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#the clean line art was a pain in the ass
awacatin · 2 months
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Want them to be drunk and giggly
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starfacedstudio · 2 years
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decided to make a quick lil animation test with Cinnamon after updating their design a little bit to see how well CSP handles a lineless style, and it went decently well :]
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catsharky · 4 months
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I've just discovered your Rolan x Tav comic.
It's SO neat and accurate, in matter of deign and details!
In case you don't mind, of course, I have some questions you maybe have answered before:
What software do you work with? What kind of pencils do you use? How do you manage to set so neat and clean results? Do you need many references for that or is just a gift you have? How many years have you been drawing to achieve those results?
I don't mind at all! And I don't believe I've answered any of these questions before, at least not since I started doing my comics.
For software I mainly use Clip Studio, though I do also use PaintTool Sai (v2) for certain things that I feel it does better. All of my Mass Effect comics are lined in Sai, for example because things like armour have a lot more inorganic shapes and require long, sweeping, unbroken lines, and I like the pen stabilization in Sai far better than CSP's for that sort of thing.
For how long I've been doing art, I've been at it basically nonstop since I was 9 (so 20 years now, jeez). I was in an art program throughout highschool, went to college for art/animation for 4 years, and I'll have been working professionally as an animator for 8 years in May! So there's a lot of practice there for sure.
And yeah, I use a ton of references. Usually a good chunk of the time I'll spend on something is just collecting or making the reference material I need for it.
I'm putting the rest under a read more because it's pretty long:
(Tumblr keeps eating my formatting so sorry if this is a little scuffed)
Because I'm normally working full time and doing this stuff in my free time after hours and on weekends, if I know I'm going to be drawing something a *lot*, I'll usually put together some kind of reference for myself in 3D so I can take some of the brainwork out of it and get more out of my evenings even when I'm feeling fried. It also means I put as little extra strain on my wrist as possible because I injured it a number of years back and it gets angry at me if I go for too many hours in a day.
But to give you an example, for Ember I have a Sculpt of her head that I can use to reference any angle I want, or to draw directly over top of for tricky angles. How I draw her isn't quite 1:1 to the model, but it gives me a base structure and landmarks I can build on top of.
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My basic workflow is to take the angle I want, draw over it using the model as a guide (while picking and choosing where to stay true to it and where to say fuck it and do what I want), then I get rid of the 3D and do another pass, tweaking and redrawing anything I'm not totally happy until I'm satisfied with how it looks. I draw Ember with a slightly softer, more rounded face than the model has, for instance. Just because something looks right in 3D doesn't always mean it looks right once translated to 2D and I don't care if something is technically "correct" if it doesn't feel right or isn't conveying what I want it to properly.
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I'm also always checking reference screenshots to make sure I'm in the right ballpark of how something should look. I actually have a wall of photos next to my desk and while I didn't put them up for that purpose, it has come in surprisingly handy for quickly checking face or hair details when needed. I also just have a big folder of screenshots and other saved reference material.
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I don't have a problem noooo~ 😅
Additionally, if my art has a background these days, there is a 100% chance that's a 3D set I built in Blender because I hate drawing backgrounds, but I do like building them in 3D.
Here's two examples: the area around Astarion's bed, which I built out of some of the in-game assets like a lego set (this was a pain in the ass, it probably would have been faster to just build it from scratch based on screenshots 😩) and a closet I modelled for something that's still a WIP.
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I'll get the angle I want, have Blender generate some linework from it and then grab a basic render of it to slap into CSP so I can draw the characters over top of it.
And as for brushes: the main brush I use in CSP is just the default 'Real G-Pen', with opacity effects turned off and these pressure settings: (I like to keep it simple, and I have a bit of a heavy hand so the altered pen pressure just helps me get a smoother taper). I change up the stabilizer settings depending on what I'm doing. Lower for things that need short, quick lines like hair and higher for most other things.
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For Sai, I use a 9B pencil I found a number of years ago on Deviantart (I think?) and I wish I could link you to the original post I got the settings from, but Deviantart's search is... bad and I'm unable to find it again.
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I hope that answered all your questions! If not, feel free to ask more!
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meanbossart · 2 months
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Misc. Ask compilation
These aren't all of the asks I want to reply to, just some that I can answer relatively quickly to clean the ol' inbox out before things get out of hand. Thanks for your patience!
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HAHAHA THANK YOU FOR PERUSING AROUND and for enjoying my work! I had a... Weird Gale experience my first playthrough which led to his characterization being what it is in my comics. Here's the beat-by-beat of all the shenanigans: https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/740827466716807168/alright-i-am-like-90-sure-there-is-one-line-in-a
And here's just some of my personal thoughts on him! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/736193145686114305/can-you-tell-me-more-about-how-you-would-make-gale
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I would be lying if I said I'm not conflicted to know my style still bears some remnants of my edgy teen roots (not your fault not noticing it though, you aren't the first and won't be the last) BUT... That comic did mean a lot to me as a youth, so I guess I should be proud 🤷 and honestly it is a little cool that such a thing would survive for so long in what I do, crazy how that works.
LMAO, re: the bottom/top debacle, I was honestly so surprised to see people react to it like it's something novel. If I ever expected to get any push back on the matter, I thought it would be from people assuming DU drow was the top and taking issue with how violent and big he is (and yknow, some people are weirdly protective of Astarion as if he isn't a sneaky murder machine rippling with lean muscle)
Very disheartening to see that mindset still so alive and well among young people, but I guess it just means I gotta draw DU drow throwing more back and Astarion drooling over more ass until the stereotype is forcefully banished out of people's minds!
(more asks below the cut)
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"Sleeper agent activation phrase" absolutely took me out, Thank you so much LOL
YEAH I got it pretty late though, Astarion had already told my durge that he was a vampire of his own accord (and the response was, of course, "no duh") I forgot wheter this happened before or after the first romance scene triggered, but I think after.
Since this was after DU drow decided he was gonna fuck him out of pure contrarian spite and was shamelessly laying it extremely thick, He happilly let Astarion drink his blood. Hell, he was probably a little Too Eager - the guy likes pain and he likes letting people he trusts do with his body whatever they will, and while he didn't yet trust Astarion at that point, that event might've very well reminded him of something from his past that planted a seed which would eventually grow into his genuine affection for the guy.
Ah, he definitely got a half-chub as it happened too. I'm sure Astarion noticed it and just walked off rolling his eyes and thinking "eugh of course" lmao.
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Hello!!!
Oh man, I grew up fascinated with horror things. I remember from a very young age just looking at the covers and backs of horror movies at the film-rental even though I wasn't allowed to watch them. I was also easily scared but I sought those things out anyway - I think i just enjoyed the visceral reactions it drew out of me and was always curious about most things taboo.
When I got access to the internet that just opened a (very unfortunate) door to all things vile and awful like it did for so many people at that age in time. Though my tastes have changed a lot since then (Less August Underground, more The Devils kind of guy nowadays) my stories and art are just always going to fall into a horror-y category because I just... Don't think there's many better ways to showcase the human experience and emotional range without many of the elements native to the genre, and I'm all about that.
Thank you for your question and your sweet words, have a good week yourself!
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I did a little write-up about that over here! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/742508493562593280/i-dont-have-a-particular-question-in-mind-sorry
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That's the result of a scene that happens relatively early in the story I'm writing ("A Novel Experience" on Ao3).
{SPOILERS} DU drow accidentally passes out on a blade which puts a relatively deep gash on his hip. Meanwhile, Astarion is weakened and starved after certain events that transpired the prior night. They have a private exchange both in a somewhat hazy-state of mind and Astarion ends up prodding and prying at his wound while feeding, so it's a laceration and bite mark that just scarred over badly.
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Elves apparently don't grow body hair so never LOL guess they'll just have to slip&slide up on each other for heat
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pomegranateflesh · 2 months
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wowowooooooww breaking the flow of time and space again I see?
helloooo long time no post I see, here am I to feed the fans with CONTENT, this time an Album Cover redraw of Cure Sky,
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this is a redraw of the Album: Soaring of Puzzle, i fcking love Puzzle man, you guys haven't seen it yet but I'm a huge huge HUUUUGE fan of the band The Garden, so of course I'm a huge fan of each of the members solo career as well, I don't remember if I've listened to the whole album of Soaring yet but what I do know is that I LOOOOOOVE love looove the song "Soaring" from that album,
it's such an upbeat yet melancholy tune and the lyrics match as well, talking about soaring through past pains, I mostly interpret it to be about exes but it can be about soaring past anything, any problem in your way,
but it also talks about keeping the things the person referred in the song thought him, "she gave me something to have forever", and I think that is very beautiful, to be able to keep that happiness still even though that person isn't part of your life anymore, keeping the little things they thought you, it's beautiful yet saddening but what can we do? unlearning things is hard, why not carry those things learned with us regardless?
as you can see my autistic ass looooves this song
now as for the drawing, as you could guess by the clean lines I made this on my phone with my fingers in IbisPaintX, the idea was to try and copy the HirogaruSky's artstyle the most but uhhm.... I've always HATED doing the lineart, so much so that for a good year I just scanned my sketches from paper directly into IbisPaint with a filter and cleaned it just to skip past doing the lineart,
so uhmmm... it didn't really pan out, but it sure was quite fun seeing what composes the Hirogaru artstyle, and after dissecting it I now see it really isn't thaaaaat hard to copy but oh welllll
an explanation for the colors is that while searching for a good render of Cure Sky I've come across just how different the colors look from one official art to another, and I took that to my advantage, and did a "canon muted version" and a "headcanon colorful version" its fun to see how they differentiate, and it combines well with the upbeat yet mellow approach of the Album
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did i mention yet that I drew all this initially to use it as a thumbnail for a damn AMV? no? well... yeah I was thinking of doing a HirogaruSky tribute with this song since the anime ended and yknow.. if you translate HirogaruSky's name it CAN be translated as "SoaringSky Precure".. soooo.....🥺
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glitchpirate · 4 months
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It's 2023 and I'm still using the same template now 7 years in a row! Yippeee!
This year I decided to ramble about each artwork presented so uh. Storytime! Under the cut.
(Also usual reminder that now I have a GW2 side blog so that's where I'll upload GW2 artworks from now on -> @glitchgw2 (except the zine piece because I entered the zine with this blog))
January: I was going through a bit of an artblock, most of the things I drew this month were traced. One of the only things not traced was this Anassy! "Ah, etto... bleh!" I said after tracing the 5th drawing I saw on the internet.
February: a commission! Long overdue, but I finally finished it. Sylvaries are always tough to render. >.< The other things I drew this month were art party doodles and personal stuff.
March: one of the two months where the featured piece is the only thing I "finished" that month. And last minute, too! Made for trans visibility day which was on the very last day of March.
April: due to several things, Tyria Pride 2022's art commission giveaways got delayed to 2023. This was my piece for the person I was assigned to! ^_^ This was fun, I found out some new ways to render sylvari hair...
May: I vividly remember seeing a Diavolo art with this same reference and I was like hey. I could do this too but with Lucien. How haven't I done this before. P.S.: he's actually nothing like Bateman but it's a sick cover anyway lol. Mmm knife...
June: it was a sick (as in like epic) month for me. I reworked Dawn and Incendere (my Ghost OC), welcomed my unhinged self and drew a lot of nsfw. But not good nor holy enough to share. :P But it was a nice practice anyway. I chose one drawing of Dawn because out of everything I drew it looks the most "clean" and finished.
July: I remembered My Life as a Teenage Robot as I do tri-monthly and almost made an AU for Lucien. Almost. So instead I just made whatever this is. This was one of the most fun pieces I've ever did, I finally feel comfortable lining in CSP and just in general this was super shapey and smooth to work on. <3
August: Tyria Pride giveaway commission but this time, in time! I got to work on a lovely charr which I don't do often! My other choices would have been a cropped nsfw commission but I lowkey like this one better.
September: the other month where I didn't draw anything but this. Had a banger idea for Gliaster's future which is them becoming a lich but also being corrupted by malignant powers so they're now even more evil and also driven by vengeance towards the Commander and Aurene. Tried to come up with a design for them, alas this piece. It's... very in progress. But I like said progress so far.
