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#but I got the idea when I saw the prompt and I had to at least try
hbyrde36 · 1 day
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STWG Daily Prompt 04/28/24
as chosen by our own @penny00dreadful
Fairytale✨
He was never going to find her.
Steve sighed heavily, letting his lunch tray drop to the table as he plopped down into his seat next to Nancy and Jonathan, the spot he’d been occupying ever since he’d had some sense knocked into him and dumped Tommy and Carol as friends for good. 
He’d gotten a lot of funny looks for that move, not only because he’d nuked his popularity along with his friendships, but because Nancy had dumped him for Jonathan, or so the rumor mill said, and yet here he was beside them. The truth was that their uncoupling had been a mutual decision, they just didn’t care enough to correct the narrative. 
But, back to Steve’s lament. 
It’d been almost a week since he saw her, the mystery girl that he’d spent almost the entire Halloween Ball with. They hadn’t spoken at all, the music had been too loud for that, but they’d stuck close to each other all night, danced, shared a few laughs as they pointed out their classmates' costumes–both good and bad– and shared a brief, but earth shattering kiss in a dark corner of the gym.
Now normally, Steve wouldn’t have been caught dead at one of the school’s dances, but his high school career was rapidly coming to a close, and honestly he was just trying to get himself out there, make some better memories before he was forced to grow up and enter the adult world.
Also… Nancy and Jonathan had made him.
Then they’d ditched him to go make out in the darkroom, but that was fine, It’d all been worth it to meet—her.
Steve only stepped away for a moment to get them a couple drinks, but when he returned to their spot by the bleachers, she was gone, the only evidence that she’d ever been there at all was a ring left behind on the floor. He picked it up, remembering how she’d fiddled with them a lot, her many rings, and must have dropped this one without realizing. 
He pocketed it, knowing it would be the key to finding her again.
Because, and this was his dilemma, on top of not knowing his mystery girl’s name, he also had no idea what she really looked like. While his Indiana Jones costume had left no question as to his own identity, she’d been dressed as a mummy, wrapped up in layers of gauzy fabric, only showing off her long dark curly hair, the biggest most gorgeous brown eyes he’d ever seen, and perfect pink pouty lips.
After spending the last several days combing the school, asking every brunette he came across if the ring was hers—to no avail—Steve had all but given up, assuming the girl had been someone’s friend or cousin visiting from out of town.
“What’s all this?” Steve asked, finally noticing the stack of photos Jonathan had spread out on the table around them. 
Jonathan took a bite of his sandwich, answering with his mouth still half full. “group shots of all the clubs for the yearbook, I just got them developed.”
Steve pushed his own lunch away, not hungry, and pulled a few of the pictures closer to him. He wasn’t really looking, looking, there wouldn’t be anyone in those pictures he hadn’t already seem roaming the halls, or so he thought. Then he spotted a familiar piece of jewelry on the finger of someone entirely unexpected. 
Eddie Munson, head of the Hellfire Club. 
He reached into his pocket and pulled the ring out, keeping it hidden under the table as he looked between it and the one in the photo. Same band, same stone, same black nail polish on the hand’s fingers too.
Dark curly hair, check. 
Big beautiful brown eyes, check. 
Soft pouty pink lips, double check.
Okay, so, the mystery girl wasn’t a girl at all. It explained why he’d had so much trouble finding her at least.
Steve sat with that fact throughout the rest of the lunch period, and by the time the bell rang had decided that it didn’t change a thing. He wasn’t freaked out that he’d kissed a boy, he didn’t even care that it was Munson, certified freak and D&D nerd. He was a little embarrassed that he’d assumed his special someone was a girl just because he had long hair and pretty eyes, but moving past that—
Now Steve just had to woo his man.
“Hey, Munson?” Steve called out as he jogged down the hallway, approaching the other boy from behind just as he was closing his locker. 
Eddie startled, his eyes going wide as he turned to see who had snuck up on him, but recovered quickly.
“Steeeeeeeve Harrington, what can I do for his former-royal-highness?”
Steve stepped in close, glancing around to make sure no one was watching them before he took Eddie’s hand, gently turning it over, and placed the ring in the center of his palm.  
“I think you dropped this.”
Permanent taglist (open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers
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witchywithwhiskey · 3 days
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Hey! For the spring time drabbles I would love to see Lloyd Hansen (this moustach… I swear…) with smut no. 75. “you’ll cum as many times as i want, got it?”
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ruining a perfect springtime date
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pairing: boyfriend!lloyd hansen x female reader
warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), smut, oral sex (f receiving), piv sex, unprotected sex, creampie, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, dirty talk, restraints, light bondage, light bdsm, dom/sub vibes, praise kink, pet names, possessive behavior, established relationship
word count: 1,300ish
a/n: thank you for sending in this prompt!!! Lloyd absolutely would say something like this, so it wasn't hard to come up with an idea for this little ficlet 😏 i hope you enjoy it!!! ♡♡
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The forecast had called for a beautiful spring day—warm, but not too hot, and plenty of sunshine to make sure the constant breeze didn’t get too chilly. Excitement filled your heart like champagne bubbles as you eagerly bopped around your room, getting ready for the day.
Your boyfriend, Lloyd Hansen, had planned the perfect springtime date. He’d bought a few tickets for a spring garden where the two of you could ride around on bicycles together, taking in the gorgeous blooms and soaking up the sun. Then, he’d booked a reservation at a sweet little restaurant with the most beautiful outdoor patio, where you could eat outside and watch the sunset together.
You paused just as you were spritzing on perfume and smiled to yourself, thinking about asking Lloyd for his jacket at dinner because you’d conveniently forgotten a sweater. You could already imagine the warmth and comfort of being wrapped up in his jacket, and it only made you redouble your efforts to finish getting ready so your date could start.
Lloyd was waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs of the home you shared together, and you made yourself slow down so he could get the full effect of the effort you’d put into your date outfit and makeup. As slowly as you could manage with how excited you were, you flounced down the stairs, feeling your boyfriend’s gaze on your body.
You’d worn your favorite sundress in honor of your date, the cotton hugging all your curves perfectly to emphasize your body, while the hem was short enough to be flirty without showing too much thigh. It was sweet and a little sexy, and you thought Lloyd would love how good it made you look. Or so you thought. 
But as you watched your boyfriend’s face while you descended the stairs toward him, you saw his expression darken. By the time you stepped off the last stair, Lloyd’s face was positively stormy, his blue eyes dark as the sky during a spring rainstorm. 
Without a word, Lloyd prowled toward you and threw you over his shoulder, making you shriek in surprise. He started up the stairs, taking them two at a time as he carried you back to the bedroom you shared. When your sounds of surprise quieted, you realized he was muttering to himself.
“Look so fucking pretty in that sundress,” he grumbled to himself, his big hand gripping your soft thigh firmly so you couldn’t squirm off his shoulder. “How’m I supposed to keep my hands off you, huh?” he asked, but didn’t stop his muttering so you knew he didn’t expect an answer. “Woulda had to shoot every man that looked at you too long, woulda had to show them all you’re mine.”
Lloyd tossed you down on the king-size bed you shared, his mouth twisting in a snarl that had desire blooming deep in your core. His darkened eyes fell to your legs, where the hem of your dress had ridden up an indecent amount, his gaze staring at your thighs like he was greedy for them. But Lloyd held himself back.
Instead, he stood at the foot of the bed and slowly unbuckled his belt. 
“You’ve done it now, princess,” Lloyd growled, his gaze drifting up your body to your face. “You’re not moving from this bed until I’ve had my fill of you, do you hear me?” His expression was furious, but there was a heat in his gaze that had you melting for your man. “You’ll come as many times as I want, got it?” 
A part of you wanted to pout that Lloyd was ruining your perfect springtime date, but a much bigger part of you was eager for the punishment he had in mind. So you nodded, a breathy, “Yes, sir,” falling from your parted lips. 
Lloyd’s mouth curved into a smile and then he climbed on the bed, crawling up your body and gathering your hands above your head. Using his belt, Lloyd tied your hands to the headboard of the bed, checking with you to make sure the restraints weren’t too tight before he moved back down your body.
Your boyfriend settled between your thighs, pushing your legs wide so your sundress gathered around your waist. Without further preamble, Lloyd buried his face in your panty-covered core, breathing in so deeply, it made you squirm, desire leaking from your hole.
“Can smell how wet you are already, angel,” he groaned, his eyes flicking up and catching yours. Lloyd held your gaze while he ran the flat of his tongue over your pussy, teasing you through your panties. It was so hot, you squirmed, but Lloyd just grabbed your hips and pinned you to the bed, holding you still for him. “Patience, peanut, I’ll taste your sweet honey when I’m good and ready.”
A whine worked its way up your throat and spilled from your mouth as Lloyd continued to tease you, his smirk deepening while sweat gathered at your temples. When your hands tugged impatiently on the restraints, Lloyd chuckled against your pussy, his mustache teasing your clit through your panties and driving you wild.
Finally, when your panties were soaking wet from your desire and his tongue, Lloyd tore them from your body and dove into your cunt, eating you out like a starving man. 
That first time, your release came fast and hard, crashing over you like an unexpected wave that would’ve knocked you off your feet if you’d been standing. Pleasure the likes of which only Lloyd could give you swept through your body as you cried out for him, your thighs tightening around his head and body trembling through it all. 
But Lloyd was nowhere near done. Your boyfriend treated you to another release. Then another. Then another.
And another. 
He kept going until your mind was so blown with pleasure you could no longer keep track of how many times you’d come on Lloyd’s face, your juices gushing into your boyfriend’s mouth while he drank them down greedily, his mustache rapsing over your soft, sensitive skin. 
When Lloyd replaced his tongue with his fingers, he used his mouth to tell you how pretty you looked in your sundress—how fuckable you were, and how he needed to keep you all to himself when you looked so gorgeous. You were his and his alone and he needed to show you just what it meant to belong to him.
By the time Lloyd pushed his hard, weeping cock into your wet, swollen cunt, you were delirious and exhausted. But the feel of your boyfriend’s cock sinking into you made you moan wantonly and yank weakly on the belt still tied around your wrists. You wanted desperately to wrap your arms around Lloyd’s broad shoulders, but he wasn’t done yet.
Your boyfriend pounded into you until you came again, swallowing your mindless moans with his kisses. Then, finally, he released your hands from his belt. 
As quickly as he could, Lloyd divested both of you over your clothes, rubbing your aching shoulders and wrists, then slid back inside you. That time, he took you slow and sweet, rocking into your thoroughly used cunt and cradling your face in his hands while he told you how well you did for him. 
Lloyd murmured against your lips that you were his perfect good girl and, impossibly, you managed to give him one more release. You came at the same time as your boyfriend, the two of you clinging to one another as your bodies came together in the most intimate way.
As you let yourself succumb to exhaustion, you had to admit to yourself that Lloyd may have ruined your perfect springtime date, but he more than made up for it.
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coryothesub · 3 days
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Sinful Desires
So I’ve been dabbling in some more kinky / taboo themes lately which prompted me to write this as a special treat no one asked for. Basically I have no excuse for this and sorry if I got any tbosas lore wrong because I haven't read the book
nsfw / mdni / sub!coryo / stepmom!reader / stepcest / breeding kink / mentions of underage sex work
You married Crassus Snow as soon as you turned eighteen. Looking back you could say that you were truly in love with the tall, handsome general. However for him you were just a warm body to sleep next to and tight pussy to drown his sorrow after the unfortunate passing of his beloved wife. His decision to remarry had definitely come too soon and you were definitely too young to even understand the implications.
After you received the news of your husband's tragic death, you decided to stay with the Snows, because you simply had nowhere else to go. Just like many others, your family had been torn apart by war and even the house you’d grown up in was now bombed to shreds. Your only options were to be poor or to be poor and homeless so you opted for the first one. 
You were always on good terms with Tigris. Daily struggle to sustain the family had brought you two pretty close especially because you both were forced to do the same unspeakable things just to maintain the food on the table and the roof above your heads.
First you categorically refused to bring her into that, but realizing it was getting harder and harder to make ends meet with your own endeavors and after thousands of silent and desperate “I’ll be fine, if you can do it then I can do it too” you finally gave in and introduced her to some men for whom your ripe age of twenty five was already too old to satisfy their needs.
You both didn't have much choice anyways since Grandma’am simply refused to move into a smaller apartment, let alone leave the Capitol. Apart from that and her other weird quirks she seemed to be a pretty nice lady. At least as far as you knew the right patriotic buttons to push in order to stay on her good side. 
Crassus’ son Coriolanus or Coryo, as Tigris used to call him, didn't seem to like you one bit. He considered you an intruder, an unfair replacement to his mother that did nothing but reminded him of his family's tragedy. 
Over the years Coryo seemed to have learned to tolerate you, mostly because he felt somewhat grateful for all your efforts, but still he remained cold and distant. You didn't particularly mind that, because you had no idea how to raise a young man. You felt pretty happy that he didn't ask you any awkward questions and managed to figure out everything himself. 
Sometimes during his teenage years you noticed Coryo secretly watching you while you were changing or getting ready for a bath. On some occasions he even touched himself while doing it trying to suppress his little moans by biting into his fist. You always knew he was there, but you never confronted him. You knew full well it would make your coexistence very awkward for both of you and frankly you found it pretty amusing.
After all, he was just a silly little boy for you until the time his nineteenth birthday came around. It started even earlier if you thought about it. After Coryo returned from his service in District 12 and got his hands on the Plinths' fortune he turned into a completely different man.
Coryo always had the taste for finer things in life and when he finally got the means to fund it, you only saw him wearing tailored dress suits and perfectly polished shoes. Even his whole posture had changed and when he passed you in the dining room followed by an intoxicating wave of expensive cologne, instead of the anxious malnourished boy you had known for most of your life you saw a fit and handsome young man that reminded you of your late husband so much.
Your run down penthouse was completely refurbished to suit your stepson’s taste and he showered all three of you with lavish presents, encouraging you to throw out your old things.
Finally he could have the life he had always envisioned. And every last memory of your humble existence after the war had to be exterminated and written off into oblivion.
Coryo had become confident, strong and ambitious. Some might say even ruthless. It was hard for Tigris to accept those changes and she grew more distant with her younger cousin. They barely spoke, she was mostly just looking at him with sadness and disappointment in her eyes.
Coryo didn't seem to care about that much. He didn't care about other people's feelings in general. But there was one interesting detail. The colder he became to others, the more delicate and gentle he was with you.
He always wanted to be in your vicinity, lighting your cigarette, opening the door for you or helping you to put on your coat. He always had to do a little something just to remind you he was there. He even pretended to care about your opinion, giving you the most dashing smile every time you seemed to agree with what he had actually already decided.
And the weirdest thing about that all was that he had started to refer to you as “mommy”. He had never called you that before and there was no particular reason for starting it now, especially because it seemed to make Tigris extremely uncomfortable.
And it sounded pretty eerie for your ears too, especially because Coryo always accompanied the word by giving you this one specific look that radiated childish naivety mixed with a hint of pure lust.
It always made your heart skip a beat, especially because in some weird twisted way you wanted it too. The sheer hunger in his icy blue eyes made your pussy tingle and after those interactions you always had to go to your room and touch yourself, your pleasure overshadowed by shame.
After all, you weren’t dead yet, you were just a woman in your early thirties and you hadn't been touched by a man since you had stopped selling your body. But for god's sake he was your stepson! You really needed to find some dick, before things spiraled out of control.
One day you returned to your room after running some errands and found a gift box on your bed. It was adorned with a crimson satin ribbon and a single white rose. You found an envelope laying next to it.
You opened it with trembling fingers, the strong rosy scent of Coryo's cologne filling the air. Inside the envelope there was a card with a few words in your stepson's neat handwriting.
From Coryo to Mommy with love…
You sighed and opened the box, finding a snow white, neatly folded piece of clothing inside. You couldn't really call it a nightgown, it was more like a negligee. You lifted the delicate item against the window, seeing the sunlight pass right through it. Of course it was nearly transparent apart from the exquisite hand made lace embroidery.
Coryo's taste was flawless as ever, you had to admit that, but this had to stop! You were gonna tell him tomorrow. But it wouldn't hurt anyone if you tried it on tonight, right? Just for one night, no one would find out, and you would demand him to return it tomorrow morning.
That night you put Coryo's present on and marveled at yourself in the mirror. It looked like a lacy cloud hugging your naked body so nicely the outline of your feminine curves visible through the sheer fabric. You turned around then moved your hips in a suggestive way flirting with your own reflection in the mirror. You couldn't remember the last time you had felt so desirable.
After pairing the negligee with a pair of white cotton panties, you went to bed. Just as you were drowsing off into your sleep, you heard the door creak before someone opened and closed it quietly. You rubbed your eyes and switched on the night lamp just to notice Coryo standing by your bed wearing nothing but his tight white undies and a loose fitting silk robe. His hair wasn't perfectly styled as usual, instead his blonde curls were falling freely around his face.
“Mommy?” He gazed upon you with the most innocent look in his baby blue eyes. “Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”
Coryo had never slept in your bed, even when he was a young boy often haunted by terrible nightmares, Tigris was always the one who comforted him and sang him to his sleep, you were just sitting on your bed listening quietly until you were sure the boy was alright.
You knew full well what his true intentions were. You had to act like an adult.
“I really don't think it's the best idea, Coriolanus,” you tried to sound strict and inexorable.
