#on page he is kind of dull but the IMPLICATIONS make him so interesting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dr3amofagame · 3 years

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i think that although the theories/aus of puffy's son dream and wil's brother dream are interesting to think about, especially the implications, the (probably) canon statement that he really has no family to me hits the hardest. because it's just dream, you know. his friends hate him, he has none (p relatable), but i can't really imagine,, both not having friends and not having a family. that's kind of what keeps a lot of us sane and okay ( - quill anon (same anon from the c!tubbo c!wil ask) )

ouch quill anon ,, this ask Hurt. it’s true - usually, it’s our family and friends that keep us going, that are the ones that we fight for and live for and love for. c!dream’s “family” was his reasoning behind ,, a lot of the stuff he did, good or bad, and even now you can hear his desperation in getting someone, anyone to visit sometimes, in wanting to know how people are doing outside the cell.

at the same time, he’s a character very much defined by his solitude, by his isolation, by all of the time he has spent,, alone. by the alliances that had been broken, betrayed, forgotten. by how- at the end of the day - he sits for hours on end in an obsidian box with nothing but his thoughts to accompany him. it’s awfully ,, sad, despite everything he’s done. through it all, he’s alone. he survives the horrors of the vault (until this current arc) alone. nobody’s there to hear his thoughts. nobody knows his mindset, or feelings, or wants, or anything that really makes him human. for someone so driven by people, he spends so much time completely isolated - and it’s. honestly really, really tragic.

anyway, this is a sad little drabble set pre-roommates arc abt c!dream in the prison, alone, bc he makes me Sad.

tw: mentioned torture, abuse, violence, broken bones, blood, injuries, mental deterioration, isolation, panic attacks, self-deprecation, trauma, memory loss, death, contemplations of death, dark content, dark imagery

The blank book in his hand stares at him stubbornly, the stark white of the untouched pages nearly burning his eyes, used to the dark walls and floor of the cell. Dream’s hand shakes around his quill, ink splotches marring the pages from where his too-unsteady hand had let the nib brush against the paper and left freckles of black spots behind. He pulls his thumb back from the bottom left corner, hissing slightly when it leaves a dull red fingerprint behind, a smudge of half-dried blood further dirtying the paper.

He’d pulled out one of the books for some reason, probably on a whim, letting his hands run over the leather spine and along the thread of the binding absentmindedly after Quackity left for the day. He hadn’t touched them in a while - he liked to save them, at the beginning, just in case visitors came and he wanted to thank them or if he needed to communicate (though he hadn’t gone silent since Sapnap left, ‘cause Sapnap wanted him to talk and he doesn’t know why he still clings to that visit when it’s been months and he still hasn’t come back, but he promised that if Dream behaved he’d visit again and - it’s stupid to hope, but Dream can’t give up, not yet) and then he kept them because he would need them for the revive book and the Warden would confiscate them, anyway, so it was better not to get attached. Regardless, he’d stubbornly ignored the chest of books for a long time, let the remain closed and the clasp go unlatched as he wasted his days away watching the walls drip bright purple and pretend he didn’t miss his clock.

Until now.

He runs his fingers along the surface of the paper again, ignoring the red and black smudges they leave in their wakes, ruining the previously unblemished pages. The paper is smooth, bearing a very slight grain, and smells clean and woody - this book must’ve been a newer one the Warden replaced into the chest. He’d counted the pages a few times, front and back - there are fifty sheets, so a hundred pages to use as he sees fit, completely empty and untouched. The quill shakes in his hand, the tip pressed against the paper, unmoving.

What is there to write?

He’s forgotten why he pulled out the book in the first place, already - his head keeps getting fuzzier, memory impossibly fragmented and seemingly worsening with every passing day. He knows he had a reason because he’d been very determined about it, had spent what must have been hours dragging himself along the obsidian floor with a broken shinbone jutting out of his right leg and a dislocated left shoulder that he’d taken an extra few minutes to jam back in place by pressing it against the floor. Something had come into his head, probably in the middle of Quackity’s daily session, and he’d found himself desperate to write it down before he forgot despite the throbbing of his head and the pain in his chest making it impossible to take a full breath.

(He must have talked back, or acted defiant, or something - he doesn’t remember much besides the look Quackity had given him after, dark and angry and tight with rage. There had been a hand tangled in his hair, a blade jammed right up against his throat, curses and screams in his ears dying into a singular ringing echo as the blade was pushed deeper and deeper. It wasn’t until a few minutes later when Quackity realized that he’d gone too deep and that Dream was choking on his own blood - his memories shatter, and there’s nothing but more screaming, red and black and blood everywhere, warm against his skin, the sweet-sour taste of glistening melon on his tongue, a healing pot desperately stitching his skin together and bringing him back from the darkness that he’d swelled in the corners of his vision - mostly, he remembers everything going cold and numb and he’d realized, halfway into the Void, that he would never leave the Vault alive.)

His hands tighten on the book as he breathes a shallow, harsh breath through his teeth, because - oh. Oh. He looks back at the trembling white plume in his hand, at his shaking fingers clenched tightly near the end, and he swallows the thick, heavy feeling in his throat. Quackity had- and he had- and then-

Right.

He forces air into his lungs steadily, counting the seconds off in his head. He’d learned how to stave off panic attacks on his own ages ago, and the knowledge had come to full use in the Vault - the struggle to stay calm seems harder with every passing day, but he can’t exactly risk himself passing out every three seconds when he’s inevitably set off by the smell of blood or a twinge of pain or any of the million other triggers crammed into this tiny box that’s been the source of all of his torment for months. He keeps up the slow, steady breathing for another few minutes, just enough time to pull back the darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision, and looks back down at the blank paper.

It stares back at him, almost judgmental of his hesitancy. You opened me up, it seems to challenge him, why aren’t you writing? The quill still shakes in his hand. He doesn’t know if it’ll ever stop shaking again.

Dear, he begins, almost in defiance, proof that he Is Going To Write Something, thank you very much, he isn’t just going to chicken out and leave it a blank book (like you have before?) but the quill tip digs into the paper as he grinds to a sudden halt, the empty space next to the first word nearly taunting. He feels his mouth dry, heat rising behind his eyes - the book, silent and blank as ever, stays imprinted in his vision even as he squeezes them shut.

Dear, what a stupid, sentimental way to start a letter. He can’t even fool himself into thinking of it as a business venture, turn it into an elaborate plan to escape and address it to either Techno or Wilbur (who would never receive his message anyway), not without admitting his regard for the two edged past his pretense of professional interested and owed favors. He can hardly write it to Ranboo, not without compromising their already fragile alliance (if it even exists, anymore. The enderman hybrid had yet to visit for months - and sure, it was probably for the best, who knows how Quackity would react if he found out about the nature of their relationship, but that didn’t make it sting any less.)

In the back of his minds, name rise from where he’d kept them carefully buried despite his best efforts. Punz. Bad. Puffy. Sapnap. George. He shakes his head, trying to wave away them from his thoughts, but the effort is as fruitless as it has always been - he stares at the first word angrily, like it has betrayed him, and receives no response. The words are messy, shaking, his script overly looping and rounded like a child’s. He hates it, hates how cheery it looks, even on the bloodstained page - it looks like the beginning of a birthday card, or a perhaps a particularly dedicated Halloween party invite. Like he’s some sort of lovesick teen, writing letters to crushes that would never pay him a second glance. He laughed a little, without any real humor - minus the romance, that description isn’t all that far off.

Because- well. His memories might be shot to all hell, but he doubts he’ll ever forget the hatred on Sapnap’s face, a loaded crossbow pointed between his eyes, George’s expression set in disinterested apathy - “George, you can give the word.” Bad’s face, twisted in pity and resignation, voice carefully measured as he looks away and gestures at the cell, “you did do some pretty bad stuff to get put in here though, Dream,” the hidden “you deserve it” that he’d heard, just as clearly behind the words. Punz - “you should’ve paid me more” - jaw set stiffly as people poured through the portal, watching, wordless, as Dream bled out twice on that blackstone floor. Puffy, poorly hidden disgust flickering over her face as she looks away from him being dragged away in chains, sword held steady in her hands. Sapnap, that same fiercely determined expression on his face so familiar that thinking of it aches, even now, “it’s gonna be me, who takes your final life.” Months and months and months and months, alone.

Always, always, alone.

The page makes a quiet, complaining groan under his pen - he looks down to see it torn under the tip of his quill, the word completely unreadable under line after line of black ink scratched over it, each one deeper than the last. He stares blankly at it for a few minutes longer, the brief flash of anger that had seared through his body settling into numbness once more.

To whoever may find this: he scratches the words on the page slowly, keeping his print deliberately blocky and neat. The heavy feeling in his throat returns, stronger than ever, and he ignores it as he pushes on.

He pauses for a moment, wondering what more to write. Apologies? Accusations? He could detail every second that he remembers from Quackity’s visits, describe every inch of pain that had been pulled from his aching lungs, every line etched into his skin. He could apologize for every act of cruelty that had ever been caused by his hands, every bridge he’d ever torched to light the path to a better future. He could explain - everything, every tortured thought that had circled his head for hours on end and every night that had passed without any sleep and every time he’d pushed on without complaint or hesitancy because it would be worth it, even if he was the only one who saw it, it would be worth it because he’d sacrifice too much for it to be anything but. He could- he could, he could write and write until he’d filled every page of every book back and front, and would they even believe him? Would it even matter?

Goodbye, he writes at last. It feels strangely final. (He won’t be leaving this Vault alive. He knows this as surely as he knows that he will leave this world uncared for, unheard. As surely as he knows that he’ll always be alone.) With a quick snap of magic following the signing of his name, the book is preserved, shining slightly with a purple glow as he sets it back down in the chest. He looks around, the cell once again stiflingly quiet without the book to busy him, Dream once again completely alone as he’s been for - well.

(Pandas, eyebrows drawn in uncharacteristic seriousness from the usually painfully spirited eight-year-old, pinkie raised between the two of them, solemnity belied by the gap in his front teeth poking out between his lips.

“We’ll be together forever,” he whispered with the volume control you’d expect from a kid that age, which is to say that it wasn’t much of a whisper at all, but Dream, newly ten years old, remembers being particularly moved by the gesture anyway, moving to hesitantly hook his own pinkie in the other’s.

“And we’ll never be alone ever again,” he’d replied, voice faraway with a disbelieving sort of awe.”

“Never,” Pandas’ voice had been just as firm as his first statement, twisting his wrist to tighten the grip of their linked fingers further. “Best friends for ever and ever, right?”

“For ever and ever.”)

“For ever and ever,” he whispers, eyes fluttering shut as he slumps down against the floor, and only the lava bubbles in reply.

#tw torture #tw abuse #tw violence #tw broken bones #tw injuries #tw mental deterioration #tw isolation #tw panic attack #tw self deprecation #tw trauma #tw memory loss #tw death #tw dark content #tw dark imagery #-> my writing #my writing :D #my asks !!#-> my asks #quill anon !

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orangerosebush · 3 years

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University Daze

It took an awful lot more work than one would expect to be a proper family disappointment.

When Sybil Koboi holo-phoned her daughter, Opal made sure to purposefully decline the call rather than simply let it go to her voice mail. During the weeks leading up to holiday breaks, Opal made it clear she would not be visiting any of her patrician classmates’ estates. When her calculus professor had pulled her aside to discuss upcoming course selections, she’d been sure to make a show of letting her lip tremble pitifully when she remarked that her father was loath to let her continue her studies with the university.

On some level, Sybil and Ferrall were proud that their daughter was putting effort into tramping the family name through the mud. The Gro’och’s heirs were dim, the Merrow’s daughter was dull, and the Gancanagh son had dropped out of business school to partake in a Ph.D. program centered on studying historical human-fae relations — there was nothing unique about a rich family having a few oddball or disappointing heirs. These children were asked about in sympathetic tones during dinner parties and then promptly forgotten about a sentence or two into the update provided by the hosts.

Opal, however, was different.

It was not that she had ever failed to live up to expectations, rather, she had sloughed them off like a snake shedding its skin. She clawed herself a new path rather than letting herself get lost in the margins. Opal was a force of nature that had been just barely tamed into the vague shape of a young woman, and her parents consoled themselves with the fact that even if they couldn’t handle her, at least everyone else in their circle was just as lost when looking at the ‘Opal problem’ as they were.

However, neither money nor her reputation could change the fact that engineering majors had to take at least one humanities course before graduating. It was thus that she found herself watching Dr. Vito’tera enthusiastically waving a chalk-dusted hand at some poor first year that had offered him a pity question.

She should have taken the introduction to creative writing course, Opal rolled her eyes, lip curling. Reaching down to rifle through her messenger bag, she groped around for the feeling of paper. Eyes lighting up, she grinned as she successfully pulled out her flier she’d meticulously folded up and tucked away earlier.

Thumbing the paper open, she let her eyes trace over the beautiful writing on the page.

“‘Daoine sídhe University is proud to present its coming annual science fair — internship positions available for the top three contestants’. You’re applying?”

Opal blanched, shooting a look at the oblivious professor at the front of the room before whipping around to scowl at the smirking elf seated behind her.

Short. The annoying underclassman that seemed to trail after the centaur, Foaly, who appeared determined to alienate every single STEM major from ever wanting to work with him again after university.

“Piss off,” Opal muttered, returning to her notes. “You’re not even an engineering major.”

Holly cocked her head, grin widening. “Yeah, I’m a criminal justice major, you’re right. I’m an aeronautical engineering minor , though.”

“You’re a Freshman, alright? Whatever ,” Opal scoffed, turning back around.

The only reason that she was still here in this lecture hall, Opal thought as she narrowed her eyes, mood darkening, was because her mother and father were marginally more annoying than her classmates.

“Holly, you shouldn’t let Koboi imply that about you,” Opal heard Foaly’s nasal voice filter down to where she was sitting. “She’s not better than we are just because she comes from high society. ”

“I didn’t imply anything about her,” Opal grit her teeth, refusing to give Foaly the satisfaction of making her turn around. “I merely said that she was a Freshman.”

“But that’s kind of loaded, don’t you think? There are layers, rhetorically speaking, to mentioning her year,” Foaly continued, keeping his voice low so that Dr. Vito’tera wouldn’t hear the trio.

“I did feel that we were dealing with some implications when she mentioned I was a Freshman, to be honest, Foaly,” Holly sighed, and Opal prayed that the elf wasn’t ramping up to commit to a long-term bit with Foaly.

“There were so many implications, Holly, I’m frankly a bit disgusted,” Foaly chuckled.

Damn it.

Clenching her fists, Opal exhaled through her nose sharply. “If I wanted to imply anything, I would have. Here, I’ll imply something for you, Foaly : the only reason you took this class was to become even more of a sophist than you already are, you contemptible man,” she turned to face the duo behind her, her lips drawn back slightly as to bare her teeth.

At her gaze, Foaly seemed to shrink in her chair slightly, his ears flicking embarrassedly. Holly stared at the two of them, blinking in confusion.

As the roaring of her pulse in her ears started to subside, Opal felt her cheeks begin to warm.

“He might’ve mentioned taking the class because he saw you’d signed—“ Holly grinned, but Foaly spluttered in protest.

“Holly, stop — that’s not true, by the way,” he twittered, holding his hands up placatingly.

Opal sneered half-heartedly, trying to save whatever bit of dignity she could. “I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I’ll be speaking to the professor if you two don’t find somewhere else to sit for the rest of the semester.”

Holly crossed her arms on top of her desk, her defined shoulder muscles visible as she shifted.

“I’m staying here,” Holly announced, a tad cooly. “I don’t want to sit in the front. You two can fight it out over which one of you gets to be my desk neighbor.”

Rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time that class, Opal turned back to face the front of the room.

Hearing the creaking of someone leaning forward behind her, Opal forced herself to watch the board as the teacher wrote out the curriculum map for the class to copy down.

“Hey, Opal,”

Opal’s frown lines deepened. “I don’t want to talk to you, Foaly.”

“About that, actually — you’re making something for the science fair, right?”

Opal wordlessly gestured to the flier on her desk with her left hand.

“Okay, that was a pointless question, I’ll admit it. I’m entering, too,” Foaly remarked, tone trying just a bit too hard to remain light.

“Good for you,” Opal leaned backward in her chair, casting her eyes to the clock.

“So… how would you feel about making a deal?”

Eyes tracing the stuttering movement of the second hand, Opal sighed. “What do you propose?”

She could almost hear his grin.

“Great, great. Just some friendly competition, nothing extreme,”

“Entailing?”

“Loser drops this course,”

Opal inhaled sharply, eyes narrowing. “Interesting.”

“I’m not going to drop the course, just as a heads up to you both,” Holly added, and Opal heard the tapping of Short’s pen as the other woman fiddled absentmindedly at her desk.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Foaly added quietly to his desk-mate, and Holly hummed in response.

Biting her lip, Opal imagined explaining to her parents that she was dropping a course. They’d be livid — and not in a good way. She furrowed her brow. Losing this bet wasn’t an option.

“Fine,” Opal snapped. “But I hope you have a good second choice for your humanities credit.”

“May the best faerie win,” she heard Holly yawn.

“Nice! Do you want to, uh, shake on it?” Foaly trailed off, clearing his throat.

“No.”

“Oh, okay.”

Opal (finally) opened her notebook, ignoring any further attempts at conversation. This would be fine. She already had her plan for the fair. This was her forte — she didn’t care what her parents, or career advisor, or even Foaly had to say about what they thought her skills were, positive or negative. She wanted this prize. Any other details were secondary.

#artemis fowl #i fudged the timelines A LOT to make their uni years sync up shhh #my writing

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jazy3 · 4 years

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X1 & 17X2

MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

My mind is blown! I am shook! Never in a million years did I ever expect that we would see McDreamy again! Or that Meredith and Derek would be reunited like this. Oh my god. I literally can’t even. I think this might be the best season opener Grey’s Anatomy has ever done. Hands down. They came to play and they did not mess around. I thought something was off when they showed the opening sequence with Meredith on the beach because the pier walkway was way too long, but I never expected the surprise to be what it was.

The implication at the end of the episode is that Meredith has contracted COVID-19, is currently unresponsive, and will be battling this for the foreseeable future. I’m interested to see if that is in fact the case or if it’s something else. I did not believe that she was going to be the character that got it so I am super shocked and surprised. As some eagle eyed fans noticed over the summer the IMDB page for Grey’s Anatomy was updated recently with the appearance dates of many of the original cast members being updated to 2020.

I have to admit when I first saw that I didn’t think much of it because Season 16 overlapped between the years 2019 and 2020 and since they mentioned and used archival footage of past characters during seasons 15 and 16 my initial thought was that the actor’s profiles were updated to reflect this for contract reasons. But now that the McDreamy Derek Shephard himself has reappeared anything is possible my friends!

Literally anything and I am so glad. It looks like there are more dream sequences and possible afterlife sequences to come. My guess is that more of Meredith’s deceased loved ones will appear on that beach. I’d love to see George, Mark, Lexie, Ellis Grey, Doc the dog the list goes on. I’d also love to see Cristina, Alex, Izzie, Callie, Arizona, and April all make appearances either through dream sequences or over Zoom.

I’m also wondering if they’re going to have Meredith code and then do a reprise of the elevator hallway sequence where the elevator doors open and Meredith’s dead loved ones and important people in her life greet her and tell her it’s only temporary and she’ll back in the land of the living soon. Oh gosh. What if they have Ellis tell her she’s extraordinary?!?! Now I’m crying! She so deserves to hear that! Oh my gosh. The possibilities are endless.

The Station 19 episode wasn’t much of a cross over to be honest and I’m okay with that. My best friend and I watched it for context, but you could have totally gotten everything you needed to know just by watching Grey’s and those are the cross overs I prefer. In the Station 19 episode we got some additional Bailey and Ben content (always nice) and we learned how the kids who wound up with third degree burns became injured. That’s it really.

Richard had some snaps in this episode! He had all the best lines in my opinion! He was hilarious. His exchanges with Bailey and Catherine were hilarious. It’s great to see him back on his feet and throwing zingers. Bailey was a boss ass bitch in this episode. I loved it! She laid down the law and I thought they did a really good job of showing subtly how the COVID situation is impacting her because of her OCD. I really liked that they wrapped up DeLuca’s storyline because as long time readers will know I was not a fan of his mental health storyline and the last two seasons have really made me hate his character.

I thought they did a good job wrapping that up giving the confines of COVID, both real and fictional, and that we got closure there. At this point they’ve wrapped up his storyline to the point that DeLuca is back to being a side character and just another doctor who works in the hospital and for that I am glad. A fun little aside, when DeLuca asks Meredith if there is a specific patient she wants him to check on she tells him to check on the patient in room 1702 which is the episode number.

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get as many Meredith and Hayes scenes as I would have liked. Hayes wasn’t in the first half of the premiere at all and his scenes with Meredith in the second half were briefer than I would have liked. However, that might be because they weren’t able to film scenes with the actor before COVID shut everything down so I am hoping that we will see more scenes between him and Meredith, especially him at her bedside, going forward now that both actors are full time regular cast members.

I really loved the scenes that we did get. They felt authentic and natural. That natural comradery that the actors have was there in full force. We got to learn more about both characters quarantine situations with regards to their kids and we got to learn a bit more about Hayes’ past and their developing relationship which was nice. Also I really want to hear that story he alluded to about hoping an electric fence as a teenager to see his girlfriend. I loved the aside where Meredith commented that his mask was falling apart and he told her that he gave his new one to a nurse who needed it more than he did. He’s so caring and compassionate and kind I just want to reach through the screen and hug him.

Meredith deserves someone in her life who is kind like that and who thinks of others the way she does. Who puts the job and her patients and her kids first over everything else. Who gets it and thinks nothing of showing that kind of compassion. She’s never really been with anyone like that before. No one who was a doctor anyway. I also thought it was very significant that Hayes invited Meredith to have a drink with him in his office after work and then was the one that found her in the parking lot at the end of the episode.

This appears to be a call back to the fact that he asked her out for a drink at the end of last season and she accepted, but asked that they do a rain check because she was so exhausted and the fact that they are growing closer and he wanted to check in with her and see how she was doing. The fact that he was the one to discover her I think is also very significant because at the end there I felt liked he looked towards her car to see if she was there to talk to her or to see if she’d gone home and I love that he was looking out for her in that way.

Also, the fact that he was the one to find her and call for help and that led into a dream sequence where she was reunited with Derek the love of her life feels very significant. The fact that Hayes calls out to Meredith and tells her to stay with him, in the present and in the land of the living, and then that transitions into the dream sequence where Derek is calling out to her on the beach feels significant to me.

