?" you ask, well allow me to take you on a journey of a human that has gone through this "history in the making" and share what its been like since January 2020 to September 2021 from the eyes of someone that lived it. -I will preface this with saying, there will be gaps, I have trouble with object permanence, concept of time, and I have memory issues due to past concussions so bear with me as we stumble through the memories of my experiences.

So here we go... Let's travel back to January 2020.

2020..Ahhh the big year of "Clear vision".. HA! No, not today. What I remember was being concerned about this horrible virus but didn't think it would make its way to where I lived.. ( I would be unsurprisingly corrected shortly after this.) I worked, had my birthday, and it was quickly February. The virus was quickly spreading and making its way downtown walking fast faces past.. oops..sorry I got sidetracked, it was making its way down throughout the nation. We celebrated my partner's birthday, and soon after the month was over. February always flies by. March...ahh March, this is where everything started changing for me. Many states were shutting down around us fairly quickly too. ( I have opinions about how the US should've shut down sooner, but we're not here for politics...but yes it should've happened sooner.) My partner, younger brother and I made a last minute trip to the next state for a day trip. Which was fun don't get me wrong but the places we went to shut down for the state's quarantine the next day. My state would follow barely a week later. I was furloughed. That..that was an experience. All of us received the same message as it was a group message. It stated that we were all effectively unemployed ( so we could apply for benefits if we chose to) and that if and when we reopen that they hoped we could come back. I immediately messaged my boss and the boss that messaged us all and double checked learning that I was on the "short list" for rehires. That made me fee a bit better but I was still sad. My partner was considered "an Essential worker" so they worked through the entire lockdown. I swear Animal Crossing New Horizons is one of the only things that got me through that.. from this all the days blended together till June. Not don't get me wrong, plenty of things happened on a personal growth side that was beneficial like I started going to therapy, got even closer to my cousin that lives on the west coast, I played with my cats and dogs more, I caught up on sleep, all sorts of things but the way it had to happen sucked. Also in this time period, my favorite uncle contracts the virus and is put in the ICU on a ventilator. I don't remember how long he was in there but he made it. He is now healthy and survived the virus. So lets fast forward to June. My place of work reopened under specific guidelines. Now I don't know if I've ever mentioned this but I live in the southeast. The southeast, in summer is AWFUL. Its hot, its humid, and then if it DOES rain that humidity just goes up and it gets worse. To give you an idea while the temperature might say its 84 degrees F but the real feel might be 95F. I don't know why they don't just say 95F but that's how it is the southeast... So imagine if you will mid June, being reopened with special rules, masks required for everyone 5 years old and older, and no buildings but restrooms open to the public. The amount of rude, hateful, uncaring people almost made me lose my complete faith in humanity, and its not very high to begin with. Also for context, I work in retail. I feel that says enough there. These rules extend till the end of the year and into part of 2021. While all of this is happening the US is having their presidential elections and everyone has crawled out of the woodwork that you had hoped would stay there. At this point I'm hoping for the best because we really need a paradigm shift in society. We need to truly need to change as a society and in many way, catch up to the rest of the world. I finally gave in a got to tiktok and realize that it is very much a time devourer. I've realized that I feel as if the term "Cassflux" fits how I feel about my gender best, and fully accepted my journey on the path of being a witch.

Lets move in to October, October I ( and my partner) travel to Texas (cautiously) for my cousin's socially distant wedding and our anniversary. That was amazing and the slight escape from reality was truly needed. On our way back we made a stop in NOLA and it was a fun visit, but I realized my baby witch self hadn't veiled or warded myself nearly enough and it got all of "spidey senses" all out of wack. knowing now what I should've done, I do want to go back. The rest of the year went by both incredibly slow and yet in a flash. The US elected a new president, I was working as hard a possible to avoid the virus as much as possible and my partner had gotten a new job with a different company that was making them more happy. So this brings us to 2021. This is the year that I feel that I am truly coming into my own despite living in the middle of a global Panda Express. January brings my turning a landmark age and celebrating it with a new hair style, new outlook on life, progress made in therapy, more self acceptance, and just overall more happiness. The world is still the same, better, but also worse. The vaccine is being produced, distributed, and made accessible. February brings another birthday with my partner's birthday. March rolls around and we jokingly celebrate our work's closing a year prior and then continue to work. The vaccine is made available to retail and food workers so I go and get the first round of the "Dolly Parton" vaccine with my co workers. (If you were wondering its Moderna) We go and receive the second dose later at the correct time. April and May kind of blend together for me because that the ramp up for the busy season at work. June & July are busy but everything is moving forwards. I finally take a step more into the current era of technology and upgrade my phone and computer. ( After several years of going back and forth of not wanting current gen tech or not, because that stuff be expensive!) I reconnect with an old friend and we have a much healthier friendship.

August....hecking August.. We are short staffed at work, busy as heck! My partner is also hecking busy by being called in for almost every problem. The world is deffo changing. The US is in a state of nah nah a boo boo with vaccinating vs not, virus outbreaks having an uptick, universities starting back, Texas deciding that the government gets a say in a woman's reproductive rights... sorry I'll try to not get political. My ( like many others) using tiktok as a means of escape from this reality.. I'm so beyond mentally exhausted by everything that I just want to be somewhere that I can breathe a bit more easy... Its deffo not the southeastern US. September: I. am. exhausted. Working a bunch. Dealing with people doubting the virus, the usual Karens and Richards, counting down my days to vacation. My partner is beyond exhaustion. They've worked more in the past six weeks that they have in two years. The 20th year of 9/11 comes and goes. Not to sound like a country song, but remembering where I was at the moment the planes hit is something that has stuck with me...despite my concussions. I was in my English class and its was between classes and they had the tvs on. So many parents were coming and calling their kids out the school got to the point they weren't going to let kids leave.. ( if the parents complained enough they did.. I was a poorer kid in a more affluent school) My parents weren't going to take me out of school so I finished the day out in a state of confusion, not understanding the gravitas of what was going on, and not understanding was the emotions I was feeling watching the crashes were. I don't claim to even comprehend the emotions of this date to people who lost loved ones in the crashes, or in the oncoming days of the country going to war, I just know how it felt as a child to see something so major happening. I feel its like the kids now living through this panic at the disco. [[If you read this and you lost someone due to either of these horrific events please know that I in no way am invalidating or belittling your feelings or experiences. I merely am trying to describe all of how I feel throughout 2020- roughly current day 2021 and these are the things I was thinking and feeling on this particular day.]]

The days start to blend again as I attempt to countdown the days till my short vacation. Once that starts I get to finally relax as does my partner. The amount of sleep my partner has gotten is incredible and they deserve it dang it! This brings us to today, The last day of September 2021. This are changing at work and I'm not wholly sure of how I feel but I know it will be an interesting discussion for me to have with my therapist coming up. That's all I've got for now.. Hopefully I'll pop back in sooner to give more perspective on what its like living through all of this chaos. Just keep moving forward.

#lostmoonbunny #globalpanini #livingthroughaglobalcrisis #itsachaoticworld #life update #my life #grow #hopeful #becoming me #very tired

[ellewritesathing]

Faith and Forgiveness    I

Summary: Faith was tricky, fickle. When you've been trained your whole life to do awful things, you have to have faith that your misdeeds will be worth it in the end and trust that your faith hasn't been misplaced. The Weeping Monk wasn’t so sure that he was capable of that trust.

Masterlist   Part 1

Word-count: 4.6k+

A/N: hey so originally this was supposed to be a single part fic but it was like 10k words and i needed validation so i split it up!! hope you like it anyway💕

War was a tricky business. The business of making rich men richer and starving the rest, burning the rest. Not the business of honest men; war was the business of liars and thieves, and you had to leave pieces of yourself behind if you wanted to survive. 

You had to survive because you were one of the last ones, even if you were just a watered-down version of the original. The Moon Wings were one of the first clans to be burned, but you were one of the lucky ones to only be taken prisoner, blessed enough to be chosen to be saved from damnation. 

Stubborn enough to escape from the bastards and vow to rescue anyone else who was unlucky enough to be forced into your position. 

But saving people was a tricky business. The business of making righteous men into enemies and prolonging the tragic lives of the rest. Not the business of honorable men; salvation was the business of the broken and the damned, and you had to leave pieces of yourself behind if you wanted to survive. 

Salvation was also very costly, which is why you left Squirrel in the trees and promised to take him to Nemos when you had the money to get him there. The knights of Pendragon were ridiculously oblivious targets, just like their king, so it was supposed to be a quick beating and stealing. 

Unfortunately, a few stray fey folk here and a couple of Red Paladins there had ruined your perfectly good plan. Perhaps none ruined it more so than the Weeping Monk. 

He was good, you had to admit. A truly skilled fighter, even though he was a pain in the ass. Most of the fey had gotten away while you fought with him, but so did your knights and their gold. You didn’t have time to dwell on your loss, though, because the Weeping Monk threw you against a tree and pressed a knife to your throat. 

“Stop talking or I’ll cut out your tongue,” he said under his breath. His words were tinged with danger and mint, and it was the first time he’d spoken during your one-sided verbal and double-edged physical sparring match. 

Ignoring the few drops of blood that trickled down your throat, you moved a few centimeters closer to his face. “If it made you smile, I’d bite it off myself.” He pushed you back into the tree, bits of bark digging into your back as you laughed. 

The knife dug into your throat but not enough to aggravate the wound, but it was enough to cut your laugh into an amused smile. You were about to ask if you’d struck a nerve when the first arrow flew through the air. 

Ordinarily, the Weeping Monk never would have been hit by an arrow like that, but his attention was on you and not the assailant in the dark. The arrow landed in his lower back and was met with an annoyed groan rather than a cry of pain. 

He spun around, pulling the knife off your throat to knock away the next arrow. He stalked further into the woods and your eyes caught on something shiny to the right of him. The knights had circled back and they were hungry. 

Sure, the Weeping Monk could take out an entire banner of knights by himself, but that was when he didn’t have an arrow between one of his kidneys and his liver. 

You knew that if you left him to be killed in the woods that you would probably be saving countless fey lives, but a very annoying voice in your head reminded you of a promise you made to the ashes of your village - a promise to save anyone from an unjust killing. 

To be fair, you hadn’t known you’d be saving the Weeping Monk when you’d made the promise, but Moon Wings weren’t ones to break promises and neither were you. So, against your better judgment, you followed him into the woods. 

He seemed to be doing fine on his own, though you’d expect nothing less from the Weeping Monk. He did, however, have a knight that was about to stab him in the back. The Weeping Monk turned just in time to see you knock the knight out with the hilt of your blade. 

He was about to say something, most probably not thank you, when blood spilled from his lips and he collapsed.

After your brief shock, you dove to check that he was still alive. His pulse was fading but it was, frustratingly, still there. You took your hand off his neck and grabbed a fistful of his cloak to pull him up. Looping your arms underneath his shoulders, you started dragging him somewhere safe. 

The Weeping Monk was heavier than he looked, proper deadweight in his unconscious state, but you managed to get him to the caves in one piece. He was a quick healer, too, considering that he woke up before you’d even applied the salve. 

Feeling venomously playful, you wiped the salve off your knife and moved the blade to his throat. “Don’t talk or I’ll cut out your tongue,” you warned in a rushed whisper. 

Surprisingly, the Weeping Monk didn’t fight you. He looked at you as best as he could from the position on his stomach, and asked in a voice far more venomous than playful, “What are you doing to me?” 

You took your knife off his throat and sat back down with a sigh. “I’m trying to save your life,” you said. “You’ve got a nasty wound on your back but I’ve got something to fix it. It’s going to hurt when I take the arrow out and burn after.” 

He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Just leave me in the woods to bleed out.”

“I didn’t just drag you all the way in here to drag you out there again.” As you spoke, you wrapped one hand around the arrow and grabbed hold of his shirt with your other. “Just lie still and-” 

He moved so quickly that you thought the Weeping Monk was going to kill you, but all he did was catch your wrist. Not rough enough to leave a bruise, but enough to shock you to let go of his shirt. “Don’t.”

“You’ll die if I don’t,” you said. Your voice wasn't necessarily confrontational, but it told whoever was listening that you weren't willing to back down. “You’re one hell of a fighter but it looks like that’s what made it worse.” 

“I don’t care.” Maybe it was the way sound echoed in these caves, but he sounded so resigned to his fate that it tugged at your heartstrings. 

“Well, I care,” you told him. You repositioned your hold on the arrow. “Now hold still.” You tore the arrow out of his back before he could argue.

His screams echoed off the walls. It was painful to hear and even more so to watch his entire body writhe the way it did, but soon it was over and you were pressing a wad of his cloak to stop the bleeding. 

“There,” you murmured, lifting a hand to move some hair off his sweat-soaked forehead. Seeing him covered in sweat and blood did a funny thing to your chest; you’d been stabbed in your chest before but this was something else. “There. The hard part is over.”

“Maybe for you,” the Weeping Monk said quietly. He met your eyes and suddenly you realized what that feeling was: heartbreak. At that moment, all you wanted to do was fix how broken he seemed. 

Slowly, before you could do something stupid like befriending him, you pulled your hand away from his face and let it fall away from him. In a voice small enough to fit how small the cave had become, you said, “This next part will sting.” 

The Weeping Monk clenched his jaw and looked away from you again. If he noticed the sudden lack of air in the cave and space between you, he didn’t mention it. “Just get it over with,” he said. 

You flexed the hand that had touched his face and took a deep breath. Blood seeped through his cloak and onto your other hand, so you moved to focus on the wound instead of the Weeping Monk’s frustratingly imperceptible face. 

The salve was on the edge of your knife and you set the wadded up and bloodied cloak to the side to apply it. You lifted the edge of his shirt with one and hand and folded it up to assess the damage to the Weeping Monk’s lower back. For a moment, the cave lost all its air again as you took in the constellation of scars. New and old crossed over one another, marred by bruises and scabbed over lashes. 

You took a breath and reminded yourself that at least some of these scars had to come from fey that he’d killed. With new-found resolve, you glided your knife over the wound to apply the salve and watched the black smoke rise from the wound. You rubbed the salve into and around the wound as you whispered an old prayer that hadn’t escaped your lips in years and ignored the Weeping Monk’s quiet curses. 

All this work to save a man that you weren’t sure could even be saved. Ironic.

It was quiet for a long time as the two of you sat in the cave, him too busy trying to heal and you too focused on your an internal crisis. You knew he had eventually passed out again when the whimpering stopped. His back still rose and fell with his breathing, so you decided it was safe enough to leave him alone and find something to eat before both of you starved. 

The woods were quiet and dark, but nighttime was when the Moon Wings thrived. After a few careful words to the night birds, you had a small but decent-sized assortment of berries and nuts. One of the birds even stole some roast off someone’s fire. Plenty enough to see you through the night. 

Though you weren't gone for very long, you found the Weeping Monk awake, leaning heavily on the cold stone walls of the cave, and holding a knife in your direction. 

You muttered a curse and tilted your head at him. “This is how you thank the person who saved your life?” 

“Where did you go?” he asked. He looked frantic, still covered in the same cold sweat but his eyes were wild. No, his eyes were determined. The Weeping Monk didn’t drop the knife, but at least he didn’t try to stab you. 

“Getting food.” You lifted your bag and shook it around so he could hear the food bouncing around inside. “If you lower the knife, I might even share.” You moved closer but he waved the knife slightly. You came to a stop and your final footstep echoed. 

“Why are you helping me?” he asked. “It’s not going to help you find salvation.” 

Truth be told, you didn't have a very good reason for saving him, but he didn't need to know that. “I don’t need salvation," you told him instead. "I know I’m damned.” 

You lowered your bag of food and closed the distance between you after you reminded yourself that you could open his wound in a single kick if he tried to stab you. 

“I could kill you.” The Weeping Monk watched your every move, but he lowered the knife. Oddly enough, his eyes were filled with more curiosity than suspicion - only a small trace of the determination to kill you remained.

“Like in the woods?” You set the bag of food down and sat across from him. “I was doing pretty well for myself out there.”

“I had you pinned against a tree with a knife to your throat.” 

“I had a knife under your ribcage. One move and I could have torn open your heart, assuming you have one of those.”

The Weeping Monk gave you the ghost of a bitter smile but he didn’t say anything. Instead of looking at him, you opened your bag and did a quick inventory of the food. Water was dripping somewhere in the cave system and it was the only sound as you divvied up the food, very aware of the Weeping Monk’s eyes on you as you did.

You slid his portion over to him without a word and leaned back against your side of the tunnel wall. After a brief staring contest, you started eating. He ate in silence. You did, too, mostly. Or at least, you did until he cracked a nut under the hilt of his blade and the sound felt too similar to the sound of a snapping bone. 

You took your eyes off the knife to look at his face. “Do you have a name?” 

He looked up for a moment. “No.” 

“Do you have something else I can call you?” 

“No.” 

“Well, the Weeping Monk is a bit of a mouthful so-” you let out a breath and broke up the nut in your hand “-Sunshine it is. Since you’ve got such a chipper personality and stellar conversation skills.”

The Weeping Monk watched you carefully, probably wondering if it was too late to cut your tongue. He chose to return his attention to his share of the food instead of dignifying your taunt with a response. For some reason, his silence bothered you.

Since asking for his name had gone over so well, you decided to try an even heavier topic. “Why do you kill people?” You were careful to keep your voice level as you popped a berry into your mouth in an effort to seem disinterested. 

The Weeping Monk looked up at you again, eyes catching yours over the small fire he’d managed to get going while you were gone. “I don’t kill people,” he said. “I kill fey.” 

“Do you truly think that’s any better?” Your voice betrayed you by sounding too concerned; his face betrayed him by looking too vulnerable. His walls dropped for only a moment, but it was enough for you to see the pain behind them. “Oh, you do, don’t you?”

