#The way she acknowledges it here- going way beyond in the way she does it too! It means a lot to him and he hardly knows how to respond | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wrongplacerighttime · 4 months

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agent!harry x agent!fmc

the one where grace and harry are agents on a case, and they have to go undercover to get closer to their suspect. however, tensions come to light when they’re undercover in a sex club, and harry just can’t take it anymore.

little bit of plot, mostly smut slcksxkskc but i LOVE IT ANYWAY. don’t come for me. 😤

wc: ~5k.

tw: MDNI 18+!!!, talks of murder, drinking, sex club, dom!harry, stubborn!oc

part two here // little bunny masterlist

little bunny

The club Grace stood in front of was designed to be discreet to any unassuming passerby. Her coat was pulled tightly around her, hiding the expensive lingerie set she had bought specifically for the occasion. She had never been somewhere like this, and she felt out of place. The building sat flush with the rest on the block, the architecture of history’s past was accentuated with up to date brick and mortar, black metal accents adorning the doors and tinted windows. She was nervous, and walking into a somewhat dangerous situation. She stepped into the darkened club after showing her ID to the security guard in the foyer. She almost refuses to take away her only barrier between her dignity and indecency, reluctantly handing her coat over to the man standing by the coat closet, but she does, acknowledging to herself that she needed to play the part of a cheating wife here to find a man to satisfy her in a way her husband can’t.

She moves on light footsteps further into the building, the stench of sex diluted by cigarette smoke filtered into her lungs. She puts on a face of false confidence, taking all her strength to not hug her arms tightly around her body to hide her figure from the prying eyes in the room. There are men surrounding the bar, some of them sporting tan lines where wedding rings are missing, a detail often overlooked by most. They’re only here to get an easy, quick fuck while their wives are home not suspecting a thing. She wrinkles her nose before correcting her expression and runs a hand through her hair, looking around the area as she inhales and tries to shake the nerves away while pulling on the dreaded collar that her female coworker insisted she should wear to “help get into character”. “It’s just part of the costume,” she reminds herself while making her way to a bar stool.

“Weston, are you alright so far? We’re about to send Styles in.” She hears Aaron, her boss, in her earpiece, static interfering with their signal. She discreetly adjusts the position of it in her ear before answering.

“Yep. Just peachy.” She sarcastically answered under her breath, silently wishing she were anywhere else. She feels exposed and the fake wedding band is uncomfortable and feels tight, like it's holding her finger in a vice. She moves further into the club, making sure the ring is visible to any patrons that may be watching her.

She didn’t want to be here, but realistically, she knew she was the only chance they had to catch the suspect they’d been hunting for just over a week now. They have concluded that the suspect is a recently divorced man who is using surrogates for his murders, dumping them on the streets of Seattle and somehow hasn’t been caught yet. All of the victims were last seen at this club. They haven’t had any reason to arrest him yet, because otherwise he’s a perfect law abiding citizen, and unless they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, they can’t get a search warrant issued. The only thing they’re going on is that the women he’s kidnapped from this club look eerily similar to his ex wife, and he takes a souvenir from them every time. Their wedding rings.

Grace lifts her gaze from her glass to look around the room, and her eyes briefly catch as the man beside her looks her up and down before turning back to his drink. She feels her cheeks redden slightly, thankful that she was wearing a decent amount of makeup to hide the stain of embarrassment. She would never be seen in something like this, even with her sexual partners. And she never wanted to admit but her sex life was pretty vanilla compared to this. She was dreading that Harry, of all people, was going to be seeing her like this. She only saw one of her coworkers before she had to go inside, and if she had a choice she wouldn’t have seen any of them. There was a knock on her hotel door that interrupted her just as she was putting on her coat to cover up. When she answered the door she expected it to be one of the other women she worked with checking on her, so she didn’t button up. To her dismay it was Sean, their tech guy. She needed to be hooked to an earpiece so she had to suffer through the breath catching in his throat and his endless stutters as he helped her hook with the new technology she was unfamiliar with. And of course, because it was Sean, it was more awkward than it needed to be.

“I’m inside.” She hears Harry’s voice through the speaker hidden in her ear behind her hair as she swallows down the martini she ordered, thankful that they were making an exception to the no alcohol on the job rule. She had a feeling she’d need a little bit of a buzz to deal with Harry tonight, and there was no telling how much time would pass before they got what they needed. Her boss told her to only accept drinks that she had watched be made, as if she didn’t already possess the common knowledge and she wasn’t a federal agent. Her eyes flitted around the room and she caught sight of Harry as he passed the bar and made his way to a location that wasn’t in her line of sight from where she was sitting.

The plan that she and Harry would be the ones undercover wasn’t her own. Harry had suggested it, and because it was his idea, it was the best one and it needed to be executed. Grace would be playing the part of the married woman here to cheat on her husband while he was at home not suspecting a thing. Harry just had to be the one she seduced and left with. They had no way of knowing for sure if the suspect would be there tonight, they were just betting on his timeline being the same as it has been for the past three murders. If he was there, there was no way to know if he would actually set his sights on her. As fucked up as it sounds, Grace hoped he would so she didn’t have to do this again, and she really wanted to be the one to cuff this scumbag. She glanced around the bar, hoping to see his face in the sea of sleazy men. She studies every single patron sitting within her line of sight, and finally, her eyes land on him. Jesse Baker. His dirty blonde hair was greasy on top of his head, and he was sipping on a glass of beer. She stares at him for a moment, willing him to look her way as if he could read her thoughts. After a beat, his eyes meet hers and she feels a shiver up her spine. She doesn’t react, she just makes sure her left hand is in view so he sees the gold ring adorning her finger. She knows he’s seen it when he scowls at her, and if looks could kill she’d already be dead.

“He’s spotted me.” Grace says quietly under her breath, looking away so he doesn’t see her mouth moving. “I’m on the move.”

“Did he see the wedding ring?” Aaron asks. Grace stands taking her glass with her and walking away from the bar.

“Yeah. He saw. Where are you, Styles?”

“Back corner.” His voice is low in her ear and she shivers again, this time for a different reason. There's always been some kind of tension between them, and Grace is no stranger to the way he looks at her when he thinks she doesn’t notice. But he’s never approached her that way, and all they do is bicker back and forth about the correct plan of action on every single case they work together. To him she’s always wrong and he’s always right, and when she is right he doesn’t even acknowledge it, just grumbles something about a ‘lucky guess’ and walks away. She saunters around the bar walking right past their suspect, spotting Harry in the far back of the club. A woman seems to be eyeing him from her table so Grace quickly makes her way to him before he’s stuck in a situation that would be counterintuitive to the reason they were here in the first place.

His eyes meet hers before trailing down to the black lace that covers her from her chest to the tops of her thighs, leaving little to imagination. And he has imagined it. Every time she juts her lip out in concentration, or everytime she gives him her endless attitude he so desperately wanted to put in its place. He shifts in his seat, biting the inside of his cheek before leaning forward and setting his glass down on the small table in front of him. She smiles nervously at him as she moves closer and when she’s within arms reach, he grabs her wrist and pulls her onto his lap.

“H-hey.” Grace stutters and catches herself on the back of the booth, caging his head between her arms. She tilts her head slightly and she wraps one arm around the back of his shoulders after she steadies herself. He lightly drags the tip of his nose up her neck before bumping it against her ear and she swallows a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding.

“Just playing the part, don’t want him to get suspicious.” He mutters and she nods, making herself comfortable, and while he was the one to pull her into his lap, he doesn’t touch her any further than that. Movement catches the corner of her eye and she notices Jesse moving closer to them. She watches him from her peripheral as he takes a seat at the booth behind them, facing them with his legs spread out and resting his drink on his knee while he holds the glass by the rim. She buries her nose in Harry’s hair, breathing in the delicious scent of whatever product he had in it and placing a kiss against his temple, her lips barely brushing over his skin.

“He’s behind us.” She mumbles, moving to straddle over his hips without thinking, just wanting to be able to keep her eye on Jesse. She hears him clear his throat, keeping his hands beside him on the seat and she’s sure they’re about to give away their guise because Harry is way too tense for someone who would’ve been expecting this. She brings her lips to his neck, taking his skin between her teeth before kissing over the spot. She hears him curse under his breath, clenching his hands into fists on the booth. “Do something with your hands, you need to make yourself a little more convincing.” She breathes against his ear and he nods once before placing his hands on her hips and squeezing lightly. Just as she was about to say something else, they’re interrupted by a woman dressed all too similarly to Grace. She’s tall, at least 6’ in her heels and she has long fiery-red hair cascading down her back, her neck adorned with a black leather collar.

“Look at you two getting all cozy.” Her eyes flick between Grace and Harry before narrowing. “There’s private rooms down that hallway over there,” she gestures with her hand, Harry’s gaze follows and he nods at her, flashing a wide smile her way.

“Thank you.” He croons and snakes his hand down from Grace’s hip to the swell of her ass, palming and gripping onto her as the woman’s eyes follow his touch.

“I’m not sure if we’ll need one tonight, I’m trying to teach her how to control and behave herself, she’s a bratty little bunny, aren’t you?” He turns his head and mutters the last few words against the skin between her breasts, his hot breath billowing outwards as he licks a stripe upwards to her collarbone. She whimpers and grinds against him purely out of habit from the pleasure building, and when she does she’s surprised to feel him hard under her. She nods shyly and his finger hooks under her collar, pulling lightly and tilting his head.

“Words, baby. Be polite.” He purrs at her, and it takes all of her mental strength to not widen her eyes at him.

“Y-yes sir.” Is all she can answer, her cheeks reddening slightly and she buries her face in his neck. He brings a hand up, trailing it down her spine with featherlight fingertips. He pushes her to stand, spinning her around before pulling her back down onto his lap, except she’s facing away from him now and he brings his hands over the expanse of her thighs before squeezing there, dimpling the skin. The nameless woman still standing and watching the interaction, clicks her tongue once and her eyes look back to where Jesse still sits. Grace watches her, noticing the way her eyes are narrowing at him and the way she shakes her head, like they’re communicating with each other telepathically. She turns her head back to Harry and Grace, plastering a fake smile on her face.

“Well. If you need anything, just let me know.” She eyes Grace up and down before turning and walking away. Grace waits until she’s out of hearing range before craning her neck to look at Harry over her shoulder. His eyes meet hers briefly before he looks away.

“Little warning would have been nice.” She grumbles as he scoffs.

“Yeah, how exactly did you expect me to do that?” He whispers with annoyance lacing his tone, bringing his mouth to her shoulder blade and kissing lightly. A burst of pleasure runs down her spine and she grinds against him, causing a hiss to fall from between his gritted teeth and he grips her hips tightly, moving her so the pressure isn’t against his cock straining in his pants. She chooses to ignore it for the time being.

“Did you notice her looking at him?” She mutters and he nods, keeping his hands tight on her hips. She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this, and she hates to admit that Harry looks extremely delectable tonight, his hair styled to perfection on top of his head, dressed in black dress pants with a white button up loosely fitting his torso…unbuttoned enough to give her just a hint of the butterfly tattooed on his abs. She catches herself thinking about how it would feel to trail her tongue over it before she forces the image away from her mind and focuses on the task at hand.

About a half an hour passes of them bantering back and forth, Jesse watching them the entire time while they exchange just enough physical contact to make it believable. Grace has been drinking and it’s coming to a head, feeling tipsy now and a little more brave. She tangles her hands in Harry’s hair, the fake ring is visible to their suspect as she does so, watching as he narrows his eyes at her and Harry. She feels her arousal pooling on the material of the lingerie as she pushes her center against him and he leans his head back and lets out a soft groan. She watches his eyes flutter closed as he moves her hips over his erection. When he opens them back up to see her smirking down at him, she notices something primal in his expression. He stands abruptly, pushing her off of him in the process and grabbing her hand, leading her down the hallway of private rooms.

“Harry, what are you doing?” She whisper-yells at him, her words running together from slight intoxication but he doesn’t answer. He finds a door cracked open, poking his head inside and making sure it's unoccupied. He pulls her inside, closing the door and locking it behind them before he spins her around and pushes her against it. Grace jumps when a voice speaks in her ear.

“What's going on?” Aaron asks both of them and Harry curses under his breath and drops his head to her shoulder, both of them forgetting about the earpieces up until that moment.

“Give us a minute, new information. Need to come up with a plan.” He lies as he stares directly into Grace’s eyes with dark, blown out pupils, licking his lower lip before pulling it between his teeth

“Styles, we need to know your location in the club at all times.” Aaron scolds him and he shakes his head.

“Do you trust us?” He asks and Aaron responds with a hesitant yes. “Okay. Then give us a minute.” He says before ripping out his earpiece. He does the same with Grace’s, and then his lips crash to hers. She moans into the kiss, opening her mouth and giving him access to her. His tongue darts in and he’s running his hands up to the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling hard enough for her to yelp and he attaches his lips to her pulse point.

“You play dirty.” He mutters against her skin before pulling back and she gives him a devilish grin.

“Didn’t know I needed to play fair.” She remarks, feigning innocence and he pulls her hair again as she hisses through her teeth.

“Think I don’t know what you’re doing?” He seethes and she smiles again. “Think you can just prance over to me in this slutty little outfit and not expect me to want to shove my cock inside you?” He asks, tilting his head slightly and her eyes flutter closed at his words, a switch inside him flipping almost instantaneously. He thinks he has her right where he wants her, but she’s not going to give him what he wants that easily.

While still fisting her hair, he pulls her away from the door and shoves her down onto the sofa in the middle of the room. He flips her over, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her ass up in the air. She squirms underneath him, and he runs his hand softly up the back of her exposed thigh. She shivers, goosebumps forming at his gentle touch. He gives no warning before he pushes the material keeping her wet center covered to the side. He drags a finger through her arousal before shoving it into her and she cries out. He hums with satisfaction, feeling the way she clenches on his fingers at the intrusion.

“You’re dripping. All for me, sweet girl?” He coos at her but she doesn’t answer, instead her jaw falling slack as he pumps his finger in and out of her. His eyes flare with lust, but he stops all together causing her to whimper. “Need you to use your words or I’ll stop.” He demands, the change in his tone giving her whiplash.

“Y-you wish.” She stutters, trying to sound confident, and he knows she’s trying to put up a front, and he doesn’t like her answer. He smacks her ass, hard. He clicks his tongue, gently rubbing the area quickly turning red with his handprint.

“Want to rethink that?” His voice is low. She tries to push her hips back against him, searching for any friction but he doesn’t let her.

“Look at you, such a needy little bunny. You knew what you were doing getting me all riled up.” He croons, bending over her body and nipping at her ear. The pet name he used earlier brings a heat swirling into her belly, a feeling that she craved.

“Wasn’t doing anything. Just playing the part like you told me to.” She lies through her teeth in a breathy tone.

“Hmm. S’that why you’re all wet, then?” He pushes two fingers into her and her eyes flutter closed as she bites her bottom lip. He pumps and curls, stretching her so deliciously it makes her toes curl. He goes deeper, all the way too the knuckle and she feels the tightening of the coil inside her belly. She’s close, so close. He pulls his fingers away from her and her chest heaves at the empty feeling, tearing her away from the edge just as she was about to tumble over. He sits on the couch beside her, pulling her onto his lap and she straddles his hips. He pulls the top of her outfit down, exposing her breasts to him. In the same second, he attaches his mouth to one of her nipples while pinching the other between his thumb and finger. She throws her head back and grinds her hips down over his cock still confined behind the zipper.

“I hate you.” She moans as he lightly bites and sucks on her nipple. She’s breathless as she says it, and he bucks his hips to meet hers.

“You have a funny way of showing it.” He mumbles against her skin, reaching a hand between their bodies and rubbing over her clit. She falls forward, her head falling against his shoulder as he rubs circles at a slow, torturous pace.

“You think you’re so great? You think every woman who looks your way wants you? Like you’re God’s gift to them?” She huffs, not realizing the irony of her words and the position she’s in due to the insatiable want clouding her mind.

“And yet here you are.” He mutters, the corner of his mouth pulling into a half smile and she rolls her eyes. He grabs her face, forcing her to look at him. His pupils are blown out and he tilts his head, studying her like he’s a predator hunting his prey, knowing she’s about to say something smart again and nipping it in the bud before it has the chance to escape her lips.

“Attitude.” He says pointedly, squeezing her cheeks and she can’t help the whine that builds in her throat and betrays her. “Be a good little bunny or I won’t let you cum.” He threatens and she swallows her words down without so much as a sigh.

Her hands fall from his chest and to his pants, fumbling with the button and unzipping them. He lifts his hips and pulls them down just enough and his cock springs free from where it was confined behind his zipper. Her eyes widen and her mouth waters, wanting nothing more than to drop to her knees and take him down her throat at the sight of him. He watches her for a beat before pulling her face back to him and kissing her, shoving his tongue into her mouth aggressively.

In an instant, he’s gripping the backs of her thighs and lifting her as he stands from the sofa without detaching his mouth from hers. Her hands grip his hair, pulling at the root and he groans into the kiss, her back meeting the cool surface of the wall across the room. She feels the head of his cock at her entrance, and she wiggles her hips against him in an attempt to push him into her, begging for more contact. He holds her steady, and she’s unsuccessful in her efforts as she whimpers into his mouth. He pulls away far enough to meet her eyes, her chest heaving and her eyes pleading for him.

“Beg me for it.” He demands, breathless. The look in her eyes shifts, and she narrows them at him.

“Fuck you.” She seethes, her usual personality fighting to stay dominant over the one she wants to slip into. He holds her up with one hand, bringing the other up to grab the collar still strapped around her throat. He pulls, bringing her forehead to his, the tips of their noses touching and she feels her air supply dwindling.