“Please, mommy! It's so cold and I can't sleep. I feel embarrassed to go to Tigris and ask her for a lullaby, not to mention we’re not on the best terms right now,” he was looking at you, his blue eyes wide and desperate.
“Please, please, just this one time!”
You sighed deeply and gave him a faint nod.
“Alright, just this time!”
To your surprise Coryo threw the robe off his shoulders and pulled down his underwear, revealing his long, handsome half hard cock, its tip looking so velvety and just as pink as his lovely lips.
You were so caught off guard that you didn't even manage to make any protests before he jumped into your bed and glued himself to your side, burying his face in the crook of your neck.
“Mommy…” he whispered against the sensitive skin of your neck, making you shiver. “I’ve been having the worst nightmares… About the war, about all the things we had to do to survive. I’ve tried everything to make them disappear, but they keep coming back…”
You knew this was your last chance to stop this, you had to push him away, order him to leave your room immediately and never come back, but instead sinful words of encouragement just spilled out of your mouth.
“It's alright, babyboy! Mommy's here and you're safe with me,” you hummed gently as your hand caressed his golden curls. 
God, this felt so wrong on so many levels especially feeling your stepson's now fully hard cock pressing against your thigh, waiting for what seemed to be inevitable at this point.
“Thank you, mommy, you’re always so good to me,” you heard Coryo say just before feeling his lips on your neck. He kept kissing your soft skin and teasing it with his tongue, you felt your pulse running wild and you knew he probably felt it too.
Coryo's hand, previously resting on your shoulder, was now traveling down, his fingers dove under the lacy fabric of your negligee and started drawing circles around your nipple making your breath speed up.
“Coryo what are you doing?” Your mind still felt as you had to resist the pleasant feeling although your body was enjoying it so much.
He looked at you ever so innocently.
“I read that fidgeting something with your fingers can be really calming,” he said, playing with your nipples and tweaking them gently. “I just wanted to test that theory, it seems like it truly works…”
You just sighed, feeling your whole body filling with the insuperable feeling of pure lust, your nipples were rock hard under Coryo's masterful fingers and you felt a treacherous wetness pooling up in your panties. You hated that your own body was betraying you like that under your stepson's salacious touch.
“Mommy, you have such beautiful breasts…”
You inhaled sharply as Coryo's lips wrapped around your nipple, starting to suck hungrily, while his hand traveled further downwards. It easily found its way between your thighs and dove under the waistband of your soaked panties.
“Oh,” he cooed, dipping his fingers in your wetness. “Mommy really needs her babyboy to help her out, huh?”
“Shut up, Coriolanus!”
You grabbed a fistful of Coryo's curls and pulled him away from titty to smash your lips together in a passionate kiss, he felt so needy and desperate as he was exploring your mouth panting softly as you felt his erect cock pressing to your thigh, leaving a trail of precum from its leaking tip.
“Oh fuck, Coryo,” you whispered his name against his lips feeling him pushing his long slender fingers inside you. Your wet cunt that swallowed them so easily. You were literally dripping around his digits as you felt the embarrassment slowly leaving your body and getting replaced by a feeling of raw insatiable desire.
“I'm here for your mommy,” Coryo whispered, his fingers deep inside your pussy, curling against your soft walls and teasing your sweet spot.
“I will help you fulfill all your needs. That's what family's for right?”
With one swift move you pulled down your panties and crawled on top of him pinning him to the bed and covering his mouth with your hand.
“Don't mention family, you filthy little boy!  If you want mommy to give you a treat, you need to stay quiet, is that clear?”
Coryo nodded and you took your hand away from his mouth, wrapping it around his throat instead. The young man gasped watching as your free hand steadied his rock hard cock at your entrance before you slowly sank down on him, your wet pussy taking his whole length with ease. A soft moan escaped your lips as he stretched out your tight cunt.
You kept your hand on his throat in a tight grip as you started to move at an easy pace, eliciting a series of moans from his lips. Coryo's pupils dilated as he saw your pussy sliding up and down his length making it glisten from your juices.
You tightened your grip around his throat as you sped up your movements enjoying his little gasps as he was fighting for air completely under your control. The sight before your eyes made you impossibly wet and lewd slapping sounds filled the room as you bounced up and down his shaft faster and faster with each movement.
Chasing your own pleasure you let go of Coryo's neck and threw your head back, letting the straps if your negligee slide down your shoulders revealing your lovely tits bouncing up and down as you kept riding your stepson's cock.
Coryo's eyes widened at the sight and he let out a deep groan as your tight walls clenched around his cock, his tip hitting against your sweet spot as you kept moving.
“Oh mommy, you’re making me feel so good,” Coryo spoke, breathing heavily as you were too busy chasing your release to make him keep up with his vow of silence.
“I want to cum inside you, to put a baby in your belly. To make you nice and round full of new life that would make our family complete and strengthen our ties forever.”
In your mind you realized how twisted these words were and that they could actually become true considering that you weren't on birth control since your sex work days but your brains were completely shut off by pleasure as you kept moving up and down Coryo's wonderful dick your manicured nails digging into his smooth pale chest.
Coryo's nostrils flared, watching your boobs bouncing up and down as he felt his climax approaching.
“I can't wait for those beautiful tits to be swollen and full of delicious milk oh oooooh…” he cut himself off, moaning loudly as thick ropes of cum filled your cunt spurting up against your velvety walls.
You rode him through his orgasm and your red nails dug deep into his skin leaving red scratches. After mere seconds you came hard all over his cock and squelching sounds filled the room as your juices were mixing together with his cum. You collapsed on top of your stepson, his cock still inside you and he wrapped his arms around you, holding you tightly.
“Just let me stay inside mommy's pussy a little longer,” he whispered. “Don't let the seed go to waste.”
“Fuck you, Coriolanus!” You hissed and bit into his neck using his distraction to wiggle out of his grip and crawl off of him making him whine at the loss of contact.
Coryo didn't put up a fight, he just watched you as you pulled the straps of your negligee back on your shoulders and then pulled you into his arms, wrapping himself around you.
You sighed and brushed a stray curl off his forehead looking into his big sleepy eyes. There was no way of denying the fact that you had just slept with your stepson, especially since you could still feel his heart beating softly against your skin and his cum dripping down your inner thighs.
It was so wrong. But still deep down in your heart in some sick and twisted way it felt so incredibly right.
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kishdoodles · 23 hours
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Treebark Week 2024 - A Post-Mortem
Hi! If you haven’t seen, I have released seven (7!) videos for Treebark Week 2024! This wall of text is my behind the scenes and also post-mortem thoughts on the project, which I found worth documenting.
Even if you don’t end up reading the text, I appreciate every comment, tag, and view my videos get. I did it for the fun of it and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do it for the attention. I did, because I think these videos are the funniest things I’ve ever released. Shoutout to @thefluxqueen for being my partner in crime and confidant for these. You saw my vision.
I wanted to do something for Treebark week but admittedly I had noooo idea. So this whole gimmick was a fun set up for me to stretch my creativity in. What started as “I’m just going to do everything in mspaint with a mouse” spiraled to “I think it’s going to get boring if everything’s in the same style, so I’m going to have to do something different everyday.”
The important factor to me throughout all of this is earnesty.
Even if its life started as a joke, this project is a love letter in every respect. This is what I grew up on, this is the YouTube that is precious to me. Capturing this era of time in 7 videos is all at once easy, yet surprisingly laborious.
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First I planned the songs. Fitting the songs with the prompts was a brain scratcher, but once we (me and Spain) had a few in the rest slotted in pretty easily. Common thread was, of course, any popular song from the mid-late 2000s.
The first confirmed song was Sugar, Sugar for Sweet (Day 2) courtesy of Spain, given the Eddsworld video. We had a few songs for Burn (Day 3) or Infernal (Day 4) which we threw out (Elli Goulding’s Burn, 2NE1’s Fire, Steam Powered Giraffe’s Fire Fire, etc.) I ended up digging through my old playlist and listened to 20% Cooler, which after a realization I immediately slotted it for Frost (Day 1). Spain brought up the Heat Waves parody (Cold Spells) for Frost too, to which I realized I could just do regular Heat Waves, so that became what I did for Burn.
Bring Me To Life was brought to my attention (I forgot how, maybe Youtube recommendations?) and with the lyrics, it became the song for Blood (Day 7). The all time classic, Angel with a Shotgun, fit in nicely with the prompt of Divine (Day 4), so there was no contest. Another classic, Everytime We Touch, was harder to fit but I eventually reasoned through the prompts enough to fit it with Lips (Day 5) (the everytime we kiss part).
At this point, nothing I’ve found fit Day 6 (picnic/garden/strawberry) at ALL. So I decided the only way I knew how. RANDOM CHOICE!
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Mad World won but that was a trap, for I have biased myself toward Animal I’ve Become at that point and it almost won, so I went with that instead. This is a lawless land. 
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The actual video ideas really came to me in piecemeal, so I’ll explain how I got each idea as I cover each day in order of when I completed them. 
20% Cooler (Day 1) was the most straightforward of the days. It was done in 1 hour and 30 minutes and I was purposefully being extremely literal about the lyrics. I already had the vision for what I want, and I didn’t want to care about quality all that much, so it came together really fast. 
For my process, I lined with mspaint brush and then bucket tooled with default colours. I took advantage of the new layer system mspaint added for some scenes, but otherwise it was as simple as just drawing. (Pictured, 3 layers for 2 scenes.)
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It was really easy to just quickly edit in Windows Movie Maker 6 too, I just dragged the pictures in, slapped effects, roughly timed everything and it’s done.
Programs used: mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6
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Sugar, Sugar (Day 2) was an honest effort at avoiding any complicated animations. I initially thought of doing an animation similar to the original video that inspired the song choice, but eventually scaled back because. I don’t want to animate. 
Thus came the decision of subject matter. I ended up settling on the demon roleplay because I thought it was the campiest thing in the world. And it was a sweet reunion, no? The lyrics just fit the vibe, and in a moment of brilliance (hitting the showers) I thought to make a visual novel. One reflective of old flash games and like the visual novels of cultural zeitgeist at the time.
I’ve known about Ren’py for quite some time now, but I’ve never properly learned how to use it. For this my task was simple. Find out how to change sprites, backgrounds, and move people into the scene.
Sprites and backgrounds were easy, so those were the first things I did. Ren’s sprites were inspired in design by Demon Hunters in the Warcraft world, mostly because I was playing a lot of Hearthstone and liked the idea. Martyn’s sprite style was inspired by early 2000s anime visual novels, like Higurashi (though I’ve personally never consumed it nor do I actually recommend consuming this piece of media (neutral) its ripple throughout the anime community was felt. Notably, parodies of the anime’s opening were very popular.) I toned back the stylizations, but trust me when I say that Martyn’s hands were purposefully big to be yaoi hands. It didn’t end up that big, and I did not give him the dorito chin here so, immense self control on my part (or cowardice?). False and Joel were just my regular style. For all this I used my tablet instead of my mouse.
The programming part was a little troublesome, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t google, so it got done pretty fast. There’s other small bits, like how I mismatched the background sizes, the sprite sizes (with each other)(minorly) but for the most part it came together pretty quick. Once the VN was done, it was just about recording it. So I put on the song, and danced along.
[You can download the VN here]
Programs used: Ren’Py, OBS, mspaint, After Effects (just to move the scene over at the beginning)
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So I knew I wanted a classic style AMV, so that eventually became Everytime We Touch (Day 5). 
The pictures mostly come from a discord server I’m in (hi [redacted]!!!!) and I thought of it like a nice homage to the insanity we had in there. Bless all of you guys, you guys were the ones I wanted this series to be made for the most.
Not much to say beyond that, besides me just editing it all on movie maker as usual.
Programs used: Windows Movie Maker 6
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Angel With a Shotgun (Day 4) was the last to be planned for. I predicted it was going to be the easiest to make on the fly (it was) and just kind of winged it. I wanted a unique style still for it though, and the idea of drawing their cubitos came pretty late. 
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I was not exempt from this trend in my youth (my art in mspaint, age 11, me and my sister)
The rest was history. Just kidding, I really wanted something to do with the shotgun thing so I literally searched “shotgun” in Curseforge and got MrCrayfish’s gun mod just for the shotgun. I loaded up the 3rd Life world I had from my Broken Lives animatic (it’s a custom made world using the seed) and just got to work with FreeCam and OBS (it’s my first time with FreeCam too!)
A rejected clip I didn’t use because of skin consistency / continuity.
Programs used: Minecraft, mspaint, Windows Movie Maker 6
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Heat Waves (Day 3) acquired a pixel art style as an homage to its original lyric video. People have said it reminded them of Homestuck, which I honestly don’t mind. It fits the era and I did grow up with it. It kinda looped back in on itself that way.
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I blame this frame, here's it as a gif which lies unused.
For the video, the more I rewatched bits of Last Life for it (it’s been a while!) I realized it had a lot more potential than I initially thought. Though I doubt most of it didn’t come through in the final product (I limit these videos to a minute or less, if possible, excepting credits and allowing few more seconds over the minute mark so long as it felt warranted), I tried to cram in what I thought fitting to the prompt the whole time.
The watch tower burning was an easy pick, a classic Treebark moment you might say. For the rest of it, the nuance laid a lot in how Martyn presented the Shadow Alliance. “The Dog, The Shadow, The Roots. We make this place burn.” Under the eyes of the moon, it witnessed this pact form, and its resolution for the server. The moon is included in multiple frames because of this, as a stand-in for the eye of the Watcher(s) I included at the start, watching Martyn through the series.
In a lot of ways, how Lizzie and BigB turned red I also found fascinating. Lava and explosions you could argue are an extension of burning and fire, and an explosion was also how Martyn left the series. Ren, from the start of this alliance, inexplicably committed to and saw through what ultimately rips the people he was loyal to away from him. 
Martyn on the other hand, I drew in the later portions quite aware of the position he’s in, hence only his eye in the frame with the last 4 folks. This to me starts a path for him toward where he goes in the later serieses (notably in Limited Life). This is all very “vibes” and instinctual kind of “trust me on this” sort of read on c!Martyn honestly.
On missed opportunities, I’m almost upset at how I never brought up the moment Martyn buys a love crystal from Scar (never used, it got blown up) which I (and a lot of other) may have delusionally thought it was for Ren. Besides that, I never had a chance to desaturate the colours in the video leaving only red (which Ren did upon the encounter of the establishment of the Moon Cult)(it really emphasized Martyn’s lips!), I tried just plain desaturating, but ended up ditching it since it never felt like it jived well with the rest of the video.
All that aside, I finished this one really late (for me, which was past midnight on the day it was going to be posted), so I’m glad it was out on time. It’s the one I put in the most effort for, and I’m glad to see people enjoy it.
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The eye on its own, which reveals the Watcher symbol I accidentally did in the wrong orientation. Oops!
Programs used: Aseprite, After Effects
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Animal I Have Become (Day 6) was thought on for a while. Eventually I have my eureka moment and I thought it was a nice shout out to the Bannedstory community who I’ve followed in my early days, where I’d watch animations of people’s custom OCs (original characters) made with Maplestory sprites animated to audio clips that I really wasn’t supposed to be listening to at the time lol. That, and all the online games and the like I grew up with on the early internet. I personally didn’t partake in it, but roleplaying on those was a common sight, and I found it endearing. 
My partner in crime for this day in particular was @thefluxqueen, because I really can’t be bothered with character customization for a lot of these games (I respect the craft but I lack the patience), but I knew who LOVED doing that. He really knocked it out of the park, helping me do the Gachalife, Club Penguin, and the characters for Animal Jam and Ponytown. For the latter, they handed me the account information and we just went to town.
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A Treebark stream in a just world.
I can’t tell you exactly how I assigned the lyrics, but I definitely assigned the animal sections during the chorus so it was a surprise (and so it also fit the lyrics). I did have fun recording and we had a fun time in Ponytown. We were shown where other mcyt fans are by a Grian pony (Hermit Hill) and then we hung out there sitting down while we workshopped the Bannedstory segments with both our sonas together. All in all a great time.
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It took a few takes.
Programs used: Bannedstory 3 (I would’ve loved to use 4, I grew up with that!), Gachalife, Club Penguin, Animal Jam, Ponytown, Windows Movie Maker 6, OBS
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For Bring Me to Life (Day 7)... I ended up getting more attached to the thought of it the longer this project went on. 
I wanted it to be the end all be all, go out with a bang and everything. I kept thinking and thinking, how do I end Treebark week? After a week of homages, how do I make the last one?
What’s beyond my childhood? It was just growing up. But it’s not like I had to let anything go. My artistic endeavors are influenced by all of my experiences. I saw good reason to bring it all home, do a callback to the styles of the entire week, it’s my victory lap.
And why not call back every instance of Treebark through the entire series then? This evolved into me learning more about Martyn’s lore because I want to be informed! I want to make this as someone who earnestly loves the narrative of these characters, and the stories they’ve told.
From a story perspective, it felt like Martyn was always doomed to tragedy. Suppose the life series always does end tragically, but Martyn’s Vtuber in relation to all this has its own inherent tragedy to it. In my eyes, this roamer of cyberspace constantly has to live through different lives with familiar people. The people he loved and cared for in one world will always be ripped from him, and he knows that.
Amongst everything the Unguided Hand gets me the most. In the video I drew the Ren he chases as a shadow. He’ll never get the Ren he knew then, back. Even if he meets another Ren in another world, it's never going to be The Red King. To me, Limited Life is the snapping point, a point of selfishness above all else in the comfortable knowledge that he wins, without ever needing to experience the same closeness and loyalty he had in lives past. The realization that this is what the game was about. Winning at all costs. I wanted the progression to reflect that.
