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lollytea · 1 year ago

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please please my dear tell me a story of one of Willow's murders

I'm gonna copy and paste down some of the idea from the DMs from a while ago. I'll only steal the messages I wrote, which is why they might look disorganised. Cuz I'm replying to something another person said. Anyway forgive it for being sloppy, you know how it is with DMs:

- We had the hc that having a galdorstone for a heart might tamper with Hunter's blood. Like the liquid would be imbued with an unstable amount of magic.

Its considered extremely dangerous to work with grimwalker blood. Raine and the rest of the lab experimented with a literal DROP that Hunter donated once and it made shit fucking explode. Its just WAY too much to handle.

But obviously, that's not gonna stop some people from trying to get a hold of it. It's considered extremely valuable. It will sell for SO MUCH at the night market.

Obviously anybody who's willing to risk everyone else's safety to get hold of an absolutely lethal substance and possibly harm/capture Hunter to bleed him dry, would obviously be an absolutely depraved awful person. Just vile.

However, people do not go after Hunter as often as one might think. It definitely happens every once in a while tho.

Willow is up early tending to her garden, letting Hunter sleep in an extra few hours before he has to go to work. She's taken the baby from her cradle so she doesnt cry and wake up Papa and now has her sleeping in a sling against Willow's chest, soothed by the sound of Mama's heartbeat.

Willow's whole garden abruptly shifts in a way only she can notice and she lifts her head, alerted to the apparent disturbance. She recognizes the signal. It means there's an intruder.

Willow approaches the back yard where there is a man who tried to break in by their window but was immediately snatched and restrained by vines.

Willow quickly deduces who he is by rooting around in his pockets and discovering his identifications, weapons, vials, ropes and sleep potions.

"Let me guess," Willow says softly. "You're here for my husband,"

Said husband continues to sleep on peacefully, as does the baby curled up against her breast. The baby doesn't wake because Willow's heartbeat remains steady.

The Boiling Isles doesn't have Coven Scouts anymore. There's no longer a police form. Meaning, it's easier to get away with crimes. You won't go to jail. However you might get slaughtered in cold blood if you pick the wrong target.

Willow thinks about strangling him until his organs pop but she decides against it.

She won't kill him.

Instead she smothers his mouth shut in vines so he can't scream. (The two loves of her life are sleeping ssshhhh)

She sprouts the plants that Hunter was always deeply fascinated with. The ones that sizzle and boil and devour flesh.

She has it slither up the intruders body, leeching against his left leg, his right arm, his back, his collarbone. The acidic spit stings like a nightmare. It takes chunks out of him.

He'll live. He's in immense pain and no healing magic will ever fix that but he'll survive. He'll never forget the mistake he made in threatening her family tho.

Willow lets him go and sends him off. She gives him very firm instructions.

"Your friends, partners, whoever put this stupid idea in your head, you go back and you tell them I went easy on you. Consider yourself a warning to them. You will never attempt to touch that man. Do you understand me?"

- I like the thought she wouldn't have tortured him quite so severely if they didn't have a baby. Like No. You won't touch her husband. You won't touch her baby's Papa. They're starting a family together and she will melt you from the inside out if you try to get in their way

- As soon as she fucking renders a guy to a gasping wreck because of the excruciating pain she put him through, she calmly strolls back into the house, into their room and sits down by her husband.

She pecks his lips and she hears him groan.

"It's about time you woke up," She says, tenderly brushing back his hair.

Eyes still closed, Hunter raises a hand and searches around for hers. He finds it and presses her palm against his cheek.

"Okay...I'm up...I'm up...." He mumbles, still half asleep.

He has no idea. And he probably won't. He's not adverse to his wife *handling* problems like these. He just asks that she not tell him the details. Makes him nauseous

- It's the reason she has absolutely no mercy. Her methods are not only ruthless but strategic. There are people who want to harm her husband and she wants them feeling just as helpless, haunted and traumatized by her actions as she was in that graveyard all those years ago.

She needs them scared of her. She need them to shit themselves in fear over the IDEA of ever going near Hunter again. She kills some intruders. But mostly she mangles them and sends them running so people understand the kind of pain she could put them through too.

She wants them scared. Because *she's* scared. She's scared of being the princess who loses the prince. So she becomes the fire breathing dragon instead.

She often wants to hold him in her arms for a very long time. Even if he's reading or carving or typing some fanfic on his laptop she'll cuddle him from behind. He doesn't always know what she needs comfort from but he's familiar with how she acts when she needs it. So he let's her hold him

Its when Hunter is holding their baby in his arms, talking softly to her, allowing her to seize hold of his finger, that Willow is like "We are going to have a happy peaceful future together if it kills me"

- Willow gets no joy out of killing people but it doesn't make her uncomfortable in the way that it does to Hunter.

When Willow was little and her powers were out of control, she always worried that one day she could seriously hurt somebody and not mean to.

But that's not the case anymore. Sometimes she kills somebody. And she *does* mean to. Everything that's keeping Willow sane and stable and in control of herself are her friends and family. Meaning she will do whatever it takes to strike down any threat to them. She doesn't CARE. She realizes that some people are beyond redemption and if she kills, she kills.

Hunter, meanwhile, has reservations about killing, no matter how vile the person is. Like he is absolutely capable of it. He's strong and tough and powerful. HOWEVER the grimwalker trauma is rooted deep. Its a really troubling thought to shake off, knowing you were literally *constructed* to slaughter witches. It's an act of defiance that he never sheds a witch's blood *once.* If he's ever forced to, it would probably send him spiraling. But like. He's not all "nooo Willow everybody deserves to live." He understands killing as self defense. He just doesn't want to be the one doing it. If he's ever around when Willow has to do it, he turns the other way so he doesn't have to see.

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downingg2001 · 1 year ago

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Little something I’m working on (because I start a million little Elain stories and I never finish them).

Elain summoned truth teller, the dagger easily falling into her hands before she plunged it into her heart before anyone had the chance to stop her.

Shadows wiping around her as she cried out, and an ear shattered scream cracked across the library. Something so un- human. Something worse than a sirens screech. That was no where near close to describe the sound that caused her eardrums to burst and eyes to bleed.

The Caldron was displeased with her. And the choice she just made. The invisible thread that only she seemed to be able to see begun to flicker. But it didn’t break as if it was trying to tighten its hold on her. Wrapping itself around Elain’s neck like ivory vines.

Suffocating and unbearable. That was all she felt.

No!

She would sever the mating bond. The false bond had become a thorn in her side and one she was willing to cut out no matter how much she would bleed in the process. She pulled Azriel’s dagger out of her chest with a cry and pulled on the string that was attached between her and the collapsed fox on the floor. With a swift movement she cut the string, Truthteller glowing in her hands. It’s raw power all consuming and dark just like its master.

The cauldron screeched again and Elain dropped to her knees and cried out again, covering her blown ears.

How dare she reject her gift from the claudron!

Elain didn’t know how but she understood its rage. Untill it changed into something else.

Hurt.

Why did she just ask? The cauldron would do whatever the sweet seer asked of it.

And then another emotion.

It was proud. Content with whatever it had decided on. It still loved her.

If that’s what you could call it.

Elain didn’t know. But she supposed something like the claudron, who could grant powers and gifts could have emotions…

Or maybe she was delusional from the blood loss. Another thing Elain didn’t know, but she did know is that she felt free for the first time since she had been turned into fae. She could breath, (not literally with the blood that was filling her lungs) but a weight had been lifted.

And she also felt awfully tired. She felt her head hit something rough, it felt like sandpaper in her skin but there was a softness there as well.

Azriel. She knew it was him. Could smell cedar and jasmine on him.

She tried to lookup through her eyelashes but everything seemed to be tinted red and it felt heavy. She just wanted to sleep. She reached out a cupped the hand that cradled her head. She just wanted to touch him.

She couldn’t hear what he was saying.

But she knew it was her name as she watched his lips. As he shook and yelled something over his shoulder.

She smiled. It’s was okay. He was here with her.

She closed her eyes and welcomed whatever dreams would plague her because he would be there when she eventually woke up.

#elriel #acotar #pro elain #elain and azriel #elain archeron #azriel shadowsinger #pro elriel #azriel and elain #elain #azriel

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fellowshipofthenoodles · 1 year ago

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Hello! I was the one with the new crestie who stays hidden, I wanna say thank you for the ideas, I'll definitely be putting a few more things in his terrarium in hopes he comes out (i didnt want to put too much in since I was afraid he'd get too overwhelmed since I literally doubled the size of his enclosure from his past owners and doubled the decor). I did get him to eat some pangea by slightly disturbing his plant until I saw his head poke out and I spoon fed him, he didn't eat much but I did that yesterday night and the night before then, I'll try it again tonight. Him being a shy crestie would've been my first thought but when I was putting some more hides in there and some more vines only 3 ish days after I got him he woke up and came to investigate, he didn't seem to be spooked at all, so I just got really worried when he went from a curious investigator to hiding almost 24/7.

Hopefully some extra stuff will help! Since he has a much bigger space than he was used to then extra decor is definitely helpful, he might be needing extra cover to feel secure since bigger space means more open space which can be more overwhelming than having more/new things

I’m glad you’ve been getting him to eat! Try not to feed him directly too often since otherwise he’ll just rely on you to feed him and it’ll take him longer to decide to seek out food on his own when you stop. Also if he’s over 8 months old then make sure to only feed every other day rather than every day. Ours get fed every 2-3 days 😊 cresties are often overweight since so many people will feed them daily

Good luck and we’d love to keep hearing updates about him! ♥️

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fernisworm · 4 years ago

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Hi👋 can I request a karl heisenberg with an s/o that gained poison Ivy like powers after mother miranda infected them with the cadou?

[an;

Okay but like I quite enjoyed this??? It sounded really cute?? I hope you don’t mind the way I interpreted this ability ^^;

And tysm for requesting!! Hope you enjoy :))

❀ Characters: Karl Heisenberg x Gender Neutral! Poison Ivy! Reader

❀ Warnings: (Accidental) plant murder

✿ You can find all my stories here!

✿ My requests guide is here! (And you can place a request here!)

🌿 You had actually been with Heisenberg a little while before Mother Miranda subjected you to being another Cadou experiment

🌿 She actually kinda manipulated you into it tbh

🌿 “Oh yeah well I think Heisenberg would think it’s really cool that you also had cool abilities from the Cadou :]”

🌿 When you told him about it he was kinda pissed

🌿 But then again it was a very Mother Miranda thing to do smh

🌿 He was glad that at least now you could defend yourself if he wasn’t around

🌿 It was actually quite funny the way that you both found out about your Cadou powers

🌿 It had happened overnight and unfortunately Karl had been sleeping beside you at the time

🌿 The bed was literally encased with poison ivy vines (he woke up scratching like an absolute dog)

🌿 Thankfully the rash wasn’t too bad and he was mostly just itchy (probably due to Heisenberg being enhanced by the Cadou) but he was mad nonetheless

🌿 It didn’t take you long to master your abilities, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of bumps and rashes along the way

🌿 Karl made sure to keep bottles of poison ivy treatment on hand at all times

🌿 Thankfully, you were no longer affected by poison ivy due to your new powers and often helped Heisenberg treat the rashes that you accidentally gave him he got

🌿 He likes to brag to the other lords about you

🌿 “Oh, yeah? Well (Y/n) has super epic plant powers that are way cooler than all of you nerds 😎🖕🖕”

🌿 Unfortunately inside the factory you feel really disconnected from nature (a big part of your new abilities)

🌿 You started putting pot plants around you room and just the factory in general tbh

🌿 Then you found out that Karl is literally cursed

🌿 Every plant of yours he touches literally dies sometime in the near future

🌿 Don’t even get me STARTED on that one time you went away for the weekend and you asked him to water your plants

🌿 How do you over-water a plant THAT badly

🌿 It was two days Karl

🌿 Even the ones he didn’t water died wtf

🌿 It was plant genocide on a massive scale

🌿 It’s safe to say you’ve encouraged him to stop touching your plants

🌿 You convinced him to make another room in the factory specifically so you could do some gardening

🌿 He really doesn’t get it (the whole ‘gardening’ thing) but tries to be tolerant for you

🌿 Heisenberg also doesn’t understand what you mean when you tell him “no I don’t want you to turn my vegetable patch into a bioweapon”

🌿 Like yeah okay (Y/n) he knows that’s secretly EXACTLY what you want

🌿 After some more consideration and careful thought he decided you might appreciate something else instead