“I don’t need pity from a fey mercenary.” His words were laced with venom and blood. He threw the mixed nuts he’d been crushing to the side and they clattered against the uneven cave floor. 

“Well, you need it from someone,” you said, determined not to take his jab personally. Still, your hands clenched tightened into fists in your lap. “I don’t see any of your Red Paladins giving a damn about you.” 

“They are my brothers.” 

“Only in name.”

“Don’t,” he said, voice cautionary. It was dangerously soft and full of emotion, but you couldn’t figure out exactly which emotion. Fear? Apprehension? Determination?

You put your hands to the side and leaned in closer to him. “If you’re their brother, then why haven’t they come for you?” 

For a moment, all the two of you did was stare at each other and wait for the other to break. His breath was shaky where yours was calm. Both of you were calculating, you how difficult it would be to subdue him and him how easy it would be to slit your throat in your sleep. 

When minutes passed without either of you breaking, you sighed and leaned back against your wall. “It’s going to take some time for that to heal. Since we both know I’m not going to kill you, you should sleep first. We can go our separate ways in the morning.” 

“I’d like nothing more,” he said bitterly. 

Though he laid down, his hand still clutched his sword and his breathing never deepened. You didn’t speak to him again. It was clear that every word he spoke to you was against his will. Pretending to sleep was easier, and he was probably hoping it would lull you into a false sense of security. 

When he passed out earlier, he looked so full of pain. That pain wasn’t visible now and, even if it was just pretend, he looked peaceful like that. His face was expressionless, his muscles were relaxed. You wondered if he was always pretending or if he actually slept in the camps. Those Paladins might not care about him, but they would never dare harm their precious soldier. 

He didn't sleep around you because you were a threat. Even though you’d probably shown the Weeping Monk more kindness in an evening than the Paladins had in his lifetime, judging by those scars on his back, you were still fey. Still a threat. If Paladins weren’t a threat, did he sleep around them?

“What kind are you?” he asked, snapping you out of your musings. You hadn’t realized that he’d opened his eyes until he spoke. His voice was less angry now, but that didn't mean he wasn't still planning on slitting your throat the first chance he got.

“Moon Wing,” you said, looking up from the blade in your hand. “We were among the first to burn.” 

He watched you carefully as you put the sword to the side. “How did you survive?” 

“It was before the Paladins had a taste for blood. Instead of killing us all, they took a few of us who passed for humans to sell,” you said. His face remained cold and expressionless. “I was the most human-looking, so they kept me as their trophy, their symbol. Their warning.” 

The water punctuated your words. Each drop made your words more sinister. 

“They said terrible things when they cut off my wings and transferred them to some other group of Paladins. I think Father Carden still has them on display somewhere but I’m not sure.” You looked over to your sword again, just to get away from those unflinching hazel eyes of his. You shook your head and finished your story. “That night, I waited until they were asleep and cut out their tongues. Then I ran.” 

Drop. Drop. Drop. 

“They call you the Angel of Mercy,” he said. He’d been watching your sword before but now his eyes were fixed on yours. 

“I didn’t choose the name.” 

“Father Carden says mercy is a virtue we can’t afford.” 

“Father Carden says a lot of things.” You were determined not to look away. “I wonder what he’ll say to God for all his sins.”

“And to which of your gods are you referring?” he asked, angling his face up slightly. Confrontational, but he seemed more curious than venomous.

“Whichever one you’d like, Sunshine,” you said with a smile. His mouth turned up slightly, not in agreement but out of amusement. “It’s not about knowing which one exists, is it? It’s about doing good and trusting that it’ll be worth it later on. That’s faith, isn’t it?” 

He was quiet. He looked away first this time. “I suppose it depends on your definition of doing good.”

Even if he wasn’t looking at you, you were looking at him. “My definition is pretty basic. Good is not killing people when you can help it.” 

The Weeping Monk set his jaw. He was doing his best not to snap at you again - that was progress, at least. Maybe he wasn’t defending them because he knew he could never win you over, but you liked to think that it was because you were getting through to him. 

Converts were a dirty breed, or so you’d been told. Always more righteous than the born-believer. But what did the Weeping Monk believe? Was he born believing it or just trained to? 

You knew you would regret it before you even knew what you were doing, your hands moving on their own as they unclasped a small pouch on your belt. You rolled the quill back and forth between your thumb and forefinger, admiring how bright the feather was even in this darkness. The white reflected in the Weeping Monk’s eyes. 

You leaned forward and placed the feather on his sword, the edge barely touching his hand. It was the closest you’d gotten to him since you touched his face and saw his scars. 

“What’s this?” he asked. 

Your voice was devoid of all confrontation when you spoke again, softness taking the place of anger. “All that’s left of my wings.”

“I don’t want it.” He lost his softness and the venomous defense returned, but his hand still twitched to hold the feather. Progress.

“Then burn it,” you said. You shook your head and leaned back to your side of the cave tunnel. “I can’t keep carrying it around.”

“Why give it to me?” he asked. “You could sell it - you might even get some silver for it.”

You shrugged. “You’re the only one that knows where it comes from.” You watched each other for a second, neither of you saying anything. Then the silence became suffocating and you glanced to the mouth of the cave. “Dawn will break soon. I’m going to sleep, but know that if you kill me then I will come back to haunt you.” 

Without another word, you slid down the wall and curled up. You used your arm as an uncomfortable pillow, more used to sleeping in trees than pretending to sleep in caves, and held onto your knife. 

The Weeping Monk was quiet for a long time after that. He must have thought you were sleeping because his hand curled around the feather and you heard him move. Instinctively, you gripped your knife in your hand and waited. 

More movement muffled with the burning-out fire and dripping cave water, and then something covered you. His bloody cloak, you realized. 

“I get the feeling you’ll be haunting me either way,” he said softly. 

With considerable effort, he made his way back to his side of the cave and winced as he lowered himself back down to the ground. He might have gotten some real sleep after that for all you knew, but you didn’t. You weren’t sure if people like you ever got real sleep anymore. 

You counted down every water droplet until the sunlight started filtering through the cracks in the rock. The Weeping Monk hadn’t moved since he covered you and you stole a look at him with the sunlight on his face. He was pretty like this, not the same way that people were attractive but in the way a like a painting that was alluring as long as it didn't burn. 

Instead of waiting for him to burn, you reminded yourself that he’d need water when he woke up and that you needed to get off the cave floor before your muscles petrified. 

As quietly as you could, you got up and followed the sound of the water droplets. You ran your hand along the mossy rocks and swallowed big gulps of air to wake up.

The water trickled down the moss and dropped onto the floor, only a tiny pothole where the water dropped over the centuries. Every drop splashed out of the miniature pool. You knelt and held your canteen under the moss until there was enough to grace each of you with a few sips. You capped it and started heading back to the Weeping Monk, wondering if he would be awake and threatening you with a knife. 

Your wonderings were unfounded; the Weeping Monk was gone when you got back. He’d taken his cloak and any trace he’d ever been there with him, even the feather. Wherever he went, you knew he wouldn’t be coming back. 

So, you sat down in front of the remnants of his fire, drank his share of the water, and ate what was left of his share of the food from the night before. When that was finished and you’d caught your breath, you set off to meet Squirrel in the trees. 

You’d told him how to get to Nemos and to leave if you didn’t come back the next night, but Squirrel was a stubborn kid. He’d found you in the woods after his village burned and he escaped, babbling about how he had to find Nimue. His sister, you thought, but he didn’t say. All he said was that he needed to find her. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that she was probably dead, so you told him you’d take him to a place where he might find her. 

Still, Squirrel wouldn’t go there until you came back for him. And he was probably bull-headed enough to come looking for you, too. 

While you were thinking about Squirrel, a twig snapped. You froze, readying yourself for a fight. It might have been an animal, but you doubted it. The only safe animals came out at night while the Red Paladins slept. 

There were more of them than you expected, too many for you to run away from and too many for you to subdue. You were going to start killing them when one of them caught your arms and shoved you into a tree hard enough to crack a few ribs. 

“Stop struggling-” the Weeping Monk pushed you into the tree again when you tried to get out of his hold “-Or I’ll cut out your tongue.” 

“Don’t-” You twisted out of his grip, ignoring the pain in your wrist “-tell me-” you kicked him in the stomach “-what to do.” 

You took a breath in the moment that the two of you stared at one another.

The kick must have hurt, but you both knew that his wound had healed by now so the kick wouldn’t have caused any real damage. The Weeping Monk snapped out of the moment first, and you ducked his blow. You managed to land a few of your own before the other Paladins caught up with you.

They bound your wrists and ankles and threw you in one of their damned carts to rot. The Weeping Monk took your weapons, but he didn’t look at you or speak to you again. You were both thinking the same thing, though: you saved his life only to have him sacrifice you to Father Carden. 

The Paladins may have bound you but they hadn’t gagged you, and you were determined to make it their problem. You cracked inappropriate jokes at their expense and yelled obscenities when that didn’t give you the reaction you wanted while you struggled to undo the binds that held you.

One of the Paladins had a shorter temper than his friends, or perhaps just less afraid of overstepping his boundaries with the Weeping Monk, because he cursed and kicked the bars of your cage. “We didn’t take you for your damned mouth,” he said harshly, “so shut up or I’ll burn you myself.”

“No one is touching the Angel,” the Weeping Monk said over his shoulder. His face was ashen and angry, without a single trace of what happened in the cave - though, for some reason, you still found yourself intrigued by him. He turned to look ahead when the Paladin had drifted from your cage. With his eyes fixed ahead, he added, “Without Father Carden’s consent.”

All the harsh words in the world lay on the tip of your tongue but you couldn’t bring yourself to breathe them to life, not because you weren’t angry enough but because you had to focus on something else instead. Squirrel was stubborn enough to come looking for you, but he wasn’t stupid enough to go straight into the heart of Paladin territory. 

At least, that’s what you hoped. 

Part 2

#i watch cursed for the plot #cursed #the weeping monk #reader insert

[arukou-arukou]

A Non-zero Chance

I jumbled the timeline as I was writing this. Just go with it, okay? For @stevetonygames prompt Fluff: Sparring, for team angst. Also adding fic non-linear and tropes: soulmates. Angst with a hopeful ending. Mentions of sex acts. Canon typical violence. There is a read more line after the first section.

 Many many months after that faithful day in Sibera, Tony returned to the scene of the crime. The site was untouched. He hadn’t told Ross about it, and apparently T’Challa had decided well enough was better left alone. The holes they’d put into the bunker of the facility had completely covered over in frost and ice, and Tony had to wonder how Zemo had even dug the little hillock out in the first place. Though there had been a snowcat parked outside when they all first arrived. Without any care, though, it had once again faded into the arctic surroundings. Only someone who knew what they were looking for would find it.

Tony broke in through the holes rather than the front door. He wasn’t really in a mood for digging, and as satisfying as it might be to melt snow with an overloaded repulsor, this mission was also supposed to be stealth and secretive, and he didn’t really need Ross any further up his ass.

Inside, the evidence of their fight wasn’t as big or horrifying as he remembered. There were some structures that had toppled, and a few spots where he’d scorched cement with a repulsor, but it didn’t look nearly as bad as he remembered it being. The Avengers had certainly done worse elsewhere. Tony ran his hand over a shield-shaped crack in the wall.

—

 “This is ridiculous, Cap, we need to know how to fight together, not fight each other.”

Steve smiles back over his shoulder. His ridiculously broad shoulder. “After Wanda mind-whammied us, I’m not taking any chances. We should all know how to incapacitate each other just as a precaution.”

“Only incapacitate, Steve? Not maim?”

Steve chuckles and starts strapping on boxing tape. “No maiming on the docket today. Maybe next Tuesday.”

 —

 Tony followed their trail of destruction back into the heart of the bunker, where the super soldiers still rested suspended, illuminated in sickly yellow. There was the fucking TV, right there. The thing that had ruined it all. Tony stared down at it, wondering where the tape reel itself was located. Probably back in that room Zemo had been hiding in. The bulletproof one. Somewhere in the hallways, Tony could hear water dripping. Impressive, really, given the permafrost all around. He would’ve thought the systems had frozen over long ago. Near his foot, there was a gun, the semi-automatic Barnes had been carrying. It was useless now, its clip and firing mechanisms slagged by his repulsors. He picked it up all the same and aimed it at the glass where Zemo had hidden. The suit’s fingers were too thick to fit over the trigger—what was left of it anyway—so Tony just imagined how satisfying it would be to fill that glass full of shrapnel, to watch Zemo crumple to the ground.

 —

 “Why are you even training me, Rogers? I’m retired. Aren’t you supposed to be looking after the rookies?”

“Just because you’re retired, Tony, doesn’t mean trouble won’t come looking for you. You’re a pretty attractive target.”

“Why yes. Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing.”

Steve punches his bicep gently before offering a bottle of water. Tony takes it, squirting some into his mouth before moving on to his sweat-drenched hair. On Steve’s left wrist, he catches sight of the red band that hides Steve’s words. It would be rude to ask. Totally taboo. But Tony can’t stop himself.

 —

 Tony managed to jimmy his way into the control room, and there he found the VCR, still loaded with the incriminating tape. If he were smart, he would just rip the thing apart, burn the tape and shatter the shell. And Tony was smart. Just not smart in the right ways. He fired up the power to the TV, rewound the tape, and then hit play again. He’d rewound too far. Barnes was in his cryo tube. Some slimy scientists were hauling him out, shoving him into some horrifying chair, pushing down the nodes, saying the words.

No. Tony didn’t want this. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for Barnes. He wanted to let his rage fester and corrode him until he didn’t care anymore. All caring had ever gotten him was betrayal.

 —

 “Do you know who they belong to?” Tony asks, looking up defiantly, refusing to be sheepish about his lack of willpower. Steve glances down at his band before looking up again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He looks wistful and boyish, sweet and beautiful. Tony wants to kiss away the sorrow he sees in that face.

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”

“Oh.” Tony touches his own band, thinking of the words beneath. He’s my friend. The most significant thing anyone will ever say to him. The thing that, if the romantics would have him believe it, points him toward his soulmate. He’s never really gone in for that, though. His parents had had each other’s words, and their marriage was anything but blissful and romantic.

No. Tony’s got a different theory about the words.

 —

 There. Tony spotted it before even knowing he was looking for it. On Barnes’ collarbone. Had fate known he would lose the arm? It was unusual for words to be somewhere else on the body. Non-dominant wrist. That was the norm. The tap quality was shit and Tony couldn’t enhance it without bringing the tape back to Fry. And like hell he was bringing the tape home. Were the files somewhere? Hadn’t Zemo had a book? Maybe it was here?

Tony searched the control room, trying to find evidence of the thing Zemo had used to control Barnes. There was no sign of it, but what there were were dozens of filing drawers, all of them covered in a layer of dust. Tony started digging.

 —

 Steve’s off his game today, Tony can tell. He’s distracted by something, mind not in the ring, and Tony takes advantage. Just like Steve and Nat taught him to. He sweeps Steve’s leg, rolls on top of him, pins his leg in a position that's precariously dangerous even for a supersoldier, and applies weight. “Yield?”

It’s late, the halls are quiet. Tony hadn’t even meant to do sparring with Steve today, but Steve had asked, so Tony had delayed his return to New York City and well, the late hour puts his mind elsewhere.

Their eyes lock. Tony’s still on top of Steve, holding him in place, threatening his knee joint. Between one breath and the next, their positions are flipped, Steve on top of Tony, both of them hard, teeth clacking. Tony doesn��t make it back to New York City that night.

 —

 What felt like hours later, Tony finally discovered what looked like a medical log. He’d been trying to learn Russian, but adding a new script was harder than adding a spoken language, and he was a busy man, what with covering Rogers’ ass every other day. Natasha might have been a master spy, but Steve was a puppy who hadn’t learned how to control his tail wag yet, and he left destroyed crockery in his wake. There was always some trail to some terrorist or smuggler or weapons dealer that needed cleaning up, lest Ross take notice. The point being, Tony’s Russian wasn’t exactly sparkling.

But he’d double-checked ahead of time to know what he was looking for and now he was pretty sure he’d found it. Flipping through the file, Tony found what he wanted to know almost instantly. ‘Til the end of the line. The words. Those words.

 —

 It’s a thing. Sort of. Tony comes to the compound. They spar. They fuck. It’s only their third time sleeping together that Steve drags him into the shower, wristband conspicuously absent. Tony touches the thin skin, for once asking permission before he looks down. Steve nods, trusting, contented. I’m with you to the end of the line, pal. “He” Steve had said. Tony doesn’t need to ask to know who “he” is. There was only one really important “he” in Steve’s life way back when. And it makes sense, too. After all, Barnes plunged to his death trying to protect Steve and Steve had tried to protect him just as hard. Of course they’re important to each other.

“Can I see yours,” Steve asks, kissing Tony’s band. Fair’s fair, Tony thinks to himself, and nods.

Steve gently unclasps the snaps and sets the band aside outside the shower. He looks down at the words and then up at Tony with a silent question. “I don’t know whose they are.”

“And you’re still okay with us?”

“Steve, I’m standing naked in a shower with you. I’m pretty damn okay with this.”

The bright grin Steve gives him feels like a gift.

 —

 Tony left, hauling the tape and the filing cabinets behind him. They would be useful sooner or later, he was sure. And it felt so important, hauling his literal baggage along with him back to the US. Well, first a pit stop in Wakanda so Shuri could make copies. Fry flew the quinjet on autopilot, which was maybe a mistake. Tony needed distractions and all he had were files rendered in Russian, which were frankly giving him a headache. He wanted to hate Barnes so much. But fate was literally sending him a message. Barnes. Rogers. ‘Til the end of the line.

