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#and there was variation in each mystery

nemesis-is-my-middle-name · 4 months

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we need more vivi hurt/comfort in this fandom. #25 prompt (“I’m going to ask you how you are and I would like you to answer me honestly.”) from Artie to Vi if you're up for it? 💛🩵

(hurt/comfort dialogue prompts)

(oof god i'm rusty with these characters. let's get into it)

"I'm fine," she says, for what feels like the millionth time.

"Bullshit," is Arthur's response. "I'm down an arm, Vi, not my fucking eyes. And ho- honestly, I wouldn't- wouldn't even need th-those to tell right now." A hand lands on her shoulder, pushing her down further into the chair for emphasis. "One more try. I'm gonna ask you how you are, and it'd be nice if you c-could answer me honestly."

She shoves him off and stands up, already stalking away, ignoring the shooting pain all up through her side when she does. "God, fuck you. Fuck off. This is so stupid. I don't need,"

And then her vision whites out.

---

She blinks herself fuzzily awake into a world much softer than the one she was just in. She's in bed, she registers, or at least a pile of blankets. The pain is gone, but it also feels like everything else isn't quite online, either. There's a vague clicking noise from somewhere to her right.

"...you hovering all the time," she finishes her thought, although it comes out too mumbly to really deliver.

"j'you say sa- s-something?" The clicking noise stops, and an Arthur appears in her field of view. He looks worried. So, like normal.

"Yeah, uh, what? Why am I in bed?"

Now he just looks exasperated, throwing his hand up in annoyance, which is an improvement at least. "You passed out, stupid! And th-th-then when I freak out, out about it you're all like oh no never mind it's whatever fr- from the fucking floor. 'Why am I in bed.' Dumbass."

She only vaguely remembers that, not that she's going to admit it. Well, okay, question answered. She tries to get up, and Arthur immediately shoves her back into the pillow.

"Hey," she protests.

He makes his usual staccato ch-ch-ch disapproval noise, which she usually thinks is cute when it isn't directed at her. "Nope. I j-just got done bandaging you up, you are not getting up. You, you are st-staying right here."

She tries to wrestle him off, but he's annoyingly persistent and her angle's all off. "Okay, I'm patched up! So it's fine! Let me out!"

Whup, and her hand is flat against the bed, and Arthur's hanging out of his chair to get his arm over her chest and pin her down. "No."

Probably she could flip him. Maybe. He'd hit the wall behind her but not, like, hard. She thinks about it. It's really hard to lift even the non-pinned arm. Maybe she couldn't.

"Stop being stupid," she tells him instead, sounding normal and not at all desperate. "This is nothing."

"It is- v-very much- not nothing."

"This can't be enough to stop me. It isn't! I'm better than this!"

"Get up, th-then!" he challenges.

"I'm not a fucking tranq'd animal!"

He yells wordlessly at her, she shouts back, until they're both panting.

She shoves him again, no real force behind it this time. This is such a waste of fucking time, when he damn well knows they never have enough of it. "I need to get up. You need me out there, you know that."

"Go to hell."

Now tears are welling in her eyes. She's screaming at herself, internally, but for some stupid reason it's not translating into more strength. "We're wasting time, here. I'm ready to go, I can move, I can work. Let me up."

He flops over, into a less aggressive pin, but not actually a less effective one. Their faces are almost touching, which was maybe the idea. "One more try," he says, again.

His damn stubbornness is another thing that she likes more when it isn't being used on her. This is not a fight she is going to win.

"If I fall asleep," she says reluctantly, "and you're not there when I wake up, I'm going to fucking kill you."

That gets a laugh out of him. "M'not going anywhere, Vi."

#the nemesis speaks #the nemesis answers #answrs #swift writes #ask game #mystery skulls animated #oops. i'm using that tag i guess #uh. is this how i normally characterize these guys? i don't remember. this is how i write them now anyway!#lewis is their balancing force that keeps less than 50% of their dialogue from being variations on ''fuck you''#which is also very fun coming from pla where everyone is sooo polite and formal all the time. and these two are. Not That.#uh. other commentary on this. i actually don't know where this is set #it could be just a swap scenario where vivi's the one with the memories but idk. i feel like it's somethin else. smthn less canon adjacent #ALSO vivi and arthur are both such like. ''please let me die for you'' level devoted to their friends. tho they express it v differently #and vivi's like. she's gotta be the strongest and bravest and most powerful because if ANYTHING HURTS THEM SHE WILL FULLY SNAP #...and then obviously implicitly here Something Happened to lewis. which exacerbated the problem #meanwhile arthur is like. no fighting. it's not the time for fighting now is the time to sit down and let me fix you. tell me what you need #-and i'll fucking rearrange reality to get it.#and then they scream at each other about it! normal friends who are normal.

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megansanimelist · 11 days

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Everything Else

Bartender: Glass of God

At Eden Hall, each glass has a story. A quiet bar lies tucked away in the streets of Tokyo, and it seems only the most desperate souls burdened by their own troubles manage to find its doors. But after a glass of God poured by the brilliant bartender Ryu, they leave renewed. Ryu has a gift—he knows how to soothe the soul with the perfect drink. Who will he meet next? (LiveChart)

Mysterious Disappearances

Sumireko Ogawa is a busty bookstore clerk who wants to become a novelist after some writing success in her youth. When strange occurrences start cropping up around the city, she teams up with her flirtatious co-worker Ren Adashino to look into them. But Ren is hiding a secret of his own! With their combined skills of occult knowledge, what will they discover as they investigate? (MyAnimeList)

Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

The story is set in an alternate world called Yamauchi, ruled by the Yatagarasu clan, who are able to transform between human and crow forms. Yukiya, a beautiful and eccentric Yatagarasu boy, is chosen to serve the young prince. While encountering various events in the conspiracy-filled imperial court, he forms a strange master-servant relationship with the young prince. (MyAnimeList)

The Grimm Variations

Once upon a time, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm collected fairy tales from across the land and made them into a book. They also had a much younger sister, the innocent and curious Charlotte, who they loved very much. One day, while the brothers were telling Charlotte a fairy tale like usual, they saw that she had a somewhat melancholy look on her face. She asked them, "Do you suppose they really lived happily ever after?"

The pages of Grimms' Fairy Tales, written by Jacob and Wilhelm, are now presented from the unique perspective of Charlotte, who sees the stories quite differently from her brothers.

Episode 1: Cinderella

Episode 2: Little Red Riding Hood

Episode 3: Hansel and Gretel

Episode 4: The Elves and the Shoemaker

Episode 5: The Town Musicians of Bremen

Episode 6: Pied Piper of Hamelin

#the Raven anime ISN'T gay???#won't stop me from pretending these pretty boys kiss each other #Bartender is super chill #I fell asleep watching it #which doesn't say much bc I fall asleep watching anime often lol #Mysterious Disappearances is interesting? ep 2 will have to impress me to keep it from getting dropped #also RIP the main character's spine from the 2 watermelons attached to her chest #Grimm Variations on Netflix is SO GOOD #episode 1 kept me so engaged and on the edge of my seat #spring 2024

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arminsumi · 8 months

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I want to kiss you / キスしたい

G. Satoru

NOTE: i recently started learning to write in japanese for not much reason other than to occupy my mind with something new. this little daydream came to me and i can't stop thinking about it, i think falling in love despite a language barrier is one of the purest and sweetest ways to fall in love.

WARNINGS — it might be fem reader idk, kissing 👍, ur married w him at the end, not proofread lol i'm snuggled up in bed ok

Satoru cant speak english and you cant speak japanese; Suguru is the translator friend. You met him online years ago, who knows how. But you hit it off, and four years of friendship rolled by.

Satoru heard all about Y/n and saw you many times when Suguru facetimed or called you. You and him had many cute, playful interactions, ranging from making hearthands at each other to flipping each other off and laughing about it. Sometimes Satoru would be sat off-camera, overloading Suguru with things to translate, because he had a lot to say to you. One time, Suguru left for a few minutes to get a pizza delivery, and then Satoru got very quiet and the two of you blinked at your screens.

"Hi."

And then you two for some reason started laughing with your whole chests, Suguru walked in with a confused smirk. He joked, "Sooo... what did you and Satoru talk about while I was gone?" He asked, gentle accent coming through in soft waves. "The mysteries of the universe." You replied. Satoru was already diving into the pizza box, but he still listened to you speak; he wondered what you had said, maybe you used some fancy words to say that you liked him? He'd be lying if he said he didn't memorize variations of "i like you" after that. He was paranoid that he could miss you saying that you liked him.

You managed a slow, meticulously-pronounced nice to meet you in Japanese when you finally visited Tokyo. It was at the airport. You and Suguru had shared many hugs — good grief, you'd seen height comparisons many times but none painted a real idea of just how big these boys were. But Satoru? He was loudmouthed on a screen and surprisingly shy in person. Eventually he hugged you and didn't let go. He even got so comfy as to hang and cling to your body like you saw him doing with Suguru in countless photos and videos.

Though you could barely pronounce the little Japanese that you picked up, Satoru felt giddy to hear your pretty voice in his language. He listened to you like you were reciting love poetry to him, fists under his chin and eyes starry. But you were just saying basic phrases, boring things — nothing that articulated your thoughts properly.

He was far too embarrassed to try and speak any English when he first met you, even though after developing a crush on you he did start learning some English on the side. He knew quite a bit, but listening was so impossibly difficult it frustrated him like nothing else. He was also self-conscious of his English accent, though Suguru tried to assure him that he sounded very cute and almost oddly British.

So often instead of attempting to speak tiny phrases to you, Satoru threw a lot of hand motions and signals your way which got the two of you and Suguru laughing — poor Sugie, he was always translating even the smallest things you said even if you muttered them under your breath, because Satoru was eager to know every little thought and expression you had, even if you were simply commenting on the weather.

Once you commented that it was so hot, you were visiting during a heatwave-filled summer. Satoru raised his brows at Suguru expectantly, and you heard a familiar translation;

暑い。

It's hot.

There was such a frustrating language barrier between the two of you, it became more evident when you had finally flown over the sea to meet them.

Yet you and satoru fell in love silently and beautifully, your love flowing like a river in the most unexpected directions. You felt his affection emanating from his irises. You and him joked around, and talked — though you had no idea what the other meant most of the time. Sometimes the two of you gave up and you talked in English, he responded with Japanese, and it went on like that very comedically until Suguru came back to bridge the gap.

Lots of time was spent putting your heads together over your phone, reading translations of what you wanted to say to each other.

One day, when Suguru left the two of you alone in his apartment kitchen so that he could hop to the convenience store, Satoru typed something into the translator and let you read it. Your face warmed up.

キスしたい。

I want to kiss you.

He looks at you expectantly.

You type back to him.

Then kiss me.

それからキスして。

He blushed and hesistated, the two of you making electric eye contact for a while before he boyishly pecked your lips to test if you liked his kiss, but oh that's all the two of you needed to realize just how much you liked each other. You melted into each other like your bodies were made for nothing else but to embrace and be one. He shook a little, tentatively gliding his lips over yours. His hands nervously cupped your cheeks. With the way he handled you so carefully, you'd think you were made of porcelain.

Your reciprocation meant everything to him. His confidence flourished. The soft smacking, wet sounds got louder when he kissed you more passionately. Those gentle hands found their way to the back of your neck, and he softly pressed you closer to him as if he was scared you would pull away. What if you changed your mind mid-kiss? He was overthinking and you wouldn't have even guessed it, because you thought he was in the same blissed out dream state as you were. So high on kissing that the world fell away.

The two of you started smiling embarrassedly, grinning so hard that you couldn't continue kissing. Then the two of you just giggled against each other's faces — a subconscious realization swept him; laughter and kissing are their own languages.

Yes as years passed and you visited time and time again, your Japanese improved and his English improved. When you moved to Japan, eventually you adopted a messy mix of Japanese and English with Satoru. He liked showing off how perfectly he could pronounce things, and you liked showing off that you could write very neat kana.

Years and years and years passed and when you and him were married in your own little apartment, starting a life together, a very fluent Satoru reminisced about how the two of you fell in love despite barely speaking to each other.

"It was your eyes for me." You said.

"Oh really? It was your voice for me. I didn't know what you were saying, but it sounded nice." He said.

"Mmm I liked your voice, too." You said, snuggling your head on his shoulder. He basked in the attention, though it was common, it always felt special for him. The smallest hand touches and wrist kisses made his heart lurch.

"Remember when I always nagged Suguru to translate every little thing you said?"

"Yeah, you worked him to the bone." You chuckled.

"I just wanted to know what you were saying. I had such a crush on you, looking back now it was even ridiculous how much I liked you considering the barrier and all."

"Ooh, did you?"

"How is this surprising? We're married??"

"Oh yeah."

#🗑️ — trash #♥️ 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 — 五条悟 #gojo #gojo satoru #fluff #gojo fluff #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x fem reader #satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #jjk gojo #satoru gojo

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technicallyr43 · 3 days

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How about a fic where the Fenton portal was opened in like the 90s and so Phantom was the literal First Known Hero. Which is why he was hunted and there wasn’t any law to stop the Anti-ecto acts. And when Phantom Planet happened, he just disappeared, or retired. He went to Gotham U for uni and meets Bruce Wayne there and they hit it off as good friends and later wild romance partners who slept around. And when they graduated they separated to do their own thing but Danny returns once in awhile to visit Bruce.

They also meet randomly when Bruce goes on work trips in random countries and cities. They never mention the kids and Danny doesn’t know about Batman. Bruce doesn’t know about Phantom. He just thinks Danny is an engineer that travels for work. Which he is, but he’s also mainly the Ling of the Infinite Realms and appears in other countries and cities bc that’s conveniently where natural portals are spawning.

What Danny doesn’t know is that since he’s taken up the mantle of king, the zone has changed to match him. So it’s much more welcoming and natural portals spawn where Bruce is bc he lowkey is in love with him and just doesn’t realize it. And vice versa, Bruce is lowkey in love with Danny and they fawn over each other when they meet up without realizing that’s what’s happening. But Alfred knows, he’s known for awhile. And so does Jazz.

So when one day, Alfred brings up that Danny is in town in Gotham and Bruce says to set a time for them to meet, one of the kids hear this and they wonder who this Danny is, bc they’ve never heard his name. It becomes a Wayne Mystery when that week, Bruce is out most nights and portions of the day and comes back looking happy and soft. Which freaks everyone out and they stalk Danny and realize they’re meeting each other and this man is someone Bruce cares about a lot. So they bring him up at dinner one day and Bruce is like, oh yea he’s an old friend of mine. And when pressed on why they haven’t heard or met him, Bruce just says that they’ve never brought it up and since Danny isn’t around a lot, and Bruce is a little self aware of himself at this point, doesn’t want this relationship to affect the kids since they aren’t exclusive or together really.

So the kids plot and get Danny to come to the Manor for dinner. They then realize during dinner, watching Bruce and Danny interact, that holy shit, this is their other dad. They’re so in sync that they don’t realize it and he’s so good with the kids too and Bruce is so happy when he’s around…

Cue the batfamily kids Parent Trapping the two, with the help of Alfred who is all for it bc he likes Danny.