🌿 He surprised you with little robots that he programmed to automatically water/take care of your plants since there’s so many of them around the factory

🌿 And you always look so tired having to run to every corner of the building to care for them 👉👈

🌿 After a while Karl started to notice random sprouts popping up in the floor (it’s literally made of metal where tf are they coming from)

🌿 Not long after that you two realised that they were literal poison ivy bushes

🌿 Vines of ivy started growing from the roof too

🌿 Karl didn’t mind the regular ivy vines but the poison ivy had to go

🌿 He was NOT spending another 2 weeks getting over a poison ivy rash, girl

🌿 You discovered that you can grow/recede plants at your own will

🌿 But even then sometimes plants will grow without you realising and it’s still entirely bc of you

🌿 You try your hardest to keep them in check tho and Karl appreciates that :)

🌿 He’d never admit it but he thinks the random vines hanging from the ceiling look badass and he wants more of them

🌿 “Oh sorry, I didn’t realise there were still vines growing in your workshop. I’ll just get rid of those for y-”

🌿 “NO NO NO LEAVE THEM i mean uhhh nah it’s cool they can stay or whatever i guess 🙄”

🌿 One time when you two had a fight you accidentally grew a giant plant that ripped through half the factory and took Karl with it

🌿 “AAAAAAAAAaAAAᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᴬᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃ”

🌿 As apologetic as you were it was still hilarious

🌿 Although your control of plants is primarily ivy you’ve been working on controlling other plants too

🌿 Karl tries to help you but there isn’t a lot he can do lmao, it’s more support than anything

🌿 But to help with your combat abilities he built special robots/targets that you can rip apart safely until you get used to fighting with your powers

🌿 You discovered that your vines are actually tougher than regular ivy vines so they make good restraints 👁️👁️

🌿 Your powers seem to be more defence than offence, but as always Karl’s trying his best to help you with that

🌿 Because of your fondness of plants he tried to pick some for you once

🌿 He thought he was picking nice flowers but ended up handing you a bouquet of dandelion weeds; both of the the flower variety and just straight up dandelion fluff

🌿 There were a lot of daisies in there too (still technically weeds)

🌿 In Karl’s defence he’d never had to pick flowers before

🌿 You thought it was cute tho and put them in a vase :]

🌿 But also you just didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were weeds, he seemed so proud of himself

🌿 “Hey babe uh, I picked you some flowers or whatever it isn’t a big deal I already know u love them 😎😎 ᵈ⁻ᵈᵒ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵉᵐ? ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᵒ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉᵐ, ʳⁱᵍʰᵗ? 🥺👉👈”

🌿 You thought it was funny that you were able to keep his weed-bouquet alive despite him being cursed with all your other plants

#karl heisenberg x reader #re8 #resident evil village #re8 karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg #re8 heisenberg x reader #gn!reader #karl heisenberg x gn!reader #resident evil 8 #resident evil s/o #my writing

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angel-anoetic · 4 years ago

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Hey! 🌿 here, I've been having Jack Manifold brain rot recently. He's so pretty and genuine and has such a nice singing voice. And then I was struck with this idea of Jack and Reader being reincarnated souls of dryads who waltz to save the world when the egg takes over and reset the timeline minus the corruption that happened and only Foolish remembers (because he's a god) even if you don't write it, thank you for writing all of my requests, it means a lot to me! ❤️

hey hey 🌿! i too have had jack manifold brain rot or it might be the gender envy but anyways- his voice is so pretty. Anon, you always give me the best writing prompts to and i always love writing your requests! i hope you enjoy !!

Don't forget to like to save, and reblog to share

c!JackManifold x gn!Reader - Saving Souls

genre: /rom, soulmates almost (?), fantasy, Dreamsmp au

warnings: none! (let me know if i missed anything)

masterlist <3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time you had noticed any kind of power, you were maybe 5 years old. It wasn't too obvious at first, things that could be passed off as mere coincidence Leaves seemingly following you, flowers turning to face you.

But you couldn't ignore the big signs, the bigger things. Vines growing around you, the flowers you picked immediately sprouting a few more in their place.

It scared you, but over time you got used to it. It gave you something to do on the hot summer days and cold winter nights. Spring gave you the most power and let them flourish, literally and metaphorically.

It had been some years ago when you met a young man who went by the name Jack Manifold. It was a nice day and you decided to cross the river that surrounded your home when you came upon a field of flowers after walking for a few minutes.

There were so many that you could feel their energy fill your veins. But there was something else. Someone. An energy that matched your own, too powerful to be a plant or a part of the Earth. Then he appeared, seemingly from nowhere. A tree a few yards away suddenly a boy.

From there had blossomed, no pun intended a friendship and relationship that held so much power. You two had grown and helped each other through work through the cons of your powers. Learned how to control them before they controlled you.

So one day when you received a message from an old friend regarding a certain evil that had taken over his friends and one of his homes, you couldn't ignore his call.

You and Jack showed up a few days later, and after a brief meeting with Foolish, you considered your options as you and Jack walked to the Egg's resting place.

"Maybe we could find if its core, and if we're lucky it'll be plant-based. Or Foolish did say that there are lots of vines and other plants surrounding it. We can just bury it so deep it won't be a problem ever again."

"No, Foolish wants it gone, and I think we should exhaust all of our options, whether we destroy the Egg or not."

As you two made your way to the Egg, people began to stop and consider the new visitors. Some looked tired, others just seemed angry or upset.

Then you two found it. The entrance to its resting place. Its red color illuminating what otherwise would have been a darkroom underneath the SMP. Vines and some other plants that you weren't sure you had ever seen.

"Oh my god." You looked at Jack, his eyes glowing against the room's tainted glow.

"What is it?"

"This is worse than what I would have expected, Y/N. These plants...I've only seen them once before in a very bad place. But it could work to our advantage."

You both made your way down the stairs, the sight of the Egg pushing beyond what you could have ever imagined. It stood tall, and the pure energy and heat that it gave off were almost enough to make anyone tired.

You began to feel a sense of panic rising in you, your hands slightly shaking at the sight of the object.

You felt the energy rushing out, towards the palm of your hands as a small flutter of energy found its way to the ground. As soon as the small seeds touched the ground, they grew into enormous green and white flowers.

A terrible scream suddenly emitted from the room, one that neither of you could hardly understand.

"Y/N, do that again."

"W-What?"

"The flowers, help them grow, just like those."

You focused on the type of flower, seeing it in your mind, then three more sprouted out of the original one.

Another scream filled the room.

"Alright, I have a plan. I'm not sure it will work but I do know it's worth a chance."

You couldn't look away from the Egg. It was like a monster staring you down, one that you were seconds away from fighting.

Jack turned to you, grabbing your face gently, rubbing his thumb against your cheek.

"Hey," he whispered, "It's alright. We are gonna take care of this in no time and help so many people. And we're gonna come out of it together. Okay?"

You nodded, grabbing his hands with your own, leaning into his energy.

"Alright, the plan is simple. I am going to try and manipulate these plants and grow the ones you just did. The Egg, it doesn't like the sight or the addition of plants that aren't connected to it. So while I'm carrying that out you need to start making something to protect us. I don't care what it is, how big it is, as long as it's strong enough to get us through a really bad thing. Can you do that for me?"

"I can do that."

You both smiled until Jack spoke. "Then let's do this."

Jack picked one of the flowers and one of the crimson plants that encased the room. He placed them gently together in front of the Egg and began to focus on transforming them into whatever he could.

You on the other hand began to pull together whatever plant matter you could find. Some pieces of wood and plants you had never even seen in your life still seemed to bend your will with just a little resistance. A small burrow was slowly being formed around you. When you looked up you could already see Jack had formed a large hybrid of the red and white plant which was now surrounding the Egg in a spiral.

The screams returned, nearly knocking Jack off his feet. He was a mess, the focus combined with the pure power that he needed to do what he needed was taking its toll slowly but surely.

Eventually, the Egg's screams, while still loud, became weaker, and a sudden rumbling came from the ground around you both.

"Jack! Jack get in here!" You screamed from your makeshift plant and wood bunker.

"Just a minute!" He continued his work, the vines and leaves already infiltrating the Egg's core.

You looked up, the ceiling above you caving in slowly. Right above Jack.

All he felt was the large vine wrap around his waist, then a harsh pull as he fell next to you within the bunker, moments away from the boulder that nearly crushed him.

"Keep going! It's not over yet."

You turned your attention away from the bunker and began to help Jack. The screams had to be the worst part. Your ears were basically going numb. You weren't even sure if Jack could hear your encouragements or if you were even talking.

All you know is that both of you were trying, the shaking of the ground was strong, and a sudden bright light was exploding from the Egg.

Then silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were the first to wake up. The ringing was still in your ears, but less powerful and daunting. Jack was situated against you, sleeping peacefully.

You leaned back against your arms and tried to shake him awake. Eventually, he stirred up, and you were able to clear away your shared 'bunker'.

After you made your way back up you saw the change immediately. The skies seemed happier. People were less scared to move about town.

You and Jack walked around, people greeting you as you did. You spotted Foolish atop a hill.

When you finally met him up there he smiled.

"Y/N, thank you so much. It happened. Whatever you two did...it worked." The tears filled his eyes as he engulfed both you and Jack in a hug.

"I don't know what you did, but no one here even seems to know what happened. It's like they went to bed and woke up new people. A fresh start."

You laughed. "That's great Foolish. I'm happy we could help. It was all Jack in the end."

You both turned to each other, the light in both of your eyes new.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#c!Jack Manifold x reader #c!Jack Manifold x y/n #jack manifold x reader #dsmp imagine #dsmp x reader #mcyt fanfiction #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #mcyt x y/n #🌿#🌿 anon

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steve0discusses · 4 years ago

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Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

youtube

#Yugioh #YGO #yu gi oh #photo recap #episode recap #S5 #Ep19 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Joey's fear of birds I've never heard about until this episode #Tea Gardner #Grandpa Muto #Tristan Taylor #Baby Dragon #This weird ass tranformer that Yugi is wearing.

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mysticalmusicwhispers · 4 years ago

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lovers’ dreams

Summary: “A day fit for a spring dream.” And then he kisses Roshan, and they become lost in each other.

Characters: India (Aditya), China, Iran/Persia (Roshan, genderfluid). Human names used. Indran, Churan, and Indchu for ships!

Notes: 100% distilled surrealism! This was supposed to be a writing exercise that ran away from me rip. There are many footnotes that explain Many things. Enjoy!

also on AO3! (there are bonus thoughts and explanations there for anyone who’s interested or slightly confused 😅. everything necessary for you to understand the story is here too but I ramble about my thoughts going into the piece on AO3 lol)

———

The willow’s drooping branches hide Yao’s face like a beaded curtain, a bride’s sheer red veil. The spring breeze snakes through the tree, and the sound of wedding suona—sorna rings through the silence. A flutter of phoenix wings brushes past their ear, a whisper on the wind. Roshan walks languidly until they are in front of Yao; it takes a minute—it takes a month. Yao’s face is sharp and his eyes glint, like the jade in his belt. But the kiss is soft when they take his lips in theirs, and it tastes of the rose’s tender petals. The clean sweetness of flowers is warm against Roshan’s face and the fragrance of tea drifts into their nostrils.

Yao pulls away, and Roshan opens their eyes to polished jade thorns sprouting up from the earth around them—crisp green, sharp-tipped; elegant, dangerous. So these are the fruits of our love. It is fitting. They lean to kiss Yao again, and this time, a laugh peals through the air when they part. It is not Roshan’s, and it isn’t Yao’s. But it is clear as spring water and tinkles like a bell, a joyous sound, and it makes Yao smile—a smile that is gentle, calculating; sweet, dangerous. A copper coin hides in the corner of his lips. “A day fit for a spring dream.” And then he kisses Roshan, and they become lost in each other.

When Roshan opens their eyes again, Yao is gone. They are standing in nothingness, a shell of a dream. A liminal plane. A wedding song echoes in the empty space, loud and cheerful, although there are no musicians to be seen playing the dohol, the sorna. Then sprung from the air, a mirror of fate, Aayeneh-ye Bakh, with its customary candelabras flanking it, and with their dots of golden light—miniature suns, sparkling stars. Its face shimmers, clear and gleaming: a pond on a full moon night—and in it, Yao stands, his reflection bright, splendid robes shimmering like gold scales and fine silk. Roshan reaches out a hand, and pulls him into a kiss.

