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#more ancient than we thought even
deadsetobsessions · 1 month
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Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.2
[Pt.1] [Pt.3] [Pt.4]
Danny dragged up another plastic wrapped body from the bay.
“It’s you. What are you doing?”
“Oh, holy smokes!” Danny screeched. “What-! Oh, it’s you! The litterer!”
Batman stood in front of Danny, cape draped around his shoulders and a far better sight to see than the last time Danny had seen the guy.
“… I’m Batman.” He introduced himself to Danny awkwardly.
“Uh huh. You missed a couple of things cleaning up the beach last time.” Danny dropped the body on the pebbled shore of the bay and crossed his arms. He sent Batman an unimpressed look. “You’re just like your city. There’s trash all over the water!”
Batman glanced down.
“That is a body.”
Danny scowled.
“No, that’s plastic. Plastic does not belong in the ocean.”
Batman sighed. For some reason, Danny thought he seemed less… antagonistic. Wait, did he think Danny killed the guy?!
“That is a body wrapped in plastic.”
Fuck it.
“If it was a body, then bury it. Or decompose it before you people decide to dump it into the water. Even the sharks have the decency to decompose when they’re dead. Do you know how long plastic takes to deteriorate??”
Batman glanced to the side, where the line of plastic wrapped masses had caught his eye to begin with.
“I do. Did all of these come from the bay?”
“Quite obviously, yes. I don’t have enough time to clean the waters! Ancients, it’s like they’re multiplying!” Danny knew why they were multiplying. It’s because Gothamites were getting murdered and dumped weekly. The problem is that Danny has classes and assignments to complete and he couldn’t be out here every week.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Oh, will you? And how do you plan on doing that when you couldn’t even properly clean the beach of your plane? I even stacked it up nicely for you to pick up!”
Alright, so maybe Danny had a couple of grudges. Like… a solid one that’s based on the hours of sleep he missed cleaning up after Batman and the wreck.
“We didn’t get everything?”
“No.” Danny huffed. “Whatever. Just figure out what to do with these bodies. I was not looking forward to digging graves for all of them.”
“You were going to dig graves for them?” Batman sounded off.
Danny scowled again. “I’m dead, genius.” And now Batman looked like someone ran over his dog. “Respecting the dead is important and graves are important for the dead. How else would we know we’re remembered?”
Danny threw up his hands. “Humans,” he muttered, like he wasn’t half human himself.
“Anyways, I’m leaving. Handle this properly or else I’m haunting you.”
“Wait-!” Batman said, but Danny had already disappeared.
So, while Batman had an angst crises at two thirty in the morning and thirty new unidentified corpses to contend with, Danny Fenton flew back to his apartment and passed out on his shitty couch.
——
“You need to stop.”
“Pay me to stop, then. What are your villains going to do? Kill me? I’d like to see them try.”
Danny looked Batman right in his lenses and plopped another body down at the man’s feet.
“I can tell you who they are for a fee.” Danny offered the vigilante. “Some of these still have shades of their souls attached still.”
“What.”
Danny tilted his head, moon once more lighting a halo of flickering white flames around his head. “$100 per identity.”
Batman stared.
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headspace-hotel · 9 months
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What i've been learning thru my research is that Lawn Culture and laws against "weeds" in America are deeply connected to anxieties about "undesirable" people.
I read this essay called "Controlling the Weed Nuisance in Turn-of-the-century American Cities" by Zachary J. S. Falck and it discusses how the late 1800's and early 1900's created ideal habitats for weeds with urban expansion, railroads, the colonization of more territory, and the like.
Around this time, laws requiring the destruction of "weeds" were passed in many American cities. These weedy plants were viewed as "filth" and literally disease-causing—in the 1880's in St. Louis, a newspaper reported that weeds infected school children with typhoid, diphtheria, and scarlet fever.
Weeds were also seen as "conducive to immorality" by promoting the presence of "tramps and idlers." People thought wild growing plants would "shelter" threatening criminals. Weeds were heavily associated with poverty and immortality. Panic about them spiked strongly after malaria and typhoid outbreaks.
To make things even wilder, one of the main weeds the legal turmoil and public anxiety centered upon was actually the sunflower. Milkweed was also a major "undesirable" weed and a major target of laws mandating the destruction of weeds.
The major explosion in weed-control law being put forth and enforced happened around 1905-1910. And I formed a hypothesis—I had this abrupt remembrance of something I studied in a history class in college. I thought to myself, I bet this coincides with a major wave of immigration to the USA.
Bingo. 1907 was the peak of European immigration. We must keep in mind that these people were not "white" in the exact way that is recognized today. From what I remember from my history classes, Eastern European people were very much feared as criminals and potential communists. Wikipedia elaborates that the Immigration Act of 1924 was meant to restrict Jewish, Slavic, and Italian people from entering the country, and that the major wave of immigration among them began in the 1890s. Almost perfectly coinciding with the "weed nuisance" panic. (The Immigration Act of 1917 also banned intellectually disabled people, gay people, anarchists, and people from Asia apart from the Chinese...which were already banned since 1880.)
From this evidence, I would guess that our aesthetics and views about "weeds" emerged from the convergence of two things:
First, we were obliterating native ecosystems by colonizing them and violently displacing their caretakers, then running roughshod over them with poorly informed agricultural and horticultural techniques, as well as constructing lots of cities and railroads, creating the ideal circumstances for weeds.
Second, lots of immigrants were entering the country, and xenophobia and racism lent itself to fears of "criminals" "tramps" and other "undesirable" people, leading to a desire to forcefully impose order and push out the "Other." I am not inventing a connection—undesirable people and undesirable weeds were frequently compared in these times.
And this was at the very beginnings of the eugenics movement, wherein supposedly "inferior" and poor or racialized people were described in a manner much the same as "weeds," particularly supposedly "breeding" much faster than other people.
There is another connection that the essay doesn't bring up, but that is very clear to me. Weeds are in fact plants of the poor and of immigrants, because they are often medicinal and food plants for people on the margins, hanging out around human habitation like semi-domesticated cats around granaries in the ancient Near East.
My Appalachian ancestors ate pokeweed, Phytolacca americana. The plant is toxic, but poor people in the South would gather the plant's young leaves and boil them three times to get the poison out, then eat them as "poke salad." Pokeweed is a weed that grows readily on roadsides and in vacant lots.
In some parts of the world, it is grown as an ornamental plant for its huge, tropical-looking leaves and magenta stems. But my mom hates the stuff. "Cut that down," she says, "it makes us look like rednecks."
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nouvellevqgue · 2 months
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FULL OF FAN BEHAVIOR
req: Saw your post for smau requests, maybe a Max Verstappen where people don't realise his girlfriends account is you know her official verified account. Because practically every single post is about Max. Full on fan behaviour, in the sense she was his first fan as his childhood friend, she has been there supporting him since they were kids, and now they're adults and together, but some habits doesn't change.
(bonus if the posts makes people question why she choose Max as her mans.)
summary: everybody knows that this account is full of max. from his first win to now, from his most random things to his glory time, she's always there to post his pictures. they only know her as his friend and nothing more, but who is she actually?
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2016 - 2018
verstappenight
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liked by maxverstappen33, and 1,942 others
verstappenight WOOOO P1🏆🏁 congratulations to you maximus, i'm soo proud of you!
view all 125 comments
maxverstappen33 I won't say anything about the name Maximus, but thank you 😄
danielricciardo Well deserved! 👍🙌
username look how young he is
username I love a supportive fan ^^ Plz post more of this man.
   ⤷ yourusername glad to be on your service, ma'am
username how old is he?
username He's so happy, he turns red.
username I usually don't trust redbull after Sebastian, but he might be my new exception🤷‍♀️
verstappenight
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liked by danielricciardo, and 1,230 others
verstappenight that eyes glint with mischief. #throwbackthursday
view all 65 comments
maxverstappen33 Oh my god, I thought I trusted you by taking this years ago
   ⤷ yourusername never trust anyone
username The half smile😂
username He's been pulling the red string with Red Bull from a long time ago, and look at the hat. I bet it's not a coincidence.
username how is she even managed to get this out? this looks so ancient
   ⤷ username It's not ancient, it's probably old, but not ancient.
danielricciardo He looks like he's planning to steal one of the cars steering wheel
   ⤷ username exactly! 😂😂
username if it's a throwback, how old is this pic then?
   ⤷ username i mean he looks way younger than him on her recent post, so just figure it.
   ⤷ username he always looks younger
verstappenight
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liked by victoriaverstappen, and 963 others
verstappenight how is it feel to have a duplicates?
view all 72 comments
maxverstappen33 Why are you taking the second one?
   ⤷ verstappenight and why are YOU posing to that one?
username Why is he looks younger and younger each time?
   ⤷ verstappenight i don't know, but i definitely recommend him to have a slug treatment for anti aging.
   ⤷ username username it's him in torro rosso, so that's why he looks more like a teenager.
username it's not even thursday yet, but i had a bad feeling for this week's throwback thursday.
verstappenight
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liked by carlossainz55, and 3,573 others
verstappenight boo! happy halloween #throwbackthursday
view all 269 comments
username what did i say, my feelings are never lying
carlossainz55 Got you! 😆🤣
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 If I got a heart attack next week, it'll be completely your fault
landonorris is halloween on 29 or 30?
   ⤷ username depends on what region you're in, i guess?
   ⤷ landonorris don't guess, answer.
maxverstappen1 And how are you even managed to take this?? Seriously. yourusername
username I can't believe it's actually Carlos who did this
   ⤷ username Yeah, but I think this is so Carlos-like behavior.
username i would do that face too if someone dressed as scream beside me
username Who is running this fanpage?
username why are you liking him so much?
   ⤷ yourusername because he is so nice, cool, and he looks like sid from ice age which is my favorite character.
   ⤷ danielricciardo we got a whole stack of characters here: first we got maximus the horse from tangled, sid from ice age, and then what? jimmy neutron?
username 😂😂😂ajajaja mira su cara!
verstappenight
liked by redbullracing, and 3,782 others
verstappenight found this on twitter and now i can't stop laughing! can't wait to send this to my family group.
view all 90 comments
maxverstappen1 I really can't trust you with my digital footprint 🤦🏻‍♂️
   ⤷ verstappenight i found this on twitter alright, it's not taken by me!
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 Still.
   ⤷ carlossainz55 Ooh, someone's upset...
username who is this person behind this account?
username Why is his reaction is always looking so hilarious
username Max: 😦
username i feel him
username you sure it's not throwback thursday?
MID 2023
verstappenight
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liked by charles_leclerc, and 97,182 others
verstappenight i changed throwback thursday with this questionable sense of max's fashion. hope that's alright.
photo credit via verstauri on twitter.
view all 348 comments
username NOOOOOOOOOOOO
username #bringbackthrowbackthursday
charles_leclerc If you get rid of throwback Thursday, how am I going to tease him?
   ⤷ verstappenight by searching it on pinterest🤷🏻‍♀️
username Is that real or photoshopped?
username Okay, I know throwback thursday is made a long time ago since 2015 but man I really miss it sm... 💔💔
   ⤷ verstappenight same, but some people don't need that old max (except for charles). we need the new one because life goes on -max via my message
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember saying it
   ⤷ verstappenight shut up
username oh cmon i know charles want it because he's in love with max
   ⤷ username should i be surprised?
   ⤷ username i mean if there's no throwback thursday, who's going to tease him with his past when she's not there
   ⤷ username Daniel and Lando or Y/n could...
   ⤷ username oh come on, i don't even know who's the person behind this account anyway, for EIGHT YEARS
   ⤷ username As if you've never heard of twitter, just search her username and you'll see her REAL face.
THE TWEET SHE MEANT:
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verstappenight
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liked by schecoperez, and 113,809 others
verstappenight guess which one is the real one
view all 462 comments
schecoperez The first one of course!😂🤣
username since when did checos ass becoming that juicy
   ⤷ username since he listened to daddy yankee's song on repeat
   ⤷ danielricciardo His actual morning routine:
username the first one because what else would he be doing if not eating omelette and seeing checo's ass in the morning
   ⤷ username even checo himself agrees
username I'm glad that she still post here, even though there's no throwback thursday anymore😞😔
   ⤷ username but i guess even though we did not have throwback thursday anymore, we still have this crack post of him😄
TWITTER, 3 DAYS AFTER THE COMMENTS ON VERSTAPPENIGHT'S DADDY POST:
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maxverstappen1 added a photo to their story! 2h
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ON THE OTHER HAND, HER ACTUAL IG:
yourusername
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liked by maxverstappen1 and 82,147 others
yourusername good moooorniiiiinggggg from my room<3
view all 97 comments
username Thank God it's not private
username damn yall work faster than the fbi
username Anyone come here from twitter?
username Omg I've never realized max pulled this hottie ever since they were born
username THIS IS VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN?????
   ⤷ username eight years of waiting is finally getting payed off..
username why are you even choosing max to be your man when there's charles or daniel who's sexier
   ⤷ yourusername sometimes i don't need looks to see to be having someone like max. he's my best friend first, and i'm glad i choose him right the first place.
   ⤷ username Oh that's sweet...
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too, My biggest fan.
   ⤷ username I LOVE YOU TOO??????💔💔
   ⤷ username oh my god max is having a REAL relationship with a fan account admin
   ⤷ username AWOOP🚨🚔 THEIR MEDIUM LAUNCH????
yourusername
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liked by maxverstappen1, and 278,903 others
yourusername nobody knows that this phone addict is once my best friend. happy birthday maximus! 🥳🤍
view all 486 comments
landonorris happy birthday facebook dad.
maxverstappen1 I once again not going to take the Maximus name. It makes me feel like a horse from Rapunzel.
   ⤷ yourusername wait, you've watch tangled before?
danielricciardo Happy birthday, Big boy.
redbullracing Happy birthday to our number one champion! 🥳🥳
username awww baby maxiee🥺🥺🥺
lewishamilton Happy birthday, mate!
carlossainz55 To be honest, your real account is sometimes still kinda feels like your other one.
   ⤷ yourusername force of habit probably?
   ⤷ carlossainz55 No, it's because you're acting like Max's biggest fan everywhere.
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 That's probably because she is.
   ⤷ yourusername wipe that smug smile off your face while you're typing
username He looks the same weirdly or not
username AHA I FOUND YOU VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN
username i love how she just hanging to his arm like they're been a couple since god knows how long
username SHE'S SOO LUCKYYY
username i'm gonna melt
username i feel like it's a hard launch, but she have been doing this for a long time ago
sophiekumpen 🥳🥳🥳
maxverstappen1
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liked by zedd, and 627,834 others
maxverstappen1 How was I going to get her bad side if she's there and looking so beautifully?
👤: yourusername, verstappenight
view all 446 comments
landonorris poetic. remember your other girlfriend's waiting
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember having another one?
   ⤷ charles_leclerc How are you even forget about us?
yourusername awww i can't believe you tag the fan account one too!! i love you so much!!!
