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starlightvld · 3 months

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Up in Smoke

(Also on AO3)

The first time Ghost rips the cigarette from Soap's mouth, drops it on the ground, and stomps on it as he passes by, Soap is too stunned to say anything for a full ten seconds. They've only been working together consistently for a couple of missions, and even as his superior officer, the audacity of the action floors him.

By the time his brain restarts, Ghost is long gone.

The second time Ghost steals Soap's cigarette, he bursts out in a string of Scottish curses and tackles Ghost from behind before the wanker can drop it on the ground. An impromptu sparring match ensues, fists and curses flying.

Afterward, he doesn't feel much like a cigarette anymore — not with the split lip, anyway. Besides, the buzzing under his skin that usually drives him to smoke is just... gone.

Price catches wind of the incident, of course, and calls them into his office a few hours later. By that time Soap has calmed down enough to be... maybe not okay with it, but at least able to see the humor.

"What's this about you muppets scuffling by the smoking area?"

"Just a little sparring to blow off steam," Soap says.

"Ghost?"

"Nothin' to worry about, Captain."

"No? I've got one soldier who looks like he just got back from a bar fight, and the other..." He squints at Ghost. "He get a hit in on you, too?"

"Yeah," Ghost replies in that deadpan tone of his. "Coupla black eyes."

It's a joke.

Ghost is telling a joke. And it's objectively not funny. It's not. But Soap bursts into hysterical laughter all the same.

The corners of Ghost's blacked-out eyes crinkle.

Price rubs his temples before dropping his hand on his desk. Soap presses his lips together to contain his laughter.

"Sparring happens in the gym. I'm sure you know the place. It's where we have things like mats and gloves. I catch you two bare-knuckle fighting again, and you will regret it."

And it's enough to sober Soap up. He avoids Ghost as he ducks away to catch dinner.

The third time... well, no. He supposes that's really the fourth time.

Because the actual third time, Soap had come back from a shit mission where everything went wrong. Intel was faulty, exfil was delayed, and people under his command died. It didn't happen as often in SAS as it had in the regulars — the soldiers here were well-trained and hard to kill — but that made it all the worse.

When Ghost tried to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, Soap growled.

"Back the fuck up, Lt. Or Price is gonna be disappointed in both of us."

Ghost paused, and their eyes met. Slowly, Ghost lowered his hand.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Fuck no."

"Thank God."

Soap didn't have it in him to even huff a laugh. He took a long drag and blew the smoke away from Ghost as a peace offering.

To his surprise, Ghost didn't leave. He spun around and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. They stood there together, utterly silent, as Soap let the heat and sting in his lungs soothe the beast inside that wanted to rip the world apart.

When he was done, though, he was surprised to find he didn't want another. Usually after shit missions, he'd stand there and smoke half a pack before his hands would stop shaking.

He finally met Ghost's eyes. The man quirked a barely visible brow.

"S'pose we should take it to the mats this time?"

Ghost pushed off the building and started walking. Soap followed like a lost child looking for a way home.

The fourth time is in Chicago. His hands are shaking not from losing soldiers but from almost losing his own life. The cigarette trembles in his grip as he stands outside the bar, the biting wind turning his fingers and probably his lips blue. He lifts it to his mouth, inhaling deep—

And then it's gone.

The whine that bubbles up from his gut and bursts from his throat is nothing short of humiliating. But God. God. He needs it.

"Not now. Please, Ghost."

"Why?"

Ghost hasn't thrown the cigarette down. Yet. He cocks his head to the side and gives Soap a long look. Soap can only tremble from the cold and a need that goes deeper than a simple hit of nicotine.

"I just... I need it."

The cigarette drops to the ground, but Soap doesn't have time to lament the loss before that same hand is curling around Soap's neck and pulling him into a fucking massive chest. The other arm comes around Soap's shoulders and...

Ghost just stands there, holding him. And Soap can't help melting into the warmth and solidity of the man who saved his life just hours ago. He dares to curl in deeper. To raise his hands and clutch at Ghost's jacket. To let a few, silent tears escape his tight control.

Finally, his muscles relax. Ghost must feel it, because he turns and leads Soap back toward the bar.

"Why do ye even care?" Soap mumbles from his spot tucked into Ghost's side.

"Because those things'll kill ya."

Soap supposes the "I like you alive" is implied at this point.

Soap loses count after Chicago. He gets stretches of days when Ghost is on a solo op or out with one of the other operators when he can smoke in peace. So he does.

At first.

He's been hooked since he was a rebellious teen trying to make his mark on the world. He's tried to quit multiple times, but it never seems to stick. The first bad mission or adrenaline-filled near miss and he's back at whatever smoking spot he can find, puffing away.

He finds himself trying to cut back, though, even when Ghost is away.