“Welcome back, my dear.”

———

It is sunset, and a chill brushes past Yao’s shoulders and winds through his hair. The sky burns red, and fork tongued flames lick at the sun. A world bathed in fire, on the cusp of night. A lotus pond sits before him, and a figure is at its edge—Aditya, adorned in gold, the perfect figure of a prince. He, a dream of glittering palaces and beady emeralds, bright against the glow of the setting sun, sharp against the bloody sky. He holds a lotus blossom out, and Yao takes it. It is pure, tender in his calloused hands. A drop of blood drips from a petal. He lets it float into the water, and Aditya watches with him as the peach pink petals drop before their eyes—the lotus head balloons, then falls with the weight of seeds; it withers, a shell of its fruit. Divine beauty is short lived—seasons turn with the winds of change.

Aditya loops an arm around him, bare skin on bare skin, the warmth of the sun hanging around them like a curtain. Their lips meet. The kiss is long, and lingers even after Yao pulls away; it is slightly bitter, but how could it not be? Aditya’s eyes are like black tea, and Yao tastes acrid lily bulbs. The sky has faded into burnt orange, the aftermath of a blaze. Autumn leaves fall from ginkgo trees, golden yellow, bright with memories of the past. Aditya closes his eyes, and Yao watches him sink into a dream.

The scene shifts before his eyes. The lotus pond morphs into a giant chessboard, and they are on opposite sides. Aditya plays white. Cream colored pawns meet chocolate brown knights, and they watch as kings rise and fall, as steady as the spinning of the world. Chariots race and elephants trumpet; the cavalry fight with long swords and bows, and the peasants use polearms, raised fists. Yao meets Aditya’s eyes, warm but gleaming with an ambition that has never gone away. He nods to his neighbor to the west, to his rival, lover, partner, equal. Aditya smiles.

“So we meet again.”

———

It is afternoon, and the sun is warm on his face. Roshan sits on a bench in the courtyard, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a pomegranate in the other. Aditya nestles into their side, and they give him a feather light cheek kiss, gift him a wisp of air. They hold out the pomegranate, offers it, and Aditya takes a bite. Roshan takes the other half. They watch as the fruit regrows, seeds become jewels, glittering rubies in folds of red fabric. Roshan holds one up to the light with a critical eye. They spread tawny wings, amber eagle eyes alight with the pride of the past present future. A lion and the sun. The wings disappear—a trick of the light, reality fallen away. Then they hold up the cup of coffee.

“For you.” Aditya smiles, and offers a cup of black tea in return.

We have shared many things, and fought over equally many. How will it be in the future? He takes a sip, and falls through the cup.

A cemetery of swords surrounds them, a memory of things gone by. Afternoon sunlight filters through the trees, winds into Roshan’s hair. Idly peaceful. Flowers sprout through the earth; wither; climb up the rusted metal once again. A vine of roses twists around the hilt of a ceremonial spear, supple and full against cool, glinting steel. The leaves flicker, green yellow dead green again. Its blossom is still fresh red, like passion, like their love, pooling around them like a million memories, a still night in the river of time. Aditya looks at Roshan, different yet the same, a reflection of what they once were. Familiar, always, despite the changing tides and shifting dreams.

———

Notes

this part might actually be longer than the fic itself rip 😔 reminder that there’s extra rambling on ao3 lol

Suona/sorna: suona (唢呐) is a traditional wind instrument often played at wedding and funeral processions in northern China! (also used in Southeast China + Taiwan) It’s very loud and has a super brassy sound, but personally I think it sounds alright! The instrument came from Central Asia and is also used at weddings in Iran (where it’s spelled sorna/sarna), where it’s played with a dohol, a large cylindrical drum.

Phoenixes: wedding imagery in China, where a dragon symbolizes the groom and the phoenix the bride. There’s also an analogue to the phoenix in Persian mythology, a simurgh, which is a benevolent creature that is said to purify the land, roosts in the Tree of Knowledge, and apparently has seen the world be destroyed 3 times. Can symbolize healing, divinity, wisdom, and life. (the simurgh symbolism doesn't have much relevance to the fic but I thought it was incredibly interesting to read about lol)

Spring dream: very loosely referencing the Chinese phrase 一场春梦 (yi chang chun meng), which literally translates to an episode of a spring dream. It means the feeling that past predictions or events were actually totally wrong and fruitless, like you expected something (probably really good), but then woke up to reality not being up to your expectations? I can’t translate 😔

Mirror of Fate: In traditional Iranian weddings, a large, elaborate table with flowers and food and different spices is set up (sofreh aghd). A mirror of fate and 2 candelabras are also placed in the center of the table. The mirror represents how fate brought the bride and groom together, and the candelabras represent light and fire. The mirror is there so that when the groom looks into it, the first thing he should see is his betrothed's reflection.

Lotus blossoms: in China and India and many other parts of Asia, lotuses represent purity (they grow from dark mud but the flowers are pure white/pink), the divine, elegance, spiritual promise, the good part of humanity. so, a lotus with a drop of blood in Yao’s hands would be interesting.

Lily bulbs: this is purely self projection but lily bulbs (baihe) are used in Chinese medicine and I despise them. They're not super bitter but they taste starchy, bland, and off. Also lilies and lotuses are pretty similar and I thought that would be interesting :>

Chess: idk if I need a note for this but chess originated as an Indian game called Chaturanga and spread over to China and Iran, among many other places in Asia.

Tea and Coffee: nothing really special about this besides that Iranians Really Like tea. Decided to make India drink coffee instead for contrast; realistically he’d also be drinking tea lol

Eagle eyes: the Iranian/Persian symbol of the Faravahar, from Zoroastrianism has wings that are supposed to be eagle wings (I think? correct me if it’s just unspecified). You’ve probably seen it; it depicts a man with spread wings, half kneeling in a side view. Nowadays it’s also a symbol of Iranian culture, history, and national pride, besides being representative of Zoroastrianism.

Rose: national flower of Iran, and obv I don’t need to explain the other rose connotations. Also I’ve fully adopted the hc that Roshan and all their stuff smells like roses so that’s there too.

Lion and the sun: getting lazy with the explanations, but the short version is that it was a very important Iranian national symbol for many reasons, moreso tied to the state than culture (imo); it was also on the national flag up till the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Although I’m still debating how much Roshan is associated with the state, I also think sun and lion imagery fits them (glory, golden days, pride and courage). It’s super interesting, go search it up if you wanna read more!

This whole fic was somewhat inspired by this one, and the indchu bit was also somewhat inspired by this fanart.

If you made it down here, you have all my gratitude. Feedback is welcome and appreciated! Thanks for reading <3

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huaxxian · 4 years ago

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Stone Skipping || CH2 ; 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯

Half a year had passed since [name] and Senku had been revived at the very same day. Experiments were conducted, their home slightly improved, but the two had still made no other progress with the revival serum. Despite that, neither had given up, instead opting to continue trying.

The two teenagers had been gathering sticks in an area near their home, each having an axe of their own. “[nickname],” Senku looks down at their form, who sat in the very same branch he was standing on. Said person looked up at him, tilting their head. “You brought the basket, right?” They nodded in response, silently pointing at the basket below their branch. He nodded thankfully, adjusting the sticks gathered in his arms.

He could see them move to take it from his grasp, but he gave a pointed look, saying, “Don’t you dare take it. I already made you carry three other baskets back home.” A pout overtook their face, but nonetheless, they nodded and sat back down as he cut even more sticks from the upper branches.

rustle, rustle

step, step, step

[name] perked up at the sounds, turning their head to look past Senku’s form. Not even a moment later, an oh-so-ever-familiar form popped from the bushes as he pushed it aside, breathing heavily. The smile on their face widened as Taiju’s eyes widened at the sight of the duo. “S-Senku..! [nickname]!” His eyes teared up.

I found them! They’re alive!

From beside the shorter teenager, Senku smirked at him. “Kukuku, so you finally woke up, eh? You great big oaf, stop making your sibling worry for so long. You don’t want to see them with white hair so quickly, now do you?” He quickly moved down from the tree, offering his hand to [name] after, helping them down.

Immediately upon the teenager’s safe landing on the floor, Taiju started wailing, opening his arms to hurriedly give a hug their way. Not even concerned in the slightest, all [name] did was open their arms, beaming right back.

"You're alive, you're alive!! Senku, [nickname]! I c-can't believe it.."

Well, if [name] wasn't the slightest bit concerned, Senku most definitely was. Placing a foot on his face, the male hurriedly pushed the shortest out of Taiju's way, which ended up being behind him. "Don't hug either of us when you're buck naked, idiot! I'll fucking kill you!" [name] gave his back a pat, shaking their head. "Sen-chan, don't be too mean. You know it's completely just how Tai-chan is." They smiled, turning to the said person. "It's nice to see you after so long.. I would give you a hug, but.. I don't think Sen-chan would let me."

Taiju returned his sibling figure's smile. "It's okay! I get it.." He scratches his head sheepishly, laughing it off. "I think?" They giggled in response, motioning their head to follow them, which he did. Starting their trek back home, Senku spoke, "As of today, it's October 5th, in the year 5738 AD. How long you planning on sleeping in, huh?"

He pointed at [name], who was beside him, skipping as they went. "We've been awake and working for over a half a year now." Taiju blinked in surprise, the information slowly processing in his brain as seconds passed. "Huh?" The brawn of the group looked over to the other brain, confusion evident on his face. "How does Senku know just precisely what the date is..?"

[name] closed their eyes and smiled at him. "Sen-chan just counted, is all." Senku picked at his ear, scoffing. "As if there's another way of keeping track."

Another slow moment of processing.

"..So then, inside that darkness.. the whole time, you.." He glanced at [name] once more. "Did you too..?" His tone of voice had softened considerably, and so had his features. They shook their head. "It was just him, and I knew even then." They smiled and looked forward as Senku pushed aside the branches ahead of them.

"Even if I was able to wake up through sheer willpower alone.. If I were to wake up without means of survival in the midst of winter and with no food supply, it'd be game over. That's why, in order to survive, it was essential that I start in spring."

"That's also precisely why Sen-chan needs an accurate calendar," [name] added, "He wouldn't be able to know otherwise, and luck would be too much of a risk to depend on." Taiju placed a hand under his chin, opening his mouth to ask another question when Senku jerked his head to the front. "Hey, we're here. Don't just stand around gawking, get your ass over here and help out."

Brown eyes widened in astonishment. It wasn't no fancy house, but it was stable and enough. A simple rack made of sticks and vines leaned on the tree's huge trunk, holding several stone spears. "I haven't had enough manpower. [nickname] was of great help, but I didn't want to burn them out than what was necessary. That'd be stupid, I'd be working the only other person in this world death. It took up to an entire day of just drawing up life and survival plans on my own, while they hunted for food and materials. To progress forward into some kind of civilization from here.." He trailed off, glancing behind him to where the two stood, listening to his explanation.

"We've been waiting for you all this time," Taiju pointed to himself, confusion heavily lacing his face. "Yes, you, damnit Taiju. We waited for you because we were both ten billion percent sure that you were alive!" [name] walked forward, now beside the scientist. "You decided to tell Yuzu-chan about your feelings prior to the petrification, and we both knew Tai-chan well enough to know that you wouldn't give up after deciding so."

"Especially not after being cut off in the middle of a man's resolve," he huffed and smirked. "You weren't ball-less to the point of giving up and throwing in the towel after just a measly thousand years!"

Taiju looked down, clenching his fist. It was silent for a few seconds, but as always, with them, it doesn't last long. The fiery determination they had gotten accustomed to seeing had returned ten-fold, and they could only stare as he agreed.

"You're damned right!"

The scientist of the quartet looked over at his assistant. "Can ya get him some damn clothes already?" His nose scrunched in disgust as he pointed shakily at the muscular student, earning a confused and completely innocent look in return. [name] laughed at his obvious disgruntlement, nodding. "I'll go get clothes for Tai-chan!" They waved before carefully climbing their so-called ladder and hurrying inside.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

It didn't take long before Taiju had gotten his clothes, and before [name] was forced to rest by the one and only scientist of the group. The two had bickered back and forth repeatedly; Senku insisted that they take a break, since they apparently wouldn't be getting a lot even with Taiju around. Despite his confusion, Taiju agreed with this, making them reach a compromise.

[name] would rest just as the two wanted them to, but not up in the hut. Instead, they'd be napping on a covered area on the ground near the fire Senku was trying to make.

