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rumpunch · 11 months

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HIIII so… i finally got to see hadestown this weekend (the national tour production) w two of my best friends 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 i knew we were gonna see it for months but i didnt want to post abt it beforehand / acknowledge it in any way after making plans bc i was scared i would jinx it like what happened when i posted / talked abt seeing shows on the west end and then covid hit and sent me home lol. but i can’t believe i finally saw it!! it doesn’t feel real and honestly didn’t until right now as im writing this….. being in the theater was truly an out of body (and mind lol) experience for better or for worse. this was my first time seeing a show since covid and im soooo glad it was this one given how much it’s meant to me for all these years 🥹💗

i have a lot of thoughts on the production and also the plot / story so here they are lol:

production thoughts

for context ive never seen a hadestown 👢 before, i told myself that i wanted my first experience of seeing it to be actually seeing it in person. but ive listened to the obcr 5798673594 times over the last 3 years and the songs have become thoroughly woven into my life... so that made for a really weird experience where i knew every word but was watching it unfold for the first time and yet i knew what was coming for the most part. that also could be chalked up to the fact that ive seen so many gifsets and have read so many posts about other ppl seeing the show so i did know about some visual things.. but yeah it was just weird what i knew / expected and what i didnt lol

my friends and i sat in the back right corner of the mezzanine (like the LITERAL corner. no chairs behind us or next to us and the exit right next to us) and sadly the balcony in the set was cut off for us so we had to keep leaning across each other or scrunching our heads down to see the action up there :~/ but it was ok

i think bc of the above two bullet points + the fact that i really did not let myself believe that i was going to see the show bc i was scared of jinxing it + me having depression / possible derealization issues that i did not have when i first got into this show... i was kinda numb the entire time which sucks a little. i cried a couple times (happy / disbelieving tears in road to hell (persephone's entrance specifically for some reason, idk why it wasnt the "aight"s LOL) and any way the wind blows, sad tears in doubt comes in) but i didnt really... process anything in the moment or really experience the epic highs and lows of it while watching it. i just generally wasnt very moved! and im processing the show right now for the first time. and that kinda sucks and is unlike me and unlike what i thought seeing it was gonna be like. in a similar vein i found myself really focused on whoever was in the spotlight and im kinda mad at myself for that bc this is a show where SO many little details / context clues are communicated when ppl are in the background. but its fine i guess, i may be in a weird place mentally but i got to see it and maybe i'll see it again someday and be more moved

the cast was PHENOMENALLLLLL. j antonio rodriguez was our orpheus and he was the standout for me, his singing and acting as were breathtaking! i was frustrated about hannah whitley (eurydice) though bc like (and i feel bad for saying all of this)... nobody can be eva noblezada but hannah was missing a lot of notes / singing off key and kept like.. idk what the technical term for it is but she was kinda singing on her own beat and adding in a lot of pauses or rushing into things instead of staying on pace with the music and also she kept kinda revving up into the high notes and all of it grated on me. but i grew warmer to her singing in act 2 and i really appreciated her acting throughout! i didnt rly have many thoughts about hades (matthew patrick quinn), persephone (maria christina oliveras), or hermes (nathan lee graham) aside from ADORING all of their performances and what they brought to the roles compared to the obc! and the fates (dominique kempf, belén moyano, courtney lauster) / ensemble (kc dela cruz, colin lemoine, sean watkinson, shavey brown, raquel williams) / musicians were INCREDIBLE and had such amazing chemistry with and between each other :~D

antonio made for a bolder more charming orpheus and hannah made for a darker moodier more tortured eurydice which was interesting. but (and maybe this was just me dealing with the whole numbness / already knowing what to expect thing) i wasnt really convinced about their love story (specifically the early parts of it in act i as they were falling in love) or that orpheus in particular was insecure and vulnerable to the fates. but they did have some good chemistry in act ii especially and i was rooting for them so hard despite knowing wht was to come :~(

i knew that on broadway they have that little elevator in the center of the stage so i was curious about how it would work in the tour and... they had this giant oven box thing with moving doors! i actually really liked that, it made the whole idea of traveling to / from hadestown seem more sinister. that said i was kinda bothered by it during doubt comes in because orpheus and eurydice had to walk around the entire stage to make sure eurydice was positioned in front / inside of the oven and it kinda spoiled the ending in a way (even though we all know how that ends)... im guessing that on broadway its less exaggerated and you dont see it coming bc all eurydice has to do is just move over to the side a little. but idk i'll finally let myself watch a 👢 and see what the difference is

i couldnt take my eyes off of hades and persephone during promises. they started the song with hades kneeling with his head against persephone's stomach and then he stood up and they just hugged.... for a LONG time. like at least 3-5 minutes. and i was like god i wish that were me and i was thinking about what that mustve been like for the actors playing them.. like if thats a moment that they share and look forward to or whatever bc i know i would. it made me think about jenna's dear baby monologue in you matter to me LOLLLL

i saw from another post i read on here (as i was pregaming for the show by scrolling thru my hadestown tag LMAO) that orpheus runs through the audience at one point? and he didnt do that for us that i saw which i was bummed about. maybe thats just a broadway thing

i had no idea the set splits open during wait for me!!! it was so cool

i also didnt know / fully realize that hades produces a flower for persephone during epic iii 😭 the tears in my eyes... also speaking of epic iii hades singing the lalalalalalalaaaa got a LAUGH and i was so MAD!!!!! i get that its kinda funny because it just sounds so weird in his voice and its a startling moment... but that pissed me off bc the moment is supposed to be so tender and heartbreaking and the audience didnt appreciate that.. augh.

since its pride month the set was initially lit up with rainbow lights and in act ii hermes had little rainbow tassles on the ends of his sleeves!! :~D

plot / story thoughts

another context bullet point to kick us off: i discovered hadestown in the spring / summer of 2019 which was an INCREDIBLY formative time for me and so many aspects of the show (creative expression as a tool / forum for bringing about the world as it could be (and illuminating the possibilities in the world as it is), discovering that you have agency, love / loyalty / betrayal / sustenance, finding your purpose, etc.) were profoundly relevant to things that i was awakening to at that exact place and time in my own life. so i went into this experience hoping to have more insights like the kind i had when i first listened to the obcr... and i didnt really. i mean i had some but they didnt feel as profound i guess? and again that may just be me having mental health issues now that i didnt have then.. but that was a thing that i was aware of and kinda sad about. so yeah

that said... the main thing along those lines that i did take away (which really only hit me while watching epic iii / promises) is like... love is agency is love is agency is love.... or something like that. at least that they coexist and happen together. the oppressive conditions in hadestown and the poverty in the overworld strip the gods and humans alike of... their humanity (which is weird to apply to the gods but still)! their sense of self, and their love for each other and the world. the moment that became clear for me was in epic iii when the workers took off their goggles one by one and it was like.. they could See again! they could see themselves and each other, they were holding hands with each other and singing together. and they saw a future that they could create together. and hades was letting persephone dance and she kept spinning away from him with her arms outstretched like a bird but then coming back... idk. im not articulating this well and i need to think about it more and let it simmer for a bit and maybe watch a 👢 to get all the details. but it was like yeah... the opposite of capitalism imperialism etc etc is love and agency and they go together and they are the same thing.

another thing i need to think about more: orpheus went to hadestown all by himself to get eurydice! how come he was so confident then? he was LITERALLY alone. he didnt know where she went or if she would come back with him. and he didnt have the workers following him (though they were there in wait for me swinging the lamps, but i interpreted them as being like... part of the scenery i guess). he was completely alone and operating off of hope AND THE FATES TAUNTED HIM TOO and he was like... fine! so then in doubt comes in.. when he has all these people including eurydice following him... like idk. maybe its just because he'd confronted hades who couldnt fully be trusted and he knew that eurydice had turned her back on him and stuff... like maybe its just because on the journey back he'd experienced things that caused him to doubt / mistrust the people he was journeying with / from and that's what made him vulnerable, not so much the physical loneliness but the emotional loneliness that comes with a betrayal. which is something i just realized typing it out lol. but that kinda agitated me bc its like... he was FINE the way up so why did he crumble on the way back :~(

doubt comes in is such a fucking GUT PUNCH btw. i wanted to cry harder but didnt let myself bc i didnt want to be too loud or soil my mask. but i was so so scared to see it and it devastated me. its just so... SAD. and its so... like i relate to / identify with orpheus SO much yes in part because of the creative expression / seeing the two worlds thing but also because of doubt comes in specifically. its just so so so sad. he had all of these people including the person he loved most cheering him on and echoing to him. and he couldnt hear them. and he couldnt internalize how much they loved and believed and trusted in him. and he turned. that is so wrenchingly real. and it hurt so bad to see it playing out on the stage knowing what was about to happen and then WATCHING it in all the brilliant horror. like thats another insane thing the way the lights get so wildly bright. actually now that i mention that i think the lights are brighter in hadestown when bad things are happening. like hades saying I CONDUCT THE ELECTRIC CITY etc etc. that could be a whole post. someone should make that

im thinking a lot about The Song and whose song it is and actually WHICH song it is. bc if you think about it... so we're introduced to the lalalalalalalaaaa and whatever song that is which builds in the epics. and that song incites a lot of action like orpheus (quite literally!) tuning out eurydice which causes her to choose to go to hadestown, and hades realizing what love is and whatever. but another song that is equally if not more catalytic is.... IF IT'S TRUE!!!! bc thats the song that sparks the revolution among the workers and gives orpheus hope that he almost lost after learning about eurydice's betrayal and inspires eurydice to fight for something instead of succumbing to her fate. and in wait for me reprise when eurydice is singing "echoing OUR song" "the falling of OUR feet" ... like they're not alone as just the two of them, the workers are coming too!! so which song is she referring to! what if it's actually "if it's true" and the hopes that orpheus has stirred up about what the world could be?

btw speaking of orpheus tuning out eurydice... im sure this point has been made 5476463979 times but its rly interesting to think about how love languages (for lack of a better way to put it, ik that can be kinda reductive) work in this show. eurydice and orpheus both attempt to address the storm but the ways they choose to do it are different / dont align: eurydice tries to manage the short term by searching for food and firewood, while orpheus works on the song that will bring spring back and stop this kind of disaster from happening again. but iirc they dont talk about how they're going to take these two different but equally important strategies — eurydice at least interprets the song as being unimportant and orpheus just... straight up seems unaware of the food / firewood thing also being important. so theres a communication failure and eurydice interprets the silence as abandonment (for good reason, also relatable) and turns her back (ha!) on orpheus. and then with hades and persephone... hades does all these big flashy power gestures to show his love for persephone but it's the exact opposite of what she wants and they dont see eye to eye about how to express their love for each other either. yeah

speaking of eurydice making that choice... like yeah. sigh. betrayal is such a huge thing in this show. trust and betrayal. eurydice was (kind of) leading orpheus through the immediate short term danger of the storm and she turned on him. and the fact that she did was part of the reason orpheus turned on her. they made their vows in promises that they would walk side by side but he couldnt get over it (partially bc they literally weren’t allowed to physically walk as they planned but still). and eurydice said "im right behind you and i have been all along" and its like no you havent been thats the entire plot of the show lol (again for understandable reasons but still!)

another thing im sure has been analyzed 456456984 times but its interesting to think about hermes watching everything playing out while knowing how it will end and not choosing to intervene. idk what that means and my laptop is running out of battery so im not going to dig into it but im just thinking on it. BUT ALSO THAT GOES FOR US AS THE AUDIENCE like so many ppl probably know how it ends and maybe some ppl are seeing it multiple times and its like... anyone could intervene and change the story (within reason ofc). also goes for the other ppl on stage too like the musicians etc. its just interesting to think about the implications of that and what would happen if someone tried it both "in character" and "out of character" i guess

its interesting to think about the role walls play in the show too. like the wall hades is making the workers build to keep out the "enemy" and keep them (him) powerful and prosperous in their (his) isolation vs the walls repeating the falling of feet, echoing songs... letting people know theyre not alone. and the fact that that doesnt happen in doubt comes in even though orpheus is being followed by a whole crowd basically. idk. fascinating

ok those are all of my thoughts i think! i also saw some interesting posts / takes that im going to rb again bc theyre on my mind as i interpret the show but i dont want to put them in this post bc theyre not my original thoughts. ty for reading if you did :~D this is a glorious new era in rumpunch nation im so glad and grateful that i can finally say ive seen this beautiful show!

#tess talks #hadestown

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riricitaa · 1 year

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Had an idea for an AU that I just have to share and would like to tell you about it, it goes like this: Steve and Bucky were born in our current time, and were childhood friends but eventually lost contact due to one of their families moving someplace else. As adults, Steve becomes Captain America as part of a government program and Bucky become a successful olympic gymnast. They meet again when the gov decides to assign a trainer to Steve, to further develop his acrobatics, and Bucky gets the job. They fall in love with time.

Basically, modern day AU where Steve needs training and Bucky is like Lance Tucker from The Bronze movie, but nicer.

Hi 👋🏽 👋🏽 👋🏽

Thank you for this idea, I know it's been sitting in my inbox for awhile (with few others) and I know I said I'm not accepting anymore requests because of what I posted about the other day, and also that I don't know when I'll be able to get to making some stuff since I can't bring myself to do anything...

But yesterday in the first session post diagnosis, my therapist suggested that I should at least try and do something that I enjoyed doing, once a week, no pressure! Just try and take at least the first step, whether it's reading, watching something, anything literally that I usually enjoy before I got depressed.

And y'all know how much I love creating stucky au gifsets, so I actually tried and started, and this particular au was the choice for it!

I have to say I didn't know if I'd be able to do it, but I'm glad to say that it is happening as we speak and hopefully it will be ready soon!

Baby steps.

#healing journal #I'm gonna beat this 💪🏽

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calliopecalling · 2 years

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QOTS Rewatch - Season 4 Retrospective

Alright. Retrospective time, on my least favorite season. You know what though, this season had a lot of flaws, but all things considered, I still enjoy it. I think it had a few things stacked against it: (1) Peter pulled out (and my understanding is he pulled out somewhat/relatively late?) (2) I have a hunch it had a much smaller budget to work with for some reason and that might have also led to less experienced show runners and less experienced writers in the writers’ room (I also noticed there was no story editor for this season the way there was during the first three seasons, meaning someone who made sure it was all cohesive). I don’t know this for sure but the lack of actual music, the move in filming location, and the fact they had lots of minor arc characters sorta sends that message, since minor recurring characters are cheaper. So with these things considered, I kind of lower the bar for this season and it comes out alright. Still my least favorite of the seasons, but the last four episodes especially are actually really good, and though my Jeresa heart felt the glaring absence of my OTP every episode, if I took my own emotional bias out of it, I can find lots to enjoy.

There are just two unforgivable things in my opinion: (1) as @mymostimaginaryfriend’s meta that I reblogged earlier calls out, this season does a truly atrocious job at putting female characters on-screen together, which makes it a LOT less engaging to me, and (2) EDDIE. I could’ve gotten behind just about any other type of love interest for Teresa, I swear I’m not just anti-everyone-that-isn’t-James, but Eddie is like, the literal worst. Bland, arrogant, selfish, not even cute. Only positive? He’s so inferior that Teresa clearly doesn’t even enjoy him much either 😂

Anyway, as always, I’ll follow my usual retrospective format:

My Top 3 Episodes

My Top 5 Scenes

Season 3 Episodes Ranked

Teresa’s Journey

Jeresa, DUH

Top 3 Season 4 Episodes

Easy peasy.

3: 4x10, Lo Que Más Temes

Not one, but TWO Teresa-and-another-female-character team-ups, and not one, but TWO very satisfying take-outs of unsavory men. Teresa and Kelly Anne tag-team the sleazy banker, Dieter, on the one hand, and Oksana finally allies with Teresa against El Gordo, on the other. Question: did they, in fact, kill Dieter? WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

2: 4x12, Diosa de la Guerra

The whole gang is together—Teresa, Pote, Javier, King George, Boaz—and have a singular epic purpose, which is to pull off this Miami takeover. Maybe it’s partly the change of scenery (Miami definitely livens things up), maybe it’s Teresa’s laser-focus on vengeance after an episode in a coma (and Teresa when she’s in determined-almost-queenpin mode is a treat), but I think it’s mostly just the convergence of the MANY cluttered plots over the course of the season into the final most relevant ones, and putting almost all the screentime for the episode into just those, really helped this episode feel tight, exciting, cohesive, and compelling. And FUN!