Any time Ghost is on base, all bets are off. In addition to darting by and making a grab for it or sneaking up behind him and flicking it out of his hands, Ghost has gotten more creative. Sometimes Soap will pull out a cigarette only to find he's "lost" his lighter. Sometimes the cigarettes themselves go missing — he clutches his chest and mourns all that wasted money whenever a whole pack disappears.

He supposes it's all just going up in smoke anyway, though.

He should be angry. But in truth, it's almost a relief to hand over the reins to Ghost. To let the man help him by annoying the shit out of him until he wants to give up on it entirely.

Which is definitely the point. Ghost has made that perfectly clear.

So, whenever he gets the urge to calm his racing thoughts or overactive mind with a cigarette, he finds Ghost and annoys him instead. They talk, or spar, or simply sit in silence together, doing their own thing. Ghost doesn't often touch him — their moment in Chicago is still the closest Soap's ever gotten to the elusive Ghost — but he also doesn't push Soap away when he slumps into Ghost's side after a hard day or leans over his back when he's sitting at the table in the 141's common area on base.

The urge doesn't go away, of course. And sometimes, when things get really bad, Ghost will just sit or stand with him like he did the third time. Still, he finds himself smoking less and hanging out with Ghost more.

The last time Ghost steals a cigarette from Soap, he simply stands beside Soap and holds out his hand. Soap immediately knows something has gone terribly wrong. Still, he's too invested in the game now to not hand the cigarette over.

He nearly keels over when Ghost pulls up his mask and takes a long, hard drag. Soap watches in fascination as his cheeks hollow, his neck muscles strain, his lips curve around the paper. It's erotic in a way he really shouldn't be thinking about in regards to his emotionally unavailable superior officer, but the knowledge hasn't stopped him yet. Since that day in Chicago — probably before if he's honest — he's only ever wanted to be closer.

Ghost coughs a little and hands the cigarette back.

"Fuck. Just as disgusting as I remember."

"Ye used to smoke, then?"

"Before I joined up, yeah. Hated it, though."

"The smell? Or—"

"Everything. The taste, the smell, the heat..." Ghost trails off, his hand rubbing over his bicep in a strangely specific way. He shakes his head and looks back at Soap. "Not your problem, Johnny. Forget about it."

Soap's hand is darting out, fingers curling into Ghost's jacket, before he's properly thought through the action. Ghost pauses before turning back. They stare in silence for a moment until—

Soap stubs out the half-burned cigarette and drops the butt in the trash. He licks his lips. Glances up at Ghost. The mask is still sitting on his nose, and Soap stares at his lips for longer than he should before pulling the pack out of his pocket and throwing it in the trash, too.

"Cannae have ye thinking I stink, can I?"

"Too late."

But Ghost's throat bobs with a hard swallow. Soap wets his lips, takes a step closer, and uncurls his fingers to slide his hand up Ghost's chest until his fingertips are resting on Ghost's shirt collar.

"I dinnae think it is."

Ghost turns and walks away. Soap closes his eyes and drops his hand, internally cursing his impulsive behavior. The scuffing of boots walking away from him is like nails on a chalk board.

Until they stop, and a gruff voice calls out, "You comin'?"

A slow smile slides across Soap's mouth. "No' yet."

A huff — exasperation? laughter? a bit of both? — before, "Better get movin' then."

And Soap has never been more glad to follow an order.

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thelassoway · 7 months

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Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso Seasons 1-3 » T-shirts

#Ted Lasso #Theodore Lasso #Jason Sudeikis #*mine: gif #tedlassoedit #ugh you idiot with that face #stop staring at me swan #I think I got all the T-shirt moments for Ted. Can you guess the two scenes I forgot and had to go back and add???#I've also kept these in order of season/episode appearance and it feels kind of telling #not quite sure how I'm feeling about these and how they turned out #these are all from 2160p video files (I've only worked with 2160 one other time) and the timing of these frames looks off #I did my best to fix and readjust them #to the 5 to 8 people that read these tags let me know if I should keep trying/working with 2160p or just stick with 1080p #can we see a major difference in the image quality? I'm using all my same edit settings here #@chainofclovers I saw your tags about the black Joe Arthur shirt I was/have been thinking the same thing #I'm glad I got my o.g. laptop to power up to finish this gifset (definitely a power button issue)#will I ever make that mirror gifset idea??? probably not but I got a couple of mirror moments here #I almost used the other mirror moment from episode 7 but I wanted a different angle/view #this gifset could've been a lot more of Ted in bed wearing T-shirts tbh #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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whynotimtired · 2 years

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The best part of Will saying he wants forever with Mike so blatantly is that he isn't the one who brought it up, Mike was. In an act of projection he asks "What did you think? That we'd actually get to be together forever? When we're both boys?" and will says yes. He says yes, and Mike immediately regrets it.