My best friend that I watch with commented that she could see them doing a scene where Derek tells Meredith it’s okay to move on and fall in love again the way Abigail did with Cormac in the flashbacks we saw in the Conference episode last season. And that based on that Meredith makes the decision to formally move on and actively pursue something with Hayes now that she knows she has Derek’s blessing and that her ex DeLuca is doing okay and is back to work.

I think both of those things could free her to truly give Hayes a chance and build a life with him. He’s really the only post-Derek love interest for me who really checks all the boxes and who I could see her building a life with in a way that would respectfully honour what her and Derek had. It also just occurred to me that because they established that both Meredith and Hayes are quarantining at hotels because of their COVID work and are away from their kids there’s a potential storyline there in that once Meredith is better they could quarantine together and spend some sexy time alone without breaking any of the necessary restrictions. I’d love to see them quarantine together.

Something else that I realized after watching is that the episode establishes that Amelia and Link are quarantining at Meredith’s house with Scout, Zola, Bailey, and Ellis and that Maggie has been coming by to watch and visit with the kids from a safe distance while Meredith has been quarantining at a hotel because she’s working COVID command. The fact that they set this up early on in the episode becomes important later when you realize that something is wrong with Meredith and she’ll be hospitalized for a while and could die so it sets it up that her kids are okay because they’ve got Amelia, Link, and Maggie, people that Meredith trusts, looking after them.

Also we find out that Meredith’s house has a backyard for the first time! So that’s neat. Maggie and Winston are officially the cutest! I love them! I’m calling it now they’re endgame. They’re soulmates. I thought at first the long distance thing was going to be super boring and dull, but they found a way to make it really sexy and fun and I love that! We finally found out what Amelia and Link named their baby! As many had predicted they named the baby Scout! His full name is Scout Derek Shepherd Lincoln! My heart! Derek would be so so proud of Amelia. She’s come so far. I loved the scene with Meredith, Amelia, Link, and Scout. I really felt like that was missing from the Season 16 finale so I’m glad we got to see it in flashback.

About the only thing we didn’t get to see in this episode that I would have liked to have seen is a scene with Richard and Meredith catching up and either operating or treating a patient together. They haven’t had as much time together recently and I’ve missed that. Although considering that Meredith is about to hospitalized I’m guessing were about to see a whole lot of that. We did get to see Jackson spending lots of quality time with Richard and we got to see Maggie stand up for him with Catherine this episode so that was nice. This episode changed my mind about Catherine and Richard.

At the end of last season I really wanted them to separate and go their separate ways because I felt like they were bringing out the worse in each other and that was the only way they could find peace. But this episode we saw Catherine apologize really apologize and she made Richard Chief of Chiefs to make up for what she did and I thought there reconciliation was really quite sweet. Teddy and Owen wowza. Teddy was god awful and a terrible human being this episode. I was completely on her side last season, but this episode changed that for me. I hate Owen as a character most of the time, but damn if this episode didn’t make me feel for him. Oh boy. Teddy lied straight to his face multiple times when given the opportunity to tell the truth.

I don’t think there’s any way that they can come back from that personally. Which is a shame because for the first time in the show’s run Owen is single and is not hung up on someone else. Cristina is in Switzerland living her best life. She’s happy. That’s long over. Amelia is with Link. They have a child together. Her and Owen are happily co-parenting Leo and there’s no way that Owen, horrible as he can be, would do anything at this point to split Amelia and Link up or come between them because that would mean separating Scout from his father and having lost his Dad at a young age Owen would never knowingly do that to someone else’s child. At least I don’t think he would.

Plus, he got what he wanted in that he did get to parent Betty and Leo with Amelia and they still share in the parenting of Leo. I also thought there was a good call back there to when Owen cheated on Cristina. I hated that plot, but it’s nice to see them acknowledge his relationship with Cristina because it was so instrumental to the show in those early seasons. I’m glad that we got a reference to Amelia and Owen co-parenting Leo because I feel like that’s been missing lately. I get that Teddy is scared of being happy, but the way she treated Owen was just horrible. She was so awful to him in this episode I actually felt sorry for the guy and that is truly a miraculous feat because I rarely do because of how horribly he treats all of the women in his life.

Side note: His line where he told his Mom to tell Leo that the broccoli and carrots needed to be reunited in his stomach was both hilarious and horrifying! I loved Owen’s lines and how he kind of played Teddy while giving her opportunities to tell him the truth. I thought that was hilarious in a funny not funny kind of way. I’m curious to see what Teddy, Owen, and Tom’s storylines will be going forward. We didn’t see a lot of Tom in this episode and at the end he was fired and demoted to being a Neurosurgeon. There’s no indication of him and Teddy getting back together so I’m curious to see what they do with him.

Owen seems 100% done with Teddy and her nonsense and at this point I can’t blame him. I would be too. I’m interested to see where this goes. Will Owen end up with someone else? Will he stay single and continue on as a single parent? What will happen to Teddy? I’m starting to really like Levi as a character I have to say. Nico not so much. He treats Levi horribly and the guy deserves so much better. I loved seeing the intern from Pac North who called Bailey an icon last season checking temperatures. Amazing.

Richard’s idea on how to sanitize the masks with the purple light was really cool. I loved the moments between him and Bailey. I get why she’s worried about him, but as Richard says Grey Sloan is his life. It’s his longest and most successful relationship and as he says he will find no peace without it. Bailey and Ben have my whole heart. They are so cute. They’re the best. I loved the small moment that they had at the beginning of the episode where Ben did the “going through the motions” count with her because he knows it helps her. It was also a great call back to Jo teaching that to Bailey after she got out of treatment.

Also oh my god Jo and Jackson! Wow! I have to say when I saw fans speculating about that online before the show came back I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. One, because those two characters rarely have scenes together and aren’t that close. And two, Jackson has Harriet and is a single parent. Jo has been decidedly luke warm on the idea of having kids. She only considered it because of her relationship with Alex. That being said, after this episode I could go for it. I liked the twist that she went to Jackson and asked him for a favour and they were going to hook up and have a one night stand and then Jo got drunk on the way over and wound up crying because she wasn’t ready.

I have a feeling that they’re going to have them go back to being friends for the time being and then pick that storyline up later when Jo’s had a chance to heal possibly in the second half of the season. I also like that they wrapped up the storyline between Jackson and Vic and that we got to see Harriet for the first time in forever! Yeah! Vic isn’t ready or wiling to be a step parent and I liked that they established that Jackson needs to be with someone long term that is. Jo isn’t at that stage yet, but at least she’s open to the idea and has been married and had a successful adult relationship with someone in the past. Jackson’s been married, divorced, lost a child, and is raising a child.

With time and proper communication I think they could actually be a great pairing. Never thought I’d say that. Not wanting to be a parent is part of what broke Jackson and Vic up in the first place. They never addressed the issue with Maggie, but in retrospect that was never going to work out because Maggie is so involved with Meredith’s kids. They’re her main focus kid wise. We should have known that they weren’t going to work out when they failed to address that.

With April what broke them up was her devote faith and his complete lack of belief coupled with the different ways they dealt with the death of Samuel. While I did like April and Jackson as a couple I was happy with April’s write off in the sense that she got to be with someone who shares her faith and dealt with the trauma of losing someone close to them in a similar way. Her and Jackson never had that. Jackson found God in the wake of almost losing April, but by that point it was too late.

The damage was down. There was nothing either of them could do to repair what had been broken. With Jo he has the opportunity to start anew and lay all of that out on the table and vice versa. Although I imagine that the conversation Meredith would have with Alex about that would be pretty weird. I thought they did a really good job of showing the realities of COVID in hospitals right now. What the disease does, how deadly it can be, and how hard it is on all the health care workers and first responders.

I have family members and friends who work in health care and it’s a scary time. Levi’s comment that they had lost 100 people in one day and that he’d had to tell 100 people’s family members that their loved one had died was chilling. It’s also real. This is not something they are sensationalizing for the sake of television. This is really happening to real people everywhere and it is heartbreaking.

In this episode we saw Meredith have her first breakdown in quite some time. The last one I can remember was after Derek died and that was a while ago. She was upset that so many of her patients had died and I’m sure that reality is something that a lot of healthcare workers are going through right now. This episode felt raw in a lot of ways because of that and I’m glad that a show that has worked so hard to reflect the realities of our time is taking the time to honour and showcase that.

Also I think having Meredith Grey the show’s titular character and star for over 16 seasons potentially contract COVID and collapse from working too hard and not taking her own advice is the ultimate example of it can happen to anyone and anyone can get it. The show did not have to go as hard as it did, but they did and they delivered and I respect the hell out of that. The tagline for this season is “Sometimes we all need saving.” Apparently they were being literal about that as that includes Meredith freaking Grey. What a twist!

I honestly believe that this will be the show’s last season. Because when I look at the storylines and the ways in which they’ve set up the characters starting with last season I can see where they could go with it and how they would wrap everyone’s storylines up in a satisfactory way. Plus I don’t think they’ll ever be able to top this season and it’s opener. Also we’ve got main cast members coming back because those actors are normally so busy they’ll probably never get another opportunity like this to bring them back and they’d be foolish not to take it.

The promo for next week teases more scenes with McDreamy (!!!), Meredith battling COVID literally, and Hayes visiting her in her hospital room. I’m excited!

Until next time!

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mopeytropey · 4 years

Photo

a beer buds series: chapter 10

author’s note: When I originally told my wife of the idea for this series, she immediately suggested an entire rewrite of 'a pleasant undoing' but told from Lexa's perspective. So I'm counting chapters 9 and 10 as honoring her wishes. The continuation of this series will reprise our almost strictly Lincoln + Lexa formula, but I'm not naive enough to think that at least 99% of you weren't going into this also hoping for some premium Clarke + Lexa content. (Forgive me for the deviation ... and the smut)

Timeline: essentially, we're just picking up where chapter 9 left off ...

Beer: Lil’ Heaven: Two Roads Brewing (Stratford, CT) SESSION IPA

Made with three exotic hops - Azacca, Mosaic and Equinox. Taste is of tropical fruits, specifically passion fruit, grapefruit and apricots. Finishes with just enough toasted malt character to balance.

ABV 4.8%

Posted on AO3 here, or below the cut:

:::

“Hey, don’t I know you?”

“I saw you two days ago.” Lexa affectionately rolls her eyes, nevertheless smiling while accepting an exaggerated hug from Lincoln as if they are reuniting after a long separation.

“Work doesn’t count. You’ve been completely off the radar for a week, socially speaking.”

They’ve met for an impromptu breakfast at a local diner not far from Lexa’s apartment. She’s back in her neighborhood for practicality reasons, having left the idyllic bubble of Clarke’s bedroom in order to do some loads of laundry. But, it’s also a nice excuse to see her friend.

Lincoln has already procured them steaming cups of coffee and a pair of red vinyl stools at the breakfast counter that faces the busy griddle top. He is grinning at her as they sit, awaiting her response.

“I’ve just been … busy,” she says, not even able to curb the bashful smile that follows as she removes her coat and hat.

Lexa pretends not to blush, knowing full well her time spent with Clarke has superseded any other social obligations as they have begun a long overdue exploration of new and exciting facets of their relationship.

Namely sex. A good portion of her week has, in fact, been absorbed by unspeakably good sex.

“Uh-huh,” Lincoln laughs warmly. “I wasn’t even sure you two had remembered how to physically separate at this point. Thought maybe Clarke would be joining us as well based solely on the fact that you two haven’t surfaced for anything other than work responsibilities in a full week.”

Lexa sips her coffee through a growing grin to prolong any acknowledgement of Lincoln’s playful accusation.

“Morning, hon’.” A familiar waitress says in passing, leaving two menus beside Lincoln’s coffee cup. “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”

“Thanks, Helen,” Lexa smiles. It’s not often that she indulges in big breakfast meals, preferring her protein smoothies or avocado toast, but Lexa has nevertheless fallen into a routine of frequenting the diner as a way of establishing new roots.

In her old Brooklyn borough it had been the Chilo’s taco bar where she and Anya would meet every Friday to decompress from the work week over carnitas tacos and cheap beer. In her new portside life in Massachusetts, it’s Angie’s Diner. The coffee is palatable, at best, but the atmosphere is welcoming and Lexa has always enjoyed seeing familiar faces when forced to dine alone. Helen’s gruff, New England endearments in a seasoned, smoker’s voice, have consistently been a comforting presence.

When the woman shuffles off to tend to the other, early morning diners, Lexa turns to see Lincoln still watching her expectantly. “Clarke had some tasks at Dockside to attend to, and I really need clean clothes.”

“And, you’re functioning okay in her absence? Breathing okay and everything?”

Lexa laughs at his continued teasing, but easily concedes to an honest answer. So much uninterrupted time spent in Clarke’s company, sharing the myriad truths about their feelings, has apparently begun to bleed into her other relationships as well.

Lexa has almost always been able to leave herself unguarded in Lincoln’s presence anyway.

“I’m probably more dysfunctional when she’s around, actually.”

Lincoln stifles a laugh around a sip of his coffee. “That sounds like a fair assessment. Everything’s going as well as expected then?”

“Yeah, it’s—” Lexa tries, and instantly fails, not to picture Clarke lathered and laughing in the shower while Lexa fights to stand beneath the warm, steaming spray; Clarke pressing her against the kitchen countertops with hands roaming while the coffee steeps; Clarke cuddling into her on the sofa with the lights dim and the TV volume low “—it’s been really good.”

“Oh no.”

“What?” Lexa smiles unsurely, eyes widening at Lincoln’s grave expression.

“What’s with the hesitation?”

“What hesitation? I did not hesitate.”

“I know that hesitation.” Lincoln narrows his gaze at her, dark eyes assessing for signs of Lexa’s concession. “What are you in your head about now?”

She really needs to stop associating with people who can read her like a book.

“Okay, fine,” Lexa exhales. She flips open the worn menu, its once glossy, laminate pages now dulled from years of loyal patronage. “I’m just adjusting to the intensity of it all.”

“You’ve made a major life change. Totally normal to feel overwhelmed,” Lincoln shrugs.

“I know. You’re right. I haven’t even slept at my apartment in almost a week.”

“And, this is somehow a bad thing?” Lincoln laughs.

“No, I have absolutely zero complaints,” Lexa clarifies. “But, we’re spending literally all of our free time together—and portions of our work days, too.”

Lincoln chuckles after another sip of coffee. “Also totally normal. In the beginning, Octavia used to impose all of these ridiculous sleepover schedules—like, spending three nights a week together is the maximum, or whatever—only to completely abandon her own, dumb rule and would end up sleeping at mine for weeks at a time.” Lincoln thinks better of it a second later and warns, “Don’t ever tell her I told you that.”

The legitimate fear she can see in his eyes makes her laugh, and suddenly she doesn’t feel quite so overwhelmed. “I’ve always considered it wise not to let on that I know just how obsessed Octavia is with you.”

“Smart woman,” Lincoln winks. “So, other than acclimating to new sleeping arrangements, what is it that’s stressing you out? You think you’re spending too much time together?”

“That’s the thing—I like being able to be with Clarke as much as possible. This past week, spending time with her, I’ve felt calmer and happier and more settled than I have in ages.”

Lincoln smiles so warmly, Lexa can feel it in her chest. “Don’t you think Clarke feels exactly the same way?”

“I’m pretty confident that Clarke enjoys having me around, yes. It’s not like she’s trying to kick me out of her house or anything yet.”

“But?”

“But, I keep wondering what the long-term implications are. Because the way that everything is changing between us: it feels … significant.”

“Yeah. That’s because you’re in l—”

Lexa looks away with a groan that drowns out the rest of Lincoln’s statement, rubbing a hand against her forehead. “Oh my god, please stop saying that.”

“Okay, okay,” Lincoln laughs. And then, after a moment while clearing his throat, he not-so-subtly reiterates: “But, you are.”

Lexa studiously ignores any truth in Lincoln’s playful accusation and further expounds, “I guess if anything is stressing me out, it’s not knowing if Clarke is experiencing something similar to what I am right now.”

“Knowing Clarke like I do, and having had the pleasure of a front row seat to all of this from day one, I can confidently assure you that she is right there with you. That being said, have you ever considered—I don’t know—asking her yourself instead of sitting here having a hypothetical conversation about it with me?”

“I do plan to speak with her about this,” Lexa assures an openly skeptical Lincoln. “I do.”

“I mean, you’re in the first week of a new relationship, Lex. I get it. That is usually not time that’s predominantly spent talking.”

Lexa is saved from her sudden flush of embarrassment by the return of their waitress, Helen, who kindly disregards the red tint on Lexa’s cheeks as she orders her scrambled eggs and rye toast.

“The point is,” Lincoln continues once their orders have been placed, “you guys have this really solid and established friendship going into this thing. In my experience, that can sort of push you ahead at a faster clip than you’re probably accustomed to in relationships.” He drains his coffee, placing it back onto the counter with a dull clink. “So, what would make you feel better about the rate at which you and Clarke are headed?”

Lincoln has a uniquely comforting way of simplifying Lexa’s life. He’s so genuine and forthcoming, and she could hug him again for all his supportive logic. Instead, she takes a deep breath to clear her head and pledges to hug him later.

“I want to be up front with her about where I see this going, to determine whether or not she and I are on the same page. I want her to know that I’m—”

“—in love with her?” Lincoln grins.

Lexa punches him, with unintentional force, and regrets it only when Helen—a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper curls and kind eyes—glances at them in mild concern as she refills their coffee. “I would ask if he’s bothering you, hon’, but I have a feeling you’re more than capable of handling yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I deserved that,” Lincoln assures their waitress, laughing at Lexa’s menacing scowl while rubbing his arm.

“I was going to say, I want Clarke to know that I’m not interested in dating anyone else.”

“Oh, right, right,” Lincoln nods, still smiling. “See, I just keep forgetting you two haven’t already been dating exclusively for, like, six months.”

“Why do I hang out with you again?”

For all her feigned exasperation, she is instantly wrapped up in an embrace, not unlike an older brother might lovingly harass his younger sibling. “Because you love me.” He pulls her in closely for a monstrous hug—right there at the diner counter—despite Lexa’s sharp elbow to his abdomen as she playfully fights against the forced affection.

:::

Clarke emerges from her silver Saab just as Lexa ambles across the snow-dusted gravel of the marina, icy rocks crunching beneath her boots. Cars are parked at odd, misfitted angles wherever they can find space between the boats set up on large blocks in their bright white winter wrappings. Clarke is wearing her plaid scarf and bulky winter parka, and Lexa’s chest tightens with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation at seeing her again after a short span apart.

“You should have let me pick you up,” Clarke says by way of a greeting.

“It’s not a bad walk from my apartment.”

Their breaths dissipate in the air between them after briefly appearing in frozen clouds. Lexa can feel her teeth about to chatter because the air on the water is properly freezing, but she attributes the chill along her spine to the nervous energy of being near Clarke.

Clarke’s gaze narrows in judgement. “Stubborn.”

“Those in glass houses,” Lexa counters, arching her brow in a way that brings that pleasant tint of blush to Clarke’s cheeks.

It could very well be the wind; except Lexa knows that it isn’t.

“Okay can we further reprimand each other once we’re inside where it’s warm?”

Clarke’s gloved hand wraps around her coat sleeve and tugs until they are both headed towards the blue front door of the coffee shop. A welcomed gush of warm air envelopes them instantly, and Lexa’s skin begins to tingle where the harsh winds had chilled her face. There isn’t much of a line, nor is the shop crowded with other people. The moderately-sized open room is sparse with patrons, enjoying their steaming drinks under natural lighting and softly playing music.

It’s been six days—not that Lexa has been meticulously keeping track, but it’s been six days—of near-constant kissing and unrestrained touch; of perpetual orgasms and an intentionally precise exploration of Clarke’s body; of general sensory overload when it comes to redefining her relationship with her best friend. Hardly a week has transpired since they began testing the waters of this mutual attraction, which has nevertheless consumed Lexa entirely.

Maybe it’s only been six days, an insignificant length of time under normal circumstances, but it feels much more weighted than that.

Between the kissing and the touching and the orgasms, nevermind the sudden influx of unveiled honesty, she can hardly keep her head above water. Her mind hasn’t stopped spinning since that first kiss on Clarke’s doorstep, and she’s only slightly concerned with contracting vertigo if they don’t stop and address what is happening between them sooner rather than later. Lexa needs to sit in a familiar, public space in the light of day with her best friend to discuss the implications on their relationship as it progresses at full tilt.

Lincoln’s advice rings in her ears as they enter the shop: just talk to Clarke.

“Hey, strangers!” A barista greets them happily as she and Clarke approach the cash register. Her name slips from Lexa’s memory, but Clarke returns her greeting for them both.

“Hey, Morgan.”

“Oh my god, I thought you two got lost at sea or something. We haven’t seen you in ages.” Morgan is young, perhaps just out of college, with bright pink hair and a septum piercing.

Clarke’s head shifts so that she can give Lexa a strange look, which Lexa promptly returns before offering a brief smile. “Oh, um, yeah. Just busy during the holidays,” Clarke answers.

Lexa gives her order and Clarke pays, brushing off Lexa’s insistence on paying her share. In seven months, if she’s learned anything, it is not to question Clarke’s generosity. They move to a deserted sofa beside an old wood stove fireplace to wait for their drinks and begin removing their coats and hats. Lexa’s toes begin to tingle and thaw within her leather boots as the heat from the fire permeates.

The harborside shop is the same as always: natural light streaming through the windows facing the water; a smattering of locally produced art hanging on brightly colored walls; and, a handful of other patrons sitting in mismatched furniture with computers or paperbacks. Everything is the same, except for her and Clarke.

They sit closely, quickly finding small, innocuous points of contact. Clarke tucks into one end of the sofa so that her knees rest gently against Lexa’s legs. Their hands seek touch as the barista delivers their drinks, separating only briefly to accept the steaming mugs and offer their gratitude. Once Morgan leaves them to attend other customers, Lexa falls into the comfort of their secluded, sun-drenched pocket of the shop.

“It’s so cold outside. I think my feet are still thawing.”

“It feels nice in here,” Lexa responds, smiling because Clarke inches closer to her anyway and she was only outside for under two minutes as it is.

Lexa senses a buzzing from her coat where it sits beside her and reaches into one of its deep pockets to check her phone. A text from Lincoln confirms their plans to meet up later for drinks. She types a quick, one-handed response before replacing her phone and returning her full attention to Clarke.

“Lincoln,” she explains, although Clarke doesn’t look poised to ask.

“Does he miss you already?”

Lexa laughs, shaking her head. “No, he’s not nearly as codependent as you.”