Eventually, frustrated, he managed to sink into a fitful sleep, which took him to Wakanda’s borders. T’Challa sent along an escort at the shield wall to make sure Tony was alone and also to make sure Tony didn’t cause any undue trouble. As if he could manage anything more than a nervous breakdown at the moment. Shuri was waiting for him on the platform, and for her and her brilliant mind, he managed a tired smile.

“Brought a present for you.”

“Thank you, Tony. I would get them myself, but—”

“No, no. You’re busy in Oakland kicking science ass and shooting layups with the youth. Let the old guy take care of the analog—” Tony shuddered theatrically “—files.”

Shuri smiled more brightly and kissed him on the cheek. “You look tired. Go see my mother. She’ll be wanting to mother you.”

“I shouldn’t. I’ve gotta—”

“My brother has already ensured that General Ross cannot find you. Go. Eat some food. Get some rest. Perhaps we can talk about your latest arc reactor designs in the morning. I have some ideas.”

“I bet you do.”

Tony knew when he’d been dismissed, and he also knew he was being handled a little, but it felt nice to be handled. It felt nice to not have to be trying to outwit Ross at every turn for a little while. So he allowed Ramonda to stuff him full of delicious, spicy food and then shuffled off to the guest wing, intent on getting at least four hours before he took off.

But the second he laid down, he was awake and restless, unable to settle. His thoughts kept going back to those files, going back to the “end of the line,” thinking again and again about the letters carved into Steve’s skin. How many times had he kissed that wrist? How many times had Steve kissed his? How was it fair, that Steve would be Tony’s words, but Tony wouldn’t be Steve’s?

Fed up, he yanked on a pair of loose cotton pants and a loose cotton T-shirt and wandered the palace, looking for distraction. None of the guards stopped him, though they watched him with considerable distrust. He didn’t blame them. He wouldn’t trust him either. Not anymore. It was only when he heard the sound of skin slapping leather that he stopped short. That sounded like… But it couldn’t be. All the same, he pushed through the door, freezing as he discovered a huge training ground, Steve inside, alone at a punching bag.

Steve froze too, and the bag caught him on the backswing, smacking him straight in the nose. Tony found himself caught between laughing and rushing forward with concern, and ended up doing a bit of both, snorting as he approached, though he remained well out of Steve’s personal bubble. “Smooth, Cap.”

“Tony, what are you doing here?”

Tony scuffed his toes into the mats, which felt solid right up until he kicked them and then gave way like kinetic sand. It felt heavenly and he wanted to play with it and see what it was made out of. “Oh, you know. Just dropped in for a cuppa with the King.”

“Did…did you bring those files?” Steve remained sprawled on the floor, looking up at him, a trickle of blood trailing from his nose.

“And if I did?”

Steve swallowed heavily, rubbing at the blood and smearing it. And then he was up, faster than Tony could react to, holding Tony, kissing him sloppily through mumbled “I’m sorry’s.” Tony didn’t know how to react. Was this what an out-of-body experience felt like? He remained motionless even as Steve broke away, jumping back, looking more unsure than he’d looked since he and Tony first met. “Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… You don’t want…” Steve took a huge breath and squared his shoulders, looking Tony in the eye. “That was wrong of me. I hurt you. In so many ways. It was wrong of me to kiss you.”

“Also pretty sure you’re cheating on your boyfriend if you kiss me. Don’t forget that bit.”

The little line between Steve’s eyebrows deepened. “Bucky and I, we’re not… We’re just not. I thought we would. But I can’t. Every time I tried, I felt like I was betraying you. And Bucky felt like it was wrong, too. We didn’t…we didn’t click. Not romantically, anyway.”

“You’re not…” Tony could barely dare to let himself to hope. “Didn’t you back in the war, though?”

“No. No, we didn’t. It was too much, running missions, fighting Hydra. Plus, he was afraid I’d get caught and outed. So we didn’t. I should’ve told you. But I didn’t think it mattered.”

All the thoughts Tony used to have about the words, the idea that maybe they had nothing at all to do with romance, came back to him. He ran a finger over his own wrist, where Steve’s words were hidden.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Yeah?” Steve stood there, square, looking as though he was waiting to be punched, ready to take his punishment like a man.

“Wanna spar?”

#writing #fanfiction #steve/tony #stony #angst with a happy ending #team angst

[stressedspidergirlsfandomblog]

Day 3: Cursed

Title: Cursed

Ship: Geralt x Dandelion

Prompt Day: 3

Medium: Books / Netflix Mashup

Warnings: Self-hatred, references to past abuse Geralt has canonically suffered. Non-graphic sex.

Summary: “You think you’re different. You flaunt your otherness, what you consider abnormal. You aggressively impose that abnormality on others, not understanding that for people who think clear-headedly you’re the most normal man under the sun, and they all wish that everyone was so normal. What of it that you have quicker reflexes than most and vertical pupils in sunlight? That you can see in the dark like a cat? That you know a few spells?” -Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny

Dandelion is cursed to read minds and finds out just how wrong his past words have been.

Read me on Ao3 instead

Word Count: 8651

Author’s Note: This exchange always bothered me in the books. Dandelion dismissing the obvious pain and humiliation and suffering Geralt endures because he’s a witcher. Arguably in some ways he probably thinks he’s helping but it doesn’t make things any better for Geralt in general. I wanted a less verbose Geralt to give a reason for the curse, So I’m tossing in some Netflix canon.

Dandelion had always wondered what Geralt was thinking. His companion was usually taciturn, and at turns rude. He spoke at length on monsters, and not much else. Not to mention some of Geralt’s other bedpartners hadn’t seemed to be… on the up and up. Coral had left Dandelion with so many questions, and Geralt hadn’t seemed to know why he was bedding the witch either. At least with Yennefer he knew. Even if he was an idiot about it.

Triss hadn’t seemed right, either, he had never known Geralt to have any interest in her, and then he’d found himself in her bed. Needless to say, the bard was occasionally left wondering if Geralt truly wanted to be in his bed, or was just grateful for any company at all. He believed himself too other to find an easily willing bedpartner, and frequently fucked women who saw him as a curiosity to satisfy rather than a man. Or at least he had. Now, he was rubbing himself against the bard several times a week. While Geralt had given no indication he wanted to stray, or wasn’t enjoying himself, Dandelion still wondered. He had never known Geralt to bed a man before, but he supposed the witcher’s keep only housed men, and perhaps that’s how he’d started his ‘career’ as it were. The poet had never been brave enough to ask.

So when he found himself in town waiting for Geralt to come back from a contract, he went browsing local shops and markets to kill time. He hadn’t intended to go into a magic shop, it wasn’t as if he needed philters or potions to enhance their lovemaking. Nor much of anything else that he would find there. Geralt was free of disease, as was he, so he didn’t need cures.

Dandelion did, however, debate on some healing salves and bruise balms for his companion. Geralt wouldn’t outwardly appreciate it but would allow the poet to apply them to his hurts. A book caught his eye as he browsed, the shopkeeper busy with another set of patrons off in the corner of the shop. Having spent enough time around witchers and sorcerers, Dandelion knew this shop was the real deal. The book was likely to be a real spell book of sorts. To amuse himself, he began to flip through it.

There was a ‘curse’ of some kind, to be able to read a person’s mind. The parts he skimmed were the opening parts about prying, lesson learned, curse, deepest secrets, and so forth. What he committed to memory were the ingredients and other steps. Some herbs he already had, something of Geralt’s, or something that held his essence…well he shed that white hair all over and Dandelion was sure he’d find some on their pillow or in their bags somewhere. If not, there would be something else of his that should do. Then he had to speak some words in Elder and that should be enough. Dandelion could not tap into the Source, but the spell didn’t seem to require it if the person you were ‘cursing’ to have their thoughts read could. Or perhaps the curse was the person who would then be able to read minds? The spell would end when it ended, he didn’t bother to read anything about that, either.

A harmless little gimmick. It probably wouldn’t work, and if it did, he would get his question answered and the spell would fade away.

He purchased some extra bandaging, a little more healing salve, and then went back to the attic they were staying in. The only entrance was external, so he wouldn’t have to pass through the house. A sort of friend of Geralt’s had been happy to give them a place to stay. There was a small table and chair, both rickety, and a paillasse to sleep on with a few candles here and there in small dishes around the room. Dandelion set up the healing supplies on the table, in case they were needed. Geralt didn’t always get hurt, or sometimes the most he got was a bruise or two. And other times… other times he came back a mess.

Bored after a while, he had explored the town quite thoroughly and had found nothing all that interesting to do. Ordinarily he might have gone to a brothel, but he was quite content with Geralt who did not especially enjoy when his partners left his bed. Throughout the years he and Yennefer had worked out an arrangement where they only slept with others when they weren’t together. Dandelion privately wondered if Yennefer maintained this promise, but Geralt had enhanced senses and should know. Or at least guess. And if he didn’t want to, that was his choice.

If nothing else, Dandelion had stayed faithful, and would continue to do so. Fingers drumming against his leg as he paced about, he recalled the ‘curse’. Deciding since he had no magical talent and Geralt had very little, perhaps he could try it, he set about gathering up the ingredients. Since it wasn’t going to work, there was no harm in playing pretend was there? Even if part of him hoped it would. The insight would be invaluable. Especially since Geralt was so awful at giving him details for the ballads.

Bored after, he fell asleep waiting for Geralt.

Hooves clattering and steps on the stairs leading up to the attic woke him and he was surprised to find Geralt stripped of his armor and clean already. Geralt must have gone and turned over proof of his kill and gotten paid, then gone to bathe. He always hid his money away and never shared where he put it and Dandelion didn’t much care. Better he didn’t know in case someone tried to get it.

“You’re back!” Dandelion smiled, then started oddly and frowned. Of course I’m back. He hadn’t seen Geralt’s mouth move and honestly he hadn’t expected the spell to work. Why would you think I wasn’t coming back? It was just a measly little dracolizard. “I’m just happy to see you, and clean before I get to you, to boot.”

“Hmm.” I can wash myself. I don’t always need you to do it. Even if it sometimes feels nice. I was washing myself my whole life until you showed up and kept taking over. Without asking.

“I suppose that’s that, here, let me look you over, alright? Did you get hurt?”

“No,” Geralt answers the second question but then begins tugging his shirt off to prove to the bard he isn’t lying. Not going to believe me anyway. Never take me at my word when it comes to injuries. Smelled the bruise balm from outside it’s so strong. Don’t fuss over me, just kiss me.

Able to see the hunger in Geralt’s face even under the annoyance of his thoughts, Dandelion quickly packed away the medical supplies in a bag and hoped that would lessen the smell of the salve. Then turned to Geralt who was stripping out of his pants, ostensibly to prove he was uninjured. But with the ability to read minds the poet knew Geralt wanted a lot more than a few kisses. And even without the ability, his half hard cock hanging between his legs was another good indicator of his hopes.

Don’t talk at me, just love me. Or tell me you aren’t going to and I’ll get dressed again.

“Don’t you look a sight?” The bard smiled, and felt his smile falter a little.

“Hmm.” I know I’m hideous. I’ve seen myself in the doppler. I don’t own a mirror for that reason. I don’t see why you insist on reminding me.

“Oh love,” Dandelion breathed out miserably. “Come to me, help me out of these clothes, they’re far fussier than yours.”

“Hurry up, then,” Geralt stepped in to assist him. If you drag this out the elixirs will stop any of it from happening. And after the day I’ve had, I need something good. I need to feel good. You’ve told me that matters to you, prove it. Prove it before the elixirs wear out entirely. Yennefer isn’t here with her little spell.

“I’m hurrying,” Dandelion agreed, soon naked and willing. “I love you so much,” he carefully began stroking Geralt, pushing him back towards the bed. He had seen what the witcher wanted, and he was determined to give it to him. It was a lovely image, and incredibly appealing. Soon, he was unable to speak, kissing Geralt as he pushed him down into the bed. Things rather devolved from there.

Easy, easy, my skin is more sensitive than yours. Quiet, quiet, not too loud, oh, oh yes more of that, please don’t stop, oh, oh. Push against me, I want all of you, be closer. Like that, just like that, Gentle, gentle, please, yes, treat me like that.

I can bear it, I can bear the pain if you want to be rough. Whatever it takes.

The poet had gone from stroking him off to bringing their bodies in close to rub himself against Geralt, and the thoughts running through the witcher’s head caught him off guard. He hadn’t thought once he had ever hurt his partner in bed, never known how sensitive he was to the touch especially while aroused. Perhaps the elixirs were the cause this time, he wasn’t sure, he always made sure Geralt came, and surely he wouldn’t if he wasn’t pleased? He always came back seeking more… had Dandelion been doing him some kind of disservice this whole time?

He slipped down Geralt’s body, as good as moving together had felt, he wanted to do something special. Something they didn’t indulge in often. As he brought his mouth to Geralt’s cock, he half wondered if the spell wore off because Geralt stopped thinking entirely for a few minutes.

Then, his thoughts resumed.

Geralt groaned softly, back arching and body trembling. So good at that, yes, like that. Oh, you’ve never been that gentle before, it’s good. So good. Always do it like this. Fuck. Fuck. I’m going to come early. Being wound up tight as a spring, I can feel it. Oh. Oh, please do this again. Do that. Do that… yes… I don’t want it to be over so soon.

Dandelion smiled when Geralt cried out quietly, muffling his voice with a hand over his mouth. The witcher reached out for him, determined to bring him to his own climax, to let him share in how good he felt, only to find the bard already satisfied. “Pleasing you pleases me,” Dandelion told him shortly, kissing him softly. He was now realizing that while sometimes Geralt’s hands were frantic, gripping and seeking, it was fear that drove him to reach like that. To try and cover what he could before he thought he would lose it. But his kisses, the witcher always kissed like he was kissing someone precious and fragile. Now Dandelion understood it. He gently kissed Geralt’s palms and the tips of his calloused fingers, holding one against his cheek.

“Need to sleep some,” Geralt informed him. Damned elixirs. I’d rather just go another round. Wanted more of you. Want all of you. Stay with me. I hate sleeping alone.

“I wouldn’t mind a bit of a nap myself.” Dandelion surprised them both by wrapping himself around Geralt for a change. He buried his face in the nape of the witcher’s neck, breathing in the scent of him. Soap had given way to sweat and sex, and the bard found he didn’t care. He kissed the back of Geralt’s neck gently and held him closer.

Eskel used to do this. It brought him comfort to hold me. As much as it did me. No one’s held me like this since I was a snot-nosed brat back at the keep. Feels nice. I’m so tired. So tired of hunting down these monsters that by all rights didn’t do much wrong. No more so than a human. And then getting treated like shit on a boot for it. Fucking bastards tried to underpay me , again. If a local barrister hadn’t overheard us shouting about the contract I might not have got paid at all.

Sometimes I half hope the monsters will kill me, but then I come back and you’re here, and it’s less bad. You aren’t afraid to touch me, to hold me, and I feel a little less alone. Of course if you knew you’d lord it over me, my weakness. I can see the little caper you’d cut, mocking me for hiding my feelings. I wish I could tell you. I’m just so sick and tired of being hurt.

Dandelion found himself stroking Geralt’s hair until the witcher fell asleep, utterly exhausted. The poet now felt he understood why the spell was listed as a curse. He had thought perhaps it wasn’t so bad, learning more about Geralt’s preferences in their bed. Even if it cut him to the bone to know the witcher wouldn’t speak up. Of course, sharing his thoughts also made Dandelion aware of just how strong Geralt’s enhanced senses were and how much he filtered out. The bard had no such training and had found every noise and smell Geralt was aware of rather distracting. It had pleased him, however, to know the witcher liked the smell of him.

Dandelion fell asleep again, one arm wrapped snugly around Geralt’s middle.

Please, I don’t want to. It hurt. I don’t understand. No, no, no stop. Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt them. Do what you want to me. Cut me open, take out my eyes, castrate me, all the things you’ve threatened, just don’t hurt them. I’ll beg. I’ll beg for you to hurt me if that will stop you. Please no, leave him alone, don’t make me watch. No, not her, how can I choose? Take me. Hurt me. Cut me into pieces but don’t ask me to choose.

Dandelion woke up in the room, darkness preventing him from seeing much of anything. Geralt was still asleep in his arms and it took him several minutes to realize that one, the pain was fake, and two Geralt was still dreaming. The witcher wasn’t doing anything to indicate his distress, and the bard smoothed a hand over him in an attempt to calm him. The muscles under his palm were rigid, and nothing he did helped. Geralt was well and truly trapped in the nightmare. No wonder he didn’t like sleeping alone. Dandelion pulled himself out of the bed and found some matches to light some of the candles around the room. Then he tugged on his smallclothes and a pair of pants before attempting to wake Geralt again.

Shaking his shoulder and springing away to avoid a blow worked. “Geralt, Geralt wake up, I’m here.”

Blind, blind and going to die, oh, there’s fire. I hate being burned. “Dandelion?” his voice was thick with sleep, throat tight from refusing to scream.

“Here, drink some water,” the bard passed over a cup. The water wasn’t much cooler than the room, but it was something and Geralt slaked his thirst with little ceremony. “Are you alright?”

“Of course. Why did you wake me?” Thank the gods you did. How did you know? Did I cry out? I had thought they beat that out of me long ago. I thought I had learned to be quiet. Am I slipping?

“You just felt tense, that’s all. I woke up and made to gather you back up into my arms and you were stiff as a rock,” Dandelion felt his heart squeeze. Oh, this was awful. Knowing all of this was awful. He could see the scene in his mind’s eye, as Geralt remembered it. The nightmares, an older man with lambent eyes dragging him from his bed to belt him for disturbing the night. Eyes stinging, Dandelion held Geralt as close as the witcher allowed.

