The future has arrived far too soon for Warren.
Awoken from cryostasis into a galaxy ravaged by war, he finds himself in the middle of the greatest conflict the Milky Way has ever seen. Working with Thrive, he must recruit a team of adept individuals to take down the tyrannical Prince Hyret, whose forces have a ruthless chokehold on the galaxy.
Warren and Thrive's growing bond faces its own trials as conflict rages. Compounded with the Emmuli no longer content to linger in the shadows, grief threatens to tear them apart before they can even properly begin.
The revolution begins now, in the hands of those who've lost centuries…
The Darkspace Portent Series (M31 Arc; Books 1–5)—
The dramatic collision of Orthrive'poliea's vehicle with a nearby lake upends Warren Cougar's life more than he ever expected. Along with conspiracies, intergalactic war, and tumultuous dealings with interspace politics, he has to survive a hostile alien army and a semi-omnipotent sentient darkness doing everything in their power to destroy Earth and the rest of the Milky Way—and Thrive's native galaxy, Andromeda. Navigating their way through seemingly endless battle after seemingly endless battle, Warren and Thrive also find they must navigate themselves as well as their growing relationship with each other.
Rules: You will be given a word, and you must share 1 sentence from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter in that word!
Tagged by @oh-no-another-idea, thank you!
Tagging @drippingmoon, @pertinax--loculos, @kingragnarok-writes, @zmwrites, @space-writes, and anyone who wants to! Your word is FRUIT.
gonna bum everyone the fuck out with this one, apparently, because that's where my head's at and it just bled into this lmao
WRIST—
W — Warren took one of Thrive's hands and folded their fingers together, admiring the contrast in their skin tones. "I never wanted to be a dad before I met you. I never wanted to be married before I met you. And you're the only one I'd ever want to do any of that with. There's a lot going on right now, but the fact that you're here with me makes it bearable enough to get through it. There was a time in my life, a time I'm beginning to forget, when I couldn't say that. I would do it all over again to get to this point." Warren swallowed the sticky tears threatening to return. "But right now I just wanna let it consume me." (Meridian)
R — Rage bubbled up within Warren and he jabbed a finger in Thrive's direction. "I'm not gonna fucking answer that. You know why? Because it doesn't fucking matter. It doesn't matter anymore what I would or wouldn't have done, because it happened, and there's nothing any of us can do to get ——— back! They're dead, Thrive! They're dead!" (Meridian)
I — "Is this the legacy you wish to leave behind…?" Thrive murmured. "Would you be sated knowing that at every available opportunity, you decided on the morally righteous tine on the fork of fate surrounding the safety of the universe, even at the expense of those who live in it?" (Dark Matter)
S — Sussa sniffed and took another long sip of her tea, swallowing deliberately. She looked so small right then, and the dim light of the bridge brought out a melancholy that felt as out of place as her brown hair. "I don't think I can love anyone as much as I love Orthrive'poliea. I've... tried. And I can't say I've been all that successful in pretending it hasn't hurt me over time. But..." She avoided meeting Warren's eyes. "I'm so happy to know him. And I'm so happy to know you." A fragile smile curled across her lips. "...I'm so glad it's you." (Aurora)
T — Thrive's tone remained surprisingly level despite his rage. "You have used an unauthorized connection with a vital transportation hub eighty-four light-years from the Felir'ís Sector, in the protected space of the planet Tytiva. The brightest star in the upper left of the gate, at the forefront of the nebula, is Rūka, around which orbits the planet Zliyagi. You have effectively given an open invitation to any and all eliyi who wish to settle their score with me and everyone else in this galaxy, and you're facing significant criminal charges at the hands of the Tytivans, thus, forgive me if in future I am the first in line to testify against you." (Eternal)
Rules: You will be given a word, and you must share 1 sentence from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter in that word!
Tagged by @space-writes 800 years ago! Tagging, with no obligation, @drippingmoon, @zmwrites, @pertinax--loculos, and LITERALLY ANYONE WHO WANTS TO DO THIS! Your word is REGRET. I apologize for the aggression. (I don't.)