October: the opportunity for an art related full-time job came up which meant I had to up my portfolio and draw some realistic/semi-realistic studies. I was surprised by myself lmao but ngl it was also a big pain in the ass. Art is suffering. <3
November: the continuation of October but now with an original piece! Felt like drawing one of my best friend's GW2 characters. <3 Haven't uploaded this one yet as I might rework the background sometime.
December: and finally, my piece for Commander Of Your Heart GW2 zine! Which wasn't actually restricted to only Commander characters, but any other OCs/player characters too, so of course I chose Gliaster. :D And we can apparently show teasers, so I can include this little bit! But what is Gliaster up to? Find out in February, for free!
*
Aaand that's it. It was actually super fun to look back to the year not only in pictures but some words too. :D If you read this all, I appreciate you, thank you so much. <3
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bigfauxbro · 1 month
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Your big brother practicing to be a tattoo artist, so you're begging him to give you one, promising not to tell mom and dad, wanting something cute and fun and begging for me to do it.
I finally sigh and give in, waiting until they go out for an evening and leave me in charge. Picking out a spot on your hip, telling you you're gonna have to keep this hidden so they don't see, no one should see it unless they've got your skirt hiked up over your ass.
And then... The buzz of the pen, the press of your big brother's hands on your skin, that delicious bite of pain as I practice my art, etching the delicate lines of ink into your skin, you looking up to watch my focused, serious face as I basically ignore you except for the little patch of your hip I'm tattooing.
Finishing the ink, wiping it clean, pressing the saniderm over it, and looking up in your eyes with a smirk. "I've permanently marked my baby sister as mine, and no one can change that."
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bigmouthlass · 9 days
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Title:  A Strange Detour
Series: Holler Me Home, part 1
Author:  BJ
Fandom:  Supernatural
Rating:  Explicit
Pairing:  Dean Winchester/You, Dean Winchester/Reader
Synopsis: 'You' are an Omega fresh off a daring rescue of Alpha!Dean. Fate wouldn't be so cruel as to bring on a heat when you're seeing him home-- oh wait.
Tags:  Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, ABO, Omegaverse, Alpha Dean Winchester, Omega You, Omega Reader, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Knotting, Dubious Consent,
AN:  If I've misused any of the ABO tropes, I apologize. There's a lot about ABO dynamics that bother me, I tried to play with it a little so it doesn't come off quite so . . . squicky. There is content referencing sexual abuse of minors but it's offstage, non-explicit, and not meant to be in any way titillating.  All recognizable intellectual properties are owned by their respective creators and holders of any copyrights or trademarks. This is a not-for-profit work of fan art and protected by Fair Use.
---
The first flush hits as you climb through the door and lock it behind you. "Oh shit!"
The body stretched out on your bed murbles something.
"Never mind, go back to sleep."
An affirmative grunt is the only response, and you shut yourself in the RV's tiny bathroom. Pinching in your back dispenses with the notion that you can get by using regular drugstore suppressants; the damn things don't work when the show's already on the road. Instead you reach for the neutralizer and smear it over your scent points. Not much you can do about your privates, except stick a thick pad there and hope for the best. Cussing, you eat some aspirin with a cup of coffee, get in your captain's chair, and hit the backroads.
Your guest wakes up about the time you pass the state line. Tall, very handsome, stiff with the aftermath of an ass-whuppin’, the bruise on his cheekbone turning a nice shade of plum and lilac. "Morning sunshine. There's coffee in the cupboard over the stove. Make yourself useful."
Dean Winchester grunts something obscene but he goes to do as he's told. "What's with the cigarettes? Thought you quit."
"I did," you confirm, crushing your cigarette out and lighting another. "I've been up for thirty-six hours since I got the SOS from Garth to come save your dumb ass. Cigarettes keep me awake. Next step up is speed and that shit makes me sick." And the smoke should cover any scent that gets past the neutralizer.
"Alright you've made your point. Open a window or something."
"Can't. We'll lose the air conditioning."
"Don't care. Those things reek."
Conceding his point, you get him to open the windows. Whether or not that improves the air quality is debatable. Downwind of Gary stinks of burned oils and bad decisions. On top of that it's one of those overcast days where the world feels like a steam room on half power. Dean's flannel and your jean jacket get tossed up into the upper front bunk within minutes. Lord have mercy but why did he have to pick today of all days to wear a tank top? In his mid-thirties, Dean looks his age, and his age looks pretty damn good.
Of course short sleep is only part of the story. Thanks to the scrambling your hormones got from ten years of experimental suppressants, your heats are hard and painful. You scrap the plan to escort Dean back to Kansas yourself and make a new plan to hit up a fixer you know who lives in Illinois. Izzy’s got a bunch of beaters with clean titles and he owes you a big one.
Dean's not in a much better mood than you are. With how often he gets kidnapped and thrashed you'd think he'd be used to the process, but no. The ride turns into one giant bitchfest, Dean ignoring your growls to shut the fuck up as he complains about everything-- how much his back hurts, how he mashed his fingers in the cupboard door, how the radio isn't picking up anything but bad country western and whiny preachers. Battling the backroads of Indiana in a C-class RV in ninety degree weather and no air conditioning, with a bad heat coming on and the world's biggest fussy baby whining in your ear, is going in the books as one of your special Hells. You wish Sam was here. Nobody's better at Dean-wrangling than he is. You should be so lucky; Sam's holed up at the Winchesters' super secret hideout, fresh off surgery to repair a torn tendon in his knee.
A stop for gas and some fried chicken helps. "I'm sorry," you apologize, swallowing a big hunk of drumstick. "I don't think I've eaten since lunch yesterday and I'm a total bitch when I'm hungry."
"'M sorry too," Dean says around a mouthful of coleslaw. "I try to be nice to people who save my ass."
"Dude," you say, "saving your ass is not only a service to humanity, it's my distinct pleasure." Your reward is a blinding grin and an eyebrow waggle, and you try not to blush. The man is hot as a lit match and if things were different-- well, you'd have to take a number, people a lot cuter'n you have drawn blood for the pleasure of his company.
Your pussy clenches and a brutal cramp seizes your innards. Fresh slick oozes, the sensation making you cringe. You seize on Dean's casual, "So what's the plan?" like a drowning woman grabbing for a life ring. "Well my nearest fixer lives outside a little town name of Union Hill. He can hook you up with transportation and gas money." And you can park the RV in the middle of nowhere and howl out your heat in peace.
"You don't want to come back and visit?" Dean asks. If you didn't know better you'd think he looks a little . . . hurt. "Sam would love to see you. He told me to say thank you for that print you sent."
"Everybody should have a Van Gogh in their first house," you say, smiling. "It's like a national law." Your smile breaks on a massive yawn.
"Hey-- go get some sleep," Dean says. "I've got a CDL, I can drive this tin can."
"Watch it Winchester, this is my home you're talking about," you grouch. A power nap sounds nice right now, if for no other reason than it's a excuse to put some space between you and Dean. Far as he knows you're a Beta, and you intend to keep it that way. "You know how to get to Kankakee from here?"
Dean gives you a look.
"Sorry, my bad. Wake me when we hit the city."
"Yes ma'am," Dean says.
"Salute me when you say that."
Without looking back as he settles into your captain's chair, Dean flips you off. "Hey," he asks as he fires up the engine, "you know of a good barbecue joint around where we're going?"
"There's a truck stop on 57, maybe two or three exits south. They've got a pit out back. Why?"
Dean makes that dunno shrug sound. "I could seriously go for some ribs.”
---
You're deep under, dreaming of plush lips and -- of all things -- chocolate fudge and cheesecake when the RV lurches.
"Sorry," Dean calls back as you climb out of bed. "We're making a pit stop. I gotta find a pharmacy."
The RV lurches again, damn near throwing you off your feet. The coffeepot crashes to the floor. "Fuck-- Dean!"
"Sorry," he says, unconvincingly. Someone outside blares a horn and Dean hollers something you're sure he didn't learn in church. You peer out through the curtains and see a Walgreens. Dean wheels into a bank of parking spaces and cuts the engine.
"Wait a-- Dean! chill!" Too late, he's out the door and jogging across the parking lot. You stare at the remains of your coffee maker, source of the bitter fuel of life. How Sam has not strangled Dean in his sleep, you have no idea.
Well as long as you're here-- grimacing through the intensifying cramps you pick up a new coffeemaker and stock up on protein drinks and bottled water. Omegas can, and have, died of thirst or hunger while deep in heat. As you leave the store you see a Confinement Notice posted on the wall. Shit. You forgot, Illinois is a Confinement state-- unless you get your horny ass inside the cops can pick you up and stash you in a closet next to the drunk tank until your heat runs its course. For Your Own Safety, For Their Own Safety. It's tempting to rip the damn thing off the wall and burn it.
Dean's in the bathroom when you get back, grunting something about an upset stomach. Whatever, Dean locked in the bathroom means less chance you'll do something dumb. Maybe, just maybe, you can get out of this with your dignity intact.
If you can fight through the haze drifting across your brain. Thick killer fog, smothering logic and reason, turning off anything but a fierce longing for bare skin, lips, hands, knot. Your skin is burning, clothes are starting to chafe. You’re running out of time.
When you get to Izzy’s hideout -- a cozy basement cave on an abandoned farm with a yard full of rustbucket cars, the house and barn lost to a fire years ago -- you're in a state. Febrile, trembling, every erogenous zone on your body aching. You have to take a minute to get your knees under you when you climb out of the RV. Jesus, you've never had a heat hit this fast.
"No." With shaking fingers you touch the note caught in the storm cellar door, staring wide-eyed and disbelieving at heavy duty padlocks. "No no no no no no, Jesus fuck no--" you dash back into the RV and pound on the bathroom door. "Dean get out here! My fixer's gone, you gotta see if you can get one of his beaters running--"
"I can't." Dean's voice is even hoarser and deeper than usual.
"What? Why the hell not? Your legs broke?"
A choke of laughter. "If only."
"Dean this isn't funny," a crinkle of plastic gets your attention and you pick a shopping bag up off the floor. The receipt is inside and as you read the brand names your insides collapse into a void. Neutralizer and suppressants, Alpha formula. Oh Jesus died in vain and legally changed his middle name to Fucking, Dean is in rut.
"Why didn't you tell me?!?" you shrill. "Dipshit, it's really not a good idea to be riding around in a mobile home full of fucking guns when you've got a rut coming--"
"I didn't know!" Dean roars and you flinch. "My rut's not due for another three fucking weeks! Maybe one of those assholes dosed me. Maybe those painkillers you gave me did something-- I don't know." Dean goes on, oblivious to your silence. "Fucking thing comes every thirty-three days, has ever since I was fifteen. I could set my watch to it. I wake up this morning, I feel fine, three hours later I start getting the shakes. I thought if I loaded up on suppressants I could hold it off until I got home but the fucking things aren't working!"
"How bad is it?" you ask.
"I could pole-vault over myself right now," Dean says. "Look I know you're probably exhausted but you gotta get me back to the bunker--"
"Dean you see the bag hung over the towel bar on the door?"
A pause. "Yeah?"
"Open it up and look inside." The bag, an old army medic first aid kit, is where you keep the stuff from the drug trial-- copies of questionnaires, doctor's exam notes, charts of the side effects, the empty glass vials with their color-coded labels. You listen as Dean opens it up and rifles through the contents, and cringe when the anvil drops and he starts snapping out swears. "What the fuck?!? Omega?"
The contempt in the word gets you mad again. "Because it wasn't your business and my heats aren't regular. I wouldn't have shut us up in a box together if I thought I wasn't safe!" Your uterus clenches into a hard fist and your knees buckle, your palms smacking on the kitchen counter.
"Oh fuck. Do not tell me you're going into heat."
You cough out a laugh. "You tell me. Alpha."
Dean sniffs. "Oh Jesus Christ. How-- oh God you smell good. How did I never notice?"
"The shit I was on worked." There had been side effects of course-- your hair falling out all over, a uterus full of fibroids and scar tissue, the increased cancer risk, irregular and painful heats . . .
Not fun. But a breeding Omega is a liability as a Hunter, and you need Hunting more than you need a mate and pups. However vehemently your body disagrees right now.
"I knew you were something," Dean says, surprising you.
"Oh fuck off Winchester, I'm not one of those slobbering Betas you pick up in bars who want a walk on the wild side with a real-life Alpha. Did any of them ask you for a bite?"