In the end, Danny decides to stay at the Manor and the kids can now call him other dad, or pops, or some variation. But they all collectively don’t mention the vigilante side they have, since they all figured it out themselves. Their new dad can do so too. Which then spirals when all of the kids Omar’s out on Patrol, Alfred is on Vacay, and Danny is alone in the house when Talia comes a knocking, bc she knows that Danny has always had Bruce’s heart and wants him gone. She’s always been jealous of their relationship so she tries to kill him. The family realize what’s happened when Damian sees some League members watching them on patrol and they race back home to see Danny decimating the assassins and Talia. He sees the family in their costumes and thinks, oh wow this makes all the sense now.

And they see Danny as a ghost, which Bruce recognizes as Phantom, the first hero!!!! And they all sit down and talk about it.

There’s probs more too but that’s all I have rn.

#danny phantom #batfamily #danny x bruce #ghost king danny #danny fenton #bruce wayne #dpxdc

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tojipie · 6 months

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I love your prison bf toji series so much!! Also, in the newest installment of the series Toji says that Shiu has had a crush on the reader for a while? I’d love to see how this crush developed, how Toji found out and how Shiu dealt with his feelings!!

ughhhhgghgg i love this prompt so much :(( bless your heart you’re a genius <3

prison bf toji series linked here <3

context ! -> fic takes place very early on in reader and toji’s relationship. this is pre-prison and at a point where he hasn’t introduced him to his men yet :D hopefully this makes sense !

content: fem reader, brief piv smut, mentions of incarceration, objectification of reader by stranger, fluff, they make up dw ! jealousy, angst, unrequited love

purple hickeys bloom across your chest as toji makes his way from shoulder to shoulder, pinching bouts of delicate skin between his teeth while length ruts into you.

the drag of his cock is delicious, hitting that special spot at just the right angle from the way he has you laid out on the couch, both legs thrown over his shoulder with your head propped up on a cushion.

toji was always like this after securing a deal at work, soft, sensual, taking his time with your body as an act of celebration. half-empty glasses of champagne still lie on the coffee table where you’d left them, leaving rings of cool sweat on the glass surface.

“gonna cum,” he groans, pulling away from your neck with a pop and blowing cool air against the saliva-soaked hickey. you squirm at the stimulation, throwing your head back as your high creeps up on you t— was that a key in the door?

toji pulls out of you with unmatched speed, reaching for a couch cushion to shield his manhood. he rucks a throw blanket over your body with a string of curses, using his massive build to hide the silhouette of your body from view.

“what’d i tell you about waltzing into my fucking house?” your boyfriend yells, staring down the suit-clad stranger with a look that screams blood-lust.

the smile that breaks out on the man’s face is nothing short of filthy, eyeing you up and down like a piece of meat

“awww didya get us a hooker boss-man?” he sneers, cigarette hanging from his lips. “could’ve waited till i showed up to start but i’m down for whatever.” he laughs, gingerly placing a pristine briefcase on the coffee table before taking your discarded bottle of champagne as a parting gift.

“don’t have too much fun, alright?” he teases, stepping out the door as quickly as he’d come in.

the two of you are speechless for several minutes, looking back and forth between each other, the door he didn’t even bother to close, and the mystery briefcase you’re not sure you want to see opened.

toji sits up with a string of curses, stalking over to kick the door shut with a sigh.

“that’s.. shiu,” he mumbles, clearly embarrassed.

you sit up from your spot on the couch, letting the blanket guarding your modesty slip down to your waist. toji settles down on the opposite side of the couch, arms outstretched to let you climb onto his naked form.

“handles money,” he clarifies, tracing abstract shapes onto your spine. “my cut from today is in the case.”

“do you trust him?”

he nods, resting his head in the crook of your neck with a sigh.

you figure that’s all you need to know.

˚ ✧ ──────────────────────

the apology shiu gives you the next time you meet goes on for ten minutes. variations of “fuck i didn’t know” and “i’m so so sorry i really am” spill from his lips while he bows at your feet, forehead firmly pressed to the wood floor of your dining room.

toji sits at the head of the table, shoveling bites of dinner into his mouth in between heart laughs.

“mmf— tell her again i don’t think she heard ya.”

the truth is you’d kind of forgotten about your boyfriend's right hand after the incident was over. was the hooker comment uncalled for? sure, but judging by the saturated fear in the suit-clad man’s eyes you figure toji had done something to set him straight.

plus you’d both gone two more rounds after the initial embarrassment had died down, making up for the little roadblock on your path to an orgasm.

“it’s okay, promise,” you say quietly, not entirely sure what to say at this point. the suit-clad man stands again, bowing to both of you with a sigh.

“now give her our little present,” toji says, stalking over with his arms crossed.

a sealed bottle of champagne— the same kind he’d so graciously swiped from your home— is placed in the palm of your hands before you’re able to question either of them.

you shoot the other man a greatful smile, and shiu realizes he quite likes the feeling of your soft hand shaking his.

˚ ✧ ──────────────────────

toji’s annual new year party was a sight to behold. alcohol, dancers, and booming music was the typical atmosphere, though the event had taken a complete turn once you’d entered the picture.

gone were the days of loose dollar bills and stray panties littering the floor, the smell of sex and smoke in the air.

in were the days of… a modest bar and fancy catering, much to his men’s dismay.

toji didn’t quite know how to throw a party that could be deemed “professional” but he figured not having strippers at the house might’ve been a step in the right direction. some of the guys even brought their wives this time, fun right?

and so, toji sits toward the back of the room, watching you socialize with a drink in hand, his best friend beside him.

tension hangs in the air as both men watch you from afar. one with pride, the other with longing.

“do you want her?”

“… what?”

toji doesn’t elaborate on the cryptic question, peering at his friend over the rim of his glass.

shiu pauses, downing the rest of his drink as he thinks of what to say. a warm hand settles on the meat of his shoulder, letting him know it’s ok.

“yeah man, i do,” he admits, too ashamed to look up from the floor.

greed. the word that’d graced toji’s knuckles since the day he turned 19. black ink needled into a canvas of tan skin, bleeding into the rest of the tattoos like water flowing upstream.

it fit him perfectly. it did then, and it does now. toji always gets what he wants, regardless of how other people feel. a man overcome by what he believes he deserves.

the hug he’s pulled into isn't filled with malice. the threat of violence isn’t there, unlike the time toji had taken him by the collar and threatened to gut him like a fish over the comments shiu had made the first time he met you.

this hug is.. soft. inviting. an embrace that tells him “it’s okay, i trust you.” the fact that toji hasn’t bashed his nose into his skull is a telltale sign that there’s no fault in feeling the way he does, so long as he doesn’t act on it.

shiu truly doesn’t know what to say other than yes, he does want you. he wants you to be the one he comes home to each night, he wants your soft skin on his, wants to spoil you and make you smile.

you were kind, attentive, shy at times. the complete opposite of toji and his brutish demeanor. a flower cradled in the hand of a dragon.

but you weren’t his, and you never would be. not when toji had been the one to sweep you off your feet, securing a place for himself in your heart that shiu could never fill.

and that was ok. he was here for his job, not you. shiu was fine with you being oblivious to his feelings, in fact, it was better that way for the three of you.

that’s exactly why he breaks away from the hug as you pad over to their table, shooting you both an apologetic smile before heading over to the bar. as long as he’d still be able to catch a glimpse of you every now and then, he’d live.

edit: forgot abt the taglist oopsies 🏷️

@honeybee54321 @m150-50up @kuryoomi @t4naiis @serendippindots @sillyalo @levixbby @powerrwa @tojishugetiddies @wheredidmycrowngo @unknownspecies @ushygushybaby @ebiharachan @hoshigray @crazychaoticizzy @denypipa @watyousayin @tempest1art @sakuraryomen01 @kariito-art @vkeyy @mxtokko @inumakiiz @rosieee491 @loveme-b4by @suguxo @namjoonsbuspass @tojis-luver @complexivelovely @dancingwithdeities @sunflwrsugar @catvader101 @ktsgrl @princessos-blog @4ut0p5y @swiftsongs-mp3 @mycocoapuffs @adrenepinephrine @na0koz @suguscape @jaswonder3 @bokutosprettylittlebimbo @getousrep @jeannieboys @darkstarlight82 @freebananabeard @vivian-555 @kentokaze @subarusuguru @aroxwq @i-literally-cant-with-this @emikokomura @moonriseoverkyoto

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artist-issues · 5 months

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I Saw Wish

And it was the worst animated Disney movie I’ve ever seen. I have to watch it again before I can get into the nitty gritty details. But I don’t need details to sum it up, because my dad actually said it perfectly as we left the theater:

“It was like someone who didn’t really understand Disney movies tried to make a Disney movie.”

Both the form (the technical arts of filmmaking) and the content (the morals, values, and themes of the movie) were totally horrible.

I don’t know who’s fault it was. Jeremy Spears was in the storyboard room and Mark Henn and Eric Goldberg did some 2D animation. But they must have gotten outvoted, or they must not care anymore.

Because holy cow. Here’s some stuff that’s just off the top of my head.

SPOILERS. Not that it matters, because nothing interesting happens in this movie.

The writing? Terrible. Ninety percent of it feels like the characters are filling time with quirky one-liners that are trying too hard to be appealing, then failing, then taking you out of the movie. The jokes aren’t funny. The characters just respond to each other in conversation to check a one-liner box. The other twenty percent is whole conversations repeating tell-don’t-show exposition that has already been covered, usually twice, in previous scenes. Like if in Tangled, every scene had included some variation of Rapunzel saying to friends and enemies alike, “I have to see the floating lights so I’m sneaking to the castle with this thief who wants a mysterious tiara I hid from him. Don’t tell my mother, she’s a bit overprotective!” Over. And over. And over.

The character motivations are way too broad. Asha? Her dream is just “that everybody around me gets to be happy.” That’s it, in a nutshell. No deeper exploration of that. Nobody asks, “why do you care so much?” Nobody tries to convince her she should look out for herself, and then she proves she was right all along. The King? We are told (not shown) that he doesn’t want anyone else’s dreams to be “destroyed.” But he in no believable way expresses that that motivation is still what’s driving him during the movie—what’s driving him is just a plain old lust for power, no nuance.

By the way, the whole premise of the movie? Undercooked. Half-baked concepts strung together with no definitive meaning. Therefore, it’s not believable. Example: The characters act like the wishes are beautiful—well, actually, no, this movie doesn’t know how to show, so there’s not a lot of meaningful acting—the characters just tell us that wishes are “the most beautiful part of someone,” and that’s why it’s worth going through this adventure to give their wishes back to them. But there’s no proof of that in the movie. In fact, it directly kicks it’s own legs out from under that idea, because it has every character who gives up their wish forget that part of themselves. Asha’s grandfather has forgotten his wish, but that doesn’t make him any less “beautiful.” She, and everyone, still treats him like he’s this wonderful old man who deserves the world, who everyone loves…but why is he so appealing? If he “gave up the most beautiful part of him?” The only character who is changed by their lack-of-wish is the Sleepy-analogue character…who is just sleepy, which is described as “boring.” But nobody else who’s given up their wish in the whole kingdom acts like that. It’s just him. Also, the King acts like it’s so important to protect the wishes from destruction. But what does destroying a wish look like? That actually happens to Asha’s mom. Her wish-bubble is broken, literally, and she just says she feels grief. But like. Why? She never remembered it in the first place; it had been missing from her life for years. Also, what the heck is a wish?! It seems to range from broad concepts like “inspire people” to “fly.” Just “fly,” like a bird. The desire to levitate off the ground is the most important, beautiful essence of one background character. Like, what?! But no character ever has the why behind their wish to make us care.

I could go on and on about that point. Like, think about Disney movies that wrote the book on how to make movies about characters with wishes. If Ariel were in Wish, her bubble would look like “dancing and learning and exploring on the Surface with someone who understands her.” But we believe that that is her real, genuine wish, and that it matters to her, because we are shown why being understood is so important to her. Because it’s missing from her life. There’s a scene where she explores a boat alone, and even her best friend doesn’t get excited about it with her. Her dad won’t listen to her point of view. Her siblings don’t ask her about her life even when they think she’s in love. She wants what she wants because of pieces of her life that we are shown.

We are never shown why Asha’s grandfather is obsessed with inspiring people, so we have no reason to believe it, or care whether he gets it or not. We can’t feel disappointed when his wish is said to “never come true,” like we did when Quasimodo was abused by the people he wished to join. We can’t feel elated when he finally “gets” his wish, like we did when Simba smiles on Pride Rock remembering the same way he used to as a cub and claims the crown with a roar. We don’t have anything to hang on to, nothing to relate to, nothing to grasp and feel with the characters. So we don’t feel, because they didn’t put the work in to help us feel. They just say, “the mom’s feeling grief. Feel grief.” And expect us to do the work ourselves. I have to stop harping on this point and move on.

But The main point of the movie is very broad because of that lazy premise, and it’s barely reinforced by any kind of appealing storytelling. If I had to guess, the point would be “Keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” But the story they told to communicate that meaning was so unimpactful. Asha doesn’t have a dream of her own that’s such hard work to accomplish! (Neither does her grandfather; his wish is “to inspire people.” And at the end, we’re supposed to see him strumming a guitar and believe it’s inspiring? We were never shown how he worked hard to learn how to play the instrument. Or that he carved it with his own hands, or anything like that. So there’s no meaningful demonstration of working hard for it or achieving your wish even if it’s far out of reach.) And nobody except the king is trying to take wishes away from anyone, and he just does it literally, after they voluntarily give them to him, so there’s not even any impactful demonstration of “don’t let anyone tell you your wishes are dumb or unachievable, or stop you from reaching them.” Even when he takes them away, it’s just because they…could, someday, be used to threaten his kingdom in a vague, really unlikely way. There are so many things you could do with “keep wishing for more even when it’s hard.” For instance; you could say the main character has always been afraid to dream (wish for more), because maybe when she was a kid something wonderful almost happened but ended in tragedy, so she keeps her head down and doesn’t want much because if you don’t dream you’ll never be disappointed. She takes no risks, and has to learn that sometimes trying and failing is worth more than slogging through life all self-protective. I mean, the pieces were right there. She has this line about her dad, and how she wished he would get better but then he died. She has lines about how nobody should have to live with grief?? Then that’s never addressed again! It’s just a throwaway emotion-moment with no buildup or follow-through to tie it to and support that main theme.

The compositions of too many shots were so terrible. Characters got cut off in weird places. One shot has Asha dead center, with her grandfather on the left side of the table and her mother on the right, having a family dinner with a super exposition-heavy conversation that is meant to be emotionally charged. But despite everything else being perfectly centered, half of her mother’s body is chopped off. The movie’s shot like someone’s mom who doesn’t understand technology tried to take a video with her phone.