"When we need to use our heads.. I'll leave the thinking up to the two of you, Senku." Taiju glanced at his napping sibling. "And when we need to use our bodies.. you leave that to me." Senku glanced over as well. They looked comfortable enough, not at all irritated by the grass or the fire crackling nearby. Sleeping like a baby, they simultaneously thought, amused.

Senku turned towards Taiju once more. The time humanity took to climb from the stone age to our previous civilization.. was two million years. But, we're going to dash all the way back to the top all at once. "We'll take back the world and I'll identify the scientific cause on why we turned into stone, and how we were revived.. with the help of [name]."

Careful not to shout as he usually does, Taiju nodded and added, "And then.. I'll save Yuzuriha!"

"Three high school kids.. are going to build civilization from zero. We'll become the Adam and Eve of this world." Senku smirked widely, standing up and placing his hands on his waist. "Now, things are starting to get exciting!"

The two were calm and quite frankly, inspired by each other's goals, only to panic as [name] sleepily moved around, adjusting their place during their sleep. They covered each other's mouths and stared worriedly down at the shortest of them three, but fortunately, they didn't wake up. Taiju and Senku looked at each other and nodded, vowing not to cause anymore noise.

Senku pointed at their tree house and mouthed, "Bring them up." The other caught on to this instantly and carefully scooped them up in his arms, making sure that they were comfortable and left asleep. Then, without much difficulty, Taiju brought them upstairs, his friend following in tow. He placed them down on their make-shift bed, pulling the extra animal skin they had used as a blanket over them not long after, patting their head affectionately.

Taiju blinked and turned to Senku. "Wait, so was it just you guys this whole time?" The male in question raised his eyebrow. "Yeah, it's just been us." Taiju stared at him, expecting him to say something. "Why are you staring at me like that for??" He opened his mouth, pointing as he whispered, "You didn't tell them about your fee—"

Senku quickly put a zip on his mouth, grumbling.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

The next morning, [name] had woken up to Senku and Taiju still sleeping. It must be pretty early still.. They pushed the blanket away from their form, standing up silently. The teen carefully walked down the ladder, keeping an eye out on the two until they were out of their vision. A yawn escaped their mouth as they stretched their arms and shoulders, shaking their head as they did. What to do..?

[eye color] eyes looked around. They could go hunting for food like mushrooms and animals, but it would be more efficient for Taiju to do it, because he was literal brawn. Though, maybe I should come with Tai-chan later on if he does end up gathering food.. He might take poisonous mushrooms along. [name] could make more jars or baskets, but Senku would most definitely scold them for working too hard. Again.

Honestly, they can't see what he's talking about.

So instead, they opted to walk towards the high school primate's statue. If they could remember correctly, which they could, Tsukasa Shishio's statue was not too far from Yuzuriha and the camphor tree.

True to their memory, it really wasn't far. No animals in sight, nor any other statues in his area. Nature's green, green, and more green is all that could be seen. Pretty, [name] smiled to themselves, gathering the bunch of dahlias and other flowers into their arms. Without much struggle at all, they weaved the bunch into a gorgeous flower crown, one that would surely fit snugly on Tsukasa's head.

They brought it on the male's head, fixing the vines and the petals softly, making sure that his vision wasn't obscured whatsoever. Next, they took a few steps back, admiring their work. As I thought, it does fit Tsuka-chan. [name] nodded in approval and sat down on a nearby root, humming a song they especially liked from back then.

I wonder how everything became like this.. A time-lapse would be interesting to see.

They looked down on the dirt. It was devoid of rocks, unlike the last few areas they've been in. Upon realizing, the teen immediately takes a stick and begins drawing on the ground. Three pairs of nubs.. three heads too. Leek for hair, spiky hair, wavy hair.. Rocket ship. Proud, they grinned and tilted their head, staring down at their work.

It wasn't the best of art, of course. It was merely three little chubby figures that represented the trio that they so deeply treasured. Their proud green faded, and soon, a frown had taken its place. Something's missing.. Quickly, [name] erased the rocket ship outline with their foot to make space. Then, without a shadow of a doubt, they added one more figure.

Long hair and buffy arms.. It's Tsuka-chan!

The grin from before returned anew. The rocket ship outline was quickly drawn again, and for this time, they were satisfied.

"I wonder if Tai-chan is already awake.. or Sen-chan.." They yawned and stood up, brushing away the not-so imaginary dirt around of their skirt. [eye color] eyes glanced behind to check on the statue one last time before smiling. "I'll see you soon, Tsuka-chan.."

With that, they turned back, walking back home.

◇─◇──◇─────◇──◇─◇

When they had arrived, the two were already awake and kicking, arranging their respective areas. Taiju had noticed them first, and with a happy shout, had alerted Senku as well. "You're back," the scientist nodded towards them in greeting. In contrast to his reaction, Taiju immediately got down from their little hut and bounded towards his sibling, hugging them tightly.

"Keep hugging them like that and they'll run out of air, you big idiot." Senku retorted as he followed suit, albeit less enthusiastically and more calmly. [name] only smiled in return, patting the taller on the back. "Big oaf, you up for gathering food?" Enthusiastically, the male in mention nodded his head, quickly taking a basket from nearby. [eye color] eyes glanced at the scientist, as if waiting.

Feeling their expectant stare, Senku snickered and picked at his ear with his pinky. "Of course, you're joining him too [nickname]. Keep him out of trouble, and make sure the idiot doesn't get himself attacked or poisoned." He pressed a hand against his mouth, as if trying to block the snickers.

Not that he was actually trying, though. It was actually the opposite.

Satisfied and amused, [name] closed their eyes and smiled, taking a basket as well. Taiju immediately dashes off, leaving a trail of dust behind him, and causing it to spread everywhere. [name] coughed and looked away from all the sand and dust before waving at the scientist. "We'll make sure not to take too long, Sen-chan.."

Senku gave another nod before turning away. The [hair color]-haired teen hurried, and with some effort, was able to catch Taiju before he could get too far from them.

"[nickname], what should we gather first?" [eye color] eyes looked around cautiously, taking in the environment. From what they could tell, there were some pigs nearby. The rustling as well as their familiar grunts is what gave it away. They quickly pressed a finger to their mouth, to which Taiju immediately silenced himself, waiting for their next order.

"There are pigs nearby. We don't know where the mushrooms are at right now, and since the pigs seem to be a closer choice, let's go with that.." [name] spoke as softly as they could, but loud enough for Taiju to still understand their message. He nodded in determination and moved to single-handedly take any pig on, but stopped as they placed a pale hand on their arm, halting him in his position. He looked towards his sibling in confusion, tilting his head.

[name] smiled at him and shook their head, motioning him to stay still, so he did. Taiju watched curiously as the teen quietly grabbed onto a branch and pulled their upper body up, causing them to now stand. Surprisingly enough, despite all the movement, the rustle of leaves seemed natural, as if it was just a rustle of the wind and not a teenager climbing a tree. He could only watch as [name] looked down at him from their position above, saying, "Please stay here, Tai-chan.. I'll bring them to you, so brace yourself to catch one or two, okay?"

Taiju beamed up at them. "Okay." He responded, lowering his stance and opening his arms wide. His sibling smiled at his determination and switched from tree to tree, getting closer to the area of the pigs, as evidenced by the growing sound of grunts. Few adults.. few young ones, [name] mused to themselves. Some squeals were pitched, but majority weren't.

I can't overwhelm Tai-chan with too many pigs. I can't trap them when they're this close either. The very best I can do is to get one or two younger pigs.. But how do I? They glanced around. They moved to another tree, one that was to the left of the pigs. Tai-chan is to the right. The pigs can't move to the north, there's no entrance or exit there. It's blocked. [name] quickly stood still and observed keenly from above.

There were four adults, but only two piglets to be seen. Sen-chan would be satisfied with one, or at the very most, two of them.

And so, they formulated a plan.

Without further a do, they dropped from the tree, not bothering to cover the noise. The pigs became alert, and soon enough, their eyes had caught on to the teen's form. They grew increasingly loud in sound and scattered, moving towards their left, the other remaining direction for escape. Quickly reacting, [name] ran towards the two mini-groups (stomping and making loud noise with their feet all the while), forcing the piglets to separate from their adults. This time, they moved towards Taiju's direction, just as they had planned.

[name] immediately began creating even more noise, as well as increasing their speed. In panic, the pigs hurried even closer towards Taiju's direction.

Any moment now. [eye color] eyes made contact with familiar brown ones, and they nodded. Taiju shouted as he tackled the two piglets into his grasp, making the shorter of the two smile and stop abruptly. With heavy breathing, they helped him place one piglet in each of their baskets.

"That was a good idea, [nickname]!" Taiju laughed and gave them a particularly hard pat on the back in congratulations, causing them to lose all the air they had regained and double over, coughing all the while.

"Ack— I'm sorry [nickname]!!"

"Wow, you guys got so much," Senku stared down at the two's baskets, which now sat on the floor. "You got some crazy cheats going with your endurance there, Taiju.." He trailed off as he glanced to his assistant. "You didn't just dash wherever did you? [nickname] looks like they went through a hurricane." The scientist laughed as he pointed at them.

He wasn't wrong there. The poor [hair color]-haired teen had their hair all over their face, with tangles way more than they'd like. Leaves, petals, and even sand had gotten into their hair as well; Senku could only wonder what the hell Taiju had put them through to come back this haggard. [name] only smiled patiently as Taiju turned red in embarrassment, causing him to laugh even more.

"He did exactly that, actually.." Their words only made Taiju shout apologies, to which they shook their head at in amusement. "I couldn't stop him at all, sorry Sen-chan.." They chuckled and jokingly bowed their head in apology. Senku snickered again and walked towards them, patting away all the sand away from their hair. He removed the leaves and petals along the way, tugging gently at the strands that had gotten tangled.

"Don't you worry about it at all. I can't blame you when he's like this." He ignored Taiju's pouting at the side and only continued fixing his [hair color]-haired friend's head. It didn't take much arranging to actually clean [name] up, and soon enough, all was well. They smiled at him gratefully and he returned it slightly before backing away and moving towards the baskets.

Taiju watched in curiosity as he sat on the ground, expecting him to do something completely different, only to see him blatantly separating what they had found. [name], on the other hand, watched in amusement at their brother's reaction as Senku began listing them all off. "Amanita virosa, poisonous! Hypsizygus tessellatus, brown clamshell, edible! Amanita muscaria, Fly agaric, poisonous! Can't you just tell that thing's no good?! It looks like it came from Mario!"

With every mentioned name, Taiju's confused and aghast expression worsened, making them chuckle. "Calm down, Sen-chan.. That was a pretty good haul for the first time. I'm sure Tai-chan will take that into mind next time?" The two looked over to him. One stare was filled with doubt, and the other was one of utter patience and belief. Taiju doesn't respond, only choosing to blink at them in confusion. Senku sighed, "He probably won't, you know. Oh well, I'll bid you good luck when the time comes."

The scientist takes a few of the edible mushrooms and placed them on the sticks over the fire. The trio surrounded the fire they had made in silence, waiting for Senku's word. He first handed a decent-sized one over to Taiju, then proceeded to give an even bigger mushroom to the other teen. [name] blinked slowly as Senku gave them a stern glance. "Get some more fat in your bones, you look like you could get blown away by the wind any moment now."

From beside the [hair color]-haired teen, Taiju also added, "You always ate too less during lunch time too! Get some more food!" He immediately begins handing more mushrooms over to them, with Senku following right away. "I don't think I can stomach t-this much, you two.." [name] gently pushed the food away and just stuck with the one the scientist had given them. "But, I guess I can try eating this one at least..?" they smiled.

It wasn't the best compromise, but it satisfied the two males enough to leave them alone for now. Taiju took the first bite, making [name] and Senku stare expectantly. "D-Delicious!" He shouted in glee, "What'd you season these with?!" Senku grinned and begin taking normal-sized bites into his food as well.

"Just regular old salt that [nickname] and I extracted from the sea water. With just salt added, humans can eat just about anything. Salt is also indispensable when preserving food, and probably was the primitive man's greatest discovery." He explained. Taiju, upon finishing his mushroom, thanked the male whole-heartedly. "For all the things things I'd never be able to figure out! Both of you. I'll repay you in kind with determination and strength!"

He then finished his food and stood up, puffing his chest out in determination. Without even a warning, he took a basket and scurried off, shouting, "All right!! Time to go gather on the back side!"

