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kimberly-stocks · 3 months

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Rewatching Altered carbon season 1 for the third time because Joel Kinnaman 🤤

He said that to get into this shape he only ate kale leaves with his tears as a dressing 😅

#joel kinnaman #takeshi kovacs #altered carbon #altered carbon season 1 #richard morgan #the last envoy #elias ryker

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neondreams2145 · 1 year

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"A man who never loves gives no hostage to fortune, to paraphrase a great scientist. " - Takeshi Kovacs

"A man who dosen't love isn't really a man. To paraphrase you." -Quellcrist Falconer

Altered Carbon -The T.V. series.

#cyberpunk #cyberpunk aesthetic #quoteoftheday #altered carbon #takeshi kovacs #joel kinnaman #tvgifs #tv quotes #joel kinnaman gifs #elias ryker #quellcrist falconer

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castalyne · 8 months

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Can we talk about how Elias Ryker sleeps curled up on his side?

#Altered Carbon #Elias Ryker #Takeshi Kovacs #Kristin Ortega

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destinedtobeloved · 6 months

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Now that I’ve finished Altered Carbon, I think it would be fun to share one of my notes from my notes app that I’ve been writing on since I’ve started it. I’ve cried a lot about this book, and everything I’ve ever left behind has claw marks.

This book definitely has claw marks.

It includes all of my favorite moments and parts of the book down below :)

Things I love about book Kovacs

- he’s trying to quit smoking

- His hallucinations are of Jimmy and Virginia Vadura

- Him and Ortega don’t actually hate eachother that much in the beginning

- At first Takeshi doesn’t actually hate Bancroft either

- He’s genuinely confused about earth terms

- He was mad that at the Wei clinic they didn’t give him back his watch or his bandana, simply because he just bought it and he’d liked the watch

- He likes shopping

- He likes fruit juice???

- Gaslit Umou into being late to Psychasec because he needed to eat breakfast

- He deals with hangovers like a champ

- Started smoking in the construct once he remembered it had no real consequences in the real

- Understands female complexity/differences between male and female

- Knows how to handle gentle situations most of the time (victor talking about his daughter, Kristen talking about Ryker.)

- Quotes poetry from Quell

- Also enjoys poetry (ex; the carving on the bench at the faculty when he’s waiting for the doctor.)

- Slept for twenty hours after the Wei clinic??

- His emotion (though i do miss the scene where he’s drugged up outside of the raven talking to Quell. ‘250 years is long enough. It’s time to move on.’ ‘Never. You hear me? Never.’)

- His love for Sarah

- His attempts at smiling

- His explanation of personality frag!!!!

- Chapter 20 as a whole is so amazing (talking about Ryker- him and Curtis, bla bla bla, mostly just Elias and Kristen stuff.)

- Ramen just awakens something in him

- Actually very good at telling children’s stories to Ortega (like a dad.)

- Good at cracking jokes

- His interaction with the little girl in the second page of chapter 25???!?? (He shoots her with a little finger gun when he realizes she’s looking at him expectantly after seeing his weapon.)

- After the whole blown up building Kadmni thing (‘that’s fucking enough!’) he smokes because he just decides it’s not worth it

- Him and Trepp playing card games on the airship that Trepp had taught him

- He literally reaches for his Nemex every three seconds istg

- Remaining ‘innocent at the core’ -reileen

- Apparently having a very deep very drugged convo about cats in chapter 26

- Kovacs is a MUNCH

- Repeats the same Virginia Vidora quote over again. ‘We take what is offered. And sometimes, that must be enough.’

- Reileen always starting off her talks with him in Japanese because she thinks it unites them in a way

- Had to stop himself from calling reileen ray

- He actually DOES genuinely smile (ex; when Irene is exited about the limo)

- ‘I’m a sucker for family reunions.’ HE ACTUALLY DOES CARE (maybe it’s because him and Sarah never got to have one after he was taken out of the store.)

- Sleeping in the car (limo) so Irene can get laid

- The guilt/itchiness he has after relapsing into smoking

- Him and Trepp are actually friends and she insists that they go party, drink coffee, play card games together, ect.

- Considers trepp not getting into the envoys a ‘Lucky escape’

- Trepp n Kovacs playful teasing

- He missed Ortega when she left the Hendrix and didn’t come back. ‘I missed Ortega.’ Page 356

- Bancroft saying he’d been around for the RD’s of two of his children. (Going out of order back to the beginning)

- Doesn’t bullshit. Didn’t tell Irene it would pass when she was feeling hurt after being resleeved.

- It was nerve wracking to him to watch Irene code

- Reileen and Miriam slept together??

- Takeshis urge to be cruel

- Got anyoyed when Miller was tapping on the table and just flatted out his hand LMFAO

- When he heard he got a call he immediately asked if it was Ortega.

- Literally seconds before he’s about to get beat to death in the Panamrose he thinks about how bored he is

- Still, right before he about to die, he thinks about Ortega and calls her a ‘pocket of calm’

- He’s ready to die, not awfully upset about it because he knows Kristen has enough information to get Reileen and also because he knows Sarah will be released

- Trepp saves him in the Panama rose

- He talks to his dad mid fight after not hearing him forever. Before he killed Kadmin (calling him the ‘patchwork man’) he asks if he wants to say anything.

- He’s afraid to alter his virtual self because he thinks it’s not far away from what reileen and Bancroft do

- Sits on a forklift after the fight thinking. He’s weirdly soft.

- Claims that nothing hurt more then the realization that this would be his and Ortegas last moments together

- Held hands with her too

- Would’ve given anything to not have to dissolve what was growing between them.

- He loves her more in the book than he did in the show (and it’s making me sob.)

- He literally is arguing with himself when he is double sleeved

- He almost killed someone at 16 because he looked like his dad

- Also wanted to help the Elliot’s because of his family and his mom who was like Lizzy

- Absolutely does not want to talk about his past and his father/family

- Planning to get drunk because he doesn’t want to talk to himself sober

- Disappointed with his copy for smoking

- Takeshi fter the microsurgery is down at the lake with a little girl who seemed to ‘adopt him’

- He’s actually kind of heartbroken when him and Kristen’s relationship changes after he is resleeved.

- Makes his day that he can still make Ortega laugh before he convinces her to get him some stiff because he thought their dynamic was weird afterwards

- Before he and Reileen fall to their deaths he says, ‘When they ask how I died,' I said, 'tell them: still angry’ as well as ‘that’s fucking enough’

- Once his clone lost to rock paper scissors and was set to die, he asks if he wants him to tell Jimmy anything. I sobbed.

- Kept accidentally talking about Reileen in present terms after she died.

- He gave money to Irene once he’s about to leave for Lizzy. (‘I want there to be something clean at the end of all this, something I can feel good about.’)

- He held Irene after that.

- He attempts to laugh with Ortega before he goes

- His quote saying that no matter what you always leave alone. (‘Whatever world it is, whatever you've done there for better or worse, you always leave the same way. Alone.’)

- His last wishes are for Kristen to get Ryker to stop smoking once he’s out of the store

#altered carbon #joel kinnaman #Takeshi Kovacs #reileen kawahara #kristen ortega #Elias Ryker #Richard Morgan #books #books and reading #books and literature #bookshelf #reading books #emotional damage after this #post-read #book review #writer #once again #like I say in every post about this book #book takeshi gets a 10/10 for me

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tavners · 2 years

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Currently here^ in my head.

