#rolling-restart

[rolling-restart]

In The Pale Moonlight [Charles Leclerc x Reader] - Part 1

*** This is a NSFW Charles Leclerc x Reader fic with dominant reader and submissive Charles. If it’s something you want to avoid or you are minor, please scroll past. ***

Status: incomplete 

Part 2 | Part 3

Tags and content warnings: non-negotiated scene, under-negotiated dynamic (for plot reasons, I strongly encourage kink negotiating irl), subdrop, irresponsible dom behaviour, angst.

Summary: You are the new team principal of Ferrari and you spiral into an affair with Charles before you know it. 

PART 1

After a promising 4 year process, you complete your mechanical engineering phd that focuses on vehicle aerodynamics , you find yourself climbing your way up in Ferrari F1 team quickly compared to most. When current team principal decides to quit, it doesn’t surprise you that you are one of the strongest candidates for the position.

As a factory-only engineer for the most of the time, you are not acquainted with paddock crew very well but you are well aware of the dynamics. After all, advancement comes with knowing how to play politics and politics only work if you manage to keep a tab on everyone.

When the promotion comes, you know it’s not a decision made in your best interest. The season’s car is ready and built with components and a design you’d simply call insufficient against all your protests. You know you are set to fail by other people here but you are not the one to give up.

After firing half of the strategy team, changing the entire design of the power units after Barcelona testing and signing with new sponsors, things start to look more hopeful for the oncoming season. Only then, you manage to make time to meet the drivers and the rest of the paddock team.

The reception is pretty formal against your preference and when you begin to get tired of endless handshakes and greetings, you see him. It is kind of hard to ignore his efforts to catch your gaze across the room. However, you find a small delight in not indulging his enthusiasm, partly to preserve professional composure and partly to watch him become more and more desperate for your attention. He is in a tight fitting suit with Ferrari badge on the jacket and it seems like he is getting hot and impatient in it.

It lasts until the end of the reception and he stays while everyone leaves slowly. When you move to the parking lot to leave as well after sending your overly eager assistant home, he gets in your way.

“It is not like a responsible team principal to ignore her best driver from the day one”

“It is not like a self-assured driver to try to get his team principal’s attention instead of just coming up to her.”

His pretty mouth gapes at your response and you see a glimpse of his flushed chest peeking through his unbuttoned shirt. You can tell he drank a bit too much during the reception (probably due to frustration).

“Let me drive you to your hotel. We can use the time to get acquainted.”

He flushes even further to the proposal. After all, it is a bit of an ego thing to be driven by someone as an F1 driver and it is even more frustrating due to the deliberate ignoring act through the night. But he cannot resist your commanding tone that probably wouldn’t take no as an answer.

You open the passenger door for him and he gets into your blood red Ferrari La Ferrari (courtesy of the team as signing bonus). When you get into the car next to him, you find him looking at you, mesmerised but anxious. Just to make things worse for him, you reach out to his side and listen to his breath hitch while you buckle his seatbelt for him.

The short trip is filled with soft conversation and hesitant silence from Charles. You don’t mind at all. You have all the time in the world to break him apart and pull him back together during the season. It just mildly surprises you that he starts breaking apart only with your dominating presence in the room and the smallest of the gestures.

Season starts hard and fast. It is soon evident that you turned a mediocre car and a slim chance to win into an absolute track dominating monster. You watch Charles taking pole after pole, win after win from afar and he still seems to melt under your amused and proud gaze.

After a triple header, you all manage to go back to Italy to do some additional sim work. You are sitting at your office on a lazy Tuesday afternoon. You changed Mattia’s transparent glass office into a more privacy-accommodating one. You hear a knock on your door and Charles lets himself in before you can say ‘Enter’.

He seems terrified by his own audacity and looks at you with wide eyes, still holding the doorknob. You now know that he hates not getting validation that he is doing alright or an acknowledgment that he is not doing anything wrong. Therefore just to push his limits, you lay back, raise your eyebrow and say nothing.