   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too❤️
username #justiceforcharles #lestappenforever
username SHE'S SOOOO CUTE no wonder max pulled her
victoriaverstappen I didn't know you pulled this cutie
   ⤷ danielricciardo Me too until I found out yesterday at the club
username poetic max is going to be the end of me
username I really had a bad feelings of he becoming poetic and gets all over like this
username Okay, this is max's hard launch. And now I'm waiting for Y/n's
   ⤷ username i thought she already doing it for so many times at verstappenight? 😏🤭
yourusername
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liked by redbullracing, and 579,420 others
yourusername 💌
📸: landonorris
view all 461 comments
username PARENTS CONFIRMED???
username YESS (adopt me pls)
username is verstappenight still going to be there? let's see for the next two days...
username verstappenight nation how do we feel after this? (we can get a new max pic daily)
username i'm gonna thank lando forever for this
username With the bouquet, the dim light, and the black and white + sepia filters. What are they doin that night?
username AWWW ROMANTIC😍😍
danielricciardo They left Charles in the back that night
⤷ landonorris aww poor him. but anyway...
username how are you converting from lestappen to this one so fast?
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TAGLIST @queenofmanydreams @muglermami @4limq @avengers-assemble123456 @cabbyhabs @meowtastick @4mula-1 @miarabanana @amel1ee @dinosushilun1 @auggieblogs @namgification
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I'm starting to lose it with my fellow pjo book fans. Specifically about the pearls.
Have we lost the ability to think critically??? First of all,this is an adaptation,things are going to be different. Secondly, Percy has already had an instance (with the pen, albeit temporarily) of losing things, AND accidentally (with the spear) breaking things???
Literally the moment I saw four my first thought was "Well, one of those isn't making it to Hades."...... Like what??? And even if it does.... So what??? This is an adaptation. It's not going to be exactly like the books. Those fuckers are old. Not ancient but hey, times change and the next gen/People who didn't catch it the first time around deserve to be able to enjoy it the way we did.
Also, about the deadline shit:
This a.) Creates more tension cause now there is a war happening (which like.... I think is a cool element), And b.) It further cements these kids desire to do good and to be better than their parents. Which..... Yk..... Is kinda a major point in this story???
(specifically: they now have no real incentive to do this. They SHOULD just go home. But they actively choose 'No, we are better than this, and we can still fix it'. Hubris may not be their fatal flaw, but my god is it what makes them human, and what cements that they are still just kids! This is a great addition imo)
There needs to be tension. This will, Inevitably create it. There is still so much to go. And Rick is notorious for monkey wrenching shit. Hold fast y'all, for fucks sake.
Anyway, I personally loved episode six. I love the change in the deadline having passed, and the four pearls.... The lighting kinda sucked ass, and there weren't any super obvious cameos of the Di'Angelos but hey. It is what it is.
But seriously guys, let's think critically and not let our nostalgia cloud our judgement of this. Kill the cop in your head. Fr.
Edit (spoiler for ep 7): They lost a pearl. Shocker. I CALLED IT!!! Also this episode had way more changes than were- eh. But hey! Uncle Rick is evil and we love him anyway so really no big complaints still.
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blumineck · 1 month
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hi! you're great I love your work! I've got a weirdly specific archery question and thought I'd send it to you in case you'd find it fun to have a crack at
say you're an expert archer originally from Vietnam sometime in the late bronze age. say you're a super duper expert archer because it turns out you're immortal, and so you do your archery across Eurasia through the first millennium BCE and the first millennium CE and into the age where gunpowder weapons are evolving into cannons. that's a long time to be alive and you do lots of hunting and fighting with all kinds of bows and shooting styles, especially war archery on horseback. then you're out of the picture for a while, let's say you're peacefully sleeping for a handful of centuries. (this is about Quynh from The Old Guard who alas was not peacefully sleeping)
all of a sudden you blink and you've gone from the era where firearms were just starting to develop and maybe with this new flintlock thing guns could eventually get good enough to rival a bow and arrows— bam, now you're in the 21st century. what kinds of modern archery tech would you be most excited to try out? what would you think of a compound bow? Olympic style archery? plastic fletching?? how about the modern reproductions of what are now considered historical bows and shooting styles? is there anything about 21st century archery that you'd want to rant about at length? other opinions about these newfangled takes on your trusty old bow and arrows you care to share?
This is a phenomenal question, and thank you for asking it! Here’s my 2 cents:
The thing about modern archery is that for the most part, modern bows are designed to make it easier to be accurate, to the stage that modern target accuracy is probably better than it’s ever been historically.
BUT, if we assume Quynh is capable of feats of archery that match the level of melee combat skill that e.g. Andy has, then she doesn’t NEED it to be easier to be accurate.
My guess is that someone like her would actually find most modern archery developments needlessly slow and awkward. Compound bows and Olympic recurves are NOT designed for instinctive, fast shooting, and would probably feel quite restrictive once she got over how easy they made accuracy.
BUT, I imagine she would be blown away by the range and arrow speed that modern bows can generate, and there are some recurves (and at least one compound bow), that have been designed to make use of the efficiency of modern materials and bow design, while still allowing traditional shooting styles, and those, THOSE are something an ancient immortal archer might fall in love with! (FWIW, my own go-to is a horsebow made with carbon-fibre limbs and a modern limb profile, and for impact energy it can match some traditional bows with a draw weight that’s 50% greater. The Oneida eagle compound could trump that).
So yeah, it might take her a bit, but once she gets her hands on the right equipment, she’d be (even more) TERRIFYING!
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dycefic · 1 year
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Tom Saves The World
Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.
But not always.
I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.
I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.
The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.
And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.
Which never, ever happens.
My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.
At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.
But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.
Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.
I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.
She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.
It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.  
And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.
I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.
Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.
The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.
There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.
They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.
To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.
Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.
Enter Thomas Briggs.
Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.
Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.
Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.
And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.
He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.
The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.
One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.
Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.
I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.
I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.
He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.
And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.
I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”
He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”
“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.
He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”
I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”
It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.
But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.
Wild, huh?
--
This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.
And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.
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grounded-in-light · 1 month
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𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖑𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖘 𝖆𝖉𝖏𝖆𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖙 - sub!hyunjin x sub!reader x dom!chan
wc: 2,804
cw: hyunjin is a slut, so is the reader, chan likes it that way. SMUT MDNI.
synopsis: while shooting the red lights mv chan noticed something about hyunjin and now he's got a theory he wants to test, he just needs your help.
a/n: was literally plagued with visions of overstimulating hyunjin and making him cry soooo this is what i ended up with. oops. also if there are any spelling errors pls don't tell me bc ive read this trash so many times trying to work it all out and if i have to re-read it again i might go blind.
sw: dirty talk, daddy kink, unprotected sex (pls be smarter than that), bondage, threesome, some gay shit, breeding, blowjobs, lingerie, deepthroating, general toughness, waxing poetic about hyunjins beautiful face. idk probably more but im bad at this shit.
hwang hyunjin is beautiful. its a well documented fact, no ifs ands or buts about it. he has the kind of face ancient civilizations would have gone to war for. old world dynasties would have been reduced to rubble over a face like his. hwang hyunjin is the kind of beautiful where it almost hurts to look at him. it makes you question your belief in a higher power because, how could there possibly be any room for debate on if there is a God when there is simply no other reasonable explanation for how a devine creature like him came to exist on this earth? so with all that being said, there's no way he could get any more beautiful. or so you thought.
it had always been your assumption that there was no possible way he could look any more stunning than he naturally does; but your mind was changed the minute you saw the lithe expanses of his smooth milky skin held captive by blood red ropes. you felt an astounding amount of pride as your eyes bore witness to his soft flesh being pulled tight by the coarse material; the blood under his skin rushing to the surface where the ropes were knotted artfully over his collarbone, across his abdomen, splayed over his pelvis, looped around his upper thighs and finally circling the base of his dick. and you had worked hard to make sure the knots around his wrists and ankles were comfortable yet sturdy before attaching them to each bedpost.
you had taken your instructions very seriously, as the man giving them to you from edge of the bed, wouldn't allow any of this to continue if either of you were to disobey his direct orders, and dear god you would rather die than see this endeavor be cut short.
you admired your handiwork a bit more before the rumbling of a particular voice hit your ears.
“how do you feel baby? is this what you wanted? y/n did a good job huh? you look so pretty.” chan spoke softly to hyunjin, absentmindedly petting his head. hyunjin looked up at his leader and nodded, unsure if he could speak without whining as the ropes pulled across his body with every move.
“yeah i knew you'd like this. the whole time we were shooting “red lights” i saw you ya know? the way your breathing got shallow when the staff chained you up. the way your eyes glazed over when they gave you instructions to pull against your restraints. god, standing above you on that bed, watching you writhe below me was a sight to see. my good boy just wanted to be tied up and used huh?” chan said to him, his finger hooked under hyunjin's chin forcing his head up to look him in the eyes. a whimper forced its way out of him as his hips instinctually bucked and the the sensation of the ropes took over.
you couldn't drag your eyes away from his lower body. the sharp angle of his hipbones jutting up to the ceiling as his cock drooled uncontrollably, the fluid flowing from his tip dribbling down to darken the rope wrapped snugly around the base of him. without even thinking you reached out and wrapped your hand around his shaft, you were just so overwhelmed with the desire to touch him. the feeling was unexpected and the sound that punched its way out of hyunjin's chest was glorious. his body attempted to curl in on itself but the ropes kept him firmly in place. you watched the range of emotions flicker over his face in rapid succession; surprise at your initial touch, pleasure from finally being granted a little stimulation, sensitivity from being denied his pleasure for so long, shock when he remembered the restraints keeping him spread open, frustration at not being able to move, and finally acceptance as he gave in to the languid stroking you were doing. he continued to toss as the pleasure took over, thrashing wildly against the mattress and moaning into the pillow.
hyunjin's noises were reduced to whimpers as chan’s hand squeezed around his jaw, directing hyunjin to look him in the eyes. “shhh baby boy, y/n is gonna make you feel good okay? you'll let her do that, won’t you? you'll lay there and take what i let her give you, understood? words please, jinnie.” chan cooed. “yes daddy. i'll be good for you, for her too i promise. i'll be your perfect boy just like always, i promise, please! god just please keep touching me!” hyunjin choked out, making chan grin. he leapt up from where he was perched on the edge of the bed and rounded the corner until he was standing behind you. you repressed a shudder as chan’s hand slid up your back, tracing over your spine and occasionally tripping over the straps of the lingerie set you were wearing. his hand glided up into your hair with ease until his palm cradled the base of your skull, then suddenly he locked his fingers to grab your hair firmly by the roots and pulled you upright so your back was against his chest as he angled your head to the left exposing the expanse of your neck. the suddenness of his movements caused you to lose your grip on hyunjin’s dick and he cried out from the loss of contact, his hips frantically bucking into the air in a fruitless attempt to find friction.
chan hummed as his lips made contact with the skin of your neck and continued as he licked, nipped, and sucked at your flesh. he hooked his chin over your shoulder as his right hand charted a course down your abdomen to the apex of your thighs where the pads of his thick fingers rubbed over your damp slit. when you could finally manage to pry your lids open, you locked eyes with hyunjin. he was practically panting watching chan devour your throat and palm your pussy. “so pretty y/n, y’look so pretty. like a dream. want to paint you one day, just like that.” he whispered. hyunjin's words and gaze coupled with chan's wandering hands and skilled mouth were almost enough to send you over the edge.
“now here’s what's next my loves. y/n, you're going to get on your knees, lean down on your elbows and suck hyunjin's pretty dick right into the back of your throat okay? i want you to take him as far as you can, and quickly. do not stop until i tell you to. not if he begs, not if he cries, not if he screams. got it?” you nodded as well as you could with his left hand still in your hair. chan released you and you quickly got into the position he had described, gently grabbing hold of hyunjin's cock. “i’m sorry jinnie, but you know i have to.” you quipped right before you took him into your mouth and as far into your throat as you could manage. the garbled noise that ripped its way out of hyunjin's throat threw you into over drive as you bobbed your head and sucked him like your life depended on it. he was groaning deeply and his limbs were flailing the best they could in his current predicament. his back arched up off the mattress so beautifully you wished chan would take a photo.
“fuck, fuck, FUCK. jesus chri- oh my god! y/n, sweetheart slow down- PLEASE! oh fuck i can- i can feel- fucking fuck. i can feel your throat squeezing me so tight!” hyunjin wailed throwing his head back, the veins in his neck becoming more prominent as he grit his teeth.
suddenly chan’s hand made its way to your pussy again and you gasped around the thickness embedded in your throat causing hyunjin to hiss.
“crotchless panties angel? so proud of you. always so prepared for daddy huh? know just what i like.” chan muttered from behind you. you heard the telltale jingle of his belt being opened and the zipper being lowered on his jeans. he had already removed his shirt earlier so he was naked quickly, and he wasted no time before rubbing the head of his dick along your weeping folds.
“now i'm going to fuck you nice and deep the way you like and i want you to keep sucking my good boy okay?” chan said but before you could respond he shoved himself into you in one swift thrust. chan was not small in girth or length for that matter but the stretch you felt every time he fucked you open was delicious. you couldn't help but moan around the cock in your mouth which in turn caused hyunjin to scream at the unexpected vibration. chan’s laugh that followed was dark and proud, thrilled that he held so much power and that you both let him use it.
“fuuuuck sweet girl this cunt is always so fucking tight huh? doesn't matter how many times i fuck you or let someone else fuck you, you always snap right back. god i love being inside you.” chan growled as his hands gripped your hips and held you steady as he pummeled his way in and out of your slippery hole. the whole time he was fucking you, you were being forced onto hyunjin's cock as well, every moan muffled by the thickness battering your throat.
“hyunjin is y/n a good cocksucker? hmm? you think? you think she's better than you were?” chan taunted him as he drove himself inside you over and over again. “remember when we had our first one on one meeting? just me and you alone in the studio? i said 'hyunjin if you really are serious and want to stay in this group i need one thing from you’ do you remember that? i do.” you could hear the grin in his voice even if you couldn't see him. hyunjin groaned and mumbled what sounded like a yes. “i also remember how fast you sank to your knees and scrambled to try and open my belt. you thought i wanted you to suck me off to stay in the band. and you were so willing to give me whatever i wanted. all i was going to ask you for was your loyalty and your honesty in all things. but you offered up that pretty mouth quick as a bitch and who was i to say no?” chan laughed at the memory as he threw a foot up onto the bed to change the angle he was fucking into you from so he was now nailing your gspot on every thrust.
“y-yes i remember. ‘course i do. i knew w-what you were gonna ask me because felix told me beforehand what you were going to ask, what you asked a-all of them. i just- fuck yes keep sucking y/n im so close. i jus’ wanted you so bad i thought if i tried and y-you didn't want me back it would just be an easily brushed off m-misunderstanding.” hyunjin whined, his hands balled up into fists, knuckles white.
“y/n suck him dry. now.” chan ordered and you sucked harder pulling a squeal out of hyunjin. “go on sweet boy. go ahead and cum. you earned it.” chan encouraged as he delivered a heavy smack to your ass. your muffled yelp was the final straw and hyunjin came hard into your mouth, his body attempting to lurch off the bed. you swallowed everything down and pulled off of him, replacing your mouth with your hand. as chan continued to ram into you, you mirrored his thrusts with the fist wrapped tightly around hyunjin's still hard cock.
“stop stop stop please! god please i can- i can't take it! it's too sensitive please!” hyunjin cried. “yes you can baby. you can take it. trust me.” chan cooed. feeling bold you leaned forward once again and sucked hyunjin's tip harshly while lashing the tip of your tongue over his slit.
“FUCK! no no no no it's too m- too much. stop stop stop!” hyunjin continued to wail. he was begging you to relent but he also didn't use his safeword so you knew he didnt really want it to stop. the sound was like music to chan's ears and the rhythmic clenching of your cunt around him propelled him quickly toward his own orgasm.