“Beg. Or I’ll leave you in here, your pretty little pussy all weepy and empty.” He grits through his teeth and she can’t deny she wants him like this always. He lets go and she sucks in a breath that she desperately needed. She’s stunned for a moment, this side of him still new to her. She’s itching to provoke him further, just to see how far he’ll go. But she also just really wants him to fuck her,

“Please.” She whispers and he laughs, shaking his head slightly

“You can do better than that, bunny.” His voice is low and gravely, and she can tell he’s holding himself back. She sighs, throwing her head back against the wall. He waits, and when she lifts her head to look at him again, she gives him a look that reads mischief.

“Please, oh please, give me your cock, sir, I need it, need it so bad. Plea—” Her fake, whiny voice is cut off by him slamming his cock into her and she feels the breath whoosh from her lungs. Tears prick the corner of her eyes at the sting of him stretching her, and it’s all she knows. All she feels. Her head falls forward against his shoulder and she cries out from pleasure sparking down her spine.

“God, you look so much better when you just shut up.” He grits with annoyance, breath heavy in his lungs as she squeezes him perfectly. He tosses his head back as he sets a slow, torturous pace. Her hands find his hair again, holding the back of his head and fisting his hair for something to grip as he pulls out to the tip before driving back into her. She’s a mess of moans and whines and she lifts her head from his shoulder and arches her back against the wall. His mouth finds her throat, lapping and sucking on her skin. She knows she won’t last, and he can sense it too, the way she’s clenching him and bucking into him. He brings one hand up between her thighs, pressing lightly on her clit with his thumb, rubbing small circles with light pressure and his name falls from her lips in breathy moans.

“That’s it…cum for me. Know you want to.” He encourages her, and the sparks dancing down her spine travel right to her center and turn to flames of pleasure…desire. He presses her clit once, and that’s it, all she needs. She comes completely undone, tipping over the edge and dropping her head to his shoulder once more, her pussy squeezing him and willing him to come inside her. He groans, a single bead of sweat dripping down his temple as he slams into her.

“Feel so fucking good cumming all over my cock, bunny. So good. Like you were made for me.” He’s breathless, his hips meeting hers one final time before he’s spilling into her, bringing his lips to hers in a sloppy kiss as he rides through it, moaning into her mouth, filling her until he slides out and he drips down her thighs.

Gently, he lowers her until her feet meet the floor. She stumbles, humming as he brings his hands to her face and wipes the mascara running down her cheeks with the back of his fingers. His eyebrows pull together as her eyes meet his. He makes sure she’s steady, pulling her lingerie back into place and tucking himself back into his pants and zipping them before walking away and finding their earpieces that he threw across the room.

“Now, you’re gonna leave this room with my cum dripping from that pretty little pussy. Let it run down your thighs. Gonna be a good little bunny and let them all see who you belong to, right?” Her head is fuzzy, and she nods without thinking. She can’t think straight, forgetting for a moment why they were even here in the first place. He checks his watch, and all of twenty minutes have passed feeling like hours. He situates the technology in her ear, then moves to his, clearing his throat before he speaks.

“Aaron. We have reason to believe he’s working with a partner. There’s a woman in here that he’s been communicating with, and I think she plays a part in luring the women to him.” He speaks clearly, as if he didn’t just have his cock buried inside Grace, wishing he had a little more time, and he realized he was going to be insatiable for her, already thinking about when he could have her next.

“We didn’t profile a partner?” Aaron sounds confused, and Harry’s eyes travel to Grace still leaning against the wall, trying to catch her breath without making it obvious to anyone listening.

“Grace and I went to a private room, Baker is going to assume he knows what we did in this room. He’s going to make a move, or his partner will. Need another body inside. Need more eyes on him.” Harry says, calm and collected. “It’s going to have to be a man, because I’m sure there’s no other women on our team dressed like Grace.” He mutters.

“Weston, are you there?” Aaron asks and his voice speaking directly to her snaps her back to reality quickly.

“Uh, yeah. Here. I’m here.” She makes her presence known.

“Alright. I’m coming in.” He says, and they both look at each other once before nodding. Grace feels the ache in her thighs as she walks towards the door, Harry behind her. He leans into her just as her hand reaches for the handle.

“Still hate me?” He whispers in her ear

“Always.” She mutters.

“Good. It’d be boring if you didn’t.” He smirks, his hand on her back as they exit the room. She knew she was ruined, already wanting more of him, more time with him.

But it’ll have to wait.

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licorice-tea · 4 months

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Don’t Fall In Love With Me (Yet)

Pairing: Trafalgar Law x reader

Content: strawhat!reader, gender neutral reader, feelings and fluff (my faves🤞🏽), so much tension, no resolution of that tension… yet😏, lowkey “i hate everyone but you” trope, very brief mention of some canon typical violence, but no actual violence <3

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: lalalalala i love law😇 i actually wrote about twice as much as what’s here to begin with, but i felt like it was too long for one post, so i might upload it as a second part later if anyone wants that! as always ty for the love, and i hope you enjoy! (did i write this instead of finishing part 3 of my Zoro mini series? perchance. (that will be up soon though!))

Part 2

It’s a day like any other on board the Thousand Sunny- calm waters, music, occasional shouting, and just one abnormality. Law, captain of the Heart Pirates, is a guest on board the Strawhat Crew’s ship in the aftermath of Dressrosa. And despite their hospitality, he finds practically everything about life on board their ship to be draining…

Every potentially quiet moment is interrupted by the crew’s shenanigans.

For starters: the cook and swordsman argue over every little thing, and most of their arguments escalate into fights. The navigator is actually a petty thief or a con-artist at best, and her double, the sniper, takes it upon himself to cause dangerous explosions at least once a day. The musician is an incredibly loud pervert, though the shipwright is somehow even louder and more dramatic. The archeologist is alright- she’s quiet, but Law finds her constant observation more eery than comforting. And the captain is still somehow convinced that his doctor could be used as a source of “emergency food.” Then there’s you; the one who brings whatever you’re working on at the time up to the deck so you can work in the sunlight, wears your weapons like they’re accessories, who only takes breaks from working to visit with your nakama, and always offers a charming smile when you catch Law staring… which happens multiple times in the course of the day.

Law is often irritated, rigid, and cold- so different from your own optimistic and nonchalant demeanor. At breakfast, he doesn’t talk much. Just eats his meal and thanks Sanji before excusing himself to go pour over anatomy books from the ship’s library. He does so for hours, not once joining the Strawhat Crew on deck or even taking time to explore the ship on his own. Nami frequents the library, as well, but she’s taken to drawing maps in her room or on deck since their guests arrival. When night begins to settle overhead, he may return to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, before going right back to his work.

At first, one might have been inclined to think Law didn’t like y/n at all. They can often see his gaze trained on them form from the corner of their eye, but chooses to ignore it sometimes and address it with a smile others. He almost never speaks to them if possible, only offering a nod or a mumbled response to whatever they says. But, he goes out of his way to sit by them at mealtimes and to find himself in the same narrow hallways as them, so that their arms brush. Those are the moments he obsesses over in his mind while he dozes off from his textbooks- the feel of their skin against his, and their kind acknowledgements- always void of harsh judgment.

It’s not just the lack of cruelty in essentially eveything they do, to Law; it’s the presence of love. Love for their nakama, their work, people and places they barely know, even him. He doesn’t recall ever having met someone so full of love that goes beyond superficial kindness- because they can be sarcastic and moody at times- besides perhaps Corazon.

And to y/n, there’s just something about Law that peaks their interests. Maybe it’s the feeling of having someone new around, or something even more indescribable and foreign to the pirate.

Zoro is asleep in the men’s cabin tonight, so y/n is keeping watch. It’s the usual arrangement for the 2 night owls of the crew- when Zoro has truly exhausted his body, he sleeps below deck with the others, and y/n has no trouble staying up through the night.

They turn on some quiet music on their speaker, a must have for any music lover. For a while, they just watch the sea and sky. Nights at sea are like a blackout. But, there is no need for light with strong eyesight and the even stronger moon and starlight.

So it’s no surprise that they see, just out of the corner of their peripheral vision, the top of a white and black speckled hat bobbing up and down as it moves toward the kitchen. Y/n’s eyes widen ever so slightly and their breath catches in their throat. The guest makes them feel silly, in a way, for not being able to discern their own feelings toward him, nor his toward them. They get so caught up in their thoughts about him that eventually they give up. Y/n shakes their head, mentally chastising themself for even being embarrassed or flustered in the first place. And with that confidence boost, they decide to go talk to him.

Next thing they know, y/n is standing before the kitchen door with no plan in mind for what they’re going to say to their crew’s ally. They open the door, but he doesn’t look up from the coffee brewing on the stove.

Y/n clears their throat to announce their presence, and Law whips his head around to see who it is. They offer a friendly smile and a little wave.

“Hi.” They speak softly, as if afraid to break the peace of the night.

A beat passes with no response from Law. Internally, he wishes they hadn’t walked in on him at this moment. The light from the overhead lamp catches in their eyes, and he feels entirely too seen. Not in the way he feels seen by someone like Robin, though, whose constant observation makes him feel uncomfortable; like one wrong move and he’ll have hell to pay for. No; y/n sees him and he’s scared that he might start spewing nonsense to avoid revealing his feelings. And suddenly his cheeks are on fire, and everything is quiet, and all he can focus on is the stars in their eyes that he tries so desperately to look away from.

They tilt their head, likely in concern, and he pulls himself out of his thoughts to mumble, “Hey.”

“Cant sleep?” y/n questions, their starry eyes (as described by Law) flickering over the coffee pot on the counter and back to him.

Law shrugs, then pulls his hat lower over his eyes to hopefully hide his warm face. “I wasn’t trying to sleep.”

“Hm…” they hum in response, “Want to keep watch with me then? If you aren’t busy.”

He thinks they’re just being friendly, like always. When they first met, Law was confused. It made no sense for someone so mild mannered to have a bounty of well over 500 million (now almost double that amount in the time that’s passed), though he didn’t doubt that looks could be deceiving. But even in the midst of battle, of which the two had been in several together, they refused to take kill shots or anything of the sort. So he was still unsure of how they had earned such an impressive reward for their capture. Still, they clearly had a high regard for life, and he had come to learn that they truly were just that kind hearted, not to mention witty and generous. And judging by the “Sora: Warrior of The Sea” sticker he’d noticed on small a journal they carried, which was one amongst many; a bit of a nerd, too. All of these things and more had made Law secretly impartial to them. Or at least, those were the reasons he has listed in his mind to make sense of these feelings.

So he nodded, much to their surprise, and mumbled again “Sure.”

The curve of their smile opens up into a grin, and y/n leaves while fully expecting Law to follow (whenever his coffee was ready.) Which, he does.

#part 2?#one piece x reader #one piece x you #fanfic #one piece #law x reader #x reader #law fluff #trafalgar law #law x you #straw hats #straw hat pirates #straw hat reader #teehee #i love writing fanfic😇#new hobby😈

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haunted-moon · 4 months

Text

Long Way Home [Part IV]

[Azriel x Reader fanfic]

Synopsis: Y/n is the daughter of a healer in the city of Velaris. After a small incident, she moves to the House of the Wind to work for the High Lord, Rhysand. Everyone in the house seems to welcome her except Azriel, the second in command. Even though he is just blankly polite and does not acknowledge her much, she can't help but fall for him. Does Azriel return her feelings or remain unfeelingly aloof?

─•~❉᯽❉~•─

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3 here.

─•~❉᯽❉~•─

Part IV

"I'm seriously surprised that you've never flown before."

I levelled Cassian with a dead stare. "I don't have wings, dumbass."

"You could've asked me or Azriel to take you flying."

"I am also chubby and heavy to carry."

He scoffed, and in one movement, picked me up in his arms, bridal style. "Heavy, my ass. You're perfect."

I blushed and brought my hands around his neck as he directed. He stepped onto the balcony wall, and my heart thumped in the thrill of anticipation.

"Ready?"

I nodded, grinning uncontrollably. This was fun.

He jumped, spreading his wings to catch the wind. I screamed as we dipped for a moment before he soared high and steadied.

For a moment there, I was sad because I had missed out this experience. Not for long, though. Cassian weaved through the highest parts of the city, laughing along with me. He circled around the perimeter of the city and then went beyond, above a thin ribbon of a stream. Here, he swooped down sharply, and my stomach plummeted along.

While we were just a little above the water's surface, he tilted me and let my feet dangle in the cool water. It made me giggle, and soon enough, he was soaring above again and returning to the city. He flew for some more time, until he was tired and deposited me on the balcony.

My legs trembled as I walked over to a seat and flopped down. Cassian had to leave because Rhys was summoning him, and I thanked him profusely before he left. He was very sweet, and this short trip was amazing. I spent the rest of the day in a daydream, packing a small suitcase to take home since I was spending the next two days with my father.

When I was packing some toiletries, Amren knocked on the open door.

I waved her over to one of the chairs. "Come in."

My quarters was mostly empty now, I had shifted everything except the ones I immediately needed. She looked around and perched elegantly on the chair and lifted her head at me.

"Why are you leaving?" She asked bluntly.

My hands stilled, and I thought over my response. I had planned to leave without anyone noticing, and I wasn't prepared in the event that someone did notice.

"Are you unhappy here? Do you feel unwelcome? What is it?" She asked again.

"The actual reason for my leaving is not valid, to be honest."

She leaned back and crossed arms. "Try me."

"It involves one of the residents here. It's not their mistake, it's mine. I carried a lot of unfulfillable expectations, and I just want to stay away."

I didn't have any idea what I was saying. I spoke one word after word without even thinking whether they made a connection or not. She stared unblinkingly at me and I returned it with a steady gaze. Finally, she stood up and walked out without a word.

I broke the news to my father at dinner the next night. He was very confused about my decision, as he thought that things at the House of the Wind were going rather well. However, he came to the crux of the matter quickly.

"It's about Azriel isn't it. He hurt you."

"No he didn't. They are all very nice to me. But I can't stay there any longer. The problem is with me. I have feelings for Azriel, and I want to go away from him since there is not a chance of anything happening between us and I can't take it anymore."

There, I said it. I didn't meet Azriel frequently, but I thought of him every single day. He consumed my thoughts ever since I've lived in the quarters next to him, even when he didn't look at me for more than a span of five seconds. I must've gone insane.

My father watched me in silence for a few moments.

"Alright. Let me know if you need any help. Stay safe out there, and reach out to me if you need any provisions and supplies."

I smiled, a bit teary as I reached across the table and took his hand. "Thank you."

─•~❉᯽❉~•─

Tags:

@kalulakunundrum

@thelov3lybookworm

@hnyclover

─•~❉᯽❉~•─

Read Part 5 here.

This fanfic can also be found in Wattpad, along with other exclusive parts like playlists and pictures. Here's the link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/358573037-long-way-home

Happy reading! <3

─•~❉᯽❉~•─

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lovers-tucked-into-a-quiet-cafe · 6 months

Text

141 & Rabbit Headcanons [IKYLHT]

Series Masterlist | Prev: Personnel Files | Next: Chapter One

Please Note: This is my attempt at a spoiler-free introduction to the characters and their dynamics. This is meant to be read before the first chapter, and thus must be vague at points. THIS DOES CONTAIN SOME MW3 SPOILERS

141 + Rabbit Dynamics:

Soap:

Rabbit's ride or die right here, twin flame type of energy

First person she actually enjoyed the company of at the UK base while on assignment alongside the rest of the Demon Dogs

Subsequently the first to worm his way into her heart- sinks his hooks into her side and refuses to leave (not to worry, you'd have to pry her off of him, anyways)

Runs into her coming out of the mess hall, sees 'Highwater' stitched into her uniform and realizes this was the soldier Sparks had told him about

Oh yeah, that month long prank war with Shane 'Shitbag' Sparks (yes, she'd come up with that one herself) that the rest of the Demon Dogs decided to join in on? He made sure to tell Soap, because why not recruit the demolitions expert in his task of torturing his sister-in-arms?

Soap immediately decides on implementing her rename. 'Oh, you already have a callsign that half the base refers to you by? One that acknowledges your military expertise and the nine grueling years you've dedicated to the service? That's weird, cuz your name is Rabbit now and that's that' type mentality

She knew the reference immediately, hands twitching with the urge to unsheathe her spare knife because there was only one person that'd broadcast the story

Goddammit, Sparks, I will shiv you

"Excuse me? Where'd you hear that from, Sergeant?"

"A good friend never tells. I could always think of calling you somethin' worse?"

"Call me something worse and I'll have you written up for disrespecting a superior officer"

"Understood, Rabbit" said with a fucking grin

Despite being the one to rename her, literally never uses her callsign once he declares them best friends

Calls her Bunny or Bun, which surprisingly did help his efforts in gaining her [platonic] love and affection

Spent damn near every waking moment with her, which unsurprisingly did help his efforts in gaining her [romantic] love and affection

Sparring? Let me wrap your hands

Going out? Here, I'll zip your coat

Smoking? C'mon Bun, tell me what's bothering you, I can help

It was the little, everyday acts of love kindness from Soap that had her hooked on the feeling of being in his presence

So you can imagine how devastating it'd felt for the both of them when the special unit had been called back to the states

Even with promises to call and text and facetime, the feeling of his heart sinking to his stomach made him realize there were feelings he harbored towards Rabbit that went beyond the typical bond between soldiers

But orders are orders, and he'd been sure to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek before ushering her up the ramp and onto the heli waiting to rip her away from him

Not that either admitted it to the other at the time, but they'd both been teased to no end about their 'special friendship' by the rest of their units, cheeks warming yet refusing to deny the accusations

Like true friends, though, they did kept their promise

If it wasn't hours of texting it was calls, only skipping days when on mission but always sure to inform the other of their departure beforehand

It was hard most days. Seeing the other come back from days or even weeks of no-contact with new cuts and bruises

It was especially hard, though, after Verdansk

Soap had beaten himself up pretty hard after the whole ordeal with Makarov- the guilt of not being able to save those people in the airport, the shame of losing his cool in front of his superiors, the regret of not just avenging those people by shooting the man and facing the consequences later- he'd talked through his entire range of emotions with her despite the distance

Then, because the universe always yearned for cruelty, she got the assignment

Covert operation

Ciudad Victoria

Two days, wheels up at 0400

Now her home base had been Pendleton since basic, and if there's one thing the San Diego base requires, it's soldiers willing to cross the border and sweat their asses off for hours on end scouting some target for shit pay and no reward

She'd done it before, six months turned into twelve turned into eighteen until eventually she'd been volunteering to go, years under her belt and quickly moving up the ranks, Mexico now a second home in her mind. Anything to get away from that place

But Victoria? That was a city she'd only seen on mission reports, only heard of by way of interrogation

But orders are orders, and he'd been sure to tell her he'd miss her before ushering her to dump her phone in her locker and get onto the heli waiting to rip her away from him again

Soap didn't get a call for quite a while after that

His first contact, actually, hadn't even been Rabbit

It was Sparks

Locker pried open with permission from Griggs (not that he waited even a second to be granted it), he'd charged her phone and called the one person he thought deserved to know

"MacTavish? It's Sparks. Highwater, she's... she's MIA. Entire task force was found slaughtered. An ambush, I think. We don't- we're not entirely sure yet. Griggs can't get a straight answer. The whole things fucked, we can't- the area's got it's own governing body. They haven't... they've searched but they haven't found a body. We're not calling it until they do. I'm sorry, kid."