He seems to forget how to move his body and makes a gasping sound as if your presence in the room makes it hard to breath for him. He lets go of the doorknob and rubs his sweats hands. You don’t change your posture and enjoy the anxiety it brings out of him. Suddenly, as if something switched on in him, he makes his way to you across the room and drops on his knees in front of you. You have to suppress your chuckle. He seems breathless, entierly red but still insists on making eye contact with you.

“Thank you. I cannot thank you enough. How can I thank you?”

He is, in a way, right to thank you. You pulled him out of his losing streak and made him lead on driver’s championships with your exemplary leading. However, looking at the prize your efforts brought you, you feel like it is all worth it.

You extend your arm without moving your body to card his hair. It is soft and damp with anxious sweat. You tug it a little and earn a breathless whine from him. You are not particularly cruel to people who leave themselves to your mercy but there is something in Charles that awakens something entirely primal, entirely predatory in you. Plus, he looks so pretty when he is in this sweet suffering.

“I think you know exactly how you can thank me. Go lock the door.”

He gulps. He rushes to the door to lock it and comes back. Then he slowly crawls closer to your parted legs and pushes the blood red skirt of your two piece suit up. You can feel his hot, irregular breath on your thighs. He eats you out like a starved man for a while that feels like hours to both of you. When he is done, he looks up to you. His face is glistening with your wetness and his eyes are glazed with tears of excitement. When you sit more upright on your chair, you can see he is painfully hard under his slacks. Well that brings a smile to your face. You look at his face with a brief consideration.

“Open your mouth.”

He obliges instantly and when you spit in his mouth, he stops breathing for a second. Then he swallows obediently.

“Now, get out of my office.”

You can swear that he is about to cry at your nonchalant words. Nevertheless, he obliges and leaves you alone. For a second, you ask yourself whether it was too much and whether this harsh treatment would drive him away.

You are proven wrong when you receive a handwritten letter at the paddock during the next race. There is no name. Only signed with a shaky “Yours only” on the envelope. You open it in the privacy of your temporary office and slightly surprised to see that it is from Charles. Two pages, front and back, filled with filthy, passionate desires of that pathetic little man you may have fantasised about since that damned day at your office. You know that moment, you know he belongs to you and only to you and you are going to take full advantage of it.

#cl #charles leclerc x reader #sub!charles leclerc #dom!reader #nsfw. #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc/reader #reader/charles leclerc #rolling-restart #team principal au #🚩

[a2zillustration]

We lived.

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

#FELT THAT GOOD GOOD VINDICATION HOARDING SCROLLS THE ENTIRE TIME FOR ONE (1) TO FINALLY COME IN HANDY HAHAHAHAHAHFHGD #This fight was absolutely bananas - I was so close to restarting it when everything looked bleak but I didn't and I'm so glad #because it made for a very dramatic story lol #Rambling incoming: #I split the party really bad bc I wasn't super clear on the AOE lightning attack so when the second one rolled around Gale was the only- #-one able to take cover in the building...but I don't think it even worked?? #Lae'zel was down long before then but Wyll and Croissant were in death saves #Used all of Gale's movement AND misty step to get to Croissant but he still couldn't get close enough & had to throw a potion #I think I used a potion of speed then so Croissant could cast globe of invuln right away #(and it took 10min of looking through my inventory to even see I had something to do bc otherwise we would've died right there don't @ me) #But then we were STILL too far away from Ansur for 60' spells so I had to keep running them out of the globe - using a spell - and then- #-mISTY STEPPING BACK INTO IT BC WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH MOVEMENT SPEED #it was rough but we made it #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #act III spoilers #ansur quest #croissant adventures #tav #ansur #gale #gale dekarios #breadweave #gale x tav #YEAH WE'RE PUTTING IT IN THAT TAG #comics

[reineyday]

how cute is it that sanji's promo poster has him wearing a ring with zeff's cook pirates jolly roger logo? :') im so soft