“i'm gonna cum in you okay baby? gonna breed this pretty pussy, stuff it full of my cum. that what you want? yeah it is isn't it?” chan rambled and you moaned out a “yes please daddy” right before he exploded inside you. your hand around hyunjin never stopped moving and he was crying now. big fat tears rolling down his cheeks from the overstimulation.
chan pulled out of you and watched your hole flutter, pushing out his seed. he murmured a string of praises as he watched the glistening fluid drip out of you. you looked over your shoulder at him, jutting your lower lip out.
“daddy i didn't get to cum yet. can i?” you asked.
“go ahead baby. make yourself cum.” chan said with a wave of his hand and an evil grin etched on his face. you grinned right back before scrambling up hyunjin's body and straddling him.
“wh-what are you doing? oh...oh no. no no no. please it's so sensitive it's so so sensitive y/n i can't!” hyunjin hiccuped, tears still flowing. you leaned forward and ran your tongue up his cheek, lapping up the briny liquid seeping from his eyes. then you whispered “oh jinnie, don't you want me to feel good too? i worked so hard after all.” you reached behind you and positioned his tip at your entrance before effortlessly sliding down onto him. you moaned as he filled you and he once again thrashed against the ropes wrapped around him. you started to ride him in earnest, aching for your own release at this point. the man beneath you was mumbling incoherently about how good your pussy feels and how badly he wants to come again. chan sauntered over and perched next to hyunjin again, reaching out to pet his head and pepper his face with kisses.
“i’m gonna cum, fuck i'm gonna cum!” you cried as you worked yourself over hyunjin’s dick and used one hand to furiously rub your clit.
“daddy shes squeezing me so hard i don't think i ca- can get out. can i cum inside?” hyunjin pleaded with chan. “of course you can baby, right sweetheart? you want jinnie’s cum inside you don't you?” you just nodded in response. “my girl loves to be creampied you never have to ask. just go ahead baby boy.” chan explained. you drove yourself down onto hyunjin twice more and then you were cumming, mouth dropping open as your inner walls milked him for all he was worth. hyunjin spasmed beneath you as he came and came and came inside you. he wasn't speaking anymore, just making these stunted little sounds as his body shook with the aftershocks of his second orgasm.
chan had begun to untie the ropes as you slowly lifted yourself off of hyunjin. you whispered praise to him as he has hummed, completely fucked out and boneless beneath you.
“shhh it's okay sweetheart. you did so good for us baby. we’re gonna put you to bed now okay?” chan murmured to the man shaking in the bed. hyunjin managed to croak out an “uh-huh” in response. you grabbed a bottle of lotion from nearby and began to work it into the reddened skin all over him where the ropes had been, while chan wiped down hyunjin's groin with a warm cloth. you hummed a tune you knew hyunjin loved and his eyes fluttered shut, a tiny smile making its way to his face.
after everything was put away and the room was right again, chan crawled into the bed to spoon hyunjin’s half asleep form while you crawled in the other side to press yourself to hyunjin's still somewhat heaving chest. you pulled the blanket up high and tucked yourself into his warm skin and he wound an arm around your waist. chan's hand rested on hyunjin's hip, squeezing the flesh there every so often.
being here felt so right, so natural, so easy. loving these two was as easy as breathing. you couldn't believe it had taken this long to get here but now that you had, you weren't letting them go. before your eyes fell closed you heard the sound of chan's lips kissing along hyunjin's shoulder before he whispered “rest now my loves. because i have big plans for you tomorrow.”
THE END
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cuddlytogas · 15 days
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So I accidentally almost got into an argument on Twitter, and now I'm thinking about bad historical costuming tropes. Specifically, Action Hero Leather Pants.
See, I was light-heartedly pointing out the inaccuracies of the costumes in Black Sails, and someone came out of the woodwork to defend the show. The misunderstanding was that they thought I was dismissing the show just for its costumes, which I wasn't - I was simply pointing out that it can't entirely care about material history (meaning specifically physical objects/culture) if it treats its clothes like that.
But this person was slightly offended on behalf of their show - especially, quote, "And from a fan of OFMD, no less!" Which got me thinking - it's true! I can abide a lot more historical costuming inaccuracy from Our Flag than I can Black Sails or Vikings. And I don't think it's just because one has my blorbos in it. But really, when it comes down to it...
What is the difference between this and this?
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Here's the thing. Leather pants in period dramas isn't new. You've got your Vikings, Tudors, Outlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Once Upon a Time, Will, The Musketeers, even Shakespeare in Love - they love to shove people in leather and call it a day. But where does this come from?
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Obviously we have the modern connotations. Modern leather clothes developed in a few subcultures: cowboys drew on Native American clothing. (Allegedly. This is a little beyond my purview, I haven't seen any solid evidence, and it sounds like the kind of fact that people repeat a lot but is based on an assumption. I wouldn't know, though.) Leather was used in some WWI and II uniforms.
But the big boom came in the mid-C20th in motorcycle, punk/goth, and gay subcultures, all intertwined with each other and the above. Motorcyclists wear leather as practical protective gear, and it gets picked up by rock and punk artists as a symbol of counterculture, and transferred to movie designs. It gets wrapped up in gay and kink communities, with even more countercultural and taboo meanings. By the late C20th, leather has entered mainstream fashion, but it still carries those references to goths, punks, BDSM, and motorbike gangs, to James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mick Jagger. This is whence we get our Spikes and Dave Listers in 1980s/90s media, bad boys and working-class punks.
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And some of the above "historical" design choices clearly build on these meanings. William Shakespeare is dressed in a black leather doublet to evoke the swaggering bad boy artist heartthrob, probably down on his luck. So is Kit Marlowe.
But the associations get a little fuzzier after that. Hook, with his eyeliner and jewellery, sure. King Henry, yeah, I see it. It's hideously ahistorical, but sure. But what about Jamie and Will and Ragnar, in their browns and shabby, battle-ready chic? Well, here we get the other strain of Bad Period Drama Leather.
See, designers like to point to history, but it's just not true. Leather armour, especially in the western/European world, is very, very rare, and not just because it decays faster than metal. (Yes, even in ancient Greece/Rome, despite many articles claiming that as the start of the leather armour trend!) It simply wasn't used a lot, because it's frankly useless at defending the body compared to metal. Leather was used as a backing for some splint armour pieces, and for belts, sheathes, and buckles, but it simply wasn't worn like the costumes above. It's heavy, uncomfortable, and hard to repair - it's simply not practical for a garment when you have perfectly comfortable, insulating, and widely available linen, wool, and cotton!
As far as I can see, the real influence on leather in period dramas is fantasy. Fantasy media has proliferated the idea of leather armour as the lightweight choice for rangers, elves, and rogues, a natural, quiet, flexible material, less flashy or restrictive than metal. And it is cheaper for a costume department to make, and easier for an actor to wear on set. It's in Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Runescape, and World of Warcraft.
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And I think this is how we get to characters like Ragnar and Vane. This idea of leather as practical gear and light armour, it's fantasy, but it has this lineage, behind which sits cowboy chaps and bomber/flight jackets. It's usually brown compared to the punk bad boy's black, less shiny, and more often piecemeal or decorated. In fact, there's a great distinction between the two Period Leather Modes within the same piece of media: Robin Hood (2006)! Compare the brooding, fascist-coded villain Guy of Gisborne with the shabby, bow-wielding, forest-dwelling Robin:
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So, back to the original question: What's the difference between Charles Vane in Black Sails, and Edward Teach in Our Flag Means Death?
Simply put, it's intention. There is nothing intentional about Vane's leather in Black Sails. It's not the only leather in the show, and it only says what all shabby period leather says, relying on the same tropes as fantasy armour: he's a bad boy and a fighter in workaday leather, poor, flexible, and practical. None of these connotations are based in reality or history, and they've been done countless times before. It's boring design, neither historically accurate nor particularly creative, but much the same as all the other shabby chic fighters on our screens. He has a broad lineage in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean and such, but that's it.
In Our Flag, however, the lineage is much, much more intentional. Ed is a direct homage to Mad Max, the costuming in which is both practical (Max is an ex-cop and road warrior), and draws on punk and kink designs to evoke a counterculture gone mad to the point of social breakdown, exploiting the thrill of the taboo to frighten and titillate the audience.
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In particular, Ed is styled after Max in the second movie, having lost his family, been badly injured, and watched the world turn into an apocalypse. He's a broken man, withdrawn, violent, and deliberately cutting himself off from others to avoid getting hurt again. The plot of Mad Max 2 is him learning to open up and help others, making himself vulnerable to more loss, but more human in the process.
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This ties directly into the themes of Our Flag - it's a deliberate intertext. Ed's emotional journey is also one from isolation and pain to vulnerability, community, and love. Mad Max (intentionally and unintentionally) explores themes of masculinity, violence, and power, while Max has become simplified in the popular imagination as a stoic, badass action hero rather than the more complex character he is, struggling with loss and humanity. Similarly, Our Flag explores masculinity, both textually (Stede is trying to build a less abusive pirate culture) and metatextually (the show champions complex, banal, and tender masculinities, especially when we're used to only seeing pirates in either gritty action movies or childish comedies).
Our Flag also draws on the specific countercultures of motorcycles, rockers, and gay/BDSM culture in its design and themes. Naturally, in such a queer show, one can't help but make the connection between leather pirates and leather daddies, and the design certainly nods at this, with its vests and studs. I always think about this guy, with his flat cap so reminiscient of gay leather fashions.
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More overtly, though, Blackbeard and his crew are styled as both violent gangsters and countercultural rockstars. They rove the seas like a bikie gang, free and violent, and are seen as icons, bad boys and celebrities. Other pirates revere Blackbeard and wish they could be on his crew, while civilians are awed by his reputation, desperate for juicy, gory details.
This isn't all of why I like the costuming in Our Flag Means Death (especially season 1). Stede's outfits are by no means accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than most pirate media, and they're bright and colourful, with accurate and delightful silks, lace, velvets, and brocades, and lovely, puffy skirts on his jackets. Many of the Revenge crew wear recognisable sailor's trousers, and practical but bright, varied gear that easily conveys personality and flair. There is a surprising dedication to little details, like changing Ed's trousers to fall-fronts for a historical feel, Izzy's puffy sleeves, the handmade fringe on Lucius's red jacket, or the increasing absurdity of navy uniform cuffs between Nigel and Chauncey.
A really big one is the fact that they don't shy away from historical footwear! In almost every example above, we see the period drama's obsession with putting men in skinny jeans and bucket-top boots, but not only does Stede wear his little red-heeled shoes with stockings, but most of his crew, and the ordinary people of Barbados, wear low boots or pumps, and even rough, masculine characters like Pete wear knee breeches and bright colours. It's inaccurate, but at least it's a new kind of inaccuracy, that builds much more on actual historical fashions, and eschews the shortcuts of other, grittier period dramas in favour of colour and personality.
But also. At least it fucking says something with its leather.
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thresher-art · 5 months
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Nesting
Pairing: Astarion x AFAB!Reader
Mentions of past Shadowheart x AFAB!Reader and slight Gale x AFAB!Reader
Summary: Your clothing has increasingly been going missing over the past few days. Meanwhile, Astarion is as happy and cozy as ever, and hopes you won't find out about his new hobby anytime soon.
Warnings: Smut/Explicit 18+ content, Fingering, Cunnilingus, Blood Drinking, Scent Kink, connections via tadpole and accompanying voyeurism, mentions of polyamory
A/N: This fic operates under the headcanon that everyone at camp is more on board with sharing. Heavily inspired by GlitterCritter's 'The Pale Elf's Hunger' over on AO3.
AO3
XxxxxxxxxX
"Okay, this is getting weird."
You frantically dig through your pack, confused. Your rummaging has not gone unnoticed, as Shadowheart turns to you, a brow raised in question.
"What's getting weird?"
"My clothes." You set your pack back down, giving up the search. "They've slowly gone missing. My robes aside, I think I only have two shirts and a pair of loose slacks. If this keeps going on, I'll be sitting with my tits out at camp soon."
"And what a horrible fate that would be for all of us."
The suggestive smile on her face lets you know that Shadowheart would absolutely not mind you sitting at camp shirtless, for all to see. Then again, given how godsdamned horny everyone at camp was, you doubted anyone would have genuine complaints about seeing more nudity.
"If it's warmer one of these nights, I could be persuaded. But enough with the jokes. Where the hell are my clothes?"
"Did you forget to collect them after washing them?" Shadowheart suggests. "You tend to pack up in a hurry."
"That's the thing. Everything that's missing is something I put away to wash. I usually wash a bunch of my clothes in one go." You scowl. "Who the hell steals dirty clothes?"
"From what I hear, there's a market for that back in Baldur's Gate." She quips. "Maybe leave a donation basket beside your clothes next time, whoever's been taking them might leave something."
"It better be a large donation. At this rate, all my gold's going to go into clothes shopping. I was saving up for a better pair of boots, mine are slowly wearing out." You rub your temple in frustration and let out a groan. "It's not just normal clothes, either. My undergarments, too!"
"Are you suggesting...?"
"Yes, I am suggesting we have a panty sniffer at camp, Shadowheart. It's an easier-to-digest explanation than the idea that the tadpole has eaten so much of my brain I consistently leave a trail of underwear behind."
You're not even sure if you find the thought that someone at camp was stealing your worn panties discomforting or not. With how open everyone is, they could've at least asked, or have the courtesy of restraining themselves a bit instead of stealing more than half of your comfortable wardrobe.
"Who do you think it is?" Shadowheart asks. She's both intrigued and amused, now, both at your expense.
"None of you ladies, that's for sure," you say. "Karlach couldn't keep that secret for long, Lae'zel has told me to my face she wants to sniff me and probably would drag me away the second I consent, and you wouldn't waste your time stealing my clothes if you were interested. You'd just lure me away with a bottle of wine."
Which is what happened last time you and her had stolen away for a little privacy. Shadowheart had a directness that you liked, clearly expressing her wants and desires, and directing you as she needed. It had been a very fun night, but it had let you know that she wasn't the type for strange, secretive games - at least not when it came to fun things like that.
"Quite true. So it's just our boys then?"
"Yeah. Better not be Withers."
She snorts. "He doesn't even have a nose to sniff your underwear with."
"He still has the holes for sniffing, though."
You both break out into giggles at that. Withers would be the least likely option, but the idea that this ancient walking corpse is a secret little pervert is too funny to imagine.
"I think it's Gale," you then say, once the two of you have calmed down. "He's been awfully bold in telling me he likes my...musk, after not having bathed a while. Wyll doesn't seem the type for something like that, he's just too sweet, Halsin's far to open about disliking clothes for him to hide this, and Astarion..."
You trail off. Shadowheart, however, knows well where this is going, and finishes your thought for you.
"Astarion's up close and personal with you all the time, so he has no need to steal your things."
You hum in affirmation. Astarion barely leaves your side, the two of you thick as thieves.
Shadowheart lets out a sigh.
"Well, then. Why not ask Astarion to give you a little space to put poor Gale out of his misery. Let him partake in what he's so desperately desiring?"
"Eh, I would, but..."
You pause. It's not like you <i>hadn't</i> thought about it, as if you'd never let your mind drift to wonder what Gale might look like beneath you, face and beard drenched in your slick. However...