Deep down, maybe he yearns to be saved from all that. The song echoes that sentiment. I tried to match the lyrics to how I saw the timeline of events as close as possible for that to hit. In this, Ren is his anchor, someone that he gets drawn to no matter the incarnation. The tragedy is that Ren, even if he knows about what Martyn’s going through, can’t join him in this journey. Martyn will always be alone in this experience, and Ren can only be a short comfort before the cycle starts anew. 
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I quite liked the pixel art I did for LimLife!Martyn
From a meta perspective, this video (and by extension, the whole series) is about art and creating. I have been obsessed with art for 14 years now, and as time goes on I’ve grown fond of every way that we, as people, have evolved our storytelling. The multitudes of mediums that we have developed to express ourselves and share narratives will continue to fascinate me endlessly. Cringe be damned, there is a universal desire to create and enjoy stories of all folds. From the smallest story told from painstakingly typing chat boxes for little custom-made characters to say, to the highest production play put on for multiple hours in a game of Minecraft. 
And at the beginning of my journey lay paper and pencil. Bring Me To Life is an elaborate pun on my end, yes, but also a reflection of my roots. I started my journey as an artist endlessly doodling the adventures of tiny magical girls fighting demons, drawing fanart of costumes in MMO games I found cool, and sharing them with my friends at school. I find myself still drawing, still creating, for hundreds, if not thousands of eyes to see. Still I get inspired by the stories others tell, and I create in turn. In appreciation, in love. 
Bring Me To Life as a song, is a slate that, to me, reflected what I saw in the relationship of Treebark. Bring Me To Life is also a demand, of a piece of art that I had a vision for, that I wanted to bring to life. I struggled at how to end it for a while. Closing the book became very straightforward. It’s the end of this video, this saga, and another way that me, as a Watcher myself (as what they’re originally meant to represent) exercises control over stories in my own unique way. Creation is never limited to a select few. I think everyone should keep getting inspired by the things around them, and keep making art in turn.
To the people who’ve made it til the end here, make art, keep creating. Do shitty doodles, write whatever you want, make sounds and crafts and keep living. That’s all I really want, and this was what this whole series was about.
Programs used: mspaint, Aseprite, Blockbench, Bannedstory 3, Pencil and paper, After Effects
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miloformula123fan · 2 days
Note
Could you do fic for James Vowles with wife reader? With her being in the Williams garage, she witnessed Alex and Danny incident at the Japan GP and was so worried about them that she ended up going to James at the pitwall for his comfort. He decided to hug her while calming her down and going to both of the drivers to make sure they're okay. Just something fluff and little angst. Add something if you want to. Thanks!! :)))
what is it with me only getting these fics out like 2-3 weeks after the race, anyway, it's again so short but my mental health is suffering right now, so, and im happy with it the length it is.
Please keep requesting - y'all have awesome ideas we agree on a lot of stuff :) - my guidelines are here, and if you want some prompts, they are here.
also feel free to come in and start chatting to me in my asks, would love to get to know y'all better
and if you want to be added to my taglist let me know :)
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“Come on Logan, show ‘em why you deserved to be in the car last weekend.” 
Logan nodded as he pulled his helmet on and gave a thumbs up and a fist bump to Y/N. It was her first weekend at the grand prix, as she preferred to stay at home, and let James call her to give her an update. But James had been pleading with her to come ‘just once’ and after the disaster weekend they’d had in Australia, she had braved the timezone and flown out for Japan.
She sat down on the folding chairs with the rest of the pit crew, while PR managers and assistants and anyone who liked James, which was 90% of the garage, was trying to persuade her to sit on a more comfortable chair. She shook her head smiling, insisting she was fine as long as she wasn’t in the way, on the folding chair, with the pit crew. 
James shook his head fondly, gazing at his wife as she chatted to Alex’s race engineer, before he slung his headset on and walked out to the pit wall.
Unfortunately the joy in the Williams garage lasted all of about 1 corner. A cheer erupted as they all got through turn 1 okay, but it was yelled too soon.
“As they make their way through AND OFF INTO THE WALL, off into the wall goes the 2 cars, and a big crash into the tire barrier,”
“Yeah, that’s going to be an immediate safety car, a heavy impact for Ricciardo and Albon…”
“Red flag, red flag.”
Y/N could see the anger as the mechanics grew angry, yelling stuff, but it all felt muffled underwater, as the camera cut to a replay of the crash. She sat there, staring as she watched Daniel and Alex’s cars clobber the barriers again.
So much for good luck this weekend. She watched as Daniel hopped out of the car, and she saw that Alex was having a little trouble due to the tyres almost balanced perfectly on his halo.
She heard the other cars filtering into the pits and as the pit crews dash around the cars Y/N escape through the garage and up to the pit wall, where she spotted James chatting to some of the other mechanics. She quickly crossed the pit lane and hopped up to the pitwall.
“Hey darling, what are you doing here?”
Y/N didn’t know what to say to that. What was she doing here? She looked at her husband trying to convey all of her current thoughts through her eyes. Thankfully he seemed to get the message and embraced her in a hug.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry, they’re both fine, they’re both okay. The red flag is because the barrier is destroyed and they’ll be here before the end of the red flag, okay? I’m sorry darling, that must have been terrifying to see that crash, especially when you have no information. How about you stay here, I think Alex and Daniel will come from there,” he pointed somewhere, Y/N wasn’t paying attention properly “so they’ll walk past here and you can see that they’re completely safe and sound.”
Y/N nodded at that, and snuggled in further to her husband’s embrace as he asked about tyres for Logan’s restart and discussed new strategy, keeping an eye out for the 2 drivers.
come walking down the pit lane. She careful extracted herself from James’ embrace, he nodded as he saw the 2 drivers arriving.
Y/N ran over and embraced them both in a hug, ignoring the commentators comments of ‘mom’ and ‘awwww’ and she pulled them in close and started rambling
“Oh my god, are you okay, that was a big crash, are you sure you don’t need to go to the medical centre, wait, hang on, what’s the test, uuhhhh, how many fingers am i holding up?”
“2, Y/N, relax, we’re okay.” Daniel put a hand on her shoulder
“Y/N breathe okay, I know that was a big crash and that I think was your first big crash while being here, so I’d imagine it's a little scary, but it’s okay. We’re both okay, Daniel and I in one piece.” Alex pulled her into a hug, before releasing her.
Y/N didn’t trust her voice, just nodding and furiously wiping away at the tears falling down her face.
“C’mon, I’ll get you back to James and then by the time the red flag is over, I’ll be back from media and we can watch the race together, okay?”
Y/N nodded again, smiling more than she was as Alex led her back to James.
“Keep her safe until I get back, yeah boss?”
“Oh come on Alex, you don’t trust me with my own wife?”
---
taglist: @leosxrealm, @tallrock35, @wolf-knights, @janeholt3, @pear-1206
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starpirateee · 21 hours
Note
Hi!! Could you write one of the Curtwen prompts I made, yet didn’t cut it? I love your writing style!!
Honestly there was a bit of deliberation here because you put some really good ideas out there on the form, but I did say I'd write em myself, and by all means, I'll still do it! So, I decided to go for this prompt:
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Would you take a modern au from me? Can I do that?
I mean, I'm going to anyway, because I have a dire need to call Curt and Owen husbands (and also for wider Starkid lore), but i just thought I'd warn you beforehand!
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"Agent Carvour, have you found anything yet?"
Owen leaned back away from his research. He'd been looking at the same page now for a while, trying to make some sense of it. Redacted government files were hard to get hold of, but even harder to make ends of. His system had been trying to translate it, but not even he had the software for that.
"Quite possibly, sir. I have a few sources, at least."
"What have you got?"
With an air of something that was almost excitement and almost elation, Owen pulled up a series of documents and started the walk through them. "Well, sir, the easiest source was from a few years ago. There's a company in Michigan that's been trying to conduct various temporal experiments under their parent company— some kind of analyst company, I think. They're surprisingly ordinary. Anyway, apparently the experiments just… Stopped. They never drew a conclusion on whether or not their research was connected to what was on the other side."
This had all started when Chimera had dug up a series of centuries old reports about people claiming to have looked into the eyes of old gods. None of the people had known each other, but all of the reports showed some form of consistency, and all told of great, unknowable power.
So, they had decided to look into it, to see if there had been anyone else who'd dared to brave the process of trying to find an answer. Owen was one of those lucky enough to find himself with the resources to start a thorough investigation.
"They didn't finish?"
"No, I don't know what happened, but the reports just stopped one day."
"Is there anything else?"
"An american government report, but it's as hard as you can imagine to decipher. Most of it is redacted…"
"Anything worth noting?"
Owen nodded, carefully turning back and switching the tabs. This felt a little like he was giving a presentation that he hadn't prepared for, and he hadn't felt like this in quite some time. He took a breath, trying to slow down the rampage that was going on in his head. "They started in the early noughts. 2005, to be precide. That's the earliest I'd gotten without looking at those old reports from the pioneers. A branch of the military tried to build a gateway to the other side, to investigate what existed outside of our plane. I don't know names, only one. The name of the man who performed the experiment."
"They got this gateway open?"
"Yes, sir. And they sent someone through. I think there's a good reason why his is the only name they disclosed."
"Why?"
"Because he was declared dead, sir."
His screen still displayed the document, and the man's name sat among the black markouts, clear enough to see. Cross, W.D. Apparently, he'd ventured into the portal, and nobody heard from him or saw him after the date of the experiment. They gave up the search after a month, and after that, Colonel Cross was indeed declared dead.
"So, another dead end?"
"Maybe not. I'll do what I can to uncover this with what I've got available, but it was scanned, so…. It might take some time." Owen was normally confident in his abilities, and uncovering government documents was a difficult yet necessary part of the job. There was something almost genuinely enthralling about scraping off the parts that the world's governments wanted to keep secret. It felt like giving people a small yet surprisingly effective slice of justice every time.
"Keep looking, Carvour. We need to know if this is viable, or even worth our time…"
If Owen had any kind of normal life— if he and his husband didn't both do the dirty work for secret operation services— he would have a blast trying to decide how to describe the intricacies of what he'd been researching lately. The throws of domestic life confounded him to no end, which was why it was so funny when he and Curt tried to imitate that.
The otherwise simple question of "how was your day" turned into a battle of who could craft the most believable lie that better concealed what they'd actually done. Neither wanted to jeopardise their jobs, and Curt had always been brilliant at crafting stories, so it was never dull.
He started to think about what today's excuse would be. Something about pioneers, or the Oregon trail, or perhaps he could bring up that old, dead colonel somehow, that would be interesting to add to the pile.
--
"You know what I'm gonna ask already…"
By the time he got home, Curt was already waiting for him, and the mid-spring sun was starting to set. For anyone else, it was a day at the office, but the trails he had begun to uncover had really put all other days at the office to shame.
He laughed softly, having prepared this answer a number of hours before, and took up a position on the couch. "No, love, you first. I insist."
"Fine, okay," Curt answered with a chuckle. "It was nothing really, just your standard… But, the bear returned, and in about a month, I'm gonna get really rich and run off to central Europe, with a really pretty lady and a dollar store box of magic tricks."
"The same bear from last month?"
"Yeah. Bastard won't leave me alone."
"Sounds wild. Are you coming back after your plans to run off with this really pretty lady?"
"Plan is to cut myself off after three weeks, but at this rate, I might not make it two."
"Not good enough?"
"Owen, I'm a bit too gay for that." To sell his point, he flashed his wedding band, and Owen laughed harder. "Besides," he added, covering his own bout of laughter. "Who needs a fake wife when I've got my own right here?"
Owen shot him a faux-offended glance. "How dare you!"
"You might fool the guys at work, O, but you couldn't pretend you don't think about it…"
Or that he hadn't been experimenting in that part of himself in little segments since he was seventeen. Turns out he suited long hair better, and he wouldn't hesitate to admit that he both looked and felt rather good with the occasional flourish.
"You know me well..."
"I should hope so! Anyway, what're you keeping from me? How was your day?"
"Office, just like you. I've had a conversation with a pioneer, and tried to erase marker pen over the body of a dead soldier. Oh, and I tried to teach myself statistical analysis."
"Jeez, that was— that was a whole rollercoaster there, huh?"
"Mhm, I've been busy."
"You can say that again, god… So, a pioneer? Like those guys that travelled to Oregon?"
"Yeah. Quite interesting people, if a little paranoid." Something other than their oxen might be watching them would've been a perfect addition to the statement, but Owen felt that was a little too close to the line to pass, so he decided not to add it.
The important part was, apart from the knowledge that Curt was on an assignment in a month's time, both of them were none the wiser. Curt didn't need to know that he had started the deep dive into a pack of eldritch gods and was even slightly nervous about the outcome.
He didn't sleep well that night. He knew that he had right to believe that this was all one great hoax, that there was something in the water that made the pioneers mass hallucinate this supposed watcher. They all travelled on the same trail, it was entirely plausible that all of them found the same hallucinogenic and envisioned a thousand eyes watching them and their familes. It was less of a coincidence when two subsidaries of larger companies started describing details of experiments that led them to discovering other beings beyond just the watcher, of course, but he still wasn't sure whether he was privy to believing any of it.
There was something about redacted government files, though, that were meant to be believed. There was a reason they hid information from the public, and that was often because they had found something worth disclosing in the first place. That meant huge news, large press cover ups… The whole works… And that was the last thing any self-respecting government with something to hide would want. Owen imagined the size of the initial press conferences for dealings like Roswell, how many people must've shown up to that conference, under the impression that they were going to get answers, only for the press to redact the next day and claim that it was no more than a weather balloon.
He felt like he was dealing with a weather balloon of his own right now. This was something that this branch of the military clearly didn't want people knowing. The only reason they'd had to disclose any information at all was because one of their own had died looking for this information, and they had to provide the closure for whatever family he had left. Part of him wondered what they'd said, how they'd tried to cover up this man's imminent demise at the hands of another dimension. What did his family know? Was he ever given a sendoff?
When Owen tried to sleep that night, plagued with the thoughts of how much his research was worth, and what really happened on the other side, he couldn't get his head in the right place to take a suitable rest for long enough. Flashes of colour— brighter than anything he'd ever seen— danced behind his eyelids, chasing each other in sequence. Blue. Purple. Yellow. Pink. Green. White. Blue…. He didn't have much of the capacity to think, not when those colours started consuming his subconscious thought, but he spared a moment to the hope that he may get answers of his own if he stuck around long enough.
"He thinks he's brave… He thinks we don't know about him…"
Whatever dream he had been having was taken over by blurred edges and violent pangs of pain that he was sure he could feel outside of this existence. Everything faded out, leving only ruin in it's wake. Broken pieces, scrambled signals… Owen didn't even try and make sense of it, he already understood the futility of trying. There was nothing left in his mind but those colours and those voices— for he was sure there was more than one. A sickening chorus, holding perfect time with each other.
"He's foolish, if he thinks he can go further without us finding out."
"Owennnn…"
"We know what you're doing, Owen…. It's not going to last."
He'd thought about meeting his maker before. He'd thought about the possibility of death, the idea that he may not live to see another day eventually. It was hard to deliberate something so serious in his early thirties, but his line of work called for it. He knew that he had a dangerous job, and that there were few who would be able to save him if something happened.
But, he'd never considered the possibility of his own demise to this extent before. In the formless remains of his dream, where he was forced into hearing these voices talk about his death and how soon it would be to coming, he had pause for deliberation. And it wasn't good.
He had to strain to take control of his own voice, in this space that was once his own. Once so sacred, now scarce and left entirely to the whim of whatever was taking residence in his mind. This was a bad idea. All of this research was a bad idea, and he was suddenly more aware of that than he was anything else. Never before had he had such a violent urge to overturn everything he'd worked on for the sake of something this seemingly trivial.
"There's nothing you can do. It's already started. This is bigger than me…"
"We know that. You're not the only one we have heard trying to work your way into what is ours… Choose your next step carefully, Owen. I'm sure we would delight in taking you in the same direction as the others…"
Before he could really ask what that meant, he was left entirely alone. The ruin of his dream still stood strong, which was strange enough given that the voices had left him alone, but he had the strangest feeling that there was more to this landscape than just what he was being shown. He started to wander, to look around in an attempt to find the real end to all of this. His mind was a wasteland, taken over by the lack of colour and the apparently deafening absence of those voices that had only appeared a moment before. He felt empty without them, although he knew nothing more than the sequence of colours that paraded through his vision.
Blue… Purple…. Yellow…
The pattern was familiar, like he'd seen it before somewhere. And while he wasn't resting easy, he couldn't force himself to wake up, either. No matter how hard he tried, he was just left stuck, wandering the expanse until he found what he was apparently looking for.
Pink…. Green…. White… Blue…
The expanses of his mind stretched out into a road, occupied by nothing but empty space. He supposed that was mostly his own fault; he had known for years that his imagination was never one to be put on par with anything else. He couldn't so vividly picture that which others could, and he'd never really had much of a capacity to dream, either.
So, this warning was strange. Seeing such vivid, bright colours in the back of his mind, knowing that he couldn't have conjured them himself…
He started to walk the road, curious enough to want to know where it went.
"Owen?"
That voice wasn't like the ones who had left moments before. That voice had a personality, and a person to go with. It was warm, though scared. Human all the same. And Owen knew the shape of it.