#one piece #opla #one piece live action #sanji #black leg sanji #vinsmoke sanji #taz skylar #red leg zeff #THAT'S HIS DAD YOUR HONOUR #rei rambles #mb i will look it up next time to see if it's in the show but like #what if that's zeff's captain ring or smth and he gave it to sanji when he got old enough for it to fit on his finger 🥺🥺🥺 #mb sanji's having one of those days where he just feels so bad that he's kind of the reason zeff never restarted his crew #and continued looking for the all blue #and then zeff is like 'no eggplant you and the baratie staff? YOU'RE my crew and i dont regret a single day of raising you' #and he gives him the ring #and then sanji cries a little and laughs and makes a joke abt how he might not regret raising him but he definitely regrets hiring him #and zeff rolls his eyes fondly #oh by 'it being in the show' i mean if zeff is wearing the ring in the flashback where he comes onboard baby sanji's ship #i digress

[tsuchinokoroyale]

It’s so good to see you.

Lies of P (2023)

#I finished lying and penising for the last time… #I got the game for my PS5 after 100%ing it on game pass bc I was so impressed and obsessed I needed to get a physical copy #so I obviously had to 100% it again and I hilariously forgot to read a letter to unlock an achievement #so I had to play the game a FOURTH TIME since you only get the letter at the end and restarting the game wipes all letters from your bag #but that let me do something I LOVE doing with these shorter games #which is putting the effort to give these characters the best endings their quests allow #so I can leave the characters in the world with as much peace as I can #I also did this in majora’s mask with my final run of the game being about doing every single side quest I could and beating ever boss #so that termina would be as peaceful as it would be once the mask was destroyed and skull kid freed #that being said wearing the alidoro mask led to an unintentionally hilarious semi final cutscene #a tear is supposed to roll down your face at one point but instead it was just a completely still super close shot of the dog mask #and I burst out laughing like nooooooo #luckily I’ve scene the ending like 3 times already but can you imagine if that was the only time I’d seen it 😂 #I one rounded nameless puppet this time I truly felt like a god I’m so grateful for neowiz for making this game its been so fun #even after beating it like 7 times I know I’ll be playing it again one day and I’m gonna be a preorder ho for the Lies of series #the DLC and sequel can’t come soon I’m so in love with this game I need to eat it #Lies of P #video games #lies of p sophia #lies of p carlo

[binah-beloved]

if you die or come close to it, Binah cries

she doesn't even notice at first, her expression unchanging, only feeling something cold running down her face, nor is it very much- two or three tears, at most

but now she knows what it's like to cry over someone she loves, and she almost smiles when she realizes how much she's fallen for you

if you survive your injuries she cries more, this time in your presence and carefully holding your hand, wishing you a speedy recovery

#project moon #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #binah #binah lobcorp #binah library of ruina #the implication is that she'll help you recover #she never says it out loud yet is always somehow there every step of the way #if you do die however you're the only one she'll ask to restart the cycle for #if you're somehow still dead by the time ruina rolls around she immediately asks angela to revive you #she doesn't sob or anything #her expression is still flat and calm but now with tears rolling down her cheeks #to anyone else it'd be scary to wake up to her staring at you and crying but not to you #wipe her tears away her eyes will widen just a little

[jb-nonsense]

*Headbutt the elf*

#Baldur's Gate 3 #BG3 #BG3 Astarion #Astarion Ancunin #Character: Talilah Bluethorn #JB's gifs #I am restarting Talilah and rolled a nat 20 #so obviously I had to remake this gifset with that

[eff-plays]

Anyway. Gonna go motorboat Gale's hairy human bazoingas with my weed-smoking elf monk.

See you on the flip.

#bg3 #motorboating wyll's hairy human(?) bazoingas is on the to-do list #unfortunately i've paired him with my durge and i'm reluctant to play durge #so i might restart eeb as just a regular selune cleric but write an original sad backstory for him potentially #maybe look into bg1 and 2 and see how those bhaalspawn rolled 👀 #might be inch-resting

[nebulousfishgills]

I'm very close to beating the Netherbrain, but my friends and I wanted to actually touch grass. So in the meantime, enjoy the greatest thing that'll happen to me... FIRST try:

#i'm the heathen who saves and reloads when rolls fail so i was prepared to sit there for an hour to hit the nat 20 #the level 30 skill check was more difficult to hit than this #also i got a great screenshot of my durge so it's fs gonna be my desktop background #we're in the endgame now... once we get back from outside time #and then it's gonna be near restart for me to do it RIGHT this time #fishgills speaks #fishgills plays bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3