"...anytime he tries to flirt with me, he somehow ends up bringing up his ex, and that's where my pussy essentially packs it up and leaves."
"Oh, ouch..."
____________
As you and Shadowheart continue to gossip about your possible panty-stealer, as well as Gale's so far unsuccessful attempts to woo you, in the tent beside you, Astarion curls up on his bedroll, happy as a clam.
He'd overheard your conversation, scoffing internally at the suggestion that Gale of all people was the one responsible for your clothing disappearing. As if Gale had the necessary skill, swiftness, and stealth, to pull that off without you ever catching him. If Gale tried, he'd probably trip and fall over his own robes before even catching a glimpse of your clothes.
Astarion is pleased with today's 'catch' - the shirt you wore underneath your robes yesterday - and happily adds it to his pile of you-themed treasures. He has his own little collection, now, consisting of small items he'd nicked off of you, as well as your clothes. He'd arranged those around his bedroll, adding padding and warmth, and most importantly, your scent.
Astarion writhes amongst the pile of fabric, letting out a happy, vampiric purr. He nuzzles his face into the pile, inhaling your natural perfume deeply into his chest.
Gods, he would never get enough of this.
It had started innocently enough. After your first romp in the woods at the tiefling party, Astarion had gotten so eager he'd torn your shirt clean off. So he'd graciously offered his own for you to wear as you snuk back to camp, him staying behind to pack up the bedroll he prepared the night before.
Amongst your scattered things, he'd found your torn shirt, and hadn't been able to help himself. He'd taken a deep whiff, smelling your natural scent immersed in the fabric, but his mind turned blank when he could distinctly sniff out your wanton arousal from hours earlier.
He'd arrived at camp late, having taken the time to desperately fuck his own fist with his face buried in your shirt.
He was about to go for another round as well, the sight of you wearing his shirt for all to see, as well as his own scent marking your skin as his proving to be near overwhelming. There was no time for that, though, as the Underdark was already beckoning.
Astarion had gotten more than enough time to wallow in your aroma, for you had chosen to stick very, very close to him when you were roaming around down there.
Ever since, he had taken his time to snatch a few of your belongings here and there.
He has a collection of clothes that you wore in differing emotional states, able to distinguish by your scent what it is you are feeling at any given moment. He'd found old cloth bandages you still had from after killing those goblins, your blood soaked through the fabric. He'd snatched a couple of your undergarments, heady with the scent of your arousal, from nights when he teased you just a bit too much.
His favourite is still your torn shirt, however, which he keeps rolled up by his pillow. He can smell you in his trance, and feels so warm, safe, and protected in your scent.
Your scent is the reason he prefers coming to your tent at night, your aroma covering every inch of space. Astarion feels as if he could get drunk off of you - hells, in a way, he does, especially when you let him feed.
He also loves it when he can smell himself on you. It's why he leaves you his shirts to wear, especially since you complained to him how you were running low on them. That way, he could stay in your good graces - after all, he was being helpful - he could leave his scent on your skin, and get his shirt back with yours embedded in it. Win-win.
He'll never admit how his undead heart soared when he overheard the others asking if you'd started adding bergamot to your perfume.
Gods, he hopes you never find out about this habit. He's greedy for you and he knows, but the more rational part of hin is also aware that any normal person would be terribly put off by this.
Astarion convinces himself you'll never catch on that it's him stealing your things, happy to keep his face burrowed in your scent.
____________
"There is no fucking way."
Once again, it's Shadowheart hearing your cry of disbelief. She approaches to find you digging through a tiny pile of clothing, desperately searching for something.
Before moving on to Moonrise Towers, you had decided to make use of the (admittedly, very ominous) water surrounding Last Light Inn to wash your clothing - what little of it you have left. You (rather embarrassingly) had to ask Karlach to lend you a pair of undergarments at this point - all of yours besides one had disappeared.
And this one, remaining pair of panties had straight-up vanished now, too.
"What happened? Did Gale nick another pair?" Shadowheart asks, amused.
"I don't think it was Gale, after all," you say. "It was my last pair. I wore it while going to the lake. I didn't see Gale again until breakfast, he retired early to read, remember?"
Shadowheart hums in agreement. "Strange. Are you sure you didn't leave it there?"
"It was my last pair, Shadowheart, and the lake isn't exactly far from camp. I did not drop or leave it. I've walked back and forth three times, now."
You are ready to flip and tear apart each and every tent at camp to find your clothing. If this was a prank, it was a shitty one at that, one you were ready to reward with a hearty Fireball. See how funny the prankster thinks it is, then.
"Okay, if Gale isn't your thief, and you didn't lose it - where are they then?"
This clothes-stealing mystery is the most entertainment Shadowheart has had at camp. It's infuriating and intriguing at once.
"I don't know..."
Your blood runs cold as you try and retrace your steps. A realization dawns on you, and you want to slap yourself for not thinking of it earlier.
That little bloodsucker. Of course it was him.
"I have a lead," you declare to her, before you turn and go to find your dearest vampling, leaving Shadowheart, once again, amused and confused at the same time.
____________
Astarion is blissfully unaware of your realizations.
He's far too busy obsessing over his recent catch, the pair of panties he swiftly stole from you when he had pestered you earlier. He couldn't help himself, really! You'd been barely wrapped up from the waist down in a flimsy cloth, in lieu of a suitable pair of comfortable pants, and he'd been able to smell that you weren't wearing anything beneath them. When he'd spotted your underwear, well...a little bit of sleight of hand, and oops! How'd those get in his pocket?
Surely, you're not missing them. A pretty thing like you must have other, lovelier undergarments to wear, hidden away in your things. His little habit is certainly is no inconvenience to you.
But how his hobby affects you is the last thing on his mind right now. He has his face buried in his latest treasure, quick sniffs filling his nose with your heady aroma, so sweet, so intoxicating. Astarion rids himself of his shirt, the heat flushing through his body at your scent too hot to bear, and his free hand is slowly trailing down his breeches, his cock hardening at the scent of you.
Hells, you smell so, so good.
Astarion shuffles his breeches down his legs, his cock springing free against the cool air in his tent. He's hard enough that he feels like he could burst any second, pure arousal coursing through his veins.
He inhales deeply, pressing your panties against his face as tightly as he possibly can. His mind is on overdrive, all he can think about is you, you, you. Nothing else matters as long as he is this close to you.
Astarion begins stroking himself, thumb spreading the generous amounts of leaking precum across the head of his cock. He's aware of what he said, that he wanted to take things slow with you sexually, but in this moment, he wishes his hand was yours instead.
Astarion imagines you with him, your plush lips slowly wrapping around his length, taking him into your hot mouth. His tent would be flooded with the scent of your arousal, and his mind would go blank at the sensation of you.
He wants all of you. He wants you in any which way you'll let him have you. He wants to kiss and lick every inch of your skin, until your scent never leaves his body again, imprinting your essence in his very soul. Astarion thrusts up into his hand, picturing you bouncing above him, writhing in your own pleasure.
He is so far gone, he doesn't even notice you slip in to his tent until it's too late.
"Astarion, did you- what in the hells?!"
The sound of your voice makes whatever is left of his soul ascend from his body, but having your scent, your real, natural scent up close is enough to slam it right back into place. It shocks him into an orgasm, his hips thrusting into his fist uncontrollably as he spills his seed over his chest and belly. One particular strong spurt even manages to hit his chin and throat. Astarion lets out a high whine, whimpering at his own touch, your scent, both from your panties, and from you being here.
It's the hottest thing you've seen in a while, and you'd be more than eager to encourage it, if you still weren't so confused as to what the fuck was going on.
It takes a moment after his climax for Astarion's rational brain to switch on again. He panicks.
"It's not what it looks like!" He says quickly, fumbling to cover himself and the rest of your belongings. You stop him, easily grabbing his wrist.
"Oh? So you didn't just rub one out with my panties stuffed over your face?" You raise a brow at him and he shrinks under your gaze, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. You vaguely gesture at the pile of clothing underneath him. "And I'm sure those aren't my missing clothes? You know, the ones I have been complaining about to you for days? What are you even doing? Nesting? Is that a thing vampires do?"
Embarassment floods him at being caught red-handed, and deflection takes its place in hopes of somehow coming out on top anyway.
"You leave your mess everywhere," Astarion huffs. "I was simply picking up after you."
"Mhm. And adding to the mess, if this-" you pick up another item of clothing, one that has suspicious white stains streaked across it, "-is any indication."
Shit. That didn't go how it was supposed to. Astarion tries a new angle, one that he's far too used to.
"Are you upset then? That Gale isn't the panty thief you hoped for?" Astarion says, accentuating his words with a snarl. "I heard you talking with Shadowheart the other day. I wonder if you would be so upset if it was your precious wizard with his face buried in your clothes."
You know him too well by now to take the bait and shoot him a disapproving look.
"Okay, first off, there is no need to take that tone with me," you say, sitting down beside him. "Secondly, what the hell are you even talking about?"
Astarion scoffs, about to spew more venom your way, but you cut him off.
"I'm not done talking, you will speak when I'm finished."
Your firm tone is enough to shut him up for now. Astarion flinches at the sharpness in your voice. You hate being so direct with him, knowing it speaks to parts of his mind that cannot help but obey, but you also know if you don't make him listen, nothing good will come out of this conversation. You know he feels cornered, and like a scared animal, he knows no better than to lash out.
"Of course I'd be upset if I caught Gale with my clothes, because frankly? This is fucking weird. Difference being, I'm used to you being weird and a bit of a creep. You tried biting me in my sleep. You rub yourself all over me like a big cat regularly."
Astarion bristles at being called 'weird'. He wants you to smell like him, he wants to smell like you, so no matter who else you might frolic around with, they always will know you're already in some way spoken for. But he waits, stays silent, eventhough he wants nothing more than to interrupt you.
"I'm not outright angry with you, so you're not going to get a shouting match from me. I'm annoyed that you left me with no clothes to wear, frustrated that you simply played along when I complained about it, confused as to why you stole my clothes, and upset." You pause to look him in the eye. His pupils are still blown wide - clearly, you being close to him has done nothing to soothe whatever is driving him. "I'm upset you didn't talk to me about this. We agreed to talk more openly about what we need from each other. That would include this because clearly, you're getting some kind fulfillment out of this. Why didn't you say anything?"
You give him time to sort his thoughts. You know he's not good at expressing what he needs honestly, so you want to give him the space to at least try. Astarion scoffs, but you can see the wheels spinning in his head, trying to get some sort of explanation out.
"I took your clothes because they smell like you," he begins carefully. "I like making you wear my clothes, because then you smell like me. I like having your clothes here, because having your scent around me is...comforting."
He looks up at you, and you can see the embarrassment in his eyes.
"I didn't say anything because, yes. Objectively, me sniffing at your clothes like a dog is creepy and weird. And I am sorry."
His confession weighs heavy to him. He still thinks you're about to curse him out, tell him he's too strange and feral to waste your time on.
You surprise him, once again.
"Thank you for your honesty, Starlight. The scent part makes sense, I suppose. I like wearing your shirts because they smell like you, too. Just - don't steal my clothes anymore, okay? I'll even cut you a deal."
Astarion nods, waiting for you to go on.
"Tomorrow, you're going to wash all of my clothes - every single item in this pile."
Astarion is about to protest. Washing your clothes would defeat the purpose! They'd no longer smell like you, would be neutral, scentless!
"Then, you're going to procure me a few items you like seeing me in. I'll wear them for you, and then you can have them for your little nest here. I can sleep in your bedroll for a few days too, if it helps, or leave you a blanket of mine. Then you never steal from my wardrobe again and leave me with so little to wear that I need to ask others for their damn underpants. Sound good?"
That is far too good to be true, so Astarion accepts eagerly.
"If that is the deal you wish to make, I suppose I have no choice but to accept," he says. "Though I already mourn the state of my nails afterwards."
"You've left me with no clothes, I think you can play washerwoman for a night. Might even get you a cute little dress for when you're at it."
The both of you have a laugh at the thought. You know full well Astarion would likely make a show out of it if you made him wear a dress, hiking his skirts up while you would have to remind him to actually get your garments cleaned.
Astarion's mood is visibly lifting. You're not mad at him, not about to abandon him for his feral tendencies. His mind buzzes pleasantly, his treasure still safely by his side.
"One more thing - and may I?"
You hover your hand over his chest, waiting until Astarion nods his assent. You run your fingertips over his skin gently, lazily smearing his seed across his body.
"I don't think you're sorry at all."
"I'm the perfect picture of repentance and regret, my love, how could you ever say that?" Astarion protests, albeit weakly. He already apologized!
You crack a smile at his act.
"You're still hard as a rock, my dearest," you say, making him inhale sharply as you drag your nails across one of his nipples. "Anyone with even an ounce of shame would not be so blatantly turned on after being caught like this. Then again, I suppose I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to you being my primary partner, you little freak."
You raise your hand to your lips and suck the remnants of his come off your digits. Astarion watches you swallow, the motion of your throat, before bolting up to capture your lips in an open-mouthed kiss. He has to sample it, needed to taste both his seed combined with your spittle.
He loves it.
Astarion moans against your lips, the taste overwhelming. His tongue delves into your mouth, trying to lick up every last bit of himself. Gods, he could eat you <i>whole</i>, and he knows you'd let him. His senses perk up at a new scent - he can smell the slickness between your legs properly now that the shock of being caught has subsided.
"I knew it," he says breathlessly after he releases you. "You're not angry with me. You liked seeing me like this."
"Oh, I'm still very much annoyed that you stole ninety percent of my very limited wardrobe." You laugh as Astarion tears the cloth around your waist - your makeshift skirt - off your body and begins loosening the lacings of your shirt, one that happens to be his. "But, in the spirit of honesty - I did find it kind of hot to see you jerking off to my panties. I had half a mind to stuff them in your filthy mouth."
"Kind of?" Astarion noses at your bared body, nuzzling and sniffing at you in quick breaths. "Darling, you're positively drenched. You enjoyed seeing me, didn't you?"
He lays back down and maneuvers you to sit right above his face. He licks up the inside of your thighs, your slick having slowly spread across your skin, indisputable proof of your arousal. He wants to hear it, though, hear it from your lips how badly you need him, too.
"I did." The admission comes easy to you, and you see no reason to lie. Not when his face is buried between your legs, his cool breath fanning over your core. "You were such a desperate, needy thing. Of course, I liked seeing you."
Astarion seems to be happy with your confession and pulls you down to rest on his face. His tongue trails over your cunt, teasing at your dripping hole. You keen when he finally wraps his lips around your clit and laps at it like a man parched, your legs squeezing around his head. It's almost too much at once - Astarion is far too intoxicated by your scent, being right by the tantalizing source of it to care for a slow build-up. He wants more of you, more of your juices, running down his face.
He's convinced he could spend eternity between your legs and still not have his fill.
Astarion's cock twitches at the fantasy, of you by his side forever, ready to be devoured as he pleases. Of course, he'd be just as accessible to you - he's ready to grant your every wish, if only he can be this close to you and never have to let you go. He speeds up, leaving fast licks on your swollen clit, and he groans as he laves his tongue over your entrance. More, more, more, he chants in his mind, and shoves two fingers inside, digging for your sweet spot. He knows he's found it when you let out a sharp curse, and your glorious, soft thighs tighten around head again.