Two months

Two months Soap cried until his lungs spasmed

Two months Soap cried until his head ached and eyes burned

Two months Soap cried to his mother about the woman he loved

Two months until he got the call that damn near restarted his heart

"Soap? Soap, we found her. We have her, she's being taken to medical. We found her, kid."

Johnny's not sure he remembers a time he'd cried harder. He'd like to say it was when Sparks had first called him, but even then, he held onto some hope she'd made it out 'like you always do'

That'd been their promise to each other, and he vividly recalls telling Price that as he sobbed over the man's shoulder in relief

She'd been put on medical leave, forced to wave goodbye to her family as they flew off to Urzikstan without her

It was at that point- hearing her cry over the phone about how useless she'd felt being left behind, how she'd failed the only family that had ever truly cared about her- that he realized a trip to the states was in dire need

Entered the U.S. friends, exited the U.S. partners

Johnny's a man that focuses on the positives

He doesn't talk about those two months. Not to his therapist, not to his ma, not to Price

He focuses on the fact that his torment is over, he focuses on the woman laying her head on his shoulder and tapping her boot against his on the shaky helicarrier

Because that's all that matters to him. The little moments between missions where they can focus on something other than saving the world for a moment

It's a type of love, a type of dynamic the man had never experienced before

'Intimate' is the best word to describe it

Will 'accidentally' detonate an old grenade taken into the training grounds to 'see if it still worked', just to see the other's eyes light up in a sort of pyromaniac excitement

Will also take up an entire couch quietly lounging, arms wrapped around each other under a shared blanket because 'it's a low energy type of day'

It's all or nothing- completely feral, unhinged 'I'll request the jailcell across from you' behavior or soft, domestic bliss

No words need be exchanged for that energy to shift- just a subtle glance and soft smile, a type of telepathy easily mastered after four years of being together

And Johnny wouldn't have it any other way

Ghost:

Initially doesn't even want to address her by Rabbit

He couldn't take the callsign seriously, especially after realizing this was the woman Soap had been babbling about in Verdansk

He knew more about her personal life than he did her military career, and he'd read her file back to front twice. Well, what hadn't been redacted, anyways

Decides he'll stick to Gun, as requested, but only when necessary. Better than Rabbit, at least

But after Soap's little confession while her comms are down in Las Almas? Now Gun just won't do. Decides to stick with Darling until he's figured out a better one. Knows she won't mind, anyways

Calls her Lovie a small handful of times, blink and you'll miss it, and it's only in a NSFW context ;) soft!dom Ghost supremacy

Settles on Tapeti once the dust settles and he knows he's wormed his way into her heart the same way Soap had

They're close in a way he can't say about anyone else

Does he love his team? Of course

Would he lay his life down for any one of them the second the opportunity presented itself? Also yes

But there's something about shared trauma that bonds the soul

Neither talk about it much

It's honestly easier to use Soap as the go-between on a lot of things

She's already told him, already bared her soul for him to see in that deserted apartment, and Simon's grateful Johnny omits certain heart wrenching details when he runs his hands over her scarred back, runs his hands over the raised tattoos that cover the remnants of Victoria

He doesn't yearn to know the specifics, most days he's not sure he wants to know at all

He'd made peace with his demons a long time ago, had to in order to survive, but he knew it wouldn't be so easy forgiving what'd been done to her

It wasn't hard to infer, anyway

They have a calendar, a pocket sized one with a little magnet attached that hangs on their fridge

It was Ghost's idea, after one of those days when the shakes were debilitating and she couldn't keep her food down

He'd set the container of soup from the deli across their flat on the counter, pulling Soap away from her curled up side and showing him the dollar store purchase

He didn't explain, just scribbled out a few dates and passed the calendar over

So Johnny took the pen and started scratching out days

He didn't explain all of them, only murmured the easy ones like 'her mother's birthday' or 'her comrades death date' or 'Victoria'

There's a deeper understanding there, between the three of them, and if there's one thing Simon can attest to while stomping out the butt of his cigarette onto Grave's false tombstone, it's his appreciation for the man's betrayal in Las Almas that lead him into the couple's outstretched arms

Gaz:

Best boy, here

The baby of the group, a few years younger than Rabbit who shares a birthyear with Soap

Uses that to his advantage

Calls her Officer Hopps on more than one occasion, not afraid to more commonly shorten it down to just 'Hopps'

Always in a playful loving manner, not that it matters when Rabbit's glare quickly follows

Also thinks it's funny to call her 'Gunnery Hopps' when in the presence of other soldiers, tries to play it off as a genuine tongue slip despite his wide grin proving otherwise

Again, uses his baby privilege to his advantage, whipping out the puppy eyes and small kisses that has Rabbit's glare melting into a soft smile

Typically sticks with Love- partially because he's a true Birmingham boy and the term of endearment comes naturally to him- mainly because it keeps her wound around his finger

Starts a fight by betting Price 20 quid he could cut a chunk out of Soap's mohawk? He's running to hide behind her, basking in her warmth and sticking a tongue out at Johnny over her shoulder

Smug as all hell, knows he's been deemed the favorite and is sure to remind the other men of it constantly

He'll tell them it's 'just because she loves me more, mate' but they all know the real reason

It's his calm, level-headed personality and natural ability to lead that endears him to her so easily

She never questions his judgement because what he lacks in years he makes up for in everything else by tenfold

And he looks up to Rabbit immensely- he may not initially know the finer details of her military experience, just general war stories Sparks and the rest of the Demon Dogs had told him in Urzikstan when she'd been out on medical leave, but he does know what being a 0251 MOS entails, knows he'll never come across a better Gunnery Sergeant even if he retires at 80

Aims to become a GySgt after seeing her serve as their unit's operations chief, working with superior officers on training, operations, and tactical advising

Asks a million questions and- though he'd never admit it- keeps a log of their answers in his notes app. He's just organized like that

She noticed anyways, what with his trusting nature and big heart (he gladly passed over his phone passcode within the first week of them being official), and it was actually that notes app list of all the little throw away tidbits about her role on the team that led her to write his letter of recommendation

That’s just the dynamic they have, they bring out the best in each other in every way, even when they don’t think it’s possible given the circumstances

He's only two years younger, and yet he feels so lacking in experience when they're thrown into red-stained chairs with threadbare bags over their heads

"You been tortured before, Gaz?"

"No."

"That's good. Let's keep it that way. Stay quiet and keep your eyes forward."

He remembers blanching at her nonchalant tone, the way she talked as if she'd done this a hundred times before.

She has, he realizes, and he feels a sort of naive embarrassment wash over him when he really thinks about it

Interrogation and Debrief Specialist, he thought, you don't earn that title by just sitting and reading about it

He didn't have much time to sit and process that thought before the men were reentering the dark room

He's unable to fathom how she'd kept her breathing so calm, refrained from letting out a single yell or grunt or sniffle until the men had slammed the metal door on their exit

It was hard for him, returning to base after what had transpired

It didn't sit right with him- the fact that he'd allowed himself to sit there and let the woman he'd been falling in love with be beaten within an inch of her life

But she'd comforted him, face swollen and leg wrapped, knocking her boot into his with a smile

He'd knocked his boot back into hers, and decided from there on out she'd know exactly how much she meant to him

Price:

The only member of the 141 to actually refer to her by her callsign. Captain's professionalism and all that.

Throws it out the window the second he deems necessary- which is quite often- resorts to Sweetheart

He knows more about her than anyone else, Johnny the only exception, and that isn't something he takes lightly

He'd read the reports. The redacted ones. He knew what happened after Victoria, he'd been the one to okay her transfer, to accept doing a favor for the Demon Dogs after their good work in Urzikstan and promising he'd 'keep an eye on her'

He understands the vulnerability in that fact, and is sure to do everything in his power to prove to her he's someone she can trust, even after she's told him time and time again he's done more than enough to prove his loyalty

Fortunately, years of hearing about each other via Soap and the Demon Dogs proved useful once they'd finally met at the top of that wall guarding Alejandro's base, easily falling into a sort of mutual understanding of each other

It helped that he was a natural patriarch, the glue holding the team together, ensuring they worked as a well oiled machine both on and off base

Soap vouched for Price and that was all the convincing Rabbit needed. So when Price vouched for Ghost and Gaz? It felt instinctual to trust the men wholeheartedly

Scary as it was initially, Price just knew. Simple as that, he knew what the team needed and exactly how to go about it, and she trusted that

He was arguably the most experienced in navigating trauma, and that definitely lent a hand to the comfortability of the team

He’s perfected the art of understanding each of the members of the task force and it’s something Rabbit didn’t realize she yearned for until she had it

He’s become the physical embodiment of her safe space in a way she never thought was possible. She breathes easier when he’s in eyesight, the tension drops from her shoulders when he’s near

Despite being one who only rarely accepted physical affection from anyone other than Soap, Rabbit named Price 'Seat of the Year', and that's meant quite literally

Cuddles are mandatory team bonding. He doesn't make the rules (yes he does)

Arguably the most giving partner on the face of the planet

Is happy to lean back in his chair and cut off the blood supply to his legs if it means Rabbit is soothed by the way his hands run over her arms and scratch at her scalp, perched on his lap and quickly drifting off to sleep as he presses light kisses onto the junction between her neck and shoulder

His brain is constantly alerting his body of his need to protect and provide. It'd still happen even if he'd never approved her transfer, that's just the kind of man he is, but he wouldn't have been nearly as emboldened without her there

Gaz yawns in the midst of completing a mission report? He's already tossing the man over his shoulder and forcing him to rest for once

Soap lets out the quietest sigh of pain when that one muscle in his shoulder starts twinging again? He's already pushing the man to sit and rounding the couch to dig his strong hands into the stubborn muscle

Ghost's stomach lets out singular growl? Guess that stack of paperwork can be finished tomorrow, it's now his personal mission to ensure the man has eaten a nutritious meal that checks off every micro and macro nutrient possibly needed to ensure health and prosperity in that beefy body

Perfectly content to love and love and love for absolutely nothing in return besides seeing his team happy and healthy

Unbeknownst to him, he very quickly charms his way into her heart with his thick thighs caring nature, dilf energy warm smiles, and ofc the boonie hat

General Character Headcanons:

Rabbit:

-As mentioned in the Personnel Files, Rabbit is a Gunnery Sergeant and a 0251 MOS [Interrogator/Debrief Specialist]

-Gunnery Sergeant is her rank- serving as her unit's operations chief, working with superior officers on training, operations, and tactical advising

-0251 is her job code [MOS]. 0251 specifically means being an Interrogator/Debriefer in the US Marine Corps. This job involves collecting information/intelligence from human sources by means of interrogation, debriefing, and screening. Typical duties are the screening and interrogation of enemy POWs, line crossers, refugees, and other displaced persons, exploiting foreign language documents, and participating in noncombatant evacuation operations

-A common requirement for this job is being at the very least bilingual, and it's canon here that Rabbit speaks Spanish alongside English. With that said, many apologies to those reading this that speak Spanish because I'm using translation websites (yes I disappoint my Mexican grandparents every day)

-Rabbit is a Demon Dog, but was not in Urzikstan due to medical leave. She has direct permission from the US Marine Corps, SAS, and Price to be stationed in the UK base 'on loan' as a Demon Dog since they are part of the Coalition, led by the CIA's best Station Chief Kate Laswell :D

-Again, as shown in the Personnel Files, Rabbit does not have many character descriptors listed. I'm trying my best to make her as inclusive as I possibly can while still flushing out her character. I don't like the self-insert '[h/c] [e/c]' format, so I just avoid it all together

-Rabbit is an only child

-Also it's not really about Rabbit per say but in my story Griggs is a Captain. He leads the Demon Dogs and therefore holds a higher rank that Rabbit. It makes sense to me in this story that he'd be of similar age and rank as Price

Soap:

-I’ve seen a few people say based on his accent Soap is likely from Glasgow but unfortunately I’ve only been to Edinburgh so we’re using our creative liberty here and saying that's where he's from plz and thank u <3

-Johnny is the baby of the family with 3 older sisters. His poor mother was pregnant for damn near four years straight

-He's close with his entire family, but especially his mother and youngest sister

-Also I'm not killing him in this story. I wrote a good portion of it pre-MW3 and that campaign sucked so I'm ignoring it :)

Ghost:

-Simon is from Manchester. Yeah yeah yeah ik there’s a whole thing ab his accent and yada ya but my first London pub-watch rugby game was Leeds vs Wigan, so we’re sticking with canon here

-Wigan is in Greater Manchester so I like the headcanon that Ghost’s father was a ManUnited football fan so teen!Simon said ‘oh fuck that’ and instead chose to take the 45 minute train to go watch rugby in another city

-I'm basing a lot of his character off of both the comics and game, however there is one thing to note. In the comics, 'Sparks' is one of the soldiers that assists in getting Simon's family killed. This is not the same Sparks I refer to in this story. Shane Sparks is a Demon Dog, and I'm writing in his character for specific plot devices. He'll likely be completely OC since I just grabbed his basic profile off the character wiki.

Gaz:

-Haven’t heard any confirmation on where Gaz is from but my love Elliot Knight is from Birmingham so ding ding ding, we have a winner

-Only child, the absolute pride and joy of his parent's life. He's a total mama's boy and it was largely her good morals and outlook on life that steered him in the direction of wanting to better the world

Price:

-Liverpool. Again, I’m not sure if there’s confirmation as to where Price is from but my love ( yes I can have two >:| ) Barry Sloane is from Livahpewl soooooo

-Semi-sad headcanon for Price here. Idk why but I feel a strong pull to the idea that his parents have passed, despite him only being 36 in my story, putting them somewhere in their 60's

-On a happier note, I also like the idea that John is an older brother, so we're going with that

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edenfenixblogs · 2 months

Text

I have told the one (1) real friend I have out here that I plan to move home because the antisemitic isolation has gotten so bad.

If I were a pettier person, I wouldn’t tell anyone else until I’m already closed on a house back home. And when they’re like “why are you moving?” I’d say “antisemitic isolation from most social groups.” And when they ask “Why didn’t you say anything?” I’d say, “Because you’re the ones who did the isolation.”

I won’t. Cuz that won’t actually solve anything. It’ll just make people who don’t think they’re antisemitic go “oh? Eden? Yeah that was super weird how she called us all antisemites and then left. She must’ve been a Zionist or something cuz I didn’t even say anything about Palestine to her.”

Like…I know. You didn’t say anything to me. You didn’t ask how I was doing. You certainly didn’t acknowledge Jewish pain in any way, beyond liking one (1) post a few months ago. Most of you muted me on here. Most of you don’t respond to unrelated information or posts in group chats about genuinely nonpolitical topics. None of you are ever “free” to hang out. You don’t support me when I’m sad. Fine, maybe that’s not what you do. That’s ok. My emotions aren’t your responsibility. You don’t offer distraction. You don’t offer an ear. You leave me on read when I see you online.

I see the statistics that seem to say “most people think their friends hate them but they actually really like you!”

But I don’t think this applies to Jews. Especially leftist Jews tbh. But I do wonder if the antisemites who hate their Jewish friends even KNOW that they hate their Jewish friends.

Like, I wonder what they’d say if they were asked “Do you dislike Eden?” Because I think they’d say no. I think they’d say that, maybe, I’m a little much right now. I’m a little too intense. Maybe they’d say they like me a lot but just want this all to die down before we hang out. Or maybe they’d say that they did used to like me but I’ve recently made them uncomfortable.

But that’s not friendship. When someone you care about enough to call a friend is literally an emotional wreck for months, regardless of the reason, and you have not at any point attempted to be there for them in any meaningful way (and I mean, at all. Hanging out once. Calling once. Asking how I’m doing once. Saying “antisemitism is bad” even once. Taking me up on my offer to discuss anything about current events if they have questions. Politely declining my offer to discuss current events because you find it all too stressful. Letting me know that you care about me as a person but the current crisis is too much for you to think about right now, so you’d rather not bring it up. Literally ANY of these actions and a million others that would take you hardly any effort at all.) then you clearly don’t think of me as a friend, actually. You do hate me, actually.

Because what kind of person does that to a friend. What kind of person abandons us like this? It’s like they might as well just say “we like you so much, but like…not when you talk about or experience life as a Jewish person.”

They might as well just say “she’s fine enough to be around. Too bad she’s a Jew.”

Or, maybe, being isolated from people for 5 months is really distorting my perspective and none of this is true or valid.

But I can’t help but feel…being isolated for 5 months is very much reinforcing my points.

I’m officially done trying to make plans with any “friends,” except the one person who ever replies to me.

I basically said “if anyone ever wants to hang out, let me know” and that’s the last I’ll say to basically any of them about making plans.

What’s the point? I don’t want to beg people to spend time with me.