Senku had opened his mouth to tell him that it was okay, but he had already been too far from their sight. He shook his head and turned to his side, where they sat with an amused smile and a still completely unfinished mushroom. "I don't get how you can keep up with him. He has too much stamina, he has got to be cheating with something." He grumbled, and gathered the sticks his friend had left into his hands. "Should you really be asking me that, Sen-chan? You have known them longer than I have, if anything, I'm surprised you've survived this long.." [name] chuckled and continued eating.

"Speaking of which, the back side is near towards the cave where you came from, right, Sen-chan?" The scientist hummed in confirmation. "Yeah, why?" He glanced over his shoulder, seeing them stand up and brush away any dirt that could have gotten on their skirt. "Maybe we should follow Tai-chan, he might assume there's someone else out there aside from us if he sees the pot.." Not expecting it, Senku let out an amused scoff. "I wouldn't be surprised if he did, he is a big oaf after all. Sure, let's go. His mind can go to absurd places and it'd be easier to explain when we're there."

[ Author's Note ] // So far, these are all the chapters I've pulled from quotev. As of this very moment, I'm working on two separate chapters: a 100-hearts special, and the next regular chapter. For those of you who found this in Tumblr, I made a poll before on what the readers would like for the special. As it turns out, 'Crossover Traveling' won. No one really expressed what they wanted aside from my friends, who I asked personally. I ended up choosing Kimetsu no Yaiba as your destination. That's all for this note, thank you so much for reading, and for your time!

#dr stone #dr stone x reader #anime #x reader #senku ishigami #gen asagiri #shishio tsukasa #tsukasa shishio #fanfiction #chrome dr stone #dr stone ukyo #dr stone ryusui #dr stone kinro #dr stone ginro #dr stone ruri #kohaku dr stone

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lovelivingmydreams · 4 years ago

Text

Paper Flowers: Everyone falls

But it’s getting up that matters.

People try their best. And sometimes that isn’t enough. But that doesn’t mean one should give up. This week Thomas had a bad night and tensions rose high. Join me in the morning after.

And with the fanders a little pick me up was just what the doctor ordered.

As usual Virgil woke up to Princey singing at the top of his lungs.

This morning's opening number was 'how far I'll go,' from Moana.

Virgil sighed. Today was going to be a long day. He'd expected as much. After yesterday...

Thomas had gone out with Joan to a party. There'd been a really cute guy. It had been fun and he was charming, a fellow actor even. Things were going so well... until, somehow, they had started talking about social media... YouTube and vine among them. This guy did not like the creator community. And he was very vocal about it. Something about attention seeking talentless idiots giving theater a bad name.

Luckily they made a clean getaway. Roman had played it off last night until he knocked at Virgil's backdoor.

Virgil hadn't needed an explanation. He'd gathered his first aid kit and came into the meadow to tend to Roman's injuries. Roman hadn't wanted to talk last night, so Virgil hadn't pushed him. Hadn't even made him promise to go to Patton if he wasn't feeling better in the morning. Roman usually didn't mind letting Patton look after him, but something told Virgil that he'd come to him for a reason.

He looked at himself in the mirror. "Let's get this over with."

He made his way downstairs for breakfast. He was the first to arrive. Aside from Patton that is.

"Virgil! You're up!" Clearly seeing Virgil was not what Patton expected first thing in the morning.

"Didn't have any other choice with Princey belting Moana in the next room," he grumbled.

Patton visibly relaxed at that. "Roman's singing... good. That's good."

Virgil was pretty sure he was the only one who ever heard Roman sing in his room. He didn't know if it was his heightened senses or something else, but no one ever seemed to complain about it. He'd never confronted Princey with it. First because he was sure Roman would sing even louder the next morning out of spite, and now because he kind of liked hearing a friendly voice first thing in the morning.

Virgil huffed and mumbled something about a bad night as he made himself a cup of chamomile, he needed to calm himself down. He did not like being here this early. Patton was too chipper in general and there was no one to distract him now.

"How did you sleep anxiety?" There it was.

The question, which normally came so easily when directed at anyone else was loaded with tension.

Virgil decided to stick with a shrug. Hoping that would be enough to let Patton feel like he'd met his quota of showing interest in him today. The answer was complicated. He'd been exhausted by the time he was done panicking last night. Especially since he'd tried not to show Princey too much of his worries while patching him up. He was having a rough enough time.

So once he did fall asleep he slept like the dead so to speak. It just took ages to get there.

Once his cup was in his hand he stalked to his seat he got some cereal and started eating. He could feel Patton struggle with something.

"I can practically hear you thinking. If you have something to say, just say it," he huffed, not looking up.

He heard a deep intake of breath.

"You were a bit too hard on Thomas last night."

Of course. Well at least he wasn't tiptoeing around him anymore. Before Patton dragged him to dinner that first time he would be so extremely careful when telling him to soften up. Like he was going to attack him if he said the wrong thing.

"We've established that I do what I do and don't care if you like it or not. Thomas needed to consider these things. You might've wanted him to forget that conversation ever happened but that isn't how real life works," he stated. Thomas had to be aware people thought those things to not get as hurt by meeting someone like that again. Pretending that if was a fluke and didn't matter was not right.

"Good morning Patton... Anxiety. Unusual to see you at the breakfast table,” Logan greeted calmly as he, made his way to the tea kettle. Virgil jumped at the chance to change the topic.

"Am I seriously the only one who heard Princey perform for his teddy bears this morning or what?" Virgil groaned. Logan cocked his head curiously. "Interesting... do you often hear things we do in private?" What? Where did that come from?

"I'm not eavesdropping! I literally woke up from the noise!" he seethed. He knew they didn't like him but did they have to assume everything he said or did had malicious intent?

Logan simply finished making his tea and toast before sitting down.

"Apologies that was perhaps not properly phrased. I just meant to ask if this was a first time or if your hearing simply automatically bypasses the barriers between the rooms all the time."

Oh, Virgil relaxed at that. Log

Oh. Virgil relaxed a little embarrassed he made such a big deal over it. Great job anxiety. Just another reason they would never truly accept you as s friend. Not that he was hoping for that. He was fine. He shrugged. "Princey sings every morning. Sometimes I hear typing from your room." Understatement. It sounded like the keys were about to be chattered under Logan's speed and force whenever he heard it.

"And..." Suddenly he changed his mind, this was all probably really private. He was anxiety. He figured he picked up Princey's singing in the morning no matter what mood he was in because part of him was listening for any noises whether in the real world or Thomas' mind. But the rest… that might be them under stress and he shouldn't expose any of them like that without permission. But asking Pat's permission now would prove he cared and it would out the fact that Patton was hiding stuff. "Just stuff," he shrugged dismissively getting back to his cereal.

Logan did not get the hint. "I see... would you..."

"Can we keep the third degree for some other time? I'm really not in the mood!" he groaned.

And just then the whole reason he was subjecting himself to this came in. With a smile plastered on his face and a grand gesture. "Good...!"

"No!”Vigrgil exclaimed turning to Roman, hiding his face from the others allowing him a chance to check him over. He seemed alright. But just to be safe. “Especially you! Just shut up! I don't want to hear another word this morning! I came down so I wouldn't have to deal with anyone trying to drag me down for family breakfast or whatever. So let's just eat in freaking silence alright!?" He shouted. He wasn't really that upset. But Princey might still not be up for Patton fussing over him. So Virgil hoped that for once Patton being scared of upsetting him came through in a good way.

“If you insist on making noise, hum or something. Just so long as you shut up for once!” And with that Virgil sat back down and started eating.

He could hear Patton ready himself for a reprimand but it didn't come. He assumed either Logan or Roman had stopped him. Roman sat down and hummed ‘Poor unfortunate souls'. A silent acknowledgment of what Virgil had done.

Breakfast was silent, and Virgil made sure to eat slow enough for Roman to be done before him so he could make a clean getaway. Logan finished first and left without a word.

Roman was next and went straight to the field. Virgil was a little happy to feel his key vibrate in an almost melodious rhythm. Roman's way of inviting him to hang out if and when he felt like it.

He finished his tea and got up. Planning to go straight to the meadow and check prince over. But Patton had other plans.

“Anxiety we need to talk.” Quite possibly one of the worst thing to say to literal anxiety, but okay.

“I feel like I made it clear that we were done. I don’t tell you how to do your thing. So you should do me the same favor,” he huffed before starting to walk away.

“Why didn't you answer Logan's question earlier?” The moral side blurted out.

Virgil, paused, he hadn't expected that. He didn't let that ruin his devil may care act though. “Didn't feel like it,” he shrugged.

“If that was all, I have to go and contemplate the futility of our existence,” he drawled with a salute.

He hadn't even fully turned around yet before Patton spoke again. Rushed as if trying to get it out before he could think about it. “Did you hear?”

Virgil froze. He knew what Patton probably wanted to remain secret above all else. What he might've worried Virgil overheard with his heightened senses.

He'd almost checked in on him last night, but then realized Patton wouldn't want assurance from him of all sides . What could he even say?

Logan was out too, and Roman was in no shape to take on another side’s troubles.

“Depends…” he turned back to face Patton his face still carefully controlled though he allowed himself to be sincere. “Do you like…” Ugh. He was going to kill Roman for hammering on about giving the others a chance. “Want to talk about it, or something?”

Patton looked surprised. He was silent for a moment, like he was actually considering it.

But Virgil could see how uncomfortable Patton was. Of course. Of course he didn't want to talk about it. Not to Anxiety at least. He hated how much that hurt. What did he expect?

“Then I guess I have no clue what you mean,” Virgil continued casually as he disappeared up the stairs. Not even waiting to get through his room before opening a door with his key. It was risky he knew, but he needed to be somewhere no one could bother him.

“Virgil, you came.” No one except Princey. But he was a special case. Virgil smirked at Roman as he walked over to sit beside him. The relief in Roman's voice and face was unmistakable.

“Of course I did idiot. You didn’t think I was actually mad at you right? We've had enough fights for you to know the difference I’d say,” he teased as he leaned back a little to study the clouds.

“Yeah, I just… I would have understood if you really needed a break. I know eating with us can be stressful, and I left you by yourself…” Virgil sighed, knowing what princey was getting at.

“How are you?” he asked instead glancing at the royal by his side. Trying to spot any sign of his injuries bothering him.

Roman sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. I took of the bandages this morning and they didn’t need replacing. But thank. Not having to pretend everything was perfectly fine this morning… I needed that. How did you know?” Roman wondered, allowing himself to be distracted for a moment.

“You only sing ‘I want’ songs and power ballads first thing in the morning when you are really down. I was honestly relieved it wasn’t ‘Go the distance’ or ‘Defying gravity’. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done then.” Not letting Princey force himself to put on a show during breakfast for the others was one thing. But making him stay in bed would be tricky to pull off without letting the others in on what he was doing.

“You… Hear me sing… And you know my mood by what songs I pick?”

Roman sounded moved for some reason.

“Yeah, I think it has to do with being on alert in the morning or something. And I can hear you the others in your rooms when you guys are… Anxious I guess. Logan was a nightmare during finals,” he jests.

“And I learned your mood playlist because it was useful to know when to avoid you and when I could push your buttons a little. I just use my knowledge for good now I guess.”

Roman gave him a playful push. “Aw, don’t lie. You were secretly worried about me when I sang my sad Roman Playlists,” he teased.

Virgil just rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Patton didn’t give you a hard time over this did he? Because I can talk to him later and get him to lay off, I can make an excuse…”

Virgil waved him off. “I’d never let you straight up lie to Patton for me Ro. You know that. And. He just… I let it slip that I heard you singing in your room. You know, to make them think all is fine and dandy. And Logan pointed out that we’re not supposed to hear what happens in each other’s rooms and wondered if I overheard stuff more often. I dodged the question and Patton wanted to know why. Wanted to know what I heard from his room.” It wasn’t exactly what was said but Patton was allowed choose who else knew how badly last night had upset him. Plus Roman would feel guilty if he knew. Virgil curled in on himself and stared ahead as he remembered how the conversation had ended.

“I… Tried to offer to listen if there was something he needed to vent about or something.” He averted his gaze, he didn’t want to even catch a glimpse of Roman’s pity. “Didn’t go well. Not that I expected him to open up to me of all sides. But… I don’t know…”

“It hurts none the less,” Roman said empathically. Virgil chanced a glance and was relieved his friend seemed understanding instead of sorry.

He relaxed a little. “Yeah…” he admitted.