Astarion sounds absolutely obscene beneath you. He slurps at your cunt, moaning as if he's lapping at the most luxurious dessert he's ever tasted. You suppress a laugh. Not even when he feeds on you does he sound like this.
You decide he's gone untouched long enough. His cock is flushed bright red and leaking, desperate for even the slightest bit of attention. How could you refuse? You lean forwards, and Astarion instantly notices what you're up to.
"May I, Starlight?" You ask, and before you can even wrap your hand around him, Astarion lets out a muffled "Sweet hells, yes!" against you. You tut at him for his impatience, but ultimately take pity on him, leaving a trail of kisses down his shaft, wetting the soft skin with your tongue as you go. Astarion's undead heart leaps in his chest. He'd never in a thousand years believed he'd ever be blessed with someone like you, who would take their time asking permission to touch him even when he was nose-deep buried in their pussy.
Your lips finally, finally wrap around the head of his cock, your tongue dipping into the slit at the top just to tease. Astarion snarls at you, grazing his fangs across your skin. A warning.
You decide to be just a little bit mean back, besides, he <i>was</i> the one who had stolen your clothes. He has no room to be bossy right now.
The tadpole in your brain awakens, eager to connect with his. Astarion is so distracted, he doesn't even notice his own tadpole stir in return. Through your bond, you send him an image - it's him, his wrists bound by one of your shirts, your panties shoved into his mouth, while you nonchalantly get off of him and retreat to your tent.
Astarion lets out a needy whimper.
You wouldn't, you hear him in your mind. you'd never.
I absolutely would, you reply as you swallow down his cock, his tip hitting the back of your throat as you suck. He feels like velvet on your tongue, in his usual icy-cold way, but you can't get enough of him, either. I'll leave you here to rut against your bedroll alone if you want to be a brat like this.
No, no, no!
Astarion loops his arms around your thighs, locking you in position. There's no way to fight your way out of his grip, his vampiric strength easily overpowering you. Besides, with the way your legs feel like jelly, fighting him would be futile anyway.
I'm not letting you go until you come all over my face.
He adds a third finger, digits curling inside you, as he mercilessly sucks at your clit.
You'll cum for me, won't you? You hear him echo in your mind. Please? I want you to cum all over my tongue, want to taste you so bad. Please, my love? Pretty please?
Hells, you can't recall if he ever begged you so sweetly for something. It's overwhelming, the pleading in your mind, his lips ravaging your cunt, the feel of his cock on your tongue, and fuck, you can feel his thumb tease at your tight pucker, carefully dipping into your backside. It's so much, too much, and you draw back from his cock to cry out his name like a prayer as you drench his face in your release, white-hot ecstasy shooting through your body. Astarion, greedy creature that he is, laps it up eagerly. Your legs shake around him and he holds you steady, forcing more of your juices down his throat.
You roll off of him and collapse onto your back beside him once you come down from your high, your chest rising and falling rapidly with your laboured breaths. Both your tadpoles are quiet, now, exhausted from whatever ecstatic chemicals had been rushing through your brain.
"Fuck," you gasp out. "That was..."
"...amazing," Astarion finishes for you. He's nowhere near done with you, you notice, as he sits up to run his hands up your sides affectionately. "Are you alright to keep going, pet?"
"Mhm. I'm so blissed-out and boneless, I'm happy with whatever salacious plans you have for me now," you breathe, smiling up at him. He still looks so eager, like a predator waiting to pounce. "Take your pleasure from me, Starlight. I think you've waited long enough."
That's all the encouragement he needs from you, not even pausing to wipe his face before he scrambles to get on top of you. Astarion hooks your leg on his thigh, spreading you open for him. His cock slides up against your slit, and he runs it over you a few times, coating himself in your slick.
"I've been thinking about this for a while," he says. "You've been flitting through my dreams. You're a cruel thing, you know that, pet?"
"Sure, I do," you reply, cupping his cheek in your hand. "You wouldn't like me as much if I were a blushing bride, now would you?"
"No, I suppose I wouldn't." Astarion pauses to press a kiss to your palm. "I prefer you like this, clever, wicked, and absolutely debauched."
With that, he slams into you to the hilt without warning. You don't even want one, you just want him to rut you like he's a beast in heat, the noise of your joined bodies music to your ears. You moan loudly, and you swear that, through your tadpole, you can hear someone at camp complaining at the noise you're making. It faintly sounds like Gale. His complaint seems a touch...flustered, and an image of him flashes before your eyes, curled up on his bedroll, pillows over his head, sporting the hardest erection he's had in a while. You're certain Astarion heard and saw it, too, for he grins, before fucking into you even harder than before, slamming into your sweet spot with every thrust.
"Let him hear," he growls into your ear. "Let him know what he's missing."
This is a type of meanness you can certainly get behind, but even you are a bit embarassed of screaming your head off at camp.
"Now, why would I do all that?" You say, barely biting back a blissful moan when Astarion leans down to start licking and suckling at your throat. "It's more fun if he doesn't hear, if all he has is his imagination, not even close to the real thing. Don't you want that? For him to know he can't have me, because I'm with you?"
You know exactly how to appeal to his possessive nature, whispering sweet words that scratch that needy, obsessive part of his brain just right. You don't usually like to encourage his jealousy - you've had a long and very difficult conversation about this - but you did chose him as your primary and know he needs that reassurance.
And Gale, for some reason, really, really brings out Astarion's competitive streak.
You expose more of your neck to him, a silent way of letting him know he's free to feast on you. Astarion doesn't need to be told twice, his fangs piercing your skin. The icy sensation gives way to pure bliss, and you sigh against him. He gulps at you like a glutton, drinking his fill, and he whines in delight. You taste sweeter than anything he's ever had in his life, and your arousal is so deeply evident in your blood, his hips damn near move on their own accord. You're so warm, so wet, so tight around him, his body feel like it's on fire. Your pulse quickens, and Astarion is careful to draw back from your flesh. He wants you sated and conscious, wants you with him.
The pleasure of his bite, combined with the delectable glide of his cock inside you are enough to push you over the edge all over again. You cry out his name once more, and this time, he muffles your pleasure with insistent kisses. Your vision blacks out, you can taste the iron of your own blood on his tongue as it flows into your mouth. Astarion's hips sputter, and he follows you over the edge, the noises he makes expressing pure desperation as he fills you with his seed.
He collapses on top of you once he comes down from his high. Astarion nuzzles his face into your neck again, enjoying the metallic tang of your blood mingling with the scent of your sweat and arousal. Your hand weaves its way into his hair, gently scratching at his scalp. Astarion lets out another vampiric purr - a noise you hope he'll make more often for you. Your skin tingles with the vibration, and you press adoring kisses into his hairline.
"You're incredible," he murmurs against your skin, lapping up the bloody mess he's left behind on your neck. "I want to stay like this, forever, with you."
You laugh lightly at his affections. "I can't promise forever right now, but I can pledge the rest of my night to you."
Astarion is more than happy with this.
__________
The next morning, as you emerge from Astarion's tent dressed in clothes that are very obviously his, Shadowheart only shoots you a knowing look. Seems you've found your panty thief, and with that, the case is closed.
Gale, however, can barely meet your gaze when he hands you your morning coffee, his skin flushed bright red at the sight of you.
"You look...ahem. You look tired. Did you have a long night?" He asks awkwardly, attemting to his embarrassment behind a cough.
"Ah, yes. I had a bit of trouble falling asleep," you reply, easily playing along. "How about you? Stay up all night reading, again?"
Gale averts his gaze. "You could say that. It was a rather...stimulating read."
You didn't think he could get any redder, but he's about as red as the fried tomatos he serves alongside your breakfast. You decide to take pity on him, and press a quick kiss to his cheek as he hands you your breakfast.
"Already looking for attention elsewhere, my love?" Astarion questions as he slinks up to you. "I'm hurt."
"It's only polite to thank the person feeding you, Starlight," you chide, the implication not lost on either of you. "Besides, Gale had such a rough night, I thought a little peck might cheer him up."
"Don't let it become a habit then, darling, else I might have to get jealous of our dear wizard."
Astarion shoots Gale a pointed look. They both know he heard and saw more than he should have, and Astarion wouldn't have it any other way. He was your primary partner, and only with his permission would Gale ever be allowed to touch you.
You let Astarion pull you onto his lap as you sit down. He immediately buries his face into your hair as you tuck in to your food, inhaling deeply.
You still smell like him, like bergamot, brandy, and rosemary, and Gale has not left even the trace of a scent. He's happy at that, leaving a trail of kisses on your nape.
"Don't think you being cute gets you out of laundry duty, Starlight," you quip through a mouthful of eggs. "I expect my clothes to be spotless by the end of the day."
Astarion laughs, leaving one final kiss on your skin.
"I wouldn't dream of it, my love."
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ew-selfish-art · 6 months
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Dp x DC AU: Danny didn't want to rely on his rogues, but Tucker's computer skills only got them so far and if the media black out continues... Danny knows it's not going to be pretty for them. Nightmares begin to plague the Justice League.
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Danny gets back from a shitty conversation with Clockwork and in his frustration, accidentally sets off one of the new GIW sensors that his parents allowed to be installed in the lab. Their collaboration seemed to be going no where but when Danny had new holes blasted through him... it must be going somewhere. Damn it.
The commotion is loud enough that Jazz hears it from her room above the lab (he knows she listens to more than just the lab... it's cause she cares, even if it is a bit invasive.) and rushes in to play the distraction while Danny gets away. This time it works- the Drs. Fenton might have the worst aim in the city but they demand all shots cease if a civilian is nearby- Next time his mom might be aiming her gun at him and not the ground. Danny decides he'll buy Jazz a coffee on his way home.
But first, new holes. Yikes. That like, needs medical attention- He heads to Tucker's place and he's pretty sure Sam is already there.
"Danny! What the fuck, did Clockwork-" She starts, her meticulous cat eyeliner making her glare all the deeper.
"Nah, it's the stupid GIW sensor, the stupid one I told you guys about that has a spring lose in the back?"
"I thought we decided those weren't a concern?" Tucker looks him over, face covered in undisguised and very blatant concern.
"Yeah well, Clocky pissed me off so I forgot about them when I came back in through the lab portal-"
"you were supposed to be practicing making your own." Sam interrupts.
"-And when I did, the thing got knocked and I was swatted like immediately. Jazz launched herself into the lab so Mom made them stop shooting and it gave me enough time to get out." Danny continued to explain, ignoring his friend's 'i told you so' faces.
"Dude. We're pushing it close this week. Sam already had a confrontation with the lab guys and I already got blacklisted on my new persona accounts. We're like seriously threading the needle for getting caught." Tucker, pulls his glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose and Danny and Sam both get what he's really saying. They need to lie low.
"What did CW say to piss you off?" Sam asks after a silent moment.
"He said nothing really, just like he always does, but insinuated I should try getting a rogue to help." Danny sighs.
"What, Like getting Ember to announce the GIW invasion on her tour? We already agreed that-" Sam is getting angry as she speaks so Tuck cuts her off- "It's a bad Idea. She is- They are all just as likely to get captured and hurt as you are if you go out of town." He comes to the same conclusion they've agreed on for weeks. No rogue involvement.
"Maybe we just need to sleep on it... Hey... wait." Danny sighs, but then his gears start to turn.
"Nocturn. We need Nocturn to help us. He can get the message out through dreams." Danny comes to the new conclusion and his friends look hesitant but at least like they're considering it.
"Isn't he an ancient? He's not going to help us for free." Tucker, ever the Egyptian god in these moments.
"Most people don't take their dreams literally." Sam, ever the skeptic in these moments.
"Yeah but, if they dream it enough times, and they're the right people to do something... they can look it up and then at least see that there is a problem?" Danny sounds hopeful and its the first time he's sounded that way in months.
"What, you're gunna give Batman nightmares?" Tucker snickers but Sam looks inspired.
"That's exactly what he's going to do. We need to haunt the Justice League. They'll see past the fake facade the GIW put up online and they'll be able to get the right legislation passed." Sam is practically buzzing.
"Okay, so lets get scheming- What do you get the primordial beast of the unconscious? Should I google 'what to get someone who has everything'? " Danny laughs.
_____
Bruce and his children rarely do feelings when they have breakfast in the morning after a night of separate patrols, but it seems as though the room is plagued with unease. Tim looks about as tired as ever, so his unease is probably attributable to WE board meetings, but its unlike the rest of his children to be so... disturbed. For some reason, after Alfred has excused them all from eating more than a few nibbles, they make it to the cave. Bruce is glad for the noise his children bring.
The nightmare's he's been having are following a dark plot. A town, a boy who looks like he was kin, and so, so much death. Bruce has had vivid dreams before in life, but this nightmare is... unreal. He tries to remind himself that it's just a nightmare.
When his JL emergency communicator goes off at the computer desk, he's not expecting it to be Dinah Lance. She and her Birds are typically wary of him in Gotham, even if they work well together in the League. He answers it like he would any Batman call, with silence.
"Bats, we have a problem. Any chance you've been having weird dreams about a kid getting experimented on or a town being burned down? Ghosts? Lazarus portals?" Dinah sounds exhausted, but Bruce snaps to her voice with rapt attention. As do all of his children.
"I-" Bruce takes a look around the room, everyone's heads except for Tim's nodding up and down with distress," We all have."
"Something tells me that they whole JL is. Everyone I've talked to this week has had a variation of the same dream. We either have a telepath trying to tell us something, or something even worse than that."
"I'll call emergency meeting, we need to collect details and try to determine the complete message."
"I'll send you what I've noted down so far, sans personal details of course, it's definitely in a town called Amity Park though. My client this morning saw the sign."
Batman grunts and the call ends. It's time to get to work.
----
When the Justice League finally arrives, the town is glowing, and everything feels like... sleep. smothering. snoring. smoking. smoldering.
And then, despite the exhaustion that echos within them, the trudge onwards. The noise of laser guns certainly wakes them up a bit.
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astraystayyh · 7 months
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All for you
skz and the vows they'd write for you.
fluff. gn reader. word count-3.9k. listen to video games by lana del rey if you can!!!
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a.n: thank you to @a-cute-french-fry and @dorisnumber1fan for brainstorming some of these with me <3 i made myself very delulu with this so ENJOY. happy 3k!!! i love you all muahhh <3
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 chan ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
Chan's warm hands are in yours, fingers tangled with one another tightly- like the sturdy roots of an ancient tree.
“Baby,” he calls out softly, and you can already feel tears well up in your eyes at the tenderness in his voice. His thumb reaches out instinctively to wipe the lone tear that managed to escape. His right hand remains on your cheek, cradling it gently.
“Seungmin always liked to joke that I was nearly half-fifty-two. Then half fifty-three on my next birthday,” he starts, as a faint giggle escapes your lips. “That's how I counted time too, with the different days I lived… That is until I met you.” He pauses, a shaky breath leaving him and crashing onto you. “Suddenly I was no longer twenty-six. I was one week old since I met you. Three months since I’ve loved you. And then five years since you changed my life. Years no longer marked the passage of my time. It was you who marked the passage of me.”
“I always had this idea in my head, that I was only worth loving easily. If I diluted all my problems, concealed all my flaws and insecurities to please the ones around me, only then was I deserving of love. But you...” His eyes soften, even more so than they were before. “But you loved me, you loved me on my happy days, and on my darkest ones. You loved me, even when I couldn't understand it, even when I couldn't see what was there to care for in me. So, thank you, for showing me that I am worthy of love, simply because I am me. Thank you for choosing to be patient with me. You don't always know what to do to help, nor do I, but you try, and I try, and isn't that what love is, in the end? To take time out of your day to try, for the person you love?” His voice cracks, as sudden tears wash over his rosy cheeks.