#not even going to get into how earth shattering it was for me to make that reference #i didnt even realize that's what i was writing until halfway through #he said yes. he said yes. (it was the worst thing I'd ever done.)#accidentally implying he doesnt also want forever with Will #gonna scream #this is so stupid dkndnd i just woke up #byler #will byers #byeler #mike wheeler #stranger things #mike wheeler is gay #AND KNOWING THAT WHEN WILL MOVED ALL MIKE DID FOR A FULL MONTH WAS LOCK HIMSELF IN HIS BASEMENT AND PLAY VIDEO GAMES #LIKE #IT CANNOT GET MORE BLATANT THAN THIS #will 'i want forever with you' byers and el 'hes my first boyfriend' hopper #also imagine how much white hot rage mike felt when will said 'you called maybe a couple times' when mike called CONSTANTLY-#and will NEVER called him back #i hate the roller rink scenes they both think that theyre being ignored and dropped by the person who they care about most in the world #& the idea that once mike finally got on the right page and understood what the painting & the speech meant. WILL flew to a whole diff BOOK #mikes like holy shit he loves me this is all ive ever wanted & then wills over here like TELL HER YOU LOVE HER CAUSE YOU'LL NEVER LOVE ME #mike 'I thought my wants were something i had to grow out of. i thought i you would never love me the way i do you so i tried to move on-#but YOU want ME?? YOU want forever with ME? Then i want it with you.'

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canisalbus · 6 months

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If Machete and Vasco were roommates before they became a couple, there had to have been moments of innocent touching/body contact, followed by deep gay panic.

#I think the transition from platonic friends to a couple was very gradual the line was blurry #even if they weren't a proper serious item yet their relationship was definitely romantically tinted #by the time they rented that tiny attic room together #Vasco had figured out his orientation early on he was well past the identity crisis phase #Machete had mountains of religious trauma to work through so his road to self acceptance was rocky but he did reach it eventually #he guilt and shame and doubt kept resurfacing every now and then but the need for love and companionship was stronger #Vasco is naturally tactile and affectionate it doesn't take much to get an occasional hug or back pat or hand holding from him #and Machete had grown in a touch deprived bubble so as soon as he managed to overcome the initial fear and repulsion #he began to metamorphose into the lap dog he probably should've been all along #casual physical closeness was present even before things got lovey-dovey but that doesn't mean there weren't moments of gay panic #answered #skunkbomb

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viviiyon · 4 months

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Okay some more doodles + additional stuff about that silly little au thing i made- (first post here)

okay so first things first what i'd got so far on how i'd think this au would be able to work (just a simple quick explanation aa

- I'd like to think after the final right of the UT true pacifist route, Clover was able to retain some monster magic (just a reeeaal small-almost negligible amount from everyone) and that's what would allow their soul to have a stable/""liveable"" form (sorta)

- As for the other human souls i'd leave that up to interpretation, if you'd like you can probably imagine the same thing would apply for the rest, but it could also work that clover's the only one that ended up this way because they were the closest to "flowey as flowey" so something something make of that what you will (who knows maybe it could be an unfinished business thing lmao-

**to be frank i mostly just made this au quite literally when i was carsick and fell asleep while listening to uty ost and i dreamed it up and uhh hand slipped-

ALSO since this would take place post UT pacifist, they’d probably stay with Martlet in the meantime-

Mmmm anyways do feel free to ask me anything if you’d like (or request any doodles related and i’ll probably make more stuff of it ee- >:’DD

#undertale yellow #undertale yellow fanart #undertale yellow au #ghost! clover au #uty #uty fanart #clover uty #uty clover #uty flowey #martlet uty #ut yellow #i did think of a couple other things but i didn’t get to drawing that yet #maybe in a different post another time aa #pleeeaaase talk to me about uty ouaaa

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rythyme · 6 months

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really not a fan of boston very explicitly saying "I want to be exclusive romantically but not sexually" only to be told "You're lying to yourself. I think you should be alone."

#like... p'jojo. you gave us 3wbf??? what's going on bud #only friends the series #ofts #am i misinterpreting boston? did I miss something? is this just a poorly executed representation of something else entirely??#idk this really just did not sit well with me #i love pretty much everything else in this show so i'm disappointed that this was the last thing we got #bc I've been saying this the whole time!! boston DOES want a romantic relationship and he's spent the whole show coming to terms with that #he really does love nick #and he wants romantic exclusivity (see: Boston getting upset and jealous when Nick is with other people)#but physical stuff doesn't need to have the same exclusiveness for him and that's literally fine #idk i just wish that last conversation had been written slightly differently. a couple different wordings could have fixed it all for me #like if Nick had SAID ''i can't do a non-exclusive relationship but i hope you find someone someday who wants that with you''#that would have been fine #not ''i think you should be alone''#idk. just really sat wrong with me #lgbt drama #thai drama #theo.txt #100

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br-disaster · 9 days

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growing old together...