Clarke attempts to withdraw her fingers from where they are slotted between Lexa’s, but Lexa tightens her grasp with a widening grin at Clarke’s dropped jaw and feigned affront.

“Are you still hanging out later?”

“Yeah, he was just confirming the time.” Lexa’s thumb smooths across the back of Clarke’s hand in a slow, repetitive arch. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”

Clarke shakes her head firmly. “No, this is your sacred time together—I can’t encroach on that.”

“It’s beers and appetizers, Clarke. I wouldn’t call it sacred.”

Clarke’s eyes widen dramatically. “I’m gonna tell him you said that.”

The empty threat makes Lexa smile again. They’ve always had a particular talent for banter, and the added layer of their recent sexual experiences makes it all the more delightful to trade taunts and harmless barbs.

“How was your laundry adventure?” Clarke asks while reaching for her coffee, and Lexa smirks.

“Thrilling.”

Despite her instincts to stay within reach of Clarke at all times as much as physically possible, there is also the issue of personal hygiene. In this case, it was Lexa’s growing pile of clothes that needed attending.

“And breakfast with Lincoln?”

She can’t tell Clarke how she is actually reconsidering a lifelong friendship with Lincoln because he had spent a majority of the morning brutally teasing her. To reveal that would require Lexa to also elaborate on his specific proclamations about her feelings for Clarke.

And so, Lexa tells her, “It was good.”

“You can always do laundry at mine, you know.”

“Is this just another ploy to keep me tethered to your house for longer intervals?”

An exasperated look flashes across Clarke’s face while she swallows down a mouthful of steaming coffee. “Yes. Have you not been paying attention at all over the past week?”

Lexa swallows through a grin of her own. There’s really only one, notable thing they’ve been engaged in over the past week, and to think of it now has Lexa’s face warming as she becomes acutely aware of Clarke’s proximity in a public space.

“I’ve been a little preoccupied lately.”

Light laughter escapes her as Lexa’s right hand fiddles the ribbing of Clarke’s sweater between her fingers. She is dressed in something off-white and oversized that cuts at a low vee below her neck so that Lexa’s eyes begin to wander to its shadowed opening. It’s a sweater she remembers from the time before—when all of Lexa’s cultivated interest in Clarke (including her wardrobe) was something unspoken and dutifully ignored.

Lexa remembers that Clarke had been dressed for a dinner at her mother’s house, and Lexa had been granted a chance encounter for quick minutes in which they danced around a thrumming attraction. She can feel it sparking in the air between them now, their pocket of relative privacy threatening to implode from the calculated looks Clarke is giving her.

“Busy week?” she further teases, eyeing Lexa’s blush over the rim of her coffee mug as she takes another sip.

Lexa purses her lips and narrows her gaze at Clarke’s self-satisfaction. “Exactly how much joy does it bring you to torture me?”

“So much,” Clarke laughs. She slips her fingers between Lexa’s so that they are loosely held together. “But only because you’re so adorable when you’re exasperated.”

“Flattery is supposed to absolve you?”

“Obviously.” Clarke rolls her eyes, bringing Lexa’s fingers to her mouth and brushing them quickly with a kiss.

With affections such as this, Lexa would forgive her of almost anything.

“So,” Clarke says through a sigh while bringing their joined hands to rest again on her knee. “What did you want to talk about?”

Now that Clarke has given her the floor, Lexa practically swallows her tongue in nervous vacillation. She had strategized a few, well-devised talking points during the process of cleaning her clothes, not to mention procuring some sound advice from Lincoln over breakfast, but sitting here in front of Clarke has made Lexa forget how to string together words and phrases to construct complete thoughts.

In a desperate attempt to find her resolve, she reaches for the cup of english black tea she’d ordered. Lexa takes her first sip, wishing she’d asked for a pinch more sugar but nevertheless hoping it will soothe her racing thoughts.

“I just wanted to … check in.”

Pathetically underwhelming start. Lincoln would be so disappointed. She takes another sip that is more like a gulp.

Clarke nods slowly. “Okay.”

“About us.”

“Okay,” Clarke repeats, her smile looking apprehensive at best.

“Our friendship has evolved significantly over the past week, and rapidly, at that. I just thought we should—” Lexa wavers and Clarke comes to her rescue.

“Check in?”

“Yeah,” Lexa nods.

“Okay. Are you—are you feeling okay about everything?”

Lexa begins to tangle her fingers around Clarke’s more fervently. “Things with you are almost too good.”

Clarke’s smile changes instantly, full and bright and genuinely pleased. “I feel the same. I’m actually feeling incredibly, fucking lucky, to put a finer point on it.”

“Good,” Lexa smiles, exhaling a modicum of relief. “I do too.”

“Oh my god, you had me scared.” Clarke leans back into the couch, dislodging their hands to run her fingers through her hair. “I thought you were going to say you want to date other people or something.”

“What? No.” Lexa’s breath has been lost to a vacuum of panic so that her ask is hardly audible. “Do you?”

“No! No. I’ve dated, Lexa. I’ve dated plenty,” Clarke laughs lightly, reaching for a surer hold on Lexa’s fingers. “But, you—I mean, you’re single for the first time in over three years. You must have thought about it.”

Not single, Lexa says to herself before thinking better of it and rephrasing aloud:

“Clarke, I could date a hundred women and none of them would be you.”

“Yes, I am fairly certain I’ve yet to be cloned.”

“Are you going to stop being a smartass so I can say this?” Lexa smiles in mock irritation.

“Sorry, sorry.” Clarke pinches her lips together, attentive. “Continue.”

“What I mean is, no one else would compare. I’ve never met anyone like you—this connection I feel with you, I’ve never experienced anything like it.” Lexa takes a breath, licking her lips before forging onward. “I can’t say where this is going, but I can say, unquestionably, that I have no interest in dating anyone else for the foreseeable future.”

The words leave her in a rush of honesty. It feels like she’s said too much too soon, but Clarke leans forward with a smile and Lexa interprets the gentle press of her lips as having said exactly the right thing.

“Do you think we can take these drinks to-go and finish this conversation elsewhere?” Clarke’s voice is pitched low and seductive, and Lexa senses a chill tingling at the back of her neck.

She resolves to stop doubting her honesty, if also to reconsider hanging out with Clarke in public spaces for a while until they can get their rampant sexual urges under control long enough to enjoy a cup of tea.

“Did you have a specific location in mind?” she grins in response as if the gleam in Clarke’s eyes isn’t a clear enough indication.

:::

Part 2

:::

The sex is consistently noteworthy, and Lexa had never really doubted that she and Clarke would be compatible in that way, but so is the intimacy alongside it. Lexa has never before distinguished between the two so markedly. But, with Clarke, the intimacy is so distinct. When she is coming around Clarke’s fingers, letting her watch the strains of pleasure in her face and shoulders, Lexa registers the vulnerability of being caught in Clarke’s gaze as an orgasm ricochets through her.

Ordinarily, a week into any new relationship and Lexa would still be clinging to well-practiced safeguards. She would be withholding some parts of herself for safekeeping and ultimate preservation should things go sideways.

But, not with Clarke.

She likes that Clarke watches her so carefully. The way that she feels when held by Clarke’s gaze is a kind of certain safety that Lexa hasn’t known before. She kisses Clarke fully, holding nothing back as the pulsating aftershocks of her orgasm begin to ebb. When Clarke slowly removes her fingers, Lexa bites Clarke’s lip, swallowing the soft moan that follows.

“Does this mean you want to be exclusive?” Lexa asks, still breathless, when their lips have parted.

She feels Clarke’s laughter against her face before she’s being kissed again. “Yes, you idiot.”

“Good. Because I want to take you out.”

“Tonight?”

“Not tonight. It’s going to require some planning. I’d like it to be a proper date.”

Clarke’s elation is instantly visible. “Okay. I’m going to be honest, I’m highly intrigued to find out what a proper Lexa date looks like.”

Lexa kisses her again and considers, not for the first time, if she’ll be able to stop now that she’s started. Clarke’s warm tongue and soft lips are now vital to Lexa’s existence. She craves the sensation of their mouths sliding together at random intervals throughout her days.

“Kissing you has not been a disappointment,” she says, bringing more of Clarke’s bright laughter as they shift their limbs to reposition against the mattress.

Clarke’s leg wraps around her waist as Lexa brushes stray hair from Clarke’s face where they now lay facing side-by-side. “Oh, my god, I’ll second that. I knew you would be a good kisser.”

“Did you?” Lexa smiles at the confession. She likes that Clarke had thought of her in similar ways. She had not been the only one lost in questionably scandalous daydreams over the course of their friendship.

“Yes. I may have thought about it, once or twice.”

“I had a pretty good feeling about your talents as well.”

It’s such a simple, shared admission that nevertheless makes Lexa’s heart trip in its rhythm. “And now, I think about it constantly.”

For that, she is rewarded with another press of Clarke’s lips. “Me too. I’m pretty sure I’m regressing into a terrible excuse for a restaurant manager as a result of constant distraction.”

“And the bar for your professionalism was already set so low as it is.”

“Hey!” For that she gets a finger plunged sharply between her ribs, and Lexa squirms away from Clarke’s violent tickling.

“I’m kidding. You are an elite and respected paragon of your field.”

“You’re damn right I am,” Clarke affirms with pride.

“Honestly, I was so lost in thought the other day, I dropped a six pack on my foot.”

“Lexa!” Clarke laughs, kissing Lexa again anyway. “Oh no.”

“No permanent damage,” Lexa smiles. “Can I tell you what else I really like?”

Clarke could not look more delighted. “Yes, please.”

“I really like your sweater.”

“Wait—which sweater?”

Lexa props up onto an elbow, separating their warm skin as she casts her eyes around the room before locating the sweater in question. It sits near the foot of the bed where it had been discarded moments before. “That one,” she says. “It looks really good on you.”

Clarke seems both surprised and amused by the compliment. “Come here.”

Lexa allows herself to be pulled closer when Clarke wraps both hands around the back of her neck and their limbs slot back into place. They kiss lazily as if time doesn’t exist while Lexa’s hands begin to drift along the pathways she has started to chart across Clarke’s skin.

“I like seeing you in such a good mood,” Clarke eventually tells her.

“The effect of midafternoon orgasms cannot be underrated.” The frank sentiment makes Clarke laugh again as she rests their foreheads together and begins smoothing over Lexa’s skin with the tips of her fingers. “Also, I like being able to tell you things—things I wouldn’t have been able to say before.”

“I like when you tell me things.” Clarke tucks a strand of loose curls around Lexa’s ear. “Anything else in that busy head of yours you feel like sharing?”

Three words ring prominently in Lexa’s ears, and she fully blames Lincoln’s stupid taunting for the sentiment being at the forefront of her mind. It has nothing to do with the soft, swirling blue of Clarke’s eyes, or the subtle tilt of her mouth, or the fact that Lexa has memorized the sound of Clarke’s laugh. She swallows roughly and presses her lips to Clarke’s, sealing the unspoken words between them for good measure.

She instead tells Clarke a different truth, “I’m feeling much better since we talked.”

“I’m glad,” Clarke smiles. “I feel better, too.” She runs a hand down Lexa’s arm, finding her fingers.

“I was sort of anxious to say anything,” Lexa admits, feeling brave while cocooned in Clarke’s bed despite her earlier insecurities. She had worried, yet again, about saying too much. There was always the risk of Clarke pulling away if Lexa revealed too much. “I spent at least two days debating with myself.”

Clarke’s exaggerated surprise results in Lexa’s quiet giggles. “No, you did? You tortured yourself for days with unnecessary internal debates? That is highly out-of-character, Lexa.”

“You really are a lot more like Lincoln than I ever realized.”

Clarke’s laughter somehow brings them closer together, and Lexa shifts her legs where they are staggered between Clarke’s. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And, I’m glad you finally talked to me about this. I mean, I wasn’t totally expecting you to propose in the way that you did, but—”

“Clarke.” Lexa buries her face into the pillow and clenches her eyes to stave off her creeping mortification. So much for embracing her honesty.

Of course, Clarke is endlessly humored by watching Lexa suffer and only continues her assault on Lexa’s heartfelt admission. “I mean, correct me if I’m misquoting, but you said: ‘for the foreseeable future,’ which basically translates into asking me to date you, but like, forever.”

“Oh my god,” Lexa mumbles, her face still pressed into the soft cotton of Clarke’s pillowcase.

Clarke is not deterred by Lexa’s mounting humiliation, pressing kisses full of laughter into her neck and shoulder until Lexa finally turns to face her. Using the leverage of her leg wrapped around Lexa’s hips, Clarke has since wrestled her onto her back.

“See?” she says, running an index finger down the slope of Lexa’s nose and effectively smoothing the furrow of embarrassment between her eyebrows. “So adorable.”

It’s hard to keep hold of her ire when Clarke is naked above her and straddling her hips. Perhaps Clarke knows this as well because even as she shifts imperceptibly, Lexa feels it straight through her core. Her hands come to rest on the tops of Clarke’s thighs, and though she senses a residual scowl tugging at her lips, most of her regret for being too honest has faded.

“I’m sorry for making fun,” Clarke says while her thumbs rub circular patterns on Lexa’s ribs.

Lexa has never seen anyone look less apologetic in her life. “I would be more inclined to believe you if you weren’t actively trying not to laugh.”

“No, no, I’m serious,” Clarke reiterates, although she is fully laughing now. She clears her throat, aiming valiantly for composure. “What you said was so sweet, and, I mean, in case you couldn’t tell, I sort of plan on dating you for a really long time, too.”

Lexa fights her own smile rather poorly. “Well, that’s very convenient.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Clarke nods.

It’s the perfect segue into more unrestrained fondling, more languid kisses, and Clarke seems to be on the same wavelength as she leans her weight onto her hands and begins to roll her hips. It’s easier falling into this rhythm when for six days they have perpetually cycled the same routine: intimate talks bookended by multiple orgasms that are interspersed with brief intervals reserved for sleep and nourishment.

Lexa gasps into their first kiss from their well-timed movements—the feeling of them sliding together in that way has a heated sensation building quick and low. Just the pressure of Clarke on top of her and the way her slow, purposed movements are hitting Lexa in the all the right spots, has her close to a second orgasm in minutes.

She can hear Clarke’s breathing accelerate as well, the forced puffs of air through her nose that Lexa feels against her cheeks as their kisses grow more urgent. Clarke’s hand moves first, skating down Lexa’s abdomen as she lifts her hips to slide her fingers towards Lexa’s clit. It’s been no more than twenty minutes since her last orgasm, but Lexa’s body instantly responds to the circulating pressure of Clarke’s fingers moving against her.

They are still figuring things out, learning how the other responds to physical arousal, but this—Clarke on top of her, easily working her towards climax with deft fingers and filthy, open-mouth kisses—will do the trick every, single time. Lexa could probably come with much less stimulation at this point, when brushing touches while fully clothed are sometimes too much for her to function. Never mind the visual currently hovering over her—Clarke’s bouncing chest, grinding hips, and blown pupils. An image of her fingers sunk into Clarke in this position is enough to send Lexa over the edge. Her back arches off the mattress as the orgasm rolls up her spine, and Lexa catches her breath only after Clarke starts kissing her again.

A familiar dilemma has Lexa torn between using her hands or her mouth as the tingling sensations of her own orgasm have barely begun to fade. In the end, her urgency to feel Clarke’s arousal, and see it to completion, has Lexa moving a hand between their bodies to slide eager fingers into Clarke’s folds. There will always be time later to bury her face between Clarke’s legs.

Her breath always stutters at that first touch—it’s slick and warm and Clarke groans appreciatively when Lexa extends two fingers just as Clarke sinks onto Lexa’s hand. That she is open and intimate with Clarke in a way she never thought possible has not fully registered as her new reality, and for a brief second, Lexa’s mind goes blank.

In another breath, Lexa shifts, guiding Clarke to change her position just enough that she can take one of Clarke’s nipples into her mouth. The quick suction and slow laps of her tongue produce a groan from Clarke that Lexa will be thinking about days later.

“Fuck, Lexa,” Clarke pants, her hips now thrusting quicker against Lexa’s hand, pressing harder against her fingers as they slide in an out.

Clarke’s arms shift, palms flat against the mattress on either side of Lexa’s head where she is still holding her weight.

“Are your arms getting tired? Do you want to switch positions?” Lexa absently moves her hand that had been massaging one of Clarke’s breasts to lightly hold her bicep.

“No.” Clarke smiles and kisses her softly, in direct contrast to the way she is currently riding Lexa’s fingers. “You’re very sweet, but I’m good.”

“Okay, good. Because I’m really appreciating this view,” Lexa grins, moving her hand again to swipe a thumb across Clarke’s nipple.

“Do you think you can—”

She doesn’t let Clarke finish, relying instead on her still-developing intuitions, and takes the other nipple into her mouth.

“Yes, fuck.”

Lexa celebrates her victory of predicting Clarke’s needs by altering the position of her hand to reach Clarke’s clit with her thumb, the result of which has Clarke nearly collapsing onto her as her elbows buckle and her hips jerk forward. Lexa finds a well-practiced rhythm after that and works Clarke all the way to climax until the movement of her hips becomes erratic and she is no longer able to string together coherent profanity.

The comedown is soft and fun, quiet giggles and breathless kisses. Clarke collapses onto the mattress beside her, arms and legs finally relieved of their tension, and Lexa curls onto her side so that she can rest a hand onto Clarke’s stomach where she lies flat on her back.

Lexa is so content, she feels like her body might levitate in a boneless mass above the bed. Clarke’s breathing is still coming to rest, and Lexa watches her hand rise and fall with each inhale and exhale.

Into the greying stillness of the bedroom, Clarke asks, “Hey, what time are you supposed to meet Lincoln?”

The serenity Lexa had felt shatters in an instant. “Oh shit!” She flails about for a moment in search of her phone, having completely forgotten about her plans. “What time is it?”

She locates her phone before Clarke can answer. It’s already half past three, and Lexa’s stomach plummets. The text from Lincoln says: where you at?

“Are you late?” Clarke has come to sit behind her where Lexa’s legs hang off the mattress near the bedside table where she’d found her phone. Lexa feels soft kisses against her shoulderblade. “What did he say?”

Below Lincoln’s text is a picture of two full pints of beer sitting on a bar counter. She holds her phone at an angle so that Clarke can see Lincoln’s texts.

Lexa runs a hand through her hair as her heart hammers from the sudden jolt of adrenaline. “Shit.”

More than the shame of accidentally standing up one of her closest friends, Lexa dreads the fallout of this enormous misstep because Lincoln is never going to let her live this down. Worse yet, there is a good chance that he’ll share the story with Anya, which will mean, essentially, Lexa can never again return home.

“Why don’t you get dressed and go? I can drop you off,” Clarke offers sweetly, still pressing reassuring kisses along her back.

“I’m going to ask him if we can reschedule,” Lexa decides.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Lexa answers, turning her head to smile at Clarke over her shoulder. “I don’t

really feel like putting on pants at the moment.”

Clarke kisses her shoulder cap and grins in return. “You’ll get no argument from me there.”

“Let me give him a call really quickly.” Lexa reaches for a shirt on the floor—something of Clarke’s she’d worn to bed the night before—and stands to slip it over her head. Something about calling a close friend while completely naked and still coming down from an orgasm makes her slightly uncomfortable.

“Take your time,” Clarke tells her, also rising from the unkept sheets and blankets to pull her hair back into its messy bun. “I’m going to go downstairs and reheat our drinks from earlier.” She tugs at the hem of Lexa’s tee shirt and places a kiss at the corner of her mouth on her way to the bathroom. “Do you want a snack, too?”

“Okay.”

Lexa grins, following after Clarke’s lips as she starts to move away. A soft hold on her wrist is enough encouragement for Clarke to lean up into another kiss, reminding Lexa just how shaky her legs still feel from their exertions in bed. Perhaps sustenance to replenish her blood sugar is necessary instead of relying solely on a steady drip of oxytocins.

Lexa appreciates the view of Clarke’s retreating backside even in the fading light of the bedroom as the sun has started to move towards the horizon. She runs a hand through her wild curls and exhales, preparing to make her phone call while perched on the edge of the mattress.

Lincoln answers on the first ring. “Hey, buddy. Did you get lost?”

“Something like that,” Lexa says. “Clarke and I went for coffee, and then I sort of … lost track of time.”

“Say no more,” Lincoln laughs. “It’s your turn to ditch me for a girl now, right? I hope the sex was worth it.”

The fact that she is wearing nothing more than a thin tee shirt has Lexa covering her face with her hand. “Lincoln, I didn’t—”

His laughter persists, and Lexa wonders how loud it must be within the confines of the bar. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s totally fine. Honestly, I’d be more upset if you weren’t standing me up for time with Clarke right now.”

“I’m really sorry, Linc. I can be down there in like fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t you dare.” For the first time since he’s answered the call, Lincoln’s voice takes on a serious tone. “I swear to god, if you show up here, I’m frogmarching your ass right back to Clarke’s house.”

“Okay, fine,” Lexa laughs. “Let’s hang out early next week though. Beers on me.”

“Don’t even worry about it. I’m serious. I actually ran into some people from the gym plus the rep from Two Roads is here doing a tasting—I’m good, I promise.”

“I’m going to make this up to you,” Lexa reiterates. Despite Lincoln’s assurances, her guilt does not fully dissipate.

Clarke chooses this moment to step out of the bathroom, wearing just as much clothing as when she’d gone in, and Lexa’s brain lags at the sight. Her expression seems to be asking if everything is okay, and Lexa smiles in response.

“Lex, would you stop? Tell Clarke I said hi, and I’ll see you at work on Monday. Oh, hey, ask her if she’s tried the new session IPA from Two Roads. It’s intensely enjoyable.”

“Okay. I will.” She smiles up at Clarke, who has stopped to stand in front of her after slipping into a tee shirt and sweatpants. Lexa’s hand settles on Clarke’s hip like a magnet snapping into place. “Clarke says hi, too.”

“Sorry, Lincoln!” Clarke says, projecting her voice towards the receiver while tucking strands of curls behind Lexa’s ear. “It’s all my fault.”

There is more laughter down the line before Lincoln reiterates that everything is fine and he could never actually be angry with either of them.

:::

“So, since when do you source your unhealthy caffeine intake from elsewhere?”

“Huh?” Clarke smiles.

They’ve taken up seats at Clarke’s kitchen island with their reheated drinks from the coffee shop and Clarke’s version of a snack: smoked turkey and cheddar sandwiches on toasted potato rolls with homemade aioli.

They’re both wearing slightly altered versions of the same outfit—soft tee shirts and loose sweatpants, Clarke’s cut off into shorts so that Lexa’s fingers are continuously tempted to trail across all of the exposed skin within reach.