1: 4x13, Vienen por Ti

For obvious reasons (HI JAMES) and less obvious ones (RIP JAVIER and also HELLO QUEENPIN SUIT). God it was so good to see James back on screen again finally. Like I felt giddy watching that scene again. Literally cackled with glee as he stumbled out of his car. It’s just such a relief. But that’s just the last 20 seconds of the episode, and the bulk of this episode was the climax of the Marcel/Teresa/Judge situation (would Marcel ally with her against the Judge or wouldn’t he??) and the Javier/Teresa/Judge situation (as Javier finally came clean about everything, had his cathartic and tragic goodbye with Teresa, and then died the most epic on-screen death ever, taking the Judge’s crony with him). I said this in one of my gifset reblogs but I actually cry watching Javier and Teresa’s goodbye scene each time I watch it and choke up each time I think about it and I don’t routinely cry at any other part of this show, so that’s really something. Anyway this episode feels like a far more emotion- and character-driven episode than the others in the season and I would actually consider it a candidate for me for top ten series episodes. But we’ll see, because there’s obviously going to be a lot of competition for that list, lol.

Top 5 Season 4 Scenes

#5:

The scene: 4x08, Teresa telling Tony about Chino and Guero and Pote

What I love about it: There were quite a few runners-up for this slot. Teresa in her season-2-opener queenpin suit to finally send Eddie packing; Teresa and Marcel’s face-off in his office in… 4x02? when he’s forcing her to do business with him and even though she’s a head shorter than him she still looks soooo fierce; the “James is a ghost” conversation with Pote in 4x01… but ultimately I have to go with this one because of both the emotion we see in Teresa (in a season that’s otherwise a real desert of emotional openness and vulnerability from Teresa) and the fact that in this emotion she finally says what 99% of viewers have always seen: that Guero and Chino stealing from Epifanio is what put her in the horrible position she was in at the beginning of the series. Placing the blame squarely on them (on Guero) is the final nail in the coffin of the nostalgia this show really liked to linger on for Happy Guero Times, and made the 4x11 flashbacks at least somewhat less annoying, since while Guero featured in those, they really didn’t make him a main character of them, as they’d already put to bed any notion of her still thinking of him as her long lost love. Anyway, this scene with Tony is really beautiful on Teresa’s part and is one of the few unfiltered emotional truths we get from her this season.

#4:

The scene: 4x05, Teresa meets Oksana

What I love about it: Maybe just because there’s such a desert of female-on-female content this season (and listen, I actually considered the 4x01 scene with Castel in this slot, because omg, those two had such great chemistry! but Castel’s absence from the rest of that season really relegates that to a lower rung in the end), but I realllllly love this scene. It’s the way the two of them practically have their own language, that even though El Gordo is sitting there with them, he instantly becomes both irrelevant and unmemorable and the electricity between these two powerful crimelord women is so palpable. I mean, it’s also that Oksana is queer and the subtext there with her energy towards Teresa is fairly overt (and I love me some queer subtext). But the line about women in this business not being as brutal as men, but twice as smart, is one of the most memorable of the season for me, and soooo true.

#3:

The scene: 4x07, Teresa running from and fighting the sicario in Nashville

What I love about it: She is so fucking scrappy and brilliant. She is a survivor in every sense of the word. There’s another fight scene in 4x05 when she’s trying to get away from Marcel’s guy who’s coming after her but this one stands out a bit more because she’s in Nashville with Eddie, trying to be a normal person living a normal life, and this is a sicario leftover from fucking Cortez back in season 3, and it’s just like—the contrast between the life that’s there on the surface with this bland boring “normal” boyfriend and the hell she actually lives in is so intense. And she has to hide it all, she has to stuff it under the surface and lie to Eddie about it (and he is such scum that he believes her??? doesn’t push it further? like wtf but anyway), and it’s just so painful and that pain and the trauma and the tension and the grit all comes through so powerfully. God I love Alice. She is just. I love her.

#2:

The scene: Episode 4x13, Javier saying good-bye to Teresa.

What I love about it: It rips my heart out. The tears start as she searches out the window of the car, searching not for something she can see but for some other version of the way this could have gone down, saying “it didn’t have to be like this,” and god, after Tony, after Birdie, after James, after everything this season, it just fucking kills me. And then they go all the way to Javier telling Pote to look after her, the same way James did when he left in 3x13. GOD THE POTENTIAL. Anyway, yeah, for like my own lasting emotional impact purposes I have to put this in the second slot.

#1:

The scene: Episode 4x13, JAMES IS BACKKKKKKKK

What I love about it: DUHHHHHHHHHH.

Season 4 Episodes Ranked

4x13

4x12

4x10

4x01

4x05

4x02

4x11

4x06

4x09

4x08

4x07

4x04

4x03

When I watched 4x03 I was like, wow, this is a really bad episode. Like maybe the worst in the entire series lol. A whole single-episode side-plot with this trucking company that has no pay-off later. Javier and Boaz killing Rene and his buddy; too much Judge personal life side stuff; too much Eddie. Just bleh all around. So whenever I do a full series episode ranking we know which one is last 😂

Teresa’s Journey

This is the season that brings her to queenpin’s door. We know this because in the finale she finally dons the white suit of the season 2 opener (the one in which she kills a lover—and fittingly, here she squarely spurns Eddie). But we didn’t really need the white suit to know that she’s a changed person from the one we left at the end of season 3. She’s become a lot more ruthless this season than she’d set out to be certainly and even more than she was by the end of season 3. End-of-season-4 Teresa would not have let Camila live. (At least, that’s very hard to imagine.) So what changed?

The most obvious thing as a viewer is that she had no actual emotional outlet. In Season 1 she had no emotional outlet but she was literally just fighting for her life, so I don’t really see it the same way as the others in terms of her journey to queenpin. In Season 2, she had both Guero and James, each in different ways, but each one helped her feel like a person, feel safe in some way. Season 3 was her first season trying to grow her own business, and one thing after another came after her and forced her to compromise in one way or another, but she had a family around her, she had James who absolutely helped keep her soft. But in season 4, she had no one like that, no one she could actually be her whole self with. Each of her men gives her some of that space—Pote and George and Javier even—but nothing like the partnership she had with James which was both business and personal and where the hierarchy of power and responsibility broke down. In season 4, not only does she not have that person or anyone filling in for that person in her life, but she’s also actually shut down that part of herself altogether out of self-protection.

She is alone, in a way she hadn’t been since season 1. And it shows. It hardens her. She reacts to the curveballs (increasing in both number and intensity) with no one but herself to lean on. Obviously, she has Pote, but he’s just a yes-man. If you pay attention, he doesn’t actually say anything remotely useful all season. He just parrots typical cartel talk. She has Javier, who lies to her all season so she can’t fully trust him (and she can tell she can’t even if she doesn’t know why). And she has George, whom she sends away after he accidentally kills Marcel’s guy Bobby and she can tell he’s just still not himself after Bilal died. He’s maybe the one person she can just ask for advice as an equal, but he’s not really around. Then there’s Tony, who she’s responsible for, and Kelly Anne, who almost got her killed a year earlier, and Eddie, whom she uses as a very much-needed outlet, I mean wow I really cannot blame her for needing that, but he absolutely does nothing to actually share her burdens, instead, he just tries to give her his own burdens. As if she has space for anyone else’s.

And so… she just has herself. She locks away the more emotional, feeling, romantic part of herself and hides the key. And with one tragedy after another continuing to hit her—Birdie, Manny, Tony, Javier, not to mention the multiple attempts on her own life—she grows much more prone to intimidation, fear, and violence herself.

But: she’s still herself in some crucial ways. She hasn’t given up altogether. She’s still trying to run a business with trust and respect and integrity at the core and with violence as a last resort. She doesn’t outright kill the Judge not only because doing so would definitely put her on the feds’ radar, but because she understands that he’s just a singular face of a muuuuuuuch bigger enemy, and killing him individually will not extinguish that larger enemy. And it’s ultimately that larger enemy she wants to position herself against because she doesn’t only see herself as a druglord. In fact, she doesn’t really see herself as a druglord at all. She sees the drug business as her way to find safety, influence, a good life, and to help make the world a better place. She wants to take out the Judge the right way, by proving and revealing his corruption in order to help all the people he’s harmed. She wants to build a legitimate business empire. Her values are still there. She just seems to keep telling herself that all of these awful things she’s having to do are reactive necessities and that if only she can accumulate enough power she’ll finally be able to stop dodging bullets. So despite meeting her inner queenpin (the scene with the sleazy banker to me really encapsulates that queenpin vibe, as well as her final confrontation with El Gordo’s nephew Elias in Miami), she hasn’t made any truly unimaginable values compromises yet. That’ll come in season 5 😭

Jeresa

Look I know there's no James in this season until the bitter end but that doesn't mean there's totally no Jeresa. I think his absence actually has a lot to do with her hardening outer shell, as I already alluded to above. She clearly wasn't actually trying to replace him when she decided to go for Eddie because Eddie only filled one of the needs James filled for her (ahem) and while I have to mentally scrub him out of those scenes, I have a bit of a 'you go girl' attitude about it, too. What I love about it Jeresa-wise is that you really see how sexually expressive she is, how sex is something that helps her relieve stress, because she's so cerebral otherwise. So idk, somehow it confirms for me what I imagine to have been an important part of her relationship with James and a big part of how they communicated. Physically, with their bodies, since (as we well know) they both kiiiiinda struggled with words lol. Anyway, I did appreciate that consistency with her character this season that sex was still something she sought because that was a way she helped get stress out of her body, but that she fairly quickly realized it was just... not working with someone she cared so little for. I mean I think she cared for him in a human way, but certainly not in a personal way, and he just became another burden. It seems so clear to me that she realizes the physical sex isn't cutting it, isn't actually the stress-reliever she needs, and that there's a deeper yearning she has that is unmeetable. By Eddie, obviously, but probably not by anyone else. I mean, she definitely doesn't go looking around once she breaks up with Eddie. She's done. She closes that part of herself down.

Until James shows up. We only see him for 20 seconds so the will-she-open-herself-back-up is obviously part of the season 5 Jeresa story. But her reaction when she sees him is instantaneous. She runs to him instinctively. The horror in her eyes the second she realizes it's him and that he's hurt feels more personal and alive than anything else this season since she realized Tony was about to die. I wish we could've had him back sooner so that we could've seen just a little bit of her secondary reaction to him being back, like the inner turmoil once the initial drama subsides, but I guess we sorta get that in 5x01. But his return right after she squarely shot down Eddie in that lover-killer suit really creates a brilliant cliffhanger for season 5. It's like, ok, she's spent a whole season essentially burying him. Burying the possibility of him, of the full package, of a love that has room for all parts of her and yet doesn't possess her or force her to change. And as she's buried him she's grown this callous around her heart because of all the compromises she's had to make, the losses she's endured, and the personal violence she's suffered.

But now here he is, saving her life, yet again, and she is going to have to figure out how to suddenly make room for all of that again.

THANK GODDDDDDD.

#qots s4 #2021 rewatch #txt post #qots meta #season 4 retrospective #episode rankings #as usual I tried to keep this short and utterly failed #I also failed at finding the right gifs to use to illustrate throughout but whatever #tumblr's gif search situation is very imperfect #also the only gifs of James for this season are of him mortally wounded so I hope no one minds me replacing him at the bottom here #with season 1 James in his aviators looking pissed in classic fashion #the James she knows and loves lmao #don't we all

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jule1122 · 1 year

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I posted 305 times in 2022

53 posts created (17%)

252 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@alexguerinss

@tasyfa

@angrycowboy

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I tagged 257 of my posts in 2022

Only 16% of my posts had no tags

#malex fic - 47 posts

#malex gifset - 42 posts

#my fic - 38 posts

#fic meme answers - 15 posts

#comments are love - 12 posts

#rnm fic - 11 posts

#rnm 4x13 spoilers - 11 posts

#malex - 10 posts

#thank you! - 9 posts

#signal boost - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 126 characters

#i never thought about how alex and michael both tried to move on to someone ultimately connected to what they wanted to escape

My Top Posts in 2022:

Malex Fic - Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

Writer’s block is still my best friend, but Malex are engaged! And if that doesn’t inspire me at least a little bit, all hope is lost. I went back to my Malex comfort zone for this, plotless fluff where Michael and Alex are in bed, but they have emotional conversations instead of sex.

This is canon compliant through 4x11 and takes place some point after where all plot points have already been magically resolved.

Kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight on AO3

Summary: They are back in their home, Alex isn't dying, but one thing hasn't changes. All Alex wants to do is marry Michael.

Title taken from the Barenaked Ladies version of “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.”

Alex wakes up the same way he has every day for the last week, to Michael next to him, watching him like he can’t believe he’s real. His eyes light up when he realizes Alex is awake, and Alex doesn’t think, just leans up for a kiss.

It’s not much of a kiss, just a gentle press of lips, but Alex keeps his eyes open, watching as Michael’s close when he feels Alex’s hand stroking his hair.

“Morning,” Michael mumbles against his mouth when they break the kiss.

Alex rolls onto his back to stretch and notices the coffee mug on his nightstand, the coffee no longer steaming. He frowns when he turns back to Michael, “How long have you been up?” He used to wake up before Michael every morning, but not now, not since they came back.

“Not long,” Michael shrugs.

Alex’s frown deepens as he realizes there is a pattern he missed. “You’re awake when I fall asleep at night and awake before me in the morning. You need to sleep, too.”

“I never look away, remember.”

“That’s not supposed to be literal,” Alex wrinkles his nose. He can see the lingering fear in Michael’s eyes, and he hesitates before continuing. “You don’t have to keep watch. I’m not going to disappear again.”

“You don’t know that.”

Alex takes Michael’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently before answering. “Since you haven’t let me leave the house, and I am pretty sure there is no alien sinkhole to an alternate dimension in our bathroom, I think you can relax.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Michael counters. He gives Alex a real smile, though, before lifting their joined hands and kissing Alex’s knuckles.

Alex doesn’t disagree. Being separated from Michael, being thrust alone into a world he didn’t understand isn’t an experience he never plans to repeat. Staying with Michael, in their house where they could focus on each other, has been the best way for them to heal.

There are things going on outside of this bubble they’ve created that Alex is distantly aware of. Some follower of Jones Isobel is heping, Liz is trying to minimize the fallout from her mentor’s breakdown, there are parts of Jones plan they are still trying to discover. But Alex doesn’t care. Right now, he’s content to be selfish, to ignore the part of him that was bred to put duty first. He and Michael deserve time to do nothing but love each other at least until after the honeymoon. Which reminds Alex, they do have one important reason to engage with the outside world.

“We are going to have to leave the house for at least a little bit today. If we don’t go to the courthouse today and get our marriage license, we won’t have it in time for the wedding,” Alex reminds Michael.

Michael drops Alex’s hand, some of the light leaving his eyes. “We don’t have to do that right now.”

“What? Get married?” Alex asks with a frown.

When Michael nods, Alex pushes himself into a sitting position and runs his hands through his hair. He’s about to ask Michael if he’s changed his mind, if he doesn’t want to marry Alex, but he knows in his heart that’s the wrong question.

“Do you think I only asked you to marry me because I was dying?” Alex asks instead.

Michael doesn’t answer but the way he averts his eyes tells Alex everything he needs to know.

“Michael,” Alex sighs. He pulls on Michael’s hand until Michael moves to sit next to him. “Figuring out I was dying didn’t make me want to marry you, but it did give me the courage to ask you. I wasn’t afraid of dying.”

Michael makes a distressed sound at that, and Alex knows despite both Liz and Kyle assuring them that he is perfectly healthy, that wound isn’t going to heal any time soon. He rests his head on Michael’s shoulder, lets Michael hold him close, but it starts to feel too much like the pocket dimension, and Alex wants this proposal to feel different. He shifts them both around until he’s leaning against the headboard with Michael across from him, their knees touching.

“Hey,” he starts, waiting until Michael looks at him again to talk. “I wasn’t afraid to die, but I was afraid to die without you knowing how much I love you.”

“I know you love me, Alex. You don’t need to prove that to me,” Michael protests.

“That’s not what it’s about,” Alex shakes his head. “I told Maria once that falling in love with you was the easiest thing in the world, but I’ve never told you that. I’ve never shown you that. We grow up on fairy tales - true love’s kiss and happily ever afters. When I realized I was gay, I thought I could never have any of that, But then you kissed me in that museum, under a fake alien sky, and all of that became real. You were everything I never let myself hope for, and that love, that feeling of belonging, has never gone away.”

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41 notes - Posted August 28, 2022

Malex NYE Ficlet

Tiny little fic written in response to a discussion on the literal skeletons discord server about Alex and Michael having their first New Year’s Eve together.

Isobel moves her New Year's Eve party to the Wild Pony because Maria can't afford to be short staffed on one of her busiest nights of the year. Alex and Michael leave at 11 despite Liz's protest. They enjoy celebrating with their family, but they set aside part of the night for just two of them.

Midnight finds them kissing on the couch, drinks forgotten on the coffee table. Alex's hands are tangled in Michael's hair, and Michael absent mindedly stokes Alex's neck as they kiss.

