Emi's Equivalent Exchange reveal time has arrived~~ @justablah56 I hope you become even half as sick as I became when I so much as landed on the words 'be my anchor'. I went out of my way to learn how to shade metal specifically to contrast their bodies against one another most effectively. I *will* be learning shortcuts for it in the future because I also incidentally learned I really hate shading metal X)
Have an especially efficient @emis-equivalent-exchange everyone~!
Fuck it, post impulsively written dexem - Drunk Fucking Edition.
Content warning for drunkenness and fade to black sex scene.
Dug this one out of the drafts for you, Aether @justablah56. Enjoy!
“Call the navigator, set the course and go —” MR-SN belted out, off-key and half-slurred with drunken fervor. He gestured widely, wine bottle in hand as he sang, his voice clashing with the raucous music from the tavern below them. “We've stars and planescapes to explore, my wild heart tells me so —”
DX-TR plucked the bottle out of MR-SN's grip before his wild, half dancing, half staggering steps could send the contents sloshing over the floor.
“Beneath the wooden decking, I can hear the engines sigh.” MR-SN continued, his crescent eyes overbright with joy, his permanent smile even more ebullient than usual. “All I need is a mighty ship and — oh.”
He stumbled in his tune, hand half raised to take a swig from a bottle that was no longer there.
"Dex, where —"
"i have it." DX-TR sighed, tone annoyed but heatless in its ire.
He glanced at the bottle in his hand — a fine Baatorian red, if memory served — and the many more empty ones scattered around their cramped rented room in one of Sigil's many inns. An empty bottle sat proudly on the nightstand, another guarding the door, a few more clustered around one of the bedposts. Even still, a small stash of various liquors from across the planescape lingered, yet unopened, beneath MR-SN's favorite chair.
"If you want us to be able to afford that ship any time soon, Em, you might consider not spending all our hard-earned gold on alcohol." Despite his words, he took a deep drink and finished the bottle, setting it down beside the door.
"Ah, but this a celebration, my friend!" MR-SN stumbled forward, shaking DX-TR lightly by the shoulders. "We have a lead! An excellent navigator — and dearly devoted cleric — soon to join our cause."
MR-SN gestured loosely with a finger as he staggered towards and fell heavily into his armchair by the bedside.
"The talented and faithful AS-TR. The first step towards filling out the crew for that ship you speak of, my dear DX-TR. And all because of you!"
He snagged the last of the wine bottles from beside him, opening it clumsily and taking a long swig.
"Surely that deserves some celebration, doesn't it?"
"i doubt she'll be inclined to join us if you show up on her doorstep in Elysium as a stumbling drunk."
"Ah, I suppose you'll just have to help me finish this all off tonight then," A flick of the hand as MR-SN gestured to the pile of bottles around his feet. "Ensure I'm not tempted to indulge on the voyage over."
"Well," MR-SN's voice settled low and sultry, "not tempted by the alcohol, at least."
One of his eyes flashed in a cheeky wink.
Scoffing, DX-TR shook his head in fond disbelief. "Now I know you've had too much."
Still, he strode across the room in two quick and graceful steps — careful as it always was with him — and plucked a willowy bottle of Feywild gin from the pile, opening it in a single fluid movement.
It burned as it hit his throat, but not harshly. A warmth like candlelight or a hearthfire. The flavor seemed to shift, one moment light and floral, the next tart and almost acerbic, and then crisp and clean as it changed even further still. He gulped it down easily, draining half the bottle.
A deep, satisfied hum rose from MR-SN's chest.
DX-TR took another long drink and pointedly did not let himself feel the way that sound settled low and buzzing at the base of his skull. A side effect of MR-SN's psionics run amok, nothing more.
Surely.
"Is it truly such a perprosp — perposip — perpopserop — ugh." MR-SN spat a sharp bleat of static, washing away the sparks with another gulp of wine. "Is it truly so hard to believe that I might you tempting?
"I've designed myself to be inconspicuous and occasionally intimidating, MR-SN, not appealing. I've found the former to be much more efficient than the latter."
With final deceive swig, DX-TR finished off the bottle of gin and reached for another — a heavy bottle of Ysgardian rum this time. More to MR-SN's tastes than his own, but smooth and strong. Perhaps it would be strong enough to help him forget the heat curling in the depths of his gut.
"Hmmm, intimidating not appealing." MR-SN leaned his head back against the upholstery, eyes dim and half-lidded as he looked at DX-TR. "I'm afraid, my friend, I've always found one to be intimately linked with the other."