She sips her tea and returns Clarke’s smile.

“The barista at the coffee shop seemed shocked to see you,” she clarifies. “Don’t you practically pay rent there by spending so much of your time buying their coffee?”

For a brief moment, Clarke can’t seem to find her voice. She practically chokes on her sandwich, taking longer than expected to swallow her first bite. Lexa raises an eyebrow expectantly as their drinks emit swirling strands of steam into the air between them.

“I—I could ask you the same,” Clarke volleys back, not unkindly, as she dabs the corner of her mouth with a napkin and reaches for her coffee. “Morgan seemed just as surprised to see you there.”

Lexa bites her lip and looks away. She had asked out of genuine curiosity and confusion, and now it seems yet another bout of confessions is forthcoming.

She clears her throat. “Do you have any beer, actually?”

Clarke laughs lightly before shifting her expression into something like mild offense.

“Um, hi. My entire existence is practically centered around craft beer—do you even know me?”

“Right,” Lexa laughs. “Stupid question. Would you like one?”

“Again: do you even know me?”

Lexa starts to slide off her stool with a bright smile that belies the low buzz of nerves she is withstanding as an unspoken conversation simmers between them. Clarke is dislodging their legs from where they had sat in a close tangle at the island. “Stay,” she directs her, brushing a kiss to her temple. “I’ll get them.”

Once Lexa has pulled open the fridge door, she turns to look at Clarke over her shoulder. “Do you have a preference? Lincoln was asking if you’d tried the new IPA from Two Roads.”

“Are you actively avoiding answering my question by distracting me with beer inquiries?”

Lexa pinches her lips together to ward off a sheepish admission, and Clarke rolls her eyes affectionately. “Look on the left hand side, bottom shelf.”

Lexa ducks down to retrieve two brightly colored cans of IPA before closing the fridge door and returning to the island. “Not to split hairs, but technically, you avoided my question first.”

“Okay, fine,” Clarke sighs dramatically. She takes one last dreg from her coffee before shoving it away in favor of the can of beer Lexa has just opened for her. “I was—” Clarke actually ducks her head so that Lexa can see her thick eyelashes fluttering “—I was afraid I would run into you during the, uh, when we—”

“Broke up?” Lexa supplies. She is still holding a small smile for Clarke when blue eyes finally snap up to meet hers.

It had felt like that. A relationship ending—a significant one at that. And, Lexa had been left broken in the aftermath.

“I was going to say when we stopped talking,” Clarke continues. “But, it was more than that. It did feel like a break up. And, we didn’t decide anything—I cut communications all on my own.”

“Clarke—”

“I’m really sorry, Lexa.”

Lexa is already shaking her head, part disbelief at what she’s hearing, part exasperation that Clarke has mistakenly absorbed all of the blame.

“Clarke, I know you have this bizarre obsession with always being right, but I can assure you—what happened in November was all on me.”

“I just vanished, Lexa. I didn’t even tell you why or allow you to explain anything.” Clarke’s eyes are downcast and her voice softens in unmistakable regret as she fiddles the silver tab on her beer. “I freaked out and hid away. And, it was really shitty.”

Lexa can’t help the way her mind creates distinctions between Clarke and Costia—the contrast of Costia’s distance from their relationship to Clarke’s sudden disappearance. With Costia, it had often felt like abandonment and disregard. The space between them had been a disappointment, a mild discomfort that Lexa sustained over time. Losing Clarke—and it had felt like that, as if she turned around one day and panicked to find Clarke had vanished—left her devastated and painfully bereft.

“Not seeing you was horrible. Not being able to talk to you was even worse. But, I’m glad you stepped back and took that space. It was shitty, but not because you did anything wrong.”

“I hated not seeing you, too,” Clarke admits, and they share another small smile across the kitchen island, tinged with a distant, remembered sadness.

“I couldn’t avoid Dockside, contractually, but I—I didn’t want to encroach upon your other spaces.”

“So, you stopped going to the coffee shop.”

Lexa confirms with a short nod and takes the first sip of her beer. She’s glad they’ve had this talk, but she’s also more than eager to segue out of November’s gloom that is better left in the past. She takes a cleansing breath and sets down her beer.

“In the end, I was glad you created that barrier between us, Clarke. I was miserable, and Lincoln will tell you that I was insufferable to be around, but it made me realize what a massive idiot I’d been.”

Her admission elicits an actual laugh, and Clarke shakes her head fondly. “So much for that Ivy League education.”

There’s a lot more that could be said, and it’s a much longer conversation that they will likely parse out at some point. But, today has been exceptionally good, and Lexa isn’t quite ready to lose the momentum of their good moods. Even for the sake of honesty.

“I’m a slow learner,” Lexa shrugs.

“Based on the activities that occurred in my bedroom this afternoon, I can attest to that being entirely untrue,” Clarke says, voice pitched low and taunting.

At the return of Clarke’s brazen flirting and sly smile, Lexa ducks her head as her cheeks warm. Because, despite the fact that they have spent a good portion of the afternoon swapping orgasms, she still sees Clarke as her best friend, in many ways, who she has only recently had the distinct pleasure of seeing naked.

“I’m sort of a quick study in that department,” Lexa smirks.

“I’ve noticed,” Clarke laughs. They sip their beers in weighted silence for a few beats, sharing glances as they drink, and then Clarke adds to the mounting tension by asking, “So, when do I get to hear more about this date?”

“The details of the date itself are highly classified,” Lexa explains in all seriousness, despite her stomach swooping.

“Classified, huh?” Clarke laughs into another sip of beer.

“Do I honestly strike you as someone who is going to halfass a first date?”

“You don’t strike me as a person who has halfassed anything in their entire life.”

“Correct,” Lexa smiles. She shifts smoothly along the island’s edge until she is again stood on the same side as Clarke, who accepts Lexa’s proximity with a slow-spreading smile. “You know, I could potentially be persuaded to provide a sneak peek of some post-date activities,” she offers, already moving to enter Clarke’s space more fully as their drinks are gingerly slid a good distance away.

She slowly spins Clarke’s stool just enough that she can slot between her legs, and Clarke is already leaning into the touch as Lexa’s hands curve around her jaw. The kiss is like regaining breath after being submerged under water. Their conversation on past events hadn’t been strenuous, by any means, but Lexa registers a sense of relief to have resumed their previous activities all the same.

She sinks into the warmth of Clarke’s lips and tongue, exhaling after several, languid moments. When her hands move to slide up the length of Clarke’s thighs, eliciting a distinctly strained exhale as Lexa teases her fingers beneath the cut-off edge of Clarke’s shorts, it’s abundantly clear where they’re both headed.

They make it as far as the sofa.

Lexa can’t be bothered to maneuver the stairs when there are so many other available surfaces on which to make Clarke slowly shake apart. She does so on her knees while making good on her earlier intents to spend a long stretch of time between Clarke’s legs. The last shards of sunlight are nearly gone, leaving them in golden shadows and dim light from the kitchen while Clarke moans soft encouragements and cards her fingers through Lexa’s hair. There is no rush, no urgency, hardly a sense of time moving at all. Lexa feels calm and confident, content to bring Clarke closer to release at a measured pace as she begins to gently rock against the pressure of Lexa’s tongue. Everything feels languid and slow, like running through water.

It’s not lost on her, as Clarke’s orgasm eventually echoes through the quiet house, heels pressing into her back and Clarke’s fingers threaded into her hair, that this very sofa had been the impetus for their time apart. The innocence of that encounter, as she and Clarke gave in to the comforts of shared sleep, had propelled them toward a shift in their relationship. Looking back, everything that has transpired between them since that singular event seems inevitable.

Falling asleep with Clarke that first time had been rife with implications that they would eventually end up right back here: a cozy, nondescript, weekend night spent on Clarke’s couch with nowhere to go.

The insignificance of an otherwise mundane Saturday is outweighed by the way Lexa’s mouth curves into an easy smile as she kisses the warm skin of Clarke’s inner thigh. Clarke is coming down from the aftershocks of a slow-rolling orgasm when Lexa registers a sharp uptick in her heart rate as they lock eyes while Clarke is still catching her breath.

And, this too holds weight—for all their recent honesty, there are still things Lexa has left unsaid.

“Get up here,” Clarke gently demands. Lexa complies without pause.

Clarke’s sated and satisfied groans melt into scratched laughter that dovetails with their kiss, and the magnitude of what Lexa feels is underscored as their mouths meet.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Clarke tells her some breath of time later, when Lexa has moved from the floor to the sofa at Clarke’s urging. “If this type of activity is in the cards for date night, I don’t really give a shit what the actual date itself looks like.”

They lay along the length of the sofa, limbs over lapping at certain intervals, and Lexa’s hand flat against Clarke’s stomach beneath her tee shirt.

“Good to know I can scale back my efforts,” Lexa smirks, feeling no less satisfied that she has reduced Clarke’s expectations with one, albeit exemplary, late-afternoon orgasm.

Clarke’s laughter echoes Lexa’s contentment, and her smile grows. She can feel the subtle shaking of Clarke’s diaphragm beneath her fingertips.

“This has been such a good day,” Clarke says, adding further reinforcement to Lexa’s equally satisfied mood. “I really like having your here. Have I mentioned that?”

Lexa grins into Clarke’s close gaze and presses her lips to the edges of Clarke’s smile. “Once or twice.”

“Lincoln is the kindest, most-deserving creature on the planet, but I’m really glad you stayed here instead. Just this once.”

Lexa’s contented smile slips and she nearly groans as her head falls onto the armrest. “I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“What do you mean?” Clarke laughs.

“I pride myself in being reliable—no excuses. If I say I’ll be there, I’ll be there. Especially when it comes to Lincoln or Anya.” Lexa exhales and glances up to find Clarke’s eyes. “The fact that I neglected our plans for—”

“The best sex of your life?” Clarke supplies with swagger. Lexa’s smile returns without her consent. “I mean, you looked like you were about to say: the best sex of your life.”

As laughter bubbles up from her chest, it vanquishes Lexa’s lingering criticisms about her snap decision to break plans with Lincoln. Clarke’s commentary is a reductive synopsis, at best, but also not entirely untrue. “Yes. Something like that.”

A beat of silence passes and then Clarke says, “If you’re worried he’s going to give you a hard time about breaking plans, wait until you tell him you proposed.”

She buries her face against Clarke’s shoulder to the delighted rasp of Clarke’s giggling laughter and concludes, yet again, that it is the absolute best sound in the world, even at her own expense.

:::

#a pleasant undoing #brewkru!#a beer bud series #clexa fic

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scullydubois · 3 years

Text

Only the Light Ch. 13

As Scully copes with her diagnosis, Mulder joins her for the Scully family Christmas dinner. Plus, Melissa's girlfriend meets the family.

TW for disordered eating, cigarette smoking, references to abduction/medical rape.

-------------

Self destruction is a natural impulse for Dana Scully, though she’ll try to deny it. Take one unexplained abduction, add a dash of premature menopause, and sift out time spent proving Mulder wrong, and you’ll get a struggling Scully.

She can tell she’s entering a bad mental state when food becomes a suggestion rather than a necessity. Every bite is either earned according to whatever trivial rules she’s set for herself in that particular moment, or is not deserved and therefore not eaten. It’s a game where she’s the coach, player, and referee, yet she still loses every time. Nourishment is both prize and punishment, feeding her hunger but vacating her control.

This habit started when she was a teenager and wracked with feelings her petite frame couldn’t contain. It felt much safer than the route her siblings had taken of sneaking out in the middle of the night or using fake IDs to buy alcohol or skipping church on the regular. As far as fifteen-year-old her was concerned, she wasn’t bothering anyone by foregoing some meals. Her mother disagreed and called her out every time, humiliating her into her second coping mechanism, smoking.

There were the times when Scully was really young and enticed by her sister’s cigarettes, but that was simple preteen rebellion. What developed when Dana was seventeen was something different entirely. A survival mechanism with poison inside, snuffing herself out while keeping her alive and sane. She would walk to the gas station and buy packs of Marlboros with coins from her piggy bank. The laws were lax in the 80s, the prices too. She would blow rings of smoke while walking home, then hide the pack in her bra and swish some mouthwash. She’d repeat the process to and from school, steadily acquiring a nasty nicotine habit. It continued until the summer before college, when she made herself go cold turkey so as not to take the habit with her. As far as she knows, neither her parents nor any of her siblings ever knew about it.

It resurfaces in times of stress, though normally for no more than a single pack. Lately she’s accustomed to keeping a pack and a lighter with her at all times. Her building is smoke free so she steps outside, but her car is off limits because she doesn’t want the smell to cling to her. It is a hassle, but then again, so are most things.

Missy knows about the poor eating habits--those are hard to hide from someone who shares the same space as you. Nevermind the fact that the scale shows six less pounds than before, and that adds up when the number’s not that large to begin with. Scully’s edges protrude now...that can’t be hidden.

Missy never says a word. She remembers Dana complaining about their mother’s condescending comments about her weight, and she knows the damage that does to a young psyche. Instead, she offers. Healthy meals, guilty pleasure meals, all her sister’s favorites. She cooks more than she ever has before, well aware that her sister will struggle to refuse her.

“I recognize what you’re doing,” Missy told her sister when she tried to turn away a caesar salad, of all things. “I’ve been known to do that too,” Missy admitted. “Eat. You’re hungry, you just think not eating will give you some form of control over your body, or your life...but wasting yourself away is letting the bastards win.”

And so she did, that time at least. Scully has enough shame regarding her habit to push it aside whenever confronted---that’s how she insists to herself that it’s not an eating disorder. She can stop on command. That makes it okay, right?

Getting back into the office helped her a lot---you can’t starve yourself and function as an FBI agent. Besides, she would dissolve into thin air if Mulder figured out what she was doing. He was the one who batted around the idea of Scully helping prep each case and supervising any tests he might need the crime lab to do while he’s in the field. He understood that in lieu of therapy, she needed something to take her out of her own mind.

It was as much for him as it was her; at this point, it’s almost incomprehensible to him that the X-Files had existed before her. Of course he was the laughingstock of the FBI! He had huddled in the basement by himself with UFOs and blurry Bigfoot sightings pinned on the wall like a shrine to his own delusion.

Her fall from grace was his absolution. He’ll make an angel of her, somehow. Even if it means he has to meet the devil.

Scully has no interest in becoming an angel, though she’d sure like to avoid hell, and that hasn’t worked out too well. Locker room jokes are one thing. Underestimation another. But assault? Rape? Trauma and torture because she is who she is doing what she does? She is not a quitter, and that is killing her.

Her barrenness haunts her because it was bestowed upon her as punishment, an implication that she only has worth as a walking womb. She wants to be seen as a person, not a pawn.

The arrival of the holiday season is another weight on her shoulders. It used to be Scully’s favorite time of year; now the sight of carolers makes her want to poke her eyes out. It’s the first Christmas without her father, and that is simply unimaginable. Her and Missy spent a quiet Thanksgiving with their mother---small portions and whispered thanks--in preparation for an elaborate family Christmas. Bill Jr. and Tara are flying in from California for the annual Christmas dinner and midnight mass. They will all try to move forward, pretend it’s just like any other year, but it’s not and it never will be again. Happy Christmases are over for the Scully family.

And yet, they will try to enjoy the moment. Missy told her mom that she’s bringing a friend, which is completely true. Trinity is her closest friend that she doesn’t share blood with. That said, she plans to use the occasion to introduce Trinity as her girlfriend, come what may.

Then there was the suggestion that their mother made, which caught her youngest daughter completely off guard. “Why don’t you bring Fox?” Margaret Scully proposed demurely during their weekly phone call. “I’m making a zoo’s worth of food, I could use another mouth to feed. I hate to see any of it go to waste.”

“Mulder’s spending Christmas with his family, I’m sure,” Scully had replied. “But I’ll pass along the offer.”

That was how Scully learned that Mulder’s family isn’t much for celebration, that he usually spends the holiday flipping between It’s A Wonderful Life and the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story, and that he has a particular fascination with the idea of midnight mass.

“I just don’t get it,” Mulder mused. “You believe that a jolly old man with flying reindeer leaves presents in your house, but you think he waits until after you’ve gotten home from celebrating Baby Jesus’ birthday? Didn’t you ever look for his sleigh in the sky on the drive home?”

“No, Mulder,” Scully sighed. “I just believed that he knew when we were tucked in bed. Santa’s all-seeing, you know,” she teased.

Mulder chuckled. “Kind of presumptuous to assume he functions on your schedule, huh?”

Ultimately, Mulder said yes. He figured attending the Catholic equivalent of Jesus’ birthday party would be another check off his supernatural bucket list, though he did not say this part out loud for fear of Dana Scully’s wrath. Besides, what else was he gonna do on Christmas Eve? Shake the shoebox of junk he stuck under his mini-basketball hoop so he felt like he was getting a gift?

And so the fateful day arrives. Mulder flips his Garfield page-a-day calendar to December 24th, chuckles at the comic strip of the orange cat eating all his owner’s Christmas cookies, and makes his way to his partner’s increasingly familiar doorstep. The sun has already slipped behind the trees by the time he arrives. It gives up easily in the winter.

He rings the bell and hears Scully’s dainty footsteps on the other side. She’s snuck up on him enough times for him to have developed a keen sense of her light footing--no more jump scares for him.

“Hey Scully,” he stammers as she opens the door. She had told him to look “festive,” so he donned his nicest green sweater (a gift from his mom from J. Crew...he had never worn it) and slacks. Scully rounds out their show of holiday spirit with a velvet red blouse and black trousers.

“You look lovely,” Mulder says reflexively, unsure when he started using such a word. Scully pulls at her shirt, obscuring the bit of cleavage that has revealed itself. “Thanks Mulder,” she mutters, ushering him inside.

He holds up the shiny silver gift bag he hastily stuffed with tissue paper. “Some candy canes I picked up at the gas station. I figured the whole family could enjoy them.”

Scully nods, amused by his feeble attempt at gifting. “I’m sure they won’t go to waste.”

A fire crackles in the fireplace. It’s so hot in the apartment that Mulder is surprised it hasn’t melted the snow outside on the sidewalk.

“Where’s Melissa?” he asks, hoping they will hit the road sooner than later.

“She’s picking up her girlfriend from the airport. She couldn’t get an earlier flight.”

“Dulles?” He sure hopes not. It’s all the way across town.

“No, Reagan.”

Whew. Much closer.

“She should be back any minute now,” Scully continues. “Trinity’s flight got in at 3:30.”

Mulder rolls his sleeves up. “So your family doesn’t know about Trinity?”

Scully shakes her head.

“Do they know that Melissa’s…” He gestures, unsure which word to fill the space with.

“Bi? No.”

“So she shows up with Trinity, and then what?”

Scully shrugs. “She introduces her as her girlfriend. Mom already knows Missy is bringing a guest so she’ll have a plate for her.”

“You’re not worried about how the family’s gonna react?”

“Well, I’m sure Bill is gonna be a dick about it, but that’s normal. We only see him once a year, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Bill’s your brother?”

“Uh-huh. And Tara is his wife. They got married about a year and a half ago.”

Even as he pushes into his thirties, it still surprises Mulder that anyone close to his age could be married. He doesn’t even sleep in a bed.

“You think your mom’s gonna be cool with Trinity?” he asks.

“I think she loves her daughter enough to be.”

“Mmm.” Mulder sticks his hands in his pockets. If only he had dilemmas like this. He imagines him and Samantha speculating about their mother’s reaction to Sam’s nose piercing or dyed hair or...anything really. He would give so much to have someone to laugh about his uncle’s sideburns with.

His emotional deep-dive is promptly cut off by the entrance of Melissa and a brunette woman whose bangs graze her eyebrows, her hair falling just below her shoulder. “Hi!” she chirps, taking in the magnificence of Dana Scully. “Dana, I presume?”

Scully nods.

“May I hug you?” Trinity asks, hazel eyes shining.

“Sure,” Scully says, feeling the brisk air against Trinity’s coat as she’s pulled in.

Scully lets go first, and Trinity takes that as a cue to pull away. “You look just like Mel, wow,” she remarks, fighting the urge to run her fingers through Scully’s hair.

Scully smiles softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, it is,” Trinity assures, exchanging a gooey gaze with Missy. Next, her attention falls upon Mulder, who does an awkward half-wave. “Hello!” She points between Mulder and Scully. “Boyfriend?”

Mulder chokes. Scully picks up his slack--”Oh, no. This is Fox Mulder, my partner at the FBI.”

“Ahh,” Trinity smiles knowingly. “Yes, I’ve heard about you. I didn’t know you would be joining us for Christmas.”

“Christmas is not exactly my family’s cup of tea, so I figured I’d get an authentic experience with the Scullys.”

“Same! I’m looking forward to Mama Scully’s ginger snaps. I’ve heard fantastic things about them.”

Mulder elbows his partner playfully. “Damn, Scully! How could you leave me in the dark about ginger snaps?”

Scully rolls her eyes but smiles. “I apologize, Mulder. Though for the record, the fruitcake is better.”

“Says no one, ever,” Mulder teases.

She grins. Now this is Christmas.

---------------------

Taking a seat at Margaret Scully’s dinner table feels like existing inside a Christmas movie, in Mulder’s mind. Fancy china, green and red serving platters, paper mache snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, and a porcelain nativity scene; the dining room has it all. Not to mention the heaping piles of food there for the taking...if this is Christmas, Mulder wants in every year.

Scully does not share his cinematic fantasy. She knows better, having actually attended one of her family’s dinners before. Bill will get too drunk and start saying whatever comes to mind, their mother will laugh along like he’s still a five year old babbling about nothing (as opposed to the thirty-something spewing bullshit that he actually is), Missy will attempt to debate him to get him to shut up (which never works), and she will sit there and wish to be somewhere, anywhere else. And all without their father to hold the reins and keep a fight from breaking out.

The night has gone smoothly enough, Scully supposes. Missy introduced Trinity as her girlfriend in a very non-ceremonial way, forcing Bill and their mother to nod and accept it, in the moment at least. Mulder received a hug from Margaret and a pat on the shoulder from Bill, so pretty much the highest token of approval. Mulder’s candy canes earned a place in the center of the dessert table, which gave him way more satisfaction than it should have, and he couldn’t help but feel that if they were to vote on favorite man at the party, he would win. A room with Bill Jr. in it is probably the only place he would ever earn this honor, and he’ll take that.

Yet everything unwinds as Scully suspected. Bill waits until everyone has packed plates and full mouths to unleash his particular hyperfixation for the night.

“Trinity?” he questions, raising his fork diagonal across the table toward her. “Is that your name?”