“And I love you. I love to love you. And I cannot not love you, not when my heart beats to the melody of your existence. I promise that even when I’m eighty, I’ll always try to love you better, softer, gentler. I'll never stop trying to be worthy of your love, to be worthy of being yours. Only ever yours.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 minho ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
“Angel,” Minho smiles softly, the back of his hand brushing tenderly against your cheek. “I love you, so so much. You know that, right? I probably don't say it as much as I feel it, because I always do. Every second of my existence is spent loving you. Even when I’m not fully awake, and still floating in that hazy space between dreams and consciousness, I can still feel it deep within me that I love you. It is the one thing that ties me back to life itself.”
“And I never... I never imagined that I could adore someone this much. So much that I always think of you, always miss you, even when you're near. Because I feel as if I missed out on years of loving you, back when we didn't know each other. And I- I want to love you, hard enough so it'd feel as if I’ve done it for your entire life.” He's blinking repeatedly, you're surprised he can still read the words scribbled on his paper. You can sense that the tears glistening in his eyes are on the verge of spilling, so you grab his hand and squeeze it gently. 'I'm here', you silently say- he understands.  
“Thank you for holding my hand. Now, and every time I’ve needed you. Thank you for being here for me, with me. I... I always thought that people like me were destined to be alone. But- but being with you feels like I’m with myself. There's no need for me to pretend. Thank you for not making me pretend anymore. You are my mirror, you and I are one, and I- I hope...” He brings your hand to his chest, where his heart beats wildly- 'stay with me' it sings to you.
“I hope you can always feel my love for you. Now and when we're too old sitting on the patio of our home, and my hand is still in yours. Because my heart belongs to you, it beats for you and I breathe for you.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 changbin ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
“You're breathtaking,” Changbin whispers in awe, his eyes tracing the contours of your body with each lingering look, like the brush of a skilled artist.
“So are you,” you giggle, but he shakes his head vehemently, drawing nearer to you. “You are the most beautiful human I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I can't believe I’m marrying you,” he chuckles in disbelief, before grabbing your hand and twirling you around, showing you off for all to see. 
“Look at who I’m marrying!” he shouts with bursting excitement, as he dips you down, his nose grazing yours gently, a soft touch amidst the loud exclamations around you. 
“Still sure you want to marry him?!” Seungmin shouts from his seat and you giggle, wrapping your arm around Changbin’s waist. “I do!” 
Your laughter gradually fades, as Changbin clears his throat. His head is tilted to the side, a small, incredulous smile drawn on his lips as he contemplates the loveliness of this moment- of marrying you. 
“My baby. My beautiful baby. I think this is the happiest day of my life. But again, every day is a happy one with you. I... I've never known that love could be unconditional, that loving someone would feel as simple as breathing. Until you. Loving you doesn't feel like I’m taking something out of my being, and giving it to you. But rather, I’m nurturing something within me, a blossoming tender emotion that grows within my soul. Loving you...” he steps forward, cradling your cheeks in his warm hands. “Loving you makes me happy, immensely happy. Because you are the sunset that makes people stop in their tracks to admire it. You are the beautiful scenery that gives hope to everyone who witnesses it. And you make me feel alive. More than I’ve ever been before you.”
“And I promise...” he pauses, wide eyes trying their best to embrace each feature drawn on your face. “I promise to love you more today than I did yesterday. I promise to shoulder the pain that slips through the cracks in your heart, the one that you try so hard to conceal from me. I promise to hear your silent cries and to hug you until your soul stops bleeding. I promise to see you, even when you try to hide from me. I promise to hurt if it means you'll feel less pain. And I-” his voice trembles as it washes over your old scars, delicately erasing them from your memory. 
“I will love you. When the pain seems too big, I will love you. And when your happiness shines the brightest, I will love you. I am madly, irrevocably, desperately in love with you. My heart is tangled in yours.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 hyunjin ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
“My love,” Hyunjin begins before abruptly stepping forward, pressing his lips onto yours. The kiss is dizzying and sweet, it reminds you of the figs he hand-fed you yesterday- honey dripping down his tongue onto yours. “I’m sorry,” he whispers once he steps back. “I couldn't help myself. You're so pretty,” he admits sheepishly, and you giggle, too in love to ever mind.
“Where was I? Right, hi, my love. Writing these vows was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Not because I didn't know what to say, but there is so much I wish to express, to talk about when it comes to you. How my soul seems to burn for you. How you’re my last love, but also my first, because I don’t think I’ve ever truly loved before you. Not when you are love itself. But I… I found this journal entry, from four years ago. And I want to read it to you.” He clears his throat, a useless attempt to erase the quiver in his voice.
“I used to believe that love was meant to be grandiose. Extravagant gestures and confessions that will seem too magical for any ordinary human. That’s what I craved; a love so big it would overtake my being completely. But... But tonight, you played with my hair as I laid my head on your lap. And we held hands while drinking warm tea on your couch. And it felt enough, more than enough for me to lead a beautiful life. One worth remembering, one worth commemorating. All because it’s with you.
I realize now that I no longer have to search for love all around me, because you hand it to me, so freely, so selflessly. You love me on our extraordinary days and our mundane ones. I never have to second guess it with you. We may be angry, sad, or frustrated, but the love always remains. It's the one emotion that ties us together, that anchors us to one another. My compass. You.
I don't think I ever 'fell' in love with you. Because a fall can never be gentle, it always hurts, even if for a little. And you must always get up afterward, in a minute, in an hour, in a few years. You can't stay down forever. But this, what I feel for you, the emotion that makes my heart beat is tender and soft. It feels like walking inside a home where the light is golden, the windows are wide open, and every past version of me finally finds what it was looking for all along. I want to stay in you for a while. For a long time. For the rest of my life. And I’ll do whatever it takes so you’d let me.
P.S: I am sleeping with a light heart tonight. I hope that, for as long as I’m breathing, you will always too. You deserve it, more than anyone who has ever walked this earth.”
There is a long pause, as Hyunjin’s words hang over the air; they knock the breath out of you but simultaneously fill you with life. You step forward, swiping away his tears gently. He brings your hand to his mouth, soft rosy lips brushing against your knuckles. 
 “I guess I've been writing my vows since the day I met you,” he smiles softly, delicate love overflowing from him. “Every painting, every journal entry, was to you, by you, for you. Thank you for being my home. Thank you for choosing to love me, every day. Thank you for allowing me to witness the magic that is you. I will forever and always orbit around you.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 han ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
“Have I ever told you that you're my favorite artist, sweetheart?” Han’s voice is gentle, as he begins speaking. It reminds you of the waves lapping at your feet when he proposed to you. “I feel as if, as soon as you stepped into my life, you began to paint it with the most vibrant colors. The ones I’ve been desperately longing for. Because it is hard… to see the world as a rainbow when you've felt in blacks and whites for so long.” Han’s gaze softens as he spots the tears now trailing down your cheeks. “Shh, don't cry, honey. Or I’ll start crying too, and I don't think I can stop then,” he whispers and you nod, a breathy giggle escaping your lips.  
“My mind used to be a scary place. But it no longer is, because it's now filled with thoughts of you. I like to imagine that you planted yourself a little garden there, vibrant tulips and roses. And these flowers may wither down. But they will always bloom again, watered by my love for you, and your love for me. And I hope you know that I... I'll always be there for you too. When the thoughts in your head won't quiet down, I’ll talk for as long as it takes to distract you. And when you want to sit in silence, I’ll be near you, holding your hand. And when you want to be alone, I’ll be there, lingering around the door, within your reach. In whichever shape you want me, you'll get me. I am here, I won't ever leave you.”
“And now I’m crying too” Han chuckles softly, and through the shimmering veil of your tears, you cling to his hand to see.
“I really, really don't know what I ever did to deserve you. But I know I’ll try my entire life to be worthy of you. For as long as I’m here then there will always be someone who loves you. Someone who is proud of you; for breathing, for trying, for never giving up. Please never forget that. You are my strength, my peace, my home. You are everything I have ever dreamed of in human form.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 felix ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
The golden rays reflect on Felix’s eyes as he looks down at his paper. A summer wedding- he insisted, his only condition to you. It is ridiculous, you wanted to tell him, to expect it to be any season but summer when he is the sun.
“Hi baby,” he grins, twinkling brown eyes captivating yours. “God, I’m so nervous. I rehearsed this ten times in front of chan. I think he learned it by heart now.” You giggle, as Chan’s laughter travels across the venue. “I’m not usually afraid of speaking in front of people. But you aren't anyone. I guess that's why I’m nervous. You look really beautiful today. This isn't in my papers, I just wanted to tell you. Because you are. You're always beautiful but today you're absolutely breathtaking and I can't believe I’m marrying you. Thank you for saying yes,” he pauses, a breathy chuckle escaping him. “I’m rambling, aren't I?” you nod, a wide grin on your face. You love him.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I... I'm known as the massage fairy, right? I think I might've massaged almost everyone present in this room.” The loud cheers of your friends signal that they agree.
“I used to, I mean, I do it because you get knots in places your hands can't reach, and it feels nice, for someone to ease the ache of your muscles for you. And I always thought that massages were strictly physical. That it just undoes tension in your body, nothing more, nothing less. And I never told you, because it sounded silly in my head. But I knew... I knew I loved you when you massaged my shoulders for the first time. Do you remember, baby?” he asks, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “That was two months into our relationship. Which is fairly early, but time means nothing when it comes to you.”
“My shoulders were sore, and when I told you, you stood behind me instantly. You started to massage my shoulders and I almost cried right there and then. Because your fingers worked delicately, and it felt as if you were kneading your love into my body. You lifted an invisible weight off of me that day, an emotional one. I didn't even know it was there until you touched me. That's how I knew you were different, to me. That your touch wasn't strictly physical, that it reached into depths of my soul, that it soothed aches I’m not even fully aware of,” he pauses, drawing in a deep breath.
“You already know this, but I... I never really learned how to deal with sadness, because it all happens so suddenly with me. One bad thought always brings with it ten others and suddenly I am pulled into a pool of horrible feelings. But your hands keep me afloat until I’m ready to swim by myself again. I think... I think you understand my sadness more than I do. Maybe because you're a part of me, two halves of the same heart.” His voice softens at the last word, as unshed tears glimmer in his eyes.
“I hope, I pray, that my hands massaging your sore shoulders would also reach into your soul and heal its ache. And I know I might not make you feel better, instantly, or in a day, or the following one. But I promise that I won't ever leave, even if the bad times stretch forward. I'll be with you, patiently, just as you do to me. I may not understand myself fully, but I know that my soul was crafted to love you. Every atom in me is yours, and that is enough knowledge for me.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 seungmin ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
You take a step forward, brows knitted in concentration as you carefully readjust Seungmin’s black tie. Your hands then glide to his shoulders, smoothing the fabric of his suit. “Nervous?” You ask, and he responds with a subtle nod, planting a chaste kiss upon your forehead.
“Don’t be. It’s just me.”
“It’s never ‘just you’ to me.” He gently holds your chin, dainty fingers commanding a cascade of butterflies inside you. “Just look at me, okay?” You smile tenderly and he nods, taking a step backward.
Seungmin draws in a deep breath, eyes traveling over the entire room before finally settling on you.
“I’ve always liked math. I liked the security that numbers gave me, the exactitude of this science. Because one plus one equals two, and no change in our world, however grand it may be, could ever alter it. I liked things that I could grasp, that I could wrap my head around fully. Tangible rules and formulas. They were my safety net. Until you came into my life. You were the wildest variable I’ve ever encountered, and being near you made me crave things I’ve never known. You pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I wasn't afraid to fall into the unknown, because I knew you'd be there to catch me. So, you became my risks and paradoxically, my safety net, all in one.” He doesn’t look down at his paper- his kind eyes never leave yours, and you’re suddenly the only two humans existing in this world.
 “I remember a Tuesday night, two years ago. You slept over at my house, and we didn't do anything special. We just talked a lot, about everything and nothing, just saying whatever crossed our minds. And then you dozed off on my chest. You looked so... Peaceful in my arms, and I was surprised you weren't woken up by my wild heartbeat. Because I suddenly realized that I wanted a forever with you, right there and then.” You both step forward at the same time, hands reaching out blindly to hold one another.
“I’ve always found it a bit weird to crave something to last for a duration that we humans cannot grasp. Everything we know is ephemeral. Everything has a beginning and an end. So, I never really believed in forever, until you. Forever exists because I can't see myself ever not loving you,” a faint hiccup courses through him, as he looks up at the sky- an earnest attempt to stop his tears from falling. It is useless, because once he looks at you again, emotion overtakes him, rippling from him in waves.
“Even- even when we're both no longer here, and my body can no longer contain my soul. Even if I only roam in space eternally, as a small speck of light, my destination would always be you, because my love for you would be the only thing my soul would remember. The core foundation of my being, the essence of who I am is my love for you, and even if everything around me fades, the love for you will stay.” His forehead presses onto yours, a last whisper, only meant for you- “My eternity is you.”
✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 jeongin ✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹
Jeongin's lips graze the inside of your wrist, right where your pulse dances in fervor- for him alone. He looks self-assured, as he lets go of your hand to take out a paper from his pocket. But there is a faint blush tainting his cheeks; it travels down his neck when he clears his throat.
“Baby,” he starts, voice hoarse from barely hidden emotion- the notes of it settle inside your heart. “I don't know where we will be many years down the road, or what we will be doing. But I know that there are things that won't change between us. I know that I’ll listen to all your rants about your favorite show, and I’ll buy you ice cream when you're craving it at 3 a.m. I will still buy two bottles of my shampoo because you love to use mine more than yours. And I like it when you carry a part of me with you, even in such a subtle way. I will still give you my jacket, even when you insist you aren't cold, but I can tell, because I know you. I will...” He sucks in a deep breath, as his vision grows blurry from the tears in his waterline.
“I will make you coffee in the morning, exactly how you like it, down to how many ice cubes you use. I will warm up your towel as you shower and I will fold your laundry because I know you hate doing it. And I- I will hold your hand when we cross the road, and in crowded places, and in the lines of every coffeeshop we’ll go to. I will run my fingers down your spine when you're about to sleep, and I will-” Jeongin's tears splatter across the paper, smudging its black ink. His lips are quivering, as the paper shakes in his hands.
“I will kiss your tiny bruises and remind you to breathe on- on days where...” Jeongin crumples the paper in his hand as he finally looks at you. He’s crying, a stream of tears trailing down his cheeks like a floodgate that isn't planning on stopping. “On days where it seems impossible to.” He finishes, the words he's written long forgotten by him. He didn't need to read them when he had you in front of him- the sole holder of his love.
“And I will hug you tight on nights when your sadness feels bigger than what your body can contain. And when words don't seem to make sense in your head, I’ll- I’ll listen to you, I’ll understand you, I’ll learn you. And I will love you. I will love you and I’ve loved you and I love you. And I- I wish there was a word bigger than love to describe how I feel for you. Because four letters never seem enough when it comes to you. But I am yours, body, heart, and soul. Wherever you go I follow. Till the ends of the earth, I'll be there.”