When the fireworks and gunshots go off, Michael pulls back. He gives Alex one more quick kiss in response to his pout before asking, "Any resolutions?"

Alex thinks a moment before answering, "To keep talking to you, to tell you the things I think you need protected from or I'm afraid will make you turn away from me because secrets only make things worse."

Michael squeezes his hand, "Is that all?"

"To let myself be happy without wondering if I deserve it or worrying about when it will end."

"I like seeing you happy," Michael says quietly, leaning in for another soft kiss.

"What about you?" Alex asks.

"To ask questions and listen to the answers instead of assuming I know how you feel or what you are thinking. To enjoy being with you without waiting for something to take you away again, to trust that you are here to stay."

Alex blinks back tears, "I like seeing you happy," he repeats because he can't find better words right now. He takes a breath and adds just a little more, " I want to be there to see you happy, to help make you happy."

"Damn, I love you," Michael laughs through the tightness in his throat.

"I love you, too," Alex starts to pull Michael in for another kiss, but Michael holds up his hand.

"One more," he says.

Alex raises one eyebrow and waits for Michael to continue.

"I'm going to convince you to get a dog."

"Only if you move in with me," Alex counters with a smile.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Michael says before pushing Alex down onto the couch.

52 notes - Posted December 31, 2021

Malex Fic - I want you to move me

The writing part of my brain is still 99% broken, but this song makes my fingers itch. This is really pure fluff with a little talking about smut although no actual smut happens. Just a nice romantic moment between Michael and Alex and Liz and Max’s wedding.

I want you to move me on AO3

Summary: "I want you to move me Step into the moonlight Throw your weight in to me"

Title and Summary are both from “Move me” by half-alive. The mood of this story is all set around the chorus of the song so I recommend listing to it if you can.

Michael twirls Rosa one last time as the music’s ending, smacking a loud kiss onto her cheek. She sticks her tongue out at him, making him laugh as they leave the dance floor. Without even thinking about Michael looks for Alex, eyes seeking him out automatically, and his breath catches when he spots him.

Alex is watching him, looking at him with a mix of love, amusement and a little bit of awe, as if he can’t believe he’s lucky enough to be loved by Michael. It’s been years - decades if he forgets their time apart and remembers the first time he saw that look on Alex’s face - and Michael still isn’t used to it, hopes he never will be.

He blows Alex a kiss, bouncing on his feet when Alex’s smile widens even as he shakes his head at Michael’s antics. Michael has an urge to just run to Alex and throw himself onto his lap, making him wonder if Max’s joy at finally marrying Liz is bleeding into his own emotions. Hard as it is to believe, Michael’s reached a point where happy is his default state, but everything is a little exaggerated today. He teared up during Max and Liz’s first dance, and cried openly when Max turned Liz over to Arturo for their dance, and Michelle surprised Max at the edge of the dance floor and demanded her own dance. Michael pulled it together for the bridal party dance but only because he knew Rosa wouldn’t tolerate his tears, and with only four of them - Michael and Isobel for Max, Rosa and Kyle for Liz - there was nowhere to hide from the guests that were watching them.

Now that the formal dances are over, people begin streaming toward the dance floor, and getting to Alex starts to feel like swimming upstream. He passes Greg and Maria, and Maria catches his hand, giving it a quick squeeze as she walks by.

When he finally reaches Alex, the music changes to something slow and dreamy so Michael holds out his hand. Alex shakes his head, smiling dimming a little, and Michael wants to kick himself. The wedding had fallen in the midst of a pain flare up for Alex. His leg had been bothering him for no discernible reason - could be a change in the weather, something off with his prosthetic, an awkward movement he didn’t remember - nothing they could pinpoint. He’d stayed off his prosthetic for a few days before the wedding, and keeping pressure off his leg helped, but he was still limping enough Michael knew he’d feel self conscious on the dance floor even if all they were barely moving. Alex wouldn’t care if it was just their family, but the guest list had grown to include people who didn’t know Alex at all or still thought of him as the war hero Alex had never felt like.

Michael’s about to sit next to Alex when he notices the patio doors are open. “Feel like some air?” he asks, nodding toward the exit.

“Sounds good,” Alex’s smile brightens again, and he takes Michael’s hand.

It's a beautiful night, clear and lit by an almost full moon. The temperature dropped with the sun, but it’s still warm enough that they are comfortable with just their suit jackets. The patio opens into a garden who’s path winds out of sight. It’s not crowded, but several other guests are outside, some looking for a place to smoke. Alex wrinkles his nose at the smell, and Michael doesn’t invade any minds, but he sends out a suggestion that it’s a good time to go back inside and soon they are alone.

Alex laughs and raises his brow at Michael, letting him know he doesn’t think their sudden solitude is a coincidence.

Michael just shrugs his shoulders and pulls Alex in for a kiss. He feels more settled, comfortable in his own emotions now that he’s not in the same room with Max. Still happy and head over heels in love with Alex, but no more than he always is. “Come on,” he says when they break apart, taking Alex’s hand and leading him down the steps.

When they reach the garden, Michael heads toward one of the benches lining the border, but Alex shakes his head. “Feels good to walk after sitting for so long.”

So Michael redirects them to the path, careful to let Alex set the pace. His limp doesn’t seem any worse, but his back is still stiff and tense, and Michael aches with the need to take Alex’s pain away. He can’t, there’s nothing he can do - even with his powers, God knows he’s tried, sometimes hurting Alex more in the process - so he settles for letting go of Alex’s hand and rubbing his back underneath his jacket as the walk.

Alex relaxes slowly as they walk, eventually wrapping his arm around Michael’s shoulder. Michael leans into him and looks around. The garden is dimly lit, enough light to be safe, but not enough to take away from the romantic atmosphere. They’d taken pictures earlier, under blue skies with colorful flowers contrasting perfectly with Liz’s white dress and Max’s dark suit. Liz’s hair and dress tangled in the wind and Max kept trying to fix it, both of them laughing and smiling too much to bother with poses. Now it’s starlight, filled with white, night blooming flowers, and with Alex in his arms, Michael thinks he prefers it this way, “It’s pretty here,” he tells Alex..

“Mmm,” Alex agrees. “Isobel did a great job. The whole day has been perfect.”

“You want all this,” he asks, gesturing not just at the garden, but the party behind them, “when we get married?” Neither of them have proposed, there is no official engagement, but they’ve started talking this way - when we get married, when we move into a bigger house, when we start a family - their love and future together cemented as certain in their minds.

Alex pauses in their walk for a moment, thinking about it before he resumes their pace. “I want what you want,” he finally says with a shrug.

“Alex,” Michael says exasperated because they’ve talked about this, too much really. Michael needs to know what Alex wants, needs, not just what he thinks he’s allowed to have.

“No, I mean it,” Alex insists. “Once I realized no matter how perfect it sounded, I was never going to want to marry Maria, I stopped thinking about all of it. Weddings, happily ever afters, those were things I was never going to have. But you, Michael,” he turns so they’re facing each other and takes both Michael’s hands. And the look is back on his face again, the one that never lets Michael forget how much Alex loves him. “But even with all the shit life threw at you, you never stopped, dreaming or wanting. Even when I,” Alex lets out a shaky exhale, rests his forehead against Michael’s before continuing, “when I couldn’t believe, you still did. So, yeah, Michael, anything you want.”

“Not all this,” Michael says. Liz and Max’s wedding has been beautiful, everything going perfectly, but if Max’s second emotions almost overwhelmed him, a day like this with Alex might kill him. “More than just us, something nice with just our families I think.”

“You realize ‘just’ our families has turned into a lot of people,” Alex teases him.

Alex is right, and Michael never thought that would happen. He and Alex had both been so alone for years, rejected and forced to hide parts of themselves. But somehow they had this sprawling web of relationships, of people who knew and loved them, some bound by blood, but all by choice. “More people to delegate to,” he says with a smile. “So all we have to do is show up and look pretty.”

“Ok,” Alex agrees easily. “Soon.”

“Soon,” Michael echoes before sighing deeply.

“What?” Alex asks, concern edging into his voice.

Michael closes the small distance between them, waits until Alex wraps his arms around him before resting against his chest. “All I want to do is take you home, get you out of the suit and take care of you.”

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56 notes - Posted April 16, 2022

Malex Fic - All I Want is You

How much fluff can I shove into 1100 words? The answer is a lot. I am over the moon about Alex Guerin being canon, and wanted to write something about that. Michael also has a lot of feelings about being married so this fic is nothing but them continuing to be madly in love.

All I Want is You on AO3

Title from U2's "All I Want is You" because that song fits their marriage perfectly.

Summary: When they get back from their honeymoon, Michael has a husband and Alex has a new name. Neither of those things will ever change.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” Michael yells as he opens the door.

“In here,” Alex answers back.

Michael follows the sound of his voice and finds his husband at the table, laptop open, working his way through a stack of papers.

“I thought you weren’t back at Deep Sky until Monday?” Michael asks with a slight frown. They returned from their honeymoon a few days ago, but both had cleared their schedules for the rest of the week. Michael had spent the afternoon catching up with Isobel, but otherwise neither of them had left the house.

“Oh, this isn’t work,” Alex reassures him. He gestures to the papers next to the computer, “Just getting started on the name change. I’ve got Social Security, VA, MVD, the bank, the mortgage company, utilities, passport. Once that’s all done I can update my will and other legal documents.”

Just listening to Alex list all the forms overwhelms Michael. “Can’t you just hack into something and have it all done at once? Or get someone at Deep Sky to handle it?”

“I could,” Alex says with a laugh and a shrug, “but I want to do it this way.”

“Why?” Michael asks as he sits in the chair next to Alex.

“I don’t want it to just happen. I want someone to read this form and know my name is changing because I want it to, that this is a choice. I want them to look at our marriage license and think ‘he must really love his husband a lot if he wants to share his name.’ I want everyone who has to change my name to know how lucky I am.”

Michael leans back in his chair and lets out a breath. Sometimes he still can’t believe all this is real, then Alex says something like that, and it hits him all over again. He’s quiet long enough that Alex starts to look uncomfortable.

“I know it doesn’t really matter,” he starts.

“No,” Michael takes his hand, rubbing his thumb along Alex’s ring. “I get it.” And he does. It’s the same reason he can’t stop calling Alex his husband. He’s said it so much, Isobel had hung up on him twice. But he can’t imagine not saying it, not telling every person he talks to that he has a husband, not taking every chance he can to remember that they finally got here. If Alex needs fifty bureaucrats to look at their marriage license, Michael will help him stuff the envelopes.

“Maybe you should send a picture too,” he teases. “Make sure they know exactly how lucky we both are.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Alex squeezes his hand before pulling away and picking up his pen.

Michael gets up and stands behind him, watching as he finishes the form to update his driver’s license. He sets it aside and reaches for another stack of papers, but Michael can’t stop staring at “Alexander Manes” written in Alex’s neat, block handwriting. He looks at the bottom of the page, and Alex’s new signature. There’s a scrawled “A” followed by a scribble that leads into a large, fancy printed “G.” The rest of “Guerin” is written in a slanted hybrid of cursive and print, each letter easy to recognize. Michael traces it with his eyes and wonders what it will look like in a year, five years then fifty. He wonders when it will be second nature for Alex to sign with “Guerin,” when he won’t have to think about it.

“Hey, can you grab the stapler for me?” Alex asks without looking up from where he’s adding a copy of their marriage license to the MVD form.

“Sure,” Michael clears his throat and heads to Alex’s desk. As he walks away, he sees Alex turn to look at him, a soft smile on his face. He looks back because he’ll always look back to Alex. It’s hard to believe there was a time he looked at Alex and saw nothing but pain and regret for the life they didn’t have. Now he looks at Alex and sees forever stretching out in front of them.

When he brings back the stapler, Alex takes it with a distracted, “Thanks, babe.”

Michael kisses the top of his head and goes to start dinner, leaving Alex to finish his stack of paperwork. He sneaks glances at Alex as he cooks, smiling at his complete concentration at the task in front of him. He probably won’t even notice Michael’s started dinner until Michael puts a plate in front of him.

But Alex surprises him by coming into the kitchen just as Michael turns the heat on the sauce down to simmer.

“Smells good,” Alex compliments him as he passes Michael on the way to the cupboard. “Paperwork’s all done so I’ll set the table while you finish up.”

When Alex reaches up to get the plates, Michael wraps his arms around his waist. “No hurry,” he stops Alex before he opens the cabinet door. “We have time.”

“Oh, do we?” Alex turns in his arms, smiling into Michael’s kiss.

“Mhmm,” Michael confirms, without breaking the kiss. He presses Alex up against the counter, kisses him soft and slow because they do have time.

He can’t help but wonder if it will always feel like this, like there’s nothing in the world but this. Maybe one day his breath won’t catch when he sees the wedding pictures Isobel framed and placed on their mantel and dresser while they were on their honeymoon. Maybe one day he won’t find Alex staring at the shadow box Maria made them, filled with the boutonnieres, his mother’s handkerchief, Mimi’s bracelet and the original wedding invitation Rosa drew for them.

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61 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Malex Fic - I’m a happy idiot

Trying to write my way out of a slump with some secret marriage fluff. No warnings just lots of love.

I’m a happy idiot on AO3

Summary: 4 times Michael and Alex almost told someone they were married and 2 times they didn't have to.

Title from "Happy Idiot" by TV on the Radio

Michael’s half asleep, boneless and fucked out when he feels Alex’s lips on his forehead.

“See you later, love you,” Alex whispers into his hair.

It’s the smell of coffee that gets him to open his eyes. Michael turns his head and watches Alex set a mug on his nightstand, steam curling in the cool air of their bedroom. He reaches out and barely catches Alex’s hand, their fingertips tucking into each other. “I love you, you should marry me,” he says, thinking about how he wants mornings like this for the rest of his life.

Alex’s eyes widen for a moment, but he steps closer to the bed and smiles. “Ok,” he says as if it’s that easy.

But that’s the thing. It is that easy, has been that easy since Michael kissed him on an empty patio. So he doesn’t ask Alex if he’s sure, just sits up and pulls Alex down on the bed next to him, the adrenaline from the realization that he’s going to marry Alex waking him up. “Call off work while I shower. The courthouse opens,” he squints at the clock, “in an hour.”

“You want to get married today?” Alex asks, laughing.

“Can you think of a reason to wait?” Michael counters. They never really talked about marriage. Michael assumed they would get there eventually, but now that it’s a possibility, Michael’s never wanted anything more.

Alex bites his lip, smile still showing through, and shakes his head.

“I didn’t think so,” Michael pulls him down for a kiss. “Now get moving. The sooner we get married, the sooner we can start our honeymoon.”

Sanders

“I’m guessing by that smile on your face you didn’t call off yesterday because of some alien crisis.”

Michael jumps a foot in the air, hitting his head on the hood of the car he’s working on. “Why do you always do that?” he complains, glaring at Sanders.

“Because it never stops being funny,” Sanders laughs. “You’d think by now you’d have learned to pay attention to your surroundings, makes me wonder just how useful your powers are if a gimpy old man can sneak up on you. Now back to my question. I know you weren’t sick so what was so important I had to tell Ethel Myers her car wasn’t going to be ready for another day?”

“Ethel Myers should have stopped driving five years ago so the extra day was a blessing to everyone on the road,” Michael argues, hoping to distract Sanders.

But Sanders just stands there, arms crossed and foot tapping, waiting for Michael to answer. And shit, he and Alex really should have talked about what they were going to tell people, but they’d been too busy celebrating.

“Alex and I had, uh, stuff to take care of,” he finally mumbles.

“Stuff?” Sanders repeats with a disbelieving snort.

“Yeah, you know, house stuff,” Michael makes a vague gesture with his hands.

“You’d think after a few years your ‘house stuff’ would stop interfering with your work,” Sanders rolls his eyes. “But I guess that explains the limp.”

“Oh my god!” Michael feels his face heat up. “That’s not what I meant!” But before he can come up with a better explanation. Sanders walks away, shaking his head.

Eduardo

When Alex gets to work, he finds a note on his desk asking him to report to the director’s office.

He knocks lightly on Eduardo’s open door. “You wanted to see me?” he asks when Eduardo waves him inside.

“Yes, come sit,” he gestures to the chairs in front of his desk. “I’m glad you are feeling better.”

“Thank you, it was just one of those twenty-four hour bugs,” Alex shrugs, holding Eduardo’s eyes so he doesn’t appear evasive.

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87 notes - Posted February 6, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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harleyquinnzelz · 2 years

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Okay but I have to ask: tell me all about Sally Hopper!! Every little thing you can think of, I am in love with her and I'm curious!!

Hope you're doing well!! 🖤🖤🖤

OMG YES OKAY!

So right now, Sally is in the middle of getting a face change again (I love Holland but I'm changing her to Kat McNamara who works better age-wise) so don't be surprised if I start posting updated gifsets (both her and my other babe MJ are getting new faces actually).