#nie mingjue #nie huaisang #niecest #i always think about this little scenario #mingjue regaining his consciousness and getting to watch huaisang growing old; older than he and their father ever got to be #maybe older than every nie sect leader before them #and being happy to be able to witness that #and to be by his side until the very end #it doesn't need to be niecest; it totally works with their canon dynamics #but i did have the little 'couple growing old together' image in my head when i painted this so it is niecest #even if mingjue won't change #which is also quite romantic i think #old man huaisang should stop and stare at his permanently 30yo brother and go feel all sorts of things

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 8 months

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if you would all allow me to be delusional for a moment - so i went back to staring Very Hard at the neighborhood map and. um. well. im chucking my marbles out the window! as always take all of this with a Hefty grain of salt!

i thought i saw a weird pixel in Frank's window so i zoomed in. then i took a screenshot, and fucked with the contrast/brightness settings. and uhhhhhh

UHHHHHH

FRANK??? HELLO???? HE'S IN THERE? i'm pretty sure im Not seeing things bc that is definitely a vague gray tube-outline with a yellow spot in the shape of Frank's nose. hidden in the dark. and i might be seeing things but in the pane next to his face it kinda looks like his hand is on the window? but! Frank's in there! what the fuck!

so naturally i slowly scrolled through the neighborhood Zoomed The Fuck In. obvi there's nothing in Home's eyes, and Barnaby's & Sally's single visible windows(?) are closed. I couldn't find any out-of-place pixels in Julie's or Poppy's.

but! Eddie's kinda freaked me out a little! look at this shit!

on the top left pane... are those fingerprints pressing into the glass? and in the lower left, is that a fucking Face peering out? a creepy ass face that almost looks like some sort of mask? there seems to be another Shape in the upper right... another face perhaps?

and then there's the weird window shine in the lower right (along with maybe Another face...). it almost looks like a string of letters. there isn't a single pattern/design like that anywhere else in the neighborhood. what's up with that....

oh and also, just went back to double check the post office's display window

there seems to be another face - all the way to the right in the darkness. judging by the shape of the paler (yellowish?) pixels between what must be eyes, i think that's Eddie. and i think i see ears and a hat... not sure though. this one is really tough to see but it's There

(side note: Eddie is totally fucked, isn't he? between the faces(?) and hands behind his door, Home sitting in his display, and the hyacinths by his building, the emphasis on his memory (or lack-thereof) in a project that is, in a sense, About memory... i'm concerned! and eating it tf up! hell yeah lets get funky!)

now i couldn't see any, like, concrete Faces or anything in Howdy's store. but! you can kinda see inside! observe~

in the big open window, you can kinda make out some sort of container on a counter and what might be shelves or a kind of brick pattern. and then above the 100% sign... hold on are those fuckign Eyes? lets take a look zoomed in & without the image adjustments!

yeah those uh. i think those are eyes. Wally-esque eyes peering out of the darkness. though they also mildly remind me of eyespots on insect wings. butterfly eyespots, perhaps. inch resting indeed...

WAIT I LIED!!! there DOES seem to be another string of letter-like symbols in the neighborhood, not just the post office's window shine. now it could be just a wild coincidence, but at the same time it seems kind of... purposeful. like that's not normal shading/coloring.

check out the blue window border on Howdy's Place, next to the apples. the lighter blue pixels seem Arranged. i think i see a clear N, and either an R or a P... along with some other symbols that i don't recognize as anything. the lower ones look kinda like faces? what could the top one be? is any of it anything or am i looking too hard?

in short: they're watching us watch them and there's way more to the map than initially meets the eye....

(edit: i've added a reblog w/ the images outlined! badly outlined but a clearer View of what i see nonetheless! + some notes on more little things outlining helped me notice)

#throttling my laptop WHAT DOES IT MEAN??? WHAT DOES IT MEANNNNNNN #got a little spooked there ngl....#noticing the faces(?) in eddie's gave me a lil startle. got a little chill up my spine #I LOVE IT!#im gonna be reeling over this all night....#the implications! the arising questions!! the Choices!!!#frank and eddie being the only ones with their faces in their windows (plus a couple extra)#eddie and howdy having letters/symbols(?) on their buildings #THE EYES IN HOWDY'S STORE!!!#i feel like these are important misplaced pieces of a puzzle i havent even opened yet #god and like. tiny home in eddie's window yeah but that With the eyes in howdy's store?#both buildings - both Stores! - seeming to have hidden letters on them??? WHAT DOES IT MEANNNN #of course i could be just plain insane and seeing things #but some of it.... ough i dont think i am fellas #welcome home speculation #wh speculation #homebogging #ive been meaning to Examine the updated map.... not much Changed or caught my attention but a few things did #why does barnaby have a carton of milk outside his house? something to do with the phrase 'no use crying over spilled milk'?#the flower patch behind julie's house is Oddly green.... kinda reminds me of a body dump #that plus the red thing next to the bowling ball (a ribbon? scissors? something else?) makes me Suspicious #along with a mildly delusional Theory i've had since my first good Examining Of The Map (before the update!)#but thats not what this post is about #theres just. theres interesting things in there!#thank you for reading! i need to go Think about this all....#im feeling the urge to up the contrast/brightness of Every Single Slightly Dark image on the site <3

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sysig · 6 months

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I can't remember if you've done any drawings for this before, sorry, but I have a requestober prompt! Vargas ladyverse snake charmer au? Or ladyverse dryder au Scri, I feel like the potential for pretty spiderweb clothes is high there. I would request both, but I want to respect the rules ^^ Thank you!!