[thatoneluckybee]

Tylenol 2k are you proud :)

I love y'all and you guys infuriate me to no end

#WHY!? WHY ARE YALL LIKE THIS (girl who is also Like This) #Asks #quintessential-candles #Sorry I have been inactive chat I have had schoolwork and have been. I restarted a webcomic I dropped a few episodes in and I'm obsessed #It got a LOT better and my camera roll is just full of screenshots #I have no self control I am rereading specific arcs solely to see the two (2) characters I'm being abnormal over right now #Hey Candles guess what there's a catboy (on a technicality) and I'm being very normal about him #And silly fish girl

[sadlazzle]

i gotta b real i genuinely fucking hate black knife assassin bosses. they suck so bad

#fakes right. fakes left. fakes faking right while faking left #for some reason he is exactly where u rolled past his attack. how did he get there. no one knows but he’s there #dodge that attack ? no u didn’t #plum plays elden ring: restarting of the stars

[rolling-restart]

In The Pale Moonlight [Charles Leclerc x Reader] - Part 2

*** This is a NSFW Charles Leclerc x Reader fic with dominant reader and submissive Charles. If it’s something you want to avoid or you are minor, please scroll past. ***

Status: incomplete

Part 1 | Part 3

Tags and content warnings: non-negotiated scene, under-negotiated dynamic (for plot reasons, I strongly encourage kink negotiating irl), subdrop, irresponsible dom behaviour, angst.

Summary: You are the new team principal of Ferrari and you spiral into an affair with Charles before you know it.

PART 2 - Aftercare

It had been a while since you and Charles started your little adventure. You are trying not to think about it when you step outside of your house and put on your ‘boss’ facade. You wouldn’t admit that Charles’ little face, wet with desire and need, finds its way into your brief moments of daydreaming while you try to go on your business during the day. You wouldn’t admit that you keep his letters where he describes what he wants you to do to him in detail in a locked drawer in your office, either. To save some face, you keep this ‘situationship’, as you name it, unstructured, like random, powerful bursts of light that ignite your soul every now and then. You sometimes wonder if you will ever collar him, make him completely yours but you shake that thought off immediately as it comes because what is happening is nothing but a fling. A dangerous one for both of you, undoubtedly.

Still, you find yourself holding his head fondly at a moment that feels like has been stolen from heaven. Charles is on your bedroom floor, knees digging into the carpet uncomfortably, bound by scarlet ropes matching with old bite marks and hickeys you scattered on normally covered parts of his body. He is panting, trying to keep his composure after staying like that for an hour at that point. You had tied him up like that when he arrived at your place unannounced. You still had work stuff to finish.

Obviously, after he takes his place as a prized statue on your bedroom floor, you already know that you are not going to get anything done tonight. Nevertheless, you kill time to get him worked up and to watch him break under anticipation. The slight guilt creeps up on you. You know, as a fact, that you are not indeed taking advantage of his submission. You are not his dom, you are just domming him occasionally. He is an adult who knows his safe words to get himself out of this situation. While you use these arguments to clear your conscience, you already know that he couldn’t say no to whatever you want from him because he is already far too gone in submission since the day he saw you.

To avoid overthinking even further, you drop your laptop and pace toward him. You see his body flinch with your sudden movement and catch his glossy doe eyes. He is far too gone, nearly shaking with the anxiety brought by anticipation. You grab his hair and tug it experimentally to see how he reacts. His body follows your weak tug and loses balance. He is far too gone into subspace to do anything but follow your lead but you know that it is an anxious submission. You know that Charles is trying to find comfort and belonging at a place where he doesn’t even know if he is welcome. Your insistence on not defining where this is going forces you two to flirt with the boundaries of subdrop and even domdrop during every scene.

You let go of his hair and watch him miserably fall to his side with the movement. He is holding back tears now. He feels like he would die if he is forced to be somewhere else than your vicinity right now but he also feels like he is about to jump out of his skin with uncertainty. He cannot stop himself from falling into the subspace but he cannot feel completely safe either because he doesn’t know when this is going to end and when he is going to be kicked out abruptly.