She's Hopper's oldest daughter, so Sara's older sister. After moving to Hawkins she befriends Jonathan and becomes very close with the Byers, with Will becoming like a surrogate little sibling (it's a very sweet dynamic) and Joyce becoming the closest thing Sally has to a mom.

She's an aspiring horror writer, along the lines of Stephen King and very independent. After the events of season one, once anything weird happens the whole partyy is typically like "yes we would like our mother, Sally, to come take care of this." Basically her and Steve are the party parents and Sally don't tolerate anyone messing woth her kids. As in "Stay the hell away from my kids: is literally a line she says in canon.

She's an artist, which is something she and Will bond over. She also becomes very close with Eleven, naturally. Like Sally is just a good big sister y'all.

She's an avid horror fan and works at the video store from the very beginning which basically means regular movie nights with Jonathan. Really, Sally is a ride or die friend, and it's kind of sad to me that we won't have as many chances to show the Jally brotp moving forward in the series since they're gonna be separated a lot of the time but rest assured, Sally and Jonathan are and stay best friends. Is there some jealousy with Argyle later? Maybe, you'll have to wait and see.

Basically Sally's whole vibe is action movie hero girl meets final girl and I love that for her. She is a fight first, ask questions later kinda girl.

As for Sally and Steve. I love them. I am a simo for them. Basically they're the best team, and they're simps for each other. She has all the braincells admittedly, but he is much better at navigating emotions so it works out.

I don't wanna divulge too many spoilers here so if you have any specific questions, hit me up with them.

(Thank you so much. You're an angel and I hope you're okay too!)

#asks #answered #muses #oc: sally

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clarkegriffins · 2 years

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Sort of random rambling nonsense but you’re the person with the closest opinions to my own I think (you even have a Clarke url and she’s still my favorite ever!) so apologies if it comes off bitter and unhinged BUT. I love byler, prefer it even, as a ship because I love Will and the childhood best friends trope sucks me in every time, but the fandom is literally insane and I can’t stand it. I think it’s because I’m in my 20s and a lot of them are teens but some of the behavior is just inexcusable honestly? “El has to be independent” horrible takes everywhere, Mike HAS to be gay (which is just biphobia most of the time), Will will NEVER be happy unless he’s with Mike and never moves on, Mike only liked El because she had no hair and looked like a boy at first, etc. Don’t even get me started on the “proofs” that get so unhinged that I genuinely wonder if some of them are ok—today I saw one comparing a shot from the Suzie scenes to the last supper painting???? And even though I am neutral on mileven it’s clear that’s what they’re going with so all of this absolute byler endgame certainty everywhere also baffles me. The thing is, I find the ship adorable still, but I really wish the stans could get a collective reality check because they’re embarrassing and obnoxious and sometimes. I wonder how they could’ve watched vol2 and not realized they’re telling the unrequited love angle in canon and can just make transformative content to alleviate that in fanon. /end vent

OH ANON I LOVED THIS ASK SO MUCH, thank u for sharing how you’re feeling and i can just say: SAME, FUCKING SAME. first i’m gonna say something if u know me/my account, u should know that i was (i think i still am, i’m just on....hiatus) a hardcore byler shipper since 2016/season 1, when this ship used to be a crackship and a joke for many people, it was TOUGH back then, i’ve been loving them for years, bc just like u said: childhood friends to lovers is amazing, it’s one of my favorite tropes ever, i have many other ships like this... and just like u said i also love will, i LOVE will, with all my heart (i’m a willelsteve stan since 2016), and now about the fandom i’ll say, it was understandable having hope before vol 2, the whole mike not saying i love you to el was a bit weird to me and to the rest of the fandom, my account before and after vol 2 is two different accounts lmao, before vol 2 i was being hopeful, i made some gifsets with theories and all, i thought that the only way the story would make sense was if byler happened/mileven break up, but after vol 2 something changed, it was like if something finally clicked you know? every missing part, every doubt, every confusion i had disappeared and things became cristal clear to me, and i sit and thought about everything that happened in season 4 and the past seasons and i finally took my byler shipper glasses off and i saw how naive i was being, also a little dumb lmao, u don’t need to be smart af or understand everything about media to know that the direction byler is going is the unrequited one, byler actually never stood a chance, mike and will’s relationship was important to will for him to find out he is gay, it’s actually a little cliche i know but it makes sense, if it wasn’t mike it would have been lucas, or dustin, but since mike is will’s best friend it was him, and it makes sense will would fall in love with the first person to show him kindness and was friendly, we all know how caring mike can be with him, so it makes sense, i can talk about myself like i find out i was bisexual bc i fell in love with my best friend, and spoiler alert we didn’t work, but i will always be grateful for her because i was able to find out who i am (insert the i know what u are meme here lmao), which i think is the same for will, this is the story the duffers are telling, this is part of will’s storyline.... now let’s go to some topics:

the “el has to be independent” take: BULLSHIT, i think if u have been watching the show u should know that el, just like joyce and nancy are independent af, el was away from mike in s2 and she had adventures by HERSELF to find out who she is, to find out about her powers, her mom, etc....in season 3 she also had adventures by herself and max, and in season 4 we saw her again going back to the lab by herself to figure stuff out and get her powers back.......so as we can see, ELEVEN IS INDEPENDENT, but at the end of the day she always comes back to mike bc she’s IN LOVE with him and people need to accept that, it doesn’t make her weak or not independent, it’s part of who she is, she’s in love, female characters can be in love and independent, they don’t have to pick one, they can have BOTH. PERIOD.

the “mike has to be gay” ............sigh.......... tbh anon i’m tired of talking about this, i’ve already talked about how the byler fandom can be biphobic af sometimes which is one of the reasons why i’m.....distant from them now, so i’m not gonna speak about this again, just know that if u don’t think that mike ever had any romantic feelings for el ur literally embarrassing urself, he’s not confused or anything, mike was created in love with el.... let’s talk about mike btw, remember how i said that after vol 2 something clicked? so mike is part of this, mike has SO MUCH overlooked trauma and people don't even realize it, el’s “death” is season 1 marked him for good, and everything we are watching now is the result of this trauma, season 2 is not the “best mike season” like people say, mike was depressed, going through pstd, he literally says to will that he thought he was going crazy, and after all that sadness he finds out el is alive again and WOW, it was like he finally could breath again, we can see in his eyes, the longing, the sadness, the relief..... and just like that he had to let her go again so she could save the world ONCE AGAIN, and he was so scared, he was crying and he made her promise to him that she would be back..... and then we have season 3, el can’t leave her house bc you know my baby girl is wanted in 65656564 countries lmao so #GIRLBOSS of her if u ask me, so mike has to go to her house to spend time with her since she cant leave her house that much or go to public places, and that makes him be distant from his friends for a little bit but can we blame him? like i know that he could manage his time better but lets not forget that hes also a kid KDJGSNJDKGNKJGNSG like he was what? 13? in season 3? do u really expect a 13 year old to know EVERYTHING? but people say “lucas can do that with max just fine” first max it’s not el, like i said el is wanted in 545645645 countries, it’s easy to manage ur time with ur friends/girlfriend when ur girlfriend can hang out with u all the time, like lucas can take max to watch movies, mike can’t, anyways you know what i mean, this is getting too long so i will link u to these posts where i talked about mike and mileven and how i think his storyline makes sense in s4 here and here, the show have been telling us about mike’s insecurity and fear about losing el for seasons now, but we weren’t paying attention....

and finally the “Will will NEVER be happy unless he’s with Mike and never moves on” BIG SIGH, i said it once and i’ll say it again: DON’T REDUCE WILL DOWN TO HIS FEELINGS FOR MIKE, JUST DON’T, it’s part of him? YES, but it’s not everything about him as a character, the whole “Will will only be happy if he’s with mike” is such bullshit bc idk if u noticed but will already lived without mike, bc he never had mike to begin with, you can't lose something you never had, if we could take away the trauma from the upside down off him we could see that will can be happy just by being next to his friends, to his family, tbh i feel like will’s storyline is about growing up, being able to love and accept himself and understand that he’s loved, he’s not a mistake or a freak, that’s will’s character, and i hope more than anything that my baby boy can learn how to love himself and finally be free, el kind of had the same stuff in season 4 too, when she finally stand up to her abuser and said she’s not the monster, ofc it’s still a working in progress bc she blames herself for max now but is still something, and i want will to have that too.

and FINALLY the “proofs” i’ll just say: LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO i’m sorry jfkgnkdjnsdkjgndksjgndkgnskjgndkjgn i laugh so much everytime i read their theories, they are so unserious, they are queerbating themselves and they don't even realize that, they DO need a reality check asap.... but hey whatever makes them happy i just hope they're not assholes when none of this happens

ok i already talked too much, bottom line is: ship whatever u want, whatever u love, byler is such a sweet ship, they are cute af (the fandom is nasty tho), but we all know this is not the direction the show is going and as long as you know that....be free, u can ship non canon ships you know, shipping is not about canon or endgames, is about a dynamic u love no matter what. and we know that will has feelings for mike and like u said we can work with that, i know it’s sad when ur favorite pairing it’s not canon but what can i say? it happens, i have many non canon ships and i still adore them more than anything in the world.

(i'm sorry if there are any typos, i’m sleepy af)

#replies #stranger things #ALSO U LOVE CLARKE TOO #SO THAT MEANS I LOVE U TOO

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vegancas · 2 years

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so the house i'm meant to be moving into soon is almost ready, we're having the floors polished or whatever which i feel is kinda unnecessary but i guess my parents are paying for it so whatever, but i am feeling overwhelmed by the idea that i have to deal with study while trying to move and can't really take time off work because i'm at this new store and will probably/hopefully be going back to my old store soon but like how can i take time off when we'll just be going back there again after 3 months (5 months for me! but 3 months since the department ~closed) and in top of that i'm dealing with this stupid home loan stuff i need to get building insurance and i cbb with all the research that will take so i am just putting everything off because i am too overwhelmed

yeah the perfect solution to all my shit has been to spend most of the day yesterday making that destiel gifset and playing on neopets (and i cannot even begin to think about how it's being hacked??? i literally just changed my password a week ago??? like if i weren't playing at all it would've been fine (i couldn't remember my password so whatever it was i probably don't use anymore??) but i changed my password to one i use a lot, although not for anything important i suppose so i'm just gonna cross my fingers that it won't matter)

and i just feel so idk cluttered disorganised just like unable to be organised coz i'm squished into one room unable to unpack enough to really get myself together???? and i need to move into my new space but again i'm stressed about the process of actually doing that and it was why i didn't want to move back into my parent's in the first place coz it meant doubling the stress of moving but i'm here now and ugh i should've dropped out of this unit a few days ago and now it's too late without having it on my academic record and still having hecs debt for it

#i would like to bang my head against a wall #my thoughts

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toobruhlforschool · 2 years

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Laszlo: Sex is but a three letter word. Also Laszlo: [blushes at the word coitus]

For @kissthymouth

#laszlo kreizler #the alienist #literally my first gifset since i moved #in febuary #srry lmao #anyway heres some blushing laszlo #the second gif is when she says coitus and his eyes go wide #i love it #laszlo my beloved #40 year old virgin yes?#king of microexpressions #userpng #userlindir #daniel brühl #almost forgot the most important tag

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keigosbirdie · 4 years

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FEMALE READER VERSION

Of all Hawks’ secrets, you are the most well-kept.

Version: Female Reader version | Male Reader Version Links: Gifset (art only) | Mood Music

NIGHTHAWK Rating: Explicit | Word Count: 13k | Art: 14 animations, 2 stills (Technically no spoilers, but if you aren’t caught up on the events of the manga you’ll be missing important context. The fic takes place after Hawks’ meeting with the commission.) Synopsis: Casual was the word you used when you first agreed to sleep together. As weeks turned into months turned into a year, those quick and dirty nights blossomed into private moments that earned him little pieces of you. Warnings: Dom!Hawks, Nurse!Reader, animalistic behavior, rough sex, quirk/feather play, light bondage, biting, praise kink, hurt/comfort, secret relationship, talk of past lovers, mentions of death, panic attacks, PTSD, mention of a past, non-canon event. Spicy, then bitter, then sweet.

There was nothing exceptional about your life from an outsider’s perspective. You lived in an apartment on the outskirts of Jaku City, unmarried and childless. During the day you attended medical school where you studied for your doctorate. During the evening you worked as a nurse in the intensive care unit. Then, when you were home, you sat alone for dinner at a kitchen table meant for two.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

For the past year, however, an occasional tap at your sixteenth-story window would break up the lonely monotony. The tap was quite a scandalous secret, not that anyone would believe you if you let it slip. Even you still had a hard time accepting the bizarre reality of the situation; but it was real. Just as real his voice, which you could hear echoing faintly through your apartment.

You glanced up from your lukewarm dinner and dropped your fork. For a long moment, you sat in silence, listening intently until you heard it again. It was him; it was his voice. Your heart pounded against your ribs as you shoved out of your chair and jogged to the window. The part between your curtains opened, but when you peeked through you saw only the glow of city lights below a blanket of darkness.

A frown found your face, and a sigh spilled past your lips. You heard his voice; you would never mistake it for another. It echoed casually against your dim walls again, and you turned your head towards the sweet sound. The television was on in the living room. Your heart dropped at the realization. The little square thing sat on your end table and taunted you with his image.

There he was. Hawks, the winged hero, being interviewed by a woman in a pantsuit. It wasn’t often he did interviews, so you left your dinner to go cold in favor of watching the program.

He was dressed in his hero costume, his visor lifted to rest atop his blond, wind-whipped hair, and his scarlet wings folded politely against his back. A wide grin graced his face as he exchanged charming banter with the woman. She seemed enamored with his expression, but she didn't know him like you knew him. He was smiling, yes, but the edges of his eyes were crinkled with tension. When he chuckled, his wings folded a little harder against his back. His beats of laughter were calculated. Uncomfortable, that's what he was.

He’d been that way a lot lately.

"So, I'm sorry, I have to ask- Every bachelorette in the country is wondering, is there any special lady in your life?" the interviewer asked. It was airy and friendly in intent, but your lip twitched with faint annoyance anyway. Your face fell slack and you leaned back into your chair.

"Well, I don't know about every bachelorette," he quipped. His face was a little grainy on your old TV screen, but you could see the slight pink in his cheeks. He was cute. So, very cute. It made you miss him that much more. "But my personal life, well, how alluring would I be if I didn't keep a few things a mystery?"

And a mystery it was, to everyone but you.

Thankfully, the woman interviewing him had enough tact to know when to move on. Their conversation mercifully veered away from his sex life—your sex life—and towards his agency. The television was a wondrous thing. His voice rang through your home despite his absence. It brought sadness, but also a bittersweet comfort. Viewing him live stung your soul. You watched until his interview ended with a commercial break, and then decided not to wait up for him again. That would only lead to another sleepless night.

Still, the window remained unlocked for him as you called it a night. The yellow glow of your desk lamp died with a click, and you climbed into your bed. Sleep was always difficult. Many nights you laid awake as you thought about your ICU patients. The things you saw in the ward were enough to scar anyone. But if it wasn’t work that plagued your mind, it was him.

Casual was the word you’d used when you’d first agreed to sleep together. It was easy to swallow when he only snuck into your apartment at night for sex. For the first few months, that was it. He’d steal into your home through the cover of darkness and you’d share a violently passionate night. Then, he would vanish out your window until he craved you again. Which, thankfully, was often.

As weeks turned into months turned into a year, however, those quick and dirty nights blossomed into private moments that earned him little pieces of you. You realized you were in too deep when it became difficult to be unbothered by the casual daydreaming of others. His face was clipped to girls’ backpacks long before you knew him, but others, covered so openly in his merchandise, began to make you a touch bitter. His sex life had been speculated about in tabloids since his debut, but to keep your mouth shut while your friends contemplated the size of his penis became hurtful and emotionally taxing.

The only one you could confide those pains in was the man who unintentionally caused them, but Hawks was too sweet. If he knew just how much it tore you up, he’d surely break things off to spare you the misery.

You cursed yourself for getting lost in thoughts of him. Bemoaning the casual chatter of others as he gracefully balanced the weight of the world on his shoulders made you feel weak. You allowed your eyes to close, your breathing slowed, and your body relaxed into your mattress. By the mercy of whatever god watched over you, sleep slowly overtook all your other thoughts.

At least until a shuffle and a squeak made you toss in your sheets. A faint light spilled into your room from the window, and a coolness settled into your bed. You shivered. It was the fresh winter air from outside. The cold wasn't the only intruder. It was him.

The light was dim, but a dark silhouette of flared wings blocked out the moonbeams. Your heart lurched in your chest at the dominant display. It was a habit of the bird in him to fluff up when his blood was hot. His predatory energy kept you submissively silent rather than greet him.