He expected Roman to come to Patton’s defense. To explain why the moral side acted that way, and how good his intentions were.

But instead. “I’m proud of you for trying though. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

Virgil chuckled. “Thanks,” he allowed.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while.

“Wanna do each other’s nails while we brainstorm something fun for Thomas to do to give him a boost?” Virgil suggested casually after a while.

Roman shot up and ran to his room to get his stuff. Virgil couldn’t help but laugh. That was a yes.

Today was awful. Everything just insisted on going wrong!

You let yourself fall on your bed and pick up your phone hoping to find some kind of escape.

You see a new video from Thomas Sanders. Oh, those are usually funny. Maybe it’ll be a prank or a storytime…

You tap the video and see Thomas pointing at the camera.

“Hey you!” The camera goes up and down and shows the prince smiling at you.

“You gorgeous human being!” he declares grandly. Up and down it goes and the teacher character is looking at you with arms crossed and his head cocked a proud smile on his face.

“You are so smart,” he states with certainty.

This time the camera returns to the dad character his arms close to his chest hands balled in fists near his face, huge goofy grin on his face.

“You are unique!”

And then sleep! Looking like he’s taping in the middle of a party. “Take a nap gurl! You deserve it!”

And lastly the nemesis. He too has his arms folded in front of him but he looks at you with a strange sort of stern yet gentle look.

“You deserve love and respect. No matter what others say,” he tells you seriously.

And damn it. Why did that mean so much!? Maybe just because you kind of needed to hear that right now. Maybe you will have a quick nap.

But not before liking and sharing. Even sending it to a few friends to make them smile.

Next: The little things

#ts sides #sanders sides #Roman sanders #Virgil Sanders #Patton Sanders #Logan Sanders #paper flowers au

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jamiemackenziefraser · 4 years ago

Text

All That Was Fair

Chapter 7: Under His Protection

Work Summary: Jamie Fraser is hiking near some strange stones when he comes across an unconscious lass. Determined to help her, Jamie’s life is turned completely upside down as he takes her in. The only issue... she’s not human.

Chapter 7 Summary: Claire confronts various emotions; tensions rise.

Read on AO3

Read chp 7 below the cut

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A/n: Hold onto your hats, we’re taking a dive into Claire’s POV!

Chapter 7: Under His Protection

***

Claire woke slowly, her brain struggling against the mire of unconsciousness, swimming lazily to the surface. As she cracked her eyes open and took in the darkness, confusion and anxiety gripped her like vines coiling around her ankles.

Where was she?

The material under her cheek was strange, and she certainly wasn’t on the ground with the familiar feeling of brush and grass against her cheek. Whatever she was lying on was soft and had a lot of give.

She nearly started to panic, but then she became aware of the feeling of arms wrapped around her and her body securely anchored to that of the warm one behind her.

While her brain, still clouded with sleep, struggled to identify who the arms belonged to, it was her heart that fondly sighed, “Jamie.”

And then she felt it.

Safety— warring against the uncertainty.

Awareness came back to her with that, and she remembered all the events of the previous few days. Here she was, in this strange human’s house, in his arms even, forever cut off from her home.

The grief washed over her anew. Her whole world had been tilted upside down in mere minutes, the repercussions of touching the stones still revealing themselves. But she could feel in her bones that she was lost, never to return.

The thought terrified her.

Tears pricked at her eyes and her heart leapt suddenly to her throat. She tried to swallow the lump, to force it back down, but she felt the pressure inside her building— fit to burst into another meltdown over all she’d lost.

So she turned to the one thing she could— both figuratively and literally.

She rolled over so she was facing Jamie. In sleep, his arms instinctively shifted with her so he was still holding on to her, clutching her body to himself. As he settled back in, his breathing a reassuring rhythm, he pulled her even closer with a soft hum.

He looked so peaceful that she hesitated to wake him. But tears were dripping from her eyes now, and she felt so alone that she wanted him— awake with all his gentleness and quick reassurances— desperately. In a tremulous, barely there voice, she whispered, “Jamie?”

It took only a second for his eyes to open and fix on her. They were beautiful eyes, she thought— blue like the sky on a sunny day. Those eyes held such kindness, such soft compassion. They had been one of the first things that made Claire know he was a good man.

As soon as Jamie saw her face, which must have been wet with tears by now, he let out a pained sound. His big hands let go of her and untwined from her body so that he could lift them to cup her cheeks, the thumbs swiping at the falling tears.

“What’s wrong, mo nighean donn?” he asked, his face soft with concern.

The tenderness there made Claire’s breath hitch and the silent tears fall even faster.

“I— I’m sorry—” she suddenly felt very foolish to have woken him, without even a good reason, “I just… woke up scared. And then I remembered...”

There was a mere second for her to berate herself over her behavior before understanding crossed Jamie’s face and assuaged Claire’s embarrassment. Jamie had an amazing knack for making her feel that he understood and hurt with her without making her feel pitied. This kind of empathy was something Claire had never really experienced before she met him.

It was with that empathy that he met the tide of her grief.

“Come here,” he said softly.

He pulled her closer and his hand settled on the back of her head to press her face into the crook of his neck. She went willingly. The skin of his neck felt warm and silky under her teary eyes, and she let more drops fall onto the offered canvas of his body. She wasn’t actively crying like she had the previous day when the realization hit her, just quietly addressing her loss, releasing pent up tears that seemed to have been inside her all night. The nighttime was when fears always preyed, darkness and loneliness reminding one of their greatest insecurities, but she was lucky not to be alone.

Both of his arms encircled her, but one of his hands was free enough to rub comforting circles into her back. His hands were so big, she marveled at the feeling and strength of them— so reassuring. Grounding her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. Her lips barely brushed the skin of his collarbone as she spoke.

“Dinna be sorry,” his deep voice was a vibration in his chest that she could feel from how she laid on him, pressed so tightly against his body, “I’m here.”

That made her feel a thousand times better. As much turmoil as she’d been through in the past couple of days, he was her light— her anchor. She somehow trusted him with everything inside her.

She’d known him to be trustworthy from the first time she touched him. Before that, when he’d knelt a short ways away from her on the moor, she’d noticed the kindness in his eyes, the truth in his words, and the deference in his posture that indicated he meant her no harm. That all made her less wary. But the first time she’d truly known was when she’d touched his face and felt that warm rush of security and gentleness, more powerful than she’d ever felt before. There was a connection between them that was completely novel to Claire but nonetheless reassuring. From that second on, Jamie had been hers, and she his.

As she wept against him now, she couldn’t help but believe his earnest words. Everything would be okay. As long as he was there to hold her, to protect her, she could survive.

Comfort.

He continued to embrace her long after her tears had dried. With infinite patience, he simply offered his body to her, wrapping himself around her as if he could block out her pain. She was loathe to move away from him and the safety he provided, but the sun was up— light was filtering through the window indicating late morning— and she needed to face the day.

She lifted her face from his shoulder and locked eyes with him.

“Thank you,” she said softly. She hoped he knew all the unspoken things those words held— thank you for saving me, for caring for me, for holding together my broken pieces, for letting me drop into your life like this and never complaining once…

He must have known, because he gave her a smile that made her knees feel like jelly and said simply but with a weight of regard, “ye’re welcome.”

They got up slowly. Claire parted from Jamie reluctantly, but sat up nonetheless, allowing him to stretch and then set off. Watching him, all the high emotions from the night before seemed to dissipate, and she was left feeling more like herself again. Jamie seemed to have a routine that he followed every morning, and Claire followed him, interested to watch what exactly he was doing.

First, he padded sleepily to the little place with the “shower”, scratching the back of his head where some of his beautiful red curls were sticking up adorably. He’d left the “door” open, but Claire wasn’t entirely sure he knew she was there as he made the water appear (she still had no idea how it did that!) and put a small stick thing under it. Then, he raised the stick and started to rub it inside his mouth. She recoiled a little in disgust, wondering if this was something like “eating”, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to be something different entirely. It lasted only another few seconds before he leaned down and washed his face under the little waterfall. When he straightened up again, his eyes met hers in the strange reflective surface, and he turned suddenly toward her.

“Claire!” he exclaimed, “I didna realize ye were there. Ehm… I hafta take a shower. Would you mind givin’ me a bit of time?” His eyebrows were raised apologetically as he thrust a thumb in the direction of the “shower.”

With a nod and a smile she hoped looked reassuring, she said, “Of course!”

She didn’t want to impose on him, and he’d been spending nearly every second with her. He was obviously reluctant to leave her on her own, but she wanted him to know that she’d be fine.

He gave her a nod, still looking a bit guilty, and then shut the bathroom door, separating them. A second later, she heard the sound of rain and figured he was beginning the shower.

Left to her own devices, she headed down. She was still a little hesitant about descending the odd hill that led down to the other level— the blocky shapes on it seemed easy to slip on— but she held tightly to the little trees that lined either side.

When she’d finally made it down, the grey “cheetie” Adso was sitting in the middle of the place Jamie called “the living room” and looking up at her with big green eyes.

“Hello my friend!” she exclaimed happily as she sat down to run her fingers through his soft fur. He rumbled beneath her hands, making her giggle a little, and she spent a few moments completely absorbed with Jamie’s companion. He must have been loyal to Jamie— she thought— to choose to spend all his time inside with him instead of out on the moors.

As she stroked his soft fur, thoughts of her future crept into her mind, unbidden. Thinking more than a few days ahead was complete madness, so she limited herself to worrying about this day and its troubles. Jamie would honor his promise and take care of her, but if she was going to be here for any amount of time, she needed to really start learning about this world. She didn’t particularly care for the feeling of helplessness that was her ever-present companion; she wanted to become competent and hopefully one day reciprocate Jamie’s care. With a hardening resolve, she decided that today she would be brave. She would learn everything Jamie would teach her and take as many steps as she could toward her new life.

It wasn’t long before Adso grew bored of her. Just as she had made up her mind, he abruptly hopped to his feet and pranced off, tail flicking in goodbye.

Claire wasn’t sure what to do next. She would have liked to go back and feel the warm wind (what was it Jamie had called it— “space heater”?), but she wasn’t sure how much heat it could possibly have trapped inside of it and thought probably best to save it. Glancing around the room in search of inspiration, her gaze fell on the window.

It was a beautiful day— the sun illuminating the terrain with its bright colors, not even a hint of the usual Scottish greys of clouds and drizzle. It was the perfect opportunity to tend to Jamie’s plants (which were sorely in need of a good touch). And if doing something she was good at helped her to feel more competent and useful in this world, all the better for it.

She headed outside right away. Kneeling down in the dirt, the slight tension inside her eased. She was in her element. Her hands instinctively reached for the plants, classifying to herself, cataloguing their needs in her brain, and simply touching in order to better sense them.

It wasn’t long before she grew lost in her endeavors. There were some invasive plants— dreadful, malicious things that didn’t even belong in Scotland, she knew— that she began to pull up and toss aside. Their roots were strong, but she could feel them choking the life from the others and pulled hard. Her hands grew dirty in her efforts but she didn’t mind; it was only evidence of her making a difference. The sun rose even higher in the sky as she worked, but she was paying no attention to anything around her. She finally felt a sense of value again as she freed the plants from the choking hold of the invaders.

Her tranquility was suddenly shattered when a loud bang came from the direction of the house. Claire jolted upright, dropping her weeds, and her head whipped toward it.

Jamie stood just outside, his fiery hair aglow in the sun but beautiful blue eyes blown wide in panic and fixed on her. Seeing his tension, she thought for an instant that something was terribly wrong. Was something after him? Come to harm them? She had no idea the dangers of the human world.

But then he was suddenly racing toward her, eyes never leaving her the whole time. He fell on his knees beside her and scooped her into an embrace. Bewildered, she didn’t resist as he clutched her to his chest, hugging so tightly it was nearly hard to breathe.

“Christ, lass!” he burst out, “I looked everywhere for ye and couldna find ye. I thought maybe ye’d run off or somethin’d happened and—” He was breathless as he spoke, and Claire could feel his chest heaving against her as he tried to calm himself down.

“I was only out here,” was all she could think to say.

Jamie pulled back a little so he could look down at her, but made no move to let her go. She didn’t particularly mind— she liked being in his arms and wished he’d hold her all the time, but she was disturbed by how upset he seemed. He studied her for a long moment, eyes sweeping over her as if ensuring she was alright.