The charm of the art “style” wears off basically immediately. I know what they were going for. I see the sketch lines and watercolor textures. This is maybe the first time Disney ever failed to accomplish a visual “look” that turned out good. Everything looks dull. Muted. De-saturated. Slightly out of focus, but not in a cool Spider-Verse way. The sets or backgrounds are lazy; at no point does the scenery look complete; big, empty, boring spaces that do not create any kind of “stage” for impactful moments. The rendering looks unfinished. When Asha’s hair moves during her belting of the “I Make This Wish” song, it’s bad. It’s unnatural. It flops in a way that doesn’t make sense for the weight of her hair. The most impactful visual moments come from the villain, and they’re moments when he looks way too unhinged for the kind of line he’s saying.

There is no interesting character development. Asha goes from believing everyone is basically good and their wishes deserve the chance to come true , to….that, again. That would be fine, she could be a static character, if she proved contrast-characters wrong, in a believable way. But she never does. Because no other characters argue with her except the King. And it goes no deeper than “everyone’s wishes are basically good and they deserve the chance to make them true” vs. “nuh-uh, because I get to decide what makes them deserving.” The King doesn’t have any kind of interesting development, either. They don’t expand on his tragic backstory—it consists of one drawing of him near a broken boat, and a few images of the corner burned off of his family taoestry. They never say “King Magnifico wished for _____ and it was taken away!” They literally never tell you what his wish or dreams were, or what motivated him to create the whole kingdom that the movie’s premise sits on. So there’s no convincing sense of progression, how he got this way, why he’ll keep going “so far.”

The pacing is weird. It undercuts every moment that could have any kind of emotion behind it. One minute Valentino is suavely bouncing around, then he’s given a two-second beat to blubber with badly-animated tears that he’ll miss Star—then he instantly gets to have another funny one-liner so we forget he might’ve been sad a second ago. We’re clearly supposed to believe that the King and his wife are devoted to each other, and his turning evil was such a big betrayal, but there’s no time and no impactful evidence for us to believe either of those things. And even if we did, the moment he’s defeated and trapped in a mirror, and begs to be let free, the Queen kind of shrugs it off, makes a forgettable one-liner, and tells them to throw him in the dungeon. And he doesn’t look remorseful. And we don’t even get to assume he’s embarrassed or emotionally devastated that he’s come to this—because the last thing he says is “nooo, the dungeon is so smellyyy!” Like this is a half-baked LEGO short that can’t get emotionally deeper than what an actual 3 year-old’s parents might be okay with.

And that’s the worst offense: The movie is not genuine. It works hard for nothing, and it has no vulnerability. It just uses old Disney standbys to pretend to be vulnerable. Have the music swell and the characters gasp and the songs drip emotion when characters are meant to be saying or doing something emotional.

But truthfully, think of all the Disney movies you’ve ever seen with the hardest emotional moments. The sheer joy of Genie when he realizes he’s free. The anguish when Elsa thinks Anna’s been frozen forever, or when Anna thinks she’s dead. The trauma when Simba loses Mufasa. The longing and dreaming of Ariel when she reaches up out of her grotto. The sense of foreboding when Mother Gothel says “fine, now I’m the bad guy” or the heartbreak in Rapunzel’s eyes when she thinks Flynn has abandoned her, or the shame on Aladdin’s face when Jafar reveals he’s a street-rat, or the horror of cruelty when the stepsisters rip up Cinderella’s dress, or Kala’s tears when Tarzan leaves her in the treehouse, or Sarabi’s tears when Simba comes back, or Mulan’s father tossing aside the sword and token of the Emperor to embrace Mulan, or heck, even just Lilo pushing Stitch in the woods and telling him “get out of here.” This movie has no moments like that. It has moments you can tell that the filmmakers wanted to hit like that—but they don’t.

Because no work is put into building them up. You know how much Simba loves Mufasa, because you’ve been watching their chemistry more than any other character all the way up till he dies. You know how much Mulan wants to please her family because she spends all of Act I desperately attempting to do that. You know Quasimodo believes the world below is beautiful and wants them to accept him because he has interesting things like—talking to gargoyles, convincing us that he’s lonely; building a scale model of the townspeople, convincing us that he sees them in a beautiful way and wishes he were beautiful in more ways than one like them, too.

Right down to the facial expressions, none of them are as anguished, happy, sad, excited, silly, in any convincing way like all of Disney’s other movies. Asha’s “low moment” when she’s afraid her “wish” hurt everyone else (still vague on what that wish ever was) lasts two seconds, she’s not crying, she’s barely sitting with slumped shoulders, and her family barely spend two seconds comforting her. They basically just say, “aw, no, it’s not y fault, it’s the king’s.” And she’s like, “yeah okay” and that’s that. It’s like the animators we’re afraid to animate really intimate emotions on the characters’ faces. The voice actors, too.

And the whole movie is peppered with Easter eggs to past Disney movies. But all that does, if you really know Disney beyond the visuals, is make you think of how hollow this movie is in comparison. How much you wish you were watching Cinderella or The Little Mermaid or something with depth and vulnerability instead of Wish.

#I’ll talk more in an organized fashion later #wish #disney’s wish #wish Disney #wish 2023 #critique #spoilers

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girlzlovinggirlzlovingme · 1 month

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A Big Reward For A Big Girl

CW: Mother/Daughter incest

You're getting ready for school, following the morning ritual. Doing everything the exact same as you've always done it. It's so ingrained into your mind that you're barely even awake and still following all your steps.

Right before you leave, a few steps away from the door, your mom calls out to you.

"Not gonna give me a hug before you go?"

You haven't given her a hug before leaving since you were a kid. But it's not like her wanting one isn't weird. She is still your mom, after all.

You turn around and face her, her arms wrapping around you and holding you tight. She's a bit bigger than you in about every way, so you end up trying not to suffocate while her embrace leaves you buried in her chest. While experiencing sensory deprivation by having your head rested between the equivalent of two of the worlds softest pillows, you hear some words escape your mother's lips.

"You've been doing so good with your grades recently, sweetheart. So, I'm gonna give you a special reward when you get home."

But. . . What reward? You haven't asked for anything since you were little, and it's not like you've even voiced a desire for anything recently. The thought rattled in your head while she pushed you out of the front door, leaving you to think while walking to the bus station. You've got a pretty easy day ahead of you, no real tests or difficult classes. That just means you have more time to think about what it could be.

Every hour was a bore, and each minute had you enraptured by your own thoughts. The idea of a reward kept bugging you, but the school day came and went. Coming to a close the way it began, at the front door of your house.

Opening the door and the house is the same as you left it. Not a single thing out of place. It's just the same, boring old home. I mean, what did you expect? Everything to have changed within an eight hour day? You take off your shoes and leave them near the door, moving on with your thoughts.

You let out a sigh and keep walking to your room. You can keep thinking about what surprise she has in store for you after you set your stuff down and relax.

Opening the door and the room, surprisingly, is not the same. When you left your room this morning, you did not, in fact, have your mom sitting on the edge of the bed in her robe.

She patted the bed, motioning for you to sit down beside her. "So, about that reward."

You try telling her that you don't need any reward, that her support is enough, even going as far as to say that whatever she got you, you'll end up returning.

"Slow down, baby." She places a hand on your leg, trying to get you to calm down. "I know I don't need to get you anything, but I want to do what I can to show you that I love you. So. . . I need you to just listen to me, baby. Be a good girl and lay back on the bed, okay?"

You feel the blood rush to your cheeks as you begin to blush. It's a little hard to relax, but you follow her directions despite how tense you are.

Despite you laying down, she still sits on the edge of the bed, except now turned to face you. "Okay, now listen to me, princess. I know what I'm about to do for you might be a little. . . well, a little out there. Just know I'm doing this because I know how pent up you are."

You think you can follow what she means, but her words are still confusing. Is she really going to do what it seems like she is going to do?

She takes out a small unopened package from under your bed. Despite where she pulled it from, its contents are a mystery to you. After using her nails to open it, she pulls out a clear silicon fleshlight.

"N-now. . . I know this might seem weird, but I promise It'll make you feel good. I don't imagine you have actually been having sex with anyone or using anything other than your hand. So this might feel a bit strange at first."

She moves her free hand towards your pants, pulling the zipper down and grabbing at the waistband. You utter different variations of "What the fuck?" "Mom, cut it out!" and "Please, let go!" You even try pushing her hand away, but in doing so it only comes more prevalent how much stronger she is than you.

Your protests and retaliation end futility as her hands end up pulling your pants down far enough to expose your panties, which she also quickly gets rid of. You're left with your cock exposed and twitching while you attempt to hide your embarrassment by covering your face.

"Don't worry, this'll feel good. I promise."

As you hear those words and peek through your fingers, you watch as your mom spits into the fleshlight, getting your new toy ready for you to use.

"P-please don't. . ." You attempted to bargain one last time but couldn't even finish your sentence before feeling the coldness of the silicon wrap around your cock, only remedied by the warmth of your own mother's spit.

"See? Doesn't that feel good? It'd be good for you to trust Mommy with these sorts of things." She didn't waste any time rapidly moving her hand up and down, tightening her grip on your dick.

The worst part is that she's right. It feels incredible. It's so much better than just touching yourself, and because she's the one moving the masturbator up and down, you're free to use your open hands to cover your face and stiffle your moans.

You're trying not to make much noise. You don't want her to know how much you're loving this. It's obvious she knows, though. She stopped moving her hand a moment ago, and yet you're still thrusting your hips to fuck the fleshlight.

Your hands cover your mouth and muffle each and every word, but it's so obvious you're moaning for mommy. What was once something you protested against is now something you don't want to ever stop.

You beg for her to keep moving her hand. Whimpering that it feels so good, you need it, and that you can't live without her. The tears start to well up, streaming down as you cry out that this was supposed to be a reward.

"Please don't stop, Mama. Please. . . I need my mommy. . ."

You uttering those words causes her to smile. The type of smile she gave to you when you were a kid. The type only a mother can give.

Her hand begins to move again, faster than it did before. Honestly, it hurts with how hard she's gripping, but she's right. It really does feel so good.

"Don't worry, baby. Your Mommy is right here."

Everything she's doing to you, psychologically and physically, it sends you over the fucking edge. You arch your back and let out the biggest orgasam of your life. And, you did all of that for Mommy.

It's all so much that after you cum, you practically pass out. Your eyelids so heavy that you struggle to keep them open, but you somehow manage for just a few more seconds. In the few moments before you hit unconsciousness, you watch as your mom slides the masturbator off of you and slides your pants back up.

After everything, she still wants to make sure you're okay. The last thing you watch her do is cover you with your blanket and lean down to whisper something to you.

"Mama loves you, princess."

#fauxcest #momcon #wlw nsft

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yeyinde · 1 year

Text

ode to a conversation stuck in your throat

Captain John Price x Reader

》 WORD COUNT: 12,7k

》 WARNINGS: 18+ | MATURE: allusions to smut but nothing graphic/explicit

》 TAGS: Gender-Neutral Reader. Angst. Mutual Pining. Idiots in Love (but in Romania). Fluff. Love and Romance described as death and decay and broken religious imagery. Y'know. The usual Yey tags.

》 NOTES: I recently got into Augury (just a fancy word for bird watching, innit??) so this feels more whimsical and nonsensical than usual. Good luck with this one, lads.

It's like clockwork.

A text comes—some variation of are you awake, or are you home? in that strange Price-esque way he manages, even through the stark face of a message (biting derision, Gaz calls it, adds: man can't pretend to be a little less angry even over text)—and then a phone call.

Always after midnight.

Devil's hour.

When your phone rings at half past three in the morning, hearing Price's gruff perfunctory greeting of "alrigh'?" bleeding through the phone, and right into your ear doesn't surprise you anymore.

(Not much does, really.)

These phone calls are a strange, almost paradoxical thing that both happens often enough not to be considered rare, and yet: it still seems outlandish enough each time it happens for you to ever really let yourself expect it. Odd. Price doesn't strike you as the type of man to need to rely on his friends—the seldom few he does have, you often joke (always a shade too close to the truth like most jokes are; the one that makes him dip his head in a nod of quiet acquiesce, and make you wonder if you went too far)—but he's never given you a reason for them.

Never answered why.

They just—

Happened.

(Over and over and over again—)

The brief conversation in the oddest hour of the morning started a new tradition. A routine. Expecting a phone call from Price at least once a week was now so commonplace, you almost felt empty when days had passed, and your phone never rang.

He can't sleep. Neither can you.

And so, he calls you.

It's not always about a mission. Most of the conversations that take place are about absolutely nothing. Everything, sometimes, when you pry apart the bones locked around your chest, and bare your insides to the warm cellphone clutched in your hand. To the voice on the other line.

A man you know—have known since you first stepped into his training ring, and into the orbit of Captain John Price—and barely understand at all.

You know everything about him—his name, his title, where he grew up, went to school, his favourite food, his least favourite drink, what he does after a mission; his greatest fear, his biggest worry, the insecurity that gnarls in his chest, and the weight of the world that sometimes feels like it might splinter his bones, grinding them into gun cotton—and nothing at all.

The reason why he called you all those months ago, invited you on a mission you had no real part to play in, and why he still does is a mystery.

(Loneliness, maybe.

Insomnia, you find, is more bearable when it's shared between two.)

But that was before.

The last phone call you got from Price had been nearly three months ago after you touched down in Heathrow following a botched mission in Tenerife.

You heard the murmurs about Shepherd, about Zyani that trickled through the mess hall (when there was no battle to be fought, they gossiped), and so his radio silence makes sense considering he was halfway across the globe for the bulk of it.

In the midst of it, though, you would find yourself staring blankly at your phone, screen black and void of any calls, and wonder if it had anything to do with your offer. With his swift rejection.

When it rings after an aching expanse of time, you can't place the gnarled tension in your chest. The uncomfortable feeling that blooms in your heart at the sight of his name flashing in neon blue.

Price seems almost surprised to hear your voice on the other line instead of the monotonous droll of your voicemail.

"Up for a trip?" He asked when you cleared the sleep from your throat, and rubbed blearily at your eyes. "Jus' me and you."

It feels like nothing at all had changed since he last called you with an offer to accompany him to Tenerife.

"Just like old times," you murmur, a touch distant. Hedging.

"Right," he says, words glueing to his throat. You hear the click when he clears it, and pretend you're only pulling the phone away from your ear to check the time.

Half past three. Of course. Of course.

"Got a proposition for you."

Typical Price: he gets right to the point.

There is no staying up talking about everything, nothing, and all the in between until well past five in the morning when your alarm sounds for your run. Or his for a shower before heading into headquarters at Hereford to reach a new class of hopefuls when he isn't saving the world with his infamous team.

The very same one he refuses to let you be a part of.

(Better on your own, he says.

You think you'd be better with him—

His team. Team. Not—)

The blooming heat under your cheeks is never acknowledged in the sanctity of your lonesome bedroom with his rough voice pitched low enough to squeeze through the little holes of your speaker. Tucked away to pine while still somehow making a fool of yourself.

You're only half listening when he murmurs about his proposition.

It's a simple mission, he tells you. The usual grab and go.

Usual, because only in this work could kidnapping bad people in foreign countries be considered normal. Routine.

(Legal, kind of.)

"It's in Romania," he murmurs, and the tinny sound of his voice through the old dial phone of the inn he's staying at between missions makes him sound lighter than he usually does. Airy. "I know you liked visiting the last time—"

It drags a snort from you. "Yeah, on holiday. Something about this whole ordeal tells me I won't be enjoying mici in Târgovişte much."