"Owen?"
Owen let his instinct lead him down the road, through it's many curves and winds. Eventually, the road gave way to what could only possibly be a stage. There was a set of stairs to one side, that he let himself climb before he could think to wonder where they led, and then the familiar voice gave way to a man in the wings, staring at him with desperate, fear-lined eyes. Of course he knew the voice, and of course he had never tried to doubt himself on the matter.
He tried to advance towards Curt, but he took a hasty step back, shaking his head.
"Curt?"
"Prove you're Owen."
"I'm sorry?"
Curt hesitated, and then slowly emerged from the wings. Even though he stood on the light of the stage, it still looked like he was carefully enveloped in shadow, like the darkness was a comfort to him. Owen looked around, wondering what had made him so cautious, and whether it was still around. Had Curt seen what he'd seen? What had those things whispered to him?
"I'm not falling for it again. Tell me you're actually Owen…"
Owen frowned, not wanting to dwell too much on why Curt was so afraid to reach out to him and realise that all of this was as real as they could get it. "Curt, love, I don't know what you want me to say…" There was a certain desperation about him too. Improvisation had never been his strong suit, but he wass confident that, given the right prompt, he would be able to convince his husband that he was who he said he was, to quell any discrepancy that it may have been otherwise.
"Don't. Show me… What happened on your 25th birthday."
The pieces fit into place, and Owen nodded dutifully. He had been out in the field that day, a strikingly hot day in the middle of June. The two of them had barely ended up with three hours together by the end of it, and they'd gone out drinking to celebrate what little time was left of his birthday. He'd never been particularly big on celebrating, but Curt had insisted. They were newly married then, and getting used to the idea of sharing a life with someone else. That was one of the first nights following their wedding when Owen truly came to realise that he'd made entirely the right decision, and that there was nobody he'd rather share his life with than Curt Mega.
"My 25th… That was a home ground mission. I was in the state."
"What happened to you?"
Owen smiled, somewhere between fondness and a need to hide the melancholic air that hung about that question. He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, and huffed a weary breath of laughter. "I was trying to make my exit, but the suit jacket caught on a fence. Here…" With his sleeve rolled to just the right length, Owen held out his arm and pointed out a pale flash just below his elbow— a jagged scratch that had never quite healed right. "That's what happened after the fabric tore. Is that enough?"
Curt had known about the scar. He'd also known about the story. He was pretty sure that nobody else knew, though, so in his head, that had always been his fallback option in the event that he was ever sure Owen needed to prove himself. Those stories lined up perfectly, and while Owen had missed out on some of the details, in the grander scheme of things, he'd gotten it exactly right. He shifted, letting a knowing smile cross his face through the fear that still gripped him.
"It's really you…"
"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
Curt's approach was still careful, premeditated. Even though he knew the truth now, there was still something about him that screamed a lack of trust directly into his ear, and it made actually reaching out for Owen so much harder. "You… You were trying to kill me."
"What now?"
"I know what I saw…"
"I don't doubt you, but I would never… I swear it on my life."
"I know, that's why it was strange… I— What the hell's happening?" This stage was the only thing connecting the two of them to reality. There was nothing beyond it but the end of the road that Owen had travelled down, and nothing behind it but black, empty space.
Owen let his instinct take over. If the two of them were going to face the unknown, whatever and wherever this was, then they were going to do it together. They always had, and they always would. That was the way things worked, especially for the two of them, because their lives were built so heavily on the idea of distrust that any semblance of the opposite they could get, they would cling to. Normally that was exclusively each other, and so the world wasn't usually much larger than the two of them.
Their hands connected in the middle of the emptiness. Owen pulled Curt Closer to him, and the two of them stood side, performers to an unknown audience, marionettes for something larger than themselves. They exchanged a glance, and Owen registered the warm, homely spark residing in Curt's eyes.
"I think we're trapped in a nightmare, crazy as it sounds," he tried to respond, but he wasn't entirely sure where this was going to go. "I can't wake up, but I remember falling asleep last night."
"Me too. I fell asleep before you did, you were still reading."
"Right, and now there's this. Whatever this is. did you, by chance, see those colours too?"
Curt nodded. "They came before you did, before the- other you. Blue, and purple, and yellow…"
"…Pink, and green, and white..?"
"And then blue again."
Owen heaved a sigh. "Curt, there's something I have to confess. It's safe to do so now, there's little that could get in the way of what I have to admit, but this is one of those things I wouldn't be able to tell you awake, you understand?"
There was a moment's pause, in which Curt tried to work around Owen's phrasing. Both of them felt the incredibly revealing sense that they were being watched, so Curt understood that Owen had gone into the professional mindset— switching off his senses for the sake of making as much sense of something as possible. It was always how he rationalised his way through situations, and it hadn't failed him yet.
Eventually, Curt nodded again, as the words started to sink in and he started to get a sense of what was being said. "This about what you told me this evening?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid there's a little more to it than what I told you, but I suppose that was rather obvious."
A nervous breath of laughter left Curt, only partially voluntary. "I thought there'd be a bit more to it than erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier…. What the hell kinda explanation was that, anyway?"
"One I spent a good hour crafting, thank you very much. I thought it was clever."
"Better than a pretty lady and a box of tricks?"
"And a bear, yes."
"… And the bear. Right. Well, what's that mean? erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier, what're you saying there?"
"I've…" This is not going to get you done for. Those documents were already top secret before you saw them. And if it gets you out of this nightmare prison, then surely it has to be worth it. "I've been uncovering sealed military case files that might explain what's happening to us right now."
Curt's eyes went wide. "Fucking what?!"
"It's all part of the job. I can't… I can't elaborate. Know only what everyone else knows: that the only reason any part of this is disclosed at all is because someone died during one of the experiments."
"What's that got to do with what's happening here?"
"That's what they were researching."
That seemed to click to some degree. At least, Curt seemed to understand a few of the larger pieces, perhaps the more obvious ones. "The colours?" In his head, there was an experiment, someone tried to make sense of whatever that was in their shared mindscape. Someone— a soldier, presumably, had died in the middle of these experiments, and now Owen had gotten tangled in this mess through his agency, and the two of them had been dropped into the same nightmare.
Owen nodded. "The colours."
At the moment he said that, a loud rumble disrupted their moment and forced their attention out into the expanse of nothing. Laughter— multiple sources with varying shrieks and gasps that couldn't be placed to a single source— burst from behind the wings, and from in front of them, and from the endless expanse of black that surrounded them. A loud crack followed, and Curt swore as the stage splintered beneath his feet. For a split second, his grip loosensed, and the next time the ground rumbled, they were torn apart by the growing crack in the stage. He staggered back, and the two of them ended on opposite sides of the stage, the crack between them growing and delving deeper into the unknown.
"Owen!" He called, trying to regain his footing but falling back.
"Curt! Hold on!" Owen yelled through the growing laughter, scrambling back to reach out for the pulley system backstage. He needed a foothold on something, a way to sturdy himself so he could regroup and think. It was too loud, he couldn't think in this kind of heat, with this kind of mess, and Curt, and-
Another crack. The stage was starting to fall away from itself, split not quite perfectly in two. Owen's breath ran short. In the swirls of colour and mayhem and possibilities, he saw a way out. One chance to get this right, and to make sure that they both survived the fall while they were still stuck here. He gripped the rope tight, levering himself further towards the crack, and looked to Curt. "You're gonna have to jump it!" He called, desperation winning over any attempts to stay sane. "Don't worry! You know I'll never let you down!"
"Are you crazy?!" Curt managed, staring into the gap. "I can't jump that, it's too far!"
"Curt, before the whole place splits in half, you have to get over here!"
"What if I don't make it?"
"Trust me! Please!"
Curt backed off a few paces. Owen stood ready, one hand gripping the rope wrapped around his wrist, and the other reaching out as far as he could, waiting for a move to be made. After a singular preparatory breath, he sprinted for the gap, and pushed off from the splintered wood at the edge.
He reached out.
Owen reached out.
Their fingertips connected briefly in the space, and then Curt slipped away beneath his grasp.
Owen threw himself forward, feeling the rope worming itself free and burning his wrist in the process. He'd promised. He wasn't going to let Curt fall. And he was nothing if not a man of his word.
Curt's eyes squeezed shut, preparing for an endless fall through the ineviatble. Something laced around his wrist and he felt himself stop moving. Exerting all the caution he knew to exert, he looked up, and caught a familiar whiskey brown staring back at him.
"I've got you!" Owen breathed, and Curt fought to angle himself so that he could get a better chance to grab the broken stage floor. When Owen started hauling backwards, Curt managed to get a hold of the edge of the stage, and made it a joint effort to haul him to his feet. "You're alright… You're okay…"
Curt essentially fell into Owen's arms. Owen held on tight, like he could lose his partner at any second to the swirls and the crevice. He stared out into the emptiness, ignoring the very real pain that he could feel at his wrist but cherishing the very reel feeling of Curt's shirt underneath his hands. The very air seemed to shift. Owen wasn't previously aware that colours could get angry, but this green that flooded the space behind his eyes was pissed. He could feel it.
So was he. Pissed, and way more desperate than a man ought to be.
"Alright," he muttered once, and Curt drew back ever so slightly. He noticed Owen was staring off into the greater expanse, and hoped for all it was worth that he couldn't see something out there.
"Alright!" His voice got louder, and he tried to mask his utter despair in an authorative tone. "I get it. You hear me? I get it!"
Everything fell eerily silent. The only sound that remained was the pounding of Owen's heart in his ears. He took a breath, strangely certain of himself. Glanced at Curt. Spared his attention on the void again.
"That soldier… Wilbur Cross? That was your fault, wasn't it? There's a good reason nobody can get very far into digs like these, and it's because you strive to kill them before they do. Nobody ought to know what's on the other side, and that's why nobody does…"
"Owen, what're you doing?" Curt whispered, but to no response and little avail. Owen was lost in whatever he was about to say.
"… But, I've heard talk of bargains being made here, so how about it?"
"Your desperation speaks for itself."
Owen had to pretend that that— the voice from the middle of nowhere or what it had said to him— didn't bother him in the slightest. He steeled himself, not sure where to direct his attention but knowing he'd probably have it right no matter what he chose. "What do you say, am I allowed to make a deal?"
The air shifted. Owen didn't receive a direct answer, but he knew that he'd been allowed to continue. "If I don't continue— if I go back, and tell my people that it's an impossibility, that it can't be done— would you let him go?" Another quick glance at Curt, as if the green something needed clarification, or as if he knew what he was signing himself up for.
Curt was frozen in place, his eyes wide. He'd heard every word as it echoed in the void, and he hated what it was implying. His gaze was fixed on Owen, fear blazing through his face. "No, Owen—" his voice came out weak. As far as literal interpretations go, that was not a good one. He didn't understand what was happening, but it terrified him to know that Owen was being so calm about this, while he could be selling his life away with nothing more than a few choice words.
Owen frowned, and muttered an apology he was sure only Curt would catch. The green grew angrier, setting a violent fire behind his eyes and forcing him onto his knees as the pain flooded his body.
"You better not be fucking with me."
"No! I— I wouldn't! I'm serious! I'll call it off, I swear on my life, just… He has nothing to do with any of this. It's not his fault."
The thing considered, holding Owen firmly in place while he deliberated. Curt couldn't move— he didn't dare, lest something happen to Owen that put him in more danger than he was already in. All he could do was force himself into keeping his breath steady, and not thinking about what a single wrong move could do to either of them. His eyes landed on the friction burn winding neatly around Owen's wrist, and he decided to focus on that for a while; the only other colour in a void of blackness and green.
"Very well."
That was the last thing Owen heard. Some part of his mind just shut down, and he collapsed to the floor of the stage. He didn't hear the way Curt screamed his name, or the return of the chorus of laughter. His eyes closed, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up with a start, underneath the sheets of his own bed, gasping for breath. He sturdied himself out, and once he was sure that he was real, and definitely in a familiar space, he looked over to Curt, and found him still asleep.
"Curt?" His voice was soft, but his mind was a knife point of tension. If that had gone wrong, then why was he the one to live through it ant not Curt? He tried again, biting his lip. "Curt..?"
Curt groaned. His eyes opened slowly. The relief that Owen felt hit him like a tidal wave.
For some reason, Curt was entirely surprised to see that Owen had made it through to the other side. He managed a weary smile, and tried to get his vision into focus. That was one of those decisions that he immediately came to regret. As soon as he brought himself a little more into the real worls, he noticed that the brown in Owen's eyes was stained with something else, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. Dripping down his irises was a flash of toxic, unsettlingly bright green.
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saras-almanac · 3 days
Text
BuckTommyWeekend Day 2: A figure from their past
BuckTommyWeekend Day 2: A figure from their past
Title:  What we have
Fandom:  911 (ABC)
Pairing:  Buck/Tommy
Summary:  Buck had complicated feelings after they run into Abby. Luckily, Tommy is there to comfort him. For the prompt: A figure from their past for @bucktommyweek
Notes: I have a lot of thoughts about Abby and her relationship with Buck (plus just thoughts on her character in general). And this is a part of something much longer I’d written but it was just bits and pieces—the meeting, the aftermath, Tommy talking with Athena or Maddie, this scene—just too much going on and too much to write in a day when my brain was still coming up with the actual idea for this. So this is what I’ve got.  
Tommy hadn’t thought much of this meeting Abby at the time. Apparently she was in town for some meeting or other for one of her stepdaughters and him and Evan had happened to run into her as they were leaving the restaurant they had brunch at.
Evan had gotten a bit quiet but smiled and politely introduced him as “This is Tommy,” before Abby started telling him about her life. It was about three minutes of a quick catch up before Evan and him continued on their way out and honestly, Tommy hadn’t thought it was strange.
But now It’s been over a week since he’d last seen Evan and he was trying not to worry or get caught up in his own head about what this all might mean. He was off today, so maybe Tommy could convince him to meet up for lunch or at least just talk later today.
Thankfully the doorbell rang at that moment, pulling Tommy out of his potential spiral.
He opened the door and there stood Evan, holding two coffees and a bag of food.
“I brought coffee and burritos,” Evan said.
Tommy ushered him in and followed him to the kitchen. “It’s been a minute. But I’m happy to see you.”
“Me too.” Evan set everything on the counter, dropping his duffel on the floor, and then turned to him, basically wrapping himself around Tommy.
“Is everything all right?”” Tommy asked.
“Yes,” Evan said. “I mean, it’s getting there?”
“Would you want to tell me about what you’re thinking about?” Tommy asked, pulling away and gently pushing Evan toward the stool by his counter. “While you eat a little something.”
Evan sat down but made no move toward his food. He sighed. “I told you about Abby. My ex. The one we ran into a couple weeks ago.”
Tommy nodded. “Yeah. I mean, a little.”
“Right, well seeing her sort of threw me off—Not because I’m dating you or freaking out about my bisexuality and stuff,” Evan rushed to reassure him. “It just… I guess it just brought a lot of old feelings, things that trigged some old insecurities. And I wasn’t expecting it. I mean, it’s been years and looking back, it’s not even like we were really together together so I don’t know really what happened.”
“Feelings can be surprising,” Tommy said. “They come back around in the strangest ways sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Evan said. “But I don’t even think about her anymore. I don’t. I’m not like in love with her or want her back or anything--I swear.”
“I didn’t think you did, but thank you for the reassurance,” Tommy said. “Seeing people who used to play a big part in our lives brings up a lot of emotions. And that’s okay.”  
“That’s what Dr. Copeland said too,” Evan said shaking his head. “I called her because it just triggered a lot of feelings, feelings of insecurity that I thought I’d dealt with. But when you come face-to-face with your biggest failure those feelings can come back.”
“You and Abby not working out is not a failure,” Tommy said.
“I know that. Now,” Evan said. “But it’s what happened when I saw her again. It was my first relationship where I did everything right. I followed everyone’s advice, everyone’s ideas, followed Abby’s lead. I did everything I was supposed to. And she left anyway. Which, I don’t have to tell you made me panic and worry about you, about us.”
“Well, I’d argue that we haven’t’ done anything right in the way that other people would have it or do it,” Tommy said, nudging Evan with his shoulder. “But I also can’t’ say that we’ve done nothing right because a look where we are, what we have.”
“That’s what I realized,” Evan admitted. “At least part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” Tommy asked.
“So it’s like this,” Evan said, amping up and already starting to gesture with his hands. “I think I thought so highly of Abby for so long, right? She was this woman who was mature and knew what she wanted and had a whole life and still wanted me; it’s like she made me better or at least want to be a better man. And after she left, I was terrified that she’d taken that part of me with her, the mature Buck, the guy who was dependable and worthy.”
Tommy clenched his jaw because he hated hearing Evan talk about himself in terms of worthiness or usefulness. Granted, it was a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but Tommy usually operated under a “do as I say, not as I do” policy.
“And seeing her again, seeing her with you just put so much into perspective for me,” Evan said. “I always thought of her as my first real relationship, but seeing her next to you, knowing what we have, how you treat me, it finally dawned on me that we didn’t have a relationship. Or we did, but like not the one I wanted, the one I thought we had.”
Tommy gently moved the coffees out of the way. “And what was that?”
“I thought we had this amazing relationship where we could be ourselves, someone I could share myself with and someone who wanted that too,” Evan said. “But I think I was just a physical presence for her during a hard time in her life. Someone who was there, who helped shoulder some of the weight, and then someone she just left behind because I didn’t matter to her. Not like I wanted to.”