#takeshi kovacs #joel kinnaman #altered carbon #elias ryker #eb gifs

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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 2 years

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A Kiss with No Feeling (Takeshi Kovacs Drabble)

Fandom: Altered Carbon, Takeshi Kovacs

Word Count: 906

TW: Heartbreak, Loss, Abandoned

Notes: Some slight spoilers for the end of Season 1 of Altered Carbon

Most people avoided AI hotels anymore because of their bad reputation of obsessive hosts. Yet, since you had been staying at The Raven Hotel for the past few weeks, you had come to love everything about it. The atmosphere, the decor, the coziness, and of course, Poe. The AI had become a very close friend during your stay. But of course, the biggest draw was the man you shared your room with. Tak had taken some time to warm up to, but once you did, he had become your whole heart. And it seemed as if he felt the same about you.

However, since the moment Poe had been destabilized and reduced to a pile of nanodust, the hotel felt lonely. Empty. Like it had lost its soul, which, in a way, you guess it had. This place that had once felt like a home had now turned into a tomb. But as much as you wanted to leave, you knew that this would be the first place Tak would look for you. It had been three days since Head in the Clouds had fallen and there was still no word from him. The Elliots had stopped by to tell you everything that had happened: Tak had gone down with the satellite, and no one had heard from him since.

But you refused to believe he was really gone for good. Takeshi Kovacs was the strongest, most capable man you had ever met and if anyone could survive something like this, he could. So, you remained at the hotel, just waiting for him to come back for you.

And finally, finally, your patience pays off. As you are straightening up in the lobby, you look out the front windows to see the familiar form of the man you love walking toward the hotel. Your heart leaps in your chest as you struggle to believe your eyes.

“Tak!” The second he steps through the door, you are in his arms. You reach up and frantically pull his lips down to yours, your body surging into his. But it takes only seconds to realize something is wrong. He is stiff, almost tense under your touch, and as you continue to kiss him, you realize there is nothing behind his lips. No heat. No tenderness. Nothing.

Pulling back, you gaze up at him questioningly. The face that stares back is the one you have come to love over the past few weeks, the one you had begun to call yours. Yet there is something missing in his eyes as he stares at you and it finally hits you.

“Ryker.” The name isn’t much more than a whisper on your lips.

The man nods slightly. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not who you were expecting.”

You stumble back away from this stranger with the face of the man you love. Although, you guess the face had always belonged to Ryker. Tak had been the stranger behind it.

“Is he dead? Like, RD’d?” The idea that Tak could be gone for good, not just sleeve dead, but real dead, stack blown to pieces, created an intense ache in your chest.

But Ryker just shakes his head. “No. He gave up my sleeve so I could come back to Kristen. They resleeved him in someone else but he was gone before I was spun back up. However, he left instructions for me to find you here and to give you this.” He pulls out an ONI chip and drops it into your hand.

Carefully, you take it from him, place it into the ONI reader on your wrist, and hit play. The voice that began speaking in your head was 100% Tak. Even though it sounded almost identical to the man who now stood before you, you can hear the subtle differences. The slightly more intense, gruff tone in Tak’s voice, the love and pain that rippled through his words.

I’m sorry it has to be this way but I’m not coming back. I’m not going to get you killed because I’m too selfish to let you go. We both knew this was doomed from the start and maybe that’s why I clung to you so tightly. Doomed relationships just seem to be my fate. He chuckles mirthlessly. But it doesn’t have to be yours. Go. Live your life. Find someone who brings you happiness and light not just darkness and pain. You deserve that and so much more. So, thank you for everything that you did for me, all that you gave me. And while I will remember you until the end, I hope you can forget me and move on.”

As the message ends, you realize tears have begun streaming down your face. Ryker shifts uncomfortably as he glances around the room, focusing anywhere but on you. He might not have been able to hear the message, but you assume he has a pretty good idea of what it had said. “Can I… do anything for you? Help you in any way?”

You sniffle softly as you wipe your hand across your face. “Do you think you could drop me off at my friends’ place? The Elliots? They live over in Bridgetown.”

Ta-Ryker smiles softly. “No problem. But are you sure you want to leave this place?”

You take one last look around the hotel that had held your everything only days ago. “Yes. There’s nothing left for me here.”

#sfw repost #drabble #takeshi kovacs drabble #takeshi kovacs #takeshi kovacs x reader #elias ryker #altered carbon #joel kinnaman #heartbreak tw #loss tw #abandoned tw

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lacontroller1991 · 2 years

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Bionic Exile: Chapter 13

Series Master List // Personal Master List

Summary: Tak returns home to you and Rick.

Coauthor: @yelenas-lova

Warnings: language

Word Count: 1035

Author's Note: Short but sweet conclusion! Thank you to everyone who has continued to stay with the series from the beginning through the hiatus to now! We really appreciate it!

==========

Takeshi’s thoughts run wild. What had the man done to him? Why wasn’t he prepared for it? Is that not the whole series of training modules he went through with Quell? If so, why was he not able to differentiate being under to the real world? The wind from the open cargo door blows his dirty hair wildly as his gaze pierces his feet. Do you really think he’s a monster? He knows it was just a hallucination, but if you know the truth about everything in his past, would that dream become a reality? Would you say the same thing?

Harley nudges Takeshi, causing Tak to look up and slowly come back to reality before looking at his teammate. “Yes?”

“Are ya okay sweetums? Still under the evil man’s spell?” Her works come out in a joking tone, but Takeshi does not have the emotional capacity to respond in kind.

“It’s none of your business,” it’s harsh and Harley quickly sinks back in her seat. Him and Rick have that in common, she thinks to herself as she turns to look away, well aware of Takeshi sighing next to her. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just… It’s just this mission went very differently than how I pictured it would. I was not expecting any of that to happen.” Silence. “Thank you for getting me back.”

Harley’s eyes widen at his apology. It had taken Rick years to learn to apologize to his team and it’s taken Tak one day. Fidgeting in her seat, she waves him off. “It’s not a problem! Just doin’ my job!”

The tarmac is empty except for a handful of medics, you and Rick. Before Corto Maltese there would be security guards in place, ready to take the inmates back in restraints, but now, they’re free to do as they please once they finish a mission.

Rick watches the way your hands tug at each other, a sign of the nerves. You don’t know what kind of shape Tak is in. Not after what you'd seen of the mission before losing the camera feed. You don’t know if he’s hurt or if he’s ok. If he’s dead or alive. Smiling softly at your antics, Rick takes your hands in his and kisses your knuckles, distracting you from the carrier landing. “He’s okay, darlin’. He’s okay.”

You look up to Rick through your eyelashes as a smile starts to etch its way on your face. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

Rick chuckles, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and bringing you into his frame as he presses a kiss to the top of your head. “Once or twice,” he pulls away as one by one the members of the Suicide Squad leave the plane. His hazel eyes immediately find Takeshi’s tall frame, causing him to pull away from you. “Go greet him. I’ll make a call for some food for us.”

You tear your eyes away from your boyfriend to look at your other one as you squeeze Rick’s hand. “Chinese?”