Day 27 - Skillfully spun sheer shawl

#My art #Requestober #Vargas #Scriabin #Spider #So fun fact: I did do a couple Ladyverse!Snake Charmer!Scriabin doodles but they were just concept sketches so I never posted them #I still have at least one Ladyverse!SC idea written down but I haven't done anything with it lol #I never made it as far as Ladyverse!SC as a drider but then you said ''fashion'' and that's one of my sleeper words I Can't Not lol #I may have gone a little extra on this one but I was excited! I got sidetracked with those stones in the BG lol #Rock textures are still very fun ahh I can't help myself #The whole thing is extra! The web-cloth needed to contrast against her skin so I needed the directional lighting so I needed the background #Every step needed the next! It was decently fun tho #Not in small part of getting to look at some Acanthoscurria Geniculata <3 #Funny actually haha; my step-sister went to the zoo recently and there was That Specific Species of tarantula there!#She took a picture for me :) Cute #Pretty spider <3 And pretty drider!#I'm still very normal about Lady!Scriabin >.> And backs lol they're fun to draw!#You'll notice under the webbing she's wearing a similar top to what I drew Classic!Drider Scriabin in that one time #This one's a halter-top tho :) Leather halter top haha #I think it breaks up the shapes nicely :D #And her little urticating hairs poking through the webbing hehe ♪ She's very cute! Very pretty :)

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tennessoui · 7 months

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I'm begging on my hands and knees for more Twilight au, and those are words I never thought I'd say! Anakin being able to resist compulsion, and Obi-Wan seeming instantly obsessed, and poor Shmi! Pretty please 🥺🙏

hey!! sure! here's some more!

(2.5k)

Having a sheriff for a mom sucked a lot when he was a kid growing up in a small town. There was probably nothing Anakin was rebelling against more at eleven, at thirteen, at seventeen than the rule of law his mother represented.

All things considered, she was pretty good at separating her home life from her worklife. It was Anakin who was bad at respecting the separation, Anakin who couldn’t keep son out of delinquent. There’s only so many times he could be pulled out of wreckage and bars and buildings with Keep Out No Trespassing signs on them before he got The Sheriff at home and out in public.

He’d hated it growing up and had come to grudgingly respect it later and in fits and starts. His dad dying had, terribly and ironically, helped a lot. His mother had had a stroke just before and then Anakin had been faced with the possibility of being an orphan, and the terror of that had mellowed him out.

Sorta.

He still hates a lot of things about his mother’s job. Especially the fact that she’s the sheriff of a very small town.

And when people talk, she listens.

The thing about small towns is that everyone’s always fucking talking. And other people are always fucking lsitening so they can talk later. One big fucking community, which means when Anakin comes home from his weird doctor’s appointment with Dr. Kenobi, a few hours later because he took a detour biking along the edge of the seaside cliffs just to spit in the good doctor’s metaphorical face, Shmi Skywalker already knows more than Anakin ever planned to tell her.

Like, for instance, “Sheila says that Dr. Kenobi thought it would behoove you to spend some time at the local library volunteering.”

Anakin pauses, backpack half-slung off his shoulders. He hangs his stuff up slowly, careful to keep his tone very light. “Did Sheila say what I told him after he said that?”

His mom’s silence is very loud.

“I don’t want to do i—”

“I asked the new librarian about it on my way home from the station. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Apparently we used to have a program like that in the forties but it died out during the war.”

“Mom, come on—”

“It’ll look good on resumes, saying you created and supported a local reading program.”

“Yeah, but I’m a bit too old to be applying for babysitting positio—”

“It’ll look good for me as well,” Shmi says in her sheriff voice. “Elections are coming up soon. It’ll be good, if my kid was involved in the community.”

Anakin’s glad that his back is still turned to the living room, where his mom is sitting. “Are you gonna run again?” he asks, paying special attention to his tone this time.

“Why wouldn’t I?” his mom replies. “I’ve been sheriff for a decade and a half.”

Anakin lets his eyes fall closed for a second, knowing that his face can’t be seen. This is how they end up half the time: Shmi’s ardent belief that she is invincible, going up against Anakin’s desperate desire for her to be so.

And they just don’t talk about it. As if they’re actually in agreement.