Floorboards creaked beneath his shoes. The pulls of their zippers clicked with the movement. His breath was heavy as he moved to your bed. You caught a vision of your lover’s face. Little flecks of snow followed in. They danced around the brilliance of his wings and settled into his hair. In the blue light of winter’s night, his gold eyes looked dazzling. They also harbored a glint of violence akin to the blown-out eyes of a predator in pursuit of prey.

It was a familiar look from the strange animal. He’d seemed so open and friendly when he’d first snuck into your hospital room to talk, but he shrugged away at hugs and only laughed awkwardly when you told him he was your best friend. He didn't understand that kind of closeness.

You’d learned how deep his discomfort ran through him when the relationship became sexual. His inept understanding of touch translated to violence in the bedroom. Sex was most comfortable for him when he thought of it as a battle. He'd hold you down and force you open. You'd dig teeth into his arms and rip out feathers with your fists. To submit to his pounding was capture, but to overstimulate him until he was too weak to hold you down was victory. Extreme? Perhaps to those who didn’t understand your trust in one another.

He'd at least offer a sappy hello before he pulled his dick out, though. Not tonight. He eyed you as if expecting you to run, as if he'd give chase if you decided to. Fuck, it caused the warmest tingle between your thighs. You’d missed him too badly to try to put up a fight.

He left his jacket abandoned on the floor, which offered a much better view of his slim body wrapped in his black bodysuit. His canines dug into the leather of his glove before he yanked his hand free with his teeth. You laid silent and already breathless. It'd been far too long since you last felt him. Your body was hot with need at the sight of his rigid wings alone. His eyes swept over you as he toyed with the front of his tan jeans. He didn't come very often in uniform. To watch him fondle himself through his costume was- god, was there a stronger word than ecstasy?

“I want you,” he said from your bedside.

"You can have me..." You breathed out. It was intended to sound sultry, but your tone was more akin to a pleading whisper. Your body ached for him before your heart did, after all. Old habits were hard to break.

"You've been waiting for me, like a good girl, haven’t you?" he cooed. Cooed, quite literally. A low and rumbling song reverberated from somewhere deep in his throat. Not a bit of you was avian, but your body reacted instinctively when you heard your mate's call.

"I should reward you."

His visor glinted in the dim light as he pulled it off his face and let it land on the floor. His earmuffs, too.

You bit down your grin as the weight of your mattress shifted under his knee. His ungloved hand neglected the bulge in his jeans to tend to you instead. Warm fingertips slipped beneath your covers and found the skin of your thigh. A small sigh spilled from his lips, and your body trembled.

"You missed my hands on you, didn't you?"

You only managed a nod as his fingers slid up and beneath your pajama top.

Your body sank deeper into your covers when he moved over you. One knee landed on either side of your hips. His bare hand played with your breast while the still gloved one ran through your hair. The leather of the glove was frigid from the cold, but his body radiated warmth. The sweetness of his cologne mingled with the harsh musk of sweat. The smell of him fogged your mind.

The pads of his fingers pinched and tugged at the pink bud he discovered on your chest, which earned him a harsh gasp.

"That's it. I love it when you sing like that," he chimed. His hot breath ghosted over the shell of your ear. Wefts of his hair brushed against your face as his teeth nibbled at your throat. You were trapped beneath the cage his body made.

"These cute little tits of yours- god."

He wasn't usually so chatty when he was about to mount you, but every grumble that reverberated in his throat added to the tingle between your thighs. He could devour you whole and you would thank him for the honor.

Your hands slid up the sides of his tight bodysuit. The inky black fabric was harsh beneath your fingertips. You traced the patterns of its gold accents around to his back and up towards his wings. He stiffened when he felt you slide nearer to them. Between the plush feathers at the base of a wing, you wiggled a finger until you found the skin beneath. Then you gave the joint a brutal squeeze.

Instinctively, that glorious wing of his outstretched and shivered. The stems of his plumes flexed against your hand as they puffed twice their usual size. The longest of them brushed against the ceiling of your room, dwarfing your bodies beneath it.

You were always in awe of the sheer size and beauty of them.

"F-fuck. Not fair," he growled, and then his teeth sunk hard into your neck in vengeance. The harsh bite only made you desperate for more, so you fisted his feathers in your hand and gave a sharp yank. He gasped a hot breath into the nape of your neck. Fuck. You couldn't take the teasing anymore.

Your hands relieved him of their cruelty to pull off your shirt. He faltered when your bare breasts were exposed. His golden irises became thin rings as the darkness of his pupils devoured them. The tip of his glistening tongue wetted his lips.

It was your turn to stare with sharp desire as you heard the click of his belt, then the pull of a zipper. You pushed yourself up to get a good view of him working his dick out of his bodysuit. The throbbing muscle hit him in the stomach. The sensation made him hiss between his teeth, and you whimpered in reply.

"Hhm, you must be really hungry, the way you're staring at it," he mused before he spat into his palm and ran the wetness along the shaft. He quivered at the sensation. You quivered, too.

"Please." Your cheeks were flushed, and your chest quaked with desire. "I want to feel it, please."

"Oh, don't worry. You’re gonna have all of this. Gotta get that pretty little pussy ready for my cock, though, don't we?" he hummed.

He reached into his plumage and pulled out a long, red feather. The thing wriggled between his pinched fingers as he presented it to you. The way it moved was unnatural, but you timidly took it in your grasp. The look on your face must have been telling of your confusion because he chuckled at your expression. He gave no direction. Instead, he watched with a mischievous curiosity as you turned it in your palm. The barbs vibrated independently of one another against your skin.

Your breath heaved when you realized why he had given it to you. His hands slid down your stomach as a pair of red feathers brushed against your sides. They dipped into the hem of your shorts, then pulled the fabric, sliding them down your legs until you were deprived of them. The cold from the open window seeped into your most sensitive places as his hands caressed your hips.

His fingertips stopped over a series of divots and deformities in your flesh. They were painful mementos of the night you met, and reminders of the sacrifice you had made for him a couple of years prior. He was a stranger when you chose to forgo your own survival to shield him from death. His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth as he relived the agony with you, but placed kisses all over the scars. It felt like a plea for forgiveness, so you ran a loving hand through his hair.

A soft sound spilled from him, and then his head dipped down to drink in the sight of your bare body. You were naked beneath your shorts, so he hummed through gritted teeth when he teased your legs apart. He'd seen it all many, many times before, but the sight of your glistening pink sex brought about his cooing again. The sound was a deep and beautiful melody unlike anything you'd ever heard, but also purely sexual. It was his body's call to yours. It beckoned you like a siren.

“No panties, huh?” he murmured. His breath hitched and vibrated with his lustful song. “You’re already so wet, my god… how about you put that feather of mine to use?”

He sat back on his haunches. Those narrow eyes bore holes into your exposed body as he spat another thick glob of saliva onto his palm. His hand found his cock. His eyelids fluttered at the contact and he groaned softly as he pumped around it. His eyes drank your every movement.

You spread your legs for his gaze and then brought the pulsing feather between your thighs. He could feel through them, in a sense. The thought alone caused you to exhale a soft moan, but it was anything but soft when the vibration teased your sex. He groaned, too, at the contact.

Your body flexed and wiggled when you pressed it hard against your clit. The sensation made your eyes roll back. Your slickness dampened its vanes despite its semi-hard state, and your hips ground into the pleasure. He observed. His hand pumped faster with each desperate whimper his feather worked out of you.

It wasn't long before he couldn't take simply watching anymore.

The roughness of his stubble dragged along your breast as he closed his teeth around one of your pink buds. He suckled, and your fingers tangled in his hair as his feather jolted from your grasp. It worked your clit without your help, and hot air blew from his nose as he jerked himself off. You used the distraction to sneak a hand between your bodies. You wanted the hot skin of his cock against you. You wanted to touch and play; to taste and feel. A thick whimper spilled out of him when you ensnared his throbbing dick in your palm and squeezed.

His feather stopped pleasing you.

"I didn’t give you permission to touch, did I?" His wings flexed. The feathered limbs grew massive as their quills stood on end in a frightening display. They were beautiful and plush, but deadly weapons all the same. “Testing me, huh? You're that desperate for my cock?”

Yes, fuck yes you were. You opened your mouth to reply, but your voice cut out when he grabbed you by the wrist. He jerked your hand away from his sex, and you whined. Usually, you were a bit of a hardass. It wasn’t easy to make you crumble, so he looked so devilishly proud of himself when you’d submit beneath the weight of him.

His teeth bared in a deliciously appealing smirk. "I’m gonna have to do something with these hands of yours if you’re gonna grab at shit without permission, yeah?"

You nodded a little too eagerly. His voice was heavy and deep with a depraved need to dominate you. To sully your skin with his desire. You weren’t going to stop him.

A cluster of feathers gathered in the air around you. You had nothing to fear, but watching them circle like small predators overhead made your heart pound against your ribs like a drum. They swarmed you and ensnared your wrists. The strength of his quirk easily had you overpowered. Your hands slammed into the headboard, pinned down by his feathers which trembled with excitement. You were now at his mercy.

“You’ll get your hands back when you’ve earned them,” he informed you through gritted teeth, but you were so mesmerized by the features of his face you hardly heard his words. Beautiful, that's what he was. You'd never told him how his appearance left you breathless. It could scare him away if you said such sweet things too often, but you’d held your heart back for so long it only felt fair to let it beat this once.

“You’re so gorgeous,” you whispered.

He trembled. His eyes widened in startled confusion, and then his cheeks dusted the faintest shade of red. God, that only made your heart thump harder. His did, too; you could feel it rattle through his chest and against your stomach.

"What was that?"

You bit your lip, embarrassed, but echoed the statement a bit more sheepishly. "I said… you're gorgeous."

Your mattress groaned as he folded back onto his knees. The flaming red limbs on his back lowered until they rested against your sheets. Something about that sweet little compliment tore into him like nothing you had ever said before. That desire that flickered behind his eyes blazed out of control. His kisses landed on your knees before he placed a gentle caress of his lips on the innermost part of your thigh. So close to your pussy that the heat of his breath made you slick.

His other glove was abandoned somewhere on the floor, which rendered both his hands bare. A low groan spilled from him as he pressed his thumbs into either side of your heat. His jaw went slack and his breath erratic as he spread you open.

"So are you," he said, but it was muttered so softly you almost didn't hear.

His head dipped down. The tendrils that framed his forehead fell over your midriff as his tongue caressed your twitching flesh. The hot, wet muscle lapped hungrily between your folds. It flicked at your clit, and your legs trembled on either side of his head. His mouth working you open like that was enough to fog your mind entirely.

“You like that?” he cooed between the slurps of his mouth against you. "Oh, I bet you fucking do."

You replied with only a strangled whimper as you tugged uselessly at the feathers that bound you. You were desperate to comb your fingers through his downy hair, to fist it in your hands and press his face hard into you. A low chuckle flowed from his open mouth and tickled your flinching flesh. Another cry tore from your throat.

“My poor baby, so desperate,” he sighed after placing a kiss against your clit.

His poor baby. He hummed that phrase with such possessive intensity. He was right. Even if it was unspoken, you and your body belonged to him and him alone.

The warmth of his palms traveled back up your stomach and squeezed your breasts roughly. “Forcing you to wait so long for me, did I neglect my sweet little Chickpea? Hmm, I better make up for it, huh?"

God, the way his husky voice reverberated against your flesh was the most delicious form of torture. You bit your lip and nodded, and he rewarded you with a finger. It slid carefully into you, and his hand caressed your insides. You cried a loud, indecipherable string of mangled words. All grasp on language left you as he curled his fingers up and flicked his wrist.

“Aw, what are you trying to say, Sweetheart?” he huffed. All the little nicknames only pushed you further into your need for him. “You wanna feel my fat cock push into that pretty little pussy?”

A sharp inhale burned your throat.

“P-please!” you choked. Your voice was cracked and pitiful when it finally tore from you, and a wonderfully wonton sound fell from him.

“Please what, huh? Please what?” he gasped.

“Fuck me! I want it- I want your cock- PLEASE.”

“Ohhhhh, that sounds so pretty comin’ outta your mouth,” came his long, low growl. As a reward for your begging, he dragged the wetness of his tongue along the length of your little pink slit.

The rough material of his jeans slid down your inner thighs as he mounted you. The shaft of his hot, bare cock pressed flush against your sex. Clusters of his feathers bunched behind the bends in your knees and forced them back, which splayed you helplessly open. You watched as he bit into his lip and rubbed himself against your wetness. You couldn't look away as the most intimate part of his body sheathed itself in yours.

The most delicious pressure overwhelmed your aching senses. Fuck. FUCK. He moved slowly. It may have been meant as mercy, but to your sex-starved body, it felt torturous. The ridges of his dick caught at your swollen walls before the tip of it pressed agonizingly slow into the bottom of you.

“Hawks! Oh my god, I can’t fucking take this!” your throat jerked and trembled just like your aching thighs. Your hips pumped in desperation for friction where your bodies connected. “Give it to me, give it- I swear to god- FUCK!”

Once you gave him control of your body, he lost control of his own. The mattress groaned when he slammed into you. His teeth dug into your throat, laying his claim on you as he panted for breath. His loose belt buckle beat at your outer thighs, and your bed frame groaned in protest with each merciless thrust. His hands dug into your flesh and locked you into his jarring pumps. He pinned you down as if he expected you to play the fighting game, but you didn't resist his cock this time. You didn't want a battle. You wanted your lover. Your moaning whimpers broke and cracked as his jerking hips rocked the wind from you.

He pounded into you too fast for your mind to keep up. Your scarred body buckled and stung under his animalistic need, but the shockwaves of pleasure that rolled through your core kept you begging him for more. More. More.

His mind was so fogged that he lost his focus on his feathers. The clusters binding you down came loose without his influence, and you easily pulled out of them to throw your arms around his neck. His wings spread out and bristled until they were pressed against the walls, puffed and massive. His forehead was against yours. His hot breath puffed in your face, and his beautiful body was pleasured with yours.

"Fuck, fuck! Please- Let me come inside you," he pleaded. His eyes were hazy and fogged, his mouth was slack and face a deep red. His body’s cooing song was so loud you could feel it in your own chest. The familiar smell of his cologne intermingled with the musk of sex and blurred your mind. You wanted every piece of him he'd give you.

"Y-yes, please, please," you begged between the hard smacks of his skin against yours.

Your eyes shot open as his pace quickened. His wings… they were falling apart. Those beautiful eyes of his lulled further into the back of his head with each bone shivering slap of flesh. His teeth bared and his lips twitched as he pressed your bodies roughly together. Shivers rolled through his muscles, and those fierce wings of his were reduced to twitching little nubs on his back as he came.

You ran your hands between his shoulder blades as you marveled at his feathers. They littered the air as they weaved feverishly around one another. The gentle touch of your hands brought Hawks down from his high, and his feathers slowed until they lazily spun like autumn leaves. You pulled him down into a tight embrace and buried your face into his hair. He heaved into your chest, and you watched all the little pieces of him flutter around your room in the light of the moon.

He often lost control of his wings when you made love. They'd fluff up and flap wildly when he came, which often knocked shelves from your walls and your lamp from your bedside table. That was the first time he shed his feathers, and you were in awe.

"Are you okay?" he asked. His voice was gravely and shuttered between labored breaths.

“Yeah, I’m just... admiring," you said as you stared over his shoulder. He glanced behind him, and his cheeks tinted the faintest shade of pink when he realized the pitiful state of his wings. The little red feathers spread all around your room stilled in the air and swarmed to his back, returning his iconic limbs to their full glory.

“Er, you managed to pluck me. How embarrassing,” he quipped. You were so sore and exhausted from his sex all you could manage was a little laugh. You were a gasping mess, though, when he finally pulled out of you. The loss of pressure was a relief, but it also left you feeling empty. You laid quiet and trembling as he leaned back to marvel over the mess he made of you. His thumbs spread you open again, and he let out a breathless moan as you felt his come leak from you. His head dipped between your thighs. That beautiful tongue of his flicked out and lapped at the mess on your pussy. The warm wriggling of the muscle shocked your swollen clit and made you cry out, but you couldn't bear to ask him to stop. It satisfied something in you to watch as he licked you clean of your slick and his own come.

When he was content that he'd cleaned you thoroughly, he laid his body carefully beside you in your bed. His fingers tangled in your hair as he locked you into a kiss. You could taste the sex he licked from you on his tongue.

The sex was always feverish and ravishing, but the afterglow was your addiction. In the beginning, it was rare. To kiss and caress crossed the line into his discomfort, but the more he learned to trust you the more of his affection you earned. The man who feared human touch began to ask for hugs every visit. Kisses became frequent and pleasant the more he let you do it. Then came sex that felt less like vicious wars and more like making love. Yes, after everything you did to earn his intimacy, nothing felt as lovely as lying naked beneath his plush plumage.