DX-TR choked around the next sip of his drink. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Oh yes," His voice was light, but his eyes were still fixed and heavy on DX-TR as he waved the bottle about in punctuation to his words. "It's true. I've seen plenty of people be appealing without being intimidating — the sweet and innocent types are always so fun to tease and toy with — but intimidating and yet not appealing? I don't think that exists, my friend."
"I think," DX-TR said carefully, lowering the bottle from his mouth, "that says far more about your tastes than anyone else."
"Perhaps." His forever smiling eyes brightened in a grin. "Perhaps not."
This was foolish. Reckless and rash and utterly pointless but —
DX-TR took a considered step back, leaning against the bedpost in a deliberately casual pose he knew showed off the lines of his hips and shoulders to excellent effect.
"Alright, go on then." He raised an eyebrow in friendly challenge. "Tell what exactly it is you find oh so appealing about me."
The sharp hiss of static and grind of gears as MR-SN chuckled into his drink sent DX-TR's dazed heart sinking. But when he looked up, his gaze was soft and warm.
"Is it terribly cliche of me to say everything?"
Yes. No. Please.
Warring impulses wracked DX-TR's mind, his gears grating in his chest, the pulse of his powercore racing. Say nothing, ignore it, he's your friend and your captain and he’s drunk and you shouldn't —
He took another long pull from his drink, his head starting to spin. From the liquor or from MR-SN's words, he wasn't sure.
One of them was far more intoxicating than the other and it didn't come in a bottle.
The music from the tavern below them shifted, the roaring dance tune melting into something slower, softer. A ballad.
MR-SN tilted his bottle in time to the beat, eyes drifting as hummed a few idle notes. “Oh, I know this one.”
Relief and disappointment sparked and flared in DX-TR’s chest. This was better. Better to let MR-SN’s drunken mind float away on to the next thing and forget this, forget how close he’d come to shattering DX-TR’s composure and the fragile distance between them.
Then MR-SN’s eyes locked on to DX-TR as he began to sing and knew he’d misjudged.
He was so, so screwed.
“I wonder if you’ll love me tonight — ”
His voice was still rough and off-key with drunkness, but before where it had been a lively belt, now it had settled into a low croon. Soft and warm and intimate.
MR-SN’s gaze was much the same. Crescent eyes forever fixed in a smile — but softer, rounder, glowing with a gentle smirk.
“So delicate and lovely, I wonder if you love me —”
DX-TR snorted a laugh around the pressure building in his throat. “I don’t think delicate or lovely are words anyone would use to describe —”
MR-SN ignored him, continuing to sing louder over his interjection. “Are you on my side? My dark and lonely side?”
And oh, if that wasn’t what DX-TR was, what he longed to be. The shadow to MR-SN’s light, the hidden dagger to MR-SN’s open palms, the cold ruthless reason to MR-SN’s ever-burning optimism. His second in command, his other half, the one forever at and on his side.
The words burst from his throat without thought, too fast to have any chance of stopping them.
“Tell me. You said you want everything about me, so —” His voice box spat static. “Tell me everything.”
What answered him was not words but images. Ghosts of sensation and memory flashed across DX-TR's mind, all of himself but seen from another's point of view. The glint of his dagger as he felled an imp, a spray of blood dusting his cheeks, the flames of Avernus setting the sharp angles of his face into stark relief. His own voice calling out a warning, his firm grip on MR-SN's shoulder as he pulled him out harm's way. A flash of amusement at the edge of MR-SN's empathic awareness as he cracked a joke, as he dragged DX-TR once again out of dark of despair and into the light of hope. The stern set of his jaw as he studied their next course of action, the near-silent scrape of his footsteps on stone, the canny glint of his eyes as he caught just the detail they needed in a villager's story. So skilled, so clever, devoted and determined and deadly, but safe to me, so good to me — useless without you-want you-need you —
MINE
The snap of DX-TR's cooling systems activating was loud in the silence between them, audible over even the dull roar of the tavern below their room.
His hand trembled in its tight grip around the bottle in his hand.
"Again." His voice was rough, choked by the heat clouding his head. "That last bit, again."
Want you-need you — MINE
That last word lanced through DX-TR's mind like lightning, setting him aflame. The want in it, the sharp hunger and the passionate claim. Mine not as an object to be owned but as someone chosen, someone prized, someone wanted. My ship, my crew, my first mate — extensions of MR-SN's will. Vessels for the completion of his dream.
There was nothing in this world or any other than DX-TR wouldn't do, wouldn't be, for the sake of MR-SN's dreams.
