#fervide

sentence starters: the invisible life of addie larue by v.e. schwab (accepting)

"Mmm. I'll bite." He snips the bandage. "Popped the question?" 

Funny man. 

Blood stains the sterile tray. A bullet sits inside, shining red. Vik has lost count of the times he’s seen Leon here --- he has never kept track, really --- but inside the security of his mind, he can probably guess at the reason: a scrap with the Tyger Claws. A scrap with a merc. A run-in with a cyberpsycho, a semi-automatic hot in their hands. It’d occurred to him that Leon doesn’t have a band on his finger. He’s not surprised.

Imagine being married to a cop in Night City. 

sentence starters: the invisible life of addie larue by v.e. schwab (accepting)

The takeout is greasy. The noodles slip and slide over each other, painting the walls of the carton a semi-concerning highlight orange, a tinge too spicy. Takemura’s long abandoned it. His chopsticks, one of them snapped, stand stabbed through the center, and a tv flashes.

“It is important to have discipline,” he gravels, resolute. “To surrender principle, to only survive --- this is no different from animals.”

𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞: 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒒𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔 (accepting)

The hour was late, but Night City was alive. Cars rocked outside, bouncing on their wheels to the heart-throbbing pound of whatever mess blared from the radio. The homeless guy, Garry, he was ninety-nine percent sure, was wailing about another conspiracy between a fortress of soggy cardboard boxes. Leon was getting confessional. 

Vik shook his head, hardly at all, obvious all the same. The padlock clicked locked and he stopped by a cat mewling for morsels. “Eh... You and I know-- I’m not cut out for this. What am I supposed to say,” he breathed, tossing a square of microwaved burrito into the bowl. “Better find Misty. Get yourself sorted out.”

♡   PINTEREST FINDS  -  VOL. 5. Status: Still accepting.

he wonders about that.  wonders if the choices given are really choices at all.  is an ultimatum a choice?  is choosing the death of the ones you love ( the death of you ) at the expense of your refusal really a choice?  it is,  in the most black and white terms you could possibly define such a thing.  but it isn’t a choice,  not at all,  not really.  when you’re blackmailed,  when everything you have left is hung over your head and they’re waving the proverbial noose right in your damn face, you have no choice.  there is nothing else to say but okay.  leon tries to rationalize,  tries to come up with excuse after excuse for why what he’s been put through is somehow acceptable.  tries to explain away his reason for working for a government he loathes.  ‘  death isn’t a choice.  it’s a result. a threat.  there is nothing after death.  the only choice you have when it comes to death is what your last meal will be.  but even that is taken from you sometimes.  ship you off with an empty stomach and tell you to kill or be killed.  ’

there’s no snarky quips,  nothing except disdain in his tone.  he’s so fucking tired,  the edges of his words are slurring  &  his visual snow darkens at the corners.  he reeks of too many drinks  &  leon’s so far gone he swears he can feel his liver protesting.  the only way he knows he isn’t just a machine is the pulse in his neck he has to feel every time he looks at himself in the mirror. ‘  i never had a choice to do this.  i just didn’t want to die.  i didn’t want anyone to die because of me.  ’

     “ you are correct. there is often no choice in death, or in the way we all meet our end, ” he agrees, smooth and sure. it won't be for him, not with the constant pressure of his decommissioning held over his head as a threat. OBEY, OR PERISH, as all the models before you had. as all others had been when they fail to follow their directives. “ and when you choose the means to your own end, you are judged harshly. ” the illusion of free will had always interested him, as a being who possessed his own will but could not make his own decisions. for a species that prides itself on bodily autonomy, on freedom, there are a lot of arbitrary standards to follow. “ in your hypothetical, couldn't death be a mercy? a kindness, to finally be given a say? ”