“Are you alright?”

“A bad dream of my own,” he lied, heart pounding against his ribs. Who would hit a child for having a nightmare? No one with a heart, at the very least. “You know I love you?”

“Yes, Dandelion, so you’ve said.” To thousands of women and men I’m sure. And I’m sure you always think you mean it. Well, I know you don’t. I know you didn’t care much about Veverka or Akeretta. Or a great deal of the others you just wanted to dip your cock in someone else. If it isn’t wet you seem to think it’ll dry up and die like a plant in the desert. I don’t want to be one of your Veverkas. I don’t think I can much decide if what I feel for you is the same as what you feel for me until I know what you mean when you say ‘I love you’. You’ve said it to so many and for so little reason who can blame me for thinking it insincere? Much like “my little dog doesn’t bite” is always insincere. “My son is a good boy; it was that hussy that made him do it.” I wish I believed you. I want to. But it will hurt less when you turn to your next conquest if I don’t let myself believe you now.

“I mean it, Geralt. I mean it,” Dandelion told him raggedly, pained at what he heard in his lover’s mind. “Yours is the last bed I mean to share.”

“So you’ve said.” He probably believes it too, poor bastard. He might even feel guilty when it turns out not to be true. I won’t blame him. It won’t be his fault. It’s his very nature. Part of being part of his guild, even. I knew this before I got involved with him in this way. I wish he meant it. I wish he meant it like I would mean it if I could bear to say it.

Dandelion resolved then and there to go back to the shop once it was open and reread how exactly to end the spell. This is wrong. He’ll tell Geralt, he should probably tell him now, but he doesn’t mean to keep it up. He’s done them both a disservice. And in some ways, done them both a service, but this is enough. He can’t sleep and spends the rest of the night holding Geralt and stroking his hair. The witcher doesn’t dream again until near daybreak. A faceless woman with hair that shifted between red and chestnut straddled him, and he felt helpless.

Dandelion shook him awake gently, he knew what that dream meant, even if Geralt didn’t. The witcher woke hopelessly confused about his own distress. But the poet understood the confusion was deliberate. In his dream he could taste the cold tang of magic and knew exactly what was happening. It didn’t benefit him to admit any of that to himself, however, and so he didn’t. Dandelion would not be the one to make him, not when Geralt had so many other pressing horrors to face. It would be wrong to add more. At least he knew that much.

“Let’s go get us some food,” the bard suggested. “The bakeries have already got stalls in the market for people setting up. My treat, I sang in a few taverns the past two days while you were off hunting. My purse is full.” And no one had cheated him anything. Not to mention his food and drink had been paid. “And no, Geralt, I didn’t fuck anyone while you were gone. I waited for you. As I have for the past few years now.”

He isn’t lying. His heart didn’t so much as stutter. Although perhaps it was in the phrasing. Make love. Maybe he made love to someone and he’s just fucking me. Either way it won’t do to dwell on it.

“I did not have sex of any kind with anyone. I was celibate in your absence. I missed you desperately.”

He believes that, too. Perhaps he was faithful. Perhaps he has been as he says. I wonder for how long? I don’t want to go out to the market. I don’t want to see people notice what I am. They won’t feed me anyway. Dandelion won’t listen. What did he tell me all those years ago? There was nothing special about me? I was one of the most ordinary men other than my eyes and senses? I can’t remember his exact turn of phrase. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be hated everywhere he goes. No point in arguing. I don’t want to stay here alone. I’ll just hang back, let him do the haggling. Even if it means I’ll have to watch him flirt with every stall owner in town as we go.

They left the room after dressing and cleaning up, Dandelion insisting on gently wiping Geralt down first. He knew the witcher enjoyed it and found the gentle intimacy just as pleasurable as the sex they’d had earlier. So few people were willing to touch him with genuine kindness that it always pleased him. It hurt a little, to Dandelion, that Geralt felt more loved in those little moments then he did at almost any other time. But now he knew. Now he would go out of his way to have more small moments like this between them.

The agony of what he’d done cut him to the bone, knowing he had betrayed Geralt’s trust. He had become another person who would take advantage and hurt him. He would use this experience, this mistake, to change how he treated the witcher. He would treat him more like a lover. When Geralt would allow it, at least.

He slipped his arm through Geralt’s, smiling as he spoke to him at length about the gossip of the town, determined to pretend all was well. Geralt’s internal commentary about the vagaries of man and their general idiocy almost made him laugh and he realized Geralt enjoyed these talks as much as he did. He just felt like his opinion or comments would be unwelcome or extraneous. Dandelion wasn’t sure how to draw them out of him, but it was good to know they were there. In spite of his feigned irritation.

“Here, this stall has a kind of pastry you like,” Dandelion smiled, squeezing Geralt’s arm gently. “The one next to it has juice, I’ll get us some. It seems a touch nicer than water. Or watery ale so early. The sun’s hardly up. Would you like to look for a place we could rest and eat?” There, that should allow Geralt to stay hidden.

He could hear Geralt’s vague but constant internal fear people would notice him and what they would do when they did. Not everyone got ugly, but so many did. The barrage of memories of being stoned, struck, whipped, slapped, beaten, and forced out threatened to choke the poet, and he took a deep breath. It got easier when Geralt was a little further away.

Stooped on purpose, to act more like his hair was from age than a ‘harmless’ side effect of the experiments, he wanted to draw up the hood of his cloak, but no one else had and so he would still stand out like a sore thumb. His headband was in his pocket, where it couldn’t stop his hair from hiding his face. He knew in the sunlight his pupils were as slits, preventing him from being blinded by the sun. He kept his eyes cast downwards, less chance of anyone seeing him.

Don’t look at me. I’m not here. I am simply part of the scenery. I won’t hurt you. I was so stupid to think that Vesemir was wrong. I was so stupid to think that I would be seen as anything other than what I am: a monster and a mutant. What else do I do but what monsters do? Kill, fuck, eat, sleep…

Cats know us for what we are, that’s why they hiss and run. Just once, though, I might like to touch one. I’ve heard them purr from a distance, but I can’t imagine what it feels like to touch one while it’s purring. Not that I like them, but I can’t hate them, either. They perform a task. They kill vermin. Perhaps that’s another reason they hate us. How many of them died to allow their genes to be mutated to ours? Hundreds? Thousands? I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want eyes like a cat. I didn’t even want to be a witcher, I don’t think. I can’t recall anymore. Now, all I want is to be left in peace. A kind touch, food in my belly, and a contract to make sure none of that changes.

“Here, love, did you find us a place?”

“It’s a short walk.”

“That’s fine by me, I think I remembered all your favorites.”

It was then that Geralt noticed the basket the bard is carrying. There were a few small skins of juice, and several cloth wrapped items. He sniffs appreciatively, nostrils flaring when he caught the scents of cinnamon, rhubarb, and apple. There was more, like strawberry, and something he didn’t recognize that smelled sweet. His mouth watered and Dandelion kissed his cheek.

“No one had anything with meat, and I didn’t want to get any pierogis to put in and have the onion taint the sweets. We can go back later if you’re still hungry. I know how you like pierogis,” Dandelion smiled.

Geralt smiled fondly back, oddly relaxed. His body language eased, and he forgot  to hunch in on himself for a while. His sharp hearing picked up the unkind words about his appearance some people shared behind his back, guessing him to be a witcher. He hunched back down, trying to hide behind Dandelion’s peacocked clothing. Sometimes it worked. He’d left his swords in Roach’s care, knowing she would stomp anyone half to death for trying to take them. He had a dagger in his belt, and a few other knives. He wasn’t defenseless. Not that he needed a weapon to protect himself.

Dandelion felt himself wilt. Nothing he did was good enough to stop the world from hurting his lover. How did Geralt bear it? he wondered, heartsick. No wonder he and Yennefer couldn’t last if she could read his mind like that at all times. The misery would be enough to make anyone despair. And it was nothing Geralt did, it was everything around him. The minute he let himself forget someone did or said something. He had to constantly be aware of himself. He gently rubbed a hand up and down Geralt’s back while they waited for a cart to pass.

Feels nice. It’s almost like he knew I needed it. It was good to walk arm and arm, before. As friends. I know he sticks up for me, I know he cares about me. It’s good to be reminded of it in the simple things, too.

Geralt lead them to a soft patch of grass under a tree he’d noticed on their way into town. It was far enough away from the main path to avoid notice, without being inconveniently far from the town. He had anticipated needing a place to be that would shelter him from the people and had scoped out several likely spots that would allow him to resupply without putting him in danger. Dandelion felt another piece of his heart break off and shatter.

They would eat, he would go back to town with Geralt, and take him to the shop. He would admit what he did and read the spell again and find out how to end it, and he would grovel. He would apologize, he would do whatever it took to fix things between them and let Geralt know he hadn’t truly even thought it would work. He had been bored, and foolish, and selfish. Geralt often forgave him, even when he shouldn’t. He would even offer to let Geralt spell him, instead. Let him see how remorseful he was, how much he realized what he had done was horrible and wrong. Then from there, Geralt could decide to forgive him or not. If nothing else, hopefully Geralt would see that he meant it when he confessed his love. Every time. And even if the witcher chose to leave, at least he could know that much.

They ate breakfast together, Geralt humming in pleasure to see cinnamon and sugar dusted sweet rolls. These had small streaks of cinnamon and sugar also baked into the dough and he ate them carefully, doing his best not to lose a single grain of sugar to the grass beneath them.

“I should have gotten more of those. I’ll go back first thing tomorrow. Get you an even half dozen or more if they have it,” Dandelion promised. He had gotten enough for both of them to share but hadn’t said anything about it. He realized now Geralt often went hungry or didn’t eat enough in general, trying to make sure Dandelion had enough. His own appetite diminished, he slowly ate one of the apricot tarts he’d gotten, knowing Geralt wasn’t overly fond of them. When the witcher offered him one of the sweet rolls he shook his head, pained to know the offer was genuine. Geralt wanted to share with him. “Oh, please, love, eat them all. I know how much you love them. We can get more.”

Geralt then picked out some of the rhubarb tarts, surprised that Dandelion was willing to indulge him on these. It was Yennefer who had introduced him to rhubarb in general, initially in the form of various jams. Some of which had been thrown rather than served with food. Some were mixed with other fruits, and each time he offered to share he was gently denied and so he ate them. They wouldn’t keep without getting horribly soggy. The flaky pastry with the warm fruit was a comfort. It had been ages since they’d eaten like this. When the bard wasn’t the one doing the purchasing half the time they gave Geralt the worst food.

Of course, I can eat it, what does it matter if it’s burned? Or perhaps a bit turned? It won’t make me sick. I can survive just about anything, including a little mold. Can’t count how many times I’ve been given awful supplies. Didn’t have any choice but to eat them. What was I going to do, go hungry? Some places don’t have enough hunting I could turn down moldy bread and cheese. This is so much better. Warm and fresh, the berries mixed in still sweet and tart… I don’t see why he follows me about when he could eat like this always. He’s a fucking viscount. And what have I got to offer him? Jerked meat or rabbit stew if that. I can’t feed him rotten supplies. Just like the tavern last week gave me the leavings from the stew, hardly any meat. Mostly just lumps of fat and gristle, but I was hungry. They didn’t even want to give me that much. I’m just glad their bad will stops with me, and doesn’t extend to him, he doesn’t deserve it. I’m not human, I can digest almost anything, poison or food.

His thoughts were interrupted by a new kind of fruit tart he hadn’t had before, and he didn’t think of anything else while he ate it, enjoying the tangy sweet flavor of the yellow fruit cut into rings and set on top of a lightly flavored jam. At his insistence, Dandelion took a bite and promised to procure more before they left. He was aware of Dandelion’s general reek of misery, but he wasn’t sure what was causing it. It left him at times, and then came back at others and Geralt just felt lost. He didn’t think he was the cause of it, or at least he hoped not.

“You’ve got some preserve on your cheek,” Dandelion smiled, gently wiping it away and licking it off his finger. He leaned over to kiss the spot, lightly licking Geralt’s skin to clear away the stickiness. The witcher squirmed slightly at the attention, both pleased and embarrassed. The bard grinned widely, “Not as sweet as you, of course, but not bad.” He hated how Geralt dismissed the compliment out of hand before briefly wondering if his seed was sweet and he’d never noticed. The bard almost choked on his own spit at that last part. “Oh love, you’re so much more than you can ever believe yourself to be,” he said sadly.

Geralt looked at him sharply, slowing down on his decimation of their breakfast supplies for a moment before shrugging it off. It didn’t matter. Kind words hide bastard truths. He was much worse than he thought, usually, and if he let himself forget even for a moment people reminded him in spades.

Content to finish up the last of the apple tarts, he had noticed Dandelion not eating much, but several prompts to eat as much as he wanted were met with no resistance. He was starving after the contract. The meal he’d managed to get before returning to Dandelion had been mediocre at best. Thankfully not half rotten, but nothing filling. Some watery soup and stringy meat with almost no vegetables had done nothing but take the worst of the edge off his hunger. Mostly full, he picks idly at the last roll in the basket, enjoying the peace and quiet.

“Would you like me to get more?”

“No,” Geralt told him quietly. He cracked open one of the skins and sipped slowly, pleased to taste a mix of fruits in the juice. He passed the skin to the bard who drank deeply before passing it back.

They did this with the others before Dandelion took a few deep breaths.

“What’s wrong?”

“You are always so much more perceptive than I give you credit for. I did something foolish, but it won’t… I suppose it only affects us, and even then, not as much as it could. Not as negatively as it could. Or perhaps badly. Geralt I don’t know how to… can we just sit a few moments and enjoy the peace before I ruin it?”

“Us?”

“Not physically. You won’t be harmed, I won’t be harmed. All…I know what you’re thinking.”

“I very much doubt that.”

“No, Geralt, I can literally read… you’re upset I’ve hidden something from you. Perhaps lied. You’re wondering if the food was a bribe. It wasn’t. I genuinely wanted to please you. You’re as welcome to be as angry as you’d like for as long as you’d like, but I didn’t make this mistake with the intention to hurt you. I wanted… I wanted to please you. And yes, I did remember the foods you liked, I didn’t need to see into your mind to do that. You weren’t even thinking of them when I bought breakfast, you were worried about how if you’d gone to get it you’d get bread full of weevils and rot and wouldn’t know how to hide it from me and still find me food to eat.”

Geralt’s eyes widened in alarm. “How?”

“I did it, I cocked it up, it wasn’t you. It wasn’t even done to me. I was at the healer’s shop looking for things in case you were injured. I saw a spell to allow one to read another person’s mind… and I tried it. I never thought it would work. I hope you know that. I know how you have trouble believing me when I’m sincere. I can’t blame you. I simply… I simply wanted to be… the truth of it, since you can’t hide anything from me and none of this is right, the truth is I was worried you had fallen into my bed not by choice. And I wanted the truth of it. And I truly, truly did not for even a moment think the spell would work. Not a moment. I thought it would fail and I would laugh at myself and move on. But you came back and I could hear you.” He fidgeted with his hands miserably, knowing what he did was despicable. Geralt’s thoughts were mostly confused, not angry. That was worse, somehow.

“I should have asked you, I know. But I did. And I got an answer but I couldn’t quite believe it. After all, you remember Triss rather fondly when you shouldn’t. Coral, too. I didn’t want us to be like that. I wanted to make sure you were as willing as you said. But I didn’t… I didn’t think it would work. And then I found out I hadn’t been pleasing you in bed as well as I thought -don’t protest, it’s true. I didn’t realize half the time I was hurting you a little. I had no idea how sensitive… how enhanced your sense of touch was. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I truly didn’t. That’s another thing I should have asked, but I didn’t… I knew about your hearing and sight, and sense of smell, but I had no idea it had changed even how you felt. No wonder you hate certain shirts of mine or won’t change what you wear. Oh, Geralt. I’m so sorry. I was planning on going straight to the shop with you right after to see how to end it. I should never have done this. I didn’t think it would work. I didn’t even go looking for it.”

Geralt’s thoughts were a whirlwind of confusion and fear. He had no idea what he’d exposed of himself that he hadn’t meant to, and he felt small and hurt. The anger Dandelion was waiting for never came. Even if it should have.

“I don’t need you to forgive me, or at least. I don’t deserve it, so I’m not asking, but let’s… let’s go to the shop, please. Let me undo this. Or you can cast it on me, if you’d rather. But, Geralt, it hasn’t… none of this has changed how I feel about you. I see I have made so many errors and misjudged you in other ways, but I don’t… I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it and I can see how ashamed you are. I’m the one who did the wrong thing, Geralt, not you. Please… please don’t use this as another reason to hate yourself. Hate me, if you must hate anyone. I did this without telling you, without thinking for a moment of the consequences. I didn’t think it was real. I didn’t… I didn’t think at all. That was wrong of me. I was wrong. Not you. Oh, love, I am so sorry. What I did was so unbearably wrong.”

Geralt flinched away from his touch, hunching down miserably in the grass. “Do you need me to go to the shop and see the book? Am I necessary for you to cast anything or uncast it?”

“Please…. I don’t know. I don’t know how well distance will even work. You’re right to be leery of me. Oh, Geralt, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s just… who you are.” He truly believed that. Nosy, insatiable for gossip and rumors and things to make songs of. He should have known something like this might eventually happen. He was too broken and not trustworthy enough to be just asked outright. He would have answered. Maybe not every time, or not in excruciating detail. But he would have answered. Maybe not years ago, but now? Since they had first bedded each other? He would have. It was only fair. “I suppose some good might come of it,” he tried to smile. Instead he felt sick to death inside and couldn’t understand why.