DX-TR finished the bottle of rum in a single long gulp and dropped it to the floor, heedless of the way it shattered on impact. Two strides and he had crossed the space between them, pressing MR-SN into the chair with a clutching hand at his shoulder.
"Tell me what you need. I'm yours."
"Just you. That's all I need." MR-SN cupped DX-TR's cheek, his eyes bright and wanting despite the soft haze of his voice. "Just you. And well, the bed I suppose."
He polished off his own bottle with a final smug swig, setting to the side as he rose and walked past DX-TR to flop inelegantly onto the bed. It shouldn't have been appealing, all MR-SN's usual confident grace and easy appeal lost to the clumsy stride of drunkenness, but DX-TR couldn't help but be drawn by it. It was MR-SN, after all. What else did he need?
He half-crawled onto the bed, fumbling with the buckles of his boots as he tried to kick them off. His usually deft fingers felt thick and slow, his mind clouded by drink and want. Finally, MR-SN noticed his plight and lent his aid, countless psionic hands making light work of the many buckles and straps.
"This too," MR-SN said, slipping another pair of invisible hands beneath DX-TR's jacket, the skate of psionic force against metal sending sparks up his spine.
MR-SN pushed the jacket off his shoulders and DX-TR obliged, shrugging it off and tossing it towards the chair. Some distant part of his mind chided him, warned him to be more careful, more observant — what did he think he was doing letting himself become so impaired in a public house such as this — but he pushed those thoughts away. All that mattered now was MR-SN.
MR-SN, whose drink-clumsy hands were already skimming over the seams of DX-TR’s waist, thumbing along sensitive plate edges and dipping beneath to stroke at wires and gears. MR-SN, whose psionic presence teased at the edge of DX-TR’s mind with flashes of thought — flickers of want and command — already heavy with heat and intention. MR-SN, who stared up at him with hunger and admiration, who knew him and wanted him — needed him.
DX-TR buried his face MR-SN’s neck and let him in. Gave himself over to the heavy, hungry presence on the edge of his mind until it flowed in and filled him, until every want and need was known, until command was as easy as thought. Until he was what he had always been and always would be — the perfect vessel for MR-SN’s wildest dreams.
Look, is this just me mashing my hyperfixations together as I am wont to do? Yes. But hear me out, I really want to know what would happen if you stuck Owen Carvour and DX-TR rwd in a room together. Like I don’t know if they’d get on like a house on fire or if they’d kill each other immediately but either way I want to study how they’d interact.
Idk there’s something about these men whose stories are fundamentally about betrayal, and loving someone so much you destroy yourself from the inside out because of it. About Owen “was betrayed/left to die and and responded by utterly betraying everything he used to be, becoming a mass murderer and dedicating his life to destroying everything his counterpart stood for and believed in, even knowing it would destroy him too, because that was the only way he could cope with the reality of Curt abandoning him” and DX-TR “betrayed his counterpart and got him killed all in the effort of trying to realize his dream, turning to more and more drastic measures, telling himself that it’ll all be worth it if he can only make MR-SN’s dream a reality— even if MR-SN isn’t there to see it.” How they each slowly become the worst possible versions of themselves by no hand but their own, how Owen turns to Chimera and DX-TR turns first to the Githyanki then to the Mind Flayers, how they both shed any ideals they might have once had in pursuit of this all-consuming goal. How whether they’re the betrayed or the betrayer, they are both defined by a love for someone they can’t ever get back, and how they destroy themselves in an effort to reconcile with this loss. How they’re both trying to mend a bullet wound with a bandaid— Owen dedicating himself to dragging Curt down with him because there’s no other way for him to cope with the loss of knowing they can never have what they once had, and DX-TR knowing MR-SN died because of him and needing to achieve his dream as a result, because it’s only way he can justify MR-SN’s death, the only way he believes he can soothe his guilt and grief. How their goal is just a poor substitute for the person they lost that will never actually mend what’s broken. How neither of them planned past the achievement of their goal. What did Owen think would happen to him once his surveillance system was up and Curt was dead? What was DX-TR planning to do once he finally got to Wildspace? How it doesn’t really matter, because nothing past the goal mattered to them. Like ghosts with unfinished business, it was just a matter of chasing this one thing they believed would finally allow them to move on. How Owen already saw himself as dead the first time Curt “killed” him. How being unable to let go of someone is ultimately what destroyed them both in the end.
#cats of tumblr
#lana del rey
#horror movies
#photography