"You're a vicious bitch when you're in heat, you know that?"
Your reply is lost in a high squeak of pain. The latch on the bathroom door rattles and you lock it from the outside-- you'd installed the bolt years ago. Just in case. Dean throws it a shoulder. Panicking, you shriek, "Dean stop!"
He slumps against the back wall. He takes a deep sniff, like a little kid smelling a flower. You can't help it, you pull a deep breath and moan as Dean's scent hits your brain, filling your senses with fudge and leather.
It takes every bit of your disappearing willpower to stagger to your bed.
---
The next hours are pure misery. Wave after wave of need racks your body, your cunt clenching around nothing, every fiber of your being desperate for a knot, for seed. The tiny little space left where you live is just as desperate, cracking you with a whip of you are not your biology, you are not some hole for an Alpha to hump their come into, you are not some fucking brood mare, you are not, you are not, you are not--
Again and again you cry out as the words fail you. Your own hands and the toys in the nightstand drawer work overtime, wringing climaxes out of your body to the point of pain. They just make it worse. Your body doesn't want to come, it wants Alpha. Surrounding you, holding you down, pulling you close, knotting, biting, marking, mating-- just in time you sink your fangs into your pillow and howl.
When the first wave recedes it's dark outside. Your body feels like a clenched fist and you hiss in pain as you unwrap yourself from your pillows and pull yourself straight. It's agony but you know from bitter experience that you have to use these lucid periods productively. Your knotting toy lays at the foot of the bed, sticky and stinking. Tears of frustrated rage in your eyes, you pick it up and hurl it overhand, hard enough to dent the wall.
"Jesus!" Dean snaps from the bathroom.
"Sorry. Are you okay?"
"Well," Dean says as you lurch to the kitchen table and crack a bottle of protein drink, "I've got a hard-on that won't die and a really embarrassing mess to clean up--"
"Dude!"
"You asked, genius. And I am starving. I could eat a dead skunk if you put some onions on it first."
"There's a box of ration bars under the sink and the clear water tank is full. Just in case," you add, "there's a pistol and a silver knife in the toilet tank and some holy water in the medicine cabinet." You do what you can to clean off some of the sweat and slick, the cool water soothing on your skin.
The next wave hits and you're on the floor dragging the washcloth back and forth through your pussy, spread out on your front with your ass in the air. Dean's crouched down on the bathroom floor. You can see his face pressed against the little slats in the door, hear the hissing of breath through his nose. Gobbling up your scent like a kid with a sackful of Halloween candy. Shuddering, disgusted with yourself, disgusted with him, you crawl back into your bed for round two.
---
"You gotta let me outta here," Dean says, several hours later.
"You can't leave," you tell him tiredly. "Illinois has Confinement laws." You getting caught with an RV full of unregistered firearms, pipe bombs, drugs of all functions, magic supplies both holy and otherwise, and maybe one or two satchel charges is one thing. Dean getting picked up? The FBI would put him under the jail.
You hear Dean sit on the toilet lid. "Shit."
"Yeah. Don't suppose there's anybody you can call--"
"Phone's on the table. Besides," he adds, "everyone I can think to call is-- they shouldn't be coming here."
You hear the unspoken point. Garth's a Beta but there's a full moon coming and he won't risk being caught away from home. Sam is out of commission and an Alpha besides. Castiel is . . . well, he is what he is, but he's in the wind. "Shit.”
"I just said that."
"Hoho, very funny. Ha ha, it is to laugh."
Dean snorts. “Look, ‘Mega--”
“Don’t call me that! Don’t you ever call me that!!!” you yell.
“Okay okay okay-- just listen. Is it really so awful?”
"Do I have to dignify that with an answer?" you snap back. "This shit fucking hurts, you dick."
"That's not what I meant," Dean says. "I mean-- the thought of me. Is that really so awful?"
Oh God, what a question. "Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? I'd have to fight for you with anyone with eyesight and a libido that works."
Dean doesn't say anything for a moment. "So. Any Alpha that's good-looking?"
"Fuck you," you spit. "You have any idea how fucking demeaning this shit is? I'm going on about my day and all of a sudden I wanna drop my drawers for any twitching dick that walks by? When I was in school I had fucking Betas grabbing me in the halls. 'Present for me Omega.'" Your voice almost breaks. The memory of your first heat is one you don’t want back. "One of them was my fucking history teacher. Said it was his duty as an Alpha."
A bitter sound that might've started as a laugh comes from the bathroom. "Librarian," he says. "Dragged me into the science wing supply closet. Said her husband went noseblind and she was dying for a knot."
"Jesus." Would they? Of course they would. Young, attractive, bad reputation, mostly on his own-- to a certain kind of scum Dean would've been catnip. "How old were you?"
"Seventeen." Dean pulls a breath. "There were some others at that school. I got passed around like a fucking trophy." Or a whore, you think but don't say. "I never said nothing to anybody but I kept getting these looks from some of the seniors. Big bad Alpha, even the teachers want a piece. I tried-- I swear, I tried to stop. One of them, she taught one of Sammy's classes-- he started taking high school English when he was in sixth grade. She told me if I didn't fuck her she'd call the cops and get Sammy taken away."
You touch the surface of the locked door. The one threat Dean would never, ever take as anything but serious, the one thing that would scoop his guts out and make him nice and tame. "They can go straight to Hell," you say. Your tongue hits your fangs, fully descended. As if you could go back in time and rip the bitches to pieces for daring to lay a hand on your-- on him. "Every last motherfucking one of them."
Silence, no engine noises, no crunch of tires in the distance. Just insect wings and an owl hooting in the trees. Just you two and the angels right now, and you hope to God they're not paying attention.
"You're the first person that didn't instantly make a joke about it," Dean says finally.
"I make jokes about funny shit. That shit ain't funny."
"Yeah." You hear something light, leaflike-- Dean flipping a page. "Did someone hurt you? Is that why you signed up for this?"
"Omegas get hassled. It comes with the territory," you dodge the question. "I volunteered because--" you think a minute. "I went into heat once when I was tracking a tseste. Damn near died. OTC meds weren't strong enough, so I started doing some digging. Pfizer’s been working to develop heavy-duty suppressants for a while now. High dose hormone regulators. I sighed up for a clinical trial. Stuff works great-- no scent, no mating drive. The drug part of the study ended about a year ago. I just have to go to the doctor twice a year for follow-ups."
Dean snaps his fingers. "That's why you didn't take that case in Buffalo. That ghost ship."
"Yeah. I was parked outside Sault Ste Marie scaring the mosquitoes." Ashamed, you add, "I really am sorry about that, I heard you and Sam damn near drowned."
"Wasn't your fault." That leafy sound again. Of course Dean's read through everything in the bag. Nothing else to do in there but play with himself, you think and wish you hadn’t. Those big hands and nimble fingers, strong enough to bend iron, gentle enough to suture a wound or wipe a tear. "Did the jerks from the drug company tell you how bad the side effects could get?"
"They had to," you reply. "This isn't a super secret project to neuter all the Omegas in the world. Pfizer gets a suppressant formula that actually works, they'll be the richest bastards since the Pharaohs. I'd sell my soul not to have to deal with," your lip curls in revulsion as you take yourself in, soaked in sweat and slick and ready to throw yourself at any swelling knot, "this."
"Please tell me that’s a figure of speech."
You roll your eyes. "Even I'm not that desperate. It's not you, Dean. If it were just us--" why in God's name are you saying these things?
"It is just us," Dean points out. "Nothing here but you and me."
"You, me, and a mating instinct that still gets people off the hook for murder in 36 states." The words flow, like blood from a deep cut. "I took a shitload of drugs that killed my uterus and will probably give me cancer because that's better than pumping out pups by the boatload until my body gives up and dies. And don't tell me it doesn't have to be that way. It might not be legal to throw out job applications from Omegas but it still fucking happens. You know what I wanted to do before I had my first heat? I wanted to go to West Point. Be the first woman on the Joint Chiefs. But nope, the Corps loves Alphas but Omegas are too much fucking hassle--"
"You're not hearing me," Dean interrupts your tirade.
"And you aren't hearing me. I can't afford to forget I'm a fucking sow. It's gonna get me killed one of these days. You got the same classes I did Winchester, you know the life expectancy of Omegas tops out at fifty-five. Fifty for male Omegas."
"And thirty-five for female Alphas. That's not the point."
You gulp. Dean in rut and out of patience was not something you ever wanted to see. You clutch your midsection, another wave of heat stirring, sucking at you, pulling you under.
"I wanted you the minute I looked at you," Dean says, making your eyes pop wide. "I didn't make a move because I thought you couldn't stand Alphas. Remember that night, when Sammy and me met you?"
You nod. "The harpy nest."
"We had to pull you off that frat boy Alpha when he grabbed your ass." Shit. You remember the incident, sort of, you were pretty drunk at the time. You'd forgotten about the part where Dean had to drag you kicking and screaming off the premises while Sam talked the bouncer out of calling the cops.
Dean's voice goes even rougher, lower. It feels like he's speaking right to that surging, stinging want spreading through you. Your hind brain plucks the same old song on your nerves, mate-knot-breed, mate-knot-breed, the same old breedslut’s waltz. The animal inside wants to dance, and relishes the thought of taking Alpha’s lead. "If I wanted to knot you 'til you bleed I would. I can break through this damn door in a New York minute and you know it. And for the record," you shudder, "I can feel exactly how much you're hurting right now and you have no idea what it's like having to feel my mate in pain and just stand here with my dick in my hand."
The sensation of total stop gets underlined by another murderous cramp. Curled with pain, you shout, "MATE?!? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!?!?"
"It's the only way this makes sense," Dean says. "You said you've never had your heat take you this fast. I've never been more than a couple days off-schedule. Either we've been hit with a curse and fuck I hope not or we're a match and our cycles are synching up."
"You don't honestly believe in that true mates crap," you say, digging your nails into your sides hard enough to break skin.
"I've seen it. There were these two guys. Hunters. We ran into them on a case. I saw the claiming bites. Sam asked them when they got together and Jose said they met on the streets. When they scented each other, they knew. Jose said it was like somebody distilled happiness. You know what you smell like to me right now?" Dean takes a long sniff. "Grape popsicles.” Another sniff. You can picture him scenting, head back, lips parted, skin flushed and shadowed with beard, a Renaissance angel in bluejeans, those eyes looking at you, wanting you. “Barbecue, with brown sugar and lots of pepper.”
You aren't aware of scenting and the words just sort of come out. "Mackinac Island fudge.” One hand slides down and between “My mom's old motorcycle jacket."
Faintly, you hear the clink of a belt buckle. "Cinnamon."
Your fingers glide over slicked flesh. "Cedar shavings."
A soft groan, a breathless voice. "Irish whiskey."
Both hands, seeking, circling, inside. "Toasting marshmallows."
You can hear the rhythmic sliding of skin against skin. A soft plosive sound, Dean spitting into his hand. "Hot engines."
Your body clenches at your fingers, the bands of muscle meant to lock behind Alpha's knot flexing and fluttering. "Gunpowder."
Dean's panting as he sinks to his knees. "Peanut butter--" he moans your name.
Climax breaks over you and you curl your fingers into a bony knot, your other hand rolling your clit like a marble in oil. "Baked apples," you cry out as Dean gasps from the other side of the locked door. Scent and seed and slick and tears. You crawl away from the bathroom crying out in pain as the heat rips and drags you under.
---
Never ask if things can get worse. God takes it as a personal challenge.
You didn't even make it into the bed. Instead of climbing up onto the sheets you’d curled up into a tight ball on the floor, and there you remain. You'd assumed the scent of an Alpha in rut made heat as bad as it could possibly get. Misss-stake. The paradigm has shifted, your instincts have seized on the idea (the truth, a little part of you cries) and that's not just an Alpha in the other room (mine!), it's Dean. You can't pretend the Alpha, the man, you're scenting is just some knot that happens to look like your friend (mate). Dean's hands on your blazing skin, Dean's mouth kissing yours, Dean's knot locked in your cunt, Dean's seed pumping into your body. Oh the things he could do to you, body and spirit so much stronger than he lets on.