“We’ll see about it. Now go before he drags you away.” You give his hand one last squeeze before rushing toward the Envoy.

----------

The light blinds Tak as he steps off the aircraft and not a second later a force knocks him back a step. “Oh Kesh!” Smelling the familiar scent of your perfume, Tak immediately wraps his arms around you as your legs wrap around his waist. The two of you stay wrapped in each other’s arms for a minute before he sets you down only to take your face in his hands and press his forehead against yours, emotions threatening to spill out. “Kesh? Everything okay?”

He’s quick to nod but you don’t miss the way his lip slightly quivers. “Oh sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

“I just missed you. Missed you so fucking much,” his lips crash to yours as the world around him stops and damn it feels good to be back in your arms.

Surprised by his action, your hands wind behind his neck and anchor him down as your lips dance in tandem with his; love pouring between the two of you.

“Awwww, aren’t you two just the cutest.”

“Quinn, leave them alone.”

“Oh come on Flag, look at them. Aren’t they cute?” Rick chuckles as he shoos her away, giving you and Tak some privacy as you finally break apart. Tak takes a moment to collect himself by staring in your eyes before he straightens up and faces Rick who remains a respectable distance from the two of you.

Rick is the first to make a move, extending his hand toward Takeshi with a knowing look on his face. “How was it?”

Your arm wraps around Tak’s waist as your other one wraps around Rick’s, making the handshake awkward for the two men. Takeshi still shakes his hand nonetheless. “Not going to lie, it was rough, really rough.” Rick nods in understanding as you look up at your two lovers.

“Well, I’m glad you made it back safely. Did you succeed?”

Takeshi makes a notion to where DuBois hands Waller the device. “That weapon needs to be destroyed.” Rick and you quickly look over and notice the glove still glowing a slight purple as it’s placed into a safe. “It’s powerful. Really powerful.”

“What did it do?” You ask as Tak shakes his head, clearly not wanting to talk about it. Dropping the subject, you squeeze both men causing them to look down at you. “Well, I’m hungry. Did you call that Chinese place, Rick?”

“Well, I wanted to wait to see what Tak wants.”

“Chinese sounds good to me.”

“Great, and then we can watch movies and cuddle and go to bed,” you start to ramble about all the things the three of you can do as Rick and Tak smile in unison.

“Whatever you want, darlin’.” “Sleep does sound amazing right now.”

You stop your movements as you look up at the two men, your heart fluttering like a love sick teenager. “I love you both, so much.” You take turns kissing each of their cheeks as they blush.

“I love you too, princess.” “I love you too, darlin’.”

-fin-

Bionic Exile Tag List: @kingtwhiddleston @taternuts @strawberriebabbles @nerdysuperchick @inthetikiroom @taylorgasmtpr @saritanotserena @blackrose53666 @more-cardigan-than-woman

General Tag List/Joel Tag List: @marvelousmermaid @himbovillain-anon @babblydrabbly @a-reader-and-a-writer @fairchildflag @infatuatedjanes @niki-xie @aestheticallywinchester @loverhymeswith @xoxabs88xox @t-i-n-y-d-i-n-o @the1redrose @ratcatcher2world @green-socks @heart-0n-fire @weallhaveadestiny @yourjacketisnowdry @rachelh1992 @a-girl-who-loves-disney @knivesareout @bubblegloopswampwitch @waspswidows @burntghoost @mattymurdocksbitch @katjnordstrom96 @bb-skyrunner @edwardbaldwin @yespolkadotkitty @heresathreebee @klmurr @madkovacs @wxr-zxne @wtfobiwan @alieninoklahoma

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mrrwsoup · 2 months

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a bit of an intro post for my ocs, been meaning to do one for awhile

Most of them are all interconnected in some way and involved either directly or indirectly with two different fronts for organized crime (circus which is run by my ocs, and importing company which is run by my bf's) but there's a few that are outliers and belong to different time/setting.

i also have more ocs lol but these are the ones that are most involved with my bf and I's headworld. There's more i could say about each of them but since theres so many i'll keep it short LOL.

Heres my toyhouse for more.

And the intro post i did for my bfs ocs.

Dirge

graverobber. non-employed misanthrope, prefers the company of the dead.

involved with Mamba

Micajah

chainsmoking magician and animal handler, with a lot on his hands.

involved with Jackson

Rueben

trickshooting necrosadist who's charming in front of an audience, and insufferable one-on-one.

involved with Elias

Kryl

circus ringmistress. takes discipline seriously. likes cards, roses, big fur coats, and weather that allows for them.

involved with Westley

Jules

acrodancer. flexible in multiple regards. always on the lookout for a good time, especially one he can sink his claws into.

involved with Ruckus

Nova

trad goth knife thrower's assistant, getting blades thrown at him in the ring while secretly inclined to wield them outside of it.

involved with Zero

Trinity

dirty crook, and mama's boy. bashing skulls in the alley but still escorting his mom to church on sunday.

involved with Morrigan

Midas

gunrunner. disfigured from a malfunction in an altered firearm. recreationally lovesick.

involved with Rowdy

Meyer

up and coming trick rider

involved with Blythe

Feliks

circus manager. working hard behind the scenes chugging coffee and pulling out feathers over paperwork. just wants peace and order (rarely obtained).

Jaime

former competitive martial artist, hired as "security" at the circus but acts more as general assistant. patron of dive bars.

Rama

circus promoter. incessant gambler, not above leaning the odds in his favour by any means.

involved with Saul

Saul

runs a sideshow oddity cart. once involved with black market sales but is completely law abiding now, for sure. absolutely…

involved with Rama

Wolf

back-alley doctor. dwelling within his family's dilapidated estate, tirelessly working to procure the bride of his dreams.

involved with Doll

Seth

swagless aspiring hacker. tfw no gf

involved with Ryker

Grimm

sullen black dog cemetery groundskeeper

involved with Cadence

Sinclair

identity document forger for hire, family shame. evading penalization thanks to his lawyer older brother

Silas

a higher demon, posted to the mortal world and hellbent on sowing seeds of corruption.

alternatively in modern au, struggling black metal artist and occultist, performing rituals to capture an angel and bring himself fortune

involved with Valentine

Cyril

victorian player, flexing his position as he moves up the ranks of society.

involved with Julian

Kaan

under the influence of an inherent instinct to put wolves in their place.

involved with Hutch

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most-fuckable-character-showdown · 11 months

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Characters included in the showdown

If any of these characters are repeated or under 18 please let me know asap so I can switch them out

Remus Sanders from Sanders Sides (17)

Janus Sanders from Sanders Sides (14)

Logan Sanders from Sanders Sides (13)

Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House (13)

Roman Sanders from Sanders Sides (11)

Virgil Sanders from Sanders Sides (10)

Din Djarin/Mandalorian from The Mandalorian (10)

Remy Sanders from Thomas Sanders Shorts (10)

Patton Sanders from Sanders Sides (9)

Noise from Roleslaying with Roman (8)

The Once-ler from the Lorax (7)

Sans from Undertale (6)

Angel from Hell’s Belles (5)

Julian Devorak from The Arcana (5)

William Afton from fnaf (4)

Ingo from Pokémon (4)

Leon S Kennedy from Resident Evil (4)

Anxiety Sanders from Thomas Sanders Shorts (4)