You grab his hair and force him onto his knees again. Your brain is falling into autopilot to not feel the overwhelming want to make him yours, here and now, completely and forever. Then, you slap his pretty, pretty face.

Charles lets out a whimper and fights to keep his balance to stay on his knees. You absentmindedly caress his hair.

“You think you can just turn up on my doorstep like a fucking lost puppy? Who do you think you are?”

He is unable to form coherent words, due to his fear of giving a wrong answer and being punished for his unrightful clinginess.

You slap him again. And again. Until at some point he lets out a loud yelp. That stops you immediately and you sink to your knees to see what is wrong. Charles is trying to hide his hurt but you see some stray tears streaming down his face.

“Charles? What’s wrong?”

He mewls at your question and tilts his head left. Suddenly, you figure out what is wrong. The last slap accidentally landed on his ear instead of his cheek. That obviously pushed him over his breaking point. Guilt and compassion bloom in your chest and an urge to leave all this scene behind to just simply hold him becomes unavoidable.

“I can’t … it’s ringing…”

You start untying him with calm but urgent hushes while he keeps crying. He finally figures out you are untying him and tries to hold onto the rope in your hand.

“Charles, darling, we cannot keep going like this. I need to untie you.” you say, trying to sound as calm and soft as possible. He seems like he might shatter into pieces if you raise your voice even a little bit. When you manage to pry the rope from his hands, he clings to your arm.

“Please, please… tie me up again. Please don’t let me go. I’ll be better. I will stop crying. I’d do anything… I’d…”

He is interrupted by uncontrollable sobs. You sigh in pain. He thinks you’ll kick him out because he hasn’t been ‘good’ and ‘couldn’t take it’. Well, you think to yourself, that’s what you get for trying to ‘casually’ dom someone. And what is the point in resisting something you want so badly as well? What is the point in denying your and Charles’ nature calling to each other?

“It is okay Charles, you are going to be okay. I’ll take good care of you now. Just let me get you to bed.”

He is shaking so badly to get on his feet. So you carry him. You are glad all the time you spent at the gym is paying off while being surprised at how light he is. You gently lay him on your bed. He looks so exposed, so vulnerable under your gaze. You wanted to break him since the moment you laid your eyes on him and now he is laying broken on your bed. However, this brings you no satisfaction nor joy because you know, you know you broke him wrong. You let him think that he is disposable, replaceable for you out of your fear of getting attached to this prettiest little sub that you most definitely shouldn’t be with like this.

This is no time for guilt, though. You have a rapidly dropping sub in your hands and you cannot even assess the damage yet. You see him closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around himself to calm his sobs, and you know you don’t have much time to fix this. You run to your ensuite bathroom to fetch a damp towel. He doesn’t even realise you are gone and he flinches when you hold his forearms. You slowly push his arms aside and run the damp cloth to wipe to sweat off him, to soothe him. He calmly gives into your gentle touches.

When you are done, he opens his eyes to the loss of contact.

“C-can you call me a taxi? I’ll b-b-be gone in no time…” His shaky voice wrenches your heart.

“I am not letting you go, darling, you are dropping.”

Your efforts to calm him down go to waste when he starts shaking again with your acknowledgement of the situation.

“I d-don’t wanna drop…I just wanted to be good.”

This puts a little smile on your face. “Don’t worry, precious, I’ll catch you.”

You carry him to your bathroom and sit him on the bathroom floor while you start running the bath. Charles has so much he wants to say but his words are not cooperating. When the warm bath is finally full, you gently ease him into the bathtub and start washing his hair. Your nightshirt is soaking wet in no time. You have to reposition him every couple of minutes because he physically cannot keep his body upright. However, his crying seems to subside. You slowly rub the washcloth on the hickeys on his chest. There isn’t going to be anything sexual between you and Charles, you think to yourself until you sort everything out. This ‘situationship’ fried his nerves, hurt him enough and honestly, you cannot say that you are in any better condition.