Your scents have intensified to the point where you can taste them on the air, bite them off and chew them. A filmstrip voice from fifth grade sex ed class drones in your memory-- 'like their animal counterparts with similar mating cycles, Alphas and Omegas in season produce pheromones to indicate their status to potential mates. In the correct conditions, pheromones can be detectable up to a mile away. An unmated Alpha or Omega's pheromone production will increase the longer a breeding cycle continues without a successful mating.' The sound of hateful sniggering, always in your ears. Breeder, cum sink, momslut, Omega.
The sense of Dean's presence drags across your senses like fish hooks over your skin, and cruelest of all it's not demanding, it's begging, pleading. Alpha feels your agony and longs to take the pain away. Faintly you can hear Dean's voice, thick with his own need. He keeps asking you to answer him, laugh at this, say something at that, breathe like a train engine, anything to help you emerge from the Hell of your own body.
And something just . . . gives. Breaking strain, tipping point, limit reached and breached. "Dean!" you cry, sobbing so hard you can't breathe. "Help me! Dean, please--"
A crack like a gunshot, and the bathroom door splinters into matchsticks. You turn your head and there he is, barechested, jeans hanging open, his cock jutting up and out, the knot at the base dark and pulsing. You look for Dean and instead it's all Alpha and your heart crumbles to ash. Weeping, you do what's expected; head down, spread your knees as wide apart as they'll go, press your chest down into the floor, arch your back to flare up your rear. A proper presenting, showing Alpha you're ready for breeding. Like a stinking beast and worth half as much.
"Please," you cry into the floor. If dignity is cheap why does it hurt so much to lose? "Please, it hurts, it hurts so bad."
"I know baby, it's okay, I got you," instead of spreading you wider or grabbing you by the nape Dean takes your shoulders and pulls you gently upright and against his chest, the heat of his skin matching the heat under yours, "c'mere, it's gonna be okay, shh," softness pressing to your face, your head, your mouth, "can you stand? c'mon, put your feet down--" he pulls one of your limp arms over his shoulders and stands, drag-marching you the last step to your bed. By the time he's got you laid down he's shuddering almost as hard as you are.
You whine when Dean pulls away, gasping out pleas, grabbing his hand and interlacing your fingers. Whatever he was going to do gets abandoned and Dean drags himself overtop you, jeans boots and all. You wind yourself around him, soaking up the feel and the smell and the everything the way cracked skin soaks up lotion-- pain and relief all at once. His cock drags across your belly, leaving a hot trail. A hand gropes your cunt and you let out a high whistling gasp. "Hang on baby," Dean says. He tries a smile. "Left my lube in my other pants."
You smack him somewhere meaty. Dean grunts but his attention doesn't waver. Two fingers slip inside and wiggle while Dean murmurs how tight, how wet and warm, how good it's gonna feel, how good he's going to make you feel. The tip of his cock brushes you and before you can freeze he rolls his hips and oh.
There's no resistance at all. He just glides, fitting up into your body like a key in a lock. Every single muscle in your body pulls tight tight tight and you scream, Dean half-sobbing a curse against your lips. The spasm lets go just as you feel yourself starting to pass out and clarity returns to the feel of your Alpha painting your face with kisses, your bare skull held gently between his hands. Blood and sensation surges back and you moan as Dean puts an arm around your back and thrusts.
He's big inside you, and the way he's got you tipped makes every movement light sparks along your nerves. Gentleness goes by the boards as your body clutches at him, as your claws cut furrows in his back and your heels dig into his butt. The rest of reality doesn't exist, all that matters is Dean in your arms, Alpha's knot swelling, starting to catch.
The world goes upsie-daisy as Dean grabs tight and rolls the whole works over. "Wanna see," he pants, holding your hips until you get your balance. "My knot-- oh my God you're beautiful, you're so goddamn beautiful."
You don’t have words, just touch, your hand pulling Dean up for a kiss. Your bodies find their stride and you’re rocking hard together, moaning against each other’s lips. Hours on the edge has you in a place beyond, need and pain and bliss all smashed and melted together. You’re desperate for the end, you want this to never end.
“NO!” you scream in denial when Dean’s knot pops and your cunt locks him in place. His back arches as he comes and the pain in your body drains away as his cock pumps you full of seed. You start to cry, your own peak denied, release out of your reach--
Beneath you, Dean sprawls, crying out at each pulse of his cock. His hands clamp on your hips hard enough you can feel him clutching bone. Unconsciously you follow his unspoken lead, rotating your body around Alpha’s knot, making every millimeter of him stroke and drag. Jaw clenched as your pussy pulls at his overstimulated cock, Dean strokes your clit, his touch light as bird wings and intense as fireworks. His eyes lock with yours and what’s left of the world fades to nothing. All that’s real is this, Alpha and Omega, you and Dean.
Everything in you stops and flashbulbs pop behind your eyes as you finally come, crying out Alpha’s name, and the last thing you hear is Dean shouting as another load of his seed bursts into your womb. Your body folds over and everything goes black.
---
Just before dawn, when the terminator passes and everything is shades of blue, you open your eyes, flat on your back. On his side, curled up next to you, Dean sleeps. One of his arms lays across your belly.
Well. You lie still, utter peace rubbed up against utter shock. 24 hours ago you were giving your wounded friend two Oxycontin with a bourbon chaser and worrying about gas money. You take a whiff, noting the change in your mingled scents. Lord it's weird, relaxing and tensing up all at once.
Dean mumbles a little and you shut your eyes, going boneless. You don't want to see his face when he opens his eyes and realized he's not in bed with a gorgeous, well-fucked, ready-for-more Beta. He'd said he wanted you and he wasn't lying -- you give yourself at least that much credit -- but an Alpha in rut would find an Omega in heat attractive no matter what.
Dean takes a deep sniff at your neck. Is he purring? Moaning? Whatever it is, it's going right to that worried place, soothing it away. "Hey," he says, so softly. "You awake?"
"Mmm," you grumble, turning on your side and into Dean's arms. Dean doesn't turn away, doesn't grope you, doesn't mutter obscenities as he rolls you over to present. You can feel him moving around you, making his body into a safe little harbor, and you can almost believe there's nothing else in the world he'd rather be or do.
For all that he's a Hunter and one of the strongest personalities you know, for all that you'd never doubt for a minute that Dean's an Alpha, the thought of Dean being Alpha as you understand Alphas doesn't click. Alphas don't get all soft and googoo face when they're holding someone else's pup. Alphas don't turn down sex from cooperative partners even when said partner is a little short of legal or too drunk to tapdance. Unmated adult Alphas don't exist cooperatively for years on end even when they're related. Sam behaves more Alpha than Dean does and Sam's a sweetheart most of the time.
Another wave of heat swells in you but there’s no pain, just want. You nuzzle your way up Dean’s throat and meet him for a kiss.
Both of you pull away with a disgusted noise. “Ew. Dragon breath,” you say.
“Yours is worse,” Dean, no gentleman, tells you. “Least I don’t taste like an ashtray.”
“Hold your breath,” you order, reaching down and feeling him rise to attention.
Pouting-- he’s actually pouting-- Dean pushes your hand away. “Sorry baby,” he says, kissing your forehead, “but I gotta piss like a racehorse.”
“Charming. Make it fast.” You make a face as you roll out of bed. At least these aren’t the good sheets. An Alpha in rut leaves behind one fuck of a wet spot.
Dean picks up a piece of wrecked door. “Holy shit.”
“You’re paying my deductible,” you tell him, reaching around the doorframe and snatching your toothbrush.
Ten minutes later and you’ve got minty fresh breath, a protein drink in your system, and your butt squeaking a brisk one-two beat on the kitchen counter as Dean fucks you to within an inch of your life.
---
“Well this is awkward,” you say.
Dean pants out a laugh. “Ya think?”
You try to shift yourself off Dean’s knot and hiss in pain. “Um . . .” you give him a pained grin, “I like Captain Solo where he is?”
That gets you a glare. “Seriously?”
“Sorry. Pop out on three-- one, two--”
“No no no no no, you’ll tear.” Over your protests, Dean picks you up off the counter, careful of your knotted together bodies. He sits on the dining table, draping you over his lap and making your mewl as his cock shifts around inside you. Dean sighs as you get your knees on either side of his hips. “That’s better.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Why the hell not? I’m not going to just rip out of you. What kind of an asshole do you think I am?”
“An Alpha. And you’re not an asshole you’re a dipshit. There’s a difference.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” You can’t help it, your lip curls in a snarl. “Not much I could do to stop you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Oh am I offending you now?”
That’s worth a glare. “Yeah, kinda, it pisses me off that you think you gotta prove something to me.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, confused.
“I mean--” Dean cuts himself off, thinking, holding you still when you try that swivel trick around his knot. “Stop that.”
“Whyyyy?”
“Because I’m trying to have an adult conversation--”
“Whyyyy?”
“Because you’re starting to remind me of Sam when he was ten and it’s annoying--”
“WHYYYY?”
“Because I really do not want to be thinking of my brother right now--”
“WHYYYY?!?”
Dean’s fighting a grin and losing. “Animaniacs references will not save you--”
“WHYYYY?!?!?”
“Knock it off!”
You suck in a breath for the whine to end all whines, only to breathe crosswise into coughing as Dean starts tickling you. Swearing through your giggles, you attack his ribs.
Somewhere in there tickling’s led to stroking, caressing, kisses, soft bites. Gently you drag your lips across Dean’s collarbones, down to mouth a nipple, up to nibble over his tattoo. Just touching him feels good.
His mouth slips down the side of your neck and pauses on the mating gland. You stiffen. Hurt shines in Dean’s eyes, before he covers it in irritation. “Jeez-zus Christ I’m--”
Making a decision, you touch his lips and shush him up. “Look. When this is over we’ll talk. For real talk, I promise. Until then, can we table the deep soul-bearing heart-to-heart shit?”
“You’re regretting this already?” Dean asks, the hurt shining through more strongly.
“God no.” Pounding the point home with a kiss. “I just don’t want you to. If you’re right, about us I mean.” You stare into his eyes, nearly lost in shining green, one of your hands over his beating heart. “I don’t wanna fuck this up.”
Dean takes your face between his hands and kisses you, deep and sweet. You barely notice when his knot collapses and he slips out, leaving a mess of mingled come all over you both.
---
It’s getting hot, sweat making your bodies slide deliciously as you gently, softly, agonizingly move against Alpha. His cock fills you beautifully, the fat head rubbing against a spot inside that brings tears to your eyes. Slow, stoking the heat burning through your body.
Dean lifts your leg a little higher, goes a little deeper. “Hold your leg like that,” he whispers. His newly freed hand goes to your belly and presses down against the shallow curve of tummy fat. “Feel that?”
You can. Your insides fluttering as Dean pushes against them. From inside. Makes every movement more there, more immediate. Head, ridge, shaft, knot-- you moan when Dean starts gently rubbing your clit, making him answer in kind when your cunt spasms around him.
It lasts, Dean makes it last, until you can’t anymore and he flips you to your back and fucks his knot into you. You cry out as your body takes another load of seed and you lie there, bodies heaving for air, the two of you glued together with the heat.
---
“You’re a genius,” you tell Dean.
“I know, I know,” he smiles, almost too beautiful to look at in the rich sunset light. Your nose can still pick up his scent, mixed with green leaves and burning citronella. The two of you sit on your old air mattress, sharing some dried fruit and venison jerky, passing a jug of water. In the west the sun vanishes in a riot of rose and orange and purple. High up on the roof of your little home on wheels, it really does feel like a tiny slice of Heaven.
“I still do this, whenever I hit a hunt away from the cities,” you tell Dean. “Especially out in the desert country, like Lake Taos? I always freeze my ass off in the morning but the sky’s just . . .”
“Yeah,” Dean chuckles. “We were on our way across Nevada once and we got caught between towns. Dad had to stop and get a little sleep. So Sammy and me lay on the windshield and watched the stars. I was dozing and Sammy woke me up when he saw a whole buncha shootin’ stars-- we must’ve caught the tail end of a meteor shower.”
Dean’s gaze has gone inward, his voice rough and loose with that bit of Texas that comes out sometimes. When Dean reminisces, it’s usually centered on Sam, or him and Sam as a unit, the Winchester Boys, Butch and Sundance, Martin and Lewis, Heckle and Jeckle. Truly impactful memories aren’t something either of them talk about much. You know why. The truth of who people are is a treasure and it’s shockingly easy to steal. This is a gift you’re being given, and you give back silence and space.
