Normally, traitors aren’t frog-marched to the Emperors themselves, regardless of what rank of information they had. These aren’t normal circumstances, though, Techno bemoans to himself. For one, the man is refusing to speak anything but French and a tiny amount of broken Bayesh. For another, on being made, he immediately handed over about three folders of classified information then loudly waited for handcuffs to be put on him.
Phil is lounging in his throne; he’d never been one for propriety. This leaves Techno to be, uh, the actually serious one. The one adorned in uniform, sitting and glowering down. It’s lucky that the traitor isn’t a pigman, because Techno isn’t actually great at glowering, but humans are weird about pigman facial expressions so he should be fine?
The traitor stands before them and grins. In perfect Bayesh, he says: “Finally. It took way too long for you to catch me, bitch.”
Techno pauses. He stares. In Piglish, he barks to his guards: “Everyone out. It’s Leader business.”
They file out. They’ll be waiting outside. Phil straightens in his seat and reaches for his own sword.
Techno, laboriously, drags his hand across his face. He switches back to Bayesh. God, does he regret being fluent in multiple languages sometimes. “What are you doing here, Tommy.”
“Showing you your intelligence weak points, fucker. Do you know how easy it is to slip Bayesh spies in here? I was smooth. A smooth customer. I was hearing classified milkitary secrets—”
“You were caught within two hours,” Techno says.
“That’s—that’s just what you think, innit?” Tommy says. Phil laughs. He’s the real traitor here.
“Tommy. I don’t wanna have to cause an international incident, but I’ve had a really long day, so if you just tell me who hired you to run a spy op, and why you decided it was a good idea to run it yourself, instead of sending one of your experts…”
“No one,” Tommy says.
“Hey, don’t lie you little shit. Techno might not want to start an incident but I don’t care,” Phil says. He grins and holds up his sword. “You wanna wake up in a jail cell and reveal some secrets? We may all be Leaders but it won’t stop torture from hurting.”
“What the fuck, Phil,” Tommy says.
“No one’s torturing anyone. We’ll just bomb them later if we must,” Techno says.
“And I wasn’t lying. It’s—can I take the wig off by the way? It fucking itches.”
“I despise you.”
Tommy takes off the black wig, revealing his blonde hair. “Anyway, I don’t want to work with you guys either, so I figured I’d get your attention by like, acting like we’re enemies and stuff. Got hired for espionage enough back in the day to pick up that much.”
“Who the fuck wanted you as a spy?” Phil asks.
“Fuck you,” Tommy says and doesn’t elaborate.
“Please just tell us what you want,” Techno says. “Please. I can’t handle this much you at any given time.”
“This needs to be Leader to Leader,” Tommy says, and something heavy laces his words. The hairs on Techno’s arms stand up.
“You coulda asked,” he says, in one final desperate bid for normality.
“No, I couldn’t have,” Tommy says. “I think Chip’s dead.”
Techno doesn’t notice that he’s standing until he is.
“What?”
“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Yeah. And, uh, I fucking. Need your help to figure out what happened. Before we get blamed. And I know, politically, you’ve got no reason, but if we don’t figure out—”
Techno sits back down, heavy.
“I know you understand Piglish. Let me talk in my native language. Phil.”
“Yeah, mate?”
“Go get the stuff.”
Phil’s eyes darken. “Right. That. Well, I’ll be back.”
Tommy’s voice, for the first time since Techno met him as a newly-minted Leader, standing on a wooden bench and yelling about executions, is small.
“You believe me?” he says.
“Why else would you come here?” Techno asks. “Not like we like you.”
“Good, because I’m shit at infiltrations. Would have been embarrassing if you, like, didn’t know your enemy well enough to know that,” Tommy says. He’s saying something else underneath it. Techno is neither good enough at Bayesh or at Tommy to guess what.
“Let’s work out an excuse to make a treaty. And you tell me everything.”
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some uhhhhh dreamling smut that got a litttttle more kinky than originally intended 😳
necessary background: this is from me and @magnusbae insane and stupid au wherein dream starts coming around the university and hob's students assume he's hob's sugar baby cuz like he doesn't work? he's always wearing really nice clothes? hob pays for everything? how did hob pull this hot goth anyway? and dream does absolutely nothing to disabuse them of this notion, if anything he cleverly and carefully encourages the idea because fuck it, he loves a good story. he is the king of stories after all. hob gets in on it later
secondary less important background is dream spending his free time around the university making art and sculptures and stuff because he is a CREATOR even in the waking world. and of course his sculptures are amazing.