Evan sighed. “And then I just saw her standing next to you and couldn’t help but think about all the things you know about me, the things you like about me, and I realized that she never really knew me at all.”
“It doesn’t sound like she did,” Tommy said gently, carefully. “Because if she had, I doubt she’d have been able to leave.”
“See and that,” Evan said, reaching over to grab Tommy’s hand. “You’d never do that to me. To anyone really. You’d never just take off, knowing you were done with me, without telling me. Yeah, it would crush me to lose you, but you’d still at least tell me. You wouldn’t leave me hanging on, waiting for any words of our future when you had no plans to come back.”
Evan squeezed his hand between both of his. “I just, I love you so much and I feel so lucky to have you in my life that sometimes I panic that I’m not quite good enough for you. And I want to be.”
Tommy reached out, cradling Evan’s cheek in his hand. “You are good enough. You’re more than good enough for me.”
“Even when I’m having a crisis and stupidly keep myself from you for 12 days?” Evan asked.
“Even then,” Tommy assured him, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.
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kanerallels · 3 days
Text
I wrote today's @monthly-challenge fic as a kind of follow up to this prompt I wrote for a couple months ago for @auroramagpie. I just couldn't really get the world and the idea behind it out of my head, so I thought I'd write some more! Today's prompt from Spring Fling was garden, for context
The Dume Library was unusual for a lot of reasons. The foremost being its librarian— a blind man who was rumored to be an ex-musketeer, one of the more famous ones. It was said he’d worked alongside Hera Syndulla, who was one of the best, if not the best herself.
When asked about it, the librarian rarely gave a straight answer. Usually, he just laughed it off or made some joke, and gently turned the conversation to a different subject. So no one could be quite sure what the truth was.
(well. There was one person, but she was different. She had lived it.)
One of the other things that made the Dume Library unusual was the fact it had a garden. It was fairly large, starting at the front right side of the entrance, and curving around in a wide sweep of flower beds and vegetable patches, bracketed in the back by rose bushes, made its way to the far end of the property, where it took up a large chunk of the back yard area.
The back door of the library led out into it by a path that wound past a fountain and a bench looking out across the property, to the beds in the back. It was this path that Hera took now, down to where the figure of the librarian was hard at work.
She’d only been in this garden a few times since Kanan had finished work on it— though with a garden, one could rarely ever be truly finished— and Hera paused to admire it. It was something of a motley patchwork of beautiful flowers, glowing with colors and beauty and sweet smells, and of carrots and onions and potatoes, looking comfortably sturdy and inelegant next to the peonies nearby.
It was a strange sight, but one that was completely on brand for Kanan, and Hera couldn’t help but smile at the sight. At the memory it brought her.
“When we retire,” Kanan said thoughtfully, studying the elegantly trimmed rose bushes around them, “we should have a garden like this.”
Hera snorted in her champagne glass. “Like this?” she said, gesturing at the topiaries trimmed in strange shapes, the grass trimmed to just the right length. “Seems a little… fancy for you, dear.”
“I can be fancy,” Kanan scoffed. “But no, not exactly like this. I was thinking about the roses. They’re nice, right? And there’s a patch of lavender over there that smells amazing.”
Letting out a thoughtful noise as she scanned the crowd of the party they were at, Hera remarked, “I never took you for a gardener.”
“I’m full of surprises. Besides, nothing wrong with some good hard work. It’ll keep us busy once we retire. Assuming you ever plan to retire, that is.”
Hera rolled her eyes. “Sure, when the bad guys decide to retire.”
Kanan didn’t laugh, like she’d hoped. Instead, his face was serious as he said, “You know, the world’s never going to run out of problems for you to fix. But it is going to run out of time. You’ve got to decide what’s most important.”
Pushing down a swell of shock, Hera kept her face calm as she said, “You’re serious tonight, aren’t you?”
His smile came back. “I’m always serious about you.” Setting his glass on a nearby stone statue, he held a hand out to her. “Dance with me?”
They hadn’t danced then. Hera had spotted their target who’d been at the party when they were two steps away from the dance floor. And then there had been a chase and a duel that Kanan had joked was just as good as a dance, and another criminal was brought to justice.
Those days were long gone for Kanan. But the garden was here. And Hera could smell the roses as she approached Kanan, who was kneeling next to one of the flowerbeds, carefully pulling weeds.
“Hard at work, I see,” she said, and his head went up at the sound of her voice.
“I wasn’t expecting you today,” he said as Hera knelt next to him. She saw a smile tilt up the corner of his mouth, a smile that always sent a flutter through her chest, and made her want to smile back. “I’m glad I was wrong, though. How did the Pryce thing go down?”
“We got Sato’s son back,” Hera said. “And Pryce was taken into custody. Thank you for your help— we couldn’t have done it without you.”
Tugging up a weed and tossing it onto a pile to the side, Kanan said, “My pleasure, as always. How’s your new partner doing?”
There was no sorrow, no bitterness in the question. But Hera still felt a twinge of remorse tugging at her chest. “She’s… doing well,” she said. “Eager to fight, but she’s learning not to charge headfirst into things.”
“It’s a good thing she has you. You and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.”
Hera snorted. “With the amount she listens to me, she’ll be learning things the hard way, too. She’s more stubborn than either of us were.”
“Even you?” Kanan ducked as Hera swatted at him, grinning. “Alright, I got it. Well, you’ve put up with a partner far more frustrating than she is— you’ve got this. I know you do.”
“Thank you,” Hera said. She sat for a moment, watching Kanan weed around a bed of nasturtiums, somehow miraculously avoiding the flowers and only pulling up the weeds. Finally, she said softly, “I miss you.”
He paused, just for a heartbeat. Turning to face her, he quietly offered her his hand, and she took it. His fingers were smeared with dirt, but gentle as he squeezed her hand. “I miss you, too,” he told her, and Hera had to swallow back a lump in her throat.
She’d never wanted to leave her partner behind. And not just because he was the best with a rapier she’d ever met, or because his plans were crazy, but they worked. He could always pick up on what she was thinking, and fighting side by side with Kanan was almost easy. It was like a dance they both intimately knew the steps to, and they were far better together than apart.
But then, they’d gone after a mad man. They’d had backup, which they’d sorely needed. But in the end, she and Kanan had been separated. And the mad man had blinded Kanan and ran.
Things had been hard for a while after that. It had taken a long time for Kanan to heal, both physically and mentally. Hera had been by his side every step of the way, even as it became clear that his time as a musketeer was over, far too early.
She had, briefly, thought about retiring. About stepping away and staying with him as he figured out what his life would look like next. And eventually, Hera had brought it up to him.
He’d laughed. “Hera,” he’d told her, “not a chance. You have the ability to keep helping people, and I’m not going to ask you to step away from that. Not yet, anyways. Just don’t forget me.”
“I could never,” she’d told him fiercely.
And she hadn’t, even as their lives grew and changed without the other fully in it. He’d found a way to keep helping, and Hera had come to see him whenever she could. Things were different, though, and she hated that. Hated being without him.
“How long can you stay?” Kanan asked, as if he’d heard her thoughts. Sometimes, Hera really did wonder if he could. 
“At least through the night,” she replied. “Sabine’s visiting her family, so I’m all yours.”
“Good.” Rising to his feet, Kanan helped her up, not letting go of her hand. “Come on. You can help me with dinner, as long as you stay pretty far away from the stove.”
Hera laughed, and for a minute it was like nothing had changed. She held onto that feeling as they headed into the library together, and felt a little peace settle in her heart. She was with her partner, even if it wasn’t forever. It could be enough for now.
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phantom-0-writer · 7 months
Text
the case of the serial killer
3476 words (that was not suppose to happen lol - please send help)
ao3
Dick sat in front of his desk, eyes glazing over the same two lines for the nth time. He let out a tired sigh, and massaged his temples as he leaned back in his chair. 
The Bludhaven Police Department had been investigating the recent serial killings for the past month and a half, with Dick heading the case. Not that it was anything too out of left feild for Dick, he handled plenty of cases like this during his long run as Robin and even in his more recent years as Nightwing. Finding the clues, and piecing together the perfect picture came second nature to him at this point. 
The issue Dick was dealing with right now in fact had nothing to do with the case, instead it was something -or someone else. That someone, Danny No-Last-Name-For-You-Officer. 
The first time Dick had run into him he was doing his rounds when he caught some kids getting into a fight. Naturally he stopped in and the kids that had been trying to start a fight ran away at the sight of his uniform and car. Danny had been a little roughed up by then, but mostly unharmed. 
“Are you okay, kid?” Dick asked, kneeling to meet the kid eye-to-eye. 
Danny had looked at him with a defiance he wasn’t used to seeing in someone that wasn’t a cape, “I didn’t do anything.” He said instead of responding, pulling himself up to his feet. 
“Okay,” Dick nodded calmly, not wanting to frighten the kid. He stood up slowly, with his hands in view, “Are you hurt? I could patch you up, real quick, make sure nothing gets infected.” Danny wore ratty clothes, they had been nice once upon a time, but their time had long passed. 
Danny eyed him suspiciously, “No, I’m fine.” He said more calmly now. Roughly around the age of 15 to 17. Older than Damian, but younger than Tim.
Taking his chance, “You got a name kid?” 
“Danny.” 
“No last name?” Dick asked with a knowing smirk, letting himself appear more playful. 
“Not for you.” Danny gave him a mischievous smirk. Dick could tell the kid could clean up nice, but circumstances seemed unfortunate. 
Dick laughed at his response, to let him know that he wasn’t in any hot water. Danny watched him, waiting for his next move. “You hungry, Danny?” Dick asked casually, trying not to stare at the way the hoodie he was wearing sagged on his shoulders. 
“I’m a growing boy, I’m always hungry.” He scoffed, rolling his eyes. Dick laughed again, more genuine this time. 
“Alright, my treat. Let’s go.” Dick said, gesturing as he led the boy to his car. 
“What?” He asked, surprised, Dick turned around to look at him when he didn’t follow. “Why?”
“You’re a growing boy.” Dick echoed. Danny snorted, but followed after him nonetheless. Dick put on the GPS on his phone, even though he knew the way as Danny sat in the passenger seat. 
They spent the next hour together, falling into a steady rhythm of conversation and joking. After their first meeting, Danny and Dick ran into each other more. The grocery store, playground, library, school, so on. For the first 2 weeks it had been coincidental, but slowly Dick found himself looking forward to their random meetings, happy to see that the kid was doing alright. 
That had been until the first murder had happened. 
It had been raining, colder than the weather usually was around this time of year, the streets mostly empty. Dick had been doing his usual rounds on patrol, wondering how Danny was doing like he always did. 
The world has a strange way of giving you what you want. 
As Dick turned around the corner, he slammed his brakes hard at the figure who had been standing in the middle of the road. Dick got out of his car, leaving it on the side of the road when the person didn’t move. As he got closer dread filled Dick’s gutt as he made out the figure to be a cold, drenched Danny clenching his chest. 
“Danny!” Dick called, rushing over to the boy. As Dick got closer he noticed the boy looked pale and his lips were turning blue. 
“Dick.” Danny said hollowly, his voice barely audible over the loud rain. Danny turned to look at him with a shaken and horrified expression. 
Dick held his shoulder firmly, leading him to the car and out of the rain. Danny allowed it without protest, which only caused Dick to worry more. “What happened?” He asked once the boy had huddled himself under the blanket Dick kept in his car (he had gotten it after the second time he met Danny during patrol, the boy always seemed cold). 
Danny turned to him, “He’s dead.” He answered morbidly.
“Who?” Dick asked concerned, he didn’t think the boy had a father or brother present, at least not one that he had mentioned. 
“I dunno. Just some guy.” No one he knew then. 
“Danny, buddy. Can you explain what you saw.” Dick tried again. 
Danny took a shaky breath, “I was just heading home, y’know, from the library. And I heard a scream, so I went to go check it out. And it was a guy just laying there in a pool of blood.” Danny looked down at his own hands, his fingers stained in red. 
“Can you tell me where?” 
“Around the corner, across from Susan’s.” Danny said quietly. He must have been really shaken up seeing it, it wasn’t exactly normal to see a bloodied body during your regularly scheduled activities. 
Dick could go there later as Nightwing to investigate, but right now he had bigger things to deal with. “Alright, put your seatbelt on.” Dick said, putting the car in drive. Danny, not fully there, quietly did as Dick asked. At the next redlight, Dick called the Chief and let her know about the potential murder case and that he would be calling off for the night. He’d probably have to bring Danny in for his testimony, but that was later. 
As the light turned green Dick looked over at his passenger again to find Danny already fast asleep, heater blaring in his face. Dick smiled softly at the sight as he drove them to his apartment. 
After Dick parked his car he hesitated for a moment before deciding to wake Danny up so he could shower and maybe eat something. He could borrow some of Tim’s clothes. 
“Hm.” Danny blinked barely at Dick, “We're are we?” He asked looking around at the parking garage. 
“My place. C’mon lets get you cleaned up.”  Dick unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. 
Danny blinked at him in surprise, “What? Why are we at your place?” 
“Well considering I don’t know where you live, I had to take you somewhere.” Dick shrugged casually, letting the kid think Dick didn’t know he was homeless was better than him thinking Dick was pitying him. Danny would not appreciate pity. 
Danny didn’t retort, a true sign of how weary he was.
Dick made a quick dinner. You can’t go wrong with pasta and air fried chicken. While the food finished cooking Dick busied himself in random mundane activities, not wantong Danny to find him looking over a case when he got out of the shower. Dick pulled out an old cookbook he’d gotten for his highschool graduation, a gag gift from Wally, when something between the pages fell out. 
Picking it up Dick saw an old photo, one of him standing between his parents proudly after one of their performances. Sometimes Dick would feel a deep sadness when he looked at pictures of his parents and realized he had forgotten their faces, their mannerisms and their laughs. But this time, when Dick looked at the picture and saw his dad smiling at the camera next to his mom, he remembered Danny. It was strange how Danny had the same cowlick as his mom, same nose arch as his dad, a jawline that looked like his almost, before his larger muscle definition came into play. At the time that line of thought had been disturbed by Danny walking back into the living room and stubbing his tie on the foot of Dick’s sofa. 
After that Dick had made sure they had each other’s numbers. He called Danny anytime the weather was bad, or it was cold, or there was too much food at his house or whatever random reason he could come up with. 
After about a week of Dick calling Danny over, Danny came over on his own one night. 
Dick was dressed in his Nightwing suit about to head out for the night when he heard the front door rattling. Realizing someone was trying to break into his apartment and knowing that it wasn’t his siblings (they would’ve used the window) Dick quickly threw his domino under his blanket and threw on the first pair of sweats he could find, just in time for the door to open. Slipping a small pocket knife into his hands, Dick positioned himself to get a good view of the living room where the trespasser still was. 
Getting ready to get the jump on the trespasser Dick happened to get a good look at and noticed the familiar mop of black hair, and overfilled school bag by the door. Coming into view, letting his hands relax by his side, “Danny?” he breathed confused and relieved. 
“‘Sup.” He nodded casually before noticing Dick’s appearance. “Your pants are backwards.” He commented candidly. Dick could feel himself flush in embarrassment, but that seemed to send the wrong impression on Danny, The younger boy leaned in to whisper to him, “You got a special friend over?” He raised an intrigued brow at Dick. 
“What?” Dick spluttered “No.” 
“Sad.” Danny shook his head in disappointment, making his way to the dining table and plopped his stuff on a chair and pulled out a few well-used notebooks. “The library closed early today, so I thought why not break into the local cop's place. I got a paper due tomorrow.” He explained half serious, half joking. “You don’t have to worry about me if you were about to head out somewhere.” How had he known? 
“Uh, yeah I was just going-” Think, Dick. “-Get groceries.” Dick internally winced at the suspicious brow Danny gave him. 
“At 10:30 PM?” 
“Yes.” All that Bat training, and for what? 
Danny blinked, “Cool.” he said dismissively, turning back to his homework. 
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth Dick left his apartment stuffing his weapons into an old travel bag he had on hand and changing in the empty elevator. 
When he got home from his patrol (earlier than he normally would’ve) remembering to buy the aforementioned groceries for some semblance of a cover story he found Danny fast asleep over scattered papers on the dining table. Putting away the perishables, Dick picked Danny up (who snuggled into his chest at the contact - yes, Dick was definitely completely okay after that) and laid him on the spare bed he kept on hand for his siblings. 
The next few times Danny snuck into his house (Dick had offered him a key, but Danny had refused) things had gone similarly if not slightly more smoothly until the completely predictable and unavoidable happened. 
Dick was halfway through his usual route as Nightwing, stopping a few muggings, and investigating the serial killer case some more. There were almost 9 different murders at this point with seemingly no similarities between the victims, other than the method of death. After going through the most recent crime scene Dick’s heard his phone go off. It surprised him slightly since he usually keeps it on silent, but he was alone so no harm no foul. 
It was a message from Danny, it was probably a meme or funny video he had found. Dick could use a pick me up after another crime scene bust so he opened it. The message was not what he had been expecting. 
Danno: sos?  Danno: im at ur place
Fearing the worst, Dick dialed his number. Danny hung up before the first ring, which did nothing for his nerves. Rushing in the direction of his apartment, not even bothering to do anything about the costume he was wearing, the worst scenarios rushed through Dick’s mind. 