“Sammy started poundin’ on the windshield to get Dad to wake up. I thought sure he was gonna rip me a new one for not keeping him quiet. But instead he got out of the car and climbed up on the hood with us. He put his arm around each of us and we all just watched the stars.
“We woke up at dawn half-frostbit and with this Highway Patrol cop writing a ticket for-- shit, I don’t even remember. Sammy talked him out of it by telling him about falling stars.” You can tell Dean’s disappointed in his story. The most important things are the hardest to say. “Anyway. It’s nice to be under an open sky sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Camping out with your dad, learning how to fish and build a fire and find cattails and aim a rifle. And then your body turned traitor, to you and your dad both.
“You know what?” Dean says, as though he knows the channel of your thoughts and wants to divert it, “I’m hungry.”
“You can have the rest of the jerky, man, I’m cool.”
“Nuh-uh.” He kisses you, pushes you back on the mattress. “I need something . . .” he kisses over your heart, “nice . . .” trails kisses down to your bellybutton, “sweet . . .” licks down to the patchy stubble, you haven’t shaved in a while, “mmm, juicy . . .”
“Oh real subtle Winchester,” you groan as he parts your legs and settles his head between them, “honestly that’s just--”
---
Later, under the light of the moon and stars you ride Dean’s supine body, pleasure and joy and the sense of height making you feel like you’re flying, or falling, or perfectly suspended in the moment God made the light. Nothing connecting you to the world of blood and pain except Dean, and since he’s flying with you that’s okay. His knot lodging firm in your body pulls you back, and for the first time the thought of being locked together seems . . . right, needed even. You don’t need a knot to be locked together and coming back to Earth with Dean is a Heaven in itself.
---
“Gonna rain today,” you say as Dean hands you a bottle of water.
“Yeah,” he agrees. He points to a scar on his leg. “Broken tibia. Aches a little when it rains.”
“Mmm. Prosit,” you clunk your bottles together. As you reach to drop yours in the wastepaper basket, Dean takes your arm and starts gently nibbling at your wrist, where all the lines and blood tangle together. Tingles and sparks fly along your nerves.
A phone rings and you both jump halfway to the moon. Dean picks up his latest burner and groans. “Sam.”
From the volume and Dean’s wince, Sam is not using his six-inch voice. “Calm down man, I’m fine, I’m just laying low.”
“Oh is that what the kids’re callin’ it?” you whisper.
Dean waves you off. “I don’t know, maybe a couple more days? We’ve got some weather moving in.”
Irritated at getting the brushoff you go for the soft underbelly. Well, the not-so-soft part of it anyway. Dean coughs out a “Shit!” as you sluck up his cock, feeling it jump to life in your mouth.
Through the phone’s ear speaker you can hear Sam yelling. Dean glares down into your wide and totally not innocent eyes, as you let your lips stretch obscenely up his shaft, lash at the head with your tongue. “I don’t know! Somewhere in Illinois? We had to pull over-- yes, we, as in I am not alone, as in she might be coming down for a visit--” a choked moan pops out of him as you swallow him down, down, so far down your lips can kiss his knot. You hope he appreciates this, it took a lot of popsicles for you to get this trick right.
“No! Shit Sammy-- whatever-- which one of us is acting like he’s twelve?” A surprised laugh makes you choke and you pull away from Dean, coughing like you’re gonna hack up a lung. “I’m fine, Sam. You shouldn’t even be walking. How the hell you gonna work the double-clutch on that old truck with no left leg?”
“Sam wants to come here?!?” you scream-whisper.
“--you don’t even know how to ride the damn thing,” Dean continues. “No. I am fine, there’s nothing but trees for miles-- hey! I didn’t say anything when you wanted to take a detour to see the Impressionists--”
Your patience dies and you snatch the phone out of Dean’s hand. “Sam,” you cut him off. As the oldest of five girls, you know how to give orders to baby sibs. “Dean is fine. He will be home in a few days. If there’s a hunt we will deal with it then. Unless the house is burning down, chill. You got it?” You don’t even wait for Sam’s response, flipping the phone over, picking out the battery, and throwing the whole mess into the nightstand drawer.
Dean stares at you, mouth hanging open, dick visibly throbbing. The reality of what you just did hits you and you hide your face in your hands “Oh Christ. Sam’s gonna fucking kill me isn’t he?”
Clicking his mouth closed, Dean orders, “Put some clothes on.”
Your heart breaks. “What? Why? I’m not safe to drive yet.” Goddamn it, you’ve got maybe five seconds before you start bawling like a fucking crybaby.
Ignoring you, Dean goes upfront. Your fingers numb, you reach for your keys. Jesus-- your heart’s not breaking, it’s ripping itself to pieces like a dry piston engine. Any second now it’ll crack your chest open in a shower of blood and bone.
Dean snatches your wrist, yanking you away from the keyhook. “What are you doing?” he demands.
“You want to leave, I’ll--”
“We’re not leaving. Put this on.”
Present for me Omega, whispers out of a memory and you shudder as you drape the green on black plaid fabric over your shoulders and do up the buttons. The shirt fits you like a tent and smells like Dean, leather and chocolate and all things safe and good.
“Now that you’re wearing something,” he says, in a voice like velvet and whiskey, “I’m going to rip it off of you, and fuck your brains out.”
Your voice is very small. “Oh.”
---
Cool humidity soothes the inferno under your skin, as rain patters on the RV like pebbles on a tin can. Dean has you sprawled wide over the bed, with your knotting toy in one hand and a pocket massager in the other.
“I think I like this,” Dean says to himself, tickling your clit with the vibrator and making you squeak. “Your pussy’s still hungry.” You know it is, you can feel yourself pulsing around the knotting toy. Dean can see the flexing, smell your scent and your slick. “Doesn’t wanna let go. You wanna play with your titties for me?” His gaze goes unfocused as you caress yourself, thumbs flicking at your nipples. It’s just debauched, the picture you imagine you make, shamelessly naked and lounging on a stack of pillows being pleasured by your Alpha.
Or teased. Dean puts the vibrator aside and slowly drives Doctor Knotts into and out of your cunt, just enough to be nowhere near enough. A breeze from the window brings out goosebumps and pulls your nipples to attention. Indecent, slutty, perverted, degenerate-- under Dean’s gaze the shame under those thoughts disappears. You feel alive. You feel like a fucking goddess.
From the tangle of hair at his groin Dean’s cock rises, ready for duty. An idea percolates to the surface of your lust-fried mind. When you explain it to Dean, he just smiles, sticks his bare feet into his boots, carries you out into the rain, and takes you against the side of the RV. His skin is warm and his mouth tastes like rainwater. You run your tongue up the big tendon in the side of his neck and you feel Dean freeze when your mouth touches the pheromone gland, the mating gland.
You don’t, but oh God you want to. Instead you hold him tight as you come and let the rain handle your tears. Dean’s big hand cups the nape of your neck and he holds you back just as tight. His face is wet too, from the rain.
---
Dean’s on the back end of his rut, you can tell because his coloring is getting back to normal and his knot doesn’t take long to unlock. As though you needed more proof-- you think your heat is passing too. Needs matching one another, the way a mated pairs’ should.
So when Dean reaches, you come to him and meet his kiss. And you’re the one that turns over. You shiver as he takes his place behind, kissing up your spine, lingering on the scar of a ghoul bite he and Sam had cleaned and dressed together. You turn your head and find his seeking lips, trying not to feel your heartrate double and memories stirring like angry spirits.
Dean doesn’t bark it like a trainer correcting a dog. Heel, sit, speak, take it like a bitch. It’s soft, like he cares. Because he does. Dean Winchester is a man you trust, and you’re so tired of never trusting. “Present for me.”
You shift your knees apart and spread open your well-fucked Omega pussy. Dean’s breathing is ragged, like he just took a punch in the gut. You cry out as he touches you, finding heat, slick, slippery as warm oil.
“Is all this for me?” he asks, and you can just imagine-- slick pooling in his palm, trickling down his wrist.
“Yes,” you moan, “for God’s sake don’t tease--" you look up and see your own reflection, in the mirror hung on the inside of the closet. The door must’ve come off the latch again. Sitting on his knees behind you is Dean, your Alpha, studying you with an expression so nakedly vulnerable you almost look away.
“Tell me,” he asks. Pleads. He glances up and sees the mirror, sees you watching. With that vulnerable look, Dean says, “Tell me what you need.”
It’s like you’ve been waiting to give the answer your whole life. “You. Please, Dean, you. Please.”
Lining himself up, Dean presses into you. Dying coals of heat flare and you moan in relief and joy. One of his hands curls around yours while the other helps you sit up against his chest. In the mirror-- holy fuck there you are, bracketed by Dean, supplicant and lover and protector all in one. “You,” you whisper. “Need you. Always need you.” Dean hides his face behind your shoulder and moans.
Dean brings this to the best conclusion there could be, worshipping your body with his, tenderly, gently. So much of him is hard, strength called on too early and too often and pounded into iron by years of loss and impossible choices, but his hands on you are careful, gentle, reverential. Those hands have taken on Gods and won, and they touch you like something delicate and beautiful. “Got one more for me?” Dean asks, the flirty teasing threadbare as you tremble through another orgasm.
“I-- I don’t--”
“Come on, you can do it, I believe in you.” Dean does this weird grippy thing, something that makes your clit feel like it’s got roots all the way to your knees. Every clench and flutter of you cunt muscles makes your clit twitch in Dean’s grip, making you gasp. Bliss so intense it hurts. “There it is,” Dean says as you pitch forward. You lace your fingers through the top of his hand as he braces himself; he grips back and drives into you, broken voices matching as you fall over the edge together.
---
The next day is all tension and awkward silence. You’re both sore from using muscles that don’t get used much. Normal you stands on reserve, truly engages with few, shows weakness to almost no one. For Christ’s sake you begged--
It’s an awkward crew that sets sail, the hot sun turning the moisture left from the rain into wring-out-your-clothes humidity. Dean spends most of his time in the passenger seat focused on his phone. He doesn’t try to engage in conversation beyond the strictly necessary. You don’t know if that’s a relief or just something else to piss you off. Christ, he’s not even coming near you. Pretty big turnaround from not being able to keep his hands off you for two days.
It’s that last thought that makes you clench your teeth and try to think rationally. God damn it, this’d be a lot more straightforward if it wasn’t for your fucking hormones. It adds a layer of mistrust to every intuition you normally rely on. Any judgement call is potentially tainted.
And how much right do you have to crash-land in his life anyway? Being a mated pair goes deeper than any legal or spiritual bond, it’s a physical thing. If you take that step it’ll severely curtail your freedom of motion. His too. And there’s the whole serial philanderer thing-- you know you’re monogamous and a bad experience has taught you that you can’t be in a relationship with someone who isn’t. And what about a family? Just seeing the way Dean comes alive around kids tells you he was born to be a father, and no matter how much you-- you can’t do that for him. You don’t even want kids. And there’s Sam. Where Dean is concerned, Sam is like the earth, no way around him.
Muscle memory has you reaching for your coffee cup and your hand touches Dean’s. Instead of snapping it back, you make yourself squeeze his fingers. Not much. An unscheduled bit of human contact. The strength of Dean’s return grip surprises you. You don’t want him to let go. When he does he gets up and goes in the back, avoiding you--
Dean’s leaving you your space, you realize. But you don’t want a space that doesn’t have him in it.
With that, you make a few decisions and take a turn. “You hungry?”
“Yeah,” Dean calls.
“There’s one of those Mongolian barbecue places up ahead. Wanna go and give the grillers a workout?”
---
“Six months.”
Dean’s chopsticks, heavy with beef and onion, pause on the way to his mouth. His already full mouth. Not that you’re being dainty; heats always leave you starving. He asks with his eyes.
You are not a coward. You refuse to behave like one. “If you’re willing,” please God let him be willing, “I want to give this a try.”
“What this?” Dean grunts around a swallow.
“This. Us.” Just like that Dean’s poker face slams into place. You’ve gotten so used to his unguarded, trusting affect it hurts to see his defenses go up like that.
You’re not gonna, so he doesn’t get to either. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That’s your Cop face.” You flash yours right back at him. “Don’t do that. If we never talk straight again we have to do it now.”