That said, when I called one of my best friends back home to tell her I was moving back, I told her the isolation was really getting to me. I told her that I was feeling like maybe nobody ever really liked me all that much and that I’m hard to be around and that being Jewish at this time and experiencing pain publicly was just the final straw to them excluding me. Maybe I’m just fundamentally unlikable.

But she told me that was dumb and I’m dumb for saying it. And she’s seen me at my best and my worst.

Idk. This post is long and personal and weird but I’m trying to be vulnerable and document how I’m feeling during this time. I think maybe I’m prone to look back on this when this current I/P flare is over and think to myself, “maybe I was just making a big deal out of nothing.” I want to have a record of how I’m feeling. Because at this moment when I’m living through it, it feels cataclysmic.

Like..I’m not even concerned about any of my “friends” finding this cuz I’m pretty sure they’ve all muted me anyway.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #digital ghettoization #social isolation #life under stochastic threat #personal

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adickaboutspoons · 7 months

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Tea Soup and Sympathy

There’s already been plenty going around fandom about the significance of soup this season, so I’ll just condense soup discourse down and summarize that it’s about love and nourishment. But sometimes, soup is not real soup.

When we first meet Zheng Yi Sao, she is posing as Susan the Soup Merchant. But before the end of the episode, it’s revealed that her soup-slinging ways are all artifice.

And just as soup is love, this Yi Sao’s soup-slinging pretense is indicative of the fact that she uses the semblance of sympathy to manipulate people to her own ends. Let’s look at the case study of her interaction with John Bartholomew: Having successfully sacked his ship, she gets news that he wants to shoot himself, but only with the captain that bested him watching. Yi Sao attends the cabin of of the clearly panicking John with Stede and Olu in tow, and lets John show his ass with his inground racist and misogynistic assumptions; with him first identifying the white guy as the captain, then the MOC, and finally the WOC. In spite of the insult, Yi Sao meets him with the contrivance of compassion to give validation his heightened emotionally volatile state, acknowledgement of the cultural assumptions that are making this a particularly difficult defeat for him to accept, but also plays INTO his misogyny by suggesting that if he follows through with killing himself that his final deed in life with be the (implicitly shameful) act of surrendering to a woman.

Once she has gotten him to a place where he feels like someone is listening to him AND understanding where he’s coming from, and shamed out of taking his own life, she applies the social lubricant to foster that warm, fuzzy feeling of camaraderie by suggesting they have drinks.

Pay close attention to the language she’s using when she’s talking John around. After John complains that he’s just trying to feed his crew, and maybe make a little extra money on the side, Yi Sao jumps in with more affirming statements to demonstrate that she understands and appreciates the obstacles he’s facing in obtaining his goals, and concludes with a restatement of his thesis:

“Sure, but they won’t let you. The Spanish, the Dutch, the fucking English! Everyone is cracking down on the little guy! Like, hello! How’s a pirate supposed to make a living?”

Having established that she understands where he’s coming from, she starts the bridge-building portion of her agenda; inviting him to identify with her because of common interests, but simultaneously downplaying her authority, AND using a rhetorical question to which he can easily agree in order to prime him to continue agreeing with her further down the line:

“I don’t speak for everyone, but I didn’t get into this business to fight other pirates, did you?”

She’s also using neurolinguistic programming: all the while that she’s talking to him, she’s reaching her hand out to him - a gesture that mimics the way she is metaphorically reaching out to him, and inviting him to reach back. She then floats a hypothetical that ALSO is easy to say “yes” to, but posing it as a question rather than an order to encourage him to buy into the idea rather than just submit to it:

“What if we could all work together, support each other?”

From here, she plays coy - feigning reticence to float an idea as though it’s TOO audacious, and employing a little false modesty, suggesting her idea is stupid, to not only, once again, play into John’s misogynistic zeitgeist, but to allow him to feel that, when she DOES give voice to her ultimate plan, he can feel like HE won one over on HER by enticing it out of her.

“I don’t know… be, um…Oh! Forget it! It’s stupid. What if… What if we could be partners?”

And that, ladies, gentlemen, and those betwixt and beyond, is how you get someone to cheerfully buy into their own subjugation in the coming invasion.

And make no mistake - invading and conquering the Caribbean IS what Yi Sao is after. She's not looking for partners - she's looking for subordinates. She’s very clear about that with Stede back aboard the Red Flag.

Her soupy subterfuge in the Republic of Pirates was a reconnaissance mission to scope and get info on the local talent in order to try and get them to either join her or die. But she’s not picky either way. Her red flag fleet is already making its way over land at the isthmus of Panama. This IS going to happen. So are you on-board or not?

“Okay,” I hear you say (or not. I don’t know you well enough to put words in your mouth), “but she’s really nice to her crew, providing them with gentle exercise and kind words and soup that, according to all the Caribbean pirates who taste it, is so good it might be the best thing they’ve ever tasted. What makes you think it’s manipulation and artifice, and not the real thing. Maybe she’s just actually compassionate, but her compassion has its limits - the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove, as it were?”

Because we’ve already seen this behavior before. Using alcohol to lower inhibitions, using both shame and sympathy to motivate participation, using neurolinguistic programming to let the other party think that THEY’RE the one driving the action, and even being calculatedly withholding to make people think they’ve won something when they extract it from you:

That’s right. It’s Calico Jack, the master manipulator (RIP, asshole) all over again. But whereas Jack leaned further on the typically masculine end of the shame-to-sympathy scale with bullying and establishing himself as a subject matter expert, Yi Sao is coming at it from a decidedly more typically feminine place, encouraging self-identification and downplaying her strengths and contributions. But Yi Sao also ups the game transforming into what the other person needs her to be to close the deal. With Jackie the bossbitch businesswoman, Yi Sao is the Money Bitch. With John Bartholomew the prototypical pirate drowning in toxic masculinity, she’s a feminine fount of sympathy and understanding who, gosh, just CAN’T be sure that her silly little ideas are any good unless a big, strong man affirms that for her. And with Stede, she’s a girl-friend who has BEEN THERE and wants to dish about his toxic ex and all the complicated feelings about that.

So when we hear:

It should immediately throw red flags, both for us AND Stede. He was THERE when she used this voice with John Bartholomew. There might not be any liquor, but she KNOWS that Stede has said that he encourages this kind of “talking it through” behavior, so she doesn’t need to get him to buy into it first. Instead, she launches directly into the same kind of tactics she employed before. She hears Stede say “[The crew] couldn’t keep living like that. Ed can be quite troubled.” Out come the affirming statements to demonstrate that she understands where he’s coming from, and restatement of his thesis: “You must feel so weird. Like you’re glad he’s alive, but then he did all this evil shit to your friends?”

Then on to bridge-building (literally and figuratively - look how she reaches out to clasp him on the shoulder) to invite identifying with her: “I’ve dated my fair share of guys on ‘Wanted’ posters.They’re hot.”

She doesn’t bother with downplaying her authority, because Stede has just confessed to being a novice in terms of romance, but she is so calculated with her wording, floating a scenario that invites Stede to come up with a solution for: “But it always ends in a massacre and then the wrong people get hurt.”

So when she “caves” to his suggestion of “Maybe we could avoid that happening here?” with “I AM feeling a little merciful today,” it begs the question:

What, exactly, was going to be the price of this “mercy” if Auntie hadn’t interrupted?

So Roach isn’t wrong when he praises the soup they get aboard the Red Flag as “Beautiful, complicated, and balanced.” It IS a complicated act, an artfully balanced deception, and beautiful in its artifice. It HAS to look better and more enticing than the real thing. Because it will never give you the actual nourishment you need.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2e3 #ofmd s1e2 #ofmd s2e1 #ofmd #our flag means death #my modest contribution to fandom

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theoraclej · 7 months

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THAT SEASON FINALE!

light, where to begin, a disjointed ramble of things I observed:

Dovie’andi se tovya sagain! - Mat said the words, he said the words!

And he made his own ashandarei! I hope he gets the raven-inlaid one though because I’m sure no one wants him running around with that dagger

And I know he’s going to get a massive S3 glow-up because he sees himself as MORE, now. Yay Mat!

RAND exploding the shit out of the Seanchan including Turak; nice way around his general lack of swordtraining which I’m sure will be remedied

Once the Heron, to set his path!

The interplay between Rand (and Lews Therin before him), Lanfear, Ishamael - they were besties in the Age of Legends, lmao!

I had expected the intro to be a high society polyam party they were attending, not the Sealing of Ishamael, 🤭

The Warder bond was beautiful, flowing, intimate, just what I imagined when reading these books some 25 years ago

I knew Moiraine was gonna say Lan was her better!

I’m so glad they’re back together though, legendary qpp

Nice to see the S1 intro sequence with the gorgeously woven Aes Sedai tapestry

I was a bit sad Nynaeve didn’t heal Elayne OR Rand but she DID swear to make Seta’s mother curse the first kiss her father ever gave her and THAT was cool

Hopper, my beloved! 😩 I would be chopping Whitecloaks too!

It was so satisfying to see Perrin obey his wolfly instincts already!

Elayne being the one to heal Rand’s wound was an interesting choice, and you can tell he was dazzled by her!

Book lines, book lines, book lines making me have conniptions every time one was uttered

“From birth to death I serve the Blood.”

UNO I KNEW YOU WERE COMING YA SHEEP-GUTTED MILK DRINKER

“For the Light, and Shinowa!” still gave me chills even without an expanded story behind it for Ingtar

Egwene al’Vere. I hope she earns a title of “the Unbroken” someday. Remember, Nynaeve even said that about her when Egwene was captured by Whitecloaks in S1!

Egwene, spitting out the damane gag and refusing to rain down fire on innocents, ah my girl, that’s that Two Rivers steel

Egwene, collaring Renna and choking her to death, being stronger than Renna, being able to withstand the pain of that because that’s exactly what Renna taught her

Egwene later, with that amazing shield against Ishamael to protect her friends!

Lanfear pushing Lan and Moiraine out of the ocean Waygate was very unexpected but totally within Lanfear’s lane, just to keep Moiraine away from Rand

Lanfear working to sell the Seals to Bayle Domon, which was so lmao also, and it really enhanced her utter shock when she entered the room later with the Seals all broken.

M O G H E D I E N 🕷️

She is perfectly creepy, perfect in every way. I can’t wait to see her tear shit up, or to see how she will be used in S3 and beyond

Never expected her to cage Lanfear in her webs, either, dang. Lillen Moiral wasn’t near so strong as Mierin. But we know some things are just Talents, and Moghedien is better in Tel’aran’rhiod than Lanfear

Did you notice Rand’s wound swirling with evil bits throughout the healed part? Really cool effect if you catch it

Aviendha, Bain, and Chiad showing they can fight just as well in close quarters in a city as in the Three-Fold Land; and then later acknowledging Rand as Car’a’carn

Though I’d hoped we’d get some good old He Who Comes With The Dawn in here too

Moiraine’s outstanding torpedo weaves that fucked up the Seanchan boats! And she understands the stakes - if the Dragon is gentled, or harmed, or captured, everyone’s life is in danger and that includes her and Lan

Anyhow fuck the Seanchan

Did it look like Suroth got blown up too? Does that mean she’s dead? I guess we’ll see who gathers in the scattered remnants of the Hailene!

The first “I’m not Lews Therin” from Rand

Mat taking a moment to mention Rand’s “shit hair” to Perrin while they were in the mix, lmao

That shadow ashandarei is really scary, it is a laser knife (lightsaber?) on a stick

I can’t wait for Perrin and Hopper to meet again in the Wolfdream

Speaking of which, I think Perrin’s eyes are permanently golden now

I cried at the coming of the Heroes of the Horn, I’m sure many of you did too 😭

Cool Hero fighting effects, I liked those

BIRGITTE SILVERBOW MY LOVELY

I figured Min’s vision of Mat “killing” Rand would be something like this, an accident, not an intentional thing

His blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul…

AL’LAN MANDRAGORAN, the Uncrowned King, Sworn to the Flame, bonded again, fighting as he was meant to, just slicing through armies, snatching arrows out of the air and stabbing people with them, chef’s kiss

I wonder if Nynaeve’s “failures” and inability to channel at these vital moments will give her the drive to break her block

Ishamael’s channeling at the end was really impressive, a testament to how much more he knows than Rand

I hope that’s not the last we see of Fares Fares, he was remarkable as Ishamael and a truly enjoyable villain

And since they didn’t have the Dragon banner of Lews Therin Telamon found with the Horn like in the books, Moiraine saw to it that he was heralded with literal fire

This I can imagine many people seeing from far away, and of course rumor travels further

The Falmen sure seem to appreciate it and of course the Seanchan are gone for now

Lanfear asking the LIGHT to protect Rand at the end is something interesting and NOT LOST ON ME

I REALLY ENJOYED IT and am looking forward to a full rewatch of S1 and S2!

Proclaimed across the sky in fire 🔥🐲

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thekingofwinterblog · 8 months

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You know what the most annoying thing about the Twists regarding the Elves in Inquisition was?

That all the twists, if taken on their own, would make for a really good story.

The reveals about Solas backstory and how him and his fellow God Kings rose, became decadent, warred with each other and fell, setting the stage for their transformation into the Old Gods is frankly speaking, some of the best lore that Dragon Age ever had, and lines up really well with how the world is structured while explaining how the Old Gods came to be, how the elves fell, and so on.

That the tevinter imperium when it conquered the nation of Arlathan was not the great imperial state lead by mighty mages their descendants liked to think they were, but instead a bunch of weaklings that needed years and years to take on one, measly city-state that had utterly obliterated itself in civil war.

There is so much great stuff here.

So where did it all go wrong?

The answer, is of course execution.

Inquisition overall is a great game... But man did it drop the ball so hard with the Elves that it's pretty much hard to believe that they will be able to tell a nuanced story about them in Dread Wolf.

Everything from the companions, to the world itself as the game presents , to retcons regarding mages that's there, not to tell a story about the elves, but to try and make the Templar vs mage conflict grey.

Starting with the companions, we have a great example of coming so, so close to greatness... and then falling right on it's face.

The game has two Elf companions, solas and Sera... and the contrast between them really illustrates the big picture with how incapable Inquisition is with trying to tell a nuanced picture with the elves.

Solas as a character is perfect. Love him or hate him, he is a fully fleshed out character with very clear, defined, understandable motives that makes sense to him.

And most importantly of all, his way of viewing the world is WRONG. The game acknowledges that he is wrong.

The entire story of where dragon age 4 is heading, is all about how the Dread wolf, for all his knowledge and intelligence and genuine virtues, is at the end of the day, a monster, who is willing to see the world burn to restore the Elves magic and immortality.

He is a racist, he is bigoted, and ultimately misguided. Despite all his development with the inquisitor, he does not manage to grow enough as a person that he manages to abandon his genocidal goals. And the game does not pretend othervise.

That is what makes the story of Solas rise to become the big villain of the sequel great.

There is no disconnect between the story, the characters, or the way the game wants us to view solas.

Solas is far, far more bigoted and close-minded than any of the dalish he so despises, and the game ultimately does not pretend othervise.

Which brings us to the opposite end of the elf spectrum with Sera.

Sera is a very disliked character by a lot of people, but by dalish and elf players/fans more than most.

Just like Solas, she is bigoted, racist, and ultimately misguided in her hatred of her fellow elves, whether they be city elves, or Dalish, or ancient elves.

And that frankly, would not be a problem if the game acknowledged that fact. If her character arc was about it, and either how she could not overcome her own issues, or actually managed to grow beyond them, she could have been a great character.

The problem is the fact that the game is not willing to handle this fact head on. Its not willing to come out and portray Sera as just as bigoted against her own kind as Solas is, and to treat this as a flaw.

Instead the game treats her as if her biggest flaw is that she's annoying, and not the fact that in a game that is in many ways about setting up the rise of the dread wolf, she is just as bad as Solas, just from a different origin point.

Sera should have been a mirror to Solas, both from a story point, as well as a thematic one, but unfortunately she is not.

Hell, she doesn't really overcome her racism either. The closest she comes to doing so, is basically burning out on hating the dalish and other elves in trespasser, not admitting she was actually wrong to hate them so much in the first place.

The game does not treat Sera's disdain for other elves and their culture as a problem, and it does not give a dalish inquisitor the option to tell her to go fuck herself on the topic that you are given with Solas if you really desire to do so.

You are given the option of kicking her out of the inquisition, but not actually stand up for the dalish or even city elves the way the player could against Morrigan's flemeth raised cruelty in origins, anders and Fenris obsessions with, and hatred for templars/mages in da2, or solas ideals in inquisition.

And thats a problem that really illustrates the bigger issue with the way Inquisition took what could have been a great story about the Elves and the reveals about their anceators, and frankly ruined it.

The dalish and city elvea were very thouroughly fleshed in both Origins, Awakening and DA2.

However, city elves largely managed to avoid being utterly destroyed by the narrative the way the Dalish were, for the simple reason that outside briala, we don't get much if any interaction with them at all, making them essentially a non show foe the game for the most part. They don't get a city elf inquisitor, and so we have no point of view to look at them from a pc perspective.

They got off much better than the dalish though.

Starting off with the arguably single worst thing in all of DAI is the retcon that Dalish clans, if there is more than two mages in a clan, sends off the third one alone in the wilderness to fend for themselves. This goes against absolutely everything that has ever been established about the Dalish, and worst of all, wasn't even an addition meant to demonize the dalish, instead being an addition to handwave away the obvious fact that the Dalish had a much better system than the human circles when it came to magic... Which in turn was made irrelevant by the fact the Avvar was later shown to have a much better and more effective solution to the possession question anyway.

It was, in essence, a pointless retcon, that overall only made the dalish look bad, and has now opened the door for the idea that most dalish clans acts like this, and will be portrayed so in future games.

Its bad, but unfortunately it was only the start.

The game goes out of its way to portray absolutely every single person who critices the dalish as having a point, that they brought on their own downfalls, even as they are being the most imperialistic, racist assholes imaginable, while the dalish inquisitor can only offer a token of defence for his people, a far cry from way origins allowed you to handle the same situation wheter your main ethnicity was ferelden, mage, city elf, dalish, casteless or dwarven noble.