Clay Puppington from Moral Orel (4)

Youngblood from Roleslaying with Roman (4)

Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls (3)

Shane from The L Word (3)

Jameson Jackson from Jacksepticeye (3)

The Other Side of the Pillow from Thomas Sanders Shorts (3)

Virgil the Rat from Ride the Cyclone (3)

Kylo Ren from Star Wars (3)

Megamind from Megamind (3)

Bucky Barnes from MCU (3)

Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) from No Way Home (3)

Mike from Roleslaying with Roman (3)

Ryker from Roleslaying with Roman (3)

Roman from Roleslaying with Roman (3)

Raine Whispers from The Owl House (3)

Vash the Stampede from Trigun Stampede (3)

Nicholas D Wolfwood from Trigun (3)

Cecil Palmer from Welcome to Night Vale (2)

Sage Lesath from Last Legacy (2)

L Lawliet from Death Note (2)

Crowley from Good Omens (2)

Dr. Bright from SCP Foundation (2)

Shrek from Shrek (2)

Peter Cola from CNP (2)

Peppino from Pizza Tower (2)

Tangerine from Bullet Train (2)

Luis Sera from Resident Evil 4 (2)

Darius from The Owl House (2)

Hannibal Lecter from Hannibal (2)

Alastor from Hazbin Hotel (2)

Enjorlas from Les Miserables (2)

Jessie from Pokémon (2)

James from Pokémon (2)

Mettaton EX from Undertale (2)

Sampo Koshi from Honkai Star Rail (2)

Wilford Warfstache from Markiplier (2)

The Narrator from The Stanley Parable (2)

Shego from Kim Possible (2)

Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil (2)

Blackbeard from Our Flag Means Death (2)

Orange Side from Sanders Sides (2)

Lucio from The Arcana (2)

Burgundy Red from Roleslaying with Roman (2)

Puff Puff Humbert from Your Favorite Martin (2)

Viktor Humphries from Slime Rancher (2)

Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel (2)

Miss Secondopinionson from Moral Orel (2)

Eggman from Sonic (2)

Spamton from Deltarune (1)

The Corinthian from The Sandman (1)

Asra Alnazar from The Arcana (1)

Felix Escellun from Last Legacy (1)

Edwin from Gummy and the Doctor (1)

Hatori from Fruits Basket (1)

Izzy Hands from Our Flag Mean Death (1)

Undyne from Undertale (1)

Glamrock Freddy from fnaf: security breach (1)

Gummy from Gummy and the Doctor (1)

Nadia Satrinava from The Arcana (1)

Scorpia from She Ra (1)

Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth (1)

Vaporeon from Pokémon (1)

Rouge the Bat from Sonic (1)

Aaravos from The Dragon Prince (1)

Millions Knives from Trigun Stampede (1)

Spock from Star Trek (1)

Toriel from Undertale (1)

Bowser from Super Mario (1)

Shota Aizawa from My Hero Academia (1)

Tom Nook from Animal Crossing (1)

Critic Sanders from Thomas Sanders Shorts (1)

Skeletor from Masters of the Universe (1)

Elias Bouchard from The Magnus Archives (1)

Asmodeus from Obey Me (1)

Guillermo from What We do in the Shadows (1)

Asgore Dreemurr from Deltarune (1)

Dio Brando from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (1)

Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who (1)

Death from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (1)

Red Guy from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (1)

Padme from Star Wars (1)

Archibald Asparagus from Veggie Tales (1)

Shen Jiu from The Scum Villain’s Self Saving System (1)

Roxanne Wolf from fnaf: security breach (1)

Gomez Addams from The Addams Family (1)

Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty (1)

Fiona from Shrek (1)

Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1)

Emile from Cartoon Therapy (1)

Vlad Masters from Danny Phantom (1)

Eyeless Jack from Creepypasta (1)

Merlin from Fate/Grand Order (1)

Verosika Mayday from Helluva Boss (1)

Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda (1)

Michael Afton from fnaf (1)

Marvus Xoloto from Hiveswap (1)

Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium (1)

Jang Jaeyoung from Semantic Error (1)

The Bog King from Strange Magic (1)

Batman from Batman (1)

Randy Jade from Dialtown (1)

Yor Forger from Spy x Family (1)

Mark Winters/Wavelength from Just Role With It (1)

Dr. Alto Clef from SCP Foundation (1)

Striker from Helluva Boss (1)

Stoic the Vast from How to Train your Dragon (1)

Bandit from Bluey (1)

Spain from Hetalia (1)

Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)

Muriel from The Arcana (1)

#mfc showdown #most fuckable character showdown

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drabbles-mc · 2 months

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Once in Twenty Lifetimes

Takeshi Kovacs x Kristin Ortega

Written for the 2024 Candy Hearts Exchange!

Warnings: 18+, language, smoking/alcohol, light angst, slight steam

Summary: She had spent so much of her life making sure that she blended in, and she'd been successful at it the way she'd been taught. Now, though, it was all going to hang in the balance when the one other person left that knew who she really was, was getting spun back up. And of course he was getting spun up into the sleeve of her partner. (Envoy!Kristin AU)

Word Count: 6.8k

A/N: i sat down thinking i was just gonna write a little something something for this au idea as a treat for the exchange but then i got super into it and fuckin carried away lmao. oh well! i had a good time! 😂

Altered Carbon Taglist: @garbinge @destinedtobeloved @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

“Takeshi Kovacs. Look me up,” he offered the statement to her with a smirk. It didn’t quite pass for charming, per se, although it probably wasn’t his intention anyway. From what she remembered, which was everything of their stint running parallel to each other thanks to Envoy’s total recall, that hadn’t ever really been his strong suit.

Plus she wasn’t in any mood to be charmed in that moment.

There were a million and one reasons that she shouldn’t have gone to seek him out. There were endless layers to the problems it could potentially cause. Bancroft selling out Ryker’s sleeve like a hand-me-down from an older sibling was bad enough, but putting Takeshi Kovacs into it? It brought the situation out of the realm of infuriating and into one of being unbelievable. Bancroft wheeling and dealing Ryker’s suit was a personal vendetta. Tak’s stack being put into it felt like a cosmic one. He should’ve been dead by now anyway. Same way she should’ve been, but a lot goes on in two hundred and fifty years, and clearly real death didn’t want anything to do with either of them just yet.

He said it, though. He confirmed it. She’d heard the rumors beforehand and there was an intuitive twist in her gut that told her there was some substance to them, but she didn’t want to believe it. He was looking her in the eyes and telling her his name and she still didn’t want to believe it.

“You can’t be who you say you are,” she said, partially to keep playing her assigned role but partially because she simply didn’t want to believe that it was really him. “All the Envoys died.” A lie. One that she would be living proof of even if Tak wasn’t.

“All except one,” he retorted easily.

Asshole. Another thing about him that had apparently stayed consistent across the centuries. What was it that he said to her back then? Every sleeve, every time? He wasn’t wrong about that at least. He was wrong about everything else, though. All except one? He’d been out of storage for five minutes and already felt comfortable making sweeping, definitive statements like that. Sleeve-jumping was a skillset they’d all developed, but still. That was a long time to stay down. And to turn up on a planet you’d never been to before? All that and over two centuries down and maybe she would’ve come off ice making the same grave mistakes. Maybe she could make his work in her favor. She just had to make sure that she could keep Takeshi and Elias separate.