Dean purses his lips and looks away. “What’s there to talk about--”
“Don’t. You. Fucking dare. Try to brush this off.”
“Look, we’re cool, okay? You don’t have to spare my feelings.”
“Huh?”
“You’re gonna make me say it,” Dean says after heaving a sigh.
“Negative copy on that Midnight Rider, say again?” You smile as you say it, it tickles you that Dean picked the Alman Brothers Band, it suits.
“I had sex with a woman when she couldn’t say no. The law calls that rape.”
You can feel the smile fall off your face. “Dean no, don’t even think that.”
“Why not?” he asks bitterly.
“Be-cause I was fucking begging?”
“You weren’t in your right mind. When I saw you on the floor-- God, I’ve never seen a woman cry like that. But I didn’t care.” His great green eyes burn with horrified shame. “I wanted you so bad, I didn’t care.” That’s the other part of Dean’s personality, the part that exists in a perpetual state of Fail. That part is incapable of internalizing any kind of praise, nitpicks every decision for flaws, and eagerly agrees with anything negative anybody says about him. Of course he’s taken your ambivalence to mean you hate him. For Dean, there’s no other conclusion possible.
That ends. Right now. You slip your fingers into his hand, pull it across the table to hold it in both of yours. It’s his gun hand, you can feel the hard spots. “Look at me, Winchester.” When you have his attention, you say, “I just had two days of the best sex of my entire life,” not a lie, that’s not even debatable, “with a man who made it his mission to not hurt me, not degrade me, made sure I enjoyed every damn minute, and was never anything but exactly who I needed. No matter where we go from here, I’ll always love you for that. And grateful. God, you have no idea how grateful. You took care of me,” you’re starting to get misty, the depth of that gratitude shocks you. You lift his hand and kiss the back. “Thank you.”
Dean clears his throat. “I don’t want to be one of those Alphas that made you treat any Alpha like the enemy,” he says.
“That would be most of them,” you say. He deserves a better answer than that, though. “My dad always wanted a son, but all Mom could ever give him were girls. I was the oldest, so after Mom had the twins I guess he decided God made me a tomboy for a reason.”
“Oh God he didn’t--”
“No,” you cut that thought right off. “My parents are Betas. So are my sisters. When I Presented, dad just refused to believe it. Said God wouldn’t do something so heartless, make his tough little girl into a breeder. He kept on saying that right up until my first day of eighth grade.”
“Your first heat.”
“Yep. It was . . .” fuck, two decades later and certain things -- girlish cackles of laughter, the smell of floor polish, pressure on a certain spot on your back -- still send you into an irrational panic. “I wasn’t prepared. The story came with me when I got into high school. Small town, the really humiliating crap never dies.
“But anyway. Dad stopped acting like dad after that. A couple weeks later I asked him about going to deer camp-- it was supposed to be my first year there. He beat the shit out of me.”
“Jesus!”
You wave that aside. “Not the first time, dad had a heavy hand with us kids. But he kept calling me things. That’s the first time I ever heard most of the bad names Omegas get called. From my fucking father. Who I worshipped. You get it?”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Absolutely.”
“So when the inevitable started happening--”
“You said your history teacher?”
You nod. “And my sister’s softball coach. And my first boyfriend.” You shudder. “And my cousin. His wife told me that’s what Omegas are for and the sooner I got that the better. Doesn’t help that the law agrees, pretty much.
“I met Peg when she was pretensing as an agent for the DNR.” Dean nods, he knows the story of how Peg Dmitriev popped your hunting cherry. “She came and got me the night I graduated. Dad was prepping his big throwing me out of the house speech when Peg pulled up, told dad to go fuck himself, sat me in her car with a bottle of vodka, and next thing I know it’s tomorrow and we’re halfway to Atlanta.
“Anyway,” you pull yourself back to Now, Dean’s hand warm in yours. “Me being an Omega’s been nothing but a source of pain and bullshit, all my life. Until two days ago.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me to claim you? Because--” Dean hesitates, then plunges on ahead, “I mean, it hurt to hold back from doing that.”
“Because I didn’t want to do anything permanent. I still don’t.” Dean flinches, as though you’d slapped him. You hurry to explain yourself, ease the hurt. “I-I mean, I’m a bitch to live with, I drink too much, I’m a loudmouth schnook, I can’t cook for shit--”
“Untrue,” Dean cuts in. “Your campfire stew is awesome.”
“I can’t give you pups,” you tie the whole thing off with one big one.
“I know,” Dean says. At your look he clarifies, “It was on the paperwork in your bag.”
You nod. “It’s not just-- the lab guys aren’t totally sure what the hormone blockers did to my eggs. If kids are something you’re gonna want, they can’t come from me.”
“You’re talking like kids are even an option.”
You think a moment. “Did you ever hit a point, where one day you wonder if maybe you’re not gonna die young’n’pretty? One of the reasons I agreed to do the study was I thought for sure I wasn’t gonna live ten more years.”
You’re not sure if that thought has occurred to Dean. The Winchesters’ relationship to mortality is . . . complicated. How many times they’ve for-real died is a topic of debate in some dark and smoky bars. Some even say the stories are all bull, that old man John was just dinky-dau and his boys aren’t any better. You’re not one of them. You’ve met Castiel.
“Yeah,” Dean admits. He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. “I can live with kids being off the table, but-- look. Every time I’ve tried for anything good, someone gets hurt. I damn near got Ben and Lisa killed.”
“I’m not a civilian Dean. I’ve been Hunting solo for almost twelve years now. Still here, still sane, still a better shot than you.”
“With a rifle, anyway.”
“Whatever. The point is, you don’t have to stash me in a safehouse in Assfuck, Kansas and hope I remember not to wash the graffiti off the walls.”
“Well what about me?” Dean asked. “I kind of like having a permanent address. I’m not going to throw a ruck in your RV and just hit the road.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you say, bringing up the biggest thing of big things. “For one thing, I’m not going to ask you to pick between me and your brother.”
“What?”
“Sam comes first, I get that.” You’ve been around them long enough to know that’s true. The Winchesters are a package deal. Anybody with eyes can see it, and anybody who challenges it loses. For Christ’s sake, the Devil bet the farm that he could break that, and lost. “That’s the other reason I don’t want to bond right now. If Sam can’t stand having me around--”
“What do you mean? Sam loves having you around.”
“I did just tell him to fuck off.”
“He deserved it. Cockblocker. Look,” he says, turning his hand over so he can hold yours, “if it were up to me, we’d be mated already.” Dean’s doing that thing he does, when there’s no bullshit nowhere. Focused, direct. Part of you wants to run, but another part just wants to wrap yourself up in it, soak it in, exist within that intensity. “But I totally get why you want to take it slow.”
“Yeah. But,” you put the words together, “I don’t want to stand in front of St. Peter yanking claws outta my ass and admit that I left a chance at being happy with you on the table.” You’re not ready to say the words yet, but neither is he and you can live with that for now.
Dean lifts his beer. “Six months.”
You lift your glass of pop. “Six months.”
Clink.
---
One Year Later
“You’re Red’s kid aren’t’cha?”
You nod at the bartender as you pull an ashtray close. Because if there was ever a day you needed a cigarette--
The bartender passes you a pack if matches. “Just get back from the wedding?”
You nod. “Stuck around long enough to get told we weren’t needed for pictures.”
She pulls a bottle of Scotch off the wall and pours. “On the house. You guys look like you could use it.”
“Oh bless you,” Dean sighs.
“No problem. Been listening to Red’s bullshit for years.” You notice a slight flaring of her nostrils and your hand meets Dean’s halfway. You have to remind yourself to take it easy; you’re both off the market. Sam on the other hand . . . the bartender sidles over to get a better sniff at Sam’s Alpha scent, eucalyptus and ice tea and fog, fresh cut green apples. Cool scents, total contrast to his brother’s warm ones.
The original plan -- you and Dean get drunk as skunks and Sam stays sober enough to pour you two back in your motel room bed around 0230 -- gets tossed in the wastepaper basket. “C’mon Dean, we gotta go do the thing.”
“Right, the thing.” You finish your drinks and leave Sam and the bartender to their dance of mutual interest. “Ten says we don’t see him again until Tuesday,” Dean says as he slides behind the Impala’s steering wheel.
“Sucker’s bet,” you reply. Spending as much time in the bunker as you do, you know Sam’s due for a rut. The Omega bartender’s about to have an interesting weekend. “Anyone watching?” At Dean’s negative you get in the back and change out of your for-nice dress. It feels like taking pressure off an infected wound.
“You okay?” Dean asks as you climb into the front seat.
You check the urge to cover with a token I’m Fine-- you and Dean sailed past that a while ago. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard from him before. I’m sorry you and Sam had to hear it.” Your father’s got some fucked-up ideas, but the notion that you’re playing breedslut to a pair of siblings-- that’s low even for him.
“Like we were going to let you deal with this shit alone,” Dean snorts. “Besides, it’s not the first time somebody got the wrong idea about me’n’Sam.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. There was this guy once-- he offered us a grand if we let him film us double-teaming his wife. Two grand if he could put the camera on a tripod and join in.”
“Shit dude. Did he even know you’re brothers?”
Dean shoots you a grin. “Twenty-five hundred. Each.”
“Oof.”
At your direction Dean swings by the party store up the road for a couple six-packs, to the Guiseppe’s for a pizza, and to the park by the lake full of old-fashioned playground equipment rusting away next to the newer, safer, less fun plastic crap. After polishing off the pizza you stretch out next to Dean on Baby’s front end, the windshield hard against your back. The sun going down over the water makes the place pretty as a postcard. You wonder a moment if the view is as nice from the VFW reception hall, as your sister and brand new brother in law take their first dance.
“I think,” Dean says, pulling you from your thoughts, “I owe you an apology.”
“What for? You didn’t treat anybody like a red-headed stepchild.”
“For ever saying anything about how hostile you are to Alphas. Because that--” he tics his head at the road back to town, “explains a lot.”
“You didn’t know.” People you’d gone to school with sniggering behind their hands, gossip exchanged just loud enough for you to hear every word. Your dad, a five-foot-six human bull, regaling Dean and Sam with humiliating stories about your early heats. Your cousin’s angling for God knows, constantly bumping into the guys as they stuck with you like white on rice. Bless them.
Worst of all, your baby sister glowing in white, her eyes fixed on your feet, asking you to please leave. A promise to call later, that she’ll never keep. Rosie never could lie for shit.
Unconsciously your hand goes up, touching the scimitar-shaped bits of raised scar tissue bracketing the mating gland. Dean’s hand slips under yours, gently stroking over his mark. A light touch, like a warm hug or a quick kiss. If he rubs a little harder, you know, it turns your blood to fire, makes you wet, makes you hungry. You remember vividly, you and the guys damn near dying from an ambush of vampires, Dean tossing his car keys to Sam and taking you on the ground outside. He’d begged for your bite first, and your ears had rung with his howl as your fangs tore into his skin.
“I love my sisters,” you say, “but if they’re going to keep being dad’s partisans, I can’t be around them.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Leaving hadn’t been a hard choice. The three of you stunk up the place, literally, and your sisters’ protests that you should just give dad a chance, he wasn’t cruel just old-fashioned, et cetera et cetera et cetera . . . it was bullshit when you left home and it’s bullshit now.
You look at Dean, remembering another sunset. A year’s put one or two more lines around his eyes; other than that, he’s still almost too beautiful to look at. Moved by a wave of tenderness, you pull him close and kiss him, soft and slow.
Later you lie next to him in your motel room bed as he drifts off, lazy in the afterglow. Life isn’t perfect, but with your mate it’s a helluva lot more fun. Unconsciously Dean shifts towards you, his mouth curved in a slight smile.
For your entire life you’ve been coached to feel worthless, a hole for an Alpha’s pleasure and a sack for an Alpha’s pups. You’ve done terrible things to yourself, living your life otherwise. But then Dean fell into your bed and you took a chance that’s paid off every day since. Every smile that’s just for you, every weapon tossed into your waiting hand, every stitch in a bleeding wound, every gripe about how the fuck do you even do that when you take some rifle practice-- you can’t be worthless and have someone like Dean Winchester feel that way about you. And if your kinfolk won’t see that, it’s not your duty to feel bad about it.