“Oh, Geralt. I… what I did, I know you don’t… I can’t not see it, so let’s use that good you spoke of. You feel betrayed. What I did was a betrayal. Rather than tell you the minute I knew the spell had worked I let it go. Knowing how to please you better in bed seemed wonderful. Sharing your nightmares and being able to wake you and comfort you was one of the best and worst nights of my life. I hate you went through any of that.” He swallowed hard, knowing the icy feeling in the pit of his belly was Geralt’s, not his own. “I’ve seen the scars all over your body Geralt, I knew some of them came from human hands. Especially the ones that looked like a belt or switch. Your backside and well over half your back are covered in them. That was never hidden from me. Not even under all the other scars from monsters. It was good that you let me be there for you. But you didn’t know…

“Geralt, if you don’t choose to walk away, which I would understand, I want you to promise me you’ll wake me, next time. Don’t let yourself suffer alone needlessly. Provided you ever want to share my bed again.”

Geralt’s chest ached, he didn’t want to lose any of what they’d had. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready. His own hurt hardly mattered, he had upset his friend. He was upsetting his friend. His mouth was dry and he had no words, perhaps it wasn’t so awful Dandelion could see his thoughts to know he didn’t want to push the bard away. Not because of this. He had so few friends, how could he afford to lose another? Especially over something that was so trivial. Any sorcerer could just look into his mind, rip apart his thoughts without a moment’s notice or care. At least Dandelion hadn’t entirely meant to do it. It hadn’t been meant to hurt him either.

It still made his insides twist and ache, and he didn’t know what to think about it. Just that didn’t want to lose the bard.  This felt different from their other disagreements and it terrified him. “Don’t leave me,” he said in a small voice before he could stop himself. He would do whatever it took to make Dandelion feel like things were alright between them even if they weren’t.

“Oh, Geralt, I won’t, but it isn’t… oh this is terrible. I never realized. I never realized how you saw yourself. Oh, Geralt, I’m so sorry. No, I won’t go. You can be as angry as you want for as long as you want, as hurt and confused, please don’t pretend it’s alright. I know once I break this I won’t be able to tell anymore, but please. Please let yourself feel. I don’t need you to mollycoddle me, I’m the one who did something wrong Geralt. Me, I am the one in the wrong, as I’ve said. I don’t know why you can’t believe that. You’ve been mad at me before. And you were right to be. Why can’t you see this the same way? I don’t understand. I’m so sorry,” tears filled his eyes. “I’ve never felt this bad in my entire life. I’m sorry. But this isn’t about me. I need you… I don’t need you to do anything, I suppose.” He hadn’t realized how much of Geralt’s world revolved around suppressing himself.

“You said you did it to help.”

“No, I did it because I’m an asshole and a blockhead. I did it because I didn’t take you at your word. And I also didn’t think anything would happen or I don’t think I would have done it. Or at least I hope I wouldn’t have done it. Please come with me so we can fix this. It’s not your job to do it, but please, so I can make it stop sooner rather than later. I have no right to this much of you. I’m sorry. I can’t stop saying it, Geralt, so if that’s what’s going to make you angry then have at it. Yell at me. Explode. Scream. Whatever you need to do.”

The witcher twisted in on himself further. Did Dandelion truly expect Geralt to do any of those things? He never had, not really. Sometimes he shouted a bit, but he had never lashed out like that, not the way he felt the bard was expecting. A monster. Nothing he did changed the fact he was a monster and would always be seen that way.

“You are not a monster!” Dandelion shrieked, his voice shrill and strained. “You are not!” He wrapped his arms around Geralt tightly, squeezing the other man against him. “I don’t know how to stop putting my foot wrong. I had no idea I did it so often. Let’s start with the basics, and don’t you dare twist them. One, I love you. I love you deeply. Two, you are not a monster. You’re a man who is more, but that doesn’t make you bad. Three, even if you were a monster, I would still love you. Four, I never expected you to hurt me. I just felt that you might react somehow to what I did because it was awful. Five, I am sorry. I am sorry that you hurt like this all the time and I have brushed it off in the past because I don’t see you that way. I forget that the world is often cruel in ways I can’t anticipate.

“Please let me help. Please, please, don’t let this end here, if you choose to stay with me. Don’t let me not help you when I can. You shouldn’t be eating moldy food and lumps of gristle. Not if I can just get it for you and it will be fine. I won’t try and tell you it’s not as bad as you think, not ever again. And that man in your dreams who beat you? Keep me away from him if he’s still alive because I will give him a piece of my mind. The next time you have a nightmare, wake me, promise me you’ll wake me, let me comfort you. That’s what lovers do. Lovers, Geralt, as in ‘love.’ Not friends. Not whores, lovers. Let me love you. And the next time I do something awful that hurts you, be angry. Feel it. Don’t be afraid of me hating you for hurting. I don’t care who Vesemir is!” his voice soared in pitch again and Geralt winced. “I am me, and I think everything he’s said that I can pick out of your head is wrong and stupid and evil. You do deserve comfort when you hurt. Yes! Even if it’s emotional not physical!”

None of this made any sense and Geralt felt lost and like nothing he was doing was right. All the same he curled into Dandelion’s chest willingly, grateful to be comforted. Everything he did just upset the bard worse and made him feel worse in turn. He couldn’t help his thoughts. It wasn’t as if he was trying to upset his lover. Lover. Yes, that’s what they were. What Geralt wanted them to remain, in spite of all of this. Dandelion was far more upset than he was, he thought. It felt wrong, knowing he had no secrets and no privacy and couldn’t even work out what to feel without Dandelion there, knowing it all. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t.

Angry, finally, he was surprised the poet didn’t say a word, just held him. It was what he wanted, if he was being honest with himself, in spite of the anger. In spite of the hurt, no one else was there who could hold him. And it was so very rare anyone wanted to. The idea someone could know he was angry and still dare touch him, still want to touch him is a soothing balm over his heart. Hurt, he was hurt. He felt betrayed. Yes. He felt those things. He felt like it would be harder to trust Dandelion. Another person who had pushed into him in ways he hadn’t wanted or asked for. Someone he had hoped never would do something like that. But no, he didn’t want to lose Dandelion, either. He had been alone too long, and too many people feared him.

He let the anger course over and through him, burning itself out like a brush fire, hot and short. It left Geralt feeling empty and alone. Next the sadness pushed its way in. That was easier to ignore. He was used to feeling hurt by people. He ignored Dandelion crying into his hair. It sparked a bit of rage all over again, but beyond that he felt like he could ignore it. This wasn’t his fault, he should be the one upset, not Dandelion.

Geralt lost all track of time, sitting there under the tree, sitting against Dandelion’s chest.

At some point, to his horror, tears welled up in his eyes and he thinks he cried. Nothing like what Dandelion had done, no great gulps of air coupled with heaving sobs, but he knows the tears ran over his cheeks. Dandelion had stayed quiet the entire time, allowing him to grieve and process in his own way.  

When Geralt finally pulled away, Dandelion wordlessly wiped tears off his cheeks and kissed his forehead. “I forgive you,” Geralt informed him slowly. “You do stupid impulsive things, but you’re only human. And a poet and a bard at that. The worst kind of human,” he did his best to force a smile. “Let’s go to this shop of yours and break the spell. I don’t like the idea of it going on any longer than it has to.”

“It’s stopped.” Dandelion looked as shocked as Geralt felt. “It’s done. I suppose the time just ran out on it.” He kissed Geralt’s cheek. “Promise you’ll wake me. I can’t read your thoughts, so you can lie again, but…. I learned you rarely do. Promise me and I’ll believe you. I’ll take you at your word. I’m so sorry I hurt you so badly.”

“I promise,” Geralt said hoarsely. “It truly stopped?”

“Truly. Truly, we can go to the shop still and check. If that makes you more comfortable. Or you can cast it yourself, or we can find someone to perform a truth spell.”

“No, I believe you,” Geralt said slowly, with a pointed look.

Dandelion hung his head in response. He deserved that.

Geralt looked up at the sky and was shocked to see the sun had moved across the sky and was past high noon. How long had they sat there after eating? The sun had barely risen properly when things had started. He still felt oddly bereft, knowing Dandelion had done that to him and waited so long to say anything. He supposed the bard could have lied about how it happened or hidden it longer without ever saying a word. It would hurt for ages, he knew. He wished it wouldn’t. Logically, no harm had been done, but he felt like he’d been covered in filth that he couldn’t scrub off.

“I will make this up to you, somehow. I don’t know how, I don’t know if I can, but I won’t ever stop trying. Tell me what you need, when you know. Whenever you know, whenever it changes. I will do my best to listen and do whatever it is you ask of me.”

“Then stop bringing it up.” So what if he felt violated? Dwelling on it wouldn’t change that. He would move past it, like he always did.

At least this time the person who hurt him was sorry.

That had be to be good enough.

@geraltwhumpweek

#geralt whump week #geralt z rivii #geralt of rivia #I don't know if i should take this as gerlion or geraskier #because even tho i'm calling him dandelion #i mixed both characters #so fuck me i guess #geralt x dandelion #i didn't play the games #gerlion #witcher dandelion #jaskier

[dailyaudiobible]

08/10/2021 DAB Transcript

Ezra 10:1-44, 1 Corinthians 6:1-20, Psalms 31:9-18, Proverbs 21:3

Today is the 10th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we come…come around the Global Campfire and get ready to take the next step forward together just releasing all of the stuff that’s swirling around us, giving our heart permission to just relax and allow God's word to speak to us and guide our steps. And, so, let's dive in. We’ve been working our way through the book of Ezra. Today we will conclude the book of Ezra by reading Ezra chapter 10. And we’re reading from a Christian Standard Bible this week.

Commentary:

Okay. So as we continue our…our journey through the letter, the letter to the Corinthians, known as first Corinthians we’re seeing that Paul is…is being pretty direct and confronting some things that he believes should not be present in the community of faith in Corinth or really for that matter, anywhere. So, basically he begins with disputes and he’s like, why are you taking each other to court basically. Isn’t there anybody wise among you? Is there no wise people? Is there no way to handle these matters? And what he’s ultimately getting at here is do you understand that you are the light, that you are the example, that you are setting the standard? And he’s pretty direct. I quote Paul, “as it is to have legal disputes against one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do this to brothers and sisters.” Paul's point is that that sets a standard, that sets an example. That's not the example that we as the body of Christ want to bear witness to in the world. We need to bear witness to the light. So, we can obviously…I mean we can take that on board and apply it to any kind of sets of circumstances in our own lives, but we can see he wouldn't be addressing this if it weren't going on in the church. So, we can look back and go even back at the beginning this stuff was going on. This has been a struggle all along. And sort of the underlying theme that's going on here, as Paul confronts a couple of things is actual freedom. Are you actually free if you are entangled in some kind of very long-drawn-out lawsuit with a brother or sister? That’s basically his point. But then he turns to say like everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial. So, we are free to do what we want, but not everything that we do has any benefit. And some of the things that we do can be destructive and is that freedom? So, Paul says, “everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” Why? Because that's not freedom. And then Paul goes into the things that we do with our bodies and the ways that we sin against one another with our bodies. And again the underlying theme is freedom. He's…he’s saying your body is a part of Christ's body, the body of Christ are those who believe in Christ on this world and you’re a part of that body. In fact, Paul says your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God. You're not your own. You were bought at a price. So, glorify God with your body. So, we can look at the territory that we've been in for these first chapters of first Corinthians in this letter and go, a lot of confrontation and condemnation, but it's…the point is freedom. The point is freedom as perceived by the quote unquote world is upside down and backwards like everything else in this world, which is what Jesus taught and what the New Testament teaches. So, when we discover that we are free in Christ so often we think about that in terms of freedom…like I can say I can do whatever I want. I’m free. Sin has no control over me, has no claim to me. I’m free. And then we think of it in worldly terms, and this is what Paul's bringing out in his letter. So, it kind of boils down to sexual immorality and the kind of confrontation that we have with each other and the ways that we fight against one another, diminishing the light, diminishing the witness that we are to be in this world for the rest of the world, to reveal that there's a better way. If all we’re doing is the same way and overlaying words that say we’re Christians but we’re not different than we’re not revealing this kingdom and we’re not being the light. And, so, when we realize that true freedom is to understand that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, God. We are housing the Spirit of God within us. So, anything that we would rather not include God in we shouldn't be participating in because God is within us, the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, according to Paul. If we understood…like if we believed that, that's a game changer, that’s a life changer, that’s a world changer, that we are walking around, and wherever we go the Spirit goes because the Spirit is within us. We bring the spirit of God into every situation that we walk into, or we should if we were aware of our true freedoms.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit well up from within. May we become aware of this reality that is never off and always on. We were bought with a price. That purchase was our freedom. We are free from the claims and the customs of this world. We are freed to be true. Come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

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So, be aware of the Community section. That is so important. That's where the Prayer Wall is and lives and is always happening. So, there's always somewhere to reach out for prayer, there’s always somewhere to go and pray for one another. I mean we are all living human lives. And, so, right? You never know what the days gonna bring exactly and we always are in need of prayer and just to know that we’re not alone. That makes such a difference, to know that this journey is not a solitary one. We are in this together. And, so, be aware of the Prayer Wall. In there in the Community section is also links to get connected on the different social media channels that we are involved in. So, be aware of that. Check that out. Like check out the Daily Audio Bible women's page. Jill is continually posting encouragement there. It’s fantastic. So, if you’re a woman then there is a place to get connected and the DAB friends there is a place to get connected. There's plenty of places to get connected. And also following the Daily Audio Bible channels so that whatever social media platform your on if there's an announcement of some sort or whatever that you're able to get that. So, check it all out in the Community section.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you. Thank you. I’m looking at the calendar and going…well…we do have a way to go in this year. It's going faster than I thought. But we do have a ways to go this year but all of these years have been in this story day by day step-by-step together and it's a beautiful thing because if we hadn’t been together we…we wouldn't be making the next step forward. And, so, thank you. If what's happening here, bringing the spoken word of God and being in community together around the Global Campfire that is life-giving to you than thank you for being life-giving. There is a link on the homepage. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey, DABbers it's Kira Contrite Spirit. And for months and months maybe even a year I had seen this guy who lives in his car right off of the trail behind a house in the alley and just started waving to him and he waved back and so we've been waving at each other. And the other day the Holy Spirit put on my heart real strong to…well…it…it, you know, went for a couple days and then I said I better just listen to the Holy Spirit. And, so, it put…put on my heart to go and talk to him and then to give him some food and it was really, really hot. And, so, I got some eggs together and a beverage and just some fruit and…and I just, you know, went up to him and real friendly talked to him. He…for a little while told him my story. He said that he believes in Jesus, but he doesn't necessarily believe Jesus is the only way to God. So, please pray for him. His name is You and he's 75 and, you know, he's really, really, you know, cool guy. And I just want to encourage anybody out there, you know, don't be afraid to talk to people, you know, even if they're down and out because, I don't know, I think those are the folks that need it the most, need the light that we have. So, shine your light and spread the word. I love you, DABbers. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Daniel in Arizona. It's been…it's been a long time since I've called in but I have this burden on my heart because I'm going through it myself, but I've been praying for actually I say the men of this nation, but I mean maybe the men of this world. A lot of times we try to go it alone and we weren't designed…we weren't created to be alone we were created to be part of a tribe and I'm praying for the men who feel isolated and alone and don't have good friends to lean on or to talk to, good male friends and I'm praying that for myself. I'm praying…I've been having this burden of just wanting good men in my life, good friends who are…not only push me to be better but to push me to be closer to God. And I'm praying for all the men on this group, all the men who listen, I'm praying encouragement and life and God has surrounded you with good men who are willing to serve the Lord, serve others, and serve their families. That's just been a huge burden on my heart, and I pray that…I pray that we would all reach out together, that we are part of one family under God and that we're not alone, that you don't do this alone. Alright I love you. Be blessed.

Good morning DAB family it's August 5th and this is Sally in Massachusetts Amazed by Grace. Just want to thank the Lord for this community and for all He's doing and leading us. And thank you again for Brian and Jill and all the team that makes this ministry possible. I'm praying with you all each day and thanking the Lord that He hears us, that He answers. And today I wanna pray particularly for Gigi. Thank you so much for calling Gigi. Thank you for your honesty and your vulnerability. God does hear you and He does love you. And I would just encourage you to lay all your dreams on the altar, your dreams of going to nurses training, this pregnancy and all the future plans that you had in mind. Just give them all to God. He loves you. This baby is not an accident and if the plans you had for nurses training need to be put on hold for a little while, trust God. He loves you. He loves you. He loves this baby. He loves your husband and your family, and He wants you to know His joy and peace as you trust Him. So, hard to trust when things are different than we expected them to be but trust His love. Trust His grace. Trust His mercy because He does love you and want what's best for you and that you may be to the praise of His glory. Blessings on you Gigi and your family. In Jesus’ powerful name I pray for you for grace and peace. Amen.

My name is All for Him in Alton IL. I've been listening for five years I've wanted to call in so many times just to kind of connect with everybody. I really do appreciate the ones that call in, but this is my first time and I think a lot of time people are just kind of shy like me but they're out there. My heart resonated with the lady who called in requesting prayer for her son and daughter in law who are taking in their niece who had attempted suicide and was sad when she didn't die. Our granddaughter also falls into this category, and I just wanted to pray for all these kids, these young people who are being taught not the truth about You, they're being told things that turn them away from You and they feel hopeless, and they feel lost. Lord, I lift them up to You, just this younger generation that doesn't really know you. And Father I just pray that Your Holy Spirit would pour out and that a miracle it happened and they would come to know You. And I pray this in Your precious name. Amen.