After washing him, you rinse his hair tenderly while massaging his scalp. He keeps slipping lower and lower in the water. You find the metaphor rather bitter when you readjust his bruised body the millionth time. You cannot let him slip away from you anymore.

You wrap him into a warm towel and carry him back to your bedroom. He looks smaller, somehow younger like this. You take your time drying his hair while his body hesitates between waking world and slumber. You find a large and soft sleep t-shirt from the depths of your wardrobe and put it on Charles’ limp body. You wonder how many times he had to take care of himself like this alone after your encounters. You smoothly pull him onto your chest. His hand grabs your nightshirt tightly purely out of instinct

You know when the morning comes, there will be no more room for guilt, cowardice and non-commitment. Even in the best scenario, he will wake up in the scary land of subdrop. It is okay, though. Because this time you’ll be there to hold him.

#cl #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #reader/charles leclerc #charles leclerc/reader #sub!charles leclerc #dom!reader #nsfw. #rolling-restart #team principal au #🚩

[camscendants]

WHICH ONE IS IT

Ok so the article describing him also had a typo that called Ulyana “Ursula’s younger sister” And described young Cinderella weird so the whole article could be bs

Idk I’m Literally getting a headache

Nobody really knows what’s going on

#like I briefly thought what if her being Umas sister was the typo #yknow like hook and Ursula’s sister worked together back in the day #but that was official d+ they would have taken it down and fixed it #heck they did take down the post and restart cause they forgot it had to be /11 for fairy godmother #so I don’t even know #I would kind of like another hook sibling #wouldn’t mind #I know it’s out of the blue but that’s kinda how Descendants rolls #disney descendants #descendants #disney descendants 2 #descendants 2 #descendants 3 #disney descendants 3 #descendants 4 #descendants the pocketwatch #the pocketwatch

[tsvai]

bummed because i was finally able to confirm, to my own satisfaction anyway, the rumors that a webcomic author whose older stuff i really liked is using you-know-what assistance with her latest webcomic that she's publishing to webtoon, and lying about it

#personal #there have been allegations for months now since she moved from canvas to originals or whatever #but i was unsure and not entirely convinced based on the evidence people were rolling out. #it was damning but i wasn't keen to jump to conclusions & torch and pitchfork bc this is a person who shouldn't need to use you know what #and people being falsely accused of this kind of stuff has become really rampant and depressing so i try to be very cautious #she's been a comic artist for like 20 years and is fully capable of good unassisted work and is probably only doing this to cut corners #possibly to keep up with webtoon's exploitative-ass schedule #anyway i realized finally that i could use the scraped images from my RSS feed to put into an analyzer #(webtoon itself doesn't allow right clicking on images or i'd have done it much sooner) #and it came back 98% which along with people's other evidence is really damning (the original canvas version comes back 0%) #i hadn't gotten around to reading the 'originals' version since she restarted after leaving canvas and i guess i won't be doing that now #anyway i'm really disappointed in her and also fuck webtoon. her decision to do this is her responsibility but it didn't happen in a vacuum

[maegalkarven]

Forget being guilty about Alfira, I accidentially failed to save tieflings and that one dwarf in Moonrise Towers bc I thought you do it at the same time as you go dealing with Ketheric. And I failed it after I self-assuredly promised those two tieflings (girl whose loved one was kidnapped and the cranky wizard guy whose siblings were taken) I'll save their loved ones.

And I deleted saves prior that before I realized my mistake. Whoops.

#baldur's gate 3 spoilers #kind of spent hour researching and trying to recover deleted saves but damnit #they're gone for good #well #my bad? #i did both laezael and shadowheart's quiests with good results tho #rerolling this 30 dice roll do Lae don't get hurt by that weird machine was an experience #anyway I think I'm this tiefling mage guys' villain story... #sorry dude i tried. i am not doing that 30 reroll again. or play 40 hours to save your siblings #they're not THAT important #remember you can't save everyone #remember you have to try #but! Zevlor and Mol at least are still saveable #i would restart game for Mol #or Zevlor #pretty sure i just went through all stages of grief tho #denial anger bargain all the stuff