With that logical leap, it feels like something broken inside you sets back together. Dean wakes up when he feels you crying. “Hurgh?” he grunts.
You wipe your face as both your phones chime. “Sam,” you say, scanning the text. “Looks like he and the bartender are staying in.”
“That’s my boy,” Dean grins. “What’s wrong?”
“Permission to get girly?”
“Go for it babe.”
“Just realized mating with you’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That’s all.”
Dean mulls that over a minute. “I feel exactly the same way,” he tells you quietly. “I love you.”
You laugh as Dean kisses you. “We gotta knock this shit off. We’re supposed to be the badasses here.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Dean promises. “Any plans for tomorrow?”
“Not really. You?”
“Well,” he grins, that impish smile that makes him look fourteen and up to no good, “I did kind of want to see that equipment shed--"
You groan. “Shouldn’t have told you that story.”
“Nope, probably not. And isn’t the World’s Largest Pie Pan around here somewhere?”
Only Dean. “Four-five hour drive. Then I say we swing by the Thrifty Acres, pick up a couple of bathing suits, and hit the beach.”
“I love it when a plan comes together.”
---
AN2: "Jesus died in vain and legally changed his middle name to Fucking."
-The Angry Video Game Nerd
The World's Largest Pie Pan is in Traverse City, Michigan.
Feedback and constructive criticism welcome. Subscriptions to Author yearned for with deep and desperate longing:
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partynoobvanii · 5 months
Text
Small Important Update :
Hello there! It's Ethanvanii here, posting a small update cause I've been inactive on Tumblr lately, and I wanted to clean stuff up.
I will be on a break now, I won't be online so much and I'll be working on homework, and other art projects/series.
Where i have been in life 📣
So far, i have been behind on homework, so much that the homework line on my computer is RED. And not completed, behind even. But yeah, aside from that.. Life has been a bit boring and honestly sad. I've been worried for my online son, Ryker since they have been going through a lot of mood swings, terrible shit happening to them and all. I hope they'll try to stay safe and healthy while I'm gone for a bit.
About Sickpants Lullaby ☎
As you can see, Sickpants Lullaby has been on hiatus for like... I dunno... SINCE LIKE OCTOBER... But the question is, WHY was it on hiatus?
Homework aside, the reason why i haven't worked on it was because of my motivation dying down for the series, without Cobalt/Natt here... I feel very unmotivated to work on it at the moment, he is my beautiful and silly online son, he is like a whole ray of sunshine even. It was fun to hang out with him, before he left to China... I'm honestly lucky to have him in my horrible ass life. Not having him here can be really lonely honestly, even he had that problem while working on Parodies College House (A Spongebob Parodies Fangame he made) To the point he had to put it on hiatus till Benjamin and Juan were back. (Since they are needed, cause they're voice actors in that. And also cause of the fact Cobalt misses them.)
HOWEVER....
Not to worry, cause Sickpants Lullaby will continue once he comes back! Hopefully, if I don't get art block...
ALSO...
Please do NOT slide into my DMS just to ask me when I'm gonna work on Sickpants Lullaby, or if im working on a drawing of your character. It just makes it annoying and makes me not wanna complete it anymore, I hope you understand that.
Another mention though, I have a second reason for having no motivation for working on Sickpants Lullaby as i used to.
The second reason why Sickpants Lullaby is on Hiatus ☎
The SECOND reason why the series is on hiatus, is just because I've been working on another series which is called "Ethan's Void Life (EVL for short)" more. I've lost some interest in working on Sickpants Lullaby now that Cobalt/Natt is gone, it just doesn't feel the same anymore without him... I don't feel the same joy i get while drawing Sickpants Lullaby frames for my audience as i used to.........
....But besides that, look at the bright side. At least i get a break from the Internet for a bit..? Yes, I'll be checking my Tumblr Inbox in a while, just in case to answer questions.
Anyways, time for more fun stuff.
NEW INTERESTS!! YIPPEEE- 📣
So far, I've gotten around.... Well I don't know, 3 INTERESTS?? MAYBE EVEN 5???
But yeah, I'll try my best to remember most despite my poor memory.
1. PHIGHTING! (Roblox Game)
2. Item Asylum (Also Roblox Game)
3. Guts & Blackpowder. Again, another roblox game. But this time Cobalt got me into it in the first place. I don't regret playing it.
4. Regretevator.... HOLSLSYY FUCKKKK I LOVE THIS GAME 😭😭 IT'S THE WHOLE REASON WHY MY TUMBLR USER IS NAMED AFTER PARTYNOOB NOW 💔💔💔
Stimming aside, it's a pretty cool and fun game. I liked the voice acting, fun stages, and the characters are pretty creative to be honest!
5. Dayshift At Freddy's. Despite the... Ahem... Problematic parts due to it being made in like 2018.... It's a really goofy and silly game! I honestly love it despite me still trying to get all the way to DSAF 3... DSAF 1 was a pain in the ass to play, hopefully I'll skip it and just see if DSAF 2 is easier. (Because my dumbass can't press the springlocks fast enough in the first game lmao, but don't worry i still love the game anyways)
6. Dialtown. Made by the same creator of DSAF. I really enjoyed Dialtown honestly, the dialogue, the story, and the characters! They even added some phone guy characters from DSAF into it. Maybe as a Easter egg? I don't know. Either way Dialtown was still fun. Not to mention the creator is really nice, bless their heart. :)
Interests i MIGHT stream 📣
1. PHIGHTING
NO. As much as i love it, i am ass at playing on computer, I'll most likely make a video of me playing it on phone instead of streaming.
2. Item Asylum
Possible? I haven't tested it on computer for lag, so it's a maybe for now....
3. Guts & Blackpowd-
NO. I've tested it on my laptop before, believe me. It's laggy for my small ass laptop. I'll be posting videos of me playing it on mobile instead, thank you very much... It may be less laggy on your laptop, but mine? Nah.
4. Regretevator
Yes. It's still fun either way if i die to lag, one death isn't gonna hurt my soul. ^_^
5. Dayshift at Freddy's
Maybe?? It's if I DON'T GET SPRINGLOCKED A BUNCH OF TIMES DUE TO FAILING... but yeah, it is possible, I'll be streaming myself watching DSAF 1 gameplay on youtube, and then the next streams will be me playing DSAF 2 and DSAF 3 (that's IF they don't springlock me again... It sucks tbh but it's still a loveable game)
6. Dialtown
Yes! Though I'll have to add some warnings before people watch it, since i don't want my viewers getting uncomfortable due to the themes in it.
Thats all for now, I hope the news up there was useful.
No, not the interests, the Sickpants Lullaby part.
Anyways, bye for real! :3
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27dragons · 11 months
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Since I'm trying to get back into the second draft of the Safe Harbor sequel, I'm going to take you at your word and ask about the Sandbridge series. Do you have a favourite moment from the series? And are there anything you can tell us about that happened but we didn't see onscreen? ❤️❤️❤️
First, let me say that I am utterly delighted that you're continuing the Safe Harber story; I loved it so much!
Favorite moment? Oh, holy heck, that's a difficult one. I'll just stream-of-consciousness a handful of them, shall I? :D
Tony and Bucky's dance and first kiss in Safe and (the) Sound, the one that gets interrupted by the fire. I'm a little weird about sex scenes; they're really intense for me the first time I write (or read) them but they lose most of their punch on subsequent re-reads. But that kiss never fails to make my heart beat a little faster.
In Lord of the Swings, Bucky standing in line for beer and dealing with a bunch of homophobic asshats. Tisfan wrote that scene pretty much in its entirety (I only edited it) and it is for me a perfect encapsulation of how queer people experience that sort of aggression.
In Howard's End, the moment where Tony thinks Howard is actually going to apologize, but then realizes that Howard still doesn't get it, and his line there: "You regret driving me away because of what I might have become. It still doesn't occur to you to regret hurting me because I was a child." This is the heartbreak at the core of Tony and Howard - that Howard can never really see Tony as anything but his heir, even when they're on good terms.
The bachelor parties in Zen and the Art of Family Maintenance. Because they're so delightful and absolutely perfect for them both.
The scene in From the Ukraine with Love where Steve gets a call from Bucky and has to go collect his sad drunk ass. That's the beating heart of their friendship, right there. Also, Natasha fretting over her sundress when Steve introduces her to Winifred is utterly adorable, because we don't get many chances to see Natasha as anything but supremely self-confident.
Tony dealing with Billie's tantrums in High Noon in Sandbridge, because so many kidfics have the new parents struggling comically or barely struggling at all, and Tony starts out as, frankly, a really TERRIBLE parent. He has NO idea what he's doing, and it shows very clearly in those scenes.
In That Someone Special, I have 2 moments: When Scott first shows up and Steve is chasing him to try to punch him and Tony steps between them until he finds out exactly who Scott is, and then steps back and says "oh, carry on" -- that was, to me, a perfect moment of almost gallows humor. And then the turnaround scene, when Tony, Steve, and Sam show up at Luis' apartment to help Scott after he's been beaten up. That scene is a special kind of funny and touching.
In My Three Dads, the scene where Billie is in the hospital with a broken leg. Loki being jealous over Tony's rapport with Billie and then proud that she picks him to stay with her for the x-rays; and Bucky stepping in to make Tony leave when he can't handle seeing Billie in pain. Family dynamics at their best. <3
And finally, in Stem the Tide, which is not technically a Sandbridge 'verse story at all, but a "What If" side novel, I really like the scene where Bucky stands up to Alex and tells him to fuck off.
Stuff that happens that you didn't see onscreen... I have a couple of chapters that we cut out of My Three Dads, including Tony meeting with Grant Ward that we rejected because it steered the plot wrong, and one with Tony and Bucky going to Ty's apartment to pick up his stuff, which we allude to and consider as having actually happened, but didn't include because it screwed up our pacing for the story. I actually sometimes forget that we never posted the scene at Ty's apartment, because I really liked it. I might someday clean it up and throw it into the Jetsam and Flotsam bits-and-pieces collection.
But if there's something specific you were wondering about in the background, feel free to shoot me a DM and ask; I'm always happy to talk about my Sandbridge boys. <3
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nuclearforest · 1 year
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I have a prompt for you if you're interested! It's for the Captain (of course) in canon (Millennium war vet). I love your stories and I love spamming your inbox haha 🥰! The prompt is preferably the Reader talking to an enemy about our favourite werewolf.
"He (Hans) isn't a monster. You are."
Thank you for everything you write!!!!
I'm interested!! Had a fun short idea with this one-- I hope it's at least a bit entertaining :)
As far as the canon request, i kept it as close as possible for this idea-- altho it still hinges on the idea that he doesnt die to fire. There isn't much romance (maybe if you squint) but there is a bit of gun violence below the cut.
You are a collector of broken things. Just about everything in your humble abode has a story: found broken and then lovingly restored bit by bit. Your favorite dresser. The TV stand that somehow mixes art deco and nature-themed maximalism. The mismatched set of chairs around your refinished kitchen table.
There was art in making something broken into a whole piece again, so when you-- a lucky survivor of the London Incident, as they were calling it-- find a broken man as just a head and a torso still somehow alive, it only made sense to keep him.
Sure, it was a pain in the ass smuggling him back to your little home in the woods. And an even bigger pain, still, to nurse him back to health, he seemed like a fitting addition.
Didn't speak at all, but he was good enough company and liked to linger as a shadow in whatever room you were in. One of the few times you got any input from him was when he'd spelled out his name with his finger on your palm. Hans.
But for as weird as he was, he was harmless. A burnt out super soldier of whatever sort were clashing in the streets and causing all sorts of mayhem. You didn't stick around to watch, but he seemed to be built like one. He was heads taller than you with a stubborn supermodel physique, thin waist and defined abs refusing to cave no matter how richly you fed him. And on top he's got a shock of white hair and tired red eyes-- clearly ain't human, but not something you'd care to press him for.
The first time you see him shift is a bit of a shock. One day he's staring at squirrels fighting in a tree outside your home, and then the next thing you know he's breathing hard and has a pair of canine ears perched on top of his head. And even when you ask you don't get a lot of answers from him, but you do start to leave corn out for the deer so he can sit by the window and watch.
He still moves a bit stiffly in his new arms and legs-- so maybe that was it. A broken old war dog content to live out retirement in your cabin in the woods and watch animals out of your living room window and clean up in the kitchen after you cook a meal.