When his apartment was in view the first thing Dick noticed was the open window that he most certainly had not left open. Quietly slipping onto the fire escape Dick peered through to see the scene. The only light that was still on was the living room light, likely where Danny was, but Dick easily noticed the hulking figure in the kitchen. He was easily too tall, and too muscular to be Danny. The figure moved slightly and the shape of a gun could be seen in his hands. 
Not wasting any time, Dick expertly slipped through the open window and tackled the figure to the floor, arm held at his back and escrima stick at his assailant's neck. 
“What the fuck-” The figure said startled at Dick’s unexpected attack, 
Now with a better view Dick was able to see the familiar red helmet and leather jacket the assailant wore, “Jason?” Dick asked, surprised. 
“I thought we were past this. Y’know let bygones be bygones, or whatever.” Jason joked easily, wiggling his way out Dick’s slacking grip. 
The situation finally unfolded in front of Dick. Danny had been in his apartment and Jason as Red Hood had also come to his apartment. Danny thought someone had broken in, and Jason also thought someone had broken in. Was Jason about to shoot Danny? Where was Danny? 
Quickly getting up, and ignoring Jason’s earlier remark he walked through the kitchen and into the living room, “Danny?” He called, not wanting to scare the kid. 
Jason gave him a confused look, but came to an understanding on his own when the familiar teenager peeped out from behind the couch holding a knife in his hands. His expression only became more shocked after he saw Dick, and it took Dick a second too long to remember that he was still wearing his Nightwing costume. 
“Aw shit.” 
Danny blinked at him, regaining his composure and pointing the knife at Jason, “Friend of yours?” 
After all the explanations had been explained they all sat around the couch, a stack of empty pizza boxes between them. 
“You saw me with a gun and you decided you could take me with a knife?” Jason scoffed at Danny, helmet left forgotten under the table. 
“I could take you without the knife.” Danny rolled his eyes, taking the last slice of pizza. 
“Big talk.” Jason puffed out his chest in some strange show of alpha male behavior. 
“Are you askin’ for a fight?” Danny challenged. 
Fearing the direction the conversation was taking Dick stepped in “Alright, you’re both pretty. Let’s break it up.” 
That had just been last week. 
Two days ago Dick had gotten a call from Danny. Danny usually didn’t call, preferring to text, but would usually answer when Dick called, 
“Hey, Dickface.” Danny greeted snottily. Dick noticed he was out of breath. 
“Hey, Danny. What’s up?” 
“You got the night shift today?” Night Shift was what Danny had taken to calling his vigilant duties. There was a lot of movement on Danny’s end of the phone, but Danny was always moving around so Dick hadn’t thought it was weird. 
“Yup. Whatcha’ up to?” Dick asked curiously, cleaning up his mess from dinner, leaving Danny’s portion in the fridge for later. The fridge was more stocked than it had been since Dick had moved in, he had purposely bought food that Danny would like, and the boy had finally begun filling out his skeleton. 
“Oh y’know, cardio. Getting those steps in.” He let out a winded chuckle, “When you get the chance, check out the warehouse on 12th street later tonight. The one with the cracked pavement outside.” 
“You got a lead?” Dick asked surprised, “From where?” He was suspicious, just curious. 
“A friend of mine told me. Thought you should know.” There was a thud in the background, like something hit metal. 
“You okay?” Dick asked concerned. 
“Yeah, it was a cat.” He said easily, Danny let out a hiss of annoyance, “Gotta go, Later.” He hung up before Dick could say anything else. 
Dick let out a tired sigh. The kid had grown on him like fungus. Though not entirely unappreciated, Dick was not ready to hear his siblings' inevitable comments on how he took after Bruce. Didn’t help that Danny happened to fit the profile. 
The warehouse had given them a few clues, but they still weren’t any closer to finding the serial killer. 
Danny hadn’t come by the apartment after that phone call. Or responded to any of Dick’s texts. 
This morning when he was getting dressed he got a call from the precinct. It was still 30 minutes before his shift. 
“Grayson, this is Officer Gomez, the Chief wants you in as earliest as you can get here,” Officer Gomez spoke urgently. 
“I can be there in 15.” He reported, slipping on his shoes and grabbing his keys. 
“Alright.” Gomez hung up. 
As soon as he got in the doors the Chief was waiting for him by the entrance. “Took your sweet time, huh Grayson.” she chided. 
“Dunno what you mean, Chief. I’m 15 minutes early.” He gave her a charming smile, and the Chief rolled her eyes. 
“There’s been a development in your case.” The Chief started as they walked together, Dick nodded at her in acknowledgement. But the Chief hesitated, before speaking again. That was unlike her. “There was another murder victim found, in the east district. Our night crew got an alert.” 
Most of the victims had been in the west district, based on the location south may have been a more appropriate transition. It could be a coincidence or it meant the killer had a personal vendetta against these people, or maybe just the victim from the east district. It felt like all the pieces Dick had managed to put together were falling apart again. 
“Our latest victim was a male, caucasian potential of mixed descent, age estimated around 15 to 17,” that was younger than the other had been, “black hair, blue eyes, roughly 5’ 5”.” The chief turned to look at him now, “goes to Westwood High School, prefers juice to soft drinks, always feels cold to touch,” 
Dick looked at Chief in confusion, these were incredibly specific descriptions, and they sounded awfully familiar. 
She continued, “He lets his hot chocolate get cold before he drinks it,” Danny had done that once when Dick had brought him in for his testimony. “And he plucks the marshmallows out of it with a fork, and called it a snowman.” 
No.
“You keep extra snacks for him in the glove box of your car even though it’s against protocol,” 
No,
Dick hands were clammy when he pulled out his phone from his pocket. Personal use of devices was strictly against the rules. Chief said nothing. Dick found Danny’s contact easily in his recents tab. He held it up to his ear waiting for the kid on the other side to answer with his usual “What can I do ya’ for officer.” or some iteration of the classic “Hey, Dickface.” 
It went to voicemail. 
Danny always answered his phone, and when he didn’t he would text Dick a reason within the next five minutes. So he waited. 
It had been 10 minutes already. Why wasn’t he responding? 
Dick called him again. Voicemail. 
Nononono. Not again. 
How was it that Dick was always too slow. 
Too slow to save his parents. 
Too slow to get to Jason in time. 
And now too slow to solve this case.  
Dick Grayson was a failure in every way that mattered. 
He looked at the familiar body ready to be put into an ice chamber for further examination in the morgue. 
“Go home for the day, Grayson.” 
Go home and do what? 
Danny’s notes were still sprawled over the coffee table. He said he had a test next week. Danny’s food was still in the fridge. His bed was still a mess, and his clothes were on the floor. 
“Give me the case files. I’ll look over them again.” He didn’t recognize his voice when he spoke, he wasn’t even sure it was his. Chief didn’t argue, handing over the files. 
The day had gone by and Dick was still stuck in front of his double monitor desk, pictures and words blurring together in nonsensical smudges on the screen. 
“Grayson.” Chief called him. Dick looked up, catching a glimpse of the dark night sky from the glass doors. How long had he been here? 
“Yeah?” He responded dryly. 
“Head home.” 
Dick wasn’t sure when he had gotten to the front of his apartment, only realizing he had when the keys jiggled loudly missing the keyhole on the door. 
When he got inside he found Jason sitting casually on the couch, reading a book. “Oh Honey, you’re home.” He joked. 
Dick couldn’t find it in himself to laugh. 
Danny’s papers flew from the wind of the open window. Dick closed it. When he didn’t pick up the papers, Jason bent down to do it. “Anyways, where’s the kid? Didn’t you want me to help him with his homework or someshit. I need to beat it into his head that I’m better at him.” Jason said the last part loudly, letting it echo through the house in case Danny was hiding in its crevices. 
Dick turned to him, Jason looked back at him for a long moment before the mischievous look slipped from his eyes. “Dick, where’s the kid?” 
There was a deafening silence in the apartment. 
“He’s dead.” The table under Jason’s hands let out a loud crunch, as his face darkened. 
Before Jason could breathe an air of the threat of murder that was definitely ready to roll from his tongue, there was a quiet clatter in the kitchen. 
“Who’s dead?” Danny asked, appearing in the living room with a large bowl of cereal he was shoveling into his mouth.
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table of contents
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legolasghosty · 8 months
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Lockwood has never been overly fond of lavender. Sure, it's nicer looking and smelling than most of the other tools used to separate the living and the dead, but he's always felt a bit annoyed at it. He rarely brings it up though, because there's not really a reason for his dislike.
Maybe it's that the purple stalks are everywhere, all the time. Along every London street, in every garden, in every room where mortals fear those who have passed beyond. Even in the winter, everyone has dried flowers in their homes and sprinkles the oils over their doorsteps. There's no way to get away from the stuff.
Maybe it's because lavender water is one of the weakest tools in an agent's toolkit. Lockwood barely ever uses it for anything other than reassuring clients that their home is safe after a job. For all the discussion of it, it's nothing in comparison to some sturdy iron chains and a rapier when it comes to battling ghosts. It's just a waste of space in his coat during a job.
Maybe it has to do with the way the scent sets people at ease. Somewhere in George's research, Lockwood remembers him mentioning how lavender water used to be used to treat insomnia before the Problem. Even now, with it being used to protect mortals from everything that goes bump in the night, he doesn't miss how the smell of lavender tends to cause people to loosen up, laugh a bit more, and let their guards down. Any kind of weakness can mean death for an agent, even when it comes from one of their own weapons.
Or, if he's being honest, maybe it goes deeper than that. Maybe it's because Jessica's room is always covered in the stuff, and has been since the day he failed to save her. Maybe it's because the flowery scent is all he can remember from his parents' funeral. Maybe it's because the stupid plants kept tripping him when he ran away from his old agency. Maybe it's just too many bad memories.
Regardless of the reason, Lockwood has never really liked lavender.
However, it's hard to hold onto those thoughts with Lucy sitting on the grass nearby, surrounded by night watch children, with a sloppy crown of purple flowers on her head.
She's had a soft spot for them for as long as Lockwood has known her. She claims it's because of how close she became to being one of them when she first got to London. Lockwood suspects that's not the whole story. But today, her kind heart has led them to a park down the street from Portland Row, at the beckoning of a group of children who had pooled their meager earnings to have a picnic.
Lockwood has stayed on the outskirts of the little gathering, unsure as to what would be expected of him if he joined in. But Lucy is right in the middle, regaling the kids with stories of the ghosts she's defeated. They're hanging on her every word. Lockwood can't blame them for it, Lucy is a good storyteller when she wants to be. Even if she glazes over his parts in some of her tales.
But one of the older ones had gotten restless and begun plucking sprigs of lavender from a nearby bush. Lockwood had been about to reprimand them for the needless destruction of public property, but they'd begun weaving the stems together into a chain before he could speak. It was barely five minutes before they looped the chain into a circle and plopped it onto Lucy's head without a word.
And now, staring at Lucy, her eyes bright in the sunshine, her hands waving around as she described the Greenhouse Ghoul, and those flowers shining like gemstones in her hair, Lockwood can't quite remember why he doesn't like lavender.
In fact, he thinks he very much enjoys how it looks right now. Maybe it's not so bad after all.
(For the most recent Lockwood and Co Flash Fiction Challenge by @lockwoodandcoff!)
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emimayooo · 1 month
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“Marry me.” for galeheart
Helloooooo🤩!!! Thank you so much for sending in this prompt, for galeheart, no less! They are my OTP after all hehe🥰❤️❤️❤️
(I'm taking writing prompts!)
“Marry me.” Say she says yes. Then what? She moves to Waterdeep to call a tower a home. Then what? She takes on his name and becomes Mrs—Jenevelle? Shadowheart?—Dekarios. Then what? Children, maybe, though it’s unlikely. But Morena wants grand-babies, and what else can Shadowheart offer, other than her body? No name, no wealth, no dowry, no family; only that, she could make from bloodying and breaking. She could, so she should. She’d be good at it, too. Pain’s her strong suit. It’d be a giving, not a taking. For once, she could give. So she says yes.
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herenya-writes · 6 months
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Day 19: Plump
The forest was oddly quiet as the party approached the Lion’s Pavilion. It put Arlaros on edge, and his grip on his staff tightened as he began to pull magic from the Fade. Inquisition agents had lured the red templar responsible for manipulating the Freemen of the Dales here, and Arlaros and his companions had been sent in to kill him and put an end to his influence. Judging by the stillness of the forest, the red templar was already here. Arlaros doubted he had come alone.
He brought the group to a stop just out of sight of the pavilion. “The scouts reported that the Knight-Captain is almost completely under the influence of red lyrium. He’s retained his human form, but he’s stronger, faster, and wields some control over the other red templars. We need to kill him quickly.”
His companions nodded. “If he’s anything like the other lieutenants, he’ll have a group of templars with him, maybe some that have already turned into those terrors,” Blackwall said. “I can keep them focused on me while you kill the Knight-Captain.”
“Okay. Remember, we lured him here, so I want to utilize our element of surprise as much as we can.”
“It’s nice be on the other side of a trap for once,” Dorian mused, and Arlaros couldn’t help but agree. They had walked into too many ambushes for his liking.
“Dorian and Cole, I want you two to sneak behind the pavilion. My guess is that the Knight-Captain will be in the building itself, and I want you to surprise him. I’m going to walk up with Blackwall and keep the captain’s eyes on me for as long as possible.”
“Is Dorian capable of sneaking?” Blackwall asked dryly. “He fights like he’s entertaining a crowd.” It was an old barb, one Arlaros had made himself before. Still, Dorian tended to rise to it. This time, he stayed quiet, his eyes fixed on Arlaros.
“Shining, standing. A target on his back. Wish it was on mine. Too many eyes, too many swords.” It was Cole who said the words, but Arlaros had no doubt whose mind they were plucked from. He held Dorian’s eyes. He wasn’t going to back down from this. The red templars wanted to kill him, and he wasn’t afraid to use their single-mindedness against them.
After a long moment, Dorian dipped his head slightly.
Arlaros turned back to the group. “Blackwall and I will keep the templars’ attention but we won’t charge into battle right away. I want the captain to think we’re here to bargain. That’s when Cole and Dorian will strike.”
Everyone around the circle nodded, although there was reluctance in Dorian’s eyes.
“We’ll split up now. There should be a path that circles around the back for you two to take,” he said to Cole and Dorian. “We’ll give you a minute to get into position.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Cole was gone. It was as if the air around him warped and shimmered, cloaking him. Dorian had no such abilities, but he was quiet as he crept down the path toward the pavilion. Arlaros watched him for longer than he should have.
“It’s hard to love a soldier.” Blackwall’s words startled him, and he tore his gaze away from Dorian’s retreating form. There was a knowing, sad look in Blackwall’s eyes. “It’s even harder when there’s a difference in rank.”
Arlaros wanted to protest, but it was pointless. His relationship with Dorian was no secret, nor was it a secret that things between them had been tense ever since he had been severely injured when they had retaken a fort not long ago. Dorian was upset with him for taking unnecessary risks, and he was upset with Dorian for trying to shield him. He was the Inquisitor, risk came with the title.
“For what it’s worth, you two are managing this better than most people I’ve seen. You’ll get through this too.”
Arlaros nodded, unable to come up with a proper answer. He wanted to believe that what Blackwall said was true, but it wasn’t like their circumstances were going to change any time soon. He was still going to be the Inquisitor tomorrow, and he would still be forced to put Dorian and himself in danger.
He shook his head to clear it and adjusted his grip on his staff. It was time.
He and Blackwall strolled up the path to the pavilion. As they had expected, there were a few templars guarding the pavilion, and Arlaros could make out the hulking figure of the Knight-Commander inside. He came to a stop, and Blackwall moved a few steps in front of him, his shield raised.
“Knight-Captain Carrol,” he called, “I’ve come to speak with you.”
The Knight-Captain slung his hammer off of his back and took a menacing step forward. “The chosen of the Elder One don’t speak to lesser beings,” he snarled, and Arlaros had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “Today you die, Inquisi--”
His threat was cut short by a groan of pain, as Cole buried his daggers into the captain’s back. The captain spun around, and the nearby templars leapt into action.
Blackwall let out a roar and charged the nearest templar, bashing the man in the face hard enough that Arlaros could hear the sickening crunch of a breaking nose. Two of the templars immediately turned toward Blackwall, giving Arlaros an opening to fire white-hot lightning at their backs. They twitched violently and collapsed.
The other templar in front of the pavilion must have taken more red lyrium than the others, because by the time Arlaros turned toward her, she was already transforming into one of those lyrium monsters. He blasted her with a few bolts of lightning, but her new form absorbed them easily.
He hated fighting these things. He hated that Corypheus had driven people to become monsters to serve his means. He hated that he was part of it. But none of that stopped him from slamming his staff into the ground and sending a powerful wave of lightning rippling toward the creature. She stumbled, and Arlaros sent three more bolts flying toward her in rapid succession. Electricity crackled over her twisted form, and she screamed as she died.
Arlaros was already running past her before she hit the floor.
He burst into the pavilion with a spell crackling at the tip of his staff, only to stop short. The Knight-Captain was gone, reduced to nothing more than a smoldering pile of ashes, as were the other two templars who had been guarding him. Even the plump pillows that were piled in one corner were smoldering. And there was Dorian, leaning heavily on his staff and glaring at the ashes as if he wanted to kill the man all over again.
Arlaros let his magic dissipate and leaned his staff against the nearest wall. Then, he took a few slow steps toward Dorian. Now that he was closer, he could see sweat beading on Dorian’s too pale face.