"Well. Consider this a pre-paid holiday. I'll do all the work, you just 'ave to sit there, and—"

"Look pretty?"

"—listen."

You hum. "I think I'm much better at looking pretty than I am at listening, John."

"Yeah," it's dry, derisive. "Don't I know it."

Silence lapses between you—intentional, of course. He's letting you think it over. Weigh the pros and cons of a free trip to Romania. With four hands and two heads you could clear it up before the allotted time frame, giving you those extra, precious few days to linger in the country.

Tying up loose ends is what will end up on the official report. Discouraging witnesses from coming forward with stacks of Euros stuffed deep in their pockets.

Making sure no stone has been left unturned—the Americans, in particular, like that one. They never ask questions when you wax about patriotism, and ensure there's no chance of calamity. They like their ends tied, and their witnesses happy.

It's all a cash business. More than enough money wired to an infant account under an preconstructed name. Passwords and identification handed to you in a sealed envelope. It's unlikely that anyone would ever track said witnesses down to discover the person given hush money was actually a nightclub in Mamaia or a fancy pub in Cluj.

Illegal, of course. Should you ever get caught, you'd be reprimanded. Punished. Made an example of.

(But who doesn't skim a bit from the top? Especially when the pile is given to you by the military.)

"Fine," you huff, and aim for some semblance of acquiescence in your tone despite knowing full well that you've yet to turn down these impromptu partnerships with him since they started two years ago.

Moldova. Egypt. Chad. Canada. The Philippines. Taiwan. Tenerife. Your odd partnership has taken you further across the world than the sedentary office job of pretending to make a difference ever did.

The place he said you were better suited for. You refuse to wonder what that means.

"Okay. I'll go. But I'm not doing anything at all except enjoying the Romanian countryside."

"Wouldn't expect any less from you."

You want to say, then why bring me at all? Why not take Gaz or Soap or Laswell? Why sideline me so blatantly only to keep asking for my help when it's never really needed? but the words are stuck in your throat. Trapped in their esophageal prison.

Instead, you say: "count me in then, I suppose," and wonder when you became such a coward.

"Mm. I should let you get some sleep, then."

You make a noncommittal noise in the back of your throat. It's been three months of nothing but unanswered texts that gradually faded into nothing by the third week. An island of uncertainty. Worry. Dread. Fear. Wondering what you did wrong, and coming, quite conclusively (and indignantly) to the conclusion that you didn't.

Hearing his voice again, tinny and always shades softer than you've ever heard him speak before, unearths the sarcophagus you laid your feelings inside; a sudden and abrupt disinterment of everything you tried hard to ignore. The desecration cracks the tomb wide open. The flood of everything you tried to bury blooms; the foetid sickness of your festering wants taste a little bit like regret, and even more like hope.

Helpless, your finger gnarl around the blossom of what laid bare, bones and rotted flesh, and the weight of it in your palm feels more comforting than ever before. Made more potent, you think, by the absence of him.

It's an unignorable truth that you missed him.

And so, you cling to the offering like it's a sacred trinket.

"How—," the words are rough, gritty, when they slip through the moulted dirt clogging your throat. Dredged up in the wake of the sudden excavation. You swallow hard when he makes a noise. Force yourself to claw through the humus. "How are you, John?"

You want to add something you know will make him huff, call you cheeky, something a little coquetry in the wake of your exhumation. Such would be your exequy, but the words are buried once more when the dirt shifts as he draws in a deep, staticky breath.

He's not usually a loquacious man in person, but something seems to crack open, shift, when it's well after midnight. A secret, a new side of him, shared only with you.

You don't expect him to respond. You hope, but you don't assume.

When he sucks in a breath, a staticky little noise that reverberates through the receiver, victory snakes across your vertebrae. Unwarranted and unearned, but the stinging reminder of it does little to stop it from nursing on the marrow of hope pullulating inside of you.

"Been better," he offers, and the muted shift of him relaxing into the starchy pillows cuts through the line. Settling, you think, for the beginning of your routine. "Didn't have much of a chance to call you. How've you been?"

"Been better," you echo, a wry twist of humour snaking across your lips when he offers a huff in response. "Lots to get caught up on, I suppose."

And you do.

You talk about nothing. Everything.

Your darkest secrets were spilled out in those phone calls at Devils Hour—fears, uncertainty, failures. This is no different. He tells you about Shepherd blinding them all with his dedication to the cause. About how he would have let Laswell rot to save his own arse, but knew, of course, that not letting Price and Gaz rescue her would have raised even more alarms.

They cornered an animal, he spits. One who led them around by the nose for years.

Bloody American Politicians, he grumbles.

No better than the bloody English, you snark back. At least they're honest about their motives when it all comes tumbling down around them, and don't hide it under layers of the blooded elite. Of status.

He mumbles to himself for a moment before begrudgingly conceding your point.

It buzzes in the static. A lapse in the midst of espionage tainted catch-up that makes your hindbrain tense for what he might say next.

He shifts, then, offers even softer than the hello he greeted you with:

"What about you? Get up to any trouble while I was gone?"

He listens to you bisect yourself in a midnight confessional, letting your rotted guts tumble out in deep lags of silence you wish weren't as comfortable as they are.

He talks, too.

Tells you about woes of nepotism, and the muppets they send him for basic training. The fleet of soldiers he doesn't want to carry on his back, but does anyway. The losses he couldn't prevent. The monsters he made.

"I wouldn't change anything," he always says, as if you don't know him by now. As if you need reminding of just how tar-coated his heart really is. "I'd do it all over again."

You say, "I know, John." And when you hear the hitch in his breath, you add: "you wouldn't be you if you did. I trust your judgement—no matter what."

Explicit trust. He runs from it.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. It always sounds a little bit like a mourning toll.

"I… should let you get some sleep."

It's something he always says during your late night phone calls.

Par the routine, the same question claws through the mess of words unsaid in your oesophagus until it reaches the seam between your teeth and lips.

Why me, Price?

But every tradition has its rules.

You let him run, and wonder if he feels as cleansed as you do after baring your soul to someone who knows you better than most of your closest relatives, your friends.

(Or if the silence that lingers when you hang up feels just as oppressive and empty to him as it does to you.)

Wishful yearning.

Instead, you say: "try to get some sleep, John. I'll talk to you later."

And then, like the hypocrite you are, you lay awake and wonder why.

He meets you at Heathrow, and really—

It sometimes surprises you just how intimidating a man like Price is.

He glowers down at the phone in his too large hand, eyes downcast, and brows pinched by whatever is irritating him now—emojis, you later discover.

(Bloody things make no sense to me, he grumbles, shoulder knocking against yours when you make yourself comfortable on the plane.

You gently remind him he's barely even forty.)

Price is an indomitable man.

Tall. Broad shouldered. The heft of his bicep is actuated when he curls his hand around the strap of his duffle bag, muscles bulging. Flexing.

It's hard not to stare at him.

His shoulders roll back when you approach, eyes flickering up from unravelling the nuance of modern text messaging from a man who came out of the womb a fully fleshed adult with a mortgage.

The corners of his eyes relax from their narrow slits when recognition bleeds into ashlar blue. His mouth parts a little; the flash of nicotine stained teeth.

The furrow of his brow flexes like it wants to smooth itself out, but something passes across his face—unknowable, brief; the incipient markings of something that makes him look a little more at ease in the bustling confines of Heathrow (hell on earth you have both very quickly, and unanimously, acknowledged)—and it's pulled back together. Irritation, but not at you. Never at you.

(But if not at you, then who?

Why, you wonder, does he always look so cross in your presence?)

He clears his throat. The grumble of his voice, full and robust, and so different from the tinniness of a phone, nearly makes you jump when it glides across your ears, abrasive and raw. A rough growl.

(You wonder sometimes if the brassiness of his timbre is from choking back apoplectic snarls all day.)

"Took you long enough."

You huff. "London is a nightmare at this time of day, John. As if you could've gotten here any faster."

"You chose to live in it."

Another sigh falls from the split seam of your lips. "It's not that bad."

"London smells like shite."

"As if Liverpool smells any better," you volley back, watching the subtle shift in his expression fade from the pinched world wariness almost permanently etched into the lines of his face into something more relaxed. Agreeable. Or rather, as agreeable as Price could be in the middle of Heathrow, and surrounded by people.

He opens his mouth, then, as if to remind you of the sea-salted scent of Liverpool, briny and bitter. Smog and hardwork. Oil, gun cotton. The city smells like the working class. Blue collar. Hands gnarled from the factories, and stained permanently with grease.

A distinct thrum of pride, of home, rumbles through him with each new add-on to why Liverpool, in his opinion, is the best choice to call home.

(And London, he always adds, if only for another barb, another insult in your choice, always reeks of selfish ambition. The kind that rots your insides into something askance, and is deprived of decency.)

His biggest gripe with London, however—

"They never fuckin' smile."

You passively nod in agreement—you mostly get looks of outright suspicion when you smile at passers-by in central London, so: point to Price—and then undercut the small victory he gains with a mocking grin in his direction.

Price's nostrils flare when he catches the derisive bite of your lips curling over your teeth.

"You think you're smart, mm?"

"I'd rather hope so, considering."

"Bloody annoyin' is what you are, considerin'—"

His words are swallowed by some boarding announcement ringing shrill overhead. You pull away from him, and the mocking smile fades into some facsimile of genuinity when you watch him shake his head, put-out and already annoyed by whatever thought skimmed through his thoughts.

London always seems like a sore topic, but you've known him long enough that the edge in his voice is less severe and more mocking. There is a distaste for the city, but the reason has evaded you much like—

Well. Everything else.

You've thought about asking why nearly hundreds of times in the past, but that line of questioning has always been a terrifying endeavour. There is a locked door: a proverbial floodgate keeping all of the other why's at bay. Opening it now, in the middle of a crowded terminal, feels reckless. Stupid.

It's nearly four hours from here to Transilvania.

You think of all the insubstantial reasons he could offer, and find the idea of them all rather bitter. Anguishing. It sends a ripple of hurt through your chest, and the sting alone is enough to seal your lips.

Words stuck, once more, in the back of your throat.

Price says nothing when you quiet, eyes flickering between the throng of people rushing through the terminal, listless and impassive.

There is always a degree of separation between you and him whenever you meet in person, as if the personal, raw conversations whispered into the early hours of the morning are just some strange dream. A fugue wanting, unslaked and bothersome, that ripens inside your virgin sulci. A sickness that manifests in the fibrils of your desire, covetous and greedy; gnarled gyri breathes life into the dreams you reach for until the delineation between reality and fantasy wanes, fades to cinders.

So, you bite your tongue, letting the noxious words pollute, rot, inside their esophageal prison, and pretend the claw marks on the walls aren't from your own bloody hands.

You follow his lead, and he's always seemed so content not to speak of the vulnerability you whisper into his ear. The fear he rasps about at quarter to four.

Gone, then. It doesn't exist when you can see the lapis of his eyes listing toward you periodically, expression oscillating between a rendition of something that feels a little worrisome, and—

Tenerife.

That unnameable thing that broke through the gleaming sapphire when you whispered his name, and broke your own rules for the very first time.

(You'll call me anyways.

Does it bother you?

Never. Wished you called more—)

You turn away from him, from the weight in his gaze when it finds you. Worried, somehow, that a single look will be enough to ferret the secrets out of you.

A man in fatigues lingers in your periphery, standing awkwardly by the Starbucks entrance. He nods sharply when you catch his eye.

"Guess we're up," you murmur, smile fading into placid neutrality. Getting caught riling up Captain John Price won't win any favours back in the concrete vacuum of Hereford. "Ready, cap?"

If he notices your sudden distance, he says nothing about it. His eyes drop to the phone clutched in his hand, before he rolls his massive shoulders.

"Suppose so," he grumbles, slipping his phone into his pocket.

Out of sight.

Selfishly, you wonder who else he calls late at night, and find the burn of bitterness, jealousy to be some torturous form of retribution.

It burns like a knife to your gut. You wallow in it.

Price isn't a man known for his garrulity, and so, when he takes his seat on the plane, and immediately reaches for the files stuffed haphazardly into the zippered fold of his duffle bag, you take no real offence the undeniable abolishment of conversation.

You're used to it, really.

Silences that stretch on, culled by the hum of the engines cutting through the thin air some several hundred kilometres above sea level, are nothing novice.

In turn, you take to flipping through the worn, jaundiced pages of a book you packed away in your carry-on specifically for this. Whatever secrets lay nestled in the crease of his rumbled folders doesn't matter to you—not yet, anyway—and you're content to enjoy something that you can pretend to be immersed with for the four hours you'll be sharing the scant space that separates the two of you.

Pretending, of course, being the operative word.

Price is a breathing furnace. The seams of his tight jacket crackle with unbridled heat that wafts against your arm when you settle into the chair. There is no armrest allotted to you with his sinewy bulk taking up most of the aisle and middle seat, and you feel each exhale when his frame almost melts into your own.

Broad shouldered. Thick biceps. A tapered waist. Thighs quite nearly the width of a gnarled, hardened fir. It's hard to find space, privacy, with him bleeding out around you. It's hard to concentrate on anything that isn't the muted press of his covered flesh on yours, and, rather illicitly, the way it makes you feel.

It's a rush of singular emotions nearly indistinguishable from each other, but all leaving you feeling like a raw nerve scrapped from muscle, and dissected from bone. Flayed with just a touch.

The tremulous wake of them makes your body fight against the onslaught of the roaring deluge that rips through you. An amalgam of wishful anticipation, trepidation, and fear of being caught. Discovered. Having your dirty secrets, the one's you're not willing to share over a tea after midnight with a man who, despite knowing his greatest fear (the lives of his team over the stakes of everything, everyone, else), and his proudest accomplishment (getting the fuck outta Hereford while he still had the chance), galvanised out of you. Spilled into the open air.

It comes too close to the lowered inhibitions you felt in Tenerife to ever sit well in the churning pits of your stomach.

And so, you try to force some semblance of distance between your bodies despite there being none. The curved ledge of the plane window digs harshly into your forearm, but you still press into it more.

Welcoming the ache, almost.

It doesn't feel good, but it's a harsh reminder that the feelings pooling inside of your chest are wrong.

A part of you, then, almosts hopes that the pain will soon become an almost Pavlovian reminder whenever you think of Price, and of—

Everything.

Negative reinforcement.

(Price and you; the thought brings pain.)

He mistakes your tension for nerves, and drops his chin down when you keep wriggling about, struggling to find a modicum of distance between the weight of him pressing against you.

His expression is always oscillating between lour surliness and a pinch of frustration, and something in the middle of the two—glum, you think: stoic impassivity weighed down by heavy shadows—but the usual ire dims as the jet lurches down the runway. It's washed away in the tenebrous that leaks in from the empty interior of a military craft where it's just you and him and the pilots.

A world where the stench of London dissipates into the familiar filtered scent of recycled oxygen that wafts through the open vents. Sterile, almost. Void of the grime, the pungent smell of stale petrol on the wet pavement, the distinct scent of the tube—sweat, fungus; putrid and ripe with something mouldy; tobacco and marijuana—and old cigarettes.