ANYWAY
---
“Professor Gadling, might I have a word?”
That voice never ceased to make Hob stutter where he stood, no matter how often he heard it, how often it whispered endearments and worse in his ear. If anything, he was more affected the longer things went on.
He turned, chalk still held in his hand from where he’d been writing on the board.
Dream lounged in the doorway, hip pressed against the doorframe, hands casually in his pockets. And he was wearing—
Holy God, Hob was going to die and then come back to life and then kill him.
Hob first noticed that he was not wearing a shirt, unless the strings of jewels – rubies? diamonds? – draped over his chest counted. They glimmered sharply even under the weak classroom lights. Dream was kept modest, barely, by a long silk blazer that narrowed his shoulders and cut low to the upper thigh.
Thank fuck he was wearing regular pants, at least, ankle-length black slacks, and— were those fucking loafers? The other day, a student had made a comment – rather inappropriate, Hob really should reprimand them, not that he would ever get around to it – about Hob being some kind of Victorian maiden bowled over by the sight of an exposed ankle, and Dream had apparently taken this as a personal bet, for he was not wearing socks, either.
And the smirk on his face was like fire.
“Um,” Hob said, managing with great effort not to collapse on the spot. He glanced at the clock. “You know what? There’s only ten minutes left of class anyway. Why don’t you all go home early; I’ll send out the lecture notes and we’ll pick this up next week.”
None of the students seemed upset to get out early, but they were tittering amongst themselves, looking between Hob and Dream. This was becoming a problem. In a mere one semester, Dream had turned Hob’s university reputation from good-natured modest professor to deranged sex fiend.
That was what Hob got for loving the Prince of Stories, for he could never resist a good one, even if it was at Hob’s peril.
When the students had gone, Hob took Dream’s hand and dragged him down the hall. “My office. Now.”
“Oh dear,” Dream mused as he was yanked down the hallway and into Hob’s office. That smirk still hadn’t left his face. “I am in trouble.”
As soon as they were inside and the door was very firmly locked, Hob pressed Dream up against it with a hand around the base of his throat. “Are you trying to kill me, love?”
Dream leaned into Hob’s hand. His eyes were burning. “I would bring you as close to death as I could and then pull you back.”
“You’re managing it.” Hob released him, pinning him by his waist instead – his bare waist, mother of Christ – and kissing his throat, his collarbone, his sternum over the draped jewels. Dream leaned his head back against the door, sighing like a wanting creature now satiated. “You should be classified as a public hazard.”
“I would like to be your hazard,” said Dream, as Hob mouthed his way down his stomach. The jewels swung and glimmered unnaturally bright against his skin, crimson and shining like fresh love marks. Hob knelt to nip above the waistband of his slacks, tangling a hand in the dangling chain and tugging so it pulled on the back of Dream’s neck.
Dream arched his back against the door, petting at Hob’s hair like Hob had done something particularly pleasing to his majesty.
“I suppose this is exactly what you planned?” Hob gasped, wrapping his hands around the backs of his thighs.
“Perhaps.”
“Menace.” Hob tugged at his slacks and managed to unbutton them with his teeth. “You ruin me. Never stop.”
“I was not planning on it.”
Hob lurched to his feet again, pulling him forward by the bejeweled chain. “Come.”
Dream did as Hob bade, but the way a tiger might perform on a leash – easily escaping with one swipe of its claws. He let Hob push him up onto his desk and crowd between his legs. Hob had to push one of Dream’s ridiculous sculptures out of the way to do it, and was careful not to let it fall.
“Let it smash,” Dream murmured into his mouth as Hob kissed and bit at his lips. “I will make another.”
“I’m not going to break one of your sculptures, Michelangelo.” Hob huffed. “That would be sacrilege.”
“I make them not for the finished product, but for the experience of using my hands.”
Hob slipped his hands under Dream’s blazer. The fabric was incredibly soft, but not as soft as his skin. “The experience of using your hands, hm?”
Dream’s lips curved up against his. “Mmhmm.”
He tugged Hob’s shirt from his waistband, pressing those strong, delicate hands to Hob’s back, holding him close.
“You know,” Hob murmured against his ear, mapping Dream’s stomach with his fingertips, smooth skin punctuated by jewels, “I believe I vastly underestimated the experience of loving such a dedicated, skillful artist.”
“Are you saying that you like my hands, Hob Gadling?” Dream asked, and used those hands to unzip his jeans, slipping one in to wrap around him, never once looking away from Hob’s face. The tips of his fingers were always a bit cold, but Hob liked the way they warmed against his skin.
He struggled to regain his breath. “In so many words.”