Dorian looked up from the ashes that were once the knight-captain and met his eyes. Then, he collapsed.
Arlaros darted forward and caught him before his head could crack against the ground. He pulled Dorian close as panic made his blood roar. It took him precious moments to forced his heartbeat back under control so he could listen for Dorian’s heartbeat. The relief that flooded him when he found it was sweeter than anything.
“He’s overextended his magic reserves,” he explained as he stood, lifting Dorian in his arms. “He’ll be okay, but he needs to rest.”
Blackwall nodded and stepped back to give them space. “I’ll keep watch. Shout if you need me.”
“Thank you.” Arlaros hoped he could hear his sincerity.
In the corner of his eye, Arlaros saw Cole extinguishing the few embers that had landed on the pillows. He nodded his gratitude and set Dorian on the pillows, leaning him carefully against the wall and then sitting beside him. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, but he wasn’t sure if Dorian would appreciate that right now.
“He is so bright, so bright, and burning. Burning for me and I didn’t ask him to.”
Arlaros gave a rueful smile. “No, I didn’t ask him to. But I keep putting him in situations where he feels like he has to overextend himself in order to keep me safe. That isn’t fair.”
Cole sat cross-legged across from him, a frown on his face. “You both want to keep each other safe, but the danger doesn’t stop. You’re hurting and hurting each other. Why?”
He wished he had an answer. He looked over at Dorian, whose face was slowly regaining its usual color. Even though he had pushed himself to collapse, he still looked gorgeous, and Arlaros’s heart ached in his chest.
“It’s hard to accept that Dorian is going to be in danger for as long as he follows me,” he finally said, eyes still fixed on Dorian’s face. “Everyone who follows the Inquisition banner is in danger, but Dorian isn’t following the banner. He’s following me. And I want nothing more than to keep him at my side, but the risks…” He sighed heavily. “I imagine Dorian feels similarly. He wants to keep me safe, but I keep throwing myself into situations where he can’t control what will happen. It’s hard to love a soldier.”
Silence fell. When Arlaros finally looked over to try and see what Cole was thinking, he was met with empty air. Cole was gone.
He shook his head and turned back to Dorian, finally giving into his urge to wrap an arm around him and pull him closer. A few minutes passed in silence as Arlaros counted each of Dorian’s breaths. Eventually, his lover began to stir, and Arlaros pulled back to give him space.
Dorian’s eyes blinked open and found his almost instantly.
“Hello,” Arlaros whispered, a sad smile on his face. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
Dorian blinked again and hummed. “And here I was hoping I’d get to nap a little longer. Still, I can’t think of a better sight to wake to.”
“Flatterer.”
“I speak only the truth when it comes to you, amatus.”
They slipped into silence. Moving slowly, Dorian stretched his arms and cracked his neck and summoned a small flame to his fingertips. He watched it dance in the slight breeze for a long moment before extinguishing it.
Arlaros swallowed. “This isn’t sustainable,” he said, praying that his voice would stay level. “I can’t watch you burn yourself up for me.”
Dorian hummed, still staring at his hands. “I will admit I may have acted rashly.” Then he looked up and met Arlaros’s eyes. “But how can I do any less if I know it will keep you safe? The Inquisitor is worth one crispy Tevinter mage.”
Anger rushed through Arlaros, and he let out a slow and measured breath. “Not to me. Do you know how hard it is for me to send you into situations like this? What if you and Cole had been caught? What if Blackwall and I hadn’t arrived in time? Being the Inquisitor means making those decisions, but it doesn’t make them easy.” He leaned forward until his forehead was pressed against Dorian’s. “I want you by my side, vhenan, but I don’t want to hurt you because of my selfishness.”
“If you’re selfish, what does that make me?” Dorian whispered. “If I had my way, you wouldn’t be out here, wading through templars and Maker knows what else.”
“That isn’t your choice to make.”
“No, no it isn’t. But I can choose to be by your side.” Dorian pulled back. “I don’t regret doing what I can to keep you safe, but I will try to be more aware of my own limits in the future. Burning that templar to ashes wasn’t, I suppose, strictly necessary.”
Arlaros leaned his head on Dorian’s shoulder. He murmured a thank you into his lover’s skin, and they allowed themselves a few more moments to sit in each other’s embrace before they forced themselves to rise.
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this-is-krikkit · 28 days
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I love your Drabble challenges!! Could I please request number 5 for Miche/reader? Maybe like angry sparring partners to lovers?
thank you for sending a prompt from this prompt list!!
anon, it's been months since i told you i don't do x reader fics and we agreed on erumike instead, and i would like to formally apologize for 1) taking so long to fucking write this thing and 2) going in a completely different direction than the one you suggested. oops!
5. "i'm not here to make friends"
apologies again!! enjoy!
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silhouettecrow · 4 months
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365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 354
Adjective: Mammoth
Noun: Library
Definitions for those who need/want them:
Mammoth: huge; pertaining or relating to a mammoth (a large extinct elephant of the Pleistocene epoch, typically hairy with a sloping back and long curved tusks)
Library: a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to; a collection of books and periodicals held in a library; a room in a private house where books are kept; a series of books, recordings, etc., issued by the same company and similar in appearance; a collection of films, recorded music, genetic material, etc., organized systematically and kept for research or borrowing; (computing) a collection of programs and software packages made generally available, often loaded and stored on disk for immediate use
#im only a smidge late this time#but im late nonetheless#mainly because my girlfriend and i got home not too long ago from doing laundry#and before that we went to my doctors appointment#which went less than ideal cos the doctor i saw was pretty dismissive and condescending about the issues we focussed on#she specifically said 'youre 23 you shouldnt be dealing with these things'#like yeah why the fuck do you think im here? cos what my joints/bones are doing is not normal#she also thinks a specific back problem ive been dealing with for at least 3 years is my trap muscle#(because 'i dont do anything' something she gathered solely because i mainly work at a desk)#(despite the fact i semi-regularly exercise specifically my arms and back and my chiropractor thinks my back muscles are fine)#like that back problem is that an area sometimes hurts and i have to pop it for it to stop hurting which clearly seems like a joint issue#do muscles pop? cos if they do thats major news to me#and she seemed to think my wrist problem (i have to basically keep snapping my wrist back into place to stop it hurting) is occupational#im pretty sure theres something deeper than me writing/drawing/playing video games too much if i have to keep relocating my wrist every hour#sorry about the rant ive just been pretty pissed about how this doctor treated me#(not to mention she kept talking over me when i was answering her questions and she ignored crucial info i provided to give context)#at least my girlfriend and i had breakfast together this morning and played some magic today#(my horrors deck lowkey beats ass)#anyhoo this is another prompt i chose for my girlfriend (they love 'mammoth's)#but i also kinda chose it for me (i love the idea of a huge 'library')#so im of course very exited about this prompt and im thinking of incorporating both definitions of 'mammoth' into my poem#again im very excited#thanks for reading#writing#writer#creative writing#writing prompt#writeblr#trying to be a writeblr at least
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deadghosy · 2 months
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THANKS TO @lazyemmy FOR THIS LOVELY IDEA OF THE PENGUIN! READER💗🦆
HAZBIN HOTEL X PENGUIN! READER
prompt: during one extermination an angel had kidnapped you and took you to heaven based off a common mistake
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“Quack?” You were literally trying to water the hotel’s flowers when you forgot about extermination….the leader of the exterminators had grabbed you by your sailor outfit Velvette made you.
“Shut your mouth short stuff.” You heard a man’s voice to see a person wearing a horned mask and a golden robe. You panicked as Charlie had told you about a man like this as Adam scoffs seeing your panicked state.
“JEEZ CHILL OUT YOU FUCKIN' BIRD BRAIN!” Adam yells as he enters in the portal of heaven with the exterminators behind him. He plops you down on the clouded floors to see the heavenly gates Charlie tells you in stories
As you waddled you seen a male who seemed to be waiting for you. “Ah! Reader..so glad to have you. It seems as if heaven had made a mistake and sent you to hell.” St. Peter said as he picks you up having the gates open. Your eyes widen at the bright light of heaven as angels walk and smile. “Welcome to your true home [reader]”
The air smelt so clean and not bloody as it seemed so peaceful and holy. After St. Peter getting your room and home ready to stay in heaven. You start to feel a little “home” sick as you hope the hotel crew was doing well and aren’t going crazy.
Which they totally are as Charlie is panicking calling her father.
After a few days , Adam will visit you a lot saying how he got forced to look after you…(he wasn’t forced he just liked how cute and pure you are but he’ll never admit it) Adam makes dumb ass jokes about how all those sinners down there should die and perish as he pats you on your little head. You quacked trying to show some worry for your friends down there.
“Oh them? Hah! They’re probably running like headless chickens looking for your ass.” Adam says with his usual grin as he pops some popcorn in his mouth. “Want some?” He says as he waves a piece of popcorn in your face. you sniffed it and ate it from his hand as adam's eyes widen at your cuteness…
you're like a little baby..💗😭😭😭
Adam grabs your chubby cold cheeks as he faces you towards him. “Never leave here. Okay?” He says seriously low with a protective tone as you quack nodding nervously at how quick this dude got attached to you.
Adam pushes your face away from him smirking. “Good now let’s watch this video I saw off of this human app called ‘TikTok’”
Lute didn’t know how to approach you, but she sends you small gifts that reminds her of you as you just open them like “quack?” And a head tilt confused but take it in anyways.
I imagine lute literally being your bodyguard when you don’t have any work to do as she just pushes anyone who gets to close to you away. LIKE IT COULD BE AN OLD LADY AND SHE WOULD BE LIKE “BITCH MOVE!”😭
After the 3rd day of the 1 week of being in heaven, lute definitely got overprotective of you. Always keeping tabs on where you go and which house you deliver mail to. I mean who knows what would happen to a cute soul like you? (A/n: Omg this sounds like a yandere…)
The angels love how adorable you are as they pet you. Immediately you are popular just like how you are popular in hell. Sera has given you a job as a mail boy again as you smile.
I can see St.Peter visit you when he isn’t on duty or just when someone takes his spot so he can say hi and hang out with you.
You wear a cute little yellow and white mail delivery fit thanks to sera who got a designer to get you to fit it perfectly.
You love how you still got your delivery job as you leave a cookie on the front porches of the angels. It’s like your significant signature to others to have a good day.
Adam and lute were arguing one time in front of you and you sniffled not liking the loud noises and immediately, and surprisingly. Adam and Lute pretended everything was okay to make you happy as Adam picked you up and took you away to get your favorite snack for you.
Sera checks on you as well with Emily by her side as Emily just finds you so cute and is excited to get to hang out with you more.
Emily immediately hugs and kisses your head amused by your small and kind soul she sees in you.
Sera would like to take you on stroll on week 2. She’d like to show you around heaven with Emily as she hold you in her arms gushing chow cute you are.
NOW I CAN IMAGINE YOU AND EMILY GOING ON A SHOPPING SPREE TO EXPLORE NEW CLOTHING AESTHETIC ✨💗
You showed yourself to be an angel by spirit as you helped a kid get a new lollipop, which makes sera smile at you being helpful as he is glad to hav with here in heaven and not they “ratchet” place.
You do miss hell as it had your friends who you got use to….you hoped they were still doing okay down there.
MEANWHILE IN HELL: “OMG OMG I CANT BELIEVE THEY GOT KIDNAPPED…IM A BAD FRIENDDD” “HON DONT WORRY, YOUR DAD CAN FIND A WAY TO GET THEM..” “it’s okay fat nuggets, they’ll come back…” *sad oink* and everyone else is having their own panic moment in their own way.
MEANWHILE BACK IN HEAVEN: “quack.” You said looking up at adam who holds your hand. “Huh? Jeeezzz bird brain..stop worrying about those loser down there…they’re fine without you.” Adam says smirking knowing damn well they aren’t .
Emily holds your hand as you waddle quacking at the ice creams around here. They taste so much better as your eyes sparkle at this sweet flavored treat. Emily squeals as her eyes got big and took a pic of your happy face. Sera most definitely got the picture on her heaven phone as her face soften seeing the new angel in heaven enjoying their self.
I imagine Adam is the one to be the one who claims to be the closest to you. But really he just brags about himself to you about how much sinners he kills.
I headcannon for your wings to be little cute fairy looking wings or pure white ones as you just fly.
You definitely have cherubim in heaven which makes the angels find you more adorable as the delivery boy.
You had made an account literally one day, and instantly you got 2 million followers which made you shock as Adam just munches on snacks while you quack panicked at how quick you became famous here.
I headcannon St. Peter to send you cookies with those cute little penguin designs on it. It looks like Christmas cookies but they are so cute and tasty
Say for example you fell and you couldn’t get up as you’re so rounded 😭 LITERALLY ALL YOU CAN DO IS ROLL AND SQEUAK AND QUACK💗 Adam is laughing as he takes a picture and video for himself before helping you up.
I can imagine Adam and Sera having a schedule out to plan who gets it hang out with you on weeks and days 😭
You liked the herbal tea they had as you waddle around with Adam having a kid leash on you as he just looked bored.
At the end of the week, you were sleeping wearing a whole ass cute gown Adam bought you as he literally dropped it on you with a flustered face seeing your cute smile.
As you slept…Lucifer snuck into heaven and snatched you up leaving a “fuck you” letter to Adam. Don’t even question how he got into heaven. Just be glad he took you.
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jamminvroomvroom · 18 days
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Hey girlll I love your blog so so so much! Congrats on the 4k bc you absolutely deserve it🫶🏼
I just had a little angsty request for Charles lando or Oscar (you can pick any you’re feeling more atm, I eat up anything ab my boys)
I saw this prompt maybe you could use - - "I can be there when you need me!" "But I did, and you weren't."
late night talking.
op x fem norris!reader
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in which lando’s little sister has been sneaking around with his teammate, but it’s starting to have its challenges…
hiiiii thank u sm anon! love this request love you MWAH! so appreciative of this request and all of the others and that y’all trust me to bring your ideas to life!! i hope this hits the way you wanted it to! let me know what you think, big love 🤍
songs to set the mood: late night talking by harry styles, i love you by billie eilish, over my head by james marriott, if these walls could talk by 5sos
warnings: 18+!! minors dni!! smut, angst, fluff, a bit of hurt/comfort, secret relationship, brothers teammate trope (r is lando’s sister), fingering, morning sex, angsty needy sex, lando being an embarrassing little shit
4.1k words
sex and talking. sex and talking. sex and talking.
that’s what you do, oscar and you.
you watch him all weekend, eyes trailing his lean frame, the way his body moves under papaya fabric. then, when your brother finally leaves you alone, you sneak into oscar’s arms, room, bed, whatever’s closest.
you have your way with one another, nothing untouched, unexplored, and then you talk and talk until your lips hurt from stretched out grins and a satisfying ache sets into your spent limbs. you sneak out when the sun comes up the next day and join lando for breakfast in whatever hotel you’re in that weekend.
rinse, repeat.
you can remember the first time you saw him in real life, way back in early 2023, clear as day. you were in bahrain with your brother for testing, the sun in your eyes, and there he was. awkward, stocky, hands buried deep in his mclaren administered slacks. he was littered with moles, mousey brown hair catching the rays of light, chocolate eyes conveying cool confidence that didn’t at all match up with his uncomfortable stance. you could kiss over those moles like a game of dot to dot, tug on his strands that looked like smooth chocolate frosting, sink into his brown irises until you drowned.
lando had caught you staring, sending his elbow into your ribs, and when you turned to glare at him, cuss him out, you saw a look of warning. his eyes said: don’t you fucking dare.
and you didn’t dare, not for a while at least.
-
“o-osc.” you whine, panting through the waves of eye-watering pleasure.
he’s got you laid out across his massage table, two fingers scissoring into your sodden cunt as his thumb bumps your clit in messy circles.
it’s rare that you sneak away so brazenly like this during a race weekend.
“you gotta be quiet.” oscar shushes you, eyes flitting between your own watery pair and his fingers where they’re working you open.
“trying.” you breathe, slapping your own hand over your mouth when your belly tightens one last time. one wrong move and the entirety of the hospitality suite will know. lando will know. perhaps all of china will know. that’s how good he fucking feels.
you sob into your palm, bucking your hips wildly as you fall apart, spilling all around his relentless fingers. he fucks you through it, grinning coyly as your muffled cries subside.
“c’mere.” oscar lulls, pulling you back towards him. he kisses you deeply, smiling against your lips.
“i should go.” you mumble, pushing his hair back and raking your fingers through his hair.
oscar nods apathetically, reserved all of the sudden. you frown, stealing another quick kiss. you stumble to your feet fixing your underwear and your skirt, and grab your bag from the small sofa.
“we need to be more careful.” his words make your blood run cold.
“more careful?”
you sneak in and out of hotel rooms under the cover of night, you have his name disguised in your phone, you never speak to him in public.
“this was risky.” oscar shrugs. he looks antsy, his entire demeanour changing in a matter of minutes, the ecstasy of watching you writhe all for him worn off.
“this- i- you’re the one who dragged me in here, piastri.” you accuse. ‘piastri’ is reserved for when you’re pissed off, a cagey step back from the affection ‘osc’ that you usually called him. “whatever, i’ve got to go.”
“i’ll see you later?” he poses it as a question, uncertain that you’ll show. he has never been uncertain before, not with you, not with a lot of things. bile rises in your throat, and you scoff.
you can’t reply. the door slams behind you.