(Smells like shite, he'd gripe if he knew you thought of it with fondness.)

When he looks at you, you have to force yourself to remember hierarchy, propriety. Decorum.

Distance. Reality.

It aches, but you push it down. Swallow the words until they leak back into their cage, glued against the soft tissue of your oesophagus, and force something neutral, unbothered in your countenance while pretending as if you weren't choking yourself to death.

"Alright?" He murmurs, words uttered low. Susurrus, almost. It's different from the phone calls where his voice is relaxed, muted; saturated in an ease, a warmth that lacks the usual snarl choked in the back of his throat. He talks with a degree of distance. Boxed into the role of unflinching, infallible leader even in this microcosm that bubbles between you.

Still. It makes the air in your lungs stutter all the same.

"Fine."

He hums, and the guttural vocalisation is adorned with the flat press of his disbelief. Price isn't the type to pry, though, and he takes your virginal lie with a mere shift of his eyebrows; a soft buoy of skepticism that is just scrutinising enough to let you flee if you so wish.

You do, and so, you take it. Offering him a tight smile that you know will never reach your eyes, or any semblance of believability, but it's the most you can manage over the drumroll of your heart (now making serious threats of breaking through your ribcage, and leaping out of the jet), and the shallow gasps of your breath, a desperate struggle to quench the flames billowing in your lungs.

He's so warm, you think, that he burns you. Fire spread from the heat of him, catching on the cindered embers lying in the soft fibrils of your being, and igniting you in a flameless smoulder.

Price nods once, and you're unsure if it's in a gentle acquiescence of your bold-faced lie, or your quick prevarication, but you find yourself mimicking it all the same.

Good, then. Settled.

But he leans down instead of returning to the urgent press of files and papers all neatly stacked in a manila folder, and you come undone at seams when the scent of him envelops you.

Crushed tobacco leaves, stale smoke, ambergris and vetiver.

The headiness of his smell smothers you, and makes your hindbrain tense at the familiar, enticing miasma that seeps into your lungs, and fills your sinuses until it washes everything out but the gun cotton, and leather he reeks of.

"Hmm, a bit early to start lying," he rasps, the words just as brittle as your crumbling resolve. "Ain't it?"

Your breath shudders out of your lungs. Caught, then. Called out. The idea of confessing everything to him, all at once, passes through, but it's immediately dismissed. Shoved back into whichever crevasse it slunk out of.

The fact that it even drifted through, sneaking past the tightly guarded prison it was kept in is enough to make you fluster.

As if to hold them in, you sink your teeth into your tongue to keep from speaking the words that still echo in your head, and offer nothing more than a simple shake of your head, and some facsimile of a wry smile tossed in his general direction.

He hums again, and the coo rumbles through his flesh and ripples across your skin. Electric shocks. Static buzz. The vibration of it shakes the doors of the mausoleum where everything is left to moulder, rot.

A plume of nicotine dusts across your nose when Price shifts in his seat, much too small for a man with such broad shoulders, and thick thighs, and when you breathe in the heady scent of it, your head spins.

"We're all entitled to our secrets," he murmurs. His hair scratches against the fabric when he turns his head, chin notching down to bore into the side of your face. It's all you'll offer him when the rattling at the doors of your tomb dislodges a piece of rotten wood; lignin crumbles to the floor around you in stripped, fleshy white. A hole big enough to sink your fist through.

"And that's fine, but—," his tone dips, timbre scorching through you when he speaks. The words are gritty, and coarse. They sink into your ears until the flesh is rubbed raw. The change in pitch makes you look up, wordlessly following the command that tangles around each vowel. Sharp, authoritative. This isn't John right now. It's Captain Price.

His pelagic eyes are hardened into firm, dense sapphire lined with unbreakable obsidian.

"But," he stresses the word again, brows arching high on his forehead until three, four, lines are carved into the pale skin. "Those secrets can't interfere with the mission, yeah?"

His stare is intense. Firm. Unyielding. He doesn't look away. Doesn't cower under the strange, too hot sensation that fills your head whenever you're forced to make eye contact for more than a few moments.

It occurs to you, then, when he holds your stare for three, flinching inhales, that the only reason he's saying this is because he knows. Maybe not everything, maybe not all of it. But he knows enough that you're acting strange. Odd. Not yourself.

Price sits back, and the loss of his intense stare boring into you, stripping you down to basal parts—raw and vulnerable—allows air to inflate your burning lungs. Oxygen bubbles and seeps into your bloodstream so quickly that you feel a little sick with it. Dizzy.

"We clear on that?"

His expression is guarded, pinched.

You swallow thickly against the deluge of emotions that run down your spine, and wonder what he knows. What he pieced together already. It makes your heart slam against the flesh and bone cage it's prisoned in.

His flat, phlegmatic expression seems to wobble. A frisson ripples, and splinters his reticent resolve, and he looks, in that moment, like the man who speaks to you late at night about his biggest worries, and fear. Touchable, reachable. It's a sharp contrast to the impenetrable man who stands at the top of the command post, and makes decisions of life and death. A stalwart leader made human.

You drink it in, trying to make sense of the softening of his gaze, the tremble of his moustache as his lips relax into an even line, but it's indecipherable. Unknowable. You struggle to piece the pensive, almost contemplative look together, but the gingerness in his expression snaps shut.

All at once, it's forced back, and pulled taut. The drawing of a bridge.

His lips flatten into a grim line. A divot forms between his brows. The tick in his jaw speaks of frustration, but—

Not at you. Never at you.

You can't make sense of the enigmatic distance in his eyes—a floating island in the middle of the open ocean. Separated by the turbulent sea.

Something changed between you. You feel the incipient shift trembling through your bones; a novice crack. The plates deep below the surface surge, and split; shattering into the other. The waters froth white as something begins to emerge from the depths.

A new landmass, maybe.

"Alright, then," he rasps, turning back back toward the files spread out on his lap. "Try to get some rest. We'll be jumpin' into the thick of it when we land."

You can see the hesitation in his eyes. The uncertainty in his mein. It's a sharp juxtaposition to how these strange missions usually unfold, where you both pour over documents, and leads, and have easy conversations between sharp, playful barbs, and impish quips to always devolve into some debate over something trivial.

The silence is stifling. Oppressive.

Tenerife, you think, when you drunkenly stumbled down the stairs, and into his arms, and—

Coldness. Frigid distance. He cut you off after that, and it was radio silence until last night when he called you.

You don't know what it all means, but Price is startlingly observant when it comes to you, and you wonder, with your heart thudding in your throat, just how much you gave away.

A snag in the middle of lush green. You tremble.

Into the thick of it, huh?

His words haunt you.

(But when don't they?)

The novel—a neo noir mystery disguised as a romance—does little to capture your attention. Threads of interest snag on the ends of the protagonist's steadfast determination to not to let crime run rampant in the city he's taken a reluctant appreciation for, and to rescue his penultimate damsel from the crumbling affair she's trapped in with a married man of the mafia, but it dwindles after the discovery of the red herring.

It sits, untouched, in your lap as you gaze out of the circular window. Plumes of thick, white clouds blanket the world below the plane, and look dense enough for you to almost believe you could stand on the curled peaks of the cumulonimbus. A mirage, maybe.

(Or wishful thinking: you've always enjoyed chasing the unattainable.)

The sky above is a midnight blue that fades into lighter shades of lazuli as curves around the earth.

A shade lighter, flecked with greens and golds and greys, and it might have looked just like his eyes.

(Chasing, always chasing.)

The shock of it makes your leg twitch as your muscle tense back into that familiar state of constant fight or flight that Price always seems to put you in. Stage fright. Fear of discovery.

Sometimes you wonder if it would be easier to just spit the words that have been coagulating in the back of your throat for years out now into the world, and let him run from them.

Flee, like Tenerife.

Does it bother you?

No, I wish you called my more—

—can't, love. Can't do that, you know I—

Dreams pop like rubber balloons around you. The snap of the recoil blisters your skin.

A lesson, then, that there are certain words that should never be uttered, or mentioned.

He drew a sharp delineation between you and him. A line in the sand. Uncrossable. Unspeakable.

Unignorable.

Your heart aches, but you know it'll soon pass. Soon. Soon—

"Ready?" He asks when the wheels of the plane kiss the solid ground with a jolt, and the single word feels more augury than you'd like.

It feels almost instinctual, then, to glance through the small window, eyes listing to the pale blue sky. Two chaffinches chase each other in the blooms of white, their plumage harsh against the idling clouds overhead.

"Sure," you say, and wonder if he'd asked the same thing when you touched down in Tenerife. It doesn't matter. You shake the thought from your head, and try not to linger on the birds.

Leave it for Agamemnon.

Despite his insistence to the contrary, it turns out to be the exact opposite of what was promised.

Your idyllic vacation to the Romanian countryside is forfeited for the cold interior of Brașov where the man you're after, Iulian Mitrea, is hidden somewhere in the near hour long commute from here to Sinaia.

Somewhere, of course, because no one is willing to tell you anything at all. From the moment you landed at Târgu Mureș Transylvania Airport, help from anyone within the country evaporated, dissolved. Mistrust was rampant between the soldiers here to help you on your hunt.

You couldn't blame them, really. Not when their orders to stall, delay, and interfere came directly from above.

It makes sense when you're trying to capture a well-known friend of several high ranking politicians worlds over.

The pinch in their brow as they say, we don't know where he is, despite confirming only an hour earlier that they did, in fact, know where he was speaks volumes to their reluctance to participate in this farce. It needles inside of you because despite the irritation of the delay, you get it.

If they help you catch him, their name will be in the report. People will talk to you. You get to go home with a wanted man nicely wrapped in a bow for Lady Justice, and they stay behind and face the ramifications of letting a man go who greases paws with men in power—politicians, businessmen, foreign diplomats.

So.

You get it. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow when you see them on the radio each time you get closer.

It'll be a wait and see mission until someone either relents enough to let you get a headstart, or the bigger people in power finish the behind the scenes negotiations to protect as many people as possible from the fallout.

Either way—

You're landlocked in a city that's never felt more hostile to you; stuck in stasis in the middle of a brutal winter.

The inn is nice, you suppose. Old architecture. Its age sings with each movement you make against the wood that is nearly three generations older than you. It's plumed a dusting of disuse that sneaks into the corners where it rots, and stinks of mildew.

But it feels unwelcoming each time you catch the eye of a soldier, a local police officer. The lady behind the counter of the front desk is oblivious to the tension bleeding between everyone, and offers toothy smiles whenever she catches you. Eager, you think, to talk to someone who doesn't respond in clipped tones.

You soak up the rapid Romanian, and try to remember the phrases you picked up—much to her amusement.

Her hand fixes itself permanently against her chest with each new pronunciation of the Romanian alphabet you pick up—breve, circumflex, S-comma, T-comma—and she seems eager to listen to prattle on in stilted Romanian with more appreciation than the men who are meant to be your partners.

They linger, listening in on each conversation you have with the woman. Combat every effort of your futile attempt to salvage some holiday from this mess.

They undermine Price at every junction. Cut his opinion down until it's shredded paper snowflakes on the icy cobblestone. A forgotten arts and craft project now mushy from the snow blanketing the world around you in an endless white prison.

It's easy, you think, to just give up.

But you know Price.

Despite their delays, and mutterings to each other every time a lead pops up only to quickly slip through your fingers, he doesn't falter. He won't. Not until this is seen through.

He'll fight to the bitter end.

(You think he just might prefer to do his fighting on the battlefield instead of dabbling in subterfuge.

So.

You do it for him.)

Your efforts amount to a burst vessle: a rumbling eruption spewing anger and tension at your feet like an angry volcano.

And with it, you feel the words you try to swallow down buoy to the surface.

This mission makes you feel like little more than some ornate polyptych, folded away for convenience sake, and unravelled in the privacy of his borrowed office.

It's there where Price poses questions, and piques at you for more information.

His tongue is too thick when he tries to speak the language echoed around you, unable to catch the proper slur on the t-commas and drag the breve out the way it should be spoken. It sounds somehow more French than it does Romanian, and you resolve to take the mantle of lacklustre translator for him, wondering whether he took your words as coming only for the holiday as sincerely as possible.

It makes a needle of fondness grow in the gyral folds of your beating heart. A sudden deluge of empathy, and affection that makes you idealistically moony-eyed at his penchant for keeping promises.

Still.

It's unneeded.

You take a proactive role in trying to find the man who keeps evading the grasping fingers of the law (however twisted it might be), and make it quickly known to him that you're here as a partner, at his behest, and not as some fancy tchotchke to be placed, indiscreetly, on the sidelines.

It's unlike him, though. And you wonder more about the potential ramifications of this mission each passing day that you're stuck in the stifling confines of some luxury inn where the men around you whisper furiously to prevent your success.

You ask him about it, and receive a piercing stare in response. A gruff, don't worry about it. This is my muck up, not yours.

It hardens your resolve.

All it takes is a few words whispered while rolling sarmale, and you manage to find a man in Brașov who might be hiding the person you're looking for.

Information that turns out to be more fruitful than anything else thus far.

You tuck it close to your chest. The man is landlocked and stuck, hidden in plain sight by the soldiers there to help you. He isn't going anywhere.

But you might be.

The lack of progress is noted by the people who requested your aid on this—the ones that must have conveniently forgotten that the person who kidnapped foreign dignitaries was also the man they had over for summer parties at their luxury estates in Dorobanți.

They dangle Price's visa over his head during a massive row after—yet another—delayed piece of information is forwarded to you by the local police. By the time it lands in your hands, on his desk, it's too late.

More blocks. More opportunities to catch the man squandered, lost to politics.

The schism between Price and them widens. A wide chasm, uncrossable.

You catch his eye, and wonder if you should share the secrets you keep, but you don't. Not yet, anyway. There's a mountain on his shoulders. A mess of politics that you know makes his blood boil.

You want to ease the burden. The tension.

But it doubles to a new height when one of the men jabs his finger in your direction, eyes blazing, and calls you his assistant.

"My what?" Price's words are eerily calm despite the gyre welling in blue. "What did you say?"

The man doesn't back down. Neither does Price.

It's his warmth by your side, unflinching, as he stands tall and guarded, leaking anger and ruin at the slight against you. A white night in red-hot anger.

You've fought your own battles, cutting your knuckles on cracked teeth until bone embedded itself into your cartilage like a macabre set of brass knuckles in jagged ivory. You throw punches like you're fighting for your life behind the screen of a computer that ticks away for eight hours, and pretend the emblem on your lapel doesn't weigh you down to the pavement below. Your own weight to carry.

And you don't need this, don't want it, and a little part of you wants to rebel, to throw your fists around like they're the white-hot slugs spat out of the barrel of a firearm, but it's tapered down when he seethes beside you.

His hands curl into fists before swinging up, latching onto the straps of his tactical vest. A defensive manoeuvre, you once thought, but now you know better.

Price isn't clinging to the woven fabric to keep himself steady, to ground himself. It's to keep those burly fists from sinking into the gullet of the first man who wanders too close to the rapacious maw of a starving beast.