But nowhere is it worse than the way the game handles the fall of the dales.

Now the actual lore you learn about it, is not bad. At all. I know some complain that the reveals that ameridan(and presumably other elves) worshipped both the creators and the maker, as well as the fact that the dalish unfortunately did have a bad relationahip with the rest of the world, in particular orlais, is bad storytelling, but i firmly disagree.

No the problem is the execution.

Ameridan is not wrong when he says that The Dales should not have distanced itself from the rest of the world, especially not in the face of a blight... But the Dales of his era were in turn not wrong when they argued that the Orlesians were little better than the imperium, and they would be completely right.

This is not a grey issue, its a grey and black issue.

Orlais was, and still is an evil, expansionist empire with 99% of its population living as serfs, that can be raped and beaten at will, little better than slaves.

The dales were the morally right side of the exalted march on the dales. No amount of new lore we learned in inquisition has changed that fact. We simply get the details fleshed out a bit more to add context.

Orlais was going to invade and enslave the elves anyway, as they proved through their actions against all their other, very much fellow Adrastian neighbors.

The problem is that you are not allowed to express this kind of point of view and stick to it like steel.

The characters you meet having the bigoted opinion that the dales ultimately brought on their own fate is NOT a bad thing in and out of itself... the problem is that you are not allowed to challenge that opinion the way you could challenge Lelliana's view of the dalish in origins, or the way you could tell both Anders and fenris to go fuck themselves on their extremist opinions all through da2, and ending that fuck you by killing them in the endgame.

And thats a real shame, because just looking at characters like cassandra's character development through Inquisition, you could easily have made a really compelling narrative put of a dalish inquisitor who stuck by his or her principles, and actually challenged the people they met's racist views on the dalish the way you could in origins, just with a more fleshed out and(unfortunately something way too many people just cannot emote to a character withouth) an actual voice to raise those arguments with.

I do genuinely like Inquisition, and i think it's overall a much better game than DA2... but man did they drop the ball with the elves so hard.

I feel so sorry for anyone who really got invested in the elves as their favorites factions, and i honestly don't think the elves will be handled particularly well in Dread wolf, especially as the only Dalish we are likely to see fleshed out will be the villains fighting for Solas.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age inquisition #elvhen #elves #dalish #the dales #city elves #solas #sera #meta #dread wolf

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strangersteddierthings · 3 months

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No Regrets - Part Six

Part One🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six

Eddie hasn't spoken a word since they found him in the boat house. Chief Powell told Nancy this on the phone, calling on Eddie's behalf, and another officer tells them again when they say they're here to pick him up.

Steve has a vague memory of this. He didn't go with to pick up Eddie last time, it was... Wayne? Maybe? The ache in Steve's head, the sign he's come to realize means he's changed something, is the indicator that's true. It means Wayne didn't go pick up El and the others last time, the original time?

Whatever. Steve can't be worried about that; it doesn't matter anymore how it went last time. Last timeline ended with him dead, dying?, so he's fine with forgetting it.

"Hey Eddie," Nancy greets as she stands in front of Eddie. He's just sat in a chair in the lobby area, staring straight ahead but not looking at anything. His eyes are vacant in a way that brings a sense of déjà vu to Steve. "Wayne asked us to pick you up."

Eddie doesn't even acknowledge that she's there.

"Eddie?" Nancy asks, leaning down just a little to put her face in Eddie's view. "Come on. Let's go."

"Nance," Steve says, digging the keys from his pocket, "can you get the car and park closer to the front door? I'll get Eddie."

Nancy turns to look at him, eyes flitting about his face before she nods, reaching out to take the keys.

Steve steps into the place she vacated in front of Eddie and squats. Gets eye level even if Eddie isn't looking back. "Hey, Eddie. It's Steve. Uh, Steve Harrington. Wayne couldn't come get you, he has something else he had to do, but I'm here to take you home."

It's barely there, but Eddie flinches at 'home.' It looks more like a twitch of his shoulder, and it could have been, but Steve thinks it's more than that.

"We don't have to go in. There's- across the road from you is Max Mayfield's house. You ever meet her?" Steve just talks, tries to keep his voice calm, conversational. "We can wait at Max's place for your uncle to get home. Just. We gotta go, man. Can't sit here in the police station all day." Steve reaches for Eddie's hand, to grab and try to coax him into standing. Except, as soon as Steve's fingers make contact, Eddie jerks back and Eddie finally looks at him, eyes snapping to Steve's face. He's not present, not really; he still kind of looks like he's looking beyond Steve rather than at him.

"Sorry, sorry," Steve says, just as softly. "I won't touch. But your uncle asked us to get you, so, please. We gotta go."

"Harrington?"

Oh. Oh no. It's only now that he's faced with looking directly at Eddie, faced with having Eddie looking directly at him that he thinks he might not be ready. He's not it turns out. He's not ready to face Eddie, not when he has memories of- of-

"And Buckley," Robin is suddenly here, pushing into Steve's space. Getting in Eddie's face. "And we are going to be heading to Forest Hills. So, unless you, like, want to spend the day the lovely police force of Hawkins, I suggest getting out of that chair and following us."

How can she have ever been worried about not being able to read his mind anymore?

"Right," Eddie says, more to himself than to Robin. He does go to stand, though, so Steve does, too. Puts some distance between himself and Eddie.

Steve leads the way to the car as Eddie follows behind like a ghost.

Except, it's Steve that's the ghost, isn't it? Does- does the future continue to go even without Steve there? Even as he changes how things went, or are going?

If it keeps going how long was Eddie trapped in his hold? Held by a selfish dead man who wasn't kind enough to not tell Eddie how he feels. Felt?

He looks to Eddie from the corner of his eye before he climbs into the passenger seat. Definitely how he still feels.

"I used your radio to get a hold of Dustin," Nancy says as they pull away from the curb. "He's on his way back to Max's from Cerebro. He got through to the walkie we sent with Wayne. We should all be together in an hour."

"Where'd you send my uncle? Why did he agree to go?" Eddie asks from the backseat.

"That's a loaded question, Munson," Robin answers, "but we'll explain it. Just, uh, just know that we believe you, and we know you didn't do anything to Chrissy."

"I didn't!"

"We know!" Robin placates, and Steve twists in his seat to he can see her. She's behind the driver's seat so he can see her without looking at Eddie. "We know. I swear we'll explain everything. Just when your uncle gets back, okay?"

Eddie doesn't verbally respond but Steve sees Robin nodding back to him so that's that.

There isn't any more talking the rest of the drive. Nancy parks next to her mom's car in front of Max's place and hands Steve's keys back to him before she climbs out. Eddie and Robin are next. Steve remains seated, listens as Robin says something about 'going home later' before he sees Eddie head towards Max's front door. He doesn't even pause to look in at Steve as he walks by.

Why would he? This Eddie doesn't know him. They're not bonded by five years of surviving hell together. This Eddie doesn't know anything about him, and Steve knows his whole life.

Robin startles him by pulling open his door to say, "you coming in?"

He looks from Robin to where Nancy and Eddie have disappeared into the trailer. "I don't- I can't. Robin, I can't."

"Hey, it's okay," Robin assures him, "it's okay. We can stay out here until you're ready."

Steve swallows thickly before nodding. She's squat beside the door, hand on the roof for support and the other on Steve. Also for support, but of the emotional kind. "I think I'm in love with him, and he barely tolerates me. It took a couple months for him to warm up to me, and that was with the help of an apocalypse. Will he even-" like me without it? He doesn't finish but the frown that comes to Robin's face lets him know he doesn't need to.

"Of course, he will. He did once before."

Steve turns from Robin to look out the front windshield. "Yeah. Maybe."

"I'll go in and let them know you need some time. Come in when you're ready," she squeezes his knee and then she's gone.

This time will be different. Vecna has to die today, because tomorrow he goes after Max and that's not acceptable. He won't let that happen. He's going to stop the end of the world before it begins. And then he doesn't know what will happen.

Will life just go on? Will he still remember a future that never was?

If he doesn't remember, will his feelings for Eddie go with the memories? That thought hurts, but if it's true, the pain is only temporary.

Steve doesn't know how long he just sits in the passenger seat of his car, staring off into space, just knows it was long enough that Wayne and the Cali crew arrive. It's the slamming of the van doors that brings him back to himself.

He twists to look over his shoulder and the first person he sees is Mike, who is, Steve thinks, not glaring at him for the first time in his life. Jonathan is standing next to him. He and Mike have a short conversation before Mike walks across the street, coming to a stop about 5 feet from Steve.

"Why are you just sitting in the passenger seat of your car with the door open?" Mike asks, voice full of his usual judgement. "Are you buckled in?"

Steve looks down and frowns. Yes, he is still buckled in. He unbuckles and climbs from his car. Mike eyes Steve warily the whole time.

"He not out yet?" Wayne's voice carries across the way and Steve looks to the Munson's home. Wayne is on the front step, the door behind him open.

"Over here! We're at Max's," Steve throws a thumb over his shoulder and it brings Wayne quickly. He's not running, but it's damn close. "Just let yourself in."

Wayne speed walks passed. Steve stays and watches as Will and El round the van and join Jonathan. Will looks like he wants to barf. Steve's not surprised by that; he's still got some sort of connection to the Upside Down. It's El who looks different.

Her entire demeanor is unlike Steve's ever known her. For the first time ever, she just looks like a scared little girl.

She takes the first step towards Steve and her brothers follow.

She stops in front of Steve, cocking her head at him. Steve looks down at her and mimics the motion. Her hair is the longest he's seen it and her face has turned serious. "You're different."

Steve nods. "So are you."

El lifts a hand up and touches it to Steve's temple. She looks confused for having done it, about as confused as Steve feels, but her confusion turns into a surprised gasp and a trickle of blood slides out her nose.

"El," Mike rushes in, shoving at Steve to make him take a step back and break their contact.

"I am fine," El says, though she looks like whole new person. Her shoulders square and she stands taller. Her eyes look as haunted as Steve remembers.

"Oh shit. You're my El," Steve says, which gets all the boys to give him odd looks.

"I am sorry for what I have done to you," she says, as no-nonsense and militant as he remembers her. "I could not go back myself, but I could piggyback on someone."

"Why me?"

"You were in Hawkins, and I knew you would do what needed to be done."

"What is happening?" Jonathan asks.

El turns to Jonathan and says, "we are going to stop the end of the world."

@skepsiss @i-less-than-three-you @nburkhardt @afewproblems @a-little-unsteddie @steviesummer @queenie-ofthe-void @lololol-1234 @synonym-for-strange @tchackdaw @blackpanzy @goodolefashionedloverboi

#steddie #my fic #apocalypse au #time travel au #butterfly effect au #morally grey steve harrington

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kanansdume · 7 months

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It's so weird seeing people make the claim that Obi-Wan like... genuinely sees Anakin and Vader as two different people and claiming that Ahsoka and Obi-Wan are reacting to him in the same way.

Set aside the Kenobi show for a second and just look at the OT and it's pretty clear that when he's separating Anakin and Vader that he's doing so for LUKE'S sake, not his own. HE knows Anakin and Vader are the same person, you can see him improvising how to discuss this with Luke without giving that away AS IT HAPPENS. But he knows Luke does deserve to know about Anakin if he wants to, and he knows that Luke both deserves and needs to know the truth about Darth Vader and the part Obi-Wan played in it if Luke is going to start training now. But he also knows Luke ISN'T READY to hear that his father is a monstrous Sith Lord who betrayed everybody. And he's right. Luke isn't ready. He's not ready three years later, either. Luke MANAGES, but he wasn't truly ready to hear the truth on Bespin any more than he was on Tatooine.

And once he and Luke discuss the truth on Dagobah, there's absolutely no attempt to actually discuss Anakin and Vader as two separate people. He defends the lie with the "from a certain point of view" line, sure, but that's mostly him just saying "nothing I said was actually a lie, just a modified truth." He's being a little facetious here, too. But it's not him attempting to genuinely convince Luke that Anakin and Vader ARE two separate people.

And unlike Ahsoka, who appears to be legitimately deciding to just pretend Darth Vader never existed and Anakin never did anything wrong in his life ever, Obi-Wan DOES recognize it. That's the whole POINT of discussing Darth Vader with Luke, too. That's the whole point of admitting that Vader was OBI-WAN'S student when he absolutely did not have to tell Luke that at all. He knows exactly what Anakin's done and is perfectly capable of actually acknowledging it both to himself and out loud, to the point of being able to recognize his own part in the story too, he's just protecting Luke from that realization for the time being. Because Obi-Wan, of all people, knows how hard it can be to come to terms with what Anakin chose to become, and is sparing Luke from having to go through that until it's either absolutely necessary or until Luke's had more time to prepare for how to react to it.

But Ahsoka NEVER recognizes what Anakin's done. She doesn't discuss BOTH of them, she doesn't call "Vader" a traitor at any point. She never uses Vader to talk to Sabine about the choices she's making, or talks about her feelings about Vader's betrayal of the Jedi. She ONLY discusses Anakin and how great Anakin was. There's never any REAL acknowledgment, either internally or externally, that she knows what Anakin's done and become. Aside from the flickers in the vision, which could've been Anakin trying to FORCE her to acknowledge it if we interpret it as it actually being Anakin himself rather than just Ahsoka's fears made manifest. There's nothing like "He might've made choices I didn't agree with later, but he was a good master when I knew him" to show that she CAN see both sides of it. NOTHING. Even if she USED to acknowledge it before, perhaps, she's choosing not to anymore. She's choosing to act like Vader just never happened because she can't cope if she does. She HAS to only acknowledge Anakin as she knew him and act like Anakin just died a Jedi and never did anything wrong ever in his life or she'll SHATTER.

That's NOT what Obi-Wan's doing, at all.

Even if we take the Kenobi show into account, Obi-Wan's choice to say "My friend is truly dead" is out of acknowledgment of Anakin's own statements. It's pretty CLEARLY metaphorical, it's Obi-Wan recognizing that Anakin is beyond saving, that Anakin is making a choice to be THIS and nothing Obi-Wan can say or do will change that. He's choosing to grieve the person he loved rather than clinging to this idea that Anakin might change. Anakin's made his choice and all Obi-Wan can do now is move on and let him go. But he DOES know it's Anakin, he DOES acknowledge that it's Anakin. He can't do anything else, he's literally staring at Anakin's face as he says it. That line is him telling Anakin that he's washing his hands of him from now on. It's a "Fine, if you want to pretend that Anakin is dead, I'll let you, but that means I'm done with you now and you can't manipulate me through that relationship anymore."

One of these is a healthy way to handle the situation and the other is uh. Not. I'll let you take your guess as to which is which.

#star wars #ahsoka tano #obi-wan kenobi #luke skywalker #ahsoka critical #ahsoka tano critical #ahsoka show #ahsoka spoilers #kenobi show

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sewermageboy · 7 months

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obligatory "i love gale, I promise i'm not shitting on gale" comment before I start, but:

I feel like with a lot of the "he was groomed" narrative for Gale, people assume it's a given that Mystra came to him when he was a child, right? He says that she was his teacher, his muse, and then his lover, so I can see why people think that she must have been with him since he was a child.

But (I've been going down a Forgotten Realms lore rabbit hole, and found that) Mystra was killed around a hundred years before BG3, and only returned to life in 1479 DR, around 13 years before the events of the game. So unless we're saying that Gale is 30 years old (and in my mind he's more like 35-45), he would have been an adult by the time they met, even assuming that she immediately reached out to him after returning to the Forgotten Realms.

So why is the "groomed from childhood" narrative so prevalent? I think most people (rightfully) have better things to do with their time than reading about the fckn Spellplague on the Forgotten Realms wiki, but apart from that.

I think, especially with how many people (on tiktok especially, as far as I've seen) seem to hate Gale for being "too pushy" or whatever bc of the romance bug, there's an inherent instinct for Gale enjoyers to justify their liking of this character, by explaining away his flaws and his idiosyncrasies by saying "he is the way he is because he was groomed by the goddess of magic", and therefore his flaws aren't his own fault/don't matter, whatever.

It really bothers me when people explain away his flaws like that. He's braggadocious, yes, and he's arrogant, and he's filled to the brim with hubris. Does he have his reasons for that? Yes, of course! But that doesn't mean that his flaws are any less present, and just as much of a part of him as all the good parts. It bothers me when people do this with any of the characters tbh, like saying that all of Astarion's shitty behavior is due to his trauma at the hands of Cazador (which much of it is! But he's also just kinda a shitty person, and that's okay!!)

Like, if we look at Forgotten Realms lore, and say that Gale is around 40, Mystra would have approached him as a young man in his 20s - and honestly, that version of events is still just as fucked up to me as "he was groomed". Here you have this brilliant wizard, who lives for magic and manipulating the weave, and the goddess of magic herself begins to mentor him, teach him, inspire him, and eventually becomes his lover, too. Then, after she keeps showing him magic that will forever be beyond his reach, telling him to be content with his lot, he goes too far - and is discarded in the process, left alone to deal with the Orb in his chest despite Mystra being able to heal him instantly if she wished. And not only does he have to deal with a bad breakup and a nuclear bomb in his chest, no, he's also never able to truly be free of her, as long as he wishes to still do magic - something that is basically second nature to him, and that he could never give up.

I've also seen people conflate his Early Access story (Mystra discarding him first and for no reason, and him ending up with the Orb in his chest as a result of trying to win her back) with his full release one (Him trying to prove to Mystra he was worthy of being shown magic beyond any other mortals, ending up with the Orb, and Mystra discarding him as a result of that), and I feel like that comes from the same place as the insistence on him being groomed - trying to justify his behavior and sanitize him as much as possible.

I understand the instinct to defend Gale from people who shit on him needlessly bc of the romance bug or whatever, I really do. I adore Gale, and I think he's one of the most fascinating characters in the game! But I also think it's a disservice to him to not acknowledge the negative parts of him, or to explain them away as being caused by trauma he might have gone through.