-
“where’ve you been?” lando ruffles your hair, a single eyebrow raised suspiciously.
“got bored with watching you look at data so i went for a walk.” you reply nonchalantly, pushing his hand away.
he hums in response, nodding slowly. it’s like he doesn’t quite believe you but he quickly moves on.
“you coming out with us after the race tomorrow?” lando asks.
“depends on who ‘us’ is.” you reply curtly. you don’t wanna look at oscar’s stupid, handsome face for a second longer than you have to. a familiar sadness sinks into your bones.
“couple of the drivers, alex, carlos, oh and oscar might even be swayed.” you grit your teeth, suddenly frustrated. “anyway, since when do you have beef with drivers? little miss sunshine fallen out with someone?” lando sounds confused, accusatory.
you stay silent, walking into the back of the garage, praying someone will come and steal your brother away.
“hey, you gonna tell me what the problem i-?”
“lando, we need you to look at this.” your brother gets cut off by a frantic engineer, your prayers answered, and is quickly lost to the chaos of the garage.
a pair of warm eyes burn into the side of your head. you turn to see oscar watching you, his eyebrows furrowed as if he’s studying you. he’s fidgeting, playing with his fingers, something strange for the man as cool as a cucumber. you look away as quickly as you can, managing to tear your eyes away from him, a lump forming in your throat which you swallow down.
it’s painful, really. sex and talking, it’s not enough, never has been for even a second. oscar piastri, australian f1 driver, number 81, quickly became your oscar, somewhat against your will.
-
somewhere in hungary, about 8 months ago
“are we really doing this, piastri?” you giggle, throwing your head back as his lips work your neck.
“need you.” he groans into your skin, low and needy. you’ve never heard him sound so disheveled, so desperate, a far cry from his usual, monotonous self.
“want you, osc.” you pant when his lips find your sweet spot, the feeling of him so delicious on your body.
“have me.” he whispers, falling into bed with you in his lap.
you lay there basking in stunned silence afterwards, a layer of sweat coating your knackered body. your shoulder is pressed flush with oscar’s, not an inch of space between you while you both stare at the ceiling, sporting matching lazy grins.
“i can’t believe we did that.” oscar mutters, a layer of disbelief in his voice.
“i think we should do it again.” you tease, except you are deadly serious.
“agreed.” he breathes.
“this stays between us, right?” you whisper, shyly.
“always.”
-
always makes your skin crawl now. you’re sick of having him in the dark, of having to avoid him in public for fear of turning into a lovesick fool. it’s embarrassing, really, unrequited love.
you can barely follow qualifying, staring blankly at the empty space in the garage where oscar’s car resides. you manage to catch the radio message through the headset you have on, the one where oscar’s muttering about a stupid mistake that’s just knocked him out. he’s limping back to the pits, licking his wounds.
you feel a pang in your chest, sympathetic and disappointed for him. you wonder what his mistake was, where his mind was. you’ll wait for the right moment, swallow the ache in your heart and your pride, and you’ll comfort him. he gets led away by frustrated engineers immediately, studying lines of data with furrowed eyebrows. you watch from afar, but then your heart sinks to your feet when four words sound through your headphones.
“lando, are you okay?”
will sounds stressed, repeating the four words that make your world stop spinning on its axis. everyone in the garage is staring at the tv screen, breaths held, stomachs tight.
your brothers car sits in tatters, carbon fibre littering the track. you can see the fluorescents of his helmet burrowed in the cockpit, still. your mouth hangs open, one hand clutching your chest, the other covering your quivering lips. you’re numb.
that feeling returns, the one of eyes burning into your weathered features. your wide eyes flit to the australian boy watching you from across the garage, and you beg silently for him to just come to you, pull you close, tell you that lando is okay and that he loves you back.
and lando is okay, his winded voice reassuring you over the radio.
but you stand there alone.
just like always.
-
somewhere in brazil, about 5 months ago
“what’s your favourite colour?” oscar mumbles lazily, lips bumping your cheekbone.
you’re curled up on his lap watching the sunset from his balcony. he was well behind lando after qualifying, and he’d craved a moment alone with you all day.
the air was thick, humid, the hot orange sun sinking far off in the horizon. you turn to face him, his features illuminated by the hazy glow. the sunlight makes his chocolate eyes sparkle warmly, so pretty.
“brown.” you whisper, scanning his face.
he laughs lowly, his chest rumbling.
“brown?” he questions teasingly.
“yep.” you grin, pecking his lips softly.
“why?”
“go look at those pretty eyes of yours in the mirror.” you retort smoothly, threading your fingers through his shower-damp strands.
“you flirting with me?”
“you bet i am.”
you twist back around, facing the view once more, moulding into his body. he kisses over your shoulder, resting his chin. you stay there content until the sun is gone and the stars twinkle.
-
the air in the room is thick, awkwardly silent.
he stands leaning against the desk, opposite where you sit on your bed. the lights are low in your hotel room, the imprint of your body still fresh against the mattress. you’d been crying when he knocked, eyes rimmed red, skin flushed raw.
“you just stood there.” you croak.
“love, i-“
“don’t call me that. please.”
hurt flashes across his features, but like he knows it’s not fair of him to complain, he buries it immediately.
“i just… will you hear me out?” oscar pleads quietly.
you nod feebly.
“it’s impossible. this, us. i wanted to go to you but i- i couldn’t, i didn’t know how that would look and i didn’t want to jeopardise this.”
“but you did.” you whisper. his face shatters, falling fast.
“no, no, i can be there when you need me-“
“but you weren’t!” you cry, your body physically sinking, your shoulders drooping.
“i can fix this, i will.”
“i think we need to stop this, osc. it’s too painful for me. i’ve tried to move past the hurt but after today…” your voice shakes and you crumble, the first tear falling.
“i’m not trying to hurt you.” he crosses the space between you in two rushed steps, collapsing to his knees before you.
“that’s not good enough.” you bite back. “i’m not going to be some guys dirty little secret. i won’t do it anymore oscar.”
“i was trying to protect you… this.” he gestures between you desperately
“i know, oscar. i know! but i never asked you to do that. i can’t love you in a hotel room for the rest of my life.” the words slip from your tongue, abrasive and messy, before your brain can catch up.
you grimace, biting your tongue, but oscar’s reaction couldn’t be further from your own. his watery eyes widen, pink lips pulling into a boyish grin.
“i don’t want to love you in a hotel room for the rest of my life either.” oscar whispers, tentatively taking your hands. you stare down at your slowly intertwining fingers, a familiar warmth oozing through your body. “i wanna love you everywhere.”
“show me.” you murmur through shaky breath.
“i will.” he leans in, leaning in to kiss your shoulder. “for as long as you let me, i will.”
“just come here.” your fingers find the hairs at the nape of his neck, pulling him into a kiss, one born of frustration, and longing, and a year of late night talking about everything except how much you love each other.
oscar pushes you back onto the bed, crawling over you, starving. you pull him flush against you, leaving no room between your bodies. you crave the feel of his entire weight pressing you into the mattress and as he does, you feel at home. when you pull apart, catching your breaths, he says it properly, for the first time, and the world gets lighter.
“i love you.” oscar cups your jaw, those chocolate eyes boring into yours, the intensity of it knocking you for six. “always.” he adds.
the meaning of the word changes. always doesn’t mean a shameful, taboo secret anymore. life is breathed into the six lettered word; always means you and him, together, finally out of the shadows.
“i love you, osc.” you whisper.
he’s smiling when he kisses you again, unbuttoning your blouse like he’ll die if he doesn’t get the offending item off of your frame. you retaliate by shoving his t-shirt up his back, tugging greedily at it to strip him bare. the material comes off easily and as he sits up to throw it away, you shrug off your blouse and it meets his shirt on the floor. his hands smooth over your curves, brushing the pudge of your belly as he finds the zip of your skirt, ruining the fasten in his state of haste. you barely notice the way he’s ruined the item of clothing, urgently unbuttoning his jeans. your underwear is gone too, nothing separating you but your bra, restless hands on heated skin.
“we need to be quiet.” you breathe. “lando’s next door.” oscar giggles, tinged pink.
“get on top, love.” he drawls, flipping onto his back and taking you with him.
he sits up with you in his lap, nothing anchoring either of you in the middle of the bed. the imprint of your devastated form is gone, replaced by the shape of him. you can feel the head of his cock nudging through your folds, slicking him up so that he can slide nice and deep. he trails his fingers between your legs, thumbing at your clit in deft circles, just the way he knows you like it. you’re mewling in his lap, grinding down on the pad of his thumb; it’s so good but it’s not enough.
“please, osc.” you pant, urging him to let you sink down on his cock. you can see how red it is, feel the way it throbs for you, and the need to be full of him is almost paralysing.
“come on, pretty girl. fill yourself up.” oscar mutters against the shell of your ear.
he kisses down your throat as you slide down on him, dropping your hips firm against his.
“fuck.” you cry, your forehead falling against his shoulder.
“you okay, sweetheart? feel so good for me.” oscar coos, his fingertips digging hard into your hips.
“so good, baby.” your head rolls back, feeling him hit that spot tucked away within your walls.
your breaths mingle, your breasts flush against his chest, and as if he realises that he never stripped you of your pesky bra, he grunts, unclasping the black lace and flinging it somewhere far away. he gently mumbles an awestruck “fuck”, as if he hasn’t seen your tits a million and one times before, and latches onto your nipple. his tongue works in slow circles, matching the pace of your hips working languidly on his cock, and you keen further into his body.
“prettiest girl for me.” oscar grits out, his eyes squeezing shut when you clamp down on him, hard.
you’re both trying so hard to be quiet, overwhelmed by touch and taste, love. you’re growing tired, hurtling towards a desperate release, and oscar can sense it, the feel of your quivering thighs tightening around his hips spurring him on. he grinds up into you, maintaining your pace, but he’s fucking you harder now, the anticipation of your release sending shivers down his spine.
“you gonna cum for me?” oscar grunts, holding your hips down against him. you can’t move, his hold too tight and your body too tired, all you can do is wait for your orgasm to hit like a ton of bricks. you nod frantically.
“yes, oscar, please baby.” you beg for it, and like the true gentleman he is, the calloused pad of his pointer finger finds its home on your clit, sending you into an upwards spiral.
it’s as if you’re levitating when you let go, in a dreamlike state, your teeth sinking hard into his pale shoulder to muffle a surefire whine of his name. he’s rutting into you, prolonging the bliss.
“cum inside of me.” you urge, voice barely above a whisper. well, you’ve certainly never done this before.
oscar’s eyes roll into the back of his head, tears pricking his lash line. a guttural gasp of your name spills from his lips when he lets go, painting your insides warm and white. you stare at the tiny indents your teeth had left on his thick shoulder, his breath hitting the crook of your neck warm and wet as he comes down.
“‘m yours, and i’m here. i’m always gonna be here, i promise.” oscar speaks so quietly that you wonder if you’ve imagined it.
-
“when i made that mistake today, i was thinking about you.”
you’ve been laying there in silence for a while now, tucked under his arm when he speaks. you turn to look at him, perplexed.
“what?”
“i felt so awful about what i said after we, you know. you looked so upset with me, and i don’t blame you.” oscar sighs.
“i just don’t want to feel like a shameful secret, osc.” you tell him quietly, the words heavy on your tongue.
“you won’t, not anymore. ‘m so sorry, sweetheart.” he lulls, kissing over your hairline.
“how do we make this work? and how are we ever gonna explain this to-“
“lando.” oscar cuts you off, shifting uncomfortable. “he’s going to murder me and my entire bloodline.” he chuckles nervously.
“he won’t murder you. he might put you in a gravel trap, though.” you roll onto your side, smiling teasingly up at him and he rolls his eyes.
“i’ll take the heat. you’re worth it.”
-
“promise me.” you pant, his hips grinding into you. you’re curled into his chest, still spooning and barely awake. he’d woken up needy, and you were even needier, the faint glow of early morning sunshine washing over you through a crack in the beige curtains.
“anything.” oscar stutters, his breath warm against the back of your neck. his nose bumps your skin, teeth scraping the shell of your ear.
you stop meeting his thrusts. he whines low, wordlessly pleading for you to resume. he ruts his hips against your ass, chasing friction.
“tell me it’s all gonna be different now.”
“i already told you, i-“ oscar grunts.
“promise me.” you purposely clamp down on him, a hiss sounding from between his gritted teeth.
“promise, i promise, i love you.”
you giggle, rocking your hips again, fucking yourself onto him once more.
“i know.”
“you gonna let me off the hook?” oscar pants in your ear, tugging on your earlobe with his teeth.
“still gotta prove yourself, piastri.” you moan.
he feels deeper like this and he knows it, revelling in the way he’s filled you up so perfectly. he rolls into you slowly, sliding against each and every spot that makes you squirm. you drop your guard, going limp in his arms to let him finish you off.
“you nearly there, sweetheart? you gonna cum for me, love?” his accents thickens in the mornings, husky and intoxicating. you fall apart, then, and he stays buried inside of you, the only sounds in the room your matching heavy breathing.
“i need you to get dressed.” oscar kisses your cheek.
“kicking me out already?” you feign offence, looking at him over your shoulder.
his fingers come to cup your chin, his forehead resting against yours.
“there’s something we gotta do.”
-
you’re wearing your skirt from the day before, the waistband rolled over to make up for the oscar-destroyed zipper. his hoodie that you’ve stolen almost completely covers the short skirt, and your messy hair and poorly removed makeup don’t do much to convince anyone that you’d actually slept in your own room last night.
still rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you don’t really comprehend where oscar is leading you, but when the elevator dings, signalling that you’ve reached the restaurant floor, you’re suddenly painfully awake. time seems to move in slow motion, your tummy twisting as you realise what’s about to happen.
ahead of you, tucked into the corner of the restaurant is your brother, jon, and ashley. lando is already draped in team kit, the papaya of his hoodie blaring obnoxiously for once, a warning sign.
“oscar, what-“
“i’m doing this.” he affirms, speeding up his stride.
oh my god oh my god oh my fucking god.
your heart speeds up, dropping to the pit in your belly when lando notices you, eyebrows furrowed, jaw clenched, eyes taking in the bewildering sight before him. his baby sister, disheveled and wide-eyed, and his teammate holding her hand, on a mission.
“what the fuck am i looking at?” lando doesn’t sound angry, per say, more perplexed than anything. there is an edge to his voice that you don’t particularly like, but he hasn’t started swinging yet, you suppose.
“i’m in love with your sister. like, for real. you deserve to know that.” oscar says confidently, somewhat monotonously.
lando opens his mouth, closes it. opens it again, closes it. he repeats the process a few more times, going through the motions of an emotional rollercoaster.
but then, he sighs deeply, a grin of disbelief stretching across his face. jon bangs on the table excitedly, and ash is shaking his head.
“you owe us so much money.” jon laughs, his head tipping back.
“pay up, boss.” ash sticks his hand out expectantly, smirking across the table.
“what… what?” you exclaim, narrowing your eyes in confusion.
“i didn’t wanna believe them.” lando shrugs.
“don’t blame you.” oscar chimes in, and you stare between the two mclaren drivers in bewilderment.
“are you okay with this?” you question, staring your brother in the eyes, still a bit disoriented by the entire situation. his face softens, a genuine smile lingering small on his lips.
“if you’re happy, i’ll make my peace with it.” lando’s eyes flit between you and oscar.
all of the sudden, a look of horror crosses his face, and his voice turns stern.
“but,” he inhales shakily. “if i ever, ever, hear again what i think i heard last night,” he glares at oscar, pointing one firm finger at the australian, who stands up a bit straighter. “you’re dead, piastri.”
jon and ash bite back giggles at the empty threat, and you take it upon yourself to put an end to the situation before it gets any more awkward.
“well, on that note!” you sing-song, dragging oscar away.
“and make sure you’re using protection!” lando calls out, panic stricken, big brother mode activated.
“oh my god.” you blush dark pink, speeding up, the elevator in your sights.
“that went well.” oscar quips sarcastically. he looks rather happy with himself.
you kiss him as soon as the metal doors shut.
-
you do go out after the race, but for once it’s not to drink away the memories of a weekend in oscar’s arms. this time, it’s to celebrate the fact that you can love him out loud, and he’ll do the same right back.
you’re dancing in his arms, bright lights in shades of blues and purples streaming over your bodies. oscar holds you close, keeps you wrapped in his arms, despite the shock on the faces of others at the sight of lando norris’s baby sister publicly besotted with his teammate.
when oscar kisses you deep, smiling against your lips that taste like cherry liquor, you know that this last year of your life wasn’t in vain.
you and oscar, you’re built to last.
-
“how did you not see it, mate?” charles beams, crinkles by his eyes from the wide smile he’s sporting. he’s clearly drunk, but lando is too.
it appears he’s clocked the brits sister and her australian suitor on the dance floor.
the monagasque has rocked up to the bar with alex and pierre in tow, the three of them slapping lando on the back as they arrive.
“i guess there were signs.” lando shrugs, dragging his finger over the rim of the crystal glass.
“signs? mate it was obvious.” pierre chuckles, pushing lando’s shoulder.
“wait, you all knew?” lando splutters.
yeah. duh. come on, man.
“why didn’t you tell me?”
“it’s funnier.” charles… winks? it’s hard to tell with him.
lando finds you in the crowd, grinning up at oscar like he hung the stars in the sky. the younger mclaren driver returns your look, and it sparks warmth in lando’s chest.
you’re gonna be okay.
-
hehe
-
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