TRIAL—
T — "They're old enough," Warren continued, "that if they were run-of-the-mill obhelians they'd be elders, and yet they're scared of falling in love because they don't want to go through the pain of losing someone. Did you think of that before you went and had them? What about Corinto'poliea and Lohra'rahe? Did you think of it before you had them with Oruna'polae?" (Meridian)
R — Right on cue, dozens of [living] ships dropped out of FTL in clusters out of the viewscreen. They were massive things; dark and reflective with subtly illuminated faces, several eyes running down each side and calmly swiveling around independently of each other. Like prehistoric beasts giving their lives for their companions. (Aurora)
I — "I am just as invested in the safety of the universe as anyone else," Thrive said, scrolling through the Consortium's message. "Contrary to popular consensus, I, too, am a resident of it." (Aurora)
A — A sudden tsunami rushed in from the ocean, taller than the cliff, barreling toward them at an almost unfathomable speed. Thrive planted himself at the edge of the cliff and shook one hand out, casting it upward to encompass everyone and everything on it, quintupling the strength, and he used his other hand to spread the shield behind him, more of the city, more of the residents. (Eternal)
L — Lilori scrolled back and showed footage of a huge dig, uncovering what could only be described as a giant obsidian obelisk stretched toward the sky with a blue line running up the entire length. Some R'lisans took strange machines to it, dusting off the dirt. One individual tried to use a hand to wipe the impossibly sleek surface, and the line on the obelisk flashed blinding red, interfering with the recording for a moment as the picture split—almost shattered—into indecipherable pieces before realigning itself to reveal the R'lisan being rushed off-camera with a crowd around them. (Aurora)
Rules: You will be given a word, and you must share 1 sentence from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter in that word!
tagged by @pertinax--loculos, you flatter me! 😭
tagging @drippingmoon, @space-writes, @oh-no-another-idea, @kingragnarok-writes, and anyone who wants to participate! Y'all's word is SMASH.
CRACK—
C — Corin's expression dropped somewhat and he placed a hand on the top of Thoeala's head, dwarfing her face, and gently rattled it to and fro. "Hey, brat," he said to her, his words laced with heavy affection. "So, um...okay, we don't know exactly what's going on, but whatever it is was enough to worry the Consortium, so they ordered an emergency evacuation of every planet for a test run." (Meridian)
R — "Ravishing," Guetry finished, appearing beside him with his hands in the pockets of his long leather coat. He smiled down at Warren with a slick wink. "Rock 'n' roll annihilation, baby boy." (Eternal)
A — An entire week went by with no sign or signal from Thrive. Warren, along with the kids, had made every conceivable call to every conceivable soul they could think of without spilling the beans to the Consortium, from Ulliara to Angelina to Varussa and Emnophene, neither of whom had kept in touch since Guetry's passing but jumped at the chance to help find Thrive. (Meridian)
C — Corin kneeled beside Thrive and demanded Ryst run to grab some medical equipment. "Fine time for Gouna to decide his talents are better spent being a fucking babysitter," he grunted. He hooked his fingers in Thrive's form suit collar and ripped it clean down to the middle of his torso with minimal effort. "He's all but melted the fabric." (Aurora)
K — Kyllan and Kelly danced with Varussa and Emnophene, and Sussa sipped a beverage at the edge of the dance floor, making conversation with Hondris. Calen splashed a mixed drink into Ryst's cup, getting a few drops on the floor, and Genni rocked out just as hard as everyone else, jumping around and whipping her long hair all over, shouting the lyrics along with Guetry. (Aurora)
WIP: Darkspace Portent
Pairing: Warren x Thrive
Timeline: we'll say before/after book four for shits and giggles (likely not canon unless I say it is in which case I never said this)
CW: mature content
Rating: M? (to be safe idk lol)
Words: 955
***
"I don't know how to tell you this," Warren muttered five seconds after sitting beside Thrive at the table in the kitchen. He hesitated, the open space of the capital house beginning to crush him. "...The shirt is gone."