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deadsetobsessions · 3 months
Text
“Tim. Timmy. Ancients, kid, what are you doing?!”
Danny Phantom smacked away the instinctual terror of seeing an eight year old dangling out of a third story window.
“I gotta go take pictures of Batman and Robin! They’re out tonight!”
Danny thought that his barely healed vivisection wound might bust open from the sheer stress.
“Setting aside how you even know the patrol schedule of honest to god vigilantes, why’d you choose the window? The house is literally empty, just walk out the front door, for Ancient’s sake.”
Tim paused, a motion Danny was overwhelmingly thankful for, and blinked sheepishly.
“Um… for the aesthetic?”
Danny allowed the silence to settle between them before dropping his head into his waiting hands. Tim panicked.
“You- you can’t stop me!”
And yeah, Danny really can’t. In the months he’s been mooching off of the Drakes (not that they’ll notice), Danny’s learned that Tim Drake is nothing but relentless in the pursuit of whatever he sets his mind on. Whether thet might be putting hot chocolate in his cereal (which Danny doesn’t actually mind) or, apparently, stalking a pair of vigilantes.
He wanted to hack into the library cameras? Danny had to hover just to make sure the kid didn’t get caught after arguing for an hour about it.
He walked out of that argument with a loss, yes, but he also let Tim know that Danny cared about him. Danny also walked out of that argument with a new hatred for Janet and Jack Drake and his mind (just as diabolical as Tim’s) whirring with plans to haunt them.
Tim is never ever introducing his new little brother to Tucker. Ever.
“Okay. I don’t want to see you take unnecessary risks, but I’m also aware that I can’t really stop you. So. I’ll go with you.”
Maybe this is like… Tim’s obsession? When he put it that way, Danny lost the fight to prevent this tiny kid from what clearly is the only joy in his poor life.
“But…!” Tim’s eyes darted to Danny’s chest, the vivisection scars still fresh in his mind.
“They’re healed.” Danny pulled his dumbass little brother off the window sill, core settling as Tim follows willingly. “I’ll make us invisible and fly with you behind Batman and Robin so you can get even better shots. You can’t make any noise, though. That camera got a shutter sound, right?”
“Yeah!” Tim’s face brightened and Danny melted. He shoved a bottle of the (incredibly stinky but helpful in a pinch) ecto contaminated tap water into a backpack, along with some snacks and a blanket for when Tim gets cold. Danny’ll be fine, he’s got a Space Core. The cold his kind of his thing.
“Cool. We’ll stay out of earshot. If things starts to get too dicey, we’re heading home, okay?”
“Okay!” The look Tim shot him is full of trust and adoration and it makes Danny’s human heart squeeze painfully. “C’mon! I don’t want to be late!”
“We need to talk about your stalking tendencies later,” Danny said fondly.
“I’m not stalking them! I’m observing them!”
“Uh-huh,” Danny drawled, picking Tim up and making them intangible and invisible. “They’re not a bird observatory and also, even the birds in the observatory knows they’re being watched. Batman and Robin clearly doesn’t.”
Danny felt more than saw Tim’s pout.
He laughs as they fly just below the Gotham-brand of toxic smog. He waves to the City’s Spirit as Tim cranes his head around to catch sight of Batman and Robin.
“There!”
Danny obliged. With Danny’s flight, Tim got much better- much closer- photos than he would have originally.
Danny hung back as the pair of vigilantes swooped down to take care of a mugging.
“Wanna mess with them?” He grinned down at his little brother, canines glinting.
Tim looked up at him, admiration and mischievousness in his gaze. “Yes.”
Gotham parted her clouds in response to their glee.
——
Dick Grayson, AKA Robin, finally understood why criminals are so creeped out by him.
Other than the whole flippy child kicking grown people’s asses and winning thing, obviously (that, and Batman loomed menacingly behind him everytime a criminal even looked at Robin wrong).
Batman had picked up on it first, but the for entirety of their patrol, they kept hearing eerie little giggles and laughter. Haunting them. Never distracting. But persistent. And so creepy. He got goosebumps.
“B, I wanna go home.”
“Hm.” That’s a resounding yes if Dick’s ever heard one.
Maybe Alfred can chase away the giggles and chuckles.
Robin shudders and follows the Bat home.
——
Danny lowered the temperature as he held Tim up near Batman’s cowl so his brother could giggle menacingly. He knew for a fact that any recording device would get completely cram led by the sheer output of ambient ectoplasm he’s emitting. Plus, it freaked Robin out and raised the hairs on the back of the vigilantes’ heads. He tones it down when he noticed Tim rubbing his hands together.
He let out a quiet laugh, enjoying the flight with his brother in his arm and the light of the stars (thanks, Gotham) at his back.
——
Danny: oh, this kid’s got an Obsession, gotta let him do it safely, he’s a liminal from all that tap water
Danny: *forgets Tim isn’t a ghost nor is he from Amity and is therefore extremely breakable*
——
Danny and Tim: doing crime is a good bonding activity
Batman and Robin, who wants to say no it isn’t but they’re literally a pair of illegal vigilantes:
——
Dick as Robin: *cackles*
Tim, learning habits from stalking them: *giggles*
Gotham Criminals: *fear*
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katakaluptastrophy · 5 months
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Can we talk about Magnus in Harrow the Ninth? Because there's a tendency to paint him as this constantly cheerful figure and he's not - he's just very Fifth.
He's the only person who seems even slightly upset about the whole gun-toting horror thing:
“Did the Sleeper get them?”
“Only by assumption,” said Harrowhark, while Abigail’s dolt of a husband said, “I bloody hope so.”
“Magnus,” Abigail said, a touch disapprovingly.
“Well, if the Sleeper didn’t, that’s two maniacs with an ancient weapon and a love of blowing off faces, dear,” said Magnus.
And he's got a very low opinion of Silas:
"She won’t tell me what he said to her, just that he ‘was horrid.’”
“Cheeky little so-and-so,” said Magnus. “If he were my son, I’d give him something to think about. I’m not surprised he’s gone to ground.”
“I would hope your son might be of different character,” said his wife, half-smiling.
“Protesilaus should have biffed him.”
“It’s strange,” said Abigail, ignoring her husband’s exhortations to biffing.
Behind the jolly Jeeves and Wooster-esque talk of biffing people, let's remember that this is Magnus - who from Gideon's POV never saw a teenager he didn't want to adopt - earnestly wishing that a grown man had hit a 16 year old kid.
And when Harrow explains that she thinks she saw him jump to his death, Magnus isn't particularly sympathetic:
“We should have made him a greater priority,” said Lady Pent.
Magnus said, “I’m not certain.”
and
“We didn’t need him,” he said bracingly.
Abigail said, “We need everyone.”
“I never thought he was quite the thing.”
This "never quite the thing" line is the same one Abigail uses when she says Ianthe shouldn't have become a Lyctor and you get the sense it has a quite specific meaning on the Fifth. You get the distinct feeling Magnus is saying "good riddance" in response to a teenager's apparent suicide.
And then of course there's Magnus' conversation with Harrow as the River bubble collapses, as Harrow debates whether she should leave her body to Gideon:
She said: “If I go back, it will finally destroy her soul.”
It was Magnus who stepped forward and looked at Harrow face-to-face. And perhaps she felt that more keenly: that he was the man who had, in Gideon’s own words a lifetime ago, been nice to her cavalier. His mouth was hard now, but his eyes were as kind as they had ever been. And kindness was a knife.
He doesn't pull any punches in laying out his understanding of the situation to Harrow:
“This whole thing happened because you wouldn’t face up to Gideon dying,” he said, which was a stab as precise as any Nonius had managed. “I don’t blame you. But where would you be, right now, if you’d said: She is dead? You’re keeping her things like a lover keeping old notes, but with her death, the stuff that made her Gideon was destroyed. That’s how Lyctorhood works, isn’t it? She died. She can’t come back, even if you keep her stuffed away in a drawer you can’t look at. You’re not waiting for her resurrection; you’ve made yourself her mausoleum.”
His wife looked at Harrow’s face and murmured, “Magnus, you’ve made your point,” but he uncharacteristically ignored her.
He's trying to get through to her in a very fraught situation, but he's certainly not pulling his punches:
“You’re a smart girl, Harrowhark. You might turn some of that brain to the toughest lesson: that of grief.”
Abigail is also trying to talk her out of things, but she's much more discursive and apologetic. Magnus is kind, but it's kindness as a knife, not a cushion.
Magnus is so often written off as just a silly, goofy character, when he's more complicated than that. He's allowed to have a very real frustration with the River bubble and with Harrow, however much he does also care for her and want to help her.
And you know what, he's a CFO stuck in a horrorscape with his delighted ghost nerd wife and a bunch of soldiers. He runs with it - he cracks one of his House ordinal jokes while physically tackling a gun-toting ghost and makes a decent go at it before getting shot. But he's very much out of his comfort zone, angry, and no longer entirely held back by propriety.
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jelliedink · 4 months
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Ancient Vampire Partner as a Service Top Headcanons
Warnings: Pure smut. Mentions of death, blood, violence. No gender specified, but reader do get periods. Implication of abusive relationship. Author's note: I wrote an extensive introduction to this post, but then I realised that was mostly me rambling. So I decided to get straight (and kinda gay) to the point. Shall we? Divider by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more
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Here's my take on how I think the sexual dynamic between a human and their ancient vampire lover would go:
Your ancient vampire partner knew they had to be gentle and careful with you. Much like us when carrying a newborn puppy, they were aware of how easily your bones could break if they got too excited. Since sex for them was now more of an echo from their human days and not a survival need, they were ok with going without sex for long periods of time, perhaps waiting until you were ready to be turned. For now, they thought it was safer to wait.
You, on the other hand, were very much not ok with this. You were human, your body evolved to make happy chemicals from sex. As if that wasn't enough, the main survival strategy of your partner's species was looking hot as fuck to lure humans, getting their thoughts so clouded by lust that they'd ignore the stone cold touch, the sharp fingernails, the bluish hue of their skin and the sharpness of their teeth. Your whole body went crazy just by looking at them.
They knew you couldn't help it. So, whenever you were needy and in the mood, they didn't mind putting you on their lap, back against their chest, and touch you until you've had enough. They loved being able to make you feel good, whispering on your ear while playing with your body: "What do you want to try today?" "Do you want me to get one of our toys?" "Does it feel good like this?" "Is this intensity enough?"
In the days you desperately needed to feel them inside of you, they ignored their own desire while watching you ride them mesmerised, gently guiding your hips up and down while kissing and caressing whatever part of your beautiful, soft and warm body they could reach. God, how pretty you looked with your eyes out of focus, using their body to get off and scratch that itch.
And when you were too tired they gladly took the lead, paying attention to your every reaction, focusing on how to serve you better: "Hold my shoulders tight so I can reach deeper without hurting you, ok?" "Slow and steady, precious, or you'll be tired before we can have the amount of fun you deserve." "Here, it will feel even better if you touch yourself too."
But they were far from being selfless. The moment you got your period they morphed into a feral and self-serving beast, unable to control themselves any more than a hungry lion would if near a trapped deer. This was one of the very few times they could feed off of you and they were not letting all this food go to waste.
You'd get properly cushioned in a comfortable position, a heating pad on your lower belly, your legs on their shoulders and they would lick you clean. Prepare to be there for a while, no amount of begging would make them let you get up until they're finished. Of course you always tried to. Every time this happened, they'd first try to convince you with love and praises, but their tone got increasingly more authoritative and mean until you couldn't recognise your lover anymore. "My baby, you taste so good." "How can you be so good to me, my little angel?" "Can't you hold on just a bit more? Please? For me?" "Oh, you're being tortured with too many orgasms? You poor thing, that sounds so terrible." "Pretty, you're not getting up. Don't think that you have a choice just because I'm trying to be nice." "Maybe if I show you how painful I can make it you'll realise how good you're having it stop being such a whiny ungrateful brat. You want this, my baby? You want me to hurt you? So don't make me hurt you."
In the end they'd kiss your whole weak body and your puffed teary face while begging for your forgiveness. They'd say they don't deserve you, they are a monster, they just don't know how to control themselves when you smell like this and they were so hungry. You'd be pampered: a hot bath, body massage, your favourite food, that thing you've been eyeing for so long but was way too out of your budget.
They'd do just about anything you ask for. Anything but promise not to do it again.
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the-modern-typewriter · 9 months
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The Blue Key
On her first night in her new home, after a lavish dessert of strawberry cheesecake and cream, her new husband handed her a clinking set of keys across the dining room table.
“You can go anywhere in the house,” her husband told her, “except the basement.”
He showed her the key to the basement. It was midnight blue.
“Why? Is the basement where you keep the bodies?” she asked, with half a smile.
He didn’t smile back. “Do you promise me?”
She studied him carefully, feeling the weight of the basement key in her hand.
There were many keys to the house - hefty ornate keys for their front and back doors, a pretty gold one for their bedroom, a dozen little silver and brass ones for any other lock in the house that she might come across. Windows and cabinets and the like.
The basement key was almost insubstantial against her palm. Negligible. The sort of key that was easily lost, that looked like it might belong to a doll house more than a proper estate.
She couldn’t read his expression.
“You can’t tell me what’s in there?”
“I will know if you open the door,” he said, “and everything that we are will end.”
She laughed again, uncertainly, because the words were surely absurd and certainly not like him. He could have simply told her it was dangerous and so best avoided, or not given her the key to the basement in the first place. She doubted she would have given it all that much thought among all the other rooms.
Yet, his words instead piqued curiosity.
Once again, he did not smile. He stared at her solemnly, with a hint of something haunted that she had only caught flickers of during their courtship.
The laughter died in her throat.
He had been like something from a fairy tale from the moment they met; Prince Charming to pluck her out of the ashes of her drab life, even if she knew he had been married before. Everyone knew. Just as none of them had expected him to pick her. She had no experience in the running of manor houses, and no especially outstanding beauty nor fortune of her own to make up for that fault. In short, she was nothing like his first wife.
But, she had made him laugh, and she had liked him. God, how she had liked him – and liked him still – with such blushing ferocity that it almost made her dizzy.
Her new home was enormous, and beautiful, and filled with the kind of impossible luxuries that she had never even dared to dream of having. It was filled with him. She was nothing, and nobody, and he had given her the keys to be something and somebody else. Someone better. What was one small forbidden key against all that?
She knew the preciousness of privacy. Sometimes a secret could be the only thing that was really yours.
“Okay.” She bit her lip, and started to unhook the key from the ring. “Would you like it back, then? Just to be sure.”
He recoiled as if she’d drawn a knife on him and shook his head.
“Keep it,” he rasped. “Keep it safe. Keep it locked. Let it be forgotten.”
But from that moment on, though, she never really forgot about the blue key for a moment.
***
The library was probably her favourite room in her new home. It was astonishing to be able to have an actual personal library, stocked from soft-carpet and gleaming hardwood floor to cavernous ceiling with walls upon walls of books of every kind. The orphanage had maybe three books, worn and ancient, each crumbling a little more with every reading.
There were lots of stories in her husband’s books about girls with keys, girls with curiosity, heroes with something they were not supposed to look at under the pain of death or something worse.
Psyche with Eros, who was told without explanation not to look upon her perfect and mysterious host, for there could be no love without trust.
Orpheus, forbidden to glance back at his love, lest he lose her for good.