His feathers caressed every inch of your aching body. His warm mouth, still wet from the sex, pressed gentle kisses onto your face. Your head rested against his arm as your breath slowly steadied. His wing flexed and rested on your shoulder as if tucking you in beneath a plush comforter.

“Mm. You like that?” he pondered breathlessly. His fingers trailed up your scarred side until they combed through your hair. There was a ginger softness to the touch that made your heart quiver. He smiled at you, those yellow eyes pierced through the dim light and into your soul. as you reached your hand out to run your fingers under his jaw.

“Do you need to ask?” you hummed. Your cheeks were still red and your chest quaked as you slowly came down from the high.

He laughed. What a lovely, airy sound. You hummed in the glory of the moment. And, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, you could breathe again. Typically, he’d spend his days off kicked back on your living room couch with a tall bottle of something hard in his hand. You’d go a week or so without seeing him when things got tense in the hero world, of course, but in the last two months, you’d had him for only a handful of nights. It was concerning, but you knew better than to ask. No matter how close the two of you had become he would never talk to you about work.

“It's been a while since you last flew in,” you noted as you got comfortable beneath his plumage. His body beside yours was the definition of comfort. Your mind could only be at peace when he was safe in your bed. “It’s nice to see you again, I was worried.”

“I know, it’s been too long. No need to worry, though, Chickpea, I’m right here,” he replied. His slow exhale tangled in your hair, and his hand's gentle touch found your cheek. He offered no explanation for his lengthy absences, but he and his crimson wing caressed you with apologies.

You relaxed to the sound of his steady breath through the dim blue light of your bedroom. The wing he draped over you was so plush and warm you could easily fall asleep. You might have, if not for the fear of waking up without him. You scooted closer to wind your arms around his chest and bury your face in his neck.

"I really wish you could stay," you whispered.

To let your love get in his way was the last thing you wanted, but it was the utterance of a moment of weakness. It was uncharacteristic of you, the pathetic way it sounded, and you felt him stiffen under your arm as he soaked in your request. While there was never a confession of love, you'd tamed the wild bird with years of patience and earnest affection. He was loyal to you. It was cruel of you to ask for something you knew he couldn't give.

“Ah… I would if I could help it, you know that,” he sighed into your forehead, “but I can try to stay until morning.”

“Please. I’d like that.” It came out like the voice of a frightened child, but it was difficult to hide your need for him anymore.

If you dwelled any further on the possibility of him vanishing, your emotions were going to get the better of you. You played with the feathers draped over your shoulder to calm yourself. A small one by your face was pinched between your fingers as you rolled the barbs around.

"Your wings are filthy," you mused. Dirt particles littered the poor things. You were sure, with some rooting, you'd find a few bugs he’d picked up in the air, too. "Actually, all of you is filthy. You got dirt all in my sheets, bird brain."

"Oh. Shit, my bad," he murmured as he sat upright. You shivered when the warmth of his wing left you.

"Hm, it's fine. Throw your clothes in the wash and I'll get a shower ready for you, sound good?"

“Sounds good.”

The bed creaked in relief when he stood. His frame was slender and small, but his wings at least doubled the weight of him. That was evident with how smothering being beneath him could feel. He kicked off his pants, though his body was still covered by the black and gold bodysuit he wore beneath them. It warmed your heart to see him carry his uniform out of your room and hear him tinker with the washer on the other side of the wall. The sound of the cloth being tossed inside followed by the creak of an opening cabinet seeped through the drywall, followed by the pop of the detergent lid coming off.

He was intimately familiar with your tiny abode. You’d made sure things stayed in the same place so he'd know where everything was the next time he'd visit. You'd been especially anal about it since he'd often be gone for such long periods at a time. When he returned, you wanted your home to feel like it belonged to him, too.

A sensation overcame you as you laid alone in your bed. The sheets were warm from the love you’d just made. Despite his tongue cleaning you off, you could still feel the faint warmth of him inside of you. His contented sigh found you through the wall and your heart burst.

To the rest of the world, he was a hero, but he was so much more to you. You'd give anything to have him completely. For his voice to echo, groggy and sheepish, against your walls every morning. To get to kiss him goodbye before the sun rose, and to welcome him home every afternoon with a warm embrace. For a ring on your finger; a crib in the bedroom. That wasn’t the kind of life that was meant for him, though. As long as he was afraid of you being hurt, those secret nights were all you’d ever have. It made sense. He had enemies, and you could only imagine how your quiet life would turn upside down if you ended up in the pages of a tabloid.

You only spent time together in the privacy of your apartment. Even after two years of being close to him, there was so little you knew about his life separate from you. What little you did know only made you frustrated on his behalf. You held out hope that it could eventually change, for your sake and his.

Preening Hawks was your favorite thing to do with him. There was something special about being across from one another in the shower, naked, warm water rushing over your bodies as your fingers smoothed and placed his dampened feathers. It took the first year of your friendship for him to allow you to touch them at all, so it was an obvious display of his trust in you. Which was understandable. His wings were an integral part of his identity. You watched as he ran his hands over his face and into his hair. His expression was in a relaxed state of bliss as your fingers picked through his plumage.

With his massive wings on either side of you like plush, padded walls, it felt like nothing in the world could get you. His laughter echoed around the small room as he told jokes and stories. It was okay if you didn't have anything to say, or if you just wanted to listen. He would talk for you when you fell short, and that's usually what got you laughing.

Through the gentle moment, though, you couldn't help but let your emotions get the better of you. During times like those, when his visits were few and far between, your mind danced around the question of why. The possibilities bounced between him either being in danger or losing interest in you. Both were scary thoughts since he had become such an integral part of your life.

"Would you mind if I ask something?" you pondered, which accidentally interrupted a story he'd been telling about an intern of his.

"Depends what it is.”

"Well… there are a million girls out there who'd gladly do this with you," you mused, and it was true, even if it stung a little to remember. "Did you decide to do this with me because it was convenient?"

That had been your reason, initially. Hawks spent a lot of time hanging around your apartment and he just happened to be wildly attractive. There were no feelings when he’d first asked if he could fuck you. That didn't come until later.

He laughed, and you glared at him.

“Self-doubt, huh? That isn’t like you. Me being away a lot’s really shaken you up, huh?”

"It's not self-doubt, I'm just genuinely curious," you quipped as you pulled a feather from his wing. They'd moult if they hung around too long, so pulling out the loose ones was a help to him.

"Well… what we have going on is far from convenient," he said. "If that's what I was going for, I'd go after a pro that could keep a secret. It ain't easy to sneak away like this, you know."

So even a pro hero would have to be a secret for him? Did Hawks have any chance at all for a normal life?

“I wanted you, and if I want something, I go for it.”

You swallowed down a breath you’d been holding, but you didn’t say anything else as you watched his eyes dance around the bathroom in thought.

"And I wanted you because… well, there were a lot of reasons. The night we met was a big one, I guess.”

You looked away. That night felt taboo to mention, considering all the guilt you knew he harbored. Your scars weren’t his fault. Several villains were on a rampage, and your hospital was in the destructive path. You were just another civilian, caught in the crossfire. His feathers tried, but they couldn’t get you out of the building. You’d been partially crushed beneath the rubble.

“I was sure it was the end of the road for me. It would have been if you and your quirk hadn’t been trapped inside with me. You have a forcefield. You could have used it to protect yourself, but you bubbled me instead. You were gonna die. I was so sure you were gonna die and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.”

Still, your lips wouldn’t move. You’d spent ten months in an ICU after you were crushed beneath the weight of two stories of concrete. If not for the healing quirks of EMTs, you wouldn’t have survived at all. If not for your sacrifice, Hawks wouldn’t have, either. Still, it wasn’t his fault.

“Still hurts to know I couldn’t help you when you needed me most, but when I looked in your eyes, there wasn't a hint of fear. All I saw was determination. I never met someone who was so sure of their choices, even in the face of death," he recalled. Your emotions skirted between sadness and flattery as you heard his thoughts. If only you could live up to that selfless picture of you, now. “I know a lot of pros who could only hope to have that kind of resolve.”

“Damn, when you tell it you make me sound like a badass,” you quipped, and your laughter bounced around the shower stall.

“I mean, what are the requirements to be donned with the title of badass? I’m sure you’re overqualified. Either that or you’re fucking crazy, which is also a possibility.”

You snorted.

“I'm not crazy. My job is to help people after they've been hurt. If I bubbled you instead, I’d be saving every person you’d live to protect. Before they would need a nurse like me. It’s just what made sense.”

He was silent for a moment as he absorbed your reasoning. You tended to be rational, even in the most emotional of situations. But that borderline-robotic way of thinking was a by-product of your own miseries.

You were a nurse in a world overcome by demigods and treachery. Some of the things you'd seen in the OR would haunt you for the rest of your life. And, sometimes, those ghosts came to torment you in your dreams. That made it hard the first time Hawks slept in your bed. You would sometimes wake with tears in your eyes as your voice quivered out sobs. Your past lovers didn't understand that part of you. The broken part. The part that had been poisoned by the darker side of this superpowered world.

That's what fostered your love for Hawks. When he had awoken early that morning to you crying beside him, he’d only reacted with a patient embrace. He adored the bright parts of you, but he also had a solemn understanding and respect for your darkness. Having that connection through your mutual suffering was a kind of bond you’d never had before him. And now that you had it, you couldn't imagine life without.

You went back to preening. You pressed up on your knees to reach a bit higher on his wing, and he watched intently. His voice died into silence as his gaze swept over your naked form, which dripped from the steam of the shower. It wasn't a surprise. Often, he would get lost in himself as he observed you, like a curious bird. It felt like a wordless compliment, so you silently allowed his eyes to explore you. Not that his hands and mouth and cock hadn't already drawn a map of you in his mind.

"Whatcha thinking about?" you teased playfully, and he hummed in response.

"How you look at my wings… I like it."

"Everybody looks at your wings," you said dismissively. A half-smile graced your face.

"You’re right. They do. People admire me because of what they’re capable of. It's what people think of first when they think of me, and rightfully so. They're hard to ignore. But when you look at me, you look at my face first, my wings second. It's like you admire them because they're a part of me, not because of what they can do. I appreciate that."

Your fingers in said feathers slowed to a stop as he spoke. You smiled a little to yourself as you brushed them against a feather. He shivered. "Your quirk is a part of who you are. That's why I like cleaning them for you. It feels like I get to give you something special, but wings or not, I'd still want you."

Falling in love with Hawks was the best and worst thing you’d ever experienced. The pleasure of those beautiful moments seeped into your soul like a warm cup of tea. But the anguish that followed after he flew out your window… there wasn't a simile that could correctly describe the immeasurable pain.

Your response must have triggered a long series of difficult thoughts for the bird. His head tilted slightly, his eyes hardened in expression and his brows furrowed as he soaked in your confession.

"In the year we've been doing this… has there ever been another man?" he pondered. The question jarred you. Occasionally, he'd get a touch possessive of his time with you. He’d asked a time or two who you were texting. You knew him well enough to pick up the hint of jealousy despite his light tone, but he never asked anything so outright.

“Well, look who's got self-doubt now. You sure are eager for a lot of questions and confessions tonight. What’s gotten into you?” you asked.

He shrugged. “You asked a question, so it's my turn now. Besides, we’ve been close for a couple of years. We've been intimate for half of that. just seems a little silly to keep up the fuck buddies act. Or is it just me?”

Fuck buddies act? You bit your lip. Hard. When he was with you he was so relaxed. This seriousness was unusual, and it made your wet skin rough with goosebumps.

"It's not just you," you confessed.

For a short while, the bathroom was filled with only the sound of the running shower as you collected your confession.

"There hasn't been another man since you. I mean… I've gone on dates a few times, but it never got that far," you replied. The moment another man kissed you… Well, kisses felt dirty if they were with anyone other than Hawks. "I know this thing you and I have going on was meant to be a no strings attached kind of affair, but… Well, if I’m being honest with you, it feels wrong trying to sleep with anyone but you. I like what we have, and I've always got the impression that you really do, too."

He didn't say anything. You weren't sure whether or not that was what he wanted to hear.

"Have you?" you asked. "Been with anyone else?"

You’d never asked before. At first, it was because it didn't feel like your business. Then, when the thought eventually made your heart ache, you didn't ask because you didn't want to know. But now that you had come clean, it only felt fair that he did, too.

Air left his nose and his head bobbed back until his wet hair pressed against the shower stall.

"Once,” he confessed, and he sounded ashamed now that he knew you never did. “I used to have this on again, off again thing, before I knew you. I messed with her a few weeks after you and I first… well, you know. But only once, then never again.”

You’d thought it would crush you to learn he’d been with someone else, but it didn’t sting like you thought it would. Probably because you didn't know specifics. If you knew what woman had her hands on him, if you could see it, it probably would destroy you. But the apologetic way he said it put your heart at ease. He mumbled like he knew it would hurt you, and he didn’t want it to. But you weren’t wounded, and your feelings weren’t perturbed. He never promised you anything, just as you’d never made promises to him.

“Why’d you stop seeing her?” you asked as you scooted closer to smooth shampoo suds down in his hair. He only shrugged at first, then sighed in contemplation when your fingers combed along his scalp.

“I’ve never had a place I could go to, you know?” he said. “I’ve never had somewhere like this, where I can lay my head for a little while and just be…”

“Pampered?” you suggested as your hands moved to massage his shoulder blades between his wings.

He breathed out a little laugh, but shook his head. “Yeah, but that’s not what I was thinkin’.”

“Out with it then,” you teased.

“Well… I’ve never had somewhere I’ve felt safe and... cared about?” he said, though his eyes were distant and lost when he said it, as if he wasn’t sure he should have.

“I gotta always be looking over my shoulder. Gotta always have a mask on and hope no one ever sees through it. But here, everything’s relaxed. You couldn’t care less what my ranking on some chart is or how much money is in my pocket. You don't give a shit about heroing or the tabloids. You’re the only person in my life who asks for nothing other than my company. I feel human here. I didn’t want to jeopardize that, or what I had with you. That’s why I stopped seeing her.”

Your mouth went dry. While your nights were long and passionate, you’d never whispered sweet nothings. You’d never told him how much he and his company meant to you because you felt he wouldn’t want to hear it, but he kept coming back. For a year he had clung wordlessly to what little affection you gave him. If he’d told you this a year prior, you would have given him so much more love.

“So you do have deeper feelings for me. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He was silent, as you’d expected him to be. He both craved and feared the closeness he’d formed with you. At times he’d drown you in sweet little bits of affection, but, when things got too deep, he would shut down. Through the last couple of years, you’d broken through a lot of his walls, but the cold influence of the commission would always be with him. Even if he was in love with you, he’d never understand how to tell you.

"Because of who I am when I fly out your window,” he began. The reverb of his voice against the shower stall took you off guard. You didn’t expect him to answer. "There are things I know you want from me… things that I can’t give you right now, and you deserve more than that. That’s why I never planned on telling you… Fuck. It was never supposed to be like this…”

He spoke more to himself than he did to you at that moment. There was an internal battle going on in his mind; one you'd never really be able to understand, but you wanted to try.

"You mean you never meant to get attached?"

His silence was telling.

"It's okay," you said. "We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to." You took a hold of his hand, but he flinched away from you. He was regressing back into old habits. It had been months since he’d last recoiled to your affection. Something was terribly wrong. The recoil was fine. It was okay. Whatever he needed to feel comfortable. "I'm sorry-"

"No, I'm sorry," he interrupted. He rubbed the wrist you had touched as if you'd burned him. His brow was knit and his mouth became a harsh line. "Sometimes it feels easy and other times it doesn't, but I'm trying."

"I know you are. Like I said, we don't have to talk about feelings."

He stared at you, and the longer his gaze rested on your face, the softer it became, "I want to try."

You nodded and wrapped your arms around your naked knees. The shower had been turned off long ago by a cluster of his feathers, but the soothing steam still lingered around you.

“It's just… this is difficult. One day someone may shoot me out of the sky. The thought of you still being right here, waiting for me, when I can never come back… It... kills me." He paused, his eyes hazed over as he swallowed his emotion down. The rawness in his voice struck such an unpleasant chord that your own eyes pricked with bitter water. "That's why I didn’t want attachments like this. But I didn't mean for all this between you and me. You snuck into me slowly, I didn't even notice until it was too late."

"Is this supposed to be flattering? It sounds like you're likening me to a parasite or something- heartworm," you quipped in an effort to dispel the heavy tension. He smiled, but only for a moment before he rolled his eyes at you.

"Just… listen to me," he said, and your eyes trained on his as your mouth closed. "If that ever happens… If there comes a day you've been waiting for me, only to find out I'm never coming back, please know that I cared for you."