Thrive raised a finger to his own lips to buy time as he chewed a good-sized chunk of pan-seared steak from an alien mammal. His brows pinched, and he nodded as if either processing Warren's words or enjoying the food—it wasn't immediately clear which.
"...Shirt?" he responded at length, putting that conundrum to rest for good.
Warren folded his hands over the surface of the table. "The... shirt. The shirt. The shirt with the black ringed planet on it?" He looked at Thrive as if he'd suggested they go bowling with the skull of an eliyi. "You wore it for just about two weeks straight, E.T., what the fuck?"
"Ah, yes." Thrive sliced through another portion of the meal he was, as Warren only realized then, eating alone up until that point. "It's gone?"
Narrowing his eyes, Warren let out an all-too-patient exhale through his nose. "I looked everywhere. Picked apart your office, went through every conceivable room in the capital house, even Gouna's office and Corin's lab. I feel like you're not reacting appropriately, here."
"Perhaps I know where it is," Thrive said simply. He reached over for his glass of fruit nectar, the thick apricot-colored beverage shimmering as it was agitated, and imbued Warren with an unbothered look.
"Do you know where it is?"
"No," Thrive said with a soft snort of pomposity before he took a generous gulp of the nectar.
"So why aren't we more concerned about the shirt I so graciously gave you when you had every intention of walking around Earth completely buck-ass naked? The shirt that's become somewhat of your signature and I can no longer think about without thinking about how fucking sexy you look in it?"
Thrive's gaze lifted from the square of colored glass used as a plate, a gaze of dark triumph. He turned to Warren again, that triumph no longer present to such a degree that it could've been imagined. "...Where could it possibly have gone, Warren? The entirety of civilization on Tournaltis is within a mile in every direction of this exact location."
Warren opened his mouth to answer that, then closed it.
"It'll turn up," Thrive assured him, giving his knee a gentle squeeze before focusing on the meat. "Don't stress too much over it."
Warren had no choice but heed him, and he went through the rest of the day as he normally would... but every so often, he'd think about the shirt, attempting to mentally backtrack, to remember when and where he'd last seen it to no avail.
The night crept onto him without his knowledge, and he found himself standing with Plio and Roel in the dark outside Corin's lab as they'd been for the past few hours. He could've missed the nightfall altogether if he let enough distractions overtake him. He bid the other two a goodnight and trudged back to the capital house.
With a sigh, he entered his pitch-black room next to Thrive's office, closing the door behind him simultaneously with picking up on Thrive's unmistakable scent.
"You're like a little gremlin sometimes," Warren said, dropping onto his bed—silently thanking whatever deity existed that he actually did drop onto the bed rather than the floor. He kicked his boots off. "I swear I'll get used to the darkness one day."
"The shirt was stolen," Thrive said from somewhere near the window.
Warren let his body sag, then he leaned back on his hands. "...Who the fuck would steal a dirty t-shirt riddled with bloodstains and bullet holes? There wasn't even any glitter on the planet anymore."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the curtains hanging in front of the picture window parted, and the light of three moons filtered inside. Thrive stood directly in the beam, finger pressed against the wall panel until the curtain finished opening. The ringed planet T-shirt paired with the oft-forgotten jeans clung to every plane and curve of his powerful torso and thighs, accentuating his muscular arms and shoulders while honoring the outline of his abdomen.
"I would," he murmured. "From you."
Warren's head fell back and he laughed in embarrassment at his immediate and visceral physiological reaction to this. "FUCK!" he shouted.
Thrive moved to Warren and buried his long fingers into his hair. "You're not getting this back," he growled, fisting the milk-chocolate strands to angle his head more efficiently. "Ever."
"Pretty sure that was made abundantly clear the second I saw you wearing it for the first time," Warren breathed.
Thrive crushed their mouths together, his other hand coming up to wrap around the column of Warren's throat, putting tantalizing pressure on the sides. Warren groaned sharply, already running his palms over Thrive's heated skin under the shirt.