Good morning this is Jamie from Arizona, and I just heard the prayer of the young lady who's pregnant and in nursing school and I just wanted to offer a word of encouragement. I've been in your shoes honey. I waited so long to go back to school, and I was so excited, and I wasn't expecting to be pregnant but I was excited. But I want to tell you that God will work a way for you. I actually delivered the day of my organic chemistry lab exams, and I couldn't even do them because I wasn't allowed in the lab because I was pregnant, but I will tell you that God worked and my professors. I was allowed to take my exams at home. And the thing with nursing and nursing programs is that you don't have to have an A, you just need to get through. And you'll find your professors will encourage you and will work with you. And when that baby is born nursing school will be important but there is nothing as important as a child. And I just want to encourage you that when that way was so dark, and I didn't know how I was ever going to finish God worked it out and He made a way and He'll make a way for you too. I just want you to know I'm praying for you. I know pregnancy is overwhelming and nursing school is overwhelming but take it a day at a time don't try to look all the way down the road because we never know what is down that road and I could tell you that that child was such a blessing, and my nursing degree was such a blessing. It wasn't the way I planned it but it was the way that God planned it and I've been in nursing 30 years now I wouldn't change a thing about how that course went. So, please just know that we're praying for you and your hormones are surging and you know that…

He my outstanding DAB fam this is out of breath Kingdom Seeker Daniel having a little stroll after meal on this evening of August 5th. This message goes out to my dear sister Gigi. Oh dear sister I heard your cry. Listen I have this particular scripture posted on my TV so whenever I'm looking at the TV reminded of this verse of scripture. And I want to encourage your heart with Isaiah 41 and verse 10. God says to Israel and He's saying to Gigi fear not for I am with you. Do not be dismayed Gigi for I am your God. Gigi, I will strengthen you. Gigi, I will help you. Gigi, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Dear daughter of the King lift up your head and know that the Lord is with you and in this glorious season of pregnancy. He sees everything going on with you and your life and He's going to help you. He's going to strengthen you and He is going to uphold you. Be encouraged. Be encouraged. Be encouraged daughter of the king. He's got you and you will come through this victorious. Love you sis.

[slytherinlesbian3]

All of the colors. Knock yourself out

Alright, Anon. I see you. I’ll leave out the ones I’ve already done though <3

red: describe your favorite shirt Blue. Literally just blue. Tight, but not too tight. Makes my biceps and boobs pop so it’s pretty nice.

blue: preferred type of weather? Rain or snow.

purple: a poem you think describes your closest friend Not a poem, but “I’ll be right beside you to the very end.”

turquoise: favorite sea animal? Dolphins.

cyan: are you religious? spiritual? Uh, I believe in more than one god and lean more toward Roman/Norse mythology than religion. I believe in every god, really. But I’m not submitting myself to blind faith for a cult I know nothing about.

violet: are you a part of the lgbt+ community? Lesbian through and through.

aqua: do you thrift? Do I...what? Thrift as in steal or thrift as in buy on sale? Because yes.

black: would you ever try going vegetarian or vegan? No.

coral: an animal you wish hadn't gone extinct Bro...Dodo birds. They were dope.

grey: how many languages do you speak? do you want to learn any more? Technically I only fluently speak English, but when I was younger I only spoke in Italian except to my family sejfnskejnfdjskn. I’m learning Latin right now and I can still speak Italian but not nearly as much. I know bits of French, German, Japanese, and Czech though. Beside Latin, I don’t really wanna learn any others.

maroon: do you care for clothing brands? Adidas and 511. Adidas because I’m a slut for soccer and 511 because their pants are so COMFY BRO. But they’re expensive so I only own a 511 belt </3

rose: favourite scent on a person? Something...floral. Roses or cherry blossom. Coconut is nice too. Vanilla is cliche but you can never go wrong with it.

charcoal: have you ever been camping? No and I do not wish for it ever.

claret: do you play an instrument? do you want to learn to play any? Trumpet and guitar. 6 years, 11 months.

copper: gold or silver jewelry? Neither, but silver probably. Just looks nicer with my skin tone.

cream: any piercings or tattoos? do you want any? None. I don’t even have my ears pierced. However, I do want a snake tattoo on my thigh lmaoo.

salmon: how many pairs of sunglasses do you own? Like 5 but I only wear one because they’re aviators :D

indigo: have you ever lived on a farm? Nope but I have stayed on one for about a month.

lavender: relationship status? Single but I do have a tumblr wife: @maritasdump​

erin: what was/is your best school subject? ENGLISH BECAUSE I CAN WRITE ESSAYS IN LITERALLY 15 MINUTES

fulvous: another name you think would suit you Ew, uh...well, Vi. It’s my nickname since it’s the shortened version of the nickname of my real name, but it fits me better.

coconut: a subject you enjoy learning about Rome and Latin :D

frost: a -core you enjoy A what.

porcelain: an tv show you used to love Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans (original), eh

fawn: any interesting family stories? Well, one time my brother got a stick stuck in his shin. Kinda funny. Another time my brother broke my leg while on a trampoline Another time my brother almost broke my ankle by daring me to jump off a 20 foot ledge. Another time I made my brother bleed with my nails for taking my skittles. I could go on...it’s just a lot of sibling violence.

gold: do you wear your socks mismatched? I used to but I just wear black socks now. (Except for soccer)

honey: your thoughts on magic- does it exist? Yeah. Just in different forms:)

rust: form of art you enjoy doing? Writing lmao. But I guess just sketching is fun.

mahogany: your sun, moon, and rising signs I have 0 desire to calculate that because I don’t know it off the top of my head but I’m a capricorn and I feel like that’s enough information

blood: twin beds, queen, or king? ...And there was only one bed...

hot pink: did you/do you had/have strong feelings against the color pink? Hot pink is nasty but regular pink is cool asf. My soccer socks for October games are pink and I wear them every practice/game.

plum: a food you've never tried A lot, but I’ve tried a hella ton of European foods. So, uh...I’m not really sure. Something non-American (all Americas), non-EU, and non-Asian, I know that. 

lilac: dogs, cats, or fish? CATS.

amethyst: do you collect anything? Knives.

mulberry: earbuds or headphones? Eh...Depends what I’m doing. Voice chat? Headphones. Music at the bus stop? Earbuds.

azure: jean jackets? My God - on other people? Hot. On me? I’ll stick to leather.

teal: have a job? Not yet.

sapphire: do you think you can sing well? For the most part, yeah. Trying to incorporate my guitar playing with it and it’s going pretty smoothly.

mint: favourite flavour of gum? Juicy Fruit simply because my grandmother got me hooked on it from a really young age. That or plain ol’ wintermint.

pecan: shuffle your playlist, what's the first song that comes up? Follow by Breaking Benjamin

penny: icecream or cake Ew. Sweets are a hit or miss for me, but um? Probably ice cream.

ash: can you do your own makeup? Hell no. I’ve only worn makeup twice and it was applied by someone else.

jade: ever written fanfiction? EKFMNSKENFJKDSN SO MUCH.

grape: how many blogs do you follow? 346!

umber: do you brush your teeth before you eat? No, ew. Why would you do that?

chestnut: type of phone you have iPhone 10 XS. Got it last May...First new phone I’d ever owned. Went from an iPod that could only call, to a phone that could only call, then an iPhone 5 until I was 15. They were all hand-me-downs and I never complained. They worked fine.

prussian blue: what's your first choice at the vending machine Soda, probably. If it’s food, either the chips or the rice krispy <3

aquamarine: beach or pool Pool. I’ve come too close to death at the beach to enjoy it anymore.

brass: least favorite food condiment Mayo/horse radish.

mustard: how much sugar in your tea/coffee? All of it.

silver: ever broken a bone? My entire leg and foot <3

rose quartz: rings or necklaces Necklaces with rings. I’m serious. But if I had to choose, rings. It’s the gay in me.

onyx: do you still play Minecraft? Sometimes?

burgundy: ever ridden a motorcycle? NO BUT I WANT ONE MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE FRIGGIN UNIVERSE

apricot: opinion on 3 in 1 body wash/hair wash wait those exist? 

platinum: do you follow politics? Dude I didn’t know Trump was president til this year

magnolia: your Instagram handle? ha, nice try, luzer.

Bro I am LATE to somewhere because of this but I enjoyed it. Thanks again, anon! <3

Color Asks (I am closing this shite because I AM TIRED)

#asks #anon

[somefantasticplace]

THE SECRET LIFE OF BOB

On living in a homeless hostel, a year of paralysis and the Hell's Angel who stole his girlfriend

"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" asks Bob Mortimer. "It’s just that most people want me to lie and talk nonsense to them." Generally, people like to assume that he is a funny little fellow wearing a bra and clutching an oversized frying pan all year round.

More than anyone else who has spent so much time on our television screens in the last ten years, the off-duty Bob Mortimer is an impenetrable character. He has always maintained a lower public profile than his cohort Vic Reeves and, such is the fantastical nature of his on-screen persona, it is almost impossible to consider the life he leads outside it. On the telly, his every move - whether he is lowered from a ceiling impersonating Liberace or mock-scolding his comic partner - is able to reduce an audience to hysterics. There’s something about the every movement of his diminutive frame that is unfathomably amusing . It’s much the same when he’s off duty; his face is boyish and cheeky, his eyes permanently excited and his shouty laugh an almost constant accompaniment to his words.

He’s surprised but willing when he’s asked to tell the truth. And, remarkably, he maintains his affable demeanour as he begins to recount it. For the 30 years before he was famous, he occupied a world characterised by drinking, violence, anarchy, homelessness and incapacitating illness. It was out of those often dark and disturbing experiences that Mortimer grew to become the self effacing, likeable and outstandingly funny 40 year old he is today.

"We got the shit kicked out of us"

A childhood in Middlesbrough

Bob Mortimer’s home was made to breed recklessness: there were four brothers and no father. His Dad died when he was six and his Mum was left to discipline the rabble as best she could. "She tried her best to be strict. My eldest brother was a rocker and the next one down was a mod. Ours was the house that all their mates would come round to because there was no dad."

While his troublesome siblings misbehaved on the streets of Middlesbrough, the young Bob would occupy his entire time with football. "I’d play all day long," he says. "I wanted to be a footballer and I went for the apprenticeship with Middlesbrough FC. I was in their under-15 team. At the end of the season you were dragged into the office to be told if you were going to be taken on and I wasn’t. It was a shock because I was good - one of the best in my town. But you don’t realise what a big world it is and how many other good players there are."

His passion for the club was therefore confined to watching from the terraces. He started in the early Seventies, when hooliganism was approaching its golden age, and developed a strange fascination for the violence that surrounded him. He spray-painted the words "Boro Boot Boys" on the wall of Barclays bank in Middlesbrough town centre, but he became less of an enthusiastic observer after experiencing yobbery close up: "When I was 14 we were at Leeds and suddenly found ourselves surrounded - they knew we were ‘Boro. We got the shit kicked out of us. I was running away when I looked back and saw three of the Leeds fans kicking the shit out of my brother. So I ran back to try and help but this little boy held out a coke bottle at about head height and it smacked me one. I managed to jump in and had quite a good impact at first but after that we were done. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking of. My brother was in hospital for weeks."

"I was a Libertarian Anarchist"

Becoming politically aware in Brighton

Being far more cautious about avoiding trouble, Mortimer went on to follow ‘Boro to 63 league grounds. It’s a statistic he reels off with childish enthusiasm. Remarkably, he continued his devotion even after leaving his home-town. When it came to choosing a university, the young Bob headed as far away from home as he could. "Quadrophenia had just come out and I loved the album," he says. "So I went down for my interview at Sussex University, I went and stood on Brighton beach and thought to myself ‘I’ve got to fucking come here.’ "

It was a whimsical decision that was to have a distinct impression on his character: "I’d just been in Middlesbrough playing football and all of a sudden I was studying stuff about racism which really opened my eyes. Until then I probably was a racist in so far as I just thought everything was fine. In Middlesbrough we had an Asian community but I never thought of them having anything to complain about. But once my eyes were open I developed that youthful passion about certain issues. I was a Libertarian anarchist. We chained ourselves to things and disrupted exams . It’s a load of wank really but it’s worthwhile on a personal level."

The first few months at Sussex were unhappy enough to tempt him to drop out. He remembers with distinct embarrassment the occasion on which he arrived at a law society ball, dressed in his Middlesbrough shirt and Doc Martens, to be confronted by a sea of chuckling Southern-types in tuxedos.

He found solace in the football team, of which he became a member and was coached by current Leicester City manager Martin O’Neil. While his new found politics provided a further focal point he didn’t become entirely serious. Drunk, he rampaged through the streets of Brighton one fateful evening putting in the front windows of two shops. "The police turned up straight away and all I could do was shrug, admit to it and say ‘Sorry, I’m pissed.’ " Threatened with a charge, his university tutor intervened and Mortimer was let off with an enormous fine. He spent years paying it off, but keeping his criminal record clean was essential to the career he was about to embark upon.

"I lived in a homeless hostel"

Hard times in South London

"I saw an advert that said: ‘Take on the government with Southwark Council.’ So I took the job as a lawyer." The newly idealistic Mortimer had taken a masters degree in welfare law and embraced the crusade against homelessness and degradation in one of the country’s most deprived boroughs. Ironically, it was he who ended up without a home. "I had nowhere to stay in London so the Council said that I could stay in their homeless hostel until I found somewhere. I ended up staying there for four years."

He admits he was shambolic in his day-to-day approach to working, but he was relatively successful as a lawyer. " I did a very good job of playing the system," he says with pride. "I could more or less guarantee people that could re-house them, which is what they wanted. They were living in dumps and I could get them out. It really changed their lives."

His successes were largely due to dogged approach to the job. This was an attribute he was to apply to his future career. "Bob is a worrier," says the Fast Show’s Charlie Higson, a long time friend and colleague who has recently directed Mortimer in Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). "Whereas Jim [Vic to us] has an unswerving faith in everything they do, Bob studies tapes of their shows and takes extensive notes. He’s learnt a great deal from doing that, though."

Bob’s happy memories of legal success are harshly offset by the hardship he experienced during the same period. " I woke up one morning with rheumatoid arthritis," he says. "I went to lift my head but couldn’t. Then my mouth went. I had to drink through a straw and be dressed and bathed for about nine months." His girlfriend of the time nursed him through the illness in the confines of the hostel. Although there is an obvious downturn in his usually cheery expression, Mortimer recounts his experience with surprising matter-of-factness. Eventually, he found the right combination of pills to relieve the pain and return to work but the problem has forced him to abandon his love of playing football forever. "I just can’t do it, so I don’t think about it," he asserts briskly.

"I was pissed out of my head"

Meeting Vic Reeves

Work as a solicitor was arduous and poorly paid, but Mortimer ploughed on: after moving to a private practice he got 70 per cent of his 1500 clients acquitted. "I enjoyed being a solicitor at the beginning," he says. "But after a while the appeal tails off a bit and I was such a conservative fella that I didn’t think there was anything else I could do.  I just though ‘Well, this is it for the next 30 years.‘ "

It took a dramatic course of chance events to redirect him. "I was living in this hostel with my girlfriend. I came home one dinnertime and found this Hell’s Angel shagging her. I was terribly upset. I was standing there in my suit because I’d just come from court, so I looked a right c***. I just told her to get out."

That evening, he was keen to drown his sorrows but had few friends in London. In the end, he looked up a vague acquaintance from Middlesbrough. "I’d never really been in touch with him but I was desperate so I gave him a ring. He said he was going to see his mate do a comedy show and I said, ‘All right, I’ll come.’ " The mate turned out to be Jim Moir who was performing as Vic Reeves for the first time that night at the Goldsmith’s Tavern in London’s New Cross. "It was just Jim and five of his mates in the room upstairs. There wasn’t much to it - everyone got up and did something, it was just arseing about." Bob describes himself as being "painfully shy" and implies that it was only the circumstances that had brought him to the pub that night that encouraged him to get involved in the comedy. Almost every week, word of mouth would cause the size of the audience at the show to double. In the end, it moved downstairs into the pub and Bob became more and more involved.

If his recently-scorned mood had encouraged him to perform on his first night with Vic, how did he overcome his shyness in front of a packed boozer? "I was pissed out of my head," he admits. "I can’t believe I did it. But they were nice people in the audience and they would come up and talk to me afterwards. There must have been something in that that tempted me to carry on. Jim is naturally quite outgoing but I don’t know what the fuck I was doing on the stage. Getting a reaction was quite intoxicating for a man who had always been shy." Vic refutes this, claiming: "I’ve never thought of Bob as particularly shy. But there was something in both our upbringings that discouraged us from ever parading ourselves like peacocks."

Bob still describes these early shows as the funniest things he and his partner have ever produced and, as crowds of 250 people began to fill the venue, television executives began to show an interest. "The show taking off was such a gift," he reflects. "I was so conservative that, even if someone had offered me another job when I was a solicitor, I would have said no. But the one thing no-one can resist is the offer to go on telly. Even when we got the offer to do a series I made sure I still had a job to go back to. In fact, I only took twelve weeks off work." Things were suddenly changing in all aspects of his life. Just before his television debut, he returned from a break in Middlesbrough to find the hostel burned down by the man who lived in the room below: "He didn’t think anyone was in but there was and they had to jump from the top to escape," Bob remembers.

He was re-housed by the council to a flat in a Peckam tower block. He stayed throughout the first two series of Vic Reeves Big Night Out on Channel Four, and when the BBC poached him and Vic (in what must have been a lucrative deal), he still remained in the flat. In fact, he was there for two whole series of The Smell Of Reeves and Mortimer, by which time he had become one of the country’s most high profile performers. Why? "It was nothing more than deep-rooted laziness," he confesses. "Eventually I bought a place up the road. But when I was still in the flat I remember Lloyd Grossman wanted to do a Through The Keyhole with me. It would have been funny because it was a real cockroach infested place, but I resisted the temptation."