She was so busy thinking about all of that, memories going in a relentless playback against the inside of her skull, that she almost didn’t realize that she was still talking with Miriam Bancroft. That part of her was on auto-pilot, or at least it was until she had to get herself the fuck out of there before she landed herself in even deeper hot water.

“Yeah, there’s your kid, there’s your car, and there’s your…” she thought on it for a moment, trying to pick something that felt honest to her feelings in the moment but would still feel like something Police Officer Kristin Ortega would say, not the woman she was back when Takeshi really knew her, “new pet terrorist. You’re welcome,” she added, mostly for good measure, but it also felt good to say it.

“The terrorist can hear you,” he spoke, just barely turning his head to follow her as she continued to walk, but not committing enough to the act to turn his whole body. “I’m standing right here.”

“Yeah, good,” she stared up at him, waiting for him to meet her eyeline, “’cause we’re not done, you and me.”

There was a moment when he was looking down into her eyes that she thought maybe he saw it. Maybe he saw the flicker of the person that he knew once, the person that she was back then. Dozens of sleeves ago but it was still her in most of the ways that mattered. Most, not all. He looked back and forth between her eyes and she waited to see recognition flicker in them. He’d always had that edge to him, after all. It got drilled into all of them during their training but there was something about the way that Takeshi was wired before he even became part of the Envoy core that made him take to it faster and better than most. She envied him for it back then, but maybe now they were more on the same playing field. Or they would be until he got his full footing.

Everyone thought they knew why it bothered her, but still they asked. They were probably hoping for some other nuggets of information, more vitriol about Bancroft and the rest of the meths maybe since she had such an outspoken issue with the lot of them. The rest of the precinct saw her anger and they assumed that it was all because of Ryker. Like she was a woman so simple as that. Elias was part of her frustration with this scenario of course, but the puzzle was so much more complicated than that. It was difficult in ways that she simply couldn’t risk trying to explain to any of them. All of the reasons that she feared Tak and the potential fall-out of him being taken off-stack, were all the same reasons that the rest of the precinct would no longer trust her if they found out the truth about her past.

She’d been born at just the right time, in her opinion. Born late enough to reap all the benefits of a stack, but early enough so that she could manipulate it easily to her benefit when she had needed to most. Data infiltration and manipulation was still easy when you knew the right people and had the right tools, but back then it had been so much easier. It also didn’t hurt that Envoys learned to be on the cusp of it all anyway. All of that was why she was able to wipe her entire past off the record, rewrite it the way that she had wanted to. She created someone who was just enough of a force that she wouldn’t have to water herself down too much, but it was dialed back enough to not get her put on a fucking watchlist. Or even worse, get her thrown into storage off the principle off it. They were all supposed to be masters of disguise, and it had served her well in the aftermath.

She sat in the precinct trying to play over every possible scenario in her head. She wanted to be able to see every possible outcome. If the two of them spent enough time running circles around each other, he was bound to figure it out, right? Figure her out? Eventually the fog would dissipate and he would see her. He’d see past the sleeve. There was no certainty for her in what she thought his reaction to it was going to be if and when that happened. Maybe she could get him thrown back in storage before she had to worry about it. Get Ryker back in his own sleeve. He was so much less of a problem on that front—all that time spent being partners and he still hadn’t even skated close to the chasm of truths that separated them. She hoped it stayed that way—it kept life simpler for the both of them.

Although if Takeshi got his sleeve torn to shreds in the midst of whatever this new deal with Bancroft was, she supposed that none of it would really matter for Elias anyway. What a mess.

She wasn’t surprised, to say the least, when she found him later, strung out and stumbling through the streets. It seemed pretty on-par for Tak—that specific brand of recklessness. For so many years she watched him equate the word Envoy with invincible even though they all knew that it wasn’t the case. It didn’t help that he wasn’t exactly known for his drive for self-preservation. Regardless, the drugs fell in alignment with the Tak she once knew, and she also knew that Ryker’s sleeve would soak them up like a sponge put into a pot of water. A disaster of a marriage.

“Bancroft spent all that money on a nice sleeve for you, and this is what you’re doing with it?” she asked sarcastically as she walked up behind him.

He turned around to face her, a stumble in his step that he was too far gone to even try and hide. “Didn’t think you’d give a fuck about me wasting Bancroft’s money.” He paused, eyes narrowing as his delayed processing caught up with the situation. “You’re following me.”

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “That’s what police do to psycho-terrorists.”

“Come on, you cannot call me that.”

He was stoned out of his mind on, well, it could’ve been just about anything. Or a combination of things. The longer that Kristin looked at him, the more she was certain that she could throw a dart at a board and it would probably land on something that he’d ingested since the last time she saw him. That wasn’t the point. The point was that he was stoned out of his mind and the reason that he was telling her that she couldn’t call him that was because he was being a petulant child, not because by calling him that she would be lumping herself into the exact same group. She knew that it wasn’t nearly that deep and yet she still found herself fighting the urge to flinch at the layers to the comment. Even if she hadn’t caught the physical reaction in time, she wondered if he would’ve even caught it with the state that he was in.

He wasn’t really paying her any mind as he tried to continue on his way. It was hard for him to come off as determined when he couldn’t think straight and he was in a place that he hadn’t ever been before. With each step she took to keep her stride with him, she was trying to separate out all the files in her head. She was trying to keep two neat piles, or even two messy piles if she was being honest with herself: one pile for Elias, and one pile for Takeshi.

She was just as much Envoy as Takeshi was—she could compartmentalize just fine for the most part. But it wasn’t often that she ran into the issue that she was currently facing, one that had so much overlap between sleeve and stack. She’d burned through so many sleeves back then, and continued to go through them albeit at a much slower rate even when she got out of the core. She’d watched others do it too, Envoys and civilians alike. But this wasn’t just putting someone’s stack into a new sleeve and needing to adjust to the new face. This was a face that she knew, the stack that belonged to it still fully intact somewhere in storage, and someone completely different occupying the real estate in the meantime. Someone else that she knew. And it wasn’t as though either of the men who made up the Venn diagram in her head were known for being uncomplicated individuals on their own let alone when they were tethered to each other.

She tried to toe the line with him, anything to get more information out of him. The pendulum swung back and forth between banter and sniping comments. It wasn’t as though either of them had any lasting impact on him. The comments rolled right off—either because of the drugs or the Envoy conditioning, she wasn’t sure.

“What was the other one?” she asked rhetorically as she downed her drink. “Oh, yeah. Icepick. I liked that one.”

“Yeah, that was a good one.” He looked over at her, a hoodedness to his eyes that would’ve almost come off as flirtatious if he’d been sober. “You should call me Icepick.”

She rolled her eyes, using it as a tactic to avert her gaze. “I never called you that,” she muttered, half under her breath.

“What was that?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as if to get a better look at her.

She looked him square in the eyes. “I said I’m not fucking calling you that.” She said it with enough conviction to sell it.