Your eyes are fixed on the hairs dusted over his knuckles as he flexes and tightens his grip until they bleach white like dead coral, sharp bones threatening to break skin.

Those hands once pressed you tight to his front, holding you steady as you stumbled through the haze of want, and longing, and kept you steady as the boat rocked with the calm waters of the neverending sea.

(—wish you called more—

—don't know what you're sayin', love. What you're startin'. Gonna let you turn around, and pretend this never happened, mm?—

—but—)

They tightened then. Hard enough that the skin around your hip bones bulged between his thick fingers. Your flesh filling in his gaps. His eyes dropped there, fixed on the way you fit between him despite the pain that bloomed where his fingers dug deep.

(—jus'... Walk away, love—)

Tenerife feels like a dream. A wisping cloud of want dredged from the depths of your subconscious yearning.

But the ache in your side where his hands rested the night before kept you from casting away the words as drunken ramblings and masticated dreams.

Those hands whiten under the strain of holding himself back, and you recognise the colour as the same shade when he held you. Paperweight. Featherlight. You wonder, then, your eyes only for him as the world you've been invited into erupts into chaos and blame tinged with the palpable weight of unwelcomeness and claustrophobia when he hasn't been holding himself back—

"Talk about 'em that way on more time, and I'll stick your goddamn heads on a post for that slimy bastard you want to protect so fuckin' bad to see—"

—from you.

You find him near the window, gazing out at the snow-covered roof-tops of the sprawling village below.

He stands, his back angled toward you, with one hand curled around the crystalline glass, filled with three fingers of scotch—the perfect amount, he stresses, and gives credence to his sincerity with each winkle in his brow—and a lit cigar in the other.

Price brings the cigar up to his lips, eyes roaming across the smear of lights in the distance. You catch the spark when he inhales, the orange intensifying into an angry red.

It casts a halo of orange on his face, and the fire makes him look somehow older and younger than he really is. An timeless visage of a man who, hours earlier, was recklessly throwing himself into the very same fire he syphons from as it burns the tobacco in his stem.

The brief flash of red is complemented by the harsh dandelion-yellow from the illuminated city when it spills through the glass, frosted with condensation from the heat in the room, and the brutal chill kept at bay by a two inch glass panel.

He's a composition in contrast.

The only light inside the room is from the kindling fireplace, and the jaundiced lamp on the desk table, spilling over the documents you'd come to talk to him about. The dimly lit interior bathes his back in a clouded tenebrous, darkening the crevasses, divots, and the contoured folds of his body until they're shadowed in the gloam. It's perfectly juxtaposed to the highlights that catch in the warm golden glow of the sleepless city just below.

A perfect chiaroscuro, you think.

The sight of him, then, at peace—or as close to it as he can manage—steals the air in your lungs. The words on your lips.

The look on his face is pensive, yet coloured in a hue of consternation that seems to quiver through the dark pools of blue gazing back at him. A ripple of disquietude. A splash of rumination. It all coalesces into an unfathomable knot of emotions that bloom in the deep divot of his brow. Ones you can't even begin to unravel.

(But your fingers itch to try.)

There is something about him in absolute stasis—completely unguarded, and unburdened by the devastating world around him—that spools under your skin like a fever. A webbing nebula that weaves with the threads of venial sin until it tangles around you.

When it tightens, it feels like a noose.

This moment of privacy between him and the thoughts locked tight inside his head makes you feel a little bit like you're intruding on a moment not meant for your eyes. A sacred thing. A voyeuristic spectator.

You should leave. Let him have the sanctity of this moment to himself, where the pensive, introspective look etched into his brow is shared only with his reflection, and no one else.

An unwitting birefringence. A glance inside Pandora's box.

You try to tiptoe back in the direction you came from, a manila folder tucked under your arm, but the wood is worn. Aged. The floorboards creak when you press your heel into them, letting out a loud, jarring noise that seems to reverberate through the arched ceiling, and against the frosted glass that encompasses the vast majority of the eastern wall.

Loud enough, you think, to crack the class. His reverie.

Price makes a noise in the back of his throat when he turns to you, brows drawn tight in wordless displeasure at the intrusion. Recognition bleeds into ashlar blue. His shoulders ease when he sets his steeled gaze on your cringing form, one foot out the door, and the other fixed firmly in your mouth.

The way he relaxes when he finds it's just you melts some of the embarrassment away. The tension dissipates, sheds itself from his coiled muscles pulled taut from carrying the weight of everything on his broad back.

(The world, then, is tucked into the corner when he dropped it earlier.)

"Sorry," you murmur, hiding another wince. "I didn't realise you were—" Brooding. Another grimace. Your foot slides deeper into your mouth. "Uh—"

"It's fine," he says, his voice hoarse from the growling threats he made against the Romanian diplomats who insisted on your help only to shrug off everything he suggested.

He clears his throat before he speaks, taking the brief lull to drag his gaze down your form. Tendrils of something soft liquify the hardened edges of sapphire—a look you haven't seen on him since Tenerife—but it pauses at the folder you try, and fail, to discreetly tuck further into the crevasse of your body. Hiding it, futilely, from view.

Something sours across his face. The half melted azure firms into unbreakable obsidian.

"Business as usual, then?"

You huff. "Not if you don't want that."

Price inhales deeply at your words, and you know that he can't. He won't.

You mourn the loss of that soft, unfathomable look on his face when the only concern he had was the condescension from his breath hiding the view of Sinaia from his appreciative gaze.

A look full of something aching. A want, maybe; a need. Things you can't begin to connect to your stalwart captain.

But then you think, again, of Tenerife. When he caught you mid-stumble, hands heavy and hot on your flesh. The look on his face ages younger than the grey around his temple would lead you to believe.

"Careful," he murmured, eyes lighter somehow as he pulled you in closer to his side. "Can't go falling all over the place."

It was your quip of, "but you'll catch me, won't you?" that made him feel almost reachable when he turned away from you, the tips of his ears dusting a pretty pink.

"Jus' watch where you're goin'."

You think about it now—about the unfathomable distance between the stars.

Between you, and him.

(And then of broken walls you mend with your own hands.)

"Jus' bring it here," he mutters, moving toward the desk cluttered with everything he was trying to avoid. The desk you brought him back to. It pinches something sour inside of you. "I'll 'ave a look at it."

Price sets the glass down, and reaches for the crystal ashtray left near the edge of the table. When he drags it closer to the fish-shaped map of Romania, decorated with little red stickers of possible hideouts for the man you're supposed to be catching, you count four ends of a cigar in the mess of ashes, all smoked down to the stem.

Concern gnarls in your gut.

"Busy day for you, Captain?"

All he gives in a noncommittal grunt in response before eying the chair with a touch of wariness as if sitting down now will prevent him standing up again. It might, you think, tentatively taking stock of the neverending pages on the desk just waiting for him to tackle. A ceaseless maelstrom that tries to drag him down that endless abyss that leaves stress marks on his forehead, grey hairs around his temple, and grinds his bones down until marrow below is exposed to the rotten air.

He doesn't sit. A pointed gesture.

The heels of his palms rest on the edge of the table, and he leans forward over the papers strewn in his familiar organised chaos, and drops his head down between the bracket of his arms, locked at the elbows.

He's the very picture of exhaustion.

"I don't have anything good to share with you," you murmur, tone low and susurrus as if raising above an octave will shatter the fragile glass that houses the two of you from the brutal storm outside these four walls. "Mostly a complete repeat of what already happened—"

"Bullshit," he grinds the cuss out like the potency of his tenor will somehow strengthen it into a hex. "Fuckin' politics."

"Nothing we haven't dealt with before," you note, turning to lean against the desk. You mirror his pose in the reverse, fingers curling around the ledge. "It'll smooth out eventually."

He considers your words, lids sliding to half-mass. Lost in thought. In—

Something.

You're not privy to the war in his head. The battle he struggles through.

But you want to be.

You'd give anything to fight alongside him in this moment of quiet contemplation. To aid him in the pursuit of victory, and help ease the burden he carries on his broad shoulders. A weight that makes his heels dig deeper into the ground than any other man you've met. Gravity falls on him harder than the others, but he never folds. Never falters.

Something shifts when you tilt your head toward him, waiting. Watching.

Irritation drips down, polluting the cenote until it's a gyre grey. Clouded with the poison of choices that lay in front of him.

"Maybe," he settles on, rolling one shoulder to alleviate the burn in his tense muscles. "Would be easier if they'd just bloody listen—"

"They will."

His eyes flicker up to you, curling with something playful, you think. Or as close to mirth as the shadows in his brow will allow.

"You gonna make them?"

The tone of his voice—smoke cured, molasse thick—is blunt, but—

Baiting.

Loose tendrils of smoke weep from the end of his forgotten cigar, and curls in the air between you. You taste ash, and feel the burn of nicotine when you breathe in.

It does little to quell the spike of nerves gnarling in your chest; the itch under your skin.

Something brims in your pulse. A rapaciousness that seems to burn through your arteries until they're blistered from the heat. You lean back on the desk, knees locking until your legs are straight to alleviate the anxious knot growing in your stomach.

His gaze drops to your legs when your ankles cross, sliding up to the softness of your thighs now spread plush over the wood.

Another shift. Poisoned grey darkens into thick tar. Bog water. You wonder how long it would take for anyone to find you if you sunk below the thin film of pleats, swallowed whole by the fen.

Imprisoned in his clutch.

"For you? Anything—"

The words slip out before you can stop them.

His head jerks up. The roundness of his almond shaped eyes can only be derived from your slip-up, to your unintentional confessional between secondhand smoke, and borrowed nicotine.

A mistake, you think. An accident. A follie.

But the words are lodged under the syrup-y thick water that leaks down your throat.

You swallow again, but it feels like you're drowning.

An impasse. Brutal, and uncrossable. You wonder what he might say, what he might do, and try to ignore the ache in your chest, the bitter throb of anticipation as the lines in his brow deepen, darkening with the stains of his indecision.

That same wellpool of emotions buoys in ashlar blue when he stares at you, plain faced and—

A touch uncertain.

It's strange to see him so unsure, so hesitant.

Price isn't a man who falters in the face of anything. Who concedes, and surrenders.

His tenacity is what drew you to him. That staunch perseverance that you sometimes wish you could fill each hairline fracture in your soul with. To somehow syphon the staggering presence of him, indomitable and ferocious when he needs to be, into your marrow where it'll congeal and paint the walls of your bones with the same stalwart dedication to a singular gospel that he carries with ease.

He huffs, then, and the exhale reeks of stale cigarette butts in a damp ashtray.

"Don't know what you're getting yourself into, love—"

Something flickers across his face, and you wonder if he even meant to say it. Or if the endearment slipped out, oiled by the same elixir that covered your throat and coaxed something closer to the truth, to your hidden wants, out of the depths of your yearning.

It's unfathomable, though. The mere idea of it being drug from the same hidden well as yours itches between your ribs; a blossom of something featherlight. Hopeful.

When you look at him, eyes scouring the dividing lines between the face he shows the world—the one with a deeply furrowed brow and obsidian clotting in the crevasses of liquid sapphire; a stalwart sense of detachment, and pointed distance—and the one he shows you.

With you, though—

With you, he's always asymmetrical.

A singular brow notching up at something audacious you said; one side of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin. The flash of teeth when you murmur under your breath about the stuffy politicians you're meant to be saving.

Rusted picket fences. Faulty hinges. Open, lax. Void the usual symmetry that makes him Captain John Price; a stalwart presence on the battlefield, shoulders strong enough to lift the morale (and morality) of every soldier under his commands. Has to, you think, or he might implode, crumbling under the stifling weight of his utilitarian choices, and the actions guised under the moral grey dust of patriotism.

It clings to him. Scars shaped like canines: the teeth of an old, rotten dog. Nightmares in absenteeism.

He never tells you about them, ever; but you've gotten more than a handful of phone calls during devil's hour to know they haunt him just as much as they do you.

(And if you've taken to turning your ringer on as high as it will go—just in case—then that's a secret between you and midnight blue sheets.)

The look on his face now makes you think of that mission in Tenerife, when his fingers curled around your wrist after landing in Heathrow. Warm, flushed skin. Rough like a cat's tongue when it slid over your flesh.

He stopped you from leaving, eyes shaded in stagnant blue as the taxi idled in front of you.

"Could go for a coffee. Want to come?" He asked, and it was unlike him to stall, but the prospect of more time, and coffee, numbed you to it all.

You didn't give it much thought, but the words feel almost sibylline now. Hindsight, you think: that pesky little thing that makes you feel like Lleu, caught in the crosshairs of a feud between Arianrhod and Gwydion.

Over burnt, bitter beans and coffee flavoured water, he said: "don't get much sleep anymore."

"Our late night phone calls don't bore you to sleep?"

It was a pawkish barb not meant to be taken seriously, but Price, you find, is percipient when it comes to you.

"No, they don't." He shifted in his chair, eyes cutting toward the mid-morning haze dusting the streets of London in a fine periwinkle blue. He looked older, somehow, in the virginal rays of the dawning sun. The words that slipped out felt softer, subdued in a way that made you wonder if they were meant to be uttered at all. "I sleep much better after them, actually."

Price has a strange ability to leave you both speechless and full of words. Of things, mundane and inconsequential, that you long to spill out over the linoleum countertop.

More often than not, they're just naked, bare. Raw words not yet shaped or formed into any semblance of meaning, but ones you want to say, anyway. If only to keep the conversation going. To keep him around a moment longer.

(After all: if the conversation does end, he can't leave.)

But your lips are glued. Words stuck in the wet ashes that congeal in your throat.

Your eyes followed the breadcrumbs of his gaze, and found the quieted road of Liverpool Street staring back at you. Drenched in cobblestone grey, and smeared in industrial neon. An uninspiring visage of some secluded corner tucked away from the tourist trap of central London.

The near hour long drive from Heathrow to London for a cup of coffee is another mystery. Why he invited you where, of all places, isn't known to you.

He paid for the coffee, the taxi. Said nothing at all but walked you back to your flat in London, the place you stay after each mission brings you back to Heathrow. It's a near twenty-nine minute commute in the opposite direction.

Said no when you offered him a place to sleep for the night, and you tried not to let the bitter sting of rejection show while his fingers curled around the wooden frame of your front door, knuckles turning white from the strain of—

Hindsight, you think.

The shift in his gaze when his hand snared around your wrist. When he hailed a taxi for burnt coffee in the middle of a city that he couldn't stand—a place you'd heard many tirades about in the middle of the night, all leading back to the same reason for his staunch hatred of London: it's too bloody far from Liverpool. Too bloody far from him.

When he turned to look out the window to watch your reflections contrasted against drab, grey London.

Earlier, when he was gazing at the city below.

It clicks, then.

He wasn't staring out the window. He never was.

"Why didn't you come into my flat?" You ask, words thick. Heavy.

His nostrils flare. "What—?"

"That night in London, after Tenerife—I asked you to spend the night. Why didn't you—"

White knuckles. The look on his face was—

Pensive. Dusted with consternation. Just like—

Now. Then. All the moments in between.