[bhaalsdeepbat]

my cousin's min-maxing ass asking if we can restart honor mode a 2rd time so he can play a dwarf with a different build i'm SUFFERING

#bat plays bg3 #jkjk we haven't even done a lot so it's nbd #and the first time we restarted it was bc the game broke lol #but we cleared out a LOT on Friday #unintentionally tho bc my brother fucking fell through the temple and it forced us to clear that before even going to the grove lmao #but we were so leveled up after the grove battle #it's ok maybe this time v will fail their rolls with astarion #i'm playing a duergar gloomstalker assassin bc i have no originality left #but v and astarion were fucking wrecking shit #and anything they couldn't wreck our barb got with the flaming sword lmao

[truly-sincerely]

Dark Star Falling (part 5 of ?)

“You can’t even be cross with me. My brain’s a wreck and it’s not like you know where Bhaal’s temple is either,” Darling’s voice cuts thru the silence without warning. He turns in his chair to look at them but they’re already on the other side of the table from him, pulling a different chair out. The guards all stand stock still, waiting for his command.

“You look–”

“Yeah, I know,” they wipe at the blood spatter on their face with an equally bloody glove, but it’s already dry. “We just got back from Avernus. Anyway, I actually did find the temple, I just don’t know how to get inside yet. I know where to go to get inside, but then something came up and one thing led to another…”

“Where’s your friend?,” he asks.

“Rifling thru the pockets of the dead patriars in your throne room,” they reply. Astarion is at the Elfsong, complaining about getting briefly killed by a devil to anyone who will listen, but Gortash doesn’t need to know that.

“I seem to recall you saying you wouldn’t return empty-handed.” Darling tosses a helmet onto the table. Gortash raises an eyebrow, “That’s not a netherstone.”

“It’s a souvenir,” they say with a smirk. He picks it up and turns it over in his hands. Darling swings their feet up onto his desk, heels crumpling a map of Baldur’s Gate. They are wearing different boots than their first late night visit. Some other fashionable changes, as well, but it’s clear that they want him to notice the boots.

The helmet and the boots are from a matching set. He knows, because the boots were in his footlocker until recently, and the helmet was, as far as he knew, still where the boots should’ve been before he’d stolen them a long time ago. In fact, those exact boots had been indispensable in his original escape from that place. Did Darling know? They hadn’t known before they lost their memory, so how could they now? But watching them, he can tell from their demeanor that they do. It hangs in the air for a moment.

“You went to the House of Hope. Impressive, of course, but not what you ought to be spending your limited time on.” He tosses the helmet back. “Wouldn’t your immense talents be better spent saving the sword coast from the impending rampage of our naughty elder brain?”

“I’m on a journey of self-discovery. What’s the point of saving the sword coast if I lose myself in the process.”

“Since when are you a poet?”

“I’m a bard, Enver.” For a moment he can’t breathe, hearing his name from their lips. He manages to smother the feeling as they continue, “There was this sweet girl in the druids’ grove. A tiefling like me. She played the lute and we played together and I tapped into the weave and I’ve been doing psychic damage to everyone I meet ever since. Don’t give me that look. I’m still a killer. My talents are still immense.”

“You were a paladin of Bhaal,” he offers.

“No kidding,” they flare their nostrils and laugh. A different laugh, or, has he ever even heard them laugh before? “I get the impression I was a hammer and all of my problems were nails.”

“You were magnificent.”

“I still am,” they say, their mouth pulling to the side. Their gaze drifts to the arbalest on the table. His stays on them. “I was scared at first, and angry. I had to learn how to talk to people. I needed different skills. After the lobotomy. After the worm. With a different… partner. Partners. So now I’m a poet.”

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#dark star falling #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #durgetash #durge #gortash #probably gonna continue this scene #I had to restart the house of hope cuz Raphael was kicking my ass too hard and I need Gale #but then I started writing during a break #and here we are #I was like is this IC for gortash usually he does a lot more talking #but then I remembered that in game I am a blankslate protagonist who can't have real opinions about things #so in private #Darling kind of rolls over Gortash and I'm okay with that #did some edits on feb1