Another smirk, paired with hazy, drug-addled eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

The more that they fired back and forth, the more she wondered if it was possible that she had really changed that much. Apparent assimilation was supposed to be one of the key tools in their toolbox as Envoys, sure. But it was also hard to believe that she had done it so effectively that she was flying completely under Takeshi’s radar. It wasn’t humility—that was never her strong suit the way that charm hadn’t ever been Tak’s. It just didn’t seem to fit. There were so many things that seemed off about the entire situation, but she couldn’t quite name them no matter how much information she tried to pull out of Takeshi about Bancroft, about anything he was willing to give her.

Then there was a sharp sting in the back of her mind as the thought reared its ugly head. He should remember me. Her face scrunched, action unmitigated as she tried to beat the impending spiral of thoughts into submission—she couldn’t afford to lose herself to that right now.

He was already up and making his way towards the door. “I’m going back to my hotel.”

His voice snapped her back to attention. Shooting up out of her seat, she followed him. “You can’t really be staying in that fucking AI hotel.” She shook her head. “They’re like crazy ex-girlfriends, you know.”

He looked down at her as he adjusted the backpack on his shoulder. There was a smirk on his face, one that seemed slightly more intentional this time. “You know a lot about crazy ex-girlfriends, Ortega?”

She scoffed. “Probably not as much as you but—”

He cut her off, a shift in his tone, a seriousness that she could pick up on. “Give it a rest.”

She followed him clean out the door onto the sidewalk, trying not to let herself get discouraged by him ignoring her attempts to walk alongside him or, ideally, get in front of him to stop him. “Kovacs!” she called after him.

Without turning around, he waved at her over his shoulder. “I’m sure I’ll see you around, Officer Ortega.”

She huffed, allowing herself to stop. She whispered loudly to no one other than herself, “Fuck me.”

Takeshi didn’t hide the surprise on his face when she showed up to the hotel later before anyone else in the police department managed to get there. He didn’t get the feeling that she had just been lurking outside the door. If that had been the case, the scenario wouldn’t have played out the way it did, gotten as out of hand as it did. Or maybe it would have—he had no idea how she operated. But she strode in confidently, despite the worry and frustration on her face. She looked around and took in the state of the mess and Takeshi had no choice but to sit there and watch her do so.

“Couldn’t even make it twenty-four hours out of storage without killing someone?” she asked as she walked over to him, gun still clutched tightly in her hand even though it was pointed at the floor.

Poe tried to intervene on Takeshi’s behalf. “If it weren’t for—”

He didn’t want anyone coming to his defense, even when he could do with a little bit of assistance. “Waiting down the block for this to happen?”

She shook her head at him, finally holstering her gun once she was standing in front of him. “Might as well have been.” She looked around the destroyed lobby once more. “Had a feeling trouble was going to follow you.”

“Any trouble that would be following me,” he paused briefly as the red and blue lights of other responding police vehicles started to filter through the front windows and door of the hotel, “should’ve stopped being trouble a few centuries ago.”

She reached out and turned his face to get a better look at the damage, not hesitating to touch him, fingertips still drawn to his chin and cheek like it was still Ryker knocking around inside that sleeve. The tension that resulted from her touch, the momentary fighting against it, reminded her that it wasn’t, but it was too late to take it back.

“Seems like you might be enough of an asshole for it to follow you around for a couple hundred years, Kovacs.”

He grunted, pulling away from her touch, hating the way his sleeve wanted to lean into it despite how badly he was trying to recoil away. “Maybe.”

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck this was all about?”

“Thought you just told me,” he said, rising to his feet so he was towering over her once more.

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Can’t help it. Every sleeve, every—”

“Every time, yeah. Your consistency is admirable,” she snapped.

His eyes narrowed, chin dipping down so that he could study her face. “What—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish his question. The other police officers came storming into the building, guns at the ready despite the fact that there was no more commotion coming out of the hotel. After all, it wasn’t as though there were other guests that were being disturbed. Once they all started taking stock of the situation, their guns disappeared back into their holsters as well. A few of them started peppering Takeshi with questions, although they didn’t seem as enraged about it all as Kristin had been. They stole his attention just long enough for Kristin to glean what she thought she needed from the scene and slip out without him noticing or being able to stop her.

Not only were Tak’s plans for the night effectively ruined by the men who stormed the hotel with every intention to kill him, now he also had Kristin’s words rattling around the inside of his skull like pinballs. She finished his sentence with no hesitation and what was bothering him the most was that he couldn’t say with absolute certainty if he said something while he was high out of his mind or not. He must’ve. There was no other way she would’ve known, no other reason. Or, at least, there would’ve been no other reason that felt at all feasible. The thought crossed his mind, but, no, there was no way that was possible. He’d had too many things happen to him too quickly after getting spun up again, that was all. Morning would come around and he��d had a perfectly good reason for all of it, one that didn’t make him feel insane.

The next time he saw her, she had the same air of confidence about her that she always did. He kept his expression neutral, not wanting her to know that he’d been turning her words over in his head ever since she’d spoken them. He tried to come off as impassive but he could feel the anticipation tightening in his chest, questions that he couldn’t ask and answers that he was in no position to get. He managed to keep his curiosity tamped down until he was dismissed by Bancroft’s lawyer, another situation that had more questions than answers.

He trailed Kristin out, taking no time at all to catch up to her. He was walking alongside her but he wasn’t looking at her. “Gonna need a couple minutes of your time, Lieutenant.”

She forced herself not to look at him either. “As much as I would love to give you a couple minutes of my time, Kovacs, I need to keep looking into who tried to kill you. You know, the thing that you asked me to do about two fucking minutes ago.”

He grabbed the side of her arm and pushed her into the next alleyway that they came across. She started to protest until she felt her back hit the brick wall behind her. He purposely invaded her space, bodies close but not quite touching. He looked down at her, not letting the anger in her eyes unnerve him.

She glared up at him. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“Who are you?” he asked, voice low.

“What?”

“Who—”

“I fucking heard you.” She pushed him away and he gave in, not that she pushed with that much force but he figured maybe it would help get some answers. “You know who I am, Kovacs.”

“No, I don’t. But you seem to know an awful fucking lot about who I am.”

She could see it in his eyes that he was skirting dangerously close to the truth. He would’ve already gotten there if he hadn’t allowed himself to put up a barrier of thinking that there was such a thing as an impossible outcome. Apparently being on ice for a couple centuries dulled the don’t expect anything so that you’re prepared for everything part of their training. Too bad Quell wasn’t around to chastise him for it—he’d undoubtedly enjoy it a lot more coming from her.

“That’s because it’s my fucking job.” She side-stepped, glad that he didn’t make any move to stop her. “Which, I’m trying to go do so that maybe you won’t have another group of mercenaries coming after you.”

“Not gonna keep following me around just in case?” He followed her. “What if—”

“Just call the precinct like everyone else in Bay City,” she told him dismissively.

“Right,” he replied with a chuckle.

Even though he couldn’t see the annoyed look on her face, Kristin was certain that he knew it’s how she looked anyway. “You work your case, if that’s what you want to call it. And I’ll work mine.”

She felt the distance between them growing as he stopped but she kept walking on. He called after her, a smart remark about seeing her soon. He was right, of course. Until they put Takeshi back in storage there was no way that she was going to be able to just keep avoiding him, not with Ryker’s sleeve on the line.