Trinity smiles and nods, oblivious to what she’s in for.

“And you know Melissa how…?”

She pats a napkin to her mouth. “We worked at the same restaurant in Oregon.”

He chuckles gruffly. “What was it, one of those gay bar things?”

“No, an Italian bistro,” Trinity continues calmly.

Missy, however, is not so calm. “Gay people can go places other than gay bars,” she retorts. “We’re not segregated. Though I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Bill sets a fist on the table, clanging his silverware. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Why the hell do you insist on being so politically correct all the time? I’d shoot myself.”

“Gee, maybe you should try it sometime.”

“Now Melissa…” Margaret Scully’s voice rises above the clamor.

“I have the right to defend my girlfriend and I against Bill’s thinly disguised homophobia,” Missy responds.

“You act like I give a damn what you and your friend do,” Bill sneers. “That’s not my business.”

“Then stop pretending like it is.”

“Oh boo-hoo, little Missy thinks the world revolves around her.”

“Bill, honey, I think that’s enough,” Tara says, laying a protective hand on his arm.

“You’re right.” He raises his can of beer toward Mulder. “Whaddya doin here, hot shot? Trying to seduce my sister?”

Scully frowns, but doesn’t say anything, pushing food around on her plate.

Mulder seems rather unbothered by Bill’s advances. He chuckles. “Actually, I think it’s the other way around.”

Bill snorts. “That’s a likely story.”

“You don’t think I’m worth your sister’s time?”

“I don’t think Dana thinks you're worth her time. You’re not her type.”

“I am sitting right here, you know,” Scully says, staring daggers at her brother.

“Then tell us Dana! Is hot shot here your type?”

Her eyes brush Mulder’s face. His cheeks flush, reddening like a stormy sunset. She wishes she could read his mind. The safe answer and the true answer are not often the same. “I think Mulder is a wonderful man. I’m very lucky to know him,” she answers stiffly, her annoyance aimed at Bill.

“Oh, the old run-around!” Bill scraps his fork against his plate. ”Typical.”

Scully grabs her now empty canned cocktail and sulks into the kitchen, leaving her chair pushed away from the table. Everyone watches her go, but Bill gives off the only visible reaction. He laughs. “Scared her away. Thought it would take more.”

Mulder and Melissa exchange a glance. She nods, granting him permission to play knight-in-shining-armor. Quietly, Mulder slips out of his chair and pushes it back into place. He catches the kitchen door as it swings closed behind his partner.

Her anger concealed from the rest of the family, Scully drops her can in the recycling bin with a bang. She ignores Mulder, instead opening the refrigerator and pulling out another cocktail, saying nothing.

“What is this, your fifth drink?” Mulder brushes his hand over her shoulder, and she recoils. “Leave me alone, Mulder.” She slams the fridge and tries to turn around, but he’s cornered her.

“C’mon Scully, Bill’s harmless. He doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s not fucking about Bill,” she fumes, alcohol fizzing through her bloodstream. She inhales, trying to keep it together in front of the man who has done nothing wrong to her. “Please get out of my way.”

“What’s wrong?” He frames her shoulders with his hands, creating their own little bubble.

“Don’t touch me!” she growls. Mulder knows as soon as hears it: he will never forget the pure anguish in her voice. As she retreats to the corner, he looks down at his palms, the stovetop that burned her...he would cut them off if he could.

Unfortunately, the commotion attracts the Scully’s like a dog whistle. Bill leads the charge into the kitchen, getting a full view of his sister hunched over by the back door while her partner stands by the fridge like an idiot. “Ooo, a lover’s spat!” he exclaims, only nominally concerned about Dana’s well-being.

“Shut up, Bill,” Missy hisses. To everyone’s relief, he does.

Mrs. Scully comes forward, maneuvering around Mulder to get to her daughter. “Are you alright, Dana?”

Scully keeps her back to the crowd. “I just need a minute.” She taps her pocket, confirms that she slipped her pack of cigarettes in. “I’ll be outside. Everyone can go back to dinner, please.”

She twists the doorknob and steps onto the back deck without waiting for any response. Mulder feels the tug of tears in his throat, like a dormant animal waking up in him. He is used to being hurt (though not by Scully, never her), but inflicting the hurt is a whole other beast. He doesn’t know what he’s done, but he doesn’t need to. The look in her eyes, put there by what he thought was a harmless touch, made his heart tremble. He is frozen in place, grateful when Melissa appears at his side as the rest of the party returns to the dining room.

“I didn’t mean to upset her, I was trying to make her feel better about Bill…” he laments.

“I’m sure, I’m sure. It’s not you specifically, she’s going through a lot right now--you know.”

Mulder rubs his neck. “I don’t know if I do.”

“She hasn’t shared her diagnosis?”

His eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “Diagnosis?! Is she okay?”

Missy sighs. “I think you two need to talk. If she gets pissed, tell her I sent you.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Tell me if she’s okay.”

“She’s okay. It’s not fatal or anything.”

“She would tell me, if it was...wouldn’t she?”

Missy bites her lip. “I don’t know, Fox---Mulder. I would hope so, but I was under the impression you already knew about this, and you see how that’s gone.”

Mulder turns toward the back door, desperation living in his voice. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve gotta check on her.”

Missy nods. “Don’t let her weasel her way out of this one. I’m expecting a heart-to-heart, mushiness and all.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

He turns the back doorknob and slips through the door, trying to imitate his partner’s ninja skills. The old wood on the door frame shakes as he shuts it. He winces--so much for the sneak attack.

Mulder follows the arc of the deck, winter’s bite colliding with him. He didn’t have a chance to grab his jacket, and now that he’s thinking about it, Scully didn’t either. He can grin and bear it but she is all skin and bones, now more than ever. It scares him to see her like that, but it’s none of his business, he feels, to comment on her body. He can break her fall, but he must not provide an extra push.

The wind has no friends to protect nor foes to defeat, so it will give away anyone. It carries the unmistakable tarnish of smoke to Mulder’s nose, an ashy haze that has come to remind him of Skinner’s office and the shadow lingering in the corner. He almost expects to find him there with his Morleys and his sadistic laugh. Instead, he finds a redhead and her Marlboros shrinking against the December cold snap.

“Bum a cig, ma’am?” He scoots up to her, ready to retrieve his own smoke from her long, slender fingers.

“Mulder!” She pulls the cigarette away from her, holding her last puff captive in her lungs.

He wiggles his fingers like an impatient child. “We’re all gonna die someday, right?”

Her jig up, she rolls her shoulders back and releases the smoke with a great rise and fall of her chest. It mingles in the air with the chill of her breath, becoming one and the same as they leave the contours of her body. Head tilted back and lips parted, she is alive with nicotine’s ease and intoxication’s freedom.

It is better than porn, according to one Fox William Mulder. He’ll keep this observation to himself for now.

“Did your parents never teach you that sharing is caring?” he rambles. “C’mon, give me a light!”

“It’s a nasty habit, Mulder.”

“I’m a connoisseur of those,” he replies loosely. “Now, you’re not gonna make me put you in a headlock are ya?”

Scully rolls her eyes. She’s never felt less threatened in her life. “You’re exhausting, do you know that?”

“I’ve heard it a time or two.”

She pulls a cigarette from her carton and slips it into his fingers. They are warm; hers are ice-cold. “I wanted to be alone.” She hands him the lighter, watches as he generates heat from thin air.

He lights his cig and sticks the lighter in his pocket rather than handing it back to her. “According to my calculations, you should be very drunk right now. Other than your Oscar bait performance back there, you’ve got things pretty under control I’d say.”

Scully gestures at her cigarette smoking, teeth chattering self. “Yeah, I’m the picture of health.”

“Do you have some exceptional alcohol tolerance I should know about, because that’d make you very valuable in undercover work.”

Scully gazes out into the distance. She’d smile if she were to look at him right now, and that doesn’t feel right for the situation. “Those drinks have low alcohol content, Mulder. You can buy them at Dollar General.”

“You ever looked at their hand sanitizer? It’s like 95% alcohol.”

“Well, now I know where you go to get your fix.”

He chuckles. “You got me.”

She stuffs her hands in her pockets and he wishes, god he wishes, that he had grabbed his jacket. He’d take off his sweater if she wanted him to--stand there with his bare chest to the cold--but he has a feeling that would only exacerbate the situation.

He tries a more gentlemanly route. “Do you want me to grab your jacket? I won’t give away your trade secrets.”

She folds herself together. “No, it’s okay. It’ll make me get a move on at some point.”

They stand united in their rebellion, blowing smoke and freezing their asses off. Who needs Christmas cheer when you’ve got Christmas resentment?

Mulder sways a bit to keep his blood circulating. He is careful not to bump her. “You wanna tell me why you’re out-Scrooging Scrooge this year?” he prompts as gently as he can.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it hasn’t exactly been the best year of my life.”

“I gathered that, yeah.”

“And it’s the first Christmas without my father…” her voice warbles.

“Shit, right. I’m sorry,” Mulder murmurs.

“...So it just doesn’t feel very celebratory.” She takes a long drag. Mulder can tell that this secret smoking habit is not new to her, and he wonders when she picked it up, how long she has kept it from him.

He takes a deep breath, watches as it is written in the air. “Melissa told me you received a diagnosis, and I think we’ve already established that sharing is caring…”

Scully looks him in the eyes for the first time since he joined her. It has the sudden intensity of a black-and-white film, Scully the 1940s scarlet and he the leading man who pales in comparison to her. There is no one he’d rather be overshadowed by.

“It’s humiliating,” she croaks. “Missy and my mom are the only ones who know.”

“I’ve got the monopoly on humiliation in this partnership, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” he says, flicking some ashes to the ground.

“This is a particular form of humiliation you can’t experience, I’m afraid. Or at least, it wouldn’t impact you the same way.”

“Let’s hear it.”

She sighs. “My abductors removed all of my eggs, causing my menstrual cycle to shut down and me to enter perimenopause.”

His breath catches in his throat. “Jesus christ.”

“Uh-huh.”

He throws his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out, though it could have burned longer. “That’s fucking horrifying, Scully. You’ve got to inform the Bureau. We’ve got to catch these--whatever they are. We’ve got to make them pay.”

“No, Mulder. It’s too much. I don’t want to keep reliving it, I want to be able to move on with my life.”

“How can you move on when they’re still out there, probably doing it to more women?”

She shakes her head, feeling the snag of tears and holding them back for fear they might freeze on her face. “I don’t know, but I can’t think about it like that. It sort of...shatters everything, the idea that this could be a phenomenon happening to other women in secret. I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen to me. I still don’t believe it.”

Mulder shudders. He can’t discern whether it’s from the cold or their conversation. “Do you think it was men who took you? Or do you believe Duane Barry?”

“It seems like a level of monstrosity that only man could achieve. It requires a certain understanding of society, gender roles...dehumanization that only humans could perpetuate.”

Mulder nods. Her reasoning tracks, but the thought of him failing to outsmart humans who stole away his partner is something he cannot fully process. It makes sense that he couldn’t find her if she was in space, but if she was on the face of the Earth, he had no damn excuse.

“You were just gone, Scully...you were just gone.” His aching is so palpable, his voice a cliff’s edge they could both tumble down.

“I know I was.” She takes one last puff, then lets her cigarette fall to the ground. She crushes it with her heel, her force premeditated and brutal. That pain is for the ones who took her, the ones who have obviously never loved a thing at all.

Head bowed, she moves toward the door, but not without grasping for Mulder’s elbow, assuring that he is following behind. He is and he will be, for as long as she lets him.

Inside, the home’s manufactured warmth hits them, unreal in comparison to the cold they have known. The kitchen is as quiet as it was before their ordeal, the dining room empty aside from Mrs. Scully clearing serving platters.

“Where did everyone go?” Scully asks, momentarily alarmed that she may have ruined the entire gathering.

“We’re going to drive around and look at lights before mass. Everyone’s getting ready.”

“Oh.” She looks to Mulder, as if to check that he hasn’t left her stranded. “I think I’ll stay here,” she tells her mother. “Make a cup of hot chocolate and relax for a bit.”

“Well, you’ll be missed. Fox, would you like to join us?”

He takes a leap, hopes he’s got the right idea. “I’ll stay here, but thank you.”

“As you wish,” Mrs. Scully says with a slight smile. Mulder had never noticed her resemblance to her daughter until that moment. It was like looking at a sketch of a famous painting; the lines are there but the colors missing.

Soon enough the crowd leaves and Scully and Mulder settle on the couch with mugs of hot cocoa. Margaret Scully’s tree forms the centerpiece of the living room, and it’s hard not to admire its gold and red decorations and the shiny angel on top.

“That’s gorgeous. Does she do it every year?” Mulder asks, ignoring the steam rising out of his mug and going right in for the kill.

Scully nods. “Every year since we were kids. There used to be a lot more homemade ornaments, but I guess she swapped those for a more elegant look now that we’re grown.”

“Well, it’s beautiful.” He looks at her, curled up with the glow of the fireplace falling upon her, and he feels warmth and safety like never before. It would be so easy to slip in “and so are you,” it is practically begging to be said. But she wouldn’t believe him if he said it now; she would think it was a pity compliment. Instead, he mouths the words, and she is not looking, and that is okay.

She snuggles deeper into the cushions, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. She is the most at ease she has been in months--here in the house she lived in during high school with the fireplace crackling and her partner by her side--and that’s not what she expected from Christmas Eve. Heaven strokes her skin, and she blinks her eyes open to find Mulder tucking her in with her mother’s microfiber blanket. She smiles her soft Scully smile. “Thank you,” she coos, burrowing herself deeper into the blanket’s embrace.

“You’re welcome,” Mulder whispers into her ear. His fingers tangle in her hair as he pulls her toward him, his lips meeting her temple. She catalogues the feeling for her memory bank: chapped but carrying the hot chocolate’s warmth. She will spend the next while convinced that it was a dream, a fleeting image in the moments before sleep, but she will carry the feeling until she feels it again.

#in true x files fashion it's an angsty christmas with some fluff at the end #just pretend that christmas hasnt passed haha #guest starring: bill jr being a dick #and missy's gf <3 #if you continue to follow this I'm literally in love with you thank you #the x-files #only the light fic #txf #txf fic #missy and scully fic #fox mulder #dana scully #melissa scully #mine

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justalittletomato · 4 years

Text

Maul X Reader Drabble Part 2

A link to Part 1:

https://justalittlecloud.tumblr.com/post/628405603084206080/maul-x-reader-drabble

A continuation from the previous installment were sentiments were a clear miss. Here Savage attempts to help, if only Reader would give him a heads up.

As usual Reader can be seen as Y/N

Warnings: Maybe angst?

I put the rest under keep reading as to not clutter the dash!

She was distancing herself, instead of her usual place beside him Maul almost stood up to redirect her as she took a seat next to his brother, Savage. The other sith was also perplexed but did not bring further attention to the matter, mostly as he could already tell everyone present was painfully aware of the situation.

Y/N did not give it any of her attention; she only gave Savage a small smile and greeting before turning back to her work.

Similar instances would occur throughout the morning, Maul narrowed his eyes as Y/N again went to savage to discuss the new settlement, and instead sending him messages through her data pad rather than speaking directly.

His brother only tried to cast him a apologetic glance as Y/N followed him out to another co-occurring meeting, she still of course gave Maul his notes that she had written the night prior, “I just want to make sure this one goes well, I know Savage can hold his own and easily snap a few necks but it wouldn’t hurt for me to make sure no one slides anything in,” he watched her walk away beside his brother, she even dressed differently today.

Her usual black silk gowns were often a compliment of his own tunics, like a matched set of black and red.

Today she favored a slate grey leaning towards a gray-blue similar to Savages armor, the alteration bothered him as they walked off now Y/N matched Savage instead and followed him along leaving Maul to dwell on his irritation and sadly for the councils without Y/N to calm him.

The other meeting had ended earlier than expected, Y/N stirred her tea for once not enjoying the routine task. Likely as to avoid the person she shared the ritual task with as much as she could given her role as advisor. Savage had sat next to her, umber eyes looked over the young woman who had been stirring her tea cup for the past 5 minutes, lost in thought.

“Y/n, how long do you plan to avoid my brother?” It was an honest question he could still feel his brother glaring at them as Y/N walked behind him.

“Is it that obvious?” She put down her spoon for once not interested in drinking her tea, of right, it wasn’t even the kind she liked too much, this one was Maul's favorite.

Savage would have laughed if it not been for the continued dazed look on Y/N, as if she was barely present, “Glaringly so, we left him in a mood this morning.”

Savage looked around the room making sure no one else was there, his brow furrowed, “Y/N it may be best to let this feeling go. You’ll only torture yourself.”

Y/n tugged at her sleeve, maybe the color didn’t suit her at all, she kept pulling at the material trying to muffle what Savage was trying to explain, a truth she had already realized the other day.

Savage continued, “ you must understand, my brother's upbringing was void of affection, any kinship with others, any positive link that likely did not end with a command to destroy. It was only recently that he and I referred to another as brothers, however.” The yellow Zabrak put a hand on hers, “ With you it’s different, he actually lets you near, he likes your company and often seeks you out but he may not be able to recognize that he feels something for you.”

The sincerity of his voice made it all the worse , Y/N bowed her head letting her hair fall around her, “I know, why do you think I’ve been avoiding him?”

The silence that fell between the two was tangible, Y/N felt the need to just curl up and hide. “ I tried to have him tell me what capacity he wanted me for, “

“What was his response?” Savage tried. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze,

“ Well I was not outright on what I am feeling,” She recalled the touches and proximity she had with Maul, a hand on his shoulder and the habit of sitting close together as they worked. Each brush of their hands sending more and more warmth as they sat and worked together. “,But I felt my implications and mannerisms were clear,”

How many hours had they spent working together?

More than once has she fallen asleep at the desk with him and had woken up back in her own room.

Y/N re-evaluated the moments between them, maybe she had looked far too into the situation,

“Again as I have said my brother likely has no reference that you are trying to convey anything of a romantic nature, no matter how glaringly obvious.”

She looked up at him frowning, but Savage continued, he needed her to understand,

“I know he likes to be around you, he seems calmer with you, but he may not be able to recognize it not without a real push.You will have to face him soon, this arrangement will only make it worse.”

Y/n couldn’t help but laugh, it was bitter and sad, “ Of course, I’m the official advisor now.” She smiled up at Savage with dulled eyes not a touch of her usual spark, “I’ve been reaching for this for years and I finally have it. I suppose I should be happy right?”

The door to the room had opened, the familiar grumbling from Maul came through, but not slow enough as he saw his brother still holding Y/N hands. Savage slowly put down Y/N’s hands, “ Just giving her my congrats as your new advisor.”

Maul felt uneasy at the way the two were reacting, wait...why was he so bothered by this? It was good that the two were getting along. However that proximity was something he shared with Y/N, something meant between them and not the three.

Y/n was the first to get up ready to just leave the matter again,

“Well our meeting ended early, there’s still some tea left. I’ll be helping Savage again tomorrow.” She gathered her items taking her data pad with her, “I’ve already sent you my notes for your meetings tomorrow as well so you should be fine without me there.” she didn't meet his eyes, she just looked above him at the windows, the patterned glass was her focal point, she just had to keep it up.

Savage internally groaned, he could already see his brother getting angered by this, the crimson Zabrak had deepened his usual frown and narrowed his eyes,” You have your duties, Y/N.”

He wanted Y/N at his side, he wanted her to say her biting remarks at the council as she knew she would win. He missed her touch to his shoulder when she had found yet another scheme underway.

“I am well aware, but Lord Maul if you recall I am an advisor to you both, and if that is the case I should also help Lord Savage as well. It’s only fair.” She was technically right, but he couldn't give her that.

She walked past him, feeling his golden eyes looking back at her, “ I’m turning in early today, I’m afraid I won't be joining you tonight.” There would be no accidental touch, or falling asleep near the other just solitude once more.

She didn’t stay to hear him call her back, she just looked at the window and left into the halls.

The stained windows showed her Sundari, maybe she should linger back to the library.

She missed the books and silence, maybe the pages would fill her thoughts with something new, rather than linger on the crimson Zabrak that haunted her.

Maybe she should listen to Savage and let go of this feeling.

The library was always empty it’s only occupant was Y/N,she let her fingers run over the histories and tales of old. These were her constant companions, the ones who stayed when everyone had gotten what they needed from her. Maybe she should be blunt with Maul about what she felt, maybe this time someone would stay or maybe she would just still be here in the library chiding herself for being in love with such an impossible person.

She takes a book from the shelf uncaring of its contents and opened it up, “it is without saying that Mandalore will fight until the end....” ah one of the classic histories of the civil wars from 20 years ago, she curled up in her old nook the pillows soft as she laid back and drowned her thoughts with the old tales, no more golden eyes, or intricate tattoos, or glancing at a crown of horns.

“You seem troubled brother.” Savage watched as his brother had ripped apart one of the targets in the training room. Its contents strewn over the floor, the polymer fiber now littering the mats as Maul took out his frustrations.

“She’s hiding something. She has to be.” Maul hissed, “What did she tell you?” his tone was accusatory and slightly panicked.

Savage thought of what he was going to say, “She isn’t trying anything against you, it is complicated to say the least but it isn’t really my place to tell you.”

It was all he could come up with, and it didn’t help the situation. Maul was already going at another target with a wooden staff, the impact of a strike ripping through the cover.

“So you know.” Maul began, “Withholding information from me isn’t wise.” His voice has lowered, and the staff now pointed at Savage, “Best to tell me.”

What did savage know? What was it that Y/N would divulge to his brother rather than him?

Savage just stared at his brother, “Answer me this first, what did you feel when Y/N went with me this morning?”

Maul glared at his brother, “What does that have to do with the information I asked for? Did I not make it clear?”

Savage persisted, “ You didn’t like it, did you?”

“Y/N and I have worked well together of course I’d want her there.”

“ But she wore my colors today.” Savage added, Maul gripped tighter onto the staff

“ They don’t suit her at all, they dull her out. You’ve seen her in black and red,” He let himself linger at that thought, the silky material would sometimes graze against his side, the dresses suited her, she looked every bit regal and at his side, “She was ethereal.”

Savage mentally checked off the question and again commented, “So I’ve heard, even some of the council have mentioned similar comments.”

Maul clenched his jaw at that, “Which ones?”

“Y/N has already turned each one down, that also seemed to bother you. Y/n is young,she’s brilliant, it might not be too long before she does end up with someone.”

Splintered wood snapped onto the mat, “ Enough with this! ”, Maul snarled, “ What did she tell you?”

“Why do you want to know? What is it that brings you to grow so angry about the thought of Y/N.” Savage was truly playing with fire at his point, his brother’s eyes almost glowed.