Like many things in conjunction to this, it's probably your fault. An unignorable truism that sits under your skin like an itch you can't scratch no matter how viciously you claw at your dermis.

You could have asked, but it wouldn't have mattered.

The answer was staring at you this whole time.

Why he called you in the middle of the night. Why he never even bothered to entertain your application to join the 141. Why he looked so troubled when you invited him in. Why he kept you at arms length this whole time, but let you see the gnarled ruins of his soul in the middle of night.

The delineation of your relationship was drawn in the distance of a phone call at midnight, ones made not because he was lonely or bereft of comfort—

But because he could hang up before he said too much. Widen the gap with a press of his finger.

You can see him try to pull back again. To put a distance between you greater than this lonely hotel in the middle of Brașov to Orion's Belt.

Words—stay, don't, why—caught in your throat. They refuse to come out. A conversation trapped. One you can't start.

(You've always been better with actions than words.)

And so, you kiss him instead.

A cacoëthes.

It's less of a kiss and more of a messy punch to his mouth with your blistered lips.

Your trembling fingers curl into the straps of his tac-vest. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes.

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. Words, you think, like: what're you doin'? or this is sexual harassment and I swear to god I'll sue—

You don't let him finish. Don't let him start, either.

You fall back on the desk, yanking on his straps. He jerks forward.

You meet, clumsily, in the middle. An awkward assemblage of limbs; bodies cut across each other like an unfinished T.

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss.

There are moments leading up to this that, in hindsight, make everything seem almost inevitable. The look on his face. The ache in your chest. It blooms from the same vine; a want in spades. You almost weep when he groans against your mouth, teeth knocking together. You taste heme in the back of your throat, and nearly choke on it when his fingers curl under your jaw, holding you steady as he tries to devour you whole.

It sheds threads of kismet, and tastes a little of finality when you brush your lips against his again, meeting in the middle: a perfect equilibrium. Absolute congruence.

(Or, maybe, it's the thrill of his taste that shades everything else in a roseate veil; that swallows down the other moments, trials and tribulations that felt more gruelling than your training, and lets the others surge to the surface. Moments of heartache, and pain, and—

And it doesn't matter, you think, a touch delirious; not when you know what his hands feel like when they curl around your waist, when his fingers dig into your skin, and he pulls you closer.)

"Listen—" the word is mangled in his throat; charred from the fire that burns in his lungs. "You need to know what you're getting yourself into."

"You say that like I haven't been thinking about it for years, John."

It sobers him a bit. He pulls back until a thin strand of space sits between your wet lips and his moussed beard.

The implication in your words makes his eyes darken. Lids fluttering.

Want, palpable and thick, pulses in the charged atmosphere between you. A microcosm of your own design: a place carved from stone, ashlar, and shaded in the midnight blue of his eyes. A roseate gossamer falls, veiling you in that corusating haze that makes the world look prettier than it really is.

Shades of rose.

The breath he pulls in is tremulous.

When he speaks, it sounds like an orison. A plea. "That so?"

It's a weighted question. Benediction paints his throat, stains the words when they slip out.

"Kept me waiting for quite a while."

"Didn't think you were waiting." His hands sear your skin when they slide up your back. His forehead falls, resting against yours. "Not much to sit around and pine over, love."

It makes you scoff, a wet noise in the back of your throat. "You think I answer my phone in the middle of the night for just anyone?"

"No," he murmurs. His hand lifts, cups your cheek in the seat of his palm. "But I'm not jus' anyone, am I?"

"Nope. Your a walking contradiction on how—sometimes—nepotism isn't all bad—"

"Watch it."

"Or what, John?"

You're distinctly aware of the age-old idiom about playing with fire, but when he dips his chin, and narrows his eyes at you like that, you find you don't really care much about getting burned.

His nostrils flare, eyes dark, and hungry. A warring pelagic storm looms over ashlar. Gyre grey. Arsenic white. You want to stain the tips of your fingers in the liquid blooming in his gaze.

"Might need to teach you a lesson in respect."

"Might need to teach you not to keep someone waiting."

His mouth is searing it when it presses to yours.

"Touchè."

Price tastes of saltpetre.

Thick, ichorous. An heady elixir that sits heavy on your tongue, leaking down the back of your throat when you swallow.

A fine sheen of nicotine paints his teeth from the forgotten cigar burning in the ashtray on the table, and when you swipe your tongue across them, chasing the secondhand buzz, it feels anxiolytic. Your head is a slurried mess from it all, and the way he feels beneath you.

Hard edges, broad—massive.

His chest expands with each deep inhale. Shoulders tense with the effort of holding himself back. A fact, you find, is more intoxicating than the nicotine on your tongue, or the saltpetre blooming in your veins.

The width of his thighs make your muscles burn when you perch your knees on the cushion beside them, the stretch a deep burn that feels more arduous than a workout.

You're not supposed to be kissing your captain.

To be sat on his lap while his big hands roam your skin, sliding down the knobs of your spine, thumb pressing the grove of each one. Massaging your sides when you gasp into his mouth, a wet noise full of the burn in your joints, the want in your belly—an ache, a need for more. More. More—

It was meant to be professional.

At work, on the field, in the stuffy headquarters of the SAS building in Hereford, it's meant to be distant. Cold. And—

And not this.

Not spread open in his lap, one palm cupping the soft cheek of your ass and squeezing until the flesh bulges from between his splayed fingers. Not heaving his name out in a palpable supplication drenched in want. Need.

Needy.

"Look'it you," he'd rasped into your neck hours earlier, slick with sweat from your impromptu training lesson in the comfort of his office. "So fuckin' needy—"

And you were. Are.

"C'mon, cap," you gasped, nose pressed taut against his temple, tongue chasing the briny tang that saturated his hairline. "Give it to me—"

He did.

Over and over and over again. Bending you over hard wood of his desk until your face was full of reports and papers, missions and confidential files on things, and people you'd rather not think about while your captain was spreading you apart with his tongue, and three fingers, and—

It was too much. Not enough. A paradoxical realm where pleasure and pain melded into a single entity. It's veins coursed with a potent cocktail of everything you could easily become addicted to—oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins rich enough to make you dizzy for aeons when it saturated all those gullible receptors in your head—and when he touched your skin with his bare hands, you felt the prickle of it leaking into your bloodstream.

The rough husk of his voice rasping out his pleasure in your ear is an audible opiate; euphoria condensed into decibels. It rattles your synapses. Your bones. You quiver under his bulk, eager for more.

Aching for it, really. Want him so badly that it hurts.

Even after he'd taken his time to prepare you, made you cum from his mouth, his fingers, more times than the chemical slurry of your melting mind could ever try to keep up with, it isn't enough.

Wasn't.

His cock feeding into you, stretching you open around the thick of him, until the world around you was awash in pure bliss in the most beautiful shade of blue, wasn't enough.

"More," you gasped, nerves throbbing like a bruise. Bones battered, rusted from the force of him taking you over and over again. "More, John—please—"

He obliged each time. Sliding home until all you could feel was him pulsing inside of you. The heavy weight of his hips notched against your ass. The branding heat of his hands gripping your hip, fingers curling around your shoulder, as he held you steady for him.

(Over and over again—)

Price smells of tobacco when he leans in close. Damp ash. The wet end of a cigarette butt. Stale smoke. Mossy, loam. You breathe in the bitter scent of him until it floods your lungs, clotting in each fibril until it's heavy with the tarish resin that leaks from the end of burning cigar.

"Greedy fuckin' thing," he hissed in your ear, fingers delving into you, feeling his release squelch around him. "Ain't you?"

"Always," you huffed, struggling through the onslaught of your mind buzzing for one more, just one more hit, and your body screaming for respite. "Always for you, John—"

"Stubborn, mm?"

He didn't give you one more. John is attune to you in ways you'd never anticipated. He just—knows you. Can easily see through the desperation for victory clawing at your throat, sinking it's nails into the delicate skin of your jugular, and hissing rapacious demands that rattle through your vocal chords.

When he meets the apogee of your mettle, he pulls back. Edging away from the battered fold of your limits once he brings it to a new precipice, a new level.

Price pulled you against him when your fawn-legs quiver, knees threatening to buckle, and tucked you against his chest, a protective embrace while he murmured words of gratitude, admiration, into your crown.

That was hours ago, and now—

The hunger rears. Your want is a perfect personification of greed, lust, pride, gluttony all coalescing into a molten desire that spools together, knotting tight against your chest where it tightens in a vice. A pretty bow of your searing need for the man whispering heavenly words of ardour into your damp skin.

"Price—"

He stops the whine with a nip of teeth against your jugular. "Come on, now," he bares the flat of them on your skin, pinching soft tissue between his incisors. "Rest a bit, love. Jus' wanna hold you, yeah? Jus' like this."

He leaks benzene, arsenic, and formaldehyde when he murmurs your name into the sticky column of your throat.

(And when he whispers it so softly, reedy benediction dipped the brush of his blunt affection, how could you ever deny him anything?)

Your arms thread around his nape, wrists locking together behind him.

The ticking of the clock on the wall is just another reminder of how little time you have, and yet—

"Stay," he murmurs against your jaw, whiskers scratching your chin.

Jet-lag. Exhaustion. Wishful thinking.

Whatever the reason might be, you pry your lips apart and choke out the words that have rattling inside your head from the moment you felt his chest bloom beneath your palms, and knew—without any doubt or uncertainty—that you would follow this man to hell and back if it meant you stand inches away from him for the rest of your meagre existence.

A tortuous whim. An exquisitely agonising proposition.

But you've always been rather smitten with poems that break your heart into pieces. Ones where you leave a little part of yourself between the lines that eviscerate your pericardium until you taste heme in the back of your throat.

Price reminds you of those poems. Ones that blugeons into you with a force so heavy and full, it feels as if it was written just for you. A pain so robust and brutal, that you're sure the lines in Times New Roman were first etched into your bones before they were spilled across the stark white page in black ink. Rotten blood between the pages of your barren soul.

Your fingers run through the mess on his crown, slick with sweat from earlier, and you nod, mind wandering down that path that leads to closed doors, a locked mausoleum, and with your bruised knuckles, broken nails, and bent fingers, you pry it open.

Finally, finally—

The words claw up your throat, grasping at the stretch of freedom within reach, and you—

Let them go.

"Wouldn't go anywhere without you."

(Not ever again.)

#this feels somewhat complete but it's been bumming about in my drafts for ages now and it's about time it left the nest #sorry for all the bird imagery i found a pair of binoculars in my shed and suddenly i think i'm Attus Navius #captain john price x reader #john price x reader #captain price x reader #john price #captain john price #captain price #goddd i hate tagging stuff #can i just not???#like if u wanna read it come check out my blog but i am sick to death of these goddamn tags

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dido-main · 9 months

Text

♡♡bf!txt and things you can do for them♡♡

synopsis: small or big things/gestures to show your love for them or things they would love in their partner and their reaction based on my observations and astrology /seperate

genre: pure fluff and nothing else i swear

wanings: delulu headcanons, might come across cringe to some, is fluff a warning? imo it is! fight me about it if you want, kissing?

i love my tubatu boys so much, i want to cry~

let him what he needs to do show love

i think yeonjun would get very upset if you were to say stuff like how overwhelmed you are with his gifts since you can't do the same for him or judge him for wanting to show pda

so he is most likely to settle for bare minimum in this case. he has high standarts in everything else but this one in particular restricts him and his love for you. so just let him love you however he wants~

listen to his advices

he no means to control you but let's just say you made changes in your style just because yeonjun suggested you to do that particular thing, he would be so happy. this may include lots of variations of advice but like i said not in a controlling way.

wear matching clothes/accessories with him

not cringe ones like "his/hers" or "look at my bf/gf" but like waering the same necklace he bought for you or same themed clothes that do not necessarily scream couple clothes.

tumbling down his walls

i don't think yeonjun likes showing weakness. i have similar placements with him, i would know. so when you be the person he can truly feel comfortable around to show his real self, he is considering you love of his life.

encourage him in what he does

although this may apply to everything he is passionate about, his job in particular is where he needs you to be hyping him up. call him "4th gen it boy" or compliment his lyricism and him being all rounder. yeah almost everyone does that but he also needs you to do that, too.

let him take care of you

soobin has this great parental energy that traditionally falls under father figure roles. what i mean is for example if you have a problem you are facing, just let him be the one who helps you solve it. i am not saying he wants to be your savior but he cares so much and this is his way of showing.

cook/bake together

soobin likes to cook/bake even though he is not the best at it. he tries. but he loves to cook/bake with you. especially if you are excellent cook. he feels like this is your love project together and also a fun activity on top of it. what's not the like?

be his equal

i don't think soobin would enjoy an obvious power imbalance in a relationship. of course there is some places he is better or worse than you but they balance each other out. and i mean this also in a way that no one in the relationship should hold the power, it would make him so uncomfortable.

get along with his friens

he is the introvert that has lots of friends for an unexplained and mysterious reason but he loves them and you so you getting along with them genuinely makes him happy. just like the one of the biggest hit there is: spice girls - wannabe. lyrics are just so soobin.

enjoy the things he enjoys

you get a joke he made and laugh at it, he is happy. you like the date idea he suggested and excited to do it, he is happy. you watch him play video games with his friends, he is happy.

basically he is happy to be understood and seen. many more examples can be given

not be boring

always stimulate his brain. play hard to get. (not too much tho) be cool in general. get his jokes. at least try to enjoy things he loves.

may seem a lot but he doesn't like the idea of being bored in general. (this i can relate) but it heavily influences his love life the most.

listen to his worries

beomgyu is also a human being. he needs nurtiring just like everyone else. no matter how small the problem is, show that you care. and also beomgyu deserves it. most people deserve this but beomgyu deserves it more than the rest.

be his star crossed lover

he wants to believe that it is more than his and your choice. he wants to believe that some powerful being or universe wants you to be together. call it soulmates, call it twinflame. doesn't matter. just be his true love.

validate him

he doesn't nor necessarily seek for validation from others,he does but not in the unhealthy way, but his s/o is a different story. so when you are proud of him, he is proud of himself. don't make him feel untalented or stupid or useless or someone who is trying or some- one who is not really nice.

open up to him

he feels uneasy with someone who doesn't share. it feels like you don't trust him. he talks about his problems, right? so why don't you. like i genuinely think he wants you to trauma dump. he wants to learn why you are the way you are.

be different

he doesn't want to commit to someone who is just like everyone else you can find on the street. maybe it is your style, maybe it is your personality, maybe it is your taste, maybe it is your dislike of pop culture... but don't be a poser and don't make this all of your personality.

take care of him when he is sick

idk why but i think tyun would show his vulnerability to his s/o but would also make sure that he has borders. but it changes when he is sick. he is a baby, okay? so take care of him!!!!!! (he lowkey likes the motherly/parental vibe you are giving, too)

let him take control

i am talking about your relationship. he likes independent people who take care of themselves but he would prefer leading the relationship. not in the toxic way i swear, he asks for your opinion of course.

kiss him a lot

some of you guys may know my taehyun the expert french kisser theory... and if you don't, here it is again. he is a expert french kisser. loves kissing so much. doesn't need to be mouth to mouth action. just kiss him or let him kiss you.

work out with him

i know some people make working out tyun's whole personality but i mean this in a way that be a part of his routine and also take care of yourself. two birds one stone, you know. he likes this activity so even you watching him do it is enough sometimes.

get along with his members and family

we all know hyuka doesn't let anyone to be in his life. he has his members and family. so if you are blessed enough to be in it, you should get along with them. he also values family so much. he seems to have very healthy relationships with his family and members so it is unavoidable that he wants his s/o to be part of it.

be a geek with him

i don't think hyuka is geek btw but he would love it when you play mario kart with him or watch batman the animated series with him. you know traditionally geeky stuff. also make commentary and jokes while engaging with the media. and react his commentary and jokes, too.

be nostalgic with him

this is why i think he would want someone his age or close to his age or older than him since they can experience his childhood memerioes. kinda related to the one above but if you enjoy the things he enjoyed when he was younger, that would make him happy.

cook for him

he would really appreciate this one. may want to help but the thoughtfulness of you makes his heart flutter. definitely loves your cooking even if you are not the best. also he may want to try different foods so when you cook something he wanted to try, he is in love. the experience is definitely better than a fancy restaurant.

beautify yourself

i am not saying fit in the beauty standart. i am saying be fashionable and confident. like if he likes your aesthetic, you are beautiful to him. so try to have your own style and aesthetic. if you put an effort, he would also put an effort. he likes to adorn himself for his s/o and expects you to do same.

a/n: i had this on my notes for so long. i am just glad that i finally got to share. i also tried to do moodboards. though i think i failed a little, it was fun to do it.