"I think not," Thrive purred against Warren's lips. He let go of his hair to displace his wandering hands, then pressed Warren back by his throat, laying him prone across the mattress. He crawled onto the bed, straddling his hips. "Let me show you just how sexy I can look in this shirt, th'saiya."
Warren, his pulse fluttering wildly under Thrive's fingers, hummed in eager approval at what he suspected was the beginning of an incredibly erotic night.
And he was right—toyed with and railed, all with those clothes covering just about every inch of Thrive's lean body except for the important parts. The more Thrive discovered how to use his human form for evil, the more Warren was content to let him fully corrupt him.
Rules: You will be given a word, and you must share 1 sentence from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter in that word!
Tagged by @space-writes! Tagging, with no obligation, @drippingmoon, @zmwrites, @oh-no-another-idea, @pertinax--loculos, and open tag! Your word is FUTILE. As per usual, I am playing fast and loose with the rules lol
AMOUNT—
A — And then Thrive looked rattled. Shaken to his core, possibly having never heard those words spoken to him before, definitely not expecting them from his antagonist of all people, especially not when he was fighting for his life on an unfamiliar planet. He stared, at a complete loss for words. When he did find one, it was quiet and an obviously conflicted attempt to disavow the current situation. (Eternal)
M — Mercury twirled his staff. "Warren's been tryna tell us we can't think like that or we're fucked. The Emmuli feed off of negativity and pessimism; that's how they got the obhelian in the first gat-damn place." (Aurora)
O — "Oh yeah?" Warren muttered, parking his fists on his hips and breaking into a sarcastic smile. "How much swearing is goin' on up here [in my head]? 'Cause I'm gonna give you a hint—it's a lot." (Eternal)
U — "Uh," Warren called over the roaring ocean, a hand poised over his eyes to block out the sun, "I know we're still kind of a rogue society here but can we maybe agree that patricide is against the law even now?" (Meridian)
N — "No laughing in this house," Warren called down the long main hallway. "I remember very clearly forbidding laughter and fun here." (Warpath)
T — Thrive aimed an uncharacteristically bitchy eye-roll at the comm panel and Warren covered a burst of laughter with a loud cough. (Aurora)
Rules: You will be given a word, and you must share 1 sentence from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter in that word!
Taking an open tag from @sleepy-night-child, and tagging @space-writes, @pertinax--loculos, @celemee, and @drippingmoon 😁 Your word is FOLLOW.
MAGIC—
M — "Messier 33," Warren muttered, turning to Thrive. "...That's Triangulum." (Meridian)
A — A long pause. Thrive lifted a hand to chest-level and out of his fingertips rose particles of light, the veins beneath his skin taking on the same glow as the obelisk. The light came together, swirled over his palm to form a star map of unidentified origins. (Aurora)
G — "Gladly." Warren leaned his hands onto the table. "Thrive's had virtually no issue being king until Delegate Sinkship took office, or, more accurately, all of the pushback he's received has been solved with a conversation or a compromise. Interestingly, that leads me to a pretty fun question…" He lifted his gaze to her. "Why does the human delegate have such sway over the others?" (Warpath)
I — "It is," Thrive said, unaffected on the surface. "It's who I, as an obhelian Protector, have been this whole time. I've done unforgivable things in my pursuit of justice, some of which have given me great satisfaction. I have moral ambiguity at times, mostly to do with my oath. I am not a saint. You and I have been together for several hundred years…I'm not sure how that slipped by you." (Asylum)
C — Controlling the essence w̷i̶t̷h̴i̸n̴ ̸y̸o̵u̵, the Emmuli growled. Disrupting the t̴r̴u̶t̸h̶, arresting your given capacity, reshaping your intelligence into the pattern t̴h̷e̸y̶ ̴f̷i̷t̷ ̸y̷o̷u̷ ̵t̷o̴ ̷d̷e̴s̵e̷r̶v̸e̷. (Eternal)