While she knew that there was no getting out of seeing him again, she certainly didn’t expect to see him before the day was out. She definitely didn’t expect him to show up at her apartment door, banging on the dense metal of it like he was a cop with a warrant.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Kovacs?” she asked, too tired to even sound properly annoyed.

“Found out some interesting news today,” he said, brushing past her and into the apartment without waiting for an invitation. He strode down the stairs, taking stock of the place as he went. “Some things that made the picture a whole lot fucking clearer on who you are and what the fuck you’ve been doing.”

Her blood ran cold for a moment. She went down the stairs slower than necessary, thinking maybe it was going to buy her some time. Tak was standing in the middle of the kitchen, palms flat against the top of the island as he leaned against it. His eyes kept darting around the room, taking as much of it in as possible, but they always came back to Kristin.

“I knew it,” he said with a shake of his head once she finally crossed the threshold into the kitchen. “I knew there had to be a reason you were so interested in all of this. And I was right.”

“Were you?” she asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as she could.

“Yeah.” He let himself return to a fully upright position, taking the few small steps to collapse the distance between them. He stared down at her. “When were you gonna tell me that they spun me up into your boyfriend?”

“Ryker is not my boyf—”

“What the fuck, Ortega?”

“What would it have mattered, hm? What would it have changed?”

“Well it would sure fuckin’ explain why so many extra people have it out for me. Can’t imagine cops with records like Ryker’s are exactly known for having a lot of friends.”

“Like I said,” she grit out, “it didn’t matter—wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“Bullshit. You wouldn’t have cared about an Envoy running loose in your city if he wasn’t running around wearing your partner.”

He still hadn’t put those pieces of the puzzle together. Maybe finding out who his sleeve was, the relationship to her, maybe all of that was enough to sate his curiosity about why she was so invested in him. And sure, that was definitely a large part of it. The other part of it was going to make itself reckoned with sooner rather than later—Kristin could feel it deep in her gut. She could chalk it up to Envoy intuition but really at that point it was just common sense.

She paused those thoughts when remembered that she was in the middle of an argument. “That’s not true.”

“Wouldn’t be a priority of yours, though.”

“You don’t know that.”

He retreated farther back into the kitchen, rooting around to get his hands on something, anything that had alcohol in it. “So, what’s Ryker’s deal?” he asked, his head practically shoved into her fridge. “What makes him so special that you’ll run around the city to—”

“He’s my partner,” she said sharply. “It’s what you do for your partner.” She stepped so that she could lean back against the island. “Not that I’d expect you to understand that.”

“Why’s that?” he asked when he found a bottle of clear liquor on the counter. He opened it while he waited for her to answer, pulling a face when he wafted the scent of the alcohol. It’d still do the trick.

She couldn’t give her honest answer, one born from information about the people they were before. She watched him helplessly look through cupboards in an attempt to find a glass. She could’ve made it easier but she was getting a mildly twisted joy out of watching him go through the small struggle. “Being worried for someone else doesn’t seem like it’s your strong suit. Envoy compartmentalization, right?”

He finally found a glass, setting it down on the countertop with a surprising amount of care considering how tired and annoyed he was. He didn’t say anything as he proceeded to pour a hefty serving into it. Bringing the glass to his lips, he downed almost all of it in one go before setting the glass back down with a clatter, a scant amount of liquor still swirling at the bottom.

He let out a sharp exhale as the lingering burn from the alcohol in his throat subsided. “You don’t know anything.”

She wished she knew how to tell him just how wrong he was. Since she didn’t know just how to do that, she settled for, “You’re not as special as you think.”

He finished off what little was left in his glass, leaving it empty on the counter beside the bottle as he went back so that he was standing next to her. She was leaning with her back pressed against the island but he came and stood so that he was facing it again. Instead of placing his hands on top of it, he leaned so that his forearms rested there instead. He clasped his hands, staring at them instead of the countertop as he felt Kristin’s eyes studying him.

“Bet you didn’t talk like that to Ryker.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not him, so I guess it doesn’t matter, right?”

He turned and looked at her. “Make it sound like it’s so easy to separate it out.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”

“Right.”

Despite the instinctive urge to make another snarky comment, he stayed silent. He unclasped his hands, letting his fingertips drum against the smooth surface of the island. It wasn’t a habit that was his own, just the sleeve’s reaction to nicotine withdrawal. He never personally cared for smoking, and if he thought that his stint in this sleeve was going to be a long-term one he would’ve thought about putting in the effort to quit. That just seemed like too much work for too little payoff at the moment.

Kristin heard the familiar tapping of his fingers before she turned to see it. She hated that Elias smoked, always chided him about it. And she knew that Tak’s draw to the nicotine was because of the sleeve, not because of any intrinsic desire. Because of that she was perfectly aware of the fact that she shouldn’t encourage him, but it almost felt like a freebie given the circumstances. She wouldn’t have to tell Elias—he’d never know if she didn’t say anything.

Without a word, she pulled a pack of cigarettes from the back of the top drawer of the island. Elias didn’t think she knew about it, not that it was any great hiding spot.

Takeshi looked quizzically back and forth between her and the pack of smokes. From the second he got spun up all she and everyone else had been doing was chastising him for smoking. It felt like a trick.

She gave the pack a slight shake. “If it’s offered, take it,” she said passively.

His eyes narrowed instantly, his entire body tensing. “What?”

“Take it,” she repeated, “before I change my mind.”

She watched the conflict on his face and chose not to say anything. If he had a question he could ask it, if he had a thought he could share it. But she was done trying to pull information out of him—Tak and Ryker. He was the one who showed up on her doorstep, after all.

“So when you said that I knew you,” he said as he reached and took the pack from her, fingers curling around it and the lighter pinned to the back of it, “you meant that the guy riding my sleeve before me knew you. That any reaction, pull or push, I felt about you had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Ryker.”

She watched him put a cigarette between his lips and spark it to life. She raised her eyebrows, partially because she was surprised by how much she enjoyed watching him do it, but also because she was surprised at how much work he was putting into finding the wrong answer.

Finally, she shrugged when his gaze landed back on her. She watched the smoke curl out from between his lips. “Something like that.”

“What was he like?”

Kristin ignored how he referred to Ryker in the past tense as she chuckled, wondering if he really had any interest in Elias at all or if he just wanted to try and glean something more about her by watching how she spoke about him. Regardless, she decided that she would indulge him in the smallest way possible. “You two would hate each other.” She knew what the follow-up question was going to be so she answered it before he could really ask. “You have the wrong things in common.”

He had an urge to try and get her to elaborate, but he stopped himself. Tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette, he tried to figure out what it was exactly that he really wanted to say to her. He could feel the energy rolling off her in waves. It wasn’t tension, not in the traditional sense. He could feel that there were layers of depth that he hadn’t worked his way into. She was keeping him out. He was stopping himself. He wondered how much of the blame could be put on her, how much of it on him, and how much of it was simply old sleeve memory complicating things for him.

“You must’ve really pissed off Bancroft to get him to do this,” he finally said, gesturing to himself with the hand that was holding the cigarette.

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. Suddenly the empty glass and nearly full bottle of liquor were looking much more inviting than they had been. “You don’t have a monopoly on pissing people off, Kovacs.”

“Stiff competition,” the rebuttal rolled off his tongue easily before he pulled another drag off his smoke.

“Enough years doing anything and you become a professional, right?”