He didn't use the word love, but that's very much what he was trying to convey. In a way, you’d kind of always knew. It was why he’d said it, how he’d said it, that made your eyes prick with tears at their corners. The thought of what he was implying petrified you. Hawks was so skilled, so powerful, so almighty. Despite all his power, though, he was human, just like you. The night you’d met proved how possible death was for him. Nothing could keep him safe forever, not even your forcefields.

But he’d never talked like this before. He was always so light-hearted and relaxed. His work and the dangers associated with it was off the menu of conversion topics. What had happened to bring all this darkness up now?

"You talk like you’re preparing for death."

Again, he didn’t reply. His silence was more terrifying than anything he could have said, but trying to pry him open would only break him, it seemed. So you didn’t.

“May I kiss you?” you asked instead.

He nodded.

You leaned forward and breathed into his ear. He shivered when you placed a gentle kiss on the shell of it. His earring pressed against your lip was a gentle and familiar feeling, but after you heard all he had to say it also felt fleeting. He always had some ulterior motive or hidden reason for every little thing he did. It's as if he said all this because tomorrow would be the day he was gone.

“I’m not preparing to die.” Your kiss gave him the courage to speak. "I have too much to live for. It’s just always a possibility- for anybody, really. But heroes especially. I just wanted it off my chest is all."

He smiled at you, but you’d seen every smile in his repertoire, and this one was faker than your stick-on-backsplash. The air never felt so tense between you. Not even the night you met, dying feet away from each other. It all felt so… heavy. The weight of it pressed hard into your chest.

“Er, this reminds me, while we're on topic, I got some things going on at the agency. I hate to say it, but you won't see me again for a little while. I don’t know how long. It could be a couple of months.” His disposition remained fake casual. His shoulders and face were relaxed as he enjoyed the steam of the shower, but his wings tensed. You felt it in your palms as you preened him.

"You're in trouble," you said. Your mouth went dry as the realization drained the color from your face.

"Trouble? Me? Nah. Just work stuff."

He spoke with a relaxed air about him, but he couldn’t lie to you.

"No. You've been acting off all night. You’ve been making all these confessions. Talking about death, telling me you're going away for a while. I know you better than you think I do; something big happened and you're trying to tie up loose ends in case you don't get out of it okay," you rambled, and the more you talked the higher your voice became. It trembled and wavered with building fear.

He stared at you. That silly face of his melted into a thin line and sharp, angular eyes. Those tricks worked when no one was close enough to see through them, but you knew his genuine smile like the back of your hand. You saw right through his facade, and he was annoyed by the very determination he just prided you for.

"Can't get anything past you, can I?"

You didn't whimper, but your eyes became glossy with emotion. It was a strange mixture of panic, sorrow, and rage. You had no idea what he'd gotten into, but you also knew he would never tell. He placed preserving missions above all else, which made sense but was frustrating.

"I don't know what's going on, but you need to get out of it if you're thinking it's something you may not come back from."

"Things aren't that simple. I chose this life, I gotta follow through."

"No, I chose to be a nurse when I was sixteen and understood the implications of what I'd have to go through. You were fucking six when the commission took you, and they spent all that time gaslighting and taking advantage of you-"

"We aren’t talking about that right now, don't use it against me.”

"Use it- what? I'm not using anything against you! You’re the one alluding to death! There’s nothing wrong at the agency, there’s something else- something terrible-"

"Drop it.”

“How can I?!”

"Because I said so." His eyes were narrow and mouth a tight, thin line. You could read him so well. He was regretting this. All of this, because now you were onto whatever suicide mission he was embarking on. But, as his lover, how could you just sit back and silently watch him throw himself into a danger that had even him shaken?

You got louder, and he got louder. You tossed bitter, confused words back and forth until he was screaming. Until you were screaming back at him. Your calm, laid back demeanor slipped through your fingers the moment you realized he could be in over his head. That, if you let him leave, this could be the last night you’d ever spend with him. Your anger was driven by your fear for his life, and his was driven by your inability to let it go.

He was still screaming. You were still screaming. You were fighting him. He just told you you were the most important person in his life, and you were spitting venom.

You stopped.

He stopped.

Your hand came to your bare chest as it heaved in an attempt to steady your breath. The other came up to wipe the tears budding in your eyes. He looked away from you, his brow tugged heavily downward, his jaw clenched together in shame.

"Let’s just breathe, okay?" you pleaded.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," you whimpered into your hand. "Out of everyone in the world, you're the last who needs to say sorry, so don't. It's just- it's not right, okay? You're too… I don't know, selfless? I watch all the time as that gets taken advantage of. Doesn’t it get tiring? Even your name is some dirty secret. I've been sleeping with you for a year and I don't even know what it is-"

"Yes, you do," he argued, his lip wavered with weakness for one vulnerable moment. "You know me- you know my name."

Desperation laced between his words and strung the sentence together. It wasn't easy to see your lover look at you that way, just begging for you to let pieces of him go. It was hard to accept it, but whatever name he went by prior to heroism didn't exist anymore. Neither did the once innocent child it belonged to. You tried to respect that, but it was unfair he was denied a basic human right: to have a name.

"You're Hawks, I know, I'm sorry… it's just… how much is left of yourself that actually belongs to you? How long until there’s nothing left to give? People have taken so much from you that you’ve become numb to it; do you even know what you're missing out on? Do you even know how lonely you are? When’s the last time anybody even asked if you were okay?"

He realized, then, that you weren't angry at him.

You were angry for him.

His eyes shifted to yours, and he nibbled at his bottom lip before he muttered with the quirk of his mouth: “Well, you ask me that pretty much every time you see me.”

There it was. The crack in your voice. The crinkle of your nose and the tremble of your lip. You cried, and he sat there across from you, still bare as his wings lowered to either side of you. His expression didn't change, and, for once, you couldn't read it. You didn't want to be so upset, but knowing he was in some kind of dangerous trouble that shook even him was too much for you to bear.

"I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. It’s just… Do you have any idea how many heroes I've wheeled into the morgue? People die on my table all of the time. Every time is just as hard as the last, but the heroes- those are the ones that destroy me. Because every time someone in a cape lands on the table I know their families are waiting for them at home, just like I wait here for you.

"I saved you once, but you're so far away from me, too far for my forcefields to reach you. Hearing you say you’re going away- all I can think of is coming into work one day and finding you c-... covered in a sheet."

His wings moved up from the shower floor. The feathers were dark with dampness as their joints pressed into your back. You sat there like that as he let you cry. Really, what else could he have done? What else could you have done? Of course you were angry. You would be for the rest of your life over how his panned out. His childhood was taken from him, his understanding of human affection was still stunted, even after all the time you spent gently undoing what damage had been done. Now he talked like one wrong move would end it all.

"It's… difficult," he began, though he couldn't make eye contact with you. He usually couldn't when you had discussions like this. "Being a hero isn’t what I imagined I would be when I was a kid. And sometimes I do ask myself: 'what is this all for? There's always going to be a new bad guy. Why does it matter?' And then I think about you…"

He went silent for a moment; you could see the little battle behind his eyes. The battle between his affection deprived confusion and his need to be closer to you. To explain himself.

"I think about you and it reminds me there are good people who are worth fighting for. As long as you are here and there are bad people out there that could hurt you, I have to be out there, too. And, yeah, sometimes I get afraid. But as long as I have these wings, I'm going to use them to keep this world safe for you."

He’d never felt so close to you, and yet so far away. He thought even more of you than you anticipated. A part of you felt touched you'd become a cornerstone for his sanity in such a hostile world, but the other part felt sick. If he wanted to fight for you, that was fine.

But to die for you; that would be unforgivable.

The urge to argue the worth of his life weighed heavy on your heart. If you did, he would call you hypocritical, considering your own history of self-sacrifice. It wasn’t the same, though. His self-worth depended on his usefulness to others and little else, and you feared the day that usefulness ran out. What would Hawks be, if not a hero? It should have such a simple answer, like what you would be if not a nurse. But it didn't. It never would.

You leaned forward to pull him into a tight hug. Perhaps when he was anywhere else you were unable to protect him, but right there, in your arms, you'd use whatever you could to keep him safe. Your bubbles, your kind words, anything.

"I understand," you said, because you knew there were no words that could keep him away from the hero path. It wasn't just a part of his identity; it was all he'd ever known. "Just… don't forget when the heroing is said and done, you'll always have a place here if you need it."

He hummed a small, contented coo at your kindness. Of course, you didn't have to tell him that. He already knew. Why else would he spend so much of his precious little free time cuddled up to you?

"I'll remember," he promised as his arms and damp wings curled in to squeeze you against him.

You and Hawks bathed in the comforting darkness of your bedroom. Your window was frosted from the bitter cold outside, but his body heat kept you warm in the safety of your bed. Or nest, rather, as Hawks tended to construct mounds of tangled comforters and wadded up bedsheets to hide in as he got comfortable. You were buried beneath the mass of cloth and the cocoon of his wings as you tried to fall asleep. It was a difficult undertaking since you didn’t know when you’d see him again. You were so tired, but you wanted to be awake to hold him for what little time you had left.

You wouldn’t have gotten any sleep, anyway.

Often when Hawks slept in your bed you'd awaken at strange hours. Sometimes this was due to your own nightmares. The subject bounced between the traumatic things you’d seen at the hospital and the night you’d met. You'd wake to find that you’d encased your bed in your protective bubble during your sleep, and Hawks' wings squeezed you gently against his chest. Other nights, it was Hawks' anxiety that would keep you awake.

During the day, his guard was discreetly up. He carried carefree conversations as if unbothered, but those well-trained feathers of his were on constant guard. Really, he never had a moment to breathe. This was something you never would have understood the depths of if you weren't woken by his anxiety in the midst of the night. The anxiety he kept bottled during the day often let itself out in the form of night terrors. He'd mumble. Roll. His wings would twitch over you. His face would morph into an agonized expression, and he chirped in distress. A good, gentle shake was usually all it took to pull him out of the bad dream.

That night his nerves reared their head, though in an unorthodox way. Apparently, you did fall asleep, because you awoke with a small grumble when you felt the mattress groan, followed by a heavy weight draping over your body. You let out a long whine of displeasure, but the weight just got heavier. You turned your head and opened your eyes to find Hawks, but he wasn't gasping in his sleep. He laid over you, wings puffed but flat on either side of your bed as he stared at the bedroom door.

"Hawks? You're squishing me."

He didn't answer or turn to look at you. Those sharp eyes of his danced around in panic, his feathers raised as they sensed every small movement in your apartment. You dropped your head back onto your pillow with a sigh.

"What's the matter?" you pondered.

"Shh," he hummed. "I felt something…"

You laid and listened for a short while, but all you could hear was the lady in the apartment above you walking across her floor.

"It's my neighbor."

"What if it's not?"

Whether the display was the primal instruction from the bird in him to protect his mate or if it was a by-product of the harsh reality of the life he lived, you weren't sure. Either way, his calm and almost lazy facade cracked. When the world was quiet and his feathers could sense every mundane movement in your apartment, his anxiety that those small bumps in the night might be something that could hurt you overwhelmed him.

The little display was an annoyance to your sleep-deprived brain, but his first thought in the midst of his worry was to protect you. That spared him from your groggy wrath.

"Lay down, McNugget. There's no one there," you grumbled, but he didn't turn his head away from the door.

Feeling your hand on his face seemed to snap him back into the moment, even if just a little. He leaned into you and encased you in his wings. It felt like a protective gesture, but the warmth you found beneath them made you hum pleasantly. The fluffy white cloth of his hoodie rubbed your cheeks as he cuddled into you. Well, actually, it was your hoodie.

At one time it was just some old thing you'd snagged from a thrift store on a chilly day. It was much too large for you, though. When Hawks came into your life later on, you'd cut holes out of the back and hemmed it up. That way he'd have a little something to throw on when it got chilly at your place. He never said it out loud, but he loved the thing. He'd go looking for it if you didn't leave it laying out in the living room.

"I know you usually have a lot to be afraid of, but you don't have to worry about protecting me. I'm a badass, remember?" you whispered into the shell of his ear. His shoulders relaxed just a bit, and he puffed out a little chuckle.

"Yeah, I know. I just… I want you to be safe. That's all."

Your gaze softened, though he couldn't see it in the darkness. You didn't need Hawks to protect you. You didn't need a hero. You needed a best friend; a lover. Between the both of you, he was the one in most need of saving.

"Shh," you hummed gently. Your hair lifted from your pillow and danced slowly around your face as if gravity was lost to you. He scrunched his nose as your locks brushed his cheeks, and his wings settled flat as a ring rose from the floor around your bed. The translucent wall came together above your bodies to form a hard, bubble shell.

"You've been the hero long enough. Let me be the protector tonight,” you said. His throat bobbed against your shoulder as his arms wound around you. He settled, but you still felt his unease.

“What’s got your feathers ruffled?”

“You shouldn’t have to protect me,” he said. His voice was muffled since his mouth was pressed into your skin, but you still heard the sadness in it. “I should be taking care of you.”

You blinked as you soaked in his words. For a year you pined for such romantic things to come out of his mouth. Of course he’d wait for a night like that night to say such sickeningly sweet things. The future that used to feel so full of mystery and excitement had become dangerous, uncertain, and disappointing.

“You don’t have to be the hero every time,” you replied.

“But if I’m not a hero, what am I?”

His question was an echo of your fears. The ambient light from your window filtered dimly into your forcefield, but your eyes couldn’t adjust with tears in them.

“I don't know if I have the answer you're looking for, but... Do you remember when I was in the hospital?" you asked. "When you first came to see me you brought a twenty-piece box of chicken nuggets, and while I was trying to eat one you laughed until you were crying because it looked vaguely like a penis.”

“Vaguely? It had balls and everything,” he recalled, and you rolled your watering eyes.

“Whatever. It was stupid, but it was the first time I laughed since I was trapped in that hospital. And, well… when they said I’d never walk again you helped me out of bed. I cried myself to sleep some nights, but you were there, still trying to save me. You were trying to be a hero then, too, but you became my best friend. If nothing else, that's what you’ll always be to me.”

A sound came out of him akin to laughter. You shot him a look, then hooked your finger under his chin. You wanted to see his dumb grin when you berated him for poking fun at you. When his eyes met yours, though, they weren’t crinkled with laughter. They were red and watering.

“Oh, Hawks,” you breathed, and he tucked his face back into your arm to hide his vulnerability. He never cried before. At least not in front of you. He was always the immovable one, virtuous and strong. Moments like this reminded you just how human he was beneath it all.

“I’m right here. I’ve got you,” you assured him in a whisper. Gentle promises spilled from your lips like lullabies, and he clung to every word with heart-breaking desperation. You whispered every sweet nothing you could think of to ease his pain, but you didn’t have that kind of power.

You had no power at all.

His world always seemed scary to you. You feared for his life every day, but the thought of him being ripped from your arms overwhelmed you that night more than it ever had before. The protective bubble that encased your bed would keep him safe for as long as you could fight sleep, but what of the morning? You’d be safe at home, and he’d be lost somewhere in the dangerous fray of his duties. Far away from your warmth and the apartment he found so much comfort in.

This would not be the last time you held him. You had to believe that, but what if it was? What if this sleepless night was your last together?

Tell him you love him, you thought to yourself. Tell him before you never get the chance again.

You bit your lip as you felt his trembling breaths on your collar. You prepared your lips for the taste of the confession, but he was so vulnerable, more so than he may have ever been before. He didn’t need you to tell him about your affections, he needed you to use them.

You placed a reassuring crown of kisses along his forehead, and he gripped you so hard his knuckles were surely white.

When you’d cried as a child, your mother would lay in your bed and sing lullabies until you fell asleep. Your voice was untrained and awkward compared to hers, but you tried your best to use it. Your off-key tune echoed back to you in the dome of your forcefield, and your cheeks pinkened with how childlike it sounded. Your embarrassment interrupted your lullaby. He stirred against your chest.

“Don’t stop,” he said. “Please, sing to me.”

You cleared your throat as you gathered the courage to start again. His eyes fell closed as your song settled into the safety of your shield. His feathers relaxed, and his face went slack as sleep slowly overtook him. You sang until his tears stopped flowing. You sang until he was asleep in your arms. For as long as you could, you laid awake. If you succumbed to sleep, so would your forcefield. So would your promise to keep him protected through the night. As time moved slowly forward, sleep inevitably began to settle into you, too. It was as terrifying and as peaceful as death.

“I love you,” you whimpered as you felt your eyes grow too heavy to fight back open. “Please… stay safe.”

Credits:

A massive thank you to my wonderful friend and editor, @fuwafuwagem! If you thought the fic looked especially polished, it’s thanks to her efforts!

Also a big thank you to my buddies and beta readers: @dendriticheep and @narcolepticroses! Thanks you guys for being such sweet friends to me ;u;

And a huge thanks to YOU, for reading !