The shitty parts, the ones you can really sink your teeth into, are what make most of the companions so interesting to me!!! And Gale's arrogance, his clumsiness when he flirts and how quick he is to fall in love, his hubris and his anger are all part of that!!

Edit: just wanted to clarify that I have no issue with the interpretation that Gale was groomed by Mystra from a young age in and of itself!

As @galedekarios rightfully pointed out, Larian often plays fast and loose with the timeline, so Mystra's death and her return to the forgotten realms only factor in so much. There's ample evidence in the game for the grooming interpretation, and it's also super fascinating to me, I just don't like that a lot of the discussion of Gale's character seems to boil down to: "but he was groomed, so it doesn't matter", or that many people seem to view it as the only valid interpretation of his character.

#gale of waterdeep #bg3 meta #mystra #gale dekarios #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers

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nukedimplosion · 3 months

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Why I believe Spade King will be redeemed

The Spade King is a... controversial character to say the least. From what I've seen, opinions of him range from a complete monster to an abusive douche with little leeway.

So, making a post about how this villain will be redeemed in future chapters may seem like a slap in the face. Let it be known that none of this is to upset real survivors of abuse, but instead it is to highlight the many indicators I feel show that Spade King is not beyond redemption.

I personally have had this theory since around when chapter 2 came out, and time has only solidified it, but this is the first time I actually got the confidence to post it.

That being said, let's get into the evidence.

THE FOUNTAIN

In the 6th anniversary stream for Undertale, Fangamer played through an edited version of Deltarune with Toby Fox making comments about development, the characters etc.

When facing the Spade King, Fangamer talked about how they hoped Spade King had been a good dad 'before the other mouth grew in'.

Toby Fox then says this;

'I mean, I think that fountain definitely changed his behaviour. For sure.'

This quote is stated around the 3 hour mark of the livestream video below.

So what does this mean? You may want to argue that Toby was not be literal when he made this statement, and that the fountain was a simple temptation instead of something that directly effected his behaviour. But then there's the queen...

The queen seems to have also experienced this fountain brought phenomena despite only wanting to use it to serve the Lightners instead of oppose.

She threatens and attempts to kill the Lightners. She establishes a regime significantly more strict then the last. She won't stop going on about the Knight. These are all things the King does as well.

It seems that the fountain abstracts the behaviour of their respective rulers for the sake of the Knight.

Okay, so the fountain impacts the King's behaviour, great. Doesn't change the fact that he threatened his son, and refuses to apologise or acknowledge his wrong doing now the fountain is closed.

Well, that leads me onto the next part...

HIS SON

Let's immediately establish one thing; the Chaos King does care for his son. While how genuine that care is is debated by the fandom, I would like to make the case that he was a good dad and does want Lancer to be happy.

First of all is the quote about the fountain that Toby made in the anniversary stream, which was a reply to a comment about how Fangamer hoped that he was a good dad.

Replying then seems to indicate that the fountain did impact his ability to be a good father.

More importantly is his dialogue in jail.

Here, he asked directly if his son is happy, in hesitant, even reserved manner. This is in direct contrast to how he mocks the Lightners with his boisterous grin or cruel frown.

Remember when he was yelling that he'll 'KILL ALL OF YOU' while his subjects dragged him away? An insurrection led by his son, who he called a traitor? Despite this, he seems to hold no ill will towards his son or his fellow darkners (we'll get to that). This behaviour I believe was caused by the fountain, thus the attitude change.

And yes, I do acknowledge that he has lied for sympathy before (his act before Ralsei healed him in chapter 1), but this is different. There is no reason to lie at this point; there's no way they would believe him.

He also admits that if he HAD let his son go, Lancer would have just... bounced. He then calls his son a bouncy little pumpkin. This line is notably similar to a line right after Susie casts pacify on him, calling her a 'sweet little pumpkin', again hinting that he was a good dad before the fountain and his love towards Lancer isn't a lie.

'But' you may argue, 'Lancer was afraid! He knew his son was scared of him but kept threatening anyways!'

Which is a valid point, and is obviously horrible.

BUT combined with the fountain being an impact for his decisions, I think it is also a valid idea that there's more to it than 'The Spade King is abusive'.

Both the Queen and King are callous when it comes to the opinion and wellbeing of others. Queen spends the entirety of Chapter 2 attempting to force Noelle to do as she says, even threatening to kill her classmates (and crush) for the sake of her goal.

What King does is similar, making Lancer watch as his friends get killed because he didn't do as he said. It's cruel, yes, but this is another case where you can argue the fountain may have led to this mutual behaviour.

(You may argue that the Queen has the excuse of being a computer who isn't completely in tune with peoples emotions. This argument doesn't really make sense because she actively uses Noelle's emotions against her in a way that shows she understands how upset it makes her.)

I do believe that Spade King knew his son was upset and still went along with it. This post isn't some elongated argument for Spade King's sainthood.

But I do have to say, him being aware and still going along with it may explain why he's hesitant to talk about Lancer in his jail cell. He knows he messed up and is feeling guilty post-fountain, he's just too prideful to up and say it to the face of the enemy. What he did is not a show of Spade King's abusive inhernet nature but an example of the fountain clouding his full judgement at that moment.

Also, you may argue that Spade King was neglectful of his son, leaving him to Rouxls Kaard to be cared for. I do believe that there has been a bit of exaggeration on this point. Yes, he does put his son in the care of his employees perhaps more than he should, but he's also straight up a King. He's a busy guy.

'Oh, but he doesn't feed him, the poor boy is starving!'

Honestly, my big question is why he's cooking in the first place. He's a King, he has subjects literally fanning his son and he can't afford one chef? It seems like this is more a downtime thing he does with his son for the sake of family bonding (may explain where the food based nickname of 'sweet little pumpkin' came from) and he knows his son will be fed by his employees when he's busy.

Again, too dependent, but I don't see any signs of such an intense neglect to call him a bad dad.

Of course, this is more in the assumption category. It is possible the neglect is more active and that the King is just a douche, but I feel that we are being purposely mislead here.

Now, onto the final point.

HIS SUBJECTS

Let's talk about why Spade King did what he did.

Spade King hates Lightners, that much is obvious. He calls them scum, says that 'their existence goes against our own' and feels absolutely no guilt towards trying to kill them post-fountain.

Which isn't really not justified. Darkners were made to keep Lightners happy, only to be abandoned by them. The Chaos King has to watch as the kingdom, HIS kingdom, rotted without meaning. He had to raise his son with the understanding that he would never be 'truely happy' because the so called only source of happiness for Darkners left them to the wayside.

So, when the Knight came, is it really that surprising he would try to create a 'new purpose' as he said? Yes, perhaps world domination is a bit insane (maybe he's dramatic like that, maybe it was the fountain, he does hate Lightners so it's likely both) but the core of his ideals, that darkners can be something beyond what they are to Lightners is not only justified but correct.

In the scene where the gang are walking to the castle in Chapter 1, Lancer acknowledges how happy he is to be here, feeling like he's doing 'something important'. Ralsei replies that this is because he is serving the Lightners and that is the purpose of the Darkners.

Susie is notably uncomfortable, and dismisses Ralsei's point as 'weird purpose' talk and simply says that Lancer is just happy because he ate a weird berry. This is the first sign that the plot beat of Darkners only gaining happiness from Lightners is not just going to be an accepted status quo by the main cast and that there is likely to be more contention about the subject in the future.

(I would also like to mention that Ralsei in this scene asks if the Spade King is happy, in which Lancer very hesitantly says he's not sure.)

Then, in chapter 2, Ralsei is shown to be confused about friendship. He starts to understand that friendship is more than just being nice all the time and that he should be more 'Ralsei-like', meaning more like himself.

The problem is that he doesn't know what that is. He's spent all this time forming himself into the perfect companion but he doesn't know how to be himself. This is a result of his purpose, his wish to be the perfect Darkner for his friends. Now, his purpose seems more cloudy. Should he continue being the perfect little angel for his friends or should he become someone who is more genuine on their own terms, like what his friends seem to want?

While Ralsei is still doing everything he can for the Lighteners, he is slowly becoming his own individual, which is what the King wanted for all Darkners.

Then there's the general themes of control. Be it Kris, the secret bosses or the Spade King, all of these people wish to be more than the binds that control them. While the Spade King is acting on behalf of the Knight, he does so to free his people from the influence of the Lightners, to make purpose on their own terms and be their own people.

Just like how Kris wishes to be free from, you, the player, also making their own purpose and be their own person. May I remind you that the Darkners are media and toys, fun things meant to be enjoyed. They are in universe equivalents of video game characters, made to entertain Lightners, just like Kris, Ralsei and Susie are made to entertain us. The only difference is that the latter is closer to the forth wall.

So yes, while his world domination thing was wack, I believe the Spade King is righteous in his core values.

So why doesn't any other character seem to agree?

Ralsei completely believes that Darkners can only gain happiness from Lightners, Queen does everything she does for the sake of Lightners, hell, the town that the Darkners live in isn't named after the Prince or anything but you, a Lightner. They even call you boss!

At this point, the only character who cares for Darkners having a purpose outside of Lightners is locked in a jail cell.

Now, it is possible that Toby Fox introduces another character who has Spade King's beliefs but is less nasty about it, but that's lame. It's also possible that Ralsei has an epiphany and realise that Darkners deserve better and that becomes the result of his arc. Better, and I can see him going in that direction, but I still think it's less satisfactory.

In any route in which you don't get all recruits, the King is the only person who acknowledges this and is actively upset about it. Even the Queen is hesitant yet still ultimately okay with leaving her subjects behind because the Lightners are onboard.

The goofy cutscene where he asks for cashews? Gone. He simply remarks on how you left them behind like Lightners left the Card Kingdom darkners behind and tells you to 'Begone'. The first line is said with a smile, knowing that he's been proven right but after that, the smile leaves and he's just... cold. He seems genuinely upset about what happened to the Darkners you left behind, portrayed with a '...' in his second line and the loss of his smile. He is not trying to trick you, you simply disgust him at this point. He cares for Darkners in a way that no character has shown yet (aside from Nubert (the goat))

This is why the title of this post is why Spade King is GOING to be redeemed and not me saying he SHOULD be. The difference in levity between an interaction with the Spade King post full recruits and not full recruits indicates that by getting recruits, the King is more willing to acknowledge you and, perhaps with time, your points and intentions. If Spade King was supposed to be this abusive bastard, having characters such as the Queen be on positive terms with him seems strange. You can argue nuance all you want, but the Queen, a character who we're supposed to like, being friends with a character we're supposed to end up hating seems like a strange writing decision no matter how you slice it. Especially if he's a straight up child abuser.

(yes I know she might not know but are you really expecting an epic drama where Queen finds out he's an abusive scumbag and calls him out? Having a morally positive character be friends with an abuser can work but in this situation, it is objectively a weird choice and I will argue on that)

He asks for cashews in this chapter and suckles out a giant hamster water container. Maybe the second serves to make him look pathetic, but then the Queen apparently has the same thing but bigger. The cashew bit is played off as endearing more then anything.

This is all because you got those recruits. Without them, he doesn't even talk to you. Therefore, it can be concluded that Spade King does have a chance. After all, if all of him was completely against you and believed you would be bound to abandon them, he would not be talking to you in any route. It's only when you prove it directly that he stops.

Toby Fox uses the recruit dialogue to endear you to him, which I presume is to set up a redemption if you continue to go down the recruit everyone path. By proving him wrong in future chapters, I presume he will talk more about himself and his ideals and perhaps listen to the Fun Gang and his son in turn.

CONCLUSION

My prediction is that over the course of the chapters, players will see more and more endearing aspects of the Chaos King, with things such as his theoretical neglect and love for Lancer being properly clarified and elaborated on, but only if you keep all recruits. He will still be sceptical, perhaps even leading to him going against you when the Knight returns, but he will ultimately fight by your side if you have successfully convinced him through your treatment of the Darkners that Lightners aren't bad after all.

Hopefully by the ending point, Ralsei would have had enough of an extential crisis to hear the Spade King out on his whole 'Darkners deserve to be happy without the Lightners' deal. Susie would absolutely be on board with her friends finding happiness without needing Lightners (I can see her arguing with Ralsei about it in a future chapter).

I can see him sacrificing himself, but I don't want Lancer to deal with that.

The final point I would like to mention is his place in the narrative. A lot of people have argued that all he is meant to be in an objective evil to prove that Ralsei was wrong about fighting never being the answer and that a redemption would ruin that, and yes, that is his role is chapter 1.

But if that was his only purpose, bringing him back as the only person to actively acknowledge the consequences of your lack of recruits seems pointless. Giving him moments of endearment and clarifying he loves his son is unnecessary. You, again, can argue it's for the sake of nuance but I think at this point I have clarified that there is a lot more to it than that.

Besides, what would be more satisfying to see than the most stubborn character of your journey, the only one you could not convince in the chapter he appeared in, joining your side as a result of you sparing every darkner you can?

In a game with only one ending, making routes like full mercy seem worth it is kind of important if you want players to bother caring about those mechanics. The few dialogue changes we do get really don't cut it.

But witnessing the development of a character who you started off hating but then becomes your ally due to your decisions and comes to help you in your darkest hour?

That would be worth it.

---

Thanks for reading this theory! It's been a while since I've written a theory like that. Do say your opinions, I know this is a desisive topic but I am still happy to hear people's perspectives!

#deltarune #spade king #chaos king #deltarune theory #deltarune analysis #deltarune chapter 2

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nexusnyx · 1 year

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baby, i'm gonna leave you

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 5 — The night I saw everything in your eyes. “It’s like looking in a magic pond… there’s so much hidden.” [8.2k] ⚠️Smut: unprotected sex, choking, body worship, rough-handling; | 🏷️ Angst, slow-burn, denial of feelings; | 📑 This work was commissioned by my darling Malin (@charlie-hunnam) and I hope they enjoy every single word of it.

SUMMARY: His first thought is that he messed up. Bucky messed up badly not only by sleeping with you, but by doing so while knowing how much everything about you got under his skin, fogging every corner of his brain in ways he wasn't used to. So Bucky fucked up. Whatever. It happened. Then, Bucky promised he would not do it again... Except—he does. Bucky does it again, and again, and lying to himself gets harder each time.

Being surrounded by books is the only comfort Bucky has.

Nothing else comes close.

Usually, work is his safe haven. Not everybody can say that. Everything about his books soothes him—the smell of them, their textures, arranging by authors, size, or colors; he has fun with his shelves, keeps his employees in line, and offers little to no sympathy for the University students who always come to him with Pussyboot Cat eyes and some shitty, feeble excuse as to why they need Bucky's help, desperately.

None of that is working today, and it's because of you.

Bucky feels irritable beyond words — an irony of destiny considering how many of them he knows — because, for reasons he's well aware of but refuses to accept or think about it too hard, you're giving him the colder shoulder.

If you don't look at him in the next ten minutes, Bucky might die.

If Steve were here, he’d call Bucky dramatic.

He’s not—that’s what he feels like.

Being in the same vicinity and yet getting no nod of acknowledgement from you was a kind of splint under his nails kind of feeling—something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Kind of ironic, he thought, that he’d be the source of his own pain like that.

Because it was his fault. Undoutedbly.

He’d been the one to fuck up.

Again.

For the sixth time. Counting them was never his intention; there had just been few of them, and each one was more memorable than the other. Not knowing how many times he fucked up would be the fucking miracle—Bucky had the imprint of your mean chuckle tattooed at the nape of his neck, followed by the distinct taste of your tongue against his skin.

Not for the first time, Bucky takes a deep breath and, tiredly, exhales.

“Good gods!” Wanda’s voice is but a whisper, but Bucky’s ears are trained to pick it up among the overlapping conversation going on at the library, the several computer clicks and trays of books moving back and forth. “That’s like, the fifth thousand time I’ve heard you huffing and puffing back there. What is wrong?”

I went and did it again. Bucky’s eyes trail to your table once more, “No need to worry your cute little head over it.”

While he had no clue what would happen after he ignored you like a massive dick for days, Bucky expected that the weak — but plausible — excuse would mend some of the patches.

Nothing.

A dry, curt “hi” when you arrived to grab the necessary books, and then straight to your table.

“Bucky, I can hear you thinking. It’s eerily loud, for some reason, and it’s just the two of us inside our Weird Moon Valley.” Her soft, even voice gets closer, and Bucky looks up to see Wanda sliding with her chair closer.

"You're frowning." Wanda slides a hardcover copy along the counter until it hits his still hands. "Harder than usual, that is. What's up?"

"Nothing."

“Bullshit,” she spits back with a trained customer-smile still on her face. “It started when your girl—”

“She’s not my girl,” he interrupts, as always.

“—when your girl,” Wanda quips back, as always, “arrived, looked at you like you were one of the flies that surrounded her horse’s shit, got her books, then went away. Since then, mysteriously, your face’s been looking like that.” She hums, feigning curiosity. “I wonder if those are connected.”

“Your sarcasm is really over the top, you know?” Bucky considers leaving the reception and going to organize some books, but the idea is dismissed as soon as it comes. “And that description was hurtful. I’m wounded. ‘The flies that surrounded her horse’s shit’ is kinda mean, even for you.”

“My sarcasm is over the top and your attempts to pull this conversation away from the point is as horrible as your inability to play coy.”

“Harsh.”

“Alright, fine,” Wanda’s hands fly up to the sky in surrender. “I yield. Mope. Pout. Sigh. Stare at her longingly—stare at her ‘till you forget how to talk, again. See if I care,” she finishes with a dramatic sharp turn of her body, and Bucky just grabs her by the string of her apron.

He pulls her back a few steps and hits his own head against her back. "Wanda."

"Bucky."

He yields. Of course he does. "She is so mad at me." It's barely a whisper, but he knows she's heard.

He feels her scoff more than hears it. "Astute observation, dude. Do I wanna know why? And weren't you two cool until, like, a week ago? This is starting to get ridiculous."