“How many years is that?” he asked outright, forgoing subtlety because there didn’t seem to be much point to it anymore.

She looked over at him. “Enough.”

“Ortega…” he started and then trailed off. He was scratching at the walls of the truth, could hear it rattling around on the other side. He ground out the butt of his cigarette, funneling his frustration into the action before letting it drop from his fingertips.

“Takeshi.” It was only when she said his full name that she realized how long it’d been since she called him that. Using it to talk about him when he wasn’t around was much different than using it while talking to him. Centuries had passed since the last time she used it so casually with him.

He read it all over her face, too. He could see the way that it felt foreign and familiar all at once. It sounded familiar, too. There was something in the tones of the word, undercurrents in his own name that he recognized even if the voice was different. He stared at her intently, head tilting slightly in thought as he tried to look past what he could physically see. He heard her voice from the alley. “You know who I am.”

His eyes widened just slightly as the realization finally began to crash over him. When he spoke again, there was a certainty to his tone that hadn’t been there before. “Kristin.”

She’d been doing nothing but agonizing over what would happen when he realized who she really was, but now that she could see that he had, all she felt was relief. Her shoulders dropped with the lessening of the weight on them.

“That took you a little too long.” She peeled herself away from him, crossing to the counter where Takeshi had left his glass. She refilled it and drank from it herself. “Still got tunnel vision.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice was tight, but there was still a lingering sense of bewilderment to it.

“Well for one thing I didn’t think it was going to take you so fucking long to figure it out.” She poured more liquor into the glass. She let out a quick, quiet wince as the liquor burned down her throat again. “They don’t know.”

He didn’t need to ask her who they were, or what exactly it was they didn’t know. His time off-stack might have been limited this time around but he knew the danger that being known as an Envoy would put her in. “None of them?”

She shook her head, contemplating a third pour. “None of them.”

“Not even—”

“I said none of them.” The relief was starting to disappear, dread slowly starting to take its place, and she poured herself a third helping to cope.

“You think I’ll say something.” It wasn’t a question.

“I think that there are very few things that you have ever cared about, Tak. I know that Bancroft definitely isn’t on that fucking shortlist.” She paused. “I know that I’m not either—never was.”

She looked over at him and she saw the way that there was a flicker of hope in his eyes when she said that last part. He knew she was right, that even back then she was never someone he paid much mind to. His concern had always been Reileen, and then Quell. Apparently a couple hundred years on ice hadn’t dulled his devotion to the latter. Kristin had a feeling that she knew what he wanted to ask, but she was content to make him actually say it.

To her surprise, he didn’t ask anything. “You haven’t heard anything,” he stated.

She shook her head. “No. But I’ve never gone looking.” She could feel the tension in the room thicken at that. “It was a miracle that I made it out. I wasn’t going to waste that by—”

“It wouldn’t have been a waste.”

“Not to you,” she snapped. “You were Quell’s favorite—of fucking course you would’ve gone looking for her. I was just another Envoy. Dispensable. Part of what was offered.” She sighed, forcing herself not to pour another drink. “I managed to survive so I did what we do best. I blended in.”

“Kristin Ortega,” he said her name in its totality, exploring each letter of it with fresh eyes and ears now that he knew who she was.

“Not a far cry from before, no?”

He shook his head. “No.” There were so many things that he could have, and probably should have, asked her, but in that moment he didn’t care about any of it. He easily collapsed the distance so that he was beside her again. He looked at the way her hands were wrapped tightly around the edge of the counter. He copied her position, only his grip wasn’t vice-like the way that hers was. Their pinkies nearly touched. “If we’d been better friends back then, would you have said something?”

That got a scoff out of her that dissolved into a laugh. “There’s no lifetime where the two of us are friends, Kovacs.”

“Not even in this sleeve?” It was teasing, but not cruel.

She turned her head, still having to look up slightly to meet his eyes even though he was leaning onto the counter. “The sleeve was never the problem.”

“This is probably my best shot though, right?”

She smiled and it was genuine even through the exhaustion. Maybe all the liquor was catching up to her. “Probably.”

Neither of them moved. In the thick silence of the apartment, they could each hear the other breathing. They knew enough to know where it could so easily go. It wouldn’t be anywhere good, at least not long-term. But what did long-term even mean for them anymore? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. There was that unspoken mutual understanding, after all, that they were each looking for someone in the other that they weren’t ever going to find. He might’ve been wearing his sleeve but Takeshi was never going to be Elias. And Kristin might’ve lived through the same hardships and lived to tell the tale, she might’ve known the history and the fight, but she wasn’t ever going to be Quell. They looked at each other and saw the truth, but they were both still pining after delusions.

Tak’s hand moved a fraction of an inch, the movement smooth as it caused his hand to brush against hers. She let out a short breath and he could smell the alcohol on it. Her lips parted slightly, like she was going to say something. Maybe she was going to say it was a bad idea, maybe she was going to send him home. Whatever she had been planning to say, he saw it in real time as it fell by the wayside.

She pulled her hand away from his only to reach and place it on the back of his head instead, pulling him closer. His body moved of its own accord. Some of it was just the natural motions of things, but there was also the familiarity of his sleeve and hers, chemical reactions that were innate that he had no control over. For a moment he fought it on the principle of it all, but then he felt the hunger in her, every movement of her lips and tongue against his a taunt to get him to reciprocate in kind.

So he did, grabbing her and placing her up on the counter with ease. She looped her legs around his waist as his grip tightened on her sides. He leaned into her, bodies pressed as tightly together as they could be with the barrier of their clothes still between them. If he wanted to, he could chalk his eagerness up to too many years on ice, an abundance of hormones in a sleeve that had been in the tank, body mechanics operating outside of his control. He could’ve said any and all of those things and none of them would’ve been a lie, per se. But as his hand slid towards the button of her jeans, he knew that the full truth was much, much simpler than that—they were both just taking what was offered.

#altered carbon #altered carbon fanfiction #takeshi kovacs #kristin ortega #takeshi kovacs x kristin ortega #kristin ortega x takeshi kovacs #candyhearts exchange #candy hearts exchange 2024 #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

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ecoamerica · 20 days

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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castalyne · 8 months

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Elias Ryker's big fat slutty energy.

#Elias Ryker #Altered Carbon

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destinedtobeloved · 7 months

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Kristen meets Takeshi for the first time at Alcatraz. He has the same face as Ryker- almost the same smell (minus shitty soap and the rancid floatation gel), the same clothing- everything.

But she looks into his eyes and they are different. His facial expressions are different, and the way he moves is different. It makes her cringe.

They meet, and Takeshi Kovacs scowls and scoffs and makes snarky comments and Kristen almost wants to yell, 'fuck you and fuck this case, and why can't you just be who I wanted you to be?' but when she looks into his eyes, they aren't mean or filled with malice like she had expected, contrary to his venom-filled words.

His eyes droop and are filled with a sadness not even 250 years can clear from a heart that isn't even yours.

'I don't think your mean,' she whispers to herself quietly when she finds him sprawled on the ground in the alleyway, his body slick with sweat, a strange aura surrounding him.

And she looks down at him, frowning when she sees his goddam pretty face again, and she cries later that night for the unfamiliar expression of confusion that's plastered there when he sees her.

'You have sad eyes.'