He knows how this is going to shake out.

“Do you have any plans tomorrow?” His mother asks.

Anakin’s eyes remain closed. “I guess so,” he says.

—--------

Mrs. Kenobi—call me Satine—is sort of scary up close. She’s tall. She glides between bookshelves. Anakin’s never met someone who glides before. And she’s so intensely, incredibly, blindingly perfect that Anakin would rather be anywhere but in her vicinity. There’s something incredibly unnerving about the symmetry of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones. She’s obviously an absolute knock-out, just drop-dead gorgeous, but it makes Anakin’s skin crawl and his heart beat fast, but not in a good way or a normal teenage boy way.

Anakin tries to keep the unease off his face as Satine leads him through a tour of the library, a gentle hand on his forearm. That’s another thing Anakin doesn’t really like. She’s wearing satin gloves. He doesn’t know anyone who wears gloves anymore.

It’s just all a bit…unsettling.

“I put in a few words around the school yesterday afternoon,” Satine tells him. They pass by the mystery section, the fantasy section, and take a hard right into the young adult section. The shelves are smaller here, and Anakin feels rather stupidly gigantic as he and Satine walk through them. “To some parents picking their children up after school. They agreed it would be good exposure to bring them to the library for an hour or so of reading before supper.”

Anakin highly doubts it will be, but Satine hasn’t really asked him.

She sweeps past his figure and pushes open a pair of double doors with a flourish better suited for a Russian tsarina hosting an elaborate ball than a small town librarian showing off a small, cramped, and dusty room filled with padded seats and threadbare rugs.

And then, as if she has been waiting to put the last nail in the proverbial coffin, Satine adds, “A few students from the local high school will be here as well.”

“Sorry,” Anakin says, “are you saying I’m going to be reading to high school students? Can’t they do that themselves?”

After all, Anakin went to high school here. Academics hadn’t been too rigorously challenging, but they’d taught the fucking basics.

Satine raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow in his direction. “They’ll be volunteering as well.”

Oh. Right.

“It looks good on their college applications,” Satine waves a hand through the air and the words linger there. Anakin looks out the rather dirty window, jaw clenching. “I’ve already chosen a handful of books I think the young ones will enjoy.”

Anakin, committed to his fate, pads over to the titles placed carefully ontop of a short, stout side table.

“Peter the Rabbit,” he reads off the top. “Peter Pan. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Prince and the Pauper—look, you’re the librarian here, but don’t you have anything written this century maybe? Harry Potter, even.”

“These are classics,” Satine tells him, her nose raised into the air as if she has encountered something particularly foul-smelling. She turns away, presumably to return to the front desk so she can welcome half the fucking town inside the library so Anakin can read them fucking Anne of Green Gables and become a better person.

“These are fucking boring,” he mutters to himself, flicking the cover of the first book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz open. Publication date: 1900. “I’d rather be in Kenobi’s office getting lectured at.”

There’s a sharp noise of disapproval from the doorway, and Anakin’s head snaps up to see the tail end of a very heated look from the librarian before the door closes behind her.

He shivers, alone in the emply room, and it takes several long minutes for his heart to settle back into its normal pace.

—----------

After the fourth kid sneezes, Anakin closes his book with a snap and stands from the very small chair they’ve got him sitting on. “Come on,” he tells the cluster of children he’s been assigned to. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Are you kidnapping us?” One of them, a snot-nosed kid who’d started the sneezing says, rubbing at her cheek beneath her glasses. “Cause mommy says that’s not allowed.”

“I’m not kidnapping you,” Anakin snaps back, barely holding in his natural follow-up to the sentence which is of course, I don’t want to be around any of you in the first place. “Also, just for future reference, you shouldn’t ask if someone’s kidnapping you after you already start following them.”

The girl scowls and reaches up her hand to hold onto Anakin’s.

For the love of Christ.

“We’re just going to go into the main part of the library,” Anakin tells his children, all six of them. “They have windows out there.”

They have windows out there and they also have parents. Parents who absolutely should be doing other things with their lives and precious hour of extra freetime.

Parents who are clustered instead around the library’s front desk as the town’s newest librarian holds court.

“Is reading time over?” one of the kids asks him, turning his head to look up at Anakin.

Anakin thinks about it. “Do you want reading time to be over?”

The kid thinks about it back. “Yeah,” he decides. “You don’t do the voices good.”

“It’s a boring book,” Anakin tells the kid. “Voices aren’t going to make it better.”

“Voices always make it better,” another kid says. “They make everything better.”

“Oh look,” Anakin says. “Is that your father?”

He gestures vaguely towards the cluster of drooling middle-aged somethings focused on Satine.

The kid peeks around his thigh and then shakes his head. “No,” he says. “That’s Dr. Obi.”

“Dr. Obi!” The kid holding Anakin’s hand says, and she lets go.