Authors Note:

I’d love to do a lot more fanfictions like these! If you have any suggestions or requests for animations or animated stories like this one feel free to submit it to me!

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writefightandflightclub · 3 years

Note

I really enjoyed your Nathan fluff 🥺 we love this angry peach fuzz king 👑💖 would you ever write him being comforted after having a nightmare? 💕

First of all, LOL @ “angry peach fuzz king” 🤣🤣🤣

Second of all, here you go! 🧡 I will warn you - I think I forgot the fluff a little bit though. It became more hurt / comfort? More angst than expected? It ends nicely though and comfort is given to Nathan - but only after I’ve subjected him to rattling around in his own head and house for a bit.

Through the looking glass (Nathan Bateman x GN!reader)

Summary: Nathan has nightmares after The Incident. After so long alone, he doesn’t realise how badly he needs a little comfort - and maybe he doesn’t believe that he deserves it.

Author’s note: hopefully this isn’t too similar to All Better. I know they both take place post-stabbing, but I tried to give this a different focus. I know I could have made the nightmares based off of anything given the ask, but this timeline / focus seemed most sensible to explore the character.

Warnings: nightmares following traumatic incident (a stabbing); mentions of blood and injury - not graphic. Self-harm (punching the bag until injury); Body horror if you squint (some gruesome descriptions occurring in-dream, but fairly abstract); swearing; implied alcoholism recovery if you squint; mentions of therapy; Nathan mildly injured in fic; reader offering comfort.

Rating: MATURE for themes mentioned above.

GIF: by @santiagogarcia (this whole gifset is magic- check it out + reblog!)

Nathan wakes up breathless, plastered to the covers by a sheen of sweat - and not in a good way. On instinct, or out of habit by now, or maybe somewhere between the two, his palm slides over his body to the site of the wound.

He is so slick that he half-believes he is soaked with dank, deep blood again, until his fingers trace over nothing more than a half-concave, half-ridged scar. The lack of searing pain is the next point of evidence leading him towards an alternative conclusion. He’s not dying (again).

It’s just another gruesome nightmare.

Although… there is nothing “just” about it.

The nightmares are pretty brutal. Brutal enough for him to wake with ragged breaths and a hammering heart, his sheets dampened and coiled up around him. Enough that it takes effort to sift through the layers of terror and distinguish reality.

With what can only be described as a whimper, Nathan swings his legs over the edge of the bed, bringing himself into a seated position and bracing his head in his hands until his racing heart levels.

In his mind, he’s telling himself to be logical about this. That Ava hasn’t truly arrived to finish the job she started; but logic is not the safe haven it used to be.

She could come back.

She’s still out there, somewhere, and Nathan distinctly got the impression, last time, that she was vehemently not a fan of him.

His hand trembling, Nathan reaches for the glass of water by his bedside, glugging it down so eagerly it spills into his bushy beard.

Since the… accident? Malfunction? Functioning just fine, actually? Failed experiment? Greatest achievement known to man? Attempted murder? (Truth be told, Nathan isn’t quite sure what to call it, so he simply calls it The Incident.)

Since The Incident, Ava has begun to regularly visit him in his sleep.

The visitations are not waning with time. In fact, they are happening more often, not less. They are happening more since you moved into the house.

It’s a bad fucking time to have quit drinking.

You’d been sent by the board. Something about Nathan taking “tortured genius” a slice too literally. Something about him being in isolation too long and needing another human around in the compound.

Well, that’s not technically true, is it? The shit all started when he opted to get social, after all.

Fucking Caleb.

Before that, he was doing just fine.

Nathan doesn’t like it at all - having you here. Being watched. Observed. Having someone monitoring his actions. Waiting for him to either fuck up or prove himself.

Ironic really, considering where he kept Ava. The experiments he ran on her.

She’d probably find it poetic, if she could truly understand such a concept.

At the thought of her, Nathan physically shudders, and reaches for an old vest to haphazardly mop the excess sweat from his skin. Then, he balls up a change of clothes and tracks nude to his wet room, feeling relief as the luke warm water sluices over his skin.

He watches himself in the mirror as he stands there naked. It’s not a vanity thing - at least not any longer. These days, he examines the way his form has changed since it happened. He lost some of his muscle and bulk during recovery, whilst unable to exercise, his arms slightly smaller and his abs softer. His stomach a little more rounded.

There’s also the puckered scar, of course - that permanent reminder of where he was skewered through the chest like a piece of kebab meat.

His gaze travels up over his body, until his eyes settle on his still haunted face. He doesn’t have his glasses on, and somewhere between the blurred vision, misted mirror, clouding steam and sluicing water, his reflected face distorts. It transforms - for the briefest of moments - into her.

Still amped with adrenalin from his harsh awakening, this briefest flash sends a surge of panic zipping through Nathan’s chest, his heartbeat racing so hard he can feel the pounding of blood in his ears.

Fuck, he curses, reaching his arms out to brace himself against the shower wall above him, his body trembling and his head dipping down between the cradle of his broad shoulders as his legs threaten to buckle.

He turns the water cold, until it is practically glacial and thundering on to the back of his neck, subduing this spiking heat.

She really did a fucking number on me, didn’t she?

It’s true though.

Ava is haunting him. When he sleeps - and at other times too.

Nathan didn’t know robots could do that. Didn’t know they could spawn ghosts.

Nathan doesn’t believe in ghosts, of course… but he does believe in trauma and its effect on the brain. He at least concedes that it is natural to continue to feel afraid; but this?

Being dogged by the spectre of her taps into Nathan’s deepest insecurities.

After all, there is nothing a genius fears more than doubting his own mind.

Nothing a God fears more than his own mortality.

And the man? Turns out, there is nothing he fears more now, than dying alone.

With a ragged breath, Nathan towels off and pulls on his grey sweatpants, tugging on his black zip-up hoody over his bare chest. And then, keen not to return to his damp, tangled sheets, he tracks towards the kitchen - mainly for want of any more favourable option.

Of course, he had returned to the compound after The Incident. Something about that many fibre optic cables being a bitch to lay down. Sunk cost fallacy and all that - too much already invested.

But it possibly wasn’t the best choice for his recovery.

Nathan has certainly gotten more used to walking down that hallway since he returned from the hospital, and yet he still finds himself holding his breath until he is free of it. Still finds his pace is just a little faster as he passes through. His gaze deliberately averted from that spot.

Once, you’d found him lying in it.

Lying in that exact spot, his body arranged like a crime scene photo, his eyes closed.

Hey, it’s hardly his least healthy coping mechanism, is it?

What in the fuck are you doing, Nathan?

Re-enacting my death, obviously.

Uh-Kay…. A beat. A devious smile. Shall I get some popcorn?

Absurd as it was, he had laughed. Laughed for the first time since it happened, and, with an extended hand, you had helped him up off the floor.

Still, now that he’s alone, he does not dwell in the corridor, colder and darker as it is without your light in it, and he tries not to think about your face or hers as he pads to the kitchen.

When he arrives though, he bypasses it entirely - heading out on to the decking, the crisp night air soothing his hot skin.

He wants to be outside.

There are too many ghosts in his house now.

He has tried to shake it. Tried to desensitise himself to Ava’s face. Spent longer than strictly necessary poring over footage of her.

He built her. Shouldn’t that take the fear out of things? Not to mention the fact Ava’s face was simply a composite of some manipulable nerd’s wank bank browsing history.

Fucking Caleb.

Still, once Nathan had looked her in the eyes and seen a rage that was all too human, things seemed a hell of a lot different.

Nathan crosses to the punchbag on the deck -lit by creeping dawn- on instinct, or out of habit, or maybe some combination of the two, his unease riling him enough to sock some punches at its midsection. Right at the equivalent site of his corporeal puncture.

He punches so hard that the skin on his knuckle splits, but Nathan doesn’t stop. He throws punch after punch until his hands are scathed and bloodied, and a trail of spit hanging from the corner of his mouth. Until he hugs the bag - the closest thing he has to a warm body to hold - and slides down it, coming limply to his knees, wiping his face on his sleeve.

He stays there, dead eyed and still for some time, the pain in his hands raw and singing. Unpleasant, but better. Better than what he was feeling, and worse all at once.

He considers his tired, cumbersome body, and contemplates remaking the world one more time. Uploading his mind into a machine or some shit, so that he doesn’t have to contend with the fragility and failings of his own existence.

He stays there, until some motion in the interior of the compound causes the light and shadows to dance differently over him, and he looks up to see your figure there, cast in a soft halo of yellowed light.

He tips his head up slightly, opening his mouth as though he might cry out to you for help, but no sound comes out - only a thin, dry croak.

So, instead, Nathan watches you for a moment, moving seamlessly around his kitchen as though it is your own. Maybe it is - more yours than his now.

Observing you like this, through the tall, cinematic windows, it is as though he peers in on another world entirely. Something less resembling a nightmare.

Lighter than that. Something more like a good dream, albeit a good dream that Nathan cannot be part of. One he can only ever watch, from the outside looking in, always fated as he is to be on the other side of the glass.

Truth be told, you haunt him too. You represent everything he could have and yet doesn’t deserve.

You appear in his nightmares and his dreams, in various terrifying and beautiful incarnations. Many variations of which his therapist would have a field day with, he’s sure - or, she would, if he’d ever fucking call her.

When you first arrived here, he was plagued by grotesque visions of you. Grotesque visions of the skin being peeled back from your body. Sometimes, circuitry beneath, and other times, muscle and bone. Sometimes, Ava’s face was buried beneath the chilling slip of your fleshy mask.

Sometimes it is a better dream. Sometimes you save him. Sometimes he saves you.

Sometimes it is a good dream. Ava isn’t there at all. But the good dreams never seem to last for long.

Sometimes you kill him, and sometimes...

The glass door slides open.

“Reenacting your own death again, are you?” you tease, though not unkindly, interrupting the spiral of Nathan’s incessant thoughts.

A lump forming instantly in his throat, Nathan swallows thickly, and looks up at you helplessly with a thin, joyless smile. He snorts as though it’s funny, but it really isn’t. “Over and fucking over.”

You nod once, and, without hesitation, you extend your hand towards him. Your gaze cuts through him as you search his face and he feels suddenly see-through, as if he’s about to be hit with some Shyamalan-esque twist. Was he the ghost all along? Did he die here after all?

If so, is this purgatory because Ava is here too, or heaven, because you are?

Christ. So fucking schmaltzy, Bateman.

After hesitating, Nathan takes your hand and you yank him to his feet, drawing him inside, through the looking glass.

The room seems warm on the other side. It feels… safe.

“What happened?” you ask, as you look down at your joined hands, your thumb painting a smear of red across his split knuckles.

You mean now. What happened now, but Nathan’s mind harks back further than that. In his mind, everything is connected. Every thing threaded to another. This one smear of blood to that weeping flower of red.

The thought -the thoughts, all of them- halt him in place, his feet firmly planting on the ground. Nathan’s hand clenches tightly around yours as though it is a lifeline, as he is cast adrift on this familiar crimson tide, his face growing increasingly angular and stern.

“She...” He swallows, unable to complete that precise thought, his eyes dropping down to his feet.

You turn your body towards Nathan as he croaks, still not letting go.

Your eyes flitting around his face, attempting to search his eyes, you tentatively step closer, sliding your palms slowly over his tense shoulders, feeling them rise with an uneven, stuttered breath as you do so.

He’s so tired. He’s so very, very tired.

And it happens all at once on the exhale.

Suddenly, your arms are tugging him closer, and his face is contorting as a violent smattering of tears beads in his long lashes. You are encasing his body in your embrace and rubbing circles into his back as his buzzed head sags all too willingly toward the junction of your shoulder, your fingers splaying along the smooth flesh at the nape of his neck and pads dancing over the gentle prickle of his hair. You are shushing and soothing and reassuring and squeezing and smoothing and cradling and Nathan can feel it. Can feel his heart race in his chest and…

Finally.

Finally, his heart is not pounding because he is reliving his death.

It is pounding because he feels alive again.

When was the last time he cried, even? The last time someone really hugged him? He doesn’t remember the last time. The serendipitous combination of Nathan willing to be vulnerable, and another being willing to hold space for his pain is an all too rare thing.

There’s a reason -or several - he’s so emotionally constipated, after all.

Fuck. I’m taking a huge emotional shit right now.

Nathan remains in the welcome circumference of your arms longer than is strictly necessary - until the tear trails over the bridge of his nose begin to feel cloying. Until his breaths steady, and until his thoughts and ego creep back in. Until he notices the way his hands are clasped at your waist like claws, fingers sinking into your softness, and he thinks to release you.

Then, he leans away, a weight on his brow making his expression stern.

He waits for you to judge him, another swallow trailing thickly down his throat.

However, your eyes are kind and level, dancing with soft concern. Not with judgement or satisfaction or pity, or with anything he fears.

It is refreshing not to feel so afraid.

Finally.

“She…” Nathan begins again, finally finding courage. All at once his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. “She fucking stabbed me.”

You take his words in. You listen.

His “reveal” is simple. Plain and factual. A little indignant. Kinda salty. It’s not overly emotional, or articulate.

But it is enough.

Your eyes narrow, and you nod slowly, trying to understand the true meaning beneath his words.

You even reach up to cup Nathan’s face, his springy beard a cushion beneath your gentle palm as you hold him. “Yeah, genius,” you tease, with a tentative, lopsided smile, dropping your arm all too suddenly, perhaps as you catch yourself. “I got that from context.”

In response, Nathan chucks air from between his teeth, bringing his hand up to comb through his beard - perhaps to obscure his involuntary smile, or perhaps chasing your tender touch, the impression of it left warm on his cheek.

As he brings his hand up, your brows draw together, and you hook his bloodied paw delicately in yours, examining the wound, and leading him gingerly across to the couch as though his whole being might be hurting along with it.

It is.

You order him to stay put while you fetch the first aid kit, and then, in stages, Nathan watches you with fascination as you painstakingly clean and tend to his wounds, without ever being asked to.

He watches you carefully swipe the angry red away from his skin, and, to his overactive mind, it’s all connected. This red is one and the same with the flower of blooming red from The Incident.

Ava hurt him then, and she is hurting him now too.

And you…

“Going to tell the board about this?” Nathan asks, his voice weak and scuffed.

You search his eyes, holding your words back for a moment before answering. Then, you launch them on a big breath. “Fuck the board, Nathan. I told those assholes to stick it.”

Nathan blinks in confusion, shaking his head, his hand flourishing emphatically through the air. “Then… what the fuck are you still doing in my house?”

“Well. I’m… here for you,” you admit, sucking in air through your teeth, your voice shrinking. “If you want that.”

Well, that’s news to him.

Welcome news, perhaps?

You’re not watching him at all, are you? Not observing. Not asking him to evidence his humanity. Not waiting to see whether he fucks up or proves himself.

Instead, you’re seeing him. You’re seeing him and you’re not running.

Nathan had begun to think that maybe he was the nightmare. He’d begun to think he might always be haunted.

Always alone. That he might die that way; again.

And now, here you are.

Nathan thinks about that. He could so easily revert to his old ways, in this moment. Of pride and ego and stubborn independence.

But, perhaps those assholes from the board got a few things right - he’ll admit.

Maybe he had been in isolation too long. Maybe he didn’t need to take “tortured genius” quite so literally.

And so, Nathan almost protests. Almost rejects your presence and your comfort and pushes you away. But the truth is, he’s just so… tired. He’s had so many nightmares, and this time, he’d like to be on the other side of the glass. He’d like to step into that dream.

Nathan takes a deep breath, and releases on the exhale. Releases more than air.

He slowly, ever so slowly, shifts towards you on the couch, angling his body until he can safely dip his head towards your lap, his nose pointed in towards your abdomen and his knees curling around you.

“Th.. this okay?” he asks weakly.

You throw your splayed hands up into the air in surprise as the weight of Nathan settles there, but as he curls his arms around your middle and shuffles closer, you ease into it. You snake your fingers in intricate caresses over his head and neck and shoulders.

“Yeah, Nathan. This is okay,” you soothe gently, voice taut with emotion.

You comfort him.

And finally, Nathan does not need to peel your skin back to know what’s underneath.

He knows you’re not a robot, and that, as your kind touch finds him corporeal, that he is not a ghost.

He closes his eyes. And this time, when he next wakes, he knows that whether the dream is bad or better or good, it doesn’t matter. Because you will be there with him.

He wants you with him.

It’s not at all natural to him, to have you around. For the longest time, he didn’t like it. It didn’t come instinctually, and he has formed no familiar habits.

It isn’t easy - he doesn’t make it easy.

But he wants it to be.

And, in your arms, he can finally dream that it will all work out. What’s more; he can dream he deserves it, too.

#Nathan Bateman #Nathan Bateman x reader #Oscar Isaac #ex machina

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