“Ifrinn,” he muttered suddenly, face softening from an expression of frantic worry into a more gentle concern, “ye’re shakin’ like a leaf. How long have ye been out here, a nighean? And wi’ out a coat? Ye’re cold as ice.”

Claire wasn’t sure what a “coat” was, but at his words, she realized that she was freezing. He was right— her whole body trembled in that odd way it had ever since she’d touched the stones. She furrowed her brow in discomfort. The cold was the worst.

Jamie was muttering something under his breath and rubbing his hands up and down her arms. On one pass, they traveled further down and caught her hands in his, heedless of the dirt caked on them. He squeezed, and Claire was taken aback at just how warm they were.

“Come now. Inside,” he told her, his tone indicating there was no room for argument.

He all but hauled her up and tugged her toward the house. Her hand was clasped in his, so the tension that lingered in his body was apparent to her.

The moment they were inside, Jamie whirled to face her. He snagged the soft fabric (what was it called again— blankit?) from the couch and, facing her all the while, raised his arms over her head to wrap it around her shoulders. The forceful movement of him swaddling her brought her closer to him, and he pulled the edges tight together so she was wrapped completely. Her trembling hadn’t eased in the slightest, if anything it was getting worse now that she was back in the warmth of the house, so she was grateful for the comfort.

But that sense of gratitude didn’t stay long.

“Christ, lass,” Jamie was saying, voice giving way to frustration, “ye canna go wanderin’ like that.”

His hands waved wildly in a grand gesture of “wandering”, as if she had walked all the way back to her forest instead of just out back.

“I was only just outside,” Claire protested.

She took a step backward so Jamie wasn’t so close to her. She didn’t like the emotions radiating from him. He seemed red to her, like the heat of the sun— energy roaring within.

“Aye, but ye didna say a word about it tae me first. Anythin’ could have happened to ye,” Jamie shot back.

Claire felt her nerves fraying at the tone of his voice.

“I’m capable of taking care of myself,” she spat, bristling.

“Are ye, then?” His tone teetering just into the realm of mocking, “Because—”

That put her over the edge. She dropped the blanket from her shoulders and stalked back toward him, fire in her belly.

“You treat me like I’m just some foolish child! Like I’m this fragile thing about to break if I’m alone for one moment. I may not know everything about your world, but I’ve taken care of myself my whole life. I don’t need you!” The last words burst from her mouth in her fury, lashing out with a shot aimed right at his heart.

But the moment she said them, she wished she could grab them out of the air and shove them back in. Jamie seemed to instantly crumple. It was as if she’d struck him with her fists rather than her words, the “I don’t need you” a killing blow. He deflated, all the tight muscles in his shoulders uncoiling as he slumped back against the couch heavily and slid a little further down to sit on it. His big blue eyes looked up at her with the most heartbroken expression she’d seem in her life. And it tore her to pieces.

Even worse… to know it was her that had caused him such anguish.

“I ken ye can take care of yerself…” he said, very softly, all the fight completely gone out of him, “I’m sorry that I made ye feel like I didna think that. It’s jes’ that I was sae worrit when I couldna find ye, I thought I’d maybe lost ye forever and… I overreacted.”

Nearly the exact same way Jamie had gone limp after her words tore through him, his soft confession knocked all the air from her lungs. Any remaining fight in her was gone, leaving only the hollow feeling of regret.

She hesitantly knelt down in front of him. After his declaration, he’d braced his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. As she settled herself between his legs, she gently took both of his wrists and forced him to raise his head to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, that being the most important thing that she was dying to ensure he knew, “I overreacted too. The truth is... it scares me how much I do need you—”

His beautiful eyes peered searchingly into hers, as if desperate for a confirmation on her face that she was telling him the truth. She couldn’t help but reach a hand up and lightly cup his cheek, caressing his face softly. Her touch was fueled by a yearning to feel close to him again as much as to comfort him.

From the second she’d met him, she’d felt a connection to him down to her very soul. They were bonded, the two of them. And now she’d found herself falling for him. And in the face of that— and the desperate need for him that scared her to her core— she’d lashed out.

“I dinna ken why…” Jamie started, very slowly, “but ever since I found ye on that hill, I’ve felt this… compulsion… to keep ye safe. To care for ye and protect ye from anythin’ that might steal that bonny smile from yer face. I’m sorry that I went too far. I wish I could jes’ tuck ye into my coat like a wee cheetie and carry ye with me against my chest, but I ken that’s no’ what ye need. I’ve been selfish, Sassenach. If I coddled ye, it was only because I needed it, not you. But I wasna lookin’ to see how it hurt you. Ye’re incredibly brave, mo nighean donn, and strong. Dinna ever believe otherwise, or think that I believe otherwise…”

Tears shimmered in his eyes, and she felt a matching sheen in her own. The pressure was building inside her, a lump in her throat matching the coil in her belly.

It surprised her when the next words came tumbling out of her mouth, a hasty confession she hadn’t meant to see the light of day—

“I don’t feel very brave.”

It was the truth, of course. She’d been a mess this whole time. Unable to bear the weight of separation from her people, clinging to Jamie as her lifeline. Without him, she would have surely shattered…

She was interrupted from these thoughts by Jamie sliding down onto the floor in front of her so they knelt face-to-face. His big hands came up to cradle her jaw, forcing her to meet his eyes. Then, he began to speak, somehow achieving the perfect balance of firm conviction and gentleness.

“But ye are, a nighean. Ye are here, and ye’re still goin’. That’s brave.”

His words hung in the air— short, simple, but as poignant as a stone throw.

She nodded, too choked up to give any further reply.

It was then that he hugged her. Smashed her to his chest, his arms wrapping around her middle, solid as trees, and holding her to him as if he was scared she would disappear if he didn’t hold on tight enough. Her own arms had been trapped between them during his sudden movement, but she managed to wriggle them free to bring them around his shoulders and embrace him in return.

She felt anchored suddenly— as if she’d been floating in the sky, subject to the fancies of the wind, before this strange man had suddenly reached up and pulled her back down to solid ground.

All thoughts of the home that had been lost suddenly disappeared from her mind as Jamie held her. Because it was thoughts of her new home— her home with him— and the hope that accompanied them that filled her mind instead.

“You know… I think I’d actually quite like to be a cheetie wrapped in your coat,” she tremulously joked, her voice muffled from how her mouth was pressed into the fabric at his shoulder.

Jamie let out a laugh that vibrated through him and into her— a clear, unrestrained sound like the way the loch ripples when a stone plunks into it. She wished to herself that she could hear it forever— to spare him from any pain like the kind she’d just inflicted upon him.

In that moment, she knew she loved him.

***

#the photo shoot is 1000% fae Claire which is why I’ve interrupted my regularly scheduled mood board #just wait the mood board will be revamped when we get to arc II #All That Was Fair #update #claire x jamie #outlander fanfiction #claire/jamie #fae!claire

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bad-bitch-beauchamp · 4 years ago

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Songs About Me - Chapter Three

After karaoke night and Claire's impromptu performance, both Claire and Jamie spend the next day reconciling with their choices from the night before.

Read on AO3

“Stay, Sassenach! One more drink!”

“One more drink might be the death of me, Mr. Fraser, and if you’d like to watch me embarrass myself again next week, I can’t be on my deathbed tonight!”

He had tried to convince her to let him walk her home, but she waved him off and pulled the sweater that had fallen off her shoulder back up to its rightful place at the junction of neck and shoulder -- a place Jamie couldn’t tear himself away from until that moment. She wrangled a loose curl behind her ear, tugged on her coat, and caught Jamie watching her every move, drink at his lips, eyes just over the rim of the glass. She could’ve stayed, could’ve responded, could’ve reacted to what she was feeling right then… no. A couple of hours together in a bar and a poor excuse for a solo at closing time did not change the fact she didn’t know this man. This very handsome man, she reminded herself. No. You came out here for yourself. Leave by yourself.

She met his eyes one last time, gave a nervous laugh, declared “Hope to see you next weekend!” all too loudly, and spun on her heel. She had stepped over the threshold when she thought she heard her name from inside, but she didn’t turn to find out.

———

Claire realized exactly three things when she awoke the next morning: The sun was shining too brightly, the street musician playing on the corner directly below her bedroom window was playing too loudly, and the memories of the last night with the redhead who loved music and books were coming on too fast. Somehow, in the span of a few hours, he had literally become her waking thoughts. She sat up in bed, still cocooned in a cloud of white cotton sheets and linen comforters. What do you even know about him? Probably not even anything. She pulled herself from the warmth of the bed, her feet landing on a soft oriental rug in shades of blues and greens. His eyes were the colors in this rug. Just like the ocean itself. Okay, she remembered one thing about him. The woven textile gave way to worn hardwood floors, on to cool hexagon tiles lining her bathroom floor as she passed through glass french doors between bookshelves on the wall.

When Claire inherited her Uncle Lamb’s brownstone, she could remember only one thing about the place from her visits: the upstairs was magical. Quentin Lambert Beauchamp was an archaeologist, and although it rarely happened, he had decided he needed a home base to work from. In the historic brownstone, he neglected to update much besides the upper level. As the brownstone was on a corner lot, Lamb declared it must have every window possible to let in the light. Days were too gloomy and cloudy in England, and he would soak up all the light he could while teaching here at Harvard, thank you very much. The most magical room in the entire home (according to both Beauchamps) was lined from front to back with alternating windows and storage -- wide bookshelves on the top, long cabinets on the bottom. The opposite side was almost entirely made of the same bookshelves, save for two sets of french doors leading to a large closet and a larger master bathroom, respectively. The bookshelves traveled up to a curved ceiling, rails and ladders lined the walls to reach the highest and most precious of his belongs (now hers as well). Claire had painted the walls and trim shades of white and cream and ivory. The shelves were stripped and stained with a neutral-tone light wood with white filler. The brass fixtures and ladder rails sparkled in the warm morning light. Claire placed plants wherever she could fit them, and donned the shelves with memories to mingle with the ones Lamb left behind. This room, this place, was her favorite in the whole world.

Back in the bathroom and walking to the walk-in shower, Claire bent down to reach the sweater she tossed aside the night before. The underside of his hair is this color. Right at the base of his neck, with the extra curls. She shook her head and started the tap. Maybe all his curls would turn that color when he got wet. She turned the faucet as hot as she could stand it, reached an arm for her phone, and set Spotify to only play Blink-182. We’re done with those feelings! No feelings, only the angst possible with punk rock!

Cold tile brought her down to earth again when she stepped out of the shower, the trails of water dripping down her back and breasts a refreshing break from the onslaught of pounding heat. He felt like a breath of fresh air. Just like this.

With a towel wrapped around head and a t-shirt tossed on, she made her way back to the bedroom and took a seat on her bed. She desperately wished she had stayed for that last drink. Or at least got his number? Why didn’t I get his number?! Now, she’d have to wait another six days before seeing him again. Maybe her attraction to him was nothing more than lust, but if she could text with him, get to know him better, maybe she could find out. With no way of reaching him, she opted to get dressed and head out to clear her head. Maybe find a place to write? Since her decision to put herself first, she’d put letting off steam by writing and singing. It fell in live with the general creativity that fueled her life, while still being different enough from the greenhouse to give her a bit of rest and peace. As she contemplated where to adventure off that morning and pondered the correct way to lace her Doc Marten boots, her phone rang. A photo of three fresh faces graced her screen, a woman with wild dark curls with her mouth gaping with laughter, another woman with a waterfall of red hair and piercing green eyes made less intimidating by the crinkles at the edges, and a man with deep dimples surrounding his smile and an eyebrow raised in surprise at the camera taking their picture. Claire hit the accept button on the call, and thus the inquisition arrived.

“We need to talk about last night!” The screen was split in two, with Geillis’ video on top and Joe’s on the bottom with Claire’s in the corner.

“What about last night? I honestly thought our song was pretty good! I was thinking next week we could do--”

“That’s obviously not what we’re talking about, LJ! But agreed, we did a damn good job.”

“Will you two quit it?” Geillis cut them off and brought her face closer to her screen. “We need to talk about Claire, that viking, and the unreal chemistry. Spill it ALL, Claire.”