Anakin gets a bad feeling about this, a feeling that only doubles when he turns around to see Dr. Kenobi sauntering towards him, hands tucked into the pockets of a long dark jacket that makes him look even more pale than he already is.

He scowls automatically as the man gets closer. “Dr. Obi.”

Dr. Kenobi spares him a look that’s far too amused for Anakin’s pleasure before he crouches down to the level of the kids. “Hello there, young ones,” he says, opening his arms to accept a hug from the traitor of a girl Anakin’s just spent thirty minutes reading to. “Are you eating all your vegetables? Even the brussel sprouts?”

“I like brussel sprouts,” one of the kids reports sounding proud, and that starts a cacophony of opinions about brussel sprouts from all around Anakin.

“Wow! One of mine just absolutely hates them,” Dr. Kenobi says. “She refuses to eat them, so you’re very brave, Michele.” He lets go of the girl and turns his golden-brown gaze up to Anakin. “And what does Mr. Skywalker think?” he asks, raising a hand for Anakin to take. It’s very obvious he’s asking for a hand up and Anakin is obeying before he thinks about it. He snatches his hand free almost too soon, but Dr. Kenobi doesn’t even have the grace to lose his balance and fall over.

His hand is like ice in Anakin’s, and Anakin stuffs his fingers into the pocket of his jacket automatically a second later.

“Do brussel sprouts help with circulation?” he’s biting out before he can stop himself. “Cause you may need some then.”

Kenobi’s head tilts very slightly to the side as his eyes catch and hold onto Anakin’s. “Oh?” he asks lightly.

“You’re cold,” is all Anakin mutters in return. He swipes his other hand against the back of his neck. “”S poor circlutation, isn’t it? Something in your diet maybe?” Dr. Kenobi blinks at him and then breaks into a wide smile. “I can assure my diet is very…circulation-mindful,” he says. “Blood health positive.”

Anakin’s mouth thins into a line. He guesses that’s what he gets for trying to give health advice to a doctor, especially a doctor like Kenobi who just so happens to be devastatingly attractive and also smart.

And also an asshole. And also married.

Speaking of which. “Are you here to fend off your wife’s admirers with a scalpel?” Kenobi’s eyebrows raise. “Young ones,” he turns his head away from Anakin, down to the children.

The strangest feeling breaks of Anakin the second Kenobi looks away, almost as if a strange pressure he hadn’t even realized had been building was suddenly dissolved.

The very small beginnings of a headache begin to thrum in his temples.

“Young ones, it’s time to find your parents, isn’t it?” Kenobi says, and like fucking magic, the crowd of six children around Anakin disperse, children swarming away from him towards the group of adults surrounding the front desk.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Anakin blurts out, even though he’d meant to ignore Kenobi now that he doesn’t have to make nice in front of small kids. Not that he was really making nice in the first place. But now he definitely doesn’t have to.

Kenobi gives him a half-smile, eyes heavy-lidded. “It’s a special sort of skill that takes, above all else, much practice.”

Anakin scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Does Kenobi think he can’t commit himself to something even as mundane as a fucking commanding persona? Does he think he doesn’t have it in him to be–-

Kenobi’s eyebrows go up again. “Has anyone ever told you that you are exceedingly defensive?”

“You’re extremely nosey,” Anakin snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t you have better things to focus on right now anyway?”

He gestures loosely towards Satine, who has started playing with one of the mother’s bracelets as the other woman stands and looks at her rather dumbfounded.

Kenobi follows his gaze and then lets out a huff of laughter. “Satine can take care of herself,” he says, even though it hadn’t really been Satine that Anakin was worried about.

He’s about to open his mouth to say so when Kenobi turns back to him. His eyes are piercing, a dark, captivating sort of gold.

“Do you find my wife beautiful, Anakin?” he asks.

Anakin blinks. His headache is getting worse, which is probably down to what can only be a trick-question fashioned to look like a grenade lobbed at his feet. “I don’t think there’s a good answer to that,” he mutters, rubbing absently at his forehead. “What the fuck.”

“An honest answer is a good one,” Kenobi says lightly. “Tell me honestly.”

The words feel pulled from Anakin’s stomach, and he’s opening his mouth before he realizes it. “No,” he says.

Kenobi’s eyebrows crinkle together. “No?”

Anakin curses his stupid impulse control. “She’s beautiful,” he adds quickly. “Really. But…it makes me uncomfortable.”

Kenobi’s lips purse, and then there’s something like disappointment in his eyes as he examines Anakin. “Ah yes,” he murmurs. “I’ve been told my wife can make countless young men feel rather uncomfortable. It’s normal in men your age, Anakin. Sexual ar—”

“Uncanny,” Anakin blurts out. He doesn’t mean to, but he also doesn’t want to listen to Kenobi trying to lecture him on fucking arousal in the public library. When it’s not even relevant. “She’s so beautiful, it’s uncanny.”