Maul scoffed,“I need her there, with her with us we can quickly work this plan through.” Y/N taking notes late into the night, her face lit up by the candles she brought in refusing to use the lights as they would interfere with her ability to sleep.

“And then move on, Y/N will be set for life.”

No more of Y/N coming in late at night with a new idea or some of the tea he enjoyed. No more of the almost brush of lips to his cheek when she reminded him to sign the data pad on his desk.

“Why would she go?” Y/N turning away from him, her eyes no longer looking at him, but to some figure who took her hand.

The notion began to eat away at him, it was already happening.

Savage shook his head, “ What reason would she have to remain?”

Maul was at his wits end, “ I want her at my side! I want her there!” He wouldnt have that, Y/N couldn't just leave him..them..what was that thought just now?

Savage merely nodded,” It’s a start. If you must know, it appears that Y/N has tried to demonstrate her affections but the sentiment was not understood.”

“To who?!” the crimson Zabrak demanded already tugging on his tunic he had tossed aside earlier and moving towards the doors,

The yellow Zabrak internally sighed , “Go ask her, she’s probably at the library. “

This was up to the two now, he had helped to hopefully establish that his brother wanted Y/N with him and that she had tried to show him her own affections.

He just hoped the two could explain what they felt and meant no more of this implication and confused reactions.

* Preview for next time

Maul had never been too deep into the library, but it was the place Y/N would retreat to. Deep into the shelves of real paper and ink, Y/N had curled up in her nook.

Her hair cascading across the pillows she had there and fast asleep. She would look almost serene if it had not been for the tear streaks down her cheeks.

“It seems like her sentiment was not understood.”

The lingering touches and the way she listened to him and argued with him. His knee jerk reaction at the thought of her leaving his side, and the loss he felt when she left this morning.

“Y/N, what have you brought upon yourself?”

#darth maul x reader #maul x reader #maul x you #Again we have the two unable to regoznie how to tell the other anything #Savage tries to help #good on Savage #Maul that feeling is affection #a bit angry but affection and being starved for attention #WHAT do you mean she wont stay after #maul #darth maul #star wars #savage opress #cloudsdrabbles

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roc-thoughtblog · 3 years

Text

Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 7

Chapter 10, Pages 39-45

Previously, Marianne and Margaret went for a run up a hill, got rained on, and ran all the way back down. A romance novel male love interest picks up a fallen Marianne, takes her home, and acts very mysterious-romance-novel-male-love-interest-like.

Marianne is obviously infatuated.

I end up thinking too much about the unfathomable nature of skin-tones today, though I think I also managed to struggle a bit more than usual concentrating. Definitely ran quite overtime.

Readthrough below.

Chapter 10 Willoughby visits, and is charmed.

Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer.

Oof. Wait, hang on; we're getting description. This is the most description of Marianne's appearance! Incoming:

Posture's not as good as her sister, but she is taller. Skin is of very brown overtone but a very visible "uncommonly brilliant" undertone. How brown is very brown? Are undertones a thing or did I just make up something I think I overheard once? I'm about to go on a tangent into what undertones & overtones are aren't I. BRB. Also she has very dark eyes that are quite full of life.

My understanding of skin tones mostly comes from being a poor artist and getting messed up trying to figure out how they work because they DON'T STAY THE SAME OVER ANY PATCH OF SKIN OR CONSISTENT AT ANY ANGLE. And SPLOTHCY. SPLOTCHY EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME. So I get a vague sense of what Jane Austen is trying to get at. From what it sounds like, Marianne is pretty generally brown on the surface but also fairly rosy in all those fleshy parts that do the most weird multidimesional optical illusioning that skin-tones tend to do? She probably turns very red when she's blushy, is the implication anyway, that I could have just said on the outset but then I went and buried my head in seasons and carotene and foundation.

Maybe I'll use Marianne as the subject of a skin-tone study. I suck at skin-tones and this is the most I've ever thought about it in years.

Anyway, she's embarrassed at first but they quickly hit it off; this is all still a no-dialogue cutscene so Austen's really skipping over any occasion for Willoughby to talk. Well, from the sounds of it they'll be chatting for hours... mutually charmed, all the same tastes, etc. Ah, haha, she does bulldoze over their differences a bit. Willoughby doesn't put up a resistance; either he's too charmed or, as a 25 year old, he doesn't want to debate an enthusiastic teenager. Well, at least he's not 35.

Dialogue resumes as soon as he leaves. I should keep a note of which important characters have been conspicuously reserved by the narrative; Willoughby and Edward both been. Poor Margaret is just unimportant.

Elinor thinks Marianne's going to fast. Run out of things to talk about soon. Marianne gets snippy and returns fire;

"But I see what you mean. [...] I have erred against every commonplace notion of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull and deceitful - had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared."

She's getting her back for the attraction-to-fever line. I sort of agree with Elinor, I get the feeling Willoughby isn't y'know. As passionate as Marianne is, so much as just humouring her. But either way he's charmed so. He keeps coming back day after to day, to "check in" on Marianne's recovery.

Oh! But he does participate in her activities though. That is encouraging. And he reads emotively haha. Mama Dashwood loves him, but naturally Elinor finds his general, hmm, incautious demeanor to be disapprovable. Marianne has seen in Willoughby the saviour that justified her impossible standards! I call that she's probably more than a little infatuated and Willoughby's gonna turn out to be less than everything she thought he was, or that she wanted.

Infatuation is wild isn't it.

Mama Dashwood's already hearing wedding bells, as she would. Elinor's starting to see that Colonel Brandon really does have small interest in Marianne (after everyone else stopped caring because he's not interesting). He gets Elinor's pity and compassion for generally being a guy whose disposition implies like he's had a bit of a downer past, and also for generally being compared against Willoughby. Also because Marianne will never stop being mean about his age. Though I wonder how much of his improvement in Elinor's eyes is precisely by nature of Willoughby having arrived to be worth disapproving.

Oh Willoughby finally talks, and the first things he says involves going off on poor Brandon;

"Brandon is just the kind of man," said Willoughby one day, when they were talking of him together, "whom everybody speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to."

Aww. My image of Brandon has really changed. Before it was like some kind of caricature of a retired military man, making him look very much on the 50-60 end of 35 years, with a brush moustache. But after all that, man. Now I just see a tired older millenial. You know, the particular kind of tired millenial who are just stuck in a perpetual state of scraping by slowly while anticipating middle age behind the next big hill, while still getting berated by the older gens for being millenials, and getting memed on by the Gen Z for being old.

Did I just call Marianne a zoomer?

Well, meming on older people is just an age/maturity thing, not a generational thing. Happens every time. Even 200 years ago, in a book.

A... Anyway...

Elinor justifiably defends Brandon from Willoughby's more exagerrated character attacks. Then he keeps talking, so she just sticks to calling him and Marianne out instead for being prejudiced and-

"In defense of your protégé you can even be saucy."

HOLY SHIT. I mean the more I hear out of Willoughby's mouth the more of a jackass he seems. No wonder Austen kept his mouth shut for a bit. This whole thing just escalates into an argument that ends in a disagreement. Elinor thinks Willoughby as holding an unjustifiably contemptuous attitude towards an inoffensive and unfortunate person; Willoughby's annoyed that Elinor's pressing him on the matter as he simply views his own observations of Brandon's social deficiencies as factual, and probably to his eyes therefore not contemptuous in nature.

And Marianne is just being actually the pettiest and meanest one here because she's Marianne and Willoughby is enabling her.

"You shall find me as stubborn as you can be artful. I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking Colonel Brandon; he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine; he has found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him to buy my brown mare. [...] And in return for an acknowledgement, [...] you cannot deny me the privilege of disliking him as much as ever."

Willoughby's whole closing argument is some great character stuff. He said earlier that he didn't dislike Brandon; I like that it's a bit up in the air whether or not he genuinely had no issue with the man, and was just being very distastefully insensitive, or whether he was actually heartily prejudiced against Brandon for those three petty reasons and wasn't being up-front with himself or anyone else until Elinor called him out. I'm leaning towards the latter, personally.

Either way, he is petty enough now to really double down on disliking Brandon in this moment; for no other reason than as to spite Elinor for managing to convince him not to.

Yeah I don't think I like Willoughby very much. Literally, one of those guys who seems nice until they open their mouth, wow.

As a side note, for the spitefulness of the dialogue, the narrator's been very sparing of the less pleasant aspects of Marianne and Willoughby's characters. Imagine if they were minor characters like Sir and Lady Middleton! Would definitely have just torn straight into the two of them on top of just letting them talk.

#what the hell 1400 words?#maybe i'm getting carried away #Sense and Sensibility #Jane Austen #i want it on record in the tags that i will defend Brandon from Willoughby #novels #readthrough

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bjy-on-ao3 · 3 years

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Omg, i just read your dionysus fic, over indulgence, and holy shit, it was amazing! I really liked how you characterised him, and reader too, i just dont know what to say other than i absolutely loved it! I'd love to see more hades content! Maybe with Ares this time? He is always so smug, and somehow can be both very intimidating while staying super polite.... Im howwible with prompts, but maybe one where reader is a priestess of athena and somehow catches ares's attention?

I hope you don’t mind stuff rough. I hope this satisfies your want for Ares, Anon!

In the game, Athena and Ares don’t seem to really like each other all that much, so I figured any priest/priestesses or disciples of her would have been warned about him. It also made sense for me that many of those people would double as great warriors/soldiers skilled at defense, but also in battle overall.If you’re looking for something warm and soft, please turn back. I really can’t see Ares in a gentle light, and this fic will contain blood/bloodplay, biting, bruising, and Ares getting a kick of out it all. Dubcon only because Reader agrees to the conditions of Ares being able to take what he wants if they lose. (As usual, you can find the AO3 version of all my uploads [and some things I don’t post here to tumblr] via my Masterlist blog page.)

Tags/Warnings Biting, Blood, Bloodplay, Combat, Creampie, Dubious Consent, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Reader Insert, Sadism, Shameless Smut, Vaginal Sex, Violent Sex

Summary Reader - priestess and champion of Athena and fresh off becoming victor of a tournament held in honor of the gods - has an encounter with the most bloodthirsty god of them all: Impressed, Ares offers them a boon should they best him in combat - though if they lose, Ares may take what he sees fit.

Fic Friday

Shieldmaiden (F! Reader/Ares)

The day had been a long and arduous one, filled to bursting with adrenaline and quick-thinking. Oft enough, your days were composed of training or ceremonies, or helping those who sought aid from the temple to Athena you served. But dawn that morning had heralded the start of a tournament lasting till Helios drove the sun beneath the horizon once more. In a way, those who fell quickly were rewarded with a reprieve from the constant bouts, as even though the humiliation of defeat burdened them.

Even on the heels of victory, by the time the battles had concluded, you were tired and sore, marred with minor bruises and a few nicks and scrapes. It was nothing that a good night’s sleep and some poultices wouldn’t solve, though. ‘All worth the honor of winning such a tournament’ you told yourself. Unlike some combatants, you hadn’t killed an opponent, seeking to shed the least blood possible. Your efficiency had no room for excess. But no amount of hard-won praise and self-satisfaction could change that you were looking forward to curling up and resting until the sun rose on a new day.

Traipsing back to the temple in the glowing purple and red twilight, however, a voice caught your attention. “I must say, your performance today was quite impressive.”

To your credit, you didn’t jump or flinch away, becoming stock still and turning slowly toward the source of the voice. “Who’s there? Whom do I have privilege of impressing?” You asked cautiously, unable to strip all the irritation from your tone. You had patience remaining, though you were loath to chat with someone over your victory when you would much rather be in your bed.

Your eyes landed on a tall figure you somehow hadn’t noticed before - a man - stance regal and straight. Something about the posture gave off a sense of nonchalance as well. Clad in armor of ivory and gold, accented with long shards of black and the eerie glaring face of a beast on the chest plate, he radiated an aura of menace, accompanied by a bloodlust so tangible you could almost taste it on your tongue, hot and bitter. Eyes like smoldering coals plucked from a roaring hearth stared at you intently.. Combined with the simper spread over his lips, you couldn’t suppress the chill that raced up your spine.

Something in your gut twisted uncomfortably, and you resisted the urge to put a few more paces between the two of you. Even if it hadn’t been for the myriad weapons crossed over his back, or the impressive armor, the man would have seemed someone to be cautious around, someone you shouldn’t trust. Everything put together set you on high alert instantly, the instinct of fight or flight rising in your chest like a bird taking wing. Something primal shrieked at you that, for once, flight might be the preferred choice.

“You fight rather viciously for one under my dear sister’s wing,” the man mused, his tone light, but formal.

“I asked before - who are you?” you pressed again, not interested in mincing words. You didn’t like how easily he spoke to you or offhandedly disparaged your goddess.

“Oh, no hesitation to be found. Perhaps Athena neglected to impart all of her wisdom to you after all.” you bristled at the insult, taking a deep breath and trying to relieve some of the tension coursing through you. “I am Ares, and I desired to see the prowess of my sister’s little owl before my own eyes.”

‘Little owl?’ the nickname distracted you at first, thinking to the tiny owls often depicted accompanying your Lady, but you shook your head and dismissed the thought. You hadn’t the time to concern yourself with foolish nicknames. “Lord Ares? Well, I have no desire to see you, my Lord,” you said. With the revelation of his identity, you felt even more uneasy. Ares, god of war and death, who was said to bask in the bloodshed and chaos of man. Athena had been certain her followers knew well of her violent half-brother. “I may not have all of my Lady’s knowledge, but I am wise enough to keep my distance from you and the needless death that follows in your wake.”

Your heart pounded in your chest, wary of each word and wondering if he might take offense from your rejection. From the tales told, the Olympians never took well to being ignored or spurned, but to indulge in the company of a god like Ares was no more appealing a choice. The look on Ares’ face remained pleasant, the corners of his lips set in a smug smile, and he let out a quick puff of laughter that would have been pleasant, had it not come from him.

“What a pity. Although I do not believe that choice is yours to make, little owl,” he began, closing some distance between you. You followed his movements intently, concerned he might draw one of the swords from his back and set upon you with every step closer. “Surely you do not think yourself beyond the bidding of one god solely because you serve another?”

Your hands clenched and unclenched nervously at your sides as you considered his words. Ares was right, of course. Being a priestess of Athena did not grant you any protection from other gods - not unless she interfered directly. And that kind of divine intervention was a rarity. You avoided his question and changed the subject, though you doubted he would be redirected so easily. The God of War was no fool.

“What do you really want? I’ve little time for games, my Lord.”

“I wish to see your technique for myself. Show me how that passion and diligence fares against a foe more than mortal,” he elaborated.

The blood in your veins ran cold upon his admission and your heart thudded so hard you wondered if it was audible from where he stood. Battling a god was firmly on the side of things you wished never to do. “If you think I’m dull enough that I would willingly engage the God of War, then you insult me, my Lord,” you said stiffly, trying to suppress your trepidation from worming into your voice and failing.

“What is it I hear beneath your bold tone? I trust one of my dear sister’s bold little priestesses, one of her champions, even, is not afraid of all things?” Ares taunted smoothly. From the way his self-assured smile twitched upward, barely, you knew he was enjoying your reaction.

“Fear and caution are not the same thing,” you denied fiercely.

“True enough, but it is not caution what gives you pause. If it puts you at ease, little owl, I will not take your life.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you scrutinized him intensely, finding no sign of whether he was lying or being genuine. All you found in those bloody eyes and stony face was cold calculation and an insatiable lust for violence. “Why should I believe you?” you asked, face twisting suspiciously.

“Because, beloved by my sister or not, if I so desired to kill you, I would have done so the instant you denied my invitation and spoke to me so disrespectfully.” He talked of ending you so casually it made you shudder, and you cursed yourself for it immediately.

It seemed you had little choice but to indulge Ares in whatever game he had in mind. “And if I agree - what is the benefit to me?” Ares had promised he wouldn’t kill you, but you saw no other purpose to fight him. You still weren’t sure he wouldn’t just kill you, despite his promise.

“Is serving one of the gods not benefit enough for you? What a greedy little owl my sister has found.” Again, Ares taunted you. You wondered if he was trying to make you angry enough to divest your caution and sabotage your battle prowess.

“That’s not an answer,” you spat back. God or not, you were tiring of whatever he was doing.

Fortunately, Ares cut to the chase. “Very well, best me and you shall have whatever boon of me you wish.”

“And if I lose?”

“Then, I shall take from you what I decide most fitting.:

“But not my life,” you added, still skeptical.

“You have my word,” Ares insisted. “Besides, would it not be such a waste to douse a promising ember when it could kindled and made to burn all around it?” he added in afterthought and once again the implications of his words unsettled you. “Now, I trust we are done with these tedious negotiations, hm?” he prompted.

Steeling yourself and willing away the stiffness and fear bubbling in your chest, you nodded. Ares had decided what the outcome of the discussion would be before he first spoke. There was nothing more to be said - at least not with words. Eyes trained on the intimidating figure of the God of War, you retrieved the shield and blade slung over your shoulders. You brandished them both, falling into the stance you were trained to use.

Across from you - hardly half a dozen feet off - Ares drew a weapon of his own. The sight of the curved blade incited your fear once more. The black blade was a ghastly thing, wickedly sharp and emanating a thick, billowing red haze the color of viscera. It was unmistakably a weapon befitting a god, and it made something deep inside you want to turn tail and run. But you knew running would be fruitless - all it would earn you was a head-sized loss of weight between your shoulders.

At once, the both of you moved slowly, following a wide circle, two shadowy beasts in the fading dusk searching for weaknesses and flaws. All of your training and wisdom told you to wait, let Ares come to you and make the first move. But you weren’t sure your reactive way of fighting would hold up against someone of his calibre. As Ares had implied, he was no mortal, and you could only imagine the horrible strength and skill behind his blade.

Ares shattered the heavy stillness abruptly, darting forward and making a low arcing swing up toward you. There was no hesitation behind the blow and you had the feeling if you hadn’t stopped it with your blade, his falcata would have carved a clean line into your torso. Ares may have promised not to kill you, but he wasn’t above grievously injuring you. He gave you little time to think on his intentions, however, another strike quickly following when you knocked his sword aside.

You caught that swing as well, on your shield this time, and your arm stung from the force that rang through it. Blow after blow rained down on you, forcing you on the defensive almost constantly, and even then, many near misses made you tense and wide-eyed. Eventually, you found some rhythm to his assault, and Ares even paused, granting you a scant few seconds to breathe and think. Still, you needed to analyze what you learned quickly - your enduring method of fighting wouldn’t suit well against his relentless onslaught. You had fought aggressive attackers in the past, but their strength and ferocity paled compared to Ares.

Eyes flashing to and fro, following the tuck and arc of his weapon, at the same time searching for openings, you readied to strike. You would need to be swift, perfect in your timing, and hold back nothing if you wanted any hope of breaching his flurry of blows. You took your chance when his fuming blade glanced off your shield at just the right angle to slide away, instead of adding more to the numbness in your shield arm. Dipping down, you swept your own blade under his arm and up. The metal scraped past one of his pauldrons and up, and your eyes shot wider when the tip of the blade reached out towards Ares’ face.

A swift kick pushed you back, leaving you winded, and you looked back up quickly. Ares was standing in place, a small distance away, but close enough to observe small details. His blade upheld in one hand, smoking menacingly, he lifted his free hand to his cheek, brushing away the slick of blood oozing from a diagonal cut across his cheek.Your heart fell at the sight of how little damage you had done. After all that time, you had given him what was barely more than what a mortal mine might suffer from a shaving accident. It was an ill omen when you were so used to your blade striking true and dispatching opponents in only a few strokes.

“Oh, what a splendid surprise.” Your blood may as well have turned to ice. Not at Ares’ words, but his tone.

Beneath the refined and formal speech, something almost excited could be heard. You had the sudden dreadful feeling that indulging the God of War’s little game had been a terrible mistake - even if there was no other choice. Excitement was a chilling thing to hear from a being who adored violence and death. You had expected anger, perhaps, or bitterness that a mortal had drawn blood against him. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a shock he liked to bleed as much as he liked to bleed others.

“Perhaps I underestimated you, little owl. Such skill seems wasted protecting others, do you not think so?” Ares asked, the hint of excitement vanished.

An indignation bubbled up beneath your dread, understanding Ares had meant your talents better suited to bloody slaughter and resenting that notion. You bristled, snapping back at him. “If I agreed, I would have served from the start, wouldn’t I?”

Ares ignored your response, as if he hadn’t heard. “I have seen more than enough, little owl. Our duel shall come to an end now,” he declared confidently. Again resentment and terror warred with one another within you.

When Ares bolted forward again, you barely thrust out your sword in time and turned his strike aside. The eerie cloud emanating from the blade seemed to have increased, tendrils of it whipping about, framing Ares ominously and obscuring your vision here and there. He didn’t stop at a single blow, striking out again and again as before, but with much more strength behind the attacks. The thought that your weapon and shield or arms might shatter from the force if things kept up flitted through your mind, distracting you for the barest moment.

Ares’ blade flashed forward, and your shield was thrust away, spinning through the air before crashing down and clattering to the ground. In a lightning quick motion, before you could bring your blade in to force his falcata away, the edge was leveled to your throat. You fell deathly still, the icy blade faintly touching your skin. One false move or a twitch of Ares’ wrist and all would be done.

The war god moved closer, grabbing your sword hand cruelly and twisting your blade from your fist. The hand that had disarmed you snapped to your head, grabbing a fistful of hair at the root and making you hiss. He drew your head back and the painful pinch of his blade scarcely cutting your skin made your pulse quicken. A warm trickle crept down your skin. Held between Ares’ hand and his blade, you dared not even breathe too deeply, so close were you to both.

Burning crimson watched you keenly, blazing with triumph and thet still unquenchable lust for blood. The blood you seeping from the shallow cut on your throat encouraged that bloodlust to greater heights rather than sate it. The thought made the space between you and the god feel heavy, airless.

“You fought magnificently, little owl. A far greater challenge even than I had foreseen,” Ares praised, not bothering to draw his weapon back. The tension hanging in the air, in fact, seemed thoroughly amusing to him, alluring even. You gathered all the resolve you possessed, fighting to glare defiantly at him. There was no room to show weakness. “How lovely that look suits you. Fearful, yet masked in defiance, even in the very face of death,” he drawled. You wondered if the god enjoyed his own voice as much as he enjoyed bloodshedl. “Do you believe me a liar?” Ares asked coolly after a moment of unsettling silence.