Dream looked so superior. “Good.”
“I’ll show you good, you nightmare,” Hob muttered, and tangled a hand in his hair, tipping his head back. Dream still just looked down at him from under his lashes, muscles straining.
“You shall?”
“I’d take you home and lay you out and show you if I thought we would get that far.”
“Worry not, this—” Dream wrapped the glimmering chains around his hand until they cut into the skin in white lines— “can always make a reappearance.”
“It had better.”
Hob finally got his own hand around Dream, wrapping his other arm around his back to hold him close, and Dream twined his legs around Hob’s back. This pressed them close enough that they were essentially just grinding against each other, barely managing anything more precise. Hob ravaged his mouth, giving in to the sheer power of Dream in these clothes, and Dream only urged him on, biting at his lip.
Heat raged through Hob’s body. He found the strings of jewels again and twisted them around his fist, pulling so they went taught around Dream’s neck like a choker.
Dream’s breath stuttered and tripped over itself and then they both came, one on top of the other. Dream’s legs tightened around Hob’s back. He panted into Hob’s mouth.
When they’d caught their breath, Hob held his face between his hands and kissed him, light kisses on his forehead, cheek, the tip of his nose, and finally his lips, the tenderness deserving of such an exquisite creature, and Dream smiled.
He collapsed back onto Hob’s desk, arms draped languidly above his head, jacket falling open on his naked chest. His mouth was ruined, and there were hickeys already starting to settle on his neck and stomach, but he didn’t seem to mind. He closed his eyes, humming. They had just come, and Hob still wanted him with a violence. If anything, it was worse.
“We shall have to do this again,” Dream murmured, voice barely more than a gravelly hum.
Hob sat down in his desk chair, running his fingers through his hair as Dream sprawled before him like some kind of hunter’s catch. “What, ruining my reputation with my students?”
“Among other things.”
“Nightmarish, you are,” Hob said fondly.
Dream tipped his face into Hob’s hand. “Hmm. Yes.”
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if dorian didn't show up, do you think louis would have shot minnie?
I do. I know some people think either he wouldn't have or he would've missed so that's why the writers had him shoot Dorian instead, but mmmmmm no, I don't personally think so. I like to think that if he had taken the shot, his shaky hands would've caused him to shoot her fatally.
Mostly because I'm already so normal about the fact that of the Ericson crew, Marlon and Louis are the only ones with a body count. Well, that we know of, but shown to us in the game, at least. Plus, we know it's Louis' first kill.
Like yeah, Clementine and AJ become part of the crew and they have bigger body counts, and if we're counting indirect kills caused by actions, then Tenn has a count... and I guess everyone has blood on their hands for blowing up the boat... but I'm talking about killed directly with a weapon like....... I lied, I'm not normal about that at all, Louis and Marlon are the ones who have killed someone in Louis' route. I'm also not normal about the fact that Louis kills Dorian and then even as he's clearly in shock, he tries to go with Clementine to get AJ, and then later on when they talk about it, he says it feels like bile but not quite and he's glad he has it in him to do it.... listen, listen, listen... I'm obsessed with that.
Anyway, so if Louis shot Minerva, I think he would've accidentally killed her and can you imagine? He's already enough of a mess after killing the woman who pinned him down and tried to cut his finger off [or succeeded] but he knew Minerva, they were friends before the twins were taken. Even Violet couldn't kill her even though that would've been the smarter thing to do, and we know thanks to meta knowledge that killing her would've saved lives, but Violet couldn't, and I don't think Louis would intentionally either.
Speaking of Violet, if Louis killed Minerva, I hate to think about what that would've done to Vi. I think she might've actually left at that point, like what was planned before it got changed to her being burned. I don't think she would've attacked Louis over it, though, like yeah she attacked Clementine in the cell but Louis? I don't know, but I don't think so just because it's Louis and he'd be a mess about it anyway.
Though if he did kill her, it would be a neat parallel to draw... y'know, because Louis forgave AJ for killing Marlon even though he was pissed and heartbroken, and Violet was annoyed with him the entire time... but could she ever forgive Louis for killing Minerva? Y'know? We already have a similar parallel with AJ shooting Tenn, but still.
If Clementine killed Minerva in that moment, though, then I could see Violet attacking her since in her eyes, Clem proved her right.
So yeah, I get why they added the Dorian kill to his route. It adds another compelling element to Louis as a character, but we also need Minerva alive for episode 4; Louis can't kill her, he can't miss, and he's not going to stay with her because we need Violet to stay on the boat and him to be on shore for all routes.
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