“Uncanny.”

“Yeah, like. Monstrous.”

Kenobi’s mouth falls open, pink lips parted in what looks like honest surprise.

Anakin’s own eyes widen as it hits him that he’s just called Kenobi’s wife a monster to Kenobi’s face.

“Shit,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m going to go.”

He throws a look at Kenobi, whose eyes are lit with something a lot like interest and then across the library to where Satine’s head is turned, cocked, and eyebrows up high on her forehead, as if she’s just heard everything he’s said.

He decides rather immediately that he’s going to take the backdoor exit.

#asks #twilight au #obikin #a couple of things:#all the books mentioned are published before 1920 because satine was probably a young mother around that time #imo she became a vampire during ww1 #brussel sprouts tasted very bitter in the 60s through the 90s before we tweaked how they were grown genetics wise #so kids used to hate them and one of the vampires in obi-wan's coven was a kid during the 60s so has strong memories of brussel sprouts #being awful #satine's special vampire power is her beauty which is like double that of the normal enthralling/alluring/perfect predator beauty #so anakin's own sort of immunity to vampire powers a la bella means he just finds it unnerving and uncanny #but he did fall prey to obi-wans mind trick at the end there because the immunity thing i think would be something he has to practice #to get strong at #so his immunity kicked in at satine's beauty and it didn't affect him #but he couldn't also effectively protect himself from obi-wan's mind compulsion #to tell the truth #because systems overloaded

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cj-kenobi · 3 months

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"You wear fine things well, Cody."

based on this post from @lightasthesun!

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mindshelter · 2 years

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speaking as someone who wasn't part of the DC fanbase in the 2000s by virtue of being a small child, can you. fucking imagine. what it was like to be a fan of tim and kon back then. nothing huge, they'd be cute together now that they've grown out of their past antagonism and are now the best! of friends! who support each other -- tim assures kon of his own humanity, refers to kon as family. kon, in turn, helps tim shoulder the grief of losing jack and is notably territorial over tim's status as robin. aw, that's sweet--

and then kon fucking dies, as one does. crosses the wrong rainbow bridge. body's going cold by the time tim reaches him. they were his colours.

and then, for the next few years, you're periodically hit with the most deranged content possible. what happens next far, far exceeds whatever inhinged nonsense DC's own timkon fans could have come up with. tim is pretending to be coping well, and a full year later, he is in fact coping so well that he's trying clone or ressurrect kon through any means possible. this brings him (and the titans) in direct opposition against the brotherhood of evil, whose leadership consists of, wait for it, a gay gorilla and his gay lover, a gay brain in a jar. their gay evil goal is to give the brain in a jar a new body so they can live happily ever after. tim is quietly devastated when their attempt at cloning Brain said new body fails. their final appearance in that issue has the Brain quote nietzsche: "there is always some madness in love. but there is also always some reason in madness."

seven (7) pages later, tim's ninety-fifth attempt at remaking kon fails. he starts destroying his lab equipment in a fit of rage. cassie exclaims that even if tim did succeed, it wouldn't really be conner, to which tim says, he'd be close enough. we could make him close enough.

hey tim what the fuck is wrong with you (don't answer that)

absolutely nobody at all, zero people:

DC: this disembodied brain and his boyfriend, a french gorilla named monsieur mallah, mirrors tim's struggle to live without his beloved friend and show tim the futility of trying to bring him back to life

it. it just keeps. just keeps going. no time to catch your breath. my best friend died. i couldn't accept it, tim says melodramatically, a single manly tear rolling down his cheek. i couldn't lose you too. i know it wouldn't have been you, conner, but it would have been something.

and it keeps going. bleeding out. will i see conner? hope so, tim thinks, because his priorities are in order. the rooftop hug. why so happy? let me guess. sale on leather?

if you need me, just yell. i'll hear you. i know you will, conner. and thanks. for what? for believing in me.

elsewhere, a sentient plant makes kon hallucinate his greatest fears and they are, get this,

1. tim not liking him (agh!)

2. tim hating him (agh!)

3. tim dying (agh!)

we haven't even reached you'll always be my robin. you'll always be my clone boy. that's the gratuitous, almost vestigial cherry in top at this point.

... like. imagine being a DC fan pre-infinite crisis and thinking robin and superboy were pretty cute, and had great chemistry, not expecting anything too crazy. and then spending the next five to six years getting repeatedly kicked in the face. i just know those livejournal forums were popping back when adventure comics #3 (2009) dropped

#I dont think enough people know that timkon was compared in canon to a villanous gay couple #that's a real thing that happened how did they come up with this shit #got slightly overshadowed by the lab tantrum in the same issue lmao #dc #timkon #for all the weirdo behaviour both of them lapse into around each other they are delightfully healthy when things are going well lol #this isnt even all of it. Not even Close #comic blogging

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