He was the neatest roommate you've ever had.
That said, folks start coming by. It's not bad. One maybe ever few months. The first knocks on your door and point blank says you've got a monster in your home. You simply reply that you don't really care-- that he isn't hurting anyone-- and sent him away.
So that men sends his friends at all hours of the day. Some knock. Some you catch by just feeling something off in the air. You've even woken from dead sleep to find one speedwalking up your driveway.
They aren't always unpleasant, and most stand down when staring a double barrel shotgun in the face, but there are a few that have ended up as fertilizer in the garden. You didn't really like to think about it, but there were few other options.
So when another comes by one evening, long after old man Hans has gone and crawled into the nest he made I'm the corner of your bedroom (funny that he didn't like to sleep alone), you slip up to the door with your shotgun in hand to answer.
"Well hello," you drawl, "how can I help you?"
There's a stern man on the other side in a suit. They always seemed to be in suits. He's got jet black hair lined with streaks of grey and his face is wrinkled with laugh lines. Inside, you wonder if he's got kids or grandkids.
"Hello," he grunts in greeting, "seems you've got a monster inside. I've been sent here to exterminate it."
"I wouldn't call him a monster," you coolly reply, grip tightening around the shotgun in your hands, "he's a senior trying to live out his retirement."
"He's a war criminal," the man corrects with a shake of his head, "he's with the group responsible for the attack on London." The gun holstered in this man's belt draws your gaze for a second, with his hand stuck in his pockets just below.
"Seems like a retired war dog to me," you assert, "I don't discriminate when I take in the broken."
"He's a monster and needs to face justice."
The man before you can't know the hair thin scars littering Hans' skin. The way he flinches when something bangs. How he hides in his nest from the rare thunderstorm and curls up as tightly as he can, reliving something you can't begin to guess at.
"He's not a monster," you narrow your eyes, "I'd think that to be a better description of you if you try to take him." With that he draws, and you have no hope in raising your shotgun first, so you let him shoot.
Bang.
It's deafening-- probably has the poor guy sitting bolt upright in his bed with wide eyes and a heaving chest-- but you just shrug it off. Doesn't really hurt much any more, either, as silver hisses in your skin before being forced out of the hole as your flesh knits back together. Even at close range, it isn't enough to kill you.
Looking over his wrinkles again, eyes wide with shock and mouth twisted in terror, you just shake your head. "I won't say anything of it if you leave him here," you offer, "but if you insist I'm sure the garden will love you."
He shakes in his nice shoes, training fighting the human instinct of terror, and inevitably turns to beat a hasty retreat as if he hadn't just shot you in your doorway. At least you don't have neighbors, leaving the pair of you the only witnesses to the little exchange. Hopefully they'd stop sending folks like him and you could rest just a bit more easily.
Shaking your head, you go to put your shotgun back in its home in the rack and pad your way up the stairs. Surely enough, Hans is in your room with wide eyes and a heaving chest, stuck in some perpetual memory that has him twitching and whipping his head back and forth.
"Hey big guy," you say in your most gentle voice, "he's gone now. No blood this time." His eyes fixate on you, staring clean through. "Nothing to worry about." You step into his space and reach out to put a hand on his head, petting him between those wolfish ears. "This one ran."
With that, he seems to deflate slightly, calming until his eyes take on their same sad droop and his shoulders a downtrodden hunch.
You pop down next to him into his nest and lean onto a pile of pillows, opening your arms. He leans closer, poking around the new hole in your shirt with his nose before deciding that you're alive and well and dropping his head on your chest.
For what it's worth, you manage to bite back a chuckle at his sweet concern and bring your hands up to hold his head to you where he can listen to your heart beat away in your chest and he can relax with your fingers running through his hair and nails against his scalp until the tension drains from his body and he's left resting against you.
He'll stay like that for the rest of the night, desperate for your reassurance of safety. Some monster he is, you figure, but he's all he needed to be and then some. Just some big, broken company that fit right in at your home.
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endcant · 5 months
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i fell out of a shopping cart as a kid and now when i sit on uneven surfaces my head starts hurting within a minute or two. it takes 10 minutes to stop hurting if i adjust immediately and far longer if i can't adjust. i hate when cars have slightly tilted seats and it makes me miserable. i'm biased such that if my left cheek is lower than my right one the pain is more likely and worse, compared to the other way. if i am nauseous and cranky from riding in the back seat of your car it is car sickness if i am nauseous and cranky from riding in the front seat it's bc your car's seat is tilted or lumpy. if i am riding in or driving your car i am changing the seat settings. if i am sleeping on your couch and the seat cushion is not level i will genuinely prefer to sleep on the floor. level concrete is the most comfortable sleeping surface to me, but carpet on top of concrete is a close second. i don't just like my mattresses rock hard- i NEED them rock hard. wooden chairs suck though. if my tailbone or head hurts (or my legs or my back or anything else really) it is usually easier to just go for a walk until my tailbone forgets that i sat somewhere it didnt like, because i will not always be able to find a clean level surface to lay on til it passes. if i have to drive at all period its just not a good day. i generally do my art work laying face down on a carefully constructed heap of pillows, which is why i don't tend to record 3rd person video of myself painting or drawing. my ideal job would be one that involves walking in a straight line for 8 hours (elevation changes allowed) and never stopping to stand somewhere. but they don't make jobs like those for non-athletic adults. marching band was pretty cool though. if i was a trust fund kid or a charismatic white man or a genuinely athletic person i'd become a professional hiker or some bullshit like that. outdoor photographer. some kind of profession about going places on foot and providing nothing essential. one of those professions that's either only done by people who are genuinely talented or who are rich hacks or both. i cant just go out and wander in my current economic state bc id probably need to hitchhike at some point and that would involve sitting on crooked ass car seats or sleeping on an outdoor surface not made of perfectly level concrete. and then where would i be?
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xamag-draws · 2 years
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The Izzy paradox
I’m so fascinated by how Izzy was the one pushing Ed back into being Blackbeard. On the surface it seems like a logical outcome, but when you dig deeper, you start to realize that the end of S1 is not something anyone would want, not even Izzy himself. 
So Izzy is very much a lawful evil kind of guy. He seems to value reputation, skills and structure above all else. He admires Ed for being a great sailor instead of a great pirate, and the most annoyance Ed can cause to him is when Ed stops paying attention to the actual captaining that keeps them alive and afloat and starts doing his own weird impulsive cat things.
The funny thing is, for how much Izzy hates Stede’s way of pirating, Izzy is also a pretty unorthodox pirate, if you think about it. Izzy’s version of piracy isn’t what most people would normally picture.
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Izzy’s mad about Stede ambushing them and tricking them out of a hostage, but when you think about it, isn’t that what pirates and robbers are supposed to do? Why would they politely buy the hostages from the natives, when Stede’s tactic seems more intuitive? Why would you cut your enemy’s shirt open and give them a warning, when you could just stab them and leave them to die? Why would you agree to leave the ship just because you broke the handle of your sword, when you absolutely won the fight in every other regard? 
Because Izzy isn’t some lowlife savage criminal, he’s a connoisseur of the respectable art of High Crime.
Ed mentioned how their raids aren’t a challenge for him anymore because people just run in fear. And honestly? This sounds like such an Izzy thing. 
You approach someone, they wee their pants and abandon the ship, there’s no senseless loss on your side or time wasted fighting, you simply board and loot it and maybe take a couple remaining hostages and move on like a badass. Nice, clean, fucking professional… but way too efficient for Ed. He enjoys the thrill and unpredictability of a nice fight, and this just feels like routine. Tragic: you streamlined your job so well, your boss doesn’t like it anymore.
As far as I know, the real Izzy Hands was probably responsible for spreading a lot of the Blackbeard mythos we know today, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fictional Izzy worked his ass off building up Ed’s scary reputation, as well.
So this is how Izzy operates. And when you keep that in mind, you start to realize that Izzy shouldn’t want Ed to end up like he did in ep 10. His ideal Blackbeard would’ve been closer to Izzy’s own ideals: intimidating, disciplined, smart pirate with brilliant strategies and an obedient crew, focused on extending his terrifying but just reach. Like some sort of... menacing gentleman pirate.
But what Izzy provokes at the end of S1 is pretty much the opposite. This Ed is even more volatile and chaotic than ever, probably even less inclined to listen to anyone’s advice, or be rational and fair in his judgement. If he wants to start throwing crew members overboard or cut their toes off for a laugh because he feels like it, he will. If he wants to send them all to their doom because he’s feeling emo and has nothing to lose, he will. So who’s to say that Izzy will be safe?
Izzy didn’t want to die for either Ed or Stede. But I think he might come close to that in the next season. And for a survivor like Izzy, that’s probably the only thing that’d make him realize the line he’s crossed.
Back when Ed said that he needed him, Izzy gave one of the few genuine smiles in the show, and that smirk was timid, and almost immediately hidden, as if Izzy was embarrassed to show how happy that made him.
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When Izzy announces the return of Blackbeard, his smile is different. He’s still in pain from his toe loss, and probably still a little shaken by it. All of his other toes are intact, so this is something Ed has never done before. It must be pretty scary to see Ed at his worst, but Izzy’s trying to convince himself that this is what they need to make things go back to the status quo, where Ed still needs him, and where others don’t see them as a joke. So he’s grinning through that pain and fear like a maniac, in a false triumph he made up for himself.
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miqojak · 2 years
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FFXIV Write Prompt #22: Veracity
Definition of veracity
1 : conformity with truth or fact 2 : devotion to the truth 3 : power of conveying or perceiving truth 4 : something true
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Truth.
I think part of me feared that I'd stop seeing it, if I had my aether mended. That I'd... stop being me. That I'd lose what I am, and become... like them. I was terrified of becoming a sheep.
It's a double-sided blade, the thing I've been molded into. The... 'person' I've become. I can see the emotions so clearly in everyone else - what makes them weak. Vulnerable. What makes them squirm, or blush, or inflamed with their own fury - it's there, if you look closely... and I always am.
Few relish the truth - oh, they'll cling to words like 'honor' and 'honesty', but it's my lifeblood.
That's the hunt I savor - the one for truths.
The sheep bleat and flee before it, fearful of their own reflections - and what could be more frightening than losing that edge that years of terror and fury have sculpted in me? That ability to see things - and people - as they are. But I didn't - the aetherologist had, just like all the other male Keepers in my life, likely been distracted by some piece of ass, and forgot about his duty to me.
And now, there's someone out there with my information, and he isn't helping me...
Loose ends should be cleaned up.
Truth is my weapon of choice, really. It's inevitably just as messy as utilizing a true blade, and often just as effective... and certainly more enjoyable. People can withstand physical pain - but to witness themselves? To be seen for what they are... disturbs them. It infuriates them. It discomfits them.
It's also a good way to find others like me - if they don't squirm and bleat when you apply pressure on those seeming vulnerabilities... well, those are the ones worth exploring, rather than tormenting. I know what I endured, to end up where and how I am - blinders off, ready to endure what I must - so what things must haunt them, if they can see what I do?
If they can look unflinchingly at the darkness within them, and be... if not comfortable with it, at least capable of acknowledging it, and co-existing with it.
If there is something I love, on this star... it is truth - the one thing no one expects from someone like me. Not that I haven't done my fair share of work as a con artist to get by, and I assuredly manipulate the truth to my own ends... but any asshole can tell a lie.
I'm not just any asshole, however - I challenge myself to wield the truth. It's like... art. Anyone can draw a few lines that look like a tree - but is that truly art? Is that something that would take your breath away? That you might go to a museum or a gala to witness? Or is it just doing enough to scrape by, and clear the bar?
And at the end of the day... I simply can't abide a liar.
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saturn-is-lazy · 2 years
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Old Commander Saturn sketch/drawing I made in April last year. I based this drawing off where you encounter Saturn the second time in DPPT, that's why there's a green glow on him because that computer thing he's in front of glows green. The "line art" is pretty messy because doing line art digitally is a pain in the ass, but it's also just the sketch cleaned up because I gave up on the line art lol Looking back on this drawing has inspired me. I am still bad at drawing humans, but I've definitely improved since I made this drawing. Also this is my first post and I'm posting art that's over a year old lol
[Post created on 6/2/2022 / 2/6/2022]
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