"There's always one that wants to hit you"

Growing up

Today, Bob Mortimer is slightly drunk. "I tried absinthe for the first time last night and I haven’t really recovered," he reveals. His stocky figure is unusually bedraggled as he makes himself a cup of tea and recounts the proceedings of his night out, during which Vic showed him his large collection of photographs of dog excrement. His experimentation with absinthe was the first drinking he has done in a full six months. In fact, he says, he tries to avoid pubs altogether nowadays: "There’s always one when you’re just having a drink and they say: ‘Who do you think you are?’ And they want to hit you. And we’re not fighting men. I mean, unless we’re out with [Mark] Lamarr. He’s handy - is that the word?"

Mortimer embarks on yet another change of direction in the forthcoming BBC series Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). In it, he and Vic make their debuts as straight(ish) actors. "Bob was a bit embarrassed at first," says Reeves. "He had a couple of weeks where he was coached for straight acting, but I don’t think he needed it. He does worry about things, like what show we should do next and what direction we should take. I just let him work it out in his own mind before I talk to him about it." Behind the playful, casual exterior, there appears to be an intensity borne out of the fact that he truly treasures his career.

Last year, he announced an intention to stop working for up to three years in order to spend more time with his family. Since filming Randall & Hopkirk, Bob has immersed himself in a long spell of doing nothing. "I enjoy it because it’s like when you used to nick off school when you were a kid," he enthuses. "And I know, eventually, I’ll be going back to work." He is also occupied with his two young children. "Fatherhood is a massive turning point. But it surprises me how many people say they enjoy it from the off. I mean, my memories of the first two years with both my kids is of not sleeping - passing my girlfriend on the stairs and saying ‘We’ve got to get through this.’ " He now sees fatherhood as providing a sense of purpose in life, as well as being a bit of a laugh. "Lying kids on the bed, putting adult clothes over them and drawing ‘tasches on them is fucking hilarious!" he says. "I remember when our plumber Ken Fowler came round to fix the boiler. My boy was sitting in a highchair wearing a vest and we’d drawn a big tattoo on his arm that said ‘I love Ken Fowler’." Hysterics ensue at the memory of the plumber’s bafflement.

Indeed, Mortimer is happy to get his kicks as a family man nowadays. The fact that he was 30 by the time he embarked upon a life in showbiz meant that he had a more considered approach to the trappings of his success. "Me and Jim are quite susceptible to ‘mad for it’ areas," he says. "But I suspect that, had it all been available to us when we were 18 not 30, it would have blown our minds. I think, being older, you have the perspective so you try and be polite and helpful. You see some young comics acting line c***s, like they’re a big deal. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have been like that myself at 18, but you do feel like telling them how lucky they are." Perhaps more than anyone in his position, Mortimer is well aware of what the alternatives are.

Later

April 2000

[itsclydebitches]

Is buying the new Harry Potter game supporting transphobes because I've been seeing a lot of that on twitter? Not playing it. Pirating is fine, but actually paying for it.

Hi, anon!

I’ve seen a lot of the same and had initially thought to post my thoughts on the issue… before I got a very angry ask condemning me for a post where I admitted that I thought the game looked great and was excited to play it. I can no longer link to that post because I deleted it: a late night, impulsive decision made in an effort to try and protect myself from further flaming. Thus, I considered ignoring this ask under the same justification… before realizing that it might not matter in the long run. The Harry Potter: Legacy trailer has been out for just a few days and already I have gotten that furious ask, been told off by a friend for mentioning the trailer, and was questioned (antagonistically) about why I had added a Harry Potter related book to my Goodreads list. They’re small and potentially coincidental anecdotes, but it feels as if any engagement with Harry Potter is slowly coming under scrutiny, not just the (supposed—more on that below) crime of purchasing the new game. Given that I will always engage with Harry Potter related media, if there’s any chance such subtle criticism will continue regardless of whether I make the “right” choice to boycott the game or not, I might as well explain my position. Especially for someone who asked politely! Thanks for that 💜. 

Which leads to the disclaimer: Any anon hate will be unceremoniously deleted. This is a complicated issue and I intend to write about it as such. I ask that any readers go into this post with good faith and a willingness to acknowledge that this situation isn’t as black and white as they may prefer it to be. If that’s not something you can emotionally handle—which is 100% fine. Some subjects we’re simply not inclined to debate—or if you’re just looking to get in a cheap shot, please hit the back button.

Right. Introduction done. Now here’s the tl;dr: saying things like “Buying this game is inherently selfish/transphobic” isn’t the hot take people want it to be. Is boycotting Legacy one (very small—we’ll get to that too) way of showing support for the trans community? Yes. Is buying the game proof that you’re a selfish transphobe?  No. This isn’t a bad SAT question. Legacy boycotters are to trans supporters as Legacy buyers are to  ___? The argument that someone is selfish for buying the game is basically that you are choosing a non-essential video game over the respect and lives of trans individuals, but the logic breaks down when we acknowledge that purchasing a game has no real life impact on a trans individual’s safety, support, etc.   

“But Clyde, you’re giving Rowling money. She is then using that money to support anti-trans organizations. Thus, you have actively put more harm into the world.” Have I? I’m not going to get into whether/how much/what kind of money Rowling is receiving from this project because the fact is we don’t know and we’ll likely never know. Suffice to say, she probably will get some portion of any $60/$70 purchase. The real question is whether those sales have any meaningful impact. Reputable information on Rowling’s net worth is hard to come by, but it seems to be somewhere between 600 million and 1 billion pounds. Or, to put it another way: a fuck ton. And money keeps rolling in from a franchise that is so, so much bigger than a single video game. It literally doesn’t matter how much money you might put in her pocket via Legacy because she’s already so goddamn rich she can do whatever she wants. If Rowling wants to give a million dollars to the heinous “charity” of her choice, she can. She will. You are not directly contributing to this horror because that money may as well already exist. Every person in the world could refuse to buy this game and she’d shrug, going about her disgusting life because it literally does not affect her in any meaningful way. You’re refusing to give the murderer a knife when they’re got direct access to a knife-making factory. Horrible as it is to hear, you can’t stop them from doing something horrific with that tool. 

For me, this is the straw argument of the Harry Potter world. Not straw as in strawman, but literally straws. Remember how everyone was talking about plastic straws, swore off them, and subsequently deemed anyone who still used one to be selfish people who didn’t care about the environment? It didn’t matter if you had a certified “good” reason for using one (disability) or a “selfish” reason (carrying straws everywhere on the off chance you wanted a drink is a pain in the ass)—you’re a horrible person who wants the planet to die. Same deal here. If you can swear off straws, great! Do what tiny bit of good you can. But if you can’t or even don’t want to give them up, the reality is that your “selfishness” doesn’t make a significant difference in the world. The amount of plastic corporations are pouring into the ocean makes your actions inconsequential. It’s not like voting where every small, individual act adds up to a significant total. This is your lack up against others’ staggering abundance. It’s not adding a few drops of water until you have a full bucket, it’s trying to un-flood the boat with a teaspoon while someone else is spraying it with the hose. Have you, on the most technical level, made a difference by moving that teaspoon of water out of the boat? Yes. Is it a difference that holds any meaning in regards to the desired outcome? Not really. Now apply all that to Rowling. She is so phenomenally wealthy—with additional wealth coming in every day—that your purchase of Legacy is a teaspoon of water in her ocean of funds. It’s inconsequential.

“But Clyde, buying this game would support her and supporting her sends the message that what she believes is okay.” Exact same argument as above. JKR’s fame is so astronomical that no video-game boycott could ever make a dent in it. For every 100 people who swear off her work there are another 1,000 who continue to engage with both her writing and the writing related to her world because she is that prominent. Harry Potter is one of the largest franchises of all time, second only to things like Pokémon and Star Wars. This isn’t some indie creator who you can ignore into silence. The reality is that Rowling is here to stay and we have to take far more substantial acts to counteract that influence. 

Even more importantly, buying the game is not evidence that you support her views and the black and white belief that it does is an easy distraction from those harder “How do we improve the lives of trans people?” questions. I started compiling a list of stories with problematic authors only to realize the number of incredibly popular texts with awful histories attached to them unnecessarily increased the length of an already long post. Everything from Game of Thrones to Dr. Seuss—if you love it, chances are one of the authors involved has a history of misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. Which I don’t say as a way of excusing these authors, nor as a way to silence the justified and necessary call outs on their work. Rather, I bring this up to acknowledge that engaging with these stories cannot be concrete evidence for how you view the minority group in question. The reasons for consuming these stories are incalculable and at the end of the day no one needs a “correct” reason for that consumption (my teacher forced me to read the racist book, I only watched the homophobic TV show so I could call out how horrible it was, etc.) If fiction were an indicator of our real life beliefs we’d all be the most horrifying creatures imaginable. I may be severely uncomfortable with the queer baiting in Supernatural, but if a friend says they bought the DVD collection my response is not, “How dare you support those creators. You’re homophobic.” In the same way, someone purchasing Legacy should not generate the response, “How dare you support her. You’re transphobic.” There’s a miles’ worth of pitfalls in connecting the statements “You purchased a game based on the world created by a transphobic author” and “You yourself are transphobic.” 

So if buying Legacy does not add additional harm to the trans community from a financial perspective, and it doesn’t make a dent in Rowling’s platform, and playing a game is not evidence of your feelings towards the group the author hates… what are we left with? “But Clyde, it’s the principal of the thing. I don’t want to support a TERF” and that is an excellent argument. Your morals. Your ethics. What you can stomach having done or not done. But the “your” is incredibly important there. People need to understand that this is their own line in the sand and that if someone else’s line is different, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically a worse person than you. For example, I have made the choice not to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Not because I believe that me not giving them $3.75 for a sandwich will make a difference in their influence on the world, but because it makes a difference to me. It helps me sleep at night. So if not purchasing Legacy helps you sleep at night? That’s a fantastic reason not to buy it. But the flipside is that if someone else does purchase it that is not a reliable reflection of their morals, no more than I think my friends are homophobic for grabbing lunch at Chick-Fil-A now and then. Sometimes you just want a sandwich. 

“But Clyde, why would you want to buy it? Rowling is such a shit-stain I don’t understand how anyone can stomach supporting her—whether that support has an impact or not. Maybe someone eats at Chick-Fil-A because it’s close to them and they’re too busy to go elsewhere, or it’s all they can afford, or they don’t know how homophobic they are. There are lots of reasons to explain something like that. But you’re not ignorant to Rowling’s problem and there’s no scenario where you have to play this game, let alone spend money on it. So why?”

The reality is that I will likely be buying Legacy, second-hand if I can, but new if it comes to that, so I’ll give some of my personal answers here, in descending order of presumed selfishness:

5. Part of my work involves studying video games/Harry Potter and as a researcher of popular culture, my career depends on keeping up with major releases: good and bad. I often engage with stories I wholeheartedly disagree with for academic purposes, like Fifty Shades of Gray.

4. I find the “Just pirate it!” solution to be flawed. I’ve spent the last four months struggling to get my laptop fixed and I currently have no income to buy another if it were to suddenly develop a larger problem. I am not going to risk my $2,000 lifeline on an illegal download, no matter how safe and easy the Internet insists it is. 

3. We’ve been told that Rowling has not been involved in Legacy in any significant manner and I do want to support Portkey. No, not just financially because I know many others have insisted that everyone good has already been paid. Game companies still need to sell games. That’s why they exist. There’s a possibility that a company with just two mobile games under its belt will be in trouble if this completely flops. Is my purchase going to make or break things? No. Same reality as whether it will put new, influential money in Rowling’s pocket to do horrific things with. But I’d like to help a company that looks as if they put a lot of heart and energy into a game only to get hit with some real shit circumstances outside of their control. Even if they’re not impacted financially or career-wise… art is meant to be consumed. I know if I wrote a Harry Potter fic and everyone boycotted it because they want nothing to do with Rowling anymore, I’d be devastated. Sometimes, you can’t separate supporting the good people from supporting the bad. Not in a media landscape where thousands of people are involved in singular projects.

2. I’m invested in reclaiming excellent works created by horrible authors. That’s fandom! We don’t know much about Legacy yet—this is pure, unsubstantiated speculation—but this new story could be a step forward from Rowling’s books, giving us some of the respect for minority groups that she failed at. That’s the sort of work I want to promote because Harry Potter as a concept is great and I think it’s worth transforming it for our own needs and desires. The reality is that as long as Rowling is alive she’ll benefit from licensed material, but if that material can start taking her world in better directions? I want to support that too.

1. I literally just want to play it. That’s it. That’s my big justification. I think it looks phenomenal and I was itching to get my hands on it the second the trailer dropped. And you know what? I’m not in a good place right now to deny myself things I enjoy. I don’t need to tell anyone that 2020 has been an absolute horror show, but for me certain things have made it a horror show with a cherry on top. Not a lot gets me excited right now because we’re living in the worst fucking timeline, so when I find something that makes me feel positive emotions for a hot second I want to hang onto it. I have no desire to set aside that spark of happiness in a traumatic world because people on the Internet think it makes me selfish. Maybe it does, but I’m willing to let myself be a bit selfish right now. 

Which circles back to this issue of equating buying a game with active harm towards the trans community. It honestly worries me because this is a very, very easy way to avoid the harder, messier activism that will actually help the queer community. When someone says things like, “You’re choosing a stupid video game over trans lives” that activism is performative. Not only—as demonstrated above—is purchasing a game not a threat to trans lives or ignoring the game a way of protecting trans lives, it also gives people an incredibly easy out while still seeming ‘woke.’ Not all people. Maybe not even a significant portion of people, but enough people to be worrisome. “I’m not purchasing that game,” some people post and then that’s it. That’s all they do, yet they feel like they’ve done their duty when in fact they’ve made no active difference in the world. Are you donating to trans charities? Are you speaking up for your trans friends when someone accosts them? Are you circulating media by trans authors? Are you educating your family about trans issues? Are you listening to trans individuals and continually trying to educate yourself? These are the things that make a difference, not shaming others for buying a game.

All of this is not meant to be an argument that people shouldn’t be absolutely revolted by Rowling’s beliefs (they should) and that this revulsion can’t take the form of rejecting this game wholeheartedly. This isn’t even meant to be an argument that you shouldn’t encourage others to boycott because though the financial impact may be negligible, the emotional impact for you is very real. I 100% support anyone who wants to chuck this game into the trash and never talk about it again—for any reason. All this is meant to argue is that people shouldn’t judge others based on whether they purchase this game (with a side argument that we can’t limit our activism to that shaming). That’s their decision and this decision, significantly, does not add any real harm to the world. Your fellow Harry Potter fan is not the enemy here. We as a community should not be turning our visceral on one another. Turn it on Rowling. She’s the TERF, not the individual who, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to play the game only tangentially related to her.  

If Twitter and Tumblr are any indication, I can imagine the sort of responses this post may generate: “That’s a whole lot of talk to try and convince us you’re not a transphobe :/ ” For those of you who are determined to simply things to that extent, there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind. Please re-read the disclaimer and consider whether yelling at me over anon will benefit the trans community. For those of you who are still here, I do legitimately want us to think critically about the kinds of activism we’re engaging in, how performative it might be, whether it harms the community in any way, and (most significantly) whether it’s actually moving us towards a safe, respective world for trans people to live in. Personally, I don’t think telling Harry Potter fans that they’re transphobic for buying Legacy will generate any good in this world, for them or for the trans community. 

At the end of the day only you can decide whether you can stomach buying this game or not. Decide that for yourself, but make that decision knowing that there’s no wrong answer here.  

#harry potter #mymetas #Anonymous

[angrylizardjacket]

Run to Paradise {Nikki Sixx} Part 24

24. thus is winged cupid painted blind

Summary: Mick calls Lola out, which is not good. Roxie stabs Tommy, which is much worse.

Warnings: high impact swearing & (non-explicit) stabbing with a pen

ragtag bunch of misfits: @starlalove @toofasttofallinlove  @xrosegoldwolfx @obsessivesky  @trpwthme @lovehelpmewrite @angelicjoonie23  @marvelismylifffe  @lilytalebi @glitterdreamsz  @freddiessmallnipples @crazysaladchopshop @inthebackofmycarlaytheirbodies @dramatique-moi @missqueeniewrites @calspixie  @aryssav @catsoo12  @sweetshutter @silvertonguedserpent  @shamelessobsessions @lavenderbones22  @keepcalm-and-beyou @scarecrowmax  @nicholeh7 @unknownoblivion

{masterlist}

After getting back from brunch, getting back to the tour bus, Tommy's acting... weird. Of course Lola knows why, her smile sharp as knives at Roxie's distrustful glare the next day. If she was feeling particularly petty, she might have feigned sweetness, pretending to make amends for the months of mistrust, but she is content enough in her good mood to not make Tommy squirm with discomfort too much, since he's doing plenty of that on his own.

Roxie's stuck on him like a magnet, when they're on the bus, ignoring the rest of the band, acting sweet and kind and completely too-faced.

"Babe, where were you last night?" She pleads, practically curled up on him as they sit at the back of the bus. Everyone can hear them, can hear Roxie's fake worry, and Lola rolls her eyes, carefully pulling a baggie and razor from her pocket to start cutting up lines of coke on the table beside Nikki.

"Fell asleep in a gutter somewhere," Tommy snorts, wrapping an arm around her, sounding as calm and casual as he ever did. "Woke up to some junkies tryna'..." he trails off, spots Lola wearing a secretive little smile, talking quietly with Nikki at the front of the bus. She looks... happy. Happier than she has all tour. Tommy clears his throat, turning his smile up to a billion watts when he directs it at Roxie, "tryna' rob me, but it's all cool." He lies, "it all worked out."