Pandora, with her strange once unopened box of evils and hope, told it was hers.
Eve, with her curiosity, with her knowledge, lured into plucking that shining forbidden fruit.
Bluebeard too, of course, with his many murdered wives, all told not to seek out their bloody predecessors behind his secret door, because – why?
Because it was a game of female obedience? Because it gave a predator an excuse to do what he did best, when he knew from the first instance that his victims would have to know? He chose them, after all. And why did they look, those wives, against all warning?
Because the uncertainty was unbearable? Because it was their home too? Because they loved the man they married and wanted to know everything there was to know of him? Maybe they wanted to save him. It was never cruelty.
The two of them were happy, her husband and her, as blissful as newlyweds were want to be.
In the evenings they would cuddle before the roaring fires, night caressing the windows, and he would read aloud from his favourite passages or play music. In the days he would work, or leave on some business or other, and she would wander the labyrinthian corridors alone and explore the many treasures tucked away behind his many locked doors.
The library could have lasted her years, but she found a room with a ceiling made of magnifying glass by which to observe the stars, a swimming pool built into the rock beneath the entrance hall, a lush garden bursting with colour that she could tend to in the sunshine.
There were servants to take care of the day-to-day running of the building, and so he did not seem to desire any particular purpose of her except to be his wife. Except for her to live in his home, in their home, and enjoy his easy company and the gifts he gave her. She found ways to keep busy. To contribute.
Thus, it took her many months to walk down towards the basement, to first look upon the door that she was not allowed to open. Spring had turned to the first icy breaths of winter.
The door was painted the same midnight blue as the key, and immaculate in condition. The lock was tiny. A dark slither, a crack, in something otherwise quite lovely.
She pressed her hand against the door and the wood was warm compared to the cool, slightly stale, underground air that filled her chest.
She dropped a hand into her pocket, fingers closing unerringly around the blue key. She tried not to touch it, not to think about it, but she had come to know it instantly by shape and feel alone. It was simply so odd to have a key so small. She had half expected the door would be in miniature too.
How could he possibly know, if she opened it? In some tales it was magic. The key would betray her. He would know by seeing it. But her husband did not want to look upon the key, he had never even mentioned it once after their first dinner.
What then was in the basement? Something so terrible that she could no longer love him? Or perhaps it was empty. Perhaps it was structurally unsound. Perhaps it was simply a test on if she would allow him that one thing that was his and his only.
She leaned down, and pressed her eye to the keyhole with a hammering heart. She didn’t know what she expected to see inside, exactly – a skeleton, or some ghoul staring back at her, or some hidden vault even. There was only darkness. Nothing to see. She straightened again, unsure if the painful feeling in her lungs was breathless relief or airless disappointment.
She walked back up the stairs.
She turned over the pages of stories in the library, and turned the key over and over in her palm, and wondered which of those many tales she was in.
***
“I think,” she said one night, as they lay in bed. “That it bothers me more that you will not tell me, than anything that could possibly be in the basement.”
He stiffened on the mattress next to her.
“Is there something I could do,” she rolled onto her side to face him, “so that you would know you could trust me with the truth?”
His expression was half-hidden in the dim light, his body made unfamiliar by slashes of moonshine slicing through the curtains. His blue eyes were open, staring up, away from her.
“You promised me that you would not dwell on the door.”
“No.” She reached out, tracing her fingers gently along the curve of his jaw, coaxing him to meet her searching gaze. “I promised I wouldn’t open it. There’s a difference.”
He snorted, but tipped his head towards her hand, planting a kiss to her knuckles.
“Can you at least narrow down the possibilities?” She pressed into the silence, because kisses were sweet but they were not an answer. “Is it something I shouldn’t see? That you don’t want me to see? Something that – I don’t know – can’t be let out? Are you the secret guardian of a nightmare world?” She attempted another smile, but it wobbled shaky. “Just give me something, and I’ll leave it alone. I just want to know. I need to know. Whatever it is – whatever it could possibly be – you don’t have to carry it alone. We’re supposed to be a team. That’s what marriage is.”
“Is my word not enough for you?” He sounded tired. “Is everything I have given you not enough?”
She scrunched up her nose at him. “You’d be happily blind, if it were you?”
“Ignorance can be bliss.”
“If you wanted me ignorant, why tell me about the key in the first place? You know me.”
They’d met on account of her curiosity, of her straying to places that she wasn’t supposed to be. He’d been visiting the library of one of the great colleges, reserved for great men like him, and she’d snuck in aching for a glimpse of the world.
Her husband said nothing.
“When you first gave me the key…” She swallowed. “You looked scared.” Her fingers, which had often brushed his in the library stacks once upon a time, grazed his pulse. It was racing. “I would fight monsters for you. Even if you’re the monster.”
As the silence stretched, she thought he might say nothing again, until the silence had grown so large that they might never reach each other across the abyss of it.
“I love you,” he said. His voice cracked. He caught her hand, entwining their fingers together, and squeezed. “Goodnight.”
The seconds ticked by into minutes, into she didn’t know how long.
“Is it a curse?” she whispered, into the dark. “If you’re not allowed or able to tell me, squeeze my hand twice.”
“Oh my god.” His voice was muffled, then, as he pulled a pillow over his face and wrenched free of her. “It’s two in the morning, darling. Go to sleep.”
***
She watched the door diligently for about a month. She didn’t think her husband had some poor creature locked up in the basement, but if he did then one would assume that either he would have to visit, or have the servants visit, in order to provide his victim some form of sustenance.
Nobody visited the basement door except her. There could not be anything living on the other side.
At least, not unless there was some other second secret door and tunnel system, hidden somewhere on the grounds. She didn’t see anyone vanish to one of those either, though. Would she, if it wasn’t on the grounds? How large a conspiracy could a little blue key possibly hold?
Would it count as ‘opening the door’ if she made a hole in the wall next to the door? 
She remembered her husband, in the college library the first time they met, spying the collection of ghost stories she’d been straining to reach. He’d grabbed it off the top shelf for her, easily, a glimmer of amusement curling his lips.
“I never really got these stories,” he’d mused. “If it were me, I would simply not have gone into the haunted house in the first place. Or, one look at a ghost and – no, no thank you. Goodbye! Have a nice life.”
She’d gaped at him.
He’d shrugged at her, and handed her the book. “But I can see that you’re a braver soul than me,” he said. “Sneaking into a place like this uninvited.”
She’d accepted the volume, clutching it protectively to her chest.
“Well,” she’d managed. “People like you are already invited everywhere, aren’t they? So you don’t have to be brave.”
He’d startled into a laugh.
She’d wondered if he would expose her to security, wondered if she should have denied it, wondered how he’d seen through her so swiftly and –
“Don’t worry.” He’d already been turning away, with a last lingering glance at her. “I can keep a secret.”
She’d only learned later who he was, and that it had been a month since his wife had died.
How, exactly, had his first wife died? The papers had said ‘tragic accident’, but there had been no witnesses. He didn’t talk about it, or about her.
No. She was being ridiculous. Maybe she had only imagined the flicker of terror on her husband’s face, the way he had flinched from the key, the rough urgency in his voice. Whatever it was, whatever it could possibly be, was not worth sacrificing what they had. There were other rooms; a dozen of them!
She buried the damn key in the garden. Out of sight, out of mind. Better that than completely losing her mind over something that probably had a completely rational explanation. Love was a leap of faith. 
She woke up the next morning to find the blue key back on the key ring, still covered with a fine sprinkling of dirt.
***
Her least favourite stories in the library were the ones about fate.
Maybe some people found such notions encouraging, comforting even in their reassurance that all of the suffering in the world was for a reason and that people could have some incredible purpose laid out for them. She’d always found the idea to be like quicksand beneath her feet, sucking her down down down trapped.
For, if it was fate, there could be no real escape. No chance. No hope.
She kept returning to the story of Bluebeard, tracing variations and retelling with the blue teeth of her blue key.
Maybe, if she was Bluebeard’s final wife, she would open the door and ultimately inherit a grand fortune, and recover from the trauma of falling in love with someone who wasn’t what they said they were.
What if she was only the second wife though, or the metaphorical third? What if her fate was to be some dead thing written only to add background colour to someone else’s happy ending?
It was all well and good of her husband to claim he would never go into a haunted house, but such declarations only really worked if one knew they were in a horror story instead of something else.
“Do you think, maybe,” she asked her husband as winter turned back to spring, “that we could go away somewhere?”
They strolled through the gardens, his arm wrapped protectively around her frail shoulders. Ever since the key incident she had found it difficult to sleep, to eat, to not find herself worrying about the door like worrying a hangnail until she tore off bloodied scraps of her own skin.   
The house, which had once seemed so large to her, had turned into something suffocating. She had no friends in the area, and however far she went along the grounds in the lonely hours of her husband’s working, the door would always be there for her and the key would always be in her pocket. The questions, the creeping doubts, would buzz in her brain like flies swarming a corpse.
“Go away?” He seemed surprised. “Is there something else that you need?”
She had tried simply hiding the key, then stayed up all night staring at the key ring laying on her bedside to try and catch the culprit who’d dug it up from beneath the roses.  One of the servants must have brought the damn thing back, right? Perhaps, the housekeeper? She got the impression that the severe woman had never really approved of her, never liked her. She was not as impressive and perfect a candidate as his first wife had been.
She had seen nothing, but when she fell finally into an exhausted slumber, the key had been waiting for her.
“I just thought it might be nice for us both to get away for a while,” she said. “A holiday. You’ve been so busy with your work.”
She had tried burning the key. It did not burn.
“There is a lot to do,” he said. “This is a large estate. It takes – management, a lot of care.”
“Perhaps I could help you?”
“It is not your burden, darling.”
“But it’s yours? A burden?”
The key, whatever it was, had to be of some supernatural origin. Of that she was increasingly certain. Well, the ghosts were in the house, so to speak, and he wasn’t leaving! He wouldn’t look at her, his attention fastened on the first snowdrops shoving their heads from beneath the hard earth.
“Tell me,” she said. “Or come away with me, please.”
He glanced at her, then.
She reached into her pocket and held up the blue key.
He turned away, quickening his pace as if he couldn’t wait to get away from it too.
“Where,” he said the next morning, “would you like to go, love?”
At the sea side, she tossed the key into the water when he wasn’t looking. If it was the servants, if there was any chance that something in the house was messing with her, with them, then even its evil reach could surely not reach beyond the borders of the property?
It was better for a while, after that. They were both lighter on holiday, away from his family home, with all of its history and responsibility.
The house on their return, waiting for them as it always was and would be, felt new and full of possibility again. They kept laughing over their first dinner back and fell asleep still high on love and freedom and everything they were supposed to be.
The next morning, impossibly, the blue key was on the key ring again.
She started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” her husband said. The colour had leached, stricken, from his handsome face. He looked older. Exhausted, too. His eyes were dark. “I wish—” He fell silent. He reached out to her, and she recoiled. “I’m sorry.”
“You wish what?” It came out whip sharp.
He said nothing. 
She shook her head, the laugh on her breath not really a laugh at all. Of course, he would still not tell her.
“If you don’t tell me,” she said, “everything that we are will end. You understand that, don’t you?” She fumbled the key off the ring and hurled it onto the sheets between them. It sat there, so disgustingly innocuous looking, a glint of blue among the white. “This isn’t fair. This is – sick. Take it back.”
“I know.” He folded his arms, less great man, more frightened child hugging himself. He stared down the key like an old enemy. “I know.”
“Or,” she said. A plea edged into her tone. “We could leave. For good. Let this house, let that door, be forgotten. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
He shook his head, less ‘no’ and more ‘I can’t’ and more ‘I’m sorry’.
She squared her shoulders, even as his slumped. “Tell me, at least, if I should go. You love me, right? If there was something rotten in that basement, you would want to protect me from it, wouldn’t you?”
“You can go,” he said. “If that’s what you want. That’s always been your choice.”
She stared at him.
He looked haunted, hunted, and he had known all along that the key would always end up back on the ring, hadn’t he? That was why he hadn’t simply taken it off when he first gave them to her. She would have thought he didn’t trust her if he’d never given her the keys to her own home at all too, wouldn’t she?
She debated leaving him. She debated walking out the house and – what?  
He looked so broken.
She sighed, the defiant fury sluicing off her shoulders too. She rounded the bed and craned up on her toes to kiss the lost furrow of his forehead.
“Just ignore it,” he said, clutching her hands. “Just ignore the door, and we can be happy.”
“Darling,” she said. “You don’t seem happy here.”
She kissed his lips, like packing up a suitcase, and snatched the blue key back up off the sheets.
Then she went down to the basement and opened the door.
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sylvestris123 · 6 months
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What does the pre-Fall scene actually mean?
I’ve been thinking about that first scene, with pre-Fall Crowley. We are all swooning over how sweet and innocent Angel!Crowley is, and how smitten Aziraphale is, but on reflection there is something odd about this scene.
The action takes place before the rebellion, before the Fall, when bad things hadn’t even been invented yet. So why is Aziraphale already worried about Angel!Crowley getting into trouble for asking questions? Shouldn’t he also be a cute innocent bundle of fluff without a care in the world?
There is a meta that examines this (sorry, I can’t find it, I’m useless at this), which comes to the conclusion that Aziraphale later on is suffering from guilt (that he might have unwittingly prompted Crowley to seek answers and hence fall), but this still doesn’t explain why Aziraphale knows that asking questions might be a Bad Idea, and Angel!Crowley doesn’t. After all, Angel!Crowley has apparently been working “very closely with Upstairs”.  Shouldn’t he be a bit more clued up?
This leads me to think that there are 2 possible explanations for this.
1. Angel!Crowley has been so far out of things playing with stars that he really is clueless about everything (possible but doesn’t really match up to the Crowley that we know today).
2. This is not a true record of events.
Either: it is one of Aziraphale’s memories, but coloured by what he knows today, so the conversation that actually occurred might have been quite different. Maybe it is because of Aziraphale’s less than perfect recall, or maybe the memory was tweaked (e.g. by the Metatron) to emphasize the innocence of Angel!Crowley and the injustice of his later fall.
Or: IT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED AT ALL. Their true first meeting was as S1, on the walls of Eden, and it is all a false memory planted by the Metatron. (This could also explain why we don’t get to hear Angel!Crowley’s name. It’s not actually known, so can’t be added to the ‘memory’). Why would he do this? It could be to make Aziraphale think that Angel!Crowley was so full of joy that he should be reinstated to recapture that innocence.
There are plenty of theories about the other flashback episodes in the series, all of which could be interpreted as showing off Crowley’s 'good' side, to make the thought of his reinstatement as an angel more plausible or even necessary to right an ancient wrong.
If any or all of this is the Metatron’s doing, what is the motive? He clearly loathes Crowley. Maybe reinstatement as an angel would automatically wipe out his memories of being Crowley and all of his Earthly experience, so you would end up with a cute innocent (and ultimately useless) angel with no memories of his friendship with Aziraphale. Or perhaps it was a way to get him to come up to Heaven where he could be ambushed and imprisoned.
Or maybe the Metatron always knew that the very concept would go down like a lead balloon and that its aim was to make Aziraphale and Crowley part in such a way that they would be less likely to try to contact each other later.
There are so many pieces to this puzzle. Just when I think that a couple might go together I find others that don’t fit with the patterns already made, and which sometimes seem to belong to a different puzzle altogether. I’m sure that I already have 5 corner pieces.
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