"We were. Now..." There's a moment of hesitation in which Bucky's face becomes a wince. He wants to hide even further behind Wanda's back. "You know why," he eventually says.

Two weeks prior, Wanda had said: you two float around each other. gravitate, or some weird shit like that. you keep making the same mistakes—you gotta stand on what you two decide, dude. she'll lose her shit eventually if you don't.

A second after he says it—one heartbeat, and she understands.

It makes her turn the same way as she did before, facing him again. “Shut the fuck up,” she mutters when her pin drops on what he meant. “You didn’t.”

“Hey—technically, we did it.”

Wanda’s stare could punch holes through Bucky’s ribs. “If we weren’t at work, your left cheek would be on fire right now.” It’s not often Bucky hears Wanda’s angry tone, but it makes all of his stupidity the more real. “Are you serious?”

Did you really do it? “I… yeah.”

Did you really go and fuck the girl who’s in love with you, and who you have feelings for, but can’t date, because unlike her you’re a slut — a polyamorous one at that — who’s never been and never wanted to be in a relationship, while she is someone who expects a ring on her finger? The woman who you entangled yourself with despite her telling you she couldn’t ever pursue something with someone like you and yet, and still, you seduced her because you ‘felt something you couldn’t ignore’ with her?

Bucky heard and saw all those words in Wanda’s fiery eyes, and for a moment, he wanted to take it back.

It came and went in a flash, because the reality still was— “If I tell you how it happened you might not hate me so much?”

“I highly doubt that, James.”

Damn. “Can I tell you?”

Wanda’s nostrils flare as she exhales. “Fine.”

With a lengthy exhale, Bucky retells the rollercoaster of Tony Stark’s engagement party, and watches as Wanda notes—he has a point, after all.

2 DAYS AGO

"She looks so good, Steve," Bucky whined.

He wasn't one for whining, but tonight in particular, he felt stupid.

And she looked good. She walked in — drunken eyes check the glowing numbers on the microwave — 7 minutes ago. Not that he’s counting. Bucky muffles another whine behind his cup.

"God, you're whiny when you're drunk," Steve exhaled the smoke in his lungs and laughed right in Bucky's face. Little shit, Bucky thinks. "She just arrived, Buck. Get your shit together before you make the same mistake again, I swear—"

"I know, I know," Bucky's heard the speech enough times by now. "Don't worry. We're not doing that shit again."

Steve gave him a look. A single look. A “I heard that shit before” look, and “I know exactly how that promise ended, buddy” look.

"We're not," Bucky insisted. They’re not. Not matter if he wanted to. Bucky didn’t—he liked your friendship too much to fuck this up. He took another sip of his beer, then immediately regretted it. Alcohol had memories attached to its taste, had things in it that made his thinking skills fly off the goddamn window. "I need some water,” he decided.

"Fuck water." Steve opened the fridge and grabbed a can of Coke. "Drink this, then we'll go back."

Fuck.

"And don't you dare whine about soda or any of your gym rat shit about calories and training, it's the last thing I wanna hear tonight," Steve looked out of the glass walls that separated the kitchen from the outside, looking for something at the party. Probably his boyfriend, because Steve was now in love, and monogamous. "I'm so fucking anxious. He's gonna fuck this up somehow, I just know it."

"He's not gonna fuck it up."

"He might."

"Tony's not that self-sabotaging, Stevie." Bucky downed half of the can in one go, and then felt that little prickle in his neck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He hated going out. He should've stayed home. He should've stayed with his books, should've kept his mouth shut. Tony barely even likes him (a lie) and he wouldn’t even notice if Bucky wasn’t around (a bigger lie). "He's not gonna screw up the night he's been planning for months."

"What if he does? D'you know how hard it was to make that sculpture? I haven't slept in weeks. Weeks, Buck."

Bucky could tell.

"Ugh, look away from me," Steve grunted and flipped the rest of champagne down ungraciously.

Now Bucky laughed. "What?"

"Your eyes say I can tell and I hate you for that," Steve answered with a pointed finger at Bucky, who laughed only harder. "Do I look awful? Do I have eyebags?"

"Shit, I forgot how fucking chatty you get when you're anxious." Bucky knew his best friend better than himself sometimes, but it was easy to forget things when habits change, and going out was one Bucky lost about a decade ago. "Steve, hey, c'mere."

It took him a second, but Steve walked until he stood in front of Bucky.

True to his words — or eyes in this case —, Steve looked a little under the weather.

Bucky drank the rest of the Coke, smashed the can with one hand and threw it in the trash. Then, he placed a hand in each of Steve's shoulders, and smiled at him.

"It's all gonna be fine," he started, smiling at him.

Steve took his first deep breath.

"Good," Bucky praised. Some habits, on the other hand, never died. "Your art is beautiful," his smile softened, something only Steve's art could do easily. "Tony's a really lucky guy to have you as a friend. He's gonna be lucky to have Bruce as his best man, because—guess what? Piper's gonna say yes. God knows why—"

"'cause She made her with the biggest rope of patience in the world," Steve offered in a low whisper, and Bucky laughed.

"—sure, buddy, because She made her that way, Piper's gonna say yes. And then they'll be happy together, for many decades, hopefully. They might even have kids."

"Oh god," Steve expression changed drastically. "Their kid is gonna be president."

Bucky hummed. "I—yeah. Probably."

"I don't know if I'm excited or terrified for it."

"A bit of both sounds good." Bucky put his hands down. "You better now?"

Steve exhaled. "Yup. Everything's gonna be fine. They'll be happy together."

"Yup."

Then, Bucky heard a chuckle. A familiar one. The hair at his nape answered before he even heard the voice, raising just at the realization of your presence dawned on him.

"Damn. Am I interrupting something?"

Bucky is fucked.

He should've stayed home, with his goddamn books.

He's not ready for this.

"Hey!" Steve exclaimed happily, as oblivious as Bucky had been of your approaching. "Babe, you came!" Babe. Bucky wanted to puke on Steve and your parade. "And please," he scoffed, walking your way. "You know damn well I don't fall for those pretty blue eyes anymore, no matter how close they are to me."

It was true. Steve was now in a sweet, monogamous relationship. "You lived with these pretty blue eyes,” he started, dated as well, loved, painted them, sculpted them, “so how about no slander towards them, hm?" Bucky joked, turning around to see Steve's gigantic body engulfing yours in a hug.

“Sure thing, Buck,” Steve replied with only a third of his attention.

When you were present, the air in the room differed.

Bucky could hear your whispered conversation if he tried, but he opted out. Instead, he got another soda can from the fridge while you two said your hellos and whatever else you two loved talking about when he wasn't around and waited for it.

It took only a minute, but it came.

Your eyes on him.

Bucky was a coward. He hid behind his can, sipping the liquid as he drank the sight of you as well.

Impeccable.

"Evening," he nodded.

"Hi," you answered.

"How was your trip?" he asked, even though he knew.

You smiled, probably thinking the same thing. "Good. You know that," you shrugged your shoulders, and had Bucky's chest been this tight since he left home? Since you walked in?

Since you smiled, maybe?

"I liked the pictures at the party," he drank another sip, then put the can on the counter. "You and your friend looked nice with those costumes on."

"You said I looked, and I quote, wow, she's nerdy AND she's silly."

"It was a nerdy, silly costume."

Your smile widened. "Please. He's your favorite character and I know it."

"He is," Steve agreed, looking between you and Bucky with amusement. "It did look nice, though."

"Thanks, babe."

"Now—you two behave. I'm going outside to check on Tony. Gotta make sure he's not being, too—you know."

"Himself?" you offered.

"Exactly!" Steve kissed your cheek. "See you outside. Wait—did you come alone or did you come with Yelena?"

"Yelena."

Shit, Bucky thought. "Cool," Steve smiled because he wasn't Bucky, and he wasn't currently one of the people on Yelena's Shit List. "'m gonna look for her."

And with that, he left you two alone.

It’s tense, electric, and Bucky wants to swim in the palpable air.

“How’s your back doing?” he asked.

A week ago, you sent him a picture of your sunburnt back. Your face winced at his question, and then you turned around, taking off your coat and—fuck, fuck him.

Backless dress. It’s fine.

“Damn,” he whistled. Not because he could still see the marks of bikini on your back, but because he remembered what tracing the muscles of your shoulders with his tongue felt like. He cleared his throat as you turned back around. “Not hurting anymore, at least?”

“Nah. Lena’s been helping with that,” you answered.

“The great Lena.”

You scoffed, and walked until you leaned on the counter along with him. “She’s not pissed with you.”

“I highly doubt that.”

You had no arguments for him.

Bucky smiled, and you mirrored him. He missed seeing that in person. “You look nice,” he commented.

It was more than just habit—he liked the outfit on you, and the blush on your cheeks tasted like cherry on the top.

There was the pretty black thing around your eyes, and Bucky wondered if you made it that sharp because it killed him more. Pierced through his soul—your eyes always looked at him with so much swimming under them.

“Thanks,” you said. The drink twirled in your hand. “Is Nat around?”

Outch. Bucky’s smile stiffened. “Nope.”

“It’s just—I still have her jacket. It’s in Lena’s car.” The tapping of your rings against the glass told Bucky your next words were true. “Wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

“Okay.” He believed you. “She went to Moscow to watch one of her first students perform.”

“Oh. That’s really nice.”

“If you don’t care about being in Moscow on late December—sure. Sounds lovely,” Bucky laughed behind his cup.

“Call me crazy but I just feel like someone like Nat is immune to the cold. Does that make sense? I just can’t bring myself to see her bothered about something like minus fifteen degrees.”

“She isn’t. I’ve never seen her bothered by any weather, actually.”

“Stronger and cooler than we’ll ever be,” you muttered, sipping your drink. It sounded like an ironic and fun bite, but Bucky knew the feeling underneath it—the Romanoff effect.

It’s the thing that stands between you two, after all.

“She’s an alien,” Bucky whispered to you. Your eyes lifted, meeting his. “Or a secret agent.” The ghost of a smile appeared on the left corner of your mouth. “Let’s not dive into all the reasons we can’t be a Romanoff.”

Bucky hated to look at you now and realize what you were holding back.

“I don’t think I’d wanna be one, anyway,” you said eventually.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” The smile might’ve been hidden, but you made no effort to withhold with your look. “She’s not into horses,” you whispered, as if telling a secret, and Bucky walked towards you in instinct. “I can’t live without them. Not even to be an ex-dancer with a top secret job and the prettiest hair.”

“Your hair is pretty,” he retorted, gaining the smile as result.

“Thanks,” you chuckled.

“Plus—I’m sure you could pull off red if you wanted to,” he said, then closed his mouth shut.

It was too easy to get lost in it.

Not even two minutes in your presence and Bucky had walked closer, complimented you twice, and he was about to do it again.

He swallowed around the feeling of your eyes ranking up and down his body.

“I’m gonna go see if Tony’s embarrassed himself again,” ‘cause I’m a coward. From this distance — or lack thereof — Bucky smelled your perfume. “Wanna join me?”

One week without it and he was now drowning in it.

“Sure,” you shrugged. “Let me just get the beer I came for.”

Everything he carried as okay crumbled more and more with your steps, but Bucky embraced it all night long.

Watching you laugh and feeling it like a punch to the stomach because all he could see was you bathed in sunlight, laughing at his morning hair dressed in his shirt? It was fine.

The way you sometimes leaned in closer so your scent was all over his space? Fine, too.

(Lies.)

All night long, he ignored the longing glances.

It was a hard task to fulfil—your eyes and his had magnets after what happened before your trip, and the distance made it that the pull only got stronger.

Through the drinks and overlapping conversations, Bucky tried to focus on what is instead of was.

Instead, he got cornered.

Close to the grill at first, you showed up with your wine glass in hand and pretended to not see him until the last second, then smiled with your wicked ways when he was forced to guide you away from the heat with hands on your elbows.

What he got was your eyes blinking up him, muttering, “‘m sorry. Slipped,” as if Bucky wouldn’t know better.

As if he didn’t see you clear as daylight.

Then, as he wondered why you were playing this game with him again, you did it again when he ran for the kitchen and decided to stay there while Thor made a show of creating spicy cocktails.

You entered the kitchen applauding already, smiling at one of Thor’s nice tricks, and the next thing Bucky knew, he felt your body pressed against his. It was a bit crowded in there. Not enough space for all those grown, broad bodies, but that was no excuse—Bucky had been there for minutes already, but it was on him that you decided to lay rest and watch the show.

“You don’t mind if I sneak in here, do you?”

Bucky minded very much. You knew that. “Not at all.” Maybe this was punishment. A way of you to get back to him, somehow. “He’s got some talent,” he commented, sipping the rest of his drink. “Here, have my spot.”

He left because he knew it was the alcohol.

There was not a mean bone in your body — also a lie — and Bucky recognized the telltale signs of a pissed off you. The lashing out and pettines kind of gave it away.

So he tried to escape.

He managed to stop Tony on the way from one room to another, give him a hug and congratulations, and say he needed to head home.

“Already? Well. I’m not gonna say I’m surprised,” Tony looked happier than Bucky had ever seen. “Rhodey and I have this theory that you might expire if you don’t sniff a book every X amount of hours and your early cue actually puts my guess in advantage, so feel free to skadaddle.” He hugged Bucky again—definitely drunk. “Thanks for coming, Barnes. I don’t say it much, but I’ve grown fond of you.”

It was all in motion.

All Bucky had to do was make it out of that stupid, gigantic mansion and—

“Leaving already?”

Fucking hell.

Bucky turned around to face you, gripping his jacket a little tighter in his hand. He put on a smile. “Yeah. You know me.”

“Sure do,” you chuckled.

“Sorry—I didn’t find you inside to say goodbye.”

The next laugh came accompanied by a roll of eyes. “You really don’t need to lie to me.”

‘You have a tell when you lie. Did you know that? Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘Do I?’

‘You do. It’s adorable.’

“You never told me what my sign is,” Bucky’s smile softened at the memory, but he tensed again when he saw you stepping closer.

“Can’t give that away. That’s important information.” Your step was steady and straight for someone who’s had so much to drink, but then again, your tolerance was kind of high. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Can I get a ride home?”

Are these eyes playing with me or does she really need me? “I thought you came with Yelena.”

You nod, but don’t touch your hair. Maybe you do mean it. “I did. She’s not leaving ‘till the party’s over, though, and I have training tomorrow.”

Plausible. Bucky knew how much you hated to train with little to no hours of sleep. “Yeah. Sure.” What hard could a ride do?

The smile you gave him was so genuine that he almost felt like letting his guard down. “Thanks, Buck.”

“Of course, sweetheart,” he needed to stop being so full of himself. “Let’s go.”

It’s almost unbelievable what a little bit of your charm or smile would do to Bucky.

He got inside that car without a worry in his heart.

She just needs a ride. Chill, Buck.

The way his guard is disarmed by every single glance of yours out of the window instead of the chatty, witty remarks he expected.

The drive home happened without much conversation. This part you two already knew.

It’s how you got close, in the first place.

You two existed well in silence. Sharing space was enough—comfortable.

As it was, you picked the music. Bucky asked about your course, which you were ‘okay’ with, as always. You asked about his few students, his phD. Work.

Small talk.

It lasted all the way until your house.

When Bucky parked and said goodnight, he was examining your eyes in search for the alcohol and that glint he saw a few times during the night. Instead, he found a reflection—there was a search in yours, and his stomach tightened.

All the things we could’ve been…

“I’ll walk you to your doom,” his voice came out as nothing but a whisper. The air felt thicker, somehow. “C’mon.”

You nodded, and opened your own door before he walked out of his side and reached yours.

The light of your porch lit up after sensing presence, and Bucky was thinking about how to unglue his tongue from the roof os his mouth and whisper something plausible, something, just something when you said it:

“Remember the last time you came here?”

Just like that.

He paused, hesitating his next step. “I mean…”

Yes. His whole body felt in alert, and a part of Bucky felt glad to still face your back because he imagined his face looking very stupid right now.

The last time he’d been here the two of you watched movies. Had dinner. Three bottles of wine, and two shots of a special tequila you had as a gift from your best friend’s trip to Mexico. Then, when you were showing Bucky pictures of you and friends on a trip to the beach, you two had been a little too close.

A little too personal.

That time, there was no alcohol to blame.

No party, no high, nothing.

Just that thickness hanging heavy in the air and the notion that both of your bodies emanted so much heat it was palpable. It felt palpable.

Much like now.

“I never thought I’d have the guts to do what I did.”

Your confession felt like a caress. They broke him out of his stupor. Reaching the door, you turned around, facing Bucky.

He wanted to be a good guy and wanted to abide by what you had asked him of staying away, but it proved difficult when everything pointed towards the fact that you wanted this. He wasn’t crazy. “Why are you telling me this?”

Both your shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know.” You did. Bucky could see your eyes knew what the previous words meant. “‘Cause I’m still a bit tipsy? Or maybe—we just—we danced around it. Since we met. All the flirting and the kissing at Steve’s house parties.” Lower, you whispered. “I felt like a teenager.”

Goosebumps rose at the back of Bucky’s neck, and it felt like a confession of his own.

Despite being well over his thirties, he knew exactly what you meant.

You went on. “It was kinda exhilarating, I’m not gonna lie. I told my best friend about you and I kept thinking to myself ‘I never got this giddy when I was younger, what the hell is wrong with me’. And… I had convinced myself it was unilateral. You know? Just you indulging me in all my want.”

“That’s not true.” He couldn’t help but interrupt. “You know that’s not true.”

“I do now.”

He fidgeted with his car keys, deliberating if pushing was the right choice or not. “Where are you going with this?” came out after a heartbeat of silence.

“I don’t know. I just—I spent all night today trying to avoid the fact that all I wanted was to drag you back here.”

All he could do was whisper your name.

You weren’t finished. “And because of what? Because of me? Because I can’t deal with something that I already knew?”

Bucky barely has time to think of an answer before—

“What if I want it again?”