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lonepower · 1 month

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ok you know what i need more bodysharing/brain roommates. malevolent got me feeling some kind of way and I need MORE. tvtropes has like 15 different categories that are all sort-of-but-not-really under the umbrella of what I'm looking for, and sorting through all of that is a little too unwieldy, so I'm turning to you guys.

key factors of the specific flavor of "multiple consciousnesses stuck in the same meat suit" that I'm looking for are:

any variation of, a human (or this universe's equivalent [so like, an elf where elves are commonplace would count]) has another, nonhuman consciousness attached to them and only them in such a way that the two can communicate, and subsequently

they Banter Constantly

^that^ is probably the most important qualifier here tbh

second most important qualifier is that they are not separated at the end (this obv. doesn't apply if the thing is still ongoing). it's okay if the passenger gets a new body (cf. subnautica) or is freed from their binding (cf. baldur's gate), as long as the partnership isn't broken.

Related: they don't actually have to SHARE a body (so enchanted objects, an AI implant, a Mysterious Disembodied Voice, an imaginary friend, etc., also count). they just have to be tethered to each other such that the passenger cannot move around or function on their own without a host. (I think this is part of why it's hard to narrow down on tvtropes: it's more about the dynamic than about the specific mechanism of "possession".)

Third most important qualifier is that only the current host can hear/communicate with the passenger, even if other people around them are aware of the passenger's existence.

two humans stuck in the same body is okay as long as the other criteria are met, but I would prefer it if the host is human(/equivalent) and the passenger is not (or vice versa if the passenger/possessor is the one with control of the body, as with things like the yeerks, most demonic possession, etc).

it doesn't have to be romantic. they don't even have to like each other. conversely, it absolutely can be romantic too.

They DO have to be the POV character/s for a significant majority (like, at least 60-75%) of the work, because the internal back-and-forth is the entire point.

Bonus points if: they do actually share a body; they are either never physically separated either, or are rejoined at the end (voluntarily or otherwise); passenger has lots of setting-relevant knowledge/an alien or fantastical perspective, while host shows passenger what it's like to be Alive™; despite constantly butting heads, host and passenger work patently better as a team; super extra bonus points for all of the above

My favorite examples of what I am looking for:

Malevolent podcast (super extra bonus points x10000000000000000)

Venom movies (this is probably the codifier for most people here tbh) (super extra bonus points)

Subnautica: Below Zero (AL-AN gets their own body but stays with Robin, and it hits all of the others)

Forspoken (super extra bonus points)

the "a bagel. two bagels." vine

(I know there's a couple others that I'm just blanking on. If I remember them, I'll add them.)

other things that have moments or flavors of this, but aren't focused on it/don't quite hit all of them:

the Bartimaeus trilogy had it at the end a little, but, well. it didn't last very long. (i STILL haven't recovered from that ending and i was, what? 15 or something? g o d)

the emperor in bg3 kiiiinda counts since they're magically bound to the player/party and can't exist outside their prison, but they do have their own body and are not nearly as chatty as I'm looking for. also, while only the holders of the prism can hear them, All of the holders of the prism can hear them and I'd really prefer one-on-one.

I think Death Note would also count? I read it in like 6th grade and never finished it so my memory is patchy At Best, but since nobody else can interact with Ryuk, he's bound to whoever holds the notebook, and he's the supplier of the holder's powers, it's close enough that I would accept something similar.

Slay the Princess has the bickering in spades and fulfills the "do not separate" criterion depending on your ending, although the jury's out on whether the voices are Actually their own entities or just symptoms of you losing it. Also, nobody in it is human. The bickering is definitely good enough to make up for it though. (The fact that it's Jonny Sims clearly having a grand old time might have something to do with it...)

with the caveat that I have not watched any of it, i think jadzia (and?) dax from ds9 miiight count, but they're part of an ensemble cast and thus fail the "pov characters for a majority of the work" and "we get to hear their constant internal banter" criteria.

things I tried that fit at least some criteria, but didn't like for various reasons:

the good demon by jimmy cajoleas. promising concept, but 1) the protagonist smokes, which is an instant and unnegotiable dealbreaker (seriously, who makes their protagonist do that in The Year Of Our Lord Anything Later Than 1950?? and to a child? DEATH. ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON.), and 2) I looked it up and they separate at the end anyways, so there's even LESS of a point.

the venom comics. honestly I just... really dislike superhero comics, there's always way too many of them to keep track of + I'm very shallow and they're usually unbearably ugly to me (and also having started with the movies I just found comics!eddie really unpleasant tbh)

parasyte manga. perfect concept, great dynamic, but its particular brand of body horror was... not great for me and I had to put it down. (horror in and of itself isn't a dealbreaker, though, so if you've got something similar that doesn't involve lots of hands bent at nauseating angles, I'll gladly take it.)

Cyberpunk 77 has the two-humans flavor of this and hits almost all of the other criteria, but i viscerally hated literally everything about j*hnny s*lverhand with every fiber of my being and the rest of the game was so mediocre already that i just gave up

....I know it's a highly specific/potentially niche dynamic, but if anyone has any recs, PUHLEEASE hmu!!! I'm looking for original work rather than fanfiction, but apart from that, format doesn't matter at all (although if it's some like super difficult indie game or something, I probably won't get very far lol). the MAIN points are 1) bickering and 2) host-and-passenger, so if you have something that hits those but not the others, feel free to share it anyway!

#rec request #i'm not really sure how else to tag this? i don't want to tag adjacent fandoms bc i find it really annoying when people do that.#anyway please let me know...#long post

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riding-with-the-wild-hunt · 6 months

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cogitating upon the cultural impact of fingolfin's death.. the artistic currency of beautified, emblematized violence. mystery plays with an antiphonal chorus and ritualized movements and acrobats playing morgoth by climbing all over each other; kirtana that go on for seven days, one for each of the sacred blows... the stricken foot and the seven wounds becoming symbols in themselves, put on children's' amulets to ward off evil and on warrior's to encourage valour. soldiers wearing eagle feathers into battle so that even if they fall their bodies won't be desecrated. tapestries and vases and friezes that show fingolfin's ride to angband (or the alternatively popular motif of him riding to mandos) with variation in his resemblance to oromë according to the artist's religiosity.. just the fall of fingolfin being so thoroughly embroidered into noldorin culture in beleriand that even when everyone who remembered him is gone the carvings of oromë sometimes have his face

#martyrdom narratives just get me going okay #fingolfin #the silmarillion #elves elves elves #nolofinwëans #the professor's world #brought to you by me #every day i wake up + get on my little soapbox #nolofinwë

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secretsofblackthornhall · 2 years

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Emma to Cristina

Dear Cristina!

Sorry to startle you, I just wrote “Dear Cristina” with the comma first and it seemed a little down. Thought I would try to spice it up a little. And I want to hear from you because I miss you and it’s highly annoying that you couldn’t be in New York.

Why did Nene have to pick this exact time to visit you guys? Is it because she has faerie intuition and carefully decided to keep us apart? I mean, no, probably not, she seems like a pretty good person. But still! Show up a week later, Nene! Also disappointed to hear that she didn’t spill anything about what the heck is up in the Seelie Court. I guess if she had given up the court’s secrets to Kieran — who is, technically, the King of the Unseelie Court — the Seelie Queen would consider that “bad” and Nene to be a “traitor,” but that’s nothing compared to how much we want to know what’s up.

Anyway. We’re back from New York, where the weather was much worse than in London, but whatever. We’d sent that picture of the candlesticks from the church to Alec, and he showed them to his mom, who recognized them. She said Robert had brought them along with a bunch of other inherited Lightwood stuff when they left Idris for NYC, and she had no idea what had happened to them since, but they were probably in the NY Institute somewhere. Well, we’ve got the Ghost Sensor, so we said goodbye to Rupert and headed over. (Julian wondered whether Rupert misses us when we’re gone, but it’s hard to tell if ghosts can tell the passage of time. In any case we didn’t find sad faces drawn in the dust when we came back, or anything like that.)

So we saw Jace and Clary, of course, and Alec came to help. I think he was really curious since it’s his family’s stuff. (We were hoping to see Simon and Isabelle but they were off recruiting for Shadowhunter Academy. And Magnus stayed home with the kids. He texted us a video from their apartment where he asked Max and Rafe, “Are we going to help our friends?” and they both shouted, “No!” It was cute. I mean, Max and Rafe were cute. Magnus was maybe milking it a little.)

Finding the candlesticks was…pretty easy, actually, kind of anticlimactic. They were hiding in plain sight in the church’s nave among all the other candlesticks and candelabras and other candle-related things. And the Sensor led us right to them. So maybe they weren’t removed in the Blitz but instead the Lightwoods took them back? Or maybe they were removed and then brought back and sometime after that Robert’s parents took them out of the church? We’ll probably never know, but it also probably doesn’t matter since, whatever, we have them, mystery solved.

In celebration we ordered a pizza and ate it by the light of the candlesticks. New York pizza! It is the best. It hurts to say that a little, as an LA girl, but the truth is the truth. I’d missed it so. Pizza in London is…well, best not to speak of it.

So while we were eating Jace asked Alec if there was any news from Idris, and Julian and I kind of looked at each other because there’s never news from Idris, the Cohort have all shut themselves in there and refuse to come out or let anyone in, you know the deal.

Alec revealed that they had been working on some new variation on fire-messages that would be able to get through the wards around Idris. Mostly using Clary’s power to invent new runes. They’ve been sending them for a while, trying different things, but hadn’t gotten any responses until very recently when they heard from one of my least favorite people, Manuel.

So Alec and Manuel have apparently been sending messages back and forth. Zara refuses to respond and Manuel implied that she didn’t like that he and Alec were talking. Alec thinks he might be lying and Zara might not even know. But Alec also thinks Manuel is tired of being stuck there and might be their way in, since (as we all know) Manuel cares about Manuel above everything else, certainly way more than he cares about the Cohort’s supposed mission. Like Jace said, Zara is a true believer, but Manuel is just an opportunist.

This was all super-interesting, of course, but Julian and I started to feel bad remembering that Alec is, you know, the Consul. Julian said he knew Alec had important Consul stuff to do and it was great that he had come to help find the candlesticks anyway. And then Alec said a really nice thing! He said that their New York crew had always had to work in secret, that they’d always thought of the Clave as the enemy. Well, maybe not the enemy, but not their ally. The Clave they grew up with, you know, locked Jace in the Silent City and refused to believe that Valentine was returning. They would never have thought of going to them for help. So Alec said it was really important to him as Consul to actually be there for the Shadowhunters, to be someone they could know and talk to and bring problems to, rather than hiding. And I guess we did know Alec personally before, and they are his family’s candlesticks, but still, it was nice that he thought of it as part of his Consul duties to help us out, rather than thinking of it as something taking time away from his Real Work. He said this was his Real Work, and we’d better not stop coming to him and Magnus for help.

So then after a while Clary announced that she and I needed to have some girl talk and whisked me off to Taki’s for coffee. Julian she left with Jace and Alec. When last I saw him Jace was guiding him towards the weapons room to take a look at the collection of 17th-century Spanish military swords he’d recently found in one of the church weapons caches somewhere in New York. Julian watched me leave like a puppy being taken to the vet for shots, but I think he had a good time. So he says, anyway.

Clary and I settled into a booth at Taki’s. She wanted to ask me how I was doing, and I started telling her, but she seemed distracted, and I realized that maybe she needed to talk to me about how she was doing. Which turned out to be true. She’s worried because Alec likes to believe the best of people, and he’s really optimistic about the progress they’ve made getting in touch with Manuel, but Clary thinks Zara is a manipulative psycho. On which topic we agree.

“You think it’s a trick?” I said. “Or a trap?”

She said she didn’t know. But then she kind of argued with herself and said she understood how important it was to open up Idris, that she knew the Clave couldn’t survive forever split in two like this.

I said it seemed like it was really weighing heavily on them, and she kind of sighed and gave me the big news, or rather the lack of big news, which is that she and Jace have decided they don’t want to get married until the Clave is reunited. And Simon and Isabelle feel the same way.

“It’s not like there’s any reason to rush,” she said. She was looking out the window as she said it, though, and she sounded kind of sad. “But we don’t want a wedding where all anyone is thinking about is how Idris is off-limits and the Clave is broken.”

She kept looking out the window, so I asked if she saw someone out there, and she kind of looked guilty and turned back to me. “Oh, no, I thought I saw Jace for a minute, but it wasn’t him.”

Finally we got around to how I’m doing and I got to tell her the thing I’m worried about, which you and I have talked about a little. Which is that Julian and I are fixing up this house and I guess…we’re going to move here? Like, move to London. And out of Los Angeles for good. And I haven’t really gotten to think about what that would be like. I was thinking of it as a kind of temporary thing where we would fix up the house and then go home. And it’s easy to feel that way because of all the stuff going on with the Clave.

But for Julian, this will be our new home. And I can’t blame him for wanting that. I mean, for one thing, he’s a Blackthorn and it’s Blackthorn Hall. But we grew up in Los Angeles. I’m an LA girl, all my memories of my parents are of them in Los Angeles. But then we both do have many hard memories from the LA Institute, and it would be nice to put them behind us and get a fresh start. I don’t know. Do you ever find it strange, that you live in New York now? And Faerie? Do you miss the D.F.?

Maybe it’s Idris being out of reach that makes it feel so strange. I grew up always knowing that however spread out the Shadowhunters might be we all had a home together in Idris. It held the Clave together all over the world. But what if Idris is really gone for us, Cristina?

What if it’s gone forever?

Xoxox

Emma