“I-” you opened your mouth intending to disagree, to ensure him you believed him - even if you didn’t trust him in the slightest -, but something stopped you. “Yes.” As the word escaped, you cursed yourself.

To your surprise, Ares’ proud smile grew. “Such an unwise thing to say,” he mused, “Are you trying to provoke me, now, little owl?” he asked nonchalantly, applying the scantest amount more pressure to his haze billowing blade. You winced, but quickly corrected your expression until your focus was on Ares once more. “No matter, our duel is over. Now comes time to take what I deem ample compensation for my victory.” At last, Ares drew back and took his falcata with him, and you could breathe again.

The start of a cold sweat broke out on your skin, and you felt clammy, except for the hot, sticky trickle drying on your neck. You swallowed thickly, willing your tongue to obey you, and spoke again after a moment of recovery. “So, what do you want? Out with it.” you pressed, perhaps too demandingly for one whom had been in your previous position. Yet with the blade no longer threatening to carve your throat open, you couldn’t help the annoyance and unease that crept into you.

“Tread carefully, little owl. I spared you before,” Ares reminded you casually, though the sharp warning edge suffused his words. He would take your insolence only so far. “Continue to disrespect me and I shall take your words as invitation to grant you a most painful end.” He paused, slipping his dark blade back where it belonged, before turning to you. “As the spoils of my victory, this ought to suffice.”

In an instant, so quick you had no time to wonder what had come over him, Ares was upon you again. His hand, having previously disengaged when he took his weapon away, returned, entangling itself in your hair again and forcing you to remain still. Before you knew it, Ares stepped uncomfortably close, bowing his head and slashing his lips across yours in a kiss that was neither delicate nor considerate. It was a kiss fueled by strength, full of teeth and heat that left you in a stupor.

Ares didn’t bother with the tedious task of coaxing your lips open with his tongue, choosing to bite down viciously, and blood oozed out to meet him. It slicked his teeth and tongue and your mouth fell open in a gasp of pain, and Ares thrust his tongue into your mouth. It swept along your teeth for a moment, before wrapping around your own and fighting it into submission. A heady metallic taste washed over you as you futilely tried to win the war of flesh. Blood. Your blood. Mixed with the coppery flavor was something more subtle, spicy and earthy at once.

When Ares relented and pulled away, you strove for breath, the taste of him and your blood lingering in your mouth. But he had only begun, giving you little time to recover. You had long enough to question why you had kissed him back - or had you been trying to fight him off? - before he jerked your head back and inclined his faced further. His lips, hot and the barest bit sticky, met the curve of your throat. He swept down your skin, leaving angry bite marks and blotches in his wake, until he was nestled against the juncture of your neck and shoulder, unprotected by armor and bared by your tunic.

He bit down again. Harder than before, and his teeth sank into you, another rush of blood welling up.You couldn’t control the pained cry that burst from your lips. You were used to injuries from training or battle, yet hardly in such sensitive places, and almost never from someone’s teeth. It burned when Ares lapped greedily at the wound and you hissed. His free hand had curled behind you at some time you hadn’t noticed, pressing you forward, the unyielding planes of his chest plate and pauldrons digging into you uncomfortable.

A new sensation was blossoming beneath the pain, one that should have been utterly foreign and unthinkable, given the brutality Ares was treating you with. Maybe it was the burning, hungry expression in Ares' eyes as he looked up from your skin, lips tinged red. Or maybe it was the crushing embrace he held you trapped in. Or maybe the way he held you utterly compliant and vulnerable in his grasp. Or maybe it was all of those things combined that made heat fill you from your core and pool between your legs. A dangerous, confused lust was rising - one it would have been wiser to reject.

“Such splendid sounds, little owl,” Ares said, his voice lower, a wild delight tinging it. “I desire to hear more. Do not disappoint me.”

With a rough push, your feet left the ground, and you tumbled backward away from Ares’ grip, too startled and dazed from the confounding feeling brewing in your belly and the painful throbbing in your lip and shoulder to catch yourself in time. You grimaced when you met the ground, making to prop yourself up. But Ares followed you, shoving you down completely and pinning you there. Again, his armor prodded uncomfortably at you. Past the pleated leather folds attached to the armor torso, something still distinctly hard, but much warmer prodded at you as well.

When large hands groped at your tunic - somehow both callous and perfect - some degree of sense insisted you stop him. But others argued with it. They insisted there was no point, this was the spoils Ares chose to claim. You wouldn’t be able to stop him if you tried. One devilish voice even craved more. Your internal debate crashed to a halt when Ares jerked your tunic down, the faint sound of fabric ripping lost to you. His lips fell upon your skin again where the fabric fell away, biting and sucking like he was trying to devour you. Many of them stung, not all as harsh as the bite to your shoulder, but several more drawing blood or leaving the areas soon to bruise, painting your skin in garish colors.

More pained sounds left your lips, gasps and whimpers and groans, though mixing more steadily into them were noises that belied some twisted pleasure. A hiss that became a moan. A gasp that turned into something breathy and thick. Something was stirring more and more hotly within you, transforming pain into a muted pleasure and adding fuel to the embers smoldering between your legs and in your belly.

Ares’ hands were as greedy as his lips, groping and kneading unmarred skin, roughly grabbing at your chest, pinching your nipples and making you cry out pitifully. Before long, he had covered your torso, shoulders, and neck in darkening bruises and blood, teeth marks and scrapes. Pulling away until he was looming over you like an ominous shadow, you could still make out the satisfied look languidly spread across his lips. His eyes seemed even more fiery, near crazed, as if he were high on your blood and pain.

“Such a careful, focused beast in the heat of battle. Now look at you, little owl, stained and trembling,” he purred, and his tongue trailed over his lips, cleaning the crimson staining them. “How beautiful a sight. The color suits you well.” He grabbed at your tunic some more, gathering the bottom around your waist, meeting the neckline he had pushed down. “As fragile and easy to see through as glass. Ought I shatter you like it, then?” Ares asked, greedily taking in the even larger expanse of flesh revealed to him. You wondered if he meant to litter the rest of you in similar marks.

Your lips parted, and you didn’t speak for a second, waiting for the mental gears to turn. Your only choice was the illusion of it, so you may as well as pretend your answer meant something. “Break me as you please, Lord Ares,” you told him, surprised to hear how your voice sounded. Strain and breathy, and the realization strengthened the heat and wetness at your center you couldn’t deny, likely plain to Ares’ eyes with your tunic no longer guarding it.

“How bold a choice of words, little owl.” Ares sounded pleased, possibly having expected you to retort defiantly, or have no words at all. Yet you had indulged his words instead. He trailed a thick finger gingerly over your throat, tracing over your racing pulse. “It would thrill me so to watch the life bleed from you.” You believed him completely. There was no denying in different circumstances Ares would revel in your death. “Alas, I shall have to make do sheathing a different blade within your supple flesh.”

A hint of excited impatience shone through as Ares sat back on his knees, leaving you to lie waiting in the dirt for what he would do next. With an iron grip, he grabbed your thighs, lifting them both off the ground and splaying them over his pauldrons, on either side of the crossed blades on his back. The cold touch of his armor on your overheated, abused skin made you shudder, and you watched as he lifted the lappets of the armor.

Your eyes lingered on what had thrust against you from behind layers of leather before, and you swallowed nervously. Ares was endowed impressively and in the embrace of a gentle lover that might promise a minor discomfort, but pleasure overall. Ares had shown no intention to treat you gently though - the ache and throb from the aftermath of his attention reinforced that - and you were under no illusion he was going to change that.

The new hesitation must have shown in your expression, a dangerous thrill creeping onto Ares’ own face as he brought the head of his cock to your folds. You thanked the stars that his brutal attentions had somehow elicited a perverse hunger from you, soaking your core. Though you imagined he would have fucked you raw whether or not you were wet. In fact, he might have enjoyed it more that way. Fortunately, his dick slipped slickly between your lips, gathering some of your wetness and pushing against your slit.

Ares didn’t take his time entering you, nor savor the moment, bucking his hips forward and splitting your cunt wide. You arched your back stiffly and hissed, both at the awful burn from the way his cock stretched you and the surprising satisfaction from the overwhelming fullness. You drew deep breaths, trying to adjust to the thick intrusion, fighting the pathetic whines that threatened to spill out.

Ares didn’t give you time to adjust to his size, rutting harshly against you, calloused hands digging roughly into your thighs. He leaned forward, bending you nearly in half, far enough a tendril of his silvery white hair brushed against your stomach, making your skin jump. The stretch ached to be sure - it would have even if Ares had been more thoughtful - but caught up in whatever perverse mood electrified the moment, there was pleasure bleeding into the pain.

Pleasure from the way he filled you so completely, creating a delicious friction that made your gut heat and tense. Pleasure from the rough slant of his hips against yours and his balls slapping your ass. Pleasure from the renewed vigor and sting of his lips and teeth attacking your neglected skin once more. It was agonizing and mindnumbing and enjoyable in a way you couldn’t have had any hope of explaining, at least not in a right sense of mind.

Each hard rock of his hips and searing puff of breath against your skin wore away at what little pride you retained, if you could claim to have any scrap left, looking such a mess. You might regret the memory later, but in the heat of the moment, there was no time for regrets or second thoughts. There was only room to try and enjoy what Ares had claimed as his reward.

As your dignity shattered and disintegrated like dust, the heat of your body and between your thighs grew, until you cried out into the air, the pleasure finally rising high enough to meet the pain and break loose from your throat between whines and winces. One loud cry that twisted and broke from another especially vicious bite must have gotten to Ares, eliciting an answering sound that was deep and primal.

Continuing to pound into your cunt, Ares looked up from his savagery of your skin, eyes glittering with amsement and lust of multiple kinds. His hot breath rolled over your bruised chest and his silky words rumbled over you. “You ought to thank me for my mercy,” he growled, and amidst the pain and pleasure you laughed to yourself. Mercy for a war god amounted simply to not killing you it seemed, even if the alternative was marking your body viciously and claiming it for himself. “Go on, then, little owl,” he compelled you, puncutating his words with a harder buck of his hips that left made you shout.

You opened your mouth, at first only pants and huffs and whimpers broke away. You gathered the words on your tongue he demanded of you. “Th-thank...aah...thank you, Lord Ares!” you cried out, surprisingly yourself. “Thank you f-for sparing me.”

He seemed satisfied with you pitiful answer, shaky and broken as it was, though he remained close to your skin. His pace grew stronger, faster, and he drew his tongue over some of the more bloody marks he’d left behind, coating his tongue again in your essence. His eyes swept hotly over his handiwork, bordering on frenzied. “Is it not such a wondrous feeling, to break bleed so, little owl?”

The smooth, husky tone of his voice, though it spoke such sick words - words you would have rejected in another setting - drove your own fervor higher, the molten spring of tension in your abdomen coming to the edge of its breaking point. You responded without hesitation, mind bent only on the promised releasen. “Yes, yes, my Lord!”

No more words fell between the two of you then, only the primal symphony of moans, grunts, groans, and gasps, enough to be heard by any soul unfortunate enough to be passing nearby. You hadn’t thought Ares’ thrusts could become any crueler, but as he chased and neared his own release, they did, until each thrust stung, hurting almost more than they pleased. His hands still clenched around your thighs and you could only imagine the intensity of the bruises that would be left behind - perhaps even worse than the many peppering your neck and chest and torso.

Despite the pain, your cunt squeezed around him, fluttering erratically as you danced on that edge so, so close. Until at last, it burst. But not before Ares finished with a sound so dark and heavy and alluring it could be called inhuman. Your walls embraced him even tighter as his cum filled you to overflowing, hot and wet, and you screamed and cried into the darkness of evening that had taken over.

When all was still at last, youtruly began to feel the extent of the damage Ares had done. He didn’t remain atop you much longer, not seeming to need to catch his breath, and when he pulled out of you, you shuddered, feeling sore and empty. Already tired before Ares had sought you out, and even more so after your combat, you were completely and utterly exhausted. Lying there, each pound of your heart making the bites and bruises pound along with it, you wondered if passing out in the dirt was a viable option.

Ares didn’t concern himself with your thoughts, however, or whatever it was you intended to do now that he was finished with you - for now at least. He just looked down at you, tucking himself back beneath the lappets of his armor and looking no worse for the wear. “Farewell, little owl. Do take care. And consider what I have said,” he began. “Your talents ought be used for something far more satisfying.”

You didn’t answer, letting your eyelids slide closed for a minute. When you opened them again, you were alone and the air was still and silent. You begrudgingly sat up, preparing to tackle the ordeal of standing and making the rest of your way home and to your bed. You wondered how you were going to explain your state to your fellows the following day.

#writing #fanfic #areas #ao3 #archive of our own #fic friday #update #weekly #request #anon request #tw: blood #tw: dubious consent

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homespork-review · 4 years

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HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck #Homespork

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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You know what character of AzP i got really interested? Aliunde, She's neither a pirate or some common villager, she's a rich, sophisticated and intelligent lady that live around all kind of luxuries, and on top of that, she's supposed have an ex-friendship with Alex for some reason. ¿Has Dobson ever tried something with her? ¿Her relationship with Alex had any kind of explanation? I really want to know.

So I actually wanted to adress that when I make a huge post analyzing the basics of AzP mostly (including the setting, its publication history, use of characters etc) but I think I can tackle that one in “short”: Aliunde is a prime example of Dobson failing at creating villains while also expecting people to care for shit that only exists so far in his head. Aliunde is obviously meant to be some sort of big bad in AzP and an (as you described it) sophisticated and intelligent female rival to Alex with some shared history. In fact, Aliunde was even referenced in2004 Legends by name, the “origin” story of Alex and her crew. But here is the problem: Aliunde is for the most part a non entity and when we see something of her, it is the most dull and generic idea for a villain I ever saw (dull surprise). Aliunde shows up in only two strips as a character. The “Women Rules” one that is essentially non canon and the last one in a three parter where Atea asks around who Aliunde is (after referenced by Alex in watching over a photo album with copy pasted artwork by Dobson) and assumes she is some sort of hideous monster, only for the last panel to show this lady sitting in a huge mansion room surrounded by antiques and saying how much she enjoys to drink red wine. Otherwise she is name dropped as being the owner of a castle Sam, Atea, Peggy and Talus break into on Alex’s order to steal a shitty painting in a 15 page story, but even then aside of Alex no one knows who she is. Aliunde has no bearing on the plot and not once in all the strips does she have a genuine interaction with the characters. To compare that with something, imagine if Guardians of the Galaxy had name dropped Gamora being the daughter of Thanos, but never once actually explained that he is a galactic conqueror or show him later interacting with Ronan in any manner. Or have characters be worried about him coming to Earth in Infinity War, but not once in the entire movie show up on screen, letting everything he does happen off screen.

Aliunde is supposed to be a “big villain”, but we never see her really do something villainous or cunning. The only implication she even is a villain is given to us by Dobson’s character description, that is it. Otherwise I would have e.g. assumed that she is just a rival a la Gary Oak who happened to actually be a success compared to the giant failure that is Alex. Also, her design and personality are just boring. Aliunde looks less sophisticated and more like a decently dressed librarian and Dobson thinks that showing surface level “class” makes her look cultured when frankly the image of her surrounded by a lot of antiques and talking to herself in the most stilted way possible just makes her come of as pretentious.

Overall, she is pretty much a background character less important to anything in the comic than Uncle Peggy, whose only importance is related to ideas Dobson has in that bald head of his but never brought onto paper because (now say it with me) Dobson is a terrible writer!

If you really want to see good villainous pirate characters in fiction, look at someone like Barbossa from the Pirates of the Caribbean series or the pimp that is Sir Crocodile from One Piece

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

What A Tangled Web We Weave (11/?)

TMA AU diverging from canon at the end of episode 92. Jon is forced into an arranged marriage by Elias; Martin does what he can to help.

on AO3

Martin went back to his desk silently, and though he could feel Tim staring at him, Tim neither said a word nor made any sign of getting up. The tension in the air was palpable, though. Martin kept glancing over at Tim, checking to see if he was still there, to see how bothered he looked about being back in Martin’s presence, and Tim kept glancing back at Martin in return, though his glances were really closer to glares.

A few times, Martin caught Tim looking over at someone and opening his mouth, but not actually saying anything before he closed it again. Once, Tim caught Martin watching this happen, and if looks could kill, Martin would very likely have been struck dead on the spot.

(He’d offered his help, though. He’d offered Tim a way out. How much of all this was still his fault given that Tim had refused his offer?)

Tim wasn’t the only one Martin had to think about now, though. Maybe Jon would put together the pieces, figure out the truth that Tim had been alluding to, whether intentionally or accidentally. Maybe any real bond to be found in their relationship had just been broken before it could even form.

Should he have told Jon? Would it have been any better, admitting the truth of the situation now rather than putting it off indefinitely? Could he have told Jon, given Jon’s unfortunate choice of wording in his question? Was lying by omission bad enough that Jon would hold it against him when all was said and done?

Martin didn’t know the answers, but just thinking about all the questions was enough to make his head swim.

It was not Martin’s most productive day at work, but then, that was rather to be expected, wasn’t it?

The evening after work went by in a blur, and soon enough it was morning, time for Martin to return to the Institute, and Martin knew it was probably a bad sign that he almost missed lying in bed unable to sleep for hours on end, because at least that had given him some time to himself, even if he ended up sleep-deprived as a result...

Tim wasn’t there when Martin first arrived in the archives that day, but he turned up in a matter of minutes, glancing over at Martin before... sitting down and starting to do some research, by the looks of it. Tim actually doing his job shouldn’t have seemed like such a surprise, really, but apparently that was just the point they were at these days.

(To be fair, while Melanie worked hard enough on the research front, and Martin did try at least despite many distractions and shortcomings, Basira, despite being an official archival assistant for days now, had yet to do anything besides read; she was on another new book today, by the looks of it, a nice thick hardcover whose name Martin couldn’t quite make out.)

Martin briefly thought about talking to Tim, trying to make conversation about what he was working on, but quickly thought better of it. Instead he remained silent, as did the rest of the archives for some time, the only noise made the flipping of pages or clicking of buttons.

Martin missed the old days, when it was him and Tim and Sasha (back when there had been Sasha) and they were all friends, and they’d joke around in between tasks or chat about how things had been going, how their weekends had been... back when weekends meant something, as the archives crew had more or less given up on them some months back now...

The phrase All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy occurred to Martin suddenly, and he shook his head as he tried to focus on his work again, to get that phrase and the implications thereof well and truly out of his head.

It was getting close to lunch time when Jon finally made an appearance, but he only stuck his head out of his office for long enough to say that he needed someone to go hunt down a few books in the library for him, even though it’d probably take a bit due to the library’s idiosyncratic organizational scheme. (Not that the archives staff really had much room to talk there...)

Martin really wished he had it in him to be surprised that Tim volunteered for the task immediately after Jon offered it up, rushing off to the library without even a hint of hesitation.

Martin gently sighed as Tim vanished from sight, but just as he was going to pretend like nothing had happened and go back to work, Melanie spoke up.

“What’s the deal with you two, anyway?”

Martin glanced briefly at Basira, who seemed as lost in her book as ever, before looking back at Melanie, who had gotten out of her seat and taken a few steps towards Martin’s desk.

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean, you keep staring at each other without saying a word, like you’re each waiting for the other to- to sprout another head or something, it’s honestly kind of creepy-”

Martin scratched the back of his neck nervously. “...that obvious, huh?”

Melanie snorted. “You’re not as subtle as you seem to think you are.”

Martin gulped. “G-good to know, I suppose.”

“Especially with how Tim kept avoiding you after you asked about him, and after Tim went into Jon’s office he asked for you right after-”

Martin hadn’t actually considered how that must have looked to Melanie (and Basira) before, and he could feel his face heat up as he realized the implications there. “Yeah, I, I know how it all went down, don’t really need the reminder.”

“But you still haven’t answered my question.” Melanie took another step closer to Martin. “What’s going on between you two?”

Martin hesitated, his mind racing, and Melanie spat out, “And don’t tell me it’s nothing, I’m smarter than that, thanks.”

“You’re right, it’s, it’s not nothing, but-”

But Martin wasn’t sure exactly what it was, and what he did know he certainly wasn’t going to tell Melanie right off the bat. Luckily, he was pretty sure he could cobble together a story that would make plenty of sense just the same. It didn’t have to be perfect, after all; it only had to last a few weeks at most.

“Just don’t-” Martin stopped himself from finishing that sentence, paused for a moment as he reconsidered his words. He wasn’t going to risk accidentally commanding Melanie like that, not when he’d seen what a mess it made before, when the fiasco it had caused and the divide it had cemented between him and Tim was the very subject he was discussing with her. “I’d- I’d appreciate it if you don’t go blabbing to Tim about all this? I think he’s a bit, er, sensitive about the subject, especially at the moment.”

Melanie put one hand on her hip, leaning slightly towards Martin in the process. “’The subject’ being?”

“Us? I mean Tim and myself-” Melanie made a strange face at that, and Martin could see exactly where her mind had went, and he hadn’t meant that, hadn’t anticipated that, and though it fit the story he was crafting well enough he scrambled to correct that impression. “Not like that, not like that! That’s actually kind of the problem, really, that it’s not like that.”

Melanie raised one eyebrow. “Problem for which of you?”

“Tim, I suppose? Though now both of us sort of, since things are all kinds of awkward between us now and- I’m not explaining this well, am I?”

Melanie shook her head, loose strands of dark hair clinging to her cheeks. “You’re really not.”

“Right.” Martin let out a choked sort of laugh. “So, so it started before you joined us, back when I was living in the Archives, and Tim burst into the room I was staying in and started speculating about me liking someone, which- which is not the point here, but the point is, he made it very clear that if I were interested in him, he’d be interested right back.”

At least, Martin was pretty sure that’s what Tim had meant with the whole “dance card’s open” thing, though it wasn’t the most common way of phrasing such a sentiment.

The best lies were based on the truth, at least in part, after all. Martin had learned that well enough already.

“I see.” Melanie still looked a bit skeptical, but her eyes were locked on his, focusing on his every move.

“And then he just... left the room after saying that, and we never really talked about it after that? At least not until, well, until Sunday happened. And the thing is Tim’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong, he’ll be a catch for whoever he ends up with, but that’s not going to be me. I don’t feel that way about him, I just don’t.”

“Christ, it’s like living in a romcom, isn’t it?”

The laughter that escaped Martin’s lips wasn’t entirely false. Melanie wasn’t wrong, after all, was she? Though this would have to be a very strange romcom indeed...