And Roxie makes like she's worried, makes a show of cooing over him, and seems happy enough to snuggle with him for the moment, to take comfort in his without his mother around, with Lola keeping her distance. With Roxie wrapped in his arms, he can feel the sting of the nail marks Lola's left down his back. At the front of the bus, Nikki asks her what she'd gotten up to last night, and she doesn't even glance at Tommy as her smile widens, tells him that he doesn't wanna know.

"That's my girl," Nikki's sharp grin mirrors her, and he punches her in the shoulder lightly before going in for a line. Mick groans and takes a sip of his vodka.

Lola seems to be settling down again; she still drinks and snorts and fucks along with the rest of them, but she doesn't go out looking for a fight. She and Tommy don't really speak that often, but something's changed between them, even a blind man could see it, and it agitates Roxie more as each day goes on.

"You two are not nearly as subtle as you think you are," Mick tells Lola when she's delivering him his booze before a show. Lola's answering smile doesn't quiet reach her eyes.

"Me and who? You know I'm not good at subtle," but she still takes the makeup brush from him when he offers it, a silent question that he already knows the answer to. She dips the brush into the loose, dark powder and starts patting it just beneath his cheekbones.

"It's not healthy -"

"Don't talk to me about healthy, you old geezer," though her tone is teasing, there's a hint of warning in it. She starts blending out the black contour near his jaw. Mick is obediently quiet as she does his cheeks, his mouth opening as she begins applying his eyeshadow without needing to be prompted.

"To stake all your happiness on one person, and have it be our idiot drummer of all people, is fuckin' stupid."

They let the statement hang in the silence; Mick's eyes are still closed, but Lola's paused in her movements.

"I don't think you're stupid," he adds gently, and Lola leans back, sitting back against the mirror, her ankles crossed and makeup still in hand. She makes a half-amused, mostly disbelieving sound, and Mick, as a show of good humour, smiles a little, "I don't think you're that stupid." He amends, which gets Lola to laugh.

"You're an asshole," it's fond, as is the smile on her face. But then her expression, her shoulders, and the moment, drop. Moving off the counter top, she gestures for Mick to close his eyes again so she could finish, and her expression is hard. "But I don't know what you mean; sure I'm loyal to the band, but Tommy's happily engaged, we haven't -"

"Oh girlie, I'm sick of your bullshit, you know?" He finally snaps, "you're not loyal, you're just selfish; I've seen it happen with Vince, I've seen it happen with Tommy, and if Nikki ever falls in love, I'm sure you'll get yourself a hattrick, girlie." It's more honest, more spiteful than he intends it to be, and Lola's paused with the brush pressing against his closed eyelid. But he won't apologise.

The words sting so much worse than she's willing to let on.

There's so many things she wants to tell him, to scream at him, to throw, instead, what she says is;

"It's not fucking selfish to want to protect the people we love." It comes as a hiss, and the brush is moved from his eye. He hears her throws it down to the counter, hears her step away, but doesn't hear her leave. His eyes open, and she's a few feet away, haloed by the shitty, florescent bulb above; she's got her arms crossed, scowling at him. "Roxie is using him."

"Says who-"

"Says fucking everyone; says the fact that she fucked Nikki while she knew Tommy's parents were in town, says the fact that she's always demanding and demanding and demanding and even fucking Vince is sick of her, says the fact that Tommy still loves me-" and her eyes go wide, like she hadn't quite meant to let that slip, but it's out there nonetheless, and Mick sees the way her hands shake before she folds her arms again, defiant and furious. "Go be someone else's consciousness, Jiminy-Cricket-acting prick."

It's like several consecutive gut punches as everything she's saying, everything she's implying dawns on him, but she just seems to get more riled up in his silence. He'd never thought of her as someone who'd be a fan of Disney, in any capacity; the idea that Lola, who he'd always known as young, was also once actually small, fragile, and a fan of cartoons? It's almost painful to think.

"I may have made myself judge, jury, and executioner, but I will never stand in the way of what makes them truly happy," she spits, leaning over to look Mick in the eyes, "and if this band breaks up because of me, it's not because I fucked over one of my boys," she sneered, "it's because I gouged your fucking eyes out."

So now she's not on speaking terms with Mick, which Nikki thinks is hilarious, Doc thinks is a pain, and Vince and Tommy are pretty ambivalent about.

Roxie doesn't care; the sweet mask she'd been wearing since meeting his parents had been cracking as each day passed. She'd been dwelling, angry and mistrustful and insecure; she'd seen Tommy and Lola talking quietly together before a show, seen them share a smile, a laugh, a cigarette, and something about it made her skin crawl.

The problem was never that she and Lola were too different, the problem was that Roxie had always been aware that she and Lola, for all they hated each other, were different versions of the same person. They lie and steal and cheat their way through life, hot and sharp and mean, but Lola was here first. If Roxie had been here first, she knows she would have been just as territorial; Lola's found herself in the middle of a very good thing, she doesn't do well with interlopers, as Roxie may be, but Roxie is anything if not ambitious.

It had been going well enough, to keep Tommy to herself, Lola unwittingly helping her in the beginning, but now with Tommy's parents, with whatever's up with him and Lola, it had gotten under Roxie's skin. If she was being honest, she didn't exactly trust Tommy around other women, but he at least tried to be faithful, but Lola, she knew exactly how to play on Tommy's heartstrings, and absolutely would, if given half a chance.

So maybe sleeping with Nikki was deliberate, was spiteful, because Tommy had once drunkenly, and a little forlornly, made mention of how Lola 'was head over heels for Nikki' and that she sort of always has been. She saw the look in Lola's eyes when she came out of Nikki's dressing room, and in that one moment, it was worth it.

But it had ended up pushing Lola and Tommy back together, and Roxie wasn't stupid.

She was just sick and tired of feeling like a second-rate version of Lola.

Like she was a consolidation prize, just a version that Tommy didn't have to share. But Tommy was rich and stupid, and Roxie was ambitious, and thinks that if Lola could get him to love her, then Roxie would be able to too.

But even his parents could see it, and they'd barely met!

Why did Tommy have to call her his fiance? He should have at least made sure his parents liked her before telling them that she would be family. But fuck, it must run in the family; his mother's comment had stuck with her, had kept playing in her head.

"Like Lola."

"Your mom's a cunt." The words, deliberate and precise, come from Roxie one afternoon barely a week later, sore from being stuck on the tour bus all day, in her head about everything that's been going on, while Tommy had been waxing poetic to Nikki about a drum setup he'd seen in his dreams.

He'd just turned to ask her for a pen to draw up his ideas after ignoring her for most of the day, and yeah she's got a pen, buried somewhere in the bottom of her bag, so she gets it for him, but tells him exactly what she's thinking, playing with the pen. Of course, to no surprise, it riles up Tommy.

"What? Why would you say that?" But his attention is finally on her, and she'd take a fight over being ignored.

"Because she is," Roxie tells him, deliberate, like talking to a child, "she's a cunt."

"Quit it," Tommy warned, "give me the pen, alright?" After a beat, he makes a face when she doesn't even make a move to.

"I don't even know why you told them," Roxie continues, voice raising, catching the attention of the others, who had been trying their best not to watch the inevitable argument began to unfold. "It's not like she has anything to do with us getting married."

"Baby," Tommy tried to calm her down, turning back around, "it's sweet, it's tradition."

"Which tradition?" Roxie snarled, "The mandatory meeting of the cunt?!" Storming up to him, her lip curled in anger, she could feel the plastic pen in her iron grip.

"Don't call her that again, you hear me?" Tommy demanded, voice low and dangerous, standing, matching her toe to toe and towering over her, eyes blazing with a fury, trying to put her in her place.

After a moment, he seems satisfied that she won't try anything, and goes to sit back down, still crackling with an irritated energy, but Roxie seems to feed off of it, stabbing the pen into his back when he goes back to paying attention to anything but her.

"Here's your pen!" She spat, and the bus seems to light up around them. Tommy's flinching away, surprise and slight fear in his eyes, while Nikki looks on, concerned, but hazily high.

"Ow! What the fuck is wrong with you?" He gasps, looking up at her, pain radiating across his shoulder and back.

"Fuck you!" Roxie spits, as she feels someone trying to catch her hands; spinning, she sees it's Lola, wearing a stony expression, watching with fury written all over her face, "fuck you too!" Roxie continues, shoving Lola hard, sending the girl stumbling back before she turns back to Tommy, "and fuck your mother!"

"That's it, this fucking bitch is out of here!" Tommy shouted, hollering for the driver to pull over. He drags Roxie down the aisle, with everyone watching in shock. Lola looks murderous. "Get the fuck off my bus! Get the fuck out!"

Roxie won't back down, not here, not now; she shoves Tommy too, and it feels like a slap in the face when Lola catches him before he hits the table.

"You're such a spoiled little mama's boy," Roxie snarls, "'cause you wanna crawl back inside her cunt -"

Tommy punches her.

There's regret on his face the moments after is happens, breathless, watching as she wipes the blood from her split lip, shock and hurt written all over her. It's like he can't even believe what he's done.

"I told you not to say that," is what comes out of his mouth, breathless, a little frantic, before racing to the back of the bus, escaping to the only place he could. Everyone else looks shocked, like they can't believe her, like they can't believe him, like this whole situation is fucked. Except Lola. Stone cold and dead silent, she gives Roxie the single most withering look the other woman had ever received in her life.

"Stop the bus." Lola orders, her gaze flicking to the others in turn. Her gaze lingers on Mick, who won't look at her. Finally, she looks back at Roxie. "Get your shit," her voice is still level, terrifyingly so, "and get the fuck off the bus."

"We are in the middle of nowhere." Roxie tried, but there's a tremble in her voice, her hands shake a little, finally coming to terms with what had happened, what she and Tommy had both done.

"Get off this bus, or I will kill you."

With that, she turns, and all eyes are on her as she opens one of the cupboards, pulls out the medical kit, and follows Tommy to the back of the bus. She slams the sliding door closed.

Lola seems to be angry almost by default, loud voice, gnashing teeth, bloody knuckles, violent and ill-tempered, she was a fighter through and through. This is the first time any of them had seen her truly, and terrifyingly, furious. They'd always joked about her being the muscle of the group, but this is the first time they'd truly realised what that could mean; what she was willing to do for them.

"This is crazy, you know he's in love with her, right?" Roxie sat on one of the chairs by the front, tears pricking her eyes as the adrenaline starts to leave her system and her legs become too weak to keep her standing. Her words are a Hail Mary pass as she turns on Nikki, trying to drive a wedge before the bus pulled over and the good thing she had going comes to an abrupt end.

"We all are, dude," he admits easily, high as hell where everyone else is still on edge, but his smile is blurry, "if you figured that out, why are you still here?"

In the back, Tommy's got his head in his hands, sitting on one of the beds when Lola finds him. Looking up, fear and regret in his red-rimmed eyes, he heaves a shaky sigh seeing it was Lola. No words pass between them; she's still radiating that dark, protective energy, and Tommy's aghast at his own actions. She opens the medical kit, pauses, and reaches beneath one of the beds for a bottle of booze, setting it down in his lap.

Her hands are gentle as she pulls the pen from his back, and he winces and grunts quietly in pain as she does. The bus stops, and there's the sound of Roxie's heels angrily stomping around the bus, and quiet, furious talking. Lola keeps working, unscrews the bottle where it still sits in Tommy's lap, and directs him to drink some. After he takes a swig, she lifts his shirt, prompts him to take it off, he does, and blood begins to trail from the wound down the smooth plane of his back. Their medical equipment is woefully understocked.

Outside, Roxie is shouting. The engine is still running.

Lola wipes away the blood as best she can, patting the wound with antiseptic ointment which makes Tommy swear under his breath. He's drunk a quarter of the bottle by the time she's dressing the wound, and the bus has started up again. Vince and Nikki are talking in the main cabin, but they don't sound particularly somber.

"Don't say 'I told you so'." Tommy's voice is very small, speaking when he hears the lid of the medical kit close. Lola pauses.

Gently, slowly, she runs her fingertips down his spine. His head is still in his hands, and he hasn't made a move, but Lola sits behind him, her legs crossed, as close as she can, and she rests her forehead on his back, a quiet moment of solidarity. Now is not the time to be petty, or cruel.

"I'm sorry this is how it went down." And she means it, with her whole heart she means it. "I'm sorry you got stabbed." She wants to say I'm sorry I didn't stop her / didn't hold her back / didn't take the hit, but the words are stuck on her tongue. Tommy's breathing is shaky.

"I can't... can't believe I..." and he can't vocalise it, just looks down at his hands in abstract horror. Lola's quiet, reaching forward, she gently takes one of his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together.

"She did... stab you." Lola says flatly, and Tommy hums in quiet agreement; "you... she said some awful things about your mother; being protective sometimes means you'll do terrible things for the people you love," she murmurs, eyes closed. He gives her hand a squeeze, and heaves a sigh. They stay like that for a long while, and slowly, Lola feels the rise and fall of his chest become steadier with time.

#tommy lee #tommy lee x reader #nikki sixx #nikki sixx x reader #motley crue #the dirt #the dirt imagine #tommy lee imagine #nikki sixx imagine #mick mars #vince neil #motley crue imagine #the angry lizard writes

[faithdvalle]

A prophetic beach trip: into the deep waters

For the last month of 2020, I had a beach trip with one of my closest friends in Zambales. She invited me the day before our departure for a 3-day trip. I was to miss work for two days and inform my bosses of my leave on such short notice. 

I dislike rushed trips. I plan everything in my life down to the smallest details. I didn’t think I would enjoy it so I was inclined to say no. However, I really felt in my heart and spirit that God wanted me to take this trip. I took my chances, told my bosses, got tested for covid, and packed my bags. Perhaps, He wanted me to pause and rest. I haven’t taken even one day of vacation leave for the whole year. I told myself that I deserved that trip anyway after working hard for the rest of the year and I decided to go. 

This trip became so much more than just resting and spending time with one of my sisters. 

I had three firsts during that trip. It was the first time I ever had a spontaneous trip that lasted for more than just a day. It was also the first time I swam with the waves. I’ve been to the beach many times but I always preferred to stay on the shore or within the shallows. I never went into the water especially when it isn’t calm. The beach we went to had pretty strong waves for a beginner like me. Lastly, it was my first time to walk in the dark with just one friend with me. We wanted to stay close to the waters at 11 pm, have a mat laid down and go star-gazing. I told her I didn’t want to join because it was pitch dark I was fine watching the stars from our area near the resort but she insisted that the view would be better if we go farther. Honestly, I wouldn’t have done these things without her urging me. In fact, she practically dragged me to go star-gazing HAHA. I told myself that I loved her enough to do it so I forced myself as well even if I really didn’t want to. 

And you know what? After countless hesitations of whether or not I should even try asking my workmates, they understood and encouraged me to rest and go on that trip. After being settled with staying on the shore, as soon as I decided to go farther in the ocean, I never wanted to leave because I enjoyed jumping and swimming with the waves so much. I was able to see countless stars and even a shooting star after walking into darkness with practically no one around us. And to think I already convinced myself staying near was already enough for me. I had to play worship songs as I gazed at the beauty of the night sky, knowing in my heart that it was my Father who laid out the universe with His hands. It was so beautiful!!! 

I thought that I was already settled with staying where I was because I was satisfied. In that trip, I realized that comfort and familiarity can be disguised as contentment. And it will stop us from entering into a more exciting journey with Jesus. While contentment is a gift from God, it should never be used as an excuse to stay where we are when He is clearly asking us to go somewhere else or to step out in faith. I also realized that fear often holds me back. I’m a very calculated person and I’m usually scared of trying things until I’m sure I can handle it. I would often convince myself that I can stay where I am and will be happy in doing so. “Okay na ako dito”. “Hanggang dito na lang”. “Masaya naman ako”. But now I realize that I miss God-moments because of this. If my friend didn’t force me and I didn’t allow myself to be convinced, I would never have witnessed such beautiful stars and enjoyed the ocean. Now, I feel like I’m ready for more fun adventures! This is such a feat coming from someone like me! 

I also realized that we need true friends who will force and even drag us to doing things and changing our mindsets that we wouldn’t have done just because it was too intimidating or seemed to hard for us to do. I am so grateful for her, for driving long-hours to get to Zambales and reminding me of God’s mindfulness through this trip. 

This trip became a revelation of what my 2021 will look like. I’m tired of holding onto my privilege and staying in the shallows. I want to witness more miracles unfold and more moments and breakthroughs where I can say in the truest way “Only God could have taken me here”. In my career, relationships, and faith, I no longer want to hold back because I’m happy where I am. I want to trust God completely even if it means doing things that I’ve never done before because I thought I wasn’t capable or am not good enough. I have learned in the truest way this year that everything I am, none of that comes from me, everything is but by the grace and love of my Abba. I want to leave the shore, and step into the deep waters, relying only on Jesus and no one else. I want to do things I have never done before, the kind only God can get me through. 

The beginning of 2021 is perfect because I have difficult projects in line that I will lead and have never handled before and applications for my masters and scholarships to pursue. I originally didn’t plan to apply for scholarships because I was again, settled that my family would finance me. But now I don’t even want a single cent to come from my parents. I want everything to be from God’s provision alone (not saying that they can’t be instruments of His provision but you get it and if not, long story haha). I also plan to apply in prestigious universities, my goal being Cambridge, NUS, or London School of Economics. I’m also believing God for a partner. My faith declaration here is that whether or not I am called to singleness or marriage, as long as I have God I’m ready for both. But I am in faith for him anyway, and what God will do in and through us. I think I am ready for a relationship??? I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as God calls me to it. 

I am so excited for 2021! In fact, this is the first year I am genuinely excited about. My spirit tells me new things will be birthed in my 2021 and I cannot wait to do things I’ve never done before and trust Jesus fully the next 365 days!