Lumina 💞 Swannies

Just to put this into perspective, the guillotine was created partly because it provided a swift, clean cut at the neck that was superior to that done by a human. Using a sword left too much room for error, so the weight and precision of the guillotine blade were a better option.

There are a lot of people who don't understand how truly horrible that scene was, so let me remind you that John decapitated Nico with a blunt object, or at least it was implied that it was a decapitation. (I personally believe it was)

With that in mind, imagine the slow, dreadful, agonizing pain that Nico went through in his final moments. With a normal decapitation, the whole head is severed and you die within seconds. Nico, however, would've had a crushed windpipe on the first blow and suffocated to death while still being brutalized.

And while we're on the topic, I'd like to mention that there is a reason decapitation is used as a method of terror. It's fucking mortifying. It sends a message of "I did this to them. Now try coming after me and see what happens."

That's why extremist groups use decapitations

That's why French revolutionaries used decapitations

That's why Haitian revolutionaries used decapitations

That's why slave owners used decapitations.

You don't EVER in the history of the world behead someone in self-defense. It takes too damn long.

It's used to instill terror, which is why John did it.

Torres becomes Joaquín, and the flirting is just part of their developing friendship.

(Sometimes Joaquín asks if it ever was a friendship, or if they’ve always just been a slow burn love story. Both, Sam always tells him, as he brushes a curl from his face. Even if that’s all he and Joaquín had ever been, it’d have been enough. The friendship they shared was never less than this.)

Sam had always figured if they’d given into their attraction - and oh he knew it was mutual - that it would have been adrenaline and thank god you’re alive and after some completely stupid stunt that one of them had pulled. So when their first kiss happens on a lazy morning, when Sam has spent the night on Joaquín’s couch and the younger man has woken him up with pancakes and coffee, it is a surprise.

(Sam finishes his breakfast, Joaquín apologises for not having more chocolate chips, and Sam just leans across and kisses him, easy as pie. It doesn’t lead to frantic, desperate, oh god I have to have him now sex, just leads to a shared smile, and Joaquín making a quip about how he can’t wait to see how Sam reacts to him having no milk.)

The relationship still builds slowly, and that suits both of them. Joaquín’s last relationship was his college sweetheart, and that hadn’t ended well. He’d had flings in the Air Force, but nothing had really stuck. Sam’s last relationship was Nat, and okay, Sam totally won the tragic break ups. (Sam had playfully shoved him off the couch for that joke, and Joaquín had been so relieved to see he was still smiling.)

There are weeks when nothing happens between them, maybe a few lingering touches, a few soft smiles here and there, but it’s like nothing has changed. Then there are those times when they can’t keep their hands off each other. No matter where they are in their relationship, they never make it weird, they never stop wanting to be around each other.

Everything changes the first time Joaquín takes Sam to bed properly. Not in a safe house, or the hold of a plane, or the couch of the headquarters they’re building together. But when Joaquín takes Sam to his bed, in his apartment, where there’s nobody to walk in on them or interrupt them and they have all night. It’s not the first time they’ve slept together, but it is the first time they’ve - for lack of a less corny term - made love.

Joaquín has been able to take his time exploring every perfect inch of Sam, been able to whisper soft words and promises to every scar, every mark, the tattoo for Riley - and Sam could die when he hears thank you for loving him in quiet Spanish pressed to the words on his hip. Sam feels so exposed, and so raw, but it’s so impossibly good.

As Joaquín fucks him, he doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins, their bodies moving like an infinite loop of pleasure and love and everything fucking incredible in the world. Someone says I love you as Sam comes, and he doesn’t know which one of them it is, but he knows he needs to make sure that Joaquín hears those words as well. Over and over, every single day for the rest of their damn lives.

He does tell him.

When he wakes after a moment to Joaquín cleaning Sam’s spend from them. He doesn’t know if he could form any other words right now, could even remember his own name, but he knows with absolute certainty that he loves Joaquín Torres, and that Joaquín Torres needs to know.

Joaquín just smiles softly at him as Sam manages to choke the words out.

“Mm, tell me again when I haven’t just made you come so hard you passed out.”

Sam chuckles softly.

Sam holds that letter near. He cherishes it. Thinks of Riley on the good days; the hard days. And every day in between.

I still press your letters to my lips.

And cherish them in parts of me