———

Jamie had woke nursing a headache, but alas, today would not be the day for rest. He flipped the sign in the window of Fraser Literature from closed to open, and began to check off the list of opening duties. On the list was to water the plants. Set on a table in a small alcove, on top of side table next to an worn leather chair for patrons to sit and peruse a story in, hanging from simple planters in the window that stretched from edge to edge in front of the shop, guarding the aisles of books ready to be enjoyed by people who hadn’t read them yet. Jamie often visited a greenhouse just outside town for the shop’s plants. While a small place, it was teeming with love, peacefulness, and a sense of adventure with green as far as the eye could see, boarding the windows with giant leaves and trailing vines. The feeling inside was something he wanted to emulate in his own place, and so he started adding a wee bit of flora here and there. Rupert and Angus initially laughed off his efforts, claiming Jamie was “destroying the manly vibe” they were aiming for. With every bit of decoration, every little bit of effort however, the shop grew in reputation and success. Jamie was immensely proud of the shop he built, and even more grateful he was able to spend his days surrounded by the words of great men and women, constantly inspired and in awe of the endless stories at his fingertips.

The boys -- Angus and Rupert, that is -- had brought up the idea of expanding into a few other fine art ideas within the shop. Jamie had been reluctant to agree to anything that wasn’t directly related to literature. As they stood around the front counter, Rupert led the charge:

“Jamie, man. The people who like books are also the ones who like art and music and such. Why not try to bring them all together?”

“What if they don’t care about the books? What if they don’t even look at them, and don’t care? What’s the point in having the shop, then?”

It was Angus’ turn to reply with, “Well the point is getting people in the door, and letting your “wee shop” as ye always call it speak for itself, aye?”

Jamie had to agree with that point. He settled for telling the lads that if they could come up with a suitable idea, he’d agree to it. Twenty minutes later, Angus and Rupert stood in his office doorway saying they would be asking for local musicians to come and perform.

“Doesn’t seem like yer asking for approval.”

Jamie didn’t look up from his computer, but could hear the grin in Rupert’s voice as he replied, “‘Tis because ye know it’s a good idea, and ye wouldn’t refuse a good idea.”

Jamie sat back in the rolling leather chair behind his antique desk and sighed, then laughed. “Why do I even try to control what ye two do? Yer jes’ going to do it anyway.” The lads grinned at each other and shrugged. “Go on then, see if ye can have some posters made up to put in the window.”

He stood as Rupert saluted him and Angus muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Aye aye, captain,” and stretched his long, lean, muscles. He needed to get a few errands completed, so opted to spend the next few hours outside both to complete his tasks and to get out in the fresh air. He told his friends he’d be back soon, and to let them know if he needed anything.

With one step out into the sunlight, he immediately regretted the amount he had drunk the night before. Two in the morning was not a suitable time to be out, but for the lass with the dark curls and the whisky eyes, he’d give every moment of his time. From the moment he woke, he thought of her. Thought of how she made him laugh. Thought of how bonny she felt under his fingers, her hips on the barstool as she wiggled back into place, her thigh touching his under the booth table. He thought of how she’d gone up on stage as an act of defiance against him for the insult to her friend’s song, but how instead she ended up showing a piece of her soul to him, and him alone. He thought of how her eyes matched the swirling liquid in his glass. He thought of her abrupt departure after he had asked her to stay, and how he almost ran out after. He thought of how he was so incredibly stupid as to not have asked for her number before she ran. Look what ye did -- now ye have to wait to see her, and yer barely functional as it is. While Angus and Rupert had been gauging his interest for the musical talent in his office earlier, he had been searching the Facebook page for the 21st Amendment, combing it for references to her. To Claire. Maybe she had performed there? Perhaps she and her friends had tagged the place in one of their pictures? There was no sign of her, and she hadn’t told him her last name. Six days to go, mate. Ye can do this. She’s just a lass. Ye don’t know her.

After a few hours of tedious tasks (could the post office ever be efficient, just this once?), he made his way back to Fraser Literature. It was a warm day for autumn, and the shop would have a cart with discount books out on the sidewalk and the door propped open for fresh air. He would never tire of seeing his name on something he built, something he was so proud of. As he neared the shop however, it wasn’t the name on the window that drew his attention -- it was the many people standing inside, facing the window, looking outside. Jamie stopped and looked around, but not finding anything out of place around him. He took a few steps closer. They weren’t looking outside, but rather at the inside corner of the shop, the corner where the window meets the wall. He was only a few steps away when he saw it, when he heard it. A woman with bouncy curls and a round arse, sitting with her back to the window at a keyboard bench. He didn’t have to see her face to know. Her voice was enough. It was enough at two in the morning to imprint on him forever.

She was there, in his shop. His place. Claire. God, his Claire.

With one shaky step and an attempt at a steadying breath, he moved inside his sanctuary.

#songs about me fic #in which tessaactually tries fan fic #outlander prompt exchange #outlander fan fic #outlander fan fiction

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crimsonspade · 4 years ago

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The first sign something was terribly wrong was when he found Red Hood’s helmet. No, he reconsidered the past four hours. The first sign something was wrong was when he’d gotten a call from Alfred that there was a break-in at a blood bank, and as he’d been busy chasing a Catwoman acting abnormally, he’d called Hood. Only, Hood hadn’t answered. It was more out of character than Catwoman stealing some relic of a fifteenth-century chain whip over the statue of Bastet being featured at the Gotham City Museum.

Deciding to deal with Catwoman later, Batman had checked where Hood’s signal was coming from to determine why he wasn’t answering. Seeing his GPS put him in the same area as the bank, he was even more confused by Hood's radio silence.

Which brought him to the blood bank in question. He’d never had to deal with a robbery from this sort of location before, not even Freeze when he was searching for donors for his wife. It was quiet, not even a guard, but the door was very obviously forced open, hanging precariously off its hinges. There was a silence in the halls as he ventured further, looking for any signs of the intruder or his partner.

That was when his boot knocked into something that rolled across the floor, disturbing the quiet. Realizing it was his partner’s helmet, something Hood would rather risk death than take off where someone could potentially see him, Batman became deeply concerned. Of the occasions Hood had lost his helmet, he’d been gravely wounded 90% of the time.

“Hood? Can you hear me?” Batman dared to whisper, looking around him for some other sign his partner was here. He carefully crept forward, slower than before as he measured his steps. A batarang was already in hand in case he found his partner’s attacker first. It was only a few moments before he heard his boots step on something other than the tiled floor.

Looking down and flicking his cowl’s night vision on, he discovered a disturbing pool of blood. At least a liter, if not more. Before he could truly panic, he told himself he was surrounded by shelves full of blood. There was no reason to assume this was his partner’s.

Besides the fact Hood would have to lose that amount of blood before he’d allow his helmet to be removed.

Moving faster through the aisles and even more on guard, Batman moved towards the faint sound of something ripping. Blood smears across the floor and the shelves lead the way. As he turned the corner he spotted someone digging around in one of the shelves. It took only a second before he recognized them.

Dropping his tense shoulders and lowering his batarang, folding it away with a motion he didn’t even think about, he approached. “Hood! What’s happened, why is your helmet off and what are you doing?”

His friend froze for a second like a deer. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder at Batman. Even with his night vision activated, Batman noticed that Hood’s eyes glowed too brightly. He was less than five feet from him.

In a blur suddenly it was much less than that- Hood’s hands wrapped like vices on his biceps, his face a bare inch from him.

“You smell di-vine!” Hood hissed with a manic and bloody grin. It was then that what he’d initially ignored in his relief to see his partner standing on his own two feet and looking unharmed registered. The many empty bags of blood on the floor at Hood’s feet.

His partner rubbed his nose along the edge of Batman’s cowl. That’s when he noticed the second thing, Hood’s smile held four wicked fangs.

“Like the sweetest of nectars...I need to have a taste. You don’t mind, do you?” Like a viper, Hood struck, his fangs breaking through most of the kevlar that made up his suit. With a forceful shove, a shove he had to redouble when Hood wouldn’t pry loose, Batman tore him away from his neck.

“Hood! Get a hold of yourself!”

A high pitched laugh was his reply, “Hold of myself? I’ve never felt so whole! So- in control!” Hood gave a dramatic spin with his arms out, his red cape weighed down a bit by the blood soaked into the edges.

“You’re covered in blood.”

“Am I?” Hood’s glowing red eyes looked down at his suit shirt. It was more red than white. “Oops. Bit of a messy eater.” His grin did not diminish, and he dragged his tongue over his bloodied fangs. “Speaking of...I still haven’t gotten that taste!”

Hood lunged at him, claws extended and Batman leaned back into the motion, using his feet to kick him off with the added momentum. His friend went flying into the shelves, breaking glass and spilling even more blood. As Batman readied cuffs to try to pin him, Hood seemed to not be able to stop himself from rolling in the new pool of blood.

“Mmm, yum...but still...not as alluring as what I can hear pumping in your veins, Batsy my dear.” A swipe from the claws tearing through Hood’s gloves caught Batman’s thigh, but just a graze and not enough to cripple him. It did however slow him down enough that when Hood attempted another tackle he took them both to the floor, pinning Batman down with strength Hood didn’t normally possess.

“What happened to you Hood? Tell me what’s going on!”

“Oh my Bats. You’ve got competition you know? I wonder if I can keep you to myself…” Hood leaned closer, but seemed to stop himself. “Ngk, stop- resisting-!” Batman narrowed his eyes, noticing the sudden hesitance.

“Hood?”

“Nnno! Not Bats!” As Hood seemed to be at war with himself, Batman heard metal sing through the air.

Thwack!

The next second something hit Hood right in the head, knocking him clean off of Batman. He went rolling into more shelves, knocking them over and pinning him beneath them. More blood soaked the tiles, covering Hood’s normally pale features. He didn’t get up. The click of heels echoed in the room.

“What am I going to do with you Bats? You can’t handle one little baby fang by yourself?”

“Catwoman. What are you doing here?” Batman narrowed his eyes at the thief, currently holding the metal whip she’d stolen earlier.

“Saving your ass from becoming dinnertime.”

Getting up, Batman made his way over to his friend, checking to see if he was alright. Catwoman protested, “I wouldn’t get too close to it.”

“Him. You know he’s my partner.”

“He was. It certainly ain’t anymore. Did you miss the part where it was about to eat you?”

Batman shot her a glare over his shoulder as he knelt down to check a pulse. He was distracted from her words when he realized he didn’t feel one at first. Taking off his gloves to do it by hand, he focused and felt a very faint thrum of life. He let out a soft sigh of relief. Looking at his head, now matted with blood that was both his own and from the surroundings, he noticed that the wound caused by Catwoman’s whip was healing remarkably-inhumanly fast.

“You know more about this situation than you’re telling. Start talking.”

Selina shrugged one shoulder. “Sure. Just let me finish up and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“He’s out cold, start talking now.”

“It’ll only be out another sixty seconds if we’re lucky. I need to stake it.”

Batman took a menacing step towards her, “Over my dead body.”

The cat burglar huffed, “That’s what’s gonna happen if you don’t move!”

He wavered for a moment before turning back to his partner. The wound in his head was nearly closed, and Batman needed answers.

“We’re taking him back to the Batcave, I’ll put him in a cell and then you will answer my questions.” He didn’t give her an option. Using some of his cuffs he cuffed his friend and scooped him up. He was dripping blood, the smell was cloying but he refused to flinch.

Catwoman rolled her eyes and he heard her mutter under her breath, “it’s your funeral.”

The walk to the batmobile was tense, and neither said a word as he sped through Gotham streets toward the Batcave. Hood woke up as they pulled in, but Batman was able to hold him long enough to lock him into the cell.

Hood used to call it a drunk tank as a joke.

Batman wished this were as simple as waiting for a drug to wear off.

But as he listened to Catwoman explain, answers given like pulling teeth and doing nothing for his rising frustration, that hope was dashed.

“There’s no cure?”

“Not once he’s had human blood.”

“I refuse to believe that. If it’s an infection of the blood, there has to be a cure.”

“Bruce, I’m telling you. People have tried for centuries and there is no going back once turned.”

“People haven’t been me.”

Selina threw her hands in the air and shouted, “You arrogant dick! You really think you can solve the plague of vampirism before he breaks out of that cell and eats you for dinner?”

Bruce smirked at her, “I got you to stop calling him ‘it’.”

That earned him a scathing glare, but Bruce couldn’t care about that. He had work to do. So did Selina. Someone had to turn Hood into this after all, and that someone was loose in Gotham streets. If the circumstances were different Bruce would suit back up and help her hunt whoever had invaded their city. But with his partner down and needing him, he wasn’t about to leave.

#red hood #batman #crimson spade #my art #vampire au #Earth 639 #The Spark of Black I Seem to Love #working on the fic for this so here's the first chapter

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