Just another whisper. It had his feet moving before he could put words in back in his mouth, then out of it. “You know my answer to that.”

The widened eyes surprised him, just as much as his answer apparently surprised you. “Really?”

“Really. But it’s not fair. Because you say this now, but I’m not sure you’ll feel the same tomorrow. You’re tipsy—”

“—you know that’s not true.”

“Still. You drank.”

A single pause from you, but Bucky knew this was a lost battle.

“Are you trying to find excuses? It’s okay if you don’t want to,” you said.

“I’m not. I’m trying to be rational. I don’t want you hating me tomorrow morning” it was very true. “I like our truce.”

“I do, too. But I also really like the way you’re the only man who’s ever been able to handle me. To do everything I wanted. I also really like the way I barely had to ask for things, and the way you gave them to me when I did. The way you stretched me out, and took no pity, and made me see how far even I can go. How much—”

Some things took a lot of effort, and others took none at all.

Pushing your body against the nearest surface was easy.

Muscle memory, even if he did it only a few times.

More than anything, Bucky liked the way you took work.

More than just with this—meeting you had taken work, getting to know more of you required gaining your trust. Unlike most people, you preferred to keep your life and energy private until someone proved they deserved to know more.

In bed, Bucky liked how none of it was performative.

Maybe he should count himself lucky—you fit him like a puzzle piece, if he was being honest, in ways very few people in his life did.

Steve, Natasha, you.

Winning him over was difficult, too.

All night long, Bucky let it all go.

He knew it was unfair the way he stared at you all along—Bucky saw in your eyes the way you dived in his eyes just like he dived into your body.

When he cupped your cheeks and your nails clinged to the back of his neck, Bucky knew how this would go.

Your kisses tasted like I’m gonna hate you tomorrow, and when you moan in his ear, his name coming out gravely and hoarse, Bucky heard the silent plea underneath. It’s hard not to spill empty words—Bucky bit his tongue so hard, so many times, that he wondered how he never tasted blood.

He preferred your taste, anyway.

It overpowered everything else, as always.

When all the clothes were on the floor and he pinned you against the nearest surface — your counter, just like the last time — Bucky wanted to slap himself instead of your ass.

“Stop starin’ at it.”

He slapped it. “You like it when I stare.”

“I like it better when you use your hands. C’mon, Bucky—”

“Fuckin’ impatient, as always.” He adored it. Your lust and his mixed in the air, clouding his thought. “I’ll give anything you want. You want my hands, baby?”

“Yes, goddamn it—”

“Then kneel for me.”

The sight of you on your knees between his legs would be his undoing for how long? He couldn’t tell, or bring himself to care. He held onto your hair, gripped your neck thigh just the way you liked it, and let himself feel your lips wrapping around him like velvet; it’s a deja vu, as well as foreboding—Bucky loved to have you on your knees because you loved it, and after he came so hard all his senses mingled into one, it was a pleasure to pick you up and drag you to your room whilst feeling what undoing him did to you.

“Look at this, baby. Look at how fuckin’ wet you are for me—”

“Couldn’t cum the way I wanted to—please Buck, please—”

“Shhh, I’ll do it. ‘m gonna fuck you all night, baby.”

The neighbours must have heard it that day.

It was more than the first time—it was pent up frustration, desire, heartache, longing; Bucky did what he promised, and you gave back just as good as you received.

There was a pause for food and drinks somewhere around five in the morning. Not many words were spoken during that time—the glass windows let in the faint light of the sky changing colors outside, and in your kitchen, Bucky just wrapped you in his arms and fed you the food you cooked for both. The whispered conversation was meaningless, but as warm as your bodies tangled together.

“You think we’ll have many more Stark parties to attend now?”

“Buck—that man will use any excuse to throw a party. Yes. We will.”

“Don’t laugh at me, he’s gonna be married now!”

“Married doesn’t mean dead.”

“Eh. For lots of folks it does.”

“Since when is Tony ‘folk’?”

“...you make a solid point.”

“Always do.”

When the first rays of sunshine came through, Bucky woke you up with his head between your legs.

Your thighs were reason for worship, he always said. And worship he did; Bucky saw the bruises already forming from the previous hours and admired his words with his hands as well as his mouth. He licked his way up, and when you finally squirmed awake, he was already pulling your sleeping shorts down so he could taste you before anything else that day.

The sound of his name on your lips first thing in the morning would follow him for the rest of the day.

It was also the only sound he’d hear for a few days to come.

+++++++ ++++++++

Even Wanda admitted him to be right when he said it wasn't really his fault. At least, not only his.

At least, not only his.

There was a lot involved in this.

Desire alone couldn’t sustain a relationship. He knew that better than anyone.

His desire for you alone could power a whole city—Bucky looked at you and the entirety of New York could have electricity to run for a fortnight; that’s how he felt.

The thing is—he also felt that way about other people. Few people, but still.

All it took was one Natasha and a few memories of Steve to stain what you two built over a year.

“You two worked better as friends,” Steve offered during brunch at Bucky’s apartment. Steve enjoyed offering his opinions, requested or not, and Bucky appreciated him for it.

“So do we.” The unspoken and yet, we were an item for over a decade hangs in the air. “Wish things were that easy, huh?”

“Nothing’s easy in life.”

Bucky laughed out loud at that. “Well, why don’t you preach.”

Steve smiled back, looking at him that way. “You know it’s true.” He scraped the rest of his food, and handed Bucky his plate. “I mean—take me and Sam, for example.”

“What about you and Sammy?”

“We—ugh, he hates it when you call him that.”

“I’m well aware.”

“You’re a douche,” Steve nudged Bucky with his hip, laughter stifled in respect for his man. “We shouldn’t have worked, right? I mean, we’re pretty similar except for all the ways that we’re not. He couldn’t handle the fact that I had non-monogamous relationships when we met ‘cause he didn’t understand it. Plus, he saw me the way most people do; as this goody-two-shoes that has unbreakable morals—”

“You do, though.”

“—and that’s, like, a republican or something.”

“Disgusting.”

“I know!” Steve sighed loudly, and prompted himself up on the counter. Bucky continued cleaning the dishes and did not think about how you loved doing that as well. “But then, we started getting to know each other better, bit by bit… and it worked out.”

“I’m confused.”

Steve turned to look at him. “Why?”

“Are you trying to say me and her are gonna work our shit our, or that we’re not?”

Steve hummed. “You know—I don’t even know?” He grimaced. “Sorry. I’m tryna say that whatever will be, will be.”

“Motivating.”

“I’m serious! If she wants to come here later tonight to talk, something’s gonna happen and soon you’ll know what.” Steve’s smile changed, and Bucky recognized it as his you smile. “She’s gonna be on her best behaviour.”

“What do you know that I don’t?” Bucky narrowed his eyes.

“Nothing much. Just that she’s been revaluating. She feels bad about ghosting you these days.”

“Really? ‘Cause from the way she ignored me every time she crossed my path I’d have thought she hated the guts outta me.”

“You know that—” Steve got interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing.

As always, Bucky knew who it was just by the sight of his eyes gleaming at the screen. While Bucky finished wiping the counter, Steve talked in his Sam tone about going back home in a few. He threw in a “Sam says hi,” to which Bucky replied with “Hi Sam, please answer my damn email!”; the laughter on the other side of the line could be heard even from a few steps away.

When Steve leaves, Bucky retreats to his safe haven.

His apartment is nothing much—small enough that he can clean on his own, but big enough to fit a study, a nice living room and a kitchen that’s not mingled with everything else. It’s been six years since he moved and only now Bucky realized he truly felt at home here. The staircase on the balcony outside where he sat for a smoke, sometimes with a book in hand or a cup of coffee, it felt like his place.

All of his home had tiny little memories of all the people that made up his heart painting the furniture and the walls.

He goes to his study for his two hours of research, writing and editing on his phD paper, but his mind is stuck elsewhere.

The phone call he got this morning which made him call for Steve keeps coming back, much like the dreams which are nothing but memories; Bucky saw you around campus these days without a word to spare for him, but inside his four walls, everything came back to him.

One single call and everything transformed into a hurricane.

The screen stared back at him, the numbers glaring holes into his skin.

21:32.

He ignored the way his stomach tightened even more.

She’s coming isn’t the thought that makes him anxious. It’s been months since she stepped foot here makes his palms clammy.

What had she said? ‘Right after work’, those were her words.

Bucky rubs both hands over his face, turns off everything in his office and heads for a shower.

Steve was right, he guessed. Whatever will be, will be.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Hey.”

“...Thanks for replying to my text.”

“You don’t gotta thank me.”

“I—yeah, I kinda do.”

“Hmmm. Why?”

“You know why. ‘Cause I need to apologize—fuck, I’m horrible at this.”

“You’re doing better than I did most of my life tryna apologize for stuff.”

“...of course you’d make me laugh.”

“I like your laugh.”

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

“...for what happened? Or…”

“For these days.”

A win. Bucky had counted that as a win. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

“Thanks… Can I come over later tonight?”

That had Bucky pausing. He almost knocked the pan out of the stove, because an apology came a long way, but an invitation, one for his house out of all places, was unexpected. “To my house?” he confirmed.

“Yeah. Right after work—I have a couple of seminars in the afternoon, then I have my client at the gym, can I go there after that?”

“I mean. Sure.”

“...’Sure’? Was that, like, ‘if you want, whatever’, or was that, like ‘’course you can even if I don’t know why the hell you’d want to’?”

It had been his turn to laugh. “The second option.”

“Okay. Then I’ll be there later tonight. Around ten? Ten thirty?”

“I’ll be here. It’s Saturday.”

“‘Kay. Cool. Is it ok if I bring a bottle of wine? Just one! Just—You know I’m nervous. It’s just so I don’t go to my cocoon or whatever.”

“Sweetheart. It’s ok. You can bring whatever you want.”

‘Bring whatever you want’ — why the fuck had he said that?

He’s unsure. He’s anxious, and excited, and his mind stays like this all night long until he hears the buzzing of you outside waiting to be let in.

Whatever will be, will be, Steve had said, but it’s sad when all that someone wants is one outcome.

He opens the door to find you outside in your work-out clothes. “Hey,” Bucky steps to the side to let you in, and watches as you take off your shoes and puts your gym bag on the floor.

“Hey,” your smile is weak, and tentative. “Is it a lot to ask if I can shower before we—sit, and whatever?”

Bucky shakes his head, and tries his hardest to push the images of you inside his bathroom naked out of his mind. “Not at all. You know where everything is,” he also holds back any stupid jokes or flirtatious comments that fall so naturally to the tip of his tongue.

While you shower, Bucky sets the station on the balcony outside. He brings two chairs to face the tiny table, brings the glasses, the pie Steve baked earlier. He sets everything on the table and rolls a purple haze for himself because if there’s one thing he needs right now, is to fucking chill.

That’s how you find him—with the corkscrew to open the wine in hand, and a blunt hanging between his lips.

Bucky mentally curses at the fucking scent you bring from the inside.

Peach. Wild berries.

“Do you take your stuff with you everywhere?” he asks before he can stop himself.

You frown. “What stuff?”

Bucky loves how big your thighs look in those shorts. He looks away to say, “Your creams and lotions and—skincare shit. All that.”

You laugh, sitting in one of the chairs, and you hold the bottle for him to open. “Not everywhere. Just when I go to the gym.”

“Hmmm.”

“Why?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Dunno. You always smell the same.”

“I like the way my stuff smells.”

“I can tell,” he chuckles.

“It was a gift from one of my best friends—you remember Nyx?”

He has to dig in his memory a little bit, but he finds it. “The one you met on your trip?”

You nod. “Yeah. She’s brazilian—their stuff smells amazing.”

“I can tell.”

Three words only, and the air in his small balcony shifts from light to heavy. Sticky. Honey sweet.

Instead of asking why you’re here and rushing it all, he lets you pour the wine into the glasses. He goes for small talk for now. “How’s your week been?”

“Fucking cold. I hate this time of the year,” the way you pout when you’re angry makes him pissed off. Bucky never wanted to do something so stupid and cheesy as kissing someone’s frown away. “The snow melting’s so fucking incovenient.”

“That it is.”

“And your papers? Still ripping your hair out?”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair; “Still have some left,” he takes out the lighter from his pocket and sets the thing between his lips on fire.

As the smoke fills his lungs, Bucky breathes easier. It’s ironic—but then again, so is the fact that your presence both calms and electrifies every inch of him.

“I gotta tell you—I thought you’d be one of those unfortunate suckers who lose all of their glorious hair by the time they’re thirty five—”

“I’m literally thirty nine,” he laughs.

“See!? Exceeding expectations.”

Small talk also exceeds his expectations.

At least, it does with you.

Other people? Bucky would rather not exchange a single word with.

You?

Half a bottle of wine goes in the blink of an eye. Sober him had clammy, sweaty hands, and an agitated leg that bounced up and down like a child who’s high on sugar. Tipsy and high Bucky focus only on the now, on the curve of your nose and how beautiful your hair looks underneath the street lights.

Even you indulge in the transcendental offer that is something to clear the mind, or maybe make it foggy.

Not that he minds sharing—Bucky sips your wine, you take puffs of his blunt, and he appreciates the way your fingers hold it between your lips.

He really likes your lips.

Both of them — the wine and the weed — have their expected outcome; so much that when you drop the bomb he’s been waiting for, Bucky barely feels his heart leaping out of his throat. It’s more of a skip; a small jump, if you will.

It comes after a lull in silence where you two are finishing off the cigarette, and he’s a little lost in the way Alpine curls in his lap when you say, “I think I know why we never worked out. Like… properly.”

Bucky’s fingers still in Alpine’s fur, and the cat nibbles on his hand to get him back at his job of petting. “Do ya?”

“Yeah.” The tilt on your chin tells him it’s true. It’s your little tilt of ‘I’m an expert at this topic’, so he figures this is what you must’ve spent those days doing—ignoring him in favor of thinking meticulously about the two of you, from every angle possible. “I mean; it’s pretty obvious, in the end. At least it must be to everyone else. But I hate it the all the same.”

“It’s not obvious to me.”

“No?”

“No,” he wished it was, many, many times. “Enlighten me.”

With a nod, you lay the words on the table. “I want you all to myself.”

Only six words, and they manage to knots every inch of his insides. He feels them everywhere; inside and out, from the tip of his cold toes to every last strand of hair he still has.

When he answers, it’s only a single breath. Your name, which sounds like a plea.

“I wanted that since I first saw you. It's those eyes—god, I swear to god only the skies above know how much I fucking love your eyes. And the way you look at me, Buck... When you kissed me at that party for the first time, I couldn't stop staring at them, remember? They're beautiful. Looking at them... It’s like looking in a magic pond… there’s so much hidden. All I could think about was: I want him. I want those eyes on me, always. I want him all to myself. But I can’t have that, right?”

“Sweetheart, I’m not pie.” It comes out exasperated, and Bucky hates how tired he feels of it, but he’ll be damned if he loses you like he almost lost Steve once because of that same stupid idea.

“What?”

“I’m not pie, love. Just because you get me, and someone else does too, it doesn’t mean they’re taking a piece outta me that you’ll never get it back. You do have all of me. When I’m with you, it’s all me.” He gestures from his head to his toe. “Right now? All of me. Every inch right here is yours. My mind’s thinking about you. I wanna talk to you. I wanna feel you. Does that make sense?”

It’s funny to think that sometimes, you can see the effect words have.

When he looks at you, Bucky sees the realization dawning bit by bit—the puzzle pieces are almost visible as they fit in your mind.

“You want all of me?”

The question catches him so off guard that it almost hurts.

Had it really been so difficult to see?

Bucky swallows the knot that your question formed in his throat and nods. “I do.” Always did. “Since I fuckin’ met you—d’you think I do this all the time? This aggravating, stupid—fucking mating dance?” God, how he loves the sound of your laugh. “I hate the excpectations, and the unspoken rules and whatnot; you realize that you made me go to not one, not two, but three events last year? Three. I barely leave my house, sweetheart.”

Gnawing on your bottom lip means you’re nervous, but not about thoughts—about what you want to do next. “I’m a really jealous person,” the whisper says I’m confessing, and I’m sorry about that. “I don’t know how I’m gonna act in the future, Buck.”

“You’re a grown woman, I’m a grown man. We could work it out, couldn’t we?”

“We could. But I…” you trail off, the words lost in the night, and he waits. “I don’t wanna lose you completely.”

“I can assure you that the only way I’ll be completely out of your life is if you actively kick me out. Use the words I don’t want you around anymore or something like that. Otherwise? I’ll just wait. I’ll keep coming back.”

“Bucky,” it comes out breathless, and Bucky wants to throw the table that separates you two out of the balcony and onto the street down below. “These days were miserable.”

When your lip trembles, Bucky thinks fuck it, and gets up. Alpine protests, he apologizes, but without any heat to it.

Kneeling down in front of you, Bucky searches your face for any shadow of doubt. Any lingering trace of pain, or uncertainty, and when he finds none of those, his hands come up to cup your cheeks the way he loves to do.

“I hate when you’re miserable.” Bucky hates how hard it is to hold back, too—the cheesy, honey sweet stuff that comes to his mind whenever you’re around are too much, but the dem is broken now and when you lean on his touch, Bucky knows you’re both doomed. “I want you happy, sweetheart.”

“I’m happy when I’m with you.” Another whisper. Another confession.

He smiles at that, and watches as you smile back. “Let me make you happy, then?”

For both of your lucks, Bucky has enough strength to hold you when you throw your body on him. He’s not a physical person like you — carrying books all the time holds no weight to what you do in the gym — but he has just enough to pick you up and carry you to where you should be.

He has enough in him to worship your body like he dreamt all week, and this time, with no worries about whether you’ll be there in the morning or not.

Bucky drenches you in him—sweat, kisses, sticky bodies clinging together until they’re nothing but one.

He sees the happiness in you, and feels it reflected in him.

He’ll make it last, for as long as you let him. As long as you wish him to.

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