“It is! And now we have to work together, and it was easy enough when we were just friends, but now...” As Martin let the statement trail off into oblivion, a thought occurred to him. “Actually, you know what, if you see Tim, maybe tell him that for me. Not the whole story, no need to rehash it all, but just- I miss being friends with him. Just friends. And I’d like things to be that way again, if, if we can make that work somehow.”

Melanie hesitated, and for a brief moment Martin remembered how Tim had hesitated when Martin had told him not to tell anyone about his extra eyes, and Martin started frantically hitting his mental rewind button, trying to figure out if he’d managed to do the same for Melanie just now despite his best efforts-

“No promises. If I wanted to be stuck in the middle of a romcom, I would’ve made a lot of different life choices over the years.”

Martin let out a sigh of relief and a bit of nervous laughter. “But you might tell him that I’d like to be friends again?”

“If it comes up, sure, that’s a definite maybe.”

“Well, I’d... I’d appreciate that, Melanie, I really would. Thanks in advance.”

“Again, no promises. But you’re welcome, I suppose.”

As Melanie headed back to her desk, she spoke up one last time.

“God, I’m glad it’s something normal like that. I mean, I’m sure it sucks for you and all, but it’s good to know that in between ghosts and monsters and all that there’s still some regular old office drama going on, yeah?”

Martin bit his tongue a little as he forced down the laughter that threatened to surge up from within him.

“Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

#tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #tma au #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #web martin #web martin blackwood #personal #my writing

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olliethealright · 4 years

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Three Steps From Home - Update #1

trigger warnings: religious content, abusive relationship, mental health, slight self harm implications, conversion therapy

disclaimer: these are my own words and ideas, please do not use my words or ideas without permission from me.

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to do a lil update on one of my current WIPs, Three Steps From Home. I’m going to be talking about the first four chapters, aka the first 4500ish words. If you want a more detailed description of the book or the characters, my last post is the introduction to this project, so you can find more details there.

chapter one - casual acquaintances - 969 words

theme song - like or like like, by miniature tigers

In this chapter, we meet the point of view character, Jude, as well as his love interest, Aaron. This chapter is mainly to introduce Jude’s voice and worldview, as well as how he sees Aaron without really knowing him. The inciting incident comes near the end of the chapter, when Aaron sits down to talk to Jude for the first time and the two strike up a conversation and Jude tries (and fails) to make a move.

“Even my mother’s Saturday night bingo group, who hated outsiders like they hated blasphemy, wouldn’t stop talking about you, or ‘that boy Aaron from the coffee shop,’ as they called you. ‘The cute one with the accent’. On those nights, I sipped spiked lemonade and passed out homemade cookies and tried not to hang onto their every word whenever you came into conversation”

“I supposedly worked from home, but I couldn’t stand home, so I worked from your coffee shop and pretended I wasn’t just another kid with a pile of student debt and a semi-failing career, living with his mother like an absolute loser. I pretended I didn’t watch you every time the production line of presentations got dull, every time the words swam from the page and my brain turned the texture of the dollops of whipped cream you put in hot chocolate”

chapter two - microwave dinners - 1347 words

theme song - untitled, by EDEN

This is the chapter where we meet Jude’s mom, who is honestly a piece of work. Jude is 21 at the start of the story, living with his mother as he saves money and continues to take computer science classes. His mother’s religion is a big source of tension in the story, and their unhealthy relationship is the centerpiece of this chapter. Jude comes home to find his mother watching a televangelist program, which eventually leads them to a fight, implying his mother’s wish to send him to conversion therapy, as well as alluding to Jude’s dad, who is not present in the story for unknown reasons.

“It was my dad who insisted on naming me Jude. He said it was biblical, but not overly so, not like the names my mother had picked. He always told me I was named for the book of Jude so I would remember what would happen if I lost my faith. Really, he named me Jude because it was near impossible for my mother’s native Spanish tongue to get right, and he liked watching her frustrated, he liked helping her get there”

“As it was, we walked on eggshells. My dad was no longer there to be a buffer between her anger and me. His name hovered in the air between us like a bomb, every time I brought him up, she would cross herself and mutter something like a prayer and get angrier by the second. I made myself scarce in hopes she would forget that her no longer perfect child still lurked under her roof like an unwanted animal, taking up the space the man she once loved did not”

chapter three - tea at midnight - 1042 words

theme song - perfume, by mehro

This chapter is very cute and wholesome, it balances out the sad feels you get from chapter two. In this chapter, Jude asks Aaron to hang out, and the two end up at a 24 hour tea shop, where they stay and talk until they have to get ready for work the next morning. There’s not much to this chapter events wise, but it does mark their first dateish thing, and it develops their characters a lot. It’s definitely one of my favorite chapters because of how light and dreamy it is.

“Maybe it was because I picked up a Mandarin-to-English dictionary to prove my point, but you obviously didn’t buy my story. You watched me over the corner of your fourth novel-in-progress, eyebrows raised so high they disappeared behind the rims of your glasses.

You glanced at your watch and sighed. ‘You know I’m going to have to kick you out in four minutes, yeah? Is there something I can get you?’”

“We sat in the cafe until we had created an impressive mound of dirty tea cups and the morning sun kissed our cheeks. We only left when we had to get ready for work. I was exhausted, an important afternoon meeting I had neglected to prepare for loomed like a distant storm cloud, but for the first time in a long while, I was happy, and I think you were too”

chapter four - circles - 1155 words

theme song - they’ll like me when im sick, by flatsound

This is my least favorite chapter in the book so far, and I’ll probably rework it, so everything in this part is subject to massive change (even more than the rest of this post). Basically, this is the chapter where both Jude and the reader get the sense that Aaron has problems he doesn’t talk about. Jude comes into Aaron’s coffee shop at his usual time and notices that Aaron is kind of out of it. Aaron’s coworker eventually convinces Jude to take Aaron home, and Jude spends the rest of the day trying to figure out what's wrong (spoiler, he doesn’t figure it out). This chapter also has a bit of a reflective aspect, as Jude criticizes himself for the things he should have done better.

Again, this chapter is a mess and I don’t know how to explain what happens well. Sorry about that lol.

“When I opened the door, your coworker’s eyes widened in a look that demanded attention. She jerked her head at you twice, a spectacularly unsubtle gesture, and then pointed out the door and in the direction of your apartment”

“Fifteen minutes later, you slipped into the booth next to me instead of across the table, breaking our little routine for the second time that day. You pressed your back into my shoulder and brought one knee to your chest, your other foot dangling over the edge of the seat. I squeezed your hand under the table (always under the table) and tried not to worry”

Well, there it is! I hope you enjoyed this update if you’ve made it this far! As always, let me know if you have any questions about the story. I hope you have a nice day!

-ollie

#threestepsfromhome #book #writing #writer #autor #shortstory #story #novel #nanowrimo #fun #nanowrimo2020

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writehardwhumpharder · 4 years

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Carson vs. Low Blood Sugar

Set in the past when Carson was in college and had a class with Daniel which is how they met. They are 22 and 21 here. I basically just wrote this because I’m going to university now so Carson is back at uni too.

When the professor asked them to form groups of four for the upcoming project, Carson naturally partnered up with the only person in the class he'd spoken two words to - Danny. The weird guy that still sits next to him despite all the other open seats and Carson’s obvious discomfort. But Carson was quick to believe the lie that the open seats were farther back and he wouldn't be able to see the board as well. Sure Carson could move, but he was far too stubborn for that.

The room erupted in groans when the teacher announced the group project. Everyone assumed everyone else was just going to slack off and force them to do the work of all four people. Daniel wasn't too sure about being in a group with Carson himself because even though he was studious and had good grades, it was entirely possible he'd sleep through every group session and just shrug it off later.

Two girls who sat in the row in front of them asked to join since it made the most sense. They introduced themselves as Kelsey and Ava and smiled shyly at the two guys.

Carson's interest in them ended at, "Sure, whatever." And Daniel's interest ended at Carson. Unfortunately it didn't seem like they would be spared any of the awkwardness that came with group projects.

"We should exchange numbers, so we can make plans to meet up." Kelsey suggested.

"Yeah and we can meet at the library, there's a cafe there too if anyone wants food or coffee." Ava chimed in.

"Sounds good," Daniel said. Then they passed around their phones sharing info. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't secretly happy to be handed the perfect excuse for getting Carson's number. Daniel had been thinking of asking him for the last few weeks but figured he'd be shut down with something like, "Sorry man, I don't have a phone number" while quickly shoving his iPhone into the pocket of his hoodie. If he wasn't so God damn cute Daniel would have given up already seeing what a piece of work he was. Eventually he'd find out why he was so cold to people.

After each group was formed and picked a topic the professor let them go half an hour early. Carson put in his earbuds and prepared to make a run for it but Daniel subtly blocked his path.

"So what do you think of this project?" He asked.

Carson paused and sighed, "Shouldn't be too hard if everyone has read the assigned reading. You did do the reading right?"

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, "Of course I did." He said unconvincingly.

"Good." With that Carson left.

The group made plans to meet two days later at the group study rooms on the fifth floor of the library.

Saturday was surprisingly beautiful. The weather was nice for Fall and Carson could feel the sun on his skin as soon as he stepped outside. Too bad he'd spend the whole day working on a stupid project about the popularity of tragedies in Shakesperian Era writing.

When he got to the library Danny was standing outside leaning against the building. He pushed off when he saw him and pulled something out of his pocket. Carson reached for the door but stopped cold when a printed copy of a news article was thrust in front of him.

Daniel looked at him excitedly, "Is this you?"

Carson stared down at it and had to quickly restrain his reaction. He recognized it immediately. The article was from his local paper when he was 14, the title read, "Local Boy Defies Physics Stopping Car from Hitting a Child."

Daniel had spent the previous night cyberstalking Carson after he finally finished all the assigned reading. There was absolutely no trace of him on social media but he did find several odd news articles. His name was also listed by the college as a Graduate of Human Biology.

"Yeah that's me, but every word in that article is false. I hope you didn't waste too much time reading it," Carson said dryly. He sidestepped him and walked into the library. It was practically deserted. Not having an actual excuse for the claims in the article, Carson really hoped he could avoid it altogether.

"It says that a car was heading towards an eight year old girl when it suddenly stopped, the front crumpled in like it hit an invisible wall a mere foot away from collision. There's even a picture. The car is stopped in the middle of the road with nothing else around it but it's beat to shit. Then that looks like you, kind of, maybe."

Carson's eyes dulled like this conversation was utterly exhausting. "If you're that curious, the car in the picture swerved to hit another car to protect the child crossing the street. The first car drove away in a hit and run. And if you want the real gossip, I'm pretty sure it was my history teacher." Carson said. Everyone in his town knew what he was and jumped on the chance to blame him as often as they could so he got used to lying on his feet.

"Really? I guess that makes sense. But why does it say that you passed out on the scene and got taken to the hospital. I mean, there was a whole car accident and you were the only person that got hurt?" He laughed.

Carson shot him a murderous glare, "It was very surprising." Daniel looked down at the ground in shame.

"Sorry..."

"Kids came up with a lot of rumors and bullied me until the rest of the town believed them. I bet this isn't only paper you found making crazy accusations."

Once inside Carson headed towards the cafe instead of the group study rooms.

"Well, sorry to hear that. So were you bullied a lot in school then?" He asked curiously. Daniel was determined to figure him out and he couldn't do that without striking a nerve or two.

"You sure ask a lot of questions."

Carson got in line with Daniel following closely behind. He finally went quiet after that last remark. It was already a few minutes past the time they were all supposed to meet but knowing how long they could be working, it was too much of a risk not to get coffee first.

He felt around in his pockets when he got to the register. "Oh shit, I don't think I brought my wallet." Carson said, giving Danny an expectant look. He figured he had him feeling just guilty enough to buy him a cappuccino.

"Ugh, fine," he pulled out his old leather wallet and handed the lady a 5.

Carson laughed, "that's such a dad wallet."

"What does that even mean?"

When they got up to the fifth floor, coffee in hand, the two girls were nowhere to be found. Figures. Daniel used the group chat to ask them where they were. After all it was possible they were simply late.

"We went to the desk but they wouldn't give us a room, so now we're wandering." Daniel relayed the message to Carson who frowned in thought.

"Tell them to come back up. I'll get us a room."

Looking suspicious enough already this was probably a terrible idea but he was impatient and little pissed off to be honest. He quickly turned towards the rooms, hoping to make it to one before this Danny guy so he wouldn't see him open it.

"Wait how are you going to do that? The help desk is that way," he asked, jogging to catch up. Great.

If the desk lady wouldn't give those girls a room then she probably wouldn't give him one either, also he just didn't feel like dealing with that. Daniel made it clear he wouldn't be too easy to shake off, getting rid of his plan to just open the door with magic. Instead he got out his student ID and pretended to swipe the scanner next to the door. The red dot turned green as he did.

"Woah. Do you have special access or something?" Danny asked.

Carson just hummed vaguely and sat down in the first chair he saw. He'd been doing such a good job not doing any magic since he moved out that even a little trick like that was tiring. Carson didn't want his reputation to follow him to university, but now that he was almost done with his Masters degree he found himself caring less and less.

Pulling out his own phone, Carson texted the group chat, "508."

Danny still had that childlike look of amazement on his face when he looked up again and Carson groaned internally.

"Where else can you get into?" He asked excitedly.

"Wherever I want. Wake me up when they get here." Carson pulled his hood up and laid his head down on the table. He wasn't really going to sleep, he just needed a break from talking. God this was going to be a long day.

Carson heard Kelsey and Ava talking long before they made it to the study room. They clearly knew each other before taking this class.

"Hi, how have you been?" Kelsey walked in first, carrying her own coffee cup, she looked at them both, her face pinching in thought, "Daniel and... Carson?" She struggled to put a name to the back of Carson's hood.

Now for the most interesting part of any group project, seeing who would take charge first. Carson finally straightened back up as they sat down on opposite sides of the table, putting Ava next to him.

"So, Tragedy, where do we start?" She asked.

Carson sat back and waited while everyone looked around awkwardly.

"Hey how did you get a room anyway that bitch at the counter made up some policy about needing a professor's permission for these rooms." Kelsey commented.

Daniel's face lit up again, "oh you should have seen it. Carson just swiped his ID and opened the door like magic."

Thank god Carson had just swallowed his coffee because otherwise he'd be choking on it at the mention of "magic".

"This is a library, not a bank. I just opened the door," Carson said lamely. "Anyways, we need to divide up tasks before we do anything else, and come up with a central theme so we're all on the same page. I think we should address the political implications of Tragedies written around that time. They were widely popular but very controversial."

Everyone stopped and stared at him. Either he'd completely lost them or he'd gotten more antisocial than he thought if that was a shocking amount of words to come out of his mouth. Internally Carson was cursing himself for accidentally taking on the role of the leader. He'd have to work even harder to pawn off that responsibility now.

"Right. I think the professor wants us to use quotes from the literature in the project but he also expects us to do a little research and come up with a thesis, not just a word by word analysis of the reading," Ava said. Meanwhile Kelsey was muttering something under her breath about the professor having a stick up his ass.

It looked like they were finally getting on track when Ava stopped suddenly, "hey what happened on the first day of class?" She asked.

Carson's blood turned to angry sludge. He was really tired of explaining himself. "Nothing, happened, I'm just clumsy."

He shot Daniel a look who thankfully tried to smooth things over, "Yeah he just tripped into the desk and it made a lot of noise, they ought to just nail them down." Ava hummed in response, not quite satisfied with that answer but ready to drop it.

After coming up with ideas for their individual parts they did some quiet work. That way they could have an outline done to share before they leave. The longer Carson strained to read the tiny text in his book the more he realized he was getting a headache. Not a migraine, but he didn't feel great. They'd been working on this for hours now, Carson checked his phone to see just how long it had actually been. They got to the library at 3pm and it was now closing in on 8pm. The worst part? He'd woken up late, gotten dressed, then came straight here. Meaning he'd slept through breakfast and forgotten lunch. Typical. You'd think after living alone for a few years a person would learn to take care of themself.

Daniel gave him an odd look, "Did you leave the oven on or something?"

Carson frowned. How the hell was this guy always so good at reading him? "No, it's nothing."

He really, really wished that it was nothing and he could just go back to reading but his body was making itself clear that it would not be neglected so easily. A dizzy feeling flowed through him as the blood rushed through his head. He felt sick.

Low blood sugar, it had it's own unmistakable brand of awful. Carson quickly shoved his hands under the table so it wouldn't so obvious that they were starting to shake. His brain frantically searched for solutions. The cafe? Closed. Snacks? Didn't pack any. Vending Machine? Yes. He had enough change in his jacket to get something from the vending machine he'd spotted near the bathrooms. It would look less suspicious if he waited a few minutes then left casually but a sudden churning in his stomach decided for him. The time to leave is right now, or better yet, five minutes ago.

Carson pushed way from the table clumsily then stepped around it to get to the door. Daniel followed him with his eyes which were now pinched with concern. He wanted to follow him and ask if he was okay, but valuing his life, he decided to just let him go with no further comment.

Carson was visibly unsteady on his feet. He wasn't diabetic so low blood sugar wouldn't kill him but it sure felt like it could. A general numbness spread through his body. Next was the mysterious cold sweat that he could distinctly feel despite knowing his skin was completely dry and the clammy feeling was just in his head. His body had a tendency to wait until the very last second to alert him of a problem which was why all the symptoms seemed to slam into him at once.

"Just make it to the vending machine and get a snack. You just have to make it that far." Carson urged himself as he wove between tall bookshelves. He was starting to feel a bit light headed too. Perfect.

The vending machines came into sight in front of him, tucked into their own little alcove. He was so close, so close, so... nauseous. Gonna throw up. Change of plans. He walked right past the machines and into the men's bathroom, his heart sunk as he did. But throwing up in the hallway was simply not an option. He dove for the furthest stall and just barely got the door locked before dry-heaving over the toilet. After a few unproductive minutes of that he coughed up some the coffee he had earlier and his stomach finally seemed satisfied after rearranging its contents. Carson leaned against the wall heavily, sliding down to sit on the tile. Why am I like this? Oh right it's because I'm forgetful, irresponsible, and stupid he chided himself. Closing his eyes, Carson focused on regaining his strength so he could at least buy some food then come back to this spot. He was finally about to stand up when the door swung open. Carson froze.

"Carson, are you in here?"

It was Danny, of course.

"Yeah," he replied. It would only seem more weird if he didn't respond.

"You've been gone kinda a long time. The girls were starting to get worried." He said tentatively.

"Well I'm fine, so either take a piss or get out, would you?" Carson snapped impatiently. He wished Daniel would just shut the door already so he could suffer in peace.

Daniel rolled his eyes, "It's getting late so everyone wants to wrap up, make sure we all know what to work on, and go home. So are you coming back now?" He asked. Usually his line of questioning would be more like "Are you okay?" "What are you doing in here?" "Do you need any help?" "Are you sick?" but with Carson he'd learned the beat around the bush a little knowing he wouldn't answer any direct questions like that nicely.

Carson tried to push himself to a stand up but ended up tripping over his own feet somehow, ending up on his hands and knees. Guess that answers that question. "No," he said plainly.

"What'll it take to get you out of this bathroom?" Danny sighed, still standing by the door. He'd heard shuffling just now but still didn't really know what Carson was doing in there.

With a grimace Carson swallowed his pride and asked for help, "Um, a bag of crackers would be nice."

Daniel's brows furrowed at the strange request, but even more so at the small voice it was requested in. Crackers? That was really what he wanted right now?

"Okay, wait here."

A moment later he came back in with a small bag of cheezits and bent over looking for Carson's feet to see which stall he was in. He was surprised to see that he was most likely sitting down against the furthest wall. In the back of Daniel's mind he noted that being on the ground was a bad sign.

Meanwhile Carson was cringing with every fiber of his being. He hated being like this. If Daniel had just left he probably could have gotten them himself and avoided all this. But truthfully he still felt a little dizzy and sick.

"Um, so what did you want crackers for? You're not going to eat them in here are you? That's unsanitary." Daniel called out before sliding the bag under the door.

Just seeing the bag ignited a gnawing hunger in him. Whatever half-formed insult he had on the tip of his tongue was quickly forgotten in favor of food. Sweet, sweet sustenance. Carson tore open the bag and threw a few into his mouth, careful not to eat them too quickly.

"You know this is super weird right?" Danny asked.

"Whatever," Carson grumbled. His voice was muffled by the crackers.

"Wait a second," he paused, "were you hiding in here... because you were hungry? Seriously?" Daniel scoffed. As tough as his deskmate liked to act, he was surprisingly childish.

"Well you don't have to be a dick about it. Low blood sugar is a real and serious condition, asshole," Carson muttered. There was no real anger to his words though. He just had a habit of swearing more when being defensive. Daniel stopped laughing.

There was a rapping on the door, "Um, it's Ava. What the hell is taking you guys so long?" She called out.

"We'll be back in a minute," Daniel yelled back.

"That's what you said when you left ten minutes ago," she said impatiently.

Carson scooped out the last of the crumbs from his bag of crackers and got up. He still felt a little off but the threat of throwing up or passing out upon standing was no longer there so that's good. He reluctantly unlocked the door and walked past Danny to get to the sink.

"You look, not-healthy."

Carson scowled and took a look at himself in the mirror before splashing some water on his face. Daniel was right, despite being a lot steadier there was still a sickly paleness to his face.

They walked back to the study room where Kelsey and Ava were already half-packed up and ready to go. Carson sat back down in his seat and glanced at all the papers scattered across the table.

"So here's the plan..." Ava gave a detailed description of everything they'd decided since he left. It was a solid outline. And if anyone had any more questions they could just text between meet-ups.

"Oh look, it's already pretty dark outside. I hadn't even noticed," Kelsey said peeking through the blinds. "Now I'll have to have walk home in the dark."

"College campuses have some the highest rates of sexual assault." Carson said absentmindedly.

"Why would you say that right now?" Kelsey shivered.

Carson looked up at everyone's mildly horrified faces, "What? It's true, it's dangerous out there. People need to be careful." He defended.

"Well now you both have to walk us home, since you kept us here so late doing whatever the hell you were doing." Ava said crossing her arms.

"You say that like I wasn't already going to walk you home," he said. Good job Carson, real smooth. Ava's expression turned blank and confused for a second before going back to it's previous tense, subtle annoyance.

"Fine, let's get going. It would make sense to walk with whoever lives closest to each other. I live off campus."

"Same," Carson added.

Kelsey and Daniel both lived close to the dorms so it made sense for them to go together.

#whump #my OC's #OC fic #college days #prequel #Carson Hall #Daniel Hopkins #headache #low blood sugar #forgetting to eat #dizzy #unsteady #Carson was even crankier back then #Daniel is just a curious puppy #magic use #not edited

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